A Touch of the Master's Hand

Organ Grinder

Steadying himself in the tree, Kai blinked feeling a little dizzy, but he did not want to think it had anything to do with the art of Pow-Dur.

"Kai?" asked Lloyd turning to him. "Are you okay?"

Kai shook his head and then nodded. Lloyd could not see the forced grin beneath Kai's mask.

"We gotta help Cole!" snapped Kai.

Another tremor went through the earth. Kai missed a branch. As he fell, water came to meet him.

"Kai!"

Submerging like a stone, before he buoyed back up, he had a dreamy, groggy wish that his sister was there.

Neither Kai nor Lloyd saw that the gorilla snarl on the other side of the wall was the triumph of that same gorilla who had managed to kick Cole into the ground.

#

"Ah...!" said Kinkomi rubbing his hands together as for a scrumptious meal.

Cole would not have been surprised if Kinkomi would suddenly announce having a roasted ninja for dinner. He would have whacked him hard in the face for it too, but after trying to reach the handle of his hammer in that cinematic way, the same gorilla who had kicked him in the chaos of monkeys had taken it.

Quickly, Cole tried to pound the ground with his fist, but two more gorillas grabbed his arms and quickly pulled him towards their leader. The monkeys nipped at his shoulders and shrieked in his face as he passed them. One of them got spittle on his cheek.

"Keep him off the ground," Kinkomi warned. "That's how his super abilities work. Take off the mask, though, I want to see who I'm talking too."

Kinkomi released a toothy smile as he played with his dangling banana charm around his neck.

A monkey ripped off Cole's mask as the gorillas made sure not even the tips of his toes touched the ground.

Cole growled at Kinkomi as they stopped just inches apart from the king.

"Now, don't take this personally," he said to Cole rather calmly, "but you are standing in the way of my revenge, little ninja." He took out a vial like a magic trick at a circus. "Let's see how quiet you are after a dose of this. I want to know where your friends are headed or maybe just to entice them back with your screams. Either way works with me, but this is one of my favorites... even if not so flashy."

Cole's heart beat faster as he closed his eyes so that he could not be sprayed there. He closed his mouth into a tight grimace and held his breath as he recoiled into his shoulders against the oncoming onslaught of that exasperatingly annoying and deceivingly powerful power of Pow-Dur.

Kinkomi sprayed. Cole knew just as well as Kinkomi that he could not hold his breath long enough to escape it, especially as the fine powdered dust literally coated his face for some seconds before falling away.

Cole tried not to, but he coughed from lack of oxygen. Then he sucked in, to his dismay. He coughed and gasped at just a taste of that nasty stuff. Downright suffocating, it attacked his throat and lungs. It went up his nose and into his sinuses. The sting seemed to attack his very brain. Not only that, but there was an awful taste of some super sweet concentration that would have been enough to stop someone's heart after one bite if it had been made into a cake.

But the feeling did not last long. Soon enough, he was gasping fresh air, though his brain still tingled. Cole was not sure if he had passed out or not, but he was blinking at the image of Kinkomi only slowly coming into focus as though from a fevered dream.

"How do you feel?" asked Kinkomi, his voice was a little dreamlike; though unbeknownst to Cole at the moment, he was making it dreamy on purpose.

Blinking, Cole moaned.