Alright, this fic is not dead in the water. I've just been going through some stuff and I've lacked motivation for it. Stuff will likely be coming faster in the future and we'll be golden.

xXxTDI AngelxXx : Thank you! I really appreciate your kind words.

Grape Icies: Thank you! Yeah, it's a bit off kilter ATM but it's fixing itself out slowly but surely...Thank you so much for your help and I really appreciate the critique.

Spadefire: Thank you so much for all your help and the criticism. Yeah, slow updates mess with stuff, especially when it's weird stuff to begin with.

Actual Criticism: Thank you for taking your time to write a review and thank you for taking the time to write up such an in depth critique. I assure you, I am working to address the issues you brought up. However, if you are who I think you are, then you are a petty, vindictive, little bugger. I'm sorry if I seem a bit non-reactive, it's been months since I've read your review the first time and I really genuinely do want to thank you for the critique.

TW: I am genuinely sorry you thought I was talking about you.

And without further adieu, on with the fic, which I assure you dear readers, will examine themes...

Mr. Bailey Learns Basic Circuitry

2:00 PM, July 24, 2012, Somewhere over the Pacific

Kimiko had to admit, the job wasn't what she was expecting. It was better than what she had, but she'd been expecting excitement, challenges, stimulation, something more than this. She certainly hadn't expected to be fetching coffee for the higher ups.

And it burned her to know that no matter what she did, it wouldn't get her anywhere. Her superiors knew that somebody had pulled strings to get her this job, they knew who she was, and they figured that she was some rich brat whose daddy paid off the Empire's HR department to take his little princess. And she wasn't willing to play the pity card, if they thought her family still had money, then she wouldn't correct them. They could look down on her, they could demean her, they could berate her, but they would not pity her. She'd rather have them think her a spoiled brat than an object of pity.

Thankfully, their judgment also earned their protection. They thought her family had powerful connections, and thusly even though they did not like her, they would not fire her. They did not need to know otherwise because even though this wasn't what she'd expected, but it was still better than scrubbing bathrooms. Still, as she ran across the catwalk, she wished she had just a little more work.

This time around, she was bringing Captain Damara his tea, Earl Grey, hot, two sugars and lemon, when she saw something horrifying. At the other end of the catwalk, there was another mechanist, a boy not much older than she was, working, if you could call it that, on a section of engine wiring and clearly had absolutely no idea what he was doing

"No. Don't do that!" she said, dropping the earl gray and bolting across the catwalk. The boy dropped his tools and looked up at her, seeming quite startled by her. He was tall, thickset, but not heavy, with shaggy straw hair and a baffled, but almost grateful expression.

"Do what?" he asked, as she picked up his tools and started to work on the wiring. His voice was dominated by an odd accent. She was pretty sure it was American, but it sounded nothing like her English tutor's American. It didn't matter though.

"You were about to connect a low-resistance wire through this terminal," she said, poking the terminal with a set of pliers. "Without a resistor. There's a second wire running through the terminal with a higher resistance and without the resistor, the electricity will flow through the path of least resistance, the low-res wire, cutting off power to the wire with higher resistance, which feeds into the engine's cooling system. Without power, the cooling system fails, the engine overheats and blows."

"What?" he said, looking over her shoulder at the repairs she made to the wiring. "With all due respect miss, I can't understand what yer sayin'."

"No wonder this entire panel is off," she muttered, cringing as she inspected the faulty wiring. She prided herself on being relatively nice, but when dealing with people who were so obviously stupid, she had no patience.

"There's no need ta be rude," he said. "Was it really that bad?"

"Yeah. If you actually switched this on, we'd either drown or burn up within an hour," she said.

"How long ya been working here?" he asked, staring at the panel.

"Two weeks now," she said, selecting a wrench and twisting a bolt into place.

"Same," he said, handing her the cover for the panel. She bit back a harsh laugh. Here she was, brilliant and underappreciated yet an ingrate working here for the same amount of time was given important responsibilities. "Where'd ya learn to do that?

"My papa was an electrician," she lied. Even though he was an idiot, it was nice to have someone who treated her normally.

"Ya think ya could teach me?" he asked, following her back to the catwalk to help pick up the shattered cup. "I'm not real good with this sorta thing. The closest I've done is fixin' tractors back home and I don't think this is anythin' like that."

"It's not," she said, picking up the cup handle. "A tractor generally has a basic combustion engine, whereas this is essentially a perpetual motion machine in that…"

"I get what it is," he said, picking up porcelain shards. "The engines power themselves with energy created by nonstop motion." She glanced up at him and blinked, dumbfounded that somebody like him, a country hick who almost did the impossible, wrecked the Hamish, had an understanding of incredibly complex engines. She had no idea how to even begin to respond to that and so went back to cleaning.

"So how'd ya wind up here?" he asked. "I figure a smart girl like you would be wirin' the bridge or somethin'."

"Before this, I worked as a cleaning lady to pay rent on my family's apartment. They underestimated me because of where I came from," she said. That was the closest she would willingly come to the truth.

"That's stupid," he muttered. "They didn't even check if I knew anythin' before sendin' me down here."

"So how'd you end up here then?" she asked, setting down the broken tea cup and sitting on the catwalk. It was nice to talk to somebody who didn't act like she was some sort of spoiled brat.

"Lied my way outta the factory cuz the pay was good and I needed money to send home," he said, sitting down next to her. "Thought I'd do fine, but turns out that I knew more about weldin' than wiring'."

"I'd trade with you in a heartbeat," she said. "At least you're doing something. I'm just their errand girl."

"You'd be more in your element than I am. Plus, bein' completely modest, I make a mean cuppa earl grey."

"Gotta be better than me. I've never made tea before working here…"

"Never made tea?"

"Never," she said, shaking her head. "My dad and I just drank coffee and if we had tea for guests or something it was always powdered or in a tea bag or something. According to my boss, the stuff I'm making with the loose leaf is, "nasty." She thought she did a spot on impersonation of Lisa's New York accent.

"Powdered tea?" he asked, still thoroughly befuddled by the concept.

"Yeah. It's kinda a big deal where I'm from." She could still remember how confused she was figuring out that the icky brown water Papa set out for his business associates was made from leaves.

"Where ya from?"

"J…" No, her English was way too good to pass off as a normal person without the knowledge that she'd had expensive tutors. "ersey." Damn, that was almost as bad. She wasn't orange, she didn't have a hair poof…

"My cousins live in Jersey. Real nice place if you get away from the cities or the Jersey Shore. I'm from Texas," he said, not without a touch of pride. "I'm Clay. Clay Bailey." He extended his hand for her to shake.

"Kim Tohos," she said, shaking his hand. It would be better if he didn't know who she was. She'd finally made a friend and she wasn't going to lose him because of her history.

X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X

5:00 PM, July 24, 2012, Himalayan Foothills, India

"That's it," she said, gently placing the scroll on the log. "I quit. You have achieved in months what it took Grand Master Dashi fifteen years to do. I hope you're proud of yourselves. I'm done."

"Wait, what did we do?" Layla asked.

"What did you do?" she muttered, ringing water out of her hair. "That's a good question. What did you do?" The kids did jack. And she was tired of it. They had no control over their powers and this whole blow up an airship plan, which was a terrible idea in the first place, was going to go belly up rather quickly.

"We did nothing. We did exactly what we were supposed to do," Domingo said, glaring daggers at her.

"Nothing wasn't exactly what you were supposed to do," she muttered.

"You know what he means," Jermaine said. "We almost had it this time."

"I'm sure you tried," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "Hot Air, that was way too much power. Curly, that was nowhere near the target. If my head was the target, it'd be spot on, but it isn't. Mouse, what was that? Why is that target still there. Jinkins, I'm not even going to comment on that."

"But it's only training," Layla said, brushing some dirt from her curly hair.

"Only training," Guan said, shaking his head, for once supporting her. She almost felt sorry for the dragons, there was nothing more dangerous than the fury of a quiet man. "This isn't training anymore. We are at war with the Heylin. We no longer have time for mistakes."

"Then teach us rather than give commands," Domingo said, shooting to his feet. He ignored Master Fung's glare, telling him that he had one more chance to back down.

"Dom, dude, calm down," Jermaine said, grabbing his arm and forcing him to sit down.

"I am perfectly calm!" he said.

"Dude, no."

"This is why I'm done," she said, tossing her hands up and leaving the clearing. She was done with this, she was going back to high society and officially taking her rightful place as second in command and she would start planning to overthrow Chase and take full control herself. She no longer cared about how Chase wanted her to handle the monks, they were no real threat anyway and at the rate they were going, they'd destroy themselves.

"Leaving so soon?" In her rush, she hadn't noticed Dojo following her. Of all people, Dojo should have known that she generally meant it when she said she was leaving. Of course, he would also know that she generally came back.

"I'm not going to be here when this battle ship plan goes south," she said, shouldering her bag and envisioning the first hot shower she'd take once she was away from here.

"Don't you at least want to watch Guan and Fung chew them out? We can pretend to have popcorn," he said. "Come on. I know they're not much, but they're good kids."

"It doesn't matter how good they are, they're not progressing fast enough and I don't have time for this."

"They're going to pull through," he said. "They may be behind on their elemental training, but they're just as skilled and just as scrappy as the four of you were."

"Behind on their elemental training…" she muttered. "Dojo, the things I just saw weren't Wudai level stuff. I'd be damned if I called it Apprentice level elemental control. None of them have half the ability we had."

"But they have just as much heart. Domingo trains until every movement is perfect, Mei studies every scroll we saved until she knows them by heart, Jermaine has intense focus, and Layla stands up for what's right, no matter what," he said, hopping to her shoulder.

"Heart doesn't save lives," she said. "Heart doesn't topple regimes." Thank the gods it didn't. "Dojo, even you can't deny that there's something wrong with these kids."

"We just haven't had the time…" he started.

"No, she's right," Master Fung said. Evidently, she wasn't leaving without an extended goodbye. "It's not only the time, but there is something odd about their powers. They seem almost uncomfortable with their hosts." It was about time somebody agreed with her.

"So if they're depowered, what are we going to do about it? Some old scroll with mystical power ups or something?" Dojo asked, hopping from her shoulder to Master Fung's.

"There is no time to alter the plans now. We will continue with our assault on the Hamish for the time being," Master Fung said. "We will begin research into their problems and search for a solution afterwards."

"So does that mean…"

"Yes Dojo, I'm afraid it does," Master Fung said. She didn't like where this was going.

"What does that mean?" she asked after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"You see, this is what happens when you abandon you friends. You get left out of the loop for fifteen hundred years and you don't get the temple secrets and you don't understand the in jokes," Dojo said, making a subtle tsk-tsk noise.

"Oh yeah, like Dashi was totally blameless in that situation." Those were arbitrary rules that could easily be ignored or bent and he knew that in a choice between her element and her magic, she'd choose sorcery every time.

"Young ones, let us not assign blame to a situation fifteen hundred years past," Master Fung said. Every day in every way she was becoming more and more certain that Master Fung played up the old monk routine to mess with people. "But to return to the topic at hand, before giving up his element, Grand Master Dashi built a secret addition to the temple library, containing scrolls that were better kept out of Heylin hands."

"Like, more powerful stuff than the restricted section," Dojo added.

"The restricted section had such deadly titles as Twenty Recipes for Goat," she said. It wasn't like the restricted section had phenomenal security anyway.

"Have you ever tasted your cooking?" Dojo replied. Now that was a low blow.

"No matter how the squalls may cry, they will not stir the river from its course," Master Fung said, somehow managing to give both of them death glares. "The library may contain the answers we seek, but it means that we must return to the ruins of the temple."

Damn. She was so close to actually leaving, then they had to go and wave that little bit of information in front of her. Well, she supposed hot showers would have to wait until afterwards. If the last year hunting down those magical doohickys taught her anything, it was that Dashi knew how to hide stuff he didn't want to have found.

I appologize if anybody was offended by my outburst above. If I could make it up to you, I really wish I could. Instead, I'm just going to annoy you guys for reviews, if that's alright with you.