Lost Art: Shadow Monk
I own none of the recognizable features within this fanfic.
---
Two years. It's an almost snail-like period of time for many, and to others it passes in the shortest blink of the eye. The four elemental dragons, Rai, Omi, Clay, and Kimiko, felt the time pass as if every little second lasted a hundred times longer. To Wuya and Chase they were but the most meagre of moments. For Jack, the time was Hell, or close to it.
Two years ago there had been another Wu, The Lock of Light. Dojo didn't know what it did, there were no scrolls on it, and the Heylin only knew that it was powerful. Omi and Jack were the ones to get to the Wu first, they were the ones to showdown, and Omi got to the Wu first and used it.
The lock of light is nothing more than a lightly engraved golden padlock. When used it opens a doorway in front of the user, into which almost anything can go, but instead something had come out. Two black chains had flown out of the doorway and wrapped around Jack, dragging him into the black abyss, not slowed in the slightest by Jack's token resistance.
After the end of the showdown Omi attempted to use the Lock of Light again. Regardless of how many attempts and countless hours fiddling the Lock refused to reopen. Wherever Jack was sent, he was staying.
But two years later, long and mostly boring years for most involved, things were changing. In Jacks dust filled lab an empty black portal opened, well, it was empty after Jack left it. A backwards glance and a short wave and the black doorway was closed, perhaps never to be opened. It'll most likely be reopened, and constantly, but Jack had no plans to do so.
Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust. There were footprints here and there, but even those had noticeable amounts of dust in them. Slowly, like a wraith, he moved throughout the large, cramped room, full of broken robot parts and kicked up dust. A small glance showed his Wu cabinet empty, he'd most likely never know by who, gambled between the two factions countless times.
He fell into a chair, clouds filling the air, he inhaled heavily, as happy as he'd been in two years, and suddenly started sneezing. After his fit was past he refrained from dropping his head on his desk, knowing that'd bring about another fit. He didn't know what all had changed, he couldn't even begin to guess. A little reaching around brought up a mirror from a remarkably dust free drawer, and saw the most important thing in his life that had changed. Him.
His hair was longer, but constant cutting, shearing, burning, and 'ohgodohgodohgod's left it at a manageable length, although extremely uneven and frayed. His face was thinner, though thankfully nowhere near that of his teacher. He wasn't much taller, noticeable, at the very least, but not by much. Most noticeable, however to him, was the stubble. Tiny red hairs now covered his chin. He was honestly amazed at how little he'd grown, but just how much he'd changed.
There was no food in that world, realm, prison, whatever he wished to call it. The bodies processes were so severely slowed that until Teacher had brought him to see his face he hadn't even finished the thought "Where am I?" even though it had taken over an hour to reach the skeletal being.
Teacher... Jack rubbed his face. Teacher had been in the prison since it had been created, just for him. A practitioner of a unique type of mysticism, based upon thought and darkness, or rather, nothing. According to the practice of the nameless art the mind can control only the body, through which we control other things, and nothing else. Darkness, shadows, and absence of light, this is considered a true form of nothing, and so can be controlled by the mind.
Teacher had become the greatest of those who practiced, not because he was simply more talented, his own teacher had been better than him in his life. Teacher simply had something that those before him didn't have, he had more than a millenia where his mind was forced to learn to work faster and faster, and without really knowing how fast "Back to normal" was he now thought faster than a standard computer in that hellhole. His every thought was characterized by a chain link, made up of the darkness in the light-less prison, and made up an entire ocean of chains. Jack honestly thought that Teacher returning to the real world was an absolutely terrifying idea.
Not because the odd old man would take over the world, but more because he was a kinder, nicer Wuya with none of the reservations. He wasn't an evil megalomaniac, he'd just kill those who would make themselves a nuisance to him. Wuya would at least gloat and make an escapable plot.
*Growl* 'What the hell is that?' Jack doubled over in pain, his stomache cramping, and he realized. "How long ago did I last eat?"
Physically, it would have been close to four months in that wretched prison. For his mind, it was closer to eight. The first thing teacher taught his was how to think, how to meditate, how to truly focus. That alone had wasted two months of the time he had gone through.
Slowly the young red head made his way upstairs, new footprints left behind in the dust. He stumbled into the kitchen, he'd never before known such pain could be caused without a real injury. There wasn't much in his fridge, there never was. His parents may not have been health nuts, but they liked their food fresh.
He found what he was looking for though, something simple, something easy on the stomach, something with little nutritional value. His beloved pudding.
Now Jack wasn't digging into his pudding because he wanted it... Just because he wanted his pudding. He was eating it because anything too rich would probably, not definitely, but probably make his sick(er) now than he really was.
He polished out the little plastic cup in near record time, feeling almost sickeningly full with how little was just put in him.
In fact, he just stopped feeling full, and just plain on sick. He barely got his head over the waste bin when he heard screaming.
"HONEY! BURGLAR!" Jack just barely got a look at his mothers face when she started screaming again. "HONEY COME QUICK! IT'S JACKIE!" And then he started vomiting.
He'd never know that he was vomiting not because his stomach was horribly shrunk (Which it was) but was in fact cause by his pudding cup expiring almost a year and a half ago.