"Operation: PANDAFACE"
ft. Orichalcum the Hollow

A light/fluffy spin-off short adventure based on Crawl Like a Worm, an upcoming Xiaolin Showdown / Bleach fic.

I own only the story and Orichalcum.

Silently the black creature perched at the ledge of a high wall, its long serpentine tail curling loosely around its sharp, snow white claws. Its hungry, bright yellow eyes peered out from within the thick bone mask that encased its head and upper jaw. It appeared as a cross between a velociraptor and a fox; a reptilian body covered in smooth, ink black fur, its hind feet adorned with the characteristic sickle-claws of a raptor, but its forearms were long enough for it to walk on all fours. A short black mane erupted from the back of the skull mask and cascaded down its back, with two long white tendrils flowing back like antennae. A pair of long, narrow fox ears lay flat as it observed the entrance to the palace, waiting patiently for the patrolling guards to slip up, look away, get distracted. It was entirely invisible to them, unable to be seen by any average human, but it wasn't the only one preparing to sneak inside.

"Oreo…" came a small whisper from the side of the wall behind the creature, causing its ears to twitch and shift slightly. "Oreo help, I-I'm about to- no, no, NO, NO!" There was a scraping noise, a sudden high-pitched yelp, and then a soft crash into the bushes below. The guards quickly looked up to identify the sound, but saw and heard nothing else. The unseen Hollow remained sitting calmly atop the wall until they dismissed the noise as a threat and resumed their vigilant pacing. Its weight shifted to its paws as it stood up and carefully turned around, its tail flickering as it peered towards the ground before jumping down, landing silently beside the frazzled shrubbery.

A red-haired boy about the age of eighteen poked his head up, spitting out a mouthful of leaves. "Do you think they heard that?!" he asked with widened ruby eyes.

The Hollow snorted softly, a surprisingly feminine voice flowing out from under the bone mask. "Of course not, I mean a kid yelling and falling into a bush is practically silent."

Jack stumbled out of the bushes, brushing away twigs and leaves from his long black jacket. "You know, we really don't need your sarcasm right now." He frowned as he adjusted his black and orange goggles, which had become askew from the fall and were stretched diagonally across his face.

"Well, we don't need your clumsiness right now, either." Its claws moved to its head, grasping at the edges of the boney skeletal mask. Pushing and wriggling the skull, it finally gave way and slipped off the creature. As it did so, the Hollow's reiatsu and spiritual pressure shot up to abnormally high levels, pure energy firing from the loosened mask until suddenly there was nothing at all. Absolutely nothing. The flare of light died down, and the black creature had vanished. In it's place however, stood a female with wide, crimson hues. Snow white bangs framed her soft, feminine face, though the rest of her short hair was jet black. Her long ears however, continued to stick out on either side from behind her bangs. Her slender frame was dressed in a fitted, long-sleeved dark blue minidress over a pair of black cargo pants. Yellow and black skater shoes kicked at the ground as she toyed with the skull in her hands. It still gave off small trails of steam, and those same trails also snaked upwards from her skin, as her spiritual mark became completely sealed away, and after a brief moment, the skull seemed to suddenly vaporize into thin air. "Now... the guards seem to be particularly paranoid tonight. They must be getting paid a lot to keep us out. So we'll have to go to Plan B."

Jack blinked, reaching into the pocket of his jacket and pulling out a folded up piece of paper, carefully opening it up. On it he had drawn a couple of smiley faces, a doodle of him and Oreo holding hands, and a quickly scribbled 'Plan A', which consisted of 'sneak in, save Jimmy, get panda, victory!'. After reviewing the paper, he looked up with a confused expression, speaking in a soft voice. "Wait, wh-what's Plan B?"

Oreo smirked, her eyes gleaming dangerously bright. "Plan B… we wing it." Her smirk grew into a grin as she watched his bewildered expression with a bit of amusement. "Well, there are four guards up at the entrance," she spoke almost in a whisper, turning from him to look up to the wall, "and you brought two JackBots with us, right?"

"Yeah…"

"They can easily each take out a guard."

"And the other two?"

"Heh, that's child's play for me. Neither will see me coming." The thought of upcoming violence made her eager to hurry up and get to the other side of the wall.

"Alri- wait! What about me, what do I do?"

"Hmm? You can, um… oh! You can go and disable the alarms, you're a genius at that stuff."

He gave a boastful smile. "Of course I am, I'm evil genius Jack Spicer!" His voice had suddenly grown loud as he practically shouted his name. The girl's ears twitched as she heard the guards shouting to each other and several gun parts clicking and clanking. She sighed quietly, turning to him and patting him on the head.

"Well, good going, genius. Anyways," she said hurriedly, grabbing him and picking him up as if he were weightless, "that's our cue!" With a single powerful kick against the ground, the female leapt high into the air, kicking again against the wall's ledge as she passed over it to give her more distance, and dropping Jack on the soft grass in the shadows before either of them were seen.

The guards were approaching, drawing nearer with their guns steady when something landed silently and gracefully behind them, seeming to have dropped from the sky. A pair of bloodthirsty red eyes glowed maliciously against the dark silhouette before the figure suddenly jumped forward, her claw-like fingers ready to strike. Two of the guards fell simultaneously before they could even react, and the other two almost didn't notice. The remaining guards spun around to see the dark forms on the ground, their bodies ripped open and torn apart in a bloody heap. They were about to yell and run towards the building, but before either had the chance to move, a sharp star-shaped blade cut through the air and sliced right into one of the guards' faces. Another one flew from the opposite direction and into the last one's back. The hovering JackBots appeared and shot a couple more stars into the guards before they dropped to the ground as well, the grass around them stained with the blood.

Oreo yawned, licking the blood from one of her claws. "That was ridiculously easy…" Looking up, she saw Jack kneeling in front of an electric box near the side of the building.

"Eh, Oreo, we have a problem!"

"What?" She asked as she quickly flash-stepped, her form disappearing and reappearing a fraction of a second later beside him. "What's the problem?"

Jack had removed the box's cover panel, exposing a web of colored wires. His eyes darted from wire to wire in a panicked frenzy. "The alarm, it's set to go off in fifteen seconds!"

"What? Can't you disarm it?"

"There are too many wires! I don't know which one to cut – nine seconds!"

She looked at the small ticking timer on the little screen above the open panel and without hesitating, reached inside.

"Ah! What are you doing?!"

"Solving the problem." Closing her hand tightly and suddenly jerking it back out, she yanked out a large clump of wires that spurted electrical sparks for a moment. The alarm timer stopped, with the red number four blinking before the light dimmed out. "And, problem solved!"

Her prideful grin was suddenly interrupted when the entire area was flooded with flashing red lights that swept across every inch of the grounds as a loud siren blared. Her ears twitched and lay backwards as she looked to Jack and laughed nervously. "Well… heh, would ya look at that…"

"I think they're gonna notice that." Jack remarked, grabbing the girl by the hand and pulling her into a quick dash as they both ran to a small window and smashed the glass, crawling inside. "We sure do make an entrance though, huh?"

First Posted: 6/29/08
Edited: 3/21/14

a/n: Ah, okay so this story has been posted for like... freaking ever. Goddamn. I NEVER FINISH ANYTHING. But I still wanna continue it, and OrJack is still like my favoritest OTP in the world so just reading this over makes me wanna write a thousand fluffs with them. But moving along~ I have revisited this and hopefully with a newfound motivation I will continue this. xD because the ending is super cute.

Or at least I think so. /shot

Please read & review, let me know your thoughts, feelings, concerns, etc!