"Well, I was hopin' fer one a' th' others, but I s'pose you'll do."

It was a simple, off-hand remark that Clay could barely hear above the sounds of the vault transforming into some sort of spectacularly abstract wrestling ring. Knowing that he had heard him, Hannibal smirked. It was one of the things that Clay hated about villains, the smirk. Pretty much every one he encountered had it plastered on their face 24/7, like one of Kimiko's cucumber masks. Though he would never admit it, it was the reason that he actually liked Jack. Jack at least had other emotions besides smug.

Hannibal, on the other hand, was probably the personification of smug itself. He barely stood taller than Clay's big toe and he still looked like he had plenty of arrows in his quiver, and possibly a few already notched. Clay tried to remain impassive as the vault stairs turned into free-floating platforms in a dark void, as poles sprouted like daisies and stretched out rubber boundaries, marking out the ring (and what a large ring it was!), as Ying-Ying flew above like a particularly patient vulture and as the Moby Morpher merged with the middle platform to form an impromptu logo for the weirdest wrestling match in the universe.

The name of the game was to knock the other guy out. Clay was as wide as two axe handles. Hannibal was a bean, albeit one who could do his own stunts in a kung-fu movie. He honestly wasn't quite sure what Hannibal expected to do with the Sun Chi Lantern and the Reversing Mirror, but the dirty snake looked like he had a plan and Clay wasn't about to let it get past him.

Large platforms hung suspended in the space beyond the ring, supporting the weight of his friends. "You must not let the Moby Morpher fall into Hannibal's hands!" Omi called out needlessly. Yes, thank you for the added stress, wouldn't have known this was so important otherwise.

Hannibal looked like he was still waiting for a response. Clay took in a breath.

"Gong Yi Tampai!"

Before he even finished the sentence, Clay was already throwing the Fist of Tebigong down towards where Hannibal stood, almost brushing his own toe in the process. Hannibal, small and light, merely jumped away before his fist connected with the ground and continued doing so from ex-stair to ex-stair, towards the edge of the ring.

Clay took a step, but hung back. If he exhausted himself by making unnecessary movement, it would just make it all the easier for him to pass out. Possibly with Hannibal not even needing to throw a punch. Perhaps that was his game.

"Third Arm Sash!" he cried out, and the elastic cloth did the traversing for him, covering ground much faster than his girth would have allowed. And even then, when Hannibal turned to see the clawed tassels grabbing at him, the bean dodged all attempts like a particularly tiny figure skater, ducking and weaving and jumping out of the sash's grasp. At one point, he even grabbed the sash instead, with a grip as strong as Cyclops', and started a short tug-of-war that Clay only managed to win because he threw one of the platforms right at his face. While Hannibal was forced to let go in order to not get crushed by the slab, Clay retracted the Third Arm Sash.

Well, this was a fine stalemate, and as Clay realized this, he couldn't help but feel a little frustrated. Hannibal was too fast and small to catch. And while he could throw a surprisingly good punch for his size, he certainly couldn't knock Clay into unconsciousness. Especially if Clay was being careful. Hannibal had to have known, and yet he was the one who chose the Showdown.

The sheer lack of knowledge concerning the situation was crushingly paralyzing. Clay almost wished he had the Mind Reader Conch. Almost. Hannibal's mind was probably blacker than midnight under a skillet. Some brains were just never meant to be picked.

"Clay! Don't just stand there!"

He blinked. His mind fell from great heights and landed with a morose weight back in his body. Hannibal had not waited for him to come back to earth at all, of course, and Clay could now see that he was holding aloft the Sun Chi Lantern.

"If you let him use it, you're toast!" Raimundo added, but Clay was already hopping from platform to platform, almost at running speed. That was it, that had to have been his plan. Hannibal could likely dodge rock-based attacks all day. Earth was a naturally slow element. But Clay…Clay wasn't as small and nimble, nor so hardy that he could just take rocks to the face and keep on truckin'. If Hannibal stole his elemental chi, the stalemate would be over.

Clay was slipping the Fist of Tebigong over the Third Arm Sash when Hannibal called out, "Sun Chi Lantern!"

Throwing an arm over his face, Clay tried to squint through the sudden light. Halos of rainbow popped in his eyes, but a clear shadow was still visible in the distance, even if it was about as big as his thumb. "Third Arm Sash! Fist of Tebigong!"

Even with the powerful gauntlet in what could be called its hand, the Third Arm Sash was as speedy as ever. It twisted flexibly as it aimed the bone-shattering fist towards the unmoving figure.

In the light, everybody heard Hannibal's voice ring out at that moment. "Reversin' Mirror!"

There was an explosion, or maybe an implosion; some sort of pulse of sheer force that knocked the spectators off their feet and knocked the sight right out of them and, apparently, knocked the Showdown right into completion. The platforms turned back into stairs, the void shimmered to make way for reality, and nobody had any idea of who won.

As soon as Raimundo was able to see again, he thought that Clay had lost. The first thing his eyes laid upon was the Texan's prone body, lying crooked on the stairs. But giving more than a cursory glance, he could also see that the spoils were set neatly on top of Clay. Hannibal was nowhere to be seen. Another thing that went against his first hypothesis was that Clay was groaning, clearly maintaining a conscious state. Raimundo let his shoulders loosen and fall.

But as Clay started to sit up, rubbing his forehead, letting his recently-won Wu clatter onto the stairs, something swooped down upon him – Ying-Ying, who was making good on her vulture-like disposition, taking advantage of everybody's disorientation and scrabbling her talons over the Shen Gong Wu littering the floor. Clay yelped. Omi leapt, intentions clear in his eyes. But Ying-Ying was already flapping away with the Moby Morpher and the Sun Chi Lantern, escaping through a portal that she made through means nobody quite understood. With his momentum, Omi would have gone through the portal as well – and perhaps would have even leaped in on purpose – but was plucked out of the air by Kimiko until the swirling vortex that led to the enigmatic Ying-Yang World turned into a non-existent blip.

As Kimiko set Omi back down on his feet, Raimundo stepped over the Fist of Tebigong and knelt down by Clay. "You okay?"

The Texan was still covering his face with one large hand. "Urgh. Muh head feels as fulla pains as an ol' window."

Raimundo decided that this meant he felt awful.

Omi came forward next. "Why did you not hold onto the Shen Gong Wu? Your inattention has cost us the Moby Morpher, even when you had won!"

Clay had nothing to say for that.

Even though Raimundo had insisted that he get some rest, Clay walked out in the training grounds only a half-hour later. Kimiko and Raimundo were sparring, but paused as they saw him approach. Omi stopped fighting with his shadow and loped over with springy ease. His face showed wary concern but his eyes showed an alarming eagerness.

"Dude," Raimundo said, turning his back to Kimiko and crossing his arms. "Didn't I tell you to take a break?"

"I jus' did," Clay replied, giving him a condescendingly matter-of-fact glance. "Feelin' much better now." He thumped himself a few times on the chest, clearly intending this as an indicator of how much better he was feeling, as though judging fitness was done the same way as judging the ripeness of a watermelon. Raimundo didn't uncross his arms. If he could, he would have crossed them even more.

Omi, on the other hand, allowed himself to smile. "I see! Does that mean you would like to spar with me? I must admit that you are more challenging than a shadow."

Clay grimaced. "How charitable. But yeah, I ain't opposed t' a li'l scrap," he said, stretching and cracking his knuckles. Omi slid into a fighting stance as easily as Raimundo sliding into bed, his smile growing neither mean nor eager, but strangely relieved. Instantly, Raimundo stood between them.

"Woah, hold up. Considering I'm the leader, I feel like I should have a say in this. Clay, I gave you the day off and you're gonna take it, okay?" When Raimundo pressed a firm finger in Clay's chest, the Texan seemed to deflate a little. He didn't even offer up another calm explanation that no, he didn't need rest, he was in fact perfectly fine. Still, Raimundo noticed that he didn't take a step back towards his room.

Omi ducked under Raimundo's outstretched arm and stared up into his face. "My friend, do not worry, for I shall not be too hard on Clay. And if he feels the need to rest, then I am sure that he will let us know! Right?"

When Omi looked back at Clay, the larger of the two managed a curt nod and a grin. Raimundo squinted. Clay's grin looked as though it was lopsided, favoring the left side, and his eyes were glancing off to the right. The expression that was meant to convey assurance only managed to look strained, which frankly just made him all the more sure that Clay wasn't supposed to be up and about.

But Kimiko tugged on his sleeve. "Look," she whispered, "just let him. We'll carry him back to his room later if we have to."

"Alright, fine." Raimundo turned back around to continue his own sparring session while Clay and Omi strode towards the other side of the field. Both Kimiko and Raimundo went through the motions, not really paying attention to what the other was doing and clearly not even paying much attention to what they themselves were doing. Their vague movements merely swiped through the air with all the weight of a distracted multitasker.

They could see that Omi was true to his word – he started out going through basic move sets, stuff that preschoolers learned in Baby's First Kung-Fu, with attacks that were easy enough to foresee and block. Especially for Clay, who practiced the defense-based tai chi. The more moves he blocked, the more advanced Omi became. Clay never made any sign of retaliating.

"I am glad you came out," Omi said as Clay caught his handspring kick and knocked him away. "I was hoping to talk to you."

"Hm." Clay took the brunt of Omi's punch with his forearm and used the opening to grab the child with the other to flip him down to the ground. Omi, small and agile, slipped his way out of Clay's grip and landed on his feet rather than his back.

"You see, I wanted to apologize for my outburst earlier. My frustration with your mistake overtook me. After a little more consideration, I realized that I should not have shouted, even if you were careless in letting Hannibal's little Ying-Ying take the Shen Gong Wu you won."

Clay grunted as Omi tried to sweep his feet off the ground, but stayed stolidly upright. "'Least I didn't betray us t' go t' Chase Young."

Both Raimundo and Kimiko dropped all pretenses of fighting, their arms pulled halfway in the air in some sort of undefined punching form. Omi fell over, having paused while trying to balance on one leg. Everything stopped.

Everything except Clay, that is, who gave an earth-shattering elbow drop straight onto Omi's stomach and stayed down, pinning the boy to the cracked ground. "I win."

"Clay, what the hell!" Raimundo, quickly appearing by Clay's side, dug his fingers into his shoulders and roughly spun him around. "We're sparring, not fighting! What was that?!" Kimiko, in the meantime, had dropped down beside where Omi lay. The small boy seemed to have passed out, and she was carefully trying to rouse him.

"An elbow drop," said Clay, rolling his eyes.

"You know what I mean." With a growl, Raimundo reached up and pulled Clay downwards by his robes so that he didn't have to look upwards. "Why did you even bring that up? It wasn't his fault!"

Clay easily threw off Raimundo's grip and crossed his arms. "Yer right. It's loads better than doin' it of yer own free will."

Raimundo looked as though Clay had just spat a hoagie right in his face. His expression was both betrayed and disgusted at the same time. "Puta que pariu, are you serious? After all this time, you're just gonna bring that up? Filho da puta, I already think about it, like, all the time! I don't need you ragging on me too! Why don'cha take that attitude and vai tomar no cu – "

"Alright, enough!" Kimiko snapped. Raimundo continued swearing, though he did so with a mutter rather than a raised voice. With another look, he shut his mouth. Kimiko helped Omi to his feet and he tottered, trying to figure out if the past few minutes happened the way he thought they happened.

Without a word, Kimiko set Omi into Raimundo's arms and dragged a reluctant Clay back inside the residential hall. As soon as they were in a private corner, she let him go and set her arms in a disapproving akimbo, eyes quirked with fury as she tried to puzzle out the reason behind what Clay did.

When she first moved in, she hadn't thought much of the cowboy and his slow drawl, but they became fast friends – mostly because out of everybody in the temple, Clay was the one who she felt comfortable talking to, just, y'know, talking, and it was the same thing vice versa. So Kimiko was the first one to figure out that while she had a fuse shorter than a flea's hair, Clay had a temper that was slower than a glacier. And when that glacier built up enough crap, even a rubber dingy brushing up against it could cause it to collapse in a terrifying spectacle. The one time that Clay had finally retaliated against Raimundo's quips and pushed him into the freezing Arctic sea, Kimiko took him aside one night and asked him what was up. Because it wasn't just Raimundo bringing up his weight. It was the whole year of Raimundo bringing up his weight, insulting his intelligence, and giving him hell for apparently no reason. It was the stress and fear that had lately come with being a Dragon Warrior, when he realized that gathering Shen Gong Wu wasn't just a stupid, fun adventure but something that set him up for hurt and pain, of the physical and the emotional. It was his worry about Jessie and his own personal insecurities. And even then, Clay had claimed that he mostly pushed Raimundo because he was cranky and cold.

After that, the two vowed to do little therapy sessions. To vent at each other at night about all the shit they wanted to keep in and be accepting and supportive and never judgmental. It would be a lot healthier than lashing out at the others. But when they started, Kimiko couldn't help but notice that she kept doing all the complaining. She tried to press Clay into talking, but he had only said that there was nothing for him to say.

Obviously, this wasn't true.

"So are you gonna say anything for yourself, or do I have to ask?" she said, giving him a soft-edged glare. She made a conscious effort not to shout.

Clay, infuriatingly, stared off to the side. He looked as though he were consulting the floorboards for answers. "Ladies first."

"This isn't a joke, Clay. You actually, seriously hurt Omi!" Kimiko gestured uselessly towards where they had left Omi and Raimundo, who were currently behind quite a few walls. "I know you probably got reasons for doing that or you broke under stress or something, but whatever's up, it's no excuse to lash out like that!"

"Ain't that th' pot callin' th' kettle black."

"Ex-cuse me?!"

Clay at least had the decency to hold up his hands in a mollifying (or warding) manner. Kimiko tried to simmer down, partially because she felt she had something to prove at this point and partially because Clay was her friend, even if he was acting like a jerkface. And the very fact that he was acting like a jerkface was almost an interesting puzzle for her, something to dissect and examine.

"Look, didn't we agree to, y'know, do those little therapy sessions? Talk? So things like this wouldn't happen? Just tell me what's up, okay? I won't shout or anything." It almost took a Herculean effort for her to lower her arms by her sides. She had a dire need to do something with them. But if she followed her desire for emotional gesturing, she might also fall into her desire to just blow up. And at this stage, that would only be taking steps backwards. "Was it what Omi said before? I know he can be a bit – "

"Look, y'all kin spare me th' lecture, a'ight? I was tired, is all." And this time, it was Clay holding his arms akimbo, but avoiding her gaze to instead stare at a spot somewhere above her head.

Kimiko ventured a step forward. "Clay, you know you can tell me anything. We – "

"Tell Rai that I'm gonna take that break like he said." And with that, Clay pushed by Kimiko and made a point to collapse on his bed as loudly as possible.

Even she could tell when she had to put down a puzzle for later. With a bubbling fog in her mind, Kimiko left Clay to his supposed rest.

Raimundo woke up at ass o'clock in the morning.

In general, Raimundo didn't exactly wake up so much as lurch up, leaving his consciousness in bed as his body went through the typical morning actions in zombie-like stupor. Eventually, his consciousness would catch up to him, but it took quite a while. Kimiko told him that his best time was an hour. She showed him the stopwatch on her PDA.

But this time, his consciousness lurched up with him, albeit reluctantly, because it couldn't help but recognize the vault alarm system going off. Even so, it seemed that it had been buzzing for a while, because as Raimundo struggled out of his sheets and limped out the door, he saw that everybody else had already left. He wasn't sure how to feel about them not even trying to wake him up for what was undoubtedly important Dragon Warrior business. Mostly, he felt crusty.

He managed to gain some semblance of wakefulness by the time he walked into the temple vault, but it looked as though he didn't need to bother – there was nothing going on. It didn't even look like he had just missed a fight. All he saw was Kimiko and Omi standing at the top of the stairs and Clay walking out of the vault, a dour expression on his face.

"We're cleaned out," he said.

Raimundo woke up.

Clay stood by to let the others crowd down and see for themselves and sat on the ledge, letting his feet dangle like funeral wreaths.

It was true. Every single drawer was empty.

"How could this happen?" Omi asked, trying to get over the sick feeling in his stomach.

"Yeah," Kimiko said, leaning against the wall on her hand. "I mean, we got here pretty fast. It was barely time to take out maybe five of 'em. Not only that, but we didn't see anybody, so that's even less time if they got scarce before we even arrived."

Raimundo had the feeling that she was saying this more for his benefit than anything else. He gave her a curt nod, which served as both an acknowledgement and a promise to actually thank her later. "They could've gotten the Shard of Lightning first. That'd make getting everything else pretty easy."

"Ah, but Raimundo, that is the reason why the Shard of Lightning is at the bottom of the vault! Even if a crafty thief were to go for it first, he would have to go down all those stairs – and even running, he would not have been able to reach it before we arrived."

"Not only that, but y'all jus' assumed that whoever it was knew where the Shard was beforehand. Th' real perp'd prolly hafta go through the drawers one by one t' find it, an' if they did that, we'd a' caught 'em 'fore they even got halfway."

"Guys, I think you're losing sight of the problem here." Kimiko's eyes looked sharp and clear. Raimundo couldn't help but envy her ability to look good at practically all hours. "Whoever took all the Wu is probably long gone by now. We shouldn't be trying to figure out how it was done, but who did it. That way, we can actually, y'know, get them back?"

Raimundo couldn't hold back any longer and yawned. "'S probably Hannibal or something. He's into elaborate plans like this."

"Okay, then where is he? I can't help but think that he wouldn't just run away after getting literally all of our Wu. I mean, he doesn't even destroy the place a little?"

"It does seem to me that the 'running away' is something more suited to Jack Spicer's style. Perhaps he is our crafty thief?"

"Either way, it ain't like we know how t' find Hannibal. But we do know how t' find Jack. Let's jus' mosey on t' his house like usual an' shake him fer info."

"Yeah okay, good idea," Raimundo said, feeling everybody's eyes on him even when his own had closed a few minutes ago, weighed down by thoughts of his pillow. "But let's eat breakfast first."

Dojo had been about as hard to rouse as Raimundo, but as soon as he heard that their vault had been emptied, he sprang and spiraled into alertness with a grace that the Brazilian admired. At the moment, he was plowing through Jack's wall with a frightening eagerness that probably wasn't warranted and definitely not painless. The dragon grunted and shook his head, not even bothering to wait for his passengers to jump off before shrinking down to pocket-Dojo size. Despite his daze, Dojo managed to slither his way up Clay to take his customary position on his hat.

Jack did what any sensible kid would do in the case of a dragon attack and hid under his table. In the middle of his screaming, he took time to belt out, "Jack-bots! Attack!" before going right back to screaming again.

Jack hadn't been expecting a surprise attack and his robots, most of them undergoing their weekly repairs, were laughably unprepared. The fight was so inconsequential that Raimundo couldn't recall it even if he tried. It felt as though the film reel of the universe had skipped – one second, they were surrounded, and the next, they were surrounded by scrap.

Jack whimpered and covered his face when Omi flipped the table. His first reaction was to screech, "Get out of my house!" as though he were in any position to demand. Kimiko sighed and nudged him with her foot.

"Jeez. Get up, we're not gonna hurt you."

"Unless we have to," Raimundo muttered, cracking his knuckles.

Still on the floor, Jack snapped both arms towards the new hole in his wall with a frown that encompassed half of his face. Everybody disregarded this.

"We merely wish to ask whether you happen to be our crafty thief, or if you happen to know who it is," Omi said, hands folded in tranquil explanation. Raimundo rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, let me do the interrogation." Jack wasn't exactly heavyweight champion material. He was easy enough to drag up with one hand. If Raimundo had the height, he would have left Jack's feet dangling while he clutched his jacket in his fist. As it was, he had to settle for leaning in dangerously close, so as to give Jack maximum exposure to his glare.

"So here's the deal. Someone stole all our Wu. Could be you. Could be someone else. Either or, you're gonna tell us everything you know, else that wall ain't gonna be the only thing messed up here."

For a few seconds, Jack continued to shiver and simper in the typical Jack way. But there was a sudden shift in expression as he glanced somewhere behind Raimundo, from wide-eyed cowardice to insulted petulance, and he pushed Raimundo's hands aside, matching him glare for glare.

"Do you think I'm an idiot?"

It was a statement that was pretty easy to counter. Indeed, Jack had made it too easy to counter, to the point that actually countering it would have been trite and not worth the effort. But Raimundo found himself confused because of the context – or the apparent lack thereof. He hadn't made any sort of insult to Jack's intelligence, at least as far as he knew.

His confusion only grew when, behind him, he heard Clay shout, "Golden Tiger Claws!" It could practically be considered its own biome, with fauna and all, when Clay's massive arms enveloped him, Kimiko, and Omi, and wheeled them around straight into the recently-made spatial rift. The last thing he heard as he barreled through the interdimensional tunnel was Dojo's yelps of protest before he was thrown in as well.

All three of them landed roughly in a field that immediately stuffed Raimundo's sinuses. Dojo landed on Omi's head.

The tranquility of the scene clashed with Raimundo's turbulent confusion like a hangover. Unable to provide any answers to his own questions, he eventually had to say: "What just happened."

"Didn't you kids tell me that all our Wu were stolen?" Dojo asked, giving each of them a wary eye.

"They were," Kimiko said defensively, her voice quavering at a nervous high pitch. "I mean…we thought…"

Omi got to his feet and started pacing around. He felt much too stressed to stand still and do nothing. "I do not understand why Clay would not tell us he had the Golden Tiger Claws. And sending us away to be left alone with Jack bodes much maliciousness."

Kimiko looked up from her PDA as it tried to locate their position by satellite. "Well…Clay was at the vault first, before any of us. So, if he had the Tiger Claws all along…then…"

The implied thought was heavy enough to stop Omi in his tracks. "Then…Clay was our crafty thief…? That means that Clay has…"

"No," Raimundo finally said, his fingers digging into the dirt beneath him. "That's not Clay."

"Really? Then who was that?" Kimiko found herself raising her voice without meaning to. She spared a glance at her PDA. Apparently, they were in the middle of Finland. "'Cause it sure looked like Clay to me."

"It's not Clay!" Raimundo shouted, throwing a wad of earth at nothing in particular and pushing himself to his feet. "It's, it's gotta be someone else, okay? Like Hannibal! He took the Moby Morpher, right?!"

"Ying-Ying took the Moby Morpher," Kimiko said testily, raising one finger. "We never saw Hannibal after that Showdown."

Raimundo gave an exaggerated shrug and waved away the contrary words. "Same difference! The point is, Hannibal replaced Clay at some point, okay?"

"How?" said Kimiko, standing up and brushing grass off her skirt. "When?"

The two sides of the argument swirled around Omi's head and, trying to find an answer of his own, he resumed pacing. Dojo wrapped himself around his ears and rested his head in his hands. "Look, I don't want to think Clay just switched sides on us either, but…this doesn't make sense. I mean, if Hannibal replaced Clay at some point, then where's Clay?"

Raimundo wanted to scream. Of course it made sense, it made loads of sense! It explained so much! Really, he didn't know why he didn't figure it out before! He knew Clay. Clay wasn't someone who would knock the stuffing out of his own friends, Clay wasn't someone who started fights or said nasty things designed to dig deep into the soul of others and stab them right at their most vulnerable part. Clay was the guy who kept walking in front of Raimundo's room on the way to Kimiko's every night so they could talk and gossip about things Raimundo wasn't privy to. Clay was the guy who ate everybody's leftovers, much to the disgust of all. Clay was the guy who used a saddle as a pillow (a freaking saddle) and who prayed at it when he thought that everybody else was asleep, never knowing that Raimundo heard him every single time. Praying for everybody's safety and that they would all remain friends for a long while and for the world to quiet down already so that they could just be regular kids for at least a month without the weight of the fate of humanity on their shoulders.

Clay would never stab anybody in the back. Never ever. And the fact that the others were even considering the possibility made him sick to his stomach.

"Hannibal wouldn't have had much time to hide him," Raimundo said. "He's got to be someone around the temple."

Never before, not even pre-leadership, had he seen such doubtful looks.