Hey there! This is just a little short fiction centring around Jack Spicer, after rewatching the series I couldn't help but find his character oddly endearing as opposed to irritating XD

I do not own Xiaolin Showdown, but the OC Dahlia is mine :D

Enjoy! :3

It had been a good few days since Jack had sent the invitation to the holder of the latest Wu. Apparently Wuya thought that this one was entirely more important than all the others they could have been fetching while waiting for this chick to get back to them. Who knew that Dashi would have been able to hide these Wu absolutely anywhere, including England! Those Xiaolin losers certainly did know how to make things impossibly irritating.

Unable to see why they weren't able to just grab and go like normal, Jack was being steered entirely by Wuya in this. Why be nice and wait when you could just take what you want? The only reason that he had been willing to go along with this plan, was to stop her from bursting his damn eardrums with the rant that she would have been endlessly screeching about had he decided that they were just going to grab Wu first and be polite…never.

He was all for being lazy but today was the 8th day that there had been no Wu to collect, and he was not getting anywhere with the newest design of his JackBots!

Sighing in annoyance, Jack threw up his hands as he ceased his pacing. He was beginning to make a hole in the floor he had been at it for so long. There was no replying email in his inbox as of yet and it was beginning to grate on him. Weren't British people supposed to be painfully polite? If so why the hell was this girl taking so long to get back to him?!

"Why can't we just take the JackCopter and get the Wu ourselves?" he asked, slamming his closed fists down on his metal workbench, a small whimper escaped his lips as he realised too late he had slammed them down a little too hard.

"Ignorant fool!" Wuya shrieked, floating right through Jack's head to get his attention "Why waste effort and time on capturing the Wu when it can just be given to us? We should be focusing our efforts on gaining other Wu however…"

"Enough already!" Jack growled, trying to defend himself from the barbs he knew were coming from Wuya "I know we're low on funds right now but, you know, times are tough! There's a recession!"

This was not a very good answer for Wuya it seemed. Her shriek was legendary at the best of times, and although normally he would scream like a little girl at her anger, he only flinched lightly. A major improvement if he admitted so himself. It must have been those self-help tapes he had bought off that infomercial for evil villain support group he had caught.

Whether Wuya liked the situation or not it was true. Jack was unable to fund the development or further creation of his JackBots or other technology, and therefore there was precious little chance of him actually winning a fight. With only two Shen Gong Wu to his name, Jack was less than eager to lose them, lest he face the wrath of Wuya again. The last time they had lost a Wu, he couldn't hear properly for two days after her tirade. Besides, he wasn't too keen on being proved an idiot for what would be the 100th time, a guy could get a complex!

A little ping sounded through the base.

Immediately both Jack and Wuya dashed to the desk where his computer was kept to check the email that had just arrived. Jack hoped that it was not some promotional offer from 'Villains R Us'. That would not be funny, even if they did have complete bargains on robot parts. He was not disappointed however when he saw that it was a reply from the email that he had sent to the woman in England, apparently her family dealt in Antiques and that was how she came about finding the Wu one day. Unactivated it had been sitting in their gallery waiting for someone to buy it – it was the mass opinion however, that it was rather unsightly so she was quite eager to get rid of it is seemed. After she had supplied the specifics about where she had found it, and Wuya believed that this was indeed the actual article.

What was the reason for her delay? Well, apparently she had problems gathering up the finance to actually get to Japan. Jack couldn't rage at her too much for that, given his own financial problems. With a smirk he thought that the antiques market was hardly going to be booming right about now either, the money wasn't going to be rolling in.

"Alright! She's going to be getting here in a day's time." Jack grinned wickedly, letting loose an evil laugh at the result "This was the easiest Wu that we ever bagged!"

Punching the air, Jack was not in the mood for Wuya's put downs, but, when it inevitably came he couldn't deny that it made sense.

"How do you intend to pay, Miss. Prescott for the Wu?" Wuya asked, her voice laced with sarcastic glee at Jack's plight. He was unsure why she was so happy that he was going to be unable to pay for the Wu, it meant that she wouldn't get it either, and, as Wuya had said so many times to him – this Wu was crucial, "Perhaps you could sell some of the scrap metal you have lying around?" she quipped, gesturing a ghostly hand towards the JackBots hovering in the corner of the room, waiting for their orders.

"Hey!" Jack protested, pointing his finger up in the air to declare his firm standpoint on this discussion "These are not scrap metal, these are the last JackBots I have…these have emotion chips, don't be so mean!"

Rushing over to his boys he placed his hands over their audio receptors so that they wouldn't have to listen to the insults that were almost constantly thrown at them. People just had no appreciation of the work that went into creating robots!

Unable to stop himself from wibbling his bottom lip, Jack's eyes filled up with unshed tears at the fact that he was facing having to sell the remaining JackBots. They were his creations! His boys! The only ones that hadn't been beat up or broken beyond repair by the Xiaolin Monks. Surely there would be another way that he could make the money up? Frowning, Jack clicked on the newest email that had popped up in his inbox.

A cold shiver of dread ran down his back.

There was always something else that he could do to gain more funds, but it wasn't worth baring to think about. There was no way that he was going to respond to the offer of going to work for some big corporate company in Japan, to give them the ideas and patents for his JackBots. It would however give him the money needed to develop newer technology. Which would be the lesser of two evils?

Giving up, Jack slumped down in his chair and stared blankly at the monitor of his computer. With great skill he ignored the ever droning voice of Wuya as he thought over his options, surely selling one of the patents wouldn't be too bad, and it would give him the much needed cash injection that he needed. Deciding that he would sleep on this larger decision, Jack opened up the reply window and began – with great typing dexterity- to tap out a response to a certain Dahlia Prescott. The arrangements, times and places for meeting up were arranged swiftly now that she had been able to book her flight times.

Oddly, Jack found himself enjoying the slight banter that they were indulging in through the emails. Frowning softly, he turned off the monitor of his computer, and shook his head. Jack wasn't going to put much stock into what had happened between them so far. Not that anything had really happened. Unfortunately not very many good things happened in the world of Spicer, so he didn't expect anything at all to happen when they met up – in fact, he didn't even expect her to give him the Shen Gong Wu. Envisioning the best way in which to take it from her, Jack went back to work, teaming over new plans and sketches for devices that would give him the edge against the Xiaolin losers.

The groaning of the settling pipes overhead the only sound throughout the dark basement of Super Evil Boy Genius, Jack Spicer.