"NO!" Jack cried out flailing his arms as the floor below him cracked. His blood colored eyes widened as his arms pushed Omi off of the floor and toward his friends just as gravity took control and he was plunged into darkness.
"Spicer!" Omi cried out lunging trying to catch him only to be held back by Raimundo.
"No! Omi, it's too late," he said loud enough to get Omi's attention, "Don't let it be in vain," he said so only Omi could hear. The bald monk began shedding icy tears in the frozen cavern. Omi grabbed hold of Raimundo and cried. Raimundo picked up the smaller monk and led the others out of the cavern. Kimiko for once had nothing to say, her throat frozen from shock. Clay held a blank stare. His eyes not full of tears, his face void of pain.
"He's in a better place," Clay said looking up at the northern lights as they left the cavern, Wu in hand.
-.-
It didn't take long for people to hear of the young mechanic's death. Villains held mixed feelings of remorse and celebration. Wuya held neither as she just looked outside of Chase's fortress, as if seeing something that wasn't there. Her eyes would narrow as cold air shifted through the grand structure. Her poison green eyes would fall on the northern star at night.
No one knew why.
The monks had built a small statue of him and placed it inside the Wu vault. One with him smiling with the monkey staff in one hand and a wrench in the other, his helipack propelling him upward. It was made of scrap metal from his bots, ones that they had collected over the time they had known and fought him.
And yet, at night, Omi would be drawn to look at the stars, his eyes falling on the Northern star. He didn't know why, but a cold reassurance would comfort him. Almost like the forefront laughter of the late Jack Spicer.
Chapter 1 Pale Skin
Shen gong wu had become less and less frequent as time went on. Three years of battles between monks, Wuya and Chase, Roy bean, and anyone else who wished to join the conflict. Raimundo had matured somewhat but still remained the sarcastic Brazilian child they had met years ago. His hair had grown out slightly, pulled into the smallest of ponytails.
Clay had grown even bigger, he rivaled his father's stature and was starting to have tale-tell signs of a blond mustache. His cowboy hat had grown tired and worn along with his rope which he always carried with him.
Kimiko had grown a few inches in height as well as became a bit curvier. She had stopped changing her style every time she left the temple, but every time she left, she would clip a crimson feather in her hair. Her hair in always a different style.
Omi had changed the most; he was about as tall as Kimiko now. He carried himself highly as he did the first day they had met. His head was still bare of hair and as round as ever. He had begun to understand basic slang and was not always corrected by his comrades. Something they were thankful for. But the biggest change was his interest in bright red. Poppies seemed to match the color the best, and whenever he could find the blooms, he would turn them into a crown, fit for the king of the earth, he always said.
And their life otherwise was not too different from all those years ago. Chase was still trying to make Omi evil, Bean was still trying to kill and/or control Chase, and Wuya was still an old hag after Wu.
"Kids! We got a live one!" Dojo cried out in the temple. The teens came running in with looks of mild annoyance.
"Do you really have to keep calling us kids?" Raimundo asked voicing everyone's annoyance.
"Hmp, when you get to be 1,500 years old I'll stop calling you all kids," he argued back.
"What's the Wu?" Clay asked getting back to the reason they were called in the first place. Dojo pulled out the famed scroll and unrolled it.
"It's called the Au Shun map. Oh boy does that bring back memories," he said growing in size, allowing the monks to jump on his back.
"What does it do?" inquired Omi as they took to the sky.
"The Au Shun map foretells of natural disasters like you would not believe. Dashi didn't use it often but it was pretty handy," Dojo said.
"We must not let it fall into the hands of evil!" Omi cried out heroically making the others smile, trying to hide their laughs. It didn't take long to arrive at their destination as it was at the most northern point in China. They all felt a cruel chill as they realized where they were. The Spicer residence. They all looked at one another eventually making Raimundo go up first. The house was worn and falling apart, unused and untouched. They all knew that Jack's parents rarely came here. This was mostly for Jack and without him, it was just another building.
Raimundo opened the door and stepped inside. The temperature seemed to drop upon entering. The group quickly examined the first floor for anything that could be the Wu, but did not find anything remotely close.
"You sure this is the place?" asked Kimiko rubbing her arms.
"Positive, if the pus coming from this thing is any indicator," Dojo said pointing out a rather disgusting blemish. The teens cringed. No matter how disgusting or how often they had seen Dojo's blemishes and odd body functions they were still grossed out.
Despite that they kept looking for the map. After checking the first and second floor, they realized they would have to venture into the abandoned lab. One by one they filed into the dusty room where each one had memories of breaking something. Out of curiosity, Omi let his hands pick up a wrench from a nearby workbench. Engraved into the metal it said 'Property of Jack Spicer. That means put it down losers 8P'.
Omi smiled at the cool metal object before realizing there was no dust. Nothing to say that time had passed. He looked around the room. There were pocketed locations of dust. Over old abandoned parts and scrap arms and heads. But there were others that were clean, as if they were newly polished. Newly built. Omi shuttered, cursing that way of thinking. Jack was dead. And death was death.
"Found it!" Clay yelled pulling out an old map from the bottom of a stack of books. The map was laid out on a table with various post-its staging world domination. Omi couldn't help but smile. Of course Jack would.
"Now let's get out of here. I swear this place has dropped twenty degrees," he said leading people upstairs. Omi was the last one out, pocketing the wrench. A memento of Jack Spicer. Once outside Dojo grew to his larger size when a freezing gale blew across the land.
"Whoa! Hang on kiddos!" he said trying to fly upward only for the wind to grow more harsh and demanding. Small flecks of snow smacked their faces as they tried to escape the icy grip of the wind making them crash back down to the ground.
"Give… it back…"
"Shut up Rai!" Kimiko growled, "That isn't funny!"
"That wasn't me," he said with all seriousness. The crunch of frost covered grass drew their attention to the actual speaker. He was a boy, not much taller if at all, taller than Kimiko. Pale skin, almost blue in color and hair as white as the snow that fell around were about the only other characteristics they could see. His eyes were covered in sunglasses of all things, and he was dressed in baggy but warm looking clothing. He held out his hand.
"Give… it… back," he said.
"Don't give him the map," Raimundo yelled to Clay who kept the map at a distance. The boy frowned and looked toward Omi.
"I know… you took it," he said with no emotion in his voice. Omi looked baffled but put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the frozen wrench, confused as to if that were the item he was talking about. The boy took it with much gusto and force, an icy smile on his face, and with that the wind seemed to die down as miraculously as it came, its last strong gale seeming to take away the boy who stood before them just a minute ago.
"What just happened?" Raimundo asked his eyes wide. Dojo frowned. It couldn't have been. Could it?
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