The lab was dark and sufficiently gloomy in an evil kind of way. The small metallic sounds of a tinkering evil genius pinged off the walls in an ambient cacophony dedicated to furthering the evil plans of eventual world domination.
Caught up in the pure evilness of his internal monologue, Jack released a small chuckle of laughter, escalating it into its full maniacal capacity in a fit of pure evilness.
Well, he did, right up until the moment a floating disembodied head with purple whispy tentacles erupted from the wall beside him.
"Yeaahgh!" An assorted screwdriver and solderer went flying in accompaniment to the girlish shriek.
"Jack Spicer!" the apparition called in a voice that sounded like poisoned honey running over shattered glass. Perhaps a thousand five hundred years in a box will do that.
"What did I tell you about going through the walls here! And about scaring the bejeesus outta me!" Jack demanded from his precarious position atop one of his new Jack-bot look-alikes.
"What you said does not matter," the pointy beaked hag was quick to repost. "Did you know there is a lab dangerously close to your own? Its posessor could be trying to foil my plots for the Shen Gong Wu. JACK! You must go and destroy that rival lab."
When she turned back from her rant to observe the boy's reaction, Wu Ya was forced to blink blink as Jack had apparently completely ignored her demand and had gone back to tinkering again with those worthless doubles of his.
"Foolish boy! Did you not listen to a word I said?" Wu Ya growled.
Nonchalantly, Jack waved a gloved hand in the head's direction. "Yeah yeah, heard ya, its not a problem."
Gritting teeth that weren't exactly corporal, the Heylin witch deliberatly floated through Jack's form, giving him a bad case of the shivering willies in order to come face to face.
"And exactly WHY isn't this a problem?"
"Well, duh! 'Cause it's Sasha's lab! You know, the one whose door to is right over there." This again caused the blink blink reaction. "Jeez, Wu Ya, just because you don't have to use doors doesn't mean I don't."
With this, Jack lumbered to his feet and strode cockily over to a steel reinforced door that up until now, the witch had never bothered to notice at the back of Jack's underground lab. The witch floating along behind, berating herself inwardly, and the idiot genius outwardly for not informing her of this.
"Well, its not like it would have mattered. Sasha would never do anything to sabatoge my projects. She and I go way back." He then got a goofy look on his face. "She was even before 'Kimiko'," goofy look gone, "and you too." Jack slicked back his red hair and in a quasi-debonair manner punched in a quick code on the panel beside the door. When it opened, he ushered Wu Ya in for a quick look see.
The set up was a little bit different than his own lab, but Jack pretty much knew his way around. This absent Sasha had a sleeker look to her equipment in dark blues and violets with accents in silver, steel, and chrome. This was in slight contrast to Jack's own 'Fortress of EVIL' look with clunky functional equipment done in basic black and red. Sasha's lab also seemed to concentrate more on computers and the softer sciences with an emphasis on bio-chemistry and the inner workings of the mind. Jack's passion was for robotics, but occasionally he would delve outside his comfort zone. This way, he had the knowledge that his pal was just as advanced in her fields as he was in his.
Wu Ya just floated here and there, examining it all with a jaundiced eye toward what could suit her world domination purposes. She came to a halt in front of a bank of blank screens of various sizes.
"This, Jack. What is the function of this?" she demanded. Again, those fifteen hundred years in a box did not do well for understanding the technological advances today's world enjoyed.
Jack was over by a chemistry set, entirely unaware of the numerous warning labels and a sticky note with 'DON'T TOUCH, JACK!' scribbled in bold, poking at a sealed beaker with an ignorant air.
Looking up, he saw the witch's interest and went to join her. "That's her computer she programs software on. She's a lot better at it than me."
With a sneer on her face, Wu Ya stuck a tentacle through the redhead's cranium and swirled it around. It made the most interesting expressions appear on Jack's face. "That does not tell me what 'software' is, you nincompoop."
A shudder was her immediate response as she withdrew her appendage.
"My Jack-bots obey my commands and move according to programs written as software. The better the software, the better the computer, or in my case, the robot."
"So the reason why your minions are so inept is because you have no talent at this 'software'?"
"Well, jeez, you don't have to put it that way. If you look at it in perspective, I'm a total genius at it, since the rest of the world can't even make automatons as advanced as my Jack-clones," he griped as he tugged on the ends of his goth trench coat.
But Wu Ya wasn't looking at him. Instead, she was looking at this new font of resources available and having visions of the idiot's minions actually having the brains to be useful. Mmmm, defeating those blasted kiddie monks... Oh yes, and "RULING THE WORLD! Hahahahaha!"
"Y'know, Wu Ya, not that I have a problem with ruling the world, but you're thinking of copping some of Sash's inventions. She's out of town, yanno, and her two year foreign education is scheduled to end soon. I know you've never met, but believe me, I'm never going to steal her stuff. That would be like, giving Chase Young a wedgie."
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"Woooo hoooo! Look at 'em go! I can't believe you convinced me to 'borrow' those programs. Cueball over there can't get his act together, Airhead can't hit what he's aiming at, the redneck is falling to pieces, and Kimiko! While still as lovely and graceful as ever, can't out-think her opponent. That's only to be expected, of course, since it is I, Jack Spicer who made these Jack-bots!"
"Yess, excellent, young Jack. Soon, they will be too beaten and discouraged to defend their Shen Gong Wu, and we will merely have to retrieve them!"
Omi, looking nicely roughed up, managed to kick his Jack-bot far enough away to retort.
"Jeaack Spicer! You will not go unpunished for your evil ways! Prepare for a most humiliating defeat!"
While up in the air with his helipak, Jack felt safe enough to throw back his head and shake with evil laughter. "That will only happen if you manage to defeat my new and improved Jack-bots!" Which Omi's, by the way, had recovered and returned to battle. The hovering figure in a trench then put in an aside to the Heylin witch. "We're wiping the floor with those losers! Ha! The only way I'm going to be defeated is if -"
"JACKSON FREDERICK WALIMER SPICER!"
The tableau froze for precious seconds. Even those new and improved Jack-bots that were kicking the Xaolin monks' butts locked up in whichever position they were last in. All eyes went to a second figure, hovering on the opposite side of the impromptou battlefield. Reminiscent of Jack's heli-pak, this new figure, female apparently from the tone of her irate voice, was held aloft by softly whirring jet-paks positioned like metallic angel wings.
She was blonde, her hair in a spiky sunburst framing her face with sophisticated feminine goggles with violet lenses keeping her brangs from her eyes. She had a black vest over a dark blue long sleeve shirt which gaped to reveal glints of metallic tools. Torn deep violet pants lashed to a close at the ankles ended with ankle high boots of a matte black color. In short, Kimiko hated her on sight.
The rest of the Xaolin boys had their eyes wide in blinky blink mode before something penetrated that haze of pretty girl influenced stupidity.
"Walimer?" snorted Raimundo.
"Frederick?" echoed Clay.
"Jeackson?" wondered little Omi.
Kimiko and the others exchanged that bare glance before all were set off laughing.
In the meantime, the brunt of it all kept swiveling his red mop between his laughing enemies and his only, partner. Yes, the Evil Boy Genius Jack Spicer never had friends, but Sasha was definitely considered his most prized partner.
"Sasha?" The first syllable was stated belligerantly, but after the look in her eyes intensified a hundred-fold, the second came out more as a squeak.
Still keeping her eyes on Jack, this new contender darted closer to the halted battle between the monks and the Jack-bots. Omi and the others drew together defensively, as this girl, no matter how pretty, seemed to know Jack Spicer.. Snort, yes, knew him well enough to know his full name apparently.
"Sasha verbal override, code: two mark niner six beta six charlie three Jack In Deep Kimchi."
And naively, Omi asked, "Kimchi? I do not see Jack Spicer standing in stinky cabbage food."
This garnered him a look from the hovering blonde. "Heh, you're kinda cute, in an adorable way," she said as she landed next to one of the Jack-bots. Of course, this melted Omi enough so he disengaged his defensive formation.
But Sasha was no longer paying any attention to the fab four, or Jack Spicer. Instead, while she was looking over one of the Jack-bots, the real Jack descended as well, to try and divert the fury he knew was coming. And each second that it was delayed, the worse it would go.
"Hey, uh, Sasha! Glad to see you're back! I, erm, thought it would be another month or so..."
Her back was still turned, and he could tell her shoulders were tensed from holding back. But what she said next seemed a non sequiteur.
"Jack, did you know you have an ugly decapitated head floating beside you?"
"WHAT! You sniveling impudent child! I'll have you know-" Three guesses as to who that was, and the first two don't count.
But she was cut off by Jack's hands rapidly trying to clamp over her non existant non corporeal mouth.
"Wu Ya! Her name is Wu Ya! Guess what, Sash, I found her in a puzzle box, and she's very much into my evil plans of world domination, and" the boy rattled off inconsequential things to distract his friend, I mean partner.
Meanwhile, Sasha finished her inspection of the inner workings of the Jack-bot, and carefully replaced the panel before returning her tools to their inner vest pockets. Turning slightly, she reached out and yanked the babbling Jack so that their faces were only milimeters apart.
Her words sounded like a death knell.
"Your soldering is sloppy, Jack."
And then he let out the breath he had been holding. That wasn't so bad...
"What have I told you about borrowing my stuff without asking, Jack?"
Oops, spoke too soon.
"Um, not to?"
"Yes, Jack," ooh, gritted teeth and a 'baring of fangs' kind of smile. Yup, he's in trouble. And what do we do when in trouble? Diversion and Compliments!
"Wu Ya said to use it! I said 'no', but Noooo, Wu Ya just loved your work, and had me incorporate it in the Jack-bots! It works, see?" And then addressing the robots, he commanded, "Jack-bots! Attack!"
But despite the monks tensing back up, nothing happened. The Jack-bots remained stationary. At least until Sasha spoke up.
"Software, beta tested AI, log new designation, 'Jack-bots'.
What startled them all, was that the Jack-bots' eyes changed to purple instead of red and a voice issued in chorus, "Compliance."
"Aww, Sasha!" Jack whined, "What dja do?"
"It was my software, Jack. Do you think I wouldn't have written in an override code? They will only obey me now." And then with a glance at the monks, who were still dumbfounded at the multiple shocks of the day, she crisply ordered her new robots to repair the field and its surrounding structures before returning to her lab.
She then turned her attention on the monks while still gripping a lapel of Jack's trenchcoat.
"I'm sorry Jack here made a nuisance of himself with my stuff. I thought he'd be," she glares at the boy genius at this, "smarter than to raid my lab, but I guess he was under the influence, so to say." Of the ghostly apparition kind.
Omi stepped forward while Kimiko and the others sulked a bit. It wasn't everyday they all got their butts whipped... And by Jack Spicer nonetheless, even if it was with new technology.
"Doo not worry, Miss Sasha, everything is as they say, Kaay Oh A!" he grinned at his wonderful use of modern language. Clay piped up from behind with his signature drawl, "Don't he mean 'A-ok'?"
Jack, despite his inability to escape Sasha's clutches, was still out of her immediate view and was mocking the monks from behind her back. Clay just growled and Kimiko looked more disgusted than usual. When Raimundo lunged as if to beat Jack to a pulp, the flame haired one dove behind Sasha and peeked over her shoulder.
She sighed, rolled her eyes and turned her back to the monks.
"Jack, we need to talk when we get to the labs," were her last words as she took off, her friend hanging by his coat tails and Wu Ya trailing, trying to find out how much of a problem this new girl would be in her quest.
The dragons in training were left watching the three fade out in the distance, until Master Fung walked up.
"It was a wise master who once said, 'we fall, in order to learn to pick ourselves back up'. Another said 'the truth shall set you free, but first it will anger you greatly'. We have indeed had quite a trip today, young ones, but your momentary defeat should serve to motivate you to greater heights..."
Master Fung then fell silent to let these words soak into the young dragons' heads. After a few seconds, he then asked what was second on his mind.
"Walimer?"