CHAPTER ONE
Midnight. The air was still and the sky was painted a deep velvety black, peppered here and there with twinkling stars. Everything was quiet, save for the blaring of heavy rock music from the basement window of a white two-storied house, all alone at the end of a silent street.
In the basement, Jack Spicer slammed his screwdriver against the metal table he was standing in front of and groaned loudly. "I can't figure this out!" He glared at his current work-in-progress lying across the table: a currently inactive android, the most recent in a series that had either not worked, short-circuited, or tried to kill him once they were powered up.
"What's your problem?" A hovering, purple figure with large yellow eyes popped up behind him, her voice raspy.
Jack shrieked, whipping around and waving the screwdriver at the figure. When he realized who it was, he let out a breath and lowered his hand. "Stop doing that, Wuya! I hate when you just materialize out of nowhere!"
"I can't exactly make footsteps for you to hear, Jack," Wuya replied, zipping around the room, leaving a ghostly purple trail behind her as if to reiterate the fact that she was nothing more than a vapor with a face.
"Yeah, yeah." Jack turned back to his robot and smacked it with his hand. "I can't figure out what was wrong with all of those other androids I tried to build. I built this one the exact same way, and I've checked everything to see if there was some sort of hardware malfunction, but everything is perfect." He tapped the screwdriver against his chin and thought a moment. "Maybe it's something with the programming."
Suddenly the house alarm system rang out. Someone had opened the front door.
Jack cried out and cowered under the table. His mother was away on a business trip until the end of the week, and his father was still in Hong Kong for his business trip. Jack was supposed to be home alone until his mom came back home, meaning that whoever had just come through that door wasn't supposed to be there.
"JACK! You have Shen Gong Wu! Use it!" Wuya yelled.
"Oh… right."
Jack hurriedly grabbed the Fist of Tebigong – a heavy bronze fist-shaped glove - and summoned two of his Jackbots to follow him as he headed up the basement steps. "Jackbots, attack!" he cried, throwing open the basement door. His brass robots flew through the door and headed for the living room, their small arms outstretched, their sharp claws ready to pounce.
Jack ran behind them, slipping the Shen Gong Wu onto his hand. Before he had a chance to look up and intimidate the intruder with a glare before activating the Fist of Tebigong, he slammed right into the backside of one of his Jackbots.
"What was that about?" he cried, rubbing his head. Looking up, he saw the reason.
A teenage girl stood in the center of the living room, smirking at him. She wore a baby blue hoodie, a denim skirt, black and white striped leggings, and black combat boots. A rainbow-printed backpack was slung across one shoulder. Her auburn hair fell just past her shoulders, and her bangs were trimmed so they grazed across the long eyelashes that framed her red eyes, the same color as Jacks.
"Hi Jackie!" she cried, tossing her backpack at him. "Since when did we get an alarm? And what's that thing on your hand?"
"What are you doing here?" Jack responded, standing up and dropping the bag on the floor. "You're supposed to be in Hong Kong with Dad. And don't call me Jackie, I hate that." He headed for the security pad and punched in the code, silencing the alarm.
She shrugged. "He decided it would be best to send me back home to be with people my own age rather than just him and his coworkers from the office." The girl walked over to one of the Jackbots and knocked on its head. "You got your toys to work since the last time I saw you, Jackie."
"They're not toys, they're my Jackbots." Jack smacked her hand away from his robot and ushered them back toward the basement door. "They're dangerous and deadly machines, and I've trained them to attack on command. Unfortunately Mom made me program them not to attack family, which is the only reason you weren't obliterated back there."
"Uh-huh." She seemed bored listening to Jack. "Where is she, anyway?"
"Business trip, like always." Jack followed his robots back to the basement. "Go upstairs and unpack or something. Don't bother me." With that, he slammed the door behind him.
"Who was that?" Wuya asked, floating out of the shadows.
"Charlie. Er, Charlotte. My sister. My dad took her on his trip to Hong Kong but apparently got sick of her and sent her back here." Jack picked up his screwdriver and stared at his android again. "She won't get in our way though, don't wor-."
The basement door flew open before he could finish his sentence. Charlotte – Charlie – stood at the top of the steps, looking around at all of Jacks machinery, computers and giant computer screens, and tools, before finally resting her eyes on the evil Heylin ghost witch floating mid-air beside her brother.
"What is that?!"
"That's it. I'm getting a lock for this door." Jack crossed his arms over his chest and glared up at his sister. "I told you not to bother me, Charlotte!"
Ignoring him, Charlie headed down the stairs without taking her eyes off of Wuya. "This is some sort of illusion or parlor trick, right?"
"I most certainly am not a parlor trick!" Wuya snapped, her face contorting with flared anger.
"Charlie, Wuya. Wuya, Charlie. Now can I get back to work?" Jack gestured back to the android on his worktable.
"Wuya, huh?" Charlie raised an eyebrow. "So what, are you like… haunting my brother? Did he kill you when you were alive and this is his punishment?"
"Don't be ridiculous, child," Wuya hissed. "Jack isn't competent enough to kill someone, except maybe himself with one of his stupid inventions."
Jack took a deep breath to prepare himself for the explanation. "Wuya is an ancient Heylin witch who 1500 years ago was trapped in a puzzle box by a Xiaolin master and then Dad found the box in Hong Kong and sent it to me and when I opened it she popped out and she's helping me try to take over the world now by tracking down Shen Gong Wu which are ancient objects that have magical powers but a group of Xiaolin monks are trying to get them too."
Charlie blinked. "She was in that silly old box Dad sent you?"
"Yes." Jack slipped his yellow goggles down over his eyes and began working. I hope she quits bugging me soon, he thought.
A week later, Charlie still hadn't quit bugging Jack.
"C'mon, Jackie, I'm boooooored," Charlie groaned, twirling around in Jacks computer chair down in the basement. Jack had learned to ignore her pretty well while he was working, but sometimes she really grated on his nerves.
"What do you expect me to do about it? I'm busy here," he snapped. He was busy doing repairs on his Jackbots, all of which kept mysteriously malfunctioning. Wuya watched, occasionally glaring at Charlie when she groaned too loudly.
"Can we at least go out for dinner tonight or something?" Charlie began pressing random buttons on the computer keyboard. "If I have to stare at these walls for much longer then I'm going to go crazy."
Jack reached into his pocket, pulled out a few bills, and tossed them at her. "Here, knock yourself out at the mall food court."
Charlie groaned, but shoved the money in her pants pocket anyway. "Hong Kong was a lot more fun than this," she grumbled.
Halfway up the stairs, she heard Jack pat the top of the Jackbot he was working on. "There, all done. I hope I fixed whatever kept breaking in you."
"Oh yeah, sorry about that."
"What?!" Jack whirled around, heading for the bottom of the staircase. "Did you do something to my Jackbots?"
Charlie shrugged. "I was bored and you were busy plotting with that ghost of yours, so I thought I'd tinker around with your robots. Turns out it's a lot different than trying to fix an MP3 player."
"YOU ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY!" Jack shouted, balling his hands into fists at his sides. "You constantly annoy me, you change the television station when I'm trying to watch something, and now you're breaking my robots?!"
"I can't help it Jack, I don't have anything to do here!" Charlie waved her arms. "Dad's gone, Mom was home for like a day and then left for another business trip, my friends are away either for summer camp or vacation… You are my entertainment right now." She pouted slightly. "You're my big brother, Jackie. You're supposed to take care of me."
"Oh she's good," Wuya commented.
Sighing, Jack rubbed his face with his hands. "Okay, you really want something to do?"
"Yes please!" Charlie instantly perked up and bounded down the stairs.
Jack led her over to his map, spread out across a lit table in the center of the basement. On one side was a small replica of their house; on the other, a tiny model of a martial arts temple. Plastic trees and villages were scattered in between them.
"See that building over there?" Jack asked, pointing at the temple model. Charlie nodded. "That's the Xiaolin Temple. It's where the loser monks who try and take the Shen Gong Wu from me – uh -" he smiled at Wuya, who was glaring at him with her wispy tentacles crossed "- I mean us - stay and train and all that junk."
"So?"
"Sooo… I've been working on a plan to take them out of the picture, but in order to do that I'll need someone on the inside to feed me information. Things like their weaknesses, when the temple and their Shen Gong Wu vault are at their most vulnerable, and all of that." He draped an arm over his sister's shoulders. "But I can't do it, because they wouldn't believe me if I told them I wanted to join their side."
"Are you thinking what I think you're thinking, Jack?" Wuya asked, hovering somewhere above a clump of miniature trees.
"Yes… I think." Jack paused, thinking over what Wuya had said.
"You want to send me off so I can spy on people for you?" Charlie asked, interrupting his thoughts.
Jack shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much." He grabbed Charlie's arms. "It's a brilliant idea, Charlie! They don't know who you are or what you look like. They don't even know I have a sister! It's a good thing I don't admit to being related to you. Just show up at the temple, lie about your name, and you're as good as a monk!"
She stared at the tiny Xiaolin Temple for a few minutes. "What do I get out of it?"
"I'll give you Australia and the United Kingdom when I take over the world."
"Throw in Cuba and you've got yourself a deal."
They shook on it, with Wuya grinning in the background.
