Haha! You guys win! I'll write more!
CHAPTER TWO
Jack swore as they arrived at their destination. It was a barren waste-land. Trash littered the surrounding area in gigantic hedges and a foul wind ravaged past him, sending a shiver of displeasure down his spine. Wonderful, Jack thought sourly yet again, the setting matches my mood perfectly.
Wuya floated forward. "This way." She ordered.
"You still haven't told me what we're looking for." Jack half-snarled.
"The Amulet of Demons." Wuya floated into a pile of trash and phased back out of it. "Hurry up, the Xiaolin losers will be here soon and I don't want any screw ups."
"Monks." Jack growled softly, rubbing the remnants of eyeliner from under his eyes in a cracked mirror on his left.
Wuya didn't hear him, though. So he doggedly followed her through the twists and turns of the maze of trash.
"So what does this Amulet do?" He asked a good ten minutes later.
"It allows you to understand a demon's language and provides a link to the demon plane and if you are convincing enough, you may be able to cajole one into coming to aide you in a fight." Wuya stopped and Jack walked through her.
"God, I wish you would stop doing that." He felt goosebumps rising on his skin.
"Watch where you're going next time." Wuya huffed, "The wu is in there, by the way." She indicated a trash heap with a large amount of broken glass piled on it along with a numerous amount of car parts.
Jack gulped and laughed unhappily, "Well, at least it isn't a pile of needles." With a sigh he carefully began to dig into the heap, wincing as he scratched his ungloved hand on a piece of glass.
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Dojo ascended from the cloud-filled sky, ignoring the coughs and shouts from the four xiaolin-dragons-in-training.
"Dude! What's with all the smog." Raimundo, Dojo recognized their voices.
"It's wrecking my do!" Kimiko.
"Indeed it is most displeasant!" Omi.
"Yeeuck! These clouds are more disgusting than my grandpappy's armpits after a cattle drive!" That one was deffinently Clay…Dojo didn't even want to think of how Clay knew what his Grandpappy's armpits were like after a cattle drive….ew…
Dojo looked down and by chance happened to see the form of one, Jack Spicer, with his head bent down, digging in a heap of trash. "Darn! It looks like Wuya got here before us!" He informed the pre-teens behind him.
"What?" Came the chorus of adolescent voices.
"Yeah, I'm going to set you down a little ways away, I don't think they've noticed us yet!" Dojo nosedived towards the ground.
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"I'm bored, can't you work any faster?" Wuya moped.
"Not unless I want to slit my wrists on all this goddam broken glass." Jack sucked at the cut on his right hand and kept digging with his left. "How much farther is the Sheng Gong Wu?"
"Not very…" Wuya looked at Jack, "You do know you're not allowed to say 'goddam' on Cartoon Network, right?"
Jack paused and turned on the spirit, "You do know that this is a fanfiction and that it wouldn't even be allowed to air in the United States, let alone on Cartoon Network, right?"
"Well, if you look at it that way…"
"Good, as long as you know." Jack resumed the search for the Sheng Gong Wu.
"If you were faster you wouldn't have to deal with the Xiaolin losers." Wuya picked up on the original subject.
"Monks." Jack said.
"What?"
"Xiaolin Monks." Jack repeated, "Seriously, do you know how lame it is that we've sunk so low as to call our enemies 'Xiaolin Losers?' It's pretty weak if you ask me."
"Fine." Judging by the tone of her voice, Wuya was offended. "I'll go then, you can deal with them on your own." She flew off to the south, the direction where Chase lived—not that Jack cared about that or anything.
The genius sighed, he felt kind of bad for snapping at the would-be sorceress. She thought of him as an ally and he had just reprimanded her in the most brutal way possible. A clink of metal reached his ears and moments later a muffler was hurtling at his head. He pressed himself up against the trash heap, grunting as the piece of metal grazed his back—ripping his white shirt and leaving a light gash from shoulder to hip.
A small 'eep!' was heard above him. Now Jack felt twice as bad. He had told Wuya off in front of the monks. Slowly he extracted himself from the garbage pile, frowning as he saw grease stains and rust on the front of his white shirt. As he delicately pulled his hands from the hole he had been digging, he brushed across something that wasn't rusted metal or glass. Pulling it delicately out, he surveyed it.
Jack Spicer had found the Amulet of Demons. It was a small crystalline pendant in the shape of a heart, no bigger than a quarter. In the middle of the blood-red crystal was some kind of dragon curled into a circle.
The four Xiaolin Monks landed behind him with an audible thump.
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Oh jeez, this wasn't good at all. Sure, he had meant to scare Jack a little with the whole muffler deal, but he hadn't meant to actually hit him. Raimundo gulped as he saw the cut along Jack's back. Kimiko and Omi 'eeped' and Clay shifted nervously.
"Something does not seem right." Omi mused.
"Yeah, why isn't he crying? That's what he would usually do…" Clay pointed out.
"Maybe he's in shock… Good going, Rai." Kimiko elbowed Raimundo in the ribs.
"Hey, Jack." Rai moved forwards, looking shamefaced, "You okay, man?"
"Mm?" Jack turned and they gasped. He was… well…
"Jack, you look ho—different!" Kimiko said.
Without the make-up and with the lack of hair-gel and the absence of the goth-wear Jack looked almost—dare I say it?—normal.
"Oh, hey guys." Jack said calmly, putting both hands in his pockets.
"Are you feeling alright?" Kimiko asked.
"Yeah, sure, why wouldn't I be?" Jack replied breathily.
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The most amazing thing was happening to his body. A sudden air of uncaring washed through him and he felt light-headed. The Amulet of Demons was safe inside his pocket and the cut on his back seemed non-existent. Jack was faintly aware of a pulsing in his wrists and when he took his hands out of his pockets to look at them, he found his hand had turned a deep crimson color and the cause was a gash in his wrist. That's funny, he hand't remembered cutting himself while searching, it must have happened when the muffler hit him. Well, that and maybe digging through glass without gloves wasn't the smartest thing in the world to do after all.
The last thing Jack heard before darkness consumed him was the startled cries of the monks as he toppled forward and was caught by Clay.
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"Common' partners, we can look fer the Wu later, we need to get him back to Master Fung's." the cowboy slung Jack over his shoulder and threw the genius's limp form on Dojo's back. "And will someone please bandage up his wrist before he bleeds to death?"
The other apprentices were shocked at the boy's sudden leadership, but they obeyed anyway.
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The next thing Jack knew, light was flooding his eyes, making sleep impossible. He opened them slowly; the fuzzy outline of the room became clear and assured him that he was not in his lab anymore. His clothes seemed to fit him better, too. Jack looked down and saw he was wearing a robe similar to a yukata. (A/N: A yukata is a Japanese summer kimono.) It was a plain white cotton material with a red sash. Jack looked at his wrists and saw they were wrapped neatly in bandages and one even had a smiley-face sticker on it—courtesy of Omi.
Jack rubbed his neck with the uninjured palm of his left hand. Something bumpy rubbed back and he ripped open the front of the yukata to reveal the Amulet of Demons hanging securely around his neck. Now Jack was confused. This was the Sheng Gong Wu the monks had been after, so why hadn't they taken it?
He let the thought pass. This was just another mark on the list of people he owed his life to. With a forlorn sigh, Jack slowly rose to his feet and brushed away his red hair from his nose. He stopped dead. His hair didn't used to be that long…
The red-head looked frantically around for a mirror. Finding none he dashed outside, past the very surprised Xiaolin monks and skidded to a halt in front of the pool and looked at his reflection, ignoring the surprised koi fish flitting around under the surface of the water.
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End chapter two!
How did you like it? What's happening to Jack? Why is he wearing the Amulet of Demons? And WHEN THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO GET SOME GOOD JACKCHASE ACTION? You'll just have to wait and find out! ;P
R&R please!