Hey, Sorry I took so long, but good news, I have a chapter nearly done, it should be up sooner. You know, when you haven't updated in a while, you start wondering if you really should. Either way, I'm putting it up.

I have started to hint that the crew actually know that Jade is probably not going to return, and Jackie is starting to catch on. I hope you get what I am trying to say, and as always, critics are welcomed.

Disclaimer: I don't own Jackie Chan (Or he'd be making far more ninja movies), Jade (Her too), or the cast of the show.

Jackie woke up to a car horn outside. The light coming in from the window told him he was asleep in Torhu's room, the meticulously placed Samurai heritage had completely covered the Chinese furniture and wallpaper, looking completely natural.

Absently Jackie made a note to talk to Torhu about his decorating abilities later, maybe Torhu could help Jade organize her room. Abruptly, Jackie felt a weight come crashing down, he would have to talk to Jade, maybe even send her home to her parents.

At least they didn't have to fight monstrous dragons the size of buildings, or dark wizards, or sorcerers. Jade might not be happy, but she'd be safe and well . . .

Jackie didn't let himself take the thought any further. He could discuss it later, when Jade was in the room, able to hear it.

Jumping out of bed, Jackie realized he only had his wrinkled shirt and rumpled pants to wear, he had no idea where his suitcase was. Oh well, he'd just have to change later.

"Hey Jackie," Viper greeted when Jackie came out.

"Good morning Viper."

"Breakfast? Come have a seat," Viper said already putting eggs on a plate. "Uncle and Torhu have already eaten, So we'll be eating alone."

"Oh, that's not necessary," Jackie tried to back out of the kitchen.

"I wouldn't do that!" Viper warned, "Uncle said he wants no one bothering him. WE're to stay in the kitchen," Viper emphasized we with a gesture to Jackie and herself.

"Alright then," Jackie came to sit down. At least he could still get information on the progress they had made last night. "Thank you for the breakfast. It is very good."

"Thank you. I had to improvise, Uncle does not have the usual ingredients in his kitchen. I'm glad they turned out okay."

Jackie opened his mouth to ask about Jade, but Viper beat him to it, "Do you think you'll need seconds?"

"Um, no, thank you-"

"No need," Viper waved his apology aside, "I wanted to make sure you had a good breakfast. I know how teachers can be."

"Teachers?" Jackie asked, curious.

"Jade's teacher, you have an appointment this morning!" Viper points him Jade's backpack, sitting by his chair, with a 'you might need this' look.

"Ayieeeeeeeee, I completely forgot about it!" Jackie ran out the back door, once more giving thanks for the breakfast, before racing back to his apartment.

Once home, Jackie made a beeline for the bathroom, only detouring once to face-plant after tripping over Jade's shoes.

"I've told her a million times. . . " Jackie kicked the shoes aside, dropping the backpack, and running straight for the shower.

BREAK

Mrs. Hartman sat behind her large desk, glaring the papers she was grading. Jackie (being forever fearless in the face of evil). The Teacher immediately looked up, shifting her glare to her recess visitor.

"Mrs. Hartman, it is Jackie, Jade's uncle?"

Mrs. Hartman got up, coming to the door. " Are you asking me, or telling me?"

"What?" Jackie didn't get it, what did she mean?

"Oh well," She pulled the door open. Letting Jackie through. "You remembered the homework right? you at least did that much."

Jackie was slightly shocked at her temper, "Did I come at a bad time, I can always come back later." Jackie backed up to the door.

"No no, if you and I have some things to discuss. The class has Gym and music, so we have all after noon- if it takes that long."

Jackie honestly hoped it wouldn't, He didn't even know how the search was coming. Somehow, he never got the oportunity to find out this morning, he realized with a shock.

"You may sit there, that is Jade's desk," The teacher pointed specifically to the front desk by the window.

Once he was settled in, Mrs. Hartman started again, "How is Jade?"

Jackie felt uncomfortable lying, " I'm not sure. Uncle is looking after her. She has become quite ill. I think she will be better soon though. You know Jade, she' tough."

Mrs Hartman nodded, "Yes she is. That's her bag, would you mind giving me her homework, Mr. Chan?"

"Oh, sure!" Jackie scrambled through the bag quickily. " Here it is," Jackie held out the assignment.

"Mr. Chan, do you realize this is covered, no, drenched in liquid?" Mrs. Hartman asked, regarding Jade's uncle as though he were the student herself.

"I was going to get her to redo it, but you seemed to need it now. Are you sure this is a good time? I can come back later. Really I should be getting back to Jade."

"Mr. Chan, perhaps you should take this back, and have her resubmit it in a dryer state. As for other topics. Is Jade really sick?"

This question startled Jackie. "Jade is not a lire, and neither am I."

"Jade has recently been complaining about headaches. Mostly during tests, while homework was due, and during such times."

Jackie could explain the headaches, Jade had recently time traveled, they both had headaches sometimes. They lasted maybe a few minutes, and were very mild, but they came on quickly. They would fade in time, and neither of them had suffered a headache in the last week, so far as Jackie knew.

"Yes, her headaches came from -an injury," Jackie said, already feeling guilty about the partial lie, but he couldn't just leave Jade looking like a lier! Maybe if she had lied, but she hadn't, Mrs. Hartman only thought she was lying.

"An injury," the teacher relaxed with a sigh. "She did not mention the injury to me."

"Oh yes, I'll talk to her about that."

"Yes well. I do apologize for not believing Jade, I will apologize to her myself when I next see her," The teacher stood, looking at her desk. she seemed almost loath to continue.

"Jade is really sick though."

"Too sick to redo her homework?" Jackie nodded. "Will she be alright then?"

"You know Jade, nothing can hold her down, she'll be back in class soon. She might even do her homework."

They both laughed at the thought. Mrs. Hartman took a thick file off her desk, and sat in one of the other student's desks.

"Alright, well, We should do this now then. Who knows when we'll get the chance again?" She flipped it open.

"Jade has been spreading stories around the classroom. I have been told that this is something she does quite often. It is however, becoming a bit of a problem," Mrs. Hartman looked to Jackie.

"She does seem to blow things out of proportion."

"Right, the problem is that Jade talks of nothing else. She connects her work back to these stories in some way or another," She spent a moment flipping through the papers, "Her recent book report compares the robber to Dark ninjas, of which she has written two other reports on. Her essay comparing storybook villains to real life criminals brought was spent comparing Chinese legends, a convicted businessman Jade swears she has fought off, and a dragon."

"It wasn't what you were looking for?"

"Well, Jade explained herself well, but missed out on what I wanted her to be focused on, the research. In fact, I am almost positive that Jade has not opened a single book outside of my class. She certainly has no referees, other than made up books such as-" Mrs. Hartman stopped to quote one, "'A Thousand Magic Uses for the Samurai hair' supposedly written four hundred years ago."

"Uncle owns an antique store, he gets rare books all the time."

"Oh, I had not realized," She pushed her blond hair back in frustration, "I wish we had spoken earlier, it would have saved me a ton of remarking."

"Yes, we really should have, I did not know there were so many problems."

"It seems most of them have more to do with miss-communication. I feel Jade and I should meet, and talk about this."

"She is sick right now."

"When do you think she'll be back?" Mrs. Hartman asked, overlooking that Jackie was stating the obvious once again.

"I don't know," Jackie realized that he may actually have to give her a little more information, "She is sleeping a lot, she needs her rest."

"I suppose then she won't be able to do her homework?"

"Um, right now, she can't do homework," Jackie said truthfully.

"How sick is she? What kind of illness does she have? If she can't even stay awake long enough to do some homework, it must be serious," The teacher seemed genuinely worried now.

"She should be better soon, you know Jade."

"So you keep saying, why didn't you tell me it was so bad? I would never had dragged you down here!"

"It's not that bad, I mean-" Jackie flustered to himself, thinking back; a child, lying on a couch soulless, she actually might not wake up. It was a new thought to Jackie; Jade might actually not wake up. That could be why Viper rushed him out this morning.

"Mr. Chan? We can continue this later, when Jade gets better," the teacher led Jackie to the door.

Jackie was nearly out the door when he suddenly realized, "Hey, Has Jade been writing about dark ninja recently?"

He could at least ensure no dark ninja stuff was going on. If Jade was writing about them again, there might be a problem.

Mrs. Hartman chuckled, going back to the file, she quickly took out a few files. "You don't read over her work do you?"

"Uh, no," Jackie admitted.

"Here, these are her recent works. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised," She handed the papers to Jackie. "Good luck then, and let me know -when you have time- how it goes. And what's happening. If you need to talk, my door is open."

Jackie nodded although he knew he wouldn't, "Thanks. I've gotta go. Have a great day."

It was only when he was back at the shop that Jackie realized he had left Jade's back pack at the school.

"Hey you little scamp," a gruff voice pulled Jade out of her sleep. "You certainly didn't make it far, did you?"

Jade looked up, she'd been here a week, and Jackie hadn't come. During this time, she had learned another fault of the healing horse, it could not stop her from starving. By the time this thought had occurred to her, she barely had the strength to try to find food, and using the powers took far too much energy out of her. Energy she couldn't replace, she had barely made it back to her camp, and that was the afternoon before, it looked to be nearly nightfall, and Jade knew there was no way she'd only been asleep for a few hours.

"Macail?" Jade asked confused.

"Yeah, Darel's bin worried about you, kid. Sent us out to make sure ye made it alrigh'. Turns ou' he was righ', he usually is."

"Uh huh. Now what?" Jade watched the world tilt and turn.

Macail crouched down by Jade's head, "Now we wait, ye look terrible."

"Gee, thanks. You don't look like such a picnic yourself, you know," Jade dosed off for a few minutes. She was startled awake, when Macail sighed, and sat down on the ground beside her.

"What are you doing?"

Macail was about to answer when his attention was drawn to the bushes on the other side of Jade. He signalled for Jade to be quiet, and drew one of his long swords. Making as little noise as possible, he stepped over Jade, and waited.

A twig snapped, only a few feet beyond where Jade lay. Listening, Jade could hear the person breathing.

That's enough of that, Jade rolled away from the danger and sat up, activating the Dragon and Ox talismans.

Wait! Jade thought, just as she was about to shoot flames, what if it's Darel, or Talen? and waht are they all waiting for?

A moment passed and Jade was just about ready to call out to the trespasser, or fall asleep, when they leaped out of the trees. Yes, they, that was what they were waiting for, to surround the camp.

Men dressed in filthy furs and dirt. They wore identical hats, looking slightly like warped cowboy hats. They each had a bow on their back, but they were each attacking with spears, and hand axes.

Jade counted at least six of them, and had she been feeling better, she would have been able to count the other six. Macail cut the first one down, drawing his other sword at the same time.

Guess they aren't friends, Jade panicked as one jumped at her, spear ready to plunge. "Dragon!"

A thick stream of fire sent Three of them flying back, two of them, Jade could see, were still on fire. Two others who had held back, raced to stomp out the flames.

There was a split second of shock, the men stood, unmoving. Then Macail grabbed the neck of Jade's sweater and the moment was over.

The hilt of his sword painfully dug into her back. Jade sent out another pillar of fire, and tried to keep up as Macail dragged her back until they were up against a tree.

Macail let her go, and continued to fight off the people.

The action was making Jade's head spin. The world was still spinning, and everything was moving too fast for her to keep up with. At one moment, she thought she may have seen Macail throw a man by, but she couldn't be sure.

Where are Talin and Darel? Macail won't be able to fight off these guys forever. Macail grunted, tripping over something, and landed flat on his back. Immediately, a young man leaped on top of him, seizing his neck. Faster than should have been possible, three others leaped on top too, pinning him to the ground. Jade could hear chocking sounds, it was so bad.

Jade opened her mouth, letting a stream of fire burn the men off him. Someone grabbed her feet, and Jade shut her mouth and lost her grip on the ox. She reached into her pocket, and pulled out another talisman, hoping it would be a good one, she felt another talisman fall out of her pocket as she pulled it out to activate.

A spear was right above her face, someone was trying to grab her arm, and someone else was still pulling her legs down. Jade blew fire at them, and they fell back, then began looking wildly around.

"Where-?" An arrow whizzed over Jade, silencing the man before he could finish. Jade fell back, and looked to see where the shot came from. Darel stood just a few feet from where Jade had been laying a few moments ago. He continued releasing arrows, aiming to give Macail a chance to stand up.

Just above her head, Jade could see the Ox talisman. She reached up, and grabbed it, stuffing it back in her pocket.

"There she is!"

Uh oh, the snake stopped working! Jade looked back, as the man fell over, on top of her. The last thing Jade felt was the shaft of his spear across her throat, cutting off her air.

Uncle's shop was closed, surprisingly. Uncle even called out that it was closed when Jackie came in, "Shop's closed, family business! Thank you, and good day!"

"Uncle?" Jackie followed the voice to Uncle's study. Uncle and Torhu were flipping through a number of books. Viper was asleep on Uncle's chair, while he leaped up and down, going from one book to another.

"Hmm? Jackie, no time to chat, I have to continue searching! There is a clue here somewhere!"

"Uncle?" something must have caught his attention, because Jackie suddenly had Uncle's full attention. Torhu turned around, to face the wall, completely avoiding this conversation. He didn't want to be the one stuck in the middle of this.

"Yes Jackie?" Uncle's patience scared Jackie almost as much as the thought that there WAS a chance Jade wouldn't wake up. Jackie glanced down at her splattered homework, thinking briefly of how only Jade could get her homework ruined in such a fashion.

"Eh, um. How is it going?" Jackie stuttered out clumsily, tossing the homework on an end table.

Uncle understood though, "I could not find her soul, Jackie. There is a chance that she is in the Shadow Realm. I have been searching there, among the different levels."

"Oh," Jackie felt stupid suddenly, "Is there a chance that she is-" He waved his hand in a wild gesture directed to the small form on Uncle's table.

"No, Jade's body is still breathing, but if her soul is not back a month, her body will die. She is already slowly shutting down," Uncle said sadly.

"Why-How?"

"This morning, Jade's nails turned blue. It is a sign that she is starting to shutdown her body and mind. But we do still have time, that is why you mustn't interrupt my work!"

THWACK!!!

Oddly enough, the pain in his head, and the sharp words made Jackie feel better. Even though Torhu still hadn't looked at Jackie, and Viper looked terrible, all paled and worried even in her sleep.

"Now go out, and get Uncle these ingredients!"

"Yes Uncle," Jackie rushed out the door, and ran all the way to the market.

Hours later, Jackie returned, with only a few items missing. some things, (Like dragon claws, for example) simply couldn't be found at the market.

When Jackie looked around the room, he could see Uncle flipping through 8 different books, mumbling to himself. Viper wasn't in the room anymore, and Jade (or rather her body) had been moved to the table.

Torhu took the ingredients to the table, and began unpacking it. He kept his eyes low, and away from Jackie, not even daring to look in his general direction. Uncle didn't make any remarks about the missing ingredients, instead he just sighed as Torhu informed him, and sent Jackie to the kitchen 'to find something useful to do'.

Jackie took Jade's homework and headed to the kitchen to find something to do. He doubted he would be able to sleep, he had slept a long time yesterday, more so than he normally needed, enough to completely shake off any jet-leg he had. He thought about cleaning the kitchen, but the place was already spotless. It was his weekend off at the museum, so really, there didn't appear to be much for him to do. He didn't want to go too far away, in case Uncle needed something, or something happened.

And the Joke of the day is:

A group of police officers lineup some suspects for a recent robbery. Detectives ask them one at a time to repeat, "Give me all your money or I'll shoot!" When they reach the second last guy, he angrily shouts, "That's not what I said!"