Started: Ages ago. I think April.
Finished: 16th December 2005
Uploaded: 17th December 2005
Notes: Not one of my better chapters. It went through a mountain of rewrites, before I got pissed off with the writer's block and totally lost interest. I was still working on other parts of the story in the meantime, though, and I eventually got my inspiration back for this chapter more recently.
And now I'm alive and kicking again. Because of the work I've done on the other parts of the story, I felt happy enough to upload this one. I just hope it was worth the wait.
A slow-paced chappie, because Jack's visit to the Dream World is NOT a quick one.
Chapter 3: Jack and the Bean Stork
There it was – the ice temple. Home of the much coveted map of the essences, and its guardian, Akhlut.
Tubbimura, DarkClaw and Troto the troll began walking up the steps made of ice. Without a Shoka's shape-shifting ability, they would never have made it this far underwater. Tubbimura took it for granted that DarkClaw knew where the ice temple was, but Troto knew that only a choice few creatures knew of the temple's location: deep beneath the freezing waters of the north, in a secluded cave. DarkClaw had been acting strangely throughout the duration of their travels to the temple, and Troto had come to the conclusion that he was getting outside help. Troto wasn't happy with this unknown member of their party, but he kept his reservations to himself. There would be time for revelations later, when they were out of this damned cold.
He allowed himself a broad grin as they reached the top of the stairs, and the entrance stood wide open before them. There was no sign of the guardian, Akhlut. This would be a piece of cake. His face fell, however, when he saw DarkClaw holding his head in his leafy hands. DarkClaw rarely travelled with his hood down, but he had removed it and was shaking his head, moaning in pain.
"What's wrong?"
"Are you all right?" Tubbimura asked.
"Yes, yes," DarkClaw said, waving their concerns off. He sounded as though he was in agony, however. "Go on without me. I'll catch up."
Both Tubbimura and Troto frowned. "Are you sure?" the troll asked.
"Go! It is the cold … It affects us, the Shoka, quite deeply. I will be fine in a moment."
Tubbimura nodded and accepted the answer readily, turning to enter the temple. But Troto had already had suspicions and knew something was amiss.
He's lying, he thought, staring at him in concern for a moment before joining Tubbimura. That's okay, though. He'll tell us what's going on when he's good and ready … I hope.
"Blast," Wuya snarled under her breath, "we're in the wrong place."
For her plan to work, she needed to go back to where she'd taken Sando'ip not so long ago. But Befana had been partly right. No matter how powerful she was, she still couldn't control where in the Dream World she'd end up when she went to sleep. Instead of ending up in the Pixie village, they were smack in the middle of the Mengmei Plains.
Not good. The pink Mengmei fog that gave the multi-coloured plains their name covered the entire area, and was already starting to affect her, making her sleepy. She had to keep focused, but she had no idea where they were, and, for the first time since she'd been resurrected, she felt all her cold confidence melt away into a wild flurry of insecurity. Something gripped tightly at her heart, a raw, primitive emotion she hadn't felt since she'd been young; and one she thought she'd never feel again.
Fear.
She shook her head slowly, in an attempt to get rid of her unsettling thoughts. She couldn't think of those ancient times, not now. It must have been the fog, making her reflect on her weak past. She had to keep going forwards, and think of the future. There was no turning back now. She twisted her head around to look at Kimiko, who was being forced to walk behind her. Kimiko glared hatefully back as Wuya stopped by a purple oak tree, on top of a black and white chequered hill, to look around at the misty plains before them and assess their situation.
Kimiko watched the Heylin warrior closely. She could tell by the preoccupied frown on Wuya's face that something was terribly wrong. Wuya had told her this was the Dream World, but obviously things were not going as swimmingly as she would have liked. Kimiko couldn't help feeling a stony satisfaction come over her.
"Don't tell me the great Empress of the world is lost," she taunted mockingly.
She knew it was stupid to provoke Wuya. In her mind's eye, she could still see the empty, pitiless eyes boring into her as the witch had taken her essence. She had been inside Wuya's soul, and the encompassing darkness, the voracious, endless hunger that Wuya felt – Kimiko had felt it too. It had been overwhelming and suffocating, and it scared every bit of her. The darkness had had a little taste of her soul, and now Wuya wouldn't be satisfied until she devoured it completely.
But Kimiko was past caring. She had no intention of playing along with whatever Wuya was planning, and it seemed that this Dream World had something to do with it. It also seemed that the Dream World could be her last chance to escape, especially since it was affecting the Moshu-Ren so profoundly. Wuya was going to kill her eventually, whether she taunted her or not. If Wuya was going to absorb her, make her a part of the ever-consuming darkness, then she really had nothing more to lose.
"Not so powerful without your body, are you? Jack was right about you – you're nothing but a washed-up old hag."
"You fool!" Wuya hissed, angrily coming out of her reverie. She pulled on the magical rope binding Kimiko with a harsh tug that caused the monk to fall over. She added injury to the insult by kicking her solidly in the stomach. "Relish your freedom while you can, miserable pest," she rasped. "Once your soul becomes a part of me, your body will become mine."
She sneered cruelly as Kimiko made a rebellious but futile struggle on the black-stained grass, within the ropes. It didn't matter that the fog would soon overpower them both. Before long, even this world would be under her full control. But there was something she needed to do first … and Kimiko's disconnected soul would be the key.
Before she could do anything, though, she had to find a way out of these accursed plains. Then she sensed it: the unmistakable aura of a new Shen Gong Wu. Even with her eyes closed in concentration, she could still see a clear picture of the Shen Gong Wu. It was the Rooster Crest, and it was her ticket out of here.
Walking along a candy rock path, through a small forest of chocolate cookie trees, Jack didn't have a clue where he was supposed to be going. He did know he was in the Dream World at least (the swirling lollipop flowers and pink candy floss bushes were a dead giveaway) but that was all he knew. However, there was something about this place that made him feel … relaxed. There was a fresh mint flavoured breeze, and the trees' leaves blocked out most of the sun's light. It was a marked contrast to the terrible, dismal world of the future and the unusual blue oddity that made up the Streams of Time. It wasn't long before he felt comfortable in this pleasant atmosphere, allowing his mind to easily drift.
He happily munched on some cookies he'd taken from one of the trees. First Cloudstorm had told him he was the one had created Wuya's puzzle-box. Then Fengqu had given him the task to save the future from Wuya's rule. There was that Zhong Float, as well … He was certain he had heard Fengqu's name before, but not from Cloud. Someone else had brought Fenqqu's name up, but he had met so many colourful and weird new creatures in Ping-jing that he couldn't remember who.
Now that he knew about the Streams of Time, he was certain that somehow he would be propelled into the past, possibly meeting Fengqu, helping to seal away Wuya in the box. Except that he'd ruined his own plan by re-opening the box fifteen hundred years later. Was that why Fengqu had tried to contact him now? To get him to travel to the past and change things further? Or was this the way things were to be played out, and he was supposed to defeat Wuya here and now, in the present?
Time travel was too confusing.
Somehow he would have to change the past, enough to prevent Wuya from ruling the world, but not so much that it altered everything entirely – otherwise none of this would ever happen.
Not a difficult task at all, then.
He stopped for a moment to lie down on some fluffy cotton clouds. This place was so … soothing. He'd just rest here … just for a moment …
"Ummmmmm … Don't get distracted, now … You still have many tasks yet ahead of you."
He immediately jumped up. "Huh? Who said that?"
"I did." The speaker was a great white stork, wearing a brown satchel around its body. On a normal day, Jack would have thought he was going crazy, but this wasn't a normal day. In fact, this entire world was far from normal. He'd been half-expecting a white rabbit to come hopping around with a watch in its hand, yelling it was late; instead he'd gotten a stork with a satchel.
The stork strode towards him on its long legs, its S-shaped neck jerking as it did so. It looked down at him with a fatherly expression, as if he'd known Jack all his life. A kind but penetrating glance made him feel as though the stork could see inside him.
"I've, um, been watching you," it said, in a slow, doleful voice.
"Why am I not surprised?"
"You've, um, seen Fengqu in the Streams of Time, haven't you?"
"Yeah – but how did you – ?"
"He's been trying to contact you for a while. Um, I'm glad he's succeeded; now he can concentrate on things in his own time. You, um … know what you must do?"
"Yeah. But … I don't know where to start."
"Take what you find in my bag, and cherish them. Um, they should help with one of your tasks."
Jack reached into the pouch, and almost exploded when he pulled out seven beans of different colours.
"Beans? Is this some kind of sick joke?"
"Do not underestimate the power of magic. Um, they may be small and insignificant now, but plant them in the right place, and they'll afford great protection to any structure. Um, an impenetrable defence that will transcend even time itself, and whatnot."
"Sure they will."
The stork flipped open the satchel with its long beak, picked out a bean and dropped it on the ground. Three seconds later, an entire cookie tree sprouted.
"Woah!"
"Um, er, things work differently in the real world. But all your beans need is faith and loving care; and a good source of water essence. Now, um … the next thing you need to do is reattach your soul … you should be able to find your figurine that way." It pointed with its head down towards the path Jack had been following. "I wish you the best of luck," it said.
Jack shook his head uneasily as the bird took flight. Things just kept getting weirder and weirder. He placed the beans inside his coat pocket, and continued on his way.
"What are you doing now? You're casting too many yinying spells! Troto's already beginning to suspect something is wrong! If we lose Tubbimura we will not be able to procure SilverClaw's map."
"Ha! Forget about them. They are insignificant."
"Without Tubbimura, we would not have been able to acquire the Puzzle from the Temple of Balance."
"True, but you are not looking at the bigger picture. Didn't you want true power? Is that not what you desired?"
"I wanted … to be greater than a mere village guardian. To leave behind the shackles of my existence as a Shoka, and subdue the dirty humans who infest this planet. But I fail to see how this yinying power aids my cause."
"Heheheh. Foolish mortal. You shall see soon enough."
"What are you doing? What is the purpose of this spell?"
"If you must know … I am disrupting the soul-dream passage from this world. The Xiaolin warriors have entered the Dream World. I shall make sure they never leave."
"You're … crazy. The Xiaolin warriors may be the only ones powerful enough to stop Wuya. We should let them defeat her first, and deal with them later. She is by far the more dangerous threat."
"I have waited fifteen hundred long years to exact my revenge! I will not let the Xiaolin warriors stand in my way!"
"You …You wanted Wuya to be resurrected all along, didn't you?"
"… And if I did?"
"You … deceived me! That wasn't what I wanted! Your fruitless scheming is going to get me killed!"
"You worry too much, friend."
"Do NOT call me friend. We are anything BUT friends. I merely accepted you into my body because I thought I would gain power; but now I see you never meant to keep your end of the bargain."
"Not true. You shall have the world you desire, but we must rid ourselves of those who stand in our way first."
"And how exactly are we going to do that? We have just one inactive Shen Gong Wu. That will be so much help in a battle against her."
"I understand your concerns, but –"
"No, you don't! You don't have a clue! The Moshu-Ren harbour a great hatred towards the Shoka – and vice versa. If she sees me she will kill me, no questions asked."
"Listen to me. She is not invincible. Powerful, yes, but not invulnerable."
"You intend to pursue her, then, until the end of time itself? Pathetic. I should never have released you."
"SHE WAS MINE! MY LITTLE PUPPET TO CONTROL! AND THEY TOOK HER AWAY FROM ME!"
"… We will not engage in any kind of attack against her until we can determine a weakness. To do so would be suicidal."
"She is vulnerable now, Shoka."
"W-what? What are you talking about?"
"She is also in the Dream World ... Her powers mean nothing there, for she is inexperienced and cannot use them on that plane. I sense her fear. This is my chance! I must act now, while she is distracted and powerless!"
"… Do as you wish. I … don't care what you do any more. I really don't. You seem to decide matters without me anyway, so I doubt anything I say will have any effect."
"I … apologize for my outburst. But if I succeed, we will have no one left to resist us."
"Yes, I know … Very well. Proceed … We shall obtain the map as planned …"
Jack had arrived at a large clearing. He took one step forwards, and suddenly, as if by magic, a futuristic blue dome became visible. The dome was massive. It took up most of the field. He slowed his approach, taking care not to make too much noise as he stepped on candy stick twigs. He wasn't sure if he'd find the others inside, but he'd never know if he didn't look. It didn't seem to have an entrance, though. He touched the metallic walls, but found them to be transparent, so he phased through, just as he'd done in his dream of the future.
He found that the interior was inexplicably larger than the exterior. He was in a wide green corridor, which was – or seemed – infinite; he couldn't see the end, in either direction. He couldn't even see the walls of the blue dome behind him: it was as if he'd appeared here out of thin air. Resigning himself to the fact that he was now probably trapped here, he chose a direction at random, and started walking along the corridor. After all, he was bound to get somewhere if he followed it.
The walls and floor were made of marble, and every few metres along the corridor, there were wooden doors leading off from it. There were glowing inscriptions carved into the wooden signs directly above the doors, golden runes that weaved their way in and out and around the bark. His boots echoed on the floor, and he was once again trying to figure out where he was. Was this another dream? It was so difficult to tell where reality ended in this place.
Each door had two fire lanterns at either side of its sign, illuminating the passageway in a soft, but flickering light. Which door would lead him out of this madhouse? He had no way of knowing. He could be trapped here forever …
Fortunately, the corridor was not as infinite as he'd first thought. After ten minutes of passing doors, he came to an intersection. Another seemingly endless corridor crossed ways with his one at right angles. Directly ahead the corridor became wider, taller and more circular in shape. He continued forwards, entering the rounded chamber. It was enormous, filled with numerous shelves, which were in turn filled with several books. There were also models of creatures, such as dragons, and bottles filled with strange, glowing liquids. This made the chamber seem like a cross between an ancient library and a mad scientist's laboratory, and Jack felt right at home.
A little way from the entrance was a stone dais, with a rather futuristic screen in mid-air. The screen appeared to be a colour-coded map with listed areas, much like a shopping mall directory. He took a closer look at the map, but all he was able to determine was that he was lost. He didn't understand the language, but it looked like the same language that had been on top of the doors.
"You there!" an old, gruff voice barked. "What are ya doin', eh?"
Startled, Jack whirled round, seeing a grey griffin. It was surrounded by around thirty or so little elves. The elves had a similar appearance to the one in Ping-jing, except that where Befana's elf had been firm but helpful, these elves looked like their faces would crack if they tried to smile. In addition, the griffin's eyes were stern and fierce, and a little crazy looking, holding none of the kind wisdom that Cloudstorm's eyes had. Jack felt nervous and unwanted under all those accusing stares.
"Humph," grumbled the old griffin, "a disconnected soul. Haven't had one of those in a while. Still, we've been expecting you, Jack Spicer. Your body anchor's been taken off by a severe loss of jing. I suppose you'll be wanting your gauge?"
"Uh, yeah," Jack bluffed, not entirely sure whether the griffin was genuinely knowledgeable or whether he was just senile. "Wait – you know my name? Seems like everyone knows who I am …"
"Of course we know who you are," said the griffin stiffly, as if Jack should have known this. "We monitor the soul status of every living creature on the planet."
"Wow," said Jack, beginning to realise why the place had seemed so infinitely large. "That must be hard work."
"Elven magic is strongest in this world," the griffin replied, still giving him a hard look. Suddenly Jack had a flashback to one of his school days, where his headteacher had given him the very same look after he had reprogrammed the school computers to play heavy metal music upon start-up. It was the kind of reproachful expression that made you feel guilty and shrank you down to ten inches small: not a nice look.
One of the elves pressed an invisible button in the air, and a screen phased into the air.
"Let's see," it said in a dull, bored voice, reading from the screen. "Jack Spicer. Current status: undefined."
Undefined? thought Jack.
"Spiritual jing is severely depleted and is in need of refilling," the elf droned on, and he pushed a button. A little tiny model of Jack appeared in the air.
"Here's your Hunpo gauge," said another elf, who, thankfully, was a little livelier than the first, although he didn't smile. He gave Jack the model, which was small enough to fit inside the palm of his hand. It was translucent, and contained grey liquid inside. Perhaps this and all the other bottles contained the spiritual essence of every living creature in the world.
"Now leave," said the griffin coldly. "I have nothing more to say to a human."
Jack felt anger rise inside of him, unhappy with the way the griffin talked down to him, and there was a time when he would have plotted a nasty way to get him back. But one thing he had learned, or was beginning to learn, was that sometimes it was better to just walk away. He was slowly learning to respect other people besides himself. It had started with Kimiko, this new desire to worry about someone who wasn't himself; but then he had seen all those people in the future, miserable and without hope, and he pitied them. He especially remembered the child. She hadn't deserved to die in that horrible way. No one deserved to die like that. Ironically, by killing all those people, Wuya had shown him just how valuable life was, and as much as he hated the thought of owing Wuya for anything, this was something he had to be thankful for.
So he just let the old griffin be. There was probably a reason why he was being such a jerk. He was probably angry because the puzzle-box had been opened, just like everyone else at Ping-jing had been.
The griffin turned to leave, but the lively elf called him back. "Wait," he said. "While he's at it, he may as well re-hook that young lady's anchor too."
"Very well."
The elf handed Jack another little statuette. "I was expecting her to show up a while before you, but she never turned up."
"This is … Kimiko!"
"Oh, you know her, do you? Even better."
The other elf at the screen typed on an invisible keyboard and brought up a file on Kimiko. "Hmm, her current status indicates that she has no soul. That can't be right …"
"Oh no …" said Jack in despair. "I'm too late … Wuya's already killed her …"
The griffin's demeanour transformed completely, to one of surprise. "Wuya?" he said sharply. "Is she the reason your jing is depleted?"
"Yeah. She took both mine and Kimiko's essence."
"Oh, Wuya," the griffin sighed to himself, shaking his head much like a parent would at a disobedient child. "What are you thinking?"
"That would explain the erroneous deaths of souls we've been seeing, sir," said the screen elf. He turned off the screen.
"Yes, no wonder they vanished so abruptly," the griffin replied. He shook himself, apparently trying to shake himself of uneasiness, and then said to Jack, "Your friend's soul is still alive, otherwise her gauge would be completely empty. But it may be that Wuya still has a claim on her soul. Did she put a spell on the girl?"
"How am I supposed to know?"
"Oh. I assumed you were there at the time."
"I was there at the time!"
"Well you're just useless then, aren't you?"
"Shut up!" said Jack, finally losing his temper. The griffin had touched a raw nerve. Jack had already felt helpless watching Wuya take away Kimiko's essence. He didn't need a whiny old feather-bag to tell him how much he'd screwed up.
"Settle down," said the griffin sharply. "You've got the gauges, now, haven't you?"
Jack scowled, and then stared at the two figurines blankly. His bottle was full just under half-way, but Kimiko's was only full one fifth of the way.
What am I supposed to do with them?
"Don't you know what to do with them?"
"Um …"
"Refill them?" the griffin said, in a very patronising manner.
Well, duh. "But how?"
"Typical human," the griffin sneered. "I haven't got time to explain it to you." He sniffed haughtily, and Jack stuck his tongue out at him.
"There are thousands of souls waiting to transcend," said the dull elf. "We deal with dead souls too. There's a particularly annoying sphinx who comes every time Thoth dies, which means we're going to have to solve another riddle – again."
Ember, thought Jack, remembering the sphinx from Thoth's temple. Heh, she's sure devoted to Thoth. I hope she gives them all an impossible riddle.
"Leave, now," growled the griffin. "I have no further business with you, except for when you return the gauges to us."
And with that, he turned his back to Jack and left him, his posse of elves following him.
He wasn't very friendly, thought Jack, as he pocketed the two bottles inside his jacket. I don't even know how to leave this place.
"Hey!"
He turned around, and felt tugging on the bottom of his jacket. One of the elves had remained behind.
"What's wrong now?"
"Mmm … I wanna help you. But I really shouldn't … I'll get it from Snowweaver for slacking off. Then again … You're the most liveliest thing that's happened to this place in centuries. And you are soul-related work."
"Snowweaver?"
"Snowweaver, the griffin. He's really stuffy. He's the reason why everyone in there's lost the ability to smile. Seriously. He put a spell on us to make sure we don't stray away from working with souls but the problem is, it worked too well." The elf tried to smile, but it came out as a twisted, jack-o-lantern grin, with rotted yellow teeth, and Jack held his hands up to shield his eyes from the horror.
"Okay, okay, I get it."
"You said you didn't know what to do? You've gotta re-anchor your hunpo to your body."
"What's hunpo?"
There was a moment's stunned silence. "Don't you know what hunpo is?"
"No one tells me anything these days."
"Yay! I get to explain soul theory to a clueless human!"
It was really rather odd that there was hardly any change in the intonation in his voice when he said this, and his face lacked joyous emotion of any sort. It was difficult to tell whether the elf was really happy to explain the situation to a human or whether he was irritated and just being sarcastic. But Jack suspected it was the former, and that the elf was just incapable of showing the emotion.
As the elf guided Jack through the corridors, he told him how each of the doors led to a different person's dream. He summarised how chi used up the body's jing, but going to sleep replenished some of the jing (which was why it was important for animals to sleep) and then spoke of the souls as they found themselves back outside in the cookie forest.
"A soul is made up of two parts. A heavy, yin half called po, and a lighter yang half, called hun. The two halves are together at all times, even when the soul travels to the Dream World during sleep. The soul is held together by jing reserved by the body for this cause. This essence is known as spiritual essence. The spiritual jing is kept within these bottles. The soul is also kept from wandering into other worlds by a jing anchor. However, once the body's supply of jing runs out, the physical body dies, and the soul leaves the body for good. When this happens, the soul splits into its constituent parts. The yin side becomes a shadow called gui, and the yang side becomes a bright orb called shen –"
What a chatterbox, thought Jack. I bet he couldn't wait to get out of that place …
"Are you even listening to me?"
"Yeah, yeah; the soul splits up into shen and gui when the body dies because there's no more jing to hold everything together. Got it."
Jack put his sentences on rewind, as he suddenly remembered something from his dream vision.
The soul splits up …?
"Where do the shen and gui go?"
"The shen goes to the Spirit World, or sometimes to the Streams of Time. The gui returns either to the xing xing jing, or goes to the Shadow World to haunt the living. Depends on how vengeful the yin side is. But since Fafnir was defeated, we haven't had many problems with shadow souls. Nowadays the gui returns to the xing xing jing, the planet's essence. The planet's essence is used to make new life, with new jing … and so the cycle continues."
"Okay …" Now I get it.
Jack was beginning to understand the power that Wuya was after. The elemental temples held the xing xing jing, and she'd already absorbed the Wood and Lightning ones. She'd talked about controlling life and death in her palace, and coupled with what he'd seen in his dream … the yinyang symbol … The shining orb and dark shadows he'd seen had been the woman's soul splitting into two halves after dying, and Wuya had been able to control what happened to it … "Gui makes good Huai-Ren," she'd said.
It all made sense. He now knew exactly why it was imperative that they prevented her from finding the other elemental temples.
I need to hurry …
"What about these figurines? What do I do with them?"
"They're enchanted. They're linked to your … status, I s'pose. Each time a new creature is born, we elves monitor the new life, and a bottle of jing is made. Like I told you, the bottles show much jing is left inside the body; that way we can tell how long you've got left to live."
"How do I refill them? That's all I really wanted to know, y'know."
"Oh," said the elf, looking terribly put out, after having explained everything. "Um, you just need to put it inside a Jing Fountain and refill it."
"That's it? Why couldn't that old coot have just told me that?"
"He doesn't like humans. He blames them for what happened to his daughter."
"I figured as such. Hmm, so all I have to do is wake up, take these to the Jing Fountain in Ping-jing, and Kimiko'll back to normal in no time. Sweet!"
"Nice plan. Pity it won't work. The Hunpo gauges cannot leave this world. Them being spiritual, an' all. They can't exist on a physical level. Besides, how are you planning on returning to the real world if your soul has no link to the physical realm?"
With so many things on his mind, and with the distractive nature of the Dream World itself, Jack had completely forgotten he was wearing the Silver Headband, so he didn't answer. Instead, he asked, "Where are you taking me?
"A pixie village. They know about the outside layers of this world better than us elves because they're immune to its effects. We're always working inside the Soul-Dream Dome. The pixies should be able to help you find a Jing Fountain."
"Always working? Don't you guys ever get a break?
"Nope. We don't need to sleep."
"What?"
"We're immortal. We don't need sleep because our jing doesn't become exhausted. Doesn't mean we can't be killed, though. Thoth was immortal …"
They came to a stop at a fork, and the elf pointed to the right-hand path which led downhill. "They should be down that way somewhere."
"Yeah. Thanks."
"Don't forget to smile," said the elf as he turned back.
Heh. I won't.
Jack braced himself as he strode down the path, bottles and beans in his pockets. Outwardly, for the sake of his pride, he tried to look confident, but he wasn't looking forward to meeting the pixies. Not one bit.
More notes: I put this in the Lost Dragon but it's been a long while, so just in case anyone forgot, "yinying" means shadow.
Wasn't exactly a big plot advancement chapter. More, one of those had-to-be-done build-up ones. Which kinda sucks, considering how long it took to come out. The next chapter has enough action for two chappies, though. I do SO love writing ebil Wuya.
A lot of stuff has happened on this site since I last updated. Apparently we're not allowed to answer individual reviews in the notes any more. Which also kinda sucks, because I did enjoy doing them. So I'll just say a general HUGE, BIG thank you to everyone who reviewed. (Reviews that come straight away make me leap and shout, "Yay! Someone's actually reading this!" Reviews that come months after the update make me leap and shout, "Yay! Someone's STILL actually reading this!") I'll also make a general statement to anyone who's confused: everything will be explained, in time.
Since season 3's well under way in the US, I once more have to do the obligatory note on spoilers. Here in the UK we've only seen up to the ep where Omi was turned into a cat (Saving Omi). We have yet to see season 3. PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. If I get a review with any season 3 related things I will get pissy and throw an online tantrum. I know my story's gone in a completely different direction to season 2, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue (especially since Chase doesn't feature in this at all), but, still, I have a feeling "yinying" and/or those magic beans might stir up a spoiler or too. Even though I came up with the idea for this, like, last year. (Damned Bean and his bird.) To reiterate: NO SEASON THREE SPOILERS.
Phew.
The next chapter shouldn't take nearly as long to come out (especially since the first scene's already done and dusted) but it won't be finished until after the Christmas hols.
And that just leaves the seasons greetings. Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year, all!
