Chapter 4
Small things
Jack decided, that universe was working in rather funny way. Or some things were just fixed, like in Doctor Who TV show. Because here he was, standing all alone, with no one else but Clay Bailey in front of him and Fist of Tebigong shining between them.
"Well," he said slowly. "That happened."
"Guess there is no other way than fight over it, partner?"
"Sorry!" Jack grinned. "Wuya would take my head if I just let you take another one of these."
"Why on Earth are you even working for her?" The cowboy asked. "She's bad news, I'm telling you!"
"Do you thing I don't know that?"
"You are not a bad guy, Spicer."
"Aw, that's cute!" Jack chucked. "You are trying to sweeten me up!"
"And it seems to not working." Clay sighed.
"Definitely," Jack nodded."So, I guess it is your turn to call a showdown?"
He didn't really needed the Fist, but Wuya would really bug him if he didn't try to get it. But there wasn't any reason why he shouldn't be friendly towards the monks. In the best possible scenario they would accept rule about playing it nice and safe, including calling for the showdown in turns. It would make his life definitely less stressful. And painful.
The rest of the monks managed to finally join them, just in time to see whole thing started. And even hear Wuya. For some reason today universe decided that it actually liked Jack. Or was just waiting to drop something really heavy straight at his head.
"Why are you letting him to decide?!" Wuya screamed. "Do you not know, how big advantage it is to decide?!"
"It's their turn!" He shouted back.
"Showdowns do not work in such way!" Omi managed to say, before the two others stopped him.
"What he said!" Wuya grunted. Then blinked. "I don't believe I just said that."
"Me neither," Dojo commented trying to find the most comfortable spot on Omi's head.
"So," Clay started. "My Two Ton Tunic versus yours Third arm Stash. Or you want to wager something else?"
"Nah, I'm peachy. Go on."
"The challenge is to catch that robin."
"Guys, seriously!" Raimundo facepalmed hard enough that everybody heard the slap. "First ballet on ice, now catching a birdie?! What the hell?!"
"They are trying to be creative?" Kimiko shrugged, not disturbed at all by the odd choices. She actually enjoyed unusual methods of fight more than traditional beating the crap out of each other. And was thinking about a few ideas on her own. No way in hell she's going to miss so much fun. She probably should call dad too and tell him all about those showdowns. It would be a pretty nice idea for a video game or two.
"More like beat some record at being totally gay?" Raimundo grimaced. "Seriously, what's he even thinking?"
"What is wrong with being happy?" Omi blinked.
"Sorry, but you lost me here for a moment..." Pedrosa gaped at the smallest monk. "What are you talking about?"
"You said just that! Showdowns like that are making people gay. It is mean that they are becoming happy, it is not?"
"Oh, Omi!" Kimiko giggled, then eyed Raimundo. "You do the talk."
"Me? Why?!"
"You bring that one on yourself, kid." Dojo joined the laugh.
Pedrosa facepalmed for the second time.
Meanwhile, Jack tried to catch the bird. Running after it wasn't working. His memories about this showdown were rather foggy. The most memorable part for the whole thing was his meeting with a tree, and it was rather painful one. He definitely didn't want to give his own impression of koala yet again, so he decided to change his tactics. Rather that flying after the bird into the threes, he landed and turned his heli-pad off. He guessed he could just wait for the blasted thing to land on some branch or elsewhere and try his luck then.
But walking slowly, waiting, and then walking even more slowly towards the little thing was more nerve wrecking than trying to get on Chase's Young good side. Every single time he was trying too fast. Or the robin had some sort of six sense. Or universe just plain hated him, or it was the Doctor Who thing. Whatever.
It ended same way as before, with Jack losing the Showdown. This time at least his head was whole.
"Well," Jack blinked. "That happened. Congratulations, I guess?"
"Why are you congratulating him?!" Wuya definitely had her opinion about the whole thing. "You fool! You just lost me three Shen Gong Wu!"
"Yeah, yeah, Whatever. Tone it down, would you?" Jack made a face and stepped back from the witch, because boy, she was able to scream loudly.
"Thank you too," Clay nodded in his direction.
The monks were having they little happy moment, while Jack was walking away, short of a pretty handy stash, with Wuya still screaming her ghostly lungs out at him.
Odd guy, that one, Clay decided.
xxx
"I still can believe you just let them take my Shen Gong Wu!" even several hours after the showdown with Clay, Wuya was still angry at him. And leaving her favorite TV channel on wasn't helping a bit. She was just floating around furiously, time or two flying through Jack just because he was on her way.
"Would you please stop already?" he whined, when she flew through him for the third time. "seriously, that was just one showdown!"
"I don't care! You're here to bring me the Wu, not lose them to these monks!"
"I promise, I'm going to win them back!" Jack sighed. "Just give me some time!"
"You're losing it on your worthless trinkets anyway" she snorted. "What use we could have of those machines anyway?"
"You like the plane..."
"Because I can find use for it! But the other things? All these robots, just to serve you tea..."
Jack sighed heavily. Sometimes, it was hard to stand the woman. But she got the point or two here. In the basement, there were a lot of Jack-Bots, fresh and not used even once. He definitely should bring them to the battle ground at least once, just to check out his upgrades against the monks. Or to buy himself a little more time while looking for the Wu, when they were already around him somewhere. But the monk would not take it well, he was sure of it. Right now, he managed to build pretty friendly basis between them and wasn't in hurry to get on their bad side. Getting beaten up definitely wasn't something he was waiting for.
On the other hand, if Wuya somehow managed to get her body back - maybe using Raimundo again, or maybe this time manipulating Ashley or somebody else - the monks would be completely unused to fight, because they would be lacking all that experience they gained while trashing his robots.
Jack felt like bashing his head at the wall. Multiple times.
"If you plan to do something, now would be a good time," Wuya hissed, floating just next to his head. "You still are lacking in control over your own brain. No mention the way you are moving is just laughable!"
"Oh, now you're just being cruel!"
"No, I'm not." she send him nasty look. "You said it yourself, you are completely useless in fight."
"That's exactly why I don't engage in them!"
"No, this is a reason why you are going to learn" she floated just before him, looking him right into the eyes. She was looking almost hypnotic with all swirling going on her mask, hypnotic and dangerous, and like really, really evil being.
"What do you mean?" Jack managed to mumble in small voice, moving as far away as he could.
Wuya, naturally, followed. If she had a body, she would probably pierce him into the wall.
"You are going to learn, instead of playing with your toys." The witch continued in menacing tone. "You show me yourself, there are almost unlimited possibilities to find what you seek in this world."
"I can learn how to fight from watching things on youtube!" he protested.
"So it is a teacher what you going to seek."
Jack swallowed.
"Aren't you forgetting about something?" he managed to say. His voice for some reason was waay to high for his liking.
"Yes," Wuya hissed. "But I cannot do a thing with someone so unprepared as you."
"So instruct me!" Jack protested. "If I start to learn from someone, then my time for finding the Wu for you would be severely cut out. Unless they are showing up only in specific hours?"
Now, her scream was much louder and even more scarier.
Jack found himself curled and screaming too, from the pure terror. Because seriously, that was scary.
Wuya always was able to force him to do whatever she wanted him to do. This time wasn't any different from the past. Through maybe she was paying a little more attention towards him than before. And was forcing him to do things that were making even less sense than even before.
And she found herself new entertainment too. Because nothing was making her feel better, than screaming her lungs out at him, when he was trying to force his brain into meditation. Because nothing was teaching people more about control, than scaring them to death. And nothing was more frustrating than trying to walk through some sort of kata while instructed by a ghost. That was just plain terrible experience. For both of them. Through Jack was sure, than Wuya was not as frustrated at the whole thing as he was. He ended up using his prototype of more humanoid robot as a teacher. It wasn't that hard to upload all interesting stuff into the machine, and because the robot was based on Jack himself, it was easier to get the movies right. It was still miserable and Jack still was finding himself doing stretches from his figure skating lessons on auto-pilot instead of repeating those odd, unfamiliar movements. They seemed just unnatural to his body and the body was protesting hurting all over after every time he was giving it a try.
At least she was satisfied in his abilities to use Shen Gong Wu. And sometimes even praised his unorthodox thinking. That was actually really nice and jack felt all warm and fuzzy on the inside after every positive world the witch said.
Wuya noticed that too, because every time she complimented him she was smirking. And she was definitely using it for her own agenda.
"Master Fung, Omi needs The Talk." Raimundo said, hoping that he somehow managed to talk the old monk into giving Omi lessons about life. Because Clay and Kimiko decided to bug him for it, after the whole oh so hilarious conversation during the last showdown.
"How so?" the old monk merely blinked, not stopping... whatever he was doing with that piece of paper and brush. Raimundo still was having problems with using Chinese while talking; writing complicated and very artistic bushes on paper was beyond him. At least he bas breaking the language less than Omi did. It was really hard to believe that the kid was using Chinese all his life and still was able to break it in so awful way.
"Well, you know..." Pendrosa scratched his head. "We have a girl on board and all..."
"I believe he is perfectly able to tell difference between boys and girls, young one," Old master continued doing his art thing. "And he also is perfectly able to respect one's privacy."
"But accident happens!" Raimundo protested. "Besides, if he meet somebody somewhere, and he would like that somebody, then... Well, you just need give him that 'keeps things safe' lesson!"
"Why, if you are so concerned about your friend fate, why wouldn't you do it yourself?" He actually chuckled. "I'm sure that young man like you got way better perspective at certain aspect of life than old monk."
Things were going bad, really, really bad and Raimundo found himself panicking. That was the last thing he wanted to do. Seriously. Even washing dishes from entire temple for the next month would be so much better than talking about things with Omi.
"You don't need to get into the details, if you feel uneasy." Master Fung definitely was having a lot of fun right now, even if his face seemed to be emotionless.
"But I don't want to..." He mumbled under his nose, feeling like crying.
"You brought it on yourself."
"Who told you?!" Raimundo screamed feeling oh so betrayed by his so called friends.
"I'm afraid I cannot tell you that," Master Fung said. "But I must remind you to watch over your mouth some more. There are some kind of word that are not appreciate at the temple grounds."
"Hey, I never said anything bad!" Raimundo protested.
Master Fung only raised an eyebrow.
"But I guess I can watch over it anyway?" he added in small voice.
Then backed off, before old monk get any other ideas about his nearest future. It was starting to look terrible already. But Raimundo was anything but resourceful kind of guy, so he would find a way to teach Omi thing or two about life without scaring himself mentally.
He even had idea or two already, but to set them in motion he would need thing or two. That's why he knocked at Kimiko's wall.
"You there?" He asked.
Lack of the doors at their 'rooms' forced them to improvise and to set up many strange rules about simply walking the space in front of the cupboards, just to evade very embarrassing moments.
"Yup. You can walk in," Kimiko said. So he did.
She was wearing her usual monk attire and was in the middle of doing her hair, with ribbon wrapped around her fingers, ready to tie them up into her neat pigtails.
"So, listen..."
"If it is about dropping the talk with Omi on me, forget." She said quickly.
"Relax! I just... I think I need to visit a city, you know, to actually check if the civilization is still out there or it was just some strange hallucination."
"And why are you telling me this?"
"Because you're the only one who can talk Dojo into taking the bonus flying when there is no Wu to find?" Raimundo wasn't beyond begging. "Please, I'm a little desperate right now!"
"Just promise that you buy him some food, and Dojo is all yours," Kimiko rolled her eyes. "And it is about educating Omi, isn't it?"
"Hey, I really don't want to hurt my own brain and master Fung decided that he have some sort of vendetta against me for God's know what reasons. "
"Are you going to buy porn?" she asked suspiciously.
"What?!" Raimundo yelped. "No! Why would you even think that?!"
"Well, you do want to educate Omi..." the Girl smirked, definitely having fun. That really, really wasn't his day, everyone was against him.
"But I don't want to send him to the psychiatric ward, I'm not evil!" Raimundo protested."Nothing too graphic, just the basic. I was thinking about those funny books for little kids actually."
"Huh" Kimiko blinked. "It actually should work."
"So... are you with me?"
"Well, Dojo would get food out of it. What's for me?"
"This is really not my day, isn't it?" He sighed deeply. On the other hand, he was about to get a date with Kimiko. Sort of and with the third party, but still.
It was a day like any else in the week. Jack was pretty used to the routine of working on his robots and dealing with Wuya – and switching TV channels for her. He really needed to create remote she could operate in her ghostly form, because seriously! – with meditation and exercises somewhere in there too. He wasn't hanging out very much upstairs anyway, so nobody would suddenly wonder about his strange habits. On the other hand, he was living here mostly alone anyway, his parents often absent for many different reasons. So it was quite surprising or Jack, when he almost bumped at his mother during his venture into the kitchen.
"Are you going to spend another day down there, or would you keep your poor mother company for once?" She asked with a smirk on her face, when he was about to get back underground with his newfound piece of pie and other goods. Luckily, he didn't jumped, through she managed to startle him quite a bit.
"Mum?" Jack blinked. "You're home!"
"This is third day, dummy" the woman rolled her eyes.
"Oh, " he bit his lip, not sure how he was supposed to act to not offend her even more. "Well, uh... hello?"
Well, this was definitely awkward. Usually he was at least able to tell, when his parents were at home and arrive at some point to welcome them and spend some time with casual chit-chat. Now however he screwed up. Mom looked a little bit down, even if she was hiding her disappointment well, behind jokes about the whole situation.
Jack suddenly felt terribly, terribly guilty.
He wasn't thinking about his parents at all when he was running away. He should at least leave them some sort of note. But no, blowing up the whole house was it. Petite woman in front of him wasn't really his mother, she was mom of Jack from this reality, the one in shallow grave. But she still was his family. And even if they were far away from the image of perfection, they still should be at least trying to be close. Instead he closed himself in the basement and tried to not think about it at all.
Jack licked his lips.
"Well, uh, I guess... why not? It is formal evening or something like that?"
"Just a dinner." She shook her head. Curly, blond hairs danced around her face. And she was smiling, just because he agreed to such tiny thing. "Fancy restaurant and getting the table was a pain, and then your father drop out in the last moment."
"I don't need to wear a tie, right?" Jack moaned. There were few things he truly hated and among them were thing around his throat. Making mum happy was one thing, with tie he always felt like he was about to play hangman on the gallows.
"You can always take it down in the restaurant?" She chucked slightly. "And do one more thing for me, would you?"
"What now?" Jack sighed in defeat.
"Comb your hair, pretty please?"
"Oh, now you are just being pushy…" he shook his head, but decided to obey anyway. He kind of owed her for pretty much ignoring her.
And so, he ended up in black suit, with dark red shirt under it, struggling with his tie. At least his color scheme wasn't trashed by the whole thing. There was but a few colors that suited him at all with his unusual coloring and fiery red dyed hair.
"You are still wearing that war-paint?" She chuckled looking at him from top to bottom, when he reappeared. "Come here, if you need to wear make-up at least do it right!"
Jack decided that fighting wouldn't lead him anywhere, so he just let her do with his face what she wanted too. It was quite strange experience, getting make-up from other person. First of all, he wasn't used to have other people touching his face for such long time. And he never ever used such thin lines while doing his eyes. Nor did he used eyeshadows. They concerned him a little, but he decided to just roll with it. Besides, mom was working really delicate but fast; she definitely knew, what she was doing. When finished, she stepped back, giving his some space and time to check the effects of her effort out.
It looked… definitely different. Way more subtle than his usual thing, without the hook under one eye, but still in rather dark colors. It wasn't girly, at least not much.
"Now, I'm pretty!" Jack smirked to the mirror, whispering to his mom in theatrical manner. "Should I change into a dress, or something?"
She punched him slightly on the shoulder in playful manner.
"Don't break my brain, please. I already had a bad day."
"Just joking!"
"Aw, and I just started to plan a new outfit for you!" Mom giggled. She was wearing fitting cerulean dress, that really bring her blue eyes out, and looked good with that unruly hair of hers. For a woman in her early forties, Edna Spicer looked really good. She was moving with youthful grace and was still really enthusiastic about life. Probably thanks to her he tended to get totally hyper about things he liked.
Jack found himself slightly irritated during the ride to the restaurant. He was really used to driving his vehicles and felt uneasy as a passenger. Lack of control over the machine was bugging him, even if the driver was doing good job. But right now he was playing the role of not even fifteen years old boy, so he hadn't driving license yet. Good thing he was late bloomer and his hormones hit for real only few months before he switched universes. Otherwise it would be hard to explain few things, even if nobody was seeing him all that often. Jack smiled slightly. Screw adulthood, it was good to be a kid.
"Something on your mind?" Mom asked, eyeing him from her seat.
"Nothing much" he shrugged. "It was long time since I went out with you, wasn't it?"
"It is quite hard to drag you out of the basement, sweet pea."
"Guilty and charged!"
After leaving the car offering her his shoulder to mom was just a natural thing to do.
"Huh" She blinked, hugging his arm. "When did you get so high?"
"Growing spurt...?" He said a little nervously. Mom was always on the short side, but she was an adult. Jack was already as high as she was. Quite a surprise. In his mind, mom was always looking down at him with a warm smile and offering warm cookies from freshly backed tray. Now it would be rather difficult to achieve, without height difference.
"Aw, don't be like that," She touched his face, when he tried to look away. "I'm just proud that I have such handsome man for a son."
The dinner itself was... nice.
They talked about nothing particular over their food, just enjoying their time.
Sort of, in Jack's case, since half of his brain was busy with remembering every time he said he had no time for such trivialities. How many days he could help his mom to feel better just by being there, for a few short hours, instead of creating random robots in his basement? It was really bitter pill to swallow.
"Something happened? You looked sad for a moment. "
"It's nothing" Jack shrugged, not liking to hear worry in her voice at all. "I just... we don't spend that much time together, right? And it's my fault too..."
"Jack. Did something happens?" Now she sounded serious, watching him closely.
"No! I uh... I guess I just had a bad day too. They happens to people all the time, right?" he scratched back of his neck. "It just kicks in, sometimes, the fact that you could do better, but you didn't."
"Oh Jack" she sighed deeply. "We all make mistakes. It's normal."
"I guess…" Jack tried to force himself to smile, but it didn't work.
"You know what? I think you're just tired. Let's get back home. We always can kill the rest of the evening with some stupid thing on TV."
"Sounds good," Jack nodded.
He probably was tired. And stressed out, not really because of the whole dinner thing at all. He wasn't really able to relax since he opened the puzzle box for a second time. Or maybe even from the time, when he was still stuck in the box. Now, for some strange reason, he finally found himself at ease, and that sudden peace forced him to realize, how exhausted he was.
Enjoying the comfort of dirty expensive seat, he observed the world through the window on his side, counting things on the other side and just observing other people.
For a moment he was sure he saw Kimiko through the window, so he pretty much plastered himself to the glass to see better, forgetting about his fatigue instantly. But even if she was there, she managed to already get lost among the people on the streets, or maybe walk in into the shop somewhere.
"Jack?"
"Sorry, I through I saw someone I know."
"You actually know people? Sitting all day and night in your basement?"
"There is that thing called the internet, mum. And I do walk out!" He might have scowled a little bit.
"Hard to believe, if you ask me." She winked. Then, suddenly, there was deep sadness all over her face.
"Mom?" Jack asked, feeling uneasy.
"I'm so sorry!" she sniffled. "I'm so very sorry! I… I wasn't there when you almost… and then I just couldn't, because I was so afraid!"
"Hey, 'sokay…" he said softly. "It was quite scary for you and all…"
"What a mother I am!" she turned back, putting hand to her mouth, trying to stop herself from crying. "I should be there for you, but I didn't know how…"
Jack closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. It seemed that he really wasn't only one in the family with such strong reactions, no mention hiding everything behind stupid smiles and playing his role. It seemed mom was doing same thing, but her personae just broke, letting every suppressed emotion out in this sudden outburst.
"Hey, it's okay. You told me yourself, that people make mistakes all the time, right?"He moved towards her and hugged her, mumbling all those stupid things, not really thinking about what he was doing. Hugging was always a good idea. "I'm okay. We're okay."
She hugged him back, wrapping her arms around his jacked and crumple the expensive material in her fists. Whoever was going to iron the thing was going to have helluva challenge.
"You know, we're both tired. We should probably just take fancy clothes off and go straight to sleep, before we fell on the floor."
"Sounds good," she nodded, but did not let him go for another moment or two.
"Thank you for the evening, darling" She kissed him on the cheek, before she finally stepped back. "I'm sorry I wasn't much a company…"
"It wasn't that bad" Jack chuckled, blushing. It felt like his face was on fire. He never was really good with that sort of stuff. Even if he quite liked to being close to other people. It was nice, and it was warm, and it was making him feel alive.
"Hey" he asked, before heading to his room, to take the fancy clothes off. "Can you show me someday how you did this make-up o me? I kinda like it."
xxx
"You saw something, Kim?" Raimundo asked, when the girl turned back to him.
"I don't know for sure. " She shrugged. "For I moment I was sure, I saw Jack in that fancy black car."
Raimundo grinded his teeth. As soon as the day started to looks at least somewhat decent - because he was in the city with pretty girl and all - and then Jack just had to show up his ugly face. He was hating the guy more with each passing day. Just what it was what was making him so vivid, forcing people to look around just because they though they spot him it the crowd? He wasn't anything special. Definitely not a warrior, thin as a stick and high, with that hilariously high-pitched voice and freaking make-up on his face. Even better, he was cooperating with ancient evil, and everyone seemed to be ok with it! Just because he acted so nice, so fair and actually gave them back one of the most useless Shen Gong Wu - just after winning it by cheating.
Raimundo was good with reading people like that. He met a lot of nasty characters in his life and could read them like a book any time, day or night. Spicer was no different. Behind nice smile was a nasty mind, some sort of big scheme. He was definitely about to use naivety of the other monks at some point. He was definitely going to backstab at the most surprising moment.
Why the others couldn't see it? Why they just let this nasty guy manipulate them however he liked, dancing to his game like good obedient puppets? Clay was just nice to everybody around, but he was supposed to be at least bit wary around the enemy. Omi was naïve kid, but he had that crazy instinct of his; why he hadn't fell anything dangerous from Spicer, if Rai himself felt like his skin was about to crawl away, the further from the nasty albino, the better? He probably believed that he could be able to bring the guy to the good side, like that sort of thing happened anywhere besides Lucas's movies.
But Raimundo would be ready for whatever Spicer was planning to do. Wiping that smile from his white face was going to be pure pleasure.