CHAPTER 4

Lu Wei Village had once been a small, tight-knit community on the banks of the Yangtze River. It was a fishing village, with few residents, but it was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone else. The stone houses were tiny, yet they were sturdy enough to withstand the wind and rain, to an extent. Also, because fish were plentiful in that region of the river, the people were able to trade their catches to other small communities for rice and other resources they lacked. Nobody starved, and since they were guarded by a natural mountain barrier on either side, they remained hidden from all, unless someone was to travel down the river. Once, a young girl named Mei called it home.

Now it lay in ruins, forgotten by humans and battered by time. Nobody had lived there for over fifteen hundred years.

Within the rubble of the destroyed homes, Master Monk Guan stood. He was staring out at the mountain that loomed behind the village until Dojo's flight through the sky cast a shadow on the rocks. Guan watched them silently as the dragon and the monks landed by the riverbank.

"Oh, Kimiko! You were correct! That most certainly IS Master Monk Guan!" Omi pointed at the older monk, smiled, and ran off to greet his hero. Kimiko rolled her eyes and sighed.

Guan smiled back at the over-eager boy. "Hello, Omi. It is good to see you all again."

"It's good to see you too," said Clay, "but if you don't mind me askin', what exactly are you doin' here?"

Dojo scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Well, he was friends with Mei, you know. Maybe he had a dream or something, too!"

Guan nodded. "That's right, Dojo. I did have a rather unusual dream recently, in which Mei spoke to me."

Raimundo's jaw dropped. "What? No way!" He grew excited. What if Master Monk Guan knew where to find the Guiding Light?

The older monk laughed. "Don't be so surprised, Raimundo. As Dojo said, she was a friend of mine." He paused for a moment and seemed troubled. "But I wish the dream had come sooner. It's been fifteen hundred years since she vanished. Could it really be possible that she's alive somehow?"

Dojo shrugged. "Hey, you never know. Stranger things have happened. Like… the invention of the Chihuahua!"

Kimiko rolled her eyes, and turned to Master Monk Guan. "What exactly was your dream about, anyway?"

"Well, it was a very simple dream. I was standing alone in a white void, when Mei suddenly materialized in front of me. We stared at each other for a moment, but when I called her name, she faded away. Just before I awoke, I saw an image in my mind of broken stones by a great river, surrounded by mountains."

Omi looked puzzled. "Have you ever been here before?"

"No, Omi. But I have heard Mei describe it on multiple occasions. After I woke up, I remembered her stories, and realized that the stones were the remains of her childhood home. It was then that I knew what the dream was telling me- to locate her old village. It took me a several days, but I managed to find it. I have only been here for an hour or so, but so far I have not found anything worthwhile."

The monks breathed a collective sigh. "Man, I thought for sure he could help us," Raimundo said sadly, sticking his hands in his pockets and kicking a small rock into the river. "What if there's nothing here, and I'm just going nuts or something?"

Dojo tensed and started shaking. "Uh… guys?"

The monks just stared at Raimundo. "I don't reckon you're nuts, Rai," Clay said, crossing his arms. "I mean, you two both had a dream about the same person. Ain't no way that's just by chance."

"Yeah, Rai!" Kimiko piped up. "People don't just randomly dream about fifteen hundred-year-old, missing women."

Dojo began to quiver more violently. "Guys? Hello?"

Guan approached the still-unconvinced dragon of the Wind. "I do not think it was a coincidence that both of us saw her, especially considering that you had no way of knowing what she looked like beforehand."

"But it was just a dream? How is it proof of anything?" Raimundo grew visibly annoyed.

"HEY, GUYS!" The monks turned at looked at the small dragon, who was now hovering in the air and shaking rapidly. "We've got ourselves a live Wu here! And it's close!"

Omi, who was still carrying the scroll of Shen Gong Wu, opened it and gasped. "Uh… you are not going to believe this, but… the Guiding Light was just activated!"

"Glad to hear it, sweet pea!" A loud, obnoxious voice echoed in the mountains as Jack Spicer descended from the sky with his helipack. "It's too bad you'll never get to see it close-up. JackBots, ATTACK!" He pointed in the direction of the monks, and his robot servants rushed towards them.

Raimundo shook his head. "You'd think Jack would learn that regular JackBots just don't cut it anymore. Plus, I still don't get the whole 'sweet pea' thing."

Clay agreed. "Yeah, not much of an insult, is it?" He closed his eyes, used his elemental powers to summon a stone covering for his hands, and leaped towards the robots. "Wudai Crater EARTH!"

The cowboy slammed his fists into the leading bots and destroyed them immediately. The resulting debris flew backwards with great force, taking out several more bots. "Hah!" Clay shouted triumphantly. "Easy as pecan pie! These things just keep getting flimsier every time."

Master Monk Guan smiled, and followed Clay's lead. He ran up to a group of the JackBots and used his Spear of Guan as a javelin. The spear successfully pierced their metallic bodies and cut through the wires inside their torsos. They fell to the ground, useless. Jack just hovered in place with a dumbfounded look on his face.

Meanwhile, Kimiko, Raimundo and Omi were taking care of the rest of the bots. The whole fight only lasted about a minute before the robots littered the ground in heaps of broken scrap metal. Jack grew visibly annoyed, and began growling. "No, no, NO! This is NOT how it's going down this time! I'm not letting you losers get that Wu OR save your little mystery friend. I am so SICK of losing…"

"Hang on a sec," Kimiko said, putting her hands on her hips. "What did you just say?"

Jack glared at her. "What, you guys are too good to listen to what I have to say anymore? Nice. Real nice."

Raimundo threw his hands up angrily. "That's not what she meant, you idiot. She means, how did you know why we were here? Have you been spying on us?"

Jack laughed his in his usual evil way. "I wasn't the one spying. Chase's bird was. I just caught it before it got back to him. You guys should really hold important conversations like that indoors. You know, where there's NO BIRDS?" He laughed again.

Guan suddenly grew stern. "Chase Young knows about this?"

Jack shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so. That crow probably got back to him a while ago. Who cares? I'm not letting anybody but me get near that Wu anyway, so it doesn't matter what the big lizard knows." Jack pressed a button on his helipack, and an oxygen tank popped out of the back. From the top, a flexible plastic sphere blew itself up and placed itself around Jack's head. He had somehow managed to turn his pack into portable scuba diving gear "How do you like my upgrades? It didn't give me much time to work on my JackBots, but I knew it'd be worth it someday." He laughed a final time, and dove into the river.

Now the monks were the ones who were dumbstruck. "Boy," Clay said, "He sure came prepared."

Dojo started freaking out. "Okay. This is BAD. Jack has a head start looking for the Wu, and now that it's been activated, we could have Wuya to deal with, too!"

"Perhaps," Omi said, "But how do we know it is actually in the river?"

"Hel-LO?" Dojo flailed his arms angrily. "Magical Wu-sensing dragon here! It's definitely underwater, I'm sure of it. We have to get in that river, too, or we'll never get to the Wu, and we might not be able to find Mei!"

"Well, it's a good thing we brought the Gills of Hamachi with us," Raimundo said, pulling them out of his pocket. "And Omi should be able to swim underwater without them by now, right?"

Omi nodded. "Oh, yes. I have been working on staying under the water for longer periods of time. It is a good thing that I am the Dragon of the Water!"

Kimiko frowned, and said, "Well, that's great for the two of you. But what about me, and Clay, and Master Monk Guan? It's not like we have three sets of the Gills."

"I s'ppose we can keep a lookout for Wuya or Chase up here," Clay offered. "At least we have Dojo. Jack's just swimmin' around aimlessly, I bet."

"Sounds like a plan," Raimundo said. "Gills of Hamachi!" His skin turned green and scaly as the Gills attached to his neck, and he jumped into the river. Omi closed his eyes and drew some of the water from the river, creating a sort of bubble around his head.

Guan smiled. "That is a very interesting ability, Omi. I'm rather impressed." The boy blushed, and followed Raimundo into the water. The others remained vigilant on the shoreline, and Clay sat on one of the broken JackBots.

If they had turned around and looked up that mountain, they might have noticed a familiar figure standing on one of the cliffs. Chase Young had finally arrived at the site, but watched the monks from a distance with narrowed eyes. He would be patient, and wait to make his move.

NOTE: It took a while, but I finally managed to finish this chapter. My main problem with it was whether or not it was too soon to have them start searching for the Guiding Light, but I figured after 4 chapters, they better get some sort of plot underway. The actual search will continue next chapter. And YES, Chase WILL do more than be a creeper and stand in the background, spying. I promise.