Chapter 10: "...This Way Comes"

Jack was aware that he existed on some level, but he didn't exist in the physical sense. He was just... aware. His eyes opened, and his body moved to get up, but he hadn't told it to get up. It hadn't been his consciousness that had issued the command, because all he wanted to do was lie down. He was in a space behind his eyes, and he couldn't see the entirety of the outside world. It was like he was taking a backseat in his own mind.

Who was driving?

What are you doing here?

This is my mind. What are you doing here?

Jack felt himself being pushed, far, far down, until he was buried under darkness, hardly existing at all.

On the outskirts of Folsense, Layton and Luke stood outside a slightly rusted iron gate that stood as the entrance to a wild, dark forest that lurked within. Layton picked up an old lantern from the ground; it was somewhat weathered, with a couple of small dents in its metal casing, but otherwise it was still functional.

"Professor?"

"Luke. Our next destination is clear. If we are ever to clear this mystery up once and for all..."

"You mean..." Luke stared at the gate apprehensively. "We're going to have to visit that spooky castle ourselves?"

Layton chuckled. "Don't tell me you're scared?"

"Of course not!" said Luke, pouting and folding his arms stubbornly, as only a cheeky schoolboy could. "A million vampires wouldn't scare me!"

"As a matter of fact, I'd very much like to meet this vampire," said Layton, smiling. "Duke Anton..."

Luke was puzzled for a moment. "I thought you didn't believe in vampires? Hey... wait a minute, are you pulling my leg, Professor?"

Layton didn't answer, but his smile grew wider. "Shall we go in?"

"Of course! I'm ready when you are, Professor!"

As they entered the forest, goosebumps ran all the way up Luke's arms. Shivering, he kept close to Layton, following him as they walked along the dirt path, the professor holding the small lantern in his right hand to light the shadowy way ahead. From the vantage point of the garlic man's watchtower, they had seen the layout of the land around Folsense. They both knew that somewhere in front of them, past the trees, was the Duke's castle. But they had to get through the forest first.

"Is this really the only way to get there?" Luke asked after about ten minutes of walking. All of his earlier bravado had deserted him. It was so difficult to see under the thick foliage of the trees; if Layton hadn't found that lantern outside the entrance, they would be walking in almost complete darkness.

Luke turned his head round and stopped walking for a moment, adding, "This place gives me goosebumps..."

Crack...!

What was that? The noise had been to his left - he snapped his head in that direction - a large shape loomed into view...

"Ayiiiii!"

Instantly, Layton was by his side, bending down. "Luke! What's wrong?"

Both arms shaking and with heavy breaths, Luke pointed to the shadows. "A g-g-g-ghost! There's a g-g-ghost in the f-forest!"

"Don't be silly. You're imagining it."

"But-but I'm sure I saw it, Professor!"

Layton put a gentle hand on Luke's shoulder, and gave him a warm, fatherly look. "Deep breaths, Luke."

"I... phew..."

Slowly, Luke calmed down. Layton stood up, and hovered the lantern above the "ghost"... which turned out to be a gnarled tree root.

"Your nerves are on edge, my boy. It's only natural that something as harmless as a tree would look like a ghost in this light."

Phew... His eyes had been playing tricks on him. The relief was immense. But, it wasn't so much that the ghost was fake, it was more Layton's reaction that had reassured Luke. Layton had not said it out loud, but Luke could see it in his eyes. He was saying: I will not let any harm come to you.

"Feeling better?"

"Yeah. Thanks, Professor."

"You're welcome," said Layton. "Let's go."

They continued on without incident, and soon left the forest. The path opened out into a rocky, open area. The full moon was shining, and the silhouette of the castle in the distance loomed into view. Luckily they didn't have far to go, though they did have to slide across a frozen lake and cross a rickety old bridge before they reached the entrance to the castle.

"This place looks even scarier up close," said Luke, peering up at the castle's Gothic spires.

"Feeling nervous again?" said Layton.

"Not on your life!" said Luke, who, with clenched fists and a wide smirk, was the very picture of bull-headed determination. "Let's go!"

Layton knocked twice on the large wooden door, and, after a short pause, a primly dressed butler with spectacles answered.

"Yessss?"

"Greetings," said Layton. "Sorry to disturb you, sir. I'm an archaeologist, and I have a few questions regarding an artefact known as the Elysian Box. Would you be able to help at all?"

"Hmm… This is a matter best addressed by the master," said the butler, who didn't seem at all bothered that two people had come all this way just to ask about a box. He had a sharp pointed nose, a nasal voice, and pointy ears. If that wasn't suspicious, Luke didn't know what was.

The butler ushered them inside, and as Dashi had discovered earlier, the interior of the castle was far more welcoming. It was simply enormous - Luke had never been inside such a building that could be called someone's home. It was also surprisingly well kept. There were red carpets across the floor, and paintings adorned all around the walls; and several polished suits of armour and ornamental swords were up against one of the walls.

"Wow, this castle is really something else!"

"Indeed," Layton agreed. "It's most impressive."

The butler took them up some stairs and knocked on a door, before opening it: and there stood Duke Anton against the large windows in the light of the full moon, purple cape curled around him. He looked to be in his early twenties and had blond hair, and his striking, bright blue eyes contrasted with his soft, pale face.

"Greetings," he said, smiling a small smile. "Welcome to my home."

Luke made a small sighing noise, trying hard not to imagine any fangs.

After a couple of introductions, Anton invited them for some supper, with a cup of tea. Of course, it was impolite to refuse; and they wanted to find out more about the Elysian Box anyway. That was why they had travelled all this way, after all. And forget vampires - Luke was absolutely starving. Nothing could draw Luke faster to a place than the promise of food. He had a very big appetite, which often showed when he and Layton were in a restaurant and the bill for Luke's items far surpassed Layton's.

The dining room was equally as extravagant. A large golden chandelier hung from the middle of the room, and there were more paintings hanging on the beautiful walls. The chairs around the table were red and gold, fit for a king, as the expression went. Luke tried his best to be careful; everything looked so expensive that it felt wrong to even breathe the air, let alone sit down on one of the chairs.

As dinner was served, Luke and Layton sat at one end of the long table, and Anton sat at the other. Luke immediately tucked into his meal - braised steak and roast potatoes in a delicious mushroom sauce had never tasted so good in his opinion - but Layton was more reserved, subtly trying to draw bits of information from Anton. Then, for Luke and Layton, came the all-important cup of tea.

Anton swirled a glass of red wine around before taking a sip. "So... people fear the box because they believe it kills anyone who opens it?" He chuckled, seeming to find this a bit ludicrous. "That's quite the story."

"The box seems to be connected to your family in some way," said Layton, cutting to the point. "Can you tell me anything about this?"

"Yes, it's true. It was a family heirloom... although I parted with it several years ago. The garish emblem on it was simply not to my taste." He looked dispassionately at his wine glass, apparently wondering why Luke and Layton were asking him about such an offensive-looking Box.

But Luke wasn't buying it. He whispered to Layton: "He's not telling us the whole story."

"Yes, perhaps…" Layton whispered back. "It's difficult to tell just how much he knows..."

"You must be tired after your journey," said Anton, suddenly brightening up. "I insist you stay the night."

Please say no please say no please say no -

"That's very kind," said Layton, setting down his tea cup on the table. "We'll take you up on your offer."

Arrgh, thought Luke. He knew that, for archaeologist Layton, being inside this castle must have been like finding a gold mine, and no doubt there'd be some investigating of the castle going on later, but staying the night in a spooky castle with a vampire? That was practically begging for trouble. It didn't matter how tired Luke was, he was notgoing to be able to sleep in a place like this.

Especially since here in Folsense it seemed to be night all the time.

Pieces of glass everywhere, thought Dashi. What does it mean?

It was like being in outer space, being surrounded by sparkling purple stars. For a long moment, Chase and Dashi stared at the pieces of glass in the darkness, and all that could be heard was both the bu-dum, bu-dum heartbeat of the blue sauropod, and the deep breathing of the pink theropod.

"It might seem like a very long time ago to you, but do you remember when I said that time was like a window?" Dashi asked.

"Yes, it was the first thing I remembered when things started to go wrong. This is shattered time?"

"Nope," said Dashi. "When I said time was like a window, I didn't mean it was really like a window."

Chase turned to face him, mildly surprised. After turning to the Heylin side, he hadn't really spent much - well - time studying the aspects of Time. Becoming immortal changed your priorities a bit. You didn't worry too much about the passage of time when you lived forever. He had been more interested in gaining power on Earth, and besides, he knew the consequences of meddling with the time streams. He didn't need to change the timeline to become powerful. He already was powerful.

"What did you mean, then?"

"I just used it to help form a picture in your minds, to help you understand. It isn't really like that at all. Time is just... time."

"So what is all this?"

"I don't know. And I'm not just saying that and deep down having an idea of what it might be. I really don't know."

"What's the problem? Aren't they just the same as the pieces you found? Can't you just turn them into makeshift Shen Gong Wu as well?"

"You suggest I do that without knowing - wait a minute," said Dashi suddenly, twisted his head around. The portal they had used to come here was still there, but the two creatures were not. "Where are the dinosaurs?"

"Well they're -" Chase started, and then he too realised that they were by themselves. And yet, they could still hear the great beasts. The sound was being dampened, as if they were in another room, but it also sounded like the sound was everywhere in the surroundings, rumbling and much louder, as though Chase and Dashi had been shrunk...

"It sounds like... they're outside this dimension?" said Chase.

"Oh, right," said Dashi. "I see. Very clever. We're inside one of the glass pieces I found."

"Glass pieces within glass pieces," said Chase. "Why on earth did they bring us here?"

One of the floating glass pieces beside them shimmered, and then said: "No time paradoxes allowed."

"No time paradoxes allowed, indeed," agreed Dashi without missing a beat. "The last thing we need is another time paradox."

"I know that voice," said Chase. Raimundo.

Dashi waited for a bit, hoping the piece would elaborate, but it never did. A different purple piece shimmered into life instead: "Well, well. Look what the cat-nappé dragged in."

"Nope," said Dashi. "Don't get that one at all."

"They're snippets of conversations," said Chase, who knew who Katnappé was, and had recognised this voice too. Kimiko. "Both those people are from my time."

Again, they waited. The next one was instantly recognisable to everyone present.

"The Sands of Time gives you the ability to travel through time. It also makes a great paperweight!"

"Hey..." said Dojo from Dashi's robes. He slithered upwards, coiling himself around Dashi's shoulders. "That was me!"

"Yes," said Chase thoughtfully. "It's very likely you from the same time period, my present. If the Sands of Time reactivated again after centuries of disuse, that is."

"I said the Sands of Time from the future might be doing something," said Dojo proudly.

"Yes, I know," said Dashi. "And I said I wanted to know why it was affecting me - and only me - in the past."

"But it wasn't supposed to be doing anything at all," said Chase. "That wasn't what happened in my timeline. In my timeline it did not activate until at least two weeks later."

"I see, it became active early, then. This is the change in the timeline you were referring to before, the one caused by the Time-error?"

"Yes."

Yet another piece glowed. "The universe is coming to an end."

"That's encouraging," said Dashi. "Someone in your time, besides you, knew about the end of the universe."

"Jack Spicer," Chase said, mildly irritated. Jack was, in his view, the most useless person on the planet, but unlike most people Chase thought were useless, he could actually affect events on a grand scale because of his involvement with the Shen Gong Wu. What did he have to do with anything? Perhaps the question was, what didn't he have to do it? He must have done something with the Shen Gong Wu, most likely the Sands of Time.

"You know him?"

"Yes." The word was all but a sigh.

A glass piece said: "We're stuck in a time loop!" It was Jack again.

"A time loop!" said Dashi excitedly, about to say something more when Jack spoke once more.

"But how is that possible? There's nowhere for the time streams to go, because time doesn't exist after that point..."

"He sounds like he's on the ball," said Dashi.

"You have no idea how far from the truth that is," said Chase. "Please don't go making assumptions that the boy is brilliant. If anything, he's probably the cause of all this."

"He's right about the time streams, Chase. They can't go in a circle if time ends, the end of time itself breaks the circle. There can be no loop, if the end of the universe is the cause of it. It's impossible."

"If I have learned anything about you, it's that you are a genius whiz at making the impossible possible."

Chase stopped himself suddenly. "Wait. The blue dinosaur showed me the end of the universe. I saw everything whirl into nothingness, but I also saw the glass pieces thrown out of the whirling nothingness, like an explosion. Might the end of the universe be throwing them across time and space?"

Dashi thought hard, remembering something he'd thought earlier when he'd been looking in the mirror on the stall, just before he'd met Professor Layton.

The timeline was tampering with the timeline...

It was doing it to itself... Over and over again... That was it, wasn't it?

"I've got an idea now," he said.

"Yes?"

"The glass pieces keep on getting bigger and bigger by themselves. It's because the time loop is causing the pieces to grow larger. The pieces hold segments of the loop within them, segments of space-time. Every time the loop goes round, the pieces get larger."

"Pieces of looped time, within pieces of looped time, within pieces of looped time," said Chase, turning his head to look at one of them. "So... this really is shattered time."

"Yes, I suppose it is," said Dashi, smiling grimly.

"Our universe, broken down into pieces, over and over again." Chase made a scowling face, and Dashi was again surprised by his own reaction: pleased that, with all his powers and age-old wisdom Chase still didn't seem to know what to do about this. Some things were just beyond the scope of Heylin magic. But on the other hand, not many people knew about how to handle time streams. No wonder Chase had come to him for help.

"So," said Dojo, trying to recap, "the Time-error in Infinity reopens, which changes the timeline so that the Sands of Time activates early, which leads events to cause the destruction of the universe, which causes the pieces to go flying every which way, which somehow causes the loop and makes it all happen all over again?"

"That's pretty much the gist of it," said Dashi, "though there's still one vital thing missing."

"What's that?" said Dojo.

"It doesn't explain how the loop is able to sustain itself. The universe should have just collapsed the first time, not form a time loop... Unless..."

"Unless what?" said Chase.

Dashi didn't reply. He stared at the nearest piece, and breathed out deeply, projecting his chi energy. Inside here it was a lot easier to feel what the fragment was, which was probably why the dinosaurs had brought them here. As both Chase and Dojo had described, it was like a Shen Gong Wu, but not a Shen Gong Wu at all. There was that odd electrical force at its centre. He closed his eyes, and felt the energy, not as a full purple, but as a separate red and blue. It was accumulating time, and directing it towards his home world, and if they were all doing that...

The invisible ground shook. For a moment, everything swirled into one undulating mass of nothingness, and then un-swirled into existence again.

"Let's go back," said Dashi. "I think I've cracked it."

"Hmm," said Chase, who had his own suspicions.

Back outside in the purple dimension, the two beasts were grimacing, arcing their necks round, and stomping great feet, taking part in some kind of invisible struggle.

"Trying to... stop the spread of the distortion?" Chase wondered out loud.

A new portal opened, but with a vast amount of effort on both dinosaurs' part. The ground was still shaking, but Dashi and Chase hurried through, where the next world's ground was stable. This time they were on sand, and they could feel the sun's warmth and a gentle breeze, inside an actual world that lived and breathed, instead of within the empty void of an exterior dimension.

The portal closed behind them. Dashi stared at it, wondering if the two dinosaurs would be all right. "I think we're on our own now," he said.

"Think again," said Chase, pointing to two other figures on the beach: an old man with a conch-shaped stick, and a young boy in green, holding a sword.

The boy in green looked positively furious. "Now where the bloody hell did you come from?"

Jack rose back up, this time fully aware of the other presence inhabiting his mind. It was like an uncomfortable heater in a tiny room, giving off emotions instead of heat. It was radiating a powerful, terrible feeling, a strong, burning desire to kill something. And the murderous feeling was being directed towards his mother.

He, or rather his body, was in the study, leaning by the wooden doors that led out to the balcony, on the top floor of his house. His mother - a tall thin figure - was outside on the balcony, painting a still life, a bowl of fruit on a small table next to her. She turned around, taking her attention away from the easel. Usually she was a calm, if severe person, who never really bothered herself with her son's activities, but now her expression was cold; she was annoyed because of the interruption. She still held the paintbrush in her hands.

"Jack? What do you want? If it's money you're after, go ask your father. You know I won't have anything to do with your ridiculous hobby."

Jack tried to stop his hand from rising up - but the energy was coming from the presence, not him, and it flowed through to his hand, making it glow a spectral green. As his hand glowed, an unnatural, manic laughter escaped his lips. It was his voice, but, like the energy, the source of the laughter was from the ghostly presence.

His mother dropped the paintbrush in panic and took a step back, now frightened. "Jack? What are you doing?"

He was powerless to stop himself from aiming. She just stood there, baffled and afraid, and Jack fired. She grunted, buckling a little before righting herself. Turning back up to face Jack, she looked bewildered for a moment.

And then she said: "Jack, what do you want? If it's money you're after, go ask your father. You know I won't have anything to do with your ridiculous hobby."

It was as if the last ten seconds hadn't happened. Both Jack and the ghost presence possessing his body were nonplussed.

Don't you remember what happened? Jack asked, from within his own mind. I just tried to kill you...!

"Don't you remember what happened?" said the ghost, who also wanted to know.

"What are you talking about?" she said shortly, bending down to pick up the paint brush, and looking at the mess of paint on the floor of the balcony with all the disdain that a mother could muster. But when she stood up, her gaze had softened. "Are you feeling okay, Jack? You look... paler than usual."

"I'm fine," said the ghost. "Never mind."

The ghost walked Jack's body out of her study, and then furiously flew through the wall, through the floors, down to Jack's basement. Jack barely had time to register that his body had gone through solid matter without Shen Gong Wu, when a wave of fury came from the other mind. It was so overwhelming, so powerful that for a minute the consciousnesses almost appeared to merge; for a few seconds, Jack was the anger and himself at the same time.

Anger. Fear. Anger. Fear.

- He was angry. He wanted to kill her!

- He was scared! No matter how evil he'd wanted to be, he could never kill his own mother!

- This world was so different. It had different rules. Different limitations. Overshadowing was different here.

- Overshadowing? What the hell was that?

- And it made him angry. Extremely angry. He'd tried to kill all the things in this house, but he couldn't summon enough power to do it! It was so - frustrating. He was itching to make the entire house blow sky high, like an over-pressurized boiler about to burst. Something had to give.

- Something had to give, all right! He wanted this intruder out of his head! He wanted to go back to building robots!

- The anger calmed. There were still things he could do, even with the limited powers he had.

- Her memory had been erased. Wasn't that enough? What more could this bodysnatcher do?

- He'd get the Sands of Time and have his revenge. And then he could do whatever the hell he felt like doing.

- But he needed the Sands of Time...! The universe was going to collapse!

Like oil and water, the thoughts coalesced and both consciousnesses separated.

What... was that? What happened? You're reading my mind?

Jack refrained from saying, "Yep, and there isn't much there," because that would have been a sure fire way of ensuring an early grave. Besides, it would have been a lie. There was plenty to see there, it was just that what you were seeing was the mind of the truly disturbed. Jack really could have done without that brief moment of shared madness.

He had already found out a few things about his captor while being in the sea of memories. The ghost's name was Danny, and contrary to all previous evidence, he'd once been a hero while still alive. At one time a ghost-human hybrid, he had used ghostly powers and risked his life to save his hometown on many occasions.

One day, a terrible accident had killed his family and friends, and, consumed by grief and depression, he'd tragically taken his own life. Unfortunately, the ghosts of Danny's world were a very real and tangible threat, and, whenever they materialised, they tended to fixate on one specific obsession. In death, Danny had become a full-blown ghost that was immensely powerful, capable of destroying entire city blocks without breaking much of a sweat. Stripped of everything that made him human, and with no reason to care any more, he'd immediately set out to wipe out anything in the world that irritated him - which was pretty much everything - and that became his obsession.

In short, Danny's ghost had completely lost it.

He'd gone on to kill countless people, and countless wasn't hyperbole, because Jack had lost count of the number of lives that had been lost in the mass murder. Suffice to say, the Earth of that world lived in fear; Danny had rampaged throughout cities all over for ten long years, armies and conventional weaponry having no effect on something that was already dead.

He destroyed things simply because they were there, but that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was that when Danny's timeline was in danger of changing, so that his family and friends were instead saved from that fateful accident - precluding his transformation into a psychotic monster from the depths of hell - he'd gone back in time in order to kill them all himself, just to make sure he still existed.

You couldn't reason with someone like this. Reason had, in fact, been stabbed in the chest several times and shoved off a cliff by Insanity and best chum Sadism. Reason wasn't coming back. Things that were once important, like family and friends and love, meant nothing to Danny now. The best you could do was hope that the person he'd decided to kill wasn't you.

Jack replied: This mind thing works both ways, apparently. You can see my memories - and I can see yours.

Danny didn't seem to care. It doesn't matter. It won't change anything.

The Xiaolin warriors will find a way to stop you, said Jack, feeling a strange sense of loyalty towards them. They were the good guys, they were supposed to win. They had to win. He had to have faith in them, because at the moment there was nothing he could do.

I'm going to kill the Xiaolin warriors and take the Sands of Time from them.

I'd like to see you try, said Jack, and then Wuya said: "What?"

Both Jack and Danny jumped mentally. Neither of them had even realised she'd been there. She'd floated surreptitiously into the basement, as she often did. Jack felt himself being pushed down as Danny attempted to focus on the outside world and rid himself of the inner distraction again. Jack tried hard to push back, but Danny's control was such that he won over Jack; nonetheless, Jack still remained in the background, refusing to drown in memories this time.

"That sounded unusually evil for you, Jack," said Wuya. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine," said Jack's voice. Jack noted that Danny couldn't quite keep all of his pent-up anger out of it; the tone of voice sounded strained. But to Danny's credit, he managed to make Jack's expression turn into something resembling normal. "I just had a small epiphany. After our little discussion. It came to me in my sleep."

"Really?" Wuya looked both surprised and cautious.

"Yeah. I'm supposed to be evil. Evil boy genius, remember?"

She was still watching him closely. Jack was counting on her natural tendency to be wary to catch Danny out, but Danny was playing the part of Jack Spicer extraordinarily well. No surprise, since he'd seen Jack's memories too.

"Yes," she replied, "but you're a pathetic, whiny evil. No one takes you seriously."

Danny smiled pleasantly in amusement. It was amazing how well he could fake the emotion, because he was anything but pleasant.

"I should do something to change that, then, shouldn't I?"

Wuya paused thoughtfully. "What about the universe?"

"You don't need to worry about the universe. In fact, you don't need to worry about anything at all. I've come up with a brilliant plan."

Again, Jack felt a malicious wave from the ghost inside his head, but this wave didn't carry the intent to kill. The ghost outside his head floated around in a panicked daze, apparently seeing her nemesis Dashi in everything she came across, from one of Jack's Jack-bots, to a spanner on one of the tables, to the stair railings, to Jack himself.

Danny was just playing, Jack realised in horror. This was both ridiculous and scary at the same time. The end of the universe was coming and here was this ghost, actually enjoying seeing another person's discomfort - and yet this was nothing compared to what Danny really wanted to do.

Luckily for Wuya, a Shen Gong Wu became active, and the glow of energy that she usually experienced to signify the activation broke through the illusion. Unluckily for Wuya, this caused her to become extraordinarily confused. If Jack hadn't been afraid before, he was certainly a nervous wreck now. He'd never seen her look so disorientated. She muttered, "The Komori Sword," a few times, before seemingly coming back to reality.

"What... what was I doing?" she said.

"You were saying something about the Komori Sword being in a castle," said Danny, faking mild concern. "And I was just about to tell you about my plan..."

"Ah..." Wuya stared at him, seeming to know something had happened but not able to figure out exactly what.

"What's wrong? Are you all right? What happened?"

"I'm... fine. Yes, yes, I'm fine. What's your plan?"

Ever since Danny had tightened his control and pushed Jack's consciousness further down, Jack had been alone with his thoughts. And, while Danny explained how he wanted to use the Chameleon-bot to collect the Komori Sword, and steal the Shen Gong Wu to Wuya, Jack thought: She doesn't realise anything's wrong. He's fiddled with her memory. We're going to go the temple and try to steal the Sands of Time. He's going to escape. And this universe is going to collapse.

Jack's only hope now was Omi. Would Omi be able to keep a tight enough hold on the Sands of Time? Would Omi realise that Jack was being possessed? It was the kind of thing Omi was good at. But would his tiger instincts and Xiaolin skills be enough?

They would have to be.