Omicron (2)

"Guys, Omi's missing!" shouted Kimiko.

They wandered around the temple for their little monk friend, trying to find him. After a few minutes of searching, Raimundo checked Omi's room once more.

"Aha," he whispered.

He had overlooked a small piece of paper on Omi's pillow; it had blended in almost perfectly. The Shoku general looked at the piece of paper, and read what it said, it was a note.

Dear friends; I have gone to the forest near that graveyard. I decided that I would to see what my past was, and who my parents really are. Do not fear friends, for I shall be back by morning. I am most excited to tell you all about by family!

Omi hadn't kept his word; this was well into the morning, almost twelve. Raimundo ran to tell the others.

"Hey, some of the Wu is missing," called Clay.

"At least he took his Wudai weapon," added Kimiko.

Raimundo came into the vault with the others.

"Guys, we need to get to that forest! Omi could be in danger!" he shouted.

They all came to the courtyard, the four original Xiaolin members hopped aboard the Silver Manta Ray, while Sheila hopped onto the back of Proto. The Manta flew ahead while the robot and wood dragon followed.

They soon landed in the graveyard, where they located the Wu-Do Doll. The four original members deactivated the Manta Ray while Sheila and Proto looked around.

"We have to go in that forest? It looks really creepy!" whispered Sheila, holding hands with Proto.

"You are secure with me," droned Proto.

They walked with Raimundo, Dojo, Clay and Kimiko into the forest. It was still daytime, but knowing their friend was missing made the forest more sinister. Sheila kept close to Proto while Raimundo kept close to Kimiko, they still knew of potential dangers.

"This is the clearing that Omi found these two strangers, I suppose this is the place he disappeared," Kimiko said.

They searched the clearing, other than the large rock and the leaves, there was nothing particularly interesting. Proto, however, seemed to be following some sort of trail.

"Someone has been here recently," he said.

Sheila ran up to Proto.

"Yeah, you have super vision, you can see footprints and DNA!" she exclaimed.

"That's handy," Raimundo said.

Proto looked at the tracks.

"What do you see?" Clay questioned.

Proto processed the information.

"Omi's small footprints stop about here, there is another set of footprints that belonged to someone with large feet. The large footed person stopped briefly, but carried on walking in Omi's direction, this is where Omi's footprints stopped. Before they stopped, Omi must have rotated 180 degrees. He must have been picked up by the large footed person, and that person carried him onwards," explained Proto.

The silver robot followed the invisible large footprints onwards, he then stopped.

"The large footprints end here," he concluded.

Raimundo walked over to him, the wind warrior tried to see where the large person could have gone, but couldn't see anything.

"Maybe the big guy vanished, because he was an alien!" said Raimundo.

"Negative. There is an opening," Proto said, bending down.

He brushed away some of the dirt and the leaves, there was a fine line. Proto stuck his finger into the line and followed it along, it made a complete square, about ten by ten feet.

"Look out!" exclaimed Kimiko.

Proto and Raimundo jumped backwards, the square of earth began to lift into the air. There was now a floating square, levitating over a hole of the same shape. The hole was shallow enough to fit a small door into one of the walls, there were steps leading down to it.

"Whoa…" gasped Raimundo.

"Crikey…" Sheila gasped.

Kimiko ran down the steps, she tried to open and knock on the door. It didn't open, or make a sound when she knocked it. Proto tried to open the door, not even his gadgetry could make it unlock.

"It needs a code," Proto said, spotting a tiny console on the left wall.

"Not even we can crack that," sighed Kimiko.

An idea came into Proto's electronic mind.

"We can ask father," he droned.

"You mean Jack? Proto, he may be your father, but that guy is the antagonist!" Sheila said.

Proto looked at her with his soft glowing blue eyes.

"I know, my father does not love me. But he may be the only person capable of cracking such a lock," he murmured.

Sheila looked unsure, but she nodded.

"He's right. We need to explain that we need his help," she said to the rest.

"Or else," added Kimiko.

Meanwhile, at Jack's lab, Jack was working on the ultimate weapon; a juicer that would make a mean berry smoothy. He was disturbed by a knock on his door, which his computer warned him about.

"Come in, the basement's downstairs," he moaned.

He was suddenly shocked to see the four warriors, their daemon and his former robot. He stepped back, about to call his Sentaibots.

"Dude, we need your help. Omi went missing, and we need you to unlock the door he's behind!" Raimundo explained.

Jack relaxed a little.

"Okay, since there's no new Wu activated, I'll come with you," he said.

They soon came to the forest clearing, Proto caused the square to levitate up into the air once more. Jack didn't seem too shocked about it all, and casually walked down the steps.

"Right, how to get this thing to work…aha!" he exclaimed.

He got out a tiny robot beetle, this he would use to pick the lock. The beetle buried its legs into the console, accessing the code. Everyone applauded once the door was opened.

"Okay, time to rescue cue ball!" Raimundo cheered.

"Time for me to get outta here," whispered Jack.

Before he could get out, he was pushed inwards by a stampede of Omi's friends. Once they were all in, the door mysteriously closed and locked itself.

"Great!" growled Jack.

"Oops, sorry about that," Kimiko said.

There was now a total of seven people in the dark, cramped corridor. They needed to walk through in single file, Raimundo was leading while Jack was behind.

"Man, once we get out, I'm going to start work on the most unpleasant plan I can think of. All I need is a penguin…" thought Jack.

Kimiko looked about the room, she was happy that the corridor was lit by Proto and Jack's lights. The walls were flat and silver metal, it seemed like everything was like that. Finally, they came to a large circular room. They noticed that there were four tanks around the room, they were metal with small circular windows on the front. Kimiko walked up to one of the tanks and looked inside the window, there was nothing inside, except green fluid. On the door of the capsule was a plaque with the word 'Alpha' engraved on it. The capsule next to that was exactly the same, but named 'Beta'. The other two tanks were named 'Gamma' and 'Delta'. Kimiko gave a closer inspection of the tank named 'Delta', she peered into the window and shouted.

"What?" said Raimundo, shocked.

"A skeleton…" gasped Kimiko.

Clay looked around cautiously; he knew that there was something extremely sinister about this place.

"Let's keep moving, the sooner we find cheese ball the better!" Jack moaned.

They continued into another room, the next room was exactly the same. There were still four tanks, 'Epsilon', 'Zeta', 'Eta' and 'Theta'. Jack had noticed that they were all names of Greek letters, and the 'Epsilon' tank had its door open. Kimiko peered into another window, she shouted again.

"Kimiko, if there are scary things in the tanks, don't look in!" Raimundo said.

Raimundo looked into the tank himself and gagged, inside was a deformed being. He stumbled away slowly. Proto looked into the tank too, he studied it carefully.

"The creature is alive still, scanners indicate that it is a human," he droned.

Proto then rotated his head 360 degrees to survey the room.

"The two other tanks contain deformed humans too," Proto continued.

They suddenly heard a loud scream; they recognised that it was Omi immediately. They ran as fast as they could, through many identical rooms. They finally came to a larger room, with a bus sized metal bean in the centre. Omi, Epsilon, Lamda and two men were standing around it.

"Who are you?" asked Raimundo.

The two men were both scientists, one of them was large, and carried an axe. The second man was short and skinny; he had spectacles and long black hair.

"We are merely the disciples of Mopen-Sidjin, the god from the beyond!" laughed the skinny scientist.

"What are your names?" snapped Raimundo.

"I am Prof. Reinhardt, this is Prof. Blitzen. I am the creator of the mouths of Mopen-Sidjin, the three children you see before you, and the creatures in the tanks," explained Reinhardt.

Raimundo and Clay stepped forwards.

"Explain yourselves! Who in tar nation is this god of yours?" asked Clay, raising his fists.

"Leave our friend alone," added Raimundo.

Reinhardt laughed loudly.

"Very well; I shall explain."