A/N: Tajeri Lynn jumps back onto the ring, and grabs the microphone to say that "The Life Before the Party" Chapter XIV is up. We are finally coming to the close, amigos, so keep yourself in your seats as the J-Team take to the limits to show evil what hard-hitting, high-flying adventure is all about.
This fic will be completed much sooner than the other. Since it is my first fic, I am compelled to finish it first. Ain't gonna get a share of that tomato soup in a while. Shame.
"Jackie Chan Adventures" comes live to you at the Toonami Dome from Kids WB and Sony Entertainment Television.
Tables, ladders, chairs, bodies and spirits may have been demolished in the quest to retrieve the Horse Talisman, but the path isn't at its ends just yet…
Chapter XIV: Cognizance B
Sweat beaded on Jackie Chan's face, dribbling down to the cold steel floor where every appendage of his was cinched down by cuffs. Necrosis and Kenzo were taking the swift cargo-holder down to Sri Lanka, a small South Asian country largely unknown to the global public. Jackie would pray that the X-3 Comm had intercepted on their conversation and sent it to Dr. Kepler, but with his hands unable to make contact palm with palm, could his prayer still make miracles?
Jackie's face kept up to Viper, Paco, and El Toro Fuerte, the trio being suspended on the ceiling. Though while he was afraid of losing his friends in this twisted plot, the archaeologist did fear for his life more, if not because his friends were right above him, with a high risk of squashing him flat into a paper doll, should they release their iron bounds.
"You alright there, Jackie?" came Viper's voice.
"As long as you stay there, I'll be alright," replied Jackie shakily, hoping he had not implied any selfish remarks.
"We can not just stay here, amigos!" addressed Paco impatiently, though not indignantly, "We are the J-Team, are we not? Don't you know what the 'J' stands for?"
"Let me guess," said Viper. "Jack, as in 'jacked up'?"
"Viper!" came the voice of an annoyed and subsequently anxious Jackie.
"But Jackie," El Toro spoke up. "Senorita Viper is correct, much as I highly admire Paco. Tied by these steel snakes, we have nowhere to go. How can we not be sure that this is the end?"
"The end? How can you say that? You are El Toro Fuerte. You're not supposed to be afraid of anything!" Jackie bellowed, desperately raising the peak of his face so as to elucidate his voice.
"I may be as strong as an ox, Jackie, but like an ox, I am not unbeatable," replied El Toro, the eyes of his masked face shut in solemn solicitude.
"Same goes for a viper," added the ex-thief quietly.
"Everyone, please calm down. You don't have to lose yourself!" Paco stated in a disconcerting tone. "As I was about to say, the J stands for, uh….oh, I forgot. What else starts out with J?"
"Jammed, which is also true of our current situation," muttered Viper. "Or how about Jade? You love making twenty-questions out of her since you and her broke up."
"There you go, again! Acting all sad because we had a chance to escape and we lost it. Can't we realize we've got dreams to help us when we need it?"
"Like what kinds of dreams could help us now?" said Viper.
Jackie slapped his face with realization. "The party! How could I forget?"
"Party?" Viper queried.
"Si, senorita, the J-team annual celebration!" beamed Paco. "Maybe tomorrow, we will have saved the world for one year! I'm sure it will be a nice little jubilation. Wait a minute! I said jubilation, and that begins with J! We're the Jubilation Team!"
"I don't know. Does that word begin with a J?"
"Viper, of course it begins with a J!" chuckled Jackie in astonishment. Viper paused without reply. Jackie's chuckles decreased, and his face suddenly hardened. "What's wrong, Viper? You're not one for the party, are you?"
"It's not that, it's…what we're primarily living for. I mean, back when I was the great super thief (gosh that felt so good), I was making headlines all over for my wily schemes, and I had a huge faction always around to tug at me with pride. But being part of this J-Team, there's nothing like that. No headlines glorify me, no faction wants me. It's just too hard on me, having the ex in 'ex-thief', no matter how much you say that's the right thing."
"Viper", smiled Jackie. "there are people who still want you, and that is us. Every one of us has had rights and wrongs, and we've allowed you to know that. Friends aren't just there to talk about the good things, and I think you may know that more than any of us."
"How are you so sure?"
"You just said those things, about what troubled you. If you didn't see us as friends, then you would feel we wouldn't care for headlines or fractions, but you did."
"Factions, Jackie, not fractions," corrected Viper.
"You see, Viper? You really do understand us, much as we want to understand you. It's okay to feel bad when things are bad, and it's okay to feel good even then, but as long as we know each other, we can keep our dream alive. And that dream, for right now, is jubilation, the J of our J-Team."
"Very well said, Senor," sobbed the moved El Toro Fuerte, "But I am ruining my mask here!" He sobbed in hulking gulps, while Paco and Viper stared inquisitively at the luchadore's emotions.
"Hmm," pondered Jackie. "I didn't know I was good at sad stories."
"Don't worry, Jackie", added Viper in bemused observance. "El Toro's just getting his jubilation on, and your story's not sad, it's the other way around. As for me, I'm going to keep my jubilation for the party. Cross my heart."
"Yup!" proclaimed Paco, eagerly trying to free a hand to signal triumph. "We are the Jubilation Team. Nothing will stop us! So let's jubilate to make an escape plan!"
Jackie frowned. "Escape plan? For what?"
"Ahh!" Paco's eyes relinquished to a limp state. "Why did we speak so much about the vista when we should've talked about the house?"
The circular safe door clanged open and screeched eerily as Kenzo, Necrosis and ten gunmen emerged from the shadows into the safe.
"We are here, and the Higher Order awaits us", explained Necrosis as he waved a heavy revolver. He turned to the gathering of underlings. "Get the technology delivered to the underground caverns. As for them, bound them up. Should any escape, let them be. They will not last long in the jungle."
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Jackie, El Toro Fuerte, Viper, and Paco concentrated their views on the exotic world that enveloped them, while soldiers encircled at them seemingly like dogs surrounding helpless sheep. The unnamed island near Sri Lanka couldn't disappoint any aesthetics in search of beauty. Rare ancient ferns sprouted everywhere they were allowed to pace. Seeming to loom above them, timbers stood up and dwarfed the inhabiting animals and plants that thrived on their primary reservoir for life-assuring oxygen. And then, there were the stratus clouds, many of which came close to touching the ground, giving the atmosphere blankets of thick, temperate fog. So that's why Jackie couldn't just evade from the men of the Higher Order; the climate was definitely not in favor of his martial arts expertise. Strength would not be practical without a sense of sight.
"Perfect sanctuary for a Higher Order, do you not think so, Chan?" Dr. Necrosis cocked his face to Jackie's quiet form. "No advanced state has kept surveillance on this island. And if you don't think the clouds will test your composure, the rain will. I do admit Island N/A isn't fully to my liking; too humid, I say. But no need to mind soon enough. I will have my wish fulfilled, and you will have a painless death. Either way, none of us will actually be staying here."
Necrosis halted the circle of people behind him as they stood on a dense surface, noticeably too hard to be mere mud or dirt. With that, the surface dove down into darkness. Jackie and his stalwart friends watched as the foliage once surrounding them began to converge and lock the rims of the hidden entryway altogether. They saw, too, that the foliage was being supported under steel plates and rods pushing onto one another.
The domain of the Higher Order was an unprecedented acrylic dome, housing monstrous legions of sooty black, listless machinery and sparking azure coils connecting the machinery together like a dazzling nest of technology. Sprouting amongst them were shadowy rotund surfaces for the onlookers to walk upon, since there too lied several pits that gaped further into nothingness over the centuries they had laid underground. High above, rows of fluorescent bulbs showered the domain with uneasy brightness. To think this was the domain of some dark power, and yet there was radiance to be had.
"You could observe how precise my cohorts are at arranging the necessary tools for the Horse Talisman," prodded Necrosis.
"Why all this?" asked Jackie in astonishment at the ridiculous excess before him.
"I'm glad you asked. Our Higher Order had already reaped access to the talisman, but alone, it only helped him temporarily. With these contraptions, I will raise the talisman's power multi-fold, and ensure his stability is complete, if not improved."
Kenzo squinted at a red flash on his strapped fist, turned away from the J-Team, and muttered. "Yes? What? But in his condition……….If he wants, but DON'T blame me for anything!" He dropped his hand and glared at Necrosis. "Guess what? The Higher 'Odor' wants a little mano a mano with Jackie Chan. He is to appear where he always has."
"Then we must take Jackie there. Perhaps his friends should also be granted the opportunity to meet their destroyer, right before they meet their maker. Such cruel irony…I love it."
Suddenly, swarms of the Higher Order's cloaked brigade rushed out of every door, momentarily leaving behind their labors on the technology, in expectation of their master's meaningful words. They lined up on man-made terraces delicately curving down to a minute hatch centering the 4 terraces. A dome of like material too encircled this hatch, but it was reasonable that this Higher Order most likely was approaching the ends of his days, and could be supersensitive to any extreme stimuli.
The guards pushed the massive butts of their rifles onto El Toro, Viper and Paco, pressuring them to sit in the foremost row of the nearest terrace. Jackie, however, felt his knuckles constrained back cruelly under tight, thin wires that could amputate the precious appendages should he attempt to free himself by exerting defiant strain. Kenzo then gave a swift cheap shot with a kick to the small of Jackie's back, sending the archaeologist pathetically teetering towards the dome he aversely knelt to. He was about to stand straight when he heard Necrosis following him, uneasily shaking the revolver, the five shells all ready to obliterate his life. Jackie's ears also caught the resonance of knees dropped to the floor in unison, the knees most certainly belonging to the Order's disciples. Jackie dropped both knees in compliance, and the shaking of Necrosis' revolver had paused.
"All before you, bow to the Higher Order of this despicable world!" roared Necrosis in the loudest tone the middle-aged doctor could exude.
With that, the minute hatch unveiled a table with a crumpled sphere lying motionlessly on the smooth plane.
"That is not the coated man!" complained Paco, before a guard raised his rifle to pacify him.
"Oh my gosh, that IS HIM," spoke Viper with her eyes wide like never in her years.
Jackie gazed curiously at the sphere, until it shivered, and began opening ever crease, every fold that compacted it.
"What is this?" Jackie pondered, in disgust that this thing could've been the Higher Order.
And as it was unfolding, the sphere seemed to articulate these muddled words. "This….Is…The end….Chan…Jackie….Chan!"
To Be Continued…