A/N: Tajeri Lynn blasts you off to Say Uncle, Chapter 3! All new revelations, all new ideas, and all new excitement, originally made from 3 weeks ago. Mm, hmm, fresh pickings we have today! By the by, if you like this story, check out "Genma Hiryumusha" in the Spleef's site at Spleerz.com
As said before, JCA is really part of Kids WB's roster and owned by JC himself. Currently, I can not own the company if I must take driving school. Going from East L.A. to El Monte gets your heart pumping and your ass aching, believe me on this.
Say Uncle
Chapter 3: Past Times
BRRRMM! BRRRRRRMMMMM!
Jackie Chan feared those noises. His ears picked them up like a hand picked up prickly spurs; very painfully and regrettably. Those sounds came from a blender whirring away at the aforementioned ingredients, rabbit guts, to finding Uncle. Tohru the 600 pound sumo utilized his 2 years' worth of chi magic experience as well as his 10 year cooking experience in unison to blend in what was bound to be a distasteful smoothie. He knew how distasteful it must be. That was why he locked a tiny wooden nose pin on his arrow-shaped proboscis to prevent himself a knock-out whiff of the juice.
Everyone was aware of what Jackie did whenever he was put in charge of managing the magical stuff; he'd try his best to inch his loafers and himself out of the shop. But Jade, Black, Mama Tohru and especially Tohru didn't want to see any of that. The Chan Man was bound to his favorite cedar chair, piles of hairy crude rope binding against his slick extremities, throwing the notion of escape to the winds. Jackie knew this safety measure was nothing apart of crazy; there was his cherished Uncle to rescue....It wasn't like Jackie himself needed any rescuing from anything....unless it was a bad drink that made him green to his stomach. Come to think of it, wasn't that what he was cowering from now?
"Tohru, after you apply the drink to Uncle Jackie, then what?" queried lithesome Jade, who was sitting right in front of a seat's back side.
"Once Jackie has swallowed the entire drink, he'll have to wait half an hour for it to take effect. In the meantime, I have found additional precautions that will help us find sensei." Tohru grabbed a scarlet pouch tied by a golden rope and stuffed to its fullest. "According to the text, you, Black and my mommy will need to dance around and throw this chi powder in the air while I recite a favorite poem of Uncle's."
"You've got to be kidding me," commented a befuddled Jackie between the sumo and the darling niece of Chan's. Jackie looked up in the air, begging who knows what to come down and untie him.
Jade turned back to Tohru. "So what kind of dance will it be, T-Man? The funky chicken? I'd love to do that." On cue, she locked her little knuckles together and kicked her feet to and fro, accidentally knocking a Ming Dynasty china off the edge of a table.
Tohru gingerly caught the pot and made forth his reply. "Any kind of dance will do, Jade. The text wasn't too specific on that. As long as the dances arouse the necessary spirits, you'll do fine." He shoved the 2 grand-commodity in a more central haven on the table, before he reversed direction and stooped low to a three-level bookshelf.
"Need help there, Tohru?" Captain Black sipped a cup of joe while his back was against a wall.
"I can manage. I need to find the appropriate lines to further the power of the spell."
"A chant? That shouldn't be too hard. Doesn't Jackie's Uncle always say 'Goo May Gay Fat Deed Zoo?' "
Jade looked at Tohru in a smugly unhappy manner. "T-Man, maybe we shouldn't let Black dance around. He might turn himself into a frog again."
"Jade!" Black exclaimed, his pride sorely hurt.
Tohru's gentle yet loud steps easily silenced everyone. "I remember Uncle loves poems, often he tries writing some. Perhaps a recitation from one will awaken his chi even further." He rummaged through a vertical stack of books that were a tad dusty and lacking of any labels. Tohru immediately knew these books were of a more private scale.
"Hmm..." he grabbed each book, explaining the title out loud as he reverted them next to his feet. " 'Uncles for Dummies'....'Nephews for Dummies'....'8-Track Tapes: The Future is Here'.... 'Playboy's Girlfriends'?" his eyes expressed miles of confusion.
"Oh, hah hah, sorry," Jackie smiled sheepishly from his chair. "Uncle took that from me after he caught me reading it."
Black opened the mag and looked at it oddly. "Jackie, you actually like nude women in goldfish tanks?"
"Huh?! I never remembered seeing that in my issue."
"Um, uh, never mind, Jackie, that's not what we're trying to find right now," Tohru stuttered as if immediately defending someone. He wistfully snatched the magazine from an already wide-eyed Captain Black, adding, "No time for personals, Mr. Black," of which the Section 13 elite dropped his shoulders and replied with a droopy "Awww."
"This is what I was looking for..." He found a ringed notebook with white cardboard covers, the frontmost reading "Uncle's Favorite Peoms."
"Peoms?" Jackie asked, almost willing to scratch his head were it not for the rope fastening his arms.
"Poems, Chan." Tohru explained. "Your Uncle must've tried his hand at this for some time. Hmm, he actually has one for Jade."
"Really?!" Jade was excited. "What does it say? What does it say?"
The following poem was read and it looked like this....
"He has another one..." Tohru read on.
"Jade,
Good at kung fu,
Bad at school,
Jackie visits my competitor again,
He is fool!"
"Um...I don't get it," Jade replied rather gloomily. "That last part didn't quite get along."
"Well, it is a little bit of Uncle's thoughts," Jackie nodded to hasten Tohru to the process. "If poems help with our magic spell, then they must do."
"Bah, this place stinks like Billy Goat's left a mess everywhere. Here now, green tea, my personal delicacy," Mama Tohru entered in serving porcelain cups for the four adults, though only half of them actually drank such tea before. Of course, they being the Tohrus, no less. "Who'd have ever thought, Jackie? Your Billy Goat actually keeps boxes of green tea in his kitchen. I thought he only ate cans!"
"Um, thank you," Jackie dismissed the final comment gently and released his arms from the chair. He grabbed the cup and almost gulped it down in a single swig when Tohru's massive arm gently fastened to the Chan Man's arm.
"Better not, Jackie. We'll serve you your....uh, smoothie first, and maybe then you can drink your tea."
"Wha-Smoothie?! Oh, of all the names you can come up with!" Jackie bemoaned.
"I guess we know why we needed to tighten you up like this," Black concluded jokily. "You're just as scared of diets like some tabby cats I know."
"Well, Jackie better drink up, better now than never," commented Mama Tohru with a nod. "The sooner Billy Goat returns to his stable, the sooner I give him the cream whipping of a lifetime!"
"Jackie, are you ready?" Tohru walked towards the Chan Man with a smoky smoothie.
"About an hour ago...", Jackie mumbled depressingly as Tohru handed him a plastic cup smelling like a century-old milkshake. Before he could barf out his lunch, Jackie was also handed a wooden nose pin applied not-too snugly on his square sniffer. "Do you have mouth pins too?" Jackie glumly added, despite the bass tone from his sealed nostrils.
Tohru smiled for only a while as he grabbed Uncle's poem book and Mama Tohru, Black and Jade proceeded to the cashier's table to ready the appropriate ceremony.
"Jackie, it is recommended that you drink now. We will follow."
"Oh...Well, Uncle, I'm coming for you," Chan grabbed the cup, chapped his lips up and down in unease, and finally slopped the mess down his throat, butting the sensations of his taste buds far beyond the reaches of the brain. The ploy didn't entirely work to the desired avail, and his gut began rumbling noisily as if dispelling the anomalies to the heap. But Jackie needed to absorb the concoction, if not for his sanity, then his Uncle's.
Uncle....
Uncle......
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It was 1977, the year that a little Asian boy named Jackie Chan got into loads of trouble after school. San Francisco, as was many other cities in America, was going top and bottom for a little movie about intergalactic pilots, a princess with cinnamon-bun buns, and some asthmatic villain who was also a total fashion failure. Jackie Chan hadn't seen the movie yet; too many kids were camping across streets just for one glance at the movie. By this time, it was especially certain. The world of America was preparing for a prospect where technology, man-made objects of electricity, would command all.
It was preparing for a digital future.
But Jackie Chan need not want to prepare for such a future. He was trained by his Uncle to carry on a Chinese tradition, unchanged by centuries of mankind's progress.
The art of butt whup.
But the art of butt whup was not one easily to be bestowed. Uncle told Jackie once that the ability of using a single martial art, or a hybrid thereof, required more than depending on the past. To rely entirely on the past was invitation to falling to the rain of arrows forged by the interests of the future. Little Chan was advised not to let his kung fu tweak at those who may fail to understand, and only use the ancient art when it was absolutely necessary.
Little Chan probably didn't clean his ears right at the time, because he didn't quite get that last part as his Uncle wished him to.
Kids at his school had seen him leap up and over in school, but being impressed by him was beside the point. Chan was a lanky daredevil whose daily grand prize was winning the attention of school bullies who needed to refresh their knuckles on human flesh. No spectator really wanted to join in on the ensuing melee.
As he walked back to Uncle's Rare Finds, Little Chan, skinny-boned and in his favorite blue and tan-yellow hues, hit a snag by a corner.
"Unn! What?" Little Chan pondered around as he had collapsed front first, unable to land his palms and toes on the floor like Uncle had taught him to. His synthetic book bag didn't improve matters any further. Instead, it weighed his back down like a volcanic rock. An extra weight applied to his back, and Little Chan turned around.
"Get up," one of the taller kids said to Little Chan, beckoning the China-Boy's presence with a flapping sooty palm. He also rose a black boot from the small of Chan's back.
Little Chan quietly did as he was told, and while at it, he patted the dust his clothes collected from the asphalt . "Hello, Reese," he spoke shyly. "Something wrong?"
"Tell you what is wrong, China-Chan! Face it; all you martial artists don't belong here. I don't see why we even brought jerks halfway around the world to live here. Climbing around on the playground, eating away at our rep, you make me sick."
"I-I can't help it!" Jackie cried helplessly. "It's what I like to do, I-I don't want to hurt you guys."
"You already did! Can't you see that through your big head? Or perhaps I should bust you one and see if you can see it now!"
"Yeah, Reese, get him good and send him home without a plane!" one of Reese's cronies bellowed.
"Kick his ass and teach him who's better at fighting!" another kid yelled unmercifully.
"Teach him, and I'll have to teach all of you," someone suddenly spoke afar from the circle.
"Hey, who said...Angus!?"
"Aw, naw, it's Angus!"
Reese angrily tightened the cuff of Little Chan's neck as a young boy far taller and thicker than any of them walked up to them. He grew a mohawk of crimson hair down his head, and his emerald eyes were frightening and downright imposing.
Reese tried steadying a sudden awkwardness in his mouth. He rose up Little Chan in front of his right half as a shivering human shield. "Don't you dare bruise me again, Angus! We agreed to it that we not mess with your business."
"But you're hurting Jackie Chan, and he's a friend of mine. So now, you ARE messing with my business. Now what'll I have to do to buy him back?" Angus slowly looked up at the sky in thought, crunching his knuckles to bring out that intimidating sound of a future victim.
Reese sweated, stared at Little Chan, growled audibly and threw him against the unmovable Angus. "You ain't gonna do nothin', cause he's yours. Didn't know he was a friend of yours, really we didn't."
"Remember this, Reese," Angus threatened. "I have a lot more friends than you think."
"Yeah, you sure do. Well, buds, maybe it's about time the ice-cream truck stopped by our neighborhood."
"Uh-huh."
"That's cool."
"And if the driver don't got any strawberry sundaes again, we'll teach HIM a lesson."
"Then let's move out."
The bullies faded off into the hillside street as if it were a horizon.
Angus handed back Little Chan a textbook that had fallen off his loosened bag. Chan held the book tightly and only wished to give Angus his thanks.
"That was nice of you, Angus," he spoke, scratching his head at the tall kid's powerful wordplay. "I didn't know you were my friend either."
"Maybe someday, Jackie," Angus smiled. "Bullies sicken me to my stomach. I swear, one day, I'm going to stop bullies all around the world, and I'm going to make it my job."
"Heh, that's nice, but I prefer something less dangerous, like finding lost treasure all over the world."
"Well, what do you know, another globe-trotter. Who knows, Jackie? Maybe someday, we'll be sharing the same mission."
Jackie nodded multiple times. "I hope so. But for now, it's me and my Uncle teaching me kung fu lessons."
"You? Kung fu lessons? Keep that up, and maybe I'll hire you to be my bodyguard," the tall kid planted a hefty palm on Jackie's shoulder. The Chan Lad momentarily lost his footing, but didn't take the gesture offensively and just went on going.
"Oh, don't be silly, Angus," Jackie spoke as his mud-brown loafers sent him crossing the walkways leading closer to the shop. As he continued, his voice shifted to a domain of urgency. "I do want to use my kung fu to protect people like you do, but...I feel that Uncle needs to be protected first."
"Respect your elders. Heard that before," Angus replied with an air of understanding. He then pointed a wandering Jackie to the correct avenue, one where there were no construction sites, pickpockets or speeding vehicles. "Go this way, Jackie. Your Uncle's about a few blocks from here."
"I know," Jackie looked down at the floor, quietly amusing himself by jumping over the gaps between cement tiles for no real reason but the thrill of a makeshift game. Even as his face pointed downward, his eyes angled to maintain eye contact with the willful redhead. Jackie then expressed a huge, wallowing sigh, as if to concede a bit of honesty. "Sigh....Angus, I'm getting more worried with Uncle."
"Worried with Uncle? Let me guess. His 8-Tracks aren't selling well?"
"No, it's something else. Lately, in the middle of the night, I can hear him talking to somebody he kept calling a chi...master..somebody who knew spells and magic."
"Magic, is it? Okay. Need I tell you that I'm a monkey's uncle?"
"I agree with you, Angus, something's not right with Uncle. I kept asking him about the chi master who kept arriving to his house, and he warned me that I wasn't ready, I wasn't....strong enough. That's why I have to learn this kung fu, Angus. Maybe if I become a little stronger, then Uncle wouldn't have to push me away when he needs my help."
"I-guess that'll work, Jackie. Look, there's your Uncle's shop," Angus frowned abruptly at the entrance. "Jackie, is that smoke coming out of the shop?"
Jackie dropped his books in a deafening thump.
Thump.
Thump.
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Thump.
"Jackie?" Tohru's huge, concerned face covered Jackie's entire viewpoint. His massive feet had thumped their way to check on Jackie's condition.
"Ohhh," Jackie pulled himself out of his work chair and stretched his arms and legs in unkempt directions. As he retracted back into the seat, his half-slit eyes wandered to the sumo, as if forgetting who the giant individual had been. "T-Tohru? What happened to Uncle?"
"Uncle disappeared, Jackie. That was why you had to drink the...uh, milkshake, to find him. You passed out after you drank it all." Tohru realized he still had the poem book under his arm, and so he dropped the dusty text over the cashier's desk. Small clouds of dust fluttered down to the floor. "I found a particular poem about Uncle's days as an 8-Track salesman. Perhaps I may read it to you again."
"Later. Uh...I don't feel much different from the spell. Uhhh," the Chan Man bent a weary shoulder on the chair rest. "I certainly don't feel much happier."
"None of us do, Jackie", Captain Black added in, apparently shuffling through the midpage of the magazine he had started "reading" from a few minutes back. "None of us do. From what Tohru read, the spell won't take effect in two hours." He looked up when the content wasn't getting much hotter. "I've initiated a couple of Section 13 resources to locate your Uncle until then."
"Can't you make this spell go faster?"
"Don't ask me about magic, Jackie. I'm the one who turned myself into a frog."
"I'm sorry, Jackie, but this was the best spell I could find," Tohru explained, suddenly reminded that he had to grab the pouch of the remaining chi powder and store it back to the proper shelf. "Most spells of this kind would take days or years."
"In other words, two hours sound good enough a time to collect all the talismans and use them to find Uncle." Jade hopped into the conversation from the elevated shelf where she accomplished her joyously temporal rest. "So what do you say, Jackie? Let's start getting into the action right now."
"Jade, we are not going to bring the talismans into this," Jackie growled uneasily, for growling wasn't an everyday trait he conditioned himself in. "No one's bringing the talismans except for the Horse. I don't want to hurt Uncle anymore, Jade."
"Uh, we know that, Uncle Jackie...." Jade frowned, drastically taken aback by her uncle's stormy mood... "Don't be angry, Jackie. I'm just trying to help. Uncle means a lot to me, to us, you know."
"So true," Mama Tohru waved a nasty index finger as if Uncle was face-to-face with her right now. She let her feelings be known. "I'll help Billy Goat because there is not enough punching bags around to satisfy me!"
Jackie rose up an index finger and scowled his face in readiness for a full-blown chide, but weariness won over and he dispelled all the gestures to the wind. He merely kept low hints of gloom in him, from the eyebrows barely pointing away from his nose to the constant blinking of his thinned eyes. "I don't need help right now, not until the spell works. I'm getting tired." He unreasonably scratched his knees and the temple of his face while he clambered up the creaky-as-hell stairway. "I think two hours may be good for a sleep. I don't feel like meeting anyone right now."
The 4 others watched the gloomy Chan Man make his exit from the stage that was the main root of Uncle's shop. Black knew Jackie was feeling terrible about Uncle. Staying where the shop was reminded Jackie too much of how Uncle kept everything so colorful for someone so sturdy of age.
Even Black had to admit that that garlic smell was such a sore no-show by now.
A/N: Man, JCA's going at the speed of molasses right now. Or is it just that everyone's got a slow day too? OH well, here you go, my first update in some time. Relax for now. Adios!
To Be Continued.....