"Hey guys, I think I found it..!" called Raimundo, lowering the shen gong wu scroll to confirm the match. His four friends hurried over to the cobblestone wall to see. One stone stood out, pale, smooth and white among the gray. Dojo, their dragon of transport and compass, currently in the smaller of his two sizes, wobbled fiercely upon his approach.
"W-w-w-br-h-huh-oh yeah, that's it alright..!" he told them, "The Shui Jiao Pillow! I knew it was in Ireland."
Kimiko crouched and knocked on the white stone. It was quite solid. "That's a pillow?"
Scratching at the uncomfortable scale-colored lumps that covered his body, Dojo retorted, "Hey, we didn't exactly have goose down and satin readily available in ancient China, okay? Believe me, it's a lot more comfortable than it looks. It puts your enemies into a deep sleep, after all, remember? Now hurry up and grab it before I scratch all my scales off!" He rolled desperately against the dirt road they stood beside.
"Yes, enough with the chit-chattering!" input the successfully-rescued Omi, stepping up to the embedded object. "We must still acquire this shen gong wu before any evildoers get the chance." He yanked at the thing, but it stayed fast. He tugged in vain from several angles and even tried biting it before letting out a defeated sigh.
"It is no use," he groused, "This shen gong wu is most definitely stuck."
Clay tipped his hat politely, saying, "Um, pardon me, Omi, but...Earth!" He gave a quick stomp, sending the ground shaking. A small crack traveled to the wall and rent it, freeing the pillow and sending it into the air. It flipped its way to a settled position on Omi's head.
Exclamation points could have flown from Omi's head. Sweating embarrassed, he chuckled, "Or...perhaps not, for a team containing the Dragon of Earth."
"Well, rock manipulatin' is kind of in the job description," Clay smirked while the others laughed at Omi's forgetfulness.
"Yeah, well so is being total losers!" a taunting voice cut in suddenly. The group looked up to the sound of whirling blades to find none other than Jack Spicer descending upon them with the usual array of robots.
"Jack Spicer?" questioned Raimundo as he and his friends took fighting stances, "So you're still goin' after wu?"
"Yoink!" Jack sneered, swooping down and grabbing the pillow from Omi's head, "Does that answer your question?"
Omi jumped for it, but missed. "Jack Spicer," he warned, pointing, "Return the Shui Jiao Pillow at once, or you will suffer yet another of many humiliating defeats!"
"Hey, hey, there haven't been that many..!" defended Jack.
The monks stared at him flatly.
"Whatever," the hovering boy passed off, "You want it, come and get it, blah blah blah." He snapped his fingers. "Archerbots, attack!"
The swarm of fifty or so accompanying robots moved forward into a block formation, taking arrows from their backs and notching them into arms that were permanent bows. Jack watched in anticipation as they launched their first volley.
The monks split up while Dojo let out a high-pitched scream and fled for cover behind the nearest tree.
Landing from the leap he'd taken, Raimundo scoffed. "Pff! Only robots? We don't even need wu to beat those...Wudai Star Wind!"
He clapped his hands. A huge gust of wind kicked up around him, deflecting the arrows that had been shot in his direction. Next, Raimundo was lifted off the ground and flipped over his attackers. They were sucked into the column of swirling air that surrounded the young warrior and ground against each other until they were nothing but sparking remains. These scattered to the ground as Raimundo finished his grand flip and blew on his fingernails in boredom.
A few feet away, Kimiko dealt with her own chunk of Jack's robots. "Seriously, Jack, your stupid robots are so one-note," was her taunt. "Wudai Mars Fire!"
Arrows approaching her burned to nothing in the sudden ball of fiery snakes that now surrounded the girl endlessly flipping in place. Unrelenting, the robots swarmed in close. Kimiko responded by flipping into a handstand and kicking a flaming foot into each of them. The robots all paused, almost in stun as bare wires buzzed through the holes punched in their chests, before collapsing in a useless heap.
Clay's group of robots tried for the surround-and-subdue method. They loaded up and prepared to fire, but Clay only smirked before shouting, "Wudai Crater Earth!"
The launched volley of projectiles met with four solid walls of dirt that had risen to completely surround Clay. There was a brief pause before the walls then exploded outward, catching a number of robots each and slamming down flat again, successfully burying every opponent and turning them into metal pancakes in unison. Clay dusted his hands proudly.
Lastly, Omi dealt with his collection of enemies by flipping into the air and hopping onto their heads. As he jumped from one to the other, the ones in pursuit would end up shooting their fellow robot in the head. Omi's goal was to reach the by now rather nervous Jack, and he called as he went, "Jack Spicer! Hangouts or not, you will return that shen gong wu at once, or suffer the consequences..!"
"Uh...never!" Jack responded, and decided now was a good time to depart. He turned and flew away as quickly as he could.
"Very well. Do not say you were not warned! Wudai Neptune Water!" Omi was launched off of the last robot's head, which was obliterated in the blast of water erupting from the boy's legs, and catapulted after Jack. He collided with Jack's midsection and immediately clutched to the coat under his fingers. A rush of water caught up with Omi and drenched the pair in a heavy shower.
Knocked off course by both Omi's cannonball attack and the sudden, blinding gush of water, Jack spiraled groundward. His helibot had been shorted and was barely working, especially not with the added weight of Omi trying to bring him down. In mere moments, the both of them were back on Earth, Omi letting Jack skid to a halt on his butt while he snatched the Shui Jiao Pillow and made a more graceful, flipping dismount.
Omi's peers cheered around him as the small warrior held his prize aloft in victory. Jack spit out an unimpressed stream of water. From behind a tree next to the stone wall, Dojo's head emerged. "I-Is it safe..?"
"Yup," Clay told him, "Ah'd say Spicer's about as done as an overcooked steak. As usual." The warriors shared a chuckle as Dojo rejoined them. All but Omi, that was.
He was looking grimly at the sodden evil boy genius as he sulked in silence, seated in a small puddle. He was refusing to look in their direction.
Hearing Omi approach and stop a few steps behind him, Jack only hunched harder. "Go away..!" Was the yellow boy a magnet now or something?
"I sense your heart was not in that battle," Omi noted.
"Your point?"
"I believe you already know."
The other monks and Dojo had taken note themselves of Omi's approach towards their fallen enemy. The group shared a round of debating expressions, before Raimundo took the unspoken atmosphere to heart and walked over to stop only a few steps in turn behind Omi.
"Hey, um..." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I know we just kicked your butt and all but...like...I know Omi's been set on letting you join us since forever, and well...if you really want to...you know...I guess we could try again. If he's that into it, I'm thinking we should trust his judgement. So..."
This got Jack's head to whip around as he stared at Raimundo. "You too now? Is Cue Ball brainwashing everybody? You know you can't trust me. I've proven that time enough. I'm just not a good guy! We all know how well that whole switching sides thing's worked before, so I think we're all better off just staying where we are."
Raimundo almost understood where Omi was coming from about the other boy with those snappy remarks. Those sounded like fearful words. Though, as someone who'd had issues with loyalty to a side himself, he almost understood where Jack was coming from too.
Omi beamed with gratitude as his Brazilian friend took the initiative to voice support of his coaxing. Turning to the boy on the ground, Omi stated, "You may still not believe me, but I see a light inside you, Jack Spicer."
"Please...just a couple hours ago your friends were jumping down my throat thinking I'd kidnapped you! I don't have no stinkin' light! What's your real angle?" Jack shot the most exaggerated suspicious squint at the monks.
Raimundo coughed lightly into his fist. "Our bad...though mostly that was Kimiko...anger issues."
"Hey!" Kimiko bristled as their leader deflected blame onto her.
"See what I mean?" Raimundo quipped with a shrug, meanwhile Kimiko growled and steamed, trying to refuse letting the brunette get her goat.
Jack only scanned the others in scrutiny, not believing anyone but the ultimate goody-goody Omi could actually buy into this nonsense. Especially not after they'd all just demonstrated they were perfectly fine continuing to fight one another.
Seeing that his attempt to lighten the mood was going nowhere, Raimundo figured he could put in one more show of good faith. He wasn't as gung ho about Jack's supposed inner good as Omi, but he'd meant what he'd said about trusting the short one's judgement. "Well, uh..." he offered, "Anyway. Here's something to think on, I guess. Wind!"
Performing a spinning kick in place, the tanned boy summoned his element and guided it towards Jack, but instead of harming him, this time all the air did was give him a speedy blow dry. Blinking, the goth boy watched as his helibot extended its blades and started up, once more functional.
Offering a cheesy grin, wink and thumb up, Raimundo pitched, "All this and more, special chi team support found only on the Xiaolin side~!"
Omi laughed in delight, looking back at Jack as though certain this would sway him.
Jack just looked blank. "I...uhm." He didn't know what to think at this point. He was assured a future as an evil dictator, but Omi wanted to hang out with him. Chase Young respected him enough to want to kill him, but the other monks were supporting Omi's crazy theory. He was feared by other villains and the Xiaolin Dragons were still going to fight him, but they were also going to make friendly quips and patch him up?
In silence, Jack kicked off the ground and folded his arms, turning away and flying off.
"Well, I tried," Raimundo gave an open shrug while Omi sagged at this disappointing anticlimax. "Least we got the wu."
"I appreciate your effort," the stout monk offered, "It will only make my point easier to make with the support of the friends I already have."
"Time to mosey on back to the homestead?" Clay figured in that case, Dojo taking his cue and enlarging himself into a twenty-foot flying serpent.
As the monks hopped aboard, however, the sound of whirring blades met their ears once more and they looked up to find Jack returning, arms still folded and brow still grumpy, but he met their questioning stares with words.
"Hey...the Moby Morpher...you guys are taking special care of it, right?"
The four exchanged surprised looks.
"You mean...more special than keeping it in the vault?" Raimundo asked.
"Uh...yeah?" Jack replied sarcastically, "You guys know Hannibal Bean's been staking your place out ever since you stole it off me during my post-showdown nap, right?"
Here the monks had to hold their tongues, as Jack had not actually won that showdown, but they'd orchestrated the events to make it look like he had, and the shen gong wu from the showdown in question were rightfully the monks'. They let Jack continue.
"I've spotted him during my own stakeouts planning my next vault raid. And I've been building a device to catch him. I was going to plant it myself, but if you're dumb enough to leave the wu of choice for the only villain on Chase Young's level basically out in the open, I figure maybe you better know about it."
"Watch it there, feller..." Clay warned, finding Jack's insults treading a little close to the line of unfriendly.
"Easy, cowboy," Jack tossed back, "Anyway, it needs the Sphere of Yun to work, and I was gonna steal that too, but if I give you guys the device, do you think you can handle it? Oh, and afterwards, you need to send the whole thing back into the Yin Yang World with one of the Yo-Yos. Just one." A finger was held out for emphasis.
Omi scratched his head. "This device sounds most complicated." Suddenly he gasped with joy, and his cheeks pinched as he giggled. "Seeecret elaborate plaaan~?"
The others all avoided looking at him for a moment. The smallest monk got way too excited about being sneaky, and in this particular case he was taking a chance to live out a plan from the past that had never actually existed.
"Right..." Jack trailed, "You know what? Never mind. I'll just stop by at some point. Do it myself. Just watch your wu. You've been warned!" With that, he felt like he'd gotten that obnoxious lump of needing to return the favor out of his throat and turned to speed off into the distance for real.
Dojo cut in here. "Okay, I'll be the first to say it: you kids need a flow chart or something for your truces because I am lost!"
"Do not worry, Dojo," Omi smiled to the dragon lifting into the air as the group headed in the opposite direction of the black speck fading into the distance, "I believe we have just made the first steps towards a much more permanent alliance."