Jack Spicer rubbed his hands with malicious glee as his Capture-bot arrived with the goods. Dojo was his ace in the hole. In case the Xiaolin dragons decided not to show, he would reveal his hostage.
"But first – evil theme song time!" Jack snapped his fingers and summoned three Jack-bots with boom-boxes in their chests. They began playing a really loud death metal song while Jack bobbing his head out-of-tune with the music. "'cause they call me JACK SPICER, evil boy genius! 'cause I am…JACK SPICER! Evil boy genius…and the dark prince of the universe!"
"What are you doing?" Wuya demanded.
"I'm jammin'!" Jack said, doing the robot.
Wuya gritted her intangible teeth. "You should be practicing your battle skills. I don't want to see another embarrassment to the Heylin like what you did in that showdown for the Mokkou Feather."
She floated through Jack's head and went into his vault. "You see!" She shrieked after a few minutes. "You only have two Shen Gong Wu! That is a disgrace!"
Jack responded by turning up the music.
Wuya responded to that by floating into Jack's head. He tried to ignore it but the cool, creepy clammy sensation was too much for him.
"Okay, okay!" Jack muttered, shutting off the Jack-bots. "I'll have you know that, if—when my plan succeeds, we'll have all the tea in China and all the Shen Gong Wu!"
"Oh?" Wuya replied incredulously. "And how might that be?"
Jack smirked. "You're just going to have to wait and find out!"
Life at the Xiaolin temple had quickly returned to normal. Master Fung was beginning his exhaustive course on fighting and defeating the dragons' greatest nemesis, the diabolical Chase Young.
"Today we will be learning a new Xiaolin technique." Master Fung said as the dragons convened in the courtyard. "We will be attempting to master the art of Ki Lightning. It is easy to summon, but difficult to control. You will require no Shen Gong Wu for this activity. Only your utmost focus and dedication will be necessary."
Master Fung asked them to watch as he demonstrated the proper technique for his attack. He slid into an almost relaxed stance and shifted all his body weight on his back leg. He then locked eyes on a practice dummy and began moving his arms back and forth past his left side. As he did so, pale blue sparks began to trail from his shoulder blades, spiraling around and around until they reached the tip of his fingers.
The brightness of the sparks made it hard to look at it, and the Xiaolin dragons were pretty unnerved by the unearthly humming that was coming from Master Fung's lightning.
With one sharp thrust, Master Fung sent a bolt of lightning arcing from the palms of his hands. It soared through the air, striking the practice dummy. Smoke began erupting from it as it was set ablaze. Then, it exploded, sending straw flying everywhere.
"Whoa." Kim said.
"You said it." Clay said, raising the brim of his ten-gallon hat.
"You will all learn to manipulate energies as strong as that." Master Fung said. "But first, you must learn proper form. Begin!"
Kimiko and Raimundo were fairly certain that they would be able to master Ki Lightning much more easily than Omi and Clay. After all, lightning fell under the domain of fire and the air.
"Ha!" The monks cried in unison. Nary had a spark jumped from their palms.
"It is not working, Master Fung." Omi complained.
"You must have more patience, Omi." Master Fung chided. "The power of Ki Lightning is great, but it requires focus and patience to use. Try it again."
They did so quickly, and were even more disappointed when they couldn't see any sparks.
Master Fung told them to keep practicing for an hour until sunset. Then he left, giving the Xiaolin dragons an opportunity to talk.
"Has anyone seen Dojo?" Kimiko asked.
"Dojo?" Clay replied. "Oh, he's messing around in the kitchen. I wouldn't go after him; he's in an ornery mood."
"I was in the kitchen like 10 minutes ago, and he wasn't there." Kimiko said.
"I am sure that this is all minor tubers." Omi said.
"Small potatoes." Raimundo corrected.
"That makes no sense!" Omi retorted, and Raimundo groaned.
"I sure hope that he hasn't been dragon-napped or something." Kimiko said. "It would be just like that Jack Spicer to do something like that."
Just then, another parcel came whistling from the sky. The dragons looked up just in time to get away as the Jack-bot carrying it zoomed up and out of sight.
"What is it now?" Clay demanded as he walked over to the parcel. He tore it open only to find another recording like the one Jack Spicer had sent earlier that morning.
"In case you losers haven't realized, I have your dragon." Jack said.
"No-good varmint!" Clay snapped.
"Yeah, I'm a varmint." Jack said, running his hands through his hair. "The varmint whose got your gecko! And if you don't show up for the court trial anymore, he's gonna be gone!"
"Gone?" Omi asked, a little obtusely. "Gone how?"
"He'll be gone! He'll be a stiff, bereft of life! If you don't nail him up he'll be pushing up daisies! He'll ring down the curtains and join the choir invisible! He'll be an ex-gecko…unless you show up and play my game!" Jack snickered and help up a cage containing a rather discomfited dragon.
"Hi, guys." Dojo said, waving sheepishly. "I don't want to put any pressure on you…but you HAVE TO COME SAVE ME! Please please PLEASE!"
"Toodles." Jack said, and the machine went dead.
Before it self-destructed, Clay gave it a swift karate chop and smashed it to pieces.
"I guess we don't have a choice any more." Clay said. "We're going to have to go to the trial."
"I'll call my dad, Toshiro Tohomiko. Maybe he'd let us borrow one of his army of lawyers." Kimiko said, pulling out her cell phone.
Raimundo had a different idea. "I can't believe that you guys are going to go along with this so easily! We should be raiding Spicer and saving Dojo right now. I mean, it's not like his stupid Jack-bots are any match for us."
"No." Omi said. "We have to do this delicately. We do not want Dojo to be hurt because of any mistakes."
Raimundo rolled his eyes. "Whatever, guys. I'll…I'll be in my room."
As soon as he was gone, Clay said, "He's not going to be in his room, is he?"
"Of course not." Kimiko said. "I know Raimundo, and I know when he's lying. We better go stop him from doing something silly."
"Agreed." Omi said, and they went back into the temple.
