"It's not a bad idea to occasionally spend a little time thinking about things you take for granted. Plain everyday things." -Evan Davis

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That night, his duvet half kicked off his body, clinging to a teddy bear and drooling a little, Jack dreamt of the last day of freedom he had.

A little over two months ago he had flown over to China and fought the Monks over a new Wu that could control the weather. He needed it because he wanted to get a wicked tan and so could do with an early summer. He had decided that morning that Goth was a lame; Jack wanted to go down the Chase Young route and look more 'Dark Samurai.'

Jack remembered the landscape as he had travelled. China was a land of extreme beauty and culture. Jack was not romantic or poetic, he did not understand beauty but he could appreciate it. He was so taken in by the sights he had turned off his music and actually enjoyed the serene peace of Chinese countryside. It was the same every time he flew over it. He just never got used to it because the ethereal beauty could never become mundane.

However things went wrong when the competition with the monks actually started. As usual there ended up being a showdown, only this time, it actually involved him versus Omi. He was winning too, another rarity, but then his stupid pipsqueak cousin Megan appeared. Turns out that she had snuck along, hidden in the cockpit of his Jack-Copter. The little turncoat helped out the warriors and Jack lost. They all cheered and she asked to join them.

When they accepted her and walked away into the proverbial sunset, Omi holding her hand, Jack felt the bile rise in his throat. They all flew away on their grand dragon, proud warrior monks, while he stood, dirty, bloodied, betrayed and alone on the dirt below them. He felt betrayed not only by Megan but also by them. He grit his teeth and betted to himself that they wouldn't treat her the way they treated him when tried to be a monk; he bet they wouldn't make her do all the worst jobs! No, they'd be nice to her, to make it easy for her to join. To be fair, she had always been nice to them and considered herself to be on the Xiaolin side, so they had no reason to be unkind to her, but still...

Jack opened his eyes. The alarm clock next to his bed screamed out obnoxiously. It was seven am. He hated the alarm and slammed it off. He hated getting up. Before he got up whenever he felt like it, but since the Government decided to go all totalitarian he found he had to go to school which meant he had to get up in the mornings.

It sucked.

"FML," he muttered whilst getting up and rubbing the remnants of sleep from his eyes. The weather looked pleasant outside, it was sunny and cheery. Jack scowled. It would be autumn soon, and the weather would darken, which would cheer him up because he had decided that he hated the sun. It didn't reflect his mood and he had found since his last session with the monks that he couldn't tan anyway, he just burned horribly anytime the sunlight so much as brushed against his skin. It just wasn't fair, he was naturally dark haired and weren't dark haired people meant to be able to tan better than fair-haired people?

He climbed out of bed, wearing a pair of deep blue pyjamas on, smiling suns emblazoned on them. The suns reminded him of that smug face Omi always seemed to wear, which made him angry every time he looked at them, but Jack felt that if he got rid of his pyjama's that Omi would have won somehow.

Truth be told, Jack felt angry quite a lot of the time now, which was pretty unusual. For an evil mastermind he was a pretty cheerful guy, not like moody Chase or psycho Hannibal.

"I should go play with the monkey staff for a bit," he grinned to himself, "to cheer myself up." He opened his bedroom door and a delicious smell seduced his senses. "Pancakes!" he roared and raced downstairs into the kitchen.

It was strange on entering due to the amount of people in the kitchen. His vacant mother was joined by Joanne, who was sitting at the table, wearing her impeccable school uniform and looking like she had been up for hours and opposite her was Judy, who was slouched over the table and looking hungover.

He smiled and sat next to Judy. No one mentioned his presence but Jack felt curiously happy all the same. It was almost like...a normal family.

Maybe the sunshine wasn't so bad after all. Plus he could always get a spray tan.

"Jack," his mother placed a plate of pancakes laced with syrup in front of him. Joanna, with her bowl of chopped fruit, looked disapproving. Judy had only a drink beside her, and it looked suspiciously like a Bloody Mary. "You need to eat that quickly then go upstairs," his mother continued, "father is waiting. He wants to talk to you." She walked away back to her station at the kitchen sink. Jack felt the stupid grin he had been wearing slid away.

So father was back.

He ate as slowly as possible before slinking upstairs to where his dad's room was. Jack's parents had separate bedrooms. He knocked on the door and walked inside after being invited. Jack was very polite around his father.

He looked around the room; clear white walls, black carpet, a single bed and chest of drawers, one white wardrobe and a computer. The computer was on. It was always on. As usual Jack's father was sat in front of it, focused completely on the screen, his face void of expression.

"What have you been up to Jack?"

"Oh you know," Jack cried far too loudly and with a false cheer, "the usual! Going around the world...doing stuff and stuff, hahahahaha!" His fake laughter petered off as his father sat as still and silently disapproving as ever.

"I can see you haven't matured," the man sighed after a long, uncomfortable silence. "What did you think of my puzzle box?"

"What puzzle box?"

"The one I sent you," his father's voice was becoming terse and Jack immediately straightened and began to breathe a little faster. He rubbed his sweaty palms on his trousers, "Oh right yeah, of course. I solved it straight away dad!"

"Good..."

"And...and there was something inside it..." Jack temporarily faltered as his father actually swivelled his eyes towards him. Father rarely looked at Jack. "There was a ghost of an old witch," he answered truthfully before wilting a little. His father would think he was a total lunatic for saying such a-

"Excellent, Jack." The boy genius blinked and looked up in shock. "So is that what you've been doing all this time?" His father continued, "and why you have been especially expensive this year, because you were travelling around the world with the... ghost?"

The boy nodded slightly, feeling a little ill and as if he had been set up somehow.

"Where is the ghost now?" his father pushed, actually turning away from the screen and looking directly at Jack; the boy flinched and focused his own gaze at the ground. "Where is she? And what things have you collected for her?"

"She flew away from me." Jack gulped. "She took all the things with her. All of them."

His face burned, partially from shame and partially because he knew he still had the Monkey Staff. Jack was terrified of actually lying to his father; he hadn't even thought about why he had done it. All he knew was that he didn't want Father getting his hands on the monkey staff or any other Shen-Gong-Wu.

Father's eyes were cold and shallow. "Pathetic as always," said the didactic voice. Jack's shoulders rose as his head lowered, almost like he was a turtle trying to hide in its shell; it was worse than getting yelled at, because by talking in such a flat, robotic voice it was made apparent that his father wasn't berating him out of anger, but simply telling the cold truth. Father turned back to the computer, having lost any fleeting interest he had in his child.

"I never should have trusted you Jack, but I thought that even you couldn't screw up so easy a task. I am, as always, disappointed and ashamed."

Jack scuttled out and shut the door quietly before bolting to his lair. As he put his Wu into his schoolbag he had to wipe away a few hot tears.