Chapter 23: Puzzle Boxes and Steak Knives
There were two things that bothered me in this episode: one, Omi shouldn't have survived in that block of ice. I don't care if it's magic, it's just not possible. Two, Raimundo shouldn't have been blamed for sending Omi into the past. He may have went bad in canon, but he was in no way responsible for that event. Both instances are discussed in this chapter.
Now, without further ado, the thrilling conclusion.
"YOU SENT OMI FIFTEEN HUNDRED YEARS INTO THE PAST WITHOUT ANY IDEA HOW TO GET HIM BACK?!" Kimiko's giant head finally deflated to its normal size as she seethed in anger.
Jack Spicer, who had been cowering from Kimiko's wrath, eventually explained, "This never came up in the beta testing. I mean, I can only travel back two seconds."
"And it never occurred to you that you were the only one with a working time machine?" Valerie pointed out spitefully. "No one fifteen hundred years ago had the imagination for thinking about time travel, and no one other than you has the technology to building a working time machine in the present. Didn't this ever occur to you?"
"Uh…no?"
Kimiko's head quickly swelled to abnormal size. "YOU-YOU-YOU-!" Her head shrunk again when she couldn't think of a word to adequately describe Jack's stupidity.
"Doofus?" Clay piped up.
"Thank you." Kimiko's head enlarged again. "YOU DOOFUS!" And then she grabbed Jack by the jacket collar and shook his violently. "You trapped Omi in the past forever!"
"Don't you want to say something?" Clay asked Raimundo, who had been oddly silent for a while now.
Raimundo pointed a finger at Kimiko. "She already said everything I wanted to say."
When Jack finally escaped from the angry Asian's grasp, he staggered away towards the time machine. "Easy, easy, I can fix this. Give me a week tops!" he said cheerfully.
And then a rock golem erupted from the ground beneath Jack's time machine, tearing it in two. Jack turned around to see the golem behind him, holding the ripped pieces of his creation in its hands. He shrieked girlishly, and then told the others, "Okay, I'll need more than a week."
The golem snarled and prepared to slam the remnants of the machine on Jack. Clay quickly grabbed the boy genius away just as the metal hit the ground. Clay quickly let go of Jack, who went spiraling away until he hit the wall.
"Guys, we got us a sack full of trouble," Clay said as they all prepared kung fu poses. And then Valerie remembered that she no longer had her signature Wu. The Eye of Dashi was still stuck inside the generator of Jack's time machine. As the others called out their elements and attacked, Valerie snuck over to the generator and quickly tried fishing it out.
She could hear the sounds of the others fighting. She guessed that Kimiko tried to hit the golem in the crotch, but that obviously failed. She heard Raimundo's wild whoop as he attacked from above, and then heard his cry of pain as his fist connected with the hard forehead of Rocky. And then she heard him and Clay being tossed aside. She also heard their cries being shouted in bullet time. Weird.
Valerie finally got out the Eye of Dashi out of the tangles-why were there so many wires in the generator? - when she heard Jack shout, "JACK-BOTS! ANNIHILATE-IFY!"
Two Jack-Bots appeared out of nowhere, their machine guns spewing bullets at the golem. Valerie quickly ran away as smoke quickly poured out of the fight. A half-destroyed rock golem appeared out of the mess, only to get shot at into oblivion by the robots. The Jack-Bots finished the attacked by giving a thumbs-up.
Jack Spicer, who had been cowering behind a machine in the background, appeared. "Oh yeah, that's my boys! Shiftin' gears and kickin' gears!" He even started doing his own little celebratory dance to rub it in.
"Easy, Spicer, Wuya's still out there," Raimundo pointed out.
"Yeah, this cattle drive is just gettin' started," Clay added.
"Ah, you're just sayin' that 'cause you were getting pasted," Jack scoffed. "Not like my boys! Let's hear it for the automatons who get it on!"
"Can I hurt him?" Valerie said flatly.
Jack ignored her. "Raise the roof! Ooh-ooh!" Immediately the ceiling started to crumble, flakes of debris hitting the ground. And then the ceiling was uprooted as twenty-story golem leered over them all.
"I admit, I did not see that coming," Valerie said when she found her voice.
"Wow, that's…big," Dojo stuttered in shock.
Jack immediately fell on his knees and held out his wrists. "I SURRENDER!"
Everything else happened in a blur. Valerie could remember a giant hand swooping down on her, trapping her in tiny, rocky prison. It was dark, incredibly dark, with stale air filtering through. She beat against the cell, her knuckles hitting hard rock as she screamed unintelligible words until her hands bled. She didn't remember: was she screaming in defiance or begging to be let out, or was it an inane mixture of both?
After a monstrously long time the cell splintered apart, and sweet, cool air washed over her face as the sunlight streamed in. She had only a moment to enjoy it before she was swallowed up by another golem. She closed her eyes as she tumbled into its stomach, another cell with bars. At least she could see where she was going.
Slowly the golem marched into Wuya's expansive castle. Valerie could see other golems walking with her; the others had been put into similar cells. After a terribly long wait, the golems filtered into what appeared to be a throne room, a large, circular cavern with steps leading up to the throne itself.
Wuya herself finally appeared with a depressed looking Theo right beside her. They loomed over the steps and looked down at them.
"Delicious," Wuya gloated. "My domination of the world is now complete."
"Wuya, you might want to do a headcount," Theo said, pointing down at the rock golems. "Omi's not here."
Wuya bared her fangs and hissed, "Omi?" She gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. And then she disappeared in a cloud of green smoke. She reappeared at the bottom of the throne room, right in front of Dojo.
"Where's Omi?"
Dojo tapped his chin like he was thinking, and finally came up with something to say. He snapped his fingers and opened his mouth only to have Clay cut him off with a firm but polite: "Frankly it's none of your business ma'am."
Wuya gave him a grin. "Oh? Well, as they say, I have ways of making you talk." Her hand began to glow poisonous green, and green flames spread out across her palm.
"He's trapped in the past!" Jack squealed, throwing Wuya's evil hand a terrified glance.
"What are you doing?" Raimundo growled at him.
The boy genius ignored him. "Yeah, he traveled back in time to ask some guy named Dashi for help."
Wuya shot the others a confused look. "Omi is in the past?"
"Yes," Kimiko attested, "and now he's trapped there."
"And it was me who sent him back, Wuya," Jack simpered, giving Wuya the puppy dog eyes. "I was really on your side the whole time. Stupid Omi walked right into our trap! WHOO-HOO! You can let me go now."
"Jack, you may be smart enough to build a time machine, but you're not smart enough to actually trick people," Theo pointed out with an eye roll.
"You mean that funny hexagonal thing was an actual time machine?" Wuya asked him.
"Yeah; though according to his Facebook he could only go back in time two seconds," he mused. "How did you get that much power to go a full fifteen hundred years into the past?" he asked Jack.
"It doesn't really matter." Wuya turned to the boy genius. "Forget it Jack. I'm not buying it."
"Really? Not even if I whimper?"
"So Omi's really in the past huh?" Theo said rhetorically.
"Yeah, and it's all your fault!" Kimiko snarled at him.
"I hope you're happy!" Dojo agreed.
Theo gave them an incredulous look. "I'm sorry; did I force Omi into going through a faulty time machine? Did I somehow coerce him into going back in time without a way back? Did I somehow use my magical Heylin powers to convince you all that going back in time was a good idea? Face it; it's your fault that Omi's trapped there."
"…Guy kind of has a point," Raimundo admitted quietly.
"No he doesn't!" Kimiko yelled.
"Or for the love of-Wuya, could you please just send them to the dungeon to rot?"
"With pleasure." With a wave of her hand the middle of the throne room opened up, revealing a swirling black and green vortex. Valerie could feel herself being lifted up; she was being sucked out of her cell. She fell out of the golem's open mouth and she was easily thrown into the vortex. She screamed as she and the others quickly fell into darkness.
When Valerie opened her eyes, she was in another cell. At least it was sort of brightly lit and there was no evil Heylin witch leering at her.
The cell itself was a simple one, with an earthen floor and hollow cell bars that looked to be made out of aged bone. She peered through the bars at the rest of the dungeon. There were millions of these cells all stacked on top of each other like a beehive. There was a long staircase leading out of the dungeon, but Valerie couldn't get to that. She quickly felt the sides of the cell door, looking for a keyhole. Nothing. She was trapped.
"So will Wuya keep us in prison here forever, or let us out for good behavior in about five thousand years?" she heard Kimiko gripe. She peered over to her friends, who were all wide awake.
"It could be worse. We could all be dead." No, it wasn't possible. What was Hazel doing down here? She looked worse for wear. Her pink corset dress with matching boots was covered in grime and her loose blonde hair was a disheveled mess. But her face still sparkled with intensity, like this whole 'trapped in the dungeon for all eternity' thing was merely a minor setback.
"I'm guessing your plan to take out Wuya didn't go as planned," Clay stated, looking at the girl.
Hazel blinked. "Was I that obvious?"
"Pretty much," Raimundo said.
"In any case, we need to find a way out of here," Valerie pointed out.
Dojo, who had been hanging by a cell lantern not too far from Clay, said, "Don't worry, my Xiaolin friends. The old hag made a tactical error."
"Really Dojo?" Clay questioned. "'Cause from where I'm standing, looks like Wuya's got it figured out eight ways to Sunday."
Dojo wagged a scaly finger. "Ah, Clay, Clay, Clay. She forgot that your standard Dojo comes in two sizes. In moments I'll super-size myself and bust out of this cage." He began to enlarge only to find out that the cage was Dojo-proof. His bigger body squished up against the cage before he quickly deflated.
"Dojo, why don't you try slithering out of the cage holes in your normal form?" Valerie pointed out.
"Now there's an idea," the reptile said. With some difficulty he put his head through one of the holes. But after his ears went past so did the rest of his body and he quickly slithered to the ground. Everyone cheered with Jack finishing it up with a wolf-whistle.
"Now find a way to bust us out of here!" Jack said.
"'Us?'" Raimundo repeated. "You tried to sell out to Wuya!"
"Hey, what can I say?" Jack said quickly. "I like to keep my options open."
"Guys, I hate to say it, but I'm starting to lose hope here," Clay suddenly admitted quietly.
Valerie stared in horrified silence before pointing out, "We got Dojo out of his cage, Clay. There's only a matter of time before we're free."
"But there aren't any keyholes. And Wuya's smart. I'm guessing she made our prisons Dojo proof too." Clay slumped down against the bars. "There doesn't seem to be any light at the end of this tunnel."
This wasn't happening. Clay was the nice guy, the cheerful one. He always tried to keep everyone's spirits up when times were tough. If he saw no hope in this situation, then…
Lights peered through the holes in the nearby manhole cover. They shone through, their rays hitting all the filled cells with ethereal light.
"I may have spoken too soon," Clay admitted as he tried to get a closer look at the holy manhole cover.
And then the metal top exploded out of its hole with a hollow crash. It rolled around the floor as a familiar bulbous, yellow head with six glowing dots appeared out of the hole.
"Indeed, my friend Clay! You most certainly have!" Omi said cheerfully. And then his face twisted in confusion as he heard a rattling sound. The manhole cover rolled over before hitting Omi right on the noggin.
Once Omi finally got out of the sewers, he stood in the middle of the dungeon and quickly dusted himself. Then he gave a chipper smile and said, "It is so good to see you my friends! And Jack Spicer," he added as an afterthought.
Valerie could feel the ground underneath her tremble. Rock golems were appearing again. "Omi, behind you!" Raimundo shouted as two golems erupted from the ground behind the little monk.
Omi quickly back flipped away as the golems prepared to attack. He jumped into the air and called out, "Orb of Tornami: Ice!" The rock monsters were quickly encased in ice, looking like grotesque statues. Omi planted both feet on their heads and shattered them to pieces. As he landed the statues' bodies crumbled into piles of stone.
Once the air cleared, Kimiko stuttered out, "Omi-how-we thought-how did you get here?"
"It is a lengthy but very engaging tale," Omi began, "filled with both surprises and heartwarming-!"
"Hate to interrupt your already riveting story Omi, but maybe you should get us out of here first," Jack piped up. "You know, before Wuya shows up and turns us all crispy?"
"Oh yes, very wise," Omi admitted. "Please step away from your cell doors!" Everyone did just that. Dojo quickly slithered into Clay's cell to get out of the way.
"ORB OF TORNAMI: ICE!" A blanket of ice immediately coated the bone bars, turning them brittle. Valerie quickly spun in the air and broke out of the cell with a well-placed kick. She could hear her friends breaking out of their cells, the tinkling of cracked ice echoing through the dungeon.
And then Jack cried out in pain; they had forgotten that he wasn't a martial artist like the rest of them. Omi walked over to the frozen door and with a flick of his pinky broke the bars in two. With a humiliated grumble Jack got out of his cell.
"Hold on a second," Raimundo suddenly said. He peered over to the right, where Hazel was supposed to be. "Didn't we forget an annoying blonde?"
Hazel's cell should have been coated in ice, or if not, then the girl should have been inside. Instead, the cell bars seemed to have been burst open, half-melted pieces of bone littering the floor along with black scorch marks. Dojo picked up a little black ball from the inside of the cell and sniffed it. "Explosives," he noted.
"When did she get out?" Clay wondered out loud.
"I'm guessing when Omi was fighting those rock minions," Valerie said. "What I want to know is why she didn't use them earlier."
"Maybe she was looking for a distraction," Jack said impatiently. "Now can we please get out of here?"
Once Dojo had supersized himself and led them away from the castle, the unruly band of rebels took refuge in the forest. And once a fire had started going and everything seemed warm and cozy, Clay said, "We should be safe for the time being."
"How'd you do it Omi?" Dojo immediately asked. "How'd you get back to our time?"
"I bet it was a time travelling Shen Gong Wu, right Omi?" Raimundo said excitedly.
"Gotta be!" Kimiko piped up.
"So obvious," Jack said sourly.
"If it is, then I have a plan to defeat Wuya," Valerie said, the intricacies of said plan already taking form in her mind. If they only used the Wu to go back in time to just before Wuya got the Serpent's Tail, then they could avoid this whole mess.
"Not quite," Omi admitted a sheepish grin on his face.
"Really?" Clay said. Omi was about to tell what brought him to the present, but then-
"How'd you do it?" Kimiko.
"How can it not be a time travelling Shen Gong Wu?" Raimundo.
"There goes my plan." Valerie.
"Stop interrupting and he'll tell us," Dojo chided them. Omi gave him a mean look since he also interrupted him. And then he went on to explain.
"When I realized that Jack Spicer had foolishly sent me into the past, with no way to return…"
Kimiko and Raimundo shot him death glares. "Oh, come on!" Jack whined. "How many times can I say my bad?" He crossed his arms and sulked.
"I admit I was a little worried…" Omi trailed off as he thought about it. Valerie guessed that he was actually panicking at the time, and with good reason.
"Fortunately, I had Grand Master Dashi, greatest of the Xiaolin Dragons there to help me. Surely he would have an answer…except he didn't."
"He didn't?" Clay asked caught up in the story.
"He did have one time travelling Shen Gong Wu, but they hid it buried underneath the sands of Egypt. Or somewhere in Europe; neither he nor Dojo could remember."
Everyone turned to glare at Dojo, who shrugged his shoulders sheepishly.
Omi continued: "Grand Master Dashi told me to meditate, that the answer would eventually come to me. And I was struck by inspiration! The only way I could get to the future was by waiting. So that's what I did!" He smiled triumphantly.
"What," Raimundo said flatly. He and everyone else gave Omi incredulous looks.
"You…waited?" Clay asked.
"For fifteen hundred years," Dojo stated sardonically.
"But you don't have wrinkles or liver spots," Kimiko pointed out.
"Or that old person smell," Jack said, sniffing the air.
"No, because I had…" Omi quickly got out his Wu and had it travel spinning across his arms and shoulders in a basketball move before brandishing it before his team. "…the Orb of Tornami! I found the exact place where Wuya would someday raise her palace. Then, I froze myself. There I waited, in frozen slumber, as the ages passed. Finally, fifteen hundred years later, Wuya raised her palace, and with it, me!"
"Okay, but that still doesn't explain how your body survived being frozen solid for fifteen hundred years," Valerie pointed out logically. "Your body's functions should have shut down, including your heart and brain. Even if you managed to survive that, your body should have went through shock after suddenly being released from the ice. You didn't have heat for over a thousand years. How are you still alive?!" She threw up her hands by the insanity of it all.
Clay quickly covered her face with his cowboy hat and whispered, "Just go along with it." As Valerie pushed the hat away, she saw Kimiko holding a red-faced Omi. She rolled her eyes and stared into the fire.
"So, did Dashi give you a way to beat Wuya?" Clay asked, putting his hat back on his head.
"Yes." Omi held out an ornate wooden box no bigger than his hand. "He gave me this."
"Hey, it's a puzzle box," Jack noted, "just like the one Wuya was in."
"Correct Jack Spicer," Omi agreed. "All we need to do is open this box in the presence of Wuya." He then tried to open the box to no avail. "The only problem being I do not know how to open it."
"Omi, this plan is seriously sounding half-baked," Raimundo noted sourly. Dojo went over to the puzzle box and attempted to open it. He failed. He slithered past the trees.
"Oh no, Raimundo, this plan is not at all baked," Omi disagreed. "Grand Master Dashi said that the box will open when the person who needs to open it opens it."
"No problem, Opie," Jack said, leaning back against one of the petrified trees. "I opened it before, I can open it again." Dojo suddenly slithered back to the campsite with a hammer in his hands.
"Great!" Clay said. "Now all we need is a plan to get into the castle without Wuya capturing us first."
Kimiko gingerly took the box from Omi as Dojo swung the hammer at it. "And I think I got one."
The plan itself was simple: Valerie, Rai and Clay would ride Dojo to wherever Theo was while Omi and Kimiko would take Jack Spicer to Wuya. Then the Dojo team would lead Theo away from the castle and distract him long enough for Jack to open the box. It was easy enough.
It was also easy to find Theo in his pad. There were television screens everywhere and every videogame and play station known to man. It was odd that they were in a giant cave though. It was a funny anachronism.
Theo himself was splayed over the throne in the room, head hanging over one arm rest and his feet over the other. He looked vaguely grief stricken, but his face morphed into irritation when he saw the giant dragon hanging in the catacombs next to his man cave.
"How did you guys get out?" he growled.
"Omi happened, you asshat!" Raimundo swore at him.
"How'd he get back from the past?"
"It doesn't matter," Clay said sternly. "What matters is what happens next."
"You're going to let us leave and not follow," Dojo ordered.
Theo got out his Komori Sword. "I can't do that."
"Or you can be a loser and chase after us," Valerie noted. "I wonder what Hazel would say if she saw you right now."
That was a low blow and Theo knew it. His face darkened and he bared his teeth. It almost seemed like he had fangs. "She'd slit your throat right here, right now," he snarled.
"I'd love to, but I have other plans." Hazel suddenly appeared and punched her brother right in the face. He staggered back and spat blood out of his mouth. He stared at his sister in bewilderment. She looked worse; instead of just grime covering her, there was a layer of gunpowder all over her. And Valerie could have sworn there were blood drops on her arms.
"How did you get out of the dungeon?" Theo turned to the Xiaolin warriors.
"Don't look at us," Raimundo hastily protested. "She got out on her own."
"You really should have frisked me for explosives," Hazel said, brandishing a steak knife. "And you should really have better security in here. Seriously, I got into the kitchen and you didn't notice," she added as she gestured to the nice kitchen in the middle of the room.
"I don't want to hurt you, Haze," Theo pleaded backing away slightly.
"Give me the Komori Sword and you won't have to." Hazel held out her hand.
"But you'll just kill Wuya."
"That was always the plan, Theo. I wanted world domination for the both of us. And you chose to be some lackey?" She shook her head in disgust. "I should have gotten rid of you when I had the chance."
Hurt and anguish flashed over Theo's face. Valerie wanted to look away-this was a private event, she shouldn't be here- but it was like a train wreck; she couldn't look away no matter how much she wanted to. She saw Theo's face turn stony as he brandished the Komori Sword.
"You're insane," he stated calmly. "Once all this is over, I'm getting you help."
"I don't need help," Hazel scoffed. "I just want power." She held the steak knife. "And I'll get it any way I can."
She moved impossibly fast-Theo barely held up his Sword in time. The two blades clashed, sparks flying. They then separated and clashed again; Valerie could barely keep up with their movements.
And then blood spurted from Theo's arm and Clay yelled, "Dojo!"
"On it!" The giant dragon flew into the cave and crashed landed in the cave. A cloud of dust sprung up and Theo's cry rang in the air. The dust settled and all they saw was Theo in a heap on the ground, the bloody steak knife right next to him. Hazel and the Komori Sword were gone.
The three Xiaolin warriors and a normal-sized Dojo swarmed over him. Clay quickly turned Theo so he faced upwards. His face was sickly pale and he held his wounded arm. Blood flowed from the open cut, but it didn't seem like a lot.
"We need a first aid kit," Valerie stated looking around the room.
"It's in the kitchen," Theo rasped out, "in a cabinet by the stove."
Raimundo immediately flew over to the kitchen. He threw open the cabinet doors and flung the contents out in search of the kit. When he finally found it he jumped over all the clutter he made and immediately ran back.
"Anyone know first aid?" Clay asked the others.
"I do," Dojo answered. "I'm fifteen hundred years old; I picked up a few things."
Raimundo handed him the kit. "Do your thing Dojo."
The reptile instantly went to work, unwinding rolls of bandages and getting out bottles of iodine. He held out a black leather glove. "Bite this," he ordered the wounded boy. Valerie took the glove and put it in Theo's mouth, which obediently chomped on the leather.
"The cut isn't deep, but we need to disinfect it," Dojo said. He held up a bottle of iodine. "This is going to hurt. Hold him down." The boys held an alert Theo as Dojo poured the liquid onto the bloody cut. Theo gave a muffled cry of pain and tried to thrash away, but Clay and Rai held onto him.
"Val, wash away all the blood." Dojo handed her a clean cloth. Valerie grimaced but did as told, gently wiping away the excess blood from Theo's arm. Some of the blood had gotten onto his shirt, but she couldn't do a thing about that. At least there wasn't as much blood as Valerie first thought. Once she was done, she put the rag down and watched as Dojo quickly wound the bandages up Theo's arm. It was almost like magic.
And then Dojo said, "Done!" The boys propped Theo up so he was sitting. Dojo held up a tiny bottle of pain killers. "This'll tide you over until you get to a real doctor."
"You make a pretty good nurse," Theo said. It was probably a thank you.
Valerie took the bloody cloth and threw it in the trash bin. She then got a bottle of water out of the fridge and gave it to Theo. "You might need this." Theo immediately twisted off the cap and put a capsule in his mouth. He then gulped down half the bottle of water.
Once he was done, he said, "Take me to Wuya."
"What? Why?" Clay asked, blinking bemusedly.
"Because Hazel's going to kill her."
They found Wuya in the throne room, flinging balls of green fire at Omi, Kimiko, and Jack.
"Great job defeating her, guys," Valerie deadpanned.
"I'll stay here," Theo said, leaning against the wall. He was in a shadowy part of the throne room, far away from Wuya's view. "You guys take down my sister."
"We're taking down Wuya," Raimundo reminded him.
Theo grimaced and sighed through his nose. "Well, there's nothing I can do."
That was all the consent they needed. "Wanna try that Shen Gong Wu combo you were talking about?" Raimundo asked Valerie. He held up the Sword of the Storm.
Valerie held up the Eye of Dashi. "Let's do it."
Raimundo ran to the middle of the throne room and shouted, "SWORD OF THE STORM, WIND!" With a slash of the blade the familiar tornado appeared.
Valerie front flipped towards the middle and leaped into the air. "EYE OF DASHI, AETHER!" The five arcs of lightning appeared, hitting the tornado. The twister grew exponentially and lightning sizzled through it. Lightning blasts struck out of the funnel and hit just about anywhere: the ground, the walls, the ceiling, even Wuya.
Wuya gave a shriek as the lightning hit her head on, but then the lightning turned green and they all heard Wuya cackle. Instantly the lightning tornado disappeared, leaving nothing but the smell of ozone and the scorch marks littering the room.
"Not bad, not bad," Wuya said, clapping her hands. Two rock hands erupted from the ground, trapping Raimundo and Valerie separately. Green fire rained from Wuya's hands, the flames reaching out to Omi and Jack and trapping them in midair in a green prison.
Valerie could hear the sounds of Clay and Kimiko getting taken prisoner. She turned to see the two of them in a giant rock golem, right inside the cell stomach. She then felt herself being swallowed into the rock golem trapping her, going down the stone throat and into the cell stomach. She landed painfully on her side before sitting up to look through the cell bars.
"I'm guessing the box didn't work," Clay stated as the golems walked before their mistress.
"Jack Spicer couldn't open it," Omi said spitefully as he hung upside down in midair.
"Not like you did any better, chrome dome," Jack shot back.
Wuya took the puzzle box out of Omi's hands. "You got a magic puzzle box from Dashi? Hmm, impressive effort I must say. It's so like Dashi to give you the tool without the knowledge of how to use it. He always was a fool. A smart dresser, but a fool. Now to unfinished business."
Wuya's hands shook with glee. She was about to give the final order, snuff out their lives once and for all…but then a blade slid through her back and out her stomach, the pointy end facing the Xiaolin warriors.
Everyone stared in amazement as Wuya groaned. "Oh, I am so done with you." She disappeared in a cloud of sparkly green smoke, the puzzle box falling down the steps onto the floor. Hazel herself took the sword closer to her, body alert.
Wuya appeared behind her. "You are so good at stabbing people in the back," she chided. "You even got your own brother. That's pretty despicable."
"Shut up!" Hazel snarled. She slashed the Sword at Wuya, who simply dodged. And then Wuya flicked her wrist and Hazel was flung to the side. She tumbled down the hill and landed on the floor in a heap, the Komori Sword clattering down with her. She struggled to get up, only to slump back down in defeat.
Wuya laughed triumphantly, green fire spreading from behind her. "I'll finish you off later," she said. She turned to the still trapped Xiaolin monks. "I have business to attend to."
Out of the corner of her eye, Valerie saw a flash of white. No, it couldn't be. He was still injured, he should be slumped against the throne room in extreme pain.
But it was. Theo dashed towards the puzzle box and scooped it up. With a twist of his hands he opened it. Bright light erupted from the inside.
"What are you doing?" Wuya gasped in shock.
"Ending this," Theo said. The ghost of Grand Master Dashi appeared out of thin air, his legs a swirl of white.
"Dashi!" Wuya cried her ghostly voice back.
"Whoa, Wuya!" Dashi said, smirking. "The years have not been kind." He flew through the Heylin witch, a trail of light following him. Wuya screamed, her physical body morphing back into the familiar purple mist. Her face was gone, replaced with the white with red marking mask with hollow yellow eyes.
And then, with a final, "Noooo!" Wuya was sucked back into the puzzle box just before it was shut.
Suddenly, the ghost of Dashi appeared before Theo, giving him a thumbs up. "Not bad kid." With a final wink the ghost disappeared.
Valerie could hear cracks all around her. The golem was breaking apart. With a quick crash the stone fell away. When she opened her eyes she was standing in a pile of dirt.
And then the castle itself started shaking, rocks crumbling down. "Get a move on, gang!" Clay said.
"I can't leave my sister!" Theo yelled. Clay and Raimundo immediately ran towards her and picked her up. Dojo began to enlarge, and everyone jumped on top of him. They quickly gathered Hazel onto Dojo and helped the two boys up.
At that point the debris falling from the ceiling had changed from tiny rocks to giant boulders. Dojo quickly flew out of the throne room, dodging boulders and stalactites as he flew towards the outside.
And then the castle split in two, green smoke flowing out of the cracks. It billowed from underneath the dragon, reaching past the humans riding him to create a Heylin mushroom cloud. And then they were out of the storm, watching as the toxic cloud spread over the land. The petrified forest had turned back into lush foliage.
And so the sun shone on the end of Wuya's empire.
Back at the Temple, on a cliff
"Why the hell are we on a cliff?" Valerie asked as they finally climbed to the top.
"Take a look," Raimundo said, jerking his thumb. They could see the brilliance of the sun casting its glow over the green grass, the mountains, and the Temple itself.
"It's like Wuya never existed," Clay said breathlessly.
"Which is just the way I like it, for the record," Kimiko said.
"Yeah, well, I'm out of here," Jack Spicer said walking away. "Later."
Omi immediately clung onto his coat and let himself be dragged away. "Jack Spicer, wait, please! You have fought well. We could not have defeated Wuya without you."
"All true," Jack agreed. "You going somewhere with this?"
"Yes. You should stay with us at the Xiaolin Temple. Hone your skills and join the fight for good!"
"Me? Fighting for good?" Jack scoffed. "In a bathrobe? Forget it!" He was about to take off when a sleek black pod jet appeared from the sky. It smoothly sailed towards the cliff, finally landing on the soft grass. The hatch opened to reveal Theo. He looked better than the last time anyone saw him. He still had a bandage circling his arm, but his skin had a healthy glow to it.
"'Sup," he said.
"Where've you been?" Valerie asked.
"Getting Hazel some help," he answered. "Hopefully she'll get better soon. Also, I came to drop off this." Theo got out the black and gold blade of the Komori Sword and handed it to Omi. The little monk staggered back, the Sword dwarfing him in size.
"To be honest, I was never into ruling the world," Theo admitted easily. "I just went along with Hazel because it seemed like fun. And it was. But I'm done. Next time you see me is when I'm starting my own brand. Hazel may have been a technical genius, but I was the one who gave her all the tools and ideas. Later days." With that the hatch closed and the pod jet flew away.
Jack took that moment to get the spinning poles out of his heli-pack. "Unlike with Armstrong, the next time we meet we're enemies." He was about to take to the skies too, but Omi still clung onto his coattails. Jack sighed and said, "But maybe some time when we're not fighting over Shen Gong Wu, we can all go for ice cream." He gave a tentative smile. "My treat."
"That would be nice," Omi said, finally letting go. "We could get a Monday."
"Sundae," Clay said.
"Even better!"
Jack just flew off without another word.
"So I guess its back to the same old, same old, huh," Raimundo said.
"Yup, training…" Kimiko trailed off.
"Finding Shen Gong Wu…" Clay.
"And stopping evil wherever it may rise!" Omi finished.
"Sounds about right," Valerie pointed out.
"Wouldn't have it any other way," Raimundo said.
And so they all walked back to the Temple, the brilliance of the sun casting it's rays over the new day.
This sounds like the end, doesn't it? But no, we still got two more seasons to go. XP Who's excited?