Now and Then
I don't own Xiaolin Showdown. It and its characters are copyright Christy Hui.
Lots of suggestiveness here. Shield your eyes if you're easily offended! But this is my favorite chapter.
Chapter 1
"So you're the one who let Wuya out!"
The pale boy whirled around to find himself face to face with a ghost. He was used to that, actually. But this wasn't the purple octopus-like witch in a mask. It was a man. A man who was decidedly lacking in the legs department. Jack Spicer let out a high scream and scurried over to put his work table between himself and the spirit.
"Wh-what are you doing here?" he sputtered, clutching the edge of the table for dear life. "Get out of my Evil Lair!"
"Evil lair?" The translucent man looked around with apparent interest. "I've seen a few of those, and I'd say this one's just a little dim and slightly creepy. Now, you take some of your caves with near-zero visibility and all those stalag-things stuck all over, maybe some slithery sounds and moans coming from the dungeons, that kind of thing smacks of evil." He looked around again. "You even got a dungeon in this place?"
"I-I'm getting the carpets cleaned," Jack said, which was reaching a bit. Actually, his mom was doing laundry, and he'd thrown in the dish towel he usually kept in the makeshift pen under the stairs. "…Shut up!"
The ghost laughed delightedly, his gaze following Jack's furtive glance to the 'dungeon.' "Too funny! What do you call yourself, anyway?"
"Jack Spicer, Evil Boy Genius and Evil Prince of Darkness!" Jack said smugly, unable to resist the opportunity to strike a pose.
"Hm, not so sure I see it myself," the spirit said with a shrug. "But if you say so."
"Hey, shut up already," Jack muttered resentfully. "Who're you, anyway?"
"Grand Master Dashi," the ancient master said with a not-quite-careless shrug. "Maybe you've heard of me? Made all your Shen Gong Wu? Wuya and I go way back."
Jack's eyes had gone wide. His mouth fell open. He made an oddly strangled squeaking noise. Dashi looked on in amusement.
"The Grand Master Dashi?"
" 'Fraid so."
"Grand Master?"
"Oh, pretty grand."
"Dashi?"
"That's me."
"But- but you're-"
"Dead? Yeah, it's a real downer sometimes."
"No! …Well yeah, obviously, but-"
"Ohhh, I see where this is going…"
"DON'T KILL ME, PLEASE!"
Jack fell to his knees before the ghost, pleading with him.
"Um, number one? I'm not solid," said Dashi, wiggling his fingers in Jack's hands and making him shiver. "Besides, I don't go in for killing random kids, even if they do claim to be against everything I stand for."
"Hey! I'm evil to the bone! Hard-core evil, here!" Jack protested.
"What, you want me to kill you anyway, or something?" asked the Grand Master, amused. "You didn't strike me as the suicidal type."
"No, no!" Jack shrieked, unsure of the best course of action. He didn't like renouncing evil. But he wasn't suicidal, it was true.
"Let me tell you something, kid," the ghost said, swirling around Jack. "I've seen a lot of good and evil in my day. And I haven't met a human yet who was pure evil. Or pure good."
"But-" interrupted Jack.
"Oh I'm nowhere near it, believe me," the spirit said with an easy laugh. "Neither are your monk friends, or anyone else. And I don't count Chase Young, he was tricked into it. The real- well, the first Chase Young isn't evil. And now he's not really human either." Dashi looked sad for the first time. "Such a shame… He was a good friend."
"What was he like?" Jack whispered, glancing about fearfully as if the ancient warrior would pop out of the shadows at any minute.
"You've never seen such a great warrior," said Dashi, an appreciative gleam in his eye. "Or maybe you have. But he was the nicest guy you could hope to meet. And what a laugh! That guy had the greatest sense of humor." The ancient master smiled, remembering his friend as he had been. Then he shook his head slightly. "But anyway, what's done is done. You would've liked him, though."
"I like his evil side just fine," Jack piped up defensively.
Dashi grinned, his gaze a little more penetrating than Jack liked. "Oh, I can see that."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jack asked hotly, going slightly red.
"Nothing. It's good to have someone you admire. Everyone should," Dashi said with a shrug and an odd little smile.
"Oh. Yeah. Yeah, it is," said Jack, a little bewildered. "He's my evil hero, you know."
"Ever looked into having a good hero, too?"
"What?" Jack asked incredulously. "Hey, I told you, I'm evil. EVIL!" He pounded the table.
"I heard you, relax," Dashi said, covering a smile.
"Hmph, good. Besides, who would it be, you?" Jack asked with a derisive sneer.
"Oh no, I can't stand fans and worshippers," Dashi said, shaking his head.
"Then why even bring it up?"
"It's just- well I thought an evil genius would understand far better than anyone good. Evil's just better at this kind of thing, for some reason."
"Wait, what?" Jack asked, confused. "What are you talking about, anyway?"
Dashi grinned. Too easy.
"Remind me, what's the mission of every Xiaolin monk?"
"Tch, to fight for Good and destroy Evil," Jack muttered, waving a finger around in the air in mock-celebration. "Duh."
"Wrong!" Dashi said with a grin, pointing at Jack's nose. "It's to keep the balance of good and evil in the world. And there does happen to be some pretty strong evil around, but there's a lot of good, too. Some of it just as strong as the evil."
"Heh, I don't know about that," said Jack, smirking. "We're pretty impressive here on the Heylin side."
"Oh, no doubt!" Dashi chuckled. "But I meant that sometimes the Xiaolin dragons tend to sway the balance too far in favor of good." He shrugged. "It started off well enough back in my day, but you know how things go after a visionary leaves. Somebody else picks it up and gets it dead wrong." He flashed the boy genius a smug smirk.
"Yeah, the same thing happens to me when I leave the others for a while… or even when I don't," Jack said with a frown. "They're always stealing my ideas and betraying me and stuff."
"Always?" Dashi asked, not quite casually.
"Just about. Whenever they've got two minutes to think about it," Jack said, flopping down in a chair. "Or sometimes when they don't."
"That must get kind of old after a while," the spirit remarked.
"Oh, does it ever! The others don't seem to care, it happens to them a lot too, but I wouldn't mind some loyalty from my teammates!" The red-haired boy rolled his eyes and rested his chin on his arms on the table. "The best I've got are my Jackbots. And they get beat up almost as much as I do." He made a face and flicked a bit of wire off the table to bounce off a heap of scraps on the floor.
"Sounds pretty rough," Dashi commented, examining the arms and legs of a Robo Jack.
"Yeah, well that's evil for you, as everyone loves to remind me." Jack sighed, then flashed his trademark Evil Grin. "But that's just fine, 'cause Jack Spicer works best alone. Evil lone wolf, that's me. I don't need anybody anyway. I'm-"
A knock at a door high up in the lab interrupted him. "Jack, dear!" a feminine voice called down. "Dinner in five minutes! Make sure you wash up all nice and sparkly clean!"
Dashi watched with interest as Jack's eyes met his own. The teenager's face went whiter than ever (Dashi was rather surprised at the possibility of this), then quickly switched to bright, deep red. The ancient monk privately wondered if the boy's face would perfectly match his hair in a moment. That would be impressive.
"I'll be right there, Mom," Jack called back rather miserably, his eyes never leaving the ghost as he edged over towards a sink. Dashi's smile remained entirely inscrutable.
"Listen, it's expensive to live on your own," Jack whined, washing his hands. "I can't just go live in a cave or something and still build my robots! Besides, I- you've gotta be eighteen to rent an apartment around here. It's the law," he said, glaring defensively.
"Makes perfect sense to me," Dashi agreed with a grin.
"Yeah? Yeah! It does. So… I'm going to eat. Don't- Wait, what am I saying? Get out of my lab and don't come back!" Jack scuttled to the top of the stairs and struck a pose before exiting with a suitably dramatic slam of the door.
Dashi laughed delightedly, swirling over to a Robo Jack head.
" 'It's the law'?" he asked the head in Jack's high tone. "Are you kidding me? And attempts to turn this kid good have actually failed? What'd they do, ask once and give up when he said no? Give me a couple days, two weeks tops, and he'll be begging to leave the Heylin side."
He grinned and faded out.
The robotic eyes flickered and dimmed, then darkened completely.