Chapter 29. The Second To Last Chapter!

After making a quick call to Raimundo on her cell phone, Kimiko led the group all the way back to Jack Spicer's Trophy Hall/Dungeon. They avoided Seek and Chase in the hall by barely a minute, but it took them a little extra time to locate Clay and Rai's cells.

"How could this happen?" Omi asked, leaping up to the cell window and hanging on to peer in for a moment.

"Try Seek turned on us and joined up with Chase!" Raimundo hollered.

Good Seek rolled her eyes and held her hands up to the two cell doors.

"She is so bad! Give her an inch and she yanks out your front teeth!"

The doors melted away and the captured monks were set free.

"Hey, who's this?" Clay asked almost immediately.

"We don't have time to explain anything!" Kimiko said quickly. "We have to find Chase and…"

"No, we have to find Jack!" Raimundo snapped. "We already found out about Dojo, Kim, and he's not coming back. So, I say we focus all our attention on Spicer and put an end to his reign as Ruler of Earth!"

"Dojo…!" Kimiko exclaimed, covering her mouth with her hands. "No!"

"'Fraid so," Clay said softly.

There was a moment of silence, along with a bit of guilt, until Meg knocked her knuckles on the wall.

"Time to go," she whispered with narrowed eyes.

Jack was well aware of the intruders on his ship. So, he had set up a series of traps and back-up traps for his many enemies, and he had spent a bit of time concocting rules for elaborate battles to which he might challenge them, if there came a need to do so. He sat waiting in the throne-like chair on the massive control deck, surrounded by guard bots. The room was much larger than necessary, with a tall glass ceiling sectioned into polygons, and floor space for an Olympic skating rink.

Jack monitored their progress on a series of color surveillance screens. He had finally taken the time to shave neatly and completely, and in brand new clothes he looked rather spiffy.

He didn't hear them, but he did see them, so he spun around in his chair just as Chase and Seek came onto the deck.

"I suppose I miscalculated you two," Jack said, tapping his fingertips together. "My plan was to let you destroy each other, but I guess we just weren't on the same page."

"God forbid," Chase muttered as he and Seek gradually distanced themselves from each other while casually advancing on Jack.

"How old are you now, Jack?" Seek asked darkly. "Twenty? Twenty-one? I bet you haven't had you're wisdom teeth out yet…"

"I'll bet he hasn't had his baby teeth out yet!" came another voice from up above.

Down dropped Meg Kake, fresh out of bullet-time, landing less than ten feet in front of Jack.

"What the? Who the hell are you?" Jack demanded, scooting up in his chair a bit.

Meg tossed her dreads.

"Humph! I knew you wouldn't recognize me, now that I'm too good for you! You're in big trouble, Jack Spicer!"

Jack cocked his head to the side.

"Meg?" he whispered, completely bewildered.

Nutmeg Kake, thanks to the power of the Hero Glass, had transformed into her full potential. Her clothes were still insane, and her boots were still spring-loaded, but her adult features made her almost unrecognizable. She was much taller and older, about eighteen or nineteen, with long red dreadlocks that went all the way down her back. Her build looked athletic, but at the same time she had curves and a genuine hourglass shape. All her childish features and mannerism seemed to have been swept away, and on top of it all, she was actually rather attractive.

She put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot impatiently.

"I hope you've had your fun being ruler of the world, Mister Jack, because it's time for you to grow up and quit playing around!"

With that, Meg lunged at Jack. The bots that rushed to stopped her missed completely as she flickered in and out of bullet-time. In her prime, Meg could control just how fast she moved. Instead of 3,000 fps, she could slow down to 600 fps, which is still fast enough to dodge most obstacles, but without vanishing completely.

Jack shot up and out of the chair a split second before she smashed into him. He landed on the back of the chair and balanced for a moment before zipping off with the Jet Pak.

The moment Meg made her move, the room flooded with all kinds of Jack bots. They were unusual SMARTs, modified to look more like Jack Bots, only some had legs and others were over ten feet tall.

Meg shot at one in a high-speed flying kick and smashed it to pieces. But, before she turned to the next, she saw the robot pieces come back to life! They scooted across the floor, reunited with each other, and came together to form a whole new robot.

"That's different," Meg said quickly, shocked and startled by the new technology.

"Pretty cool, huh? I took all of Patience's old designs and made them only about a hundred times better. Those other robots were a good start, but they had about as much extra gadgetry as a plastic fork."

Seek, on a second floor balcony overlooking the deck, snarled at Jack and gripped the railing. She glanced quickly at Chase, who, on the opposite balcony, was blatantly laughing at her.

"Put a size twelve sock in it, Chase Young, and focus on getting that Master Pen back!" she snapped.

Chase rolled his eyes and leaned casually on the rail.

"What? You don't want to stay and watch the show for a while?"

Just as he spoke, all the Xiaolin monks burst through the door, flanked by Good Seek and Chester.

Jack, hovering just above his chair, held up a hand to call off his robots for a moment.

"I sure hope you've come to surrender, you obnoxious little dust mites, because you'd have to be utterly retarded to think you can defeat me!"

"You're the one who's 'utterly retarded', Jack!" Kimiko snapped, pointing an accusing finger. "We're going to stop you once and for all!"

Jack got a good laugh out of this and had to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye.

"Yeah, right," he laughed. "Just like all the other times you were going to stop me once and for all. How long has it been now since you haven't been able to beat me? Two years? Feels like just yesterday I dropped a warhead on the cheeseball."

"We know all your tricks now, Jack!" Raimundo shouted. "And, we've got all six elemental Dragons! With Good Seek to melt your robots on the spot, and our combined talents to overcome your every Shen Gong Wu, you don't stand a chance!"

Jack raised one eyebrow slowly. He saw Good Seek and figured that one out, but what about Meg?

"Meg?" he exclaimed, looking to her as she walked to stand by the others. "What are you doing? What is this?"

"You should have thought twice before you decided to ignore me and lock me up and generally be a big jerk! I used to think you were pretty damn cool, but it turns out you're just a self-centered, egotistical maniac!"

"Well, YEAH!" Jack hollered, rushing forward with the Jet Pak and landing on the floor easily about ten feet from the monks. "They turned you against me! I mean, give me a break, Meg! They're the ones who were so mean to you! If they're ever civil to you again it's only because they need you to make that Dragon Formation thing! I'm ruling the world now, Meg! You're a very high maintenance personality, but I can't give you 100 of my attention 100 of the time! Jeez!"

Everything Jack said made perfect sense to Meg, and she gave it careful consideration for a moment. But, the one thing he left out was the word 'sorry', so she turned her nose in the air.

"Chester feels the same way, too," she said hotly.

"Chester?" Jack repeated. "What?" He glanced up and saw the big, brand new and tough looking robot that waved sheepishly at him. "That's not Chester!" he scoffed. "Chester is an ancient piece of junk I made from a juicer and an office chair!" With that, he took to the air again and hovered gracefully a few feet back.

Jack forgot that he had also given Chester an emotion chip, and the robot's digital heart split in two at Jack's cold words.

"That does it," the robot said in his flat, toneless voice. "I have had enough. Let's blow him up!"

Jack cracked a sly grin and snickered. That was just the cue he was waiting for.

"Bring it, bitches!" he exclaimed, throwing his hand in the air. At that signal, about two dozen of his improved Jack Bots dropped down from their hiding places in the high ceiling.

"Jack Bots! Destroy them!"

Immediately, Omi, Raimundo, Kimiko, and Clay leapt forward and into battle. In a matter of seconds, the control deck became a chaotic scene of laser blasts, ice, steam, fire, smoke, wind, and a series an interesting on-board earthquakes, all decorated with much jumping, flipping, and kicking.

Good Seek held back nervously, not exactly a born fighter. So, Meg had to pull her along by the wrist.

"Just melt the robots, alright? But don't melt the walls of the ship, otherwise we'll all get sucked out into the stratosphere!"

Good Seek's eyes went wide as Meg yanked her by the wrist along the edge of the wall, narrowly missing a few stray laser shots by less than a second.

"Is this really necessary?" Good Seek stammered, ducking her head at the roar of a robot breaking apart. "I mean, what's the big deal? Everyone is just angry at everyone else- I mean, isn't that what this is all about? The monks hate Jack because he's a jerk and they hate my evil side because she turned on them, and you hate Jack because he was mean to you, and Chase was angry at Seek for giving Jack all the new robots, but Seek only gave them to Jack in the first place because she had an old grudge against Chase for something he posted of her online, and now they have to work together to get the Master Pen from Jack…"

She stopped abruptly as a combined Fire and Earth move all but flattened a Jack Bot.

"And I'm stuck in the middle of it all!" Good Seek screamed so loud that the battle actually slowed for a few seconds, distracted. "Don't mind me," she muttered sheepishly, backing against the wall.

The fight resumed to full mayhem, and Jack sat back to watch it all from above the main entrance. He was hovering, but also had one foot placed on the keystone of the door, loosely anchored in place. He took the Master Pen Shen Gong Wu out from his jacket breast pocket and began trying to decide between a flamethrower or an RPG.

Suddenly, he was knocked to the ground from above. He slammed to the floor and a familiar hand snatched the Master Pen from him.

"You bastard! That's mine!" Jack shouted, jumping to his feet as Chase made off.

"Ya snooze, ya loose!" Seek called to him from the balcony. Chase jumped up to the second level in three easy, logically impossible strides, but refused to let Seek have the Pen.

"Master Pen or not," Jack said strongly, hovering before them for a moment, "I still have the Omni Wu, so the Master Pen isn't even necessary!"

Chase glanced down at the Pen and then back to Jack, holding the black Omni Wu with his thumb and ring finger.

"The Omni Wu created by the Master Pen," he laughed, pointing the Pen at Jack. "Master Pen!"

In that flash of green light, Chase eliminated the Omni Wu.

"Easy come, easy go, Jack," he hissed.

"Right you are!" Meg Kake yelled as she zipped by. Moving insanely fast, Meg made a pass at Chase and snatched the Master Pen away. "If anyone deserves the Master Pen, it's me," she said, waving the Pen a little in front of her nose.

"Meg!" Jack snapped. "Don't you mean that you're stealing it back for me because you've been on my side all along?"

Meg went into bullet time and took what felt to her life five or six minutes to consider the matter. The battle below stopped like a paused movie, and even the heat waves from Jack's Jet Pak were frozen.

"I think it's time I stopped letting Jack push me around," she thought out loud, leaning on a rail. She tapped her chin with the Pen as she spoke. "Jack isn't the boss of me. He's just the boss of the whole world. Though, it is good to have friends who control the world. But, at the same time, I can't let him tell me what to do! He doesn't appreciate me! He'd probably sooner use me than care about what happens to me! All right! That does it! If he really does care about me then he won't beat me up. But, if he just doesn't care, then he can have the world!"

Meg flickered out of bullet time and made her decision known.

"You want the Master Pen, Jack?" she asked, getting up and standing on the rail. "Then go get it!"

Meg threw the Master Pen as hard as she could straight into the battle below.

Jack, Seek, and Chase dropped down from the second level and went after it. The Pen spun down through laser blasts, spirals of fire, shards of metal, and clouds of steam, pursued all the way. It hit the floor between the talons of a tall Jack Bot and was quickly kicked someplace else. In a hectic kick-the-can like hunt, Jack, Seek, and Chase went after the Wu, all the while dodging the monks or the robots and trying to navigate through the considerable smokescreen that had built up from the destruction.

Seek dove for the Pen but missed it by half a second as it was knocked across the floor. Jack caught sight of it and, flying around one of his Jack Bots, reached out and grabbed it…at the same instant one of his own Jack Bots grabbed it.

"What the hell?" Jack shouted. "Hey! Back off, soldier!"

"No!" the robot retorted, leaning down and glaring at its master.

This time, the battle really came to a stop. All the other Jack Bots stopped and looked, as did the monks, at this Jack Bot, Chester, who refused orders.

"What did you just say?" Jack growled.

"I said no!" the robot repeated. "I fact, I challenge you, Jack!"

"You can't challenge me," Jack retorted. "You…"

But, he glanced down, and sure enough, the Master Pen was glowing light yellow.

Omi jumped up from the wreckage of the right and stood atop a fallen robot.

"Challenge him to a battle of truth or lie!" Omi called to Chester.

"We'll fight on Chester's team!" Kimiko called out.

Raimundo and Clay looked at each other quizzically.

"Who's Chester?" Rai asked and Clay shrugged.

"Challenge him to a game of DDR!" Meg called out. "We'll own!"

Suddenly, someone who no one expected to honor the situation with his opinion spoke up.

"Don't challenge him to a Xiaolin Showdown," Chase snapped, approaching the two. "Instead, Jack, this robot challenges you to a Heylin Homicide."

"A what?" Jack repeated instantly.

"A Heylin Homicide," Chase began to explain in his perpetually irritated manner as he walked away again, "is very simple and very effective. It is impossible to cheat in such a fight because there are no rules whatsoever. The winner is whoever is left standing in the end, but this is the catch: unlike your PG-7 Xiaolin Showdowns, a Heylin Homicide can't guarantee that everyone will come out alive."

Jack looked quickly around the room. Aside from his robots, he was all alone in this fight.

"All right, Chester," he snarled, thinking fast. "I accept your Heylin Homicide. The stakes are…If I win, I keep the Master Pen, all the Shen Gong Wu, and planet earth! And, you stupid monks can never bother me again! And, if your side wins, then I'll leave the world alone and all the Shen Gong Wu will be deactivated: reset and hidden again for another generation to find! …Along with Wuya's puzzle box!"

"Deal!"

"HEYLIN HOMICIDE!"