Show Me the Chi

Raimundo had been in the Yin-Yang World only a few times in his life, and each venture was more unsettling that he cared to admit. The landscape was as warped and fluid like water, and nothing was as it seemed. The Dragon of the wind could remember when the whole of the Yin-Yang World appeared to be comprised entirely of crisscrossing rows of bottles ready to hold the chi of everyone in the world. But when he entered the mysterious realm this time, those priceless containers were nowhere to be seen.

What he could see however was the ever-faithful guardian of the world, the hulking black Chi Creature, snuffling around on all fours in search of something.

I bet he can lead me to where Kimiko's chi is. Raimundo thought. If he could find it that way, he wouldn't have to tangle with Mayun the sorcerer. Raimundo didn't want to spend more time than he needed to in the crazy mixed-up land of Yin-Yang.

"Hey!" Rai called. He let the Yo-Yos dangle from his fingers. An eerie light began to emanate from them, and the Chi Creature finally noticed him standing behind it. "Hey, ugly? You know where I can find some chi?"

The Chi Creature let out a howl and charged towards Rai. The Dragon of the wind nimbly stepped aside, then swung his two Yo-Yos out. The string wrapped around the Chi Creature's legs, bringing it down with an echoing crash. It screamed and flailed to get free, but for some reason the flimsy bit of string managed to keep an ironclad grip on the monster's legs. It wasn't going to go anywhere until Raimundo untangled it.

"Get up and run back home!" Raimundo jeered. He pulled the Yo-Yos away from the Creature and swung it around himself, vanishing with only a whisper. He managed to reappear just a few yards away, watching the Chi Creature search around for him. He thought that he was far enough to elude detection, and he was right. The Creature gave up after a few moments and bounded off into the distance, searching for something else to do during its eternal vigil.

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMP!

"That noise is really starting to climb atop my nerves!" Omi grumbled. He and Clay were standing shoulder to shoulder (well, technically it was shoulder-to-waist) against Jack Spicer and his colossal Transforming Bot that had just invaded the Temple. The two monks were quickly scanning the surface of the machine, looking for the typical Spicer weak points in its armor or oversights in the weapons design. Usually, Jack would design his robots so that their own bubble-shields would reflect their laser fire back at them. This time, however, the Transforming Bot looked absolutely flawless.

"Surrender my Crown at once or face the consequences!" Jack Spicer demanded.

"Quit your belly-achin' and prepare for a whuppin'!" Clay said.

Jack smirked. "Oh, I will."

All four of the robot's titanium arms unlocked themselves and began rising up into the air. Clay launched himself upwards with a gigantic leap. He smashed both of his big fists into two of the Transforming Bot's arms with as much force as he could muster, but even that didn't do so much as scratch the giant machine.

"That all you got?" Jack asked.

"Wudai Crater -- EARTH!" Clay sent an enormous fissure splitting across the courtyard towards the Transforming Bot. Almost lazily, the robot activated its jet-pack and flew up several feet. It landed on the far side of the fissure, completely unaffected.

A dust storm whipped up around it a few moments later, sending tiny pebbles shooting through every nook and cranny of the robot, searching wildly for some hidden switch or secret self-destruct panel and finding none. Clay wasn't done yet, however. Three large boulders came sailing out of the sky. Two of them smashed uselessly into the robot's arms and the third hit it square in the chest, leaving a dent about three inches deep.

"Give it up, Clay! My Transforming Bot is 10 times as powerful as any of my other robots. It'll easily withstand anything you can send against it."

"On three?" Omi said to Clay, ignoring Jack's words for now.

Clay nodded. "On three."

"One," Omi began.

"Two," Clay said.

"THREE!" The two monks shouted in unison.

Cries of 'water' and 'earth' were deafened by the sound of tremorous earth and rushing water. With a stomp, Clay sent half of Master Guan's garden soil flying into the air, flowers and all. Omi sent twin torrents of scalding hot water shooting out of his fingertips towards the soil. Then the two Xiaolin monks swirled their earth/water combination through the air and sent it collapsing down on top of the Transforming Bot, sealing it in a coffin of dirt.

"Mudsicle!" Clay said. "Nice job, Omi."

"Thank you, Clay." Omi said, bowing.

BWAAAAAMP!

Omi and Clay turned back to where the fossilized Transforming Bot was standing. They had just barely caught a glimpse of the robot before the air was suddenly filled with hard clods of dirt, baked to a crisp by Jack's lasers and sent flying towards them like missiles by the force of an explosion. The monks were battered by the hail briefly before they ran back into the temple to take shelter.

"What're we gonna do now?" Clay asked.

Omi closed his eyes and tried to think. There had to be some weakness to the Transforming Bot. Jack could never build a decent robot, much less one that was nearly invincible. If they could find that weakpoint, they could send him and his robot toppling down. But where was it?

"HERE'S JACKIE!" Jack Spicer cackled. His robot grabbed the temple's entrance, smashing the windows and crushing the wood in its powerful grip. Omi leapt forward, darting around the robot's flailing mechanical fingers. "Get off, get off, get off!" Jack said. The robot tried to swat Omi like a fly, but the little monk was too nimble for that. He dodged a fist, leaving it to smash into the robot's knee. Five razor-sharp gnashing fingers tore into the dent that Clay had made onto the robot's chest earlier, revealing a knot of exposed wires that crackled and hissed when they touched the open air.

"I get it!" Clay said to himself. "Omi's going to make him beat himself up." The Dragon of the earth thought about jumping in then, but decided not to. Omi seemed to have it under control; anything he could do now would just distract him.

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMP!

"No!" Omi yelped. Clay looked up and saw Omi jumping higher and higher, towards Jack Spicer's command center on top of his robot. For half a second, it looked as if he was about to make it. But then a sinister glow began to form around Jack's neck. It took Clay less than a moment before he realized what it was.

"Omi, get down!" Clay shouted, but it was too late. The beam of light arced around Omi's head, wrapping around his body like a massive, shining snake. Clay could see the chi flowing freely from Omi's mouth, circling over him before slowing into the necklace around Jack's throat.

The littlest monk plummeted from the sky like a yellow-and-red falling star. Clay ran out of the destroyed temple entrance, his arms outstretched to catch his friend. The moment he caught him, he turned and ran, not for the Temple but for the Shen Gong Wu vault. Whatever this Crown did, it had to be very powerful for Jack to go to this amount of trouble to lay his hands on it. And Clay knew that whatever happened, he'd have to see to it that Jack never got to wear that Crown.

The Chi Creature did not return to the chi bottle region.

Raimundo followed it for what felt like hours, always careful to stay hidden so that the Creature would not detect his presence. It made several stops in the other bizarre lands hidden within the shrouded mist, but not once did Raimundo catch a glimpse of anything that could contain Kimiko's chi. It looked as if he would have to find Mayun in order to get it back. But that was the hard part...

A sound rang out from somewhere up ahead. Rai cocked his head to one side to hear it more clearly. It was the sound of a horn, being blown to produce one long, mournful note.

I hope that's a clue. Rai cast the snuffling Creature another glance, then turned and bounded off in the direction of the horn.

As he ran, his heart gave a jolt when he noticed that the ground seemed to be dissolving underneath him. A gust of wind picked up, propelling him off of the vanishing ground to a cliff that seemed to be jutting out of the empty space. Raimundo grabbed the edge of the cliff, pulling himself on top of it. Rising to his feet, he heard the sound of the horn again, this time much louder. When he looked around, he could see that the cliff spanned much longer than it had appeared; it stretched far off into the horizon. Rai wouldn't need to walk that far, however. A cloaked figure was sitting just a few feet in front of him. Mayun, Rai thought, stepping towards him.

"Hey, are you Mayun?" Raimundo asked.

For a short while, the figure did not respond. Then...

"You seek the soul of your Dragon of fire." The thing in the cloak said.

"You have it?" Raimundo said. "Give it back... now!"

"Come and get it, Xiaolin warrior." The figure replied.

Raimundo dashed over to the cloaked man, punching it in the back of the head. It vanished for a split second, then reappeared behind him. He felt a pair of cold, slimy fingers pinching his throat from the back. "Lemme go!" Rai yelled. He lashed out with one foot, hitting the creature in what felt like its stomach. It let out a loud intake of breath, giving Rai a chance to turn and tackle it with as much force as he could muster. Both monster and Dragon toppled to the ground, locked in a powerful grapple.

He's strong. Rai gritted his teeth. He thought of Kimiko. But I have more to lose.

He managed to pin the cloaked figure under him. "Give me back Kimiko's chi!" He yelled, tearing the cloak off of Mayun's body. His eyes widened when he saw what was underneath. "No."

"Hello, Raimundo." said Hannibal Roy Bean, smiling back at him with mangled yellow fangs.