Loose Ends

The portal closed with an enormous slurping sound, swallowing up Echidna too, chi and all. Raimundo watched her vanish with a determined look on his face. Then, when she was completely gone, he nodded his head and fell backwards to the floor like a falling tree.

"You can't fall asleep on the job now, boy!" Clay said, gripping Raimundo's solid arm with his ghostly hand.

"Just… give me some rest, okay?" Raimundo murmured.

"Yeah, Rai, you have to put us back to normal!" Kimiko protested.

"Guys…. I really don't have much energy left…"

"A fallen tree helps only the helpful beaver!" Omi added.

"What?"

"Sorry," Omi said sheepishly. "Echidna swallowed some very comprehensive books of wise sayings, and I thought that one was appropriate here."

"Well it wasn't." Raimundo said wearily. "Now let me sleep. When I wake up, I'll work on resurrecting you guys from the dead. I…. I…" He let out an unnaturally deep, rumbling yawn. "I… promise."

Hannibal Bean hopped over, looking as tired as Raimundo felt. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. I think I just heard the Chi Creature coming this way." When Raimundo didn't respond, he passed right through Clay's invisible shade and dragged the boy to a sitting position. Then he proceeded to try and slap him awake, delivering heavy blows on Raimundo's left cheek until he finally popped his eyes open and stared blearily at the legume.

Raimundo yawned again. "I guess I'll try to work this out now." He brought the two enchanted yo-yos together. "Yin Yo-Yo! Yang Yo-Yo!" The portal reopened, as wide and inviting as ever. He stepped partway through, paused, then craned his neck to look back at Hannibal Roy Bean. "You coming or what?"

Bean shook his head. "Afraid not." When he saw Raimundo's quizzical expression, he elucidated. "I appreciate your hospitality, and your decision to change me for the better, I really do. But it's just not me, you know. I need to feel powerful again, and the only way to do that is to reabsorb my yinand go back to being the Hannibal Roy Bean you knew and feared. That means that I've got to trap myself in here again, before I end up being worse than that Echidna character."

Raimundo nodded. "I'll miss you then." He waved to Hannibal Bean, then turned again and leapt through the portal. It closed up behind him.

Master Guan's Temple was in ruins, as he expected to find it. Stiff ranks of identical gray skeleton dragons formed an enormous occupation force that held the once glorious Xiaolin monastery and the valley in which it was located under their horrible sway.

Lying at Raimundo's feet when he arrived was a flickering object. He had to kneel down and examine it closely to realize it was a skeleton. A tiny, inky-black skeleton of a dragon.

"Couldn't be…" He murmured, knowing full well deep down that this was the sole earthly remnant of Echidna.

'Do not touch me, mortal…' Echidna's skeleton rasped, with a hollow tinny voice that seemed to be heard only by Raimundo's mind, not his ears.

"You're not exactly in a position to make demands here, tiny." Raimundo commented.

'RAARRRGH!" The skeleton shrieked. It launched itself at Raimundo's face with characteristically uncanny speed. The Dragon of the Wind batted it to the ground. While it lay twitching amidst the reeds, Raimundo ground it into oblivion under his sandaled feet.

"And that's… the end of that." He said.

The instant he lifted his foot off the ground, the entire valley started pulsating with divine brilliance. Arcs of blue and yellow emanated from the point where Echidna had died, sweeping through the air. They enveloped each of the skeleton dragons in turn, and without fail crumbled them into flames and dust. In a matter of minutes, the vast dragon forces that had swept down over the temple had been reduced to the ashes from whence they came.

It wasn't over yet, however. Popping out of the ground, like flowers in the springtime, were the shades of all the people who had been devoured by Echidna. But as Raimundo watched, their spirits deepened and seemed to take on new life, and by the time they approached him they were again as they had been.

Jack Spicer sat atop his throne in his estates, watching the brilliance coast towards him through the sky. "That can't be good." He muttered. "And I was totally winning, too!"

As the light flooded the room, he felt his ornaments breaking free of his grasp. The Amulet of Mayun was the first; it rose into the air and shattered into a billion pieces. The Horn of Splendor melted away, leaving a sticky green slime on his hands where he had held it. The Stamp of Ouroborous, which he had hardly looked at since he got it, drifted up in a column of smoke, allowing no stray mark to evidence that it had ever been there. The Sword followed it, and it was its disappearance that Jack finally noticed what was going on.

"Hey! I just went to the trouble of stealing all that back from the monks! What gives?" Jack yelled.

Mayun stirred behind him. "I am afraid that Echidna is dead, Your Majesty."

Jack glared at him. "Really? Well that's just lame. Don't I at least get to keep her items?"

"They were forged by her will." Mayun said. "Not one of them can remain on this Earth without her life's force feeding them." The undulating shadow stared sadly up at Jack. "And neither can--," He was cut off as first his head, then his shoulders, and then his knees and toes disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Jack then felt his Crown, the Crown that made him King of the World, slipping away from him. He jumped out of his throne, catching the Crown before it could escape. The magic pulling the Crown away dragged him clean across his throne room, scraping his knee and making him scream for his mother at least twice before he reached the window.

"No… no… you… don't!" He grunted, trying his best to keep ahold of the soaring talisman.

JACK SPICER!

Jack Spicer let out a scream.

JACK SPICER! DO YOU TRULY WISH TO HOLD ONTO THIS TRINKET?

His mind's eye was filled with a scene that seemed foggy, like a dream. Two hooded figures were making their way up a long stretch of road in the middle of a sprawling valley of light and darkness.

DO YOU TRULY WISH FOR THIS FATE? FOR EVER, TIL THE END OF TIME?

"Not really. L-l-looks k-k-kinda boring." Jack babbled.

He let the Crown go. It disappeared in a rush of cold air and the hideous scream of an angered dragon.

The Xiaolin monks held Council amid the ruins of the Temple. Every monk and dragon (and Dragon) who had been present for the final resistance against Echidna was sitting or floating in a circle around Master Fung and Master Monk Guan.

"The time has come for recognition." Master Fung said. "Of late we have faced challenges more powerful and more destructive than any the world has ever seen. But all of us, humans and dragons, were able to rise up and defend it against the fell forces of evil. For this, on behalf of the Earth and all the innocents who are saved, I thank you all."

There was no applause then, only quiet acknowledgement.

"Raimundo, Omi, Kimiko, and Clay." Master Fung said. The four Xiaolin Dragons bowed. "You faced overwhelming odds, and time and again you were thrashed and thwarted by your opponents, due in part to your odd penchant for splitting up. But when it was necessary, you were able to devise a plan bold enough and ingenious enough to outwit and destroy Earth's greatest foe. For this, I commend you."

This time, there was some clapping.

Just as the Xiaolin Dragons were rising, there was a loud noise – almost like a thunderclap – from amid the ruins of the Temple. They looked up only to see four Elder Monks standing there. Each one was dressed in robes representing the four elements – Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth.

Master Fung and the other monks bowed and the dragons simultaneously unleashed a jet of fire into the air.

"Aren't you the guys who let Hannibal Roy Bean go?" Raimundo said.

The Wind judge that Raimundo and the others had first seen so long ago nodded and smiled. "And now – are you not glad that we did so?"

"How did you know he was going to turn good and help us?" Kimiko asked.

"We can see the future!" The Elder Monks announced in unison.

"Really?"

"No." The Monks said. "However, we did foresee that you would need all the assistance you could get, so we deliberately furnished you with an ally to make sure that you were not too shorthanded. And, seeing as how the world has not been annihilated, we assume that it worked out alright."

Clay frowned. "I'm guessin' here that you didn't just turn up to clear up a few loose ends."

The Earth element Monk shook his head. "Correct."

"This day, you four surmounted the greatest evil you will ever know. For this triumph, we have decided to raise you from the rank of Wudai Warriors and make you into Grandmaster Xiaolin Dragons."

Needless to say, the Dragons were stunned. The Elder Monk continued.

"It will not be an easy task. The Grandmaster Quest is the most grueling task that any of us could ask of you. Only Dashi himself has ever successfully completed it. If you choose to accept it, then twenty years from today you will have your own Temple and be responsible for training your successors in the way of the Xiaolin."

The Dragons glanced at each other.

This is a pretty big step… Kimiko thought.

A twenty-year long quest? Raimundo thought incredulously.

Can I truly prevail? Omi closed his eyes.

Aw, shucks, this is a lot of pressure! Clay thought.

Then they looked back at out at the Temple, and the monks and dragons surrounding them. They saw what they would be dedicating their lives to – rebuilding all the lives that had been irrevocably changed by the war between the Xiaolin and the Heylin, including their own.

"I can do it." Omi said.

"Wecan do it." Kimiko said.

"After all, we just knocked out the Queen of the Dragons!" Raimundo added.

"Amen to that, pardner." Clay finished.

"Good." The Elder Monks said. "We will return in the morning."

And with that, they were gone.

"I am… so very proud of you," Master Fung said.

"Me too!" Dojo cried, running up to embrace the four monks in his arms.

The Xiaolin monks would walk a long and dark path, one that would have no true end save death. But, unlike Typhon and Echidna, they knew that the point of such journeys was not the destination, but the steps along the way.

Author's Note – Thanks, all of you, for sticking by me for one…. Two… three… twenty-two chapters! Again, special thanks to Sugarmakesmeangry, for all the dragon facts from mythology that I could possibly need, and even the ones I didn't need. Really, it's been a blast, and I hope I can keep entertaining you… for ever and ever, til the end of time. Just kidding….

Or am I…?