All XS characters are copyright Christi Hui
'Father Ted' and 'My Hero' are copyright (at least in the US) of BBCAmerica
'Snatch' is copyright Guy Ritchie
'Dragon Tales' are copyright somebody else
Long story short, I own nothing and make no money off of this venture, it just quiets the voices in my head to a contented whisper.
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". . . and then there was a great flash. When it had cleared, this was all we found of Chase Young." Omi finished, gesturing to the pile of clothes and armor the Xiaolin monks had retrieved.
"I see. But you do not believe Chase Young was obliterated?" Master Fung asked.
The old master studied the clothing spread out in front of him intently. He was loathe to admit it, but he doubted his pupils could have defeated the great Chase Young so easily, Shen-Gong-Wu or no Shen-Gong-Wu.
"His shirt was gone," Kimiko protested. "And I could have swore I saw something move away from the pile just afterward."
Master Fung rubbed his chin, obviously deep in thought.
"I shall have to study the ancient scrolls." He said, rising gracefully to his feet. "We shall see what has become of Chase Young."
"The Golden Tiger Claws were gone, too." Raimundo interjected. "So he could have just teleported away."
"But Chase Young doesn't need the Golden Tiger Claws," Clay drawled. "He can teleport without 'em."
"And fly, and turn into a dragon-monster, and command an army of jungle cats, and use magic . . . " Kimiko let the sentence drift.
"Do not forget he is the greatest warrior in all of history!" Omi added helpfully.
"Yeah, yeah, Omi; we get the idea." Rai sighed. "Chase Young can do anything."
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Chase was beginning to suspect he had been too hasty in forbidding Spicer to help him retake his stronghold.
This realization dawned when it took the evil overlord ten minutes to pour a glass of milk.
Sitting on the tall stool, Chase realized he was without a beverage and decided to get one himself. The first step involved getting off of the stool without falling; Chase's legs were too short to reach the first rung of the stool while he was in a sitting position. After a few aborted attempts, the dragon lord discovered he could descend safely if he rolled onto his stomach and lowered his legs to the rungs backwards. Then he had to retrieve a glass. There didn't seem to be any step stools around, so the tall stool had to be dragged across the floor to the cabinets. Once a glass was found, Chase lowered himself back to the floor and trotted over to the refrigerator. He opened the appliance and said an extremely rude word in Mandarin.
The milk was on the highest shelf.
The stool was retrieved again and Chase clambered up it muttering dark words about a family of giants. Then came the question of how he was supposed to climb down holding a gallon of milk. In the end he placed the milk on the stool seat, climbed down, and then took the milk from the seat. Back to the cabinet; Chase reversed the process to carry the milk up and finally poured the hard-earned glass. He returned the milk to the fridge, on a low shelf this time. He dragged the stool back across to the island and clambered back up.
If he hadn't been hungry before, he was now.
Chase chewed and swallowed mechanically as he pondered his predicament. How to return himself to normal? He needed to return to his home and use the Fountain of Wii and the Eaglescope to find out how it was done. But how to get past his warriors and Wuya? If he had the Tongue of Saiping, he could command the cats to help him, but Wuya wouldn't be easily defeated. Even if Chase threw Jack to her, the albino youth wouldn't even be able to delay the fifteen hundred year old witch long enough for Chase to use the Fountain of Wii.
Unless he had the Monkey Staff.
Chase finished his meal and slid off of the stool a final time, leaving the dishes where they were. He wasn't a maid; someone else could deal with them. The dragon lord headed back down to the entrance to Jack's lair.
Speaking of maids, certainly there had to be some here; the grand house was too neat and clean to have been left in Jack's care. Chase paused to look around the impeccable interior of the mansion. This house was built to impress. Certainly it didn't impress i Chase,/i but by modern standards it was fairly grand.
It wasn't the kind of place you dumped a teenager by himself.
Jack's parents would come into the picture before too long. While Chase was hoping his current age predicament could be solved in short order, he did realize that it might not be possible.
"Who are you?" A strange voice asked.
Chase turned. An old woman was standing in the hallway behind him. Her round face covered in wrinkles put Chase in mind of a dried apple. Her skin was pale, her hair gone completely white, but her blue eyes still sparkled like twin diamonds. The family resemblance was unmistakable.
"You are Jack Spicer's grandmother." It was more of a statement than a question.
"How do you know Our Jackie, little one?" The woman tilted her head, giving Chase a calculating look. A faint brogue touched her words. She was Scottish or Irish; Chase never cared much to tell the difference.
"I smell death on you," Chase Young announced coldly.
Grandmother Spicer stepped past the miniaturized dragon lord and pounded on the door to the basement with her cane.
"Open up, Our Jackie!!" She bellowed. "It's Friday night!!"
Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Jack burst through the door, taking in the pair that watched him intently.
"Nana Spicer! Uh . . . I don't think I'll be able to do it tonight," Jack said, rolling his eyes toward Chase. "Something came up. I'm - uh . . . . b-babysitting."
Chase narrowed his eyes at Spicer, but didn't contest the claim. It would do for now.
Nana Spicer gave Chase another head-to-toe look. The dragon lord returned her gaze steadily.
"Our Jackie, did you knock up some little slant-eyed girl?" Nana asked, turning her attention back to the goth teen. "And now she's done a runner and left you with the brat?"
"NANA!" Jack wailed, turning crimson. "I did not knock anybody up! Chase is not mine!"
"You're still a virgin, aren't you?" The woman stated, shaking her head. "When I was your age, I was seducing Allied officers on a nightly basis."
The color of Jack's face approached that of his hair.
"Nana, no sex stories in front of Chase, please."
Young chuckled under his breath. Nana Spicer was certainly entertaining, if only for her ability to embarrass Jack.
"Chase, eh? Admit it, Our Jackie: This is your wee one. Those yellow eyes didn't spring from nowhere. Oh, I'm not angry, luv. It's good to know you're a healthy young man. Does your worthless mother know?"
"Nana . . . ." Jack whined, mortally embarrassed.
"Still, it's hard to believe a mother would get rid of her own child. But I've heard they do that in China. Why do they hate little girls so much here?"
Chase's eyes widened.
Jack's eyes snapped up from the floor to lock eyes with Chase and then threw a panicked look towards his grandmother.
"Ch-Chase is a boy, Nana!" Jack squawked, wanting to cut off the explosion before it happened. "You know what; I-I'm sure Chase'll be fine while we have our Friday night!" The goth teen closed and locked the door to the basement behind him. "I-I'll just get things set up!"
As Chase turned to the elderly woman to give her a vicious tongue-lashing, Jack caught him under the arms and swung the shrunken warrior up onto one hip.
"Put me down!" Chase demanded.
"Don't chew out my granny!" Jack hissed. "Just sit tight and hang out with us for the next couple of hours. We'll have our usual Friday night and then go storm your castle in the morning."
The albino youth quickly hustled Chase down the twisting hallways to an expansive living room. An enormous flat screen TV took up most of one wall. In fact, the only reason the room could be called a living room and not a private theatre was the fact that theaters don't have couches, personal jukeboxes, and refrigerators.
"Put me down! " Chase repeated, kicking at Jack. This time the teen complied, letting the dragon lord slide down one leg to the floor. Mustering what dignity he could, Chase straightened his clothing. "Never carry me around like that again! I am not your teddy bear, Jack Spicer!"
"Teddy bear? Where the hell did that come from?" Jack echoed.
"So what exactly does this usual Friday night consist of?"
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"I used to know a grand toast,
But alas, I cannot think of it-," Jack said, lifting a tall glass of beer.
"So raise your glass to anything,
And bless your soul, I'll drink to it!" Nana Spicer chimed in, clinking her own glass against her grandson's.
The pair tipped back the dark ales with astonishing speed. Nana finished her glass a hair earlier than Jack. The woman slammed her glass back down on the coffee table while her grandson turned his empty glass upside down and balanced in on top of his head.
"So . . . every Friday night, you watch something Irish and drink each other under the table?" Chase intoned, arching an eyebrow.
"Irish, or Scottish, or even English. Our Jackie likes those Guy Ritchie movies," Nana said, pouring herself another drink. "I miss the Isles, but you know how it is with the statute of limitations. I was just lucky my favorite grandson lives in a non-extradition treaty country."
Chase rubbed his forehead in the manner of the heavily put upon.
"Now I know he's yours, Our Jackie," Nana said. "He understood all of that. Only tot I ever saw that was that eloquent at his age was you, lug."
Jack blushed again. He dropped a stack of DVDs on the table, then poured himself another glass of beer.
"Nana, he's not my son. I'm just watching him for a little while because . . . his father is out of the country."
"You're a terrible liar, Our Jackie. You need to work on that more. So, what do you want to watch, Our Chase? Something funny? 'Father Ted' or 'My Hero'?"
"Chase is more of a Guy Ritchie kind of kid, Nana. Let's watch 'Snatch'!" Jack said, waving a DVD.
"You threw a fit over me mentioning sex in front of him, but you'll show him a Guy Ritchie film?" Nana asked, arching an eyebrow. Her second glass of beer was already gone.
"Hey, I'm a typical American; blood and guts are just fine, sex is horribly scarring." Jack snarked, popping the disc into the player and walking back to the couch. The albino teen flopped down on the couch. Chase was arranged between them, eyeing both Spicers with thinly veiled contempt.
"How about how I met your grandfather? That's nice and romantic." Nana offered, topping up her drink again.
"Not the way you tell it," Jack said, giving his grandmother a sidelong glance.
"Our Chase, when I was the same age Our Jackie is now-"
"Nana was a spy for the Nazis, Grandad was an SS lieutenant who fled Germany after the war. Nana hid him in her barn for two years and he ended up killing her abusive father. They fell in love and had kids; the end." Jack snapped quickly. He downed his beer and poured another.
"I still like my version better," Nana sighed.
"I don't mind your version, Nana," Jack growled. "Even the graphic recitation of your and Grandad's sexual escapades isn't so bad right up until the point where you say how much I look like him and start listing off all our similarities while looking at me like I'm a steaming hot steak!" Jack tossed back his drink. "You're my grandmother! It's creepy!"
Chase snorted, putting one hand over his face.
Nana Spicer 'harrumphed' to herself and went to the refrigerator in the back of the room. She returned to the couch with a package of cookies and a small plastic cup. She set them on the coffee table in front of Chase.
"Here you are, Our Chase," she crooned. "Since your father didn't bother to set you up-"
"He's not MINE!"
"-Here's some Jammy Dodgers and a bevy. Our Jackie'll get better at this fatherhood lark."
Chase rolled his eyes. The implication that he was Jack Spicer's son was nothing short of insulting, but he was fairly certain the old bag was doing it just to irritate the boy genius. Chase was all for irritating Spicer. The diminutive dragon lord picked up the cup Nana Spicer had given him. Milk again, but it appeared to have a touch of chocolate syrup in it. Chase sipped the liquid carefully. Yellow eyes lit up with delight. It was chocolately, but not exactly chocolate. There seemed to be a hint of almond and . . . was that hazelnut? It was quite delicious. Perhaps a bit of relaxation was in order. Chase Young drank down the milky beverage as Jack Spicer started his fifth beer.
The film started with some fairly amusing scenes of extreme violence and robbery. The cookies were quite delicious and against his better judgment, Chase settled back against the couch.
He was a bit surprised to see Spicer drinking like a longshoreman, but with Nana Spicer as an enabler, anyone could turn into an alcoholic. Chase had never been much of a drinker. The loss of control brought on by liquor was nothing short of terminally stupid.
The goth teen never even blinked when Chase asked Nana for a second cup of chocolate milk. His attention was firmly grabbed half an hour later when Chase abruptly collapsed against his thigh.
Jack blinked down at the dragon lord. At first he had thought that Chase's new body had simply conked out on him, but the blush on the warrior's cheeks and the intensity of the sudden sleep had him cocking an eyebrow at his grandmother.
"Did the poor dear drop off already? Well, you know how it is with wee ones." Nana replied sweetly.
Jack narrowed his eyes. Nana Spicer acting sweet and matronly was a sure sign she was up to something. His eyes fell on the plastic cup Chase still clutched in one hand. Prying it gently from the child's grasp, Jack brought it to his nose for an experimental sniff.
"Nana." He sighed roughly. "This is Bailey's Irish Cream. You're giving Our Chase booze."
"It'll help him sleep."
"Nana, he's four."
"So? I used to put Bailey's in your sippy cup. It never did you any harm."
Jack rubbed his face, sighing roughly. He put the cup on the coffee table and gathered the unconscious toddler in his arms.
"I'm putting him to bed now," Spicer sighed. The goth teen wobbled slightly as he stood up. "Eight beers and I'm feeling it; you're turning me into a lightweight, Chase."
Chase didn't answer, just flopped bonelessly against the albino youth. As he headed out of the room, Jack tilted the child in his arms, watching him flop back and forth. Jack giggled.
"My grandma just got the biggest evil genius in history drunk. Two cups of Bailey's and you're out like a light. Man, you're a cheap date, Chase."
Jack tittered. If he tilted the evil warlord just right, the boy's head would flop back and he'd start snoring lightly.
"Uh . . . . where are you going to sleep?"
In the end, Jack ended up putting Chase down in his own bed. He took off the warlord's sneakers and jeans, nearly laughing himself sick when he saw the Dragon Tales underoos Chase had chosen.
Biting back laughter, Jack tucked the covers in around the child.
"You're still Chase in your head. But you're gonna need some help if you need to kick ass on the Heylin level. I'll get to work on something to help in the morning. 'Night, Chase."