In a foggy valley, the Xiaolin Warriors were searching for the latest Shen Gong Wu. The spire like mountains of black stone loomed menacingly above them as Dojo flew low, with his belly almost touching the thick grey haze. The four heroes held on tight as their dragon friend flew through a gaping hole in the side of one mountain and out the other side.
"The Osu Stone fits in the palm of the user's hand, giving them extraordinary pushing power!" Dojo explained as he scanned the misty horizon for the new mystical item.
"Sounds useful for when Clay decides to take his time in the corridor," Raimundo mumbled.
"I heard that!" Clay yelled. "You don't move too fast first thing in the morning either."
Dojo suddenly swooped downwards through the layer of fog and up the side of a mountain, making his passengers shout as though they were on a rollercoaster. As they approached a large ledge, the dragon shrank to his smaller size and the four heroes landed softly on their feet.
Omi gazed up to the top of the mountain, noticing many smaller ledges above them as well as many holes in the rock face. "The Osu Stone must be inside one of the holes!" he exclaimed. "We must risk putting our hands inside each one!"
"Please let there be no bugs," Kimiko muttered as she rolled up her sleeve and gracefully hopped up to the nearest ledge, plunging her arm into the nearest hole.
Reaching in as far as she could, Kimiko let out a startled gasp. "Wow, first time lucky!" Raimundo called out.
Kimiko's smile faded and was replaced by a look of slight disgust. "I'm not so sure, guys. It feels too big for something that can fit in your palm, and a little wet." The Shoku Warrior of fire pulled her hand out from the hole to witness that it was covered in slime, making her cringe.
She peered into the hole to see something round and shiny. Kimiko gasped when she realized it was a massive eye, blinking a couple of times before a deafening deep chortle shook the mountain. Kimiko leapt back down to her companions just in time to avoid the Cyclops bursting out of the mountainside, sending boulders flying in all directions.
"I don't know how he got in there, but I like his style!" laughed Jack Spicer, rising behind them with his heli-bot while being accompanied by a swarm of his machines. "Squash them into paste!"
The Cyclops guffawed and plodded towards the waiting heroes, but the ledge they were on began to give way. The Xiaolin Warriors leapt onto some of the higher ledges just before the ledge crumbled away, sending the Cyclops tumbling down the mountainside. Jack winced and looked down at the debris far below him, witnessing the dim-witted giant's hand burst out of the rubble to give thumbs up, as if to signal that he was unhurt.
Omi, Raimundo, Kimiko and Clay saw their chance to leap further up the mountain. A hole at the very top seemed to have a bright light shining within it; the activated Osu Stone. Jack chased after them, sending Jack-bots in to delay the team's advancement. They dispatched the robots easily, but they were visibly slowing down. Jack rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he flew ahead, but Raimundo used a great blast of wind to catch up, vanquishing some of the Jack-bots at the same time.
"Rod of Shiitake!" Raimundo yelled, pointing the mushroom sceptre Shen Gong Wu at the villain. Jack squealed as he found small mushrooms sprouting all over his body, including his heli-bot. As the fungi were interfering with his flight, Jack deactivated his flying machine and landed on a ledge to brush the mushrooms off his body.
Standing amongst a mess of mushrooms, Jack looked up to see the Shoku Warrior of wind far ahead of him. The boy genius grinned as he remembered he possessed a Shen Gong Wu that would give him an advantage; the Fancy Feet. The blue and gold sandals allowed him to run at a superhuman speed, overtaking Raimundo in a matter of seconds.
As he ran and jumped ahead, Jack thought to turn around so he could see the look of defeat on Raimundo's face. However, Jack saw Raimundo use another Shen Gong Wu to counter the effects of the Fancy Feet. Jack found himself running at normal speed all of a sudden, even though he was still wearing the speed increasing sandals.
Raimundo had used the Shard of Lightning to slow time to almost a complete standstill, rendering Jack's speed increase negligible. Raimundo knocked the evil genius off his feet with a flying kick before going ahead and taking the Osu Stone from its hole, deactivating the effect of the Shard of Lighting at the same time. Raimundo smiled and looked at the new Shen Gong Wu in his hand, resembling a silver brooch with an orange stone in the centre shaped like an open palm.
Jack wearily got to his feet and held the Fancy Feet in front of him. "Trade ya," Jack said sheepishly, gesturing to the Osu Stone Raimundo held.
Raimundo rolled his eyes and held the Osu Stone in the centre of his palm, aiming it at Jack. As soon as Raimundo yelled its name, Jack was sent flying backwards, dropping the Fancy Feet. Jack soared over the horizon, followed by a swarm of Jack-bots.
Jack was thankful that his robots had managed to save him, and had managed to get him back home in one piece. After calming his nerves with some herbal tea, the boy genius began to design some evil plans to utilize in case another Shen Gong Wu revealed itself. Katnappé was watching him create 'blueprints', which looked more like children's drawings.
"Why did you draw a picture of the Xiaolin Warriors as the opposite sex?" the villainess asked Jack, pointing to one particular drawing with her claw.
"Get your paws off that! I'm saving that plan for a day when I have the necessary resources!" Jack snapped angrily before explaining. "I'll need a tonne of explosives; any kind will do as long as it creates a good enough explosion. Then I'll dress the explosives up as their perfect soul mates!"
Katnappé rolled her eyes. "Don't stop there," she mumbled sarcastically.
"When the Xiaolin losers lean in for a kiss; boom! Their lips will trigger the hidden detonators!" Jack looked like he had just told her a scientific breakthrough he had made, waiting for applause.
Jack was only answered by the sound of a siren; his new Shen Gong Wu detector had picked up the readings of another mystical item. A look of panic briefly appeared on his face as he rummaged through the pile of 'blueprints', but eventually he picked out an evil plan that satisfied him. "Let's go dweeb catching!"
Dojo was soaring through a desert canyon, following a river bellow as the Xiaolin Warriors conversed about the new Shen Gong Wu they were hunting for. "The Fleur De Hoquet gives your enemy a nasty hiccupping fit!" Kimiko read as they watched the simple figures within the Shen Gong Wu scroll demonstrate the flower's strange effects.
"It'd be pretty funny to see if it works on a guy like Chase Young," Raimundo laughed before putting on a mockingly eloquent voice. "That pretty boy would probably hate doing something so ugly."
"Or maybe he's like me," added Clay. "I sort of like the feel of hiccups. Helps wake you up." Raimundo looked rather bewildered.
Several miles ahead of them, Jack finished attaching a thin but strong tightrope from one end of the canyon to the other. Vlad and Tubbimura looked fearful as they saw Jack prepare to walk across it, but Katnappé watched, eating from a bag of popcorn.
"I can see that dragon coming!" Jack yelled to his companions. "You know what to do!"
"I don't know!" Vlad whimpered. "This evil plan feels like old cartoon!"
Jack pointed angrily to a large pile of anvils beside them. "Hand me one of those things so I can drop it on their heads! Get two if you have to!"
"Vlad's right," Katnappé said. "You know how well these plans go in cartoons, don't you?"
"My attention span wasn't that long as a kid; I lost interest before I'd see how villainous plans concluded," Jack replied haughtily. "Besides, this is real life; I'm sure things will go differently."
He walked across the tightrope until he was halfway across the canyon. Jack held his hands out as two of his Jack-bots lifted an anvil from the pile and floated towards the evil genius. Vlad and Tubbimura covered their eyes as the robots prepared to hand the heavy object to their master.
"Here they come! Hand it to me already!" Jack yelled.
The robots did as they were told and dropped the anvil into Jack's hands. The weight was too much for the tightrope, causing Jack to scream as it stretched all the way down to the ground. Jack saw Dojo and his passengers fly over him; it was apparent that they had not noticed him. Eventually, Jack reached the floor of the canyon and placed the anvil down on the ground. In front of him he saw a slender brown and white streaked bird with large feet and long legs; a roadrunner.
"Oh, I think I can remember how this plan turned out in the cartoon!" Jack exclaimed to himself, frightening the bird away. "I've just got to let go of this anvil so I can concentrate."
Jack was suddenly sent flying up in the air, like a catapult, as the tightrope returned to its original position. "Life imitates art," Katnappé said, watching Jack zoom through the sky through a pair of cat themed binoculars.
Later that day, after recovering from his impromptu flight back in his evil lair, Jack Spicer stood in the centre of a circular metal platform and waited while keeping his arms outstretched to his sides. He was dressed in a skin tight spandex garment that covered his entire body except for his face, patterned with circuit board like markings. As he stood like a statue, miniature Jack-Bots took his measurements with measuring tape and laser pointers.
The platform began to rotate, almost knocking Jack off balance, while giving him a full view of the computers of his evil lair making the necessary calculations for the task at hand. The platform came to a halt when what appeared to be a large ray gun lowered from an opening in the ceiling, aimed directly at Jack's posterior.
"When it comes to making a costume, you always have to start with the seat of the pants," Jack lectured to an audience of none, simply because he liked the sound of his own voice. "Even if it's a teeny tiny bit uncomfortable, the whole outfit fails. I want to run fast, kick butt and look cool without any Shen Gong Wu! I can't afford to use any more because I keep losing them!"
Jack was silenced by the sound of the ray gun booting up and suddenly firing an intense green beam of light at his rear end, causing the boy genius to wince. On a large computer monitor beside him, a computer generated image of Jack's buttocks began to appear slowly, starting with a wireframe model. The virtual buttocks rotated on screen as they took shape; the point of view zooming in and out. Jack briefly tilted his head to the side and stared at his virtual posterior in admiration.
"Not what I wanted to see in the morning," muttered Katnappé's voice from out of Jack's field of vision.
At first, Jack squealed in surprise, but then he became annoyed. "Of course you don't want to see it!" he snapped, "It's a top secret project! My butt, I mean, my eyes only!"
"Butt scan complete," droned the feminine voice of the supercomputer, making Katnappé burst out laughing.
The feline thief laughed even harder when the main monitor displayed an intricately detailed model of Jack's behind, massive in size. The computer generated image seemed to pulse and jiggle, as if the rendering was trying far too hard to be lifelike.
"Guys, come quickly!" Katnappé yelled up the stairs to where Jack's other cronies were. "Jack has an amazing top secret plan for us all to see!"
A parade of villains consisting of Chameleon-Bot, Vlad, Le Mime and Tubbimura stampeded down the stairs into the basement lair. The Cyclops, too large to fit through the door, simply peered into room. The villains immediately began to point and laugh at the computer generated buttocks, causing Jack to stop the machine from scanning his body in a fit of embarrassment and anger.
Even Le Mime's mimed laughter was getting on Jack's nerves. The Cyclops's idiotic chortling was shaking the very foundations of the house as he pointed a giant red finger into the basement lair. "Big butt!" he snorted.
Jack was heartbroken. "His first words…" he muttered almost silently, "I didn't want it to happen like this."
The villains resumed their laughter, but Jack snapped his fingers with a scowl. Several Jack-Bots burst into the room, laser cannons blazing, driving the villains out of their master's workspace. Jack sighed as he surveyed the collateral damage that his machines had caused.
"If they hadn't laughed at me, this place would've stayed clean," he mumbled before the scanner continued analyzing more of his body. "What does it take for me to get some respect?"
Later that day, high above the clouds, the four Xiaolin Warriors soared on the back of Dojo once again. Sitting at the front, Raimundo had the scroll of the Shen Gong Wu open before him as his allies peered over his shoulders to take a look.
"Our next Shen Gong Wu is the Sleeping Lion Pillow. Looks pretty comfy," the Shoku Warrior leader said as he eyed the mystic text.
"I remember that one," Dojo added. "Without it, Dashi wouldn't have had the inspiration to perform his great feats of courage and ingenuity!"
Omi stood up immediately. "I must claim the Sleeping Lion Pillow!" He announced. "Perhaps then I will find an inner strength similar to the power displayed by Clay during our last great quest!"
Clay chuckled softly. "Now now, don't start thinking that it'll let you plan when to be a Shoku Warrior."
"The strength sort of just comes to you," added Kimiko. "You've just gotta be yourself! It could happen at any time."
Dojo turned sharply towards a wide and deep fissure, causing the heroes to grip tightly to his scales. "It's this way!"
The floor of the gorge was riddled with many craters, some of which appeared to be glowing from within. Suddenly, as though the very canyon sensed their presence, the sinkholes became powerful fountains of magma. Dojo snaked his way around the molten jets, but the monks were in danger of being thrown off from the sharpness of his manoeuvres.
Clay yelled in dismay as Dojo jerked violently; the velocity pulling his hat off his head. Raimundo, watching the brown cowboy hat vanish into the gorge below them, immediately leapt off of Dojo's back and soared towards the ground with his Shoku wind powers. Confident that Raimundo would be unharmed, the Xiaolin Warriors felt no need to cry out in alarm.
Seconds later, Raimundo soared back onto the dragon's back, wearing Clay's hat on his head. "Phew, I'm not ready for a new look just yet," laughed the warrior of earth as he reclaimed his Texan headwear.
"I thought I caught a glimpse of the Wu while I was down there," Raimundo explained. "Do you mind swooping down, Dojo?"
The green dragon gulped audibly. "Sure can, buddy," he said sheepishly before gradually descending.
He avoided yet more towers of magma, only this time they were dangerously close to the craters and the intense pressure they emitted. They kept themselves several metres away from the eruptions, yet they could still feel the force and heat of the fiery blasts.
In a few moments, Dojo found a suitable place to land. As he shrank back down to his diminutive size to hop onto Clay's hat, the heroes noticed a small stump like rock. On top of the stone was a violet pillow with a lion head design embroidered upon it in golden thread.
"Do you think Jack will be too chicken to venture down here?" Clay asked the party.
Silhouetted against a blazing fountain of magma, Jack Spicer stood on a tall rock. "On the contrary," he said boastfully. "I've cooked up something hotter than lava!"
"Poisoned cupcakes?" Kimiko asked jokingly.
Jack's mood immediately went from arrogant to angry. Vlad, Tubbimura and Chameleon-Bot emerged from their hiding places. "No, no, no!" Jack yelled to his companions. "You're supposed to let me do a cool thing!"
"Woozy Shooter!" Tubbimura used his blow horn shaped Shen Gong Wu to send a cloud of purple mist towards the Xiaolin Warriors, but the mystical gas was blown back at him by Raimundo's Blade of the Nebula. Incapacitated from the haze turning him into a babbling fool, Kimiko saw her chance to snatch the Woozy Shooter from his hand using the Silk Spitter.
Jack shrieked in dismay when he saw the weapon seized from his crony's grip. At the same time, Clay used his powers over earth and stone to shake the ground at Vlad's feet, causing the brawny henchman to toss the Ju-Ju Flytrap in the air. Omi was quick to snatch the Shen Gong Wu before Vlad could reach it again, using his head as a springboard.
"You idiots are losing our Shen Gong Wu!" Jack screamed. He noticed Clay making a dash for the Sleeping Lion Pillow and saw that the Chameleon-Bot was idling nearby, tapping its chin with its finger. The evil genius snapped his fingers and pointed at the inactive robot. "Idiot-bot; get your metal butt in gear this minute! Become a shark or something!"
The idle robot came to its senses and fell forwards, transforming into a grey shark. Clay tripped over the motionless metal fish, causing his hat to fly from his head once again. A hollering Dojo tumbled out, his body curled into a wheel shape. The dragon was rolling directly towards the newly activated Shen Gong Wu.
"It's time to save the day!" Jack exclaimed, running towards the pillow himself. "Or ruin it I guess."
As Dojo came to a rest near the stump shaped rock where the Sleeping Lion Pillow lay, Jack Spicer grabbed the Shen Gong Wu and smothered the dragon with it; the first step to beginning a showdown. "Hey you, dragon; I challenge you to a Xiaolin Showdown!" Jack exclaimed.
Dojo squirmed out from underneath the Sleeping Lion Pillow and gasped for air before looking at his companions, who were rushing to his side. "It's too late, kids; the showdown's already begun! It'd help if you could give me something to wager, perhaps something you don't mind losing."
"Knock it off Dojo; you can do it if you try!" Raimundo yelled, handing Dojo the Black Beetle Shen Gong Wu. "It's only Jack!"
"I won't be taken lightly anymore!" demanded Jack, "I wager my Glove of Jisaku against your Black Beetle! First one to make it over the lava wins!"
Dojo gulped hard before sheepishly saying "Let's go!" The two competitors then yelled in unison. "Xiaolin Showdown!"
The floor of the gorge suddenly broke into pieces; two small chunks of rock for Dojo and Jack, two large chunks of rock for their respective comrades. Rising lava pushed them higher and higher until the entire gorge became a bubbling river of molten rock. Numerous small rock islands bobbed in the current of the flowing magma, serving as dangerous stepping stones to reach the other side of the river where the Sleeping Lion Pillow hovered.
"Gong Yi Tan Pai!"
Dojo took a deep breath before coiling himself into a spring, leaping off his starting platform and onto another. Jack teetered to the edge of his starting platform but did not have the courage to jump until he pressed a button on a wrist mounted device. Jack's body was surrounded by a crackling sphere of energy, disappearing seconds later. Jack was covered in futuristic armour that had materialized from thin air, glowing white.
"Introducing Jack Spicer's B-R-A; Brawl Ready Armament!" he announced.
"Your bra?" Raimundo sniggered, before his fellow monks and even Jack's henchmen joined in with the laughter.
Their laughter continued when the white glow faded from Jack's armour and revealed its true colours; bright pink. The colour was so gaudy that even Jack noticed it, gazing at his body in bewilderment while Dojo took the lead. "It was supposed to be red! The colour scheme must've been corrupted by the rematerialization process! I didn't choose pink!"
"Was it supposed to be as red as your face is now?" Kimiko asked.
Jack frowned and bit his lip as he gazed at the dragon ahead of him, trying to ignore the people laughing at him. Fortunately for him, the armour strengthened his legs and allowed him to jump great distances. Jack was about to catch up until a huge blast of magma shot out of the molten river, arcing over towards Dojo.
"Black Beetle!" Dojo cried, encasing himself in the dark armour plating of the Shen Gong Wu. The beetle armour managed to protect him from the intense heat of the lava engulfing him, and once the blast had subsided, he hopped onto the next platform.
"Glove of Jisaku!" Jack laughed, placing the magnet like mystical object on his hand. Dojo yelped as the Shen Gong Wu pulled at the Black Beetle armour he was wearing, causing him to fly into Jack's grasp. Jack leered right up against Dojo's face and whispered fiendishly. "Oh the things I'm gonna do to you!"
Jack began to swing the helpless dragon around by his tail before kicking him about like a game of hacky sack. The Xiaolin Warriors gasped in horror, as did Jack's cronies. "How dishonourable," Tubbimura muttered in disgust.
"Idiots!" Jack yelled at his henchmen as he continued to kick Dojo about. "Can't you see I'm winning? Cheer for me!"
He kicked Dojo onto a platform far away before hopping across the magma alone. It was not long before Jack managed to reach the opposite end of the lava river, grabbing hold of the Sleeping Lion Pillow. The environment returned to normal, with Jack holding all three Shen Gong Wu that had been involved in the showdown. Jack was about to gloat, but he saw his adversaries fly away on the back of their weary dragon before he could rub his victory in their faces. His villainous henchmen stood around him, looking revolted.
"What's the matter?" he questioned them angrily, pressing his wrist device again to cause the pink armour to dematerialize. "I won the showdown! Too bad it doesn't make up for the Woozy Shooter and Ju-Ju Flytrap you bozos lost!"
Jack would not stop talking about his victory and the incompetence of his henchmen as they journeyed back to his evil basement lair. That night, Jack stood on top of his workbench, lecturing the villains who were not present on the showdown against Dojo.
"Great job, Jack," Katnappé said indignantly. "You decided to start a showdown against their harmless little dragon. Were you frightened that the others would beat you?"
"It was a wise move!" Jack yelled. "Victory was assured, and I had an unfair advantage! Are you guys getting mad just because I beat up the harmless cute mascot critter?"
"Da; we are villains, not monsters!" Vlad huffed.
"You picked on someone small because you were too cowardly to fight the other guys, wore bright pink armour, and won a Shen Gong Wu that's probably useless," Katnappé chuckled. "Way to go, master of evil."
Jack clenched his fists. "Maybe I'd do better if I wasn't surrounded by a bunch of incompetent henchmen!" The villains surrounding him began to grumble before each one of them left their chairs to exit the basement. "Yeah, that's it! Get outta here! I don't need you holding me back!"
Once Jack was alone in his lair, he collapsed to his knees and sighed. "Why doesn't anyone take me seriously? I go through tonnes of embarrassment, and when I finally manage to win, I'm ridiculed even more!" he mumbled to himself.
He pulled out the Sleeping Lion Pillow and stared at it. "Katnappé's right, this lousy thing probably doesn't do anything. Sure looks comfy though." The villain sighed and rested his head upon it. "Chase Young and Hannibal Bean are better evildoers. Perhaps those Xiaolin losers would be squashed by now if I wasn't around getting in the way of other top bad guys. Maybe the best way for me to defeat cheese ball and friends would be to just stop existing completely."
Jack found his eyelids becoming gradually heavier as he inhaled the soothing aroma of the Sleeping Lion Pillow. Soon his eyes shut completely, but after a few minutes, Jack was woken up by a peculiar sound. His heart skipped a beat when he noticed the small sphere of light hovering in front of him, accompanied by the spooky Theremin like noise that had roused him from his slumber. Jack held the pillow to his face and cowered behind it, occasionally lowering it to peek over the top.
The sphere of light inflated and burst, causing Jack to shriek and scattering particles of light with a twinkling sound. Standing in front of him was a person who looked almost exactly like him, except they wore a blinding white robe and hair that had been combed flat. Jack immediately recognised the stranger as his opposite self, created from his trip into the Ying-Yang World.
Jack was irate. "Don't touch me! I thought I got rid of you!"
"You must be mistaking me for someone else, silly!" The doppelganger smiled and turned his back on Jack, showing a pair of tiny white wings sprouting from his back before turning back to face him again. "I'm your guardian angel! I just took a form you were comfortable with!"
"That's a form I'm very uncomfortable with!" Jack cringed visibly before scowling once again. "Don't make me activate my new and improved security system! I've set it to vaporize!"
The angel smiled and pressed a light switch on a nearby wall, illuminating the room. Jack squealed when he saw that all his machinery had been replaced by various exercise machines and mirrored walls. "Is this because I don't do enough exercise? I'll go to the gym more often! Please give me my stuff back!" wept the evil genius.
The angel was still smiling. "Haven't you figured it out yet? You wished that you didn't exist, so I want to show you what things would be like if you were never around!"
Jack raised an eyebrow as the angel snapped his fingers, opening a misty white portal. Jack yelped when he realized he was being pulled in, but it was too late for him to hold onto something.
When he entered the portal he felt a strong gust of wind before finding himself and the angel in another location entirely. The two of them stood in the middle of a bustling market.
"Well, here we are! Hong Kong!" the guardian angel said cheerfully, pointing to a market stall in front of them.
Jack looked at the numerous objects laid out on the table before him; many of them were various wooden animal carvings and other ornaments. The merchant who owned the stall was fast asleep, indicating that few people even took interest in his wares. Jack abruptly noticed a very familiar object sitting to the side of the table; a wooden puzzle box.
"Hey, that's Wuya's puzzle box!" Jack whispered, pointing to the wooden artefact and nudging his angel with his elbow.
"Since you were never born, your father never gave it to you as a gift. Since you were the one destined to open it, she'll stay in that box forever," the angel explained.
Jack looked bewildered for a moment before a big evil grin appeared on his face. "Ha! Serves her right; all she ever did after getting out of that box was double-cross me, pretty much every week!" Jack began to rub his hands together, making another realization. "And if Wuya will never be released, that means no new generation of Xiaolin losers being chosen to fight her!"
"See! The world's a lot less exciting without you around," said the guardian angel. "I bet you take back everything you said!"
Jack looked at his angel incredulously. "Don't you get it? This is great! Take me to the mountain I visited earlier today; the one where I lost that Osu Stone!"
The guardian angel smiled and shrugged his shoulders, transporting them to the mountaintop in a flash. Jack was a little startled from the abrupt transition, but soon noticed he was standing by the hole where the Shen Gong Wu had been hidden. Jack laughed evilly and reached inside, but the look of mirth faded from his face when he felt there was nothing inside.
"Tut tut, I thought you would've realized that without Wuya being destined to come back, grandmaster Dashi had no need to hide the Shen Gong Wu all over the world after he defeated her," the angel said with a chuckle.
Jack looked dejected for a moment, making the angel believe that Jack had changed his mind about wishing he had never been born. But then an evil grin returned to Jack's face. "If the Xiaolin losers aren't Xiaolin losers in this world, let me see how miserable they are without their stupid sparkly 'chosen one' status!"
The angel sighed and whisked the both of them away to the inside of a huge circus tent, watching a troupe of acrobats finish their performance and make their exit. A man selling popcorn was walking across the audience, but when Jack tried to snatch some of it, the popcorn phased through his hands as though he was a ghost.
"Looks like I forgot to explain that me and you can't interact with anything in this world!" the angel chuckled as he saw Jack's look of frustration. "Ghost's can't eat popcorn!"
A moment later, a man who was selling tubs of ice cream was walking across. Jack managed to successfully snatch a tub from him, making the vendor distressed, as though he had seen the ice cream vanish before his eyes. "But apparently they can eat ice cream," mumbled the guardian angel, just as confused as the vendor was.
A spotlight shone down in the centre of the stage, signalling the entrance of a new performer. A flamboyantly dressed clown leapt into action, tumbling across the stage to the sound a drum roll. After the drum roll ended, the clown sprang to his feet and raised his arms in the air, triggering a shower of sparks and the words 'Bobo the Clown' to appear behind him in neon lights. The whole audience exploded with applause, almost rendering Jack deaf.
Jack tried to ignore the din and narrowed his eyes, trying to get a closer look at the clown. He could recognise the brown hair and green eyes immediately. "Is that Raimundo?" he asked the angel with a short chuckle.
"It sure is!" replied the angel. "He's also a star soccer player too! He's pretty famous and loved by children everywhere." Surely enough, Bobo the clown began to demonstrate some impressive ball control skills, managing to score a goal against a whole team of other clowns.
The angel then grabbed Jack by the hand, making the boy genius scowl at him. "Hey, what did I say about no touching?"
"I'm going to show you what Raimundo's like when he isn't on stage," the guardian angel said solemnly.
Jack suddenly found himself and the angel standing inside a dimly lit circus trailer. Raimundo sat at a desk, marvelling at a large pile of money set in front of him. A scrawny cowering man stood in front of him, flanked by two circus strongmen dressed in tiger striped leotards.
"Raimundo gets the strongmen to intimidate people into giving him extra money for hiring him!" the angel whispered to Jack. "Then he uses that money to fix his soccer matches in his favour! He even put scorpions in an opposing team's shoes one time!"
"This is so cool!" Jack exclaimed. "You're telling me Raimundo's an evil clown in this world? I've always wanted there to be an evil clown on my side! The closest I got was a stupid mime."
"Oh dear," mumbled the guardian angel. "This isn't working at all."
Jack leered into his heavenly guide's face. "You've got to show me how nasty the other Xaiolin losers have become! I like this change!"
The angel reluctantly waved his hands and transported them to video game tournament. Thousands of spectators were crowded into a brightly lit stadium to witness competitors go head to head on the big screen. Jack gleefully stared at the spectacularly violent sight of two virtual robots locked in combat, causing massive collateral damage to the post apocalyptic urban environment they were clashing in.
Jack looked down at the stage below the giant screen to see the two players, sitting at their own games console and monitor each. Jack immediately noticed that one of the competitors was Kimiko, dressed entirely in black leather instead of the brightly coloured outfits she usually wore.
His guardian angel tapped him on the shoulder from behind and made him jump again. "Kimiko's a world champ of pretty much every competitive video game there is! But watch closely..."
Jack kept his eyes fixed on her while everyone was looking at the big screen, too absorbed in the action. Kimiko attached a tiny device to her games console and began to tap away at her PDA. Jack briefly took his eyes off her and watched what was happening in the video game; Kimiko's robot was suddenly equipped with far more firepower than it originally had.
"That's not fair, she's hacking the game!" Jack exclaimed, but then he seemed to be a lot happier. "That's evil!"
The guardian angel clapped his hands; the two of them were suddenly standing amongst a mob of paparazzi in the busy streets of Tokyo trying to speak to Kimiko and her father. Toshiro Tohomiko seemed a lot less cheerful than the electronics developer Jack knew in the real world.
"Mister Tohomiko has been accused of allowing the games his company makes to be easily exploitable for his daughter, letting her win every gaming tournament," the angel explained. "Few people want to buy things from Tohomiko Electronics anymore!"
"Cool! Who knew my nonexistence would have that effect?" Jack asked excitedly, much to the angel's dismay. "Never liked their games much anyway, they're for babies."
"Surely there must be something that'll make you realize how important you are to the world!" the angel exclaimed, sounding exasperated.
The paparazzi walked away, following Toshiro and his daughter down the street. The angel and Jack were left standing in the middle of the bustling avenue. "Show me how miserable Clay is! Actually, don't show me, tell me. Knowing him, it's probably pretty boring," Jack said.
The angel sighed. "Since he didn't become a Xiaolin Warrior, Clay went to college to study animal biology." Suddenly, the angel looked cheerful and gently nudged Jack with his elbow. "Bet you wish you existed now! His duties as a Xiaolin Warrior would prevent him from becoming a biologist!"
Jack huffed. "Eh, I don't really care if Clay gets a higher education or not. Dude just stands around in the background. Could you show me how Chase Young's getting along?"
"But isn't there another Xiaolin Warrior you want to find out about?" the angel asked desperately.
"Show me Chase Young!" Jack snapped. "Or I swear I'll tear your tiny wings off!"
The angel flinched, and the two of them were instantly transported to a foreboding looking mountaintop, overlooking a massive inferno. Chase Young stood amongst his army of jungle cats, proudly surveying the damage he had caused. At his side stood Katnappé, who handed the Heylin warrior a bowl of his Lao Mang Long soup.
"Without Wuya, Chase young simply waited in the shadows for a time to begin his world domination. Isn't that what you wanted to do, Jack?" the guardian angel questioned.
Jack completely ignored the heavenly guide's words and continued to admire Chase. "Not surprised Ashley got to be his apprentice, but I suppose they're both cat lovers," Jack said with a shrug. Jack noticed the familiar looking dragon tail sticking out of the bowl of soup and laughed. "Sweet, he managed to make Dojo into soup!"
"Well, I guess that's it," the angel sighed, turning his back to Jack as Chase and his army marched on. "I just can't convince you about how much you mean to the world. I'll never earn my halo now."
"My lousy parents have a new gym, Raimundo's an evil clown, Kimiko's an heir to a dying company, Clay's a spineless scientist, their stupid dragon is in a soup and Chase Young is the future evil overlord of Earth! And to top it all off, I can fly around as a ghost and steal ice cream!" Jack raised his arms to the sky as if he was an almighty villain.
The angel suddenly seemed cheerful again, as if he had remembered something. "Jack, there's one more person I want to show you!"
Jack's arms flopped back down at his sides again. "Is it Vlad? Do you think I really want to see what his life is like as just a boring vendor?"
"No; it's someone you value more dearly than that," the angel chuckled.
Before Jack could protest, the angel transported them to an alleyway in a dark and desolate city. The night sky was filled with rainclouds, but the heavy rain did not affect Jack and his guardian angel. Somehow Jack could still feel the cold, wrapping his arms tightly around himself to keep warm.
"What the heck are we doing in this crummy old place?" Jack asked grumpily. "You've brought me here when I could've been having fun spooking people!"
The angel pointed to a soggy looking cardboard box in the corner. Jack narrowed his eyes to see what was inside and gasped. Out of the box crawled the unmistakable form of Omi, although he was dressed in filthy rags and his bald head seemed weathered from living rough on the streets.
"Since the Xiaolin Temple never looked for any chosen ones, poor orphan Omi ended up on the streets," the angel explained as Jack stared at the street urchin in awe.
Omi was fighting against a stray cat for a scrap of food, barking like a dog on his hands and knees. Eventually, the cat ran off with a majority of the scraps. The angel grinned as he witnessed tears welling up in Jack's eyes.
"No, no, no! He's just a kid! I don't want this to happen!" Jack Spicer wept, dropping to his knees. "I can't stand the little cheese ball, but at the same time he gave me something to fight for! The other Xiaolin losers would say some pretty mean stuff to me, but when Omi tried to, he'd mess up super bad!" Jack turned to his angel guide with a sad puppy dog expression. "It would help soften their blows."
The angel was moved by Jack's empathy for the homeless Omi, who was now being mobbed by crows as he returned to his cardboard box. "Surely that isn't the only reason why Omi is special to you," he said, trying to prompt more emotions from the evil genius.
"You're right!" Jack exclaimed, looking cheerful but still teary eyed. "If I remember correctly, he'd be a kind of a jerk to the other monks too! He'd screw up and they'd have to bail him out! Dumb kid thought he'd be able to meet his future self if he waited for a long time frozen in ice and he ended almost tearing the universe apart!" Jack puffed his chest up with pride. "Even I don't screw up that bad! He made me feel a little more confident about myself!"
Jack noticed that the angel looked like he wanted him to say more. Jack dried his eyes and began to appear somewhat bashful as he remembered one more thing about Omi. "Is there one more thing you'd like to say?"
After a moment of hesitation and looking down at his feet, Jack replied. "Yeah, there is. After I helped them defeat Wuya when she became all powerful and fleshy, Omi wanted me to join them. Being a good guy is boring, so it was a definite no-no from me, but the little cheese ball's face..." Jack trailed off as he watched the homeless Omi fall asleep in his box.
"I remember that!" the angel said. "You said you'd go out for ice cream some time, when there wasn't any Shen Gong Wu to fight over."
"Yeah, you're right!" Jack exclaimed. "We never did have that day together. I kind of wanted that to happen sometime. I guess it was one of the main reasons I continued fighting them, even though I never win! I'm still holding out for some ice cream."
"But as a poltergeist, you can have all the ice cream sundaes you want in this Jack free world!" the guardian angel exclaimed, raising his army to the sky to mirror what Jack had said earlier.
"That's true," added Jack. "But there's one thing wrong with this world. It's like designing an evil costume; if there's one tiny flaw, the whole outfit fails. That's why you've got to start with the seat of the pants."
The guardian angel looked slightly puzzled about the evil boy genius's statement. "Uh, it's very good you've learnt your lesson, Jack! Are you ready to wake up now?"
Now Jack appeared to look confused. "What do you mean?"
"Wake up!" the angel snapped, leaping forward and grabbing hold of Jack's shoulders.
Jack woke up with a shriek, startling the henchmen who had gathered around him as he slept on his table. He rubbed his eyes as he looked around his evil lair, noticing everything was back to normal. From the small gathering of evildoers in front of him, Jack identified that it was Katnappé who woke him from his magical slumber. He sat upright, taking the Sleeping Lion Pillow from under his head and placing it on his lap.
"You were babbling in your sleep," Katnappé explained. "It was getting on our nerves."
"You were sleep talking about pants and ice cream," added Vlad.
"I thought you'd left!" Jack exclaimed.
"Nah, we knew you'd want us back," Katnappé said slyly.
"It was the fifth time this week that you've angrily told us to leave because we were holding you back," added Tubbimura.
"Oh," said Jack, suddenly embarrassed by his earlier outburst. "Well yeah, I'd prefer it if you stayed around!" Jack looked back down at the pillow like Shen Gong Wu in his hands. "If you don't mind, I'd like to resume my beauty sleep, pronto!"
His fellow villains shrugged their shoulders and vacated the boy genius's basement. When he was finally left alone, Jack Spicer laid his head on the magical pillow and began to speak to it. "Come on! Give me another super cool inspiring dream!" he mumbled as his eyelids became heavy from inhaling the Shen Gong Wu's aroma.
When he reopened his eyes, Jack found himself standing in a laboratory that was far more uninviting and evil looking than his usual evil lair. The computers and other machinery around him appeared to be made from pitch black metal, illuminated by blood red lighting. Pleased with the villainous looks of his dark surroundings, Jack observed a figure who looked very much like himself standing on a raised platform.
The mad scientist, who looked very much like himself except brawnier and more handsome, was clearly the person Jack wanted to be. The dream Jack rhythmically pressed the keys of the control panel in front of him, as if playing a piano. Jack gazed up in awe as his dream self opened the ceiling to the evil lair, revealing that the sky outside was dark and stormy.
Illuminated briefly by bright flashes of lightning, Jack noticed a massive colossus of dark metal towering over him. The features of the giant were unrecognisable, but as Jack's dream self pressed more buttons, the colossus began to elevate in order to truly reveal its sheer size.
Jack noticed several glass containers light up around him, revealing objects floating in the bubbling liquids they contained. These were Shen Gong Wu, but with several wires attached to them, feeding data into the surrounding machines.
"It's a combination of Wu and technology!" Jack gasped. "Nice!"
The wires attached to the mystic items began to light up, and so did the multitude of cables leading into the metal giant's body. Numerous lines of glowing energy extended across the colossus's surface, forming patterns not unlike veins. The brawny dream Jack raised his arms in the air, and much to the real Jack's surprise, so did the massive construct in front of him.
"It's alive!" yelled Jack's dream self, before erupting into an evil laugh so bombastic that the scrawny real Jack's lungs could never hope to muster the strength to make a laugh quite like it.
Jack woke up in the real world with a huge smile on his face, tossing the Sleeping Lion Pillow aside and marching to his computer monitor. Turning the screen on, Jack was immediately faced with the computer generated image of his posterior from before. He scowled and deleted the image immediately before opening up a new document; a document of evil projects that was completely empty.
"First, let's start with a name!" Jack said quietly, chuckling with anticipation.
The evil boy genius extravagantly typed two words in huge red letters; Project Doomsday.