Hello again! I forgot to put a disclaimer in my last chapter. I should probably do that from now on.

[ahem] Disclaimer: Xiaolin Showdown, the Shen Gong Wu, and all its characters is copyright Christy Hui and Warner Brothers Animation. I do not make money off of this story in any way, shape, or form.

Also the first part of this chapter is really awkwardly written. Vaguely filler-ish I guess.

Chapter Two: I'm a terrible liar but apparently good enough to fool four heroes who deal with liars on a semi-daily basis

The trip to my house really did only last for about thirty seconds, not leaving me much time to tell Dojo which house to stop at. Short as it was, I still felt a bit queasy from the ordeal. I wasn't sure if it was the fact that Dojo had been flying so fast that I felt like my eyes shifted to the sides of my face, or if it was the very steep and very abrupt landing in my backyard that brought my brains from my feet and back into my head. Thank goodness no one was home and my closest neighbor had been moved to a nursing home.

Once we landed, I shakily slid off from the dragon's back, wobbling a bit as I lead the monks to the garage door. As I fumbled with the keypad, I could hear my dog making a fuss near the back door, probably having heard Dojo land and wondering what the hell it was. However, the sound stopped once the garage door began to open.

"You guys might want to hang back for a bit," I said, ducking under the door when I had room to. "I need to make sure Strider doesn't knock you over before you've come inside."

"Got it," Raimundo said, he and the other monks staying a few steps behind me.

Shortly after, whining was heard from the other side of the door. With a deep breath, I opened the door and slipped inside, quickly shutting it before my German Shepherd could shove his way past me to the newcomers he had heard. I fought with the seventy-pound beast for a few moments to drag him away from the door, before deciding to bribe him with treats and making him sit in the family room.

"Stay," I ordered, and Strider did as he was told when I opened the door again and allowed the monks inside. They filed in quickly and I shut the door behind them, throwing Strider his treat. "Once he finishes that he'll be all over you guys. Don't worry, he hasn't bitten anyone before."

"What's his name again?" Kimiko asked.

"Strider. As in Lord of the Rings." I shrugged and pat his head. "He's a big baby, though; not exactly King of Gondor material." I headed toward the hallway. "Gather wherever you guys want to. Just don't break anything or hurt the dog."

I felt a little awkward leaving four supposedly fictional people alone in my house. It was so surreal; easily the weirdest thing to happen to me. It was exciting, though.

At least until I got to my room and remembered why I had left my ring there in the first place. I picked it up from its spot on the shelf and sighed, turning it over in my hands to inspect the crack along its band, so close to another that had been sealed by a different type of metal than the rest of the ring, and its numerous areas of tarnish. This didn't really look quite as shiny as the other Shen Gong Wu on the show. Plus, it wasn't the only one out there, given I had tried to get a replacement off of eBay and stumbled upon one almost exactly like it. When I remembered that, I started to wonder if maybe I had a replica of something that was really a mystical object, and that they had been mistaken.

Which would really suck, but it was fun while it all lasted.

I curled my fingers around the ring and brought it downstairs, finding the four warriors sitting in my living room with Strider, who was happily sniffing away at Clay's lap while the cowboy pet him. He, Kimiko, and Omi sat together on the couch, while Raimundo occupied one of the recliners. I sat in the other, at the opposite end of the couch. "Uhm. Just so you know before I show it to you, there's a couple cracks in the band. It's wearable, but you might want to mend it a bit."

"Cracked?" Dojo asked, curled around Omi's head. "How'd that happen?"

I smiled and scratched the back of my head. "I wore it a lot. Just about every day for three years. One of the cracks was sealed up, but then another formed and I decided it was time to retire it." I set it down on the table, though hesitated to let go.

A silence fell among us, the only sound being Strider's curious sniffs aimed toward Dojo. The dragon climbed off of Omi's head and onto the table, examining the ring more closely.

As Dojo turned the ring over in his claws, his brows furrowed. "It may just be the condition it's in, but I don't feel as strong of a pull as I normally should."

Omi's shoulders fell. "Does that mean she's not who we're looking for?"

Dojo shifted the ring from one hand to the other. "Huh. You know I'm not exactly sure. There is definitely something coming from this, but now that we're so close to it, for some reason it's faded."

"Like a lost cell phone signal," Kimiko said, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Of course the one with all the tech on the heroes' side would be the one to make that connection.

"Right." Dojo held out the ring to me. "Try wearing it."

With a shrug, I slid the ring onto my middle finger, not expecting it to change anything.

A warm feeling suddenly began to pulse through my hand, making me jump. Dojo did as well and the others began to look hopeful, but after a few moments, the feeling slowed, and then stopped.

"Trippy," I muttered, wiggling my fingers. "It's never done that before."

"Hm." Dojo brought a claw to his chin. "Maybe the crack in it is making the power fluctuate. We could have someone fix it when we get back to the temple, see if that does anything."

I almost told him about the one I found on eBay, but stopped myself when he said "we". "Does... that mean I can go with you?"

"Perhaps we should consult with Master Fung first," Omi suggested. "Kimiko has his telephone number - we should ring him out."

A pause, then I tried my hand at guessing - although it should have been obvious. "Ring him up?"

Just then, the door to the front hallway opened, and I jumped up. "Ellie?" my dad's voice called. "You home?"

"Shit!" I ran around the counter, nearly tripping over Strider as he ran with me to greet my parents. "I'm sorry! I got a ride home from friends and forgot to tell you."

Dad stopped fussing with the dog for a moment to give me a hug. "That's okay, honey. I wish you told us you were going to the store in the first place, though."

"Sorry," I apologized again. "Oh uhm. My friends are still here if you want to meet them? They weren't going to stay long - we just got home, I promise."

He sighed and dropped his hands to his sides. "Just for a minute though; your mom and I are going back out."

"Oh?" I turned to my stepmom, who was still fussing with the dog to keep him from jumping up on her. "Where to?"

"We have dinner reservations," she said between snaps of "down!" at Strider.

I sucked in my lower lip. "Uhm. Do you guys have time to talk about a, uhm..."

"Education opportunity?" an old man's voice finished for me.

My parents sat at the dining room table, Kimiko's phone propped up on a stand while they FaceTimed with Master Fung on the other end. The rest of us sat in the living room, me fidgeting nervously and trying not to play with my ring while the old master came up with a reason for me to leave home for awhile. I doubted my parents would be so willing to accept the idea, especially when it was so last-minute, but it was worth a shot. If they didn't, I'd probably have to sneak out. Either way, I would be leaving here for an undetermined amount of time.

"So, Ellie," Raimundo spoke up, making me jump for the second time in five minutes. "Earlier, when you met Dojo, you said something about all of us being real." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "What did you mean by that?"

I froze, searching my mind for an answer to that question. "Well..." I sighed and hung my head. "Do you want the total bullshit answer that anyone else would probably give, or the truth that you are much less likely to believe? Or there's the third option that's a bit of both."

"I'm sure we can handle the truth," Clay said.

"Yeah," Kimiko added with a laugh, "we've pretty much seen it all. It'd have to be pretty wild for us not to believe it."

I looked at each of their faces, taking a moment to debate whether or not I should bait-and-switch and just tell them I'm psychic or that I found them on the internet. Even if I did tell them the truth, what were the chances that they'd actually believe it, in spite of what they said?

'Time to improvise,' I thought and took a deep breath.

"You're not really... supposed to exist."

My answer got the response I had expected it to: confused silence. I scratched my neck and continued. "There was a video, way back, of you guys in New York. Someone apparently saw, uh... Dojo, all big and stuff, and whipped out a video camera. The footage is really shaky and pretty piss quality, but it's enough to see you guys taking off and flying away."

"Can you show us?" Rai asked.

I shook my head. "I can't even begin to tell you where to look. It was a huge topic of discussion on the forums I visited at the time, given that was the first place it was posted. Unfortunately it didn't spread much further than there and the site was actually shut down a few months later. I hoped maybe the original poster had put it up on YouTube after that, but I haven't been able to find it since."

Omi's eyes lit up and he straightened a little. "What did everyone say about us?"

"Well, uhm..." I scratched my cheek and let out a nervous laugh. "At first, people were excited by it. Like, wow! Proof that there's dragons! But I guess that was just the initial 'this is cool and obviously not real but I'm going to get hyped anyways' response. After a couple of days, the hype calmed down and everyone started picking it apart. What was the video really and all that." I shrugged and leaned back in the chair. "Most everyone went with the theory that it was a gimmick to start one of those AR games that movie adverts use to get everyone psyched for the film. But given it was posted on such a small part of the internet, and that there was no website to go to at the end to find out more, that idea was jossed. After a couple of weeks of probably the most over-analyzing of a few seconds of video before BBC Sherlock's main ship took the trophy, the general consensus was a that it was a part to a student film project."

"But how did they explain Dojo?" Clay asked, petting Strider's head as he placed it in the Texan's lap.

I shrugged again. "CGI so good that the person who supposedly fabricated the video probably secretly worked with Peter Jackson." I grinned. "Which I now know for a fact is not true; you look way more real than Smaug does."

Then a thought struck me harder than the Fist of Tebigong: since I had met the main cast of Xiaolin Showdown's first season, with the exception of Wuya, there were still the main characters of the other two seasons I had yet to meet.

More specifically, the other main villains.

I guess I was going to realize at some point that Chase Young was real, too. I just wished it had happened when I wasn't sitting in my living room with the good guys.

I'll admit it: I gasped really loud and flailed around in my chair a bit at the thought. I quickly covered my face afterwards though to prevent further embarrassment.

Omi jumped up. "Are you alright? Is the ring reacting again?"

I peeked at him between my fingers and shook my head, squeaking out a "nope!" before slowly relaxing, suppressing the weird shudder that normally followed my little "epiphany" attacks, as I like to call them. I cleared my throat and shook my head again. "No, no, I'm fine." I waved one hand and forced a smile. "I just get these dumb shivers every now and then and they catch me off guard sometimes."

They exchanged glances - something they apparently do a lot, or maybe I just made them uncomfortable - before Clay shrugged and said to Raimundo, "Her explanation about us is as good as any."

Rai nodded and grinned at me. "Yeah, I was expecting you to say you were psychic or something."

I laughed uneasily. "Right. Psychic."

Lucky for me, my dad entered the room at that moment, saving me from making my impression on the monks any worse than it probably already was. He thanked Kimiko for letting him and my stepmom borrow her phone as he handed it back to her, before moving to stand by my chair. He brought his hands up for a moment only to bring them back down, his usual "I dunno what to tell you" gesture, before finally speaking.

"It's really last-minute, you know."

I nodded, and my heart sank. "Yeah... I understand if I can't go."

"Well, just wait a second," my stepmom said as she entered. "We haven't said that yet."

I sat up. "So I can go?"

"We haven't said that yet, either," Dad said.

My stepmom looked toward the others. "We have a few conditions." She paused for a moment when her eyes landed on Dojo, but she glanced at my dad for a moment before continuing. "How often do you go on your... expeditions?"

"At least once a week," Kimiko answered. "We always stick together on them, if that's what you're worried about."

My stepmom looked toward Dad, who nodded, and she continued. "And she doesn't need to pay for them?"

Rai shook his head. "It's all included." In the back of my mind, I wondered if they had gone through the whole "education opportunity" way back when they first became monks at the temple, and had been taught the routine just in case something like this would happen.

A short silence settled among us, my parents looking at each other during it. Eventually I cleared my throat. "So, uh... Can I go?"

My dad sighed and pat my shoulder. "You'll need to call us when you can. E-mail if you can't."

I cheered and jumped up, hugging my dad tight. "THANK YOU SO, SO, SO MUCH! YOU'RE THE BEST DAD EVER!"

He chuckled and hugged me back. "Yeah, yeah, only when you want something right?"

My stepmom leaned toward the monks and snarked, "She's not spoiled at all."

I smiled at her over my shoulder. "Ohhh, no; first time I'm gonna disagree with you on that one." I let go of my dad and darted upstairs to pack, high-fiving Raimundo as I passed.

OBLIGATORY CHASE YOUNG END-OF-CHAPTER SCENE THAT SWITCHES TO THIRD PERSON!

A lion slipped through the corridors of the citadel on silent paws, having been summoned by his master. Not directly, but given the faint tension emanation from his fellow warrior cats, Tiānkōng knew he would be called for eventually.

He quietly entered the dining room and sat beside its only occupant, Chase Young.

The immortal man scratched behind the lion's ears without so much as a glance, lifting a ceramic bowl in the other hand. "Any particular reason you came to see me?" Chase asked.

Tiānkōng took one step away and shifted into human form. "Something preoccupies you, Sir. The others have taken notice and are... concerned."

"Oh?" Chase raised an eyebrow and brought the bowl to his lips, taking a drink before continuing. "And are you concerned?"

"Somewhat," he responded. "I thought you would wish to confide in me, or perhaps there's anything you would like to inform me of?"

Chase paused before saying, "Just an odd feeling, that's all. Something that may require my involvement in the future, but otherwise is unimportant at this time." He sipped at the bowl's contents again. "Believe it or not, I don't exactly have time or energy to waste on every little shiver that creeps up my spine."

"Chase Young? Shiver?" Tiānkōng's mouth quirked at the thought. "How unlike you."

Again, Chase paused, slowly setting down the bowl as the former assassin shifted back into cat form and left. He stared across the table in thought for a moment before downing the rest of his soup.

'How unlike me, indeed.'

First of all, I'd like to give a HUUUUGE THANK YOU to everyone who's reviewed, followed, and favorited my story! I'll try to keep my updates semi-regular, and hopefully there won't be any real-life surprises that'll keep me away from writing (at least not anytime soon).

So! This chapter actually took a little longer to finish than I would've liked, but the last little bit was giving me some trouble. I was debating whether or not to write a little goodbye scene with the parents, or to leave it as it was and just run upstairs. But THEN I thought, "How many times have I read a fanfic with a Chase Young scene in there at the end of a chapter?" Sooo, I wrote that and debated if I should include it or not. I was just going to post it on tumblr as a shits-n-gigs scene, but at the last minute I decided to put it in.

Also true story about that ring. I was so pissed when someone outbid me on eBay for it.

Thanks again for all the reviews/favorites/follows! Next chapter we head to the temple... or at least until we need to make an unexpected pit stop.