(a/n) sorry this chapter took so long. dont really have a legitimate excuse other than other projects and homework. also sorry for the shortness, but I couldnt think of anything else to add. still, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Chapter 2: The Future: Of the Present

Riku fell to the ground as the time portal closed, the bright flash having temporarily blinded him since it had caught him by surprise. Apparently his sight hadn't been the only sense that had been affected, as he could hear voices but couldn't make out words. As his vision began to return he felt himself lifted to his feet and an obscure figure entered his field of vision. As that first figure became clearer he soon recognized it as his sister, Bonny, and other blurred images began appearing behind her. Riku and Bonny, being twins, looked very similar; having inherited their fathers bronzed skin and their mothers' dark hair. However, while Riku looked to be a near perfect copy of his dad Bonny was a more even mixture of their parents. "The hell…" Riku said.

"It speaks!" Riku heard two young voices say in unison. Clearly, wherever they were, Peter and Hunter were there as well. The two youngsters were prone to making jokes, especially when together. Despite their troublesome ways the two munchkins had come in handy on more than one occasion, almost excusing their constantly coming along uninvited on missions to earth. There was almost no trace of Omi within him, looking like a young, male version of his mother with auburn hair and pale skin. Practically the only hint that Omi was his father was that he was nearly a foot shorter than his cousin. The other ten year old had the golden blond hair from both his parents, Clay and Saya, and was a bit tall for as young as he was. He'd also inherited his fathers' appetite as well as his mothers' cunning.

"You two shut up. You're not even supposed to be here." Riku heard Logan, Peters older brother scold. "I hope you know how pissed Mom is going to be when we get back, Pete." Logan was sort of the lone wolf of the group. He tended to be in a bad or at least unpleasant mood most of the time and only spoke when he needed to. Logan looked a lot more like his father than Peter did. His skin tone was similar to his fathers, though deluded thanks to Mimi's genes, and he shaved his head in memory of Omi. However, Logan was much taller than Omi had ever hoped to be, towering over everyone else in the group at nearly six and a half feet.

By now Riku could see and hear clearly, though someone still had to help him stand. Bonny was standing in front of him with Peter and Hunter just behind her. Riku couldn't see Logan, but figured that it was him holding onto his arms, keeping him steady. From what Riku could tell, they were on earth rather than the Yin-Yang World. They were surrounded by dead and charred trees, and the ground was nothing but rocks and dry dirt.

Home sweet home.

"Riku, you okay Bro?" Bonny asked.

"You brought me back?" Riku questioned.

"Of course we brought you back! Why wouldn't we bring you back? You should consider yourself lucky we were able to track you through time to find you!" Bonny retorted.

Riku groaned. "You idiots." He grumbled, shaking Logan's hands from his arms. "I went back to prevent all this from happening! I could have stopped the gate from opening, prevented the Destroyer from taking over, saved Mom and Dad!" He yelled before punching a nearby tree, watching it crumble to dust after being hit. "Well at least I got the ball rolling." He growled.

Suddenly Riku felt a sharp pain in his cheek as Bonny smacked her open hand across his face. "You ungrateful little bastard." She breathed. "Did you think, even for a second, that the Destroyer's minions would have found you if we hadn't. I don't care what you were trying to do. We saved your life god damn it! And I would join those demon freaks before I would let them get you. Now you are going to thank us for saving your ass and then we are going to go home, is that clear Riku Pedrosa?"

Riku was a bit shocked, not that his sister had slapped him or by her outburst, but by how much she had reminded him of their mother just then. One of the clearest memories of their parents Riku had was of Kimiko snapping at Rai in a very similar way for something he couldn't remember. Riku sighed. "Thank you, sis." He said, pulling his sister into a hug. Bonny was surprised by this at first but smiled and hugged him back. "You too Logan, Pete, Hunter." He said after breaking away from Bonny.

"You don't need to thank us." Peter said.

"But we will be calling in a favor later." Hunter said, grinning mischievously.

"Funny."

"All right. Let's get back to the Yin-Yang World before we're discovered." Logan suggested, pulling the black and white Yin-Yang Yo-Yo from his pocket. "'Cause I did not risk my neck to save you just to see you, along with the rest of us, captured… Yin-Yang Yo-Yo!"

~YIN-YANG WORLD~

"I am going to kill those two."

"And reduce the human population down to eleven? I don't think so."

"I've got to agree with Julia on this one, Mimi. And besides, despite the trouble they cause Hunter and Peter can be quite resourceful when they need to be."

"Jack, if you want to keep the two limbs you still have I suggest you shut up." Mimi growled.

Jack, Mimi, Julia, Elena, and Nina were all sitting around a small room in the Yin-Yang World waiting for Bonny and Logan, as well as Peter and Hunter to their surprise, to return with Riku. Sarah, Hikari, and Riley were elsewhere, waiting for the same thing but trying to distract themselves instead of worrying. The adults of the group hated that they had to send their children out on these missions, but they literally had no other option. Because of their reputation as world savers before the Destroyer arrived they were branded by his magic and the second they set foot into the Yin-Yang World they were doomed to remain there until their deaths. Thus, Riku, Bonny, Sarah, Hikari, Hunter, Logan, Peter, and Riley had to go back to the earth whenever something needed done.

"You know, I bet that if Rai and the others were still around they would be ashamed of us." Elena said.

"What do you mean?" Nina asked.

"You know how stubborn and adamant they were. It's been ten years… by now they would've found a way out of here and went back to fighting the Destroyer or have died trying… We gave up the second we realized that we couldn't use the Yin-Yang Yo-Yo to go back and now we're risking out children's lives." Elena slumped over as she spoke, running a hand through her hair. Julia leaned over and wrapped her arms around her wife, trying to comfort her.

"You know, you're right, Elena." Mimi agreed.

"She may be right but we really can't do anything about it." Jack pointed out. "The only other way to get back to Earth I can think of is the Yin-Yang Bird and no one has seen that thing in over a decade."

"I wish Dojo were here." Julia sighed as she lovingly rubbed Elena's arm. "He'd know what to do."

Nina was about to speak again, but a blue and purple vortex appeared in front of her before she could, causing her to jump in surprise and grab onto Jack's arm for comfort. It wasn't until Riku, Bonny, Logan, Peter, and Hunter stepped through the portal that she calmed. "Still not used to that."

Mimi immediately got up and hugged her two boys as the exited the portal and then, while keeping a firm grip on Peter, let go of Logan so she could grab Hunter and scold the two youngsters. Meanwhile Riku was welcomed back by the other four adults with hug after hug. In the ten years that they had been hiding out in the Yin-Yang World the thirteen of them had become a very close group, considering each other family but still maintaining the fact that they weren't all related. Riku and Bonny, as well as Sarah, Hikari, and Hunter, were particularly glad they had all grown so close considering that they had lost their parents. Mimi had become the most motherly of the adults and Jack had become a great father figure despite the fact that he and Nina had never had kids.

Sarah, Hikari, and Riley come running up to the group soon after Riku and the other had returned, having noticed the vortex appearing. "Riku you knuckle head!" Riley laughed as she caught Riku in a head lock and forcefully ran her knuckles over his scalp. "What the hell were you thinking, running off like that?" she questioned. Riley was the biggest tomboy of the four teenage girls. She enjoyed roughhousing with the other kids, especially with Riku, and always seemed optimistic, even in their current situation. It was clear to anyone that she was Julia and Elena's daughter, having inherited Julia's raven black hair while appearing to be a teenage clone of her other mother.

"Uncle! Uncle!" Riku gasped. Riley laughed again and released Riku.

"Too much?" Riley asked.

"Ya think?" Riku growled.

"But she has a point." Sarah, the oldest of the eight children, pointed out. Sarah seemed to be Saya's image reincarnated, looking exactly like her mother had as a teenager. However, she acted more like her father having a huge appetite, a calm disposition, a southern Texas accent, and tending to dress as a rancher. She was rarely seen without her dads old hat on. "What were ya thinkin'?"

"Something along the lines of saving the world." Riku grumbled as he tried to push his way out of the crowd now surrounding him but to no avail.

"More details please." Hikari insisted. The middle child of Clay and Saya, Hikari took after her parents a lot less than her brother and sister did, sort of being the black sheep of the family. She wasn't much of a fighter but was able to figure out solutions to the most complicated problems. The others often called her a genius, and Jack, the only confirmed genius of the group, honestly thought she could be smarter than him. Her hair was brunet, a trait likely taken from her grandfather.

Riku sighed, rubbing the back of his head. No escaping this onslaught. "Well, I went to get the Sands of Time like I was told…" He glared over to Jack briefly before turning back to the others. "I had to go into a Xiaolin Showdown with on of his minions to get what little I was able to obtain. I won but they chased after me when I escaped their temple. Eventually they cornered me and my only way out was to use the Sands… I had just enough to get where we'd planned." This peaked the interest of the adults around him. They had planned on using the Sands of Time to go back and prevent this all from happening as well. And while Riku clearly didn't succeed before he was brought back, it was clear that he'd gotten things started. "I… arrived in a grave yard…" He turned to Mimi, Jack, Nina, Julia, and Elena. "You guys were there… and so were Mom and Dad, Clay, Saya, and Omi… None of them were any older than us… Mom and Julia. They recognized me from some alternate timeline. They took me in, gave me a place to sleep and fed me…god I haven't eaten like that in years."

"Get to the point already! We don' wanna hear about ya livin' a life of luxury!" Sarah snapped.

Riku chuckled. "Sorry… anyway, I told them about what's happening in our world. How we're the last of humanity, how the demons are taking over… I didn't tell them everything, but enough to understand the situation… One of the keys revealed itself and we were going to go after it… Chase Young was there, claiming to want to help… but he stopped me from getting onto Dojo's back… and then you guys got me."

"I remember that day." Mimi said. "Its just like you described it, except you weren't there… Why don't I remember you being there if you were that?"

"I guess the multiverse theory is right." Hikari said. Everyone else, save for Jack, gave her blank, confused stares and she rolled her eyes. "If you change something in history the existence that stems from it isn't replaced by a new one. But when you change history a new branch in the time line is created, resulting from the changes created by that change in history, while leaving the other timeline still intact." She explained.

"Meaning?" Hunter and Peter questioned.

"No matter what we do this time line is still going to exist, even if we do everything we can to prevent it." Logan said.

"Not necessarily." Jack said. "If the multiverse theory is correct, while changing history doesn't automatically eliminate the unwanted timeline, you can potentially eliminate the unwanted timeline once the new one is set in place."

"So what you're saying is we have to change history and then find a way to destroy this reality?" Bonny questioned.

"That's pretty much the gist of it." Hikari confirmed.

There was an awkward silence. While getting rid of the Destroyer was what they all so desperately wanted, the idea that they themselves would no longer exist, in a sense, was way to unnerving to most of them. "Talk about a buzz kill." Riley grumbled.

~TEMPLE OF THE DESTROYER~

Lilith lay silently on her bed in her chambers which had once been the meditation hall of the Xiaolin Temple. She was not asleep, though sleep would be a welcome distraction from her fathers voice continuously ringing through her thoughts, demanding that she locate and eliminate the remaining humans so his plans could be completed. It had been over a decade and still she was kicking up dirt. Sure, they showed up every now and again to steal some of the Sands of Time or others of their precious Shen Gong Wu, but for the most part they remained hidden in their hide out, wherever it was. She groaned as she remembered that Dark Rai and Dark Kim had almost caught one, their son, a couple days earlier but he had slipped away through time. And Later more of them showed up to steal more of the Sands of Time, but they had gotten away easier than the other had.

She furrowed her brow under her blind fold. "Why must I do everything? Daddy is all but all powerful and yet he insists that I find the humans."

She sat up as she sensed someone entering her room. The doors had not opened and no sound had been made, but as she sat up she noticed her four minions in front of her door, all down on one knee, their opposite fist pressed against the ground and bowing their heads. Dark Rai, Dark Kim, Dark Clay, and Dark Saya. All looked relatively the same from their days as humans, but they now sported leathery demon wings, reptilian tails with barbs at the end, blood red eyes, and the Seal of Thanatos on their foreheads. "My Lady, your son approaches." Announced Dark Rai.

Lilith cocked her eyebrow with intrigue. Her son was coming to visit? This was a rare treat indeed. He was usually to busy with his constant walking around the world to visit her. He had literally been walking nonstop ever since the day the demons had taken the earth, only stopping when he had news of the humans' location. So far, he had only visited her once, nearly nine years ago, to inform her that wherever the humans were, they were either hidden by some magic or no longer on earth. Lilith swung her legs over the edge of her bed and stood. "Open the doors. Let my boy enter."

All four nodded and Dark Kim and Dark Saya disappeared in a burst of black flames. Dark Rai and Dark Clay stood, grabbed onto the handles of her doors and pulled them open, revealing her son just behind them, Dark Kim and Dark Saya standing at his sides. He looked almost nothing like her, taking after his father so much more. But his father was out of the picture and had been for a long, long time.

Lilith's son showed his Asian heritage greatly, taking after his father, but his demonic side now showed greatly as well. He had tattoos that looked strangely like tentacles all over his body and the Seal of Thanatos gleamed on his forehead brightly. His head was bald and he could almost be considered a dwarf, but not quite. He wore no shoes and his feet were bloody and bruised. This was to be expected, considering that he'd been walking nonstop for nearly a decade. She didn't know why he punished himself in this way, but it was his choice. So long as he was doing his job she didn't care what else he did.

"Omi! My darling! Come give mother a hug!" Lilith said happily, kneeling down and opening her arms to him. Omi complied and walked toward her, keeping the same emotionless, almost lifeless expression he always had. They hugged quickly and pulled apart. Lilith then sat down on the edge of her bed, Omi standing before her. "So, what news do you have for me, dear?"

He looked up at her, straight into her covered eyes. "I've found them."

Lilith clapped her hands together, overjoyed to hear this news. "Oh, this is fantastic! You've done so well dear! Now take the Darklings and get rid of them. Once every last human is gone your Grandfathers plans will finally be complete."

"Yes, mother." Omi agreed, bowing before turning to walk out of the room.

"Oh, one more thing, Omi." Lilith called just as Omi stepped into the hallway. "If you see Rush out there…" she clenched her fist and it was suddenly engulfed by a blazing red and orange flame. "Tell him he's fired.