A/N: This is a fanfiction. Xiaolin Showdown clearly do not belong to me.
I`m not English speaker and – to tell the truth – I struggle with the language. PM me, if I screwed something up, I would be glad to correct my mistakes.

Chapter 1
The Box

Waking up in place that isn't your bed is rather a bad sign. Waking up in a box was definitely one. And with Jack. Jack in the box. Her box. Like lying right next to her. Kimiko got up quickly, ready to fight, but Spicer didn't move. He was just lying there like forgotten ragdoll, splash of white, red and black against the neutral color of the floor tiles. She slowly walked towards him. It looked like he was breathing, just unconscious. There was rather colorful bruise on almost half of his face on the left side.

"Auch" Kimiko grimaced. Well, not like she didn't have any of that. She wouldn't just let somebody close her in this box otherwise. Through she couldn't remember, how in the hell she ended up in this situation. She probably got her own bump on the head, which is why she didn't know what was going on. And where her shoes went, because they definitely were not on her feet.

"No weapons, no shoes, perfect" she sighed.

One thing fair in this word, Jack was shoeless too. Even his coat was gone, leaving the boy in black trousers and stupid T-shirt with cartoony face on it. Kimiko decided to look around, hoping that she would be able to spot a way out.

The box was more like some sort of cell, without visible doors or windows, and single lamp in the ceiling. Literally. It was some sort of diode, or something like that, long, shiny and flat like board. Well, at least she wasn't in total darkness with Jack who was starting to wake up.

"Ouch, this is a big ouchie!" he whined, then sat down and continued to touching his face and making painful noises, pretty much ignoring rest of the world.

"Ouchie?" Kimiko raised eyebrows. "What are you, five?"

"Bug off, it hurts!"He screamed at her. Tone of his voice was rather similar to the one used by little kids when something goes wrong in the playground. Nice timing to act like a child. She was about to smack other side of his face just to make him shut up, when he blinked and looked around, completely forgetting about bruising in mere seconds.

"Where are we? And where did my shoes go?"

"How the hell I'm supposed to know?" Kimiko crossed her arms on chest. "We're closed, somewhere."

"Congratulations, Captain Obvious" Jack rolled his eyes. "Wouldn't guess that one on my own."

She breathed deeply, trying to find a reason or two why she shouldn't hit Jack right now, just to feel better. But then, he might reverse to his childish behavior and she wound's be able to stand that for sure. At least now he might be useful. A little. She hoped.

"Do you remember anything?" Kimiko asked. "Anything that could help us tell how we end up here?"

"Even if I did, it wouldn't really matter." Jack shrugged. He seemed more interested in the walls around them than talking, his red eyes dancing all around, like he was sure there's going to be an answer written down somewhere.

"But it is important!"

"Nope, not really" he finally decided to get on his feet in rather clumsy manner. He patted his pockets and then grimaced slightly. "Great, no shoes, no other things either... But hey, you're a girl!"

Kimiko blinked. Wide smile on Jack's face was sort of creeping her out.

"What that was about?" she asked finally, trying to force the blush down. This really wasn't a time to bring sexist stuff up and she really hoped when wouldn't hear anything about upper body strength in the next sentence.

"You tend to wearing wigs! And do funny things with your hair!" Kimiko heard instead.

"...funny?" she said slowly after him. She was always very proud of her outfits. She was planning them through everytime, spending many hours at ordering right things to create something completely fresh, new and stylish. And he just called her hair funny. He, wanna-be a goth Jack Spicer.

"Hairpin!" He was definitely out of his mind. Or train of his through just train wrecked somewhere on its way, leaving her blinking stupidly, not understanding what the hell was going on.

"What?" Kimiko asked. She through that 'crazy' was always mixing nicely with 'evil' and 'genius'. Maybe that was the case?

"Do you have any?"

"Oh, so now you decided to find out new things about yourself? Good timing." Kimiko rolled her eyes.

"What?" this time he blinked. Then understood."Ew, no! Just gimme!"

"There aren't any locks to pick here, Jack" Kimiko sighed, but took out her hairpins anyway. They were pulling her hair out too much and that combined with bump on the head was quite painful. She would feel better without them.

"Yeah, but there is some sort of ventilation in this room."

"And that you know how exactly?"

"Um, two people in small room for at least few hours?" Jack raised his index finger. "Without ventilation going on we would definitely uh... not die because of oxygen deprivation right now, but totally would be able to feel thing or two about ourselves."

"Uh" she grimaced. "Thanks for nasty mental image, Jack."

"Yeah, well, luckily somebody believe in coeducation cells" he grinned, then grimaced, because the movement reminded him about the bruises. "Auch."

"I don't see any ventilation shafts through" Kimiko narrowed her eyes looking around the cell once more. No nothing, just bare wall in really uninteresting shade of sage. It looked like something died there, smeared all over the walls and they couldn't clean it all up.

"Yeah, well, If you do they could just put a big sign saying 'way out right here' in capital letters and set it up next to it "Jack rolled his eyes. "Anyway, we got electricity here too."

"And this is telling us what?"

"That we need pull the lamp out, at least halfway through" He looked up, than back at her. "Uh..."

"What? And why?"

"Because it will help me find a way out. But I won't be able to reach it, so..." Jack continued, still looking at her with wariness in his eyes.

"You want me to do it?"

"Well, I can try stand on your arms if you find it kinky, but don't think it would be such a good idea..." Well, he was right. The mental image of them in that combination was rather hilarious. Even if Jack was on the thin side, she was still tiny Japanese girl. He was much bigger than her. Or at least he was beating her in height competition.

Then they went quickly over theory of lock picking things and here she was, standing on Jacks Spicer arms and lock picking friggin' lamp. It was more than awkward, pretty uncomfortable too and it was hard to tell what she was even doing with all the light shining right into her face. It was truly awful and taking way too long.

Kimiko was feeling too hot, her arms were aching from uncomfortable position and her skin feels like it was burning from too much light and warmth too neat it but finally, something happened and she could jump down, letting jack do whatever he wanted with lamp now dangling from the ceiling on few thick cables. Even more was still up there, colorful, thick and thin. Kimiko didn't really understood all of that, he was no electrician by any sort. So she decided to step away and just let Jack do his thing. It felt really, really good to get away from that lamp.

"Do you can get sunburns from a lamp?" she asked, touching her face. It still felt too hot for her liking.

"Yep" he said, doing something with the cables.

"Personal experience? And are you supposed to chew on the isolation?"

"Totally not" he mumbled with one of the cables between the teeth. "But need to get inside and don't have a knife."

"This doesn't looks safe."

"I'm evil, I don't do safe!" he said happily, finally succeeding with breaking the plastic. He shred it even more and started to manipulate inside, sorting through the tiny metal circuits.

"And you're trying to do what exactly?"

"Cheat a little and find that ventilator shaft."

What the hell he was doing, she haven't slightest idea, even after he tried communicate it to her. The speech just didn't make sense, so full of technical terms. Only thing she knew that he was breaking pretty much every point in the "What not to do with your electrical installation" rulebook.