Chapter 4
The Truth
It has been several weeks since they all saw Jack for the last time and Kimiko started to worry a little. He didn't even showed up for the Wu hunting, and a few revealed itself. Until now, he was showing up almost every single time, even if just to wave his fist at them, or watch from afar, deciding he wasn't in the mood for another battle.
That, Kimiko decided, was rather a bad sign.
Jack was just too stubborn to drop out of the radar like that, even with the whole deal with army. No mention that it ended up fine! Not once they were around the temple, nobody showed up to give them all some sort of proposition, no nothing. Even the story in the papers, about the crashed tank, was very vague and quickly forgotten. Some soldier just get drunk and crashed it, charges were taken, end of story. So why Jack didn't get back to the old way of living? He wouldn't be too afraid, not him. Spicer was the one to never give up hope, he was hopeless optimist like that.
After they gathered the third Wu without self-proclaimed Evil Boy Genius showing up on the scene, she decided to simply check out on him. Get some sort of an answer, because after all that time he was something that become part of their world. Jack couldn't just decide one day that it was time to turn back like that, without a single world about it, no goodbye, no nothing.
She took Silver Manta Ray, since she didn't fell like asking Dojo for the flight. Besides, if next Wu choose this particular time to show up, the dragon would be needed by others. Other monk she didn't wanted on her little trip too, since she wanted to talk to Jack, not spook him.
The mansion looked like it always did. Huge and elegant, a tiny little bit intimidating with that huge frond doors. Standing in front of them and knocking on the hard wood, she felt somewhat tiny. That was probably the point.
The doors opened on itself, or maybe it was one of the Jack-bot who let her in. As far as she knew, Jack was living here mostly on his own, the rest of the family showing up rather randomly. It was quite helpful, since they battled from time to time on the mansions ground and it would be hard to explain the whole deal, not dropping the secret of Shen Gong Wu in the same time. It was also a tiny little bit sad. Her own father, even if living mostly in his own world of toys and games, had always time for her and tried hard to be around as much as possible. The older Spicers apparently didn't share the sentiment, simply letting the boy be. And anyway, what kind of sensible parent would let his child to build army of killing robots in the basement?
Kimiko shook her head and walked inside. It was sparkling clean, as always, like taken out straight from the pages of some catalogue about how to get your home to look extraordinary, or so. It also looked empty, sterile in some sort of way, like nobody really lived in here. There was no any sort of family photos on the walls, no simple knick-knags on the shelves, no newspaper left forgotten somewhere.
Her steps echoed in huge, elegant hall. It was kind of creepy.
Nobody showed up to talk to her, not even one of the Jack-bots, so Kimiko decided to fell invited to the basement, where Jack should be, doing God only knows what. Sometimes science in his hands looked like some sort of magic rather than that boring stuff you learn at school.
She knew the way to the basement rather well. She was there before, once lead by Jack himself, the other times dropping here with guys, to get the Shen Gong Wu back or simple steal some of Spicer's.
as always, the "Evil Lair" looked like mad-man laboratory or maybe very advanced workshop. Or both, crossed over with teenager room, with all stuff on the floor. Magazines, comics book, scientific thick tomes crossed in many places in red marker with the dry commentary on the margins, tossed in the corner without second through.
Nothing attacked her nor the alarm started to ring, so she decided to go deeper into the room, looking for Jack.
The light was flickering, far away, hidden by the corner, casting strange shadows on the walls. Everywhere she looked, there were memories of the past. Pile of severely destroyed bots here, remaining of those funny Koi-Fish robots there. Even the Cheerleaders were sitting by the wall of the far side. Because of the light it seemed like their creepy glass eyes were wandering after her. In the air, there was loud buzz of electricity and sparkling, and other loud sounds. It all smelled like hot metal and fire, and lubricating oil, dry and sour. Finally, she reached the far side of the basement, where Jack was supposed to be, oblivious to her presence and completely concentrated on his work, whatever it was.
"Jack...?" Kimiko blinked, trying to get used to the sudden splash of light coming from one side of the laboratory. "Jack, where...?"
The sentence was never finished, because she saw him before she managed force the words out of her throat. He was standing next to one of his machines, gigantic ring of metal. It looked like the same one they once used to send Omi into the past, to safe he world. It was shining cold in the sparkling lights of welding machine in Jacks hand, it's surface slightly oily and in the color of brass or some other copper alloy. There was a lot of wires everywhere around the machine, tangled together in complicated web, colorful yet dark.
"Jack, what are you doing?"
"And what it looks like?" he answered her question with his own. She couldn't tell the look on his face - he was wearing the goggles over his eyes and it was making it all really hard, even with such expressive face as his.
"Like running away!" she screamed. "Never through you were a quitter, Spicer!"
He just laughed at her. It was short, and even wasn't sound that real, but it managed to bring Kimiko into the fury anyway.
"Do you think this is the answer?!" she screamed, walking towards the boy. "That you just change all the things you don't like about your past and somehow it will all get better?"
Jack was silent, dark shadows were dancing on his face in creepy lighting show coming from the machine.
"Please, Jack! We can help you!"
"Doing what?" he asked. His voice has bitter sound to it. "Let me hide in the temple? We both know it wouldn't work."
"Jack, I don't know how, but I'm sure, we can do it!"
"No. No you can't" Jack shook his head. "They were after me, anyway. They took you too only by mistake"
"What are you talking about?" Kimiko blinked.
"Think." he said quietly, but somehow she managed to hear him well. "You're safe among the monks. They always were neutral, no matter what was going on with the rest of the world. They're going to keep you safe. But I? I'm but a misfit, already noted on several occasion."
"Jack..."
"Nobody would suspect a thing" he continued. "They would just report me as runaway and I would be never found again" Jack shrugged. "This is really my only chance. I don't want be at anyone's mercy."
"Then what are you planning to do? Changing few things..."
"It is modified version of machine you thinking about, Kimiko." Jack smiled slightly. "No travelling through time in my future."
"Then what...?"
"This is the gate to the another universe. Temporary gate, anyway," he shrugged. "One similar to ours enough for me to fit it. I found world where my other self is dead, so taking his place wouldn't be difficult."
"And you thing you can just switch like that? Somebody would notice something!"
"Oh, here's the thing, Kimiko. Nobody would."
Something in his voice told her, that he wasn't lying, that he was really sure of it. And something like that definitely should not be truth! He had family - through they never were around, friends - through she hadn't meet any. It was painful to think of. But he wasn't lying, he really wasn't. For the first time, when he was standing before her, without any sort of a mask glued to his face, without false smile.
Kimiko didn't like the true face of Jack at all.
It was sad and lonely and just plain miserable and there was nobody to care about him. He could just go away and nobody would even miss him. There even wasn't anything she could tell him. Besides only one thing and it was really hard to form the word, like it didn't want to get out of her throat.
"You should run." He said softly. "I set it to overload, whole place is going to explode in few minutes. Don't worry, Eye of Dashi is going to survive it. I set one of the Jack-Bots to retrieve it after the portal shut down."
"I don't worry about that stupid Wu!" she closed her hands in the fists. "And I'm sorry. I really am. It shouldn't be like that. I shouldn't end like that!"
He didn't say anything. He just waved shortly in her direction and then walked through the portal. Just like that. Just like that he was leaving his whole life behind, like it was worth nothing, like it doesn't matter at all.
The machine shut down, and whole place was now dark and silent, and empty. And about to blow up anytime now.
Kimiko shook her head. She needed to get out. The robot already took the Eye of Dashi out and now was heading towards the exit. She decided to follow. She needed that Shen Gong Wu anyway. Snatching it before anyone else does seemed a good thing to do.
She turned her head for a moment, looking at the Evil Lair for the one last time, but she couldn't see much. There was too much tears in her eyes.
Because something came to an end and she didn't like it. She really didn't.
She wanted Jack back, she wanted life back to being easy and funny, she wanted to stop being so responsible for the world. She wanted to curl in the tiny ball somewhere and cry, while the merciless fire was swallowing building which was once Spinners manor.
The air tasted like ashes but the sky didn't seem to care at all.
The weather was wonderful. Sunny and warm, without single cloud on the cerulean skies, so intense it hurts.
"There should be a storm" she said in hoarse voice. "There really should be one."
She looked at the Eye of Dashi, now safe in her hand. The lonely Jack-Bot, the last think to prove that Jack Spicer really existed was just standing there, waiting to cease like everything else. It was going to rust away over the years, or somebody would just take it away and destroy it, or take apart to recreate it, use it. Maybe even at war. Jack might have been self-proclaimed evil genius, but he definitely would not wanted somebody to use his technology in such way.
"I am so sorry," Kimiko said once again, and raised the Eye of Dashi.
If there was no storm, she is going to make one. It was all she could do.
A/N: So... it seems we reached the end of this story (for now, because I have that little thing for the sequels). As you can see the box from the title wasn't really a prison cell, but something way bigger. And yeah, both heroes and villains failed to achieve their goal. Universe is rather nasty place with truly cruel sense of humor.