Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jackie Briggs didn’t remember the lab he was in. It didn’t take him long to realize something was horribly wrong about that. Alarms aside, he wasn’t standing in the foreign lab, he was on the ground and he was bleeding.

He also couldn’t get up.

The noises were loud and to go along with that there was flashing red lights overhead, but that was hard for him to focus on. It was the same with the sounds of someone shrieking. He could… register that as happening, but he couldn’t pick up on any details about it. He certainly wasn’t the one shrieking. But their footsteps—he could feel those. They reverberated on the concrete floor. They were gentle, but quick little taps that he felt move from the concrete… up into his skull.

Honestly, it was fucking wild. Was his brain leaking out onto the concrete? What would that look like? How much blood had he lost from his head if that were the case? He wished he could see it. It was probably gore-y enough for Tom Savini to give a thumbs up in approval at the scene.

The tapping footsteps made a little more sense when he saw his mother crouch over him. Her strawberry curls dropped into his face and she kept making shrill noises. Maybe they were words, but Jackie couldn’t decipher them.

He still couldn’t fucking move.

It was probably really bad that his mother was finding him. He still didn’t know why in Hell he was in a lab setting, but it was just a shitty move for your mother to find your dying body. At least, it was bad when the mother in question wasn’t as terrible as most mothers generally were. Kathleen was objectively a terrible person, but she hadn’t ever beaten Jackie or anything. She was cruel, but they got on fine. So… he felt a little sorry, here.

She was moving her hands over him and her hair got into his mouth.

There was—something. Two something’s were flanking Kathleen. He couldn’t see them properly. They were making deeper noises and reaching out with bronze claws at him.

He couldn’t have fought them off even if he wanted to. Kathleen let them grab at him and then Jackie Briggs lost consciousness.

 

He didn’t wake up in a hospital.

Kathleen sat beside the bed he was on in what looked like a very expensive tweed blazer. Her makeup was also a lot more dark and smokey than he was used to seeing on her.

The room décor was all dark, knotty oak and the walls were on the darker side of beige around them. The crown molding framing the high ceilings was thick. The paintings on the walls were of rainy, probably British landscapes.

Feeling dumb, he asked, “Where are we? England?”

Kathleen looked more confused than he felt, but then she always had a habit of being theatric with her expressions. “We’re in China.”

Absolutely nothing about the décor would have hinted at that. “Weird.”

The worry only got worse on her face. She looked away from him and turned a sharp, pissed look to something across from him. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Apologies, Mistress Kathleen.”

Jackie turned his head, slowly, with difficulty, to see a fucking robot hovering on the other side of him. He rasped out a “What?” that was summarily ignored.

“Master Jack’s brain scans prove… difficult to ascertain.”

What the fuck did that mean?!

“So he does have brain damage,” Kathleen sounded like she was talking to herself, then.

“I don’t,” Jackie cut himself off, frowning. The scans had been… difficult to ascertain? That sounded like… he wasn’t sure what that sounded like. “Am I hearing things right?” Maybe he was getting words mixed up. He was pretty sure that was a thing with concussions.

Kathleen cleared her throat. She gentled her expression significantly when she looked back down at him. “Honey, we’ve lived in China for the last decade.”

“Are you sure?” Jackie’s father, Gregory Briggs, had gone to China for business a couple times, but Jack never joined him on those trips. Touring factories without any time to play tourist hadn’t ever sounded appealing to him.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Kathleen scowled. “Do you know who I am?”

“My mom,” Jackie spoke a little quieter.

“Well, that’s good.”

Movement from the other side of the bed drew Jack’s eyes back to the robot. It offered up a clear glass teacup full of water. “You need to hydrate, Master Jack.”

“Oh, thanks,” Jackie blindly took the cup and then he winced as the movement pulled at his shoulder weirdly. “So,” He took a sip, then looked between his mother and the… robot. “What happened to me?”

“A lab explosion, Master Jack.”

“There was a lot of shrapnel in you,” Kathleen muttered. She still sounded annoyed. It seemed like she’d used up her quota for concern already. “Some of it hit your face.”

“Shit. Have I been in a coma or something?”

“That would have been unnecessary,” the robot noted. It… sort of sounded amused to Jackie.

“Hell forbid I tell your father that you got put into a coma of all things.” Kathleen folded her arms and sagged back into her chair. It was a bit weird to see how done up she was, like she was going out to impress someone, only to then slouch in the chair like a kid. “He was pretty upset when I called him, but your little toys keep saying you’ll be fine.”

“Elaborate on fine.” Jackie had directed the demand to Kathleen, but the robot offered up a sleek tablet.

“Shall I help you sit up, Master? You can go over the test results yourself.”

Jack glanced at the screen and—wow, no. Those were numbers. White text on a black screen filled with numbers and… a tiny graph. There was a wiggly line that shot up at the end of it. And more numbers. Jackie was not good with numbers. “Uh.”

“No,” Kathleen reached over Jack’s head and grabbed the tablet. “He needs to rest, not play with this junk.”

“Of course, Mistress Kathleen.”

“Rest sounds good, I think.” Jackie closed his eyes. “I’m still a little jumbled.”

“Clearly,” Kathleen muttered. “Still better than if you’d ended up catatonic. Your father would set all of China on fire in a fit.”

“What?” Jackie opened his eyes with a flinch and tried to push himself up on his own. It didn’t hurt exactly, but there was a lot of weird pinching and tingling through his body. The robot was quick enough to grab onto him with oddly gentle claws and help.

Kathleen blinked her brown eyes at him. “What?”

“Just—that sort of hyperbole is usually my deal?”

“Hyperbole?”

Jackie felt like they were speaking different languages. “You said… burn all of China?”

“Well,” Kathleen lifted a hand up and rolled her wrist. Her nails were sharpened to points and painted a glossy black. “You know how violent your father is.”

He stared at her and the worst he could ever remember was his father slamming a door so hard the frame broke, but then… that had been totally valid in the moment, really. Jackie had been being an insensitive dick at the time. (He was very much his mother’s son.) And during the door incident, his father had looked closer to tears than to… murder.

“Not that those old men he works with don’t deserve it,” his mother continued. “Or his rivals.”

Jackie blinked a few times and awkwardly mumbled “Sure. Most… men deserve it.”

Kathleen nodded. “You know, when we first started dating, he was going through an arson phase.”

Somehow Jackie got the feeling they hadn’t met while she was working at a Sears anymore. “Arson sounds… cool.”

“Anyway, you’ve only been asleep for a day.”

Jackie nodded, again pinching something in his neck. “That’s good.”

She reached over and patted his knee a few times. “I want you to heal up some, let those cuts seal over, and then you’ll be back to making doomsday devices in no time.”

Jack stared. There was a lot to unpack there. “Okay. That… sounds like a plan. I totally love doomsday devices.”

Kathleen moved her hand up to his face and brushed some of his hair back. “Your eyes are so stressed; you looked possessed.”

“What?”

“I’m just saying that you really do need the rest.” She patted his cheek and the feel of her nails touching his skin was more than a little weird what with the dramatic points they were sporting.

“I’m happy to rest. And sleep. Get all the healing in and so on. The fun stuff.”

“You’re not getting any pain killers, Jack.”

“Wasn’t actually alluding to that—I was just… babbling, I guess. You know how I am.”

His mother nodded.

For all the little differences, there were still enough broad strokes that he… couldn’t think of her as someone else. Either she was the wrong Kathleen or Jackie was the wrong Jackie and both were probably pretty bad options, but she still felt like his mom.

Jack looked over to the robot. It looked very familiar, but then he’d watched a lot of movies and played a lot of games. After a while, a robot design was just a robot design. Humans weren’t nearly as creative as they thought they were. “Thanks for helping me,” he lamely told it. “I guess stitching me up went smoothly? Since I’m not, like, begging for morphine?”

The bulk of the robot’s head was a bronze face guard with thick red lenses for eyes set under a wide brimmed dome of sorts. It gave it a very toy-like appearance, but the scattered dents and scratches along the bronze surface made it a lot less toy-ish and more accidentally menacing. Its voice was also deep, but not particularly artificial sounding; “The healing process is largely finished at the surface level. You will have scars, but the current issue is the nerve damage that you’ve sustained.”

“Nerve damage. Okay.” He made a point to wiggle his toes under her sheets, just to check that he wasn’t paralyzed or something. “And the brain damage is… not a big concern?” As he spoke he looked down to his hands, wiggling the fingers just like he had his toes, and then he started to freak the fuck out.

“Your mind is adapting on schedule, Master.”

“Holy shit!” Jack wasn’t paying any attention to the robot any longer. “My skin!” He was white. He’d always been on the pale side, like his dad, but this was like albino white. It was a big, noticeable difference. His pigmentation was gone.

He wrapped one hand around his own wrist and also noted how much smaller it looked and felt. Less like he’d lost a shit ton of weight and muscle and more like he’d… shrunk? Or gotten younger? Shit, he hoped it was the latter.

Kathleen quickly moved to stand, but she didn’t sound very alarmed as she asked, “Do you need your lotion?”

“My—yes?” He pulled his hand back away from his thin wrist. He could always see his veins on his inner arms before, but now they looked grey. This was less like real albinism and more like he was some sort of fantasy creature. And on that note his nails were black like his mother’s, but when he rubbed the pads of his fingers over them, it didn’t feel like he was wearing nail polish.

“Jack-Bot bring some lotion here, now.”

Jackie looked up from his hands to Kathleen. “You—what’d you say?”

A little bit of concern crept back onto her face as she pushed the chair back and leaned over the bed. “Are you in pain? Your robots will bring the lotion any second, honey.”

“I’m… a little dry?”

She nodded, like that made sense. “Try not to be so dramatic and scare me like that, Jackie. They said they got all the shrapnel out, but your robots can be a little weird sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Jackie dragged the word out for a whole beat. “They’re… they can be weird. Super weird. Like me.”

She sighed and pushed her black nails through some of her curls, fluffing up the hair at the side of her head. “Jack Spicer, I already said it, but I’ll say it again: you’ll be back to your evil schemes in no time. You just need to be patient, alright?”

“Yep. Yeah, Jack… Spicer. That’s me. Evil Boy Genius.”

His mother reached forward and tapped one of the very sharp nails on the tip of his nose. “Heir to the great Spicer legacy of wickedness. My pride and joy.” Her smile was more teasing than anything, but all the figurative alarm bells were ringing loudly in Jackie’s head.

He wasn’t Jackie Briggs, he was Jack Spicer… from the cartoon.

 

Jack Spicer from Xiaolin Showdown.

 

Jackie covered his mouth to hide the shit-eating grin he knew was was sporting.

 

He was going to have so much fucking fun here.

Chapter Text

Two weeks after Jackie had woken up and learned that he was somehow fifteen again—and also some sort of quasi-human supervillain from a kids show—his father sent him a gift.

 

Jackie cradled the puzzle box in his hands with a manic grin. He was still in his pajamas, baggy jogger pants and an even baggier shirt, but he didn’t want to wait to try to open it.

“I’m guessing you know what it is?” Kathleen, standing in front of the couch, huffed like she was annoyed. Unlike Jack, she was once again done up like she was going to some sort of dark academia event. “He’s always having me hide old artifacts for him, but I never know what any of it does.”

“Remember the Hellraiser movies?” Jackie watched as his mother’s face went slack. He savored it for a few seconds, then: “Okay, it’s not like that.”

“It better not be.”

“But there may be a ghost inside of this.” Rather, he really hoped there was.

Kathleen closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose and Jack took a moment to be impressed at how she didn’t cut her own face in the process. He was glad his own nails were blunt, but still… he was a little jealous of her. She opened her eyes and moved her hand away from her face only to point one of her claws right in his face. “Keep it out of my suite and out of the sauna.”

“I make no promises.”

“Make an effort,” she stressed. “Now, I need another smoothie.”

“Isn’t there a lot of sugar in those? You shouldn’t have them every day.”

She snorted and didn’t bother saying anything more to him as she left.

 

Jack shifted to sit up straighter on the couch and ran his fingers over the edges and seams of the box. Given that he wasn’t an engineering genius like the other Jack, he thought it would take longer.

The box made clicking noises as he shifted it about and pressed down on its pressure points, but when it opened up to reveal the haunted mask, it was quiet. The mask rose up from the box in a smooth, sedate manner. There was no fanfare or heavy presence. The ghost unfurled from the back of the mask and her eyes were already open and trained on him.

“Wuya,” Jackie stared up at her in awe.

She was a mess of lavender tendrils and ribbons bursting out from the back of a thick, white mask. The wide grin set beneath the protruding red nose looked fixed in place up until it opened and revealed a set of jagged carvings of teeth.

Overall, there was a… janky aesthetic to her. The mask looked like real wood that had been painted and the tendrils looked a lot like fabric. Rather, she looked like a prop. But all that lavender was as transparent as a Pepper’s Ghost illusion; it didn’t look convincing. To Jackie, she looked fake.

In Mandarin she asked, “You know of me?”

Jack responded in kind, “You are the Heylin Witch, Wuya. Imprisoned by Dashi and now freed by me: Jack Spicer.” He nodded his head in a somewhat half-assed bow and he didn’t try to dampen the dumb grin he knew he was sporting. He’d loved her character in the cartoon. “It’s a great honor to meet you.”

She looked him over, then looked around the room. He couldn’t track her eyes, but her mask tilted noticeably as she took things in. “I see I have been freed by someone with good taste.”

“My mother’s efforts. I’m glad you approve of it.” The walls of the living room were dark and cluttered with paintings and exotic taxidermy.

Four Jack-Bots lined the far wall, quiet, and watching with red-lit eyes.

Her whole “body” spun around as she focused back on him and closed some of the distance between them. The red swirls painted over the bulbous yellow eyes were raised and shiny, like the paint had been a modern acrylic. “You are interested in serving me?”

“Learning from you.” On that note, Jack asked, “Are we talking so easily because of magic? I know languages change a lot over time.”

“I was trapped, not deaf, in there.”

“Convenient.”

“It was torture,” she corrected and the jagged grin receded into a stretched frown. It was like she’d switched between different wooden masks. Jack loved it.

Back on topic, he asked her in English: “Can you speak other languages?”

“I can speak your English, yes.” Even her accent was the drawl of an American accent, like his.

“Awesome. Because I can speak Mandarin and understand it, but I’m not entirely sure how.”

“What is that meant to mean?”

Jack motioned to his own scarred face. On his left side there were a two long, parallel scratches, trailing from his jawline up and over his ear. A smaller line crossed his temple next to them, but didn’t cut through his eyebrow. All three scars were superficial, if rough-looking. His neck, clavicle, and chest had taken the brunt of the shrapnel, but he was getting used to the pinched sensations and aches. “I took a heavy head injury recently. I’m a little jumbled up because of it.”

“Ah. You lost a battle, then?”

“No. I was creating something and it went wrong. Exploded on me,” he flung his hands out to emphasize the word exploded. “But I can function fine for the most part.”

“I see. By creations—you mean the magical puppets, yes? They are yours?”

“Yeah. They’re mine. Not magic, but good as.” Jack awkwardly gestured towards some of them. “They’ll help us collect the Wu.”

She shot through the air, moving right up to his face. “You know of the Shen Gong Wu?!”

Jackie nodded. “Yeah. The Heylin fight for them. We can use them to get your body back and all that jazz, right? So that’s the main objective.”

Wuya drifted back a little bit and he could tell she was pleased. “I think you’ll be interesting to work with.”

“Sure,” Jackie carefully set the opened puzzle box onto the coffee table. “I have a vague idea of what we’ll be dealing with.”

“You know of the Xiaolin.”

“Ah, yeah.” It’d actually been the globetrotting he’d been thinking of. “The monks.”

“Don’t underestimate the Xiaolin Dragons. They will be trained to combat Heylin forces.”

“Right. So, there’s not much by way of the Heylin. I think it’s just us two and Chase Young who are… out and about. But there’s plenty of evil people, they just need to be introduced to this whole… this stuff.”

“You’re well informed.”

“I’m a legacy kid.”

“And what has Chase Young been up to while I’ve been locked away? Has he taken students?”

Trying to shake his head had been a bad idea. “Shit.” Jack winced and moved his hands to grab at the left side of his neck.

“Spicer?”

“Uh, no idea. I think Young collected warriors and turned them into cats? No idea why.”

“Master.” A Jack-Bot moved its way around the couch and held out a capsule pill filled with brown powder.

Jack frowned at it. “Unless you’ve switched the supplements with the painkillers, I don’t need another one of those.”

“You’re still lacking in certain vitamins. In the long run, this will help.”

He let out a little huff, then took the pill and dry swallowed it. He didn’t appreciate the smug slant the robot’s posture took as it straightened back up and drifted away from the couch.

Wuya, however, sounded impressed as she moved to hover over the couch next to him as if she was sitting there. “Your creations are very helpful.”

For now, he thought. “The Jack-Bots are pretty terrifyingly competent. They’ll be a big help for us.”

Kathleen’s heels were loud on the hardwood floors and announced her a few beats before she actually made it into the room. She had a smoothie tumbler in hand and her expression was flat as she took in Wuya floating next to Jack on the couch. “Well, it’s prettier than a cenobite.”

Jack held back a snicker just barely. “Mom, this is Wuya, the Heylin Witch.”

Kathleen gave a more polite bow, but she also had an eyebrow raised during the act. “Witchcraft, Jackie?”

“There are worse hobbies,” he joked.

“Well, welcome to our home, Wuya. I’m Kathleen Spicer.”

“I am honored to be so well received here.”

“A fresh face around here might do us some good.” Kathleen loosely folded her arms. “But, Jack, is this really what you want to do? Getting involved with the Heylin?”

“Yes.” Why wouldn’t he? “I mean, magic and curses are viscerally real. That can’t be ignored, right?” He wanted to learn everything.

“You’re as bad as your father.”

Jack had no idea what she meant by that.

Wuya’s yellow eyes turned a solid white and she twisted to face the ceiling. “A Shen Gong Wu has activated! We must leave at once!”

“Yes!” Jack tried to jump to his feet. His right shoulder spasmed at the sudden movement and somehow that killed his balance. He toppled right back onto the couch and twitched as he landed and flailed at his own body, trying to rub out the weird sensation. There were shooting pains all down his arm and rubbing and squeezing at it wasn’t helping much.

He was about to make a quip about finding a chiropractor when Kathleen shouted, “Absolutely not. You’re still healing.”

“What?” Jack was more than a little incredulous at her firm tone. It’d been a spasm, not a bone breaking. His second attempt at standing up, albeit much slower, was entirely spasm free. He made a point to stop touching his hurting arm so she’d think it wasn’t bothering him. “I’ll be fine, see?”

Kathleen closed the distance between them briskly. “Jack, you almost died. You’re a wreck right now.”

 

Where had this motherly concern been when he’d been seventeen and genuinely fucking dumb? When he’d actually been hurt and broken?

 

He forced himself to take a steadying breath and held his hands up, placating. “Look, the thing we’re after? There’s only going to be some monks after it. Trainee monks, probably. Totally easy.”

“Monks have a habit of knowing how to fight.”

“Holy shit,” Jack moved his hands up to grab at the back of his own neck. “I have sapient killer robots and there’s weapons all over this place. This is seriously like a kid’s game—I’ll be fine. In fact, I’m more likely to hurt myself here than outside. I’ve even proven as much, haven’t I?”

Kathleen rolled her eyes and, really? Eye rolling? He didn’t think anyone was allowed to call him the childish one between them anymore. “You’re not leaving for this… whatever it was.”

Wuya finally piped up with “The Changing Chopsticks.”

Kathleen snapped her fingers in the ghost’s directions. “That, thank you. I have a drawer of chopsticks in the kitchen and I’m sure your father could get a hold of pixie spunk to make them magical for you.”

Jackie was genuinely torn between continuing to be pissed off and laughing. “What, not fairy dust?”

“You need to go lie down.”

“I’m really not that bad off, mom.”

She reached out and slipped a clawed hand into his hair. He dropped his own hands away from his neck as she pressed her fingers against his scalped and searched.

Oh.

She didn’t stop once she’d found the worst of the fresh scars. She dragged the pads of her fingers over them like she was petting the raised tissue. He’d forgotten about that. His hair hid them pretty well. “Your robots sealed your flesh up well enough to force scar tissue somehow.” She pulled her hand away from him and her expression looked uncomfortable and pinched, like back when he’d woken up in his bed here. “You were hurt a lot worse than you think, Jackie.”

“I’m not going to keel over,” he snapped, purely out of reflex.

A sharp huff of air blew out her nose. Then she gently dragged the tips of her claws against his scarred cheek. “No chopsticks.”

 

Jack stalked off to his suite. He was still floored over the… parenting. Or maybe jealous was the better word for it.

In the time it took for him to make it from the living room to his door, he could be rational and accept that the accident in the lab would normally have been the sort of thing to shake up a teenager. He’d almost died. But really, he had died. The native version of Jack had died. But he was still Jack. He was similar enough. Kathleen and the (many) robots hadn’t gotten suspicious.

And on Jackie’s side of things, everything was familiar. And that was fine. It was enough. He wasn’t even deflecting or deluding himself—and he was pretty fucking good at deflection. He honestly didn’t feel like he was missing anything from his old life.

There was magic in this life and… and this version of Kathleen cared about him more. She had only gotten in his way and given him shit because he’d scared her with the lab thing.

This world was better.

 

Both Wuya and a Jack-Bot trailed behind him, quiet, as he stalked into his bedroom. The robot he expected to be quiet, but he’d thought Wuya would have jumped into heckling him. It was weird she’d let him brood uninterrupted for so long. He side-eyed her as she floated around his room, snooping without trying to touch anything. “So, how pissed off are you at me?”

She looked over, still quiet.

“By pissed off I mean angry.” He’d have to make an effort to rein back the slang and idioms.

“No. I’m not going to be… unreasonable.”

Jack couldn’t help but raise a brow high. She was a lot more calmer than he’d been expecting. He’d have to use his memories of the cartoon as a suggestion rather than a guide.

“Your mother had some… valid points.”

“Yeah.”

Wuya looked to the Jack-Bot that had followed them into Jack’s room. “I’m sure you won’t disappoint me in the future.”

“I’ll work on healing up faster. Regardless—we’ll go after the next Wu and just win the chopsticks, then.”

“Optimistic.”

“Determined,” he corrected her. “I’m serious about helping you and learning from you. So, I’ll put in the work best I can.”

“And what do you think you have to learn from me?”

“Magic.” Jack sat on the edge of the messy king-sized bed. “I want to learn for the sake of it and I’d also really like to become immortal. But I don’t have any world domination plans—I’ll leave that to you.”

Wuya moved closer to his face, studying him for a beat. “This is acceptable. Once I have my body back, you will become my apprentice, Jack Spicer.”

“It’s a deal.”

Chapter Text

The closet was humongous and filled with a lot of vintage and a lot of Tripp brand tags. The latter wasn’t Jackie’s flavor of goth, but it was workable.

He grabbed a long sleeved mesh shirt and pulled it over his skinny chest, then reached for a longer T-shirt that had had the sleeves chopped off maybe a decade prior. The fraying was severe, but with it as a second layer, Jack was happy.

“The variety of fabrics is interesting,” Wuya mused.

He looked over to see her passing one of her lavender tendrils through a row of heavy trench coats. They all screamed 90s, thick and baggy, which had Jackie wondering if he’d be able to wear any of them without getting heatstroke. He’d traveled enough in his old life, but the fact remained that he’d spent the majority of his life in deserts. He hadn’t even considered a jacket when he’d darted into the closet.

To Wuya he said, “When we get your body back you can go on a shopping spree. Might be something to do with my mom, though. I’m obviously more into thrifting and DIY and I think you’d want more high-end, bespoke fashion.”

“Bespoke, yes,” Wuya continued to look through his closet.

“Bespoke and couture,” he offered. “Oh!” He crouched down to grab a worn belt. It had little alchemy symbols sloppily embroidered in red along the length of it and Jackie was a little in love. “Mine now!”

“Is this not all yours?”

“What? I mean, yes. But. Brain injury. I’m forgetful.” He threaded the belt through his jeans a little clumsily. The industrial and cyber looks the prior Jack had preferred were fine, but Jackie was honestly more into the “witchy” look.

“Let’s hope your broken brain doesn’t impede our quest for the Wu.”

“If it does, there’s always future showdowns to get stuff back. And my robots can maybe pick up some of my slack.”

“That’s… reasonable.”

“I try.” He tucked a corner of the improvised tank top into his jeans to better show the belt, then grinned widely at Wuya. “I’d ask you if I looked good, but I think modern goth fashion is lost on you.”

“You look young,” Wuya eventually said and it was enough for Jack to pantomime getting shot in the heart.

“Ouch! Valid, but painful to hear.”

“How old are you?”

“Uh. Fifteen going on thirty? Ish.”

He expected some questions, but instead the ghost snorted at him. “When I take over the world you’ll need a bit more variety for when I’m holding court.”

“Court robes? Hanfu?” Jack barely considered it before he was nodding. “I do like me some horrifically ostentatious garb. Maybe with a shit ton of red jade beads.” He didn’t actually think Wuya would succeed, let alone keep him around for any sort of court, but it was still fun to imagine the scene. “Maybe if my hair is long enough then I can get some fun hair sticks.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Wuya realized.

Jack laughed and moved out of the closet. He tripped slightly where the carpet turned to bathroom tile, but Wuya didn’t mock him for it and he’d caught himself on the marble countertop quick enough. “Okay! Makeup time!”

The ghost groaned and flew closer, choosing to stop and hover over the sink. “You won’t be wasting our time, getting ready like this every time a Wu activates, will you?”

“Probably not.” Patience wasn’t a strong suit of his. Case in point, he’d freed Wuya before even getting dressed for the day.

She let out a little hiss, but didn’t stop him as he upended a basket full of products onto the counter.

Jackie had never been one for heavy makeup, but that didn’t mean he liked to be completely barefaced. A smudge pot and some mascara were all he needed, but most of the makeup on the counter now was definitely more for precise and elaborate work. He had to hunt to find eyeliner that was a pencil and not a marker.

Frankly, he was not coordinated enough for fancy eyeliner designs and he knew it. Jack had half a mind to just ask a robot to do his makeup for him and replicate that little hook that canon Jack always had. But that’d be… weird, maybe, to ask a robot made to kill to help him put on makeup.

He leaned in close to the mirror, letting the countertop dig uncomfortably into his abdomen, and then he lightly went in to ring his eyes in black. It wasn’t perfect, on either eye, but he resolved to fix it up after he got some mascara on. The red lashes were more of an auburn in the bright bathroom and it was just too obvious that that was their natural color to Jack.

Wuya: “Is this really necessary?”

“Considering my eyelashes are red and also kinda shit at, you know, doing their job to provide shade for my eyeballs, yeah.” He pressed the brush into his lashes and shook it as he dragged it it up and away from his eye. Black was much better on him. Before, his eyelashes had been pale at the roots, and equally shit at protecting his eyes, so he was an old hat at this. “This is super important.”

“You look like a mess, Jack.”

“My beauty standards don’t match yours,” he paused as he shifted to work on his other eye, “And that’s okay.”

“You don’t dress like you mother.”

“We have different ways to feel like ourselves and have different statements to make,” Jackie drawled and screwed the mascara lid back on it. He rubbed his fingers around his eyes to smooth and blends the eyeliner into something more uniform. “Also I am a twiggy child still. I’m not doing anything real fun until I’m not fucking jailbait.” When he saw Wuya’s reflection in the mirror looking at him confused, he grinned at her. “I somehow count as a child.”

“I’m aware of the rising standards in humans,” Wuya sneered. “You’re old enough to kill and that’s all that really matters to me.”

“Sure,” He turned around and leaned against the counter. “And I’ll kill anyone,” and then Jack immediately frowned. He’d intended the words as a joke, but after hearing them out loud, it sounded more like a casual truth.

“Jack?”

He forced a big smile at her. “Let’s grab some food while we wait. I’m sure something will activate soon.”

 

It didn’t actually take that long for another Shen Gong Wu to activate. This was a whole separate thing to the Changing Chopsticks. He wasn’t, technically, disobeying his mother. He and Wuya had rested up after playing dress up and eating some food. They’d followed her orders. Now, the Tangle Web Comb had activated.

Everything was copacetic.

 

Wuya flew ahead of Jackie and into the jet. “Yeah, so,” he looked over his shoulder to the closest robot. “One of you will be flying, right?”

It gave him a short bow. “Of course, Master.”

Another one drifted over and held out a cane. “We recommend using this from now on.”

“Oh, sweet.” Jackie took the cane and held it up to look at the bronze knob handle better. “Is it tricked out like in Archer?”

“No, but that can be arranged. Master, what is Archer?”

“It’s, uh, a cartoon about spies. Sorry. Thank you for the cane. And hold off on the tricks. On second thought, I’m totally more liable to hurt myself with any weird things.”

The Jack-Bot nodded. “Adding weaponry would also affect it’s weight and it’s primary purpose to help you balance.”

“Right… though a sword cane would be cool.”

“Mistress Kathleen has forbidden swords until you agree to lessons with your aunts.”

“Uh,” Jackie frowned and tried to picture either Maude or Clarissa holding a sword and he just… couldn’t. He could only picture them sitting on their fat asses drinking wine and complaining about their health. “I’ll just hold off on a sword, then.”

“Jack!” Wuya screeched his name. “We must leave if we’re to reach the Wu!”

“Right!”

 

The jet ride was quick, uneventful, but Jack had been a little nervous when the heavy aircraft settled down onto a rice field in the darkening evening. He kept his concerns about the jet sinking into the mud to himself.

“It’s here!” Wuya wasted no time and phased through the hulk of the aircraft.

Jack had to take his time. “Am I going to be able to walk here?”

One of the two Jack-Bots in the cockpit with him made a very human-like humming noise. The other was more helpful and offered out an arm for Jack to take. “We are here to assist, Master.”

“Sure,” Jackie carefully stood up and wrapped his free arm around the robot’s. “Just until you catch up to the Terminator franchise, right?”

“Committing genocide on the human race would not benefit us,” supplied the robot that had hummed.

“Well, you guys have motive. You’re immortal and the humans are destroying the Earth we all live on way faster than heat death will happen.”

Both robots laughed. It was wholly disturbing for Jackie who decided to shut the fuck up after that. It wasn’t that he’d been trying to convince them to go rogue, but he had been serious. Humanity was terrible for the Earth. And more importantly, he was curious. Why the fuck were they helping him when they didn’t have to?

Regardless of his concerns, he was helped out of the jet gently by the two of them. His boots and his cane only sank an inch into the ground as they moved over to where Wuya was zipping about.

She clearly hadn’t found anything yet, but she was looking in earnest.

“Hey, Wuya.” Jack shifted his grip on the robot’s arm as he suggested, “Maybe it’s buried?”

She didn’t even look up from her survey. “It would have risen to the surface as it woke up!”

One of the robots flanking Jackie moved closer and pressed against his back, just enough so Jack could lean on it. “I’ll just let you keep looking. Your, uh, senses are much better than mine.”

Once he had a Wu, he figured he could ask the robots to come up with some sort of sensor. If they were going to be so terrifyingly autonomous, he might as well take advantage of them.

 

He looked up when a light rain started to come down and that was when he noticed the dragon. Dojo, the size-changing dragon affiliated with the Xiaolin monks, was serpentining through the air not far away. Jackie could even make out the shapes of what had to be the young monks of this era riding him.

“We’ve got incoming,” he called out to Wuya.

The ghost let out a rasping sort of growl, looking to Jack and then over to the dragon. Without warning, she darted down into the ground.

Jack’s mouth quirked to one side, amused, but he wasn’t in the mood for full on smirking. This was… a big deal, probably. This was his introduction to the conflict proper. He was Heylin, officially and all that, mostly because, bizarrely, Wuya was easy for him to get along with, but this would be his public introduction.

He forced his mouth to twist in a big grin and he moved his hands to rest on the knob of his cane in front of him. It was a pose, and he was shamelessly posturing, but he was glad to do it.

Still, he muttered, “Please be nonlethal for the time being,” to the—his robots.

In chorus, they both acknowledged him with a firm “Yes, sir.”

He’d retain the right to change his mind later, especially since he vaguely recalled Omi in the cartoon being horribly annoying, but for now he could play the game with the rules upheld. He wasn’t inclined to be a PG rated villain, but he understood pacing was important. There needed to be a build-up.

The dragon landed and, as realistic as the giant lizard was, its face was expressive enough that Jack should see the wary set in his thick red brows. The monks all slid off his back, but not in any coordinated movement.

Omi was clearly the most used to the dragon, and also the most stupid. He saw Jack, grinning madly, flanked by robots, and standing before a literal jet plane, and the kid smiled. In Mandarin he called out, “Hello, stranger!” Omi then went so far as to give a short, polite bow. It was much more formal than the bow Jack’s own robots had been giving him. “We are sorry to disturb your field, but we are looking for something precious.”

“Well, that’s interesting.” Jackie made a show of tilting his head and staring down at the monk. “This isn’t my field, but according to Chinese law, any precious artifacts found have to be turned over to the state.”

Omi opened his mouth wide, then thought better of it. Confusion made his features pinch as he asked “Honorable sir, how did you know it was an artifact?”

Raimundo spoke up from behind the Dragon of Water in English: “Don’t think he’s anything honorable, Omi.”

Jack looked over Omi’s head to the other three Dragons in training. For the most part, they all just looked like very good cosplayers to him, though it was interesting that the older three all looked closer to his (new) age than to Omi. The littlest monk looked like a ten-year-old. It was a bigger gap than the cartoon had implied… unless Omi just looked younger than he really was, here.

Not unlike how the robots flanked Jack, Kimiko, wearing a long pink wig, and Clay, hat tilted down a bit, were flanking a grim faced Raimundo.

It was all a little flattering, so Jack made sure his grin was wide and appreciative as he also switched to English. “You four are the Xiaolin Dragons of this era. It’s a delight to meet you all.”

“You have a very keen eye, stranger!” Omi bounced in place as he motioned to his peers. He only switched to English as he shouted: “We are the most honorable and great chosen ones!”

“Uh, Omi.” Dojo, still large, and still wary, scratched at the back of his neck with thick claws. Scraps of dried skin sprinkled down into the mud. “I get the feeling it’s not a good thing this guy knows about you.”

“He’s a walking stereotype for evil,” Kimiko sneered.

Jackie nodded his head to her. “The more specific term is Heylin.”

“Semantics,” Rai snapped. “Just who are you?”

“Me? I’m Jack Spicer.”

Omi backed up a little, moving closer to his friends. “You are Heylin? But they are all gone.”

Wuya’s tendrils shot up from around Omi’s feet. The rest of her following in a writhing, spiraling mass as she shouted “Lies!”

Omi screamed and flailed as he tried to back away.

Dojo shrunk himself down. “Wuya?!” He slithered away to hide behind a large rock as he cried out “The witch is free!”

Meanwhile, Clay darted forward and physically hauled Omi away from the ghost, but the effect was done. Wuya had handily claimed the award for best introduction.

She swam through the air back over to Jack while Raimundo and Kimiko shifted into battle stances in front of Clay and Omi. “The Heylin are strong,” Wuya growled. “I am free and others will awaken and soon join our ranks again!”

“Also,” Jack motioned to his own person, “There’ll be fresh blood.”

Clay had one hand firmly on Omi as he positioned himself to cover the smaller boy. “Any punks like yourself will be getting a thrashing from us if you don’t back down first. The Wu belong to the Xiaolin temples.”

“Cocky,” Jackie noted with his grin still strong. “But you monks like to preach about how the universe supposedly likes balances, right? You three join the temple and then I free Wuya. Tit for tat or… something like that.”

Clay’s scowl deepened, but he also didn’t argue.

When he moved to take a step closer, Jack’s cane made a thud as it hit something solid in the mud. He looked down and was crouching to pick up the comb before he ever processed what he was looking at. Unfortunately, Omi was fast and managed to dive and get a hand on the Tangle Web Comb just as Jack touched it.

“Ha!” The little boy pointed with his free hand up at Jack’s face. “You can’t participate! While I have the Changing Chopsticks, you have no Wu to wager!”

Jack wasn’t worried. “I wager my taser gun, then.”

“You cannot!”

“Uh, actually kid,” Dojo pulled out a small book from between his own scales. The easy show of what had to be space-warping magic was somehow more impressive to Jack than the literal talking dragon was. “Most anything can be wagered and a weapon like that—totally valid.”

Jack helpfully supplied, “It’s custom.”

Omi looked up at Jack with an exaggerated glare. “Fine! It matters not. I will win against you, evil stranger!”

“Not much of a stranger, now, but yeah. You ready?”

Omi sucked in a deep breath, readying himself, and in a much more subdued fashion Jack matched him to shout “Gong Yi Tanpai!” together.

 

Jack should have expected he’d fall over when the terrain shifted. He vaguely heard Wuya screech his name, but that didn’t help him any. He landed mostly on left forearm and knees. The cane held in his right hand had helped a little. Without it, he probably would have face-planted which, honestly, would have been really fucking annoying. He’d ended up face first in the dirt plenty of times in his life, but he wanted the monks to be wary of him. He didn’t want to be as much of a loser in this life as he’d been in his old one.

“Ha ha! You are most unsuited to this challenge, Spicer!”

Jack struggled a little push himself up onto his knees and make eye contact with Omi.

The kid wasn’t racing to the finish line. The field had shifted under them to make a floating track of wet mud that hung in the air like a toy car track. Off to the far right there was a platform that he could see the spectators had all been dumped on.

“Do you need help standing up? I see you have a cane to help with your obvious disability, but it does not appear to be helping you much.”

Jack looked back to Omi, reluctantly amused. “I don’t think you’re trying to be condescending and that is actually amazing.”

Omi’s face scrunched up in confusion. “What?”

“I’d love some help, but I need a second.” Jack drove his cane into the mud so it was stuck in place, then he let go of it and reached out to Omi. “Okay?”

“Of course!” Omi rushed over and he was small enough that he used both hands to grab onto Jack’s offered arm and pull. “As a most honorable Xiaolin Dragon, I am a force for good and—”

Jack tased the youngest monk. He’d used his free hand to grab it while Omi had been babbling and then he’d pressed it into Omi’s side and squeezed the trigger.

The twin barbs conducted a modest voltage that had the kid seizing and toppled over in short order.

 

There was a lot of shouting coming from the spectator’s platform, but Wuya’s cackling drowned out their words to Jack. He reholstered the taser gun and used his cane to drag himself up to his feet. Pulling the cane back out of the mud became the hardest part of the whole “race.” Omi wasn’t going to get up any time soon so Jack took his time ambling over to the finish line carved into the mud track.

When the showdown’s terrain vanished, it took the mud that Jack had gotten all over himself with it, but it left both the Tangle Web Comb and the Changing Chopsticks in his hand. His Jack-Bots were back to flanking him and Wuya drifted in the air above his head, still laughing.

He was a little surprised how well tricking Omi had worked. He hadn’t exactly planned ahead. At all. Really, he’d been winging it. But he’d won. And he was pretty sure he had established himself as a proper threat. The teenage monks certainly thought he was a threat now. The glares he got from them as they encircled Omi’s prone form were pretty severe.

Jack flashed the Xiaolin a mean smile. “Well! Super fun meeting you guys. We’ll definitely be doing this again, soon.”

Kimiko made a thumbs-down gesture at him while Clay picked Omi up. She called out “You’re gonna get an ass-kicking next time we see you!”

The laugh that spilled out of Jack’s mouth was kind of perfect because it was pitchy and weird—and honest. He was delighted. He had real enemies. They’d hate him for a reason, because he’d done something to them, not because they were just like that. Jackie was the evil one, here.

The angry expressions on the conscious monks got tenser and Jack’s smile got wider and more genuine.

Wuya cackled and drifted in front of Jack. She had two “arms” curled in front of her and the ribbon-like tendrils behind her mask were twisting about like the tails of a shit ton of happy cats. “The Heylin will dominate this era, monks.”

Raimundo puffed his chest out as he called back, “We’ll see about that, freaks.”

Jack would regret the silly act later, but he gave the monks a sloppy salute with the hand holding the Chopsticks in response.

 

Wuya’s cackling was appropriately creepy, though.

Chapter Text

Jackie morbidly wondered if the mud at the last showdown had been some sort of foreshadowing. Meanwhile, Wuya didn’t know or care to know why Jack was feeling so wary about their current location. “Stop looking at that thing and help me find the Yo-Yo!”

“There’s, um… a lot of poisonous shit around here so don’t mind me going slow, okay?” He had a tablet in hand with a map on display. “And give me a heads up if you see any tombstones. Chances are it’s been left at a kid’s grave recently.” The strap on the tablet’s case fit a bit snugly over his gloved hand and he toggled back over to an old news article about the area with a grimace. “There’s a lot of kids’ graves around here. People like to leave toys for them.”

Finally, Wuya stopped and twisted in place so she could look at him. “Children’s graves?”

“We’re on the outskirts of Armero. A dormant volcano erupted in 1985. I’ve seen this place get covered by a couple ghost hunting shows. Never tastefully, but that’s kinda how those things go a lot of the time. I probably never would have heard of the tragedy without those sorts of shows, though.”

“A volcano—was a spirit angered?”

“Well,” Jackie looked up from the tablet and paused in a sort of acknowledgement of the fact he was talking to a witch’s ghost. “All things considered, I’m not going to say no. Especially not with the story of a murdered and vengeful priest floating about. But probably this was just nature being a dick.”

Wuya made a low humming noise and Jack put the tablet to sleep so he could look around.

He was glad he was dressed in layers. It didn’t feel cold in Columbia, but with him not knowing the plants, but vaguely remembering something about toxic snails and plenty of snakes around, he was glad to be protected.

The jungle around them was thick and through the trees and vines, Jack only caught glimpses of the concrete walls that made up the ghost town. He had half a mind to try to arrange for a guide to meet up with them to show them around, but that was… probably in bad taste?

Jack looked away from the skeletal buildings in the distance and tried to refocus.

“It’s good we haven’t seen the monks,” Wuya spoke slowly, “But there’s a lot off ground to search.”

“Again: my bet is on a kid’s grave.”

 

Jackie kinda wished he would have been wrong.

“The Ying Yo-Yo!”

He ignored the ghost’s celebration as he crouched down and pocketed the Wu. Before standing he brushed some of the dirt off the top of the tombstone. It wasn’t well kept, but he could make out the name and the years and a better person would probably have something to say to the grave. Clumsily wiping it down with his gloved hands was the best he could do.

“Excellent work, Jack!”

“Mhm.”

“We should leave before the monks arrive.”

“Wait, no.” Jack carefully moved back to standing. “There’s a thing nearby I want to see. The Witch’s Rock.”

 

The sky above them grumbled as thunder sounded in the distance. The clouds were thick and grey, rain still spat down on them in odd intervals, but it wasn’t dark yet.

“I swear I’m not trying to test you.”

As much as she could while possessing a mask, Wuya gave him a flat look. “Really.”

“I swear it,” Jack held his hands up, the tablet’s screen then facing Wuya. “How I came across a lot of stuff is kinda, or very, suspect. Your firsthand opinion would be much appreciated.”

“You remind me of some of the more cryptic teachers I have had.”

“Gonna take that as a compliment since I’m hoping to be your peer one day.”

“It was not a compliment.”

Jack put his hands down and looked back to his tablet to switch over to his notes app. The fact that her insults were making him smile was probably odd to Wuya, but she didn’t comment on it. “So the rock is up ahead and it could be all bullshit.”

“And you want me to confirm or deny whether it is magical?”

“I mean, I’m not going to say it won’t have bad vibes. But if there’s an active curse, would you be able to tell in this form? You sensing the Shen Gong Wu could be, I don’t know, an attunement type thing since it was Dashi that imprisoned you or even because they’re tied up with the Xiaolin/Heylin shit. Like, they have their own special energies, right?” When Wuya didn’t answer, he looked up from the notes he’d been making—mostly a record of all his dumb questions. “Wuya?”

She was staring at him, oddly enough. He’d sort of been expecting that if she stalled out, it’d be because of the cursed boulder. Her mask was fixed in place, eerily still, but the tentacles drifted about with the wind. “Jack,” she started slowly, “Have you really had no lessons in magic prior?”

“Oh, no.” He barely held back a snort at the question. “I’ve always been into this sort of thing, though.” He’d been a paying member of the Newkirk Museum of the Paranormal and everything. “Anything weird or morbid, I’m into it. But if I’m annoying you, just tell me. I’ll shut up.”

“No, you’re… a promising student.”

Jack wasn’t sure how to take that and Wuya hadn’t sounded so sure herself when she’d said it.

Without any warning, she darted forward, phasing right through him to take the lead. “Come along, Jack! Let’s see this rock of yours.”

 

The boulder was massive. Just guessing, Jack supposed it was around twelve feet high and twenty-eight across. The whole thing was black with portions painted white for text to show better, but most of the rest of the writing blended into the dark, rough surface. The graffiti was a mix of what he was used to seeing at improvised memorials, names and crosses, but then there were also crasser things scrawled over it and tiny symbols he knew would upset older generations. Mostly he just thought people were being assholes, but the rock still had a reputation, and the air felt particularly thicker around the rock.

“This is awesome,” Jack enthused.

“Don’t touch the rock.”

He forced himself to stay put, but his smile had gotten wider. “Yep, got it. No touching.”

Wuya drifted past him, positioning herself a little in front of him. “It’s very cursed.”

“Awesome.”

She left out a rasping groan. “Don’t sound so excited.” Then she moved back and stopped at his side. “What do you want to do about it?”

“Do? We don’t need to do anything.”

“You only wanted the confirmation that it was cursed?”

“I wanted confirmation there was more than just Xiaolin and Heylin magic, but also I just wanted to see this in person.” He took a few steps forward. In the footage he’d seen, someone had left a little wooden ladder against the rock to climb on top, but the ladder didn’t seem to be anywhere now.

“You were testing me.”

Jack looked over his shoulder to her, surprised. “No?”

“You made us hike just here to see a cursed rock when you could have just asked if other forms of magic existed and looked up pictures of it on that contraption of yours!”

“I don’t think it counts as a hike for you since you weren’t walking,” he quickly raised a hand up when her tendrils started to spazz out with her frustration, “But also you need to understand that I’m an asshole and I’m into what’s called dark tourism. And it didn’t cross my mind to, uh, bluntly ask you about other magic forms. This is like… killing multiple birds with one stone. And one of the birds was my genuine wish to see this thing in person.”

“This is definitely why you don’t have any friends.”

Jackie shrugged and moved away from the rock. “I’m great at first impressions. After that, yeah. I’m off-putting.”

“You’re manipulative without even trying.”

Jack hadn’t ever thought of it like that, so he didn’t argue. Maybe she was right. Maybe she wasn’t. Usually when people dropped him from their lives, they didn’t like to give any explanations, but one ex-girlfriend had been generous enough to call him “high energy.”

Thinking back, he’d mostly hung, and dated, around other assholes.

 

“Master Jack.” One of the Jack-Bots that’d been trialing them held up a small, bronze phone. “Mistress Kathleen has realized you left. Again.”

“Whoops.” He smiled when he saw Wuya fold two tendrils in front of her like they were arms. “We got found out.”

“It was worth any of your mother’s ire.”

“Complete agreement,” Jack patted the pocket where he’d placed the Ying Yo-Yo.

“This rock may be why we haven’t seen the Xiaolin monks.”

“What, really?”

“Sir.” The Jack-Bot moved the phone back into Jack’s view. “Your mother is requesting you both return to China, now.”

Jack kept his focus on Wuya. “I’m more curious as to why something cursed would keep out the monks. Luring them in to apply its effect would be better, yeah?”

“I was being flippant when I called it cursed. It’s an offering. Not unlike a mani stone. But to something malicious.”

“And for the uninformed a mani stone is…?”

“A prayer stone.”

“Okay—that was on the nose. I’m feeling pretty stupid now.” He might have been hoping it was something more grand like a goshintai—something housing a spirit or deity. Jack blindly handed the tablet to the Jack-Bot and moved to start walking around the boulder, speaking all the while. “Humans all over will carve wishes and shit into rocks and walls and this is no different. There’s gotta be different focuses for who people are writing to on this thing, though. And the writing is all modern.”

“Older messages worn away will persist on some level.”

“So, what, modern witches are inadvertently praying to one old thing when they made use of this? I always liked that kind of setup in movies.” Jack paused to chew on his lip. He believed Wuya, but he couldn’t see any old carvings or symbols he didn’t already recognize. He’d also counted three tiny dicks painted onto the rock so far.

“Don’t touch it!”

He took a step backwards. “Was I getting too close?”

“Jack, focus.”

“I’m totally focused.”

“Focus on me, you idiot.”

Jackie had to stop and look around for her. She had drifted a few feet up into the air for a better look. Her tendrils were all spread out and churning in a slow circle around the mask. Delighted, he asked, “Are you doing magic right now?”

“Can you sense anything?”

“Just the air pressure from the storm.”

“The storm is magic, Jack.”

“Okay.” He pushed down his skepticism. This reality had tangible magic—she probably wasn’t bullshitting him. “Can you teach me how to… do whatever sensing thing you’re doing? Communing?”

“You can puzzle it out in your own.”

“Shit, you’re going to make me meditate, aren’t you.”

Her tendrils slowed to a stop, but remained splayed out around her. “It shouldn’t be hard for you.”

“Right,” Jack muttered.

“Master Jack.”

Reluctantly, he turned to the robot. “Sorry. Can you tell her we’re on our way back?”

“I’ve lost all signal and connection.”

“Because of the storm?” Jack scratched at this neck. His nails caught on his raised scars.

Wuya’s voice was oddly soft as she told him, “The spirit attached to the stone greets us.”

He smiled and pulled his hand away from his neck. “Hello!”

Wuya dropped her tendrils and looked down at him. “This area is… hidden from the senses of good.”

“Painfully vague—I’ll roll with it if you are.”

A beat passed before she flew back down to his level. In Mandarin, Wuya muttered, “You’re a lucky child, aren’t you.”

Jackie stuck to English, “Not normally. Also my horoscope is monkey, not dragon.”

“Moving on… the veil is very new.”

“Twenty-thirty years new or new-new?”

“Months, maybe.”

Jack tried to let out a whistle. The sound was sharp and cut off way before he’d intended to stop. His expression went sheepish when Wuya simply stared at him. “Sorry.”

The Jack-Bot dropped both the tablet and the phone as it stretched out it’s clawed hands into a more unwieldy, offensive state. Jack didn’t immediately pick up on the why. He stared at the tablet and phone in the mud and was about to ask what the fuck that was about when someone called out to them in Spanish, then just as quickly switched to English.

“Buenas tardes! You three have traveled far.” He was absolutely filthy. It was more dust than mud and grime and the guy looked sick, like he’d been sick. He was bloated all over, skin straining and fat puffed up over the edges of his clothing, like a corpse left alone too long.

Jack’s first thought would have been zombie if he wasn’t talking and smiling at them. “We were just taking in the sights.”

“Very nice sights here.”

“Yeah, the jungle is pretty amazing.” Just looking at the guy was giving Jack a headache so he tried to keep the conversation light; “The shrines are well kept, too.”

“Colorful shrines, yes.” He grinned big with teeth that were bloody at the gums. Now that he was closer, his eyes looked yellow with jaundice. “My name is Sibini.”

The fuzzy earwig thing! Jack’s red eyes widened as remembered the name. “Well,” he dragged the word a bit, figuratively getting his feet back under him. So much for the monster being trapped like in the cartoon. “It’s wonderful to meet you.” At the very least, he knew it was a bug-like creature or spirit that crawled in through people’s ears. That had to give him some kind of an advantage here. “I’m Jack Spicer and this is the Heylin Witch, Wuya.”

“Charmed,” Wuya snarked.

“Nice to meet you as well.” Sibini made a sweeping bow. It was a graceful move despite how sick (or dead) the body looked. “I sensed you while I was in the area. Bountiful place. Still many ingredients, yes?”

Jack made sure he smiled as he asked, “You’re grave robbing?”

Wuya’s tentacles spasmed out with her surprise and her mask tilted like she was side-eyeing him. But Sibini’s grin stretched. “¡Sí! I am needing more toe bones, yes?”

“We haven’t found any, sorry.”

“Ah. Was worth asking.”

“Of course.”

“Jack,” Wuya moved to position herself a little more in front of the teenager. “Is this area known for foul spirits?”

“Poisonous flora and fauna—and grave robbers and thieves frequent the area. I assumed it was only humans doing that, though.”

Sibini chuckled. It sounded childish even coming out of the large man. “I have human friends. Big appetites, you know?”

Jack did not know but he nodded like he did. His headache was building in his skull, but this wasn’t the right time to beg the Jack-Bot for an aspirin. Or morphine. “Do you come out here to the rock often?”

Sibini tilted its head, just a little bit, like he hadn’t heard Jack right. “I come for the bodies in the mud. Now, I came for you.”

“Because you could sense us.”

“Because you are here.”

Wuya moved to fully block Jack’s view of Sibini. “We have no business with a pest like you! Be gone!”

“My friends, they pull such fun tricks. They could do more funny things with his blood, yes?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Jackie tried to lean around Wuya.

The witch’s ghost left out a rattling sort of hiss and Jack just barely saw Sibini start to lunge for them. It would have gone right through Wuya—but they’d all forgotten about the Jack-Bot.

The robot tackled Sibini and the sickly body bounced off the metal creation and went skidding into the muck. It was so cartoonish that Jackie didn’t stop the burst of laughter from bubbling up out of him.

“Jack!”

He ignored Wuya and moved closer to where his Jack-Bot loomed.

Sibini was, much less gracefully, trying to get its body back up.

The headache Jack had turned into a spiking pressure. It was like he was stepping on glass shards. He tried to ignore it. “Did you really see the menacing robot and the ghost and think, yeah, easy target?”

Sibini giggled again. “Had to try. So young, yes? And black of heart.”

“Burn him, please,” Jackie told the Jack-Bot while he brought his hands up to the sides of his neck. His skin felt hot. “To ash.”

“Yes, Master.” The stream of fire that shot out from the Jack-Bot’s arm was short lived, but it did the job. The sickly body charred and crumpled to the ground immediately, curled up in the recovery position.

The fire turned the body into a sort of cocoon. That was the best way to put it as Jack watched the bug form of Sibini break out of the dead man’s blackened skull.

It crawled away from the burning corpse slowly. It didn’t need to rush; the fire wasn’t damaging it. Sibini looked larger than what could crawl into a man’s ear, but it was still small—like a large tarantula even if it’s body still looked more like an ear worm… or like some sort of mutated vinegaroon. Despite that, and unlike Wuya, Sibini firmly looked like something from nature. At least it did until it spoke again: “Not enough, little one.”

“I’m only into pet names in the bedroom,” Jackie snarked, but he was starting to freak out. His head was killing him and why hadn’t the fire worked? Fire was always supposed to work. He didn’t even know what culture Sibini was supposed to be from to fall back on their superstitious to fight it. A little nonsensically, he shouted “Jack-Bot,” and left the command vague because he didn’t have a specific command in mind. He just wanted it to do something.

Despite the vagueness, the Jack-Bot didn’t disappoint. It moved to shield Jack from the thing—the demon?—and flexed it’s brutal-looking hands.

Sibini started to skitter towards him, then it grew in size. It didn’t need to lunge, it just bent it’s body up and met the Jack-Bot head on, pincer-like hands stretching for the robot.

Jack stumbled back a step, then fell onto his ass as the demon and the robot made contact. He felt way too close the fight, but he didn’t have the mind to crawl away. He just looked up and watched them, worry gone, and fully in awe.

The Jack-Bot’s talons ignored the pincers and dug straight into Sibini’s face. The demon’s limbs stopped, then spasmed. Sibini didn’t continue trying to attack. The Jack-Bot’s hand made a whirring sound as the talons spun around, shredding through Sibini’s head until the rest of the body dropped onto the ground.

“Holy fucking shit,” Jackie breathed out with a wide grin.

The Jack-Bot continued to spin its talons, ridding itself of the clumps of brown and black gore that’d come from the demon. It used its other hand to reach down, pick up Sibini’s body, and then toss it against the Witch’s Rock. Sibini’s body sizzled when it met the rock and when it slumped down, it started to char and burn. It was a bit understated, but no less interesting to watch as Sibini’s flesh and bones blackened and fell apart in charcoal-like clumps.

Jackie really wished he had been recording all of that, but his migraine was going strong and his legs and his left shoulder were tingling uncomfortably. Still, he said,“That was fucking amazing.”

Wuya didn’t match his enthusiasm at all. She sounded stressed as she told him, “That thing would have killed you if your golem hadn’t been here.”

“Good thing it was, then.”

“Stop joking around! You need to take things more seriously.”

“No,” Jackie forced the word out with a wheeze and a pained smile. He lowkey wanted to bash his head into a rock to knock himself out, but that didn’t stop how fucking awesome the rest of the situation was. His robot just killed a demon. That was such a wild, amazing line. “No regrets,” he mumbled.

Wuya was even less amused as she looked away from the rock and over to Jack. “You can’t stand up, can you.”

“Not really.”

The Jack-Bot easily scooped its hard hands underneath Jack’s body and gently lifted him up. “We should return to China,” the robot spoke in a faux casual tone. Jack was pretty sure the robot was proud of itself. Or it was laughing at them. “Mistress Kathleen is waiting and you have acquired the Ying Yo-Yo.”

“Lots of thanks.” Jack clumsily tried to pat the robot on the side of its face. He managed to swipe his fingertips against the hard metal. “You’re super badass.”

“I know.”

Wuya groaned and flew ahead of them towards where they’d left the jet.

Chapter Text

Kathleen had not been good company for either of the Heylin agents after they got back from Columbia. She didn’t care about the Yo-Yo or Sibini. She only cared that Jack had left “unprotected.”

Her tone was flat as she told her son, “Your bodyguard is on his way up the drive, now.”

Jack scowled into his coffee. He was hunched over the kitchen bar, dressed fully in black jeans and a baggy, black and orange striped sweater. Wuya wasn’t at his side for once. His father had shipped them a crate of paintings and Wuya was directing some Jack-Bots on where to hang them in the guest room Kathleen had decided was hers. He honestly wished she was there to back him up with his mother. “I still think this is unnecessary.”

“Yes, yes, you tased a ten-year-old. You’re very fearsome. Now, I found a professional close to your age. That should make it easier to swallow, right?”

“Seriously?” He looked up, expression pained as he moved a hand into his unbrushed hair to scratch at some of the scars. “Close to my age?” That made the whole situation sound even worse. It wouldn’t be someone mature, it would be a teenager—probably one of the antagonists from the cartoon, at least in name.

“He’s nineteen or claiming to be nineteen. The Jack-Bots vetted him.”

“Is he a mime?”

Kathleen looked up from her phone. “Why would I hire a mime?”

Jackie didn’t have a good answer to that. “I kinda like mimes.”

“I didn’t hire a mime. I hired a Russian runaway.”

“Oh, okay.” Jackie could picture the cartoon version of the boy easily. He didn’t feel particularly proud to be right about the bodyguard being from the show. “Wait, runaway as in literal runaway or runaway as in defector?”

Kathleen didn’t mask any of her exasperation. “Does the distinction really matter?”

“I mean… military training? Or self-taught? Do we need to avoid going to Russia?”

She stared at him for a beat, then turned and left the kitchen.

No one else could make Jackie feel dumber than his mother. It didn’t matter what reality he was in, that fact would hold true apparently.

He followed after her slowly, coffee a little cold but still in hand.

 

Picturing the cartoon version of the guy didn’t prepare Jack to meet Vlad in real life. The guy was built like a tank and his smile was a bit goofy, but he wasn’t some sort of caricature of a Russian. He looked more like a regular maybe-twenty-year-old guy in a vintage bomber jacket… one who could crush Jack’s skull one-handed.

A Jack-Bot moved to pick up Vlad’s luggage while he crossed the entrance foyer over to the two Spicers.

“You are client?”

Jack moved his mug to one hand so he could shake the guy’s hand. “Yeah, Jack Spicer. I have a habit of getting into trouble so apologies in advance.”

“You’ll be dealing with the regular issues of potential kidnappers and some trained monks,” Kathleen elaborated. “If you’ve heard of my husband, you’ll find Jack is starting to follow in his footsteps.”

Jack blinked and looked over to his mom, but Kathleen was focused on Vlad who was nodding along like that meant something.

The Russian told her “I understand. I will also do my best to help Spicer with the… acquire?”

“Acquiring—of magical artifacts,” Jack cut himself off before he could ask if his dad was some sort of thief in this reality. Maybe he was a smuggler—there was a lot of money in transporting things over borders, even just legally.

“Be prepared for anything,” Kathleen went on, “And the Jack-Bots should be able to provide assistance, but don’t rely on technology. There will be magical threats on top of the mundane.”

Because he was watching, he could see how Vlad went a little stiff at the mention of magic. His smile went a little wider, too, so Jack assumed the guy didn’t believe in weird shit.

“How about I introduce you to Wuya? She’s going to teach me magic once she’s no longer a ghost.” Jack grinned widely when Vlad pasted on a pointedly polite smile.

Kathleen sounded a little distracted as she chided her son. “Be nice, Jackie.”

“I’m not not being nice.”

“You take after me too much for your own good, sometimes.”

Whatever. He waved a hand in her direction, as if dismissing her, and took a long sip of his cold coffee.

 

Jack led Vlad over to his side of the house. He shouted into the space: “Hey, Wuya! We’ve got a new set of hands for the Heylin!”

Her rough voice shouted back, “Excellent!”

When she came barreling straight through a wall, Jack was delighted to see Vlad jump. Once again, she was nailing her entrances. “Vlad, meet Wuya, the Heylin Witch. Wuya meet Vlad, my bodyguard.”

“A warrior,” Wuya matched the delight Jack was feeling openly.

Vlad rolled his shoulders back and gave the ghost a nod. “Rumors not exaggeration. I understand now.”

Jackie made sure to not outwardly pout at the lackluster reaction. “Right, well—the main thing with us is that we’re after the Shen Gong Wu. When they activate, we go out and grab them.”

“These are… magical items?”

“Magical tools and toys,” Jack elaborated. “They’re made by the Xiaolin monks.”

Wuya let out a little noise of displeasure as she corrected Jack: “Dashi of the Xiaolin made most of the Wu but some are repurposed, already magical or cursed items.”

“Economical,” Jack joked, but he really was interested in the idea of the Wu having been repurposed.

“Silence.” Wuya waited until Jack lifted his hands up in surrender. “As I was saying, they’re all very important. Even the ones that seem dumb. The energy in them is what makes them valuable, not what they can do or the ways Dashi may have tamed them.”

Vlad didn’t hesitate to nod. “I stand by contract I sign. I will help you find these things. I will protect Jack.”

Jackie didn’t trust that for a second, but he smiled brightly all the same. He was pretty sure the cartoon version of Vlad had double-crossed Spicer at least once and a steady paycheck didn’t measure up to the promise of magic.

“Anyway,” Jack paused as he rubbed at the scars on his collarbone. “I think it’d be lovely if a Wu would activate right now. Coincidentally.” For a long stretch, nothing happened. “Any minute now.”

Nothing continued happened.

A Jack-Bot moved to his side to hold out two pain pills and Jack absently thanked it. “It was worth a try, but this universe has a very meandering pace, doesn’t it.”

Vlad and Wuya were both confused.

Jack relaxed back onto a couch and popped the pills into his mouth. He swallowed them dry. “Don’t think too hard about it.”

Vlad: “You are, eh… insane.”

“The fun kind of insane,” Jackie countered.

Wuya quietly informed Vlad, “I think Jack is a little high. He took pills earlier as well.”

“I might be,” he admitted more for the sake of the joke. If anything, he was acting unnecessarily cryptic to distract himself from the intermittent spikes of fucking pain that speared though his head every few minutes.

 

Kathleen marched in, looked at them all, and then from her purse she pulled out a small device with a horn sticking out of it. Jack preemptively placed his hands over his ears, but it didn’t help much when she set it off and the blaring wail of the device blasted through the room. Wuya’s keening was almost as loud as the horn, but Vlad’s little groan was easy to miss.

The sound cut off.

“The hell, mom?!” He would have said something more, but his headache was gone. It didn’t make any sense. A noise that loud should have pushed him full on into a migraine attack.

“It’s gross in here.” Kathleen, meanwhile, and very obviously, didn’t care about the state she’d left the three of them in. “We’re going out. I’m driving.”

 

She took them in a sleek, blood red convertible. There was a backseat where Vlad sat and Wuya awkwardly floated, while Jack sat with his mother in the front. Jackie didn’t know cars well, but he wondered if it was the sort of car a Bond villain would drive. He loved the idea of being the kid of a Bond villain, honestly.

She turned the car onto the dirt road without any hesitance and Jack was a little amused to see the car lifting itself up as it adjusted to the terrain.

He asked her, “Can I drive this sometime?”

“Do you remember how to drive?”

He looked from the dash to the stick shift she was moving as they sped up and he had to concede defeat. “I think I remember sucking at driving stick.”

Kathleen snorted. “Because your attention span is shit, Jackie.”

“In my defense, being told I’d just “feel it” when I would need to change gears is wholly unhelpful.”

“Because your entire generation gets off on multitasking; you can’t focus on a simple task like driving.”

“Said the boomer trophy wife.”

She moved her hand away from the stick shift to smack Jack upside the head.

“Hey!”

“I’m not that old. I’m gen X or whatever. And you’re very lucky I love you,” She told him, threat strong in her voice.

From the backseat, Jack could hear Vlad quietly ask Wuya if the Spicers were always like this and he was pretty amused to hear Wuya flatly tell him yes.

 

As they came up to a checkpoint of sorts, with actual armored soldiers, Jack was surprised. Beyond the soldiers who all saluted his mom, there was a massive warehouse. It might have at one point housed aircrafts. Jack wasn’t sure how they could own this in rural China of all places, but he also didn’t want to ask and annoy Kathleen further.

Wuya made a humming noise. It was soft, but loud enough to draw Jackie’s gaze to her. Honestly, he was glad for a distraction. “Wuya, what’s up?”

“There’s great and terrible magic in there.”

“It’s a dump site,” Kathleen cut in. “Gregory’s a pack rat. Jack’s dad, I mean. I want to look through some of the older stuff he’s collected.”

Jack glanced at his mother and was surprised by how determined she looked. “Are you planning to redecorate the house?”

“Something like that.”

“Okay.” He looked back to Wuya but the ghost was likewise staring, fixated on the building.

 

Inside, Jack had to mentally toss away the Bond villain idea from before because this was straight up Indiana Jones. The warehouse was filled with high shelving units with boxes and crates. Some larger statues were loosely wrapped in plastic, but even while covered he could tell they were very old. “Is the fucking Arc of the Covenant in here?”

Kathleen sighed. “Your father and I both prefer older things.”

“That’s… valid?” Jackie looked to her and wasn’t surprised she was skimming through a thick binder—a handwritten dossier. “Do you want us to follow you?”

“No. Go… do something. Look around.” She started to march down an aisle on the left side even as her attention remained on the dossier and, yeah, that felt way too familiar for Jack.

“Right.” He watched her go and then, a little comically, he remembered that he wasn’t actually alone. “Okay! Wuya, Vlad—let’s go to the right.”

“This seems asking for odd thing to happen, yes?”

“Yes,” Jack agreed with Vlad. “Magic shit and everything clustered together like this? Shenanigans will happen.”

Wuya let out a little humming noise. “I can feel many protections in place. They’re built into the walls.”

“Okay, but as far as our story goes—something has to happen.”

Wuya’s mask shifted so it looked like her eyes had been carved on in a more narrowed fashion. “This isn’t a story, Jack.”

More to be a dick, Jack happily suggested, “Maybe something will come alive and attack us or I’ll get possessed.”

Vlad sounded amused as he muttered, “This will be difficult job, I can tell.”

“I did warn you I get into trouble.”

“You did not say you like trouble.”

“Would have been redundant,” Jack made a show of scowling over at his companions. “Don’t I look like a fun guy? Seriously,” He motioned down the length of his body. With his clothes and the thick, exaggerated eyeliner he’d applied for the day, surely no one could mistake him for a dull kid. “Is all this not enough? Do I need to hurry up on on getting some piercings before everyone is allowed to just assume I’m into crazy shit? Correctly, mind you.”

Vlad nodded, but it wasn’t to anything Jack was saying. In Russian he said, “This will be a very difficult job.”

 

“Well this is pretty.” Jack had stopped in front of a dark, oriental curio cabinet. It stood three feet high and had ornate iron dragons clinging to the four edges. The whole thing was a little distressed and dinged up in places, but that added to the charm, he felt.

What also made it stand out were the egregious black paper talismans clinging to the side panels and the unruly knot of faded red rope nestled over what he figured had to be the handle. There was thicker white rope braided around the whole box, but only two loops of it, at the top and the bottom.

“It looks very cursed,” Vlad muttered in Russian, but Jack looked to Wuya for confirmation.

She drifted over and focused on looking over the paper talismans. They didn’t actually look like Taoist talismans was the weird thing. The grey ink on them was faded in most places, and it probably hadn’t started off as grey, but the designs themselves were a lot of circular, fractal patterns that took up the full sheets. Wuya pointed at only one on the front left door to the cabinet and said, “I’m familiar with this. I have seen something similar used for subduing a living creature. A very long time ago.” Then, “Nothing about the box feels malicious or even alive. The guards on it are real, or were well-intended, but I believe they’ve outlived their purpose.”

The idea of having such a weird box, one that probably had the corpse of something inside, as home décor sounded fun to Jackie. “So it’s fine to take it?”

Wuya raised two of her tentacles up and flatly asked “Could I stop you?”

Vlad sighed. “I will get trolly. Or hand truck.”

“Wuya, can you explain the talismans to me?” He didn’t ask “are you able to?” and he was sure she appreciated that.

She did a performative little hum like she had to think about it. “I suppose a lesson wouldn’t hurt.”

 

Jackie had not been paying attention to his surroundings. Not at all. Wuya was likewise distracted, pointing at the lines on the paper talismans and lecturing on as Jack couched down and took in the lesson. Neither of them noticed there was a threat until there was a loud thwack and a fucking monster was dead, impaled against the crate next to them.

“What the absolute fuck?!”

“I ran into guard who gave me warning about them,” Vlad had the nerve to be way too casual.

The monster wasn’t big, but it looked like it had been diseased. It was a monkey, or something like a monkey. It was a little too big to be a capuchin but that was the closest thing it looked like to Jack with his limited primate knowledge. It was also very noticeably tinged green. The patches of missing fur and the old blood clinging to parts of it only made that unnatural color stand out even more.

Vlad’s knife had dug in right through it’s gut, under the rib cage, and the thing was slumped to one side. It looked like it’d been pretty starved, but Jack lost all pity when he saw what looked like dried foam around it’s open, toothy maw.

“Did you just save me from getting rabies?”

“I do not know that word.”

“Incurable disease—messy death. Should we be running out of here?”

“No.” Vlad closed the distance and pulled his knife out. The corpse hit the ground with a wet splat.

“Gross.”

Wuya darted right through Jack to get get a better look at the corpse. He barely felt it. “This is corrupted.”

Jack frowned. “Is that a euphemism for rabies?”

“This was created from magic.”

“Monkeys are trapped in building,” Vlad sounded a little less sure. “Minor pest. Die easily.”

“Clearly,” Jack looked from the corpse back to the ridiculous tactical knife Vlad was wiping off. “Where were you hiding that?”

Vlad turned around and slid the knife into a holster at the small of his back, attached to a belt and easily hidden by his bomber jacket.

“Huh.”

Vlad turned back around with a smirk. “I am good at job.”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks, man. I can’t remember if I’ve been vaccinated for rabies. Or magical rabies. I know it sounds like I’m joking, but,” he gestured to the monkey corpse, “I’m really not.”

“The magic is too weak to carry an infection,” Wuya cut in, not sounding impressed.

“Is there a way to feed it energy and make it infectious? And are we talking monkey therianthrope infection or a rage disease? The movie The Crazies comes to mind, but then 28 Days Later started with chimpanzees.”

Wuya floated away from the corpse only to stare at Jack uselessly.

Vlad huffed out a little laugh watching them. “You are thinking… magical biowarfare?”

Jack gave a little shrug and hoped he wasn’t embarrassing himself too much as he admitted, “Launching it over at the Xiaolin Temple would be the next step after my general curiosity is sated. But honestly, I just like zombies.”

Wuya let out a rattling noise of frustration and flailed her tentacles around. “This is pointless conjecture. I can’t do anything without a body so how about we hurry this all up and go back to waiting for a Wu to activate?”

Jack pointed to the cabinet. “We’re still taking this with us.”

Vlad used his thumb to point over his shoulder. “I left behind hand truck when I saw green. You stay, I fetch.”

Jack held up both of his thumbs to the guy and ignored the way Wuya smacked a few of her tentacles into her mask.

 

When they met back up with Kathleen at the entrance, she looked frustrated and she was swiping up on her phone’s screen aggressively. She didn’t react to the cabinet they were toting at all.

Jack was a little surprised that unlike them, she was empty handed. “How did you not find anything?” Magically diseased monkeys aside, the warehouse was filled with cool shit.

She didn’t look up from her phone. “I’ll just buy something new.”

“Okay,” Jack looked over his shoulder to Vlad and Wuya and raised his eyebrows, but they didn’t seem to think the situation as funny as he did. “Right. Home?”

 

Later, when Jack flipped through the dossier on the ride home, he couldn’t find anything about the curio cabinet. At the time, that didn’t bother him.