Time & Again
Chapter 3 - Time Paradoxes Will Have Given Me a Headache
“Ahhh… there you are,” whispered Omi with a grin. “Right where I will leave you.”
Carefully, Omi pulled the Sands of Time out of its hiding place and looked at it for a long moment.
Am I doing the right thing? he wondered. After all, if I have gone back in time to change things, wouldn’t they be changed?
He
waffled back and forth, trying to make a decision. Finally, he decided
that making an attempt and possibly failing was better than never
having tried at all. He hated to disappoint and frighten his friends,
but if he succeeded, it would be worth it.
Holding the Sands of
Time tightly, Omi closed his eyes and fixed his destination firmly in
mind; having researched the historical scrolls and asked Dojo several
questions in order to get the correct time and place for arrival.
“Sands of Time!” he called out, and then his eyes flew open when something jarred the Shen-Gong-Wu in his hands. “Jack Spice—“
The glow from the Shen-Gong-Wu brightened, eclipsing the wicked grin on Jack Spicer’s face.
~*~*~*~
The
two of them rematerialized in a dense forest, the floor dappled by the
glow of a full moon overhead shining down through the tree leaves.
“Jack Spicer!” Omi growled. “What are you doing here?!”
“I’m on my own mission, Baldilocks!” Jack snapped. “Both sides get a fair hearing at this trial!”
Omi scowled. “Chase Young – he spied upon me again!”
“He didn’t have to, peabrain! He remembers you – remembers us both.”
Omi blinked slowly, then frowned again as he said, “Be that as it may, you will not—“
And that’s when a monster came crashing through the forest.
Both
Omi and Jack screamed and bolted apart, but not before Jack managed to
snag the Sands of Time from Omi’s grasp pre-leap. He didn’t use
it, but he took it anyway, and hid himself in a thicket of bushes as he
watched the monster – a big, craggy, black thing that appeared to be
made of solid rock with glowing red eyes – turn its attention to Omi,
who was leaping from tree to tree.
Jack watched as Omi tried again and again to attack the monster and each time the monster repelled the attacks with ease. Even Wudai Neptune Water
didn’t work, and Jack wondered why Chase hadn’t said anything about Omi
getting squished like a bug in the past. Then he sighed and shrugged
because, obviously, Omi wouldn’t get squished.
However, it
certainly looked like that was about to be the case, even though Jack
could see no sign of a hero anywhere in sight. He sighed again –
apparently, he was going to have to do something.
Gathering
what meager scraps of courage he had, Jack bolted from the underbrush
and into the new clearing made by the heavy-handed blows from the
monster. Waving his arms, he began shouting at the top of his lungs.
The monster turned and lunged faster than any gigantic being had a right to.
Jack
closed his eyes, certain that the humongous clawed fist heading for him
was the end of him, and screamed as he felt something slam into him,
lifting him up and propelling him—
—to the right?
Gasping,
Jack opened his eyes and saw the monster receding in his vision. He
also saw that Master Monk Guan dude following right behind, carrying
Omi tucked up under one arm.
That meant….
Turning his
head to the far left, Jack saw familiar long, black, glossy hair and a
dull gleam from bronze armor, and nearly went limp as he realized who’d
just rescued him.
There was a jolt as Chase landed on the branch
of a big tree and then another jolt as the warrior went leaping through
the air again, swiftly followed by Master Monk Guan and Omi.
Two
seconds later, the two youths found themselves securely planted in a
spacious nest and then the two master martial artists were gone again,
heading back for the monster who was lumbering through the woods after
them.
“Just who do they think they are?” Omi yowled, outraged. He surged to his feet. “I will—“
Jack
grabbed the smaller teenager and hauled him back down into the nest.
“Omi, for once, give your ego a rest and sit this one out, okay? We
were both about to get our butts handed to us; let’s see what Chase and Guan can do, huh?”
Omi sneered at the evil young man. “We both know what they can do.”
“Yeah, against each other; let’s see what they can do as a team.”
“You
make a surprising amount of good sense when you care to, Jack Spicer,”
said Omi reluctantly, and they watched the battle that ensued.
Chase
and Guan were amazing as they worked together, playing off each other’s
strengths and shoring up each other’s weaknesses to defeat the gigantic
monster. By the time they were done, the monster had howled its death
knell and crumbled into a pile of rubble under the skilled attacks from
the men and their spears.
Omi and Jack glanced at each other, then back to the warriors, and said in unison, “Wow.”
Taking
a moment to catch their breath, the two warriors looked at each other
and nodded silently; expressing their communication simply, each
knowing what the other meant from long association. Then, they turned
their attention to the two youths at the top of the tree.
Jack
and Omi scrambled back, making room, and moments later, Chase and Guan
landed at the edge of the big nest and crouched down to get a better
look at the newcomers.
The two warriors didn’t look any
different from how they did in the future, but both Omi and Jack knew
that in their current time, they were in their early to mid-twenties.
Jack
couldn’t help but shiver when Chase’s eyes – after giving Omi a
thorough going-over – locked on him and stayed there. He couldn’t read
the expression in Chase’s eyes, and that frightened him more than
anything.
“Who are you?” Chase finally asked, though it was a
bit difficult to understand him. It was as though the words were being
put through a jumbler and coming out slightly off-balance.
Jack
glanced over to Omi, who shrugged and said, “This is 11th century
China; the transition is being made from Classic Chinese to Modern
language at this time. The change hasn’t had time to become permanent
yet.”
Jack nodded. “And Putonghua doesn’t get instated until 1956, which is a ways off from now.”
“What are you two talking about?” Guan asked calmly.
Omi
drew himself up and then bowed deeply to the master before him. “I beg
your pardon, Master Monk Guan. I am Omi – Xiaolin Dragon of Water from
the Xiaolin Temple.”
The warriors then looked to Jack, who smirked and said, “Jack Spicer – evil boy genius.”
The warriors blinked and then frowned.
“How did you know Guan’s name, little one?” Chase asked Omi, though he didn’t take his eyes off of Jack for a second.
Omi’s
jaw clenched for a moment before he realized that at this point in
time, Chase wasn’t intentionally using the moniker as a way to needle
him, but simply because it suited him to do so.
“We are from the future. The both of you are known to us,” said Omi quietly, “for the two of you are alive in our time.”
“And when, exactly, is your time?”
“Twelve-hundred years from now.”
Guan and Chase looked at each other and then back to the teenagers.
“Impossible,” laughed Chase easily.
“It is not, though it may currently seem that way to you,” Omi shot back. “I am here to stop a terrible thing from happening.”
“And you…?” Guan asked Jack.
“I’m here to see to it that it does happen – on his orders,” Jack said, pointing at Chase.
“That doesn’t make much sense,” argued Chase affably. “Why would I want to see a terrible thing done?”
“Well, for starters, in our time, you’re one of the baddest, most evil forces on the planet.”
Chase’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. Guan looked discomfited as well. Finally, Chase shook his head.
“No – impossible,” he said fiercely.
“Not only is it possible, but it happened. To us, what hasn’t happened yet is already history,”
Jack said. “Twelve-hundred years from now, your then-self ordered me to
follow Twinkie, here, back into the past to see to it that you accept
your fate.”
Omi scowled and punched Jack hard in his right arm.
Jack yelped and grabbed his arm, then glowered fiercely at Omi. “What was that for?!”
“I demand that you stop disparaging my height at once!” Omi yelled.
“It’s time to face facts, Baldilocks – you’re short, yellow, and overwhelmingly sweet; I’m sorry, but you’re a snack food! Deal with it and get on with what passes for your life!” Jack shouted back.
The
two of them, by this point, had moved so that they were glaring at each
other face-to-face – Omi standing while Jack, already kneeling, sat
back on his heels.
Chase and Guan looked at each other and
shrugged. They didn’t understand half of what the strange pale boy with
the red eyes had said.
“Excuse me, children,” Chase interrupted
calmly, and the two youths turned their heads to look at him. “I’m sure
this is fascinating – whatever it is you’re talking about – but would
you mind if we relocated elsewhere to finish this discussion? There are
better places to be than in the middle of a monster-infested forest.”
Jack
tensed and looked around fearfully. High up in the tree, the moonlight
had an easier time of reaching them, but the surrounding forest and its
floor were very, very dimly lit.
“Th-there are more monsters out there?” Jack asked, his voice going high in his worry.
“There
are,” said Guan decisively. “We had just finished a quest to defeat a
larger evil when we saw this monster on the move and knew it to be
tracking prey. Since the only prey it eats is innocent people, we knew
someone was in danger.”
“Then it is only I who was in danger,” said Omi, shooting a smug look at Jack.
“If that is so, then the monster would have ignored this boy’s attempts to get its attention,” Chase said, gesturing at Jack.
“Hey! Evil genius, here! And stop calling me ‘boy’!” Jack grumbled.
“Did you not label yourself as such when you introduced yourself?” Guan asked.
“I’ve gotta find a catchier title,” sighed Jack.
“Apparently,
you are not evil enough,” Chase said with a grin. “If the topic is
finished, we should move away from here while we can.”
“See, there’s you thinking you’re funny, and here’s me knowing you’re not,” Jack sniped.
“Are you this disrespectful in the future?” Chase asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Like you would not believe,” Omi piped up, then grinned hugely when Jack gave him an annoyed look.
“Let us be off,” Guan announced, and stood up, went to the edge of the nest, and leaped over the side.
He
was swiftly followed by Omi and Chase, and then the three of them
looked up to where Jack – who was not wearing his heli-pack – knelt at
the edge of the nest, looking down at the ground worriedly.
“Well? Join us!” Chase called up to Jack.
Omi laughed. “Jack does not know how to leap – he has no martial arts skills.”
“Keep poking, Short-sheet,” growled Spicer. “I’m dying to poke back.”
“Children,”
Chase rumbled, and Jack blinked, startled. “Please cease your
bickering; we haven’t time for it.” Then he held up his arms and said,
“Jump, Spicer.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Jack blurted out, incredulous.
“I assure you, I am not ‘kidding’. I’ve already rescued you once – what reason have you to not trust me?”
“The you that I know—“
“Doesn’t exist now,” said Chase firmly. “Trust me, Spicer, and jump.”
Jack
bit his lower lip, indecisive. Finally, he sighed and figured that even
if he did splat on the ground, at least he did it following Chase’s
orders, so the older man couldn’t complain.
Standing up, Jack closed his eyes and stepped over the edge of the nest, doing his best to stifle the scream that wanted out.
A
bare second later, he landed easily in strong, sturdy arms and gasped
as he was caught, held, and then swiftly deposited onto his feet.
Opening his eyes, he stared up into an amused gold gaze, unaware that
“hero worship” was writ loud and clear in his expression.
Chase grinned, ruffled Jack’s hair, and turned away to begin leading the way out of the forest.
Omi gave Jack a superior look and began following.
Guan nodded his head to Jack and held out his hand in a gesture that invited the teenager to start moving.
Shrugging, Jack did so and the merry little band of four began making their way to safety.
