Uploaded: 17th June 2004

Main summary: A new Shen Gong Wu becomes active, and Wuya uses it with the Reversing Mirror to turn Raimundo into her evil slave. The Xiaolin warriors flee the temple with their Shen Gong Wu, and must try to stop her taking over the world, which is made far more difficult when she later regains her full powers. They are joined by some unusual allies along the way - including Jack Spicer, who is more heavily involved with the Shen Gong Wu than he even knows.

Timeline: Starts from the end of "In the Flesh" and branches off afterwards. Completely disregards season 2 canon.

Characters/POV: Written in a weird cross between third-person omniscient and third-person limited. I think. Usually it'll be the first one, since I jump between characters a lot, so most of the main characters have their own time in the spotlight in this fic and the sequel. However, the fics lean towards being more and more Jack-centric as the story progresses, shifting to be more from his POV.

Genre: Action/Adventure/Fantasy, heavy accent on the fantasy.

Rated: PG-13/T, for infrequent strong language and for violence (death and torture in later chapters).

Couples: One-sided Jack/Kimiko.

Disclaimer: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown or its characters. I only own the plot of this story (and several made-up characters), and about 80 odd Shen Gong Wu.

Additional notes: I started writing the plan for this story and the subsequent sequels well before season two began airing in America (11th Sept 2004). This means Wuya has purple hair, as opposed to red. In this fic she looks like she does at the beginning of Journey of a Thousand Miles, the first episode of the first series. (It also means the Reversing Mirror didn't break, and Chase doesn't exist.)

The Lost Dragon

Chapter 1: Eclipse of the Heart

"This is bad," muttered Kimiko, her mouth and eyes wide open in complete shock. "Very, very, bad."

'Bad' didn't even begin to describe it. The three Xiaolin warriors could only stare in horror as they took in their surroundings. An eerie, evil, murky darkness covered the land. Only moments before, they had been battling in the light of the full moon, on a peaceful stretch of land. But now, under a darkened moon, everything looked ... dead, as if the very life-force had been drained from the earth itself. Trees withered and drooped, looking more like crooked, old, decrepit men, and parts of the ground were cracked and distorted, wrenched forcefully out of position.

Dojo had taken it upon himself to quiver inside Clay's hat, and with good reason. Up in front of them, on top of a fractured hill, stood a tall woman: the Heylin witch Wuya, the cause of the desolate, ruinous world. Dashi's magical objects, the Shen Gong Wu, were responsible for keeping the balance between good and evil on Earth. Their source of stability had been severely disrupted when Wuya returned to Earth in her ghostly form, causing much imbalance and tilting the world towards the side of darkness. It made sense that she would affect the world even further in her true form.

When Wuya removed her mask, Omi was the only brave enough to speak, and yet all he could utter was: "Wuya...?"

She smirked maliciously and replied, "In the flesh." She began to cackle evilly as green magical flames encircled her, and the immediate area suddenly took on a greenish tinge.

Kimiko fought the urge to sigh, despite herself. How dramatic. What was it about evil witches that made them feel the need to cackle? She looked past Wuya as the flames died away. Standing a slight way behind the snickering witch was a rather smug-looking Raimundo. Kimiko's eyes narrowed as flames of her own suddenly flared inside her like never before.

There were more important things to worry about than Raimundo's betrayal, though, as Wuya took a few steps down the hillock towards the warriors, instantly snapping everyone out of their thoughts. Omi growled, while they all took defensive stances. Despite the initial shock, everyone knew what they had to do. This was, after all, what they had been training for. If Wuya gained possession of all the Shen Gong Wu now, there would be ten thousand years of darkness. They could not let her get the better of them.

"Don't think you have won anything," Omi said firmly, frowning deeply in determination and showing no sign of fear now. "Even if you have regained your physical form, we will still defeat you!"

"Is that so?" Wuya said lazily, still smirking slightly and still coming closer.

"You'd better believe it," said an equally determined Clay.

Keeping his eyes on the Heylin witch, Omi hurriedly tried to think of a plan. In their haste to arrive here before Raimundo used the Serpent's Tail, the warriors had forgotten to bring any Shen Gong Wu, and they had no idea what Wuya was capable of. Perhaps it would be better to retreat for now, and battle Wuya when they were better prepared.

Kimiko threw that plan right out of the window, where it smashed and burned spectacularly on the ground.

"Fire! "

She whizzed through the air as she ran and executed an impressive flying kick, aimed for Wuya's head. Unfortunately, the kick never connected; Wuya performed a semi-circular motion in the air with her right hand, tracing an invisible line in the air above her head. Kimiko collided against an unseeable wall of sorts, which bounced her away and sent her, like Omi's plan, crashing on the ground.

"Kimiko!" Omi yelled. "Are you okay?"

"Ow... that hurt BIG TIME," she groaned, sitting up and rubbing the back of her head. Memories of her fight against Jack Spicer's Chameleon-bot came flooding back; she hadn't been able to make a dent on that, either.

"Foolish child," sneered Wuya.

"So not fair," Kimiko retorted from her spot on the floor. "You're not supposed to use magic."

"Uh, Kimiko ..." said Raimundo, raising an eyebrow at her as she went back to where the Xiaolin warriors were standing. He pointed at Wuya with the front end of the Serpent's Tail. "She's a witch. What did you think she was going to do?"

Kimiko exploded with furious rage, pointing an angry finger at Raimundo. "Shut up – you – you – you traitor!" she hissed, nothing but pure hatred in her voice. "Just shut up!"

Raimundo said nothing, but met her fierce stare, glare for glare. I don't care what you think, he thought angrily. This is what you get for dissing me.

Omi and Clay looked on as Wuya raised her right arm slightly, causing a strange purple-black ball of energy to pulse from her hand. Omi's eyes narrowed, trying to figure out what she was doing, while Clay was silently contemplating whether it would be unchivalrous to attack her, evil witch or not.

"We should leave, and I mean right now," said Dojo's voice from Clay's hat.

"I agree," said Omi solemnly. "We do not have any Shen Gong Wu to help us."

Still quivering in rage at Raimundo, Kimiko could not believe her ears. "What? No way! I'm not afraid of her!" And it was true. She wasn't scared of her. Although surprised somewhat at Wuya's shield, she wasn't thinking clearly right now. Wuya and Raimundo needed to be taught a lesson. That was all that mattered.

"Now I know how you're always rarin' to go, what with that temper o' yours," said Clay patiently, recognising the signs of a Mount Kimiko eruption of anger, "but I reckon they're right. We'll come back later an' use the Shen Gong Wu to bust her up, no prob."

Dojo popped his head out from Clay's hat briefly to assert his agreement, and then zoomed back inside.

Wuya frowned at Clay's comment, looking insulted. She raised her arm high, looking as if she was summoning enough energy to make the sun disappear, too.

"Do you honestly believe that you, mere children, can stop ME? I've defeated thousands of warriors, all hundreds of times more experienced than you. Dashi – " her eyes took on a distant look, and she lowered her arm slightly "– Dashi was the only one who was able to defeat me, and he was a fully-fledged Dragon warrior. You three don't stand a chance!"

Kimiko humphed, clearly not impressed. Omi's phrase, 'the weak talk, the strong take action', sprung to mind. "That was then; this is now! Talk is cheap, witch-lady!"

"Have it your way, then."

What happened next happened so fast that there was no time to think. Wuya hurled her monstrous black ball at the three warriors, but anticipating an attack, they were able to dive out of the way, albeit in three very different directions. Omi landed on his feet and focused himself, channelling his chi energy, while Clay (having decided that she was, in fact, evil enough to warrant an attack) yelled, "Earth!" and charged straight at her. Kimiko leapt high from the opposite direction, preparing to deal another kick. Wuya jumped deftly out of harm's way, leaving Kimiko to smash into Clay instead. Omi almost knocked the witch over from behind with his Tsunami Strike, but at the last moment, she put up her magic wall, and Omi bounced harmlessly off towards his two fallen comrades. Raimundo snickered.

Dojo, who had still been underneath Clay's hat this entire time, recovered first. He crawled out onto the floor and said, "She's too powerful. We have to get out of here, now!"

Still entangling herself from Omi and Clay, Kimiko said, "But – "

"No buts!" snapped Dojo; already Wuya had another black ball of magic in her hand waiting to be thrown.

Without warning, the lizard-sized dragon grew to his 40-foot size, breathing out a tiny amount of fire but huge amounts of smoke. This caused everyone present to start coughing. The whole area became cloaked in a dense smoky fog, and while Wuya and Raimundo were distracted, Clay took a struggling Kimiko and leapt onto Dojo's back. Omi landed in front of them, just as Dojo started to rise into the sky.

When the smoke cleared away, Raimundo was still spluttering. He looked up and spotted Dojo flying away in the distance. "They got away!"

Surprisingly, Wuya didn't seem too bothered about this fact. She calmly walked to where the Reversing Mirror had been placed and looked at herself briefly, while dusting the soot off her clothes. "It doesn't matter."

"Say what? Don't you even care?"

"I've got more pressing matters to deal with now."

"Such as?"

She didn't answer right away, but she took the mirror and turned around, looking at the dark valley in front of them. At the other end of the small valley was another hill that rose much faster and much, much higher than this one did. It looked like it would be almost impossible to climb by any normal means.

Still looking in the same direction, she pointed with her free hand and said, "Can you use the Golden Tiger Claws to take us to the top of that hill?"

"Care to tell me what's going on?"

She cast him a sharp glance. "Just do it."

"All right," he said, putting his hands up defensively. He added, "But it had better be worth it."

They arrived at the top of the monster hill, where Wuya handed him the Reversing Mirror, and then pointed her hand far away, to the middle of the space in front of them. A line of dark green light came from her hand and travelled to that centre point, and then six long green flames appeared from there, shooting in different directions at the same time. Raimundo recognised the symbol as mu, the Chinese character for wood The flames disappeared but left six dots in a hexagonal shape. Wuya shot a streak of yellow light followed by one of white light, and in the same way the symbols for earth (tu) and metal (jin) both appeared and disappeared one after the other, leaving several white and yellow dots behind.

There was now a star-shaped pattern of large round marks spaced about 25 feet apart. Wuya chanted something in Chinese and a white line appeared from the centre and joined the multi-coloured dots together. The whole pattern glowed a bright white colour and the ground started to rumble; Raimundo stumbled and fell down, dropping the Serpent's Tail and Reversing Mirror just as a huge structure rose out of the land itself. He calmly stood up, dusted himself and did a double take as he looked at what she had magically conjured.

There in front of them stood an impressive edifice, surrounded on all sides by a large stone wall. The building was predominantly dark red in colour, with several red columns supporting a scarlet curved and ridged roof. There were several stone lions and dragon-like creatures standing guard not only at the building's entrance but on the perimeter of the walls as well.

"Woah ..." he said quietly, who, despite what he'd said to Kimiko about witches and magic, looked quite surprised. "I did not know you could do that."

"No," she said, "you didn't."

Mandarin translations:

mu – the Chinese character for wood

tu – earth

jin – metal