The Dragons leaned over the ledge of the abandoned well, dread building as Dojo nodded.

"It's down there alright, sure as my name is Dojo Kanojo Cho,"

"How much do we need the Aisling Circlet?" Kimiko asked with a grimace.

"It creates illusions using the wielders imagination," Dojo said. "You want that in the hands of Chase Young or Wuya or even Jack Spicer?"

Kimiko groaned, but she had to agree. Chase and Wuya were ancient and had seen/created horrors beyond what she could imagine. And Jack? Well, he was just creepy. The thought of being caught in an illusion created by his mind made her skin crawl.

Clay placed the Falcon's Eye over his right eye, scanning the bottom of the well for the Wu. Finally, he shook his head.

"Nothin'," he said with a shrug. "It could be stuck in the mud or in the walls." Raimundo leaned far over the well's opening, making Kimiko more nervous than she already was. An accidental viewing of a horror movie about a girl in a well at the tender age of five had given her a phobia of them for years. She was over it by now, but she couldn't shake the chilling vibes they gave her.

"Sure is dark down there," Rai said with a whistle. "Pretty tight too. Sure wish we knew somebody small who could light their own way." Raimundo gave her a too-sweet smile as he pulled himself back to safety. She scowled at him, for scaring her and for being right. She was the best person for the job, no matter how much she hated it.

"And how exactly am I supposed to get down there without breaking my neck?"

Omi had the answer, whipping out the blanket they had used to dive into the volcano for the Sapphire Dragon. What a mess that had turned into...

Kimiko took the corners of the blanket in each hand and allowed Clay to put her onto the ledge. The well was four feet across, large by most standards and plenty of space to drift down safely. She silently told herself this as she bent her knees, sucked in a deep breath, and hopped into the inky abyss. Cool air whipped her blue wig away from her face. She dropped only five feet before throwing her arms up and allowing the blanket to become a parachute. She jerked to a stop, sturdy but stylish hiking boots scraping down the rock of the well, then the mud of the hole. After a few agonizing minutes of pitch blackness, she hit the ground, falling unto her hands and knees.

The air was stagnant and damp, the mud soft enough to sink an inch into. Kimiko left the blanket at her feet and snapped a flame to life in her hands. The light spread across the walls, and deeper into a stone cave. Kimiko gasped as her flames glinted off of the form of a banged up Jack-bot, discarded just inside the cave. She jerked her head up to the ring of light above her, diminished by the shadows of her friends.

"Guys!" She shouted. "You need to come down her, quickly!" The shadows disappeared briefly, then reappeared as a form blocked out the light, drifting towards her. She couldn't wait for the boys to get to her. She turned to the cave entrance and started to jog, footsteps echoing as she followed a set of uneven bootprints.

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Jack limped along, Aisling Circlet in hand. This should have been easy, for once. He'd beaten the Xiaolin losers to the Wu, and Wuya either couldn't come after it or wasn't interested in it. Nobody seemed to know where Hannibal had gone after his defeat the month before. Things had been calm. He'd thought getting to this Wu first could turn the tides for him. He'd done nothing but lose after that time traveling debacle. It almost didn't feel right to call the Xiaolin side losers...

His bad foot hit an uneven tile, sending a fresh wave of pain up his leg. Stupid Jack-bots with their stupid wings getting damaged in the stupid well. He'd have to work on a new way of flying, if only to avoid another free fall.

Jack lifted his flashlight up from the ground, only to narrowly avoid running into a wall. Had that always been so close? It looked so far just a minute ago. Whatever.

He put the flashlight in his mouth and skimmed the surface of the wall with his hands. This was clearly man made. Nobody would make a cave at the bottom of a well that lead nowhere. No breeze. Fine. He ran his hands over them a second time, pressing into each individual brick as he went. Finally, in the third to last row, it gave. Jack limped back as the wall sank into the ground, revealing a hallway lit by a dull yellow glow. He briefly wondered where the light was coming from, but the sounds of a high pitched shout in the distance, Kimiko for sure, sent him limping forward as fast as he could.

The hallway turned left almost immediately, leading him down a sloped hall. Even at his halved pace, it only took him about a minute to reach the bottom, where he rested against the wall and peered out into the round, open chamber. Five statues were in the room, seemingly locked in combat.

The first stood just a few feet away, the statue of a woman, back pressed against the wall and arrow notched in her bow. She was wounded, a broken arrow sticking out from her thigh, and multiple wounds on her chest and stomach. Her face was twisted in pain, but her eyes seemed to burn with ferocity. Out of all the museums in the world his parents had dragged him to, he had never seen a statue like this. He spied something behind her head. He was just able to slip it out from behind her, a slip of paper with Chinese characters written in a thick, flowing style. Something about the paper seemed off, but he couldn't place it.

Touched by curiosity, Jack circled the room, examining each statue in turn. They were all wounded in some way, fatally wounded, he realized, and all exquisitely detailed. A man crouched in the center of the room, palms pressed to the floor. Another man was being chased to another exit directly across from the archway he entered. Two more statues, a man and a woman, chased the fleeing man with weapons and outstretched hands.

Around the room, he ripped three more papers from the walls. The neatness of the characters diminished as he went, and the third was stained with blood. Something in the back of his head whispered for him to examine the man in the center, that there was something important about him. Jack hobbled to the man and crouched down to peer at his hands. The corner of another paper stuck out from under his hands. Jack took the corner, and then realized what was so different about these papers.

They were stark white. Everything in this room was covered in a layer of dust. The air was suffocatingly still. Even the strange light cast the chamber in a sepia tone, as if this room were an old photo. It wasn't just the paper. He too did not seem to be cast in the yellowness of the light, rather, he looked as though he were perfectly illuminated by white light. Something about this place suddenly frightened him, but he didn't let go of the corner. That little voice urged him to pull it out. Was that voice even from his own mind?

"Jack Spicer!"

Omi's declaration cut through the silence like an explosion and Jack jumped back in surprise, taking the paper with him.

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Omi's tiger instincts were fighting him as he dashed down the path. Something bad was at the end of this hallway. Had he not been chasing a powerful Shen Gong Wu, he would have advised extreme caution, but as Dojo had said, this was a dangerous Shen Gong Wu. Jack Spicer could not be allowed to keep it. He gripped his Shimo Staff as he rounded the first corner. He'd just have to take the Aisling Circlet and leave as quickly as possible.

At the end of the slope, Omi skidded to a halt and found Jack among a group of statues. His tiger instincts roared and fear rippled through him. The bad thing is here! Don't go in there!

Omi swallowed the fear and squared his shoulders.

"Jack Spicer!"

Jack's familiar shriek echoed through the chamber for only a moment before chaos erupted.

Without a trace of fanfare or warning, the statues were people and the light was sunlight from above. A woman fired an arrow. A man dashing for the exit whirled suddenly, hands glowing green with Heylin magic. A third eye opened from his forehead and the magic surged, blasting away the two warriors chasing him. The arrow flew, glowing white as it passed over the man in the center, then piercing deeply through the Heylin man's chest. He staggered backwards, then fled through the exit, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

Kimiko gasped behind him, snapping Omi out of his shock. The other warriors lay on the ground, eerily still, but the woman beside them slid to the ground, letting her bow clatter beside her.

"Miss!" Omi shouted, jumping to her side. His fellow Dragons were quick to follow. Clay tore off his handkerchief but hesitated, not sure which injury to treat. Finally he pressed the cloth into the wound on her thigh. The woman hardly seemed to notice.

"You are kind, young Dragons," the woman said, her raspy voice hardly audible. "Which of you... is the Dragon of Water?" Omi gulped, then took her shaking hand. He tried not to think about the blood. The woman smiled weakly at him. "My Dragon." Tears slipped down her cheeks. "I'm so happy I could see you, just once more."

Omi simply gaped at her. A million questions ran through his mind. Who was she? How long had she been here? How did she recognize him as a Xiaolin Dragon, and why was he her Dragon? He would have asked them all, but facing this woman, watching her life drain away, the words refused to come.

She tensed suddenly and tried to sit up. The Dragons protested, urging her to rest, but she waved them away.

"I can still serve you, I can still give you one last thing." She closed her eyes tightly and clasped her hands together. A faint orange glow surrounded her, gathering towards her hands.

"Look," Raimundo gasped.

The three fallen warriors were glowing. Silver, purple, and yellow. Their glows gathered into balls above them. When the last of their light had come together, it shot skyward and disappeared. The woman sagged with relief, arms falling to her sides. She was fading fast.

"Four Xiaolin," she said. "Find them, your Guardians. Find Zhixin. He can't... he musn't return."

Omi wasn't sure what to say. He had faced death, he had seen his own friends die in a horrible timeline, but it had all been so fast.

"What is your name?" He asked meekly. She smiled up at him with the last of her strength.

"I am Li Jing," she swallowed painfully, "Thank you." She managed one last rattling breath before her chest stilled, and her face shifted in a subtle, but significant way. Li Jing, whoever she had been, was gone.

The Dragons were silent for a while, unsure of what to do.

"Should we bury them?" Clay finally asked, hat in his hands.

"They're already underground," Rai said. The words seemed callous, but his voice betrayed how helpless he felt. "They died fighting this Zhixin guy, died fighting for the Xiaolin side."

"We should honor them," Omi said solemnly. Clay looked up at the sunlight that appeared to come from nowhere, then around the chamber.

"Not such a bad resting place," he decided. Glint by one of the fallen warriors caught his eye. Clay approached his body cautiously, only to find the Aisling Circlet by his hand. He held it up for the others to see.

"He musta dropped it," he said.

"Where'd he go?" Kimiko asked. Their eyes went to the other entrance.

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In four temples around the world, four teenagers collapsed.