The Thing About Bad Pennies

Disclaimer: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown or any of its characters, nor do I make any profit or attempt to with the writing of this or any of my other pieces.

Warnings: Language, homosexuality, (eventual) sexual situations, etc.

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Jack figured that if there were ever to be one universal constant about him, it was this: no matter what he did, it never turned out the way it was supposed to.

Ever.

For example, that time a couple years back when he'd seriously started feeling the lack of peers in his peculiar circle of 'evil goth teenaged genius.' That wasn't exactly the kind of thing you could just go to a mixer for, so it had seemed totally logical at the time for Jack to build himself a peer—one who shared his style, his intellect, his passion for evil, and most importantly, his goal of taking over the world.

In retrospect, of course… Well.

The less said about the result of that fiasco, the better.

That was hardly an isolated incident, though. Jack was fairly certain he had a chronic case of Murphy's Law, and just about everything he set out to do ended up veering off in some weird, unexpected direction that he had not seen coming. Robo-Jack, his disastrous attempt at going Xiaolin, and even just two weeks ago when he'd tried to test his prototype teleporter and ended up in Egypt instead of England (and yes, the sunburn had only just gone away). The common factor was Jack trying to do something and by whatever circumstance, screwing it up kinda spectacularly.

When he thought about it that way, his current predicament didn't seem so surprising.

In his defense, Jack hadn't even thought spying on the Xiaolin was the kind of endeavor he could screw up, if just because it was so routine for him. He'd been at this Heylin thing for…Jesus, was it really ten years now?

Anyway, you get ten years of practice at something and you tend to get pretty good at it.

Jack was hardly a ninja when it came to stealth, but he was at least confident enough in his skills of sneaking that the thought of creeping around Guan's temple for intel—without the Shroud of Shadows—didn't even make him nervous anymore.

Why would it? Unlike the monks who sometimes got a little more aggressive in shooing him off, Guan didn't see Jack as much of a threat. His version of discipline tended to consist of sternly lecturing him on the dangers of the Heylin and giving him a disturbingly paternal look of disappointment. It was all very 'concerned high school principal,' and to a man who'd gotten a college degree after dropping out of the third grade, it was pitifully ineffective; never warranting more than an eyeroll before Jack flew himself out of there.

So, yeah, snooping around Guan's temple was a cakewalk and inconceivable to screw up, and that was probably why Jack crept in tonight to find the Master Monk apparently performing a ritual to summon Satan.

Okay, maybe not Satan. That would probably require more pentacles and black candles and slaughtered chickens or something, which were thankfully absent here. Still, there were an awful lot of candles and some weird symbols painted on the walls and Guan was chanting in a pretty creepy whisper that sent a shiver up Jack's spine.

…or maybe not a shiver, Jack amended as the feeling didn't stop. It was more of a tingle in the air, the kind of subsonic hum that distinguished Xiaolin magic from the hissing crackle of Heylin.

Alright, so it's white magic at least, Jack decided, edging closer to the door of the room. That still doesn't explain what the hell he's up to. He craned his neck to better see past the jamb, hoping he didn't catch Guan's attention.

It turned out that he probably didn't need to worry about being seen, though, not with the intense focus Guan had on the ornamented ritual bowl in front of him. He was putting things in, precisely measuring out powders and liquids like he was the most bizarre chef in the world and this Xiaolin-weirdness-cake had to come out just right—and he had yet to stop that whispery chant he was doing.

Jack listened harder, trying to make it out and he was surprised to realize he understood it.

Well, pieces of it, anyway.

It sounded like Chinese, but in an ancient, almost poetic form that wove together lyrically, rhythmically, and the way Guan was accenting it kind of made Jack's head hurt, but there were definitely words in it he could understand.

Past. Future. Alter, maybe?

And then Jack went cold because that one wasn't Chinese and it was a name.

Chase Young.

Son of a bitch.

Naturally, Jack's first thought was, Don't these losers learn anything? because they already did this. Hell, everyone already did this, because Omi's totally brilliant, clearly well-thought-out plan to go back to the past and change Chase Young's future had changed all their futures.

Asking around as slyly as possible, it had turned out that aside from Omi and possibly Chase himself, Jack was the only one who remembered his alternate lives but those memories were seriously not pleasant.

Living on a farm and being full time good was bad enough in its own way, but somehow, the other one was so much worse: where he'd won the world and beaten everyone, but had aged to the point where he'd already been on the verge of losing everything to death by the time Omi showed up to fix his mistake.

There was no way in hell Jack was going through that bullshit again, which meant…

Crap. Jack was gonna have to sabotage this, wasn't he?

His eyes roved over the room again, hoping to catch a glimpse of somebody else—Master Fung or Dojo, who might try to talk Guan out of this, or the dragons, who might instinctively react to this weird ritual thing and try to stop it.

Chase would be especially great right now, though it looked like the high and mighty bastard would rather force Jack to be responsible for his problems because he was nowhere in evidence.

An annoying voice in the back of his head derisively called altruism! at this 'responsibility,' citing the (embarrassingly) massive torch he still carried for Chase, in spite of eight years of the warlord's 'Ice Queen' routine in return.

Jack forcefully reminded himself that his future was on the line too, and if he did anything now, it would be as much for himself as it would be for Chase.

Although…if Jack was being totally honest with himself, and maybe he could afford that for a second or two, he really didn't think he was personally okay with the idea of Chase being manipulated against his own innate leanings. It felt a lot like coercion, which was…creepy coming from a Xiaolin monk like Guan.

But when it came down to it, none of that was the issue. The issue was that back in the day, Chase Young had decided he wanted to be Heylin and that decision put a whole lot of other important stuff on course to happen…and now, Guan was trying to screw with it.

Jack frowned, doing one last visual sweep of the room and no, nobody else was showing up which kind of sucked because Jack was not a fan of responsibility. However, he really wasn't a fan of change when it came to his freaking timeline and if nobody else was going to step up to the plate, he didn't have much choice in the matter.

Guan's creepy spell was about to get Jacked.

Of course, Jack's Universal Constant was still in effect so where it might've been nice to have a couple seconds to think of exactly how he was going to interfere, Guan wasn't giving him that opportunity.

Just one look at the huge ceremonial knife Guan was now pulling out and Jack knew the ritual was coming to a head.

Purely on instinct, Jack acted, running into the room and barreling into Guan's side.

It was hardly the most effective tactic—Guan was a sturdy guy—but it got him to stagger aside a step or two away from the bowl.

"Spicer!" Guan barked as soon as he realized who had shoved him. "You should not be here!"

"Of course I shouldn't be," Jack grunted, still shoving. "You wouldn't want an audience for screwing up the present!"

Guan refused to be moved any further and his expression went thunderous. "This is something you could never hope to understand," he said. "Chase Young was once my friend. Simply because you—"

"It's not about me!" Jack snapped, and shit, maybe there was some altruism going on here, but he really didn't need to hear where Guan had been going with that one. "Even I figured out that time travel only makes shit worse, but that hasn't clicked for you, yet?!"

"Spicer," and now he just looked resigned, "you won't interfere this time." He raised the knife in his hand, using the other to push at Jack's chest. "I will fix my mistakes."

Guan underestimated the speed of Jack's reflexes. Jack hadn't thought that even reflexively, he'd be stupid enough to try and grab the business end of a dagger.

Unfortunately, they were both wrong.

Jack hissed as the sharp metal bit into the flesh of his palm and jerked his hand back fast enough that he watched his blood arc; to Guan's foot, to the floor.

To the bowl.

Guan seemed to see where the errant droplet had landed, too, and his expression was one of slow-motion horror.

"No," he breathed. "No."

Guan reached for Jack so suddenly that all he could do was flinch back and brace himself for manhandling.

…manhandling that never came, apparently, because Guan was being wrenched viciously back by bronze-clad arms around his torso.

Abruptly, Jack felt a kind of tug in his core, the Xiaolin tingling from before starting to branch out from his spine and he went lightheaded with the innate fear of what's happening?

He vaguely heard a snarl, "You are the one who won't interfere, Guan," but it was fuzzy in the same way his head was going fuzzy and maybe it wasn't fear doing that, after all…

Jack wobbled on his feet and he looked up, finding that the whole room had started to blur except for a pair of intensely golden eyes that remained in the sharpest clarity.

Chase…?

Without any further hesitation, Jack passed out.

-.-.-.-.-.-

A/N: Happy New Year, everyone!

As always, I felt compelled to have something posted for the holidays, but I had a problem: I couldn't start work on a specifically holiday-themed story because I was (and am!) currently in the middle of writing a massive story on par with the Diary series in eventual length. There's a lot of work to do and I have such a tendency to procrastinate already, I really couldn't afford to distract myself with something else. But I still really wanted to post something around this time of year because what better way to celebrate winter breaks than with Chack?

So here's my solution! A small chunk of my massive WIP story, so I don't have to start a whole new story and you all can see what I've been working on (and that I have, actually, been working on something)! XD

Anyway, this story in particular is one that I was inspired to write sometime after I wrote Jelly Bean of my Crayola series, where Jack interacts with a tiny Chase. That idea led to another and another and before I knew it, I'd written an outline for Bad Pennies that tops off at about 40 pages-so yeah, this will definitely be a long one!

That said, all I ask is that you're patient with me when I (inevitably) take forever to post new chapters and that I hope you enjoy what I've written.

With any luck, 2014 will be a Chack-filled new year!