AN- Wow this week has been terrible. School sucks and somehow I'm able to lose everything that happens to be due at that time. Seriously, I'd just put the damn thing away, where could it have gone? I tried explaining to my history teacher that he has to be rigging the papers with retractable legs that activate whenever he says the words "Take out (insert random chapter/section here) packet and hand them up the row", and carries the little devil out of the room. He proceeded to inform me that my sarcasm is not appreciated in his class and to see him after school, but not before pointing out that the rest of the class's papers had not sprouted legs.

It's a conspiracy, I swear. And that's my sorry excuse for not updating sooner; school sucks.

Anyway, here's chapter four of Rest for the Wicked. Enjoy.

And as a side note; I do NOT own Xiaolin Showdown.

Chapter 4 – Resistance

With tired, bloodshot eyes, he glanced at the clock. Enormous, glowing red numbers announced 12:00am and releasing an exhausted groan, Jack allowed his head to collapse into his elbow, which rested on the desk in front of him. Besides his elbow, the desk held the unrecognizable remnants of the last Jackbots to come into contact with the Xiaolin dragons. They had not even survived ten seconds.

Slowly, the wrench he held slipped from his loosening fingers, and crashed to the floor with a clang that echoed around the dark basement he called his lair. He snapped back awake, and almost mechanically, retrieved his wrench and began working again. According to Wuya and her sensors, he had very little time left before the next Wu revealed itself, and the Jackbots, although almost completely useless in a fight at this point, needed to be repaired. Perhaps he could send in less this time… less robots destroyed meant less work for him, and he could continue the research he'd begun the day before.

He was nodding off again, and he had to slap himself. He reached over to twist a knob on his boom-box, turning it up louder. Maybe the intense beat of a little death metal would keep him awake.

After twisting the left arm of a bot back into its socket, Jack stood up to admire his work. The fully repaired robot looked as though it had not been a glistening pile of scrap metal only hours before. But now came the tricky part.

"There has to be a safer way to do this." He grumbled.

Turning the gold and black robot around, Jack pressed a latch on its back, which released the door that exposed the complex circuitry within it. Two last wires had to be connected, and these two were the most dangerous and troublesome of them all.

Placing his goggles down over his eyes, Jack reached within the bot and found the bright red and dark blue wires that resided in the very middle. The first one, the red one, was basically the plug. It supplied the robots "brain" with power from the fusion core within it, and Jack replaced the end of it into the black box above it that served as its mind. The little robot instantly powered on, and Jack quickly removed his hand from within it, bracing himself. But the expected explosion did not come, and he sighed with relief. Next came the blue wire.

The blue wire was a more recent addition to his bots. It supplied the "brain" with artificial intelligence from the emotion chips he'd installed, allowing it to feel… well, just about anything a human being could feel.

Including fear. And it was this fear that Jack feared.

The blue wire held between his quivering fore-finger and thumb, he closed his eyes and positioned its end at the second opening in the brain.

Still in battle mode when it had been destroyed, the robots data would continue to be in battle mode until Jack reset it. And to reset it, he first had to turn it on. With Jackbots positioned straight ahead of him, ready to catch their fellow when it activated, Jack turned his face away from the bot, his eyes clenched shut, and jammed the wire into its appropriate socket.

He'd tried to remove his hand from it in time, but found himself too slow, as the suddenly engaged blades hacked at his arm, tearing the sleeve of his coat and sending blood everywhere.

"Gah!" he screamed, and quickly slapped his uninjured hand over his mouth.

Too late.

"Dammit, Jack!" from upstairs came a booming voice, and the sounds of a foot being stamped repeatedly on his ceiling. "We're trying to sleep up here."

Jack cringed as he removed his hand from his mouth. "S-sorry guys."

"I'll give you something to be sorry about, boy…" His father snarled. "One more sound…"

"David, be nice!" the softer voice of his mother commanded. "Go to bed, Jackie. You can finish… whatever it is you're doing in the morning."

"Alright. Night Mom." Jack had no intention of going to bed. In fact, he expected to be up another five hours. He would just have to be more careful. Clutching his bleeding arm, Jack turned to see that the Jackbots had successfully contained their brother. He walked over gloomily and flipped a switch on its back, restarting it. It ceased attempting to destroy the beings around it, and proceeded to calmly float next to the others.

Sighing and wincing, Jack pointed to one of his robotic servants. "You, get me the first aid kit, please."

With a salute, it zoomed off to the bathroom upstairs to fetch the kit. The newly repaired Jackbot looked (if it could be called looking) over Jack's injuries, and seemed to sink into itself. In a metallic and toneless voice, it asked, "Did I do that, Jack?"

Jack smiled. He'd never told anyone exactly why he'd given these things emotion chips, and he probably never would.

"Yeah, you did. But it's cool."

"No." It hovered over to Jack's side, and as gently as a floating lump of metal could, peeled away the sleeve of his coat to reveal the gashes beneath it. Jack hissed, his teeth clenched. "You're hurting."

"Eh, it's not that bad." He ground out, moving his arm away. "Nothing more than the Xiaolin losers have ever done. In fact, this is nothing." But he was unconvincing and his eyes were beginning to water with pain. Truth be told, the slashes were pretty large, and Jack considered himself lucky that the blades had not taken off his whole arm. They were slowly becoming outlined by a thick shade of purple as the mutilated flesh around them bruised.

"I'm sorry." The Jackbot he'd sent away to fetch the first aid kit had returned with said kit wrapped in one of its claws. Jack took it and set down at his desk, removing the items he'd need. "Is there anything I can do…?"

Jack turned to look at it. It really was amazing, the possibilities a simple emotion chip brought forth. He smiled at it through his tears. "Yeah, you can come sew up my arm. Try to do it so it'll scar in a graceful way. Maybe we could cut it up some more and make a sweet pattern…"

If a robot could smile, it would have done so there.

---

He could hear voices. In the quiet room of… wherever the hell he was, they seemed to boom at him, and he clenched his eyes as he felt a migraine settling just behind his left eyeball.

That small bit of pain aside, Jack found that he felt very little. He could feel the soft bed beneath him, and he could feel the thin sheet that was pulled up to his chest, but nothing more. He'd expect himself to be in much more pain, considering he'd just been unconscious, for that was usually the case. If pain was what knocked you out, you would also expect to come to in pain, but not in this case.

Then Jack noticed he was unable to move. Groggy and half asleep, he noticed that, in fact, he was unable to do very much at all. He found that he could open his eyes about half way before the candle light emitting from his nightstand beside his bed became too much, and that was it. He was not even able to groan in protest.

His intoxicated mind began to panic. 'What have they done to me…?'

Looking around himself, he recognized the shapes of Master Fung, Kimiko and Raimundo off to his right. They were deep into a hushed discussion, and Jack could just make out some of the words exchanged.

"-done this? We checked everything out before locking up for the night. Did we miss something?" Raimundo seemed distraught.

"It would seem that things may come and go as they please. The Temple will need to be guarded more diligently from now on." Master Fung in his calm tone stated simply. "At the moment, Clay and Omi are searching the grounds."

Kimiko remained silent. For a terrifying second, she'd looked in his direction, but not before he'd quickly snapped his eyes shut again.

"I hope they find… whatever it was that did this." She said.

There was a prolonged silence, and Jack wanted to squirm uncomfortably as he felt their pity-filled gazes upon him. Finally, the wizened old man spoke.

"Come, young monks. Jack will need his rest."

With a jolt of panic, Jack's eyes snapped open again. They were leaving him alone?

With no way of getting their attention, he could only watch in terrified disbelief as the monks exited what apparently was the infirmary. 'Don't leave me.'

Feeling betrayed and extremely vulnerable as the sliding door shut quietly behind the three monks, Jack took limited note of his condition. Attempting to wiggle his fingers was a failure, as was the toe test. He soon found that he could not even lift his head to look at his body. And the migraine that was supposed to have formed into a pounding array of pain by then was still festering only behind his left eye.

After a second, Jack understood, and when he finally figured it out, it seemed so obvious. They had drugged him with something powerful, and it had not yet worn off.

At that point, he should have allowed himself to succumb to the blissful call of sleep. He should have at least attempted to enjoy such a rare treat, but he knew somehow that sleep would mean certain death. Instead, he could only lie there, terrified.

But what would he do if it did show up? Groan at it? He could barely do that, let alone defend himself. The unfairness of it all made him want to cry.

'Why does my life always have to suck so bad…?'

'Hold on one sec, let me call whine-one-one, maybe they'll send over a whaaambulance for you.'

Jacks tired eyes widened in fear as terrible, mocking laughter filled his head.

'It's so unfair…' His eyes began to tear up as a feeling of complete helplessness flooded him, turning his blood to ice. His stomach clenched with nerves, and he felt as though he would vomit. Now, he would surely die.

'Life isn't supposed to be fair, Jackie boy.'

Once again, the shadows began to shift and the subject of his most terrifying nightmares appeared before him as it had done earlier. Any light that had once existed in the room had been swallowed, and the dark was stifling.

Not caring who or what saw him, Jack began to cry.

'Please… I don't want to die.'

The figure before him laughed, a cruel, uncaring laugh. 'You're so pathetic, Jack Spicer. Such a wimpy little shit.'

'I've come too far to die like this. Too damn far.' He was crying freely, tears streaming down his pale cheeks. He closed his eyes.

'Goodnight, Jack.'

But before the final blow was delivered, Jack summoned strength he had no idea existed within him, and used it to release one loud, desperate scream.

---

A/N- Good news, everyone! I've figured out how to reply to your reviews. I shall start doing so after this chapter. And thanks again to all those who are reviewing! And all you guys who put the story on their alert lists but don't bother to review it… c'mon guys, I beg you. Please review. It's not that hard, I promise!

Reading through all your guy's guesses on what exactly Jack is seeing, I find myself shocked on how clueless you all are. It makes me happy how very able I am at keeping people in the dark. Keep guessing!

Thanks for waiting patiently. The next chapter should be up very soon.

Cheers.