The 13th Talisman (Patreon)

It was, perhaps, a calm before the storm.

The whole of the Chan Clan was alternating between nervous anxiety and a thankful relaxation following the resealing of the first of Shendu’s relatives.  Uncle could be seen languidly flipping through dust-covered texts and sorting through jars of almost-equally ancient ingredients from the high shelves and deep cupboards of the shop’s storage rooms.  Jackie had taken the opportunity to review a series of articles from university colleagues which had been piling up over the course of his series of globe-trotting adventures.  Tohru had descended into deep study in his bid to succeed as Uncle’s new apprentice; boiling potions, half-prepared ingredients, and sheets of recipes copied from his new master’s aged tomes littered the backroom of Uncle’s Rare Finds.

Still, an undercurrent of tension ran through each member of the Chan Clan, waiting for the phone to ring, for some disaster to erupt, or for Section 13 to arrive at their door, bearing news of the latest actions of the Dark Hand.

It was understandable, then, that the three men each leapt several feet into the air as the noise of a massive explosion cascaded through the house/store.

Arriving at the source, Jackie sighed.

“Jade.”

Tohru wondered if it was healthy for a name to contain that much irritation, relief, and exasperation.

“Jackie, it’s so boring!”  Jade whined piteously, her limp-bodied form collapsed before the bland action movie she’d flipped to in desperation.  “Aren’t the baddies gonna’ make a move?  I thought Uncle said there was going to be a Greater Evil…not Greater Boredom!”

“Jade, we should be thankful that the Dark Hand hasn’t made a move yet,” Jackie chastised lightly.  “Though I’m sure they’ll be causing trouble sooner or later.”

Jade huffed, “They’d better.”

“Aeiyah!” Uncle exclaimed.  “Do not rush Forces of Darkness!  Uncle must prepare spells, research must be done, tea must be made!”

Everyone blinked.

Thwack!

Jackie winced, rubbing the repeatedly abused section of his forehead.  “Jackie, why are you not making tea?  Apprentice must look after spell components, Uncle must do research, and you must make tea!”

“Yes Uncle.”

Sigh.

As the rest of her makeshift family moved off back to their own jobs, Jade collapsed back into a boneless heap, staring at the merrily glowing TV.  Internally, her mind was viciously dissecting her problem, trying to find the one guaranteed solution to her boredom that didn’t involve the imminent destruction of human civilization.  With the attention Uncle and Tohru were paying to the Chi Library in back, it was unlikely she could make off with something interesting or fun to occupy her time.  Section 13 had already locked down the talisman’s and she couldn’t really ‘justify’ taking them out of the vault so soon after they’d recovered them.

There was a personal limit of trouble she was looking to inflict on herself.

Which left…

Riiiiiiiiing!  Riiiiiiiiing!  Riiiiiiiiiiing!

“Jackie, get phone!”  Uncle snapped from the backroom.

“Jade, could you please get the phone?  I’m a little busy.”

Snaking out to grab to offensive noise-maker, Jade lifted the headset to her ear.  “Hello?”

“Jade?  Can you put Jackie on?”

Captain Black?  “Jackie’s busy.  Wacha’ need, Captain Black?”

“Well…if you could get Jackie to come down to Section 13 as soon as he gets un-busy, I’d be grateful.”  Black said shortly.

Jade breathed deeply, scenting a mystery.  Mystery meant action.  Action meant not-boredom.  Jade grinned, her teeth showing in a trouble-making expression Augustus Black had learned to fear and loathe.  It was a shame he couldn’t see her face over the phone.  In a suddenly chipper tone, Jade responded, “OK-I’m sure he can pencil you in!  Is this an immediate, fate-of-the-world thing or a not-as-urgent, but still-life-threatening kind of thing?”

Black snorted.  “Neither.  Yet.  Just something…weird.  If the old man isn’t too busy he might want to drop by too.”

Weird

Jade’s mind fixated on the word, her mind alight with the possibilities.  Considering some of Jackie’s mission reports (which she helped write to assure credit was given where credit was due) and the ‘incidents’ therein, the word ‘weird’ being used to describe anything in their line of work was…interesting.

“Oh, Jackie; that was Captain Black on the phone…he said he needed to see you pronto!”  Jade cried, already working herself up to what was sure to be another awesome adventure.

…

Slayer Anderson Productions

Bring You:

The 13thTalisman

…

“Whoa, freaky light show.”

On cue, each and every head snapped towards the preteen in the orange jacket, her own gaze locked on a sight that had to be seen to be believed.  Captain James Black exchanged exhausted glances with his long-time friend Jackie Chan as they each harbored their own irritations with Jackie’s young niece.

“Jade, I thought I told you to stay with Tohru at the shop-“

“Don’t know why you even bother!  Jade never listen!”  Uncle decried from within the vault, not even looking back as Jade cautiously approached the ‘freaky light show.’

Within a massive security vault in the bowels of the secret government agency of Section 13 rested twelve small blocks of stone engraved with colored designed of the Chinese Zodiac animals.  Normally, the talismans sat inert until picked up and utilized by a human being, in which case they would grant that individual extraordinary powers while they were held.

Right now though…

‘Freaky Light Show,’ was as good a description as any.

The Ox Talisman, specifically, was glowing with an iridescent, bright white light.  It was far from blinding, but immediately apparent when one walked into the room.  Also immediately apparent was the older man waving a blowfish about the talisman and chanting lowly in Chinese.

“So what’s the diagnosis?”  Black asked as soon as a few minutes had passed.

“Uncle does not know,” the eldest Chan admitted.  “Some manner of sympathetic magical reaction, but we must do reeeeeeseach for specifics.  Uncle will go back to shop.  Jackie!  Call Uncle if talismans acting up!”

As the older man marched out of the secret agency, Jackie and Captain Black exchanged another tired look with each other.  Jackie sighed, “Guess I’m on talisman duty.  Jade, watch…no, what am I staying?  Stay with Captain Black and watch the talismans while I come back with something to work on.”

Black nodded, his eyes focusing in on the preteen.

For far too long, Jade Chan had been able to slip his watch with a seeming effortless ability that defied explanation.  This time he would-

“That is weird…maybe it’s Shendu?  Wait, he was possessing Valmont, right?  And I thought he was after the Demon Portals, right?  Hmm…maybe they’ve already let out one of Shendu’s siblings and he/she is doing it?  But why would they want the talismans?”

Black twitched, trying to ignore the validity of Jade’s theories and the preponderance of the ‘M word’ which seemed to be popping up more and more in his life.  He missed normal crime sometimes, “I really do wish we could take a break from the demons.  First Shendu and now we’re shaping up to see a family reunion.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be demons,” Jade shrugged.  “But we haven’t heard of any Dark Hand wrongdoings, right?  What if they’ve already let one out of the bag?”

Black sighed.  “That’s true…but none of my informants have been able to pin down any intel about Valmont’s movements since they came back from Peru…what could they still be doing in San Francisco?”

…

Rrrrrrrrrrrchkak-!

The assembled Dark Hand Enforcers sighed as one, their demon-possessed boss looking on in glowing-eyed irritation.  As Ratso held up an electric drill with a shattered tip, Shendu growled from within Valmont’s body.  “We must open the Pan’ku Box.  My siblings will grow weary of further delays.”

“But Shen-dude, we’ve already tried crushing it, smashing it, you turned Hakfoo loose on it a few times, and we all saw how well drilling it worked!”  Finn argued, about ready to give into frustration and chuck the oddly shaped artifact into the bay.

“Well…how about we try…this?”  Chow asked, slowly grinning as he lugged out a piece of heavy machinery from behind a crate.

Eyebrows raised.

“Fine,” Valmont waved off, walking away from the scene and dismissing his underlings.  While theywere busy with the esoteric, he had a criminal empire to run, with or without a demon bound to his body.

“Okay,” Chow began, tightening a clamp around the Pan’ku Box.  “We’re good.”

“Here’s hoping,” Finn sighed.

Hakfoo looked on irritably, one of the box’s trigrams stamped into his forehead: a reminder of his failure at forcing the artifact open.  Still, his interest sparked as Ratso lowered the latest attempt into place.

“Ah, here’s the on switch,” Ratso grinned, flicking the protruding part.

The jackhammer whirred to life.

…

“Well, in any case, they’re probably up to no good and we need to be ready for them.  Which means getting this new talisman problem solved as quickly as possible,” Black decided, dismissing his thoughts on the Dark Hand for now.

“Okay, Captain Black, you can go back to work now.  Jade and I can handle it…from…here,” Jackie said, his words slowing as he caught sight of the talismans.

The Ox began to fade in brilliance, returning to merely another stone.

Meanwhile, the Rooster began to shine.

“Does this happen often?”  Jackie asked, concerned.

“The switcheroo?”  Black nodded, “Yeah…a few times now.  Let’s see…according to the log it was: Sheep, then Rabbit, then Snake, you saw the Ox, and now Rooster.”

“Huh,” Jade muttered, racking her brain for a pattern.

Let’s see…Astral Projection, Super Speed, Invisibility, Super Strength, and Levitation.  So…what would you need those powers for?  Astral Projection’s pretty useless; you can’t pick anything up, you can’t even talk to anyone, all you can do is…look at stuff.  Jade blinked, an idea percolating as she rested her chin in her hand.

“Why those?”  Jackie asked, his own mind working furiously along other lines of thought.  Calendars, monthly cycles, and cultural symbolism ran though his mind.

“No idea,” Black replied.  “The on-duty called me down when the mystical mumbo jumbo started up.  Think it’s bad juju?”

“Sheep, Rabbit, Snake, Ox, and Rooster.  It’s not the Chinese calendar cycle, that’s for sure.  Maybe some kind of-“ Jackie started.

“It’s a heist!”  Jade cried suddenly.

Black and Jackie stopped, turning to look at the preteen.

“Pardon?”  Black asked, not following.

“It’s a heist!”  Jade reiterated, excited.  “Sheep to scope out the joint, Rabbit to get there, Snake to sneak in, Ox to bust through a wall or a vault or something, and Rooster to grab whatever it is and get away.”

Jackie’s jaw dropped.

Black cocked his head, running the plan through.  It was…plausible; disturbingly so, if he was honest with himself.  Astral projection would let you get an impressive amount of intel on a prospective target…and the other talismans would make such a theft, even for a large or heavy object, almost childishly easy.  He stared at Jade a moment, honestly surprised…though maybe he shouldn’t have been; Jade was very clever, she’d proven so in the past.  Maybe…

“Sir!”  The two Chans and Captain Black turned as a suited officer ran into the vault.  “We’ve got reports of a major bank job!  The New York City branch says someone managed to steal a pallet of refined platinum from an metallurgical plant, value estimated at several million.”

“The ‘M word’?”  Black asked, already resigned to the situation.

“Reports of a man tearing a steel-reinforced wall out of it’s foundation and the security guards are saying the pallet floated away,” the agent replied grimly, trying to ignore the words coming out of his own mouth.

Giant Dragon or no Giant Dragon, Section 13 wasn’t happy about dealing with the ‘M-word’ as Captain Black had dubbed it.

“Get a team together,” Black ordered, turning back towards Jackie.  “You in?”

“…yes,” Jackie replied finally, having paused to consider it.  He could have rebutted with, ‘I’m an archeologist, not a secret agent,’ but…even he was having doubts these days.

“Awesome!”  Jade cried, now thoroughly psyched.

“…How do you do that?”  Jackie asked, torn between awe and annoyance as Captain Black walked away.

“Heh, heh,” Jade grinned, shrugging.

As he gave orders to mobilize, Captain Black frowned thoughtfully.  All three Chans were impressive, in their own way, but Jade had the kind of animal cunning that he rarely saw anymore.  The ability to see through a confusing situation and read the root of a problem was invaluable…especially to an Agent.

…Perhaps he would keep an eye on the youngest Chan.

…

Agent Jackson and Agent Johnson tried not to stare.

The Chinese-American Archeologist and his young niece had become somewhat of a legend among the many and varied operatives of Section 13.  For a man who wasn’t drawing a proper salary and was only on the books as a ‘consultant,’ his list of accomplishments was…impressive.  Of course, his niece qualified as an urban legend herself, at least among the personnel of the agency.

“Do I have something on my face?” Jackie Chan asked hesitantly, his hand creeping up to his cheek.

“No sir,” Jackson replied.

“It’s just…we’ve never been on assignment with you, sir.”  Agent Johnson stated.

“Ah,” Jackie smiled, embarrassed.  “That’s because I’m not an agent, I’m just a Researcher.”

Smiles tugged at both agents’ faces.  “Of course, sir.  Still, we heard about the business with the…uh, Dragon and all the altercations with the Dark Hand.  You have a very impressive file.”

“I have a file?”  Jackie asked, taken by surprise.

“Jackie has a file?”

All three men jumped at the voice, suddenly taking note of the preteen girl sitting next to the elder Chan.  Each took a moment to simultaneously wonder if she had been there the entire time or if she had somehow managed to magically appear on the bench of the vehicle.  It said something about their lives that the second option was actually a viable one.

And not something good, either.

“Jade!”  Jackie cried, staring at his niece, “I thought I told you to stay at Section 13?”

“Nope, you told me to stay with Captain Black,” Jade corrected, grinning as she pointed towards the driver’s cab of the SWAT bus they had commandeered.

Jackie slapped his palm against his forehead, he had, hadn’t he?  “Okay, fine, but make sure you stay out of trouble.”

“Ch,” Jade muttered, rolling her eyes.

Discretely, Jackson passed Johnson a twenty.

Easiest money he’d ever made.

“So Jackie has a file?”  Jade asked again, looking at the two agents expectantly.

“Every agent…and consultant has a file,” Johnson shrugged, hastily adding the ‘consultant’ part as he watched Jackie’s eye twitch with annoyance.

“What’s in it?”  The preteen asked eagerly, her eyes alight with curiosity.

“Nothing that you wouldn’t already know about, mostly,” Jackson picked up.  “There are a few assessments of Mr. Chan’s skills and accomplishments under the aegis of Section 13, but mostly information on his personal