Chase was meditating when he heard the damn noise. It was sharp, tinny, unmusical; it reminded him of Spicer, and he stopped meditating and investigated, assuming he would find the boy genius lurking around his lair again.
Though now that he thought about it, it had been some time, hadn't it? He lost track of time, it was hard to say.
Rather than the boy himself, though, the noise came from a device Jack must have forgotten at some point. Chase picked it up, squinting at the garishly bright screen, and it stopped when his fingers touched the screen.
"Shit, that's my old number," the voice in the device said, a little slurred. It was familiar enough for Chase to identify it, especially considering where it was coming from.
"Spicer? What is the meaning of this?" he asked. He felt himself tensing with irritation at the prospect of dealing with the boy genius.
"Chase? Holy shit! How'd you get my old number?" Yes, that was a definite drunken slur.
Chase frowned at the device. "You appear to have left the device in my home, Spicer. You really should take better care of your things."
The laughter that came through the line was loud and unpleasant, and Chase held the phone at arm's length until Jack quieted. "I'm surprised it still works," he said, finally. "Did I invent another time machine when I wasn't looking?"
"Another-? Never mind. No doubt the stasis of Nowhere has something to do with whatever you find surprising."
"Right, right, you're immortal, of course your house keeps a battery from losing it's charge, why wouldn't it..." Jack trailed off into unintelligible muttering.
"If you're finished wasting my time with your drunken antics, boy, I'm going to destroy this trinket."
There was that laugh again, and Chase really didn't like the sound. "Wow, nobody's called me boy in decades, Chase. You really know how to do angry nostalgia."
Decades? Yes, he'd definitely lost track of time. Once Hannibal had been defeated and the monks seemed content to leave him alone as a thank you for doing it, he'd returned to his lair, intending to work through the unseemly feelings dealing with Hannibal had brought up.
And now it was- "How long has it been since we spoke, Spicer?"
"Uh... twenty... how old am I? Shit," and there was that laughter again. "Thirty four years."
"Why do you keep laughing like that?" Chase finally asked, exasperated with the caller and with himself for not hanging up.
"Because I'm drunk."
"And why are you drunk?"
"Why do you care?"
"Indulge my curiosity, Spicer. You must want to speak to me or you'd have hung up by now."
There was a pause long enough that Chase would have thought Jack took him up on it, except that he could hear Jack's hitching breathing.
"Do you know what dementia is?"
"If this is some sort of joke about my age-" Chase started, but Jack cut him off.
"No, it's a joke about mine." Chase was expecting the harsh laugh now, and was a little surprised it doesn't come. "I meant to call- I was thinking about calling Kimiko, because I'm about to do something that's probably a terrible idea and I wanted to see if she'd succeed in talking me out of it, and it's actually a reasonable hour in Tokyo for once, but no, I'm drunk dialing my own phone number from thirty years ago, talking to- god, if Wuya wasn't a literal ghost half the time I'd say you're the ghost of my past."
"You're not making any sense," and if Chase's tone was a little softer now, it was only because he didn't think snapping at Jack would get him answers to his curiosity at this point.
"Yeah, that's what the diagnosis means," Jack said. "I'm probably hallucinating this, I just realized. You sound just- this doesn't make any sense. I might as well just tell you I still love you, right? And say the fuck you I should have said when I was seventeen instead of simping after you until you disappeared and I couldn't even find your stupid mountain anymore and I had to get a new phone."
"Jack-"
"I had pictures on there that I wanted, you know, and-"
"Jack! I just needed some peace after matters were concluded with Hannibal, and I made sure the lair would not allow anyone in regardless of whether I wanted them there."
"... Does that mean before that when I snuck in, it worked because you wanted me there?"
Chase made a choking noise, swallowing it quickly. "Why don't you- why don't you tell me what your terrible plan is, in lieu of Kimiko?"
"Oh it's just- I pioneered mainstream brain-machine interface tech ages ago, and when I got the diagnosis I started building the- the logical next step, you know? Instead of just interaction, data transfer."
"You are putting data into your brain to replace what is being lost?"
"Other way around. I'm putting my brain in data. Got the body all ready to go, and bonus, that'll take care of the joint pain too. Who knew getting beat up all the time when I was young and flexible would come back to haunt me later in so many different ways?"
"I thought you'd learned something about robots that looked like you," Chase said dryly. He'd forgotten how much of a challenge it could be to keep up with Jack's rambling, but his feelings were rapidly coming back online.
"This one's way more advanced, and I haven't given it any AI of its own, he's strictly brain stem without me. If the download doesn't work, he'll stay as much of a vegetable as I'll be."
"I agree with your theoretical Kimiko, Jack. This is a terrible plan."
"I don't have a better one, and I'm not going to sit and- and- I watched my mother-" He didn't finish the sentence.
Chase's voice was definitely soft when he spoke again, almost kind in a way that made Jack even more sure he was only imagining all of this. "There are more dignified ways to kill yourself, Jack."
"I'm not trying to-" Jack lied, and then started again. "I really think it's solid tech, but yeah, I know it might fail and I've accepted that."
"Jack-"
"See, now I'm sure this isn't real, because you're calling me by my first name."
"Now you're being ridiculous."
"I'll tell you what," Jack said. "I'm going to hang up and flip the switch. If it works, I'll call back and see if you're real."
Chase didn't know what to say to that.
"You're a good hallucination, though. Thanks for trying to talk me out of it."
The phone beeped and the screen went dark a moment later. Chase startled, trying to make it come back, and quickly grew frustrated, throwing the thing against the wall with a growl before realizing what he'd done.
Maybe it was for the best, he told himself. He doubted there would be any follow-up call, and if Spicer wanted to kill himself, that was none of his business.
Chase sighed. Maybe it was time he went back out into the world, however. He ought to look into the Heylin, see how they fared without Hannibal's games, and make sure the Xiaolin weren't growing too confident. He snapped at the cats to make preparations, and told himself he was just going to see what was going on, not get involved again. He would only look in on them.
Which was how he found himself watching Jack Spicer's funeral from atop the building on the other side of the street, glaring at the mourners wearing black. If he was upset, it was at the ridiculous Western funeral he didn't recognize, or the waste of suicide, and not about the individual. Definitely not.
He was so busy frowning at the ceremony across the street that he almost missed the sound of footsteps behind him.
"Chase?"
The ghost he saw when he spun around was pale as Jack had always been, but taller and broader than he'd known Jack to be. He wasn't dressed like a ridiculous teenager anymore either.
"Jack?" Chase echoed. "You've come back to roam already?"
"Come back? Oh, no, I'm not a ghost, I'm a cyborg."
"Do you mean it worked after all?"
"Yeah, I figured it would- wait a minute, does that mean I really did talk to you? But nobody answered when I called back!"
Chase nodded. "I- I was frustrated when I could not make it call you back. Your device did not survive."
"Sorry?" Jack offered, not sure what else to say.
"What is all this about, if you're still here?" Chase asked, waving at the traffic below.
Jack rolled his eyes. "I faked my death, obviously. I'm an awesome cyborg now, I look like I'm twenty two again, I'm not going to hang out at board meetings. Thought I might revisit world domination, or find a new hobby, I'm not sure what's next."
Chase eyed him carefully. The work on the body was indeed impressive, and he could see traces of magic among the metal and lightning that made it up.
"I'm looking for someone to introduce me to the latest movements in the war between the Heylin and Xiaolin forces," Chase said carefully. "Would you be interested in being my guide for the time being?"
"Hell yes," Jack grinned. "Let's get started."