Chapter 6: This Portal is Reserved for Me!

The quiet lodge instantly erupted into chaos.

The twelve powerful Talismans changed hands multiple times between the J-Team and the Dark Hand. The once-luxurious room was quickly reduced to a riddled wreck.

The lodge owner rushed in, only to flatten himself against the floor as a searing beam of light singed the air above his head. He stared at his hollowed-out roof with a face full of grief. "Thirty years! I took out a thirty-year loan for this place!!"

Nobody cared.

Jackie didn't have time to dwell on the fact that Jade had brought the J-Team to Tibet. At the very least, with El Toro Fuerte, Viper, and Tohru by his side, he wasn't being overwhelmed just yet.

As the battle reached a fever pitch, Shendu rose from his seat, searing flames gathering in his throat.

"My brother, you have finally arrived!"

"Who is he talking to?" Jackie dodged a flying kick from Hak Foo and looked confusedly behind him. "Jade, don't stand in the doorway!" he nagged, even in mid-combat.

"Hot! Hot! Hot!" Valmont wailed, and the flames in Shendu's mouth instantly died out.

"Useless Valmont! Such a frail, pathetic vessel!" Shendu roared.

Restricted by Valmont's human body, Shendu's spirit form couldn't exert even a fraction of his true power.

Across the room, Zoran was nearly moved to laughter by Shendu's sheer idiocy. Why don't you just walk up and shove a 'Hello, Brother' sticker on my forehead? He had spent all this time hiding, only to be nearly outed by a single sentence.

Fortunately, Jackie was too preoccupied to connect the dots.

"I'm going airborne! And I've got heat-beam eyes!" Finn shouted, clutching the Rooster and Pig Talismans as he drifted toward the ceiling.

Tohru, built like a mountain, lunged at him, snatching both Talismans right out of his hands.

"No—, I'm a dud!" Finn yelped as he face-planted into the floor.

"We've got the Talismans! Don't get bogged down with Shendu!" Jackie yelled, retreating as he clutched the artifacts.

"And that's our cue," Viper said with a sultry smirk, slowly vanishing under the power of the Snake Talisman.

The four losers of the Dark Hand stood in a row, heads bowed, not daring to look up.

"They took all the Talismans," Chow whispered, keeping his voice low for fear of provoking Shendu.

"How many times must I say it? The Talismans are not important!" Shendu bellowed. "Jackie Chan still does not suspect my true intent. We must retrieve the Pan'ku Box immediately."

…

Elsewhere, Uncle arrived late in a taxi, having just stepped off the plane.

"Uncle! We defeated Shendu again! We got all the Talismans back!" Jackie cheered.

Whack!

Uncle pressed two fingers together and delivered a sharp rap to Jackie's head. "No! The Talismans are not important!"

"Not important? But we went through so much trouble to get them!"

Uncle paced back and forth, hands behind his back. "Shendu may be dead, but his own Demon Portal remains. His only reason for coming to Tibet must be to find the Pan'ku Box!"

"The Pan'ku Box? What is that?" Tohru asked.

"Long ago, the Eight Immortals sealed the Eight Demon Sorcerers..."

Uncle began his lecture, and before long, El Toro, Viper, and Paco were nodding off.

He concluded: "It is the key that opens the Demon Portals. We must stop Shendu and prevent him from releasing the other seven demons!"

"Then let's go right now!" Jade was the first to jump up.

"No, Jade. You have to go back. You too, Paco. This is not an amusement park." Jackie pushed the two children toward the exit. "Stopping Shendu is our job. Your job is to study. Understood?" He put his hands on his hips, assuming his usual "responsible adult" posture.

"And that is exactly why I find him so boring," Viper sighed, throwing her hands up.

…

The next day, a car sped down the highway.

Jade looked boredly at El Toro and Paco. Jackie had personally seen them off on the shuttle to the airport. El Toro was snoring loudly, fast asleep. Only Paco was still awake, incessantly prattling on about El Toro's heroic deeds.

"Jade, El Toro is the strongest! He once defeated every fighter in the arena all by himself!"

A flash of red light darted through Jade's clear eyes. "No, Paco," she said coldly. "I am the strongest."

"Liar! Last time you said Jackie was the strongest!" Paco huffed.

"Do you want to see?" Jade held her hand toward the window.

"Fine! You're just a kid like—"

Before Paco could finish, the window beside him shattered with a violent bang, glass shards flying everywhere. Before he could react, Jade had leaped out of the moving car.

"Jade!" Paco scrambled to the window. "Are you trying to get killed?!"

His eyes went wide. Jade was suspended in the air, palms down, drifting with an elegant grace. Even leaping from a car traveling over eighty miles per hour was no challenge for her.

"Huh?! What's happening?" El Toro jolted awake.

Paco pointed out the window, his face pale with terror. "Jade... she just flew away!"

"What!" El Toro nearly jumped out of his seat in shock.

…

A streak of violet-black Demon Chi flickered past.

Zoran manipulated gravity with supreme elegance, gliding just above the ground. While hidden within Jade's body in spirit form, he could likely access less than one-ten-thousandth of his true strength.

However, just as Shendu didn't need the Dragon Talisman to breathe fire, the control of gravity and celestial forces was an instinct inherent to him as the Moon Demon. Even if he rotted in the Netherworld for another million years, these fundamental abilities would remain at his command.

By his calculations, Jackie should be confronting Shendu any moment now. He had to reach the temple housing the Pan'ku Box.

In the original timeline, Shendu would have secured the box even without interference. But Zoran was tired of waiting. In the typical script, Shendu would attempt to release his siblings one by one, only to fail every single time because of Uncle.

It was an inescapable loop. As long as Uncle found the correct Immortal casting item, he could use Chi Magic to banish any demon back to the Netherworld.

Shendu's mistake was being predictable. He allowed the heroes to anticipate every move, letting Uncle prepare the counter-spells in advance.

Zoran was here to break that cycle. He would ensure that he was the first demon released, and he would not be sealed again.

This was his only chance to leave the Netherworld. Otherwise, according to the original path, the Moon Demon would only reappear as a scrap of stolen Chi for Drago to consume.

With a thought, he pushed his gravitational pull to the limit.

"Brothers, sisters... this solitary Demon Portal is reserved for me. For Tso Lan, the Moon Demon!"