The underground lair was alive—and not in a good way.

Machinery whirred and clanked in a cacophony that would've made any sane person invest in earplugs. Cooling fans screamed like they were being murdered. Exposed wiring sparked every few seconds with the kind of regularity that suggested 'fire hazard' wasn't in Jack Spicer's vocabulary. The whole place smelled like burnt metal, motor oil, and the faint chemical tang of something that was definitely supposed to stay sealed in its container.

Jack hunched over his workbench, goggles shoved up into his mess of red hair, completely absorbed in the guts of what might generously be called a work in progress. His fingers flew across wires and circuit boards with the confidence of someone who'd definitely, probably, almost certainly remembered to turn off the power supply this time.

A wire sparked. Blue-white light flashed across his face.

"OW!" Jack jerked back, shaking out his hand like it might put out the stinging. He glared at the offending mechanism. "Okay. Okay, that's—that's fine. That's supposed to do that."

Right? Yeah. Definitely supposed to do that.

He reached back in, teeth gritted, soldering iron in hand. This was it. His masterpiece. His magnum opus. The invention that would finally—finally—prove he wasn't just some washed-up wannabe villain living in his parents' basement. This was the one that would work. Unlike the last twelve. Or was it thirteen?

He'd stopped counting after the incident with the self-aware toaster.

Jack's hand hovered over the final connection, and then—

The feeling hit him. That prickling, creeping sensation that skittered up his spine like a spider made of pure paranoia. Someone was here. In his lair. His private, top-secret, totally-secure-except-for-that-one-time-with-the-monks lair.

Oh no.

His pulse kicked into overdrive. Jack straightened up way too fast, nearly knocking over a precariously balanced stack of schematics. He spun toward the entrance, hastily wiping grease-stained hands on his already-filthy coat, and plastered on his best 'evil genius' smirk. The one he'd practiced in the mirror. Multiple times. It looked way cooler in his head.

"Well, well, well." He crossed his arms, leaning back against the workbench with all the casual confidence of someone definitely not internally panicking. "Didn't realize I was expecting visitors today. Did you get lost on your way to literally anywhere else, or—"

His hand slipped. His elbow knocked into something metallic. A cascade of tools clattered to the floor in the world's least intimidating avalanche.

Jack's eye twitched. His smirk didn't budge.

"—or are you here to witness genius in action?" He gestured broadly at the chaos of his lair, as if the mess was intentional. Strategic, even. "Because I'm very busy. Extremely busy. Monumentally busy with... very important evil schemes that you wouldn't understand."

Please don't be Wuya. Please don't be Chase. Please don't be those stupid monks—

He waited, fingers drumming against his arm, trying very hard to look like someone who wasn't desperately wondering if he'd remembered to activate the security system.

He had not remembered to activate the security system.

The ballroom was a nightmare wrapped in champagne flutes and string quartets.

Crystal chandeliers glittered overhead like a thousand judging eyes. Well-dressed socialites mingled in clusters, laughing at jokes that probably weren't funny, sipping drinks that cost more than Jack's last robot upgrade. The whole place reeked of old money, expensive perfume, and the kind of casual superiority that made Jack's skin crawl.

He stood near a marble pillar, tugging at his collar for the fifteenth time in as many minutes. The suit—the stupid suit—felt like a straightjacket designed by someone who hated him personally. Black, tailored, perfectly pressed. His mother had insisted. His father had nodded along like he actually cared. And now here Jack was, stripped of his coat, his goggles, his dignity, forced to play dress-up at some charity gala he didn't even care about.

Kill me. Just strike me down right here. It would be a mercy.

He'd tried to get out of it. Faked sick (didn't work). Claimed he had "very important evil business" (they'd laughed). Even considered setting off the fire alarm, but his parents had apparently anticipated that and stationed security near every exit like they knew him or something.

They didn't know him. They never knew him.

Jack grabbed a glass of something sparkling off a passing waiter's tray, took one sip, and immediately regretted it. Too sweet. Or not sweet enough? He couldn't tell. He wasn't a "champagne at fancy parties" kind of guy—he was a "energy drinks in a basement laboratory at 3 AM" kind of guy, and this whole scene was wrong.

A woman in a dress that probably cost more than his hovercraft glided past, gave him a once-over, and kept walking without a word.

Yeah, okay. Rude.

Jack's jaw tightened. His fingers drummed against the champagne flute in a rhythm that screamed 'I want to leave'. Around him, conversations hummed with talk of stock portfolios, vacation homes, and whatever other boring rich-people nonsense filled the void where personalities should be. Nobody here knew who he was. Nobody here cared who he was.

Which should've been great—anonymity, right?—except it also meant he was completely, utterly, soul-crushingly alone in a room full of people.

He shifted his weight, scanning the crowd for literally any excuse to escape. A fire exit. A conveniently-timed explosion. A interdimensional portal. Anything.

Wait.

Jack's gaze locked onto the dessert table across the room—specifically, the elaborate seven-tier chocolate fountain surrounded by fruit skewers and tiny pastries. It was ridiculous. Completely over-the-top. The kind of thing that screamed "we have too much money and not enough taste."

It was also the only interesting thing in this entire godforsaken ballroom.

You know what? Fine. If I have to be here, I'm at least getting something out of it.

Jack made his way toward the table with the single-minded determination of someone who'd given up on dignity approximately forty-five minutes ago. He grabbed a plate, loaded it with an frankly unreasonable amount of chocolate-covered strawberries, and was in the process of trying to figure out the optimal fruit-to-chocolate ratio when his elbow knocked into the tower of skewers.

Wood clattered against porcelain.

The skewer tower teetered.

Oh no.

Jack lunged forward, plate in one hand, trying to steady the collapsing architecture with the other. Chocolate fountain to his left. Priceless china to his right. His suit jacket rode up his back. A strawberry rolled off his plate and bounced across the pristine white tablecloth.

"No no no no—dammit—"

He caught the tower. Barely. His heart hammered against his ribs as he held it steady, half-crouched in the most undignified position imaginable, very aware that he definitely looked like an idiot right now.

Perfect. Great. Exactly how tonight was going.

The alley smelled like garbage and defeat.

Jack sat slumped against the brick wall, legs stretched out in front of him, head tilted back against the cold stone. His coat was torn at the shoulder—great, just great—and there was a scrape across his cheek that stung every time he breathed. His goggles hung crooked on his forehead, one lens cracked straight down the middle. A few feet away, the sparking remains of what used to be a Jack-Bot twitched pathetically before finally going dark.

Stupid monks. Stupid Showdown. Stupid everything.

He'd been so close. So close. The Shen Gong Wu had been right there, practically in his hands, and then—

Well. Then the same thing that always happened, happened.

Jack pressed the heel of his palm against his eyes, willing away the hot pressure building behind them. He was not going to cry. He was twenty years old, and crying in an alley over another loss was just—it was pathetic. Even for him.

His ribs ached. Pretty sure he'd landed wrong when that stupid Tsunami Strike sent him flying into a dumpster. The dumpster had won that fight too, apparently. Everything hurt. His pride most of all.

"Genius inventor," he muttered bitterly to the empty alley. "Evil boy genius. Right. Can't even beat a bunch of losers in pajamas."

Again.

The word echoed in his head, louder than he wanted it to. Again. He'd lost again. How many times was that now? He'd stopped counting after it stopped being funny and started being just... sad.

Jack let his hand drop, staring up at the slice of grey sky visible between the buildings.

Somewhere in the distance, he could hear traffic. Normal people doing normal things. People who didn't spend their evenings getting their asses kicked by monks and magical artifacts.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. Probably Wuya. Probably calling to mock him or demand an explanation or just remind him how utterly useless he was. He didn't check it. Didn't have the energy.

A pigeon landed near his destroyed Jack-Bot, pecked at it once, then flew away.

Even the pigeons are judging me.

Jack laughed—sharp, humorless, the kind of sound that came out when the alternative was something worse. He pulled his knees up, resting his forearms across them, and just... sat there.

In an alley. Bleeding. Alone.

Because of course he was alone. That's what happened when you lost. The other villains didn't want to associate with a failure, and it's not like he had anyone else.

Footsteps echoed from somewhere nearby—the mouth of the alley, maybe, or the street beyond.

Jack's head snapped up, eyes narrowing despite the exhaustion. His hand instinctively went to his belt, reaching for... nothing. Right. He'd lost most of his gadgets in the fight. Of course.

Perfect. Just perfect. If they're coming back to gloat, I swear—

He tensed, ready to scramble to his feet even though every muscle in his body screamed in protest. Ready to run, or fight, or at minimum try to look like less of a disaster than he currently was.

The footsteps grew closer.

[Create your own scenario!]