⁕JACK⁕
Chapter Fifth:
Almost never killed a fly...
image [https://i.imgur.com/0xGSi8B.png]
Jack did not act right away, but he had already made up his mind.
Delia would die.
The ghost of Jacque Merridin was alive and strong in him. This world is as vile as the one I left, I just haven’t seen its underbelly yet.
Delia’s night-time escapade had shown him that. It was the smallest sign of something much worse. Jack realized that he had not been put here to observe a world where love reigned, but sent here to ensure that wickedness did not take root. He was put here to rub out and cleanse the buddings of evil.
Delia though, he did not truly want to kill, but he had to. He knew that he could not rest easy until the very first sign of depravity, however slight, had been put to the blade. If he spared her, he feared he would never be able to carry out his purpose.
The first kill would be the hardest, the most bitter, but it would be the medicine, it would be the key to open wide the gates.
“Delia,” Jack said from the table, a cup of coffee steaming at hand. “Did you go somewhere? I heard the door open…”
She turned from the kettle and gave him a slightly smile. “I was nearby. An old friend had something to tell me.” She held a hand to her mouth all woman-like and gave a little, exaggerated laugh.
Jack nodded slowly. “Not Ash’s father?”
The smile faded from her lips. “Ash’s father? Where did that come from?” She eyed him dubiously.
“I’m sorry, I only assumed. Ash mentioned to me that you talk to his father on some nights.”
She glanced away from him slowly. “No, none of that… It was a neighbour if you must know.”
Jack’s eyes glinted. And a liar too…
The Englishman’s heart hardened towards her then, and so did the steel of his resolve.
Delia’s time amongst the living was coming to an end.
When Mrs. Ketchum retired to bed, this time genuine, Jack loitered in the kitchen, looking at the household collection of knives. It occurred to him that he had yet to see blood since his reawakening. His fingers traced through the handles and the metals of the blades until he landed on one that was of a similar size and weight of his most trusted blade from his days in England. He had so aptly named that blade the ‘Smiler’, as many throats had been given ear-to-ear smiles with it.
He curled his palm around the blade of the kitchen knife and slowly pulled down on the handle with his other hand.
The sharp sting of his flesh being cut made him want to groan, but as the deep, crimson blood overflew between his fingers and trickled down his arm, he smiled. Here was a colour he knew. In this whole wide world where nothing was familiar, blood had remained blood. Always constant, always red. Always as comforting as an old friend.
He felt at home at last for the first time since his escape from Death.
He cleaned up the mess and retired to bed.
There was much to prepare.
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Three days later, Jack was ready. It had taken slightly longer to set things in order than he anticipated, but this was a new world, and there were things that had to be considered now that didn’t have to be considered then.
The biggest one, as one might guess… was the Pokémon…
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“Jack, it’s been interesting to have you around and I hope you find the answers you are looking for.” Professor Samuel Oak was shaking his hand.
A few close neighbours and friends of the Ketchum’s had come to bid their farewell to the Englishman. Jack could not but feel slight pity for them. The people of Pallet Town were as saints compared to his English brethren, but God Almighty had judged this world by sending Jack among them, of that, he was sure.
He knew what I was. If He had wanted me start anew, He would have made a change in my heart. He knows what I am…
“Where is Ash?” Jack said as he hoisted the travel bag on his shoulder.
“Aww, you know what he thinks, Jack,” Delia replied. “He doesn’t want to see you go.”
The small gathering of Pallet folk murmured and muttered their agreement, and Jack only offered them a slight smile before making his way up to the lad’s room.
Ash was in his bed, face down and hands grabbing onto the bedding.
“Ashketchum!” Jack called, setting his bag down by the door. The boy had found the name funny, and Jack had used it several times in the last two weeks to get the giggles out of him.
This time, it only made him whine as he grasped at the beddings tighter.
“Ash, I am leaving. I should not like this to be how we part…” Jack put a hand on the boy’s back, but there was no reaction.
“We shall meet again. That I know.”
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When Ash still gave no response, Jack tapped his fingers on the child’s back and shifted closer.
“Promise to me that you will remain as pure as you are now. You have a big dream, Ashketchum, and I will be quite disappointed if you fail to reach it… Promise me that no matter what happens, you will remain uncorrupted.”
Ash did not reply, so Jack scratched lightly at his back and stood up. He made his way to the door and picked up his bag when suddenly, Ash screamed out behind him, “BYE!”
Jack turned and watched the lad throw himself face-down to the bed once more. He smiled. “Bye, lad.”
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Jack camped in the outskirts of Pallet Town, waiting for nightfall, but he wasn’t alone. Professor Oak had been so kind as to grant him the Poké Ball containing Weedle after he had announced his leaving. Though it had been the single greatest gift Jack had ever received, it had been calculated. Expected. He would not have left Pallet Town without it. Had it not been offered, he would have had Ash bring it to him for ‘one last battle’ and left without returning it.
The reason for that was simple… Weedle would play a key role in the killing of Delia.
He wasted little time in releasing the Pokémon from its confines. He wanted to let it loiter about to serve as another pair of eyes in case another wild critter were to happen upon him. He also had time to rehearse the commands he would use. With a Pokémon’s knack for understanding tongues, Weedle had quickly gotten the gist of what Jack needed of it.
“If I’d had you in England, perhaps I would not have been caught.”
The terror he would have wrought in London with a Weedle by his side would have surpassed any of his previous works. Its String Shot was strong enough to bind grown men, and its Poison Sting, though not lethal, could paralyse victims momentarily, and if jabbed multiple times, induce a state of toxic shock that could send people into comas, or so Professor Oak claimed.
The sun was gliding through the sky and Jack remained as inconspicuous as possible, settling himself amongst uninhabited bushes until the light of day had waned enough that someone would not be able to recognize him unless they were close. Once sunset arrived, he put Weedle in the ball and circled back around Pallet Town, laying low some few hundred yards away from the Ketchum household.
He would wait until Ash went to bed. He would do so not because the lad might alert someone (the killing would not take long), but because the lad might very well thwart him. Perhaps leaving him with the Bulbasaur had been reckless. However, taking it might have been too suspicious once investigations were under way.
When nightfall came and Delia had locked the doors, Jack removed his clothes and put on ones that he had woven out of Weedle’s silk with painstaking effort; rolling the strands along the ground to remove their stickiness and weaving the threads into a hood-mask and a short kilt. They were slightly uncomfortable, but they fit well enough, and he felt unrecognizable.
He set off, dressed in webs, with a Poké Ball in one hand and a knife in the other.
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Jack let out a long, quiet whistle that sounded like the whining of a kettle. Weedle watched his new master pointing up at the house and fired a thick String Shot that stuck at the base of the roof.
Jack put the empty Poké Ball down and held the blade of the knife in his mouth with the blunt side pressing at the corners of his mouth. He climbed up Weedle’s web with his strong, sinewy arms, and worked his way around the roof, to the spot just above Delia’s open window. Gentle, romantic jazz played within her room and it suited Jack just fine. It would muffle any noise he’d make. God was no doubt on his side.
He whistled again and Weedle shot another String Shot just below his feet that dangled all the way down to the floor.
“Ntch ntch,” Jack clicked with his tongue rapidly, and Weedle coiled itself around its own string.
Truly marvellous, Jack thought as he pulled the worm up. When he had the Pokémon safely under his arm, he let the slack string back down, to hang a couple of metres above the ground and turned his back to the roof edge. He took a deep breath and put the knife in his free hand.
“Make this easy, dear Delia…” he whispered to the air, and hopped backwards, holding the string tightly.
The string held taut, and Jack swung in through the window, slamming its frame and making the glass rattle and crack from the impact. He let go quickly and dropped Weedle on the floor. The nightlamp was still on, and Delia had been laying on her back with one of her face masks that she believed would keep old age at bay. She shot up straight in bed with a look of pure horror pulling at the corners of her mouth. “Ahh!”
Jack whistled quickly a drawn-out whistle and Weedle let loose another String Shot at the frightened Mrs. Ketchum, which at once sealed her mouth shut. She whimpered and whined loudly, thrashing in the bed.
“Shhd!” Jack hissed through his teeth, and Weedle reared up and shot out, jabbing Delia near the ribs with its Poison Sting. Her body seized up and her limbs stretched out from shock.
Jack grinned underneath his mask of gritty webs. His fingers flexed around the handle of the knife, and he pounced on the paralysed woman.
As he saw her wide eyes with shock, a raging desire to talk, to explain what was happening, to tell her why Death had come for her, came over him, but he bit down on his teeth and clenched his jaw tight. He lifted the blade and brought down as Delia screamed under her gag of webs. She shook violently and the stab that was aimed for her chest ended up slicing at her shoulder, a deep gash that sprang with blood.
She shook her hips, thrashing like a fish out of water and Jack lost his balance atop of her. She rammed a deceivingly strong foot on his chest and Jack toppled off the bed and crashed down on the nightlamp, plunging the room into darkness. A red fury was waking in him. Fucking bitch!
Weedle screeched and Jack stood quickly, seeing the dark form of Delia scramble to the nightstand and frantically search inside the drawer.
By the time Jack was upon her again, a bright flash of white burst between the killer and his prey, and Jack instinctively backed off.
“Meauuuuwwww…” Yellow eyes glowed in the dark. A Pokémon’s.
You real fucking bitch…
Had she always kept a Pokémon in her drawer? Whatever for? Had she been onto him?
This was a panther, or a leopard. A big cat, that was certain.
Weedle lunged at the Pokémon, sensing the danger, but the feline moved fast as a blink, and it swiped the big worm out of the air with a paw, spitting out a hiss. It nimbly stepped off the bed as Delia scurried herself to the farthest corner from Jack.
Jack began to whistle for a String Shot, but the panther Pokémon lunged at him the moment he made a sound. Jack brought up his knife, but it was for nothing. Teeth like daggers gripped around his shoulder and pierced down to the bone, chomping down with such force that something popped within him. He felt his power leave him, drained by the mouth of this feline beast. It had bitten him in the worst spot possible, close to the nape, where a bundle of nerves converged.
I die here?
A cackle whispered through the ceiling. Another mocked him from the walls. The panther Pokémon let go of Jack and leapt off him, digging its claws into his belly and his chest as it did so.
The cackling increased, resounding throughout the room and Delia gave a muffled yell. Jack got up slowly, still holding the knife in his hand and gazed around the room with malice in his eyes. When he spotted the odd but familiar red-eyed gnomes, his spirit lifted.
Are these your angels, Lord? They seemed to appear whenever he was in trouble.
One of the Gengar twins gave a growl that reverberated through the room and the panther Pokémon raised its back like a frightened cat, meowing low and eerily. A shadow darted through the room and the panther swiped. Another came from different side and the panther hissed, swiping again but missing.
The Gengars were toying with it.
Jack trained his eyes on Delia, across from him. His left shoulder was burning with pain, and he could not lift it, so he passed the knife to his good hand and took aim of Delia in the dark.
He lobbed the knife at her, aiming for the head, but the panther jumped and swiped it right off the air with the clinking of metal on claw.
Jack lost his cool.
“Kill her then!” he roared at the Gengar twins, but they cackled anew and darted through the room, still toying with the big cat.
He searched for Weedle in the dark and spotted its form, moving sluggishly on the floor, away towards the window.
“MOM!!!” the voice of Ash yelled outside the door.
Jack glared hatefully at Mrs. Ketchum for refusing to die, and turned, snatching Weedle from the floor and staggering over to the windowsill.
He climbed over with the agony in his shoulder increasing by the second and dropped to the ground below with a thud. Groaning, he picked himself up, remembering to take Weedle’s empty Poké Ball with him.
The Gengar twins could still be heard cackling inside the house, but Jack wasted no more time and made his way to his spot in the woods.
He had made a mess of things and failed in his very first task. More than a mess of things, he had become a run-away in a world he knew almost nothing about.