Corporate Alliance Territory
Eden City// Cordell Industries Central Territory.
Six Months later…
“Everything kinda sucks..”
Underneath the neon lights, a jadded dark-haired man stared blankly into the night sky, watching as drones weaved through the collapsing debris from the endless night above. Or, at least what constituted as a sky for the massive underground city wrapped in flames. The only defense between the humans that lived inside it and the hordes of monstrosities on the surface pouring in to tear them apart.
“And everyday is the same,” Jack muttered as his one-eyed gaze wandered from the collapsing ceiling to an alleyway where several demonspawn were desecrating the corpses of two tech-junkies.
Standing on the rubble of his old apartment, Jack closed his eye and breathed in the memories of the place he hadn’t seen in five years.
The late nights with his uncle Mike offering him whiskey and crackers.
The bedtime stories with Jill who would interrupt to regale him about her favorite Mecha-man TV show.
The hard times when money and taking care of his sister’s medical bills were Jack’s main concerns.
Bad times. Jack had often thought, but little did he know those hard times would be his fondest memories. Now, he would do almost anything to go back, to change his fate and never stand upon the roof that faithful night. To never have met Sahaqiel or went along with Mike’s plan to enlist in the Imperial army to evade his pursuers.
No, that wasn’t true. He loved Sahaqiel. Loved Ada. Loved his children. This he knew, yet if he could undo the nightmares… the voices that lingered with him. To go back and just be that same struggling teen…
However… that was the past, and now Jack stood in the present looking to shape the future for those he loved.
Or die trying.
“You… can’t.. stop him…” Cynthia Rockefeller let out as she clutched her bleeding throat, the leader of the Corporate Alliance gagging on her own blood as her killer stood over her. “He'll always be a step ahead…”
“Maybe. Maybe not, but I sure as hell can kill everyone he knows,” Jack said, his foot placed on the woman's body as she looked up, pleading for mercy to the man adjusting his eye patch as Armageddon unfurled around him.
“Mercy? This is my mercy, be lucky I allow you to die so quickly,” Jack replied as he pressed his foot down, kicking the still-breathing woman down the slope where the horrors of humanity immediately beset her body.
Cynthia’s screams choked the air, but it was a sound Jack had come to know all too well as an angel hounded by monsters daily.
Noticing Jack, a few of the horrid abominations turned to him, monsters akin to zombified humans snarling and moving to attempt to satiate their hunger on the immobile man composed of fresh meat.
Unfortunately for the monsters, their existences were snuffed from the world the moment they entered within five feet of Jack.
With his authority, Jack merely willed it, and it was so, the snarling corrupted nightmares ripped apart at an atomic level to join with the collection under Jack’s control. A feat that was only possible thanks to vast differences in strength.
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The other demonspawn quickly took the hint, returning to their feasting of the rotting corpses as they recognized Jack’s existence as something akin to their own.
“I’m sorry,” Jack whispered, gingerly clutching a red action figure in his hand as an audible flapping of wings caressed his ears.
A final gift from his sister.
Jack looked down at the rubble beneath his feet he once called home and released the toy in his hand, watching as it slowly fell and hit the ground beneath his feet with an audible clack.
“Jack…” Sahaqiel said, the golden-haired archangel driving the demonspawn into a frenzy as her gold sabatons touched gently against the pile of rubble.
At her presence, Jack merely stood immobile, his gaze looking out at the underground metropolis in ruin. A direct consequence of his own actions to draw out and hunt down his prey.
“I’ve finally found you,” Sahaqiel said, her hand reaching out to caress the man she had watched grow from a teen, a man who knew her soul and desires. A man she loved. Yet… as she reached out, she felt no warmth. No ounce of the tormented man who wanted desperately to live in peace and protect his family.
Now, all that was before her was a man who oozed venom. A man whose reflected features in the nearby rubble held no joy. Instead, all she saw was a… void.
“You know Ada is worried about you right?” Sahaqiel said, attempting to reason with Jack, “Celeste is getting so big, Ito's already crawling and-”
“Stop,” Jack said, the singular word sending a chill through Sahaqiel in a way that only a being like herself could do.
Jack spun, facing the woman, the two golden-eyed angels face to face amidst the chaos of a city under attack.
In Jack’s eye she saw a coldness. A darkness that manifested behind his gaze like a shell to mask the pain she knew dwelled within.
Sahaqiel clenched her jaw, choosing to stand her ground.
“It’s time to come home, Jack. Time to be with your family,” Sahaqiel said, furrowing her brow, taking Jack’s hand with the warmth of her soft flesh pressing against his hard callous hand, “Please… Everyone’s worried. You've already missed the birth of your daughter and son, you don't want to miss being in their lives.”
Jack took his hand back and turned away from the angel, staring at the carnage.
“They won't have a life unless I do what needs to be done,” Jack replied, his hand outstretched, pointing towards a massive building in the distance, the crown jewel of Eden City. "Micheal is still out there, just because we lost a few battles doesn't mean the war is over."
Cordell Plaza. Home to Cordell Engineering, an organization under the control of the Black King responsible for engineering parts used in the High-Table projects.
Parts used to create the monster Jill had become.
Alarmed, Sahaqiel went wide-eyed, her gaze swapping rapidly from Jack and the distant Alliance military fighting off swarms of demonspawn.
“Jack, don’t do this! You’ve already killed the Gold Queen!” Sahaqiel snapped, realizing what Jack was about to do as Mana warped around him, “You read the report! They’re just engineers! They weren’t privy to what they were doing! Jill wouldn’t want this!”
At the mention of his sister’s name, Jack’s eye twitched.
“Sorry Sara,” Jack said coldly, the air vibrating violently with the rubble beneath their feet rising. “But I won’t stop until my family’s safe. That includes tying up all loose ends.”
“JACK-”
"Fira."
At that, Sahaqiel’s vision warped as a dense beam of black energy left Jack’s palm and carved a path of carnage through the city, a straight line that consumed all in its path and only stopped upon reaching the tower in the distance.
A miniature sun manifested around the tower, swallowing Cordell Plaza, the swarms of demonspawn, and the survivors who were instantly atomized.
Jack’s feet left the ground, the wind responding to his will as he prepared to leave.
“Jack…” Sahaqiel whispered as the light died down, revealing a perfect spherical crater in the earth, all signs of civilization within the center of the metropolis deleted by his attack. “JACK!”
Sahaqiel reached out, willing the mana like a form of telekinesis to wrap around Jack to stop him. The effect lasted only for a moment, the mana under her control usurped by Jack who not only dominated it but made it his own.
The Archangel fell to her knees, suddenly out of breath as a heavy weight pressed upon her, her own energy easily inverted by Jack thanks to her shared connection with the new-age Angel.
Jack paused, turning to face Sahaqiel who looked up at him through teary eyes, “Please… come home.”
“This is my home,” Jack replied, taking off into the night with Sahaqiel unable to follow.