“Please.”
Jack’s eyes quivered, his body still despite the cascade of explosions, gunfire, and cries of pain flooding the air coated by bloodlust.
“Please…”
He could hear a voice, someone… someone who spoke a word laced with desperation, fear, and disbelief. Raw emotion given form in the way of a single syllable.
“Please…”
Denial? Begging? A ringing took hold of Jack’s ears as he sat on his knees amidst the chaos of an ongoing battlefield. Yet despite the flood of bullets, war cries, and the incredible booms of cannons, the only thing Jack’s eyes could focus on was the innards of a black mechframe that revealed to him the body of a mangled thing with green hair.
“Please…” Then, Jack realized whose voice he was hearing.
It was his. The only word capable of leaving his mouth as his blood-stained hands cradled the body of a girl named Jill.
His sister.
His family.
The girl-turned teen, now a farcry from the cheerful girl he once knew. Gone was her cheerful smile, gone was her bright eyes, and youthful energy. Instead, what replaced her was a thing in the guise of a human. A being composed of metal, wires, and growths that dotted her body like a cancer.
“Jack…” Jill let out, her eyes unable to see the world being turn apart around her.
“I’m right here Jill, your big brothers got you,” Jack’s voice quivered, holding the girl close as a tank shell deflected off his mana barrier.
“Did you see? Did you see… me?” Jill asked, the strength in her body rapidly fading as her skin began to flake and turn to ash. “I was walking… I was… helping…”
“I saw you, I saw you baby girl I saw you,” Jack said, rocking back and forth as tears fell from his eyes, and his hands stroked Jill’s hair caked with her blood.
“Jack,” Sahaqiel said, the angel standing beside her host alongside Ruby and Lilith, the trio unable to do anything for the man whom they owed their existence to.
Jill began to twitch, the cancerous growths seeming to spread black lines that snaked across her flaking skin.
He could feel it, an ominous energy that only demonspawn gave off. Jill was changing, the machine that she was-
Jack woke with a start, sitting up in the ruins of a building he had found on the surface of corporate territory.
“About time you're awake,” Lilith said, the black-laced dressed spirit standing over Jack with her arms crossed, red eyes glaring down.
“Hm,” Jack grunted, sitting up, surveying his surroundings of rubble and filth. “Did you find it?”
“I did.” Lilith said, the spirit vanishing and melding with Jack, her memories merging with her host.
Jack narrowed his eye, his mind aflame with images of sterilized white tunnels, winding halls, and pulsating vines of flesh and death.
There were hundreds, maybe thousands of demonspawn, but his quarry was here. A man in gold armor waiting for him with a spear.
Jack dusted himself off and wasted no time, the mana in the air responding to its master and levitating Jack off the ground until he floated above the ruins.
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Breaking free from the decrepit building, Jack saw mounds of corpses around the ruins, men and women in black attire being feasted on by demonspawn as Ruby stood guard.
Agents of the High Table, hunters that had been attacking Jack since he'd started his own hunt.
“Somehow despite the world going to shit, they still managed to throw these fanatics at me,” Jack said, turning his gaze to the blood red sun that hung above.
Jack closed his eye, embracing the heat of the star on his skin, his thoughts, one of happier days with Ada, Kamila, and Celeste. Days at the castle, weeks wandering around playing noble and politics, and months smiling.
Of course, Selfia wasn't so bad after awhile, but…
Everything had changed when Jill died. When Jack transcended the limit of humanity.
With numbers never before seen of demonspawn attacking and new types of monstrocities appearing, victory for humanity seemed all but assured. And while survival wasn't guaranteed, vengeance at least was. If anyone could reverse the hell that plagued the world, it would be the Black King who had yet to meet Jack face to face.
Like an arrow Jack flew, tearing through the sky at unprecedented speeds to his objective.
Before long, Jack stood above a fortress blanketed by snow, a castle settled in the middle of a frozen lake.
Solarus The Flying Fortress.
A Citadel of immense power that housed the former empress of the Arthurian Empire and treasures taken with her during her usurpation by Selfia.
But Jack wasn't here for the treasures. Nor was he here for the Former-Queen but rather the very man who had put a permanent scar on his chest. The very man who had laughed at his grief on that battlefield 6 months ago.
Today was a day about settling old debts.
Jack's skin tickled, the energy in the air rising as the citadel’s man cannon came online.
Despite being overtaken by rotten tendrils, rust, and decay, the magical machinery of the angels was still operational and intact with the red crystal aimed at Jack.
It fired at Jack, a dense magical beam consuming the space he floated in, an attack that could lay waste to entire towns or blow apart capital class airships.
Yet it did nothing to Jack, the man merely holding his hand aloft and allowing the energy to supercharge his body.
All across Jack patterns lit up, his body alight with sparks crackling around him.
When the attack finally stopped, Jack was akin to a star, his body radiating energy.
“Jill,” Jack said, the trigger word for his spell.
Immediately lighting fell from the sky, a glorious bolt of superheated white that struck the citadel crystal and shattered thousands of years of history it with arcs of electricity dancing across the flying fortress.
Jack floated down, stepping onto an open ring littered by broken MECHFrames, skeletons, guns, and pulsating mounds of flesh.
The remains of the once famed Valkyries, an elite force of MECHFrame pilots whom a dear friend of Jack's once belonged.
Now they were corpses, soldiers loyal to a mad monarch who had abandoned everything including her own people to serve the Black King.
Jack stepped past the deceased, entering into the Citadel proper and up a familiar set of massive stairs.
Before long, Jack stood before a large golden throne where none other than Selfia waited him.
“Took you long enough,” The Current Queen said, standing beside the throne kitted out in armor of gold.
Next to her, was Sahaqiel, Jin, and an entire complement of blue armored commandos.
“How’d you know I'd be here?” Jack asked, stepping past the group and the throne to ascend the stairs.
“Please,” Selfia scoffed, “After your fiasco in New Eden, it wasn't hard to track where you were going, especially since you're using MY Intel.”
“Hm,” Jack replied, joined by the others, “And instead of killing your mother you sat on your asses and did nothing?”
“Hey! I waited for you, ain't no way in hell I'm putting myself in Excalibur’s line of sight,” Selfia protested, “After all only you and blonde here can deal with it.”
“Right. Ever the pragmatist,” Jack said before spinning and flinging a lightning bolt at Selfia.
“Rude,” Selfia spat, the hologram reforming.
“Why are you here?” Jack asked, turning to face the hologram and Sahaqiel.
“To check up on you Jack,” Selfia said, “It's been 6 months. You don't call, you don't write. Don't you know a married woman gets lonely?”
“Is that it?” Jack said, glaring at Sahaqiel who looked away.
“No. I…” Selfia sighed, “I know what you're here to do. I know why you're doing it. But… I need my mother alive.”
Jack narrowed his eyes.
“I know what you're thinking Jack, but she is a source of numerous imperial secrets, lost arts, and techniques. Please, if you can, once you deal with my father, do me this favor. I promise it'll be forth it.”
“I'll see what I can do,” Jack said before turning away and climbing the decrepit stairs of gold.