“EAS: This is not a test. This is not a test. This is a nationwide alert for The Empire of Cordellica and all territories. We are under attack. All citizens are ordered to shelter in place while the Imperial Army moves to restore order. Those with Class 2 designation however are ordered to report to their local garrison.”- Imperial Emergency Alert System.
*****
“Dad, I don't want to go to school!” Celeste cried, the small child struggling as Jack carried the half-dressed pre-schooler under his arm while his other cradled a crying baby boy.
Disheveled with black spots under his eyes, and in a wrinkled vomite-covered uniform of an Imperial mage, Jack glided through his messy mansion as he attempted to get his kids ready.
“You've got to go to school if you want to grow up big and smart, princess,” Jack said, setting his daughter on a marble counter and handing her an apple from a nearby basket. “Don't you want to make friends?”
“Nope!” Celeste said earnestly, shaking her head, “I have you!”
Jack smiled, “Well, don't you want to help your mom out? Remember, she's counting on you.”
“But she's not my mom!” Celeste yelled, throwing the apple onto the floor.
Jack sighed before placing Ito in his crib, his son cooing as Jack activated soothing touch on the boy and ruffled his patch of black hair.
“Celeste, we've talked about this,” Jack said, placing both of his hands on his daughter's face, “Selfia… is your mother. She's your mom. Look at me Celeste, Selfia. Is. Your. Mother. Leona is just your aunt. Do you understand? If you tell anyone otherwise you will be in big trouble, ok?”
Of course that was a lie, the child's mother was Collette, a knight in service to the enemy. A battle-junkie whose loyalty to her adopted family kept her on the sinking ship known as the Roland Empire.
And so, she entrusted her daughter to Selfia and the Selfian Empire, perhaps the only place she knew her child would be safe.
“Okaaay,” The four year old let out with a sense of guilt bubbling up within Jack.
“Celeste, look me in the eye when I'm talking to you,” Jack directed in an authoritative tone, attempting to be firm yet kind. “I need you to promise me that you will call Selfia mom.”
The girl's golden eyes met Jack’s.
“I promisse,” Celeste pouted.
“Pinky promise?” Jack said, holding his finger up.
“Okaaay.” Celeste said as Leona looked on from the doorway nearby.
“Ya know, at this rate we'll be late for her first day,” Leona said, tapping her watch.
“Sorry, Ada was tired, so I had to change Ito's diaper, feed him, and put him in for a nap,” Jack replied, helping Celeste off the counter. “Then this one tried to sneak off into a vent again.”
Celeste stuck out her tongue.
“You do know you have servants for this right?” Leona said as Celeste rushed from Jack to take her hand.
“And miss out on the joys of parenting?” Jack replied, giving off a not-too-convincing smile as he rubbed his sleep deprived eyes and reached for his spear uniform dangling on a nearby chair. “I think not.”
“Riggght. Well, Kamila is always willing to lend a hand. There's no shame to ask for help.”
“I know, I just…” Jack trailed off, his hand stroking Celeste's hair. “I missed out on a good portion of Celeste’s life, and I don't want to do the same with Ito,” Jack said, setting the baby monitor beside the crib. “I at least want to be here to see him walk.”
Leona leaned over, planting a kiss on Jack’s cheek.
“W-what was that for?” Jack asked, caught off guard.
“You're a good man, Jack,” Leona said before her watch beeped, followed by Selfia's voice angrily complaining.
“Hey you two! Where the hell are you guys?! You're going to make me late for my own damn grand opening!” Selfia yelled, “Are you two banging?! You better not be having sex or so help me ME I'll drag-”
Stolen story; please report.
Jack reached over, tapping a button on the watch that hung up the call.
Celeste looked up, blinking repeatedly before her next words made Jack's blood run cold.
“Daddy, what's sex?”
“Nothing you'll never ever ever need to know or worry about princess,” Jack said ruffling his daughter’s hair.
“Why did you kill auntie Jill?”
Jack froze, the entire world coming to a stand still.
“What did you say?” Jack asked, looking at his daughter.
“Why did you kill your sister?” Leona asked, both she and Celeste staring at Jack, the pair pointing at him.
“”Why did you kill Jill?””
“I-i didn't-” Jack began, taking a step back only to stop as hands reached out, accosting Jack from behind.
“Why did you let me die?” Eleanor said, the blonde officer covered in blood, her red eyes glaring at Jack who immediately jolted, attempting to flee, yet he couldn't as something caught his boots.
“Why did you kill me?” Hoffman said, staring at Jack from below as he latched onto Jack's boots.
“I had no choice!” Jack spat, attempting to look away, a sense of dread and helplessness taking him as he screamed and pulled away from the ghosts holding him.
“But you did…”
“Stop! This isn't real!” Jack yelled, swiping through the air that made the ghost of Eleanor vanish into smoke.
“Why did you get my father killed?” Yukino asked, replacing the woman with her father's severed head in her hands, the man Jack thought of as a father asking him the same thing.
“Stop… stop!” Jack roared, firing a bolt of lighting that disintegrated the specter into an echo of maniacal laughter.
Immediately Jack spun, attempting to flee, yet before him was his daughter and Leona, the pair joined by Tangerine asking why his friends all died.
“It wasn't my fault,” Jack spat, backing up only to bump into a green-haired girl covered in blood.
“Why are you alive?” Jill whispered, her form rapidly twisting, morphing into an abomination sprouting tentacles that reached out for the horrified Jack.
****
“IT'S NOT MY FAULT!” Jack's eyes snapped open, his breathing ragged as he sat up in a bed located in a desolated ruin.
"You need therapy."
“Where the hell am I?” Jack asked, scanning his unfamiliar surroundings.
“Ruby dragged your ass into the city’s town hall. What's left of it anyway,” Lilith replied, the specter laying down beside Jack on a dusty mattress.
“I see…” Jack said, rubbing his now healed face and sitting up, “What time is it?”
“Somewhere around five in the afternoon last clock I looked at.”
“Fuck,” Jack said, looking out the window at the mounds of demonspawn corpses that lay dissecated.
Ruby's handiwork as usual, the woman working round the clock to keep Jack safe as his shield.
“Who's next on the list?” Jack asked.
“Red Rook. Blonde dropped off a list before leaving.”
Jack spun to face Lilith, “Sara was here?”
“She showed up, fawned over you, stroked your head, cried, bitched, then left, the usual,” Lilith replied as Jack picked up the intellipad nearby to read the dossier.
“Red Rook… General Dorian Jazz. Former commission officer of the Empire and… Second Solomon survivor,” Jack trailed off.
Second Solomon. Jack smiled faintly. Finally, a lead.
Sahaqiel had once said that Heaven was located over the continent known as Africa.
And here a member of the Black King’s party was amassing soldiers, survivors from the expeditions to board specialized craft known as boats to reach the continent.
But why?
The Black King had won hadn't he? Kick started a new apocalypse by summoning the Apostles of the End to wipe out humanity to start over.
So why gather soldiers?
Why procure supplies?
Was it to secure his chosen? To protect the people who would be a new foundation of humanity’s reclamation?
According to the King Jack was meant to be a savior, but what Jack became was a beacon that attracted monsters.
Jack sighed, he didn't know. All he did know was that his next target was there.
With the Gold Queen dead, the White Knight in chains, the Green Bishop in a basement being experimented on, and the purple pawn’s head mounted in Selfia's office, this left only two top members of the High Table left.
The Rook and the King.
There were also the subsidiaries, organizations and businesses that supported the High Table, but those would come later, for now, he had to deal with a high value target while they were still in the midst of preparing.
Jack shifted the page on the intellipad, eyeing the list of resources supplied to him to assault a compound with at least a thousand hostiles.
Twelve Dropships.
Three gunships.
Two MECHFrame squads.
Sixty commandos.
Four tanks.
Five awakened.
Jack pursed his lips, underwhelmed by the lack of support. But, considering every remaining city across the world including Hoshido was fighting off hordes of demonspawn, Jack didn't complain. After all, being outnumbered was practically his day job now.
“Did Sarah say anything before she left?” Jack asked, storing the intellipad onto his storage device.
“Only that you should visit your children,” Lilith said as Jack looked out the shattered window to gaze upon the ruined city. “It's important she said. Extremely so and you should be there.”
“Fine,” Jack said, I can swing by before I tackle the Rook.