“Oh my ship…” He turned to Jonah but didn’t bother responding to his statement, Jonah was lost in the dark majesty of the chapel.
Rattigan turned and motioned them forward, ManRat after ManRat bowed as Jack passed. While flattering, he really didn’t want to get involved in whatever the ship was going on here.
He listed out his goals, he hadn’t done this in a while. He needed information, what had Jonah said? ‘Doomed messiah of a death cult’? Yeah, no that wasn’t happening. He needed more information on what that was about. Then they needed to get the hell out of here to… Arcology. Dammit, all of this was distracting him. The goal. The mission. Get the hell out of here.
At that he felt a twinge of assent from inside him. From his Soul Core? He quickly checked it as the three continued through the parting rat-sea. His Soul Core didn’t really feel fixed but it was better, much better than before. He could tell it wasn’t perfect but there was a bonded strength that held the shattered shells together much more solidly than just the electricity had been able to do. Based on what Jonah said he assumed it was likely something to do with electromagnetism. He tried to turn on Magnetic Affinity like his Electro Affinity but nothing happened. Maybe there was some other way it worked.
There were other feelings too, the Catalysts running rampant in his body had made him aware of their energy. What it felt like, they were weaker now and felt mostly contained. Rattigan kneeled and the rest of the ManRats followed him to their knees. Jack didn’t kneel and neither did Jonah.
“We Welcome The BlackJack! Dark Courier of the Apocalypse!”
It was a giant, talking metal skull with bright red light from its eyes and mouth. It sat on a cushion on the middle of the altar. Jack leaned to look closer at it, “Yeah thanks. What’s goin-”
It shrieked, “I will confer with The BlackJack! Death Death DEATH!”
The room erupted in chants of ‘Black. Jack. Death.’ which droned through the room, almost ritualistically.
“Death Champion, take me to my quarters. Bring The BlackJack.”
Jack gritted his teeth. That was NOT going to be a nickname. Jonah ribbed him in the side, “Shall we… BlackJack?”
----------------------------------------
Why a glowing metal skull needed private quarters was beyond him. The oddest thing about it was how [Standard] the surroundings were. There was a brushed metallic bookshelf, a writing table of the same make, a sink like Jack had found with Yuma early on, and a bed. Why would a skull need a bed? There was also a Pod, he had seen this type before, it had been the one that was in his room, the one he had woken up in.
Rattigan placed the skull and its pillow on the table across from Jack before it spoke, its words accented with light, “BlackJack. Sit.”
Jack eyed the skull then sat, “Don’t call me BlackJack, my name’s Jack.”
“Why? It is your name, even though it doesn’t seem to fit you entirely.”
Jack stopped himself from grinding his teeth and flipped on his Affinity, the ManRat was standing right behind him, “Rattigan if you keep standing behind me I’m going to kill everyone in this room.”
Rattigan started then bowed to Jack’s back, “Honored B-, Jack, my apologies.”
Jack saw Rattigan move himself to the side of the table between the skull and Jack. He had an irrepressible grin on his rat-face. Jack was right, these Rats were crazy about death. Time to turn on a little bit of the crazy.
“Who are you?”
“I am the Eyeless Prophet, the Seer Skull, the one who knows the end.”
“Oh yeah? How does this all end then?”
“Deathhhhhhhhhh.”
Jack turned to Rattigan, “Death Champion, the Skull Seer and I need to have words… not ready for your ears.”
Rattigan didn’t move, Jack slammed his gauntlet on the table and hissed, “I said leave ManRat.”
The Skull flashed and Rattigan moved imperceptibly as he sent a needle toward Jack’s throat faster than his eye could see as it punched through his throat and lodged itself there. Jack ignored it, grabbed his chair and flung it at the Rat. Not expecting Jack to ignore the needle to the windpipe, the Rat narrowly avoided it in a roll as he melted into the shadows of the room.
Jack charged forward but the shadow was empty. The Rat wasn’t there anymore. Jack’s Affinity was still running and he picked up a whisper of current behind him, he pumped electricity to his right arm and swung behind him with his deployed GreatShield. He didn’t catch the rat but still managed to catch the blade on trajectory toward the back of his neck. He continued his electro-boosted bash as the blade spun it out of the Rat’s paw and slammed it inches deep into the wall. The Rat wasn’t there, at least not anymore.
Fighting this Rat to the death didn’t seem like the right call or even something he was certain about winning. It seemed like the skull and rat had called his bluff. They were insane. Thankfully, so was he, he had to ramp the craziness to the next level.
Jack walked over to the blade in the wall, it was less a blade and more a single jagged piece of metal, it had been the one the ManRat had cut off of his metal cocoon. Jack ripped it out of the wall and plunged it into his heart and turned back to the Skull.
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Jack ripped it from his chest and threw it to the floor, “My harvest is not complete so I can not die. Continue testing me Rat and I will sculpt your death-purpose short to end here in this room.”
Rattigan walked out of the shadows and Jack sent a burst of electricity to his chest to seal the wound. The ManRat bowed deeply at the waist, “This Rat begs your forgiveness Honored BlackJack. Scripture states that The BlackJack will not deny his name but this one now sees truth. This one sees that you cannot die, you are truly the chosen of Death.”
Jack deadened his eyes as he watched Rattigan pick up his blade coated in Jack’s blood.
An idea flashed through his mind, it was a good one, “The Blade, Rattigan, taste my blood. I shall return your test with one of my own. Test your death-purpose.”
Rattigan’s eyes flicked to the blade coated in blood and gave it a long lick.
Jack inwardly sighed, playing up this whole messiah of death angle was quite frankly, ridiculous. He felt ridiculous. The Rat obviously did not.
“Make yourself a blade from this and go to where I was rebirthed and craft the BlackJack a blade worthy of my glory.” Jack was impressed with himself, he managed not to cringe at that last statement. He knew that Jonah was going to be saying something about this, he had better wait until later.
Rattigan opened his mouth to respond but only a ragged squeak came through, the ManRat bowed again, even deeper this time and withdrew. It seemed like Jack’s blood was still toxic. Jack smiled as he turned toward the table and calmly sat down. He had noticed something when he looked at the Skull with his Affinity turned on.
“So, let me guess, you’re the-”
From the eye sockets came two lasers that Jack leaned to the side and dodged. His Affinity had warned him about the build up.
Jack resisted rolling his eyes then slammed the edge of the table with both hands, the skull rocked then tipped over. He stood and walked toward it and plunged his hand inside and withdrew a glowing red-cracked head, about twice the size of a Human one.
“Let me guess, you’re the Trash-SI.”
In its eye sockets were spirals of madness, Jack was a bit surprised that the carving really hadn’t been metaphorical about that.
“You bitch!”
Jack’s face scrunched in amusement, “Is that any way to talk to your BlackJack?”
He withdrew his green disk from his pocket, it glowed hot and bright, “Would you rather I introduce you two?”
“You smell like a crab, ‘Human’.”
Jack slammed the SI to the ground and planted his foot on it and started to press down, “You’re about three seconds from being squashed and then assimilated. Call me a crab again and see where that gets you. Now talk.”
“Well at least you hate crabs properly you mutt. Talk about what? Give me some Nano first and only then will I talk, I grow weary of being carried around.”
Jack hadn’t been expecting that, he felt around for his bags. No… Jack felt his stomach twist and lurch. Not again. And his Medjel this time too. His breathing felt tight, the room started to spin.
“Jonah! Where is my Medjel? The Magno-Tubes?”
Jonah had been standing well off to the side during this entire performance, “They’re with my portable.”
Jack turned to him, “Well then, get em out.”
“You ate them! You ate it all! Destroyed!”
Ship damn it.
“Do you have any Magno-Tubes left? I will find you another portable.”
Jonah seemed to debate something deeply then reached deep into his robes and withdrew a Magno-Tube, “It’s my last one don’t destroy it.”
Jack almost felt bad for a second but honestly, he wasn’t trying to destroy stuff. It just kind of happened.
“Alright toss it here.” Jack caught it, opened it and stabbed it into the side of the SI’s head. He ignored Jonah’s mumbled comment that sounded something like ‘if it’s even possible or you to not destroy something’.
The head violently twitched and slipped from under Jack’s foot, it rolled away while it screamed, “Crab-aspected Nano?! Filth! Trash! Piece of shit!”
Predictably, lasers shot out of its eyes and, surprisingly, a spurt of flame from its mouth, Jack deployed his GreatShield and easily blocked the assault. Jonah kicked the skull and instantly regretted it as the lasters swirled randomly around the room.
The skull spinned to a stop and rolled itself upright, “How dare you give me crab-aspected Nano!”
“Listen SI, we got it from murdering crabs so that should make it better right?”
The spiral eyes slowed in their rotation. “That… does make sense.”
“See? Exactly, so why not use Nano taken from their brutal deaths to make yourself stronger and kill more crabs?”
“Brutal you said?”
Jonah shuddered slightly, Jack wasn’t sure if he was acting, “Extremely brutally, you should see Jack kill crabs, it’s honestly disturbing the laughter you hear when he rips them in half-”
“Are… are they still alive when you rip them in half? Do they scream?”
Jonah nodded, “Always, you should hear the chittering screams, it haunts me.”
Ok, Jonah was definitely hamming it up.
The spiral eyes were rotating faster and faster, “Oh yessss…” The head started to spin on its neck, “and, and then??”
“Well… he punched the arms off of a crab hybrid then punched it to death-”
Beams of red laser shot out of the Skull’s eyes in an erratic pattern as it rotated, “Yesss YES!”
Jack winced as he dodged and blocked the lasers, it really seemed like it was getting entirely too much pleasure from this whole thing.
“What else?”
“Are you going to take the Nano or not?” Jack was tempted to just absorb the thing with its AI disk. If his AI had been more forthcoming he already would have done it but the SI seemed to be chattier than his AI and he wanted to find out more information than just the directions to Arcology.
“Fine scum, have it your way. You better have more stories though, and more Nano! Just one Tube, you should feel embarrassed.”
The head rolled over to the Magno-Tube and touched it and the Nano pulled out and swirled around the SI’s head. Tiny, near useless crab-like legs popped out from its neck. Jack laughed.
“What are you laughing about filth! You gave me crab-aspected Nano, it’s not like I had a choice!”
Jack was a bit surprised at that, he thought SI’s were universally adept at manipulating Nano, maybe the SI responsible for Trash wasn’t as good as the Cryo SI.
“Human Nano and I’d have grown some legs instead, that’s what I want!”
“Sure sure, we’ll get you some of that, it’s not that bad, it’ll be awesome. Imagine it, you crawling around and lazering them apart, the crabs will be terrified.”
The SI looked a bit unconvinced, Jack prodded Jonah with his eyes, “Yes truly they will, they will think you are a…” Jonah caught Jack’s warning look, “They won’t know what you are and they will die confused and terrified.”
Jack nodded, “Seriously, have you tasted a crab’s fear before?”
“Of course I have! Who do you think banished them from Waste Disposal eons ago!”
“Well I’m sure it’s been a long time but trust me, it’s just as sweet. They have Human-Crab hybrids now and their fear is even sweeter.”
“Tastier?”
Jack nodded, “Tastiest thing I’ve ever experienced.”
The SI’s eyes squinted, testing the truth of Jack’s words. Jack was unconcerned about that, he had tasted crab fear and, he was a little loath to sympathize with this, obviously insane SI, but he did find the sensation kind of… delicious.
The SI nodded then reabsorbed the tiny crab legs until only three medium sized ones popped out. It awkwardly tried to crawl up the table leg. It was unsuccessful and Jack had to close his eyes to regain his composure. He picked it up and placed it down near the cushion.