Chapter 94 – The Not so Gentle Rain

Jack stared down at Ondfauxt’s corpse, panting heavily, heart pounding, mind racing. He had killed Rodeo. He had outsmarted him, outplayed him, he had been better than him. But somehow Rodeo was still alive.

“Jack…” came a voice that he recognized but couldn’t quite place. He couldn’t think straight at all. He scanned the surrounding area. Rodeo was still out there somewhere.

I’ve gotta get ready for his next move. Jack pulled his daggers out of Ondfauxt and fell into a stance. He knew that Rodeo wasn’t done with him. He had to be ready.

“Jack…” came the voice again.

Come on out, you piece of shit. I’m ready for you. Jack thought, letting more bloodlust seep into his body. The fight had drained him of all his energy. He didn’t have any tricks left. He could barely move, could barely think, but there was no other option; the fight wasn’t over.

“Jack!”

“What!?” He roared, turning around to see Sarah staring at him. His heart stopped cold.

Shit. Sarah is still here. That’s his plan. Rodeo is going to make a play for her. Jack gripped his daggers tighter and bit down hard in frustration. His eyes scanned the surrounding area behind her. He couldn’t protect Sarah and Kill Rodeo. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he could protect-

“Jack.” Sarah said a final time, stepping close to him and grabbing his head in both hands. “Calm down Jack.” She said in a soothing voice.

“He’s still out there. It isn’t safe. I have to-” Jack choked out. His mind and heart racing for entirely different reasons now. He tried to pull away. He couldn’t afford to be distracted right now, but Sarah held him even tighter.

Gentle rain started pouring down all around them, and Sarah pressed her forehead to Jacks. The rain was warm and smelled of lavender and warm honey. It kicked up the dirt around them bringing fresh earthen smells to cover up the stink of blood and battle. Despite his fear he felt his mind clear, his heartbeat slow.

“It’s okay Jack. He’s gone. I’m safe,” she said again. “Come back to us. Come back to me.”

Jack felt a shiver as her breath grazed against his lips. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, drinking in her presence Sarah was here. She was alive. And at least for now they were both safe.

“God, I missed you…” Jack found himself saying. Sarah slowly pulled away from him, a small smile on her face. Jack smiled back at her.

Her smile quickly turned into a frown as she took stock of the man in front of her.

“You missed me?” She asked, voice stern. Jack’s eyes flashed to her hand, which had started to form a blue green orb. Jack wasn’t sure yet if it was passive instinct or intentional.

“Excuse me If I don’t believe you. We’ve been in here what, six or seven months and it takes a war for our paths to cross?” She said, voice getting harder with each word, the ball of mana growing larger in her hand with each passing second.

Does she know she’s doing that? Jack wondered as he raised his hands in surrender.

“Hold on-“

She threw the ball of water mana at him in a forceful gesture knocking Jack several feet backwards. He quickly sat up and spit out the mouthful of water he had ingested. Despite an unfortunate amount of water that had been force up his nose, the spell completely refreshed his body and started to heal him. Looking back at his assailant, something about the way Sarah had aggressively thrown it at him kinda made it feel like that wasn’t her intention.

“Also,” she started, forming another large ball of water mana in her hand, “You killed people… for money Jack. Money! When did you plan on telling me you were a hitman, huh?”

“I prefer assass-“

She blasted him with another one of her extremely aggressive healing spells. While the healing didn’t hurt it gave him an uncomfortable feeling. Like being much too full from Thanksgiving dinner but all over his entire body.

“You lied to me. You abandoned me. You don’t get to sit here and tell me you missed me.” She said, gaze turning fiery as she stared down at Jack.

Damn I forgot how cute she is when she’s angry. Jack thought to himself.

“Ok, obviously the cat’s out of the bag there, but I can explain.”

Sarah cocked an eyebrow at him.

“I was out!” Jack started, “Well, almost out…you were never supposed to find-“

This time Sarah’s “healing” spell did hurt as she blasted him with a torrent of water that felt more like a firehose. Jack just covered his head in the fetal position trying to keep the water from waterboarding him.

I wonder if this is what people mean when they say they are “drowning in your love.”

“Everything ok over here?” came another voice that Jack both recognized and was starting to hate.

The torrent of water stopped, and Jack pushed himself to a sitting position, wiping water out of his eyes to look at the new arrival.

Gideon.

The dragon stood there looking plenty heroic as Sarah walked over to him.

“You ok?” he asked gently, brushing some of her hair back behind her ear.

“I’m fine, just getting something out of my system,” she smiled back, taking Gideon’s hand in her hers.

Jack rolled his eyes while trying to shake water out of one of his ears.

“I’m fine too. Thanks for asking.”

“Nobody asked.” Both Gideon and Sarah said.

“I take it you let him get away?” Gideon stared down at the disappearing corpse of Ondfauxt, and then over to Jack.

“I don’t know if let him are the exact words I would use.” Jack said, his anger returning in a second. It was bad enough Rodeo got away. Now he had to deal with judgemental tones from his ex-girlfriend's' new boyfriend. He mindlessly reached into his void sack and pulled out a bottle, taking a long pull from it.

“Then where is he?” Gideon asked.

“He escaped.” Sarah cut in. “I don’t know how. It shouldn’t have been possible. Jack had beaten him through and through. I saw that much.”

Jack smiled at that. Sarah might be infuriated with him, but her justice boner was big enough to make superman jealous. She wouldn’t stand by and let him take the blame, even if she did hate him.

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“Magic Tower Bullshit is how.” Jack offered.

“Yea, you better get used to that,” Gideon sighed, “everyone always always seems to have some unanticipated life saving ability up their sleeve, and it only gets worse the higher you climb. This is my fault. I should have taken this fight more seriously. I should have been the one facing off against him.” He finished, tone apologetic.

“It’s not your fault. If you didn’t fend off the reinforcements, we likely wouldn’t have won against the Rough House. Rodeo lives, but he won’t be able to easily rebuild. That’s a win. Come, let’s make sure everyone is ok. Healing others heals the heart.” Sarah said in a reassuring tone, taking Gideon’s hand and walking back towards the Rough House.

Jack sat there in the dirt, watching as they walked back down the dirt path. He wanted to throw up. Instead, he stood up and chased after them. He may be losing the battles, but he refused to lose the war.

He instead ran into Hannah, who passed by Gideon and Sarah with a small wave, and walked up next to Jack.

“Did you kill him?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Jack said sullenly.

“Shit.” Hannah muttered under her breath.

Jack slowed his walk up the road, taking in the surrounding aftermath of the fight. There were dead bodies everywhere slowly dematerializing as the Tower absorbed them, leaving nothing but armor and weapons behind. He had an absent thought about what happened to them. Where did they go?

I am nowhere near drunk enough to start following that trail of thought.

Instead he walked over to some of the armor pieces laying on the battlefield and tried to get his bracer armor thing to wake up and start eating. He wasn’t an expert in armor-eating shapeshifting shadow-creatures, but after it had taken the explosive blast, it had been noticeably dormant.

“I think my armor is dead.”

“Hmm. Take a lot of damage or something?”

“An explosive blast. Likely saved my ass.” Jack grimaced. He inspected the living armor, poking it with an experimental finger, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Maybe it just needed time to recover.

“So, what happened to you?” Jack asked, letting out a sigh as he marched back up the road, keeping distance with Sarah and Gideon, his eyes unable to leave her.

“When I left to go find us an escape route, I stumbled across their raiding party. Shortly after that, I found Sam and he gave me a very abridged version of what was happening.”

“Sam,” Jack slowly said, chewing on his tongue in thought. “He seems to have done pretty well for himself over the past couple of months.”

“He also seems to be best friends with a dragon,” Hannah said matter of fact. “I’m worried he’s gone and done something stupid.”

Jack and Hannah approached the Rough House, which looked like whatever U.F.E. forces remained had taken it over. They quickly spotted Sam, who was running around handing out potions and having conversations with the injured. He looked up and made eye contact with the two of them, then he immediately looked away, busying himself with someone else.

“Ok, he definitely did something stupid.” Hannah said.

“Does he think he can avoid us? He knows I’m faster than basically everyone here combined, and he can’t run away, right?”

“I think he might need a reminder.” Hannah grimaced as they watched Sam walk up to Sarah and Gideon.

“I kinda feel like he’s traded us in for a new mom and dad.” Jack mused, walking towards the group.

“Shut up.” Hannah groaned.

“Hey guys!” Sam said with an awkward smile as Jack and Hannah approached.

“Samuel.” Hannah said, fixing him with a sharp stare.

“Sammy boy. Lookin’ good. I’ve missed you, bud. Glad to see you’re doing ok.”

“He’s more than ok, he’s been a real terror on the battlefield!” Gideon chimed in, face full of joy as he clasped Sam on the shoulder.

“Nice. Maybe you could tell us about it? I want to know what my loyal friend has been up to this whole time. I need details man, I’m so out of the loop.” Jack said, trying his hardest to guilt trip him.

“Uhmm, yeah, that sounds good.” Sam said, looking down at his feet.

“Actually, Jack, I was hoping the two of us could have a conversation.” Gideon asked, a knowing grin on his face.

“Hard pass.” Jack said, still staring at Sam.

“Come on Samuel…Sammy, let’s talk,” Hannah said, her tone more reassuring than Jacks. Sam looked up at that and smiled back at Hannah.

“Okay.” He said after another long moment.

“Be nice. We’re going to come looking for him here in a few minutes,” Sarah called out as the trio walked away.

“That’s strange. I wonder why they think we would hurt you, Sam.” Jack said matter of fact.

Admittedly, Jack was annoyed at that insinuation. There was quite literally nothing Sam could do that would make Jack and Hannah turn on him. He didn’t know if he should be disappointed in himself, or in Sam, that he didn’t seem to know that already. A lot really had changed in the past few months.

After about five minutes of walking they were out of earshot of any unwanted listeners and came to a slow stop.

“Spill.” Hannah said, crossing her arms.

“What's to tell? I joined up with the U.F.E.” Sam said, scratching the back of his head.

“Samuel.” Hannah said more sternly.

Sam paced around, chewing on his fingernail, deep in concentration. Jack leaned back against a tree, watching him. Sam was nervous. Really nervous.

“You guys weren’t supposed to be here. I need a minute to gather my thoughts.” Sam finally said.

“You’ve had your minutes, Sam. It won’t get any easier. So out with it.”

Sam turned to Jack, and his eyes flashed hard for the briefest of seconds.

“I thought you guys might have actually died. You were in the dungeon for so long. I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t want to be responsible for all of humanity dying,” he quickly said. “I can’t even begin to explain how strong Gideon is. He can help us… but…”

“But?” Jack asked.

“But he can’t help us if he doesn’t know. I had to tell him.”

“What did you tell him?” Hannah asked.

“Everything.” He said, eyes filled with defiance as he met both Jack and Hannah’s gaze.

Jack cocked an eyebrow at Hannah, whose gaze was perfectly neutral, not revealing anything as she stared back at Sam.

“Well, that wasn’t so hard now, was it? It’s alright Sam. You did what you had to do.”

“Wait, you aren’t mad?” Sam asked, confused.

“You thought we were dead. Sounds like you figured out a way to not only survive, but thrive. We can’t fault you for that.”

“Excuse me.” Jack interrupted. “I’m a little mad he thought a little ol’ dungeon with a centuries old berserker king could kill us… but I guess that can be forgiven.” He finished with an easy smile.

“So, you aren’t going to kill Gideon?” He asked, eyes brimming with hope.

Jack let out another sigh and looked back at Hannah, who now seemed a little annoyed at the situation.

“I don’t know Sam. You have any idea what he wants to talk to me about?”

“Probably wants to make sure you don’t try to kill him. Or maybe he wants to talk to you about Sarah.” Sam said, scratching at his chin.

“And why would he want to talk to me about Sarah?”

“Uhh…” Sam said, looking down at his feet again. “You should just go talk to him.”

“Right. Well, let’s get you back to your new best friends before they send out search and rescue.” Jack said, making his way back towards the Rough House.

“They aren’t my best friends! You guys are!” Sam protested.

“Sureee.” Hannah said, finally joining back in on the conversation. “He used to look at us the same way he looks at Sarah and Gideon, remember that?”

“Like it was yesterday. Whatever happened to our little Sammy?” Jack said, voice dripping with longing.

“I got you a present!” Sam interrupted in an effort to change the conversation.

Jack stopped in his tracks and turned around, eyebrows cocked in curiosity.

“Presents would go a long way to smoothing over your betrayal.” Jack said.

Sam nodded; face so sincere that Jack almost felt bad for messing with him. He quickly pulled a small tome out of his void sack and handed it over to Jack.

Ability Manual - Chain Lightning

Type: Ability Manual

Tier: Rare

Prerequisite: Lightning Mana Core

Description:

Teaches [Chain Lighting - Ability, Uncommon]. This ability generates a dangerous bolt of lightning that can bounce to multiple targets.

May your lightning branch out far and wide.

[Use Ability Manual? Y/N]

“Well, well, well, this should be interesting.” Jack said with a dangerous smile. He selected yes and felt the knowledge of the ability flow into his brain.

He quickly searched for a mana drop to test it out, but frowned.

“We’re going to have to wait a day or two. Nothing in the tank.” Jack said, disappointed. Sam frowned at that news as well.

“So, where is my present?” Hannah said matter of fact.

“Uhh.” Sam said with a very deer in the headlight look.

“Oof. Better think of something quick, Sam. I’m going to go make sure Gideon isn’t making out with Sarah.” Jack said, turning and walking back towards the encampment, leaving him to fend off Hannah himself.