Testament 031: Me, Myself and Jacob

"Unh!" Back at the Outerdeck facility, where Jackson and Cable remained, a moan filled the floors. It happened at the exact same time as Jacobs victory over Ananka, and it was Doe that felt a shot of pain. "Jack, whats wrong?" Cable asked him, he had just returned and saw his friend reaching for head, and resting against the wall. "..." Of course he could not answer in his condition, his personality was still silenced. "Jack?" Instead he looked out the window, and pointed a finger to the south. Cable realized which direction he aimed at. "You mean, something happened to them, something went down at Tower 0013?" He nodded with a grim expression. "That may be true. I just came back from the communication room. They say they lost all contact with the facility, over half an hour ago." And that could not be a good sign. "And there is more jack. I just received word of a disaster back at the tournament area." Doe's eyed widened. "Whatever is going on, we are losing options. Time is running out for all of us."

A similar feeling was experienced by Christine Rose, who was still with Ned in the camera room. "Oh no." She too sensed an agonizing jolt, when the shadowgame below seas came to a conclusion. "Rose, is everything okay?" Ned asked, when he saw her flinch. "I dont know, I just feel...sad for some reason." She shivered. Little did she know that during the time she had been possessed by Jacob, a link had been seeded inside her. Every time the shadow grew stronger, she felt a pulse of darkness. "I hope that has nothing to do with our friends then." Ned said, shifting his focus again to the secondary screen. "The satellite is still moving, whatever has gone on down there, they have not stopped Simone yet. In another half hour, not even a quick swim can get us to safety."

Ananka's LP: 0

"How.." The woman whimpered, as she clutched her bodily wound, the blood would not stop flowing. "How did you...win?" She could not get it, Exodia's power had been sealed, and all five pieces were sent to the grave. "Silly Annie, couldn't you see? Exodios has a second power, it too can declare an instant victory!" He pointed at the floor, all five pieces had formed a pentagram seal. "When it sends all five body parts to the grave, with its effect, the gate to infinity opens. Not even your Temperance can block that damage, its limitless, its death in its truest form." She slumped to the floor, her heart was beating erratically. "Ananka!" The others cried out, she stopped talking, stopped moving. "The shadowgame is over, I win." Dark Cleo approached the fallen seeress, holding a tarot card in her hand. "Oye, done already? I guess I overdid the penalty game." She dropped the 'The Death' Major Arcana card and smirked. "Never the less, your heritage ends here, this is mine." And then her greedy fingers claimed the Millenium Piece.

He then clasped on to the necklace with both hands, and pried it open as if it were made of lego blocks. "She never knew, eheh." What De La Isla had believed to be a separate item, were actually even more pieces of the puzzle. He cut the string and grabbed the three parts. Two were inserted into the frame-work of the puzzle, completing it. The final piece was the one with Ra's eye on it, it was one of the four walls. "Now all I need is Nero's pieces.. but in the mean time I suppose I can take over this body as well." However he was interrupted in the middle of his thoughts. "Get away from her!" by a fist that flew at his/her face. It sent the possessed goth back against the walls. The shadowy veil had been lifted, allowing the others to get through to him/her. "Oh thats right, you are still here." She smiled at a furious Nero and a thunderstruck Colin. Nero wheezed and stepped in front of Ananka, and Colin dropped to his knees to check on her. "No, she can not be.. Nero, she is not breathing!"

The others could finally see it clearly, feel it clearly, she was not moving again, ever. The wound had only been the illusion of his penalty game, but to her it felt real. "You monster." Real enough to alter destiny, to allow 'The Death' to mean just that, just for this one time. . "You killed her!?" Jacobus feared the worst, and hearing it made him even more enraged. "You did not have to go that far!!?" He cursed. "Every shadowgame has to end with a penalty game, thats the way it has been done since the ancient times. It is not my fault that her heart was so frail. Penalties can induce seizures and heart-attacks, she knew the risk." Blood trickled down from a cut on her cheek. "Heh, that actually hurt, little Nero. Are you going to stop hiding behind others, and face us already?" The spirit asked him. "No, I will not face her." He replied, and a smug grin formed on her face. "I knew it, I.." But it was not his turn to talk yet. "I will face you, and you alone." He pointed at himself. "Leave the others out of it, and come back to me."

Colins jaw dropped to the floor. "Dude, are you insane?" Jacob was equally stunned, but it was a pleasant kind of numbness. "Ah, you finally realize the truth. Or have you just gotten tired of running?" She/he relaxed, dropped the puzzle next to Nero and walked towards him. "This way, no-one else will get hurt." He took a few steps back, stopping in between compartments. "How noble." Of course, he had no intention of leaving anyone alive either way. "Then come." It was time at last, they stopped moving, Colin held his breath. Cleo took a deep breath, and exhaled. She collapsed immediately afterwards, and the malicious wraith floated out of her, and into the boy's body. "Ughaargh!" He screamed in pain for a moment. "Now!" And then all of the sudden, he pulled the lever next to him, and disconnected the two compartments. "Colin, restart it now, do it!" Shocked for a moment, he complied and reactivated the train. Sairve blinked and then he understood the plan. "You wanna get left behind, with him?!"

"Just do it!" He begged with all his might, he could not contain this malice for long. "Fine! I hope that you know what you're doing!" Colin yelled back at him, he rushed over to front. Next thing they knew, the train had been re-activated and the compartment with Colin, Cleo and Ananka on it was gone. "No!" Jacob shouted mentally, but it was too late for him to do anything. All he had left to influence was his original host and the puzzle. "I suppose you think this was terribly clever? I will chase after them anyway." He rasped towards the other Nero. "Perhaps, but I know one thing now, you can not control me as well as you could. They no longer talked with their bodies. "You can not kill anyone like this" They were both outside the physical plane, as their bodily self was undecided on which soul it was supposed to obey. The two faced each other on a mental level, Nero literally faced his own shadow. "You are correct, as much as I loathe to admit it. You must have taken your anti-wimp pills." He chuckled.

"I assume we will have to crush you, before you give it a rest." Nero nodded. "There will be no way to use puzzle magic here, so I look forward to crushing you as well." He rasped, and tried to materialize a dueldisk in this mind dimension. "A duel eh? I have something far superior in mind, to crack your resistance." Suddenly the mental world started shifting, moving to another area. "What are you doing?" He asked, as they stopped in the middle of a colorless void. "See that?" They were back. Back ath the realm that Arahabaki once visited, the realm which showed him images of the past, and the realm that ended at the two doors. "My memories? You want to beat me with my past?" He was almost disappointed to see such a simple solution. "Our past, Nero." He walked up to the second door, the one that Jackson never managed to open. "Remember the day we first met?" He cackled as he forced the gate to open, flooding the field with images of past events.

They focused in on the brightest of them all: a comatose father on the floor, and a shrieking mother. "This again" It was the same stuff he had seen during the final game of the tournament. "I know what you did to my family, Jacob." He tried to look away. "Do you? You can not even get in contact with these people anymore, every time you tried, something got in your way. Where are your parents now, Nero?" He still did not answer. "Okay, lets try something else. The truth... that is..." The image suddenly shifted, it was a new scene. It showed Nero's mother frantically trying to call a doctor. "She looks so kind, doesn't she.... Oh wait, what was her name again?" He inquired with a devilish glare. "You do not know? Ggh, that shows how much you care... Her name is.." He tried to answer it, but he could not find the words. "Her....name is?" He was shocked, but he could not recall it, why? "Annamaria Sullivan." Jacob was the one that had the answer. "Yes, Sullivan, thats our true last name, did you know that at least?"

Nero gasped again, he could not remember that either. Nor did he recall this scene. Now he saw himself, attacking his mother in the same way he attacked his father before! "No! That never happened, she is not in a coma!" He protested, yet in the next experience he watched himself inside a hospital, overlooking his near-dead parents on their beds. "Yes it did, and I know why you did not recognize this past." Jacob shut down the images, by closing the door once more. "Its because this kid, is not you." Nero flinched. "What, thats crazy, I am Nero!" Jacob shook his head. "But what is Nero?" He sneered. "This body's true name is not Nero Jacobus, its Jacobus Nero Sullivan. We first met on that day, because I created You, on that day." Everything went dark, even the light in Nero's eyes. "It was me that attacked my parents, with the help of the magic inside the puzzle. And then I made you, a split personality, to cast a shield of innocense with which I could fool the authorities." Nero could not believe what he was hearing.

"You, you lie!" He screamed. "No, I have always been like this, I have always been Jacobus. I only kept you around to get closer to other puzzle holders, and now it is over. You are not needed anymore, Nero." The mental plane seemed to spin around, chaos reighned. "You, this..you lie!" He screamed once more, swiping at his evil half. His pleas became repetetive, and this amused the entity. "To others yes, but why would I lie to you? We are of the same mind, can't you tell when I am lying and when I am not?" He suggested with a smug grin. "I only needed you to make friends, and to remain friends. I could not tell them that I was the true Nero, otherwise they would have abandoned us both. But now I have almost all the pieces, and then I can obtain the power that my father introduced me too." Nero stopped replying, he felt it was a lost battle. No matter how hard he tried, he could not remember his past, he could barely remember the days before the tournament as well. But something told him to think deeper.

"So give it a rest, Nero. Take a backrow seat and enjoy my show. You can not do anything else now that you have given yourself in to me." He laughed, and turned his back to him, walking away from what was now becoming his shadow. "Huh?" But something stopped him, for some reason he was still attached to the other. He could not abandon this reflection "No." And a small voice spoke up. "Come again?" He turned around. "I do not..believe you...it does not make sense!" Life returned to his eyes. "Jackson told me, he said that I was the real soul. He also said that you came from the puzzle!" He yelled. "Heh, you think that? I just fed Arahabaki a lie and.." But Jacob was not allowed to finish that sentence. "No! I know you are lying to me! I can not see why a child would attack his parents, why he would understand its power so well, why he needs the pieces in the first place. What are they for, Jacob?!" And for the first time, he did not have a quick answer ready. "Ananka and Doe were right, you Are a parasite, nothing more!"

Jacob grinded his teeth. "Watch your tone boy, I am this body's true master, without my power you are nothing." But Jacobus shook his head again. "I dont care what you say, in my eyes you are nothing but a spirit that hid inside an ancient artifact. Even if I am wrong and you are right, that wont persuade me to go out of your way!" He finally summoned a dueldisk from thin air, along with his cards. "I will not let you, me, us, do any more harm. You will have to defeat me, to silence me!" In response, Jacob just smiled. "Your funeral." He too summoned a dueldisk from his own arm. "If I win. You will cease to exist... alternate me." He started shuffling his deck, so did Nero. "And If I win, you will never be allowed inside my body. Never again!" They were done, and drew their cards. "Since I initiated the challenge, I will go first!" Nero drew five cards. "Fine by me. A warning though: since we share minds, we also share the same deck. I know everything thats in your hand as soon as you draw it. You are as good as dead... weaker me.."

(To be continued in Testament 053: Obscured Fusion)