Chapter 7
The next morning, Jack woke up and got up from the couch where he had spent the night; he carefully assured that no one was around, before activating the multiverse traveling device of his suit, "The sooner I leave this place the better it'll be for everyone", he mourned, as he inserted the last coordinates into his device, " I just hope that no one will see me while I'm doing this".
"Going somewhere?", the voice of Black came out of nowhere, as Jack turned around and saw the eldest Diamond looking at him nearby the stairs, with his arm crossed, "It does not concern you", replied Jack, while his device reached full charge and began emanating sparks.
"OH, I think it does... And not just me by the way", he said in a calm tone, before shouting, "Take him!", the instant he finished the sentence Black, Steven, Connie, Lion, the other six Crystal Gems, the Pearls and Jasper all rushed onto him to try to catch him; however, before they could have landed the app finger on him the device on Jack's wrist began to emanate a bright light, which engulfed them all and an instant later, the entire group disappeared.
An instant later, they all reappeared in a black cave, with Jack standing still, while the others all fell down on the ground, "Ugh, what a trip!", exclaimed Steven, before looking around and realizing that his house had disappeared, "Wait a second, where are we?", said Steven, as he was as confused as all of the others.
"You are in Nebraska, to be precise under a small villa of my property that overlooks a lake, located in the woods of the mountains", answered Jack, as he moved around with ease and flipped on a switch, "To be more precise ... You are in one of my secret hideaways", he added, while the light revealed to them the place where they were.
The cave opened very wide, with various equipment placed on the walls, from computers to various work tables filled with bizarre objects that looked very sophisticated; farther on, an incredible car was parked in a sub-level; black, with some extensions resembling the wings of bats and almost as big as a tank.
On the right side there was a hangar, barred by two heavy iron doors; on the left, a kind of elevator that led to the surface, "Whoa!", that was the exclamation that came out of some of the presents mouths, with the exception of Jack, who went to a pedestal where there was a mannequin like that of the department stores.
He made a strange gesture around his neck, as if he were undoing the collar of a shirt and under the astonished eyes of all, his suit dissolved as if it were made of smoke, finding himself in his hand a kind of collar; he then put the collar around the mannequin's neck and a moment later the suit reappeared on the plastic body.
"Nanotechnology, that's what creates the suit", he responded to the others, as they all looked with marvel at him, "I started using it a little over a year ago and have never stopped since; is very useful, now I no longer have to produce new costumes if the cloak deteriorates or if the mask is damaged or", he was interrupted by the sound of a shotgun loading up, before a voice with a British accent spoke out loud, "Halt, stop where you are! Identify yourself, or else I'll open fire!", Black and the others immediately recognized the voice; it was the same they had heard from Jack's memories.
"Alfred, it's me!", replied Jack, "And if you want a more concrete proof, I can safely say that you would not be able to hit me even at twenty-five meters away, since you have not fired a shotgun for years now!" "And I can safely argue that you are wrong, since it's been a few years since I started shooting again going to the shooting range", said the voice, as the figure emerged from a point where the light didn't arrive and revealed himself; it was a bald man, around the fifties and dressed with a grey jacket and kaki-colored pants, "It's good to see that you are back Master Jack... But what are they doing here?".
"I'll explain it to you shortly", responded Jack, before turning to the others, "Quick introductions: this is Alfred Pinewood, my butler and guardian who has raised me for all these years, Alfred, these are the counterparts of Steven and the other gems, plus a few new entries, from the parallel universe I went to investigate" "And you took them with you?", demanded Alfred surprised.
"Well, rather than taking them with me, let's say they pressured me to come here", he said, while looking at the others with a accusation look, "Well, please excuse me, I'm going to have breakfast upstairs, Alfred, send them back to their universe I'm busy for today" "Wait a second, are you just leaving us like this?", demanded Black schoked, "What about the soul fragment you were searching for? What about all the answers you have to give to us?".
"As I said before, it's not in your business", replied Jack coldly, while entering into the elevator, "Alfred, don't tell them anything, no matter what they ask", and with that being said, the doors of the elevator closed and the device brought Jack up to the surface.
Alfred turned slightly embarrassed to the group, "Well, you've heard what Master Jack said, however I don't feel like sending you back to your universe without first giving you some answers; of course, you must be aware of the fact that not a word will have to come out of this discussion" "You have our word, Mr. Pinewood", said Garnet, with the result of making a little smile appear on Alfred's face, "Mr. Pinewood... It's been a long time since someone called me with that name".
"What's a butler and a tutor?", demanded Black, whose questions rolled out of his mouth before he could have realized, "Oh, uh... Excuse me, the question came out of my mouth without thinking twice about it" "It is not a problem for me, I can easily answer this question", replied Alfred with calm, "A butler is a working profession, in which the person who chose it performs various services to those for whom he puts himself at their services".
"So, essentially is the same thing as our old purpose for the Diamonds", said Yellow Pearl, before Alfred corrected her, "Well, not quite; as from what Master Jack told me, Pearls were created only for the purpose of serving someone, while I have chose to be a butler, while also being the tutor of the young man who's currently not here with us".
"Now, I don't know if you are aware of the fact that Master Jack's family is... Well", he interrupted for a few moments before Connie took the word, "We know what happened to his family... Black showed us his memories by extracting them from his mind" "In this case, as for your question, a tutor is the person who represents the parents of a child when they're either absent or" "Dead", concluded Black with a plain tone.
"Correct, Mr Black", replied the middle-aged man, who after seeing the surprised expression of the gem quickly replied, "Master Jack contacted me yesterday night and told me your name and your story" "About Jack", said Black with renewed interest, "My next question is about his attitude: why is he so... Darn, I don't have a word to describe him" "A jerk?", suggested Amethyst, gaining in this way a mean look from Pearl, "What? I thought you guys would agree on that" "Well, a jerk is not the right word to describe Master Jack's current behavior", said Alfred, "But is approximately correct".
"Why is he acting like this?", demanded Steven, "Why's he so cold, aggressive and detached?", the look he received from the butler was charged with more concern than he could have expected, "Will you promise me that not a word of this conversation will reach other people's ears?" "We promise you that", said Peridot, "Just tell us what's wrong with him".
Alfred took a deep breath before starting to talk again, "Very well then; I guess Master Jack told you what feats he went through last year" "He mentioned something", responded Steven.
"Then you must know that when he thought that Darkus had been completely defeated, he was once again the same person he was before his family died at the hands of the Dark Lord: he was happy, cheerful and ready to enjoy his new life... However, last year his return to normal came to a sudden halt" "Because of the fact that he discovered that Darkus was still alive?", demanded Lapis.
"Not just that, during his last mission the Dark Lord managed to brutally harm some of his closest friends... And the one who was closest to him; this trauma, combined with the revelation that his mortal enemy was still alive somehow, deeply affected the poor young man and not just his Jack Steven son's side", Alfred pulled out from a closet a small pile of newspapers, which were all edited by different sources, but with the common images of the Bat-symbol almost everywhere, with titles like, "Massacre in the Forever Knights hideout by an unknown author" "Bat vigilante out of control; the members of some drug trafficking associations were branded".
"He turned to gratuitous violence", commented Black with a plain tone, while looking shocked at the newspapers' titles with all the others.
"Well, more than gratuitous violence I would say a real radical change in his methods as a vigilante, plus some", he interrupted while lifting an empty bottle with a label with Jack Daniels 39 written on it, "Habits that are considered deplorable; I just hope the next generation of Stevensons don't inherit a cellar full of empty bottles ... although honestly, it doesn't seem like there is a next generation in sight".
"He also severed any bond of friendship he had established last year and which had been fundamental in his partial rehabilitation to normal life; the break with your counterparts was the most violent, although ironically it was also the first and most solid" "It happened because of that mineral which weakens gems?", asked Bismuth.
"Not just that", responded Alfred, while also pulling out something else from another closet, "But also because of this" , the thing that he showed them was a small glass dome, which contained inside... A handful of red and light blue fragments, which were immediately recognized by everyone.
"Are those... Shattered gems?!", exclaimed Black shocked, before Alfred spoke out again, "Correct, these are the shards of what's left of a gem fusion known as the Azurite Bluebird" "Wait, these are the remainings of Bluebird? What a relief, Jack did a favor to Steven then" "Amethyst!" "Come on, Pearl, you know what kind of bore she is, you've got to admit that!".
"Wait a minute, who's this Azurite?", demanded Black, "And why did Amethyst call her a bore?" "The changes young Master Universe made to the gem empire did not benefit all categories of gems, especially those aristocrats or those who had earned honorable merit during the war", responded Alfred, while putting the fragments back from where he had picked them up, "The Aquamarine and the Ruby respectively belonged to the two groups of gems I mentioned and so when their honors were canceled by Steven's changes, they fused in an attempt to get revenge on the boy; I guess the same could be said about your Azurite, right?".
"Yeah, she tried to kill Steven just the other day", said Peridot, "But what happened to the one of this universe?" "Well, Master Jack and I caught her while she was trying to steal some prototypes of new weapons, presumably for making an attempt to Steven's life and in the fight that followed", he interrupted for a moment, "Well, she was accidentally exposed to a sample of the mineral we were doing the first experiments on and it so happened that she found herself in the fire trajectory of the Batmobile's machine guns; in the end, there was practically nothing to do".
"Master Universe and the gems they had already expressed their disappointment about the experiments with the mineral, but that incident was the straw that broke the camel's back and following a violent argument, we were forced to move our base of operations from the summer ville near Beach City to this house where once the young gentleman and his family spent the Christmas holidays".
"But the worst was yet to come", continued Alfred, as he showed them a strange metallic chair with some tubes full of liquids, "What's that thing?", asked Blue Pearl.
"A few months after breaking ties with all of his friends, Master Jack felt bad, very bad; we discovered that the wound, which Darkus had inflicted on him shortly before he was killed, had begun to destroy his body, poisoning him worse than cancer", he pointed out one of the tubes, which was filled with a yellow-brown liquid, "Fortunately we managed to synthesize an antidote, but we found that the cure was limited only to stopping the infection and not to treating it".
"And we guess that now things aren't going better either, right?", asked Garnet, who received a small nodding as response from Alfred, "Exactly; his body then began to reject the serum and it won't be long before he rejects it altogether" "Why didn't he ask his friends for help for better care?", demanded Volleyball, but she knew the answer before Alfred replied, "I thought I was clear that he had severed any human relationship with his friends; he doesn't want to let them know anything, for him it's better this way".
After the last words from Alfred, everyone was left speechless after hearing about the complete background of Jack's anguished last year, "What a tragedy", were the words that came out of Black's mouth, "A man who once had regained everything he had lost, found himself back at the point of beginning".
Suddenly, there was another sound of doors shutting down and the elevator departed again upwards; it was at this moment that everyone realized that Steven was gone... And so were some of the papers that were on one of the working table, "Oh no", said Alfred as he quickly approached to the elevator's control pad to call it back, "He won't have gone up there to confront him verbally, I hope? We must go and stop him now!" "Why do we have to?" asked Connie, before Alfred gave them a concerned look, "Because he doesn't know who he is dealing with!".
In the living room of his luxurious house, Jack had just finished his breakfast and was now sipping a cup of coffee, while remaining sit on a chair near the table and watching the view from one of the windows; an autumn landscape stretched as far as the eye could see, with the ancient pines whose branches swayed slightly with the wind, the grass in the ground slightly faded from the loss of the brighter color it acquired in the summer and the surface of the lake flat as one mirror, as a light mist rose from its surface, blurring the sun's rays.
Suddenly, an old memory surfaced from his head: the Christmas of seventeen years ago, when he and his family were playing in the snow with Alfred, building snowmen and playing snowball fight, before getting back into the house to warm up near the fireplace; he was happy at the time, but now everything seemed to him like an old black and white film that rolled into his mind like a forgotten experience.
Just when he was about to drink another sip of coffee, someone slammed in front of his eyes a handful of newspapers with various titles that were referring to his most recent activities and when he lifted his look, he saw Steven standing right next to him, who was looking at him with disbelief and a touch of anger, "What's this? New rules of fighting crime?".
Jack sighed with resignation, slightly annoyed by that interruption, "Apparently Alfred didn't hold his tongue in check; what do you want me to tell you about it?" "You massacred innocent people and you still sleep on it?!", shouted Steven with frustration, surprised by the nonchalance that Jack was demonstrating, "Is it possible to know what happened to you so terrible to turn you into a killer?!".
"It's not a thing of your business", replied coldly Jack, while the rest of the group rushed into the living room, "Alfred, put them back in their universe right away once I'm done with Steven" "Don't you dare ignore me!", Steven pressed the discussion more aggressively, "You have turned all your friends away from you, you have become violent and now you are slowly dying from a disease that you cannot cure on your own; I bet you like this loneliness, right? No distractions, no one to bother you, you are left alone to think about being Batman!".
"Steven", Connie tried to stop him, but the hybrid was out of control, "You have severed any relationship with the outside world, you no longer have anyone to give you affection and support when you need it; you are not a hero, you are a coward!".
The reflexes of Jack were quicker than anyone else, as he slammed Steven on the wall and held him by his throat, much to everyone's shock, "You don't know anything about me Steven Universe, you have no idea what I've been through and what I'm going through now, so don't you dare call me Coward!", he threw away Steven, who was quickly protected by Lion, who growled at Jack.
"Out of my way, furball!", the shout of intimidation was so much full of anger that for the first time, Lion moved a few step back from Jack, "Now Steven, I want to ask you a little question: what were you doing at seven? Were you on the quiet beach playing with your family, strumming a ukulele and singing your first songs? Do you know what I was doing at seven? I saw my parents die at the hands of an armed maniac in an alley in New York and I attended their funeral!".
"You had a normal childhood unlike me, who entered the adult world prematurely at the age of seven; I chose to be Batman because I had nothing left and if I chose to push away the ones I love it is because I am not going to make them walk through hell with a broken person like me!", for the first time, by looking into his eyes, Steven perceived what Jack really was; a broken man, who had seen the life in its worst aspects and was not willing to suffer any other losses.
"You're wrong, my life wasn't easy either", replied Steven, but Jack wasn't done with his talk, "Oh really? So tell me, what happened to you that was so terrible that it made me misjudge you? Did you shatter a gem? Did you hurt Connie's feelings? You hurt your family or", Jack interrupted himself when he got a glance of the others and judging by their looks, he guessed that he had made a point.
"Send them back to their universe Alfred", was the stiff response that came out of his mouth and Alfred did nothing but simply inviting the gems to follow him back to the secret elevator, leaving the young billionaire alone, who was now simply looking outside without interest in the landscape, as if his mind was thinking about something else.
"I am mortified that you have seen him in this state", said the butler, as they went down back into the hideout with the elevator, "However, I believe this experience has given you an idea of what my young master's mood is".
"Now I really regret that I called him a jerk", said Amethyst, while Alfred lead them to a platform similar to that of the temple, "Wait a minute, but If he possess a warp pad why hasn't anyone tried to visit him?" "Because this one was built in secret, no one knows that he has one here", replied Alfred, while he digitized something on a computer, "I'm setting the coordinates, it's not going to take long".
"It's partially my fault, I should never have gone there to confront him verbally", said Steven in an almost culprit tone of voice, but Alfred smiled at him with comprehension, "Curiosity is not a bad thing, Mr. Universe, but it must be regulated at times with some parsimony; ah before you go, there's something that I have to give to you, specifically for you, Mr. Black".
"What is it?", asked the eldest Diamond, as Alfred went to pick up an object they didn't notice before from a working table and handed it to Black; it was a metallic spear, not as long as the one Pearl possessed and slightly bulkier than hers and the point had a weird conformation that made it look like a hammer.
"This is a gem weapon", said Bismuth surprised, "How were you able to create this thing?" "We have rebuilt a forge in a section of the Batcave where you can forge gem weapons", responded Alfred, "My young master was very impressed by the technological level of your race and so he wanted to try to create something too; this spear allows you to channel and release powers linked to various natural elements such as water, fire, electricity, air and much more".
"Why are you giving it to me?" "Because Master Jack told me to forge it", the Answer Alfred gave them left the group perplexed, "Why did he do it?" "Because I think that, despite everything he's been through, there is still some of his benevolent personality deep inside him", replied Alfred, before activating the warp pad and sending them back to their universe.
When the butler returned from the hideout, he found his young master still on the table, reading the old newspapers that Steven had brought to him and still sipping his cup of coffee, "I've already cleared the things from breakfast Alfred, you don't have to get tired" "But that's my duty, Sir, not yours" "As you age, you become slow Alfred", replied the young man with one of his rare smiles, "And then you will not be there for me forever, I will have to fend for myself somehow".
"He's right about this, Sir", said Alfred, as he checked the newspaper with the branded criminal, "Did you find any of these articles interesting?" "We're criminals Alfred", replied Jack, "We have always been; nothing has changed" "You're wrong, everything has changed and you know that very well", replied Alfred, "But now I see some disturbance in your face, as if something had upset your soul".
"You always manage to surprise me, huh Alfred?", responded Jack with an almost ironical tone, before getting serious again, "Black doesn't know, but while he was reading my memories, I accidentally saw his; after all, he and I are not very different" "And what do you want to do about it?" "After a year of sifting through the multiverse for that damn soul fragment... For the first time, I don't know what to do".
"Well, in this case", Alfred took from his hand the empty cup of coffee, "I do believe that you should try to help him out, as I feel that Mr. Black is going to need a good dose of support in the next days that are waiting for him", and with that being said, Alfred left Jack alone in the living room to think about how to act.
Author note; Hey everyone, sorry for the late publication, but in these days I've been submerged with all kind of stuff (school homework, driving license theory exam, which unfortunately didn't go as planned) and I did not have a moment to properly focus on the writing; however, here we are again, back with the new chapter.
Yeah, I know what some of you are thinking, "You copied from Batman v Superman"!, well during this period I have revisited the movie by seeing the Ultimate Edition and now that the Snyder Cut is coming, I absolutely love the portrayal of Batman by Ben Affleck; it's so full of dramatic pathos and I think that it has been underrated by many.
There's another thing that I want to say, which is that I'm putting this story in stasis to focus on the prequel that I've been teasing for a while; it's not going to be very long, so I can already tell you that I'll be back on this crossover after completing it.