The underground sphere was absolutely still. Within its hallowed chambers, between the eight falling rivers, above the great endless pit, eight figures stood tense upon a platform held by chains of yore. Captain Ebenezer Kraken stood impatiently, waiting for his adversary, the infamous Other Jack, to make a move. Galuda, Rouge, Falcon, Ayame, and Accel all watched with mixed feelings. Jack looked as if he had been stabbed in the heart. For in the wretched palm of his evil clone was the locket. His locket. The only way he could connect to his past.
Other Jack's eye was trembling. The mysterious woman and the mysterious jewel together made a black and white photograph inside the tiny contraption. The photo must have hit a vital string in Other Jack's persona.
"The locket! Give it to me!" Jack hissed as he drew himself closer.
Other Jack looked at Jack approaching. "Nay, 'tis my mother. I would never dreamed of giving this to you!"
Everyone gave a questioned look of surprise. All save Kraken, who simply responded with the crossing of his arms. Jack's eye became wide with several emotions.
"How do you know it's his mother?! Jack doesn't know it, how should you?!" Ayame shouted behind Accel's back.
"It is not HIS mother! It is my mother! I recognize it from my memory!" Other Jack said. His eye looked back at the photograph. "Mother… Oh Mother! Where have you gone?!"
"All of Other Jack's attributes are Jacks a dozen fold. Other Jack's memory has probably opened up with the increase of his knowledge." Galuda stated.
"All of this, Mother, all of this was for you!" Other Jack held the locket up high and began to scream to it. "Let no woman be prettier than you, let no jewel out shine your own! Can't you see what I am doing Mother?!"
Jack drew backwards. Were his afflictions with women and jewels really due to his love for his lost mother? Jack became lost in his thoughts. So much had suddenly arisen. Where was his Mother now? Did she ever love Jack? Why did she leave him? Where had he come from? So many questions like these ran through Jack's head at once.
"This is getting pretty crazy…" Falcon admitted.
"Still, we have a priority to fulfill. Other Jack must be stopped to ensure the safety of Manches and it's citizens." Rouge reminded everybody.
"Arr, I'm getting impatient here Limey boy. We fight? Yarr?" Kraken turned and asked second in command.
"Wait a minute Captain…" Falcon replied.
Ayame looked over to Jack, who was on his knees, face to the floor. She stepped over through the falling amber light and tapped him on the back. "Jack, are you alright? What's the matter?"
Jack looked up at Ayame's face. "Jack… doesn't know anything… Why has my mother left me to die in bandages? Why?"
Ayame stood puzzled. After a moment, she stood up and yelled to the center of the platform. "You! Your memory seems to be serving you! What happened to Jack's mother?! Why'd she leave Jack to die in the streets?"
Other Jack clutched the locket to his chest instantly, focusing his red eye on Ayame, his voice growing deeper and more menacing. "MY mother. MY mother! That creature is an imposter! A weak thing could never be my self! …I won't tell you. You escaped my trap! You left me all alone out there, in the dark corridors above! I… I warned you not to go, but you went anyways!"
Accel stepped ahead of Ayame. "Ayame, what's he talking about?"
"I don't know! I-" Just then Ayame's eyes grew wide as her pupils shrank. The sudden thought of whatever it was happened to be so shocking that Ayame could not speak.
"Ayame?! What's going on?! Are you alright?" Accel grabbed Ayame's shoulders.
"His name isn't Jack." Ayame whispered.
"Of coarse it is! He's Jack's clone!" Falcon interrupted.
"The wench is right. My name is not Jack! And if he were truly my clone-" Other Jack pointed to Jack. "-Neither would his."
"Then who are you?" Galuda asked.
"Arr I'm getting pretty tired of this mind game swabbelin'!" Kraken complained.
Other Jack stood straight up. Slowly he raised his hands to his face and closed his eye. Slowly, ever so slowly, he pulled off the bandages around his face. To say the rest of the creatures there to witness this were shocked is an understatement. The bandages from the face and only the face hung loose around his neck. The face of Other Jack was somewhat narrow with thin white eyebrows and a short white beard and moustache. The skin was pale and the lines and creases clearly visible. His right eye was now blue, same as the other. His hair was slowly receding as well. It was the face of Mr. Alexander Ashford.
"Mister Ashford?!" Ayame foretold.
"Yes, that is my name. Alexander Ashford, of the noble house of Ashford! MY mother was the most important figure of all France!" Other Jack or Alexander told.
"The house of Ashford? That house fell under in the last revolution over twenty years ago!" Falcon explained.
"Wrong! The name of Ashford still lives! My mother shall have her name etched on every brick and every stone through out all of France! I am the Ashford legacy! None shall surpass the beauty and supremacy of my mother Eleanor Ashford!" Alexander growled.
"Alexander! If this Jack creature here is your clone, then why does he have black hair and you have white?" Rouge asked.
"He is not my clone! There is no other that rivals me! Hehehehehehehe!" Alexander replied with a laugh.
"Once again the power stone. It must have also increased his age." Galuda replied.
"Enough talk! It's time to –hehehehehe- carry out the Ashford legacy! All whom oppose must perish! Hohahahaha!" Alexander pulled his daggers from their coat pockets.
"Your legacy ends here lad!" Kraken shouted.
Alexander quickly wrapped his face again, inviting Kraken to come at him with a smiling eye. Kraken took the challenge. As the others pulled to the rim, Kraken pulled the trigger of his antique hand cannon. With a shot loud enough to deafen church bells, the lead ball flew through the amber air towards Alexander's green coat. Amazingly, Alexander pulled himself to the side fast enough to dodge. To the spectators it seemed as Alexander's body was in a hundred places at once. Kraken spat and frowned.
"Bullets aren't going to work! Tried it already!" Accel shouted.
"Shut your hole before I put you in one boy! I know what I'm doing!" Kraken yelled from the ring.
"Yes, you better listen to your mortal friend! Heehehehehe!" Alexander chuckled evilly.
Kraken denied Accel's advice outwardly, but inside he accepted it. He shoved the hand cannon into its holster and darted for Alexander. His speed was so immense that even Falcon had a hard time keeping track of him. Kraken was attempting a bull rush. Alexander's red eye seemed surprise by the speed of the Captain, but it did not last long. Alexander dropped to the ground and kicked the oncoming Kraken with such a powerful force that Kraken was sent flying towards the rim.
"Kraken!" Rouge gasped.
Alexander contorted his body to walk on all fours, daggers still in hands. There was much cracking and popping until he seemed pleased. In a mad scurry, the insect like movements was sending Alexander rocketing towards his downed prey.
Kraken smiled.
Alexander came right over Kraken, daggers raised to kill. Using surprise, Kraken shot a fist upward, striking a massive upper cut against his foe. Alexander stepped back on his hind legs, shaken by the blow. Kraken leaped back up, sending a volley of blows into Alexander's wrapped face. The platform began to shake wildly.
Galuda had to shout over the sound of the blows. "We should get off this thing!"
Falcon and Accel turned to him and each nodded. The five began to run for the bridge, which Jack and Ayame pulled earlier. Ayame looked behind her. Jack was still on the platform! She ran back to the bandaged creature that still sat on his knees.
"Jack! We have to get moving!" Ayame pulled on his green shoulder.
"Who… Who am I?" Jack asked.
"Now's not the time!" Ayame called.
"I… I don't know who I am? Jack is not my name!" Jack said in a hush.
Ayame sat on her haunches in front of Jack and placed his chin in her hand. "You will always be Jack as long as you think you are Jack! We may not know the whole history, but you are not him! You are yourself, Jack, and you don't have to become him!"
"…You are right… I am Jack Cardin! Hehehehe! Let the world know that I am Jack!" Jack laughed.
"Right, you can tell the world later! Right now we have to get off this platform before we get killed!" Ayame smiled.
"Ayame! Hurry up!" Accel shouted from across the bridge.
The two got up and ran across the bridge. In a matter of seconds Kraken was sent spiraling into the chain link that held the bridge, smashing the link. The platform wobbled uncomfortably. Alexander leaped high into the amber light and descending with a stomp kick to Kraken's chest. Kraken coughed up blood as the foot smashed into his ribs.
"Haha! You are no threat to my legacy!" Alexander taunted.
Kraken didn't reply. He grabbed Alexander's leg and swung it off of him, sending Alexander crashing into another chain link, demolishing it.
The pirate lord raised himself off the ground and spat out an ugly tooth. Alexander did the same, wiping blood off his brow. The two peered at each other, trying to come up with some way of finishing the other off. After a moment, Alexander licked his dagger's blade. He had an idea.
A rush of energy rushed in every direction like a burst of wind from Alexander's laughing body. His arms seemed to wave in the wind like paper. The daggers in his hands began to turn faster and faster.
"You think you can kill off me wit dem toys ye got ders? Aharharhar, 'tis to laugh! Yarr!" Kraken grinned.
"Heheehhe! I will be the one laughing over your dead body! Hehehehe!" Alexander replied.
Alexander's arm flung across the distance as a yo-yo would, the dagger spinning in hand incredibly fast. Kraken leaped out of the way just in the nick of time. The elastic arm went spiraling into a third chain link, sawing it in half. Kraken dodged a second time as the arm came back in a deadly snap, going behind Alexander and crashing a fourth chain. The platform wobbled in a perilous fashion.
"If they keep at it like this, the platform fall into the pit down there!" Falcon observed.
"Come on Captain!" Rouge barked.
"You are becoming rather irritable." Alexander reported to his enemy.
"Same as you!" Kraken replied.
Alexander spun on the toe of his boot, sending his flailing arms out like a windmill. The two spinning arms flew out in all directions, creating a path of destruction wherever they went. Kraken leaped, bounded, ducked, crawled, and overall dodged the daggers with extreme difficulty, often getting nicked and cut. Chain links fell everywhere as the platform groaned. Kraken finally stood up and let a powerful elbow strike the oncoming arm, sending it flying back to its owner. Kraken frowned.
Kraken ran towards Alexander, arm behind him in an attack position. Alexander leaped over the punch, coming down on Kraken with a slam from his dagger's handle. The pirate didn't seem to understand that he was hit and went on to grab Alexander and smash him into the platforms surface. The woozy bandaged man contorted himself so that his legs bent up and turned to his back. The bent up legs than kicked out with a tremendous blow. Kraken immediately let go. With the cracking and popping of Alexander's body, he put himself back into a normal posture. Kraken stumbled backwards.
"What does it take…"-Kraken wiped his lip. -"To make you die?"
Alexander laughed. "Much more than that I'm afraid! Hehehehehe!"
Kraken looked around. Only five chains were holding the platform up. If he demolished a certain one, the platform would lean at a ridiculous angle and send both of them falling into the pit below. Well, if he could snag onto something he might save himself. Kraken smiled. He liked that idea.
"When will you realize that you can't win?!" Alexander asked.
"When I'm good and dead!" Kraken replied.
After the insult, Kraken immediately set off to the fifth chain. Alexander's blades made chase, spinning at uncontrollable speeds on the ends of Alexander's impossible anatomical arms.
"He's not doing what I think he's doing…" Accel remarked.
"He's going to make the platform tip!" Galuda announced.
"He'll fall! What do we do!?" Ayame yelped.
"There's nothing we can do…" Rouge glanced at her feet.
Jack stepped forward. "Yes there is." He raised his one remaining dagger.
Falcon smiled. "HEY KRAKEN!"
Jack threw his dagger towards the speeding pirate. Kraken caught it without trouble. "USE IT AS YOUR PITON!" Falcon finished.
Kraken dropped to the platform, dagger in hand, as Alexander's saw blades buzzed overhead. His stabbed the platform with all his might using the dagger. The dagger was in so tight that it wouldn't budge. Just as it should be. The daggers came back for Kraken, blazing through the platform, as a logger's saw through wood would do. Kraken rolled out of the way just in time. Flipping himself on to his boots, Kraken threw his blue jacket towards Alexander, temporarily blinding him. Using the opportunity, Kraken flung himself into a sidekick at the link, splintering the iron on impact. With the link gone, the platform fell to an almost ninety degree angle. Kraken started sliding back down the platform. The dagger was coming up fast. With lightning reflexes, Kraken caught the handle. He now hung there, hanging onto the dagger's handle.
"Yes! Good Job Captain!" Ayame shouted.
"Hallelujah! " Falcon smiled.
"Wait! Look!" Galuda ordered.
At the very edge of the platform, two daggers had wedged themselves into the platform, and hanging from them was Alexander.
"Kraken! Below you!" Rouge shouted.
Kraken looked down. Alexander pulled one dagger out and then placed it a little higher. He repeated this with his other dagger. He was climbing up.
"Shit!" Kraken shouted.
"We have to help him!" Ayame said.
"Aye! What do we got?" Falcon nodded.
** *
