That night, when he was certain he wasn't being watched, Jack exited his guest chambers and crept down the corridor to get to Luke and Josh's rooms. The only sound was the occasional, quiet cough from a guard outside, the city life in the distance, and the occasional bad language from Vert's room. Jack still hadn't figured out why she just sat in her room, talking to herself and loudly making sexual innuendoes towards her own Mum, but that wasn't his business. Regardless, he couldn't let anyone know what he was planning.
Just as he made it down the corridor he was in, there was a yawn from around the corner. Quickly, he crouched under a table, and waited in the darkness. After a few moments, there came the barefooted steps on carpet of a woman, dragging her feet and occasionally a making a noise suggesting she was scratching her arse. Once she'd gone past, Jack stuck his head out and looked to see who it was that was awake at two o'clock in the morning.
To his surprise, shuffling down the corridor was a rather dishevelled-looking Chika, who had her eyes half open, hair sticking up in places, and a set of green pajamas. He wasn't particularly sure where she was goi-
She stumbled, tripped, and fell flat onto the carpet with her rear end pointing up and arms limp by her sides. Though the sound was quiet, a few moments passed before Jack heard the sounds of snoring coming from her direction. He smirked. "Sleepwalker, eh...?" he murmured, rolling from under the table, and to a crouch-walk down the corridor.
If his memory served him rightly (and it normally did, not counting the fact he only remembered Cave because he remembered being naked with her), Luke and Josh were in the eastern wing guest chambers. By Lady Vert's request, obviously: She still hadn't dropped her opinion that Luke was a criminal because of his appearance, or that Josh was a serial killer because he was posh and stared ahead at things whilst frowning and holding sharp objects, so she requested that their guest rooms be on the opposite side of the basilicom.
That meant Jack somehow had to sneak through the lobby.
That would be like trying to get a Vulcan Minigun through airport customs whilst wearing a turban and carrying a bag of flour.
After six alert phases...
"Jesus, that was mad," Jack whistled quietly, stuffing the mysterious phone that had appeared in his pocket into a plant-pot, which silenced the ringing noise coming from Octagon's calling. He turned to the doorway he had reached, and peered through the keyhole. He didn't need to cover the sides of his eye due to the darkness of the hallway, which meant he got a clear view into Luke's room.
What he saw surprised him.
Standing in the room, with their combat equipment being readied, were Luke and Josh. The balcony doors were opened, and, as if on a convenient cue, they both moved to the balcony, and vaulted the railing into the car park below.
"Where're you two goin'...?" Jack murmured, narrowing his eyes and withdrawing his eye from the keyhole. He scratched his chin in thought, staying in a low crouch in the darkness. They couldn't have stolen anything: Lady Vert ordered the guards to keep a close eye on Luke, and Josh wasn't the type to steal. Nor could they have guild work: The guild only accepts completed work during the day, never at night.
Perhaps they'd gone out to fight monsters? If that was the case, Jack didn't understand why they were doing it late at night, or why they vaulted into the car park.
That's when it hit him.
The Challenger.
The Challenger was in the car park. They needed the Challenger for something, but Lady Vert had expressly forbid them from using it unless it was of grave importance. Were they leaving?
Those scoundrels!
Josh still owed him a fiver. Slimy git was just running from his debts, the bastard.
Jack frowned, and withdrew his combat knife from his disk. Then, without further adieu, he poked the end of it into the keyhole, which in true lockpicking fashion, only needed a little bit more twisting to be able to pop the door open. The quiet click indicated he could withdraw his knife from the keyhole, and he did so carefully, gently twisting the handle and pushing the door open.
What he was doing felt completely and utterly wrong. He had trained for a year to know that entering any unidentified structure, or enemy-controlled building, required you to kick down the door and make one-liners whilst finding increasingly more brutal ways to kill the occupants. Sneaking inside just felt weird. Nevertheless, he would probably get his fair share of action later, so he decided to just stick with it. Upon entering the room, he carefully shut the door and began moving about to go through Luke's (noticeably few) belongings. It was a clean sweep, Jack had to admit; Luke had taken everything he would have needed, and left everything he didn't. Jack took offense, since this even included the small notepad drawing of Luke that Uni had done for him, which lay on the bedside table. The bed sheets hadn't been touched, so that probably meant they'd both been planning their exit for a while.
Whilst he was at first tempted to browse the next room for information, since that would likely have been Josh's room, he was certain that he wouldn't get much to go on, either. Narrowing his eyes, he picked up Uni's drawing, and carefully placed it into the pocket of his jeans. "She's gonna be so upset..." he sighed. As he was about to leave, there came the sudden sound of a revving engine from outside. A loud engine, definitely; The room was at least three stories up, so it would have needed to have been loud for him to have heard it so clearly. Jack rushed to the balcony, and quickly looked over the edge, just in time to see the massive bulky shape of the Challenger 2 trundling straight out of the open basilicom gates. "Shite," he said slightly louder than expected.
"Not the word I would have used, but I suppose it fits."
Jack quickly span at the voice, pulling the Deagle from his disk and bringing it to bear on his unknown follower. However, his unknown follower was significantly faster, meaning he felt a solid object slamming into his crotch, followed by something smacking him in the side of the face and another thing ripping the gun from his hands. Whilst he was reeling, what definitely felt like an arm wrapped around the top of his neck, and a large squishy thing started pushing against the right side of his face.
His dick still hurt. He was probably going to cry.
"The FUCK?!" Jack grunted, trying to remove the forearm from the front of his neck, but to no avail. He tried elbowing his attacker, but also to no avail. "What do you fuckin' want, whoever the shite you are?!"
"I want you to explain what you think you're doing, breaking and entering into basilicom rooms!" came the voice. Jack paused.
"Ca-Cave?!"
"Indeed. Now what were you doing sneaking around? You had best have a good reason, or I'll need to inform the CPU." Jack pushed at the arm slightly more, though he wasn't sure he wanted to leave, considering what Cave was (most likely inadvertently) pushing into his face. The woman didn't relent, instead tightening her grip and further squishing her breast into Jack's face. Finally, he admitted defeat.
"Fine," came his muffled voice. "But first, can you take your boob out of my face? I think I'm gonna fuckin' suffocate, I can't soddin' breathe." Cave glared down at him.
"Speak up!" she ordered sharply, tightening her vice-like grip and moving her inner elbow over his mouth, likely unknowingly. The edges of Jack's vision were going dark.
"Fmmmkn...gdduff..." he whined, trying to elbow Cave in the stomach. His attacks were starting to slow down, and he'd started feeling light-headed. "F-Fmmmkn...gdd...ufff..." he repeated quietly, his arm finally going limp.
The last thing he remembered before passing out was something warm and squishy being pressed violently against the side of his face, and Cave's strangely distant voice saying "Oh, not again..."
Twenty minutes later...
Gently, Jack's eyes fluttered open. His head was pounding, but he didn't particularly care. Instead, he began to peer around his surroundings. It was morning, and he was back in his room.
Had he been dreaming?
That was a pretty fucking dumb dream.
And why did the right side of his face smell like fucking cherries?
He sighed, and sat up. Outside of the headache, he felt fairly well-rested. What time was it? The sun wasn't glaring in through his window, so it couldn't have been early in the day. He shifted uncomfortably. Whoever the hell put him into his bed again hadn't moved his bandoliers: He had been lying down for however long with a couple of shotgun shells digging into his spine. Grimacing, he rolled slightly, and shifted the bandolier across his back to move the shells and rub the area they'd dug into. Yup, even through the armour, he felt it. Carefully, he tried to lean forward, being greeted by the delightful chorus of his spine clicking loudly and a fighter jet engin-
"RIGHT, YOU KNOW WHAT?!" he yelled, throwing the covers off his body and jumping to his feet. Thankfully, he was still fully dressed, meaning he looked even more psychotic as he kicked the door to his chambers open, much to the shock of the thirteen or fourteen people that were in the corridor. Growling in an alarmingly tiger-like way, he marched over to the nearby window in the hall, and shoved it open to see where the pilot was. After a moment of aggressively scanning the horizon, he finally caught sight of a small, black plane in the distance, looping around for another pass over the Basilicom. He jabbed his finger towards the moving aircraft, and leaned out of the window."THAT'S IT, YOU AIRBORNE CUNT, I'M GONNA SHOOT YOU DOWN AND SHOVE EVERY FUCKIN' PIECE OF THAT BLOODY JET UP YOUR ARSE!" Quickly, Jack turned, and began to run down the hallway to the staircase at an almost inhuman speed, weaving in and out between passing maids, butlers, and inbetween a conversation held by Uni and Chika, who offered no reaction to the green-and-black blur that shot past them. After a moment, Chika sniffed, and cast a glance towards the direction he had sprinted in, watching him expertly slide beneath two butlers carrying a table laden with priceless glassware.
"I see he's finally woken up," the Oracle said flatly. "Not like him to sleep for this long."
"And you'd know that, huh? How close are you two that you know when he gets up?" Uni asked, folding her arms and pouting slightly. Chika simply offered a smug grin, and folded her arms beneath her breasts.
"Wait until you get older, kid, and then you can fully appreciate it," she said calmly.
Jack finally reached the stairs, running straight past the start of the stairway that led down and instead running directly towards the wall opposite. Grabbing the railing to his left at the last second, he put his foot on the wall and used it as a pseudo-launchpad, briefly wall-running and finally landing straight down at the foot of the spiral staircase on the floor below. "Fuckin' ACED," he said, seemingly angrily.
Whatever.
He had shit to do.
He set his eyes straight ahead, finally kicking open the door to the Basilicom's patio and running straight outside into the sun. Almost conveniently, he could see the plane directly ahead over the city, making a loop so it could directly pass over the gardens and Basilicom. Jack didn't even pause: He reached into his disk, and withdrew the double-barrel, and snapped open the chambers, ejecting the shells already present onto the patio's tiles. Then, he reached onto his bandolier, and withdrew a pair of solid grey-coloured shells, loading them into the gun and flicking it shut. He raised it to his shoulder, and took aim towards the approaching jet. He narrowed his eyes for a moment, attempting to gain a good sightline on the engine vents next to the cockpit, until he finally closed his left eye.
A perfect shot.
The aircraft screamed ever closer, and he could feel the ground shaking as it approached at a low altitude. If he looked hard enough, he could see that the guy inside was someone he didn't recognise from training. Coupled with Chika previously mentioning that they didn't organise these flypasts, that meant the jet was fair game.
Once the jet's nosecone had just gone over the boundaries of the Basilicom garden, Jack pulled both triggers, the recoil sending two high-explosive round tearing side-by-side towards the plane's engine vent. A split second later, there was a burst of flames and a small explosion on the plane's engine, knocking the aircraft significantly and causing it to begin to lose its stability. Flames poured from the vent, but it continued to fly in a straight path over the Basilicom.
The pilot, however, was having none of it: A moment later, there was the loud hiss of an ejection, the plane screeching overhead like an angry panther, then up above, the sound of a parachute being opened. Without hesitation, Jack had broken his shotgun open and removed the two high-explosive shells, replacing them on his bandolier and slipping in two bright red buckshot shells. He'd picked up both of them from the floor the day after he had arrived in Gamindustri for the first time, since he had been wholly unsure as to how his endless ammunition worked, but they had been soaking in Dogoo remains for a good half hour before he noticed them and retrieved them. They had been marked with a small cross, so he was hoping that they were good to go.
He glanced up towards the pilot.
Then, he quickly turned and sprinted to his right as the loud rattle of sub-machine gunfire rang out around the garden. Up above, the downed airman was parachuting down towards the ground with a stockless MP5K in hand, but he was clearly not your average RyanAir pilot. Rather than the usual thermal clothing, he seemed to be wearing a modified set of light body-armour, crossed with flight overalls and the massive helmet you'd expect from pilots. Though, his looked more like a dirt bike helmet that had been turned into a pilot's helmet, but that wasn't Jack's business.
A quick dive forwards allowed him to get behind a low wall, just as alarms began ringing around the basilicom behind him. "Well, that's just fuckin' ace," he groaned, spitting out a mouthful of dirt. He decided that for a tactical situation, a double-barrel wasn't the best choice, and so threw it to the side and let it disappear into a flurry of pink particles. Then, he mentally cycled through his disk's contents, settling on the Skorpion. The small, pistol-sized automatic popped up in a matter of moments, dropping into his hand for him to rack the small bolt on. After a brief pause, he listened out to the other side of the wall.
There. Fabric hitting the ground, and somebody unbuckling a harness. He heard the sound of the clips being unfastened, and that meant he had a chance to strike. After a brief exhale, he swept his left leg along the ground in an arc, and shifted his weight onto that leg, Skorpion held in his left hand and aimed directly at the figure standing in the middle of the grassy garden. Jack levelled the weapon's sights at the man, steadied his aim, and then recoiled back into cover.
What he hadn't noticed was that the pilot was removing his parachute one-handedly and holding his MP5K at his waist, which meant he was prepared to fire at Jack. Which he did, quite effectively; He felt a few bullets smack into the armour on his left thigh, prompting him to quickly jolt behind the wall again or face more rounds. He grimaced, as footsteps became apparent on the grass, running away from him. "Oh, no you fuckin' DON'T." Jack growled, chucking his Skorpion over his shoulder and taking the Deagle from his disk. Stepping out of cover as a small contingent of guards began pouring out of the basilicom, he took aim with the large handgun, straight at the back of the fleeing pilot. "Hold still." He steadied his aim, and braced himself.
Then the pilot tripped over, dropping straight to the floor, and then beginning to roll down the hill as his MP5 went flying. Jack pointed his pistol into the air, and stared at this in bemusement for a moment. Then he began to run after the man, being sure to swipe the MP5 by its sling as he went along, just in case one of the guards became curious as to how good it was. Dropping it over his shoulder to hang by the strap, Jack dodged around a gardener (Who, I might add, was still bewildered and frightened by the previous gunfight) as he finally reached the downed pilot.
Said pilot had pulled himself up to sit by a marble flower container, and judging by the angle his foot was at, he must have busted himself up really bad. He was also in the process of checking the magazine of a 1911 Nighthawk model, presumably for a last stand, of sorts. Thus, Jack deemed it necessary to walk up beside him and kick the pistol out of his hands. The man gasped through a filtered mask as the gun flew from his grasp, and shifted quickly away from the armed maniac in front of him, who was dramatically holding a Desert Eagle towards his visor whilst the silvered weapon glinted wickedly in the sun. "Consider yourself fuckin' grounded, you wanker." Jack said flatly. Just as he was about to turn and check where the soldiers were, he noticed the man in front of him suddenly dart forward towards his broken ankle. He also noticed the pommel of a KABAR knife peeking from the top of his boot.
Without further remorse, Jack pulled the trigger once and shot the airman straight in his broken leg's knee, who screeched out in pain and began clutching the area which Jack had shot. The screaming was slightly garbled by his mask, but Jack could hear it. Glaring, he crouched down and grabbed the pilot's helmet, turning his head to face him. "Man up!" he yelled straight at his victim's visor. "You think that shit hurts? Try dealin' with the recoil from shootin' a Deagle one-'anded! It fuckin' canes! So I suggest you stop fuckin' whinin', or I'll snap your wrists and give you the fuckin' Deagle Experience!" He finished by slamming the man's head back against the marble plant holder behind him, standing up, and delivering a swift kick to the man's ankle. The pilot yelped audibly, moving to the side slightly and holding himself up with one shaking arm.
Jack, meanwhile, had walked away to take the man's pistol from the grass where it lay, just as the armed women ran past behind him and surrounded the pilot. The gun stood out, for certain; Solid black build in cartoonishly green grass. Without a hesitation, he bent down and picked it up, then began to make his way up the hill towards the basilicom. Up at the top, he could see a circle of armed guards surrounding one of the outside tables.
Of course.
Lady Vert normally went outside for a cup of tea at that time.
So she saw that.
Shit.
As Jack reached the building, he heard the sound of a half-dozen different rifles being levelled towards him. Sighing, he slipped the Nighthawk into his trouser pocket, and raised his hands, slowly turning to face the group of women. "Great. Fuckin' great."
"You're under arrest," the lead woman announced, pointing her TAR-21 clone at him.
"Am I, now?" Jack retorted sharply. "Are you takin' the piss? You have got to be shittin' me with this load of bollocks." Before the woman could make another demand, a different voice rang out.
"Girls, please," came Lady Vert's soft voice. "Lower your weapons. Mr. Lovebun, please do the same. I would like to have a discussion with you." Hesitantly, the soldiers slowly lowered their guns. Without hesitation, Jack dropped his hands and put his thumb around the sling of his recently commandeered MP5K, and began idly fiddling with it.
"Alright, Lady Vert," he said flatly as a pair of guards pointed to the seat opposite the goddesses' and guided him to it, "What're you wantin' to discuss?" The blonde sipped her tea.
"I'll put it plainly." Vert placed her cup and saucer down onto the table, and gave Jack an uncharacteristically serious expression. "I would like you to explain to me why you were sneaking around the basilicom last night." Jack raised a brow.
"Oh, OK, so that wasn't some weird arse dream I was havin'," he muttered, scratching his chin. "Alright. I think my primary objective in sneakin' about was to keep an eye on Luke and Josh." Vert kept up her severe expression.
"I thought you said they were to be trusted."
"And they are," Jack retorted sharply. "But last night, you might have heard the sound of an engine. That sound was them tearin' away in the Challenger for summat." The goddess frowned.
"Even though I told them to leave it..." she murmured.
"They're not gonna listen to you, Lady Vert. Far as they're concerned, they're not citizens anywhere in Gamindustri, so they don't need to listen to the goddesses."
"Then what can we do?" Vert asked worriedly. "You know them best: What are they likely to use a tank for?"
Jack sighed, and reclined in his chair. "Unfortunately, the only answer I can give you for certain is probably 'entertainment', plain and simple. Those two get along like Hitler and Stalin did before Hitler made the mistake of fuckin' with the USSR, so wherever one goes, you're gonna find the other."
"Then they're a massive security risk to Leanbox, if we don't know what they're going to do."
"I doubt that. I've known Josh long enough that I know he hates hurtin' innocent people and animals, and he'll bitch at Luke if he tries. There's next to no chance of them causin' damage to the city or hurtin' anyone innocent. If anythin', it's more likely they'll be..." Jack paused, and sat up. "Shite." Vert tilted her head.
"What's wrong?" she asked quickly.
"I think I just had an idea of what they're gonna try and do."
"Do tell."
"You remember you have a Mobster problem?" Jack asked, standing up. Vert nodded. "Because I think they've gone off to try solvin' that problem." The guards nearby bristled slightly, in preparation that he might do something aggressive. However, coming up the hill was the huge cluster of soldiers, helping the pilot up and being careful not to touch his wounded leg. As he reached the basilicom's patio, he stumbled, and dropped to the ground. Then he started screaming again, prompting the women that were helping him to begin fussing over him and apologizing profusely.
Vert, looking worried, cast a glance to Jack. "I thought you had...um..." She searched for the right words. "...sorted him?" Jack dismissed her with a hand.
"Kneecapped him, actually," he replied flatly, causing Vert to swallow hard and a few guards to shift uncomfortably at the thought. "Buggered my wrist. And I'd be careful if I were you: Bastard's got a KABAR in his boot."
"I doubt he'll use it."
"He was flyin' an F22 overhead, and the moment he ejected he started unloadin' with this," Jack raised the black MP5K slightly. "Even when he'd landed badly, he was readyin' a Nighthawk for a last stand or summat. I kicked it away, and then he went for the KABAR, so I kneecapped him. He's a sneaky git, I'll give him that, but I'm not willin' to give him the chance to hurt anyone else." Jack looked to one of the guards, who recoiled slightly as he pointed at her. "You. Get his knife. In his left boot. Don't stop if he starts screaming."
The woman just gripped her rifle tighter, and, shaking, looked quickly to Lady Vert. The goddess sighed. "Mr. Lovebun. He's not going to be going anywhere with that leg. Leave him alone." Jack rolled his eyes.
"You want me to bloody do it?" he retorted. "This bloke trained the same way I did, but seemed to get more focus on aircraft trainin'. Doesn't mean he can't cause a lot of damage, so unless you want him goin' around the basilicom and killin' anyone in his way, I suggest you let me take the fuckin' knife from his boot." Vert narrowed her eyes at Jack.
"Leave him alone," she repeated.
"What, and let you lot get fucked when he gets loose? I don't fuckin' thi-"
"LEAVE HIM ALONE." Vert suddenly yelled, causing everyone nearby to recoil in fright at the usually quite calm goddesses' outburst. Jack just glared at her, and she glared back. Nobody spoke for a long while.
"Fine," Jack snarled, unslinging the MP5 from his shoulder and dropping it next to the pilot, who seemed to be looking at it in surprise. Then, Jack took the Nighthawk out of his pocket, and handed it calmly to the man, who, after a moment, carefully accepted it. Then, he turned towards the patio door. "I'm goin' out to look for Luke and Josh before they get hurt." Vert looked at the pilot, then at Jack.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked angrily.
"I just said, didn't I?" he snapped. "I said I'm fuckin' goin' out for the day to go and find those other two fuckin' morons and stop them from causin' problems with the Mobsters! Maybe if you'd stop thinkin' everythin' can be solved by talkin' to people, and started understandin' that this is what we do where we're from, then you'd have understood what I'm sayin'. Because believe me, if those gangsters threaten Josh, Luke, or even a single innocent person - if they even shoo away a cat - then I'm goin' to kill them. And as much as you don't want to think that's what needs to be done, Lady Vert, it really, really is. They're armed, violent criminals. Josh and Luke are just two guys against them. If I don't go find them, then the only way we'll see them again is in body bags in the river."
With that, Jack walked through the patio doors, and disappeared into the building. Vert sighed, and rubbed her forehead, dismissing the guards nearby with her free hand. "Goodness, that man sometimes..." she groaned. It was at that moment that Uni walked out of the building, cautiously eyeing the pilot as he was carefully escorted into the building whilst a soldier behind carried his weapons with an all too curious look in her eyes. The CPU candidate had a notepad gripped in front of her, and she shuffled over to Vert.
"Um...Lady Vert?" she said quietly. The goddess offered no response for a moment, before sighing and sitting back up.
"Yes, Uni?" The reply came with a forced smile. The younger girl looked quite worried.
"Where's Mr. Lovebun going?" Uni asked. Vert closed her eyes, and exhaled. Then, she looked out over the garden, and towards the city in the distance.
"He's...going out for the day."
Uni looked down, slightly dejectedly.
"O-Oh."
Vert placed a hand on Uni's shoulder, and smiled.
"Don't worry about it. Would you like to play some video games?"
Uni smiled.
"Uh...sure. Thanks."