For all the talking up that Vert had done of how badly she got on with her mother, Jack couldn't really tell whether she was exaggerating some past experiences, or not.
The reason being, of course, that Sigrun had opted to emit a loud squeal when Jack walked onto the balcony to speak with Vert, clasping her hands. "Ah! Such a handsome young man!" cried the former CPU, standing up from the noticeable stack of at least three or four chairs and rushing over to Jack to fondle his face and hair. "You look lovely in a suit, why do you normally wear such miserable clothes?"
Jack winced slightly as she wrapped an arm around his shoulder and practically pulled him to the table with her daughter.
Jesus fuck, she was strong.
"Well, a suit gets ruined easily, don't it?" he finally replied, grabbing a stray chair on his way past a nearby table. "Before that tower incident I used to run around beatin' the daylights out of monsters all the time, so summat that couldn't be ruined easily was useful."
As he finished speaking, he barely had time to pull his chair up before Sigrun casually kicked it along to sit opposite Vert, but noticeably close to her own tower of chairs. Then, without any further words and her pleasant expression still on her face, Sigrun practically forced Jack to sit down in the chair, before seating herself beside him.
On the other side of the table, Vert was holding both her cup of tea, and her nerves, but internally, she was screaming a bit.
'She's really trying to make me feel bad.'
When they were all sat down, it became quite apparent how tall Vert's mother really was. With the tower of chairs being the only way she could comfortably sit down, Jack's head just about reached her tummy height when put beside her. Vert barely even reached her knees, the woman's legs crossed in a sign of total physical dominance.
Nevertheless, Sigrun had plenty of things to say, regardless of how people had to stare up at her. "I must say, it takes you a rather long time to get from that room of yours to this balcony," she mused, licking her thumb to rub something off Jack's forehead. "It's been – what – six months? Really, London, dear, you must remember to prod the author and make him write chapters faster. His upload schedule is dreadful."
Jack had no idea what the fuck she was talking about, but gave a silent nod of fake understanding.
What the fuck does she mean, 'six months'? What 'upload schedule'? What 'author'?
"So...you two are getting along very well, then?" Vert finally asked, clearing her throat. Jack gave a calm nod, once more pushing away the prospects of ever understanding the reality on which he resided.
"Aye, she did my hair yesterday on the way here," he replied, gesturing to the top of his head. "Your mum's really nice, Lady Vert." The CPU gave a slightly hesitant smile and nod, which faltered slightly when she watched Sigrun reach a hand down and scratch behind Jack's ears one-handedly, as if petting a cat.
"Why, thank you, London," she beamed warmly, smiling as the man squirmed beneath her touch, before finally leaning into it slightly in an attempt to appreciate the almost pet-like treatment. "I always appreciate compliments, especially when I see someone else being given them." Sigrun looked down her nose at her daughter, smirking. "Your letter really wrote him up nicely, darling. I can see why you look at him so fondly."
Vert swallowed, going slightly red. "Oh...y-yes, of course, mother," she stuttered. "He has been rather a help in the last few months." Sigrun smirked, running gentle fingers underneath Jack's chin and carefully scratching him as though he were a cat of some sort.
"Oh? Handsome and helpful, then?" she asked mockingly, prompting her daughter to go even more red. "Quite the catch, dear. How fortunate that he's a frequent visitor, hmm? Rather easy for you to pop your head through his door and catch some sly looks, no?"
Vert spent a second composing herself and pushing aside thoughts of what probably lay underneath London's armour and denim. "Y-Yes…" she muttered slowly, "He's...one of my treasured allies and friends..." Sigrun rolled her eyes, finally releasing Jack from her grasp. He straightened up and blinked a few times, trying to comprehend what had happened a few seconds ago and why it was impossible to remember.
"Vert, dear, remember what I said about mumbling," she said sternly, folding her arms. "I do hope you haven't been addressing people like that whilst I've been gone." The CPU sat up straight, panicked.
"U-Um! N-No, not at all, mother!" she said quickly and clearly. "I-I've been giving well-received speeches for years, so I've had time to work on my tone of voice and my confidence." Sigrun's stern expression faltered a bit.
"I see. Then would you care to repeat what you said?"
"Yes, of course...apologies, mother."
"You don't need to apologize, you just need to be more clear."
"O-Oh. Well, um, I said that Mr. Glovebox is-"
"Glovebox?"
Vert paused.
Oh, no, she forgot: Her mother wasn't around when that joke became a thing.
Was she supposed to explain it?
"U-Um..." Vert sat up straight. "You...you see, mother, it's a funny story about his name, really...not many of us can pronounce his name properly, unless it's plot convenient. It's rather funny."
"It's also impolite," Sigrun cut in. "I don't call you 'Bert', do I?" Vert blinked.
"...n-no, of course not, mother..."
"And why do I not call you Bert?"
"B-Because that's not my name, mother."
"Then what's this young man's name?" she asked, gesturing to London. Vert cast her gaze over to him, sweating slightly and looking very strained to keep her composure.
Jack glanced up at Sigrun, then at her daughter. His eyes met Vert's.
Ah, shit, she looked troubled.
Jack cleared his throat. "Y'know, uh, Lady Sigrun, I'm not that bothered-"
"Now, now, dear," the Goddess interrupted, shushing him with a finger, "I believe we trust each other enough that you don't need to call me 'Lady Sigrun'. My darling daughter, however, trusts you a lot but cannot even pronounce your name."
Vert became slightly flustered. "I-I can say London!" she yelped. At the word, Jack perked up, and glanced at the CPU, smiling.
"Lady Vert, I really dunno how to put into words how happy it makes me when someone says my name right," he replied cheerfully. "Maybe it's because everyone kept getting it wrong." Sigrun tutted loudly, before once more reaching down to pull his head to the side of her body.
"And it was so very rude of them to do so," she declared, patting his head. "You know that I'd never pronounce your name wrong, don't you, dear?" Jack nodded, not troubled by the contact at all.
"I know, Lady Sigrun."
"Ah: Not Lady Sigrun," the Goddess corrected. "You don't need to call me that."
Jack was rather confused, glancing up at her. "Then...what do I call you?" he asked. The woman just looked down at him, smiling.
"You can call me Sigrun, Sig, or even 'Mother' or 'Mommy', if you like," she cooed, scratching his cheek gently and totally ignoring the shocked look she was getting from her daughter, whilst enjoying the feeling of maternity that being so motherly provided her. "Of course, such a privilege is reserved for those I have under my care and protection...you do agree to that, don't you, dear?"
Jack nodded briefly, clasping his hands on his lap like a child. "Course I do, La...uh, Sigrun," he replied, "I think 'Mum' is a bit much, though. I'm not your son, I'm afraid." Sigrun tutted loudly, rolling her eyes.
Vert had a rather horrifying feeling she knew exactly what her mother would say next.
"Well, that's nothing a simple marriage with my dearest Vert couldn't fix, right?" Sigrun beamed, still petting Jack like a particularly sleepy cat. A sleepy cat, of course, who was now crimson, and sweating considerably. "I'd become your mother-in-law, and then you can call me 'mommy' all you like."
Vert's eye twitched, and with her cup of tea resting on her lap, she strained to keep her pleasant expression, brow furrowed. "Mother, I'm not ready for marriage, not least with someone I'm not involved with," she said slowly. "Arranged marriages are also not-"
"-legally allowed within Leanbox, I'm aware, dear," Sig replied calmly, reclining and crossing her legs, one hand resting on her lap and the other stroking Jack's head like a Bond villain strokes his cat. "However, no laws exist forbidding you from being...shall we say, 'introduced' to someone. Besides: I've seen the way you look at dear Mr. London."
Vert now rolled her eyes. "Mother, you can't say that, this is the first time you've even seen both of us in the same place."
Sig just let out a 'pfft' noise. "I can say what I like, Vert, it's my house you're living in."
Vert raised a brow. "Actually, mother, you officially signed the basilicom's deeds under my name when you resigned as Goddess," she corrected. "This is legally my house, now." Sigrun gave her daughter a blank stare, then sighed slowly, rubbing her face with her free hand and almost automatically moving to scratch behind Jack's ears.
He didn't know why, but he was really enjoying this. He wasn't meant to, considering this was what people did to keep dogs docile, but...oh, what the Hell, 'woof woof', indeed.
"Vert, dear, if you hadn't been so caught up on that damned computer of yours, you'd have done just fine running the military, with a mind like that." Jack, still blissfully smiling, raised a finger.
"Ah, aye, the 'that bloody computer' thing that my Mum used to say to me, as well," he interjected, rotating his head slightly as Sigrun moved to scratch the back of his neck. "Common ground there, Lady Vert." Sigrun, intrigued, looked down at the usually tall man sat beside and below her.
"I take it you listened to your mother on that front?" she asked, in that tone of voice that mums will take up when they expect you to agree with them.
"Long story, not getting into it," Jack replied flatly. "Answer was no. Regretted it." At that, Sigrun smiled, and looked back at her daughter.
"There, see? Even Mr. London can agree that it's no good for you at all, dear," she cooed. "You really must go out and find a hobby, Vert. Or a husband. When are you going to get married, dear? I would say your father and I are getting worried, but your father hasn't actually been written as a character or even conceived as an idea until this paragraph accidentally lead to his mention."
Vert was, at this point, bright red, leaning on the table, and resting her hand on her cheek, looking embarrassed.
Not only was she getting this lecture from her mother, she was getting it in front of someone who...actually, never mind, he probably wasn't paying attention to the conversation. London actually seemed to be quite dazed by the gentle caressing, so that wasn't any worry.
"I've told you many times, mother, as I did five minutes ago, I'm not ready to get married," she groaned. "Why does this matter to you so much?" Sigrun puffed her chest out.
Jack, mind wandering blissfully, briefly wondered whether he was gonna be late to the TV studio.
"If you don't get married, Vert, I don't get grandchildren, which is terribly important for me, you know," Sigrun continued, "It doesn't have to be many. Perhaps even just One grandchild. Even then, I would be happy." Vert was getting progressively more flustered by the second, which Jack noticed whilst he got busy trying to see if he could slip out of Sigrun's gri-
Nope, she just tightened it, inescapable grip, he was going to die there.
"M-Mother! I don't even...I don't even know if I WANT children, and I'm not particularly 'wife' material...u-uh!" cried the younger Goddess, teacup shaking as she tried holding it to drink from. "Please stop asking such invasive questions in front of Mr. London, mother!"
Jack, now politely trying to pry his head from Sigrun's grip, just cleared his throat. "If, uh, you two're havin' private mum-to-daughter chats, I can slip out and head to the TV stu-"
"Nonsense! You simply must join the conversation!" Sigrun replied jovially, shaking Jack slightly in a 'friendly' manner. She then paused, and smirked, gesturing to Vert. "Hmm...well, you're a responsible young man, London, dear. Tell me: Do you look at my daughter, and deep down have fantasies of marriage, doing some babymaking, and then raising the children? I'm certain you wouldn't mind playing with those assets I blessed her with, hmm?~"
Without further hesitation, Jack had summoned every shred of strength he had, wrenched his absolutely scarlet head free from Sigrun's grip, and was halfway inside the basilicom before Vert had even stuttered any words from her trembling mouth that shuddered with shock and embarrassment.
Totally ignoring that she'd absolutely humiliated her daughter and made Jack go red, Sigrun was still smiling as she turned on her tower of chairs to shout after London, Vert gibbering uncontrollably in the background.
"I'll get an answer from you eventually, dear!" came her nonchalant, pleasant callout, "Have fun on TV; I'll be watching!"
Jack and Vert mentally made notes that it would be best to avoid each other for…
Oh, perhaps, like, forever.
Two hours later...
It was to Jack's surprise that heading to the studio was merely for preparation: Nepstation Live was different to usual Nepstation broadcasts, in that it was in front of a live audience, in none other than the very same stadium that he'd spoken in a few months before.
It wasn't particularly bothersome to him: The speech wasn't too bad, and apparently the attendance numbers for Nepstation Live were about equally as high. Only this time, they had a full studio setup on the stage, and numerous smaller stages dotted about the arena on which other events would happen; Live bands, and such.
It was rather similar to a US talk show, except the 'live audience' was a few hundred thousand people-strong.
Nevertheless, it was to his amusement that apparently, Dengekiko – who he'd still not met – had not advertised that he'd be appearing, and apparently didn't even know he would show up. The show was advertised as the 'Tower Special', with most of the ticket sales going to funding those affected or injured by the attack, and it would consist of interviews with 'On-The-Scene Heroes', and displays of some of the wildest footage available.
Of course, Jack wasn't really sure what he'd be doing or saying, but had been told to 'pop up, surprise her, chat with her, and mind the language'.
That was gonna be hard: It was difficult enough, holding back his already vulgar tongue in front of Rom and Ram.
His personal decision to hand the VFX team a (very heavily edited) copy of his memories from the tower siege was done with intent to have a backdrop for him walking onto the stage at a totally random point: The screen they wanted to put it on was the thirty-foot tall screen displaying the Nepstation logo, being nearly the length of the whole stage and serving as the background to Dengekiko's show.
Of course, he'd told the techies to just slap it on when they wanted him to head on-stage, but Jack wasn't too fussed by when he went on. He didn't really have any other plans for anything else to do, so really, all he officially had to do in Leanbox was this talk show.
For about fifteen minutes as the show began, and the crowds let loose flurries of cheers as Dengekiko addressed them all from her stage, Jack waited in the wings. He'd been put on the far end of the arena, with the long walkway stretching from where he was and all the way to the actual stage itself. There was no lighting aimed at where he was waiting, and he was just out of sight of the audience, so if he was correct, nobody but the crew knew he was here.
His appearance aside, the show was absolutely heartwarming, even for someone like Jack, who had a heart encrusted with napalm and other people's blood. Right from the get-go, Dengekiko was bringing in massive groups of people; Paramedics, Police Officers, Paratroopers, and patrons, all with their own stories to tell of the tower incident.
Jack was still stunned that to his knowledge, barely any more than five or six innocent people died. Leaning against the wall and watching everyone from the dark corridor, it occurred to him that he was probably the person who took the most damage from that attack, but refrained from chuckling, since he wasn't sure if his microphone was on, and there was really nothing funny about the fact he didn't manage to save everyone.
He decided to remain in the access corridor for about an hour and a half in total; The whole show was around two and a half to three hours long. The crowd, however, never seemed even for a moment to be losing interest, especially as the screen occasionally filled with video recordings of the most stunning scenes from that night.
The Cyber-Dragon. The initial gunshots. The crowds fleeing. The news helicopter being shot down. The triumphant final stand-off with the Killachine against Jack, his friends, and the CPUs.
Every clip enthralled the audience, raising shocked gasps and cheers as the video themes changed, and each one accompanied by voice overs explaining the incident unfolding.
Jack did notice that during most screenings, Dengekiko would nip over to her desk to check a sheet of paper; Presumably, she had some kind of order of screenings to go by, so she knew what to talk about next. Jack couldn't see any teleprompters, so she was probably improvising…and doing it rather well, he had to say. It was only after a set of footage displaying the initial rush out of the doors that she began talking about the first shots being fired.
Dengekiko looked back out over the audience, pacing slightly. "Now, every horrible event's got a catalyst," she began. "And this siege was no different. The powers that be haven't been able to find anything explaining why these jerks decided to start causing trouble, but from the perspectives of anyone who was on the floor when this all kicked off, it's definitely not a nice place to be when the bad guys open up, right?" The audience let out a murmur of agreement that rippled through the huge stadium, Dengekiko clasping her hands together. "Just so that we can all appreciate the fear, we've gathered footage from those who were around the tower when the first shots were fired. I've seen this before, and…it still shocks me. Let's take a look."
As the last word left her lips, the lights on her stage dimmed slightly, diverting all attention to the massive screen on the far end of the arena. There was a short static burst as the jumbotron began showing a panning shot of the tower, with fairly ominous music slowly building up. Then, a voice over.
"It's a Hell of a thing."
Jack raised a brow. Sounded like that Gage guy that IF was buying guns from.
The camera cut to an interview room, and sure enough, it was the middle-aged man in the wheelchair himself, staring ahead slightly.
"Ya never saw it comin'. Not a chance. I don't think anybody did. If you did, you were probably in league with those assholes."
Another cut, this time to vertical phone footage of two women at an arms stall. They were showing off some new gear they'd just bought, and spirits seemed high. The footage froze, and another set of phone footage appeared to fill another third of the screen. In this one, it was footage of two people talking in front of a stand of some kind. Another freeze, and this time it was someone recording a salesman explaining a new product.
Over the top of this, Gage continued talking, the video audio being dulled slightly. "Anyone who's ever had a peaceful day ruined by somethin' real sudden will know how loud that somethin' is. It's the noise when your favourite plate is breakin' on the floor, someone you hate knockin' on the door, the phone ringin' for the tax man. It's always louder than normal." When they all froze, there was silence, until Gage spoke again.
"Those were the loudest gunshots I've ever heard in my life."
To punctuate, all three sets of footage started playing simultaneously, and all three had the same combined audio despite being filmed on opposite ends of a room: A burst of rattling automatic fire filled the arena's air and the audience audibly gasped as the footage cut out, those on-screen reacting to the sudden noises with the same look of fear on their faces. The screen went black as each video cut out, leaving the arena in shocked silence, until Gage faded back onto the screen. He looked like he was listening to someone off-screen, then chuckled.
"Why didn't I fight back?" he asked sarcastically. "You're askin' a crippled gun store owner why he didn't take on a whole buncha fully-armed special forces guys?" He shook his head, smirking, then nodded appreciatively. "Well…no lie, even if I was more able-bodied, I think I'd probably have run away, regardless. But then if everyone ran from the danger, we wouldn't have stopped 'em. It's pure luck that we had someone crazy enough to fight 'em all."
Jack again raised his brow, smiling this time as the screen suddenly contained a bunch of NepChat clips, all of them focusing on one thing: Him. The audience let out a gradually increasing cheer as Gage carried on speaking over the top of the footage, the amount of it that didn't show his face really not surprising Jack. "I mean…damn, guy told me he had about nine or ten guns on him. I was kinda suspicious that he was just one a' those kinda guys that compensated for a lack of skill by carryin' a bunch of 'em, but…after that absolutely monstrous ass-whoopin' I hear he dished out?"
The camera once more cut back to Gage sucking air through his teeth, smiling and shaking his head slightly. "I don't think I'd really want him to hear me say that about him." Gage broke into laughter, shifting in his chair, as the audience laughed along.
Jack, too, smiled.
He could now add 'living legend' to his list of self-bestowed titles, a list he proudly held up in his mind with blu-tack and drawing pins he found underneath a desk somewhere.
Once more, the footage changed to show the outside of the tower, this time with a massive cloud of smoke settling inside a crater. The camera (thankfully horizontal) was quite shaky, seemingly in the process of running towards the area. Due to the prevalence of sirens blaring around the camera, Jack figured this must have been early on in the siege: All the police and army units had moved to form a massive exclusion zone around the tower when it became clear that they stood no chance against the Cyber-Dragon.
After a few seconds of this running footage, there was a brief fade-out, then fade-in to…
"IF?" Jack murmured, raising both brows in surprise.
"Sure…the guy can be a massive jerk," the brunette declared, her image filling up a huge two-thirds of the screen behind Dengekiko. The girl almost seemed smug about whatever she was saying. "And sure, he's got more bullets than brain cells. And sure, he took a level in good looks and passed over social skills and etiquette. But I still have to admit…he surprised the Hell outta me."
Jack chuckled, folding his arms and shaking his head as he leaned against the wall.
As IF continued narrating, it became clear what the footage was, despite the level of blur: The camera panned over the top of the crater that had just formed, and showed him standing on top of the dead Cyber-Dragon, raising his hand to catch the double-barrel…a move which didn't work, and ended up looking more like he pointed upwards and summoned a shotgun from the Heavens.
If he looked at the footage closely…aye, he could see his leg twisted. Holy fuck, how did he not cry at that point?
Once again, it cut back to IF herself, further raising questions of why IF didn't tell Jack this when they had their little "I'll Stroke Your Head And We Can Whisper Anything We Wanna Get Off Our Chests" moment at Compa's place.
"I mean, I was inside with one of their rogue guys, fighting terrorists on the way out," she boasted, "But it's one thing to be fighting some jerks with machine guns, and another thing to be fighting…how tall was that thing? Like, fifty foot?"
As it went back to the footage, and the crowd in the arena cheered as a clear-as-day clip of London giving the V for Victory at the nearby citizens began playing, IF continued, the screen showing the moment that the monster violently revived.
"Only twenty-five feet tall? Pssh. Besides, he only killed it once. I've killed Dungeon Bosses bigger than-"
A pause in her narration, as the footage turned to him surrounded by monsters and levelling his shotgun at them.
"…what the Hell do you mean, 'two revivals and an army of monsters'?"
The screen then turned black as the footage of him showed him defiantly looking up at the Dragon, cocking his Mossberg shotgun, and the crowd absolutely burst into roars of approval. At this point, the lights grew back into life on the stage, Dengekiko still standing there; This time, she held a phone in her hands.
The crowd settled themselves, and the TV star began again. "So, we all read the news, and we all got to find out about one of the biggest factors in stopping those nutcases," Dengekiko chirped, pacing along the stage to face as many directions as possible. "Ah, it was the very same Mr. Jack London who we saw giving a speech in this stadium about two months ago; Very sure most of us were there, because I certainly was." The crowd gave a brief round of whoops and applause; Not too long, but definitely noticeable amongst the hundreds of thousands gathered.
"Any of you watching social media about two weeks ago would probably have seen a huge hashtag popping up," continued the reporter, "That was hashtag 'Invincible London', and it burst up on the day that he woke up in hospital and left to meet the Goddesses, again."
As Dengekiko spoke, the screen began steadily cycling through a huge number of footage and images on a sideways scroll, most of them being pictures of Jack in other people's selfies. It only now occurred to Jack just how many people he met on the way out of the hospital…then again, he did have to go through a few pens with the signing of stuff.
Some of them were good; Some were shit.
One of them was a full-screen clip from when someone asked him to look at the camera and say "You're a fuckin' twat, Jeff, hahaha, don't say that, tell him he's an alright guy".
The woman on-stage shifted side to side slightly. "Obviously, any of you following my FaceBlanc or Vertter pages would have seen that I was quite excited about this happening." The audience let out quite an audible laugh, as Dengekiko shifted slightly awkwardly, rubbing the back of her head. "I mean, c'mon, who can blame me for sharing a few pictures of the guy? Or some self-insert erotic fanfiction about him that I…found…?"
More laughter rang out, and at this point, Jack's earpiece beeped quietly.
"We're about to set the footage rolling," the technician chirped, "How you get to that stage is up to you."
Jack really didn't need telling twice, and didn't need anything fancy: He straightened up, adjusted his lapels, and waited for the signal.
Just as Dengekiko was about to launch into some more talking, every single light in the arena and every light on the stage went totally dark, prompting both thousands-strong audience and zealous presenter to audibly voice their frustrations. Then, after a few moments of what seemed to be online dial-up noises ringing around the arena, the massive screen in the back flickered into life, drawing all eyes in the arena.
A pair of hands gripped a cloth at the back of someone's head, holding their face over a stream of water that gushed from a pipe that used to hold a sink in place. The man didn't seem to struggle under the grip: It was very clear he was dead from what appeared to be a brutal, improvised waterboarding. After about ten seconds, the hands finally – carelessly – dropped the drowned man's head onto the pipe, seemingly as some kind of insurance, then the view stood up.
There was a brief cut of static, before it cut back to slightly trimmed montage of the cameraman rifling through the corpse's pockets, withdrawing a tiny pistol, then a grenade, and finally sweeping up some kind of tiny rifle from the floor. After the hands racked the bolt, turning to face the door, the screen went black with the metallic clank of the slide shutting off all noises of the running water in the bathroom.
Finally, a voice.
"I ask you simple question: You are trying to stop me, yes?"
Footage finally kicked in that seemed to be shot from the bottom of the tower's atrium, staring up into what seemed like an endless rise of floors as background music began building in intensity. The camera seemed almost…natural; Like it were someone's head. Another rapid cut to a group of soldiers turning to face the camera, all raising guns, then a snap to a hand staring at a cracked N-Gear screen.
"Then how will you deal with many hundred well-armed and trained men of your skill, or higher?"
Another flash cut to a group of men drawing knives and steadily encroaching on the cameraman, all their eyes locked onto him. A cut to a towering man with a shotgun staring at the camera from across a building site. A rapid cut to a rifle firing down a tiny metal tunnel at someone sprinting towards the camera, eyes glowing bright green and a shrill shriek piercing the stadium audio.
The footage cut just as the man launched himself towards the camera, and it went black.
"Face facts: It's over."
There was another gentle fade into the same room that the video opened with, and as the man walked out of the bathroom, his attention seemed to catch on a pair of sunglasses.
At last, a new voice spoke as the man picked up the Aviator shades, and a huge cheer began building as the voice and mannerisms were swiftly caught by those assembled.
"Oh, it's not over until I teabag every last one of you backstabbin' motherfuckers."
The footage reached an absolute climax as the man turned to the mirror, sweeping on the glasses in one move, then giving a fairly arrogant finger gun gesture to himself, the audience practically exploding into cheering at the image.
Nobody could carry such astounding inflated self-worth, but Jack London.
One more cut, this time to the corridor, and Jack's mighty foot slamming the door practically off its' lock as a massive wall of terrorists turned to raise guns at him. The camera – now clear to the audience as being his vision at the time – filled with the image of a shotgun popping up in his hands from a disc, and the almost exaggerated gesture of racking the pump. As soon as it slammed forwards again, there was full black.
"Let's rock."
The screen and arena lit up with the glow of recorded combat footage that Jack had spent a few hours carefully editing the night before. With each on-screen kill, the crowd let out a roar of approval, the sounds being lost amongst the pounding heavy metal that was blasting through the speakers around the stadium.
Some of the feats displayed were quite frankly insane; Small amounts of wall-running, dropping entire floors just to land on someone and stomp through their head, and all manner of improvised weapons being bashed through people's faces lit up the screen in an array of what should really have been R-rated footage.
The disc of Jack's short-term memories contained a remarkably large collection of his memories of what music he'd listened to throughout the last few years, all relatively correct to what the actual song sounded like. He probably had those memories in there because of the fact he spent a lot of his time with an 'internal music player', a trick he was taught by Captain Wang during training: Essentially, it's the simple act of getting so good at repeating a song in your head that you can memorize every single aspect of a piece of music.
Ultimately pointless in the day-to-day, but for the fact Jack's outrageously brutal combat footage was now set to "The Touch" from the 1984 Transformers movie (the only song that Captain Wang ever let him listen to), the audience was now incredibly hyped up and seemingly totally unbothered by the gore that was showing up on-screen.
It was about a solid three and a half minutes of watching him take on the Cyber-Dragon's horde, squads of terrorists, a few hits here and there, and the final climax of staring down the Killachine. The audience, including Dengekiko, were absolutely captivated by the violence, roaring in approval as terrorists were slammed with shotgun shells and kicked head-first through pieces of furniture.
They really shouldn't have been so excited to see it, but good Goddess, if everything that had been reported about these terrorists was true, most people in the audience felt great to see the criminals' demises first-hand.
As the on-screen London lowered his minigun and began spraying at the Killachine, the footage went totally black for a second, which gave Jack the cover he needed. The arena was now dark for about five seconds, giving him the opportunity to step from the shadows and begin walking over to the main stage along a lengthy catwalk. A slight chirp in his earpiece, just audible over the steadily increasing applause of the audience, indicated that his microphone was now active. Jack wasted no time in announcing his presence.
"That was a pretty fun evenin'."
His voice echoed around the arena, and barely a second after he'd said it and the crowd began getting more excited, a set of beaming spotlights began shining on him as he walked along the catwalk, accompanied by what sounded like the noise from Inception that ripped through every speaker in the stadium at once, before transitioning into tremendous, almost regal fanfare that would've been more fitting for Superman than it would for some asshole with guns.
There came a near explosion of shrieking as people realized his presence, and thunderous applause filled the stadium, hundreds of thousands of eyes watching him stride to the middle of the room. Turning side to side to give a few waves and mock salutes as he walked, Jack was both obliged to smile, and physically unable to not smile at that moment, making sure to keep pace whilst heading to the centre stage.
He was a hero, again.
Some, of course, reacted better than others: Dengekiko herself was leaning on her desk through what seemed to be sheer ecstasy, but on closer inspection just seemed to be nervous fangasming, or embarrassed breathing exercises. Jack offered her a genuine grin as he approached, the much smaller woman covering her mouth and reclining on her desk slightly, jaw agape and smiling.
"How we doin'?" Jack asked warmly, extending his hands in greeting, prompting Dengekiko to move her hand to her forehead, both trying to get her breath back and stop laughing. The applause hadn't died down yet, so Jack opted to calmly approach, extending a hand for Dengekiko to shake.
Instead of the handshake he'd been expecting, the woman launched herself closer to him, before pulling his arm down with a rather stunning amount of force and planting a rather lengthy kiss on his left cheek, much to the audience's uproarious amusement as Jack rather embarrassingly went nearly beet red, rubbing his cheek slightly as he sat down on the couch, Dengekiko sitting herself behind her desk with an ecstatic expression on her face.
Jack cleared his throat a little bit as the audience's applause died down, leaving him trying to slow his heart rate as Dengekiko just stared at him from the desk. It took about five seconds of staring for a round of chuckling to come from the audience.
Jack swallowed slightly.
Dengekiko was really staring at him. Like, with that jaw-agape and smiling look.
"…I've not got summat on my face, have I?" he asked finally, patting his cheek a couple of times. The blonde woman behind the desk simply shook her head briefly as if to regain some sense, then cleared her throat.
"I…uh, yeah. H-H-Hahaaaa…"
She narrowed her eyes at her paperwork that covered her desk, then out at the audience for a second, still smiling. "This…this wasn't on, uh, the script, so…uh…wow." She paused, then looked back at the behemoth sat on the couch in front of her, gesturing wordlessly at him but still smiling.
Jack was raising his head expectantly, waiting for her to actually say something; The audience were in stitches watching her try to cope with meeting one of her well-known celebrity crushes.
"You're…wow, I mean! Just, uh, like…w-wow." By this point, she'd gone rather noticeably red.
"Do you need me to head back out and come back in so you're less surprised?" Jack asked jokingly, unbuttoning his suit jacket. "I mean, apparently that video was just gonna play at random. You seemed surprised." Dengekiko cleared her throat as the audience murmured excitedly.
"A-Ah, me? Excited? Yes. O-Oh, you said surprised, that too. Yeah."
He just smirked at her, brushing his fingers through his hair. "I dunno if I'm disappointin' you at all: I usually get the whole 'I thought you were shorter' and 'please God don't kill me' from everyone else, so it's hard to gauge reactions." The audience burst into a wave of chuckling, including Dengekiko.
"Oh, that's just a celebrity thing. Some people think I'm like three-foot-seven, some of them think I'm as tall as you, you can never win," she shrugged, keeping the laughter going. "Sometimes I crouch walk past low walls just to throw people off guessing how tall I am." Jack raised a hand almost dismissively.
"Let's not even get into the fact 'low walls' in Gamindustri are basically designed by you people so that you can make me crack my shins on them or trip on them," he groaned, raising more laughter as he pointed at his shin. "I'm gonna break my shins on one of those little walls, one of these days. Why do you all have to be so small? I feel like a lot of journalists could get away with callin' me the BFG, if you got rid of the 'F' and replaced it with a 'D' for 'Deadly'."
Dengekiko gave a raised brow and a slow headshake, still smiling. "Kiiiiiinda don't get the reference, but maybe I'm just being close-minded." Jack just shrugged as a chuckle rippled through the sea of people around the stage.
"Eh. It's pretty obscure."
"Besides that, with the whole 'big guy' thing, you did somehow find a suit in your size, which is surprising," she continued, gesturing to him. "I almost didn't expect to see you in a suit, Mr. London." Jack smirked at the comment, leaning forward and clasping his hands together.
"Now, to be fair, you didn't expect to see me…at all," he corrected, raising more laughter.
"That's…not wrong," the journalist noted, raising her finger and chuckling nervously. "And so, uh, all of that we just saw, that was all raw footage from that night? From your perspective?" Jack gave a nod.
"Yeah, pretty much," he replied, smirking and scratching his head. "That was a cropped down version of about…Christ, six, seven hours of footage I had to go through. That was just a tiny bit." He turned out to some nearby crowd members who were fortunate enough to be near the stage. "Did I pick out good footage?"
The response was a loud murmur of "Yeah!" from thousands of people, prompting him to smile and face Dengekiko again. "Fantastic, I'll be makin' blockbuster films in no time." Jack finally inhaled and sighed, looking about the packed arena. "Weird, bein' on TV."
The reporter smirked slightly. "Oh, you've been on TV a lot for the past few weeks.
"Yeah, well, I figured as much. But, like, this is my first time actually doin' a TV show."
Dengekiko leaned onto her desk, raising a brow. "But, uh, didn't you do that speech?"
Jack shrugged. "Oh, aye, but that's just expected, innit? Footballers aren't makin' a football TV show, they're playin' a football game which happens to get made into TV at the same time. I mean like on-stage, bein' interviewed, whatever, y'know?" The reporter in front of him nodded steadily.
"Yeah, yeah, I get what you mean." She paused, swallowing briefly and awkwardly gesturing to the Nepstation logo on the screen behind her. "You, uh, a fan of Nepstation?" Jack leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs and chuckling slightly.
"Would you kill me if I said I'd only seen a couple of the highlight episodes, and never caught it live?" he asked awkwardly. The audience let out a loud "oooooh" as Dengekiko folded her arms, rolling her eyes and still smiling as Jack raised his his hands defensively. "OK, listen, in my defense; I'm pretty much wrist deep in dead things durin' a lot of my free time, so I can't really catch anythin' on the TV, but, I will say that the episodes I have caught were absolutely excellent."
The journalist before him just drummed her fingertips on the table, shaking her head but stil smiling as she looked to the audience, giving them a "Is This Guy For Real?" gesture and raising laughter and applause. "I suppose I can let you off," Dengekiko began finally, before sharply raising a finger. "On one condition, though: Later on in the show, you've gotta tell us the details what's happening with you, Oracle Hakozaki, and Lady Vert."
Jack stared ahead flatly as more sassy "ohhhh~"ing came from the audience, and he licked his lips briefly, smirking and nodding slowly.
Dengekiko looked out at the crowd, waving her arm slightly. "I mean, come on, strapping young guy, two really good-looking ladies…SOMETHING'S gotta be happening, right?" Jack rolled his head back closing his eyes for a second, then chuckled.
There, classic talk show question.
He raised a finger to speak, then decided against it.
Then, as the audience noise died down, he decided to speak anyway.
"Hey, you want me to talk about that, you get to tell me about these FaceBlanc and Vertter pages you have," he replied, smirking as the woman went bright red, and the audience became loud once more. He put on a mocking expression of thought. "Well, hold on, what was that? Summat... summat about 'self-insert erotic fanfiction', was it?"
With every word, Dengekiko's face somehow sunk further into her desk, and Jack became increasingly smug, the audience only getting more entertained by the second as the suited man smiled at them, then turned back to face the embarrassed presenter. After a moment, she popped her head back up.
"I…found those," she declared, raising a finger – and further laughter from the audience. Jack raised a brow, grinning.
"Where? On your hard drive?!" he laughed, before waving a dismissive hand to the presenter as applause kicked in, the two of them giving it the "I'm joking, I'm joking" spiel to each other over the thunderous noise. As it died down, conversation started again.
"Now…uh, obviously, that aside," Dengekiko began, "You came here to discuss the incident that went down at the tower, and that you did quite a bit of work that night."
Jack gave a firm nod, and patted the arm of the sofa. "Ah, yes, that's…that's why I'm here." He ran a hand through his hair briefly, and leaned forward in the chair. No creaking from it, so that was good.
"OK! So, let's start with the obvious!" Dengekiko's cheerful demeanour suddenly changed to that of a grinning malevolence as she turned to face him fully, leaning forwards onto her desk. "How many of those monsters did you take down?" The response to the question, audience-wise, was a loud roar of anticipation. Jack licked his lips, chuckling and nodding slowly, finally opening his mouth to speak.
"If…by 'take down', you mean put into hospital?" he replied. "About five." The audience responded with slightly confused whooping, one which could only be translated as "Only five? What?". Even Denegkiko seemed to raise a brow at the claim, quite clearly seeming to be trying to not seem insulting with what was clearly an unimpressed face.
Jack gave it a second before continuing, this time smirking. "If you mean 'take down' as in 'send to the morgue'?" The audience suddenly began getting slightly louder. "I think that number's up there at about two hundred and sixty." The smile crept back onto the host's face and there came a deafening cheer once again as Jack began listing off the kill counts he could remember from the floors, and how many of the Cyber-Dragon's monsters he'd taken down.
If he was being honest, he kind of thought he was underselling it again. A lot of kills that didn't appear in the footage would probably have changed people's view on him to make them see him as some kind of monster himself.
But, of course, that wasn't footage they had to see.
For now?
He had two hours to keep these people entertained.
Four hours later, at the Basilicom…
Just as Jack took off his suit jacket and prepared to take off the black underarm holster he was strapped with, getting ready for a quick shower before heading out again, there came a knock at the door.
The hesitation between knocks, and time of evening, indicated it was not Cave and it was not Chika. Those two were perfectly confident in knocking on his door (or not) before entering. Sigrun would already be inside the room and picking him up for a hug, so that was definitely out of the question.
Raising a brow and one-handedly throwing his blazer onto the back of a chair in the corner of the room, Jack calmly strode across the room to the door. "I'm comin', hold your horses," he said carefully, tilting his head slightly at the silence on the other side.
Unusual. There was normally at least shifting on the other side…
Cautiously, he opened the door.
"…u-uh, L-Lady Vert, hello, wow, you are in a bathrobe, hi," he stuttered, rather taken aback by the sight before him. Standing in front of him, at nearly 11:00 at night when the basilicom was practically dead silent, Vert was sheepishly clutching a pillow, wearing a dressing gown with her blonde hair flowing down behind her. What was quite apparent was the look of distress on her face, and the fact she was wearing fluffy slippers.
Jack just stared at her for a moment. "I've…I've not done summat wrong, have I?" he asked finally. Vert slowly shook her head, rubbing at her eye. "You alright?"
The CPU just sniffed – in the crying manner – and looked down at the floor slightly. "M-My mother locked my bedroom door," she said quietly, clearly trying to avoid voice cracks. "I can't get into my bedroom and I don't feel comfortable asking anyone else…M-Mr. London, m-may I sleep in your room tonight?"
Jack, without even missing a beat, opened his door slightly wider and pointed to the bed. "Sure, have fun," he said calmly. Vert just let out a slow breath after swallowing hard, and shuffled into her male friend's room, Jack closing the door behind her after checking both ways down the hall.
As the door clicked shut, he turned to see Vert was now sat on the edge of his bed, holding the white pillow that she had to her ample chest and clutching it like a teddy. Slowly, he walked over to her, his decent shoes gently clicking against the varnished wood flooring with each step, hands in his suit trouser pockets as he looked down at her. "You sure you're OK?" he asked again. "Why would your mum lock you out of your own bedroom?"
The woman before him was sat like a child in the teacher's office talking about a problem. "W-Well, we were both watching your NepStation interview on TV," she began. "Then when it ended I said I was going to get my pyjamas on so that I could sleep. Mother responded by waiting for me to go to the bathroom, then locking my door and leaving me only my…um, p-pyjamas. I-It's too late and I would feel awful if I bothered the maids, Chika would be drunk right about now, Miss Cave is at the SMD barracks, a-and…and you're the only other person I knew well enough to ask…s-so…"
Jack shrugged at the explanation. Seemed reasonable enough to him.
But now he had no time to shower.
"Well, whilst I don't know what's goin' through Sigrun's head by lockin' you out of your bedroom, you're certainly welcome to use mine," he replied, scratching the back of his head and checking the time on his phone, before slipping it away again. "I'm goin' out tonight with the lads. Apparently we're meetin' up with some of your mum's soldiers, who're probably soldiers from where I'm from."
Vert blinked a couple of times, then rubbed her eyes again. "So…you're not going to be in this bed?" she asked. Jack gave a calm nod, going to the chair and swinging his suit jacket over his shoulder, before tucking the Deagle into the absolutely giant black leather holster beneath his left arm.
"Nope. Means you can use it all night, if you want," he said calmly, moving over to the small pile of presents that he had kept after the siege, so that he could retrieve the rather swanky set of Wayfarer-esque sunglasses that sat on the top. "I'm not sure when I get back in, but I'll just sleep in the hallway outside if I get back and I'm tired."
Vert just shuffled a bit. "It's…your bed, Mr. London, you don't have to give it up." Jack shrugged, sliding the black shades over his eyes and slicking his hair back one-handedly.
"I'm hardly jumpin' into bed with a goddess, plus you're WAY out of my league," he replied casually, before spinning on his heels and strolling to the door.
Vert gave a blank stare at him, seemingly disheartened, then shifted up on the bed slightly, gently sinking her chin onto the pillow in her hands. "…o-oh."
If the man before her had noticed that she looked upset that he was leaving her on her own, he didn't show it, instead offering a quick "See you tomorrow, Lady Vert!" and sliding out of the door, shutting it with an audible click behind him.
Vert sighed, and shifted up the bed, removing her dressing gown with one movement and quickly darting beneath the bedsheets, flicking the lights off with the switch above the headboard before anyone who might have been there could notice that she was wearing, through the reasoning that it was all she had access to, rather frilly black lingerie.
As she pulled the covers over herself, Vert pouted beneath the sheets.
"Mom's pranks aren't funny…" she whimpered, before giving a gentle sigh and closing her eyes.
Half an hour later, on the downtown streets of Leanbox…
Contrary to the last time he'd been to downtown Leanbox of his own accord – in which he ended up shooting up a nightclub and having an existential crisis afterwards – Jack was enjoying his 11:30PM walk through the city, the Saturday night crowds still building up as everyone started going into nightclubs. Whilst he wasn't exactly fond of receiving everyone's attention whilst walking to the bar he was meeting people at, he couldn't help but find pleasure in the fact everyone who saw him was smiling at him, or that entire waiting lines outside of nightclubs would start whooping and cheering when he walked past.
Certainly, not good for trying to have a quiet night out, but then again, it was a Saturday night. Not exactly "quiet night" for any city or town.
The bar he was looking for was called 'All Star', which Jack had paid to rent out for tonight so that there would be enough space. Friendly enough staff, according to the NepAdvisor reviews, and the food had been spoken about on quite a few critic sites as "on par with the Loweean 'Cookery MILF' chain of restaurants". Since he'd said people should get there for about 8 o'clock or so, people would have had plenty of time to eat and get drinks, and Jack had pre-warned them that he would be tremendously late due to his TV appearance.
So, rounding the corner to the street that his N-Gear told him would be the one the bar is situated on, Jack was greeted by the sight of the establishment's car park filled to the brim with about a half-dozen different armoured vehicles, multiple army jeeps, a strange motorcycle-thing with no wheels, two horses, and what seemed to be a Land Rover camper van. On approaching said van as he crossed the car park, Jack noticed that in the place of a tax disk, there was a post-it note saying "TAX IN POST", and a parking ticket which – on closer inspection after taking it off himself – was quite clearly fake, though it did occur to him that it was an Earth-style ticket as opposed to a Gamindustrian ticket.
Jack stared at the small yellow notice blankly, turning it over a few times. "That's the smartest fuckin' thing I've seen all day…" he murmured, removing his sunglasses and replacing the ticket behind a windscreen wiper that had seen better days.
Looking at the bar itself – which was built underneath one of Leanbox's huge skyscrapers – he could see lots of people inside, behind curtains that silhouetted their large shapes, and the sound of talking was very obvious, even from outside.
He just hoped they weren't a bunch of assholes.