-1Carol woke up slung over a man's shoulder. Jack's coat was still on her, but her bottom half was completely bare.
"What the hell did you guys do to me?" she screamed, and struggled violently against the man holding her. It was the same one who had beaten Jack and that other man, Nomu, in a fight; the one in the gold robe. Take.
"We all raped you in your ass," Take said, and the men laughed. Carol was horrified, because she couldn't tell if Take was kidding or not. She didn't feel any different, so she assumed he was.
"Where are you taking me?" Carol screamed. "Help! Someone!"
"You are far from anybody that can help you. You would do well to shut up or I will kill you."
Carol shut up. She wished she had some clothes, because it was very cold. She lifted her head and surveyed her surroundings.
"God…"
It was a wasteland. That's it. Completely barren, no trees, plants, grass, anything. Carol looked up at the sky. It was completely black. No stars. The only light came from torches Take's men were carrying.
"Where are you taking me?" Carol screamed.
"The Fortress."
"Where the hell is that? What the hell is that?"
"Let me put it this way. When you get there, you'd better hope your boyfriend is smart enough to come get you, because if he isn't, you'll surely meet your death."
Carol was stunned. Boyfriend?
"Jack isn't my boyfriend."
"Right, sure. Listen, Carol, was it? I don't want to hurt you-"
"Then why did you kidnap me and hurt Jack?"
Take answered, "I had no choice. Well, I did, but that's beside the point. The point is, we were hired to do this, and our Shogun will not have us refuse a man with good money."
"So you're mercenaries?"
"Yes."
"What's a Shogun?"
"It's what we call a King in my world. Speaking of King…"
Meanwhile, inside the meeting hall of The Fortress, fifteen men were talking heatedly.
"Sugo, word on the boy."
"He is leaving this world. I believe he is seeking out that girl. Carol."
"Sugo, spare us the details and motivations."
"Apologies," Sugo said, sincerely.
The man continued, "Dexter, that was a sheer streak of brilliance with hiring Take and giving that infernal council control of the Emos. Well done!"
"Thank you, Herman," Dexter Bench replied.
"All that remains is to kill that Accardo man. Without him, the CAD will fall and we will be almost unopposed."
"What of the boy?" Dexter asked.
"Do not worry yourself with him," Herman said with contempt. "I believe the council will take him out."
"Yes, sir. Now, about my promotion…"
"Your King is a very corrupt man. I had the displeasure of meeting him the other day about finding you…"
"You're the one who had the Brute Tre sent to my house?"
"Heavens no. I told the King that I needed to meet you, and he said he knew of a way. That's it. I don't know how he did it, but he failed."
"He had my family killed! It's your fault! You bastard! I'll fucking kill you! You fucking bastard, I'll fucking kill you!" Carol sobbed.
"Carol, listen. I do not lie or cheat, so I will take partial responsibility for your familie's death. For that, I am sorry. But I will apologize no more to you, for you have insulted me. Now, shut up. We're almost there."
Carol shut up. She was starting to see beyond the heartless killer she had first suspected Take of being. She considered this, and came to the conclusion that Take was a good man to which bad things happen.
They marched in silence for another twenty minutes. The soldiers kept looking at Carol and smiling, but she ignored them. It was too cold to think about horny men looking at her. After a while, she started to feel uneasy.
"What you feel now, possibly fatigue, uneasiness, fear or anger, is a result of us drawing closer to The Fortress. It should wear off once you're inside. Now, you might think it is a simple building, but it is so much more. It is itself an entire world, bigger than all of the others put together. You'd do best to put your emotions behind you."
Carol did as Take said, but found it was hard. By the time she finally did, they were standing in front of a large wrought-iron gate. Huge. Monumental. Colossal. Titanic. Those were words to describe it. It reached so high into the blank sky that Carol could not see the top of it.
"Is it ever light here?" Carol asked.
"No. It is always like this," Take replied. He drew his sword and held it up to the lock on the gate. The lock itself was probably the size of a large dog. On the lock, Carol saw an emblem of some kind had been scratched on the surface. The shape Carol had learned in geometry class; it was a scalene triangle. The C point (C being a variable,) in other words the point connected with the two longest sides, was on the bottom.
"Take? What does the triangle mean?"
"It is the emblem of the Seventeenth."
Carol started. Now she got it. The triangle was the numbers 1 and 7, just pushed together so it looked like a triangle. Interesting.
Take stuck his sword into the lock, and both immediately started to glow. Carol gasped.
After a minute of Take just holding the sword in the lock, a man appeared at the gate.
"Take? Is it you?"
"It is. Hello, Kevin."
"Hi. Is she here?"
"Yes," Take replied. "I'll leave her here for you. Goodbye."
"You sure you won't stay? They're all playing poker."
"I'm quite sure," Take said. He lifted Carol off of him, and set her down. She shuddered, for her feet were bare and the ground was absolutely freezing. The torchlight faded as Take's men walked away. Silence. Then, a monumentally loud creaking noise. Carol jumped, then put her hands to her ears. It only lasted a few seconds, however, and the gate was open. Carol was surprised something so big could open so fast.
"Hello, Carol. Goodness, you must be freezing!"
Carol whirled around. The man named Kevin was standing in front of her, but she couldn't see his face, for it was obscured by a strange mask. Jack didn't recognize the mask, for he never paid attention in history class, but Carol recognized it immediately.
"Nice Guy Fawkes mask," Carol remarked. "Who are you?"
"I'm the junior member in the Seventeenth. My rank is Seventeenth, and I'm in charge of the gate and special deliveries. Which is what you are. It would usually take hours to walk up to the door, but I can teleport us. They're at a 'meeting' right now."
"You weren't invited?"
"Well, the Maker, whose rank is One, doesn't go either. So, I've decided that only the cool people get to ditch the meetings." With that, Kevin grabbed Carol's hand.
Carol laughed. This place wasn't so bad. Was her father really here?
"Shut your eyes," Kevin said. Carol did so, and when she opened them a couple seconds later, she was inside a HUGE white hallway. She could hear voices in the distance.
"We've got some walking to do," Kevin said. Carol nodded and they walked.
For about an hour they walked, Carol wondering all the while when it would end. The voices got progressively louder. When Carol sensed that they really were almost there, Kevin grabbed her arm again. She looked at him. He seemed scared. No, worried.
"Carol, listen. I have to warn you, you are not going to like it here. I am very sorry, believe me. I will have no part in it, but I can't stop them. Please, forgive me."
"Kevin, what are you talking about?"
"Nothing. Just listen. I have a gift for you. Here, put these on."
Kevin withdrew from inside his trench coat a small cloth bundle. It was silver and faintly shimmering.
"Clothes?"
"You don't want to walk around naked all the time, do you?"
Carol laughed. "I guess not. Thanks."
She took them. There was a pair of underwear and a skirt, along with a bra. But no shirt.
"Um, Kevin? Do you have a shirt?"
"That is a shirt. I know it's not what you're used to, but-"
"No, these are…nice."
"Sorry, but women's clothes are in short supply here. Do you like the cloth? I believe it's called Capri."
"I do. It's very…comfortable."
Carol shivered. She had never worn anything that had shown off so much before. At least it was warmer in here.
"Come on. The door should be around here." Kevin put his arm out, and in a flash of white light a blue Rose appeared in his hand.
"A Rose? That one's like's Jack's!"
"Similar, but unlike your friends, this one isn't real."
"Real?" Carol asked.
"Never mind. Anyways, we all have one."
"We? Who's we?"
"We who have ceased to exist. The Seventeenth. It was nice meeting you, Carol. Maybe I'll see you again."
With that, Kevin snapped his fingers and he disappeared in a cloud of black smoke.
Suddenly, a door appeared in the wall Carol was facing. She grasped the knob, turned it, and opened it.
The voices got louder. Carol walked through a narrow hallway and came upon a large table. Sitting around this table were fifteen men, all drinking heavily, playing cards.
"Um…hello?"
The men all looked up from their card game at Carol. She could see that they too were also wearing Guy Fawkes masks.
"Ah, Carol! Good, good. Dexter, I must once again reiterate how good of an idea hiring Take was."
"Thank you, Herman."
"Yes. Well, Carol, have a seat, why don't you?"
"Um…ok."
Carol walked over to the table and sat down at the only empty seat, in-between two tall men, both with long black hair. She wondered if they had the same faces too. Hell, every one of them could have the same face.
"Do you know how to play poker, Carol?" Herman asked.
"Um…no, I don't think I've ever heard of it."
"Oh, well then, never mind," Herman sighed. "Would you like a beer?"
"No thank you."
"I'm kidding. You're too young." Herman laughed.
"If you could just please tell me why I'm here?"
"All right, all right. Welcome to The Fortress. We-"
"The Fortress?" Carol suddenly remembered something important. "My father is here! Where is he?"
The men all laughed. "Bring him out," Herman called. "Oh, and Sugo, I raise you a hundred bucks."
Carol didn't pay attention to what else was happening, because, all of a sudden, the two men with the same hair sitting on either side of her snapped their fingers and a bloody mass appeared on the ground behind Carol.
"What the hell is that?"
"Your father."
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Jack, Nomu, Iz, Hidetora, Tango, Kyoami and Tsurumaru trudged up the rocky mountain path towards the ruins of some castle. Tango said that the castle had been destroyed by Hidetora's army in an earlier war, but Jack didn't care. He was just concerned with finding the next Rose.
"It's getting dark. We'll camp here tonight," Tango said. They were right at the edge of the ruins, and they would be able to easily see someone sneaking up on them. Tango and Nomu sat down to build a fire while Kyoami helped Hidetora sit down. Hidetora was still not himself. Tsurumaru had already sat down on the ground next to Jack. Jack was about to do the same when he heard a pair of voices.
"Villagers reported a group of men coming this way. We have to be sure."
Nomu put his finger to his lips. "Jiro's scouts," he whispered, and silently drew his sword. They could hear the two men walking around the stone they were behind. Any second they would be seen.
Nomu moved to the edge and waited. The two men finally walked around the boulder, and Nomu cut the first one down immediately. The second at least had a second to draw his sword before Nomu slit his throat.
"These men…they aren't Jiro's scouts!" Tango shouted.
"Shhh! There could me more of them!"
Tango ignored Nomu and kneeled before the two corpses.
"These are men I worked with! They were Hidetora's scouts! They-"
"They've betrayed us all. This is bad. We need Saburo…" Nomu looked around. "It's getting late. We should sleep. I'll keep first watch."
Everyone nodded and laid by the fire. Hidetora was already asleep.
Jack slept. Not as long as he would have liked, however, because he was awakened by a scream. He got up and summoned the Rose.
"What's going on?"
"It's Hidetora!" Iz shouted. Jack looked. Hidetora was shaking on the ground, screaming something about murder, and have mercy.
"Oh, no. Well, we might as well get up anyways…look."
The sun was rising.
"What do you mean, my father?" Then it dawned on Carol. "No…you didn't!"
Carol's hands shook with rage. "Yes, Carol. You are angry, I know. But it's okay. Your father was a weak little prune anyways. He was expendable."
Carol glared up at Herman Melvin. The mask's lack of emotion was unsettling.
"Of course, it's not his fault. It was probably actually your fault. He was so worried about you that all he could do was beg that we leave you alone. In fact, you-"
"SHUT UP! JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Carol screamed. In a flash of white light, the White Rose was in her hand.
"Excellent. Now-"
Carol cut him off again, this time by leaping on him and trying to bring the Rose down on his head. This Rose was shorter then the others, but just as light. Instead of thorns or leaves on the "stem," it was covered with a vine that twisted its way up. Carol found it was easy to grip with the vine there. It filled Carol with energy; not energy like she was used to, but something else. She knew she could do anything with this, things neither she or the bastard in front of her had ever even dreamed of.
Herman kicked his chair back a few feet and blocked Carol with another Blue Rose. She swung down again and again, but Herman easily parried each one.
It was no use. Carol had never fought with anything like this before. The only thing she had any experience with were various guns. She gave up.
"That's it, Carol. Now, if you want to live, you have several tasks to do."
"Go to hell!" Carol snapped.
"I can't."
"What?"
"You see, Carol, there are certain kinds of 'people,'" Herman said, "who do not exist. We are among those people. And it's not that they don't exist, it is that they have ceased to exist. We are nothing. Empty shells. We can imitate human feelings, but in the end, it doesn't even matter. In the end, we are nothing but blank souls. We are called by the oldest scholars and sorcerers Lifeseekers. I acknowledge us being called that, for that is what we are. There are but a few of us left, for the prejudice and hate against us has led us to be hunted. Let me tell you a story."
Carol listened with fascination. She recalled asking a teacher when she was 13 what a Lifeseeker was, and the teacher said that that was forbidden talk. She had put it out of her mind (she didn't even remember where she first heard the term.)
"Nine hundred and ninety-eight years ago, there was an entire nation made up of Lifeseekers. All of us here were among them. We were the guiding light of all the worlds (this was after The Splitting,) and we led in technology and riches. We even discovered how to travel between the worlds without the Roses. We also discovered how to make artificial roses, and how to engineer artificial Metallica. We were SO CLOSE to making the Roses obsolete, when we were attacked by soldiers under the Eastern Alliance. Attacked out of spite and jealousy. Their legions overran our borders and wrought ruin upon our cities. We fought and were killed, our technology lost under only a month of warfare and debris. How we lost I have no idea. We had so many weapons that they didn't, but they must have had the greatest genius of the time leading them. Whatever the case, we were destroyed and the survivors put in labor camps. We were put in the most heinous of all of them. We were forced to build a monument to the "heroism" of the soldiers who fought against us. This was too much. We did the work, but secretly plotted a way to fight back. All we needed was a leader. And, lo and behold, we found just that in Randall Fagg. He was a new arrival to the camp. The fire that burned inside of him was so great that it allowed him to keep his Black Rose the Eastern Alliance had failed to remove from him properly. He armed us, and at midnight on June Second, we overpowered the guards and went on a riot. We destroyed the monument we had worked so hard to build, and killed every human in sight. I sometimes regret what we did, but then I remember I have no feelings. We killed or raped women and children. We slaughtered without remorse, without regret, until everyone else was dead. Many of us were killed. There were exactly seventeen survivors. Randall taught us the secrets we had forgotten, and we forged these Blue Roses. Our mission now is not as much to seek life as it is to get revenge. June 2nd, two years from now, will be the thousandth anniversary of when we were destroyed. On this day, our efforts will come to fruition. Every world will collapse, and all the Roses will be absorbed into the black one. Then Randall Fagg will have ultimate power, and he will be able to turn us into real people! We will become whole, and we will all rule all the worlds side by side with Randall!"
"You won't succeed."
Herman laughed. "Well, little girl, you might not think so, but as second in command of The Seventeenth, I command you to help us. And you will help us, be aware of that. If you don't, we have men very close to Jack Brown that can kill him at any time."
"WHAT?" Carol shouted. She got up again and brandished the Rose. "THAT'S IT! LET ME OUT OF HERE!"
"Don't you want to hear the story of The Fortress first?"
Jack, Nomu, Iz, Tango, and Kyoami crouched behind a fallen pillar.
"Look!" Jack pointed. There was an Anger fighting two Despairs.
"Ten coins on the Anger," Kyoami said. Nomu scowled at him.
"Well, we can't just leave them," Jack said as the Anger let out a ferocious howl. "They're too loud. They could give us away."
"Let's go!" Nomu said, drawing his sword. Jack summoned the Green Rose and leapt at the Emos. Iz followed close behind. Jack landed behind the two Despairs and killed both of them. The Anger leapt at him, but Jack parried him away. The Anger flew backwards and Nomu slashed it in the air. It fell down, "bleeding" black fumes of smoke. It leapt at Nomu, but Iz threw his spear and it went through the Anger, killing it.
Before any of them could say anything, they heard another scream.
"Hidetora again," Jack said. Nomu nodded, and they went back towards their camp. When they arrived, they immediately saw that it was not Hidetora who had screamed. It was Tango.
"Hidetora is gone."
"This fortress was built before the world as we know it came to be. It was designed and
built by the Dark Elves of Bryn. Bryn was not a city back then, it was what all of this land was
known as. After it was finished, their king gathered the whole tribe in front of it. Their sorcerer
put a spell on the entire tribe protecting them, for they had built the Fortress on what was once a
sacred temple honoring one of the gods of The Great Old Ones. Whatever god it was, it didn't like
that. Furious, the god merged itself with The Fortress, which was at the time much smaller, and
turned it into the behemoth it is today. The elves were scared and sought to destroy what they had
built. They went to get help from the earliest actual kingdom, the kingdom of Fallan, whose
king's name was Samuel. Samuel rallied every tribe of humans, elves, dwarves, goblins, and
dragons into the largest army ever known. They surrounded The Fortress and attacked it, crushing
pillars and destroying walls and doors. Not even this god could seem to fight back. Finally, The
Fortress was nearly destroyed. Samuel ordered a final charge, but the god came back with a
vengeance, and rebuilt the entire thing in but a minute. The armies kept fighting, but this time the
god fought back. Tens of thousands were killed. Samuel would not give up, for he knew what had
to be done. Finally, it was down to the god and Samuel himself, who was a great warrior. Samuel
crashed through The Fortress, fighting off whatever the god used against him. Finally he reached
the basement, where the Core was. There they fought for hours, neither tiring or backing down.
Finally Samuel saw what had to be done. He leapt into the Core and fought the god in the depths
of hell itself. Samuel lost the fight and was spit back out. Near death, he used the last of his power
to throw his lance back into the Core. Praying for a shot. His aim was true, and he hit that bastard
dead in the heart. The god screamed with fury but could not do anything. The god was pushed
back down and now lies dormant. Before it was sucked back down, however, it spit the lance back
out at Samuel. It hit him right in the heart. It killed his body, but could not break his spirit.
Samuel's soul returned to Fallan, where it said its goodbyes to his wife and children, and prepared
to ascend to the heavens. His wife took the sacred crown of Fallan and gave put it in Samuel's
memorial. Samuel could not bear to leave for some reason, so he joined himself with the
memorial itself, which was a very large statue made of Metallica. But something wrong happened.
Instead of controlling the statue, which he thought, the statue got broken into the Roses, which
was the emblem of Fallan. This is the story of The Roses. Samuel's broken spirit remains inside
them to this day. I suppose his hope is that when the god finally returns whomever may use the
Roses can defeat him once and for all. Only people related to Samuel himself can use the Roses."
"No…" Carol stuttered, looking at the White Rose in her hand. "That means I'm related
to him! That means I'm related to Jack!"
"Not necessarily. I didn't mean blood-related. Samuel himself had twelve children, and
all of his children at least twenty-five between them. There were many different marriages. I have
estimated that about three percent of all the people in all the worlds put together are related to
him, through blood or marriage. I happen to know you aren't related to Jack by blood."
"How could you know that?" Carol asked.
"Confucius said, 'keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.' I know virtually
everything there is to know about you and Jack."
"Who's Confucius? Wait, I don't care. Is that story true?" Carol's curiosity was getting
the better of her. She was getting side-tracked. She couldn't help it, and she wasn't aware of it yet.
"We're your enemies, yet I just met you today. What is going on here?" Carol demanded.
Herman Melvin sighed. "I'd better tell you. It'd be worse if I didn't. First let me say that if you cooperate completely both you and Jack will survive. Resist, and not only will you do our bidding, but you will die when we are finished. You will do our bidding. You have no choice. I can torture you. I can kill the man, and I use that term lightly, you love. I can even put you under a mind-control spell, but I hope it doesn't come to that. Now listen. You will obey us, go where we say, do as we bid, until we are finished with you. Jack will continue relatively safely on his quest, unopposed by us at least, until he has served the purpose we need him to do. After that, he will join us in The Fortress. You two will get your own private tower, and if you like you can be generals in our War to End all Wars. If not, you can live it out in The Fortress, and when it is over you can either retire together or serve in the military or government. You will have many choices, but right now you have none. Do you understand?"
"Yes…but explain the motives of what I'm doing."
"Your first mission is to find a man and deliver a written message to him. His name is Iz, and he lives on Paradise Islands."
Jack crashed through the bushes and out into an 'open' field full of men. Soldiers from many armies. Tango had warned them that this would happen, and he was supposed to come here to help Saburo's troops win. Yes, Saburo had returned with his army. But it was relatively small, and he was being violently opposed by Jiro and two other armies. Saburo's colors was a light blue. Jack saw them camped at the other end of the field. Nomu and Iz would were looking for Hidetora. They would meet Jack back here and help when they found him.
Jack raced across the field. He could see the familiar color of Jiro to his right. Hopefully he wouldn't be spotted. He also saw two other armies doing battle to his left. He pressed forward.
Jack was drawing close now. Saburo's men had seen him, for he saw them draw the strange rifles and aim at him. Saburo, or one of his aides, signaled for them to stop. Jack reached the line and doubled over, panting. Finally he looked up.
"Are you Saburo?"
"Yes. You must be Jack."
"How did you-"
"I received a letter by horseman that you would be coming. It was from a man named Iz. He told me to ask you if you are ready to 'kick some ass?'"
"Oh, I'm ready to kick some major ass."