Enter: The Jackal, Part 6
By Kevin Jackson
It's now Saturday morning, 11:24am. After years of patience and speculation, Shiir-Kov and Jackal finally meet face-to-face for the very first time. They've only heard stories and seen observations, but have never met in person until now.
"…A wise man once said: 'Everything comes to he who waits,'" says Shiir-Kov with a smirk. "…and I have waited so very long for this day to come."
"As have I", Jackal replies. "Ever since I was a child, I've trained and waited for the opportunity to rip your heart out."
Shiir-Kov's head tilts. "Aww, come now. Is that any way to speak to your own father?"
"As far as I'm concerned, you're no father of mine!", yells Jackal before he clenches his fists and looks down, eyes shadowed over by his hair. "You tortured my mother,…then raped and impregnated her. I was born through an accelerated birth not ten minutes after she escaped from you that day. …I was only thirty seconds old when she held me in her arms and looked into my eyes as she passed away! WHY? WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO ME?"
Shiir-Kov's expression turns serious as he speaks. "You were born to be my messiah, to walk among humans in this realm as an earth-born hellspawn. I wanted a warrior with all the powers of my hellspawns and none of their weaknesses. You would be engineered into the perfect general for my army of-"
Jackal cuts him off. "That's not the life I want! I only want to live in peace! I only want a family! I only want love! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW PAINFUL IT IS, KNOWING THAT YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY WHILE HOLDING YOU IN HER ARMS? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW IT MAKES ME FEEL, KNOWING THAT I WAS ONLY THIRTY SECONDS OLD AT HER DEATH?"
"Dude, that's messed up", mutters Beast Boy.
Starfire is teary-eyed. "How sad", she says, standing next to Raven, who wears an expression of concern on her face.
"…Yes…yes, I would imagine that it instills much anger into your heart", says Shiir-Kov before his face stretches a smirk* "Is that the case, Jackal? Are you drowning in anger?", he says with a snicker.
Cyborg is in awe. "This guy's insane."
Shiir-Kov continues with a smile. "That's just the attitude I'm looking for as a general over my army. Come, son. Join with me, and together, we can rule over this realm and you can experience power beyond your wildest dreams. Perhaps you can release that anger on our enemies. How about it? Like father, like son."
Jackal looks back up with an expression of anger. "…I'd rather join my mother."
Shiir-Kov engulfs hand in flames. "Then join her you shall."
Shiir-Kov releases a line of flames at Jackal, who uses his ninja reflexes to leap over the attack. Just as Shiir-Kov realized he jumped, Jackal comes down with a roundhouse kick to the face, then barrages Shiir-Kov with various attacks to his mid-section, then an upward somersault kick to the face before landing ten feet away on his feet. When Jackal looks up, he notices that Shiir-Kov took all of those attacks without moving from his spot. Shiir-Kov cracks his neck both ways and looks towards Jackal.
"Impressive", says Shiir-Kov.
"He wasn't even dazed by any of that?", says a confused Robin.
Jackal rushes forward to attack again, sending out punch after punch and kick after kick. Each attack is dodged by the continuous teleporting of Shiir-Kov. After countless attempts, Jackal slows down for a split second from exhaustion, only to have Shiir-Kov take advantage and punch him down to the ground hard. He then picks Jackal up by his hair and backhands him across the sanctuary, rolling across the floor and slamming into a wall.
Raven seems concerned. "Jackal!", she yells.
As the Titans look on in worry, Jackal shakes off the hit as he struggles back to a knee.
Shiir-Kov crosses arms and smirks at his son. "What's wrong, Jackal? Still mad about your mother?" He seems pleased with the reaction of Jackal looking up in rage. Shiir-Kov snickers as he teleports next to Jackal. "Better try harder, boy."
Slightly caught off guard, Jackal springs back up and attempts kicks at Shiir-Kov, first with a left roundhouse kick, then a right. Both were blocked by Shiir-Kov. Jackal jumps with a midair swinging kick, which Shiir-Kov uses a rising block to flip Jackal backwards onto his face. Just as Jackal landed, Shiir-Kov stomps down to crush him, but Jackal moves out of the way just before Shiir-Kov's boot cracked and crushed that section of the floor. After dodging, Jackal leaps back up with two straight kicks to Shiir-Kov's torso. Then, after landing back on his feet, Jackal throws a straight right punch. Shiir-Kov catches Jackal's fist and applies pressure. Jackal shrieks in pain and drops to his knees as his hand is being crushed.
"Dude!", yells Beast Boy!
With no hesitation, Starfire declares, "We must help him!"
Robin grabs his staff once again. "Titans, GO!"
Robin, Cyborg, Starfire and Beast Boy, in the form of a cheetah, all rush to help Jackal.
"Stay back!", shouts Shiir-Kov. He waves out his free hand and blows the four back with flame eruptions from the ground. They all slam into the ground further away from Shiir-Kov. "This is family business."
"No!", Raven yells as she runs to her fallen teammates. "Robin! Guys! Get up! Please!"
Shiir-Kov turns his attention back to Jackal, who still grieves from the pain of hisfather crushing his hand. "Does it hurt, Jackal? …Good." Shiir-Kov extends his hellspawn claws in his fingers to dig into Jackal's hand, causing him to scream in pain. "It's funny. You're suffering merely fuels me. I just love the sight of pain in my enemies. Pain is a lovely weapon, isn't it?"
Jackal responds, "You…don't know…anything…about pain…" He grabs Shiir-Kov's clenching hand with his free hand. "…until now."
With his bloody fist and his free hand, Jackal releases the heavenly aura onto Shiir-Kov's hand, which causes him to scream in pain louder than Jackal's shrieks. Not even a second later, Shiir-Kov pulls his hand away from Jackal's grasp and watches as it practically cooks his skin away. Raven gasps and the Titans rise up immediately the second they heard Shiir-Kov scream in pain.
"Wh-what happened?", says Robin.
Raven points to Jackal. "The aura."
A surprised Beast Boy says, "Dudes, check out his hand! It's fried!"
Shiir-Kov tries to tighten a fist on the injured hand, but it hurts each time he tries to move it. "This…cannot be! …Hanako?"
Jackal stands back up, his hands charged in the aura. "You're not the only one…who I inherited powers from."
Jackal rushes in and begins connecting strikes with his aura-charged fists and kicks, each burning Shiir-Kov's body as they connect. Shiir-Kov cannot defend himself from more attacks because it would put him into more pain as he tries to move. With very few attacks, Jackal has Shiir-Kov not far from death. The Titans cheer Jackal on as the tables suddenly turn in his favor.
"This one's for my friends!", says Jackal as he uppercuts Shiir-Kov. "This one's for me!" He jumps with a midair swinging aura-charged kick to the face. "And this,…" Jackal holds open is right palm and forms a large ball of purifying energy. He then yells angrily, "…THIS ONE'S FOR MY MOTHER!"
Jackal rushes forward and slams the energy ball into Shiir-Kov's chest. Upon collision, the ball expands to engulf Shiir-Kov's entire body in purifying energy that propels him hard into a far wall. Once the energy dissipated, Shiir-Kov is seen leaning against the wall with most of his skin burnt and within an inch of death. The Titans rejoice at the sight of Shiir-Kov's imminent defeat.
Jackal steps toward Shiir-Kov with a determined look in his eyes. "…You're not welcome here…This is my world, Shiir-Kov…GO BACK WHERE YOU BELONG!" Jackal throws out his hand to send a wave of purifying energy at Shiir-Kov to finish him, but the energy dissipates as soon as it leaves Jackal's fingers. He looks at his hands, confused. "What?"
Raven gasps. "The energy."
Beast Boy, also confused, says, "Uh,…what just happened?"
Jackal tries a few more times to send out the energy, but to no avail. At that moment, Shiir-Kov struggles to pull himself back to his feet, though still leaning against the wall, and concentrates all of his leftover energy to heal all of the inflicted burns on his body, which is apparently taking quite a while to accomplish since the attack took its toll on him.
Shiir-Kov lets out a weak snicker. "You know,…that hurt like hell."He looks on as Jackal is too puzzled and confused to even try to attack again. "Judging by your expression, you don't know the whole story as to how I defeated your mother on that fateful day. Well, I'll tell you."
Shiir-Kov tells the story, prompting a narrated flashback. "I first battled her, and that annoying Hazuki guy, on the Earth realm that day. The gates of Hell had not been completely merged over, so I was not at full strength. She commanded those same wretched powers that you just used, and she was an annoying little pest. Before I was able to do away with her, she got hold of the Necronomicon and used a spell to shut the gates, pulling myself and my army back through in the process. Her actions tempted me to retaliate, so I managed to grab her leg as I was pulled in. She dropped the book and was pulled in with me. Once there, she continued to battle my army. Those powers of hers proved to be a nuisance,…until she lost them."
"She….lost them?", asks Jackal.
Shiir-Kov continues. "You see, once in the depths of Hell, any powers of the Heavens are completely nullified." Shiir-Kov laughs as Jackal gasps at this information.
"No way!", says Robin in disbelief.
"And of course, my hellspawns beat her to a pulp right before I…" Shiir-Kov pauses as he smirks. "...Well, you know what happened next. After it was all said and done, her master Hazuki reopened the gates with the book and pulled her out. And according to you, she died soon after my accelerated birth spell."
Raven looks down at the ground. "So that's how it happened." An expression of anger populates Raven's face.
Shiir-Kov finally stands completely up, as his serious wounds have finally healed themselves, though his body is still a bit shaken. "You should already know that hellspawns like us are at full power if on our own turf. So you see, all I needed here was the time. Once the spell was cast, the gates were opened. Once the gates were opened, the two realms would slowly begin to merge as one. And once merged, this realm becomes a part of Hell, and my armies and I gain our full strength. Already, my hellspawns are all over the globe, seizing territories and destroying anyone who gets in their way." He opens a magical fire-framed window showing random areas of the globe. "See for yourselves."
Jackal and the Titans gasp at the sight of different locations consumed by darkness and fire. Eventually, they begin seeing clips of the Titans East and the Honorary Titans being defeated one-by-one at the hands of the full-powered hellspawns.
Cyborg looks on in awe. "This…can't be happening", he says.
Shiir-Kov closes the window. "So you see, as I've mentioned before, there is no defeating me and my armies. But let me guess. You're still hanging on to that useless gesture of keeping hope.
Jackal looks down while clenching his fists. "Enough", he mutters.
"You're still bent on trying your best to defeat me", says Shiir-Kov. "I've shown you the proof right before your eyes. Are you still foolish enough to challenge me?"
Jackal looks back up. "ENOUGH!", he shrieks as he rushes in for an attack.
Shiir-Kov side steps and knees Jackal hard in the gut, causing him to cough up blood. From there, Shiir-Kov begins his assault on Jackal by back fisting him hard in the face and sending him flying across the sanctuary no sooner before he teleports to meet Jackal over there. When Jackal finally gets to a knee, Shiir-Kov continues his assault, beating Jackal down to a bloody pulp while the Titans are too weak or powerless to try to help.
"Stop it!", Raven yells. "Please, stop!"
Raven's screams are useless as Shiir-Kov enjoys his attack on Jackal. It isn't too long before Jackal sustains enormous amounts of injuries and blood loss. After much punishment, Jackal is left lying on his back brutally beaten and a bloody mess. Shiir-Kov stands over him as he is dying.
As does the rest of the team, Robin struggles to get up, but their injuries are too great. "We…have to…help…"
Shiir-Kov kneels beside Jackal. "How does it feel…..to experience pain like those worthless humans you're so determined to protect? Is it worth it? Is it worth turning down all the power you could imagine? Now look at you, lying here within an inch of your life,…staring death in the face."
Raven is on her knees looking down, crying as the Titans have fallen and Jackal is dying. "…No…no…"
Shiir-Kov looks upon his dying son with a sigh. "You disappoint me, Jackal. I had always hoped you would be a splendid hellspawn and become strong enough to take over my legion and rule this world. Instead, you chose weaknesses and stupidity."
"…Leave him alone…", mutters an angry Raven.
Shiir-Kov stands and takes a few steps back. "You could have been stronger than this, son. You could have been invincible. But instead, you have chosen to die as a human." He stops at ten feet away from Jackal's body. "So you have chosen,...so shall you be." He holds out hand as it engulfs in flames, pointing it at Jackal. "Farewell, my son."
Shiir-Kov fires a powerful line of flames at Jackal, at which Raven screams, "NOOOOOOOO!"
As Raven screamed, her hands began to emit a dark aura and her eyes blackened over with energy. At that moment, a wall of dark energy shot up from the ground and protected Jackal from the flame blast. Caught off guard by this, Shiir-Kov looks over and sees Raven kneeling and engulfed in dark energy, concluding that she has regained her power.
Robin struggles to sit back up. "Ungh." He sees the commotion. "Raven?"
Shiir-Kov seems intrigued by the show of power from Raven. She screams once again, "Leave him ALONE!"
With the blink of an eye, Raven psychically shoots Shiir-Kov straight through a wall on the far end of the sanctuary. It was so fast and hard that it completely shattered the wall and the rubble came down on Shiir-Kov in the process. The other Titans are shocked from what they've just seen and from Raven's entire body being engulfed in a dark aura as she stands.
Beast Boy struggles to push himself to a knee. "Dude…what's happening?", he says.
Starfire is in awe at the sight of Raven. "I have not seen Raven like this...since Trigon."
Raven looks back at the Titans. Her eyes glow as her teammates are engulfed in energy for a few seconds, then all of their wounds and injuries are instantly healed.
Cyborg looks at his body. "Hey, I'm repaired!", he says with a surprise.
"I can heal your injuries, but I cannot replenish your energy", Raven says in a wavy voice. "You must find those pills, and fast." As the others look around for the pills, she levitates to Jackal's side and kneels down. "Jackal?" He is laid out, eyes closed, not responding. She picks his head up." Jackal! Jackal, answer me! Jackal!"
Jackal slowly regains consciousness and opens his eyes, looking towards Raven. He mutters with the sound of death in his voice, "…Ra…ven."
Raven breathes a slight sigh of relief as she lays his head back down. "I can heal you, but I need you to stay with me, ok?", she says as she prepares to cast her spell.
Just as Raven prepared to cast, Jackal gives a week gasp and looks behind Raven. Shiir-Kov emerges from the rubble bloody and bruised. Shiir-Kov charges straight at Raven, who gets an expression of anger and turns her head back as her eyes glow. When Shiir-Kov tried to slash at her, she put up a forcefield around herself and Jackal, protecting them from the attack. She then shoots out the energy in the forcefield to send Shiir-Kov slamming into the ground.
Raven wastes no time in trying to do away with Shiir-Kov. She uses her powers to overturn her hood, then as she stands and turns toward him, her energy is building up and she is holding Shiir-Kov's body in her dark aura. With a wave of her right hand, she lifts him into the air and slams him face-down into the ground, then lifts him up and slams him again, then she begins "pinballing" him all over the sanctuary repeatedly, including scraping him across the ground and smashing him head-first into the walls. After her flurry was done, she slams and pins his back into a wall and holds him there, then she uses her left hand to lift up a large broken column, moves it over toward Shiir-Kov, and swings it like a baseball bat straight into Shiir-Kov's face, sending him through the wall and under more rubble. The other Titans look on in awe at the brutality, seeing a brutal side of Raven that they've never witnessed before.
Beast Boy happens to look up as the team searches for the pills. "Ok…..She's scaring me", he says with a sweatdrop.
Raven turns back to Jackal, who is starting to fade out. "No you don't, Jackal! Stay with me!" She puts out her hands to heal him.
Robin yells out, "RAVEN, LOOK OUT!"
Shiir-Kov reappears behind Raven, a bloody mess once again, and grabs her head from behind with the palm of his right hand and holds her over the ground with his hand alone, attempting to crush her head in the process. The other Titans try to respond, but are only blown back by a powerful flame wave.
"Is that really the best you can do?", says a cocky Shiir-Kov.
Raven's eyes glow as she angers. "You haven't seen anything yet."
With her right fist charged in darkness, she shoots it upward as a shadow copy of her fist shoots up from the shadow between herself and Shiir-Kov and uppercuts Shiir-Kov, causing him to drop Raven as he lands on his back. After dropping to her feet, Raven turns to him and holds her palm upward at eye level.
"Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS!", yells Raven with authority as she forms a baseball-shaped ball of spinning dark energy in her hand and it levitates over her palm.
Once Shiir-Kov stands again, she sends the ball out and hits him right between the eyes, and then manipulates the ball to repeatedly come back around, hitting Shiir-Kov repeatedly with the ball traveling around at least 100mph. Raven continues this until she hits Shiir-Kov at least fifty times. To finish Shiir-Kov off, she clips him behind his right kneecap to put him down onto his back. As he lies there, she lifts the ball about twenty feet above his body and increases the size of the ball until its shadow completely covered Shiir-Kov's body. She then slams the ball down on his body three times, leaving a meteor-sized crater in its wake.
Beast Boy is in a trance, sweating profusely. "Dude, seriously, she's scaring me."
"I got em", says Cyborg as he finds the pills and hands them out. He looks up at the recent carnage. "…Did she do it?"
After moments of silence, it was assessed that Raven defeated Shiir-Kov. She quickly turns around to heal Jackal, but she is separated from him when a line of flames blocked her path to Jackal. She quickly turns to see Shiir-Kov standing right behind her, massively injured, but slowly healing. He immediately grabs her by her neck, punches her right between her eyes, and hurls her by her neck into a wall across the sanctuary. At that second, the other Titans immediately pop the pills and attack.
Cyborg blasts Shiir-Kov in the back with a sonic beam. Shiir-Kov howls in pain as he turns to the advancing Titans. With much of his energy expanded, his wounds are taking longer to heal.
"You four are starting to become a nuisance!", Shiir-Kov says angrily.
Cyborg fires another beam. Shiir-Kov deflects it and summons a flame eruption under Cyborg, which blows him down to the ground. Beast Boy flies high up in pterodactyl form, and then morphs into a lion to pounce on his prey. Shiir-Kov catches Beast Boy and hurls him into Starfire, sending both slamming into the ground. Robin makes an attempt at hand-to-hand combat once again, sending kicks, punches and staff attacks at blazing speeds. All are dodged and blocked, and then Shiir-Kov catches Robin's last kick, lifts him by his leg and slams him into the ground hard, cracking the ground. He holds him upside down afterward and punches him straight in the chest, sending Robin flying straight into the dog pile of his fellow Titans. Shiir-Kov teleports in front of Raven, who is bleeding from the head and weakened against a wall.
Shiir-Kov tilts Raven's chin up to look at him. "I should thank you, my dear. For if it weren't for your sweet, sweet blood, I wouldn't be standing here on this day", he says as he wipes the blood with his finger and licks it off.
Jackal peeks over as he feels his heartbeat slowing down. "…No…Ra…ven…"
Shiir-Kov continues. "And you have shown me a good time today with your valiant battle. I have enjoyed my ascension into this realm, thanks to you."
"…Ra…ven…I'm…sorry…", says Jackal with his final breathe.
Jackal's heartbeat slows down to its last few beats. Once his heart beats its last beat, he closes his eyes to die. However, his heart rate suddenly picks up at a very fast rate. Jackal's eyes shoot open as his body begins to quickly heat back up, causing him some internal pain and irritation.
"Since you've made this all possible," says Shiir-Kov, "I'm going to give you a special gift."
Tears begin running from Raven's eyes. Meanwhile, Jackal shuts his eyes as he moans in pain, his wounds and injuries beginning to heal, and he starts growing demon-like teeth and claws.
Shiir-Kov wipes a tear from Raven's face. "I will allow you to die a quick and painless death", he says as he extends claws on his left hand.
As Raven braces for the worst, Jackal completely heals and transforms into a more demonic form.
"Rest in peace, my child", says Shiir-Kov.
He brings his hand back just as Jackal shoots open his eyes, which are now completely blackened over from the demonic form. Not even a split second after, Jackal appears behind Shiir-Kov and catches his hand. Shiir-Kov is surprised by this and looks behind him, while Raven opens her teary eyes to see what's going on. Jackal stands behind Shiir-Kov grasping his hand and looking straight into his eyes. Everyone there, especially Raven, is in shock at Jackal's pure demonic form. Without losing eye contact at all, Jackal lets out a very loud and demonic roar at Shiir-Kov, marking an aggressive challenge to the demonic overlord. From the looks of it, this marks what may be the start of a very climatic battle: Demon Jackal vs. Shiir-Kov.
TO BE CONTINUED
