Yo guys, I'm off hiatus! Got back from my father's, so I am ready to go! Happy Thanksgiving by the way. Welp, you know the drill, you got a question you want read by a character, be sure to leave it for me, or send it in a message!
*******************************************ON WITH THE STORY***********************************************************
It took Grey 5 hours to bring Jacks back to walking potential, and even then he was still critical. Francis carried Jacks' arm over her shoulder to prevent him from stumbling. Freddy stood up from his position and looked at the rest of the group, they were all sleeping. Freddy decided that everyone had earned a little rest, so he shook his head to Francis, signaling to stop, she complied, and gently placed Jacks next to the tree again. As she was putting him down, Jacks' eyes slowly opened. He slowly shook the darkness from his eyes, and said nothing as he was still groggy. He did however notice that the sky had darkened since he was awake, and that Francis, Freddy, and Grey were all starring at him. Jacks barely realized that he was alive until he looked down at his hands. He twisted them back and forth, up and down, like an infant child with playing blocks.
Grey took notice of his fidgeting, and tried to talk to him.
"Hey buddy, how are you holding up?" He said, very quietly, placing a hand on Jacks' shoulder.
"…..I've been better…." Jacks was slow to respond, and his words were slurred.
"Actually, let me ask you… How AM, I holding up?" Jacks began to regain his senses as he talked.
Jacks stretched his arms up as he talked, but when he did, pain shot through his chest, causing him to groan and lower his arms again.
"Well, I managed to close your wound using some old techniques, a healing rune or mashed potatoes wouldn't help that serious of a wound…." He trailed off.
"It took me a good long time, but you will make a full recovery, so long as you don't engage in any rigorous activity. That means go easy on him Francis." Grey looked back at her, earning a chuckle.
"And you are still in a critical condition at the moment, some pieces of your ribcage punctured your lungs and I had to very, VERY carefully remove those using my kick ass magic, so you'd be best to try to not perform any task that would cause you to breathe heavily for at least a day." Grey pointed at him, and closed one of his bright metal eyes.
"Hehehehe, thanks doc… Wait, do I still have my ribs?!" Jacks asked in panic as he groped his sides and looked up at Grey.
"Yes yes, don't worry! The magic I used was very potent, your ribs have already regenerated!" Grey tried to calm him, shaking his hands in denial to Jacks' question.
Jacks breathed a sigh of relief as he looked down, still holding his sides. He looked back up, and around to notice that everyone else had fallen asleep. Freddy noticed Jacks expression.
"Yes, it has been tense for the past few hours, with Foxy's outburst, and you with your obvious condition. I guess everyone needed some rest." Freddy chimed in, looking back at the people behind him.
"I guess it has been a long day." Grey said, yawning and stretching.
"Uh, G-Grey, you're a robot, you don't need to breathe, and you don't have muscles, hell, you don't need to sleep." Francis looked at him in confusion, causing Jacks to chuckle.
"Well, I've seen people do it for so long I guess I just adopted the habit." Grey shrugged.
"Regardless, we need a couple of people to keep watch anyway, I guess that means you and Francis." Freddy spoke, directing at Grey and raising his arms slightly.
"Whoa, how humble of you Freddy." Jacks wise cracked, popping a smirk.
"Hey, these to barely even shut their eyes anyway." Freddy widened his big blue eyes and pointed to the people in question.
"Well you can count on us! No being of evil will escape my sight!" Francis pointed to the air and dropped her visor to cover her face.
Jacks smiled at her, he always liked people who took the things that they love a little too seriously.
Freddy simply chuckled and took his place next to Bonnie on the leafy ground, he placed his hands on his stomach and closed his eyes.
Jacks, having already slept for a long time, could not manage to fall asleep in the night, so he fidgeted around a lot. He first took out his dagger, simply looking at his reflection in the jagged blade. He starred at the shiny dagger for a good while, not even attracting the attention of Grey nor Francis. No one tried to initiate conversation after Freddy had fallen silent.
The boy knew that the object in his hands was not "just an ordinary dagger" how could it be? That surge of power that Jacks felt on that fateful night, those visions that he saw. Those visions were memories, he could tell from thinking back on them. He thought back on how they flickered through his head, how they passed by him like a malfunctioning slideshow, even now he could not focus on one specific vision for long. He flipped through each memory, concentrating very hard on the visions, trying to find some clue about the blade, but none came. Minutes turned to hours as he sat there, thinking on the one thing that has caused him to be where he was now, in the woods in another world with his chest torn into.
Jacks sat there in a motionless stare at the blade, holding it gently with two hands, slowly tilting it back and forth, wondering why it found it's way to him, and how? How DID Spring get that dagger? Jacks' mind flared at this question screaming for the answer, but none came. He decided that he would find out eventually, and he stood up from his position slowly.
Bright whiteness overcame Jacks, causing him to shield his eyes from whatever blasted source it was coming from. It took many seconds for him to realize that the sun was up. Jacks chuckled at his own obliviousness and the fact that he was looking at that dagger for a lot longer than he thought.
The two night guards were both sound asleep and snoring loud enough to wake the dead.
"No evil will escape my sight…." Jacks said to himself in mockery.
He turned around to realize that no one else was in sight, no trace of anyone. A calm panic ensured as Jacks scurried around the clearing.
"Calm yourself." A voice came from behind him.
Jacks turned around to see Grey standing up, and rather quickly.
"God damn you can wake up fast." Jacks joked at him.
"I don't actually sleep, I'm a robot, remember?" Grey said, knocking on his metal head to create a clanking noise.
Before Jacks could say anything else, up rose Francis, slowly placing each limb on the ground and pushing herself up. She stretched by raising one arm over her head and pulling it with the other, it looked very uncomfortable with all that armor on.
"*YAWN* Mornin' guys." She managed to groan, she sounded very tired.
Jacks turned his head slightly and repeated himself.
"No evil will escape my sight." Jacks said without even looking at her.
"Hey, unlike you, I didn't get ripped in half and needed for spooky scary skeleton over here to sow me back together like a jigsaw puzzle, so I didn't have an excuse to sleep all day thank you very much!" Francis put her hands on her hips and raised her visor.
"I think you pissed her off." Grey whispered, loud enough for Francis to hear.
"I think I pissed her off." Jacks mimicked, leaning to him slightly.
They all shared a quick laugh before Grey began talking again.
"Well, I'm assuming that everyone else is back either at that moldy old hangar, or back at base." Grey said under his breath.
"They wouldn't leave us here would they?!" Jacks raised his voice and clenched his hands.
"Nononononnono! Even if they took the plane already, I can just open another portal back to Polybius! They probably left to keep Foxy in check, if I had to guess…." Grey attempted to calm Jacks down.
"Why don't we open a new portal every time that we go then? Instead of taking that plane?" Jacks asked, earning an annoyed sigh from both Grey and Francis.
"Well, every time I open a portal it takes a bit away from my OverLoad, which needs to regenerate, and every time someone passes through that portal, It takes a bit more. So I took three months to gather the strength to create a portal that was large enough to fit a plane through, and another two months to disconnect my OverLoad from it." Grey explained, moving his hands with every word.
"But why out in that field, why not move it a bit closer to us, in the base maybe?" Jacks continued asking.
"Well it needs to be in the middle of nowhere so that no one stumbles across it, and it can't be in the base because a portal of that size would, well, suck the entire base into it. Make sense?" Grey finished.
"About as much as it needs to, so, we taking a small portal, or are we making the trek back to the hangar?" Jacks asked, throwing a hand into the air and bending it backwards.
"Hmm, I can make a small one quickly, only three of us, so it shouldn't put that much strain on me. Give me a minute to forge it….." Grey spoke softly as he knelt down and placed his hands on the ground.
A humming noise came off of Grey as he closed his eyes, blue waves of energy spiraled around him. The waves carried the leaves in an upward spiral, dancing across the bright sky. Grey grunted as the waves closed downward in front of him, swirling into a vortex of strange black and blue shades.
"T-there *huff* this will take us back to base." Grey said, his vents huffing and puffing.
Jacks stood there, obliviously starring at the vortex floating in front of him. He blinked a few times and kicked a rock under his foot.
"Well, go on!" Francis urged, nudging him forward.
Jacks just looked back at her, not moving his feet. He sighed and stepped forward, edging closer to the portal. Once he got within five feet, a placed his left hand outward to kind of feel the portal out. His hand was in fact the first thing to enter, and to Jacks' surprise nothing bad happened. It actually felt quite nice, the area inside of the portal felt like warm bathwater, flowing freely between his fingers. The warm feeling calmed Jacks a little, so he sped himself up slightly. Once Jacks' whole body was through, his vision blurred slightly before straightening itself again. Jacks rubbed his eyes and opened them to reveal nothing but an infinite blackness, a complete void of nothingness. He looked behind him, the vortex was gone, causing him to look around in panic. Suddenly, Jacks' body began to float upward into the void. He flailed around in panic from the sudden weightlessness, and from him being trapped.
Jacks managed to calm himself, and steady himself in the great nothingness, for he remembered what Grey said about his lungs. He decided it would be best to stay where he was, maybe Grey and Francis would find him? He just floated there, legs crossed with hands behind his head, watching, waiting for something to happen. About a minute passed before Jacks saw something out of the corner of his eye to the left, a small, but bright, light in the distance. Jacks went into his habit of starring at things as he peered into the light, not moving from his current pose. When his eyes met the light, another appeared to the right of the first one. Jacks took his hands out from behind his head and fixed his position. Two lights turned to ten, ten turned to one hundred, and as Jacks turned around behind himself, the entire blackness was filled with these lights. They honestly looked beautiful to Jacks, the way that they glimmered against the dark like sky lanterns on New Year 's Day. He smiled at the beautiful sight, and was not fazed as one of the light blinked in front of him, very suddenly.
The light seemed to scan Jacks, moving around him in a jittery pattern, jerking back and forth as it floated around him. Jacks looked around to make his eyes follow the curious light, moving his arms around with every turn. The light then floated to meet Jacks' front again, the light seemed to be completely motionless for a couple of seconds. After about five seconds of the two starring at each other the light then rose into the air, taking Jacks with it. Jacks did not seem to mind however, that is, until the warm water-like feeling turned into an ice cold water-feeling. The drop in temperature took Jacks' breath away, and his heart rate rose in surprise. The light kept dragging Jacks upward, the lights in the background still dancing around. Jacks felt the water begin to slowly warm up again, but the warmth was not on his skin, he felt a strange warmth from his heart.
The warmth was one that Jacks had never felt before, and he could not describe it, all he knew is that he did not want to let it go. The warmth went through his body and his mind filling his brain with thoughts on one thing.
"Francis." Jacks said out loud.
The light instantly stopped and shook violently when Jacks said that, but it did not look distressed, it was more of the happy dance that the background lights were performing.
"What, is it something about Francis?" Jacks spoke to the light, reaching his arms out.
The light spun him around violently, swirling around him and causing him to curl up slightly.
"H-hey! Quit it!" Jack exclaimed, trying not to laugh.
It then stopped him, and placed another vision in Jacks' head, one of that moment in the field after that they had caught the rat criminal.
"Yea, we do have a lot in common, don't we?" Jacks continued speaking to the light.
The light jiggled up and down in agreement, and put one last vision in Jacks head.
The vision was comprised of two dark figures that Jacks could not make out. These figures were holding each other's hands, and running down a leafy pathway, seemingly on earth. The path was a dirt trail surrounded by the beautiful leaves that Jacks had seen before. The figure on the left bore two small ears on the top of it's head, and it's fur gleamed bright yellow in the sunlight, it also looked over to the figure on the right. The figure on the right donned a long, purple robe, flowing freely with every step it took. It also had a sheath jingling and jangling along on it's side, but the right figure had no fur on the parts that Jacks could see.
"You really…..? Me? And Francis? You're crazy! We've barely known each other that long, besides, she is a warrior! A warrior needs another warrior! Not a… not me." Jacks spoke, still watching the vision.
His attention was drawn back to the figures whenever the left figure began to quite literally disappear. The figure began to turn into ash and float away in the wind from head to toe, leaving the right figure in a confused fear. It stood there, holding it's hand out to what was left of the left figure, before it too, turned to ashes.
A great worry overcame Jacks as he plucked himself from the vision and spoke to the light. Jacks was filled with anger and anxiousness as he saw the two figures disappear completely.
"WHAT WAS THAT!? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?! TELL ME!" Jacks realized that he was proving the light's point, he was genuinely scared for Francis.
Jacks clenched his hands together with great malice, he gritted his teeth, and he strained himself, wanting an answer from the light.
"Help her." The light spoke in a high pitched, hushed tone as it opened a vortex beside it that looked similar to the one that Grey made.
Without saying another word, Jacks leapt through the portal as quick as he could. The warm feeling disappeared as he landed face down in cold grass. An orange hue overcame everything as Jacks lifted his head.
Jacks' face instantly turned to one of true horror as he looked at his city far away…..
Burning to the ground, with scream emanating from it.
Damn, so the city's burning huh? I wonder what that light was? Or what it was showing Jacks? I guess we will find out!