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Chapter Text

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"She wears strength and darkness equally well. The girl had always been half goddess, half hell." - Nikita Gill

"Death is the completion of Life." - Star

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PART 1 - The Perilous Tide
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"How was your trip?" Jack's mother asked.

Jack had just walked in the door after a long, perilous, and world-altering journey with the Xiaolin monks, and her (most likely late) guardian, Lyn, of the Hidden Order of Tao. Apophis's blood-red remains glittered across Earth's skies, warping its magical field, and forming a band of scarlet uncertainty around a brave new world.

And here Jack stood, a new woman, before the lie that she once called her family. She recalled the stolen memories revealed to her during the course of her journey—she remembered her parents' silence as she was delivered, only a young child at the time, into the belly of the Beast. Into the clutches of some unknown entity which stole her power away from her. She saw them now for what they were—her betrayers.

Jack looked from her mother, to her father, and then at the group of sinister looking men behind them.

"Uh..." Jack murmured.

"Did you make any new friends?" Jack's mother set her teacup down and lightly folded her hands upon her lap. A tray of tea and cookies had been set on the table before her. She gestured for Jack to sit and join her parents in the drawing room.

Jack took a nervous step into the room and sat down, slowly, upon an ottoman on the other side of the tea-set. Jack's mother poured her tea and served her cookies.

"I made these fresh just before you came," She smiled and handed them to her child.

Jack looked down at the cookie now in her hands, and then she looked back at her mother. An uneasy feeling formed in her stomach as it twisted itself into a knot. Every sense she had within her slender frame told her to run away—and this confused her greatly. Jack returned the cookie to her china plate, which she delicately balanced upon her lap.

"Mom. Dad. Who are these people?" She looked at the silent group of men, all dressed in dark suits. They had a dangerous air about them, and they did not look like the typical henchmen her parents employed. Intricate designs were stitched into the fabric of their suits, only visible when examined closely. The cut of their clothes and the jewelry they wore bespoke a higher class of criminal than the average crony. Amongst the men were a small number that had suits of a different color than black—a deep purple, which only revealed itself in the light of the fireplace that burned brightly to Jack's right.

"Just some colleagues of ours," Jack's mother replied.

Jack's father looked wordlessly from his wife to his child.

There was a silence, and Jack fidgeted awkwardly with the cookies on her plate.

"You never answered my question. Did you make any new friends?" Jack's mother asked again.

"... No," Jack lied.

Her mother gave a look of sympathy, which Jack had seen many times before, yet now she noticed a new aspect within the familiar expression. Her mother's face was sympathetic, yet her eyes bespoke a certain satisfaction. Relief even.

Jack swallowed hard, and her shoulders began to tighten.

"What a shame." Her mother sighed. "It's alright, Jackie."

"I know," Jack said mechanically. She wondered what had changed, and why her stomach felt so twisted and wrong. She had never felt this sensation before when speaking to her mother. Jack's jaw tightened, as did the grip she held on the china in her lap.

"You're not eating your cookies," Her mother stated.

Jack offered a smile and took a small bite of her cookie. She returned it to her plate. There was another long silence, filled only with the crackle of the fire and the hard stares of the men in the suits.

Jack's father stared at the silver tea-set with a bored and preoccupied expression.

Jack also looked at the tea-set and noticed something she had never noticed before. Etched upon the teapot's handle was a strange chimera-like creature, bearing feathers and scales. Her throat dried up as she recognized it. It was the same creature upon the foyer in which she and her parents had stood all those years ago. Just before Jack was taken away by the women in blue and red. Taken into the belly of that terrible chamber where she had the magic ripped from her soul.

Jack took another nervous bite of her cookie, clenching her jaw and drawing her lips tight to mask the look of recognition she might have let slip otherwise.

"I've not seen that outfit before." Her mother said, making light conversation. She appeared to repress a look of disdain, masking it with a condescending smile—another expression with which Jack was familiar. "Another one of your goth fashions?" her mother mused flatly.

Jack glanced down at her torn fishnet stockings and rough-cut mini shorts. She said nothing, however her hand holding her china plate had begun to tremble. She took another bite of cookie in an attempt to mask the tremor in her fingers, and her face grew suddenly hot as she remembered the dark eyeshadow and lipstick she was wearing.

"You should drink your tea before it gets cold, Jack," Her mother stated.

Jack immediately and automatically complied. The tea was bitter and strong. English. Her mother always had a fondness for European sensibilities, even though she had been born and raised in Hong Kong.

"We just picked that tea up in London. Isn't it lovely?" Jack's mother took a sip of her own tea, enjoying its complex character.

Jack had never really been one for tea. She liked it well enough but preferred coffee. Jack offered a small smile and took another sip.

At last, Jack set down her cup with a tiny 'clink'.

"May I go to my room? I'm tired." she asked.

"Don't be rude, Jack." Her father replied mechanically. He kept his hands folded, thoughtful, and did not lift his gaze from the silver teapot. "We have guests."

Jack gave an incredulous look toward the men in suits. They all remained standing, with their hands folded and their faces like stone. She frowned.

"Yeah... Who are these people, really?" Jack finally demanded.

"Our guests," Her mother replied with a sharp edge, indicating for Jack to measure her tone.

Jack pursed her lips and forced a smile. "Who are our guests, precisely?" She stuffed the rest of the cookie into her mouth, chewing loudly and irreverently while staring hard at the strange men.

"They represent some very important friends of ours. They've come to see you specifically." Jack's mother said quietly. The well-rehearsed smile had faded from her face.

Jack stopped chewing and raised an eyebrow in a question. With a bit of pain she forced herself to swallow before the cookie was ready for swallowing. She coughed and managed to ask with a crack in her voice, "Why?"

Her throat was dry and the cookie caught within it. She drained the rest of her tea to chase it down. Clearing her throat she asked again with a petulant edge, "What do they want from me?"

"Tone, Jack," Her father commented dryly.

Jack sighed and offered an expectant expression, waiting for her parents to answer. The feeling of uneasiness in her stomach had turned to nausea. She bit her lip and looked down at the saucer upon her lap.

"They simply want to check up on you. See how you are doing. They are very old friends of ours, and they have taken an interest..." Jack's mother's voice began to fade.

Jack stared hard at the remaining cookies on her plate. She felt sick.

"Mom..." she muttered.

She was feeling dizzy, and she could hear her mother's voice, replying, yet she could not make out the meaning of her words. The room began to tilt and spin.

Jack leaned forward and the saucer fell from her lap. The world turned over on its side as she slid from her seat and onto the floor. She blankly observed the bits of china that rattled across the ornate carpet as her cup shattered. The fire's light shimmered across the surface of the broken shards. And then she slipped into unconsciousness.

Chapter Text

Voices could be heard upon the edge of Jack's awareness, dipping in and out like a poorly received radio signal, their meaning incoherent to her as her eyes lolled back and forth behind half-opened eyelids. She felt as though there was something urgent to which she needed to attend, yet she was loath to wake fully.

The voices from around her seeped into her dreams. They snuck into her clouded mind in the form of malevolent whispers, uttered from unseen shadows that constantly escaped her vision whenever she attempted to glimpse them. Their words were meaningless, yet they unsettled her. And through it all there remained a sense of urgency within her her heart, which turned her stomach sour.

Over the hours of her internment, she became aware of a weight upon her chest. Her lungs burned and she felt as though something were covering her face. Whatever it was remained fast when she jerked her head in attempts to dislodge it, as its hold remained, her mind supplied the image of the scene from Alien, the grotesque form of some otherworldly creature clutched around her head and forcing its tentacles down her throat. The image induced panic within her and her breath quickened, gasping and choking. Her stomach churned and a deep heat rose within her. There was a shout in the darkness beyond her limited awareness, and a tingling surge through her spine. She awoke moments later mid-scream.

When she opened her eyes, there was chaos around her. It was dark, and the sound of moaning could be heard somewhere off to her left. Sparks illuminated the small and dimly-lit room in which she found herself. An ancient electric light hung over her head, now dead. The smell of smoke stung the air and her lungs—as did the sharp scent of burnt flesh.

Then a bright flash of light blinded her momentarily as one of her captors shined a flashlight in her direction.

There was a loud whirr and a set of auxiliary lights fizzled to life, illuminating the space in dim shades of red. A man, masked, came to her side holding a syringe.

Jack widened her eyes and shook her head, squirming beneath her restraints, attempting to get away. But a sharp pain in her arm dampened the panic and sent her vision once again into darkness. The man's masked face was the last thing she saw before falling away into dreamless sleep.

* * *

Jack awoke some time later to a calmer atmosphere. The hum of an electric light could be heard overhead, though the old light fixture above remained dark. It reminded her of the lamps that they had in dentists offices. She felt ill, and her head swam as she turned it from side to side, desperate to get a handle on her surroundings.

She was in a cold room, fitted in yellowed wallpaper. It was unfurnished, save for an assortment of ancient medical equipment, half of which remained beneath yellowed sheets and coated in dust.

Jack coughed, her throat and nose dry, and her lips cracked. She realized after a few moments that a set of oxygen tubes was fastened across her face and a nasal cannula was the source of the dry sensation in her airway. She tried to sit up but was met once again by the same pressure upon her chest. She looked downward and found that she was fastened in place by a set of heavy, leather straps. Padded leather cuffs held her hands and arms, as well as her legs. A surge of panic set her body atremble and she could feel a scream beginning to rise in her throat.

"No, no, no... What?" She murmured, looking around and testing the restraints. She could see an IV tube taped to her left arm and a catheter feed to her right. Her clothes were missing, replaced by a plain hospital gown. She shivered, with her limbs bare in the chilly room.

A brief moment passed and the scream that had been waiting in her throat escaped in a cavalcade of shrieks. Confused, frightened, she screamed no words in particular, and her wails slowly turned to half-conscious sobs.

She tried desperately to remember what had happened before she came to this place. She remembered coming home, but everything after was a blur. She wracked her brain, but her thoughts came sluggishly—if they came at all. Jack's wide gaze fell upon the tube in her arm and the vague awareness that she had been sedated formed in her mind.

Lyn's name escaped her parched throat, and then she remembered with a fresh surge of nausea that Lyn was no longer there.

Jack dropped her head back onto whatever surface she was strapped to and closed her eyes, silent.

The vague memory of a song came to her mind. A familiar tune, in a familiar voice. Warm like a sorely needed fire in an icy-cold room:

"...You walk a lonely road... How far you are from home..."

She hummed it in her mind, not remembering the words. Her breath began to calm and the feeling of pain in her chest lessened. She swallowed a few times to wet her throat, and then she opened her eyes with a deep breath. As she did so, a woman came into the room, wearing an outfit of plain white like one might see in a medical setting, though it was devoid of designation or name tag.

Jack attempted to question the woman but her words came out jumbled and slurred. The nurse seemed unconcerned by Jack's mutterings. She simply pressed a button on a nearby machine and exited as quickly as she came. The foggy feeling that gripped Jack's mind increased, and she felt the muscles of her body slacken.

Nauseous and sedated, Jack stared at the yellowed wallpaper, vaguely registering the hypnotic beep of medical equipment around her. The wallpaper had a faded pattern, and she found herself counting the number of repetitions of the pattern. When she became bored of that exercise she shifted her gaze to the burnt out light above her and the dingy grey ceiling beyond.

The sense of urgency whispered weakly in the back of her mind, yet she could not fathom how to address it.

All the while her eyes grew steadily heavier, and she drifted into sleep once more.

Her sleep was fitful and riddled with bizarre visions of some far-away place. A sanctuary. There she met a family she could not remember. Their faces faded within her drug-addled mind, yet the yearning she felt toward them remained.

She awoke once to the sound of a man's voice. With vision blurred, she could just barely make out the dim silhouette of a man bent over her body. He inspected each of her eyes with a small light, and she felt his fingers, cold and clammy, prod along her body.

He was murmuring words to someone else in the room. They bore a woman's voice, and it sounded distressed. The dim recognition of her mother's sound came to Jack and she began to call out, like a baby chick crying at the sound of its parent's call. The man continued to bend over her, poking her hard along her meridians. Jack tried to squirm but could not find the focus or strength. She fell back into sleep, the sound of her calls dying out and shifting to the incoherent mutterings of yet more fitful dreams.

* * *

Jack awoke again in a new set of restraints, in a new room. An array of metal rods and wires pressed into her body’s meridians, and metal braces held her fast to a dense wooden frame. The construction of the wooden frame, coupled with the iron restraints and wires, reminded her of the electric chairs used in the old days.

The chamber around her was dimly lit, its corners and ceiling cloaked in shadow. Yet, somehow, it felt eerily familiar. It called to mind the chamber that held the iron sarcophagus in her childhood, though this chamber had a higher ceiling and was better lit. A series of old electric lights shone down on her, blinding her eyes and illuminating her pale and barren form.

A woman's voice came from somewhere beyond the lights, and she recognized it to be her mother's.

"Let me see him!" Jack's mother snapped. There was a small argument, and the exclamation of several unknown male voices. The silhouette of Jack's mother came into her view.

Her mother bent over her, and placed a pale hand upon Jack's arm. She seemed tired, but she forced a strained smile.

"Jackie baby," she said softly.

"Mom?" Jack mumbled. Tears came to her eyes and began to spill down the side of her face. "Mom? Mama, what's happening? Wh-where are we?"

Jack's mother patted her shoulder and cooed for Jack to be silent. She neglected to answer Jack's questions.

"It's alright, baby. I just need you to listen." She stroked Jack's arm as she spoke. "Some men are here to talk to you, and you have to do everything they say. You have to say yes to anything they ask of you. Alright?" She uttered the last word with a strained expression. There was a note of hysteria that crouched far behind her words. Her eyes were dark and glazed and they implored Jack to heed her instructions. "Be a good boy and do as mommy says, alright?"

Jack bore a confused expression, though she nodded hesitantly. A sense of foreboding grew within her as her head began to clear.

"Good boy," Her mother said, and then she kissed Jack on the forehead. She left her child alone, fastened in the strange contraption.

Jack's thoughts rifled through all recollections she possessed—which was not much. Nevertheless, the place felt familiar. The sense of urgency that had crept in the back of her mind this entire time came to the forefront of her thoughts and it quickly turned into a desperate need to escape. Jack strained her eyes again to see past the glaring lights with little success, and her efforts were cut short upon the entry of yet more individuals.

Men, dressed in an array of outfits, ranging from traditional garb to austere and finely cut suits, came to her side. They ranged in ages, just as their clothes did.

Jack's heart grew cold when one man in particular came to stand beside her. She recognized the thin jaw of the hooded man from her childhood. A memory of his soft voice and the pain in her palm as he cut it with a ceremonial knife flashed through her mind. Her eyes widened and her stomach curdled when he spoke in that same, thin voice and removed his hood.

"Chái Rényuēhàn," he used Jack's Chinese name, "it has been so long a time."

Jack was finally able to perceive the upper half of his face for the first time. He was bald with a watery expression in his eyes, and he bore European features, with a thin nose and frame. His skin seemed nearly translucent, and he appeared as though he might crumble, like old paper, beneath too firm a touch. He offered a grey smile, revealing crooked and yellowed teeth.

Jack immediately thought of the faded wallpaper she had observed in the previous room of her detainment.

"I did not expect for our paths to cross again," the man continued, "however it is good to see you. You have grown a great deal since our last meeting." He placed a clammy hand upon Jack's upper arm, rubbing it gently, and then he patted her chest.

Jack recoiled at the man's touch, leaning as far as she could from his crooked smile.

He observed her discomfort and removed his hand from her breast.

One of the other men pushed the old one aside. This person was much larger, and purely Chinese in ancestry. He was young but bore the markings of a callous existence. He stroked his beard and looked down upon her with a severe expression.

"Chái Rényuēhàn, son of Chái Cayce, also known as Cayce Spicer, and son of Chái Àijìng, who is daughter of the great Chái Yaoyáng. You have been brought before the Fathers of the venerable Shuimen for bringing dishonor upon our illustrious Family." the young man said. He did not pause for Jack to reply. His hard stare felt like a sneer as he continued to stroke his long, thin beard. "The Fathers would see you put to death for your disgrace, however it is by the gracious pleas of your mother that you have been thus far spared."

Jack realized with a growing dread that she was looking upon the highest individuals in her family's order, the notorious and feared Shuimen. Her blood ran cold.

She had never been allowed much interaction with her family's business. Her grandfather, Chái Yaoyáng, was a man of significance in the Shuimen, however her parents had always deflected her questions about him. She had never actually seen the man in person, even in the most distant memories of her childhood, and he had become little more than a legend in her mind as she grew.

The extent of her connection with him was via the conversations and mentions of his name by her parents and among their exclusive circles of friends. Her mother kept photographs of him in her parents' room, and Jack had often snuck into the room as a child to pore over the framed faces of family members she had never known, to include the face of her mother's father. He had always appeared a stern and mirthless man to her.

Though she had longed to know him and others of her mother's family as a child, the luster of their names soon faded in her consciousness as her disillusionment grew. Eventually she pushed them to the back of her mind, and she came to ignore the discussions and references her parents made to one another regarding details of the family business. She learned early on that her involvement was not wanted, despite frequent requests to learn more over the years.

Yet there the men who had been only legends in her mind stood before her. She immediately felt small and dangerously exposed beneath their taciturn gazes.

In fact, she WAS bare. Jack cringed, swallowing the sense of incredible shame upon realizing that she still wore the black panties in which she had arrived at home. She could tell that her tuck had been removed, and the implications of her circumstances were growing clearer in her mind every minute. Jack clenched her jaw and stiffened, desperately hoping to hide the tremble of her lower lip and limbs. She quietly wondered if this was in fact the end. She had been discovered at last for what she was. A surge of hatred rose within her as she considered the cruelty of existence. She had only just found herself and her own power, and now she was going to be killed for it.

Jack stared at the gaggle of men, her mind imploding, and then her face suddenly—abruptly—split into a wide grin. With only a blink of her tired and addled mind, they turned from terrifying giants to grotesque caricatures—like the gargoyles that adorned the crumbled grey facades of worn and irrelevant monuments to bygone eras. A giggle bubbled up from within her and escaped as a hysterical laugh.

Sttunned by this reaction, the men’s taciturn gazes hardened and the young man with the long beard bore his teeth in anger.

Jack tried to hold back the laughter but she was too nerve-wracked to contain it.

While the others glared, aghast at her disgraceful outburst, the thin old man with the watery expression watched her thoughtfully, tapping a finger upon his chin.

"This is useless." The young man finally spat. He turned to the others. "The boy is mad."

The thin man raised a finger and stepped forward once more.

"Ah. It would be wrong to deny him a chance to regain some shred of honor. We owe as much to his mother, and his grandfather." The watery-eyed man bent and looked at Jack with a frail expression. "Young man. Do you know why you have been brought before these most esteemed elders?"

Jack suppressed her giggling with some effort and regained her composure—if only for a brief time. The list of possibilities was long and depressing. She bit her lip, trying not to giggle again, while tears flowed from her eyes. She was terrified.

The old man sighed, seeing her unwillingness—or perhaps inability—to answer.

His voice continued on, thin and soft, recounting events long passed. A glaze formed over his eyes as he spoke, as if recalling the exact words spoken so long ago. "When you were born, seventeen years ago, a wise woman of our order looked into your future. In it she saw that you would wield tremendous power, and it was this power that would prove the tipping point for the Balance of Universe, leading to the destruction of an entire Age." He smiled mysteriously at the idea before carrying on, “You are a very special boy. Your destiny, divided, swings like a pendulum in the Balance of All Things. Our wise woman predicted that this precise duality would be the downfall of our Family’s legacy—should you realize your true power.”

The man looked upon Jack with a mystified expression, patting her leg and nodding to himself.

Jack stared at him long and hard, slowly processing his words, and still struggling to tamp her hysteria.

The old man paused, as he seemed wont to do, and considered her for a time before continuing. He bore a reflective expression when he gazed down at her.

"It was in response to this prophecy that your power was sealed away. I myself conducted the ceremony. And the Seal laid undisturbed for over a decade. Yet, things seemed to have changed." The man sighed, and he folded his hands. "This is often the way of things. Even prophecies and Fate are not set in stone. That is why we are here now to offer you a chance to prove yourself to the Family. Many of my colleagues, your wise Fathers," he looked at the other men, "have found your actions up until this point to be a disgrace upon this Family. In fact, your very survival was dubious at the beginning. It was only by the entreaties of your mother that you were given a chance to grow into the young man you are today. And," the man paused, letting out a thin and rasping cough for several long moments. He continued after clearing his throat. "And, it is once again by her hand that you are being given one final chance to earn your place."

Jack stared up at the man. She only partly heard his words. She was distracted by the ludicrousness of his appearance—for at the moment she found nearly everything funny. He appeared as though he might be only a skeleton, with nothing but his loose and parchment-like skin holding his bones together to form the shape of a knobby and shambling effigy of a human. She bit her lip harder, drawing tears of not only of terror but also of pain to her eyes.

"Jack," the man used her preferred name, "if you swear your loyalty to the Family, and pledge your power to them and them alone, you shall be granted freedom."

There was a long and tense silence.

Jack looked from the paper-like man to the austere faces of her 'Fathers', and down at her bare and pallid form. Her eyes came to rest upon her arm and she drank in the appearance of her scars under the bleached light.

Jack’s lips drew back, into a fierce and wicked expression, and a violent rage welled within her, surging up through her spine. There was a crackling sound, and a high-pitched whine, and an arc of electricity rippled through her body, yet, it did not meet with any of the bystanders. Instead, it was absorbed and drawn to ground by the strange device restraining her.

This only enraged her further. The burning hatred came out from her body in the form of great white arcs of energy, which were promptly absorbed by the contraption. She shrieked in protest at its existence, at her plight, at the men now gazing upon her with cold and condescending eyes. She thought of Lyn, and the betrayal of her own parents. Her tiny frame raged against her restraints, and every unfairness that had ever been dealt to her, until at last her body grew limp with exhaustion. She lay upon the frame of wood and iron, panting. Her head ached and her vision blurred, and the room had begun to spin again.

The thin man watched the entire display with a quiet and contemplative gaze. After she had finished, and she lay panting in her restraints for several minutes, he sighed.

"I see. Well. It was really only a nicety to ask." He looked to the other men with a grey expression.

They all came to an unsaid understanding and then thin man turned toward Jack once more, "Either way, you shall serve your Family. Whether you want to or not."

Chapter Text

Jack was left in the chamber, alone, for hours. The bleached lights remained shining upon her, obscuring all else. Her body hurt where it lay upon the wooden and metal framework and no food or water was given to her, though she cried for it occasionally.

As boredom and discomfort wore her mind, she began to sing any and whatever song she could remember in order to pass the time, and to distract her from the horror of the situation. Pop songs. Rock of nearly every kind. Poorly delivered RAP. K-pop, which comprised only a few actual words between lengthy bars of half remembered sounds.

Absently she wondered if anyone was listening. She got the feeling that she was being watched, though she could see little beyond the bright lights. And as the time and anxiety-layered boredom continued, she began to hold a one-sided conversation with whoever she presumed to be listening. Talking, at least, brought her comfort. In fact, it felt much like talking to her robotic pets, and the idea that someone was watching was better than being alone.

"Anyone know the words to that song...? No?" She asked the room at large after trying to remember a particular song for a lengthy amount of time. "You listen to K-pop?" She paused, as if waiting for some reply, and then carried on. "Yeah I'm more into the older 90s stuff, but you know that group Super Junior is pretty rad. You should check it out." She tried to think of the words to their most recent song, and then she sighed.

"You know I wanted to be a K-pop star for a long time." She chuckled. "I guess I still do. I mean, who wouldn't, am I right? Fan worship, fame. Killer fashion. Yeah..."

Jack smiled, envisioning 'the life', and she went on to describe the style of music she would go for as a K-pop singer, as well as the cast for her fictional band. She, of course, would be their leader.

Nevertheless the inevitable exhaustion of the topic came and she moved on to other things. Her mind wandered from he state of the film industry in various parts of the world, to her favorite musicals from overseas, to Chinese martial arts films, fashion trends, the history of sound-recording devices, and acoustic theory. But after hours of monologue, her throat was too dry and sore for her to talk. She resorted to making clicking noises with her tongue in alternating rhythms. At last she fell into an obnoxious and extremely repetitive pattern of singing every advertising jingle she could recall, ad nauseam, hoping to at the very least give her captors an ear-worm.

Jack could tell that she was being tortured. She had studied methods of torture extensively from a very young age and this was classic. Fortunately for her, she was quite used to keeping her own company.

All in all, as far as torture went, she could have done worse.

After a long period—hours, days, she had no way to tell—she heard the door to her prison chamber open with a long and low, metallic creak. There was a lengthy pause, during which Jack got the sense that whoever was standing in the doorway was watching her, and then a group of men came in and arranged themselves in an oval around the room. She noticed that their lapels bore the same cockatrice crest that was becoming so ubiquitous in her life.

"Jack," the thin old man's voice came from beyond the lights. He came to her side, though he remained an arm's distance from her. "I imagine you have not reconsidered our offer from earlier." It was a statement, not a question. He continued without waiting for any answer. "I want to show you something."

The old man withdrew from his sleeve a small gem, dark scarlet in color. The color of blood. It was roughly cut into an eight-sided shape.

He held it up for her to better see in the light and Jack recognized it immediately. It was the eight-sided crystal that the man had held over her head before she was placed into the iron sarcophagus over decade ago. Just before her magic had been stolen from her.

"Do you know what this is?" the man rasped.

Jack sighed, answering sardonically, "A paperweight..."

The man smiled though he did not laugh. "No."

He turned it over in his hand, experimenting with the play of light over its facets, and regarding it with a curious mixture of fondness and bemusement, "This little gem is a phylactery. Do you know what that is?"

Jack recalled her years of playing Dungeons and Dragons over the Internet. She frowned, puzzled. "It's... Something that liches use to hold their life-force...?"

The man chuckled. "Well, yes. In one definition."

Amusement flickered through his face briefly, "The other refers to a set of items worn by men of the Orthodox Jewish faith." He appeared to find the thought funny.

Jack stared at him blankly. His smile faded and he cleared his throat. "Yes. Well, it is the former definition that applies in this case. See, this little gem," he held it up again, "is made of a very special substance that has the capability of storing virtually any kind of energy in its purest form. THIS particular gem is specially crafted to hold the energy of Life itself. Amazing truly."

Jack looked curiously at the gem, forgetting her surroundings for a brief moment. That WAS amazing. And very interesting. Her mind was already supplying a number of questions and possible applications for such a thing before the man was able to utter his next statement.

"This one, is of particular relevance to you, for it holds a piece of YOU specifically." he said. He smiled at her, eyeing her carefully to see her reaction, before continuing.

"Now, the use of such items has certain benefits, which I will not go into at length, however it is not without other more... curious...side effects," he said. "For example, an interesting benefit is that this gem affords the user a certain hardiness, allowing him to survive greater taxes upon the body than most humans, as well as providing him with an extended lifespan."

The man paused and sighed, offering a perplexed expression, "Yet, another, perhaps more inconvenient side effect, is that the relationship between phylactery and user 'goes both ways', in a manner of speaking. To wit," he looked at Jack meaningfully, "if anything were to happen to this object—say, if it were obliterated—the user would also die."

Jack's heart grew cold as she realized where this was going.

"I can see by your expression that you understand the nature of this situation," the thin man said with no change in his demeanor.

Jack felt sick. Before her stood the crooked shade of a man who had tortured her both as a child and now, and in his hand he held her very Life. Literally. Jack swallowed hard. She stared at the little gem, which represented everything she had in this world, and then she turned her gaze back upon him with fear in her eyes.

"I assure you that these little knick-knacks are rather difficult to destroy, so never fear. It takes a very special person with very special knowledge to unravel them." He raised an eyebrow.

Jack's sick feeling turned to a seething anger, which simmered beneath her fear, and she looked upon him with a dark expression.

"And you happen to be one such person..." She said.

The man did not need to answer. He simply offered another thin smile.

"Listen, Jack, you are a very smart young man. You understand the strength of my position here—and by extension your Family's position—however I want you to know that I, and your loving Fathers, are reasonable men. Fair, men. We are willing to come to an arrangement in which all parties are satisfied."

Jack highly doubted that her satisfaction would be, in any way, a part of the picture. Yet the old man's words rang painfully true. She was powerless—yet again.

"What do you want..." she muttered, her heart sinking with each word.

The old man smiled.

Chapter Text

The Scarlet Ring, a glittering expanse of Draconium dust, stretched across the sky. The rays of sunlight, cast through the crimson expanse, turned the vault of the world into an ever churning carousel of color. Pinks and golds shone on high, while below chaos unraveled daily life.

Jack monitored the world’s descent and rebirth from the fortress of her cave. Technology glittered around her in colors of its own. Steel and red. Black and gold. Her satellites—fitted with her own burgeoning technology to thrive within the new magically-charged atmosphere—reported back data from all over the globe. Disappearances and tears in existence. Mysterious shadows in the night. Epidemics of nightmares. Mirages of alternate realities, echoing on the edge of human awareness.

It was a brave new world. And all of it would have been her oyster, if it were not for the depression that descended upon her spirit. As the world outside changed, so too did hers within.

Jack and her parents had not spoken since her abduction and meeting with the Shuimen Fathers—all in which her parents had been complicit. 'Tense' was an understatement for the state of relations. Her parents, when they deigned to enter the house, avoided their child and she avoided them. Both parties reached an unsaid agreement of hostility toward one another. Neither spoke to the other. Enemies, living under the same roof.

That was fine with Jack. Of course it was fine, she told herself. She preferred enemies to friends anyway, she repeated to herself. She let the thought echo over and over, as she thrust herself into her work, convincing herself that all was well though her world devolved around her.

Half-functioning systems and bots jittered and whirred anxiously around her, and most of them had been dismantled and rebuilt in various incarnations so many times that each system was beginning to blend together in her head. Empty soda cans littered the corners of the room (now that her housekeeping bots were barely functional), along with dirty clothes and candy wrappers. Jack spent most of her time fumbling through the mess of dismantled electronics for parts, as she obsessively built and rebuilt devices that had little purpose.

Her eyes felt like they would begin bleeding at any moment from fatigue, and she was pretty sure her blood was more energy drink than blood cells by at that point. Both her sleep and eating were disordered, and she had not taken her medication since she went off of it during the extended journey with the monks and...

And with Lyn...

Jack's heart ached whenever she thought of her late guardian. She presumed the grey warrior to be dead—killed by the very Order which she had so faithfully served for so many years. She had learned hardly anything about the woman during their brief time together, and she would never know what Lyn's life had been like. She would never be able to ask her why had she had chosen to do what she did.

Lyn had thrown everything away. The Order had been Lyn's entire existence, and Jack that the woman had grown up in that strange and beautiful cavern, hidden away from the world. Yet, Jack realized, in the end it was Lyn's love for her, for Jack Spicer, that the warrior had chosen to follow. Not that of the Order.

The thought bit into her heart and she desperately hardened it again to escape the pain.

Why had she done it? Why did she have to die?

Though Lyn's decision to follow her heart and stand by Jack's side might have come too late, Jack realized with a sickened anger that Lyn had tried. She had tried her best. And in the end she was betrayed too by those whom she had trusted most.

Jack bit her lip, quelling the tears in her eyes. Lyn had been the only one to choose her, Jack Spicer, over anything else. Out of love. In a sense, she was the closest thing Jack had ever had to TRUE love. A curse escaped Jack's lips and she felt her heart growing cold once again, and she shut her feelings down, sloughing the anger and grief aside.

Jack's effects had been returned to her by the Shuimen, after she had been delivered unconscious to her room, to include the small crystal pendant given to her by her guardian. After it had been returned to her, Jack unceremoniously shoved it into the top drawer of one of her tool chests.

Jack turned her gaze toward the drawer in which she knew it to be silently humming away, as it always did. She considered throwing it away, along with any residual feelings she had for the woman who had watched her grow and protected her.

The black and gold sari Lyn had gifted to her was gone. Her room to be raided for any 'questionable' material. Anything that smacked of her true identity. Her makeup was gone. Any clothes that were remotely fashionable, or which could be perceived as feminine in any way were gone. Even her porn magazines had been removed.

Now, she sat in only her boxers and signature jacket as she tinkered on the floor with a device that was meant to do something along the lines of sorting Skittles by color. At the moment, it only recognized the red ones and threw out the rest. Jack sighed, fumbling through the pile of discarded soda cans at her side for the particular screwdriver she needed. How long had it been? she wondered. The hours of the day rotated on and on as she sat secluded in her cave—her own personal time capsule filled with the mechanical expressions of her jumbled mind.

Jack vaguely considered the monks from time to time. She wondered what they were doing. She imagined them laughing, training, and playing games together in their perfect little Xiaolin world. She bit her lip and then cursed as the screwdriver slipped and nicked her finger. As she sucked bitterly on her fingertip, she sadly considered the differences between their lives and hers. And she realized that she missed them.

Jack had not seen the Xiaolin monks since the journey they had shared. She was no longer interested in Shen Gong Wu. The artifacts were next to useless, hostile and erratic, in the newly charged atmosphere. The Tangled Web Comb had very nearly strangled her upon her return, and she only barely managed to shut it into a heavy titanium tool chest in the corner of her lab. She assumed that use of the others she had would be disastrous, so she had locked them away as well. All she had now was her own magical power—and even that was not hers alone.

The Shuimen had made it abundantly clear that they owned her now. She expected them to come calling any day now, demanding whatever they would of her, and she had no choice but to comply. No matter what they asked of her.

And she had her parents to thank for everything.

The bitter resentment toward her parents reached critical mass. The moments she spent when not feeling sorry for herself were consumed by dark fantasies and bitter curses, all aimed at them and those they served. The idols of her childhood, her mother and father, were nothing more than dogs, held on gilded leashes by the Shuimen.

A hard lump formed in her throat as images of happy childhood memories mixed with the grief she now felt, turning each and every single one rancid.

Jack set down the device she was constructing and shut her eyes tight. Her lower lip trembled as tears began to sting her dry and bloodshot eyes. A cough masked a stifled sob, and she broke down into yet another fit of weeping.

Hours later she was roused from her sorrowful stupor by the sound of an incoming voice call. Jack pulled herself up from her fetal position in the middle of her laboratory floor and crawled to her main computer terminal, pulling the call up on her main display.

The number was unlisted—but she already knew who it was. The voice on the other end gave her a time and location alone, and then hung up. Jack melted back onto the floor, sliding a few cans out of the way so she could resume her pity party. She curled into a ball, chewing the end of her thumb until her fingernail bed began to bleed.

* * *

Jack scratched the inside of her ear and then picked her teeth as she leaned upon a mildewed old crate, on a nondescript and dingy dock, in Hong Kong. The light of the day was fading fast, and it looked as if it was going to rain. She was in a particularly foul mood. She was without her makeup, though she had considered stopping and buying some on the way to Hong Kong, but the idea of angering her parents—and thus threatening her relations with the Shuimen—seemed a bad plan. She wore her old clothes. 100% masculine passing.

She ground her teeth together as she checked her watch. They were late. Classic evil intimidation move. She was meant to sweat it out—and it was working, which only worsened her mood.

Timorously, she wondered what kind of things they might ask of her. She had never been a fan of working with mob-types. She respected them, in a sense, but she rued the idea of working for them. She had always been more of a solo act by nature, a free spirit, and their entire society made her squeamish. Work with Pandabubba was one thing, but at this point she was one step removed from direct reporting to the heads of the Shuimen. The head of the viper. Jack sighed. She attempted to pull out her compact mirror, but then she remembered she no longer had one.

"Jack Spicer." A voice came from the shadows. She screamed, startled, and a man stepped from the darkness. He wore one of those dark suits with the cockatrice stitched into its lapels. She exhaled, recovering her composure, though cringing inwardly at her reaction. At least the man allowed her the dignity of using her villain name, she thought bitterly.

"Y-yeah?" her voice cracked. She cleared her throat and deepened her pitch. "Er, yes."

The man held out a deep purple envelope, which she cautiously took it, noting the quality of the paper. It bore a fancy gold seal and everything. Inside was a single name and a small photograph. She looked up at the man with a frown.

"This, is your target," the man said.

"Right..." Jack furrowed her brows, swallowing hard. "Target... Target for what, exactly...?" She already knew the answer.

The man raised his eyebrow but remained silent. There was a long pause. Then he spoke. "January 8th. 1800. Make it look like an accident."

Jack bit her lip and looked down at the name. When she looked up again the man was gone. Her grip on the paper tightened, crinkling its edge.

So. This was to be her life now.

Jack returned to her personal jet, her mind a mess of emotions and apprehensions.

Chapter Text

Lloyd Chung was not a bad man. He was not a good man either. In fact, he was a very mediocre man. He got up every morning. Brushed his teeth. Read the paper. Bid goodbye to his wife and his cats. Went to work. Came home. Watched the news. Went to bed.

He also happened to be a money launderer for a number of organizations with 'questionable' reputations. And, Jack supposed, he had done something which had placed him on the wrong end of the Shuimen. Jack did not know what he had done, nor did she particularly wish to know. In fact, Jack aimed to know as little as possible about him, aside from the necessities. Jack DID know, however, that every evening, he left work at 1745. He stopped into the mini-mart around the corner every night at 1750 to pick up a candybar, which he would then eat on the train before he arrived home in order to hide it from his wife, who was of the mind that Mr. Chung had eaten a great deal TOO MANY candybars in his 53 years. And Jack also knew that on January 8th Mr. Lloyd Chung would purchase his last candybar—but he would never get to eat it.

Jack stood in the corner of the mini-mart, perusing the tabloids. She wore a dark hoodie and blue jeans. She only gave a sidelong glance as Mr. Chung entered the mart. As expected, he made a beeline for the candy aisle, selected a MARS bar, and stepped into the queue by the counter. Jack returned the magazine to the rack and grabbed a candybar herself, taking her place directly behind Mr. Chung. She kept her eyes lowered, staring at her black Chucks. The mini-mart cashier recognized Mr. Chung and they exchanged a brief hello before Mr. Chung exited the mart, candy in hand, no doubt anticipating its consumption when he caught the 1820 train. Jack placed exact change onto the counter for her own candybar and followed after Mr. Chung.

About ten paces from the mini-mart was another street corner with a crosswalk. There was a signal at this crosswalk. And an electric transformer on the utility pole next to it. Time. Place. Method.

Jack remained a few paces behind Mr. Chung, and she placed her hand upon the utility pole, as if to lean on it, while Mr. Chung waited for the signal to change. There was a group of loosely arranged people who also stood around him for the same reason. Jack swallowed. She looked up at the transformer and took a breath. She checked her watch. 1759.

The minute between 1759 and 1800 seemed to drag on longer than it should. Her heart beat faster than was healthy, and a wooziness overtook her. Even so, she allowed herself that minute to slow her breathing. The world slowed with it. She allowed a feeling of excitement to saturate her body, bit by bit, spine to limbs. The familiar and delightful tingling sensation could be felt in her groin and it traveled all the way to her fingertips. 30 seconds. Jack closed her eyes, and the world opened up to her in the form of a 360° magnetic map which she held in her mind's eye. 45 seconds. She counted under her breath. The excitement compounded within her, and she shifted her feet, ready to ground herself. 55 seconds. The signal changed—and so did the hour.

Jack released the flood of energy, which excitedly traveled up through the pole, into the transformer, and out in a carefully directed arc.

It was strange. Jack kept her eyes closed, yet she still saw everything as it played out in her head. Each millisecond felt multiplied by three. The arc of electricity slowly traveled into the air, leaping out from the transformer. It was astoundingly EASY. All she had to do was nudge it to land in just the right place. The surge of electrons made contact with the top of Mr. Chung's balding head. Jack watched them travel through his brain, cooking it instantly, and through the rest of his body. Through his heart. Down through his left leg to the bottom of his leather shoes.

A bit of extra encouragement kept the bolt for Mr. Chung and Mr. Chung alone, sparing those around him. Jack kept her eyes closed tight. A series of screams resonated around her, drawn out by the adrenaline saturating her body. Mr. Chung landed several feet away, his shoes and socks still in the spot where he had been standing. A woman directly beside Jack let out an ear-splitting shriek and Jack opened her eyes. She saw Mr. Chung's shoes, and her eyes traveled sideways to behold the twitching form of the late Lloyd Chung. A spider web of burns spread across his face and his hair and clothes smoked. The smell of burnt flesh and wool fabric mixed with the smoggy city air, and Jack felt immediately sick.

She turned and ran, not even checking to see if her mark was truly dead. He had taken nearly 1 billion volts directly—she was pretty damn confident he was dead. Jack ducked into the nearest alley, nearly knocking a business man over as she did so, and vomited behind a dumpster.

She stood, bent over, with her head leaning against the dumpster's side for many minutes. Her heart strained itself to keep up with her adrenaline, and she realized that she was shaking. She dropped herself to her knees, allowing a few tears to slide silently down her cheek.

She had never killed anyone before. She had always expected she would, one day, and she even fantasized about it regularly. Planning the methods. Running over contingencies. Envisioning the preparation and the cover-up. Imagining the feeling before and after. It was a fun exercise. Yet, here she was. Every fantasy she had conjured over the years had pointed to this. And it was... surprisingly anticlimactic.

After Jack's adrenaline—which HAD been rather pleasurable—subsided, she was left feeling...bland. She ran over the picture of Mr. Chung in her head, burnt and twitching on the pavement. It didn't seem real. It was like watching a movie. Or porn, when she expected it to be hardcore but found it instead to be softcore. Jack stared at the puddle of vomit at the dumpster's base, her head still leaned against the dumpster's side.

After a long while, the young genius stood. It looked like it was going to rain, and it was chilly out.

Jack returned to her jet, stopping for a bowl of noodles on the way, and she ate her candybar during the flight home.

It tasted good.

Chapter Text

The unfortunate death of Mr. Chung generated little fuss in the world. It was chalked up to a case of faulty utilities, or perhaps even dry lightning for those of a more dramatic mind. Given the recent surge of strange and unexplained events afflicting the Earth, his death garnered little more than a brief mention in the obituaries of the city paper.

Jack had done it.

Oddly, Jack found herself alight with a giddy sensation of pride and accomplishment as she viewed the digital version of the obituary on the web. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the computer monitor, feeling quite good about herself. She was even IMPRESSED with herself.

Jack stared vaguely ahead, lost in a dreamy haze, as she absently picked at the scabs on a fresh set of cut marks bisecting her arm. After a while of prodding the marks, playing with the stinging sensation, she got up and grabbed a cup of pudding. Banana and chocolate—one of her favorites. She had earned it.

Placing her feet up on the table beside her computer terminal, wiggling her toes and humming a randomly supplied K-pop tune, Jack smiled and murmured proudly to herself, “Things are looking up for Jack Spicer.”

The following weeks passed like a delirious dream. Between bouts spent sobbing in the fetal position, Jack plunged into her work with a newly feverish enthusiasm. Her ingenious mind turned a deluge of inspiration into metal, machinery, and freshly inflamed obsession. Upgrades. Experiments. Theories.

From within her flowed a renaissance of being, and she evolved just as her surroundings did. In a fit of caffeine-fueled frenzy she tore down old systems and rebuilt them to flourish in the newly charged atmosphere beneath the Scarlet Ring. She also flourished in the new world—her power grew, tweaked and measured and studied by her self. And she became the inspiration between a tack into experimentation with magical energy sources. It was like music, two genres that seemed so starkly different to the ignorant masses promised the most beautiful harmony, and she soaked up the challenge like a rabid dog sought to slake its thirst.

Magic and technology mingled within her genius mind, fueled by caffeine and nightmarish flickers of sleep. The burnt and twitching form of Mr. Chung greeted her whenever she closed her eyes. Between episodes of disillusionment and obsession she fantasized about the deed.

The smell of burnt skin. The brilliant sensation of power. The beautiful calculation of it all. She replayed the scenario in her mind a million times over, and more. As her fingers tinkered with metal and magic, her mind toyed with the idea of Death. She replayed the scene of her ‘First’ over and over in her mind, twisting its variables and exploring it from every angle until she exhausted all thoughts about it.

Yet, over time, the visions turned from delight to delirium. Her fascination soured into frustration, and the works she conjured devolved alongside her. Focused engineering turned to half-thought tinkering, and the spaces without sleep lengthened, prolonged by the power of energy drinks and manic obsession. Whenever her body gave way to exhaustion, she was met with uncomfortable dreams about the Sanctuary.

Ever in her sleep the eyes of the elephant-headed man stared into her soul, and the heart-melting gaze of the little sprite. The feelings of vitality their loving eyes once filled her with turned to poison in her heart. They burned, twisted around like alcohol poured upon a wound, and she both loved and hated the utopia of her Dreams. In the world of sleep it was a haven of inspiration and healing, but in her waking hours its memory burned.

Jack Spicer melted away from the outside world, lost somewhere within the groove of mania and obsession. Until one day, with her mind wandering in the hazy realm between quantum theory and theosophy, Jack’s thoughts, and the merry K-pop tune she had been humming, ground to a jarring halt when came a loud bang from her garage and then an alarm and the sound of laser fire.

"What now..." She muttered to herself, yanked from her internal landscape. She stared in the direction of the motor pool, loath to investigate herself.

Additional crashes followed and, pulling at her hair with a groan and throwing down her pencil, she waved a hand for her security system to display the commotion on an array of screens beside her. Her mouth dropped open and a mixture of annoyance and anxiety churned in her stomach like a neurosis smoothie.

Just as Jack viewed the monitors, the Xiaolin monks came barreling into the main portion of her lab from the motor pool.

Jack stared at them, a look between disbelief and fury drawn across her face. She was in her boxer shorts, an open bathrobe, and was currently wearing only one sock.

"JACK SPICER! YOU ARE ALIVE!" Omi shouted. The monk sprang toward Jack in a series of acrobatic leaps, heading for a hug, but he was waylaid as Jack gave a laconic command for her Jack-bots to intercept him before he reached her. One of the bots held Omi in the air by the seat of his pants. He blinked at Jack, and then smiled. "Jack Spicer! It has been—oh... What is that SMELL?" The tiny monk scrunched his nose and covered it with both hands.

Jack glared at him.

The other monks came to Omi's side. Kimiko was particularly offended by the smell whereas Clay seemed not to notice at all.

"Geez, Jack." Kimiko said, through her hand, "What happened in here?"

Most everything within the lab was in various stages of construction or deconstruction. Too many projects remained in half-finished stages, and piles of books, blueprints, and scribblings littered the floor.

"Hey! I have a system. Don't touch anything!" Jack pointed at the monks with her pencil.

"We thought you had died," Omi said bemused, still held aloft by the bot.

"Judging by the smell, not so sure he didn't." Raimundo plugged his nose. Then he corrected himself with an awkward glance. "She..."

Jack gave them all a dry expression, her lips drawn and her teeth bared. She gave an indication for the bot to drop Omi and then she looked back at the scribblings of her interrupted thoughts with a huff. A pang of feeling had come to her heart when Raimundo corrected himself. She gritted her teeth, and returned to her scribblings with an exaggerated display of ardor. She vaguely thought, with a wishful sigh, that maybe if she ignored them long enough they would go away.

"We tried texting you, like, 50 billion times," Kimiko said.

"I had my phone on silent..." Jack lied. She had seen their messages—she had just chosen to ignore them.

The monks exchanged bemused expressions.

"So..." Clay drawled after a silence, looking around the laboratory and observing Jack's...state. "You been working a lot...?"

Jack furrowed her brow, bent over her notes, and none of the monks so much as a sideways glance.

"I'm in the midst of a creative breakthrough. So, if you don't mind?" She made a shooing motion toward the motor pool, and the hole they had blown in her garage door.

"... Right…" Kimiko raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah. We can see that." Raimundo said sardonically, staring at a pile of gutted bots and half-formed ideas.

"Jack," Omi approached her workbench—she sincerely hoped he did not try to hug her again. "We have not seen you for months. I would have expected you to be out battling us for Shen Gong Wu."

"I'm not interested in Wu," Jack said automatically.

There was a note of surprise that passed among the monks.

Jack noticed their bemusement and rolled her eyes. "I've got my mind on bigger and better things. I got visions. And plans. And, if you haven't noticed, all the Shen Gong Wu are completely bat-shit now. And I don't feel like getting blown up or mauled or ANYTHING by possessed magical artifacts anytime soon."

Omi puzzled over the use of 'bat-shit' in her statement but replied slowly. "Not ALL of the Wu are unusable. Some still remain...docile?"

"Whatever. I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole." Jack retorted dismissively.

She continued poring over her notes, hoping they would just get the fucking hint that she did not want them there.

"When was the last time that you saw sunlight?" Kimiko asked dryly. "And...you know. Bathed?"

Clay grinned and joked, "I'm pretty sure Jack is a VAMPIRE. He—" Kimiko elbowed Clay in the ribs, "uh, sorry— She don't need sunlight."

Jack blinked a few times at her notes, and gripped her pencil a bit harder. Vampire... If only Clay knew how close to correct he actually was.

"You're hilarious..." Jack sneered. She made a comment about not asking for their criticism.

Yet, for all her prickly demeanor, her frenemies looked upon her with incredulous gazes and Kimiko folded her arms, taking in Jack's state of disarray.

Jack's eyes were sunken and bloodshot. Her hair was an oily mess, and its undyed roots were beginning to show. She smelled terrible. Her fingers were scabbed and her nails had been chewed to nearly nothing. And, most concerning, she wore no makeup, revealing every scar on her body—including a massive series of crosshatched cut on her inner thighs and arms, all within varied stages of healing.

Kimiko looked at the marks and her face changed.

"You know. Maybe it would be a good idea for you to take a break..." she said slowly.

Kimiko would readily admit that Jack gave her the creeps, but incredibly—and to her begrudging surprise—Kimiko's opinion of their rival had softened during their journey together. Was Jack creepy? Yes. Yet, Kimiko was tuned to the worrying signs that Jack displayed. She had seen them before, and she wished no such state upon anyone—creepy or not.

Jack scoffed at her, "No thanks. I'm on the verge of cracking a very important—"

"It wasn't a suggestion," Kimiko stated flatly and grabbed Jack’s shoulders.

Jack jerked away with a yelp, baring her grey and coffee-stained teeth.

"DON'T touch me!" She screamed.

Her response came quick and sharp, and she glared at the monks like a wild animal, terrified and prepared to bite if necessary.

Kimiko jumped back, throwing her hands into the air, and the other monks startled at the intensity of her response.

The young villain’s shoulders trembled, and her heart and breath had both spiked. She glared at the monks for several long moments, and then she pointed toward the exit.

"Out. Now." She said, her voice trembling, like her body.

The monks exchanged wide-eyed and speechless glances, now sensing that something was actually very wrong. Yet, none knew how to respond.

"NOW. Before I fry the lot of you." Jack glowered.

The Xiaolin Dragons regarded her with wary eyes. They were accustomed to Jack's threats and bluster, but this time it sounded as though she meant EXACTLY what she said.

"Fine." Raimundo huffed and raised his hands defensively. "We'll go." He indicated, strongly and meaningfully, for the others to follow.

Omi stood and stared at Jack with a look of earnest bewilderment and concern. Then he slowly followed after the others.

Jack watched them go, her body stiff until she was sure they had left. A shudder came over her and she crumpled back into her chair. Gripping the sides of her head, she sat with her elbows on the worktable, her jaw clenched and her throat constricted, until after a lengthy period her heartbeat slowed to an acceptable rate.

* * *

Beneath the setting sun, the monks arrived back at the Xiaolin Temple.

Raimundo's mind churned as he dismounted from Dojo’s back. He was concerned about the new...feeling...of their friend. He recalled the force with which she had threatened them. When she had snapped, he something different in her voice and her eyes, something he had never seen there before, though he could not place what it was.

When he had met her burning gaze in the dark belly of her laboratory Raimundo had felt a lurch in his stomach—the same kind he would get on the streets back home when situations got hairy. Raimundo had seen his fair share of the night life in Rio de Janeiro. Living in the big city, one developed a special sense—and Jack was tripping that sense more than ever. He wondered what had changed.

Yet, his gut told him—something had died within Jack Spicer.

Raimundo frowned as the thoughts crept into his mind, stalking like monstrous shadows into his awareness as he considered that wild look in her eyes. And the shadows that crept in upon him all bore that same, wild, scarlet gaze. Whatever had died had been replaced by something cold and heartless. Dangerous, and malevolent.

Raimundo remained in troubled silence as he followed the others to the Temple steps. Master Fung waited by the Temple's entrance. The young Brazilian monk nearly opened his mouth to speak to their master, but then he shut his lips tight, placed his hands in his pockets, and stalked off to his room without betraying a word.

He felt unsettled. Something was coming, and Raimundo's spirit housed an unease similar to that which he had felt when he had first glimpsed Apophis, watching its light turn Earth's skies the hue of blood. Events had been set into motion that bespoke some uncertain future. Raimundo gazed through one of the Temple windows up at the Scarlet Ring. So much had changed in so short a span. The air. The Earth. The subtle spirit that whispered within the trees. Like it was a new age entirely, and things were going to keep changing. He wondered where they, and their eccentric friend, might be carried on this impending and perilous tide.

Chapter Text

Cayce Spicer had never been an ambitious man. Within his veins flowed the purest Infamy and an Unspeakable Darkness that seemed to have a will of its own. The Spicer bloodline had become synonymous with 'ill fortune'. Not ill fortune for them—ill fortune for humanity. The carnage of Vlad the Impaler. The necrophilic fascinations of Gilles de Rais. The dark sorcery of the "Blood Countess" Bathory. The wicked whispers of the "mad monk", Rasputin. Even the crazed curiosity of H. H. Holmes. The evil heritage he carried within him was of the highest pedigree. In truth, the Spicer family line was littered with great sorcerers, black magicians, and psychopaths. Madness, it was said, not only ran in the Spicer line—it blazed, naked and painted in blood and dark magic, a twisted trail throughout history. But Cayce Spicer, named by his parents for Edgar Cayce, had never been particularly gifted in the department of diabolical schemes. Even his name was a bit of a dud. It had become tradition in the Spicer family line to gift the firstborn son a name connected to some great infamy or tragedy. Edgar Cayce, though a mysterious man in his own right, only barely fit the bill. Yes, he had suffered a few shakes of the head over the years from both parents, wondering if the name they had chosen for him had somehow brought him ill fortune of his own. Or rather, good fortune. ... Not Evil fortune. Truthfully, Cayce Spicer rather liked his name, just as he rather liked the historical figure for which he was named.

He never had a head for scheming or bloodthirst. His father had been a terror known as the Maniac of Manhattan. His mother, a brilliant scientist, had once held the entire city of Beijing hostage. All very successful villains. Cayce... Cayce never made a name for himself that way. If it had been up to him, he would be more than content to stay shut away, lost in the world of his books and archeological reveries. He always had a fondness for the occult, and anthropology, and he much preferred the words of dead sorcerers to those of living people. Perhaps his name was to blame.

He made his way well enough, tried to live up to his parents' expectations. But he knew in his heart that the only thing that saved his Evil career was the Evil fortune of marrying into a powerful criminal family in Hong Kong.

His mother had done work for them in the past, fostering a special relationship with the underworld kingpins of the Far Eastern city which continued when she moved to the States. In a roundabout way, it was through this relationship that he had met Chai Aijing, princess of the Hong Kong underworld, well known and sought-after in her own right. How he had ever managed to draw the eye of such a treasure he could never know. They were young, Evil, and full of romantic notions. Cayce had always been a fool for romantic notions, and Aijing carried with her a dangerous allure. He had been smitten with her the moment he laid eyes upon her. And somehow, through some Evil blessing (if there could be such a thing), she had taken notice of him.

The rest, as they say, was Evil history. They fell in love. Committed crimes together. Pulled off many anecdote-worthy cons. Got engaged. A happy, loving, and romantic story on all accounts—and Cayce Spicer was, indeed, a fool for romantic notions. He even called her his 'Bonnie from over the ocean’—a corny but heartfelt nod to the Romeo and Juliet of the criminal world.

Aijing used her connections to elevate him in the eyes of the Shuimen and all their associates. He became a well-known and lucrative dealer of stolen and rare artifacts, and his was the very last word on esoteric archeology.

Yet, for all his success, Cayce could never fully shake the feeling that something, somewhere, had gone wrong. He could not place his finger on it, and he spent many a night awake, burying his mind in his books in hopes of escaping the gnawing notion that things were not as they should have been.

Everything had gone downhill shortly after the young couple was gifted with a baby boy. Cayce had never been more delighted than when he laid eyes upon his wife holding their newborn child, still squishy and red from the womb. For the first few hours of his son's life, it was like a dream. A perfect image of his success—a beautiful wife, and their own child to carry on his lineage. Keeping with his family's tradition, he granted his son a tragic middle-name—Salem, after the hysteria-fueled killings of Salem Massachusetts. A notable event in America's occult history and a sufficiently romantic choice of name for their Evil progeny. And, as stated before, Cayce Spicer was a fool for romantic notions.

But then they received the call to bring their infant son before the Fathers to receive their blessing, for such was the tradition of the organization. All children of the Shuimen's most prominent lines were to brought before the heads of their order. The young lovers gathered up their bundle of joy and held their breath in nervous, but proud, anticipation as they came before the council of their elders.

It was a lovely, romantic night by their reckoning—stormy, dreary, perfect and desolate—when they were chauffeured to the Shuimen's headquarters. Non-descript men in dark suits ushered them into the council's chamber. Exchanging wondering looks, the young parents quietly stood before the heads of their order. Within the corner of the room lurked a thin and papery man, known to Cayce Spicer, silently.

The Shuimen Fathers, wizened and hard, sat upon silk cushions, elevated by several steps from where Cayce and his wife now stood. Chief among them was AIjing's own father, and Cayce's father-in-law. He was named Chai Yaoying, but he was better known as the Iron Dragon, and he was a cruel and mirthless man, one of ruthless disposition and even more ruthless standards. It was said that the Iron Dragon only smiled for one person, and that was his beloved daughter, Aijing.

He had never approved of Cayce—an American half-breed—and it was only with reluctance, and much pleading from his daughter, that the old man blessed their marriage. He regarded Cayce with a hard gaze as the two came to bow before him and his associates.

To the side of the council sat an old woman, frail and trembling in her age, with dull, grey hair and dull, grey eyes to match it. She sat upon a silk cushion to Cayce and Aijing's left, midway between them and the Fathers. She barely glanced upon the couple as they knealt upon two mats before the council. As soon as the couple took their seats, without a word, the old woman hobbled toward them. With an indication of her hands the old woman reached out to receive their child. Aijing reluctantly allowed her only child to be taken from her graps.

"State his name," were the only words the woman spoke to the couple.

"Jonath—" Cayce began but caught himself under the hard glare of his father-in-law, "Er, Chai Renhyuan."

The old woman turned her back upon the couple, carrying the babe before the Shuimen Fathers, rocking him and mumbling incoherent phrases to him. Little Chai Renhyuan, with eyes barely open, looked blearily around the room, cooing as the old woman spoke the words. She paced back and forth in a tottering way a few times before returning to her seat. She wrapped the babe in a silk cloth, waving incense over him thrice, and cradling him in her arms. Baby Jack sneezed as she pressed her hand upon his forehead. Her mutterings fell away and the chamber became oppressively silent. The young couple exchanged nervous looks with one another.

For a moment, Cayce wondered if the woman had actually fallen asleep, sitting with her hand pressed upon Renhyuan's head. He started when the old woman let out a hoarse and sickly gasp.

"This child...!" She wheezed, "I see him standing between Shadow and Light, one foot upon the grave, the other within a silver sea! This child shall walk a perilous path, one of ruin, and—and DESTRUCTION! Oooh!" The old woman moaned and Aijing's hand instinctively gripped her husband's knee. The old woman began to rock back and forth, and the babe in her arms began to squirm and whimper. "I see...a dark goddess. A witch. She of the shadowed lands! The land of Naught! In one hand she holds the Moon! In the other she wields a chain! Her hair, flowing, flowing red, like blood! Her eyes gleaming as the blood of the gods themselves! She will be the end of us! She shall bring demise to this Age! Ruin! Oooh, I see RUIN! Desolation! The end of the Shuimen! The end of the Order! The end of all we VALUE!" The woman's voice rose to a fever pitch and the babe began to scream.

Aijing stiffened, hard-pressed to stay seated as the woman rocked violently, the babe looking as if to tumble from her arms at any second. Cayce, cast a wild glance upon the Fathers and his wife. He was about to stand himself when the woman cried out,

"Take him from me! Take the child!" she cried.

Aijing needed no further word—she ran to the woman's side and snatched her child from the old woman's talons.

The seer panted and looked hard upon the babe now cradled in Aijing's arms, and upon his mother, "That... That child..." she rasped, "Should he find his power, your child shall bring great change to this world. The witch... This... Dark goddess. She must not be allowed to manifest! Your child is the key... HER key... Yet she is ALSO the Key to this child's power! She... She..." The woman fell silent, closing her eyes in a pained and weary expression. She looked as if to swoon but then bowed her head.

Aijing took several tentative steps backwards, clutching her son. Cayce's face had become pale. He continued to gaze at the woman in horror, wondering if she might die that very moment, and loath to think what his father-in-law's reaction might be if she did. Cayce swallowed hard, closing his eyes, before finally mustering the courage to look upon his father-in-law.

A deep silence fell upon the room, save for Renhyuan's cries as his mother tried to shush him. Chai Yaoying gazed upon the young family with iron eyes. Aijing looked tearfully up at her father, still rocking her baby, while the old man stared hard at his grandchild.

The silence persisted for an agonizing length of time. Cayce placed a hand on his wife's shoulder as she came to sit beside him, once their child had quieted.

The Fathers looked upon one another and then Yaoying spoke,

"This child shall dishonor our Family."

"Father—" Aijing began to plead, but her father raised his hand for her to be silent. The old man looked troubled for a fleeting moment, bowing his head and bearing a deep frown. His daughter pleaded to him with her eyes. Cayce held his jaw taught, and held his breath.

At last the Iron Dragon opened his eyes. For a brief moment, Cayce saw a flicker of pain pass within his visage as he looked upon his daughter. The old man turned his gaze upon the old woman.

"Never have Madame Chao's predictions led us astray, for all the long years she has served our Family. This prediction comes as a great disturbance." he said.

"Surely there might be some hope for our son," Cayce blurted.

The old man looked to reply but the old woman spoke instead,

"The Sight sees many paths and the waters of Fate shifting. Nothing is set in stone. But I say to you now, as I say to this whole council, your child holds great potential. A power that can be used for either great Evil, or great Good. Your actions shall the path of our Fate."

"Then there is still hope." Cayce breathed, and cast an earnest glance upon his father-in-law, "Please—"

"Father," Aijing interrupted her husband, "If we pledge to keep our child hidden away, kept where the world shall not see him, kept from power or the eyes of our enemies, perhaps this Fate can be avoided."

"This child's birth is an ill omen!" One of the council's younger members said suddenly, "He should be put to death!"

"No!" Aijing gasped, but caught herself and measured her voice once more. She bowed her head, exhaling, and then raised her eyes. When she spoke again her voice came cool, even, and slow,

"I, we, promise to keep our child from this Fate. We shall ensure he stays hidden. We shall not allow him to endanger our great Family." Then she bowed low, as low as possible while holding her child, "Please, spare his life."

Another silence fell as Yaoying gazed upon his daughter, and then he looked at his son-in-law. Cayce swallowed and nodded. The old man exhaled and looked once more upon the seer.

"Madame Chao, your council is honored and respected. Please, if there is any way to spare us this Fate, and to spare this child, tell us." he said.

Madame Chao cast a steely glance upon the old man, holding him in quiet regard as she contemplated. When she spoke her words were quiet and firm,

"If you do as you say, and the child's power remains dormant, and the goddess remains asleep, then perhaps this Fate can be avoided."

Chai Yaoying turned to his daughter, "Then you know what you must do. The child may live, but he shall not receive our blessing. He shall be kept from the Shuimen's affairs, and he shall never be a part of our Family. Go."

The young family left the chamber of the Shuimen Fathers that night in tears.

Eighteen years later, Cayce Spicer sat with his nose bent toward a book in his study. A few months had passed since the wretched affair with the Shuimen fathers, in which the existence of the phylactery had been revealed to Jack. Since Jack had been imprisoned and tortured, and since Cayce's wife had pleaded with the Fathers for their child's life once again.

Cayce turned the page of his book as he reflected, but then turned it back to the previous page. He found himself unable to focus upon his reading. With a soft sigh he gently shut the book, sliding it onto his desk and leaning back in his chair. He shut his eyes and inhaled the gloom of the darkly-wooded library, taking
in the comforting scent of old books. He opened his eyes when he sensed the shift of air that came with the door's opening.

Jack froze for a moment in the library's doorway, and a brief moment of tense regard passed between parent and child. Jack’s were cast upon the carpet and trudged with purpose to one of the shelves. Cayce blinked awkwardly, unsure whether to gaze at his child or not. He instinctively reached for his book and buried his nose in it, opting not to face his child.

Such was as it had been for the past months. Neither looked at one another. Neither spoke. Cayce stared hard at the text, pretending to read it but actually working to tamp down the sick feeling in his stomach. There it was again. The sense that something had gone wrong. Images of that night so long ago knocked upon the door of his mind. The fateful trip to the sorcerer's estate.

They had been told it was the only option. The only way to keep their child alive. Jack had screamed, not understanding. But it had been for his good. Surely he had to understand that now. Surely, Cayce had done the right thing... He snapped his book shut with more force than he intended. A nervous glance upward revealed to still be ignoring him, as it always was. Cayce leaned over his desk, absently shuffling some papers, attempting to look busy.

That night... It had changed everything. His wife's eyes had grown steely, and the bed between them cold. Though his father-in-law had passed, he saw the old man's eyes within those of his wife. Looking hard upon him. Judging him. The love between them had faded long ago, as the love between them and their child had transformed into something... wrong.

Cayce gritted his teeth, and he nearly spoke. As always, his heart faltered and he resorted once again to his books. Nothing felt exciting anymore. Only his research sustained him. In the long hours of the night he was wearied by melancholy and half-lucid dreams.

Jack did not even look at him anymore. Like his wife, his child had also changed. Where a once was light, now that same steel had come into his child's gaze. And the light had been replaced by something else. A glimmer of something Cayce knew all too well. It ran in the family. Actually, it nearly galloped. Madness. He had seen it in his father's eyes before the man was finally caught and put to death. When his bloodthirst had been at its highest. He had seen it in his mother's eyes whenever she bent over her workbench, crafting the latest machine meant for torment and death.

Jack had always been a sensitive boy. And, in moments when Cayce's melancholy allowed it, he nearly saw a glint of his own childhood self reflected back at him when he had looked upon his own child. But now that faint reflection was overshadowed by the legacy that had run hard upon his heels his entire life. Madness. And destruction. That Unspeakable Darkness.

Perhaps things could have been different for him. Perhaps it was because of his name. Perhaps his life could have been something else. It was too late to tell, and he no longer had the heart to consider it. The same darkness that had consumed his own existence had now seeped into his own child. It was too late. It was always 'too late' for Cayce Spicer.

Jack left the room without a word.

As always, it was too late.

Chapter Text

Unabashed and electric, Jack stood amidst the dazzling light of Tokyo's nighttime display, purple envelope in hand. Within it was a list of nearly a dozen names. A pageant of frenetic color churned within a vortex of technology and opulence. Jack looked upward at the rapidly shifting marquees, a sense of anticipation setting her molecules quivering. She chanced a small spark amidst her fingers, flexing them and building the power within her.

Her skills had improved considerably over only a few months of careful testing and experimentation, as had her energetic endurance. Even as she walked, she could feel her magnetic atmosphere shifting and feeding her data with every step. It all came to her naturally as breathing. Like a buried instinct, once forgotten, now remembered.

Amidst the unsuspecting and inconsequential masses of night-goers, Jack smiled to herself—this was her kind of town. A holographic display of a scantily clad anime character flickered to her right, selling a new line of energy drinks. A shop to her left glittered with an array of devices to do justice to any technology geek's wet dream. She inhaled the thick and energetic air. The entire place felt like it was super-charged, and the feeling filled her up, drugging her with its electric chaos.

Jack stalked through the crowds like smoke, invisible, masking her energy. Playing with the feeling of electricity inside of her. Her mind churned, a revolving procession of calculations and analyses, intermingled with excited flutterings of inspiration. She was the artist at her canvas, and this entire world was a fucking playground for her expression.

Jack had been given artistic freedom this go around, and her mark this time was of considerably larger influence. A credit to her success on assignments thus far, of which there had been several. She was instructed to take him out, along with his entourage, at any cost. Jack hated taking orders, but her grim duties provided a nice distraction, and an ample way to flex her mind in ways she had never allowed herself before.

Jack came to a large junction, at which there was a tremendous flux of people traveling in and out of the entrance to a train station. She slipped into their current, anonymous, and flowed into the place where her target would be arriving shortly. He was to be on the 2000 Yamanote Line, coming from Narita Airport. Mr. Cho Do-Yun and his entourage of close associates were arriving from South Korea for a very important meeting with one of the Shuimen's major competitors in Japan. They would never arrive.

At the heart of Shibuya station, the pulse of the city was palpable. Tokyo’s arteries, the subways, stretched out in a spider-like array. A web of connection spreading through the city. Transporting the city’s lifeblood. People. All of whom vibrated with the same electric current as everything else. Energy—the lifeblood of Existence.

Jack glanced at the marquee of arrivals, which shifted every minute. Her scarlet eyes hunting through the list or her target—the inbound train from Narita.

There.

Her consciousness loosened, as she had been taught by Lyn in what felt like a previous life. She allowed the energy of the station to come into her, flowing, filling her. And slowly she built the feeling of tension within her body. Her spine lit up, and the speed of her neurons accelerated. The world slowed around her as her perception expanded, and she took her place at the center of her Universe. Goddess of that moment.

Jack looked from one slow-moving individual to another, and positioned herself at just the right spot along the platform. Her mind, pregnant with manifesting power, mapped the plan, visualizing it unfold and ready to breathe it into being.

She checked her watch, gazing at it until she could hear the approach of the JR Yamanote Line, inner loop, upon which Mr. Cho now sat. She had availed her senses of the railway security monitoring network, and she had been tracking Mr. Cho since he got onto the Sky-Line at Narita Airport Terminal 1. Jack looked up, feeling the train approaching fast. The world allowed her to examine it frame by frame, with each pulse of current from her body, building and rebuilding her internal map dozens of times each minute.

The technique came naturally to her, and it felt as though she had already been doing this her entire life, though she had only recently discovered her powers. She picked up the nuances of her energetic abilities with uncanny ease. It was intuitive as breathing to her, and it felt as if it had been built into her at the DNA level, perhaps even deeper.

The train rumbled far down the track, where she could not see it, but she did not need to.

Jack stepped from the wall upon the edge of the platform, where she had been leaning while she waited, and she stood at the line between the platform and the tracks. Tourists and citizens flowed around her slowly, and the network of trains pulsed ever on in her mind, their tracks vibrating brimming with electromagnetic energy.

From the all, she narrowed her focus. One line. One track. She focused on the track before her, feeling its energy, and she added a bit of her own. The current traveled down her spine, through her legs, and into the platform, while her mind kept it focused on its mission. A sense of vibration came into the air and ground beneath the feet of passers by—inoccuous to all but her target—as the current surged through the tracks, building momentum, compounding, until at last it met with the in-bound Yamanote Line.

Jack felt the train's electronic body surge, shorting out every circuit within. The train was hers.

Jack closed her eyes. A pair of earbuds blasted heavy metal into her ears, drowning every other distraction, allowing her to carry the train forward. She built its speed. The whole exercise reminded her of the toy trains she played with as a child, and the little race tracks she built with her father so long ago. Her concentration wavered for a moment in the memory of happy times long gone, mingled with the sting of heartache that followed it, and the train's momentum sagged briefly. But she quickly gritted her teeth and pushed all other thoughts from her mind.

Another surge of energy set the air of the platform around her abuzz. The station-goers around her expressed their surprise as their electronic devices began to flicker and their hair stood on end. And then there was a deafening screech.

The in-bound Yamanote Line came careening toward the platform, far faster than it should have ever done. The bonds attaching it to the tracks strained and shuddered, and a series of screams surged through the crowded station. The Yamanote Line pulled itself from its track and came crashing through the platform, crushing all in its path to nothing but dust and pink mist. Its form passed in front of Jack only feet away from her, pulling at her body and blowing her hood from her head, while Jack rooted herself to the platform magnetically.

Just as it had with Mr. Chung, the scene seemed surreal.

She saw the sparks and flashes of fire that erupted as the train tore through everything in its path, structure and organic life-form alike. The cars upended themselves and spread across the platform, catching other cars from other trains in their path. The explosion of destruction rippled ever larger, and Jack watched with amazement as the cavalcade of cause and effect unfolded around her.

Smoke and dust choked the air, forcing her rely upon her magnetic sense of space to navigate the destruction. Even so, she absently wiped the sunglasses she wore with her jacket's dusty fabric as she stepped toward the twisted wreckage of the third car—the car in which Mr. Cho and his entourage of cronies had traveled. She fastened a ventilator mask to her face and pushed her sunglasses up her nose and into place like something out of The Matrix.

The rail car was a mess of smoke and glass. She fumbled over the twisted mass of bodies within. Many were still, though some groaned. She shut her eyes tight, thankful that she did not have to see them.

Upon hearing the voices of the dying, and smelling their burning flesh, her heart surged, and a sick feeling crept in upon her consciousness. Jack swallowed hard, and pulled her collar over her mouth, blocking out the smoke and forcing herself to focus on the task at hand and only that. How had she come to this? a voice wondered in her head. Jack stopped and shook her head. There was a cry to her left. Jack tremulously passed it by. Whoever it was must have seen her silhouette moving through the smoke, and the weak cry of a woman's voice came to her, speaking slurred and broken Japanese. Her voice was warped with the sound of fluid between her breaths. The woman continued to beg Jack for help however Jack forced herself past the sound. Though her body shook with every cry.

The mass of individuals proved too much a mess to make out her mark. Desperately she searched the wreckage, though the smoke and heat began to bite at her lungs, alongside a panic that steadily rose within her. The woman let out one final cry, loudly begging for Jack's assistance.

The young assassin gave one final scan before, coughing, she turned to retreat. Upon turning she stumbled and fell over the scorched tangle of bodies. Her hands caught and burned on the heated glass and metal, and she clamped her teeth into her lip to keep from cursing. A grip suddenly came upon her foot and she shrieked and hissed all at once. Whatever it was, held on, digging its claws into her boot and she had to stamp upon it to free herself.

Lungs heaving, saturated with smoke and drenched in sweat, Jack looked down at the mass of bodies to her left. Within them, she saw the same woman from before. Now with broken fingers, and coughing blood, the terrified young girl looked blindly in Jack’s direction. She was about Jack’s age, and her face still showed beauty beneath the blood and soot.

She mouthed a final silent plea for life before falling unconscious.

Jack stood horror-stricken, the woman’s blood still upon her boot’s heel. In a sudden wave of feeling, Jack swallowed hard and pulled the woman up by her arms. Coughing and cursing, she drug the woman over the mass of tangled bodies, her sweat mixing with the smoke, turning her porcelain face black. The train car was turned upon its side, so when she came to the car’s door she cursed. She looked at its twisted frame above her and then back down at the woman in her arms. Ruefully, she considered the fact that her heli-bot, even if she had it, would not have even helped in the tangled space. Jack was scrappy, but she could not easily lift a fully grown woman up through the portal. She gritted her teeth.

Well. Here went nothing.

Jack reaffirmed her grip on the woman, slinging the woman's arm over her shoulder, and let a pulse of energy surge through her legs. A burst of magnetism between her feet and the shattered window under her shoes repelled her upward, and she caught the edge of the portal with her side, straining and letting out a string of expletives as she drug herself upward, with the woman slumped over her diminutive frame. Adrenaline did most of the work. Jack bitterly cursed, ruing the soreness she would experience later.

Out of the car at last, Jack drug herself and the woman onto the rubble-littered platform, where she collapsed along its side. There she panted for several long minutes before turning to examine her charge.

The woman no longer coughed, and a trail of blood could be seen coming from her mouth. A press of Jack’s fingertips to the woman’s neck revealed that she was dead.

Jack slumped back and stared at the girl’s glassy eyes for a lengthy moment.

The sick feeling returned, and all the excitement that had filled her before drained from her body. She felt cold, despite the burning smoke around her.

Bleak and exhausted, Jack took in her surroundings. The shadowy forms of figures stumbled through the dim sheets of smoke and flame, while beside her lay the face of the woman Jack had just tried to save and failed. The glint of the girl’s final plea still remained within dead and doll-like eyes.

A curse stamped through Jack’s mind. Dammit.

She did not come all this way to come out with nothing. Jack turned the dead woman onto her back, before tearing away the woman's shirt.

Amidst the rubble, with the screams of other victims still within the smoke, Jack rubbed her hands together. Trial by fire, she thought. She placed her palms on the woman's torso, along her ribs and breasts, and a surge of volts traveled from her into the woman. In her experiments, she had gotten increasingly precise in her output. She began low. The body stiffened and jumped beneath her hands, and she checked for a pulse. Nothing. Jack blew out and shook her hands. Again. She upped the ante. Another surge of energy came from her palms. Pulse? Nothing. Fatigue threatened Jack’s resolve, straining her back and her core. Dizziness and a steady feeling of cold began to seep into her limbs. With a wry sense of realism she realized that she was running on fumes at this point. One more try. 360 joules... This was it.

Jack rubbed her palms together, and shook off a sudden wave of dizziness, born from exhaustion and lack of oxygen. Another surge came. The woman's body jumped. Jack bit her lip beneath her mask and checked one last time for a pulse.

Several seconds passed, searching, before she detected a weak signal. Jack grabbed the young woman by the arms again and dragged herself and the unconscious victim toward the exit.

* * *

Outside the train station, for what seemed an age set in slow motion, Jack sat on a curb, staring at nothing in particular. The passing feet and emergency workers and vehicles, alongside the flow of terrified and confused survivors meant nothing to her. The woman had since been taken away in an ambulance, though Jack knew in her gut that she would not make it. Jack looked at her hands, realizing that they were covered in a mixture of blood and soot.

“How appropriate,” she thought.

She stared blankly at a nearby ambulance, into which a pair of EMTs loaded a badly burned business man into the back, and she thought to herself that the man reminded her very much of Mr. Chung.

An intermediate length of time passed before an emergency worker came up to her. The worker spoke in hoarse Japanese, her face and throat coated with ash, asking if Jack needed assistance.

Jack shook her head blankly.

The EMT bent and shined a light in Jack's eyes and checked her pulse. Seeming satisfied, the woman rushed off to help others in greater need of her skills.

Jack watched her disappear into the frantic current of bodies, and then slowly stood and wandered back to her jet.

The next several days were spent in such a state of anxiety that she could barely stand it. She consumed every bit of news she could about the 'accident'. Authorities investigated the event as a possible terrorist attack, though she knew their efforts would turn up empty. She vaguely watched the news unfold, with each passing hour, and she spent those hours tracking down and reading through reports of survivors and death tolls, on the hunt for a specific set of names.

Jack sat, her hands running through her hair nervously and scratching at the scabs on her arms until they bled. Sick with anxiety over the sheer magnitude of what she had done sunk into her spirit with every name added to the long list of casualties.

The feeling was not one of regret, or guilt—it was of fear. Fear at the extent of her capabilities, which was becoming rappidly apparent day by day. And her tired thoughts wheeled round and round, spinning up into a manic soup of anxiety, horror, and exhilaration. Every sound, every ghostly vision brought on by burgeoning psychosis, sent a shock through her, and she wondered if she could die of a heart attack at the tender age of only 18.

Her anxiety came to a crash when she at last found the first of the names for which she had been waiting. The others followed soon after, ending with a Mr. Cho Do-Yun, “who had been visiting from South Korea at the time of the unfortunate incident,” reported the press.

Jack melted onto the floor of her lab, slipping from her chair, as she viewed the last name. A shudder of relief came over her, and she allowed herself leeway to breathe properly for the first time in days.

“Too close for comfort,” was the phrase in her mind.

She spent the following days in bed, curled beneath a mass of covers on the futon in her lab.

Chapter Text

A dozen screens flickered in a kaleidoscopic array above Jack’s head. She lay with her legs over the back of her futon, her head upon its footrest. The screens rotated slowly above, facing downward for her to see, though she paid no attention to any one in particular. News feeds in various languages, strings of program messages, a feral porn film set on silent, all as the deep boom of dubstep drops reverberated through her work area.

Jack sucked on a lollipop edible, cherry flavored, occasionally staring at the lights through its sugary glass. When she glimpsed a news story depicting one of her most recent escapades through the red candy lens, she smiled. Within the tiny sugar bubbled world of the lollipop she saw the pretzel-twisted form of a limousine being fished from a river in Russia. The ticker tape at the base of the screen indicated that the authorities were miles behind her. And they would find nothing.

Jack rotated and let herself melt off the chair and onto the floor, content to spend a few more moments hugging the floor and licking her lollipop until motivation struck her to stand.

Mr. and Mrs. Petrovich would be nowhere within the vehicle.

She knew exactly where they were.

Jack wandered in monkey slippers and naked body to the floor where she had discarded her bathrobe hours earlier. Slipping into its sleeves after a few uncoordinated tries, she made her way to the far side of her lab, where a false wall opened at her command. Beyond it waited a generously spaced elevator, which ferried her downward, down into the deep layers of her domain, which housed her latest muse.

The cool air of a finely controlled lab environment greeted her like a breath of freedom as she stepped from the elevator. The chill in the basement set her skin prickling, though she found the discomfort bracing.

The hiss of coolant surrounding complex and proprietary machinery. Rows upon rows of server rooms, tucked away. Alcoves and passages, all through which her secrets slept, hummed, and whirred quietly. Precious and protected. Her silent sanctuary. At the farthest and newest reaches of the lower lair, she came to a set of heavy security doors, built with multi-layered security and a mantrap between.

With a voice command the doors locked behind her and the lights beyond came quietly to life. A tiny drone hummed to her side, delivering a daily report on the status of the wing’s experiments. Still sucking on the lollipop, and with tablet in hand she meandered through the chilled and blue-lit corridor. Heavy doors with numbers and holographic read-outs designating their contents lined the space.

The door at which she paused displayed the chamber’s internal temperature, humidity, oxygen levels. And a set of a vital signs. The name, “Lionel Petrovich” shimmered in blue letters alongside the readings. Jack compared the readings to those on her tablet with a look of satisfaction, and then passed Mr. Lionel by, followed by his wife in the chamber beside his.

As she traveled further into the depths, the passage of locked chambers opened into a great hall, lined with rows of cryogenic pods and liquid-filled cylinders. Some were empty, whereas others held the suspended and frozen faces of Jack’s newest hobbies.

One chamber stood apart from the rest.

The frozen visage of her muse slept soundly within. She had pretty features, even beneath the pall of death. Raven hair, and Asian features. Fine porcelain skin. And scars across her face where the damage of a train crash had marred her otherwise perfect skin.

Jack opened the young woman’s file with a flick of her fingers across a holographic terminal. Alongside the terminal were workbenches littered with notes, alchemical equipment, and shards of Draconium. Jack delicately plucked a gem, from the workbench, turning it about in her fingers, experimenting with the light’s play upon its scarlet facets. Others like it glittered, stark and vibrant red in the cool-blue lighting. If Jack stilled her breath and spirit, she could just barely hear the ethereal hum the gems emitted, not quite heard by the ears so much as the spirit.

Setting the gem down, giving a sigh and letting the sound of her sucking on the lollipop fill the emptiness for a bit, Jack opened one of the esoteric texts on her workbench and sat down to work.

Chapter Text

Amidst dusty tomes and sand-colored stone, the glow of a magic lantern-light flickered in the dim shadows of a shelf-bedecked chamber. Scrolls and crumbling pages filled the walls. Jars of fluid and curious specimens, boxes displaying shimmering objects, and myriad glittering glass phials populated the décor. Thick velvet tapestries hung from the vaulted ceiling, draped in heady patterns overhead and cascading down the walls betwixt the shelves. At the chamber’s center, within a circular array of worktables decked out with esoteric artifacts, tools and yet more books, sat the wraith-like form of a man. With fingers the shade of papyrus he delicately turned the leaves of a large book, upon which archaic ink patterns rotated and crawled around the page faces, like bugs trapped in a box. The man licked his fingertip between dry and thin lips, with each turn of the page.

The sound of wings drew the man’s gaze from the pages to the thin window set high into one of the chamber’s many facets.

A raven, so dark that she appeared not simply to be black in color but to be an absence of light itself in the peculiar atmosphere of the chamber.

The man, smiling with jagged yellow teeth, greeted the raven with an expectant gaze.

“How did he fair?” the man asked.

“No pleasantries? No, ‘How was your day?’ Clear who your favorite is these days. No time for the old bird these days.” The raven gave a dissenting shake of the head.

The old man cleared his throat with a long rasping sound. Still retaining his smile, he began again.

“My apologies, Maliha. How was your day?” he offered.

The raven turned her sharp eyes upon the man with a furious glint of talon and beak. She gave the raven equivalent of a sigh.

“We both know we don’t give a rat’s arse about my day. It’s been the same as it’s been for nigh on the past two decades. Watching some brat—”

The sharp sound of the man slamming the book shut cut her off.

The raven observed the movement and refined her words.

“Everything went as you expected,” she croaked.

The sallow man gently set the tome flat upon the table, rising with nary a noise made. In three paces he came to a patina-darkened wall-sconce from which a gemmed cord hung. With a wave of his hand over the gem, a false wall revealed itself to him. Beyond it lay a darkened staircase.

Maliha flew upon silent wing to the man’s shoulder, riding down with him on his descent.

A bizarre labyrinth of chambers and tunnels, bending perception and space stretched from the stair’s base. It was down one such corridor the pair walked, until they came to a yawning cavern of a library. The library’s walls fell away into nothingness and shadow, obscured and possibly beyond existence altogether.

Down one of the library’s many paths the two traveled, at last coming upon a ringed depression in the library floor. A series of steps led to a circular space in which glittered a spiraling array of crimson gems, floating suspended within clear-crystal spheres which glowed like captured light, made solid.

The man drew in upon one in particular, popping the light-bubble with a touch of his finger. The little gem fell into his palm.

“So you think he’s the one, eh?” The raven hemmed.

The old man considered the little crystal, vibrant, scarlet, and brimming with life. The life of Jack Spicer.

“Could be,” he mused.

Chapter Text

Jack’s burgeoning success drew her merit and attention within the diabolical circles of the world. Steadily, Jack found herself assigned targets of higher import, and the skills for which she was tapped grew in variety. Everything from assassination, to sabotage, to theft, to cyber terrorism, and more. As her resume grew, so too did her prestige. And the freedom of her operation.

Though her collar remained, she found the leash more bearable when she plied her artistic mind. And, some days, she found that she was even enjoying her newfound power.

For the first time, Jack Spicer was gaining the recognition she so craved.

And, for the first time in almost a year, she drew the attention of her parents beyond a shallow, passing exchange.

In the course of her research, Jack had been spending more and more time in her father’s library, which was a wellspring of occult knowledge, that made the trip out of her cave and through the main house worth it.

It was upon one such day of quiet research, with alchemical book in hand, that she found herself in the library concurrently with her father.

Jack leafed through a series of arcane diagrams, licking her finger occasionally as she went. Musing over the models and figures playing out in her head, when her thoughts were interrupted by her father’s presence in the room. Her hackles immediately rose and she stiffened.

The man came to stand beside the great wooden desk that dominated this section of the library's study, and there he stood and staring at nothing in particular.

Jack swallowed hard and redoubled her focus on the pages in front of her, making a point not to look up or show any acknowledgment of his presence.

After a lengthy period of hard unacknowledgment on both sides, her father cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Jack..." he said.

Jack clenched her jaw and turned the page, vehemently silent.

Her father observed her cold demeanor and looked down in thought. He sat at the desk and began to do some work of his own and the two remained in the study in stiff disregard for a long while.

Jack remained standing before the shelves, determined not to relinquish the library simply due to her father's presence, but the man's presence made it increasingly difficult to focus. A tide of anxiety steadily rose within her, disrupting her thoughts. She angrily tossed the book she was reading aside and pulled out another from the shelf.

"Be careful with those. They're older than they look..." A quiet rebuke came from her father.

Jack's gaze snapped upon the man, an acidic glare.

Jack's father regarded the look of fierce hatred in his child's eyes. He sighed, returning his gaze to the more comfortable subject of his own research. Finally, he gathered the courage to speak.

"We should talk. About what happened..." he said flatly.

Jack threw her gaze back upon the book in her hand, once again ignoring him. Her fingernails left dents in its soft leather binding where she clutched it.

Jack's father stared at her for several moments, until he accepted that she was not going to respond.

"The men your mother and I work for... They are not understanding individuals. What happened... What happened was necessary for your survival—" he said.

Jack snapped the book in her hands shut with a loud thump. She looked at her father with narrowed eyes and a danger in her eyes.

"Really. I didn't know torturing your child was a necessary part of parenthood." she hissed

Her father winced and exhaled. He appeared inclined to speak, and moved his mouth silently for several long moments before at last speaking again.

"Jack... I know we haven't lived up to our obligations as parents very well." her father said slowly.

Jack glared at him incredulously.

He continued, "But, I do want you to know that we both care about you..."

Jack's fingers dug further into the book and she drew her lips back into a furious snarl. "You don't get to say that." She whispered. She felt a tingle of energy building at the base of her spine, and she found herself sorely tempted to let the feeling loose.

"I... I know," her father replied, his face downcast.

Jack tossed the book aside, taking pleasure in the wincing expression her father made as it toppled over another stack of books.

"If you ACTUALLY cared about your kid, you wouldn't have left me to fend for myself all those years. Gallivanting across the globe, throwing fancy parties for your shitty friends, living the lap of luxury like rich assholes, while your kid was home. Alone. You would have ACTUALLY been there for me." Her voice cracked.

Long-repressed emotions bubbled beneath the shrill sound of her words as she continued, rising in pitch and quivering in rage. And held-back tears.

"Every science fair. Every fucking homework assignment I had to figure out on my own. Every time I came home beat half to hell by the kids at school, and had to patch MYSELF up. While you-you just ran around like-like...like CHILDREN." A few tears wrested themselves free and escaped with a glide down her pallid cheek.

Jack's father was silent. He did not look at his child, instead staring at the base of the bookshelf to his side.

"And then-then when I started starving myself. Or how about when I cut my wrists in the bathtub and my NANNY had to take me to the hospital. You didn't even come home then! And when I was in the hospital all those times, you never visited. And no matter what I did, you never said anything or DID anything." Jack's voice trembled and she choked as the tears came in full force.

"And... And you wouldn't have given me to those WEIRDOS, to stick in a box for hours, and take a piece of my soul, and-and to torture..." She coughed on a sob.

Jack's father looked up and stared at her. His eyes actually expressed...regret.

But this only infuriated Jack further. A surge of electricity escaped her body, flickering around her arms and causing the lamp lights and chandelier to flicker.

"I did EVERYTHING for you! For you and Mom. EVERYTHING I could... I…” Jack’s voice faltered and she swallowed hard, her tone falling from pure anger to visible heartbreak. “I broke myself over and over just so you would actually notice ME. And-and SEE me as something more than just a weird and neurotic PET."

With a final look of deeply born hurt, and a desperate sob, she bit her lip and met the eyes of her father, "I would have done ANYTHING for you. ANYTHING."

Jack opened her mouth to say more but only stifled sobs came. Her shoulders shook as she struggled to regain her breath's rhythm.

Cayce Spicer stared and watched his child struggle for several long minutes, while he also struggled to swallow the lump in his throat and find his own words.

"I know you would..." he finally whispered. There was a crack in his voice too. A mist of tears could be seen in his eyes.

Jack’s glare returned and she shook her head.

"No kid should have to beg for love... Not from their parents..." she muttered.

Silence reigned long enough for Jack to regain some measure of control over herself. The voice so vulnerable a moment before turned cold and hard.

"Well." She finally said. "I just want you to know... That's over now. I don't give a flying fuck about you anymore. Now everything is about what I want." Her tone dropped to an acidic level, "And you aren't in that picture."

Jack stepped toward her father.

"You both might have terrified me as a child, but things have changed. You don't scare me anymore. And neither do the Shuimen." Then a small laugh came from her. "Maybe I should actually thank you. You've shown me what pathetic looks like."

Jack's father looked at her with a curious expression.

She sneered. "I've seen the way you and Mom cower when the Shuimen come around. Like dogs, beaten by their master. I recognize it now because that's how I was around you... But I imagine I'm probably worth more to them now than you ever were, aren't I."

Then she came close, into her father's space, staring up at him and defying him to glare back if he could. "I've found my power. And that little prophecy your masters gave to you? I don't believe in destiny. I believe a person makes their own fate." She forced a cold smile. "Still, I get the feeling it will come true."

Her father looked down at his child, no longer the young boy he had known. He did not glare back, though his gaze remained tight and devoid of emotion.

Jack scanned his face and the corner of her mouth twitched. She widened her smile. "And I can see now that you've been terrified of that for years... Haven't you."

She did not wait for her father to reply. She turned and then paused. She looked at one of the books in her father's research area and pulled it out from the stack he had arranged by his laptop.

"I'm taking this with me," she said, and then stalked out of the room.

She actually had no need for the book, but her heart swam with delight at taking it from him, knowing now that he could no longer do anything to stop her.

Chapter Text

Days passed since the cold exchange in her father’s library. Jack came and went with a renewed sense of dominance, and she took pleasure in the way her father looked down and away whenever she entered a room. Not out of shame, but out of discomfort. Fear.

She reveled in it.

In the library again, Jack sat, feeling her father’s shameful silence with a distinct pleasure. Nevertheless, both she and her father avoided acknowledging each other's presence at all costs.

When the door rang, Jack paid it little mind, however her mother came into the library a few minutes later in a tizzy.

She informed her husband that a very important guest had arrived and that it was a matter of some urgency.

Jack rolled her eyes. Another of her parents' stupid associates, she thought. She scooped the few books she had been using into her arms and exited the library shortly after her father and mother.

Yet, during her return to her lab she found herself waylaid. Jack had to pass near the foyer to go back to her lab, and she nearly ran into her parents as they led the guest toward the sitting room, and a sickening frost came over her heart when she saw the guest. She froze.

The thin man with the paper-like skin stood behind her parents and he smiled a yellowed grin when he saw Jack, stirring Jack’s stomach in revulsion.

"Dear, move aside. Mr. Faustus has come to have a very important meeting with Mommy and Daddy." Jack's mother cooed coldly.

Faustus, as Jack had just learned the man's name to be, kept his smile but gave a verbal hum. He cleared his throat with that same dry cough as before, like the sound of rustling paper.

"Actually," he said, "ah, this IS a bit awkward. I came in fact not to see you, but to speak with your son." The man smiled at Jack and nodded to her.

Jack's jaw clenched, though she noted with satisfaction the look of confusion on her mother's face. After seeing that, Jack was willing to hear the man out.

The two sat in the sitting room, alone, as Jack's parents had not been invited to this meeting, a fact that made Jack practically purr with smugness.

One of Jack's bots brought them tea and Faustus took the teacup gingerly from the bot, with a look of amusement.

"Truly amazing, these things." He commented. "And you designed all of these by yourself?"

"...Yeah." Jack replied awkwardly.

Though she relished the opportunity to appear more important than her parents, she did NOT relish sitting with Faustus in a room, alone. Anxiety began to wear her smug affect away. She eyed the door, wishing the bot had left it open on its way out.

Jack did not bother to force a smile.

"What do you want?" she asked without ceremony.

Faustus, seemingly unfazed by her rudeness and still preoccupied with thoughts about the robot who had just served them tea, finally collected himself and replied.

"It is a matter of utmost urgency, I am afraid. That is why I did not call ahead." Faustus said dryly. "You are familiar with all of the paranormal activity that has been going on for the past year, I assume."

She was. The world had been seized by fear and paranoia beneath the newly formed Scarlet Ring, as it had come to be called. Mysterious disappearances occurred in the night. Epidemics of shared nightmares plagued the populace. And there were whispers of shadowy creatures seen throughout the globe.

Jack said nothing and pretended to act disinterested. She wished deeply that he would just get to the point so she could be done with him.

"Yes. Well." Faustus continued. He fumbled in his jacket for a few moments, checking various pockets, before finally withdrawing a familiar purple envelope and a small red stone. It was much like Jack's phylactery though different in shape. "We have another assignment for you. And this one is of the utmost time sensitivity. Even more so than anything else we have tasked to you before."

"What is it?" Jack prodded the man to move along before he said anything inane.

Faustus handed the envelope to Jack, and then handed her the stone, which she took with a degree of visible suspicion.

"We need you to take this," he indicated the stone, "to the location listed in that envelope. The envelope details instructions on how to use it. Oh, and I am afraid there is no time to dilly-dally with this—"

"USE it? For what EXACTLY?" Jack pressed. She turned the stone about in her fingers.

"It's all in the envelope." Faustus answered, to Jack's annoyance. "Read the instructions and when you arrive at the location you will know what to do. Ah, just another note..." the man added hesitantly. "There is some element of danger in this assignment—more so than most of your other tasks. Just, be sure not to die."

Jack furrowed her brow and frowned at the man.

"I thought you said that I CAN'T die," she said.

"Ah. No. No that is not what I said. I said that you can SURVIVE more than the average person. However, you see, you can still die. In a sense." Faustus said, rubbing his chin.

Jack gave him a vexed expression.

"What do you mean 'in a sense'?" she said slowly.

"Well..." Faustus said thinly, noticing her bemusement. "It's not so much as YOU die, as a PART of you dies. Your body can still be destroyed, and, well, if enough gets obliterated at once, your spirit won't have anywhere to go."

"Meaning...?" Jack pressed again, with growing impatience.

"It will seek out what is left of you. Like attracts like. In other words, and this is the rather inconvenient bit, your spirit will become trapped in the phylactery crystal. Forever."

Jack gawped at the man.

"And you couldn't have told this to me SOONER?" she hissed through clenched teeth.

"Yes. Well, it must have slipped my mind." Faustus replied. Then he smiled and slapped his knee to stand up. "But, now you know. So no harm done. You should depart immediately."

Jack stared at the man, astonished. No harm? And there she was going through the past year thinking she was immune to death. She stared at the carpet in disbelief as Faustus toddled toward the door.

"You need to leave." He said, pausing in the doorway. "The sooner the better." And then he gave her one of those thin and crooked smiles.

* * *

Jack read the instructions on the way to her destination—Ground Zero of the United States World Trade Center. Exactly five years had passed since the terrorist attack on the famed towers (it was September 11th, 2006). She had family in New York, on her father's side, and she had spent a lot of time seeing the Towers growing up. Even five years later, it appeared odd to her whenever she saw the city's skyline without them.

Jack coasted to a stand still over one of the adjacent skyscrapers, looking down into the vast construction site that occupied the space where the Towers once stood, while her jet idled. She read the instructions again.

They were scrawled in spidery English cursive. Though Faustus had painted them to be very clear, they still left a few questions.

1. Draw energy from Rift into stone, as much as able to convey.
2. Do not touch Rift—doing so may result in a fate worse than death.
3. Do not interact with any projected entities from the Rift, as much as humanly possible.
4. If consumed by Rift, We will not be able to help you.
5. Do not die.

“Rift? What 'Rift'?” she wondered.

There was a loud and screeching sound that seemed to penetrate the air irrespective of physical sound barriers—such as the jet's cockpit. Jack clapped her hands to her ears as the screeching grew to a deafening pitch, and Jack worried her eardrums might burst—but then she realized that the sound was not in her ears but within her head.

A green flash emanated through the sky, followed by a green bolt of lightning which struck the center of the construction site. Unexpectedly, the bolt of lightning did not fade, but instead began to widen.

“Oh. Rift.” she thought flatly.

Jack stared at the hole opening in the Veil of the Universe. She had heard of phenomena such as this occurring since the establishment of the Scarlet Ring, but she had has yet to witness such a thing in person.

Jack flew her jet in close, which was still able to operate in the unstable conditions thanks to modifications she had made, albeit in a clunky sort of way. The jet more drifted to a stop than landed.

Screaming construction workers and pedestrians ran away from the phenomena as she stepped out of the jet and faced it. A din of cacophonous sound permeated the air, heard both physically and in her mind. Jack ducked behind her jet with a yelp as an arc of green lightning leapt from the Rift to the spot she had just been standing. She withdrew the red stone from her pocket, just as she heard a familiar voice.

Dojo, with Xiaolin Dragons upon his back, exclaimed, dodging several similar arcs as the dragon made for the construction site.

Jack stepped out from behind her jet as the monks dismounted and all looked at one another with matching expressions of surprise.

"Jack Spicer?"
"Xiaolin Losers?"

The 'reunion' was cut short by yet another green lightning strike. The Chosen Children scattered as Dojo made a beeline for the safety of a nearby skyscraper. The rift generated an increasing number of arcs, forcing all five children to remain in motion, ducking and weaving between the shifting network of energy.

"Jack! What are you doing here?!" Omi called as danced around her, dodging the lightning with an impressive show of acrobatics.

"I could ask you the—" Jack began but she was cut short by a bolt of green lightning. She braced for the surge of energy but was surprised when a current of water appeared between her and the flash.

Omi held the Orb of Tornami, which was not so much an orb anymore as a raging hurricane inside of a glass ball. A jet of pressurized water shot from the device and Omi directed it between Jack and the energetic bolt, directing the energy along its current in a harmless direction. The water whipped around them as Omi wheeled it through the field of energetic obstacles, as he used the wave as a conductive shield.

Jack watched the spectacle, impressed.

Even so, Omi's awareness faltered at the onset of a sudden quake, like a shock wave through the air that rattled every object in the vicinity including the ground.

Jack groaned as she saw her jet's windows shatter across the site.

Omi caught himself in a roll, but lost the stream of water in the process. His eyes widened as a flash of green lightning headed straight for him, and then he was also surprised.

Jack Spicer stood between him and the arc, directing the energy through her body and onto a nearby piece of construction equipment—which blew apart on its impact. Her hair stood on end and her body quivered. Within her every nerve was set alight, and an immense pain pulsed through her form, though she loved it. The lightning was unlike any electricity she had felt before, seemingly more ‘alive’. Jack’s body vibrated and she found herself paralyzed for several anxious moments as she tried to regain control of her twitching muscles.

Another shock wave shuddered the site, and then the lightning bolt in the center split open. The stray arcs lessened, and a great portal opened within the Rift. The air sung with strange sounds that Jack had never heard before, alien, and terrifying, but also enrapturing. Her captivated feelings did not last long. A series of shadows issued forth from the portal—alien shapes and forms, creatures, composed of darkness. Jack screamed.

"WATER!" Omi yelled, once again generating a stream from the Orb. Then he did something strange. He pushed the water toward the creatures of shadow, which did not seem fazed by most physical objects. The stream glowed deep blue for a moment, just as it struck the nearest creature. The shade, shockingly, let out a screech.

Jack puzzled at the display, and then she noticed the others using similar techniques, charging their elements with energy from themselves, though her observations were cut short as a mass of creatures headed straight for her. She gasped and released a pulse of magnetic energy from her feet, repelling herself into the air. She landed, cushioning her fall using a similar technique, several yards away, and it was Omi's turn to be impressed.

"Jack Spicer! You now have angry moves!" he yelled. A shade lunged down at him but he withdrew his Wuxing weapon, a rod of ice, which glowed like the water had done and blocked the blow, giving off a flash of dramatic light as he did so.

"MAD MOVES!" Raimundo's yell came from somewhere across the site.

"Yes that! Your skills have greatly improved, Jack!" Omi said proudly, deflecting blows and striking at the swarm of creatures as he spoke.

Jack raised an eyebrow at the actions of the others and tested her own powers on the creatures. She pulled forth a blast of energy from within her and sent it careening into a nearby monster. The monster screeched angrily, quivering for a few moments before lurching toward her in a fury. She let forth several more blasts, until the creature dispersed. Its energy drifted across the field and into the air like smoke, some of it being withdrawn back into the void, the rest drifting toward the city.

"NICE!" Omi's voice came from within a group of creatures. Several strikes of his weapon dispersed them as Jack's attacks had done.

Jack panted and held up the red jewel in her hand. She looked at the Rift with a dubious mien, realizing what she was meant to do.

"Great." She said. The single blast of energy she had redirected had nearly knocked her off of her feet, and she balked at the idea of handling more.

Jack ran to the center of the site, disintegrating any shadows that stood in her way. A ring of the creatures formed around her as she approached the rift, and a tremendous pulling sensation came over her body as she neared the Rift. Yet she realized with a strange and dreamlike awareness that the pull seemed to extend beyond her body. It was as if her spirit was being drawn toward the shrieking portal.

Jack took a step back in horrified confusion. The sensation hit her like a load of bricks, and she recognized the feeling. Her mind flashed back to the iron sarcophagus. She saw Faustus holding the red gem high above her head, just as the lid was fastened shut over her. The world became dark and her entire body and spirit shrieked as she was hit with the familiar sensation—the sensation of her fractured soul being being sucked away. It was the most painful and jarring experience she could remember.

She screamed just as she had done before and she continued to scream, the feeling tearing into her more and more with every second.

And then, another scream joined hers. Another voice yelled her name.

Jack opened her eyes and found herself significantly closer to the rift than she had been a few seconds ago. Her feet shuffled toward the yawning void, and her body was cold. She stumbled forward as if sleepwalking, and it took a dizzying measure of resolve to shake the delirious feeling that assailed her. She dropped to her stomach, ceasing her progress toward the void for the time being.

Omi's voice called her name again.

"Jack! Do not go toward the rift!" he screamed.

Right. Jack flattened herself to the ground, pressing her forehead into the dirt, trying to hold her body in place. It longed to move toward the gaping hole in the Universe. She could feel her energy within tingling, unstable.

There came a grip upon her shoulder, and she looked up to see Omi, bracing himself against the pull using his rod weapon.

He pulled her hand to hold the rod and he put his hands tightly over hers. A sheet of ice spread over the ground below them like a rapidly growing web which became a solid sheet. Omi generated another jet of water which sent them sliding far away from the Rift. The further they got from it, the less Jack felt the compulsion to go near it, and the more she felt her energy and awareness returning to her.

"Wh-what... What the fuck HAPPENED?" Jack gasped.

"The Void draws you to it. You must resist by staying rooted to this plane!" Omi said urgently.

Jack looked up at the massive vortex before them.

She felt the red gem in her palm and tightened her grip upon it. Jack drew herself to her full height and rooted herself to the earth magnetically. She allowed the feeling of energy to build within her, saturating her, and speeding her neurons. The world slowed, and she took several long breaths. The vortex read like the most confusing magnetic field she had ever felt. It was not entirely...there. It had an energy, no doubt, yet it felt different than that generated by physical objects.

She recalled the feel of the others' auras and the energy of their thoughts she had felt upon the Grey Plane, realizing that the sensation was very similar. Jack widened her eyes and searched for that pitch again, the pitch of the Grey Planes. Her mind searched for the familiar chime of the little crystal, but she realized with rueful bitterness that it was still shoved in the back of one of her tool chests.

Jack pulled every bit of concentration she could muster, tuning her spirit across the energies of the surrounding area, like tuning a radio. It took a considerable amount of time, and she was interrupted several times by the intervention of more shadow creatures.

"Omi!" she finally cried. "Cover me!" The little monk nodded and provided the buffer she needed to find the right frequency.

She adjusted her internal frequency to match it, and she saw the Grey Plane's twilit light stretch out across the city around her. The physical world became shadow-like, and the shadow creatures came into horrifying detail. They were twisted and malevolent in every sense of both words. Their forms were like something from an acid-freak's nightmare. Jack's eyes widened. The creatures stumbled and lurched toward her, sensing that she was now closer to their own frequency. Her presence in the plane seemed to ping across the field, and many of the creatures turned their sights upon her. Jack clamped her jaw tight so quickly that she bit her tongue. She focused on the yawning Rift through the mist of tears forming in her eyes from the pain.

The other children noticed the change in the Shadows' behavior and placed themselves between Jack and the influx of screeching assailants.

Jack held the jewel aloft and reached out to the Rift with her own energy, forming a link. A surge of green light jumped from the rift and into her tiny form. She felt as though someone had supercharged every cell she had, and she directed the energy, with some difficulty, into the stone in her hand. Once the path to the stone, through her, was established it became much easier to direct the energy. It continued to flow through her, sapping the rift of energy endlessly.

Seeing the shadow creatures apparently angered by Jack’s actions, Kimiko screamed at Jack, asking what she was doing.

She cut her words short when the monks saw the rift beginning to destabilize. Its sides drew inward shrinking and expanding in a frenetic display.

It slowly began to shrink, though Jack was not sure how long she could stand maintaining the current. It hurt.

"Now!" Raimundo yelled to the others.

The monks formed a clearly practiced formation around Jack. They arranged themselves, her included, into a circle to match the pattern of Wu Xing elements. Viewed from above, a five-pointed star could have been drawn between them. The point of the star faced the rift, Raimundo at its point. He gave a command and the monks generated a surge of energy and a circuit formed between the five of them. The feeling of pain lessened as the energy was divided between the five of them. Together they were able to pull the energy from the rift, until it began to close. The surrounding shadow creatures were drawn back to the Void as it closed. The portal turned into a stationary bolt once more, generating several smaller green arcs, before disappearing entirely.

The tension between them faded and Jack dropped to her knees.

The others panted and quivered, struggling to stand.

"Wow..." Raimundo finally said. "I guess there are Five Dragons for a reason..." He laughed breathlessly and looked at Jack. "It took WAY longer without you in the picture."

Jack looked up at him, confused and Raimundo helped her to her feet.

"What...?" Jack was confused.

The other Dragons came round, and they all looked up as the sun came out, warm and shining as if nothing had happened. It was a welcome sight. The light glittered across the shimmering New York skyline, reflecting upon them from the surrounding skyscrapers, like stage lights.

Raimundo slapped a hand onto her shoulder, "The Rift, dummy. We closed it."

"Yeah..." Jack looked down at the red gem in her hand. It glowed softly. She decided it was best not to draw too much attention to it, stuffed it into her pocket.

"You guys do this often...?" Jack asked wryly, her strength returning to her, along with a sense of wonder as she realized what they had just done.

"Duh. What do you think we've been doing this whole past year?" Raimundo laughed, and the others laughed with him.

"When the Scarlet Ring formed, it changed the magical atmosphere of the whole planet," Kimiko explained.

"Oh really?" Jack said slowly, giving a half-assed attempt at being surprised to hear that tidbit of information.

"That's why the whole planet's become a shit-show, and it explains why the Shen Gong Wu went crazy." Raimundo sighed. "And, even worse, now these Rifts have begun forming all over the planet, breaking down the Veil between the spirit world and the human world..."

Jack blinked at him. "You don't say..."

She said the words thoughtfully. She looked up at the blue sky and her friends around her, and a smile spread across her face. Then she puffed a bit.

"Well, you guys were just lucky I happened to be in the neighborhood," she said, crossing her arms and offering a jaunty grin.

"Yeah..." Kimiko said, raising her eyebrows in an amused expression.

"Yes! I am most pleased that the Rift did occur when it did so we could get to see you. It has been too long!" Omi smiled and jabbed Jack in the side in a congenial gesture.

"Ow," Jack said automatically, though it did not really hurt.

The others giggled.

"Speaking of which, what WERE you doing here?" Kimiko asked.

Jack opened her mouth hesitantly, but her words caught as she searched her brain for a logical excuse. She did not fancy sharing with them what she had spent the last year doing while the lot of them were trotting the globe to save the world. Sightseeing. That sounded good. She was about to reply but she did not have to.

"What does it matter?" Raimundo grinned. "It's just good that Jack was here when she was." Raimundo had been worried about Jack before, but she seemed to be fine for the moment at least. He offered a rakish smile.

Jack felt herself suddenly blush and she cleared her throat. The feeling of invincibility returned to her spirit along with a flush of warmth in the lower part of her body—partly due to the lack of medication, though the last part was mostly due to the way the sun highlighted Raimundo's sea green eyes against the gray backdrop of the city. She stood taller and put her hand on her hip, which she stuck out a touch further. Jack ruffled her hair and returned the grin in kind.

"Yeah. Those were some pretty fancy moves you showed out there." Clay drawled, tipping his hat.

Jack preened beneath the compliment. "Well, yeah. You're not the only ones who've been busy."

"Been practicing have you?" Kimiko smiled.

Jack paused. "Uh. Yeah. Practicing. Y-you could call it that." She cleared her throat again and then shifted the subject. "But you guys! Those were some pretty sweet moves too. How did you do that glowing thing with your elements?"

"By channeling our chi we have learned how to mesh our elements with both the physical AND the spiritual world!" Omi replied excitedly. He began going into the technique with such excitement that Jack could hardly understand him.

Kimiko interrupted him.

"Maybe we should just go for ice cream sundaes. I know a really, really great place on the other side of Manhattan." she said.

"Eh. I could go for ice cream, I guess." Jack said with an apathetic shrug.

"Cool. Then you can catch us up on what you've been doing this past year, too." Kimiko replied as they began crossing the construction site.

Jack paused and her smile vanished. "Uh, actually. I just remembered that I have a thing...to do."

The others paused.

Kimiko raised an eyebrow at her, "A thing?"

"Y-yeah." Jack sweated. "Uh. I have a bunch of diagnostics that I have to run before the day ends, and yeah. Yeah I gotta get those done ASAP and it will probably take all day." The lie spilled out in a rush, and she forced an apologetic smile.

"Oh..." Omi said, his shoulders falling a bit. "Maybe you could put off your diagnosing until tomorrow!" he said brightly.

Jack waved his comment off and replied quickly with a sharp crack in her voice, "No! I mean, no can do. I gotta jet. Really."

"Oh. Sure. Whatever." Raimundo shrugged. He watched Jack keenly. "We'll see you around then, yeah?"

Jack readjusted herself and resumed her roguish demeanor. She blushed again, and bit her lip as she soaked in the gleam on Raimundo's skin where the sun kissed his cheek. A smile spread across her face and she lightly stepped toward him, holding one arm with the other. She inhaled and then leaned forward.

There was a unified sense of shock that spread through the group as she kissed him on the cheek. It was a quick peck and she twirled around before he could even gasp. She strode confidently back toward her jet, waving a hand over her shoulder.

"You can count on it." She said over her shoulder with a smile, while Raimundo gawked as she glided away. Her heart was aflutter, and she felt as though she could have flown away even without the jet.

Chapter Text

Manic, invincible, Jack surged through the sky above New York City. Not a single creature upon the planet could have brought her down, and she would not have spared a thought before reigning hellfire on NYC if the mood struck her. Hyped up on caffeine and adrenaline, driven by the rolling momentum of months of medication-free living on the edge between anxiety and intellectual freedom, she let forth a liberating cackle.

Dubstep blasted from her jet's speakers and Jack gazed over the gleaming cityscape from behind her cockpit's backup emergency windshield. The city was ablaze with the late of dusk, vibrant oranges and golds, with notes of deep red cast by the glittering haze of Draconium dust that streaked the atmosphere. The scene was made all the more stark by the psychosis crashing over her mind. Looking at the world upside-down, the city above her head and the void beneath the belly of her jet, Jack sped over the hellish landscape.

The burning cityscape mirrored her internal landscape. She felt like she was on fire, her every sense a vibrant explosion of ineffable experience. Colors seemed richer. Her emotions dialed up to twenty-five. She reeled in the sky, doing rolls and corkscrews and weaving through buildings and flying dangerously close over the packed lines of traffic in a devilish effort to scare a few civilians here and there. She whooped, playing in the fiery light, testing her reflexes and the latest upgrades in her jet's navigation and steering. It was handling well, and so was she. The entire world remained in that surreal state, and she felt every current around her. One with the city, with the world, and with herself. Jack screamed to the blazing sky, enjoying her newfound freedom. Life was turning around. Things would be okay—and soon, she would rule the whole fucking world—and in that delectable sliver in time she felt better than a sugar-saturated toddler on cocaine.

The sun fell beyond the city skyline, throwing the skyscrapers into shadow. Turning the city from hazy inferno to glittering see of countless lights, shining up at the darkness. Defying it. The city blazed with a light of its own, and she understood how it felt.

Jack admired its beauty from above and watched all the comings and goings of the city-dwellers. And her mind turned them about in her thoughts, which came tumbling through her head in a deluge of consciousness.

They were like little ants in a glittering and neon-bedazzled farm. Little drones. Nanites. They all operated in this fantastic organism that was the city, and each city was an organ in a larger entity that was each country, and the countries were the same for continents. And her mind marveled at the intricate and unique systems at every magnification of society, and she saw the patterns that flowed between them all. Her mania expanded her view, and for once, she felt proud to be a part of the human race. She was above everyone else, of course. She would be the one to transcend them all. The actualization of all humanity could be. Pure potential coursed through every cell of her body, and she would see it all realized, becoming a goddess among men. She marveled at visions of her own ascendency, while she viewed the denizens below, with an almost motherly affection. Like a god might view the small and delicate creatures below them. She could be a terrible or benevolent goddess as her mood demanded.

In particular, an enticing display of color caught her eye, flashing from the dusty, shattered windows of an old power plant. The scintillating colors of frenetic club lights shined through the windows and gaps in the building's rotted and rusted structure, which had been gifted a new life and purpose. Jack circled around it, like a moth circling the flame.

She let her craft idle above the building watching the colorful city dwellers busy themselves across the streets. Beautiful young women and men laughed to one another, painted up like the dead and dressed in all in metal and leather. She grinned. Jack opened the cockpit of her jet and leaned with her arms folded upon its side, laying across the front seats, with her feet up in the air, absently clicking them together as she sighed. She watched the night-goers, admiring their courage and beauty.

Then an idea occurred to her—one that she would have never had the courage to entertain at any other time. She observed the bouncer at the club's entrance, carding anyone who looked too young. She frowned, ruing her baby-face and slight stature. Throughout the entirety of her memory, people always assumed she was younger than she was. She would never pass for being 21. Then her eyes widened.

At least, not as a man.

* * *

Jack had never had the courage to enter a nightclub. Even in countries where she would have been old enough. She had read plenty of fanfics that depicted them, seen them on TV. Everything about them intrigued her, but the one problem she had always had was a glaring one—people. Yet that night, as she stood across the street watching the queue of adults, they did not seem so threatening.

A quick 'shopping spree' had afforded her a new set of attire. And by shopping spree, it is meant to say that she availed herself of the items without paying. Shoplifted. Which was easy to do when every electric system in a store went haywire at once—including the cameras—with only a thought.

She was in New York! World capital of fashion.

All shadowy makeup and fishnet stockings, cybergoth fashion in red, black and yellow, with her hair held back by her goggles, and a yellow-and-black caution striped purse beneath her arm, she stood across the street from the club. Her breath formed puffs of steam in the chilly September air, though she hardly noticed it. The excitement that pumped within her veins warmed her through, and she was forced to breathe long and even to keep from setting the entire block alight. The lamplights and neon signs along the street flickered as she passed them.

Jack’s gaze darted up and down the line of people with an unquenchable hunger. She adjusted her hair, and tugged at her boots' yellow-colored laces as she stood and watched the queue for several long minutes. Her eyes remained fixed upon the dancing lights of the club and the mesmerizing creatures that stood laughing and smoking in night air outside the power plant.

She inhaled as deep as she could and then let out a sudden cough. The cinch around her waist, which gave her the illusion of hips, simultaneously cut off her oxygen supply. Jack tugged at the device with jittery hands and exhaled. A few practice breaths restored her confidence, and she resumed her confident strut down the dark and neon-lit street.

Not a single person paid her any mind as she took her place in line. Yet, as the line progressed and she neared the bouncer, a few thoughts passed through her mind that would have registered as doubts if it wasn't for the sheer confidence with which she dismissed them. Everything would be fine. She was getting into that club. She would stand amidst the lights and beautiful creatures and let the sounds of the club pulse through her tiny body. She let her mind wander through images of possible ways for the night to go, until her turn to face judgment came.

She sauntered up to the bouncer. He looked her up and down and then grumbled for her show identification. She pretended to be a bit surprised but congenial about it, opening her purse. She withdrew her wallet and rifled through it, pretending to become a bit flustered. Then she looked up at the bouncer with the sweetest expression she could manage, standing in a way to accentuate her thin hips.

"Oh god. I think I left my card at home. I took it out for-- And then. Ugh. I can't believe I would be so dumb."

Jack’s voice came sweet and light, refined by the miracle of hormone blockers and voice training practiced in the privacy of her lab. One of the many things she tested on her subjects in the deep of her lair, in the lonely long hours of the night. Jack’s confidence granted her the perfect pitch, she wad delighted when her words drew no adverse reaction. The lights overhead briefly flickered in response to the excitement she felt.

She threw her hands up beside her innocently.

"But I have the money right here, I mean, I could just—" She waved her cash and made a step toward the door.

A few people behind her giggled and others huffed at the hold-up.

The bouncer put out his arm, barring her entrance.

"No ID. No entrance for you, Mini Mouse." he grumbled.

Jack pouted, and stamped her foot. She opened her mouth to protest but jumped when a hand gripped her shoulder.

"Hey! Mabel? Is that you? I can't believe it!" A man dressed in a sleek black pinstripe suit jacket and black jeans leaned in and put his arm around her companionably. He tipped his hat to her and indicated for her to follow along with a meaningful glance. "I didn't know you came here too. Otherwise I would have invited you out." He grinned congenially to the bouncer. "Would you believe it? We're in the same art class at school."

Jack grinned back, giving him a hug, and then pouting.

"It's my first time here, actually. But Kujo here won't let me in because he insists on carding me." she sighed.

"Really? Well... Let's see if I can do anything about that." He gave the man a meaningful look.

The bouncer eyed them both incredulously. He looked from Jack to the young man. "You know this girl?"

"I definitely do know this young lady," he gave her a devilish grin.

The bouncer eyed them at length. A few others in the line expressed their impatience and then he finally moved aside, indicating for them to enter.

Jack popped her heel and took the young man by the arm as they stepped past the bouncer. Once out of his line of site, Jack stuck her tongue out at him over her shoulder, drawing a laugh from her escort.

A world of dark and flashing pleasure revealed itself before her. Frenetic lights glanced across the old infrastructure, casting bizarre and twisted shadows over a sea of moving bodies. Rigidly mounted cages hung from the ceiling, inside which women dressed in vinyl undulated with the music. A fully stocked bar could be seen near the entrance, packed amidst a churning current of patrons. Smoke filled the air, along with the scents of sweat and alcohol.

The young man smiled down at Jack's gaping expression. "So, MABEL," he used the fake name playfully, "I imagine this really IS your first time in a place like this."

Jack looked up at him and her smile of wonder lessened.

The young man giggled at the face she made.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. If you want any drinks though, just ask me, okay?" the young man shouted in the raucous atmosphere.

Jack shouted back, "What the hell kind of name is 'Mabel' by the way?"

"Hey! Mabel is my aunt's name." The young man said, walking with her toward the bar.

"And how old is your aunt...?" Jack replied.

"Point taken," the young man laughed. "So. What IS your name?"

"Jack." She replied automatically, but then paused. "Short for Jacqueline..."

"Jack." The man said, testing the nickname. "I like it."

"Me too." Jack grinned. She felt saucy and witty tonight.

"Well my name is Jacob. Short for Jacob." Jacob grinned.

Jack giggled at his joke, perhaps overly much, but Jacob's grin just widened.

It was a slightly lopsided grin, accentuated by the oddly angled hair cut he sported from beneath his hat.

"Can I buy you a drink? Jack." Jacob indicated the bar.

"Sure." Jack said automatically. She smiled at the young man, still holding his arm, and she did not even think to look at what liquors were available.

"What do you drink?" Jacob shouted, selecting his own beverage in his mind.

Jack paused and hemmed.

"Right." Jacob smirked. He motioned to the bartender and laid down some cash. "Two bourbons." He pointed to one of the bottles behind the bartender. Then he handed the drink to Jack once it was poured. She looked at the dark liquid. For some reason it reminded her of the medicines they used to sell in peddlers carts in Old West movies—in part due to the strong smell of alcohol mixed with spicy caramel.

Jack had never been much of a drinker. She had snuck a few sips of wine here and there, and nicked some swigs from her father's liquor cabinet, but she hated the taste. Yet, she had already accepted the drink, and she did not want to fuck this up by being rude. She looked up and smiled, taking a sip. Her lips drew taught and then she let out a long and involuntary cough.

Jacob busted out laughing. He laughed through his teeth, which were a bit crooked, just like his smile, however they only added to his charm.

Jack accidentally splashed a bit of the drink onto the floor as she tried to cover her cough.

"Whoa. Careful there." Jacob giggled. He laughed again, unable to contain it as he replayed her reaction in his mind. "I'm sorry. I had to order you some bourbon just because I wanted to see that reaction."

Jack glared at him once finished coughing.

"Alright, alright." He poured her drink into his own and then offered to buy her something else. "You like energy drinks? It's not a true club experience unless you try a vodka and Red Bull."

Jack shrugged. She liked energy drinks—actually 'like' was an understatement—though she was unsure what the effect of adding vodka to it would have on the flavor.

He handed her the new beverage, which smelled sour and looked like urine, as all Red Bull did—she figured that is why they sold it only in cans. She cautiously took a sip. It burned but then warmed her mouth. Coupled with the familiar taste of the old energy drink standby she found it pleasant—in a painful way, but that was part of what she liked about it.

"This is kind of what I imagine drain cleaner tastes like." Jack shouted.

Jacob laughed again, and Jack preened as he continued to be amused by all of her jokes.

The two sipped their drinks along the edge of the crowds for a time, while Jack admired the scene. It was one of the most beautiful things she had ever witnessed—and also one of the most terrifying. So many people packed in one place, all swirled into a soup of sweat, vinyl and leather. Bodies rubbed upon bodies. The entire place surged with deafening sound, and the concrete floor shuddered beneath her feet. The mass of black and neon dressed club-goers, everything from trad to cybergoth, melded with the dismal shadows and the flashing colors of the house lights.

"So, Mr. Club Expert. Show me how this is done." Jack shouted and pointed to the main floor. She drained her cup suddenly and grinned.

Jacob raised an eyebrow before draining his own drink and pulling her into the current of the leather-studded masses.

A surge of panic shot through Jack's tiny frame as the crowd closed up around her, swallowing the two of them. Assimilating them. And then the image of the blazing city came to her mind—organisms within organisms—and a fresh wave of exhilaration came upon her. She and Jacob became part of the mass, moving with its flow and with one another. A light buzzing sensation came to her mind, courtesy of the vodka-spiked Red Bull, and the compounded weeks of mania.

Jacob did not have to show her much of anything—Jack let it all out naturally.

Her new friend gripped her hips as she placed her arms around his. She gasped as he pulled her to him, and the two of them gyrated their hips in unison. A giddy bout of laughter came from her as she immersed herself in the groove. Jacob smiled down at her, allowing her to move her hands up his sides. She pressed into him harder, experimentally, and shuddered at the feeling. She felt a tingle inside her pants and instinctively withdrew.

Jacob, misinterpreting her action, loosened his grip to give her space to feel comfortable; at least, as much space as could be afforded in that place.

Jack inhaled, adjusting her breath and tamping the energy down along her spine and groin. Though her tuck held fast, she turned around, leaning her back against him instead. The strain of her penis against the tuck hurt, but the pain only heightened the feeling of euphoria coursing through her body, guiding her movements.

As the beats shifted so did the dance floor, and their bodies, until Jack's conscious mind seemed to fade. Her thoughts, so chaotic before, melted into the crowds and the thundering sounds. She leaned further into Jacob's form. The young man smiled and ran his fingers up and down her slender sides and Jack closed her eyes and exhaled with each downward stroke. She felt Jacob's penis harden beneath his pants as she did so, and a flutter of delight gripped her body. Letting her instincts guide her, Jack moved her ass against his pelvis, relishing the feel of their connection.

Jacob closed his eyes and smiled, allowing her to grind against him for a time before gracefully putting space between them to allow both to cool down for a moment. Then they joined again.

The two of them repeated this ritual, with Jacob's lead, throughout their dance, extending the feelings of arousal and euphoria. The rhythm between them mixed with the rhythm of the dance floor effectively erased everything in her mind outside of that moment.

As the night went on, Jacob bought her another drink (and forced her to drink a few cups of water).

She considered him quite the gentleman for doing so, and she giggled at his insistence for her to slow down.

They began to chat between dances. Any apprehension she might have felt was nary a ghost within her mind. She excitedly chittered about her hobbies (leaving out the murder and world domination), her favorite artists and movies, her travels and her birthplace—Jacob was fascinated to find that she was from China (although she corrected him, stressing that she was from Hong Kong, specifically) and she was happy to teach him a few phrases. His pronunciation proved abysmal, but she found it endearing.

She learned that Jacob actually WAS an art student at a local university, and this launched the two of them into an impassioned discussion about the subject—everything from mediums, to stylistic periods, to a lengthy session of lamentation about how capitalism was killing the creative industry.

Jacob seemed particularly horrified by her recounting of how communism had affected artistic expression in her country of origin, and he hardly believed her when she described the extent of China's censorship laws. This led to a discussion about government, in which Jack blatantly revealed her anarchistic views.

Jacob did not seem to mind, and he only giggled at her impassioned soap box monologues about the freedom of man and the oppression doled out by the 'institution'.

As the drinks came, and the night dragged on, Jack's logic increased in extremism and lessened in sense. She was relieved whenever they took to the pit again because she did not have to do so much thinking in there.

At some point in the night, understandably so given how many drinks she had, Jack excused herself to the restroom. She sauntered into the ladies room without a second thought. If anyone had said anything to her (which they would not because her slight frame and young face allowed her to pass quite well) she would have gawked at them as if they were spewing madness. As far as she was concerned she was female in every single way, not even thinking about it as she relieved herself and retucked. Her mind was on autopilot, and it led her back to Jacob and the dance floor as soon as she had touched up her makeup.

Jacob guided her through the pit and she allowed him to direct her wherever he willed.

As the bass dropped, Jack pulled herself close to him, front to front this time. She leaned into his form and pressed her fragile frame against his. The older man's eyes softened and he let his hands lightly travel down her hips to her ass. The feeling of his massage made her smile and she leaned her forehead against his breast as he began to push his body against hers once again. Jack gasped as she felt his penis harden against her own and her hands instinctively made their way to his pantline, her fingers playing along their edge for a while, and her hands reaching beneath his shirt as she laid her cheek upon his chest. He felt so warm and she felt so hot.

Jack's breath came heavy and her head was giddy from lack of oxygen thanks to the cincher. Yet she no longer registered the pain in her abdomen or any discomfort in her panties. Her fingers traced down Jacob's crotch, and she allowed herself to explore the body of another for the first time, and in that moment a flood of wonder and excitement washed through her.

She had never touched another living, flesh-and-blood person so intimately before. Her thoughts flickered back to the many odd hours she had spent in her lab, experimenting with machines in ways most people would condemn—this was so different. The thought of Jacob laying on her lab table brought a smile to her lips, and a giggle escaped her as she envisioned taking him apart. Piece by piece. One lovely sinew at a time. She imagined, with increasing excitement, the thought of deconstructing every curve she felt beneath her fingertips. And while he enjoyed the simple touch of her caress, she spent the time exploring each part of him, and absorbing the models her mind supplied for how each might be reconstructed mechanically.

Jack gazed up at Jacob with a newfound hunger, and to her delight, his eyes matched her own in that regard. They shared a moment of pause and then their lips met. A feeling of ecstasy overtook Jack and her thoughts disappeared into the tide of primal desire.

She allowed Jacob to thread her through the crowds to the edge of the club. The two made their way to the exit and soon found themselves in a small parking lot beside his car, an old but well-loved T-bird.

She smiled at him as he unlocked it, taking a moment to admire the car's make, and the two shared another lengthy kiss.

Jacob made some half-thought joke about being one of the only New Yorkers who owned a car, and the fact that it did have its perks, despite the cost of parking.

Jack laughed lightly at his joke, not really hearing it. The two climbed into the back seat.

Another kiss led to a tender session of petting one another's sides and testing each other's necks with teeth and tongue. Jacob gave a series of love bites as she moved herself into position on his lap. He seemed content with the arrangement for several minutes, her body moving against his, before he gripped her neck again with another bite. With his teeth still locked upon her skin, Jack's guide pushed her down onto the seat.

She gasped and giggled as he positioned himself on top of her and as he pulled off her boots and stockings, playing with her toes and the feel of her pearly skin. Her eyes rolled back, and she instinctively spread her legs. Her light breaths were met with a moan from her partner as he lowered himself onto her tiny frame and reached his fingers at last beneath her skirt, and Jack let out a whine of pleasure as his hand came into contact with the skin beneath her panties.

There was a pause, and suddenly Jacob's hand withdrew.

"Don't stop..." Jack breathed.

But Jacob's hand did not return as she wished.

Jack opened her eyes to see Jacob's face looking down upon hers, though something had changed within it. His dark eyes widened and his expression turned ugly. Jacob pushed himself off of her and let forth a string of expletives.

Jack sat up, confused.

"You're a dude?" Jacob gasped.

Jack smiled at him in confusion. "Don't be silly." She said with a little laugh. She did not understand why his tender expression had suddenly become hard and angry.

"Fucking fag, what the Hell!" Jacob shouted. He pushed her away from him, slamming her hard against the car door. Her head struck the glass and a black circle blurred her vision for several moments.

"What are you—?" Jack gasped, still not comprehending what the problem was. Her mania-addled brain had erased any memory of being male bodied in her mind. For all intents and purposes, she was as female as the mother that gave birth to her. She could not understand why this was happening.

Jacob cursed again and stumbled from the car. His hands struck the pavement as he fell out, scraping over pieces of broken beer bottles and gravel within the old parking lot. He hissed another curse. Jack crawled toward him to see if he was alright, and he whipped around, striking her with his elbow. Jack's head slammed against the open car door, and the dark ring around her vision returned for a longer period this time. She felt Jacob's hands around her arms and a sudden pain in her shoulders as she was dragged from the car. Jack yelped in pain as her bare legs scraped over the shattered bottle bits.

Her mind was beginning to wake up to the fact that something was very wrong and she was in danger. She reached out toward him and her gaze turned upward just in time to see the edge of his boot. Jacob kicked her away from him and leaned back on his car. Jack felt the cartilage in her nose crack and the blood begin to rush to the area around her eye socket.

"You thought that was real funny, eh? Fucking trap." Jacob spat at her.

Another kick came but this time Jack's instincts were ready. Horror and fury stretched across her face, and as Jacob's boot met her jaw, a jolt of electricity surged into the man. It sent him flying up over his car and he landed upon its hood with a crash.

The car's alarm sounded—which drew little attention on a happening New York City night—and Jack struggled to pull herself from the ground, nursing a bleeding lip and nose. She leaned on the car beside Jacob's body and looked at the grizzly scene before her.

Jacob lay burnt and smoking upon the hood of his car. His back was bent over the front of the hood in an unnatural way. Blood dripped down the car's grill where the hood ornament had pierced his side.

Jack did not stare for long. Instinct once again gripped her.

She fled. Bits of broken glass caught in her feet, which were still bare, yet her fear and confusion blocked the pain. Her flight instincts carried her far into the network of alleys and side streets that crisscrossed the Brooklyn night. Passing denizens paid her little mind as she ran out in front of them, across side streets and into dark alleyways.

Chapter Text

Jack ran through the menacing dark and uncaring street light, blind with fear and confusion. Bloody footprints followed her steps, though little else paid her mind. Through winding way and alley she stumbled and fell, until at last her legs gave out.

Turning in confusion, Jack tripped onto the crumbled remainder of a street corner, alone upon the barren asphalt. There she dragged herself to a divot alongside a derelict newspaper stand.

She was in a dark and dismal part of town. No glittering lights and fancy signs graced the mist of smog that curled around her. Dim and flickering street lamps illuminated piles of garbage, and loose groups of homeless souls huddled within the orange glow of fires in rusty old oil drums.

"Kid. Hey kid!" A deep voice slowly dragged Jack from her haze.

She looked up and saw a pair of women looking down at her.

"Kid. Hello?" The taller of the two waved a neon-nailed hand in her face.

"I think she's smashed, Clo," The shorter one commented, breathing a puff of smoke into the chilly street air, before immediately following up with a long drag on her cigarette.

The tall one, Clo, waved the smoke out of her face and bent toward Jack’s huddled form.

"Honey, you okay? Kid, you can't just sit in the street like that."

The shorter woman said a few words of Spanish to her companion.

"No I ain't just gonna leave her out here,” Clo gently pulled Jack to a standing position, “Come on, baby."

A fabulous mane of curly dark hair spread out around Clo’s head, framing her sharply angled face and falling alongside her thick neck and broad shoulders. Her voice came deep and husky, and it puzzled Jack at first. And then the image of the women she had seen walking the streets of New York years ago came to her mind.

The short woman muttered something unintelligible and flicked her spent cigarette away. She helped Clo lead Jack to a nearby stoop, where the two Samaritans exchanged a few words that floated away above the haze of Jack’s muddled comprehension.

The frightened young teen stood, dumb and glassy-eyed as the women deliberated. Her mind drifted, and it felt as though she remained there for a very long time.

A vague dream of standing upon the street corner, with passing cars stopping and going, and women pacing to and fro, lingered within the front of Jack’s mind. The faux fur coat of a stranger rested on her shoulders, which were too cold to shiver. A timeless merry-go-round rotated around her. Women and cars. Asphalt and dust. The buzz and haze of nigh spent neon-signs.

The scenery passed her by, until at last her mind closed its doors and put the chairs up. The last of her drunken thoughts went slinking into the night, just as the shadows did around her.

She blacked out.

* * *

Jack awoke to the sound of a trash-truck. Beyond the busy clangs and bangs of its hydraulics, the burgeoning sounds of a busy day in Hell’s Kitchen could be heard. Murmured voices through thin, apartment walls. Dogs and children shouting at one another in the street below. The squeal of a train somewhere far away.

The heavy scent of old nicotine clung to the blankets and walls that surrounded Jack, and she winced as she sat to gain a better view of her unfamiliar surroundings. Bruises ran down the side of her bare arm, trailing downward to her bandaged palms and fingers. Her head throbbed and she recognized the sensation of a broken nose. A tiny cough burned her lungs and throat, which were dry and suffocated beneath the pain of broken ribs.

She looked around.

Dim spackled walls, cramped and square rose around her. Tired old curtains--once a vibrant shade of pink but faded with old cigarette smoke--let grey light filter unpoliced through their threads. Stuffed animals and fuzzy pillows nested in piles atop the meager amount of furniture, and spilled from the couch onto the small bench seat beneath the window, across from which sat a makeshift coffee tablet, draped in a cheerful floral cloth. Upon the table’s surface a recently used ashtray still held the last embers of a spent cigarette.

Jack lay, languid and nauseous, upon the couch for several long moments. The spent cigarette belied the presence of another being in the apartment, yet Jack’s stuporous demeanor kept her from investigating. She curled into a ball, shaking with cold and fever, until at last her bladder forced her to move.

Slowly, Jack peeled herself from the couch surface, and rolled onto the grey-carpeted floor. A rush of wooziness pinned her there for another long moment before she began her crawling quest to find a toilet. Quiet as a mouse, and ignoring the pain in her bandaged knees as she inched across the floor and down a tiny hallway, she found a small closet of a bathroom. Its humble sink offered her leverage to stand at last, whereupon she paused in front of the bathroom's vanity mirror, startled by her own appearance. The grotesque image of her battered face stared, startled and cringing back at her. Her nose was black and blue, and her jaw and lip swollen. Her left eye was puffed and black, and from it ran the dark remnants of her makeup in streaks. She noticed a butterfly bandage upon her brow, and at last gave attention to the bandaging that adorned her various extremities. Her hands, knees and feet were wrapped tight and neat.

She vaguely wondered where her shoes and stockings had gone. Faint memories of gleaming club lights and a feeling of terror and pain flickered through her mind before another wave of nausea drove her to her knees in front of the toilet. There she spent a dizzy and painful amount of time. Her face against its seat, leaving black smudges of lipstick and tear-diluted eyeshadow, while her arms hugged the bowl loosely. She vaguely recognized the sound of a door opening and then shutting in the main living space, but she remained where she was, retching until exhaustion.

When she finally emerged, half-stumbling, half-crawling, she did not notice the new pile of mail on the coffee table. She pulled herself onto the couch and burrowed under the blankets again, falling once again into a fitful and delirious sleep.

* * *

Jack awoke later to the sharp prod of an acrylic-nailed finger.

"Hey, honey," Clo’s husky voice came.

Jack broke the teary crust about her eyes and slowly opened them.

The rim of a cup and Clo’s angular features came into focus. The tall woman pressured Jack to drink the water she offered, and Jack thirstily obliged.

"Hey. Take it slow, hon." Clo said as Jack downed the liquid. She looked Jack up and down, frowning.

The other woman from before leaned upon the hall’s corner, watching from the living room’s edge.

Jack soon learned her name to be Carmen, though her working name was Spicy. Clo's name was short for Clover. Jack mumbled her own name to the women upon their asking, between moans of nausea and the two women smiled sympathetically at her groans.

"Yeah. That's what happens. When we found you, you smelled like the inside of a frat house. Drink this." Clo held a foul-smelling and thick red drink up to Jack.

Jack frowned at the tar-like beverage.

Clo pursed her lips. "Just drink it, princess."

Jack coughed and nearly gagged as the pungent mixture hit her throat.

"See, you look fine," Clo smiled and patted Jack's arm gently.

Jack did not feel fine. She receded under the blankets again.

Clo's voice came from beyond Jack's woolen cave, something about them going to work, but Jack was asleep before the two of them even made it out the door.

***

Jack awoke later to the scent of Chinese takeout waved under her nose.

Clo smiled and prodded their guest to eat. The apartment was small and had no dining table. The three of them just sat around the coffee table to eat, draped across various pieces of hand-me-down furniture.

It was pain-staking progress as Jack slowly conveyed each bite into her mouth and, after a time of silence and focused eating, Carmen lit a cigarette and set aside her food.

The Latina draped her leg over the side of the armchair in which she sat and then gave Jack a lazy glance.

"So. Where you from, kid?" she asked, exhaling a plume of smoke into the stale apartment air.

Jack forced herself to swallow, "Hong Kong."

"No shit!" Clo said surprised.

"That must be nice," Carmen said in a half-assed attempt at conversation. She seemed bored, or perhaps just tired.

"I mean... Not really." Jack answered flatly.

"Oh," Carmen paused, more conscious about her words now, before lighting yet another cigarette.

"Girl. You said you was gonna cut back." Clo tossed an annoyed gaze at her roommate.

"I was. But tonight was shit." Carmen replied laconically.

Clo threw a small dog stuffy at her friend from beside the bean bag upon which she sat, and Carmen deflected it without taking her eyes off of Jack.

"Don't deny a girl her coping mechanisms, mama,” Carmen leaned back and gave a tired grin, blowing smoke through her teeth.

Jack stared at her food. She had stopped eating and her mind drifted again.

Meanwhile the women continued to exchange words but their voices became muffled until they fell from her awareness completely.

Another prod to her shoulder pulled her out of it. Jack blinked and looked blankly around the room again.

Clo sat back upon the bean bag, with a small frown.

"You checked out a bit there…”

Carmen tossed a meaningful gaze toward her friend. Taking a cautious drag on her cigarette, finally, she spoke.

"You know... Maybe you should go to a hospital or something—" she said slowly.

"No," Jack snapped quickly, her attention flaring for a moment before fading again. "No hospitals."

Jack did not know why she protested so vehemently, however something in her gut told her that she should stay in the apartment. Outside was danger.

The women exchanged glances.

"Well. If you're gonna crash with us, you'll need a change of clothes..." Clo said. She pursed her lip and examined Jack. "You're so puny... Carm, you think she would fit some of your clothes?"

Carmen was not much taller than Jack, but she was cisgender, and her figure was a considerable amount fuller in the hips and chest. The garments Jack was given hung loosely around her tiny frame. The sweat pants she wore, cinched, and her shirt sloped deeply across her chest.

Jack slumped on the edge of Carmen's bed, staring at her bandaged feet. She noticed for the first time how much the cincher around her dress had been restricting her breath, and her ribs and lungs burned as she inhaled fully for the first time since she had put the dress on.

"Well, it's not pretty," Carmen said with a sigh, then she gave a dry laugh.

Clo, jabbed her friend in the ribs and smiled at their guest. "Don't worry, kid. We'll find you something decent soon enough. And some makeup for..." Clo gestured to her own face, referring to Jack's injuries. "You'll be dressed up pretty again in no time."

For the first time since being with them, Jack asked a question of her own.

"Why are you helping me?”

"Because we're good damn people," Carmen replied in a flat tone.

Clo gave Jack a sympathetic look and sat on the bed beside her. "Well, we weren't just gonna dump you off somewhere. Besides, us bitches gotta stay together, right?"

Jack blinked and looked up at her. Then tears began to well up in her eyes. A sudden sob shook her body, and she began to cry.

Clo and Carmen exchanged somber looks and Clo gently put her arms around Jack.

"It's okay, baby girl. You cry all you need," she said in a hushed tone.

From her position, leaned against the doorframe, Carmen viewed the scene with a sober expression, and pulled out another cigarette.

Jack's tiny body shook and the sobs increased beneath Clo's kind touch, and she remained in the woman's arms until the sun came up, and until her body shuddered with exhaustion.

Upon the sun’s waking, she led Jack back to the sofa and drew the covers up as Jack curled into a ball.

Chapter Text

Jack spent the next days cloistered in Clo and Carmen’s meager apartment, trembling and shaking her head vehemently in the living room whenever one of her hosts attempted to coax her to the door. The women received her refusals with bewildered looks, and sighed when they brought new affects for her to wear.

Clo mentioned that a number of the other girls had been kind enough to donate most of the items. It seemed that word got around fast in their circles, and most of their friends and colleagues were already aware of Clo and Carmen's new charge by that point.

Even so, Jack lacked the enthusiasm or motivation to acknowledge the gifts with any convincing level of gratitude.

The mania on which Jack had been sailing for the past months had come to a paralyzing crash, and she spent most of her time silently staring at nothing, curled upon the couch. When she was not catatonic, she cried beneath the blanket in a trembling puddle of despair.

Beneath the covers, she could hear her hosts exchange words in Spanish to one another occasionally, casting serious glances in her direction and their exchanges occasionally becoming heated, no doubt discussing what could be done with their unusual guest.

Clo was invested in Jack’s wellbeing--she no doubt saw herself in the young girl.

Carmen on the other hand seemed the more practical of the two. She was of the opinion that Jack should be dropped off at a hospital, and idea which Clo met with heated rebuke.

The older transwoman looked upon their young charge with dark and concerned eyes. Hospitals, like most institutions, were machines designed to break down the spirit of people like them.

Carmen was sympathetic to Clo's concerns--though she still hid the kitchen knives. She was hospitable to Jack, yet her concern for what might happen if Jack were left alone, was apparent--Carmen’s intuitions were on point.

Jack’s world had come crashing down upon her and in her eyes, hope would never be within her reach again. She'd had it in her grasp but the Universe was cruel, and it had decided to remind her of her place. Her months of success, her creativity, her courage. None of it mattered at that point. The only thing that kept her from seeking a drastic solution was her lethargy, her unfamiliarity with her place of lodging, and her fear of going outside the apartment. Jack noticed that the women never left her with only herself. Friends were invited over to 'crash' in their apartment while the two were out working, no doubt thinly veiled babysitters. Yet, the efforts her hosts extended toward her softened the edge on her depression.

With time and patience Jack began to acclimate to existence in their presence. She watched the two interact as she lay silently on the couch. They were like sisters, often sliding good-natured jabs at one another, and sharing nearly everything. When one needed a specific product or a particular accessory as they readied for work, the other already had her own offered with extended hand. They chatted about nothing in particular often, in between meaningful silences with one another.

Their interactions, their existence itself, brought Jack comfort. Both women started their 'day' in the afternoon, and they spent long hours at work, walking the streets in all weather, and they came home only as dawn crept onto the horizon. Their lives were so different from that of most. They were creatures of the night, and beings of the 'Other', like she was. And with this realization came a sense of kinship with them that Jack had not felt before.

They were outsiders, like herself, and their existence harsh and the world inhospitable to them. Yet they made it work, and in being of the 'Other', together, they had come to form a bond that Jack envied. She wondered what it would be like to have a sister to share things with. She had never considered the idea before, as family had only ever been toxic. But upon viewing the two women--how they cared for each other, and even for Jack--she decided that, maybe, just maybe, it could be nice.

Yet with time came familiarity, and with familiarity came a certain kind of sisterhood, which she had never felt alongside any other humans.

Clo in particular proved a valuable teacher, even just by carrying out her daily existence.

Jack observed the little things she did to assist in passing, although she still bore telltale signs of her sex assigned at birth no matter what she did. Yet even so, simply watching Clo living, thriving even, in such a hostile world, rekindled something within Jack that she had given for lost: hope.

She took to sitting outside Clo's door, folded with her legs against her chest, as Clo applied her face for the evening.

With an inward smile, Clo noticed and made a point to show Jack tips, tricks, and illusions that could be done with makeup, if only to draw their guest from her shell. And, slowly, her efforts proved successful.

Jack began to ask questions, and one day she even smiled--for the first time since they had met--when Clo offered her makeup with which to experiment in the vanity mirror by her side while she got ready for the evening.

The older woman watched sidelong, amused, as Jack practiced the techniques she had been shown.

Her hosts had begun to refer to Jack as 'China Doll', referring to her porcelain-like appearance and delicate form. And the term of endearment warmed her dark heart whenever they used it. Intrigued by the sense of drama and theater in painting herself in different ways, Jack tried more and more dramatic looks than she had ever dared before. She felt..sexy. Empowered in her own sexuality for the first time in her young life.

While the women were out, Jack spent hours playing with various poses in the mirror on the back of their bathroom door, mimicking some of the mannerisms she had seen the women put on as they transformed themselves and took to the streets. In Jack's mind, their makeup was their battle-paint, and their high heels and brightly colored outfits their uniforms. Their bodies were both their tools and weapons as they stepped out each night into a hostile world ruled by men and the conventional masses. They wielded their femininity like a standard, marking their existence in the world and declaring their intention to live fully and complete in themselves no matter the field.

As Jack watched them leave each night from the apartment window, she found herself desiring such a life too. Their existence had reignited the yearning in her soul that had driven her forward for 18 years. And the vision of her ideal self returned to her mind. A woman, strong and beautiful, her craft uninhibited by morality or convention. Free to live as she chose. A goddess of creation, forming new lifeforms and unraveling the mysteries of the universe from her lofty domain. Dark, beautiful, and as infinitely powerful as the Void. Beholden only to her own imagination.

It was during such a fantasy that Clo interrupted her thoughts one Saturday morning as she returned from work.

Jack had been gazing at herself in the vanity, thinking no one was watching, and she yelped when Clo spoke.

"Damn, girl. A fish like you could really make buck in the right places." Clo whistled encouragingly, as she removed her heels with a groan and began to rub her feet.

Jack sheepishly shrank from the mirror, placing her hands behind her back and rocking back and forth on her heels nervously after being caught gazing upon herself as she had been doing.

"Fish...?" Jack asked.

"She means you can pass," Carmen said, coming to lean on the doorframe of Clo's room.

Jack knew what the term meant, though she could scarce believe Carmen's statement. Like so many young people with an experience similar to her own, she doubted her appearance, irrespective of evidence in her favor or the words of others. She viewed herself and the thought of passing with both anxiety and stoicism. Jack regarded the older women with an unsure gaze, and cast an incredulous look into the mirror.

"You think so...?" she mused.

Clo smirked, wincing as she flexed her foot, "Girl, if I had your body, you wouldn't see me walking on no damn street."

Jack looked upon her own reflection thoughtfully. Then her face fell. "I... I wish I could walk around like you do..."

Clo paused, and gave her a sympathetic look, "Well... It comes at a price. But that's just life, honey."

Jack considered her words. Yes. There is a price for everything. Being yourself comes at a cost, just as living a lie does. It is all a matter of what you are willing to trade. Stability for happiness. Safety for fulfillment. It seemed that the entirety of existence was a precarious balancing act--one Jack knew all too well. Her life had been a sharp lessen in cost and compromise, as she struggled alone to balance the halves of herself--masculine and feminine. Yet as she reflected upon the circus of existence, Jack wondered what cost she might be willing to pay in order to achieve her dreams, and if she would ever have the courage to live as they did. Freedom at the cost of acceptance.

As she mused in front of the mirror, her grandmother’s words came to her mind--the pursuit of Evil is not just a simple question of morality. It was a way of life. A philosophy. The decision to pursue personal freedom at any cost. Jack swallowed hard, and she allowed her fingers to trace her hips and the gentle curve of her legs. She felt powerful as she gyrated her pelvis to view her form in the mirror at various angles. Power came at a cost. Personal freedom came at a cost.

Jack considered these things in contemplative silence at length, until Carmen offered to pick up takeout.

They ate their food that night out of cardboard boxes and tins, their version of silver platters for their own style of feast, and they toasted their victories with paper cups filled with soda and boxed wine.

Sipping from the plastic chalice of a Solo cup, Jack felt her mind drift ever upward to her own personal stars. The expanse of her potential existence stretched before her, and she found comfort in the thought that at the very least, she still held the power to direct that potential.

Chapter Text

The time with her found sisters rejuvenated Jack’s emaciated spirit, and her soul’s pallor gave way to a bright and earnest mien.

Yet it was upon a bright and crisp Sunday afternoon that the old familiar sickness of her past returned, while her sisters were out at work.

A rhythmic knocking came at the door, interrupting Jack’s repose.

Jack remained silent, drawing herself into a ball beneath the covers on Clo's bed, and she continued reading the magazine she had been perusing before the knock came. If she was quiet, they would go away, she thought to herself. She sighed in silent relief when, after several tense moments, another knock did not come. She did not hear the gentle click of the lock, being turned from the outside. Nor did she hear the door being quietly pushed back upon its hinges.

Unaware, Jack hummed to herself, looking at a series of makeup ads, and she had hardly time to react when the covers were suddenly pulled from her body. She gasped and looked up to find a familiar face looking down at her own.

Jack's stomach curdled and any exclamation she might have made dried up in her throat.

A paper-thin and crooked smile of greeting spread across the skeletal face of Faustus as he looked down upon his favorite pet.

Jack stared up at him with wide and terrified eyes.

"Jack, my boy," Faustus said congenially, a note of delight in his voice as one might hear from a grandfather who had not seen his favorite grandchild in some time. A group of more of the same dangerous looking men as before with Cockatrices upon their lapels stood behind him, looking down at her with stern expressions. Faustus on the other hand seemed only delighted to see her.

Jack swallowed hard.

"I am delighted to find you in good health, my boy," Faustus folded his hands, gazing with a veiled look of disdainful interest around the messy space of Clo's room.

Jack’s heart raced, and she barely dared to breathe. A cute pink and red floral-printed dress adorned her slender form, and a black lace headband held back her hair. Her face was done up with a light touch of dusky, rose-colored eyeshadow and dark red lipstick, her feminine self naked before the shadowy visitors. She quietly slid her rose-painted toenails beneath her body as she drew herself to a seated position, sitting on her feet to hide them, and she clenched her hands into fists, hiding her matching fingernails.

"It is a relief to find you in adequate health," Faustus said, not bothering to acknowledge her appearance. He continued to smile. "Now. Grab your things. It is time to go."

"How... How did you find me?" Jack asked quietly.

Faustus let out a wheezing sound, which Jack realized was meant to be a laugh. "My dear boy, don't act so surprised. We've known where you were this entire time." Faustus raised a brow and gave a mirthless chuckle. "You caused quite a stir among the heads of your Family, I might say. You HAVE been a very naughty boy, haven't you. But never you worry. I've taken care of everything."

A prickling feeling of disgust churned in Jack's stomach, and the hairs on her neck stood as he spoke, "T-taken care of...?"

Faustus gave another wheezing laugh. He held Jack's chin, tilting her face toward his with a surprisingly firm grip. "You don't reach my age or position without being able to pull a few strings now and again." He licked his finger and rubbed at some of the makeup on her cheek.

"I was able to save you. This time." He clicked his teeth, releasing her jaw suddenly.

"Now. All things must come to an end. It is time that you return home. So goodbye to all of THIS." Faustus gestured vaguely to the room around them.

The stern looking men stepped forward and grabbed Jack's arms with hard and unforgiving hands. They pulled her up from the bed and directed her out of the room. They watched with cold gazes as Jack was forced to gather what meager possessions she could.

She grabbed her small purse, but she knew she could not take any of the clothes that had been gifted to her, other than those she now wore.

Jack knew that Carmen and Clo would miss her upon their return. Her sudden departure would break their hearts, just as it was doing to hers, and they would never know where or why she had gone--but perhaps that was for the best.

She paused in the door and placed a delicate hand upon the old man's arm. A look of earnest concern was in her face, and she shifted her energy. She offered him a pleading expression, begging him with her young and bright eyes.

"They... They won't be harmed, will they?" She allowed herself to appear small and desperate. Earnest, needing him, and begging with her eyes, allowing herself to reside in the old man’s control for that moment.

Faustus grinned, wisely, "Oh. I assure you, we have little interest in 'WOMEN' of such little consequence. Your harlot friends shall be left perfectly alone."

His use of the term 'women' was decidedly loose, specifically in regards to Clo.

Jack forced a grateful smile, though her heart remained sick with uncertainty. She would have to take him at his word.

Jack flew back to China at Faustus' side in a private jet for him and his entourage. She bitterly anticipated the severe reprisal that no doubt awaited her in Hong Kong, yet Faustus assured her again that he had 'taken care of' everything. He had saved her--this time.

The old man patted her arm as she sat beside him, offering her a thin smile. The stress on his benevolence, and the margin by which she had escaped disastrous consequences for her dishonorable and reckless behavior, was not lost on her. Though the old man did not say it outright, he made it clear to her that he was the sole reason she was spared. Her protector. Her savior. And, as he stroked her arm, the same churning feeling twisted her stomach.

She averted her eyes from his and spent the rest of the flight staring out the window. Yet ever his cold and paper-thin hand rested gently upon her skin, and she knew in her heart that his intercession on her behalf had come at a cost. Like everything else.

That's just life, honey.

Chapter Text

-----------------------
PART 2 - The Eye
-----------------------

Jack swallowed her medication bitterly, beneath the dour gaze of her mother, who stood with arms-crossed in the doorway. A servant nodded and bowed, taking Jack’s waterglass before scuttling away.

“Straighten your tie,” Mrs. Spicer tutted, yet doing it herself without a moment’s wait. She licked her finger and smoothed Jack’s eyebrows and dusted the lapel of Jack’s suit, before turning her child about, this way and that, until she pursed her lips in satisfaction.

Meanwhile, Jack gazed glumly at her own reflection in the trifold vanity. Her hair stuck up in a soft fuzz on her head, shaved close to her dark roots. Her beloved vibrant red had been chopped away, and her face stared back at her barren and sickly, devoid of makeup. She tugged at the tie fastened about her neck like a leash.

Her mother swatted her hand away and tightened the tie even more.

“Remember to bow,” Mrs. Spicer stated.

“And only speak if spoken to. I know…” Jack finished her mother’s statement with a downcast gaze.

Mrs. Spicer pulled Jack’s chin up sharply.

“Don’t stare at your feet, dear. It makes you look weak.”

Jack gritted her teeth behind tightly closed lips.

Her mother gave one final survey and sighed, mostly to herself, “I have no idea why Mr. Faustus has taken such an interest in you…”

The note of derision in her mother’s voice was not lost on Jack. She glared at her mother, who pointedly avoided her gaze.

There was a ring at the door.

“That would be the car. Go on.” Mrs. Spicer waved Jack away.

Outside, a dreary drizzle cast a grim mist over the estate’s grounds. A dapper footman held out an umbrella, which Jack ignored, trudging through the mist to the Mercedes that purred patiently.

As the car’s door clicked shut, Jack sighed, closing her eyes and solemnly willing herself to keep her head up and her jaw tight. A shiver ran through her as the car turned silently along the long bowed drive.

The somber journey recalled faint memories of the night of her sealing, years ago, as she watched the rain-muted sights pass across her view. Sprawling estates turned to city streets, which turned to eerie and empty wilderness.

The deep and dour treeline at last revealed a familiar sight. Crouched amidst the forest dim, the old and moss-laden roof of a high property wall rose. And beyond its arched gateway came the shape of the same old estate from Jack’s memories, unchanged and wrapped in a misty shroud, like a ghost frozen in time.

This was the place where her nightmare began.

A broken shingle on the old roof let a stream of water drizzle onto the front stoop, upon which she shivered, ringing the bell.

She jumped when the front door swung open nearly at the moment of her call. Two servants, matched neat and smart, bowed and beckoned her quickly inside.

As she stepped through the portal, she was hit immediately with the pungent scent of frankincense and ancient wood. The dark staircase from her memory rose into shadow before her, and the same odd sundry of wall hangings watched her from all sides. She looked downward and found the fierce gaze of the cockatrice beneath her feet, staring up at her. The look of it brought a pang of fright through her being like an electric shock, and the dusty lights above flickered momentarily. The servants seemed to barely notice, as they removed her shoes and replaced them with fine, though faded, silken slippers.

The halls and patinated doors of the household labyrinth passed by around her like echoes of lavish times long forgotten. The rugs beneath her feet sunk into depressions in the wood and stone underneath, worn smooth and bowed beneath the countless steps of feet treading the same paths over centuries.

Her steps followed those of the many forgotten souls who came before her, to the threshold of a great library, filled to the brim with rich and attractive old volumes.

The room smelled of leather and potpourri. A meager fire flickered in a raised fireplace to Jack’s left, giving off far less light than it should have and even less heat. In the center of the library was a great wooden desk, not unlike her father's, and standing beside one of the many shelves that lined its walls was the old man--Faustus. He turned upon her arrival, a pleased expression coming across his face as she entered.

"Jack," He said pleasantly, while the servants bowed out of the room. He paused and ran his hand over the back of the desk's leather chair thoughtfully, and then he gestured to the fine, gold-fabricked settee that was arranged before the desk.

"Drinks. Yes." He said abruptly, as if remembering common conduct.

Faustus poured a cup of tea from a pot that had already been waiting upon a nearby table, and gently placed it into Jack's hand as she lowered herself onto the edge of the sofa, without asking if she had wanted any. He smiled at her and then sat himself in a matching gold chair.

Jack waited for the old man to speak, but he seemed perfectly pleased to have them sit in silence as he sipped his tea.

Jack did not touch her own. Instead she stared glumly at the richly woven carpet as minutes passed.

No words were spoken. Faustus simply watched her from time to time, pausing between sips to hold her in quiet regard. His watery eyes gave no intimation of his thoughts, and Jack became increasingly antsy beneath his gaze. At some point the old man asked if she wanted more tea, seeming not to notice that she had not taken a single sip.

Jack awkwardly shook her head.

He seemed pleased enough by this, and then he set his own cup aside. Without a word, Faustus took to his chair at the great wooden desk, and he began writing in a thin and spidery hand along the pages of cloth and leather bound books. Occasionally he hummed or muttered to himself, yet he said not a word to his visitor.

Jack stared at him awkwardly, still holding her teacup, which was cold by then. She waited to see if he would actually say anything to her, watching him gently shuffle through papers as he continued to pen out letters and notes. An old clock ticked from the far wall, and the fire in the fireplace slowly died.

The two sat like this for over three hours.

Jack’s eyes wandered down toward the rug beneath her feet, her mind receding into the back of her thoughts as the time in that creaky old house dragged on.

At a quarter past four, Faustus finally looked up and smiled at her.

She gave him a vague and hesitant expression.

She was dismissed after nearly three and a half hours of doing absolutely nothing but sitting there.

The same driver took her back home, and she entered the house with a deep sense of disturbance and confusion. She stood in their foyer until she noticed her mother's gaze upon her.

Mrs. Spicer bore a cold and intense expression. She drew her lips back in a rigid smile.

"So. What did Mr. Faustus want from you, dear?" she asked stiffly.

Jack stared back at her mother, still unsure herself. A long moment passed before she answered quietly, "Nothing."

She returned to the safety of her lab, stripping out of the suit the moment the lab doors hissed shut. In only her underwear, she laid across her futon, clutching one of her stuffed animals tight. The deep sense of unease remained in her gut, ineffable yet inescapable.

He had wanted nothing.

Chapter Text

The Scarlet Ring glittered over the sleeping wilderness, which rested beneath a layer of frost, dreaming the first dreams of winter. The Ring lit the sky in hues of pinks, reds, greens and golds, refracting the magick of the Earth’s atmosphere and setting it crackling in the crisp December air.

The magick light turned the icicles hanging from the ancient stones of Faustus’s estate into a vibrant chandelier. Jack looked upward to consider one such array from the cover of a garden archway, one of many such arches that lined the property, which Jack had since learned to be called Scarlet Manor. Standing there, staring at the icicles and the sky beyond, she wondered quietly as to the origin of the manor’s name.

“It’s a wonder, is it not? That ring… That marvelous ring… Yes. It changes everything.” Faustus’s voice came up behind her.

Jack vaguely turned her head in wait for the old man to catch up, not taking her eyes from the sky, listening to the whispering crunch of his approaching footsteps.

“Ah. Yes, this here…” Faustus patted a nearby tree, twisted and knotty not unlike his hand upon its bark. “This is a handsome old yew tree. See the way it grows…? Falling into the soil and rising again.” Faustus paused to catch his breath. “This tree is said to be a gateway to the underworld.” Faustus grinned.

Jack sighed, scanning the winter garden with a bored expression.

Faustus observed his visitor’s expression with the same peculiar gaze he often did--something between amusement and fascination.

“It is a tree of immortality,” Faustus continued, irrespective of Jack’s apathetic demeanor.

“And this… Over here. This is cypress. Also a tree of the underworld. Said to be sacred to Hades himself.”

Faustus pointed to a vibrant and wild-looking evergreen that stood proud and lush against the dreary world around it. Its branches fanned out above them, dripping more prismatic icicles. The old man led Jack to stand beneath its generous canopy and he turned to her with a look of enchantment stretched across his withered face. “It is a tree of mourning. Legend goes that an ancient prince killed his most beloved companion, a gorgeous and soulful stag, right below its branches.”

Jack paused and looked at the old man with a taught expression.

Her look must have been so sudden and stark that Faustus let out a wheezing laugh.

“Ah. You are a good lad.” he mused, and then he chuckled, “You must be to spend your valuable time with an old man like me.”

Jack gritted her teeth, biting her tongue in lieu of pointing out that she had no choice in the matter.

Yet the old man regarded her wisely, no doubt aware of her exact thought, though he said nothing about it.

A long and awkward moment passed, Jack shifting her weight in the cold, absently tugging at her collar. Somewhere, in the vast and wild garden the sound of a raven tolled.

At once Faustus made a humming noise with his mouth, as if considering something, before breaking the silence between them.

“You’ve been coming faithfully to me each day for the past two months,” he said, and the smile faded from his face, “I want you to know, Jack, that I do appreciate it. Call me sentimental. Or perhaps just lonely.”

Jack cast her gaze upon the snow at her feet, and then she jumped at the touch of the old man upon her sleeve.

Yet the look he held tempered her hard expression. His eyes were serious, and somehow colder, sharper, than they had been before.

“There is something I wish to show you. Something that I think you will like.”

Faustus led Jack through the gardens, which glistened in the fast fading light of the sun. Its slanted rays cast a final crimson cloak upon the hardened frost, before dipping below the horizon. At the moment of its setting, the two came to a large stone door in the side of a low and age-weathered building. This building seemed older than most of the others, and it was simpler in its construction yet solid. It had clearly been rebuilt in places and its architecture bore the hallmarks of restorations and updates over time. Faustus cast one last conspiratory gaze at his companion before hefting the door open.

It swung back surprisingly smoothly, and from beyond it Jack was hit with the sweet and musky scent of old books. There were no windows in the building’s walls and all beyond the portal was dark. Faustus bid them step into the gloom and closed the door. For a single moment all fell dark, and the cold of the building’s interior pressed in around them. Though cold, the air was dry.

Jack winced when the sound of match struck and Faustus light of a lantern suddenly broke the dark.

Faustus smiled and hung the lantern upon a nearby column.

Upon her eye’s adjustment, Jack confirmed the source of the smell from within. Shelves upon shelves of old books, some stone, some wooden, lined the building’s interior, stretching back in rows illuminated in stark shadows by the lantern’s light. Jack’s eyes grew wide. The collection in this place was clearly older, and most definitely more valuable, than that of the library in the main house. For a brief moment she wondered at the insanity of this man to keep this place behind only bare stone walls.

Faustus looked around with a content expression, as one surveying a locale and pleased to see that all is in order.

Jack walked several paces into the nearest row.

“These books. They must be extremely valuable.” she said.

“Hm? Oh, yes.” Faustus nodded, still looking about with a thoughtful gaze.

“But… You have no security system?” Jack shook her head and then laughed critically, “That’s really stupid, old man.”

“Oh, I assure you these books are well protected,” Faustus replied with a laconic attitude, passing behind her in an unhurried fashion, deeper into the library.

Jack followed after him. A twinge of annoyance came into her, if only out of principle.

“Seriously. This place is what? A couple centuries old? And some of these look even older.” Jack paused, “Like really, no security system. No guards even. … Attack dogs. Not even a camera.” She looked around and was met with Faustus’s bored expression.

The look on his face told her to be quiet. Jack swallowed and waited for Faustus to speak.

He only turned and continued his amble further and further into the building’s interior.

Jack noticed that the way he moved seemed strangely smooth for a man of his age. He seemed almost to glide across the worn stone floors.

Her thought was cut short when he suddenly stopped.

Faustus raised his lantern to illuminate a bare central space, which framed a series of roughly cut columns. A few escritoires lined the sides of a large, central column, which was cut with sharp and graduated corners that fell back in layers, creating the semblance of a complex colonnade in and of itself. Jack recalled the look of the yew tree seen earlier. Were this column to be cut in half and viewed from above, it would form an evocative geometrical design.

The architecture of the column seemed strange in such a place, and it stirred a sense of mystery within her.

Faustus touched a small depression in the column’s side and several layers of its stone surface parted, drawing a gasp of surprise from Jack who stood several paces behind, peering around him curiously.

“Come along then,” Faustus waved a vague hand in her direction.

Within the column was a steep spiral stone stair, close in its dimensions, enough for it to trip Jack’s sense of claustrophobia. She gave a small squeak when the column wall closed behind her.

Yet Faustus seemed unconcerned as ever with her little exclamations.

“Wh-where are we going…?” Jack stammered.

“Patience, lad. You’ll see when we get there.” Faustus murmured with a smile.

The descent was not far, and it ended in a narrow arched door at the base of the stair. With a gentle push the door swung away silently, the two stepped into a warmly lit chamber.

Jack’s mouth dropped open. Within was another library, filled not only with books but sundry oddities and objects--phials and jars, bones and taxidermy, scrolls and old vellums covered in long-forgotten scripts. She turned her head this way and that, taking it in, her jaw working silently.

Faustus viewed the room with a look of understated pride. He hung the lantern and scuttered through the array.

“I am aware of your, erm, extra-curricular studies,” Faustus said, picking up an old tome and leafing through it, “I think you will find my materials a bit more enlightening than the materials in your father’s library.”

Jack gave Faustus a hard look. She was beginning to see the man in a new light.

“Not that your father’s collection is not interesting. His heart is in the right place. An enthusiast. But he never showed the same level of promise as yourself.” Faustus murmured.

Jack raised an eyebrow, searching to say something pithy, but instead she just muttered, “Right…”

“You are free to peruse, with the guidance of myself of course, or Maliha,” Faustus said.

Jack opened her mouth to ask who ‘Maliha’ was but screamed instead as an enormous raven landed on her shoulder.

“Ow,” the raven chirped in irritation.

Jack shrieked again.

Maliha flapped her wings in protest before biting Jack on the ear and swooping to Faustus’s side instead.

“Maliha,” Faustus referred to the bird matter-of-factly as if it were not already obvious who ‘Maliha’ was.

Jack bared her teeth at the bird in disbelief, pinching her ear where a bit of blood trickled from her lobe.

“Where the hell did THAT come from,” Jack looked around wildly, seeing no ingress into the room, other than that from which they had entered.

The raven gave a perturbed caw.

“Oh do play nice, please, both of you,” Faustus tutted, “I would love for you to be friends.”

Bird and teenager glared at one another.

“Maliha is one of the best tutors you will ever find,” Faustus stroked the bird’s head.

“Tutor? Tutor for WHAT exactly?” Jack piped.

“Your NEW education,” Faustus gave a sharp and yellowed grin.

Chapter Text

Raimundo sat on the edge of the temple roof, swinging his leg with the other folded beneath him, his gaze turned upwards. The Scarlet Ring was putting on a show. Pinks, reds, greens and golds, refracting the magick of the Earth’s atmosphere. He quietly mused over the Ring and its meaning, taking a bite of a dumpling.

“Rai!” Kimiko’s voice came from below, “Rai where--Oh. Hey.”

“Hey,” Raimundo answered distractedly, keeping his eyes on the sky.

“Rai, Master Fung’s looking for you,” she said.

“Right…” Raimundo hummed. He stuffed the last of his dumplings into his face and then stepped onto the tree branch that came to meet him. The tree conveyed him downward before returning to its original pose.

The young Dragon made his way through the temple grounds, through garden arches and paths frosted with snow, which crunched lightly beneath his shoes.

“Master Fung? You wanted to see me?” Raimundo found his master beside a small pond, decorated with patches of ice along its edge. Koi fish gently tread water sleepily at the base of the pond.

“Yes, Raimundo,” Master Fung bowed back as Raimundo came to meet him, “Walk with me please.”

Master and student tread through the gardens for a length of time before Master Fung spoke again.

“The Scarlet Ring…” Master Fung paused to look upward, “It is putting on quite a performance today, don’t you think?”

Raimundo hesitantly joined his master’s gaze upward, “Yes, Master Fung.”

“Magick is stirring.” the older monk murmured, “The world is a new place now. We must all adapt.” Master Fung turned to his student. “And you most of all, know what it is like to adapt. You have struggled with inner demons over the years.”

Raimundo cast his eyes downward, to the snow at his feet.

“And that is why you shall begin a new kind of training. It is time you learned some of the Dragon of Wood’s… additional… responsibilities.”

Chapter Text

Menacing spires overshadowed a long courtyard beneath the twisted and towering form of a great gothic structure. Gears and stone latticed its precarious form, and curls of smoke rose from the surrounding buildings, which stretched far on either side of its complex. Severe stone arches framed the entrance yard atop steep stone steps, their dark portals watching all those coming and going.

A tear came to Jack’s eye--it was the most beautiful construction she had ever seen.

“Don’t cry,” Maliha hissed, steadying herself on Jack’s shoulder.

“Right,” Jack sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“Chin up. You look like a goldfish.” Maliha chirruped in irritation.

Jack snapped her mouth shut and took a deep breath before stepping beyond the iron gate, which stood imposing over her, emblazoned with a great and monstrous eye.

A motley assortment of dangerous types and odd creatures lurked about on the gallery steps and peered out from beneath the darkened arches, chatting to one another and paying the newcomer absolutely no mind.

Jack passed a bizarrely shaped fountain, which featured a display of esoteric geometry that was difficult to look at.

“Welcome to the Ocular Academy,” Maliha waved a wing, giving the introduction an appropriately, if a bit mockingly, spooky tone. She cleared her throat with a squawk as she continued. “Actually its full name is The Heinous Eye of the Dark Ocular Mysteries Academy, but nobody calls it that because it’s a right mouthful.”

“This place doesn’t show on any map I’ve ever seen. It must be protected by some kind of field right?” Jack whispered.

“Actually we’re in a phase-shifted pocket dimension. Something like… Well whatever you’ll learn about it soon enough.” Maliha cawed.

“I’ve never even heard of it…” Jack murmured.

Maliha sighed, “Well it wouldn’t be a very SECRET prestigious academy of dark ocular mysteries if every thug on the street knew about it now would it? Only the most rotten cream of the crop practitioners of Heylin magick get to study here.”

Jack grinned and opened her mouth to remark but Maliha intercepted.

“DON’T get a big head. … Bigger than it already is…” Maliha muttered the last part, struggling to keep her balance on Jack’s shoulder.

“Personally, I’m hoping they feed you to the pit monsters before the day is out,” she gave an evil hiss, that sounded much like a wicked smile might, were it to be a sound. “Now hurry up will you? Use those ridiculous human legs to get a move on.”

The young evildoer scurried through the yard to the imposing entrance doors. She outstretched her hand to embrace one of the handles, but yiped when the door groaned, only moments before her fingers could touch metal.

The portal creaked ajar with the sound of a coffin and out from its darkness stared an ugly, lopsided face that towered high above her. The hunched and gangling creature that peered around the threshold gave what appeared to be a grin of satisfaction at her fright and pulled back the door.

Jack gulped and inched her way, pressed against the other door’s frame, around the creature. The door banged shut behind her, nearly clipping her on her way in.

“That’s the doorlurker, Mx. Feratu,” Maliha whispered.

“Doorlurker?” Jack murmured back, as the gangling being shrank back into the shadows.

“Well… No one’s quite sure whether they’re a man or not… And besides, doorlurker is a much more proggressive term than ‘doorman’.” Maliha shrugged.

Jack gave a vague nod and halted while her eyes adjusted.

The deep echo of clockwork machinery rang through the space drawing her eyes upward. An enormous bladed pendulum--fashioned noticeably like a torture device--swung within a vast central spire, at the base of which she now stood. Galleries of passages rimmed the tower, which was octagonal in shape, stretching ever upward. Within the galleries and leaning on the railings, could be seen evildoers, students presumably, going about in the gloomy light that filtered from high above. All the while the sound of voices and the occasional shriek served as accompaniment to the baleful boom of the pendulum.

“Jonathan Spicer,” a prim voice came from Jack’s left, and she winced at the use of her full birth name.

“Actually, it’s JACK Spicer, you…” Jack turned and her voice trailed off.

There stood a slender woman, her hair done up in a tight bun. White streaks cut through her coal-black hair, and dark rimmed glasses rested on her tiny, pointed nose. She couldn’t have been more than 5’3”, but something in the intensity of her gaze stilled Jack’s lips.

“Right. I don’t care.” She stated, absently brushing back a loose curl along her hairline and checking a slim black log book. She sighed and a sardonic look came to her sharp features. Her lips drew back into a taught smile, that bespoke a predator's toothy grimace and Jack was struck by the fabulous whiteness of her teeth.

“You’re Faustus’s boy,” she said through those perfect teeth, and she snapped the book shut.

Jack swallowed hard.

“Come this way, little boy,” the woman said with a thin veneer of sweetness overlaid atop a thick layer of mockery.

Chapter Text

“And you are…” Jack said, scurrying to keep up with the petite woman, who moved surprisingly fast for her diminutive stature.

“Ms. Fowlweather,” the woman sighed, “personal assistant to the Headmaster.”

“The headmaster. Is that where we’re going now or--”

The woman halted suddenly and gave a shrill laugh.

“Oh please. As if the Ocular Academy’s Headmaster would have time for a little thing like you.” Ms. Foulweather chittered derisively.

Maliha also let out a squawk of amusement.

Jack’s face grew hot beneath their laughter and she tightened her jaw in an effort to hide her embarrassment. When she looked up she was caught suddenly by the sharp nail of her guide, pressed against her nose.

“Word of warning. I would watch yourself and your mouth while you’re here. Your being here has pissed off a lot of unsavory people.” Ms. Fowlweather narrowed her beady eyes, and then turned without elaborating.

“You’ll be staying in the western dormitory, where the human boys stay. Don’t get any cute ideas about visiting the girls across campus. Human babies are irritating and slow down academic progress.” The woman spoke quickly as she unlocked a heavy door. “The only babymaking allowed on campus is for strictly sanctioned sacrificial purposes. Something a neophyte like yourself won’t have to worry about for some time.”

Jack gawped, but quickly snapped her mouth shut when Ms. Fowlweather turned to hand Jack a key. It looked mostly like an ordinary key but bore an engraved sigil on its head.

“Don’t lose your key,” Ms. Fowlweather clucked.

A trip up a wide spiral stair brought them to a wide and high-vaulted hall. Youths loitered about, beside the large gothic windows and connected arched passageways. They cast sidelong glances and little jabs at one another as Jack passed, and she felt the distinct impression that she was being sized-up, as a predator might do upon seeing a new bit of potential prey. She kept her chin high but her eyes cast low, watching Ms. Fowlweather’s dark heels click across the stone corridor.

After a few turns, Jack nearly collided with her guide who abruptly halted, setting Maliha flapping with irritation.

“You’ll be staying here,” Ms. Fowlweather said.

She gestured laconically to a large circular room in which a series of beds were arranged. The beds were arranged on two layers, with the outer ring of beds elevated by several steps and reachable via sets of small wooden steps. A few small circular tables sat in the center of the room, but other than that the room was relatively sparse. Aged curtains hung around some of the beds, and a large wood stove sat squat against the rightmost point of the tower chamber. Above, a cob-webbed chandelier lit the room, along with a few narrow windows that lined the outermost walls.

Jack recognized immediately the same feeling she always had in any boarding school dorm room, and her stomach dropped.

“Your bed is up there,” Ms. Fowlweather pointed to a bed on the upper level, near the door. “Your books and materials are in a trunk at the bed’s base, along with your additional materials for catch-up. Laundry for you is on Tuesdays. You have to wash it yourself. And I recommend you take this…”

She held out a curved knife.

As Jack reached to take it, the woman dropped it. It stuck upright into the wooden floor.

“Oops,” Ms. Fowlweather said, watching as Jack slowly removed the blade from the floorboards. “Keep it under your pillow.”

With that final piece of advice, and a wicked little smile, she left Jack standing, eyes wide and mouth dry in the doorway.

Chapter Text

Jack hesitantly opened one of the jars left for her in the trunk. The name of the ingredient was written in a script she did not recognize and inside was a viscous green substance. Cautiously, she gave it a sniff, and then struggled frantically to quell the gagging sensation that rose in her throat. With a sharp cough she snapped the jar shut.

Gingerly she set the jar down and logged its description in her personal database. Though the campus pocket-dimension lacked wifi, her hybrid technology appeared to work fine, much to her relief. The feeling of her datapad was a comfort in her hands, and as she logged her books and ingredients, her mind sifted through ideas of how to penetrate the dimensional barrier in order to connect with her external network.

The majority of materials provided for her were books and tomes--most of which she had already read during the previous weeks perusing Faustus’s secret library, before she was whisked away to this place. The rest was an eclectic assortment of ritual tools, alchemical ingredients and devices. Along with the basics like notepaper, paperclips and the like. Some of the items she recognized, others--such as the green substance--she did not.

Jack delicately turned over an iridescent feather in her fingers, wondering its origin, when the curtains surrounding her bed pulled back with a sudden whoosh. She gave a yelp and her face grew immediately hot in embarrassment as her eyes met those of a tall young man, who stood over her. He bore wiry hair arranged in messy, multi-colored dreadlocks that framed a pocked, albeit handsome, face.

“Oh. You’re the new boy. Here.” The young man thrust a piece of paper under her nose.

She leaned back in surprise and cautiously took the pamphlet.

“That’s your class schedule. I’m the lucky guy who gets to show you around. Which I won’t do. Just look at this map,” he thrust another piece of paper under her nose, nearly hitting her in the face, “and you’ll be fine. Good luck.”

The curtains slid unceremoniously shut.

Jack blinked, and frowned at the musty gossamer for several long moments before slowly opening the parchment in her hands. As the paper unfolded, both her mouth and her stomach dropped at the course load. Most of the classes on her schedule were intermediate or above, and she wondered how in hell she would fare without looking a fool. Faustus clearly thought her capable--that or he was testing her to see if she failed.

Jack’s grip on the class schedule hardened, as did her resolve. Either way, she was going to prove to the old man--to ALL of them--that she could take it.

“Okay. Right.” she murmured, and reached for the first tome.

* * *

“Using the imbued threads you prepared for your homework, suture the thoracic cavity. Keep your spacing consistent and the skin EVEN--nobody wants a slipshod zombie.”

With red cheeks, Jack watched the other students pull out their homework assignments and begin work on their Y incisions. She shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other and scowled at her own cadaver. It offered only a blank stare in return.

“Use some of mine.”

The flush in Jack’s cheeks deepened at the sound of a fellow student’s approach. A spool of thread came into her periphery and her gaze followed the hand that held it, up the arm and to the caramel-colored face that stared back at her. A girl not much older than herself offered the spool with a friendly shrug.

“You need some don’t you?” she said.

Jack mouthed a few words inaudibly, stuttering, before finally nodding. She took the thread, careful to avoid eye contact.

The girl leaned to the side and gave a smile, observing Jack’s fingers as she began to stitch.

“You’ve done this before,” the girl observed.

Jack’s blush spread further and she nodded. To her dismay, the other student remained standing where she was, watching Jack work.

When Jack knit the final stitch closed, the young woman gave a nod of approval.

“Your work is precise. I like that.” she said.

Jack awkwardly nudged the spool toward her, trying to give the girl a hint.

The girl took the thread but remained where she was.

“I skipped the biology 100 courses too,” the girl said, and then she paused, “um, do you have a medical background?”

Jack’s face remained downward as she answered, “N-no. Well--Something like that.”

“My name is Lapis.”

The young woman extended a latex-gloved hand, which Jack took only after a long and awkward few seconds.

“Jack…” she mumbled.

“You, um, you’re that new student. People are talking about you.” Lapis offered shyly.

A wave of panic shot through Jack’s core and her grip on her autopsy table’s edge tightened.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not…” Lapis shook her head and then fell silent. She craned her neck again to get a good look at Jack. “Hm… You don’t look like much…” she murmured.

Jack’s eyes darted to meet those of her fellow and glared.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped.

The girl looked startled for a moment, as if she had not realized her thought had been spoken aloud.

“Oh. That was rude…” she mumbled, “I mean--I’m just saying that you’re small.”

Jack stared hard at her peer.

“N-no, not small. Well, yes. But I mean young… And… Not… Much…”

A painfully long amount of time passed between them.

“Um. Wow. Sorry. See, I’m more used to talking to dead people.” Lapis smiled, and then frowned. “Not that I don’t talk to living people too.”

Jack’s gaze softened into a cynical stare.

“Can we… Start over?” Lapis shrugged sheepishly.

* * *

“So… You’re from Egypt… And your special interest is necromancy? Isn’t that a bit on-the-nose?” Jack posited.

Lapis chuckled, “Yes. But it’s kind of a family business, you know?”

“Right…” Jack mumbled.

Lapis gave an awkward laugh and fell quiet again.

“So… What is your family like?” she said at last, in a plane attempt to make mundane conversation.

“Terrible,” Jack replied darkly.

“Oh, that’s lovely,” Lapis said brightly.

“No. Not that kind of terrible. Terrible terrible. They’re dicks.” Jack said.

“Oh…” Lapis murmured.

Another silence fell upon the two as they cut through one of the campus’s many courtyards, on their way to their respective classes.

“What I said about other students talking about you, I don’t want you to worry. It’s no big deal.” Lapis offered with a kind shake of the head. “People are just saying--”

“‘Ey! It’s the Xiaolin Dragon!” a voice called from across the stone yard.

“...that…” Lapis trailed off.

“Aren’t you a little far from your temple?”

A lithe, square-shouldered young man strode toward them, accompanied by three others. He had a roguish smile and a flash of dyed white hair, swept back in an attractive mane.

Jack stood stiff, ready for a fight, as the posse approached.

Lapis shrunk back, taking a few steps behind Jack, clutching her books tighter.

“Hm,” The young man said, flicking Jack’s collar, “Doesn’t look like much.”

“That’s what I… said…” Lapis began but trailed off again, remembering that Jack was standing right there.

Jack set her jaw tight and made a move to walk around the young man, but he easily sidestepped into her path.

“What’s your name, kid?” The rakish young man asked.

Jack took another step to walk around him.

“He asked you a question,” one of the young man’s posse shoved her back.

“Hey, easy, Tor,” the young man waved his hand, “Seriously, kid, what’s your name?”

Jack sighed inwardly and then looked the young man straight in the eyes.

“Jack Spicer. Don’t forget it.” she stated, her voice clear. She glared as she spoke.

The young man nodded, mulling over her presentation, and he smiled again.

“Alright. The name’s Malcolm. Malcolm Gérard.” He extended his hand, “Don’t YOU forget it.”

Jack considered him suspiciously and then stepped around him.

Gérard gave a brief twitch of the lips and withdrew his hand, still holding a smile. He watched her go, with his posse-members shaking their heads and muttering to one another, and his smile slowly turned into a lour.

Chapter Text

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ANNOUNCEMENT:

This is just a notice that, unfortunately, the original writer of this fic has passed away due to long term health complications. Right now we (their family) are just grieving. Hopefully one of us can pick this up again once things are more stable. We have their notes and an idea of where they planned to go. We are not abandoning their work. We just need time to figure out what to do. Time will tell.

We know that their health started to decline during writing the first part of the series, so they did end up rushing a lot toward the end. I think they sensed that they had not a lot of time... We just know they were pretty unhappy with the rush job, so we may go back and edit / clean up the original work. We have to decide whether we want to preserve it or make it into something they would have actually wanted.

My best wishes to everyone here and my sincere appreciation to all who read this work that was so important to them.

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