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 Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 11:41 am
"So, I find myself in this dilemna."
...
"Least you aren't---"
"Silence."
Well, there wasn't much Jack could do against the Will. The Will had created him afterall. Along with a few other entities. The Will couldn't interact with the plane of Gaia directly, because of who it was and the limits that it had. All that the Will could do is make avatars of ideas and concepts.
"So... it's not your time to be gone from Gaia yet. At least I don't think so... There will be a test first."
"Does this mean I get another chance?"
Jack asked the large white light with the black moving specs, noticing that even when he talked, there were black lines moving this way and that. He thought he heard, no felt, a keyboard typing...
"Well, not exactly. All that training bullshit, is just bullshit. You are going to need to learn how to use that stuff... and you are going to be limited from having any of that anti-supernatural stuff."
"But..."
"No buts. I know what is better for you. Your magical power will be good enough. You'll anger a few, but you are a kid. That's your role in life. Your personality will still be similar, but all you must do now is focus on living life with your magic and gaining friends."
"My guns?"
"I suggest, unless you want to meet me again and for the last time, you don't play with them anymore. Or at least untill you learn to handle them properly. This is a second chance, don't mess it up."
Jack found himself unable to comply, but the image of the Firebrand started to appear before his eyes.
On the flip side.
A white portal could be seen opening up where the hole in the Firebrand wall was.
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:38 pm
The salt shaker dropped out of her hand as Owle's face went slack. As it clattered to the floor she sank down until she was sitting, knees drawn up to her chest. Arms around her knees, faced buried in her arms, she began to sob uncontrollably, now and again mumbling incomprehensible phrases.
"Ehcuimno meh, eluh tehalim..."
Sitting there, shaking back and forth as she cried, Owle seemed not to notice anything else around her.
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:46 pm
She nodded to the man, then simply handed him a card. It was blank, save for a phone number, a name, and the words 'mercenary for hire.'
"I owe you a debt. A small favor, nothing more. Have you need of me, ask. For now we must tend to our own as you say."
She made sure the two men were gone, then surveyed the carnage. Owle would be the best one to bind and care for wounds, but the girl seemed..."Owle?"
Flare took a step towards her, glancing at both Paul and the glowing white light that appeared. Figuring the light was some other manifestation of whatever power had saved them, Flare focused her attention on Owle instead.
Owle generally didn't threaten violence to people, and she had no reason to even think of hurling a salt shaker at Paul. And then to break down into tears...
At a loss, Flare found herself echoing Paul. "What's wrong?"
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:50 pm
"So, now for the test."
Jack could see the inside of the Firebrand, the mess he made, and a few blurred bodies moving around.
"You are lucky there is a significant amount of power regulating that place."
Jack felt a question, he wanted to know why he was lucky.
An image blurred again, showing him the last moments before he died. It showed him pulling the pin, and shrapnel going into every person in that establishment. It showed blood, it showed gore, and it made Jack cringe to the core. It was as though his very soul had just been shocked. The image rested on a bloody and laid out Owle.
"But because there is a lot of power there..."
The Will showed him the insides as they were, with one injured and others moving about.
"Voice..."
Jack felt an extreme amount of pain rip through his body. His body, oh it was good to have a body again. Jack couldn't see his body though, he was surrounded in white. It didn't make any sense, why--
Pain. Lots of it.
"AAARRRRGGHH!!"
A loud scream came from the white light, a bloodcurdling type that made people cringe. It was the scream of a dying man, or in this case, one whose soul and body was constantly being ripped with pain.
"SOMEONE... PLEASE..."
More of it, a steady stream of pain. Blood ran down his body. Jack looked to see blood, pieces of metal sticking in him. They popped out and fell clinking on the bar floor from the portal, but still, more and more pain.
"PLEASE.... SOMEONE HELP ME!!"
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:02 pm
At the sound of Flare's voice, Owle looked up, her light brown eyes meeting Flare's crimson ones. Slowly, the girl stopped sobbing, her hands coming up to wipe away the tears. She stood up, and smiled.
"Ahah!" she declared, and went vaulting across the room, throwing herself bodily into Flare's arms with unrestrained force. Her arms would wrap around any part of the demoness she could reach in a constricting hug.
"Ahah!" she said again. Then Jack's voice came screaming out of the portal.
"Ahah ehcuimno meh!"
She scurried behind Flare, letting go briefly only to cling to her again. From this position of safety, she stuck her tongue out at the portal.
In the meanwhile, there would be a small break in the white around the portal. A tiny bit of gold.
Lingering power, no longer quite visible, but there to be sure the building wouldn't fall down before it was repaired. Lingering power, one tiny bit of sanity given voice.
"You nearly killed us all."
The voice was soothing, calm, and audible only to Jack. It sounded like Owle, only something was off. Something was wrong. And she was nowhere near him to be speaking to him.
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:09 pm
Clink.
Clink.
Clink.
Rounds that were embedded in, what should have been a corpse spread all over the Firebrand, fell out of the white light. Jack would have loved to respond, how he saw them dead, how sorry he was, everything.
"AHHHHHH!!!!"
However, having the pain he was going through, wouldn't quite allow it. This was where the Will had more-or-less set Jack up for a fall. Jack was completely dependant on the compassion of another being. No magic, no weapon, nothing Jack could do would save him now.
The Will let go of Jack and gave him to the mercy of others, the Will was done with him. If Jack staid there for more than ten minutes, his soul would burn up and it'd be the end.
"I--AHHHH!! Soorr-ARGGHHH Good, oh God oh God...."
There's a point of pain that the body reaches, where it stops screaming out for help. It tries to deny the shock that it creates. When possible, a person will black out at this stage. However, because of something the Will did, Jack couldn't just black out. All he could was cry, writhe, and attempt to deny the pain that burnt at his very soul.
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:11 pm
"ACK!" a very undignified shout erupted from Flare as Owle tackle-hugged her, knocking the demoness to the floor. "Get off of me!" she screamed, forgetting for the moment that anything was wrong with Owle. She was used to her sister doing such things to annoy her.
Flare sat up quickly when Owle released her, but before she could stand Owle's arms were wrapped around her again. Flare turned to Paul for help. "Get her off me!" she demanded of him.
Screams. Screams coming from the white light. And the idiot named Jack's voice, begging for help.
Flare looked down at the girl. Surely she would be upset if her friend died? Flare's own inclination was to leave him burning, or perhaps pull him out to have the satisfaction of burning him herself. But the girl would never...
...she was sticking her tongue out at him as he pleaded for mercy.
Granted Owle wasn't in her right mind, but that little bit of permission was all Flare was going to need.
I wonder what will happen if I stick a rapier through there...
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:16 pm
"All you can say is sorry?"
Jack would feel the impression of the gold light tilting its head to one side. "Hmm..."
A sigh would come. A tiny bit of golden force would latch around his ankle, and begin slowly, slowly, tugging him out into the Firebrand.
In the meanwhile, Owle just collapsed on the floor, laughing her head off. Pointing and laughing at the portal, it seemed like whatever was going on it was really very funny!
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:19 pm
And a man coughing blood and in tatters with scars all over a nude body, would slowly be dragged into the Firebrand. Hair tangled and matted, instead of slicked back like normal.
He looked like a kid, and indeed he was.
No memory 'cept how to fight with his hands, and that he'd met someone named Owle and almost killed her came to mind.
If he didn't get medical attention, he'd die anyway.
A cosmic joke of an elf that had lived long past his expiration date.
Jack would black out from all the pain, and not having the magic keeping him conience.
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:27 pm
The power would do two things, once it got him out.
First, it would lift his body up and pitch him outside the Firebrand, so his body lay mostly in the sand, with one foot propped in the hole his explosives had made.
Then it would tie him to the magic that was keeping the hole in the wall stable.
Both the Firebrand and Jack would be held up, kept alive until they could be repaired. Though the magic had only been meant to support the Firebrand, it could technically keep Jack as well so long as he remained in contact with it.
...which was the only reason the power hadn't thrown him farther. Into the salt water.
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:30 pm
"..."
End scene till conciosness is regained.
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 3:40 pm
Paul, with an attempt to restore his dignity, walks over to aid in peeling Owle off the woman...at least he would have. For some reason, Owle collapses off to point and laugh at...oh. The idiot. The very naked idiot. Paul's left eyebrow climbs upward with his confusion...which exceeds the physical limits of his eyebrow as the lifeless form of the soldier is somehow chucked out the door of the tavern to thud into the sands. All Paul can do now is give Flare a very nonplussed look. He is entirely at a loss for words.
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