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 Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2023 1:15 pm
Backdated to November Jack stumbled out of the guest room to the smell of coffee and bacon.
He regretted drinking so much the night before as soon as the sun hit his eyes. At least someone — probably Paris, bless her — had left a glass of water and aspirin on the bedside table. He remembered her picking them up. Remembered the worry on her face instead of the usual laughter. Remembered dropping onto the bed in yesterday’s clothes. Then nothing but the sweet oblivion of sleep.
It hadn’t been enough to convince him that the things he’d seen and become last night had been a dream.
The monster. The lightning bird. The name — Bilskirnir. Page of Jupiter. That was instinctive. He knew it like he knew that his name was Jackson Gale.
The rest of it? None of it made any sense.
Jack followed the smell of coffee and bacon into the kitchen, collapsing onto one of the chairs at the counter bar beside Chris.
“Have I told you lately that I love you?” he asked Paris.“I’m already taken,” Paris completed the familiar exchange, standing at the stove scrambling eggs.
She could smile now. For a moment, anyway. There hadn’t been much to smile about over the last year, but for the sake of normalcy, she could make herself do it when she had to. A part of her thought what happened last night should’ve been expected; it seemed everyone they knew these days had a powered alter ego. Another part of her regretted that Jack had to be drawn into these things at all, but deep down she was just glad he hadn’t been snatched up by the Negaverse instead.
Paris sighed and began scooping food onto plates. Bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, toast. She poured a cup of coffee for Jack and set it all in front of him, returning with the second plate to set in front of Chris.
“Would you care to explain why either of you thought getting into a fight with a youma while you were drunk was a good idea? You’re lucky it was a weakling.”
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Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2023 6:02 am
“What if I said it attacked us first?” Chris replied sheepishly between nursing his cup of coffee. It wasn’t often that he got drunk, but being out with Jack was a leading cause.
“That’s what they’re called, by the way,” he said to Jack as he set the mug down so he could pick up a fork instead, along with a quiet thanks to Paris for the food she gave them.
“Sorry, didn’t want to get into details last night, in case you thought it was just the alcohol talking,” he explained to Jack, before sticking a forkful of hashbrowns in his mouth. “You’re a knight of Jupiter. I am too. You can tell by the symbols that knights wear.”
He didn’t want to overwhelm Jack with all of the details immediately, but he figured the basics would be okay.
“Do you know your knight name? I’m Valhalla.”
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Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2023 7:32 am
“I did think it was the alcohol talking,” Jack admitted.
He wasn’t sheepish. He wasn’t aware there was anything to be sheepish about. They went out for drinks all the time, especially during the off season. It was just that, every other time, they’d avoided all types of monsters. Youma? He thought that’s what Paris said. It sounded like gibberish to him.
Jack took a sip of his coffee. The sooner he had a belly full of caffeine and good food, the better off he’d be.
“Uh… Bilskirnir,” he answered Chris. “I know that much. I grabbed that rock and it just kind of happened. The name and the Jupiter thing were the only things that made sense, though. Which is weird, ‘cause I didn’t know them before, you know?”“Bilskirnir,” Paris said. Her brows furrowed and her mouth curved into a frown. She got a bit of a far away look on her face, the way she often did when she was trying to remember.
Of all the memories she’d gained from Liesel, nothing stood out about Bilskirnir. Flashes, mostly. A name. A face. Maybe Liesel hadn’t had time to know him.
“I think you died young. Soon after you finished the Academy. Or he did. You could be from the bloodline like—”
Like Empyrean had been. Paris couldn’t finish the thought.“Sorry, what?” Jack said, flabbergasted. “But I’m not dead?”
He looked down at himself, like he needed to make sure. He still had his body, and his clothes. When he pinched his own arm, it hurt.
Yeah, definitely still alive, then.
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2023 6:48 am
Chris watched Paris quietly as she got that far away look in her eyes. He knew she was trying to remember something.
“The Bilskirnir before you,” Chris tried to reassure Jack, knowing it was a lot to work through for the first time.
“A thousand years ago, there were others who had our names. You are either from Bilskirnir’s bloodline, or your starseed has been reincarnated, like mine was. It’s… like your soul. It’s also what the youma want. And some pretty shady people in an organization called the Negaverse. That’s where the youma are from. They take starseeds and energy, and they kill knights and Senshi.”
He paused to glance over at Paris again. He didn’t want to just tell Jack that Paris was a Senshi, but it was better that Jack had connections, especially going forward.
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2023 7:13 am
“Dude, what?”
Jack was pretty sure he’d said that a lot last night.
He didn’t think anyone could blame him. He had no idea what Chris was talking about. Youma and Nega-things. Starseeds? Souls? Rebirth? If it was anyone else saying this stuff, Jack would assume it was a joke. The only reason he didn’t think that now was because 1) he’d seen the monster, and 2) Chris’s sense of humor didn’t extend to this sort of stuff. Sometimes Jack accused him of not having a sense of humor at all.
So Jack shook his head, thinking maybe that would reorient him. All it did was make his brain throb uncomfortably. He scratched his fingers through his off season growth of facial hair instead, rubbing at his jaw.
“What are you talking about? What’s a Senshi?”“I think the word itself means soldier,” Paris said, “but as for what we are, I guess the social aspect of that differed from culture to culture. As far as our powers, our starseeds share a connection with our homeworlds. It might be a planet, a moon, a star, maybe a comet or an asteroid. Mine is Ganymede.”“Like Zeus’ twink?” Jack asked.Paris opened her mouth like she meant to answer, then closed it like she couldn’t think of what to say. Opened it again. Closed it. She frowned and folded her arms over her chest, then forced herself to uncross them, dropping her hands to the counter to tap at the granite with her fingers.“I only know that because I took a class on Marlowe in college to cover a required credit,” Jack explained. “Dido, I think is the play he was in.”“Ganymede’s a moon of Jupiter,” Paris said, defensively. “Each senshi has a power sphere, something they represent. It’s how our powers manifest. Mine is lust.”“That’s hot.”Paris laughed. “It can be.”“Cryptic,” Jack said. “What about knights, then? How are we different from senshi?”
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2023 7:30 am
It took a lot for Chris to keep his mouth shut during Jack and Paris’ exchange. He solved the problem by shoving several bites into his mouth at once, and then downing it all with coffee. Even still, he couldn’t stop himself from grinning with amusement.
“Knights get their power from their Wonder. We keep it safe in exchange for the power it gives us. Usually similar knights have similar powers. Jupiter knights tend to have powers based in weather, although that’s not always the case. So far, we’ve met knights with Wonders for each planet in the solar system, including Pluto. But there’s also knights that protect Wonders on Ganymede and a few others. The Moon has knights too, but… I don’t think they existed a thousand years ago,” he said with a glance over at Paris again. If any of them knew, it would be her.
“You won’t have any magic yet. Sorry. Once you get a little more experience you’ll probably get something more than that glass ball to work with.” Hopefully.
“Oh… and it’s really important that you keep this a secret. If the Negaverse finds out you’re a knight, or anyone you know is a knight or senshi, it could be the last you see of them.”
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2023 7:33 am
Paris shook her head in response to Chris’s glance. To her knowledge, Knights of the Moon were a modern phenomena.“Double cryptic,” Jack said, missing the exchange of glances as he wolfed down some of his food. His mannerisms might not be the most refined, but who could blame him? Paris was a good cook.
Whether there’d been Knights of the Moon several lifetimes ago didn’t make any difference to Jack, considering he hadn’t even known they existed at the current time until this very second. The Moon, Jupiter, Pluto, it was all the same to him. There shouldn’t be anything on any of them. Humans hadn’t even gone anywhere beyond the moon. He was pretty sure robots on Mars didn’t count.
“What is the Negaverse, exactly?”“They get their powers from Chaos,” Paris explained, “which can exist in various forms, but regardless of where it came from, it poisons and corrupts. It’s destroyed worlds. The biggest threat to Earth right now is a Chaos known as Metallia. The Negaverse is her army. They rely less on magic and more on weaponry. They can teleport. They drain energy and take starseeds, like Chris said. They control the youma, to an extent. You’ll become familiar with them soon, if you keep powering up.”“Do I have to?” Jack asked, out of genuine curiosity.“No,” Paris said. “No one will force you. But if you’re anything like the rest of us, now that you have these powers, you’ll be more aware of all the odd things that go on around the city. You might be drawn into them whether you want to be or not.”Jack rubbed at his jaw again, consideringly.
He wondered if he should be more surprised. He’d just learned magic and monsters were real. Some fantastical superhero war had apparently been going on all this time without him noticing, and some of his friends not only knew about it, they were superheroes themselves.
It should be a lot to take in.
Jack took it all in stride.
He glanced at Chris beside him.
“So several years ago, back when you were having a rough time… did that have anything to do with all this?” he asked. “Didn’t you give some bogus excuse like you were struck by lightning or something? I remember thinking it seemed kinda like BS, but everyone went along with it, so there wasn’t any point in questioning it as long as you got better.”
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2023 7:37 am
Chris had been listening quietly as Paris explained the Negaverse, but when Jack turned the questions to him, he offered him a reassuring smile.
“I’ve always appreciated your support. Thank you, Jack. But yes, it did have to do with the Negaverse. They go by a ranking system, and one of their highest, a General Queen, tried corrupting my starseed. That’s what they have to do to force people to join them. Paris managed to stop it from happening,” he said as he reached across the counter to offer his hand to her, clearly a request for hers.
“But, ah, I did get electrocuted by Kyrie during the fight,” he admitted with a sheepish grin, and then clarified, “The patronus.”
He hoped this wasn’t too much for Jack, but he seemed to be taking it pretty well.
“My starseed was damaged in the process of so much Chaos being put into it. I did lose a few years of my memories. I couldn’t use any of my powers. I thought the General Queen - Laurelite - had killed Kyrie, but luckily she just needed time to recover. My starseed was leaking energy, so I was tired all the time. No one knew how to fix it. But… things are better now. It just took time. And a lot of support and patience from others.”
He knew how hard it must have been for Paris, and he still felt guilty that he hadn’t been able to do anything during the time his magic was gone, but he was so proud of her for everything she’d become.
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2023 12:15 pm
Paris took Chris’s hand. She didn’t interrupt, letting him explain. She didn’t add anything further to the topic. Jack would know everything, eventually. About the Negaverse. About the White Moon. About the Moon Kingdom. About who they’d been and what their priorities were now. Paris didn’t want to overload him with information before he was ready to handle it.
It hadn’t been easy for her, being involved in the war. At the start, she would have given anything to be normal again.“Dude,” Jack said. The look he shot Chris was admonishing. “Why didn’t you tell me?”“We had no way of knowing if you were in the Negaverse or not,” Paris explained. “It’s not like we can come out and ask anyone. No one can know, except for others like us. Metallia’s influence stretches far. The only place on Earth safe for us is Destiny City, and you’ve already seen how unsafe it is here. You try to power up anywhere else and you’ll probably end up dead.”“I could end up dead here, too,” Jack assumed. “Just my odds of survival are better, is what you’re saying.”Paris nodded, face marred by a serious frown.“How long have you guys been doing this?”“It’ll be twelve years for me in February. I was sixteen, almost seventeen. Chris became Valhalla a few months later, soon after we met.”“Damn,” Jack looked between them both in disbelief. “This whole time…”
And he’d been none the wiser. Hadn’t even noticed there was anything off about either of them, except the aforementioned time Chris was “struck by lightning.” Now that he’d seen the bird for himself, Jack had to admit the excuse was legit even if it wasn’t the entire story.
He paused at the thought, muttering lowly to himself, “I knew it was a patronus.”Paris laughed. It was difficult to laugh about any of it now, with so many people dead and gone — missing or corrupted, potentially never to be seen again. She was lucky Chris was still here with her. She was lucky to be alive herself.
She got tired of luck. She wanted victory outright.
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2023 12:58 pm
“I wanted to tell you,” Chris frowned, looking from Jack to Paris and giving her hand a squeeze. “I wanted to tell you everything. To make sure you kept an eye out for anything strange, to protect yourself. But there’s more involved than just whether I trust you or not. I do, by the way.” Just in case Jack was questioning it.
“We’ve lost so much over the years… The Negaverse is the reason Paris went missing early last year. We were lucky to get her back at all.” He paused, pressed his lips together thoughtfully and quietly added, “Dad didn’t get so lucky. He was a knight too… Empyrean of Jupiter.”
There was no point in keeping it a secret now. And that was why Chris continued, although he glanced over at Paris once more to make sure she wasn’t going to stop him.
“Most of our family is involved, Jack. Mom, Peter, Michael… Michael’s husband and kid.”
Maybe Michael would be the most upset about him telling Jack that he was powered as well, but Jack deserved a chance to have connections. It was safer in numbers. Maybe part of the problem they had was their inability to band together properly.
He was glad that Paris could laugh, at least. Even if it was just from Jack being silly. He was used to Jack and had expected he would hold onto the patronus thing, and maybe his humor would at least keep him alive. Or at least not immediately drown in the hopelessness that things seemed.
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2023 1:00 pm
“Dude, your dad?”
He knew Chris’s father had died, but the details had been kind of sketchy. A lot of details were kind of sketchy when it came to Chris, now that Jack thought about it. Random injuries he didn’t have great explanations for. Odd absences. Always that air of something strange. It sometimes felt like he didn’t truly know Chris, despite how closely they worked together over the years.
Jack supposed this explained all that.
“Is that common?” he asked. “For whole families to be involved?”“I don’t know,” Paris admitted. “It might be, to a degree. The worse things’ve gotten, the more protective we’ve been about our identities, so I don’t know enough people to compare.”Jack considered his own family. He was the only one of them in Destiny City, the only one in any sort of safe environment for what he’d become. If something war related ever happened to his parents or his brother or sister, he might never know the truth of it.
He drew in a breath and let it out on a heavy sigh. “This is wild.”Paris tried for a supportive smile, but with Beau’s death so fresh on her mind, the expression quickly grew strained. She blamed herself for it. They should have killed Jet as soon as he appeared. She’d regret letting him live for the rest of her life.“I’m sorry,” Jack said, sensing their sadness.Paris shrugged. Maybe one day, if they survived long enough, they’d get used to loss.
“I’m sorry you’re involved now,” she countered. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”“I’ll be careful,” Jack promised. “You don’t have to worry about me.”“I worry about everyone.”
Paris gave Chris’s hand another squeeze.
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