(Wednesday, 21st of Dancing Fool Moon, 2021)
It was mission time, and Jack was in a shuttle with Simo and Jojo on either side of him. Sitting across from Jack was Nico, Rico, and Rasputin. The mission was taking place in a city somewhere in Christus, so Herakles chose a team consisting of three people that were able to keep collateral damage at a minimum (Rico, Nico, and Rasputin), one guy who specializes in destruction (Jack), a sniper (Simo), and a badger. The shuttle slowly lowered, and the back door opened to reveal that your group was to land atop one of the buildings. Once the hatch was fully opened, Jack slung his bag over his shoulder and Jojo climbed onto his opposite shoulder. The five of them jumped off the shuttle and you looked around the city, noticing that instead of roads, this city had waterways.
"Woah, this city must save a fortune on gas." Jack remarked as Nico turned into a mirror, wrapping the cloth around Rico's leg. "So Rasputin, what's our mission here?"
"It's a pretty simple mission, we just need to hunt down some magically enhanced crocodiles." Rasputin answered before looking at Jack to see that some kind of magic was flowing into his body, and given the direction, it was coming from underground. "...Is that normal?"
"Absorbing the magic?" Jack asked whilst summoning London Bridge, a set of gray leather gloves, to cover his hands. Then he paired it up with Three Tips, a rapier. "Yeah, happens pretty often, I wonder what magic I'm getting this time."
"Maybe the tail is a hint." Simo looked at something behind Jack, and he looked behind himself to see a coyote's tail was sticking out of his lower back.
"Oh no...I'M TURNING INTO A FURRY?!" Jack shouted as a panic began to engulf his body, while Simo simply glared at you.
"Has it occurred to you that this could be a shape shifting ability?" Rico asked Jack whilst looking around the area.
"Let me try then." Jack thought for a moment, trying to focus on changing his right arm into a dragon's claw, and amazingly, it worked. Then Jack tried turning his left arm into an iron cannon, and it worked! "Holy crap, I can turn my body into anything."
"Well that's good and all, but we have a job to do." Simo reminded Jack whilst cocking his rifle.
"Alright, let's find the alligators ." Rasputin looked down at the river roads below the group.
Jack crouched his right leg before launching himself high into the air, clutching some pebbles in his spare hand while Three Tips was at the ready. While Jack soared through the air thanks to his powerful right leg prosthetic, Jack looked down at the river roads, trying to find where the alligators could be. Lucky for Jack, his answer made itself obvious by swimming in the river road right below Jack. The alligators were absolutely massive, roughly the length of an entire school bus. As if that didn't make them obvious enough, this alligator had glowing blue stripes that resembled a zebra's. The glowing wasn't that bright, but it still made it easy to spot in broad daylight. Jack reeled the arm with pebbles back before throwing all three pebbles right at the alligator, hitting the tail, head, and back in quick succession. Thanks to the effect of London Bridge, the thrown pebbles struck base-ball sized holes straight through the alligator, allowing Jack to see the water underneath the gator.
"Yikes, looks like London Bridge's ability is no joke." Jack landed on a nearby rooftop, watching as the alligator's corpse slowly sank into the water. "I wish Mansa could have worded it better than 'Turns anything it touches into a weapon'."
From Jack's observation, London Bridge makes almost everything it touches 100x stronger, faster, and applies the same buff to its momentum whenever it's thrown. Blunt objects are made 100x sturdier while sharp objects are made 100x sharper. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on people or already powerful weapons, like the Artifacr, Shamsiel, Sakura, or the weapons the twins turn into. So far, the ability only seems to work with common weapons, mundane objects, and liquids.
"One down, gods know how many are left." Jack noticed how the alligator was swimming south, so it most likely came from the north. "Let's go to the North of the city."
Jack used his powerful leg and landed on the gator's sinking corpse before launching himself north, soaring over the city's river road. As he soared, his eyes landed on three more alligators just like the one he killed earlier. Jack was out of pebbles, so he landed on the first crocodile's head and prepared to pierce the back of its head with Three Tips. Jack pierced the back of the alligator's head before summoning Arachne, preparing the urumi sword in his spare hand. Jack jumped off the first gator and was now directly above the second gator, and Jack spun to deliver a light slash onto the back of the second alligator. Before he knew it, he was atop the third alligator, so he cut the top of its snout with the blade before landing in a nearby dock, which must have been a walkway for the city.
"Arachne, Cut." Jack said the command word, and out of nowhere, the two remaining gators were cut in half by an unknown force, and their cut bodies fluttered in the water like cloth. "Yikes, kind glad I can adjust your length so I don't cut anyone by accident."
Three Tips is a simple rapier that injects a poison that burns the nerves whenever it stings something, while Arachne has the power to 'stitch' and 'cut' anything it leaves so much as a scratch on. Good news, Arachne can adjust it's length, and its Urumi is just its longest form. Jack continued to jump towards the north of the city, and as he jumped, Jack saw four more alligators swimming in a line. He sent Three Tips and Arachne back home before you summoned Sky Daughter, a futuristic shotgun. Jack aimed down the iron sights of the gun, and fired, spewing forth lightning from the barrel and electrocuting all four alligators. Jack landed against one of the walls of the city's buildings before he finally reached the end of the river road. At the end of the river road, Jack found a cave.
"This looks ominous." Jack sent Sky Daughter back home and entered the cave to look around.
Jack wandered through the cave, noticing how dark it got the deeper he went into the cave. Jack's boot and prosthetic sunk into the ground, and he noticed how damp the dirt ground was. If Jack wasn't careful, he would slip. Jack felt how humid the air was around him, and he could smell water up ahead. Jack began to grow cautious, since he could hear movement in the water ahead. Jack summoned Pinocchio, which took the form of a freakish-looking doll. The worst part about it; it can move on its own. Jack pointed forward, and Pinocchio nodded before it began running down the hall like an excited child.
"Yeesh, I still get chills whenever I work with that thing." Jack continued to walk forward, and he found the room that the cave led to.
The room inside the cave was pretty large, and appeared to be nothing but a pool aside for the middle of the room and a walkway connecting the middle to the entrance. The middle of the room had a rock floor and a computer set up in the middle. At this computer was a three meter tall crocodile man, who was too busy typing at the computer to have noticed Jack. Swimming in the large pool around him were magically enhanced crocodiles, one of which was being ridden by Pinocchio. Jack summoned Four Horsemen, a rather grim looking scythe. Three transparent orbs hovered around Jack's body, the first orb was a lime green color and had a small crown inside of it, the second was a red orb with a small sword inside of it, and the third was an orange orb with a small set of scales in it. All three orbs were roughly the size of pumpkins.
"Oi, you, step away from the computer and put your hands in the air." Jack got the crocodile man's attention, and he stopped typing. "State your name, occupation, and deal."
"Name's Rex, I'm a scientist, and what do you mean by deal?" Rex turned around with his hands raised in the air, revealing that he was a crocodile man like Sobek, but muscular like a pro wrestler and wearing only a set of jeans. On his hip, he had a futuristic pistol.
"Careful Jack, the pistol on his hip is Remarkable Rocket, another s Artifact." Cronos's voice appeared in Jack's head, as vision in his left eye began to change. "I'm using my ability on you, Clairvoyance. At your level you can only see things five seconds in the future, but that should be enough for this guy."
"By 'deal' I mean 'Why are you here'?" Jack answered the crocodile man as he saw Pinocchio jump from gator to gator behind Rex. "And I'm not talking philosophy. I mean why are you here, in this cave?"
"Oh, I'm genetically engineering crocodiles to take over Christus." Rex explained without an ounce of hesitation. "Wait, now that I've told you my plans, I need to kill you."
"Understandable, but I don't plan on dying anytime soon." Jack prepared his scythe and took a breath in. "So nothing personal, Rex."
In his left eye, Jack saw that Rex grabbed his pistol and shot at him from the hip, hitting the archeologist stomach, then thigh, and finally ending it with a headshot. In real time however, he was only just grabbing his pistol. He aimed the pistol at Jack from his hip, but thanks to his future vision, Jack knew exactly where Rex was going to aim at him. Jack used the blade of his scythe to block the stomach shot, dodged the thigh shot, and ducked underneath the headshot. Rex was shocked to see Jack dodge his shots, so Jack rushed at him with the scythe. Using his clairvoyance, Jack was able to tell that Rex would swipe at his head, but Jack used Four Horsemen's scythe to plunge into Rex's arm. Jack pulled the scythe towards himself and grabbed the orange colored orb. Jack slammed the orb into Rex's chest, and it dissolved into Rex's body, causing the man to glow orange. Jack removed the scythe from Rex's body and used it to pole vault himself back away from the crocodile man, who slammed his unharmed arm down to try and crush Jack's smaller body. Jack then slammed his palm on the ground to balance himself out as he lowered his body.
"Pinocchio!" Jack called out to the puppet, and all the alligators swimming around the room shot themselves out of the water and began biting Rex's body, holding him in place.
Looking closer at the alligators, they appeared to be life-sized dolls. Their bodies appeared to change from green scales to green cloth that looked to be waterproof. Buttons replaced their eyes, and there were some patches on their bodies that were switched out in a patchwork manner. Weirdly enough, their teeth and claws were still sharp, but Jack could control the gators now. This was Pinocchio's ability, the ability to turn living things to dolls and Jack could control these dolls. As for Four Horsemen, each orb has a different effect, ranging from sickness, blind rage, to what Jack used on Rex, rapid hunger.
"Darn...I'm slowly losing...strength..." Rex fell onto both his knees in front of Jack, and he could see Rex get thinner and thinner right in front of his eyes. "What on Desponia...?"
"Relax, I'm not gonna kill ya." Jack had the orange orb emerge from Rex's body, and the orange glow disappeared. "But I am gonna take you in for questioning and take Remarkable Rocket from ya."
"What kind of questions are you going to ask?" Rex asked while Jack summoned a set of handcuffs and used them to ensnare his wrists.
"Did you have any accomplices?" Jack asked the man, who thought for a moment before nodding. "Really? You're cooperative. Who was your helper?"
"No clue, it was just some guy who wore a cloak ominously and gave me a bunch of alligators." Rex answered, and given how honest he's been so far, it'd be best to trust him a little bit.
"Was he a shapeshifter?" Jack questioned Rex, who only looked confused by this question.
"No, if he was, then why did he go through such lengths as to hide his identity?" Rex countered his question with another question. "Still, where did that question show up?"
"Because I absorbed that ability when I first arrived, so I assumed that someone nearby was a shapeshifter." Jack answered honestly.
"Oh yeah, I'm a shapeshifter." Rex answered before changing his head into that of a panda's. "This is all I can do right now, since I'm so tired."
"Well you can rest for now, I'll carry you back to the shuttle." Jack offered, and without much resistance, Rex fell asleep, and Jack was forced to carry the shapeshifter before making Pinocchio disappear.
"Nice job, maybe you're worth my time after all~"
Jack aimed Remarkable Rocket at the source of the voice at the entrance of the cave, and he saw someone unfamiliar standing there. Their pitch black hair covered half of their pale and thin face, only leaving his mouth and nose visible. His attire consisted of a black dress shirt, black pants, dress shoes, and a white lab coat. Jack could tell that the mysterious entity was a male from his frame, but that's it.
"What up?" The mysterious man greeted Jack. "I'm ah child of Destiny, call me Forger."
"Wait, I thought one of the angel twins discovered Christus, so how are you here?" You asked, and Forger answered.
"I'm able to move between countries because of one simple fact. I made this computer." Forger answered with a smile before extending his hand out to you.
"Eh?" Jack pointed at the large computer in the middle of the room, and Forger nodded. "So you helped him?"
"Oh heavens no." Forger then began explaining some things. "You see, when I was sealed on Mythia, many things I made were left behind in my home. So people broke into my house and stole my precious creations. Thanks to them, I can teleport to wherever my creations are."
"So...are you like an inventor or something?" Jack asked Forger, who thought for a moment before answering.
"I think Creator is more accurate, but if it's easier to memorize, then you can call me an Inventor." Forger shrugged. "So anyway, the reason why I'm here; I want to be added to your list of people who are at your beckon call thanks to History Maker."
"Dope, any reason as to why that is?" Jack asked the man, and for once, he sounded serious.
"Because someone stole my prized possession, a thick and powerful sword that is capable of cutting down the gods." Forger was surprised to see that he grabbed onto his still extended hand. "Ah, a wise choice."
"Yeah yeah, not the weirdest thing I've done today." Jack admitted as Forger turned into pitch black energy that was absorbed by Jack.
"Wait, a short, black sword?" Jack asked after Forger disappeared. "Like the one Joan was using in our fights against her?"