Everyone was silent as they stared down at Tangle, Jesse glaring at her as she fidgeted on the spot. "Alright, lets try and calm down." Olivia said, Axel and Petra were holding Jesse back as Raven and Luke stood by a shaken Tangle.
She held up the watch, taken from Jesse earlier, before looking at Tangle. "I think you owe us an explanation-"
"Why do you have that?!" Jesse yelled, cutting her off, Axel using his superior strength to hold him back.
"I didn't know it belonged to you!" She defended, cowering away as every looked at her with accusations and surprise. "They just gave it to me; it doesn't even open!"
Axel glanced at Jesse, stepping in front of him, giving Tangle the benefit of the doubt. "Dude, are you sure this is your stepmother's watch?"
"It is." He nodded at Olivia. "Grab the lid, and spin it six to the left."
"What, why?" The redstone engineer questioned.
"It's how you open it!" Jesse snapped.
"Okay, okay..." Olivia did what he said, trying to calm him down. She grabbed the edges of the lid, surprised that it rotates as she heard six clicks. "Okay, now what?"
"Three to the left." Jesse recalled instantly, never forgetting.
Olivia rotated the lid, watching the five white eyes on the top glow ominously. "Okay, now-?"
"Four left." Jesse interrupted. Olivia nodded as she rotated the lid four times as her fingers gently brushed against the smooth designs.
Nothing happened. "Uh, was something supposed to happen?" Axel asked after a few moments of silence.
"Open it." Jesse instructed.
Olivia hesitated for a second, a dark aura washed over the pocket watch as the white eyes on top glowed ominously. She gently flipped the lid open, tension rising, revealing red stained glass protecting black gears under it.
Jagged hands of a clock, along with pictures of a black moon and a red sun telling morning and afternoon in the center, moved with such grace.
And Jesse heard the gently, calming music that played from the pocket watch; he closed his eyes, just for a second, to remember the blissful blend of various sounds to feel his stepmother's love.
Tangle looked at the pocket watch in surprise. "It never opened before..." She whispered.
Jesse gave Olivia one last instruction. "Send the hands to midnight." Olivia did just that. Everyone soon watched as three balls of light floated out of the pocket watch like bubbles, staying above as various wisps of light connected to them; each one turned into their own color: grey, green, and red.
"It's... beautiful..." Raven commented as Luke nodded, lost in thought from the sight before them.
"There's something under the lid." Olivia stated, looking at the beautiful dark red writing. "My children, how many seconds are in eternity?" Olivia read it out loud. "Do not worry about answering, because I will I will love you for every second of it even though I am now gone... with eternal love, Laurence."
"Is that proof enough?" Jesse asked sarcastically, looking to see that his friends were no longer restraining him, but their eyes were soft.
Olivia didn't say anything, she reached to close the lid, only to yelp in pain as the pocket watch flew out of her hand; the chain connected to it lashed out as it flew, leaving a deep cut on her dark wrist.
Jesse desperately reached out to grab it, only for it to fly pass his grip, leaving behind a dark trail as the orbs of light retracted back into it. before closing.
Everyone followed its path as it snugly imbedded itself into the wall, opposite of the way they entered, as a circle formed around the pocket watch; an eye that red veins originated and spread across the wall before fading out
A stack of two vertical blocks from the bottom center of the wall dropped into the floor; an entrance.
Jesse ran and grabbed his stepmother's possession after a brief hesitation, stepping back in caution as everyone else tries to process what just happened.
"That was... creepy." Jesse let out a held breath as Raven used her book to heal Olivia's wound.
"Jesse," Petra and everyone else approached him. "What is that?"
"I don't know why the pocket watch did that-"
"No, dude, not that." Axel pointed to Jesse's right eye. "That."
He immediately covered his right eye, his heart beating out of his chest as his secret was exposed. "... I'll explain later," He promised as he looked at the entry way into a dark room. "But right now, we got a lot to talk about."
----------
About an hour passed as Jesse, with help from Raven, explained everything that they saw above. Everyone had mixed feelings, especially the revelation about Lukas.
"So that thing is huge now..." Luke panicked about the abomination. "How are we supposed to beat something like that?!"
"I honestly don't know." Tangle shook her head as she glanced at Raven, who's deep in thought. "If what she told me is correct, then my divine magic can't do anything."
"We can't physically hit him," Axel recalled the black statues of people. "So me and Luke can't do anything either."
"But still..." Petra was lost in thought. "He, that thing, Lukas?!"
"That thing can't be Lukas," Jesse denied. "He wouldn't do something so horrible!"
"You thought the same about your sister at one point," Olivia pointed out as Jesse glared in response, remembering the beating he received when they reunited. "We all did, didn't we?"
"Don't bring her into this!" Jesse snapped. "She has nothing to do with Lukas!"
"Yes, she does!" Petra retorted before listing off. "The Twilight Forest. The Tournament. The stuff that abomination keeps mentioning about how Jess helped him. Face it Jesse, she has some explaining to do!"
"It's not just that, how could Lukas be out in the world?" Luke asked, recalling the conversation with Axel. "The commander of the Clockwork Fortress kept his body, she even present his corpse to the king, and yet he was at the City's Tournament?!"
"None of this makes any sense!" Axel shouted. "And why was he obsessed with killing Bailey?"
"We can think about Lukas later," Olivia cut off that train of thought, making sure that Axel's low intelligence doesn't make him mentally struggle anymore than he needs. "Right now, we need a way to escape from him!"
"Not to mention we're trapped down here with those things," Petra let out a frustrated sigh. "They'll eat us the moment we step outside this place! What are they anyways?!"
"They're called, The Lost," Tangle explained, leaning against the commander's desk. "Outside from this safe zone is the true Clockwork Fortress; a isolated research lab."
"A research lab?" Olivia asked. "For what?"
"Life energy, and manipulating it." Tangle pulled out a book made out of patchwork skin from various creatures. "This is all the research I scavenged out there."
"Is that... skin?" Luke asked, who let out a disturbed yelp as one of the slits on the cover opened to reveal a bloodshot eye.
"Why don't we just talk about something else..." What Petra said wasn't a suggestion. "But what about that stuff above?" Petra asked, recalling what Jesse said to her, but now suspecting that he was lied to. "The two walls, the twenty-four villages?"
"All a cover-up for this research lab." Tangle stated, much to their shock as she put the research notes away. "As far as everyone knows, even the Kingdom of the Forest, the Clockwork Fortress is nothing more than a heavily defended building collected resources from the neighboring twenty-four towns."
"Those beings outside are people from the commander's research about vitality," She then looked at Axel and Luke. "I suspect those cultists, their blood magic, originated from the knowledge here."
"Why are they called, The Lost?" Olivia asked. "The Hungry, would be more appropriate."
"They're deaf, and lack depth perception," Tangle explained. "All they can do now is stumble around in the dark, looking for a life they can never live. They're pseudo-immortals, per say, but they still starve."
"Immortal?" Axel asked disbelievingly. "I can't believe we bumped into another one."
"Well, not exactly immortal," Tangle continued. "They don't age, and can't die from normal lethal causes; cutting off their heads won't do it either."
"So what can we do?" Raven asked, not liking the feeling of being useless, and angry about how one of those creatures took a bite out of her wing. "How do we kill those things?"
"You can't." Tangle stated, much to their disbelief. "Even if you do managed to kill one, they'll just stop moving for a minute before jumping back up; ready to eat you."
"But I managed to kill one-" Raven was cut off.
"You didn't kill it," Tangle stressed, glaring at the winged girl. "They're weren't eating their dead comrade, Raven, it was still alive when the rest sunk their teeth into its body!"
"That disgusting!" Olivia gagged. "They're must be something we can do!"
"The only good news is that the ones you saw, are the only ones here." Tangle revealed as a smile formed on her face. "Funny story really, when I used to scavenge out there, I thought there were hundreds since more kept appearing after I 'killed' so many."
Tangle coughed into her hand as she saw that no one saw any humor in that. "Plus, they can't hear you." She included. "Just don't make anything bright; like a torch, or any magic."
Raven couldn't help but feel that last part was aimed at her. She turned her attention towards the recently opened room. "Hey," She called out as everyone looked at her. "What's in here?"
"I don't know," Tangle shrugged. "I didn't know that this existed."
"But the commander of this fortress did," Jesse concluded. "It is her office after all."
"Then lets hope it can provide some answers," Raven cracked her knuckles as she said that. "Or at least where she is."
----------
The abomination continued its search for Jesse and Raven, the walls Clockwork Fortress were nothing more than scattered blocks of iron and obsidian.
Large scorch marks and carbon littered the snow as supernatural fog poured out of his back. Apparently, the abomination dragged the fetish he placed earlier into his body during his rampage.
"WHERE. DID. THEY. GO?!" His massive hands, smashing into the ground with rage, followed every word.
----------
"This is... unsettling." Jesse commented as they looked around in the dark room. Waterfalls of blood floods out from the sides of the high edges of the walls as they pool in the very center.
Tangle, Luke, and Raven stood at the edge of the pool, looking into the crimson liquid as bubbles rose from the bottom; as if this pool of blood is dripping down into something below.
Jesse's friends were unsettled as they looked around. Olivia was interested in the medical research here, looking at the detailed notes pinned and scattered on the iron walls.
Jesse walked up to Petra. "How are you holding up?" he asked the redhead.
"I could say the same about you, about everyone." Petra replied, rubbing her arm nervously. "This is just too much."
"We can get though this," Jesse reassured her. "We'll make it."
"We may survive, but will we live?" Petra asked looking around in this cold room. "How can anyone be fine after going through all of this? How could you?"
Jesse glanced at Axel and Olivia, the couple talking together. Mostly Olivia telling Axel how these notes are too complicated for him to understand with his limited intellect. "Honestly? I'm terrified." Jesse admitted. "When we set out to find the first Templar, I didn't expect everything to go so wrong."
"But we can't give up, look at the new friends we met along the way!" Jesse smiled, pointing at Luke, Raven, and Tangle. "And if we find the first Templar, then all of this will be worth it."
"What about Bailey? Or Lisa?" Petra asked. "Was losing them worth it?"
"No, it never will be." Jesse shook his head. "We're getting Lisa back, and we will make sure Bailey will be avenged; we brought her into this adventure, we have a responsibility-"
They were interrupted with Luke's screams. Everyone rushed over to him and his female companions. "Luke," Axel placed a hand on his shaking body. "Hey, dude, what's wrong?"
Luke could only point as everyone looked in that direction to see a naked man, nailed high on the wall facing the entrance as his head tilts down; his blonde hair covering his face. "Oh Notch no..." Tangle whispered at the sight before her. "Is he...?"
The man groaned as his mouth moved. "He's still alive!" Jesse shouted. "Lets get him down!"
Raven nodded and opened her book. "<Major Creation>!"
A wide set of stairs made of divine energy weaved from the ground up to the man's height before creating a long platform to him. They all heard him say two words as they ran across the bridge made out of divine energy.
"Help... me..."
----------
The abomination froze before slowly looking down; the 'snakes' that protruded out of his nightmarish body writhed and hissed. "Father?"
His bleeding multi-iris eyes widen in shock before replaced with determination. He pulled his hands back before plunging them deep into the ground, ripping and tossing away a huge chunk of the ground.
His snaked struck into the massive hole, digging deeper into the ground as they dragged the abomination's body as he wills it to become liquid.
"I'm coming dad," He promised as he was being pulled down to Jesse's location. "I'll make sure no one hurts you again..."
But he couldn't help but laugh; for once, could it be that his mother was wrong?
A/N: Sorry for the long break! I was being a bit lazy, planning, going through real life stuff, and my internet connected was busted, and I had to wait for the technician to come in and fix it.
So yeah, more secrets will be revealed as this arc will soon end. Does anyone remember that guy nailed on the wall? Perhaps what he was facing as well, hmm?
Anyone want to take a guess on who he is~? Trust me, it will be important.