(Friday, 5th of Verdant Garden Moon, 2021)
"On the road again~"
"Please stop."
Robin was driving the bus through a thick and foggy swamp, riding on top of a wooden dock while crocodiles lurked in the water below. Jack was sticking his upper body out of the window. Bruce, Medea, and Simo all had their heads stuck out of the bus. Iris and Catherine sat next to each other, and Iris was consuming three whole pizzas! Jojo was patrolling the row of seats as though she was keeping guard.
"So...why are we guarding the bus like this?" Medea was trying to fill the silence. "Wouldn't walking alongside the bus work better?"
"Well I fear an attack may happen, but I'm not sure if the attack will even occur." Robin drove the bus through the swamp's wooden path. "Having you guys walk alongside the bus would mean I either need to slow down to match your speed, or you guys would have to run to keep up with the bus. Either way, we'd be wasting time or energy. Doing it this way is better."
"Wait, how do you know whether or not an attack will even happen?" Jack asked the tactician while he drove.
"Because I was going through the Pacebook page of this town, and the biggest community at the moment is literally called 'Kidnap Princess Catherine so Larry can get into the royal family and give us enough nooses to hang all the non humans!'." Robin held up his phone to show the page.
"Gee I wonder what that Community is about." Jack aimed Silent Princess out the window and towards the green shrubbery.
"Yeah so if you kill anyone, don't feel bad, they're racist." Robin reassured the group as he continued to drive. "So when you guys hear a bird call-"
Then the sound of a bird call could be heard.
"-then it's time to kick ass."
As Robin finished his sentence, multiple people in white robes emerged from the shrubbery carrying shotguns. They tried firing their shotguns at the bus, but before they could, Bruce jumped out of the bus through the window. Bruce slammed his feet into the water below, and the water only reached up his ankles. Bruce slammed his palm into the murky water, and a wall of water rose up from the dock, then it suddenly froze over to form a wall of unmoving ice.
"Idiot! You need to be inside the wall when you suddenly put up a barrier!" Medea shouted before a lavender flower patterned magic circle appeared around Bruce's feet. "Barrier!"
A lavender colored barrier consisting of Hexagons surrounded Bruce just before the shotgun bullets could hit his chest. Medea appeared on top of the ice wall closest to Bruce in a flash of purple light. Medea summoned another magic circle from her palm, and lightning shot from Medea's palm and launched itself towards the shrubbery. Hidden in the shrubbery were three rednecks, all clutching shotguns. The electricity hit the shotguns head on, electrocuting the rednecks and forcing them to collapse. Bruce took a breath in, and the barrier disappeared. Two rednecks jumped in front of Bruce from the tree, one carrying a chainsaw and the other holding a crowbar. The redneck with the crow bar tried bashing Bruce's skull, but Bruce caught it in his hands before pulling the crowbar towards himself to deliver a solid punch to the redneck's cheek. The chainsaw redneck tried stabbing Bruce from behind, but the loud noise of the chainsaw gave him away. Bruce ducked underneath the thrust of the chainsaw and kicked the redneck's knee. The chainsaw redneck jumped back to avoid Bruce's strike with his palm. Despite the attack missing its target, the redneck's chest suddenly looked like it was struck. The chainsaw redneck landed against a giant wall of ice, then was swiftly met with Bruce striking his palm against the man's face. The force of the strike was enough to shatter the ice on top of the chainsaw wielding man.
"What the shit?" Jack wondered before jumping out of the bus, with Jojo following behind. Jack guarded the parts of the path without any walls, which were the front and back of the bus. Jack switched Silent Princess for Captain Hook, which took the form of a miniature crank with two hooked cables resting on Jack's left wrist with the watch.
"Careful kid!" Simo shouted before the sound of a gunshot filled his ears, and Jack saw a redneck collapse whilst clutching his shoulder behind the bus. "Remember, these are like redneck Americans! Guns are like their religion!"
"What the hell is an American?!" Jack used Captain Hook, and the cables shot themselves outwards, only to plunge right into the wood. Weirdly enough, they went through the wooden dock as though it were water. "If they worship guns though, then I guess I could pass as an American!"
Jack picked up Jojo and threw it at the face of one of three rednecks that were in the front, and then Jack summoned Orochi. The two remaining rednecks held a weapon, one had a saw while the other had a set of pipes that were a meter long each. The saw redneck tried cutting Jack's neck using the saw, but Jack parried the swing using Orochi, and Jack used his other hand to punch the redneck in the chin before jumping back to avoid the gut punch the red neck was attempting. Jack then remembered a note about one of the badges he got.
"The Shadow!" Jack shouted, and the skull pin on his chest glowed a white color, and a knight made of darkness appeared from the darkness of Jack's shadow.
The knight was holding a shortsword. The knight lunged towards the redneck, and cut his side. The redneck holding the two pipes managed to crush the head of the knight. The knight swiftly disappeared, and Jack pointed his index finger at the redneck.
"Five Beasts." When Jack straightened his finger and pointed at the redneck, the ring flew off and struck the redneck in the chest, releasing a purple light.
Space appeared to implode around the ring in a purple aura, almost like a black hole. While space did go back to normal, parts of the redneck's clothes and skin were missing. The ring returned to Jack's index finger and he took this moment of confusion to pierce the redneck's leg. The poison spread through the redneck's veins before the redneck collapsed on the ground due to the poison. Jack heard the sound of the door opening behind Jack, so he turned around to see a redneck with scratches all over his face trying to open the bus door. Apparently, he was the redneck Jack threw Jojo at. Jojo was kicked off the dock by this redneck and tried to climb back on. Jack was about to use Anubis on the redneck, but out of nowhere, he was thrown away from the door by an invisible force.
"Looks like it's time to reveal myself." Goliath appeared to be standing on the school bus, and how no one didn't notice him is beyond everyone.
Meanwhile, Jack could hear the sound of people screaming in agony. Jack turned his head towards the voices to see skeletons were using swords, axes, and spears to defeat a group of rednecks. Jack looked on the roof to see Hel's eyes glowing a ghostly blue color as the skeletons disposed of the rest of the rednecks. Medea and Bruce decided that the fight was over, and due to the dock being two meters off the water surface, Bruce needed some help to get back onto the dock. Jack went over to where Bruce was trying to reach and crouched down and reached down towards Bruce. Bruce reached his hand and Jack helped pull him up onto the docks. While Jack helped Bruce onto the docks, the last of the rednecks were disposed of by Hel's skeleton's.
"Hel, you know that skill cleaning crews use to make sure no one gets charged up murder ?" Robin stuck his head out of the window as the undamaged ice wall began to collapse. "Can you use that?"
"Sure, but I'll put a delay on it to make sure no one attacks us on our way back." Hel promised as the entire area was covered in a whisp-colored aura.
"Hey, what spell are you using?" Jack asked the ghost woman as Medea approached Bruce and checked his face, as though she was checking for injuries.
"A revival spell." Hel answered, and Jack looked shocked by this. "Normally, clean up crews revive certain dead people in case they were innocent bystanders. We also do this to avoid actual murder and can deliver sentences to people accordingly."
"So does this happen with all corpses?" Jack wondered if every person he's ever 'killed' has been revived.
"Usually if the corpse is easy to get or obtain." Hel answered. "So they won't be revived if their corpse impossible to get, in a hard to access place, feeding it to an animal, throwing it in a volcano, and stuff like that."
"So...looks like I actually did murder a man." Jack picked up Jojo and held the badger out like a cat and looked into its eyes. "You! You're responsible for making me responsible for murder!"
"That's not how this works..." Simo put his rifle back over his shoulder and walked to the entrance of the bus. Robin opened the door using a lever next to the steering wheel.
"Well he was an asshole anyways, so let's just leave it at that." Jack was of course referring to that Kira guy, the one whose body was eaten by Jojo while he stole Orochi. And also that hand guy.
"Kill count aside, get in, we need to get out of here before the rednecks wake up." Robin ordered everyone into the bus. "We're also gonna need to get more food in town since Iris ate everything and still hasn't recovered enough calories..."
"Damn Iris, how many calories do you need?" Jack asked while you entered the bus.
"Hey, if you ran faster than most fighter jets, you'd probably be hungry too." Iris was still panting from exhaustion.
"Weirdly enough, that might be the most logical thing in the entire series."
(Later, the same day)
Jack's group soon arrived in a small town with a large lake on the edge of the town at around three in the afternoon. The town was far away from the rednecks the group fought earlier, around 1,400 kilometers away. Robin parked the bus close to the lake, on the outskirts of the small town. Robin and Iris went to the convenience store to buy some snacks, while the rest of the group waited in the parking lot by the lake. Jack stood outside of the bus, leaning his back against the large, metallic body of the bus whilst his eyes were glued on the lake. There was something odd about this lake, not only is it completely devoid of fishermen, it was completely barren except for the lone island in the middle of it. On this island, Jack saw nothing but a thick layer of pine trees. Another odd feature of the lake could be found at the docks. At the three docks that reached towards the island, there were two rowboats on either side of each dock. Yet all of them were facing towards the island.
"My tomfoolery sense is tingling." Jack commented while Jojo stuck her head out of the window.
"I'd say you go ahead and check it out." Hel suggested while phasing her head through the wall. "Your gut feeling appears to guide you to either problems or something cool, so do it. We can protect Catherine without you."
"Okay, I'll be back with either a monster or new artifact, see ya." Jack walked towards the dock.
Jack wanted to jump over to the island using his prosthetic leg, but he was afraid that the trees were hiding some kind of monster. If Jack jumped to the island without any preparations, he'll be defenseless if there is a threat on the island. Jack decided to take a boat. Jack reached the dock and jumped off the wooden dock to land on one of the boats. Right after Jack landed on the boat, it suddenly glowed a red color before the boat was violently pulled to the island by an unknown force. The boat began moving swiftly through the water, and Jack had to anchor himself to the boat using the prosthetic to not get thrown off the boat. The boat soon crashed into the sandy shore of the island.
"Well whatever was pulling me here clearly didn't waste any time." Jack stepped off the boat and set his foot on the island, Jack's eyes focused on the thick forest of pines. "It would be rude to keep you waiting, especially since you went through so much effort to bring me here, so let us finally meet each other."
Jack ventured into the forest, guided only by his curiosity at first, that is until his eyes caught a glimpse of something glowing. The glowing light changed from red to orange, orange to yellow, and yellow to red to begin the cycle anew. Jack ventured deeper and deeper into the forest, and the farther he went, the darker the forest became. The trees above Jack only let in very little light at first, but before long, the area was almost pitch black, with the odd source of light being the only source of light around Jack. Jack kept on walking until he finally reached the source of light, and he was met with an odd sight.
"Who the fuck are you two and which one of you make the boat go super fast?"
The source of the light was a pond filled with glowing yellow, red, and orange liquids that looked just like water, aside from the fact that it was glowing and colorful. Hovering above the water were two angel-looking people. They had similar builds to one another, and similar outfits. They were both pale women around their 20's, and wore white colored togas. Jack assumed they were twins, but unlike Rico and Nico, Jack could actually tell them apart. The first one had crimson colored wings, irises, and hair. Her long, red hair was tied in a ponytail that reached her lower back by a golden thread. The second twin had golden colored hair, eyes, and wings. Her long, golden hair was flowing down to her waist with a red colored bow behind her head.
"So you're the strong magical presence we felt?" The blonde one extended her hand with a smile. "I am Uriel, and my sister here is Ariel. I am the Child of Destiny representing freedom, and she is the representative of order."
"Sup." Jack greeted the two as he leaned his shoulder against a tree and crossed his arms.
"I'm sure you're curious as to why you've been brought here." Ariel looked at Jack whilst hovering over the small pond with her sister. "Well to answer your question, I need to ask you something first."
"Okay, shoot." Jack gestured his head to the red headed angel while Uriel examined you closely.
"Why do you fight?" Ariel asked Jack, and for a moment, he needed to think before shrugging. "You don't know?"
"Well I've got amnesia, so I don't remember exactly." Jack answered honestly with a shrug. "All I know for certain is that my memories are gone, my right let's been replaced by a metallic foot, and I have a four pack. Yet from the way my friends act on every mission, always giving it their all, then it'd be a dick bag move for me to not do the same. So yeah, I guess I'm just doing whatever I feel like for now, and that's alright."
"So you're fighting alongside the most elite soldiers in the world without any sort of training or motivation?" Uriel asked before flying back to fly beside her sister.
"Hey, I have something they don't." Jack gestured back to the bus. "I have a sniper from another world, and the world's worst equality symbol with rabies."
"Well now you have our support." Ariel informed Jack before hovering directly in front of him using her red feathered wings. "My sister and I have seen into your future, and we saw that you have good intentions, but need an immense amount of help in the future, so we shall lend you our strength."
"I appreciate the help but did you really need to insult me?" Jack wondered if the insult was intentional, but still went along with the two.
"First, extend both your hands with your palms facing the sky, and we'll take care of the rest." Ariel ordered Jack, and he extended both arms whilst facing his palms upwards. "Good, now stay still."
Uriel grabbed onto Jack's right hand and Ariel grabbed the left hand. Uriel glowed a golden color while Uriel glowed a crimson color. The glow continued until the two angels were nowhere to be found, disappearing into thin air. Around the same time, the pond stopped glowing.
"Well that was trippy, time to head back I guess." You looked at the pond. "I wonder if this could be Goddess Bathwater..."