(Friday, 26th of Verdant Garden Moon, 2021)
"Damn...what the hell was going on..."
Jack was biting his thumb nail whilst exiting the creepy and almost abandoned building, clutching the object that the bird man was holding on to earlier before he ran off. Jack looked at the object using his limited source of light, and Jack saw that it was a torn family picture, just like the one from the little girl's room. The difference was that this one was only of the father of the family, with the parts involving the mother and daughter being torn from the image. Jack's guess was that the bird man took the missing piece of the photo with him, but why?
"Boss, you okay?!" Simo rushed to Jack spot in the room where the bird man once was.
"I'm okay, did you or Saorise shoot bird man?" Jack asked the sniper, who shook his head. "Good, because I think there might be something bigger going on here."
"What makes you think that?" Simo wondered whilst Jojo stuck her head out the window to begin hissing at the sky.
"This thing's intellect is surprisingly keen." Jack showed Simo the picture. "This was only torn recently, and I only saw the bird man tear the paper. There's a photo just like it in the other room, and he managed to perfectly cut out the image of the pregnant wife and daughter."
"Why would he do that though?" Simo wondered whilst looking at the image. "We need to investigate this family as soon as possible to see if they have a connection to the bird man."
"Good idea, let me grab the full photo." Jack walked to the daughter's room and grabbed the framed photo that was hanging next to the door frame. "After this, we should probably make a grave for them just in case they're dead."
Jack grabbed the photo, and left the building alongside Simo and Jojo. TJ was outside with his glocks aimed towards the sky, wanting to shoot but he wasn't sure if the bullets would meet their mark. TJ holstered his pistols and glared into the air.
"TJ, we're heading to the police station, or wherever they keep records of people who lived around here." Jack hopped onto Sleipnir's back. "I'm following you, since you have the GPS."
"Got it, and I'm glad you had better luck than I did." TJ jumped into the jeep and started the engine. "I didn't find shit."
"Well the place is in ruins, so that's kind of expected." Jack remembered that the inside of the house was in ruins.
With that, the group went through the tropical forest once more, following the dirt path back to civilization. This time, Jack was the one following the jeep with the GPS. Half an hour passed, and Jack's group soon arrived in the town closest to the hotel. Whilst in the town, Jack saw that the nightlife was just as busy as the day life. Bars were bustling with people and clubs were roaring with noise. Neon purple, blue, and red lights stained the black road like a dance floor. Sleipnir seemed a bit nervous thanks to all the loud noises, so Jack stroked the horse's neck to help calm it down. Jack's group went through the town before arriving at a brick building with a giant police badge hanging over the glass double doors. TJ parked on the curb outside of the station, and Jack got off Sleipnir. Jack had no need to tie Sleipnir anywhere, since he could summon the horse to him if it wandered too far. The group walked into the police station to see a lone police officer at the front desk, resting his hands behind his head and feet on the desk. His cap was covering his eyes, was this man asleep?
"Oi, officer, we need help looking for someone." Jack slammed his hand on the desk, jolting the officer awake. Jack watched him swiftly get his feet off the table and adjust his cap to look more professional whilst his eyes were glued to Jack's silver colored gear.
"Of course, Sir, who do you need to find?" The police officer had to go along with a the group's orders so long as they didn't break any existing laws in Mokupuni, same goes for all police officers around the continent, except they use their own countries' laws.
"The people in this photo." Jack placed the image in front of the police officer. "We believe they may be connected to bird man in some way."
"Five good say they're victims." Hassan guessed before getting slapped in the back of the head by Saorise. "Okay, bad time, I get it."
"I'm afraid without knowing their names, I can't enter them on the computer, so we'll have to look through the records of missing persons." The police officer stood up and began walking down the hall on the right. "So, do you have a date?"
"A date?" Jack thought about all the girls he's interacted with, and began thinking about how he would date. Molly's way too kinky and Jack could never know what Mifu is thinking. Out of everyone, maybe Alice would be the best candidate for a date. After all, she did know him the longest.
"Yeah, a date for when the family went missing." The police officer corrected Jack, and Jack shook his head to get rid of any lingering thoughts. "Before 12/12/12, during 12/12/12, or after 12/12/12?"
"Huh?" Saorise tilted her head in confusion as your group and the policeman reached three different doors. The first door was marked 'Before 12/12/12', the second was '12/12/12', and the third was 'After 12/12/12'. "Were there really that many people lost?"
"There's a reason why we call 12/12/12 the apocalypse, you know." The policeman commented on everyone's collective shock. "So, place your bets everyone, where would the families be?"
"This photo looks to be higher quality than I've ever seen in my past life." Simo informed Jack, and that was random. "As far as I've seen, this world's timeline mirrors mine pretty closely. I died in 2002, and given the quality of this photo, it's likely that this is some time after 2002."
"That still gives us a ten year window, but it does make it seem more likely that they disappeared during or after 12/12/12/." Jack then remembered that Simo told him he died before, but never how. "Wait, how did you die?"
"Old age."
"Given the condition of the house, I think that it was at least five years after they left." TJ added his own thoughts into the discussion.
"So it's 2021 now..." Jack did some math on his fingers. "So we only need to check the records from 2002 to 2016."
Jack heard the crying once again.
"God damn, I swear that's the same crying." Jack scowled, and the sound of crying was so loud that he considered never having kids. "Hey officer, is it bring your kid to work day?"
"What are you talking about, you have schizophrenia or something?" The policeman looked at Jack.
"Jury's still out on that one." Simo decided to add a sarcastic remark.
"Okay, you know what, you guys search for the family, I'm gonna go look for the source of that crying to figure out if I have something or not." Jack asked away from the group and towards the source of the crying. "If I don't find anything, I'll see Doctor Elizabeth about it. Come on. Jojo."
Jack went deeper down the right hallway to find the source of the crying while Jojo waddled behind you. Jack made sure not to touch anything that looked like trouble, but luckily this police station didn't have any jail cells down this hallway. Jack's one shoe and prosthetic leg made different noises clicking against the tile. Jack's ears were focused solely on the sounds of the crying child that seemed endless. The child didn't sound to be in pain or anything, but just sounded like he wanted attention. Jack kept on walking until he turned a corner at the end of the hall, which had only one door. The door had an exit sign above it, so Jack opened the door to see that the door led to a casual wooden porch. In the middle of this porch was an outdoor table, with an umbrella and two chairs on either side of it.
"About time you heard me, my throat was getting sore from all that crying." A voice from one of the chairs called out to Jack, and it sounded like a Mob Boss' voice. "Time your ass down, champion of Uriel and Ariel."
"Who are you?" Jack looked at the source of the voice and was met with an odd sight.
"Me?" The source of the voice looked to be a newborn baby wearing a white diaper, a tie, and black top hat. Aside from that, the baby also had eyes that looked like clocks. "I'm Cronos, founder of Mokupuni."
"Really?" Jack raised an eyebrow. "If you're the founder, then why are you still alive when these countries are 2,000 years old?"
"Let's just say me and the other founders made a deal with the Great Masked one" Cronos explained nonchalantly. "Until we get our mission done, we'll be unable to die. Well, it's more like we don't age."
"The Great Masked One?" Jack asked, and Cronos nodded.
"He's the forgotten god whose following was wiped out by the Solians." Cronos leaned his head back. "Good news though, we got to use your newfound immortality to come up with a dope name for ourselves."
"And that name is...?" Jack raised an eyebrow before a sudden hand placed itself on Jack's shoulder.
"The Children of Destiny." Uriel appeared behind Jack and had her hand on Jack's shoulder, while Ariel placed her hand on the other shoulder. "How's it going, Cronos?"
"Hey, just thinking about making Jack here into my new host." Cronos looked up at the sky. "You guys already did it, so why not me too? It'd be nice to be a patron for the guy who's collecting all of Alexander's weapons."
"Did you guys know Alexander?" Jack asked, and Uriel nodded. "Really? Did you guys help him in his journey?"
"Yeah, it was us 13 Children of Destiny, the Prophet, and Alexander." Cronos informed Jack. "Us Children of Destiny formed our respective countries, with the twins there making the Heliosian Empire and myself making the Mokupuni Federation. We gave the nobles their gifts by randomly combining our abilities, and that's how countries and nobles were formed."
"What about this Prophet figure?" This is the first time Jack has heard of this 'Prophet' entity.
"Mysterious guy, but he's a good person." Cronos shrugged. "Last I heard from him was 12/12/12, when we all fought together against those things alongside the others."
"Those things...why can't someone tell me what they are already?" Jack sighed, just wanting to figure out what these things you're preparing to fight against.
"Because if you hear what they are, you may despise someone very close to you." Cronos then changed the subject. "So, how about making a pact with me like you did with Uriel and Ariel?"
"Fine, not sure why you want to form a pact with me so bad though." Jack placed his head on top of the baby's top hat. "So what ability will you give me?"
"I don't know, but let's wait and see." Cronos started glowing a mint green color before vanishing in a flash of green light.
Cronos vanished, and Jack was left on the porch in silence, taking a moment to enjoy the serenity of the scene before he got up from the porch. Jack got up from his chair and entered the police station once again by opening the door. Jack walked through the white-light lit hallway until he reached the three doors containing the missing people reports. The middle door was the only one opened, and Jack saw that Hassan was flipping through the files of one box, TJ was reading the files one by one, Saorise had her head in a box, and Simo was resting his head against the wall. Jack looked back at the front desk to see the police man working on his computer.
"Any luck, Simo?" Jack asked the sniper, who looked at him from the wall with a tired expression staring at Jack.
"I finally found it!" Hassan held his file up into the air, seemingly proud of his find. "The father's name was Kaimu Akamu, the mother was Nalani Akamu, and their daughter's name was Haila Akamu. They all disappeared during the chaos of 12/12/12, along with 64% of the population of Mokupuni."
"Hold on, 64% of the population?" Simo couldn't believe how high that number was.
"Well, at least we got some names now." Jack rubbed the back of his neck. "Okay...so what information do we have on these guys?"
"First off, Kaimi Akamu is last reported to be a healthy 32 year old man who works at a bike shop." Hassan read off the file. "He was married to Nalani Akamu, a 33 year old woman who worked part time as a dog walker. They two of them worked to support their daughter, Haila, who attended elementary school at Holu Holu Academy."
"Any idea as to what happened to them?" Jack asked the assassin as TJ looked over his shoulder to read the file.
"They disappeared on the day of 12/12/12, the three are all supposedly dead, but their bodies were never found." TJ read off the file. "Aside from personality stuff on here, that's it."
"Damn, guess it's a dead end." Simo scowled whilst you thought about something.
"Hey, what kind of music does that guy like?" Jack asked out of nowhere, and Hassan looked at the file once again.
"He likes casual rock music." Hassan read out loud. "Allegedly, he would blast music whilst dropping Haila off at school just to annoy her."
"Any idea as to what songs in particular he liked to play?" Jack wondered, and Hassan shook his head. "Alright, guess we'll have to make shit up as we go."
"What are you planning?" Simo asked as Jack left the file room, with Jojo following you closely.
"I have an idea on how to end this whole bird man situation, I just need a whole lot of speakers and a whole lot of hands."
(Later, at 4 AM)
In the middle of an unknown forest, numerous shadowy figures were setting up large speakers while Jack was a little farther away, hooking up his phone to a cable and browsing through Dotify, a music app, looking for old rock music. TJ, Hassan, Saorise, Simo, and Jojo were nearby, with Simo holding onto a kind of net gun while Saorise held another net gun. Hassan hid in the tree tops, ready to use his time stop ability. TJ stood under the tree Hassan was in, gauntlets ready.
"So boss, what's the plan?" Simo asked you while aiming his gun. "Just wait here until god knows what?"
"Oh, the plan is to use these speakers to play music that will attract bird man, allowing us to put an end to this mystery." Jack noticed one of the shadowy figures approaching you. "Ah, are the preparations done?"
"Oink!" The shadowy figure was a cartoonist looking pig from an early 30's animation. His attire consisted of overalls and a hard hat. All the shadowy figures were exactly like this, and the only way to tell them apart was through the numbers on their hard hats.
"Alright, tell the rest of the Little Pigs that they can disappear." Jack ordered, and Jack looked at the cartoon pig pin in your chest, which was glowing a salmon color. "Who would have guessed that Three Little Pigs would be so useful. I could build a city with this thing."
"Too bad they're only good for manual labor." Simo sweated as he saw some pigs disappear in a puff of smoke. "So, we ready?"
"Yeah, let's begin the trap...NOW!" Jack pressed 'play' on your phone, and music began playing from the speakers.
A song called 'Wii Will Rock You' began playing from the speakers, and Jack looked up in the sky, praying his hypothesis was correct. If it wasn't, Jack just stole several speakers by using Switch to buy some horseshoes, and switching their place with the speakers from a music shop to the forest. Jack patiently waited, somewhat scared that his hypothesis may be wrong. Luckily, the sound of an entity screeching proved Jack's hypothesis was correct. In the sky, Jack saw that bird man was in the sky, soaring overhead, curiously looking for the speakers. Simo and Saorise took aim with their guns and fired at the bird man. Simo fired first, with his net being swiftly dodged by bird man soaring upward. Saorise was the next person to try firing, only for her net to miss her mark entirely, instead, the net landed on top of Jack. The force of the net sent Jack stumbling, and Jack landed on his back."
"Boss, you alright?!" Simo asked whilst Jack rubbed the back of his head.
"Yeah, I suppose this will work." Jack looked up at the sky and saw that bird man was trying to fly away, so Jack prepared his fingers. "Switch."
With a snap of his fingers, Jack and bird man switched places. Jack appeared in the sky where bird man was while bird man appeared in Jack's spot under the net. Jack began falling to the ground, and as he fell, Jack summoned Buttercup, the jar of candies. Jack aimed his prosthetic foot at the ground and landed on the ground without so much as a scratch, meanwhile, the ground around his foot cracked with your landing, forming a small crater. Jack walked towards bird man, which was struggling against the binds of the net. Jack paused the music on his phone and took out a piece of candy that had 'Understanding' written on the wrapper. Jack unfolded the wrapper and ate the candy, and it had the texture of chocolate, yet the taste of mint.
"Simo, pick him up." Jack ordered the soldier, and Simo picked up bird man, allowing the cryptid to stand up right. "It's good to finally speak face to face like this, bird man. Or perhaps, would the name Kaimu Akamu be more suitable?"
Jack created a ball of light using the same skill he used earlier, allowing Jack to illuminate the area in a white light. In the light, Jack saw that your hypothesis was spot on, it looked like Kaimi Akamu, but he's been...changed. His dark hair was grown out and messy, reaching down past his shoulders while looking extremely unkept. His massive chest looked deformed, and some of the skin was ripped to reveal the twitching muscles beneath. His arms had the exact same issue, looking extremely muscular yet some parts of skin were torn to show the twitching muscles and tendons. His wings looked like they were welded to his body forcefully. His legs were unaffected, but his clothes were filthy and torn. There was only one shoe on his right foot. Jack's eyes were glued on the man's face, which was deformed and scared as though somebody forcibly changed his face. The large beak looked like someone forced the beak into his mouth and somehow welded it into his skin, with bits of skin still scarred. As for the man's eyes, they were inflated to the point of being almost transparent, and you saw that the glowing red eyes were thanks to the light inside the eyes being stained by the broken blood vessels spewing blood inside his eyes.
"OH SWEET SOL WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!" Hassan shouted whilst hiding behind TJ, who had his fists raised in fear of the entity.
"This isn't even a Demi-human or other non-human entity, this is Kaimi Akamu, a human." Jack informed his friend whilst looking at Kaimu. "I mean, come on guys, he's wearing the same shirt as in the photo."
"To be fair, it's hard to tell since it's almost nothing but rags now." Saorise pointed out.
"Help.....me....." Kaimi's voice was ragged, tired, and raspy. Jack can only understand it thanks to Buttercup's candy. "Please....end...my suffering...."
"Okay, but on one condition, you tell us what happened." Jack pointed at Kaimi, who looked surprised someone could understand him.
"12....12...12....someone....turned Nalani...Haila...and....me....into....monsters..." Kaimi agreed before bloodied tears began dripping down his face. "...They...died....I....survived..."
"Thank you, and now I'll help you the best way I can." Jack summoned Norka, the bat and struck Kaimi's head, knocking him on the ground and knocking him unconscious.
"Was hitting him really necessary?" Saorise asked while looking at Kaimu.
"Considering I have no painless means of knocking him out, yes." Jack answered flatly before picking up Kaimu. "Come on, we need to get back to Sanctuary, in the meantime, we need some medical help."
"Wait, you're bringing him to Sanctuary with us?" Simo questioned, and Jack nodded without hesitation. "Do you honestly think someone can save this man?"
"No idea, but I see no point in not trying to help."