Old Friend

 

"Are you saying that you're going to try and recruit Jack Keynes onto our side?" Trillian demanded, folding his arms doubtfully."

"Yeah," Jax said. "Don't worry and just trust me."

"Ugh, fine," Trillian sighed. "Don't blame me when you get your ass handed to you, though."

Jax laughed.

"Don't worry, only ones who're getting their asses handed to them are gonna be the Ruxlyns."

"You'd better make it that way. If you don't, you're probably dead."

"Oh, I won’t be. I won't ever die, don’t worry about that."

"Who do you think you are, God? Stop bullshitting and go die."

 

***

 

Jax walked through the bustling streets of Eldrith, occasionally glancing down at the map Trillian had drawn for him.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Aaron Prince asked.

"Don’t worry," Jax replied. "Just show me to where the pub that Jack is usually seen at is, and then I'll do the rest myself. Is there something particularly troubling you?"

"Well," Aaron mused, as he walked side by side with Jax. "One thing about Eldrith is that as the capital of Etherea, it's safer than some places in the countryside… but because of how big it is, there are still areas brimming with crime that the law enforcers can't reach. That pub counts as one of them."

"Oh, really? I didn't know that. Trillian didn't tell me anything about that." 

"Yes, so that's why I'm questioning if it'll be a good idea."

"Yeah, and I'm telling you it'll be fine."

"…"

"You don’t seem convinced."

"Oh, I'm totally convinced."

"Be honest."

"Okay, fine, I don’t believe a word you're saying."

“You don’t need to,” Jax replied. “Your job is to go and try buy some swords for us. Simple, sturdy steel swords are good enough.”

“For?”

Jax stopped and turned back to Aaron.

"Aaron, how long have you served at House Gilsend?"

"Uh… a little over 6 years."

"Have you ever experienced a war with another House?"

"No, never."
"Well, if my plan succeeds, and we defeat Ruxlyn in the duels this year, it's incredibly likely that they'll gather together their allies afraid of Gilsend's once mighty power. What then?"

"Uh… Ruxlyn will probably go to war against Gilsend?"

"Yeah. So we're obviously gonna have to prepare early. Don't worry about me and go buy some swords or something to arm some soldiers. From what I saw the sword they were using were of the lowest possible quality."

"… will you really be ok?"

"Yeah, yeah. Now go on!" Jax said impatiently, pushing the bodyguard in the back towards a blacksmith.

 

…I did say that I'll be fine, but if things go south and I can’t bring things under control, I'll be dead to Jack in a flash. Before I came here, I could've just slapped him into oblivion like a fly. Not that I'd have any reason to do so though. That guy was fiercely loyal.

He stood in front of the run-down, wooden tavern, its glassless windows covered in hastily nailed wooden boards which looked as though they'd been broken several times. A sickly yellow light spilled out from the gaps between the boards an onto the street, followed by the noise of ghastly and rowdy shouting and singing wafting into the sky. Jax was thinking about the number of fights that went down in there on a daily basis, and as if on cue, a middle-ages, skinny bald man came crashing out of the boarded window and splayed across the street in an unconscious heap. A bunch of ugly cheering erupted from inside.

…oh boy.

 

The second Jax touched the door handle, the collapsing wooden door fell backwards into the tavern with an almighty crash, and he was met with a half-familiar scene. There was a gaggle of thugs and gangsters, dressed in rags and grubby vests, sharpening their fingernails with knives or signing aggressive deals. Instantly, the noise in the dimly lit, tattered wooden room came to an abrupt stop, and fifty pairs of ugly eyes swivelled to the fourteen year-old boy standing in the doorway.

"Who's the runt?" one of them grunted, a large, hulking, ugly brute of a man who looked like he spent his spare time face planting in the street.

There was complete and utter silence for a moment as the kid squared up with fifty brutes. Then one of them seemed to have his single brain cell come back into his head, and he scrunched out of his chair, before stomping over to the boy.

"Hey," he rumbled. "What're you doing here, brat?"

He reached out a meaty hand towards Jax, who only about went up to about his chest. However, in the next instant, Jax lashed out and grabbed a hold of the thug's face, before pulling back and then smashing his head deep into the floorboards.

 

Once again, there was a deathly silence throughout the room, except for the dripping of the unconscious thug's blood, his head having completely disappeared into his ground and the rest of his body splatted on the ground like a giant slug.

"…what happened?" someone grunted.

"Come on, you pigs," Jax snorted. "How long are you gonna sit there?"

"GET HIM!" screamed a short, stout man with an eyepatch and a moustache, who seemed to be the leader.

Instantly, every gorilla in the room crumpled out of their seats and rumbled towards Jax like a herd of elephants. The first thug came at him with a knife, but Jax caught it, snapped the blade in half, and punched the guy so hard in the jaw every single one of his teeth came pinging out. The next two, both also holding weapons, came at him, resulting in the smaller one being smashed in to the belly of the second, and both of them dropped like stones. Another thug tried to tackle his legs from under him, but Jax simply raised his foot and trampled on his face. The next few minutes could be described as a massacre, with Jax breaking bones and cracking skulls with various pieces of furniture. Eventually though, he stood up and clapped his hands together, among the shattered chairs, splintered tables and unconscious goons. Save for the slight whimpering of the unfortunate bartender cowering behind the counter, this time the silence was complete, until a figure that Jax hadn’t noticed at all stirred in the corner.

“Ah.”

“…who are you?"

 

Jax looked at the unmistakable face before him. His sea-green eyes were filled with anything but the admiration and loyalty they had once held, but the same short, brown hair peeked out from beneath the black hood he was wearing. But what caught Jax's breath was not the familiarity, but instead it was the stark contrast this face had with the face that he remembered. During the Sovereign War, Jack had been marred with scars, with tired, cold and unfeeling eyes, his complexion ashen and grey, devoid of emotion. But now, he was brimming with health, and Jax was hit with an unexpected surge of nostalgia at the times before he became a regressor. Jack's steely voice brought him back to reality in an instant.

"I asked you a question. Who are you?"

"I wonder… who am I?"

 

Jack's gloved hand appeared from the depths of his black cloak, and moved to the hilt of the sword on his waist, but he still did not budge from his position on his seat.

"Don't try an play tricks with me, boy."

…is what I said… but why… why, in his presence… I feel as though… I know this boy…?

The vial that the Lady of Dragons had given Jax materialized in his hand.

…it's all flooding into my mind.

"Answer the question!" Jack said sternly, his grip on his sword hilt tightening.

…I know exactly… what to do.

Jax clenched his fist around the vial and raised that fist in front of him.
"Praeterita revoca," he chanted, and the vial, from between his fingers glowed with a bright, silver light.

In an instant, Jack's sword flashed out of its sheath.

"Revertere ad latus meum."

 

Jax opened his eyes. He had been forced to squeeze them shut after the blinding white light had exploded from his hand. The vial had disappeared from his hand, and Jack's blade was a fraction of a centimetre away from his neck. Jack himself was staring at him blankly, unmoving. Jax decided to make the first move.

"Uh… hey. It's been a while. How was being dead?"

During the regressions, Jax had met with dead comrades thousands of times, so he had figured this would be pretty similar. The glazed look in Jack's eyes disappeared, and he stared at Jax. The sword clattered to the ground, splintering the floorboards.

"Uh…"

Before Jax could even react, Jack had flung his thick arms around him and pulled him into his chest in a smothering bear hug of muscle and cloth.

"Wha-"

"Commander," Jack said, placing Jax back down on two feet, the latter gasping for air. "…it's great to see you again!"

"Woah woah woah! Calm down!! You're a goddamn twenty-year-old guy with an ugly-ass goatee, and I'm a minor. What if someone saw us like this!?"

Both of them instantly stared at the bartender, who was staring at them from under a drinks tray, wide-eyed and sweating rivers. Jack threw a chair at him and laid him flat.

"No witnesses," he said dusting his hands. "But still, you seriously are amazing. The last thing I remember - well, from before, that is - is, well…"

"Dying. In a very gruesome way as well," Jax finished.

"…yeah. I'm not dumb enough to not be able to figure out what's going on but… how did you do it?"

 

Ten minutes later, Jax had given Jack a quick summary of the events that had transpired after his death in the last regression, of how they had managed to defeat Mazog, and how they had used the Regression Key.

"I see… so… Fox and Tommy… died, huh."

There was a moment of silence in the bar. The two of them were sitting opposite each other on the last unbroken table in the bar, Jack fiddling with an almost empty bottle of beer, and Jax with an untouched glass of juice beside him (since Jack insisted he was underage, much to his annoyance). Fox Summers and Thomas Everette. Two of Jax's closest as well as most powerful friends, both former Catalysts. Fox was a regressor who'd travelled alongside them for three thousands lifetimes, and Tommy had been told about the regression every single time.

"Don’t dwell on it," Jax sighed. "After all, I'm here right now, aren’t I, and the others are also here, ingrained into this world, their memories buried within them."

"Mmhmm," Jack nodded. "That's right, I guess. If Fox didn’t finally tell us about you guys' three thousand regressions, I would be tweaking out right now."

"Speaking of which, you’re taking this awfully calmly."

"Oh, trust me, I want to cry, shout, hug you, roll about on the floor, AND duel you all at the same time right now, that is, if your weird memory-unsealing bottle thing was a bit less vivid in combining my memories from before with the ones on Chyraea. It feels like I just woke up a second after closing my eyes on the battlefield that day."

"Yeah, I figured you would answer that way."

"But I don’t care about all that," Jack said dismissively, waving a hand. "I'm curious about what you've been doing so far. There's no way my commander was sitting idle."

"Obviously," Jax agreed. "I've been here for only a few months though. I learned Ena and formed and Ena Core, I've gotten on House Gilsend's... good side, I guess, and I've pissed of Ruxlyn, who now wants to murder me at the annual duel between Gilsend and Ruxlyn."

Jack stared at him.

"It's been a few months."

"Yeah."

"And you already found a noble family to back you, as well as pissed another one off to want to kill you with their own hands."

"Yeah."

"Hmmm," Jack said, looking impressed. "As expected of the commander. So, it was you who I have this request for."

"Request?"

Jack dug into the depths of his robe and withdrew a piece of slightly yellowed parchment, and spread it out on the table.

"New orders - eliminate House Gilsend's new brat with black hair. Reward - 20,000 gold. -Jonas Ruxlyn," Jax read. "Crazy."

"I know, right? I was kinda shocked when he said 20,000 gold too."
"So, you wanna try?"

"What do you think?"

Jack scrunched the paper into a ball and tossed it into the fire.

"If you tried to you could beat me right now," Jax dared.

"Hell no, commander," Jack scoffed.

"Drop the commander," Jax ordered. "I'm a child right now. And you’re a famous mercenary. Just call me Jax."

"That'll take some time getting used to, comm- Jax."

"Whatever. How did you even end up as a mercenary?"

 

"…what the hell."

"I know right?"

Apparently, when Jack had been born into this world, he had woken up as a four-year-old boy in a field, remember nothing but his name, Jack Keynes. Then, he had wandered several kilometres to a shack at the foot of a mountain, where a young boy lived with his father and grandparents, and had been adopted there. The adopted father had been a hunter with some knowledge in swordsmanship and Ena handling, having been a central two-star swordsman, and he had trained Jack in Ena and the sword. With his innate talent for the sword, and his old unique barrier technique eventually resurfacing as an Ena technique, Jack stayed there for eight years, and developed into a rare magic swordsman, a swordsman capable of using a mage's spells. However, a week before his thirteenth birthday, when Jack was out chopping wood a group of powerful bandits who claimed to be from the 'Bandit Union' raided the family whilst passing by for alcohol. However, the bandits' eye fell upon Jack's adoptive mother, who was a pretty woman, and caused a ruckus to break out. By the time Jack returned, it was already too late and the wooden house he had lived in for eight years was ablaze, with his adoptive family inside it, and the bandits had gone down the mountain. After burying their remains, Jack had pursued the bandits' trail, caught up with them, and then slaughtered them all on the road. After that, as a young boy, he had wandered the world, pointlessly, training, fighting, training, fighting, training, fighting… until he eventually became an official mercenary, fighting in many wars and killing many people, before finally being contracted by House Ruxlyn.