How I love a good plan!

"Gar, we shall now start the planning process of traveling across the country with our legions of monsters." Jack said as he walked with joy to his quarters with a newfound purpose.

"Yes, Master, I shall undergo preparations right away!" Gar said. Continuing on his way, Jack passed Anak in one of the stairways of the tower.

"I'm glad to see you put yourself back together" Jack said jokingly. "Meet me in my quarters later to go over some of the plans." Jack continued. Anak nodded in agreement.

Arena operations were back to normal shortly after the spectacle they witnessed with Anak's party. Gar had summoned Anak to the current deepest point of the cavern system, so as Anak headed there he had plenty of time to think of all the ways things could turn out. Would Jack abandon him like he did when he was created? Would he lock him up for testing him before he revealed who he really was? "Wait… what if I'm walking into my prison now?!" Anak yelled to himself in a whisper breaking the still silence of the depths. As Anak stood before the final door, all he could think to himself was, "This is it. If I had a heart it would be beating crazy fast, it might even explode so I guess it's good I don't."

He opened the door to find Gar standing at the end of the giant, dimly lit room. Torches of blue flame covered the walls, tombstones were placed sporadically across the room, and on one wall a large, enchanted mirror. "W..w..what is all this?" Anak asked, turning his attention from a spider building its webs between two of the tombstones to Gar.

"This is your new lair. Master Jack expects great things from you. I was asked to return this to you as well." Gar handed Anak the Dark Gemstone.

"Wait why do I get to hang on to it?" Anak questioned.

"Oh, he said something like you're too weak without it and that there's more magic in his toenail clippings then in that thing, blah, blah, blah. You get it, he also has big plans for you." Gar answered.

"Well… what are his plans for me?" Anak wondered.

"You're really going to just keep asking questions I'm already going to answer, aren't you? Well, you're going to raise an undead army to serve our Demon Lord Jack. Now! Before you get too comfortable, or ask any more questions, we must go to the Master's quarters to discuss our next steps." Gar said. 

As Gar and Anak proceeded up the tower they felt a presence lagging behind them. They entered Jack's room to find him passed out on the floor, they began to panic. "Master, wake up!" Gar kept repeating. Frantically looking for who or what could've done such a thing to Jack unnoticed by anyone was far more thinking than Anak's brainless head could handle. As the mysterious figure burst through the door, a small dragon, about the size of a large human, came in. Anak charged at the creature in a haste before thinking. With little more than a flick from the beast, Anak was scattered around the room with his bones littered everywhere.

"Put yourself back together" Jack said gathering himself. As Anak's body began hopping toward a pile in the room, the beast spoke.

"Hi, nice to meet you all! I'm Flint!" Gar sighed with relief that there was no immediate danger.

"Flint here is our newest member to help fight those do-gooders and their frilly, colorful ways." Jack said with obvious mockery and disgust.

"Well, what's our first course of action then?" Gar asked.

"I was hoping Anak could give us that information. Jack said.

"Well, Master, I think the first order should be to find the heart gemstone to obtain true power for us all!" Anak said.

"I couldn't agree more! Now, do you have any idea as to how we might obtain it or where it is?" Jack asked.

"I did get reports of massive amounts of magic being generated in a large city on the west side of the continent, but not much is known about the city over there."

Jack grinned, "Well now we have a starting point! Gar, you train the men and keep everything going here. The three of us will go to the west and retrieve our gemstone!" Jack, grabbing his jacket, began to climb out to the balcony and called out behind him, "Flint, just stuff Anak in the backpack and let's fly west!"

Flint turned towards the pile of jumbled bones with a massive grin. "This is for attacking me, haha!" Flint burst through the balcony window grabbing Jack along the way.

"We're not really going to fly like this the entire way, are we?" Jack asked.

"How else do you expect to fly?! I'm too small for you to ride on my back." Flint explained.

"Hmmm… this is humiliating though, to be carried by my newborn demon...." Jack shrugged, "I guess some things can't be helped."

After a few hours of quiet flying with the only sound being Anak moaning from being crammed into the backpack, Flint finally spotted a town below. "Master, I'm stopping here for a bit, I need to rest some" Flint said.

"Okay, I wanna check and see what they know about the city in the far west anyway" Jack said. They land by a lake outside the town. "Alright, rest here for a bit while I go recon around town a bit" Jack said. Arriving in town it was a quiet peaceful town with beautiful art all over. "Bleh looks to nice" Jack thought to himself. Jacked walked to the town center bustling with people, he entered the biggest building in the center. A girl behind a wall asked what she can do for Jack. "Ah, well, I was wondering if you could give me any details on the city slightly toward the west from here." Jack asked as if an innocent and curious traveler.

"Oh, yes! The great scientific city of Tesplora! I'm sorry, we can't give many details if you aren't registered, but it's a city that uses science rather than magic to run." The receptionist said.

"Sci-ants...." Jack, never hearing the term, was quite confused. "Well, what is this sci-ants?" Jack asked.

The girl giggled, "hehe, you must be from the boonies, Mister. Well, push that button for a demonstration."

Jack pushed the button and suddenly small glass objects around the lady's desk light up like tiny suns. "Woah" Jack was wide-eyed with amazement. "This is sci-ants?" Jack asked. The girl nodded giggling. "One last question, how much further is it from here?" Jack asked.

"Well, it's a few hours by foot, but they usually don't let outsiders in" she said.

"Well, that shouldn't be a problem" Jack said smirking. As he headed back to Anak and Flint, he saw the weirdest thing he'd ever seen. It was a moving man made of metal and it was being controlled by a kid. He ignored it and moved on his way. Meeting back up with his demons, he found Flint eating bunny soup out of Anak's skull. "What are you two doing?" Jack asked.

"Well, I wanted some stew, so I made some stew" Flint said.

"I'd be crying if I could produce tears" Anak yelled.

"Okay, okay, okay enough. We must head out now we have to go take over the city of Sci-ants, Tesplora! Now get back in your bag Anak! Jack yelled. Taking flight again, Jack was getting full of excitement to experience science firsthand.

The sky grew darker as the city became visible in the horizon. As they got closer, Jack could see that the city was surrounded by a wall as tall as his own dark tower with even taller buildings inside. Darkness continued to grow around them as the sun set behind them. Jack surveyed the city, taking it all in. Dark ominous clouds were over the city and lightning kept striking toward a giant mass on top of the tallest tower. It was the dark gemstone Jack was searching for. "They are sure to notice if we take it, this might be harder than I thought." Jack said.

They landed and walked toward the giant gates, Jack had used magic to disguise himself and Flint as humans and Anak turned himself into an elf again to walk around. A smug looking guard met them at the gate, "May I help you gentlemen?" he gruffed.

"We're here to talk sci-ants with your leader." Jack said.

"What's your names, I'll check if you're registered to come in" he said.

"Don't worry about it, we're not. Don't make it difficult, just let us in." Jack stated.

"Sorry. I can't do that". The guard started talking to a device on his wrist. Suddenly more people flew from over the wall with tiny flying rockets on their feet.

Jack was amazed, "What are those?!"

"Back up, buddy. We don't want to hurt you." they replied.

In what seemed like a blink of an eye, Jack knocked out all the new guards and turned to the first guard and said, "We don't want to have a problem, open up."

"One second" he replied. He hit a button on his desk and an alarm went off. Suddenly, a strange portal appeared with a man walking out.

"Hi, I'm the leader of this city, how can I help you?" He asked.

"Well, we just want to explore the city and learn sci-ants" Jack said.

"One moment." The man put on goggles and said, "would you mind undoing the magic you're using to camouflage yourself right now please?"

"What're those strange goggles you're using" Jack asked.

"Magic first, then questions" the leader said. Jack undid the magic revealing their true forms.

"Wow, you're a demon are you not?" The leader asked.

Getting irritated, Jack said, "Demon Lord."

"Ah, I heard you died before I got here. Anyway, what brings you here? Please don't tell me it's that." he said pointing to the gemstone.

"Smarter than you appear, human, but yes, I'm getting back what's mine" Jack said.

"I'm afraid I cannot let you do that, as it runs most of my precious city." Jack started to run toward the man to take him out, but he flew up to the sky and shot a collar at each of them. Jack dodged but Anak and Flint got hit. They both dropped to their knees. "Those are designed for people like you all, they suck the so-called magic right out of you." Jack was still contemplating his next move as the leader of science moved right above him.