A Way

When Jack's eyes fell onto the glowing leaves he seemed to think of something. Somehow or another, that led to him looking at his wrist ripping into the forearm that had just healed a moment ago.

He forcefully ripped apart the flesh and stuck his fingers as it attempted to regenerate itself. At the same time, the other trees began to recover, their leaves starting to glow blue again, along with five other trees that grew out of the ground.

Jack was panting and grit his teeth, shoving his fingers deeper into his arm and moving up to the wrist. With a cry, he pulled on something, and a clear crackle resounded. With tons of blood spurting out and covering his hands, he had pulled out one part of his arm bone. Some broken bits of his wrist fell down while his hand hung limply, just barely attached to the other bone.

It was then that Jack pushed his own arm through the branch. He pushed aside part of the bone in his forearm around the branch, making the two bones wrap around it. Soon after, his arm had regenerated, now with a branch awkwardly sticking out through the middle.

Jack looked up into the sky, clenching the fist attached to his now half-branch arm.

He pulled back on it, using his free hand to also pull on the arm. The branch was forcefully moved back, though it resisted rather violently. Jack didn't focus on the leaves that continued to grow brighter, instead looking up at the sky while pulling on his arm with everything he had.

His strength and strange way of gripping onto the branch proved to be somewhat effective as it soon was forcefully pointing upwards. The glowing was rapidly approaching its peak, seconds away from detonating.

He let out a laugh in this chaotic situation.

"I'm having so much fun!"

That's when powerful streams of water shot out of all the leaves, including the one that was being pulled by Jack. His eyes were directly on the owl flying high up in the air. A beam of water shot up tracing through the sky.

Countless broken branches scattered as the devastating water beam cut through them and into the air.

While it was initially off the mark by quite a bit, it rapidly went closer with Jack's tugging. Yet, before he even had a chance to even get close-

"JACK!"

The sounds of bones crushing accompanied powerful thuds of countless beams of water.

As water vapor made a strong mist surrounding Jack, Mia covered her mouth in horror, while Emma furrowed her brows in confusion. She mumbled to herself.

"Was it simply a coincidence? But no... I still remember his smell."

The man in the suit was also watching intently, seemingly quite curious. Though he remained silent and didn't move the entire time.

As the mist had cleared, it revealed Jack. Though he looked a little bit different. His arm was still attached to the branch, though he was hanging from it. His face and torso were intact, though his legs had essentially disappeared entirely.

Thankfully, his waist was still attached, which meant the decks of cards were still on his hip. They surprisingly didn't even suffer a scratch despite the impact.

Before the attack had landed, Jack curled up his body next to the branch, prompting the other trees to leave his upper body mostly unscathed, though the same could not be said about the others.

At this point, seven more trees grew, though realistically their numbers were so large that it hardly even mattered anymore. While a new volley was charging up, Jack swung his body back and forth to inch closer to the drunk, piercing his arm deeper into the branch with each swing.

Soon enough, he got closer to the center. At this point, only small nubs had grown for his legs, but they were enough for him to bring himself back up. Using the damage he had initially done to the tree, he used his free hand to carve deeper into the tree and get himself inside the bark.

Thankfully, since his legs weren't exactly there right now, he was able to fit in fairly snugly on the inside, though one of his arms was still attached to the tree, meaning he wasn't able to completely fit himself inside.

Several of the trees still aimed in his general direction, though most of them had actually aimed away into the distance.

For a little while, Jack used this time to catch his breath. A few moments later, several water beams shot out and tore into his arm that had stuck out. His hand was obliterated while the top of his arm's flesh was ripped off.

All things considered, his arm was more or less fine. It seemed that they still weren't willing to attack themselves. Although it would be nice to continue staying within the tree, his legs continued to grow in size, forcing him out.

Jack's arm was still attached to the branch and was quickly regenerating. He made his way out, while the leaf at the end of the branch began glowing once more. It was now far easier to see into the sky since most of the branches were out of the way. However, despite looking, the owl was no longer in the same place anymore.

His head snapped from left to right in order to try and find it, before catching sight of the owl.

Unfortunately, it had perched itself on a faraway tree. It was bending many different branches over towards the owl, to both protect and obscure itself. Jack let out a laugh while the leaves began to glow once more.

He unlocked the latch of his black deck before raising his hand into the air.

"Seedy!"

Following his cry, a roar shook the air as Seedy manifested in the air. His countless mass of vines slammed down into the branches, causing a distinct creaking sound to come from them, though they still barely remained.

Its two heads looked around curiously, trying to get a grasp on the situation.

Jack was partially covered by the vines, but Seedy promptly moved them out of the way to see him. With a smile on his face, he pointed towards his arm lodged into the branch, prompting Seedy to immediately rip it out. His wrist was nearly obliterated while his hand barely hung on.

It was a messy job, to say the least, but it wasn't too big of a deal for Jack.

"No, no. Not that. Like what I was doing, hold onto all the branches and point it over there!"

He stuck out his finger and pointed in the distance where the branches were bundled. Seedy looked at him with confusion using both heads, but still nodded with both a moment later. Although a good chunk of the branches had already been broken, there was still a good amount that Seedy could use. It promptly wrapped its vines around the branches. Jack let out a small gasp afterward.

"Ah, also, right when you see a bunch of shiny blue water, throw me over there as well!"

Seedy tilted its head to the side, but simply wrapped one vine around Jack and held him back, getting ready. Surprisingly enough, it seemed that he understood the instructions perfectly, aligning all the branches towards the bundle in the distance and getting ready to throw Jack.

For a few moments, the two of them were only waiting as the leaves gradually grew brighter.

At their peak, the collective shine of the hundreds of leaves became blinding. Right as the water beams fired off, Seedy threw Jack with all his strength. The chaos of all the beams going everywhere was rather insane, though it seemed the owl didn't predict this situation, not aiming any of them high into the air.

Seedy held onto the branches tightly, caring little about the impending doom coming at him. However, Jack tapped onto the clasp of his black deck, and with that Seedy suddenly disappeared, turning into light and returning to him.

The countless water beams ran through and obliterated the tree in the middle.

It seemed that the owl had given up on trying to save all his trees. However, it was at the wrong time, since Jack was already up in the air.

He laughed while doing a mid-air cartwheel in slo-mo. He took in all the carnage of the things below him. Huge amounts of mist rose up into the air, obscuring Jack along with his vision as he began falling through what appeared to be nothingness.

Before it cleared up, Jack closed his eyes intently, feeling out his surroundings using his other senses, since they obviously weren't much help within the mist. He made sure to hold out his limbs as far as possible, intentionally trying to get caught on something.

And they did.

The stub of his leg pierced through a branch, directly skewering through it. He opened his eyes and saw a terrified owl right in front of him.