King Lucius

Jack came to, blurry eyed and dazed. The ground he lay upon was hard, so it wasn't the forest, and even though he felt like he'd died, he had yet to resurrect. With strength he shouldn't have had after such a deadly impact, Jack looked up from his broken position. It wasn't a position he could get used to. Ligaments were torn; more bones broken than not, and blood filled his eyes. 

The excruciating headache was overwhelmed only by a ferocious back pain. It was as if his spine had snapped in half. He dared not move to test the theory; he was almost certain he was correct. 

When he managed to blink away the blood from his eyes, the sight he saw injected him with disturbed horror and grief. It only became apparent that he'd been deafened when sound returned to him. 

He wished it hadn't. 

Alistair was straddling a lifeless Kane, his rage-fuelled grunts, paired with the sound of pummelled, squelching flesh, caused Jack to flinch every time the mad warrior slammed a fist into the archer's face - what was left of it. 

As a rage of his own began to swell, the sight brought forth another vision within Jack. But this one was different. It was far more vivid than those before it. 

Jack opened his weak eyes to see a giant man cradling him in their arms. A short, dark brown beard and long, messy hair, paired with blue, bloodshot eyes made him look scary. But Jack wasn't afraid. The man brought a child-like comfort and joy to him; even if he did stink of a mixture mead and wine. 

As the giant gently rocked Jack back and forth, he spoke. His voice was deep. Deep and commanding. Deep and overpowering. 

"The King is dying, Lucius." That name, 'Lucius' brought with it a nostalgic feeling that pulsated throughout his vision. "The king is dying, and he has no heir..." The giant began to scowl and speak through his teeth. "And they deem me unfit to take his place... I... who they once called Jack, The Hellblade... Jack, The Merciless... Jack, the Ripper... 'He' is not fit to be king? Horseshit. Sons of backwater cunts, all of them. The whoreson king himself will recoil in hell when you take the throne, Lucius... I will pour my everything into you, Son." 

Even though he called himself Jack, this man wasn't him. And it was then Jack realised that Jack wasn't his name at all. It belonged to his father. 

Lucius's father placed his infant son's body faced down in an expensive crib lined with gold-sewn blankets and soft linen pillows. He raised his hand and protruded a finger: a sour, evil look in his puffy, bloodshot eyes. He looked as if close to tears, but the man's pride turned his embarrassment and sadness into anger, and his finger began to glow red hot with a malicious magic. 

"You will become king, Lucius," he said, his teeth clenching tighter as he lowered his finger down upon Lucius's bare back. 

Lucius cried out in agony, but Jack did not stop as he burned the letter J into Lucius's skin. 

Lucius cried out, but where the flames burned, they also soothed, just enough to keep the poor child alive.

Lucius cried out, but Jack did not stop until his own name was sizzling on the boy's back. 

A.

Lucius cried out.

C.

"You will become a greater warrior and monster than I ever was. And when you become king, it will be 'my' victory." 

Jack. 

When the swordsman came to, the sight of Alistair wailing on Kane's corpse filled his vision and refuelled his rage. The perpetual orange dusk of the keep-realm kept however much time had passed a close guarded secret; only the diminished pile of flesh and bone was any indication of its passage. 

Lucius, now with his true name, was furious and confused. Why did he care so much for Kane that the sight of his death and the defiling of his body brought forth such emotions? It wasn't just Kane's death and defilement that was weighing down on him. It was Alistair. The way he wailed incessantly on the corpse with such twisted pleasure and wrath reminded him of his father's beatings. Which he could now recall as plainly as if they'd just occurred, among other things about his father, Jack. Jack, The Hellblade. Jack, The Merciless. Jack, The Ripper. 

With some effort, Lucius managed to move his hand - the one that hadn't 'cushioned' his blow to the stone wall - to the pouch hanging from his leather chaps. He fumbled with the knot that bound it shut until it eventually came loose. The glowing gem tumbled out, and Lucius clenched it in his fist. 

"Heal me..." he muttered through pained breaths. 

...Nothing. 

He tried again, this time with more anger and willpower, forcing the words out of his teeth along with bile and blood. "Heal me... you stupid... fucking... rock." To Lucius's surprise, the gem shimmered, then began to seep a warmth into his palm. It penetrated skin and muscle, bone and marrow. The feeling flooded his entire body, just like after he defeated the Emberwood. 

Bones reconstructed themselves, joints clicked back into place, and sinew knitted itself back together. His spine was the most painful, sending a sharp stabbing sensation up his entire back. When the gem had decided that his body was in the shape it was supposed to be in, its warmth retreated, and the dull glow faded from its depths. 

Lucius lay panting. The healing process felt anything but rejuvenating, and after a moment, he reached out to take Ripper, its name now leaving a sour taste in his mouth, before clumsily stumbling to his feet. The blade scraped quietly against the stone floor as he rose, and threads of flame began to protrude from Lucius's hand like rising snakes, coiling up Ripper's length and coating its entirety in their embrace. He didn't seem at all surprised by his sudden use of magic. It felt natural. It was, no doubt, a skill his father had taught him: twice now. One that most likely earned Jack the title 'Hellblade'. 

Lucius took a deep, composing breath, then bellowed, rattling the air of the keep-realm, "ALISTAIR!!!" the deepness of his voice truly portraying his fury. 

The berserker, upon hearing his name, paused for several seconds, then sent a final right hook into the mass of meat and bone that used to be Kane's face. Looking to his side, blood splashed over his entire front, Alistair said, "So that was your boon." 

Lucius spat a glob of blood from his mouth, never breaking eye contact with the mad warrior. "Kane knew you. He was terrified of you. What did he do to make you lust for his death so desperately?" 

"I don't lust for his death, Jack... I lust for his deaths. Plural." The way Alistair said it somehow made him sound even more insane. 

"My name, is Lucius." 

Alistair cocked his head to the side slightly. "I remember, quite vividly in fact, Kane here," he slapped the dead man's side three times in quick succession, still straddling his corpse. "Calling you 'Jack'? Unless you are like I, memories stolen by the gods for our crimes?" 

"Get. Up," commanded Lucius, pointing Ripper in Alistair's direction: flames flickering along its length. 

The mad warrior stood. "I will. But not because you asked. But because I want to beat the viscera out of your stubborn, undead bowels." He purposefully made his way towards Lucius with light clacks of his boots, rolling his shoulders as if stretching. "Do you know my sin, Jack?" he asked. 

Lucius didn't answer. 

Alistair took a deep breath, released it, and said, "all of them," before charging noisily at Lucius with a sharp-toothed, lunacy fuelled grin. 

He unsheathed his iron clubs with a twirl, briefly turning into a spinning-top of death, battering Ripper four times. Sparks and embers flew from the fiery blade, and Alistair's clubs rose sky high before slamming them down using his weight-boosting power. Lucius saw the move far easier than he would have prior to his last vision and dodged instead of blocking, sliding a foot behind himself and letting Alistair's clubs shatter the floor in front of him. 

In the brief moment of advantage Lucius had, Ripper found Alistair's neck, but the mad warrior hardened his skin, causing the lit blade to scrape stone: producing more sparks and embers. Revelling in his victory, Alistair took a sideways glance, and time seemed to stand still, a serious, sinister, and calculating demeanour enveloping him. With a twist of his body from the kneeling position he had been in after crushing the ground, he swung a single club in an upward, diagonal arc. 

And Lucius fell into darkness once again.