Anger
Jack spent the morning observing the assassins during their routine training. He had assigned each of them a bat so that they could more easily move around and had a higher level of mobility. It also offered them an immediate backup in case they were caught up in a disadvantageous combat situation. As he stood in the rainy cold of the morning, the assistant was briefing him regarding new developments about the assassin that had been sent back as a double spy. Apparently, his superiors did not buy his story and took him in for questioning. He was being tortured in an underground facility and the organization was planning to first question and then kill him. Lucky for the assassin, the assistant had turned off all of his pain sensors and had already told him that Jack could easily heal him even if all of his limbs were ripped off. To make sure that he did not die, an invisible bat with a teleportation ability was placed nearby which could bring him to Jack within just a few seconds. As a result, even though the torture was ruthless on the surface, it was a walk in the park for him. He had no pain and knew that he could be completely healed no matter what happened.
But this undesirable turn of events had an unexpected benefit. The facility the assassin was brought into was staffed by the organization's members and broke the normal isolation and decentralization strategy that had kept even the assistant in the dark. Without two-way communication, there was no way of finding the superiors and leaders of the organization. But in this small facility, the assistant was able to access over 50 communicators from different organization members which allowed it to gather a lot of intelligence. The safehouse was located in a small town in Cibolas which, according to the assistant's data obtained from the government, was registered under the name of a company. There were also communication trails with individuals and entities of at least 60 countries all over the world but most messages were using code. Albeit, this code was very easy to crack for the assistant.
Even though this new data did not reveal much about the organization's leaders or their motivations, it revealed a lot about the activities the organization performed. Next to assassinations, they were engaged in bribery of officials, trading of commodities, illegal drug trade, investing in companies and even a variety of charity activities but these could be a cover for money laundering. One of the activities that gained Jack's interest was the kidnapping of unaffiliated or unprotected ability users in order to brainwash them and turn them into obedient workers. The data documented a variety of past and future activities where individuals were identified, located and then scheduled for extraction as the organization described it. Sometimes the targets were children and sometimes they were adults but they often had Sym abilities in their brain with special functions. It was likely the same process that was used to get the assassins Jack had taken in but their methods were ruthless. They would create accidents to cover up the incidents and often killed the entire family just to get a single child without arousing suspicion. They used vile methods to increase their ranks.
Jack immediately assigned bats to all the planned kidnapping sites and gave them the order to kill anyone who tried to attack them. He also gave the order of bringing back his assassin and taking out most of the guards in the facility. By poking the hornets' nest, they could track the fleeing organization members and gain more insights into their network of safehouses. With all their communicators being hacked already, it was easy for the assistant to continuously track their location.
But there was one kidnapping case that made Jack very angry. There was a girl that was only 8 years of age with a very rare mind reading ability. She was neither an orphan nor from a poor family but was the heir to a small Lordship in the country of Silvant. It was neither a rich nor an influential house but it had important functions in the small village and had a good reputation. To get their hands on the girl, the organization staged the massacre of the entire family and made it look like a local rebellion. Including servants and workers, over 90 people died. The girl was then brought into a safehouse and kept there until the dust had settled. To smooth things over, the organization had bribed at least 3 government officials. They went out of their way to cover their tracks since growing numbers of missing ability users would arouse suspicion if not obscured by other events.
Jack had found the location of the safehouse and made his way there since he wanted to see these people with his own eyes. He also needed to blow off some steam since he had been feeling quite unbalanced lately and the accumulating Sym energy made him more and more tense as time went by. He arrived at a small house that stood alone in an empty desert. It seemed to be disguised as an old Sym energy charging station used for vehicles and it also had some type of farm in the back for desert plants. Jack could sense 3 children and 2 adults inside. The children were chained inside a small room that was reinforced with iron doors and Sym devices designed to detect and defend against break-ins. The men were sitting in the large storeroom and were heavily armed. Jack could sense the armor and defensive devices from his position, levitating above the house. He could tell that the men were quite disciplined since they did not talk or move much but Jack did not like the state the children were in. All of them were heavily bruised and were lying on the floor with their naked bodies. The desert was getting cold at night so this was beyond torture. According to the assistant, this was standard protocol for newcomers since the brainwashing always begins with pain and depersonalization. If a kid was about to die, they would detect it with the specialized devices inside the room and then heal them to keep them barely alive.
Just a few nights in this safehouse filled with starvation and pain were enough to take the life out of these children's eyes. It might have been the effect of the Sym energy but Jack did not feel pity or sympathy for the kids. He only felt anger at the perpetrators. He had not felt this angry since witnessing the human sacrifices in Seinas. He locked on to the 2 men and aimed his new sniper ability right at their heads. The ability allowed him to shoot a condensed energy bullet from any of his fingertips with its destructive power only being limited by the Sym energy he was able to gather. Since his energy was orders of magnitude larger than that of the assassin that tried to shoot him, he could blow up a mountain with his fingertips. When he shot, both men dropped to the ground before they knew what happened. Their faces looked relaxed and calm since they could not even react to the impact. Then Jack jumped into the cage where the children were held and immediately cast a barrier around them to avoid any defensive devices from reaching them. The children were so malnourished and weak that they did not even respond to his appearance or the loud noises the detectors around the cage made when he entered. He guided his warm healing hands above each of the children and recovered their states. He had even packed some frozen meat in his storage dimension since it worked wonders in combination with healing for malnourished individuals. He was able to immediately replenish their body without requiring them to eat. When the children looked better, he picked them up and led them through his portal one by one. He had the assistant contact the local authorities and prepared them for the children's return since he was not able to babysit them himself.
As they arrived at the police station, the little girl with the mindreading ability woke up. She looked at Jack first with a scared but then a sad expression. She must have gathered that she was safe now but also that her family was dead, a piece of information that she did not have during her time of imprisonment. Jack could not help but feel sad at the girl's expression since she did not have the mental strength to be thankful or happy about her release. She was now an 8-year-old orphan that no one on this planet would care for. No parents, no relatives and no friends of the family. All of her childhood friends were dead and everything she had known was gone. All Jack could do was hand the kids over to the police and then go and do his best to make sure something like this never happens again. He immediately instructed his bats to destroy every safehouse they had identified and rescued any victims by notifying the authorities after the guards were taken care of. That was the best he could do for now.
To avoid any delays in the takeover of the West Alliance, he went to the bat dimension and worked for hours to increase the size of his fleet. His goal was to reach 2,000 bats as quickly as possible even if he had to spend the entire day there. Luckily, the bats were the dominant existence on this planet and only lived off Sym energy which had them reproduce like rabbits, albeit asexually. Jack spent over 12 hours in the bat dimension until his goal was achieved. During this time he also spent a good amount meditating to calm his nerves and clear his mind to not let the aggression get the better of him since it often clouded his judgement.
Taking over the largest country on earth or bullying the world's superpowers to sign a contract was not his normal way of doing things. But there was no way for him to avoid the pressure of the energy which clouded his mind at times. What he needed to learn was to think carefully and not to just follow his intuition in times of stress. Intuition was an important tool but his was clouded by the Sym energy and therefore not a reliable guide. It clearly tried to steer him into a certain direction and he was not sure where that would lead.
When he returned to the planet, the assistant informed him of new developments regarding the recovered children. Apparently, the police chief had personally ordered that the three children were to be handed to a private company which operated in the vicinity. Since that was a strange order, the assistant started to dig further and found a connection between the company and another shell company that was connected to the organization's safehouses in another region. It therefore concluded that the police chief was being paid off and had returned the children straight back into the hands of the kidnappers. When Jack heard that, he dropped the food he was carrying and unconsciously stomped a large crater into the ground below him. His eyes started to emit a faint and dark purple cloud of Sym mist which gradually got thicker with the intensifying anger. The assistant had displayed images of the police chief and the current location of the children into his visual field as it was briefing him. He immediately teleported back to the spot where he had left the kids and used window portals to catch up to the car which had been driving to a drop-off point for about an hour. Since it was a levitating vehicle, Jack simply appeared behind it and grabbed its backside to bring it to a halt. The two men in the front seat looked shocked but immediately grabbed their guns and tried to shoot at him. But Jack simply lifted up one hand and pointed his index and his little finger at the two men's heads to shoot and kill them instantly. Then he took the three children, once again, but this time brought them back to his villa in Cibolas for his assassins and especially the gentle Deer to take care of them for now. She was the only one who had a caring side to her and the assistant had assessed her as a loving mother if circumstances had been different for her.
Then he returned to the police station which was relatively large and had over 200 officers on staff. The chief was likely paid off since the organization was not going to waste such a rare ability after having invested so much. The usability for such an asset was endless especially in espionage and intelligence gathering. As Jack walked into the station and made his way behind the reception, the policemen tried to stop and question him but Jack simply kept walking. His eyes were fixated on the chief of police who was standing in some type of kitchen area and was joking with his people. When his eyes looked around the room and saw Jack wearing his white mask, he paused and tried to force a confident smile but Jack simply walked towards him without a reaction. Policemen behind him were already shouting and he detected quite a few guns being pointed at his back but they would not be able to scratch him even if he didn't have his barrier up. When the chief tried to flee to give his men a safe line of fire, Jack jumped forward and grabbed him by the neck. Jack was levitating above the ground and had brought the chief into his barrier to avoid any outside interference. The chief was trying to get free but all his attempts to loosen Jack's grip were futile and he had no other choice but to hang in the air and try not to suffocate or get his neck broken. As he was hanging helplessly, Jack turned his face and looked at the policemen who had gathered around them. With the high Sym energy density in his body, he was able to project his voice far and loudly which made it easy for him to address the crowd.
He looked around the room and saw the policewoman who had taken in the 3 kids he brought just a few hours before. "You were the one who took the kids. Do you remember?" Jack's eyes pierced through the woman and the attention of all the policemen was suddenly on her.
She was visibly shaken and stammered, "Yes, the kids you had rescued from the kidnapping. We just sent them off to-"
"Guess what this piece of shit here did. He sold the kids back to the kidnappers," Jack said, still piercing the woman with his eyes and filled with rage. The purple fog that was expanding from behind the white mask made him look like a grim reaper.
The policewoman was silent and Jack could notice the entire room being confused at this statement. He continued, "All of you people here have failed these kids. They were given into your care and you let them be sold right back to their torturers. Looking away does not absolve you from your responsibility. If I ever catch you letting something like this happen again, then I will come after you too. And you will never see this chief again. He is already dead."
Jack levitated further and hovered above the crowd with his eyes covered in dark fog and the chief of police dangling from his extended arm. The policemen on the ground were confused and did not know what to make of this situation but no one dared to speak. They all knew who was in front of them since he had been in the news every day since he appeared in the public eye. Even though he wore no fox mask today, his existence was undeniable. Everyone gradually lowered their weapons. This man could not be defeated. Then Jack opened a portal and disappeared.
Jack had brought the chief into his cave in the high-density area and lowered him to the ground. As the chief had regained stable footing, Jack kicked his shin with such force that it immediately broke the bone in two. The chief tried to scream but Jack closed his mouth with his hands. Jack was not thinking straight. He was too angry for that.
"I rescue some kids and you sell them back. What should I think about this?" Jack was talking with a calm voice but it had an eerie sound due to the repressed anger and the hint of insanity behind it. The fog emitting from his eyes made him look like a nightmare come to life. His instinct was to rip the man apart but he held back. He wanted to savor this moment. He did not even care for an answer since he was still blocking the chief's mouth with his hand and observed how he was trying to hold his balance with his remaining leg.
Jack looked at him crying and biting his hand but he felt nothing but hate for this man. "I save these kids and you sell them back. Isn't that strange?" Jack got close to the chief's face and leveled his eyes right before his. Then he kicked his other shin and broke it so violently that the lower half of his leg nearly detached. The chief screamed into Jack's hand and nearly fainted from the pain but Jack was able to easily keep him alive and awake through his healing ability which allowed him to fully monitor his entire body. This would be a long night for the chief.
Jack threw him to the ground and watched him as he was squirming in pain. The police chief looked at Jack and cried, "You are insane!"
Jack did not blink as he stared at the chief. "Thank you. I will enjoy the time we will spend together." What the chief did not know was that Jack had leaked a few bots into his bloodstream and had the assistant read the man's memories to confirm all suspicions. He was indeed bribed and knowingly handed the kids back to the organization although he did not have any intel on them. But it was enough for Jack to justify his rage. He crouched over the chief and used his frying hands ability to immediately melt his arms into the stone ground which made the chief cry in pain and nearly foam at the mouth. To calm down his body's internal shock, he partially healed him to keep him conscious and sane.
"Do you know why you will suffer here? You have taken children that needed to be protected and have sold them to the wolves. You deserve pain. A lot of pain." Jack pointed his right index finger at the chief's crotch and shot three times with precision to destroy his genitals in the most painful way possible. The chief screamed louder and his eyes rolled over before he lost consciousness. Jack smiled, "Not so fast buddy. I have a lot of plans for you tonight." Then he placed his hand on the chief's chest and healed him. Then he repeated the process of breaking his legs and destroying his organs one by one until he had given the chief every kind of pain imaginable. He had to heal him at least 60 times until his anger had somewhat subsided. The chief was unrecognizable after these hours of torture and he had not said much after he noticed that Jack was not even listening to his pleas and apologies.
The chief was promised cash and a large villa for his family. That was his motivation. He was not blackmailed, neither was he trying to pay for his wife's medical bills. He was simply greedy. The kids he had sold off were meant to face an upbringing that was more than harsh. It was common for children to be tortured, abused and even raped during their brainwashing period. They were dehumanized to become reliable assets to the organization. Knowingly or not, that man had sold children to the devil just to live in a nicer house and gain the envy of his peers. Disgusting.
After Jack got bored of the torture, he called for a bat with a healing ability to take his place. He instructed it to nearly kill then heal him for the next 6 hours. Then it was to just kill him and drop the body into a creature infested area. This man deserved no mercy. His family might miss him but at least he would not cause any more damage to the people around him. He had destroyed too many lives over the past decades as the henchman of the organization to deserve a second chance.
When Jack returned to the villa, the assistant informed him of a message from Cibola's president who had contacted him due to the assault on the police station. But Jack had simply let the assistant answer by providing them with all the evidence of the chief's illegal activities over the last 20 years but especially the recent case of the kidnappings. To the request to hand the chief over to the authorities, Jack simply answered that the chief was dead and they should first clean house before they try to tell him how to handle things. The government did not make any further requests after that.
Dove seemed to be pretty happy taking care of the kids and Jack observed them eating at the table. The children looked very indifferent but they were forcing themselves to eat even if it was just for the sake of the cheerful and kind Dove. Jack did not know what to do with the kids but he would keep them here for now. There was no way that he would risk a third incident by trusting the government again. The children had been damaged enough. The more he thought about what happened the more his anger started to resurface but he calmed himself knowing that the chief was currently floating in a hellish river of pain. The people behind the organization will face even worse consequences. He walked over to the table and joined the kids after having taken his mask off. The kids looked at him briefly but their eyes quickly returned to the table where they fixated on the food with an empty expression. Only the girl with the mindreading ability held his gaze. Jack had increased the energy density around his head to make it impossible for her to read his thoughts but maybe that was not why she looked at him. She might have just needed someone to share her pain and his anger did just that. He just had a different way of expressing it.
Then the girl put down her spoon and asked, "Do we go somewhere else now?"
Jack looked at the girl and considered her innocent question. "You will stay here. It's safe."
The girl held Jack's gaze for a moment and then picked up the spoon again. "Ok," she simply said with an apathetic voice while digging back into a big piece of cheese in the salad on her plate. Jack had the assassins prepare communicators for the children which was a welcome distraction for them after having lost everything. The assistant had modified the devices so that they could also be used for educational purposes to replace school for them. He did not plan for this but he would need to take care of some children for the time being. At least Dove seemed to be very happy playing the part of the caretaker and the kids would sleep next to her in a large bed.
It seems like the more Jack wanted to leave this planet, the more he became embedded in it. It was almost as if the Sym energy was driving him to get closer and closer to this world by manipulating all the decisions he made.
For what purpose, he did not understand.