As Jacks walked up the sand giant, he remembered the look of a certain boy that he just passed by.. It contained some worry, but mostly curiosity. A look that bought back memories that he had long forgotten.

Jacks Jackson grew up in an orphanage in Oasis City. It was a standard place for a orphange. Full of kids without parents with a few adults to support them. It wasn’t bad per se, but it wasn’t a great place either.The greatest problem was Jacks himself as his attitude growing up could be described as rebellious.

At the age of fifteen, he ran off and became a mercenary.

Why did he do that again he mused. It wasn’t as if he was forced away. The orphanage had a policy of letting the children stay until they were 18 and found a decent job.

However, that was the issue.

Decent.

In other words, mediocre.

That was the reason he ran away. Staying in the city would only amount to so much. That’s why he became a mercenary. Searching for fame and fortune as most kids dream of at that age.

Sure, there were other ways for a better life. But it wasn’t faster. He could have joined the Federation. Climbed the ranks. But the rigid rules didn’t agree with him. At least that's what it seemed like to a child at that time. Becoming a mercenary was by far the easiest and fastest way to the better life he sought.

Even if it cost Jacks his life.

The life of a mercenary had its ups and downs. He had scraped by in the beginning. Slowly made his way up the ranks and joined several mercenary companies. Some had broken up when there weren't enough members after a dangerous mission. Some companies he had quit due to conflict of personality and work culture. He slowly learned the ins and outs of the mercenary world. It could be said that Jacks’s life as a mercenary wasn’t a major success since he was only able to remain as a silver rank after several years, unable to advance due to lack of power. However the fact that he was able to survive was a win in his book as he wasn’t left begging on the streets.

The major game changer happened when he was 30.

At the age of 30, Jacks awakened his ability.

The age where people start to experience a midlife crisis. His awakened ability certainly did cause him to question his beliefs.

When Jacks found out he had awakened, he celebrated.

When he found out what his ability entails, he despaired.

Jacks had a confession to make. When Seth had asked Jacks why people awaken, Jacks lied.It wasn’t a major lie. He had answered he believed there was no reason why people awaken. However what he actually believed was luck.

Not fate. Not Destiny, but luck.

Otherwise how could he explain his powers?

When Jack's abilities manifested, he could see into the future. When he further tested, experimented, and pushed himself to the limit, Jacks figured out he could see a maximum of 10 seconds into the future.

10 seconds on battlefield was a luxury

Jacks found himself questioning himself. Why didn’t he awaken his ability earlier?

Mercenaries were a diverse and rowdy bunch. Jacks had met and cooperated with many of them throughout his travels. Some had families and only became a mercenary to support themselves. Jacks had seen quite a few people who became a mercenary for this sole reason and at the same time seen them die. He had seen good comrades die from ill-fated blows. Could he have saved them with his new power? If he believed it was destiny for him to acquire his power, then did that also mean it was destiny for those specific people to die?

Without his new Awaken ability could he prevent people from dying?

As it turned out, his ability wasn’t omnipotent.

Jacks’s powers had their own drawbacks. For every second he saw into the future, it meant a minute of respite was needed. That meant for every 10 seconds of foresight on the battlefield, 10 minutes was without foresight.

He had to learn that even with foresight, people still died. Without or without Jacks using his powers. Some deaths he was able to prevent while others occurred during the power’s break. Jacks had to learn to balance his awaken abilities and the inevitability of death that came with the job.

In the end, it turned out better than Jacks had thought. He wasn’t stronger, tougher or faster, but it was an ability that suited him. He was able to make a name for himself as a mercenary.

With his Awakening, Jacks was able to take more lucrative, albeit more dangerous jobs.

Jacks had traveled the world. Visited a lot of cities and experienced their culture. He saw the ruins of fallen cities. He met some of the strongest humans on the planet. Jacks had seen what the best of humanity had to offer.

At the same time, witnessed the worst humanity could display.

Jacks made many new companions and connections.

And lost a lot of them as the years went by.

Thats was the thing though. It was all part of the job.

Eventually Jacks had found himself reaching a limit. After 40 years on the field, he had found his body reacting slower to his commands.. He wasn’t getting any younger as the heavy days of battle had taken their toll. It was time to put his gun down and retire, but Jacks didn’t want to. All he knew was how to fight and kill. He didn’t know what other purpose his life contained.

One day, Federation came knocking on his door and offered to recruit him. It wasn’t the first time as the Federation would often try to recruit experienced mercenaries as they would be cheaper and less time consuming then training new officers from scratch. Jacks had always refused their offers.

However this time was different.

Jacks decided then and there ‘why not?’ and agreed to work with the Federation as a semi-retirement. He had come a long way and the stricts rules of the Federation no longer seem so strict. When asked where he wished to be stationed, after seeing the list, he agreed to be stationed at Oasis City.

His hometown.

After so many years, he finally decided to return.So many things changed while at the same time so much had stayed the same.

The orphanage was surprisingly still there. The people who helped take care of it had changed, but the director had surprisingly stayed the same. Albeit with more wrinkles.

Returning back to Fortress city made Jacks realized that the city wasn’t the only thing changed. He was a changed man. He had grown more cynical and jaded.

Maybe that was why he decided to help Seth .

The boy still had an innocence that he had lost a long time ago. Seth reminded Jacks of himself. Both were people who had not awakened when they started off, but had the attitude to take on the world for their dreams. Only difference was Jacks had learned to accept reality while the boy was still chasing a far off dream. Seth may have had a better start, but Jacks could tell where he would end up if he wasn’t careful.

Dead.

Just like so many of his friends during his mercenary days.

So Jacks decided to give him a helping hand when he could.

It wasn’t hard. The boy had a certain curious charm to him that made people want to help him.

Now he had bought this boy for some personal experience .

Fortunately it wasn’t the worse case scenario of killing off the newly Awaken, but this was still going to be a tough situation to handle.

As Jacks made his way, the saw giant moved his arm back in preparation to strike Jacks. That was when he activated his ability.

Jacks saw the blow coming at him and would smash right through his body if he stood still.

What if he sidestep to the left inorder to dodge?

Jacks saw a spike of sand would form inorder to pierce him.

What if Jacks decided to sidestep to the right instead.

The result would be the same with a spike forming in the arm in order to pierce through him, only in the opposite direction.

What if Jacks used his shotgun instead and shot the incoming arm?

This would cause the incoming arm to explode….and then reform a few second later. However, it would be enough to stop the blow.

What if he…

Jacks had learned after that his awaken ability allowed him to see all the possible actions the target may make within the 10 seconds of future sight. Jacks was able to see an almost infinite possible action the target could make. Jacks believed that there was three thing needed for a mercenary to be successful.

Knowledge, experience and luck.

With the knowledge of what the best action to take, Jacks used his experience to handle the enemy with his powers and with a little luck, everything would be resolved quickly.

The 10 minute respite after using his ability wasn’t set by his ability. It was set by himself. Otherwise he would never be able to handle all the information that comes from analyzing his target’s action. Fortunately a person had habits engrained in themselves, so a lot of possible actions they made were repeated throughout the foresight. This allowed Jacks to study the enemy’s fighting style and make predictions even after his powers were on cooldown.

Another way of seeing it was the probability in which the enemy made their move. What was the most likely outcome if Jacks perform a specific action and what would be the best outcome out of all the futures that Jacks had seen?

This had all happened in a matter of seconds. Jacks had trained himself to analyze the future outcomes he foresaw. After doing so, he finally made a decision.

Jacks continued walking towards the sand giant and the future he saw became true. It swung its right arm at him, threatening to smash him into the ground.

Jacks already decided what the best course of action would be.

He simply raised his shotgun and fired.

The arm instantly exploded with sand flying everywhere. The sand giant roared as if it was in pain. The sand that had flown off from the shotgun bullets then began to reform and regenerate the arm. Given time, the sand giant would have fully recovered its arm in a minute.

Too bad Jacks decided that now would be the perfect time to shoot the left leg with a shotgun bullet..

This forced the sand giant to instantly kneel down on its remaining leg as it lost its balance. It used the other arm to hold itself up in a baby crawl fashion.

That wasn’t good enough so Jacks decided to walk around the giant and fire at the remaining intact limbs which resulted in an explosion of sand and the sand giant falling flat on the ground.

Jacks had learned a well aimed powerful shot works wonders in combat. In this situation, the sand giant would be forced to focus on the recovery of its limbs. A few spikes of sand was shot at Jacks, but he easily avoided them. Each time when a limb looked as it would fully recover, Jacks fired at the limb, forcing the sand giant to restart its recovery all over again.

Newly Awaken weren’t the brightest bunch, since their powers cause their minds to become unstable.

Why didn’t the Enforcers think of this method? That was because the Enforcers focus on inner city threats. They were equipped with some guns, but lacked the heavy firepower that the Federation used outside of the walls. Their current equipment barely had any impact on the sand giant as its skin absorbed most of the enforcer’s bullets. Jacks being a Federation officer had access to weapons that Enforcers didn’t.

Plus his shotgun was heavily modified as its shots could be compared to a mini rocket launcher.

Jacks calmly walked in circles around the sand being, blasting off its limbs before they fully recovered and reloading when necessary. This happened for about ten minutes, before wondering where Slipstream was.

For a guy whose power is superspeed, he could be awfully slow.

Just as Jacks was about to speak his thoughts, he felt a brush wind from his side. He instantly knew the reason why, but continued the task of keeping the sand being immobile. Besides it wasn’t really hard to guess who arrived. He worked with him enough times to recognize his presence without looking.

“About time you got here Slipstream” he said without turning around.

“Hey! I was outside the walls. I came as soon as i could!” Splitstream exclaimed.

“ Fine, fine. I've been keeping this thing down, but i can't shoot through the sand without hurting the person inside. I did hard lifting, now i’ll leave the cleanup to you..”

“HA! You guys cant do anything without me. Fine keep your eyes open as i show you how it's done.” Slipstream cracked his knuckles, and then began to run.