Chapter 3

Jeck stared at the eye floating in the darkness. The eye stared back, obviously, it's not like it could do anything else being a giant floating eyeball and all. Not breaking eye contact, Jeck sat down, crossed legged, mirroring his pose in reality. The two remained in near silence, only the gentle lapping of the water around him breaking it. An indeterminate amount of time passed as the two continued their staring contest. He fidgeted on the spot, growing more restless the longer he sat still. Finally, the giant eyeball gave a slow, deliberate blink.

'So why did you save it?'

'Are you serious? It has a drill! For a tail! That is awesome.'

'That's your only reason? What makes that any different from the myriad of other creatures you've seen along your travels?'

'Drills are dope as hell. It reminds me of this one show I watched a couple of years ago, main character used drills as a weapon.'

'I see. Nostalgia made you save him?'

'Curiosity actually, I wanna know if he can tell me anything else about the machinery down there in the quarry.'

‘Ah.’

The two fell back into awkward silence, until Jeck started getting impatient.

'Look, he's waking up. Lets just get to the point. Why are you speaking to me? Why now? Its been almost complete radio silence from you ever since I got here, except from when you yelled at me for summoning that statue.'

He glared at the eyeball. If it was just going to antagonize him then he didn't want to hear it. The eyeball looked back at him.

'I'm....' The eye trailed off, looking for the right words to say. Jeck was impatient though.

'"I'm....?" What? Spit it out already.'

The eyeball let out what most people would call a sigh. Its voice, not really a true voice, more of a whispering eldritch madness from the void, yet he could comprehend it all the same. It was coming from a direction he couldn't quite pinpoint. 'I'm bored okay? I've been stuck inside your head for the last two years, and you're not exactly easy to talk to, what with your [Stealth] Aspect and what not. It's only recently that your mental faculties have matured enough to hold conversations.'

'Oh....so my bad I guess.'

The eye mmm'ed and they looked at each other for a second before a question came to mind

'What are you anyway? I didn't really question it before because we couldn't talk and you would just stare at me, it was kind of awkward. Figured if you didn't want to talk then I'd leave you alone and if you were evil you'd have done something already, then I sort of forgot about you.'

Jeck looked up at the disembodied floating eye. He felt kinda bad for forgetting about whatever it was. Maybe he hurt its feelings? He seemed to be on a roll for that today. The eye hummed in thought as it thought of a way to answer the question. When it did its voice was decidedly amused.

'I guess you could say I'm everyone you're not.'

'Well that's not cryptic.' Jeck said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. He put a hand on his pale chin and thought out loud. 'Everyone I'm not....oh I get it. You're the personalities I fought against when I was rebuilding my identity.'

'Correct. When you sprang forth out of the waters you sit in, everybody else coalesced into me. I am a sort of aggregate of the souls that you beat out regain control of this body. A composite Ghost species.

Jeck opened his mouth.

'You don't need to worry about me trying to take control of you. The souls you bested have lost their individuality within me. They can't interact with you unless you let them.

'That would have been my next question. Well, I hope we don’t have any problems going forward.'

The eye was smiling now. It had no mouth to upturn, no eyebrows to move or facial muscles pull, but it was definitely smiling.

'Good, in the mean time I believe you something to attend to?'

A hand, made from the same cloudy black that made up the rest of his mindscape, shot out of the darkness directly at his face. Jeck threw himself backwards in shock, into the water at his feet and smacked his head into the tough soil as he fell off the log. As he lay there, arms splayed out on either side, a feeling of amusement drifted from the back of his mind.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, laugh it up." He muttered to himself. Pulling himself to his feet, he pulled at the hem of his cloak, checking the back for dirt. Seeing that he was covered in it he raised two fingers and let his energy flare out in a short burst, removing all the filth he had accumulated on his clothes and hair. Grumbling to himself he glance over at the Drill rat and froze when he saw it lying on its back with its head tilted looking directly at him.

'Oh great, this was not the first impression I was looking for. Wait! I can still salvage this.'

"Did you see that?"

It nodded its head.

"Can you pretend you didn't?

It shook its head.

'Dammit!'

Jeck sat back down on the log behind him and watched as the creature across the fire from him slowly pulled itself up, wincing in pain as its injurys flared up. With agonizing slowness, the creature lifted its tail and let it thump softly against the ground, a warning, he guessed, although it probably didn't sound nearly as threating as intended. The moon was shrouded by clouds leaving only the light of the fire to reflect off the metal weapon. The creature in front of him opened its mouth and then paused, as though looking for the right words to say.

"Why....why did you take me here?"

The words were stilted, as though he had never used them before.

Jeck leaned back and hummed to himself. "Honestly? It’s mostly because I'm curious about you."

He let the words hang in the air. The drill guy didn't look like he got too much intelligent company. The creature frowned as he processed the reason given to him, never taking his eyes off the human in front of him.

"So you want to talk to me?"

"Among other things, yes. But I think that can wait until the morning. You should go back to sleep."

The mongoose in front of him gave the idea some thought. This guy was setting off his danger sense, or rather, he wasn't setting it off, which in turn made him more wary. A chance to actually talk to another creature was certainly appealing, but....

It looked at him with distrust. "How can I be sure you won't try anything?"

Jeck noted its use of the word 'try' and not 'do'. It had some confidence in itself despite its loss. Good, far too many people give up after failure and he was glad to see this fella wasn't one of them. "I've had ample opportunity to harm you while you were unconscious earlier. If I wanted to hurt you I would've done it then."

Drill guy seemed to chew over his words, gradually relaxing as he pondered. He came to his conclusion, nodded and stiffly lowered himself to the ground again.

Jeck smiled and nodded back before silently walking into the forest. Tomorrow would be interesting.

***

Dawn broke over the iron forest. Jeck waited eagerly for his newest interest to wake up. He stayed up all night last night. Not that that was different from any other night, he didn't need to sleep. Human cells absorbed ambient starlight (He still wasn’t sure how humans evolved to do that.), while Ghost cells recharged in the absence of it. His Wraith cells did both apparently. Why the two didn't cancel each other out and give him some sort of super-cancer was beyond him. He would have checked with a doctor or somebody in a medicine-related field, but apparently this continent didn't advance past the middle ages or something, very irritating.

His saving grace was that he knew for a fact that civilization was out there somewhere, the Ghosts memories told him that, and that the planet was astronomically big. Earths circumference was around forty thousand kilometers (He wasn’t sure how he knew that.) and he'd travelled far enough to circle that multiple times the day before yesterday alone. Even if he didn't make it back to the landmass in his memories, there might be others out there.

So if he travelled far enough, he'd eventually find something resembling modern society, and he finally did! It may have taken a year, well, two if you included the year he spent rampaging across the continent in an identity crisis (which he didn't) but he was making good time. Now his first lead was snoozing away in front of him. Taking ages but set to wake up at any minute now.

"Any minute now."

"Aaaany minute now...."

"Any minu- okay screw this. A watched clock never boils or something. I'm gonna go see if there's any fruit around here-" The mechanimal before him began to stir. "Or you can just wake up, that's cool."

The creature blearily blinked his eyes and yawned. It took its time taking in its surroundings before its eyes landed on Jeck standing across the pile of ash that used to be the burning fire. He leapt back with a yowl not unlike a startled cat. His drill began to spin threateningly.

".......You okay there buddy?"

The mechanimal stared at him for a second before smacking a claw across his face and groaning.

"Yeah, m'fine. Just forgot about the whole thing last night."

"Ah I see. Probably should have expected that, you were a bit out of it. My name is Jeck, what's yours?"

"I.....don't know actually. I don't think I have one."

Jeck raised an eyebrow. How did he not have a name? What, did his parents not like him or something?

"Why don't you have a name?"

The rat thing in front of him looked down at the ground. "My parents died when I was young. If they gave me one then I don't remember it."

"Aww that sucks. So can I give you a nickname? I need something to call you."

He shrugged. "Sure I guess, as long as it's not stupid."

Jeck grinned mischievously. "How about Mr. Whisker- "

"Call me that and I'll kill you."

"Yeesh, no sense of humor. Okay....how about....oooh I know! Tengen Toppa Gurren Laga- "

Jeck was once again cut off from giving his companion a dumb nickname, this time it wasn't by his associate. A bolt of lightning descended from the heaven, striking the earth less than a foot in front of him with a thunderous crack. Jeck sat there, eyes wide with surprise, baffled at what just happened. He looked down at the scorched earth. Then with raised eyebrows, looked into the cloudless, sunny sky. The mongoose stood still in shock, still reeling from the strike. Jeck slid his eyes back to the mechanimal.

"Okay, references are ruled out. Lets see, you have a drill, drills dig through earth, earthquakes... How about Quake?"

"Your thought process is a straight line."

"Is that a yes?"

Quake nodded. "Yeah sure. It's not the most creative but it'll do for now."

Jeck scoffed at him. "Oh please, what would you know about creative?" Then he thought about it. "No seriously, what do you know about what's creative or not? I'm assuming you've lived here your whole life, but you can talk and can even joke around. None of the other animals down there ever muttered a word, even though they all seemed to be on your side, except the lizard that led me to you."

Quake stuck up his nose. "Those guys, they're dumb as rocks. Animals. They don't do anything except follow their basic instincts." He paused then his face soured. "Don't even talk about that two-faced, arrogant, coward in front of me. That lizard is only concerned with saving his own skin. I tried to fight that mammoth once before with his help. He switched sides and blindsided me once we lost the upper hand, then ran off into the forest and has been avoiding me ever since."

Jeck leaned forward, now incredibly interested. "That's exactly what I'm talking about. That behavior isn't seen in animals. Most of them would fight to the death than switch sides. Who taught you to talk, to think?"

Quake leaned back slightly. "Nobody taught me anything. I was definitely smarter than average but one day it all just....I don't know, clicked? The strange behaviors and routine events that just seemed to happen suddenly had reasons. I could reason. I could take data I had before and compare it to new data and formulate answers. It all just became so simple. I was shocked I couldn't see it before. I even learned how to talk too."

Jeck sat back on the stump and put a hand on his chin. "It sounds like sentience beat you over the head like a hammer or some kind of puberty. I guess speech must be an automatic part of that process. I never had learn to speak any language either. Everywhere I went I could just understand everybody." He looked frustrated now. “This place is so fucking weird! Everything is so different from Earth. The rules are strange and nobody has any answers.”

He sighed. “Please ignore my complaints, You’re the first intelligent company that I’ve had in the last year that hasn’t tried to kill me. Which is a lot sadder when I say it out loud.”

Jeck shook himself out of his thoughts.

“Anyway, I was going to ask you where the nearest civilization is, but, since you’ve been decent company, I’ve decided to offer to teach you.”

Quake raised an eyebrow and seemed to contemplate the offer. Jeck suspected that he was actually enjoying the conversation.

“What could you teach me?”

Jeck stood up. “Much like yourself, I may not know a lot about this world. The one thing I do however –“ He stalked forward in front of the fire, a grin splitting his face. Quake instinctively tensed up. Jecks walk, talk and whole demeanor was that of a predator. A dangerous one. “Is how to FIGHT!”

Quake jumped to his feet and braced himself for the blow.

It never came.

Instead, Jeck reared his foot back and kicked the ashes of the fire directly into his face. Dying embers flickered across his fur. They didn’t bother him. What did bother him was the cinders flying into his eyes and nose. He hacked and coughed in pain as his eyes stung and his throat choked on them. Taking a blind guess, he swung at where Jeck was last with his claws and upon catching empty air, swiped around behind him.

Jeck leapt back silently from his position behind Quake. For someone lacking in experience, he at least thought ahead when he fought. Deliberately stomping his foot on the ground to catch his attention, he leapt over his head and gave him a soft punch in the in the back when he turned to look at the noise. “You fucker! That was a dirty trick.”

Trying to make him reveal his location by insulting him? Not terrible. He’d have to hone his senses until he could fight blind though.

Quake growled in frustration as he stood back up.

‘Son of a bitch my eyes hurt.’

Fighting something that could actually think instead of just throwing its weight around was turning out to be a unique, albeit irritating experience. He’d have to get crafty. Wiping the soot out of his eyes, he slowly lowered the tip of his drill tail to the ground.

Jeck looked at the boy in front of him. Standing still and wiping his eyes in the middle of a fight? Sloppy. Maybe it was a trap? Regardless, he’d be a bad teacher if he left such an obvious opening alone.

Jumping off the branch he was perched on he landed a few feet in front of Quake. Aiming for an upper cut to his jaw, he was pleasantly surprised to find that Quake had tilted his head back to avoid the blow and had latched onto his outstretched arm with both hands. Quake had a triumphant grin on his face. He heaved and turned, throwing Jeck over his shoulder and slammed him into the ground. The ground around them shattered in every direction in a fifty foot radius. Spider-web cracks running through the soil before crumbling into a crater which held a very pleased Jeck and an even more pleased Quake at the bottom.

Jeck did a kip-up back to his feet. “Not bad, how’d you know where I was?”

Quake looked up at him and let a child-like grin show on his face. “I can feel movement on the ground through my drill. When you landed, I felt the dirt your feet kicked up leaving the ground.” He stated proudly.

Jeck couldn’t help himself. Quakes brown, furry head looked soft despite the dirt clinging to it. His hand moved on instinct. He reached out and started scratching Quake on the head. “Nice going, very clever for someone without experience.”

Quake didn’t hear a word Jeck said. All he could feel was the pure bliss that was radiating from the fingers gently scratching behind his ears. He was almost starting to melt under the nice feeling when his feet and tail started to thump against the ground involuntarily.

They both realized what was happening simultaneously. Jumping back as though they were on fire. Quake hissed at Jeck who raised his hands in an ‘I surrender’ position. “Sorry, sorry. Force of habit, won’t happen again. I promise.”

Quake glared at him. “It better not.” He said, embarrassment coating his face.

“It won’t. Now let’s get out of this pit before Caomhnaigh shows up again and tears us a new one.”

“Who’s Caomhnaigh?”

“I’ll explain everything once we’ve cleaned off.”

They both jumped up and onto the lip of the crater. Jeck leaned down and touched the soil. Quake watched curiously as the bottom of the crater rolled like a river lapping at its banks and rose to fill in empty space he had created.

“Always try to minimize damage to your environment. You’ll live longer if you do.”

Turning back to Quake, Jeck reached out to put a hand on his shoulder before freezing mid action.

“Can I put my hand on your shoulder for a sec?”

Quake looked at him suspiciously again.

“What for?”

“So I can get this dirt off of us. You were watching me last night? It’s the same thing I used to clean off back then. I’ll show how to do it later.” He offered.

“Fine, as long as your hands don’t wander.”

“Please don’t put it like that.”

Jeck grabbed his shoulder and quickly performed the same hand sign he did last night. It looked remarkably similar to one performed in a series about ninjas he was not going to say out loud in case of another errant bolt of lightning. Dirt exploded off their bodies in all directions, somehow avoiding each other in the process. He swiftly removed his hand from Quake, fearing that he’d lose it if he left it there any longer. Walking an appropriate distance away from him. He turned back and started to speak.

“Listen up now because this is important. I may not know as much about this world as I’d like, but I do know how combat works here. I’ll start with the basic of basics; Layers.