Chapter 14

Bewildered, Jack looked around in confusion. Under arrest for murder? Who? When? Surely they didn’t mean Barry and his goons? He was supposedly in the clear for that. But then why would Eric Flamewrought, Barry’s father, be here grinning like an arsehole.

“DROP YOUR WEAPONS, PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM AND LAY FLAT ON THE GROUND!!” the policeman with the megaphone commanded.

“There - there must be some mistake! I haven’t killed anyone!” Jack yelled back. “Recently,” he muttered quietly to himself.

“DROP YOUR WEAPONS, PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM AND LAY FLAT ON THE GROUND!!” the policeman repeated. “DO IT NOW OR WE’LL VIEW THIS AS RESISTING ARREST!!” he screamed.

Jack barely had time to do anything before Flamewrought declared, “I think he’s resisting!” With that he closed the twenty metre distance between them in a flash and grabbed Jack’s head with one hand before slamming it into the hard concrete.

The world went black for a moment but Jack clung to consciousness. Flamewrought leaned in to whisper into his ear.

“You didn’t think I’d forgotten about you did you? There’s nowhere you can hide from me, not even in the Dire Woods,” he hissed gleefully.

“Flamewrought! Go easier on him, the world is watching,” Jack heard a voice approaching.

“Ah detective, you can never be too careful. This animal has killed countless innocent civilians, we can’t give him the chance to escape,” Flamewrought said smugly as he grinded Jack’s face into the ground.

“Hey! Wait just a minute! You can’t just -!” Stacey cried out but was interrupted.

“Keep his friends back and detain them, they may or may not know of his actions, they could be accomplices,” the voice belonging to the detective said.

Jack heard his friend’s indignant protestations as multiple police and hunters converged on them. Then someone else approached him before he felt something metallic and clunky go around both his wrists and around his waist.

He was roughly dragged up before facing a group of angry looking police and hunters, they all looked at with such disgust and contempt it was almost like the good old days when people thought lightning cultivating was impossible. Though this seemed far worse.

“What the hell is this about!? I haven’t done anyth - oof!” Jack was interrupted by Flamewrought punching him in the ribs.

“Flamewrought!” the detective protested.

“This is about you finally being brought to justice, you murdering scumbag! How could you!? All those people!” Flamewrought cried out theatrically for the benefit of the gleefully onlooking press.

“All what people!? What the fuck are you talking about!?” Jack asked frantically.

“Don’t try to act innocent! We know what you did!” Flamewrought still played it up for the benefit of the crowd. “Officers! Take him away!”

With a nod, the detective had the police grab Jack and drag him to an awaiting heavily armoured van accompanied by several grim looking hunters. Flamewrought followed behind them.

Jack was thrown into the back of the van and someone chained him to the floor. The hunters and Flamewrought all sat on benches on either side of him while the police remained outside. Jack only caught one last glimpse of his friends surrounded by police and hunters as they watched him in shock before the doors were closed and with a bang from his fist on the side, Flamewrought signalled that they were ready to go

Flamewrought looked like the cat that caught the canary, he watched Jack for a few moments with a smug grin while Jack glared at him balefully. Flamewrought leaned towards him.

“Go ahead, try it,” he said.

“Try what?”

“Try accessing your core, I know you want to. C’mon, electrocute me, c’mon,” he said teasingly.

Jack looked at him suspiciously, Flamewrought actually wanted him to use his lightning abilities? Why? This had trap written all over it.

“Why don’t you go fuck yourself instead,” Jack refused.

“Hmph! Then I’ll give some encouragement.” Flamewrought nodded to the other hunters sat on the benches.

Jack soon learnt what kind of encouragement he’d be receiving when one of the hunters punched him in the face, then another stamped on his leg, then another hunter struck him and again and again and again. Jack endured a vicious beating from the several hunters until he reached into his core by instinct and attempted to discharge some lightning all around him.

He did not receive the effect he’d expected.

Instead of a surge of electricity discharging all around him, instead he received an even worse pain that felt like he was electrocuting himself. All his muscles seized up and cramped painfully as he spasmed and jerked uncontrollably on the floor.

“Hahahahahaha!!” Flamewrought laughed hysterically along with the rest of the hunters in the van. “Hahaha! Oh that was brilliant! Oh ho! This is a good day!”

“Wha - what did - you…do!?” Jack could barely get the words out of his clenched jaw.

“Haha! Those bracelets you’re wearing, those were specifically designed to contain you, you know. They’re state of the art, meant to create a feedback loop whenever you try to release some lightning from your core, so you’ll only fry yourself if you try it!” Flamewrought gloated.

“Made these especially for me did ya? I’m touched,” Jack tried to mock him. He looked down and saw thick manacles clasped around both his wrists, locking them close together with a short thick chain connecting them, they were attached closely to an even thicker metallic binding that went around his waist.

“Oh I didn’t make them, I didn’t even need to commission them!” Flamewrought said gleefully.

“What?”

“Hah! Apparently, as soon as your existence was suspected, the guild began developing these. It was pretty much the day you joined the guild actually. All I had to do was send for them and London sent these things up here the same day!”

“The guild?” Jack questioned weakly, faint feelings of betrayal welled up within him.

“Mm, as soon as Cheryl sent word of you, they apparently began thinking of ways to take you down, heh heh,” Flamewrought chuckled at the hurt look on Jack’s face. “Right! Now that our little lesson is over, it's time to say goodnight!”

“Wha -?” Flamewrought’s fist rocketed into Jack’s face and he saw no more.

*******************************************

Jack stirred back to consciousness an indeterminate amount of time later.

“He’s coming to, sir.” Jack heard a hazy voice at the edge of his consciousness before wakefulness fully reasserted itself.

“I see that. Wakey wakey, Mr Errant, wakey wakey,” Flamewrought’s voice sounded in Jack’s ear and he jerked awake.

He found quickly however that he couldn’t move, not even his head, he was laying down and strapped down to a cold hard metallic surface. The bleariness in his eyes cleared and he looked around in mild panic as he began to remember his predicament.

“Ah, finally awake! I was beginning to worry there, the good doctor here almost had a heart attack when he saw your split skull as we brought you in!” Flamewrought grinned down at him.

Jack’s unasked question as to who the doctor was, was answered when a masked face with small round spectacles appeared in his field of vision. The face examined him clinically as if he were a piece of meat, Jack felt fingers delicately dance over a cut on his forehead.

“Hm, healing well, exponentially faster than baseline humans. Blood fully clotted, no sign of infection, diminishing signs of inflammation. Fascinating.” The doctor dispassionately described Jack’s wound, courtesy of Eric Flamewrought.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Any thoughts Jack held for the doctor having his best wellbeing in mind however, were gleefully dispelled by Flamewrought.

“Take his head binding off,” Flamewrought ordered. The doctor obliged. “Now Jack, take a good look around.” Flamewrought and the doctor stepped back.

Despite himself, Jack did as he was told and he was filled with dread at what he saw.

He was in some sort of sterile, modern looking operating theatre or lab about ten metres by ten, all around him on various shelves and worktops were tools or various descriptions; scalpels, saws, needles, beakers and bottles of different liquids. Small hammers, knives and all sorts of sinister looking metallic pointy instruments Jack didn’t want to know the use of.

Flamewrought walked over to one of the benches and picked up one of the instruments, examining it.

“Now I can’t quite remember the name of this little beauty, but I do know it was specifically designed to peel human skin off,” he said with a little smirk to Jack.

“Ah! Be careful! Don’t touch the instruments, they’re supposed to be sterile!” The doctor rushed to Flamewrought and snatched the tool from his hands, cradling it protectively. Flamewrought backed away, chuckling.

Jack could only watch and look around in horror, he struggled in his bindings but couldn’t get free.

“What the fuck is this!? You can’t do this! I was arrested by the police! Where are they?!” Jack cried out.

“The police? Oh they remanded you into the guild’s custody, they still don’t quite have the capabilities to contain cultivators,” Flamewrought told him. “So you’re all ours, and as far as the rest of the world is concerned…..you died whilst attempting escape.” He shrugged with a smile.

“What…what are you going to do to me?” Jack asked, but inwardly, he already knew.

Flamewrought gave him the widest, most horrific grin he’d ever seen. “You killed my boy, I told you that I’d make you pay, and now here we are. Now, I already owe a big favour to the good doctor here, so I thought to myself, why not kill two birds with one stone? I give you to him, and he gets to dissect you and run whatever little experiments he wants on you and I get my revenge. Everybody’s happy!”

“Mm, he’s a fine specimen Mr Flamewrought, very fine indeed. I should be able to get an excellent amount of data from him. And I’m certain I’ve come up with a perfected method the Swiss used to extract the human elemental core. I may even be able to keep him alive for a little while as I harvest his skin and bones,” the doctor excitedly explained while gazing at Jack with covetous eyes.

“You sick fucks!!” Jack exclaimed in horrified panic as he continued to frantically free himself. Out of animal instinct he tried to run a charge of lightning from his core into his body but the restraints he was in just redirected it and he was left gasping for pain as his own lightning energy turned against him.

As Jack was twitching and spasming on the operating table, something beeped from a monitor on the far wall.

“We’re getting a call sir,” the doctor said.

“Put it through, and stay out of the frame, you’re not even supposed to be here” Flamewrought ordered.

The doctor pressed something on a remote control and the monitor screen on the far wall came on to reveal a beautiful blonde haired woman staring out at them.

“Is that him then? The lightning cultivator?” she asked in a terse voice.

“Ah Imogen! How lovely to see you once more!” Flamewrought greeted her smoothly with an oily smile.

“Save it! Is that him?” she barked out.

“It is indeed my dear, the world’s first lightning cultivator, all trussed up and nowhere to go!” Flamewrought joked.

“Good, I had to see this for myself.” She narrowed her eyes at Jack for a moment before turning back to Flamewrought and the doctor. “I want it done soon and make sure this doesn’t get back to me!” With that she disconnected the call and the monitor went blank.

Jack could only gape at the blank screen. Flamewrought had called that woman Imogen, surely he couldn’t mean Imogen Shriverston? One of the founders of UK hunters guild, Cheryl’s sister and Meredith’s mother. What did she want Jack like this for? His panicked musings were interrupted by Flamewrought’s chuckle.

“Ah, Imogen, so lovely yet so cold at the same time, just like her sister. Hah, what I wouldn’t give….” he trailed off before turning back to Jack. “Now then, take this is all in Jack.” He gestured around the room. “Because all this, all this is waiting for you tomorrow bright and early! I want you to think of nothing but what's waiting for you in this room and what the good doctor here is going to do to you tomorrow!” Flamewrought cackled in excitement.

After that he went to a secure steel door and pressed a button to open it.

“Take him,” he ordered someone and several heavily armoured men trooped in towards Jack. They unbuckled his restraints from the operating table he was on and put him back into the smaller restraints he’d had on before, they then dragged him out of the room. Flamewrought gave him a cheery wave as he dragged out.

They took him down a long wide metal corridor that had no windows and little light. Jack could hear the echoey cries of other people and other things from elsewhere in the facility he was in. The men brought him to the end of the corridor and dragged him into a small metal cell where they attached his manacles to a thick metal loop on the floor so he couldn’t stand up or move around. After one last kick in the ribs they left him locked in the cell.

The only light he had was a thin stream coming from the viewing slot in the reinforced cell door.

The first thing Jack tried was to pull at his restraints in a panic, trying anything to just get free, but he couldn’t. The metal loop in the floor wouldn’t bend and the restraints wouldn’t break, he didn’t dare access his lightning core after what happened last time.

After straining in futility for several minutes, Jack sank to the ground, breathing heavily. Think, he needed to think. What could he do? He was in some maniacs dungeon, they wanted to cut him up into little pieces! Fuck! All those knives and hammers and pointy things waiting for him!! Not good! Not good! Not good! His breath came out in short panicky gasps for air.

Jack clenched his eyes shut and forced all the intrusive thoughts out of his head and tried to think clearly. He needed calm now, not fear. He took a deep shaky breath and then another, then thought about what he could do.

He could wait for rescue, but he preferred to be proactive in these sorts of situations and he sort of doubted anyone would get to him in time.

He could try and bribe whoever these guards were, but he doubted that would work.

He didn’t currently have access to his lightning core and his enhanced strength was good but he still wasn’t quite at the level of being able to bend or break several inches of solid steel.

What did he have? What could he do? What did he…..oh. Oh that might work. Jack narrowed his eyes as a sudden thought popped into his head. He had time, Flamewrought wanted him to agonise over the details of his demise for a few hours, so Jack had time. He just knew it was going to be unpleasant.

He looked around for something he could use but he found nothing, so with a grimace he held his arms up to the light coming from the cell door, Jack put his own fingernail from his right hand against his left forearm, and began cutting.

He winced and hissed in pain as the blood dripped down, it took him a minute but the first rune was done, only another hundred or so to go.

*******************************

Three hours later and his left hand, forearm and part of his bicep were a bloody mess, but he was done. Using his own fingernails from his right hand, he’d carved a rather complicated and intricate series of sequential patterns of runes into his left arm; he'd done it as deep as he could too, to take into account his accelerated healing. But by God it hurt when he was doing it, desperation was an extraordinary motivator however. It was said that a wolf would gnaw its own leg off when caught in a hunter’s snare in order to get free, he didn’t know if that was actually true or a myth but now he definitely understood things from the wolf's perspective.

He shakily wiped the blood away and took a proper look at the finished product. Not bad, it was a little basic compared to what he might have done if he'd had access to proper tools or if he didn’t have his potential demise at the hands of a sadist in the back of his mind. But overall not bad, he could always tweak it later if he survived the day.

He held up his arm and reached into his core, he was careful not to discharge any lightning into his restraints, he channelled some energy into his left arm. There was a flicker of blue which failed to manifest what he’d been going for.

Jack frowned and redoubled his concentration. Over his left arm, a thin translucent blue flat sheet of light appeared. Jack let out a breath of relief, the runes on his arm itched and burned with pain very slightly but he ignored it. He manipulated the flow of power along his left arm into another sequence of runes and the shape of the sheet changed, becoming a circle. This time, the construct didn’t disintegrate, the pain in his arm remained but it was manageable. The construct gave off a dim blue light in the darkness of his cell.

He practised and experimented for a few minutes, manipulating the size and shape of the construct until he felt like he had it under control.

The runic algorithm he’d carved into himself was something he’d been working on for weeks now; it allowed him to essentially conjure up a non-elemental, non-physical barrier or shield. He’d based the patterns around runes he’d found for light and weight and then created a novel algorithm for condensing it all to become extremely dense. That was an extremely simplified explanation considering Jack had needed to pore over several advanced physics textbooks and various theoretical physics journals until he had what he needed but in the end it was worth it.

A construct of hard light. He didn’t know just how hard exactly, not having had the chance to really test it out before. He just hoped it was hard enough for stopping bullets and blades.

Now he was done, he needed to get out of these restraints. He conjured a small blue blade of light and put it to the metal manacles. The blade was extremely thin, not even a micrometre in thickness and with a little bit of brute force it cut through the manacles.

Finally free, sort of, he stood up, flexing his wrists and stretching his legs. He turned to the door and went over to it, he peered through the narrow slot and looked out into the corridor. It was empty as far as he could tell except for one guard standing outside his cell door, facing away from him.

Jack was nervous and fed up of sitting still, he wanted out now!

He banged on his cell door, causing the guard to turn around in confusion, Jack banged again. The guard hesitated before looking through the viewing slot, Jack rammed a light blade through his eye.

Admittedly, after the fiasco with Barry and his friends, which resulted in Jack and Cheryl being the only ones to walk away alive, Jack was significantly less squeamish about taking another human life. However, he still liked to think that he valued human life enough to find a non-violent option when he was confronted with unpleasant scenarios. But in this particular circumstance, he didn’t really feel like playing nice, whatever this facility was, it was probably filled with people who were culpable in what Flamewrought had planned for him, so fuck ‘em.

Jack let go of the guard and allowed him to fall to the floor on the other side of the cell door. He looked at the door and just now slightly regretted killing the guy who likely had the keys to his cell, only slightly though.

He conjured a blade and stabbed it into where he thought the locking mechanism might be, after a minute of stabbing and hacking, the mangled lock on the thick reinforced cell door hung loosely by some twisted metal. Jack grabbed it and yanked it away before shoving the door open.

The corridor before him was silent and dark but for a few lights lining the ceiling. He stepped out of his cell and started walking.