Accepting the truth is a difficult thing to do

[jadethenecromancer]

Who: Jade Curtiss and any CR who wants to help
What: Facing Jade's Shadow
When: Backdated to November 18
Where: The lab
Warnings: Blood, mentions of murder and unethical experiments


Jade handed his crystal to Rosepuff and stood back, bracing himself. He had an idea of what to expect -- and yet he wasn't quite sure where it would all go. Crystallis had made him face himself multiple times now. He was well aware of his faults. If there was still something he was repressing... It couldn't be pretty.

It didn't matter. Trying to prepare any more would just be delaying what had to be done.

"I'm ready. Let's get this over with."

"B-but..." Rosepuff was fluttering nervously. "You shouldn't do this alone, kupo! Why didn't you ask your friends to be here, kupo?"

"I'd rather not make them sit through this. Besides..." Jade paused, looking over his shoulder at the door to the room. "Knowing them, they've probably followed me and will burst in here any second now anyway."

The prospect of any of them seeing the worst of him wasn't an appealing one and so he'd tried to be discreet, but shaking off people who wanted to help him never seemed to work. For whatever reason, he seemed to attract the stubborn ones.

Rosepuff was still reluctant, but relented under Jade's pointed look and gingerly raised his crystal in her paws. This was it, then. Time to see what he still had to hide, even from himself. He waited, while a shape began to take form before him.

The Shadow was completely identical to him... almost. The hair was shorter, barely reaching the shoulders. And the uniform under the lab coat, though clearly that of the Malkuth army, was for someone lower ranking than a Colonel. But the most distracting part was the blood -- soaking the coat, dripping from the hands, even spattered on one side of the face.

Purple eyes stared back at him from behind the glasses.

"That's it?" Jade murmured. Even though he'd expected something like this, he couldn't help but feel revulsion at the sight of his double. No, not just a double. The self from the lowest point of his life. Other than the eyes, this was almost exactly how he'd been back then. "I didn't think it would be this... predictable."

This couldn't be all there was to it, could it?

Comments

[ninjainviolet]

Sheena crossed her arms and gave Albel a look. "Good answer," she said.

He was going to get a lot more than nagging if he kept up that train of thought. But... That wasn't important now.

Sheena's eyes narrowed at Jade. "Yeah. Probably the same reasons most of us did. Embarrassment and fear." Nope. Not sparing you a lecture, Jade. She was just going to cut hers short.

Maybe.

She nodded towards Rukia. "She's not the only one who hasn't abandoned you, Jade. We might be the only ones who are here right now, but I know there are others who feel the way we do." Her gaze fell on the Shadow. "His past doesn't matter. Jade is Jade. That's the only thing that does."

[lastfonmasterguardian]

All things considered, Anise didn't feel that surprised. It almost felt like it was a side of Jade she'd seen before. His shadow was cocky and arrogant, but that was kind of the way he was every day, too. If Dist was any indication, this was probably closer to the way Jade was as a kid. Also, emotions. Jade didn't usually talk about them in any capacity. That part was weird.

Anise nodded towards Rukia and Sheena, before looking at Jade, "Yeah, we're all your friends here. You get onto us all the time about not being careful. It's not fair that you get to do this all by yourself!"

Before continuing, Anise took a very pointed look at shadow Jade, and then crossed her arms, "Besides, your shadow looks pretty weak. And dumb. He keeps saying all this stuff, but it doesn't even matter."

[jadethenecromancer]

"You all..." Jade sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate their sentiment, but...

"Useless brat! Don't you know who I am?" Where Jade nearly always kept his temper under control, the Shadow had no such self-restraint. For a moment it looked downright deranged, advancing on Anise with the scalpel extended. "We'll see about 'dumb' when I have your stupid little brain on the cutting table--"

Jade immediately rushed to stand between Anise and the Shadow, pushing her behind him. A few seconds of silence that somehow felt like an eternity followed -- until at last the Shadow halted and broke into a low chuckle.

"...Well, that's fine. It doesn't really matter whether they believe in you or not, does it? It doesn't change the self you have so carefully kept locked away." It grinned. "The nasty little boy who liked to cut up animals just to see how they worked. The selfish student whose arrogance took the life of his mentor. Poor Professor Nebilim..."

Jade's jaw clenched but he said nothing. He could see where this was heading and there was no preventing it. The Shadow started pacing back and forth, purple eyes fixated on him, like a predator circling its soon-to-be victim.

"The genius scientist who tried to bring back the dead... no matter what the cost. How many replicas did we make over the years? How many did we throw away...?" The Shadow's grin widened when it saw Jade tense. "It was for the best, really. They would have led a short, painful existence anyway. Remember the ones that came apart before we could mercy-kill them? It was always so... messy."

"You are telling me nothing I didn't already know." Jade's voice had grown very quiet. The memories of those days were all to clear. The reason why he had eventually abandoned scientific research in favor of the military...

[damn_juicebox]

Rukia had started forward in Anise's direction as well, but as Jade was closer, she stopped herself, watching the shadow of himself far more warily. She knew that Jade had a dangerous side to himself that could be absolutely ruthless if the situation called for it. There was good reason to keep it repressed.

She continued forward, reaching for Anise's shoulder in an attempt to quietly usher the both of them to safey on the sidelines. If this thing kept trying to attack his friends, Jade would have far more difficulty accepting the Calamity Self as another part of him.

Glancing back, she wondered. Was it his guilt that Jade repressed? Or was it the fact that he didn't harbor any guilt which secretly bothered him? She released a quiet sigh. If it was the latter, she'd speak to him about the matter after this was over. For now, she felt it best not to interrupt...not unless she had to intervene out of sheer necessity.

[wickedone]

Albel likewise had taken a step toward Anise. He didn't know the girl, but she was a target of the Shadow, so of course he'd move to protect her. Whoever she was, she was probably important to Jade -- he was important enough to her for her to be here.

Once she was safely with Rukia, Albel's gaze slid between Jade and his Shadow self. "Did it just insinuate... that you tried to create people?"

[ninjainviolet]

The others weren't the only ones looking out for Anise. Sheena was, too. Like the others, she had moved protectively towards her, hand off her weapon, but her stance ready.

A stance she maintained even after Anise was safely with Rukia. The anger from the Shadow put the tension in the room that much closer to snapping, and she wanted to be ready.

Still, she had a question for her friend. "Why, Jade? Why were you trying to bring back the dead?" she asked, confused.