melodiesoflife | Well...What Now? [Luffy/Open: Aqures Tosf]

August 14 - Aqures Tosf
[Luffy:]

Once Jack comes out of the Crystal Stasis, it doesn't take him long to figure out what's happened. The vortex manipulator now reads the "right" date again. City destroyed, them, what, removed from time?

Jack sighs deeply, and the first person he approaches is Luffy. He slides the treasured straw hat off his head and offers it over.

"Well. That didn't work."

Pause.

"You owe me a new sword, you know."

[Open:]

There is a principle at work here, one that Jack swears used to even be in the Torchwood handbook. Everything has gone wrong: somehow Jack's partly to blame.

This isn't a surprise or even something that is a problem. But Jack will wait for his fellow Heroes to come to him. They'll be expecting answers, either on the stunt he pulled at the Temple, or on what has happened to them, now. He had the answers last time, didn't he? In the meantime, though, there's a laboratory, no, a whole island to explore. Twenty eight years. How much has changed?

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"Uh-" Frozen. "I guess so? I think- we all were. But?" Jack looks down at his own hand. "It didn't feel like normal. It was all just- here again." Jack barely even felt himself go.

"That's not how dying usually feels." Confused, at himself, and there's a long pause, as if he can puzzle this all out on his own.

Hands on his hips and he looks back up at Luffy. "And of course that was my sword. Used to be a pistol guy, sure, but that thing really seems to work better here. Liked that sword." Almost a pout.

There goes his finger again, looking elsewhere while he nods his head as if he's paying attention to what Jack says. The pirate begins to mumble to himself, grumbling and looking dissatisfied all the while.

"Stupid short-stack.. Putting a spell on me before I can get a hit in.."

He plucks the finger from his nose, turning with his eyes alert and his ears practically perking.

"Oh! Sorry. Was it a special sword?"

Jack shakes his head. "Not really special. But I've had it since I got here." He waves a hand as if to wave off his concerns. "I can get a new one from that blacksmith, back home." He's already thinking about it.

"What happened after I dropped?" Using a more casual term, trying to minimize what happened, as much as he can. "If everybody's still here, something happened to take everyone out?" He'll avoid the real questions, for now, focus on the practical, the things that might have more definite answers.

"After you dropped.. After.. You.. Dropped?"

Luffy thinks for a moment, his face becoming slightly red as the brain cells come together to try and jog the memories of the altercation.

"Mmmnn.. Kal-lady dropped into a big hole because some one shot a spell at 'er, so I turned around to try and hit whoever it was. Next thing I knew, I was being hit with something, and everything went dark!

They only got the drop on me because I was hungry! If I'd had a big meal, I'd have cleaned the floor with 'em!"

Or so that's what Luffy's going to say from here on out.

Jack smiles endearingly at Luffy, it's easy for the man to pull Jack out of the darker thoughts. But what he says, it doesn't make sense. "Kalki? She- died? She fell into a hole?"

"We should've all been able to wipe them out," Jack agrees with Luffy. "They couldn't have stood a chance against us all, the way we were killing all those monsters?" He nods seriously.

"But the people weren't the actual problem, were they? That- Crystal. It still blew up?"

Luffy cannot help but feel a bit guilty at the result of Kalki's condition, even if she had been the one to..

Nevertheless, Luffy gives a slow nod of his head, addressing Jack again as he focuses once more on the taller gentleman.

"Guess that's the thing about time. Can't change things that have already happened. No point in livin' in the past. We'll just have to figure out what's up ahead and deal with it as it comes."

The profound words of the pirate are deeper than usual, and it's a mystery if even he comprehends what it is that is being said.

Jack frowns. Luffy's words are profound, but, hasn't Jack done that before? It works, doesn't it? Or, they all tell themselves that it works. Everybody in this time travel racket. But, does it ever work? Never the way they think it would.

"There are- some things that can be changed," Jack mutters.

He stays silent for a few moments, he's wrapping all of what happened over and over in his mind. What was the point of it all, then?

"...Why did you stop me?" There are so many other questions he wants to ask, but that's the sticking point. And, he knows, for Luffy, that the answer is going to be something impossibly simple. Not stupid. Simple, to the point that even Jack can't deny it. And maybe that's what he needs right now.

"Does it matter?"

Luffy's hand run over his own person, checking his numerous pockets to see if any of the food he'd saved from the generosity of Princess Sarah had made it through the state he'd been reduced to.

"A life is a life, doesn't matter if you're able to live through it or not. If it means keeping a friend alive, I'd jump into Hell and climb my way back out if I had to."

He comes up with empty bones, his eyes widening when he remember that he didn't want to leave them as trash as he'd finished them before heading out to find Wedge.

"Damn it.. You're my friend, right? Or did I try and pull rank when you're not really a member of my crew?"

Well...What Now? [Luffy/Open: Aqures Tosf]

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