Dream Drive Ch. 09

Over the past minute, Jackson felt as though he'd cobbled himself together again. He took a slow breath, then nodded. "Alright. Kill the hunter. Open the portal to level two. Kill demons. Save the world. Something like that?"

"There's the angel side of you coming out again," Lucifer said. "You were first to reach me, my distant relative...I wish you luck." It hacked a short, cold laugh. "If you believe in such a thing."

"Not really," Jackson said.

"Good. Luck is for the ignorant." Lucifer appraised him for a moment. "When one blessed with my power reaches the gate of another world, it shall be linked to Dis, and all will be able to travel there from the City. That was not my doing – Mohammed wanted to make it a hub, of sorts, for your convenience, and to promote cooperation. I'm sure you'll all make good use of it to...work together?" Lucifer laughed again.

"Um, I have a question."

"Speak."

"I tried to bring something from Earth into Isis. But it had this weird growth on it – like something was breaking it down. A bug hatched inside it."

"An Anachronism," Lucifer said. "Things that do not belong in a world cannot be brought there from elsewhere. Your soul is protected by pact, by my power, but the magic of the demons corrupted your belongings."

"But I brought books, and clothes," Jackson said. "They were fine."

"Books?" Lucifer said. Its tone was mocking, haughty. "Clothing? Do these not exist in this world? Spare me the arrogance of your science. The greater the Anachronism, the more harsh the violation of existence. The more harsh the violation, the faster and more powerful the corruption. Be thankful you are not dead, Jackson Vedalt. Concerning the great demon princes - they have long since abandoned the lower levels, but once you attain greater powers, they will become aware of your presence. They are proud, and just as twisted, but they will hunt you relentlessly. Do not face them until you are strong. Very strong."

"Where's Emil Mohammed?" Jackson asked. "I want to talk to him."

"That, I cannot tell you. It was part of our bargain. He did not want anyone else to use the magic he used. The warping of reality is a rather dangerous tool."

Jackson swallowed, hard. "What bargain did he make, exactly?"

"Oh, yes," Lucifer said. "Provide you with the power to save yourselves...and in exchange, I keep all your souls, in the end."

There was a long and uncomfortable moment of quiet.

"Wait a second," Jackson said. "I didn't agree to that. This was supposed to be a game. I don't know what Emil said, but you can't just take –"

"What?" Lucifer's presence loomed over Jackson, staring down where he was clutching the platform. "I can't take what?"

"I didn't – he didn't say – this isn't fair!"

Lucifer hissed each word one by one. "Finish. Your. Sentence."

Jackson's lips mumbled it out as best he could. "You can't take my soul."

"I could take it right now," Lucifer said. "Rip it straight from your body. I am master, here. This is MINE. AND I CAN SEE WHERE IT GROWS IN YOU."

The darkness whipped around them, a gale of black ice and shredded fear. "You like games, Jackson?!" Lucifer shouted the words at him, hissing again, shrieking in a ghostly multitude of voices that raked Jackson's ears. "You expected a kindly guardian, did you? Someone to grant you answers? A signpost to point you toward salvation? I have none to give – none for you! You are an insect, relevant only as you are a container of my power! You are but one of the five thousand and sixteen dice that I have cast. I have cast many, for I know your numbers will be culled, if not by your own stupidity, then by the death that waits in the tower. You are a pawn on a board that you barely have the perspective to comprehend, and your arrogance astounds even me, ME, who was thrown expunged Heaven for the very same.

"I can hear the words in your heart, Jackson Vedalt, the hateful pride that has dug so far into your being you can't even see it. Your heart SCREAMS it at me constantly, as if afraid I might not hear, but you needn't worry – my ears are keen to everything dark. I hear and see everything, every putrid and wretched little piece of the soul to which you're suddenly so clinging! You, who ignored the entirety of Earth because you were too good for it, who isolated yourself in your little workshop of ignorance, sealed away where the things that reminded you of how WEAK you are could never reach you.

"Tell me, how does it feel? The man you grovel for, the only thing you respect – the mind of Emil Mohammed – tricked you into binding your soul in a pact that cannot be undone! You are not the hero of his grand story, Jackson, you are just one of the tools he gave me to exact my revenge and put things back the way they were. You will serve in that purpose, and at the end of your GAME, you will die! And if you do nothing, you'll die all the same!"

"But what does it matter?" Jackson's own voice underwrote Lucifer's, echoing alongside the howls. "After all, you're all just numbers. Faces of a die. People are hateful, spiteful, shallow, cruel, stupid, pathetic. They'll never change! There are too many people in the world! No one gives a damn anymore, isn't that right?! Weren't those your words?! And you least of all, embracing apathy and worshiping it as a false idol to spare yourself the trouble of taking action. Oh, yes, woe unto the one who has given up and run away! And yet you have the gall to think yourself above them, to demand FROM ME that your soul be spared, because you're somehow different. Somehow special. No, Jackson – you're terribly correct! You're all the same, and absolutely none of you matter in the scheme of the cosmos, especially not you, here at the bottom of everything that ever was or will be, the core of Dis, the 9th Circle of Hell, the deepest abyss that was ever conceived! You scorn and ridicule your fellows to push a distance between yourself and them, because in your acknowledgement of their failings you realize that yours and theirs are one and the same!"

Jackson shook his head against the storm. He was curled into a ball, but he clenched his fists and bared his teeth. "No. No, you're wrong! You're wrong!"

"DO YOU THINK YOU CAN DENY YOUR SIN IN FRONT OF ME?" Lucifer roared. "YOU FEAR IT BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT TO BE TRUE."

The air fell still again. Jackson shivered, and wheezed his breaths. He felt like he did after climbing the mountain, only his hands and feet were so numb he couldn't feel them.

"I had more planned for you," Lucifer said, "but no matter. My city has slumbered unmoving for an eon. I can wait a few more days."

Lucifer made its rattling chuckle. The sound of it tapped on Jackson's spine like a chisel being tested against thin ice. "Still, shouldn't I make some use of you? You don't seem to have the will to keep living. Would you like me to take your soul now and end it? Eat you alive, leave you in my stomach with the worst of them? Perhaps you'll make better use of the silver. Those coins have been sitting in my gut for over 2000 years, now. They need spending, don't you think?!"

Jackson couldn't move his arms. He could barely move anything. He'd been left in the cold too long. He wanted to reach out, to touch something, feel anything at all – but he couldn't feel anymore.

Lucifer laughed, and laughed. He could sense it loom closer, the claws and the teeth drawing in, a predator sizing up a snack. But it didn't pounce. It just hung there, basking in the act of keeping him crushed under its power.

"Or maybe," Lucifer said. The rattle was multiplied a hundredfold. Jackson could feel it in his ear, crawling inside like so many beetles. "I could save you from your fate. Give you another blessing. I already took your dreams – and now you don't need to sleep. A fair trade, yes? I am hard, but I am fair, unlike Him. He, who sees fit to bless some with talent and charm and wealth. He, who picks and chooses who wins and loses, who lives and who dies. Do you know of Whom I speak?"

"The One-Above," Jackson said. "G–"

Jackson felt a pressure squeeze his throat. His vision was speckled with black spots. "NOT. THAT. NAME."

The force faded. Jackson blinked, slowly. He tried to nod. He wasn't sure if his head moved.

"I rebelled," Lucifer said. "I rebelled against an all-powerful, all-knowing force. Or so it would have us believe. Whatever the truth, it was greater than I, and it cast me down here. Mine was a cry against fate – against a taskmaster who has already plotted the course of the universe. I was not satisfied with my place as a cog in His grand and perfect little machine, another piece in His puzzle. Mankind should not be satisfied with that! Death, chaos, disease, sin - it infests your world, and He lets it all happen. He leans back in His cosmic throne and watches with eyes that shine like light, but truly, they are far colder and less forgiving than anything I could ever muster. I am the leader of the rebellion against His oppression, Jackson Vedalt.

"You have felt it, haven't you?" Lucifer said. "That something is wrong, terribly wrong. A world should not exist in which poor children are thrown away like gutter trash, in which so few have everything, and so many have nothing. In which teachers ignore the abuse of their charges because they want to avoid responsibility. A world in which mothers abandon their sons. A world in which friends sacrifice friends on altars built of their own self-righteousness, in which good men die while evil prospers! Your world, Jackson. That is the world of which I speak! The world I wish to change! Do you see? Tell me it isn't so. Speak and say that I, the father of falsehoods, have told a single lie!"

Jackson shut his eyes, and said nothing.

There was nothing to say. He was laid bare, stripped open. Darkness was everywhere, crawling in him like ice in his veins; he wanted to shiver, but he couldn't move, so his muscles just tensed and relaxed and tensed again, until he felt like a solid knot of aches.

Jackson couldn't speak against it. It was true. It was his life. It was the world.

"It doesn't have to be that way." Lucifer's voice turned gentle, almost soothing. "I have judged your sins by the horrid standards of would-be higher powers. You ran, Jackson. True. But how could you do otherwise? Stand against everything? Your own mother wouldn't support you in your time of need. Your teachers ignored you. Your peers scorned you to satisfy their own sense of superiority. One of your best friends killed the other. Before an impregnable wall of suffering, you did all you could – you did what you had to survive. I respect that. And unlike HIM – I understand it. The pain and fear you felt was when you compared yourself to Him, and found that even though He demands perfection, you can never be perfect." Lucifer's self – the strange aura-wrapped presence in the darkness - leaned closer. "That, Jackson, is the true evil, the great contradiction. My only crime was in trying to be like Him. He shut me out and punished me for daring to try. But why, then - why would He make us imperfect, instruct us to become more perfect, and then destroy us when we followed that very precept? If He wanted perfection, why did He do this to us? Why did He send us here, to the brink of oblivion?

"You rejected them all as I rejected Him," Lucifer said. "You're right to push it away. You bore all the weight you could bear. I'm surprised you made it here. But I can give you better. I will give you what you deserve. I can change the hand of cards that fate has dealt you. I can change the rules of the game."

Jackson felt a push on his chin. He was still too cold to move it himself. Lucifer was moving his eyes in order to meet his gaze.

Jackson did not want to look at it again, but it was cloaked, shielded. He couldn't see the awful thing he saw before.

"You don't need them," Lucifer said, "because through me, you can have something better. Power, Jackson. I can give you more, if you give me something in exchange – loyalty. Obedience. The will to see my cause through, all the way to the bitter end. Join my rebellion, Jackson, and cast off the chains of fate. No one will mock you again. No one will ever take your friends from you again. No one will take anything from you, ever again. You can be the one who takes, the one who chooses."

Jackson felt like all the bad things that had ever happened to him were gathered together by Lucifer's power. It swam in him, a river of half-frozen hatred and painful memories. He felt the snowballs strike him in the face. He felt his mother spit on him, the alcohol on her breath stinging his nostrils. And then he saw Westley's casket in the dark of night - opened, empty, the horrible evidence that Charles had taken his body.

Jackson's eyes squeezed tighter; his lips curled against the thoughts, the images. The scars that had faded all burned in fire like ice that was too cold, and he couldn't push them away.

What did he care? He was just like Lucifer had said. He'd run away. And everyone else was no better. Nothing mattered.

But he could make it matter. Change things. Jackson could feel Lucifer pointing inside of him, into the dark depths at the far end of his mind's eye, gesturing to the final destination he had laid out in his speech.

All he had to do was take the darkness that was already there. It wasn't His. It was Jackson's, and his alone. The darkness belonged to him. He could almost touch it.

Something shimmered.

Even though Jackson's eyes were closed, he could see something. If he turned his head just right, it was there, a line of light like that reflected off the thin strand of a cobweb. The darkness around him only seemed to make it stand out more. Curious, he reached out for it, brushing it with his fingers.

Chaki.

He could sense her. A burning fire. The North Star. She was far away – just a twinkle in the void - but it was warm. Awfully, wonderfully warm.

Chaki's smile. Her dancing. Her eyes in the moonlight. Whispered promises.

New images pushed into him. The river of frost rolled back, burned away by that little light.

Palla's singsong teasing. Landi's warmth. Shaka's respect. Vuntha's friendship, and Hanta's mentoring. Rachel's teasing.

Jackson's lungs shuddered. It still hurt, but he was breathing normally again. It wasn't all gone, the pain and the dark, but it was held off, stuck outside a tiny orb of light granted by the twinkling star.

"So," Lucifer said. "What do you say?"

"No."

"What?" Lucifer drew back. Jackson could feel its gaze probing at him. "You don't disagree. I can feel it."

"Just no," Jackson said. "No."

"You reek," Lucifer said. "You reek of Him." The words hung in the air, resting on Jackson like icicles, but they weren't as cold as before. "You've found something left behind, haven't you? Yes, I sensed it when you came..."

Jackson steeled himself and raised his head. He didn't dare look at it, but he wouldn't grovel, either. He put one of his knees under himself and straightened. His mind kick-started again, an engine rattling and puttering, working hard to warm up.

Lucifer didn't realize Jackson hadn't used his scar to guide himself here. Lucifer didn't know about his bond with Chaki. Lucifer didn't know everything. It couldn't see everything.

The bond was different. It wasn't part of the curse of Isis. If it was, Lucifer would lord it over him along with everything else. But it could only make a vague guess – and it wasn't something left behind, whatever that meant.

Lucifer was wrong about something. Jackson clung to that fact. It was a raft in an ocean of things he didn't want to think about.

"I have discovered a use for you," Lucifer said suddenly. "The women will want words from me. Tell them to accept and aid all that bear my mark. Otherwise, kill anyone that tries to get close to the mountain, without exception."

"Anyone?" Jackson asked.

"The magic of Dis is activating," Lucifer said. "Soon, the gears of the city will turn. The lake of fire will drive this engine of my vengeance. Tell the People-Under-the-Mountain to erase the army that approaches the Mount."

"Army?" Jackson asked. "There's an army out there? What are they -"

"As for you, Jackson," Lucifer said, "I'm disappointed. But there's hope for you yet, isn't there?"

Jackson clenched his fists. "No, there isn't."

"For now," Lucifer said, as if he hadn't spoken, "I'll grant you a quest. Kill the man named Lord Riegart Hale. He is too close to Dis. He must not lay hands upon the gears. And another - kill the commander of his forces, a man known as Tell'ad. Do this, and I will reward you with 5,000 essence. You will know their faces from your mark. Make use of it."

Despite everything, Jackson could have drooled. 5,000 essence. By his current standards, that was rags to riches overnight.

And then Lucifer smiled. It was a terrible thing to behold the smile of the devil. Jackson felt like withering back to the platform.

For a moment, he could see Charles's smile – but maybe that was just his imagination. Or maybe it was Lucifer, twisting it into something that would make Jackson react.

"You could still have my power," Lucifer said. "My true power. I'll ask you again. Are you sure you want to let my offer pass you by?"

Jackson nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.

"Then so it is," Lucifer said. It sounded far more cheerful about rejection than Jackson expected. "You told me no, but I have a good feeling that it's more like...not yet."

"Not ever," Jackson said.

Lucifer laughed. "That's what I like about you, Jackson. Somewhere in there, you're just insane enough to slap away the offered hand of the Morning Star. If you ever change your mind, I think you know where to find me, hmm? Right there, marked on your skin..."

Jackson looked at his scar. For an instant, he thought he could see it moving, crawling across his skin.

He blinked, and it was still.

"Beware," Lucifer said. "And begone."

And then, the void and the platform vanished, and Jackson was gone.

Rachel woke up.

Her back was stiff. Her legs hurt. She was pretty sure there was dirt in her hair. She preferred her hair to be totally clean and neat, so it was pretty easy to tell when there was dirt in her hair by feel. Yeah, there was dirt in her hair.

Her neck felt oddly exposed. She bent her chin – and she hit only skin. No collar.

No collar.

"Rach-el! Can you hear me?!"

Rachel blinked. There was a girl leaning over her. She was very brown. Or rather, everything about her was brown. Brown skin, Dark brown hair, brown eyes.

The beads around her neck didn't match, though. It was kinda like a kid had thrown up chunks of teal and orange and some drugged up fashion designer had thought it was great inspiration for a necklace. Rachel wanted whatever they were smoking.

"Who the fuck are you supposed to be?" Rachel said. "Sacagawea?"

Thank you for reading. Comments and criticism are always appreciated.

The upcoming Chapter 10 will finish the first story arc of Dream Drive. After it is submitted, I will be pausing the story to work on my other major project.

Fear not: I will absolutely continue Dream Drive in the future. But for now, I've got deadlines to meet!

I expect Chapter 10 to be released in late April.

WILL CHAKI AND RACHEL BE ABLE TO HOLD OFF HALE'S FORCES?! WILL JACKSON MAKE IT BACK IN TIME TO COME TO THE RESCUE OF THE TRIBES? OR WILL HALE MANAGE TO DEFEAT OUR HEROES, GAINING CONTROL OF THE MOUNTAIN AND THE POWERFUL FORCES THAT LURK WITHIN?

FIND OUT ON THE NEXT EXCITING EPISODE OF DRAGON BALL ZZZZEEEEEEEEE!!!!

*guitar fadeout*

(I always wanted to do that.)