Chapter 2: Leg Day
(Monday, 4th of Dawn Star Moon, 2021)
It's been three days since Jack woke up, and he adjusted to having to walk on crutches rather quickly. He was currently wearing a black, short sleeved, collared v-neck shirt that had a white cotton inside, paired up with a pair of jeans, and a boot for his one foot. Jack wondered what kind of person he was to wear these kinds of clothes, but still, they felt comfortable, so he wore them. Jack was sitting on the couch with his cousin, Lucius, playing Craftmine so he could get the hang of it again. He tied the pant leg of his missing foot to create less drag, and to ensure he didn't fall over while using the crutches. Lucius sat next to him, wearing a plain red shirt with cargo shorts. They sat in the living room with the television in front of them, with Jack trying to understand the concepts of the game.
"So I just place the table here?" Jack clicked a button on the controller he had in his hands, causing the square table to appear on the television.
"Yup, I remember back before you lost your memory, you made tons of crap on our world." Lucius informed Jack. "You built farms, canons, and all that fun stuff."
"Farms? Do we need to eat in this game?" Jack wondered out loud, and Lucius nodded before making his character harvest some wheat he planted earlier.
"Yeah, you see that bar next to your health?" Lucius pointed at a row of what looked to be hamburgers. "That's your hunger bar, and once it depletes, you'll lose health fast."
After that, the doorbell suddenly rang, and Jack got up with his crutches to make his way over to the door. He used one of the crutches to balance himself, allowing him to use his free hand to open the door. On the other side of the door, He saw someone wearing a delivery uniform with orange hair and grayish eyes. The delivery man appeared to recognize him, but Jack didn't know who he was, so Jack was just confused. The delivery man quickly shook his head to dismiss any thoughts and handed me the package.
"Package for Jack Grimm." The boy appeared to be around Jack's age. "By the way, I'm your friend Rico, Alice told me you lost your memories, so I'm reminding you who I am. I also have a twin brother named Nico, and we'll probably come by later to reintroduce ourselves."
"Eh?"
"Yeah for some reason Alice wanted to wait a bit before reintroducing ourselves, but that causes some lama drama and I am not having it." Rico informed Jack. "I also informed Zane and Othelia about my idea, and they can't stop me, so yeah, you want me to come inside?"
"Uh..."
"No? I understand, Besides, I have work to do." Rico didn't wait for Jack's response as he began walking off. "Nice seeing you again friend! Try on that new leg for me, will ya?"
"Okay...?"
With that said, Rico left without saying another word, what an odd guy. Jack closed the door and made his way back to the couch with the box in one hand and using the other hand to hold his crutch so he could walk. Jack plopped himself on the edge of the couch before opening the box. He examined the contents of the box and noticed how odd the leg was.
"Woah…that's a weird looking leg." Lucius commented while Jack examined the leg.
It gave off a magical vibe, and was made of some kind green metal that seemed to glow a faint mint color. The leg looked similar to a robotic dragon's foot. The prosthetic leg had clawed toes in the front, that looked like regular toes, but with sharp nails.This prosthetic leg was also slightly armored around the socket, thigh, and calf areas of the leg, but the armor wouldn't be noticeable if Jack wore pants. The joints around the ankle and knee seemed stronger than what Jack expected. Overall, it looked like a sci-fi, armored, dragon leg.
"Might as well test it out." Jack untangled the knot he did to his right pant leg and rolled it up to make his residual limb visible.
He put the prosthetic in place, and the leg socket adjusted to fit his residual limb by righting and loosening in certain areas. By the end of it, it was a perfect fit. Upon testing the leg, Jack was surprised that he could even move the toes of the robotic leg. Jack tried standing up instantly, but Jack almost fell over, and the only thing preventing him from doing so are the crutches that he used to balance himself in place. Lucius also grabbed my collar to prevent Jack from falling forward.
"You good bro?" Lucius tended to talk like a teenager, when in reality he's still in elementary school.
"Yeah, just getting used to this leg." Jack still used the single crutch to balance himself since this leg took some getting used to. He could control it like it was his original foot, but that was it. Anything like feeling doesn't work. "It feels so weird, being able to move it without feeling anything."
"Really? So if I took the crowbar from the basement and hit your leg, you wouldn't feel a thing?" Lucius had a devilish smile as Jack stood on his own, and he let go of his collar.
"That's gonna be a solid no from me." Jack protectively backed away from Lucius towards the door, but in the process, Jack fell over again. "SHIT!"
Jack was about to fall onto his back, but a pair of precise hands managed to catch his fall. Jack looked up at his savior to see a girl around his age with black hair that reached below her back. She wore a black t-shirt with a white collar, black skirt that reached her knees, fishnets on her legs, and black boots. She didn't wear much makeup, other than black nail paint and lipstick. This girl also appeared to have recognized Jack, but unlike Rico, it took her a minute to reconfigure herself.
"H-Hey, you alright there?" The girl finally asked once she snapped out of her surprise. "I noticed you have a prosthetic, are you getting used to it?"
"Yeah, just got it today." Jack stood back up and looked at the door, noticing Noemi and a couple of other girls were standing in the doorframe. "Do I know you?"
"Um...yes...I'm Alice, a friend of Noemi." Alice appeared to be hiding something, and deep down, Jack could tell that she didn't want to lie or hide about it. As to why she's hiding it, Jack is ablue to recognize it right away. She feels strong feelings of regret. "You should be more careful about that leg of yours."
"Alice stop being a tsundere, you've been best friends with my cousin ever since forever." Noemi was having none of Alice's nonsense. "I read your diary a couple months back, and I-."
"Shut up shut up shut up!" Alice covered Noemi's mouth with her hands, and she was turning pretty red. "Look, I came here to celebrate getting into Sanctuary Academy with my friends, and that's exactly what I'm going to do!"
"Sanctuary Academy?" Jack has never heard of that place before, and Alice looked embarrassed to say the least. "What's that?"
"Sanctuary Academy is...it's a place." Alice appeared to be hiding something again, so Jack decided he won't press into it. "It's far away from here, so you most likely will never see me again, so it was nice meeting you, random person!."
Before Jack could press on for answers, Alice walked down to the basement with Noemi and the rest of her friends to play dancing game. Noemi just looked at Jack and shrugged before going down herself.
"Hey Jack, it's nighttime in the game right now, and I need your help because a stalker blew up a big hole in the wall of our fort." Lucius got Jack's attention, and he decided that there was nothing he could do, so Jack decided to play some video games.
"Jack, Lucius, I have a problem!" Noemi opened the door to the basement, which now had music blasting from it. "I forgot to buy chips yesterday and now I can't go get more!"
"I'll run by the store to pick some up." Jack offered before standing up, and it was still a little difficult to balance on the metallic foot, but he's slowly but surely getting used to it. "What kind do you need?"
"I'll ask and then I'll text you what we want, thanks Jack!" Noemi then went back to her party and Jack began walking to the door using his crutch to support him. Jack grabbed the aviator jacket off the hook and put it on, noticing how natural it felt on him.
"SIMP!" Lucius called me a simp, and in response, Jack threw a baseball cap at him. "You're a simp!"
"Hey, I needed an excuse to get out of the house." Jack justified it while putting on a brown trucker's cap with a white bull skull logo on it. "I need to stretch my leg and test out my new one. You can come with me if you want."
"Nah, I'm good, I wanna get diamonds as soon as possible." Lucius continues to play without his cousin.
Jack grabbed the spare set of keys off the wall hook and exited the house, locking the door behind him before going on his merry way to the nearest convenience store. Jack was stumbling a bit as he walked, but he still looked around him. He looked at his house from the outside, and how he appeared to live in a modern style mansion that was set on a cliff overlooking a river that flowed into the nearest town. Everything else other than the buildings were either dirt, dead plants, cacti, or mountains in the distance. There was also a kind of dirt path that was devoid of any plants that led into town, so he continued down the path. However, there was something odd about this small journey, there was a crow following Jack. It wouldn't be so crazy if the crow was flying, but no, it was walking behind him.
"Weird..." Jack commented on the crow's behavior, but what made it even weirder is that the crow suddenly flew onto his shoulder. "Um...could you get off my shoulder please?" Jack didn't know what he was expecting, considering that crows don't talk, but-
"When you finally give me a solid answer then I'll leave you alone." The crow actually spoke, causing Jack to fall over from the surprise, and the sudden loss of focus. "So what's your answer kiddo?"
"Since when do crows talk?" Jack asked as the crow flew over him using his wings, and his voice sounded like a mix of a crow noise and speech. "Also, what answer?"
"Have you forgotten already, you got accepted into Sanctuary Academy!" The crow reminded Jack, and Jack thinks that was the same school Alice got into. "I was asking why you enrolled in the first place."
"I'm sorry, I can't tell you that, because I don't know." Jack informed the crow before standing up. "What even is Sanctuary?"
"Huh? Have you forgotten everything?!" The crow shouted in disbelief, while Jack fixed his jacket. "Oh...right, amnesia and all that. Well let's begin simply, the three basic classes of RPG's, mage, warrior, and rogue. You know them?"
"Yeah, I like playing as the mage whenever I play RPG's." Jack recalled, and the crow nodded to confirm they were on the sage page.
"As time progressed, these classes became more specialized and diverse." The crow explained. "For example, mages who used the power of nature became druids, rogues who wanted to focus on speech and investigation more became detectives, and warriors who had more technique and honor were samurai. Nowadays, the classes are way more diverse, specialized, and modern overall."
"What do you mean?" Jack began walking towards the town with the crow walking beside him.
"The mages became more knowledge based occupations like doctors, entomologists, and craftsmen." The crow continued to explain how things worked around here. "Warriors are unsurprisingly, more combat jobs. Like soldiers, boxers, and surprisingly, combat teachers. The most surprising development, or least surprising depending on how you look at it, is that rogues decided to go into marketing. They became merchants, salesmen, and assassins."
"Wait, what do assassins have to do with marketing?"
"Aaaaaanyway, those classes are based on what you're capable of, but they're ultimately just labels of what you do, they just label how you do it to make it easier for employers." The crow continued. "Any questions?"
"What is the purpose of Sanctuary?" I questioned, since this school appeared to be a big deal. "I mean; why do you train people for these classes?"
"Sanctuary in particular specializes in dealing with unique...gifts." Crow pointed out. "You see, Sanctuary is special because it only recruits gifted people. Gifts differ from the three basic class types, Some people often get a special piece of equipment only they or their family can use, others are born with magic unique to them and them alone, and others are later revealed to have hidden talents. Almost everyone has a gift, but the best way to use these gifts to protect the people is to become a Guardian. The best way to do that is to graduate from Sanctuary."
"What if someone doesn't want to attend Sanctuary but still wants the qualifications to use these gifts?" Jack decided to continue with my questions.
"Sanctuary isn't the only magic school that trains Guardians, but it's the best of the best, the cream of the cream of the crop." The crow answered. "But if they want, they can go to another Gurdian Academy, which is like College, but magic and more militant."
"You keep using this word, 'Guardians', what are they?" Jack questioned the crow, who was now cleaning itself by pecking underneath his wing.
"Guardians are people who graduated from Sanctuary or the other academies to hunt monsters using their strength, ensure peace between nations using their charisma, and to benefit the people using their knowledge." The crow announced. "To sum it all up though, the Guardians are people who work to ensure the people prosper and survive. Anything else?"
"You sound like you're getting bored, so I'll stop asking questions." Jack stopped walking to look to his left, noticing that there was a convenience store to his left. "It has been nice talking to you, Mr. Crow.
"Likewise Mr.Grimm." The crow then jumped off his shoulder to begin flying into the air. "I wish you luck in obtaining your memories once more!"
With that said, Jack entered the convenience store.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone