Escape from Planet Bossatron: A Septic Story

The Past Life

    "Aw, dammit all!" Marvin exclaimed, turning back to face the front of the truck. "This is why I tried to stay indoors in broad daylight!"
    "That sounds like it sucks, man," Jackie frowned at Marvin.
    "Says you," Chase pointed out, aiming the nerf gun at the oncoming glitches. "You sleep during the day and try to do your 'hero' work at night."
    Chase shot a round, saucer-like bullet, and it hit a glitch riding on the side of one of the trucks. The glitch went tumbling onto the side of the road as a result.
    "OOOOHHHH!" Chase exclaimed, raising his hands in the air in triumph. "Take that you son of a bitch! That was f**king awesome!"
    "Vould you schtop celebrating and hit more of zem?" Schneeplestein shouted angrily, pressing his foot on the gas more heavily. "I can only go so fast!"
    "Right!" Chase said, regaining his composure and aiming again. "Sorry, Schneep."
    Chase hit another few glitches, a few making more than one glitch fall onto the road at once.
"Good shot, my good fellow!"
    "What'd he say, Jack?" Chase asked, shooting another few glitches off of their trucks. "I can't look right now."
    "He said 'good shot'," Jack said. "Hey, do you have another one of those?"
    "What? Nerf guns?" Chase asked, glancing up at Jack. "Yeah; but you usually have that cuff don't you...? Oh wait. I almost forgot! Selah has it; shit."
    Chase hit another glitch.
    "There should be another one in my bag," Chase said, pointing at a backpack that was next to his feet. "It's more of a sniper-type deal, so I hope you're good at it."
    "I'm fairly decent," Jack said, reaching into Chase's backpack and pulling out a nerf sniper rifle. He loaded it up with the foam bullets and then started aiming and shooting.
    "Not bad," Chase said after a while. "But, then again, I guess you've used a bow and arrow before. I can expect that your aim is good."
    "That," Jack said, keeping focus, "and I play video games on YouTube for a living."
    "Oh yeah," Chase said.
    "Can someone take out sose f**king drivers?" Schneeplestein snapped. "Zey're schtill catching up to us!"
    "I got it!" Jackie said bravely, standing up.
    "Uh, no," Marvin said, grabbing Jackie's shoulder and pushing him back in his seat. "I've got this."
    Marvin stood up, rolled up his sleeves, and began brandishing his wand.
    Jack wasn't sure what this would do, or if it would even do anything. He looked up at Marvin doubtfully; the poor magician looked silly.
    Jameson noticed and shook his head at Jack with a smile. He tapped his nose and then wrote on his chalkboard.
    "Wait for it."    
    Jack looked back up at Marvin just as Marvin swung his wand down to the side.
    "BOOM, BITCH!" Marvin exclaimed.
    At that moment, there came an explosion in front of the leading glitch truck. The truck immediately began to swerve out of the way, causing the other trucks to crash into it.
    Schneeplestein sped away, leaving the glitch trucks in the dust.
    "WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Chase yelled, raising his arms into the air in triumph again. "Take that! In your face! WOOOOOOOOOO!"
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    "Alvright," Schneeplestein said, sitting down in a comfy-looking armchair and rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses. "So read zis letter zat Selah sent you, JhackieBoyMan."
    "Right," Jackie nodded.
    They were back in Schneeplestein's base, safe from the glitches and Anti for the time being.
    "Hem hem," Jackie cleared his throat, looking like he had been waiting for this moment. " 'Dear JackieBoyMan, I am writing to inform you of the terrible things that are happening on Bossatron. I am also writing to give you instructions for the ideal plan of action. I don't know how much time I have to write this, but I will try my best to hurry.
    You know that Anti has recently returned to the planet. Now, he and his glitches are becoming more and more powerful by the day. You may or may not have noticed by now. With each attack, he grows stronger and stronger. I fear that he may be coming for the castle very soon. If the castle is compromised (which I fear it may be), then this is what you must do:
    I have sent for Jack; yes, against his wishes, but we need him. He doesn't remember much, in fact, he probably remembers nothing, so try not to overwhelm him. But what you need to do is make sure that you're there when he arrives. He won't be in the best shape because of the Septic powder that I'm sending him. So please make sure he's safe. I put the place where he should be landing on that small slip of paper in the envelope with this letter.
    Next, once you two are safe and away from harm, start getting everyone together. You could even do that before Jack arrives if you can. It should be a day or so by the time you get this. Anyway, you just need to get everyone together, because it's the only way to stop Anti.
    Once everyone is together (and if you haven't done this already by then), find Sam. It is super important that you find him. Remember, the fate of the planet all depends on him.
    After you get Sam, you'll have to come up with your own plan to defeat Anti. I'm not sure what the best thing would be myself, but I'm sure you guys will figure something out.
    "I'll try and get to you guys if I can; or at least send Steve to you (but God only knows if he'll even go; he's pretty stubborn when it comes to protecting me). I don't know if I'll be able to escape before or after Anti gets here, but I'll try my hardest. Don't worry about me, though. I'll be just fine. My mind is at ease knowing that you are all out there, safe, and ready to make a move on Anti.
    JackieBoyMan, I'm depending on you; you can do it! I know that you won't let me down!
    Best wishes!
    Princess Selah.' And th-that's i-it."
    By the time Jackie had gotten to the middle of the letter, he had been brought to tears. Jack looked at Jackie sadly; the poor guy.
    Chase sighed, got to his feet, and allowed Jackie to cry (loudly) into his shoulder.
    "There there," Chase sighed, his eyes raised to the ceiling.
    "So vee need to get Sam," Schneeplestein said, nodding. "Zat makes perfect sense. Sam vill really come in handy vith defeating zat knife-crazed freak."
    "She means SepticEye Sam," Jack confirmed, "doesn't she?"
    Everyone nodded.
    "He determines the fate of the planet?" Jack asked, incredulous. "But isn't he just an eyeball?"
    Jameson frowned at Jack and vigorously shook his head (so much that his fake mustache almost fall off).
"Sam is no ordinary eyeball! He is very powerful! You two were the best team out there! Ever since you left, he's been silent and hidden, too depressed without you. The poor little fellow tried, but it was no use. Anyone could see how sad he was without you around."
    "Well f**k," Jack said. "I didn't know that I meant so much to him."
    "Not only did you mean zat much to him," Schneeplestein said, shaking his head, "but he meant a lot to you as vell. You've just forgotten."
    "Yeah...," Jack said, thinking about it, "but not really. Sam's been a big part of my life for the last several years. He means a lot to me whether I remember spending time with him or not."
    "He's your eye, dude," Chase said. "Schneep had to take him out himself."
    "Wait, hold on a minute! What?" Jackie exclaimed, suddenly horrified. "Sam was inside my head?"
    Schneeplestein nodded. "Zat he vas," the doctor said. "You used to have his power in you; you probably schtill have some of it, no doubt, but you had all of it ven he vas a part of you. But zee power you vielded eventually made you too sick to do anysthing anymore. So, I healed you, and zat vas how vee met."
    "Then what about my eyes now...?" Jack asked, confused now.
    "Oh," Marvin said. "That's where it gets a little complicated. By now, you've probably realized that you haven't really aged in this time..."
    "Yeah," Jack said. "And I remember growing up on earth, so...?"
    "Well beside time moving a bit slower here than on Earth," Marvin said with a shrug, "you haven't really been around to age. You've basically lived two lives now. One here, and one on earth. It's what happened when you decided to save the planet the last time we saw you. So both of your eyes are your real eyes. You used to have a fake one so that you could see clearly though."
    "Oh yeah," Jack said. "About that; what exactly happened?"
    Everyone was silent for a moment, unsure of where to begin.
    "Well," Marvin said, "it kinda started when Anti got more powerful than he originally was..."
    "Oh?" Jack asked.
"That's right. He used to be really weak. All he had going for him was a knife and glitching out all the time."
    "He used to be a bro, you know?" Chase said, letting go of Jackie and sitting down in a wooden chair. He almost looked angry. "He used to help us with our quests all the time. He was our friend."
    "He was?" Jack questioned, taken aback by this news. "What happened?"
    "Vell it vas a mix of sthings," Schneeplestein said. "For zee most part, he got jealous of our skills and powers. He vanted it for himself. So he began to build on his own powers to make it happen."
    "He wanted to be better than all of us," Jackie said, his cheeks still covered in tear tracks from his recent cry. "We didn't notice it for a while because he acted pretty normally. He just glitched out more than usual. We thought that he was just having some physical issues."
    "But you didn't," Marvin said, nodding at Jack. "You knew something was off right away. I'm not sure how you did, but you did."
    "You vent to go talk to him," Schneeplestein said, "but he tried to keep up ze pretense. You saw zat he vas different, but you didn't know vat to do about it. So you came to me, asking if I'd noticed anysthing."
    "And did you?" Jack inquired.
    Schneeplestein shook his head. "I hadn't," he said. "But I tried to keep an eye on it vonce you asked about it."
    "What happened next?" Jack frowned. This was sounding bad.
    "What do you think?" Jackie asked, beginning to shake from what was probably fear. "He snapped; he tried to kill you."
    "What?" Jack asked, his eyes wide. "But we were friends!"
    "That wasn't how Anti saw it," Chase said coldly, staring at the ground. "You were lucky that I couldn't sleep that night and was awake. I only got there just in time to catch him the act and wake the doc up for help."
    "He had slit your throat," Schneeplestein said. "He had taken you over in your sleep and had you slit your own throat."
    Jack swallowed and put an unconscious hand to his throat, noticing the story.
    "And?" Jack asked.
    "Vell I vas obviously able to save you," Schneeplestein said, "but Anti got avay."
"And he tried again. He got you sick with some strange disease that put you in a comma for a while. Then he almost killed the good doctor by taking him over and trying to make him choke himself."
    "F**k," Jack said, putting his face in his hands. This was all way too familiar. Why had he only remembered the bad stuff?
    "He kept trying over and over again," Jackie said with a large swallow. "We kept meeting with him and trying to reason with him, but he just wouldn't stop; he wouldn't listen to us. He was lost to us."
    "He only used to pull stupid pranks," Chase said, his voice starting to shake from anger. "But this was just trying to murder you and the rest of us. Not to mention trying to take over the planet."
    "So what happened that I had to start a life all over again? And on earth?" Jack asked, pulling his face out of his hands and looking around at everyone.
    "You vere going to try and reason vith Anti one more time," Schneeplestein said. "You didn't vant to kill him, but you couldn't let him take over zee planet. So you vent in alone to talk to him. I'm not sure vat happened in zere, but you knew vat vould happen apparently."
"Before you went to talk to him, you told us to never contact you again unless something horrible was happening. We didn't understand what you were talking about. We didn't understand why you also said goodbye to everyone. It was like you knew what was going to happen beforehand."
    "And you left Sam with us," Jackie said, "which was what really got us worried. But before we could ask you what was going on, you had gone in and had shut the door."
    "The next thing we knew," Chase said, "the whole building that you two were in exploded, and neither of you were anywhere to be found."
    "At first," Marvin said, "we thought that you two were dead, but then Princess Selah realized that you had just banished Anti from the planet; but since you were in the building with him, you also banished yourself."
    "But how did I start all over again?" Jack questioned, confused.
    "It was a side effect of using that amount of power," Marvin said. "Remember that having Sam inside your head got you super sick. Actually, it almost killed you. Using as much power as you did kinda did something weird to you where you went backwards and probably transferred your soul or whatever into an unborn kid or something. None of us really know the details; magic is pretty weird."
"Marvin would certainly know the most on the matter."
    "Hold on, what?" Jack exclaimed. "Magic? Is that really what it was?"
    Everyone nodded.
    "And trust me," Schneeplestein said, "it's very strange magic. I don't sthink zat anyone really understands it. I don't sthink zat even you understood it."
    "Damn," Jack said. "That's rough... Okay... well, that puts some more light on the situation. I'm guessing that Anti came back and started making a mess of everything, huh?"
    "That's right, old boy! He's been searching for revenge, and wrecking up everything that we worked for was his best way of doing that."
    "F**k, man," Jack said. "Well, I guess that means that we should get Sam and stop Anti as soon as possible."
    Jack's egos all nodded.
    "Alright then," Jack said. "When do we get started?"