Jack Thunder and the Fragments of Anima - Alternate Endings

The End of Altairus - Dark Ending

Jack Thunder strained fruitlessly against the Heart of Darkness's grip. He never wanted it to end like this.

"QUIT STRUGGLING, STORM GREMLIN. IT'S OVER."

I-It isn't... over... until... it's over!

"LOOK AT THEM."

Jack Thunder reluctantly turned his head towards his teammates. His heart dropped. Buckthorn, Shadow-Paws, Snotter, Kirami, and Saturn had all fallen unconscious. They hung listlessly from the Heart's tendrils, their forms dull and lifeless. All the Anima had been sucked out of them.

The Fragments of Anima, save for Stormbringer in Jack Thunder's grasp, lay scattered across the ground, flickering faintly. Even their power couldn't stand up to the Heart of Darkness.

It was enough to drain all the strength from his body.

"THEY MAY AS WELL BE DEAD, JACK. YOU DOOMED THEM TO THIS FATE. AND NOW, YOU'LL JOIN THEM."

Even through his despair, Jack Thunder turned back to face the Heart of Darkness. ...why?

The Heart's expression visibly morphed into one of confusion. "WHY WHAT?"

Why are you doing this? Don't you remember?

The superior wendigo paused. After some time, it spoke. "REMEMBER? OH, I REMEMBER QUITE WELL. I SPENT TEN YEARS ROTTING AWAY IN THIS HORRID PLACE! TEN! YEARS!"

You had to be stopped. That wasn't our fault! Jack Thunder protested.

The Heart of Darkness was in no mood to listen. "I WON'T GO BACK IN THE DARK! I WON'T!!"

Deep red light swirled around the tendrils that held each member of the team fast. Jack Thunder clenched his eyes shut, fighting back tears. This was it. He'd failed. He braced himself for the final shock that would take his life.

The denizens of Harlequin's Repose were giving it all they got, but the storm still seemed to be growing.

"Keep singing! We're bound to break through sooner or later!" Strombolio goaded. Somehow, even he began to doubt his own words.

All of a sudden, there was a scream as a gargantuan black tentacle shot downwards, striking and crushing the speaker. More tendrils planted themselves in the dirt, trapping the town in a cage of wendigo mass. Slowly, the color around them began to fade, the Anima seeping from the land.

From above them descended something new. Something terrible. The Heart of Darkness scowled down, its many eyes and mouths twitching incessantly.

"YOU!!! LOOK UPON ME, ALTAIRUS!!! I HAVE RETURNED!!!"

The sheer volume of the Heart's statement was enough to send most of Harlequin's Repose packing, running for Misery Mire, for the Forest of the Young, anywhere away from here. Only five remained: San, Strombolio, Altairia, Puer Aeternus, and Frosti.

Without hesitation, the Heart slammed another of its tendrils on the ground, nearly crushing them. It remembered the six that had banished it all too well. And now, it was going to take its full revenge on them.

"Frosti? Frosti! We have to go!"

Frosti only snapped out of her trance when she felt San pull her off her feet. The entire world had dissolved into a cacophony of screams and wreckage. She could vaguely hear Strombolio and Altairia shouting, but she couldn't make out their words. She only stopped to breathe when she and San ducked behind a tree.

Harlequin's Repose was destroyed, reduced to burning ruins. Countless wendigoes swarmed the now-deserted town, biting and ripping up anything left that even had the smallest bit of Anima in it. She could even see living faeries being torn apart in their jaws. Blood... so much blood. And above it all was the Heart of Darkness. Screeching, or... cackling perhaps?

And though it was incredibly selfish, only one thought crossed her mind. ...Jackie?

Jack Thunder's Sacrifice - Gray Ending

"After all this time..." Samson started. "The Heart of Darkness really came back?"

"Well, almost," Jack Thunder answered. "We stopped it just in the nick of time. Then me and my friends tried to turn it back, and the world went all white. Next thing I know, I'm here."

All of a sudden, Jack Thunder heard deep, garbled voices coming from the red gate behind him. What the...? He craned his neck to get a better listen.

It was no use. The voices were getting more muffled every second. He pulled back from the gate and sighed.

The hospital room inside the gate began to melt, the hospital bed and side table morphing into something completely unrecognizable. Everything was losing its color; he could only see things in black and white now. As the image faded, Jack Thunder came to understand what this meant.

He remembered what Frosti made him promise when he began his journey. "If you go out there and get killed, you have to let me die too, alright?"

He sighed. Looks like I'll be breaking that promise...

"Come on, son. It's time to go."

Jack Thunder nodded, tears falling from his eyes. Samson and Dahlia ushered him away from the gate, towards the one with the green swirls. It held the promise of paradise.

Just before he stepped through, he turned around and waved goodbye.

The healer wiped his brow. He wasn't sure if this storm gremlin was going to make it. He had tried everything to revive him, but nothing was working. In fact, his daemon seemed to be shrinking every second. If something didn't change soon-

His thoughts arrested when he saw Jack Thunder's hand. No. This couldn't be happening. His fingertips... his arms... they were dissolving into thin air!

Despite what was happening to him, he didn't wake up. It started at his arms and legs and moved inward. Every part of his body disintegrated, evaporating into clouds. His body was collapsing into its base element. His head was the last to go; as it dissipated into nothingness, the healer could swear that the little storm gremlin had a smile on his face.

Frosti's legs gave out from under her. He was... really gone?

"N-No. You're lying."

"Miss, I'm so sorry-"

"LIAR!!!" The healer jumped at her sudden outburst.

"Listen, we did everything we could, but there just wasn't anything else we could do-"

"WHAT?!?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE WASN'T ANYTHING YOU COULD DO?!?! HE SAVED THIS ENTIRE WRETCHED WORLD, AND YOU COULDN'T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO SAVE HIS LIFE?!?! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!?!"

San grabbed Frosti's shoulder. "Frosti, please-"

She pushed the tengu away, turning her mask of rage towards him. "AND YOU!!! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO LET HIM DIE LIKE THIS!!! WHY DID I EVER TRUST YOU WITH HIM?!?! I SHOULD HAVE KICKED YOU OUT AS SOON AS HE MET YOU!!!"

San said nothing. What was there that he could say? Nothing he could say would bring Jack Thunder back. All he could do was hold her while she punched him in the chest repeatedly. Eventually, her punches slowed. She collapsed into his arms.

"What... what did he do to deserve this?"

"Hey there, Jack. Just came for a visit." Buckthorn kneeled down on the ground.

"Sorry I haven't seen you in a while. I've been real busy. Been helping out my mom. She says I'm going to be a great healer like her someday."

Buckthorn paused. "We all miss you. Shadow-Paws said he's going back to the Circus of Shadows. It's gonna be hard, but Strombolio's gonna be there to help him."

She let out a shaky sigh. "Snotter and Kirami had places to be, too. Kirami's gonna start a martial arts school in the Jungle of the Wise Serpent, can you believe it? And Saturn, well, he's still his goofy old self. Probably off somewhere adventuring right now."

Buckthorn paused once more. She sniffled, wiping her eye with the back of her hand. "Snotter said she's gonna try and convince Ygdrassil to let her erect a statue in your honor. Everyone's talking about you."

The reef siren reached into her pocket. She took out a single Air crystal, which she placed in front of her. She made her way to her feet, saying one last goodbye before she left.

"See you later, Jack Thunder."

Buckthorn disappeared into the distance, leaving behind a single headstone with an Air crystal in front of it. It read,

Banished Again - Good Ending...?

Kirami and Saturn turned towards each other and nodded. It was time for the final strike. They crossed Yuuki and Excalibur's blades. The red and yellow glow mixed to make a killing orange.

"This is for Altairus!" Kirami yelled.

"This is for my burnt feathers!" Saturn turned to grin at Kirami, who gave him a side-eyed stare.

They pulled back, drawing their swords away from each other. Like that, an enormous blade of orange light whistled past the crew's heads. An agonized shriek and the sound of a knife slicing through meat pierced the air, followed by two heavy, fleshy squelches.

The orange light blade had cut the Heart of Darkness clean in half. It fell to the ground, bleeding black ink all over the battlefield.

Jack Thunder grimaced. It was kind of gross how the Heart of Darkness's two halves kept throbbing like that. Even in this state, it was trying to piece itself back together. But since all its tendrils were severed, all it could do was flop and roll its two pieces around like a dying fish.

"...HOW? ...WHY?"

Despite his disgust, Jack Thunder stepped closer.

"THIS... THE SECOND TIME... ALL BECAUSE OF WHAT... I..."

Jack Thunder sighed. Here it was.

"BECAUSE OF... WHAT I'VE DONE..." Even in this form, the storm gremlin could see veins of red, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet flowing through what was left of its tentacles.

"How did it happen?"

"TEN... YEARS... THAT WASN'T NEARLY ENOUGH... ALL BECAUSE I WANTED TOO MUCH..." It paused. "THEY WERE A LOT LIKE YOU."

"Oh, come ON! Don't tell me you're actually listening to this!" Jack Thunder turned around. Behind him was Snotter, scowling down at the defeated wendigo.

She stepped forward, that hideous glare still affixed to her face. She stomped on part of its fleshy body, earning a shriek from it.

"Snotter! What's gotten into you?" Kirami barked.

"How about what's gotten into you?!" Snotter snapped. "This thing's caused us more than enough trouble, and you're just gonna stand here and be like, 'so what?!'"

"Snotter, you're going to ruin everything! I was gonna try to-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," she interrupted Jack Thunder. "You were gonna try and redeem it, weren't you?! HAH! It'll never work! The Heart's not sorry! It just wants you to go easy on it so that it can torture us again another day!"

"Snotter-!"

"Well, yanno what? I'm going to finish this right here and now!" Snotter charged up Terra and began to recite the Wendigo Banishing Incantation.

The six Anima Fragments joined in casting the spell involuntarily. Jack Thunder, Buckthorn, Shadow-Paws, Kirami, and Saturn struggled to hold on as their weapons fired the spell on their own accord. The entire world faded to white.

Jack Thunder awoke in the hospital. Wha... What happened?

Frosti embraced him in a hug. "Don't you ever, ever scare me like that again!"

"Frosti! Please! You're going to hurt him!" San scolded her. Frosti let go, taking her place at Jack Thunder's bedside.

"I... how did I get here?" Jack Thunder inquired.

"The Heart of Darkness is no more. I'm guessing that you and your friends banished it, no?"

"I... I guess so. Though it didn't go how I wanted..."

Razer jumped up onto Jack Thunder's cot. "Look, Jackie. Razer wants to see you."

Jack Thunder couldn't really argue. He was getting pretty tired. As Frosti and San left the room, he stole one last look at the sunset outside. Before long, he was fast asleep.

All of Harlequin's Repose had been in such an uproar when Jack Thunder and his friends got out of the hospital. They were all so eager to meet the young heroes who had saved them all.

With all this praise and attention, Jack Thunder should have felt like a hero. After all, he saved the day, didn't he? As long as Altairus was still standing, that was all that mattered. Right?

It was right there in his Razer comics. The main character once said, "All in a day's work to make sure the world keeps turning."

There it was. He'd done all he could do to make sure the world kept turning.

So, why did he feel like he should have done more?