The Rock Monster saw his companions fall one by one. Inevitably, he grew progressively more agitated.
He was a mountain of stone and muscle. But even he knew when the tide had turned. He roared. Slamming his fists into the ground. Sending cracks through the pavement.
"You little pest! I'll crush you!" Rock Monster bellowed. Lunging. His movements were powerful. But very slow compared to Jack.
Jack simply dodged. Circling the giant. "Crush me? You can barely hit a stationary target, Big Guy. And I'm anything but stationary."
He started his assault. He went for the fissures in the rock-like skin. The weaker points. His blades were still coated with [Mysterious Anomaly] telekinetic energy. They chipped away at the Rock Monster's defenses.
Each hit was pretty small on the massive body. But they caused showers of stone fragments.
The Rock Monster tried to swat him. To stomp him. But Jack was always out of reach. Always attacking from an unexpected angle. He was like a persistent wasp. Stinging again and again.
Then, something shifted...
Jack was in the middle of a flurry of attacks. Systematically dismantling the Rock Monster's arm. When a strange sensation washed over him.
A ripple in reality. A sudden chill that wasn't from the wind. Rune pulsed violently. A bright, urgent red. Danger!
Jack paused his attack, looking around. He instinctively felt danger, not from Rock Monster, but from something else.
Standing amidst the debris was a figure he hadn't seen before. Just a few dozen meters away. A woman.
She wore a dark, form-fitting suit. Almost like specialized combat gear. Her posture was calm, almost casual, despite the chaos around her.
And her face was entirely obscured by a sleek, metallic mask. The mask had no discernible features. Just holes for eyes, and a smooth, reflective surface that seemed to absorb the light.
Jack narrowed his eyes. "Well, isn't this a party? Someone showing up late to the demolition campaign?" He muttered. But his tone was devoid of his usual lightheartedness. This felt different. This felt prepared.
The masked woman raised a hand. There was no elaborate gesture. No incantation. She simply extended her palm towards Jack.
Immediately, the air next to Jack shimmered. Not a heat distortion. But a tear in space itself.
A swirling vortex of the size of a doorway erupted into existence. Jut less than a meter from him. It was a maelstrom of iridescent colors. Pulling at the very fabric of reality.
Jack felt an immediate, overwhelming force. Trying to drag him in. It was both spiritual and gravitational. It was like the world itself was trying to invert around him.
"Uh oh. Not good!" Jack hissed.
He tried to dart away. But the portal's pull was immense. It was localized. Directly targeting him. His super speed suddenly felt sluggish. Fighting against an invisible, powerful current.
His kamaitachi blades dug into the ground. Skidding across the concrete as the pull intensified. Rune flew wildly around him. A tiny, frantic beacon.
The masked woman remained still. Her masked gaze fixed on Jack. There was no emotion discernible from her eyes. Only silent, absolute focus.
"You've got to be kidding me! A teleportation gate just for little old me?" Jack grunted. Struggling. His muscles strained.
He was pushing against the force. Trying to generate enough speed and traction to break free. But the portal was too close. Too strong. As if it was designed to counter his very nature. To pull him directly into its maw.
He felt himself being lifted. Slowly. Towards the swirling abyss. The noise of the portal was like a thousand whispers. A discordant symphony of other dimensions.
Jack internally swore. Judge Jack and Jack Mystery might be able to resist with their ability. But he didn't even have any plan to transform into any of them. Ten-second-long duration for transformation wouldn't allow that.
"Let go, you glorified drain!" He yelled. Making one last, desperate attempt to escape
But the portal's energy felt like a physical barrier. Gripping him. It tightened around him. Distorting his vision. The vibrant colors of the portal enveloped him.
He felt a sickening lurch. A sensation of being stretched and compressed simultaneously. His last sight was the masked woman. Unmoving... Before the world dissolved into kaleidoscopic chaos.
Then, just as abruptly as it began, the sensation ceased.
Jack found himself tumbling through the air. He reacted on instinct. Twisting his small body. Bringing his tail around to arrest his fall. He landed lightly on all fours. his blades digging into soft earth.
The ground squelched under his weight. A strange, spongy sensation that was definitely not Lonestone asphalt or hard soil.
Jack took a single breath. Tasting the air. It was thick. Heavy. With an unfamiliar floral fragrance. Different. Very different.
He pushed off. Standing erect in his Racer Jack form. He scanned his surrounding. This was not Lonestone. This was not even Ourean Continent. He was not even sure that this one the same world. This was… elsewhere.
The forest was a riot of unfamiliar biology.
Trees, if they could be called that, twisted skyward. Like skeletal hands. Their bark was a deep, pulsating violet in color. Their leaves were phosphorous amber-colored fronds.
They gently undulated. Casting a ghostly, shifting light on the forest floor. The ground itself was carpeted in a spongy, red-colored moss. Dotted with strange fungi that pulsed with an soft blue glow. And flying around pink fireflies.
The sky above was a swirling canvas of purple shades. With streaks of emerald green bleeding into the horizon. No sun. No moon. Just a diffuse, pervasive light that felt both natural and completely alien.
Strange bioluminescent insects were everywhere. Resembling floating jellyfish. Drifting silently between the violet trees. Leaving trails of faint, shimmering dust.
Jack's enhanced senses drank it all in. The sounds were a constant, low hum. Punctuated by chirps and clicks that didn't sound like any terrestrial creature he knew.
The feeling of the air. The scent. The alien flora underfoot... It all confirmed one thing. He was very, very far from home.
Normally, this would be an unparalleled opportunity for Jack. A new world. New biomes. Potential new discovery. A goldmine of adventure.
He could spend days, weeks, months exploring this. Cataloging its life. Understanding its peculiar physics. But not now.
His mission was unfinished. The Calamity Stars were still out there. The civilians and City Enforcers were likely still injured. Or worse. He had been yanked from a critical fight. That boiled his spectral blood.
"A cheap shot! A frankly rude interruption." Jack muttered. "And I don't appreciate being rude-interrupted."
He opened his system's inventory. Pulling out his Nine-Anchor Portal Ring. He decided to set a new anchor point. Overwriting an old one this time.
He recalled the anchor points he had set... Sapphire City. The Prehistoric World Spatial Realm. Tideless Island. His home in Lonestone City. And the underground space beneath Lonestone Noble Cemetery.
His last one was useful for one time situation. It was useless afterward. A new anchor to replace it seemed reasonable.
He looked around. Assessing the immediate area. He saw a small clearing nearby. Ringed by the violet trees. With a particularly large cluster of the glowing green fungi at its center. This would do.
With a swift, precise motion, he activated the ring. A faint, almost imperceptible shimmer of energy emanated from it. Sinking into the site he targeted. A new anchor was set.
Good. This allowed him to return to this exact spot whenever he wished. But that would be later. Not now. Justice waited.
"Right!" Jack said. A predatory glint in his non-existent eyes. "Time to finish what they started."
He activated the ring again. This time setting the teleportation destination to "Home." Another sickening lurch. Less disorienting this time. As he was mentally prepared.
He materialized in the bedroom of his Lonestone home.
He didn't waste a second. He moved out of the house in super speed. Like a blur of motion. Racer Jack was built for speed. And he pushed his limits now.
His form flashed. A white-and-grey projectile cutting through the city air. The familiar streets of Garden District. The bustling Trade District. The distant spire of the Central District Towers... He passed them all in an unreadable streak of speed.
The world blurred. Colors were streaking into indistinct lines. He ran on rooftops. Vaulted over alleyways. The wind, even at this absurd speed, didn't affect him.
Each step was a controlled explosion of speed. Propelling him forward with impossible force. He estimated he had been gone for barely a minute. Or two. The teleportation was near-instantaneous for him.
But the masked woman's portal had taken a few seconds to fully pull him in. And then there was the landing. The observation. The anchor-setting. And the return teleportation.
He calculated a total elapsed time of no more than two minutes since he had vanished from the bank.
This was critical. The Calamity Stars wouldn't have completed their escape in under five minutes. Unless the masked woman also teleported them.
They were likely still in the vicinity. Probably recovering. Or gloating over his sudden disappearance. Or even planning their next move.
He grinned. A sharp, fanged expression on his kamaitachi snout. They were about to regret that assumption.