Chapter 8 (Rough Revision)

Erk has a dream, and finds a way.

I found myself looking around at blue skies, and a horizon populated by cumulonimbus. Everything occurred in a hastened blur, but I remember it was always cold outside. I was aware of that, but it didn’t seem to bother me anyway. The chilly air was almost comforting, in fact. Whenever I could focus my gaze down from the sky, I saw that I stood shakily on rocky terrain. But most of the time, I couldn’t even stand at all. The rocks had frost covering them in some parts, and I thought I could see thick filaments of ice. 

My vision was not however clear enough to discern anything for fact. Moments after seeing or experiencing anything, the experience disappeared with the haziness of poor memory. But, despite the cold, hostile environment, I felt an inexplicably welcoming warmth. 

People were speaking around me, but I mostly couldn’t understand what they were saying, or when I could, it was in spurts of foreign understanding, familiar yet wholly unrecognizable. Yeah, I know that doesn’t make sense, but that’s what it was. Unrecognizably familiar. 

And the people in the dream. I tried to look at the people, but they were so tall, and my vision became even hazier the harder I focused on their faces. Like someone was holding the image hostage behind the veil of obscured eyesight.

Moments in different places passed by, but I kept returning to a familiar place where there were patches of brown dirt in between segments rocks and gravel. In some of the dirt patches, pathetic plants grew on the edges of where dirt met rock, and a few rosthide tents had been strung up in a loose gathering on the drab outcrop at the centre of the memory. 

Dream. 

I meant to say dream, not memory. 

My awareness flickered around between the area with the dirt patches and tents, and other more populated rocky outcrops. I was mostly happy, and liked to play on the cold rocks. I was real shaky though, and spent a good deal of time falling over. But mostly sitting around and looking at people, whose faces I couldn’t make out. 

Then I could smell something. Something I’d never smelled before among the rocks, dirt, and sad plants. Something that didn’t seem to fit among the tall people, the ice, and rosthide tents. The smell stung my nose. It burned. I curled my nose and turned over in disgust. 

That smell…. I thought in a way that made me feel like I was a stranger in my own head. I know that smell! 

I couldn’t see any of the tall people anymore. There was usually someone nearby, but now I was alone in a tent. And it was hot, so hot when that smell grew stronger. When it grew so strong that I gagged and thought I would drown in it, and there was a heat that I never knew existed and it was licking at my tail from the threshold of the tent. Orange flickering light danced around the wall of the tent, and the shadows of collapsing structures burning the strange told me. People burning. 

Then the other tall people came to me. There were a lot of them, and they weren’t the same as the tall people I always knew. They were dressed in shining leathers and peculiarly carved stone, similar to those that tipped the hunting spears of the people I knew. And some of them carried perfectly carved rocks as long spearheads with a short shaft, sharp and in all sorts of shapes.

Some of the people had bags or pouches, and others had leather clothing with foreign designs on them. Words. The stranger inside of me spoke. Those are words etched into their things. The stranger thought inside of me, and I felt afraid. So afraid, when he told me to read them. So afraid to find that when I looked at them, yes, I could read them, but managed to fight back the urge to make sense of them. 

One of the tall people looked at me, and picked me up. 

I would never forget his eyes. I could NEVER forget his eyes. 

I was so afraid of those eyes, eyes like I had never seen before. 

He was covered in shining leathers, had a long and carved shining rock spearhead slung from a belt around the hip, and it had a point that was impossibly sharp, and dripping with black liquid. 

The black dripping was everywhere. Some of it was on me, and the smell still burned in my nose. 

The eyes, frightened me, until I found out thanks to the stranger in my head that they wouldn’t frighten me for long. I tried to hide the eyes from the stranger because he wanted a better look at them, but he made me look at the tall person, straining to get a better view. The tall man. He looked at that man, whose eyes had been blurred, and started to clear away the haze. I would never forget the eyes, but I couldn’t let the stranger see that his eyes were… they were…. 

The world shook, and became more foggy than ever. In a few moments all of existence faded to blackness, and then I opened my eyes, and felt something vibrating in my ear lobe. 

It was so hot, and I was covered in soot. Spence’s place was on fire, and something was vibrating in the lobe of my ear. I shook my head. That smell, and THOSE eyes. The vibrating in my ear wouldn’t stop, and the urgency of the dream faded with my growing consciousness. 

I coughed, and spat out a clot of black blood. “The implant.” I mumbled. I stood up, shakily, and pulled the railgun by the strap, back up over my shoulder. The implant in my ear was buzzing away, but I ignored it to wipe the grunge of unconsciousness off of my face. 

I inspected myself, and found a few superficial gashes. Scrapes from broken glass, with dried black blood. Black blood. The vibrating continued, and I shook myself fractionally free of a dizzy feeling. 

“That dream again…” I mumbled, almost a whisper, and began to limp out of the alley. The vibration again. I tapped at my mobi-comm. “Yeah?” I struggled to say. 

“Young cub!” Pete’s voice echoed out of the implant and into my ear. Surprised, and somewhat startled to hear his voice, I turned the implant off and tapped my mobi-comm’s holo port. A small three dimensional likeness of Pete’s head hovered in front of me, and spoke into my ear as I held the comm up to stabilize the projection. “You had me worried.” 

“Why, what happened?” I spoke shakily as I continued to limp, sturdiness gradually returning with each step. 

“I heard about the tech den. There was an explosion. Top secret clean up crew or something. They’re saying nobody’s hurt but I was afraid you or Jade might have been... collateral damage.” He hung on the second last word, so as to imply endearing emotions. And it was endearing -- I felt my throat clench. 

“Jade’s okay…” I recalled the scent of the cavern blossom perfume. “Did you hear anything else?” 

“Well…” he reacted to my prodding. “Seems that there are people out looking for you and Jade. Something about treasure?” 

I nodded to the projection. Uselessly, since my own likeness wasn’t being recorded. 

“Supposedly there’s a treasure in this place called the Rat’s Nest. You ever heard of it?” I asked in a near state of disbelief, after all that I had been through, feeling sceptical of the place’s existence. 

Pete’s projected bust nodded and frowned simultaneously. “I have. In fact I know that Old Spence has been there.” 

I shivered briefly, feeling a surprising jolt once more. A second jolt, and I realized it was the buzzing of my mobi-comm. 

“Weird, I just got a wired message,” I spoke loudly, and pulled the message up in an overlay that projected in front of Pete’s visage. It was a message from Jade, reading ‘Meet me under the city’s column.’ I wiped my face with frustration. “It’s from Jade. Says she’s going under one of the columns, but there are like a dozen of those things.” I checked the time stamp -- it was sent at 3:42 and it was now 4:18. “And she sent it about half an hour ago…” I came up to the edge of the alley, and peered out to the near empty Old 4th Ave. “Which one would she go down?” I asked before progressing. 

“There are access tunnels from the main support columns,” he paused to think. “If Jade talked to Old Spence, he might have pointed her to the closest column.” 

“Spence…” I mumbled. 

“What is it?” 

“There was an explosion at his place. I went there looking for her and could smell the demolition fluid.” 

“What!” Pete interrupted. 

“No, it’s okay! Nobody was home. But Jade had definitely been there. I could smell her too.” 

“Why the explosion?” Pete struggled to make sense of it as much as I did.

Once more, I pointlessly shrugged. “I think there were people from the tech den maybe… looking for treasure I guess. A lot happened. There were Unitans, and this guy in black.” 

“Unitans…” Pete paused. “Well, I don’t know about Unitans or a man in black, but Finnic and Dren have been making a lot of noise. Apparently they have a whole crew looking for you.” 

“Of course,” It occurred to me that I should have predicted that the local muscle would be all over the prospect of treasure, and a five hundred credit reward. Finnic and Dren were glorified tech junkies, and would want the potential funds to hack and shoot themselves full of upgrades and drugs. I then noticed myself cradling the railgun, reflexively. “I’m going after her.” 

“Are you sure you’re alright Erk?” 

“Yeah I’m fine,” I lied. “Just a bit woozy.” I looked down the road to the right, and saw the column in the distance. “I need to go, though. Anything else?” 

The form of Pete’s head shook a silent no. 

“Bye then.” 

“Goodbye kiddo.” 

I tapped at the mobi-comm and the projection disappeared. Staggering into the street, I felt relieved that there weren’t many people other than junkies wandering the streets at this hour. In my state, I probably looked like I fit right in.

Behind me, I could see the smoke from Spence’s place rising. There were no signs of interest anywhere. It seemed like the Underlow didn’t care. Soon the fire would die out, and Spence’s place would be just another ruin, not worth anyone’s time. 

My stagger gradually eased into a stiff but forced brisk walk. There was an underlying pain, but it seemed my body was pumped full of Kavalli hormones to mitigate the damage. I was relieved that my physiology was making due, in part, because I wouldn’t need to hunt down any drugs to further quell the pain -- it would have been just one more thing to slow me down. Of course, from both the effects of the drug, and the time spent looking for them. Not to mention, human drugs were usually a gamble -- they didn’t always affect us the same way. So, I trod on and hoped that in my ragged state would be able to face whatever lay next.

 

Approaching the column, I took stock of a small fleet of hover bikes parked out front, with two guards standing by an open door. I snuck closer to get a decent shot. Looking through the scope, it scanned over their likenesses, and brought up names. Neither of them were Finnic or Dren, but they certainly were tech junkies -- suited up with scraps of old and new tech alike. I pulled the trigger twice, silencing both of them with two stun shots. Whatever dampening they had were no match for the Surdan rifle, which knocked them effortlessly out of consciousness. 

I approached the column entrance, eyeing up the hover bikes. I smiled mischievously as I was taken aback by a sudden decision that I would take one with me. It was a momentary joy, however. A change in air pressure shocked me back to the situation at hand. I turned around to face the source of rippling air. 

“Hadley,” I looked at the man standing before me, with another tall, but lanky man standing beside Hadley’s bulging musculature. The second man leveled a launcher -- it was the man who blew up the tech den. 

Hadley was smiling at me, like some sort of demented strong man who had taken too many endorphins before he got on the stage. He waved fractionally at the man beside him, who responded by holstering the launcher. 

“The guns won’t work on you anymore. Chandra put a lock on them. We can’t shoot you.” 

I spat air. “How do I know that’s true?” 

“Because we’re here to kill you,” He retorted. “I’m sure you know Chandra and I don’t see eye to eye. I will never, ever, be okay with Unita working alongside a dog like you.” 

I dropped the rifle, knowing it would be useless as long as they had their kinetic dampeners up. “If you’re so much better than me, why can’t you fight me one on one? Or maybe it’s because I beat three of your men earlier, and you know you can’t handle me one on one?” 

Hadley bellowed a laugh, while the second man chuckled with a held back smile. Ending the laugh with a sigh, Hadley spoke, “You’re tough, I’ll give you that. And that’s precisely why you’ll be fighting Rickter here.” He motioned to the man beside him. 

Rickter stepped forward, lifting his hands into a boxer’s defensive stance. Graphene power fists materialized into his hands and over his own knuckles. He clenched a tight fist of the nanoconstructed gauntlets, and nodded past me, invitationally. “C’mere doggy.”

Hadley walked off toward one of the stationary bikes. “You were trained by one of the best,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Rickter’s a Liberator, like me. We’ll see how you can handle a real warrior.” He hopped on one of the bikes, and revved it to life momentarily, before accelerating and driving into the open column doorway. 

I turned my attention back to Rickter, and pulled out Jade’s small graphene knife. I smirked, gritting past the pain that had been bothering me since the explosion. “Never fought anyone else with a graphene weapon. At least not for real.” I recalled sparring with Jade’s dad. 

The man laughed. “That knife is hardly a weapon. Almost seems like cheating.” 

I held the knife in front of me. It was small. Definitely not ideal. But I had no choice. The kinetic dampener would force me into a melee fight, and the downed tech junkies only had more guns. I took up a combat stance, pointing the knife outward. 

“That’s better,” Rickter taunted, and began making short steps toward me, never betraying his boxer’s stance. 

We got close, and started to circle round each other in a sparring dance. He would let out a loose jab occasionally, trying to find a crack in my defence. Trying to play the patient game, surely, as he only needed one good hook or uppercut to lay me out with a hit from one of those power fists. 

He began the motion for another jab and I feinted in the opposite direction. He responded by going for a one-two jab and hook, but I dodge all three, and managed to lock his wrist with a grab from my off-hand. I tightened his arm at the elbow, pulling with a twist, and brought my own elbow down with force, but he maneuvered out of the lock with a roll that sent us both tumbling. 

On the ground he belted me once in the nose -- just a graze, but with the force of the graphene I felt a spurt of blood erupt from one nostril. He pulled back his fist for a second hit, but I conjured up strength in the grip I had on his wrist, spinning my legs around to lock my knees around his shoulder. I pulled the arm back, trying to pop the shoulder out of its socket -- he flailed a few times, near helplessly before regaining focus and belting my knee a couple of times. It was too much, and I had to let go. 

As we scrambled up to get back to our feet I lashed out with the knife and made a superficial gash across his belly. Blood trickled over his armor, but the wound did not cause him to hesitate. He began an assault of jabs, a couple made partial impact on my forearms, but most blows were near-misses. 

With clenched teeth, he dug in his heels and threw one good hit that snagged my left shoulder with a heavy crunch that twisted me up. I watched as he lifted his left arm up for a finishing blow, and the fist propelled toward me through the small space between us. This is it, I thought, bringing Jade’s knife straight up in front of my face. 

The knife sectioned his hand with the ease of slicing through butter. The power fist segmented, and with his fist gushing blood, his blow still found purchase on my lower cheek. The heavy hit was substantially quelled by the damage I had done, but still knocked me off my feet. The knife pulled out of his fist as I fell to the ground, and he stumbled backward, blood fountaining. 

He growled, but still stood standing. “F*****g dog,” I leaned up and stared him down momentarily with distorted vision. Spitting a black blob of blood, I strained to regain balanced footing despite the dizzying state his last hit had put me in. 

I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he had removed the damaged power fist and was wrapping his hand in a makeshift bandage, ripped from his shirt sleeve. I shook my head and brought the knife forward, while he regained the boxing gait, but switching his footing so that his good hand was now the striking fist. With the damaged fist he fumbled to grab something cylindrical from his belt. A small plastic shield expanded in circular form in front of his wavering forearm. 

I growled at him, taking short steps forward, and he responded with a quick snicker and mirror of my own forward motion. The heat was building behind my temples, and I felt my head flooding with jittery energy. My eyesight stretched back around the periphery, as I entered a state of intense tunnel vision. I could have counted the beads of sweat on his face at that moment -- minor details coalesced and every fractional movement leapt out at me. I felt strong, fast, and in an unusual way, I could also feel fear. As my face intensified, I felt as if the man If front of me were my warped reflection as I could smell the fear accumulating in his pores. 

I clenched my teeth as my lips quivered, and the fur on my neck stood up on end. I realized my growl had at some time coalesced into an intensely animalistic warning, pitched with fear, anger and hatred. I took jerky, steps forward, hunching my shoulders and cracking my neck with a tilt as anxious energy pumped into my jugular. 

Rickter took a step back before lunging with a well placed uppercut. As his fist drew near, I tilted calmly, but was caught surprised by a sudden burst of photonic energy. A singular beam extended from his fist, like a purple isosceles flame, condensed into a fine long point. I felt the streak of energy release a rush of blood from my belly, before I grabbed his wrist with my free hand. 

Dropping the knife, I belted his helmet with my palm heel. There was a sound of crunching resignation when my fist made impact, and his eyes responded with an involuntary quiver. My grip on his wrist tightened along with the pitch of my snarl, and I leaned into him as I began punching rapidly at his nose. 

He stumbled, and the purple flare lost its form around his fist as he landed hard on his back. Mounting him, I dropped fists with both hands until well after his irises had rolled back into the recesses of his eyelids. Pausing, I stared at him for awhile with bared teeth and twitching lips, before the tension of my Kaval emotions began to wear off. I stood above him, leaving with a parting kick to the ribs, and stormed over to gather the discarded knife and railgun. 

My tail whipped around with frantic and uncontrollable impulse, and I felt a coldness quaking under my skin. That feeling you get after adrenaline and its friends leave you in a post-conflict calm, and you suddenly feel everything you couldn’t feel before, all at once. 

Once my nerves had quelled some more, I returned to Rickter, feeling his pulse to see that he was indeed still alive. I rummaged around the pockets of his vest to find a basic first aid kit. I shrugged, knowing full well that the nanites in his blood would he hard at work, but opted to inject him with a pain killer anyway. It would quicken the healing process, but more relevant, there would he a sedative effect. I considered using one on myself, but ruled that sedation was too risky, with Jade’s whereabouts being my immediate concern. 

Fiddling with his gear a few moments longer, I unpaired his kinetic dampener from his mobi, pairing it instead to my own and clamping it secure to my mag belt. 

Walking over to the parked bikes, I inspected the functions of the dampener via my mobi-comm -- projecting an opaque popup window from the device's holo-port. I was happy to find that the device had various police modules; particularly interesting was the vehicle override feature. Sliding the app into the window, I found it didn't take too long to override one of the bikes' ignition locks.

 The bike's dashboard HUD blinked to life's and projected imagery in a spread of opaque light. Hopping onto the riding seat, the HUD resolved detail in my eye -- the Aldin logo flashed in my eye, before parking nearly minimized in a bottom corner of my peripheral vision. I kicked the throttle and the hover engine levitated the bike into a neutral gear. Data streamed into the HUD, and I kicked the gear shift into action before throttling the speedometer to the accompanying sound of a revving drone. 

I slowly rotated the bike toward the column's open doorway, and wind from the engine blew dust in every direction while I maneuvered. The door of the corridor practically beckoning me to drive through, I cranked up the throttle, and rushed toward the column’s entrance.

Reviews

[Wathanya.5KY3]

Erk's dream is very interesting. I have a gut feeling the man is Jade's father. He could be the one "rescuing" Erk. Quotation marks. Because he could also be the one that destroyed Erk's home. The stranger inside Erk's head is also intriguing; are they Erk's consciousness, or are they Erk's other personality?! Two more chapters to go, and I'll find out!

My favorite line from this chapter was probably: "I felt strong, fast, and in an unusual way, I could also feel fear." But, "Graphene power fists materialized into his hands and over his own knuckles," came close with it being part of one of your impressive-as-ever action scenes and the coolness that comes with it.

There were a few technical and stylistic things that I thought was worth mentioning:

1. The next few moments occurred in a haze.

- stylistic: this sentence is very matter-of-fact telling, and I feel like--with your superb show-do-not-tell skills--you can start the chapter in a more attention-gripping way

2. I couldn’t remember where else I had seen them, but they too were familiar.

- comma before and after "too"

3. The world shook, and became more foggy than ever.

- more foggy => foggier

4. In a few moments all of existence faded to blackness, and then I opened my eyes, and felt something vibrating in my ear lobe . . . and something was vibrating in the lobe of my ear . . . The vibrating in my ear wouldn’t stop.

- comma after "moments"
- stylistic: the parts about something vibrating in Erk's earlobe are put quite closely together and sounds a little repetitive; suggestion: something vibrating in Erk's earlobe is a fact, but how does Erk FEEL? Did it simply vibrate in his ears, or did it make him feel like the right half of his brain was being shaken in a bubble tea mixer?

5. “The implant.” I mumbled.

- . => , after "... implant"

6. “I have. In fact I know that Old Spence has been there.”

- comma after "In fact"

7. It was a message from Jade, reading ‘Meet me under the city’s column.’

- comma after "reading"

8. “Are you sure you’re alright Erk?”

- comma before "Erk"

9. “Yeah I’m fine.” I lied.

- comma after "Yeah"
- . => , after "fine"

10. “Bye then.” “Goodbye kiddo.”

- comma between both pairs of words, but it's speech; so it might be fine

11. “Because we’re here to kill you.” He retorted.

- "...you." => "...you,"
- He => he

12. He responded by going for a one-two jab and hook, but I dodge all three, and managed to lock his wrist with a grab from my off-hand.

- dodge => dodged

13. As we scrambled up to get back to our feet I lashed out with the knife and made a superficial gash across his belly.

- stylistic: comma after "our feet" to separate the two actions, easing the readers' eyes

14. The knife pulled out of his fist as I fell to the ground, and he stumbled backward, blood fountaining out of his hand.

- unsure: the first clause seems like it's missing a word

15. As my face intensified, I felt as if the man If front of me were my reflection as I could smell the fear accumulating in his pores.

- If => in

16. Rickter to a step back before lunging with a well planned uppercut.

- to => took
- optional stylistic edit: well planned => well-planned

17. There was a sound of crunching resignation when my first made impact, and his eyes responded with an uneasy quiver.

- first => fist (?)
- stylistic: starting anything with "There was..." tells rather than shows

18. Once my nerves had quelled someone, I returned to Rickter, feeling his pulse to see that he was still alive.

- someone => somewhat (?)

19. It would quicken the healing process, but more relevant, there would he a sedative effect.

- he => be

20. It was way faster than my rail board, and within moments I slowed to an idle hover where the hallway opened up into a railed platform overlooking cavernous cylindrical hollow.

- "hollow" can be an adjective, a verb, or a noun; if--in this case--it's a noun (as it has to be), it's missing an article

21. I pulled up cautiously to a tether connected to one of the railings, and quickly recognized it as the grappling hook to Jade's grappling gun.

- stylistic: the first "grappling" in "grappling hook" is unnecessary since we know soon after it's the hook to a grappling gun

22. Turning slowly, I directed the headlights to strafe along the edge, and before long there was a large drainage corridor came into the view of the headlights.

- "there was" is out of place

23. And then, a weird feeling began to etch it's way into my skin, but I did not have time to analyze it before a beeping on the dashboard HUD stole my attention.

- it's => its

24. I supposed that why the bikes had been left behind. The owners must have had some sort of sensors that notified them of the dampening and didn't want to risk losing their bikes.

- "...that why..." => "...that was why..."
- sensors => sensor (?)

25. The concern of energy loss dissipated, and with its fading the inexplicable weird feeling popped back into awareness.

- comma after "fading"

26. And then the sound of a high calibre gunshot followed by a streak through the air and a ripple in the crystalline creature's hide, seemingly to no effect.

- I'm not sure what's happening here; I can't seem to find the verb of this sentence either

27. I knew that thing was attacking Jade.

- nothing technically wrong with this; I just feel like this chapter ending was not as good as your usual chapter endings.

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Other observations:

- A while ago, I noticed that you didn't use Oxford commas, but there's one in this chapter; and I was unsure whether or not to point that out. Either way, I suggest sticking to one style

- There was a lot of action packed in this chapter, and that's where you shine. However, for some reason, the opening and the ending bits were less impressive than previous chapters. Maybe that could be something to keep in mind while editing this chapter

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I'm really enjoying The Adventures of Jade and Erk, and I can't wait to find out how you're going to wrap things up. I anticipate a lot of action in the next chapter or two; an RPG boss-fight adjacent, perhaps.

Looking forward to your next chapter!

P.S. Saw your new cover for the story; it's very fitting, and I like how Jade's and Erk's eyes are drawn and put together. Just beautiful!

[JT Godin]

As usual, thanks kindly. I'm pretty behind responding to your reviews, and am feeling the need to respond. Right now I'm pushing to finish the rough draft of the story before November, as I'm planning on doing the second part for NaNoWriMo. Luckily I have the last couple of chapters already mapped out, and am almost finished. That's going to give me extra time to edit, and come up with more concept art, as well as get into storyboarding the second part.

I'm glad you liked the concept cover... I started a pinterest board for my concept art/sketches related to Jade and Erk: https://pin.it/6x6rlnhmi2lzac

Thanks for the feedback regarding the flow of this chapter — when I was writing it I did happen to notice it departed from the action format I do most of my chapters in. Ie, it started slow, had action in the middle, and ended on a light action scene, whereas I usually start with a hard action scene, tell story in the middle and end on action leading up to a cliffhanger. Keeping the RPG boss fight comment in mind, I think your going to enjoy the next few chapters. I've enjoyed writing in the crystalline behemoth, which was entirely a creation I came up with for another Jade and Erk story... But also, they are almost at their destination (The Rat's Nest), and clearly there has to be at least one big boss fight after the behemoth.

Lastly I wanted to address something I read in your review of my previous chapter: Dren was a minor character revealed all the way back in chapter 2. With your response, I'm now wondering if that character (along with his companion Finnic) need a bit more exposure early on. In either case, I think I've figured out some quick rewrites that wouldn't necessitate taking them out entirely.

[Wathanya.5KY3]

Oh! Take your time. I don’t mean to put pressure on you at all. A thumbs up (or down, if that’s how you roll) is enough to let me know you’ve seen it. Good luck with NaNoWriMo! I’m still considering if I should participate.

I’ll check your link out!

Now that you mention it, that is true. This chapter’s flow is different from others. It does end with a cliffhanger adjacent, but not exactly because we knew the behemoth was gonna attack Jade from the last chapter.

I wasn’t aware of their existence at all. Up till now, the characters that I feel are worth remembering are Jade, Erk, Kringle, Pete, Old Spence, Jade’s dad, Hadley, and Sadistic Blackmailer (aka. Chandra; had to look her name up). Hope that helps with decision making!