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Really, Jay shouldn't have been questioning the strange items he came across in Mimi's room when collecting her dirty clothes.
The glowing gemstone tucked into her overalls was definitely a new one. It didn't feel plastic, and the light inside wasn't from LED.
Mimi was a strange, to put it lightly, young little girl, that was certain. She got whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Not because anyone was at her beck and whim, but rather she would kick you in the shins and rob you blind.
He wouldn't be surprised to learn if Mimi had stolen this gemstone from a museum. It would be the next natural step for her.
It had certainly been the case when Jay had brought a gift for Luke's birthday and forgotten to bring Mimi one. He made it up to Luke later by sneaking him his own cake through the window.
What could he say? He enjoyed being the cool uncle. Well, he was their only uncle, but he had a reputation to maintain. It's not he had any kids of his own to spoil.
All he had was an apartment he could only fit so many plants in.
And he didn't even have that anymore.
All because of that purple... thing rampaging through downtown.
Now, Jay will be the first to admit that he's always believed that there are aliens out there, somewhere. It was statistically impossible for humans to be the only sentient race out there.
This creature from the black lagoon was not among any of his imaginations.
The sunlight beaming from the window didn't change the swirling light inside the gemstone. It honestly moved more like a... heartbeat than anything else. It felt like one too. Eerily in tune with his. And the more he focused on it, the more his vision was hazed pink, and he swore tendrils of light were wrapping around his fingers.
He had punctured his hand early on thumbtacks while pulling that ball... thing out of Mimi's backpack. But those pinpricks, which bled heavily and had scabbed over, disappeared.
And he felt something, right there, like a little switch burning along his spine that he could just about reach and flip...
Oh well, he'd look into it later. Right now, Mimi was trying to force Luke to eat a worm. Which he should probably put a stop to, but it was keeping her distracted enough for him to pick up her room.
He slipped it into his breast pocket, and hauled the laundry bin onto his hip. He hoped that there was still running water all the way out here.
"Uncle Jay, tell Mimi to stop!" Luke yelled from outside.
He sighed and set the bin down on the washer. Another day in the life of the Hallenbeck's. Despite never being a dad, he had the voice down pat. "Mimi!" he stormed outside.
"Uncle Jay, tell Luke that when PG destroys the world, he's going to need to learn to enjoy eating worms!" Mimi still had her brother pinned to the ground, his mouth smeared with mud and a bundle of worms grasped in her hand.
"Mimi Susie Q Hallenbeck, I don't care. Get off him this instant."
She squinted her eyes. "Are you trying to tell me what to do?"
Jay sighs. "Okay, didn't want to do this, but okay." Mimi wasn't a heavy girl, but one has to hold her at a distance unless you wanted to get scratched. Much like a wet cat.
"No no no no no!" she screeched.
Luke took advantage, and clambered up, and ran to the porch. As soon as he was inside, Jay dropped Mimi.
She pointed a finger at him. "I'm going to tell mom you beat me."
"Oh like last time, when I didn't give you ice cream after dinner?"
"Withholding dessert counts as child abuse and you know it. I should call PG back and have him kill you for that."
It wasn't the first time Mimi threatened to sick "PG" on him. If it hadn't been for his sister's silence when he asked, he wouldn't have believed that the purple menace rampaging through town was Mimi's "friend".
But if anyone was going to befriend a genocidal alien, it would be Mimi.
"Yeah, sure thing Mimi."
She snarled and ran across the lawn to snatch a heavy tree branch to swing at his legs.
It wasn't too difficult to disarm her. "Okay, that's it, you're grounded. One week, no TV, no games, nothing."
And he was certain Mimi was about to explode into another rant, but she was cut short from three pillars of blinding light shooting down across the lawn.
when Jay regained his senses there were three white robot people standing there in front of them. They made Mimi freeze up, but Jay's never seen her that pissed before. She, however, goes when he pushes behind him. He holds up the tree branch in front of him.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" he asks.
The three people look towards him, and Jay grips the branch tighter. "You may call me Templar Orichalcum" The middle one, the masculine one, says. "This small child, was she not present when Pandora was slain?"
"Yeah and what of it?"
Jay is barely able to keep her behind him. "What do you want with Mimi?"
"This child wields the gem of Praxidice. It is instrumental in our defeat of the scourge of the universe." Orichalcum steps forward, holding out a hand. However, in his other is a sword. "It would be wise to cooperate. Delaying any further would lead to the further destruction of your world."
"Frigg. Off! You wouldn't be able to defeat Psycho Goreman in your dreams! And even if I had the gem, I definitely wouldn't give it to you creeps!"
"We were not referring to you, small child. The one in front of you has the gem in his possession."
"What?! Uncle Jay, you stole the frigging gem from me!" Mimi kicks him in the ankle, hard, and Jay winces but holds his place.
"So what, I give you the gem, and you stop that thing from killing everyone on Earth?"
"Don't you dare!"
"Yes, and Earth would fall under Templar protection. As long as your kind submits to our will, then you will be safe from future threats."
Luke crept up behind Jay, peering around him. "Submitting to your will sounds an awful lot like slavery."
"You will come to thank us once you're safe from the Arch-Duke of Nightmares, and your kind has been enlightened." With one hand still on the hilt of his sword, Orichalcum places the other over where his heart should be. "I would, personally, be grateful. Templar Pandora was someone I considered a sister. I would take it upon myself to knight you myself as thanks, and sponsor you to join our ranks."
Luke tightens his grip on Jay's clothes. "They did that to mom."
"If you say yes Uncle Jay, I will never forgive you! I'll- I'll disown you!" Mimi shouts, punching him in the thigh. "And you! You back off and crawl back to whatever dunghole you came from because you're not getting the gem. I'll beat you to a pulp if you try!"
Orichalcum sighs, and with the wave of his hand, Mimi is hit with an energy beam and goes flying back a few feet. "Are you not tired of her behavior?"
Luke shouts after her and helps her up. Jay looks back and sees she's covered in dirt but is favoring one of her legs, and had bloody and scraped elbows. The sight of the blood makes Jay's eyes go red. "Fucking touch her again and see what happens!" he yells as he rushes forward and smashes the tree branch against Orichalcum's head.
It breaks the horn attached to his eyepiece and throws him off balance. When he rights himself, he assesses the damage and sighs. "I tire of these games."
It takes Jay a few moments to process what was happening afterward. He fell back, eyes fixed blankly at the sky. There was a squelching sound, like a sack of wet sponges splatting to the ground.
His vision swam, seeing doubles, and he distantly heard Mimi and Luke screaming about something. He weakly propped himself up on his elbows, just in time for his own fucking legs to collapse and fall to the ground.
Seeing his own blood and guts on the lawn should have freaked him out more, but the shock hadn't quite set in yet.
Mimi was screaming bloody murder and being just barely held back by a nearly catatonic Luke. Jay couldn't quite tell if Mimi was upset at her uncle being hurt, or at the fact that the Templars were going to get that gem thing.
"If... if this gem is-" Jay wheezed. Speaking had never been this hard before. "So frigging important... Then come get it, motherfuckers." His hand slipped into his breast pocket and pulled out the gem.
But instead of handing it over as Templar Orichalcum expected, Jay flipped that switch he had felt earlier, in a metaphorical sense. And it was like the floodgates were released.
Boundless energy poured out of the gem, and the way in which it pulled his body together made a deep seated chill settle in the pit of his guts. Jay pulled himself up, and it was disorienting to be hovering off the ground by a few inches. But with this power coursing through him like tiny shards of glass.
Light pulsed around him, pushing everything outside of the field. Which flung Templar Orichalcum backward. The two other Templars with them drew their rifles and trained them on Jay.
It pulsed radiantly around him, and with a sweep of his hand, the two Templars that had been flanking Orichalcum crumpled like soda cans.
"Oh frig! I- I didn't mean to-" He landed on his feet. "I just wanted them gone..."
Mimi gasped. "That was so totally cool! Do it again, to him." She pointed a finger in Orichalcum's direction.
Despite having an impassive, unreadable face, Orichalcum scuttled away, trying to haul himself back to his feet. "You don't know the forces that you're meddling with, Earthling. The Arch-Duke of Nightmares will tear you asunder to get the gem of Praxidike from you."
"And you would not?" rumbles a deep voice.
Mimi snaps her head over, her snarl morphing into a smile as she ran up and hugged him. "PG you're back! PG, this is my uncle Jay, my mom's little brother. Uncle Jay, this is PG!"
"When the gem of Praxidike activated, it acted as a beacon willing me here, I thought, perhaps, you had learned to harness its powers. Despite no longer needing its power, my life force is very much still tied to it."
Jay froze at the sight of PG. The behemoth hulked over him and was dripping blood from his mouth. He took a tentative step back as if losing his balance. "Mimi... Luke?"
"It's okay Uncle Jay, PG is cool. He won't hurt us," Luke assured.
"It seems like I was not needed," PG mused, looking upon the carnage. "You were able to easily dispatch these Templars. Quite impressive, for a human wielding the Gemenia One. I had expected such an artifact to melt your simple minds." PG looked down, almost curiously, at the blade embedded in his arm.
Orichalcum ripped it out. "I don't care if I perish now, I will not let any of you walk free!"
"I shall cherish bathing in your blood, Templar." PG moved in on him, but before he could grab him, the Templar vanished in a flash of light. "What?!"
"No! No more killing!" Jay yelled, hands waving in front of him. "This needs to stop. You need to stop."
PG physically tensed. "You do not know the power which you wield, human."
"Funny, that robot asshole said the same thing. What are you going to do about it?"
PG clenched his jaw, and grit his teeth. "Nothing, as it were. As I said, my life force is tied to the gem of Praxidike. Whoever holds it... Commands me. Mimi held it previously."
"Oh! I'm sorry for you, then."
"Yes, so I would appreciate it if you would give me the gem back. I shall make a blood oath with you, uncle Jay. If you relinquish the gem to me, I shall spare your world from my conquest. You and you petty humans can keep on living in peaceful oblivion."
"It would be nice to not have the world destroyed," Luke pondered.
"Yes, you can return to your pathetic life."
"Okay, but before I give you the gem, I have a condition." Jay shoves it in his breast pocket.
"Whatever it is, I agree to it. Anything you humans ask for is trivial." PG slices his has palm open, and roughly grabs Jay by his wrist does the same to him.
When they clasp hands, Jay gasps, and his knees buckle. If the gem felt like glass coursing through him, then PG's blood entering his bloodstream was like pure electricity. His vision briefly blacked out, and when he came to, Like and Mimi were pulling him off the ground.
"So human, what boon is it that you ask of me?" PG inquires. Confident, snarky.
Jay cocks a smile once he got his bearings. "I want you to show me the universe."