Jack Slash

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{{#if:Golem to JackInterlude 26a|

“	Stop talking, Jack. You’re not that clever, not as sharp as you like to think. You talked to me about keystones? Bullshit. You’re a sad, pathetic killer with delusions of grandeur.	”
{{#if:Golem to Jack| —Golem to Jack{{#if:Interlude 26a|, Interlude 26a}} }} }}

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Jack Slash</default></title>

<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>

<label>Status</label><format>

Deceased

</format>

<label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox> Jacob Black,<ref name="twig eName" /> better known as Jack Slash, is the leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine.<ref name="Cast" />

Personality

A cruel and manipulative man with a love of theatrics. Jacob had a playful demeanor even while he was committing small-scale personal pain or when coordinating wide-scale atrocities with the backing of the Slaughterhouse Nine.

Every move and action he made was calculated to afflict change on the world around him for the worse. He expresses a love for affecting "keystones" in his viewpoint chapter,<ref name="SB1" /> that could change the world around themselves as well as though he was an individual butterfly effect which highlights his grandiose self perception.<ref name="I11b e2">“Maybe he thought you’d respect him for it, sir? He was always good at reading people.” And making them do what he wanted. Even me.

“Is that so? I’d like to think I’m much the same. A people reader. But my interest is in the design of people. What makes them tick? What holds them together? All too often, it’s one little thing. In architecture they call it a keystone. The one stone that keeps the entire arch from collapsing. The weak point. And I’m very, very good at finding those weak points. Can you guess what I’m talking about here? Why I’m in this apartment?”

“Aster, sir?”

“And you say you’re nothing like your father. You’re sharp, little boy.” - Excerpt from Interlude 11b</ref>

At his core, Jack is a shallow person.<ref name="SB eShallow" /><ref>If you take away his top-levelpass vs. capes then that breaks verisimilitude; there's no other way someone hasn't come up with giving Number Man or someone like Number Man a sniper rifle, or summoning minions, or siccing Contessa on him. If it came down to luck he wouldn't still be around.

Jack serves the story by conveying that there have to be greater forces moving and limiting the pieces because he really has no right to keep existing without something else playing its part. He's a lead-in to the introduction of those forces. The fact he's not compelling as an individual is a big part of his character, and the reveal of how the broader Broadcast power works exposes this.

Was he handled perfectly? No, it was my first full-length story and with that in mind, it wasn't only both a marathon and a sprint at the same time but it was a marathon and a sprint at the same time by someone who'd never done either of those things. I really wish people would relax a bit. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref> He is not genuinely charismatic, and he is basically an edgelord without his secondary power.<ref>Jack's a reconstruction of the Joker type character in the sense that you can't have such a character take such a high profile position in the setting, without having there be a cheat.

In short, Jack's whole existence leans heavily on 'if all it took was a power nullifier (or a Contessa, or a whatever) then there couldn't be a Jack'. He isn't charismatic when it comes down to it, his references are shallow, his 'evil genius' is even more shallow (see the eye rolling from various story commentators when Jack talks about how he made Cherish do the trials all over again), and if you take away the forced gimmick he's basically an edgelord. One of the first things we get about him is that his cutting power isn't that great. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

Tactics

When the Nine are on the move or dormant, Jack keeps his head down and his team will use their powers to help the group stay evasive: this increases the difficulty of tracking them via conventional/mundane methods. Individuals such as Cherish, Screamer, Gray Boy, Siberian, and Bonesaw can also complicate attempts to use a standard sniper rifle or drone strike against him. However, the cultural status quo for tracking threats such as the Nine is to rely on parahumans. Bringing parahuman powers into play is very tempting, but unknowingly hurts more than it helps as his shard will frustrate harmful attempts to catch a hiding Jack with capes.<ref name="reddit eTrack">And before you say 'thinkers', remember that Jack counters any powers and has frustrated all attempts to take your approach in the past with capes, benefiting from the dynamic of capes handling capes and civilians handling civilians. When he's dormant or moving from place to place, he keeps his head down, leaning on various powers amongst his team that confuse things or give him an edge. He enters the story with Cherish, but before that he has people like Screamer, Grey Boy, Siberian, and Bonesaw, who complicate attempts to pull anything with your standard sniper rifle or drone strike.

The fundamental issue with the S9 is they're going to be hiding and you're relying on conventional and mundane means to track them, while they're using augmented means to stay evasive. If you bring powers into play at all (and this is both really tempting to do and culturally the status quo) then Jack starts getting really good instincts from Broadcast, and you unwittingly hurt more than you help.

Once a confrontation begins, or they step out into the open, things quickly get chaotic. We've seen the attempts at using airborne artillery (Legend) and bombing runs. They do pretty darn well in that environment. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

Jack tends to surround himself with team members, which as a consequence makes it next to impossible for civilians to get to him (and thus secretly interfere).<ref name="II12.x e1" /><ref name="R1" /> He greatly benefits from Earth Bet's paradigm of capes handling capes and civilians handling civilians:<ref name="reddit eTrack" /> no one seriously tried sending a competent non-parahuman against him until the Slaughterhouse Fight in Los Angeles.<ref name="27.2 eSurround" /><ref name="reddit eJackFall" />

Relationships

Shatterbird

On a personal level Jacob found Shatterbirds's tactics tediously repetitive, but kept this to himself as she acted as an unmistakable herald to the Nine.<ref name ="I12 e6">Shatterbird, who had deigned to observe for the moment, hovering over the scene, was an individual who craved validation. She would be insulted to hear it spoken aloud, but she needed to be powerful in the eyes of others, civilian or teammate. She could tolerate much, but an insult or a joke at her expense could push her over the edge. As carrots went, a simple word of praise could satisfy her for a week, and an opportunity to shine could sate her for a month. It was why he allowed her to ‘sing’ each time they arrived somewhere new, even as he found it repetitive and boring, brooking the same scenarios time after time. Her stick was easy enough: the threat of physical harm, or the embarrassment of being made to lose control. Were she to attack a member of the group, Siberian or Crawler would retaliate, and they would hurt or kill her. It would be inevitable, unequivocal. The idea of the shame she’d feel in that ignoble defeat held her back as much as anything. - Excerpt from Interlude 12</ref>

Bonesaw

Bonesaw and Jacob would "play" at the Slaughterhouse Nine being a happy family, with Bonesaw eager to play the part of a joyous and enthusiastic younger sibling or daughter figure.

During the Nine's long biological stasis Bonesaw is given time to reflect and grow as a person, later feeling conflicted about her role in the Nine

She no longer feels comfortable in Jacob's presence as she feels like he knows that her loyalty has been shaken.

Harbinger

Jacob and Harbinger are not on speaking terms, Harbinger leaving the Slaughterhouse Nine shortly after Jacob took over due to a conflict in personal methods(as outlined in Number Mans' interlude)

Harbingers' current alias of "Number Man" remembers Jacob fondly, it is unknown if Jack Slash reciprocates.

King

The young Jack utterly loathed King.<ref>The door to their room opened, and Kurt reached out to turn Jacob’s head out toward the city, before turning away himself.

“You’re not pouting, are you, Jacob?”

The voice was deep.

Jacob turned, glaring with far too much bloodlust in his eyes. Kurt focused on keeping his expression still.

“People stronger than me are going to hit you,” King said. “Their reasons won’t be as good.” - Last 20.e3</ref><ref>“What happens in the future? Think, Jacob, my boy.”

The threat was implicit. He expected an answer, and the way King worked, he wanted his answer.

“The powers are going to keep showing up, in greater numbers. Something critical is going to break, or a real monster will show up. Then it all collapses. It’s too fragile,” Jacob said, still holding the handkerchief to his nose, glaring, but with his back turned to King so King wouldn’t think he was being insolent. - Last 20.e3</ref><ref>“The sun has set. People hide in their homes, listening to the news, and they wonder if we are myths or magicians. We will reveal the truth to them. That we are monsters. Get yourself cleaned up, or they will think we are the pathetic sort of monster.”

He gave Jacob the slightest of pushes, sideways not out, and put the boy off balance, arms windmilling until Kurt stepped out to catch a finger in one closed fist.

That indignity, more than the bloody nose, made Jacob fume. To be made afraid, just for a moment. - Last 20.e3</ref> Ironically, he ends up following in King's footsteps as many of his eventual goals end up being the same as King's.<ref>“Everything plateaus,” Jacob said. “Everything declines. This ends with civilization in ruins, most of humanity dead, and the remainder bleeding and scared.”

“We’ll make an impact,” King said. “We’ll decide what plateaus and what declines.”

Jacob nodded.

What Jacob had said was apparently the right answer. - Last 20.e3</ref><ref name="II20.e3 eVision" />

Appearance

Jacob is tall and slender, favoring civilian clothing that shows off his lean and muscular upper body.

He has an attractive face similar to Johnny Depp's though longer and with pale blue eyes. His hair is gelled back exposing a severe widow's peak.<ref name="10.6e1">“Jack Slash.” Jack looked like someone on the attractive side of average, his dark hair cut short and styled with gel. His beard and moustache were immaculately trimmed so that each had a serrated edge, and his shirt was wrinkled, only half buttoned so his hairless upper chest showed. He had kind of a Johnny Depp look to him, though he had more of a widow’s peak, a longer face and lighter eyes. Good looking, if you looked past the fact that he was a mass murderer. He held a small kitchen knife in the photo. - Excerpt from Parasite 10.6</ref>

He has a full beard and mustache that he keeps neatly trimmed in a goatee fashion. These are further trimmed to give his beard sawtooth edges pointing inwards<ref name="cosplay">IRC conversation archived on the Spacebatles</ref>

He is noted by Bonesaw to have recently started showing signs of his age, with minor wrinkles around the eyes and stray white hairs.<ref name="I25e1">Jack only smiled, his eyes crinkling a bit at the edges. He was getting older. It was reassuring and spooky at the same time. He’s the daddy of the group and I’m the kid and he’s getting older which makes him more daddylike.

But it meant he moved slower and got tired more easily. It was only a matter of time before he made a mistake, lost a fight. - Excerpt from Interlude 25</ref>

Abilities and Powers

Primary Ability

Jacob's primary ability extends the effective cutting edge/stabbing tip of any handheld edged weapon far beyond its physical dimensions,<ref>“His power isn’t all that, I don’t think,” Grue spoke, slowly, as if considering the words as he spoke. “Space warping effect, so any blades he’s holding have an edge that extends a horrendously long distance, all with the optimal force behind the swing. Swings his knife, cuts through an entire crowd. Doesn’t make sense that he’d be able to murder everyone on Earth.” - Excerpt from Parasite 10.6</ref> which gives him practically nigh-infinite range.<ref name="Cast">Jack Slash – Leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine, can extend the cutting edge of any blade to nigh-infinite range. Sports a trimmed beard and casual clothing, with only a belt of knives and an icy stare to suggest he is anything but normal. - Worm Cast Page</ref><ref name="Cast Depth">Jack Slash – Leader. The man who will set the end of the world in motion, according to Dinah Alcott. Has the ability to extend the effective cutting edge of held knives and blades to horrendous distance, while maintaining consistent cutting power. Using this ability, he can cut through crowds or slice an enemy’s throat at any range. A capable reader of people and manager of sociopaths and other monsters, Jack Slash has managed to maintain command of the group for some time, despite a somewhat underwhelming power. He dresses rather casually and maintains a trimmed beard, and wears a belt with various knives. - Cast Page (In depth)</ref> The physical blade itself is not extended;<ref>Jack Slash's power allows him to extend the cutting edge of knives. The knife doesn't elongate but by swiping it he can cut everything the edge faces. He uses this to kill Skidmark in interlude 12. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit</ref> he uses an 'imaginary' projection that does not damage the actual blade while in use.<ref name="26.a c2">razorsmile: Bear in mind Jack isn’t using the blade itself but an ‘imaginary’ projection of its cutting ability. Thus, while he can only cut things the real blade would have been able to cut, he can do so without damaging the physical blade.

At least, that’s my understanding. I’m sure I will be Jossed at some point in the near future.

wildbow: No, you’re on target. - Conversation with Wildbow on Interlude 26a</ref> Not to be discounted is his long experience with using various knives.<ref>Knife fights were ugly, and Cradle seemed to know that. There weren’t good moves to defend oneself from a knife user who was aware of the full potential of the weapon, and any move that was anything less than good meant horrific damage, often going past skin and into muscle, if not organs. - Excerpt from From Within 16.10</ref><ref>Precision is, due to decades of regular practice and basic hand-eye coordination, not a real concern. He hits what he wants to hit - that's him, not the shard. In this example, the hypothetical yogi bear is reeling from a bad/fritzed summon, so it's not moving much. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref>

As the projected cutting edge applies the full force of his swing, this helps augment the strength of cuts, thrusts, slashes, and stabs by a fraction because the swing/blade does not stop where a weapon normally would.<ref>The cutting edge applies the full force of the swing. You see this in effect with the cleaver cutting through Bonesaw's wrists- which would generally require more swings. This helps with strength- in short, his swing/blade doesn't stop when it hits a solid object, when a knife would. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref> However, this does not make cuts more severe; it only extends the strength and severity of cuts to the peak point in the blade's movement.<ref>Hookwolf’s storm of blades had been augmented to an endless range, the strength of the cuts, thrusts, slashes and stabs augmented a fraction by Jack’s power. It didn’t make the cuts more severe, but only extended the strength and severity of the cuts to the peak point in the blade’s movement. Heavy armor plates were scarred, cut and torn away. The wounds to Golem’s face, arms, chest and legs were different, the pain oddly delayed, as if it took time to sink in. - Interlude 26b</ref> What Jacob can actually do with a weapon is still limited by the physical capabilities of the blade itself; for example, he needs an actual butcher's cleaver to sever limbs instead of a dagger.<ref>It doesn’t, but there’s other factors at play. Recall Jack switching to a cleaver to sever Bonesaw’s hands at the wrist. - Comment by Wildbow on Interlude 26a</ref>

Manton Limit

Although his power is not limited to knives, it only applies to edged weapons that he is holding. Jacob also finds knives faster and easier to handle.<ref>3) Not just knife edges, but by and large, it’s edged weapons only. He finds knives are easier/faster to handle. - Comment by Wildbow, archived on Spacebattles</ref> Thus, he cannot extend effects on weapons such as Armsmaster's Nano-thorns as only the cutting edge of the blade itself is projected.<ref>Haha. Funny thought. But the blade isn’t what has the disintegration effect. It’s the cloud that grows around it. - Comment by Wildbow on Interlude 11d</ref>

As the Manton Effect treats Hookwolf's metal parts as inorganic,<ref>Ran his fingers along the panels, and felt the steel in Hookwolf’s body, as the creature moved Jack out of the way of danger. Siberian would be close.
[...]
He felt the painted steel panel, sensed Hookwolf. So little of Hookwolf was usable, his power needing sufficiently thick material to use, but he could track the man.
[...]
He pointed in the direction that Hookwolf was. - Interlude 26b</ref> Jack's power can affect the blades of a shapeshifted Hookwolf that he is riding.<ref>A shadow emerged. Jack, riding atop a massive six-legged beast.

As Jack approached, he became more visible, and the nature of the beast became clear. He stood on Hookwolf’s back, between the creature’s shoulders.
[...]
Theo raised a hand as a shield even before Jack used his power in conjunction with Hookwolf’s. A hand of pavement, struck by a thousand slashes in a matter of a second, whittled to nothing. Then he had only armor, and that, too, started to come apart.

The cuts that followed parted flesh. - Excerpt from Interlude 26a</ref> The ability to do so is likely linked to his long and successful time as a murdering maniac granting Jack great facility with his power.<ref>Much like Taylor's achievements went hand in hand with a growth in her capability and flexibility with her power (on a blunt level like the waxing & waning max range, in terms of being able to see/speak with them, and on an abstract level, like how the shard is helping more in the background or when she's unconscious), Armsmaster gets his breadth and depth too, going hand in hand with some major achievements and moments of personal growth. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

Enhancements

Bonesaw also modified members of the Nine with various "safeguards"; sheathing their vital organs and major arteries in a protective sub dermal mesh, further wire reinforcement was put into the skeleton to avoid broken bones,<ref name="13.7 e1">“You’re not really in a position to be making demands,” Trickster said. “You’re bleeding to death, and we do have the ability to hurry the process along.”

Cherish shrugged. “Bonesaw gave me the works. Mesh sheaths for every major artery and organ, wire reinforcement for my skeleton. It’s not going to kill me anytime soon.”

I made a mental note of that. Chances were good that Jack, Bonesaw and the other more vulnerable members of the Nine had some similar protection. How differently would things have played out if Ballistic had used his power and blown them up?

“I could,” Trickster threatened. “Or we could wait and see which happens first: Either you agree to share the information we want or you slowly bleed out.”

“A game of chicken? I’m down.” Cherish prodded her injury with a fingertip. It was clear it hurt, but she still stuck a finger into the hole and investigated some. “The auto-injection pump is dosing me with painkillers and antibiotics now. First time feeling this stuff work.” - Excerpt from Snare 13.7</ref> with special attention was paid to the organs and spine to keep them functioning.<ref name="14.10 e1" /> She also rendered her teammates resistant to her pathogens,<ref name="14.10 e1">“A benefit of little Bonesaw’s smoke,” Jack answered. “If I recall correctly, it’s something of a safeguard in case she accidentally deploys a concoction she hasn’t immunized herself or the rest of our team against. The fact that it works against bugs and small rodents is a side benefit, rather than the intent. Bonesaw’s work has made us members of the Nine more or less immune to disease anyways.”

“And the gunshot?”

“Subdermal mesh. There’s more protection around the spine and organs, and you landed that shot pretty close to my spine. It hurts quite a bit.” - Excerpt from Prey 14.10</ref> and granting them artificial neurons which allowed them to make plans Cherish could not see, it is unknown if this could be adapted for other Master powers.<ref name="12.4 e1">Jack paced back and forth, two or three steps at a time, gesticulating with his knife. “I was looking forward to Cherish’s attempt. Bonesaw and I even had a plan in mind. I wanted to see what she did, how she worked around Siberian’s immunity to her power… then the safeguards Bonesaw implanted in us would have kicked in and released us from her thrall, and oh, the look on her face. To have seen that would have been so very worth all the trouble. And that girl just spoiled it all.”

[...]

Jack was getting heated, talking mostly to himself. “That was the whole point! To see how long we could go without tipping her off. Bonesaw helped with some surgery, even some artificial neural connections that Cherish wouldn’t be able to see. So much work and preparation ruined.” - Excerpt from Plague 12.4</ref>

Shard

Jack's powers are the result of receiving a crippled Broadcast shard from Scion.<ref name="26.x e1">The ability to communicate and receive signals is unnecessary now. To transmit signals across wavelengths. It, too, is intentionally crippled as an ability. It would not do to have that one being used with regularity. Such would be distracting for the entity and its counterpart. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref> In its non-crippled form, the Broadcast shard was originally used to manage communication between the Entities.<ref name="26.x e2">All around the entity, there were shards in varying states of maturation.  The female’s was among the most mature.  Seasoned by conflict, heavy with information, lessons learned, tactics, applications, organization.
[...]
A confrontation had started between a young male and an older one. A fragment of a shard against a very mature shard. The most mature shard in this area, at a glance.

The more mature power was unleashed. A wavelength power, a kinetic transmission.

The entity watched, and it recognized the shard at work.

The broadcast shard. One that had been crippled, just like the shard of the female that floated before the entity now. The same shard that had managed communication between the entity and its counterpart. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref> Although crippled to not work on Scion and Eden so that they can kill Jack without issue<ref name="Reddit experiment">This isn't a controlled, everything-in-isolation 'fair' experiment. This is very much a hot mess, everything-playing-off-of-everything type experiment. They're looking for interplay, interactions, invention in response to specific stimuli, and to pit unreasonable forces against others. If you have something as important as executive function and communication, or your best version of invincibility, or a 'perfect' set of powers that should be unbeatable? You can throw it out there into the wild, with a species given strong incentive to hack, test, or break your best, and find the holes that need to be patched (or the tools/combination of factors that can unravel something you thought was decided/perfect). Push comes to shove, you've got a Scholar and a Warrior ready to step in to fine-tune or wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

So it's fine to have a Jack out there, as a chaotic pollutant, especially when his cape kill count isn't that high, all considered. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref> and to avoid distracting them,<ref name="26.x e1" /> the Broadcast shard still retains its executive function for communication between shards.<ref name="SB eExecutiveFunction">Broadcast is executive function. It is communication between shards, by definition and by name. Breadth and depth, as stated by Bonesaw in her interlude, are factors where a longstanding parahuman develops a closer connection to their shard. More experience = more leeway. Jack's been at it long enough to have a really good arrangement going, and they get more interesting stuff through Jack staying active than they do through letting him die. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref> When deployed during a cycle, Jack's shard in the shard network is analogous to an executive officer or CEO for the other shards.<ref name="reddit eOfficer" /><ref name="reddit eCEO" /><ref name="reddit eSabotageApp" /> According to Scion, the Broadcast shard is not particularly aggressive in comparison with the typical shard.<ref name="26.x eFutureVision" />

Because of Jack's close connection with his shard,<ref>Jack had a different kind of connection. A deep connection. He was in alignment with the particular nature of his passenger. The passengers naturally sought conflict, and Jack had fed that need from very early on, and he had sustained it for years. The line between the two was so thin as to be impossible to mark, but Jack’s personality remained his own. Altered, but not subsumed. - Excerpt from Interlude 25</ref><ref name="SB eShallow">Pyrde: So I heard that Jacob guy got a bit of fleshing out with a back story. It makes one wonder though, after all the shit he was put through, how did he become one of Worms greatest capes?

Wildbow: Breadth and depth.

Which is ironic given how shallow he is at the core. - Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref><ref name="Reddit Shard">Except he [Leet] can't really seem to catch a break. He doesn't know it, but he's basically doing the opposite of Jack Slash and Taylor. He's explicitly out of tune with his power, he doesn't nurture it the way others do, even by general conflict - he's a little too cowardly, a little too safe, in large part, because he's hedging bets as often as not, and it's an unsatisfied shard, more prone to cause chaos for him rather than set him up to pursue it. It's trying to actively disrupt or kill its host so it can move on to greener pastures. - Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref> it believes an active Jack is preferable over letting him die.<ref name="SB eExecutiveFunction" /> Behind the scenes, Jack's shard specifically utilizes the shard network to sabotage parahumans who work against him.<ref name="Reddit network">shadowmist321: Jack slash's power lets him send popup ads that influence the users behavior, such as being really into body modding (panacea?) or skeptical about using something they have access to (skitter: maybe I shouldn't choke him to death with bugs)

Wildbow: Jack Slash's power specifically utilizes the network side of things to sabotage the people who'd work against him.

It's largely defensive, but his personality (goes back to breadth, he grew up with this power and filled in the blanks around it) lends itself to being manipulative and finding weaknesses. It's him as a human that gets to Panacea in a weak moment, while the broadcast part of things utilizes the network to hold her at bay and keeps her from going on the offensive. There's no real influence or push here and (I feel the need to stress) her decisions over the following days and weeks are hers and hers alone. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref> By interacting with other shards, these other shards may choose to favor Jack instead of their owner in subtle ways:

• Most likely of all, unconsciously alerts Jack to a potential attack from the hostile parahuman and grants him really good instincts against them.<ref>Jack gets tipped off, element of surprise is gone. Bear's throat gets slashed or it gets blinded or both.
  [...]
  Or, most likely of all, Jack gets an 'instinct' that someone's out there and after him and when you're just about to try and put 200 grizzly bears in Jack's neighborhood to flood him with the things, he steps out of cover, slashes you across the eyes, and you have no line of sight to anything anymore. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref><ref name="SB1">A combination of what Jaki said (Imp gets nudged away by her shard, she gets a bad feeling as she prepares to attack, and if and when she does attack her attack is off-target, or she hesitates, creating a window), intuition on Jack's part (suspicion, a hyperawareness of odd details, the movement of air in the room, 'it's too quiet', etc., happening to move to another location just as Imp strikes out), and leverage of the broadcast... Crawler wakes to initial commotion, he uses his full senses with his shard happening to kick into full gear (a la Skitter and her varying range) and/or moves across room, forcing Imp to back up from Jack, Shatterbird lashes out in a blind attack that happens to connect.
  
  On that last point, the Nine can be considered to be an [editing to add 'unconscious'] extension of Jack for all intents and purposes. To Imp, it's just a 'This feels like a bad idea, I'm going to do it anyway! Fuck, missed! Oh shit, ow! Well now I'm bleeding and, it's pretty damn serious. That must be why it felt like such a bad idea!'
  [...]
  Take note of Jack's discussion of keystones in his first appearance. He's getting help in identifying points to manipulate, and then those points are getting nudged further in the broadcast. Communication is a two-way street. - Comments by Wildbow on Sufficient Velocity, archived on Spacebattles</ref><ref name="reddit eTrack" />
• Attempts to dissuade parahumans from targeting him.<ref name="Reddit interact" /><ref>ADioFangirl: So me and my friend have been bickering over a debate and they just don't seem to understand the truth. Could someone with a deathnote power kill Jackslash? My friend started this debate asking if someone with a "Deathnote power but with shard" could kill Jackslash and I said no.
  
  Wildbow: Even with the Shinigami's eyes, it wouldn't work if it were shard derived.
  
  His full name isn't really known or publicly available, but even if it were, you've got a shard and the shard nudges you, playing on fears and concerns. You find you want to be sure.
  [...]
  His name/history isn't publicly available, so you go looking for him with the Shinigami eyes. You browse the web looking for a good photo of Jack because obviously you don't want to go see him in person to check, right? That's too dangerous. So from halfway around the world you search for him online, and the Nine don't tend to get a lot of photos taken of them so it takes some digging. And while you're digging you get nudged. The shard reaches across the shard network to other powers which use internet and are tapped into the web or searching similar sites and you take longer than you should to find a clear photo.
  
  It takes a long time to find a good photo because of this. You find yourself back at the same galleries of images of the same incidents, going in circles. You wonder why are there so many of the back of his head? Here's one but his face isn't visible. At the same time you're sorting through a lot of stuff about the S9 and the horrors they perpetrated. In the midst of it you find one picture of Jack but... it doesn't work - it's a person with Jack's face from that time Bonesaw made a bunch of people look like S9 members in Brockton Bay. You learn that in your haste you killed an innocent dude.
  
  After taking a break, frustrated and mentally fucked by the accidental killing of the guy with Jack's face, you hear about another S9 attack on the news and go hunting again. Again, you're reading about the horrible S9-perpetrated attacks, but your feelings about the recent incident, how you should have been able to prevent it, and guilt over killing the guy who had Jack's face plastic surgeried on are all messing you up and throwing you off your game.
  
  And because your shard has had time to play on you, and because you're a Stranger-class parahuman with a covert power and it's rooted in persecution, notions of execution, and some pretty intense stuff from your trigger, and the fact you gave up half your lifespan to better the world and you're fucking up this badly, it feels very, very natural that your frustration peaks, and you decide to go face him down and see his face for yourself. You're going to get that bastard, make it up to the innocent guy you killed, and then turn yourself in. You're going to get justice, damn it!
  
  And that obviously doesn't go well.
  [...]
  Re: shards connecting to the internet, 11.h has Bonesaw talk about how shards reference out to the broader shard network to analyze the world - some thinker shards tap into the same for general understanding or to scaffold their precog, and some clairvoyants use it to pick up information. Tinker shards that work with databases will have stuff extended out to track internet and help with that connection, there are thinkers who pick up signals or keep tabs on information, roving tinkered AI who are tapped into the shard network. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit</ref> The hostile parahuman's shard might nudge their host (e.g., get bad feeling when preparing to attack, hesitation, etc.) to keep them from going on the offensive until it is too late. Examples include Imp,<ref>Jack was the key figure. Aisha knew she could attack him, knew she maybe should, but would she succeed any more than she did against Bonesaw? Cherish might be able to lash out with some kind of blind fire, affecting the emotions of everyone nearby.
  
  No. Cherish was the newest member, wasn’t she? There were better odds that Cherish didn’t have the protections that Jack and the others did. - Interlude 13.5 (Donation Bonus)</ref><ref name="SB1" /> Panacea,<ref name="Reddit network" /> and Damsel of Distress.<ref>She focused on her end-goal. To get Jack to let own his guard. To blast him and then either get away or get Bonesaw too.
  [...]
  She thought about agreeing. The end-goal remained the focus. Get close, destroy him.
  
  Ashley had a hard time responding. She was tempted to do something suicidal and she only barely held herself back. “You’re not convincing me, Jack.”
  [...]
  The goal. She needed to keep it in mind.
  
  Her emotions were getting away from her.
  [...]
  She’d hesitated, and it had cost her. When dealing with people like this, like Accord, she couldn’t afford any weakness, and yet the weakness was built-in.
  
  Jack drew and swung a cleaver of his own. - Eclipse x.8</ref>
• If Jack is isolated, the shards of the other members of the Nine might nudge their hosts to move towards the location of the hostile parahuman.<ref name="Reddit eIsolated" /><ref name="SB1" />
• Powers of hostile parahumans might not work optimally.<ref>Power pushes bear into our reality/creates a bear, but the process is rougher than usual (parahuman blames it on tension, bad shard connection, etc). So the bear just happens (via. power interference) to be more bewildered and sluggish than usual, heart skipping a beat, not enough air in its lungs. [...] The parahuman finds they needed a bit more concentration or they're caught off guard by the bear acting weird and they miss the fact that if they have line of sight to Jack then Jack has line of sight to them. Or line of effect for the blade's edge. Jack whips out his knife and cuts their throat from a distance.
  [...]
  The shard that gives the bear summoning could easily have something in its back pocket for if the parahuman decides the bear summoning is too inconvenient and decides to never use her power again. A way the power can act up, that it can get accidentally used when the parahuman is anxious & distracted (summoning a bear in close proximity), new uses that emerge at the worst moment, etc. And through communication with the Broadcast shard the Goldilocks shard may throw a wrench into the works in the midst of whatever you're trying to pull against Jack.
  [...]
  The power isn't going to work optimally, or accurately, or you're going to find out your power has a subtle weakness or chance of backfiring at the worst possible moment. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref><ref name="reddit eCEO">Because they're boomers they don't really understand the tech and a lot of it is screened off from them, right?
  
  Boomer has an app that mail orders feral bears? "I guess we have to deliver, but let's just order some really shitty bears and have the driver honk his horn to alert the CEO, and if our boomer makes any mistakes in the ordering and isn't focused then we'll just empty the truckload of bears right in front of him." - Wildbow on Reddit</ref><ref name="reddit eSabotageApp">App to get someone killed? They hook it up to your boomer's pacemaker and reserve the ability to stop his heart when his lifespan (going by compiled insurance data from up to 150 providers) is halfway up, in exchange for giving him data to call in accurate hits. He just made that install and your tracking indicates he's intending to call a hit in on your CEO? Use just the two providers that give the shortest lifespan, cut that in half, (he should be in 4 minutes, according to sketchy companies A and B? hit that button to stop our boomer's pacemaker!) Or lean on your megacorp's subsidiary companies and track what he's doing on the internet to slow him down. Mess with his head. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref> To favor Jack, the hostile parahuman's shard might liberally interpret existing drawbacks.<ref>Infinitron200: What the fuck do you mean by "half your lifespan is all your lifespan". Shards are not that fucking dumb. They are literal organic supercomputers with more processing power than we will ever have, and you are telling me that it can interpret half of something as ALL OF IT? Ok, so in your universe, if I cut a cake in half, and give half to someone else, I actually still have all the cake. If someone would normally live 100 years, taking half their lifespan is 50 years gone. So, your Shards can calculate the ending of the universe and generate numerous possible solutions, but they can't do simple math?
  
  Wildbow: If you have 4 minutes left before a theoretical stroke and the shard cuts your time down to 2 minutes, and you die before you can get around to reading Jack Slash's details and writing Jack Slash's terms of death, who's going to argue the point or argue that stroke wasn't going to happen? You're dead and shards can move on. The mechanism is there for shards to use. Your drawbacks, whatever else, can be tweaked or liberally interpreted. Leet's misfires, Rachel's dog-minded thinking, Damsel's dangerously light trigger on her power. Eden as the thinker would have been doing this a lot more, fogging perception and drawing on/manipulating drawbacks. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

Note that his shard is better at sabotaging parahumans such as Ash Beast and Khepri whose loss of self gives their shards more of a say.<ref>Depression-the-Game: What about shard controlled Parahumans? Like Ash Beast or Khepri.

Wildbow: Utilizing a shard-controlled parahuman is getting deeper into the megacorp's control. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit</ref><ref>Many breakers can go permanent breaker. Shadow Stalker, for example, doesn't have any strict forces in play that forces her to conserve the breaker state or balance her living & breaker state.

But it's still bad times for those who go that route, because they're forced to or because they prefer life in the breaker state to their ordinary life. Breakers have a closer connection to their passenger than any cape, and in the course of diving deeper into their breaker state and not, for lack of a better phrasing, surfacing for air, they begin to lose themselves and the shard gets more of a say. This is, very obviously, not a good thing. We see this sort of mentality in Khepri, and we can assume something like it in Night Hag.
[...]
The breaker document includes some examples (the Atropos breaker, the consequences for death breakers in general) of ways the passenger might seep in or that life might suddenly get harder, when one lapses fully into a breaker state.

So just wanted to point out that this is a thing that happens - and ego death often goes hand in hand with it. By the flip side of that same coin, to finally get around to answering your question - ego death, momentary, partial, or permanent, would destroy the Self and insert more Breakerness into the void that's left behind.

Most of the time they rampage - Ash Beast and Night Hag and the like. But if the shard isn't equipped to take advantage of the opportunity (Cauldron shards, Eden shards in general), maybe the self comes back and you get a Grumman. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref>

Although Jack's shard can only sabotage for defensive purposes<ref name="Reddit network" /> to protect only Jack,<ref name="reddit eTriggerDeath" /><ref name="reddit eSecondTriggerDeath" /> it allows him to generally triumph over parahumans in a fight where possible and instinctively avoid situations where he cannot beat the parahuman opposition.<ref name="R1">Jack's dynamic hinges on the fact that he surrounds himself with members of the S9, which are effectively a wrecking crew vs. the unpowered, he has a great deal of clout when it comes to raw intimidation, and his power makes it so that he generally triumphs over powered individuals where possible, and instinctively avoids situations where he can't avoid the ones he can't beat.

The situation as you portray it is essentially, "You have to capture Taylor, there are no bugs in the area, her friends aren't nearby and don't know her situation, and she's hogtied in the basement without any ability to undo the bonds herself." - partial comment on Reddit</ref><ref name="II12.x e1" /> Thus, parahumans cannot kill him without outside interference.<ref name="Reddit interact">A) Broadcast would reach out to the shard well before the point of that other shard triggering. His very shard interacts with others to dissuade things that would target him. Parahumans don't kill Jack, as a firm rule. This isn't an arbitrary protection. It's an in-story protection that got a fair bit of time and focus in the narrative, toward the end. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref><ref name="Reddit eIsolated">You can qualify, you can quibble, you can tack on extra powers, but Jack doesn't lose to parahumans.
[...]
And even if he's isolated in the moment, that same aspect of Jack's shard (Broadcast reaching out to shards) can bring the S9 over to you. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref> This secondary power allows him to effectively beat powerful parahumans such as Citrine, the Siberian, Gray Boy, Number Man, and arguably even Contessa.<ref name="Reddit Beat">ReekRhymesWithWeak: He still gets wrecked by trumps like citrine, and there are some capes that just completely destroy him such as The Siberian, Grey Boy, Number Man (can dodge Jack's attacks), and so on

Wildbow: Jack beats Citrine, Siberian, Grey Boy (until interfered with by outside sources), Number Man and arguably Contessa. - [Comment] by Wildbow, [[1]] on Spacebattles.</ref> It also allows him to avoid dying to an unexpected trigger event or second trigger event.<ref name="reddit eTriggerDeath">B) Trump triggers are rarer, and triggers where the victim murder-suicides immediately after are vanishingly rare. It's just not part of their design. You'd need a specific Eden shard broken in a specific way, in a specific time and place. A trump trigger that would die immediately after doing its job (of killing a target; Jack is out, but let's say we changed it to Bonesaw or Siberian) is, well, a fraction of vanishingly rare. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref><ref name="reddit eSecondTriggerDeath">A second trigger is a very rare event with, what, three that happen over the course of the various Parahumans stories? This is why she's excited and wants her data, and why she's more off guard than she'd be otherwise. Could he have killed her? Yes. But it's (IIRC) a first for Bonesaw and a thing that's happened maybe 1-2 times (counting Brian) with the Nine as a whole. Jack is always going to be ok, for reasons previously stated. A couple of members of the Nine may die along the way, but stuff like that's so uncommon it's not really worth diving into. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref><ref name="Reddit interact" />

As Jack triggered at a young age, he expanded the breadth of his power as he grew up. His close connection and personality led to his shard also giving him enhanced intuition regarding parahumans; this allows him to better manipulate them and find their weaknesses.<ref name="Reddit network" /><ref name="27.2 e1">Tattletale nodded, “Thought so. So let’s think about that. He’s got a thinker power that lets him manipulate parahumans, or read them, or gauge how they’ll react. He uses it, probably unconsciously, to constantly maintain the edge. And he gets bored. You’ve seen him get bored, haven’t you, Riley?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. And when he gets bored, he sets up scenarios like the game in Brockton Bay, the test with Golem coming after him, whatever else. It usually falls apart before it comes to a head, because Jack is chaos incarnate, people cheat, Jack cheats, and so it goes. So tell me, do you really think he wouldn’t let you have a little slack to see how you’d operate?”

Bonesaw didn’t respond.

“Yeah. Exactly,” Tattletale said. “Your art? It’s his art. Your power and everything you do with it, it’s stuff he’s shaped.”

“That’s not true. I come up with my own ideas,” Bonesaw sounded almost defiant. She’d also, I noted, forgotten the original message, saying her art wasn’t important to her.

“His ideas. Everything’s tainted with Jack. And you know it better than I do. You can think of all the little scenes and conversations. How your favorite projects were the ones your family applauded. The ones Jack praised, above all.” - Excerpt from Extinction 27.2</ref> For example, he had better control over Gray Boy compared with King because he intuitively knew how other parahumans operated, their weak points, and their motivations.<ref name="SB eGrayBoyKing">King had a flimsy hold, Jack had a stronger hold. The former Gray Boy was closer to a Labyrinth in full-on powers mode than anything else. Using powers indiscriminately, staying within an area. King was effectively immune to him, and used this to introduce himself and start leading him around.

Jack cheats. He instinctively, intuitively knows how other parahumans operate, their weak points and their motivations, and was able to leverage original Gray Boy in this way, and the new Gray Boy in a similar way. - Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref> However, Jack can be misinformed. He erroneously believes Skitter triggered because of her mother's death.<ref>“Alas. Well, while I’m interpreting you two, I’d say Skitter is driven by guilt. What makes you feel so guilty, bug girl?”
[...]
“There’s always some guilt related to family. Tell me, what would your mother think, to see you on an average day? Or can’t you remember her with the miasma? I’d almost forgotten.” - Excerpt from Prey 14.10</ref><ref>“You’re too big for your boots, Weaver,” Jack said. “You had a few critical successes and you’ve run with them. Earned yourself a reputation. But at the end of the day, you’re still the same pathetic bug controller who got her powers because her mommy died.” - Sting 26.6</ref> He also had no clue the Siberian was a projection until Manton told him.<ref>Siberian was tricky. He doubted anyone else in the group was even aware, but their most feral member harbored a fondness for Bonesaw. Siberian had little imagination, and was perfectly comfortable rehashing the same violent and visceral scenarios time and again, but she nonetheless enjoyed Bonesaw’s work. She saw a kind of beauty in it. Even more than that, he sometimes wondered if Siberian didn’t reciprocate Bonesaw’s desire for family. Bonesaw alternately referred to Siberian as an older sister or the family pet, but Siberian’s fondness for Bonesaw bordered on the maternal, like a mother bear for her cub. Did anyone else in the group note how Siberian seemed to keep Bonesaw’s company, to assume she would accompany the young girl when she went out, and carefully kept Bonesaw in sight at all times?

Siberian’s stick was Bonesaw, the possibility of losing the girl’s company in one way, shape, or form. Threats against the girl would be met with a fury like no other. Boredom, similarly, would see Siberian stalking off on her own to amuse herself, a scenario that grounded the group until Siberian’s return hours or days later. Such usually meant a hasty retreat as the heroes who had realized that they could not defeat Siberian came after the rest of the group. - Excerpt from Interlude 12</ref><ref>Lisa nodded. “Sure. What if she’s like Genesis? Or Crusader? What if Siberian has a very real, vulnerable human body somewhere nearby, always has, and the body she’s using is a projection? Maybe it’s something even Jack doesn’t know.” - Prey 14.1</ref><ref>“He finds the Siberians boring, I imagine,” Tattletale commented, over the channel. “Before, they were an enigma. Now they’re just… the same thing, over and over. Tearing people apart.” - Sting 26.5</ref>

Jack's shard does not give him mind control. When he tried to recruit Panacea, he and his shard had no real influence or push on her (i.e., what she did to Victoria was ultimately her decision alone).<ref name="Reddit network" /> He failed to convince Harbinger to stay with the Nine,<ref name="II20.e3 eVision">Jacob has his vision of the future. Bloody and ruined. Us as Kings.

I don’t know how to tell him I find his idea dull.
[...]
The world is expanding, new things are happening. Nicholas made mention of people who know how to hand out powers and the others don’t seem to care. Not enough.

Things were happening, changing. He’d been drawn here and drawn to accept King’s offer in part because he wanted to be at the center of the change. Now he knew that the center lay somewhere else. - Last 20.e3</ref><ref>“I’m… no. I won’t.”
[...]
“No. That’s just it. I don’t want to keep doing this.”

“You said it yourself. You feel the rush, like you’re on the cusp of something greater.”

“I do feel it, but I think I can get there by walking a different road,” Harbinger said.

He could see the disappointment on Jack’s face. - Interlude 21.x</ref> get Marquis to break his rules,<ref>"It's the name you were born with. Imagine my surprise when I found out your relation to Marquis. In my last visit to Brockton Bay, I crossed paths with each of the major players. I met the man. I must tell you, Amelia, he was a very interesting character."

"I don't really want to know."

"I'm going to tell you. And I have another motive, but I'll get to that in a moment. Marquis was a man of honor. He decided on the rules he would play by and he stuck to them. He put his life and limb at risk to try to keep me from killing women and children, and I decided to see if I could use that to break him. I admit I failed."
[...]
"No. What I'm saying is that Marquis would not have killed the girl, even under duress; that was one of the rules he set for himself. If he was going to violate that rule, he would have done it when I'd tried to break him." - Excerpt from Prey 14.10</ref> and get Skitter to kill Battery even with the help of Bonesaw's agnosia plague.<ref>I stared at the bound woman who was prone on the ground, half-covered in my bugs. She was looking in my direction.

“It bugs me. This is too easy. If the Nine were this easy to take out, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
[...]
“Then end this.”

I shook my head, as if I could clear it. It wasn’t that I wasn’t thinking clearly, necessarily. It was that my thoughts kept hitting that dead-end where I couldn’t reach back for context about people, about Tattletale and Grue and the Nine. I was in the dark.

What I did know was that I’d done too many things I regretted. I wasn’t about to add something as serious as murder to the list.
[...]
“I care. More than you know. But you told me, not long ago, that I should follow my heart, trust my gut. Fine. That’s what I’m doing. You attack her, I’ll fight to save her.”
[...]
“It was fun. I almost wish I’d nominated you for the Nine. You’re versatile, and there’s so many weak points I could have exploited if I’d had more time. If Cherish’s information on you wasn’t so misleading, I think I could have made you shoot the heroine. To corrupt you like that, it would have been amusing.” - Prey 14.9</ref> Jack specifically asked Bonesaw to only clone one Gray Boy as he did not know if he could manage more.<ref>It would be like Gray Boy to use his power and take out someone in the room, just because he could. Jack had only wanted one, and the unspoken reality was that he only wanted one because he could only control one. - Excerpt from Interlude 25</ref>

The secondary power provided by his shard is so subtle that Jack himself is unaware of it.<ref name="IRC eSubtle"><Olivebirdy> Nice.
<Olivebirdy> He's good at reading expressions and tones?
<Wildbow> The broadcast aspect of the shard builds on Jack's natural ability to read people. So it blurs the line and makes it so that even he can't see when & where the shard has stepped in to inform him - Conversation with Wildbow on IRC, archived on Spacebattles</ref><ref>“You sound like Tattletale. That’s not a compliment.”

“My ability to read people is learned, not given, I assure you. Most of the conclusions I’ve come to have been from the cues you’ve given me. Body language, tone, things you’ve said. And I know these sorts of things and what to look for because I’ve met others like you. That’s what I’m offering you. A chance to be with similar people for the first time in your life, a chance to be yourself, to have everything you want, and to be with me. I suspect you’ve never been around someone who actually paid attention to you.” - Excerpt from Prey 14.10</ref><ref name="27.2 e1" /> Handing out this shard is standard procedure for Scion and Eden because it gives them the opportunity to see how the host species interact with a seemingly unbeatable secondary power.<ref name="Reddit experiment" /><ref>The others hurried to confine the broadcaster. They were apparently aware of what he could do.

Interesting. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref>

Vulnerabilities

To neutralize or kill Jack Slash, one must rely on an individual who is not part of the shard network, as they are effectively a blind spot to the Broadcast shard and cannot be sabotaged.<ref name="26.x eUnaware">The entity observed as the fight concluded elsewhere.

The broadcaster remained unaware as an individual without any attachment to shards at all entered the confined space, unloading a vaguely familiar substance over the group. Something the entity might recollect if it had access to all of its memories. A technology.

It didn’t matter.

The entity watched as the broadcaster was sealed in a time distortion. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref><ref name="reddit eOfficer">For an analogy, think of boomers trying to use an app a bizarre sci-fi megacorp designed to kill an executive officer of that megacorp's company. And that megacorp is monitoring them and they control their internet, the data they see, and you're tracking them. The boomer, for whatever reason, can't ditch their phone (In setting, it's stuck to their brain).
[...]
The way it works is that you want to rely on someone who isn't using the megacorp's tech or who isn't tracked and monitored by the megacorp. Anything else is going to see the executive officer getting a courtesy phone call and your tech guys are going to do everything they can to mess with your potential threat.

Anything else is liable to be a "Gee, why can't I use my app from megacorp to destroy a megacorp executive officer?" - Wildbow on Reddit</ref> When Golem figured out Jack's secondary power,<ref>What does Jack do?

He grasped for a thought and failed.

No. He needed to think about it from a different angle.

What does Weaver do? - Interlude 26b</ref><ref name="27.2 eSurround">“You thought Jack had a thinker power. Why? What?”

There was a pause.

“Because he’s like Weaver. He reacts like someone that is way too aware of what’s going on.”

Acts like me?

I’d made the comparison myself, but I’d tempered that, held back as I formed that conclusion. Hearing it in such a blunt way stung as much as a slap in the face.

“And you sent in the D.T. guy because-”

“Because Weaver surrounds herself with bugs, and Jack surrounds himself with capes. The non-cape is the only variable we haven’t seriously tried. The competent non-cape.” - Excerpt from Extinction 27.2</ref> Dinah's power successfully confirmed that Golem's plan to send in a D. T. officer against Jack was the right move.<ref>“Dinah.”

“Three questions left.”

“What’s the chance? For what I’m thinking right now?”

“Allowing for the fuzz I’m getting from Scion’s presence above you? Seventy.”

Seventy.

“The numbers are better,” she said. “You’re on the right path.”

“I know,” he said. - Interlude 26b</ref> Golem then ordered a D. T. officer to distract Jack.<ref>“Okay,” Golem said. “I’ll get you that distraction.”

“Was going to use my bugs, get Clockblocker. With him, maybe we can take out both at once.”

“Don’t,” Golem replied, tensing up despite himself. He’d nearly raised his voice to the point that Jack could hear. Foil’s continued screaming drowned him out.

“I… won’t. What are you thinking?”

“That there’s an answer. A stupid, silly answer.”

He stood, resisting the urge to groan, and he approached the end of the rooftop closest to the heroes who were defending the areas outside of the alleyway.

He gestured, signaling to one. When they didn’t move, bewildered, he created a hand, pushing them.

Others, he stopped. A shake of his head. Clockblocker was out. So was Imp. Grue, Vista, Kid Win, Cuff and Grace wouldn’t do.

Only this person would serve. - Interlude 26b</ref> Despite Dinah's power providing an optimal path and timing,<ref>Two more questions?”

“Yeah.”

“Left or right?”

“Right.”

The long way around. Not the way he would have expected.

“Now, or wait?”

No response.

He gestured, and he created hands pointing the way.

“Now,” she said. - Interlude 26b</ref> and Golem's power pointing the officer in the right direction and moving him into position,<ref>This would be the moment everything fell into place.

The man made his way down to the end of the alley, and Golem created more hands; six hands in a matter of seconds, sticking out of the wall. Each pointing in the direction they needed. He created a platform and started raising it. Raising their potential savior up towards the top of the wall of looped time. - Interlude 26b</ref> Jack was completely unaware of the incoming distraction.<ref name="26.x eUnaware" /> Lacking a shard, the officer armed with tinkertech successfully distracted Jack by spraying containment foam in his direction.<ref>The man leaped down from the top of the wall. His light armored suit absorbed his fall, made it quiet.

The D.T. uniform.

He sprayed containment foam at both Jack and Siberian. - Interlude 26b</ref> Although the containment foam did not actually reach Jack, this distraction was more than enough for Tecton to punch Jack in the stomach and escape being held hostage.<ref>Nothing. It wouldn’t achieve a thing.

But Tecton took the moment of Jack’s blindness to duck, to strike the ground.

The Siberian wasn’t immune to gravity. She fell, and just for a moment, she broke contact with Jack.

Tecton slammed his fist into Jack’s stomach. - Interlude 26b</ref> Gray Boy, disgusted by this weakness, turned on Jack and looped him;<ref>The Siberian leaped out of the fissure, then paced towards Jack.

Her hand stopped an inch away from him. She lowered it.

Jack had turned gray. Trapped, looped.

“Pathetic,” Gray Boy said. “Stupid, useless. I thought you’d do something interesting, but you made yourself prey, instead of the predator. If you’re going to be prey, I want you to be my prey.”

It dawned on Golem. Gray Boy froze him. - Interlude 26b</ref><ref>“You cannot hold yourself straight. You are weak enough that to be alongside you would bring me lower than I stand now. You understand?”

Like Grey Boy, turning on Jack because Jack failed and showed a degree of weakness. - Venom 29.8</ref> the D. T. officer's interference meant Jack could no longer beat Gray Boy.<ref name="Reddit Beat" /> This resulted in a genuine defeat for Jack,<ref name="reddit eJackFall">The big plot point around Jack's fall is "how could he have made it this far without getting killed? His power isn't that good. Oh, there has to be something going on." It's established early on from the earliest commentary by Grue and stressed several times before the final explanation. It's, in the overall narrative and in the in-story justification, a big factor in framing who Jack is and how he functions.

It just feels to me like having a murder mystery where a hitman deploys a hard to obtain explosive device, someone remarks at the outset: "that's expensive! He shouldn't have that much money." Readers throughout remark on how it tests suspension of disbelief that this disheveled hitman has all these resources. Then at the end, things tie together with him being funded by a foreign government. Once our protagonists find that out, they can catch him.

...And there's a group of readers saying "Yeah, but how did he pay for his hotel? He didn't have a job."

I'm not trying to fire shots, no. If I didn't convey the plot point well enough, or it didn't land for a given reader, that's fair and fine. S9000 arc wasn't me at my best. But if it's readers taking a circuitous route and settling on "this was a plot hole" instead of drawing a short line between a big plot point and the thing they're trying to resolve, that's exasperating. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref> whose shard wanted him to stay active,<ref name="SB eExecutiveFunction" /> and ultimately led to his death.<ref name="II20.e3 eCollapse" />

Although Scion can successfully kill Jack if needed, Jack's cape kill count is not high enough to merit his interference.<ref name="Reddit experiment" /> However, Scion did see a possible future where he stood over Jack's corpse.<ref name="26.x eFutureVision">The entity looked to the future, looked to possible worlds, and it saw the ways this could have unfolded. It burned a year off of the entity’s life, but he had thousands to spare anyways.

There was a scene where the entity stood over the broadcaster’s corpse and ruminated on what had driven the male to such extremes. The shard wasn’t a particularly aggressive one.

A scene where the man died, and years passed, the entity slowly coming to the same conclusions as it observed the rest of the species. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref>

History

Background

Jacob was a young trigger. Madness-inducing years of isolation contributed to this trigger.<ref>The blood still ran freely from Jacob’s nose.

He reached into a pocket, shook out a handkerchief, and held it out.

Jacob didn’t move. He’d rather keep bleeding by his own choice than be pushed to stop it. In more than one way, he stood on the edge, his eyes wild, madness inducing years of isolation mixed with pain having stripped away something essential. - Last 20.e3</ref>

At some point during or before 1987,<ref name="SV27">I have it written down somewhere, but I had it down that they were no older than twelve, IIRC. Might have been twelve. -

Wildbow on SufficientVelocity</ref> Jack encountered King and joined the Slaughterhouse Nine. He felt great displeasure at King's interest in grooming him as a pet project or new "Gray Boy", and conspired with Harbinger to kill him.

Jacobs reasons were ego-driven, feeling like King saw him as a personal pet project instead of a man in his own right.

Harbingers' reasons to revolt are unknown, though they were personally strong enough to warrant a violent coup.

Afterward, Jacob renamed himself "Jack Slash" with the specific intention of sounding harmlessly simple and absurd.

Under Jack's leadership, the Nine become synonymous with terror and death, caring nothing for political power or money.

They seemed unstoppable, hitting towns throughout the United States seemingly at random and killing as many as they could before leaving. They notably avoided using bombs or more traditional methods of mass destruction, opting to kill personally using their powers.

The recruitment process became a trial in which each existing member of the Nine would torture and attempt to kill recruits and survival meant being accepted as a new member.

Post-Leviathan

Jack and the rest of the Nine arrived in Brockton Bay in June 2011, a few weeks after Leviathan's attack, looking to recruit new members. Their candidates included Echidna, Regent, Armsmaster, Panacea, Oni Lee, and Bitch. During this time, they laid low, killing only a few civilians.

After being informed of the Nine's presence by Coil, Dinah Alcott made a prophecy that if Jack Slash was not killed before he left Brockton Bay he would almost certainly set into motion End of the World.

Jack tracks down Oni Lee and offers him a chance to join the Nine. After Jack determines that Lee is unworthy, the two fight, and Jack grievously injures Lee. He takes the wounded man to the Anders apartment and breaks in, dumping Lee in the bathtub and confronting Theo Anders. He tells Theo that he will kill him and Aster as soon as Purity returns home. During the subsequent conversation, Theo convinces Jack to spare them by promising that he will become a great hero and stop Jack. Purity then returns from grocery shopping and is about to attack Jack, but he tells her that her powers have been weakened by recent cloudy weather and overuse and that she has little chance of defeating him should they fight. She reluctantly allows him to leave with Oni Lee, whom he later gives to Bonesaw.

Post-Slaughterhouse Nine

Fully informed of his role in ending the world, Jack went about making it happen.

Gold Morning

After convincing Zion to let loose Jack was left where he was, buried in containment foam in a Gray Boy loop, fighting intense pain and having only momentary relief.<ref name="R2">Jack slash is caught in a Grey Boy loop, buried under containment foam, on a devastated Earth. I don't think he's really a contender. - partial comment on Reddit</ref>

The Ice Breaks

When Five returned to Earth Bet after Titan Fortuna crumbled away, he visited Jack Slash's time loop and peeled away the containment foam.<ref>The foam peeled away as the spray ran down the invisible wall of the warped timespace, and Five could see the man’s face.

Jacob, apparently. Jack Slash. - Last 20.e3</ref> However, the man inside this time loop was no longer Jack as he lost his mind and could not communicate.<ref>Five stared at the man, watching his head move, eyes blinking slowly, face contorting, before everything snapped back to its prior position. The light was bright, but it wasn’t the eyes that had to adjust. It was the mind, which would tick forward unimpeded toward a time when this landmass was underwater.

Except… there was nothing there.

Broken, cringing, inarticulate, the man struggled, wincing as an invisible blade dragged across his midsection. The blade was withdrawn, time passed, and the man, no longer Jacob or Jack or anything resembling either, was cut open again.

There were one or two moments where the roving gaze of the man fell on Five’s own eyes. Locked gaze.

I know you, he thought. If there was anything there, I would see it. A microscopic dilation of the pupils. Something. And if you don’t recognize me…

There’s no point. No words that can be exchanged.

Dissatisfied, Five turned away. - Last 20.e3</ref> Jack was in agony and, at one point, kept trying to crack his head open to no avail.<ref>The man within the time effect writhed, hands clutching at his opening stomach wound as if he could stop it from happening. He staggered, and hurled himself against the invisible wall, cracking his head open. It was quick and violent enough that Five was startled.

The time loop carried the man back to his prior iteration.
[...]
The man flung himself into the wall again. Cracking his head open. Five didn’t jump, this time. He waited for the man to cycle back to awareness. - Last 20.e3</ref> He was not in a state suitable for becoming a Titan or a broken Entity.<ref>Beehunter: Contessa's mind was broken by the shard which seems to be the standard outcome of titanification. What little remained of her, when roused, started drilling a 'message' into the earth right at the end.

My theory is that Jack's broken mind, which has been chilling with his shard for a long, long time, might be in a similar state by this point. Barely able to communicate, a mind that might be as close to a Titanised one as you can get without actually titanising...we're reminded of this within the chapter. It also seems Jack is reacting to certain trigger words with feeble attempts at communication.
[...]
Does a "broken cycle" mean that Broadcast has been sending out an SoS for the last few weeks into space that only Jack and Contessa can fathom?

Is that why Jack stared at the sun? Is a new, broken entity on the way?

Wildbow: Nope, sorry.

Five says he'd see a glimmer of something if there was anything to it, and he doesn't. So... you gotta cover that base better if you want to theorize. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref>

Thanks to Golem, the Wardens are fully aware of Jack's secondary power.<ref name="II12.x e1">The paper-pushers wouldn’t get it. They’d talk about budgets and hint at budget cuts, and blame would be shifted, and it would be a repeat of prior engagements against Jack Slash all over again.

But they had the boy who had beaten Jack Slash in the Wardens. Jack Slash had had an unknown factor giving him an edge. His power gave him the upper hand against any parahuman, and his ‘Slaughterhouse Nine’ made it next to impossible for civilians to get to him. - Heavens 12.x</ref><ref>Deep down, I don’t think my father wanted to defeat you, or he might have tried. Good thing, too, because those instincts of yours… they’re something more, according to the after-action reports in the Wardens’ files. He would have died trying.” - Last 20.e3</ref> Five says they are not going to let him out of the time loop;<ref>Five turned, and walked back over to the man.

“I don’t know if you heard,” he said. “They’re going to kill you.”

The man briefly met his eyes, still too lost in his own head to recognize anything, or respond to anything.

“Breaking time effects apparently creates a ninety-four point one percent chance that the person or people within trigger or second trigger the instant they’re out. We’re not seeing many more broken triggers, but they’re still wary, still making sure they can communicate with the person on the other side and prepare them.”

He shifted his weight a bit. The wind was blowing through the alley, and it felt nice. It was cool, with what would be the first hints of spring, but Earth Bet wasn’t really in a state for ‘spring’.

“They’re not inclined to let you out, Jacob. - Last 20.e3</ref> he calculates that in seven weeks and three days, they will collapse the time effect and kill Jack in the process.<ref name="II20.e3 eCollapse">They intend to collapse the effect and kill you in the process. They’ve already started elsewhere. You’re second to last, and at the rate they’re going, accounting for travel time, it will be another seven weeks, and three days. In the meantime, you get your ruins. You get your blood. You get to be king of your own desolate little world.” - Last 20.e3</ref>

Months after his scheduled death, Tattletale confirmed all Titans are gone and did not mention Jack when she discussed current villainous threats; he is presumably deceased.<ref>Last 20.end</ref>

Trivia

• Wildbow has speculated that if Superman (who is not part of the shard network) somehow showed up in Earth Bet, he would easily defeat Jack Slash.<ref name="Reddit superman">Superman arrives in brockton bay when leviathan hits. How does worm change?
  [...]
  Wildbow: Jack Slash gets stomped, Siberian gets found out and stopped, the worst major players get handled. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref>
• Wildbow provided a hypothetical trigger event for Jack that involved his mentally unbalanced parents shutting him inside a bomb shelter. With a one-way radio link, his father would gaslight Jack by convincing him a war was underway. Jack would then trigger upon exiting the shelter, seeing that the world was fine and having his entire reality challenged.<ref name="SB72">Jacob was a young trigger. His parents were a little mentally unbalanced, and they shut him inside a bomb shelter with a radio link to his father, who wanted to use it to instill Jacob with sufficient fear of the threats of the outside world. A one-way communication, feeding into and playing off his fears, gaslighting, convincing him a war was underway, it broke the boy, but he wasn't released when he was broken. He stayed. His parents left him in there, mostly because it was easier. In a twisted way, having a boy in the shelter to hear dad's words, it made Jacob the exact son they wanted.
  
  He triggered on exit, his entire reality challenged on seeing that the world was fine.
  
  Feels awkward, written that way, rather than outlined in a proper interlude. Ah well. Jack's most likely not going to get any more spotlights, so it's fine. - Comment by Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref>

Fanart Gallery

<tabber>Fan Art=

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  Illustration by synapsekisses on Reddit
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  Illustration by Abyranss on Reddit
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  Illustration by DerTodesbote on DeviantArt
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  Illustration by RespicePostTe on DeviantArt
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  Illustration by LinaLeeZ on DeviantArt
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  Illustration by kingdaume on DeviantArt

|-|Cosplay=

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  Cosplay debuted at Washington D.C. AwesomeCon 2017
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  Cosplay debuted at Washington D.C. AwesomeCon 2017

</tabber>

References

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Slaughterhouse Nine
Leaders	King {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Jack Slash {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }}
Members	Bonesaw {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Breed {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Burnscar {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Cherish {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Chuckles {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Crawler {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Crimson {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Damsel of Distress {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Gray Boy {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Harbinger {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Hatchet Face {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Hookwolf {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Mannequin {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Miasma {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Murder Rat {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Nice Guy {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Night Hag {{#switch: unknown	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Nyx {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Psychosoma {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Screamer {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Shatterbird {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • The Siberian {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Skinslip {{#switch: unknown	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Winter {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }}
Bonesaw's Hybrids	Hack Job {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Laughjob {{#switch: unknown	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Murder Rat {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Nighty Night {{#switch: unknown	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Pagoda {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Snowmann {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Spawner {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Tyrant {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }}
Clones	Damsel of Distress II {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Damsel of Distress III {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Harbinger Clones {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} (Harbinger I {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Harbinger II {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Harbinger III {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Harbinger IV {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Harbinger V {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }})