Ruggie and Jack

Ruggie and Jack meet for the first time when Ruggie gives an impromptu tour of the school’s clubs that Jack and Epel join.

Ruggie promotes the Spelldrive club in particular in an effort to get Jack to sign up but approaches it from the perspective of teamwork, of which Jack is not a fan.

Ruggie says, “every time I see him play Spelldrive at Savanaclaw’s morning practice, it reminds me of the one that got away”.

Ruggie considers Jack to be a snitching “goody-two-shoes” (and Jack openly announces he will be reporting Ruggie’s “dishonesty” during Vargas Camp), and during Halloween we see him having to convince Jack to break the school’s “no using magic on laypeople” rule to chase off Magicam Monsters.

Ruggie teases Jack for “heroically standing up for the downtrodden” when Leona and Ruggie play against Ace, Deuce and the others in a practice game of Spelldrive during Book 2, and expresses frustration at Jack’s attitude, saying, “the world’s not black and white. Not everything can be categorized as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Too bad he can’t be more flexible, huh?’.

Jack seems to be taking Ruggie’s efforts to heart: in a voice line he says he might be looking to start aspiring “to be like Ruggie and not sweat the little things. But don’t tell him I said that!” and, during Vargas Camp, we see Jack successfully convince Ruggie to join a search in the mines for Deuce by tempting him with magestones. 

During Book 2 Jack assumes that he would not be a target of one of the Ruggie-induced “accidents” plaguing the school, but after Jack confronts Ruggie and Leona about their plans to sabotage the upcoming Spelldrive game Ruggie asks Leona if he ought to “take care of” Jack. Leona does not allow it.

It is Jack who reveals Ruggie’s participation in the incidents of Book 2, and it is possible that he saved Ruggie’s life by turning into his wolf form to distract Leona long enough for Riddle to intervene when Leona first invokes his unique magic.

Jack turns into his wolf form in both Book 7 and during Vargas Camp for the purpose of carrying Ruggie, but Ruggie is quick to leave Jack to his own devices during the drama of Tsumsted.

When Ruggie and Leona overhear their fellow dormmates plotting to “knock Jack down a peg” out of jealousy over his athletic talents, Ruggie tells Leona, “It probably wouldn’t hurt to let ‘em put a little fear into Jack and teach him to respect the rest of his dorm”. Leona decides to protect Jack anyway, with Ruggie having to intervene to keep him from using his unique magic on the bullies.

When Jack thanks Leona for the help Ruggie responds, “You’re taking this like a man. I was expecting more lip from you.”

Jack’s dorm vignette we learn that he respects Ruggie immensely, meeting him in front of the school and refusing to go inside without greeting him, as “That’d be rude”, despite Ruggie’s protests.

We see a montage of Jack bringing Ruggie his broom and a towel for flight class, offering to stand in line for him during lunch and bringing him an umbrella, in case of rain. Ruggie is suspicious of him and refuses to accept his help. 

Jack insists that he will serve Ruggie as the de-facto second-in-command just as Ruggie serves Leona, as he has “no intention of breaking’ the pack’s chain of command”.

Ruggie refuses to believe that a “proud wolf” like Jack would willingly obey a “lowly hyaena” like himself, to which Jack responds, “If you don’t believe me, then that means I haven’t been working hard enough. I will do everything in my power to earn your trust, sir!”

When Grim expresses surprise that Ruggie is so reluctant to accept Jack’s help, Jack explains that he is “just trying to stay by his side at all times so that I can back him up if another student picks a fight with him. And every time he goes somewhere, I check to make sure it’s safe first. Plus, when a ball came flying at him today, I shielded him with my body. Is there something else that I should be doing?” 

Jack says that he just wants to earn the respect of those he admires and he admires Ruggie, in particular, because Ruggie did not abandon Leona in his time of need and did everything he could to serve him. 

Ruggie appears, panicking over a necklace of Leona’s that has been stolen by a crow, and Jack vows to “finally be of use” to him.

Jack ditches an entire day of school in order to find the necklace, returning it and lying to Leona to protect Ruggie.

Jack reveals that he used no magic to find it and instead climbed every tree in the school, checking crows’ nests throughout the night until he found it.

Ruggie immediately suspects Jack of wanting to extort him for a finder’s fee, telling Jack outright, “I can’t trust you”. For compensation, Jack asks if they could enter into an older/younger brother relationship, but Ruggie turns him down, saying that Jack is closer to a minion.

Jack says that he should’ve known that Ruggie wouldn’t make it easy for him, but, “Someday, I WILL earn your respect!” Even so, Jack has a voice line of “Ruggie has a way of gettin’ me to do stuff without me even realizin’ it. It’s irritating.’

Jack does not enjoy being told what to do, and during Beanfest Ruggie claims that there is no point in him trying to give Jack orders because he’s both stubborn and stronger.

Despite this we do see Ruggie giving Jack instructions in other scenes, and Jack obeying without complaint.

When Ruggie experiences no issues with the dream-jumping in Book 7 it is Jack who explains, “He’s the best in the game at tricky flight maneuvers. Never underestimate his aerial chops!” Grim asks, “Why’re you bragging about it, Jack…?”

The catalyst for the Port Fest is Jack wanting to take Ruggie out to lunch in order to thank Ruggie for looking out for his cacti while he was away at a track and field training camp.

After being roped into performing a live concert during the festival despite how three of the four members cannot play musical instruments, Ruggie and Jack butt heads over Jack’s insistence that they should just practice until they can.

Ruggie confronts Jack, saying, “There are some things you just can’t do, even if you bust your butt,” but Jack insists that they just need to apply themselves.

After an exchange of insults (Ruggie: “Never thought l’d hear you talk to me like that” – Jack: “I respect you a ton, but this is different”), Ruggie declares that he refuses to practice for their concert until Jack is able to prove that their problems can be solved through the power of hard work.

Despite this disagreement (Rook: “A most dramatic exit”), Ruggie still joins Jack in cleaning the stage for the show.

Reflecting on advice that Jack received from Leona the two attempt to brainstorm together, deciding to think of it as a show for Leona.

After reflecting on Leona’s likely reactions to Jack’s idea of putting on a subpar show and Ruggie’s idea of calling in the pop music club, they ultimately decide to go in a new direction.

On the day of the festival Jack blames Ruggie for the situation, saying that it is all happening because of Ruggie. 

ack’s dream takes place in an alternate timeline directly before the interdorm spelldrive tournament of Book 2, where he is enjoying practicing the game alongside Leona and Ruggie as they compliment his skills.

After realizing that he is in a dream Jack begins to cry, calling both his upperclassmen out for their actions.

The dream-Ruggie encourages Jack to go back to reality after he gets to experience the tournament of his dreams but Jack declares, “The ones I looked up to, the ones I wanted to go all out…that wasn’t you guys!”

Jack is reluctant to awaken Ruggie from a dream where his father has returned, he is beloved by the townsfolk and never goes hungry (“I know it’s the right thing to do. It’s just, it seems kinda…l dunno, sad”), but agrees after Azul reminds him how Ruggie’s only actual family is likely worrying about him in reality: “This…this isn’t what Ruggie would want.”

Idia encourages Jack to try to wake Ruggie up with “an unforgettable anecdote to give him a mental shake” but Jack responds, “Ruggie doesn’t like talkin’ about himself… it’s hard to think of any.”

(Silver also fails to come up with any anecdotes, saying that he and Ruggie are in different classes and different clubs.)

At the conclusion of Leona’s dream Jack begins to cry, saying that both Leona and Ruggie were awful in his dream: “I mean, you’re both still jerks, but l’d take the real you over those fakes any day.”