hi. i'm tara g.
[disclaimer for entire fic]: i own nothing but the plot unless stated otherwise.
welcome to my house.
[prologue]
-weapons quite unlike me-
"Storm like no other."
"This is ridiculous."
Clarissa Adele Fairchild adjusted her messy ponytail and wiped the sweat trickling passed her eyebrow. She raised her weapon of choice, a Seraph blade, and flung it at her target. She missed it wide, the dagger hitting the wooden wall behind the dummy. Clarissa, known as Clary to her friends and family, groaned in frustration. She was normally very-well accurate with throwing her weapons, but today she couldn't hit a target to save her life.
"Struggling?"
Clary whirled around to glare at the intruder. Everyone in the Institute knew not to interrupt any of the kids while they were in the training room, all for different personal reasons. Clary because when startled, she'd occasionally fling whatever was in her at the other person, whether it be a weapon or a soft pillow.
"Jace, dammit!" Clary snapped, stomping over to where the blade was wedged into the wall. She yanked it out, not caring to check the wall for a bad indention. Maryse could deal with it when she saw it.
"Well, someone's not having a good day," Jace taunted, leaning against the door frame. He smirked at the redhead, taking delight in her frustration.
"Why are you in here?" Clary asked, setting her stance and getting ready to throw the blade again. She could feel his eyes on her, causing the hair on her neck to stand up and her spine to feel as if electricity is flowing through her. They broke up back in April; why did he still have a slight effect on her?
Jace glanced at the large clock on the far wall. "It's two minutes to my time for training. As everyone in the Institute knows, excluding you apparently, I usually come three minutes prior to get ready."
Clary rolled her eyes and proceeded to mock Jace. "Okay, well, as everyone in the Institute knows, excluding you apparently, I usually take my entire two hours to train."
"Great choice of words; I know it's hard for you to create your own sentences." Jace smirked, but Clary's back was to him and she didn't see it. She definitely didn't miss his condescending tone.
Clary mustered all her anger towards the boy behind her into her gaze as she glared at the dummy. She imagined the dummy as Jace, standing in front of her with a stupid smirk and a cocky gaze. Rage overtook Clary's body and she threw the Seraph blade with all the power in her body.
Perfect shot. In heart, handle-deep.
"Finally; at least your two hours wasn't a total waste of time," Jace remarked.
Clary whipped around, rage the only emotion in her green eyes. "Go die in a hole." Without bothering to remove the blade from the dummy, Clary grabbed her towel and water bottle and walked passed Jace, making sure to ram into his body with her shoulder.
"You two are going to have to make up at some point. Do you know how stifling the room gets when both your hostile personalities are in the room together? I'll answer that question. Unbelievably stifling. Hot. Stuffy. I can't breath."
"Alec, please shut up," Clary said, falling back on his bed. She took one of his pillows and stuffed it over her face; then proceeded to scream until her throat burned.
"Well, there's one way to deal with it." Alec laughed as he eased himself into his desk chair. "Come on Clary, Simon and Isabelle got over their troubles."
Clary pulled the pillow off her face and threw it at Alec with all her might. Even with the added power behind the throw, Alec caught it with one hand. "Nice try."
"Shut up," she said again. Clary opened her mouth to say something, but Emma Carstairs, one of Clary's friends and another kid staying at the Institute, burst through his bedroom door.
"There's a problem!" she exclaimed, her hair in a messy ponytail. "Maryse wants everyone in the library now. I have to find Simon, Isabelle, and Julian. Someone go get Jace; hurry!" Then she was gone.
"You can go get Jace; maybe it'll give you two something to talk about!" Alec said, cheerfully. Clary gave him a sour look before leaving the room.
"Jace!" Clary shouted, pounding her way through the door. Jace turned around, sweat coating his face and dampening parts of his hair. He raised a hand in a half-wave.
"What's up C?"
"Emma just ran into Alec's room saying there was a problem. Maryse wants everyone in the library now," Clary explained.
"Okay, let's go. Do you know anything about the problem?" Jace asked, grabbing a towel before following Clary out of the room.
"No, but I'm assuming it has something to do with all the Portals being down. Last I heard, Magnus was telling Maryse and Jocelyn that something was going on with the Clave and Downworlders, and they had to shut down the Portals until further notice. Do you know anything about that?"
Jace shook his head. "No. I didn't even know the Portals were shut. I just thought we were grounded after our last stunt."
"You were heavily misinformed." Clary pushed open the door to the library, Jace following her into the room.
Clary was slightly startled by who was in the room. Jocelyn and Luke, Maryse and Robert, Helen and Aline, Magnus, Simon, Isabelle, Alec, Emma, Julian, and Maia Roberts. Most of them, Clary hadn't seen since the Second War against her brother. Some of them she'd see everyday.
"What's going on?" Jace asked, going to stand next to Simon. Simon nodded his head in acknowledgement, and Clary had to refrain from rolling her eyes at their friendship; Simon was such a hypocrite.
"There's been a problem-" Maryse began.
Isabelle rolled her eyes. Her and her mom were still on thin ice. "No, really Mom? Can you please get to the point some time today please?"
"Isabelle!" Robert snapped.
"Oh please," Isabelle snarled. "You two divorced. Since when do you care whether or not she's dealing with her children?"
"Isabelle," Magnus said, his voice ringing out over her complaining. Everyone looked at the grave warlock, waiting for his further information.
"I understand that since the battle in April, we've been hostile with each other. I know it's going to be tough to let bygones be bygones, but with the information I have for everyone gathered here, we're going to have to band together to get this problem solved," Magnus explained.
Alec snorted. "How inspirational. Do you plan on following up on your words or, as usual, is it for everyone else to follow and for you to just ignore?"
"Can everyone in here stop arguing for two minutes so we can get this figured out?" Maia snapped. Clary wasn't surprised with her hostility and attitude. Ever since Jordan's, her boyfriend, death, she's hardened herself into what she is today. In fact, Clary was more thankful for her outburst then annoyed; it finally got the room quiet.
"Thank you." Magnus looked everyone in the eyes as he talked. "Jenny Kane. Seventeen, blonde hair, green eyes, hell of a way in battle. She's the only child of the Kane family-"
"The Egyptians?" Jace cracked, a smirk on his face.
"You're a dumbass," Magnus snapped, but continued with his story. "Anyways, the Kane family was a rejected family of the Clave, and then rejected from the Circle. Her parents were killed in a fight with Valentine-"
"I never heard of him having a fight with Valentine," Jocelyn mused.
"Yeah, and I never heard of the Kane family being involved with Shadowhunters. Swear they were involved with the Egyptian gods," Jace said, continuing on with his joke. Isabelle rolled her eyes at his stupidity and Alec chuckled.
"Will you all shut the hell up long enough for me to finish this story? We have a deadline and you're all wasting my time with questions," Magnus said, fury rising in his voice. "Long story short, since we don't have enough time for a long story; Jenny Kane is the daughter of Emma and Rodger Kane. Parents died in fight with Valentine. Jenny pissed. Jenny then beings training against everyone who was ever on Valentine's side. Jenny meets Sebastian. Sebastian brain-washes Jenny. Jenny after us and anyone who's in her path. Literally. Understood?"
"So what I'm hearing is we have a little teenager after us?" Jace snorted, folding his arms. "Easy. Alec and I can take her out in a single fight."
"Wrong," Magnus counters. "Jenny met Sebastian, the brother of Clary, who we just had a nice long battle with. Who do you think she trained with? Where do you think she developed her powers from? Think it out, guys. We might just have another Sebastian on our hands."
Clary raised an eyebrow. "Seriously Magnus? Okay, I know when we were in that fight you took a hard blow to the head, but seriously? Another Sebastian? Chill. We can take them."
"Who's we?" Magnus retorted.
Clary folded her arms. "Me. Jace. Isabelle. Alec. We can take Jenny easily."
"No," Jocelyn said. "The last time us adults let you guys just run into battle all willy-nilly, we almost lost Jace, Isabelle had a broken arm and foot, and we lost the damn cat."
Jace snorted, coming to stand beside Clary. Even in their current predicament of hating each other, they always stood side-by-side when going against anyone; whether it be a legit Shadowhunter battle, or a plain argument with the parents.
"But you didn't lose me, we healed Isabelle with a rune, and the cat was a nuisance anyway. We can handle this girl just fine," Jace argued. Isabelle and Alec stood with them to show a united front.
Simon looked on, jealous of their unity and annoyed with Clary excluding him. "What about me?"
Clary glared at him. "What about you? Last I checked, you specifically told us to stop including you in our battles as you 'were sick and tired of the stress, pain, and anger involved.'"
Simon shrank back at her harsh tone.
"Mom, we're going to fight Jenny," Clary said, her voice strong with defiance.
"No, you're not."
"We'll see about that."
"Grounded? Are you kidding me?"
Isabelle leaned against the wall, amused with Jace's complaining. Her, Alec, Jace, Clary, Simon, Emma, Julian and Maia were all upstairs in her bedroom, the meeting with everyone adjourned about three minutes ago.
"This is ridiculous," Simon grunted, sitting on Isabelle's bed. He ran a hand through his hair. "Jenny is on the loose and we're supposed to sit here and do nothing?"
"You guys are stupid," Maia said, looking at her fingernails like they were more interesting then the people in the room. Isabelle didn't like Maia's new attitude. She was supposed to be the bitchy one; not Maia.
"Excuse you?" Alec snapped.
"Sneak out. Ever heard of it?" Maia rolled her eyes. "Come on, you guys are Shadowhunters. You act like you've never broken your parents' rules before. Hell, wasn't the battle in April a rule-breaker?"
"She has a point," Emma said, tying her hair into a ponytail. Julian looked at her like she was his world; Isabelle internally gagged at his gaze. "You guys have broken plenty of rules before, and if you guys actually defeat Jenny, then it'll show your parents that you can handle things like this."
"How should we do it?" Clary asked, twirling a Seraph blade in her hands. Isabelle was impressed; she couldn't twirl one in her hands to save her life. She let her bracelet snake into her hands, and she relished of the feeling of the electricity swirling through the whip.
Maia raised an eyebrow. "If you look behind me, you'll see a window. What you do is you push it open, then jump out."
"You're such a bitch sometimes," Jace lazily said. Maia smirked, taking it as a compliment. Isabelle was surprised she didn't beat him.
"Okay, well, we've spent about ten minutes bantering back and forth; meanwhile, there's a seventeen-year-old blondie running around town wreaking havoc. Can we make a plan to get out of here?" Alec said, standing up.
Isabelle sighed. "I have an idea. Emma, Julian, Simon, you three stay here to try and deflect our parents from asking about us. Us four will leave tonight, armed and ready, and go looking for Jenny. You guys send us a message if you have an sightings or new information on her. We have to deal with her quickly."
"I'm not staying behind," Simon retorts.
"Yeah, you are," Clary says, standing up from the desk chair and sheathing her blade. "We don't need a nuisance tonight. Do you want to end up like Church? Stay behind. Jace, Alec, Iz, we need to get weapons and armor from the training room. We'll have to be in and out; they'll get suspicious if all of us are in there together for a long time."
Simon folded his arms, giving the outward impression of a five-year-old not getting his way. "I'm not staying."
"Simon!" Alec snapped. Isabelle wasn't surprised with his outburst. He never liked Simon. What happened back in April just fueled his fire to hate Simon. "What powers do you have? You're not a vampire, you're a regular mortal, for Pete's sake! You can barely fight, you'd be a nuisance. Christ, Simon, what do you expect, us to-"
"Alec," Jace interrupted. He turned to Simon. "Simon, please stay back here with Emma and Julian in case Jenny comes to the Institute. Sorry to leave you behind but this is a job for the four of us."
"Whatever." Without a word to anyone else, Simon left the room.
"Y'all ready?" Jace said, tucking a final Seraph blade into a sheath. Everyone looked at him with expressions that displayed both nervousness and anticipation; it would be their first actual battle since April; it was September.
Jace was ready to get back into the groove of it. He hadn't fought with anyone or anything since the fight in April, and he was feeling deprived. He loved the feeling of having the upper hand in battle, which just meant he loved the battles; he always had the upper hand.
Clary twirled her blade in her hand. "I'm ready. This bitch is about to go down."
"Ooh, Clary, loving the use of graphic language," Alec joked. He ran a hand across the blade of his sword, admiring the shininess of it. Wouldn't be shiny for long.
"Guys," Emma interrupted, sneaking through the door of the training room. "Jenny was spotted downtown, and it's not good. She's leaving a path of death everywhere she goes. Men left in alleys, women strewn across the streets. The only thing she hasn't killed are children. She's killed Downworlders, vampires, Nephillim, humans, everything but children. You guys have to stop her quickly."
"We're on it." Isabelle's fingers ran along the length of her wrist. "Downtown you said?"
Emma nodded.
"Let's go." Leading the way, Jace punched open the window of the training room, Clary, Alec, and Isabelle right behind him. He jumped to the ground, doing a tuck-and-roll to prevent injury and to get out of the way.
"What's the plan?" Alec asked, running with the others.
Jace scoffed. "Have you met us? There is no plan."
"They left?" Jocelyn screeched. "They left to go fight her?"
keep in mind, this is just the prologue. i know there is a lot in there about something that happened in April, and i'll get to that in the next few chapters.
if you give me [5] reviews, i'll give you an [update].
-tg