Title: Warped Reflection
Author: Jenncat (Mindwarp on LJ)
Fandoms: Bleach/Heroes
Characters: Bleach: Chad, Ichigo, Kon, Isshin, and Ryuuken. Heroes: Jessica/Niki and Linderman.
Rating: PG/K+
Genre: Gen
Spoilers: Through the current manga chapters for Bleach, and through Unexpected for Heroes (and possibly the rest of season 1).
Warnings: This is fourth in my crossover series, following Fathers Know Best, Come to Lend a Hand ... or a Paw, and Destiny Awaits. This directly follows the last one. If you've read that one, you know that I'm now officially AU. If you have problems with swearing (we are dealing with Jessica, after all), don't read this. Also, there is Isshin. He always deserves his own warning, especially with regards to spoilers.
Summary: Jessica goes after someone Linderman wants, and learns something new.

Author's Notes: neverevil requested Chad v. Niki/Jessica. It took me forever to actually write this, even though I had the general idea for a while on what I wanted. (sighs) That's my fault, not the concept's, although hopefully it won't take as long to write the next story (or for it to come out of beta, but life happens, right Dragonsinger? (g)). Dialog in double quotes is in English, in single quotes is in Japanese, and in triple quotes is Spanish. Stuff in parenthesis is telepathy/thoughts. It's so much fun to think of how to denote four different ways of communicating. (g) Name order for Japanese names depends on context - if Japanese characters are by themselves, family name is first. Otherwise, family name is last. New Japanese definitions:

1. Oyaji is a semi-rude way to say father, something that a teenage boy might use. It tends to be translated as "Pop" by fansubbers.
2. Shunpo, which was mentioned without the definition last time, is a high-speed movement technique used by shinigami. It usually is translated as flash step, as users appear as a flash of motion, if even that, to the untrained eye.

The title comes from the second track on the single for "Ichirin no Hana" by HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR, thus continuing my theme of using Bleach-related songs as titles (as "Ichirin no Hana" is the 3rd opening theme for Bleach).

Disclaimer: Heroes belongs to Tim Kring, his team, and NBC/Viacom. Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite, Shueisha, TV Tokyo, Studio Pierrot, Dentsu, Viz, and maybe Adult Swim/Cartoon Network. I own nothing, and make no profit off of this. No challenge is intended toward any existing copyrights or trademarks. Please don't sue.

"All right, Linderman, what the hell is this? You want me to grab a teenager for you?" The woman known to most as Niki Sanders stormed into the discreetly expensive office, waving a file folder angrily.

The owner of said office swiveled his chair, turning slowly away from the magnificent view of the Las Vegas Strip to face the enraged woman. "Ms. Sanders, what a pleasure. I take it you received your latest assignment?"

The enraged blond threw the folder on the desk. A picture of a young man of mixed Hispanic and Oriental ancestry slipped out. She jabbed a finger at it. "I don't do kidnappings, and I don't do kids. Why the hell would you want him, anyway?"

Linderman paused before replying. "Mr. Sado has recently involved himself with some gentlemen who have absconded with a painting they were supposed to be delivering to me. His presence, as well as his friends' presence, is therefore required so I can get it back. I have a few questions for him, that's all."

Ms. Sanders continued to glare at him. "If that's all you need, you have other flunkies who could get him. Why me?"

"Mr. Sado has some... unique talents. Your own special skills are required to deal with those. My other flunkies, as you put it, can handle his friends, but you are the best match for his case. That's all." A small smile made him almost appear like a kind old man, but the woman opposite him knew better.

She glared for a few more moments, before snatching the photo and folder back. "Fine," she spat out. "I'll take the assignment." As she strode back out of the office, Linderman's smile grew to a shark's grin.

Sado Yasutora, better known as Chad to his closest friends, wandered the streets of Las Vegas, surreptitiously taking in all of the sights. From growing up all over the world, he knew better than to look like a tourist, even if he really was one. The fact that he looked older than he was helped keep him out of trouble, and the fact that he wore an insane floral-patterned shirt, courtesy of a hotel gift shop, and still seemed tough helped even more. He hadn't been to America before, but he had seen enough about it on television while living in Mexico, even shows about Vegas, so he knew he needed to stay under the radar. He and his old friends had entered the US illegally - in fact, they had just appeared there from another dimension. He didn't know Urahara-san was going to manage to get them back out without them having to deal with the authorities, but he figured that laying low in the meantime could only help. Of course, some of his friends didn't have that problem, and one of them wasn't helping matters right now.

'Man, Chad, why the hell are you going here? This place is a dump,' complained Kurosaki Ichigo. Ichigo had also arrived in the US without the authorities knowing, but had one advantage over Chad. Ichigo was currently in his shinigami form. Normal humans couldn't see him, as he was just a spirit. Somehow Chad didn't think the US government had any authority over ghosts, although he wouldn't have been surprised to see them try. Chad just shrugged in response, and kept walking. Ichigo groaned. 'Yet again, you're making me say that Keigo is right, about how you don't talk.'

Chad shifted his gaze slightly over to Ichigo. Out of the corner of his mouth, he quietly muttered, 'Normal people can't see you, remember? The last thing I need people to think is that I'm crazy.'

'Oh, yeah, forgot about that. Sorry, I should be used to that by now, but then again, we don't tend to care back home. Still, I don't see why you wandered here.' Ichigo repressed the desire to kick at some trash, as there wasn't enough wind for it to have moved on it's own.

Chad sighed mentally, and turned his focus back ahead of him. This was good, as he almost ran straight into a tall blond woman. She muttered under her breath as she adjusted her black blazer, before turning her glare on him. Her grimace turned into a predatory grin. "Yasutora Sado?" she asked.

Chad forced himself not to start. This woman was a stranger to him, so she shouldn't have known who he was. She didn't feel like she was a government employee, but he couldn't be sure. There was something odd about her - odd, yet familiar, something he had felt recently. "'Who are you?'" he asked in lieu of answering, reverting to his other native language as he didn't know a lot of English yet. He hoped that she just happened to know Spanish, since that wasn't that odd to know in America.

"'None of your business. Some friends of yours took something belonging to my boss, and he wants it back. You're coming with me.'" The woman reached for his arm. Instantly, Chad turned away, barely managing to escape her grasp. She overreached and grabbed a nearby pole instead. As she let go, Chad suppressed an internal flinch, as he noticed imprints of her fingers left behind in the metal.

'Shit, she's strong! She might be as strong as you, Chad,' Ichigo called out. He started as the woman turned to face him.

"'You got a weird friend, Sado. What's up with that black kimono? That wasn't mentioned in your file,'" she groused. "'Now I gotta deal with both of you.'"

"'You can see him???'" Chad asked.

She stopped, and turned back to Chad. "'Why couldn't I? It's not like he's invisible, or something. Although, I guess I wouldn't be surprised if he could do that.'"

Realization struck Chad like a bullet. She felt familiar, because she felt like Ichigo, or the Arrancar he had faced, but he didn't sense any trace of shinigami about her. It was almost like the way he himself felt when he used his full power. 'Ichigo, she's feels like she's part Hollow,' he called out, knowing that Ichigo's notorious lack of sensitivity would keep him from realizing that. His right arm shifted, as he tilted it back to throw a punch at her.

"'Too slow, kiddo,'" the woman taunted as she shifted back from his punch.

Chad gave her an odd look. "'I wasn't trying to hit you with my fist,'" he replied. An energy blast from his transformed right arm hit her squarely, knocking her to the ground. "'You moved perfectly into the blast range instead.'"

She stared at his altered arm as she struggled back to her feet. "'What the fuck? Linderman's file mentioned that, but...'" Her voice trailed off. Why did that feel familiar? Why did she feel a familiar pulse coming from the other weirdly-dressed kid as well?

(They feel like you, Jessica.)

(Shut UP, Niki! I don't need you distracting me right now!)

Ichigo started to unsheathe his zanpakutou, Zangetsu. 'Chad, I don't know of any way for a non-shinigami to suppress a Hollow alter-ego. Even shinigami with one have to beat it down or be devoured from within by it. Why would a normal human have one, anyway?'

"'What the hell's a Hollow?'" the woman angrily demanded. "'The only alter-ego in here is my weak sister.'"

'Wait, you can understand me?' Ichigo asked. 'You can speak Japanese? Man, why didn't you speak it before! I would have understood more of what's going on.'

"'I don't know what your friend's talking about, because I don't speak Japanese, Sado. I just know what he's saying.'" she replied.

'Ichigo, she says she doesn't speak Japanese, but does understand you. Don't Hollows use both Japanese and Spanish?' Chad turned back to Jessica, possible realization dawning. "'Is your sister alive, or dead?'"

"'She's alive, you twit.'" Suddenly her mouth opened, and she froze. A moment later, she turned panicked eyes to both boys. "'Get out of here, both of you, before Jessica takes over again!'" she yelled.

"'Who are you???'" Chad asked.

"'I'm Niki Sanders. The woman you were fighting is Jessica. She's my sister, but she's supposed to be dead. Why did you ask if we were alive or not?'" Niki looked at Chad, clearly wanting answers but just as clearly silently pleading for him to run.

'Damn, her sister's a Hollow!' At Niki's blank look, he added, 'Hollows are basically soul-devouring ghosts, since they've lost their own soul's heart. They tend to go for the ones they loved in life for their first victims, but why did she possess her sister instead of eating her?' Ichigo wondered.

Niki frowned. "'Tell him that Jessica has said that she's just trying to protect me. She goes after any threats to me or my son instead.'" Suddenly, she spotted a black sedan stopping next to them. "'Run! Get out of here!'" She froze again in another internal battle.

Chad and Ichigo turned to follow her instructions. Ichigo got a few steps away when he realized that Chad wasn't with him. He turned back to see Chad face down on the sidewalk. A man in a black suit pulled a dart out of his shoulder. 'Chad!' Ichigo stood by helplessly as Jessica hauled Chad into the back of the car, and got in herself. He shook himself out of his shock as the car sped off. Muttering curses under his breath, he leapt up in the sky, keeping up with the car easily thanks to shunpo. Once again, he mentally thanked Urahara, Yoruichi, and Zangetsu for teaching him it, even if he didn't realize they had at the time, as he had been too busy trying to keep himself alive and gain the power he needed. He only stopped moving when the car pulled into an underground parking garage. Gazing up at the building, he tried to burn the English name into his mind. He shot back off toward the hotel where he and his friends were staying, courtesy of their newest companions, Masahashi Ando and Nakamura Hiro. Ando and Hiro had originally arrived in America legally, plus Hiro evidently had some money, so it wasn't too hard for him to book a few cheap rooms for all of them.

When he got back, instead being greeted by his friends, he was greeted by himself - well, his body, anyway. 'Kon, you're here. Good, where's the others? We've got trouble,' he grumbled as he reached for a pendant with a skull emblem attached to his waist.

His body stepped back, evading the pendant that was about to be slammed into his chest. 'Before you take back over, Ichigo, you might want to know what's going on,' his body said.

'Damnit, you stupid mod soul, let me back in my body!' Ichigo hollered. 'Get back here, Kon!' He shook his fist as his body leapt up to perch on top of a nearby fence.

Kon, in Ichigo's body, stuck out his tongue. 'Listen for a moment! The others have been kidnapped!' Kon yelled.

Ichigo froze. 'What? How did that happen???'

'We're not sure yet.' Kon shrugged. 'Urahara and Yoruichi are waiting for a friend of theirs to show up to see if she has any info for them. Even your new friends were grabbed, from what they can tell, and evidently she's been looking into folks who have connections to them.' Kon looked around. 'Where's Chad? They did see the note he left about you two going out for a stroll.'

'He's been kidnapped as well. I'll bet whoever wanted him took them also.' Ichigo sighed.

'Not surprising, if it is who we're thinking it might be.'

Ichigo whirled around at the rough voice that had just spoken. 'Oyaji? What are you doing here?' He paused at the sight of his father. 'Wait a minute, you can hear me???? I thought you couldn't see ghosts, much less hear them!'

His father, Kurosaki Isshin, actually managed to have the grace to look sheepish. 'Well, that's a long story. I guess I'll have to explain later.'

'You guess????' Ichigo shouted.

Isshin glared at his son. 'Yes, later. We don't have the time now. Now that you know what happened, get back in your body.'

Ichigo, muttering the whole time under his breath about how that's what he wanted to do in the first place, pressed the skull-emblem pendant against his body's chest. His body froze, as a small white pill popped out of his mouth. Ichigo grabbed both the pill and his body before they fell. Placing the pill in his body's hand, his soul melted back into his body. Wordlessly, his father passed him a lion plushie. Ichigo took the pill and inserted it in the lion's mouth. A few moments later, the lion blinked at him, but for once stayed silent about having to return to the artificial soul's usual residence. 'Oyaji, I did manage to follow the people who took Chad. They took him to some place called the Corinthian.' Ichigo stumbled over the odd English syllables. 'Maybe that's where the others are.'

Isshin beamed with pride. 'That's my son!' He went to smother Ichigo in a bone-crushing hug. Ichigo squirmed to try to free himself from the insane man, wincing as Isshin's goatee almost went in his eye.

'Yes, he's just as impulsive and reckless as you, Kurosaki.' The sarcastic voice stopped the father-son antics. They both glared at a white-haired man, who was dressed in an impeccable suit. Ichigo noted a very familiar symbol on the man's tie, as the man adjusted his glasses in an equally familiar way.

'That's the Quincy cross, isn't it? Are you Ishida's dad?' Ichigo asked. 'You sound just like him,' he added under his breath.

The man bowed slightly. 'Yes, as sad as I am to admit that, with my son's lack of talent. I am Ishida Ryuuken. As for your supposition, I highly doubt that, even if that's where they were taken, they would still be there. The Corinthian Casino and Hotel is far too public a place to be secure. The owner is far more subtle than that. We're just waiting for confirmation from Yoruichi's friend, who's been investigating an organization he's involved with, to see exactly where they would have been taken. Still, this does confirm who we are dealing with.' Ryuuken's face grew grim. 'No human gets to harm my son, without paying the price.' Ichigo and Isshin nodded their agreement, as the three men went into the hotel to wait.