an: New fic! New fic! And new franchises -
disclaimer: Two, in fact - two new fandoms for you to disappoint!
an: Shaddup. Anyway while this fic is new (and one of a few crossovers for one of these franchises that I had an idea for), these franchises aren't - Young Justice having its last episode at the time of writing in March of 2013, and Kill la Kill having its final episode release April of the following year. This will be extremely spoiler-heavy for Kill la Kill, as it starts in that universe near the end of Episode 24 (Past the Infinite Darkness), the final episode before the OVA. For those new to Young Justice but not Kill la Kill, however, don't worry - this starts between episodes 1b/2 (Fireworks) and 2/3 (Welcome to Happy Harbor).
disclaimer: Kill la Kill is a production of of Hiroyuki Imaishi and Kazuki Nakashima; and property of them and Studio Trigger, a division of Ultra Super Pictures. Young Justice is a production of Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman (among others), and is owned by DC Comics and Warner Brothers Animation.
"Spoken"
"[Spoken in a language other than English]"
Thought
[Telepathic communication]
"Electronic communication via means besides radio"
[[Radio communication]]
chapter i - drops of jupiter
Drops of Jupiter
Disc 01 Track 03: Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)
Released: 20 February 2001 (Single version)
Artist: Train
Language: English
Earth 121,312
20,000 kilometers above Honno-ji Academy, Tokyo Prefecture, Japan
22:30 Japan Regional Time
August 6, 2014
The thin net of Life Fibers cocooning the Earth, looking so much like a solid sheet of red from this altitude, began to peel back from below the satellite. Cracks spread across the 'sheet' like those on an egg, before spreading out to a reverse-wave around the world. Were one to look closely, they'd see pinprick meteors descending from the cross points of the global weave.
Humans.
Humans rejecting the lull of power, security, or whatever else the Life Fibers could offer them in exchange for 'living' out the rest of their existence as a battery.
Humans by the billions fell to the Earth below, the Life Fibers around them burning up in the atmosphere and providing just enough resistance to prevent injury from the descent. Those humans wouldn't get so much as a sprained ankle from the fall.
Two women floated, somehow breathing and surviving the lack of pressure, above the spindle-like satellite below them. Neither of them were fully human, both were partially Life Fiber, but only one was a slave to the fibers.
Drained of emotion, she looked from her daughter, to the Earth below, at last free of her influence or the control of the fibrous aliens she sold herself and her planet out to.
"Impossible," she barely muttered. Her daughter allowed herself the smallest of smirks. She had been so high and mighty, so nearly omnipotent for so long, it was refreshing to see her taken down a peg. Or a few. Or, really, all of them.
"This cannot be happening. Everything is returning to nothing?"
"That's right, mother." Mother, or in the language she was using, 'kaa-san'. It was ironic, really. This thing in front of her had technically given birth to her, but she sure as Hell wasn't a mother.
Still…
"The Earth will never be a Cocoon Sphere now. Please, come back peacefully to Earth."
She'd seen a hell of a lot over the course of the past eleven months. A journey to find her father's killer that had begun the September before after discovering a red scissor blade the size of a broadsword in the school parking lot with a note addressed to her, now ending kilometers above the Earth's surface after befriending a sentient school uniform. What a wild ride.
But in that time she'd learned how to forgive others, as well as herself. And if she could forgive the bitch that she'd thought for four months was her father's killer and had withheld an assload of information that could have led directly to his real killer, well, why not try and give a chance to the mastermind?
It wasn't like she was in a position to say no. Life Fibers embedded into her very body or no, neither of them could stay up here for long, and the woman lacked a Kamui to provide additional protection.
In one timeline, the woman would have taken the way of the Samurai when faced with incontrovertible defeat, not out of honor but of pure spite in order to deny her daughter the final victory, the final closure.
This was not that timeline.
After several seconds, a demonic grin crossed the woman's face. Her nails seemed to lengthen on her left hand.
"Pathetic."
She reached out and dug her hands into nothing, and yet blood red cracks trailed her fingertips as she dragged them down through the vacuum of space.
But the cracks weren't cracks, their edges were fuzzy and vague like…
Tears.
Tears in the fabric of spacetime.
"I will decide how and when I die! Not you, not your sister, not any other pathetic beast in clothing!"
"You bitch! What are you-"
In her other hand, she held a spindle of the Original Life Fiber. As if things weren't bad enough with a tear in reality, now she had the chance to start all over again. She held the damn thing up like she was showing off a World Cup trophy.
"Ryuuko, this is not the end. Life Fibers continue their advance across the cosmos. More will come to Earth - of that you can count on."
Senketsu's lone eye widened in horror. "Ryuuko! Get back, she's-"
Too fast. Even without her monstrous Kamui, even bared to the vacuum of space with just the Life Fibers that made up her body holding her together, Ragyou Kiryuuin was just too fast to avoid. Or perhaps it was her arm stretching out to grab Ryuuko. Either way, Ryuuko just was not fast enough to maneuver out of the way and avoid being thrown headfirst into the rift.
As she turned to watch a shadow cover the rift's opening, Ryuuko Matoi's last conscious thought before succumbing to the violence of the rift was that she probably wouldn't make it for Mako's date.
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Earth 16
73 kilometers above central Texas, United States
10:23 AM Central Standard Time
July 10, 2010
The good news, in Senketsu's mind, was that Ragyou was at least kind enough to drop her daughter in the mesosphere above an Earth-like planet instead of the blackness of space. At first he thought that perhaps the woman's maternal instincts were rising up out of the black tar pit of Hell that was her soul, but that thought was quickly dismissed. More likely the woman just wasn't through toying with Ryuuko.
After all, she could easily have put her in the troposphere, or at least the stratosphere. As things were, they were going to be jumping from twice the height of Felix Baumgartner's jump two years ago - something he only knew about because Ryuuko's science teacher had used said video in a lesson on the layers of the atmosphere. And he only knew that because Ryuuko may or may not have relied on him a little too much to pay attention in class for her.
And faster too - already they were dropping at several hundred knots - not a lethal speed, but they hadn't even reached the stratosphere yet and it was a long, long way down. Senketsu was putting all his focus into steering the still-comatose Ryuuko on a path that wouldn't lead her to a violent end. At least they were in central Texas, which had no lack of farmland or grassland to land on - not that he was aware of this just yet. He was a sailor uniform, not a GPS, and while Isshin Matoi 'programmed' in a fair amount of information in him, mostly to help Ryuuko along with her education when/if they dealt with the Life Fibers, he didn't put in much in the way of visual map knowledge.
Like a black, red, and human bullet Senketsu and Ryuuko descended into the lower atmosphere. At the speeds they were travelling, Senketsu could feel the heat of friction with the air as they penetrated the stratopause, but it was nothing compared to falling from higher - holding one's hand over a pot of molten lead instead of sticking one's head in it. However, the denser lower atmosphere provided one advantage - spreading out to a spread-eagle, or a high-drag parachute-like form, would hurt a lot less now that they were already slowing down.
Inch by Inch, Senketsu stretched his body out while using his outer hems like puppet strings to move Ryuuko's limbs to a position better suited for parachuting.
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Earth 16
46 kilometers above southern Wyoming, United States
10:25 AM Local Time
July 10, 2010
It was unusual for J'onn J'ozz to be using a vehicle for flight, after all, he could fly on his own. Not at the speeds of Superman, of course - only he and the Flash could move faster than a speeding bullet - but fast enough to not need a plane. And he wasn't using the Zeta Tubes, for two reasons. Well, three reasons.
Firstly, he just got back from a Justice League side mission dealing with a minor alien incursion in northern Canada, and there weren't any Zeta Tube openings in that area. Batman was planning to set one up in Yellowknife, but even that would've been a few hours flight time for a typical aircraft, and not everyone was supersonic.
Secondly, the red bioship he was flying in was to be a gift for his niece. A new model meant for both performance and capacity, it had been advertised as more than capable of making the trek between Mars and Earth at just under five times lightspeed without modifications, capable of seating fifteen, and lifting several Earth metric tons of cargo. There were a few tweaks he convinced the manufacturers to throw in - military-grade stealth and FTL drives, higher-penetration cannons, aftermarket communication encryption software and ECCM, and of course the ruby red color. Among other things. But while she was certified for Venus or thicker atmospheric densities, it was always best to check how bioships handled different atmospheres, just to be safe. It had handled the magnetosphere of Jupiter, the heat of Mercury, and the winds of Neptune well enough, and he was quite sure it could live up to advertisements when it came to the caustic Venusian atmosphere thank you - J'onn was sure neither his niece nor the bioship would like it much if their first meeting involved dissolved paint and a repair bill on the dashboard. So far, it was handling the comparatively tame Earth weather just fine - a bit of adjustment was needed for it to deal with water storms, but otherwise it was handling perfectly.
Thirdly, well… it was a lot easier to sneak Oreos to Middleton on a bioship. So he had a thing for Oreos, sue him, he wasn't addicted anymore, and he never would let himself get that bad again since he could just purge himself if it ever came close to that point. He still wouldn't let M'gann have any though. Last thing Trader Joe's needed was two Martians cleaning them out of Oreos on a regular basis.
He was still sure to wolf down the Oreos in his hand as a call came in on the Bioship from none other than Batman himself. A tad awkward, but he managed to compose himself before (he hoped) Batman noticed.
Batman noticed of course, but he wasn't about to say anything.
"Watchtower just picked up a dimensional rift open and close over central Texas. You're the closest Leaguer, so you'll have to be the first to investigate."
Certainly an unusual enough event to warrant the League's attention. Still, Texas was on the other side of Colorado from where J'onn was at the moment, and was in an unfortunate situation - Texas had a fair number of heroes (and villains), but was 'unclaimed' by any of the big names. The closest was Captain Atom, and he was based out of Albuquerque, and more importantly, currently busy dealing with a nuclear accident in central China.
"Any details on what came out of it?"
Manhunter was smart - as odd as a dimensional rift over America was, scientific 'accidents' of similar nature were common and usually left to the local heroes unless something came out of it worthy of the Watchtower's direct attention.
"Scanners aren't precise enough to scan for species at that range without someone nearby, but whatever it is, it's humanoid, there's only one, and it's not moving like someone fully in control of their body."
"An accident?"
"Most likely, but again, we cannot confirm with the Watchtower's sensors alone. See what you can find out."
It was a request, but coming from Batman it sounded more like an order. It always did.
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Earth 16
32 kilometers above central Texas, United States
10:31 Local Time
July 10, 2010
Upon shifting his form to that of a fascimile of a parachute and slowing their descent to an easy fifty knots, Senketsu discovered a more pressing problem - temperature. At forty five degrees below zero, Ryuuko risked frostbite with him over her whole body if they stayed in an area with such extreme cold for long if Senketsu was active - She managed to hold out in space simply because his Kisaragi form was just that much more powerful, and therefore more efficient at keeping her safe, and even then she was conscious enough to help.
Here, she was unconscious and practically in her underwear with how much fabric he was using to maintain the parachute. Ryuuko always ran a little hot compared to the human average, and already her blood temperature had fallen to 36 Celsius. He could risk relaxing and letting her drop to the warmer lower atmosphere, but that was a long way down, and he had already been active for a long time - there was the risk he wouldn't have enough time left to reform a parachute all the way down. He could shift to a standard form and hope for the best, but while Ryuuko could take a beating she'd never fallen from this high before. And he was pretty sure they weren't in Japan anymore - the city below them looked a lot like Dallas, and he knew full well that Ryuuko wasn't the best student when it came to English.
This would be… unpleasant, one way or anoth-
There is an unusual aircraft approaching us from the north…
It was red and shaped like a trident,with the middle prong being fat and round, like a rugby ball. It was approaching at an incredible speed - clearly supersonic, even as it was slowing down to approach them at a matched speed.
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The Martian Manhunter didn't quite know what to make of the sight before him, and neither did the bioship, though the bioship was young and inexperienced enough that it thought a lot of things were odd.
But even by the standards of the Martian Manhunter, this was odd. A human female, clearly of Asian descent, in striped underwear floating down at a higher-than-average speed on a parachute that looked remarkably like a black and red school uniform.
Well, he'd seen stranger, but this was up there, not counting the handful of times he worked alongside Batman when the Joker got a little too big for Gotham. Though there was that one time with the spaghetti monster…
He maneuvered the bioship to directly beneath the parachuting human, matching the speed of their descent minus a kilometer per hour or so to ease their fall before the ship opened a sufficiently large hole in the cockpit. The woman - who couldn't have been more than eighteen - dropped like a feather onto the metallic floor, with the uniform-like parachute falling behind her. The moment it was fully within the cockpit, the uniform reformed from a parachute-like shape to a Japanese sailor-style school uniform, though with a noticeable midriff, with the skirt being held up by a combination of a belt and suspenders. More unusual still was the eye-like pattern on the left-hand side of the scarf - it seemed to follow him as he moved about the cockpit, and as a platform raised from the floor as a makeshift bed/stretcher.
"Martian Manhunter to Watchtower."
This time, it was Green Arrow to answer. He looked a little worse for wear, and sweatier than normal, but he was quick to respond.
"Hey. Batman's out conducting a sting on a probable Mad Hatter drug warehouse, and Superman's out doing disaster relief in Florida, so I'm holding down the fort for now. What's up?"
So it is America, thought Senketsu. I suspected as much from the accents, but this confirms it. This should make things interesting. But for now, I should focus on returning Ryuuko's body temperature to normal.
An observant eye, such as the one the Martian Manhunter had, would notice Senketsu's lapels and scarf shrink as the rest of the uniform expanded, lengthened, and thickened, to speed warming. A slightly less observant eye would notice Senketsu's 'eye' observing Martian Manhunter, and suddenly return to its standard, look-ahead gaze upon being noticed.
"I have the humanoid on board - human female, Japanese descent, I estimate between sixteen and twenty years old. She is unconscious and has some light bruising and cuts, but is otherwise uninjured. More unusual is her clothes - a black sailor uniform with shapeshifting properties, possibly sentient."
"Wait, did you say a sentient school uniform? Are you sure?"
[Thank you…]
"Very. Excuse me for a moment," Martian Manhunter said as he turned around. Senketsu stiffened up as if doused in starch, but it was too late and too obvious to hide.
Martian Manhunter was tall by American standards, a little on the tall side by Martian standards, but by Japanese standards he was enormous. Of course, Ryuuko was still unconscious, but Senketsu could only lose consciousness if he was fully drained of blood or severely damaged, so he got an eyeful of a very tall Martian standing over him.
He considered himself lucky he had the self-control to not shiver.
[Do not be alarmed, I have no intention of harming you.]
This caused Senketsu to relax… a little. He remained stiff, but no longer was he comically stiff. Beneath him (or was it inside him?) Ryuuko stirred, but did not wake.
[You can… hear me?]
[I am a telepath, and you are communicating telepathically, are you not?]
That was a good question. Thus far, only Ryuuko (and, briefly, Satsuki) had been able to hear, let alone communicate, with Senketsu.
[I am… unsure. To be honest, many of the finer details of my creation have been lost to me.]
He paused. [Ah, my apologies, I believe introductions of a sort are in order. I am Senketsu, and the girl wearing me is… surnames come last in English so Ryuuko Matoi.]
[Greetings, Senketsu, I am known as Martian Manhunter.]
[I assume that is not your real name?]
[Correct.]
"Hey, J'onn, if you're busy-"
"Apologies," the Martian Manhunter said as he returned to the pilot's seat. "The uniform is indeed sentient, and its name is apparently Senketsu. The female's name is Ryuuko Matoi, which confirms that she is Japanese, but not how the two got here."
"As in how the portal formed? Well, I'd love to provide input on that end, but it vanished almost as soon as it showed up - all we managed to confirm was that its other end wasn't in this universe."
[So we are not in our home universe, then…]
[That seems to be the case.] Ryuuko stirred once again, this time with a bit more effort. She'd definitely wake up soon, though.
"Is there any possibility of reopening the portal to send them home?"
Oliver sighed. "Without knowing which universe they came from exactly, and where exactly they came out of it… not really. From what Supes and the Lanterns say, dimensional travel is a messy business even if you know what you're doing."
"I see,"said a disappointed Manhunter.
Senketsu sounded more resigned than disappointed, but not fully so.
[So long as there is hope, there is no reason to despair. Besides, our fight is over.] At last, Ryuuko woke up, sitting up with a start. She looked at Martian Manhunter. She looked at Green Arrow. Green Arrow looked at Martian Manhunter. Green Arrow looked at Ryuuko. Ryuuko put her gloved hand to her head and sighed.
[Senketsu, what the fuck is goin' on?]
[We are in another dimension, Ryuuko. You were unconscious and freezing to death in the upper atmosphere, and the green one - Martian Manhunter - rescued us in his…]
[Bioship.]
[Bioship. We are over Texas, that is the extent of my knowledge.]
Ryuuko slumped. In another dimension, and her mother didn't even have the common courtesy to dump her over Japan. Typical. Just typical. After proper introductions, the Martian Manhunter and Green Arrow continued their conversation for a few minutes, but Ryuuko didn't pay much attention - Senketsu would later tell her it was about the odd DNA abnormalities they had detected in her, Senketsu's sentience, and the nature of the rift they had come out of.
"Well, that's a lot of info, but before we dive any deeper into it maybe we should, you know, ask her? [So, Ryuuko, what led up to you ending up in our dimension?]"
Ryuuko sat up a bit straighter. [You want the short story or the long story? The long story'll take a while.]
All three occupants of the Bioship looked at Oliver, who shrugged. "[Star City's pretty quiet most of the time during the day. I got time.]"
One rather long life story later (made longer with questions and interjections), starting from when Ryuuko's father was killed to her duel with her mother in space, Green Arrow was doing a very good job of keeping his jaw off the floor. J'onn, of course, did a far better job as his only reaction was a raised set of eye… ridges.
"[So lemme get this straight… Your mother, Ragyou Kiryuuin, got possessed by alien space yarn that feeds on biolectricity, turned her evil and led her to create a global textile and fashion monopoly in order to use all of humanity as fuel for said alien space yarn to reproduce, detonate the earth, and spread themselves across the cosmos. You were born initially to be her successor, but she abandoned you when she thought her attempt to merge an infant with these 'Life Fibers' failed. You were then spirited away by your father, while your sister was raised by your mom, and raised without your knowledge to be a weapon. Meanwhile your mother created a sentient sailor uniform out of these Life Fibers, Junketsu, to be used by your sister to make up for her incompatibility with life fibers in her body. Your father then vanished from her life and created your sailor uniform, Senketsu, shortly after ditching you in boarding school, then founded an organization called 'Nudist Beach' to destroy your mother's work. Some time later he created the Scissor Blade out of solidified life fibers, tricking your mother into thinking that was his weapon to destroy her, leading to his death. You set out to avenge him, which led you to the school your sister was running like an army base in a secret, completely independent plot to kill your mother. After knocking out a few of her student council staff you get roped into it after your mother's little demon, Nui Harime showed up, shit went down, you temporarily get brainwashed, defeat your mother and the Life Fibers by stealing the power from her own sailor uniform, and then your mother threw you in a portal, and now you're here?]"
"[Well my father made both Junketsu and Senketsu, they're called Kamui, and mother's Kamui was a wedding dress, not a sailor uniform. But you got the gist of it, yeah.]"
"[You certainly lived in interesting times then. So, what now?]"
"[Whaddya mean?]"
"[Well, you don't seem the type to just wait around for your friends to come get you when you're stuck in an alternate reality. So what's your plan?]"
The dimensional arrival shrugged. "[Iunno. Figured I'd do what I did before pops died - defend the weak, beat the crap out of the strong to defend the weak and test my strength, avoid getting suckered into a gang again, you know, the usual stuff.]"
To this answer, Oliver smiled. "[Is that so? Well, in that case, if you're interested in working with others, I may have a proposal for you to keep you busy until we find out how to get you back to your home dimension…]"
It was Ryuuko's turn to smile.
"[I'm listening.]"
an: Whew! That took a lot longer than planned, and the ending was a bit more rushed than I wanted (I wanted to cover her arriving at the Cave, but I feel introducing Ryuuko to The Team could take up a chapter all on its own), but this works as an initial, get-your-attention basic-setup sort of thing.
And don't worry, I'm not cutting Ryuuko off completely, and Satsuki, Mako, and the Four Devas may show up as early as late first season in Young Justice timeline - though obviously things will branch out.
I'm also planning on developing a rogue's gallery for Ryuuko. Mostly original or derivative characters, but I'm open to suggestions for existing DC villains. And yes, she will be based in Texas. Texas needs more love in DC.