I must admit, this story is not for everyone. If you are looking for a strong pairing like DG/Cain, DG/Glitch, Glitch/Cain, etc., that is clearly broadcasted, you will not find it here. There is also no fluffy romance, shining knights on white horses, and anything else that may be considered "Pink, Feminine, and Disney". Though you will probably find worse on the evening news, this story is for a mature audience since it does contain content on suicide, mercy killings, etc.
Summary: An outside force working quietly amongst the rebuilding of the O.Z. has begun to rise with the intention of taking it back. An outworlder woman appears and holds the key for the eventual takeover. Can it be stopped in time?
Now, with all that being said, and you are still intrigued, you are more than welcome to join me down the path...
Chapter 1: The Beginning
-- A day in the life of Jill Wilkins; Jill involuntarily arrives in the O.Z.
Chapter 2: Ol' Blue Eyes
-- Jill realizes that she must start out on her own in the strange new world and comes upon the Cains' cabin.
Chapter 3: The Breakin
-- While Cain is away, men break in to his cabin.
Chapter 4: What Next?
-- The Father learns where his Daughter is; Cain and Jill decide to go to Central City.
Chapter 5: Back to Central City
-- Cain and Jill arrive in Central City.
Chapter 6: The Prowler
-- Who's at the door at the Cain residence?
Chapter 7: Prelude to Redemption
-- The Father discusses Rebecca's redemption; Cain and Jill must visit the Precinct.
Chapter 8: Rebecca's Redemption
-- Central City experiences Rebecca's redemption.
Chapter 9: The Aftermath
-- The aftermath of Rebecca's redemption.
Chapter 10: The Reunion
-- All are safe.
Chapter 11: The Balcony
-- A nod to "classic" Cain and DG.
Chapter 12: Cookies Anyone?
-- Cain and Sergeant Costello seek answers in Detective Spencer's apartment.
Chapter 13: Girl Talk
-- The Queen, DG, and Azkadellia have a chat.
Chapter 14: Target Practice
-- Jill insists that Glitch take her to the Armory.
Chapter 15: Dinner For Eight
-- The Queen invites family and friends for dinner.
Chapter 16: Wrong Place, Wrong Time
-- Raw and Calm are abducted.
Chapter 17: Answers, Part 1
-- Cain and the Queen have a not so pleasant chat.
Chapter 18: Answers, Part 2
-- Will DG say yes?
Chapter 19: Answers, Part 3
-- Cain questions Jill
Chapter 20: Signs and Visions
-- Cain, Jeb and Jill visit the Wolfsangel Tavern. Azkadellia has a vision.
Chapter 21: Blackmail
-- Demilo tries to blackmail Cain. He pays for it, dearly.
Chapter 22: Insanity
-- Azkadellia should be dead. DG has a gut feeling about Dr. Addison and it may not be good.
Chapter 23: Storm Clouds
-- Cain and Jill head towards the palace to meet with General Turnbaugh, Lundgren and Zero arrive in Calvert.
Chapter 24: How Could You?
-- What to do about Azkadellia...
Chapter 25: I Can't Love You Like That
-- DG, Cain, and Glitch have a chat in DG's private garden.
Chapter 26: Sins Of Our Mothers
-- DG and Glitch set out to find out what happened to Cain and Jill.
Chapter 27: Business
-- Zero and Lundgren get lucky, DG and Glitch hit a roadblock
Chapter 28: Switch
-- Az is moved, Cain wakes up
Chapter 29: Evil Hamsters
-- Cain gets a visitor, Samantha gets a new pet
Chapter 30: Stay Strong Kiddo
-- Jeb helps DG and Glitch with their visit to Dr. Addison's office, Jill sees the aftermath of a fight
Chapter 31: Does The Devil Have A Soul (or Vengeance Part 1)
-- Zero and Ko arrive at the Poulton's and unfortunately Jeb shows up
Chapter 32: The Devil Denies His Soul (or Vengeance Part 2)
-- Zero and Ko have one more stop and one more killing to make
Chapter 33: No Knights In Shining Armor
-- Jill's heart leapt for joy at the thought of being released from jail; but then her joy turned to sorrow
Chapter 34: Rasputin
-- The Queen replied without taking her eyes off of DG. "Not well. Her response was the same as what Dr. Addison had predicted."
Chapter 1, The Beginning
Unfortunately the day started off worse than usual. Jill had just barely unlocked her desk drawer and already the phone started ringing. But in the end, wasn't it like that any other day? When it came down to it, the only difference between today and yesterday was that everyone around her talked about the weather. It was as though they were all competing to see who had the most dire of dire forecasts. Did someone hear six inches? How about eight? Nine? Ten?
She was tired of all the hype. Even one of the local news station's morning meteorologists made up a "Hype-O-Meter" before the big snowstorm. She had an inclination to make up one of her own and print it out on the color plotter. There, in its full blazing Technicolor glory, the needle would move from the low end of the scale of "Oooooh…snowflakes" to the high end of "Oh My God! Get to the store and buy cat food and milk!"
But she thought better of it. It would be her luck that her manager, or better yet, the VP would walk by her cubicle and see it. At that moment her phone rang again. The caller ID showed that it was from one of the planners. Now what?
By quarter after four she had had enough. She swore that all she got done was answer the phone and add to her list of problems. If nothing else the labor entries for the week were done so her guys could get paid. Everything else would have to wait till Monday. With a pang of guilt she thought to herself that she really should go into work tomorrow. She would have if it hadn't been snowing out today. Tomorrow morning would be spent digging herself out and by then she wouldn't feel like doing much else. She slammed her desk drawer shut and locked it.
When she reached the bottom of the back staircase, she took a peek out the window. Yep, she thought to herself. The guys were right. It was going to be a bitch to get home.
The normal 25 minutes commute took 1-1/2 hours. No surprise there. You would think that if one lived in Pennsylvania you would expect it to storm on occasion. Obviously she was wrong given the number of stranded vehicles in the wide medians between the highway lanes.
Due to the storm, night came even earlier. When she finally got home a tree greeted her across the driveway. She was going to swear but held her tongue. She grabbed her purse, locked the truck, and started the long walk up the hill.
It was well after six o'clock by the time she got to the garage door. She'd walked the driveway hundreds of times but doing it in six plus inches of snow left her breathing heavy. The tree was going to have to wait till morning.
When she got upstairs there was a blinking light on the answering machine. She pressed the button and a familiar voice came on.
"Hey Jillian, this is Gary."
Why did he always call her Jillian? Her given name was Jill. It was plain and simple, but it was still her given name.
"I know you said that you had a few things to take care of in the morning but I wanted to know if we could still get together in the afternoon." His voiced trailed off but she didn't need to hear the rest of it. Reluctantly she picked up her cell phone and dialed his number.
Morning came way too early. Unfortunately all she did was toss and turn all night. With a heavy sigh she finally gave up and got of bed. What sucked was that she was up even earlier than during the normal work-week. The smell of the coffee she brewed did little to brighten her mood.
After eating some cereal she decided to go and start digging herself out. The first streaks of dawn were just coming up when she got done with most of the driveway. She went into the house, poured some more coffee, and watched the sunrise. As she looked out the window the valley looked so peaceful. The snow and ice was still on the trees and it made it look like a setting from Disneyland. Too bad it wasn't this quiet every day. She drained the last of her coffee and went back outside. It took her a good hour to cut up the tree and move it just enough out the way. She knew that if Mom came to the house she'd yell at her for moving the tree by herself. Oh well.
She brought her truck up and parked it in its spot in the garage. By the time that she got cleaned up and changed her clothes it was only mid-morning.
"Geez Jill" she sarcastically thought to herself, "It's amazing what you get done when you get up at four in the morning."
She plopped herself down on the couch. As she was flipping through the TV channels she thought that she better make the trip out to Elimsport. She didn't have any excuses remaining. Even so, she still had to force herself to get her coat and boots on.
The roads were in surprisingly good shape though the sun quickly disappeared behind the clouds. She road in silence since there wasn't much traffic. As she got closer to Elimsport it looked like it was going to storm again. "Chalk another one up to the weather guys." Jill mumbled to herself. It was supposed to be a picture perfect sunny day.
The driveway into the cemetery was not plowed but after putting her truck in four-wheel drive, she didn't have any problems. She pulled near to Craig's grave and parked the truck. It was a short walk to the headstone. The sky was dark gray by now and the wind started to pick up slightly. She knelt down and with a gloved hand slowly cleared the snow from the stone and the artificial flowers that were already there. They were poinsettias so Pete and Sharon must have laid them there. They were bright red and extra stuff like Baby's Breath was mixed in. She vaguely remembered Sharon saying something about laying Christmas flowers there. The only flowers Jill ever laid were white roses; it didn't matter which holiday it was. That was what she laid again. She didn't know how long she knelt there. But as she stood up, the wind hit her like a brick wall. It came so fast that it took her by surprise and she almost fell over backwards.
"What the hell?" she said to no one in particular. She looked up at the sky and it was dark and rolling. It was the type of rolling that one always saw right before a really bad thunderstorm. It wasn't the type of sky one saw in the middle of January. By this time the wind was howling and the snow was swirling. Jill didn't exactly know what was going on but she decided that she wasn't going to stick around to find out.
She did not have any trouble getting out of the cemetery. But once she got on the main road, the wind pushed the truck around. Between the darkness and the blowing snow she could barely see ahead of her. The wind roared so loud it sounded like a freight train. She pulled over to what she thought was the side of the road. As she looked out the passenger side window she froze. A tornado was nearly on top of her. In her panic she threw the truck into gear and stomped on the gas. But the rear wheels just spun. She didn't flip the switch to pop the truck back into four-wheel drive. The roar of the wind drowned out her scream and all went to black.
"Ugh."
Jill slowly opened her eyes and found herself oriented on her left side. Everything that was in the truck was on top of her. She brought her right hand up to her face and felt the cakes of dried blood around her forehead. She wasn't sure how bad her cuts were but what she did know was that when the airbag went off it screwed her glasses into her face. She took them off and looked at them. "Well, they're done for." If there was anything fortunate, no damn lucky would be the better phrase, it was that nothing else appeared to be broken on her face. She was lucky too that she left her workbag in the truck. Her spare glasses were in there. The trick now was finding it.
She twisted her right arm around and managed to unbuckle her seat belt.
"Ow."
Her left knee complained as she wiggled. In fact her whole left side started to complain. So far it was only enough to be annoying.
She found her workbag down at her feet and got out her other glasses. She stood halfway up and tried to roll down the passenger window. Even though she hadn't a clue as to how many times the truck might have rolled, at least the mechanisms that allowed the window to crank up and down still worked. She grabbed her workbag that she never bothered to put away from the night before and threw it out the window. It sounded with a soft thud. The purse quickly followed. She reached for the window but then realized she almost forgot to pull on her wool hat. After one final look, there wasn't anything else of use so she grabbed the edges of the window and placed her feet on the seat and steering wheel. As she struggled to pull herself out one of her feet slipped and struck the horn. She jumped in surprise and almost lost her grip. She paused for a moment but heard nothing.
She finally got herself out and sat on what was the edge of her toolbox. As her eyes got used to the sunlight she saw that it was still winter and there was snow on the ground. She looked at the blue sky and this time dropped the F-bomb. There were two suns half-risen in the sky.
Jill looked at her surroundings frantically. She was in a wooded area with mountains in the distance but nothing was familiar. Her breath came fast and froze in the chilly air.
"Jill, take a deep breath and think about this," she said to the air. She took some more deep breaths and felt her body relax a little. By this point she didn't care if anyone heard or not.
"So am I unconscious and I'm dreaming all this, or is it real?" She gingerly made her way down off the truck. The snow, air, cold, and everything else seemed real enough. But as she looked up at the two suns again, it was just enough of a reminder that this wasn't right.
She forced the toolbox open a little and grabbed her blanket and some bungie cords. The bungie cords and her purse went into her workbag. She wrapped the heavy blanket around her. It was the blue one she had crocheted when she was much younger; not long after Gram taught her how. Little did she ever know how much comfort it would bring her later on. It helped to block the slight wind that had started. She looked down at her feet. At least she had enough sense to wear her winter boots when she started out.
Her left side and knee ached but it was still tolerable. She took one last walk around her truck. Even though it was dented and dinged from rolling over, the underside, especially the axles and driveshaft, appeared to be okay. If she ever made it back and got it rolled back over, she might be able to drive it.
With a sigh Jill looked down at her watch. It said three o'clock. Back home the sun would be low in the sky. Here, looking up, the twin suns appeared to be half-way and rising. She wasn't sure how much daylight she actually had left though. The truck landed on what appeared to be an open area where a wide trail, enough to pass for a road, cut through. With a forlorn look she looked at her truck and then turned and followed the road
With hurried footsteps, Lieutenant Lundgren went down the hallway. While he knew that the Father would be pleased to know that his Daughter had landed in to the O.Z.; he would not be happy with the news following that announcement. He reached the door to the study. He paused, took off his gloves, breathed deeply, and knocked.
A familiar deep voice beckoned him in, "Enter."
It took a moment for Lundgren's eyes to adjust to the dim light. This was the first time that he had ever been in the Father's private office. The Father was standing in front of the fireplace with his back to him. He was holding a glass in one hand and the other rested on the edge of a high-back chair. The deep voice beckoned again, "You have news?"
Lundgren cleared his throat. "Father, we have verification that your Daughter was successfully transferred in to the O.Z." He paused.
"And?" the deep voice beckoned again.
"However we cannot exactly determine her landing point. The alchemists are confident that she is within a 25 mile radius but the center of the new landing zone is about 250 miles or so off-course."
"Or so….. you say" replied the Father. He stared silently into the fireplace and swirled the liquid that was in his glass. The only sound in the room was the crackling of the fire.
Lundgren sensed the Father's displeasure. He quickly added, "I have already ordered our search teams dispatched to the new landing zone. But it will take them some time. However, there are some small regiments near the new coordinates. I have already sent messages to them. Certainly she cannot go far on her own."
The Father slowly turned and looked at the Lieutenant. He could sense that he was shaking. "Is the new landing zone off-course to the north or to the east?"
"It was to the north, sir. Unfortunately much closer to the Central City zone than anticipated." Lundgren twisted his gloves in between his hands.
The Father sat down in one of the chairs but continued to stare into the fire. Lundgren shifted his weight from one leg to the other. The Father's silence was unnerving. It was in this silence that he finally saw the rest of the contents of the office. He looked at the mounted heads of the trophy animals on the walls. Their mouths sneered and it appeared that all eyes were on him. He blinked hard and looked away from them.
Lundgren was unsure whether or not he should continue with this update. "The alchemists stated that a power surge occurred during the post-generation of the travel storm. They couldn't compensate for it and that is what caused the landing zone to go off-course. They further said that if they could have waited until spring, the amount of energy needed would have been much less."
"Yes, the alchemists informed me of what the outcome could be." interrupted the Father. "It was a risk that had to be taken. I told them that we could not wait another four months."
"But of course sir." Lundgren quickly added. He could feel the beads of sweat drip slowly down the side of his face.
The Father sighed but then regained his voice. "As always I have made contingency plans in the event the alchemists failed me. Leave me now. I need to compose correspondence to our Brothers and Sisters. Report to me when the search teams are near the landing zone" He paused. "Oh, and let me know when your small regiments report in as well."
"Yes sir." Lundgren saluted and quickly went out the door. He wasn't sure if the Father was being sarcastic with the last remark or not. However, the final tone of the Father's voice left no doubt that he wanted to be alone.
The Father heard his footsteps go down the hallway until he could hear them no more. Soon my precious Daughter, soon. He got out of his chair, walked over to his desk, and sat down. He reached into his pocket for his pen, grabbed a few pieces of parchment, and began to write.