A/N: IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE REST OF THE JANAVERSE SERIES, GO TO OUR PROFILE AND DO THAT BEFORE READING THIS ONE. If you don't, not only will you be confused, but you'll also be spoiled! You've been warned!

This being the first fic written after I played SoJ, I have to point out that SoJ is not remotely related to the Janaverse continuity (yet). Any characters, concepts, or backstory from SoJ (Apollo, I'm lookin' at you) are not "canon" as far as the Janaverse is concerned. And before you ask, yes - I LOVED SoJ. It's right up there with T&T and GK2 in my book. In fact, parts of this fic were even inspired by it! Although mostly in the sense that I, like the writers of SoJ as far as I can tell, asked myself "How crazy can this POSSIBLY get?" before setting out to write this. Also, WE NEED TO GO DARKER.


November 15 (2057), 6:45 PM, Ossenfelder Condominiums, Room no. 88

"Hey, kitten, open up," Miguel Fey-Armando said lightly, shifting his weight to his hip. "I know you're in there. A~nd I know I'm fifteen minutes late, but at least I got here." He knocked on the door again. "Kitten, you said you wanted to watch 2001, right? I wasn't lying when I said I found it on DVD."

Irritated now, he knocked on the door harder, and was surprised when the door swung slightly back.

"It's open…?" he said, blinking. Maybe Alois wasn't home? He pushed open the door, but it was stopped by something about three inches in.

Miguel was a prosecutor. He knew crime scenes, violent crime scenes, even if his specialty was more 'sick bastards on the deep web'. He knew how a crime scene smelled - he knew how a fresh corpse smelled… how blood smelled.

And the smell of blood was coming from the sliver of wall he could see through the crack of the door, which was splashed red.

"This can't be happening," he said faintly, not realizing he'd spoken out loud. And all at once he forgot the fact that he already knew that whoever was on the other side of the door was dead, and thought maybe he could still save them if he just called an ambulance, and he muscled open the door and it was Alois.

Not a random dead guy in Alois' apartment, but Alois von Karma-Gavin himself, lying just in front of his door, blood everywhere, stabbed so many times his torso looked more like ground meat with scraps of fabric sticking to it, and there was even a knife still embedded in his ribcage.

And very dead.

Miguel took a step backward, stumbled over nothing, and fell to the floor. He stared at the body. 2001: A Space Odyssey lay forgotten nearby.

"No… way…"

The sound of sirens.


January 13 (2053), 2:13 AM, Gavin Estate, Jana's room

6YJL401.

Jana woke up with a start.

She laid in bed, staring at the dark ceiling, for another minute, before sitting up and rubbing her hands over her face. 6YJL401 - she still remembered the number. It had been two and a half years since she'd seen it on a license plate, receding down an alley.

She'd been eleven then. She'd just turned fourteen, now. Today was going to be her debut in court - as a defense attorney, despite the fact that she came from a long line of prosecutors.

6YJL401…

She'd almost lost her brother that day.


April 27 (2054), 4:40 PM, Los Angeles County Morgue

Klavier Gavin threw back the sheet covering the corpse on the autopsy slab. Alois stared down at it, eyebrows raised, then turned to his father.

"It's uncanny," he said evenly.

The corpse in question was the spitting image of his sister, Jana, at least in the face - Klavier hadn't pulled down the sheet far enough to see the rest of the body, although judging by the way the fabric fell against it, it was definitely the body of a full-grown woman, not the late-blooming fifteen-year-old the actual Jana was. But the face… it was the same face, although several years older, and somehow even in death harder; she must have been pale when living, since her skin was stark white, and her sightless eyes were the same light, almost-greenish blue that both the von Karma-Gavin siblings had inherited from their father. Even her hair was about right: platinum blonde and roughly the same style, although much longer, and with a streak of blue-gray that only the dead woman knew if it was natural or dyed.

"No one has any idea who she is," Klavier said. "We've ran dental, fingerprints - everything. She's a total Jane Doe. All we know about her is that she's half-white half-asian and approximately 22 years old."

"…and she just happens to look exactly like an older version of Jana," Alois said.

"It's strange, ja?" He shook his head. "Homeless man found her in a dumpster not too far from here. She'd only been dead for about an hour when he called it in. And I hear the reporters are already all over this one - calling it the start of Jack the Ripper updated for the 21st century."

"So she was disemboweled?"

"Ja. Surgical precision and everything. Anyway, Alois, you think you can take this case? I was supposed to, but I have to meet your mother in Borginia and my flight leaves in two hours-"

"-and it's an emergency, ja, Ich kenne. I assume Onkel Miles already gave his approval?"

"He was the one who suggested it, actually. Seems you and I were the only ones not working on a case right now - although I thought you were still on the Brooks case?"

Alois shook his head. "Got extradited to Texas this morning. Frau Anklägerin Marshall is taking that over."

Klavier nodded absently. "Herr Edgeworth, on top of things as always." There was the implicit addition of despite his age, although that didn't mean much coming from a 52-year-old. "So, you can just grab the case file for this one out of my office, although there isn't much in it so far."

"Alright."

"…and you and Jana will be fine with just Kristoph in the house for the next week? Herr Edgeworth commented that he and Herr Wright can take Jana in again like they did last December. And I'm sure Maria or Miguel would be more than willing to let you crash at one of their places."

Alois frowned at the mention of last December. Last December, both of his parents had been overseas on business (Franziska had been in Zheng Fa then, and Klavier in Germany), and Jana had stayed with the Wrights and Alois had stayed with Maria Fey-Armando, since Kristoph had been in San Francisco. But what had wound up happening was that Maria had been assaulted by a crazy man, ending up in a coma for several days, and Alois had been blamed for it, and had gone on trial, being prosecuted by his own best friend, and Maria's brother, Miguel.

"Onkel Kristoph's fine, Papa."

"Well… alright then, Alois." Klavier clapped him on the back. "I've got to be off, then. You can ask Dr. Kamosinko for details about the autopsy. Achtung, kiddo!" He left the room, humming, and passed a large man wearing a thick black cloak and a thick white beard on his way out. "Doctor."

"Prosecutor Gavin," Dr. Kamosinko said jovially, then walked up to Alois and the Jane Doe. "Ahh, it is younger Prosecutor Gavin, Prosecutor Alisa! You have been well, yes?"

"Ja, Herr Doktor Kamosinko, and it's Alois, not Alisa," Alois said with a smile. "I just took over the Jane Doe case."

"Jane Doe case? You mean Jack the Ripper case?" Dr. Kamosinko said with a laugh. "Cause of death very similar to butchered prostitutes in 1888. Very surprising. This is Los Angeles, not Whitechapel. Xa xa xa xa xa!"

Alois' smile stayed on his face. The coroner was always a bit of an experience.

"But I not one who performed examination on Jane Doe," Dr. Kamosinko continued, still chortling a little.

"Examination?" Alois said, "has there been no autopsy yet?"

"Why need autopsy? Jack the Ripper already perform for us!" He slapped Alois on the back hard enough that he almost stumbled into the autopsy slab. "Everything left to assistant, Jackie. Jackie! Come here!"

"Yes, Dr. Kamosinko?" came a voice from the other side of the room, where there was another door. Alois turned around and was struck by the assistant's appearance, although it wasn't terribly remarkable - she was just a pale, rail-thin woman with straight black hair that covered one eye, the other of which had an ashen darkness under it that rivaled even Prosecutor Blackquill's bags. Other than that, she could have been anyone off the street.

"This is Jackie Proserpine," Dr. Kamosinko said, gesturing to her as she came to stand next to him. "She is new student under my care. Jackie, this is Alisa von Karma-Gavin. He is prosecutor."

Alois blinked, shaking himself, and extended a hand for her to shake. "Alois, actually." He was certain that he didn't know her from Eve, but… somehow he was starting to get that sick, heady feeling he usually associated with being around blood, or trapped in a small, dark space.

"Charmed," said Jackie, shaking Alois' hand. "I've heard of you before."

"Only good things, I hope," Alois said, grinning.

"You are unwell, Prosecutor Alisa?" Dr. Kamosinko suddenly said, "you suddenly are very pale."

"Eh?" Alois glanced at him. He had a genuinely concerned expression on his face. "N-Nein, Herr Doktor Kamosinko. I'm perfectly fine. And it's Alois, not Alisa."

"Hmmmm." Dr. Kamosinko leaned closer, scrutinizing Alois' face, before drawing back and shrugging. "Well, I leave you with Jackie. Tell sister I said zdravstvuy, yes?"

"Of course, Herr Doktor Kamosinko."

Neither Alois nor Jackie said anything while Dr. Kamosinko wandered off, whistling. Once the door slammed, he turned back to her.

"So, you did the examination, Frau… Fräulein Proserpine?" Alois said, ignoring the weird, tight feeling in his chest.

Jackie nodded. "The body was less than two hours old when it came in last night. I've already sent blood and tissue samples away for toxicology, although I doubt they'll come back with much. It's clear that the cause of death was exsanguination. Would you like to take a look?"

Alois glanced at the body. He could see - he hadn't really been paying attention to it a minute ago - a very deep gash in the Jane Doe's throat, although it had already been washed and there wasn't any blood remaining. "Ja, that'd be gut."

Jackie nodded again and threw the sheet back the rest of the way. Alois felt a twinge looking at the body, partially because it was really quite strange to be looking at an adult version of your sister in the nude, and partially because of the cavernous slashes covering her torso, and the ugly cuts on her hands and arms. He was glad the body had been cleaned, because surely when it was found in the dumpster it had had enough blood on it to put Alois out of commission for a week.

"With abdominal mutilation like this," he mused, "no wonder this is being called the 'Jack the Ripper' case."

Jackie shrugged. "If this is really supposed to emulate Jack the Ripper's MO, then it should have some facial and genital mutilation, too. Also, all of the internal organs seem to be accounted for, although I can't say that for sure until I perform a full autopsy."

Alois raised his eyebrows. "Are you a Ripperologist, Fräulein Proserpine?"

She gave him a dry smile. "Is it strange to be interested in serial killers? It's how I got into the medical examination field."

"Nothing wrong with that," Alois said lightly, "my own mentor is endlessly fascinated by the psychology of criminals, in fact."

"Mm. Anyway, Jack the Ripper is fascinating and all, but I've always been a fan of H. H. Holmes."

"H. H. Holmes… he was contemporaneous with Jack the Ripper, er war nicht?"

"Yes, although his death count was much higher. Jack's canonical five versus Holmes' confessed 27…"

"I heard he might have killed up to 200," Alois said, turning back to the body, "obwohl that's beside the point, isn't it?"

"It is," Jackie said with a sigh. "Although there isn't much to say with this body. I'm sure Dr. Kamosinko already told you how dental and fingerprints didn't come with any kind of match."

"I've been told, ja."

"Will the prosecutorial offices be putting up posters or something?" she asked.

"Of course we will," Alois said, smiling, although he still felt slightly… jittery. At this point, he was thinking the body hadn't been cleaned as well as it looked, and it perhaps still smelled slightly of blood - this was a problem he usually had whenever he ventured to the coroner's office, naturally. "It's difficult to investigate a murder when you don't know who might have come into contact with the victim."

"Oh, I know," Jackie said, pulling the sheet back over the Jane Doe. She glanced at the clock on the wall. "Dr. Kamosinko and I will perform the autopsy tomorrow. He'll probably send me by your office to drop off the report."

"Alles klar," Alois said. "My office is room 0501. It's on the fifth floor."

"Duly noted."

As Alois was exiting the room, he heard Jackie grumble something behind him. He glanced back, and saw that she was staring down at the corpse with such a furious expression in her visible eye that Alois felt as though a large spike had just been driven through his chest. He quickly stepped out into the hallway, grateful that Jackie seemed to have not noticed him looking at her, and tried to pull air into lungs that weren't cooperating right now.

Dizzy, he dropped into a chair halfway down the hall, and put his aching head between his knees.


April 27, 5:30 PM, Los Angeles County Morgue

"Alois?"

"Huh?" Alois looked up, face still pale, to see Blanche Noir, the transplanted-Chicago-native detective he always worked with, crouching in front of him.

"You behind the eight-ball, kid?" she said.

Alois stood up, a little unsteady on his feet. "I'm alright," he said lightly, "just a little overwhelmed by the smell here."

Detective Noir gave him a critical look. "I can deal with the croakers for you. Just stay in your scatter, savvy?"

Alois shook his head. "Surely you also think it's lächerlich for a prosecutor to have a phobia of blood. Sooner or later I've got to learn how to handle it."

"Alois…"

He glanced back at the door that lead to the room where the autopsies were performed. "But I wonder why…" He wondered why he would have such an adverse reaction to the coroner's assistant just, what, having a bad day and taking out her frustrations by glowering at an unidentified corpse? And…

He also wondered just why on earth he'd developed a phobia of blood. He didn't used to have one, he was sure of that, even if he couldn't remember exactly how long ago it was now that he was totally fine being around blood-soaked crime scenes, let alone people with papercuts and nosebleeds.

Detective Noir sighed. "Forget about it, Alois. Anyway, by the time you get back to the Prosecutors' Building, it'll be about time to take the air. And I hear your folks are in Borginia and that shyster uncle of yours is watching you and your sister. You want to hop in my boiler?"

"Danke, I'd love a ride home, Frau Detektivin Noir…"

"I assume tomorrow we'll be putting the screws on that bindle punk who found the stiff. Do you think we'll be able to crab who she is?" Detective Noir said as they exited the building.

"Hm?" Alois said.

"Are you listening to me when I'm jawing, Alois?"

"Entschuldige. Ja, we'll need to talk to the man who discovered the body tomorrow. You know where he is, jein?"

Detective Noir grunted. "He's lying dormy at the homeless shelter two blocks away from the clubhouse. I don't think he'll take a Mickey Finn while this case is still going." She jerked her head towards the other side of the parking garage. "My heap's over here. Come on, Alois."

"Hn."

He really wasn't paying attention. He was just wondering if he should tell Jana that a future and/or alternate version of herself had put in an appearance in mortem. This was troubling not only because of the obvious (the fact that she'd been murdered), but also because that meant that somewhere out there, there used to be a Jana who had reached adulthood while still participating in all that time-travel nonsense she and Alois had been unceremoniously thrown into in January.

And considering it was blindingly obvious that she didn't belong in this present… clearly it hadn't worked out for her.


July 8 (2050), 1:00 PM, Alley connecting Hiza Street and Lee Boulevard

There'd been a murder on Lee Boulevard, which quite naturally attracted its fair share of rubberneckers. Or at least it had a couple hours ago. Over the course of the day, the police had cordoned off the crime scene so they could pick it clean, shut down the whole road so that hapless drivers were forced to detour onto "Pothole" Avenue, and threatened to charge any curious onlookers with loitering and obstructing an investigation.

A car, with a license plate that read 6YJL401, idled on Hiza Street. California's answer to H. H. Holmes calmly waited for the opportunity to snatch up one of those shooed-away gawkers right out from under the LAPD's nose.


April 27 (2054), 11:30 PM, Gavin Estate, Jana's room

"Jana, aufwachen, und sagen Sie nicht ein Wort."

Jana blinked her eyes open, then turned her head. For a minute she thought it was her mother speaking, although somehow it sounded off, but when she saw the shadowy silhouette next to her bed, she again thought it might be her mother.

Except her mother was in Borginia right now, and somehow, something wasn't right.

Jana reached for her lamp. The figure turned it on before she could.

They stared at each other.

The stranger in Jana's room was not, in fact, a stranger, but someone who had Jana's face and voice, except both were slightly older and much, much harder. This Jana looked like she was about 18 or so, with hair that brushed her shoulders and had a blue-gray streak in it, and a figure exactly like the one Franziska had had in her youth. She also dressed very much like Franziska, although she had no sleeves, and her stockings were punkishly ripped. A coiled whip hung off of a belt whose buckle was a tarnished-looking Gavinner's "G".

"What," Jana said, keeping her voice low.

The other Jana's frown deepened. "I am you," she said, pre-empting Jana's question, "from three years in the future - your future, the alpha alpha timeline. I need your help."

"No," Jana said firmly, "I am done with time-travel. It causes nothing but trouble."

"Yes, but there will be more trouble if we fail to act. Come with me. There is something you need to see." She reached out a hand to her younger self, which Jana hesitated before taking - only taking it because of the grim matter-of-factness with which her older self had extended it. As the other Jana pulled her out of bed, she almost felt like this was the literal pull of fate.

The other Jana pulled something out of her pocket that looked like a smartphone, except somewhat thicker. "This is what a time-travel device looks like in my present," she said, catching Jana's glance.

"Where is the door?" Jana asked begrudgingly.

In response, the other Jana placed the device in Jana's hand. The now-familiar time door, blue and orange, fluid and glowing, flashed into existence at the foot of Jana's bed.

"You can only see it if you are holding the device," the other Jana explained.

"Does that head back to 2057…?"

The other Jana nodded curtly. "And do not worry about disappearing for too long. My doors are accurate down to the second. In fact, if we linger here too long, we may just meet yourself returning."

"A… Alright," Jana said, hesitating. She wondered if she was insane for agreeing to go. But… she had to least see what the other Jana had come here over.

As her older self grabbed her hand, sandwiching the time-travel device between their palms, and lead the way through the time door, Jana realized that she probably should have asked for a moment to change out of her pajamas.


April 27, 11:30 PM, Los Angeles Central Hospital, Psychiatric Ward

Ares wasn't sleeping, just counting the tiles on the ceiling of his room, which were illuminated only by the hall lights outside the window in his door. That was one of the things he hated about the hospital: the fact that the hall lights were never turned off. Dimmed, sure, once the hour got late enough, but never off.

He also hated the sounds the ambulances made when they were pulling up to the emergency room. The ER wasn't very far from the psych wing, unfortunately for him. It was probably set up like because there were so damn many people who wandered into the ER and ended up being sent up here for an evaluation.

He wondered if they told those people that housed on the same floor were dangerous criminals such as himself.

The door opened. Ares glanced toward it, feeling as though he should be more surprised than he actually was. After all, that wasn't supposed to happen - not at this time of night.

And even when the door did open, it was supposed to be a nurse or a shrink, not his half-sister.

"Put some pants on," Watson Justice said, her hands shoved deep in her labcoat's pockets. "We've got things to do and I don't have all night."

Ares raised an eyebrow at her. "What the hell are you doing, Wat?"

"Releasing you on parole. Now get up before someone notices me."


A "Ripperologist" is what people interested in Jack the Ripper call themselves. I know this because my dad is a Ripperologist. Also, because of this, I've actually read a bunch of the original case reports on the Whitechapel murders, and saucy Jack's letters. Very dry reading, to be honest, but interesting nonetheless. I really should go back and FINISH reading said reports and such…

Translations:
ja (DE) yes/yeah
Ich kenne. (DE) I know.
Onkel (DE) Uncle
Frau Anklägerin (DE) Prosecutor literally, Ms./Mrs. Prosecutor. Incidentally, this is referring to Trucy
Herr (DE) Mr.
Achtung, (DE) oh, like Klavier uses it correctly anyway…
Alisa (RU) the Russian equivalent of Alice
Herr Doktor (DE) Dr. literally, Mr. Doctor
Xa xa xa xa xa! (RU) Ha ha ha ha ha!
Nein (DE) No
zdravstvuy (RU) hi/hello
Frau… Fräulein (DE) Ms/Mrs… Miss Alois is unsure about her age and martial status, so while he initially thinks she's old enough to warrant a "Frau", he errs on the side of flattery
gut (DE) good
er war nicht? (DE) was he not?
obwohl (DE) although
Alles klar (DE) Okay, got it literally, all clear
lächerlich (DE) ridiculous/laughable
Danke, (DE) Thanks,
Frau Detektivin (DE) Detective literally, Ms./Mrs. Detective
Entschuldige. (DE) Sorry./Excuse me. informal
jein? (DE) kind of a weird mixture between yes and no
in mortem.(LA) in death.
Jana, aufwachen, und sagen Sie nicht ein Wort. (DE) Jana, wake up, and don't say a word.