Conspiracy Skills
Chapter One: That Ominous Feeling
A/N: I am sorry for having to divide the chapter like this. I say chapter because I have no concept of length and am now dividing this when it's TEN PAGES LONG. So I apologize for the lack of Criminal Minds goodness. But do not fear, for there will be plenty to come. I hope you will be patient with the first chapter!
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds, Dracula, Michael Jackson (ew), or Teletubbies.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some random house
Somewhere near the West Coast
Two teenaged girls were sitting on a green couch in front of a television proclaiming to have all the medical cures that the pharmaceutical companies didn't want them to know about. One girl had short ginger hair, green eyes, and was wearing red and black plaid pants with a denim jacket over a plain black shirt. She was resting against the high armrest of the couch, her legs tucked beneath her, as she absent-mindedly picked at the sleeve of her jacket and watched the infomercial with a blank expression on her face.
The other girl had long wavy black hair and dark-brown eyes that watched the medical-miracle-man a little more attentively than the other girl. She was wearing a long-sleeved rust-red shirt with a logo for a fictional Chinese fast-food restaurant with black cargo pants. She was using her armrest as a pillow, one arm hanging over it and playing with her hair, as she occasionally flipped the remote on her stomach with her free hand and sub-consciously tapped a tune on the wall with her feet, which were hanging over the back of the couch.
"Hey, Ash?" asked the ginger-haired girl.
"Nngnn." The other girl mumbled something and changed the channel, to a mini blender-like device that promised to save you hundreds of dollars and completely renovate your kitchen, to show she was listening.
"There's nothing on, why don't we go outside?" She looked away and blinked hard as the after-image of the perky couple stayed with her.
"And do what?" her dark-eyed friend drunk-muttered.
"Wander?"
The television screen died and the ginger girl watched as the woman who couldn't roll and 'r' to save her life went away. She looked back to her friend and saw that she was being stared at.
"Savannah?"
"Asher?"
Asher smiled and swung her legs off the back of the couch and sat perfectly upright in one fluid motion and whispered, "You are a genius, dear Savvy".
Savannah watched as Asher sprang up from the couch, hands over her head, and ran down the hallway next to the television they had been watching. Savannah could hear her friend rummage through the garage and swear occasionally as things crashed and shattered. After a particularly loud avalanche of junk and an awkward silence, Asher's voice echoed down the hall.
"Hey, Savvy? You might want to wait outside, I'm pretty sure I just released toxic fumes into the house."
"You did what?!"
"I'm not kidding, you better run. I'll be right out, though!"
Savannah sat wide-eyed on the couch for a few more seconds before running through the kitchen to her left and out the sliding glass door. She stood there silently fidgeting for a few minutes while she wondered whether she should call the police or the fire department. Savannah was about to run to a neighbor's house to call for help when she heard the garage door open. She slowly walked around the house to the front and saw a red wagon slowly come in to view.
As the door lifted higher and higher she saw that the wagon was piled high with stuff that was covered with a blue tarp and tied down to the wagon. Higher still the door rose and she saw the feet, shins, and legs of Asher come into view. When the door had fully lifted, Savannah could see Asher standing on top of the pile in the wagon, black handle in hand, looking proudly in some upward direction with her fists on her waist.
Birds chirped in the background and the two girls could hear children screaming at a nearby yard as they both stood there.
"Um, so…no toxic chemicals?" Savannah asked.
"Oh, crap! I forgot about that! Shut the door, shut the door!"
Asher jumped off the wagon, kicked it down the driveway, and threw herself onto the garage door, slowly dragging it down to the ground while the mechanism whirred in resistance. Savannah covered her nose and mouth with her shirt and ran into the garage, slamming the button with the palm of her hand, and then running back down the driveway. She stopped on the sidewalk and turned around to see Asher still pulling the garage door down.
"It's…working!" Asher grunted. Savannah stared as her friend slowly sank to the ground grunting and panting and trying to blow the fumes back into the garage.
The door finally closed and Asher lay in a heap next to it trying to catch her breath.
"I did it!" she panted. "I saved the world from zombification!"
As Asher laughed in her victorious and slightly maniacal way, Savannah retrieved the covered wagon from the middle of the street, feeling slightly light-headed. She bent down to grab the handle and as she stood back up she felt something tackle her to the ground.
"Eh?!" Savannah cried. "What's going—?"
"Run, fool, run!"
Asher grabbed the back of her jacket and started running down the street, leaving her friend to stumble and yell as she tried to get to her feet without tripping over the wagon, which she still held on to. Savannah finally got to her feet and started running as fast as she could to fall into place with Asher.
"Run! Psycho axe-murderer! Boogie-man! Dracula! Zombies! Michael Jackson! RUN!" The group of children that the two girls had been coming up to immediately scattered in different directions, screaming at the top of their lungs. Doors belonging to houses on either side of them began to open but Asher screamed: "THE TELETUBBIES BROKE OUT OF THE SLAMMER! STAY IN YOUR HOUSES!!"
Doors immediately slammed shut and blinds lowered as Asher continued to drag Savannah down the street at top speed. Asher yelled to turn left and Savannah did as she was told and followed Asher around the corner and onto another street.
"Stop!"
Savannah skidded to a halt and yanked the wagon back as it tried to roll past her. She bent double with her hands on her knees and gasped for breath. Savannah looked to her right and saw that Asher was in a similar position and was still holding on to the back of Savannah's jacket.
"Right." Asher stood upright and finally letting go of Savannah and flexing her hand from holding on so tight for so long. "Now that that's out of the way, what do you say we go to the park, Savvy?"
She looked down at her friend and saw that Savannah's jaw had dropped and was staring in bewilderment at her.
"What?!"
"I think going to the park would be a perfect way to cool down after all that excitement." Asher explained as she wiped the dust off of her red shirt and black cargos.
"Excitement? Is that would you call throwing the whole neighborhood into a panic and running down the street for no reason?" Savannah stood up straight and stared Asher in the eye. Asher only stared back with a look of complete innocence.
"There was a reason. I just didn't want anyone to be out in the street when it happened. Here, let me pull the wagon to the park since you had to run with it."
Asher took the handle from Savannah and started walking down the sidewalk humming to herself while Savannah only stared after her. When Asher was half-way down the block Savannah ran to catch up with her.
"What do you mean 'when it happened'? When what happened?"
BOOOOOM!!!!!
Savannah screamed and fell to the ground from the force of the explosion.
"When my house blew up."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The day was slightly overcast, the sun only making brief appearances among the clouds, but families were still gathered at the park with blankets and lunches along with the occasional dog. Groups of friends were walking or riding their bikes together along the small maze the paths made. In the middle of the park was a lake that only leaves floated upon that day because of the weather, but the lack of sun was not enough to stop dogs from running and splashing together while their agitated but laughing owners tried to call them back.
"Here!" Asher said. She stopped in the middle of an empty patch of the park, those near the lake only looking about an inch high from their distance.
"Do I want to know why 'here' is the perfect spot?" Savannah stopped next to her friend and threw a cautious look at the little red wagon that had been the cause of an exploding house.
"Obviously, since you just asked that question, but if I told you that would ruin the surprise. Here," Asher bent down and blindly reached under the tarp for a few seconds and then pulled out a rather thick and battered looking leather wallet, "why don't you go wander the park and maybe get a snack or something while I set up?" She gave Savannah a ten dollar bill and put the wallet in one of the side pockets of her cargos.
"Okay." Savannah said slowly a she took the bill from Asher.
Asher smiled pleasantly at Savannah but otherwise did nothing. Savannah understood that Asher wasn't going to start until she left so Savannah turned away and walked a few steps before stopping and turning back to her friend. Asher smiled even wider and Savannah had a sense of foreboding as she walked down the grassy slope towards a promising pretzel stand near the lake.
Asher watched as Savannah walked away, gathering more confidence in her stride as she got closer to the lake, and laughed quietly to herself when Savannah was far enough away. Asher turned to the wagon rubbing her hands together. She got down on her knees in the grass and caressed the tarp, feeling the bumps and peaks of the items beneath it.
"Now," she said as she cut away the ropes tying the tarp down, "now I shall harness my raw power and deliver us to destiny!" She ripped the tarp off of the wagon with a flourish and laughed as her eyes set upon the contents of the wagon.
"DESTINY!!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FBI private jet
35,000 feet above Kentucky
"Hey, Hotch, you okay?"
The rest of the BAU turned to look at their boss at the back of the jet. He was sitting in the leather seat, looking out his window with a look of confusion and mild disturbance on his face.
"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just…" he faced the rest of his team, "I just got this chill down my spine and this deep feeling as though I need to be ready to fire my gun. Like something is coming."
Silence followed his words and his team exchanged looks among themselves.
"Anyway, it's nothing. Probably this case getting to me." Hotch waved a file in front of them before setting it back in his lap and setting back to work. After a few seconds his team followed his example and did the same.
What Hotch didn't tell them was that he also felt a great need to alert the Director and tell her to quarantine Quantico and be on the look-out for a psychotic teenaged girl and her Mormon friend. Hotch pushed it away, thinking it was nothing, and began to go over the profile of a kidnapper they had just arrested.
How sorry Hotch would soon be that he hadn't paid more attention.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N: Again, so very sorry for the lack of Criminal Minds! I don't plan these things ahead of time, I just type and type and type some more. Anywho, never fear, for the cast shall make more of an appearance in next part! I hope you all liked what has been presented so far and continue to read! Also, I'm usually not this formal; I'm just kicking myself for the way things turned out.
Next time….There are even more explosions, Hotch gets harassed, and Morgan gets office supplies thrown at him!
