Jane Additionals

Daria and related characters and situations are the property of Viacom / MTV Networks. This work is strictly for the entertainment of Daria fans.

Daria stumbled as Judith dragged her up the stairs of Schloss Morgendorffer. They paused at the top.

"Quit bawling." Judith commanded. "Where's your room?"

Daria gulped and pointed with a jerk of her chin. Judith pushed her down the hall by her hand-cuffed wrists

"Disgusting!" Judith pronounced as they entered Daria's room. "You've got to be kidding me."

Judith threw her bound captive down on the pastel-spread bed and took a painful look around the room. She tsk-tsked at the soft pink and blue wallpaper adorned with posters of boy bands and unicorns. She sniffed at the large plush animals on the chairs and bed. She vaporized a long-horned smiling plushie perched looking out the window.

"Mr. Boggs!" Daria sobbed.

"Just how old are you?" she asked Daria.

"Twenty-four," Daria blubbered.

"Twenty-four? You still dress like in high school? And you still live with your parents? God, you're pathetic."

"Please, please don't hurt them. Let me go, please. I'm just a bookkeeper. I had to tell the police."

Judith did not care what Daria's backstory was but it was fun to make this one suffer. She had the time to listen.

"Tell the police what?"

"My boss, Mr. Lundegaard sent you, right? To tell me to keep quiet, right?" Daria sobbed. "But I had to go to the police when I saw he was skimming money from the Beringer Road Project. It's just not right to steal from the taxpayers or...or anybody."

Judith pulled Daria to a sitting position by her hair. She backhanded Daria causing her to shriek and squeak even louder.

"I don't care about your scuzzy little embezzling weasel boss."

"Then...then who are you? What do you want? Please, I've got almost three thousand dollars saved up. Let's go to the bank and I'll give it to you."

Judith always loved this moment, the reveal. She brought gloved hands to the hood of her red cloak and without flourish pushed the hood back and down.

Daria gasped through her sniffles. "You...you're me!"

Judith got in her face and spat each word slowly, "I am not you, you Green Jacketed Snot Nosed Bitch. I. Am. Judith." Her spittle dripped down Daria's thick glasses.

Judith did not think it was possible but Daria found a new reservoir of tears to shed down her cheeks.

"Oh, I wish Andrea was here. She can always take care of me. Andrea always knows what to do."

"Ugh! You are pathetic. But you actually got it closer to right than most of the others. This is what it is, Green Jacketed Snot Nosed Bitch. We're versions of each other, as hard as I may find to believe that. I've traveled the universes meeting dozens of us: most are utterly common nothings, some are sickeningly brave and good heroes, some are demon-mean villains. Some even scare me; they're so unfeeling without emotion you can't even call them cold. But I've never met one as pathetic, as weak a pussy cunt as you are. I guess that must balance out the piss-mean ones."

"But most of you have one thing in common," Judith continued. "You're close to an artifact of power which I need."

Thwack! Thwack! She slapped Daria again. She followed it with a punch to Daria's gut. Judith pulled her hair and demanded, "Now, where's Quinn's hair-brush? I know it's on this world but it's cloaked somehow. Tell me." She let Daria regain her breath a moment before drawing back her hand for another strike.

"No, no please don't hit me. Quinn's hair-brush? But it's almost all we have left from her. Please, just take my money. You can buy a dozen better antique hair-brushes."

Judith took a step back and drew her katana from its interdimensional saya in her cloak. She gave it a small flourish before Daria's terror-filled eyes. With a long, slow swing Judith sliced a half-dollar sized gobbet of flesh from Daria's left knee cap. Daria shrieked and jerked as her blood spurted high and bright red. It ran hotly down into her boot.

"I'm not fucking around. I need Quinn's hair-brush."

"Then you'll let me go?" Daria managed to gasp. "You won't hurt Mommy and Daddy?"

"Yes, yes," Judith promised. "I'll let you go. You're really not badly hurt. I'll fix up your little boo-boo and get out of here forever. I never want to see you again."

"It's in a box in Quinn's room. Please just take it and leave."

Judith wiped her sword on Daria's skirt then sheathed it expertly. She yanked Daria up by her green jacket's collar. Daria was pulled stumbling and crying down the hall. Judith threw her on Quinn's black-sheeted bed then surveyed the room appreciatively.

"This is more like it," she said as she took in the padded walls, barred window and detailed anatomical posters on Quinn's walls.

"Warning: interdimensional travelers of unknown origin have appeared on this world. Closing on your position." Her sensors spoke up.

"Estimated time of arrival?" Judith subvocalized.

"Distant entry portal. Ninety minutes ETA."

Judith smirked. More than enough time to get the brush and then have whatever fun she wanted with the Green Jacketed Snot Nosed Bitch. She half-regretted not being able to meet and destroy the new intruders. But Judith had used the great majority of her armament on rendering a couple dozen men, women and robots of various loosely-allied, reality-defending organizations into the dead humans and mangled robots strewn on the Morgendorffer front yard. A glamour spell caused any passersby to imagine they saw only a well-maintained lawn.

She scanned the room with all her sensors: technological, magickal and alchemical but still nothing. She turned to Daria and noted that this Daria was as strong and unusually fit as any of the others; the gaping wound had stopped bleeding and was already starting to scab over.

"Where?"

"In her dresser. A mahogany box in the top drawer."

Judith pulled open the drawer cautiously and saw the box nestled in a mass of clean, unfolded panties. She scanned the box again and the absence of any kind of sensation from an ordinary-looking wooden box put her on alert. Her sensors should easily have seen whatever was inside a plain wooden box. The box would go back to her prime safeworld for examination. That is once she had the vastly more vital hairbrush.

Judith placed the box besides Daria. She stepped to Daria's side.

"This is the way it's going to be. I'm going to uncuff you. You're going to keep your hands behind you until I step to the door. Then you're going to open the box when I tell you and not before. I don't have to tell you, I have the sword-and worse things-in my cloak. Understand?"

Daria managed to nod. Judith uncuffed her and moved half out the door. She put her hands on a few different offensive and defensive systems inside her cloak.

"Now reach over and slowly open the box. Don't move the box otherwise."

Judith instantly felt the presence of the brush as Daria opened the box wide. She saw a white-handled object on black velvet lining.

"Hold the box open and out to me." Daria did so and the sensation of the brush was stronger and unmistakable.

"Place the box on the bed. Take out the brush and put it on the bed. Then slide away from it and put your hands behind your back."

Judith could not help but smile broadly as Daria put the soft-bristled brush on the bed. She quickly snapped cuffs on Daria's wrists and shoved her off the bed. "Stay down."

Judith picked up the old ivory-handled brush and felt power run through it. She ran a small portion of her power into it and strands of bright red hair were reduced to flaming acrid dust leaving the brush undamaged.

Daria forgot her pain and fright as she saw Judith stroke the brush though the air leaving long-lasting streaks of rainbow colors. Judith snapped the box closed and put it in a compartment of her cloak. The brush fitted into an even more secure, deeper pocket.

"You'll let me go now?"

Judith turned her attention on the pathetic excuse for a version of herself. "Oh no, I'm going to kill you." She smiled sweetly.

Daria goggled at her. "But you promised. It's not good to lie!"

"Ugh, I'm doing the universe a favor by ridding it of you."

"You know you can just leave her alone and come have fun with us." Smooth gravelly voices spoke in unison behind her.

Judith's breath caught in her throat. She turned and her heart skipped. Six Jane Lanes all cocked their heads and gave her a quizzical, endearing smile. They looked identical and were dressed either like her Jane in orange, green and black or in black and red. Six pairs of blue eyes which Judith could never get enough of regarded her from six heart-shaped faces.

"Jane," Judith breathed, momentarily nonplussed.

Harder, firmer then. "Jane, I don't know which agency you all are from but this isn't your fight. You know I don't want to hurt you but I will if I have to. Just back off and let me get away."

For an answer each Jane began a slow strip, a sincere smile on her lips and in her eyes. Judith was now as goggle-eyed as the forgotten, despised Daria. Soon six slim, black-haired young women were naked and regarding Judith with heartfelt invitation and engaging self-consciousness.

Jane held out her arms.

One spoke and then another. "Come away with us." "Forget that one. She's not worth it." "We know a beach on a warm, temperate world where we can all run and play naked all day."

Judith's mouth fell open and she took an involuntary half-step toward the nearest pair of Jane's arms. They all smiled wider at her.

"You're that Jane Lane. Lanes?" the cringing girl on the bed broke the spell.

Judith made her decision then. Both hands flashed in then out of her cloak throwing something at the massed Janes. Rainbow lights flashed and six Janes crumpled to the floor.

Judith bit her lip and took another involuntary half-step forward. That spell was once again broken by Daria.

"Did you hurt them?"

Cold anger took over as Judith turned. Her katana was drawn left-handed this time.

"Green."

She thrust the sword expertly between Daria's ribs.

"Jacketed."

Twist. Withdrawal.

"Snot."

Into the stomach then.

"Nosed."

Slice. Withdrawal.

"Bitch."

Daria was already dead but Judith punctuated the last word with a slash across the throat.

After a quick swipe of the blade on a clean part of the bed, Judith turned back to Jane.

"I'm sorry, Jane," she sighed. "You obviously all work for some meddlesome entities and agencies. I can't have you all running around the multiverse distracting me."

She considered adding more non-lethal weapons to her arsenal but quickly shook her head no.

An elaborate watch on Jane's wrist caught her eye. Judith stooped, lifted the wrist and fiddled with the watch before letting Jane's wrist fall limply down.

She sat in a chair and wept, tears running down her face and soft, slow, low sobs wracking her chest. After six minutes the watch sounded an alarm.

Judith instantly stopped crying. She stood up, carefully fingered the locket on her necklace and disappeared in a flash of blue light.