Author's Note: This is Jenny's story.
More so than the others, which were about Jenny but had Seo as a main character. I really feel like this story is Jenny's. Through and through.
For all you confused readers out there, this story is the third in a trilogy of stories that all occur in rapid succession, in my Child of Balime series, and all focus on Jenny. "The Totos and the Vanguard", "Green-Eyed Monster", and "Butterflies." Just keep reading, and you'll probably figure out what the heck is going on, pretty soon.
I'd been trying to resist putting in actual flashbacks to Jenny's past with Aychron. I was hoping to just allude to it, and let you fill in the details. But it worked so beautifully, here, that I just decided to put them in, anyways!
So yes. We'll be flashing back and forth between Growing-Up Jenny and Hundred-Year-Old Jenny.
Hope you like it.
Enjoy.
An inhuman scream blasted down from the mountaintop.
Yet Jenny climbed.
Her breath ragged, her hair a mess, dark circles lingering beneath her eyes. But she kept the old man with the proud stance in her sight at all times. Followed him with every bit of strength she had in her.
As the echoes of the scream faded, the old man stopped.
Behind him, Jenny stopped, too.
Trying to find someplace to hide. But — he had lingered in an open area. And she was caught out.
"You've been following me since the village," said the old man.
He turned to face her. His leather armor dark and worn, crinkled and creased like his face. His white hair blowing in the mountain wind. His dust-brown eyes looking so very wise, so very old…
Another screech from up above.
The monster that had plagued the village.
"I… wanted to talk to you," Jenny explained. She felt her breathing getting even heavier, as she searched for the right words. "I need help."
"You sought me out," the old man said. "But would rather hide than face me."
Jenny didn't know how to answer that.
The old man advanced on her. "The girl who runs and runs, and doesn't know what she's running from or where she's going," he observed, his hands clasped. "Seeking help from someone like me." He shook his head. "Do you know who I am, child?"
Jenny shuffled, awkwardly.
"The villagers said you were… Aychron," said Jenny. "One of the Wsartor. And a mythical warrior." She paused. Then, in a more desperate voice, "They said… you always win against the monsters."
Aychron examined her. His stance proud. But his eyes gentle and kind.
"Please," said Jenny. "I need help. I keep trying to save people, but… it… always goes wrong, in the end. I don't—"
"You have done some terrible things," Aychron understood. "As a result of your own folly."
Jenny couldn't deny that.
Only four months old, and she'd already watched worlds destroyed. People massacred. She'd tried so hard to save everyone, but she didn't know how.
Her 'help' only made things worse.
"I never meant to," Jenny said. "I tried to stop it. But… I failed."
Aychron nodded.
"Please," said Jenny. "Teach me. I've got no one."
Aychron gave her a kind smile. Then turned around, gesturing for her to follow him. "If that's the case," he said, "then I must teach you."
Jenny opened the doors to Seo's ship.
Then grinned, as she stepped outside, gesturing around herself.
"The planet Totania," Jenny announced to the others, who were still emerging. Seo grabbing onto Buffy by the arm, so tight, it looked like they might wind up fused together if they stayed that way too long. "In the distant future, relative to the 21st century."
"And there are hospitals here that can treat Mom?" Seo asked.
The wind brushed back Jenny's hair, as she spun around to face them. "Of course! See, back about 75 years ago, there was a rather nasty dictator who usurped the government. He was obsessed with developing time travel. Put all his best people on it. He failed to actually travel, but still managed to create a large number of very nasty temporally complicated illnesses that spread through the population."
"Which is why you brought me here," Buffy sighed.
"They'll be able to detect a time-phased tumor easily, here," Jenny replied. "Be able to remove it so that it causes you no harm at all. After the time travel obsessed dictator was toppled by the current one, all that temporal research was poured into developing cures for temporal illnesses. It's the only place like it in the universe."
"That you know of," Seo qualified.
Jenny ignored that.
Just gestured at them to follow her, and zipped off towards a distant building. "Follow me!" she called. "I have an old friend, here. Whatever is wrong, he'll be able to fix it. I promise."
Seo had thought this planet looked familiar.
She couldn't place it, though, until she entered the hospital, and saw all the orange-skinned people around them. Then realized… this metropolitan cityscape…
"This is where we were before!" Seo said, spinning on Jenny. "With the Totos and the Vanguard."
"Totans and the Vngor," Jenny corrected. She crossed her arms. "Why do you think I was so adamant about making sure the Totans weren't wiped out in their own past? I knew this place was waiting in their future!"
Seo quirked an eyebrow, as Jenny kept receiving nods and smiles from the nurses and staff around her, as the three headed towards the reception desk.
Jenny had said she'd never been to the Totan's future.
That she'd only ever read about it in books.
"Jenny!" the receptionist said, with a smile. Then, in a lower voice, "How are you holding up?"
Jenny leaned against the reception desk. "Good. Very good." Shrugged. "Built myself a time machine. Started wandering through all of time and space. For me it's been… about… 50 years since we last spoke. Maybe more."
Seo was expecting at least a little shock and alarm from the receptionist over this, but the receptionist just nodded, as if she'd expected it.
"Is Dr. Otman in?" Jenny asked. She gestured at Seo and Buffy. "I have some friends…" She trailed off, glancing back at the two. "Family," she corrected, "I'd like him to take a look at."
"I'll see what I can do," said the receptionist.
As she began to make phone calls.
Seo stepped forwards, towards Jenny. "They all know you."
Jenny didn't answer.
"Even though," Seo continued, "you said you'd never been to this planet's future, before."
A sheepish grin spread across Jenny's face. "Well… maybe I've dropped in once or twice," she said, with a shrug. "Saved their world from time to time."
Buffy, in the meantime, was hanging back. Looking around herself, warily, her fighting-stance on standby.
She eyed all the different alien species around her with suspicion.
"Your mum," Jenny cut in, "she… has met aliens before. Right?"
Buffy snapped her head around. "Enough to know which kinds are which." Her voice lowered, as she stepped towards Seo and Jenny. Her stance definitely defensive. "And a lot of these races have tried to end the world multiple times."
Buffy's eyes were fixed on a yellow lizard-like creature, standing by the coffee machine.
Jenny frowned, puzzled. Then laughed, as she realized. "Twenty-first century. Yes, I suppose the Yyrinx would have, back then." She leaned back against the reception desk. "Then, in the 35th century, they wound up in the middle of a war that nearly wiped out their whole race. A religious change swept across the Yyrinx, in response. And now… they're entirely peaceful."
Buffy dropped some of her fighting stance. "Oh."
But she was still keeping herself ready for anything, just in case.
"Jenny?" came a man's voice.
Jenny turned around.
Then rushed forwards, to shake the hand of the middle-aged, orange-skinned Totan doctor that had just entered the reception area. The two of them conversing in quiet tones.
Seo looked on. Thinking.
"You're seriously going to get an alien to cure me?" Buffy shook her head. "I was better off taking my chances back on Earth."
"Jenny thinks this can help," said Seo. Taking her mom by the arm, and leading her forwards. "And she seems to know him." Seo's brow furrowed. "Extremely well."
Jenny glanced over her shoulder, at Seo and Buffy, as they came into earshot. Then put an arm around Buffy's shoulders.
"That's her?" Dr. Otman asked, adjusting his glasses.
"Human," Jenny confirmed. Hesitated. Then added, "You've worked on humans, before, right?"
"These days, you can't get a medical degree without experience dealing with humans," said Dr. Otman. Examining Buffy, closely, as if trying to pick up something no one else could see. "They settle everywhere."
Buffy stepped away from Dr. Otman. A little defensively.
Apparently, she wasn't reassured.
But Seo wasn't about to let her get away that easily. She tightened her grip on her mom's arm, and dragged her back.
"Let's go up to my office," Dr. Otman said. "We can talk there."
He listened to all the symptoms.
Took in the entire history of what had happened to Buffy, across her life.
"I can see why you thought it was temporal," Dr. Otman said, at the end. He scribbled down some notes, on a sheet of paper. Then tore it off. "We'll have to run some tests. Measure your chrononic readings across a standard interval of time, and see how that affects your biology."
Buffy crossed her arms. "You're not gonna stick a bunch of alien probes into me?"
"You'll be all right," Jenny reassured her. "Trust me."
Buffy looked over at Jenny.
Still hesitant.
Then, reluctantly, gave a sigh and a nod.
"Just don't kill me by accident or anything," Buffy told Dr. Otman. "Willow's done way too much bringing-back-to-life already, and I don't want her to do it again."
Dr. Otman gave Buffy a reassuring smile, and a firm hand-shake. "I've encountered humans with temporal illnesses many times. You're in the best hands."
Jenny sprung to her feet. Swishing her ponytail back over her shoulder.
"Well," Jenny announced, grabbing up Seo by the arm, and dragging her away. "We'd better let them get on with it. After all. We've got things to do, while we're waiting. Authoritarian regimes to topple. Evil dictators to…"
Dr. Otman gave a small laugh.
"You're about two years too late, Jenny," he said. "Someone's beat you to it."
Jenny froze.
Staring.
"What?!" she cried.
