Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy
A/N: Sorry it took so long. Writing this stuff is hard, and the school year started so I couldn't do it as fast as I could before. I also lost my flash drive, and then had to remake part of it, etc., etc. But I finally finished it, so here we go.
For all who are worrying this is just a rip-off of the series: don't worry, everything's going to get crazy after we get to Jake's house. It will have the same events, but they'll either come together differently or end differently
Disclaimer: I don't own nothing but Jake
Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy
Issue 3
The Yorkes Residence
2:49 A.M.
Jake stared in amazement at the large, reptilian, thing (Jake noticed it looked quite a bit like a velocoraptor) that had emerged from the door in Gert's basement, hissing. Apparently, the rest of the group agreed with Jake's reaction.
"What the shit?" Gert cried. Instantly, the animal turned to face her.
"Nobody move!" Alex yelled, putting his arm in front of Nico to stop her from moving. "They…they only sense motion."
"What do you mean "they"?" Nico asked in confusion. "What is it?"
"That thing from Jurassic Park." Alex answered. "A…a velociraptor."
"Oh, brilliant!" Jake cried. At the sound of his voice, the raptor (or whatever it was) whipped around to face him. Jake went still and it moved on.
"That's impossible, Alex!" Karolina called from off to Jake's side. "There not-" She was cut off by the raptor turning to face her. She screamed. "Get it away!" She shrank back from it in a way that seemed (at least to Jake) almost cute. Jake moved towards it.
"Shoo! Shoo!" He yelled at it, flipping his hand. It turned and watched him in a way he didn't particularly like. He quickly stepped back. Off to his right, he heard Chase grunt as he picked up something. The raptor instantly turned to the source of the noise. The rest of the group turned as well to see Chase hefting a lamp in both hands.
"Chill, Karolina." He said, moving the lamp in his hands to get a better grip. "It's gotta be C.G.I. or whatever. I'll prove it." He continued, moving towards the raptor. It growled at him.
"Chase…" Karolina trailed off as the raptor looked back at her.
"Don't!" Alex yelled.
"Put it down!" Nico joined in.
"Your gonna get us killed!" Gert added.
"Put down the lamp, man!" Jake finished. Chase didn't seem to listen however.
"Look, it's just-" Chase said, bringing the lamp down on the raptor's head. He was cut short, however, when instead of passing through the raptor (as he obviously expected), it impacted with a loud "Crack". Instantly, the raptor focused on Chase. Chase dropped the broken lamp, and had just enough time to say "Oh" before the raptor jumped him with a roar. Chase fell with a cry. Jake looked around quickly for anything he could use as a weapon, forgetting his backpack (which he had brought with him) completely.
"Stop it!" Gert yelled. Jake braced himself for the raptor to leap her. To everyone's amazement, (Gert's included), it looked up from Chase (who was rapidly muttering the Lord's Prayer) with a confused growl. Gert leaned down to her knees. "Down girl." She said. The raptor obeyed. Gert seemed to be in shock. "Hh…Heel." She finished. Once more, the raptor followed her command, sinking to the floor with what seemed to be an regretful growl.
"How… How did you…" Alex sputtered.
"I. Have. No. Idea." Gert replied.
"What just happened?" Chase cried, trying to stand up.
"Um…" Nico said. "Is this a dream? This is to weird to be real."
"I don't know, but we have to go now!" Karolina cut in, grabbing Nico's arm and attempting to pull her towards the stairs.
"Quiet, we're gonna wake Gert's psycho parents." Alex said. "I can't deal with them and a… a whatever that thing is." He finished, pointing towards the raptor.
"It's okay, Alex." She said. "I told you, my folks sleep like the dead and they're three floors up. They can't hear-" Whatever Gert was going to say was suddenly cut off by a women's voice. "Hello Gertrude." It said. Everybody froze, except Alex and Jake. They both turned around. Standing behind them were Gert's parents, in the costume's they had seen them wearing during the party.
"Mom? Dad?" Gert asked in shock.
"Shit!" Jake bellowed, whipping his BB gun from his backpack's side pocket. He flipped the safety off and squeezed the trigger. The gun made several loud pops and send BBs towards Gert's parents, but they passed through them as if they were ghosts.
"What the…" Jake wondered out loud.
"Wait, the dinosaur was real, but her parents are C.G.I.?" Chase wondered as Nico helped him up.
"No, I…I think those are holograms." Nico said quietly. Jake looked around and realized she was right. In the upper right corner of door that held the raptor sat a small pod-like object that had a lens on it. The lens was projecting the hologram. Gert's dad was speaking again, so Jake turned back.
"Hey squirt," Gert's dad continued. "I'm sorry, but if you're watching this projection we recorded…your mother and I are probably dead."
"What?" Gert asked, obviously confused.
"I think they mean it's like their will." Jake cut in. Gert glared at him and he shut up.
"Hopefully we were able to get this secret chamber's access code to you before we died." Gert's mom continued. Gert looked sort of embarrassed.
"Don't be absurd, Stacey." Gert's dad answered back. "If we didn't get her the code, how would she be watching us now? You think she accidentally stumbled onto all of this?"
"Well actually…" Gert said, looking at her feet.
"They can't hear you Gert." Jake said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. Gert ignored him. Gert's mom began speaking again, but Jake tuned it out. Screw it, he thought, it isn't my problem. He wandered aimlessly around looking for anything interesting. Something caught his eye. He moved over to the box it was in. It appeared to be a hollow handle of metal with plastic-like grips and a gold-like plaiting. Jake wrenched it out and studied it closely. To his surprise, he recognized it as a lightsaber, just like the one he'd seen in the store downtown. This one was heavier though, and actually made of metal. He turned it around. Attached to the bottom was a card. Jake opened it. It read:
Dale:
Happy Will-be Birthday! Many Happy Returns
The Hunters
"Will-be birthday? What the hell is a will-be birthday?" Jake thought as he closed the card again and continued to examine the saber. He noticed something sticking out of the open part at the top. He pulled it out. It was another card, but this one was more of a museum label. He flipped it over and read:
Lightsaber,
Windu, Mace
Recovered From Imperial Center, 3 BBY
"What the…" Jake wondered to himself. He scratched his head in confusion. He knew "BBY" meant "Before Battle of Yavin", the standard time mark for Star Wars history during the Galactic Civil War, but the rest made no sense. A small portion of the Yorkes recorded conversation drifted over to him.
"-If you're seeing this before your 18, or if something has happened to the Deans, talk to the Hunters. I'm sure their translation program has been worked out by now."
"Shit!" Jake cursed, realizing he'd probably missed something important. He whirled around, throwing the saber back into the box and looking for the way back to the rest of the group. He thought he found it, only to run into a dead end. He reversed and tried another way. Same result. This went on for about two minutes, at which point Jake found the correct way and meet up with the rest of the group, who hadn't moved at all. He arrived in time to see the tail end of the recording. There was a click and the projector shut down.
"Okay, um…Huh?" Gert asked. Jake noticed she was holding a large black-leather book in her left hand.
"So can we go to the police now?" Nico asked, staring intently at the spot where the hologram had been. "Please?"
"With what?" Alex asked. "We've got Gert's parents claiming to be time travelers, but nothing to show they helped kill that girl."
"Are you nuts?" Chase yelled. "They've got psychic raptors in their basement!"
"Yeah, and Siegfeild and Roy have white tigers in their's." Gert answered. It doesn't mean they're criminals, just...odd." She tickled the raptor under it's chin.
"Uh, Gert?" Jake cut in. "You may not want to do that..."
"Huh?" Gert said, suddenly startled from her thoughts. "Oh, don't worry. She's cool with it."
"We can discuss what Gert does with her raptor later, Jake." Alex cut in. "We still need a smoking gun to put away our parents for good. Without it, they'll probably just Shapiro their way out and kill us as soon as they're free."
"What about that not-so-little black book of theirs?" Nico asked. "Didn't they say it's got info on all they're crimes and stuff? Maybe that'll tell us where they hid the girl's body."
"Yeah, one problem with that Nico." Gert added. She lifted the book and held it out to Nico to read. "It's in code."
"So let's decode it!" Nico cried. "We just need is either that magic decrypto ring from Karolina's place or that weird decode program from Jake's."
"Yeah, but where do we go?" Alex asked.
"Who's house is closer?" Gert asked.
"K's." Jake said simply.
"My house?" Karolina looked shocked. "But...My parents can't really be part of this. They might be a little eccentric, but they're not evil. They don't even eat meat!"
"Yeah, well neither did Hitler..." Gert said, trailing off into her own thoughts again. Jake nodded in agreement. Alex began speaking again.
"Karolina, if you'd seen what the rest of us saw back at my house, you'd understand." He said. I'm with Nico. We should press on to your pad next." He turned towards Gert. "First we've got to decide what to do with this...thing."
"Why don't we take it with us?" Jake asked. "I mean, if it's really from the future, and they can prove it, they'll have to believe what we saw."
"And how do you suppose we transport it without it possible turning us into steak?"
"Well, my parents said that I had mental control over it…" Gert muttered.
"And you're going to believe them?" Alex said, raising an eyebrow. "The same people who've been lying to us since before we were born?"
"Good point."
"So now what?" Chase said, pacing in the background. "I wanna hit the road man! The more time we spend down here, the less time we have to find anything."
"We put it back where it came from." Alex said, pointing towards the room from whence the dinosaur came. "We're conspectus as it is with the six of us, we don't need a…a dinosaur to make ourselves stand out more."
"Fair enough." Gert said with a sigh. She turned to the raptor. "Sorry girl. Guess that means its back to the dog house for you. Don't worry, I'll be back for you when this is all over, okay?" She patted the raptor's small forepaw. It growled softly.
"And I though my life was weird yesterday." Chase muttered to himself.
"Tell me about it." Jake agreed, striding towards the steps
Ventura Freeway
3:38 A.M.
Jake sat in the back of Chase's van, staring pensively out the window. He gazed at the back of his hand as it rested against the window. In the front, Chase and Alex argued over what to do. Jake tuned them out. Something's wrong with me, he though. Ever since the meeting, he had been feeling, different. It was hard to explain. He squeezed his hand into a fist. It seemed that he could see the muscles that controlled it more clearly, as it they had come closer to the surface. He could swear he could see better in the dark too. That, and he felt like his veins had been filled with iced lighting. He yawned and rubbed his face, then opened his pack and grabbed an energy drink. He swallowed the entire thing in one gulp. Maybe I'm just tired. I shouldn't have played so much Halo 2. He dropped the empty can into his pack and sighed.
"You okay?" Gert asked from behind him.
"Fine. I'm just tired." He laughed quietly.
"What's so funny?" Nico said from next to Gert, putting down the black book (which Jake had learned was apparently called the Abstract).
"Just yesterday, I was worried that I might lose a rank on Halo 2 multiplayer. And now, here I am, riding in a van with five other kids trying to put my parents away for murder. Amazing how much can change in 24 hours." He sighed again. Gert and Nico nodded, then went back to looking out the window and studying the Abstract (respectively). Jake closed his eyes and unintentionally fell asleep.
He opened his eyes. He wasn't in the van anymore. He lay in a glass tank, (nude, he realized to his embarrassment) with the room outside dark. He freaked for a second or so till he realized that it was a dream. He relaxed, settling himself against the back of the tank. Outside, a door off to his left opened, spilling light into the room. Jake caught a brief flash of two other tanks like his before the door closed again and the light snapped off. Voices drifted to his ear from outside.
"…Glad to hear the S-X's are doing well. We're going to need them soon." A gravely male voice said from Jake's left.
"Yes, they will be ready, many thanks to you and your funding, but we have had a few…dilemmas with a couple of them." A cool female voice sounded from the same place.
"Nothing to serious, I hope." The male voice sounded threatening.
"No, not at all. In fact, with a little tweaking, the four in question could far exceed our wildest predictions. It is merely some, shall we say, emotional problems with their families."
"Emotional?"
"Yes. The parents of X's 195, 208, and 297 are worried about the augmentation process."
"They must think of us as a new version of Section 3."
"Indeed. However, as per protocol, I have several agents en route to…belay their fears."
"Excellent. Now the last unit."
"Yes. X-305 is a most interesting case. His parents where the exact opposite of the others. We actually had to talk them down from some of the augmentations they wanted done to their child."
"Really?" The male voice sounded intrigued.
"Yes, sir. The level of augmentation they requested hasn't been tried since the S-II's. Look here." There was a sound of shuffling papers, then the male voice grunted.
"I see. Who could have…" he stopped, as the sound of more papers shuffling reached Jake's ears. "But of course." The voice muttered to himself. "Who else but-"
"It's not a clubhouse, you condescending piece of-" Chase's bellow cut through Jake's dream and jerked him awake. Jake shook his head to clear it and loosen the shroud of sleepiness that had descended on him. Karolina shoved herself between the front seats."
"Settle, Chase" She said, directing her attention to the driver's side seat. "I understand why you're nervous, but you don't have to worry about my place. My parents aren't even home."
"They're not?" Alex asked in surprise.
"Yeah, they had to catch a red-eye flight to New York after your parent's party. They said something about a script reading for some play."
"Though after this, who knows what they're really up to?" Alex raised an eyebrow.
"All I know is they aren't home. And really, that's all that matters."
"Wait, your parent's leave you alone when they go out of town? Man, you are so lucky!" Chase said in amazement. Alex just sighed.
"Jake? You still asleep again?" Nico asked, looking up from the Abstract.
"Huh?" Jake said, feeling confused.
"You dozed off for a second or so."
"Really?" Jake blinked. He felt like he'd been asleep for at least fifteen minutes.
"I'm still fine." He said. Nico nodded and went back to reading. Jake looked out the window. The truth was, he wasn't fine. Somehow, his dream seemed real. More of a subconscious memory than a flight of fancy. And that women's voice…he'd heard it somewhere before. He sighed and sat back against the side of the van.
The Dean Residence
4:14 A.M.
Jake looked around Karolina's pad in amazement. The house was enormous, bigger than anything he had been in recently. He whistled. He continued onward, looking for anything that might hold a ring. There wasn't anything though. Jake cursed in frustration and kept going. The next room held the same result. Jake moved on again. He found himself back in the main room. Alex and Gert were on the same floor as him, with Karolina on the one above.
"This room's clean. Any luck up there Karolina?" Alex called.
"Nope, Nico and I have been through every jewelry box and trinket drawer in the house. No offence, but I seriously don't think my parents are like the rest of yours. They're good people."
"Well keep looking for some kind of switch or keypad thing." Alex fitted his words by examining a strange abstract painting that had been stuck on the wall.
"Why? Just cause one of our houses is tricked out doesn't mean this place is."
"Wouldn't hurt to keep looking." Jake muttered as he examined the wall for anything unusual.
"Never fear kiddies," Chase's voice came from one of the adjacent rooms. Chase himself appeared seconds later, holding a sheaf of papers. "Chase is on the case, and he just hit paydirt."
"What is it?" Jake asked.
"Mr. Deans last will and testament."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Alex asked.
"It's basically what we found at Gert's place, right? Instructions on what to do if her parents kicked the bucket?"
"He's got a point, Alex. That is where we got our last lead." Nico said, heading down the stairs.
"Hey! That's private!" Karolina shouted from behind Nico.
"Oh, and the trap door in Gert's basement wasn't?" Jake said, raising an eyebrow.
"You know K, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were afraid to look into your parents stuff." He smiled and braced himself, half expecting Karolina to hit him. To his surprise, she simply bit her lip and stared at the ground.
"Relax, its pretty boring; they didn't leave you any dinosaurs or anything at least." Gert said, shuffling through the papers. "Just the usual legal junk.
"Yeah, but check out the last page" Alex said, pulling said sheet out of the pile. He started reading off of it. "And to our beloved daughter Karolina, we bequeath the following, may she use it wisely." He stopped.
"Um, so what did they leave her?" Jake said.
"Doesn't say, there's just this." Alex held the sheet out for everybody to see. It was a picture of a winged pole encircled by two snakes.
"A caduceus? What the hell does that have to do with Karolina?" Jake asked.
"Well, it is the symbol for medicine, which is why-" Gert began, but Chase cut her off.
"Yeah, yeah, we've all been to the hospital, showoff. But why's it got the Ghostbuster's symbol around it?"
"I don't know, but that snake thing is carved on my MedAlert bracelet." Karolina said, rolling up her left sleeve. True to her word, the bracelet sat there.
"Maybe your parents were trying to tell you not to wear it anymore?" Nico suggested.
"Why? I've had this thing on since I was four. My parents told me never to take it off. I'm like, deadly allergic to penicillin."
"Do you know you're allergic to penicillin, or is that just what your parents said?" Alex asked.
"Why would they lie about something like that? They're trustworthy people." Karolina took the will paper and looked at it as she finished talking.
"Trustworthy?" Jake said, his voice rising in frustration. "Karolina, these people have been part of a secret organization, probably since before you were born to boot, and have the blood of at least one innocent girl on their hands. I would say they are the exact anti-trustworthy."
"Jake's right, you know." Alex added in. Karolina glared at him.
"Look," she said, hands balling in furry. "I don't know what the hell you saw down there, but these people are still my parents." She turned her gaze on Jake. "So go ahead and make insults at them and call them murderers, but I still think they haven't done anything."
"You want to prove us wrong?" Alex asked quietly. "Then take off that bracelet." Karolina glared at him again.
"Why? This picture doesn't have to relate to it. It probably means that…that they don't want me to go to medical school." Karolina exhaled with a rush, then inhaled just as forcefully, and continued to grasp at straws. "Or stay away from conventional medicine. They're all about homeopathics and stuff like that." she concluded.
"So if they've got nothing to hide, why are you still wearing that thing?" Nico asked, pointing at Karolina's wrist.
"It's a free country. I don't have to-" She was cut off mid-rant by Jake, who, stepping between Chase and Nico with a hardly apologetic and rather gruff "excuse me", bounded up the Karolina, grabbed her left wrist with enough strength to make her fingers twitch involuntarily, and ripped the bracelet off. Chunks of the chain that had held it to her wrist flew off, falling to the floor with soft clinks. Jake stepped back, hands shaking and breathing hard.
"Ow!" Karolina cried, rubbing her wrist. "What the hell was that for Jake?" She yelled. She looked around, still holding her wrist. "Nothing happening. Nothing wrong with me. Nothing." She closed her eyes in emphasis and spread her hands out. As she did, Jake watched as a single piece of the chain fell to the ground. Suddenly, a blinding light appeared in front of the group, forcing Jake and the rest to close their eyes.
"See?" Karolina yelled. All she got back was a chorus of "Gah!", "Argh!" "My eyes!" and "What the hell?" Like the rest of them, Jake was blinded, but his vision was returning quickly. While his eyes were still closed, he felt something brush his hand. He opened his eyes and looked at it. It was Karolina's hair braid. He heard her whisper something, and cracked his eyes open. Karolina stood still, staring in amazement at her hands. She seemed to be surrounded by a kaleidoscopic array of rainbow light, which constantly swirled and shifted. No, Jake realized. She wasn't surrounded by it. She was producing it. The light coated every part of her body, but here hair seemed to be the most effected. It fanned out behind her like water, swirling and trailing streamers of light as she examined her self. Her mouth hung open in amazement, and Jake got a glimpse of its interior. He was surprised to see even Karolina's tongue and throat seemed to be made of the strange light.
"What is she?" Jake muttered to himself.
"I don't know," Chase murmured in return. "But it's beautiful. Like…like a burning painting or-" His list was cut off as Karolina bellowed "Get away!" and turned her back on the group. As she turned, more streamers of light appeared, throwing themselves off of her exposed skin. She looked in horror at her hands, as if they had suddenly sprouted claws and spikes instead of becoming kaleidoscopic.
"What's wrong with me? What am I?" she cried, voice raised in fear.
"An angel." Chase suggested.
"There's no such thing as angels." Jake replied. "She's got to be a...a mutant or something."
"She can't be." Nico said. "I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but...she's too old to just turn into one isn't she?"
"From what I heard, yeah." Alex narrowed his eyes in thought as Karolina continued to stare at her hands and arms. "So that can't be it."
"Maybe she's an alien?" Gert suggested. Chase snickered.
"Yeah, right. There's about as much chance of her being an alien as-"
"No, I think Gert might be right." Alex said. "Remember, just before our parents stabbed that girl, didn't my dad say something about Karolina's parents dealing with "off-world enemies?"
"I didn't catch that." Chase said, smiling sheepishly.
"So?" Jake asked. "You think Karolina's rent's are part of the Covenant or something?"
"The what?" Gert looked confused.
"Play Halo." Jake said simply. Alex coughed to bring them back to the subject.
"I'm not saying anything about her parents, Jake. I'm just saying that they might not, you know, be from around here."
"You really think I'm an alien?" Karolina asked. She had turned her shocked gaze to the streams of light trailing off her finger tips.
"Well, yeah." Alex said, seeming slightly taken aback. "I mean, maybe being on this planet gives your parents and you these…powers or whatever, and that bracelet is made of some mineral that blocks those abilities, sorta like-"
"You've been watching too many WB shows, bro. that's ridiculous."
"That does sound a lot like the plot of Smallville." Jake added. But in the back of his mind, he was starting to believe Alex. Random bits of information he never knew he had learned floated through his mind, dancing in front of his eyes. Maps, diagrams, lists, reports, they all flew through his subconscious. What the… he thought. He shook his head, and they were gone. He snapped back into the real world in time to hear the tail end of the speech Gert was giving in support of Alex. Karolina looked at her, pain filling her eyes.
"So I'm the daughter of some kind of…space invaders?" She asked, her voice filled with pain as well. "God, first you tell me that my parents are evil, and now I find out I'm not even human? And on top of all this-" she cut herself off with an enormous sob, and tears began to flow down her cheeks. Jake had an urge to comfort her, but one of the streamers of light came into contact with his fingertips and his entire hand went numb. He pulled it back and shook it to get the feeling back in. None of the group seemed to have noticed it. While he was doing that, Karolina continued to babble almost incoherently, head in her hands. But as she did this, her feet left the floor and she started to rise towards the ceiling. Chase was first to notice.
"Uh, K? You do realize you're floating, right?" He said, mouth open in amazement.
"Wha?" Karolina said, looking down at her feet. Jake (and the rest of the group) looked up from beneath them. She floated for several seconds, absolutely speechless. Suddenly her face broke into a smile. "I can fly." She exclaimed softly. She suddenly shot towards the ceiling. "I can fly!" she exclaimed.
"We are so dead." Alex said.
End of Issue 3
