AN: Okay, I just want to thank my reviewers for being fast and consistent. It's really nice to wake up and see that everyone liked my work, especially when the chapter was a foreshadowing one – I'm always nervous about those, because I don't do them very often. Seriously, thank you all for taking the time to review.
Now, a few answers to Quirky Misty's questions, because I'm sure you're all asking them yourself. Vallejo was thrown off the Patrol by Parnassus, who then proceeded to make Vallejo's life a living hell until he finally was forced to transfer over to a different school. For plot purposes, the details of this can't be revealed just yet – but everybody, even characters who don't know why Vallejo was thrown out/left, know that he's innocent and deserved that job.
Sel's identity will be revealed to the Patrol, but it will be against her will and won't happen for several chapters yet. As for who's still on the Patrol, Fillmore, Tehama, and Danny still are. Anza's absence will be explained later, as will the scar on Danny's hand. Just give it time? You don't want me to info-dump on you all, now do you? ;)
Oh, and this chapter will explain where the last name Teridu came from, and introduce some Johnny the Homicidal Maniac universe characters that will become relevant later.
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He had been like family to her.
He was technically her uncle and her father's half brother (different fathers, same mother), but he had been the black sheep of the family for so long, and he was so close in age that she didn't think of him like that. He was something else, closer than an uncle yet more like a mentor, like a father. Just not old enough for that, not by a long shot. They could pass as siblings, though, back in her black haired days, especially when they both wore their glasses and ran around in all black. He was her best friend now that Fillmore had abandoned her, and he had been her best friend before Fillmore had been in her life.
They had been so reckless, staying up all night. The night was theirs that summer she spent friendless and new in town. They went to The Smoky Club even though she was underage, and she tried all sorts of foul drinks he loved and she hated. They bought odd trinkets and clothes from antique shops and thrift stores, adding to Ingrid's ever growing collection of oddities and abnormalities. They ate at gas stations and slept on park benches, crashing at his place or hers randomly, earning disapproval from her father.
They talked about everything and anything. What had happened, why it had happened, why she was too scared to go back even though she could. X was a sore subject, closed off to anyone else. He was the exception, and he returned her trust by breathing new life into her, taking her alongside him wherever he went. She met Donkey 9, a girl who brilliance was matched by her outright insanity, Anne Gwish, an obnoxious Goth who her uncle irrationally crushed on, and Tess, an artistic and kind soul with awesome glasses. She replaced her limited wardrobe with clothes that were not at all as feminine as Ingrid's, and took up the name Sel. Only talking to him did she let herself be called Ingrid.
She was so free that summer, a person of her own, unique and pure, running around in the filth and muck of the city. She did not fear getting dirty in it, in its corruption and darkness. Rather, she observed it quietly. She sampled alcohol, smoked a joint once, talked to black clad strangers and saw that ultimately subcultures were as shallow as pop culture. So she was a part of neither, just like he was, running around doing whatever she pleased, sleeping at odd hours and dreaming of her next new adventure.
He had been drunk when he took her by the shoulders and looked her unsteadily in the eye, as if about to convey some important message. Usually it was paranoid and rambling, something that made little sense to her, but this time was different. She could smell the wine on his breath and see the glow of his thoughts in his eyes. Everyone else in the club had faded away into the background, too preoccupied with making out and getting drunk to care about two siblings chatting in the corner.
"You'll have to go back to X, one day. No, wait, lemme finish," he started as she began to object. "One day you're gonna find yourself back there, because you're not meant for this crap. You're not meant to be dirty like this, kid. You're a good girl deep down. You're gonna go back, and I just want you to know that when you do, whether it works out or not, you'll always have family. I'll always be there for you." His arms wrapped around her in a too-tight hug, briefly, and then he was off hollering at Anne to take her top off.
He was dead less than a month later, and after that, her family began falling apart. There was no family to go to in the present, but at the time, she had felt numb with shock. She had wanted family to mean him, her best friend, not to mean her immediate family. They had become like strangers. They never even talked to her anymore, preoccupied by work and their own social circles and newfound hobbies. He had last true friend.
And thus, silently, Ingrid Third mourned her not-quite-family's death with the wordless vow that yes, one day, she would return. It was cliché to swear such a thing on a grave… but quite frankly, he would've enjoyed the cliché factor immensely, saying it was moving or some such thing, so she didn't cry, merely smiled sadly as she reached out to touch his tombstone.
In Memory of William 'Bill' Teridu
Paranormal Investigator, Scientist,
And Everyone's Annoying Little Brother.
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There was a reason she was here.
She didn't believe in God, at least not the way other people did. The Thirds were a weirdly religious household, studying everything but absorbing little bits of each. She believed in the Buddhist thought that each person must make their own salvation. That was what was happening at X. Evil was taking over, and it was time to fight back against it. She was here, she realized, not for herself, but for the school, for Fillmore, Tehama, Anza, and Danny. (Although she hadn't seen hide or hair of Anza since she got here.) She was meant to make sure they weren't thrown from the force like so much garbage. She was meant to save the school from this corruption.
It was too late for her other school, just like it was too late for her. She could not get better, not anymore. Everything was too messed up in her life. But people here were different, fundamentally good and caring. They deserved an honest man as their leader. They deserved to be able to do their jobs in peace without a tainted head of office messing everything up. Justice wouldn't prevail under this boy's rule, she knew that. Too many officials in the other school were rigged. It was past saving. Here she was looking down a single boy with a big ego. Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses.
I can take you, she thought suddenly, fists clenching as she shoved them in her pockets. You don't know who you're messing with. And she didn't, either, to be quite honest. All the normal rules about investigating and fighting against someone were gone. She had no friends here to horrify, nothing to lose. She could be anybody here, which meant she could do anything. There was nothing stopping her from beating him up, black mailing him, psychologically tormenting him until he broke. There was no voice of conscious in her, not really. A small portion of inner goodness convinced her to help take him down. Past that, her heart was rather black, she realized quietly. Time in Los Barros had turned her into someone even she didn't recognize.
Good. She'd need that to deal with him. It was time to make sure that the blond boy had an unfortunate accident, something brutal but quick. Injuring him was the key. Causing pain was not. A person could only sink so far – she wouldn't hurt him for the sake of inflicting agony, just for the sake of getting him out of the Patrol's way for a while. After that she could do a more thorough investigation and dig up some dirt on him. Biting her lip, she glanced around the building. There was a small outcropping of stone directly above him. If she could get to that, she could knock him out with pretty much anything. All she needed was a route.
Making her way through the crowd while everyone was watching Parnassus' speech, she asked an on duty Patroller where the nearest bathroom was. He pointed her to the side door of the building. It had been so long she had forgotten it existed, and she was grateful that the young Patrollers were still naïve like the used to be. Making her way up the stairs inside, noting the total absence of people, she struggled not to flash back to all the times she'd chased perps through these halls. Now was not the time, she told herself angrily. She had a mission here.
The window overlooking the stone outcropping was a stairwell window. Unlocking it was tricky; it only had a lock for emergency openings, and it hadn't been used in a decade. With a groan, the window swung outward, opening slowly. There were lots of old things on the outcropping – gum, dead birds, rocks, tennis balls, a scuba mask and a phonebook from 1977. Random, yet somewhat logical. That was X, she smiled to herself, picking up the phonebook. Crouching down, she moved closer to the edge, where she would hopefully be able to get a clear shot in before being spotted.
It occurred to her that she could really hurt him, and that that was wrong. The old Ingrid would never have hurt someone, even someone as bad as Parnassus. But she'd seen this play out at Los Barros, the corrupt school politicians running things so badly for so long that everyone gave up. No one at Skool thought things would get better. They accepted hall monitors that beat people up, vandalism and spray painted gang logos on their lockers as the norm. She had already seen Danny, and his downcast, sullen outlook. Parnassus broke her friend and would turn this place into the same pit of chaos her other school was if he went unchecked.
She didn't like hurting people, even if it was justified. The difference between Ingrid and Sel wasn't that they didn't like it, however. It was that Sel had the guts to do it anyway, for the sake of her friends and for the sake of the school. Rising to her knees, one hand gripping the stone corner and the other raising the textbook high, she took aim, and threw the book.
A virtual unknown in this school, she slipped out a different back door, joining a stream of students from the south campus who were rushing to see what happened. An unfamiliar face to him, Fillmore's gaze did not linger on her. The Patrol were clearing the area, the protestors were cheering, the student body was horrified, and the chaos was nothing she couldn't handle. She gaped at the unconscious form alongside them and was hustled off to the edge of the perimeter the Patrol established alongside her fellow kid. An ambulance was called, people were scared, but they calmed down to a general air of curiosity by the time Parnassus was taken away. No one saw her move slowly to the back of the crowd and slink off towards the presumably empty Patrol Headquarters to do some investigating.
And that, she thought to herself, is why I'm here.
