Author: Bastille Kain
Title: Come As You Are
Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters of any show or other medium; comics, movies, and books that are unfortunate enough to be used here all belong to other people. Again I own nothing and make no profit from these writings.
Spoilers: Anything and everything.
Summary: Buffy/NetFlix Marvel Universe/Marvel Movie Universe Crossover. Starts a few days prior to NetFlix's Defenders. It is going to be long and complex.
Pairings:
Rating: MA-18. Just to play it safe. Eventually there is going to be adult themed subject matter, gratuitous violence and explicit sexual scenes not to mention strong language.
Feedback: Is always appreciated.
Archive: If you like it that much, sure. Just be sure to let me know where it's going, and give me the credit, good or bad, for my work.
Musical Note: I like to use song titles or lyrics for story names and chapter titles. Come as You Are: Nirvana. I Am a Rock: Simon & Garfunkel.
Author Note: Not a big fan of author notes but here goes… First encounter with MarvelVerse Vampire. Decided to do them as a combination, the younger; weaker vampires are like those depicted in the Blade movies. They are relatively easy to destroy. Older vampires; the vampire lords if you will, are more like Dracula and are much harder to destroy.
Enjoy the Story,
Kain
Come as You Are
Chap Three: I Am a Rock
Kara stood on the roof, her head lolled back as she drew in a deep lung full of New York City's mid august grime filled, muggy air; allowing it to settle her frazzled nerves as she paced the length of the roof, pivoting smoothly and heading back in the direction she had just come from. Her mind was whirling now that she had a moment or ten to stop and think about how she completely mishandled the situation with Amara and her friends.
Only after everything that happened at the courthouse she had felt trapped, as if someone was trying to manipulate her. That odd man on the roof of the courthouse instantly came to mind only she honestly didn't believe he had that type of reach. Was he even a man? An odd part in the back of her brain wanted to know. What else would he be?
She was going to have to track down Amara and her friends, apologize for how she bolted on them. Some part of that just didn't feel right, as if the three friends hadn't been completely honest with her. Kara shoved that thought away. No one was completely, one hundred percent honest all the time. She hadn't told them her name, or that she had amnesia. Though the amnesia part, that felt like over share for a first meeting. The same as her powers, but she supposed that cat was out of the bag now. How do you even drop something like that into a casual conversation… "Oh, by the way," she mumbled to herself
At least she had a couple of leads; the club and the professor Amara had been going on about. Now if she only knew somebody that was good at tracking things down. A slow smile spread over her lips. Since she was a terrible liar she knew she was going to have to come clean with Jess and hope the PI wouldn't rat her out to Trish until she got around to explaining the situation.
Glancing at the ground three stories below her Kara felt it again. That sense of wrongness. Similar to what she felt at the courthouse only weaker and not directed at her. Closing her eyes Kara focused. It was about four blocks northwest of her current location and heading parallel to her position, but there was something else… Someone else. At the very edge of her senses.
She frowned, a bare thinning of her lips. When Trish had found her four blocks would have been beyond her senses, but now… She stretched out, as if she were attempting to grab something that should have been out of reach, something on the high shelf, only her metaphorical fingers wrapped around it easily. Ten blocks whipped past and Kara pulled back. Or at least she tried to but nothing. It was like a piece of putty that had been stretched out too far.
Instead of wasting time by attempting to pull her senses back in she focused on where she had been. A woman; young and healthy but scared, terrified really. She could hear it in the woman's frantic breathing. The pounding of her heart; could practically smell the fear wafting off her.
Without thinking Kara dropped to the sidewalk; hitting the ground at a run and put on a burst of speed as she heard the woman scream; a frightened, panicked yell that wouldn't have carried very far and ended too abruptly.
Coming around a corner Kara jumped, avoiding a large group of pedestrians milling about. She cleared more than thirty feet, touched down on the roof of a city bus… An ad for Trish Talk plastered to its side… Took a pair of steps and jumped again landing on the roof of a cab and propelled herself back into the air to grab the arm of a turn signal and used it to throw herself across the intersection just barely avoiding a second bus traveling east to west. She hit the concrete and was back at a full sprint by her third step.
She turned down the second alley and spotted them. A tall man with shoulder length black hair dressed in torn and faded jeans and a dark coat. He was hunched over a slightly chunky twenty something year old woman with a pale, almost Nordic complexion. Her sandy blonde hair with its light rustic highlights hung even with her ears. Her pulse was getting weaker and her heart was slowing down. Whatever he was doing to her was killing her. Even as she ran Kara bent down, scooping up a broken chunk of concrete and hurled it as his back with every ounce of strength she possessed.
Impossibly he turned around and caught it with his bare hand without the slightest trace of pain flicking across his features. Blood was smeared all over his lips and his eyes seemed to shine with a menacing light, like dark ambers left to smolder in the ash. He dropped the girl with a cruel smile twisting his face. "You think you're one of this city's defenders?" He mocked her as he flicked the chunk of concrete back at her.
Kara slipped past the projectile and he was on her that quickly, aiming to take her face off with a set of razor sharp claws. She ducked under the attack, driving her elbow into his kidney for all the effect it had on him. He continued to spin around, his leg coming up. Moving in closer she took what little strength his kick might have possessed and made it meaningless as she wrapped up the leg and grabbed the back of his jacket. With a tight spin she slammed his face and chest into a dumpster leaving a vaguely human shape impression within the steel. Then she spun the other way and hurled him against the opposite wall.
He hit the brick and mortar with bone crushing force, bounced back several feet and dropped to the ground. He quickly rolled to his feet, just managing to avoid Kara's spinning blade kick that would have crushed his windpipe. He threw a heavy right cross towards the back of her head, but Kara slipped the punch she somehow felt coming, as she dropped into a split and then slammed the back of her head into his crotch causing him to stagger back. She rolled onto her back, getting her palms under her head as she brought her legs together and flipped up driving her feet into his gut driving him back into the wall. He cursed as she landed on her feet and managed to avoid her spinning hook kick but not the back fist that followed it, forcing him to take another staggering step to the side. Kara jumped slightly and delivered a dropping hook punch that drove him to a knee. Her front kick to his chest shattered ribs but it hardly seemed to slow him as he threw a left right combination that missed and she deftly redirected the right as she glided underneath the limb and began to pelt the right side of his chest and back with a flurry of punches and strikes, any one of which would have been enough to kill an ordinary man but he barely grunted.
He managed to shove her away but the little bit of space it created just gave Kara enough room to execute a rising heel kick and for it to find purchase in his groin; the kick lifted him off his feet. Jumping into the air Kara spun in a tight circle; her left hand latching onto the back of his neck and drove him face first into the blacktop. She rolled onto her back pulling him with her and hurled him across the alley where his bruised and battered body once again made its acquaintance with the thick brick and mortar wall.
Kara was on her feet quickly. But the man… Is he a man…? Lay on the pavement, his soft laughter barely above a hushed whisper. There was something missing. With a look towards the woman Kara frowned, "No," she whispered as she took a few staggering steps closer but stopped. The woman was dead, had bled out while she played. She had meant to save her… Wanted to save her, but –
There was something clutched in the woman's hand. It looked like a silver knitting needle, maybe seven inches long. Kneeling down she closed the woman's eyes with one hand as she palmed the thin stake with the other.
"All that effort," the man said as he brushed himself off as he rose from the filthy alley. "And you still couldn't save her." There was something in his voice that tried to worm its way into her brain. It felt alive as it burrowed deep. She could feel him coming closer to her. "It wasn't really your fault," he said as he continued to creep closer. She could feel his confidence building. "I could feel her calling to me." The stench of his breath was almost on her skin. "She wanted this…" She almost flinched at the touch of his hand on her shoulder. "She didn't want to be saved. You don't want to be saved," he said pulling her around.
Kara spun driving the silver stake into the vampire's heart. Rage burned in her eyes as they flickered for a moment; emerald to sapphire and back again. "I don't need to be saved," she hissed.
His face twisted in pain, horror flooded his eyes for a brief moment just before his body disintegrated into a fine dust like substance. Kara stared down at what had once been a man, realization flashing through her conscious mind. She had just killed… Something. It wasn't human, wasn't even alive but now it was nothing. Dust on the pavement just waiting to be scattered by the elements.
A part of her mind told her to forget it. Move on. The creature wasn't worth the effort it took to remember it. Find the next one. End it just like she had this one.
With a deep shudder Kara shoved the voice calling to her down. Someplace deep where she couldn't hear it's insistent whispering.
Gathering herself Kara leapt up, pushed off the wall and drove herself even higher, caught hold of a flagpole and hurled herself to the roof. She landed easily and reached top speed in just a few steps. Her foot hit the lip of the ledge and she threw herself from one roof to the next, easily crossing a pair of sidewalks and six lanes of traffic in a single jump; allowing the rush, the blood pumping in her veins to drive away any thoughts about what she had become. What she might have been before Trish found her.
/ / /
Dani heard the key to the lock turn and relaxed her mental energies. It wasn't the greatest lock but it was sufficient. The door knob turned and James pushed open the thin piece of wood with a shove to get it clear of the spot it sticks at. Dani slipped the heavy knife back into the sheath secured to the underside of the heavy oak table. He arched an expressive eyebrow as he spotted the movement and she simply shrugged her shoulder.
"Good day at work?" she asked, standing up and gliding across the floor to meet him about halfway. At almost five nine she was considered tall but James was nearly a foot taller, and he bent slightly to capture her lips with a quick, lingering kiss that hinted at their shared desire.
James shrugged indifferently. "About the same as yesterday," he told her placing a plastic bag full of Thai cuisine on the kitchen table. "Amara and her usual crew was there." Opening the fridge he pulled out a forty ounce bottle of water and guzzled down about half of it in a single go.
"You know…" Dani started.
"Don't," James cut her off.
Dani snorted as she got some paper plates down from the cupboard, "Because that's gonna work."
"We've been over this," James said as he started setting out the food containers. He took another, smaller drink from his water bottle.
"It's perfect," Dani argued, placing the plates on the table. "You have the experience and they need someone to teach them."
He shook his head. "I'm not going to help a bunch of spoiled rich kids get themselves killed, or worse, get someone else killed. Like this girl Amara pulled up to her private little tree house. Tiny little thing, couldn't have been more than fifteen…? Sixteen?"
"Cute," Dani asked.
James pulled out a set of silverware from the drawer as he smiled at Dani and answered her question with a, "As a button."
"So Amara is recruiting?"
"I don't know," James answered honestly. "The club's too loud to hear anything more than a dozen feet away." He scooped out portions of food onto each plate. "She could speak Apache," he shrugged as he added, "Needs a bit of work but it was good enough I'd call her fluent and she was picking it up quickly as we talked. She could also speak Italian or maybe it was Latin. I think that's why Amara dragged her off so quickly…?"
"Avoid failing a test," Dani suggested as she sat down.
"Maybe," James said. "What's going on tomorrow?"
"I've got a half shift tomorrow. Cliff is expecting Midnight Thunder to begin the foaling soon and wants someone with experience around if he needs help," Dani explained.
"Good thing your grandfather taught you about horses," he said earning a sad little smile from Dani.
She nodded at his comment. Her grandfather had raised her since she was a small child; after her parents had gone missing while out hiking in the trails just behind their Boulder, Colorado home. She begged them not to go out that day, a sort of waking dream told her that they were never going to come home from their hike.
It was the first time her mutant powers manifested themselves. And she had seen her parents being mauled and dragged off into the nether by some sort of super bear; a creature straight from her most hellish nightmares. Worst the creature had noticed her and she knew that was what drew the bear's attention. That she was the reason her parents had been torn away from her.
Their bodies had never been recovered and the official report said that they most likely had fallen into one of the numerous gullies or ravines that were found in that area of Colorado, possibly even some sort of natural cave.
She knew better.
"Once I finish work we can meet up and start in on that next lead," she said shoving those memories back into the depths of her soul. "I've got the eight to one shift…"
Reaching out James took Dani's hand and offered her a rare, hard earned smile as he gently squeezed her hand. Meeting her a few days after arriving in New York had been a godsend. He had been rudely awoken to the fact that the city was nothing like the reservation, or even his life in the army. One he could ride roughshod over and the other was so structured most would call it anal. She managed to keep him focused on his objective; his adopted half sister Bethany, instead of losing himself in all the noise and distraction of the search.
Dani helped him find a job. She allowed him to live with her, provided he kept up on his share of the expenses, and helped him in his search for a sister he never meet before. She was his sounding board and they often talked late into the night, or into the early morning. He didn't have to hide himself from her, wanted her to know all there was to know about him.
Who would have thought that the daughter of the Cheyenne would ever help the son of the Apache. Their respective tribes hadn't engaged in open warfare but they weren't exactly friendly with each other. A lot of land separated their two tribes.
James didn't know when it happened; he didn't have an exact date marked off on the calendar that proclaimed this is the day I fell in love with Danielle Moonstar, but knew he had. Knew it with how his heart raced when he caught her scent in the air.
"Well then," James said as he pulled her to him and easily picked her up as he stood. "We can't be keeping you up all night then." His mouth captured hers as she wrapped her legs around his waist. She was light enough he easily carried her into their bedroom. Then again, his VW bus was light enough for him to carry. With an absentmindedness thought about privacy he kicked the bedroom door shut behind him.
/ / /
There was a distinctive odor that filled the cramped hallway of Chesterfeld Academy of Academic Excellence; dozens of different aftershaves, perfumes, deodorants, shampoos, sweat and other unmentionable things that Kitty desperately wanted to ignore as she dug into her locker searching for her AP Bio-Chem Workbook.
She was thin, not runway, anorexic model thin, much more of a healthy, athletic sort of thinness that came from years of playing soccer and basketball. Neither of which she was very good at, but her parents insisted on her not sitting in front of her computer for days on end with no physical activity. Something that was more than likely to happen if she wasn't kept on such a strict schedule. That also meant she didn't possess the sort of sultry curves most guys were looking for in a woman. At five-five, she wasn't tall and with her thick, heavily curled chestnut brown hair and relatively bland features and an extremely flat chest no one would ever call her beautiful.
Attractive, maybe…?
But she knew beautiful was off the table.
Discovering her objective, and wondering how it had gotten shoved under so much other stuff and mangled to such a degree. True Bio-Chem wasn't her favorite subject but it hardly reached the sort of loathing required to mistreat a book in such a fashion. That should be reserved for Music Theorist. Who really cared about the difference between an E# and an Fb?
A heavy body bumped into her, mashing her into her open locker and was gone just as quick without even an attempt at a backward apology. "Asshole," she mumbled to herself as she checked the hallway to make sure no one was paying attention to her as she removed her forearm from the bank of lockers. It was a minor miracle she hadn't phased all the way through the wall with how hard that shove was.
She didn't want to know what would happen if she got outed as a mutant. How it might affect her future, would people claim she possessed an unfair advantage because her DNA was supposedly superior. If anyone had ever seen her try to sink a free throw they'd probably piss themselves laughing so hard. Whoever came up with the term Homo Saipan Superior should be taken out behind a woodshed and whipped until he thought of something better.
The Germans had considered themselves superior, so had the Japanese. Both committed atrocities during the Second World War. Eugenics and worse. Genocide. And now there were people like Magneto and his Brotherhood… Senators and religious fanatics on the other side and all of them pushing for a final solution. Things were getting worse when they should be getting better.
"You'll alright there?" Sam asked as he leaned up against the locker alongside hers.
Kitty shot him a shrug as she gathered the last of her books. "It's high school," she said as if that simple explanation was the single, most important reason behind all of the world's problems. "When are any of us ever really alright?"
He smiled down at her. It was the sort of smile capable of captivating an entire room. "That some more of your granddaddies' keen observational skills?" He inquired in that down home sort of slur he normally spoke with.
Sam was a tall young man, a little on the thin side for his six foot three inch frame but he was a gifted athlete, a three sports star that was being scouted by all the major universities as well as professional baseball. He could run like the wind, with hands that seemed to latch onto anything even remotely thrown in his direction. He was deadly with a jump shot when he wasn't driving a lane and could see the entire court. His fastball was blazing and went along well with a wicked twelve to six curve that would leave opposing batters looking more than a little foolish and he hit for both power and average.
He kept his blonde hair cropped short and his blue eyes were the color of a frosty morning. His square jaw went along almost perfectly with his aw shucks southern earnestness and he could have had just about any girl in the school but he claimed most of them were just the wrong side of vapid and shallow to have an actual relationship with. He did have something of a reputation though having made his way through a fair number of cheerleaders.
"Nope," she replied shutting her locker and slouching against the cool metal. "That is one hundred and ten percent KAP," she told him with a smirk.
It took Sam a moment but after a second or two he grinned. He wasn't stupid, in fact he was actually maintaining a solid B average with her tutoring him, but his academic achievements weren't the reason behind the full scholarship he was riding to attend Chesterfeld Academy. Sports drove funding, so Chesterfeld did like every other educational institution, made sure they fielded the best all around athletic program they could. If that meant a couple dozen full scholarships to gifted athletes like Sam that was a price they were willing to pay.
Looking across the corridor Kitty frowned at the two socially elite teenagers casually lounging there in an area they had never loitered in before, Amara Aquilla and Theresa Cassidy. Just being in this hall must be sucking the coolness out of their pores. "What the hell are they doing?"
"Problem?"
"Just sensing the vultures circling," Kitty answered.
Sam glanced over at the red head and the blonde. "Want me to go and have a talk with them?"
Kitty shakes her head saying, "Better not. You don't want it to seem like you care too much about me. And don't get all huffy with your manly pride. Even you wouldn't fare too well at five to two odds," Kitty told Sam before he went off and did something stupid as a recent transfer student forced her way between the two taller girls. At least she tried to.
Illyana Nikolievna Rasputina, she was from Russia, a farm girl from someplace in the outskirts of Siberia. She was smart, with barely a trace of an accent on the pair of occasions when the two talked. She was a tiny thing, a freshman if Kitty wasn't mistaken and only just thirteen years old, barely five feet two inches and maybe ninety pounds. She could have easily fit into Amara's circle looking like she belonged on a beach somewhere with her long blonde hair, blue eyes and perfectly tan skin.
Right now though she looked extremely irritated finding her locker blocked. Glaring at the pair she said something and judging by their looks it wasn't very flattering. Turning she marched across the hallway looking as if she were intent on murdering someone and made straight for Kitty. Watching Illyana sort of glide toward her, Kitty felt ungainly in her height.
Planting herself almost directly in front of Kitty, Illyana said, "They…" the tiny blonde started with a slight jerk of her head back in the direction of Amara and Theresa. "…said your name was Kitty."
"Katherine actually," Kitty corrected her but then shrugged and said, "but yeah. Everyone usually just calls me Kitty."
"Ketrin," Illyana said giving the word a slightly different inflection. "My English still isn't very good," she apologized.
"Better than my Russian," Kitty joked earning a slight smile from the blonde.
"When I pointed out they were blocking my locker," Illyana began. She did not like the fact the pair had pretty much ignored her. "They claimed they were trying to figure out a way to approach you about a job."
Kitty blinked at Illyana. Aside from a few socially accepted occasions, no one in their circle ever talked to her, about anything. Ever. They were masters at avoiding all contact with the mass of peons that filled the school. Especially about any type of job. Unless it involved getting rid of a virus, or perhaps tutoring if they'd fallen behind in a class or two, but Amara and Theresa were honor students, low A's and high B's.
"Personally I would not trust them," Illyana told Kitty. "They remind me of girl bratva."
"Isn't that like the Russian mob?" Sam asked.
Illyana graced Sam with a bit of a half smile as she nodded. "Only they're not so nice as the mafia," she answered him.
"Heard Amara's family was connected," he said thoughtfully.
Kitty frowned at the pair, "That's just an urban myth," she told the pair. "Not every successful Italian businessman is connected. That's like saying all Chinese people know Kung Fu, or everyone that follows Islam is a Jihadist."
"Or the Jews control all the money?" Sam asked.
Directing a glare at Sam she said, "You can tell Amara she can suck on a ghost pepper."
"Or that all French women are extremely hot bi-sexual lesbians," Sam continued with a smile as Kitty punched his bicep.
A small, wistful smile slide from Illyana's face as her gaze followed Kitty and Sam as they walked away. She used to have friends like that in the Ust-Ordynsky, back before Piotr arranged for her to come to America to attend Xavier's school for mutants; before he, along with the rest of the X-Men disappeared and forced their mother to rely on Uncle Anatoly for passage. He had helped them, as was right for family but his aid had a price.
Turning back around she returned to her locker and as politely as she could said, "If you would not mind," she made sure her accent was thicker than normal. "Ty deshevaya, gryaznaya doch' chechenskoy shlyukhi." She said forcing her way into her locker. She had to suppress the urge to laugh at their nearly identical expressions; as if they had just been hit upside the head with a heavy blunt object.
"What?" Amara managed. "I barely understand my grandfather. There is no way… What did you just say to us?" The taller blonde demanded.
Illyana glared at the older girl, not in the least bit intimidated. "I said, my next class is across campus and I'd rather not be late."
"What did she say?" Theresa asked. "You did ask her? Right?"
"I mention it," she confirmed as she grabbed a pair of books.
"Well?" Amara demanded.
"Let's see if I remember correctly," Illyana said thoughtfully. "You can hop the express car straight to hell before she'll help you."
/ / /
On bare feet Kara silently padded across Jessica's office apartment. Glancing through another hole in the wall she wanted to snatch a contractor or some drywall and speckle, and begin patching the numerous holes in the small apartment. She doubted Trish would mind the expense. The older blonde would probably consider it something of a blessing, after all Jess wouldn't be able to blame her. Add in the fact that the brunette kind of, sort of didn't outright hate her, and maybe, sort of liked her, Kara was relatively confident Jess wouldn't stay mad at her for too long. An hour or two tops.
Attempting to ignore the women in the hallway, not an easy task considering how much noise they were making. Kara knew she needed to readjust to what she considered a lot of noise. If only her ears came with a volume control. Ever since this morning, after unexpectedly expanding the range of her senses, no matter what she tried, Kara had been unable to rein them in. She was being bombarded; nonstop, with every scrap of sensory information in a ten block radius.
The older woman was a mess. Her husband had been missing for a week now and she was so far beyond concerned. The daughter wasn't any better; she just hid it behind a façade of teenage sarcasm and cynicism.
Exhaling softly Kara closed her eyes and whispered a silent prayer as she heard Jessica's drunken stumble as she crossed the intersection almost ten blocks away, at the very edge of her range. She could practically taste the cheap whiskey mixed in the PI's coffee. If only there was some way she could help, but it wasn't possible when no one even told her what the problem was. It had something to do with a recent case, a family named Shlottman, or something like that.
Taking up a place on the window sill, pressing her back against the thin wooden frame Kara rested her bare feet against the opposite wall. Closing her eyes she tried muting the world around her, shutting everything more than a hundred feet away from her out completely. She was kind of amazed she knew exactly where a hundred feet was and was even more astonished when everything beyond that point just… It didn't vanish but there was no longer a thousand screaming voices pounding into her skull like Metallica cranked to eleven and plugged directly into her ears.
Thinking about what she did, Kara knew she made similar attempts earlier in the day but for some reason this worked while the rest failed. Maybe it had more to do with her mental state. That panicked feeling, like the world was about to rise up against her and she needed to be prepared, ready to move at a moment's notice without hesitation, was gone. Was it because Jessica was close, like Linus with his security blanket?
Listening to the elevator as it rose up its shaft. For a moment she wondered if Jess had fallen asleep and winced as she heard the PI bang into the closing doors. Kara grimaced when she heard Jess' special blend slosh onto the floor and knew she wasn't going to want to deal with the mother and daughter seeking her help. She could've been a little nicer when brushing them off instead of trying to smash them to pulp. Maybe the husband was cheating, or maybe he had gotten into something just this side of skeavy and now all he wanted to do was come home but didn't know how to get himself out from whatever he was mixed up in.
Jessica slide her key into the lock and turned it, unlocking the door. She shoved it open a crack as she called back, "Hey." Mother and daughter stop turning back. "Whatever he's doing… I hope you find him," she offered. It sounded more than a bit lame to Kara.
Mother and daughter started walking away, their footsteps loud to Kara, as Jessica sighed heavily and gave the door a gentle shove to give herself enough space to slip through. "Jesus," Jess whispered spotting Kara. She slipped into her apartment, shoving the door close. "Trish said you texted that you were crashing at my place last night," she said turning towards Kara. "I covered…" Her voice trailed off as she got her first real look at the tiny blonde.
"If it helps I didn't lie," Kara told Jess. "I was here when…"
"What the hell happened?" The brunette PI demanded as she crossed the room and took Kara's chin between her fingers. The phone rang but Jess ignored it.
Kara shrugged, she figured the answer would be obvious. "I got in a fight," she told the PI.
"With what, a mack truck?"
The answering machine pick up. Jessica's recorded voice informing the caller they had reached the, "Wrong number."
At the beep an odd sounding voice said, "Jessica Jones. Do yourself a favor and don't look for John Raymond."
Jessica moved quickly picking up the phone. "Hello," she began but the line had already gone dead.
"Does that mean we have a case?" Kara asked, pleading hopefully.
Jess shot the blonde a hard glare. "It means I have to get you to the hospital," Jessica informed the blonde.
Kara rolled her eyes. "And by the time we get there I won't have a scratch on me."
"Fine," Jess huffed somewhat. "Then you can tell me everything that happened."
"Everything?"
"Everything," Jess told the blonde.
Kara took a breath, seemed to hold it for a long time before she finally said, "I think I killed someone…? Or maybe re-killed would be a better word because really, how do you kill someone who is already dead?" At Jess' blank look Kara finally said, "I think the guy was a vampire."
"Vampires aren't real," Jess told her.
Kara arched a rather expressive eyebrow as she asked, "Gods and alien invasions you're down with? Hot chicks with superpowers…? You're good with them too? But you draw the line at dead people sucking blood from gaping wounds and going poof when you shove a silver stake through their heart?"
Jess knew she was going to regret this but she couldn't help herself. "Start at the beginning K and don't leave nothing out."
"At the beginning," Kara repeated. "And leave nothing out," She thought back to how her night started out. "Pretty much Trish kicked me out and told me to have a good time. She have a boyfriend I need to have a shovel talk with?"
Jess fought the smile that threatened. She almost hoped Simpson showed his face again just so she could watch Kara pound him into a paste like substance, but it had been months and he hadn't resurfaced yet. Jess had the feeling when he finally did it was going to be bad. "Focus Kara, I'll give you all the dirt on Trish's exes later."
The tiny blonde huffed, blowing a stray lock of nearly white blonde hair out of her face. "I'm going to hold you to that," Kara promised. "So I'm at Sotto Twenty-One…" Seeing Jess' blank look she adds, "It's Italian for Under or beneath… Any number of similar words." She opened the refrigerator door and retrieved a pair of the cheap generic brand sodas, after opening them she offered one to Jessica. The brunette glared at the soda but Kara didn't seem to notice. "So I'm taking my ease at the bar, figured I could nurse one of their fake booze drinks for awhile, while I chatted up the cute Apache… And, um, just for the record, I'm not actually fluent in every language. I mean I could speak Apache but according to James I sounded like I learnt it later in life. Made a few grammatical errors that sort of thing."
"Good looking?"
Kara smiled at the brunette. "Smoking. Long black hair and soft, warm chocolate brown eyes you could just lose yourself in. Six-five-ish, maybe taller. Kind of hard to tell from my perspective. And his clothes accentuated what was underneath. I'd swear he only wore them so that people could imagine what he looked like without them on." She frowned slightly as she remembered what happened next. "Then Amara forced herself between me and the trekkie dweeb that kept trying to chat me up, or anybody really. He didn't seem overly particular who he talked at. As far as distractions go Amara would certainly do, five and half feet tall with a distance runner's build; long blonde hair and crystal blue eyes like frozen ocean, but a little too cunning and a bit conniving. Not someone I'd want to have at my back all that often."
Jessica took a swing of the soda Kara had given her with a slight grimace and then refilled the can from her bottle of cheap whiskey before taking a testing drink. She added another finger's width of whiskey to the soda before she screwed the cap back on her bottle and settled into her chair.
Kara continued talking and Jess was amazed that the girl hadn't run out of things to say, she gave short but extremely well formed descriptions of the other two girls, an Irish teenager named Theresa with reddish hair and soft emerald eyes a little taller than Amara, along with a mix race Asian girl, Roubpheap Sramol whose name meant Silhouette in English. Her dark brown eyes were hard and intelligent, filled with a cunning light and her brown hair had hung straight to the middle of her back. There was also a linguistic Professor, a Douglas Ramsey, they wanted her help to outsmart. That was the one name that just might be able to help track the group down.
When Theresa and the others realized she was Amnesia Girl, Kara had bolted like a startled rabbit, Jess had the suspicion it wouldn't take the girls long to track Kara back to Trish and given the young blonde's over protective nature toward her sister; Jess had the feeling this was going to turn into a shit storm rather quickly. "You let me track them down," Jessica said. "That judge wants you to keep your nose clean, means no going out looking for fights."
"I'm not going to stand by and let people get hurt," Kara said. She didn't know why she was the way she was, why or how she had come by her powers but she knew it wasn't so she could hide. Maybe if she set an example. Show normal people that Metas were just like them, only there were plenty of evil humans out there, never mind super powered megalomaniacs with ambitions for world domination.
Jessica took a breath as she began to realize Kara was just like Trish, only hyped up on super-do-gooder crack or something equally evil. Stopping the blonde wasn't possible, she might have it over the teenager in raw strength but Kara didn't rely solely on her strength. She could use that brain of hers and analyze a situation as quick as anyone Jess had ever seen, as well as possessing a tactical and situational awareness on par with anyone. Give the girl a few years experience, a base to operate out of, equipment and resources and Jessica didn't doubt Kara would be able to neutralize just about any threat. "Just don't go jumping into anything with both feet?" Jess asked plainly.
Kara gave the brunette a small nod as she said, "If I can help… I'm going to help."
"Going by what I've seen in the few days I've know you, I don't think you could be you and not help," Jessica said. "Now what about this vampire?"
Kara frowned slightly, it was easy to hear the doubt in Jess' voice. "I heard a woman scream," Kara began with a voice tinted with guilt and recriminations. "Maybe if I'd been faster…?" Her voice was so soft Jess almost didn't hear Kara.
"Hey," Jess cut her off. "None of that. You're not going to be able to save everyone. And sometimes…" She paused taking a breath to keep herself from blurting things out that no teenager should ever have to deal with, but like her, life hadn't really been fair to the blonde, saddling her with powers. "Sometimes people are going to die and there won't be anything you can do." That was way too much share time and Jess took a deep drink from her mixed soda.
Kara watched Jess as she drank and the brunette could almost curse herself as she could see Kara connect the dots. "So vampire?" Jess snarled frustrated with herself.
"Strong, fast… Could take a licking and keep on ticking…" Jessica frowned at the saying, she remembered it from when she was younger, a watch commercial or something, but she hadn't heard it much now that she was older. Kara didn't notice her facial expression as she continued describing the fight. The vampire had manage to land a couple of blows which Kara hadn't even felt, didn't even realize she had been hit until Jess had pointed out the bruising. "I think the woman might have been hunting vampires," Kara said as she retrieved the silver stake. "Put the pointy end inside the Vampire's heart and poof. One dusty vampire."
Jessica exhaled softly as she took the silver stake. Silver wasn't cheap. This must have cost a small fortune but if vampires truly did exist she was going to have to figure out a way to get Trish to carry something like this in case of emergencies.
"I don't think there're a lot of them," Kara said with a thoughtful expression. "I think I can sense the supernatural. Drunk stalker guy at the courthouse… I could feel him. That's how he led me up to the roof and the vampire…? I could sense him when he was about four blocks out." They had been slightly different. The vampire felt evil while the guy on the roof was just kind of pathetic.
"First thing," Jessica said deciding it was time to start her day. "Call Trish, she was worried about you…"
Kara opened her mouth but snapped it close at Jess' expression. Jess smirked until Kara said, "Whatever you want Aunt Jessica."
"Nobody likes a smartass," Jess grumbled as Kara's words reminded Jess that if Trish did manage to adopt Kara then technically she would be the girl's aunt.
"Trish likes you," Kara reminded her. Jess opened her mouth but whatever she had been going to say she decided against it. "What's number two?"
Jess grinned at the blonde. "Library card and then research while I come back here and get some much needed sleep."
"I changed my mind," Kara grumbled. "You are pure evil. Foisting the Dewey Decimal System onto the youth of America."
"You'll get over it," Jessica informed the girl.
Rough Translation using Google Translate (Try to keep them in the order they appear):
Russian: Ty deshevaya, gryaznaya doch' chechenskoy shlyukhi English: You are cheap, dirty daughter of Chechen whore
Italian: Sotto English: Under