On the Flip Side
Chapter 1
For those familiar with how Tricksters operate, they might be surprised to learn about some of their most frequented locations. Well, at least for one Trickster in particular. It may seem strange, but schools of all levels provided some of the best hunting grounds in this day and age.
Usually Loki prowled college campuses, finding many a deserving soul among the vast seas of student bodies and faculty members. Humans who had yet to out-grow the basics of schoolyard pettiness were usually below his pay grade, unless they did something to trigger an impulsive response if the inspiration struck. He liked to save his lessons for the more malicious examples of humanity.
Or, you know, really annoying assholes who happened to grab his attention.
Today his playground of choice was a high school located in the heart of California, just thirty-something miles south of San Francisco. The campus was private and pristine, admitting only those white-collar children whose parents could afford the ridiculous price tag attached to the uniform.
He wondered how many of those parents would care to learn that every morning they sent their little darlings off to school they were parading them in front of an equal-opportunist kidnapper and child molester.
Well, they weren't anymore but that was beside the point.
Mr. Camponella had quite the track record under his belt, not that there was any record of it in any police database. The sleaze was careful in his choice of targets, making sure to cover his tracks and making sure to leave nothing that could trace back to him. Over the last ten years he had played with dozens of children ranging from ages ten to sixteen, and had taken several others as his personal toys. Once he was done with them he drove them up to his family's property up in the nearby Santa Cruz mountains, where he had pre-dug graves in preparation for their arrival.
What a charmer, right?
Sadly, Mr. Camponella took his last breath at approximately 2:45 that morning, courtesy of several of the Trickster's constructs in the shape of the history teacher's previous victims. It was only fair that the man experience some of the more creative techniques that he had used himself.
It would probably be a few weeks before the body was found.
Maybe months.
And so here he was, masquerading as a last minute substitute teacher who happened to be available and had glowing credentials.
It was easy enough, and it allowed him to do one last sweep of the school before he moved on to fresh territory.
The school day was nearly half over, his current batch of students were a mix of sophomores and juniors, almost all of them restless and ready for their lunch break.
When you've been roaming the planet as long as Loki has, history was a cakewalk. When you were disregarding the lesson plan it was easy to pick out some of the more interesting topics to discuss and once it became apparent he was rather free-handed with passing out candy for active participants he was in good with the kids.
After making several mental sweeps, it became obvious that there was no one else left for him. A few students might make his list in a few years if they held true to their course, especially the homophobic jock in the back, and a bully of a girl who had been harboring dark thoughts towards one of her classmates all morning. But both of them were younger than he preferred his targets to be, even for one of his less deadly pranks.
Eventually the bell rang for lunch. The class rose en-mass and flooded out through the doors, all of them keeping to the routine followed by students across the nation. Repetitive.
Boring.
So imagine Loki's surprise, and delight, when the fight erupted down the hall.
Being what he was, he didn't have to be right there to see what was happening. With so many witnesses present, and all of them with their minds wide open, he practically had a 360-degree view of what was going on.
The instigator was the bully he had noticed earlier, a girl named Charity of all things, and apparently she was much closer to making his list that he first assumed. With her emotions running on high he could read her crystal clear; her mind clouded with jealousy, self-importance, and the burning need to belittle those she saw as below her. Already he could see the very beginnings of sadism. Apparently last year the painted prima donna had harassed another girl so badly that she had taken her own life. Charity had taken a small measure of pleasure once she learned of the girl's death; drunk on the power trip of knowing she had helped trigger it.
And she was trying to do it again, on someone she had assumed was even weaker.
Loki could see where she thought so. Little miss Jodi Hunter was a scrappy little thing: whip thin, just under five feet tall, and with a noticeable vision impairment in one eye. For the duration of his class she had sat near the back, distracted and anxious. Her aura was tarnished by mental scarring and shot through with deep-rooted fear and the need to survive.
That wasn't so surprising.
He recognized her from a news broadcast when he was working a gig a few states over. He was familiar with the story the public was given, presented optimistically as a Christmas Miracle that she was found after a (supposed) seven-month abduction. Human investigations tended to be less than accurate, but maybe there had been a kernel of truth to the story. She certainly showed some signs of past trauma.
Then again so did a lot of humans.
The fight was over a phone, of all things. Seeing how Jodi coveted the battered thing, and how desperately she wanted it back prompted Charity to try to ruin it.
If she had been paying attention then maybe she would have spotted the textbook before it collided with the side of her face.
The bully became the unexpected victim and if that wasn't just desserts then he didn't know what was.
For a girl so underfed and just about half-blind Jodi was positively feral when she was angry, like a Mini-Hulk in a pint-sized package. All of her fear seemed to evaporate in the wake of the wrath that burned through her, punching and clawing at her opponent however she could.
Loki wanted to give Jodi a round of applause when she stabbed Charity with a pencil.
He nearly did when she shattered it in the girl's arm and then deliberately drove the splinters deeper in.
It was a shame he had to break it up. But, well, substitute teacher after all.
He had appearances to keep.
When Jodi slipped the hold of the first teacher, as evasive as an eel, he took it as his cue to step in, locking one arm around her middle as the other caught her left arm before she could take another swing.
Loki nearly dropped her right there.
Upon contact something Other pinged at his senses, setting off every warning he had and making his true abilities flare up in a way they hadn't in centuries.
What he did do was school his features carefully, gave a curt "alright kiddo, that's enough." and escort the kid to the office to wait for the police that were on their way.
Upon their arrival he created a double of himself, and let himself fall off the visual radar. Once his doppelganger handed the girl off to the office staff he lingered behind to examine her more closely.
The kid was human. Utterly. Completely.
There was nothing in her blood to suggest otherwise, and she felt squeaky clean of any and all supernatural influence. He could sense no magical artifacts, no cursed objects, and her body didn't give any suggestion of sigils of power, tattooed or otherwise.
But she did have an odd scar on the arm that he grabbed.
A rather large one.
It was some sort of chemical burn, more than an inch wide and running in a crisp line the length of her forearm. While he could tell the skin was healed and new, the flesh that made the scar itself was bright pink and shiny, like it was freshly made.
Hidden completely from human senses, he brushed his fingers against it, and instantly grit his teeth as his senses lit up again, the true core of his self rousing like a slumbering giant against an intruder.
Now that he was focusing his full attention on it he could tell what he was feeling was just residual energy embedded in the scar tissue, some sort of transfer left behind by whatever made it. The energy signature was so foreign he had never seen anything remotely like it.
And that was worrisome since his memory was almost as long and expansive as time itself.
The signature grated against him, his own power screaming Unknown, and Other, and set him on edge in a way he hadn't been since before he took up the mantle of Loki. There wasn't a single Pantheon in the known galaxy that had a hand in its creation. That included the Big G and that alone was terrifying.
This kid had officially become Interesting.
Miss Jodi Hunter was taken into custody in front of half the school. She went quietly enough, standing tall in the face of her audience, but any creature, or human psychic worth their salt, could feel the fury still circulating through her. She kept it white-hot and well stoked, using it to fortify herself within her mind.
He thought he saw a glimmer of satisfaction in her eye when she spotted a sobbing Charity being loaded into an ambulance. Sure, she was a little scuffed herself, and had a bloody lip to boot, but it was clear who had won the cat-fight.
He shadowed her, leaving his double behind to finish the school day and take a statement. He reclined beside her during her ride to the station, contemplating what to do about this odd development.
If he decided to do anything at all.
That was his problem in a nutshell, wasn't it?
Loki wasn't keen on delving too deep in the unknown; you never knew what kind of attention you'd attract. The very last thing he needed was unwanted attention. He had spent too long carving out his niche, and had invested too much time covering his ass.
But could he afford ignorance when there was potentially a new player in the field? Could he afford being blindsided?
Lost in his thoughts, he snapped a Snickers into existence, unwrapped it and chomped into it noisily as he contemplated.
As he continued to examine the teen he noticed one more oddity about the kid's scar. It glowed. Kind of. Sure it was faint as hell and most humans would never even notice with their limited perception, but in the dim light of the police cruiser the burn held a soft opalescent shimmer.
Huh. That was new.
There were dozens of jokes he could probably make here, but sadly there was no one here to appreciate it. No point in making a joke when there wasn't a proper audience.
Loki took another huge bite from his candy bar and wondered what kind of thing was capable of making such a mark. Animal. Vegetable. Mineral.
He had no frickin' clue, and that bothered the crap out of him.
The next hour or so was pretty boring. The officers dealing with Jodi were all gruff and serious as if they could impose a sense of guilt on her by being intimidating. Loki was less than impressed, and Jodi even less so. The kid seemed content to sit in silence as they walked her through the process, rolling her eyes at the cop who took her to an interrogation room, forced her to sit and ordered her to stay put. She huffed when he slammed the door behind him.
Figuring they weren't going anywhere any time soon, Loki picked a corner and settled in for the wait. After debating the pros and cons, he opened up a direct line to Jodi's mind, being careful to stick to surface thoughts and emotions. He wanted to be cautious, but he also wanted to keep a better understanding of the situation as it developed. Things were easier to assess when someone knew what was going on.
Good thing too.
When the image of a blue-eyed Fed came bursting into the room, seething and practically spitting cold-fire, Loki bristled.
The man was anything but human. The thing standing there was a construct, somehow created solely from light and energy. It was hollow with no true life force of it's own, a mere avatar for someone, something, else. It was also Other, the energy signature strikingly similar to the residual left on the girl's scar.
Similar, very similar, but not identical.
Jodi recognized him, her mind helpfully supplying the terms Holoform, and Autobot and labeling him as hostile, before she zeroed in on the phone in it's hand. Her very own ancient beat-up Blackberry, the one she hospitalized Charity over.
She knew the thing standing in front of her wasn't human, wasn't even from this planet.
And she was unafraid. He didn't know whether to tag her as brave or just plain stupid.
When it demanded to know how long she had the phone Loki blinked at her responses. She quickly became stubborn and belligerent, posture and word all but telling the construct, Holoform, to fuck off.
Well, apparently the answer to that was; both.
He listened to their conversation with interest, curious about how she got tangled up with these things in the first place. Apparently Blue-Eyes wanted to know as well, but it wasn't something she was willing to share.
A second Other was mentioned repeatedly, someone called Barricade (seriously?), and it was clear that Blue-Eyes was on less than friendly terms with him, even though he seemed to mean something to Jodi. Though, man, was that name a trigger for a cluster-fuck of emotions.
Whoever it was, he seemed to have ditched the kid.
Her thoughts on the subject roiled with hurt and betrayal, along with a myriad of other things, but apparently she was a fiercely loyal creature, and no matter how Blue-Eyes pled his case, Jodi refused to out him.
Good for her.
Throughout their discussion (more like a battle of wills), her hand would drift to her scar, palming it like one would clutch at a talisman. The motion seemed like an unconscious habit, becoming more predominant when Jodi confessed that she didn't believe her friend was ever coming back.
Loki's best guess was that this Barricade guy had something to do with her getting it in the first place. Deliberate or accidental, he couldn't tell, and the kid's mind wouldn't pony up the info without deeper prodding.
The plot thickens.
Their tempers both petered out after Jodi's little declaration, prompting the Other to fork over the kid's phone as some sort of peace offering. He also left her his contact information in case of an emergency.
"Prowl"? Seriously who came up with these names?
Loki didn't like how he had prefaced informing her of the details. Words like "in light of recent developments" usually suggested that there was something big going down, or about to, and he hated not knowing what was happening behind the curtain. That was usually his turf after all.
Before he could properly mull over that little tidbit, a stupidly well-dressed man swept into the room. He was tall and broad, with a mustached face, and a suitcase in hand.
As soon as he entered it was like a switch had been flipped within the kid.
All that fire that had carried Jodi since the fight with Charity just up and disappeared. Poof, gone, the inferno snuffed out like a candle-flame. In its place came a flood of deeply ingrained fear and a rising sense of panic.
And these were simply surface thoughts.
Prowl quickly excused himself, and Loki felt a tug as Jodi's thoughts fleetingly begged for him to stay.
She was more terrified of this man than she was of an entity that she clearly labeled as her enemy.
That spoke volumes.
Loki gave the man a hard appraising stare, then let loose a long two-note whistle. "Oh man. Ain't you just a lovely piece of work."
Understatement.
Loki didn't need to delve too deep to see the amount of corruption layered over the man's soul, but he did anyway. At a glance he already mentally added him to his "To Do" list, seeing as this guy was more than qualified, but it usually worked out best when he knew all of his target's dirty little secrets.
And, of boy, did David Hunter have a long, long line of dirty little secrets.
Publically, David was a strict but hardworking man. A respectable man. He kept long hours at his rather successful firm, but tried hard to take care of his niece, and was trying to work through her trauma of loosing both her parents and then surviving a long-term kidnapping.
In actuality, he was an uncompassionate douche bag who valued money and keeping appearances over all else. He was controlling and manipulative. He had many friends in strategic places, and had them all at his beck and call as long as he kept their pockets greased. His influence ran deep, and there had been dozens of incidents where he ruined lives on a whim, all the while making sure nothing traced back to him.
He was an intelligent, but unstable, psychopath who had arranged his own brother's murder, paid to make it look like an act of God, had all the evidence swept away, and all to have a shot at seducing his sister in-law. However, his efforts drove that same woman to suicide, just so she could fully rid herself of his harassment.
He sliced his niece's face with a box-cutter when her temper and green-eyed glare reminded him more of her father than her mother. And that was only the first time he had laid hands on the kid. The medical center he took her to then and every visit after was on his payroll and made sure to keep child services off his back.
He had to give Jodi credit, he was surprised the kid had any spark left at all.
As vile and tainted as David's soul was (the sheer volume of his transgressions making Loki's fingers itch with the need to snap up a proper punishment sooner rather than later), there was an additional dark spot present, reeking of sulfur and counting down his days as sure as a doomsday clock.
David was marked by a crossroads deal, with the ten-year expiration date less than two years away.
Loki dove deeper, wanting to see the deal in its entirety. He saw it all. The dusty crossroads in the middle of California's more rural central valley, the demon itself, smiling and wearing a voluptuous and heart-faced red-head. He heard every work and witnessed the kiss that sealed the deal.
As he pulled from the memory a slow, wicked grin spread across Loki's face.
Some demons were more . . . generous than others when it came to the details of the deals they made. Good customer service he supposed, they were selling their soul after all. But this one, oh, this one had picked her words carefully, clarified the specifics herself, and then kept to the letter of that agreement. No more.
What David had wanted was Erica, Jodi's mother. He craved her, obsessed over her, and he was insanely jealous that his brother had caught her first. He had believed that if he proved himself to be better than Nick, blue-collar, un-ambitious Nick, then Erica would fall into his arms and he could tuck her away like a coveted gem. He told the demon he wanted wealth, and total control over his business, because with money came power.
And he was successful on that front. He took over a law firm that grew more prestigious every year, and with filthy rich clientele he was practically rolling in money.
But Erica wasn't a woman who could be bought and had remained unmoved.
David had ranted and raged, and tried to edit his contract, but it was done. With his soul already bought and paid for, he had nothing left to offer.
In the end all he got from Erica was a bloody message left on a bathroom mirror, and an unwanted niece who was proving more trouble than she was worth.
And after this last stunt, he was done with her.
Loki shook himself free from the man's mind, sloughing off the black coating on the human's soul.
David Hunter would die, but not by his hand. He was already marked, and being a Hell Hound's chew toy was a gruesome way to go. Who was he to deny David that little play date?
Didn't mean he wasn't going to be his personal poltergeist for the time he had left, though.
But first there was the current situation at hand.
Now determined, he followed the two humans out of the police station and into an appropriately shiny new sedan. Loki lounged in the back and crossed his arms thoughtfully, tapping a finger to his lips as he eyed the two sitting in front. The tension was thick in the air and he could feel Jodi slip further and further into panic with every passing second.
But David . . .
While Jodi's anger had driven the kid to a sharply focused point, David's fury scattered his rational, making him even more unstable than normal. If Loki left now he knew, without a doubt, that Jodi would be dead before sundown.
He hated leaving children to be slaughtered, much less by their own kin. It struck too close to home. Sure, sixteen wasn't that young, but that was all relative, most humans were children compared to him.
They hadn't been on the road for five minutes when he noticed their shadow, its arrival making all of his senses light up like a damned Christmas tree.
Other.
"You have got to be kidding me." He turned to stare at the scuffed up cop car a block or two back. At a glance it was easy to see that this vehicle didn't belong to Palo Alto PD besides the fact that, while stylish, the car looked too fucked up to be on rotation in such an up-scale area. Plus the paint and decals on the mustang were all wrong, which was a hint in and of itself, but then he Saw it. "Oh. What. The. Hell."
If Loki were human, he would probably be tripping over the fact that the car had no driver. But as it stands, haunted cars aren't as original as you'd think, and that was beside the point. Because the car wasn't haunted, it was alive. As in sentient.
As in it had a soul.
The bloody car had a soul!
Though it was unlike any soul he had ever seen before. In most creatures, their soul spread out to fill their entire form, only condensing in birth, death, or amputation. It was just how it was.
This soul was confined, contained in a sphere about twice the size of a softball, coated and armored and buried somewhere near the heart of the engine block. But there were lines of something running through the body of the car, all of it tainted with the energy coming off the soul itself. From the flow of the lines he could tell that this thing (Cybertronian, Jodi had called them, this had to be one) was something twisted and folded down upon itself to keep the shape it was in.
Then he remembered.
"Son of a bitch. Coyote wasn't yanking my chain after all," Loki muttered.
A little over a year ago he had been visited by a few other tricksters, with one in particular spouting a whole bunch of B.S. about giant alien robots smashing up a whole city and the human government pouring truckloads of money to hush it up. He had brushed it off as just another trickster running amok with a large-scale prank.
Apparently not.
Crap.
"Well, looks like I owe that mutt a gift basket."
As he ghosted his mind along the being, testing, Loki realized this guy had to be Barricade. The energy signature was the exact same as the residual on the kid's scar.
This could be good for him, he might not have to step in after all. If this guy gave a damn about the kid at all, he would intervene before anything drastic happened and Loki wouldn't be forced to do anything that could be considered out of character. He had appearances to keep after all.
You know, unless he grossly misread the situation, which was entirely possible.
So he shouldn't have been so disappointed when the fake cop car hung back when they pulled into a driveway.
Things escalated quickly once they reached the Hunter residence. David manhandled a trembling Jodi out of the car, and shoved her towards the house, leaving Loki to follow by his own means. She made a run for it as soon as the door slammed shut, bolting forward like a horse shooting from a starting gate. The kid was fast, but her uncle was faster, and had long legs that quickly covered ground. He grabbed her by the arm and all but threw her into the kitchen.
Loki's fingers itched, but he forced himself to stillness. Not yet, he whispered to himself.
David was verbally laying into her, pacing back and forth like an agitated predator. He hadn't really done much yet, but he was working himself up, every word spouting from his mouth making him more and more unstable.
Of course, that had to be the moment when Jodi re-discovered her backbone, her retort sharp and to the point and striking home.
He back-handed the kid as soon as the words left her mouth. The force behind it sent her spinning, momentum slamming to a stop as she caught herself on the kitchen counter.
David grabbed her shoulder.
Loki lifted his fingers to snap.
Jodi whirled, quick as lightning, a kitchen knife in hand, and slashed her uncle across the chest.
"Don't touch me!" Jodi growled, holding the knife out like a sword, voice trembling. "No more, you sadistic son of a bitch."
Loki froze and slowly lowered his hand.
Well. Will wonders never cease.
The kid was still petrified, Loki could feel that as clear as anything, but her resolve was steely and it almost vibrated through her. Jodi visibly shook as she saw her uncle's wrath grow colder, but she stood her ground regardless. She ignored her uncle's warning when she took out her phone, speed dialing her brand new contact.
Loki heard her pray that she wasn't wrong in trusting Prowl, unknowing that someone else was sitting on his ass just a few houses down.
Unfortunately, Jodi didn't get a chance to talk to Prowl.
David lunged then, utilizing his size and strength to disarm her, but Jodi was tenacious in her grip on her knife. They slammed back against the counter, and when it became clear that Jodi wasn't about to let go, her uncle turned brutal.
Jodi screamed as her wrist snapped like a dry twig. In a flash, David had his niece on the floor with a hand around her throat.
The only thing that stayed Loki's hand from filleting the douchbag on the spot was the piercing screech of tires, and the sudden onslaught of worry and panic coming from a foreign source.
Well, this promises to be entertaining.
Right on cue, a dark-haired construct, Holoform, whatever, came crashing right through the front door and barreled into the room, burning red eyes quickly absorbing the scene before him. Rage flashed behind his eyes, making him snarl like a monster as he darted forward. With the bulk of the Holoform it was like watching an angry bear charging in to protect its cub.
Loki watched with maniacal glee as the Holoform chucked Davy-Boy clear across the room like a ragdoll. Knowing how much the man valued material things, it was satisfying to see him back-flop on his five-thousand-dollar glass dining table, shattering the thing into a million pieces. The sound it made was downright musical.
The Trickster couldn't help but give a round of applause, not caring that none of the other occupants could hear him at the moment.
Without waiting to see if the uncle was down for the count, the Holoform crouched over the unconscious girl, calling her name. For a mere construct, the poor bastard looked absolutely lost and Loki wondered just how in-tune these things were with their source. He tried to wake the kid, hands touching her injuries like he was positive she would break if he applied too much pressure. "Jodi, come on, you have to help me. I have no experience with human repairs." He gave a harder shake. "Jodi!"
Well, no matter what Prowl had spat at Jodi earlier, regardless of much truth his speech had held, this guy clearly cared about the kid. That was something.
The kid came to and quickly identified her rescuer as "'Cade", voice brittle and raspy from the strangling her uncle had so kindly given her. Even as she began to cry with relief, Loki saw all the hurt and betrayal well together as she started to yell at him and hit him on the chest.
Loki winced as that reminded her that her wrist was a shattered mess, collapsing back in on herself and whimpering.
The way Barricade carefully gathered her to him and lifting her to her feet made Loki think of how one would handle spun glass. To be fair, judging by how easily he chucked David across the room it was probably an accurate comparison.
And speaking of David . . .
The crazed human was now on his feet, spewing empty threats at Barricade.
Blood red irises nailed the man with an unimpressed glare, and growled, low and angry. "Pray to your god, human. Because the next time we meet, I will kill you."
Without another word, the Holoform turned and escorted his injured human out of the house.
Feeling that their day was far from over, Loki silently followed in their wake.
TBC