Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men: Evolution. I only own my OCs.
She did not want to go home that night. Janine wanted to stay with her friend Kitty. Kitty and Janine had gone to the mall to hang out for a while, and Janine knew he'd be angry with her. She looked at Kitty and asked, "Do you have a phone?"
"Yeah, wanna swap numbers?" Kitty replied.
"I've only got a home phone and I'd rather you not call that…" Janine said. "My dad can be an ass."
"Ah, overprotective Dad huh Jea?" Kitty asked.
"You could say that Kitty," Janine replied.
Kitty scribbled down her cell number and gave it to her. Janine smiled and waved good bye. She then turned to walk home. She hung her head low and bit her lip so hard it bled. She looked at the door with utter dread. She opened the door and crawled into the house. She quietly tried to slip upstairs, but stopped dead in her tracks when she heard a terrible shriek rip through the house.
It didn't even sound human, but that's not what concerned Janine. What concerned her was whatever it was; it was alive, in her home, and in a lot of pain. She calmed herself down and scanned the house for thinking beings. She got a hit that made her drop to her knees. The being was a kid, a girl. She was in extreme pain, and Janine started to cry. She hugged herself to the stairs, and she started to crawl her way up the stairs. She collapsed on her bed, struggling to cut the connection between her and the unknown.
She finally managed to break the connection as she saw her father open the door. He saw Janine, near dead panting on her bed and assumed he beat her earlier and just forgot. He went to his room and shut the door.
Janine couldn't sleep that night. She kept thinking of the screaming girl. She crawled out of bed and down the steps. She opened the lock that was on the basement door, and proceeded down carefully. She panicked as the smell of iron hit her noise. She crawled down the steps quietly as she flipped the light on. It took every ounce of self-preservation not to scream bloody murder. The entire basement floor was coated with blood. Cages were lined up along the wall, and Janine felt the bile rise up in her throat.
That's when she noticed one of the cages was open. She approached it slowly and sent out a telepathic message.
"Hello? Is anyone here?"
"W-w-w-who are you?" Someone thought.
"My name's Janine—I mean Jeanne. Are you hurt?"
"Y-Y-Yes…who are you Jeanne?"
"I am the girl who lives upstairs."
"There's a girl upstairs?"
"Yes, now would you come forward so I can see you please?"
The connection broke suddenly and Janine groaned. Why did that always happen? She waited in the light for someone to step forward. She felt something brush her and she jumped.
"I'm sorry," a voice said. "Stupid tail…Are you Jeanne?"
"Yes…I am," Janine replied. "Can you come into the light please?"
A girl, no older than herself, stepped out of the shadows into the light. Janine didn't react to what she saw because she honestly didn't know how to react. The girl standing in front of her was about thirteen, fourteen. Her hair was a dark muddy brown color, but she couldn't tell if that was from the blood or not. Her eyes, or the one she could see was wide, a circle of dark green nearly blocking out all of the white of her eye. She was bloody, but fresh bandages had been wrapped around her wounds. She was attempting to wrap up her other arm, but was fumbling. Janine reacted in the only way she thought human.
She grabbed the roll and began to wrap it around the other girl's arm. Her thin white tail poked her again, her white ears pricking up.
"What's your name?" Janine asked the cat-girl.
"I-I-I don't have a name," she replied.
"H-H-How about Damiana?" Janine asked.
"Um…sure!" the cat-girl replied. "Damiana…what's your last name?"
"Trinity," she said.
"Y-Y-You're the doctor's daughter?" the girl gasped pressing herself into the wall.
"No."
"But your last names—"
"I don't care if I share his DNA, I don't care if my eyes look like his, I don't care if our surnames are the same, that thing is NOT my father and it never will be."
The cat-girl looked at her in amazement and said, "Then my name shall be Damiana Trinity."
Damiana smiled at Janine and asked, "Is that why you changed your name?"
"Yes…my name is Janine, but I call myself Jeanne," Janine said. "Kinda like Jeanne d'Arc."
"Jeanne d'Arc?" Damiana asked.
"Joan of Arc," Janine said. "She was a French heroine."
Damiana cocked her head looking puzzled and Janine laughed.
"I'll explain it to you later…but I really should go know. If it finds me down here, I'll be dead before I hit the floor. I promise I'll come back okay Dami?"
Damiana nodded and said, "Be careful okay buddy?"
Janine nodded as she made her way up the steps. She sat up the rest of the night in her room. She leaned against the headboard of her bed. She thought about Damiana and how bad she looked. Janine opened her bedroom window and climbed into the tree next to it. She was sitting in the tree until she heard a familiar voice.
"Vhy do you think she's here?"
"Kurt?" Janine called out uncertainly.
Suddenly she spotted a pair of bright yellow eyes in the tree. She moved closer and caught whatever it was off guard. It was blue and fuzzy, with a tail, and pointed ears. She didn't scream, but moved closer out of morbid curiosity.
"You need to get out of here," Janine said. "You don't want my Daddy catchin' you there boy. He'll putcha in the basement with Dami."
The blue object jumped up and looked at her.
"'ELP!" he cried as he started to fall.
She grabbed his arm and steadied him, his three fingers wrapping around her wrist. He looked at her and asked, "Vhy aren't joo screaming?"
"I'm not afraid," Janine said softly. "Please get out of here. I really don't want to see you get hurt."
"JANINE!"
"…Oh shit."
"Vhat? Vhat is vrong?"
"GET OUTTA HERE! MY DAD'S LOOKING FOR ME!" she growled trying to get him out of the tree.
"JANINE TRINITY! WERE YOU DOWN IN THE BASEMENT?"
She looked down at her bloodstained clothes and said, "Aw, f***."
The demon-elf-creature just stared at her and asked, "Vhat's in the basement?"
"Dami…Dami…I need to save Dami!" she cried.
The creature looked at her funny. He grabbed her waist and poof! She was on the ground with him. He pointed to the basement window.
"Down here?" he asked.
She nodded, and he gripped her waist. They vanished in a puff of blackish-blue smoke. When they appeared in the basement, the creature let out a cry. He was terrified, but so was she.
"Damiana!" Janine cried.
The cat-girl jumped up and squealed, "Jeanne!"
She raced over to the cage and ripped it open. The girl crawled out and Janine grabbed ahold of her. She looked back at the creature.
"Can you get us out of here?" Janine asked.
He nodded and Janine pushed Damiana towards him. She heard her father coming down the steps.
"TAKE DAMIANA AND RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, AND DON'T LOOK BACK!"
He gasped and asked, "You're a telepath?"
"YES NOW RUN LIKE HELL!"
Janine looked at her father. His cold grey eyes bore into her similarly colored ones.
"You miss, are in a world of trouble."
Janine hadn't noticed that the creature had listened to her and was gone. She was alone….with him.