Pretending to lose the battle so that she and her friends can get drained of their energy and kidnapped afterwards took almost no effort on their part. It had been so easy to fool the creature, and it had been so easy for her to fake staying out cold. Though, she only did this to get an idea of where the creature was taking her and her friends. She wanted to know the location of where all three of them were going, but she didn't want to risk getting caught by the creature.
So she just left it alone and continued her act.
Thankfully, she didn't have to wait long because the creature mumbled "Here we are" to himself. And when he started making his way down some...stairs it seems (at least that's what it sounded like to them), she finally took the chance and opened her eyes just a slit.
To her surprise, that location turned out to be a dungeon.
The doppelganger closed her eyes and concentrated. There were a lot of people she felt down here. Some were even familiar to her too.
But the others? Not so much.
She heard their whispers right before the creature walked past their cells, and they grew louder once he made it towards the end of the dungeon and stopped.
It took all of her willpower to not react when the creature threw her and Shadow in a cell that held three other people in it, and it took all of strength not to open her eyes when she heard the creature taunt someone in a cell across from her and her cellmates. She even held herself back from growling when she heard the creature toss Tails in there too and left.
By that point, she was too drained to really do anything...except listen in on the conversation that floated around her.
And it didn't take her very long to notice who was all down here in this dungeon.
Lady, Vergil, and Rouge were all here along with some man named Jude, Tony Stark, and Loki. Now those last two completely stumped her.
How they managed to get themselves kidnapped she had no idea. But it must’ve been bad for them.
Yet she on the other hand found it extremely hilarious.
The doppelganger had no idea how long she and the other two had been down here, but she could tell that some time had passed. Six hours top maybe, she mused to herself.
Without even opening her eyes, she knew her friend woke up and that was just from the feel of his aura alone.
She also knew the dungeon was dark. There was no source of light shining in this place, and that suited her just fine. She loved the darkness. Thrived in it really!
She had the advantage of surprise here.
“You’re making it really hard for me to tolerate your presence here, Reindeer Games,” came Tony’s voice.
And speaking of surprises, she didn’t expect a certain someone to take a seat on her chest. That confused her, and annoyed the living hell out of her. What did she look like? A couch or something? She didn’t think so.
“[Well that’s a shame to hear, Stark,]” said a nonchalant Loki.
Plus, what made it worse was that he was doing it on purpose—more than likely trying to piss her and Tony off. He was probably trying to entertain himself to rid off any boredom that he might’ve had earlier too.
And if that was the case then...
“Huh…? / [Well I’ll be, it looks she’s finally waking up,]” the two men uttered in unison.
God or not, Loki better hope and pray that he’ll be ready to meet these fists of hers once she gets up.
“[Now I shall—]”
Doppelganger Jane cut him off by snapping her eyes open. “You shall do what?” she glared hard at the green eyes blinking down at her. “And why the hell are you sitting on my chest?”
Loki then smiled at the dragon lady. “[Why hello there, Miss. Did you sleep well?]” he asked, smoothly side-stepping her question.
The young scientist slowly sat up, making the bird slide off her chest and straight into her lap, and looked down at the bastard trying to charm her. The bird sure had a silver-tongue on him that’s for sure.
“You...”
“[I’m Loki. You may have heard of—]”
KAPOW!
She ignored Tony’s sudden ring laughter when the giant bird flew into the air and crashed into the wall up ahead with an audible yet comical splat, waking everyone up in the near vicinity.
“That was for New York!”
A slight groan of pain escaped from the God of Mischief’s beak as he shook his head, coughing and flinging the small pieces of debris and dust off his body. “[Oooh, feisty aren’t you?]” he chuckled in between coughs and looked at the fidgeting dragon demon.
Doppelganger Jane looked away and balled her claws in her lap. “Can it, asshole!” she bit back with a low growl. “I’ve heard plenty about you!”
‘My, my, what a vulgar woman this one is...’ Loki chuckled again. “[And yet I don’t know a single thing about you,]” then he looked at her with a small twinkle in his green eyes. “[Won’t you grant me the pleasure of knowing your name, Miss?]”
“..........”
“[Well?]”
A sigh of frustration left her lips. “You may call me Lady Shadow-wing,” she mumbled while turning her back to him. Then she wrapped her wings around her whole body and fell silent, signifying that she was completely done with this conversation.
Loki raised an invisible brow at the dragon lady in front of him and shook his head with a low amused huff.
‘Try and deflect me all you want, my dear, but I will find out your real name soon enough.’
His eyes flashed with promise as he thought this.
xXXXXXXXXx
Vergil studied the devil lady sitting in front of the door, growling under her breath with her head down and her wings partially closed around her, very closely. There was a lot of tension he could see in the young woman’s body, which was rolling off her in waves, waves that felt both familiar to him and oddly warped to him. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she wanted to be left alone, that she didn’t want to talk to anyone.
Yet despite that, he could tell that she wanted to vent out her frustrations. Desperately too. It was all in her eyes.
‘You can’t do much venting without attracting unwanted attention, and that’s the last thing some of us down here needs,’ the spiky haired half-devil frowned in distaste. And honestly, he did not blame her for being frustrated. Or being in a foul mood. There was a lot to be frustrated about. And in her case, most of it had to do with who she got stuck with in the cell.
So no, Vergil didn’t blame her for being angry at all. If given the chance, he, too, would’ve punched that annoying bird clear across the room and then some.
“Jane looks to be in one of her ‘leave me alone’ and ‘don’t talk to me’ moods,” Lady commented.
Vergil held back a sigh.
“She is,” he simply answered, then sat up from the floor with a stretch.
“Great. I bet Loki pissed her off too. I heard him earlier,” she groaned, throwing her hands up in the air in frustration.
Vergil hned. “More like he pissed off the clone version of her,” he mumbled under his breath, finally coming to the conclusion of why the woman’s aura felt so conflicting to him. It was a mixture of her aura and someone else’s. It was so painfully obvious now. He should’ve noticed it the moment she got down here. Yet he didn’t.
Of course he had his suspicions earlier. He just wasn’t sure of it at the time. Was it wrong for him to want some confirmation—just to relieve those suspicious thoughts of his? No it wasn’t. He was just being cautious that’s all.
But now, he has confirmation. He can rest easy knowing that someone wasn’t trying to deliberately fool him with the intention of harming him while wearing his friend’s face. It’s also one less thing for him to worry about.
Still, it begs the question of where did she find the time to learn this move. Did Dante teach it to her when he and the others weren’t around?
“What clone?” Rouge spoke up with a whisper.
Due to sitting in-between the half-devil and bat mobian, Lady clearly heard them both.
“Hmm?” the devil huntress turned to Vergil with a confused look in her heterochromia eyes. “Clone?” she repeated in a low voice. Then with a blink of an eye, the young woman snapped her head in the dragon woman’s direction and nearly gave herself a whiplash in the process. “Are you trying to tell me that’s not the real Jane over there?” she asked in an even lower voice, incredulously, as if she couldn't believe the devil-turned scientist across from them was fake.
“Yes,” Vergil replied. “That is Doppelganger, a.k.a. Deathvoid. And Shadow over there is a doppelganger as well,” he explained to the ladies quietly. “This tells me that those two haven’t been captured yet and are still out there, somewhere.”
“Okay, I get that part,” Lady said. “But what I want to know is where the heck did she find the time to learn that technique?”
“I was wondering the same exact thing a second ago.”
Rouge looked back-and-forth between the two devil hunters, a little more than confused with the current conversation at hand here.
“I would ask but I’ll take a guess and say that this is not the proper time or place to discuss this subject anything further.”
Lady side-eyed her. “Yeah, let’s just drop it for now,” she said.
Next to the devil huntress, Vergil grunted in agreement.
‘They seem to have some plan in mind and a possible way to get out of this place,’ the trio thought to themselves in unison, figuring that it would be best not to ask the doppelgangers and just let them do their thing.
Because trying to get an answer out of them will only lead to questions, questions that will more than likely stir some uproar and cause whoever was watching them to come down here and demand what’s going on. They can’t have that happening. Not while there's a window of opportunity to escape from this place.
For now, they will sit there and be patient.
And wait for some kind of signal from the doppelgangers, should the two give them any, if they have to.
xXXXXXXXXx
Unknown to her cellmates as well as Vergil and his cellmates, the doppelganger was silently communicating to someone outside of this dungeon through her mind, which was currently connected to theirs.
‘It’s been years since I’ve used this particular magic technique to talk to anyone...unless it’s under special circumstances, to which...I guess this would count as one, right?’ before she could get the chance to respond, the voice continued. ‘So anyway, Doppelganger, what's the situation like down on you and your partner’s end?’
‘We’re in some kind of dungeon, Jane. And right now, I think my partner is keeping an eye out on things while pretending to be unconscious still. We also found Vergil, Lady, and Rouge down here too. They’re in a jail cell of sorts, with seals plastered on them, across from mine. Tails got thrown in there with them while my partner and I got stuck in a cell with Iron Man, Thor’s little brother, and some human male with spiky black hair and amber eyes.’
‘I see…’ the young astrophysicist said. ‘That’s, uhh, wow. I didn’t even know those two were missing as well. I know that’s gonna cause some trouble for the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D.—’
‘If it hasn’t already,’ Doppelganger pointed out, cutting the young woman off.
‘Yeah, I guess that’s true. What a freaking mess,’ Jane sighed. ‘Anyway, try to see if you can find a weakness or a way around the seals, then slip past them, and distract the guards—or take them out if you like while Shadow and I along with our guests find your guys’ location.’
‘Guests?’ she inquired.
‘Yeah, we were approached by three people earlier. And after some negotiation, Shadow and I have decided to team up with them. In fact, we’re just sitting in a cave and doing nothing right now.’
‘What happened?’ Doppelganger asked.
‘A blizzard that’s what. The weather had been fine...up until thirty minutes ago, that is. And it only got worse from there,’ Jane grouched.
‘That sucks...’ was the only thing the demon was able to get out.
‘Yeah, well, after this blizzard dies down, we will start our search.’
‘Alright. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll find a way to destroy these seals and release the others from their cells.’
‘That’s fine. Just update me on your progress once you get the chance. Later!’
Doppelganger said nothing as she felt the young woman shut the link off between them. With a small sigh, the demon lowered her wings and raised her head up. She looked around and noticed that her cellmates were minding their own business. Vergil and his cellmates were too, with the exception of Tails, who was just now starting to wake up.
And since she had nothing better to do, other than wait for her demonic energy to come back of course, she figured that mediating might help pass the time a bit.
‘Yes, that’s what I’ll do.’
A tiny smile slowly appeared on Doppelganger Jane’s face as she stood to her feet and stretched her limbs, wings, and long tail. After that, she sat back down and crossed her legs then immediately laid her clawed hands on top of them. Without a word, the dragon demon lowered her horned head, closing her eyes as she did so, and retreated deep into herself.
The very next day, some time after dawn, all of the inmates were rudely awakened by the sound of footsteps followed by a door being slammed open.
Multiple pairs of eyes looked up and zeroed in on the huge canine-vulpine figure walking down the dark hall with some type of cargo in his hands, whistling a happy tune under his breath.
They thought nothing more of it, figuring that the guard was bringing some more items down to either reinforce the seals around their cells or drain their energy dry like he does every other day—when he doesn’t send someone else down to do it for him on the days he can’t that is.
So when he passed their cells and said not a damn thing to them, the majority of the inmates went back to sleep. They didn’t want to deal with hearing the creature’s bullshit or see him taunting some other poor soul in their cell.
And they won’t.
However, the ones who decided to stay awake took a closer look at what he was carrying.
‘Is that... / No way...!’
Their eyes went wide in shock at the supposed cargo in his arms right as the lights next to their doors flickered on when he walked past their cells.
‘It is!’
There, hanging upside down on the tall creature’s back and being carried by his two long bushy tails, was Miles Tails Prower, beat up with his eyes closed to the world. The poor mobian fox was unconscious, unaware of the many eyes looking at him and his companions —an equally beat up Shadow the Hedgehog and a black-purple and silver humanoid dragon with yellow and various tones of blue markings in similar condition—, in complete surprise.
It was hard to believe that those two, especially the Ultimate Lifeform, from that famous mobian hero group managed to get captured by someone not named Dr. Eggman considering how strong and resilient they were.
But the sight in front of them was very much real.
xXXXXXXXXx
“I can’t believe Tails and Shadow got caught by that monster too,” a feminine voice whispered.
“Well it sucks to say this, but I guess we all got unlucky with that guy running around and capturing people or creatures of interest for god knows what,” a masculine voice said from the back wall with a huff.
“Yeah…” a pair of emerald green eyes stared worriedly at the two mobians moving farther and farther away from her and turned around, facing the one who spoke. He was a tall human with short dirty blond hair and blue eyes. And he was sitting down next to a young light blond haired, green eyed woman with pigtails, looking at the thing —a purple and pink doll with green eyes to be exact— hovering above her head in slight wonder. “We sure did get unlucky, Leon,” she said to him with a forlorn sigh.
“Don’t worry Miss Amy,” the light blond haired woman gave her a tiny smile in reassurance. “I’m sure that once we figure something out, we’ll all be able to get out of here.”
“And maybe kick that guy’s butt while we’re at it,” the doll added quietly with barely concealed glee.
Amy, despite her poor mood, smiled back at her cellmates and covered her mouth, hiding a giggle behind her gloved hands.
It had been at least nine days since they all arrived here together in this dungeon and even though she hadn’t known them for very long, the company of her cellmates wasn’t that bad. In fact, they were all good people.
And so polite too.
They always made sure to cheer her up whenever her mood goes south, and in return, she does the same thing for them whenever they get moody. Plus, it helped that she wasn’t alone in all of this.
...Or left to her thoughts for a long period of time, which she found was not a good thing.
Well, in her book at least.
“I hope so, Elize. Teepo...” Amy replied to them, after moving her hands away, even though her eyes trailed over onto their last cellmate who was currently laying down on the cot in the corner. It was another human...only this one was two inches shorter than Leon and had short black hair with a single yellow tipped bang that was curved up and above his head. ‘And I hope you regain some of your strength and energy back soon, Wingul. You’re in much worse shape than any one of us here…’ she stared at his sweating, weak form for a few moments until it became too much for her to see. ‘Just like…’ she turned back around and looked out beyond the steel bar door, staring at the dark cell across from them, which held a sleeping huge orange fox with nine tails inside. ‘...Just like that Vergil guy, Loki guy, and a few others in their own cells. They’re all suffering down here, and there’s really nothing much we can do to help them.’
Amy closed her eyes and lowered her head, hiding the expression on her face as she placed her gloved hands in her lap and balled them into fists, clenching them so tightly that fabric of the material let out a small squeak in protest.
‘I hate it.’
xXXXXXXXXx
Another day, another morning filled with nothing of interest or importance. How irritating. All of it was the same to Vergil. Very trying and grueling. It wasn’t going to help his overall mood improve, not while being stuck in this dreadful place and not while being stuck inside of this damn cell with a flirtatious bat and one of Dante’s friends.
While it’s true that he had nothing against Mary as he had worked with her on a few demon hunting missions before, and enjoyed them with her as his partner much to his surprise, she can still be a pain in the ass to deal with sometimes.
Lucky for him, the devil huntress hasn’t bothered him that much in the short amount of time they’ve been in here. It was his other cellmate, the G.U.N. agent one, he had to worry about. Since the other night and yesterday morning, she’d been nagging him with questions left and right. And when he didn’t answer all of them and only a few just to humor her, hoping that she’d get the hint to leave him alone after that, she ignored it and tried making sweet conversations with him.
It also didn’t help that she tried to get cozy with him—and she did that by flashing smiles at him...with a compliment or two thrown in there, which he spotted a mile away. The half-devil did not appreciate that one bit, and he told her so. But in a not-so-kind manner that nearly left the bat in tears.
He knew his words had hurt Rouge because he got attacked by Mary, who overheard it all, and received hell from her. He also realized that the bat only did that because she was nervous out of her mind. And to keep her from driving him crazy with her fidgeting and stop his fellow devil hunter from glaring at him into oblivion, he sucked up his pride and apologized to Rouge.
Vergil wouldn’t admit it, but he was thankful that the atmosphere between them had settled down and went back to normal.
He also didn’t talk much after that, preferring to regain some of his energy back with little cat naps here and there.
So he left the two ladies to interact with each other instead of him, and it worked out perfectly.
Everything had been going so well for him—with the dungeon being in a state of peaceful silence and everyone minding their own business.
...That is until he felt Jane’s aura explode.
The sudden presence, despite how far away it was from their location, of the woman’s demonic energy had both him and Mary raising their brows. And it didn’t take that long for the whole dungeon to explode into chatter—especially after their little slip-up.
Some of them became interested in their words. However, that only happened after a certain someone in the cell across from theirs opened his mouth and talked. He had no idea why the God of Thunder’s little brother wanted information on Jane’s Devil Mode, but he wasn’t going to give it to him—not after that sudden spark of emotion he caught in the god’s eyes when Mary answered his question and gave him nothing further.
The half-devil was suspicious and so was his fellow devil hunter. By acting the way they were towards Loki, it didn’t take very long for Rouge to catch what was going on, and even though he could see that she was curious as well, she wasn’t going to ask. Not while the God of Mischief was up and speaking to them. He could see that she was suspicious of the guy as well.
Vergil knew what the god was capable of, battle wise and intellectual wise, so he gave him the silent treatment. And so did Mary. They weren’t going to tell him anything personal about their friend other than what the public already knows.
After all, they had no idea what Loki wanted with Jane. And they had no idea why he tried to seek her out before New York’s invasion two years ago, which they wouldn’t have known in the first place if it hadn't been for one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top agents and Tony Stark who told them that bit of news.
“Oh no…” Rouge’s voice broke Vergil out of his thoughts. “They got caught too,” he looked up to see their giant guard dump Shadow and Jane’s bodies unceremoniously into, to his complete surprise and anger, Loki’s cell.
“Shit!” he heard Mary quietly curse next to him. “Why did that bastard stick her in his cell?”
“I don’t know! But with Loki’s other cellmates, Tony and that mysterious Jude guy, and Shadow now in there, I guess they can keep Loki from bothering her too much,” Rouge whispered to her.
‘Not like that’s going to stop him. That god seems to do whatever he wants,’ Vergil’s eyes narrowed into slits. His body tensed when the guard turned around and walked up to their cell. ‘What is he—’
Before any of them could react, the canine-vulpine creature opened the door and tossed Tails inside, pointing his grin and clawed finger right at him.
“Vergil!” Lady whisper-shouted in shock when the spiky white haired man crumbled to the ground in front of her, coughing up specks of blood while Rouge caught the two-tailed fox and sat him down. “Why you…” she looked up and glared at the creature right as he shut their cell door closed.
“Don’t think for a single moment that I didn’t notice the little bit of energy you regained back, half-demon,” the tall creature said, watching Vergil slowly drag himself halfway up with his head down, still coughing out blood. “Be thankful I’ve decided not to drain you completely of your energy like I did with the one behind me. The fool really thought he could trick me with his illusions, but it was all for naught,” he gestured to the cell behind him with a harsh laugh.
Vergil opened his eyes and slightly raised his head, spotting the God of Mischief —who was now a black and white hawk with green striped feathers— up ahead. He was currently out cold and sprawled on the floor next to the creator of Iron Man and Jude, who was a young man with medium-length spiky black hair and amber eyes. “I wouldn’t worry about that foolish Norse god. He’s alive and well...” the half-devil fully raised his head, wiped the blood off his chin, and gave him a blank stare all in one go. “Hmm, actually...not really hehe,” he squashed the urge to raise a brow at the tall figure’s somewhat sheepish tone. “Oh well, he’ll live!” the creature shrugged nonchalantly.
Vergil inwardly snorted. He couldn’t care less about the state Loki was in seeing as he didn’t like him very much or trust him. The guy could suffer for all he cares—especially after annoying the hell out of him and Mary yesterday, but he didn’t wish for his death knowing that there would be hell to pay from a certain older brother of Loki’s if that ever happened. He didn’t hate him enough for that.
Besides, he had other things on his mind to worry about. And the one at the forefront of his brain right now was his current situation.
‘This is getting ridiculous!’ he growled in anger.
He was furious—no, seething on the inside at this pathetic vermin in front of him. And he was furious at himself for letting this thing beat him. Over and over again. Damn it! If only he was able to keep some of his energy from being stolen…
...If only he had Yamato on him.
...If only he wasn’t so weak and in great pain right now.
“Now play nice with each other, y’all. Toodles!”
Vergil, Lady, Rouge, and the two men watched their guard with cold eyes as he turned on his heel and left their sight, whistling that damn cheery tune of his.
‘Very well, he’ll be the first to go once we find a way out of here,’ the half-devil vowed to himself, trying but failing to wave off Mary’s concern. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was far too tired to want to argue with her or do anything else really…
Except go to sleep.
And he did exactly just that, completely missing what the devil huntress had just said to him as he felt his exhausted body fall back into hers.
‘Wait...’
Before he completely blacked out though, his last thoughts were:
‘Why does Jane’s aura feel a bit off today? There’s something different about it, but I don’t know what it is. And why does that hedgehog’s aura feel demonic when he’s no demon at all?’
xXXXXXXXXx
“I told Reindeer Games that would be a bad idea, but did he listen? No, he didn’t!” the brown haired man sighed, staring at the large bird lying in front of him and next to Shadow and the dragon lady. “He’s just as stubborn as Point Break,” he turned his attention to the cell across from theirs to see Rouge lay Tails down on the empty cot in the corner and see Lady fussing at Vergil as she dragged him over to the wall and propped him up against it. “I have to wonder if all Asgardian Gods are stubborn or if it’s just those two brothers?” he mumbled, crossing his chained arms over his chest.
“I wouldn’t know, Tony. I don’t personally know Loki or his brother,” the black spiky haired man said with a small shrug.
Tony looked over and shook his head at Jude.
“Oh yeah. I guess you wouldn’t, Kid,” he turned his attention to the humanoid dragon in front of him, ignoring the younger man’s comment of “I told you to stop calling me that!” in favor of studying one of his new cellmates. “So this is supposed to be Jane huh? I find that hard to believe. But I did hear a weird rumor from somewhere that she can transform into a dragon demon of sorts.”
Jude said nothing and shrugged again.
“Eh, whatever. I’ll ponder on that thought later when I’m...not...so…” Tony trailed off with a yawn.
The spiky black haired man looked up to see his cellmate sit back against the wall and close his eyes. “Sleep well, Tony,” he said to the older man softly.
“Same to you, Jude.”
“Got it…” he said to himself.
Ten minutes later, after the whole dungeon became enshrouded in silent darkness, Jude closed his own eyes and went back to sleep.
xXXXXXXXXx
Somewhere in another area...
“You sure this plan of yours is going to work?”
“..........”
Sitting high up in a large tree next to each other and hiding from the local wildlife and monsters roaming around in the swamp-like valley below them, there were two silhouetted figures.
The shorter one had ruby red eyes and was flipping a small emerald green gem up and down in his left hand while the taller one had yellow-orange eyes shrouded in red sclera and was looking at the sun rising above the horizon in the far distance.
“Well, Jane?” he asked, looking at the relaxed smile on his companion’s face with slight impatience.
That smile soon transformed into a fanged smirk when she turned her head and looked at him.
“Yes it will, Shadow,” the pseudo devil woman stated firmly.
Then she turned back around to watch the view. A view that she found just as beautiful as the stars.
“The Doppelgangers are in place. Now all we have to do is just wait.”
“Good,” he said, putting his prized possession away.
“In the meantime though,” Jane turned to look at the hedgehog, taking care not to scratch the bark up with her wings as she shifted in her seat. “You wanna learn how to mix different substances and create different kinds of potions? Build something out of recyclable materials and the items lying around in this area?” she asked, grabbing his hands and squeezing them with an excited gleam in her inhuman eyes.
Shadow blinked, a bit caught off guard by her sudden mood change, and looked down at their joined hands for a few moments.
‘What a strange, cheerful woman Jane is,’ he mused to himself with an inward sigh. ‘But that seems to be who she really is deep down inside. And oddly enough, I don’t have a problem with that.’
A small noise of amusement left his lips as he raised his head up and looked at the woman who was slowly becoming his friend.
Not that he’ll ever admit it.
...Yet.
“Why not,” he squeezed back before letting go. “Show me what you can do.”
The smile Shadow received in return was bright enough to light up the whole sky and, apparently, his mood.
“Shadow.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m glad we’re not fighting anymore.”
—Silence—
“So am I.”
xXXXXXXXXx
Like many days, the God of Mischief always found himself on the edge, stuck between reality and the land of dreams. Never truly awake and never truly asleep. He always landed somewhere in the middle of the two. Every single freaking time. And he hated it, for many reasons actually. He can even think of a few at the top of his head right now: he was never really aware of his surroundings one hundred percent of the time or aware of what his cellmates were talking about the majority of the time, he never had enough seidr to do anything other than cast simple illusions either on himself or around the cell, and he was always so, so tired.
It made him cranky and, to his immerse displeasure, reckless. Now the raven haired god never considered himself to be a short-tempered person or very talkative for that matter (that was Thor’s sort of thing thank you very much), but it seems as if something has changed here.
He's developed a little short fuse, and it has gotten worse over the long period of time he's been down here in this strange world. It also didn't help that he got stuck with a bunch of mortals and creatures he was both familiar with and not familiar with in a dingy dungeon, surrounded on all sides with their many different auras and their strange yet powerful energy sources in the dark no less.
It made him both curious and cautious. Made him a bit claustrophobic too.
He’d be damned to admit this to anyone or out loud to himself, but he was scared. Really scared. Truthfully and rightfully so.
Still, he would never let that fear of his control him. He refused to.
So he squashed all of that by bugging his cellmates and everyone else in the near vicinity via sending a double in their cells through teleportation. He mocked them and riled them up in every possible way he could think of, for as long as he was able to even. And to be honest, it wasn’t much, given his weakened state and reserves of course.
Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Loki had to give credit to ones who didn’t fall for his tricks. Or his silver-tongue. They were the smart ones who didn’t budge or blink at his attempts to insult them.
But the ones who didn’t know any better or hadn’t caught onto his little game however?
Oh he went in.
It was glorious.
He took great pleasure in needling them, and he smiled wickedly when they flew into irritation—or rage. It was something that he was good at. And it was something that he did to pass the time so that he wouldn’t succumb to boredom or anger, which a few had taken advantage of already.
Like that half-demon fellow named Vergil and his Midgardian friend named Lady. It irritated the hel out of him when they wouldn’t answer his questions about Thor’s little mortal yesterday. And the two had the gall to sit there, acting all smug and having silent conversations with one another, trading sly glances in his direction every so often while he sat in the corner and drowned in his own irritation with a cloud of misery above his head.
What was so bad about wanting to find out something about someone like Dr. Foster huh? It’s not like he was going to hurt the woman or anything. He merely wanted to satisfy his own curiosity and learn more about the mortal who grabbed his oaf of a brother’s attention. He had no plans for her or any ill intentions towards her—well, at least not anymore he didn’t. But in their defense, he supposed that they, along with S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers, didn’t know that. He could understand their concerns.
But now that he was working alongside those heroes—as part of his punishment for attempting to take over Midgard, it wouldn’t hurt for them to drop those concerns of theirs.
‘They should be thankful that I’m not interested in the woman for other reasons. If I was a lesser man with not a shred of humanity in me or if I was a despicable, vile being who had questionable morals, I would’ve snatched her up and kept her for myself. Break her even. But I would never stoop that low. I refuse to.’
Loki opened his eyes and slowly yet carefully rolled onto his side, then stood up with little to no difficulty.
‘And for those who want to think of me as such will be tossed into the void.’
He looked down, noticing the black and green feathers on his body instead of pale skin and the long chain —which was connected to the ground in the middle of the cell— wrapped around his stomach, then looked up. The cell around him was dark, and he could hear the soft sounds of snoring coming from Stark and Jude behind him and from somewhere nearby—probably up front and closer to the dungeon’s main door entrance.
The God of Mischief sighed, a bit disappointed that his illusion shattered the moment he got robbed of his seidr again. He knew that damn guard of theirs was the one who did it. He also knew that it was a foolish idea to ambush the creature the second he stepped inside the cell with that bat mobian’s friends and that dragon demon lady in his arms.
Stark did try to warn him earlier, but he didn’t listen. He was just so angry, so furious at the huge canine-vulpine creature that he wanted to take a shot at him despite how weak he felt at that moment in time.
So he did.
And to no one’s surprise, he, Loki, the God of Mischief, Lies, and Chaos, failed spectacularly.
In the end, he got humiliated. He got drained completely of his magic and knocked face down to the ground in one hit, with his body sprawled out in front of his cellmates no less.
Hel, he literally blacked out from the attack!
And thankfully, he was only knocked out for two minutes.
If it hadn't been the rising volume of Stark's voice, he would've stayed knocked out much longer.
“No wait…” a low voice in front of him broke the god out of his thoughts.
Loki looked up to see the humanoid dragon lady mumbling something with a small glow around her.
“...Come back pretty little stars…”
He raised an invisible brow at her strange words, and yet, they tugged at something in his brain.
‘I wonder…’ he cocked his head to the side, staring suspiciously at the apparent dreaming dragon lady.
“No...Don’t run away…”
‘This voice...’ curious at the scene taking place before him, Loki stalked over to her side, fully aware of Stark stirring awake behind him. ‘Her voice sounds a little familiar. Where have I heard it before?’
“The stars…!” she mumbled in her sleep, louder this time—but not too loud.
‘Could this be who I think it is?’ daringly, he jumped up with a quiet flap of his wings and landed on the humanoid dragon demon’s chest, making himself comfortable on his new perch seconds later. ‘Is this—’
“What are you doing, Rock of Ages?”
Loki wanted to laugh at the surprised tone and wariness in the man’s tired voice, but he didn’t want to wake everyone else up, so he settled with a grin instead—one that Stark couldn’t see clearly in the dark.
“[Nothing nefarious I assure you, Stark. You can go back to dreamland now. I can tell that you’re practically half-asleep on your feet.]”
He completely ignored the burning stare boring into the back of his head and went back to watching the dragon lady who’d stopped her mumbling and was now sleeping quietly with a peaceful look on her face.
It won’t be long until she wakes up from the pressure sitting on her chest.
And once she does, he’ll be there, looming and waiting from above.
To greet her, scare her, or peck her, that is the question here.
“Loki…” Tony spoke lowly in warning, catching a gleam of something he didn’t like in the large bird’s green eyes, and he moved away from his spot up against the wall.
A sly smirk was the only thing the brown haired man received back in response.
They walked for hours on end, fumbling through the forest with no direction in mind. It was dark, foggy, and, for some odd reason, very humid. And they had no idea where they were going—well, Jane had no idea where they were going. She was the only clueless one here, following Tails and Shadow who were in front of her, leading the way as if they knew where to go.
Although from the looks on their faces, the young woman speculated that they, too, didn’t know where they were going and got the distinct feeling that they were trying to hide it.
Oh boy...
Jane sighed low to herself, wondering why they were even bothering in the first place. She had just told them not too long ago that it was futile to hide their thoughts, their emotions, and that they should just say whatever they have on their mind.
But to no one’s surprise, she sort of expected this.
She didn’t know when but at some point in her life, and after dropping a few discreet hints here and there in the few conversations she had with people in the past about this very topic, they later forgot that ability of hers.
So she just left it alone.
Jane didn’t know why she expected something different from these two, but maybe that was her own fault for assuming so.
Thankfully, the issue didn’t bother her at all.
“Do you two have a general idea of where to go since you’ve been here before?”
They stopped in their tracks and so did Jane. Despite the fact that she couldn’t see their faces—not with their backs turned to her, that is, the young scientist sensed a bit of hesitance and dread from Tails and worried-irritation from Shadow.
“Umm...kind...of?” the two-tailed fox paused then looked at the tall dark hedgehog and said nothing further.
Shadow crossed his arms and stared at the younger mobian for a few ticks, making him a bit nervous, before turning his sight onto Jane. “Yes and no,” he answered carefully.
“Explain,” she narrowed her eyes at him.
Before he could talk, his eyes caught sight of something moving swiftly through the trees above them, leaving a whirlwind of leaves to fall to the ground slowly. “Hold that thought for now because we’ve got company,” he told her before getting into a fighting stance.
His two companions tensed and looked up, searching the trees for their foe as they slid into their own fighting stances.
“Chaos Spear!”
Jane and Tails watched the shards of yellow light fly towards a tree to their right and hit the trunk, exploding and taking chunks of the bark off in the process, leaving a giant crack in its wake. And within seconds, that crack traveled up the length of the trunk, bypassing all of the branches and climbing over the moss that was growing on top in various spots until it reached the very top. Then with a loud groan, the tree split in half before their very eyes.
RWAAAAAAAAR!!!
The trio quickly jumped away as the first half of the tree facing them fell and landed on the ground with a great thud, creating a mixed cloud of dirt, dust, and green powder from the moss that covered the sky and the group.
“Did that do it?” Tails wheezed.
“I don’t think so. I didn’t see any blood or a body drop down from the tree,” Shadow replied with a slight cough. ‘And if the creature came out unscathed from this, I’d be very surprised,’ he added in his mind before grabbing the young fox and the human and Chaos Controlling away without another word.
xXXXXXXXXx
From somewhere high up in the trees, a large red-eyed figure crouched on the branch it was on and looked down. The creature bit back a growl as it stared at the empty spot where the group had just been seconds ago in anger. And despite the fact that they were gone now, a small piece of that energy had been left behind.
Yes, it could use that to track them down. Trace their signatures from here to wherever they land at and go from there.
There was no need to rush. It had plenty of time to kill.
RWAAAAAAAAR!!!
The creature stood and disappeared, leaving an even thicker fog than before in its wake.
xXXXXXXXXx
When the trio dropped out the sky from a green-white light and landed on the ground some good distance away—specifically, in front of a deep pothole filled with water next to some red stained bushes that were coated with a type of liquid substance that smelled suspiciously like poison and a group of overturned trees that had deep slash marks embedded into their trunks, they hid behind one of them and sat down.
“Hey, is it just me or did the fog get worse?”
“It did, Fox.”
‘Great! That’s just what we needed!’ Jane said with a sarcastic grumble. Then she closed her eyes and let out a small inaudible sigh. ‘Let’s just hope that whatever is out there decides to show itself…’ she breathed, carefully concentrating on the task she was about to set out and do. ‘If not, then I guess I have no choice but to do this!’ the young woman opened her eyes and, without warning, expanded her field of vision as it turned blue.
Ignoring the quiet “...iridescent purple...” and the barely suppressed gasp of “...your eyes…” next to her, Jane peered through the wood of the tree, past the thick fog covering the area.
Everything that had been previously hidden before was now visible to her and only her. Trees, rocks, bushes, and small critters popped into existence, their forms glowing a golden white color as they devolved into transparent silhouettes with a lavender outline around them, one-by-one, until everything in front of her was see-through.
And once her eyes adjusted to the sight—which in reality only took about five seconds, Jane got up and quietly told her two companions to wait here before stepping out from their hiding spot.
For the next five minutes, she checked the whole place, both this area and the one they just left, from top-to-bottom.
She also scanned through every crevice or spot she found along the way, running into the small local critters and wild monsters who were strangely docile all of a sudden, and flew over the lake that was sitting not too far away from the tree Shadow destroyed earlier.
Then, like the cautious and perceptive being that she was, Jane took an additional two minutes looking through the water on her way back over to the other side, checking again for any signs of her foe. And by the time she reached land, the young woman realized that she had not encountered any sea life during her search, which didn’t bold too well for her and her mood.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
In fact, the whole forest had gone quiet.
‘I don’t like the looks of this,’ Jane searched the area one more time warily before switching her sight back to normal, paying no mind to the world around her reverting back to normal too as she turned on her heel, head down with her hands in her pockets, and walked away with a weary heart.
xXXXXXXXXx
“Did you find the creature?” Shadow’s hushed voice was the first thing she heard once he spotted her walking out of the fog towards him and Tails.
Jane, who’d been lost in her thoughts up until now, looked up and shook her head.
A dark look flashed across the black and red hedgehog’s face before it quickly went away, leaving his features completely blank and unreadable to her, mostly. “That is not a good sign,” a sigh left his mouth as he said this, and Jane watched the immortal hedgehog stiffly cross his arms over his white furred chest and stare at something on the ground past her figure.
“I don’t like the looks of this at all,” Jane wanted to laugh at that, but she crushed that urge rather quickly and, instead, let out an amused snort.
“I said the same thing to myself not too long ago.”
“Hmph.”
Tails looked between the two of them.
“Do you think we should continue making our way through the forest despite the current danger we’re in?” they turned and looked at him. “I mean...there’s no real way of knowing if that thing we heard earlier left or not,” the twin-tailed fox genius continued once he had their attention. “But if by some chance that that creature is still out there, somewhere, then shouldn’t we go and confront it in another area that’s more open and wider than this hazardous one? We'll have a better chance at fighting the thing off if we get attacked out there instead of staying here and risking ourselves an injury or two trying to wait for the thing to show up with all of this—” he gestured to the debris lying around and continued on, “—still here in place.”
“He does have a point, Shadow,” Jane said and returned her attention back on the hedgehog. “I’d rather have enough room to maneuver around and fight without hitting you guys accidentally in the process with my widespread attacks, which I carefully avoided from using because of this exact situation.”
Shadow uncrossed his arms, softening his features as he looked at the human woman in front of him and nodded his head.
“Alright. Let’s head out then.”
The hedgehog turned and took off in a black blur with the other two hot on his heels.
xXXXXXXXXx
For what seems like forever—after an endless amount of dodging battles (except for one that ended up being pretty disastrous) with a few wild monsters that wanted to take the trio on and failed to engage them in one, they finally made it to an empty clearing.
An empty wide clearing that was open, and mostly untouched, with a clear path in front of them that leads to—
“Oh yeah!” Tails blurted out in pure delight.
—An exit they all could see up ahead in the distance.
Jane wanted to cry—and for three entirely different reasons: one, they finally found a way out of this damn creepy forest. Two, they didn’t find Rouge or her friend anywhere at all in said forest, and three, she had no idea why but she could pick up a tiny trace of her friend’s aura here and beyond the forest.
Faint as it was, a piece of him as well as many others were still hanging around the area.
It wasn't hard to miss really.
It was all in the air, which was charged with so much negative energy and emotions that it nearly left her breathless.
“Jane!”
The young astrophysicist slowly blinked once, then twice, and looked up to see a worried Tails and a puzzled Shadow looking down at her.
But wait!
Why do they look like giants to her now?
And why did it feel like she was laying on the ground?
The black hedgehog stared at her as if she had two heads.
“You are on the ground.”
Oh, well that explains their unexpected height growth.
Aaaaand she hadn’t realized that she voiced her thoughts out loud. Again.
Gosh damn it! She really needed to stop doing that!
“What happened?” Tails asked her. “You just fell all of sudden!” he exclaimed while Shadow walked over to the woman’s side and helped her up from the ground. “Are you hurt anywhere? Do we need to take a short break and wait for you to recover? I wouldn’t mind if you said yes...” he looked over to his friend only to see him shrug. Then he looked back at Jane. “And I don’t think Shadow minds either.”
“Thank you,” she mumbled to the dark hedgehog, letting go of his hand, and turned her attention to the two-tailed fox. “No, it’s fine, Tails. We can keep going. It’s just...” her brows furrowed as she was thinking on what to say next.
Shadow frowned.
“You blacked out in that split second and woke up on the ground,” it wasn’t a statement.
Jane bit her lip.
“Greeeat,” she replied with a tired sigh and gave the two a solemn look. “Look, not a lot of people know this, but emotions for highly sensitive empathetic folks like us can be dangerous. It can get a little overwhelming to handle sometimes when we sense them, but only if those emotions are negative in nature and mingling amongst each. On their own as individuals, they are dangerous. But when they mix, they turn into a chaotic ball of energy. One that has a presence of its own and, if powerful enough, can linger in the air for many hours, long after they’d left the owner even.”
“I see. So that’s what you felt,” Tails said quietly. “And you blacked out because there were too many of them here that bombarded you.”
“Mhmm,” the young woman answered. “Only those who have mastered their ability can block out those emotions—or ignore them altogether. Usually I’m able to do either one, but I wasn’t expecting that many, let alone any lingering ones upon arriving here,” she continued with a mumble. “Which worries me because there could have been many who’ve been in this area in the past and something could’ve happened to them. Maybe they were attacked by someone or something who lives in this forest here, but I could be wrong about that.”
Tails and Shadow took their eyes off the young hybrid human and looked at each other.
A silent message seemed to have passed them, and with a small shrug, they turned back to the woman who was still talking.
“—his signature is here, but he himself is not. So where is that man?”
“Jane.”
“I know he went through that other area some time ago—if the blood on the bushes and his work on those trees were any indications.”
“Earth to Jane.”
“I hope he’s alright though. I know he’s more than capable of taking care of himself, but there’s a possibility that he, as ludicrous as the idea sounds, could have…” Jane suddenly went quiet then red at the sound of a cough along with the feeling of two stares boring into her head. And with a small sheepish smile, she looked up. “Oh! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I rambled on there you two! I, uhh, sort of tend to do that a lot!” she apologized.
Tails waved his hand, a smile in place, as he told her it was fine.
“Vergil…” Shadow spoke.
“Huh?” Jane uttered with a raised brow.
The black and red hedgehog gave her a long look. “Vergil,” he repeated in a deadpan tone of voice. “That’s your friend’s name, am I right?”
“Ah!” realization flashed for a split second in her golden brown eyes. “Yeah, it is! I’m just worried about him, that’s all!” a troubled look crossed her face as she said this.
“I understand,” was all Tails said, his expression mimicking hers.
Seeing a similar look on the dark hedgehog’s face now, Jane knew that the two were thinking about their own friend and were more than likely worried about her too. ‘There’s no use in pondering on their whereabouts right now,’ she shook her head. ‘We’ll just have to keep on looking for them.’
The woman schooled her features once she pulled herself together. “Hey you two…” she broke them out of their thoughts. “Let’s get out here and continue our search beyond this forest.”
The two nodded in silent unison.
Jane gave them a quick reassuring smile before walking ahead of them, and it didn’t take very long for the two behind her to follow.
Other than the wind and the sounds of their footsteps, things were silent between them. No one was truly in the mood to talk, and it’s not as if they had any topics in mind that they wanted to discuss. They did but they can always come back to them later.
Right now, the trio had other things on their minds. Stuff to mull over and digest from today.
RWAAAAAAAAR!!!
The group froze and then slid into their own fighting stances without a word.
They didn’t expect to hear that sound again so soon and hear it so close to their location, especially since they’re almost at the exit now. Hell, it was right there in front of them too. A mere ten feet away!
RWAAAAAAAAR!!!
To their surprise, the fog thickened and swarmed the entire area from all sides, swallowing everything up in plain sight. They still didn’t say anything and just looked on with slight aggravation and disbelief as the exit before them vanished into thin air.
‘You have got to be kidding me!’ they turned back around to see that the path they walked on was gone too.
Now, an endless white void greeted them, and from within that fog, they could hear the faint sound of leaves being shaken off a tree. Which tree, for there were many of them in this area, they didn’t know. But they didn’t like it.
And to no one’s surprise, Shadow was the first one to snap.
“I may tolerate some things but being played with is not one of them...” he spoke in a dangerously low voice, his aura spiking around him wildly as he raised his hand, “And you, my friend, have crossed a line that no one sane enough would dare cross. For that, you shall die!” and threw a massive barrage of Chaos Spears into the white void.
BOOM!!!
When the smoke cleared, all they saw was a couple of destroyed trees laying on the forest ground.
Unfortunately, their enemy was nowhere in sight.
Jane’s eyes narrowed into slits.
‘So it’s going to be like that huh…’ she closed her eyes in concentration and raised a hand up. ‘Alright you stupid beast, let’s see you try hiding now!’ her eyes snapped open with a glow. Then with a wave of her hand, she cleared some of the fog away.
Tails shot her an incredulous look but didn’t bother to say anything.
Shadow on the other hand though…
“You didn’t think to do that earlier, Jane?”
The young hybrid winced at his cold tone.
“Oh I did, but I wasn’t exactly in the right mindset to pull it off. Do you know how taxing it can be to manipulate the weather sometimes? Especially if the body is tired, low on energy, and hasn’t recovered to its fullest just yet?” she replied in a clipped voice, catching the new look forming onto his face now. Then she bitterly added, “No, my control was acting a bit shitty earlier. Admit it, you and Tails saw what happened in the last battle we fought in. Tell me it wasn’t good.”
“That still sounds like an excuse to me.”
“It’s not an excuse! I was too tired to try earlier! Still am in fact!”
“You sure don’t sound tired right now, Jane!”
“How the hell do you know if I’m tired or not? Just because I don’t sound like it doesn’t mean that I don’t feel it, Shadow!”
“Even so, why did you even bother trying? I thought you said that manipulating weather when your control is not perfect is a bad idea. Or was that a lie you just told me? An emotion like anger can affect control, which is exactly the mood you’re in right now!”
“Umm...guys…” Tails meekly spoke up, trying to plead with them but his voice went unheard.
“I know that already!” she shouted, her aura spiking a bit.
“I highly doubt that,” he shot back with a scoff.
The two-tailed fox looked helplessly at the two arguing in front of him. He was thoroughly exasperated with the whole situation on the inside despite how nervous he looked on the outside. Out of the times to pick a fight with each other, did they have to choose it now? Seriously, they didn’t have time for this.
Their enemy was still out there. It could attack them at any moment now. And he wanted to be prepared for that, but he can’t with these two like this.
Tails could see it. He could see how angry they were. At the enemy and at each other. The tension between them was so high that he could literally see sparks flying. It was enough to make his fur stand on ends and the urge to back up or flee suddenly appeared, but he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t leave his friends like this, vulnerable in their anger and at the mercy of their mysterious enemy.
The young fox gulped, steeling himself for a possible physical fight. He had a feeling that this wasn’t going to end well.
“That bastard out there was starting to piss me off too you know! And you questioning me about the timing of using my weather manipulation ability is not helping! You think I like to be played with like a fool too?” she snapped, eyes flashing red for a split second before it died down as the fog thickened in response, much to their surprise. “You think I like this damn hide-and-go seek game we’re playing with that thing?” her eyes glowed red again as she growled. “You think I like being in a constant state of worry and paranoia, wondering whether or not that beast was going to show up? When will it show up?” the fog thickened even further in response to her growing anger and growing aura that was steadily turning demonic as she stalked up to the hedgehog. “No I don’t!” she roared at him. “I hate it! I hate feeling like that! Feeling like I need to constantly check any and everything around us for every couple of minutes or so, wasting needless energy that I could’ve been saving now instead of having less than half in my already tired state on top of that! Hell, I’m pretty confident you’re not feeling so hot yourself either!” the young woman jabbed a finger at his chest.
Shadow, who had been getting increasingly angry himself, narrowed his eyes at her in warning—and some other indistinguishable emotion, which she couldn’t identify at the moment because she was too mad, that flashed in them.
“I think you need to calm down right now, girl,” he slowly yet surely reached up and grabbed her wrist in a calm, gentle manner. “As a matter of fact…” then he closed his whole hand around her own, finishing up with a cold, “You need to shut up before you get hurt.”
‘Oh no…’ Tails wanted to facepalm at the dark hedgehog’s rare moment of stupidity, but he was too frozen on the spot to do so. ‘Shadow! Why did you say that?! Now she’s going to take that the wrong way!’
Glowing red-turned golden brown eyes looked down—
“What did you say…”
—And clashed with fiery ruby red ones.
“You heard me. Loud and clear.”
Jane’s entire face went blank before it darkened, and she leaned down until her face was about an inch away from his, her lips pulled back in a snarl to reveal a single sharp fang.
“Is that a threat?”
Shadow flashed his own fangs at the woman, tightening his grip on her.
“No...but it will turn into one if you don’t get out of my face and back down, you hot-headed little brat.”
The death glare he received in response was so chilling that it felt like winter had came a little early this year. And too bad for her that it had no effect on him. He received many looks much worse than this one before in the past, so he wasn’t worried about hers one bit.
“Don’t call me a hot-headed little brat, you second rate-speedy faker!”
The forest suddenly went dead silent.
But as for Tails…
The poor fox felt his heart drop in his stomach at the second new look forming onto the black and red hedgehog’s face. He didn’t think she would go there with the “faker” insult—only his best friend and fiercest rival Sonic did that, but she did.
And she said it so coldly too.
“Now, now, Shadow, I’m sure she really didn’t…” his eyes widened in shock when Jane flew back and landed harshly on her behind. “...mean it,” he finished weakly, watching the seething woman wipe a drop of blood from her chin and leap at the immortal hedgehog.
“No wait!”
“You fucking asshole!” she roared, successfully nailing Shadow in the face and knocking him back into a tree.
However, the dark hedgehog quickly recovered and retaliated with a powerful kick.
“Guys! Please!” Tails’ protest fell on death ears. “Stop!” the young mobian shouted, clenching his fists at his sides nervously as he watched the two fall to the ground, punching, kicking, scratching, and biting each other.
They wrestled for a bit, neither one giving in or claiming dominance. They were pretty even from the looks of things. And in the midst of their fight, they didn’t realize that all that moving around they did earlier created a giant dust cloud.
‘Oh crap!’ the two-tailed swore when he found his vision obscured and flew back to prevent more dirt from hitting him. “Crap!” he landed unknowingly right in front of the exit behind him and quickly shielded his face, blocking a splash of mud that was thrown his way. “C’mon you two, knock it off already!” Tails peeked through the opening of his arms, trying and failing to see the fighting pair through the cloud. But it was just too thick. He couldn’t see anything.
All he could hear was their hollering, filled with a lot of pain, hurt, and anger. So much anger. It was enough to make him sad. He didn’t want his friends (and yes he considered Jane to be his friend now. She was a nice girl) fighting. He wanted them to get along and be nice to each other. He wanted things between them to go back the way they were like yesterday, or even earlier today.
‘Where did everything go wrong?’
Tears welled up in his eyes then slid down his cheeks as he lowered his arms and stared miserably at the slowly receding dust cloud, his heart shuddering at the numerous amount of injuries he could gleam on their bodies from his safe spot.
‘I need to do something to stop this.’
Determination flared brightly in his ocean blue eyes and he balled his hands into fists, clenching them tightly. Then suddenly, he felt ready. Felt like he can take on the whole world—or just the two powerful fighters in front of him.
So he stood up straight and puffed his chest out.
‘Alright…’ the young fox exhaled, ‘I can do this!’ and jumped into the air.
‘I will stop you two!’
Tails flew after the duo, his heart beating wildly in his chest in conjunction with the two tails behind him spinning at high speed, tears falling freely from his face.
“Shadow!”
It didn’t take him long to reach the two and so he stopped directly above them, hovering a good thirty feet in the air. Then without a word, he pulled a black miniature bomb out from seemingly nowhere and held it above his head.
“Jane!”
Surprisingly, the two did hear him this time and they looked up—only after Shadow rolled off of the woman and moved his hand away from her bruised neck while she removed hers from his scratched up face. “What…” their heated glares disappeared at the sight of their friend, crying and holding a small bomb in his hands, and something else…
RWAAAAAAAAR!!!
Tails whirled around, ready to toss the bomb at the presence he could feel coming up behind him only to throw it away from him in shock at the sight of a giant claw blurring past his face, taking with it more than a few strands of orange fur off his head and his right side.
Seconds later, he felt, more than saw, a copious amount of blood leave his newly acquired wounds.
“Tails!”
The sound of Jane’s horrified voice was drowned out by the loud thumping of his heart and the blinding white hot pain he could feel rippling through his body.
“Tails!”
Time seemed to have slowed down for Shadow and Jane as they watched the young fox fall from the sky and crash to the ground with a sickening thud, throwing a cloud of dust up into the air with his landing.
BOOM!
The two flinched, shutting their eyes as the dirty cloud washed over them and left them in a coughing mess.
“Well that was pretty easy.”
At the sound of a deep voice, one that sounded masculine and menacing, their eyes snapped open. The two immediately shared a look, appearing to come to an agreement for now from the looks of things, and nodded their heads.
Sadly, no words were exchanged as they slowly yet painfully got to their feet and dusted themselves off.
“One down…”
By the time they finished and looked up, the cloud had receded, revealing a large shadow in the shape of a canine-vulpine-like monster with red eyes standing directly over a crater.
And in that crater lied the bleeding prone figure of Tails.
“Tails!”
He wasn’t responding or moving.
“Two more to go,” the thing cackled with a toothy grin and raised his bloodstained claws up to his lips. Then to their disgust, he licked them clean until there was no blood left behind. “For your sake, I hope you two will put up a much better fight than your little friend here did,” he gestured mockingly at the two-tailed fox in the crater, “He was weak!” before he stepped forward. “Pathetically so!” and just to add insult to injury, he kicked some dirt back into the pit then proceeded to make his way over to the two.
‘Did this bastard just...’
Jane couldn’t believe it. This creature had the sheer audacity to taunt her and Shadow? And on top of that, mock their friend when he couldn’t even be awake to defend himself? Disrespect him by treating him like trash even?
It was infuriating.
“You...”
Feeling the spike of energy next to him, Shadow turned and looked at the hybrid human warily, noticing the ice blue glow around her body right away.
“Jane…”
And just like that, something in her snapped.
xXXXXXXXXx
Somewhere deep underground where it was damp and cold, a line of torches embedded in the cavern walls next to each dungeon cell flickered on, shining light on the various groups of occupants sitting on their chosen cots inside.
And in one particular cell, that was covered in seals to boot, a young man with spiky hair sat with his back against the wall, eyes closed with his chained arms crossed over his chest.
“Hey Vergil, did you feel that just now?”
The half-devil opened his icy blue eyes and looked to his right, spotting a young woman with short dark hair and heterochromatic eyes —with blue in the right and red in the left— walking towards him.
“That surge of demonic energy you mean?” he uncrossed his arms and stared at the woman right as she sat down next to him. “Yes I did, Lady. And I know who it belongs to,” he said, his voice sounding surprisingly low and tired. “It appears that someone has forced Jane to go DM.”
Lady let out a quiet laugh and shook her head in amusement.
“Well that’s a surprise. She hasn’t used that form in years if I remember correctly.”
“Yes,” Vergil inclined his head in agreement. “Five years to be exact.”
Next to the two devil hunters, a white anthropomorphic bat with teal colored eyes sat on a cot, fiddling with the chains around her gloved hands. She looked at the duo and sighed, wondering what in the world were they talking about.
“Hey—” before Rouge could open her mouth and ask, someone else beat her to it.
“What is this DM you two speak of? Does the initials stand for anything important?”
All three pairs of eyes looked over to the cell sitting across from theirs, with matching seals drawn onto it no less, and saw a pair of green eyes belonging to that of a long dark haired man staring right back at them from his spot on the floor.
“Devil Mode,” the dark haired woman answered in a cautious manner, taking care not to reveal much to the Norse god.
The God of Mischief cocked his head to the side in response. He had never heard of that term before.
“Interesting.”
Then a smile, one that spelled some kind of trouble, slowly appeared on his lips.
Before we begin, I just want to say that this fic takes place some time after “A Sudden Discovery Leads to a New Change”. So I highly encourage you guys to take a look at that fic before this one (you don’t have to, but it would be nice if you read that one-shot first. It’s just to get a better understanding of things that may or may not get mentioned in this fic).
And now with that out of the way, I hope y'all enjoy the first chapter!
The evening was relatively late, quiet, and cold—a little too cold in fact for anyone one to be out and exploring the area. And while the scenery was nice to look at, with the sunset shining the last of its warm ray of lights down on the grassy plateau and train station before making its routinely descent below the horizon, it wouldn’t do good for those lingering about —such as a group of three human teenagers sitting down on a bench nearby— in the wooden building to even think about traveling.
Well, at least not at this time of the day since it was all coming to an end.
They needed to find shelter and fast before it started to get dark. But there was nothing noteworthy of interest they spotted around them.
No inns...
...And no other buildings around.
Hell, there wasn’t any kind of shelter in the vicinity aside from the large house, which was surrounded by five palm trees and a workshop building that was being powered by a generator sitting in a fountain close to it, they could see up in the distance.
And it was all sitting right on top of a large steep cliff next to another cliff that had a wooden railing around it near the ocean.
But the chances of whoever stayed in that home or the workshop connected to it had enough room to house any one of them were about as slim to none.
Besides, that cliff area was hardly safe in their eyes seeing as someone could easily trip or walk off the edge of it—if they’re not too careful, and land on the hard ground below...
...Or fall over the wooden railing on the second cliffside and tumble straight into the water down below.
So no, they weren’t going to take their chances.
xXXXXXXXXx
“Next stop, Mystic Ruins! If you would like to get off at this stop, push the button and patiently wait in your seats until we’ve reached our destination!” an automated voice from the intercom spoke.
Tired golden brown eyes looked up from their phone at the sound of a ding from somewhere behind her and out the window, sighing in pure content when she took one glance at the midnight blue sky and saw a cluster of stars twinkling in the light that shone down on the beautiful ocean water surrounding the jungle swampland below—
PEEP!
CHIRRUP!
‘Oh! Do I hear flickies?’ at the sound of faint chirping, Jane turned her attention away from the water and looked further up into the sky. ‘Yeah! There they are!’
A smile appeared on her face, her eyes shining amber in the light reflecting off the ocean as she took in the flock of colorful bird-like creatures —that were native to this side of the world— flying high in the air.
‘It’s good to be back here on the island again. I haven’t stepped foot in this place for years. I honestly forgot how long it took to get here too.’
Speaking of which, the ride from the city of Station Square to Mystic Ruins wasn’t that bad by all means. It just took a while to get here, that’s all. Four hours in total in fact! And since the train she was one travels nearly all across the world, making frequent stops here and there at different locations for various reasons, there were bound to be some delays getting here.
Still, this was nothing compared to the previous ride she had to take in order to get to the big city —that was famous for its near resemblance of New York and a few others along with a certain group of anthropomorphic heroes who lived there— from home, which almost took up half the day.
Nonetheless, the young woman felt relieved that she finally made it here before the day ended.
"It’s a good thing I didn’t fall asleep...” Jane mumbled to herself before putting her phone away. Then she started to pull her stuff, such as her notebook, writing utensils, and laptop, off the table in front of her and put it back inside of the bag sitting next to her. ‘Or else I totally would’ve missed my stop, and therefore, missed my meeting with my friend. My god, that would’ve been embarrassing!’ she finished in her mind, fully aware of the few people left on the train getting up from their seats right as it stopped in front of the station.
After checking to make sure she had everything and confirming it, the young woman got up and joined the others waiting by the door.
WHOOSH!
They all walked out and went their separate ways except for Jane, who stopped near the stairs and took a moment to pull her bag over her shoulders all while stretching her legs and arms, completely ignoring the group she could spot snoozing away on the ground in their sleeping bags under the station’s wooden building and stone bridge below her.
POP!
POP—
CRACK!
A wince escaped from her lips at the ungodly sounds her joints made as they moved back in place.
‘Not gonna lie...That one actually hurt a bit.’
She continued stretching for the next five minutes or so, working all the kinks out until there were none left. And once she did, the young woman stopped. ‘That should do it!’ satisfied that she got the blood pumping and flowing through all four of her limbs again, Jane started making her way down the wooden steps carefully.
‘Time to go see what this guy wants.’
Unfortunately for her, that wasn’t going to happen because the minute she reached the bottom and walked past the building, a small shiver crawled up her spine.
The young woman stopped in her tracks. ‘What is this strange feeling I’m getting now?’ her senses were going wild, telling her that there was some kind of danger around.
‘Hmm…’ her eyes darted around, checking everything in sight for any signs of someone or something lurking in the area. She did this a few more times, and when nothing showed up, Jane felt relieved.
However, that didn’t stop her from feeling a bit disappointed as strange as that sounded.
‘Weird...I don’t sense anything around me that’s even remotely—’
WHIRR!
Nevermind.
WHIRR!
‘Where?—’
BZZPT!
Jane froze when she saw a beam of energy heading straight towards her, and the young woman immediately reacted.
BOOM!
A cloud of smoke and dirt rose up in the air when the attack landed, which startled the sleeping group nearby awake. They quickly shot up from their sleeping bags and turned their attention to the source of the sound only to find a dissipating smoke in front of them. “Wha…?” a shocked yet excited gasp left their mouths at the flash of blue shining through the smoke cloud, and just when the three thought they spotted the legendary blue blur himself, the cloud completely disappeared and so did their hopes.
“Hey, that’s not Sonic.”
Before their very eyes, a young woman in her early thirties with waist length dark brown-red tipped hair and honey blonde side swept bangs kneeled behind a bluish-white barrier in front of them, facing their direction. She had on a black and white hooded vest with red jewels on top of an open sleeveless purple and blue lined tail-coat jacket with white and sky blue accents on it. Underneath that, she wore a sleeveless black and white lined v-neck tunic with a single yellow stripe on each shoulder and had a slit running down the length of the shirt, which partially revealed her stomach. Then, on the lower half of her body, she wore some stylized black and white outer pants that were cut out in the crotch area to reveal the stitched-in dark blue inner ones underneath, and had a yellow half-star symbol on each side of the outer pants that were tucked into some purple and black-blue lined knee high boots that had silver rings and sky blue flames on them with white tongues and yellow accents surrounding the silver soles of her footwear.
“Well sorry to disappoint you kids…” she said to them as she slowly got to her feet and opened her eyes. “But I’m not your blue hedgehog hero. I mean, I don’t even have the right looks or his blinding fast speed to even be him,” she finished in good humor, her golden brown eyes sparkling with concealed mirth before they narrowed into slits, and the young woman turned around to face whatever adversary attacked her.
“Oh…” the three echoed, a bit stumped.
“However…” six items being a pair of puffy dark blue upper arm bands with white cuffs, a pair of silver and black-sky blue striped arm guards, a pair of black and white-red jeweled gloves, a black and white-yellow striped leather strap, a white utility belt featuring a silver star emblem decorated with a black crescent moon on it, and a pair of large gold rings appeared out of nowhere in front of the mysterious woman to their amazement. “I would advise you three to take cover somewhere or get to safety at the top of this station. I wouldn’t want any of you to get in the way and get hurt because of me,” she put the accessories on as she said this.
WHIRR!
A flash of something metallic appeared to the woman’s left and fired another beam at her before disappearing. Though it appeared to be futile seeing as the attack completely bounced off the barrier and into another direction, hitting a tree somewhere behind her and the teenagers.
Then without a word, she retaliated with her own move.
WHIRR! WHIRRR! WHIRRRRRRRR—
“Are you going to be alright, Miss?” one of them, an older boy with curly hair, asked and looked on with wide eyes as something metallic slammed into the ground. To his shock, a group of short egg-shaped orange and black-yellow humanoid robots materialized in the clearing, all face down. It was as if something was holding them in place.
“Whoa! That’s so cool!” his friend, a young girl with long wavy hair, mumbled in awe.
“Yeah! Like a ninjutsu attack from Naruto or something...” his friend, another boy but younger and with short hair, mumbled in agreement.
Above the robots, there was some type of distortion in the air, blackish-white in color and crackling with power that radiated off the woman’s body and outstretched hand in waves—immense power that the group of three could feel around them, but it wasn’t affecting them at all.
Just the robots in front of them.
Weird…
“Yes, I’m fine,” the woman finally answered and quickly looked back at the three. “Go on now! Hide!” she ordered in a firm voice.
The three didn’t need to be told twice.
“Okay!” they quickly got to their feet, almost tripping over their sleeping bags in the process, and grabbed their stuff before hightailing it out of there and up the stairs.
With them now out of sight, Jane turned her eyes back on the robots lying helplessly at her feet and whirring up a storm.
“Now to deal with you...Egg Pawns,” she mused with a tilt of her head, wondering why in the world Team Sonic’s number one enemy robots were here.
‘That means Dr. Eggman or whatever he calls himself is not too far away from here.’
WHIRR!
Still...the fact that these robots managed to hide themselves with some type of cloaking ability, sneak up on her without her even noticing a thing until they finally revealed themselves, and attack her was pretty impressive.
‘Looks like the madman upgraded his little army a bit.’
The young woman dropped the barrier and her hold she had on the robots, allowing them to get up off the ground.
Blue eyes glared intently at her, and with a series of beeps mixed in with whirrs full of anger, they all charged at the young woman.
“An arte that pierces foes with spires of rock from the earth below. Grave!”
Several rock spikes erupted beneath their feet and impaled them, blowing up the whole army before they could even reach Jane.
‘Too bad he couldn’t make them stronger. God, they’re so weak that I bet even Darcy could defeat them. And she’s not even a warrior like me, Lambert, all of my cousins, and the others!’ the young woman shook her head, watching the spikes disappear seconds later before turning her attention elsewhere. ‘Hmm...speaking of my cousins, Dante did mention earlier today that Chris and Claire will at least be in town tomorrow. Just for a brief visit though,’ a smile appeared on her face as she thought about the BSAA member and TerraSave member. ‘It’s been so long since I’ve seen those two specifically, not since I graduated from the university and got my PhD. It’ll be nice to catch up with them again.’
Just thinking about the two put her in a good mood. She loved the Redfield siblings dearly and used to go over their house all the time when she was a pre-teen. She also used to go over her Aunt Colleen and Uncle Sam’s house and visit them, Matt, and Katie too whenever she got the chance. But as they all got older, moved to different states, and moved on with their lives, visits became far and few in-between.
Now that Chris and Claire had some time before their next mission, the two were finally coming over to visit her and Lambert in London.
‘Hopefully I should be back home by the time they get there,’ Jane said as she started walking again.
“Never in my life I thought I’d see a Midgardian use a power resembling that of magic…” her eyes grew the size of dinner plates in surprise at the sudden appearance of a new voice coming from behind her. “I must say, that was an impressive performance you displayed there, Dr. Foster.”
The young woman stopped and whirled around to find the owner of the voice, but there was nothing there.
“Hmm, yes, I do believe there is more to you than what I’m seeing here…more than what my oaf of a brother described of you it seems.”
Confused, she turned back around.
...And still spotted nothing.
“I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s there.”
Thoroughly fed up now at the unknown presence she couldn’t see or sense, she finally called out to the voice.
“Alright, enough with the games! Come out whoever you are and show yourself! I’m not afraid to use my spirit artes against you!”
“My, my, aren't you a brave and feisty one? I like that...” her eyes narrowed at the somewhat mocking tone in the thing’s voice. “Ah, that look in your eyes...I see you’re not enjoying our little talk. You’re no fun at all, Dr. Foster.”
“Fun? I don’t see what’s so fun about this! The only thing you’re doing is pissing me off with this hiding game of yours, and I don’t like it one bit!”
“Oh that’s a shame to hear.”
Jane ignored the feigned sadness in the hidden stranger’s voice. “Now come out and show yourself! I will not ask you again for a third time!”
“So eager to see me I see...The feeling’s mutual, Dr. Foster, but I’m afraid that our little meeting will have to wait for another day. Preferably, when I’m free of this wretched place.”
“What the hell are you talking about?!—” spotting something out of the corner of her eye, like a flash of green—or was that black? She didn’t know, Jane turned around with an outstretched hand and dropped it at the sight of nothing.
Again…
A tick mark appeared near her brow while she fumed on the inside.
“Nothing that concerns a human like you.”
“You have no idea how much I want to kick your cowardly ass right now,” she growled in a low, dangerous voice.
“I will ignore that insult of yours for now…” Jane’s brows furrowed in confusion, noticing how faint the mysterious voice was getting now. “But it is getting late, and I’m sure you have other things to do or whatever it is that you mortals do at night before turning in, so I’ll leave you be...for now.”
“What—”
“Until next time...Jane Foster.”
The clearing became silent soon after that. And Jane was left in a sour mood.
‘How the hell did that asshole even know my name?’
It did no good for her to stay angry, especially at someone who wasn’t even there to begin with, so the young woman closed her eyes and took a few moments to calm herself down.
“Get a hold of yourself girl! Don’t let their words get the best of you,” Jane quietly gave herself a pep talk then took a few small deep breaths. “Yes...that’s it.”
The young scientist did this a few times, slowly feeling the anger she felt earlier wash away little by little until it was no more. Then she opened her eyes and looked around the area once more before letting out a groan.
‘Either I’m starting to go crazy from hearing things or I just have the worst luck in the world to be teased and, somehow, stalked by a voice that sounded awfully like that war criminal who almost destroyed New York two years ago, and who just so happens to be Thor’s little brother as well. My god, what has my life come to now? I don’t even know how I should feel about this!’
Jane sighed and looked over her shoulder at the train station building, her eyes searching for the three kids she sent off earlier, but it seems like they weren’t up there at all. Weird. Maybe the train came by and picked them up while she was preoccupied with things down here?
‘Whatever...I don’t have time for this or that Loki guy! I need to get a move on and meet up with my friend before he gets fed with my tardiness and leave—’
BOOM!
“What was that?” she turned and faced the direction of where the explosion came from. “Oh no...” her eyes went wide at the sight of a giant silhouette in the shape of a robot standing near the waterfall drop behind a cloud of black smoke, and firing its attacks downward.
Jane became confused at that until she heard three shouting voices, one that she recognized immediately, followed by an annoying cackle of evil laughter—that she heard plenty of times before on TV.
‘Tails? What is he doing here—wait, nevermind, dumb question. Of course he'd be here since he lives on this island! But the important question right now is...why is Dr. Eggman attacking him and two other people with him?’
BOOM!
Deciding to think about that later, Jane ran towards the battle taking place up ahead.
‘Guess my meeting will have to wait until Eggman’s been taken care of.’
xXXXXXXXXx
In another area deep within Mystic Ruins, a tall lone figure in blue with swept back white hair sat comfortably on top of a wide mountain ledge, methodically swinging his legs back and forth over the edge without a care in the world. He looked past the trees and peered into the vast darkness of the maze-like jungle below, his icy blue colored eyes glowing yellow under the light of the fireflies. And they buzzed ever so softly around him as he stared down his nose at the many critters running through the grass.
Even with the lack of excitement, the young man felt content just sitting there, watching the creatures chase each other either on the ground or through the trees.
He didn’t mind the silence one bit.
In fact, the chill of the night, the stars, the scenery and sounds of mother nature surrounding him from every side—it all felt like a balm to his soul. And it soothed the beast—his emotions within him, specifically the irritation and agitation he felt the day before.
Though it was curious to note that he couldn’t even remember why he’d been irritated in the first place. He should’ve, but he didn’t.
It must have been something so trivial that he thought wasn’t worth it, the young man mused as he turned his bored gaze onto the pyramid right in the middle of the jungle.
Despite the urge to want to go down there and explore it, he was going to sit here for a bit and relax. After all, it was not like he was in a hurry or anything. He still had some time to kill before he and his friend’s appointment starts...
...If she ever shows up, that is.
He resisted the urge to sigh or groan—he was too dignified for that after all, and just pinched the bridge of his nose instead.
‘I might as well do something productive to pass the time. It’ll make the waiting less painful that way.’
Knowing it’ll be some time before his friend gets here, if she doesn’t get lost or distracted by something on the way to the cave, he pulled out a worn brown and gold leather book with the letter V etched onto it from within his coat, cracked it open, and began to read.
“That woman better have a good excuse for making me wait this long once she gets here, otherwise…” he trailed off cryptically then soon became lost within his thoughts.
And before he knew it, ten minutes flew by...
With the majority of his attention focused on yet divided between keeping a lookout for any enemies nearby and reading the words etched into the pages of his book, the young man didn’t realize the area around him had changed until a firefly flew in front of his face.
He blinked and raised his head up. Then his features twisted into a frown when he took notice of the white fog in front of him.
‘What the…?’ the young spiky haired man calmly stood up, closing his book and stashing it away as he did so. After that, he picked up his weapon —that had been laying next to him— off the ground and looked around him.
The fog was so dense, so thick, and massive in size that it nearly swallowed up the whole jungle—save for the few moss covered trees and glowing blue river down below he can still spot through the hazy cloud with his enhanced vision.
‘When did this fog roll in?’
Suddenly, he heard an ominous howl. And the young man swiftly drew his sword, the Yamato, from its sheath. ‘There’s something here…’ his blue eyes combed through the area, looking for any signs of movement, daring them to come out and face him.
He got his wish seconds later.
RWAAAAAAAAR!!!
In mere milliseconds—and simply way too fast for the human eye to see, his blade sang as he pivoted and swung at a ninety degree angle, immediately connecting Yamato with something solid.
A splatter of blood followed by a cry of pain was heard, which put a victorious smile on the spiky haired man’s face. However, that quickly dropped the moment a huge shadow with red eyes jumped back and over the ledge of the mountain, straight into the jungle below.
‘Oh?’ he looked down into the abyss with interest in his eyes, trying to spot the creature that miraculously survived his deadly attack.
And there weren't many who did.
How curious...
‘The prey who’s never been prey before until this day has now become the hunter.’
Thoroughly motivated by this situation at hand here, the young man sheathed his sword and leaped down into the jungle after the mysterious, red-eyed shadow.
The house was quiet or as quiet as it could be despite the loud ceiling fan spinning rapidly above her seated position on the large sofa, blending in with the soft snores and sighs that bounced off the hollow walls of the living room. Thankfully the sounds didn't bother her. Because if they did, she would’ve left the room a long time ago.
But they weren’t, so she was fine.
Still, the sounds were making it quite difficult for her to distinguish which one began first and which one ended last.
Too bad none of that was on her mind right now.
No, she was focused on something else. Her eyes were glued onto the words she was seeing on the little screen in front of her, deeply concerned with what they were telling her.
According to the thing she was reading, there have been sightings of an unknown monster flying all around the world and causing all sorts of trouble, ripping cities, towns, and villages apart with a freak storm that it conjured up. And as a result, hundreds of citizens have either gone missing, died in the attack, or lost their homes in the aftermath of the destruction.
It was horrifying really, to discover that the world had gone to hell while she and the others disappeared. If Jill hadn’t mentioned to her on the phone about the Devil May Cry Agency, Team Sonic, Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., G.U.N., B.S.A.A., and TerraSave being busy with something, then she wouldn’t have known.
And, if she hadn’t clicked on the first few articles that caught her attention ten minutes ago and read them all, then she still wouldn’t have known.
Sure, she would’ve been a little curious and a little suspicious as to why all of those organizations were working alongside each other on just this one thing, but she still would’ve been left in the damn dark on some things.
So yeah, it was a good thing that she decided to take the time now to look up what the hell was going on in the world.
‘Terrible. I hate this.’
By the time she reached the end of the article, Jane was too tired to even want to read the next one she could see at the bottom of the page. So with a heavy-filled sigh that was accompanied by the deep frown she could feel pulling at the corner of her lips, she swiped a finger across the screen, closing out of the tab right as her eyelids fluttered shut.
Jane groaned and said, “What a mess...” in a mumble.
Feeling no more than a little drained by the news, and perhaps a little overwhelmed by her own emotions that got stirred up by said news, the young woman leaned forward and sat her phone down on the coffee table in front of her. And once she did that, Jane fell back into the sofa, landing on a pile of pillows that felt like clouds and smelled like mint as she threw an arm over her face, muffling the moan-like sigh that suddenly slipped out a second later.
‘Somehow, I feel a tiny bit better after doing that now.’
For the next ten minutes, she laid there in silence, mulling over the information in her head and enjoying the scent of the pillows wafting around her as she slowly but surely tuned out the sleeping group of individuals and Teepo, who was laying down on the other side of the sofa, nearby.
“How are they Jane?”
Feeling the spot next to her on the sofa shift, Jane cracked her eyelids halfway open and raised her head up a bit, immediately spying Tails who was in the midst of sitting a ceramic white bowl filled with some cereal that was already swimming in a bath of milk down on the table.
“Hey Tails,” she greeted him and laid her head back down. Then without removing her arm, she looked past the two-tailed fox and the table and caught sight of the group still sleeping on the rug covered floor. Though to her surprise, one of them was sitting up in a cross-legged pose now, leaning against Jude’s back with his chin tucked in and his arms folded loosely over his chest.
‘Oh. It’s Wingul.’
Despite the curtain of shoulder-length black hair falling over his extremely pale face, which hid the majority of his features from view, she knew that the young man was still sleeping soundly. The telltale signs of his breathing and snoring, light as they both were, gave it all away.
“Well, they’re all fine right now. No fever or anything. Still a little warm though,” Jane continued and looked away from Wingul and over to Tails who was in the process of eating his breakfast. “They stopped sweating in their sleep some time ago. Right around one or two this morning I wanna say,” she explained to him quietly. “But their complexion...it’s still a little too pale for my tastes—from a medical standpoint, it doesn’t sound healthy at all I mean!” she corrected herself.
Tails took a moment to finish chewing his food before he put the spoon back in the bowl and sat it back down on the coffee table.
“Hmm...I guess that’s better than nothing then. It means we still have some time left to save them before they turn into zombies,” he said, his voice equally quiet. “Hopefully your friend Jill gets here soon.”
Her eyes flickered over to the fox mobian.
“How did you—”
“I heard you outside when you were talking to Shadow and Loki.”
The young woman blinked.
“Oh...” was all Jane said before she, ever so slightly, shrugged her shoulders and opened her eyes fully up. “Vergil told me she’ll be here in thirty minutes or so, but we’ll see,” she waved her hand and her laptop along with her notebook appeared in her lap. “In the meantime though, I'm going to finish transferring all of the notes I made on those meteorites I found back in the other world from my notebook to my computer. Or at least try to,” the young woman set aside the notebook as she opened up her laptop and logged in.
Tails stared at the woman as she cracked open her notebook and flicked through the first few pages before stopping on the one she was looking for.
“Are you talking about those strange glowing rocks we used to get back to the swamp valley?” he inquired.
She smiled, nodding her head.
“Yep! I have one in my dimensional pocket right now. I took the meteorite so that I could study it some more—which I’ll do later on in the future whenever I have the time for it,” Jane replied as she looked up from the writing in her notebook then back down to her laptop and began typing away.
Tails nodded his head in understanding but didn’t say anything further as he picked up his bowl and went back to eating his cereal, leaving Jane to her work.
xXXXXXXXXx
A glint of steel shone radiantly under the rays of the morning light as it elegantly flipped through the air. The sharp object soar past the ledge of the rooftop, nearly nicking the wood in the process, until gravity took hold of it and brought it back down only to land in the palm of the raven haired god’s hand a few seconds later.
‘Hmm...’ he inspected the weapon for a few moments, turning it over and observed it from all sides, before he threw the thing back up into the air...
...And caught it again.
Rinse and repeat.
“Bored are you?” Shadow’s question tore him from his thoughts, right as he threw his dagger up for the sixth time even.
His eyes flickered over to the black and red mobian hedgehog sitting down on the porch steps in front of him, staring at the strange green gem in his right gloved hand with half-lidded eyes.
“Well...” Loki began with a hum as he sat up from the bench he was laying on and caught the dagger just before it hit the porch floor. “I can ask the same for you, my friend,” he said, staring at the hedgehog’s back intently.
Shadow closed his eyes.
“Hmph.”
Loki raised a brow at the mobian’s response.
“What kind of answer was that, hedgehog? Do you expect me to know what that ‘hmph’ even means?”
A small inaudible sigh escaped from Shadow as he stashed his prized Chaos Emerald away in his quills and placed his hands on the floor behind him, leaning back a little as he opened his eyes back up.
“Alright, fine, I’m bored. Very bored,” he clarified for him, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the god’s insistence. “Even if I were to come up with something to do right now, I’ll still be bored out of mind by the time I’m done with it. Nothing will ever with change that,” he said flippantly, as if he wasn’t feeling a little irritated on the inside, as if he wasn’t getting a little impatient from waiting out here on the porch for Jane’s friend and Vergil, and looked to his left, staring at the flickies flying low over the ocean in the distance. “Are you happy now Loki?” he asked despite himself.
Loki let out a quiet hum as he vanished his dagger away with a simple flick of his wrist and said, “You needn’t be so rude with me, Shadow. It was just an innocent question.”
“Innocent my a—”
“But yes, I see where you’re coming from and I agree with you,” he continued on, as if he didn’t cut off Shadow just like that. “The boredom will still be there, lingering in the back of our minds until it seeps into the front and destroys whatever’s left of our good mood. Terrible, isn’t it?” he finished with a dramatic sigh, turning away from the hedgehog, and stared at the mountains located to his right.
The conversation soon died down between the two after that. They weren’t exactly in the mood to continue talking and they didn’t have any other topics in mind that they could potentially discuss, so the two left it alone for now, deciding to just sit back, relax, and enjoy the weather.
Unfortunately, that silence was soon broken by the pairs of footsteps approaching them, which was then followed up by a familiar baritone voice.
“I can see you two are dying from boredom just sitting there.”
The God of Mischief and the Ultimate Lifeform stood up from their seats and looked ahead to see Vergil stop in front of them.
This time, Shadow did roll his eyes.
“We are...” he said in a blunt voice, completely ignoring the ‘are you serious’ look Vergil gave him, and turned his attention to the person who stopped right next to half-devil. It was a young woman dressed in tactical gear and blue and charcoal grey clothing. She had long platinum blonde hair that was pulled back into a single ponytail and had medium length bangs that stopped about an inch above her sky blue eyes. “You’re Jill Valentine, one of the eleven founders of the B.S.A.A. Organization,” he nodded at her in greeting. “I thought the reports and images we received about you and your comrades said that you had dark brown hair, not blonde hair. Is there any particular reason why you look different than before?” he crossed his arms, observing Jill for the moment with a curious tilt of his head.
Jill gave him a strained smile.
“Let’s just say that a lot of things happened over the years. And some of them didn’t turn out to be a pleasant experience, but you know how it is with the type of work I do. It comes with the territory,” she explained with a small shrug of her shoulders.
Loki raised a brow at the woman.
“I assume changing your hair color turned out to be one of those things?” he asked, his voice curious.
A smile that looked somewhat cryptic in nature appeared on Jill’s lips when she turned her head in his direction.
“You could say that,” she said carefully and stared at Loki for a long time, which made him even more curious—and a tiny bit suspicious too. “You’re Loki, right? I’ve heard a lot of things about you from Jane and the Avengers.”
Although Loki was surprised to hear that Thor’s little girlfriend and mortal band of friends talked about him before—whenever he’s not around apparently, he didn’t let it show on his face. Instead, he gave the Midgardian woman a smile that made her narrow her eyes at him.
“Well I do hope they were good things!” he stepped forward and gently grabbed the young woman’s hand in his. He raised it up to his lips and gave it a small chaste kiss. “And yes, I am Loki of Asgard. God of Mischief, Lies, and Chaos. A pleasure to meet you, Miss Valentine!” he formally introduced himself, his eyes never leaving hers.
‘Charming,’ Jill raised a high brow at the raven haired Asgardian, a bit unimpressed with his behavior and the look of mirth she could detect in his emerald green eyes. She wasn’t fooled by his act one bit. “Nice to meet you too, I guess,” the young woman replied dryly as she calmly removed her hand out of his and turned her attention back to Shadow. “Hey Shadow, is Jane inside? Awake?” she asked, pointing at the front door behind him and Loki.
Shadow looked at her and uncrossed his arms from his chest.
“Yes and yes,” he replied with a nod of his head.
Jill sighed low to herself in relief.
“Oh good,” she said.
The dark hedgehog said nothing as he turned around and made his way over to the door, motioning her and the other two to follow him.
xXXXXXXXXx
Right as Tails stepped out of the kitchen and entered the living room, after he just gone done washing the dishes and putting them up in the dishwasher, he heard the front door open. And the two-tailed fox looked up to see Shadow, Jill, Loki, and Vergil walk in.
“Welcome back you guys,” he said before looking at the blonde haired woman who was with them. “Hello!” he greeted her with a wave. “Jill, right?”
Catching sight of the familiar woman out of the corner of her eye, Jane stopped typing and sat her computer on the table. Then she got up from the couch and made a beeline towards her friend.
“Jill! It’s so good to see you again!” she gave the older woman a big hug.
Jill smiled down at younger woman and returned the hug while the other three walked past them, heading over towards the couch.
“Nice to see you too, Jane,” she said, releasing the woman a second later, and held her by her shoulders, silently looking her over. But there was nothing to worry about seeing as she didn’t spot anything wrong with Jane, so the B.S.A.A. woman dropped her hands.
‘She looks well rested for once. But I wonder...’
Taking notice of the look on Jill’s face, Jane shook her head and said, “Hey c’mon, Jill. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. I’m not infected,” she gave the blonde haired woman a reassuring smile. However, that smile fell when she turned her head back and looked at the sleeping group. “They’re the ones who are infected and need to be cured from the virus,” she said in a quiet voice.
Jill followed the woman’s line of sight and stared at the group.
“Okay,” she nodded, schooling her features into a blank look as she turned away and dug her hand into the fanny pack that was tied around her waist to retrieve something.
Not taking her eyes off the group, Jane asked her friend, “Did you bring what I asked for?”
“Sure did. They’re right here.”
Jane blinked when a pack of capped syringes, eight in total and filled with some type of neon purple liquid inside, appeared in her peripheral vision.
“Great!” she smiled, feeling more than relieved right now as Jill put them back in her fanny pack. “Thank god you brought enough vaccines with you. Now all we have to do is just administer them to the group.”
Jill raised a brow at the younger woman.
“You told me to bring eight of them and so I did,” she pointed out with a smirk despite her voice sounding nonchalant. “Did you forget that already?”
“Touché,” Jane playfully rolled her eyes at her and laughed. “And no I didn’t.”
The two ladies walked over to Tails, Shadow, Vergil, and Loki who were standing around the sleeping group and staring at them.
When they approached, Vergil looked up and said, “We spotted some purple lines on the surface of their skin.”
Both women narrowed their eyes at this.
“When did they appear?” Jill inquired, her eyes still on the group. “Just now?”
“No,” Loki looked up as well. “They appeared about a minute ago,” he told her.
“Then we haven’t a moment to lose here,” Jane nodded at the two men in thanks, who then inclined their heads to her in response, and turned her attention to the owner of the house. “Tails, do you have another room that we could relocate these guys to? Preferably a room that’s bigger in size? And maybe cooler than this room?” she asked.
“I do,” he replied, his eyes straying over to one of his friends, and without warning, he bent down to pick Amy up.
“Can you lead us there, please?”
Tails stood up from the floor, shifting the pink hedgehog in his arms a little bit more comfortably as he did so, and turned on his heel.
“Sure! Grab the others and follow me,” he said over his shoulder to the group before walking away from them.
“Umm...what should we do about Teepo here?” came Jane’s question.
“I’d say leave him here for now since he’s still dead asleep,” came Shadow’s answer.
“I’m surprised these guys haven’t woken up by now...considering how loud we were and all.”
“They’re probably in a deep sleep too, just like Teepo, but I am starting to get a little worried about their health now.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Their voices died down a little as the two-tailed fox entered the hallway.
‘And me three,’ Tails said to himself in his head.
As he continuing walking down the hall, he spotted a stairway that led up to the second floor where his guest bedrooms and the balcony area were located at up ahead and another set of stairs past that one, peeking from around from the corner of the hall, which led to the basement floor where his man cave and his lab room were located at.
THUMP!
His ears picked up the faint sounds of Jane and the others moving around and getting their friends off of the floor.
Before he could get too far though, Tails stopped in his tracks and waited for them to catch up.
Thankfully he didn’t have to wait long because he heard the sound of their footsteps coming up right behind him. And without a word, the fox resumed his walk down the hall.
xXXXXXXXXx
The new room they arrived in about a minute and a half later was indeed much larger and cooler than the living room area.
The place was decked out with a lot of furniture that was scattered throughout the whole room and had posters of different celebrities and heroes on the dark blue walls that were organized in a neat manner, wooden shelves that were full of collectibles and robot figurines, all lined up in assembly formation.
And lastly, there was a small fireplace located towards the far back, right near a huge TV stand that had a fifty inch flat screen sitting on top of it, and the stand was placed in-between two game black storage racks that were filled to the brim with video games, movies, and CD covers.
Overall, it was a very lovely room.
It reminded them of a man cave. Or what you would see in a den.
“Over here.”
Jane and the others turned to see Tails walk over to one of the three sofas siting up against the walls.
“Just choose a couch to sit them down on. It doesn’t matter which one,” Tails said as he lowered Amy down on the middle one.
They went ahead and did just that.
Jane and Vergil carefully sat Leon, Lady, and Elize down on the same couch that Amy was on while Shadow placed Rouge on the couch that was on the right side. Then Jill came up right behind him as he backed away and placed Tony next to Rouge while Loki stepped up and dropped Jude and Wingul off on the final couch, which turned out to be the one on the left side.
When they finished, the group of five stepped back, stopping right next to Tails in the process.
“Okay...” Jill spoke up, catching their attention as she pulled out the pack of vaccines, including eight cotton balls that were already soaked in alcohol. “Do any of you, aside from Jane here, know how to give people injections?” she asked while handing two of the syringes and two of the damp cotton balls over to the young hybrid woman.
“I do,” Tails immediately replied.
“Yes,” Vergil simply said.
Shadow and Loki shook their heads no.
“Just the two of you then? That's fine,” Jill mumbled to herself before giving the two-tailed fox and the spiky haired half-devil four syringes and four damp cotton balls, two of each for them.
Next, she turned around and made her way over to Leon’s side, spying Tails, Vergil, and Jane walking over to their chosen individual’s side out of the corner of her eye.
“Now Shadow, I want you and Loki to watch how we do this carefully, alright?” she told the duo behind her while popping the cap off the syringe. Then she flicked it with a gentle finger to get all of the air bubbles out afterwards. “Here’s step one...” she began and grabbed the man’s arm with her free hand.
“Got it.”
"Go on."
“Now for step two, you do this...” Jill continued as she rolled up one of Leon’s sleeves and placed the cotton ball directly on his bare shoulder. Then she proceeded to rub that spot with it for a few seconds, and once she was done with that, the young woman sat the cotton ball on the table she saw in front of her and raised her syringe up.
“Still watching?” she took a moment to look back at Shadow and Loki.
They silently nodded their heads.
“Good!” Jill turned back to Leon, “Here’s the third step then...” and without warning, she stuck the needle inside Leon’s shoulder.
Despite flinching, he did not stir one bit.
“And now for the final step...” Jill waited until the syringe was completely empty before she slowly pulled it out of the man’s shoulder and sat the needle on the table as well. “See, that’s how it’s done. Simple, isn’t it?”
“It is,” the two admitted quietly.
As she moved onto the next person, Jill could see Jane, Tails, and Vergil doing the same.
And when she looked down at the table, the young woman saw that all three syringes were empty and all three cotton balls had been used.
In fact, all of it along with the caps were sitting not too far away from her stuff, which was good because everything would be right there in plain sight when it comes time for her to clean up.
‘Now it’s Lady’s turn,’ Jill said as she kneeled in front of the devil huntress.
For the next five minutes, Shadow and Loki watched the four continue the process of administering the vaccines to the infected individuals in silence.
And before they knew it, the group was done.
All eight of the syringes and all eight of the cotton balls have been used.
‘There. That should do it,’ Jill wiped the invisible sweat off her forehead with her sleeve and turned to her friend.
Feeling the woman’s eyes on her, Jane looked up.
The two shared a smile before they looked back at the group of eight, watching the purple lines on their skin slowly fade away.
“And now...” Jane started in a low voice.
“We wait,” Jill finished the sentence for her.
After that, Jane and the other four went ahead to find somewhere to sit at while Jill cleaned up the mess they left behind on the table, wiping it down thoroughly with some disinfectant wipes she brought with her, and put all of the cotton balls, empty syringes, and their caps away in a large Ziploc bag that was going to be disposed of later when she goes back to the base.
“Jill!” came Jane’s voice.
The B.S.A.A. woman looked up after she threw away the wipes in a nearby trash can and put the bag away in her fanny pack to see her friend waving her over from her spot on the grey colored carpet next to the others.
They were all sitting down on the floor in front of the TV, watching a horror movie to be precise.
“You finished yet?” the young astrophysicist asked.
“Yep!” Jill replied as she started making her way over towards the group. “So how many movies do you guys plan on watching?”
“A lot, apparently,” came Vergil’s immediate response.
“Oh jeez!”
xXXXXXXXXx
Some time in the evening, well after the movie marathon was over, half of the group had already left the room and went upstairs while the other half stayed behind to tidy up some things.
Jane, who just got finished tossing a piece of paper in the trash, stopped right next to the couch on the left and checked on the group.
Seeing as they were still fast asleep, along with the other individuals on the other two couches, the young woman looked away and leaned against the wall behind her back. Then she reached down into her pocket and took out her phone, checking to see if she received any text messages.
Before she turned on her phone though, the young scientist spotted movement out of the corner of her eye.
‘Are they...?’ Jane looked over to the couch in the middle to see Lady and Leon sit up with half-lidded eyes. ‘Yep! They are!’ she smiled, putting her phone away for now, and moved off the wall to walk over to the two.
“Where—”
Jane stopped in front of them.
“You guys are still inside Tails’ house,” she cut off Leon, grabbing his and Lady’s attention. “But my friends and I moved all of y’all down here in the den area where it’s a bit cooler.”
“Guess that explains why I feel a tad bit cold right now,” Lady mumbled with a frown on her face.
Jane gave her an apologetic smile.
“Err, yeah. Sorry about that.”
The devil huntress shook her head then waved her hand afterwards, reassuring the younger woman that it was fine.
“Our bodies were getting too warm, so you moved us down here in hopes of bringing our body temperature down some,” Leon stated in realization. “Which it did. I honestly don’t feel like I’m being cooked in an oven anymore,” he joked, making Lady snort in amusement. “And I don’t feel like I’m dying either, which is strange. Did you...” he trailed off in surprise and gave Jane a knowing look.
Jane didn’t say anything other than giving him a smirk.
Lady immediately took notice of this.
“From the look on your face, I take it we’re all in the clear now?”
“Yes.”
All three of them turned to see Jill, the one who spoke up, and Tails walk over to them.
“When did you get here, Valentine?” Leon looked at the B.S.A.A. woman in confusion.
“I got here a couple of hours ago,” Jill told him as she and Tails stopped right next to Jane. She looked past the Government agent and Lady to see that the others were sitting up now, wide-awake and listening in to their conversation. “I called Jane two days ago to give her an update on things that had been going on around the world and she asked me to retrieve eight vaccines for her,” she continued her explanation. “I have to say though, you guys were cutting it a little too close there. If I hadn’t arrived here earlier today, all of you would’ve either turned by tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest.”
Lady looked down and said, “And if that had happened, you would’ve shot a bullet or two in our heads.”
It wasn’t a question.
Jill knew this, but she still answered it like it was one.
“Yes.”
A few of them winced at that.
“Well...” Jude began in a calm voice despite himself. “I’m sure glad that it didn’t have to come to that,” he looked at the blonde haired woman and gave her a smile. “Thank you for saving us, uhh...”
Jill noticed his pause and the look of embarrassment on his face.
“Jill Valentine.”
“Huh?” Jude blinked at her.
“My name is Jill Valentine,” she repeated, introducing herself to him and the others who didn’t know her (that being Wingul and Elize), and looked at her friends standing next to her. “And as for saving you guys...technically, I wasn’t the only one who gave you the vaccines. These two along with Vergil, who’s not here at the moment, helped out too.”
Following her line of sight, the group of eight turned their attention to Jane and Tails.
“I see...” Tony and Wingul said in a low voice. “Thank you.”
“Thank you guys!” Jude, Elize, Rouge, and Amy bowed their heads in thanks at the young woman and two-tailed fox.
Leon and Lady nodded their heads in agreement.
“We appreciate it.”
Tails grinned at them.
“No problem.”
“We were happy to help you all out,” Jane added softly. “Now...” she started to say as she moved past her friends, making her way over to the door. Once she reached it, she stopped and looked over her shoulder. “I don’t know about you guys but I’m getting pretty hungry, so I’m gonna head back to the living room and see if Shadow, Vergil, Loki, and Teepo came back with dinner yet.”
At the mention of food, nearly everyone’s stomachs growled in unison, making more than a few of them turn pink in the face.
Tails, who already ate earlier, said nothing as he walked past all of them.
“Food does sound nice right about now,” Lady said in a painfully low and awkward voice that sounded strange to not only her ears but everyone else’s too.
It was as if she was embarrassed or something.
“We’ll come with you,” Jill told Jane, ignoring the urge to look at the devil huntress.
Jane nodded, stepping aside to let the fox mobian through as he left the room.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
The young woman turned around and walked out the door with the others following not too far behind her.
xXXXXXXXXx
Later on at night and some time after ten p.m....
“You make sure they’re well looked after, okay?”
Jane was right back in the same spot like she was this morning. Only this time, instead of sitting down with her back against the wooden railing with her feet dangling off the edge, she was standing a few feet away from the railing itself, with her head raised and the cool wind blowing softly behind her.
Although her eyes were glued onto the cluster of stars twinkling oh-so beautifully in the dark blue sky that had a faint purple-pink and golden orange hue to it, her body was slightly turned to the side, facing her friend who was standing next to her.
Jill, who was currently looking at the rest of the group standing outside near the garage door of Tails’ workshop building, turned to the younger woman.
“I will,” she gave her a solemn look. “I may work for the B.S.A.A., but I won’t let them treat Jude, Wingul, Elize, and Amy any differently just because they’ve been infected and cured from the T-virus,” she said in a strong voice and turned her attention to the late night sky as well. “They’ll be in good hands, Jane. I will make sure that nothing bad happens to them during their stay at HQ. And I’m sure Chris and the others will too. We’ll send them in rehabilitation and see how their health progresses from here on out,” she added in a whisper. Then a smile snuck its way onto her face as she thought of something amusing. “Besides, I have no doubt that Teepo would raise some hell if anything were to happen to his friends.”
Jane let out a laugh at that.
“Yeah! I believe he would do that,” she mumbled softly, tucking a stray piece of hair that had fallen out of place behind her pointed ear. “Speaking of getting looked after, did Leon, Lady, and Tony mention anything about going to B.S.A.A.’s headquarters too?” her eyes flickered over to the blonde haired woman as she asked this.
Jill furrowed her brows in thought.
“Oh that’s right. You did step out after dinner to take a phone call and missed what we discussed at the dinner table earlier,” she murmured to herself before turning her eyes over to Jane. “They did actually,” she answered the younger woman’s question. “Some time next week, they’re going to meet me there halfway in the UK after they take care of some things with their group or superiors first.”
“Good,” Jane nodded in understanding.
The two ladies turned back to the sky and fell quiet after that.
It wasn’t until the sky turned a darker blue, about ten minutes later in fact, that someone came over to their side.
“The Fox is getting ready to leave with Rose, Jude, and his friends in the X-Tornado soon. They’re just waiting for you now.”
Hearing the footfalls of shoes trudging lightly in the dirt stop somewhere behind them, the two turned around to Shadow standing ten feet away with his arms crossed over his chest, looking right at Jill.
“I understand,” Jill said with a nod of her head. “Thank you for telling me, Shadow.”
Shadow said nothing and bowed his head in a slight nod before he turned on his heel, uncrossed his arms, and started walking away with the two ladies right behind him.
The three reached the workshop in no time at all and stopped right next to everyone else who were watching the palm trees move back to let what looked like an airfield rise up from the ground. Then seconds later, the garage door to the workshop opened up and a massive white, red, and gold aircraft called the X-Tornado pulled out.
As soon as it came to a stop in front of the group, the door to the main cockpit located at the front of the plane opened up to reveal Tails sitting down inside.
“Hey!” the two tailed-fox stuck his head and arm out and waved at Jill, Jude, Elize, Wingul, Teepo, and Amy. “C’mon you guys! Get in!”
Said group of six looked towards the center of the plane and saw a door to the secondary cockpit open up.
And from what they could see, there was a row of seats lined up inside, six in total and paired up in groups of twos.
“Looks like the Fox made some changes to it,” Shadow commented as he watched the six individuals carefully climb (though in Teepo’s case he floated) up the X-Tornado to get to the cockpit.
Jane raised a brow.
“Is that so? How many seats did he originally have in the second cockpit?” she asked, trying to think back to the battle of New York’s invasion where she got her first glimpse at the plane, taking out some of the aliens in the sky alongside Iron Man and a few others, on TV.
“Two, but they weren’t lined up like this,” Shadow answered.
Jane’s eyes flashed with understanding.
“Ah,” was all she said.
“Maybe he wanted to make more room for transporting people or objects or something?” Lady guessed.
Shadow grunted in response.
“Good-bye friends!” Teepo’s voice cut through their conversation.
The three of them along with Loki, Tony, Leon, Vergil, and Rouge looked up to see all six of their companions now seated in the plane.
“Bye you guys! See you around some other time!” Jane said as she and the other seven waved at them before the main and secondary cockpit doors shut closed.
Everyone stepped back some as the X-Tornado came to life with a bright yellow flash and a vroom before it slowly moved forward, steadily picking up speed the further it traveled until the aircraft finally reached the end of the airfield. Then in a sudden burst of speed, it blasted off into the night sky with a sonic boom, becoming no more than a mere white dot amongst the stars a second later.
The group of eight waited until the X-Tornado was completely out of sight before they turned to each other.
“So...is anyone else here leaving tonight?” Jane couldn’t help but ask.
Loki cleared his throat to get their attention, and once he had it, he said, “Yes. I believe Stark and I should head back to New York right now and check in with the Avengers since we’ve stayed here in Mystic Ruins long enough.”
“Oh yeah, and I’m sure there’ll be chaos waiting for us when we get back in town,” Tony added with a snort.
Jane along with Vergil, Lady, and Shadow rolled their eyes at the new look on the God of Mischief’s face. There was no doubt in their minds that Loki would find the chaos awaiting for him and Tony back at home amusing. In fact, they were so sure that he would get a kick out of the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. yelling at them.
“Okay. Take care, you two,” Jane said to them.
The two men turned to Jane.
“Same to you, Dr. Foster!” Tony gave her a grin.
Loki on the other hand smiled and politely bowed his head at her.
“Until we meet again, my dear,” he said in a soft voice, smirking a bit on the inside at the pink blush and the look of surprise mixed with confusion on Jane’s face. “Perhaps in a more...normal setting so to speak? When there’s no danger around of course!” he raised his head back up and cocked it to the side, the smile still on his face.
“Umm...sure…I guess,” was the only answer she was able to give him.
Tony, who decided not to think about what just happened there, and Loki, who now dropped the smile from his face, turned to the others and said their good-byes before walking away.
“Actually, I think Shadow and I are going to do the same,” Rouge spoke up.
“You’re not staying for the night?” Lady questioned, her voice sounding confused.
“No,” Shadow replied, his eyes focused somewhere behind them.
Everyone else turned around to see the raven haired god and the brown haired man standing by the stairway. But instead of walking down the rocky steps, Loki turned to Tony, summoning his magic as he did so, and grabbed his arm.
Then without warning, the two disappeared from the spot in a flash of green light.
“Huh, that was quick,” Leon said in a mumble.
“Yes...but if there’s an efficient way to get around from place to place much quicker and people have the means to do so, then they will use it to their full advantage,” Vergil pointed out.
“And it makes things less of a hassle for them. The people who can teleport at will won’t have to worry about the time when they can just simply cut it short,” Lady added, agreeing with the half-devil’s statement as she turned her attention back to Shadow and Rouge. “Are you two leaving via Chaos Control?” she asked.
“Yes,” Rouge answered her while Shadow pulled his Chaos Emerald from out of his quills.
Jane, who finally managed to get her damn blush under control and completely will it away, smiled at the two.
“Well, it was nice meeting you two in person after hearing so much about you and your friends,” she put her hand out to the bat mobian.
Rouge reached out and took it.
“Right back at you, Jane,” she told the woman, shaking her hand and released it afterward.
Then to her surprise, Shadow stepped up and lightly shook Jane’s hand with his free one.
“See you around next time maybe?” Jane asked, hopefully, once the hedgehog released her hand and stepped back, taking his place next to Rouge.
Shadow shrugged his shoulders.
“Maybe,” he parroted with a smirk, his eyes locking with Rouge’s when she took a hold of his arm. He then turned to Vergil, Lady, and Leon, nodding his head at them in silent good-bye before he raised his hand that had the emerald in it.
“Chaos Control!”
A flash of greenish-white light enveloped the two mobians whole, making the group of four close their eyes. And when it died down five seconds later, they opened them back up to see the G.U.N. agents no longer there.
“Well I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to head back inside now and then get ready for bed so that I can head back home early tomorrow morning.”
“Good idea.”
Leon and Lady started making their way over to the house.
Vergil on the other hand gave Jane a side look.
“Are you staying out here or heading back inside with them?”
Jane’s eyes flicked over to his.
“I’m gonna stay out here for a while and wait for Tails to get back,” she said to him and then asked, “What about you? Are you gonna stay out here too?”
Vergil shook his head.
“No, I’m heading back in the house as well.”
Jane nodded.
“Alright, I’ll see you inside soon,” she watched him walk away.
The young woman waited until her friend was back inside the house to act upon what she said she was going to do.
And that is to wait for Tails.
“Guess I’ll watch the stars to pass the time for a bit,” she said in a sigh and walked away from the workshop, heading over towards the same spot she left earlier. “Hopefully he’ll be back before midnight.”
The young woman grew quiet as soon as she reached the cliffside. Then without a word, she jumped over the railing and took a seat at the edge, leaning back against the wooden structure afterwards as she raised her head up to the sky.
‘I like the sky at night here. You can practically see everything in sight since it’s so clear.’
Jane soon became lost within her thoughts as she stared at the stars twinkling brightly in the moonless night blue sky with a soft look and a smile on her face.
xXXXXXXXXx
One hour later...
SWOOOOSH!
The X-Tornado shot out of one of the clouds in the sky with a slight twirl.
‘I finally made it back.’
Tails smiled when he spotted the island down below.
Eager to get back home, the two tailed fox increased his speed, grinning as he did so. He made the X-Tornado do a semi-nose dive until it reached the airfield and pulled up, skirting across the land for a bit until the aircraft stopped about a foot-and-a half away from the workshop.
“Home sweet home,” he said as the door to the building automatically opened up, and he slowly steered the plane inside, not looking back to see the airfield disappear underground and get replaced by a dirt covered ground that hid it.
After that, Tails opened the cockpit door and jumped out, landing on the wing of the plane a second later. Before he got off the aircraft though, he turned to cockpit and shut the lid closed. “I should probably head inside and get the guest rooms ready for everyone,” the two-tailed fox mumbled out loud as he flew away and closed the garage door on his way out.
The second he made it out of the building, however, the young mobian spotted something on the ground near the cliffside that had the wooden railing around it.
“Huh?”
Tails looked down to see the seated figure of Jane Foster watching the stars.
“Hey Jane!”
xXXXXXXXXx
Jane blinked then looked up at the sound of someone calling her name to see Tails flying towards her. The young woman stood her from her seat and moved away from the edge of the cliff.
“Oh! You’re back, Tails!” she waved at him before letting out a small yawn.
Once the two tailed-fox landed in the middle of the cliffside, he turned around and saw Jane making her way over to him.
“Were you waiting for me?” at the slight nod of her head, he continued, “You didn’t have to, you know!” he told the woman when she came to a complete stop in front of him.
“I know but I wanted to,” she responded before making a gesture at the sky behind her. “The view on this side of the world was also nice to look at too.”
Tails knew what she was referring to and smiled in agreement at that.
“It is...” he trailed off before taking a closer look at Jane, noticing the way she held herself up with half-lidded eyes. The poor woman looked as if she was about to fall asleep right then and there on the spot if she didn’t get inside of the house now. “You look tired,” he stated matter-of-factually with his hands on his hips.
Before she could open her mouth, Tails grabbed her hand and dragged them both over to his house.
“You are tired, Jane. Don’t you dare even deny it.”
Jane blinked and yawned again, much to her disappointment.
“I...guess I am,” she resigned with a low sigh when the two of them made it to the door, letting out a third yawn as the two-tailed fox released her hand. “Oh yeah...” she began, grabbing his attention. “Loki, Tony, Shadow, and Rouge went home earlier.”
“And the others?” he asked curiously.
“Inside and getting ready for bed probably,” she answered him, her voice sounding extremely tired even to her own ears.
“Alright,” he said. “Thank you for letting me know.”
“You’re welcome,” she mumbled back.
Tails opened the door and turned to her.
“After you, Jane.”
Jane nodded at him in thanks before making her way inside sluggishly.
Tails went in after her and shut the door closed, locking it behind him afterwards.
The sounds of the ocean mixing in with the caws from the seagulls and the cheeps from the flickies lured the seated form of Jane into a state of peace as she leaned back against the wooden railing of the steep cliff with a quiet sigh, her golden brown eyes tracing the pink-white clouds in the early morning, salmon colored sky.
‘Beautiful...’ the young woman mused to herself before her eyes then caught sight of the sun rising over the horizon in the far distance, casting its warm rays of yellow light over her and the whole island she was on. When it flashed over her face for a brief second, however, she flinched and immediately looked away from the sight. Though in doing so, she missed the rest of the show.
But that was okay. She’s already seen plenty of rising suns and falling sunsets before to last her a lifetime, that small devil part of her whispered as she opened her eyes halfway.
A minute later, when she was sure she wasn’t going to lose her sight from the sun that blinded her moments ago, Jane opened her eyes the rest of the way. She blinked a few times, trying to clear the haziness that suddenly fell upon her, and by the time she got finished with that, the sounds of squeaking reached her ears.
Confused, she looked past her swinging feet and over the cliff to see a few otters playing in the ocean water, paying no mind to the waves moving around them and behind them to crash into the bottom surface of where the cliff met the tiny sandy beach area.
SQUEEE!
She blinked when a small wave crashed over their surprised faces and bodies, pulling them under within a matter of seconds before the water finally settled thirty seconds later. However, that didn’t keep the little sea animals down for long. The young woman knew this and she laughed when she saw them break through the surface of the ocean, and with a small squeak, they shook the excess water off their bodies.
“Jane...” a familiar voice called out to her, cutting her laughter short.
The young woman said “huh?” in response and turned around.
“So this is where you’ve been I see.”
The icy blue eyes of her friend greeted her as he strolled over to her spot by the cliffside, his spiky white hair swaying in motion from the sudden small gust of wind that blew by, with his precious Yamato in hand.
“Vergil,” Jane greeted the half-devil when he stepped over the railing and sat down next to her, leaving a good three feet in-between them. “I didn’t know you were up. I thought you were still asleep just like everyone else was,” she said, turning back around to watch the sky.
Vergil side-eyed the hybrid woman.
“I’ve been up for the past three hours, just exploring and training,” he replied and laid his sword down before crossing his arms over his chest. Then about a second later, he looked away from her and turned his attention to the sky. “I didn’t get much excitement from it, so I went back inside. The two-tailed fox is the only one in the house that’s awake right now,” he closed his eyes in explanation.
“Oh. Okay,” she said with a nod of her head. “Since you’re out here now with me instead, I take it you’re not feeling motivated to do anything else?” she asked him, sitting back and closing her eyes as well.
“No.”
“Tch. Figures.”
The two sat there in silence, listening to the sounds of the ocean below and the wind howling and blowing gently around them, ruffling their hair and clothes ever so slightly. No words were needed as the duo were just content enough to sit there and do nothing.
It was a strange feeling to Jane because she wasn’t the type to idle. She always had to be doing something to keep her mind busy and her body going, but just this once, she didn’t mind it. She didn’t mind not doing anything. Being in Vergil’s company and hanging out with him was enough. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d hung out with him like this—and no, she wasn’t going to count the time she got here because they originally had a meeting.
Well, it wasn’t necessarily a meeting seeing as Vergil and her were only going to the ruins, which they never got the chance to do. And they still haven’t gone there when they all got back here on the island, on Planet Earth, about a week ago. The two along with everyone else had been too busy recovering at Tails’ house and recuperating from the trip to really do anything else.
Thankfully it didn’t take very long for her to get all of her energy back and neither did it for Vergil, Shadow, Tails, Loki, and Teepo.
They were all fine now.
But the same couldn’t be said for the others.
Lady, Amy, Rouge, Tony, Leon, Jude, Elize, and Wingul were still recovering. And to make matters worse, their health was slowly deteriorating. It was hard for them to do really anything besides eating, sleeping, and using the bathroom these days. They didn’t talk that much to the six of them either, and if they did, the conversations did not last long.
They just didn’t have the energy to keep the talks going—at least, that’s what they told her and the other five. They were feeling too miserable about themselves, and they didn’t want to drag her and the others’ moods down.
But all six of them knew what it was. They could tell just by looking at them.
The virus was taking a toll on the infected group.
Jane knew what was happening. She knew it all too well, having been exposed to the world of viruses and vaccines through the talks that the Redfield siblings and Jill gave her, that is.
They told her all sorts of stories. And given their experiences with these kinds of things, they told her exactly what type of work they do. They did not hold back on the information either, which surprised the hell out of her, but she listened and took everything in.
Hell, she even got a chance to look through the stuff, including extra data that their team collected over the years. It had information detailing how these horrible Umbrella scientists created these viruses, how they distributed them over the black markets or some other places, and how they even came up with a way to destroy them via creating the vaccines.
Even though this was a big fat no-no considering she wasn’t a part of any of the organizations that Chris, Claire, and Jill worked for, they somehow managed to convince their superiors to tell her all of this highly confidential information.
And to this day, she still doesn’t know how they managed to pull that off, but she wasn’t going to complain. She was grateful for them telling her this stuff, especially after she had nearly been thrown into an outbreak situation.
It had been a close one, but the situation got taken care of before it could escalate and get out of hand. It was the first time she had even overheard someone, a shady individual to be exact, talk about injecting some poor fools with the T-virus and releasing the B.O.W.s into the city, which had already been attacked beforehand by Dr. Eggman weeks ago.
It was hard to believe that this incident happened six years ago.
And that seemed like such a long time ago for Jane, but it really wasn’t.
‘Speaking of viruses though…’
She had no idea how long Lady, Amy, Rouge, Tony, Leon, Jude, Wingul, and Elize’s been infected for, but it was a miracle how they haven’t turned yet.
‘I guess having a powerful energy source or a strong immunity system must be their saving graces.’
Those were the only reasons she could think of as to why they were still alive, and she was thankful for that. It gave her, Tails, and Loki, despite not being scientists like her, an opportunity to study them and observe their symptoms.
And when they started to show, all three of them took immediate action. They gave the group a few medicinal based potions that she and Loki managed to whip up in a manner of days. Then with bated breaths, the three of them waited for the group’s fever and paleness to go down, which thankfully, it did.
After that, things settled down...
...Until she received a phone call from Jill, that is.
Jane had Tails, Loki, Vergil, Shadow, and Teepo watch over the resting group while she stepped outside to take the call. She couldn’t forget that day how the B.S.A.A. woman shouted and fretted over her well-being, saying how her and Vergil had been missing for a while now along with Leon, Lady, Iron Man, and Thor’s adoptive brother. It had taken Jane a few minutes to calm the older woman down, but she managed to get the job done and explain the whole situation to her.
It didn’t take long for Jill to decide that she was coming over to Mystic Ruins with the stuff she’d requested for, and then wished her well before hanging up.
All of that happened just two days ago.
“Jane...”
Vergil’s voice broke her out of her thoughts.
“Hmm?” she said, turning her friend.
“Who were those three people back there in the other world? Doppelganger told us that they were originally with you and Shadow.”
Realization flashed in Jane’s eyes.
“Oh! You mean Pein, Sasori, and Sakura, right?” she said. “Shadow and I met them in the swamp valley while we were on our way towards the mansion. Apparently, they’re from another whole universe.”
“Ah,” was all Vergil said.
Jane turned away and went back to cloud watching.
‘Speaking of those three...I wonder how they’re doing?’ she asked in her head, golden brown eyes half-lidded in thought as she sat up, drew her knees up to her chest, and gingerly wrapped her arms around them.
It was hard to believe that they were gone now. Went back to their own universe as soon as she finished off that shadow alien beast.
‘It’s strange...but I actually miss them, I’m not gonna lie. Plus, so many other things happened too.’
______________________________________________________________
(FLASHBACK SCENE)
“So...you three and Kurama are leaving now? To go back home to your own universe?”
“Yes.”
The group of five, consisting of Jane, Shadow, Pein, Sasori, and Sakura, stood some ways away from the others who were taking their time getting off the giant nine-tailed fox’s back.
“Jane?” Sakura furrowed her pink brows, noticing the expression on the other woman’s face. “Are you alright?”
Jane shook her head.
“It’s nothing. I’m fine,“ she lied, not in the mood to tell them what was wrong with her, and so she covered it up with a smile. “I guess this is good-bye…” she said in a low voice and held her hand out to the orange haired spirit.
Pein reached out and took it.
“For now, perhaps,” he said as he shook the woman’s hand before letting go. Then he turned to Kurama, who just got finished with letting the last two people jump down from his back, and beckoned the kitsune over. “Come, Kyuubi. We are leaving at once now,” he announced before leaving his group’s side for a moment.
Kurama looked up and left the group’s side, slowly padding over to Pein’s little group. Before he stopped in front of the five though, he shrunk back to his normal size in a flash of mana that resembled flames.
“How are you four going to get home?” Shadow asked, looking at them with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Leader-sama will take care of it,” Sasori said, pointing at the ginger haired spirit behind them, who simply raised a hand.
With a flare of his mana, the space in front of them wavered, as if it was being distorted by a very powerful invisible force, until a swirling blackish-blue hole appeared. And within seconds, the hole expanded, growing bigger and bigger until it reached its maximum size, which was about half the size of a house.
Jane gasped in surprise while Shadow raised a brow in interest when Pein stepped into the hole.
“That’s...”
Sakura grinned.
“Incredible? Yeah! Pein can do some incredible things with his gravity manipulation ability. Bending space and time to rip a hole that can lead you to another location is just one of the many things he can do with it,” she told the two. “He’s extremely powerful.”
“I can see that,” Jane said with a laugh. ‘I wanna learn how to do that without relying on Mūnsutā one day,’ she quietly thought to herself in longing.
“Hmph. Powerful indeed,” Shadow commented in agreement.
With a smile and a wave of her hand, Sakura turned around and started making her way over to Pein, who was waiting for them, with her cousin and Kurama following close behind her. They reached their friend’s side in no time at all, and before they walked any further, the group turned on their heels to face Jane and Shadow.
The Ultimate Life form said nothing and nodded his head at them in good-bye.
Jane on the other hand...
“Bye Pein! Sakura! Sasori! Kurama!” she waved, smiling at them. “It was nice meeting you all!”
The group nodded at her and Shadow in response before the hole suddenly closed up.
Jane lowered her hand and turned to her friend.
“Let’s join back up with the others.”
Shadow uncrossed his arms.
“Hmph.”
The two turned around and walked over to the others who were waiting on them.
“You look like you got something on your mind, Jane,” Lady said when the two stopped in front of them.
Jane let out a tired sigh, which confused the group and Shadow.
“I do, actually. And it has to do with what I found in some of you guys’ systems.”
With a heavy heart, Jane began explaining to them what she saw earlier.
xXXXXXXXXx
By the time she was done, the group of thirteen were left horrified by the news.
“Yeah, umm, that’s...that,” Jane had a sad look on her face as she struggled to get her words out afterwards. “Sounds horrible doesn’t it?”
“..........” Wingul, Jude, Lady, and Tony had no words to say.
“No way…” Rouge uttered in shock.
“W-We’re…” Amy trailed off in fear.
“Infected?” Elize finished for her with wide eyes.
Jane nodded at them solemnly.
“Yes. I suspect that it was Sergeant Duke’s doing. And the strain he used could’ve been the T-virus along with...something else mixed with it. I’m not too sure what that second component is at the moment.”
That extra bit of information made the majority of them angry, and Jane didn’t blame them. If she had been infected alongside them, she, too, would’ve gotten angry at the situation and at that beast.
Leon, despite how worried he was on the inside, looked calm, cool, and collected as he placed his fingerless gloved hands on his hips and lowered his eyes to the ground.
“What do you suggest we do, Foster? I’m confident that neither one of us has a vaccine in our pockets that we could just pull out and inject ourselves with,” he spoke up, his eyes staring at the rocks near his feet. “And considering how long the eight of us have been infected for, I don’t think we have much time left. We could turn soon,” he finished that last part darkly.
“I’m not going to let that happen.”
He along with the other seven individuals looked at her.
“Don’t you worry, I’m going to figure something out and try to keep you guys alive until I get my hands on a vaccine. Or just make it myself if it ever comes to that,” she told them in a firm voice, her eyes glowing with so much determination that it made them feel at ease a little. “Tails. Loki...” she turned to the two, whose eyes lit up in attention. “I might need your help for whatever I’m gonna try to do when we get back to Earth.”
The two-tailed fox mobian silently nodded his head in understanding while the God of Mischief sighed something in another language before he looked up and said “fine”.
Jane turned back to look at the two black haired men, the long blonde haired woman with pigtails, and the floating doll standing next to Vergil.
“I know you guys are probably anxious to get back home, but if you could come back with us to Earth, I can properly monitor your guys’ health. And I can give y’all something if I see any changes occur,” she said then gave them a somewhat strained smile. “So, sorry for the inconvenience there, uhh...” she trailed off in a pause.
The younger man with spiky hair noticed the troubled look on Jane’s face and decided to help her out.
“It’s Jude...Jude Mathis,” he introduced himself with a small smile. “And it’s fine, Dr. Foster. I don’t have a problem with it,” Jude then looked at his three friends next to him. “I’m sure Wingul, Elize, and Teepo don’t have a problem with it either...if you were to ask them that.”
The older man with short hair and a single yellow bang closed his eyes.
"No, I don’t have a problem with it.”
The woman with pigtails nodded in agreement.
“Our health and safety should be our top priority now. How can we make it back home in one piece if we’re not cured yet? I’d rather go with you to Earth and get treated there, knowing that I’m in good hands, instead of waiting to get seen back at home in Reize Maxia and possibly risk the safety of my other friends and family.”
“Yeah! I agree with Elly, Featherneck, and Jude here!” the floating purple and pink doll spoke up.
A small inaudible sigh left Jane. She didn’t think that they would cooperate with her so easily but she wasn’t complaining. This just made things a whole lot easier for her, in fact.
“Alright, now call whoever you need to call if you can then meet me and the others up on the mountains there,” Jane pointed at said location above them.
“Okay,” Jude nodded, watching Jane, Tony, Loki, Vergil, Lady, Tails, Shadow, Amy, Rouge, and Leon walk away from him and his little group.
xXXXXXXXXx
Before Jane knew it, thirty minutes had passed since she and the others left Jude and his friends to their privacy. Right now, they were sitting and chilling at the top of the mountain near the cave she and Sakura used before.
“Dr. Foster.”
The young woman looked up to see Loki standing next to her, though his eyes were staring at something straight ahead of them instead of at her.
“What?” she asked, getting to her feet right away.
His green eyes flicked over to hers for a second. “They’re back,” he said, turning his attention forward.
She looked ahead and sure enough the young astrophysicist could see Jude and his group running up the trail, heading towards them at high speed.
“Oh…” Jane turned to him with a look. “Thank you for letting me know that, Loki.”
A ghost of a smirk appeared on his face, but he, otherwise, said nothing and waited for the humans to reach them…
...Which did not take very long.
“So...” Jane prompted, turning to face the group when they finally made it over to her and Loki’s side. “Did you get all of your calls out of the way?” her question silenced the chit-chatter going on behind them, and she heard everyone else come over to join them all.
The group of four looked at each other then back at her.
“Yeah. We’re ready,” Jude answered for everyone.
Jane smiled.
“Great! Now we can leave.”
Within the blink of an eye, Jane summoned Mūnsutā and twirled it around for a bit...
SWISH!
SWOOOOOO!
...Before slashing at the air in front of them with the tip of the staff glowing grayish-white.
“Okay! Great show there, Dr. Foster. But why did you...” Tony trailed off when a hole, an actual fucking portal, rippled into existence before his brown eyes. “Holy shit!” he suddenly blurted out in shock.
This greatly surprised everyone else too except for the devil hunters.
Jane smiled wider at the priceless look on Tony’s face, as well as Loki’s face, which she took great pride in throwing him off.
“Well Tony, how else are we going to get back to Earth? My staff has the power to do stuff like this,” she then looked over to the half-devil who was looking off to the side and quietly yet idly tapping his sheathed weapon against his right boot. “Besides, it’s not like Vergil was gonna do it. And the only reason I say that is because he doesn’t even know the way back home from here to use his sword, Yamato, which can cut through space and time as well.”
“That’s...nice to know,” was all Tony responded with.
Lady sighed.
“I guess when you put it like that, you do make a good point,” she mumbled.
“‘Course I do,” Jane stated, ignoring Vergil’s blatant stare, as she turned around and started walking over to the portal she made with her weapon, storing it away seconds later when she had no more use for the thing. “Now come on. Let’s go back to Mystic Ruins.”
“Right!” everyone behind her said.
(END OF FLASHBACK SCENE)
______________________________________________________________
BONK!
“Ow!” Jane grabbed her head in pain and glared up at Vergil who was sitting Yamato back down on the ground next to him. “What the heck was that for?!” she barked at him with anger present in her voice.
The half-devil gave her an irritated look.
“I’ve been calling your name for the past three minutes.”
“Oh...” she blinked, removing her hands from her head, and turned away from him with a frown plastered on her face. ”Well you didn’t have to hit me. That hurt you know?”
Vergil withheld the urge to roll his eyes at the woman. Instead, he just gave her a look, the kind that spelled ‘he didn’t care’.
“I wouldn't have gotten your attention otherwise.”
Her frown darkened at those words, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw him reach for his sword and get up.
“Valentine sent me a text earlier saying that she’ll be here in the next thirty minutes or so. You can go do whatever in the meantime while I go meet up with her at the station.”
Then without another word, he walked away.
Jane sighed and rubbed her sore head.
‘He needs to loosen that stick some more out of his ass. Or take it out completely. Maybe I should leave that job to Nero and Lady? Because I know darn well that Dante isn’t going to do it anymore and I do not blame him one bit,’ she shook her head with another sigh.
For the next two minutes, the young woman sat there in silence, just listening to the crashing waves of the ocean water below the cliff and the birds flying around and high above her in the sky, cawing and chirping in various ways to their hearts’ content. It was as if they were putting on a performance, and whether they were doing one or not didn’t matter.
It all sounded like music to her ears.
And she loves music.
So she was fine with this, fine with the peaceful silence and their version of music.
‘Guess I’ll head back inside now.’
Jane carefully got to her feet, making sure not to trip and fall as she turned around and stepped over the railing. The young woman then looked at the house sitting on top of the other steep cliff up ahead and trekked her way over there.
xXXXXXXXXx
By the time she reached the steps leading up to Tails’ home, Jane saw Shadow and Loki standing outside near the door, talking to each other quietly.
“Hey guys.”
The two looked up.
“Good Morning Jane Foster!” Loki greeted her with a nod.
“Are you heading back inside now?” Shadow asked, motioning his head at the door behind him and Loki.
Jane walked past them.
“I am,” she said over her shoulder right when she reached the door. “Oh and just to let you two know, my friend Jill Valentine will be stopping by to drop off some important stuff for the others. Vergil left to go meet up with her at the train station.”
Shadow inclined his head in response, letting her know that he heard her.
“Ah yes, we saw that from here,” Loki said, smiling.
Jane laughed under her breath a little before she twisted the knob on the front door, opened it, and walked inside.
“Guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that huh?” was the last thing she responded with before she shut the door closed behind her.
Words could not even begin to describe how happy Jane was. To see that everyone was still alive and in one piece, especially after the ordeal they went through, with escaping from that hell hole of a mansion-like castle and all, was like a balm to her soul. And yet, despite how happy she was to see them, Jane wasn’t exactly too thrilled to see who was with them.
Yes, she was talking about Sergeant Duke, the one who was responsible for this whole mess…
He was the one who spied on them all...
...The one who kidnapped them all…
...The one who drained and stole all of their energy until they were nearly half-dead in exhaustion...
...The one who wanted to, or at least attempted to, experiment on them all…
...The one who wanted to infect them all with a virus…
...And the one who wanted to sacrifice them all in a ritual to revive someone once everything was said and done.
Though speaking of viruses, she mused as her eyes bled iridescent purple, and with a concentrated look on her face, she looked the group over.
‘Let's see…’ her eyes jumped over each individual the closer they got to her. And so far, she didn’t see anything wrong with a few of them.
Vergil, Loki, Kurama, and the floating purple and pink doll were fine. Given who or what they were, Jane didn’t expect to see anything out of the ordinary in their bodies.
The others on the other hand though…
‘Shit!’ she cursed in her mind, her iridescent purple eyes looking wide in horror at the sight of something floating around in Lady, Amy, Rouge, Tony, Leon, the two black haired men, and the light blond-pigtail haired woman’s bodies. ‘Have they been infected?’
The second Pein and the others stopped in front of her, more than a few of them noticed the dark look on her face.
“What’s wrong, Jane?”
Her glowing eyes shot to Tails, the one who asked her that question, and Shadow, who was sitting next to him on the giant orange kitsune. Thankfully, the two were fine as well. It made sense when she thought about it because they had been with her at the time Sergeant Duke attacked them and kidnapped the doppelganger versions of her and Shadow and Tails.
“Dr. Foster?” Tony and Loki’s voices broke her out of her thoughts.
Jane shook her head, deactivating her special sight ability right away. “It’s nothing...” then she paused, “Actually, I’ll tell you guys later...” and looked away from the two. Instead, she turned to Pein and asked him, “How much time until this whole place detonates?”
Before the spiky haired spirit could open his mouth, his prisoner, who had been quiet up until now in his little bubble cage, spoke up for him in a weak haughty voice.
“Two minutes and thirty seconds left.”
Other than narrowing her glowing eyes at the dying bastard, Jane ignored Sergeant Duke and turned her back to the whole group, silently waiting for a certain someone to say their goodbyes.
‘Oh…’ Doppelganger Jane closed her eyes.
Taking this as her cue to leave, the remaining doppelganger slipped past the group and turned into a shadowy-red eyed blob, heading towards Jane as she did so.
“Bye everyone!” the doppelganger said without looking back at the group, her voice deepening and changing to that of a man in mid-speech. “It was nice meeting you all!” he added, and in one simple motion, he sunk into the ground before Jane’s feet and disappeared into her shadow, allowing himself to be absorbed back into the woman’s body with a wavy flash of black light.
No one from the group said anything or questioned the sudden change of the doppelganger’s voice and gender. At this point, they (except for Vergil and Lady who already knew the truth behind Doppelganger) figured that the demon was male all along. And the only reason he changed into a female in the first place was because of Jane Foster.
After all, he did take on the form and played the role of someone who was of the opposite gender.
“Follow me,” Jane finally broke the silence. “I know a shortcut out of this world.”
She took off into the cave in blur.
Pein, with his prisoner in hand, and Kurama, with his passengers on his back, didn’t question how or why she knew the way to get out of here and just followed after her.
xXXXXXXXXx
The rush of cold water and the familiar sensation that came along with it enveloped her whole being as she drifted towards the bottom of the pond. The young woman paid no mind to the two splashes she felt and heard behind her as she looked around the place. Her eyes flashed in relief when they landed on the rocks up ahead, and she along with her companions swam towards them.
Jane channeled a lot of mana into her hand, making it light up purple, and touched all of the rocks one by one. They glowed white, chiming very loudly as Jane swam back to Pein and Kurama’s side, stopping right in front of them.
It didn’t take very long for the chiming iridescent rocks to release a wave of white light that engulfed the whole group, sucking them in its warm phantom-like embrace.
When the light died down, ten seconds later, the group of nineteen individuals were gone.
xXXXXXXXXx
Somewhere up on the mountains in the swamp valley...
“I’m really starting to hate this weather.”
Droplets of water flew out as General Umbra shook his hair, and as a result, got more than a few curly locks stuck to his face. The man-beast said nothing as he shifted them out of the way and looked up, his hazel-red eyes locked onto the pouring rain outside of the cave he was sitting in.
BOOM!
Another sigh left his lips as he closed his eyes and stood up from the hard cavern floor, catching the flash of lightning in the sky the second he opened them back up. The purple-lavender haired man-beast looked over to the side to see the fire he’d started earlier and walked towards it. Then with a few splashes of dirt, the fire was put out.
Once he was satisfied with this, General Umbra turned back around. He made his way over to the entrance of the cave and instead of leaving the place, he stopped right at the edge of it, just a step shy of being outside.
‘I’m not sure how long it's gonna take for them to get here...’ he said only to pause a few seconds later when he put his back to the wall. ‘But knowing the amount of time they had left, they’ll probably be here in this valley in less than five minutes.’
He leaned up against the rocky surface, pulling his phone out of his cloak as he did so, and started tapping away on the device.
‘Hopefully, they won’t run into any trouble on the way here.’
Right now, the look he had on his face, as well as the way he stood there, slouching so lazily on the spot, spoke volumes of his mood. He was sure about that.
To put it simply, he was bored. Very bored.
General Umbra was so bored that he wished for—
BANG!
KABOOM!
The sounds of gunshots being fired and explosions going off, followed by the monstrous cries of pain, attracted his attention. The curly haired man-beast snapped out of his thoughts when he felt the cavern floor rumble beneath his feet, and he immediately stepped outside into the pouring rain. He paid no mind to the lighting flashing continuously in the dark sky as he walked over to the edge of the mountain and peered over it.
Down below in the swamp-like valley, General Umbra saw the group of nineteen warriors being surrounded by a swarm of various monsters. But judging from the way Shadow and Lady, who were standing up from their spot atop of the giant nine-tailed fox, were taking out their enemies who were trying to creep up behind Jane and Pein while they cleaned house with the rest of them told him that they were going to be fine.
And sure enough, he was right.
“That was quick,” he laughed quietly, watching the group finish off the remaining monster, an elemental ice dragon, with a combined attack.
KABOOM!
The battle was over by the time the smoke cleared away.
“Jane, heads up.”
His eyebrows nearly shot up into his hair when he saw Pein drop the frozen cage that held Sergeant Duke inside by his feet, pull out a briefcase, and toss it over to Jane who easily caught it in her arms.
“I bet there’s some more documents in there,” he said in a mumble, and continued watching the scene.
“Thanks.”
While Miss Foster was busy storing the briefcase away, Pein turned his full attention onto his prisoner. He, without a word, flicked his hand to the side and released Sergeant Duke from his cage, watching the huge shadow alien beast sputter and cough on the ground with emotionless ringed eyes.
In all honesty, all of this amused General Umbra.
He just knew the fool was about to get into a world of trouble now.
“Pein, I’m gonna assume that you brought him with you for me to decide on his fate.”
“That was the intent, yes.”
He saw the young woman turn slightly and nod her head at Pein.
“Well I’m surprised he’s survived this long considering the state you left him in, which leads me to believe that he has some kind of regenerative healing abilities. Still, he’s a fool for thinking that’s going to save him from me.”
Then he saw Jane turn fully around and walk over to the huge shadow alien creature. She stopped in front of him and looked at him for a few moments before saying in a low cryptic voice, “You know what, I’ve got no words for someone despicable like you.”
“W-Wait a min—” he heard him stutter at the sight of the woman summoning her trusty weapon out.
“It’s too late for any negotiations, beast,” Shadow said with a scoff as he crossed his arms.
“Inferno Holy Fangz!”
This time, General Umbra’s eyebrows did shoot up and disappear behind his wet hair when Sergeant Duke cried out in agony, his body severed in half in a flash of golden white-blue light. Though his jaw did drop in surprise when that same light transformed itself into a set of teeth entirely made out of icy blue colored flames that burned and chomped away at the guy’s body a second later.
And before everyone knew it, the tall shadow alien beast was no more.
‘Well done, Jane Foster,’ he said in his mind, turning away from the gruesome sight.
The curly haired man-beast threw one final smirk over his shoulder before he turned back around and disappeared from the area, leaving behind the large group standing in front of the mana dust remains that once belonged to Sergeant Duke.
