When Circus came to, she could see nothing. She blinked and raised herself up just to hear the creaking of wooden planks underneath her. Apparently, she was lying on a wooden floor of a location with no windows, and the lights were off. The only source of light she did see appeared to come from underneath a doorway up ahead.
When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw exhibition stands all around her, but it was still too dark to tell what they were depicting.
Now sitting upright on the wooden floor, Circus rubbed her head and tried to recall what happened. Slowly, it all came back to her. She was chatting with Plural when the creature showed up. Dark Jenny, she called it. It hugged her, then took her out of Plural's living room and to a nearby rooftop. That was the first time Circus ever experienced being teleported by "Jenny", and Circus lamented that fact, wishing it had been the real one instead.
After that, she remembered briefly struggling to break free from her captor's embrace but being unable to. Her kidnapper's grip felt like it was cast out of solid metal. Then, she remembered locking eyes with it before the creature in the black dress tapped on her forehead like how someone would knock on a door. It was powerful enough to knock her out, and that's the last thing she remembered before waking up here.
As she sat there, staring at the light coming from under the door leading to the next room, Circus heard a scream in the distance and tensed up. It told her that her predator could not be far, and for whatever reason, Dark Jenny dropped her here in this dark room and left her behind.
When she stood up, she was relieved to find she wasn't restrained, and she could move freely across the room. When she investigated one of the exhibition stands up close, she found a stone tablet with illegible markings on them. There was a description plate underneath, but she wasn't in the mood to try and read them in this darkness and concluded that she was in some sort of museum.
Gunshots sounded in the distance, followed by another scream, echoing through the museum's halls and past the slit underneath the door through which the light also came. Circus fearfully looked at her only way forward, swallowed and walked over to it. When she touched the doorknob, she held her breath, hoping it wasn't locked.
Click
The door opened with no issues, and Circus opened it slowly, trying her best not to alert anything that may be on the other side. Eventually, halfway through, the door started creaking, and Circus immediately stopped it. She took a step back and hid behind the now half-opened door, still holding her breath, listening to the reverberations of the creak she created.
From what little she was able to see before she hid behind the door, the room ahead was empty, and there was nobody there. Even now, trembling and all, Circus heard no indication that anything was moving in there. She turned around and peeked her head around the door to examine the room ahead. There were large windows though which moonlight shone, which was what she saw seeping underneath this door. The moonlight illuminated the room well enough for her to see clearly as she slowly stepped past the doorway, turning her head left and right to check for danger until she found that the room was clear.
And then, she finally exhaled. In this room were more exhibition stands, and there were paintings lining the wall, accompanied by more description plates. Something to do with old civilizations. Circus had no idea which museum she could possibly be in, and reading the plates made her none the wiser.
When she stepped into Plural's house earlier this evening, she took off her shoes by the door, which is where they remained, even now. Circus walked across the museum's creaky wooden floor on her socks, which made her footsteps quieter. And on the topic of things she didn't have on her when she was taken, Circus thought of her phone and felt around her pocket just to confirm she had no means of contacting her friends, either.
Now there was no choice other than to try and escape the museum on her own, hoping that Dark Jenny had other business in this place and forgot about her. Instead of walking straight through the middle of the room, Circus stuck to the walls and made her way towards the next door, hoping it would lead to the eventual exit.
Then, she heard a sound outside, getting louder and closer, until it came from right outside the building. It was a helicopter, shining its spotlight on the building and partially illuminating the room as it flew by. Clearly, whatever Dark Jenny was doing here was catching the attention of the local police, which meant the cavalry was coming.
Relieved, Circus increased her pace and hurried into the next room but stopped when she saw a dead body. A security guard, decapitated, with laser marks on the ground running perpendicular to his neck.
Circus froze and stared at the corpse as she realized her own naivety. This security guard was a perfect demonstration of what was about to happen to any police who encountered the creature that possessed Jenny's powers. Circus wasn't waiting for the cavalry, she was the cavalry. She just needed to get outside and find a way to contact Jenny.
Circus made haste and moved on through the next door, which led to a staircase going down to the ground floor of a large room that looked like the main hall. There was a reception desk in the center, suggesting the entrance was just up ahead.
Circus crouched as she went down the stairs, peeking over the solid guardrail to check for any danger. Meanwhile, the helicopter was making another pass up above, shining its light through the glass panes in the ceiling as it came by. The closer she got to the end of the staircase, the faster her heart started beating.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she slowly crept along the wall while checking her flanks to make sure Dark Jenny wasn't watching her. When she peeked around the corner across the reception desk, she could see the museum's entrance was a long hallway with a large door at the end, also dimly lit by the moonlight.
She swallowed and turned the corner, sneaking her way towards the exit while keeping her right hand against the wall, stressing about what she would even do if the door was locked.
At about halfway down the hallway, she looked behind her one last time, and then she saw it. Dark Jenny, standing frozen like a statue at the end of the hallway, staring at her like she did something she wasn't supposed to do. Circus started shivering and froze in total surrender.
Dark Jenny eagerly broke the tension by proving it was no statue and walking towards Circus, only to come to a stop again and focus its gaze beyond the frightened girl, at the doorway behind her. Circus turned to the entrance door and saw moving silhouettes through the opaque glass. She hardly got a chance to see what they were doing before she heard a loud bang and the doors swung wide open.
Immediately, bright lights blinded her, and Circus dropped to the ground, closed her eyes and held her hands up in the air. The police had kicked the door open hard enough to break the glass when they slammed against the walls.
"Two civilians!" a man shouted.
Circus was panicking, but she froze in fear and kept her mouth shut, afraid that saying the wrong thing could send Dark Jenny on a killing spree.
"Wait, isn't that…" one of the officers said as they approached Circus and looked at Dark Jenny. They didn't shine their light in Circus' face anymore, allowing her to open her eyes and see that there were about ten officers, wearing full gear and carrying assault rifles.
"Sparkle… Princess? What are you doing all the way out here?"
That was a clue Dark Jenny had taken her somewhere far away. Circus could tell the officer had never met Jenny before and struggled with his tone of voice when addressing her. When she turned herself around, she saw Dark Jenny standing there, perfectly calm, like it wasn't about to massacre these people like it did the museum security staff.
"She's not…" Circus managed to whisper.
One of the officers turned around and kneeled next to her.
"Not what?"
Circus was tense and shaking, and she was still holding her hands up in the air.
"Relax. You're safe with us," the officer said as he put his hand on her shoulder. He looked back at his colleague who tried to talk to Dark Jenny.
"Come on. Talk to me. What happened here? What's with the blood?" the other officer asked Dark Jenny as he vigilantly grabbed his rifle with both hands, growing suspicious. In response, the creature looked at its own arm, which still had some old, dried-up blood on it.
Ever since it spotted her in this hallway, Dark Jenny maintained a constant, creepy smile on its face. Even now, stretching out its arm in Circus' direction, holding something shiny between its fingers, it looked as dead inside as it did when it first showed up in Plural's living room.
Circus gasped when she saw that the item was a screw, and Dark Jenny was holding it like it was going to flick it right at her. She let out a small shriek, closed her eyes and held her head down. Next thing she heard was a projectile hitting the man who was kneeling in front of her, then his body hitting the ground. Against her better judgment, she opened her eyes to see what had just happened, but it was exactly what she thought. The man had a screw embedded in between his eyes and was laying there on the ground, dead.
The officers looked at their fallen colleague, then opened fire at Dark Jenny.
The bullets deflected off Dark Jenny's body like they were duds, and its body hardly recoiled from their impact. Circus could swear she even saw one bullet hit its eyeball and bounce off. The pupils in those same eyeballs were now starting to glow red, like an electric stove rapidly heating up. Circus, all too familiar with that visual effect, closed her eyes and covered her ears.
But she was unable to block off her senses completely and still sensed gunfire around her, along with intense heat waves, so hot they could leave burn marks on her as they passed by. Sometimes, liquids and other unthinkable substances hit her, and it felt like she had to wait an eternity for her turn, struggling to realize that her life was about to end. Looking back, she would've preferred the quick death of a screw in between her eyes to having her limbs excruciatingly lasered off.
…
But her turn didn't come, no matter how long she waited. The chaos around her had already subsided, and Circus was still covering her ears and forcing her eyes shut.
She gasped when she felt a finger poking her forehead. It felt gentle compared to what she was bracing for. She slowly opened her eyes and saw Dark Jenny standing in front of her, smiling, having picked up some new blood splatters. The backdrop was carnage, with the walls and floor covered in blood and guts. Circus knew she'd been in the middle of the splash zone and didn't dare look at herself.
Then, Dark Jenny turned around and ran back to the main hall. Now with its back turned her way, Circus felt a glimmer of hope when she spotted an item clipped to the dress.
"Tracker…" she mumbled, then immediately covered her mouth in a panic as the creature now equipped with super hearing turned the corner.
Now alone, Circus took a closer look at her disgusting surroundings. When she first saw it, the hallway was colored gray. Now, red with the insides of the officers—much like herself, no doubt. Circus felt physically dirty, and a tear came running down her cheek.
Whatever Dark Jenny left to do, it did not take long, and Circus had hardly moved a finger by the time it returned. When it reached her side, Dark Jenny waved a small idol around like it found its big prize and believed Circus would be impressed. Circus couldn't make out what the idol depicted, but it looked old, and the object was clearly from this museum.
Dark Jenny shoved the object into a backpack and pulled it around its shoulders. Then, it took Circus' hand and helped her to her feet, pulling her body against its own and holding her tight.
Whatever its infatuation with her was, it wasn't going to be killing her any time soon, so Circus reached her arms around her captor and under the backpack and pretended to return the embrace. The button on the tracker was easy to find, and she pressed it and held it in.
One
At the same time, Dark Jenny's hair flickered between red and silver until it stayed red, like a gas stove being fired up.
Two
Then, a pink bubble surrounded them, and Circus knew that this wasn't really a hug.
Three
Her captor didn't bother exiting through the freshly opened doorway, but instead flew up and broke through the ceiling with a sudden burst of acceleration.
Four
Circus didn't feel the impact, courtesy of the pink shield surrounding them, but she felt the G-forces pulling on her body, making it difficult to keep her thumb on the button.
Five
They were climbing altitude like a rocket taking off into space. Dark Jenny was holding Circus tightly and still accelerating away from the surface of the world, relentlessly increasing its speed until Circus could no longer hold the button on the tracker, and eventually knocking her out.
♦
The next morning, Saturn woke up to an unfamiliar ceiling, and to Plural's worried face.
"What're you doing in my…"
And then he saw that this was actually Circus' living room. This is where they'd spent the night, he remembered. Saturn slept on the couch in the living room while Plural shared the bedroom with Jenny.
Plural held out her phone like she wanted him to see something.
"I—Come on…." he mumbled, unable to focus so soon after waking up.
Plural turned the phone back to herself, scrolled and zoomed in on something, then tapped the screen and turned it back to show Saturn. It was blurry video footage of a reddish-pink figure flying in the air, shooting down a fighter jet with a laser beam. Even with the alternative color scheme, Saturn immediately recognized what he was looking at. He took the phone, zoomed out and scrolled up to read the rest of what turned out to be a news article.
SPARKLE PRINCESS BECOMES PUBLIC ENEMY?
From there, he read the article, which talked about an attack on some museum in a far-away city to the south. In addition to a run-in with armed police, people believe the figure—widely believed to be Jenny—murdered security staff and stole artifacts from the museum.
"Why would it do that?" Saturn asked himself out loud. "Plu, this is really far away…"
"Watch the other video…" Plural said anxiously.
When he tried to meet her eyes, she looked away with a bleak expression. Saturn frowned and scrolled further down, eventually stumbling on a second video that came with a disclaimer for disturbing content. When he pressed play, Plural looked at him for his reaction.
The video showed security camera footage of some dark hallway, and Circus was in the center, surrounded by policemen in heavy gear. Moments later, a red laser beam started cutting through the policemen, cutting off their limbs and barely missing Circus, who was cowering in the splash zone.
Saturn watched in disbelief and buried his fingers in his hair. The footage was like a wakeup call, reminding him that being Jenny's friend wasn't just fun and games, and her enemies were truly dangerous.
"I-Is it sparing her?" Saturn asked when he saw Dark Jenny interrupting its own laser every time it was about to intersect with Circus' body.
"Yeah. She's okay."
As the footage continued, the onslaught eventually ended, leaving Circus shivering in the spotlight.
"What are we doing, Plu?" Saturn spoke up.
Plural raised her head and gave him a questioning look.
"I told Jenny we're a part of this now, but…" he continued, "we might actually die over this."
"Yeah," Plural sighed. "Easy to forget we're just fragile sacks of flesh."
Then, an awkward silence followed between the two as Saturn watched the rest of the video. Circus hardly moved a limb, and eventually Dark Jenny joined the frame, taking her hand and hugging her. Then, Saturn noticed something.
"Hey! Hey! Hey! … Yes! Good job!" he exclaimed, and Plural curiously sat down next to him to see what he was freaking out about.
"He—She-she-she-she's…" he turned the phone to Plural and zoomed in on the embrace. "The fucking… thing…"
He handed the phone back to Plural and grabbed his own. When he opened the tracker app, she realized what he meant.
"I forgot all about that… new girl's kinda sharp."
And indeed, the tracker app was picking up a signal again. It started in the middle of the night. Saturn and Plural looked at each other in disbelief.
"She fucking did it! It works!" he said ecstatically. "We gotta show Jenny!"
Saturn turned his head and looked around the room.
"Where is she, anyway?"
Plural didn't respond. She was zoning out, staring at her phone on which the security camera footage still played. Saturn saw the terrified look in her eyes as she rewatched the footage for herself, then locked his phone and put it on the table.
"You know you don't have to come, right?"
"Huh?" Plural looked up from the phone, having hardly heard what he said.
"Just because I introduced you to her… doesn't mean you have to come along and throw your life away."
Plural blinked and stared at him in disbelief.
"Are you kidding me? I was gonna tell you the same thing!"
The two stared at each other in surprise.
"So, you're not scared?" he asked with a careful smile.
"O-Of course I am!" Plural said while fiddling with her wristband. "But it's my fault the new girl was taken, and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I abandoned her."
Saturn looked down and felt his own wristband.
"Are you?" Plural asked. "Scared?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, well…" Plural locked her phone and dropped it face-down on the couch. "I don't think I'll forgive you if you run away."
"I'm not gonna run away," Saturn chuckled and looked her in the eyes. "What do you take me for?"
Plural gave him a relieved smile.
"This is our mess," he said.
"Then why ask me if I wanted to chicken out?"
"I was just being polite…"
"Fuck you…"
♦
Jenny put the phone to her ear and covered the mic with her hand to reduce wind noise.
"Is everything okay?"
"It's the tracker," phone-Plural said, "we got a location now, you should—"
Jenny's eyes widened, and she immediately teleported away.
"… come over and—" Plural was still mid-sentence when Jenny landed in the living room of Circus' apartment.
"You have a location?" Jenny asked energetically and hung up the call.
"Yeah, but it's not close," Saturn answered.
He was sitting at a table and he slid his phone across. Jenny walked over and picked it up, swapping her own phone for his. He had an app open that showed a pin on a map. A location far north, all the way in another country. Jenny zoomed in on the pin, finding it pointing to some isolated city in the middle of nowhere.
"Why?" Jenny muttered with a dumbfounded look on her face.
Then, Plural took Jenny's hand and brought her to the couch. A confused Jenny followed obediently as she was tugged along and looked worriedly at her two friends.
"Guys? What's wrong?"
"There's something you need to see," Plural replied and guided Jenny to sit down on the couch.
Then, she handed Jenny her own phone, and Jenny dropped Saturn's phone in her lap and took a look. It was a news article, and the headline alone gave her a dreadful feeling in her chest. Jenny took some time to read the article, and she watched the footage with the fighter jet. In the meantime, Saturn looked at her from the table and leaned his head on his hand to block the view.
"I know this idol..." Jenny said when she got to a photo of the item Dark Jenny stole from the museum. She didn't elaborate and her two friends didn't ask further.
When she got to the security camera footage, Jenny immediately recognized Circus. When she got to the point where the bodies started coming apart and dumping their contents on her helpless friend, Jenny started shaking and breathing harder until she eventually dropped the phone on her lap and stared into the distance. Her eyes were watering up, and eventually the first tear came rolled down her face.
"S-She's dead, isn't she?" Jenny cried.
Plural watched with compassion and curiosity as the robot girl produced tears from her eyes, and she followed them running down Jenny's cheeks.
"Huh?" she uttered.
"I don't wanna see this…" Jenny shut her eyes tightly.
Plural swallowed. "No, she's okay! She's alive!"
She gave Jenny a hug like she did the night before, and Jenny opened her eyes again.
"I'm sorry, I thought you'd wanna know," Plural said.
Jenny looked down at her lap again and took a second to reply.
"You're right," she said, then turned her watery eyes back to Plural. "What happened to her?"
"It hasn't put a scratch on her. They just fly away," Plural quickly summarized the remainder of the video.
Finally, Saturn joined them on the couch and sat next to Jenny on the other side. His discomfort was showing as he hesitantly moved his arm around Jenny's shoulder like he was second-guessing himself.
"I'd never do that to people…" Jenny said, as if she had to put her friends at ease after what they saw in the video.
Plural pulled herself close while Saturn rubbed Jenny's back, and Jenny rubbed her eyes with her arm to wipe off her tears. Saturn's phone was still unlocked on her lap, showing the map, and Jenny took it in her hands to take another look. It was a long way from here, and in an unfriendly climate.
"Mom never wanted me to make friends," Jenny sniffed, "I guess this is why."
"Jen…" Plural said indignantly.
Jenny turned to Plural with a guilty look in her eyes.
"I don't want you guys to die…"
"So?"
"So," Jenny turned back to the phone on her lap, "it's probably best if you stay away from me…"
Upon uttering those words, her lips trembled.
"We're adults, Jen," Saturn said. "We can decide that for ourselves."
Plural leaned forward to look upon Jenny's face.
"You don't want us?"
Jenny pressed her lips together and tried her hardest to avoid eye contact.
"It hurts…"
Then, she felt a hand on her head, rubbing her hair. When she looked over, she saw that it belonged to Saturn.
"And if you could be selfish, would you want us to come along then?"
"If I could be selfish…" Jenny stared at the map, imagining herself going to a strange country to chase after an enemy that was ten steps ahead of her and keeping a dear friend hostage.
"I'd…" she spoke hesitantly, "want… company…"
By her side, Plural giggled and pulled Jenny close again.
"Good! 'Cause we already decided!"