![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedibuttercupT; Jupiter Ascending/B:tVS; post-canon, 2000 words. For ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
twistedshorts.
Given the way her whole introduction to the wider galaxy had begun, Jupiter thought she could be forgiven for investigating everything the local Keepers had been up to. Especially when it led her to another secret world.
Title: Sunnydale Syndrome is an Actual Thing?
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: T/PG-13
Spoilers: Post-canon for B:tVS and Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Notes: I do tend to enjoy a 'so the world has a secret backstory' setup, and how that might intersect with other canons with their own secret histories. :)
Given the way her whole introduction to the wider galaxy had begun, Jupiter thought she could be forgiven for investigating everything the local Keepers had been up to. Especially when it led her to another secret world.
Given the way her whole introduction to the wider galaxy had begun, Jupiter thought she could be forgiven for being especially wary of Keepers, even the ones that were now supposedly under her control. However that worked. Since she'd returned to Earth, she'd generally left the management of her incomprehensible inheritance and associated legal matters to the Aegis and a staff vetted by Stinger and Caine while she read up on the sorts of things Entitled were expected to know and worked on transitioning a little less drastically into the next phase of her life. But even so, she made a little time each day to pick through the sheavework summaries of what the Keepers attached to Earth had been up to, just for her own peace of mind.
It didn't take long to realize there were some pretty weird patterns to their intervention, some of them going back a very long time. She wasn't that far back in studying Earth's true history yet, but so far, she hadn't found a beginning to the strangely high rates of memory erasures in certain locations. Or a believable explanation, either. She'd even asked Stinger, who'd lived on-planet for several years and knew a lot more about how to work the local databases than she did, and got only a furrowed brow and a mention about 'zones not recommended for visitation by citizens of the gyre'. One of which was centered around Cleveland. And another in California. Given how fond the Entitled she'd met so far had been of concealing the ugliness under every sparkly surface, she couldn't begin to guess what that might mean.
So she told her family she was taking a trip, supposedly as part of her new 'side gig', which was really just Kiza posing as a rich lady in need of an occasional companion. Gradually she'd be gone more than there, and soon enough just gone, after she'd trickled enough of her interplanetary riches into her Earth bank account to give her mom and aunt Nino choices other than having to clean houses for her uncle Vassily for the rest of their lives. Maybe coming with her, if she could figure out how to make that happen and if they wanted to; but retirement at least if that didn't work out, and some disguisable method of keeping in contact. For now, though: baby steps. Jupiter let them tease her about her new boyfriend, spent a little meditative time on the roof observing the changes in her planetary namesake's Great Red Spot with her telescope, then packed a bag and caught a ride with her appointed guard to the nearest of the available options: Cleveland.
Caine had told her back at the beginning that the Keepers never got to everyone, but also that no one would believe the ones who slipped through the cracks. She didn't have much of a plan, but 'find a witness the Keepers missed' seemed like a good start. Because barbeque fork accidents, animal attacks, and graverobbing seemed like really unlikely covers for the abnormal rates of strange deaths and missing bodies in those areas, and the Keepers themselves couldn't give clearer details due to some kind of standing order that even being the genetic successor of Seraphi Abrasax couldn't trump. The only thing the sheaves were clear on was that it had nothing to do with encroachment by RegeneX competitors 'sampling the product', because that, apparently, was also something she had to worry about now. But she figured someone local had to have some clue about what was really going on.
Jupiter hadn't been counting on one of those locals catching on to them by the second evening they went out exploring. Caine caught a strange predatory scent intermittently following them pretty much from the moment they left the hotel that day; when they ducked into an alleyway to attempt to catch a glimpse of their pursuer, they instead found themselves fielding off an attack. Two unarmed women who moved like military-bred splices but looked as human as Jupiter attempted to separate her from Caine, and when he shrugged off his jacket to deploy his wings and energy shield, started fighting even harder rather than freaking out like a normal person who hadn't known aliens existed. They even drew weapons: not guns, though, or normal hand weapons like knives or brass knuckles, but a sword and some weird type of red and silver axe.
"Whoa, whoa," Jupiter said, backed up against the nearest wall while Caine fended the women off. He was attempting to stop them nonlethally, but they weren't making it easy. "What the hell is going on?"
"Just stay there! And run if you get a chance!" one of the women called, a slight, stylishly dressed blonde about Jupiter's height.
"And why would I do that?" she objected, annoyed, as Caine took another axeblow against his shield and leapt up, activating his gravboots as he launched himself into the air. The first time he'd tried to tell her how the boots worked, he'd summarized by telling her up was hard, but down was easy; now that he had the wings back they took care of the 'up' for him, making them an even more versatile tool. One of the women swore pungently under her breath as he swooped up two stories, then kicked the boots into motion, skating through the air to come back at them from behind. They didn't wait for it, though; the brunette jumped after him, grabbing at a balcony and propelling herself after him on arm and leg strength alone. She tackled his legs mid-air, trying to draw him back to the ground.
Meanwhile, the blonde had dodged out of the way, then stopped in her tracks to frown at Jupiter. "What do you mean, why would you do that? He was attacking you!"
Jupiter felt the blush creeping up her cheeks and tipped her chin up to fend it off, summoning her best Entitled impression. "I was necking with my boyfriend. Until we were so rudely interrupted!"
Something changed in the blonde's posture then, as if suddenly recognizing Jupiter herself as a threat rather than background noise. In a way it was kind of refreshing, being almost the reverse of how things usually went when Jupiter and Caine met new people from the gyre, but in the moment was also a little alarming. "Your demon boyfriend. With the wings and magic boots and bracelet," she said slowly, eyeing Jupiter like she was looking for hidden weapons.
"Demon?" Jupiter blurted as her eyebrows arched higher. Was this one of the witnesses she'd been looking for? "That's an even worse cover story than barbeque fork accidents. Look, if you'll get your friend to back off of Caine, I'm... someone with the authority to investigate; we're just here to talk."
Caine was currently dancing around with the brunette up on the roofs; she froze and looked back at the blonde as she called something out in slang Jupiter didn't recognize. Caine took the opportunity to leap from the rooftop and skate back to the ground, coming to a halt again at Jupiter's shoulder.
The blonde glanced between them, even warier after Jupiter's offer. "Investigate? Are you from Wolfram and Hart? Or, no. You I might buy as a lawyer, but not the blond elf-angel over there. Is the coven finally moving on those weird toothy Gray-looking demons that keep knocking people out and making things disappear? If so, then it's about time."
"Yeah," the brunette called down, sticking with the high ground. "So are they some kind of brownies, or what?"
"You remember them?" Jupiter blurted, glancing back and forth between the women. "After being knocked out? I didn't think that was possible. I was just looking for someone who'd seen what they were trying to paper over but missed getting caught."
"Yeah, well that's what happens when someone accidentally mindwipes themselves and all their friends, then decides to make double extra sure nothing like that can ever happen to them again," the blonde replied, sourly. "Apparently they've always been cleaning up after us? At least from what Willow can tell. But we never remembered who was doing it until recently. You know what they are?"
"Well, yeah; they're not demons though," Jupiter replied. She hadn't brought anyone into the secret yet herself, but she didn't think there was any rule against it; she'd made sure of that when she'd first started plotting how to ease her mother and Aunt Nino into things. Besides, she was too close to answers now to play dumb herself. If these people had some weird resistance to being blanked, it might even be safer to fill in a few more details than to leave them guessing. Especially if 'cleaning up after us' meant they'd had a lot of close encounters already.
"They're aliens," she continued. "Called Keepers. Their job is to make sure alien interference on Earth is kept to a minimum. Well, unless they have orders otherwise. Super creepy, but really good at erasing things, even their own reason for doing the erasing sometimes. Which is why I'm here. Now that I'm supposedly in charge, I want to know exactly what they're enforcing in my name and if I need to change their orders."
"So Sunnydale Syndrome is an actual thing?" the brunette blurted. "And aliens are causing it? What the fuck. Andrew is going to lose his whole-ass mind."
"Never mind that," the blonde said, frown deepening. "I think the more immediate question is, who exactly are you and what is it you're supposed to be in charge of that makes this relevant?"
"Good question," Jupiter replied. "I'm Jupiter Jones, and the rest is a very long story we'd be happy to tell somewhere with fewer potential mindwipe victims around?" She held out her hand.
The other woman eyed the hand, then Caine, then the glowing seal imprinted on the inside of Jupiter's wrist, then finally relaxed a fractional amount and reached back for a brief shake.
"Buffy Summers. And if your boyfriend will put the wings and the shield away-- then I think this is a story we need to hear."
"Jupiter?" Caine raised a disapproving eyebrow.
Jupiter settled a hand on his elbow with an apologetic smile. "We found them. Might as well talk?"
He sighed, then turned his attention to Buffy and her companion and bared his teeth. "She is Her Majesty the Recurrence of Seraphi Abrasax, and if you attempt to harm her or come between us there is nowhere on this planet or any other I cannot find you," he growled.
"Nice thorough disclaimer; extra points for conviction," the brunette said, dryly. "Back at you."
Buffy sighed, then gestured back the way they'd come. "All right, then. This way."
Jupiter had the feeling she'd tripped over a secret almost as big as the one that had introduced her to the universe in the first place; but just like that time, there was no way past it but through. And no way to know the right path forward without finding out where it started. She took a deep breath, leaning into the comfort of Caine's presence, then tilted her chin up again and followed.
(She wasn't wrong. The conversation that followed began, 'So the world is older than you know...' then continued with, 'You too? I thought that was gonna be my line'. Turned out the Abrasax hadn't quite wiped out all the original natives, some of whom had been trying to eat them back ever since; Kalique had been kinda disingenuous when she'd talked about the origin of the vampire legends. Seraphi had apparently passively enabled a group of local 'seedstock' who'd figured out how to fight back and ignored the problem otherwise; Jupiter didn't even begin to know where to start to unpick that. Opening communication seemed like a good start, though. And maybe sending Kiza to liaise?
She still had so much left to learn.)
(x-posted on twistedshorts and on AO3)
twistedshorts.Given the way her whole introduction to the wider galaxy had begun, Jupiter thought she could be forgiven for investigating everything the local Keepers had been up to. Especially when it led her to another secret world.
Title: Sunnydale Syndrome is an Actual Thing?
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: T/PG-13
Spoilers: Post-canon for B:tVS and Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Notes: I do tend to enjoy a 'so the world has a secret backstory' setup, and how that might intersect with other canons with their own secret histories. :)
Given the way her whole introduction to the wider galaxy had begun, Jupiter thought she could be forgiven for investigating everything the local Keepers had been up to. Especially when it led her to another secret world.
Given the way her whole introduction to the wider galaxy had begun, Jupiter thought she could be forgiven for being especially wary of Keepers, even the ones that were now supposedly under her control. However that worked. Since she'd returned to Earth, she'd generally left the management of her incomprehensible inheritance and associated legal matters to the Aegis and a staff vetted by Stinger and Caine while she read up on the sorts of things Entitled were expected to know and worked on transitioning a little less drastically into the next phase of her life. But even so, she made a little time each day to pick through the sheavework summaries of what the Keepers attached to Earth had been up to, just for her own peace of mind.
It didn't take long to realize there were some pretty weird patterns to their intervention, some of them going back a very long time. She wasn't that far back in studying Earth's true history yet, but so far, she hadn't found a beginning to the strangely high rates of memory erasures in certain locations. Or a believable explanation, either. She'd even asked Stinger, who'd lived on-planet for several years and knew a lot more about how to work the local databases than she did, and got only a furrowed brow and a mention about 'zones not recommended for visitation by citizens of the gyre'. One of which was centered around Cleveland. And another in California. Given how fond the Entitled she'd met so far had been of concealing the ugliness under every sparkly surface, she couldn't begin to guess what that might mean.
So she told her family she was taking a trip, supposedly as part of her new 'side gig', which was really just Kiza posing as a rich lady in need of an occasional companion. Gradually she'd be gone more than there, and soon enough just gone, after she'd trickled enough of her interplanetary riches into her Earth bank account to give her mom and aunt Nino choices other than having to clean houses for her uncle Vassily for the rest of their lives. Maybe coming with her, if she could figure out how to make that happen and if they wanted to; but retirement at least if that didn't work out, and some disguisable method of keeping in contact. For now, though: baby steps. Jupiter let them tease her about her new boyfriend, spent a little meditative time on the roof observing the changes in her planetary namesake's Great Red Spot with her telescope, then packed a bag and caught a ride with her appointed guard to the nearest of the available options: Cleveland.
Caine had told her back at the beginning that the Keepers never got to everyone, but also that no one would believe the ones who slipped through the cracks. She didn't have much of a plan, but 'find a witness the Keepers missed' seemed like a good start. Because barbeque fork accidents, animal attacks, and graverobbing seemed like really unlikely covers for the abnormal rates of strange deaths and missing bodies in those areas, and the Keepers themselves couldn't give clearer details due to some kind of standing order that even being the genetic successor of Seraphi Abrasax couldn't trump. The only thing the sheaves were clear on was that it had nothing to do with encroachment by RegeneX competitors 'sampling the product', because that, apparently, was also something she had to worry about now. But she figured someone local had to have some clue about what was really going on.
Jupiter hadn't been counting on one of those locals catching on to them by the second evening they went out exploring. Caine caught a strange predatory scent intermittently following them pretty much from the moment they left the hotel that day; when they ducked into an alleyway to attempt to catch a glimpse of their pursuer, they instead found themselves fielding off an attack. Two unarmed women who moved like military-bred splices but looked as human as Jupiter attempted to separate her from Caine, and when he shrugged off his jacket to deploy his wings and energy shield, started fighting even harder rather than freaking out like a normal person who hadn't known aliens existed. They even drew weapons: not guns, though, or normal hand weapons like knives or brass knuckles, but a sword and some weird type of red and silver axe.
"Whoa, whoa," Jupiter said, backed up against the nearest wall while Caine fended the women off. He was attempting to stop them nonlethally, but they weren't making it easy. "What the hell is going on?"
"Just stay there! And run if you get a chance!" one of the women called, a slight, stylishly dressed blonde about Jupiter's height.
"And why would I do that?" she objected, annoyed, as Caine took another axeblow against his shield and leapt up, activating his gravboots as he launched himself into the air. The first time he'd tried to tell her how the boots worked, he'd summarized by telling her up was hard, but down was easy; now that he had the wings back they took care of the 'up' for him, making them an even more versatile tool. One of the women swore pungently under her breath as he swooped up two stories, then kicked the boots into motion, skating through the air to come back at them from behind. They didn't wait for it, though; the brunette jumped after him, grabbing at a balcony and propelling herself after him on arm and leg strength alone. She tackled his legs mid-air, trying to draw him back to the ground.
Meanwhile, the blonde had dodged out of the way, then stopped in her tracks to frown at Jupiter. "What do you mean, why would you do that? He was attacking you!"
Jupiter felt the blush creeping up her cheeks and tipped her chin up to fend it off, summoning her best Entitled impression. "I was necking with my boyfriend. Until we were so rudely interrupted!"
Something changed in the blonde's posture then, as if suddenly recognizing Jupiter herself as a threat rather than background noise. In a way it was kind of refreshing, being almost the reverse of how things usually went when Jupiter and Caine met new people from the gyre, but in the moment was also a little alarming. "Your demon boyfriend. With the wings and magic boots and bracelet," she said slowly, eyeing Jupiter like she was looking for hidden weapons.
"Demon?" Jupiter blurted as her eyebrows arched higher. Was this one of the witnesses she'd been looking for? "That's an even worse cover story than barbeque fork accidents. Look, if you'll get your friend to back off of Caine, I'm... someone with the authority to investigate; we're just here to talk."
Caine was currently dancing around with the brunette up on the roofs; she froze and looked back at the blonde as she called something out in slang Jupiter didn't recognize. Caine took the opportunity to leap from the rooftop and skate back to the ground, coming to a halt again at Jupiter's shoulder.
The blonde glanced between them, even warier after Jupiter's offer. "Investigate? Are you from Wolfram and Hart? Or, no. You I might buy as a lawyer, but not the blond elf-angel over there. Is the coven finally moving on those weird toothy Gray-looking demons that keep knocking people out and making things disappear? If so, then it's about time."
"Yeah," the brunette called down, sticking with the high ground. "So are they some kind of brownies, or what?"
"You remember them?" Jupiter blurted, glancing back and forth between the women. "After being knocked out? I didn't think that was possible. I was just looking for someone who'd seen what they were trying to paper over but missed getting caught."
"Yeah, well that's what happens when someone accidentally mindwipes themselves and all their friends, then decides to make double extra sure nothing like that can ever happen to them again," the blonde replied, sourly. "Apparently they've always been cleaning up after us? At least from what Willow can tell. But we never remembered who was doing it until recently. You know what they are?"
"Well, yeah; they're not demons though," Jupiter replied. She hadn't brought anyone into the secret yet herself, but she didn't think there was any rule against it; she'd made sure of that when she'd first started plotting how to ease her mother and Aunt Nino into things. Besides, she was too close to answers now to play dumb herself. If these people had some weird resistance to being blanked, it might even be safer to fill in a few more details than to leave them guessing. Especially if 'cleaning up after us' meant they'd had a lot of close encounters already.
"They're aliens," she continued. "Called Keepers. Their job is to make sure alien interference on Earth is kept to a minimum. Well, unless they have orders otherwise. Super creepy, but really good at erasing things, even their own reason for doing the erasing sometimes. Which is why I'm here. Now that I'm supposedly in charge, I want to know exactly what they're enforcing in my name and if I need to change their orders."
"So Sunnydale Syndrome is an actual thing?" the brunette blurted. "And aliens are causing it? What the fuck. Andrew is going to lose his whole-ass mind."
"Never mind that," the blonde said, frown deepening. "I think the more immediate question is, who exactly are you and what is it you're supposed to be in charge of that makes this relevant?"
"Good question," Jupiter replied. "I'm Jupiter Jones, and the rest is a very long story we'd be happy to tell somewhere with fewer potential mindwipe victims around?" She held out her hand.
The other woman eyed the hand, then Caine, then the glowing seal imprinted on the inside of Jupiter's wrist, then finally relaxed a fractional amount and reached back for a brief shake.
"Buffy Summers. And if your boyfriend will put the wings and the shield away-- then I think this is a story we need to hear."
"Jupiter?" Caine raised a disapproving eyebrow.
Jupiter settled a hand on his elbow with an apologetic smile. "We found them. Might as well talk?"
He sighed, then turned his attention to Buffy and her companion and bared his teeth. "She is Her Majesty the Recurrence of Seraphi Abrasax, and if you attempt to harm her or come between us there is nowhere on this planet or any other I cannot find you," he growled.
"Nice thorough disclaimer; extra points for conviction," the brunette said, dryly. "Back at you."
Buffy sighed, then gestured back the way they'd come. "All right, then. This way."
Jupiter had the feeling she'd tripped over a secret almost as big as the one that had introduced her to the universe in the first place; but just like that time, there was no way past it but through. And no way to know the right path forward without finding out where it started. She took a deep breath, leaning into the comfort of Caine's presence, then tilted her chin up again and followed.
(She wasn't wrong. The conversation that followed began, 'So the world is older than you know...' then continued with, 'You too? I thought that was gonna be my line'. Turned out the Abrasax hadn't quite wiped out all the original natives, some of whom had been trying to eat them back ever since; Kalique had been kinda disingenuous when she'd talked about the origin of the vampire legends. Seraphi had apparently passively enabled a group of local 'seedstock' who'd figured out how to fight back and ignored the problem otherwise; Jupiter didn't even begin to know where to start to unpick that. Opening communication seemed like a good start, though. And maybe sending Kiza to liaise?
She still had so much left to learn.)
(x-posted on twistedshorts and on AO3)
