They were now in Saturn's apartment, and he didn't look very excited about it. Like Circus' place, his living room looked messy. His PC was in the living room, and he pressed the button to boot it up. He turned around and leaned on his desk. The other two looked at him like he was going to say something. He didn't, and instead turned back around because his PC booted fast, sat down and logged in.
The next five minutes were spent fumbling with the tracking app. Plural opted to lie down on the couch and Circus looked around the room. When she turned back to check on him, he had his head buried in his hands.
"What's wrong?" she asked him worriedly.
"I might've… fucked it up…" he said, head still down.
Plural looked up. Saturn glanced past his hand at the other two.
"The last ping was at the shop, right about when I put it on the dress… After that, it stopped…"
He looked at them again, expecting them to already know what that meant.
"So what, it broke?" Plural asked.
"No, I… think I held the button for more than five seconds while I was hiding it in my hand…"
Plural looked at him like she wasn't sure if he was joking.
"Oh…" Circus said.
Some silence followed. There was a depressed mood in the air as this amazing plan slipped away from them in record time. Saturn was particularly upset at how he thought he'd unconsciously done something so useful and so cool, only for it to make him look like a fool and give everyone false hope.
"Cheer up! You're still the coolest guy in my book!" Plural tried to make him feel better.
He couldn't help but smile. That was not a high bar for him to beat. He grabbed his phone and started texting something. Plural's phone buzzed and she grabbed it to read the message on her screen.
"[DO NOT ANSWER]Sorry, no location… I fucked up… Tracker is OFF @Jenkins"
It didn't take long for the message to get a read receipt for all three members of the group and for Jenny to react to the message with a heart. Some dots started moving at the bottom of the chat to indicate she was typing something.
"[Jenkins]@DO NOT ANSWER It's okay! You did great! 😊"
Circus looked back and forth between the two, notification sounds going off on both phones. She knew they were discussing something via text. Saturn glanced at her and realized how this looked. He started typing again.
"[You]Do we add the new girl here Y/N?"
"[You]She's looking at us funny @Roadkill"
"[Jenny]OK with me! 😊"
"[Roadkill]Go for it"
"[Roadkill]She doesn't see history right??"
Saturn looked up from his phone and at Circus. She'd been watching them type away for the last minute. He opened his contacts and navigated to the add new contact screen.
"Wanna enter your number? I'll add you to the group," he asked her.
She cheered up, took his phone and entered her number, then handed the phone back to him without pressing save. He just put her name as "Circus". Circus' phone made a notification sound, and she opened her messaging app to find a new group chat called "✨ Sparkle Squad ✨". She excitedly opened it to find she now had Plural's, and particularly Jenny's numbers too.
Jenny, probably bored to death in her cell, immediately greeted her.
"[~ Jenny]Hi Circus🤗"
"[~ Jenny] 👮"
The other two could see the smile on Circus' face, and she scrolled through the chat. She looked up at Plural with a frown. "What about the history?"
♦
By the time Plural and Circus left, the day had already come to an end. Plural was interested in the new girl and suggested she stay the night. Circus was put on the spot with that, since she only got formally introduced to these people that same morning. She had a good feeling about them, though, and accepted the invitation. Plural cooked a simple meal, and they chatted about their lives, about how she met Jenny for the first time.
"Makes me wanna quit my job and join you guys…" Circus said after hearing the story.
"Join us doing what? Your job is way cooler than ours! It even brought you to us!" Plural said. She believed she had one of the most boring jobs imaginable, she was probably right.
"Besides, we're in this together, now. You'll get plenty of chances to see Jenny's powers. You don't need to change your job for that," she continued.
"My boss sucks. Did I mention that? It's the guy who arrested Jenny," Circus said.
"Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing the right thing. Today, too. Obviously…" she continued,
Plural gave her a genuine smile. "But you approached us. That's more than what your coworkers did. Way I see it, you're the best of the best."
Circus looked up at the ceiling. They were lying next to each other on the large couch in Plural's living room. The couch seemed like it doubled as a bed for guests. The TV was at a low volume in the background.
"How did you become friends with Saturn?" she asked, looking back to Plural.
Plural looked up at the ceiling now.
"He hit me when he reversed his work van," she said.
Circus' eyes widened. She expected Plural to elaborate but received nothing.
"And then what?"
"I wasn't hurt. We fought in the parking lot.", she continued as if Circus had to press another button to continue the dialogue.
"Then what happened?"
"HR made us take consolation sessions together. They cared more about the fighting than the accident."
"And you bonded over hating HR?" Circus inferred.
"Yep!" Plural said with a proud smile.
Circus looked at the ceiling again and then closed her eyes.
"Sometimes I wish someone would run me over…" she said abruptly.
Plural opened her eyes wide and looked at her friend.
"Something you wanna get off your chest?" she said.
Circus turned to her new friend again; "Your story sounded pretty nice, I-"
She stopped talking and froze as she stared at something behind Plural, freaking her out.
"What's wr-" Plural tried to ask. Circus raised her body and smoothly moved herself over her friend's body to place herself between her and whatever it was she saw. Plural rotated with her as she moved, giving her a good look at the thing she saw.
An intruder in her house. It looked like Jenny, but it clearly wasn't her. This was the first time she and Circus got to see it in the flesh. She noticed the outfit and agreed with Saturn that it wasn't the real Jenny's style.
"We finally meet!" Circus started talking to it. She didn't seem to want to play dumb like Saturn did.
Plural swallowed and froze in place. This new girl she'd only just met today wasted no time protecting her like a meat shield. She was reminded that Circus was still with the police and had a heroic nature to her. Jenny would be proud if she was here to see it.
If Jenny was here to see it…
Plural slowly moved her hand to find her phone, which was on the couch somewhere nearby. She didn't look away from the intruder as she felt around to search for it.
"You haven't introduced yourself yet. What do you go by, copycat?" Circus continued.
The Jenny-thing scanned Circus up and down, then gave Plural a passing look.
"We can call you 'Dark Jenny'. Easier for us lowly humans," Circus said.
Plural thought Circus was sounding oddly comfortable talking to it like that. Did she really have no fear for the thing?
When she finally got hold of her phone, she subtly moved it into her peripheral vision. Plural swiped up and moved her fingers to enter her PIN but found it already unlocked. It was Circus' phone, and it had no PIN. Plural found that Circus had already put Jenny's number on speed dial and pressed it. It started dialing immediately and she could faintly hear the dialing sound as it wasn't on loudspeaker mode. Jenny took two rings to pick up, and Plural could tell Jenny was saying something, but couldn't hear what it was. She was frozen with fear and didn't respond. Hopefully Jenny took the hint.
Dark Jenny got up and sat on its knees. Its eyes went to Plural's scared face now. The eye contact only lasted for less than a second when Circus quickly followed and sat upright in the same way, mostly blocking its view of Plural.
"Not a talker? I figured you'd know every language by now! You understand what I'm saying, I can tell," she confidently told the intruder.
"Wanna know something else? I think you're trapped in there!" Circus pointed her finger towards Dark Jenny's chest.
"You're hiding in this shell because you have nowhere else to go! After what our Jenny did to you!"
Dark Jenny was now definitely intrigued by this new character. It reached out its arm towards Circus and touched her cheek like it was wiping away tears, but Circus wasn't crying. Plural witnessed the scene from the same position she'd been in when she first saw the intruder. She hadn't moved an inch except to dial Jenny. The moonlight shone through the tall window in the living room and illuminated the scene. It'd only gotten dark in the past hour, so they didn't get around to turning on the lights yet.
Plural was cursing herself for being unable to do anything. She could still hear Jenny's voice on the phone, which she was holding next to her waist. Jenny's muffled voice sounded like she was yelling in a panic at this point.
Dark Jenny took Circus in for an embrace, giving it a clear view of Plural and the phone. Circus couldn't do anything about it anymore without pushing Dark Jenny away. If she could even manage that. Plural felt even more petrified and stopped breathing. A second passed where nobody moved, until the tension was finally broken by a bang, the disappearance of both Dark Jenny and Circus, and red sparkles.
Plural took another moment until she finally breathed again. Her hand with the phone shot up to her ear and she yelled two words she should've yelled right away: "My house!"
She was hyperventilating as Jenny appeared in her living room with blue sparkles, sliding across the floor like she had some momentum before she teleported. She checked every angle of the room to find nothing, then looked at Plural. Jenny looked like she sounded on the phone: panicked.
"Where's Circus!?" she asked Plural.
Plural didn't know how to respond. The pieces came together for her. She'd dialed Jenny using Circus' phone, so it makes sense Jenny wouldn't come here first thing. Even worse is that Jenny probably had no idea Plural was with her, since she didn't say a word. She probably thought Circus dialed her.
"It took her…" Plural could finally form a coherent sentence.
"What? No…" Jenny looked out the window, and her expression made it pretty clear she didn't hold a lot of hope she'd catch their trail. Nevertheless, she disappeared again, probably to try anyway. Plural just stared out the same window and felt a wave of emotion overcome her. She heard Jenny's voice come from the phone again and brought it up to her ear.
"I'm sorry…" she told Jenny, who hadn't hung up the call yet. Plural was now crying over the phone. Jenny frantically flew around the city with the phone to her ear and her mind raced trying to decide what their best course of action would be. Plural's crying made it harder for her to focus without getting caught up in the emotion.
"Call Saturn and tell him I'm coming to get him. I'm not leaving you guys alone anymore," she said.
Plural obediently replied, "Okay…"
When Jenny heard the call end, she instantly teleported back into Plural's living room, giving her a small scare. Jenny didn't spare her a change in her serious expression. Plural called Saturn and asked if he was okay with Jenny barging into his house this late. She phrased it more like a warning than a question, which it was. She nodded to Jenny, who instantly disappeared again. Plural only had to wait ten seconds before Jenny landed in her backyard, carrying Saturn in her arms. Plural opened the sliding door to let them in.
Saturn saw the tears on Plural's face and ran past Jenny to give her a hug. Jenny realized she hadn't even given Plural the same courtesy. In fact, she'd been pretty cold towards her instead. Jenny approached Plural to her left and joined to give her a hug from that side. Plural responded by taking her left arm off Saturn's back and wrapping it around Jenny. Saturn made eye contact with Jenny and winked at her.
♦
There were police sirens in the distance.
"They'll come here too. We can't stay," Plural said.
Nobody responded. She was sitting on her couch looking at the TV, still at low volume. Jenny was sitting next to her looking down at her lap, she looked sad. Plural looked over at Jenny and put her hand on her shoulder.
"Hey…" she prodded.
"I'm sorry I couldn't find you," Jenny said.
"We were so close. I could've saved Circus and faced… Dark Jenny…" she continued. Plural had shared Circus' new nickname for the Jenny-thing when she told them the details about what happened.
Plural put her arm around Jenny's waist and rubbed her face on Jenny's cheek, smearing what was left of her tears onto Jenny. Saturn was sitting at a dining table on his phone. He'd at least installed the tracker app onto his phone now, so he didn't need to be at home anymore. Still no signal. He remembered what he told Circus about the tracker being off. He hoped she'd remember and find an opportunity to hold the button again. He looked at the two girls on the couch. They were having a pity party. Hugging, rubbing their cheeks together and taking turns saying sorry.
He put his phone down and turned in his chair to face the two girls. Looked at them for a bit before deciding to crash the party.
"What do we do now?"
The two girls looked at him, still hugging.
"You said we can't stay here. Where do we even go? Are we fugitives now?"
Jenny looked at the two, let go of Plural and slapped her own cheeks "I am. And I don't trust the police to keep you two safe if you turn yourselves in," she implicitly answered yes to Saturn's last question.
"It threatened you both and took Circus. Because I wasn't there to protect you," she said, looking back at Plural. She returned a melancholic smile.
Jenny stared at her feet for a second, got up and walked to the window.
"We'll go back to my house first. Take what we need. Then we search for them full-time," she said.
"We can probably crash at Circus' place without the police finding us," Saturn replied. He gestured at the clock on the wall. It was now almost midnight.
"I can't leave the poor girl out there and… sleep!" Jenny said with anger.
"Plu and I are useless if we don't sleep. 'sides, how much juice are you running on? Haven't you made this mistake once already?" he retorted.
"I could sleep," Plural said, raising her hand like she was voting.
Jenny looked away from them and out the window again. She made this mistake this very morning and didn't even get back to a full charge before Saturn's distress call at the thrift store. She had to be appropriately prepared this time.
"Fine. My place first."
♦
Jenny landed them on a rooftop that gave them a view of her house.
"Two cops," Jenny pointed down at an SUV parked across from her place.
"What do you wanna do?" Plural asked.
Jenny grabbed their hands and teleported them into her bedroom, which was the shortest jump distance for her. Her two friends almost lost their balance when they landed on the bedroom floor.
"I can't see any signs of booby traps…" Jenny said. "This way."
The house had an eerie vibe to it now. They didn't turn on any lights to avoid alerting the cops, so it was pitch black. Why did the cops station a stakeout outside? Jenny's powers are well-documented on online encyclopedias and powerscaling forums, so they should know better.
Jenny walked towards the doorway of her bedroom when she stopped in her tracks and turned around to look at her bed, spooking her two friends. She ran over to the target of her fixation.
"What's the matter?", they asked her.
Jenny looked at her empty nightstand.
"It's been here…"
They did a double take and noticed that's where her charger was supposed to be. Dark Jenny broke in and stole her charger.
"Not gonna drop dead on its own anytime soon, then…" Saturn said.
"Let's go," Jenny said.
They followed her to another room on the same floor. The door looked fortified, but it opened automatically for Jenny, like other parts of the house. They probably opened for Dark Jenny in the same way. Inside, Jenny opened a cabinet and took out another charger. She put it in a backpack. Next, she retrieved two armbands from a drawer under a desk in the center of the room. The entire room looked like some sort of laboratory. Jenny handed the two armbands to her friends. They looked robust and had just one button on them. They put them on, and Jenny gestured to Plural to press the button.
When she did, she had to press harder than she thought to activate it. Jenny's hair-antenna perked up and pointed towards Plural's armband, beeping and flashing a green light. Jenny gave her a thumbs up. She turned to look at Saturn and gave him the same instructions. The same thing happened. She winked at him.
"More reliable than phones. Works across the world," she explained.
"Sweet…" her two friends said in unison.
Jenny added a third armband to her backpack, she held onto the hope Circus would live to put it on.
"Now, the big one," she said as she walked to what looked like a safe. It opened for her the same way everything else did.
The safe's interior resembled a 3D-printer setup, with a small emerald in its center. It suggested the item was not unique and she could make more. Jenny retrieved the emerald and closed the safe.
"This is what I meant," she showed the two. It was small enough for her to be able to close her hand around it, and Jenny had relatively small hands.
"Bring you back to a full charge in an instant?" Saturn quoted Jenny's own words as he stared at the object.
Jenny nodded. "More than that. I can overcharge with this. Two-hundred percent."
"That's nuts! Why haven't you used it before?" Plural asked.
"It only increases my reserves, doesn't make me that much stronger. It's never going to make the difference," Jenny explained.
"Unless it's a battle of endurance," she smiled.
"You think it stole one too?" Saturn asked?
"No, this takes forever to make," Jenny said.
She looked at her two friends and held up the emerald.
"I want one of you to carry it. Can't risk Dark popping it," she said.
She looked at them like they were supposed to decide with rock-paper-scissors who got to hold onto it. Plural made it easy and held up her hand, refusing it.
"I think you should take it," she addressed Saturn. "I might snort it up to feel something."
He grinned at her and took the emerald without objection.
"So how does it work? You know, in case you're all out. Like when you got us out of the woods," Saturn asked Jenny.
"Hope you don't actually have to snort it," he added.
"You're not far off…" Jenny looked to the side.
"When it breaks, my body reacts to the stuff inside," Jenny closed her hand into a fist to suggest she'd crush it.
"But I don't think you can break it…" she concluded.
He looked like he didn't like that answer.
She continued: "To me, it's fragile… It'll break in no time if I have it on me when I fight Dark… me…."
Dark Jenny was a fitting name, but Jenny herself felt weird saying it.
"And if it pops when it's too close, it might leech some of its energy," Jenny added.
She made her point clear enough. Saturn nodded and thought about where to put the emerald, then decided on his pocket, next to his keys. It was compact enough to pass for a keychain, if it had a hole for it.