Jester

Blank.

A car pulled up the driveway and Conner looked at the door confused.

'You invited someone over?'

'I told Lucas to bring his friend since I couldn't go over there today.'

'They're here now.'

Wolf perked his head up and sniffed the air. This caught their attention. Wolf gruffed and walked over to the door. Sniffing the floor he whined looking back to Conner.

'Guess he wants out.'

Conner got up and headed to the door. He could hear the two as they were getting closer, one had a faster heart beat than the other.

'Probably just nervous.' Conner thought as he opened the door. He was not expecting wolf to dart outside. Megan held up a hand as she had followed Conner to the door.

"I got this. Wolf get back here." She called as she went outside. "Go keep an eye on the prince. I'll take care of Lucas and his guest." She kept the door open so she could corral the dog inside.

Lucas was staring at the roof a little confused while wolf was using the wall to get closer to whoever it was that Lucas brought.

"Sorry Megan I didn't realize she didn't like dogs."

"It's okay Lucas. Wolf isn't usually this excitable either, not even with people he knows. We'll maybe for Conner." She glanced up and noticed a girl was on the roof leaning back and looked frightened. "He won't bite, you can come down." The girl looked to Megan and shook her head. "Wolf come here." Megan called but Wolf whined, reluctantly following the order. "He'll stay here, please come down."

The girl carefully moved, keeping an eye on Wolf the entire time. She landed on the ground and fixed her shirt before taking a step closer to Lucas.

"Nice shirt."

"I had to let her borrow one of Beth's. Hers was ruined."

"You mentioned she was hurt. Any idea what caused it?"

"A knife from what I could tell.-"

She had tuned them out, focused on the wolf. He seemed excited for some reason, but she's never seen the dog before, had she? She stepped closer and held out a hand. Wolf got up happily and wagged his tail as he let her pet him. He bumped his nose against her bandaged arm and whined. She pulled up the sleeve and saw that the bandages were bloody.

"You must have pulled your stitches getting up on the roof." Lucas said as he glanced over. "You're sure you're good to take her for a bit while we figure out where she came from?"

"Of course Lucas, it's no problem. Say hi to Bethany for me."

"I owe you one Megan. I'll be back in a few hours." She waved Lucas off and looked back to the girl, 'an interesting one I'll give her that.' She smiled warmly and approached her.

"I've got some medical supplies inside, let's get you patched up." Megan said holding out a hand. The girl nodded but didn't take the hand. Wolf circled her and nudged her forward with his nose. "This is Wolf, he seems to like you." Megan let out a small laugh as she watched the dog. The girl moved and followed Megan into the house. "Just wait here I'll go get some bandages." She nodded as Megan headed off to find the medical supplies.

Wolf sat by her side happily wagging his tail and nuzzling into her hand. She glanced at her arm and went to take off the bandage to see how bad the damage was. Someone was getting closer but the foot falls were different then Megan's.

"You!" She turned and saw the younger prince from Markovia. She took a step back and Wolf moved in front of her with a warning growl. "How are you here?" She took another step back, unsure how this would turn out in the end. She didn't want to fight at the moment considering her last fight ended with her needing stitches.

Conner heard the commotion and turned the corner so he could see what got the prince all riled. He made eye contact with the girl and one of her eyes turned red. Just like the girl at the hospital, only then it was both of her eyes. What he found odd though was Wolf, he was in front of her to defend. She closed her eyes and it looked like she was fighting something mentally. Whatever it was she might have been losing, her posture went slack and her head movements got less abrupt.

"What happened?" Megan asked as she walked in confused by what she was seeing. All of a sudden the girl grabbed her injured arm and jammed her thumb into the injury. She looked like she was screaming in pain but no sound came out. Her steps staggered, and she about fell forward unconscious. Megan caught her before she hit the ground. "What happened?"

"She's from Markovia. She was with Vertigo." Conner supplied, trying to keep the prince from killing the defenseless girl.

Megan sighed and used her telekinesis to go into her mind. She pulled out of the girls head and looked to Conner confused.

"Her mind is blank."

"Blank? How is that possible?"

"I'm not sure, but her memories don't go further back than a year." The two shared a worried look before glancing back to the injured girl. "I hope Lucas has better luck finding out who she is."

"Let's get her fixed up, we'll see if Dick can't help us out with our problem." He glanced between their two house guests.

They had a couple hours before Lucas would be back, as well as Dick and the others, so they set the girl up in a spare bedroom.

"Now you both are going to tell me what you know about her." Megan said as she closed the door, keeping Wolf out of the room.

Listening to both accounts she didn't learn much, but Dick might have further insight since he would have been there for the rescue. She got up and headed to the room she set the girl up in.

"I'm gonna try going deeper into her mind and see if I can't get a name, or something that'll help us figure out who she is."

Megan made sure to keep Wolf out of the room when she went in. She took a breath and steeled her resolve, it had been a while since she had last gone deeper into someone's head, it wasn't something she was wanting to do again.

Within the girls head she watched the few memories she had. Most of them were in the same series of rooms, all underground and labs of some sort. Vertigo was in most of them, he called her Jessibelle, but had a weird pause in the middle when he said it the first time.

A memory with Conner in a pod with a collar on caught her attention. Seeing it made her angry until she watched a little closer. Dick was there as well as a doctor, and Jessibelle was helping Conner out of the pod.

"-an old friend he called her."

With this tidbit of information she felt her hopes soar ever so slightly.

"Jess?" She unintentionally called out, she tried to look deeper into her memories but was met with a bright flash of white.

The other side of the flash was completely dark. Static was the only ambience she had as she took a step forward.

Her shoe splashed in a thin layer of liquid.

'What is this?' She wondered as she crouched down to inspect the liquid.

"Get out please. We're still trying to fix the problem." She heard a voice that was so distorted but Megan wanted to believe that it was truly Jess that had returned from the dead. "Get out or you'll get stuck too."

"What do you mean?"

"You're in tar. It'll suck you in and you'll get stuck here forever." Megan went to ask something when a memory semi materialized in the tar. It looked like the high school.

"-failed youth in this age of heroes." Megan pulled out of her head and stared at her confused.

"Jessica, what happened?" She voiced quietly. She reached down and moved a stray piece of black hair back with the rest of it.