This is a short piece I did at one time for a backstory. I am not sure if it will ever get into the main story, but at times, I just need some fun. Take it as it is and don't get canon on me. What it is is just an idea.
Her name was Mina Jackson; he got that from the registrar's office. He had seen her several times from a distance, crossing the quad. Walking was something she did with a grace he hadn't believed was possible. Today she was wearing a bright red sweater that set off the raven black of her hair. Even from so far away; he could taste her on his mind.
Joe Walsh leaned against the tree and watched as Mina walked past. He was looking down at the ground when something thumped him in the shoulder. He looked up into the tree and saw skinny white legs hanging off the lowest branch.
"Talk to her, idiot." The whisper drifted down; followed immediately by a thin gangly woman with platinum hair and violet eyes.
"I don't know how, Rowan." He sighed.
"It's easy." you say "Hi! My name is Joe."
"Give it a rest, it is not that easy."
"Yeh, so says the big bad wolf."
He reached out then and tried to grab her. She did what looked like a physically impossible flip and was out of his way.
"Dammit! Rowan."
"Sure, like I'm sure someone heard me. Are you coming to my match?"
"Just what I need? Exactly who are you massacring today?"
"Just some hot shot senior who has a (wooooo, she waved her arms through the air) black belt in some really deadly martial art."
"Someday you are going to meet someone better."
"Been there, done that. Shigeta doesn't compete any more. I think he is probably the only one on the planet good enough to kick my ass."
"Fine! You lead and I'll follow."
Rowan Michaels laughed then, and started across the lawn. "As usual." She said, under her breath.
"I heard that." Joe yelled, and then took off after her.
"Knew you would." She replied and lengthened her stride to stay ahead of him.
They both burst though the doors of the gymnasium together, leaning over and huffing slightly and laughing.
"I'll beat you yet." Joe grinned at her and went to the bleachers.
"Not today, old man." She teased as she went to get dressed.
Today was not a formal tournament, just fun. Several of the students at Spencer's were proficient in different arts. It was their habit to have a hands-on practice every Saturday afternoon. This was Rowan's favorite exercise and Joe's favorite spectator sport.Today there were a few new faces. Word gets around. Rowan as good as she was always had some jock from somewhere else trying to clean her clock. It had become a favorite pastime. For the last four years, more than one of her close friends had made money on her.
The thing is, Rowan looks delicate, gauche, and fragile. The fact that she had been training in an assortment of martial arts since she could walk is not apparent by her exterior. People underestimated her. It is a good thing she has the honor of a Samurai, the patience of a saint, and the sense of humor of stand-up comedian. In any less capable hands, her skills would be deadly.
Today as she walked up to the ring, Vincent Nateland was waiting in the center. He was wearing a shabby gi, one that she knew he had had for years. She also knew if he was wearing it, he was serious.
She stepped up to him and bowed slightly.
"Vince."
"Rowan."
"Thought I had a different match today. Some one named Matt."
"You do. Humor me. I need exercise."
She stood and looked at him. He was her oldest and closest friend. Being the youngest students at school, they had several of the same classes. Rowan was studying medicine while Vince was studying cybernetics, they both had archeology together. Though Vince was not in the same league as Rowan, they sparred often and knew each others movements well.
It started easy, a little Kung Fu, some Jujitsu. Then Vince started to pick up the pace. He put her through every form he knew, knowing all the while, she knew them better than he. It took thirty minutes before she finally got the drop on him. She used an ancient move straight out of Southern Shaolin and got inside his defenses. This time when he got up, he held his hands out in front of him.
"That was incredibly sneaky." He said. Then he laughed.
"Left your self wide open. Sorry."
"I'm not. That was great. Got you warmed up for Mr. (I have a black belt) Matt."
"We'll see." She answered.
It hadn't escaped her notice that a tall, bulky man of somewhere around twenty or so was watching her match. She picked up a towel and turned her back to him to talk to Vince.
"Were you trying to scare him?"
"Not really. I do think that idiots should be given a chance to back out."
"You don't think much of him?"
"He cheats, he's over confidant, and doesn't think there's a woman in the world as good as he is."
"So?"
"So I thought it only fair to give him a demo, before you got at him."
"Fine!" She pushed her hair off her face. "I think."
She turned then and faced her new opponent. Matt Sheldon was six feet four and weighed in at two hundred and forty pounds, not an ounce of it fat. They looked like a terribly mismatched pair. Rowan was six feet tall but so impossibly thin she was lucky on a good day if she topped a buck sixty, soaking wet. The only thing that betrayed her, were her wrists. An observant person would notice her wrists seemed thick compared to the rest of her build. Matt Sheldon was NOT an observant person.
They bowed to each other and stood off at opposite edges. Matt took a tiger stance and snapped a left hook at Rowan's head. It wasn't there. He tried a sweep and she danced out of his way. She stood off with her left side to him and waited. He came like a truck and at the last moment, dropped his shoulder and caught her in the midsection.
He expected her to fly outside the ring; she flipped a little to the left and landed crouched on the mat.
"I don't play football." She told him.
"Too bad." He laughed at her." Looks like you could use some new moves."
The next move he tried was still the linebacker sort of crap that every big bulky human on earth tries on someone they think is softer or easier.
This time Rowan caught him on the jaw and dropped him on the mat. She leaned over him and whispered.
"Said I didn't play football. Never said I didn't know how."
His reaction was anger. He reached up and grabbed her hair and was fixing to drive her face into his knee, his fingers tingled and he was looking at empty space.
He looked around and she was standing a few feet away, winding her hair up in a knot.
"That was not nice." She smiled.
Matt Sheldon was not used to being second to anyone. His family was well off and had sent him to every lesson or training he was interested in or he thought was cool. No girl was going to get the best of him. Matt didn't know how wrong he was. Though Rowan Michaels looked like a girl; young, fresh, fragile, she was anything but. This year she would graduate with her MD, that would make 27 degrees under her belt; second only to Vince, who had 29. She also had been studying martial arts for as long as she could remember. The years had provided a lot of learning and her teacher, Shigeta was not only a well renowned master but a member of her family.
Matt stood up a faced her. Rowan could tell that if it didn't end quickly, it would end badly. She waited calmly for him, watched his face go through several expressions then as he came at her, side stepped and punched him squarely on the chest. She softened the blow at the last minute so she wouldn't kill him, but he still went down like a stone.
She stood there and looked down at him. She hated bullies, and she had the impression that what Matt Sheldon was. She wondered if he had a reputation for picking on little kids in school. She shook her head and walked away. Matt Sheldon was no longer her problem.
Severn's Place was a local hangout that students went to that didn't much care for Mickey D's or KFC. Severn's was cheap and good. Students could come and study, eat, shoot pool or just hang out. There was always music and dancing when the mood struck.
Tonight, Severn's was jumping. There was a band up on the stage and the air was thick with steak, onions, and barbque. It was a great place to relax in. Rowan was just sitting down; Vince had ordered her a Coke, when one of the band members came over.
"Rowan."
She looked up from the table and smiled, "Hey Jake. How's it going?"
"Mason's sick. Can you play with us for a bit?"
Rowan looked around the table. All her friends knew that next to fighting, music was her second love.
"Go, Row." Joe told her.
"In a minute Jake, Ok?"
"Sure, when you're ready."
Rowan sat there and scanned the crowd; she was looking for some one in particular. Finally, the door opened and Mina walked in. The change in the room was immediate. Men openly gawked, women tended to draw inwards and Joe? The look on Joe's face was worth everything.
"Excuse me." Rowan spoke to the table in general, "I'll be back."
Mina stood just inside the door. She was fairly sure that this was a bad idea; but Rowan had asked, so she had come.
Rowan walked through the crowded room and stood in front of Mina. "You came."
"You asked." Mina looked around the room, for a moment, Rowan though she might bolt. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled like sapphires. The atmosphere in the bar glimmered with unseen electricity.
"I want you to meet some friends of mine."
Mina followed Rowan back to the table. Every man looked at the two women and every woman frowned. Rowan sat her next to Joe. Joe looked at her with panic starting to rise in his eyes. "Row?" he started.
"I going to play, ya'll get acquainted." She left them and went to the band stand.
Rowan closed her eyes and let the music flow. She liked playing with Jake and his group. Tonight she was playing drums, but more often she played bass. Tonight Jake started out with Van Morrison's Wild Night and it only got better from there, when they broke at nine, Rowan's hair was soaked and her face flushed from exertion.
She went back to the table and sat down between Vince and Mina.
As soon as Rowan sat, a waitress brought her food. Rowan was never much on subtleties and when she ate, she ate. When she had finished, she stacked the plate and silverware for the waitress and turned to her friends.
"I take you have been getting acquainted?"
Mina flushed scarlet red and Joe looked out the window. "Sort of." She murmured.
Rowan looked from one to the other. She had known them both for a long time. Though Mina could easily pass for twenty or twenty-one, Rowan knew she was older, much older. Joe? Well Joe was older than he looked too.
"You know I have had enough of you two." She said, pushing her chair out, she stood up.
"Mina you have wanted to talk to Joseph here for as long as I've known you. Joe you are just as bad. She walks into a room and if you could find a hole, you'd crawl into it. The two of you need to get your shit together. I am about to loose my patience."
"Rowan, don't." Joe pleaded.
"Please, don't" Mina added.
"Don't what? This is how it is. I love you both. I have known you both almost as long as I have known everyone else at this table." She paused for a second to let her words seep in. Vince leaned back on his chair, raising the front two legs off the floor. Lily and Hawk leaned forward a bit and gazed up into Rowan's face
"So here goes. Miss Mina Jackson, I would like you to meet Miss Lily Ryan, Lily is a wizard and could seriously turn you into any number of humble critters." Lily smiled at Joe and Mina. Holding her hand out flat on the table, she conjured the vision of a stag running through a forest glen. She grinned and let the vision fade.
"I would like you to meet Michael Hawk. Hawk is the last shaman of his tribe and I don't think thunder and lightning are beyond him." Hawk flicked his fingers and a bit of electricity flew from his thumb to his fore finger. "Hawk is also a were, bear, by nature." Hawk ginned again and his hand turned into a fuzzy, clawed apparition.
"I would like you to meet Vincent Nateland, Vince turn it on for Mina." Mina looked at Vince and his skin began to shimmer an iridescent purple and his eyes changed from blue to silver. "Vince is what you would call an elf."
"You all know who and what I am, I'm not going to change here, just to keep the locals happy." Rowan was a true shape shifter of Fae descent, but she did drop the mask for just a moment and let the Fae show.
"Now to the last two, Miss Mina (vampire) Jackson, I would like you to meet Mr. Joseph (werewolf) Walsh." She whispered to the table and sat back down.
Mina and Joe just stared at each other. Then they laughed, and then they took turns hugging Rowan.
"Now that that is done; I'm going to go play bass." Rowan slipped from them and walked back to the stage.
At the table, people looked at each other. "Vince, you knew?" Joe asked.
"Not all of it." He told them, "But yeh, most of it."
They quieted as Rowan stepped up to the microphone with the guitar in her hands. Her voice was clear and soothing, it flowed around and through. The strains making everyone feel just a little better, a little saner. Her fingers worked the strings and she coaxed sounds that normally only come from classical guitar. Vince looked at her friends.
"You're privileged tonight." He told them "This is Rowan's fairy magic and few people ever get to hear it."
Later as they sat around and talked Mina looked at Rowan, "How did you wind up with all of us?"
"Well I'm not only a shifter of fae heritage, I am also a shadow walker."
Joe looked at her, "I didn't think there were very many of you out there."
Rowan shrugged, "There aren't. Maybe a couple of dozen walkers, less shape shifters. I am probably the only fairy on the planet who is also a shapeshifter. Hawk walks, so does Lily. Then there is my mother, who, curse the universe, thought I needed a more shall we say social life ?"
Mina shook her head, "What are the odds? A vamp, two weres one of whom is a wizard, an elf, a shape shifter/fae and a witch. Three of whom are walkers in the same place, at the same time."
"Slim." Rowan told her, "Now I've got to ask, do any of you know the Guardians?"
Rowan looked at all their faces. No one looked surprised at the question. It also seemed no one wanted to go first.
"I opened this can of worms, so I guess I'll go first. Any one but me know Phena, Charday, or Isis?"
Mina raised her hand a bit, "I know Charlie, met her in France, 1789."
Joe nodded too "I know Morgan, Charlie's daughter, I met her in England 1576."
The others around the table looked at the two. Rowan sniffed at Joe, "Old man." She whispered. "I have met all three. Phena is my grandmother and her brother Gabel, my great grandfather"
Vince nodded, "Me too. All three. Different times, different places."
Lily looked on, sighed, and said, "My mother is Morgan's daughter."
Michael looked at them all them grinned, "My grandmother is Isis."
These are the first six.
Over years they expand to become twelve.
They are The Weird Bunch.