Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 02:23:19 -1000 From: Kevin Matsumoto Subject: XOVER: Faith in the Breed 1/1 A Forever Knight/Watchers Crossover. OK, all of you that started the discussion of how come Nick let Perry live and why was Perry able to bring Jodi across when Nick messed up his first try, you're to blame for me getting this weird idea. :-) This is my take on what happened after the fade out in Blind Faith. I want to thank Jan Wiles for her help in beta reading this. If there are any mistakes, they're mine not hers or Rebecca's. Disclaimer: Travis Cornell, the dog Einstein and the Outsider belong to Dean Koontz. Forever Knight, Nick Knight, Natalie Lambert and Company belong to James Parriot and Sony/Tristar. No copyright Infringement Intended. This story belongs to me. Faith in the Breed. By Kevin Matsumoto & Rebecca Tanner. A Forever Knight/Watchers Crossover. Nick stared in horror at the scene before him. At first he thought that Perry had killed Jodi. Then he realized that he was sensing two vampires in front of him. Slowly Jodi opened her eyes. The last thing she remembered was the sharp pain of something piercing her neck. Now she realized that she was seeing shapes, blurry at first but gradually growing clearer. Then she made out Nick's face, with his glowing yellow eyes and fangs. She felt the fangs in her own mouth and understood immediately what had happened to her. She looked down at Perry, "Good dog," she said with a smile. Perry wuffed softly in his throat then headed for a scrabble game that lay abandoned in the corner. Nick stared as the dog spilled out the tiles and began arranging them with his nose. Nick looked at the letters, they spelled out. "We'll be fine now" "That's it," Nick muttered, "I've finally gone insane." Jodi started to laugh then doubled over. When she looked up her eyes had gone red. Nick, understanding what was going on, raced for the door. Turning to Perry he said, "Don't let her leave the apartment." Nick was out the door and in the air before he realized what he had done. "I just talked to a dog and expected it to understand me." Nick said to himself. "I need a vacation." Landing in the alley behind the Raven, Nick quickly entered the club. He headed to the bar and leaned in close to the bartender. "I need four bottles of the house special." "Why, Nicholas, have you finally decided to forgo your usual diet?" LaCroix asked as he came up behind Nick. "I am glad to see you finally embracing your true nature, but such gluttony does not become you." "It isn't for me." Nick replied. "Indeed." LaCroix looked at the four bottles that the bartender was putting into a bag. "For someone to require that much... Is it for your lovely doctor friend?" "No!" Nick snarled at LaCroix. "It's for... There's this blind woman..." "Playing doctor again? You should know by now that is a bad idea." "*I* didn't!" LaCroix looked at him. Disbelief simply oozing from every pore. "There was this dog," Nick muttered as he reached for the bag, hoping LaCroix would let it pass. "Nicholas," LaCroix frowned. "How many times must I tell you? Dogs are for breakfast, and then only in the worst of times." "Arrgh!" Nick let his forehead thump against the top of the bar. "LaCroix, please, just let me have the bottles." "Very well." LaCroix smiled at the look of total frustration on Nick's face. "But you and I are going to speak later." Nick returned to Jodi's apartment to find Perry sitting on top of Jodi, pinning her down. "Good boy," He patted Perry's head. Perry wagged his tail as he stood up. Nick opened one of the bottles and handed it to Jodi. The moment the smell of the blood reached Jodi, she snatched the bottle from Nick and drained it. In a short time, she had finished two more bottles and was resting quietly. Nick poured the last bottle into Perry's dish. Perry quickly began lapping up what Nick had poured into the bowl. Staring at Perry for the longest time, Nick finally turned back to look at the message that Perry had spelled out earlier. Picking up the apostrophe, he turned it over in his hands. "You made this yourself." he observed. The apostrophe was hand drawn on one of the blank tiles. "Uh huh," Jodi nodded. "I haven't used them since we got the computer." "What computer?" Nick looked around Jodi's apartment. "Oh, I got rid of it after the MS got bad." Jodi replied. "I couldn't read what Perry was typing and I could never figure out how to install a voice card." "Couldn't read..." Nick muttered. "He knows how to type?" A soft wuff drew Nick's attention. Walking back to the scrabble board, he looked a the new message Perry had spelled out. "A vampire that can't believe in typing dogs." Nick read out loud. "That's a little silly, don't you think?" Nick looked over at the golden retriever. "For a overgrown lump of fur, you got a real smart mouth." Jodi's laughter drew Nick's attention. "He's always been that way." "Always?" Nick asked. "I thought you got him after you lost your sight." "No," Jodi giggled. "I've had Perry since he was a puppy. Everyone thinks that I got him as a seeing eye dog, but he was sent to me by a friend of mine from college." "And he's intelligent." "Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if his IQ was higher than yours." "Where did he come from?" Nick asked. "That's a long story," Jodi replied as she bent down and scratched Perry's head. "Well, we have all the time in the world." Nick answered. "That's right, we do." Jodi smiled. "All right, pull up a chair." Nick sat down as Jodi bent over to scratch Perry's ears. "Perry isn't your average dog." Jodi began. "I never would have guessed." Nick interrupted. "It's not polite to interrupt." Perry spelled out with the tiles. Nick looked at the letters, then turned to stare at Perry. "Are you going to be doing this all night?" Jodi laughed again. "Probably," She replied. "He's typical." "For a golden retriever? Not a chance." Nick disagreed. "No, not a golden retriever." Jodi shook her head. "It's hard to explain. I guess I should start at the beginning." Jodi to a deep breath and sighed. "In the late 80's a certain part of our government authorized some morally ambiguous experiments. To be precise, they had a genetics laboratory called Banodyne create two new lifeforms." "And Perry was one of them?" Nick asked. "No," Jodi started to disagree, "well sort of. The first project was a dog. He was created to be as intelligent as a human being. The other creature was a monstrosity called the Outsider. The problem was that the Outsider hated the dog. During a fire, both animals escaped. The dog managed to evade capture. He was found by a man named Travis Cornell." "That still doesn't explain Perry." Nick interrupted. A sharp wuff caught their attention as Perry nosed the same message he has placed before. "Sorry," Nick smiled. "You were saying?" "Yes," Jodi continued. "After the dog revealed its intelligence, Travis decided to call him Einstein." "That fits," Nick agreed. Jodi stifled a giggle. "Anyway, Travis and his wife became as devoted to Einstein as Einstein was to them. They moved to avoid the agencies looking for Einstein and changed their names. Ever since then they've been slowly giving out Einstein's children to people they could trust." "And that's where Perry comes in." Nick understood. Jodi smiled. "Well, his name wasn't always Perry, Einstein has this thing about cartoons and there was no way I was going to go around with a dog named Daffy. So we compromised on a name we could both live with." "Perry," Nick nodded. He turned to look at Perry. "So why did you attack that officer?" Perry looked embarrassed and slowly nosed some tiles into place. "I was still trying to cope. I lost it when I thought he had hurt Jodi." "Been there." Nick agreed. "So what are you going to do now?" "Leave town." Jodi said softly, "They'd just try to take Perry away again. Besides there's nothing here for me now." "Well I have a friend named Aristotle that can help you get set up wherever you want to go first." Nick picked up the phone. "Thanks Nick." Jodi smiled up at him. Inside the elevator to the loft, Natalie was listening in disbelief as Nick tried to explain what really happened. "It's really simple Nat. Perry brought Jodi across before I got there. Technically he is Jodi's master but since he's used to listening to Jodi I don't think there's going to be any problem with that. Besides Perry said..." "Whoa, hold on." Natalie interrupted. "Perry said? The dog talks?" "Not exactly," Nick tried to explain. "He spells things out with scrabble tiles." "The dog reads and writes?" Natalie started to shake her head. "Nick, I think you might need some time off." "I don't need time off, Nat." Nick smiled. "It's..." Nick's voice broke off as the elevator door opened and he saw a golden retriever sitting there. Natalie walked over to get a closer look at the dog. Slowly the dog sniffed her hand then licked it. "Hello fella," Natalie gently scratched the dogs head. "What's your name?" The dog walked over to the couch and picked up a small envelope. Returning to Natalie, he placed the envelope in her hand. Natalie opened the envelope and started reading. She turned to Nick. "According to this, his name is Genie and someone named Travis sent him to stay with you." "No," Nick said to Genie, "not a chance." Ignoring Nick, Genie walked over to Nick's laptop and began typing. Natalie read what was on the screen outloud "Daffy said you needed a friend who understood what you were, so here I am." Natalie straightened up and headed for the door. "Nick, I'm going home, taking a long hot bubble bath and I'm going to try to forget this ever happened." Nick stared as Natalie left without another word. Turning to glare at the dog, he almost smiled at the apologetic look on the dog's face. "OK," Nick gave in. "You can stay, but we have to find a better name for you." "Great." Genie typed. "Got any weenies?" The end. A little background. Watchers is an excellent book written by Dean Koontz, about a genetically engineered dog. It was made into two decent movies and one total bomb :). I was reading all the posts on the newsgroup and the mail list about Perry and just started thinking the obvious answer was that Perry was smarter than Nick :=). And if you think this one is weird you should the bits and pieces of the FK/KtE Xover that I've managed to write down. Comments can be made to kevinm@pixi.com, All comments welcome, constructive criticisms will be accepted with gratitude, Compliments with stunned silence and Flames Grudgingly ignored.:-) Kevin Matsumoto Kevinm@pixi.com If you love something let it go, If it doesn't come back Hunt it down and kill it. |The NightCrawler Visit my homepage at http://www.pixi.com/~kevinm