The Universe's Mixer

Effie leaned against Hulk's fingers as they moved, clinging tightly to him so that she didn't accidently fall. She watched everything with wide eyes, studying the path they took, everything they passed. As they came up into the Opera House, she stared around, shocked at how...normal everything was, despite having a hidden world beneath it.

She would never get used to things like that.

She shifted, leaning into Hulk as if to whisper as they passed into the lobby. "Anyway you can destroy it?" she asked softly, a streak of her hidden insanity peeking out in her need for vengeance and destruction. Anything that...man liked needed to be destroyed and he felt that the opera was something close to him. "Please."

It wasn't until they were out on the street that she spoke again, staring around her, confused. "Where...are we? This isn't Gotham or New York City..." At least, not in any way that she recognized, though she could see Blackgate and Arkham in the distance. Could the man have possibly been correct? But no, because then he migh be right about other things and he wasn't.

Right?

There were more than a few ways up from Cellar 5 in the Opera House - but the main path, rife with death traps, had all but been destroyed by the large green creature that Erik knew to be the alter ego of the husband of his ex-diva -- the same ex-diva he'd rescued from incarceration with intent to set her on the path she should have been on in the first place. By the time Erik made it up to the main lobby, it was nearly 6:15 p.m., and most of the Opera House were on dinner break before the night shift.

This was, he realized as he surveyed the damage, a mercy. Perhaps none of his people had been harmed in the destruction left by the Hulk. The building itself, he knew, would mend on its own come the morning. But the people could not be mended.

He'd wrapped his bleeding torso with a long bolt of cloth, then put on a new suit. If he moved with some stiffness, surely any observers would chalk that up to his anger -- and there was a great amount of anger, when he looked at the place he'd lovingly designed and built from stone and quarry. The night shift today would have to be cancelled. It was meaningless for his workers to try to prepare for the opening night of the summer season, when the building was near impassable. Erik sent a message to his assistant, then began making calls.