The Universe's Mixer

Beretta? Check. Silver bullets? Check. Knife? Check. Flask with holy water? Check and double check. ID…? Sam ran through the mental checklist, making certain each item was physically accounted for and on his person before taking further stock of his surroundings. At first glance, it appeared to be a normal studio apartment, in a normal city, but the longer he was there, the more it felt like something was off--only he couldn‘t quite put his finger on it. All he knew was that it was giving him flashbacks to the time the Trickster had stuck him in an endless loop of Tuesdays.

He'd checked his cupboards--or rather, the cupboards in the apartment he'd woken up in that morning,seemingly at random--hoping for salt.  Rock salt would be ideal, but even table salt would do--and sure enough--he found a canister of the latter above and to the side of the stove, as well as a bag of the former under the sink. Just like the doctor ordered. Only he told himself it was probably left over from winter...or something. He opened the fridge/freezer with the thought that he should find something non-greasy and hopefully non-disgusting--like waffles--to eat, and there was a box of Eggos. He shut the door, his brow furrowed. He opened the refrigerator door again, deliberately thinking about maple syrup. The real stuff, not Mrs. Butterworth's. There it was. Coincidence? He shut the door again. It had to be. It only made sense that someone would have syrup to go with their waffles. Right?

“Come on, Sam,“ he muttered to himself as he stepped outside, “What is wrong with this picture?” Maybe he would find someone on the street who could tell him where the hell he was.

The assignments had stopped coming. Handler left her alone. But the dying and coming back thing... that kept happening.

She wasn't a recluse, but Aeon had learned to stay off the radar. She learned to stay out of the paths of people like River Tam and Hannibal Lecter. People like Dexter, too... she had a good idea what kind of guy he was.

She did wonder if Dean was alright, but self-preservation came first, for now.

This was why when a note appeared in her mailbox saying there was a new assignment, Aeon was both shocked and confused. This was not Handler's doing... but it could be The City's. Or, for that matter, anyone who really had a bone to pick with someone else here.

That didn't narrow it down.

The assassin went to the place specified in the note to meet with whoever it was that wanted her services. She sat now in a cold room with one-way glass, watching the door.

Ready.

She'd kind of missed this.

When the door swung inward, Aeon smiled.

Schmendrick was older than he looked, and he'd seen a lot of weird things in his day. Perhaps that was why, as a wave of swooning romantic sentiment overtook the City, he went casually about his routine as if nothing were off. He purchased a coffee at the corner store, picked up a newspaper, and made his way into the park to find a bench and start his morning. The quiet flipping of pages was interrupted only occasionally, when the tall hook-nosed man glanced up to watch clingy couples walk by.

For a showman, Schmendrick had always been a restrained sort when it came to romance. Youth had long since passed him by, and while he was earnest, he wasn't effusive. Perhaps that's why the couples made him smile; just because the sentiment behind Valentine's Day was no longer new and fresh for him didn't mean that he couldn't appreciate the joy of others.

He folded his paper. He wasn't likely to get much reading done with the City in such a worked-up state.

Aeon Flux sat slumped--and dead-- in a bench at the bus station.

During the zombie siege, the bus station had been fairly safe. No buses were running, no one was there... it was a good place for a last stand. And the last stand after that... and the one after that...

Aeon had died at the hands of the horde more than six times.

When she woke up, she was going to be pissed.

Now, though, the morning commuters were filtering past, and Aeon came back to herself, sitting ramrod straight on the bench, eyes widening.

She rolled her eyes.

"...yay," she said.

Oh this was just too good. A better situation could be planned like this. After one but got another in bonus. It was too perfect. From body language as I watched one couldn't mistake he thought she did it and she probably thought the same of him. Wouldn't it be a surprise to them both that they were wrong?

One good shot would have been nice but complicated. The moment had to be right.

He left and the moment was right. She stood in the room alone now. It was time.

Ready
Aim.


Fire.

The shot was good and the scope moved down.

Waiting.
Planning.

He exited out onto the sidewalk and footsteps barely started when the action was repeated.

Ready.
Aim.


Fire.

Quick.
Hide.
Run.
Escape.



The City is appeased.

Dexter had two people on his list.

Two people who he knew it could be. Three, if he included himself, and he couldn't really take himself off that list yet, because of the recent dealings with that fucking knife. There was no way he could be absolutely sure that he wasn't blacking out and doing these things, except for the fact that this wasn't really his style, and according to his timecard, he'd been at work for at least one of the killings.

That, and he'd never harm an animal.

One of the dead was a cat.

One of the people was in the hospital, impossible to get to. Dexter wouldn't be able to get his hands on Hannibal Lecter until the kid walked outside. In the mean time, he was going to have a conversation with the other.

He'd met her only once. But he'd known then what she was. Mostly because she'd told him. These murders needed to stop, one way or the other.

Dexter stalked her through the streets, half sure that she knew he was there. It didn't matter though, if she did or not. She would slip up eventually, and that's when he'd be there, ready.

Of course, it took her quite a while to slip. To become too comfortable with her surroundings. To let her guard down. It happened inside of an apartment. She stopped being Super Spy Girl and started acting like she belonged where she was. Which meant this was likely her home. Or the home of somebody she knew very well. He climbed in through a back window and moved through the space with absolutely no sound. He was hunting.

She passed by and it was perfection. She was in his arms, a twitch and pressure would stop her ability to breathe and blood flow to her brain. He had his own arm caught with his hand, and was limber enough to have a needle just barely breaking the skin at the same time.

"What are you doing?" His voice was low, close to her ear. After he said it, he realized he might not have been entirely clear in his meaning.

How had he agreed to this?

How had this seemed like it would ever be a good idea? Somebody after a meeting had told him they had a perfect match for him, and he'd said -rather offhandedly- Yeah, sure, set it up, and then he'd completely forgotten about it. He'd put it out of his mind.

Then, two weeks later, he'd gotten a phone call which he'd promptly forgotten about. But then this morning, his secretary had reminded him of the date. That he was to meet the young lady out front of some Italian place. That he needed to wear a blue tie and bring exactly three orange poppies so that he would be easily spotable.

This was rediculous.

The only reason that he was here now was because he didn't want the poor young lady, whomever she was, to feel badly. He didn't want her to think that it was something to do with her, rather than the fact that Bruce just didn't date.

He really needed to find a way to let her down easily. Whoever she was.

Aeon was standing behind him, utterly immobile and soundless.

The man, the mark sat on the bench in front of her, calmly and placidly.

His name was John Coffey.

And Aeon Flux had been handed quite the wad of cash to erase him from The City. She didn't know why, and she didn't much care, either.

Look where questions had gotten her last time.

She tilted her head, thoughtfully, as though contemplating the best way to pursue this... this ending of a life. She was soundless, and with her left hand, she slid the safety off the gun that she probably would not need.

...someone call the ambulance,
there's gonna be an accident...
I'm coming up on infrared,
there is nobody who can hide you
'cause I can see in the dark...

She sort of knew she shouldn't have taken the job.

It should've been enough, the torture at Hannibal's hands, the loss of Handler, all of it. Finding Dean and a new vocation should've been enough. River Tam killing her should've been enough.

But money was money.

The number she'd said had been huge for a reason; Aeon didn't think The Suit would fork that over. But he had. And now she had a new mark.

He wasn't a hard man to track.

For starters, he was... well, huge. And strange. And he had power. Aeon knew that. If he didn't have power, no one would want him killed.

She'd followed him for a day, and she knew, by rote, where he went and when he went there. She knew everything.

It was her job to know.

She leaned back against the wall and shut her eyes as he walked past, this time, armed to the teeth but pretty sure she did not need to be for this assignment.

This might be far too easy.

It left Dr Schreber, still wearing the body that it had created. Walking to where it wanted to go was an unusual thing, and The City reveled a little in the simplicity of it. Just walking. Just being one of the people wandering the streets. Pretending.

Of course, it wasn't about to just wander until it found who it was looking for. It shifted the streets to suit itself until he was face to face with the black haired woman who he sought. Making it's trip very short indeed.

"Miss Flux." It called out in a bland, ordinary tone. Knowing that it would get her attention no matter what. She had too much ability to leave a stranger who knew her name ignored.

The City stood, it's hands in it's suit pockets, looking as casual as it could manage considering it had never done such a thing before.

OOC: Set after this.

The leprechaun known as Mad Sweeney was well and truly drunk. There was no argument. None from any in the part he patroned other than from the bartender who wasn't about to give the towering red-head anything further to drink, regardless of how belligerent he became. Sweeney did something a touch unexpected he assumed, instead of picking a fight with the man who had provided the intoxicating beverage thus far, he took to song. "Here's a Health to the Company... and One to my Lass..."

He stumbled a bit toward the door, not taking more than a moment's care that he had knocked into a few fellow patrons and toppled a chair over in the process. "Let us drink and be merry all out of one glass..." Sweeney's words slurred together making an already unpleasant singing voice even worse.

At that, his songs started to jumble together. "Let us drink and be merry, cuz there's whiskey in the jar... Oh Danny boy!!" Voice loud an obnoxious, the leprechaun stumbled into the street and took an immediate right. In his drunkenness, his feet more of shuffled along rather than actually stepped in any which direction. It was a hobble, a stumble... perhaps a swagger. It was anything but graceful.

"Oh Danny boy! I love you... oof." There was something on the ground. Something that in his towering height, Sweeney completely missed. It was a blockage of some sort, something not quite alive.

At least not anymore. "What's this?"

He bent over, tumbling to the sidewalk in the process and gripping the concrete with one hand (in case he fell off the earth) he used the other to feel just what it was he had tripped over. Human form... Female human form. Eyes squinting and fighting to focus, he stared blankly at the body that had tripped him. Was it dead? Probably since it hadn't made any sort of noise over a gangly beast of a man tripping over her. The hand pawed around just a bit, looking for a vein the neck.

Dead. There was no pulse.

"Oh gross, man. Nasty." Sweeney backed away, not at all entranced about happening upon a corpse.

What Hannibal Lecter (yes, Lestat had kept tabs despite his promise not to. Of course he had) had done to Aeon Flux was a thing that fell into several categories, as far as the vampire could tell.

One: It was torture. Lestat never really went in for torture. At least, not the outright kind. Two: It was methodical, and planned thoroughly--two things the vampire was incapable of. Three: It was cruel. Cruel in a way that made Lestat think of himself as a younger fiend... and this was not necessarily a good thing. Four: It was absolutely and entirely unconscionable.

( Lestat approved entirely. )

Selina sat at the coffee shop staring into space. Things has been quiet since the initial turmoil in The City. People had disappeared again, not that this was new, but the mass disappearance was rather queer. She put her hands around her mug, the warmth of the coffee was transfered into her hands and relaxed her.

Everyone seemed to have disappeared. She hadn't found Dexter, although to be honest, she hadn't tired that hard. There had also been no sign of Bruce for a while. And to top it off, buildings were still moving and adjusting, so her nocturnal roaming had been cut off, at least until things settled down a bit more.

She sighed deeply. Selina needed something to do.

She continued her musings and slowly sipped her coffee.

Aeon Flux was not afraid of anything... except, inexplicably, plastic straws. And when she set her mind to something (or more precisely, to eradicating someone), it was done. Some time ago, she decided to look into this Crossroads thing. Look into the demon that Dean was talking about owing his soul to.

She wasn't after silver bullets just for kicks. And she wasn't stupid enough to think they were all that she'd need, either. Shacking up with a Winchester had benefits that extended beyond the bedroom; Aeon was learning--and fast-- how to fight all the things that went bump in the night.

Aeon summoned the demon the way she knew it was done-- a picture of yourself, the bones of a black cat... she even fell down on her knees at the crossroads (on the opposite side of town from her apartment, not far from Arkham Asylum) and buried all the pieces of the puzzle, disturbing a chunk of asphalt to do it. ( She stood now, arms crossed over her chest, a gun on her hip and a gun on her back, waiting for the demon to appear. )

The problem with Aeon's life was simple: she went through ammo like other people went through sliced bread, or tissues.

After getting Dean out of his most recent mess, which was (happily) a couple days ago now, the Monican realized she had not even tried to get any new weapons or any new ammunition since she'd been in The City.

Well.

That was gonna have to change, wasn't it?

She was out this afternoon with the intention of finding some new stuff, beyond all the cool gadgets she already had. Standard issue .38 caliber bullets were on the menu, definitely. She ducked into a sporting goods store without a sound, bright green eyes darting around the room and settling, with a little bit of surprise, on a small, dark-haired woman waiting at the counter. It looked, from back here, like the woman's arms were covered in scars.

Huh.

Aeon stepped further into the store, silent, and when she came to a stop, her hands remained at her sides. There was a gun on her back, one on her thigh, and that ring on her finger that served her so well when everything else did not. If you knew what you were looking for, you saw the guns; if you didn't, your eyes slid right past them. No tight black outfit today, just jeans and a fitted black shirt. Long sleeved.

The woman standing there was armed, too. Aeon smirked. This store might not be big enough for the both of them.

Somehow, this whole city rearranging itself thing didn't impress Aeon.

What did was the fact that she hadn't died this week. Not even once. Not even close.

She'd woken up in an empty apartment, dressed, armed herself, and gone out to see how things had changed. Every step, she expected another manhole cover to be open and swallow her up, snapping her neck. That had been fun enough the first time around. Twice would be pushing it.

This place couldn't stay put. Aeon kind of liked that. There were skyscrapers now where there had been trees the day before. The view had changed from her front door. Aeon smiled, a dark smile, a satisfied smile. Things got boring when they didn't change.

She let out a low whistle, one that denoted her being impressed. And she stepped down onto the sidewalk firmly, black boot hitting somehow without a sound.

She walked down the street like she owned it, and she stopped when she felt someone following her. Stopped in her tracks, hand sliding down her thigh toward her gun.

"Two steps," Aeon said, voice harsh. "To your right."

And into her field of peripheral vision.