The Universe's Mixer

Rufio had come to a bit of a rut. The days were all starting to bleed together and leave him with little to nothing new or exciting to do, and he didn't see Megan or Red enough to fill in the hole the rest of the time fell into.

He'd taken to messing around on the streets, but found that as he looked older more people seemed to be intolerant of his presence. Maybe growing up meant you really couldn't be different looking. After trading foul words with an old man he'd been called a deli-something and told to "get a job", and that had made him think.

Megan had a job. Annie, the girl who'd given him Buzzer, had a job. Maybe Red had a job, he didn't know. But they didn't seem to be bad things, and they kept people busy.

So the rapidly-turning-not youth had set about the city on his skateboard, exploring and looking at what people did here. There was no end of really boring looking jobs, from working in stores to garbage men, guys who drove trucks and carried heavy things around all day.

There were the weird looking jobs he heard about, like the people who had super powers and weren't well liked by the City (though the Mayor seemed to like the one girl, Rufio hadn't missed noticing his arch enemy's picture in the paper). But Rufio didn't really think he should be in that, either. Not when he still couldn't fly or find Toot Toot.

There were doctors (boring) and repairmen (it was more fun to break stuff than fix it) and one guy who would stand by the fountain all day and fish out the garbage and leaves that fell in it. There were the guys who pushed hot dog and ice cream carts around, but Rufio would rather eat those things than sell them.

After a while, licking an ice cream cone and walking down the street, Rufio thought the only job that seemed like fun was already taken by the girl who walked other people's dogs around. They'd been great fun, but then he found out he'd have to pick up thier poop and the position lost most of its appeal.

Frustrated the spikey haired youth considered giving up when he heard sirens. He blinked, ready to run, but the cop car passed by him swiftly, heading to a small restaurant. Rufio dropped his cone and scrambled up onto a dumpster, jumping up onto a fire escape just to be sure they wouldn't come after him anyway, then crouched down to watch the officers as they ran in. The uniformed cops soon emerged, each holding two different men who were beaten up and trying to lunge at each other. Rufio let out a low whistle as the police threw them against the car and cuffed them, and a crowd filtered out of the restaurant to watch.

Then it struck Rufio. Maybe he could be a cop. He liked to fight, after all, and driving around looked like fun. Sure, most of the cops here were stupid and useless, but Rufio could be the first good one, maybe. It would definitely be fun to beat up bad guys all day.

He wondered how somebody became a cop, and pondered the matter as he continued to watch the two officers and their suspects.

She probably should have expected to be fired when she made an entire coffee shop full of people hallucinate and took off with no notice. It still stung, though.

Megan let herself have one day of full-time moping, where she didn't even change out of her PJs and bathrobe and ate cereal and ice cream and watched movies. It didn't really make her feel better, and the sugary cereal and ice cream made her feel sick at the end of the day, so one day was really all that was needed.

What she really needed, she decided, was to actually cheer up. With friends. A friend. She hadn't seen Rufio in a while, since she'd been busy with work, but--well, it wasn't like that was a worry right now, was it? Fanged sniffy guys, on the other hand, were. She doused herself with Febreze just in case and teleported from her living room to Rufio's fort.

"Hello?" she called the second she was fully there. Outside, because she didn't want to just 'port directly into somebody's house with no notice. She knocked on the door. "Rufio? Are you home?"

Rufio crouched on a fire escape over looking one of the busier streets of the City. He'd found it a bit disconcerting when the buildings stopped moving and everybody started setting up routine methods of travel, but everybody else seemed pleased by the change. Still, it felt far too permanent the way it was now. Rufio didn't like it.

The growing boy dangled his legs over the side of the fire escape, leaning through the bars and watching the dull crowds at the end of the work day. Sunset would come very soon, and then he may be more inclined to get up and find something to do, but for now he was content eating a bag of potatoe chips and ocassionally dropping a water balloon on a passerby from the small box sitting next to him. That was always good for a laugh.

After her visit with the mayor--okay, if she was being perfectly honest with herself it was more like after being caught spying on the mayor--Megan had things to do and questions to ask. She'd need to find these J-whatsit people Mayor Heart had mentioned if they had powers because she needed to find out more about what things were like here for others like her outside of the six-block radius she'd been mostly sticking to for home and work.

Also, and top on her list, she needed to find Rufio again. She'd almost accidentally ratted him out. Stupid big-mouthed Megan. She flushed almost as pink as her hair at the thought of it as she flew along, high up in the air. But she might have got some information, provided it could be trusted, and if she could just talk to Rufio she might be able to piece together a better picture and maybe figure out what to do.

God, she hated being the one in charge of figuring plans out. She wished any of her teammates from back home were here to think things over and just tell her what to do. Ugh.

Megan kept an eye out for what she'd remembered about Rufio's fort-building-house-thingy: that it had a hole in the roof and a painting of a tree. It took the better part of the rest of her afternoon, but she found it, tree and all.

He'd said something about the hole in the roof and traps, hadn't he? She couldn't remember if it had been go in or don't go in, and decided to play it safe. She landed on the roof with a thump--flying all afternoon almost nonstop was tiring--and peered in to yell. "Rufio? It's Megan. Are you home?"

It had been a quiet night. Rufio was up in the rafters, staring through a small hole in the ceiling at the stars. He couldn't fly anymore, the pixie dust had worn off, but he wasn't so upset about it. There were fun enough things on the ground. All he was really worried about would be if he saw Megan flying up somewhere and he wouldn't be able to catch up to her.

It was late, far too late for anybody regular and boring to be around when he heard something happening in the back, in the cold room with the carts and moving boxes. He'd painted over some the 'LO' and 'G' letters and dubbed that region of the warehouse "ADIN BAY", but in truth he never really went back there. Just set a few of traps; nets and paint bombs and a few nasty spring traps that were so well hidden Rufio sometimes forgot where they were, and didn't like to go back there without being able to float.

There were big metal doors separating that from his painted, festive piece of Neverland, but right inside the doors of his home the traps were dense it was impossible to make it through without setting off something, by land or by air, and each one was meant to disorient the victim. Once you fell in one even if you managed to free yourself you'd most likely walk straight into another.

( And now there were sounds back there... loud sounds. Harsh sounds. Metal on metal and the big doors were shaking. )

Charlie had been right. All Annie had needed to do was look and there were things there. First a set of keys, and then the phone. Though, the phone had been where the set of keys had taken her. Or, more where the streets had taken her after she'd discovered the keys. Which had been an odd experience in and of itself.

Her keys opened a store called Fixit, which happened to have a small apartment above it. A place to live. A shop of her own. A shop of her own? Annie didn't know if she was ready for that kind of responsibility, but she supposed that she didn't have much of a choice in the matter. It was hers.

The best part, though, was that the place was filled with things that made her happy. Machine parts, computers, computer parts. Everything that Annie loved was sitting right there in the store. And everything that could greeted her as she walked in. That made her smile a lot. She felt like she fit right in immediately. She felt at home.

And then the phone, that had been sitting on a table in the apartment. The thing was pretty amazing. It was a tiny computer that fit into the palm of her hand. It was advanced even for what she was used to. The thing was everything one would need in a computer, but small enough to fit into a pocket. She loved it.

She was busy playing with it while standing at the counter in the shop, her shop, when the bell above the door rang. Annie couldn't quite tear herself away from the thing, she glanced up and saw red and black hair but that was about it.

The last thing Jo remembered was resting her head on her mom's shoulder. She had been exhausted and she knew she had fought the good fight. She was just going to close her eyes for a few minutes, and open them again when the hounds came. She wasn't going to let her mom face the hounds alone.

When she did open her eyes, however, she wasn't in a hardware store. In fact, the first thing she noticed was that she could feel her legs again. Then there was the smell. Wood paneling mixed with stale cigarette smoke and whiskey. Home.

Her eyes darted around the room as her surroundings started to sink in. She was lying on a floor. A bar floor, to be exact. She turned her head ever so slightly, instantly recognizing the counter at the Roadhouse.

The Roadhouse? Jo frowned. The Roadhouse had been destroyed almost three years ago. It couldn't be.

She sat up slowly, her head spinning ever so slightly but otherwise feeling a whole lot better than she had just an hour ago. Her hands went to her neck, feeling not a gaping wound but the slightest outline of a scar. She lifted the bottom of her shirt and looked down at her side. More scars. Just barely ridged and faded as though she'd had years to heal. Or as though her injuries hadn't been that bad to begin with.

Her eyes closed again as she tried not to think about the memory of the hound's teeth tearing into her. Of the numbness that started to spread, dulling out the intense pain. The feeling of the life slowly draining out of her.

"The other side?" she wondered out loud, her throat dry and cracking on the words.

If it was, well, she wouldn't have expected to end up at the Roadhouse. As much as it had been her home, she'd also fought tooth and nail to get out of it. Then again, with everything she'd learned about angels over the last two years, she wouldn't put it past Heaven to not quite be all it was cracked up to be.

Rufio left the hospital still a bit dizzy from giving his blood to the doctor, but otherwise wide awake after eatting that yellow cake thing Hank had given him. It had been pretty good, and did help somewhat with the dizziness.

The young man decided to go get more, so dropping his skateboard to the floor he hopped on it and took off down the street, winding up at a small convenience mart where they sold sodas and snacks. Heading in he ignored the owner who gave him a withering look for bringing his sword in the shop, and instead went to search for the little cakes.

He found them fairly quickly and grabbed a few, paying quickly and then heading out front to sit on the curb and enjoy his treat, his board resting next to him as he tried to work out how to open the plastic wrapper without hurting his hand too much. Even grabbing the whole thing was making the cut on his palm pull and start to bleed a little bit again.

He looked at the bandage and the red straining the center of his palm, but then shrugged and let it go, picking up his sword and carefully using the tip to slice through the plastic wrapper. Overkill? Yes. Oddly satisfying to watch the sword nearly cut through the entire package in under a second? Definitely.

Rufio had finally finished compiling a new outfit for himself, and just in time. While tying up a new trapeze to get across the warehouse faster in case of emergency he'd ripped his pants up the sides. All of his clothes had started to get tighter, and seeing as he'd built them to be tight in the first place, it wasn't comfortable to be wearing them anymore. Of course, he hadn't ever planned on growing anymore, so he hadn't needed to worry about seeing his ankles under his pant hem, but if he had to get bigger he'd still make sure he looked good.

It was night when he finished and pulled on his new clothes in the warehouse's bathroom. A pair of tighter blue jeans with a heavy studded belt he'd stolen from a store, a new, bigger leather jacket which he'd attached spiked studs to the shoulderpads. He'd also found some new shirts at a small shop that had a bunch of them in large bins, but the little old lady who was running the store had been nice, so he'd given her money for the shirts instead of stealing them like he did his pants. He liked the shirts, he'd picked out ones with cartoons and characters on them, and one that the woman told him read "RAWR". He wore that one now, and that and some new black combat boots and a spiked metal collar made him feel a bit better, and fingerless leather gloves and an arm band completed the look. He was certainly more comfortable, and when he looked at himself in the mirror of the warehouse bathroom he thought he cut a rather impressive image. He taller, anyway. And willing to let some of the hair on his chin continue to grow in. It really wasn't growing on the sides of his face, which was fine by him.

He touched his hair, wondering if he shouldn't change it too. He'd let go of most of his homemade jewelry, after all, and the red and black stuck out in this city and been laughed at. Rufio shook his head, it was still too cool to change. Attaching his sword's sheath to his belt he grabbed his skateboard and headed out into the City, not bothered that it was late into sunset and getting dark quickly. Dark was fun.

( Skating through the streets he turned to go find the hospital. )

It was late. Too late to be out without the ability to fly or the will to fight, but Rufio couldn't bring himself to spend one more moment in the fortress by himself. His investment in a stolen pocket mirror had only made him more anxious. Despite ripping out the hairs that the ferocious Zoe woman had pointed out to him more had appeared, and he was starting to notice them on his chest, too.

And it wasn't just the hair. Rufio felt different, had moments where it seemed like change was taking place in his very core, and no matter how much he focused on making it go away it only seemed to make the matter worse.

( The young man sat on the front step of his fort, sniffling softly as he resisted the urge to go kill something, and the urge to cry outright. )

Logan was enjoying a day off from schoolwork and Caritas. Sure, he had a huge paper due on Tuesday, but it had been a long time since he'd had a good day of slacking off. He also still hadn't rebuilt his video game collection.

As such, he was currently walking the streets of the City in search of a Game Stop. He actually had money coming in again thanks to his job at Caritas, which meant that he was going to track down an X-Box 360 and some of the games he'd owned back in Neptune. And he wasn't going home without them.

He muttered to himself slightly as he passed the fourth Bed, Bath and Beyond and still there was no sign of a Game Stop.

"More pillowcases and sheets than anyone could ever want and no videogames? This City needs to seriously reconsider its priorities.

( Rufio floated through the tall buildings, silently moving through the air and looking for any signs of trouble. )

Welcome to the rally for Jack Heart!

There is a stage decorated nicely in the candidate's colors, right at the edge of the park. There is a table with refreshments for free, and another where you can get signs supporting your candidate to hold, or put on your lawn or in your windows, they even have bumper stickers for your car. There are balloons tied everywhere to draw your attention. There is a podium on the stage where the candidate will stand.

In his speech, the candidate will speak about:

Family values.
Education.
Economics.
His platform.

And he will answer a few questions for you!

The City was slowly recovering from the stormy nights, but in the midst of the hustle and bustle of repairs and healing there was still more destruction to be had.

Not that it was that much, but as Rufio discarded the last of his spraypaint cans he couldn't help but be satisfied with his work.

(  He took out a pocket knife, carving his name into the lower corner of the most recently defaced poster, making sure that this ugly old blonde man knew exactly who had flown throughout the City and wrecked or painted over every poster he could find. )

The total lack of sunshine should have been a blessing for any vampire. Unfortunately for Nick, the raging storm had mostly kept him inside anyway. While the rain wasn't a bother, the high winds were a difficulty even for him. And there was no way he was taking any chances with a tornado. It couldn't harm him, very little could, but that didn't mean he wanted to experience the inside of one any time soon. So he waited it out in his new loft.

When at last things seemed to be calming down, Nick took to the sky. It was still clouded over enough that the sun was nothing to worry about, and night would be upon the City before the clouds were likely to clear. Just in case, Nick kept an eye on the clouds as he flew.

He wanted to see if there was anyone that needed help. From this vantage point, he could see and hear for great distances. The destruction was immense. Far fewer buildings seemed to have avoided the storm's wrath than succumbed, yet it didn't seem anyone was in serious danger or needed aid. Until he heard a boy's voice.

Let. Me. GO!

Turning, he flew in the direction of the shout. He forced himself to go faster, hoping he would be in time to stop whatever it was that was happening to the child. He arrived in time to see a boy, probably in his teens, sporting something of a punk rocker's hair and clothing, turn and run away from a man. Nick flew ahead of him, landing behind a tree and stepping out in time for the youth to run right into him.

"Whoa!" He reached out and gripped the boy's upper arms. "Are you alright?" Nick looked behind the kid to see if the man had followed, but could see no one.

"Don't you think you should be inside somewhere? It's kind of dangerous out here right now."

Rufio jogged through the trees that had survived the storm, leaping from branch to branch and kicking a soccer ball between his knees as he went. He was playing with the stolen item mostly to kill time, but it was also keeping his mind off the storm that had ravaged the City for so long. Rufio had been thoroughly frightened by the natural disaster, though he’d never admit it as long as there was breath in his body. It had been unnerving enough when the electricity had been knocked out and plunged him into utter and completely darkness in his warehouse, the howling wind and storming keeping him up all night. When Rufio had been convinced that it couldn’t get worse a section of the roof had been ripped off and the interior of his fortress had been decimated. Rufio had never lived through a storm like that, and then even when there had been thunderstorms in Neverland, he and others had been too focused on making the youngest boys feel better to be afraid themselves. This was the first time it had just been him, alone in the dark, at the mercy of the weather.

But now it was over, and causing some low key chaos was helping him put the unnerving feeling of the past nights behind him. And he was able to practice his flying as he dodged branches and trunks. He was getting pretty good at moving through the air faster and with more grace, he hadn’t slammed into a branch yet tonight, even when the men he’d stolen the ball from had thrown their bottles at him.

Rufio smirked at the thought, jumping onto another branch and kicking up the ball higher than ever, blinking as the white and black toy soared up.... and then out of sight. He darted to the next tree, but the ball was already too far down for him to catch in time, and he grunted in agitation as it hit the ground and bounced out into a clearing, disappearing in some large bushes.

Oh well. Nothing like a quick acrobatic dismount to quicken the blood when you got complacent flying. Aerial ability or no, Rufio couldn’t resist the rush of leaping forward and letting himself free fall, catching a branch and swinging around the limb before sending himself soaring out into the center of the clearing, landing heavily and laughing at the rush. Now he just needed to find the ball. Rufio looked around, starting to dig through the thick brush.

( This got boring quickly, of course, and soon anybody entering the clearing would find a much more irritated boy hacking at the plant life with his sword. )

Jack might not have known what he was getting himself into when it came to elections. Nearly as soon as he'd signed his name up for the mayoral race, a campaign manager had descended upon him. He hadn't really known to look to hire one and yet one had found him anyway. He didn't know if it was the City's doing or honestly, he didn't quite know these things worked.

After all, there had never been an election or a vote of any kind in Wonderland. Rulers were born, not chosen. Or, in his case, they were overthrown and replaced by the next in line.

He'd spent the past few weeks reading up on politics and elections and everything else he could find on democracy. He certainly had a better idea now than he had when he'd first put his name in the ring for this. All the same, reading about something was nowhere near as educational as actually experiencing it.

Jack stood to the side of the stage, waiting for the signal from his campaign manager to approach the podium and start his speech. He'd told Fred about entering the mayoral race on their last date and he'd invited her to attend the rally. He scanned the crowd for some sign of her, hoping that she would be there. His campaign staff had already been instructed to escort her to the front if she did show up. But of course he didn't expect her to just throw him her support because they'd been on two dates. All the same, it would be nice to have her here.

Jack didn't pace. Giving speeches wasn't anything new to him, even if the reason for the speech tonight was. He'd certainly addressed his subjects often enough and he didn't see why this shoudl be all that different.

Rufio was out, floating around the City after dark. He'd always enjoyed the night, the younger Lost Boys all went to bed when dark fell completely but he and a few of the older boys stayed up, enjoying the time to themselves to do things that some of the others were just too small to do.

Smallness had its uses, but baiting alligators and hunting with the Indians was something for longer legs.

Here in the City, on his own, he found there was more to do at night. More mystery, and the people were more interesting. There were fewer suits and a lot more people who looked closer to the types Rufio was familiar with around.

( Hopskipping from rooftop to rooftop the young Pan flew through the area )

Robin leapt down from the tree branch atop the horse-drawn wagon carrying the Sheriff's most recent tax collections. The two wagon guards momentarily lost control of the reins as Robin whacked them upside the back of their heads with his bow. The one guard reached down to grab the reins, redirecting the horses back onto the the dusty trail towards Nottingham. The other climbed onto the back of the wagon, throwing punches without aim.

"I believe you have something that belongs to the people of Nottingham!" Robin cried out as he kicked the punching guard off the wagon.

It was a game to him. A tag between himself and the dishonorable Sheriff that pillaged and plundered the few pennies the poor people of the outlying villages had to their names. A game that Robin had no doubt he would win, provided the Sheriff continued to employ such thick-skulled twits to do his bidding.
( A trail of gold coins left in his wake. )

Ted had decided that he was going to stay inside until the whole werewolf thing was over. Once he heard the news about the big escaped animal from the news and the following joke about the naked guy running around, he'd put two and two together and it equaled not stepping a single toe out the door.

He didn't want to be bitten, he didn't want to become anything else. He had a hard enough time being Ted and getting used to the weird new life that he had here in The City. He didn't want to add becoming an animal on top of that.

A day after the reports of animals stopped appearing in the newspapers and on the television, Ted wondered if it was all over. If somebody had found a way to stop the spread, or if everyone had been cured, or maybe they were all in the zoo now. Any of those meant that it was okay to leave the house again. The outside would be safe.

Carefully, he peeked out the door and edged himself onto the walkway. It was a long journey to the sidewalk, and he made it slowly. Stopping at every noise. Inspecting any wildlife and trying to determine if it was actual wildlife, or if it was werewildlife. Nothing big came near him. Just birds and butterflies. One little wayward snail. Nothing threatening.

He made it all the way to a coffee shop before he even saw a person. They all looked normal. Ted slid into the shop and found himself a seat in the way back where he could see everybody.