Who: Belladonna Rogan and Alex Rogan, then Alex Rogan and Open What: Arrival, A little craziness, A little being lostness... Where: Los Angeles, in the streets... When: Mid-evening, after the sun goes down Rating: TBD Status: Incomplete
It was a typical evening in modern L.A., this evening. Full of people out to get where they needed to be, it was bustling, and people did their best to avoid the dark places where vampires and other demons lurked. Into this very normal evening came a rift.
It did not start in Los Angeles, however. It started in New Orleans, in a different time, and in a different world.
Alex Rogan was up in his newly created airship, which, really, was a heavily modified hot air balloon which did not run on hot air, but an alien gas, and did not rely on wind, but on jets. He was test running it, making sure it was safe for him and his wife to use it on a trip.
He was standing in front of the controls, grinning, when something very loud screamed in the air in front of him.
Alex, blinking, looked up into a very unhappy looking rift. A rift hanging in mid-air, just a few hundred feet from his balloon, which was growing, and coming toward him.
Alex blinked again, squinted, and touched a plate on the control panel.
"Dear? I think the test run ran into a snag."
"No shit, chere."
His wife's words were wry as she stared from her place at the launch pad. Belladonna Rogan was not used to being on the sidelines, and really, was not about to let her husband be snatched up without a fight. She ran forward even as the rift roared toward Alex, who was using every ounce of the balloon's power to push away from the rift an really not doing much more than slowing the rate at which he was being pulled in toward it.
"I am not sure, but I think we might miss that cotillion."
"That the one with the noisy kids?"
"Yep."
"Hmmm, does the rift look dangerous?"
Alex snerked, even as his hands blurred on the controls. Neither he nor his wife were fond of being involved in New Orleans society, and they often made jokes about how danger and excitement might be welcome means of avoiding such.
Well, Alex was pretty sure they were usually jokes. That last business meeting they had been too had been... well, surely facing Doctor Doom would have been less painful.
Right?
He refocused as he was pulled closer to the rift.
"Baby... I'm getting nowhere. Anything on your end?"
"Nope."
She was below him, and staring up, eyes gauging the distance to the rift. Belladonna had spent a life in a job that while fun, was not her first choice, and involved a lot of disappointments. She had lost true love once, and found it again in a strange alien bar. She was not about to let it get away. And if she could not stop it from pulling him in.
"I think we're going for a trip."
"...it'd get us out of the Easter party..."
"...true..."
Their jokes covered nervousness, and along the mental link that connected them, love and humor, and shared fear floated.
The rift came closer and closer and Alex stared into it.
Even as he felt it's pull start to really grab him, not just the balloon, down below, it reached the ground and raced toward Belle as well.
"I love you, Belladonna."
"I love you too, cher."
And then the rift claimed them both, and vanished, and New Orleans was peaceful once more.
In Los Angeles, the rift widened, shifted, and opened wide.
But it did it in two places, not one.
Over a small park, the rift opened and deposited Belladonna, dropping her into the pond there and closing with a pop. There was silence, then cursing as she dragged herself out.
Meanwhile, a crowded thoroughfare with a fire demon rampaging on it was visited by the another rift, which spit out the balloon, which, suddenly, rather to Alex's consternation, was falling.
The balloon fell at a quick rate, and slammed into something solid, and Alex was tossed at one control panel, then the floor of the balloon as silence fell and the rift closed.
Alex stared up at the night sky and wondered why this kind of thing happened to him. He reached out along the mental link and felt Belle, and smiled as he 'heard' her cursing from the pond, but knew she was okay. At her interrogative of where he was, he levered himself to an elbow.
Alex groaned as he sat up the rest of the way and peered around. A few people, those who had not immediately fled when the fire demon arrived, you know, the terminally stupid or brave, peered back at him.
He cleared his throat.
"Say... would anyone happen to know where I am?"
There was no answer and he sighed as he looked around, finally finding a sign post and letting Belle 'see' it.
Making plans to rendezvous nearby, he started dragging himself to his feet to check out the balloon, the new world, and the situation he had gotten himself into...