Reality Crisis

Pam had found herself very distracted by a recent addition to their home. Of course, she was risking getting her head handed to her by Eric, but she hadn't let much slip in her responsibilities. Mainly, she'd done a little less reading, a few reports. Everything else, the other pieces of running of a city had not fallen by the wayside. The petite vampire didn't know how long she'd enjoy the mutant woman's company, so she wouldn't let herself get killed for a nice piece of genetically enhanced...well, it was all very nice.

She decided to make up some reports time by locking herself away in the library. She had suggested to Melody that she might want to find a certain blond, built like the All American boy who sounded too much the Southern gentleman. While Pam was wearing the good pastor down, saying "no" to a living song of death may be much harder.

With a stretch much more animal than human, the small vampire climbed out of the large chair she'd claimed for her research, put the book away, gathered her notes, and walked toward her Maker's office to deposit the delayed research. She wondered when she would hear about her dalliances, or the effects they were having on her work. She'd let Eric know that there was a new warm body in the house, not once thinking that the mutant would want to kill any of them. Then again, they did have a few trusted/glamoured humans to make sure they didn't meet their final death during the day.

"Eating before feeding seems a little backwards," Pam said, finally addressing her Maker and the volunteer he was currently latched on to. It was probably rude to simply stand there as Eric fed, but he wasn't exactly doing anything she hadn't seen before. She held up the energy bar wrapper the volunteer must have let fall on Eric's desk.

Backdated to before this thread

Sylar had looked and looked through die Festung and had yet to find
Peter. He knew that the other man had ways of hiding, but he thought
that it was possible that Peter had chosen a different hidey-hole. The
nearest settlement was Sanctuary and Sylar rather thought that the
title itself might appeal to his foe. So he headed that way. He'd
packed some snacks for himself before he set out and he spent some
time watching the perimeter of the city before he selected a face that
would let him inside.

Once inside, he started his search. He was hungry so he took out the
energy bar and started eating as he looked.

When the bar was finished, the illusion slipped away as Sylar forgot
how to access the abilities he'd stolen over his lifetime. His chosen
name even faded away as Gabriel looked around himself. He tried not to
panic too much as he realized that he didn't recognize where he was.
There were a lot of things in his head that felt like remnants of
nightmares, though somehow he had the sneaking feeling that they were
more than that.

( Amazing what a change in perspective can do... )

Effie sat on a patch of ground, constantly taking apart and reassembling her small handgun. She had left the bullets in the hut, but the action calmed her, a familiar task. She had memories pounding at her head like a badly out of focus movie and it was driving her slowly insane. She wasn't...that wasn't her. Those weren't her memories.

She was Effie Nigma, daughter of Samantha and Marcelus Giovanni, grand-daughter of Sofia Giovanni, the adopted redheaded brat to a large Italian family, raised with love and care in Boston Mass, she was in her seventh year at Our Lady of Serenity and a cheerleader. She was best friends with Duela Dent and Tim Drake, ran around in the night under a mask with the name Enigma, The Riddler's Daughter in honor of her father...and she was a good person.

She was not eighteen, she was not a thief, she did not run a criminal gang and she was not building an empire. She had never fought Batman (though it would be cool to spar with him, he had sweet moves), she had never been in Blackgate or Arkham Asylum...hell she hadn't even been to Gotham, despite begging Robin.

...she was not a murderer.

Right?

Dinah was having a very bad week so far. She had this explosive scream that she couldn't quite get under control, she was still wandering around in a half-daze as she tried to figure out what was going on, and her parents weren't here. They really really weren't. Neither were her friends or her 'uncles' from the Justice Society or anyone else that would have made her feel safe and might have been able to help her figure out what to do about the superpower that currently cause more damage than good.

Not to mention that she really wanted hot chocolate or pringles or... anything resembling comfort food. This place had none of that.

She wasn't exactly feeling sorry for herself, but she was having a hard time seeing the good in the situation. The only upside at the moment was that it was a little exciting being on her own. She was, for all intents and purposes, an adult. She had the freedom to do whatever she wanted. In theory anyway. Trouble was finding what she wanted to do and doing it.

Dinah let herself into the small hut that she was sharing with Bruce and Effie and looked around to see if anyone else was there.

Something weird was going on, and Harry wanted nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, Harry was a wizard, and weird going-ons were his business. He had been enjoying Karrin moving in with him, but then there were people acting out of sorts, Belia was nowhere to be seen, and half the population had digressed to teenage rebellion.

"It's like that episode of Buffy," Harry explained to Mouse. He broke off a piece of the energy bar he was munching on and fed it to the Foo dog. "The one where all the adults started eating those candy bars, and thought they were teenagers again. Pure entertainment. And that's why we're eating Murph's boring energy bars instead of something delicious." He broke a second bar in half and shared it with Mouse. "Because no teenagers want to eat healthy. Except for the insane ones."

Ten minutes later, Harry was looking around in shock, edged in fear. He must have gone for a walk, and not been paying attention to where he was going. Nothing looked familiar. He glanced at the massive dog that seemed to be following him and gulped. "Justin is gonna be so pissed at me," he told the animal. "I'm gonna be late for my lessons."

Dinah kept waiting to wake up from this bizarre dream. She was supposed to be 13, but somehow she looked much older and was in the middle of this bizarre alternate reality life that just... well, it was a little depressing.

All the same, she was determined to just go with it. She didn't have much in the way of fun clothing, which was a shame. She looked... good. Better than she'd ever hoped to look. She had memories of wearing her mom's fishnets in the future and if she could have found them, she'd wear them.

Instead, she was wearing jeans and a tank top and she hit the town-what there was of it. There had to be something to do here. Somewhere to shop, somewhere to eat, maybe get a movie. There had to be something.

"You aren't here that often, and the damn angel isn't going to cause that many problems. It's not like he is going to write in them or something." The argument had been going for a while; Dean didn't know Sam would get this upset about having his room handed over to the angel. Why should he get that upset? Castiel was practically a brother to both of them, and Sam was getting his knickers in a wad?

"Dude, even when you aren't with her, you're not here. So, stop your bitching and deal with it." He wasn't trying to be an ass about things, but Sam was shacked up more with Fred. "It's an empty bed that the feathered freak can use. Worse that happens is you put his butt on the couch." He shrugged. They were family; this was what family did.

"Unless you have a reason to throw him out. He needs a place. We've got a place. Win/win." He shrugged, as if that was all they had to worry about.

The large Russian had consumed his power bar quickly. It was not enough to actually sustain him for long. But he felt better snacking here and there rather than eating a huge meal in front of everyone as often as he really wanted to do it. It meant that he was always a little bit hungry, but he was okay with that.

Within moments, however, the hulking man had a bit of a goofy look on his face and was tooling around the streets of die Festung with a slow gait, hands in his pockets. It was the casual stride of a youth with very few cares in the world. The place he was in seemed familiar to him, but he couldn't be sure of the why.

"Da. Hello." He said to a passerby who greeted him and apparently knew him. His accent, if it was at all possible, seemed thicker. Less Americanized. "Have you seen my father? No? Is he in the field? No?"

Confused, Piotr moved along. He didn't understand why all these people were so short. He was a massive youth, he knew, at just thirteen years old, but he wasn't that big. He wondered if he had fallen asleep and been brought to another collective. Where all the people were tiny.

"Dobry den!" He said to another man, who smiled widely and began to walk closer. If this man knew him, and was also a part of a collective, then he should have no problem with the Russian. Piotr's mind didn't even work through to that conclusion, it was just natural. "Kak u vas dela? Chem ty seychas zanimaeshsya?"

Piotr frowned when the man did, not understanding. "Why do you look at me like this? It is the mother tongue! You should have no problems with it. I speak it no differently. This collective cannot be so far away from my own that we have switched dialects. Zhdu vashego otveta!"

He was becoming frustrated.

Natasha was still working on getting her bearings in this new place. In fact, she still found a lot of the situation hard to believe. She'd half expected to wake up anywhere but here that first morning. So far, she'd met an interim leader and been assigned housing, but that didn't mean that she'd just accepted that she was supposed to live here from now on.

In fact, she was going to find a way home. She wasn't done with her business there and she didn't have any reason to stay in this place. It was hard to completely ignore the slight tugging that she felt when she passed by people who clearly had lost it all and kept going against the odds.

They weren't her concern, she had to remind herself. They couldn't be her concern. Not when her contract with S.H.I.E.L.D. was far from over and not when her ledger was still red all over.

They traded food back and forth with Belia's city on a regular basis. It was easier to get fresh things here in Sanctuary than in the city since they had the whole forest to harvest from and the gardens they had planted were starting to produce almost like there was magic helping them out. In return for fresh game, vegetables and herbs they brought back things that they couldn't get.

In this case it was protein bars and other staples that would keep longer than the fresh foods. There were also supplies for canning and storing the fresh foods. Erik made sure everything was set up for distributing and sat down to eat one of the bars while he was making a list of what might be needed for the future. There was nothing about the taste that warned him but as soon as he finished it he pushed the lists away to get up and pace anxiously. For the first time in a long time he wasn't feeling the constant pinch of hunger but the sun was starting to lower in the west. That meant it would be time for them to bring him to Dr. Schmidt soon. Every day after Erik worked as a sonderkommando he was taken to the labs to have Dr. Schmidt help him release his powers.

He never could decide which part of the day was the worst.

When the door opened and the man stepped in Erik cringed away before he could stop himself. He recognized the man standing there dimly but he wasn't wearing the German uniform and that confused him. "Ist es Zeit, den Doktor zu sehen?"

The man was one of Erik's contacts for the rest of Sanctuary and the open look of fear on their leader's face along with what he said made him stop in confusion. "Erik, are you all right?"

The English was familiar. It was difficult to remember it but after a moment Erik nodded slightly and replied in heavily accented English in return. "Is it time to see the doctor?"

"Time to see..." There was something not right with Erik. The man shook his head and kept his voice low and even like you would with a frightened child. "No, no doctor Erik. Why don't you stay here and I will be right back." After Erik nodded he shut the door and went to go see if he could get someone to help.

Enigma flipped backwards gracefully, the knife that had been thrown at her sailing cleanly over her body and she grinned, moving one f her hands to her boot, grabbing her own knife, releasing it as she landed on her feet and rose up, watching as one of her men had to dive out of the way, before she lashed out with a kick to the side, catching the other man who had surrounded her off guard, licking her lips at the grunt of pain he gave.

As her foot came back down and she stood again, she found herself pressed against a hard body, an arm the size of a tree trunk around her throat, gun pressed to her temple. She swallowed, before trying to wing her legs up and back to catch the man int he groin. There was a noise and she yelped in pain, holding the side of her head, glaring at the man who had shot a paint pellet at her. “Oy!”

“Sorry, boss, but I got ya fair and square,” Thomas pointed out with a shrug.

“Yeah yeah, I’m going to go hit the showers, go check the equipment.” Enigma said as she grabbed her towel and duffle bag, heading for the locker room.

“Ya sure ya don't want me to stand watch at the door?” Brandon said with a smirk, his eyes roaming over the redheaded women's’ scantily clad body.

Enigma paused, making a face at him. “Brandon, I wouldn’t trust you to guard my ass in an empty room. And I need something that isn’t small enough to fit through a pasta strainer.” She turned after that, returning to her path of getting a shower, but nodding to Daniel who moved behind her, standing guard at the door of the locker room...just in case.

( Meanwhile, back at the ranch... )

Castiel wandered through the streets of die Festung, visible to all and taking in the sights from as human a perspective as he could. Since he'd moved in with Dean he'd decided to try to act more like a resident of the City, instead of teleporting from outlook to outlook like he was used to. Belia and her guards could do nothing to him, really, so what was he worried about?

He noticed a few people walking around with what looked like granola bars. He paused, wondering why he hadn't seen them around before, and quickly located a vendor who was distributing them. With Dean's encouragement he'd been trying more different foods, never taking too much (since he didn't technically need it) but enjoying the experimentation.

Without asking he was handed a bar, and he looked at it. The wrapper promised energy, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, was it?

Walking a few steps away to avoid the crowd Castiel opened the bar and tasted the snack. It wasn't bad, and he finished the entire bar quickly, disposing of the wrapper in a nearby trash bin. He made it almost a full ten feet before an odd sensation swept over him.

For a moment he thought it might be the energy the bar promised, but before he could even really debunk that with the argument that as an angel physically he was incapable of being affected by so small an amount... something changed. He barely noticed, and all of a sudden he certainly didn't care.

He looked around, suddenly noticing a group of boys kicking around an old ball in a clearing. He hesitated just a moment, then jogged over, stopping and breathlessly watching them for a moment.

When they noticed him they stopped as well, and one of the older boys (he couldn't be much older than Cas was himself, right?), smirked. "What d'ya want, old man?" he asked. The others laughed. Cas frowned, confused. He wasn't old. Well, ok, maybe he was... but not really. Not just because of his vessel, right?

"Can... can I play?" he asked hesitantly. The initial mocking was hindering his earlier enthusiasm, and he felt nervous. What if they didn't like him? What if they didn't want him to play, thinking he was stupid or incapable or ugly somehow?

"Can you, in all that?" the boy retorted with a laugh, then turned and resumed the game. Cas blinked in confusion at the answer, and his hands went to his chest and he looked down, at the coats, the nice shirt, the tie and the shoes... everything. Why was he wearing so much?

The angel shrugged off his trench coat, then the suit jacket, pulling off his tie and then the white button up and carelessly dumping them on the ground in a pile. Now only dressed in a short sleeved undershirt, his pants, and dress shoes, the angelic youth jogged into the game, soon laughing aloud with the rest as he played keep away with the other boys.

While the Chosen had shared their food stash, Belia still insisted on distributing food from her own storage. The food given by the chosen few would last for awhile, but not forever. And Belia still had food to offer her people and she would continue to do so as a reminder that she had a constant supply for them whereas the exorbitant gifts from the Chosen were just that-one time gifts, a passing fancy if you would.

She was unaware that someone had gotten into her food storage and replaced one of the crates of energy/nutrition bars with some that had been...tampered with. If she had known about that, then it's certain that the person responsible for that mischief would be caught and punished severely. Beyond that, if she was aware of the side effects that might come from eating the energy bars, she wouldn't have eaten one herself.

The change didn't take all that long. In fact, almost as soon as she'd finished the bar, everything seemed to shift. Belia blinked her eyes in confusion and looked around her surroundings. They were distantly familiar, but the memories associated with this place and these...adults that were everywhere... those felt surreal, like she'd watched a movie once that contained this setting and these people.

"Madam Ohorek?" one of the guards that was at her side asked. "Are you quite all right?"

Belia didn't answer to the name right away. After all, it wasn't her maiden name. In fact, to her, it was just another vague memory. With time, she might make her peace with the fact that all of those things in the back of her head had happened to her. But for now, her mind just refused to accept it.

"What time is it?" she asked, as a door nearby opened, revealing just how dark it was outside. "I need to get home. My mom's going to be frantic."

"Madam Ohorek, are you quite all right?" the guard repeated. When the woman who was his leader still didn't answer, he tried a different tactic. "Belia?"

Belia snapped her head up in response and tucked a lock of hair behind her ears.

"That's my name," she said. "Do you have a phone? I really need to call my mom and have her pick me up."

"Mada-Belia," the guard corrected himself. "I think I should escort you back to your quarters, maybe get you some tea. You'll feel better after you've had the chance to rest."

There was panic in his voice, though he was trying very hard to hear it. In this world, with all that was going on, having their leader out of commission was unacceptable. It could mean disaster for the community.

Belia wrinkled her nose.

"Tea? Why would I want tea? But I'll take a milkshake if you have one."

The guard blinked in surprise and put his hand on the woman's shoulder. This wasn't protocol, but then again nothing about this situation was protocol.

"Come on, let's see what you have in your kitchen. I can't promise a milkshake, but I'm sure we'll find you something."

Something in those memories of Belia's told her that she could trust him. Her nose was still wrinkled in disgust from the idea of drinking tea, but all the same she exhaled loudly and rolled her eyes before following the guard's lead.