Reality Crisis

Clark was actually kind of used to things like weird visions. What did it say about him that he took all of it in stride? He was beginning to think he'd reached some sort of threshold where nothing could make an impact anymore. And that was probably dangerous for him to be so blase about all of this.

He'd been in his room for once when it happened. Clark didn't spend a lot of time inside much less in his room but he did have to do laundry and sometimes he stopped to take a little time to read and do something that didn't involve running everywhere and checking on everyone.

This time he was stitching up his jeans to repair a ripped out seam when things had turned inside out and he found himself far above the earth. It was one of those clear days where the blue seemed to go on forever without a cloud. Those were the days Clark liked best to fly. The sky never ended and unless you looked carefully (like he could) you couldn't see the damage down below.

He floated on the air currents like he was moving through water letting the icy air slip over his skin. This high up there wasn't a lot of oxygen so there also wasn't a lot of sound. It made the whole world feel distant and remote.

Until he faintly heard someone calling his name. They needed help. Clark turned in midair to zero in on the sound and suddenly found himself sitting on the floor of his apartment trying to stab himself in the finger with a needle. All it did was bend the needle and leave him blinking as he tried to readjust mentally.

After that he needed to clear his head.

Clark ended up on the wall of the city again looking down at the land and forest outside. If he stepped off the wall would he fly? Or would he fall? Did he really want to find out?

"This time don't share with anyone all right?" Faith had gone out of her way the last couple of days to make sure this little girl she'd been keeping track of had got enough food to eat. The problem was she kept giving it to other people which was kind of defeating the purpose. "I'll make sure the others got what they need, got it?" The stupid little moppet nodded earnestly and Faith knew even though she was going to eat some of it once again tomorrow she'd be hungry and without food. This sucked. They needed an organized place to go but she was so not the organizing and fixing kind of person.

You needed a bully beat up, she was your girl, you needed something administrative done you might as well be talking Martian.

She just shook her head watching the little form run off around a corner then everything changed.

Faith was leaning against a wall with her arms crossed practically vibrating with anger. "Ought to kick your ass big guy." Kitty was there and she looked just as angry. Only with both of them you'd have to know them to see it since they could both smile sweetly while they kicked your balls up into the back of your throat.

Melody slept fitfully.

It was difficult to change her sleep schedule to match that of the vampires, but she wanted to spend time with them, and so she was doing her best. Her body disliked that she slept through the bright daylight hours, and her mind often showed her strange dreams to compensate. Eventually, she knew, everything would adjust.

A scene unfolded before her, that of fighting. It wasn't an all out war, or even what she would call a battle. There were a few of them, and her with somebody else. She turned to see who the presence was that she felt, and saw John with her. Something in her heart told her that somebody was missing. Somebody that she cared about deeply.

She reached out with her powers, feeling stronger than she ever had, and tore the life out of a man who was running directly toward her. She reveled in his death and felt herself fill up with every ounce of the death energy he held. She'd been able to tell, so easily, that he'd already been dying. And it had taken her so little effort to push him over the brink. To claim him as her own. His lifeless body lay in a crumpled heap where he'd fallen. Melody knew that she should feel something about this, yet she did not.

It was as if the loss she felt had made her stone.

Mel looked back toward John again.

Clint had been doing chinups from the doorframe of his room in Nat's apartment when it happened. All of a sudden his eyes were rolling in the back of his head and his fingers stopped gripping the reinforced wooden frame. He distantly felt the impact of his body hitting the floor.

It was black for a moment, and then his eyes opened abruptly as cold wind hit his face. He jerked forward, then almost lost his balance, only a lifetime of intense physical training making sure he caught himself and went completely still.

He slowly looked around, taking stock of the situation. He was high up in a tree, as high as one could go while still getting some semblance of power. He was crouched on a tiny platform, almost too small to work, which one hand feeling told him was made of woven branches. It was dark, and he was in full gear, dark clothing, his bow resting on the branches in front of him and his quiver resting in easy reach so that he could grab his weapon and use the arrows without disturbing the thick canopy of pine-like boughts just above his head.

It was dark, very dark, but he found his line of sight looking straight at a city. He coudln't tell immediately if it was New Troy of die Festung, or someplace new.

This was a recon perch. That was very clear, and whatsmore it was set up in his own very unique way. There was no way for anybody to get him here, he'd built and perched here himself. The deadness in his legs told him he'd been there for a while. At least twelve hours, possibly longer. The weariness in his body was something he could guarge the passage of time by.

He looked down at a small black notebook in his hand, a bunch of letters and symbols. His own code, invented from scratch so that he could make longterm notes and not miss or forget anything, but similarly nobody looking at them could understand what he'd written.

There were new symbols, names and actions and objects, but even as he looked at them he knew what they were.

He was watching them, watching the natives of this world, studying them. Making sure they weren't making plans. He fliped the pages to the first and glanced at the code for time tables. He had to get back before the light of day, make his report. He moved back to the most recent page.

Part of him wanted to climb down, to check out his surroundings, but he could feel his own focus on the task at hand. He had a mission, a recon, and it was important. He'd see it through, then he'd work out what was going on. Besides, the people inside the city were moving, with purpose and urgency. Clint rocked forward a fraction of an inch, the only indication that he was actively watching.

And then... he blinked, and suddenly his eyes groggily opened. He was back in the apartment, flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling and top of the doorframe.

He groggily sat up, looking around. Same clothes, same place, nothing out of place in his home.

Natasha was still gone, too. He grunted and pulled himself up, then turned to find his boots and jacket. He had to see if everything else was the same, too.

Castiel wasn't pleased. He wasn't pleased at all. He moved through the cities of New Troy and die Festung, invisble to everybody, evesdropping on conversations with the Chosen he found. More and more he was hearing whispers of others falling unconcious for seemingly no reason and waking up fifteen minutes later. But, unlike his own experience (when he simply fell from the sky and cratered in the ground till he woke up), most others seemed to have had dreams, or visions. Lifelike indications of some distant future. These humans, who had much shoter lifespans, all had futures.

Why didn't he?

He'd continued to wander, trying to ignore the obvious conclusion. Before he came here he would never have suspected his ability to die without angelic blades or a big brother coming to end him, but this world had made him feel incredibly... mortal. At least in comparison to what he was before.

Castiel hated that feeling, and now was working with a small voice in the back of his mind, making him fearful and stressed. He despised that voice, and the fact that he was succumbing to it emotionally on some level.

Selina had been resting inside of the small home she was sharing with Jonathan. Her mind was still racing with the things she had seen of this world so far. It was so different from Gotham and she almost couldn't comprehend the fact that she was no longer in the city she knew so well. Every back alley. Every store. Every heist.....all of it was dust in the wind at this point. Nothing that she had stolen mattered anymore and it was sort of discouraging. It wasn't like there was anything of importance here that she could steal. Did this place have anything of value in it? Was there such a thing left? She hadn't explored much of the land outside of where she was staying mostly due to the fact that she had no idea what lay in wait out there for her. Gotham was predictable. This vast forest full of monsters wasn't.

She closed her eyes for only a moment. Just long enough for a second to pass in a normal moment. But this time they didn't open. Not right away.

There was darkness. Then light.

And pain. Lots of pain.

When her eyes opened Selina grimaced, lips pulled back from her teeth as she rested back against a chair. Her shoulders, arms and clavicle were bare. A cloth rested over her chest and there was a fire burning on one of her shoulders. It wasn't anything she had ever experienced before. Had she been injured? What happened?

Slowly, Selina tilted her head to look down at the wound. It was ugly. It gaped and spewed blood which cascaded down her arm and soaked the sheet that covered her. Selina groaned as her stomach turned once the copper smell hit her nose. Gathering herself, Selina regained her composure and allowed her tongue to slip over her lips which were dry. Too dry.

"Jonathan?" Selina whispered, unsure of where she was or what had happend to her. She needed a doctor. She hoped he was there. He was the only one that could help her.

Eric sighed softly.

He didn't need to breathe, it was simply an action he hadn't yet managed to get rid of with the shift in lifestyle he was currently existing through. If you could really call it a lifestyle. There were so many mortal things he caught himself doing despite not needing to even make the effort. Breathing was one of them. Blinking another. Though he had no desire to eat he found himself staring at cafes during his haunts of die Festung, and despite the fact that he never needed to sleep sometimes Eric found himself curled up on the bare mattress in his tiny apartment just aching for the darkness to take him. He wanted to dream. Craved it almost. But the dreams never came. He didn't bleed. He didn't bother with time. There were things that mattered very little to him and things that mattered more than anything. Shelly. His mission. His failure to reconcile with his past. The crow. That damned crow.

He couldn't complain about his avian companion too much as it was because of the bird he was here now. Well, existing. It wasn't the bird's fault he was stuck in this shithole of a world unable to complete his task. He didn't know who was to blame for that but when he found the bastard responsible for taking him out of his world he was going to make sure that person ate a bullet. No questions asked.

It wasn't that Eric hated this world. It was actually beginning to grow on him. It was just that Eric's soul burned with the unquenchable thirst of revenge. He couldn't slay the beast that lived deep within him, the one that craved vengence for his death. To make that wrong into a right. For peace. For her. He would still do anything for her and this world was holding him back. Despite all of the places he had been in this world, this strange world, Eric had found no answers to his questions. He had hunted for any sort of portal, a rip in the fabric of time, anything. But it was to no avail. This world frustrated him beyond belief and yet he still tried so desperately to find his way back.

He hardly ever vistited his apartment within the city. He didn't utilize it for what it was created for. It had purpose. Eric did not. At least that was how Eric was feeling this day. He trudged slowly through the Wilds with his Crow companion perched idly upon one of his shoulders. The bird was unusually silent as if it were listening to the surroundings. Eric moved like the very air itself, making no sound and disturbing very little of the flora or fauna as he walked. He had walked this same path a hundred times. Perhaps a thousand. It was all so familiar.

Suddenly, the bird shifted. It's wings extended just enough so that one could see the plumage on the underside before the crow emitted a desperate squawk. The feathers on its chest ruffled and it's wings folded themselves back against the body of the bird. It was at that moment Eric stopped walking. He stood, like a statue against the tall trees of the forest. The bird had fallen silent again as well. What came next neither of them could've predicted. It was almost too much for either of their minds to comprehend. Alone or together.

Eric closed his eyes then and darkness took him for a moment. Then there was a light.

Eric found himself surrounded by trees. That wasn't too odd. What was odd was the fact that the cool metal of one of the guns he'd gotten from die Festung was nestled almost sweetly in his palm. His fingers were wrapped tight around the butt save for the index finger which was pressed slightly against the trigger and his thumb which had cocked back the hammer. Slowly, Eric glanced over at the gun who's barrel was hot to the touch. Was this a dream? He hadn't been holding a weapon a moment ago. Had he?

Lowering the still smoking gun Eric turned his attention to the ground around his feet where two men lay in a heap. Spread a little further out lay corpses that rested in a semi-circle. He could hear the crow. It was a faint sound but it was familiar. This felt too right. Why were these people dead by his hand? Had he been the one that killed them? That wouldn't have been much of a surprise should it be the truth. He was a killer. He felt no remorse for these people though they seemed almost familiar to him. As if he had seen them somewhere before.

The crow landed on the body of one of the men that lay cold at Eric's feet and Eric looked down at the bird. The large black avian seemed as if it finally had purpose. Eric had that feeling as well. Finally. Purpose. But at what cost had that purpose come? This was all so confusing.

Eric released the weapon. It fell slowly from his hand and clattered tenderly to the underbrush without so much as a second glance from Eric.

"I don't understand. Do you feel it too?" Eric breathed out. He was talking to the crow, the only one that seemed to really understand him.

At that moment the light began to fade back into darkness and Eric's eyes opened. He found himself still standing in the forest though this time there was no gun. No bodies. Only himself and the crow that his soul was bound to. He blinked without realizing he had even done it and tilted his head just slightly as his brain tried desperately to wrap itself around what it had just seen.

Was that the future? Were they at war? What had happened? Eric wasn't entirely sure and the bird didn't seem to know either.

Finally Eric found the will power needed to move and he stepped back into the trees still on the familiar path from before. He had business to attend to. He couldn't dwell on daydreams for too long. Strange as they were. He never dreamed.

Carlos was in the process of double checking the spells on the wall around die Festung when suddenly everything around him changed. Instead of being outside, he was in a room that he didn't recognize. The only thing keeping him from panicking entirely was the fact that Peter and Evey were both in the same room, and the sense that he was somehow supposed to be there.

There were maps pinned to a bulletin board on the room. One of which that Carlos recognized as die Festung and the area around it. there were pins on each of the maps and he realized he was in the middle of gesturing at them as though coordinating something.

An attack. He wasn't sure why, but that answer felt right.

Carlos focused in on one thing in particular about his hands. He'd been about to pull them out of whatever gesture they were in when he stopped and stared at his left hand. Most notable, his left ring finger, which currently had a silver ring.

But why? Why did he have what looked like a wedding ring, and where the hell was he? He turned to Peter and Evey, searching their faces for any sign of similar confusion.

What the hell was going on?

Mag had been working through a few things in the broken city she now called her home. The adjustment to her new life hadn't been easy but finally she was beginning to welcome the sun and the things that her day brought, despite any homesickness she might've still felt. She missed the stage more than anything. She missed the lights, the marquee and the people that came to hear her sing. But that part of her life was over now, and she had to accept it for what it was. Being bound to the stage by blood wasn't something she wanted. She had a good life here, and she wasn't about to regret anything she had done here or before she came. Those things had transformed her into the person she was, and still was becoming.

Mag found herself outside that day, the usual routine of making herself useful. She hadnt seen her canine friend anywhere, nor had she seen Carlos for a few days but that wasn't particularly uncommon and she wasn't about to go hunting for either the canine or the man. They would find her when they were ready. She did miss them both when they were out of sight, but they would find her when they were ready.

It had only taken a few moments of asking around to find that one of her usual dining haunts needed help cleaning up, and she volunteered without hesitation. She had been taking her time stacking plates together, and had yet to pick them up from the table when something unusual happened. Her eyesight went completely black, and her body froze as the initial reaction, causing her to look more like a statue than an actual human to anyone that would walk past and notice her.

As her vision darkened and her brown eyes held a dull, lifeless look to anyone that noticed she had changed, her vision finally began to clear though it was still extremely hazy. Instantly, she had a headache. What she didn't notice was the way her eyes seemed to flicker. The blue that usually swirled in them that caused her to be able to project images was malfunctioning. With that, the pupil itself was heavily dilated and the cloud within it had expanded, which caused her vision to be very hazy. Her blindness was trying to re-surface as her eyes could no longer withstand the atmosphere of this world.

Her eyes rolled in their sockets, trying to combat the haze, causing her instantly to be frightened. Why couldn't she see? She couldn't quite make out where she was, and she thrust her left hand outwardly to try and steady herself. She did catch a glimpse of something on her finger, squinting desperately as she lifted her hand close to her face, able to make out the outline of a ring. A ring? Was she married? Was she still with Carlos? Was there someone else? Why was this happening? That ring hadnt been there before and now she was confused as well as frightened.

"Is anyone there?" She called, sticking her hand back out into the empty air, trying to listen for any kind of a response. Slowly she shuffled forward, trying to make out the blur of the things around her. She didn't notice the tears that slowly cascaded down her face, a silent response to what she was experiencing.

After what seemed to be a lifetime of confusion, the equivalent of only fifteen minutes, Mag closed her eyes. Her ears captured familiar sounds of the establishment she was in to begin with, and once her eyes had opened again she was staring down at the stack of plates that she had been looking at when her vision had blackened. She lifted her hand up, looking at it, seeing it free of jewelry of any kind.

"What? What happend?" She breathed, confused.

"Mag, are you alright? You're crying." One of the women in the cafe asked of her, and she hadnt noticed the tears before. Offering the woman a smile, she nodded, "I'm fine, thank you." With that, Mag scooped up the plates and carried the stack to the kitchen, mind racing.

She had to find Carlos and tell him what happened. Maybe he would know what to do.

Eric normally slept quite peacefully. This day, his slumber was disturbed by strange dreams that didn't feel exactly like dreams. They felt like he was living them. They weren't of his past, which would have made more sense, given the overreaching feeling he was getting. They certainly weren't of the present.

Because Pam was dead.

He felt the hole that had opened up when she'd been taken from him. He felt the vast loneliness of a world that didn't include his progeny. John was still out there somewhere, he knew that much. But John had not been his for very long, and certainly wasn't his favorite. It had taken him a very long time to find the right person to bring into his world, and she had been his companion for a very long time. She was very special.

It enraged him that he was without her. That somebody had taken her away.

Eric realized that he was standing over a table and speaking to somebody. He glanced down to see that the table held a map. Not very detailed, but enough for him to know what was going on. His finger was on the spot where die Festung would be. His anger seemed to be aimed there, though he couldn't say if there was the original cause for it. It was just where he would direct his ire for the time being.

He looked up again, leaning forward to get a better look at the being on the other side of the table, and it wasn't at all who he expected it to be. Not John standing there, but Melody. Pam's human. The living vampire. She had a dark look about her. A determination that he hadn't known the fragile thing could carry with her. She was nodding at something that he had said.

Her arms lifted a bit, like she was presenting something to him. He looked on either side of her and saw them advancing. More zombies. He was about to be angry with her for doing such a foolish thing again, but the creatures halted when she lowered her arms. Instead of yelling at her, he watched. When she directed, they listened. And it sounded like they were saying her name.

"...as many as you need, I can make." Her voice sounded in his ears and Eric figured that he must have asked her how big the pack of them were.

It took him no time at all to figure out what was going on. He was getting ready to wage a war, and he was using Melody to create the soldiers. A band of already dead soldiers that would not only scare the living shit out of those they were attacking, but could be sent to whatever destination they were needed at by one simple command. And it wasn't like they would run out of bodies to reanimate.

Eric looked into the pair of dark pools that were Melody's eyes. "And you can control them? All of them?"

"I just need to give them the command to attack, they won't waver from that. I don't have to go anywhere near the battle."

"Good." He didn't want to risk her, and not just because she was one of the only two links that he had to his lost child, but also because she was highly useful.

Despite the sun still being up, Eric's eyes woke in the blackness that was his day spot. He could hear the sounds of the house moving around him. The staff going about their routines. But most importantly, he could still feel Pam.

Aidan was at work when it happened. Tending to a patient. He didn't have any warning signs that it was going to occur, he was talking and laughing with a nice elderly woman who had sprained her ankle, teasing her about trying to chase down young, handsome men, when suddenly he was out. He didn't even feel his body hit the floor. No weakness of limbs, no dizziness.

There was just blackness.

A big, empty void. Nothing.

He felt disconnected from himself, from the world, from everybody he had ever known. There was no sense of physical being at all. No sense of self. Not a single emotion welled within him, when he was sure that he should be freaking out. Panicking. Feeling sad. Lonely.

Just... nothing.

It felt like it stretched on into eternity, and as if he'd been in this state for some time. He didn't know how he got there, didn't have any idea why. There was just the removal of all the things he had ever known.

When he came to again, Aidan was on a hospital bed. There were a couple of doctors standing around him. They'd tried to figure out what was wrong, but it was hard to diagnose a vampire. He didn't exactly have any vitals to check, so they couldn't even know if he was still alive. They'd been discussing what to do next when his eyes fluttered open. He thought he heard one of them say something about giving it until sunset and then finding Eric.

They were all a bit surprised when they looked down at him and discovered he was looking right back. Nobody knew what to say for a couple of beats. They all just stared at one another. Aidan included.

"Are you feeling alright?" One of the doctors finally ventured.

"Yeah, perfectly fine. What happened?" Aidan replied, confused. Pulling himself into a sitting position.

"We were hoping you could tell us. Mrs Felix said that you just dropped like bricks obeying gravity."

"I have no idea." He shook his head at the doctors. "I've never had anything like that happen before."

"Maybe you should go home for the day, Aidan. Rest up. Or do you want to check in here? We can monitor you. I mean, we can't like, hook you up to anything, since that would be useless, but we can keep an eye on you for 24 hours."

"How about a compromise. I'll hang out in the nurses' station for a few hours, if nothing else happens, I'll go home, sleep it off."

"Okay. Up to you."

Aidan nodded and swung his legs off the bed. He hoped he never experienced that - whatever it was - ever again.

Murphy's morning kata was interrupted by a jarring change. Suddenly, instead of standing and going through the fluid movements of the exercise that was part dance part training for hand to hand combat, she was lying in bed in a cold room that wasn't the room she shared with Harry. There was a sense of familiarity about the room, but one gaping thing was missing. She sat up in the bed and looked around.

There was no sign of the wizard that she'd been sharing a space with, no sign that more than one person lived here.

She got up and out of bed and started to move through the room. Her things were here, all of them put away like they'd found a new home. She glared at the offending objects as though they'd somehow betrayed her in their comfort in this place.

Something cold rested against her bare skin under her shirt. Murphy looked down and her fingers traced the thin chain around her neck, pulling the pentacle out from beneath the fabric of her shirt. She stared at it. It was Harry's.

Or it had been Harry's. It was around her neck now.

"No," she whispered.

Then she turned and punched the wall, anger bubbling over.

"No," she said in a much louder, much angrier voice.

Hot tears stung at her eyes when she suddenly fell over and realized she was back in the living room of the apartment she shared with Harry.

Bane slept.

He had not expected to sleep, as it was not his scheduled time to do so. He could only be grateful that he'd passed out within his own quarters in Sanctuary and not somewhere outside the walls.

While he slept, he dreamed. The images before his eyes in slumber were oddly vivid. Bane was a lucid dreamer, capable of controlling what he saw, and experiencing dreams in full color, sound, and feeling, but this was a step beyond even that. Though he experienced every sense clearly, he could control none of it.

He stood in deep snow somewhere outside the gates of Sanctuary. He knew that there were more people within that place than there ever had been before, but could not call up the reasons why or when it had happened. He knew only that he took these trips outside the wall more and more often for the solitude it allowed him. He had the vague sense of not participating in something quite significant, and the nagging feeling that his sitting out hadn't gone over so well with somebody. Perhaps more than one somebody.

Over his shoulder was a bag, within the bag, bundles of a plant. Nothing that he could identify from his many books and studies. Something of this planet. He had a lot of it. The bundles filled the bag so completely that bits stuck out the top of it. He felt protective over the plants he carried, like they were detrimental to his life. Like he might kill anybody who tried to take them from him. He felt that he had secret stashes of them hidden here and there in the fairy forest, and that when spring came, he would have hidden crops. But he had no idea what use they would be to him.

On the ground in front of him lay a dead deer. There was rope tangled about its legs and another around its neck. The neck itself was slashed and bleeding, and he held a bloody knife in his hand.

Bane carefully released the animal from the ropes and reset the trap. He hefted the carcass over one shoulder easily, and turned to trudge back through his own footsteps to return to Sanctuary. He couldn't just cart this thing around forever, unfortunately. And he couldn't leave it out here and come back to it later.

She was exhausted.

Life was full of many different things, and she felt like she was being dragged down. She glanced out the window to judge what time it might be, expecting somebody to be at the door any minute now. She could feel the weight of the anticipation, the eagerness. It wasn't something bad that she was awaiting, but something good. It was a strange feeling, knowing something good was coming.

Michonne looked around the apartment. It was a mess. There were things everywhere. Little person things. The sort of things that she hadn't seen since before the walkers. Well, she'd seen them, just not in a happy kind of situation like she was seeing them now.

She sighed.

"Hey!" She called out into the apartment. Somebody else was there, and she knew that for a fact. People that were supposed to be. She shared this place with others. Not just random strangers, but family. The thought of those that occupied this space with her filled her with a warmth that she'd never thought she'd know again.

"Hello! I'm talking to you!" Even though she was yelling, Michonne was smiling. "You need to come clean up after yourselves! There's crap all over my living room. Your dad is going to be home any minute, and I'd rather he not come back to it looking like a tornado blew through here."

Michonne stalked room to room, peeking in through doors, looking for the pair of little people that she knew were in here somewhere. Two tiny beings that were part of her and part of somebody else. She found them where they shouldn't have been, in the master bedroom, hiding under the bed.

"Okay." She put her hands on her hips and tried to look angry. "Sam, Aidan, you two need to get out from under there and clean the damned living room in the next five seconds, or it's going to be a spank for both of you."

The threat was real, the anger wasn't.

Fred had let Sam sleep, and she had every intention of speaking with Dean. Every single intention to give that hard headed jerk a piece of her mind. Only that didn't happen. Instead, she cleaned up the apartment downstairs, putting things away. She didn't stay there long though; she needed to do something productive that didn't remind her of failing. Failing in putting her mind to it.

She flopped again at the workbench. The room was warmer now that she'd set up a heater in the corner; it was a simple burning stove with a few Fredly additions to make it more the whole place, and she'd managed to swing some nice smelling wood to burn. There she sat staring at the most recent victim of her curiosity.

"Don't worry, I'll make you better." That was the plan, only that was not what happened.

( She woke... )

Warning: Adult/sexy situations

( Morning After )

Adult Content: Sex

Enigma raised up onto one hand, her other reaching for her thigh, wiggling a small blood sucker from her pocket and slipping it into her mouth to calm the cravings as she closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing.

And suddenly she screamed, as something tore into her flesh.

She opened her eyes, flipping to her feet and landing in a crouch, looking up at the changed world around her. Blood filled the air, sweat and the sharp scent that came from someone's bowels ripped open.

She stood, her long red pigtails matted with blood and other fluids, her body already healing from whatever had attacked her, the smell of smoke and death making her gag.

She lashed out at one of the men going for her out of the gloom, easily sliding into his stomach with the sword he held, kicking his body back, fangs extending.

She turned, fleeing from the battle, appearing instinctively at her lover's side, drenched in blood, panting from rage and blood lust, her leather pants making a squelching sound as she moved, the leather corset she wore to protect her heart barely covering her breasts or stomach, a large black crow burnt into the hard leather.

After the talk with Selina, Dinah and Bruce had finally made it to Sanctuary and requested an audience with Erik. Dinah was tense at the idea of walking into territory that housed the man who had done so much damage to two different Bruces that she knew by now. Any feelings brought up by Selina's arrival were shelved as she focused on keeping her eyes open for any sign of Bane or Scarecrow or anyone else that might pose a threat. She stayed close as they walked through the small town and didn't move away once they were inside alone with Erik. She had her reservations about the man who ran Sanctuary, but that was just heightened now in the face of whom he was allowing to live there. She still saw good in him, particularly in the way he cared for his people and in the fact that he'd been willing to give them a place to stay. That wouldn't be forgotten. And that was the main reason why she thought it was best to see if he knew who Bane was and what he was capable of.

They didn't get much past the niceties of greeting each other before something seemed to happen. Suddenly the room shifted and she was somewhere else entirely, with her brain struggling to keep up.

It appeared to have been a parking garage once, though the cars that were left were vandalized, rusting, and some were buried in ivy or some other plant type growth.

There was something cold and metal in her hands and the coppery smell of blood was thick in the air. Worse still, Dinah looked down and realized she was standing over someone who had bled out from a wound in his chest. She raised her now-shaking hand and realized that the weight in it was a bloodied knife.

What she didn't see was the scar that ran down one side of her face. She also didn't immediately notice the scars on her arms, or the fact that she was dressed in a tank top and light cotton pants instead of bundled up for winter weather. None of that mattered. Not when she couldn't fight the feeling that the man at her feet was dead because of her.