Reality Crisis

The unusual storm lasted for days, possibly even longer. To some, it might have seemed an eternity. It was hard enough to keep track of time when the sun rose and set as usual. But when the sky had been clouded over for so long, it was even more difficult to know how much time had passed.

The storm had given some of the chosen the chance to show what they were made of. It had also brought out some unlikely heroes as well. Some of the locals of die Festung and New Troy had stepped up to help their fellow man during the rain of creatures. There were those in die Festung that had been inspired by Captain America and there were those who had simply wanted to help their neighbors and their friends and the remainder of the human race.

There were deaths as well. Some of the snakes and other creatures that had fallen had been particularly venomous and had managed to claim lives within seconds of delivering a bite. There were those who had been trapped outside in the wilds and hadn’t managed to take shelter. But thanks to the efforts of the heroes (both superhuman and human) who had stepped forward, the majority of people had survived.

When the sun returned and the rain came to a sudden halt, many were still recovering in the hospitals of both cities. Many more went to work immediately on the clean-up.

With the immediate danger passed, whispers began about what the storm might mean. Stories of omens were traded, tales of the previous cataclysm were recounted-sometimes for the first time. The survivors were drawn closer together than before with this new reminder that the apocalypse was well underway.

The people that remained in the world were stronger than they looked. While they might seem downtrodden at times, they were all survivors in many ways. They would continue to survive until all possibility of survival was wiped out.

The evening with Jack hadn't gone quite as planned. By the time Peter realized that "a drink" meant Jack was trying to drink him under the table, the man had already been slurring. There was no catching up - not with the rate at which Peter's body burned through the alcohol. So he'd managed to keep the man awake long enough to guide Jack home. After that, Jack had blacked out, and Peter had gotten him into the bed, removed his shoes and that heavy coat, and taken an hour or so of sleep on a couch.

It was late when he started wandering the streets again. There had been work done, people trying to clear the streets of vermin, leaving corpses in a fee intersections. Peter wrinkled his nose. As the vermin decayed, that would spread disease around. Maybe there was a plan in place to take care of that, but he was restless enough to consider options.

It was late. Dark. No one seemed to be lingering in the streets. He supposed everyone had someplace to sleep. Maybe that deal with the leader of this place.

He marched up to the pile and used telekinesis to sweep the newly fallen creatures in place with the others. From there, it was just a matter of placing a shield around the pile, and setting it on fire.

The fire was bright and hot, but short-lived. It burned the corpses to ash before burning itself out. No smoke escaped until Peter lifted the shield, but the traces would be gone by morning. Peter headed for another intersection to repeat the process.

Peter was still going over what Murphy had told him about the various communities available. He wasn't comfortable with the idea of being bribed into whatever 'helping out' the woman in charge of die Festung would want. He'd... arrived here, but that didn't obligate him in any way.

Still, he wasn't quite ready to move on. He didn't know enough about the beings that lay beyond the walls to really be ready, it had been a long-ass day already, and... well, he was hungry. Seriously hungry. Over the last few years, acquiring so many abilities had made some changes to his body. He barely required sleep (in all honesty, he couldn't sleep more than a handful of hours a month), but his metabolism was fast enough that he was regularly hungry, needing to fuel himself more often.

He didn't want to speak to the woman in charge, not yet. So for the time being, with a telekinetic shield up to protect him from the falling creatures, Peter searched for something to eat.

Pam had taken to looking around, seeing what could be done. The world she found herself in might be minus rules, but it was also minus amenities she'd grown accustom to. She didn't care for the lack, yet Eric seemed more than willing to make a go of it. It helped that Pam was a survivor, and while she'd prefer her pink tracksuits or her designer shoes, she'd survive this. Her maker would expect nothing less.

He'd warned her about the forest, about the things in it. She'd stay away, which left her the rest of the wilderness of ruins or this New Troy to continue to make her way through. She worked on a list of improvements, keeping in mind that Eric wanted the people happy, subdued. Yet, they needed blood. She was a vampire, and understood the need for it. She also understood how her maker felt when he discussed the arena; she felt it as well, literally.

The petite vampire had been staring at the arena from a few yards away; the humans needed violence, but it would not be found in this arena. If there were things outside that needed to be dealt with violently...An army? A militia? The arena could not be used for that, too much bad mojo as they might say in some places, but elsewhere? She'd meant to broach the subject with Eric later that night, only...

Plop. Hiss. Plop. Croak. Very sick wet plop and thud. Crack. She was registering the sounds before she bothered looking around. It was the sound of death. Then something hit her and sunk its fangs into her shoulder.

"What the fuck!" The shock of realizing what was falling broken by the violation of fangs. She looked down at the snake still attacked to her then started running. At the moment, the only open covering was an overhang connecting to that damned arena.

"He's giving me a pony for this," she commented softly to herself as she pulled the snake out of her shoulder and broke its neck. As if she'd ever ask for such a ridiculous and useless thing like a pony.

Piotr wasn't sure what the hell was going on. In all the worlds he'd been to, all the alternate timelines, he'd never once seen vermin falling from the sky. It was disturbing, and he felt bad for all the little creatures that were dying in the process. They weren't the sort of things that would garner sympathy from a lot of folks, since they weren't bunnies and kittens. But to Piotr, a life was a life, and these animals had done nothing to deserve being splattered across the ground after what must have been a terrifying fall.

He was standing in the doorway of one of the buildings, he wasn't quite sure which. He hadn't meant to dunk into any that wasn't his own, but it was hard to see where you were going when your view was blocked by this rain.

"Chyort voz'mi!" The Russian spilled out of his mouth instead of English due to his agitation and frustration. He also thought that he was the only one around. It made more sense to talk to himself in Russian.

"Chto za huy is going on in this loh world?"

He looked up at the sky, but he didn't see anything abnormal outside of the animals. He had kind of hoped that he would see a special cloud or maybe an airship of some kind with people tossing the animals out.


Words "Damn it, shit/what the fuck/stupid"

Cordelia was restless. Not only had she not left die Festung since she'd first arrived, she'd barely left the apartment complex. She refused to go back to being the scared little girl who ran every time things got a little scary. She was trapped in a new world, and while she was glad that Fred was there, she had the impression that there was a lot the other woman wasn't telling her. And she was off somewhere at the moment, probably with Sam. And Cordelia wasn't the type of woman to wait around for someone else to come to her rescue. At least not anymore.

She'd managed to make her way out of the safe haven, curious to see what New Troy was like. By the time she walked all the way there, her feet were killing her. She was going to have to find more comfortable shoes, and soon.

She paused just outside the gates, looking around warily, and wishing she'd brought something better than the machete that Faith had given her when she'd first shown up there. Idly, she wondered what the other slayer was up to, since she hadn't seen her since that first day. She made a mental note to ask Fred if she knew anything about Faith's whereabouts.

And then something hit her foot.

Cordelia looked down to see a large toad on her shoe and she made a startled noise, quickly shaking it off and watching as it hopped away.

And then another toad fell at her feet. And another after that.

And then a snake.

At which point, Cordelia shrieked loudly and took off running as she started getting pelted by reptiles from the sky.

Steve had spent the previous few days recovering from his fall on Faith's couch, periodically venturing out to learn more about the camp. As soon as the hail of vermin from the sky began, Steve decided he needed to do something about it. His meeting with Belia had been brief and to the point, but she had seemed receptive to his ideas about dealing with the plague.

Even with Belia's blessing, he had no real authority with which to give anyone orders. But when Steve Rogers spoke, people tended to listen. And so he was found standing amidst a crowd of onlookers, beneath a hastily erected tent fashioned out of a pair of parachutes. Creatures pattered against the reinforced canvas, spilling off the edges in a deluge. A surprisingly detailed sketch of the camp had been sketched on a salvaged blackboard, propped against a pile of rubble. Steve wore his red, white and blue uniform, his cowl pulled back to reveal his face for the onlookers. "-we've already done a decent job of reinforcing homes and food stores against the vermin, so now we need to focus on clearing out as many as possible." He indicated to four large circles on the map.

"We're going to turn these intersections into dumping sites. We'll cordon off the sites with sheet metal and plywood, with one entryway apiece." He looked at the others. "Everyone who volunteers will be set on cleaning detail. Crews will be in two phases. Kill crews will sweep a street and any abandoned buildings and kill as many vermin as possible, dumping the corpses in the street. Clean-up crews will follow and shovel the bodies into vehicles or wheelbarrows, which will then take them to dump sites." Steve turned back to the crowd. "Everyone needs to wear the heaviest clothing they have, preferably hooded. I'm asking anyone with extras to donate them to the group, and I'll see that they are returned when this is all over."

A few people in the crowd were grumbling, clearly unimpressed by the plan. Steve crossed his arms. "I know some of you think the best solution might be to just lock yourselves in your homes and wait this out. But you'd be wrong. This is your city. You built it up with your sweat and blood and hard work, and now it's all of you to keep it safe. And I'll be there with you, every step of the way." He put his hands on his hips. "Well what are we waiting for?"

The crowd dispersed as people set about getting to work. Steve smiled to himself as they did, and headed out himself, his next stop the make-shift infirmary which had been set up to deal with the animal bites. He still might not know where or when the hell he was, but he was helping people and that was good enough for Captain America at the moment.

This was it. The big moment, the final hurrah. Tony grit his teeth as he and Jarvis pushed the suit to its limits for the turn, barely managing to turn the missile in time before it hit Stark Tower. The scraping of the Iron Man chest piece on the wall of his own building being one of the only things between it and a full nuclear strike was unnerving on a level he'd never be able to express in words. But then they were clear of it, and there was nothing ahead but the portal into space.

He braced himself, not able to look at the picture of Pepper that displayed as Jarvis tried to reach her. There was no time to say anything now anyway, and he was worried that looking at her would make his ability to send himself on a suicide mission obsolete. He was really quite selfish, after all, and these aliens were ugly enough to be running towards without a picture of his girl making him want to stay.

The passing through the portal was immediate and almost anti-climatic, but the wave of relief that he'd gotten the nuke through and aimed towards the ship before it went off was quite pleasant. It was just too bad that the natural high was dampened as the power of his suit ran out. He blinked as the power went out, then grunted softly as it started to draw power from core keeping him alive. Jarvis was supposed to prevent that from happening, but he was out of the computer's control here in the middle of space.

He stared out into the alien landscape, at the explosion brought on by the nuke, then closed his eyes. It was over, all over. But the Avengers would close the portal and defeat any remaining Chitauri, and hey, Manhattan wasn't nuked. That was something. It was quite impressive, actually.

They'd let Pepper know he'd done that, and maybe she'd be impressed too. She wasn't often by him anymore, she'd known him too long and had taken care of too many of his messes. He had no doubt that the rest of the world would recognize his amazing sacrifice, but he was always less certain about his girlfriend. He figured she'd be happy, though, if she didn't try to leave him again for making her worry about his life. Or, to be more accurate, if she didn't curse his memory for actually getting himself killed.

As his consciousness slipped out a smile almost tugged at his lips, thinking about how mad she'd be this time. And then there was no thought at all, or feeling.

The Iron Man fell through the portal just as it closed, but never re-entered Manhattan's airspace. Instead it tumbled, lifeless, striking an old building and puncturing a hole through the ceiling and two floors before making an impact in the ground just inside the walls of dieFestung. Tony never knew he made it back through the portal, much less that the portal hadn't taken him home.

Harry had found out from Carlos why Molly is the way she is. It wasn't pleasant knowledge because it was all his fault. That wasn't surprising. A lot of things were Harry's fault, but the guilt was pretty overwhelming. He had to do something about it. There was no doubt about that. He even had an idea of what, but it was drumming up the courage to face her again now that he knew what he did that Harry was stumbling over. He'd pretty much come home from talking to Carlos and curled up around Murphy (with their size difference that was almost literally) verbally puking everything he'd learned on her. Since then he'd been walking around lost in his thoughts and muttering to himself. Bob said this was no different than Harry's normal level of intellectual conversational skills.

As if all that and trying to figure out why they were here wasn't bad enough it had to go all Old Testament on them outside. Harry was in a basement apartment so he hadn't known what was going on until he'd taken Mouse out for a walk. Neither of them were thrilled with the rain of gross. It had been the fastest Mouse had ever seen to his business. There were more than a few natural cases of frogs, birds or even fish falling from the sky, but to have an entire tossed salad of creatures was indicative of something more.

He was lost in pondering that while Murph was out to check on the neighborhood. Some of those snakes and spiders were poisonous. They both wanted to make sure no one got bit and took it in turns to see if anyone needed help. A knock on his door made him frown in confusion. No one came here except for Carlos and that wasn't his knock. He gave Bob a warning glare then went to see who was there. Opening the door his brows bounced back up to find Baby Superman standing there. "Hi."

They'd kept the fire going all night to ward off any other small things that might be exploring the cave system now that the dragon was dead and Bruce eventually woke Dinah for her turn at keeping watch. It wasn't the most comfortable bed in the world and he slept with one ear open in case of trouble but the last thing Bruce was worried about was a little lack of sleep. That was pretty much his entire life after all.

The next day they had looked around to map out the immediate area of the caves before packing up to head back to the city when they heard the storm. Apparently it was going to be a wet trip back to the city. That meant new sorts of hazards on the slope back down and various situations were running through Bruce's head when he stopped short at the exit from the cave.

"Are those toads?"

Critters were falling from the sky. Talk about your Biblical plague. Molly would worry about the whys of that later. Right now one of those snakes that were falling had bitten and poisoned Erik. She had separated his consciousness from the pain but that was only a temporary solution. She had left part of her mind in his acting as a stop gap between him and the pain. It meant there was a constant drain on her resources. It was a slow draw, but eventually it would wear her down. Before that happened she needed help, and she could think of only one person to go to.

She stumbled her way through die Festung dodging frogs, lizards, snakes and those damn spiders! The spiders were the worst because they didn't die on impact. They just wriggled around then skittered off. Of course it was worse when they landed on you and went through their creepy dance. She pressed on though only squeaking a little from time to time for the rain or ick and breathed a sigh of relief when she got to Carlos' door.

She knew she might not be welcome and that was fine. He could hate her all he wanted so long as he helped Erik. She felt a moment of dizziness as she leaned against the doorframe, her eyes drifting shut but a sucked in breath steadied her. She grit her teeth then reached out to knock on the door. "...please be home."

( This world didn't need saving. )

---

He was a bleeding mess. The wounds on his chest and belly hadn't had time to heal yet, not with the burns covering his flesh taking precedence. He turned, eyes still half-blind from the explosion, hands raised and filled with blue fire. If he was alive, Sylar might still be alive.

But the view... this wasn't New York. Not the New York he'd known. He blinked, the fires flickering with uncertainty for a moment.

Was this... had Hiro been successful? Had that explosion five long years ago finally been averted?

If so... why was it raining reptiles?

The flames vanished. Peter dodged a snake, and then put a telekinetic shield over himself. A toad fell against it and bounced off, mere inches from his skin. The impact was enough to leave a splatter of dark amphibian blood trickling against the shield. "What the hell?"

Oliver had always been a light sleeper. He'd had to be, considering the life of his alter-ego. He had to be ready to wake up and fight if someone discovered his identity, or was just stupid enough to break into his apartment. But this morning, he'd awakened suddenly at the sound of a dull thud. And then another. And another after that.

Feeling confused, he sat up on the sofa, wondering why he'd fallen asleep there instead of in his bed, but quickly forgetting his train of thought when he heard another dull thud from above. He frowned, looking upward and then pausing when he caught a glimpse outside his window. He was pretty sure he'd just seen a couple of snakes and a toad fall past. And then another couple.

Blinking, he made his way to the window, looking down at the ground. Sure enough, hundreds of reptiles and amphibians were crawling all over the ground; others had simply splattered. He rubbed a hand over his face, wondering if he was still asleep and having some kind of bizarre dream.

But no. He was pretty sure he was awake.

He strode quickly toward the door to his apartment and made his way down the steps and into the lobby of the complex, staring out. They were everywhere.

"Well, this can't be good," he muttered.

The bad weather that was threatening hadn't bothered Erik much. It had sent him checking to make sure that the shelters were weather tight since the storms seemed to hit every day it was something that was shaping up to be a long term thing.

So this time around he wasn't honestly paying that much attention to the rain that was threatening. There were things he was busy with such as the water wheel that was supplying them with power. It tended to hang up sometimes which interrupted the power flow. And one of the things that seemed to help it hang up was the way the water flow fluctuated after a storm.

He lifted his head in surprise when the first creature hit the ground but didn't immediately connect it with the storm.

Until more things fell.

Ducking his head Erik made his way back toward the shelters when a snake fell over his shoulders. The impact hurt but when the dying reptile whipped around and sank its fangs into him in reaction that hurt even more.

Swearing in German he crushed the skull of the snake and ducked under a shelter.