What happened

Just because there are heroes, don't mean there isn't crime.

And not all crime is garish and threatening. Some of it is simple, the broken window of a storefront, jewelry missing. Some of it is pedestrian, a parking ticket on an expensive windshield. Other crime is just cheap and easy.

It doesn't take a cape or superpowers to spot that kind, just find a darker corner of the night, a loud bar, a broken down home. This is the routne stuff that the supertypes don't mess with, it's not their place. Even the uniformed officers stare sidelong on dirtieer streets, as if they didn't want to be there either.

Neither did the perps. There were the stupid types, those who walked the line, others who had no other choice but all came to the same end on the other side of the law.

Then again, there were those in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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It had begun like any other trial. Smoothly. Calmly. The judge entered and the people silenced. The baliff called for everybody to stand, and they did so, respectably. They sat just as silently, just as calmly when the judge called for them to do so. Judge Scott McRiley presiding...

It was just as the judge was settling in that the first mishap occured.

Jack Napier stood up to introduce himself to the court. And to the audience of people attending. He did so with a flourish and a bout of laughter so nerve-wracking that it took Judge McRiley a good ten minutes to quiet everybody down again.

"That is the last we'll have of that, I hope." He stated, looking Jack directly in the eye as he spoke.

Little did the poor judge know that this was only a pre-cursor to the sorts of things that could go on in a trial like this. A trial against Jack Napier. Maybe the only truly insane genius The City had ever seen. The misguided fellow might actually mistake to think he'd be able to control The Joker.

Jack himself spent a good few moments blowing kisses at Harvey Dent while Judge McRiley tried to call for order and the beginning of the trial.

He looked out at the lawyers and nodded. "Prosecution? You may begin."

And then he sat back, ready to hear this fantastic case.

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So, that was it then. She'd spent the day wandering around and could only come to one conclusion.

The world had gone bloody well mad.

So now that she had come to terms with the world stepping out of it's mind for a bit she was far better equipped to deal with it. She had plenty of food and other life essentials in the Tardis, she was in no danger of starving. She had all the clothes and money she needed, another side benefit of the Tardis and the tricks taught to her by her good friend the Doctor. It was really a shame he'd wandered off somewhere...it was a glorious sunny afternoon, she was bored and there was nothing much to do. SHe'd taken in the local sights but dared not wander off too far for fear the Tardis might decide it was needed elsewhere and leave her stranded. So, for now Rose Tyler stretched out on a oddish white plasticy looking lounge chair. Fetchingly attired in a swimsuit that was a brilliant mockery of the union Jack, and a cool pair of shades to match. Might as well take in the sun before it ducks under the clouds again. So there, in the small green courtyard by the police call box she relaxed, iPod softly cooing in her ear ad the warm sun lulling her into a peaceful doze.

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So Oz had gone from California to … wherever here was. So his neighbor seemed a little … off . So when he asked people where he was they just responded with ‘The City’. So what? It wasn’t like his life had been great before he ended up here. In fact one could argue that his life had been on kind of a downward slide before he had ended up here in ‘The City.

Oz was going to make the best of it, and the best way to make the best of it seemed to be trying to fit in. He felt, if he did say so himself, that he was doing a good job. He had an apartment (with the aforementioned slightly off neighbor but hey he considered himself lucky, the landlord hadn’t asked for references or anything like that. Which was good since all of Oz’s references where back in California) and he had managed to find a drugstore. Which had actually been harder than he had expected it to be, apparently the streets here moved.

But no matter, he had found a drug store, and one that carried a nice wide variety of hair dye. New City, new apartment, time for a new hair colour. Oz was aware that there were some other, somewhat pressing concerns he was going to have to deal with soon. A source of income for example and he’d need to find a place that sold some of the herbs he needed. Either that or find some chains. He’d also have to find a calendar that let him know just when the full moon was due.

But that could be dealt with in the future. Right now Oz just had to decide between a jar of After Midnight Blue or Electric Lizard dye.

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John Constantine brushed his teeth with someone else's toothbrush.

The owner of the toothbrush looked on in shoc and surprise, not really sure of how to take the situation.

No job, no friends or contacts, one lunatic meeting with a man in a cape later, John was still out of place in the City. Not that he had ay inclination to fit in, it just made things difficult when you wanted to take a shower. He'd taken to simple lockpicking and some very pushy things to get by. Sleeping in stairwells was one thing, in fact nothing he hadn't done before but this time.... this time he wasn't goingstick so bad.

And putting people on the spot rarely ceased to facinate him to some extent. When one simply walks into your apartment and heads straight for the bathroom, there's not much one can do. Especially when the phone line's been cut to the local police. And since he wasn't stealing anything, aside from some suds and water, most people's minds couldn't feel affronted enough to take tht first swing. Outside the overmuscled meathead and those were a cinch to take the wind from their sails.

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It was getting stuffy in the Sanctum Sanctorum; even without the company of his right-hand man, Wong, and his disciple, Clea. Night after night of research, spell incantations, conjuring this and that and with little to no avail. And Dr. Strange was beginning to feel the effects of weariness and cabin fever. That and half of his spells blew up, fizzled out, or just plain didn't work; a tragedy he was beginning to associate with the bizarre magical workings of the City.

Or perhaps it had just been that he was trying to accomplish a task in the wrong area? More than likely he was just in need of a break.

But for Strange, a break was like giving up, and since he had a duty passed down to him, an obligation to the dimensional realms that he swore to uphold, even his breaks were working on finding a means to an escape. Which was why he was standing in the rank alley outside of the building that made a near perfect replica of his home on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village.

He'd taken up smoking again; not a very positive habit for a former physician but there was little else to calm his nerves short of stabbing his brain with a mystical sedative every few hours. He was staring at the brick wall across from him, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and wafting the smoky cloud above his head. It was damp. And the water from a broken downspout was trickling along the alley floor catching dirt and trash along its way and dragging it out to the sewer gutters.

He could pull it apart. Separate the dimensional wall. The barrier. See what was on the other side. Maybe it was different. Maybe it had more answers.

Or he could continue to stand there and get his cloak dirty.

Sadly, neither option appealed to him at this point.

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Who: Death and John Constantine
What: Meet (Again) and Talk
Where: In a pub. Typical, huh?

continued in comments

[Constantine]: There's was something in the hero's code that demanded that they control wrong and right.

That they fix what is wrong the moment it rears it's ugly head. The moment something is amiss, they're on it like fleas on a dog, bitting at the trouble, shooting lazer beams or puzling out this mystery or that. Should one find themselves in an 'alternate world', they'd be running about, learning or fighting or striving to go right on back to the status quo.

John Constatine entered the bar with his eyes down, cigarette dangling form his lips as several weapons clicked bullets into chambers like suspicions from the regulars in the room. He didn't look up, just walked right up to the bartender, sat on a stool and waited.

[Death]: There was a pause over the room. A dozen pairs of eyes watched as Constantine took a seat, and the moment stretched and stretched, threatening to snap at any moment. From upstairs was the sound of a single shot being fired, and every nearly head turned up. Then, in the back, one man guffawed and snickered, and the normal chatter resumed.

Dimly, never heard by the majority of the bar, came the sound of wings beating from upstairs. Not long after that, a thin, pale woman walked down the steps, hands tucked into her pockets. She was heading for the door, but paused when she saw the newcomer, and took a seat beside him. "Well. I didn't expect to see you again so soon."

The bartender threw a paper napkin in front of each of them. "Whatllyahave?" he grunted.

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He awoke with a pain-filled jolt and the distinct feeling of falling. As if falling from the Grace of God. A long, dark decent into some kind of Hell. The only problem with that idea being that somewhere in the back of his brain something told him that God was not, in fact, pissed off with him - but indeed, afraid of him.
But that idea in itself was too absurd and strange to be true. Jesse had no memory of any sort of event that should cause such thoughts, or any memories at all past telling Cassidy to LET GO.

So he'd fallen out of a plane.

Either he was dead, or still falling. Nobody survived a plummet from that height. Nobody. But the air around him wasn't rushing. Or cold. There wasn't really a wind at all. So dead maybe. But when you died, that was the end of all pain, wasn't it? All mortal pains anyhow.
A tentative movement of his hand confirmed:

1- He was not falling.
2- He was in a considerable amount of pain.
3- He was, most assuredly, not dead. He didn't think asphalt existed in death.

So, not dead and not falling. Which left – he’d hit the ground somewhere and was miraculously still alive. Another test of limbs let him know he still had legs, he could feel them and still move them. Plus both arms still worked. Though there was a terrific amount of pain, it didn’t seem to Jesse that there was any permanent damage done.

Only one thing left to check.

Jesse’s hands moved down to his pocket area and he felt around. A smile crept over his face when he discovered what he sought unharmed and whole.

“Fuck right.” He said to himself as he maneuvered the cigarette pack and lighter out of his pocket. A man could be alive and whole, but he was never complete without his smokes. He slid a stick from the pack and lit it, his arms then falling to his sides almost limp now from exhaustion and pain.

Jesse sucked the smoke into his lungs with a smile on his face.

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