What happened

The days following the trial had left her feeling odd, as if there was something unfinished. Maybe there was or maybe it was her own frustration of the legal system. Somethings were just not as they should be. A man like that Napier should have gone away for a good long time, not been given the chance to break free and cause what seemed like even more damage then before.

Even now as she curled up on the paisley sofa of the Starbucks and sipped the frothy overpriced mocha, she could see it. Mostly because it was front page in the City Voice in front of her. Headlines as to the atrocities committed since the inmates quite literally took over the aslyum. She sighed and flipped back to page one. Break in the gas line at City Hall, that sounded bad. The picture was vivid it captured the destruction with a skilled eye.

Gasp.

The mug rolled from her fingertips and fell to the floor shattering into white shards and foamy coffee. Eyes could not look away from the photo, or more correctly the credit line beneath it. Trembling fingers manged to pull her cell phone from her purse.

"The number for the City Voice please?"

Heart beats pause as the connection was made.

"Yes, 'Voice?"
She could not keep the tremor from her own voice.
"Could you put me through to Peter Parker?"

( Read more... )

It was just another business day.

Bodies drifted in and out of the government building like tears in turpentine. A blue school bus parked in a handicap zone. Teachers shepherded kids with sunglasses as crowns back into the bus. Each carrying a novelty The City pamphlet with bookmarkers as tongues, most of them torn with a frown.

The glass that ripped into the bodies of the children wasn’t deliberate. Billy’s eyes hadn’t been the target as shards embedded and made them their new home. As the mayor’s wing commenced violently (pillars suddenly cracking, doors slamming open), this had little to do with calculation and everything to do with origination.

Olvikan didn’t survive in this ‘verse. That had meant all the power that was Olvikan was up for the harvesting. It was there without being overridden. It was there without sacrificing one’s self. It was there with still being Richard Wilkins. It hadn’t been easy because the means weren’t present. It had been much dirtier than he’d liked. It had been much harder to keep his rapport subsistent.

Marble floor cracked dramatically from the epicenter. A sign stating Mayor’s Office crashed into the crack and eventually fell as it steadily separated. It wasn’t the invoking summon that destroyed his desk. Instead, it was the scaled spiked-tail that lashed out from him.

Darkness overtook the building. Clouds swarmed like wasps above. Fresh blood twinkled into The City’s hungry drains like red comets. Suits climbed out of the rumble just as the sprinkler system showered on each and every one of them. It hadn’t been too bad a hit. It all seemed isolated to the mayor’s wing.

Alarm systems usually have annoying patterns of sirens that deaf ears. No alarm went off to ruin this art. Lightening created a web above the building and began to dissolve. It didn’t need an alarm to alert the citizens.

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Shortly after the fifth coconut had been thrown into the open sea, a continuation of his earlier actions that had been brutally criticized through pestering whines by his anorexically-annoying female companion on that deserted sandlot, the door appeared. To his good fortune, the woman -- and her little dog too! -- were out like lights by that point, and being a self indulgent billionaire with the poignant disregard for most other people, he didn't see any cause to wake them.

Now, Lex Luthor was by no means a newcomer to the world of the strange and fantastic. He did exist in a world where the lives of everyday citizens were served and protected by a flying fruitcake in spandex tights, and where evil criminal masterminds -- including and those not unlike himself -- were in a perpetual state of attempted global domination. He was, after all, on a deserted island because he had gotten the maniacal notion that a continent crafted of crystallized kryptonite would be a good idea.

So suddenly finding a door, semi hovering over the water just off the beach, with a knob and an open keyhole, wasn't extraordinary in the least. Just convenient. And he wasted no time in walking knee deep into the ocean until he came face to face with the door.

He leaned forward to peek inside the keyhole. At first there was nothing but an infinite blackness on the other side. But then there was something. He wasn't sure what. But it was something. And something was better than the nothing he had now. And being that the woman was inconsequential to him, easily manipulated females that were pleasing to look at were a dime a dozen these days, he didn't even give her a second thought.

He reached forward and turned the knob.

And found himself standing in the middle of a street. An intersection, actually. With a taxi cab speeding directly towards him.

"What the--?!"

( Read more... )

Lois Lane had been on to something. Sadly, the Mayor’s face was entirely too clean lately. Spidey had a feeling he was using wet-naps.

There was also plenty of crime in the city. Muggings, car-jackings and the like which was good fodder for the spider. Each predator webbed and interrogated about their knowledge as who ran the streets in The City. Every city, from Spidey’s experience, had their own Hallmark Kingpin. One name bankrolled a lot of the drugs that these idiots were on. One name bought a lot of the obscure loot. One weird name.

Olvikan.


Parker was getting rolls of film for Lane. Of course, he had been far too busy to let her in on the fact he even knew Spidey or to even ask if she had heard of Spidey. It didn’t matter. Spidey mania comes a’knocking.

Another two-bit crook hung underneath a lamppost all webbed up. Same name, different sob story. Spidey leapt to a rooftop and snag his camera. It had been nestled between two gargoyles.

[ BLACK CAT ]

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Peter Parker’s dreams were always haunted by the lady with the red hair. They had been since the day they had fell apart for the last time. It was always abstract. A smile amidst locks of red or the hair against her wedding dress… but that was always the consistent. The red hair was always there.

Only this woman, who laid him down on a bed in homage to a Bob Dylan song wasn’t Mary Jane. A singsong voice told him that her name was Barbra Gordon. Her eyes never left his and when she was finished with him, the same singsong voice told him she was in serious trouble.

He awoke in the same urgency that many do when the alarm clock has been buzzing for far too long. Red and blue clung to his body and he crafted webs throughout the city. Much like his spider-sense, he knew where the tower was. It was to his surprise when he saw a familiar suit.

Daredevil! Which meant Typhoid?

Itsy Bitsy Spider flopped to the ground. Parker found himself scratching the back of his neck. Part of him felt violated at that because Typhoid had quite the history with the superhero best of’s. Especially with Matt and Daredevil.

Considering he had left in such haste, he fought the urge to follow Daredevil, and went back to his apartment. It was like a scar that wouldn’t heal. It just kept itching in the back of his head. Barbra Gordon. Now he understood why Typhoid was such a villain. His heart, soul and mind was hammered by this image.

It was going to make for a difficult day.

Green Goblin. An asylum.

Things weren’t changing for the best here in The City. He didn’t approve. However, he now had a regular paying job. That was something he did approve. So much of his life had been making sure Peter Parker came first. To believe that he and MJ finally separated on what would have brought on a divorce because he had forgot that… that tore him up inside. That pain intensified when he was alone in the costume.

What did superheroes do when they were feeling blue? They consulted other superheroes. Spidey had a feeling that Bleecker Street was somewhere in this labyrinth. When he finally did find it, it was every bit worth the search. Sanctum Sanctorum appeared as it had throughout his career.

Spidey swung himself on to the rooftop and stared into the large glass window, his eyes looking in through the huge eye.

[ Doctor Strange ]

( Read more... )

The first thought Kyle had when he felt the earth shake was, 'Damn. There aren't any signs up about how to handle earthquakes. We never had earthquake drills'. Then he looked at his light board which had fallen off of his desk smashed to the floor, and thought, 'Fuck.'

Then he saw the smoke.

That was when he finally thought to stand up and look away from his desk. How were his coworkers handling the impromptu earthquake. Or whatever it was. They weren't handling it very well at all, actually. For all he could see, they were running through the resulting smoke like chickens with their heads cut off. Kyle couldn't really blame them; they probably weren't used to stuff like this. Hell, he wasn't even completely used to stuff like this.

The art department for The City's newspaper was on one of the lower floors, so when Kyle finally got his wits together and started yelling and ushering people out of the doors, he could at least have some comfort in knowing they all had a good chance of getting out safely. No one seemed to notice when he backed away from the stairwell and ran back into the main area of the floor where all the artists had their desks set up.

He moved slowly through the smoke, making sure no one else was trapped in the room and once he was relatively sure, he raised his hand. A green gas mask covered his face, and Kyle took a deep breath, hoping that he hadn't already inhaled too much smoke. Next he created a lantern, which shined brightly through the smoke, allowing him to move quickly to the large windows.

Where was the smoke coming from? Kyle wasn't immediately sure, but he was definitely leaning more towards an explosion now. He just didn't know from where. Looking out of the windows, he could see smoke pouring from some of the lowers floors as well, and a slightly grey tinge in the air above make him think that something had to going on on the higher floors as well. Across the street people were pouring out of another office building and onto the street, pointing up at both buildings. Grey smoke was pouring from their windows as well.

The building shook again, and this time Kyle could hear an explosion coming from upstairs. It was time to get out.

Kyle backed away from the window, back into the smoke where he was sure no one would be able to see him as a green glow engulfed his body. When it died down, he was suited up completely, mask included. He had to help somehow.

Though, as he started breaking through the window so that he could fly out, Kyle couldn't help but hope that some of the other heroes in this place had heard the explosions. Because he was pretty damn sure that alone he wasn't going to be much good.

OOC: Just a note, as stated before, everyone can participate in this, whether your character wants to be a bystander or wants to try to rescue people or even wants to try and make the situation worse. Any of those options is cool! NPCs may even come and interact with your characters.

Don't worry. Something will come of this. So yes. Post!

( Read more... )

Peter Parker stared at the two buildings that faced one another. Across the intersection of Main and Tenth, there were identical buildings with identical displays signifying the same specials in the windows. If The City was a consolidation of separate worlds then this was Lucifer’s domain. He was staring at two independent STARBUCKS.

”YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME – where do I go?”

These moments almost never happened in his normal life. No, these were moments for Spidey. Do we defuse the bomb or try to save the children? Parker counted to ten. At the end of ten? He didn’t have an answer. He decided to go to the one on the right and wait because he was right-handed. No mystical reason. No divine intervention. He had no idea how Lois Lane looked but he took a seat by the window. He imagined she would be dressed professional.

”NOTHING IN MY LIFE IS EVER SIMPLE,” he said into his hand.

[ Lane ]

( Read more... )

Lois had squatted on that rooftop for hours before finally making her way home, completely in shock. When she finally made it home, she'd leaned against her doorway and tried to calm her nerves as she tried to wrap her mind around what she'd just seen.

What she did know was that next time, there would be proof.

And yes, she could very well just bring her own camera around, but the pictures would be so much better with a professional. She needed Jimmy.

Unfortunately, Jimmy wasn't here.

And so, she needed to find the next best thing. Someone who was willing to follow her around in pursuit of this story. Someone who wouldn't be completely skeptical when she explained why she was following the Mayor around. Someone who worked cheaply.

The question was... who fit that bill?

She had scanned through all the staff photographers for the City Voice, even interviewed a few of them. She couldn't see herself working with a single one of them.

Finally, she'd come across a list of photographers who had at one time freelanced for the Voice.

After wading through several wrong numbers for the photographers on the list, she came to a Peter Parker.

Picking up the number, she dialed, praying that this would be it. She was losing time on the story with all this time she'd put into finding a photographer.

"Hello?" Lois cringed as a very old woman answered the phone. Most likely another false number. What was it with freelancers?

"Hello. This is Lois Lane. I'm looking for Peter Parker?" she couldn't keep the question out of her voice.

"Peter? Oh. I'm not sure if he's home. Let me check for you Ms-"

"Lane," Lois supplied, inwardly sighing a breath of relief as she heard the woman set down the phone and call for Peter.

( Read more.... )

Everything hurt.

How long had he been laying here?

Forever, maybe.

He hadn't been able to move. There was definitely something broken. Something... but what? Ribs? An arm? A leg? His face? His face was certainly broken.

Jack hadn't recieved a beating like that in a long time. Well, ever.

Usually people didn't beat him up. They just carted him off to Arkham. They threw him in a cell. Sure, there was some rough treatment, but nothing like this. Part of him was warned away from the Maxine girl. Never to touch her again. Never even look at her wrong again. But the rest of him wanted revenge. He was angry that a stupid girl could get him bloodied.

Fuck her.

He'd find a way.

Maybe he couldn't get back at that man directly. There was no way he could fight him. And with his funky word power, it would take a miracle to shoot him. Or do anything else. There was a little hope. Maybe he could be sneaky. Sly. Catch the man off guard. Jesse. Jesse. He could ... something.

At the very least, he could find Maxine again.
The pink haired girl.

Of course, right now, he had to try to pick himself up out of this pool of his own drying blood and get fixed up.

( Read more... )

Peter had successfully wrestled his press pass from someone he didn't recognize (but seemed to know exactly who he was) at the offices of the City Voice. He had managed, though it'd taken some doing, to sew himself a new costume, from scratch, though by the time it was done, he was exhausted and swore up and down that once he found Aunt May, he'd thank her over and over again for somehow managing to help him out.

The mousy looking camera-man slipped out of his apartment at half past eight in the evening, his backpack slung over one shoulder (costume and spare rolls of film tucked safely inside). He had been lucky - in his apartment, he'd found plenty of cartridges of webbing, which left him slightly nervous, but for the most part, relieved that he didn't have to mix any more up. Some of the materials were expensive and, well, hard to get.

Peter was snooping around. One thing that his press pass did was give him a perfectly viable excuse to go scoping out places or people, no matter how dangerous.

( Read more... )

It was a nice apartment, although it was not the sort of apartment Del herself would have liked. For one thing, everything was solidly attached to the ground. Sure, you could push the chairs around but they didn't float and they held a very plain and very consistent shape. It was a bit depressing.

It wasn't the bit of cooking Delirium had tried to do that made the noise. Del had turned off the kitchen sounds. Well, they were on which were why the dogs in the neighborhood seemed to bark so loudly, but they weren't people-on. Those were entirely different things.

No, what started to make the ruckus in the kitchen of the apartment that was not very much hers at all were the frogs. There were frogs of all different colors and sizes and the first ones croaked as frogs tended to do but some of the later ones started to sing old Johnny Cash songs and instead of hopping about they rolled around the floor leaving colorful trails of slime that tasted like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on wheat bread.

And when the oven went off, which didn't actually make a people-sound, Del pulled out a cookie tray of little chocolate people. Each chocolate person, which actually tasted more like one of those rainbow confetti cakes than chocolate and were bungle berry filled, did something different. One of them tap danced. Delirium decided to taste test the chocolate dancing man by biting his head off and when she set him down he held his tiny chocolate arms out and tried to feel around him blindly. A couple of the other chocolate people shrieked in horror.

Then the tea kettle went off. More dogs barked. Delirium thought of Barnabas and smiled.

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Peter had been fighting with everything he had. He had been freaking out, his movements desperate and sudden, as he'd fought earnestly for his life. At first, he fought to do damage. After a while, he fought to keep from taking too many blows. By the end, he was fighting to keep his eyes closed, pain dull and sharp and constant and throbbing all throughout him all at once. He had his eyes forced open, one rough-skinned fat-fingered hand tearing the lid just barely as it wriggled thumb and forefinger in, around the slightly soft, jelly-ish curve of his right eye. Peter fainted when the optic nerve snapped.

It felt like half a second later, if that, that he was raising his hands up over his face, fighting off a much smaller, almost sweet-smelling warm body, his breath coming in choked, short gasps. He pushed the young nurse so hard she fell back, hard on the sterilized linoleum flooring of the hospital. She made a surprised cry, and scrambled for the door.

Peter heard her howl down the hall, "Room 516's awake!"

One hand slammed up against his face, feeling, trying to assess the damage. There was no bandage there, only a mass of skin that had healed over, scarred tissue and a suspicious hardness beneath the layer of skin, as though there had never been an eye there in the first place.

Peter felt his stomach churn, and he tore the IV lines from his arm, falling out of bed. He hauled himself to the bathroom before he got sick. Before anyone could so much as ask him his name, he said gruffly, "I want to check out."

He had to find MJ. And Aunt May. If they weren't there, by his side, it could only mean that something had happened to them.

By the time he hit the streets, in a set of borrowed hospital scrubs and red nike sneakers, it had started to rain.

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