What happened

The vexation, sadness, shock and exhaustion in Mayor Richard Wilkins’s voice said more than the words he was saying and they were bad enough. He was providing to the mass-media a lifetime of information about the dozens who had died.

An unsecured gas system that worked from the centre of the building out toward the street had been detonated. The City’s fire department has not yet found out what caused the gas-line to blow but believe it a dilemma with the current electrical schematic. To ensure that this will never happen again, the building (along with reconstruction work) will be getting a new electrical structure far away from any gas-lines.

Wilkins sounded defeated by the implications. Children had died because of a structural issue. That was a horrific truth that the press continued to harbor. The possibility that The City might have another event like this in a government building seemed utterly likely to Wilkins who, to many of his listeners, dedicated that each building in the business district will have inspections this upcoming week. Specifications of where gas-lines, water-lines and electrical systems will all meet the health codes.

The government building had literally blown out (from the mayor’s office to the street). Wilkins told the crowd he had seen a body, probably many, on his escape from the building.

“I still see that body,” he said. “I see his position. I see the color of the clothes he had on.”

He’d seen hell where a kind of heaven should be.

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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Lusiphur was not happy. Apparently even sawing off the blonde girl's head with a hook knife was not enough to kill her. It kept trying to reattach itself, but at least by then she was no longer capable of screaming. He picked up the reaper's head to keep it separate and searched about the kitchen for some way to transport pieces of whoever this bitch was to his boss.

Eventually he found two garbage bags. He chose two because if he'd put all the parts into one they might have healed and reformed before he was able to get the girl to the mayor. So the head was tossed into one bag, the torso into another. An arm here, an arm there, part of a leg in that bag with the other half in this one.

Luse finally barged into the mayor's office about an hour after the hit should have ended, setting one bloody post-it note on the mayor's desk and two squirming garbage bags. He was glaring at the aged human. Our elf was not pleased.

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Wilkins’s office was the one piece of this city that was everything perfect. His photos of important people and him hung right where they belong. There was no dust. Everything was straightened and crisp. His humidifier provided faithfully the right temperature for anyone with any sort of sinus conditions to be pleased.

“Please, sit.”

He took his own advice. He leaned back in his throat and drew one leg up. It created a little table as one leg crossed over to the other’s knee. This is where his hands sat. They created a little steeple.

“Feel free to begin. You have all my attention.”

[ Baron Mordo ]

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In all his wanderings over the past week or so it had not occurred to Harvey to visit City Hall to see who might be District Attorney here. Maybe he or she could pull some strings and get him a job.

Just inside the door there was a directory. Almost immediately, something caught his eye...

District Attorney Harvey Dent . . . . . . 512

His mind reeled, thoughts bouncing around in his skull like ricocheting bullets. If Bruce was already part of this world, why not me? This must be some monstrously complex test of my character - I hope I haven't already failed. Is it my office, or is there another Harvey Dent waiting behind my desk? I hope my hip flask is still there.

Determined to find some answers, he made his way up to the office by way of the old marble staircase just down the hall from the entrance.

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It was amazing how easy it was for Lois to lose track of time in the City. For some reason, it seemed even easier than it had been in Metropolis. Of course, there she'd had Perry, Jimmy, and Clark to remind her when she was working too late. Here, there was nobody to notice or even care if she got engrossed in a story.

Sure, that sounded fatalistic, but on some level it was true. For all those times Lois had just wanted them to leave her alone when she was on a roll, she would gladly trade that for the freedom she had now.

On this particular evening, she had worked entirely too late. The offices of the Voice had been all but shut down, save for the one reading lamp still lit on Lois' desk. On finally finishing her story and suppressing a yawn as the exhaustion from the day truly sank in, Lois stood, only now registering just how late it had managed to get.

Sighing, she stood and shrugged into her coat, turning off the lamp and allowing her eyes a second to adjust to the dark before reaching for her purse and keys and heading towards the front doors.

As she let herself out onto the street, taking a moment to gain her bearings and determine the right direction to head into the ever-changing City, a little voice at the back of her mind questioned the intelligence of venturing out into the night on her own. But an even louder, more determined voice insisted that she was more than capable of seeing herself home. After all, she wasn't exactly helpless, now was she? And who ever said a female wasn't just as capable as a male of walking home alone at night... in a strange City where the streets happened to change and the crime rate was through the roof.

Okay, so not exactly the most intelligent decision, but she wasn't about to call Lex, and she didn't have money in her purse for a cab, having spent her last seven dollars on a bran muffin and triple mocha latte on her way to work. Both of which were no longer existent in her system, given the growling protests of her stomach and the lack of energy she was feeling at the moment as she turned down a side street, taking what she hoped was a shortcut to her apartment-which had turned up a few weeks ago, shortly after the uncomfortable confrontation with Lana Lang-make that Lana Luthor. At least, it had been a shortcut the other day.

As she turned down the narrowed street, she realized with a sinking feeling that it was definitely not the same shortcut. And looking back, the Main street seemed to have disappeared as well.

She was just beginning to run through possible courses of action when she heard a low snarling behind her. She turned around, and then shrieked, turning promptly back the other way and taking off as quickly as she could in her pumps.


Feel free to jump in as either the attacker, or the hero. Whichever :)

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