The Universe's Mixer

Zoe went home, but she didn't find him there. She thought of going to Serenity, but she didnt' want to see him. Or she did. She wanted to take back everything she did, but she knew she couldn't. There was no going back; there never was. She'd get over it; just like she'd gotten over everything in the past.

She got cleaned up, got dressed, and headed back out. Eventually she'd find Serenity, but for now, walking seemed like the best idea. One part of her wanted to be in the air, taking care of a ship. On the other hand, she was glad she was on the ground and could walk. Her body was sore; the bites on her arm..it could have been worse. She'd have to leave it bandaged for a while, but the doctor fixed it up well enough.

She looked at her arm again, remembering that she'd been bitten while shooting Jesse. It wasn't so much that she remembered shooting him, but that she was absent firepower. The City hadn't exactly returned it. How could she have forgotten it? What kind of idiot had she become to just leave weapons lying around? Well, she supposed she'd have to find it before some foolheaded kid found it and tried to use it.

"Sir, you'll have to put that out," said the woman at the front desk. "City Ordinance #331 states no smoking on City property. That includes the Police Station."

"So that's what I have to do to get attention around here? Commit a crime? Jesus." J. Jonah Jameson chucked the partially-finished cigar into the soil of a potted plant. "I've been waiting around for damn near four minutes for someone to help me out."

"What's your problem, sir?" The woman asked, not especially interested in the answer.

"I'm here to report a missing person."

The woman suddenly gained a little interest.

"Me," Jameson stated. "One minute I'm in my office at the Daily Bugle in New York City, the next I'm in an office of some newspaper called the City Voice. And to top it all off, nobody will tell me *what* city I'm in."

"Take a brochure, sir," the woman directed, now losing interest again. She pointed to a wall covered with a variety of brochures. A sign above the display read, NEW TO THE CITY?

"I don't need a brochure, I wanna talk to somebody. Listen, peaches, I'm the Executive Editor of the Daily Bugle, and when I get back home I'm gonna give this podunk little town such a bad rap it'll make Baltimore seem like Disneyland."

"Your tag says City Voice," the woman pointed out.

Jameson took a look at his chest. The ID tag that had previously marked him as Executive Editor of the Daily Bugle now indicated he held the same position for the City Voice. "That's right," he said, jumping on the opportunity. "I've got your little burg wrapped around my finger. If I say you're all crooked, that's what the people will believe. Now let me talk to someone before I get unreasonable."

Angel walked The City, ego bruised as badly as his body. Curing Sam, being part of a team and no longer in Hell didn't feel as good as it should have. Angel was secretly jealous of Sam's curse; the abilities it gave the young hunter meant that Sam would never be obsolete. In Hell, the healing spells and other magic Wesley used to keep up vampire appearances might have been slowly killing Angel but it at least enabled him to continue posing as a champion.

The former vampire didn't know who he was or what he was going to do with himself any more.

The sight of his old basement apartment and office building surprised him. Angel entered the original sight of Angel Investigations. Everything was just as he'd left it before Wolfram & Hart had blown it to pieces. Even the elevator which lead to what Doyle had dubbed The Bat Cave, a very dated computer, the work mini-fridge stocked with butcher's blood, the receptionist desk Cordelia used...

Angel frowned.

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Billy sat in the basement of his rented house, staring forlornly into the lens of his webcam. He noticed a sharp decrease in the number of hits on his blog. It depressed him. He straightened his posture and adjusted his goggles with gloved hands. Billy practiced what was supposed to be an evil smile which only looked mildly mischievous at best. So he stopped.

With a heavy sigh he spoke, "Apparently no one at the hospital recognized me, Doctor Horrible, member of the ELE. They let me walk right out the front door. No word from The League yet, B-T-W. Apparently Bad Horse and the others have been unsuccessful in their attempts to rescue me from this pocket dimension. Obviously this is all some sort of mistake. Not on my part. At least, I don't think. I'm pretty sure the Transporter Beam isn't capable of ... transporting anything. At least not without complications. It's obvious to me in recent light of the Undead Epidemic that The City must be stopped. So, look out for something big! Something evil. Uh, this is normally the part where I respond to reader e-mail but since no one seems to have heard of me here I don't actually have any."

Horrible cleared his throat.

"That's it for now. Those of you interested in joining The City's brand new and improved Evil League of Evil or the Henchman's Union, send me an e-mail with your resume. Maybe a video tape. Just a warning though, yes killing people is impressive but if you're going to do that you have to make it classy. I can't let just any idiot with a gun into The League. I mean, who do you take us for? The cops? There have to be standards. Okay, peace out.... in pieces!"

Horrible tried his best evil laugh (thought it sounded a little half-hearted) before reaching forward and turning the camera off. One post to YouTube later and Horrible stared at his in-box. Twenty minutes passed and still there was not a single e-mail. Billy sighed dejectedly before deciding to slip into his mild-mannered civilian attire and head to the grocery store in a white, unmarked van that doubled as his dastardly get-away car.

His grocery list read as follows: mayo, milk, butter, bread, eggs, english muffins, frozen dinners, and noz-ola cola. About halfway to Winco he realized that The City had him completely lost. Billy slammed on his breaks and pulled over. Getting out of the van he waved his fist in the air, "Alright City, laugh now but pretty soon I will take you over and put in a comprehensive light rail system! An evil light rail system! Run on renewable energy! So go on and laugh, you jerk! Laugh it up now while you can!"

One problem with being a reaper was that darned metabolism. Getting drunk wasn't terribly difficult if she followed enough shots one after another, but staying drunk for more than thirty minutes was something else entirely. It required either spending lots of money or the kindness of strangers. Since George wasn't the sort of person to flirt, or attract the sort of attention she would have despised in the first place, she found herself out of money and alcohol very quickly.

Her head started to ache.

"Water please."

George slapped her hand on the bar twice before taking her clear plastic cup and finding a moldy couch to sit on. One eye squeezed shut as a band on stage began to warm up. The crowd (many of them covered with fresh marks and scars of the recent undead epidemic) started wail and shout. If any of them recognized George as the girl who cured them, no one acted on it. That suited the reaper just fine.