The Universe's Mixer

Wash wouldn’t have thought he’d gotten so much enjoyment from eating a dill pickle, but the movie theatre sold them and so, it wrapped in a wax paper swaddle, he walked out of “Pretty Woman” with one last bite of the surprisingly scrumptious pickled cucumber. He popped it in his mouth and balled up the trash shoving it into the side of a bronze colored trash bin.

Hm, that was weird. Where was the door? And this was a weird looking trash bin. He explored the domed top and mechanical looking implements. He chewed one last time on his pickle as he poked the whisk looking armature curiously.
( continued )

Enigma couldn't remember if there was a specific way to call to Tink. She knew to catch Peter's attention, one just had to leave a nursery window open (and it usually helped to be a child or innocent), but even knowing the mythos didn't help when it came to the fairy.

So instead, she stood in the park, yelling Tink's name over and over, ignoring the looks she got. It didn't matter what people thought of her (though if word got back to Bruce and Tony, she was sure they would have a comment), she just cared if it worked.

On the park table next to her was a small towel laid out with several objects, one, a tiny version of their cellphones, this one designed for instant access to Stark Tower and Timmy specifically if needed, another a small machine that was the reason for her...calling of Tink.

The third with a small picnic, since technically it was her lunch hour anyway.

She took a deep breath, before shouting Tink's name again.

After the first day of total darkness, Maxine started to fret. She used the internet to look up when the sun was supposed to rise and set. Then there was the alarms. Maxine set every single alarm in the house, all for different times. Without the sun, the animals wouldn't know when it was their bedtime. Maxine had to fix that.

As obnoxious as it was, the owls and crickets were only heard during the nighttime hours. The rodents and other creatures only ventured out during the safety of the dark days. With or without the sun, the animals continued the best they could under Maxine's ernest direction. To the untrained eye, however, Maxine was a nightmare of a house guest -- waking up at all hours and going out into the yard, concentrating with all her five year old might.

It was a strange sight in the least.

Getting up at all hours of the night meant sleeping at all hours, too. Maxine had curled up in the living room with a blanket. When sleeping deeply, she didn't hear Jo coming or going. She did, however, hear the knock on the door. Her hair was comically disheveled. Maxine rubbed the sleep from her eyes when she looked up at the older man at the door.

"...Are you Jo's dad?" she yawned.

Jonathan grinned as Nightmare whinnied, pulling his burlap mask down over his face, fading into even blacker darkness as Scarecrow slid forward, a manic giggle spreading through the eternal night as he twirled his scythe, kicking Nightmare into action.

The horse eagerly leap forward, heading for the bridge that separated Arkham from the rest of the City, the horse just as eager as her masters to play in the night. It had been a while since Scarecrow got a chance to fully play, not even allowed to back in Gotham due to business matters at hand (such as running and hiding from the Batman), but the night was theirs and they were free.

Jonathan had given the toxin gas to Joker to play with, the clown running off with it and hiding in places unknown, however, he had not turned over the serum bottles, nor the powder, and both were currently with Scarecrow as he headed down a street, debating just how much chaos he wanted to cause.

He wanted the city to scream.

Tinker Bell had left the Manor where she was staying with Christine after the woman had asked her to move in. It had been quite a change from the warehouse where Tink had been staying since her arrival in this world with Rufio, her Pan. It was much nicer smelling, lush, and she got to see her best friend in the whol world every day! That was so exciting to her. Tinker Bell had never had a best friend before. Besides Peter and Rufio but they were her Pans and not really so much best friends. She never had a female friend either. Typically women got on her bad side rather quickly, especially when it came to her Pan but Christine had managed to work her way deep into the tiny heart of the pixie and Tink wouldn't have it any other way.

Tink had noticed that the darkness was upon the City and that it hadn't yet let up. It was quite strange. It was throwing off her internal pixie clock. The one that told her when the sun rose it was time to get up and when it set it was time to sleep. Now it seemed the moon was out for good and though she missed the sun terribly there was nothing she, a small pixie, could do about it other than enjoy it. Which is exactly what she planned to do.

The park was Tink's usual haunt, the one place where she never grew tired of being. It was the only place she really, truly felt at home. The grass, though cold most days, welcomed her. The animals called to her, the trees and the sky. It was just like the pixie to revel in the simplest of things nature had to offer. It wasn't the beach, or the cave they used to spend the nights in, or the tree houses that offered them a view of the setting sun but it was closest to Neverland she could get without actually being home. No matter how hard Rufio tried to make the warehouse look like home, it would never really be. She would never see Peter again. She would never hear the tick of the clock within the mouth of the crocodile or the laugh of Captian Hook and Shmee.

This was as close as she could get.

She chased a butterfly slowly as it fluttered lazily through the moist tendrils of grass. Her aura glowed its usual gold as she flew after the butterfly. She was of a good mood and nothing could deter her from her mission of catching the winged creature and playing with it if it would let her.

Wash had not been bothered by the constant night. In fact, for the past week he'd gotten the best sleep he'd ever remembered getting in his life. Being on a ship in the black for such a long time he was used to keeping time but the sky not changing from stars.

So having woken up early, 0800, he whistled as he went to a diner to pick up hot tea and eggs. He whistled as he pulled out his notepad and wrote more ideas for florid metaphorical poetry to win Zoe back. He hummed as he stopped by the park to admire the ducks and geese in the pond as they swam a bit blindly in the water. He could have sworn they looked the least bit befuddled and confused. He tossed them some crackers from the diner and walked on.

He had no idea how he was going to find Zoe. After that blow up of emotion at his apartment they hadn't exactly exchanged addresses and numbers. But there was a skip in his step after he had finally decided that he was miserable enough without her to tumble, headfirst, into trying to re-charm her back into his arms, current boyfriend aside.

In such a refreshed mood was he that he gave no thought to going down a dark and creepy alley-way.

"My beautiful, voluptuous Zoe," he said, reciting a possible verse, "You make the stars in my sky so glowy/ There's no way you can truly knowy/ That without you my world would explody..."

He considered the words as he jotted them down then marked them out.

"Too rhymey," he decided. "More free verse, I think. Ooh, that autumn flower thing. I liked that--AH!"

Because suddenly there was a dark shadow in front of him. And he looked up and noticed that this alley way didn't have an exit.

The thug, because though Wash didn't like to generalize he thought the label was sufficient for now, demanded money.

"Oh, ya know. I left my money back at my apart--" was what he managed to get out until he was shoved against the wall under the one light in the alleyway that provided illumination enough to see to walk. The large man's arm shoved against his trachea while cold metal was pressed against the sensitive flesh of Wash's throat.

"When you put it like that..." Wash wheezed fishing the two dollars and thirty seven cents out of his pants pockets and throwing them on the ground. "That's it!"

The man in front of him paused.

I don't like you, the man said with a smirk. He'd lightened up on Wash's throat a little with his arm which was very good for the breathing thing Wash needed to keep doing.

"Oh. Uh, once you get to know me, I'm not that bad. Some even say I'm charming so--" he was cut off again by a hard punch to the cheek bone which sent him reeling as the back of his head collided with the stone wall behind him.

The thug explained that Wash needed a little color in his cheeks. Apparently this guy was aching for a little beating up time and didn't much care who it was.

Wash managed to shakily block the next punch from making contact and kneed the other in the groin. The knife was jolted out of position on Wash's throat and made a shallow cut to his collar bone.

For a moment the former pilot thought he might have had the upper hand but the other guy quickly regained steam and though a defensive punch from Wash landed hard the larger man pulled Wash's legs out from under him and sent him tumbling face first into the asphalt. Wash felt the thug's thick fingers grabbing his hair and pulling his head back with the knife pressing once again into Wash's throat.

"Hey," Wash said nervously. "Can't we...just talk this out or--oof!" he was interrupted by the pressure of a knee to his back. "Or, get some tea and...maybe we'd discover that we have a lot in common. We both share an affinity for dark alleyways and...y'know...that's a fine start to a friendship, I think!"

Somehow Wash didn't think talking his way out of this would work. He closed his eyes tightly waiting for round two of the whole dying experience.

It wasn't a large explosion. No. It was just the right size and rather controlled. There was the smell of ozone and burnt flesh; the air felt electric. Everything seemed to have a strange hint of glow, almost like the afterimage left behind when one looks at a bright light or the sun.

The cabin sat, shaking ever so slightly. It had not been prepared for what just happened. It had come to help, but whatever was attacking its mistress kept biting at its legs. For once, some might say, the crone had taken pity on the poor cabin as it tried to defend her. Not just her by its yard. They had only just started the walk in the strangely dark day, just leaving the main castle grounds, when things started attacking the crone.

Baba Yaga did not like being attacked, and she liked it happening so close to not one but both her homes. Well, both her known homes anyway. She didn't care for it, and while the cabin was trying to be helpful, it was getting in the way of anything that could be truly devastating.

They weren't zombies. Or vampires. They were misbegotten things, green, scaly, and ugly. Apparently, the City thought it was a good idea to bring a few ogres from one of the kingdoms. A couple of them seemed to remember Red, and a few others seemed to remember how badly a certain Red had treated them. They saw her, but in the darkness, she could not see them. Attacking was the plan, only it didn't go the way they planned.

It wasn't a long fight. Once the cabin had gotten the hell out of the way, she was allowed to let loose a spell that burnt the closest ones to a crisp, as well as the grass beneath her feet, and her clothes. She thankfully came out of it little worse for wear. She hadn't gotten all of them; a few stood on the edge of the circle of death, wondering what to do. Attack her or run?

"Decide quickly. I haven't got all day." She was a little tired, but she'd survive, hiding the drain well. It'd been some time since she'd actually done something like that. Controlled magic of such power was much harder than creating a storm or nudging a libido.

Fred seemed to have relaxed a little since she was finally let out. The lights weren't coming on, and she was a little concerned. Yet, the City seemed to be working normal other than that. It was probably another test. She was aware enough, remembered enough, to know that the City liked to test the captives.

She had bought the cop, who was pretending to be her friend out on the town, a cupcake on the mayor's dime. Fred didn't have any dimes, so she was agreeing to borrow a few of the mayor's. She would pay it back because those dimes were more the City's dimes than the mayor's? Plus, it was her friend Jack, not the mayor who was letting her borrow the dimes. But, a few dimes to get a nice woman who was working a strange shift by guarding a near nobody a cupcake wouldn't hurt, right?

The plan had been to get more clothes, some shoes, some night things. The quick trip out with Jack had gotten her enough to cover two days if that. There was only so much washing clothes should take after all.

"Thank you, Caroline. I really appreciate-" Anything else she was going to say was cut off as something bum rushed the brainy female, taking her away into a poorly lit alley. Caroline who had drawn her guy was the next attacked and whisked down the alleyway.

Wavering upon the unsaddled back of a horse, Beauty returned from that ruin of a place where she'd been captured and held. Arkham Asylum. The stuff of nightmares now.

The drugs forced on her were still running in her system - barbituates, hallucinogens - but by degrees, the terror was fading. She didn't feel safe. But with her face buried in the mane of the horse who carried her, the abstract fear was diminishing. By the time the asphalt led into a City street, Beauty no longer felt the need to scream.

Nothing was right, through her eyes. Buildings wavered. The shield of night obscured her vision for a distance. But the street lights were flickering on, here and there, illuminating the familiar and the safe. She didn't know where she was. She didn't know how to get home. She didn't know if she wanted to be home. Her kidnapper had found her at her bookstore. She wanted nowhere familiar, nowhere unsafe. Was Megan all right? And Errol? It felt to her as if it should be the day, but the night was as deep as midnight. Her mind recalled the long sunset from before her kidnapping... was it related?

Thoughts flickered back and forth, broken in her mind; nothing stayed with her for long. At length, the horse came to a string of restaurants. There, it stopped. Beauty did not have the sense to know to dismount. She simply leaned on the beast's neck and held.

Lisbeth spoke aloud in Swedish: "What a pathetic fool you are, Salander."

After deciding she was in love Mikael Blomkvist and going so far as to buy him a thoughtful gift and a confession of her feelings, she saw the journalist with his boss and -- their body language had been quite obvious as to their intentions -- lover. Lisbeth turned on a heel and began to walk home, throwing the gift into a dumpster when she had really wanted to throw it at Berger's head!

By now she should have passed Zinkensdamm, but instead found herself on a street that could not have existed anywhere in Stockholm. The night sky had turned to black and there were only stars, brighter than stars in a city ever should be, to light to path on the sidewalk.

I've lost it, she thought. I am completely insane and it's Mikael Fucking Blomkvist's fault.

It was a nice sentiment but if Lisbeth had gone mad, she wouldn't have imagined a city like this. She remained dead calm as she walked, in case it was some sort of temporary insanity that fresh air might correct. It didn't and, Lisbeth began to suspect, the roads were shifting on her. Her sense of direction was aided by a photographic memory. The alleys and turns she took didn't add up.

Lisbeth saw a bar, Purgatory, up ahead. Her mind had already considered several scenarios which might account for her Wonderland-like displacement. If she was drugged or had gone insane it was probably an appropriate time to get crawl-home drunk. The bar's interior didn't make Salander feel much better about her situation, looking like two establishments cut and glued together in half. On one side, there were burly North American looking rednecks. On the other, goths who were decked out in various degrees of fetish gear.

And everyone was speaking English with North American accents.

Lisbeth had the don't-fuck-with-me attitude of a hunter, but the tattoos and piercings of a fangbanger. The truth was that she didn't belong on either side. She took a seat at the bar as close to the invisible divider as she could and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. Lisbeth didn't see any No Smoking signs, and was having the sort of day where she couldn't be assed to care about any ordinances, either.

"Vodka," she said while holding up three fingers. The shots were just to start.

The sun had seen some recent issues over the past while. Not doing what it should have been doing. It tormented the City as much as it tormented the people that it contained. Just when it thought that it had everything fixed for good, something else would go wrong. Frustration filled it, the perfection was being marred, and it wasn't the one doing the marring. Maybe it would have been different if the sun's strange treks in the sky had been its own work. But the sun defied the City's desires.

While the City tried to sort out the problem, catastrophe struck.

One night, the sun sank below the horizon, bathing the residents in the glow of the wonderfully full moon. And the next morning, did not rise again. Stars blanketed the sky as if the night wasn't supposed to be ending, giving way to a new dawn.

The street lamps and lit signs functioned as they normally would, instead of staying on like people might have preferred. For 8 hours there was no illumination from any sources outside of what the moon in it's ever changing state provided. The darkness was deep and complete. The perfect shroud for the creatures that lurked.

The ways that the sun had faltered previously would pale in comparison to this.

Every defiance of the natural order of things was progressively worse. The sun not going down in a timely manner. The sun getting stuck at high noon for a prolonged period of time. Even then, it hadn't been as outrageously wrong as it decided to be on this day and the days following. Instead of just a few hours, or even a large handful of hours, this interruption went on for three full days.

It began with an incredible slowing, like a clock running low on batteries. The movement didn't altogether halt as it had before, just inched through the sky like a sickly turtle. Seconds stretched into minutes, minutes into hours. That would have been enough, on it's own, to cause problems and further worry. But it didn't end there.

As the stars began to blossom in the sky, the sun reversed its course. Spreading light again in the sunset that had already happened that evening. The reds and oranges spreading out once more, only this time, opposite of the way it had previously shown itself.

The clocks still moved forward, the way that they should. Time still progressing in the manner that it always had. The days and dates on the newspapers going on as if nothing had changed. As if to spite the fact that the sun was being wholly abnormal in it's route.

72 hours would pass before the problem self-corrected. At the end of the run, the sun would slow again during the reverse sunrise, pause briefly, and then completely go back to normal.

The glitch with the sunset was weeks behind them all. Many seemed to not even notice that it had gone on. The City settled into normal routines, the people going about their business like nothing was changed. City born and those brought in had seen many things happen within the wall, a little extra sunset wasn't so big of a deal. Especially because it had only happened once.

This day, more oddness was about to occur.

When the sun hit noon, it got stuck. Despite time ticking on, the minutes on watches and clocks passing twelve thirty, then two, then four in the afternoon, the midday sun hung bright in the sky. When six pm, then eight, came and went, the sun was still shining down on the people of the City, seemingly unwilling to do what it was supposed to do.

Through the night, nothing changed. Not until the next day and time coming around to the exact moment when the sun had gotten glued to the sky did anything happen. The sun then continued its normal path, marking the hours as it should have always done.

As the sun sank toward the horizon, doing it's best to mark the end of the day and usher in the coming night, the sky filled with beautiful oranges and reds and purples that danced together and reflected off the fluffy white clouds that dotted the scene here and there. Sunsets in the City were all picturesque, but this one seemed to be moreso than most. As if the City had brought in a classical earth painter to create the perfection.

However, instead of lasting the usual amount of time that a sunset should last, it seemed to hang in time. Frozen. Unmoving and unchanging. No more stars showed past the edges than there had been at the start, the moon did not get up, and the colors of the display did not shift even a little bit.

For six hours, the sun remained setting but not progressing. Then, as if nothing had happened, the dance finished, and night was upon the City and it's people.