The Universe's Mixer

( Every single night the same arrangement. I go out and fight the fight. )

John's mouth was dry. As he awoke, he felt as if he'd like a drink of water, and his shoulders and back were stiff. He found these facts slightly peculiar. What followed was even stranger: he realized that he ought to hurt a lot more. The spot where he'd been bitten felt completely normal, and even the dull ache of his muscles had gone. He was cold. There was a blanket, half-flung across him and half-folded beneath as a sort of bed.

Odd. Watson groaned and tried to sit up.

The floor was concrete and bare. The walls looked like some sort of armory - they were covered in weapons he recognized from first-hand experience, and others that had come straight out of a medieval studies textbook. A punching bag hung in a corner. A washer and dryer sat in another.

It was all vaguely familiar, but also completely foreign. Where was he?

And, more importantly, how had he gotten there? Had he dreamed the previous night? Where were his clothes?

The City Park.

They probably weren't related. A giant wolf goes missing from the zoo and a man is spotted running naked through the park. If it'd been Sunnydale, they would have definitely been related. Except it would have been some magic curse. This? Because there were so many kinds of vampires, she had to assume the same was true of werewolves. Magic wasn't completely out of the question, however.

Either way, she was packing a tranquilizer gun. The stake would go hidden in her sleeve. The sword, which was her favorite slaying weapon for The City, would have to stay at home. Beheading was for killing and Buffy had a pretty strict no-kill werewolf policy.

It didn't occur to Buffy until she was already an hour into patrol that she could have asked Willow to help her research.

Huh. She'd been Scooby Gang-less for a long time.

Patrolling wasn't terribly exciting. There was a lot of uneventful walking involved. Eventually the five-foot-two blonde started to get bored. She thought about getting a day job as a security guard but decided against the polyester uniforms. At least she wasn't so bored that she talking to herself out loud. But right now would have been an excellent time for a stray, hungry vampire to come charging her way.

"Heerree wolfy, wolfy, wolfy. I'm small, practically defenseless, and look awfully tasty..."

So annoyed. Buffy stared at the computer screen, which was flat. Her fingers were unaccustomed to the keyboard of the internet cafe computer and missed keys occasionally. There was a lot of backspacing involved. She wasn't a typist. Most likely the City was responsible for shutting down her internet at her home since the bill was paid and the technician wasn't able to find anything wrong. He'd come twice. The City's mundane hijinx were starting to annoy her more than the monsters.

All she wanted to do was check her email. Was that so much to ask for?

Spam. Spam. More spam. Sale at The City Boutique. Oooh. Shopping. Nothing like pretending to be a normal girl for an hour or two between patrols. Spam. More spam. Nigerian Prince Spam. There was a distinct lack of personal emails. Buffy made a few friends in the City but it never seemed long before they disappeared. It hadn't been that important to check her email in the first place. But sometimes the slayer wished there might be something familiar waiting in her in-box.

Sigh.

At least the computer cafe was clean. And Buffy was always pleasantly surprised that she had just enough cash to cover the use of the computers. She had a mocha placed precariously next to the keyboard and occasionally reached blindly for it, managing to grab it just before it toppled over to take sips absently.

Arthur wasn’t afraid of heights. If he’d ever been afraid of heights, over-exposure had probably squeezed it out of his system a long time ago. He stepped up the last step of the fire escape, a sturdy, to-code construction of twisted metal that Arthur approved of for its functionality as well as its design. ( Only Arthur chose buildings to jump from based on their aesthetic design. )

(Takes place shortly after this.)

After the Doctor left, Buffy helped herself to the Magic Box’s first aid kit, which was exactly where she remembered it. There wasn’t much she could do besides cover it with a basic dressing. What do you put on a burn caused by an energy beam from an alien robot? With her arm down carefully to conceal the damage, she hobbled towards home. She did not, however, conceal the small curved cut above her left brow.

On the way she sent John a text: you busy?

Buffy could count the number of times she’d faced a villain that had given her similar (temporary) battle wounds. The Master, Adam, Faith, Glory-- maybe a few others. That was about it. It was a pretty short list.

( Had she known that only moments earlier John had been strapped to an insane machine that nearly killed him, the slayer would have left him alone. )

It had not been a good few weeks for the Doctor. It was exceptionally rare that something managed to get one over on him; it happened, but infrequently enough that the occurrence was a surprise every time. He was worried - about Pond and Rory trapped on a strange planet (just imagine the trouble Pond could get herself into), about Lyra and Fred and Sherlock Holmes, trapped as he was in this strange place, about the designs behind the abductions. Things like this didn’t just happen. They took effort and knowledge and planning.

So? He’d paced about like a madman. The Doctor didn’t sit still easily, and exploring the City made him feel productive. Perhaps he could find where his crafty Urban Overlord had hidden the TARDIS. Perhaps he’d meet someone with some answers - or at least someone interesting.

He’d give the City one bit of credit: it had provided him with a suitable wardrobe. Tweed, ties, proper comfortable shoes for running about, and even a whole shelf of headgear. Now he could choose among fedoras, bowlers, a Stetson, three different takes on the fez, and what could only have been a Phillip Treacy original. It was in zebra print and had little ears on the sides.

The Doctor chose a broad-brimmed tartan fedora. ( It felt jaunty. It felt dashing and heroic, like Indiana Jones mixed with the Scottish Highlands. )

Having retrieved a police scanner from the Clock Tower, Dinah spent the next day wiring it to her bike and adding various improvements. The motorcycle was nowhere near as great as the motorcycle she'd built by hand at home. Dinah thought longingly of that particular bike, which had taken years to finish, piece by piece, with her own hands. But all the same, this bike would do the trick and a new project to tinker with was a relief. It was also a nice distraction from putting together all the pieces of the City.

A Batman who didn't quite seem like the Batman from her specific time, people being pulled in from all realities and time periods and yet, not a single one of her teammates from any of her teams, a wizard and a green-skinned empathic demon, and a boy who could turn into a dragon and was really a spirit, changing streets... Her mind was almost constantly spinning as she tried to put together the puzzle that seemed to have ever changing pieces, but when her hands were busy with greasy motorcycle parts, everything else just faded away for the time.

After Dinah finished for the day, she washed up and then decided it was time to test drive her newly improved bike. She changed into her Black Canary outfit, just in case she was needed, and flipped on the police scanner before peeling out of the driveway.

The sun had set about an hour previously and the streets were bathed in the glow of manufactured city lighting. Dinah took a few spins around the City and wondered if she needed to leave a bread crumb trail to ensure she would find the Sherwood Florist again. Then again, since the streets liked to change-a bread crumb trail would most likely be fruitless anyway.

A scream ripped through the air, barely audible over the sound of her bike. Dinah maneuvered her way to the side of the street and parked, listening. The scream came again.

She pressed a button to activate the bike's security system, pocketed the key, and then took off in the direction of the scream.

She followed the sound down an alley and stopped, surveying the situation. Three men crowded around one girl who looked to be about 19 or 20. She was cornered against a wall, a terrified expression on her face.

"Hey," Dinah shouted. "When a lady says no, that means that you back off."

The three turned, and a grin worked its way onto Dinah's face. This she could handle. This was what she did.

The smile froze as she caught sight of distorted features, yellow eyes, and feral grins to reveal mouths full of teeth that couldn't be human.

All the same, Dinah didn't hesitate and threw herself into the fight.

"Get out of here," she instructed the girl as she flipped the first of the attackers who came at her. She whirled and kicked the second in the solar plexus.

After she was sure that the girl was gone and they were alone in the alley, Dinah let loose a canary cry that would have knocked out any normal human attacker.

The three men were knocked backwards, but the cry only stunned them momentarily. Dinah blinked as all three got back to their feet and descended again.

"Damnit," she muttered.

Dinah fell into a pattern, defending herself against attacks and doling out attacks of her own. Nothing seemed to do more than phase the men, for lack of a better word, for a few minutes. She couldn't keep this up all night she knew. Her limbs were starting to grow tired and her reflexes slowed as she faced the possibility that this was one fight she didn't know how to win.

One misplaced punch and one of the thugs grabbed her and something sharp pierced through her neck. Unbidden, a scream escaped from Dinah's lips as sharp pain coursed through her.

Her day started with a ringing alarm clock. Buffy picked up the old fashioned clock and stared listlessly for over twenty minutes before deciding to turn it off. Even then, she did not immediately rise from her bed.

She showered. Dressed. Weapons were serviced and cleaned and then put away. The house was tidied. There were exactly two dishes to be done in the sink.

And then she had the rest of the day. There were no trips to the Magic Box. No Big Bads to investigate. Patrols were normally saved for sundown. That meant there were several hours left to fill. So Buffy took heavy steps and spent much of that time breaking the imagined bones of a high end, professional grade punching bag.

At least the asylum had mixed things up. ( (What a terrible thought.) )

Eric looked around the bar. Appearance wise, it was exactly how he wanted it. Everything was in it's place. The location, however, was still bothering him. He hadn't even really left to explore at all, so he had no idea what was out there. He'd decided that the best way to get to know the people was to draw them in. So he'd had the posters put up by one of the stupid girls who had come to work for him.

He'd thought the twit human he'd had before was bad. The ones, other than George, who had come to find work with him had proven to be no better than goldfish. They had wide, sparkly eyes and ridiculously puckered lips and seemed to drift in circles until he told them specifically what they should be doing. It was obnoxious. He hated all of them. But he couldn't open the bar until he had a staff, and unfortunately, they were the best he could find on short notice. He wasn't willing to put off opening for too long. He needed something to do. Something to keep his mind from stewing about the strange things he'd discovered. Such as - apparently they didn't need deliveries. Every day the bar was refreshed with product. The fact that things around his bar seemed to change on the outside. The store that was across the way one day was not the store that was across the way the next.

At this point, he just needed distraction. Distraction and a way to meet people. Both of which the bar was good at.

Right at ten sharp, he unlocked the front door and placed one of the girls outside as the greeter. He'd rather have had a vampire out there, but as he didn't know any here, he had to make due with what he had. It had caused him a brief amount of wonder, were there any other vampires in this place? He'd sensed nor smelled none since he'd been here, at least not close by. That was both disconcerting and rather interesting. Imagine, being the only vampire in a city. What he could do with that.

Eric returned to his throne at the back of the bar. The place he always sat when the doors opened. Through most of the night, as well. Ready for humans and vampires alike to present themselves to him. It was also the place with the best view of the entire club. There wasn't a corner he couldn't see into, save for the other rooms in back. Luckily he could hear well enough to know if there was anything undue going on back there.

The girls waited for their first customers. A couple danced lazily, joined by a handful of males, at various places scattered about the large open room. Some with poles, some just up on especially sturdy tables. Things he'd arranged for vampires to dance on, not normal humans. But what could he do?

John had never much gone in for television - oh, he watched it. During his brief period of unemployment, he’d watched quite a lot. Daytime talk, game shows, dramas and comedies and whatever else was being broadcast when he was home. ( He hadn’t enjoyed it, not really, but it was a pastime until something better came along. )

With a forced stay in a mental institution by way of introduction, it was little wonder that Watson was still jumpy about being in the City. Not just disgruntled, not just angry or nostalgic for home - genuinely jumpy, as if trouble could lurch around the corner at any time. Sure, he was wearing proper clothes. His own, in fact, as the city had perfectly replicated a striped shirt and one of his favorite sweaters. He had on real shoes, and he was free to wander.

None of it made him feel more comfortable.

He was in the open, seated in the park with a coffee and the newspaper. If he were stuck in a strange place, he wanted to know something about it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in print - just a few articles about weekend events and a cover spread about a big gala opening at the local science museum. Frustrated, John crumpled the pages into a giant ball and dropped it unceremoniously at his feet.

He sipped his coffee and frowned.

Buffy tried to return to her regular schedule; eat, sleep, patrol. It was one unenthusiastic motion for her now, as if she were rehearsing who she was supposed to be. She hadn’t seen John, the man who tried to help her back in the hospital, since leaving that place with all its terrible associations. She thought about him often, if only because she was worried and weighted by guilt. What if he was still there? What if she had left him behind? She’d promised she wouldn’t.

So when she saw him on the park bench ahead it was the first real smile that had crossed her face in ages. Before she realized what she was doing, Buffy jogged toward him, just thankful to see someone she recognized.

“John!”

She almost shouted Dr. Watson! But doing so would have felt out of place-- even for The City. She still wasn’t sure how much of the Sherlock dreams she had were drug induced and how much of it was real. John looked far too modern-- and thin-- to be the television versions of the famous doctor she’d caught glimpses of.

Buffy was also thankful that on this particular patrolling mission she only carried a wood stake concealed in the sleeve of her jacket. ( A sword or an axe would have been hard to explain. )

Buffy walked calmly down the hallway. The alarms were loud enough that the sound in her ears had temporarily dulled, while lights flashed on and off like camera flashes. The Slayer couldn't remember who she was looking for-- someone who had helped her. Someone British. The only thing she could remember, having woken up early from the medication she'd been given, was Sherlock Holmes stories. At least fragments of them. They didn't help her deduce anything about the current situation except that she was leaving. Now.

"SLAYER."

Orderlies rounded the corner equipped with tranquilizer guns and fired. Buffy had less than a second to duck and did so, as unfriendly looking darts embedded themselves into the wall. Buffy blinked, still hazy. Her head was swimming like she'd woken up from a lengthy slumber. She didn't waste any time charging, leaping in midair and in a cinematic kick. All three medical staff went down like dominos, unconscious. Though Buffy didn't have much experience with firearms, she'd used a tranquilizer gun pretty effectively against a werewolf before. Crouching down she picked up one of the guns and kept walking.

She walked past doors but it wasn't until she passed one with someone locked in a room that she stopped.

"Come on slayer strength. Don't go all wiggy on me now."

Buffy ripped the door off its hinges.

"Alright, who all is for leaving this crazy train?"

Buffy Summers spent the majority of her time at Arkham Asylum in a catatonic state. Each day a pair of orderlies would bring her out into the commons, seating her at a table. The young woman spent hours in her chair completely motionless, frozen with her face arranged in a troubled expression. She looked so concerned, so deep in thought until, usually another patient with a sense of humor, took her arms and posed her ridiculously-- positions Buffy could hold the entire day until she was put back in her cell for the night.

Most days Buffy was silent. There were rare occasions, however, when the slayer would say some meaningless phrase, repeated over the course of the day. Phrases like, My skin should crack and peel, or, Don't give me songs. Sometimes she merely repeated what was said to her.

Every two hours, a nurse would attend to the slayer, taking a needle to her arm and injecting her with an unknown substance. Except today.

Today, Buffy was left alone in the commons for four hours. After missing two doses of the drug cocktail she was regularly given, her eyes fluttered open as if waking for the first time. She placed a hand on her head suffering from throbbing pain and intense light sensitivity. For the first time since Buffy had been placed in the asylum she was able to process her surroundings, of the people next to her. She looked down at the white linen clothing she wore, unable to recall when she'd been dressed.

"Where am I?" Only after she asked did the slayer power through her migraine to see if someone nearby could answer her question.

Buffy's last thought before feeling a large rock thrown at the back of her head was, Ow. Before that unfortunate moment, the slayer spent night questioning why she still bothered to patrol. There appeared to be more than enough competent heroic types around to take care of The City's creepy crawlies. What difference did she really make? Was she supposed to be disappointed or reassured that she hadn't come across a vampire in the last week?

Buffy walked aimlessly through The City Commons, the infamous Mr. Pointy slipped into the sleeve of her red sweater. Though her arms were crossed over her stomach she was plenty warm. There was a mild breeze and the temperature was perfect. Buffy heard an orchestra of crickets and looking through the trees appreciated perfect starlight supernaturally protected from the artificial glow of The City surrounding the park. Not even Sunnydale had such a view. It was so nice that not even her troubled thoughts or the mosquito bite on her shoulder could dampen the moment.

Buffy thought about the dream with the talking bird. She thought about the impressively hairy guy who seemed to do just fine dispatching vampires on his own. Buffy visually flashed back to naked Dick. Multiple times. This was precisely the reason she hadn't noticed the giant man-eating troll lurking under the bridge, it's gender difficult to discern. Her stylish yet affordable boots clicked loudly over the wood construction, while wandering through the impressively large park. To be fair, it more closely resembled a giant-sized assortment of rock and ruble than it did a being, and it smelled like the earth when she disturbed its slumber.

An hour had passed by the time her eyes finally opened. She was first pleasantly surprised to be alive. She was then pleasantly surprised to be pleasantly surprised at still being alive. The realization was both welcome and reassuring. But Buffy was annoyed by two equally important things. First, that the large lump on the back of her head really hurt and second, that she was bound, gagged and tied upside down to a tree branch. Her forehead just barely missed touching the earth below.

There was a large fire going in the dried up creek several feet from the bridge which crossed over it. Upon the blaze sat a cauldron which Buffy could have easily fit into twice. Looking up where were feet were tied, she swung absently testing the strength of the branch. It didn't creak. The slayer began to protest loudly, but the rope gag in her mouth kept her from saying anything intelligible. The troll ignored her, chopping misshapen roots into the stew it prepared, singing in an ugly baritone, "They call me Troll; Gnawer of the Moon, Giant of the Gale-blasts, Curse of the rain-hall, Companion of the Sibyl, Nightroaming hag, Swallower of the loaf of heaven. What is a Troll but that?"

"What do you mean I didn't graduate? I graduated. I was voted class protector!"

Buffy's protests ignored she turned quickly to leave an invisible authority figure, instead finding herself inside one of Sunnydale High School's long destroyed classrooms. Part of a wall with a chalk board was still up, and desks were lined neatly in rubble. Ms. Calendar stood in front of the class dressed in a black leather bondage suit, whip in hand. Jennifer Government stretched out over the teacher's desk like a cat, hand cuffed but also managing to eat an apple at the same time. Her former lover was difficult to focus on. Jennifer's arms were somehow outside Buffy's peripheral vision when she tried to inspect the front of the classroom more closely.

"I hope you all studied for today's test. It's worth fifty percent of your grade." There were groans from the other students, but when Buffy looked around her all the desks were empty.

"I got an A," Jennifer Government stated cooly with a smile.

"Of course you did," Jenny Calendar combed a strand of Jennifer's hair behind her ear.

Buffy looked down and saw she was wearing the white prom dress from her first year at Sunnydale and a black leather jacket. Unsure of what class she was even in, her forehead landed with a hard thud on top of her desk as she realized at the same time that she didn't have a pencil. Or a backpack. Or school books. Her mom was going to kill her.

As the slayer dreamt she whined into her pillow, troubled.

Jennifer stood looking at the blond girl across the way in the bar. She had no idea why this girl held such a fascination. No, it was more than that. It was a lot more than that. It was attraction. Never in her life had Jennifer ever been attracted to a female, but here she was, finding herself extremely enamored.

Her mouth was dry. Her heart was pounding in her chest. These were all the regular symptoms of a crush, or even love.

What would Simon say? Any normal male would have been excited by this prospect. Two girls. Going at it. But Simon wasn't any normal guy. He was shy, and caring. She'd built up what they had slowly over time. She liked it that way. She thought that this might crush him entirely.

But she couldn't help it. The guilt that sprang up was immediately washed away by the feelings she was having toward the blond.

Get to know her, something inside was telling her. Go over there and find out who she is. Find out how you can spend the rest of your life with her. Yes! That was exactly what had to happen.

Jennifer straightened her shirt, making sure it wasn't stained or too wrinkled, and made her way over.

The dead girl was in the alley, behind a corner store that sold dry goods. The cold and the melted slush on the pavement made her smell like refrigerated flesh dipped in imitation jasmine, a bizarre meat-chemical smell. The corduroy of her jacket was musty and sour, the fabric was worn at the elbows and loose on the collar. Runaway. Probably not more than eighteen, if that. Little thin, but healthy. Logan rolled her over and her head lolled on her shoulders. Rigor hadn't set in yet. The marks on her neck were black with old blood. Her eyes were blue, dimmed, empty blue. She looked afraid. Poor thing.

Logan sniffed, then sniffed again. What the hell was that? Smelled like... smelled like dust. No. Like flesh so old it was dust. What the hell smelled like old flesh gone to dust?

Leaving the girl (he had nowhere to take her, and there was nothing that could hurt her now), Logan hunched down in his jacket and followed the scent. The cold made the metal on his bones ache, but in the kind of way that reminded him it was there, reminded him how many times it had kept him alive. The bar, in contrast with the windswept street, was filled with strong earthen smells warmed by sour body heat and fermented hops. That old dust smell snaked through the spilled beer, wood polish and body odor. Logan huffed the scents out of his nose and shoved through the crowd, looking for a killer.

Two minutes later, the first man crashed through the window, and the roar of the brawl was interrupted by the tinkling bursts of shattering glass as he hit the ground and rolled into the street.

ooc: takes place before dick's encounter with babs

With the scavenger hunt finally over, not all loose ends were tied. There was still the matter of a certain cat. Backpack over her shoulder, the crutches were looped behind her back and between the pack's straps to free her arms for holding Dick in one and the box of his effects with the cursed watch in the other. The weight wasn't a problem but from afar she looked like a pack horse.

Buffy walked until they came across a City rarity: suburbia. The houses were all painted with non-offensive pastel and beige colors, and nearly every three lots one could see the same layout repeated, sometimes mirrored. Buffy walked into a home with a pleasant white picket fence on 1630 Revello Drive. It was nice that The City had seen to keeping everything the same, right down to her street address. The blonde entered through a front door that had been replaced on multiple occasions.

"Okay, I'll put your stuff in one of the bedrooms and then we can go research mode?"

For a vampire slayer, her home was shockingly normal. There were no obvious weapons or relics in the house. The Watcher's Journals and magical texts that she did have were so plain that they resembled the sort of mundane, decorative encyclopedias people kept on shelves in their living rooms and hallways. There were pictures in frames of Buffy with her mother and younger sister, and of Buffy with her high school friends. From the foyer Buffy walked up a short flight of carpeted stairs.

All three bedrooms were located on the second level. Buffy carried Dick just a little further and brought him and his things into the master bedroom. Since her mother's death Buffy hadn't been able to let herself move into the larger space with the larger bed, but she also hated to see it empty. She gently dropped Dick onto the queen sized mattress and placed the mysterious backpack on the floor between the nightstand and bed frame.

Lost; out of the seemingly infinite words to be found within the English language, only this one was capable of explaining the situation that faced him. In one syllable his entire life had been summed up. Gone was the cathedral with its antiquated stones; a long with it the numerous leather-bound volumes which pertained to one singular subject. St. Dumas himself or the actions that had been carried out in his name. Somewhere among the immeasurable amount of pages that had been swept away, perhaps even transcribed in a foreign language, had been the answers to the mystery that was Jean-Paul Valley.

The archaic building which served as home for the last two weeks had seemingly been put through a miraculous transformation to become the contemporary apartment complex it was now. Bitterly cold winds lashed at his cheeks, and despite his underdressed appearance, an urge to find warmth had yet to exist within him. Instead the young man was rooted in place, eyes gazing up at the unfamiliar structure, a storm of emotions raging inside his blue orbs.

The sole personal belonging which had made the journey now lay idly at his feet. From an outer perspective it seemed nothing extraordinary or special. It was a simple green backpack, one that very easily could have been found at an assortment of department stores, or slung around the shoulder of any given student. The contents of the bag were a different story all together. Contained within were the vestigial garments of Azrael; the avenging angel and primary enforcer for the Order of St. Dumas. An angel, that under the Order's rule, was meant to punish and kill, one wing always dipped in blood.
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