The Universe's Mixer

( A girl can never have too many friends )

John was not sure how to approach Eric after their last encounter. He'd still been on the rush from the blood, and interacting with Venom hadn't softened him for a while after. Feeling slightly less rebellious, however, his thoughts had returned to his morose friend and he'd felt an inclination to find him again.

Approaching the studio, however, he found his steps getting heavier. He wasn't sure if Eric would want to speak to him. He'd known John was a vampire, of course, but knowing and seeing were different things, and John hadn't been paying attention to the non-prey to see what his exact reaction had been.

Still, there was only one way to find out. Setting his jaw he pushed past the glass doors of the studio, tilting his head slightly to get an idea of where his friend was. His steps carried him towards the recording studio out of habit.

John inhaled deeply, letting the crisp night air bathe his senses more completely. It still felt a bit strange to breathe intentionally and irregularly, but he was starting to forget what it was like to breathe constantly.

Tonight he was avoiding most everybody he knew. He hadn't spoken to anybody since Eric found him in the alley and then left him to clean up the bodies. The blood had given him power and energy, but no better an outlet for the unhappy thoughts than he'd had before. He was now simply working to avoid the rest of his blooded family, sure that any of them would be able to tell about his large recent meal and probably would disapprove. He'd only fed on the synthetic drink since, but the live blood had left a soft burn in his stomach, and he was still looking for an outlet to spend it on.

The young vampire walked through the park's trees, just off a path that was just off the main road, senses keen and muscles tensed under a the facade of a leisurely stroll. He was just hidden enough here to walk watch the street without being seen too easily. It was a comfortable place to be.

A scream rang out in to the darkness.

Whimpering gave way to muffled pleas.

Laughter followed a split second later and caught the immediate attention of the too large, black corvid. A caw, and the bird settled on the lip of the rooftop to peer down at the scene below.

The alley was coated with fear. It stuck to the brick like glue, washed the pavement like an acid rain. Co-mingled in that the bird could feel the heightened stress coupled with jubilation. A girl was there, and around her lay a scatter of men dressed in dark clothes in various stages of injury. One of the men was crumpled, having been hit hard by something much more powerful than him. A couple of other men were moving to get up from the dark pavement of the alley, their own injuries not as serious as the one laying on the ground.

And there in the shadow was the one whom had thwarted the group from the girl. A familiar shadow. Bran could feel the essence of the power lingering in the air, it was palpable and the corvid almost could taste it.

Another caw and its wings settled. The hybrid was close, always close. The situation needed judgement before it would send the Dark Avenger in to handle what lurked in the dark. John was capable of handling himself.

The girl was shaking. Her heartbeat was drumming, echoing in the alleyway unbeknownst to her. Bran could hear it. Eric could hear it too. She was afraid. What was happening in the alley to the men, she was frightened of the pale man towering before her to protect her. Something about the situation, though, told her she wasn't out of the realm of danger.

"Please..." The girl begged to anyone that might listen. "Please..." She begged again. Beneath her breath she was praying, mumbling a stuttered version of the Lord's Prayer in hopes someone might hear it above her.

Bran cawed in response as if to silence her with the night.

It waited to see what would happen next.

John was humming one of his and Eric's tunes as he moved through the back alleys of the City. Tonight he was working on his stealth, moving through the City as fast as he could, pushing himself in endurance and perception. He was strong, he'd always been strong. Since he'd been a delinquent, and later a soldier, he'd been In excellent physical condition, but he'd always wanted to be faster. So tonight, he pushed himself.

The City was always changing, that meant it was great training ground. He worked on perceiving things even as he pushed himself harder, faster, till his muscles ached.

And then he noticed the webs. Skidding to a halt, and feeling the particularly off feeling of not needing to catch his breath, he turned and looked up, seeing a slight mass of dark, odd substance. He blinked, despite the dark of the alley able to see it clearly, though he didn't understand what he saw.

Caught up in reaching out slowly to investigate, the young vampire barely registered the other presence coming up to him.

John walked down the street, in a somewhat cheerful mood. He didn't have any particular reason, but running into Melody had been nice, and thing in general seemed to be improving for him. He didn't particularly have a direction in mind when he'd set out, having not explored enough of the City to traverse it with much intention. Besides, if the rumors were true, the City generally wound up getting you where it wanted you to go, intention or no.

So, when he saw the neon glare of Eric's recording studio ahead of him, he smiled slightly to himself. He'd been spending more time with the strange man, and while he still was rarely sure if Eric merely tolerated him, or enjoyed his company, they both seemed to enjoy their guitar sessions.

Wandering up and finding it unlocked and vacant looking as ever, John went in with little hesitation. There was no way to tell if Eric was here or not, but in general the vampire assumed the guitarist would have locked the door if he didn't want company, knowing John to have entered uninvited several times previously.

There were things that Mel had explored and then experimented with that she knew she had to tell Pam about. Her agreement with Pam and Eric had been that she could continue to live, and continue to be among them, as long as they didn't find her to be any real threat. As long as she kept herself in check and they felt like she wasn't going to be a danger to them.

Mel had known instinctively that this meant that they might not like the idea of her being able to stop kinetic energy as she had with Logan. Her other risk was that she knew now that she could easily heal a bullet wound and wanted to know if she could heal more. She didn't know if Logan would be willing to go exactly as far as she wanted to go with it, and she couldn't ask Pam. She didn't want to reveal anything until she knew everything.

There was the kinetic energy, there was the healing, and there was that blast of energy that she had let go of. That was really something.

Her mind was reeling over the implications of her powers as she walked. She wasn't paying much attention to her surroundings, so when she felt the presence of the undead, Mel found herself a bit startled. The signature was familiar, though, and she relaxed.

"John?" She said it softly, knowing that he could likely hear it clear as day.

John was restless. The City was having a strange effect on him. The sudden return to a more normal atmosphere, with people who were usually indistinguishable from the type he'd grown up with was bit of a cold shock for the vampire. It reminded him of the first time he'd come home from a difficult tour. Everything around him appeared to be functioning normally, the way it always had been, but suddenly he saw. He saw the fragility, the illusion, the sense that most people walked around with that everything around them was normal, permanent, and peaceful. He saw how blind and ridiculous that notion was.

It was slightly different when you were a vampire, though. Before he'd felt what it was to be the line between the normal life and the horrors and chaos that threatened it. Now, by definition, he was one of those disturbances. Even in a City where the remarkable was accepted with a blink and a double take, he knew he wasn't part of the world most lived in, now.

( Finding the Crow )

( Like a small boat on the ocean... )

John was finally getting used to the City. Well, in terms of the noise, smells, and lights.

It took a little while, but food and the darkened Purgatory refuge helped. He hadn't explored much, being uneasy at the prospect of meeting his sire's double. He was still slightly anxious about the prospect, though the talk with his actual sire had helped a great deal.

There was one face, however, he was looking for now. He hadn't seen Pam yet, taking a moment to get his bearings and to retrieve his things from his apartment. He'd been relieved to find his guitar, which looked to be brought from the old world, like him.

And now it was time to find his sibling and mentor. After all, the resolution to learn to hunt and feed like a true city vampire was all well and good, but he needed instruction. And there was nobody better to do it than the woman responsible for his new life in the first place.

John took a moment to reach out, remembering Eric's instruction on how to locate his family. It was still not as natural as it had been in the previous world, but he sensed Pam fairly quickly and went to find her. The fact that he might not run into the one who knew him didn't even occur to him.

The mermaid had been... fascinating. John had had to fight the impulse to go after her, to ignore the gnawing in his stomach, but ultimately it was too important to find a source of blood. He wouldn't let himself get out of control, to hurt anybody.

Still, what did he do? He shied from the noisy, bright streets and into the alleys, moving swiftly and as invisibly as possible. He tried to think of sources. Volunteers would be difficult to find. He couldn't just start propositioning people on the street, after all. Not if he wanted to stay discreet. Hospitals, blood banks? Perhaps he could buy somebody off, but with what money? And what would he tell them he wanted it for? Pam had told him about the importance being hidden had been in her origin world, and his instincts told him to keep the same low profile until he found out what was happening around him.

He'd been sprinting before he'd realized it, and slowed, falling to a human pace and then stopping, breathing hard. His head pounded and he winced, leaning against a brick wall and touching his head. It was so much louder than Dallas or the dead world had been, it made it hard to think clearly and calm down the mindnumbing stress. He didn't have time to panic, he had to figure things out.

John felt.... well, hungry, but more than that numb. He'd woken up in his bed, in his room, in his apartment. His apartment. From back home, back on Earth.

He was wearing the same clothes he'd gone to sleep in, but everything else was... home.

Then he'd gotten up, and gone to the window, looking out at the moonlit Cityscape that greeted him. So he wasn't home. Dallas was a new place for him, he hadn't even found a proper house to live in there yet. But this certainly wasn't Dallas.

More magic, then?

He could feel the night was young, he must have just woken. He looked around and felt his pockets, finding his old wallet and keys. He took them out and wondered at it, then let out a sigh and looked around. He'd started to get to magic, and the unusual, but this... he dreaded figuring out what this was all about.

Still, his stomach growled, and he knew he'd have to tend to himself. But first he had to make his home safe.

He went to the linen closet and found some of the thickest blankets he had, surprised and unsurprised that he found them. It seemed like whoever had created this charade had gone to elaborate lengths to make him feel like he was home. If it weren't for the alien city sounds outside his window he would have thought he was home.

He returned to his bedroom, fixing the blankets over the windows, blacking out the room and muffling the outside noise. That done he took a shower and found clean clothes, even his old and favorite jean jacket. Then he pulled on his boots, turned off the lights, and left the apartment behind. Most of him expected to never see it again, though he still locked the door behind him.

It was so strange to walk through the small apartment building. It was exactly as he remembered it, to the last detail, yet even then his vampiric senses saw and noticed things in ways his human self never had.

The City outside was bustling, and full of life. It seemed similar to many cities on Earth, but still he didn't recognize any part of it. And he had gotten around back then.

The breeze ruffled his dirty blonde hair as he stood on the sidewalk. As soon as he'd walked out the loudness of all of the sounds hit and stunned him for a moment. He didn't remember any city being so loud outside of warzones.

His stomach growled and the familiar pulled at him, but even as part of him instinctively told him to turn and leave, to go hunt, he suddenly froze on the spot.

He didn't know how to hunt here. Not in this place. Eric had had volunteers on hand for him to feed from, people who willingly gave doses of blood in exchange for protection and provision. But here... he looked around at all of the people, who looked so normal. What normal person would let a vampire feed from them? If the sirens blaring were any indication, people here wouldn't need protection from monsters and zombies in the ruined wastes.

He looked around lost, eyes wide as alarm dawned on him. He didn't have no choice. He could stave off the hunger for a while, he had fed recently, but soon it would start to drain him. And Eric's initial order, that he couldn't let himself die, was still in place. Soon he'd have to feed, to live. And then.... God, what was he going to do?