The Universe's Mixer

Moved from here. Way before Valentines.

Kaylee felt like everything was finally right with this new strange world. Not only was she on an amazing date, but Kyle had made the first move and kissed her. Finally someone else takin' charge 'sides her. She felt warm all over and returned the kiss as softly as he'd delivered it. Course, it was completely weird to kiss while flying. Kyle could fly. It still wasn't registering, but it didn't matter right now.

( Because Kyle had kissed her! )

Meeting the captain of Serenity had been an interesting albeit short experience. Mal hadn't been the kind of space captain that Kyle remembered watching on television when he was younger. No, the other man was more of a 'space cowboy' if that was a way to phrase it. The actual tour of the craft had been more than fascinating. It wasn't like anything else he'd been on and Kyle had been amused with the way that Kaylee described everything; his date was very passionate about Serenity.

With all of that out of the way it was finally time to get on to the part which held the most promise of all. The actual date. He wanted to make it something memorable but The City tended to put a block on some of his better ideas. Artists were suppose to be creative though, right? Which meant said talent needed to be applied at the moment. With a slight smirk on his lips he reached out and to hold Kaylee's hand (so he could lead her to the car, of course)

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Things were starting to get absurd. There was no question about that in Hannibal's mind. He'd thought at first that the snow was amusing. He knew that The City was a living thing, and it had never snowed in the whole time that he'd been here. So he'd figured it was much like a child with a new toy. It would get bored of the snow eventually, then everything would go back to normal.

What he hadn't expected was for the snow to pile up more. Continuously until there was nothing but snow. He had the ill fortune to be out and about in the world when it started to blizzard. Actually, he'd seen blizzards in his life, and somehow this was worse. The snow was blinding. Even he got disoriented a few times.

When he saw the outline of a vehicle, Hannibal went toward it. He needed shelter to wait this out. At the very least, he needed a moment to think and plan away from the cold, wet snow. He couldn't help but think back to the last time he'd been in snow. How he'd been found.

Hannibal yanked open the door to the massive truck and scrambled inside.

In Vietnam, Private Jameson observed that the officers never ate with the enlisted men. He asked around about why this was the custom, but there was no clear answer. Some said it was so the officers could talk tactics without interruption. Others said it was because their table was on top of a secret escape route so they could disappear if the camp was attacked. By the end of the war, Jameson was fairly certain he knew the real reason. It was simply to make them separate from the other soldiers, so the enlisted men couldn't see that the officers were just like them. If an officer were to eat with his subordinates, no amount of stars or stripes could regain the respect he would lose. The officers relied on the respect of their company as much as they did on their hardware and ammo.

Civilian J. Jonah Jameson later employed the same strategy in the workplace. He and the other editors ate lunch in a closed-off conference room, leaving the writers, copyeditors, artists, and clerks to their own devices. This was key to maintaining the respect of the general staff.

But today was Pizza Friday. The pizzas arrived in the break room, and it was first-come, first-served. This was the City Voice's great equalizer.

"Gangway! Lemme at that mushroom and olive!"

Kaylee was excited. There was no getting around the fact that she had been runnin around the corridors, jumping up and down the steps, and making all sorts of noise while inside her bunk. Mal had to have noticed, perhaps Wash had too, but Kaylee didn't mind. She was so happy to just be goin' out on a real date. Sure, this had been a terrible place at first. She almost died, or was dead, or whatever. Simon was not her Simon so they weren't together. And Serenity was stuck on the ground. But now, now she was renewed. She'd fixed an engine, and got asked out by a really really really pretty guy. She had to stop thinking about Simon, Mal had told her the truth and she'd been heartbroken too long. Now she was gleefully fixing her hair and her face and making sure not one speck of dirt hit the nice shirt and pants she was wearing.

( She could hardly contain herself. )

Find yourself in a strange place under less than explainable circumstances? That had to have been listed somewhere in the 'what-to-expect-as-a-green-lantern' guide, right? Except for that little piece of helpful literature didn't exactly exist. The blue midgets (aka the Guardians) expected you to learn on the job, improvise when necessary, and all that jazz. Up to this point in his relatively short career as GL, he had done so surprisingly well, and never made a big deal about it. Spending time on an alien planet? Typical Tuesday night, no problem. Except for the part where there was a problem; a glaring one. He had always been able to leave said places.

Kyle Rayner had found out the difficult way that The City would be having none of that. First, he'd tried to conventional method, just walk right out of the City. That would've been fine until he encountered a wall that put the 'Great' one in China to shame. Still, that wasn't such a hurdle when you had superpowers. So, he decided to put those powers to good use and fly over the wall. That didn't go over so well either. He'd never been great at measurements but the wall must have been hundreds of feet high, and when he'd actually made his way to the top, he discovered there was an even more frustrating hindrance to his escape. Some kind of invisible force (the ring hadn't been able to identify it) that prevented him from rocketing skywards.
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