The Universe's Mixer

Megan sat out front of the cottage, a backpack stuffed with camping equipment on the ground next to her and a sleeping bag rolled up and tied on top. She and Peter had discussed this trip: a camping trip for just the two of them. With their powers and her 'porting, there shouldn't be any problems. But she was still nervous.

They'd been dating for a while now, but still. What if the trip was a disaster? What if she did or said something really stupid? What if there was some sort of horrible reality-warping world-smashing incident and they found themselves trapped in alternate dimensions? You really couldn't be too careful.

She tapped her feet as she waited. She'd been convinced to leave her music player at home and enjoy nature while she was out in nature.

Peter's lips formed a wide grin as he sped down one of the less populated side streets on his new motorcycle. The thing was light, moved quickly and turned like a champ. It helped that Peter had had a hand in its construction; having someone with the know how and materials in his corner was not a bad thing at all. Stark was very gracious in letting him stay and work diligently on not only the bike but various other projects.

It was one thing after another at the Tower, one project completed from the list and then on to another with a few moments to spare for work, eating, sleeping and recreation. But for the most part the Spider had been holed up in one of Tony's many labs there constructing the machine he was currently racing down the sidewalk on. It was a bright red and blue color, the wheels a deep ebony. There were built in canisters on the sides that with a push of a button would slip out and fire webbing at an obstacle or a target. The webbing itself was unique, an organic compound base just like his own personal web, however the canisters had to be replaced and only held so much webbing. That was the only down side.

"Excuse me! Coming through!" Peter shouted, slipping adeptly around a group of pedestrians. He giggled and turned a sharp corner, heading back on to the main part of the road. The traffic was easy enough to slip through. The genius was having the thrill of a lifetime riding. He had always loved riding a bike or a motorcycle. It felt so freeing.

And it helped that he had made it. He was proud of it.

Only when he found the place he frequented for pizza did the Spider bring the bike to a halt. He parked it in one of the slots of the parlor and dismounted. His whole body tingled with the sensation of freedom and hard work. There was nothing more exciting than constructing something with your hands and have it be successful. This was a feeling that only few knew, but that he shared with Stark. And maybe the short, brown-haired scientist that liked his privacy more than he wanted to chat.

With an absent shrug of his shoulders, Peter pocketed the keys and strolled in to get a pizza.

"What if he doesn't remember how to get here?" Beauty asked, leaving the table for the third time in the last 15 minutes and crossing over to the door. She opened it anxiously and stepped onto the porch, wholly missing what Megan said back to her. It was Friday night at 4:52, and their dates - plus Beauty's special guest and his date - had 8 minutes left to make it here on time. The others - Errol, Peter - she wasn't too worried about. They'd been to the cottage more times than Beauty could quickly count. But Piotr...

Piotr last visited years ago. Yes, it'd been the place she'd insisted he stay - despite the fact that her bed was apparently way too small for the overlarge Russian - but that didn't mean that he really did remember exactly how to get here. It was a long time ago, after all, and so many things had happened since then.

After pacing a bit on the porch, she went back inside and closed the door again.

"Tell me more about this bowling," she asked Megan, to try to distract herself.

Peter had almost given up. It had been a couple of days already (not that the webslinger was counting the days specifically. Because if he was it was actually more like three or four days, but a couple sounded easier.) and he had heard not a peep from the pixie. Hope was one of the major things Hero's were attributed with, especially the young heros like himself. Hope kept the demons away, it allowed them to see the light at the end of the tunnel when things grew dim and despair tried to force its way in.

But his hope had finally began to wain. He hated himself for it, too.

After waking up on the morning after constructing the web, Peter Parker had found a small press badge laying on his dresser alongside his Nokia. The laminated badge had his smiling photograph on it, as well as the title of Photojournalist and the business of The City Voice. Apparently the City had chosen a place to stick him in which he would make a living. That was alright with him, it's what he did before.

So Peter had dressed, ate his breakfast (a three whopping bowls of Captian Crunch) and set out to face the first day of work. The bullpen had been noisy and he could swear as he sat at his desk that he could hear J. Jonah Jameson shouting something about that menace Spider-Man.

It actually made Peter grin.

The days after that were either filled with working, which took his mind off of the probability that Megan hadn't come here like he did, to waiting on the top of the tallest building in the city where he had strung up part of the massive web. He had even considered taking it down since the gesture was starting to look like a waste.

That particular day, Peter stepped out of the City Voice building, and looked up longingly at the web that hung over the city. He lifted up the camera that hung around his neck, peered through the viewfinder and snapped a couple of pictures of it for memories. Tonight would be the night to take it down. He didn't even want to consider the task because of the level of disappointment. A lift of the camera again, and Peter noticed the web shiver. Shiver?

Shiver. Like something might be caught in it. Which had the webslinger racing down the street as fast as his legs could carry him.

Nice to meet you
Where you been?

The earth that had been filling Beauty's hands was suddenly gone. No. No, that wasn't exactly it; the earth she'd had in her hands was still there. She was still kneeling. But the earth under her was gone. Replacing it was a very familiar wood floor. Beauty squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again.

I could show you incredible things
Magic, madness, heaven, sin

She was in her living room. Her cottage living room. Her home. In the other room, a radio was blaring Taylor Swift. Beauty stood quickly, then rushed to the door to toss the earth out into --

-- into the nighttime lavender beds that filled the whole front yard with its gorgeous scent. Beauty took a deep, long breath, and then exhaled, and then did it again. Was she...

Home. Home! She was home!

"Megan?" she called out over her shoulder. "Megan! Are you here? Megan!" Her hands were still filthy. She rubbed them off as quickly and as thoroughly as possible and then raced back inside. Her kitchen with its yellow curtains! The table set for two! The perfect mess in the living room that meant that Megan had been through. Everything was exactly as she remembered. There was a bottle of hot pink nail polish on the kitchen counter by the dish drainer, and she caught sight a magenta sweater top on the back of the couch.

"Megan!" Her heart was in her throat, and she couldn't stop smiling. Were they home? Were they both home?

Power? The City wanted power? There were dozen others it could have claimed, but it took her husband? It took her Viking king. She was tempted to raze large parts of the places to show just how much she didn't care for this situation. She was tempted to see just how many of its children she could turn into frogs or snakes; perhaps they could go about eating each other. The crone was more than ready to shove the City back into a human body and see just how much power it might need. It didn't even have a God to protect it. Stupid City.

Baba Yaga didn't stay in the castle. She couldn't. She took to the cabin more often than not; it seemed just as sad as its mistress. She wanted to hide away, but the cabin knew just as well as she did that the crone couldn't stay locked away forever. So, soon it did the only thing it knew how; it dumped its mistress out and walked away, taking itself to some other place and leaving her there on Dracula's lawn in little more than a black shift.

She sat there and stared, realizing the sun still shone brightly and the people still did as they did - lived. This angered her again, pulling her from the sadness and loss. She needed to make someone else hurt.

Rising to her feet, Baba Yaga started to walk with one thing in mind. Causing someone else pain, confusion, and then some.

There was no music playing inside Fixit. Megan was officially sad.

The shop hadn't disappeared when Annie had, which Megan chose to take as a sign that maybe her friend and boss would be coming back at some point. But for now, Annie's disappearance was just another in an ever-increasing list of people she was resigned to never getting to say goodbye to.

Eric Northman had been one of those the news had reported missing, though, so that wasn't so bad.

But for the moment, the mood in Fixit was one of dispirited mourning. Megan imagined that the various electric thingies in the shop missed Annie. She knew that if there was only one person capable of talking with her and understanding her, of seeing her as a person and not a thing, then she'd miss them, too.

So maybe the jump from having that thought to flying around talking to the various electrical thingies like they were pets or plants or very quiet people was a bit of a leap. But it made Megan feel a little better.

((Backdated to when Beauty first comes home!))

Megan had been distracted enough trying to deal with new responsibilities at work that she hadn't noticed that she'd been coming home to an empty house every night, actually being tired enough that she slept almost immediately and through most of her days off. But as she got used to her new schedule, she noticed. There was the matter of clutter, for one thing. Megan wasn't exactly a slob, but she did have a tendency to just leave clothes and DVD cases and magazines where they dropped and not notice, because she didn't actually have to walk over them if she didn't want to. And there was the lack of fresh food in the house.

And there was the distinct lack of her roommate's cheerful presence welcoming her home and being around to just hang out and gossip with and be friends with. You know, all the perks of having a roommate.

Actually, she'd noticed that first, but it hadn't stopped her from letting her shoes clutter up the living room or actually buying something other than frozen pizzas for dinner.

It wasn't like people didn't disappear from around here, though. Rufio seemed to be gone, and that made her sad, but sometimes people just... weren't there any more. They were dead, or sucked into other dimensions, or shot into space. That was life. She did some poking around, but she was no great detective and she certainly wasn't a good spy, so she didn't get very far.

Dispirited, she sat on the floor in a nest of issues of Seventeen and ate a pint of soy mint ice cream.

The downside was, with Annie working so much at Stark Tower, Megan hadn't seen her much lately.

The upside was, Megan had been given a promotion! And responsibility! And the chance to prove that she was more than just a flighty (ha) kid! She took this very seriously.

Well, mostly seriously. She could still have fun while she worked at Fixit. She had her MP3 player plugged in to speakers at the counter to keep the right sort of welcoming atmosphere in the place while she did the morning's inventory, blaring out a Katy Perry song while Megan chimed in every now and then in her enthusiastic and off-key way.

Nothing said welcoming like pop music, Megan decided.

The second that Fixit was closed, Megan 'ported herself back to the cottage, directly into her room. There was half an hour until Dinah had said that they would meet up again in front of the store, and while that had seemed like plenty of time earlier, Megan had forgotten the state of her room.

She started digging through her closet for workout clothes, throwing things aside, and stopped. Typical. The City knew. Her old X-men uniform hung in the back of the closet: reinforced fabric, armored boots and gauntlets, everything.

Megan hesitated for just a moment before grabbing for the familiar black and yellow. If all else, it was something she was familiar with.

Pulling her hair back, she 'ported herself back to Fixit to wait.

Dinah had decided to go looking for Megan to check up on the girl. It had a been awhile and she couldn't help but feel a little bit responsible. She had also considered offering to work with her, if she wanted. The mutant had expressed a curiosity about the Justice League and while there wasn't much of a team left, Dinah still thought that she and Hank had room to take in new people if they needed a place to go.

When she didn't find Megan at the coffee shop and heard that the young woman was no longer employed there, she asked around. There weren't too many pink-haired girls with fairy wings in the City after all, so it wasn't hard to find her.

The information Dinah received had pointed her in the direction of Megan's new place of employment, Fixit. Dinah found the shop and pushed open the door, looking for a sign of pink hair or wings.

THE VIOLETTA MURDERS

That headline haunted Erik as he stepped out of his town car. He'd already read the newspaper article, heard the broadcasts on the television, investigated the site himself, as well as he could... The Violetta Murders -- unimaginative, childish, lacking in finesse. Although the City was abuzz with the bloody intrigue of piles of corpses left in the street last night, corpses dressed with perfect replicas of the outfit his Christine wore for La Traviata, Erik found himself infuriated rather than horrified.

No stranger to the mania that could surround a successful diva, and no stranger to the brutality of human depravity, Erik saw the crime for what it was. Clearly, his Christine was the ultimate target. The Violetta Murders themselves? A message, perhaps. A fantasy enacted on those fortunate enough to resemble his pupil. Practice. Whatever it was, he would not permit it to stand, would not permit it to continue, and would never allow Christine herself to be caught up in whatever puerile attempt this might be. While the City's law enforcement began its investigation, Erik had begun one of his own. He would find the truth.

Another safeguard for his Christine, and one that fit well into his existing plan, brought him to the jeweler's, where he now stood. The storefront was sleek, black, powerful - with understated, simple silver font proclaiming it to be "Babiole". He stepped to the window cases and with a critical eye examined the display pieces for the quality that the store felt worthy enough to display. Was it worthy enough for Christine?

Freshly moved in to her new place, Megan was in a good mood. And good moods should be spread. In this case, Megan decided to pay it forward by doing some outreach for Fixit. Annie would like the business, right? More business meant more machines to talk to, as far as she figured. It would be like making new friends. Maybe. She still wasn't clear on the absolute specifics of how Annie's powers worked. And there was a new employee to hire! All in all, lots of work to be done.

So Megan made flyers. Come visit the store flyers. Help wanted flyers. Lots of neon flyers. She thought they looked cute, and she'd remembered to put the name and address of the store on it and everything. And in those bright colours, there was no way they'd be missed.

She spent an afternoon out 'porting to various parts of the City, taping them up, leaving them in little piles inside stores, and slipping them underneath cars' wipers. So much more interesting than taking something out in the paper, she thought, bending back the wiper of a black car and shoving a couple of flyers underneath.

An army of guests couldn't eat the produce in Beauty's cart before it spoiled, and Beauty realized this just as she set three large tomatoes beside the avocados she'd painstakingly selected. With a frown, she poked through the carrots and apples (those were for Horse, so they didn't count), checked under the carton of blueberries for the late summer strawberries, then pushed at the sacks of celery, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, zucchini...

The rest of the basket was full of bread, all sorts of bread -- baguettes, croissants, sourdough, rye, marbled rye, hard rolls. Then there were the bottles of juice. (Bottled juice, even after 4 years, was still a joy.) And the crackers. And she had the makings of five different cheese plates in the back of the cart, too.

Beauty raked a hand through her hair. It was still disconcerting to find that her hair terminated at her shoulders, so she dropped her hand again and stared dolefully at her shopping cart.

Clearly, she was distracted.

She started paring down the vegetables.

That Fortress place sucked.

There really wasn't a polite way for Megan to put it, even if she didn't say so out loud once the entire time she was there. She was proud of herself for that. Take that, everyone back home who said that she was absolutely incapable of not saying everything that popped into her head the second she thought of it! Of course, she said it out loud the second she woke up in her own bed, in--well, not her own City, but it was near enough to home these days, and she did a little dance, and got dressed in something that didn't look like it had been rolled in dirt and used on the set of a movie about the end of the world, and set out for real food. Chocolate. Anything chocolate.

She decided against teleporting, since that was what got her into this whole mess. And besides, she wanted to take it all in, enjoy the familiar sights, and see if she recognized any of the people she'd missed. She flew down from her flat, but walked to a corner store for food, and then kept walking after she'd gorged herself, grinning happily at everything and everyone.

It was great to be back. And this time, she'd even returned from the unexpected trip elsewhere with what remained of her soul intact! It was shaping up to be a wonderful day.

Fred hadn't been in hiding since the strange meeting at the bookstore. She'd meant to check on Errol, but the check-up hadn't gone at all how she'd planned. Not that she'd had anything planned in particular, but she was certain that she would not have planned what happened had she been allowed to plan anything. Or admitted to planning anything.

She was glad to see that Errol was working with someone, rather than sitting all alone in the bookstore. He needed companionship, someone to remind him that he was human and it was okay to smile. Beauty seemed very much the right person for that, what little Fred had been able to gather from the odd brief meeting. She smiled - Beauty had - which was a good thing. And, she was soft in a giving way; Beauty'd only wanted the best outcome, hadn't she? She cared, again another plus in Fred's opinion. Of course, this was all going on a very short brief meeting and way too many assumptions. Then again, Beauty worked in a bookstore, not a strip joint, so surely she was that sort of bookish Beauty, not the other kind? Not that there was anything wrong with strippers; Fred just hadn't met many.

The brainy Texan continued this sort of inner dialogue, working out what had happened as well as throwing in a few items from her day job; she was starting to wonder if they didn't need an accountant or insurance. Angel Investigations wasn't a huge money maker, but sure, she could make the money that did come in work for her somehow.

The City allowed her time to think during her walk. She had a destination in mind, a purpose, and she hoped that she was going to get good answers. Annie could help; she just knew the technopath could. That's what mutants were for if they weren't trying to take over the world and subjugate the human race, right?

Hannibal sighed at his phone. The blasted thing seemed to be on the fritz again. Ringing when there was nobody on the other end of the line, refusing to send out text messages and showing him only a garbled screen when he attempted to access his patient files through it. He hadn't realized how much he relied on the stupid thing until it stopped working properly.

After a few inquiries, Hannibal had the name of a place that could fix these problems for him. The name, somewhat amusingly, being Fixit. He arranged to have a long lunch so that he could track this establishment down and see what they could do about all of this.

It was easy enough to find, and it seemed to him that the City was on his side for this venture. It took him no time at all. He looked up at the sign on the front of the building. It wasn't new and flashy, but old and elegant. He hadn't expected that. He also didn't expect the way the place would look on the inside as he walked in. It was a little hodge-podge, but he could deduce the order of things pretty simply.

Hannibal walked to the counter and gently rang the old fashioned bell that sat by the rather new looking checkout system. He wondered if it was the City that made everything so eclectic, or if it had been the owner.

Annie was getting ready to put a Help Wanted sign up in her store window. She didn't really need any extra hands, the store was small and got little traffic, but she thought it might be nice to have somebody to talk to during the day, and somebody who could trade off shifts with her so she wouldn't have to be at the store all the time.

Maybe even two people.

She was a little nervous about being the boss. It was one thing to be the boss when it was just you working, an entirely different thing when you had to actually tell people what to do. She thought that she could do it, though. But she was going to make sure to be really careful about who she hired, because she was not sure she could fire anyone if they didn't do something hugely bad.

The sign was being drawn by hand. Not because she couldn't afford one of those ones that you bought, she just felt like doing it herself. She wasn't the best artist in the world, but she could do lettering. Anyone could do lettering.

With the sign done, Annie placed it in the window. Next to the door. At right about eye level.

Until Thomas, she'd always hoped that she'd be able to find a way back home. She'd been taken away from her family, from her life... and she never had believed or accepted that it was a one-way trip. But Thomas changed things. Beauty hadn't known that she was needed here. She hadn't known that a City could be a friend. And she hadn't known just how hesitant she'd be to leave certain people she'd met since being pulled into this City. For better or worse, Thomas had made Beauty realize that she was home, now.

And a glance into a reflective store window made her realize that she didn't dress quite the same way as everyone else in the City -- even when the City was forcing her to wear certain things at times (and now she wondered if it wasn't simply looking out for her...).

"Hmm," she said, fidgeting with the long ponytail she'd tied up in a ribbon. A second later, she'd pulled the ribbon out and instead tied the ribbon around her throat. Still, no good. Off it came. She tried on her wrist, next. That was... a little better. And then there was her dress. She eyed it critically. White muslin, blue flowers, long sleeves, long skirt, high collar, a touch of lace. It was one of her favorite dresses that the City had brought to her, and she wore it quite a lot. But then a very statuesque woman walked behind her, and the comparison was... painful.

That settled it. Rather than heading toward the fruit stands in the center of town to fill her basket with various delicious treats, she started roaming the shops instead. There were clothes stores; she'd seen them -- she'd just never gone into them before... Ah! There was one, with a very colorful scarf-y looking thing wrapped around a mannequin dressed in a bit of frothy fabric. She squinted at it. It looked like fish net. How... odd... but she was willing to try. Beauty had learned by now to keep a very wide open mind.

In she went.

The City Hall was chosen because it held a room within it that was big enough to accommodate the droves of people that were sure to come. Plus, being inside space, there were no worries over weather that couldn't be controlled. The people could sit and listen and not have to try to hear past traffic or wind.

Even with the late notice, everything was done well before the scheduled start time, which Thomas was proud of. He was glad that the ones who were born here weren't entirely useless without him around. They were keeping their heads together, doing what needed to be done. Of course, it also could have been the fact that they believed Thomas was who he claimed to be, and with his presence there with them, they felt better about the situation they were currently in.

Thomas looked at the stage. That's where he would be standing, talking to the people he had brought here. He had no doubts that they would be the ones with the questions, the ones who demanded answers. He was ready. He could do this.

He sat in a seat hidden by a curtain, where he could still see the stage and the rows of chairs beyond, and waited.