The Universe's Mixer

The City didn't wait for the overnight job to rebuild Blackgate. No - an exception was required. Even as the behemoths battled by Blackgate, the City restored the prison. It was always good to give its citizens something fun, but it seemed that the excitement was not worth the cost anymore.

As the City mended Blackgate, it collected all the dinosaurs and set them in a well-maintained preserve within the City Zoo. Here, they could roam free, the City citizens could still see them, and everyone would be safe. Plus, the City wouldn't have to keep on rebuilding.

A few prisoners had escaped from Blackgate. They were two that it had selected from elsewhere and set them in Blackgate because it thought that's where they belonged. But if the two were interested in leaving, as they had so quickly done, then the City would let them.

It was good for its citizens to do what they liked to do.

A great many things had gone wrong.

It had rescued people, yes. It had saved those who were doomed to die, bringing them here where they could live their lives, be happy, and serve the added purpose of helping it live and fight. But a great many things had gone wrong in the process. With the influx of bodies and the power that had come with them, The City had not been able to sort through the issues immediately. There was too much.

Never before had it attempted to alter time on such a level. Time was always fluid within it, just like the streets were fluid. But to go back as it had? To jump around as it had? It was exhausting. Exhilarating, sure. What creature alive wouldn't be amazed to discover the full breadth of its abilities? It didn't think it would attempt such a thing again anytime soon, which said nothing of other ideas it had brewing. It felt that it might be capable of so much more. So many bigger, more interesting experiences for the people living as its citizens.

Right now, though, it had to correct that which was wrong.

The corrections had begun with the doubles. It had never meant to bring doubles in. They could not sustain. It was too much power all in one place, there being two. This was a thing it had discovered to be the case when it had stolen people from the dying planet as a misguided retaliation when it thought the dying planet had been a living thing just like itself. Having two in one place was like putting a 120 watt bulb into a 40 watt socket, or shoving a D cell battery into a AAA cell space.

Some of the resolutions had not quite gone as anticipated. Were messier than it had wished them to be. But they had begun on their own, with deaths that had not been sanctioned. Panic had set in a bit and ...The thing with the Erics... well that was just gross. The Pams fighting it out? Unplanned. Entirely unplanned! What was done was done, though, it would not undo it. It had tried a cleaner resolution with the Eveys, and it had not quite gone as planned either, so it supposed nothing was perfect in this matter.

All of the doubles were gone now. That problem was in the past. The only big matter left was that of the time. While small time in the City was fluid and ever changing, there was a larger time that was out of whack that it generally liked to keep. Minutes, days, sometimes even weeks were okay to flow as they wished to. But months? Years? That had to be set right. The citizens had been living in a wrong time. All their calendars and watches - even the City News and newspaper - said that it was 2013. December now. November before. It had watched and known and was aware that it was wrong. The time, though, was a smaller issue than the doubles.

The City decided that those within should retain all their memories of all the events that took place. It just needed to correct itself. So overnight, it surged forward. Pushing itself through the time/space continuum until it felt it was in the right place. It would give them a starting moment, a day, an hour, in which to begin again. From there... well. From there time would move as it pleased again. May the First of 2015 seemed like the perfect spot. So The City found it, and once found, The City stayed there. Newspapers would reflect this change, watches, calendars. It decided against any kind of announcement about it.

Everything settled at daybreak. Everything was fixed.

With such an exertion of power, a couple things went a little awry. Nothing too big. Like a baby's spit-up after too much excitement, a small blanket of snow plopped onto the park. And like a sigh after a good nap, the barrier that kept the dinosaurs on the new island flickered out.

The resource drain was isolated now, but the root cause of the resource drain took more diagnostics before the source became clear: the time/space flux between the dying planet and the one to which the others had escaped had caused parts of the timeline multiplicity subroutine to fail.

The City had patched the subroutine so that no further violations of one of its basic protocols occurred in similar circumstances. With the root cause corrected, the City turned its attention toward resolving the matter of the existing multiplicity.

Logically, the cleanest solution was to combine the multiple entities together, retaining the oldest body and absorbing the younger one, yet transferring the memories of the younger one into the older. The City had learned from its past dealings with its humans, and knew that they valued their individuality. In this way, that individuality would be preserved. The City also did not have to concern itself with issues of returning one or the other to their own timeline - of which there was but one - when the moment came to do so. But another lesson that The City had learned was that its humans were a variable that wasn't precise.

For this reason, The City decided to run a test - a single fix, to ensure that the variables that humanity introduced would not exceed the limits of acceptability.

It chose 4:10 AM as the most statistically probable time when both versions of Evey Hammond would be sleeping. Such a fix would be better handled were the minds already calm.

test >> break.Fix: execute

By chance, it arrived at the Stealing Planet while most of its people were deep in sleep. It remembered the time when its people had walked on the skin of this broken world, and it recalled the stories they brought back. It remembered stealing citizens of the Stealing Planet as part of an offensive, before it realized that the Stealing Planet was not alive like it was. It still could name each gift it sent back with the inhabitants it returned back to that place.

And now, it wanted to check on those inhabitants. The world had not been well when it left orbit. But, as it looked down now, it could see how the planet was split by so many fissures in time, space, and dimension that it was impossible for the specks of life left here to continue. It decided to save these people - both the ones that held on to life even now, and the ones who had already been destroyed.

Reaching backward in time, it found a place before the worst of the reality fissures. Right at that place, interestingly enough, it saw that a large portion of the people had been pulled into a separate reality. It looked into this secondary reality, and decided to save those people as well. This would take some power.

First, the City put its own people into stasis, allowing them to power this maneuver, as it had done with a handful of other powerful citizens within its walls for the corrections it'd needed to complete in its systems. Then, it retrieved the people on the Stealing Planet, running the sub-routine that would assign them homes, place them correctly, sift the monsters and creatures out of the population and into their right place in the City, and finally set the criminals in Blackgate or Arkham if appropriate. And finally, it reached through the large crack in reality where the others had gone - a series of islands, it seemed.

The set of islands had some form of barrier around it that made removal more difficult. The barrier, however, was only effective in the reality where the island currently resided. The City solved that issue by sweeping the entire set of islands and dragged it whole into its own reality. Because the islands needed a place to be, it attached them to its own land mass and extended the wall around it.

That done, it considered waking up its people again. And this time, it would wake everyone up. But there was the matter of time. Some of them had been powering its corrections for a good amount of time, and the City didn't want them to feel like they'd lost anything by helping the City. And so, it also reversed the time in the City to the night when it first borrowed a few of its powerful citizens to help it. Because it didn't want anyone else feeling they'd lost anything, either, it ensured that the memories of the rest of the citizens remained intact past the moment in time that now kicked into play in the City.

Satisfied with itself, the City rested.

OOC: Set after Edward Nigma's Christmas Wish was fulfilled and Jonathan Crane returned to his inescapable room, where the City mightly tried again to sort him/Scarecrow/Scarebeast out for good. Also, the title of this narrative should be sung to this. Because of reasons.


It was running out of time. Out of resources. Out of patience. And there was little to show for it. Certainly no remorse from the doctor.

Everything had started simply. The City had been angry. The City was tired of watching the Scarecrow kill its people whenever something went wrong with Jonathan Crane. And the City wished to punish them both. But as the punishment continued, the City had begun to believe that Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow, and the Scarebeast needed more than just punishment. Punishment would not stop anything.

Punishment never had stopped them before.

In that inescapable room where Jonathan Crane sat, the torment stopped abruptly. All was silent.

The City needed advice. And, after worrying about it for a while, it finally decided who it should ask. Who might know more. Who might understand more. Who might have ideas.

It called for Baba Yaga.

By now, The City had watched many of its denizens celebrate this thing called 'Christmas' and it was beginning to understand it better. It was a time for fir decoration. A time for singing songs. A time for creamy or apple flavored beverages. There were also presents.

The presents were the most interesting things to The City. It understood that the presents were designed to be special. To be meaningful. To express care. And The City did care about its people. Very much.

This year, it decided that it would participate in this 'Christmas.' And it wanted to participate in a big way.

A Douglas Fir sprung up overnight, positioned in the heart of The City. It was huge, dwarfing most multi-level buildings, bedecked in oversized copies of the decorations that previous and current citizens had used on their own trees. The Christmas star dwarfed the moon in its brightness.

But what to do for presents? The City had seen that presents were supposed to be personal. They were supposed to be something that made sense for one to give to the other. But The City did not know how to give presents in this way. It tried to calculate what would be right for every citizen - and failed. At last, it decided that it would grant one wish to each citizen. Just one. And it would do its best to fulfill it in a personal way.

The City was tired.

It knew who it had within it when they came, and knew the destruction and chaos caused...but there were lines, and the torn man has crossed them. There had been deterrents, gifts given to the man in hopes that the Asylum and it’s inhabitants could distract Crane, keep his madness contained, there had been threats, the looming fortress that was Blackgate a reminder of what could happen.

But neither of those had worked, and now The City’s citizens were paying the price.

The City was not without resources, and while even Blackgate didn't seem like a reasonable response to Crane killing people, it still had options, and so it reached out, the world shifting, shaping around the man, keeping him contained as The City routed the injured and dying to safety, landing them outside the hospital.

It was time for a firm hand.

The City had called for help. The City had waited. The City watched as its own worked to try to fix the brokenness within its subroutines. But the work was too slow and it was getting desperate. It had put some routines on a loop, but the wear was overheating it and making things even worse. Soon, day and night would collide and everyone would suffer for it.

In desperation, the City reached out to some of the most powerful of its citizens. Jesse Custer was first -- pulled without warning and placed in a storehouse deep where no one could reach the god. Eric Northman was next, followed by Hannibal Lecter. The three together were strong and already the City could feel the difference in its power and energy. It could begin working on the broken parts of itself now. But its calculation showed it would need still more, if it wanted to avoid burning out the three it had already pulled. So again, the City pulled others -- Annie Wagner, followed by just one more, Jennifer Government.

It would take time to resolve all issues completely, but now that work had begun, the City was confident that it could fix the brokenness on its own and keep its people safe and secure as well.

It began.

The City wished to keep the promise it had made to Hoban Washburne. Not because it felt badly for the man, though it did - despite not exactly knowing what the feeling was, but because it liked to keep promises, and it liked to see the citizens happy. The ramifications of Hoban crashing his space vehicle into the barrier and almost getting himself killed were widespread. Rippling through the community and touching everybody.

Which was decidedly not good.

It began construction on the idea it had come up with as soon as it found a suitable place. When it was finished, the City deposited a strange looking key into the pants pocket of the pilot. It would recognize his touch, and only work for him. It would also recognize if he was alive, so nobody could do something foolish like try to take his hand and use the key. It wasn't that what the City was giving him was so important to the general scheme, it was that the City wanted Wash to have a place that was truly his own.

The key would open a door that Wash would be able to find as soon as he began to look for it, no matter where he was within the wall. If he wanted the door, the door would be there.

On the other side of the door, a long series of stairs. Curving and bending. Twisting, always headed down. At the very bottom, a ladder. Simple steel. It would take him to a porthole. The porthole would open up - using the key again - onto another ladder, which would take him into a cockpit.

A perfect replica of the one on his beloved ship, Serenity. Just the cockpit, though. Every button would be there. Every switch. Outside of the window - space. Endless space. Where the City moved, Wash would be able to see the new stars, the different planets, his view would be unencumbered by anything. If he moved the steering mechanism, the cockpit would swivel, and he would be able to give himself a panoramic view.

The city hoped that it was what the man wanted. It was the best it could do.

At 12:35am from the park where Serenity, the spaceship, sat a small vessel shot up into the sky reflecting pale in the street lamps until it disappeared into the stock image quality starry, black sky. For a moment it was as if the craft never appeared. Then, from high above, came a bloom of red and smoke billowing from the explosion masked some of the star shine as a hunk of metal that used to be space worthy crashed down in nearly the same trajectory it had arose.

From the ground metal collided with grass forming enormous gouges in the otherwise pristine field right outside the park pond. Nocturnal animals scattered as the tremors and sounds of tons of ship parts slammed into the ground. What was left was a shallow crater and blackened ground. In the middle of all of this wreckage was a pale man with light hair smeared in red.

( Wash had been having a bad week. )

The City had never previously, for many reasons, found a need for any kind of prison system. But the rise of criminal activity, the addition of several individuals that couldn't be contained within Arkham, and the massive consistent corruption of Arkham itself was proving that there needed to be something else.

Arkham Asylum would stand as a place for the insane and the criminally insane alike. But Blackgate rose as a new home for those that needed a more secure holding. The City regretted the need for it, and it regretted the need for the people that would go in it. But the Cityborn were learning from the new criminal elements, and some were far too violent to be kept in Arkham any longer.

There would be a special cell, on a special floor, for a special face, as well.

If he was ever released from his current immobile prison in front of Dinah's shop.

A letter was sent mysteriously to Doctor Crane at Arkham, instructing him to transfer those patients and inmates to Blackgate that he deemed necessary. A letter was sent to the City Courts to do the same.

The newspaper the next day would splash a photograph of the ominous building, to let the whole population know what had happened while they slept. That a new building had literally grown from the very earth it now stood on, rumbling to life as if it were a great beast. The gates twisting out of the ground and raising high, commanding the separation of the law abiding and the law breakers. Usually the prison sat on an island, now it was positioned at the edge of the water, where it could be reached easily from both Arkham Asylum and Wayne Manor.

Much searching had yielded very little of the City's liking. It had crossed the space it had known, unable to find anybody to it's liking. Was it just getting pickier, or were things really this slim? Surely no other could have picked up on what it had been able to do. All those it had confronted, those who had learned of the power it gained from the people it took, were dead now. Had not lived long enough to communicate the discovery to others. But there was no reason that it could think of that there would be so few.

When, finally, it had made the decision to cross into unknown space, it had not been a choice made lightly. There were risks, big risks, into entering the unknown. Not the least of which being that it could get itself, and every one of it's residents, killed by doing so. There was a chance - however small the City felt that chance was - that there was a greater being on the other side.

Pleasure came along with terror when it discovered the planet.

From the outside, everything appeared to be normal. Nothing strange about the way it looked. But it felt wrong. When the City scanned the people living on it, it knew why. The people there were as diverse as anything the City had ever found. In the very beginning, the first few seconds of the encounter, the City had decided that it was going to steal these residents. Take them for it's own. Everything had changed very quickly then, gone very wrong very fast.

Before the City could act, the planet did. Ripping away pieces of the collection.

The City needed more people. It needed fresh faces. The seeking through areas it had already been was churning up nothing that it wanted. It had made the decision that it was going to try new areas, new worlds.

It set it's new path.

It had hopes that it would be able to fill the emptiness it felt, find new sources of power, and new companions. It was at it's lowest residency in a very long time, and it didn't like that one bit. There was a chance of finding one of it's species, and it wasn't sure that if it did so, right now, that it would be able to win the fight. The risk was even greater because it was venturing into previously unseen territory, but it was a risk that had to be taken.

The City scanned the planets it passed, seeking.

Baba sat in a quiet room, a bowl of water before her. She put her finger in it and started to make slow circles. It was an old trick really, scrying. There was always a chance someone could have wards up, or the City wouldn't allow for such. There was always a chance she could look into something or somewhere and be looked back at. Baba wasn't worried. ( She was waiting for something... )

Frustrated with the way that things were going, not able to understand these people that it had brought in and their apparent inability to relax and go with the flow of things, their unwillingness to conform like the people who were it's natural born citizens, The City had decided it needed to round them all up and put them in one place. A place where they couldn't get out, where they could be kept calm and docile, where it could study them closely.

It chose Arkham Asylum. There were enough rooms within to harbor every person in their very own cell. It had both maximum and minimum security wings, floors actually. The higher up a person found there room within the walls of the asylum, the more they needed to be watched, sedated. Held on to. The asylum was also on an island. With only one gate allowing access into the rest of the city. It could secure the building very well. Make sure nobody wandered in that didn't need to be there. That nobody got any bright ideas about anything.

They were taken while they slept. It moved them silently, instantly, from their beds, couches, chairs - or wherever they slept - into a room at the asylum. The nurses and doctors would appear, setting up IVs and deciding drug doses. Some patients were strapped down to their beds for their own safety - and for the safety of the staff - until they could be properly sedated. Some, those in the rooms on the higher floors, were put into straight jackets and weren't allowed to have human contact at all. The staff had to use special poles to stick these patients with their medicine. Those were the ones that the City worried about most of all. Those were the ones that it was having the hardest time learning about.

After a while, it let the calmer ones, the ones that responded to the drugs more, wander about. They were allowed to go to the commons room, they were allowed to eat their meals in the dining area, spend time in the inner courtyard. As long as they didn't start causing problems, they were allowed to roam. They could interact freely with the other patients. They had something of freedom, right up until it was time for lights out. Then everybody was ushered back to their rooms.

The others, all except those of the highest level, were taken out at special times. They were allowed to see the courtyard once a week. But not when anybody else was there. And only with a veritable army of staff members on hand to regain control should it be lost. Those of the highest level of security, those people stayed in their rooms all the time. The City could not risk them being let out.

So it watched them. It studied them. It tried to get to know them better. Learn what it was that they wanted. Tried to learn their personalities. Tried to learn why they wouldn't submit. It couldn't really tell if it was having much success or not. If it was learning anything new. It couldn't tell if any of this was going to help in the long run, or if it had just given them further fodder to be angry and discontent. To hate it.

Well, a few more weeks then. A few more weeks.

It happened overnight, as many things did within its walls. In the morning, the inhabitants were going to wake up to a very fun surprise. It felt that it had been a bit remiss lately in celebrating holidays, though most of the people here seemed to find their own way to celebrate the last few. But this one, this one it wanted to play with and make memorable.

The first one appeared with a low ~thwop~ sound as it seemed to fall out of thin air onto the chilly sidewalk. The small being stood, took off his tiny green bowler hat to dust it off and looked about. The City was pleased, very pleased, with the look of the little man. He was exactly what it had envisioned, unlike certain large beings of the same ilk. No, this was much better.

It was so much better that the City decided that its original estimate of how many it would need was far, far too low. The first creature was quickly joined by many of his bretheren in rapid succession, each appearing with the same low popping noise, like the muted sound of popcorn bursting out of its kernels. By the time the sound stopped, there were countless numbers of two-foot tall leprechauns standing about in a myriad of shades of green.

Oh yes. Yes, this was going to be a great deal of fun. And this time, instead of one magical creature, as had been the case with the Cupid last year, there were many. So everybody would be able to join in the fun. It was just an added bit of wonderful irony that the place where the newest inhabitants had appeared was mere steps away from where another leprechaun, a much larger leprechaun, lay as he slept off the large quantity of liquor he’d consumed.

Having started, the City was further inspired by its little visitors. They were not enough. There would have to be more, much more, to make its inhabitants get into the spirit of the holiday and to make its leprechauns feel at home. A new color. And some gold. And, oh, there were so many ideas.

This was going to be fun.

They'd gone their separate ways; actually, the sorceress had sent her latest student on his way. It was a simple "I'll see you soon," but it got her point across. Whether she actually saw him soon depended on how well her next meeting went. She went back to the shop and got cleaned up, "borrowing" a few more pieces from the seer's wardrobe. Eventually she was going to need a new place to live; she was growing bored with Xanadu's things. She wanted her own.

Perhaps, that had always been her problem; she wanted her own things, her own power, her own path, her own country...Or maybe she was just too arrogant. Overconfident. It didn't matter; she was about to try something she'd never attempted before; well, she'd certainly not tried it in some time with this particular sort of being. There was the living island, but she'd never gotten a chance to actually talk to it.

She made her way back to the same warehouse, or what she believed the same warehouse. A small tote hung from her shoulder; the bag was filled with the odds and ends of a conjuration spell. Baba was about to call on the City to have a nice conversation. She wanted to know what was going on. Her brow lifted as she walked into the warehouse; there was no sense of blood, magic, or even death. The place looked as if it hadn't been used in ages, but felt as if it had just been created. She didn't take the time to wonder if the City had made this place just for her, if it knew what she was about to do.

There was no table, but then, the sorceress didn't need a table. She pulled out the candles, setting them in certain places. Then she drew the circle, small symbols set between the candles. There was the usual incense, burnt bits of twigs, herbs, and paper. What was going to make this powerful? Why the blood and the eyes. The eyes were set carefully in the middle of the circle; Baba traced them with a circle of the Cupid's blood, the City's creation. Then she took a sip of the still sickeningly sweet liquid. She set the jar of blood into the circle and settled back to chant softly.

There weren't any true words to the chant, nothing intelligible. The sounds were just meant as a focus; her will needed to be focused. She called on the City, called on a physical representative. She called the City to join her, and she'd bind it to the spot. She could have used the heart, she could have used the brain, she could have used any organ she wanted, but the Cupid's eyes were really the only thing they hadn't destroyed while playing. So, the eyes lay there, staring blindly at her by jar of blood that had once given them life, made them work. She demanded it show itself. Now all she had to do was wait.

Who: Jennifer and The City
What: A phonecall finally made


Jennifer waited, patiently. Listening to the phone ring. Only half wondering where Charlie was. Maybe it was better that he wasn't in the office right now, anyway. She wanted to get this done and over with. She wanted to wash her hands of Smith Wall and go on with the real business of police work.

Finally, she heard the line pick up. It had run an unnatural number of times, in her opinion.


"Hello, Jennifer." The male voice came from the other end of the phone. Smith Wall, who was not actually corporeal right at the moment, was glad to finally hear from the agent.

"How did you.... nevermind." She didn't want to know. Not really. "I found him. That guy you wanted me to find."

"I'm so very glad to hear that, Jennifer. Please, don't go near him. I don't want him to harm you."

"He doesn't seem all that dangerous, actually." There was a bowl of fruit on her desk. She had to assume that Charlie had placed it there. It would be a fairly good assumption. Not that she minded, not really. She actually sort of liked the fact that Charlie liked fruit that much. It meant she ate a little healthier.

"Just tell me where he is, could you? Did you find anything else out about him?"

"No. He had no records. No family here. Did you really expect me to find much?"

"No. I did not. Where is he?"

"He lives in the Manchester. He's got one of the four top floor condos there."

"Very good, Jennifer. Thank you. My check to you will be in the mail shortly. You have done me proud."

"Can I ask.. who are yo...." The phone was dead in her hand. No dial tone. Just no sound at all. As if she hadn't been talking to anybody to begin with. For a long moment, Jennifer stared at the receiver and then put it back in the cradle.

Hopefully that was all done, then.

It had let the citizens take care of the mess, as usual, instead of just reversing it's poor decision. They had done fine, The City thought. They had taken care of it. Made sure that everybody was safe. Solidifying the idea that The City had chosen them well.

It looked at the dead flesh of the giant monster, mourning it only a little bit. Wishing that things had turned out better, but only momentarily.

The City repaired itself, cleaning up the flesh and the mess of the once great Godzilla, fixing the streets and the buildings that the monster destroyed or left it's mark on. Soon, it was as if none of it had ever happened. Only the memories of those involved would remain as proof.

As it walked away, The City thought to itself. Considering the zoo and the animals it had wanted to put into it.

Perhaps dinosaurs weren't such a great idea after all.

It had only recently become aware of the concept of monster movies. In this new body, this new form, it had taken to doing some more human things. One of them had to been to visit something called a video store, rent some videos and find some place to watch them. Since it was The City itself, it just made a house with everything it needed.

One of those videos happened to be Godzilla, featuring a giant angry lizard. It sat intrigued through the whole thing and bolted to it's feet at the end, fresh with a new idea.

There would be a zoo in The City. It would collect animals to put them on display. The City didn't currently have a zoo of it's own, which was sort of sad for the children. But they'd grown up here so they didn't really have a concept of what a zoo was. They would love this.

It would get Godzilla. The monster couldn't be that big, could it? After all, it had ransacked and Japan was a small place to begin with. Just an island. Sort of like The City, only ... different. Plus it had stayed mostly in Tokyo. One city.

After Godzilla, it would get some dinosaurs maybe. A unicorn. A phoenix. Dodo birds. Things that people would know but had never seen in their lives. It would be fantastic. Everybody would be filled with wonder. They would be pleased by what The City had given them.

Retrieving Godzilla as it had everybody else, The City suddenly realized that it had not only misjudged the creature's size, but also it's intelligence and determination. The cage that had been constructed turned out to be rather flimsy.

Just as one of the lesser writers for The City Voice was receiving information about the zoo for an article, Godzilla broke loose.

( OOC )