Welcome to Gaia! ::

The wind howled down the dark and filth ridden alley, carrying the week old stench down towards the man who was walking up it. The man grimaced and muttered something under his breath as he yanked the collar of his coat higher around his neck. He ran a hand through his fiery red hair that had been cut and styled to look like such, and let his equally red eyes scan the surrounding area.
No sign yet of his partner. But this was where her aura was coming from. When this kind of situation happened, it almost always meant that she was simply at a higher altitude.
Great...why did she always have to make things difficult for him?
With a small sigh, the man pulled his arms from the sleeves of his coat and tucked it out of one arm. His white shirt had a large hole missing from the back of it. Not something he would normally wear, but he had a feeling this morning that he should. Intuition was correct yet again.
The skin between his shoulder blades parted a moment, and two very long, feathery red wings suddenly shot out of them. They noisily slapped at the air around him as they shot open to their full length, and even noisier smacked at the air as they attempted to lift him from the ground.

Within a matter of moments, he was level with the rooftops. And, as he suspected, found a girl with long blond hair pulled back in a french braid sitting casually on the roof of the building next to him. As he landed beside her, she turned to look over at him with mild interest. "What took you so long?" she asked in her usual calm and soothing tone.
The man's partially annoyed red eyes met her partially uninterested cerulean ones, then moved as he noticed something on her lap.
A cat. A black, skinny, and surprisingly lanky cat. It was curled up and nestled rather comfortably on her lap with it's eyes closed and just purring away. After a moment, it opened it's eyes and turned it's head to look up at him with it's large amber orbs. Then, a most unnatural smile spread across it's face and well into it's "cheeks".

The man stared at it a moment, then shook his head and looked back at the woman. "A new pet?"

"A new friend." she replied as she scratched it's head. "He's turned this world around so that we can entertain ourselves for a while."

The man looked down at the cat skeptically. "A cat...?

"I know, I know...plenty of other people that would be more than capable wiping the world clean and starting things over again. But what would their motivation be? X would be uninterested, Alcina probably wouldn't do something like this unless she'd get to be an active spectator..." the cat replied. "I suppose Zera would be a good choice to do something like this, but the Fate was wanting to get this thing started. Sooo....que everyone's favorite and lovable plot device." he continued with a bit of a smug grin. "She let me pull out my bag of tricks, and I pulled out the kamehameha of all powers. So, that said, we're just up here waiting for the show to start. The rest of you are free to do as you please." he finished, turning his head back around to get himself comfortable on her lap again.

The man continued to star at the thing. "....a cat?"

"Oh, lighten up. We've seen stranger things. You have your arrows, don't you?" The woman replied.

"I brought seven of my twelve types." he replied after a small pause. She was right though, they had seen stranger things. And...if they were going to get a show out of this, he didn't really care.

In a sudden swirl of smoky color, Zira appeared next to Cupid and Amora. Immediately, she reached out to scratch C.C. behind the ears. "You did a good job with this," she purred to him, "And honestly, I'm a bit... What's the word? Unreliable. There's always that annoying little slip of a chance that I could try to create an alternate dimension and end up destroying most of the main RP... Erm.... Universe. So it's probably for the best. Have we got popcorn?" she added, brightening.

C.C. immediately let out a loud, appreciative purr as Zera scratched his ears. "Thank you..." he purred.
He then got up and moved off of Amora's lap to stand beside her. A patch of fur on his right side faded into a nice gray color. He then took hold of the fur, and yanked it out. Rather than pulling fur out, a rather nice size gray sack somehow slid out. It was almost as big as he was, the top of it tied with a raggedy old tie, and appeared as though it was stuffed with a lot of goodies.
He pulled the tie off with one swoop and carefully reached into the bag. After a moment, he pulled his arm out, a bag of orange chewy circus peanuts in hand. He grimaced a bit and discarded the bag to the side, reaching in again. He pulled his arm out again, and this time had a hold of a jumbo size bucket of popcorn.
He smiled and held the bucket out to Zera.
"I can probably pull a few more goodies out while there's food on the mind." he offered.

"Wine." Amora replied, watching the world below them as she tore open the bag of peanuts. "White Zinfandel."

Cupid, on the other hand, had his attention on Zera rather than food. He really didn't understand how Amora could be so casual about all of this. He wasn't used to having random people...or animals...he'd never seen before just appear.

"Well," C.C. started, reaching into the bag again. "Little miss 'Fate' hasn't typed anything up yet for anyone else to come in. But I imagine Gossamer, Rosie, and Vice are all definates. Rosie might be the only one to live through this whole thing though. Maybe...tragedy is entertaining sometimes as well." He pulled his arm out, and had a hold of an old glass Coca Cola bottle. He tossed it back into the bag and reached in again. "But yes, Gossamer's definitely in. Vice will probably in as well. It would certainly tear at her if something unfortunate happened to him. And she doesn't die unless she wants to, so if the Clown can't get her into such a state of mind, Robin Hood over there has the artillery to do it." he continued, motioning towards Cupid. He pulled out a bucket of KFC chicken this time. Grinning, he gently set the bucket down beside him and reached in again, trying to find a bottle of wine for Amora. "Since you're here, Terragon might show up soon. Just so you can mess with him if nothing else. Sapphire will probably join in on the fun, just because her emotions would be so easy to manipulate. Then there's the possibility of bringing Hotspur or someone in since she'll be here. Alex maybe, since she could be with anyone. Alcina, obvious reasons. Anyone else is a maybe because it doesn't make much sense for them to be here if other love interests or heartbreaks aren't going to be played here."
He pulled out an alien looking plant this time. Roses, and long green tentacle like things growing under it. C.C. stared at it a moment. "....why does this look familiar, and why do I have a feeling I shouldn't be anywhere near it?"

"Eh, hold on a moment" C.C. replied, reaching into the bag again. "She usually gives me a hint of somekind if she gives me something and I have no idea what it is." after a moment, he pulled his arm back out, holding a comic book. He looked puzzled a moment, the held it closer to inspect it. "Green Lantern?" he mumbled to himself as he flipped through it. "Let's see...blah, blah, blah...big scary yellow guy...blah blah blah...a whole field of those things....Green Lantern and Green Arrow easily defeat..." he muttered to himself, then suddenly stopped. "Oh." he said quietly. "That's that thing that will put you into a perfect dream-like trance while it sucks the life out of you." he replied, looking up at it.

The plant finally started to move, its long green tendrils moving towards anything living within it's reach. C.C. smacked it with his tail, a small surge of black energy visibly passed through it, and it stopped moving. "Now, now...no latching onto anyone here." he said, stuffing the plant into an outer compartment on the sack closest to him. No real explanation on how the compartment got there...things usually randomly appeared on that thing. "You'll be of better use when we find someone to use you on." he continued as he made sure the thing was nice and tucked away for later use. The large shark smile returned to his face as he looked up at Zera. "The only problem is who to use it on. In any case, is there anything else you'd like? I'm sure a certain 'Fate' could bring other characters in now. Say a certain mono-color-schemed gentleman at a rather unfortunate time of the month?"

Cupid was still rather uneasy with the whole thing, and moved to stand at the corner of the building to watch the fun. Or at least try to. He didn't find much fun in anything if it wasn't just him and Amora.

Amora, simply sat and kept her interest on her snack and the world below them.

C.C.'s grin widened into it's sinister little Cheshire form, then turned his attention towards Cupid. "You have the arrows for that, right? If not I know Amora here could get him to do it."

Cupid glanced at the thing with a rather annoyed glare in them. "Of course I have arrows to make someone head over heels for another. I can make them completely devoted."

"Yes, yes...as you did with a number of heroes when you two were in New York. My favorite part was where you made Sapphire suicidally heartbroken. Now that was fun. Watching a certain red clad hero try to save someone who had no desire to be saved at all." C.C. replied, then scanned the area around them a moment.

Cupid looked curiously at the thing a moment, then turned his attention back out to some random location.

"Ooh! How about we bring him in an unfortunate way too! Come on, let's give him a hard time. It'll be funny!" C.C. called out to seemingly no one.


=================================



A block or two across from the building, in perfect view of the group, a man in black armor and a gray cloak suddenly appeared. In midair...halfway up the length of the building.
He gasped in surprise as gravity quickly took effect on him and slammed him into a waiting dumpster beneath him. After a few moments, he let out a small groan and struggled to pull himself out of the overflowing trash. He paused once he was half out of the trash and looked around, visibly stunned.
What just happened? He was in his sanctuary, just getting ready to wait out his week of solitude. Now he was...what was this, the city? Of all places!