Once Upon a Time...

[morethanmyth]

They likely felt the world shift, a fragmentation of all they thought they knew. It was the way a fictional character might feel if they could feel every page turn in the book they lived in. It was the beginning of a new story and that meant an end to an old one and they would each feel that.

To some it would feel like they had just died. To others, it would feel like they had just been born. To many, it would feel like both at the same time. It all really depended on who they were and what they were leaving behind.

In any case, this world had something New appear in it. After lightning crackled in the evening sky without any storm fueling it, they would find themselves waking up in the streets of a small town called Burgess. It was a perfectly ordinary Pennsylvania town, a place where the modern mixed with the old, American suburbia at its finest, making it all the stranger that something extraordinary would happen somewhere so ordinary.

[ooc: Make a subthread for each character and those of you that would like to toss your character at someone else before Bunny and Jack show up, tag a subthread already there.]

Comments

[letskicksomeice]

Delighted squealing is pretty much his favorite thing besides kids' laughter.

"You're a little young for that. The Man in the Moon, the spirit that chose me and my team-mates to protect kids, thinks you should be a Guardian, but Bunny and I aren't really keen on the idea. You're too young to be facing what we've been facing. But since it's been going after good myths, we still wanted to make sure you were safe - at least until we can get you all home and changed back the way you were."

If they weren't created new, but he was still at a loss as to how to break that to any of them. He knew what it was like to wake up in the world and wonder who you were.

[animalhats]

"I am not!" Molly protests. "I've been a superhero for almost a whole year! And me and my friends fought tons of bad guys, and they're all teenagers, and I can totally help!"

Protest aside, however, there are some important questions to ask here. "Is there really a man in the moon? Who's Bunny? When can I go home?" Because that's the things. She can help, sure. But she'd... kind of rather go home. So if she can do that, that's what she wants.

[letskicksomeice]

"I'm sure you're a great superhero, but the things we're fighting target kids. It's a little different from fighting, I don't know -"

He racked his brain for a villain she might find familiar.

"- Doctor Doom."

He went on, "Anyway, there really is a Man in the Moon, Bunny is the Easter Bunny, and you can go home as soon as we figure out a way to get you there. It might take some time. The really powerful myths were captured and need to be freed, and they're the ones that have the best chance of being able to send you back."

[lifelinked]

"Hello, Howard," Mami replies, bowing. She keeps her fist clenched tight, though, searching for any sign of danger.

"Maybe we should investigate together? I don't see very many others who seem to be in our predicament."

[animalhats]

"We fought Doctor Doom once! Only it wasn't really Doctor Doom, it was a robot that Ultron made, and then Ultron showed up, and we had to save Victor from it 'cause Ultron's sort of his dad, and it was awesome!"

Congratulations, Jack. You have a bonafide comic book superhero riding piggyback.

"The Easter Bunny's real?" If her belief counts, then Bunny just got a little boost in belief power. "That's freaking awesome! What about Santa? An-and the Tooth Fairy?"

[letskicksomeice]

That would have been pretty cool if the thought of a little kid like her fighting evil robots didn't fill him with horror.

"Those are my other team-mates. Also, the Sandman and Anansi the Spider. Who's a giant pain in my frosty butt. We're all real, though - at least here. I don't know if versions of us exist where you're from. There are a lot of other myths, too. Though there aren't many of us left running free."

His expression grew a little more rueful.

"See, it's just me and Bunny left. Tooth, Sandy, Anansi, and North - that's Santa's other name, they all got captured. So did a lot of the other myths that used to help out our team sometimes."

[animalhats]

Molly has never heard of Anansi, but she has heard of Sandman. And when she hears that the bad guys are capturing the good heroes, well...

"Then you gotta let me help! I can help before I go home, and... and we can rescue Santa and the tooth fairy and everybody, if they're real, then they can't disappear, what if Christmas gets ruined?"

[letskicksomeice]

"The mini-fairies that help the Tooth Fairy are taking over collecting teeth and the Yetis and elves are still making the toys. Bunny and I were going to deliver them ourselves. We can handle it, at least until we get them back."

He was lying like a rug. They were certainly going to try but they were in over their head.

"We'll figure this out when we talk with the others, though." He pointed with his staff down at the field near a pond, where a few people were already gathered.

"I'm going to need you to wait there with everyone else until we get the last few stragglers. Then we'll talk to everyone and figure out what to do from here."

[animalhats]

"Yeah... okay." She looks down at the group with a little bit of trepidation. What if none of her friends are there? What if they're all grownups? What if--

Nope, she's Princess Powerful, she's not gonna be scared.

She's not.

"I promise I won't leave unless I find out you're secretly a bad guy," she promises solemnly.

[letskicksomeice]

"You don't have to worry about that, so I guess you'll be sticking around."

He landed and set her down gently, giving her a wide smile.

"As far as we know, the other people here are good guys too, but if anyone seems scary, give a yell. The Wind's my friend and it'll make sure it carries it to me, okay? And I'll come right back. It shouldn't take too long to get the last few people."

[animalhats]

Molly nods, because all of that makes perfect sense for her. If Jack Frost is real, why wouldn't he be friends with the Wind? And why wouldn't the Wind be something you could befriend?

"Okay. Don't take too long, though, okay?" She's not scared, but okay maybe she doesn't want to be alone with a bunch of strangers for too long. Hey, in the lack of familiar faces, he seems safe enough to trust. If he's friends with Santa and the Easter Bunny, he must be a good guy.

[letskicksomeice]

"You just haven't found them yet," said a voice from above, and if they looked up, they'd see a teenage boy crouching on the neon sign of a store as if he was Spider-Man.

He carried a long wooden staff in his hands.

"But that's what I'm here for, to be your helpful tour guide to the current weirdess that's going on."

[letskicksomeice]

"I'll be quick as cricket, I promise."

And with that, he was off.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Think maybe you could do that without the big stick?" Howard's hand tightens around the folding knife, and he seems to shrink away, as if he hopes the bagginess of his clothing can shield him. His eyes turn from Mami to Jack and back, sizing up that they could both take him in a fight, and he suddenly feels outnumbered.

It doesn't matter that neither of them are threatening, or that Mami has just bowed to him.

[lifelinked]

Mami steps out in front, shielding Howard on instinct. Jack doesn't look the part of a witch or a familiar, but she's feeling a little jumpy today. Her expression is serious again.

"How generous of you. Please, feel free to explain?"

There's a faint yellow glow from her hand, where she's prepared to launch a ribbon from her gem if necessary.

[letskicksomeice]

"Sorry, not in this neighborhood." The fearlings were quite fond of Burgess. "But if it makes you feel better, I can stay up here instead of coming down there. Does that sound like a good compromise?"

Jack sat down on the sign, getting himself comfortable.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Well. That depends on how you got there." Howard's seen teleporters and people who can fly or move at the speed of sound. The promise to stay away is a little empty unless he knows those aren't options.

"First things first - are we dreaming?"

[fromfryingpantofire]

Going to sleep in one place and waking up in someplace completely different? That was never a good sign, as far as Sam knew. It usually meant that either Gabriel was fucking with him (impossible, as the archangel had been dead for years now) or somebody was fucking with him (more plausible, but one hell of a list). And considering Sam's head had only recently STOPPED being screwed with by one of the best (himself/Lucifer, it was hard to tell), he wasn't that thrilled with the new state of things.

Still, he pushed himself to his feet and got a good look at his surroundings. Definitely NOT the hotel where he and Dean had bedded down, only a few days out from the whole shōjō thing. They hadn't found a new job yet and Sam had been about to ask Dean about swinging back to the hospital to check up on Cas.

"Guess that's not going to happen," he muttered to himself, brushing his hands down his body. Then paused and double checked. Yes, he had his gun and Ruby's knife on him. Which was weird, because he didn't normally sleep with either of them on. At least whoever had brought him here hadn't brought him unarmed.

It only took a little wandering around to get the gist of something that was happening. He wasn't being seen. He couldn't seem to affect anything by touching it. Which did, really, put more to the side of somebody fucking with him.

Or somebody actually having killed him. He felt a chill of fear for Dean, wondering if his brother was around here somewhere.

It was while looking for his brother that Sam comes across somebody who seemed to be in a similar position to him, judging by the way his hand passes through some kid's hip. He blinks, raising an eyebrow. "You know. I don't think money's going to do us much good right now."

At least, he kind of hopes the kid was in the same situation he is. He's getting kinda tired of talking to himself.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard jumps when he hears a voice talking to him. Immediately he tries to pass himself off as if he just innocently bumped into those ghost teenagers, rather than trying to steal from them. Then he gets a good look at who he's looking at.

He sees a gun. That's not good. His hands go into his pocket and feel his folding knife, but he's well aware of the laws of weaponry: gun beats knife. Even though the gun isn't in Sam's hands, it's within reach.

The more he sees Sam the more worried he gets about this situation, wondering if this dream is about to turn into a chase. Sam's...huge. Gargantuan. Well over six feet tall while Howard barely breaks five, and probably three times Howard's weight. Healthy-looking, rather than emaciated and sickly. Walking with confidence rather than slinking around.

Howard pulls his hands back out of his pockets and raises them slightly in the universal gesture of 'please don't hurt me'. "I-I'm not looking for money. Who're you?"

[fromfryingpantofire]

It's not exactly a sight that Sam is unfamiliar with, unfortunately. That's the problem with having several inches and often a lot of muscle on people. He'd slouched through high school and a lot of college. It was something he'd stopped doing when he'd gone back to hunting and accepted that his life wasn't going to change from that for a while.

Still, he takes a conscious step back, holding his hands out at his sides, palms toward the kid and showing that they were absolutely empty. "Hey. Hey, it's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. You're just the only other person I've seen in the same boat as I am, with the people not seeing you and not being able to touch things." He does his best to look...if not truthworthy, at least non-threatening. "I'm Sam. Sam Winchester. You?"

[mywarrenmyrules]

That statement was certainly not free of alarm.

But it also seemed awfully genuine, and if being pointed in the right direction was really all this particular myth was capable of, well, that could have still been good even out of a desperate situation.

Just now, when there are so many things in need of killing, it's downright useful.

Bunny stepped out of his stance and spun the boomerangs back into their holsters.

"We can work with that."

He pointed across town, where Burgess shifted into suburbs against a little bit of woods. "There are others like you popping up around. I gotta go find 'em, but if you're in, meet us by the pond on the other side of town."

[mywarrenmyrules]

"Not here. We're flat outta dreams just now."

The voice came from behind them, and from a giant rabbit.

A giant rabbit with a harness holding a couple of brightly painted eggs across his chest.

He kept his distance, standing in the mouth of an alleyway, without flipping one of his boomerangs into his paw. Both the new spirits were on edge, and he could have seen that even if he hadn't overheard Howard's comment about Jack's staff.

[spellitonce]

It just figured that she'd be more likely to get pulled through than any of the adults calling themselves heroes these days. Still, she'd have thought that one of those Young Avengers would have been more likely to be tapped for a job like this. She's not a hero, she's just trying to keep her friends alive and out of the hands of people who want to split them up -- and maybe deal with some of the problems their parents left behind.

"How many other people are coming through?"

If this thing (whatever it was) got her, could it have gotten her friends too?

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard doesn't look terribly convinced that Sam's not going to hurt him, but he does lower his hands. And he appreciates the step back, because if Sam didn't do it, Howard was going to.

"Howard. Howard Bassem. And usually I don't dream about the town where A Christmas Story took place."

He yelps a bit as another person, a little girl, runs through him from behind. It's not that it hurts, but it's surprising to see another human being pass through your chest like a bloodless re-enactment of Alien. The little girl's hands open to try and catch a butterfly that's flying in front of her and she passes through Sam, in turn. The butterfly, by contrast, flits just around Sam's face, as if consciously avoiding him.

[fromfryingpantofire]

Sam blinks down at himself as the girl runs through him and grimaces. "Okay, that's...not going to stop being weird." The butterfly avoiding him, on the other hand? That was interesting. "We must be putting off some sort of energy field. Humans don't seem to notice it, but the animals do. Or insects do. That's...kind of fascinating, actually."

Yeah, seriously. Sam's just not going to threaten Howard. The rest of what's happening is just too weird. "Kinda wonder if other animals notice it as well. That said, we might wanna get off the sidewalk and just...try not to be run through again." It didn't really feel like much, but it was just so wrong.

"You're...probably not dreaming, though. I mean, unless we're sharing a dream. Not impossible, but it usually requires that you know about it." Not entirely, of course. "Where were you before you were here? Out of curiosity."