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

[hellofhisown]

'Chosen'.

A word that to Al just meant 'picked to do someone else's dirty work'.

Malebolgia. Mammon. The Mother of All Creation. And now a nursery rhyme character gets added to the list of people who have decided to use Al for their own ends.

Even if the story sounds like bullshit, given what he's seen, he knows it's not entirely impossible.

"And why would he pick someone like me? I'm not exactly a cute and cuddly bed time story character here."

[mywarrenmyrules]

"That's what I'm wondering, too. I'm gonna say it's because we're all out of options."

Which was the truth.

"We need help. We've got an enemy who in a fit of bloody genius let in -" he pauses, still not quite sure how to describe the things he's been fighting for a solid six months, with less and less backup. "Stuff that shouldn't be here. It put the four other Guardians out of the picture, and they were not myths to thumb your nose at. Now there's only Jack and me left, and we're not going to be enough to protect the kids forever."

He stayed in his stance, still eyeing Al dubiously.

"I don't call the shots, the Man in the Moon does. I'm not even gonna begin to guess what your story is. But if you care at all about the kids -" he paused, resigning himself to possibly working with this thing that looks so much like one of the bumps in the night he ought to be attacking. "Then we need your help. Otherwise the kids're gonna suffer."

Beneath the tough exterior, his plea was genuine. It wasn't nearly so important anymore that he not work with anyone he didn't want to.

The kids were in danger, and that took priority over everything else.

[hellofhisown]

Al stood quietly for a long moment as he considered things.

As many times as he'd been deceived and betrayed, Al didn't get the feeling that the rabbit was trying to lie to him. The myth came across not unlike an earnest, forthright person who clung to their sense of duty and morals. He had known a couple of cops like that. Good men. Honest.

So what exactly was all this, then? If it was true, why pick someone like Al? Perhaps it was penance for all the things he did. A chance to change things.

Not that he expected forgiveness, not after what happened.

"If what you say is true, I..."

He recalls the image of the corpse of the child murderer Billy Kincaid, slain at Al's hands. Of what happened to the lives of young Andy and Eddy Frank after he tried to help them. Of Cyan, who suffered so much because of him.

"...I can only hurt people. But if these things really are going after kids, then point me to them."

This was what he did. This was who he was.

"I'll make them hurt."

A monster that kills monsters.

[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."

[hellofhisown]

Al's entire existence was alarming. You get used to it. Sort of.

"I'll be there," he said quietly, walking towards the edge of the roof. He looks back at Bunny for a brief moment.

"Name's Al, by the way. Al Simmons."

An olive branch, of sorts. He doesn't always give out his real name.

And with that, he turns back towards the edge of the roof. Leaping from the top of the building, he spreads his tattered cape wide, gliding away towards the meeting spot.

[mywarrenmyrules]

Bunny might understand that.

He never gave out his name at all.

He didn't spend a lot of time watching after the disappearing figure before leaping off the opposite way. There were others to find, and if any of them were more aggressive than Al, Jack might need backup.

Still, if the others were much like Al, if they were all curiosities to watch out for - hopefully they'd all prove more heroic than they seemed at first glance.