just_a_stranger:

An Elementary School in Gotham City.

Principal Aparo was not a happy man.  He usually was, in as much as any elementary school principal could be, but he had bad news for his teachers his afternoon.  The children were at lunch, with and he had quickly called a staff meeting before it finished. 

"There's a problem," he said.  "The magician we hired for the afternoon assembly is sick.  He had to cancel.  I'm afraid we'll have to postpone the assembly."

"Oh," Mrs. Infantino, the elderly first grade teacher, said.  "The children will be so disappointed."

Victoria frowned.  There was that sudden, sinking feeling.  Slowly... she cleared her throat.

"I... may know someone who can fill in," she said. 

"Who?" Mr. Wein, one of the kindergarten teachers, asked.

"Someone famous," Victoria said, "and a very talented magician.  And I am certain he will agree.  He owes me a favor.  But you must ask no further questions.  I assure you this will be appropriate."

She added a little bit of her mystical persuasion to her words, just in case.

When the meeting broke up, she made a hasty phone call.

greatest_zatara:

It's late into the evening on the east coast when flashes of light appear to the members of Shadowpact. A distorted projection of Zachary Zatara's face appears, apparently in a state of mild panic.

"...i-- --ou ca-- ear me, I nee- -elp right away! --ake m-- -hand!" The vision shifts from his face to his left hand, outstretched. Even through the greenish glow of the projection's appearance, blotches of wet unnatural color can be seen marring his skin.

just_a_stranger:

Rutland, Vermont

Though Victoria was capable of long distance travel on her own, and of bringing other people with her when required, she had, instead, opted for Zachary's spells in taking them there.  A bit more obvious, perhaps, but also a good test of their enemy's reactions.

Frankly, Victoria was occasionally of the opinion that Rutland out to be razed to the ground and then mystically erased from memory.  Too many times over the years she'd been doing this, the trail had led back to this sleepy little town.  It had exactly two things going for it: a super-hero themed Halloween parade, and mystical phenomena.

"Be on your guard," she told the others.  "I am sensing... something."

just_a_stranger:

The Oblivion Bar was a place where mystical types from all corners of time and space could gather freely, without the need to antagonize each other and compete in their usual frays of Order vs. Chaos, or good vs. evil.

Even Victoria Craft herself was known to occasionally go there and enjoy a small, fruity drink with an umbrella in it.  Especially on the days immediately following the children's return from a vacation.

But angels rubbed shoulders with demons who rubbed shoulders with cowboy ghosts who rubbed shoulders with talking chimps who rubbed shoulders with Fifth Dimensional Imps.

But what Victoria Craft noticed tonight, as she led Salome and Mina to a back table, was the notable absence of anyone whose powers specifically derived from either Order or Chaos.

She sat herself down and spread a map of the United States on the table. 

"There has to be some root cause of all this..."

greatest_zatara:

"So how have the practice tips I gave you been working out?" Zach asks his new assistant and pupil, scooping some toppings onto his cup of frozen yogurt. He'd decided to surprise her with treating her to Sixteen Handles.

sparkofmagic:

Here it is Mina's day off from classes. She's reading over her graded paper when she notices the pile of bills for this month. So opens them all up one by one then just winces. She lost her last job recently because of being held captive by that cult and how jumpy she had been for days following that.


"Oh my god this is insane," Mina groans when she starts trying to total what she has in her account with what she owes.

If she pays it all off she'll only have three buck and some change left to her name by the ed of the month. If she still had her old job she would be getting a paycheck next week. Mina just groans and buries her face in her arms.

dc_independent:

Alexia broke into the Gotham Museum. Though broke in does do what she did justice. She blow the front door down and the door frame out with a blast of magic fire. There was one thing that Alexia did not do and that was subtly.

She had found a record of a scroll with some powerful fire spell on it hidden in a Chinese painting that was currently in the possession of the Gotham Museum. She ran to where the exhibit was when she cased the place earlier that day.

As she started the incantation to get the scroll the defenses active something that she hadn’t expected. After a quick battle with some statues that she blew up as fast as she could she finished the incantation and grabbed the scroll and proceeded to run out of there.

As she got to the front doors that were still on fire she saw a police barricade waiting for her.

“Put your hands up your under arrest,” the cops yell out to her.

“Hell no,” Alexia yelled back at them. She really did not deal with authority well. As her temper and annoyance started getting the better of her, her hair and hand started to alight with flames.

With a quick spell she sent blast of fire towards all the police cars at the scene. The police really didn’t know what they had gotten themselves into and the really didn’t have much of a chance against Alexia but with this much magic being flung around someone was bound to notice.

seasiren:

All Ash knew was this is something she had never done before. She had never seen a show of any kind that hadn't been televised on the surface world. So the idea of going to one of Zach's shows was something that appealed to her after she had given it some thought.

She didn't want to go by herself either. So after working herself up into a near panic she had asked Michael to go with her. She had been quite pleased when he had agreed to go with her. She had been afraid that she would end up going alone. They found themselves seated towards the front of the place and she gave a sheepish smile.

".... We fought monsters in Ciaro. Then we talked. I-I guess he thought m-m-.... mages should stick together," Ash said as she settled into her chair and watched the stage. "But it was nice of him. I've never actually gone to anything."

seasiren:

It is late at night. Like any modern day city time does not stop in Cairo just because the sun has gone down. The moon is out and the streets are still busy. But as it is quickly approaching two in the morning things die down.

A spell is cast by an unknown person and across the world it wakes two others up. Somehow across an ocean they feel it. One of them feels an urgency in her blood to go to where the magic is. She dresses quickly in the dark and starts to cast a spell.

She doesn't think to bring back up. The magic tells her she has to act quickly. And so she goes and finds herself an ocean away from her friends in front of the Egyptian Antiquities museum. She can feel the pulse of dark magic and shivers in the warm night air.

This is dangerous. But she casts another spell to fool the security system and goes inside. Magic is buzzing in her mind and she continues to search for where this dark tainted pulse is coming from.

She is going to stop it.

violettidemage:

Cerdian walked up the stairs to Lian's apartment with the box of chocolate, running through a breathing exercise in his head. Today, he would tell Lian that he loved her and apologize for treating her so poorly. He would find out if she had it in her heart to forgive him and then the would figure out what that meant in regard to her life now. He would tell her that he wasn't marrying anyone and that he only wanted to be with her.

Upon arriving at Lian's door, Cerdian knocks three times and waits for her to answer.

Suddenly, he realizes he forgot the flowers.
 

redarrowmia:

Mia had set up the entire living room as "official wedding planning headquarters". The coffee table was covered in various bridal magazines that Dinah had picked up, samplers of invitations, seating charts, lists of places that they should have the wedding and reception at, and a couple of long lists with all the people they knew written on it.

Mia was sitting on the sofa with a cup of coffee in one hand, and a calendar in the other, going over the dates in the months of May and June. She was waiting for her fiance to get his butt in from the kitchen so they could pick one, and then start on other planning things.

redarrowmia:

After much making out in the middle of the battlefield, followed by a night of intense passion back at their apartment (God, she'd missed being alive, not to mention Zach), Mia woke up early the following moment after her return from the grave and made her way to Star City General Hospital. Alive again or not, she was probably still HIV positive and would need to get back on her strict regimen of medication.

There was a lot of explaining to the doctors why someone who had been legally dead for the past few months was suddenly alive and kicking like nothing had happened. Mia filed out some forms for insurance, and then went through a series of various tests to see if everything was in order.

A couple of hours after her tests, the doctor came back into the room, a truly astounded look on his face as he stared at Mia's charts.

"Ms. Dearden, there were some...unusual results in your tests. We'd like to keep you under observation for a few days."

Mia nodded, wondering what could have possibly happened. Had something happened when she came back to trigger her HIV into full-blown AIDS? She didn't want to think about it.
( A few days later )

dc_misc:

The city of Star City looked deserted. The citizens had either fled or had been turned into black lanterns. At the heart of the city was the entity known as Nekron. Nekron used the city as his base as his black lanterns ravaged the Earth.

The black lanterns increased their numbers each day and the power levels of the black lantern battery increased with each person that died.

Soon Nekron would have enough power to obliterate all life on this planet.

green_lantern:

The group of lanterns were gathered around in a circle not far from the North Pole. Larfleeze was practically bouncing that they were so close to the Fat Man's workshop and Dex swore he would punch the orange lantern just to make him stand still for longer than two seconds. They had business to attend to first and then they could talk to the Fat Man about getting Larfleeze the promised presents.

They were going to create two rings of each color to help in the fight against the Black Lanterns. They would make more, but as it was the rings were only at half power. They would have to make do with what they had until they could find a way to get to Oa and see why the rings were depowered.

Dex looked around the circle. Each color had two more rings, red had three, added to the ranks. It was time to send them out. He nodded and the newly created rings were thrown up into the air. They immediately took off and started seeking out wearers.

black_lantern:

Morgan le Fey was back one of those black rings had found enough of her remains after the Demon had killed her to bring her back. It sought to control her but a simple black trinket couldn’t control Morgan le Fey of the Elder Folk with the amount of magic she controlled. Still it was annoying and nagging and she didn’t mind taking a few hearts along the way so long as she could complete her goal.

Even with all her great power and the power of the ring now at her disposal she had been foiled enough not to underestimate those damnable heroes. She needed a distraction to draw their focus away from her and what she was up to.

Flying over the city of London she began to weave her spell speaking in tongues even older than the first settlement man had ever made there in London back before it was ever known as such. Soon a gateway appears on the ground below her glowing with dark magics. Pouring forth from the gate her army of darkness like she used on Camelot all those many years ago. Though this time they reeked with decay and death and bore the symbol of the Black Lanterns upon them though were not Black Lanterns themselves.

“Lay this city to waste,” She commands her army as she flies off to take care of her other business. That should prove to be more than enough of a distraction for anyone who might sense what she was up too.

allednis_arataz:

"Will you all please be quiet so that I can read, please?" Sindella said, grabbing a hold of her head, massaging her temples.

Ever since Superman's death, they had gotten louder. The dead. Over the years, Sindella had grown used to "hearing voices" in her head. She was normally pretty good at tuning them out when she wanted to, too. But lately...she was having a harder time with it.

"My wife...I never got to tell my wife how much she really meant to me. Do you think she knows that I love her?"

"We never found my son's teddy bear...he won't be able to sleep without it. Oh he must be so scared..."

"Please. Please stop!" Sindella's hands covered her ears, though she knew it wouldn't help much. "I can't think!"

There was still the roar of voices.

And then..suddenly it stopped.

Though something didn't feel quite right about it.

Sindella reached out for the one voice that she always knew that she could rely on.

"Grandpa John? Are you there? Can we talk?"

Nothing.

"Anyone? Hello?"

Something was wrong. She could feel it.

faustling:

Percy often found himself using the permission he was given to explore Shadowcrest's library whenever he needed to mull over some things.  The magical world had recently experienced the death of Morgan Le Fey.  It was shocking, to say the least.  And before that, the Titans of Myth had risen.  A cult of Cthulu had even become active once again.  His nerves were so easy to get acting up, but reading through magical texts always calmed him down.  So to ease his mind, he started reading through the books in the library at Shadowcrest.

bloodred_robin:

Hey, if something happens to me one night, I need you to make sure Zach knows, okay? I don't want him to be the last person to know.

Today was one of those rare days when Tim Drake hated being a man of his word. J'anna and Lian stayed over in London to talk to J'anna's mother, but Tim decided to head back and get other things in order. He was happy for his girlfriend, but there was too much left undone right now to rest.

One of his best friends was gone.

He'd placed a call to Conner and Cassie to let them know, but asked them to keep things quiet until after he'd spoken to Zach. They promised they would.

Then he dialed Zach's number. For once, he got Zach's answering machine. He must be out with his new partners or something. Mia mentioned that he'd found a few more people into magic like him.

"Hey, Zach. Can you stop by my place, man? It's important.

It's about Mia." he says.

partdemon:

Mike had talked to Sindella about what the girls had been up to so secretly and may have used telepathy to read her surface thoughts and found out about Rate the Hunk. Sindella had not been very happy about that and made him swear not to ask anything more about that and that he was going to have to do something big to make it up to her.

But he had been given the idea to host a rate the babe event for the guys because that sounded like a ton of fun to him. Since he was done with classes for the semester he drove to metropolis to set things up for the party at his dad’s penthouse there.

He sent out invites to all the teams he knew about that they could come and also made a special note to the teleports to not try directly teleporting inside with the wards his dad had set up

.He then set up the projector for the photos and got enough food and drinks to feed everyone one then some.

spookygal:

Lily had spent the next few days in a flurry of activity. The store seemed to always be busy and she had been hard at work making sure that everyone was happy. She kept having impressions of something terrible. Every time she let her mental shields down to take a peak around the town she felt herself almost knocked on her rump. That kept her nervous and on edge.

She just knew something was not right. Then one afternoon things did not seem quite as scary.She felt lighter. The strange pressure that had been making her feel almost ill had quieted down. So at lunch time she went to enjoy a favorite spot of hers near the bust depot where the wharf could easily be seen. She was munching away happily on an egg sandwich when she saw him.

The only homeless man she could think of in town. It was said he was insane. She watched him barely being able to see him due to how bright it was and how poor her eyesight is. She thought she could smell him from here. Someone had given him gin. He was singing loudly and off key.

Then he sat next to her and Lily was very tempted to break out a Febreeze spray bottle on him.

"You see it," he said after a moment. She can't help but snort.

"See what? The bus? It only comes once a day," she says feeling suddenly very annoyed. She was not amused when he laughed at her.

"Not that, Miss King. You see what has come back. I thought it had left us," he growled. Then grabbed her hand Lily tried to pull her hand back as he leaned in to hiss something in her ear. "Take another look. Then lock your doors. We are all in grave danger."

The shock of his demand had her drop her shields. Then she saw.... something. All she knew was that she had started screaming and fell as an image burned itself in her mind. She could not say what it was. Just that her nose had started to bleed a great deal and that she found the homeless man staring at her as she gathered her senses.

"You.... You're mad," she told him. Then left quickly.

( More stuff here )

faustling:

They had all met during the ordeal with the Titans of Myth--some before then--and decided collectively that they should talk.  Percy didn't understand the intentions of the others, but he was there as requested.

redarrowmia:

Days that Mia took a day off from her day job were few and in-between.

Days that Mia took from both her day job and her night job were even rarer.

Today though, she was taking a day off and focusing on one of the most important people in her life.

She woke up before Zach and went into the kitchen to start making him breakfast in bed.

first_son:

The Titans of myth being freed from Hades goes beyond just the YJLA. The adults are also working on it, but haven't had a lot of luck, especially with so many of their number in semi-retirement. As such, Jon moved beyond his original plan to hold a meeting of his team, and called to invite representatives of the other teams as well, calling all active roster YJLA, and inviting the other teams to send 1-3 people so things didn't get too crowded. Then they can inform their people what's going on.


"So, folks, we have a big problem. The monsters and beings that have been appearing around the world were freed from the dimension Hades. We don't know how or by who. The Olympian gods have not been forthcoming, even to the Amazons, and even very powerful mystics have been unable to pierce the mystery... though past experience has taught us that's often the case with affairs of the gods. They limit their direct interference in mortal affairs, in exchange, mortals have a very hard time dealing directly with them. Sadly, even though the original Grecian Titans don't have any such compact, to learn what happened, we'd need to get past Hades' protections. The Greek gods may be incapacitated, or may be somehow bound by the compact of the gods. Its very possible that once the original Titans reached Earth, their captors couldn't directly interfere."

He sighs. "Direct confrontation isn't the likely answer. Single gods have fought groups including my father, Wonder Woman and a handful of other senior leaguers. Many of the Titans have the power of an entire team. The Titans are more powerful still - the only reason the Greek Gods defeated them was due to greater unity and better tactics. Don't mistake me - they can be beaten, but we're going to need a good plan, and possibly more allies and greater resources. At this point, I'm open to ideas."

sonic_arrow:

Green Arrow was out on patrol, fully stocked with a mixture of trick arrows and regular arrows as always.  He'd been getting a lot better since the extra training started kicking in.  But the night was quiet, and it didn't seem like there was going to be much action.  He stopped in an alleyway and peered out of the corner, hoping to spot something.

dc_monsters:

The great and might Chimera was flying around the city of Metropolis. It spouted fire from its lion head as it flew closer to the ground to attack the masses.

If no one interfered soon the Chimera would live up to its gruesome legacy.

dc_misc:

There was a low rumbling deep within the Earth near Taenarum, Greece. The rumbling grew louder and louder until it seemed like there was an earthquake. Local residents ran for doorframes. The Earth erupted and dirt, rocks and plants were sprayed into the air. A gaping maw formed in the Earth and the pit seemed bottomless.

The pit was not empty.

Beings and creatures that had not seen the light of day in over two thousands years climbed from the pit and stepped out onto the Earth.

dc_holiday:

Mothers are the place that we call home.
On them we rest our heads and close our eyes.
There's no one else who grants the same soft peace,
Happiness, contentment, sweet release,
Erasing nighttime tears with lullabies,
Restoring the bright sun that makes us bloom. - Anonymous

jdoesmith:

Jane had been busy and absent for a long time. That was going to change. She had two large cardiac-arrest inducing pizza and a twelve pack of a good dark beer that should be pleasantly distracting for her friend. She was going to need advice and help coming up with a game plan.

Things were changing. She knew it. Honestly it left Jane shaking in her boots. She wasn't ready to admit just how much change was really leaving her unnerved.

Still. She wanted to see her friend anyways. Play catch up. Maybe get a little buzzed from some beer and feel gut bustingly full from the pizza. She rings the door bell to Mia's place and waits.

ms_miracle:

Hands tied and blindfolded?
In a multi-lock safe barely big enough to fold a person into?
Which is also chained shut?
Which is also hanging in mid-air, by a slowly lowering chain?
Which is lowering it onto a fire already shooting bits of flame into the air?
And swinging like a pendulum?

The tumblers in the locks turned and the door of the safe opened just enough of a crack for gloved hands to work the combination lock of the chains.

The safe kept lowering.  A white-haired dwarf nervously bit his nails and wondered how many of his bones Barda would break if this went badly.  Or how he would explain it to Scott.

The chains slipped free.  A red, gold, and green clad figure, hands still bound, fell out.  The crowd gasped.  Nimble legs wrapped themselves around the safe, still lowering, and with her upside down over the rapidly rising flames.

"C'mon, girl, you can do it..."

Bonds were unworked.  The chain holding the safe up snapped!  At the last possible second, she leapt free, landing perfectly in front of the fire.

She finally removed her blindfold and took a bow to the crowd assembled in Central Park.

"I am definitely picking up good vibrations tonight!" she shouted to the crowd, taking the microphone from Uncle Obie.  "Now, just in case there are any kids in the audience, I want to repeat, Do not, I'm gonna say this again, Do NOT try any of the stunts you've seen here tonight at home.  I'm a highly trained professional.  However, tapes of this and my other escapades are available for purchase, with all profits going to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.  We are all part of the cosmic harmony and we can all do our part to make the world a better place!

And now, the band you've all come to see, and let me say, they have been most rad about letting me open for them... the one, the only... SCARE TACTICS!"

Avia accepted the bottle of water from Uncle Obie as she headed backstage.  She knew her sister and some of her friends had been in the audience and had rangled them backstages passes.