(Untitled)

[aidoneus_rex]

Once, there was a pleasant city here. But that was before Ottawa suffered the usual statue-rampage... and something large that looked like it tried to kind of a lot of buildings as furniture before heading further north. Most residents are dead or fled, though there are a few squatters still hoping to get by on scavenged food and shelter

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[alyikui]

How's this for flame-retardant?

Alice Cooper is a) dead and b) fire.

No, really. It's a thing.

So there's one ghost, entirely incapable of interaction with the physical world, staring at Hades with a look on her face that says, more or less: I can't decide whether I should be giving you a scolding or a standing ovation.

What she does give him is this:

"...dude, that brought me here all the way from fuckin' Kansas. What are you?"

[alyikui]

"I like you," she says cheerfully. "All right, I get a body, I do tour guide duties, help you get used to the place, general--" snort-- "minioning. Deal."

Does he do handshakes? 'Cos that's what the hand's for. The one she's holding out to him, accompanying the big ol' grin.

Hades, you just got flirted at.

[aidoneus_rex]

"Deal." One of the easiest ones ever.

And boy howdy does he do handshakes-- this one comes with special effects, in fact, with blazing blue light like trying to cover a spotlight with clasped hands and a rush of divine fire running from his fingers to Alice's hand-- and up her arm, over her shoulder, consuming-- only not. The fire renews instead, leaving something that could be flesh, could be muscle, could be hair, could be breath, could be eyes, could, if Alice is feeling modest, be clothes.

As a wood nymph is constructed of soft wood and a river nymph from firm water, now Alice is of fire.

Behold the gifts of a god.

"Badaboom."

[alyikui]

Oh, man.

"Oh, man."

She raises glittering fingers and looks up at him through a flame-wrought palm, grinning with teeth like dancing sparks.

"I like you. Right, so. You want a tour of this place or what?"

(And the clothes thing? Yeah, not so much.)

[aidoneus_rex]

Hey, like he minds.

"A tour works," Hades agrees. "We got a blow-by-blow, maybe the Cliff's Notes version of what went down here? A little less Cliff's Notes than 'Apocalypse,' I mean. That concept, I got."

[alyikui]

"Well, okay. What I got from my sisters before I died--" this is slightly rueful-- "pretty much adds up to: some idiot was fucking around with things he shouldn't have, and cracked open whatever it is that separates this universe from all the rest of 'em. So now things, people, whatever, they're getting randomly grabbed out of where they should be and sent here. And in the first few days there were a shitload of these flashbangy deals, and most of 'em brought in shit that this poor planet just ain't equipped to deal with. So, Apocalypse. Now there's less of 'em, but they keep happening, and I'm betting they won't let up anytime soon. That clear anything up for you?"

Give her a minute and she'll get to the part where her sister is running a farm full of weird people.

[aidoneus_rex]

"Now that's something you don't hear every day. Okay, so this universe is sucking up whatever it can get ahold of like an uninvited guest at a wedding buffet, got it. So you've got, what, monsters and heroes, but light on the heroes?"

He looks thoughtful. Honestly, it sounds like a decent place for a god looking to get ahead in the cosmos.

[alyikui]

"Yeah, you could think of it like that. And my sister's got this farm where it seems like half the bring-ins end up staying. Weird place."

She doesn't sound like she wants to go back there. This is because she doesn't. Vague as Anne's knowledge of the natural order of things is, she realizes that talking to Lucy like this would be a massive headache for everybody involved. Also Sis seems to be doing okay on the not-eating-people front.

[aidoneus_rex]

People grieve, they heal, they move on. "Sounds like. So is anywhere not demolished?"

If you've known Hades for very long, you'd think he sounds like he's working on an idea. He's actually working on three or four, though the biggest two are 'so how can I set myself up as top god around here?' and 'holy Me, do I know what's going on around here? Because it sounds like...'

[alyikui]

"Kansas," she says immediately. "Anne did something. Don't ask me how the fuck it worked, I ain't the one who can shatter steel by singin' at it, but she made it so the transfers don't happen there, and it's stuck that way. Closest thing this fucked-up world has got to a safe haven. Some bits are still pretty trashed, mind, but they're rebuildin' quick."

[aidoneus_rex]

Well, they were mortals-- the few things they didn't need divine help with most of the time included rebuilding and repopulating. Even then, sometimes, a little miraculous help couldn't go wrong.

"And what's the sitch with the local gods?"

Oh, go on, Hades, ask an easy question.

[alyikui]

Alice makes a noise. It goes something like ffffffffffffft.

"I'm dead," she says, raising her smoldering eyebrows. "I ain't Renee. No idea. If we got any, I ain't heard from 'em."

...possibly the Renee reference is a little unfair. No way he could've known her sister, after all. But if any mortal of this recently-broken Earth would have a clue about that sort of thing, it would certainly be Renee Cooper.

Pity she's the gone kind of dead.

[aidoneus_rex]

"Well, hey, if they wanna play this hands-off, that's their call. More elbow room for a newcomer, so, you know, not complaining there. Who's Renee?"

[alyikui]

"My other sister. She could see the future. Well, parts of it. Tended toward the cryptic and obfuscatory." Alice knows big words! (Anne taught them to her.) "Mostly used it to make lots of money and keep the family outta trouble. Got flattened by a walking statue when the shit hit the fan. If she's a ghost nowadays, I ain't seen her."

[aidoneus_rex]

In the Golden Age, there were four sisters. Yep, that's got about the right feel to it, that could just be significant. "Interesting. This place needs a functioning Underworld as much as it needs some divine intervention, jeez." No wonder he's here. Hades might not be the nicest god, but he likes things to work. (It's not so much that he believes in Fate as that he knows them, see.)

Hades sits.

There wasn't a chair behind him when he gathered a fold of his chiton, but by the time his divine butt hits chair level, there's a dark throne just sitting there, swept up out of thick black smoke. "Have you seen any other ghosts?"

[alyikui]

"Nope," she says cheerfully. "Which don't mean there aren't any, just that there aren't any around Lucy's place. That's mostly where I used to hang out."

Used to. She doesn't intend to do much of that anymore.

"Wait, no. I saw one, but she was a brink-in. Came with a psychic kid."