It's The End Of The World As We Know It

The earthquakes had been getting worse and worse as the week progressed.

In New House, Gwen, Owen and Jack were doing their best to try and keep things with the Rift as stable as possible. They couldn't even imagine what kind of damage it could cause if the tremors caused it to become even more unstable. It was dangerous enough as it was.

Elsewhere throughout Boston, signs of the damages the earthquakes were causing were to be seen everywhere. Some of the school buildings had already collapsed and other buildings looked like they were on the brink of it.

In Eastgate Apartments, Phoebe was moving around the apartment she shared with Cole and Piper, lighting candles since the power was out again. She was reaching for a fresh match when she felt the building shake again. Bracing her hand on the wall to hold herself steady, the vision hit her.

...rubble... screams... fires...concrete collapsing all around...

As she came out of her vision, she felt the building shake and then she was falling. She felt herself hit something somewhere and managed to let out one cry before she hit something else and the breath was knocked out of her.


[[OOC: Main post. Please make sure to put in the subject of your tag the time of day and what your character is doing or where they are. Let the chaos and pain and terror run rampant.]]

Owen had long ago lost track of time, aside from knowing it was at least six months since they'd arrived there. That was about all he could tell you for certain, and even that wasn't always concrete in his mind. When you spent your days fighting to survive and monitoring a damn Rift, how long you'd been there kind of fell by the wayside.

At the moment he was in one of the New House kitchens, having just come back from a run to the MacGregor convenience store. It was the middle of the night, which meant he'd just spent twenty minutes chatting up the pyrokinetic with the nice rack and whose name he was pretty sure was Lori or Laura or something like that before popping back with the coffee grounds, filters, and creamer he'd gone in search of.

Owen was in the middle of cleaning out the coffeemaker -- Jesus, he missed Ianto something fierce -- when he thought he felt the floor under his feet shake. Concerned and remembering the other natural events/disasters they'd faced since ending up there, he went still for a moment. When he didn't feel anything, he went back to the coffee machine.

Less than five minutes later, there was a very distinct tremor. "GWEN!" he yelled, attempts at coffee abandoned as he bolted off in the direction of the room he shared with Gwen. "Wake up!"

Jacob wasn't the cook of their impromptu family, not by any means, but Bella and Renee had gone off on some sort of exploratory mission to see if there was still anything good in the nearby bookstores in town, so he figured it'd probably be nice to have dinner ready for them when they got back.

He wasn't nearly the cook Bella was, especially with the limited ingredients they had on hand, but he'd managed to cobble together a pasta dish that seemed passable. Or at least, not stale. He'd have liked to add garlic bread to it but they didn't have any in the freezer and he wasn't nearly good enough to make that kind of thing from scratch. So he'd reluctantly settled for the last package of rolls that you made in the oven. They were garlic-flavored, so did he get partial credit?

He was engrossed in cooking -- well, in making sure everything got taken out on time -- so it wasn't surprising that he didn't hear the girls when they came in.

It'd been six months -- or so, anyway -- since Tamsin had wound up in Boston and she'd spent much of it being as unobtrusive as possible. And spending a surprising amount of time with Mikhail, since he was the other one that Dani's daughters didn't seem to like terribly much. What other time she had was spent working with Gwen and Owen and the rest of the group they'd rounded up to work on the science end.

It'd been a long day at that and really, she was tired of listening to Gwen and Owen's bickering. Especially since they all knew it was just going to end up with Gwen and Owen shagging each other angrily and she didn't need reminders that she no longer had a sex life. Especially since she lived on the same floor as the person that made up one half of the aforementioned sex life she no longer had.

So of course, as Tamsin made her way down the hallway with a bottle of booze (one of the scouting parties had brought it back for her) and a book she'd dug up from some where, she ran into Kitty. "Uh, hey."

Real eloquent.

[For Kitty!]

Jake was worried about Bella. She'd been so quiet lately, even quieter than she usually was. Not that he blamed her, really. She had a lot of things to worry about: her family, her newly-acquired twenty-year-old mother, where the Cullens were and if they were all right (something that even he was wondering and worrying about, not that he'd admit it)... but he still worried about her.

Renee had carted herself off to sit outside the building for a while, so it was just Jacob and Bella. He'd gone into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee before pouring a mug and carrying it into the bedroom that he and Bella shared.

"Morning, sleepyhead."

Since her arrival, Renee had spent a lot of time in the campus library, pouring over books. There was so much that'd happened between when she was from and now that it was all a bit overwhelming, but she wanted to learn as much of it as she could.

Of course, every time she went, she got chaperoned by a large brown wolf. Her daughter's boyfriend in wolf form, to be more precise. Bella hadn't asked Jake to do it, but apparently Jacob had a fiercely protective streak that extended to Bella's mother as well.

Renee sat on the floor, leaning up against the wall, book in her lap and one hand idly playing with the fur of the wolf that was curled up next to her. She'd finally convinced Jacob that he really didn't need to literally stand every time he stood guard and that he could do it just as well if not better when curled up next to her.

Somewhere in Time And Space:
"We have to close the rift now! It's the only way!"

"We're out of time!"

"I won't let you! The power is mine!" But the man responsible for the Cataclysm was in no position to stop them. Neccesity, Buzzkill, Amazon, Dragonboy and Damion had joined forces to take him down.

Vanessa looked at her brother fearfully. It was ironic really. In their relatively short careers as super-heroes she'd always been the strong one. And one would think that, knowing for certain there was an afterlife, that she would be more secure about what they had to do.

Vincent looked back at her, his own fear mirroring hers. Tentatively, he reached out and took her hand. If the solution to what was happening hadn't already frayed her nerves, that simple gesture would have still been enough to break her.

Since she'd found him in the attic of their home where he'd been imprisoned since their birth, she'd worked so hard to earn his trust and overcome his fear. But still after two years he'd never touched her. It had only been in the last few months that he allowed her to touch him without flinching.

Around them, heroes and villains alike were saying their goodbyes. Those with powers were walking towards, and into the rift in space before them. Those without stayed behind.

Vanessa watched Amazon embrace her boyfriend The Raven. He saw her watching and when Amazon had left, he gave her a curt nod. She nodded back. Just as Vincent had begun to overcome his fear of women, she had begun to learn to trust men. Some men.

"We have to go." Vincent said quietly. Vanessa nodded. She knew he was right.

"Hey," a ghostly voice said at her other shoulder. She turned and smiled at the spirit of her dead lover Ghost Girl. "I'll be waiting for you on the other side."

That made it easier, but in the end it was really her brother's support that gave her the strength to step forward. And vice versa. Hand in hand, the teenage heroes collectively known as Yin and Yang, or sometimes Gemini, stepped into the rift.

"The afterlife looks a lot like Boston." she said to her brother, a confused smirk on her lips. But there was no answer. Suddenly she realized Vincent was no longer holding her hand. Looking around frantically, she saw that he was nowhere in sight.

"Vincent!" No answer. "VINCENT!!"

[Meet the twins.]

Renee didn't like this place. At all. She felt wildly out of place, both in Boston in general and with Bella and Jacob in specific.

Bella...

Her daughter. Her tiny daughter, only a few months old, was a beautiful teenager not much younger than Renee. It was enough to give her a headache.

It was enough to make her miss Forks. And Charlie. Despite their fighting, she'd discovered that she actually missed him.

It was a confused, slightly disgruntled Renee that'd tucked herself on a bench in Boston Common, watching the sunrise.

Tamsin was restless. She didn't do restless very well. She just didn't. So it'd led to her roaming the campus just about every day, helping people where she could and just mingling where she couldn't.

She was also doing a hefty dose of avoiding most of Kitty's friends -- Laura seemed to want to torch her. Morgan and Ruth? Well, violating his training be damned, there were days where she was pretty sure Ruth's seeing eye dog was about to get sent after her. But she knew she deserved the enmity, so she dealt with it as best she could.

And dealing with it the best she could included regular sweeps of the campus -- not to be confused with her aimless roaming -- for Gwen and Owen and the other de facto people in charge.

She always had her gun with her; today was no different. As she walked, she periodically checked the back of her pants to reassure herself that it was still there. Not that it wouldn't be, but it was a comforting presence for her.

[ooc: Feel free to run into her wherever you want on campus.]

Leo had met very few people since he'd arrived in Boston and still had his doubts about whether there were many people to meet.

He plopped himself on a bench in Boston Common with his guitar and began to play. More for his own enjoyment than out of any hope of drawing an audience.

Not that he'd mind drawing an audience.

Tori was used to traveling through portals. She had to in order to gain access to Ninja Ops. She'd traveled through others in her time as a ranger.

The funny thing was, the portal that appeared in front of her was nowhere near the waterfall. And it didn't look like any of the ones she'd traveled through in the past. Before Tori could move, let alone even think about it, the thing had her in its grasp. Just as soon as it pulled her in, it let her go, dropping her on a lawn in the middle of a raging storm.

"Okay, that was not cool," Tori groaned, taking a moment to catch her breath before she stood. She touched her wrist, comforted by the fact that her morpher was still there.

Tori looked around, in search of shelter. Funny how there happened to be a library nearby. That might work, for the time being. She'd figure out how to get back to Blue Bay Harbor once the storm settled down. If that was possible.

Renee wasn't sure what the hell had happened. One minute she'd been fighting with Charlie and then storming outside to clear her head, the next she was being sucked into this weird portal thing and deposited on a hard sidewalk in the middle of a torrential downpour.

"Ow," she whimpered, laying on her back for a moment. The impact hadn't really hurt that badly but hi, only had the baby a couple months ago. It was enough to make her stay still for a moment -- she tended to have a worrywart streak at times -- until she determined that nothing was wrong and nothing had broken. She sat up slowly, putting a hand to her forehead as she looked around.

"Where am I?" she wondered aloud. "And what was that?"

Oddly enough, the fact that she was soaked to the bone hadn't seemed to register yet. That's Renee for you.

Isabel had pretty much kept to herself ever since she and Sarah had followed the dim glow of the lights and made their way from the museum to the MIT campus. But there was something about the increasing intensity of the storm that drew her out of the apartment she'd been hiding in and sent her out in search of company.

She pulled on of the couches in the lobby over in front of the doors and took a seat to watch the show. Hopefully someone would wander by to keep her company.

Marty Pino, events as of late not withstanding, was by no means a stupid man. So when the portal appeared, he took off for it at a run. Behind him, he could hear Flack cursing. He didn't care, though; by the time Flack could catch up to him, he'd be through the portal.

"Marty! Stop!"

That was from Sid. Sid, who'd been so visibly disgusted by the full truth of what Marty had done. And yet Marty had a split second of wanting to turn back. That urge quickly disappeared, though.

Before he could think anything beyond a less-than-split-second goodbye to his late wife, Marty was launching himself into the portal...

... and landing hard on concrete Cold, wet concrete, but still concrete.

"... ow."

Rather anticlimactic, really.

The clouds had started moving in overnight and as the sun was supposed to be coming up, the rays were very dim through the cloud cover. As time passed, the clouds got thicker and even more low-lying.

The dark clouds seemed to hang over everything and as it got later in the afternoon, the lightning started. The darker the day got, the brighter the lightning seemed to become.

With evening came the wind and rain.

This could possibly not bode well for the residents of Boston.


[[OOC: Gathering post for people at MacGregor House, Eastgate Apartments, or anyone coming in. Yes, the storms will get progressively worse and we'll be making a few such posts this week. It was time for something to happen that the residents couldn't control. *grins*]]

One nice thing about the end of the world, Leo recalled Larry once saying. No more tolls. Given the number of empty toll booths he'd passed on this stretch of interstate, Leo was inclined to agree with the late musician.

It was when he passed into the Boston city limits that his motorcycle's motor shut off. It didn't stall, it didn't spark, it simply shut off.

"Oh now what?" he muttered. The bike rolled to a stop and no amount of key turning or pedal kicking would get any reaction. "Just fucking great."

Does OTA mean Open To Anyone? If so, then this post is OTA.

It's really hard to sneak up on someone when you and he are the only living things within a hundred miles or so. Not counting wild animals of course. It's harder still when the one you're trying to sneak up on can sense when someone means him harm. And gets occasional visits from a kindly old ghost who has a direct line to God.

That would be why Leo had managed to elude the strange folks in the yellow trench coats who'd been following him for a few days. Ever since he'd left Boulder yet again to visit the Redmans in Maine. Taking, as usual, the scenic route.

He didn't know what they wanted with him, he only knew it was nothing he wanted to let them get.

All that left his mind however when he drove through Topeka, and suddenly the world...changed.

“The hell?” he muttered, slowing his motorcycle, and finally stopping altogether. Something was different. He couldn't place exactly what it was, but something was definitely different. And then he realized what it was.

The land was just as empty and quiet as it had ever been, but the air, it was missing the ever present smell of death. The smell that was so prevalent everywhere he went except for Boulder that he hardly ever noticed it anymore. Plus something just felt different.

He looked around cautiously, before glancing back. He probably should double back. But...the same spirit that had made him travel all over to see what there was to see, made him want to go on.

Boston. he thought. The idea came to him the same way many others did. From within him and without at once.

Casting one last look behind him, Leonard Joeseph Underwood kicked the motorcycle to life once more, and headed east.

[Establishy due to distance. Unless there's someone out traveling at the moment I suppose. Info-post will be going up shortly in me own journal to introduce the youngster.]

Kitty had been at MacGregor house for a few days, and finally had decided she needed to go out and do some scouting. She figured she could see if there were any other survivors at one of the nearby dorm houses that she could direct to move to MacGregor where every one else had started setting up housing.

She also had a backpack with her that she figured she could fill with extra supplies from the other houses.

After all, the previous residents wouldn't need them.

Slinging her pack on her shoulder, she headed into the first house past New House.

This could be interesting, she thought.

Dani was pretty sure that she had never had a worse experience travelling via their good friend Gateway. She had never felt like she was being shaken to death any of the other times she had used one of his portals to travel.

Sitting up, she took in the surrounding area. "Damn it. Left one Apocalypse and got dumped right into another."

She slowly got to her feet, checking herself for injuries. After she deduced she was unharmed, she frowned in concern at the bodies in varies stages around her.

"All right people," she barked. "Talk to me and let me know you're okay." She paused. "Sorokin, you ask me for mouth to mouth and I will kick your ass."


[OOC: Open for any of the transplanted X-brood or anyone that may happen to seem them get dumped here.]

Booth could remember being grateful for the daylight and the sky above them. He could remember looking back to Teddy and Brennan calling him to get on the helicoptor. And when he was on - safe - there was nothing there. No sign of Teddy, the ghost faded. He couldn't explain that to Brennan, his head still muddled, looking at her and clinging to the belt he'd had wrapped hurriedly around him.

The helicopter had barely cleared the boat when it when up. The explosion knocked them, pushing the bird as it climbed, trying to gain air, get away from the heat and the fire and the pressure.

But just as quickly as it went up, it went down. There was fire, and his head spun. Hands were grabbing at him, and he was stumbling out and away. The ground beneath him was the last thing he felt before he blacked out.