DC Universe: Year Zero

dcyearzero @ 2012-01-25T04:14:00

2012-01-25T09:27:50Z

Hob got the call, and his stomach went cold. He made sure Mary had plenty of food and emergency cash at the house. He told her not to let anyone in until he got home, and headed out to Star City.

On the way, he called Oliver Queen.

Another Late Night at the Docks.

2012-01-17T05:30:21Z

Some were clearly Up to Something. Some were hidden in the shadows. Two particular individuals were most definitely nowhere to be found in this zip code.

They were waiting for the Arrow to show.

Late Night at the Docks

2012-01-09T00:24:27Z

"I don't like it." said one of the darkh-clothed men holding one end of the crate.

"Better than having to pay him off in cash," said the other.

"Says you. I don't like the way the little pipsqueak claps his hands like he's the freaking Queen of England and we'd better jump to. And did you see what a diva he turned into when I asked a simple question? I mean really, who ships opi-"

"Say it a little louder why don't you?" his companion snarls. "Let's just get the job done and wash our hands of it."

Later That Evening (Dinah)

2011-11-20T02:58:33Z

Ollie took Dinah back to the hotel, saying little during the ride over. Sure, he was gregarious and warm, but his smiles don't reach his eyes and soon, he's looking out the window every time there's a silence and staring off into space.

"Hey, I'm sorry about the party." he says suddenly. "I can't really defend what I did back there, so I'm sorry I made you get all dressed up for nothing." Oliver says quietly. His words are genuine because, for once, he feels bad about treating a woman poorly. Dinah didn't deserve that, no matter how he felt about Bryce Wayne.

Thank you for inviting us to your party, Miss Wayne...

2011-09-01T00:55:20Z

So here he was. In a tuxedo, no less. Mary had her nice new dress, and was eating her fair share of hors d'oevres. He looked about at the veritable Who's Who list. Hob hadn't wanted to be among those whom such people listed since that fool kid Shakespeare was around. But here he was. For a good cause and to give the girl a good time.

Manic Laughter

2011-08-20T02:39:05Z

It wasn't his job to go on assignments alone like this anymore. He hadn't had to do that since he worked on the Gotham Gazette, but there are things that sometimes called their attention directly to Jack Ryder. So he goes out on his own on this one, and he'll have to tread lightly: He'd heard nothing but bad things about this abandoned chemical plant. It had been condemned so many years ago under violations dealing with the storage of their chemicals, and its obvious now how much damage is done: Few trees grow around here and those that do are discolored and weak. And yet there has supposedly been activity there, something that has to do with some new kind of steroid or something along those lines.

So Jack does another thing he hasn't done in ages: he scales the decrepit walls of the chemical plant to find out just what is going on. After the less than stealthy dismount he makes sure no one is around and goes to clear the nearest build-

The gun butt to the face takes his consciousness. The rest starts taking away a lot more than that.

You can hold my purse. (Ollie)

2011-08-19T01:27:36Z

Dinah was fairly certain that this wasn't going to be her idea of a good time, but when the guy who pretty much owns your store and is in control of your business future invites you to some big event thing and then says he's going to take you shopping you don't really have the luxury of saying no. This is how Dinah found herself waiting to be picked up at her apartment on Tuesday morning instead of going into work. This would be interesting to say the least.

RSVP

2011-08-11T12:14:01Z

Invitations went out. To Mr. Robert Gadling, to Mr. Oliver Queen, to Mr. Lex Luthor, to Mr. Marco Xavier -- to many of the richest people in the United States. The Wayne Foundation's annual ball. Each was, of course, invited to bring a guest.

Hob looked the engraved invitation over. Blast. He'd kept to his usual standards of staying, when convenient, rich enough to be eccentric, but not rich enough to matter. World economic problems must be throwing off his system and starting to boost him into the wrong bracket. Still, involved with raising money and awareness for very good causes, and the kid might like to play dress-up.

It's Your Party, and You'll Attend If I Want You To.

2011-08-02T03:05:34Z

Alfred knocked. It was August. On the third weekend of August, every year, the Wayne Foundation held a large formal charity ball and dinner. It was time to send out the invitations. But first, it was time to ensure that chairwoman of the Foundation remembered it was August amongst her... endeavors.

dcyearzero @ 2011-07-31T19:54:00

2011-08-01T02:38:15Z

The incident in the Triangle had been bad. It could have been worse since the damage was done mostly to a wing of the building that was undergoing renovation but even that hadn't prevented the deaths. Fifteen children were dead and it wasn't even that they were kids who had died that made things so tragic and so infuriating; it was that the children were wards of the state, each one of them living in an institution while waiting to be judged worthy enough for someone to take home. The incident had made national news but was overshadowed by similar stories of horrific destruction and violence on the streets, all of it perpetrated by gangs of teen thugs who appeared to have their hands on military grade weapons. They had the police forces running scared and leaving the job of policing to the tights.

Or fishnets as it were.

As much as she hated to admit it with Oliver Queen sticking his nose and his wallet into her shop it had finally stopped hemorrhaging money which meant that she was able to stop putting every penny she had plus selling plasma and all of her worldly possessions to keep it afloat. She'd managed to get her bike back which made being out on the streets easier. It also meant she could be out longer and she was glad for that. After the orphanage disaster the Triangle was starting to descend into Hell on Earth after dark. Dinah was determined to stop that from happening. Sitting on her bike just inside an alley she waited for the first asshole thug to show up. Word on the street was something was going down tonight and she was determined to stop it.

Looking for Green

2011-07-26T01:03:15Z

J'onn J'onzz, also known as Marco Xavier, also known as John Jones, also known as Vincent Ares, and a number of other aliases as the situation called for it, was a bit adrift.

He had, upon reflection, mishandled the situation with the Kryptonian. He would, however, do it again in exactly the same way. Though they were supposedly all gone, as dead as Mars, he did not, for an instant, underestimate the threat they had once posed and could pose. If angering a good man was the cost of protecting his adopted world, then so be it.

But as he often did when he felt adrift, J'onn sought out the one person (well, now the second person) who was aware of the his presence on Earth. Abin Sur. He had known the Green Lantern from days of old, had counted him as a friend. Though Sur had been unable to prevent the destruction of Mars, J'onn held no blame for him. A sector of space was vast and problems many.

He cast his mind out and found... nothing. That same vastness might have accounted for it, were there not even more troubling news. Some of Phobos Industries telecommunications satellites had a second, hidden purpose: to watch space and report to him. And one of those pictures had been of a green comet over Coast City. Magnification revealed a figure within... who was not Abin Sur. And it worried him. Certainly, his friend might have simply retired... but he deemed that highly unlikely.

He flew out towards Coast City.

Is there room for two men of steel?

2011-07-26T00:30:08Z

The car sped around the corner, police cars in hot pursuit. Bullets flew as the occupants returned fire on the police, endangering bystanders and police alike.

Above, on the rooftops, a single figure followed, leaping easily from one rooftop to the next. It pushed on its speed, passing the speeding car up and then jumping from the roof, landing in front of the car with a heavy clang. It slammed on its breaks, but didn't slow enough, instead, he braced himself, and the car slammed into him, the front end buckling, but he did not move.

The black man was somewhere in his early twenties, glad in form-fitting black... where he wasn't covered with silvery metal. His arms, his legs, half his face, other parts, they were all covered in silver metal.

The men in the car wasted no time in opening fire on him. But he held up a hand and a slight magnetic tug pulled the bullets to him, followed quickly by the guns.

He grinned. "Okay, you guys had your shot."

He brought up the other arm, the metal sliding and shifting as panels slid or opened, his hand sliding inside as a gun barrel slid out. "My turn."

He fired three times, anesthesia-laced darts that put each of the guys in the car out like a light.

Victor Stone, Cyborg, smiled. Damn if he didn't love his job.

Surprise Chinese Food

2011-07-23T21:28:14Z

Lex talked his way past reception at the Planet. He and Lois hadn't had lunch together in far too long. He couldn't throw a fit about it, not if he hoped to persuade her to quit and take a columnist's job she could do from home. It wasn't as if she'd need the money from working full time!

So he showed up with his arms full of Beef and Broccoli and Bourbon Chicken, and stalked toward where Lois was with her little work buddy Clark.

"Why hello there. I had a feeling you two might be hungry, as you're hardly going to do something crazy like stop working to eat."

First Round's on the Immortal guy... wait....

2011-07-20T23:55:36Z

He'd called up Shelly. He'd put the kid to bed. He'd left a note that he'd gone out, and she should keep the door locked if she got up and not leave the place unless it was an absolute emergency.

And off Hob went for a drink

Let's Get Something Understood (J'onn)

2011-07-17T06:43:47Z

Clark doesn't really have any plan beside confronting J'onn J'onnz/John Jones about his questioning of his mother, but knowing that the man isn't exactly who he says he is helps with the information digging. Considering the timing of Marco Xavier's visit asking about Superman and the appearance of J'onn J'onzz, Clark thinks that one of them knows about the other. He has precious little else to go on, so he has to do the next best thing.

When Marco Xavier arrives at his office that day, he'll find Superman floating outside the window. Superman points a finger toward him, then up toward the rooftop, at which point he rises into the sky to wait on the roof for the man to arrive.

Mama Told Me There'd Be Days Like This

2011-07-12T18:44:06Z

When you know people in the Business, it really wasn't all that hard to get outfitted. Especially when the ladies in costuming loved you. The Business to this late-night stalker of crime meant Hollywood productions. All of Tinsel Town had been abuzz since the appearance of Superman. One, he made some of their special effects seem so much more plausible. Two, they all had dollar signs in their eyes about the next big thing.

Superheroes had been in cinema for as long as there had been motion pictures. The feminine figure dressed in red creeping through a dark alley knew that. Her family had been a part of Hollywood since there was a Hollywood. Though not that anyone could recognize her or her family. They did those death-defying stunts and spectacular feats for a living.

Though Arrowette was not old enough to do stunts legally, she was old enough to do trickshots. There was no real danger there outside of missing the target. Her specialty was the bow, but any projectile would do. Her current quiver was loaded up with only-in-Hollywood type arrows and regular arrows. Why let those special arrows go to waste when Special Effects guys put so much hard work into it? A bit of celluloid and that was it. Not if Arrowette had her way.

The set was closed down for the day, and Arrowette was prowling around town to find something. Movie productions didn't tend to bring crime to town. Unless it was one of those secretly backed by the mob type movies. So the masked wannabe heroine was out looking for trouble.

So far, Arrowette was thinking this new biz of superheroing was drop dead boring.

Business Trip to Coast City

2011-07-11T03:54:35Z

"All right, Mary. You liked the airplane? And the seals? 'Cause now...we're going to a student art show. It's an old hobby of mine." A ridiculously old hobby. It was just too fun to try to spot the fellows -- or girls, too, these days -- that'd get called the Old Masters someday. It was fun to talk about it with Shelly if he guessed right, or ask his own Old Friend if he'd made any bargains when Hob guessed wrong.

"You all right with that?"

Spectres of the Past

2011-07-10T21:42:06Z

When Mr. Jones had gone, Martha sat thoughtfully for a while, considering what had been said, and how much suspension of disbelief she was willing to muster, then picked up the phone and called Clark.

Follow-up investigation

2011-07-10T02:17:32Z

After his... confrontation with the Kryptonian who called himself Clark Kent, J'onn had decided that he needed to investigate things further. Fortunately, he had gleaned enough information from his mind, along with a simple bit of computer hacking (earthern computers were so very easy to access) had given him a place to start.

An Earthwoman named Martha Kent, a resident of Smallville, Kansas. An inauspicious place for such a powerful being to hail from, if such was actually true. Which was part of what he intended to find out.

Flying to Kansas was easy, but Marco Xavier would draw too much attention here, even with his eccentricities, it would be too hard to explain. Fortunately, he had cultivated a number of other identities he could pick up when needed. People who were seldom seem and seldom missed, but operated in fields Xavier could not. It was under one such identity that he rented a car and drove to the Kent farm.

Straightening his tie, he knocked on the farmhouse door.

It's just a hot dog

2011-07-06T03:33:42Z

Mary had gotten used to trying to be Captain Marvel. It was so hard to be brave when she was herself but as the Captain it was easy.

Fighting monsters was hard work. She had some extra money though from washing car windows and odd jobs she had found. She wasn't quite ready to change back into herself yet.

So she was in the par chowing down on three fully loaded hot dogs she had gotten from a street vendor. There had been so much blinking and staring.

But Mary didn't care. She had fought three monsters. She ached from getting thrown around and she felt tired. Food might help her recover so she could go back to normal without feeling it as her normal self.

Of course she had a feeling that something else was going to happen. Something that was going to make this brand new hero business weird. So she nipped her lip and stared down at the hot dogs trying to figure out just what was going to happen after she was done eating.

Hello, I'm here to change the way you do business(Dinah)

2011-07-05T02:39:12Z

Oliver Queen pulls his Mercedes up to the squat one-story shop and gets out, staring at his newest purchase from the sidewalk. It could use some updated signing, a paint job, new windows...actually, it could do with being moved out of this area all together. The only place to put a tea shop worse than this was the Triangle, and Oliver wasn't quite that desperate for business just yet to go down there.

He straightens the lapels on his black suit and walks inside the shop, nothing the tinkling bells on the door. This place is so low-tech it's painful to watch, but Oliver's attention is caught by the aroma of the various flowers inside of The Sherwood Florist. Mr. Lance said that his daughter might be a little resistant to change, but that she would eventually come to see the reasoning behind the acquisition and accept it. Oliver figured that once he talked to her, charmed her a bit and made her aware of How Things Will Be, that the young Miss Lance would take everything in stride and embrace change.

He steps to one of the girls at the counter and flashes her his best charm-school smile.

"Excuse me, is Dinah Lance in today?" he asks, looking her right in the eyes.

It's the Museum

2011-07-01T03:17:33Z

Carter Hall is an old soul in a young man's body. He is young., healthy, and strong. He has also just gotten back from a dig in Egypt and is enjoying the joys of the modern world. He missed the air conditioning so much while he was out there. He also was trying to deal with the fact that all of the sudden the world was different.

There was a Man of Steele saving the day.

Superheroes are real. That isn't something he thought he would ever say. Not that it's a bad thing just very different.

And he remembers now living so many different lives. It is dizzying to know how much he has seen. To see how far everything goes back. The years are all just there and he has lived so many of them. And he is hoorifed ny the knowledge they all end the same way. With a woman he has loved throughout time dying and him with her or sometimes latter.

Sometimes he dies first. And all he knows is that this woman is so amazing he could never stop this. He can't say no to her any her many faces. She is the other half of his soul. Thinking about all of this is just too heavy for Doctor Carter Hall, so he stands up and stretches letting every kink work itself out of his body before he moves out of his office to see what he can do around here. Maybe he can help with the tour today while he stops thinking about the latest development in his life.

His now very strange life.

Morning Paper.

2011-07-01T02:43:36Z

Alfred carried a tray of coffee containing just the right amount of cream, a folded newspaper, and some --sigh -- toaster strudel. He knocked. "Miss Wayne?" It had been 'Miss Wayne' since she was sixteen, graduating from 'Miss Bryce' according to How Such Things Are Done.

Talk to me, baby

2011-07-01T00:19:56Z

Marco Xavier had left for Metropolis almost immediately after leaving his penthouse. Perks of a private jet. The brief flight from Manhattan to Metropolis probably could have been made by car, but a guy like him, he had to make an entrance. The people expected it of him. The son of one of the great innovators of the sixties and seventies, partying his inherritance away--or at least, he would be if he didn't also seem to have the technical knowledge and business acumen of a man much wiser than he appeared.

He really should think about buying himself a newspaper. No, not one off the newsstand. He got plenty of those. Like, owning one. As publisher. He was pretty sure several papers would already be talking about his trip. And the hot blond co-eds would definitely be posting the pics they took with him on MyFace.

But finding the Daily Planet was not hard. Nor was using his thousand watt grin on the receptionist.

"Hi. Marco Xavier. Jr, technically, and I can tell you're a gal who takes her job seriously and likes the technical details. So I'm throwing that one in for you, just because. Here to see..."

He made a show of checking the copy of the paper he had with him. "Lois Lane or Clark Kent. One or the other. Or both maybe. Lots of questions."

Emerald Dawn

2011-06-30T23:50:36Z

The midnight oil is a thing often burnt at Coast City Art College, and tonight is by no means an exception. The moon hangs low in the western sky, signaling that dawn will soon come and call for all to wake up under her bright morning song. Yet there are those who intend to burn this midnight oil unto it final drop and then some. This includes the young man of 19 in his very cramped apartment attempting perfection. He has been up for almost two days, stopping for minimal food and water, trying to get this project done. It wasn't even due for another week, but when the muses struck him he'll be damn if he goes to sleep before finishing it. And as soon as he puts the final touch on this drawing when he notices something odd. Why is there so much damn green? He didn't remem-