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His back slammed into the wall. It hurt. Not because it was hard, but because it had a bunch of jagged bits sticking out of it. It was brick. But...wasn't he just inside a gutted office building? It should have been drywall or painted concrete. Wait. No, it should have been those equipment boxes. Not a wall. What in the fuck had just happened?

"What's that smell?"

He looked to the side and saw a dumpster. That's what that smell was. Ignoring it, he stood straight up again. Vaguely, he remembered being shot. In the head. He lifted his hand to the back of his head and felt hair, skin, and the distinct lack of a hole.

"Well. Dodged that bullet."

He slowly stepped out of the alleyway, still disoriented, and was surprized to see that he was in Chicago, not New York City. More to his surprize, however, was that all the buildings were still standing.

"DAMMIT!!! What the fuck?!?"

He paid no attention to the stares he was getting from the pedestrians as they passed him by. Slamming his fist in the wall, Tyler Durden vowed to finish what he had started, no matter what it took.

"We both knew it would someday come to this again didn't we?" David sneered as he looked down at Goliath aiming his suit's laser cannon at the gargoyle's skull. He was wearing the crimson and jet Gargoyle Armor, the signs of the long battle apparent on his suit.

"Vaminos Benitae!" Came a shout from someplace behind him and a blast slammed into him from the rear and the world turned white around him for a moment. Instinctively he covered his face expecting an attack, none came however, infact there were no Gargoyles around him at all, or familar skyline.

"Where am I?" He wondered aloud as he flew from the building top down to an alley keeping largely to the shadows. It only took him a few minutes to find a blanket to wrap around him, concealing the mechanical armor as he walked onto the streets recognizing it for downtown Chicago, he had an office in Chicago with all of the proper tools to repair the suit which was in obvious disrepair, how he arrived in Chicago, probably had something to do with that spell but that didn't really make sense.

Tyler began to straighten himself up after a few minutes of outrage, and noticed a bum leaving the alley who wasn't moving like a bum. Once you've been through Fight Club, you can tell a guy that's used to fighting, and that's one thing, but you can tell a guy who's been trained even moreso. This guy moved like a cat crossed with a lizard that's only talked about in fairy tales or dojos. If that guy was anything, he wasn't a bum, especially not with that professionally done, completely masturbatory goatee and ponytail. On top of that, Tyler could have sworn he wasn't there a moment ago.

But something was strange about him. Tyler was by no means gay, but there was something different about this guy, and he couldn't take his eyes off of him. He felt some kind of affinity with him. He had to figure out what it was.

By the time Tyler realized this thought, he had been following the guy for a block. Tyler had no idea that David was aware of every step he'd taken since the first one in the direction of following him.

The disorientation lasted only a moment, as he stood up. Already the information was filtering in. The air concentration was massed up, checked and analyzed. It came back negative.

Priority one protocol initiating, the disgnostic check ran through, filtering every system. It felt off, like a tickle of sorts. He could actually sense the electricity as the program ran through his servers, his nodes, every system, each detection. It only took a moment to find out.

... no anamolies detected. Situation normal.

Status Clear.

He began to walk, searching through his present surrounding. It was an alley, two brick buildings on either side. He found glass on the ground, when his foot stepped on it, it shattered, digging into his skin. The sensation felt different, nodes of code that registered it as a sense.

Pain? Perhaps. He made a note of it. Pain, he would call that pain.

He stopped, picking the shards of glass from his flesh, not because he cared, but because it was causing him to bleed. He did not want to bleed, bleeding meant a trail.

He did not want a trail.

Out front he could see the shops now, their signs. He recognized one of them, a clothing shop. Dry cleaners. Databanks spooled through his mind, and he knew it had clothing. He needed clothing. He could not take anything with him.

His hand ran through the glass, and an alarm sounded. He stepped inside, analyzing the clothing set up in the back. Several outfits did not suit him. Too small, too large, too conspicuous. He found a regular t shirt, and a pair of slacks that fit him. No weapon though. Nothing he could use.

When he stepped out, two police officers were getting out of their car, guns drawn.

"Freeze."

He searched his database.

A beretta, 92F double action, alloy frame, no glare finish, reversible magazine release, open top slide, chamber loaded indicator, and rear sight. That would work. He saw two of them, one on each of the officer, several clips around their belts as well.

Yes, that would do.

He walked up to one, watching the man retreat, yelling out to freeze. He pointed to the ground, but that didn't stop the machine from coming forward Finally a shot was fired, in the leg, it bounced off something metal inside, causing a spark.

He grabbed the gun, and the man's hand holding it, crushing the bones. There was a scream now, higher than the sound of the siren in the night. He took the gun, feeling more bullets hit his back from the other officer.

Pain. Tinges of pain. He turned, the gun in hand, firing two shots with deadly aim. One in the head, other in the heart. The man didn't have time to take a last breath, when his body hit the ground it was already dead.

He grabbed the guns, curious to find handcuffs, and tazers. He would not need tazers, the guns would do fine. But he had them anyway. Back up.

Back up the back up. Standard protocol.

The car would be considered stolen in a matter of minutes, back up already howling their way forward as the man with the broken hand called out for back up on his radio. Shots fired. Officer down.

The machine stepped on the man's head, crushing him like a watermelon over the dark night road. He got in the car, speeding off.

Standard protocol.

It took David a few blocks to realize that this man was actually following him. After all while he did get that feeling on the back his neck it wasn't always true, particularly not when he found himself in some kind of wierd situation, but he was certain soon enough. Still there wasn't a lot of point in turning and confronting the man. If it was a fight that he wanted he would have already attacked, it might have been that this was too crowded a place, a thought that kept David from isolating himself, instead sticking to the populated areas.

Something else was wrong though even if he couldn't place it. Something about the cars, something about the street names and even the buildings. It was a minute detail but still if felt somehow wrong and yet he couldn't figure it out so he shrugged and focused back on the man who was following him for some reason. He didn't have many options open to him, he couldn't make a scene, and it was becoming clear to David that he wasn't as certain of his location as he though the was. Some of the landmarks and street names were right, others felt off but that could just be how the city changed over the years.

David glanced back at his tail and acknowledged him with a nod then slowed his pace.

Kara Zor-El felt the garbage can digging into her back as she laid on the ground looking up at the sky. Something had grabbed her as she stood looking out into space after putting the sphere back where it belonged. Her world righted itself pretty quickly as everything sealed and straightened and became normal again.

She remembered being pulled through the bubble that was her home world’s protection just as the sphere had ripped through it. She watched the bubble close itself as the sphere directed it as whatever it was kept her in tow. Soon she could not see her home.

The strength of this unknown force was way beyond her own as she fought to loosen its grip, but where was it coming from; there was no solid body to hang onto, to kick, to punch to even bite. The speed increased pulling her to where she wondered.

Suddenly without warning before she hit the ground and landed on the garbage cans she felt the first little inkling of fear. Fear that would have grown to a solid mass if she had not finally landed hard on her back and looking up at the sky.

Well she just could not lay there like a krytonian slug; she forced herself to rise out of the jumbled metal. Some of those cans looked like they were hit with a huge truck instead of a petite blond, well put together, nicely built young female.

She began to brush herself off when she noticed she stood in her costume, the blue clad bodice and small skirt topped off with the big S on her well defined breast that shouted to the world who she was. What had happened to her clothing, she had them on when what ever that force was punched a hole in her universe and plunged her down into the midst of the city. She began to dust herself off and could see her boots and wondered for the twentieth time where was she.

She gracefully headed for the alley that would take her away from the fowl smelling garbage that she had landed on. She sniffed at herself making sure the odor was not on her. Then giggled as she realized that would not happen because of who she was.

She stepped out of the alley; a shocked look crossed her face as she did not see the Daily Planet nor the metropolis she expected to see. Where was she, this was not a place she knew.

Great. Now that I have his attention, what do I do?

Tyler acknowledged the glance and continued to make a steady bee-line for the man. They both ducked into another alley as they heard a small fire-fight break out several blocks away.

"So, what causes a guy with as much money as you obviously have to decide to slum it quite this much?"

Tyler never needed a plan. Him playing it by ear was always more productive than even the best laid schematics of political maneuverings.

In Tyler we trust.

"I mean, why not just buy some clothes, keep the bill below $50 and go pick up a chick in a sleazy bar somewhere? I mean, this can't be comfortable."

Tyler could feel himself being sized up just as much as he was sizing this guy up. This was going to be fun, at the very least.

Kara Zor-El started to walk gracefully down the street. When she came to a street sign she stopped and looked at it. She shook her head slowly, no that name is not familiar at all. She saw the red light before her, well at least that was familiar to her. She knew she had to stop and wait for the green she had learned that in metropolis. She never saw so many cars. She heard a whistling sound but paid no attention to it until the sound got so loud that she had to look towards it's source.

There was a group of men acting like idiots making hand jestures at her. She didn't know what they meant but it just didn't feel right. Luckily the light turned green for her and she crossed the street. She tried to figure out what she was going to do. She was really in trouble her, no local money, she was not dressed correctly and she didn't even know who to trust in this world.

David paused hesitant to head into an alley but a quick assesment of the place and he deemed it safe. "Not slumming it up, just staying low key until I can find a place to stay."

David started to ask what made him seem like he had money but he remembered the cut of his hair and the near perfect trim of his beard, not to mention the way he carried himself, add on the suit he was wearing making him measure it nearly seven feet, it was only due to the average man's ability to not see what's right in front of him that only one person noticed him.

"Let's walk, attracts less attention." He said starting to walk again. "Most of these people are purposely not noticing me, what can I do for you?" David asked as he started becoming more and more concerned that many of the street names didn't make sense. It was more than that, there was no mention of Xanatos Enterprises or any of its subsidaries. He didn't recognize many of the cars either.

Kara Zor-El stood gracefully erect; she would not slump just because people were looking at her strange. She couldn't blame them after all she must be some kind of sight to people who did not know her. No female was wearing an outfit like her so she really stood out in a crowd. For these people standards, her bodice was too tight, her skirt to short, her legs too bare and what she could imagine were they thinking about the big S on her chest, cape on her back and boots on her feet.

Her mind raced trying to think of what to do when that gang of men caught up with her and encircled her. The one behind her grabbed her, there was only one thing she could do, she had to fight them. She quickly flipped the man that held her into another man and as another one approached her she pushed hard into his chest sending him flying into three others. She quickly spun on her heel and began running the way she had come. She put on some speed and was almost a block and a half in front of them when she looked back and saw they were on her tail.

She could go faster but then she could hurt someone if she hit them at super speed. She kept running and looking back, she saw the alley that she had landed in and decided she would go in there and fly to the rooftops. She looked back one more time before she turned into the ally, she could see they were catching up. When she got to the garbage cans she had fell upon. She stretched out her arm, lifted upward and flew to the top of the building. She laid down pressing her body to the roof looked downward.

She didn't have long to wait as the men ran into the alley. They looked bewildered, for a while they searched as Kara Zor-El looked on. She watched them leave, stood on the roof and looked around at this strange new world she had found herself in.

As they began walking again, Tyler decided to press on with the conversation, no matter how dumb it sounded coming out of his mouth.

"Oh, I don't need anything. An explanation as to how I managed to end up in Chicago would be kinda nice, but that's another story. Back to the subject, I guess I need to ask the right question: why in the hell do you need to look for a place to stay? Girlfriend kick you out or something?"

Something had been bothering Tyler just a little bit, and now it was starting to do so again. There was a kind of ticking or clanking noise, and now that Tyler was walking alongside this man, he realized it was repeating in time with his walk. He made a mental note to ask about that, but not while they were still on the street.

Fox

She was still in jail at the moment, but Xanatos was working on a plan that would get her paroled early. He almost didn't hear what Tyler had said other than speaking of his girlfriend.

"Girlfriend kicked me out, yeah something like that."

"Did you just say you don't know how you got here?" David finally stopped one of the street corners thoroughly frustrated, he knew where he should have been, some of the things even looked right. It was right and yet wrong at the same time, where a King Clown restaurant should have been there was an odd restaruant called McDonalds with huge yellow arches. Had the King Clown been there it would have sat opposite the Xanatos Enterprises Tower in Chicago, instead the building was labeled Xerox.

Something was very wrong, a lot more than David had originally guessed. Maybe that blast had somehow knocked him into an alternate reality one where he'd failed to become rich.

Tyler stopped as well. This was a new feeling. He wasn't used to being surprised. He was used to being the one surprising someone else, which was obviously the position he was currently in, but not in that, "Ha ha, I know something you don't," kind of way.

"Yeah. Actually, last thing I remember was talking with...my best friend. We were in an office building that was being renovated, about to watch a show. Then he shot me, and I woke up in that alley."

Had he been shot? Or had Jack shot himself? Or was it both? Now Tyler was wierded out. Again, not something he was used to.

David took another look around and then took a deep breath, something was wrong. Very wrong and it seemed that he'd run into another person with a similar dilemna. As a man who'd made deals with gods, fought Gargoyles and met immortals, not to mention had made himself rich via time travel David didn't believe in coincidence. This man either new something or was in trouble with David. Either way it didn't help to tip his hand so he did decided to try the universal answer to problems.

"Do you drink mr ah, I don' t believe I caught your name." He'd spotted what looked to be a shoddy bar, sure to have enough dark corners for them to have a private conversation and hopefully figure this out.

Kara Zor-El stood up as the men disappeared down the street. She stood with her arms folded upon her chest and looked out into the City. She did not realize until this very moment how much she missed Argo City. When she brought the Omegahedron back home she had expected to be there for the rest of her life. But now she was in this strange cold place where everyone she met was uncaring, rude and sometimes nasty.

First things first she thought as she looked across the roof tops she saw some clothing drying on some kind of wooden thing. She flew over the rooftops low keeping the clothing in her vision. She landed by the rack and looked at the clothing and picked a small pair of jeans and a small flannel shirt. She slipped the jeans on; they were snug on her hips. The flannel shirt hid that fact. She had finished buttoning the shirt when a woman came out of a door that was part of a stair well.

“Thief, thief, give me back those clothing”

Kara Zor-el ran fast a round the chimney and stepped off the roof, moved close to the building and hovered under the ledge of the roof. She heard the woman screaming, then silence, a slamming door and finally silence. Kara Zor-el hovered to the edge of the building and flew up a bit; the roof was once again empty. She flew a few blocks away from the building and landed on another roof. Looking down at the street she saw a little café with a sign in the window. Using her super vision she read the sign.

“Help wanted”

She flew around for awhile and found a backyard with an alley. She flew down there and began to walk to the little Café. As she entered it she grabbed the sign and walked to the counter.

“I am looking for a job”

She showed the woman the sign and found out it was a waitress job, she knew she could do that and asked about the salary. She smiled at the woman again as she was told she had the job. The woman ducked through a room and brought out a short black dress, white apron and a little hat. She showed her to the locker room to change. She took off the stolen clothing and her costume folded everything neatly and placed it on the top shelf, shut the door and found a small key sticking out of the lock. She turned it and stood in her bra and undies looking and the uniform. Finally she put the dress on; it fit her like a glove. She thought the neckline was too low and the skirt too short. But she needed the job. She tied the apron on, put the hat on her head and stepped back into the Café.

The woman introduced herself as the owner and asked her name.

“I am Linda Lee”

Kara Zor-el had used the first name that came to her head. The owner gave her an ordering pad and pointed at a table filled with a family of six. Kara went straight to work.

The car came to a screeching stop outside of an internet cafe. On a slant, it blocked two lanes of traffic, but people were reluctant to honk or jeer or flip him off, because it was a police car.

He got out, walking up to the cafe. He sat down at the first computer terminal he could find, and began searching. His hands moved quickly against the keys, working at some unbelievable speed. Apart from menu screens, beta and Dos screens opened up, lines of code began appearing, being taken into the computer, back doors opened, files being accessed.

"Excuse me, officer, what is the problem?" A young man with streaks of blonde hair seemed hesitant to speak, but stood there, next to the thing, eyes unable to get off of the screen.

"You... you can't do that with this computer. It's just meant for surfing the web, looking up your email and... is that a CIA site?"

And this little kid had seen too much. He stood up, unholstering the beretta and firing two rounds. One in the head, the other in the chest. The man crashed down to the floor against a coffee table, shattering it, blood splattering everywhere.

People screamed. Some ran in panic, others huttled in corners. Two of them, two big guys came over, trying to help. One had grabbed a bench, breaking it over his back. The other tried to grab for the gun, but he could not shake loose the steeled grip that T held.

He took one, threw him against the front window, dying amidst the shards of glass onto the street. The other he grabbed hold of, broke his arm, and then as he man was crying and screaming in pain, shoved the beretta inside of his mouth and fired twice.

The man didn't scream anymore.

T paused to put the beretta back before sitting down and continuing his search.

People were outside, running, screaming, talking to whoever they could, on the cell phones with the police, some were just recording this for whatever money they could get from the news media.

Tyler's initial reaction was an old bit about the Pope shitting in the woods, but he didn't feel like saying it out loud. He didn't say anything, actually. He just nodded and followed David into the bar. Once thay had sat down at the back table, he leaned back. Without extending a hand, he told David his name.

"I'm Tyler Durden."

As he waited to hear David's response, he noted that someone nearby had heard him. But unlike the reaction he would have normally expected to hear from a scruffy guy in a bar who had heard his name, which was a quiet sort of reverence, the look on the guy's face was one of disbelief. The kind of disbelief you see one someone's face when a grown man calls himself the Easter Bunny. The look was saying that Tyler had just called himself Tyler, but that that was something stupid to say. Tyler was only slightly annoyed, so he ignored it for the moment. He made a mental note to break the man's arm later, though, if he got the chance.

"Then let's get a drink." He walked into the near by bar and made his way to the back of smoke filled dimly lit bar. He ordered himself Belvadere and sat down.

"My name is David Xanatos. How did you find yourself here, you said you were someplace else and just appeared here? How long ago was it that you came to be here?"

Kara Zor-el pushed open the door to the cafe; she was disappointed the girl who held the job before had come back. She was a relative so of course she was forgiven for leaving and Kara was let go. Well she had some money from the owner and some great tips shoved in her jeans so she had means to live for awhile.

Suddenly her super hearing made her turn her head. She heard mass screaming several blocks over. She ducked into an alley, stripped off her jeans and shirt and placed them in a stairwell leading to a cellar door. She took flight using her super vision she saw a confusion of people running and screaming from a cafe. She landed close to the door and pushed her way into the place as people were hysterically fighting to get out of the place.

Kara saw a mountain of a man over by a pc, typing faster then the speed of light. Could he be from her planet she wondered. All around him were dead people. He was dangerous that was for sure. She went up behind him cautiously. She spun him around on the swivel off chair and look at his face. He had no expression at all on his face; he was a hard looking man.

"I am taking you to jail"

His eyes, cold and deadly, sniper's vision honing in on her. He knew she had been coming, he picked it up from half a block away. All others running away, while she came close. Still, to see her here now, in such clothing, did not constitute normal.

Not a police officer, not SWAT, nothing made her respectable as a law enforcement.

Still, she was interfering.

He stood up, once more the beretta coming out. He shot twice, point blank. One in the head, once in the heart. Execution style, just like the others. Except, unlike the others she did not go down, she was not dead before she hit the ground.

He searched for another model, he was told another might come through. There were plans to send several Terminators back, but her description was not on his files. In the future, perhaps?

But, if so, she would recognize him, and either try to terminate him or aid in his search. She would not want him in jail.

"Who are you?" He asked, the gun still up, his accent thick but distinguishable, a monotone robotic tone that was too cold to be human.

His computer files were opened, the learning curve distinguished. He had to learn more about humans, and adapt to become a more effecient killer. If he knew more about her, he could kill her.

The bullets from the berretta bounced of Kara Zor-el. She saw how fast he was and heard more sirens coming to arrest this man and knew more people would die as he was definitely a killer. She tried a super punch to his face but it had no effect. There was only one thing to do to save these people. She wrapped her arm around the mountain of a man and flew straight up. Of course his huge head struck the ceiling first. She hoped it would knock him out but did not think it would. Strangely he was not fighting her just looking down at the place he had been and up into the sky where he was going.

As they broke through the ceiling she tightened her grip on him and put on her super speed to get him out of the city. She would make sure he killed no more people here. She did not know what she was going to do with him. She did not think normal jails would hold a man like this. His speed with the weapon was almost as fast as her speed in flight, who was this man?

In less then ten minutes they were in the forest. As she brought them down gently, she punched him in the stomach again, nothing, no reaction to a super punch at all. What was she going to do with him?

"Who are you"

He took in the data, carefully compiling it. This was no human, he knew that much. She acted human though, she had worry and fear and courage as well. When he tried to punch her as she grabbed him and flew him, there was no effect, no weaking of the flesh, no impact at all against her. It was as if he had hit some titanium steel.

He didn't even think she felt it.

On the ground once more he distanced himself from her. They were in the forest now, temperate, he searched the trees, foliage. This was not Los Angeles, this was more in the midwest, Chicago area.

The time displacement must have made a mistake, he was not supposed to be here.

She wanted to know him, his designation. He thought of fighting her, but he did not want to engage without more information.

"Cybedine Systems Model 101. I am a Terminator...."

He grabbed the flesh from his arm, and tore it away. Blood came underneath, and that sensation of pain showed through. The servos underneath began to move around the flesh, all metal and effecient.

When the flesh returned it began to repair itself.

"But I do not recognize you as a Terminator. You are human, who are you?

Kara Zor-el listened as he said he was a Cybedine Systems Model 101. I am a Terminator. She watched him tear the flesh from his arm looking from his arm to his face and back again. That had to hurt she thought as he had bled.

"What are you half man, half machine, you cant be from earth that is for sure, no human can do that"

She purposely did not answer his question to see what he would do. She had a feeling he would go after her so she kept her body poised for flight. She would not leave him, she wanted to see how fast he was.

"I'm not human," She kept silent. He had asked her twice now, and she said nothing. He did not think to ask again, there would be no reason. If she chose not to answer, than she would keep it from him.

He felt the need for communication was well enough. He took out both of the beretta's and made strategic hits along all of her body. Ankle, thigh, breast, arm, head, stomach, and all of them bounced off uselessly to the ground.

The guns stopped, blue metal smoke running from the barrels. He rushed upon her, grabbing her arm. He bent it back, hands squeezing her, trying to break it. The arm would not break though, he had her in this death lock, forcing her arm to bend at some impossible angle, and then break, but it refused. It just would not break.

He scanned her body. It was human. He saw the blood, he could feel the pulse within her arm. The body heart registered as normal, she was human.

This was not right. If humans had this capability, if they could create this from their young, the future and Cyberdyne would be destroyed.

He had to find a way to destroy her.

Sean Renaud said:

"Then let's get a drink." He walked into the near by bar and made his way to the back of smoke filled dimly lit bar. He ordered himself Belvadere and sat down.

"My name is David Xanatos. How did you find yourself here, you said you were someplace else and just appeared here? How long ago was it that you came to be here?"

Click to expand...

Tyler ordered his drink simply by pointing at the picture of a pitcher of beer and then holding up two fingers to the waitress. He didn't even look at her.

"Like...ten...fifteen minutes ago. What were you doing when you...I guess appeared? Is that the word we're seriously going to use for this.