Byrd Man

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

(Has been contemplating a Godzilla-verse RP since watching the King of the Monsters trailer)

@AndyC

Can I be this guy?

Real MVP

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

unrelated meme

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Compton
1988

1988 Music

The house party was in full effect. Gangbangers, slingers, hood rats, and all manner of Compton’s finest danced along to the song of the summer. Everyone at the party was either full members of Mob Piru, or affiliated with them in some way. Red shirts, pants, and baseball caps as far as they eye could see. They were all blowing off steam after a hard day on the corners. Almost all the money they made that day had gone in to the booze and drugs and girls for this party.

They spent anything they made as soon as they could, they ate and drank and lived like there was no tomorrow because for nearly their entire life there was no tomorrow. Growing up in Compton, every new day for them had been a challenge. Some of them never knew where their next meal would come from, where he would sleep that night, and how they would make it to the next day. To people not from Compton it was impulsive, but to them it was just instinct. They sold crack and robbed liquor stores because they could, and who the fuck could actually stop them? Nobody.

That was what LAPD didn't realize. They came in with their riot gear and armored vehicles in search of drugs, their jackboots looking to stomp their spirit out. But it couldn’t be killed. The rowdy ass house party was testament to that spirit. The cops could roll through with their dead-eye stares, but they always stood tall. Regardless of how bad it had been the night before, they were always back out on the corners the next night in search of another payday. Each and every one of them a kingpin on the rise in their own minds.

While the party continued on towards its crescendo, the real kingpin held court in the backroom of the house. Orlando Miller, head of Mob Piru, pointed a gun directly at his drug connect. The motherfucker had the balls to walk into the party without an escort or backup, demanding to see Orlando. One of the kids who dealt for him brought the guy into the backroom.

“You no longer trust me?” the man asked with a smirk. He spoke with a French Patuá accent. “You think I am an informant?”

“Fuck no,” said Orlando, gripping the gun tighter. “I know enough about you to know you won't snitch. What I want to know IS why my last shipment was short a few keys.”

“You get what you pay for, no?” The man flashed a row of gold teeth when he smiled. “I expect theft, Orlando. I account for you and your people to take a small cut. This is how business is done in our line work. But you take too much, enfant stupide.”

“So, you just come in here without no back up and expect to walk out of here?”

“Yes,” said the man. His eyes began to glow purple. “Your man is going to see to it that it happens.”

“What man?” Orlando asked.

Orlando’s answer came in the form of a bullet. The shot to the back of the head dropped him to the floor. With the music booming from the other side of the house, it hadn’t been heard by the army of gangbangers less than one hundred feet away. The little boy with the big gun looked down at Orlando’s twitching body before looking up at the man, a purple glow fading from his eyes. He was scared. He'd heard words in his head, telling him to pull out his gat and do what needed to be done... and he sure as hell had done that.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” he said softly.

“Of course you did,” said the man. “All I did was allow you to express your innermost desire. What is your name, boy?”

“Lucas… everyone calls me Lance.”

“Why is that?”

“That knight from history or some shit. Sir Lancelot. They say I run up on Crips like I’m that motherfucker.”

The man laughed deeply and ruffled the boy’s head. He reached into the pockets of his purple jacket before he pulled out a gold necklace. A matching medallion with a ruby red pendant dangled around the chain.

“You are fearless and hungry. I can sense this. This necklace, I give to you as a gift, garçon. Your boss was a weak man, no? Stupid and greedy. Do not become like him. Use this necklace to become something better.”

The boy took the necklace from the man and put it over his head. He could feel an instant connection from the thing. It seemed to speak to him, soft whispers that only he could hear. And the necklace was saying one thing: It was hungry.

“Thank you, sir,” said Lance.

“Please,” the man said with a large smile. “Call me Papa.”

---

Brentwood
Now

Charlie Rembrandt approached the glass door at a crouch, his gun out and at the ready. He’d been in his car when he heard the shots. Several in quick succession, sounded like multiple shooters to him. He called it in with dispatch. The nature of this thing made him hesitant to get the LAPD at large involved, how in the hell would he explain this to his bosses? But gunfire popping off in Brentwood would draw police attention regardless.

“Yo,” K2 said, his head sticking through the wall. “You gotta come see this shit.”

Charlie slid open the glass door and walked through into the mansion, following K2. He found a dead body sprawled on the hardwood floor of a hallway. The body of a bulky man dressed in red stared straight up, his face a mask of blood and bruises. The angle of his neck let Charlie know he was dead, and he had probably died a few seconds after his neck was twisted that way.

“That’s Country,” said K2. “One of the niggas Lance has on payroll. Muscle and anything that needs to be roughed up, Country is who Lance go to. Country does the hurting, Pooh Bear does the killing.”

Rembrandt kept moving forward, stopping as he heard more gunfire and a scream. He came out of the hallway and into a living room illuminated only by candlelight. K2 followed in his wake as they came upon the body of Lance Rawlings. Like Country, his body was beaten and broken with limbs twisted in unnatural ways. A look of horror was frozen on his face for all eternity. The necklace that had granted him so much power in life pulsated slowly, like a heart on the verge of failure.

“Little help,” said a voice on the other side of the room.

John Constantine was sideways on the floor, tied to a chair. Charlie rushed over and untied him before helping him on to his feet.

“What the fuck happened here?” K2 asked. "Who got him?"

“The past caught up to Lance,” said John. “And here comes the past right now.”

He pointed down the hallway. They turned and saw Lonnie Sledge running at full speed towards the living room as a mob of ghosts chased after him.

“We can smell him on you,” they chanted in union. “Lonnie! Lonnie! Lonnie!”

“Leave me alone!”

Charlie aimed his weapon at the spirits. John put a hand on his wrist.

“Bullets won't do any good with that lot. Anyway, we’re safe, mate. The invocation was aimed at Rawlings and his men.”

Sledge slipped on the floor and the ghosts pounced, dragging him to the ground. They mobbed the prone man and started to punch, beat, kick, and bite every inch of his body.

“That’s the downside of being a familiar,” said John. “For better or worse, you’re linked.”

"We gotta do something to call them off," said Charlie.

"It's too late," John said.

He nodded towards the mob. The spirits had shuffled away from Sledge’s dying body and stared at John, Charlie, and K2 with the same faraway look they had earlier before the killing had started.

“Rey,” K2 said in surprise. “What are you doing here? Bunch of Crips got you.”

“Your boy,” Rey said with a finger pointing towards Lance’s body. “He lied to you, K. He did me in himself. I apparently was too much of a risk to the K2 money train. I told you he was bad fucking news, nigga.”

“Fuck,” K2 sighed. “I’m… sorry, man.”

“Don’t worry,” Rey said with a humorless smile. “I got that motherfucker back.”

“Where’s the other one?” Charlie asked. “The other guy Lance had as a bodyguard?”

“Pooh Bear?” the ghost of the Crip, Antonio asked. “That nigga jumped into the pool, thinking we couldn’t get him. But we could get him... He’s floating now.”

The ghosts all shared a laugh.

“Shouldn’t have done that,” said John. “Now that you’ve been called forth, Lance and his cronies was your only sure-fire way to move on. He was the one to bring you forth and he would be the only one to call you back. But now that he's roasting in hell, you lot are stuck here.”

“The fuck you mean?” asked K2.

“Doomed to walk the earth,” said John. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a stub of chalk. “Never touching anything, or tasting anything, or only having less than one percent of the population actually see you. It's like a bad fucking fantasy story. I do have a backup if you're interested.”

Bending down, John drew a sigil on the floor. He looked up from it at the ghosts. Police sirens could be heard off in the distance.

“This circle here is a backdoor,” he said to the spirits. “All you need to do is step on to it and it will take you wherever you’re headed now that your life is over. Heaven, hell, whatever you believe in. Who’s first?”

“Me,” said K2.

He stepped up and stood on the sigil. His eyes fell on Rey and he shook his head.

“I’m sorry, cuz. But I’ll see you on the other side.”

The sigil glowed as K2’s feet left the ground. He hovered in the air, looking straight up at the ceiling with a look of rapture on his face. The smile faded and he began to look around.

“Wait… why do I smell smoke?”

The sigil opened up, a gnarled and rotten arm reached through and grabbing the rapper around the ankle. He screamed as the arm pulled him down. He tried to fight back, his hands desperately reaching for purchase on the wood. With a final yell, he disappeared through the sigil in a flash of fire.

“Like I said,” John said to the spirits. “It takes you wherever you were already headed. I can't change what kind of life you lot lived. Seems that K2 is a little more than the play-acting gangster he pretended to be.”

“You need to go,” Charlie said. “Patrol will be here in a minute, uniforms and brass to follow. This is going to be a major shitshow and I can explain most of this, but I sure as hell can’t explain you.”

“Wait,” Rey said. “What the fuck about us?”

“You got the sigil,” said John. “Best I could do.”

Without another word, he started for the door. Charlie looked at the spirits and raised his eyebrow.

“So, who’s next?”

---

EPILOGUE

East Los Angeles
4:21 AM

John knew that he was not alone the second he stepped foot into his apartment. He dropped his keys and pack of cigarettes and began to make motions with his hands. A shield of energy formed in his left hand as a fireball ignited in the palm of his right. He felt familiarity in the darkness. A presence that he had encountered before. That didn't make it an enemy, but there was little chance it was a friend.

“Don’t bother.”

Dispelling the invocations, John stepped forward into the apartment. He knew the voice’s words were right. He could feel the power and knew exactly who was sitting in the dark waiting for him. To fight here, in L.A. of all places, would be pointless. The power behind the city was enough to crush John. In this scenario, he was the ant and the voice was like the kid with the magnifying glass.

“Long time no see,” the man said from the metal folding chair that was John’s only real piece of furniture. “You know how hard you are to find?”

“Dead men often are,” said John. He reached down and picked his cigarettes up.

The man watching him was dressed in a white t-shirt with black pants and a black jacket. His feet were bare, the soles of his feet blackened by a long, long life of walking without shoes.

“You wanted to be found, at least eventually,” he said with a laugh.

“Bollocks,” said John. “The magic I threw down to convince London I was dead was some serious shite, squire. The only reason you bested it is because... well, even I have trouble tricking deities."

Jack Hawksmoor, god of the cities flashed a smile at Constantine.

“And you ran to Los Angeles of all places. One of my favorite children. If you live in a city -- even if it's Pigshit, Nebraska -- I can find you if I want to.”

John grunted as he lit up a cigarette.

“So what do I owe the… pleasure to, Jack?”

Hawksmoor sighed and stood from the chair. In the dim lighting, John could see that Hawksmoor's usual dark head of hair was now white, his face aged and weathered. That wasn't suppose to happen to gods.

“London’s calling. I need your help to save it... and me.”

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Time to start camping until 199...

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Easier said than done, I'm afraid.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Compton
2015

2015 Music

“Shit was tight.”

“Shit was shit,” K2 said dismissively to Rey.

They were standing in the shadows outside Kenny’s NightKlub, passing a blunt between the two of them. A few people mingled in the parking lot, talking while an idling car thumped the latest Drake song. Lil Rey took a hit off the blunt and swayed in time with the music. He was K2’s cousin and DJ. He chose not because he was good, or even because he was cheap. Lil Rey was his cousin and he worked for free. And free was all K2 could afford at this moment.

“There was a few people nodding their heads,” said Rey. “You had some of them feeling that shit.”

“Nigga, they put on recorded music after my third fucking song,” K2 said after a deep drag off the blunt. He coughed up a puff of smoke and tried to catch his breath.

“That’s three more than you been singing in front of.”

Rey tried to reach for the blunt, only for K2 to pull away from his cousin and take another drag off of it.

“C’mon, man. I paid for that shit. Let me smoke it.”

“How the fuck am I gonna get signed if I don’t get a chance to pack clubs?”

“Nigga, you sixteen,” Rey said as K2 finally passed him the blunt. “You need to slow your roll. You gonna have a chance.”

“Sixteen, going on motherfucking sixty,” said K2. “Living in Compton, if I make it to twenty-five it’ll be a goddamn miracle. Same with you, nigga.”

"You is a dramatic bitch," said Rey.

“Hell of a show,” a voice said from behind the two teens.

They turned and saw a man in a red suit, two muscle bound men flanked on either side of him. Like the man in the suit, they wore exclusively red. Both K2 and Rey tensed up at the sight of Lance Rawlings. They’d never met him, but of course they knew who the fuck he was. Everyone in Compton new who Lance was and what set he claimed. Scary stories about him were a dime a dozen in this part of LA, just like they were with his predecessor. But if Suge was Don Vito, then Lance was Michael Corleone. The next evolution in the gang shot caller turned businessman. And as fucking scary as Suge was, the stories they told about Lance made that big motherfucker sound like the washed up ex-jock he really was.

“Thanks,” said K2. “Wish everyone in that club agreed with you.”

“Niggas out here don’t know a good thing,” said Lance. “They like produced things. Sleek. That ain't you. You good, but you raw as hell, boy.”

A soft smile came on Lance’s face as he looked between K2 and his cousin.

“Look at y’all. Out here hustling with your big dreams. Shit takes me back.”

The two muscle heads flanking Lance laughed and slapped hands with each other. K2 noticed the guns in their waistbands. They were front and center and tucked near their belt buckles. No subtlety at all. But when you rolled with Lance you didn’t need to be subtle.

“When a man likes me makes it out I like to remember where I came from,” said Lance. “Trifling ass niggas think that means I’ll give any motherfucker some ends. Nah, what that means is I look for talented people and try to give them a chance. Same thing happened to me years ago. A successful, powerful man saw potential in me and gave me a chance. Much like I'm doing with you.”

K2 looked at Rey and smiled. This was the chance he had been waiting for. For all the bad shit he heard, he knew that Lance took care of his people. Rey’s expression was less than thrilled. Obviously, he took stock into a bunch of bullshit that was probably spread by some jealous ass bitches. K2 shook his head before turning back to Lance. The older man had an eyebrow raised in curiosity.

“So y’all little niggas want to put some work in?"

---

East L.A.
Now

“You tripping!” the spirit of K2 said as soon as Charlie Rembrandt shuffled into Constantine’s apartment. The deceased rapper ignored Rembrandt’s bloody face and limp. All he could focus on was how he had been wronged. “Leaving me behind like that was some bullshit. This is entrapment or some shit.”

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” snapped Rembrandt. “Take your head out of your ass long enough to look at my face, okay? Your boy Lance jumped us on the way back here. They got Constantine.”

K2 blinked in surprised. “What they want with that old motherfucker?”

Charlie flopped down on to Constantine’s couch with a loud sigh. He started to check himself out. There was a cut above his eyebrow that was the cause of all the blood on his face. As far as he could tell, nothing was broken. He was just sore as hell. In the past John had talked about having uncanny levels of good luck. Maybe some of that luck was rubbing off on him?

“He’s got more power than you,” said Charlie. “In Lance’s eyes, you’re small fish.”

“Well… good,” K2 said with a laugh that sounded fake to Rembrandt. “Let Lance take that dusty old bitch anyway. That means I get to stop from being sucked into his goddamn ruby.”

“For now.”

Charlie stood up and limped into the bathroom. He washed his face in the brown water that came out of the sink before he started to look around for anything like bandages or alcohol. No surprise to him, but all he could find was toilet paper and a bottle of vodka in the medicine cabinet. He put a splash of vodka on his cut and grunted in pain before applying a wade of TP to his forehead cut.

“What do you mean for now?” K2 asked as he walked through the wall into the small bathroom.

“The type of shit your boss is into? It’s only a matter of time before he comes after you next.” Charlie didn’t even bother to look away from the mirror as he spoke. “He consumes and consumes. Like gluttony. He’ll never be full. Once he gets hungry again, he’s going to come after you.”

“Then I’ll be gone, like a goddamn ghost.”

“You are a ghost,” Rembrandt said with a laugh. This time he made eye contact with K2 through the mirror. “But you don’t think that medallion of his can’t find you? Your best chance to avoid dangling around Lance Rawling’s neck just got himself taken prisoner.”

“Fuck,” K2 cried. “You playing me straight? You ain’t just bullshitting about that punk rock lame ass nigga?”

“No,” said Rembrandt. “That’s why we’re heading to Lance’s mansion. But something tells me John is already three steps ahead.”

---

Brentwood

MUSIC

“Turn it off,” John said for the third straight time. “Turn it the fuck off right now.”

He was tied to a chair in Lance Rawling’s opulent mansion. His expensive, six figure sound system blasted out the punk music of Mucus Membrane. Music that featured the vocals of a young and hungry John Constantine. When John heard "Venus of the Hardsell", he was always taken back to his past as a cocky, youthful cunt that thought he'd never die. He was still a cocky cunt that thought he'd never die. He was just less youtful.

“Painful memories, John?” Lance asked with raised eyebrows.

“Yes,” said John. “Memories of how shite my singing was. Now, turn it off.”

“Afraid not.”

Lance had stripped down to a pair of red boxers. He medallion still hung heavily around his neck. The mansion’s living room was covered in candles. The expensive hardwood flooring had symbols and sigils drawn on their surfaces. They were crude, but John recognized them well enough. Voodoo markings designed to bring forth souls.

“The music is part of the sacrifice,” Lance said with a smirk. ”As much power as you have as a mage, John, I want it all. That includes the legends that come with you. While not on par with Big and Pac or Kurt Cobain, the Newcastle Incident has its own little slice of macabre music history to claim. What’s the official story again? A crazed fan killed all those people.”

“Something like that,” said John. “Look, if you’re gonna hold bloody court all day, could at least give us a cig?”

“A deranged fan decapitated sixteen people?” asked Lance.

“It was the eighties. PCP is a hell of a drug.”

“I bet,” Lance said with a twinkle in his eyes. “But play coy if you must, I’ll learn the truth soon enough.”

“Tell you what,” John said with a grin. “I’ll tell you the story about Lance Rawlings instead. Skinny little boy from Compton, oh I’m sorry, I meant Bompton. Gotta get it right less you think I'm rolling with the blue buggers. Don’t want you getting the wrong idea about where I stand in your little color war.”

Lance rushed forward and slapped John so hard the chair toppled sideways. Constantine spat blood and laughed wildly.

“You fucking ponce,” he said between cackles. “You think you’re a gangster? Just a poof in a bloody suit. Even got your pretty costume jewelry.”

“Shut up!” Lance shouted. He kicked John sharply in the ribs before walking backwards towards the symbols on the floor. “It’s time for you to die, motherfucker.”

“Well, where’s your men?” John asked, trying his best to look around even though he was on the floor sideways. “You’re a hands-off type. Gotta call the real gangsters in when it’s time to kill.”

“Fuck you. I’ve killed motherfuckers. I put in the work.”

“Bullshit,” John laughed from the floor. “Just an accountant playing like a hardass.”

“You know who would disagree with you?”

“Who’s that, squire?”

“My old boss, Orlando Miller. This Crip bitch-asss motherfucker from around the way named Antonio, a Russian cat named Vlad, this bitch Nina that I knocked up, a fucking cholo named Apache, even K2’s little homie Rey. Motherfucker wouldn’t buy into the program so he had to go. Each and every one of them killed by hand and absorbed into my ruby. Just like you about to be.”

“Beautiful,” John said with a wide grin that showed off his bloody mouth. “Fucking beautiful.”

The stone in the medallion began to glow. Lance looked down at it confused before looking back at Constantine.

“What the fuck?”

“You’re a talented mage, I’ll give you that,” said John. “Powerful, but you aren’t well-versed. Time for a lesson, Lance. The circle you’re standing in is more than a trap for my soul. The spell it produces is a two-way street. Things can come in, but also things can come out.”

Lance looked around in horror as spectral shapes formed a circle around him. The faces staring at him were the dead. Every single person he had just mentioned stared at him with lean, gaunt faces that had been ravaged by hunger. The ghost of Nina had a protruding belly that squirmed with the ghost of Lance’s child. The Russian Vlad has a large slit across his throat where Lance had slicked him almost ten years ago. Lil Rey looked at him through glasses cracked and caked in blood. Antonio’s body was covered in bullet holes from the night all those years ago Lance had taken his life.

“See names, even street names have power, Squire,” John said from the floor. “And invoking the names of the dead is like a fucking invitation to join the party.”

"Sup?" Orlando said to Lance with a nod. Blood and brain matter leaked out the neat, round hole in his forehead. "Lancelot, you done come up in the world. But you always was a trifling ass little bitch."

Lance let out a scream as the ghosts encircled him tighter and pounced.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

<Snipped quote by Retired>
Always preferred knives, batons or any relatively sturdy stick I could pick up myself. Jabbing your penis around isn't really a way to get dudes to stop harrassing you.

@Nightrunner

Depends on the dudes, and or the penis size.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Better get in while the getting's good, @Byrd Man. MoviePass is bleeding money faster than Joker in a Jason Todd factory.

@Eddie Brock

That's what I hear. I also heard that bleeding is making them stay the course, either through sunken-cost or they think eventually enough people will sign up so they can sell user movie preferences to studios and marketing companies, the real reason MoviePass exists.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Kicking up another cloud of dust as I push off from the ground, I take to the skies and rush towards the man on the surfboard.

"I don't know who you are, or what this is about," I say as I close in on him, "and honestly, I don't really give a damn. I'm ending this. Now."

@AndyC

The shockwave of their collision rippled through the air. An impact three times as powerful of the bomb that leveled Hiroshima tore across the badlands, cracking the ground and sending entire chunks of the barren earth into the air. The crash was so loud, people from hundreds of miles away reported hearing it.

Both the Surfer and Superman were blown away by the energy of their violent crash. The Man of Steel rocketed towards the ground while the Surfer drifted higher and higher into the stratosphere until he slipped the bonds of gravity altogether. The blow he had received had been mighty, but yet the pain was not there. He was beyond pain in this state. That was something he had felt when he was... another man.

"STRENGTH," the Surfer said in a voice that was little above the whisper, yet both Superman and Flash could hear his words clearly."YOU HAVE STRENGTH IN ABUNDANCE."

Floating in the upper levels of the atmosphere, the Surfer balled both his fists. Energy crackled from his knuckles. The power he wielded resided on Earth, as it resided in the deepest black holes and at the edges of the universe. It was the power of the cosmos itself that he was tapped in to. To fight him was to fight against the power of the universe. The energy in his hands slowly stretched across his arms, chest, and legs. Lastly, it covered his head until his entire body radiated with the Power Cosmic.



"BUT IS IT A SIMPLE BRUTE STRENGTH, OR CAN IT BE WIELDED WITH PRECISION?"

He exploded downwards, his body and board crackling with energy and leaving a trail of electricity in his wake as he rocketed towards the Earth and the heroes in the Badlands. They had yet to learn of sacrifice, but the Surfer had planned to give them a lesson on such matters in due time.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

I have MoviePass and basically see everything.

@HenryJonesJr

I've been thinking of getting that. I assume it's worth it?