20188/Grim Tidings

Grim Tidings
Date of Scene:	05 March 2025
Location:	Oblivion Bar
Synopsis:	A chance meeting in the Bar at the end of the world. Rain falls and thunder rolls. Something wicked this way comes.
Cast of Characters:	June Moone, Detective Chimp

---

June Moone has posed:
It's difficult to say what time it is, when you're in a pocket dimension. What Detective Chimp knows for certain is that he left his office at exactly 11:27PM on Wednesday, March 5th, and that he arrived at the Oblivion Bar some time after the end of the world. He also knows that there is absolutely nothing unremarkable about the place, or the time (and time and places are so intrinsically linked, Einsteinian relativity tells us). He knows that the bar is empty tonight -- the usual din of chatter smothered up entirely in its absence. A blanket of oppressive silence, save for the pitter-pattering of rain against the bar's windows. There's a smell in the air. The usual cigarette smoke and alcohol breath mixed with something a bit sweeter and exotic.

What is that smell?

But other than the quiet, and other than the loneliness, there isn't outwardly anything of note about the Oblivion Bar. Detective Chimp might pour himself a glass of something stiff. He might light up a cigar. He might even enjoy the peace and quiet tonight, and settle into one of those low chaise lounges right across from an Atomic Age table. What else does a Detective Chimp do, when he's got the run of the place to himself?

Detective Chimp has posed:
"Oh god... oh god... here it comes!"

A low, guttural groan comes from somewhere deep within the simian-sized lungs of Detective Chimp as he is gripped by a feeling so intense that it practically causes his mind to go blank. Pain, then a sense of release, and his howl can be heard all throughout the Oblivion Bar. And finally, his efforts exhausted, there is a loud 'PLUNK!' as the fruits of his efforts fall into the bowl. Minimal paperwork ensues, and the world's greatest chimp detective turns to look as he pulls up his tweed pants.

"Last time I'm eating at Big Belly Burgers. Swear to Baphomet..."

Having added yet another Lovecraftian Horror to the pocket dimension that is already replete with them, the detective lights a fresh cigarette with the stub of his last one as he closes the door behind him. His drink is still waiting for him on the bar, though the ice has melted almost entirely. The temptation to pour himself a fresh one is strong, but not as strong as his aversion to waste. Where alcohol is concerned, that is.

Passing by one of the statues used as a coatrack, he pauses to admire the callipygian beauty in all of her fine marble nudity. Clucking his tongue as if to chide her, he puts a hairy hand on her thigh, and looks upward at the fine detail.

"Shame you don't have longer arms, Toots..."

With his watered-down, ice-free drink in hand, and a cigarette dangling from his lips, the detective relaxes on the chaise longue with a copy of National Geographic, and flips to a well-worn page somewhere in the middle.

"Well hello again, Koko... fancy meeting you in a dump like this... you know, I'm pretty good with MY hands too, if you know what I mean..."

June Moone has posed:
Well.

At least now we know what the smell is.

And as Detective Chimp meanders his way back to the bar, the sound of that rain heard outside seems to lift above the sonic background and into the foreground. You know how this goes -- something that you didn't really notice for some time, and then the sudden realization of it. The way that the smell of rain mixes with old books, and dust, and alcohol, and cigarette smoke... the latter two, of which, are mercifully obscuring that Big Belly Burgers that have already been digested.

It happens so quickly sometimes. That realization. It's almost like a memory, only one that hasn't yet found its way into the short-term. Recollecting moments that have just transpired, as if recounting a dream.

Does it rain, in pocket dimensions?

From behind his copy of National Geographic, and thinking wholly unclean thoughts about Koko the Ape, Detective Chimp himself might find himself thinking that very question, shortly before the lights within the bar begin to dim until the only light that remains is the tip of Detective Chimp's cigarette.

And that's when there will be a feeling of static, creeping along his skin. The sort of thing that feels almost like electricity in the air, before the strike of lightning. Or the feeling in a space when an apparition is about to manifest. Or maybe...

There's a flash of light that filters in through the windows, like a streak of lightning across the rainy sky. But there is no sound that accompanies it. Instead, the flash seems to ferry aboard a different sort of passenger.

The light flickers, and some time within the millisecond that it does, a young woman appears within the Oblivion Bar. She's on the younger side of 'adult'. Twenties, perhaps -- with dark brown hair that's curly from being wet. It looks almost as she'd wandered in from outside... blown in on the storm. And Detective Chimp just may have believed she did, had he not seen her just appear before him, barefoot and in a pair of silken pajama shorts and a top. Still holding a toothbrush, in her right hand, though brandishing it a bit like a weapon.

She looks terrified. The woman opens her mouth to speak, her jaw chattering, but like that flash of lightning, there is no sound that accompanies it. Not, at least, until it makes its way into the Oblivion Bar.

Three seconds of silence are punctuated by a low rumble of thunder that rattles the windows and shakes its way through the foundation. As it does, it seems to carry on it the woman's words -- words that are spoken in a tone to match her expression. Fear.

"Can you feel it?"

Detective Chimp has posed:
With the guilty expression of someone who has been caught right before unbuttoning his fly, Detective Chimp quickly closes the magazine and sets it on his lap, with the cover facedown. Bolting upright with the flash of light, he quickly regains his bearings, along with his sense of bearing, for he is no neophyte encountering his very first mystical phenomenon. So far, there's no pile of headless corpses, the possibility remains that this might be a friendly magical attack. Those exist.

There's a slightly bloodshot quality to his eyes as he blinks in surprise, as the Universe drops yet another mystery before him when he would much rather be drinking. Of course, there's no reason that he can't do both, as some of the doorways to the Oblivion Bar are located within countries that are purported to be free.

As he looks at the young woman, the Detective formerly known as Bobo has the sudden realization that the presence of a talking chimp might have an adverse effect on the fragile mind of anyone who has teleported into a pocket dimension in her jammies. And yet, with the weary air of the sort of hard-boiled detectives that have served as the template for many of his professional choices, he simply observes for a moment, remaining calm, before coughing into a balled up fist, filling the stormy environment of the Oblivion Bar with the sound of rattling phlegm from half a century of excessive smoking.

As he stands and tosses his magazine onto the table for later perusing, Detective Chimp starts once again at another flash of lighting, but as he walks somewhat awkwardly with his trademark shambolic gait, he does his best to seem like a friendly sort of ape. It's not especially hard, as he has one of those faces that really comes across as trustworthy. To people who like chimpanzees, anyway.

"I feel a lot of things, kid. Right now... the thing I'm feeling the most is probably... I would say 'confusion.' Is 'confusion' an emotion? Anyways... maybe you can tell me what it is that YOU'RE feeling, unless you need to rinse and spit first."

June Moone has posed:
Bobo the Chimp, as he was once called, needed to be cursed with the burden of what humanity considers 'consciousness' in order to earn the name of Detective Chimp. And while that consciousness comes with the burden of knowledge of nuclear armaments and the crushing, existential weight of knowing ones own mortality, it also blessed him with rational thought. The ability to discern fact from fiction, and to notice patterns.

Fact 1: This young woman is not afraid of a talking chimpanzee.

In fact, she seems like she's seen weirder shit tonight than Detective Chimp while wearing the equivalent of sleep-time lingerie and brushing her teeth. Brushing her teeth. Rinsing her spit.

She looks down at the toothbrush and turns its bristles out -- her eyes sort of losing focus for a moment before snapping back into relief.

Fact #2: There's a dark liquid staining those bristles. It looks like it could be blood, but the light is so low in this space, it's difficult to be certain.

There's a beat of silence, as the woman seems to think on the question. It doesn't last long enough that Detective Chimp can fill it with more words or questions, but it does last long enough that he might start to consider it.

"We... I... I don't have much time. I can't stop her when she gets like this, but... but..."

June Moone sways, just a little, and swallows. It looks almost as if she's trying to fight back tears. Frustration, maybe? Fear? It's tough to parse it. Human emotion can be rendered so entirely pointless and inert when cut through with those baser instincts that marry man and ape. Fear, desire, hunger. That's all there is, in the grand scheme of the cosmos.

"I'm so sorry," June murmurs, as those tears start to finally roll down her face, streaking her cheeks and jaw and lips with an inky black tar that fills the sclera of her eyes. And then out of her nose, and mouth, as her body starts to involuntarily contract, pulling in towards her core.

"Ahhh...!" she cries out. It sounds painful, that sudden snap inwards, but she staggers up.

"B-but I don't think she's going... I don't think she's going to hurt you..." June adds.

She sounds mostly certain.

Like 80%.

Detective Chimp has posed:
There is enough alcohol in Detective Chimp's bloodstream to kill a lesser man, by which we mean most humans. But nevertheless, his finely honed detective instincts remain far sharper than those of a lesser man, by which we mean most humans. The whiskey helps cut back on the existential dread and the imposter syndrome, and reduces the shame from all of his gross behavior, but it doesn't diminish his powers of deductive reasoning, no matter how much he might wish to remain blissfully oblivious in some zoo with a harem of long-armed females and an endless supply of monkey chow.

Fact #1: The woman is either delusional, or used to seeing something far stranger than a Detective Chimp. Either she is someone with an affinity for the mystical, someone who lives in Gotham City, or a member of the Doom Patrol.

The World's Strangest Detective observes as much as he can as quickly as he can, eyes passing over her for clues as approaches with the awkward gait of a chimp walking on only his legs. Fortunately, his arms are splayed out wide for balance. He's not familiar with the brand of sleepwear, but it gives some general indications of her socioeconomic status and habits. He valiantly manages to avoid getting distracted by the silhouette that it conceals, and focuses on the details that actually matter to what is most likely going to end up being a case.

It always ends up being a case.

Fact #2: Holding a toothbrush clearly indicates that she was surprised by whatever has brought her here. It's unlikely that she arrived in this specific place of her own volition, and the look of fear is easily identified even by someone who doesn't always have the easiest time with human faces. They all look so alike, after all.

His cigarette falls out of his mouth as the woman begins to cry tears the color of the abyss. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the presence to catch it, and will have to explain what happened to the rug when the Bar's owner returns.

There are many questions that he would ask. Finding answers is his entire schtick. But he closes the gap between them just in time for her to begin contorting, and pulling inward in defiance of the laws of physics. He's not comforted in the slightest by the fact that the young woman seems to know who 'she' is.

'She' doesn't sound quite as nice.

He should have stayed home tonight.

June Moone has posed:
Detective Chimp's cigarette falls towards the floor, and June Moone's body buckles over again. This time, the contraction is much more violent and sudden. There's another shriek of pain, and a tremble through her body. The reaction is not unlike the flash of lightning, in the contraction -- and the rumble of thunder, in that tremble. Both heralded her arrival, as this heralds the arrival of something new. Something else. She turns her back towards Detective Chimp, as the clothing seems to melt off of her body -- replaced with bare flesh etched with arcane runes in what seems to be some sort of natural, chalky pigment. The most prominent of these rooms forms a line that climbs up the channel of her spine, starting from the tip of her tailbone to where it disappears into a mess of dark black hair.

There's another sharp convulsion, and then a backwards snap. A strange unmaking and making of flesh and bone, with all the cracking and wet-popping that sounds a bit like tearing a chicken thigh from its carcass. And with it comes another sound -- soft, and feminine, but in a sort of... low, thrumming contralto. Almost like a sigh of relief.

When Enchantress rises to her feet, she does so several inches taller than June had been. Some of this is likely explained by that strange, awful, bone-and-joint-rending popping sound, and others? By the fact that she seems to almost lift up off her feet, with her toes pointing towards the floor and hovering just inches above.

She wears nothing but body chains and a simple, semi-sheer black wrap skirt around her waist, but there is no hint of embarrassment or shame to her when she turns to face the strange little creature before her. A strange little creature who dropped his cigarette... though it never quite made it to the floor. It, like her toes, hovers just about an inch above it, smoldering away.

Enchantress' eyes are inky black. The color of the void -- like those tears that smeared June's face moments ago. Those tears remain, though now they seem almost deliberate, in a way. Streaked down her face like makeup, with flecks of silver twinkling in them like stars in the night sky. A single, crescent moon hovers just above her forehead too.

It paints a vivid picture.

Her face is impassive, and she looks to Detective Chimp from down the bridge of her nose with an expression that reads... cold. Calculating. Ancient and detached.

"You..." Enchantress intones... "...Are smaller than I thought you would be."

Her voice is a deep and thrummy thing. The sort of voice that licks at the back of skulls and vibrates through one's core. Still, it's cut with something higher-pitched. Sweeter. Like the smell in the air earlier. June Moone's perfume? Perhaps. But it's certainly her voice in there, too. Smothered up in all that smoke.

"No matter. The physical is irrelevant in matters of the Ephemeral," she says, and there is a small bend of her wrist. Her fingernails are long, and sharp -- painted black which seems to stain its way into her fingertips all the way down to the knuckles, as if she'd dipped her hand in ink. And with that gesture comes a twitching, crackling, reality-warping twinge of magic that sees a book appear, hovering (you guessed it) inches above her fingertips.

"Change is on the wind. Rivers dam. Others dry. The sea is..."

The book hovering over Enchantress' fingertips disappears, and appears once more in front of Detective Chimp. Old -- but not ancient. Its yellowed pages suggest oxidation, and yet its binding places it as having been printed and bound some time between 1940 and 1960.

"Violent..." Enchantress finishes her thought.

"See for yourself."

Detective Chimp has posed:
Decades of pursuing the strange and unusual can give one a somewhat jaded perception, and a higher threshold to overcome before becoming impressed by an encounter with the bizarre. But the transformation taking place before Detective Chimp is enough to cause his mouth to hang open slack-jawed, to the point that he doesn't even notice the fallen cigarette. There are sounds that would cause just about anyone to wince, and the detective is neither jaded enough, nor sober enough, to be immune to that effect. If anything, he seems to be sensitive to the shrieks of pain, and the agonized contortions of the fragile body.

Perhaps he's not as hardboiled as he'd like to believe.

He can do little but stare in disbelief. His posture shifts immediately, as he had intended to provide comfort when walking over, but finds himself stepping back reflexively in horror. If only he hadn't left his drink over by the chaise longue. If only he'd remembered to put a coaster down beneath his glass. He will surely be scolded for this later.

But though he has moved backward, and though he has put up a tweed-covered arm before him to defend from any stray lightning bolts or horrific nastiness, the chimp doesn't run. He seems stalwart despite his fear and surprise. And perhaps even gripped with the one thing that seems to bring excitement to his overly long lifespan. There's the beginning of a feeling of curiosity. That most delicious and vexing of feelings. At least for a mind as inquisitive as Detective Chimp's.

Clearly in the presence of something that could have him for breakfast if it wanted, the chimp looks at the book, then back at the much more dramatic woman before him, then down at her chains... then realizes his mouth is still hanging open. It takes some effort to fix that.

With a leathery, hair-covered hand, he takes the book, holding it carefully as if it might melt or turn to ash in his hand. When it doesn't, he pulls the vintage magnifying glass from his pocket, and squints in the dim lighting of the Oblivion Bar as he attempts to make sense of what he's been offered.

"If this is a copy of The Caine Mutiny, I've already seen the movie."

June Moone has posed:
...

There is no response to the quip. Just stoic, dramatic silence.

The book doesn't melt, or turn to ash, or a million little snakes or spiders or anything one might expect a book given by someone who looks as much like some evil sorceress bog witch to do. It is itself, like the Oblivion Bar when Detective Chimp arrived, is fairly unremarkable. It has that sort of rough texture that those old books tended to have -- coarse enough that even Bobo's leathery fingertips can feel them. There is nothing written on the back -- just that faded, turquoise color set against hues of goldenrod and a rich, velvety red. And on the cover? Etched in gold is the title:

    'She Went West'

Tucked into the top of the book, somewhere at its center, is a simple, blank business card. Written across the off-white cardstock, in black ink, is a name and an address. The address? To some terrible apartment somewhere in Gotham City, near the University. It's unimportant. The name, however?

    'June Moone, PhD'

Beneath the honorific, in parenthesis, reads:

    '(By 2027)'
    '(...nvm, 2028)'

"I know not why my magic took me to this place, of all places. To you, of all people. But there's much to be learned from fables," says one unnatural creature to another, her head canting at a subtle angle as she inspects the little Chimp before her. If she notices his slack-jaw or the flicker of his gaze across the chains that adore an otherwise (tastefully!) unclothed body, there is no indication. It's likely difficult to believe she'd care, even if she did.

"A calamity is coming, but it can be avoided. This book holds the answers, so read it carefully," Enchantress says, her voice almost falling into a poetic, beating rhythm.

"If you're lucky, you'll even survive the coming days."

When Detective Chimp finally looks up from the book, he'll find that he is once again alone in the Oblivion Bar. The only evidence that June Moone, or Enchantress, had ever been here?

That bloody toothbrush, and a still-lit cigarette now smouldering on the hardwood floors.