A.N: A few months ago I reread the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher and was taken with the idea for this fic- an Inception and Codex Alera fusion! I looked around and hadn't seen it, so I decided I'd try. This is another reinterpretation of Inception- this time with fury-craft!

Disclaimer: I don't own Inception or the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher. I'm just a fan.

show me your fury

Arthur was watching over them as they dreamed. It was their second five minute round and Cobb was continuing to evaluate the new girl's abilities.

According to Cobb, Ariadne came with Miles's highest recommendations. That surely a budding architect would be able to apply the same skills to building within a dream. And if Miles was right, she might have another, rarer ability that they have been searching for. Cobb wanted the best team for the Fischer job, after all. Too much was hinging on this job for them to fail.

The point man looked away, double checking some information he had received from Miles on this prospective dreamshare architect.

And all was well right until the moment Ariadne suddenly jerked awake, gasping and pressing her hands against her stomach, soothing a phantom pain.

Arthur rushed over to reassure her, the words "You're okay" already out of his mouth before the young woman had a chance to recognize her surroundings- that she was safe in reality now.

She forced herself off of the lounge chair, looking more reassured as her feet hit the ground. Then, Ariadne clenched her fist and punched Arthur in the chest. Hard.

Arthur was sent flying across the room by the force of the blow.

In the dream, Cobb was observing Ariadne's progress. Her manipulation of dream architecture was definitely advanced for someone so new to shared dreaming. She appeared comfortable, unafraid even as his projections began to take notice of the changes she made.

"This is great, but I'm telling you," Cobb said, hurrying after Ariadne as she worked. "If you keep changing things…"

My subconscious is going to attack you.

It was difficult to try and stop her, especially when he was waiting to see if she would be able to do something different. The little something that Miles had suggested she was capable of; that little, rare, but definitely necessary skill that Cobb wanted for his team. He wanted the best and he was going to get the best.

So, Cobb watched and learned about her use of real places in her design. He watched as his projections began to converge upon her after she created a whole new location using mirrors.

Maybe it was her saying, "Is that why you need me to build your dreams?" that pushed his projections into action. Maybe it was his little flare of anger that summoned up Mal.

But even as his projections began to rip Ariadne away from him, protecting him from this foreign entity, the infection within his mind, he spotted Mal approaching. She was pulling a knife and going after the young architect.

"Wake me up!" she yelled to Cobb, while she fought to free herself from the projections holding her.

"Come on!" Cobb shouted finally as he struggled through his projections. "Use your crafting!"

Ariadne looked at him for a second, away from the danger of Mal, not understanding his words.

Shit, when Miles mentioned the possibility, I should have known she was too green…

"Like this!" Cobb said as he made his fire fury appear, a vibrant manifestation of a tiger made entirely of glowing red and gold flames. Its heat was palpable and it hissed at the projections surrounding it.

Cobb's projections knew his fire fury; they had become well acquainted with it as he had practiced and practiced its manifestation within dreams, honing its destructive powers. Because when a gun wouldn't do, a gigantic predatory cat made of fire might.

"Go!" He called to the fury, pointing in the direction of Mal and Ariadne. The fiery tiger knew what Cobb wanted, using its sharp white-hot claws to swipe at the closest projections, making them bleed and burn and die.

But Ariadne was still dumbstruck by Cobb's fire fury. She was so dumbstruck that it took Mal rushing forwards, pulling her arm back to strike with the speed of an aircrafter, the blade of her knife diamond-hard with her limited metalcrafting.

And Cobb did nothing to stop it, even though his fury was at the ready, willing to do his bidding. He just couldn't do it.

Ariadne was stabbed and fell to the ground dying as Cobb's projections stepped away from her, knowing that the threat was disabled.

Cobb, breathing hard from maintaining his crafting, sweating from the heat of the flames, watched as his dead wife calmly cleaned Ariadne's blood from the blade of her knife and smiled at him.

Or, more accurately, she smiled at the fiery tiger that still stood between them, surrounded by the corpses of Cobb's less fortunate projections.

She didn't reach out to the tiger, but she did coo at it, whispering lines of Blake to the elemental being, just like she did the first time Cobb was able to work the manifestation completely.

Before, she was eager to quote, "In what distant deeps or skies/ burnt the fire of thine eyes?/ On what wings did he aspire?/ What the hand, dare seize the fire?"

Now, she met Cobb's gaze over the burning beast and smiled. "She still burns brightly."

Cobb couldn't bring himself to say anything in response. He just couldn't.

He waved one hand, forcing the form of the tiger to disperse. It was gone.

Even though he'd wake with the idea that he could still smell the burning or feel the heat on his fingers.

Even though he'd still feel the burning touch of his fury if he tried to call on it topside.

He shook it off, eager to get back to reality.

When Cobb opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Arthur flying across the room.

Ariadne was on her feet, hands still clenched, her first punch having already been thrown.

Cobb's fingers itched to check his totem- spotting Mal in a dream was always enough to make him question his reality, whether or not he was dreaming. But, even with the strangeness of his reality, of his elemental abilities, the sight of Arthur calling his wind fury was enough to remind him that this was real. Fantastic, but real.

A powerful windcrafter, Arthur had graduated to a level that most never reached. Arthur's furies could manifest themselves outside of dreams- they were sometimes indistinct, but they were there…and if Cobb looked closely, he could see a large wolf racing along the wind stream, hurrying to Arthur's aid.

The wolf ripped through the room; it rustled the papers on Arthur's desk, it kicked up little spinning clouds of trash from outside, and surprised Ariadne by twisting her unbound hair into a tangled mess.

The fury rushed towards the point man and broke his fall. Arthur was cushioned like that for a moment before he controlled the wind stream, forcing himself upright and cutting it neatly so he landed on his feet from a height of a couple of feet in the air. The sound of his perfectly polished shoes hitting the warehouse floor rang in the emptiness of the warehouse. There was a rumbling growl from the fury that lingered at Arthur's side, but the point man placed one hand on the beast's head, calming it. After another moment, the fury was gone, dismissed without Arthur having to gesture or speak.

Arthur was good.

Cobb brushed a hand through his hair, smoothing back the snarled locks. If Cobb was capable of windcrafting like Arthur, he'd bother to slick his hair back more often.

Ariadne couldn't take her eyes off of the man she had just propelled across the room with a single punch- she didn't bother with her hair and only relaxed her pose slightly. It looked like the fight was draining out of her, gradually being replaced by the instinct of flight.

Cobb really, really hoped she wasn't going to run away.

He'd have trouble catching her without gaining a lot of unwanted attention from the people on the street, especially if she could call to her fury and ride the pavement like a raft to get away.

Arthur was smoothing his hands down his clothing and walking towards the girl that had attacked him.

"You're okay," Arthur was saying, gentling her. "You're fine. I'm fine. Even Cobb is fine."

"But, what was that?" She looked at her hands and then shook her head, hard. "What was that in the dream?"

She asked this of Cobb, waiting for him to say something.

"You already know a little about dreamshare. You upset my projections, you changed too much." Cobb cleared his throat, "And I let you because I wanted to see if you could fury-craft."

Her eyes narrowed and Cobb had a terrible moment when he thought that she would stomp over and start a fight. With her earthcrafter strength, she would rip him to pieces. He'd have to defend himself and he wasn't sure how he would begin to explain this to Miles.

Yes, Ariadne was wonderful, a great architect in the making. But, she's also an earthcrafter with a short-fuse.

And she had every right to be angry about what he did- he let her bait his projections, he had called his fury too late to rescue her from Mal. Cobb cringed to himself, remembering how unwilling he had been to burn up Mal…

"That's some subconscious you've got on you, Cobb. She's a real charmer!" Ariadne hissed at Cobb, not moving in his direction. Cobb shared a brief look with Arthur, whose face clearly said So, she met Mrs. Cobb?

Next, Ariadne turned to Arthur, cautioning him. "I don't know if you can't see what's going on here, but Cobb has some serious mental problems that he's trying to bury down there and I'm not just about to open my mind to someone like that!"

She was about to turn on her heel and walk out, but forced herself to stop, turn, and apologize to the point man.

"And I'm sorry I hit you."

Then she left, shrugging on her jacket as she walked through the door.

The second she left, Arthur pressed one hand against his chest, slowly releasing the metalcrafting that had increased his tolerance of pain. Cobb edged closer to him, watching as the pain began to show on Arthur's face.

"Did she break anything?"

Arthur grit his teeth and took shallow breaths. "There's throbbing, but I won't be able to tell for sure until I get into the water and try to heal."

"I'll get the basin."

It was the least he could do. It was the very least he could do for his point man, for his friend.

Arthur shook his head. "No, Cobb. I need full submersion- I need a tub."

It was clear that Arthur couldn't continue his work for today. The watercrafting he would soon perform would take a awhile and leave him sapped of energy. The point man's watercrafting skills weren't the best, but it allowed him to heal small injuries, to truth-find if he could maintain physical contact with his subject, and work some minor shape shifting that watercrafters were known for.

Arthur's youthful appearance despite his physical age was considered to be a typical sign of a moderate to strong watercrafter. But Arthur wasn't the best. Cobb knew who the best watercrafter was.

He was going to hire him, too.

"She'll come back," Cobb said as he abandoned the search for the basin and instead helped Arthur pack up. "Reality won't be enough for her. When she comes back, you'll have her building mazes."

Arthur snorted. "That's if she comes back."

Cobb was already planning ahead, where he was going to go next. "Feel better, wait for her to show up, I'm sure she'll show up. While you do that I'm going down to Mombasa for Eames."

Arthur was using his free hand to zip up his laptop case. He stopped mid-zip to give Cobb an incredulous look. "Mombasa? But that's Cobol's backyard." He started to work on closing his laptop case again. "There's plenty of good thieves, Cobb." Arthur winced a bit but finished zipping up the laptop case.

Cobb shook his head, already set on it. He took Arthur's laptop case and carried it for him.

"We don't need a thief. We need a forger."

Arthur was quiet, silently fuming over Cobb's insistence that they hire Eames, a skilled forger and gifted furycrafter. Or maybe Arthur was in more pain than he was letting on.

Together, they closed up the warehouse and went back to the hotel they had rented rooms from. Arthur was only willing to let Cobb carry his items into the room and then refused any more help.

He left Arthur alone to prepare for the healing, allowing him the privacy he'd need to perform the watercrafting. Arthur would want the solitude for what would happen after the crafting had been completed; weak and exhausted, all Arthur would want to do is lay in bed, watch terrible television, and order as much room-service as he needed to recover his strength.

Cobb left Arthur to his task and prepared to do his own. He needed to find his way to Mombasa.

He needed to find Eames.