Fate Strafe

Prologue: Clockmaker

Two years. Jack Spicer had been missing, without a single trace, for two years.

Twenty four months of training, twenty four months of gaining Shen Gong Wu and no sight of the pale antagonist, twenty four months of fighting evil in which the laughing and jeering of the young man was absent.

Regretfully absent, Clay had to admit. What were the monks without a peer villain? A rival? Even though he had been oh so very annoying, a failure, and a no-good cheating anarchist of the worst kind, there were some things that the Dragon of Earth didn't miss that the optimist in him just had to find. No matter the ridicule, no matter the failures, betrayals, complications, no matter the thousands of times Heylin and Xiaolin alike had told him he'd never make it, Jack would always bounce back and return. Not only that, but he would return with the same grin and the same ideals and the same ego, seemingly unscathed and undamaged. The Kung Fu Cowboy just had to give Jack props for that; he knew that a lot of people would have just given up by now.

Is that what Jack had done? Was that why he was gone? That was the trouble. Two years and neither hair nor hide of the self-proclaimed prodigy had shown up, and that was incredibly notable, considering how brightly colored and contrasted the boy was. That plus the fact that he was obnoxiously loud, and he would be impossible to miss. The ego on that boy was impressive too… Jack Spicer wouldn't go down without a fight (no matter how short or futile it was or if he gave up in the middle) or at the very least a big, flashy show.

That was something that Clay sincerely missed. No matter how much he cursed the varmint, the kid was still the same age as they were, and rivalry and competition made things fun. And if what he had found about Dashi was true so far, Clay knew that the Grand Master would be rolling in his grave if there was little fun left in his world-saving business anymore.

So what had happened to their one-time rival? Where does one go when they disappear to obscurity? Clay was determined to dig whatever he could up on the subject, no matter how the others protested…

It just wasn't right to have the varmint missing for so long.

Metal on metal makes a great grind, a singing noise that echoes among the buildings and skyscrapers and parked cars. The air in the city hummed with rubber-on-concrete songs and metal-on-metal songs and motor-echoes and car horns and even the song of the voices and arguing of people. With or without a tune, it was a song, a kind of deep urban poetry that vibrated through the air, almost tangible with its summertime smoggy pinkish haze.

The sun was setting. And as it set neon leaked into the humming air and crept forth to awaken those who roamed the dark paths of the city at night. Up a skyscraper, high, deep in a luxurious loft-apartment, one of the night's children was stirring slowly from his day of sleep…

SKREET SKREET SKREET SKREET. The disconcerting sound of an alarm clock went off and was quickly followed by an equally loud clattering, banging and apparent smashing that cut off the grating shrill of the alarm. So much for easing out of sleep. Towering above the ruined digital clock a young man protested at nothing in general, yelling at the clock for interrupting his rest and waving the wrench he had used to murder it around threateningly. Red eyes glinted in the lights of so many electric fixtures; lava-lamps, plasma globes and other gaudy retro-decorative accessories, and a slow, snakebite-pierced grin crept across his face.

Laughing, he wiped a few strands of red hair out of his face. This strange laughter, seemingly unprovoked but hardly mirthless, continued for quite a while until the man was doubled over on the floor.

Two years. Two years after secretly moving with his parents to protect their business, two years after he was hidden away, two years after he had joined a less-than-savory group of punk inventors.

Two years, six hundred and seventy days since Jack Spicer had dropped off the Heylin map.

Six hundred and seventy days of some of the hardest, and most painful events of his life. No, Jack was never one to angst about things, and this was hardly angsting. This pain had been physical, but never more worth it. The mosh pits, skating accidents, faction brawls and inevitable accidents that had come with hanging out with a group of half-brilliant miscreants in the back-streets of the city Jack could now proudly call his own had changed him.

Dim, flickering artificial light and the dusk-mixed neon of the city below his enormous loft windows seemed to catch in his pail, bruise-speckled skin and was held prisoner, his hair's unnatural red starting to show up under the black light. His frame, shaking with the last of the laughing fit, straightened out as he stood before the large, triangular windows that overlooked his kingdom. Headlights, taillights, billboards, the lights of a thousand business cubicles, fluorescent advertisements with loud colors and even louder words all came on and reflected from the darkening clouds in the sky. None but a few of the bravest stars dared show their faces over the City, and a thin, waning moon hung over a radio tower.

Not just any Radio Tower. Anarchy Tower, home to the Arsonistas. Jack's chosen crew of generally bad-assed punks, inventors, gadget-makers, fighters, thieves… a syndicate of young criminals living in the shadow of freedom.

Jack scratched at a blood-dappled bandage wrapped around the upper part of his left arm. His mom would have complained about him being in such terrible condition… If he had given her a chance to see himself in this state, she would have. But he just didn't see that happening. Not anymore. He had been a late bloomer as it was, and when at last he had grown up, he saw it was a bit late to fix the damage his sheltered childhood had done him.

He was always afraid because no one bothered to tell him ABOUT what he was afraid of. That pain was temporary. No one had ever told him what the REAL world was like. So, in the midst of his "hiding" from family enemies, he began to sneak out. He began to slowly show himself what his mother had tried to hide him from.

The rest of the past few years was a blur, contrasted by the sharp reminders, scars, shimmering against his duller undamaged white skin. Mosh pits, brawls, energy drinks, running wild, becoming something that he had always he had been told he couldn't.

He left the window with a subtle sass to his walk, he turned his back on that portal to the outside world in much the same motions as a cat turning its back on the owner that had just been petting it kindly. As if both he and the window knew…. He'd be back.

Picking up a pad of paper and one of his mechanical pencils. He had built the simple machine himself to ward off the creeping ennui that seemed to threaten him daily, or at least on the days that he had no choice but to stay at home and play the innocent, well-bahaved son. Scribbling a quick note, and an appology, Jack threw it on his bed nd began to collect some of his things that he had not yet packed... as in, his clothes and a few beloved personal items. And snacks. There's no way he would make it without those.

Stepping into his closet, a glint of light caught his eye, and his red pupil dialated in abject terror before he kicked into the darkness, unplugging some wires and in the proscess tripping over, falling onto whatever he had attacked.

The body of a young man, white-haired and covered in visible electric diodes and wires, the fake flesh-softness of nano-machine cells beneath Jack only added to his sudden frenzy of almost comical terror. The crimson glow came from a metal-plate, apparently an eye...

Screaming, Jack unplugged a few mored wired and kicked the machine to rolling deeper into the closet. What had scared him so bad was not the realistic quality he had been able to give to this project's body, but the fact that it had not been plugged in before, and it was now warm from electricity and yet the mere touch of the false skin made Jack cringe. He threw clothes over it, and breathing heavily stared for a few moments before slamming the closet door and walking briskly, duffel-bag slung over his shoulder, to the hangar where he kept his Speeder Jet.

Time to get back in the game...