Dangerous Deception

I'm so gonna die. – Red X

-t-h-i-e-f-

"Whales?"

The speaker gaped openly. The smell of hot coffee grounds bubbling into a hot beverage drip filled the warm, heated room of Jump's local docking office. The weather outside was indeed frightful, icy winds hurling sheets of ice and snow off the frothing, bay waters and in a thick coating against the side of the tiny building. Inside the office, the dispatcher, a thin, balding fellow with a wife and kids expecting him home for Christmas, poured the steaming pot and handed a mug to the frosty looking sailor who'd staggered off his battered, near crippled vessel only minutes earlier.

The man, thoroughly wrapped warmly in a thick wool blanket and heavy jacket, still shivered and chattered as he took the hot cup. Nodding in gratitude, he drank, cradling the liquid heat and absorbing the heat greedily. His trimmed beard hung thick with ice chunks and salt crystals, crusty grime clinging around the corners of eyes and mouth as he slowly warmed again.

The bookish dispatcher folded his arms, rumpling his once cleanly pressed dress shirt and sitting down on the jacket it came with, having draped it over the back of his seat. He leaned back in his desk seat, shocked. "That's incredible! They're rare around here and shy to boot. I can't believe they almost capsized your boat."

"The damage's so bad, I'll probably have t' get the entire hull refit. It's awful," mourned the shaggy mariner, looking downright miserable. "I don't know what provoked th' damn things. They just went nuts. I've never seen anything like it in my life, I swear, I thought they were gonna dump me in the bay."

"Tch…'mazing," the bookkeeper marveled. "Hey, since its Christmas and all…you can dock the boat free, until you get that ship to a proper warehouse for repairs."

The mariner looked about ready to kiss the man. "T-thanks," he chattered, trying to smile despite his shivering. "It means a lot. Thanks."

The dispatcher smiled benevolently. "No trouble. You just get yourself home and relax."

The two men chatted a while longer, baffled at the behavior of the local marine life and discussing Christmas plans, trips, business and such. The sailor, a one Marcus O'Neil, said his good-byes to the middling and scholarly chap and after shaking hands, he departed for the walkway, heading home. The dispatcher sighed and returned to his office, counting the hours until his shifted ended and he could return to his family and comfort of his own home.

"Christmas," he muttered resentfully. The man sighed yet again and removed his glasses, tossing them aside and leaving them to rest on the stack of docking records piled on his desk. "They should just close the docks on Christmas, far too dangerous in the winter anyway." He sighed and cupped his chin, staring out the window as the skies lightened, morning struggling to come.

And then…

"Hey there Mr. Peterson!"

"MY LORD IN HEAVEN!" screamed the poor booker, spinning in his swivel chair and upsetting all the docking records for the day, sending the charts, signatures and records flying in a mini paper blizzard. Sagged in his chair, he clutched at his thin chest, heart laboring furiously in his ribcage as sweat beaded across his polished forehead. He stared wide-eyed at his visitor, looking horrified, his dull brown eyes growing to dinner-plate proportions.

All the blood in his face retreated, stripping what little color he had from his face and leaving him ghost white. He squeaked, clutching the arms of his large well-worn seat in fear as the shadowy figure chuckled. Obscured in the gloom of the hallway where Peterson had failed to turn on unneeded lights, the unknown speaker watched the older man with dark amusement. Lithe, sinuously sure limbs carried the intruder from the wall he reclined against – how long he'd stood there undetected Peterson could only guess – and closed the distance between them in three long strides.

Red X planted a foot against the front of the man's chair and grinned, skull mask homicidally impish on his face.

"Merry Christmas old man," crowed the distorted tones of the terrifying criminal. "Letting the unfortunate have free docking? Gee, you must have something on your conscience. Drug trafficking perhaps? Lotsa off-the-record docking arrangements with the local crime lords? Anything to keep the wife and kids happy campers for Christmas, right?"

Mr. Peterson ground his teeth in rage, jaw-line muscles jumping, tendons standing clear of his pencil-ish neck. That delinquent! The miserable, little whelping bastard, so cocky and self-assured in his independence, what did he know about the workings of the underground? Why, a thief need only know who he sold his wares to and how much he gets paid. They didn't have to get deeply involved with his clientele. One exchange and they cut all ties from there.

A stupid, adolescent teenybopper of a bandit could and would never respect nor appreciate the delicate balance he'd found here. Pleasing the criminals and doing business with the legitimate citizens as a neutral means to the ends of all who came to him for his humble services.

"What do you want?" hissed the middle aged bookkeeper, seething. "Shouldn't you be picking pockets somewhere?"

"Ouch! That one hurt," X cried in mock injury. "Ooh well, I'll get over it!"

On the word 'it' the burglar kicked out his foot. Braced against the chair, his powerful blow sent his cultured companion rocketing backwards on the wheels of his swivel chair, screeching all the way. The man's chair crashed into his desk, nearly upending the heavy piece of furniture and the thin, well-dressed secretary with it. Instead, the man slumped in his seat, momentarily stunned.

Meanwhile, X crossed the floor and bent down to snatch up on of the docking records, shaking it straight and examining it closely. Peterson, eyes slightly crossed, held out a shaking hand in protest. Despite all his after hour of illicit behavior the man still felt a strange sense of self-importance in keeping his job and bong it right. Letting citizens – even criminal ones – read the docking charts didn't sit right with him. He had his pride.

"H-hey! You can't read those…" he protested weakly.

"Oh, go fly a kite, Peterson," X articulated, waving a gloved hand in dismissal.

The man fumed, enraged, and promised himself that his children would never grow to be so arrogant as this one. So help him, he'd find a way to teach this smug little street punk some real manners. Respect his elders the way young people should in the same way Brother Blood kept his students in check. Now there was a man who knew his way around this new generation. If only…

Peterson sighed dreamily to himself, envisioning a world where he finally got the respect he deserved. Where brats like Red X didn't wield the power simply because they had more muscle, more youthful agility or thieving smarts. He fantasized briefly; imagining that in such a world Red X would drop on bended knee and beg to be part of his growing little enterprise…

Not ridiculing him and making a fool of him every other night!

X didn't give him a chance to finish that thought and held up the stolen paper. "Hey, old man, pay attention. It's important. Now, have you been ferrying around any kidnapping jobs lately and tell the truth, I'd hate to feel our relationship wasn't totally honest."

Peterson glared. "No."

"And I thought we had connection," the burglar sighed… and hurled three razor-sharp 'X' shuriken into the back of the man's chair. The blades needled the cushion around the book-keeper's head. The man's complexion turned corpse colored and he uttered an inarticulate babbling sound as X grabbed lapels of rumpled dress-shirt and shoved him back into his seat.

"Now tell me who your Christmas paycheck writer is you slime-ball! Who is it?" He yanked him forward and shoved him back again, head bouncing off the back of the seat. "Blood? That's moron, Mumbo? Dr. What-ziz face? Well? Don't hold on me, he's kidnapped someone important and that's not proper holiday spirit."

Holiday spirit…right…

"I can't! He'll kill me, you drooling, meat-headed idiot!" Peterson screamed at his tormenter, anger getting the better of him despite everything. "Of course, a stupid, self-sufficient little brat like you would never know anything about-,"

X whipped his hand up, a thin folded strip of crimson metal between slender fingers. He jerked his wrist, flipping the weapon open like a switchblade, revealing yet another razor-sharp crisscross of deadly alloy. Peterson broke into a sweat, abandoning further dialogue to squeak momentarily in terror. X had always made threatening innuendoes, but never actually gone as far as … well, actually making the threat. The shuriken, the blade, his entire laid-back posture gone murderous, none of it held to X's usual demeanor. The young man's lean frame shook with barely suppressed rage, fury emanating from his body like heavy cologne.

Did he…actually have something to lose here?

"I know plenty about this business, you rat-bastard. Now tell me where Slade took his hostage or I swear I will take off an ear. Talk!"

Mr. Peterson – years of criminal activity working for him – knew when to take a threat seriously.

"Slade? It wasn't Slade!" the dispatcher squealed, eyes locked on the glinting, pointy angles of his attacker's weapon. "I swear! He's not the one who asked for my services! Blood did! It was Brother Blood!"

X obviously didn't like this answer because in response he slammed the high-backed chair back into the desk with a vengeance. Peterson cowered before the fury of the hot-headed youth thief, baffled by the burglar's rage. What did a hostage matter to a larcenist and why was Red X going though so much grief, trouble and unnecessary roughness just to get information?

"Why would Blood want your help?" X snarled.

He'd lost a lead of some sort and his frustration showed its fraying edges in his body language. The blade edge shimmered in the buzzing overhead lamp light, casting irregular and sinister shadows over the young man's skeletal features. For a horrible moment Peterson entertained thoughts of the Grim Reaper gone twenty-first century.

"The hostage!" he went on. "Does Blood have him now?"

"No! Wait, I don't know anything about that!" Peterson swore a flicker of hope waking in him, a chance to at least salvage one of his client's contracts with him. "Blood sent three of his students, a girl, pink hair, jester suit, large hairy fellow and an annoying little toddler with a metal backpack. She rented out one of our docking facilities in the fishing district, but I never saw any Atlantian!"

"I never said he was an Atlantian!"

"…shit."

"Damn straight you, scum. Look old man, I have two freakin' hours to get this done, you know something about the Atlantian and if you hold me back, I will hurt you."

The man didn't say anything for a long moment, simply hanging there in X's grip like a comatose, balding dummy. His watery eyes darted about, seeking an angle, a bluff, a scheme to get out this jam, but X's blade introduced itself gingerly to his Adam's Apple and the man's fragile principles of secrecy evaporated in a steamy, sweat-soaked haze of self-preservation.

"Okay, okay, you psychopathic little bastard!" roared the man, "They came back with a couple dolphins, okay? I heard Gizmo talk about 'bait for the fish-boy' and they left for the fishing warehouses. They must have kidnapped him then."

"And Slade?" Red X insisted.

"I don't know anything about Slade," spat Peterson.

A slight narrowing of the eyes and Peterson knew the thief – with good reason – didn't believe him. The man momentarily pondered exactly how he'd ever teach this delinquent some manners if he couldn't even think of a clever way to punish him for this indecency. His arrangement with Blood, forged under pretenses of secrecy and confidentiality, all went to hell if he leaked anything more about his transactions with Blood. This one kidnapping ploy was only the tip of a very, very, very large and nasty ice-burg and he didn't think Blood would appreciate it if his newest scheme fell into the lime-light too soon.

However, the burglar didn't seem interested. No, he wanted a connection to Slade, to the Atlantian boy – though a thief choosing to risk his life for the sake of collateral damage like a hostage seemed ridiculous to Peterson – and obviously a lead to the whereabouts of both.

But Peterson knew something X did not. Yesss…he could feel a plot coming on, one of his very own making, how exciting! Red X wanted Slade and the hostage and presumably the thief believed that the two came as a package deal: find one get the other free.

This, however, was not the case. Blood had the Atlantian now and Slade who'd collaborated with the man up until now…The light bulb flickered and clicked to life overhead, etching an evil kind of picture in the man's head. His villainous mind-set found the connection! The perfect plan to get X for all this pain and humiliation, to see the miserable little thief finally bite off more than he could chew and tangoing with a psychopath…

Peterson smiled inwardly, but outwardly huffed in anger.

"I heard them mention something said by their contact though, something about diamond mines and a 'skinny blonde girl' or something. Ring any bells? I hope not, because I dealt with the docking and the fishing boat. Nothing more."

X smiled beneath that bleached skull. "You sure about that, old man?"

"No, but I'm not telling you anything else. I activated the silent alarm and the police will be here momentarily," Peterson gloated. The thief looked deliciously startled, eyes darting to the little red button hidden beneath the desk and back to his captive, angry. Though Red X held the advantage in the criminal world, hanging the threat of the anonymous tip-off over his head, he could do nothing with the flatfoots point blank. Roles still stood as follows: Red X – highly wanted thief. Mr. Charles Peterson – dock dispatcher and family man.

In the public eye, Peterson was whistle clean.

The rogue might have reacted more violently to the trickery if he'd really cared, but he knew what Peterson knew and the cops' reaction time would prove grossly inadequate to stop Red X if the thief decided to beat the brains out of his skull, but the fact stood that the man had called. X paused in thought, probably considering whether or not to call his bluff and beat the living snot out of the skinny, balding crime trafficker.

"I'm taking your boat," the thief announced.

Snatching Peterson's keys off the desk he kicked said owner of the boat across the room, via: rolling desk-chair. The wheels whizzed across the planking, taking the bookkeeper with it at break-neck speed. Shrieking and cursing the young cat burglar all the way to the wall, Peterson's stream of oaths abruptly ended in a crash as he toppled into a bookshelf and sprawled on the uneven floor planks. He unearthed himself from the mountain of fallen paper and books, shaking a fist at the now empty room.

"You'd better not scratch it, you brat!"

-t-h-i-e-f-

Skinny blonde girl. Something about 'that one skinny blonde girl'. Diamond mines. Ring any bells? Well, to put it intelligently, appropriately and logically:

Hell, yes!

Red X gunned the throttle of the meager speedboat; engine roaring delightfully at the vessel rocketed across the choppy, ocean waters. The thief checked the speed gauge at a glance, decided he was probably going faster than the battered old thing had ever gone in its dull life and reasoned that thrashing this particular boat's ignition would not bother him at all.

Not like Mr. Charles Peterson ever used it for anything important.

X glanced skyward, noting the lighting of the skies and deduced he didn't have much time to make his move on Slade's hideout, which, he proudly gloated, he knew the location of. Heading east by water seemed like the most reasonable thing to do given his options…and just 'cause he really wanted to jack Peterson's ride. The scuzz-ball, twisted little sadist he was, allowed every kind of illicit and disgusting activity around his docks.

Not that X pretended to claim high morals, but some things really did disgust him and puffed-up power-hungry weaklings who organized human traffic and kidnappings did not sit well with the thief. But since everyone's gotta eat and the cowardly little slime didn't actually partake in the activities, the dispatcher got off with only the occasional roughness whenever X needed a snitch…voluntary or not.

Well, X thought as he killed the engine, letting the boat glide soundlessly ashore and beaching with a gentle bump in the sands, I got my lead and now that the easy part's outta the way I have to pull the single most dangerous stunt I've ever worked up the brass to attempt – big emphasis on attempt here – and somehow get out of this in relatively one piece.

The thief leapt up the side of a steep embankment, hopping nimbly from rock to rock and scaling the sheer precipice overhanging the sandy stretch of beach below. The rock beneath his hands looked new and recently formed, as if by a magma spill less than a year previous.

"I'm so gonna die," Red X muttered to himself.

Boosting himself over the lip of the cliff and studied his surroundings with a somber kind of resignation. From here he could make out a subtle yawning tunnel, the entry-way to the old mining excavations. The cat-burglar crouched at the edge of the high drop-off and looked up toward the still bright moon, wondering despite himself if his entire plan might go 'boom' before he even realized it could.

"I hope Selina did her job," the young man added under his breath and tapped the centre notch of his belt.

Zynothium energy hummed through the familiar weight of the device and a comfortable warmth spread instantly through the hidden circuits of the suit. He bounced on the balls of his feet, thinking momentarily, envisioning his next move and cracking of his knuckles individually, counting them silently as he did. Shaking a kink out of his right hand, the burglar tapped it a second time to activate the vibo-portation tech.

With a buzzing flutter, like flurry of dragon-fly wings, his figure shivered and vanished from sight.

-t-h-i-e-f-

Words to describe Slade's hideout: Gritty, dirty, muddy, dank, depressing, smelly, dark, wet, creepy, weird, disturbing, soggy, cold, eerie – Boink! Ouch! Damn stalactite – err – stalagmite or … whatever they call the things that smack you in the head while you're wondering blindly in the dark. Grr…die stalagmite of doom! Smack! Ha! That'll teach you!

Red X paused a moment and considered that he'd just slapped a rock formation and basically proved no intelligent life lived on planet earth. Not sure whether to feel more annoyed with himself or the stalacti-a-thingy, he shook out his numb fingers and used the offending spike of cavern stone as a kind of handhold. Using the very dim light as his guide, he moved around to boost himself over a difficult niche between two rocks. Once squeezed betwixt the stone, he climbed upward, spider-man style and pulled himself over the top of the rock face.

No. He decided that his annoyance made more sense when directed at the stalactite (stalagmite?). After all, was it not the rock that had brained him silly in the first place? Therefore all his resulting stupidity could be directly attributed to the concussion he'd just received from the rocks he currently navigated. Eat that Einstein.

Boink!

"Ow! Dammit!"

Red X, bruised and muddy as he'd become felt he'd done rather well considering. Upon entering the mining shafts the young thief had quickly discovered that whatever light had once made this place bright had long since shattered under the incredible heat of a near eruption. X didn't know the exact details of the blast, save what he'd derived from broken conversations he'd 'overheard' from the Titans.

A girl named Terra who'd once terrorized Jump City. X remembered watching her and Slade thousands of drones, like a malevolent marching band on parade, following the girl silently, unstoppable, through the deserted city streets. The thief had crouched in an adjacent building as the teenaged girl drifted by, standing like a soldier, chest out, arms back, atop a levitated chunk of concrete. Ripped out from beneath the Titans' feet no doubt. X recalled that by now the news of the Titan's demise had affectively brought the city to its knees.

Even as a breaker of the law, X could feel the oppressive shroud as it choked hope from the metropolis, smoothing life and bravery until none remained. The people cleared out and pretty soon, only people like X remained. Watching, silently, because people like X simply couldn't miss out on incredible things that ordinary people run screaming from.

He remembered watching her as she passed, so close he could have reached out tugged on a wisp of her long pale hair. He'd even considered it, if only to see the look of shock in her huge blue eyes as some dark weirdo in a skull mask yanked her hair. The hair of the single most powerful being in Jump City, thank you very much. The cat-burglar fancied that her shock would have given him ample time to make his get-away, but then again those drones could follow someone for miles on end and a virtual army of them chasing his ass through a deserted city didn't sound like jolly good time in his book.

She'd died here. X felt he could say that safely. She'd died in this mine as a result of Slade's influence over her.

"It was fun," he'd heard her mutter.

It was fun…

Red X shuddered and wondered what kind of person Slade could sculpt even the most gentle seeming of individuals into. Terra, from what the Titans had said that odd day he'd overhead them – the situation of this eavesdropping had proved incredibly uncomfortable for the thief, but informative nonetheless and certainly a tale for another time. Not right now – had been a very agreeable, independent kind of girl, one who's only occupation in life was living for herself and helping others along the way.

Not a killer. Not a traitor. Slade had made her that way, or at least brought out her worst and well-hidden flaws. Red didn't deny where that placed him. His personality was the single most haphazard, slapped together, stitched and patched piece of work he'd ever evaluated. Terra had been a kind and loving person, a normal girl with insecurities and love of pizza.

X was…not.

He was a criminal, almost of the same cloth as Slade. He didn't have his justice, his morals or his friends to keep him going. If Slade could turn Terra, a girl who'd nearly joined the Titans, how much easier would turning a neurotic, selfish, kleptomaniac in a jumped up battle suit be to a master manipulator such as Slade. X couldn't even deny that Slade had chosen well in his target. Red X didn't have people who cared about him enough to try to save him if he botched his endeavor. He knew that if he failed…

He wouldn't be Bannon anymore…he doubted he'd even be Red X when Slade finished with him.

"It's supposed to be complicated," X muttered, reminding himself.

He descended a long, empty tunnel of slick stone, sliding his hand along the cold granite, feeling the dampness of the winter chill. Nimble fingers felt out the rough lining of the cave wall. X held up his hand and could make out the vague outline just barely in the darkness. He reasoned either his eyes had slowly adjusted to the dark or some kind of light illuminated the cavern that this tunnel fed out into.

Red gnawed his lip carefully, counting every step his took. He'd reached about six-hundred-fifty-five; he guessed his seven hundredth step would probably see him inside the cavern. X clenched his fists and felt the reassuring hum of zynothium buzzing through his fingers. He steadied himself like he would before a major heist, closing his eyes and counting his every heart-beat for about five seconds…

Then he entered the cavern.

He hadn't really been expecting anything fantastic, such as an explosion, or blind, closed-fisted assault of massive proportions, but he had expected…something. What he got: a big empty cavern with a tiny inkling of light issuing from a crack in the ceiling overhead. X breathed, loosing the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and examined the gigantic cave. The opening overhead allowed a long, pale beam of moon light stream into the otherwise gloomy cavern, illuminating a long sidewalk sized path and a steep drop off to both sides.

In the centre of the chamber, a narrow platform, slightly elevated above the rest of the rock path, seemed to radiate some kind of…presence. Mesmerized, the burglar moved warily down the long walkway, tense, senses strung out for any possible threat. The moonlight fluctuated as if a cloud had moved and a flurry of snow swooped into to chamber and momentarily obscured the burglar's view. He squinted through the mini-blizzard and lifted an arm to shield his face from the sudden gust.

Then the moonlight poured freely into the chamber and hit the mysterious figure. X sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth and his heart rocketed a quick flying kick against the back of his sternum.

It was Terra.

-t-h-i-e-f-

Author's Note: Oh darn. I lied. No action what so ever, but I swear to have action in the next chapter! Cross my heart and hope to die…kind of. For all the people who are confused, remember that Red X can only draw conclusions and thought Terra was dead. Finding her statue in here would be a big shocker for him. Sorry it's not very exciting. I'll try harder. Peace!