1Rose's turn? No, not exactly..

Divide

From the Shadows

Jake sighed. He was laying on his bed, stomach down, and sideways. He felt pretty uptight and didn't know why. Something was wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He had that feeling since he heard Victor had returned to New York by reading it in the paper. His face in the paper was what did it, but he didn't know why.

"Maybe I'm just a little nervous. G did give me a personal introduction to his fists last time he was in town..."

He was going to think about it further, when he got a phone call on his cell phone. Yep. American Dragon was packing portable phone. He checked who it was from and answered when he saw it was Trixie.

"Yo, what's up?"

"Jake, turn the TV onto the news."

"Uh...you know I already know about that building crashing do-"

"MAN, JUST DO IT!"

"All right, all right, geez."

Jake picked up his remote and turned the TV on, flipping for the channel. He found it all right...

"ROSE!"

"Yeah, she's the LEAST messed up of those people that were in there. Police can't figure out why they were in there, but I'm thinking the Huntsclan got pancaked in there."

"Well now Gramps and I know why the building was attacked..."

"Whoa, it was ATTACKED?"

"Gramps says so. He said there's a lot of magic lingering there from it."

"Well, Spud and I can go check on Rose if you-"

"No thanks, I'll do it myself. See you later."

Jake hung up, then transformed into dragon form, heading to the window, when his cell phone went off again. He blinked, then answered it.

"Uh...hello?"

"Jake! YOU'RE LATE!"

Jake grimaced. Of all the times for a training day...

"But Gramps, I-"

"LATE IS LATE!"

"Whoa, chill G, lemme explain-"

"Explain at the shop! And it had better not be private time with a girl! You marry before you-"

"HEY! Geez! Gramps! No way! Chill! All right, I'll be there shortly, I have news you might want to hear anyway."

Jake hung up, then leapt out the window.

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"Nooooooooo!"

Veronica shrieked in defeat, limbs flailing...before bursting out laughing.

"See? I told you my automations can have a delicate touch."

Veronica was too busy laughing from the tickling assault she was getting from a mechanical...er...lizard...thing...whatever it was, Victor didn't skimp on details like how to make it's forked tongue feel, or programming behavior in it. Victor boasted earlier he could make even a machine about the size of a poodle highly adaptive and life-like. After some skepticism from Veronica...well, you see the results.

"S-s-s-stop! I get it! Heeheeheeeheee..."

Victor held up his hands, both open, in surrender.

"It's out of my hands, I didn't give that one a remote control. Who knew it'd tickle your neck?"

Veronica was still giggling, when she caught the robot, which squirmed as if alive.

"How do you manage this?"

"Pardon?"

"It's like a living creature."

Victor smirked, then sat back in his chair, hands interlocked in front of him.

"I spent a long time studying the physical functions of the brain. It wasn't too hard to mimic it's non-organic functions. I don't even see why other scientists are having troubles."

Veronica thought. This didn't seem like the Victor Lao Shi described. He seemed...nice...

"It's boring waiting for their call, isn't it?" She asked.

"Yes...bah...if pulling Latveria out of the Dark Ages weren't so important to me...bah..."

Neither were aware, that, once more, a cloaked figure watched them, as night fell upon the city, before they turned and left...

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"I assure you, while I did have some competition from Stacy's Department Store, I have more integrity than blasting the store into a smouldering crater."

"You mean the integrity that 'kept' you from stealing the gold from Leprechauns in the past? Even with the knowledge the prolonged time with no bad luck would have a possibly fatal repercussion when ended?"

Panderas muttered. This meeting with the Dragon Council was tedious to him. He knew as much about what happened as they did, but his known issues of "unsavory" business methods wasn't helping him shoo them off any faster.

"I'm sorry, but you've come to the wrong place to find anything. Now if you excuse me, I think we should head home before that storm outside makes the trip unpleasant."

One of the Dragon Council members arched an eyebrow, being in human form and all, and looked outside. The sky was dark, and there was lightning and thunder rumbling.

"That isn't a natural storm. The Weather Oracles said today would be clear and warm, with no rain."

Panderas thought on that, then went wide-eyed when he finally felt it. He didn't feel it before because he wasn't trying to, but there was a lot of magic building up outside. And the Dragon Council felt it too now. All of them got up and ran for the door, as a massive thunderbolt ripped through the office, incinerating wood, and melting steel, shattering glass, and singeing stone.

"Who's out there!" A woman in the council shouted over the thunderclap that followed.

"That was aimed right at us!" Panderas yelped, "We need to get out of here before that maniac hits us!"

They ran out of the destroyed office, and towards the "Express" elevator, which was in truth, magic powered. Only something struck Panderas down, making him scream. The Council looked back. His right shoulder had been impaled by some sort of 16 inch long shaft, somewhat metallic in color, but black otherwise. Kind of like a giant porcupine quill actually.

"What is that?"

"My arm! Gaaahhh!

A deep thud from the office, more felt than heard, shook their attention from Panderas to the door, which was ripped right off it's hinges, and thrown at them. The force knocked them all to the ground, as something stepped towards them...the cloaked figure...with light reflecting off of a monstrous, fanged grin...

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Jake sighed, and flopped to the roof, exhausted. Yes, he told Gramps what happened, but Gramps had assured him she would be well. He was still going to check on her later. Now, he wanted to sleep for a few days...until the thunder scared him awake.

"WHOA! It raining?"

"That...isn't right...look."

Grampa pointed to the skyscrapers some ways off, and Jake could see a dark cloud hanging over them, lightning blasting from them.

"Awww man..."

Shortly, Jake and Gramps were flying there to investigate. Jake would rather be sleeping, but he didn't want punishment training...again...so he went. Didn't take long to find what was hit and what the trouble was.

"Hey! The Dragon Council's in there!"

"Yes! We must hurry!"

They flew into the giant hole in the side of the top floor, and saw the cloaked figure holding Panderas off the ground with one arm. The shroud was tattered, frayed, faded, and singed. It's original color was undeterminable, now, just a light gray. Jake dove at him, while his back was turned.

"Dragon express, coming-"

Ching

"...up? Eep..."

The sound was caused by Jake's claws striking something like metal. The figure had spun around, dropping Panderas, and caught both of Jake's paws...with identical, but differently colored ones. Of scales, there were none, just steel gray. The claws were black, shining like metal. The hood had also fallen back a bit, and Jake gasped. Black mane, steel colored head with an odd mark on the right cheek. HIS head. Jake was looking at an evil double of himself...

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NOW what's going on? Don't look at me, I can't talk. I don't have a script for one, but I do promise that I have this planned.