Rooftops and Tunnels

A/N: When I suggested making Clay kind of Batman-like, Spadefire pretty much had a fit. I present to you, as Spade put it, "an amalgam of the two most beastest people ever to be beast." So, there you have it. I'm not sure I captured that, but I tried.

Tik, tik, tik. A young woman groaned and buried her head deeper in her pillow, short brown hair hiding her eyes. Tik, tik, tik. She yanked the blankets over her head, muttering angrily in a mishmash of languages. THUNK. With a jolt, her head shot up, and she stared out the window next to her bed. Nothing was there, and while most people would simply dismiss it as a bird and go back to sleep, she knew better. With an annoyed huff, she threw off the covers and strode to the window, yanking it up. After tugging on a pair of yellow-tinted goggles, she leaned out, upper half dangling four stories over the street, but she didn't seem to care.

"You have my attention." A rope fell down the side of the building, stopping right under her window. She groaned and rubbed her temples, murmuring something about killing the night owl. Then she grabbed the rope and shimmied up with a surprising ease. Once she made it to the top, she hauled herself over the side of the roof and turned to glare at the man who had sent the rope down. He had a cowboy hat and a trenchcoat that swirled around him, making him look as if he was standing in a patch of darkness. "Well?" the woman asked, crossing her arms. "You bring me up here at three AM and have nothing to say to me?"

"What are you planning?" he asked in a freezing voice like dry gravel, with a Southern kind of heaviness.

"It's not what I'm planning, Earthshaker," she said, glancing over the city. "It's what the Heylin are planning, and what I'm doing to stop them." Earthshaker raised an eyebrow behind the mask, and stepped closer.

"Since when have you ever cared about stoppin' them?" he asked, looking her in the eyes. "You've been on their payroll enough to not want 'em gone."

"And you've known where I am for years now, but you haven't turned me in," she replied, sneering.

"That's 'cause Ah know ya an' Ah know why ya steal. Takin' from the rich to give to the poor is great an' all, but this is different. Ya cain't just take museum artifacts an' expect me not to do something about it." The woman whirled around to face him, her face a mask of fury.

"Well, I do expect you to not do something! The Heylin need that, and you and the others can't protect it like I can!" She lowered her voice to a whisper after glancing around the rooftop, then turned and jabbed him in the chest. "Spicer's stolen from that vault of yours enough for me to doubt your security, and the museum won't do a better job. As it stands, I'm the only thing between the Heylin and the destruction of the city, maybe the world." Then she paused and closed her eyes for a moment. "When the sun goes black, and the moon blood red, and the stars fall from the sky, the word of God in the Bible says, we're living in the end times."

Earthshaker gently pushed her away and replied. "Okay. So why cain't you come to us? Whatever it is, the others can lissen an Ah can vouch for ya." The woman sighed and rubbed the back of her neck, trying to work out the stiffness that plagued it.

"That's 'cause I know you an' I know why you help. You guys are what keeps the Heylin Corporation from wiping out the lower classes, which is great. But the Heylin won't go against one of their own, no matter how much Chase and Wuya bribe or threaten, so that keeps me safe. And I can't tell you because I was in the right place at the wrong time, and when I found out about it, Wuya hexed me. I can't tell you what they're planning until after it's been set in motion. All I can say is that right now, you need to trust me and keep the others off my back until I can get the artifact out of the country and into safer hands." Earthshaker waited to reply, and for a moment, the woman was afraid he didn't believe her. But when he did, her fears were assuaged.

"… Alright. Ah'll do what Ah can. But Inque," he added, his tone turning somber, "if Ah find out ya lied t' me…"

"I've never lied to you before. Why start now?" The question was rhetorical, but it made the man crack a grim smile. Inque ran a hand through her hair and sighed, looking over the city. "Cathedral is my city just as much as it is yours, cowboy. I'll help the people that you can't, but I'm not gonna be a hero. It's just not in me."

Slowly, Earthshaker nodded. "Alright. That's all Ah wanted to know. Stay outta trouble, now." Inque laughed and climbed back into her window. "Stay outta trouble… and they say you have no sense of humor." Earthshaker rolled his eyes and retrieved his rope, heading back to his house.
Inque shut the window behind her, heaving a sigh as she removed her goggles. "Sometimes I wonder if it's worth the trouble," she muttered, tossing them onto her bedside table.

"You and me both." She jumped at the voice, and then turned to glare at the speaker. The man from before stood, leaning against the doorway and grinning. "Scare you?"

"No, no, I have heart attacks on a daily basis," Inque muttered, glowering at him. Then she sighed again and straightened up. "So. Any more info?"

"Nothing we didn't already know. Though they may have discovered some correlations between the egg and the other artifacts the Heylin are taking, they haven't even realized the importance of this one." Inque chuckled and rubbed her face, flopping onto the bed. The person in the doorway stepped into the room, light reflecting off of him. He appeared to be comprised of a black fluid that was continually shifting, but never drastically changing shape. That shape was one of a well-built man, the only visible features being two white eyes and a line for a mouth that opened into a vast whiteness when he spoke. "We'll go on as planned, then?"

"We will indeed, Scrawl. We're just gonna have to hope they won't find out about it themselves so they don't do anything stupid like try to find and steal back the egg. That could ruin everything." Inque yawned and pulled the covers over her head again. A muffled "G'night," came from under the sheets, and Scrawl gave a small smile. He went to sit in a chair by the desk adjacent to the bed, leaning back and closing his eyes. Soon, both of them were soundly asleep, unaware of the events transpiring above them. They should have stayed awake.

"Are we there yet?" Raimundo's words were snatched away by the gale-force winds leading him onwards, but not before the device in his hand caught them.

"Hey, you wanna find the talisman by yourself, be my guest. Tracking takes time, y'know," the thing said, and Raimundo rolled his eyes. What he held looked much like a PDA, but it was far more powerful. It was DOJO, the Dragon's very own Shen Gong Wu tracking device. It- or, rather, he- had been created Grandmaster Dashi, one of the first Dragons. And apparently, Dashi had gone a tad overboard with the artificial intelligence programming. DOJO had a real personality, as far as any of the Four were concerned- a snarky coward, but a protector as well. And a good friend, even if his jokes were almost as bad as Raimundo's. In any case, DOJO was incredibly helpful when it came to finding the Shen Gong Wu scattered throughout the city and world.

Though none of the Four Dragons would admit it, the Wu were what helped grant them their powers. They could control the elements without them, but the Wu helped keep them in control until they learned how to truly master them. Also, the Wu helped them do things they normally couldn't, like shrink or see through walls. So in the wrong hands, the Wu could cause chaos big-time. The majority of their battles had, in fact, been over the artifacts. Their most recurrent enemy was Jack Spicer, a sociopath with an inkling of a conscience. They also often faced the Heylin Corporation, a crime syndicate masquerading as a humanitarian organization coupled with an oil baron or two, headed by Chase Young, playboy billionaire CEO and weekend sorcerer/dragon creature, and his right-hand woman, Wuya, a cunning, backstabbing witch who, for whatever reason, Chase kept employed despite the multiple times she had gone against him. Aqueous rattled off some ancient proverb about enemies and ties, Blaze had said that they loved each other and evil people backstab those they love, and Earthshaker had ignored him and gone off to read or rope cattle or whatever it was he did when he vanished. Raimundo figured Chase wanted to keep his friends close and his enemies closer, but that was none of his business. Smashing Chase's face in every chance he could was.

"Two blocks left." Raimundo veered west and landed on top of a dilapidated apartment building.

"You sure this is the place, DOJO?" he asked, glancing around. The roof looked grungy and ready to collapse at any moment, and he could say the same for the rest of the building.

"You bet. It's a good hundred meters underneath you, though. So start digging." Raimundo put the handheld in his pocket and headed to the door that lead to the building's stairwell. Unsurprisingly, it was unlocked. He walked down, floating past the parts where the stairs looked less than safe, or where rats that were way too big to be rats were eating squirmy things. Suddenly, he felt a strong surge of thankfulness for his nice, clean, mutant-rat-free home. Then again, it might have been gas.

"Okay, this is the bottom floor. Where do I go from here?" he asked, pulling DOJO back out. He stood in the middle of what was once a lobby, with the reception desk missing it's right half and all the windows smashed. Glass and beer bottles littered the floor, as well as garbage and small animal bones. Luckily, it seemed to be devoid of rats of unusual size.

"Let's see… five feet north." Raimundo did so, stepping over a maggot-infested carcass. "Now ten feet east." He found himself at the reception desk. "Now do the Macarena!"

"DOJO, cut it out! I want to get outta here as soon as I can," Raimundo hissed, glancing around. He had just noticed the spiderwebs in every corner. Big ones. "Why is it that only the creepy-crawlies drink from the radioactive sewage? Why can't it be puppies? Cute, harmless puppies that get even cuter with the radiation? That's all I ask."

"Sure thing, champ. I have no idea what that means, but hey, why not." Raimundo rolled his eyes as the machine continued. "There should be a trapdoor of some kind in front of you."

"Dude, there's nothing here but a beat-up old…" Then it clicked. The reception desk was torn in half, hollow on the inside and made to look like it was just a nest for the rats and spiders. He could see that it disappeared into darkness, but it looked just like it stopped at the wall it was attached to. Nobody in his or her right mind would touch it, much less try and crawl into it. Noticing that there was, in fact, a tiny skull next to it, Raimundo shuddered and dropped down to his hands and knees. "If you're wrong about this, I'm gonna kill you."

"You can't. I'm a machine."

"You know what I mean."

Uh-oh. Where does the tunnel lead? Will Vento find what Inque stole? Is Inque lying to Earthshaker? Who is Inque? What is she planning? Can the Four Dragons stop it in time? Do they need to? Find out in the next installment of The Janus Dilemma! … And, honestly, we could really use title ideas. This one kind of stinks. Review!