What happened

Darien had the day off from work, and he was fully planning on taking advantage of his free time. The endless string of petty crime and minor break-ins he kept being assigned to were threatning to drive him nutty. He missed having a challenge. That was why he took up thieving in the first place - for the thrill, having the only thing between freedom and doing time being good luck and his own skill. Even his time at the Agency hadn't been boring. In fact, it had been anything but boring. This whole being-a-detective thing? It was like the desk job version of being an agent. The DeCosta case was the most fun he had in a long time, even if he had ran into one of those 'superheroes' the papers were always going on about.

But, you know what? Today was officially for goofing off. He didn't want to think about work, or the Agency, or anything at all. Darien had intended on walking around the City some so he'd know where more stuff was, and this was the perfect opportunity. For once, he didn't care about where the shifting streets might lead him.

He sucked noisily on the cappuccino smoothie he had bought earlier, looking through the metal bars of the fence he was strolling past. The City Park lay beyond it, looking like just about every other big-city park he had ever seen, except for the fact that it didn't have very many people wandering around. Maybe they knew something that he didn't.

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Darien's latest case was a murder. From the surface, it had looked like a grudge killing. Eddie DeCosta was found stabbed in the back behind a grocery store, the knife still sticking out of him. There were no prints on the handle, it was a common type of kitchen knife, and there were no footprints around the body thanks to the asphalt. The victim had an ex-wife that looked like the type that might kill, but Dairen wasn't convinced.

DeCosta also had some connections to a known drug dealer here in the City, and unless he missed his guess, that was probably a lot closer to the truth. George Kellner was a small-fry compared to the other dealers, but still big enough to do something like take out a hit. The problem was that Darien didn't have enough solid proof on his hands to get a warrant, and he wasn't friendly enough with anyone to pull some influence.

Lacking a warrant wasn't going to stop Darien. Not when he had the skills to get the evidence he needed himself.

After some snooping around, he heard a rumor that DeCosta had debts towards Kellner. Not the sort of thing you can work off with two part-time jobs. Kellner owned a house in an upper-class neighborhood, a house which he was only at every other night. Staking out the place had arguably been the most boring part, but also left him with a buzz of anticipation. It had been too long since he had done this. Even if it was just some two-bit dealer's house, he felt the same excitement that he did every time. This was why he had become a thief.

He picked a night when Kellner wasn't home and paid his house a visit. Darien was clad in black clothing, a black beanie over his head and a backpack of supplies along with him. He didn't have anything high-tech, but he doubted he'd need it.

Sure enough, the burglar alarm was an electric eye one, fairly common and all too easy for him to bypass. The back door had three trancievers all up and down the door frame, but the door itself also swung inward. Pulling his lockpicks from his pocket, he directed a flow of Quicksilver over his lower arms, waiting a half-second for it to fade from silver to invisibility. Darien picked the lock without a peep from the alarm system, pocketing the lockpicks again before going completely invisible. The door swung open, and he was in.

That had been way too easy.

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Characters: Jennie, Darien
Summary: Jennie does laundry and runs into one of her more interesting neighbors...

Another long week was just beginning. Unfortunately, last week had been so hectic that Jennie had completely neglected the growing pile of laundry at the foot of her bed. It was a good thing she had a lot of clothes-though the laundry was completely spilling out of her wicker hamper, she still had yet to run out of clean underwear.

Even so, if she didn't do laundry soon, she would have to take to borrowing clothes from her shoots, she thought with a wry smile. Not exactly something she was keen to do, as most of the photo shoots featured over the top, extreme fashions.

And so, she trudged down to the elevator, taking it down to the basement, juggling her hamper and two baskets, cheating a little bit with her abilities to help balance the large load.

Once the elevator let out into the basement, she took to sorting her clothing into lights, darks, delicates, etc, trying not to notice the overwhelming silence, punctured only by the whir of the machines.

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Darien wasn't in the best of moods today. His bad moods were never very random, and when they happened, he took a sort of perverse pleasure in being angry. It was catharic to lash out - though if he tried doing that to what he was upset at right now, well, he'd be fired faster than you could snap your fingers.

Not half an hour after he had gotten to the station today, he had been called to a crime scene. There at been a burglary at someone's home, they had woken up to find their things missing, and called the police. It all seemed pretty normal, when he had first gotten there. But then he had gone in to find that the cops called to the scene hadn't been careful. They had been messing with the safe the items were taken from, had trampled all over the floor and outside the house - they hadn't even waited for Darien to get there first, or even for a crime scene photographer.

He might have been a rookie when it came to working for the police, but even he knew that they weren't likely to find any decent evidence now. Oh, and he had complained about it, too. Darien had talked to the cops had taken the call, and when he pointed out that they had pretty much destroyed their chances for finding the thief, they had just brushed him off with claims that they weren't likely to find the guy, anyway. Darien had called up one of the lieutenants, then, to inform him of the incompetence going on. All he had gotten for his trouble was being blown off and a few vague threats along the lines of 'if you don't stick to doing your job, you'll be doing paperwork for the rest of your life'.

That had made it pretty clear that, whatever was stolen, someone in the force didn't want it found. He had taken notes on what he did find, which hadn't been much, and made sure that the forensic guys (who had showed up late) would send him records of the fingerprints they found. There hadn't been much else he could do, not without pushing it, and he knew better than that.

Darien had never felt more thankful for the lunch break in his entire life. Getting far away from the station wasn't hard, thanks to the shifting streets. He was going to go back when the break was over (even if he was sorely tempted to not return), but in the meantime, he had plans to take out his aggression on some food. Maybe a cheeseburger.

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Fawkes, Darien. The only officer willing to go on record in regards to the Valerio case. She wasn't entirely familiar with the inner workings of the City's underworld, but she had experienced enough to know that Valerio was well-connected, and a threat that needed to be eliminated.

Very well-connected.

Somehow, there were no records of any other cases connected with Valerio, and no other officers willing to take the stand as witnesses in regards to the drug trafficking bust from a few months back. She had immediately been assigned the case when she'd taken on the job as Prosecuting attorney for the City. She supposed they'd hoped that the new girl would give up after the lack of evidence, and take the heat for not seeing it through.

They had thought wrong.

She knew the drug trafficking was merely the tip of the iceberg. She also knew the bust had been on the assumption that it was a disorganized band of thugs, and not the crime kingpin of the City.

She also knew that pursuing this meant risking certain things.

She was more than ready to take that risk, however.

And clearly, there was still at least one cop who wasn't entirely corrupt in the City, and he was going to help her. She would try asking nicely at first.

After receiving very little direction from the rest of the officers in the department, she found her way to an office at the end of a very dimly lit hallway. She stopped just outside the dingy door with the slightly askew nameplate, reading "Fawkes." Mentally, she reviewed the case details. Apparently, Detective Fawkes had been MIA for the last few weeks. Something about memory loss. He was back now, however, which, to her, signified a return of memory.

She raised her hand and knocked on the door-two short, determined raps.

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Darien's phone had stopped ringing a few days ago. He was pretty thankful for it - who wanted a wakeup call when they were trying to sleep in? Not to mention the fact that whoever-it-was had been persistent, which sort of bothered him. At least now it was one less thing to worry about.

He had been sitting at the table in his apartment, reading a book - Harry Potter and Philosophy, one he hadn't been able to resist picking up - when there was a knock at the door. "Coming," he said distractedly, putting the book down spine-side up. Darien headed over to the door, and opened it without thinking to look through the peephole first, which was perhaps a bit of a mistake.
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The two of them had left Darien's apartment, and walked down a few of the changing streets before finding a pizza place nestled in a small shopping center. It was one of those places that looked like it was a chain restaurant, decorated in bright colors and complete with a cheesy Italian mascot. As far as he was concerned, it was a lot better than being out on the street in the perpetual cloudy weather, glaring colors notwithstanding.

"Here we are," he said as they went up to the entrance, holding the door open for Harley. It felt like it was warmer inside the place, too, which was an added plus. "You said something about getting meat lover's earlier?" Darien, through some stroke of bad luck, hadn't noticed the flare gun she had in her pocket. He was currently oblivious to the fact that she might be planning something. He just hadn't considered it, really.

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There was nothing like a little home-made napalm to blow someone's apartment door right open. Harley skipped inside, singing. "And heeeeeeeeere's Harley." She tossed her newly acquired bag of tricks onto a nearby chair and moved into the kitchen to make some java. It was only good manners to make a man coffee when you'd just busted down his door. "Yoohoo, Mr. Invisible Man ? You home ?"

He should have been, she'd followed him after that meet up with Little Boy Green. Finding Red was a priority, but who resisted the lure of an Invisible Man ? You'd have to be catatonic.

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After his first day in the City, Darien had gone back to his apartment and slept, hoping that he'd wake up and be back in San Digeo. It hadn't worked, of course. Maybe he should've clicked his heels together and asked really nicely.

He had been awoken by the telephone ringing. Though he wasn't unused to that happening, he hadn't been able to stumble out of bed fast enough to reach the phone before the answering machine kicked in. There had been an unfamiliar voice on the line, asking where Darien was and why he hadn't came into work today, and did he really want the boss mad at him again?

Darien had stood by the phone until the machine turned off. That wasn't like his wakeup call would be if it had been the Agency. He didn't know what sort of job he was supposed to have, and right now, it was the least of his worries anyway.

He had ventured back outside that day, taking in the unfamiliar sights and trying to get used to navigating the streets. By some sort of miracle, he had made it back to his apartment before the shootings started. Some of it had scattered over into his street, but Darien had done like any other normal person would and huddled up in his kitchenette, safely out of the path of any windows.

Now on his third day, he slept through the next message on his answering machine, and left his apartment again.

Darien thought he had gotten at least a little used to the shifting streets yesterday, he really had. What little skill he might've picked up seemed gone today. They just kept changing on him, skipping from streets full of shops to residental districts to distinctly run-down looking areas. At one point, he took a shortcut through an open alley in desperation, trying to hurry before the streets changed on him again.

Then he heard footsteps behind him, and the unmistakeable sound of a gun being cocked.

"Hold it. Turn around, slow-like."

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An author said, all those who wander are not always lost.

For Ted, however, this was not true. Rather, he was lost and uncertain. He had always thought fantasy fiction in general was less than appealing to him. As a requisite of his youth, he attempted to read Lord of the Rings at the tender age of 12 and dropped it in favor of a science magazine he found while waiting for the doctor. And that brought a new world of possibilities.

He wasn't finding much, to use with those possibilities with. The section of the city he was in did house random items, some of which did pique his interest, but not enough to be useful. He'd have to find lighter fuel, among other things, to make something serviceable. He also found that traveling in a blue costume was not ideal for him, as earlier stated by the 'gentleman' he had words with. "Point of view Ted, point of view..." Blue Beetle grumbled to himself, long since pulling the goggles and cowl over is head.

He was avoiding logics on his existence, why he was still breathing, why he was still walking. And trying to find some means to get shelter or a clean set of clothing provided suitable distraction.

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Darien had taken great pains to sleep in late and take his time getting ready. It would be his first full day at the Agency going by his rules, and he was going to take advantage of it. He was out of bed at nine, dressed by nine-thirty, then lingered over a breakfast of cereal before pulling on his leather jacket and leaving his apartment close to ten. On his way down the stairs, he snuck a look at the tattoo on his wrist, pleased to see the green snake there. It had been green for a few days now, with no signs of changing.

Today was going to be a good day.

Striding through the lobby of his apartment building, he pushed open the glass doors, fully expecting to emerge into the bright Californian sunshine... and stepping out into a downpour instead.

He sputtered for a moment before having the sense to back against the apartment building, in a spot where he'd get rained on slightly less. What the hell? It had just been sunny. He saw it. Since when did San Diego get freak thunderstorms?

It was then that he realized that the Starbucks across the street was gone. That one office building was gone, too. It was just another apartment complex, one that he hadn't seen before. Confused, he stepped back out into the rain to get a good look down the street. He didn't recognize any of it, mostly because this wasn't his street.

Of course. He had been right about San Diego not getting freak thunderstorms.

"Aw, crap..."

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