Hello all, new fic for you.

This is a lot different than normal, but I was intrigued by the premise. Strange conversations that prompt my brain to go off into varying degrees of normalcy and strangeness.

I hope at least you get some intrigue happening.

This isn't exactly a crack!fic, well, no it's not, but it's definitely different. I'd go so far as to say AU but then again it's not. AND I can't give away all my secrets so, it's up to you how much you want to continue with this :)

SLIP

It was always dark in the beginning.

He didn't know why.

Nothing existed when he wasn't there, sometimes days, months, moments, anything could pass. Time would skip and jump - demented hopscotch - but nothing really new happened while he was away.

It was if the world merely ceased to exist when he wasn't there.

He didn't know why.

What he did know was that he was Kimball Cho, Agent in Charge of the Serious Crimes Unit of San Realisto's law enforcement. And by Serious Crimes, he meant the unexplained ones. The ones were the government didn't really want the public to know who was truly involved.

It was a national secret.

Even he didn't truly know all the particulars. But he had been specifically chosen and assigned to this post. It was his job to either uncover or catch the two most devious and talented criminals in the country.

The Inscrutable and Sylph.

Bonnie and Clyde they were not.

Cho was quite sure they didn't work together, in fact, he was quite sure they hated each other.

Sometimes.

Most of the time.

From what he understood…

Van Pelt and Rigsby watched their Boss pace in his office.

Cho did not pace.

Something was up.

They looked at each other in preparation. One of them was going to have to inquire. Cho didn't like to talk about what was going on in his mind, he was solitary, the only reason they had lasted so long on his team was because they had each other – in every sense of the word.

Cho knew, he just didn't care, as long as they did their job, it was fine.

Their little team had been assigned one job, one case.

Find, uncover, retrieve, kill, maim – whatever – STOP The Inscrutable and Sylph.

They were criminal masterminds. Each working over the city in their own fashion.

The Inscrutable and Sylph had appeared four years ago for the country, four months ago for their city; at first San Realisto had believed that the criminal duo were simply hell-bent on taking over the city. But witnesses began to note the differences in their operations (if you could call them that).

Sylph was spectral almost. You never saw him. He was like the wind, a ghost, a wisp of air. Mercurial and mysterious, most of the time appearing to actually help people.

The Inscrutable was different, harsher, manic. Riddles, games and jokes, Cho likened him to The Joker (in times of quiet reflection); he envisioned a purple suit, clay face, maniac-smile, deck of cards dripping in blood – chaos for its own sake. But he too was, on occasion, known to effect change for the good, the good of an individual.

The Inscrutable and Sylph were different; unknowable, all-knowing sometimes it seemed. But that didn't deter Cho, it was his quest to stop them, and stop them he would. But first he had to catch them, or stumble over them, as had happened before.

He just needed a place to start.

They couldn't not know about him. His position had been blared throughout the papers over three months ago, when his team had been specifically created to combat the growing darkness in sunny San Realisto.

The last time he had been close to The Inscrutable, it had been obvious the man was adept at escapism and misdirection. No special powers, they weren't dealing with superheroes, merely illusion and deception. Of course, The Inscrutable was an enigma; dangerous and insightful. Van Pelt had been in tears near the end. She hadn't been hurt, hadn't even been anywhere near the criminal. But he was whispering to her across a curved wall. One of those weird acoustic phenomenon things, only she could hear him.

Murmuring acidic truths into her ear; Rigsby had been furious, to this day she won't tell of what he spoke.

Trust The Inscrutable to find the only parabolic acoustic whispering wall in the entire state.

He expressed regret after wards.

A cold, lifeless almost-apology echoing across the police radios; as if someone was forcing him. They'd changed their default station after that, not that anyone expected it to truly have an effect. But it would have felt even more useless to do nothing.

The thing Cho didn't understand; was why The Inscrutable and Sylph were in San Realisto. Where had they been before? And what were they trying to achieve now? They'd been deemed criminals, but what crimes had they actually committed?

He knew the lists by heart, the rap-sheets that had been created but could never be processed because the two had never been arrested. They were full of petty crimes mostly: trespassing, some thievery, information accessing (but any two-bit hacker could accomplish what they had), and a propensity for being the wrong place at the right time. The amount of police reports stating arrival at a crime scene to find The Inscrutable or Sylph (sometimes both) fleeing the scene was becoming laughably common.

They had never killed, maimed, shot at, threatened (well, The Inscrutable had but usually it turned out that the unfathomable figure's assumptions had been correct), strong-armed or grievously broken the law. Why were they being designated as far-reaching and dangerous criminals?

Cho wasn't sure, but he had his orders, and perhaps if (when) one day he caught one or both of them he could ask.

??!!??!!?!

Black holes inside their rib cages - shriveled, dried up pound of meat clumping out orbs of dust - where their hearts should be.

Flowing death traps upon their heads; smoking ashtrays glaring out of darkness; hard laughs and moist tongues glugging down liquor like water in the Arabian Desert.

Hate was not a strong enough word for what he felt for them.

The Pitiful Ones.

He was patient though.

Hell in a hand basket: a major understatement for what was about to begin.

He hoped they had followed him here (sure they had). But he reviled those glory hounds; perhaps one of them should be first, an honor they didn't deserve but Oh, the sweet, pungent taste.

He was itching for a game.

And they were the very best players.

The very best opponents.

Together they were beautiful.

Alone; predictable.