> Troubles in the Big Apple for the Scratchin' Thieves
>  by Mariacheat-Brony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue part 1 : The Pianist’s duplex in Morningside Heights
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hurry up a little, Patty!" a woman wearing a black skin-tight suit with a hood that only showed her bright red eyes demanded in a hurried tone to her similarly clothed friend. "It's five thirty already! The sun will rise in less than an hour!"

Patty looked up from her smartphone which was connected by two white cables to an electronic box a meter below and to the right of the fire escape of a luxurious apartment complex in Morningside Heights, ten minutes on foot away from Manhattan’s Music School. She was harnessed to the fire escape by some climbing equipment in order to reach the box.

"Have you tried to bypass a six thousand dollars security system, with a custom-made pirate app on a smartphone, suspended thirty meters above the ground, Vinyl?" Patty asked, probably cocking her eyebrow under her hood.

Vinyl peeked at the screen of Patty's phone from the fire escape before rubbing her temple in annoyance.

"You're playing at Temple Run!" Vinyl deadpanned her friend. "And you just missed a magnet bonus!" 

"Gaaah!" Patty said in panic before focussing back on her phone. "Come on, little treasure thief! Jump! Jump!" she tapped on her screen a couple of times. "Dang it! I just fell in the river," She complained childishly.

"You're gonna fall on the ground if you don't get back to work on that alarm right now!" Vinyl growled in a threatening tone.

"Geez, relax, silly!" Patty waved off casually. "The app is running as a background task." A high pitched beep sound came from Patty's phone. "And, that beep just means it's finished." she unhooked the white cables before putting them with her phone in of her suit's pockets. "Lift me up! Pretty please with vanilla frosting on top!" she quickly added with pleading blue eyes when she noticed her friend's lack of reaction.

Vinyl sighed before grabbing the rope to pull her hanging friend back on the fire escape.

"You should lay off the sweets, Patty," Vinyl commented as Patty, having reached the fire escape, and proceeding to take off her climbing equipment. "You're far from being a featherweight."

"Never!" Patty said in a vigorous firmness.

Once again, Vinyl sighed. "Just get the duct tape ready," she demanded before searching through her backpack.

"Oki doki!" Patty said happily before pulling a roll of duct tape out her own bag.

Patty went closer to the window to put lengths of tape on the glass surface while Vinyl put metal knuckles on her gloved, right hand. When she was done, Patty signaled Vinyl  was good to go. The robber with the metal knuckles, punched the window, breaking the glass with a silent crack. The glass shards, still glued to the tape, were pulled toward the exterior of the apartment, making an opening large enough for Vinyl to pass her hand inside, allowing to reach the handle of the window.

"Who are we visiting again?" Patty asked curiously as Vinyl managed to open the window, without causing any alarm bell.

"Frederic Horzowski," Vinyl replied in a whisper before she entered into the luxurious living room of the duplex apartment.

"The famous pianist?" Patty whispered in a surprised tone.

"Himself!" Vinyl said as she pulled her hood up, revealing her thin, pale visage and her two-toned bangs of blue hair with a relieved sigh. "It's hot as hell in those things!" she complained quietly.

"Agree!" Patty nodded in a murmur before doing as Vinyl did, revealing a slightly chubby and happy face with curly pink hair. "Let's do this! You take right, I take left?"

"Okay, go!" Vinyl nodded before heading to right of the living room.

The pair of burglars searched the room for various objects of value, cash, or pieces of jewelry to put into their backpacks. Vinyl found Horzowski's wallet on the coffee table, happily finding out it was full of twenties and fifties. On her side of the living room, Patty had found her happiness.

"Vinyl! Can I keep his laptop?" she asked in a hopeful whisper to her partner in crime, pointing at the silvery white laptop with a white apple on it.

"Patty, we sell everything that isn't cash, remember?"

"But it's the new Macbook pro, 17 inches!" Patty complained in a discrete whimper.

"I don't care!" Vinyl retorted firmly as she emptied the content of a drawer to search for anything valuable. "Besides, doesn't "Pinkie" perform way better than what exists on the market?"

"Yes, but “Pinkie” isn't an Apple product," Patty said with a pout.

"Stop acting like it matters, and get back to work, you silly nerd!" Vinyl firmly demanded.

The pair went back to searching for the living room and the rest of the duplex's inferior floors. Patty snatched the pianist's laptop, smartphone -after having pulled the sim card out of it- and a few antiquities she fitted into her bag. Vinyl had found more than two thousand dollars in the many cupboards and drawers of the apartment along with some silver or golden decorations she had found on top of the same cupboards. They were about to leave when Patty pulled a painting off the wall, revealing a small, hidden vault.

"How did you know it was there?" a rather impressed Vinyl asked.

"Just a hunch!" Patty shrugged with a toothy grin. "Do you have any idea of where the key for that thing is?" she pointed at the keyhole on the vault's door.

"Probably somewhere close to Horzo...."

Vinyl was interrupted by by a soft beep from the living room's sound system before the soft melody of a piano filled the until now silent apartment. Soon after, the pair of burglars heard the sound of an opening door on the duplex's superior floor and quickly hid wherever they could. Vinyl, who was hiding under a couch close to the stairs, managed to hear over the music footsteps coming from upstairs, followed by another door opening, swiftly followed by the muffled sounds of a running shower.

"You can come out, Patty!" Vinyl signed her friend to get out of the cabinet in which she had hidden. "I swear... Who on earth puts a wake up program with Chopin's music for six o'clock on a Sunday?" she asked angrily.

"Well, he does apparently," Patty gazed upstairs, then to the vault, then to Vinyl. "You think he left the key in his room to take a shower?"

"Hmmmm. That would be extremely risky and greedy for us to find out," Vinyl commented after a short reflection.

"Want me to hold your bag while you're doing it?" Patty asked knowingly.

"If you don't mind," Vinyl smiled as she passed her bag to her partner. "Let's just hope Mr. Horzowski likes long showers."

"Break a leg!" Patty cheered quietly as Vinyl climbed upstairs with a feline discretion.

Vinyl arrived upstairs without making a single sound. She discreetly walked past the slightly open door of the bathroom, hearing a man whistling the same tune that was playing inside the whole apartment. Vinyl quietly walked inside the pianist's bedroom, the only other room of this floor with an open door.

"Now, key, key...." Hello there! Vinyl completely forgot about the vault's key when her gaze wandered on the pianist's bed.

Well, on the naked woman sleeping in the pianist's bed would be a lot more accurate. A beautiful woman with short, wavy, light brown hair was peacefully sleeping, her head resting on her joined hands, with her nicely shaped body in plain sight due to the covers being thrown at the end of the bed.

Well, Mr. Horzowski sure has a good taste for women! Vinyl thought as her gaze was attracted toward the beauty's round rear like a night butterfly toward a flame. Vinyl, focus a little! First, you see if the key is there, then you can stare lustfully at that nice piece of ass! 

The blue haired burglar focused her attention on the nightstand closer to door, not without great amount of difficulty though, only to see a pair of earrings in the shape of a blue musical note and a golden necklace. Assuming they belonged to the sleeping beauty on the other side of the bed, or at least hoping they did, Vinyl took the pieces of jewelry and put them in her pocket before contouring the bed in silence to get to the other night stand to see with pleasure a golden key along with a massive wrist watch.

She put the watch in another pocket and grabbed the key with a triumphant grin. She decided to do as she thought and reward herself by staring at the beautiful sleeping body, only to frown when she noticed the woman slightly shivering at the fresh air coming from the outside through an open window.

You left your woman sleeping naked without blankets to cover her with an open window in the middle of  fall? Vinyl thought angrily. Bad move, Freddy! Really bad move!

Vinyl softly grabbed the blanket to cover the beautiful, yet shivering body of the brunette. As soon as she was under the warmth of the blanket, the sleeping woman let out a soft sigh before turning around to rest her hand on Vinyl's shoulder before the concerned party could react while still having her eyes closed.

"Thank you for the blanket, honey," she whispered sleepily before pulling Vinyl into a soft kiss.

Vinyl instinctually kissed back, mainly to convince the half asleep beauty she was kissing her pianist instead of a shocked burglar, though a small part of her...okay fine, a huge part of her was just happy to be kissed by the pretty brunette, keeping her eyes open to see if the brunette in question would open hers.

Thankfully, she didn't. Though she passed her hand through the burglar's hair as her tongue tickled Vinyl's lips, as if knocking at a door to beg for entrance. Entrance that Vinyl granted without hesitation. As she parted her lips, the blue haired girl pushed her tongue into the brunette's mouth and started to dominate her tongue, causing the half asleep woman to softly moan in pleasure.

They kept making out for a good minute or two, Vinyl trying hard as she could to suppress her moans, knowing they would betray her true identity, while the brunette was simply enjoying the deep, passionate kiss and didn't mind letting it known to her kisser through very pleased moans. 

Of course, the kiss had to come to an end. The brunette sighed blissfully before letting go of the thief's hair and resting her head on a pillow, her eyes still closed.

"Could you be a dear, and change the music, please?" She asked in a sleepy whisper. "I'm a bit tired to listen to Chopin every morning after I sleep over,"

Vinyl simply let the beauty in her sleepy state and delicately walked out of the room, hearing with satisfaction that Horzowski was still in the shower. She discreetly walked down the stairs, finding a slightly bored Patty waiting for her.

"What took you so long?" Patty asked.

"I encountered some complications in the bedroom," Vinyl replied nonchalantly as she flipped the key to Patty who grabbed it before turning her attention on the vault. Some pretty sweet complications!

"Victory!" Patty whispered happily as the vault's door was unlocked by the key, letting a few stacks of hundred dollars bills and black notebook come into view. "Let's raid that thing!" Patty shoved the cash into her bag before grabbing the notebook with interested curiosity, "What do you think we can do with that?" she extended the notebook to her partner. 

Vinyl leafed through the black notebook, finding numerous music sheets and half finished compositions full of notes in margin, crossed words, music clefs and so on.

"His composition book," Vinyl said in a small, slightly religious tone. "The heart of a musician after his instrument..... Leave it! That's not something you can steal," she added slowly before extending the book to Patty.

"Oki doki loki!" Patty replied before putting it back in the vault with great care. "Anyway, how about we skedaddle?" she asked, giving Vinyl her backpack back before heading to the broken and open window.

"Wait! I can't leave Sleeping Beauty like that!" Vinyl said as she headed to the sound system which was still playing Chopin's melody. "I need nothing but a minute!"

"Sleeping Beauty?" Patty asked in puzzlement, cocking an eyebrow at her friend.


 *******


Beatrice was still trying to sleep in, her mind focused on that short, tender and passionate moment she had with Frederic a few minutes ago. She let out a pleased sigh in remembrance. That kiss was worth to figure on the top march of her podium of kisses. It had been firm, yet gentle. Dominant, but sweet at the same time. It had been so wild.... Frederic had never kissed her like that before, though she wouldn't mind getting more of that. She smiled naughtily as she imagined in what other moment she wouldn't also mind having a wild Frederic in action.

Her half-asleep daydreams were interrupted when Chopin's music came to a sudden stop to give way to a deep, rhythmic beat of electronic music. Beatrice opened her eyes in surprise before sitting up on the bed. She had no idea Frederic listened to such modern music, not that she minded though. She thought it was rather nice to hear while gently bobbing her head to the beat of the song.

"Beatrice! Why did you change the music?" Frederic shouted angrily from outside the room.

Beatrice frowned. "I didn't!" she shouted back. "I know you don't like that I touch to your sound system!"

"Then who has...SON OF A BITCH!!" She heard Frederic below in anger.

"What is it?" Beatrice asked with worry.

"Someone broke into my living room!"

Beatrice quickly wrapped the blanket around her body and dashed to the stairs. When she saw the usually ordered living room in a horrible mess, she gasped in shock. Frederic, wearing his dark brown bathrobe was standing in front of his now empty vault, pulling his grey-blond hair in frustration. Beatrice walked next to him to comfort him with a hug. Frederic didn't react to her hug, still glaring angrily at a folded note in his vault, one of Frederic's pens laying next to it. Beatrice tried to read it. It was written in a messy, scratchy handwriting.



Dear mister the famous Pianist,

Please, do listen to the disc we left you.
It's worth all the money in the world! ;) :p
Plus, your girlfriend wouldn't mind listening to something other than Chopin.
We took your laptop and smartphone, but we'll send you a copy of your personal files and contacts in your mailbox!

Ps: for your brunette girlfriend: I'd like to apologize for taking your jewelry, but I do believe a beauty like you doesn't need jewels to dazzle the world. ;)

Pps: For mister the famous Pianist: It might seem rather cavalier for me to write you that, but I feel obliged to mention how lucky you are to have found such beautiful woman with a very good looking, beautifully perfectly shaped ass, and who's such an amazing kisser! ;) Don't forget that whenever you leave the room she's sleeping in!

Anywho, I bid you and your pretty girlfriend a good day! 

Yours truly,

     The one who just robbed you :p



Beatrice couldn't help to blush in embarrassment at that last post-scriptum, realizing the one she had kissed wasn't Frederic but the burglar who had just robbed her boyfriend. Though she was also partly blushing at the nice compliments the same burglar had made about her. Frederic, on other hand, was red from anger.

"What does he mean by that amazing kisser line?" He asked coldly.

"Hum... I was cold earlier and someone put the blanket on me ..." Beatrice explained uneasily. "I...I...I was still half asleep and thought it was you and ... I kissed him as a thank you...."

"And you didn't notice it wasn't me?" He asked angrily.

"Look, I'm sorry! I didn't know! I thought that...."

"Please, tell me, what were you thinking when you thought it was me?" Frederic asked, glaring at her. "That's something I'm really curious about!"

Beatrice frowned at her boyfriend's angry tone directed at her, and took a step away from him.

"You know, I'm really wondering how I could confuse him with you," she said in a cold whisper. "Because him being thoughtful enough to cover me after you left me freezing my butt without blanket with that stupid window open should have been enough of a hint it wasn't you!" Beatrice angrily retorted. "That and the fact he kissed way better than you!"

"Beg pardon?" Frederic asked in disbelief. "You dare compare the kiss the man who broke into my apartment gave you with mine?"

"Well, I can find other points of comparison if you want!" Beatrice answered in a furious shout. "For example: that this burglar made me more compliments in a single a note than you, my boyfriend, in the last month!"

"What?! I compliment you all the time!" Frederic remarked in offense.

"You never said my ass is perfectly shaped!" Beatrice remarked with a sour pout.

"You know that I find your ass great too!"

"It shouldn't stop you from saying it once in awhile!" Beatrice glared at him. "You know, to make me feel desired! And he wrote perfectly shaped, not just great!"

"Are we really having this discussion when some thug broke into my apartment and robbed me?"

"Nice to see you're more concerned by objects your insurance can get you back when someone took advantage of me in the process and that you're mad at me for it!" Beatrice yelled in fury before leaving Frederic alone in his 'visited' living room. "I'm going back to bed! And I don't want to see you until you called the cops and stopped acting like a jealous jerk because I thought you had become a sweeter boyfriend and just found out I was wrong!" she ran upstairs to the bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

"Beatrice," Frederic called slowly as he knocked on the door. "I didn't mean it like that..."

"I told you to at least call the cops before I want to see you!"

"The thief took my phone, remember?" he reminded slowly.

"The doorman on the ground floor has one you can use!" Beatrice retorted furiously.

"Well, maybe I could use yours?"

"You could, but you won't!"

"......" she heard Frederic walking away from the bedroom after a short silence. "Okay.... I'll be back as soon as I can," he said softly.

"Stupid Frederic!" Beatrice muttered angrily as she crossed her arms across her chest before sitting on the bed, hearing his footsteps becoming more distant before she couldn't hear them.

She kept ranting about how unfair her boyfriend had been to her about the mistake she had made earlier. During her rant, she noticed a small detail on her left hand. A small blue hair was stuck between her nail and her finger. She remembered how she had passed her hand into her mysterious kisser's hair and inspected the bed, finding five, longer, blue hair near the place she had been sleeping earlier. She noticed with surprise that two were light cyan when the other four were dark, electric blue.

Her thoughts about the blue hairs were interrupted when the rising sun peeked through the clouds and cast a human-shaped shadow in the bedroom through the window. Beatrice looked to the window, seeing a person wearing a full black outfit with a hood that only let the person's eyes to be seen, fully equipped for climbing, gazing at her casually as he was leaning on the side of the window frame.

Beatrice's very first thought was to scream for help, but she decided on doing nothing. She kept staring at the dark figure until she saw a small lock of blue hair peeking from the collar of the hood. It was her mysterious kisser. Beatrice slowly brought the hairs she had in her hand to the burglar's sight, happily seeing his eyes widening in the shocked realization he had left material evidence of his visit. 

Beatrice slowly stood up from the bed, and, ever slowly, walked to the slightly open window to fully open it, leaving less than a meter of distance between her and the burglar. Said burglar didn't react, he kept staring at her, curiosity filling his brightly red eyes. Beatrice glanced at fire escape platform the burglar was standing on, the one just above the window he had broken to get in, noticing a metal hook connecting a rather long black rope to the ramp of the fire escape.

Beatrice surprised the burglar by putting the hairs she had in front of her mouth before blowing them away, letting them follow the wind far away from the crime scene. Beatrice noticed the interrogation in the thief's ruby colored eyes.

"Let's just say it's a payback for the blanket, the compliments and....and for the kiss," Beatrice whispered with a soft blush. "All that was....nice!" she saw the burglar cocking an eyebrow under his hood. "Well..... Way better than nice!" she sheepishly admitted.

The burglar's eyes replaced the interrogation by a playful glint, he slowly pulled his hood up to his nose, revealing a pale chin, with slightly pink lips. He pointed at him then at the brunette two times, silently mouthing the words : I owe you big time! Beatrice held back her breath when he leaned toward her. She knew what he was about to do, and she was sure she wouldn't stop him, despite knowing how much she should.

Their lips met in the following seconds, and as soon as they did, Beatrice lost all her self control. She wrapped her arms around the thief's neck and parted her lips to lick the ones kissing hers. The burglar's tongue responded in kind to Beatrice's, and both of them twirled between their open lips. Beatrice felt  gloved hands groping her butt cheeks through the blanket she was using as a toga, before being pulled closer to the thief with a pleased moan. She knew what she was doing was wrong, but it only made it way more exciting than it already was.

When her chest was pressed against her kisser's, Beatrice realized something that made her lose it even more. It wasn't a man kissing her, but a woman. It was so new for her. She hadn't experimented with that in school, or in college, and now she didn't understand why she hadn't. It was so exotic, so wild, so hot. She never wanted to let go.

But she had to. Even if that unknown female burglar's touch made all her inhibitions disappear, it was still wrong to let that happen, very wrong. When Beatrice felt the fire of passion slowly burn down, she softly broke the kiss, leaving a filament of saliva between her mouth and her kisser's.

The burglar let go of the blanket wearing woman who stepped back from the window with a blissful smile and bright red cheeks. The thief brought her hand to the side of her head, her little finger on her mouth and her thumb on her ear before mouthing in silence the following words: Call me?

Beatrice giggled softly. "I don't have your phone number, and, I don't think it's a good idea for us to meet again," she remarked playfully, though a bit disappointed by how true her remark had been.

The blue haired burglar brought her palm to her forehead swiftly, angry at the stupidity of her own question. She thought about something for a second before she grabbed the window, and exhaled on the glass, fogging a large surface of it before scribbling something with her finger.

Souvenir then?

"Don't you have my jewelry already?" Beatrice asked in a chuckle.

The female robber pulled an earring Beatrice recognized as her own before gazing at it with an intense reflexion, before sighing in defeat while shaking her head. She exhaled once again on the glass for a short time.

Must sell them, sorry :(

"What do you want then?" Beatrice asked. "Other than what you took from my boyfriend and....what I just gave you," she said with a mad blush.

A Good Memory :)

"A good memory of what?" Beatrice asked curiously.

The burglar seemed to hesitate a lot before she took a glance at Beatrice's sole piece of 'clothing' while biting her lip. Then, she smirked slyly before fogging the glass again to write her suggestion with her finger.

Your sexy ass?

Beatrice blushed even harder than earlier as her heartbeat accelerated to a pace it never reached before in her life. She couldn't do what that woman in black was suggesting. Kissing her was already bad enough, but that was downright immoral. But it didn't stop Beatrice from being very tempted by the idea.

The brunette's light purple eyes found the sight of the lustful, fiery red orbs the burglar had in place of eyes, and when they did, her hesitation vanished. 

"Oh well, why not?" She whispered sultrily, before loosening the knot of her blanket made toga. "I hope you'll enjoy it!" The thief confirmed she would by a very eager nod.

She knew it was the wrong thing to do, but she could live with a one time exception to doing the right thing. Well, it actually was the second, no, the third time today if you counted she made evidence disappear, but that wasn't her point.

She brought her hands behind her neck to lift the back of her hair before taking a very seductive pose as the blanket fell on the ground. The thief, who had leaned on the fire escape ramp to watch the show, shivered from excitement at the sight of Beatrice's beautiful naked body, slowly licking her upper lip hungrily. The naked brunette delicately swayed her hips before turning on herself, offering the thief a good view of the rear she found so perfectly shaped as Beatrice bent over the bed. 

Beatrice heard her spectator clearing her throat and looked back above her shoulder to see that the thief had pulled her phone out and was pointing at its camera, asking silently for permission.

"Only mental pictures, sorry," Beatrice shook her head softly, but her smile seemed to show she wouldn't mind much the thief not agreeing with her condition. 

The thief in question decided to respect the brunette's condition and did a 'it was worth the shot' shrug before putting her phone back in her pocket with a slightly disappointed pout. Beatrice giggled softly at her disappointed thief before a mad thought crossed her mind. She grinned as she decided on ending her private show with a reward for the thief's rather good behavior, not counting the stealing part.

Putting on her most sensual smile, Beatrice, still bending over the bed, slowly raised her right hand to her mouth before licking her fingers in a very erotic manner while staring at the robber lustfully. She happily noticed her leaning forward, her eyes having abandoned the brunette's rear for her mouth and fingers.

"I know you didn't ask for what I'm about to do, but I think you'll like it!" Beatrice purred seductively as she slowly trailed her now glistening fingers down her body until she placed them between her legs. When her fingers reached their destination, Beatrice started her 'solo'.

The female burglar tried to keep it together at the sight of what the sexy brunette in front of her was doing. But after a good minute of watching Beatrice's solo, she couldn't stop herself from letting out a very loud, sharp, excited whistle before letting her body backwardly flip over the ramp, thus falling from the tenth floor. Beatrice let out a very quiet shriek of horror as she saw her fall before dashing to the window. She re-wrapped her body with the blanket and went on the fire escape.

As soon as she was on the platform, Beatrice looked down and saw with relief the woman she had given a little show landed slowly on her feet. The thief unbuckled the rope she was attached to before whipping it firmly. A fluid, wave like movement of the rope climbed up to the platform Beatrice was standing on, unhooking it from the fire escape. As the hook of the rope touched the ground with a very quiet clang, the burglar pulled her hood off, revealing a mess of bi-colored blue hair, along with a brightly red visage before fanning herself with it vigorously for a very long minute.

Beatrice couldn't make out much of the face of the woman thirty meters below her. She did see her looking up at her direction while she was rapidly wrapping the rope around her left arm. The blue haired woman seemed to smile before delicately blowing a kiss in Beatrice's direction. The brunette replied by 'catching' the blown kiss in her hand and brought it to her lips before affectionately waving at her charming thief who, after waving back at Beatrice, went back to gathering her rope.

Beatrice knew she should probably feel ashamed about having done what she did as her boyfriend was many floors below, calling the police because of the same burglar that had driven her to act so slutty, but she didn't. It had been so exciting and extremely satisfactory.

"Besides, it’s not like I would ever see that charming burglar again," Beatrice whispered with a sigh as she went back inside. “… Well, maybe if…..”


*******


Vinyl had just finished enrolling the rope and was about to leave when she heard a sharp whistle coming from above her. She looked up only to see that her Sleeping Beauty had come back on the fire escape and was now wearing light blue robe and had a brown paper bag in her hand.

Sleeping Beauty let the bag fall toward Vinyl. The bag quickly landed in front of her feet with a muffled thud. Vinyl curiously grabbed the bag before reading the small note the brunette had most likely taped on it.

A small, more concrete souvenir. ;)
Read both sides.

Vinyl opened the bag before her eyes widened in surprise when she saw the bag contained a pair of lacy, snow white panties. Vinyl pulled the panties out of the bag and noticed there was something written in a beautiful, curvy, light blue writing on the front side : 

For my Thief Charming 
      XXX

Vinyl smiled at the message before she turned the panties in her hands, discovering another message written on the other side of the silk underwear.

=> 864, 7th avenue, Apartment 9B!!

Vinyl blinked twice in disbelief before slowly smirking hungrily. She glanced back at the brunette ten floors above.

"Wasn't it a bad idea for us to meet again, Sleeping Beauty?" Vinyl whispered as she gave her future ‘burglary’  a very eager nod. "Well, maybe you realized it's good to be bad sometimes." Vinyl licked her lips as the brunette waved at her longingly.

Vinyl waved back at her one last time before she threw the paper bag in a nearby trashcan, secured her souvenir in an inner pocket of her black sweater, and picked her rope up before dashing into the dark alley under the longing gaze of the brunette on the fire escape until she turned into another alley.

Vinyl ran into three more alleys until she found the black van in which she had driven Patty and her into Manhattan from the Bronx a few hours earlier. She opened the right back door to see Patty playing on her smartphone. Her pink haired friend turned her head from her phone to look at her with big curious blue eyes.

"Took you long enough," Patty complained cheerfully as Vinyl entered inside the van and closed the door behind her.

"Sorry," Vinyl said while not looking sorry at all as she threw her rope and her backpack at the back of the van before sitting on the driver's seat.

"Was your Sleeping Beauty worth the risk of getting caught?" Patty asked playfully as Vinyl started the engine.

"Oh yeah!" Vinyl nodded excitedly, casually driving the van into a still empty street. "Even worth getting caught for short!"

"That much?" Patty asked in surprise. "What did she do?"

"She gave me two extremely pleasant souvenirs," Vinyl replied with a small, excited grin as they took the road in direction of the Bronx.

"Where are they?" 

"One is here!" Vinyl poked her own forehead. "And I'm keeping the other's location and what they both were secret!" She gave her friend a mocking grin. "So don't bother asking."
  
"Meanie Mc Secretypants!" Patty growled in a playful tone, though Vinyl could hear the disappointment hidden in her voice. "Do you think the others cracked the alarm safely with the new version of the app?" she suddenly asked with worry.

"Hey, relax!" Vinyl reassured softly. "They're gonna be fine! You gave them an explication note, didn't you?"

Patty nodded slowly. "Sorry for being nervous," she said in a sad tone. "It's just... We're so close from it, and I keep on thinking something bad is going to happen!"

"It's okay, sweetie," Vinyl said softly. "We only have a few more jobs like that to do to clear our debt, it's normal to get nervous. But you should be excited too!" Vinyl said happily. "Because you know what us being clear of that debt means?" 

"Yeah, I do," Patty replied softly, her mood picking up rapidly as a smile lit up her face. "I can't wait for that day to happen!" she said cheerfully. "I'm so nervoucited about it!" she added before giggling softly with Vinyl.

"Got that right!" Vinyl said, happy her friend's good mood had returned. "Don't worry about Jack and Claude! I'm sure they'll bring as much loot as we did!"

"Well, except for those souvenirs you got from your Sleeping Beauty!" Patty chuckled with a wink. "You think they will be jealous?" 

"Who knows, maybe they got their own pleasant surprise at Judge Patterson's house. He is married to a supermodel after all!" Vinyl chuckled back before focusing her attention on the road.

"Don't think so, she's at a photo shooting in L.A. for the moment according to her Facebook page," Patty remarked. "You'll be the only one with souvenirs from a girl today!"

"Too bad for them!"
> Prologue part 2: Judge Patterson’s house in Upper East side.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Judge Francis Patterson, had very strict morning schedule. Every morning, he'd wake up at five thirty, drink a glass of freshly pressed orange juice, wash his face, neatly brush his small mustache, put on his black sportswear ensemble and leave his house for his daily hour of jogging before having his breakfast at seven o'clock.

This Sunday wasn't an exception. Around six, Mr. Patterson locked the door of his home, put his keys in his left pocket before jogging to his property's front gate. After passing it, Mr. Patterson entered the code to lock the front gate. Then, he started to jog toward the Central Park, his usual jogging spot.

A few streets away from his home, a petite dark skinned woman with long black hair styled in a ponytail, wearing a deep purple jogging outfit and a white cap, bumped into him as she came from around the corner of the street, making the two of them fall on the ground.

"Oh, my gosh!" the female jogger said in a high-pitched voice as she stood up to get the judge on his feet. "I'm so sorry, sir!" she added as she dusted Mr. Patterson jacket. "I was so focused I didn't slow down at the corner! So stupid!" she tapped the side of her head angrily.

"Now, now," Mr. Patterson said calmly. "It was just an accident. No need to beat yourself up." he smiled softly at the younger girl who relaxed at his calm voice.

"Accidents do happen a lot around me," the jogger said while embarrassedly scratching the back of her head. "I focus so much on running that I forget to look where I go."

"Big competition coming?" the judge asked with curiosity.

"Qualification trials for the college's track team," the girl replied with a nod. "How did you know?"

"I used to be a young athlete too, Miss," he winked with a chuckle.

"You say that as if it was a long time ago!" she noted with a cocked eyebrow.

"Well, it was a long time ago," Judge Patterson replied with a chuckle.

"Like what, three, or five years ago?"

"Add a two in front of those numbers and you'll be much closer to the truth," he said casually, smiling at the sight of the young girl widening her eyes in amazement.

"You're what? Forty?" she asked incredulous.

"Forty-eight actually," Mr. Patterson corrected playfully.

"WAOW!" The girl said in genuine amazement. "You sure don't look like it!"

"Thank you, my dear!" Mr. Patterson said before taking a step away from the girl. "Do you happen to be heading for the park?" he asked with curiosity. "It could be nice to have a jogging partner."

"It would have been with pleasure, but I have to meet up with a friend to jog with her," she said apologetically.

"In that case, I bid you a good day, Miss." Mr. Patterson said politely before he continued his jogging. "And, good luck for the trials!"

"Thanks! Good day to you too!" The dark skinned girl waved at the judge before jogging in the opposite direction.

The girl ran at a calm pace until she passed in front of the judge's property. She went inside an adjacent alley an an orangish pickup truck was parked with a tall, woman with  short blonde hair hidden in a black hood which was pulled up to let her freckled face be shown, was pulling two backpacks out of the trunk.

"How did it go, Claude?" the blonde asked in a thick southern accent when noticed the dark skinned girl trotted to her pickup truck.

"Just as planned, my dear Jack!" Claude said happily as she pulled Patterson's house keys out of her jacket's pocket.

Claude took her cap and her black wig off, letting her two-toned blonde hair cascade on her shoulders. She gave stolen keys to Jack who gave her a towel in return. Claude used the towel to wipe the dark brown makeup off her face, slowly making her fair skin visible. As soon as it was done, she took her jogging outfit off to put on the same black clothes Jack was wearing.

"What did you see while I was getting the keys?" Claude asked as she passed her head through the hole of her pullover.

"Nothin' much," Jack replied with a shrug. "The front gate opens only with the right code, just like Vinyl had explained. Ah couldn't see what the code was with the binoculars. That Patterson fella made sure to stand in front of the keyboard."

"A wise man," Claude commented as she put a pair of thicker gloves in place of the small ones she was wearing when she stole the keys. "How do we pass the wall?" she asked, nodding at the property's three meters tall walls with metallic spikes on top.

"Like planned, Sugarcube," Jack replied matter-of-factly as she pulled the straps of her backpack tight.

"What about the cameras on the walls?" Claude asked as she also pulled the straps of her backpack tight. 

"Ah observed them cameras' movements," Jack said as she and Claude, now fully equipped for their enterprise, walked to the edge of the alley to see if no one was in the street. "We have about a ten seconds window during which we can approach the wall without being seen," she explained as she pulled the hood down her face, leaving only her green eyes, which were locked on the security cameras, visible.

"When?" Claude asked with her hood pulled down as well.

"Right about...Now!" Jack pushed a button on her watch before making a mad sprint toward the property's wall.

Claude didn't miss the sudden start of her partner and ran right behind her. The pair crossed the street in the blink of an eye. Jack reached the other side walk before stopping a meter away from the wall. She twirled around, and joined her hands together  when Claude was about to bump into her. The small blonde put her left feet on the tall one's joined hands before leaning her weight on them.

With a low grunt, Jack lifted her hands upwards while Claude jumped. The small blonde curled herself in a ball as she passed above the spikes before extending her body on the other side of the wall. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she leaned her body forward to roll over before crouching in the property's gardens.

Jack, on the other hand, used the wall itself as step ladder to climb on it easily. Her gloved hands grabbed the base of the spikes before she lifted herself up easily. Jack carefully passed above the pointy edges of the spikes before dropping herself in the gardens, landing on her feet, crouching at the impact with a low thud.

"Time?" Claude asked as Jack pushed again on the button of her watch's chronometer.

"8.5 seconds!" Jack said happily before Claude and she bumped their fists together. "Now, we gotta find the alarm control panel."

"Should be near the electric box on the north facade of the house, if the plans Patty hacked from the alarm company's database are accurate," Claude said as the pair discretely made way to the north side of the massive, two story mansion. 

"For a company that makes business in security, their own security kinda sucks," Jack commented casually.

"Weird, right? Anyway, I'm not really complaining about it!" Claude and Jack quietly chuckled.

The pair of burglars reached the north side of the building without further complications. Claude pulled a smartphone out of her pocket and plugged it to a white cable which ended with two USB entries, one blue and the other white. 

"You got Patty's instructions?" 

"Here!" Jack pulled a pink sheet of paper out her pocket. "Now, let's see." She began reading the note. "First, ya gotta to find the camera’s control grid. Accordin' to this here note, it's supposed to behind in a small dark grey panel."

"Found it!" Claude said after finding the wanted panel, right between the electric circuit box and the telephone line. "What do I do next?" she asked as put the dark grey panel on the ground.

"Ya must start Patty's app, and when it says it's ready, ya must plug the USBs into the matching' colored slots..."

"Huh.... That's going to be problematic...." Claude commented nervously as she pointed the control circuit.

"Why are ya sayin.....Oh!" Jack blinked in surprise at what Claude was pointing at.

The USB slots on the house's control grid were red and green, not white and blue.

"Did Patty write anything about that?" Claude asked in a worried tone.

"Huuuuuh.... " Jack quickly read the entire pink note she had. "Aside from a warning sayin’ how important it is to not put the wrong USB in the slots because it'll automatically warn the security company, nope!" she said in a nervous chuckle.

"Urgh! What are we gonna do?" Claude stood up in a short panic before she started to pace around. "Let's think about it for a bit." she rubbed her temples as Jack crouched in front of the security grid. "To obtain green you must mix blue and yellow, which could mean that the blue USB must go into the green slot. Unless they thought we were going to think that because it would have been so obvious! But if they .."

"Problem solved! Let's go!" Jack interrupted Claude's thinking circles by grabbing her shoulder.

"Huh?" Claude stared at her friend in disbelief. "How did you find the right combination?"

"Ah didn't!" Jack said with a shrug. "Ah just pulled the darn thing out, and the cameras stopped moving!"

Claude looked at control box, only to see the electronic grid lying on the ground with all its cables ripped up with electric sparks coming from their other parts still connected to the house. Claude then looked at the cameras which were filming the outside of the property had indeed stopped moving, and the small red lights under the objectives were off.

"Not too subtle, but the results are here!" Claude commented slowly.

The pair walked to the mansion front door before Jack opened it with the keys Claude had stolen to the judge. They entered into a wonderfully decorated lobby with stairs that parted on the right and on the left of the hallway before joining on the floor below. The two thieves walked past the stairs before entering the very luxurious living room.

"Okay, we separate or we search the whole house together?" Claude asked.

"We don't have much time, so Ah say we divide the house. Up or ground?"

"I'll take up. Meet you in the lobby in thirty minutes?" Jack nodded and Claude was about to go for the stairs until her gaze fell on something in the corner of the living room. "Jack?" she called slowly.

"Yeah?" Jack asked while she was searching through the drawers of a long cupboard.

"Why are there three metallic bowls in the corner of the room?" Claude asked as she pointed at bowls in question.

"Probably the bowls of Mrs. Patterson's dogs," Jack shrugged as she found a rather large golden Rolex in one of the drawers.

"D-Dogs?" Claude asked fearfully in a shaking tone. "As in more than one?"

"Claude, don't worry!" Jack said firmly. "Mrs. Patterson is a model, they must be chihuahuas or any other race of froufrou-y purse rats. Besides, she surely took them with her for that shooting thing,"

As soon as she said this, the pair heard the sounds of many paws on the marble. They both looked back in the lobby as the sounds became clearer. Their eyes ended on the right end of the stairs at the very moment Mrs. Patterson's dogs came into view.

The three massive Rottweilers stared at the two thieves, tilting their heads with curiosity. 

Claude started to shake like a leaf while Jack stood up and slowly put her hand on her friend's shoulder in reassurance. The dogs started to growl as they realized the two women in front of them had nothing to do in their masters' house.

"Try to not act scared," Jack advised slowly. "It excites them!"

"I'm not acting!" Claude replied in a terrified whisper.

The middle dog barked loudly before the three of them charged at the two thieves.

"RUN!" Jack shouted.

Claude didn't need to hear it twice. She ran away from the dogs as fast she could, heading to the dining room while Jack had run into the kitchen. Two Rottweilers decided to run after the small blonde. Claude jumped on the long dining table, quickly mimicked by one of her canine pursuers while the other ran next to the table. 

Claude tried her best to ignore the furious barks directed at her while running like she had never run before. As the end of the table came close, she jumped to grab onto one of the crystal chandeliers of the room. Her momentum added to her made the chandelier tilt to the right of the room, bringing Claude closer to the lobby.

Claude let go of the chandelier as she heard the dog, surprised by its prey's sudden change of direction, fall from the table with a small whimper. Claude didn't forget the other dog after her though.

"Of course, they had to come after me two to one!" she muttered as she ran to the lobby when she heard the second dog barking at her while its companion quickly recovered from its fall.

Claude dashed to the corner of the lobby, taking two steps on the walls before leaning on them to jump and reach the second floor. She climbed up the ramp while her pursuers made for the stairs, giving her a small advantage. 

The small thief ran across the corridor of the second floor as the dogs swiftly caught up on her due to their four legs. She dashed through two rooms before entering in a bathroom whose only exit a window too small for Claude to pass through. She was about to turn around when the two dogs started to sprint toward the bathroom she was in, barking furiously.

She climbed on the sink before leaning heavily on it as the dogs came closer. When they passed the door frame, Claude jumped, using the sink as a springboard. One of the dogs tried to bite her mid air, but it fell a millimeter too short. Once she landed on her feet, she twirled around and slammed the bathroom door closed.

The dogs scratched the door with a mix of low whimpers and angry barks, while Claude relaxed slowly. She was afraid of dogs, but if they were in another, closed, room, it was fine. After all, dogs couldn't open doors.

Claude blinked before blocking the door handle with a nearby chair. Just to be sure. Once that was done, she looked around and realized she was in Mrs. Patterson's dressing room, if the many pairs of shoes, fashionable dresses, haute couture tops, and fancy skirts were of any indication. Claude noticed the massive vanity at the other side of the room, unavoidably attracted by the dozens of jewelry caskets lying on it.

Claude pumped her fist in the air. "Jackpot!" she shouted excitedly. A second after her shout, the two imprisoned Rottweilers charged the door, shaking it violently while barking ferociously. "KYAAAAA!" she let out a high-pitched shriek of terror. "I need to get the hell out of here!" she shouted in panic before throwing her backpack on the vanity table before emptying all the caskets in it at top speed.

When she had looted all the jewelry, which represented no small amount, Claude closed her bag, put it right on her back and stormed out of the room to get to the corridor, closing all the doors she encountered behind her. As she reached stairs to the lobby, she remembered there were three dogs in the house, and that one of them had chased after Jack.

"Jack?" Claude called with worry as she reached the end of the stairway.

"Yeah?" Jack called back casually from the living room.

"Are you ok?" Claude asked, heading toward Jack's voice.

"Why shouldn't Ah be ok?"

"What happened to the ...." Claude froze when she saw the third Rottweiler trotting gently behind Jack while she was inspecting a beautifully decorated silver candle holder. "What is that monstrous thing doing here?" Claude asked fearfully as she hid behind the door.

"He ain't a monstrous thing, Claude!" Jack said in a reproaching tone while patting the dog's head. "His name's Regulus and he's a total sweetheart!" Regulus barked happily at the compliment, waggling his tiny tail.

"Did you miss the part when your total sweetheart and his two bloodthirsty friends tried to eat us not ten minutes ago?" Claude asked in a scared sarcasm.

"Their mistress ain't home. They must have wanted someone to play with them," Jack explained casually. "What did ya do to the others by the way?"

"Locked them in a bathroom upstairs, and NO, you can't go to get them out!" Claude shouted angrily, causing Regulus to growl at her.

"Tut tut shhhh!" Jack said softly to the dog who instantly became calm as a lamb. "Fine, Ah won't get them out, but ya need to calm down."

"I'll calm down when he's out of the room!" Claude demanded firmly, pointing at Regulus. 

Jack sighed before turning her head toward the Rottweiler. "Regulus, go into the lobby and don't move from that spot," she demanded gently.

The dog let out a soft whimper with his ears flattening on his head and a sad pout before doing as Jack instructed. Regulus slowly trotted to one of the lobby's windows before sitting in front of it, his eyes focused outside. Claude got out from behind her door made shield, meeting a rather pissed Jack with arms crossed.

"What?" Claude asked angrily. "You know very well I'm scared of dogs!"

"Yeah, Ah know, but ya hurt his feelings!"

"I don't give a damn shit about that dog's feelings!" Claude retorted. "Not until he's on a leash and at least fifteen meters away from me!"

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack waved off in annoyance. “Anyway, ah took all that was interestin’ in this here room.” Jack shown the content of her bag. “Mainly silverware, some fancy golden or silver decorations, and ah found around a thousands bucks in the many drawers,” she explained casually. “We should search the other rooms quickly, we don’ have much time until he gets back.”

“Or, we could leave now,” Claude said with a triumphant smile. “Check what I found upstairs!” she said as she passed her bag to Jack.

“Oh Nelly!” Jack whistled with wide eyes at the large quantity of jewels in her friend’s backpack. “Ya sure ya didn’t rob some fancy jewelry store while ya were running away from them dogs?” she asked with a chuckle.

“Mrs. Patterson sure has enough jewelry to open a small one,” Claude commented.

“A bit too much for a skinny lady like her,” Jack added as she inspected a large diamond enchased on a golden band. “Ah think we’ll do her a huge favor by taking this from here!” she smirked as she let the golden band fall in the bag. “Good job, Claude!”

“Thank you, Jack!” Claude said while rubbing her chest in a very modest tone.

        Regulus suddenly barked deeply at his window, startling Claude who jumped into Jack’s arms with a high-pitched shriek. Jack had to struggle a bit to lose her footing due to the sudden add of weight. She glared at Claude before letting her fall on the ground with a surprised yelp.

“What is it, Regulus?” Jack asked as she went to the dog’s side, while closing Claude’s bag.

        Regulus let out a soft whimper while poking the thin, white curtains of the window. Jack slowly parted the curtains to peek outside for a second or two. She then patted dog’s head while scratching behind his left ear with her finger. Regulus shown his appreciation for the gesture by wiggling his short tail.

“Good boy,” Jack said with affection before heading back to the living room. “Claude, hurry up!” she called her friend.

“What’s going on?” Claude asked as she stood up, rubbing her butt with a small wince.

“We got company,” Jack said with a small grin.


*******


“Come on, Dash!” the young police officer with short orangish-blonde hair, Delilah Lisander, called her brown haired colleague in annoyance. “We’ve been standing there for more than fifteen minutes. You can see that nothing’s going on in here!” she added while pointing at Judge Patterson’s house.

“Then, why did we get a call from the security company that their cameras ceased working?” Renée Marianne Dashell, also called Dash by her co-workers, asked with a cocked eyebrow before turning her gaze on the judge’s house.

“Maybe it was just a simple break down,” their white haired partner, Gilda Griffin, suggested with a shrug  as she exited the patrol car. “We should still stay until one of the residents shows up,” she quickly added when Dash turned around to glare at her. “Just to be safe.”

“Thanks!” Dash turned back to watching the house. “Also, the probability for one of the surveillance cameras to break down is extremely low, so you can imagine the probability for it to happen to all of them.”

The other two police officers blinked  before staring at their colleague with a puzzled frown.

“Since when do you actually know that stuff?” Delilah asked slowly.

“Heard it somewhere,” Dash replied with a shrug.

“You’ve been hanging around the crime labs again, haven’t you?” Gilda asked with a knowing sigh. “That pushover from the “mind hunters” department will never glance at you!”

“Hey! She’s not a pushover!” Dash replied angrily. “And, what do you mean she’ll never glance at me?” she asked with a small blush.

“Well, she kinda is,” Delilah chimed in slowly. “She apologizes to anyone who walks close to her because she thinks she’s in the way,”

“And, she’ll never look at you, because she’s too busy hiding from everyone behind her curtain of hair!” Gilda said with a mocking laugh. “What a scaredy cat.”

“Come again, G!” Dash retorted furiously. “I didn’t hear you quite clearly!”

        Delilah put herself between her two partners as Dash took a threatening step toward Gilda, hoping to calm them by reminding them why they were here in the first place.

“Hmm, excuse me, officers,” a calm man’s voice called the three officers, interrupting their argument. “May I ask what are you doing in front of my front gate?” the voice asked politely.

The three cops immediately stopped their ‘fight’ to turn their head to the source, seeing a very puzzled Judge Patterson who had just come back from his morning jogging.

“Is that your house?” Dash asked rather abruptly. “Sir?” she added softly as she realized she hadn’t been very polite.

“Indeed, officer,” Judge Patterson replied casually. “Is there something wrong?”

“We received a call from Monitronics,” Gilda explained calmly. “Apparently, your surveillance cameras stopped working about thirty-five minutes ago. We came to see what was going on.”

“Would you mind if we get inside to see what it is about?” Dash asked.

“Of course, not!” Patterson immediately answered before heading toward his front gate’s electronic panel. “Give me second to open the gate,” he added before typing the code to open the front gate.

Within the following seconds, the front gate automatically opened to let the judge and the three policewomen enter. The group headed straight for the house’s front door, passing in front of the beautiful gardens of the property.

Gilda let out a very impressed whistle at how well maintained the property’s gardens were. Something that earned her a small whack behind the skull from a frowning Dash when Mr. Patterson wasn’t watching.

“Is there anyone inside?” Delilah asked professionally as they reached the small stairs before the front door.

“Aside from my wife’s dogs, no,” Patterson replied as he put his hand into his left pocket to get his keys. “She’s absent because of her work.” He frowned when he didn’t find his keys. “That’s strange, I was certain to have put them in my left pocket,” he whispered as he went through his other pockets.

“You sure you had them when you left?” Dash asked. “I mean, considering the front gate needs no key to open itself.”

“Positive!” Patterson replied firmly. “I locked the door, put the keys in my pockets, closed the front gate and headed for Central Park for my usual jogging.” 

“Has anyone stopped you along the way?” Dash asked abruptly.

“Well, there was that young jogger…” his eyes widened in realization. “She accidently bumped into me three or four streets from here,” he said slowly.

“Did you have your keys after that?” Gilda asked firmly.

“I… I didn’t check,” Mr. Patterson admitted.

“Probably a pickpocket,” Dash muttered for herself. “Can you describe that…”

“Guys,” Delilah interrupted them softly, her hand on the door handle. “It’s open.”

        Delilah slowly opened the door and the three cops, followed by the judge, cautiously entered into the silent lobby. The three cops pulled their guns out, in case something bad might be waiting them. 

“Didn’t you say that your wife’s dogs were supposed to be here?” Gilda asked quietly as the quatuor headed through the lobby to the living room.

Patterson nodded in silence.

“I wonder where they are?” Delilah said as they were about to enter the living room.

“You just needed to ask, dear officers,” A very sophisticated, girly voice said in a perfect Manhattan accent.

The voice came from inside the floor above, and the next thing the quatuor heard was a someone whistling sharply. Mrs. Patterson’s Rottweilers stormed out of the living room before each of them tackled one of the three police officers to the ground, letting the three guns escape from their hands.

“Oh… Get him off me!” Gilda called in a choked growl as one of the dogs was sitting on her chest.

“AAAAAH that’s so gross!” Delilah shouted in disgust as the dog pinning her was copiously licking her face.

“Hey, get your dogs away!” Dash called for Patterson while the last dog was lying on her upper body, blocking her two arms under his weight.

“That won’t be possible, I’m afraid,” the voice spoke again, this time closer to the three pinned officers.

        Dash managed to turn her head toward the voice, seeing a tall woman completely wearing a black outfit with a hood that masked everything except her eyes, looking at the three policewomen struggling against their canine opponents on the ground while another person wearing a similar black outfit had pulled Mr. Patterson far away from his dogs before pinning him on the ground.

“I do believe you three are carrying something that weighs you a lot, aren’t you?” the tall woman asked with a soft chuckle.

“No shit, bitch!” Gilda cursed loudly, causing the dog on top of her to growl angrily at her.

“Easy, Augustus,” the tall thief said softly, instantly calming the angry dog. “Now, as I was saying,” she walked closer to the orange haired police officer. “Let me help you with that unnecessary weight you’re all carrying.”

        She crouched between the pinned bodies of Gilda and Delilah before she pulled their personal walkie-talkie from their belt. The thief moved on to do the same to Dash’s, earning a furious glare from the brown haired cop. The burglar then patted the head of the dog lying on Dash before taking a few steps away before crashing the radios on the floor before stomping on it for good measure.

“Now, we bid you a good day,” she said while heading for the door. “Don’t be mad at your dogs, sir,” she added to Patterson as she opened the door. “I learned how to tame dogs ten times less obedient than these three Lassies .”

        The tall thief with the sophisticated accent waved at her partner who let go of Mr. Patterson before the two ran outside the house before slamming the front door behind them. Free from the smaller thief's grip, Patterson quickly went to freed the cops from his dogs.

        The three policewomen rushed to the door, after having regained their handguns and glaring at the dogs who had been pinning them to the ground a few seconds earlier. When Gilda pushed the handle down, the door didn’t open. The burglars had locked them in with Patterson’s keys.

“SON OF A BITCH!” Gilda roared as she punched the front door.

“Let’s climb out one of the windows!” Dash shouted before Delilah opened the large window in the left staircase.

        The three cops jumped through that window before making a mad sprint toward the front gate. Dash, being the fastest runner among them, was the first one to reach the gate which was open. As she passed through the opening, Dash saw the smaller thief running into an alley across the street before the back of black gloved hand appeared from her left and crashed into her nose.

“DASH!” Delilah roared in fury as Dash’s body did a backflip because of the impact and landed heavily on her back.

        While Dash was holding her now bloody nose, Delilah pulled out her telescopic billy, Gilda grabbed her gun, and the tall thief exited from behind the wall. The orange-y blonde haired police officer tried to hit  the thief’s head.

        The thief grabbed the attacking cop’s wrist before twisting it strongly. As Delilah grunted in pain, the burglar gave a powerful uppercut right on the celiac plexus, causing her to gape before she let go of her billy.

“Stop, or I’ll shoot!” Gilda roared as she pointed her gun at the thief.

        The criminal’s reaction was to kick Delilah in the stomach to send her stumbling backward toward her partner. The time it took for Gilda to avoid her colleague in order to keep a clear shot at the robber was all said robber needed.

        The tall woman in black grabbed the breech of the gun, pushed it toward  Gilda to eject the bullet from the barrel. Then, she pushed on the button to eject the magazine out of the gun before kicking it away before it reached the ground. Before Gilda could react, she was elbowed in the chest. The thief did a spinning kick in the back of the cop’s knee, making her fall on her back with a pained groan.

        The tall thief glanced at the three cops on the ground as she dusted herself before heading casually across the still empty street where an orangish pickup had just driven out of the alley. Dash managed to stand back on her feet when the one who had just beat her and her two colleagues up was taking place on the driver seat.

“Come on, you two!” She yelled while wiping her bleeding nose.

        Gilda and Dash quickly help Delilah on her feet before they reached for their patrol car. The orange pickup was still in sight as the thieves were driving toward Central Park.

“Contact the central!” Dash ordered to Gilda as she started the car’s engine. “Tell them we’re in pursuit of an orange Dodge pickup truck on the 79th street, heading to the 5th avenue!”

“Huh… that won’t be possible,” Gilda growled. “That bitch cut the radio’s cord!” she explained as she threw the cb’s microphone, which wasn’t connected to the radio anymore, on the car’s floor.

“We’ll do this the hard way, then!” Dash shouted before speeding away.

The police unit didn’t speed away at all. The car was slow and moving with a high-pitched screeching sound. Dash stopped the car, opened the door and glanced at the front left tire.

“FUCK!” she yelled in frustration as she noticed the tire had been cut open, figuring out the others were in a similar state.


******


As their orange pickup truck was heading North on the fifth avenue, with no cops on their trail, something that puzzled Claude a lot.

“How come they’re not coming after us?” she asked with worry.

“Kinda hard to start a car with four flat tires, Sugarcube,” Jack replied with a small grin in her usual southern accent while she pulled out a large hunting knife from its holster attached to her boot. “This here baby can cut the rubber of a tire like it’s butter!” she explained while turning in the 87th street.

“Well, without their radios and their car, we should be able to get home without any trouble,” Claude commented as she pulled her hood up and relax on her seat. “How did you do that by the way?”

“Do what?” Jack pulled her hood up as well, before she engaged the pick up on Madison Avenue.

“That thing with the Rottweilers!” Claude specified firmly. “How come they obeyed you?”

“Mama used to train dogs back at the farm,” Jack explained with nostalgia. “She taught me a few tricks.”

“And that Manhattan accent?” Claude asked.

“Something Ah was forced to pick up by ma foster family,” Jack replied sourly. “Never thought it’d come handy one day.”

“Well, that kinda save you today,” Claude added matter-of-factly. “Your real voice is recognizable among a thousand.” Jack nodded slowly.

“So, what did ya think of Regulus, Augustus and Maximus?” Jack asked with a chuckle while Claude shivered at the mention of the three Rottweilers. “Without them, it’d have been a lot less easy to escape.”

“Well, I must admit that for three bloodthirsty, four legged monsters, they were ok,” Claude said in a low tone.

“They ain’t monsters,” Jack said in offence. “They were cuddlier than teddy bears!”

“I maintain that they wanted to eat me!” Claude pouted before crossing her arms.

Jack sighed. “One day, we’ll get you rid of that fear of dogs.”

“Yeah, and one day, you’ll stop hating the Apple company,” Claude retorted sarcastically.

“That’s different!” Jack shouted angrily! “Their founders went to ma family’s orchard and used our name to start their business! Then, them rascals sued us and we were forced to change our name to Smith!”

“I know you told us that story many times, but I’m still not believing it,” Claude replied matter-of-factly.

“What with all the….” Jack grumbled before taking a deep breath. “How about Ah drive us home in silence?” she asked in a low angry tone.

“Speaking of home;” Claude said with interest. “You think Vinyl and Patty did okay?”

“They surely did things a lot more discreetly than us, that’s for sure,” Jack commented. “But, Ah doubt they got more than us with what you took from Mrs. Patterson’s jewelry boxes,” she added with a chuckle.

“Yeah, I don’t think we’re gonna have to do the dishes for the next two weeks,” Claude said while gently patting her bag full of jewelry. “No way, Vinyl or Patty got something as cool as that!”

“Sure thing, Sugarcube!”
> Prologue part 3 : Home & NYPD
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Vinyl was driving her black van up Edgewater road until she turned right in a small, discreet dirt path that lead through Garrison Park, right after the scrap merchant. She followed the path hidden by the trees for a good minute or two before she and Patty arrived in front of an abandoned looking train depot under the bridge of Buckner boulevard.

“Home, sweet home,” Patty said softly before she got out of the vehicle to open the garage’s door.

While Vinyl parked the van inside the garage, Patty was jumping to reach for the door’s handle, which she had lifted too high for her when she opened the door. Vinyl couldn’t stop herself from chuckling as her friend flayed her arms in the air mid-jump, hoping it’d somehow made her jump higher.

Should I remind her there’s the chain to open/close the door right next to her? Vinyl asked herself mentally before she heard the sound of another vehicle coming closer. “Patty, wait! I think Jack and Claude are back,” she called before glancing outside.

        Just like she thought, Jack’s orange pickup truck was heading toward the garage’s entrance. When the pickup was parked next to the van, Jack stepped out of the vehicle to walk up to Vinyl while Claude went to help Patty closing the garage’s door.

“How did it go, Vi’?” Jack asked with curiosity.

“Like clockwork, Jack!” Vinyl replied happily. “Easily found more than ten thousand bucks in the pianist’s vault,” she explained with a smile while Jack whistled softly. “What about you?”

“Claude raided Patterson’s wife’s vanity, come have a look,” Jack said before going back to her pickup with Vinyl in tow.

         In the meantime, Claude took a few steps on the wall before jumping to grab the handle of the garage’s door, only to end up suspended in the air because the door didn’t budge due to Claude’s low weight, something that made Patty laugh loudly.

“WOHOHO!” Vinyl let out in amazement as Jack showed her the content of Claude’s backpack. “That’s a lot of jewels,” she commented. “I think you and Claude are the winners today.”

“Well, maybe not,” Jack said hesitantly. “Cops showed up and saw us leaving in the pickup.”

“How come the cops showed up?” Vinyl asked. “If you took care of the alarm with Patty’s app, you shouldn’t have had problems with them…. Unless someone saw you climbing the wall, of course,” Vinyl suggested with a pensive frown.

“Yeah, about the app...” Jack explained the problem they encountered with the security system and how she had ‘solved’ it and she had managed the cops.

“So, you beat the three cops up after having broken their walkie-talkies, cut their car’s CB radio’s cord, and cut their car’s tires open,” Vinyl summarized after Jack ended her tale. The blonde simply nodded. “Well, since you didn’t get trouble on the way here, they mustn’t have given your pickup description yet,” she added with a shrug.

“At worst they know Ah have an orange Dodge pickup,” Jack said softly. “Dodge pickup trucks are common in town, so Ah was thinking of stripping the orange, repaint the truck, and change the number plates. To be sure!”

“Good idea,” Vinyl said before a very loud clang startled her and Jack. “What the hell are you two doing?” she shouted at Patty who had finally managed to close to door by clutching onto Claude, thus adding enough weight for the door to come down, making them both fall on the ground.

“Duh, we’re closing the door, silly,” Patty replied with a roll of her eyes from underneath Claude.

“Let’s just take stock of what we got,” Vinyl said after a short, heavy silence as she rubbed her eyes in annoyance. 

        Vinyl went back to her van to take her and Patty’s bag from the van while Jack took her and Claude’s from her pickup. The four then headed out of the garage to enter into the former depot’s warehouse.

Except it didn’t look like a warehouse anymore. Ever since the four girls had decided to make their hideout of the abandoned train depot many years ago, the empty and dusty warehouse had turned into a decently furnished loft. Sure, the walls were bare of any paint, the floor was dirty and dusty, but they had a fully equipped kitchen, a few couches and chairs around a large coffee table, a desk for each one of them and a small dog house near the kitchen. It wasn’t much, but it was their home, and they liked it.

Patty’s desk was covered by electronic parts and her faithful pink laptop she had affectionately named “Pinkie”; Claude had the simplistic miniatures of both Mr Patterson’s property and Mr. Horzowski’s apartment, they had used to prepare this morning burglaries on top of hers; Vinyl’s was occupied by the many blueprints Patty had hacked at some point; On top of Jack’s desk was lying the many tools she used to clean her knife and the few guns the group kept here. Despite the four girls hoping they’ll never have to use any of them, Vinyl and Jack were intransigent on keeping them perfectly functional. Knowing who their debt holder was, it was a safe precaution.

“GUMMY! MOMMIES ARE HOME!” Patty shouted excitedly the second the group entered the living area.

        After her shout, there was some hissing sounds coming from the dog house. A two and a half feet long green alligator, wearing a deeper green dog collar with a bone shaped medallion around its neck, dashed out of the dog house toward the four women, waggling its scaly tail happily.

“Awwww! He’s all happy to see us!” Patty coed affectionately as she kneeled on the ground to pat gummy’s head, earning pleased hiss from the small alligator.”Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?”

“Ah know Ah said many times already,” Jack said as Patty asked Gummy to shake-a-claw, something the reptile did. “But, we really should take him to the vet.”

“Jack, we’ve been through this already,” Claude said in annoyance while Vinyl rolled her eyes and lifted her hands in the air, silently saying she wouldn’t take part in that conversation.

“Why do you want to take him to vet?” Patty asked with worry. “He’s not sick, is he?”

“Well, it ain’t really normal for an alligator to behave like he does right now,” Jack commented as Gummy was sitting up and begging in front of Patty.

“I don’t see a difference from how he usually is,” Patty said, not getting what Jack was implying.

“That’s mainly the problem, Sugar,” Jack said impatiently. “He’s an alligator, not a dog!”

“I know that, silly!” Patty said casually. “I mean, look at him! Green scales, claws, a large maw, reptilian purple eyes. He has nothing of a dog!”

“Well, if ya don’t count the behavior,” Jack snarled.

Patty glared at her blonde friend. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“We’re probably the only people in the world to have an alligator who thinks he’s a dog. That’s what it means!” Jack retorted.

“So, because he’s different than the others, you want to take him to the vet?!” Patty asked angrily before picking Gummy in her arms to hug him. “I bet it’s because his daddy and mommy thought the same as you that he ended up in the sewers where I found him!”

“Sure, because New York is the home of irresponsible and horrible alligators parents,” Claude commented from the bar chair she was sitting on, only to be ignored by the two arguing women.

“And, I didn’t hear you complain whenever he brought you your slippers, like a good dog would do,” Patty argued angrily.

“Patty, Ah don’ call him accidently whipping one of ma boots next to ma feet “bringing ma slippers”.” Jack replied apathetically.

        Jack and Patty continued to argue about the rightness of their pet alligator’s state of mind. At some point, Patty put Gummy on the kitchen’s countertop. The alligator slowly walked up to Vinyl who was leaning on the countertop, a can of soda in her hand. Gummy gently nudged her elbow before Vinyl softly chuckled, and scratched his chin tenderly.

“So, what did you do when we were gone?” Vinyl asked while Gummy was hissing of pleasure.

        Gummy’s reply was to jump from the countertop to the ground, landing heavily with a low thud. Then, he rushed to his dog, no, alligator house before coming back to Vinyl’s side with the handle of a large, slightly wet,  red purse in his maw. He let the bag fall at a very surprised Vinyl’s feet.

“Where on earth did you get that?” Vinyl asked slowly as she picked the purse up.


*******

        
At the same moment, in the police post at the North of Central Park.

“So, let me see if I got this right, Miss.” Officer Benson said calmly, his eyes on the deposition he had just written. “You were relaxing near the bank of the Harlem Meer in Central Park…” he glanced at the woman in front of him who quickly nodded. “When, suddenly, a small crocodile bursted out of the water, “barked” at you…”

“Well, he was doing those crocodile sounds, but it look like he barked,” the woman with messy white hair said uneasily. “Kinda like this,” she added before letting out a mix of a bark and a hiss. “See?”

“Huh-huh,” Officer Benson let out with a nod. “Then, that barking crocodile grabbed a handle of your purse and pulled until you let go….”

“Yes! Then, he returned into the water, wagging his tail like a dog!” the woman nearly shouted in impatience. “That’s what I’ve telling you for the past half-hour!”

“Are you sure that’s what happened?” Benson asked doubtfully.

“YES! You have to believe me!” the woman with messy white hair said as she grabbed the officer’s collar and pulled him close. “I am not crazy!”

“Suuuuuure, you aren’t,” Benson let out slowly, while not much convinced by what he was saying.


*******


“Well, I don’t know how you pulled that off, Gummy.” Vinyl opened the fridge after having checked the interior of the purse. “But, you deserve a little reward!” she pulled out a decently sized, juicy steak from the fridge. “There you go!” she said affectionately, throwing the meat in Gummy’s expecting maw.

        While Gummy was enjoying his treat, Patty and Jack were still arguing about his “condition” under the curious gaze of Claude, whose head was going from right to left as if watching a tennis game. Vinyl sighed before grabbing the four backpacks along with the purse before heading for the best chair around the coffee table, on which she threw the fives bags. 

She sat on her chair with a relaxed sigh before hearing a hissed whimper coming from her feet. Vinyl didn’t need to look down to know what their pet wanted. She smiled before tapping her thigh softly, causing Gummy to climb her legs before curling himself on her lap to have a small nap. As her favorite alligator was comfortably installed, Vinyl glanced at her friends.

“Girls, cut it out!” Vinyl said with a firm tone, instantly stopping the argument between the tall blonde and the pink haired nerd who both turned around to look at her. “Patty, for the last time, Gummy does not behave like a normal alligator!” she saw that Patty was about to tell her off. “And, that’s just fine! We will not take him to a vet for that! Jack,” she called for the blonde. “Yes, that’s weird, but I’d rather have an alligator who thinks he’s a dog than a normal alligator, or a dog who thinks he’s an alligator!”

“Well, now that you put it like that,” Jack said uneasily.

“Now, that we cleared that off, get your asses over here! All of you!” Vinyl ordered. “We have stuff to do, and I’m not counting all this stuff by myself!” she pointed at the five bags on the coffee table.

“Where did that purse come from?” Claude asked in confusion as she sat on the couch with Patty, who seemed to be a little jealous that Gummy was on Vinyl’s lap.

“Gummy brought it,” Vinyl explained while patting on the sleeping alligator’s head. “No idea how he did that though.” she shrugged. “That’s just one more mystery about our little, scaly friend.”

“Let’s start the counting,” Jack said before grabbing Claude’s bag and opening it.

“WAOW!” Patty shouted with eyes the size of ping pong balls. “That’s all the jewels Mrs. Patterson had?”

“In her home, yes,” Claude said triumphantly. “That means you and Vinyl will have to do the dishes for the next two weeks!”

“Oh, because you think we didn’t get more than you did?” Patty asked cheerfully.

“As much as I hate doing the dishes, Patty, I think we didn’t get as much as the worth of the bag of jewels,” Vinyl commented casually. “I hope Alard won’t mind this payment partly in nature though. No way we can sell that much jewelry without catching too much attention,” she added in a low tone.

“NAHA! None of what they got matches what YOU got!” Patty pointed at Vinyl with a small grin.

“What exactly did she get?” Jack asked curiously.

Vinyl softly chuckled. “I don’t think that counts, Patty.”

“What counts?” Claude asked in confusion.

“Vinyl scored with the Pianist’s girlfriend!” Patty explained cheerfully while the others’ eyes widened in surprise.

“..... Come again?” Jack said softly.

“What exactly do you mean by “scored with the pianist’s girlfriend”?” Claude asked with interest, her eyes fixed on Vinyl. 

“She didn’t want to tell me earlier,” Patty said while she and Claude scooted closer to Vinyl to pressure her.

“You made out with her or what?” Claude asked eagerly. “Come on, you can tell us!” Vinyl sighed with a small grin before raising two fingers up. “Twice?!”

“Woooo! Details please?” Patty asked excitedly.

“Details are for me and her to know,” Vinyl replied playfully, but her voice was firm enough that Claude and Patty figured it was no use to press the matter further.

“Ah hope ya didn’t leave any traces behind, Vi,” Jack said casually while counting the roll of bills she had pulled out from one of the bags. “

“Don’t worry, Sleeping Beauty was kind enough to erase traces of my passage without me asking,” Vinyl said with a wink before inspecting the bag full of Mrs. Patterson’s jewels. “Hmmm, might have to check to make sure there aren’t any unique pieces from some famous jeweller or something… Can you check, Patty?” she asked as she threw the bag at Patty.

“Sure thing!” Patty nodded before grabbing the bag while standing up to get to her desk.

“Nice catch on the 17 inches laptop, girls,” Claude commented as she pulled out Horsowski’s former Macbook out of Patty’s bag.

“Ah hate the Apple Company!” Jack muttered angrily when she noticed the apple-shaped logo on the computer.

“We know, Jack! We know!” the three replied simultaneously with a short chuckle before the four girls went back to making inventory of what Gummy and them had stolen in the morning.


*******


        On the eleventh floor of the NYPD headquarters on the 1, Police Plaza, were installed the labs of the police scientific department. That’s where Commissioner Sherman Shields had joined the crime scene investigation squads to hear their reports on the two burglaries that hadhappened earlier that day.

“Now, what can you tell us about the one at Judge Patterson’s house, Twila?” Celeste Heliopolis, the chief of the scientific department asked the ebony-toned woman with a pink highlights in her shoulder long, black hair.

“Sadly, not much,” Twila said with disappointment as she went through her notes. “Spencer and I looked the cameras footage before they were deactivated, there’s not a single image of one of the two thieves on it.” she said sourly after pointing at the slightly younger man with spiky black hair beside her.

“We did find some rather deep footprints in the gardens just behind the wall,” Spencer commented slowly. “We believe they found a blind spot in the cameras and exploited it by climbing the wall.”

“Wasn’t that wall at least three and a half meters tall with metallic spikes on top?” Sherman asked his younger siblings with curiosity.

“Indeed it was,” Twila said with a nodded. “I know it doesn’t sound feasible, but that’s what the evidence showed.”

“Go on, then,” Celeste invited as Sherman gave a curt nod to his younger sister.

“We found out how they deactivated the cameras, but it’d not have needed to be a genius for that,” Twila said with a pissed snort.

“They simply ripped the whole panel off the wall,” Spencer explained at the sight of his two superiors and other two colleagues’ cocked eyebrows.

“Could you repeat that, Spencer dear? I think I misunderstood what you said,” the woman with long, perfectly styled dark auburn hair asked after blinking a couple of times in confusion.

“S-sur-sure thing, Rarity,” Spencer stammered with a small blush, much like every time Rarity spoke to him. “I inspected what was left of the surveillance grid, which wasn’t much by the way, and it clearly showed that someone violently pulled it out of the wall.”

“How subtle,” Rarity commented sarcastically. 

“How did they get in after that?” the last woman in the room, a young, beautiful blonde with incredibly long hair, asked quietly. “Did they break the window or something?”

“No, they had managed to pickpocket the house’s keys before going over the wall!” Twila replied angrily, causing the blonde to shy away behind her long hair.

“She’s a bit mad because Patterson said that the one who stole his keys looked a lot like her,” Spencer explained when Twila’s retort earned her a new set of cocked eyebrows. “Only that the thief didn’t have the pink highlights in her hair and she was a bit smaller than her.” 

“Understandable, but still not a reason to snap at Chylene like that,” Celeste commented sternly.

“I know,” Twila admitted slowly. “I’m sorry, Chylene. It’s just…. We’ve got nothing!”

“What do you mean?” Sherman asked in confusion.

“What I said, Sherman!” Twila said impatiently. “No fingerprints, no hair, no DNA, nothing that could give us a solid lead on the culprits!” she threw her notepad on the table in frustration. “The only things we know are: that the tall one weighs about 170 pounds, is about 6 feet tall, speaks with a fancy Manhattan accent, can beat up three cops in less than thirty seconds; that the small one looks alot like me; and that they simply came in a orange pickup truck that they’re probably painting in another color as we speak!”

“Twila, calm down!” Celeste said firmly. “I know it’s your first case as a principal investigator, but you don’t have to snap just because they didn’t leave enough evidence for us to work with!” Twila slowly nodded before sitting back on her seat with an angry pout. “What about the one at Mr. Horzowski’s duplex, Chylene, Rarity?”

“Materially speaking, we don’t have much more than Twila on her case,” Rarity said while searching through her file. “A few scratches on the guardrail of the fire escape. From what they said in the labs, they could have been caused by some special hooks used for climbing which can be found in basically any sports shop in town. The duct tape they used to keep the window together can be bought in every hardware store in the world,” she explained in a soft, yet annoyed voice. 

“Just like for Mr. Patterson’s house, no fingerprints, no hair… If it weren’t for the note the burglar left and the mess he made in the living room, you could swear no one other than Mr. Horzowski and his girlfriend entered the apartment.” Rarity passed copies of the note she had found in the open vault.

“Wow, that’s actually pretty bold!” Spencer commented in slightly admirative tone as he finished reading the note.

“Gotta admit he sure wasn’t scared,” Twila commented. “The last PS could mean the thief’s one of the girlfriend’s exes, right?”

“Hum, actually,” Chylene chimed in quietly, a small blush on her cheeks. “Ms. Bluenote kissed the burglar during the theft by accident.”

“Beg pardon?” Spencer, Sherman, Celeste and Twila asked in disbelief.

“Well, apparently her boyfriend had left the room, leaving her without blanket and the window open,” Chylene explained. “She felt someone bringing the blanket and on her and thought it was her boyfriend, so she…. She kissed him as a thank you while she was still half asleep.”

“Oh,” the four let out in surprise.

“And here I thought gentlemen burglars only existed in novels,” Rarity commented with a short giggle. “Though that explains why the thief was so generous on complimenting Ms. Bluenote in his note.”

“Not that she wasn’t complimenting him either,” Chylene said softly. “But that was more to make her boyfriend mad than anything else. He had been pretty mean to her when they found the note,” she explained softly.

“Indeed, she did stress the fact that the robber was a fantastic kisser!” Rarity added with another giggle.

“And you didn’t find trace of the burglar’s DNA on Ms. Bluenote?” Twila asked with curiosity.

“I did take a sample of her spit,” Chylene said. “But she confessed she had taken several mouthwashes after the incident. As much as good of a kisser he was, she didn’t really like being kissed by a stranger.”

“I guess that I can understand that,” Twila said softly. “So apart from the note, we got nothing?”

“Exactly,” Rarity replied with a nod. “Say, Chylene, what can we deduce of the thief’s profile with that note?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” Chylene said in apologetic tone. “I can say from his handwriting that the note was completely improvised and written in a rush. The same could be said about that disc the thief left behind. All that were the result of an unexpected incident: the thief kissing Ms. Bluenote.“ Chylene couldn’t stop herself from blushing at the mention of the word kissing. “It’s that interaction that caused the change of music that warned Horzowski that something was wrong, and the note that he found later on.”

“Why would he do something like that?” Sherman asked with curiosity. “That must have maximized the risk of getting caught!”

“I think the thief wanted to catch their attention, especially Ms. Bluenote’s,” she explained in a professional, yet quiet tone.

“It does look like a declaration addressed to the miss, now that you make me think about it,” Sherman commented as he reread the note.

“So, he was hitting on her after he robbed her boyfriend?” Twila asked with disbelief.

“You could say that,” Chylene replied calmly. “It might also have been a trick to focus Horzwoski’s attention on something else, giving enough time to escape,” she supposed as she passed her hair behind her ear. “Maybe a little bit of both, but more interested in getting the girl’s attention.”

“I think you’re right about that, Chylene,” Celeste commented. “If he just wanted a distraction, I don’t think he would have apologized for taking her jewels. That was just an opportunity for him to compliment Ms. Bluenote.” She slowly smiled. “Quite nicely, I might add.”

“So, our robber is a lady-killer?” Rarity asked. “That englobes around half the population in New York, talk about useful news,” she added when her blonde colleague nodded.

“At least, it’s still news,” Sherman commented softly.

“Wasn’t it a tad overconfident of him to leave such a message?” Spencer asked, his eyes fixed on the note. 

Chylene shook her head. “Bold? Surely! Overconfident? I don’t think so!” she said firmly. “That message is as much for us as it was for the two victims. He must have known we would read it and try to analyze it. What can we deduce of important from that letter?” Chylene didn’t wait for a reply. “Nothing!”

“We can say that he’s a seducer! We can say that he likes electronic music over Chopin! That he’s the kind of thief who steals a computer but who’s kind enough to sent back the personal data later on!” Chylene shook her head. “That’s worth nothing! Plus the way he signed: the one who just robbed you! He’s mocking us, because he knows we have nothing to get him!” Chylene stated firmly before blinking as she realized she had stood up during her explanation. “Well, that’s what I think it is,” she added in a sheepish whisper as she sat back on her chair.

“So, he’s a seducer with attitude?” Rarity asked.

“Most likely,” Chylene replied quietly. “I know it doesn’t really help us, but that’s all I could gather from the note.”

“Well, that’s two burglaries without any lead to the culprits,” Celeste commented with sigh. She rubbed her forehead while thinking about something. “Did the two victims have anything in common?”

“Not really,” Spencer commented. “Patterson’s a judge and Horzowski’s a pianist. Not really related jobs in my opinion.”

“Why do you ask?” Sherman asked with curiosity.

“Two nearly perfect burglaries both happening at around 6am on a Sunday?” Celeste replied sharply. “A bit too much for a coincidence, no?”

“Kinda,” Rarity admitted slowly.

“Hang on!…. I think I read something….HAHA!” Twila said excitedly as she flipped through the two files. “Both of them had their alarm installed by Monitronics, and in both burglars the security system was deactivated first, even if was by different methods,”

“I think we’ve got a lead now,” Celeste said with a small grin. “Twila, Spencer! Go Monitronics’ office and see if someone broke through their security!”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Twila and Spencer said as they stood up before exiting the meeting room.

“What about Chylene and I, Madam?” Rarity asked.

“Go over what they collected in Judge Patterson’s house, and see if Chylene can profile the burglars, they left more elements for her to work with than in Horzwoski’s duplex.” Celeste ordered calmly.

“Understood, Madam,” Chylene and Rarity nodded before also going out of the room, leaving the chief of the scientific department and the police captain alone.

“You think Twila and Spencer are going to find something at Monitronics?” Sherman asked slowly after a short silence.

“If my intuition is correct,  they’ll find nothing,” Celeste muttered with a deep, annoyed frown.

“You think they did it?” Sherman asked, frowning as well. “That’d be a first time they’d actually have done something with someone still inside the house, or that someone actually saw one of them,” he said slowly.

“It’s not like they never changed their modus operandi before,” Celeste retorted sarcastically.

“Celeste, why are you so sure that it might be….”

“One hundred thirty-eight!”

“What?” Sherman asked in confusion.

“That’s the number of unsolved burglary cases in the last eight years,” Celeste explained slowly. “If we add the two of this morning, that’ll be one hundred forty,”

“Hang on, how can you be so sure those from this morning will be unsolved?”

“Do you know what the first hundred thirty-eight had in common?” Celeste asked, ignoring the captain’s question.

“No, I don’t,” Sherman replied.

“We never had a single clue on who the culprits were,” Celeste said matter-of-factly. “That’s the sole common feature in all those burglars! The victims didn’t have anything in common: some were among the super riches, others were in the middle class. They even didn’t all involve insane amounts of money. In some cases, the alarm was deactivated by cutting the power down to the entire building. In others, the robbery happened under the sounds of the alarm bells.” Celeste stood up and walked up to a window. “The thieves came in, took what they wanted, and simply disappeared without a single trace into the shadows of New York,” she stared outside in silence.

“Why are you so moody, Celeste?” Sherman asked with worry. “It’s not like you at all.”

“I know,” Celeste admitted with a sigh. “It’s just that that group is annoying me to no ends! For eight years they’ve been ridiculing us!” she growled while closing her fists.

“Celeste, we don’t even have proof that band of expert thieves even exists,” Sherman said softly.

“I know we don’t, but my guts are telling me it does, Sherman,” Celeste said firmly. “It exists and one day they’ll make a mistake. A huge mistake! And, I’ll be there to handcuff those punks who’ve been playing with us for so long!” she growled in determination.






> Business meeting at the ManeHatOn
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Okay, girls, what have we agreed on for tonight?” Vinyl asked to Claude and Patty who were sitting on the back seat of the group’s black sedan, her gaze locked on the pink-haired girl.

“No alcohol, no hook-ups with strangers, and no drawing too much attention!” Patty replied solemnly with an excited nod.

“Good. Claude?” Vinyl glanced at the blonde.

“Make sure that Patty sticks to her word in the nightclub while you and Jack are doing all the talk with Alard and his lackeys!” Claude replied firmly.

“Now, that we’ve all agreed on that,” Vinyl took a short breath before facing Jack, who was sitting on the driver’s seat patiently. “Let’s go!”

        The four girls stepped out of the car in the private section of the club’s car park, a section usually reserved for those performing and those with VIP tickets; but, luckily, there was an empty space that just seemed to have been waiting for them. 

Patty and Claude were both dressed like elite party-goers - a little out-of-the-way, but not too much: despite the early chill of the evening, Claude’s dress wasn’t the usual long type that she admired - her allegiance to the gang could never kill her inner fashionista sense - but, instead, it was the kind of three-fourth dress that just barely covered the knees and a few centimetres below: a mild purple, with almost-invisible streaks of dark pink, with the fine silk reflecting the light in a most natural way. The breastpiece was partly concealed by the dress, but a keen eye could make out its snow-white colour, the texture forever unknown to a stranger. Her ears were adorned with purple earrings: a cheap substitution for diamonds, sure, but it only made sense to go with the dress. Her long hair flew freely on her shoulders, unrestricted just in the way that its owner was.

Patty made a fine contrast to the overly-formal Claude: her outfit consisted of a rather short pink dress, revealing a smooth tint of her knees’ skin - not Claude’s dark pink, but a bright, cheerful colour that screamed party. No earring or hairslide attached, her look was more of an al fresco kind of outfit, the one you would usually put on for a stroll, not for a dance. But then again, it was Patty, and when did Patty ever make sense? 

Claude walked slowly: despite her skill with high heels, she knew how to keep her posture well-maintained. Patty just half-bounced, half-jogged ahead in her usual joyful manner. The doors were close, and they were aiming for them.

On the other hand, Vinyl and Jack were dressed in the polar opposite fashion from their friends. Both were wearing classy black suits with snow white blouses. Jack had decided to leave the thin necktie in their hideout, claiming it made her feel like being on a leash, and turned up her collar while keeping a few buttons open, giving a small peek of her cleavage to anyone foolish enough to stare at it. Jack liked to keep her shirts open like that -She liked the sensation of the breeze on her skin. It reminded her of the fresh air of her dear farmland.- but that didn’t mean she liked when people thought it was open-night. 

Vinyl had chosen to stick with it. Given she’ll be the one doing the talking later, she had to be presentable. She put her blue scarf around her neck, letting it hanging on her shoulders before putting her purple glasses on her nose. She went to the car trunk with Jack to take what they needed, only to blink in shock when they opened it.

“Patty!” Vinyl called in a low growl.

“Yeah?” Patty replied with an innocent smile.

“Why is Gummy in the trunk of the car?” The blue-haired woman demanded angrily, nodding at the small green alligator who was wagging his tail at the friendly faces.

“Duh, Gummy wanted to party as well!” Patty answered with a roll of her eyes, convinced in the obviousness of her reply.

“Jack,” Vinyl said through clenched teeth. “Do something terrible, please!”

“Huh…” Jack let out in confusion before glancing at Patty. “No more cupcakes for the next two weeks, Ah guess,” she said in an uncertain threatening tone.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Patty dramatically fell on her knees in a loud shout.

“I said ‘terrible’! I didn’t ask you to terrify her!” Vinyl interjected, while Claude was trying her best to make it look like she didn’t know any of the other three women, despite the car park being void of any other presences.

“Fiiine! One week only!” Jack shouted to Patty in annoyance, while picking the two bags for their monthly payment. “What are we goin’ to do with Gummy?”

“Well, we can’t leave him in the car,” Vinyl said with a sigh, leaning her right arm next to the small alligator. “Gummy, shoulder ride!” she ordered, tapping her right shoulder a few times.

        Gummy climbed on Vinyl’s arm with the speed and agility of an iguana before lying down across the woman’s shoulders, his head and tail hanging lazily each side of her neck.

“If anyone asks, I have a weird taste in scarves, ok?” Vinyl asked firmly at her friends’ cocked eyebrows, while tossing her blue scarf in the trunk before slamming the metal contraption shut.
        
Her three companions nodded slowly as Vinyl lead the way to the club’s back door. The building itself was old, but the refurbishment had been immense, apparently: neon lights enveloped the whole thing, the bright letters symbolising the proud name, ManeHatOn, and the trademark sign of a horse, a fedora adorning its head; and the whole building looked generally as good as new. It was evident that the owner would spend more money on refurbishment than actually buying a new building to house his establishment.

Could he have possibly come up with a more ridiculous name? Three of the four thieves thought with a roll of their eyes in unison while Patty smiled at it. She had always liked the name of the club, she found it clever.

The four women went inside the club through the VIP entrance, heading through a plain corridor with black walls and neon lightings. The quatuor headed deeper inside the building, slowly coming closer to the origin of the muffled, techno music which became louder and clearer at every steps they made. After a few seconds, they reached the end of the corridor. In front of an elevator shaft stood a man with short, spiky, black hair wearing a black shirt with a white tie along with a pair of black shades on his nose, waiting for them.

“Hey, Claude, be careful,” Jack whispered in a mocking tone. “Alard’s pet dog’s here!”

“I’m scared of dogs, Jack,” Claude replied in a quiet chuckle while Vinyl smirked at the joke. “Not of puppies!”

“Ha, Vinyl,” the man called with a seductive smile, pulling his shades down to glance at the blue-haired woman with his bright blue eyes. “I’ve been waiting for you and your girls!”

“Have you now, Neon?” Vinyl replied casually, unfazed by the lustful glance he was giving her. “You’re not in the booth tonight?” she asked out of curiosity, nodding at the double door wide open on the dance club.

“Nope, I’m invited to the meeting just like you!” Neon replied with a shrug. 

“Good! At least we’ll have some good music then,” Claude chuckled mockingly before tapping Patty’s back. “Come on, girl! Let’s go dancing!”

“Yippy!” Patty let out in excitement.

“Low profile, remember?” Vinyl reminded sternly.

“You got it, Vinyl!” Patty replied before skipping to the nightclub part of the building, Claude on her heels. “GOOOOOOOD EVENING, MANEHATON!!!!!!” Patty shouted louder than the music.

“PATTY!” the three people in front of the elevator heard the entire crowd in the club responded in excitement.

“That wasn’t as loud as last time,” Jack commented while Vinyl was rubbing her eyes in annoyance. “That’s kinda low profile for her.”

“Jack?” Vinyl said in a calm tone.

“Yep?”

“Silence!”

“Of course, Sugar!” Jack nodded with a smirk.

“Well, let’s go!” Neon clapped his hands together before pressing the elevator’s button. “After you,” he added with small bow when the door opened.

“Thank you,” Vinyl said before stepping inside the elevator.

        Jack was about to follow her friend when Neon stopped his reverence, and nearly bumped into her to walk after Vinyl, his eyes wandering on the blue-haired’s lower back.

“Horny puppy!” Jack snorted with disapproval for herself while stepping inside the elevator.

“Nice scarf,” Neon commented, nodding at Gummy lying across Vinyl’s shoulders. “You finally decided to get rid of your crocodile?”

        Gummy’s response was to pull himself out of his slumber before snapping his jaws at Neon in an angry, hissed bark, making the shades-wearing man tumble onto his butt with high-pitched yelp.

“Gummy’s an alligator, Neon,” Vinyl corrected casually, scratching the chin of her pet while Jack was openly laughing at Neon. “You better remember it, or you’ll make him angry.”

“Stupid lizard,” Neon muttered under his breath, his cheeks red in embarrassment.

“Cammon, now.” Jack extended her hand to help him on his feet. “Can’t have ya sittin’ on the floor when this here door opens!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Neon replied in annoyance, taking Jack’s hand to stand up. 

“So, who’s present today?” Vinyl asked out of curiosity.

“The Japs are here, and the Chicanos as well!” Neon explained, straightening his tie nonchalantly.

“Sanagi-Hime and ‘Rey Sombra’ are here?!” Vinyl let out with wide eyes.

“Boy howdy! Alard must be up to something big if these two are here today!” Jack let out in an awed whisper.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Neon said with a shrug as the elevator came to a stop with a clear ding.

        The elevator’s door slowly parted open, revealing a long, wide corridor covered with a dark purple carpet, long, beautiful, giving an impression of having never been stepped on. Vinyl hated to ruin the holiness of the cloth with her earthly feet, even if she didn’t want to admit it, even to herself. The walls peeked at the guests with arrays of portraits in the simple linear style that had been popular maybe a few years ago, popular with those rich marginals who had raked in money but didn’t how how to spend it, on what to throw it away, and took solace in pseudo-art.

Though, it may just as well be art, Vinyl thought as she passed one of the pictures that clashed especially furiously with the grand, post-art-deco interior: a vivid constellation of black-ish lines - the Japanese had over forty shades of black, didn’t they? - formed in a stately, but bawdy fashion, giving an impression of the placid, flagrant lines having an orgy or a drunken meeting.

The last door was right in front of her, with the lewdy, bad-taste golden handles, those round ones, the ones that Vinyl despised so much. Now, all she needed to do was open it. So she did.

        The thief opened the door to a luxurious meeting room, around a small, round, polished, oaken table, two of the Big Apple’s underworld leaders: a beautiful, japanese woman with dark green dyed hair styled in a loose bun, wearing a black yukata with green flames pattern, and a tall, muscular mexican with shoulder long, curly, black hair with a perfectly styled goatee wearing a simple pair of dark jeans with an crimson, leather jacket over his bare chest, were sitting at each side of the table and turned their heads to the opening door with curiosity.

        At the head of the table, the expensive leather chair spun on its leg, revealing a man in his late thirties, with long, silk like blond hair in a snow white tuxedo, who glanced in Vinyl’s direction, his light blue eyes slowly finding their way to the bag she was carrying before heading to the one carried by Jack. 

Neon brushed past Vinyl and Jack to stand at the blonde man’s right, patting the Irish Setter that was sitting next to the head of the table. The two thieves glanced around the table, noticing that Iron Will, the blond man’s overly massive body-guard, was standing behind his boss’ seat, and that the Japanese woman at the table had come with her usual suite, much to Jack's misfortune, also that the Mexican had brought his own escort as well.

The three nearly identical japanese younger women, all wearing the same white, skin tight dress that had the same white lotus symbol on the left of their chests and that stopped a bit higher than their mid thighs, and a matching headband. If not for their different hair color: pink, purple and light blue, it would have been impossible to tell them apart. They turned their faces to the two thieves, their eyes lighting up with excitement when their gazes fell on the freckled blonde.

And finally, slightly behind Sombra’s chair, a model-figured latina with long hair with pink, blond and purple streaks in it, stood with poise and elegance, wearing a simple pink tanktop with a pair of jeans, her purple eyes casting a dark glare at the short-haired blonde woman.

“Vinyl, it’s good to see you,” The blond man, Alard von Blueblood, said in a very distinguished British accent. “You and your little group have something for me?”

“Alard,” Vinyl greeted him with a curt nod. “Sombra,” she added to the Mexican at her right. “Sanagi-Hime,” she bowed respectfully to the yukata wearing woman who bowed in response.

“Hey, why do you bow to her and not to me?” Sombra asked in a slightly angered tone.

“That’s because, unlike you my under-cultured friend, she knows who she needs to be respectful with,” Sanagi replied in Vinyl’s stead in a mocking tone. “And, she also hopes that I’ll prevent my girls from jumping on her friend,” she added with a chuckle, slightly winking at Jack who was too busy staring coldly at the triplets to notice.

“Something like that, yes,” Vinyl replied with a nod.

“Ahem!” Iron Will cleared his throat loudly, bringing the conversation back to his boss.

“Right, sorry!” 

The two thieves slowly walked to the table before putting their bags on it, opening them, and pushing them so they slid across the table to stop in front of Alard, thus spilling their contents on the table. The mix of jewels and rolls of bills earned impressed whistle from Sombra, Neon, and the triplets who finally looked away from Jack. Alard smiled, and invited Vinyl to sit at the remaining chair of the table.

“You and your girls did well this month,” Alard commented as Vinyl sat in front of him.

“Thanks,” Vinyl stated while Gummy jumped from her shoulders to land of the floor in a loud thud. “You make it sound like we did bad the other months though,” she added with a slightly cocked eyebrow.

“Don’t worry, that’s not what I meant,” Alard replied with a chuckle. “How much is there?”

“Sixty-nine thousand five hundred twenty-two dollars in cash,” Vinyl answered slowly. “The bag of jewels contains what we couldn’t sell for today as well as the few we couldn't sell due to other reasons.”

“Why is that?” Sanagi asked with curiosity.

“Some of them are unique designer pieces,” Jack explained. “Not something we could have sold on our own.”

“Who the fuck’s talking to you, cow-girl?” Sombra asked in an angered growl, earning a killer glare from Jack, and the triplets.

“Don’t mind him, Jack,” Sanagi stated calmly. “He’s simply still not over the fact you beat his precious Cadenza in that boxing match he organized,” she added, nodding at the woman behind the Mexican.

“You should try not to be such a sour loser, Rey,” Alard commented playfully.

“I will stop when that blonde accepts a rematch against her!” Sombra growled.

“Well, if that’s what ya wan…” Jack began with a prideful smirk directed at an angry Cadenza.

“Absolutely out of question!” 

        All heads snapped in the direction of the one who had spoken, surprised gazes landing on Vinyl who was casting a hateful glare at the Mexican gang leader, who couldn’t help but to feel slightly disturbed by the hatred in the blue haired woman’s ruby red eyes.

“I will not allow Jack to participate in any of YOUR fights, Rey Sombra, am I clear?” Vinyl asked in stern tone. “Not until the dumbass bitch you call your daughter learns how to fight a boxing match without hidden knives!” she added with a glare at his daughter.

“How dare you? You whore of a thief!” Sombra growled while standing up, his hand reaching for the inside of his jacket.

        As the Mexican was pointing his golden handgun at Vinyl, the body guards in the room all reacted instinctually. Jack pulled her short, one handed shotgun out its holster beneath her jacket, and aimed straight at the Mexican’s face, while the Japanese triplets and Cadenza grabbed the different weapons they had managed to hide under their skin tight clothes.

        The pink haired Japanese pulled four strings out of her snow white bracelet, revealing the four tiny blowpipes hidden in it each loaded with a silver dart. The blue haired one had three throwing knives in each of her hands while the one with light violet hair was ready to throw a small scythe connected to a metallic, spiked ball by a thin chain. The edge of all their blades were slightly green, indicating the presence of poison on them.

        At last, Cadenza pulled two small handguns from the back of her pants and aimed at Jack and in the triplets’ general direction, ready to defend her boss while Iron Will was aiming at the Japanese and the Mexican bodyguards with two uzis, ready to swipe the whole room with them.

        All parties stared each other for a good ten seconds in a dense silence.

“All right, now!” Alard said calmly. “Let’s not get carried away. We’re all civilised people, so let’s all calm down!” he looked at Will, Sombra and Cadenza. “You three, settle down!” he ordered.

“Jack!” Vinyl said calmly.

“Girls!” Sanagi demanded.

        All seven armed people slowly but surely lowered their weapons before putting them away.

“Good, now that that’s out away,” Alard said. “Will! Take those bags and put them in a secured location,” he ordered to his bodyguard. “Hang on….” he took a few large rolls of hundred dollars bills from the bag full of cash. “That’s your commission,” he explained before making the bundled money slide to Vinyl.

“Thank you, Alard,” Vinyl replied casually before counting the money. “You’re pretty generous today.”

“You did an excellent job, that deserves reward,” Alard explained with a shrug. “Now, you’re probably wondering why these two are here...” he said, pointing at the other people sitting at the table. “...when I usually see you in private every month, am I right?”

“It went through my mind,” Vinyl admitted as she kept counting her money. “Usually you only bring Sanagi-Hime or Macho-man here when you want me and the girls to work with them on something,” she added, earning a small growl from Sombra and a glare from his daughter while Sanagi softly chuckled.

“Well, I gathered you all today to discuss about a project of mine that will need everyone’s collaboration,” Alard explained, instantly bringing all the attention on him. “Though, for the sake of this plan’s secrecy, I’ll ask your partners to leave,” he added waving at Cadenza, the triplets and Jack. “Will will be gone with what Vinyl brought and Neon is about to start his shift in the club, so it’ll only be us four. Your partners could go unwind in the club while we talk, though I must demand that they leave their weapons before exiting this room.”

“I keep no secrets from the girls, Alard,” Vinyl stated slowly. “Whatever you plan on telling me, she can hear it!”

“I know, but I’d rather not have her in the discussion,” Alard replied with a knowing, cocked eyebrow. “I think her impulsive nature doesn’t suit the heated discussion we’re most likely going to have about this project of mine,” He explained.

“Well now, as much as Ah’m feelin’ insulted by that remark, Ah must admit it’s rather true,” Jack conceded slowly. “Yer gonna be okay on yer own, Vi?” she asked her friend in a quiet whisper. 

“Yeah, don’t worry,” Vinyl replied quietly. “Besides, Gummy’s still around.” she gave the money to her blonde friend. “Keep that safe and use some to buy the triplets a drink or two,” she added with a playful wink.

“Do Ah have to?” Jack replied uneasily as she secured the money in her inner pocket.

“No, but try to be a bit nice with them,” Vinyl glanced at Sombra’s daughter. “And with Cadenza as well. Don’t pick a fight with her.”

Jack sighed. “Ah’ll try, Ah can promise that much.”

“Good!” Vinyl said with a nod.

        While Iron Will and Neon walked out of the room, the five women bodyguards stopped at the table next to the door and started to unload their weapons. Cadenza dropped her two handguns on the table while the blue haired triplet, Aloe, put the two belts full of knives she had attached around her thighs on the table with the utmost care. The pink haired one, Lotus, delicately put her two bracelets with hidden blowpipes in them and the last sister, Vera, simply let her scythe and chain fall on the table with a loud clang.

        Jack pulled her shotgun from her jacket before putting it on the table, along with the cartridge belt she carried in her jacket’s lining. Then she dropped the two hunting knives she kept attached to her ankles, and the two brazen knuckles she had in her pockets.

“How many more weapons do you have?” Cadenza asked with a cocked eyebrow as Jack pulled a small blade she had hidden in her belt buckle.

“Technically, Ah still got four of them,” Jack replied with a shrug. “But, Ah ain’t really able to put ma arms and legs away,” she added with a chuckle before stepping out of the room with the other four bodyguards on her heels, Cadenza snorting in annoyance at the blonde’s remark while the triplets absentmindedly stared at Jack’s firm butt with a common great interest.

“Well, now that we’re alone, let’s have a talk,” Alard straightened on his chair, before noticing something. “Your alligator fell asleep on Gunther’s back, is that normal?” he asked, pointing at his Setter dog who was asleep next to the table with Gummy sleeping curled in a ball on his furry back.

“Gummy likes your dog apparently,” Vinyl replied with a shrug. “Is that a problem?”

“I think it’s adorable,” Sanagi commented softly at the two pets sleeping peacefully.

“Don’t care!” Sombra growled in annoyance.

“I suppose it isn’t a problem, though he’d better not harm Gunther!” Alard warned slowly.

“Duly noted.” Vinyl nodded with a small salute. “Now, what’s this big project of yours?”

“Well.” Alard opened a drawer from his side of the table and pulled three folders out of it. “The details are in these things,” he said before passing one to each of his interlocutors.

        Vinyl, Sanagi and Sombra looked down at their respective folder before slowly opening them, finding inside of them few blueprints, plannings, a photo of an isolated manor, and few bills of diverse security or informatics companies.

“So, your plan is to rob this manor?” Sombra asked after a few minutes of reading the file. Alard nodded. “I don’t see what’s the big deal about it.”

“And, it's no surprise that you don't,” Vinyl commented slowly, lifting her eyes from the file to stare straight at Alard. “What the hell is that, Alard? Laser sensors, bulletproof glasses, a top notch power generator… Who the hell transformed this manor into a bloody bunker?!”

“Someone with a lot of money, and with something to protect apparently,” Sanagi commented slowly. “I still don’t see why you asked me and Sombra to be here, Alard. That’s more in the field of Vinyl’s expertise.”

“I need you and Sombra for what’s coming after Vinyl's part,” Alard replied.

“That doesn’t really answer my question. Who lives there?” Vinyl asked.

“That’s Trickster’s manor,” Alard replied slowly.

        The blond’s three interlocutors froze with wide eyes, before they slowly turned their incredulous visages toward Alard. 

“Come again?” the three asked in unison, all believing they had misheard what the blond had just said.

        They were so wrong in believing that.





> In ManeHatOn's VIP lounge
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Twila, lighten up a little,” Rarity demanded in annoyance after her dark-skinned friend grumbled for the tenth time since they entered the club not half a hour ago.

“I just don’t see why I needed to come,” Twila replied apathetically. “It’s not like we have something to celebrate!”

“It’s not to celebrate that we’re here, Darling!” Rarity shook her head. “It’s mainly to relax and unwind with class!” she added before taking a delicate sip of her glass of wine.

“Huh, you come to relax and unwind in a nightclub?” Spencer, who was sitting next to his sister cocked an eyebrow at his wine-drinking colleague.

“Look around, Spencer,” Rarity waved out of their private booth, showing the high class bar setting of this part of the club. “This doesn’t look like a nightclub.”

“I’ll admit that the setting is nice,” Twila commented. “Also we barely hear the music from the dance floor, so it’s a plus.” she nodded at the open double door that lead to the proper nightclub part.

“True,” Chylene added in her quiet voice.

“Still we should be working on those thefts from two weeks ago!” Twila argued. “We haven’t made the slightest progress yet!”

“Twila, what do you want us to do?” Rarity argued back. “You and Spencer went to Monitronics who hadn’t even noticed someone hacked their system before your arrivals. They’ve scanned all their servers and didn’t find any links to those responsible! Just like us on the crime scenes, what more do you want us to do?”

“I know there’s something out there that can lead us to those thieves!” Twila banged her fist on the table. “I just know it!”

“Hum, Twila,’ Chylene chimed in a whisper. “I think you should lay off work from time to time, it’s hum, starting to grow into an obsession,” she stated calmly. “I mean, maybe a little bit?”

Twila licked her lips before sighing in defeat. “I..I know, but I can’t help it! I worked hard to get where we all are, and…”

“I get that, Twila,” Chylene interrupted her with a nod. “I’m not saying that working hard is a bad thing, but sometimes it’s better to stop working a bit and just live in the moment,”

“You should listen to her, Twila,” Spencer nodded slowly. “It’s not healthy to think about work all the time.”

“Like she said, live in the moment, Twila,” Rarity reminded with a goodnatured smile.

“Yeah!” Patty nodded excitedly from Chylene’s right. “Moments are the best when they’re lived!”

        All four friends & coworkers turned their heads to the slightly chubby, party goer with a mass of cotton candy-like, pink hair sitting next to the shy blonde of the group. Oblivious to the confused stares of the other four sitting in the private booth, Patty took a long sip of her diet coke (though she didn’t know it was diet… The barman was instructed to never serve her anything with too much sugar.) through a twirly, yellow straw.

“Who’re you?” Twila asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“What are you doing here?” Spencer questioned loudly.

“Excuse me, miss, but it’s a private booth,” Rarity reminded in confusion.

“Hum… hi?” Chylene suggested in a puzzled whisper.

“In the order… I’m Patricia Pembroke, but you can call me Patty! Everybody does!” Patty said with a big smile to Twila before facing Spencer. “I’m sitting on a comfy bench and drinking my coke! Yes, I know it’s a private booth, silly! It’s even my private booth!” she added happily for Rarity. “Hi, what’s your name?” she asked Chylene.

“I’m Chylene Hutchison.”

“I’m terribly sorry, but I booked this booth for the night. There must have an error in your reservation,” Rarity said calmly.

“I don’t need reservation, it’s my booth!” Patty said with a giggle.

“It doesn’t have your name written on it, so technically the booth belongs to the club!” Spencer argued with a smirk.

“My name’s right there!” Patty pointed at the picture and the plaque just above Twila’s head.

        The picture showed Patty dancing on the booth table with a bottle of vodka in each hand while the plaque had the following words engraved on it : “Patty’s Booth since 14/03/2011”.

“How did we not see that photo before?” Twila asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“Maybe because you were all sour pouting about God knows what?” Patty suggested.

Twila blinked. “You were eavesdropping on us?” she asked with suspicion.

“Why would I have done that?” Patty frowned at the offense. “I merely saw your friends trying to cheer you up, and wanted to help!” she added with sincerity.

“That’s very kind of you.” Chylene smiled softly. 

“Chy, you’re not buying that, are you?” Twila argued.

“What do you mean?” the shy blonde asked slowly.

“I’m not selling anything, am I?” Patty asked Rarity in confusion.

Rarity chuckled softly at Patty. “Good one, Miss Pembroke!”

“Chylene, people aren’t nice to others without a reason!” Twila claimed.

“Some are,” Chylene retorted in a whisper.

“No, they aren’t!”

“So, you’re saying your friends are just in this club with you because they expect something from you?” Patty asked.

“Huh… … No! Of course not!” Twila assured uneasily.

“Then people can be nice without ulterior motive, right?”

“I..I guess,” Twila admitted.

“Good!” Patty nodded before turning to the barmaid across the lounge. “Berry! A dozen cupcakes for me and my new friends, and put their drinks on my tab!”

“Roger that, Patty!” the barmaid with mulberry hair answered with a nod.

“This place has cupcakes?!” Spencer asked with a sudden, but great interest.

“You betcha!” Patty assured with a toothy grin. “Oh, Berry, make that two dozen cupcakes, I think the others are about to arrive!” she shouted back at the barmaid who nodded again. “Do you mind if my friends come sit with us when they arrive?”

“Huh… well,” Chylene looked at Twila with worry.

“Hum..” Twila wasn’t sure about what to say

“I think it would be ok!” Rarity assured after rolling her eyes at her friend’s hesitence. “It’s about time we enlarge our circle of friends, don’t you agree?”

“I guess,” Chylene replied with a shrug while Twila nodded slowly.

“So, Patty,” Spencer decided to break the ice with Patty. “What do you do for living?”

“Huh, you’d totally be surprised when I tell you what I do!” Patty assured with a smile. “You see….”


~~~~~


“So, Jack, would you like to dance a little...” the blue-haired triplet, Aloe,  started to ask in a hopeful tone.

“Enope!” Jack answered abruptly.

“Then, maybe with m…” the pink one, Lotus, asked with a smile full of hope.

“Nope!” 

“I could always offer you a dri ….” Vera, the purple-haired one, tried slowly.

“NO!” Jack nearly shouted in exasperation.

        The Japanese triplets bore a saddened expression before they turned to one another and started arguing in their native language, probably to put the sour mood of the tall blonde, and to blame the other two for their respective failure at getting Jack’s attention.

“You know, I really don’t get what you all see in her,” Cadenza said in confusion from the other side of the triplets. Jack was at their right, Cadenza at their left.

        The triplets stopped their bickering to glance at the Mexican beauty in disbelief. They closed the distance with her, casting worried stares at the blonde who was asking something to the bartender, and thus wasn’t paying attention to them.

“Have you ever touched her, Cadenza?” Aloe asked slowly.

“Not touched her like you did in your father’s boxing matches…” Lotus specified.

“But, touched her like you’d caress your lover?” Vera added in a dreamy tone.

“I can’t say that I have,” Cadenza replied with a cocked eyebrow. “And, seeing how she is behaving with you three, I have a really hard time in believing you actually did that yourselves!”

“Yes, we did!” Aloe argued. “Three years ago, Vinyl brought them to our spa…”

“While the others were in the hot bubble bath, Jack asked for a massage…” Lotus explained softly.

“I was the one who started it,” Vera claimed with a small smile. “Her delicate, smooth skin on top of those firm, rock hard muscles… I simply had to tell my sisters about it.”

“While Vera was massaging her back, I took care of her legs,” Aloe explained with a dreamy, lost gaze. “Her long and well-toned legs.”

“I massaged her arms… Such a strong musculature,” Lotus explained with nostalgic sigh. “And, her hands… her baby smooth, adorable, and large hands!”

“The very beautiful freckles on her wide shoulders,” Vera continued, lost in her memories just like her sisters.

“Her soft giggles when I massaged her foot,” Aloe let out with a sigh.

“Her relaxed sighs when I rubbed her palms.” Lotus stared dreamily at the void.

“The cute little moans she let out when I relaxed every tight knot of her back.” Vera smiled fondly.

“That beautiful smile she gave us when she thanked us,” The triplets said simultaneously with a small blush, before letting a long, collective, nostalgic sigh. “Best massage ever!” 

Cadenza blinked in shock. “I’m kinda glad I’ve never been to your spa now if that’s how you react to her,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Cadenza!” Aloe frowned.

“You’re a pretty girl and all,” Lotus admitted.

“But you’re not Jack!” Vera shook her head.

“Hang on! You’re actually telling me that you find HER prettier than ME?!” Cadenza asked in disbelief.

        The triplets gazed at Cadenza’s model figure from top to bottom and reverse, before glancing in the same fashion at Jack’s muscular frame while she was leaning against the bar with a glass of whisky in her hand.

“Oh, yeah!” Aloe assured with a nod.

“I love a burly, yet slightly feminine woman!” Vera commented with interest.

“Just look at her.” Lotus licked her lips hungrily. “I want that for Christmas!” she added, earning nods of approval from her sisters.

“You three are creepy!” Cadenza said slowly. “Creepy and with a weird sense of beauty for spa therapists.”

“Jealousy is an ugly thing, Cadenza,” Aloe commented with a shrug.

“Wait, WHAT?!” Cadenza shouted, completely taken aback. “I’m not jealous of her!” she yelled angrily, ignoring the weird looks the crowd around them gave her.

“See why Ah don’t like hangin’ around with these folks?” Jack asked the barmaid with a sigh, earning a slow, appreciative nod from the bartender. “Ah’ll go to the lounge, so that they won’t bother ya with their quirks!”

“I hear you, girl,” The barmaid said calmly as Jack paid her drink and left a five on the counter before leaving. “Thanks for the tip!”

        As they saw the object of their affection going away, the triplets immediately went after her while Cadenza followed the nearly identical trio, determined to prove them she wasn’t jealous of Jack of all people, especially not in terms of beauty.

        On her way to the lounge, Jack found Claude extricating herself from the dance floor. She glanced around, not seeing their pink haired friend around.

“Jack?” Claude asked with surprise in her voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Really exclusive meeting upstairs,” Jack replied with a shrug. “Now, where in tarnation is Patty?”

“I don’t know!” Claude groaned. “We were dancing, and a moment later she wasn’t next to me anymore! I tried to look for her but It took me ten fucking minutes to leave the dance floor!”

“Vinyl asked ya to keep an eye on her, Claude!” Jack reproached slowly and pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance.

“Hey, keeping an eye on her is already hard in a supermarket! Imagine in a nightclub!” Claude snapped.

“Ah know, Ah know!” Jack admitted. “Let’s find her before she does somethin’ stupid!”

“You think she’s in the VIP lounge?” Claude asked.

“That’s where she usually goes since Berry added cupcakes to the menu,” Jack said with a shrug.

“What are they on about?” Claude asked with curiosity as she watched the triplets arguing with Cadenza while they were following them to the lounge.

“Take a guess,” Jack sighed before stepping in the VIP lounge after nodding at the bouncer.

        When they entered the lounge, the two blondes glanced at the booth they usually occupied whenever they came to the ManeHatOn, seeing their pink-haired friend in a deep conversation with three other women and a young man. Cocking an eyebrow at one another, they walked closer to the booth, finally hearing the last bit of conversation.

“Well, that was quite a tale, wasn’t it?” the woman in a white, skin tight dress commented with a silent whistle.

“I think it’s really sweet what you and your friends do for each other,” the blonde with extremely long hair sitting next to Patty added in a whisper.

“Yeah, I mean, all of you doing those small jobs to help each other realize your respective dream, that’s a great sign of friendship!” the black man nodded with a smile.

“You and your friends must be very close,” the black woman, who looked like the man’s sister, said softly.

“They aren’t just friends! They’re family!” Patty assured with a soft smile.

Claude and Jack felt their heartstrings being plucked by the sincerity in their friend’s words. The triplets and Cadenza had stopped arguing, and were all giving a small smile to the two blondes, even despite Cadenza’s issues with Jack.

“I guess that’ll make you the annoying little sister who runs off whenever she can, Patty,” Claude commented as she walked to the booth to ruffle Patty’s pink hair playfully.

“Hey, Claude, you found me!” Patty beamed.

“It wasn’t that hard to find you!” Claude assured before turning to the others at the table. “I hope she didn’t annoy you with her stories?”

“Oh, not at all!” Chylene shook her head.

“So, you’re Claude?” Spencer asked in disbelief. “I thought it was a guy’s name!”

“Spencer, that’s rude!” Twila chastised.

“Yeah, well, my mother was a huge fan of Claude François,” Claude explained with a wince. “The fact I was a girl wasn’t enough to overthrow that.”

Jack, the triplets and Cadenza came into view, and when they did, Twila’s eyes widened in shock.

“Cadence?” Twila called the Mexican with a slightly growing excitement.

“How do you know my name?” Cadenza blinked in confusion.

“You don’t remember?” Twila asked softly. “It’s me, Twila…What was the song aga...HA! Sunshine, Sunshine…”

“Lady bugs awake…” Cadenza whispered before smiling brightly. “Twily!” she shouted before hugging the black woman tightly. “My god, it’s been so long!”

“You know her, Twila?” Rarity asked with curiosity.

“She used to be my babysitter,” Twila explained. “Do you remember Spencer?”

“Oh, dear!” Cadenza said with wide eyes. “Last time I saw you you barely reached my knee.” she said before hugging a slightly embarrassed Spencer. “Now, look at you. All grown up!”

“Are they sayin’ someone let her babysit?” Jack whispered to Claude with a cocked eyebrow.

“It was probably before her father took her in,” Claude supposed quietly. “Or, at least I hope so,”

        Jack nodded before coming in everyone’s sight to glance inside the booth. Her eyes fell quickly on the woman in a white dress. Her gaze remained on her as she felt oddly familiar to the farmer. But it was only when the woman in question turned her head in her own direction that Jack figured out why. She saw in the familiar blue eyes the same light of recognition that must have been present in her own green ones.

“Listen, Ah be right back,” Jack said to Claude as she turned away from the booth. “Ah need to go to…” she didn’t have a clue to where she needed to go right now.

“Ok! Don’t forget you need a quarter to use the restrooms,” Claude whispered back before Patty pulled her in the seat next to her to introduce everybody.

“Oh, yeah, right!” Jack stated, feeling lucky that Claude gave her the proper excuse to leave.

        She walked to the narrow corridor that led to the restrooms before taking taking a sharp turn to the back door of the club. After a brief moment, Jack was in the alley behind the club. She leaned on the guardrail of the small stair, and took a long, deep breath. Images had made their way through her head since the booth. Images she hadn’t thought about in a very long time. Images that, despite being mostly happy, hurt her more everything.

“Hello, Jacquelyn Apple Smith,” a calm, sweet voice called from behind her after Jack heard the door’s opening.

“It’s Jacquelyn Smith officially… Well, Jacquelyn Hamlin if ya want to get technical,” Jack stated with a sigh. “How did you recognize me, Rarity?” she said before facing the brunette in a white dress.

“The same way you recognized me, I suppose,” Rarity took a step in the blonde’s direction. “While you sure changed since I last saw you.” she pointed at Jack’s cheek. “The freckles and the dazzling emeralds you have instead of eyes are a great way to distinguish you.”

Jack chuckled softly. “Ya had always been the only one to call them like that, Rare,” she said softly. “For the others it had always been Apple green eyes.”

“Jacquelyn, why did you turn away when you recognized me?” Rarity asked with a hurt expression.

“Ah was surprised to see ya, Ah guess,” Jack said softly. “Ah never really thought meetin’ someone from good ol’ Ponyville in this here club. Especially ya.”

“What do you mean by that, dear?” Rarity asked.

“Well, if Ah remember correctly, ya always said that ya would leave St-Charles one day to design the clothes of every star in Hollywood, so I kinda figured out ya’d tried yer luck in L.A. by now,” Jack explained.

“You’re quite far from the truth, Darling,” Rarity replied with a chuckle. “How have you been, Jacquelyn?” she asked in a concerned tone.

“Okay, Ah guess,” Jack said quietly. “Ah mean, considerin’ all what happened since that day,” she added, referring to events Rarity knew about, and others Jack was glad the brunette didn’t.

“It must have been hard for you,” Rarity said softly, gently taking Jack’s hand.

“It was,” Jack whispered before licking her lips uneasily. “Rare…”

“Yes?” Rarity tightened her grip on the blonde’s hand who started to shake.

“Do… Do ya, by any chances, have news about ma family?” Jack asked in a desperate, trembling voice. “Do ya know where Mac and Alice are?”

“I’m sorry.” Rarity shook her head softly. “Much like you, I have no idea where they could be.”

Jack sighed in defeat. “And, how’s Granny? Ah bet she still beats yer dad in poker, right?”

Rarity gulped. “Jacquelyn… Granny Smith isn’t with us anymore.”

“What?” Jack frowned. “Yer parents promised they wouldn’t take her in a home!”

“No… She’s.. She’s gone.”

“W-what?” Jack asked in a whisper. “No! No!” She shook her head. “Granny’s a tough one! Ain’t no way, she would have…”

“She’s gone,” Rarity insisted softly. Her hand was getting sore from squeezing Jack’s, but she didn’t let her go. “I’m sorry I have to tell you that like this, but…”

        Jack’s head dropped before slowly landing on Rarity’s shoulder. Immediately after, the brunette did what she used to do years ago when Jack was feeling sad. It didn’t happen a lot, as Jack had mostly played the role of the protector when they were kids, but when it did, Rarity had always been there for her friend.

        The brunette gently rocked her long time friend, while passing her finger through her blonde shock of hair. Rarity could feel small drops landing on her bare shoulder, before Jack’s arms encircled her in a strong hug. The blonde had very much developed her strength in the years she had been absent in Rarity’s life.

“You know, I liked those hugs better before,” Rarity commented. “When you had much longer hair and much less arm strength.”

Jack snorted a short laugh before relaxing her embrace. She pulled herself off the brunette’s shoulder. Rarity quickly took a tissue from her purse and proceeded to gently wipe the tears off the freckled cheeks.

“Rare… did Granny… How did she..” Jack asked in a shaken whisper.

“She didn’t suffer,” Rarity assured. “She went to sleep one night, and that was it.”

“It’s already that,” Jack conceded with a sigh. “Sorry, Rare. The first time we see each other after more than twelve years, and Ah…”

“Don’t you dare apologize for that, Jacquelyn!” Rarity interrupted sternly. “You have done nothing that deserves an apology from you!”

Well, it depends… Jack thought before shaking her head slowly. “Rarity, could we change the subject? It’s the first time we see each other in such a long time… How about a little drink and chat about what Ah missed in St-Charles?” 

“I’m not against a little gossip,” Rarity replied with a chuckle.

“Glad ya ain’t changed so much on the inside, Rare!” Jack said with small smile.


*****


“Ano fushidarana on'na!” [What a slut!] Aloe growled, her eyes locked on Rarity and Jack discussing happily at the bar while they were in the booth with the rest of the gang.

“Dono yō ni kanojo wa sono yōna Jakku to uwaki aete?!” [How dare she flirt with Jack like that?!] Vera’s grip on the back of the bench was so strong that her digits were white.

“Mite! Kanojo wa Jakku no te ni furete imasu!” [Look! She’s touching Jack’s hand!] Lotus let out with an angry frown.

“What was it that you three said about jealousy?” Cadenza asked with a growing smirk. The triplets just ignored her.

“Huh, can someone explain?” Twila asked uneasily.

“Oh, it’s nothing important,” Cadenza waved off with a chuckle.

“The triplets just have a massive crush on Jack,” Claude explained with a sly grin.

“But it’s the first time they’ve actually reacted that badly to another girl chatting with her,” Patty added playfully.

“Hang on, all three of them?” Spencer asked with wide eyes.

“Ever heard of the idea of triplets sharing everything?” Claude asked back playfully. “Well, that’s the same for them. Though, instead of everything they decided to limit themselves at Jack’s mind and body.”

“Well, more her body than anything else actually.” Patty giggled, earning chuckles from Claude and Cadenza.

Chylene and Twila both turned beet red at that comment while Spencer let his mind wander before abhorring a goofy smile on his face. That was just before his sister put strongly some sense back into him with the palm of her hand.

At the bar, Jack pulled her phone from her inner pocket as she felt her textmessage silent alarm.

Grab the others and meet me back at the car!
Something huge happened!
Don’t worry, I got all your stuff!
Vinyl!

What in tarnation happened?! Jack wondered with a frown.

“Bad news?” Rarity asked with worry.

“Ah don’ really know if it’s good news or bad news,” Jack said slowly. “It’s just that Ah have to go!”

“Aww,” Rarity let out in disappointment. “Well, it’s nearly midnight already,” she added after checking her watch. “We should continue this conversation on another day!” Rarity said excitedly.

“Ah’d like that a lot,” Jack smiled happily.

“Wait up just a minute.” Rarity pulled a pen and a memo pad from her purse. “I’ll just give you my number.” she ripped the memo with her phone number on it. “Call me when you want to organize this, ok?”

“Promise, Sugar!” Jack nodded as she took the memo, and put in her pocket. “Ah’ll see ya around! It was great meetin’ ya again.”

“Same here, Darling,” Rarity replied before hugging her friend goodbye.

        As soon as she broke the hug, Jack turned her head to the booth, cocking an eyebrow at the triplets’ angry stare directed to Rarity before whistling sharply for Claude and Patty. When the concerned parties looked back at her, Jack snapped her fingers and pointed at the corridor that led to the exit.

        The pair stood up and bid their goodbye to everyone at the table, and thanking them for the evening while Aloe received a phone call before deciding to leave with her sisters as well. Cadenza, for her part, stated that since everyone was leaving, she wasn’t going to delay her departure much further.

“Well, that was a nice evening,” Twila said after her former baby-sitter left. “But how about we call it a night?”

“I agree,” Chylene nodded along with the other two. “Small world, isn’t it?” she asked Rarity and Twila.

“Yeah, what were the odds that you and I both meet someone we’ve lost contact with for years?” Twila asked the brunette with excitement.

“I can’t really decipher, but I’ll say it’s a coincidence worthy of a young writer’s novel,” Rarity commented with a shrug.

“Say, Rarity, what did you and Jack talk about?” Chylene asked with curiosity. “If it’s not too personal of course,” she added with a slightly worried tone.

“Nothing too personal,” Rarity replied casually. “We just caught up with each other. Well, she caught up with me. I don’t even think I heard her talking about what she does for a living.”

“Well, we’ve gotten a sort of idea about what she does thanks to Patty,” Twila commented.

“Maybe she didn’t want to sound cheap compared to what you do for a living,” Spencer suggested with a shrug.

“Hmmm, while I don’t remember telling her my profession,” Rarity scratched her chin. “I hardly see why she would be bothered by the fact that I work for the Police.”


> Goody Gumdrops!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“That doesn’t really answer my question. Who lives there?” Vinyl asked.

“That’s Trickster’s manor,” Alard replied slowly.

        The blond’s three interlocutors froze with wide eyes, before they slowly turned their incredulous visages toward Alard. 

“Come again?” the three asked in unison, all believing they had misheard what the blond had just said.

“You heard me the first time, and I don’t like to repeat myself,” Alard replied, calmly sipping his Manhattan cocktail.

“Why?” Sombra asked in disbelief. “Why do you want to target him of all people?”

“Sombra’s right,” Sanagi commented slowly. “We never even spoke of making business with him, and now you’re targeting him?”

“I think it’s time for a change in the balance of power,” Alard explained with a small grin.

“Oh, really?” Sombra asked sarcastically. “And you want to do that by getting all of us killed? That’s brilliant!”

“Of course not!” Alard replied in annoyance. “The plan’s risky but, if Vinyl and her girls succeed, we will have the advantage.”

“I don’t see how them succeeding is going to give us an advantage…” Sanagi remarked, scratching her brow in confusion. “What is there to take inside that manor?”

“In Trickster’s study there’s a vault,” Alard stated with excitement. “In this vault, he keeps all the files, contracts, data concerning his offshore business.” The blond glanced at his associates. “We get what’s in that vault…”

“We’ve got all the leverage we need on the Russian!” Sombra ended the sentence with a mad grin, slamming his right fist in his left palm.

“That’s a great plan… But why do you need us for that?” Sanagi cocked an eyebrow at the blond. “You could do that without us after all.”

“Well, not really.” Alard replied, chuckling playfully. “I’m not big enough to face Shutnikov alone… Even if I have the content of his vault at my disposal, he wouldn’t hesitate in taking it back by force,” he explained. “But with the three of us together…”

“The old safety in number trick, huh?” Sombra grinned while putting his hands behind his head. “Good idea!” he added when Alard simply nodded.

“I’ve a hard time believing you’re the one saying that,” Sanagi commented while shaking her head with a small smile.

“So, do we have an agreement on that?” Alard asked slowly.

“I’m in! Definitely!” Sombra nodded with excitement.

“I’m in as well… If Vinyl thinks she can make it.” Sanagi turned her face to the blue-haired girl with a questioning look, only to be imitated by Sombra and Alard soon after.

“Huh?” Vinyl lifted her eyes from the files as well as her cheek from the hand it was resting on. “Oh, you’re asking me something?”

“Sanagi asks you if you can pull this one off!” Sombra replied impatiently.

“I don’t exactly know if I could… But it won’t be a problem since I don’t intend to try.” Vinyl shrugged.

        All the others at the table blinked in confusion.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” Alard asked in disbelief. “I think I misheard what you said.”

“Well, if you heard that I won’t do it, then you didn’t mishear anything,” Vinyl replied casually before slamming the file closed. “Now, if that’s all you wanted to talk about, I’ll just…”

“¡Woh, espera, chica!” [Wait up, girl!] Sombra called as Vinyl was about to stand up. “What are you doing?”

“I was standing up,” Vinyl replied matter-of-factly. “I thought it was obvious. And, now I’m going to leave you to your crazy ideas!”

“Vinyl…” Sanagi called as Vinyl made way to the table to grab Jack’s stuff.

“You don’t have to still be scared, Vinyl,” Alard said in a low, disappointed voice.

        Vinyl stopped right in her tracks after he said that, causing Sombra to tilt his head in incomprehension. The thief licked her lips before glancing back at the blond, who Sanagi was watching with wide, shocked eyes.

“What did you say?” Vinyl asked slowly.

“You’re not him, you know?” Alard said ignoring her question. “You can ma….”

“Don’t you fucking go down that road, Blondie!” Vinyl warned furiously, taking a threatening step toward the table.

        Sombra was at loss of words. Vinyl had never been this rude to Alard before. Every time the blue-haired girl had disagreed with her employer, she had used a much more diplomatic tone. The Mexican didn’t understand what was happening, but noticed the uneasy wince on his Japanese counterpart. Unlike him, she clearly knew what were they talking about.

“Just because he didn’t succeed...”

“YOU SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH!” Vinyl shouted in fury as she slammed her fists on the table, startling the sleeping dog and alligator awake.

“This just a simple job! Like the ones you did for years!” Alard snorted angrily. “Don’t get lost in the past…”

“YOU’RE THE ONE WHO’S LOST IN SOMETHING, BLONDIE!” Vinyl pointed at him vigorously. “Do you even hear yourself?! You’re not talking about a simple burglary or some shoplifting, Alard! You’re asking ME to start your fucking war against that man!” She slammed her fist into the table once again.

        The gang leaders looked at the thief with a mix of worry, and confusion, though the latter was mostly on Sombra’s part. Sanagi observed the other woman of the room with attention, noticing the tiny tear in the usually confident red eyes before it was blinked away.

“Well, fuck that!” Vinyl shook her head vigorously. “Fuck that! Maybe Sanagi-hime and you forgot, but I remember clearly what happened to the proud ones who tried to push Daniil Shutnikov down his throne!” Her lips trembled a bit as she said that. “Do it if you want, but don’t count on me or my girls!”

        She once again turned her back on the trio to get the table next to the exit door. Vinyl was about to pick one of Jack’s gun when Alard called her again.

“You know, I was going to consider this as your last job!” Vinyl froze right in her tracks. “If you don’t want to do it for me, do it for your friends!”

Vinyl bit her lip before turning around. “So that’s your big convincing argument?“ she asked sarcastically. “Freeing us from our debt to you two or three months early?” She rolled her eyes in disbelief.

“Well, I was going to throw a little bonus for each of them of course.” Alard smirked slowly.

“Forget that bonus, Alard!” Vinyl claimed uneasily. “It’s certainly not worth dying for it!”

“Are you sure?” Alard asked with a chuckle. “I’m pretty sure that Jack would be ready to die, probably even to kill, to know the addresses of… What’s their names again?... Right! Alice and Macintosh Smith!”

        When Vinyl didn’t comment on that, Alard decided to keep going.

“Also, I’m certain that Claude would love to get an actual visa. It would save you a lot of money to make a real US citizen out of her, and stopping the constant threat of her getting sent back to France, wouldn’t it?” Alard tilted his head with a growing smile, when he noticed Vinyl getting more agitated. “And, maybe Patty wouldn’t mind getting to know a certain Miss Ingrid Pembroke. Funny how they both survived a terrible train accident… They must have so much in common.”

“Huh… what’s going on?” Sombra asked, but no one considered letting him know the background of Vinyl’s friends.

“Do you still want to walk away from this job?” Alard asked the blue-haired girl with a triumphant grin that made Sanagi frown a bit. “Or do you want to listen to the end of my plan?”

        Vinyl clenched her fist above Jack’s sawed-off shotgun in frustration before she slowly turned around and went to sit back on her seat.

“....How exactly do you want us to proceed in getting the content of that vault?” she asked in a venomous tone after a few seconds.


**************


“So Alard has…” Jack started in slow, disbelieving tone.

“That’s what he said,” Vinyl answered Jack’s unfinished question.

        The blue-haired woman had just finished telling her friends what Alard had suggested for them to do the job a bit after they got home. Patty had cracked after the bit that concerned her and was currently sobbing in Claude’s arms while Vinyl rubbed her back softly. Gummy was on the pink-haired girl’s lap, busy nuzzling her arm in an attempt at comfort.

        While Claude had taken the news calmly for the sake of her friend on the outside, on the inside her mind was racing at the idea of Blueblood holding the documents that could finally allow her to work here normally. 

        Jack had remained impassible for the majority of Vinyl’s tale, but, after she got the answer to her question, she got up and walked to her desk across the room, grabbing a set of car keys.

“Where do you think you’re going, Jack?” Vinyl asked with suspicion.

“Ah’m gonna get my sister and brother’s whereabouts, Claude’s visa, and Patty’s sister’s number or whatever Alard got on her, and Ah’m gonna get them right now!” Jack replied impatiently.

“And, what will you do when he’ll tell you to do the job first?” Vinyl cocked an eyebrow.

“I’ll ask more nicely!” Jack snorted in anger after picking up her one-handed shotgun on the desk.

“....Put that down, and sit!” Vinyl ordered strongly, pointing at the barstool next to her.

“No way Ah’m gonna let that pa….”

“PUT. THAT. DOWN. AND. SIT!!!” Vinyl repeated in a shout.

        Jack simply stared at her friend in contained anger before dropping the gun on the desk and sitting where Vinyl had pointed with a sour frown.

“So… we’re really going to do it?” Patty asked softly, rubbing her tears away and speaking for the first time since she heard her sister had also survived that fateful train accident.

“Do we really have a choice?” Vinyl asked back. “What Alard offers aren’t really the kind of things you can turn away…”

“But… what if he’s leading us on?” Claude suggested slowly. “What if he’s just lying to us about all those rewards?”

“That’s a possibility,” Vinyl admitted softly as Patty let out a choked sob.

“If he lied, then Ah’m gonna shoot him a second asshole!” Jack threatened loudly. “Maybe even a third!”

Vinyl slightly chuckled at that threat, despite knowing that her freckled friend would not hesitate for a second to go through that threat if Alard had indeed lied.

“Well, the only way to find out is to do the job, right?” Claude asked, earning short nods from the other three women. “So what’s the plan, Vinyl?”

“I don’t have a full plan yet,” Vinyl replied rubbing her eyes. “More a vague concept than anything else for the moment. Let’s get some sleep first. I’ll figure something out by tomorrow.”

        Patty and Claude nodded slowly and made way to the stairs leading to their rooms. Jack remained on the barstool for a few moments, staring at the one who had led her for many years now with concern.

“Yer gonna be okay, sugar?”

“I’ll live, Jack,” Vinyl replied in a whisper. “I just never thought I’ll ever have to get close to him again…”

“Vinyl… Ya didn’t have to accept that job for us,” Jack said, grabbing Vinyl’s hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “We would have found another way for those things, ya know?”

“No.” Vinyl shook her head. “Alard can get you what you always wanted since we got all together. No way I was going to make you miss that!”

“Vinyl, Ah appreciate it. Ah appreciate it a lot, but we’re a team. We do what’s best for ALL of us! That includes ya!” Jack reminded softly.

“What’s best for me, Jack, is that you all finally get out of here and get on with what you dream to do.” Vinyl retorted with a smile. “I’ll be happy with just that.”

“An’ that idea of yers to take Neon’s place behind them turntables?” Jack asked with a small smirk.

“That too!” Vinyl agreed playfully. “Though, that comes after you three!” Her hand found its way on Jack’s neck and pulled the blonde into a strong hug. “You three will always come first for me!” she added softly.

        The girl suddenly felt another pair of arms wrapped themselves around her and Jack, and by the odor of liquorice it couldn’t be anyone other than Patty. She glanced around to see Claude joining the tight group hug before a barked hiss made itself heard from the ground.

“Sorry, Gummy… You four will always come first!” Vinyl specified with the group chuckling softly as the dwarf alligator was nuzzling her leg, waggling his tail vigorously. “Now off to bed, all of you! We have some work to do tomorrow!”


~~~~~~


        A few days later, Claude and Jack had finished building the 3D model of Shutnikov’s manor, following the blueprints Alard had given to Vinyl at the meeting. As soon as it was done, Vinyl gathered her friends to explain her plan.

“So, how do we proceed, Vinyl?” Claude asked with curiosity leaning forward to the miniature.

“Well, according to Alard’s file and what Patty saw, we know that there are cameras here…. here… A little bit there…”

        Vinyl placed a series of Lego cameras - Patty gifted herself many Lego Cinema Sets for last Christmas.- where the real ones were supposed to be on the Manor’s and surrounding walls.

“Okay!” Vinyl paused to see if the props were more or less in the right spot. “Now, all the wires connected to the cameras go behind the walls before passing under the gardens up to the point where they reach the control box situated in the basement of the northern wing.” Vinyl took a red marker and drew a ‘X’ under one of the ‘manor’ tower.

“Tsk,” Jack let out sourly. “Ah suppose that all them monitors are in that basement as well.”

“Most likely!” The blue-haired nodded. “Patty!”

“Yeah?” 

“How did the rest of your surveillance go?” Vinyl asked slowly. “What else did you notice?”

“There’s an awesome little wood a bit outside the property, really good spot for hiking!” Patty answered with a wide smile.

“Huh… I was hoping something about if you saw any guards, but that’s good to know too,” Vinyl let out with a shrug.

“Oh! Right!” Patty lifted her forefinger as she remembered something.

        The pink-haired leaned down her chair to pick a small box up. When she opened it, the others noticed many Lego characters, all with black shades painted over their eyes and a black, military hair-cap. Peacefully humming a tune that sounded a lot like Chocolate Rain, Patty started to place sixteen of those characters in group of two at specific places around the miniature.

“Constant patrolling around the property,” Patty explained. “Well, I say patrolling but they just walk around, chatting about God knows what… Probably about what’s for lunch.” she mused slowly.

“How did you manage to see they were that many, Patty?” Claude asked with curiosity.

“The woods around the property!” she replied, placing a set of miniature trees a bit away from the outer wall. “Some of the trees are easily ten-twelve meters tall. It was super duper fun to play Tarzan… Or Jane, since I’m a girl!” Patty added with a chuckle.

“Hang on a cotton-pickin’ minute!” Jack interjected with a puzzled frown. “Ya mean ya hid on top of one of them trees to watch the manor?!”

“Yep!” Patty nodded.

“And, no one noticed you?” Vinyl asked.

“Nopy dopy!” she replied with a shake of her head. “The foliage is really dense! You’re impossible to see from the outside!”

“Hummm… You’ll have to get us to that tree you observed from, Patty,” Vinyl said after a short moment of reflection.

“Oki!”

“It gave you an idea, Vi?” Claude asked with curiosity.

“Maybe… The problem is the numerous guards though,” Vinyl let while scratching her chin pensively. “Looks like we don’t have a choice!” She sighed.

“What do you mean?” Patty and the others tilted their heads in confusion.

The blue haired girl started her explanation. “If my idea is correct, it’s going to be piece of cake to pass the wall and the camera, but the guards on patrol are going to be a bit more of a problem. Unless they have something to keep them busy.” she added slowly.

“You suggest that one of us makes a diversion?” Jack asked casually.

“Nope!” Vinyl shook her head. “We exploit the one they’re going to make themselves!”

“Huh?!”

        Vinyl went to her desk and pulled a file out of her drawer. She tossed the file at the closest of her friends, namely Claude, who opened it with curiosity while Jack glanced from above her shoulder.

“Oddly enough for a man as dangerous as him, Shutnikov’s a two-hundred-percent doting father,” Vinyl explained slowly. “Especially with his young daughter, who he considers the pearl of his existence, if rumors are to be believed.”

“What does it got to do with us?” Claude questioned, her eyes fixed on the description of Shutnikov’s children.

“Oh-Oh! Do they have a secret tattoo that their father made them do, and each of those tattoos hides a part of the code to open the vault?” Patty asked with excitement.

        There was a short silence after Patty’s question.

“No!” Vinyl deadpanned her friend abruptly.

“That would be a bit odd,” Claude slowly commented. “I mean, he would have to make them change the tattoos every time he wants to change the code.”

“An’ Ah’m pretty sure it would just put his kids in danger without contributing much to the safety of his vault… Just sayin’.” Jack shrugged.

“Oh, you mean he’s not the kind of evil guy who does completely and unnecessary complex plans to reach for his goal?” Patty asked in a disappointed tone.

“No, Patty, he’s the exact opposite!” Vinyl replied with a long, tired sigh.
 
“Anyway!” Jack said before Patty could open her mouth. “What does his papa’s girl have to do with our business?”

“For his daughter’s twenty-first birthday, he hosts a big reception with all the big shots that works for him, a few celebrities he patronizes, and probably a cop or two that managed to get invited under cover,” Vinyl supposed.

“Hang on, yer idea’s that we plunder the vault DURIN’ the party?!” Jack asked in disbelief. “What’s that for an idea?”

“With all those people present, he’ll just reinforce the security!” Claude added slowly.

“Yeah, and we’ll ruin the birthday party on top of all things!” Patty pointed out firmly.

“... Why do you care about that, Patty?” Vinyl asked in confusion.

“I have my principles!”

“Yeah, that’s nice and all, but how in tarnation do ya want us to get inside that manor full of snakes?!” Jack turned to the blue-haired asked slowly.

“Think a bit, Jack,” Vinyl replied with a growing grin. “In Shutnikov’ shoes, what would you do? Keeping a close eye on the snakes you know are inside your house, or would you keep a look out for the foxes you have no idea that they are coming?”

Jack blinked before copying Vinyl’s mischievous grin. ”That’s a mighty interestin’ perspective.”

“I’ll admit that it sounds great,” Claude remarked. “But why did you sigh when you thought of it?”

“Because we’re gonna be in a real hurry to get ready for this party.”

“Why? Is it soon?” Patty asked with curiosity.

        Vinyl replied by lifting three of her fingers.

“Huh… you mean three weeks, right?” Claude asked hopefully.

“Three days!” Vinyl answered with a shake of her head before seeing her friends’ dumbfounded stares. “Any other questions? No?! Then let’s get down on it!”


~~~~~~~~~~ 


Three days later, in the woods outside Shutnikov’ property,

“Gotta say, the view’s quite nice from up here,” Jack commented casually as she reached the top of her tree. “Ah think Ah can see the junction with the Interstate.”

“Hum?” Vinyl narrowed her eyes in the direction Jack was pointing at, barely noticing small moving lights passing in the middle of the dark night far away. “You’re right!” 

She turned around to see a loaded Jack testing the solidity of a thick branch before sitting on it with precaution. As soon as she was stable on her branch, Jack unloaded the long, nylon, black rope from her right shoulder and passed it to Vinyl.

“Claude and Patty are finishing hiding the van,” Jack explained while unloading the travel bag on her other shoulder. “They should join us in a few minutes.”

        Vinyl nodded before pulling a pair of binoculars out of her backpack, and looking at the Manor main entrance. The guests had started to arrive even before the pair was busy climbing the thirteen meters tall tree, but the flow of newcomers in shamelessly, expensive cars was still consequent.

        She scanned the surroundings of the manor, constating with great satisfaction that her supposition had been accurate: The guards she had seen patrolling around the property when they came back to find the tallest tree closest to the property were all watching over the main road to the manor, by which all guests were arriving.

Vinyl turned the binoculars back to the main entrance while Jack was assembling what was in her travelbag. She focused the lens as the area before the front door, and froze a bit when the brownish blur turned into a man in his late forties wearing a brown suit. The man had short hair, black on the side and white on the top of his skull, styled backwards with some hair gel, a perfectly brushed, white goatee, an overgrown canin tooth that slightly peaked from the right side of his upper lip and eyes colored in a mix of blood red and parchment yellow.

“Sweetie, stay in the closet! Don’t make any sound! Just like when we play hide and seek.”

“Mommy,.... you’re scaring me…”

“Just...Just stay in here until I come back for you!”

“Mommy, don’t leave! Mommy?! You locked the closet, Mo……”

BAM! BAM!

“Vinyl!” 

        Vinyl gasped in shock as she felt a hand softly resting on her left shoulder. She snapped her head to the left, seeing Jack’s concerned expression.

“Ya were kinda out for a minute,” Jack answered Vinyl’s unasked question softly. “Yer okay?”

“Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine,” the blue-haired thief replied while pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Ya sure?” Jack asked with worry.

        Before Vinyl could answer, the noises of the rummaging foliage came from below them. Patty and Claude were climbing to join them, both more easily than Vinyl and Jack did, though none of them were as loaded as they were, especially compared to Jack.

“The van’s safe?” Vinyl immediately took the chance to change the subject of conversation.

“Yepperoni!” Patty replied with a nod. “Should people pass nearby, they’ll only a see a giant bush!” She added with a short giggle.

“Cool! Are you ready, Jack?” 

“Just need to get the bolt ready!” Jack replied, tapping proudly the hunting crossbow she had just finished assembling.

“Are you sure you can hit the mark?” Claude asked as Vinyl attached the buckle of the nylon rope in the little circle at the end of Jack’s bolt.

“Sugar, with this here baby, Ah can shoot down a scared deer zigzagging through the forest up to forty meters!” Jack commented in a smug tone. “Now, the target is at maximum thirty, thirty-five meters, and there ain’t no obstacles whatsoever.”

“I’m just checking!” Claude replied defensively. “We only got one shot after all!”

“Jack!” Vinyl called, extending the now roped bolt to the short-haired blonde who loaded it in the crossbow. “Patty, hold the other end of the rope tight!” Patty saluted before doing as instructed.

        Then, Vinyl passed another pair of binoculars to Claude so that they both could check if the coast was clear for Jack to shoot. When Vinyl and Claude both lifted their thumbs up, Jack shouldered her crossbow and aimed for the small roof-access on top of the manor.

She slowly breathed in and out until the light of the moon wasn’t obscured by the clouds, giving her a perfect sight of her target. Jack pulled the trigger, and the bolt flew its course swiftly, dragging the rope behind it, before it pierced the wooden door of the roof-access.

“Gotcha!” Jack claimed with a small grin. “Now, pull the rope, Patty. Slowly!”

        The pink-haired thief slowly pulled the rope to the point it offered  too much resistance, confirming the fact that it was secured on the door thirty meters away. While the group silently cheered for that first, successful step in their plan, Vinyl watched with her binoculars if someone at the manor had noticed anything. Apparently, no one had.

“Okay, Claude, you go first!” Vinyl ordered as Jack was tying the rope around the trunk.

“All right!” Claude as she passed a carabiner attached to a handle on the rope. “See you on the other side!”

        With a strong grip on her handle, the diminutive blonde jumped forward before sliding along the cable. As her body finally passed above the roof, she let go of the handle and rolled to absorb her fall.

“Patty, go!” Vinyl waved at her friend after Claude stood up and signaled her it was okay. “And, go quietly!” she added with a knowing smile.

“Oki-doki-loki!” Patty replied with a hint of disappointment, attaching her carabiner-handle to the rope. “Hum-hum…. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! “ She let out in a whisper as she slided down to the roof.

        After Patty reached for the roof-top, surprisingly slowing down at the end of her course, Vinyl gave Jack her binoculars while attaching her carabiner to the rope.

“Yer gonna be okay without me?” Jack asked, taking the binoculars in her callous hand.

“Don’t worry, Jack!” Vinyl assured with a nod. “Keep an eye on everything. You’re our exit-insurance!”

“Ah know, Ah know,” Jack retorted with smile. “Stay in contact, and let me know if ya need me down there!”

“Aye!” Vinyl replied before jumping forward.

        Vinyl reached for the roof as quickly as the others did, landing on her feet after letting go of the handle which ended its course against the door with the others in a very quiet thud. Vinyl slowly stood up and saw the expectant look of her friends.

“Alright, girls! Let’s go find that vault!”



> Attempted burglary in Trickster's Mansion
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The number of cameras inside the mansion was drastically lower than the outside of it. They were situated in corridors mostly, as the owner of the property wouldn’t install some in the private quarters of the immensely big habitation. Unless he had a voyeur fetish, but from the plans Vinyl and company had received from Alard, Shutnikov didn’t have that particular fetish.

After managing to pick the roof door open, the trio of female thieves sneaked down to the second floor, where there was only one camera for each corridor they took, and it didn’t take a lot of effort to progress through their blind spots. Not that it was a walk in the park, of course. But for persons with their experiences in burglary and robbery, it wasn’t difficult. Not easy, but not difficult as well.

“Okay, girls,” Vinyl whispered to Patty and Claude as they were all standing around the corner of the last hallway they had to cross to get in Shutnikov’s office. “We’re gonna need to wait for it to start looking back in that direction,” she pointed at the camera fixed just above them, then at the top of the corridor from which they came. “I’ll go, then you two will follow.”

        Vinyl looked up to see when the camera would start to move again.

“What if the door’s locked?” Patty asked with worry.

“Leave the door to me if it’s the case.” Vinyl pulled two thin, silvery lockpicks from one of her pockets.

“Vinyl, you’d only have like, fifteen second to run and pick the lock the door before the camera turns back to the door,” Claude remarked slowly.

“Then, let’s just hope I’m still as fast as I’m known to be.” Vinyl simply smiled.

        Many would have interpreted that smile as an act of brashness bordering on arrogance, but Patty and Claude knew Vinyl well enough to see it wasn’t. It wasn’t arrogance that shone from that small movement of lips, it was the expression of a genuine self-confidence. Deep down, Vinyl knew that she could make it, and they didn’t need anything more.

“Go!” Patty said softly as the camera above them started to turn away from the office door.

15

        Vinyl swiftly moved out of her hiding post and made it to the door, silent as a cat, before she tried to open the door. As Patty suspected it, it was locked. She quickly kneeled down to have the keyhole at her eye-level and put the extremity of one of her lockpicks in it.

11

        After a few tries, Vinyl found the correct spot for her first lockpick and inserted the second one in the keyhole.

7

        Finding the second spot was always trickier. It could be a few millimeter right above the first one as much as it could be at complete opposite of a key of the keyhole. It turned out to be the former in this case.

6

        With her lockpicks secured in the right positions, she tried to open the lock, but it didn’t budge the slightest. That could only mean that there was a third spot to find in the keyhole.

5

        Holding the two already settled lockpicks with her right hand,...

4

… Vinyl took another one from her pocket and inserted it in the keyhole.

3

        Vinyl pinched the tip of her tongue with her lips as she searched for the third spot in the lock.

2

        When she didn’t find it, Vinyl started another round check to see if she hadn’t rushed over it in her hurry.

1


~~~~~~~~


        In the reception hall, located in the east wing of the three story manor, the party mood was slowly getting settled. Many guests were chatting together, catching up on their latest business, fashion, etc. while waiting for the woman of the day to make her appearance.

        Two men in their late mid-twenties, both wearing the most dashing and elegant, black suit they had in their possession, were chatting casually with two women in skin tight, evening dresses near the hall’s door.

“So, Kornelio?” The woman with silvery, white hair, Bellatrix, called the man with short black hair and a matching, developing goatee. “How does it feel to have your little sister turn twenty-one?”

“Frankly, Trixie, I’m suddenly feeling older myself,” Kornelio replied with a chuckle, causing the woman with long, curly red and yellow hair at his arm and his other friends to follow suit.

“Do you think she’s ready to wow us with her show?” Svetlana asked with curiosity, scooting closer to Kornelio than she already was.

“Geez, Svet’! Kornelio’s not going anywhere, you can let go of him a bit!” The other man of the group, Taran Fairlane, mocked while passing his hand through his grey locks of hair.

“Dra åt helvete, Taran!” [Piss off, Taran!] Svetlana growled slowly at the grey haired man.

“Easy, honey,” Kornelio whispered softly in the ear of the redhead at his arm, who blushed at his gesture. “To answer your question, I think she’ll do a lot more than wow us all.” He smiled sadly. “If she overcomes her nervousness that is,” he added with a sigh.

“Do you want me to give her a pep talk?” Bellatrix asked with a playful smile, but her eyes nonetheless showed genuine concern.

“.....” Kornelio hesitated to answer. “Huh…”

“What he’s trying to say is that he doesn’t want his baby sister to start talking in the third person and getting an ego big enough to fill the whole mansion once she’s on stage,” Taran replied in his friend’s stead with a small grin.

“More or less what he said,” Kornelio added sheepishly.

“Your loss,” Bellatrix replied with a shrug. “Trixie’s sure she’d learn many useful things from her.”

“Like barely dressing up to gather the crowd’s attention?” Svetlana asked, eying with disdain Bellatrix’s very short, midnight blue dress.

“Well, I was thinking of more appropriate stuff,” Bellatrix commented, unfazed by the comment on her dress. “But, that might a good thing to learn for our young lady. Vous ne trouvez pas?” [Don’t you agree?]

“As much as I can’t deny the benefits of that tactic on you, Miss Lambert,” a low, mischievous, male voice commented from behind the group before they could answer Bellatrix’s question. “It would be better if it remains your tactic, and that it doesn’t become my daughter’s.”

        Four heads snapped in the speaker’s directions, letting their owners see that the host of the party, Daniil Shutnikov, stood a few feet from them, a playful grin on his face, though with abnormally long canine, it looked a bit like an expression of feral hunger to those who weren’t used to it.

“Ledare,” Svetlana called with a short, respectful bow.

“Boss, a pleasure to see you,” Taran said with a polite nod of his head.

“I..I meant it as joke, Mr Shutnikov,” Bellatrix quickly said to her employer as cold sweat started running down her spine. “Nothing more!”

“Don’t worry, dear,” Shutnikov waved off playfully. “Despite what people might think, I do not take everything personally.” Despite his sincere smile, Bellatrix could see in his red and yellow eyes that he’d not appreciate a repeat of that joke about his kin. “Now, why don’t you two ladies go enjoy the buffet?”

        The two women nodded briefly and walked away from the trio of men for the buffet across the room. Kornelio kept following Svetlana with his eyes, his mouth slowly turning up in a small, blissful smile.

“Son, do not stare too much, you’ll start to drool on your suit,” Shutnikov recommended with a short laugh, causing his son to blush in embarrassment while Taran refrained his mocking chuckle.

“And...I think you should stop scaring Bellatrix like that, Father,” Kornelio countered slowly. “Taran, shut it!” he added when he saw his friend biting his lip firmly to contain his laughter.

“It’s all in good fun, Son,” Shutnikov retorted casually before resting his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Why don’t you fill me in on how are things going between you and that pretty Swedish employee of mine while Taran will do his round check on the security?” He asked teasingly, while giving a firm stare to the grey-haired man who nodded before leaving the father and son to have their talk. “Tell me that the wedding is soon!”

“Father….” Kornelio blushed a bit in embarrassment.

“What?! Your sister’s twenty-one now. My father skills are completely used up… I need to focus on my grandfather ones….”

“Poor Kornelio,” Taran whispered to himself before walking to the basement access. 

        As the chief of security went further away from the party to the surveillance room, he walked across a few guards in the entrance. His boss had given him specific instructions to watch over the entrance and the parking lot in front of the mansion. One tiny little accident, such as a scratch on one of the guests’ car, was unacceptable for two reasons.

        One, his Russian boss wanted nothing but the best for his princess on her birthday party. He had been clearly much more excited than the birthday girl about that. Two, the simplest disagreement with his business partners would be the most annoying inconvenience. Something he had come to learn that it didn’t mix well with the one nicknamed Trickster.

“So, anything worth mentioning happen?” Taran asked as he entered the surveillance room.

        The room had a very spartan decoration: The walls were bare of any wallpapers or bright paints, only the natural grey of the stone bricks. Other than a desk, chair, a wall of small screens showing what every camera outside, and inside for a few, could record and a control keyboard, the small room was completely empty and would have been pitch black if not for the light of the screens and the small window halfway hidden by the grass of the garden.

“Other than a few fashionably late guests… not really, chief,” the man in charge of the camera surveillance replied, pointing at the screen number twenty-six.

        Taran watched over the appointed screen, seeing an expensive car entering the property, then he ordered the surveillant to send to a few security men to welcome the newcomers. While his subordinate called his colleagues through the radio, Taran glanced at wall of screens for a few seconds.

“What the…. Hey, could you move camera ten a bit!” he ordered as he focused his gaze on the screen labeled with the number ten, a puzzled frown on his face.

“Huh… sure!” the surveillant turned a few switches off and on before the image on screen ten changed as the camera’s objective swept over the door of Shutnikov’s office a few times. “It’s empty.”

“Yeah,.... I thought I saw something moving in the corner of the screen,” Taran explained slowly. “Probably my imagination.”

“You want me to send someone on the second floor to check, sir?” 

“..... Better safe than sorry.” Taran nodded slowly, before taking a small earpiece from one of the desk drawers. “Keep me informed if anything happens,” he added, putting the tiny radio-communicator in his ear.


~~~~~~~


“That was close,” Claude commented with a relieved sigh as Vinyl was locking the office door back up.

“It’s a shame that you still doubt me,” Vinyl whispered with a chuckle.

“We didn’t doubt you, but it was pretty close, you’ve got to admit it,” Patty commented while moving the painting behind the desk. “Why do all people hide their vaults behind paintings?”

        Once the painting of a still-life showing fruits along with a few juggling balls was moved out of the way, the vault came into view. It was simple looking: a one square meter steel surface with a small keyboard above the handle and a small square with a whitish surface on it. At the sight of that, Patty frowned and leaned closer it to it.

“I don’t know,” Vinyl replied with a shrug. “It’s either a painting or a bookshelf. Probably for practicality.”

“Huh… girls!” Patty called softly as Claude nodded in agreement to Vinyl. “I think we have a problem.”

“What is it?”

“Huh, you see that little square thingy?” Patty pointed at the whitish square next to the handle.

“Yes…” Vinyl let out slowly.

“It’s a fingerprint scanner,” Patty explained slowly before her two friends winced under their black masks.

“Can you bypass it?” Claude asked nervously.

“I can try… but it’ll take a lot more time than planned.” Patty put her backpack on the desk and pulled her tools and netbook out of it.

        It took a few minutes for her to extricate the pad from the vault’s door as well as good amount of strength provided by Claude and Vinyl on the screwdriver used as a leverage. Then she plugged her netbook to the pad by tweaking a few wires here and there.

        As Patty was tapping away on her laptop, whose screen was showing many code lines Vinyl and Claude understood as if it was a very distinctive Chinese dialect, Vinyl’s cellphone vibrated quietly. She pulled it out of her breast pocket and read the text message from Jack.

Saw Goons walking up the 2nd floor, be careful!

        Vinyl signaled the other girls to stay as quiet as mice and took a gander through the window. She spotted the tree on top of which Jack was on watch duty, even if she couldn’t see her, nor the cable coming from the tree to the roof, in the dark night, and did a quick thumb up for her blonde, watchful friend.

Soon after, the trio heard footsteps coming from outside the office and held their breaths while two men were chatting just in front of the door.

“Looks like it was nothing after all.” One grumbled sourly.

“What about the boss’ office?” the other suggested.

“What about it?” The first one asked back as the handle came down a few times. “You know the boss always locks his office when he’s not in it?” he muttered with a knowing tone.

“Nananana always locks..nanana.” 

“Oh, Good evening, sirs,” a feminine, crystalline, third voice joined the conversation, as more delicate footsteps came closer to the door. “I thought everyone was at the party downstairs.”

“Good evening, Miss Shutnikova!” the two men replied in a very polite and cheerful tone. “We were just asked to check the second floor.”

“Well, the wing where I come from is completely secured, if it’s of any help,” Shutnikova commented with a short giggle. “Why don’t you two go back to the reception hall?”

“You’re not going, Miss?”

“I just need to take something from my father’s office, and I’ll join the party.”

SHIT! The three thieves thought simultaneously before they silently rushed to put everything back in place.

“We can wait to escort you downstairs, Miss.”

“Please… Don’t bother.” Shutnikova answered with a low, sort of saddened tone.

“...As you wish, Miss,” one of the men replied in confusion before they walked away from the office.

        The lock made a few sharp noises as the key turned two times in it, before the door opened. A young woman walked inside the room, closed the door behind her and turned the lights on. She had rather pale skin that contrasted with her long, shiny, silk-like, jet black hair that fell just above her hips and her simple, black evening dress with an open back. 

        The woman, who was none other than the birthday girl Octavia Shutnikova, went behind her father’s desk, and pulled the painting aside from the vault’s door. She took a short breath before entering the access code and placing her right thumb on the scanner.

        A quiet bip rang through the silent room, followed by the noises of metallic pistons. Octavia reached for the handle and pulled, causing the vault to open before her. She glanced inside with an uncertain expression for a good minute.

Then she took the violin case that laid on the lower shelf of the vault, and was about to close it when a black, gloved hand suddenly stopped the door’s movement by grabbing it. Another gloved hand pressed itself against her mouth before she could even react while her own hands were grabbed and pulled behind her back. 

Octavia turned her head to the right, her gaze following the arm that kept the vault open until it reached a mask that only revealed a pair of stern, yet conflicted red eyes.

“Sorry, girl, but we really need that vault open!” the red-eyed burglar said in a quiet, raspy, feminine voice.


~~~~~~


“Where’s Octavia?” Shutnikov wondered with a sour frown. “She should have come down by now,” he remarked with a hint of worry.

“The men I sent to check the second floor said she went in your office to take something,” Taran said, noticing Kornelio and his father wince at the same time. “But that was more than ten minutes ago…”

“You think she froze again in front of Mother's violin?” Kornelio asked his father in a whisper.

Shutnikov nodded slowly. “Go see if she’s ok!”

“Sure!” Kornelio nodded back vigorously and walked out of the reception hall wherein the oblivious guests had still no idea that girl of the hour was late.

“Should we go with him?” Svetlana asked with worry.

“Stay here!” Taran answered softly. “I’ll go with him. I’ve known her for much longer than you two,” he added for the two women before Shutnikov nodded in agreement.

        Taran immediately went after his friend.


~~~~~~~


“Once again, sorry for all that,” the masked Vinyl said to the tied up and gagged Octavia sitting in the corner of the office, close to the window.

        Octavia struggled against her bonds without much success, a frightened expression on her face. She also tried to shout for help, but only very quiet, muffled moans managed to pass the gag.

“Hey,” Vinyl called softly. “No need to panic. We’re not gonna hurt you. We’re just gonna take what we need and go.” She tried to reassure their captive, and let’s say that Octavia’s attempts at freedom weren’t the only ones unsuccessful in the room.

“About that…” Claude finished leafing through the files she and Patty had taken out of the vault, and waved Vinyl to come closer. 

“What is it?” Vinyl asked with surprise while Octavia started to moan more loudly as Patty opened the violin case. “What are you doing?”

“Well, I was just checking if there wasn’t anything hidden in the case,” Patty explained sheepishly.

“I think it’s for the best that you close that case and put it back in the vault,” Vinyl advised, noticing with relief that Octavia calmed down a bit when Patty put the violin away delicately. “You were saying?” she added to Claude.

“There’s nothing here,” Claude replied with worry. “All the stuff other than family memories is legal…. What we’re looking for isn’t there…”

“W..What?!” Vinyl was completely shocked. “No. It has to be in there. Did you check everything!”

“I double-checked, it’s not here… The lead was a fake!” Claude stated uneasily.

        Before Vinyl could think about what to do, her phone vibrated. She pulled it out of her pocket. It was another text message from Jack.

GET OUT!

        Immediately after, Vinyl heard running footsteps coming fast to the office. Too fast to her liking.

“The window!” Vinyl ordered before Patty opened the large window. “To the roof!” she whispered to Claude before pushing her nearly through the now open glass frame.

“How do you… “ 

        Claude’s question was interrupted by a sharp whistle followed a low impact noise just at the right of the window. The blonde looked right and saw a metallic bolt stuck into the wall. A second one hit its mark about thirty centimeters to the right of the first one and a dozen centimeters higher. The blonde understood a bit before a third bolt landed further and higher than the second. Jack was making a path to the very detailed column of the mansion, on which the grips were legion, for them.
        
“That will do it!” Claude shrugged before jumping to grab the first projectile and quickly move onto the second one. 
        
“Octavia, it’s Kornelio. Are you ok?” the man behind the door asked with worry while Patty imitated Claude, softly giggling at how fun she found their escape route to be.

        There was only Vinyl left inside the office with Octavia. The thief waited for her partners to reach for the column to make her move. At that moment, Octavia extended her legs to kick Vinyl’s in order to trip her down as the thief was about to climb on the windowsill and moaned loudly for help.

“Seriously?!” Vinyl muttered under her breath, casting a dark glare at the tied up girl while pushing herself off the ground.

“Octavia? What’s...” Kornelio walked inside the office, seeing the thief wearing a black, fullbody suit getting back up in front of the window and his sister tied up and gagged next to her. “Sukin syn!” [Son of a bitch!]

        The furious man charged the thief fiercely, only to get kicked in the knee by her. Vinyl jumped back on her feet before giving Kornelio a strong left hook that sent him crashing onto the desk, causing a mess of documents and office furnitures to scatter across the room.

        Kornelio shook his head to recover from the shock before noticing the first drawer handle. He pulled it open and grabbed the handgun he knew his father kept in it. Kornelio stood up from the desk and tried to aim at Vinyl, whose eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the gun. Then she spotted a small red dot on the Russian’s neck.

“Don’t mov…”

        A sharp whistle came from outside left, before she noticed a metallic bolt fly past her face and end its course right in the young man’s throat. Kornelio blinked in surprise before trying to reach for his neck while falling backwards, blood pouring out of his wound and mouth while Octavia screamed in her gag.

        Vinyl was too shocked to move. Too shocked to even hear the woman’s cries, too shocked to do anything else beside watching Kornelio Shutnikov suffocating in his own blood, Too shocked to move while another man entered inside the office.

        The grey-haired man looked at the convulsing body of his boss’ son until it stopped moving at all, then he locked gaze with the thief’s red one. Then they both reacted on instinct.

        Taran took the gun he kept in its holster beneath his jacket while Vinyl picked up the one dropped by Kornelio. The thief’s reflexes were faster than the security chief, so before he could take aim at her, she managed to pull Octavia up and held her as an hostage, the canon of the gun on her temple.

“Don’t try anything,” Vinyl warned in a slightly shaking tone as she kept Octavia between her and Taran’s gun.

“… “ Taran hesitantly pulled his finger away from the trigger as Octavia was shaking in grief and fear, a river of tears rolling down her cheeks. “Do you realized what you just did? What you’re doing right now?” He asked slowly. “Killing Kornelio wasn’t enough? You threaten Octavia as well! He’ll find you for that… He’s going to hunt you for what you did to his children!”

“...I didn’t do anything! It wasn’t me!” Vinyl argued.

“Say what you want, Vinyl Scratch… He will find you and your crazy bunch of thieves, and he will end you for killing his two children,”Taran said with dark grin.

“Wait...-What?!” Vinyl let out in shock as Octavia’s eyes widened at the implications concerning her. Then the thief noticed a small red dot on her hostage’s back hair.

“Two words…. Scape Goats,” Taran slowly smiled malevolently.

        Vinyl heard the sharp whistle again, only this time, she was ready. She ducked, pulling Octavia down with her, surprising Taran as the bolt passed above them and flew straight in his right shoulder.

        While he was falling on the ground in pain, Vinyl turned around and looked in the direction she had heard the bolt coming. It took her a few seconds, but it wasn’t in vain. At the complete opposite to where Jack was staying from her window, she spotted them. A few shadows in the branches, just above the outer wall of the property.

Gotcha, you punks! Vinyl aimed for those shadows and emptied the magazine at them, seeing them falling off the trees with satisfaction. “You’re coming with me, it’s not safe for you here!” She grabbed Octavia who was trying to reach for her brother, and pulled her out of the room.

        Taran hadn’t stayed around during Vinyl’s shooting spree, so the thief knew the security would have been alerted of her. Something that gave her a bit of an advantage as well as the obvious inconvenience: now she could go at top speed without caring for the cameras.

        Taking Octavia with her was also an advantage and inconvenience. The sobbing twenty-one year old wasn’t exactly matching her speed, but should she encounter Shutnikov and his goons, she would be her best defense, despite the grey-haired man’s plot at taking the young girl’s life.

        Also, Vinyl had the feeling that Octavia wouldn’t last the night if she had been left behind. If someone had the guts to organize the murder of Trickster’s son in his own house and had managed to put the blame on her, he had definitely not done it without the support of someone else inside Trickster’s circle.

        Vinyl managed to reach the small, closed staircase that lead to the roof, when she heard a crowd coming in her direction. She closed the door, and hoped it wouldn’t head this way too soon. Dragging her hostage/rescuee up the stairs, the thief was halfway between the third floor and the rooftop when she heard the second floor’s door being slammed open. Luckily the roof’s door opened, letting Patty and Claude come to her help. 

“What the heck was with those gunfires, Vinyl?” Claude asked, sounding beyond worried. “What the fuck happened?” she nearly shouted while Patty threw two tear-gas grenades in the stairs.

“Not now! We’ve got to get her and ourselves out of here!” Vinyl ordered sternly, nodding at Octavia’s sobbing mass.

        Groaning in frustration, Claude nevertheless helped Vinyl drag the young girl up the last stairs before Patty slammed the door behind them, muffling the coughing sounds that were coming from below.

        The roof was pretty much in the same state as Vinyl and the girls had left it earlier. The only difference was that the cable connecting it to the tree was coming down from the roof instead of coming down to the roof. Jack had lowered her end of the cable, just like planned.

“All right, let’s go!” Vinyl ordered before turning to Octavia. “Hey, you’re gonna have to put your arms around my neck.” She got no reaction from the young girl, while Patty hooked all three carabiners to the rope. “Hey, listen to me...” Vinyl pulled the gag away.

“Let me go!” Octavia shouted frantically as she suddenly tried to desperately run away from Vinyl’s grip.

“No! You’re coming with us!” Vinyl argued strongly. “You’ll die if you stay here! Just like your brother! That’s what you want?!”

“Don’t you dare talk about my brother, Murderer!” Octavia tried to slap Vinyl with her two hands, which were still tied up together.

Vinyl’s hand was proven to be a lot faster than her own to reach one’s cheek.

“I’m many things, girl,” Vinyl slowly stated in a cold tone, while Claude and Patty looked at her with gaping mouths. “Murderer is not one of them. I’d have left you back there if I was. I’d have let your little head get pierced by a crossbow bolt if I was.”

        Octavia looked back at the thief with her right cheek burning red. The thief pulled a short knife from her rear pocket and cut the bonds that kept Octavia’s wrists together.

“What are you doing?” Octavia asked slowly.

“Giving you a choice,” Vinyl said simply. “Come with me and live, or stay here and probably die!”

“My father can protect me!” Octavia argued.

“Then, you choose,” Vinyl replied softly before heading to the carabiners. “Let’s move!”

        Patty and Claude nodded before both grabbing the first two carabiners and running to the end of the roof to slide down to the tree. Vinyl grabbed her own while Octavia thought about what happened inside her father’s office. The words Taran had said made her realize something.

        Taran was supposed to be in charge of the Manor’s security, and its occupants, yet he hadn’t even tried to rescue her. Besides, what that thief had just said was true. The bolt had been destined for her, and without the red-eyed masked woman, she’d be dead by now. Taran hadn’t acted alone. Could she trust the people inside her home, except her father? Would she even manage to talk to him before someone makes a move on her?

“Wait!” Octavia called, running in attempt to stop Vinyl’s course.

        Vinyl heard the call and simply twirled the handle around her left wrist and snatched Octavia with her right arm just before she jumped off the roof. The younger girl let out a short, scared squeal, before tightly passing her arms around the thief’s neck to secure her hold and not fall.

        The slide down didn’t last more than a few seconds, and Vinyl let go of the carabiner to land with a feline agility on a thick branch, despite Octavia’s weight added to her own, which wasn’t really that much all things considered.

“Cut the rope, Jack!” Vinyl ordered while the black-haired girl was still holding onto her like she was a lifebuoy.

“Aye, aye, Vi!” Jack used her hunting knife to cut the rope with one swift swing. “Now, do ya mind fillin’ me on what happened?”

“When we’re in the van,” Vinyl commented, turning her head to the east, where she had shot at the ones who killed Kornelio and tried to kill Octavia. “It’s not safe here!”

“An’ the girl?”

“She’s coming with us!” Vinyl faced Jack. “Is that a problem?”

“For now, nope!”

“Let’s go then!” Vinyl ordered before carrying Octavia bridal style and jumping down a few branches until she landed on the ground, quickly imitated by her friends.


~~~~~~~


“I can’t believe they’ve escaped!” Bellatrix muttered sourly as they walked out of the staircase leading to the roof. “Search the woods around the property! Don’t let them get away!” She barked to the closest henchman she found. “And, don’t let the guests go as well! They might have an accomplice among them!”

“Fan också!” [Damn it!] Svetlana growled angrily as she and Bellatrix were walking to Shutnikov’s office. “What are we going to say to Kornelio and his father?”

“We’ll catch them, Svet’,” Bellatrix assured firmly. “They can’t be that far away.”

        The pair finished their journey to the office, in front of which they found many of their underlings looking inside it uneasily. When they saw the two women arrive, they parted away to let them pass. All of them were casting worried glances in Svetlana’s direction, something that disturbed the Swedish woman a lot.

        When they walked in the office, the pair found their boss kneeled next to his desk. Bellatrix noticed a pair of legs were lying perpendicularly to Trickster, whose posture was far from being in accordance to his nickname. His shoulders were slumped down, and his head low. Then she noticed the red liquid coming from before her boss. Bellatrix realized what happened quicker than Svetlana, and tried to stop her friend, but it was too late.

        The red-and-yellow-haired woman froze when she could see above her boss’ shoulder. Her light teal eyes shrunk to the size of pinpricks as they gazed on Kornelio’s body. Svetlana shivered as her eyes traced from the bolt in his neck to the dozen of bullet-holes in his chest.

        She took a step back and lost her footing, only to be caught by Bellatrix. Svetlana broke down in her friend’s arms and started to cry at her heart’s content, her legs giving up under her. Bellatrix asked two of their female underlings to lead her to her room after trying to comfort her.

        In the meantime, Shutnikov was still focused on the small, bloodied note he had found on his son’s chest.



Trickster,

You took my family away,
I took yours.

Consider us even.

                                                     V.S.



“Bellatrix…” Trickster called in a low tone as he stood up from the ground.

“Yes?” Bellatrix replied.

“Find out who this ‘V. S.’ is. Find out fast!” He demanded slowly. “And when you do, spread the word. Five hundred grand to the first one who can lead us to him.” He turned around and glared furiously at his silver-haired underling. “Find him and his associates, and bring them back here along with my daughter, who better be alive and untouched! Am I clear?!”

“Crystal clear, Boss,” Bellatrix nodded with determination and left the room. She had a job to do, and she had to do it fast.
> バンガラング!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“We’re here, Spencer,” Twila called softly, driving her SUV past Shutnikov’s front gate while her younger brother was checking his case for the tenth time since they left their apartment forty-five minutes ago.

        The forensic scientist watched the numerous police units parked along the alley, internally sighing at the many officers walking around and possibly destroying important pieces of evidence. She stationned her vehicle right next to the white sedan she recognized as Rarity’s car. As soon as Spencer and her got out of the car, a white-haired woman officer went in her direction.

“Hey, Officer Skytalon,” Twila called slowly. “How’s the knee?” she asked, noticing a slight limp in the officer’s steps.

“A bit sore, but the doctor said there won’t be any consequences, Miss,” Gilda replied matter-of-factly.

“So, what exactly happened?” Spencer asked impatiently.

“Well, long story short,” Gilda explained, leading the pair toward the mansion. “Shutnikov’s son was killed while his daughter was kidnapped.” She pointed at her fellow officers who were taking all the guests statements.” It was the girl’s birthday party… More than a hundred guests along with fifty security guards, and no one saw anything suspicious before the gunshots.” She paused briefly. “The only one that saw what happened is the chief of security.”

“Did someone take his deposition already?” Twila asked with curiosity.

“Not yet. He had to be taken to the hospital,” Gilda replied apathetically. “He took a crossbow bolt in the shoulder.” She noticed Twila’s eyes widening in shock for a short instant. “His life isn’t in danger. Don’t worry.”

“Where are we needed?” Spencer asked as his sister let out a brief sigh of relief.

“Well, the Heliopolises are inspecting the office,” Gilda explained. “Ms. Belle is on the roof and Ms. Hutchinson is looking through the woods with several officers. So far, the only thing left to check is the surveillance videos…”

“That’s a job for me!” Spencer cracked his knuckles with pride, ignoring the wince his sister had in response. “Let’s go!”


~~~~~~~


“Are you SURE you’re okay up there?” Dash asked with worry, glancing at the top of tree, her flashlight focused on the blonde a few feet above her.

“Hummm, ...Yes, I’m sure….sort of... just… Could you stop calling me? It’s a bit distracting.” Chylene asked back while climbing the tree. Do not look down, Chylene… Focus on the task at hand… Look for clues… Do not think of the distance separating you from ground… that very long, and possibly dangerous distance.

        After a rather stressful climbing, Chylene reached for the top. As soon as she caught her breath back, the scientific police member carefully looked around with the flashlight she had attached to her ear-piece. Her light teal gaze stumbling directly onto rope marks on the bark, loose branches, and footprints.

A static noise came from the radio she had been given when she arrived on the Russian Businessman’s property. 

“Darling, what are you doing on top of that tree?” Rarity’s voice asked, full of puzzlement.

Chylene passed the rope attached to her belt around a thick branch, as far as possible from the marks she had spotted, before she brought her finger to her ear-piece to activate the microphone.

“How do you know where I am?” Chylene asked back, as confused as her colleague.

“I can see you from the roof.” Chylene glanced in direction of the property, noticing Rarity waving at her with her own flashlight. “Now, why are you in that tree?”

“I noticed a cut off cable near the trunk,” Chylene explained. “Since there were no footprints on the ground, I thought that the kidnappers didn’t come here walking. In the end, I was right,” she added softly.

“What do you mean?”

“I found marks on the branches here…” Chylene turned her attention back on the closest mark. “Looks like that’s where they came and went.”

“So it seems,” Rarity commented slowly. “The bolt on the door with the cable attached to it seems to point in your direction.” She glanced on the many footprints other than hers on the gravel of the roof. “I hope you’ll have better luck for clues. A great deal of the security has rushed on the roof after the kidnappers. Other than the bolts in the door and the walls close to the office’s windows, there’s not much to look at here.”

“Well, I have multiple footprints here and…” Her gaze wandered around a nearby tree. “Oh my!” she added in a whisper.

“What is it?” Rarity asked. “Did you find something?”

“Huh… yes,” Chylene replied uneasily, her eyes focused on the trail of broken twigs and branches on the nearby trees going deeper into the woods. “But I’ll have to climb on so many trees,” she added in a sad and defeated tone.


~~~~~~


        A few hours later, in the labs of the Police Headquarters.

“Let’s a make a recap of what we found so far,” Celeste ordered at the six other people sitting around the table. “Selene, what did the autopsy reveal?”

“The obvious,” Celeste’s sister, who happened to be the Police’s coroner, replied slowly. “What killed Kornelio Shutnikov was the bolt in his throat. It cut his jugular vein.”

“What about the bullet holes?” Twila asked in confusion. “Wasn’t he shot too?”

“Yes, but that happened afterwards,” Selene answered matter-of-factly. “He was dead before he was shot. The killer probably wanted to be sure.”

“By shooting him ten times in the chest?” Sherman added with a cocked eyebrow. “That’s quite the overkill, don’t you think?”

“Probably a message sent to Shutnikov,” Selene shrugged. “How should I know? My thing is to make dead people talk to us about how they died, not why they did in the first place.”

        Selene’s latest remark caused a small whimper from the blonde behaviourist sitting across her.

“Thank you, Selene, for that remarkable view of your profession,” Celeste commented sarcastically before her sister mock-saluted her with two fingers. “Spencer, what about the surveillance cameras?”

“Well, we’ve got a few shots of the culprit dragging Shutnikova to the stairs, but that’s all.” The young, black man replied with a hint of admiration. “I don’t know who those guys are, but they came in like ghosts. I checked all the videos from before the gunshots, and there’s not a single hint of their presence… If it weren’t for the fact that the lock had been picked, I’d swear they were in the office from the very beginning.”

“It’s possible they got in thanks to someone inside,” Twila suggested with a pensive frown. “This Trixie character sure was eager to stop me from inspecting two of the mansion’s room. She must have something to hide!”

“Huh, Twila.” Spencer poked his sister’s shoulder. “She said that those rooms were both occupied: one by Shutnikov Senior and the other by Kornelio’s fiancée,” he added with a frown. “I think it’s better we didn’t get inside those rooms.

“Nevertheless, she didn’t have to talk down to me like she did!” Twila grumbled sourly. “Talking in the third person like she was so much more important than the rest of the house…”

“Well, not to bother you, dear,” Rarity chimed in. “But she seemed like she was an important person around the manor.”

“Not really surprising,” Celeste commented casually. “Miss Lambert has always been one of Trickster’s most faithful “Caporegime”, should he be Italian, for a while now.”

“What are you talking about, Madam?” Chylene asked a brief, confused pause in the conversation. “Who’s this Trickster person?”

“Celeste,” Sherman warned. “We talked about this!”

“Hang on, are you talking about THE Trickster?” Twila asked with wide eyes. “The famous mob boss?!”

Her older brother sighed wearily. “Yes, that’s who Celeste’s talking about. Daniil Shutnikov has always been the top suspect about Trickster’s true identity. He even went to court once, but has been cleared of all charges.”

“The jury was corrupted or frightened into acquitting him,” Celeste added slowly, an angry frown on her face. “At least, that’s my theory. With what we had against him, he should have been sent to jail ad vitam eternam!”

“Hum, not to sound like I’m telling you what to do, but shouldn’t we focus on the task at hand?” Chylene asked in her usual, quiet whisper.

“You’re right,” Sherman agreed as Celeste nodded slowly. “Spencer, you’ve got anything to add about the surveillance videos?”

“No.” Spencer shook his head. “It’s like Fairlane told our officers at the hospital. We can see both of Shutnikov’s children and him enter in the office before Fairlane exit the room with bolt in the shoulder. He quickly escaped to call for help as a dozen of flashes came from inside the office, only to have the kidnapper exit with the daughter a few seconds after.”

“Ok. How did your inspection of the woods go?”

“Well, it was stressful,” the blonde replied honestly. “But, I found how they went in and out!”

        She started to talk about all the marks on the branches she had taken pictures of. The kidnappers had done a bit of travel through the trees, not unlike what you could see in Ninja or Martial arts movie, until they continued on the ground. According to what she found, Chylene deduced there were four persons involved in the kidnapping/murder. Chylene also showed the pictures of a small clearing in which she found tire tracks that went along a small dirt path up to the road.

“I’ve molded a print of the tracks. Romana’s checking the database to find a match.” Chylene ended her explanation. “We should have an idea on the vehicle they used shortly. So far, she’s certain it’s a van of some sort.”
        
Celeste nodded with a small smile. It wasn’t much of a clue, but it was something already. She turned her head toward Rarity who cleared her throat before telling what she found on the rooftop of the mansion.

“Other than the bolt and the rope they used to access the property, as well as the bolts at the window from , nothing. ” Rarity let out with a short sigh. “Though, in the staircase leading to the rooftop, I found the remains of two tear gas grenades,” she added before showing pictures of said remains to her partners. “I think you’re not going to like what I’m about to say, Sherman,” she said to the commissioner with a wince.

“What do you mean?” 

“According to the serial number I found on them, those two grenades should have been delivered to the NYPD Special Forces,” Rarity explained with unease.

        A deep silence followed her words as her co-workers all gasped in shock.

“You mean that someone from our forces took part in this incident?” the Commissioner asked in a cold, angry tone.

“That’s what I first thought,” Rarity admitted. “I think it’s much more worse than that.”

“What do you mean?” Twila asked in confusion. “How could there be something worse?”

“As soon as I found out the serial matched our records, I went to check the armory… Only to find grenades bearing the same number as the ones I found on the crime scene,” Rarity stated, earning a deep silence from her colleagues.

“...How’s that possible?” Selene asked in a dumbfounded tone.

“I’ve run over the orders from our supplier,” The brunette added. “Apparently, the order including those grenades was delayed due to a few pieces having a fabrication default. Like specified in the contract we have with them, the defective pieces were put out of the circuits to be destroyed and replaced by new ones, thus reusing their serial numbers!”

“So our supplier sells his defective products on the black market?” Spencer suggested with a frown.

“If it’s that, they’re incredibly stupid to leave the serial number on the weapons in question,” Celeste commented in disbelief.

“I don’t think it’s that,” Rarity argued in a pensive tone. “I think someone took advantage of the police and our equipment supplier. I’ve checked the orders of the last five years. Numbers of productions errors tripled. Not really important pieces in essence, but put together…” 

The brunette simply winced before showing the list of stolen parts and what they could be assembled with them to the commissioner whose shocked eyes widened in response.


~~~~~~~


        The meeting between the crime scene investigators lasted for a good half an hour after the sudden exit of the Commissioner that followed Rarity’s discovery. The team had guessed that the Police’s supplier would get a very, unpleasant visit in a short time. Once the meeting was ended, all five women went back to the labs while Spencer had volunteered to go buy pastries. All of them had skipped breakfast when they returned from Shutnikov’s mansion at the crack of dawn, and started to work immediately after.

“Rarity, could I get your opinion on something?” Twila called from her desk, her eyes darting back and forth between two pictures.

“Su...Sure thing, dear,” Rarity replied, trying hard to repress a discrete yawn. “What is it?”

“Take a look at those pictures Chylene took in the woods,” Twila demanded softly, passing the two pictures at her friend. “What can you deduce from them?”

Rarity inspected the pictures with attention. They both showed large and deep footprints on fresh dirt. Both “feet” were close in each case, as if it their owner had made a standing jump. The exterior of the footprints was deeper than the inner side, as if the person had arched her legs to absorb the impact of a jump.

“Are you sure that they were both taken in the woods, Twila?” Rarity asked with a cocked eyebrow. “Because it would mean that the suspect changed boots between two jumps.”

“So, I’m not crazy into thinking that those two set of footprints belong to the same person?”

“Well, the shoes’ size is definitely the same. They both show the same stance… Though, one is slightly deeper than the other, but that could mean he was carrying something heavy, or that the dirt was more friable.” Rarity commented while glancing at the picture in her right hand. “Where was the other picture taken?”

“Judge Patterson’s garden, three weeks ago,” Twila replied with a small, proud smile. “The tall thief from back then was also present at Shutnikov’s manor!” She stood up abruptly. “I’m going to tell Celeste!”

“Let’s not get hasty, dear!” Rarity stopped her by grabbing her shoulder. “I could be wrong in my assumption.”

“You’re never wrong when it comes to shoe-size, Rarity!” Twila argued. “You said that those sets of footprints belonged to the same person, who simply changed boots between two crimes. That’s more than enough for me!”

“Why, thank you for the vote of confidence, but it could also be a coincidence.”

“What about those?” Twila pointed at another set of photographs.

        Both pictures of the other set showed smaller footprints with large marks before them, as if someone had rolled over the ground to soften the fall. Rarity couldn’t deny that the two sets of tracks were clearly a match.

“It might not be a coincidence after all,” Rarity supposed.

        Twila nodded with a brighter smile than before and exited the room to warn their superior. Rarity put the pictures back on Twila’s office and went to sit at her own. Her computer’s screen showed a commercial of a black van. Romana had determined the model of the vehicle which had left tire-tracks in the woods and had sent a picture to the entire team.

        Rarity tried to get back to her job of analysing the bolts she found on the crime scene, but she couldn’t focus properly. She had been working since four in the morning, and it was about time for her to take a small break. She leaned her back on her chair and rubbed her eyes while stretching with small grunts, letting her mind wander to things completely unrelated to work.

It has been five days since I met up with Jacquelyn… Rarity thought, a small smile appearing on her lips. We barely caught up with each other at the club. I should invite her for dinner sometime, or lunch. 

        Rarity straightened on her chair and reached for her phone.

“Eleven thirty,” Rarity whispered as she dialed Jacquelyn’s number. “I hope I’ll not disturb her in her work or something.”


~~~~~~~


Octavia stirred with a long, annoyed groan beneath the covers. Her bed was far from being as comfortable as it used to. Her mattress was full of old springs that whined plaintively whenever she moved a muscle. Kornelio must have replaced her mattress as a prank.

The thought of her older brother made the young woman snap her eyes wide open. Images of him trying to rescue her before a metallic crossbow bolt buried its sharp end deep in his throat assaulted her mind. Octavia held her head before shaking it vigorously to chase those thoughts away.

        It took her a few minutes to recover, and after a look around the unfamiliar room, she remembered the events that followed her brother’s demise. The woman in black with bright, red eyes, carrying her while jumping through the trees; The long, silent ride at the back of the van with the three other people in black casting worried glances in her direction; Their leader, the red-eyed woman, showing her this room and telling her to try to get some sleep. Sleep that came hours later, only after Octavia cried all the tears she had in her.

The young Russian slowly inspected her surroundings, a rather handful task since there was no window on the walls and that the lights were off. If it weren’t for the small space beneath the door that let a bit of light from the corridor, the room would be pitch black.

        As soon as her eyes got used to the dark, Octavia stepped outside the bed. She wondered carefully around the plain bedroom. The walls didn’t look like they were painted at all, it had only very basic furnitures: a bed, a nightstand, a chest drawers and a desk. The young russian spotted a few photo frames on the desk, next to a long, rectangular, cloth-covered object.

        Octavia picked the closest photo before turning the desklamp on. She could see a group of four young teenagers standing close to each other, all dressed in what would have been very accurate costumes of Peter Pan’s lost boys,  while the two-toned-blue-haired girl on the picture presumably held the camera to take the snapshot.

All three other girls bore the same smile as the one busy taking the picture. There were two blondes: one nearly two heads taller than the others with her sunny hair tied up in a ponytail, the other was the smallest of the group and her hair was of a lighter shade of blonde. The last girl of the picture had what Octavia could only describe as cottoncandy hair; it was so fluffy and pink.

“See something interesting?” a voice asked from behind Octavia.

        The young woman yelped in surprise, before turning around, seeing a pale woman with a somehow harmonious mess of dark and light blue spikes of hair leaning against the wall next to the still closed door. Octavia didn’t even hear her come in.

“I..I’m sorry,” Octavia quickly replied in a sheepish tone. “I didn’t mean to sno…”

“It’s snooping if I had something to hide,” the woman replied, chuckling softly. “I wouldn’t have settled you in my room if that was the case.”

        Her first-captor-but-now-rescuer walked the distance separating her from Octavia before slowly taking the frame from the younger woman’s hands and delicately putting it back to its original place.

“So… What happens now?” Octavia whispered the question that was nagging her mind since she had woken up.

“I’m gonna be honest with you. I don’t have the slightest idea of what’s going to happen next…”

“...I could call my father,” Octavia suggested uneasily. “Tell him what really happened.”

“Do you have a way to contact him, and only him?” 

“No,... No, I do not,” Octavia replied after a brief hesitation. “Most of the time, it was through Kornelio and the others that I spoke to my father…” She noticed the cocked eyebrow from the blue-haired girl. “I’m not really partaking in his business activities. I hardly see him because of that as a matter of fact.”

“To make a long story short, the only way for us to reach him is to somehow manage our way through all the securities of your mansion, which probably tripled because of what happened, and speaking face to face with him long enough to convince him that we rescued you and not kidnapped you?” There was a tone of disbelieving annoyance in the woman’s tone.

“Basically,” Octavia confirmed with a brief nod.

        The woman let out a long, tired sigh in response.

“Let’s let things cool down a bit,” she added slowly. “Why don’t you get changed? We’re about to have brunch.” she pointed at the chest drawers behind Octavia before glancing at the floor. “Say, girl…”

“I have a name,” Octavia remarked.

“Don’t worry, I know it, Miss Octavia Shutnikova,” The blue-haired casually retorted, before noticing the expectant look from the younger girl. “And, you’d like to know mine?”

“The idea briefly went through my mind,” Octavia answered in a sour tone.

“You’ll find out who we are during brunch.” She waved off playfully. “Now, what I was about ask… Do you have issues with pets?”

“Huh, no.” Octavia tilted her head in confusion. “Why do you ask?”

“Because our Gummy’s been waiting to welcome you for the last five minutes.” She replied with a nod at the ground’s general direction.

        Octavia suddenly felt something rough touching her right leg. She blinked in confusion when she heard a puzzling mix of a hiss and a bark before looking down. Her gaze met the large purple one of the one called Gummy. The alligator was wiggling his tail with his maw partly open, like a puppy waiting for a pat on the head. 

Octavia looked at him. 

Gummy looked at her. 

Octavia looked at the blue-haired woman. 

The thief cocked her right eyebrow. 

Octavia looked back at Gummy. 

Gummy let his tongue hang from his maw.

Octavia blinked twice.

The thief cocked her eyebrow higher.

Gummy stood on his rear paws to be buddies.

Octavia screamed.


~~~~~~


“I know, Gummy,” Vinyl said in a soothing tone, holding the alligator in her arms. “She was a bit insensitive to you, but it’s not her fault if she has herpetophobia…. Whatever that means.”

The alligator hissed a very displeased bark in response as one of his owners carried him downstairs.

“Don’t worry, it won’t last. I’m sure!” Vinyl reassured. “You’re easy to befriend after all.”

“So, the mob princess’s up?” Claude asked, causing Jack and Patty to look away from what they were preparing in the kitchen and glance at the doorway their leader had just walked through.

“What gave it away?” Vinyl chuckled before putting Gummy on the ground.

“Vinyl, what are we gonna do now?” Jack asked firmly, instantly breaking the light mood of the group.

“Stay hidden until things cool down, I guess,” The thieves’ leader replied with a sigh. “Then, we’ll try to bring this girl to her father…”

“And, how do ya want to pass his chief of security?” Jack asked with a frown. “He’s the one who framed us!” The tall blonde assured angrily. “An’ he definitely got help from someone!”

“That’s obvious, Jack,” Vinyl agreed. “Other than us, there are three people that knew when we were going to try to reach that vault… Hime, Sombra and Alard,” she stated in a low tone.

“Sombra would gladly sell us out,” Claude remarked. “Considering how nice you are with him, Vi.”

“And the fact Jack and Cadence hate each other,” Patty chimed in.

“Ah don’ ‘’Hate’’ Cadenza.” Jack clarified with air quotes. “She’s just a sour loser.”

“Alard wouldn’t have done it, right?” Patty asked worriedly. “I mean, it was his idea in the first place. He wouldn’t sabotage his own plan!”

“What about Sanagi? She’s rather ambitious, she could use our situation as a distraction to act against Tricks…”

“No!” Vinyl stated firmly, interrupting Jack’s comment.

“Vinyl, that’s a possibility we must keep account of!” Claude argued with a sigh.

“I know it’s not a possibility in her case. I trust her, as much as I trust each of you.” Vinyl nearly shouted in conviction. “She’d never betray me!”

“Yer sure about her?” Jack asked with a cocked eyebrow. “Really sure?”

“I’d bet my life on it!” Vinyl replied without any hesitation. 

        The other three held their friend’s determined stare for a few seconds.

“It’s kinda what you’re doing right now, but I guess that if you’re sure,” Claude said with a shrug.

“She often invited us to her spa/cover business. She surely doesn’t wish us harm,” Patty commented with optimism.

“That’s good enough for me,” Jack nodded briefly.

“Huh… Hello,” a timid voice called from the staircase.

        All heads snapped toward the voice’s source, seeing Octavia wearing some of Vinyl’s white and blue sweats clothes which seemed a bit too baggy for her. Vinyl was a bit beefier than the younger girl, not by much though.

        Patty quickly rushed to the newcomer’s side and proceeded in welcoming her in their adobe and introducing all four thieves with excitement, much like Vinyl had thought she would. Octavia didn’t get the time to realize who was who before she was shoved on one of the kitchen bar stools with a large slice of cake before her.

Realising that she had skipped a few meals, Octavia started to eat without a care for how she ate. That didn’t faze the thieves at all, they were used to Patty’s way of eating and it was a lot messier than Octavia’s.

Soon after, the four hosts joined their guests at the table. Though, Vinyl kept thinking about who could have been the one to sell them out to Fairlane. He knew who she was, and when she would be in that office. Despite what the casual facade she had kept up since they got back from Shutnikov’s mansion, she was worried.

The only reason she wasn’t freaking out was that no one other than Jack, Claude, Patty and herself knew where they lived. That was something she had insisted since they all got together. Their home was supposed to be the only place where they could relax safely.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Jack’s phone, which lied at the corner of the table next to Patty, started to ring.

“...Yard by yard, fussing on the details
Jewel neckline, don't you know a stitch in time saves nine?
Make her something perfect to inspire…”

“Wooo, a custom ringtone!” Patty commented in awe. “You’re really serious about that girlfriend of yours, Jackie!” she added with a wink.

        Under the mocking snickers of Vinyl and Claude, a beet red Jack slammed her slice of cake into Patty’s face before storming in the garage to take the call, muttering something about girlfriend nonsense. While Octavia was extremely shocked by that aggressive response from the tall blonde, Patty seemed pleased with herself and was more than happy to clean the creamy pastry off her face with her tongue and fingers.

“Howdy, Rare,” Jack answered with small smile as she stepped outside the supposedly, abandoned train depot that served as her and her friend’s hideout. “How’re ya doin’?”

“I’m doing just fine, Darling,” Rarity replied in a slightly tired voice. “A bit tired because of work. I had to start very early today.”

“Ouch! Sorry to hear that. Ah remember how ya used to fuss about gettin’ the right amount of beauty sleep,” Jack commented with soft laugh.

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Rarity forced her laugh for good measure before giggling playfully. “I suppose you’re right though. I was thinking of taking a short break. Would you care to join me for lunch?”

Jack winced in discomfort. “Ah’m sorry, Rare. It ain’t gonna be possible.” She paused for a few seconds, knowing that Rarity will ask her why. “Somethin’ huge came up, an’ it’s going to keep me busy for a while…” It wasn’t that far from the truth.

“Oh,I see.” Jack couldn’t not hear the disappointment in her friend’s voice. “Well, it happens. Do you have any idea when you’ll be available for a little get together?”

“Ah can’t really tell ya. Ah don’t really have a defined sched…”

Jack stopped talking as her gaze wandered on the nearby trees. She narrowed her eyes, observing like a hawk, in direction of the shadows offered by the broad-leaved trees.

“Jacquelyn? Are you still there?” Rarity asked when Jack didn’t continue to speak.


~~~~~~~


        Vinyl’s phone rang its message tone a few minutes after Jack went outside to have her call. The blue-haired thief picked it up and opened her text messages.

From : Hime-Sama

バンガラング!

[Bangarang!]

        Vinyl’s pupils shrunk to the size of pintails before she heard a gunshot coming from outside. All three girls mimicked her expressions before Vinyl, Patty and Claude quickly rushed to the garage as other gunshots broke the quiet of their hideout.


~~~~~~~


“Jacquelyn? Are you still there?” Rarity asked when Jack didn’t continue to speak.

BLAM!

“JACQUELYN?! JACQUELYN, WHAT WAS THAT?!” Rarity immediately shouted with concern, earning a confused, worried glance from Chylene and Spencer, who had just come back.

        Her only answer was a thunder of gunshots coming from the other side of the line.
> Alone in the dark....
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Since her phone call with her friend had been interrupted by what sounded like an intense gun battle, Rarity had been pacing around her office like a caged tigress. Not knowing what happened and not doing anything was getting the best of her.

        As soon as she understood what was happening to Jacquelyn, Rarity demanded to track down the location of her friend’s phone. It took a few minutes for her colleagues to understand what she wanted; her high-pitched shrieks and shouts weren’t ready to be heard by human ears.

        It turned out that Jacquelyn was located next to an abandoned depot in the North East of the Bronx. Police units were sent there immediately, and it took the combined efforts of Chylene, Twila and Spencer to stop Rarity from going with them. 

Rarity wasn’t a field officer. Sure, she had trained her shooting, but she still didn’t get the occasion to actually shoot at someone. Half-heartedly, Rarity agreed to let officers do their jobs.

        After a long hour and half, the sent units called to say that the coast was cleared and demanded the coroner and the forensics to come; they had found bodies in the former train depot. Apparently it had been a violent settling of scores.

Rarity nearly lost consciousness for a brief moment after hearing the news: The fear of losing her friend she had finally met again was a bit too much to take. Celeste ordered Spencer and Twila to go with Selene and another team before she asked Rarity to get some rest at the infirmary of the Police headquarters.

Chylene volunteered to stay by her side, but Rarity told her that she wanted to be alone for a while then asked her to return to her work. As soon as her friend was out of the infirmary, Rarity lied down and hugged her pillow with strength.

“Be safe, Jacquelyn… Please, be safe,” she pleaded in a whisper.


~~~~~~~~~


	Earlier…

“JACK!” Vinyl shouted with worry as she, Patty and Claude entered the garage hurriedly.

        They saw Jack slam her right fist on the button controlling the garage gate, before the thick and heavy metallic curtain shrieked while coming down the ground. Jack’s left shoulder was bleeding, but she didn’t seem to be bothered by it as she passed an iron rod through the hoops that prevented the gate from being lifted open.

“Are you ok?” Patty asked, her voice barely covering the noises of the bullets against the garage door.

“Ah’m fine,” Jack replied with a groan. “Them bastards can’t shoot straight. It’s just a flesh wound.”

“Did you see how many there are?” Vinyl asked urgently.

“Too many, that’s fer sure!” Jack replied with a shake of her head. “We gotta move!”

        Vinyl took a short breath before sighing in defeat. This was their home, she didn’t want to leave it behind. This places held too many memories, along with many pieces of evidence of their past mischiefs, but they didn’t have the choice.

“All right, let’s gather as much as we can and leave!”

“We don’t have time to pack, Vi!” Claude argued.

“We won’t survive without some stuff, Claude!” Vinyl replied with strength as they ran back into the living room.

“What’s going on?” Octavia asked with worry. 

“Someone decided to make a move on us, Princess,” Vinyl replied as she slammed the door leading to the garage before locking it. “And, apparently they came in number and equipped.”  

Vinyl grabbed Octavia by her arm and pushed her without ceremony toward the staircase, ordering her to get upstairs. Jack rushed at her desk to open that large case under it. Claude emptied the fridge of all it’s contents and put them into one of their backpacks, while Patty went to grab her laptop and shut down all her other computers.

“They stopped shooting,” Octavia commented as the gunshots suddenly quieted down.

“They probably realized they were wasting bullets on the gates,” Jack supposed slowly, pricking up her ears.

        The sounds of the guns were replaced a deep, low humming noise. It grew louder every second passing. Jack focused her gaze the wall perpendicular to the one the desks stood against when she realized it wasn’t getting louder. It was getting closer.

“Stay away from the wall!!”

        In a deafening crash, a good portion of the grey stone ripped itself off the wall in question. Thankfully, none of the girls were close to it, or in the way of the debris. The same couldn’t be said about the couches and coffee table of the living room, which all disappeared under cracked stones and a cloud of dust that filled the room.

        The massive truck with a makeshift battering ram embedded in the wall reversed slowly, leaving the newly created entrance exposed. Soon after, a few masked men with guns walked through the hole in the wall. The first one of the group noticed Patty coughing by her desk. He lifted his handgun and aimed just below the curly, pink mane of hair.

BLAM!

“Not even in yer dreams, Sugar,” Jack whispered coldly, the right barrel of her one-handed shotgun having just sent the man flying, his upper-chest, right shoulder and jaw line pierced by the shrapnel.

“Holy shit!” One of the other attackers shouted before trying raise his submachine gun at Jack. “Shoot the blonde! Shoot h…”

        He didn’t get to finish his order as Jack’s second shot ripped his face off. Then she knocked her desk over to hide behind it, earning bullets shot in her direction.

Wasn’t a bad idea to get a steel desk after all! Jack thought as the shots were stopped by the plate of her desk with sharp impact sounds.

“Get Trickster’s daughter!” A masked attacker shouted. “Kill the others, but we need her ALIVE!”

He tried to perceive something through the cloud of dust. Something other than flashes of his partners’ weapons, while more of his associates walked inside. They were already a good dozen of them inside.

“JACK! LIGHT THEM UP!” Vinyl shouted as the dust started to come down.

        Before the gangster could even think of pulling the trigger of their guns, a small, black tube flew from behind the knocked over desk to the center of the group. They all looked down, and widened their eyes in shock when they recognized the tube was in fact a grenade.

        The tubic explosive blew up in a blinding flash of pure white light and a deafening bang. The four thieves and Octavia, who were all hidden from the flash, took advantage of their attackers’ momentary blindness to quickly make their escape to the stairs.

        Patty had grabbed her laptop after tapping the command to purge the hard drives of her desktop computer and rushed her way upstairs first. She was followed by Octavia and Claude, who shared the bags of food the latter had pulled out of the fridge. Jack picked her weapon case up and ran to the staircase. The thieves’ leader closed the march upstairs, helping Jack with her heavy case full of guns and weapons. 

When they reach the first floor of the building, they heard their attackers recover from the flash grenade, as well the steps of them and the ones that entered after the explosion. They were about head for the stairs as well, the thieves could hear it. Vinyl and Jack both quickly went to pick a gun out of the case, before they heard the characteristic noise of plastic wheels on a stone floor.

“Out of the way!” Patty called from behind her rolling chest of drawers she was pushing through the corridor.

        All four other girls did as instructed: Octavia passed the doorway leading to Vinyl’s room; Claude leaned on the wall to jump above her passing friend acrobatically; Jack leaned against the wall, raising the case she was holding above the mobile piece of furniture; Vinyl, on the other hand, waved to Patty to stop for a few seconds.

        Octavia didn’t understand why the blue-haired woman stopped her friend. It was with extreme puzzlement that she saw the leader of the quatuor opened one of the furniture’s drawer and pulled out a zippo lighter she had apparently kept in her back pocket. The young russian’s eyebrow cocked high on her brow when she saw Vinyl lighting her zippo up before tossing it in the open drawer and slamming it shut.

“Okay, now you go!” Vinyl grabbed the end of the furniture and pushed it forward with Patty.

“Oh, dang!” Jack muttered with wide eyes a few seconds before she tossed her case further away in the corridor.

“Fire in the hole!” Patty warned loudly as Vinyl and her let go of the piece of furniture. 

The chest of drawers continued its course into the staircase, crushing the two misfortunate men that had reached the bottom of the stairs. Immediately after the crash, all four thieves threw themselves on the ground, arms and hands over their heads and ears.

“What the…” Octavia let out in puzzlement, not understanding what was going on.

        Vinyl glanced the raven-haired girl’s direction, noticing she was still standing by her doorway. She leapt off the ground, tackling Octavia before covering her head with her arms, just in time. Since a few tenths of second later, the large stock of fireworks Patty had bought in prevision of New Year’s Eve and put away in her in drawers were ignited by Vinyl’s lighter.

        The girls remained like this for a few minutes, waiting for the large part of the abusively technicolor, incredibly loud, and massively devastating show of light and fire in their invaded living room to pass.

        Luckily for them, most of the rockets and bangers exploded in direction of the aggressors, whose screams of terror and/or dolor were barely heard over the deafening cacophony that came from Patty’s now cindering furniture.

        Though some did manage to fly in their direction, and when a stray finger-sized rocket exploded a good thirty centimeters distance above Vinyl’s head, the blue-haired thief decided it was time to move on.

        Her orders managed to be heard by her friends through the explosions sounds, and they all started to crawl along the corridor with their packages. At the end of the first floor, Claude opened a well concealed, old garbage-chute hatch and throw the food bags they had taken with them in it.

“WAIT!!!” Patty shouted after Jack let her weapon-filled case slide down the chute. “WE FORGOT GUMMY!” she added in horror.

“SHIT!” Claude exclaimed with wide eyes. “Where was he before they started shooting?”

“I think he was downstairs…. in his little alligator-house,” Vinyl whispered with dread as all her partners, and Octavia gasped in horror.

        Small tears were threatening to roll out of Patty’s bright blue eyes when they realized that they couldn’t go back to look for their pet. Octavia wanted to remind them they had to go, but couldn’t bear to broke the relative and mourning ‘’silence’’ between the five women. 

That was just before they heard a muffled hiss coming from behind them as the noises of the fireworks started to die down. They looked back and saw the little, green alligator pulling the long, rectangular object wrapped in a deep blue cloth Octavia had seen on Vinyl’s desk a bit after she woke up in his mouth.

“..... Good boy, Gummy!” Vinyl said with a relieved smile, extending her arm to grab the alligator by the collar and pulling him into Patty’s awaiting and caring embrace. “Let’s go!” she ordered as soon as Gummy let go of the package in her other hand.

        Claude disappeared down the chute and was quickly followed by Patty who held tightly Gummy and her Laptop in her arms. Octavia, apprehensively went third and Jack fourth. Vinyl glanced back at the end of the corridor, from where the sounds of the fireworks had ceased from coming.

        Instead of going after her friends, Vinyl closed the secret hatch discreetly, leaving no immediate clue of its existence and stood up slowly. As she heard very cautious sets of footsteps climbing up the metallic stairs at the end of the hall, Vinyl slowly went away from it. A group of ten rather disheveled, masked thugs reached the top of the stairs, seeing Vinyl waiting for them at the end of the corridor. 

        The leading masked man shot a brief burst of his machine-gun, but Vinyl dodged and went further inside the windowless floor after pulling out her purple shades from her pocket. The dozen of gangsters ran after the blue-haired thief, determined to catch her, ending in a large square room, full of small and extremely dusty cubicles. The group scattered into the small maze offered by the furniture before the lights suddenly went off, leaving all ten of them in the absolute dark.


~~~~~~~~~~


A few hours later, elsewhere...

“So… if I understand correctly,” Taran whispered coldly, resting his slinged arm more comfortably on the armrest. “I tell you where Trickster’s vault is and you assured me that you could provide the perfect scapegoats along with the deaths of Kornelio and Octavia.”

“That’s what we agreed on, yes!”

“You even told me where those four catburglars would probably come from during Octavia’s birthday last night, so that I can keep an eye on them and make sure everything goes according to our plan.”

“.... Yes.”

“Turns out that those four girls not only came in the manor completely without my men noticing them, but also managed to leave the property with Octavia ALIVE!” Taran let out a displeased growl. “And leaving me with this sling for at least two weeks!” he added sourly, pointing at his wounded arm.

“....”

“I warn you about their escape and you tell me that you know where to find them and to get Octavia back,” Taran continued, facing the other person around the table he was sitting at. “A bit before noon, you tell me that your men are about to retrieve Octavia and to get rid of Vinyl Scratch and her partners and that everything would be back under our control by one PM.” He paused to stare at his second interlocutor. ”How many men did you say you sent for that, Rey?”

Sombra clenched his jaw before answering. “Around twenty-five men,”

“Huh-huh.” Taran snorted loudly before glance at the group of seven Mexicans henchmen, each looking more worse to wear than the others. “And seven of them came back about twenty minutes ago, thus at a quarter past five, looking like they were straight out of a gang war, empty handed.” He cocked his eyebrow high. “Tell me now, was there even a single moment during which you had the control of the situation?”

        A woman’s openly mocking laugh was the first thing he heard in response before the blond man Taran was talking to sighed in annoyance.

“I dislike gloating people, Sanagi,” Alard reminded in a very tired voice to the Japanese, green-haired woman cuffed to the fourth chair of the table. 

“I dislike being handcuffed, Blueblood!” Sanagi retorted sarcastically. “Yet, you don’t hear me complain about it!”

“You wouldn’t be in this situation if you haven’t turned your vest, woman!” Sombra growled menacingly.

Sanagi only laughed more mirthlessly in response. “Oh, the irony of that statement.” She cast a dark glare at Alard and Sombra. “Pardon me for finding it amusing!”

Alard sighed once again. “Sanagi,...”

“Save it, boy!” Sanagi snarled in anger. “You had a good plan, and you threw it away by trying to doublecross Vinyl!”

“A good plan?” Taran asked with a derisive snort. “As if Trickster was dumb enough to keep his ‘business’ stuff in his house’s study!”

“He was dumb enough to keep you in his inner circle,” Sombra commented with a smirk.

“The man’s still cunning as a fox, but he grew soft and too easily trusting over the years,” Taran explained slowly. “It’s sad to say it, but he’s old now… It’s time for some fresh blood to go out, don’t you agree?.” He asked with a smirk.

“Like Trickster’s boy’s?” Sanagi asked back with snarl.

“Better his blood than mine,” Taran shrugged apathetically.

“うらぎりもの!” [Traitor!] The Japanese muttered sourly before facing her former partners. “キミたちも!” [Same goes for you two!]

“What did she say?” Sombra asked in confusion. “I don’t really speak Chinese.”

“I’M JAPANESE, YOU UNEDUCATED MACHO!” Sanagi yelled furiously at the Mexican gang leader.

“Same thing!” Sombra waved off dismissively.

“WHY YO….”

“Sanagi, I’d appreciate it if you stop shouting,” Alard demanded firmly, interrupting the Japanese’s angry retort. “It would be most inconvenient for our other Asian guests to be mistreated because of your poor attitude!”

If looks could kill, all men in the room would have turned to ashes because of the hateful, green stare aimed in their direction. Then she took a deep breath and leaned on the back of her chair with a saddened frown.

“That’s better,” Alard commented with a brief nod.

“You’re too loyal to your underlings, woman,” Sombra added with a smirk. “To think that threatening the triplets is the only thing we needed to tame you into submission!” He chuckled grimly. “I wonder what you’d be willing to do if we were to rough them u…”

“If any of them is returned to me with a single hair out of place, I’ll cut your manhood off, dice it and serve it to you as ‘Butaniku Maki’ [Pork Rolls], is that clear?” Sanagi whispered her threat in a ice cold tone.

“Charming,” Alard and Taran commented as Sombra couldn’t help but wincing at the thought of the Japanese’s threat. “Though, if you hadn’t tried to bail out and sent that text message to Vinyl, they wouldn’t be in the club basement, under Will’s surveillance.”

“Why?” Taran asked a few seconds after Sanagi held her head low. “Why did you compromise your position for this simple thief?”

“Pardon?” Sanagi faced him with narrowed eyes.

“I’ve heard that she’s good burglar and all, but why did you go against us to warn her?” Taran specified his question slowly. “You were in the winning team, and you sacrificed it all because she was working for you three. That doesn’t make any sense!”

“I don’t expect you to understand, boy!” Sanagi retorted coldly. “Since you threw away your loyalty to your employer, your friends, your underlings…”

“Why does it matter?” Sombra asked, his curiosity and interest rather piqued by what the captive was about to say.

“It matters enough to me, that’s all you lot need to know,” Sanagi explained before slumping down on her chair.

“Anyway,” Alard interrupted Taran as he was about to press the matter. “The situation is rather dire as it is, let’s not lose anymore time!”

“He’s right,” Sombra agreed with a nod. “Trickster’s daughter is safe and sound with Vinyl, and as long as it remains like that, our plan against the Russian is jeopardized!”

“What we need is to find her, and get rid of those four nuisances!” Taran said with determination. “They’re probably hiding in their family or something… Why don’t we just go wait for them there?”

        Alard and Sombra shifted on their seats awkwardly, much to Taran’s confusion and Sanagi’s delight.

“Boy, what exactly do you know about Vinyl, Patty, Jack and Claude?” the Japanese asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“I know of Scratch’s past with Trickster,” Taran replied uneasily. “And that they’ve been working for Alard because of a debt or something...”

“So you don’t know much more than these two idiots!”

“HEY!” Sombra shouted in protest.

“There’s a reason those girls were never caught before,” Sanagi continued, unfazed by the Mexican’s intervention. “Other than the three of us, nothing traces back to them! No family, no friends, no favorite restaurant, no attach of any kind!” she explained sternly. “Those girls have no one but each other in this town… no, in this entire state!”

“What about Patricia and Jack’s siblings?” Taran asked Alard in confusion. “That could be a way to get to them!”

“If Alard had indeed the informations about their whereabouts, maybe,” Sanagi retorted. “But he doesn’t!”

“What?!” Taran and Sombra let out in shock, staring at Alard who looked as shocked as them.

“How…” the blond whispered.

“Vinyl didn’t have the time or the resources to check on that, but I did!” Sanagi explained furiously. “Why do you think I was already in a bad mood when I arrived this morning before you revealed your true plans to me?” Her green eyes were narrowed in a mix of disgust and fury. “Ingrid Pembroke did ‘’survive’’ the train crash like Patty, but died on her way to the hospital, and Jack’s siblings were both adopted by different families who moved out of the state years ago! Even Claude’s visa was nothing but smoke and mirrors! All of that was fake, just like you!”

        For the first time since she got there, Sanagi saw anger lighting up the face of the blond man in the room. He had only let out disappointment and apathy on what happened so far: Sanagi sending a text message to warn Vinyl, the capture of the triplets and the cuffing of his former Asian associate, the news of Octavia escaping Sombra’s men… 

Nothing had unsettled him before Sanagi called him fake. Apparently that made him furious, he grabbed the ashtray on the table and smashed on the Japanese’s temple, taking everyone by surprise.

The momentum made Sanagi and her chair fall on the side with a pained, high-pitched yelp. Blood was rolling out of the three deep cuts on the asiatic forehead as tears of dolor started to emerge from her eyes.

“Was that real enough for you?” Alard growled angrily before he calmed down with a deep breath. “Also, you’re wrong… We’ve got a leverage on one of them.”

“...Wh-What?” Sanagi stammered, looking up from the ground with difficulty.

“It’s true that they all got only themselves look after, or at least it used to be like that. Now, Jack’s got someone to look after that isn’t part of her professional activity. Quite the opposite actually.” Alard straightened his jacket and glared at the woman on the ground in triumph. “Considering the triplets’ rather unusual and admittedly creepy obsession for Jack, I thought you’d know about a certain lady she encountered a few days ago….”


~~~~~~~~


Her boss had sent Rarity home for the afternoon and for the few days come because of her going ballistic on her colleagues earlier. Twila and Spencer and another team of forensics had returned from where Jack had phoned, carrying dreadful, but also propestrous pieces of informations.

Not only they didn’t find Jacquelyn, but they suggested that she and her friends were living in that abandoned depot… Rarity thought angrily as she let herself fall on her couch. Even worse, Jacquelyn would actually be part of a group of criminals…What a ludicrous idea!

Jacquelyn doesn’t have a single dishonest bone in her body!… When we were young, she had double thoughts on just taking a cookie from the cabinet without permission. There’s no way she could be part of…

“Rarity, we found her cellphone near a small patch of blood by the garage gate… After she was apparently shot, your friend ran inside to one of the four desks… We’ve found traces of gunpowder and two used cartridges near said desk… She’s the one who shot the first two of their attackers….”  [Twila]

“Rarity, I’m sorry, but Twila’s right. Everything points to that theory… We’ve found the boots that match the footprints from Judge Patterson’s garden as well as the outfit that Officer Dashell’s attacker was wearing that day… ” [Chylene]

“In the tall blonde’s room, we found a hunting crossbow with bolts that match the ones found at Shutnikov’s… Along with many knives and handguns… spiked gloves, metallic knuckles… a machete, cartridge of shotgun shells, 9mm bullets, stacks of gunpowder… “ [Spencer]

“So, Twila and Spencer found hairs whose DNA matches Octavia Shutnikova’s in a room upstairs, and in the van they abandoned. They’ve escalated from theft and robbery to kidnapping and murder.”  [Sherman]

“The two shot men we found in the living room died instantly… The one who got them perfectly knew where to aim for kill, despite being wounded and the surprise attack through the wall… Warn Sherman’s officers about her. That one’s dangerous, very dangerous!” [Selene]

“Rarity, I’m sorry to tell you this, but I’m taking you off this case… I don’t want to hear anything about it. My decision is final! You’re not in the right conditions to work … I know you’re worried about your friend, but leave it to us. We’ll get to the bottom of this, though I doubt you’ll like the outcome…. Again, I’m sorry.” [Celeste]

The brunette let out a long and tired sigh of defeat before her white persian cat meowed softly. The fluffy pet jumped on the couch and nuzzled its owner’s hand softly.

“What happened to Jacquelyn, Opal?” Rarity asked the cat with teary eyes. “What could have possibly changed her from a sweet and innocent bully-chaser to a violent, greedy criminal?”

        Her persian didn’t have any answers to Rarity’s questions obviously, so she settled in trying to comfort with more nuzzles on her hand. The brunette slowly started to pat her cat with her other hand. Opalescence’s purrs started to be the only sounds of the room; it always helped Rarity to relax.

        Though, the relaxing sounds of her pet cat got cut short by someone knocking at her door. Rarity wiped her growing tears away from her eyes and stood up to head for her front door. She placed her eye in front of the peephole and saw a young man wearing jeans and a black shirt along with a loose, white tie and spiky black hair.

“Yes, can I help you?” Rarity asked as casually as she could. Sure she was upset, but it wouldn’t be proper to sound like it to a perfect stranger.

“Huh, good evening, miss,” the man replied slowly. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m a new tenant in this building, and I’m improvising a small homecoming party at the 7C, and I’m kinda inviting everyone who’s not busy… and I’m also looking for some extra avocados for the guacamole... I didn’t plan enough!” he added sheepishly.

“That’s a very pleasant idea,” Rarity commented with a small smile. “Though, I’m gonna have to decline. Today’s not the right time, you understand?”

“Oh! Well, it’s okay!” he waved off casually. “It’s kinda very last minute, so no hard feelings!”

“I can help you with your shortage of avocados though,” Rarity offered before unlocking her door. “Come on in,” she added before opening it welcomingly.

“....” The young man stared at her with wide eyes.

“Something wrong?” Rarity tilted her head in confusion.

“..Oh, sorry!” He whispered with an intense blush. “It’s just… Oh gosh, it’s embarrassing….You’re way more prettier than you sounded. Not that you sounded ugly her anything, but...URgh!” He slammed his face with his palm while Rarity giggled playfully. “I’ll just shut my mouth!”

“Tst-tst.” Rarity waved her finger swiftly. “A girl’s never complimented enough. Keep that in mind!” she added with a brief wink. “Now, come on in, dear neighbor!”

“Hehe, sure!” He replied with an embarrassed nod before following Rarity in the apartment.

“I don’t think you’ve told me your name,” Rarity said casually as she turned her face to him.

“Oh, my name’s Neon. Neon Lights!”


~~~~~~~~


“Selene, could you come with me for a bit, please?” Chylene asked softly as she passed her head in the autopsy room.

“Hang on…” Selene lifted her hand to signal Chylene to wait. “Just need to finish this….” she added while cutting a dead body’s thorax open with an electric chirurgical saw with her other hand.

        Chylene let out a soft, terrified squeak when she heard the sound of the blade against the flesh and quickly brought her head out of the room and slammed her hands against her ears. In the mean time, Selene continued her entreprise, pinching her tongue with her lips in focus before she lifted the device of the cadaver.

“Okay, got this one open and ready for you to work on!” she said to her two interns who were a bit mesmerized by the precision and the speed of the cut, especially for a one-hand executed operation. “You’ve got forty-five minutes to tell me how this man died. Good Luck!” she added before putting her saw away and leaving the room.

        She took her medical blouse off and walked through the door and pulled a still ear-covered Chylene away from the morgue by the collar.

“So, what do you need me for?” Selene asked when Chylene realized they were heading out of the morgue.

“Just your opinion on the deads we found on the second floor of the train depot,” the pale blonde answered softly.

“My opinion on what?” the coroner asked with curiosity.

“Twila’ll tell you,” Chylene replied as she entered in a meeting room in which Twila and Celeste were waiting for them.

Selene’s attention was quickly drawn on the screen that showed a simplistic map of the room she had inspected on the second floor of the train depot turned into a penthouse earlier today. The map also showed ten large points, each labelled from A to J, scattered across the labyrinth made by the office cubicles that filled the room.





“You called?” Selene asked as she sat on the closest chair.

“Yes. I have a theory on what happened on the second floor, and I need you to tell me if it matches what you observed on the bodies,” Twila explained. “You being the one who inspected all of them on the crime scene.”

“Makes sense,” Selene commented with a nod.

“So, what exactly happened in there?” Celeste asked with curiosity.

“Well, we’ve spotted eleven set footprints coming inside the room,” Twila started her tale.”And as you probably guessed, only one that came out.”

“Blood samples anywhere?” Selene asked out of the blue. “Surely, the culprit must have been wounded or something.”

“Well, as soon as we brought the power of the room back on, we started to look for that, but we only found the victims’ blood,” Twila replied slowly.

“Oh, my,” Chylene let out while Selene let out an impressed whistle.

“How exactly did one of those girls managed to deal with ten armed men without any injuries?” Celeste asked with a shocked expression.

“The thing is she didn’t, or not in the proper sense of the term.” Twila commented with a frown. “According to how they died, only three of them were actually killed by one of the four residents.”

“What about the seven others?” Chylene asked in confusion.

“Well, they killed each other,” Twila said matter-of-factly.

“What?!” The three other women replied in unison.

“We’ve extracted the bullets from shooters A and B in shooters C and D.” Twila explained, pointing at four concerned dots on the map with a small red laser. “As well as bullets coming from the weapons of F and H.” She pointed at another set of dots. “F and G were hit by E, J, I and D.” Twila then designated the dot E. “E was killed by I, J, H and B. Finally A and B were shot by F, H, J and D.”

“That doesn’t make any sense…” Celeste let out in shock. “Why would they start shooting at each other?”

“I don’t think they did,” Chylene commented slowly. “Not willingly, I mean, look at the design of the room. They were all in different cubicles or alleys, and if the officers had to turn the power back on to start investigating, we could suspect they were in the dark… I mean, that’s what I think.”

“You’re right, Chylene,” Twila nodded. “It was pitch black when we came in. We didn’t even notice there were bodies inside before we found the switch at one corner of the room.”

“So, in short,” Selene theorized with a frown. “They all panicked and shot each other by accident?”

“Not by accident,” Twila replied with a shake of her head. “Someone made them panick to the point where they would start to randomly shot at anything.” Twila licked her lips uneasily. “We’ve found steps marks of the eleventh person, the one that came out of the room, a bit everywhere around the room, even on the cubicles edges…”

“So, one of these girls toyed with them?” Celeste asked with disgust. “She baited them in that room and used the obscurity at her advantage to make them kill each other?”

“For the first seven, yes,” Twila nodded slowly.

“Wicked,” Selene commented with a nod of approval. “That demands some freaking stealth and agility skills, and a good knowledge of the terrain to get situated in the dark.”

“What about the last three?” Chylene asked slowly. “What happened to them?”

        Twila cleared her throat before explaining what she supposed had happened.


~~~~~~~~~


        Javier knew that nothing was going according to plan so far. His boss, Rey Sombra had given him and his fellows a simple job. Attacking Vinyl Scratch’s lair and capture Octavia Shutnikova who was inside. Rather simple instructions, but from the start, things had just gone wrong.

First, Jack managed to survive the first shot and got inside as soon as possible. If she hadn’t suddenly twisted her body to the right, she would have been hit in the chest instead of the shoulders. How she had spotted them before they shot, no one knew.

When they managed to break the wall down, it was supposed to be a piece of cake of getting rid of everyone but the package. Though as they got in, Javier witnessed Enrique and Ramon being killed by Jack before they were blinded by that flash grenade the thieves had in stock.

Then there was that dreadful chest of drawers. Not only it crashed over two of his partners, but the colorful explosions weren’t really a nice walk in the park for the rest. From the corner of his eye, he saw a big rocket explode in the face of Eduardo, setting him and his clothes on fire.

When the fireworks stopped, Javier could only feel anger after seeing that eight of his men had died already, or were heavily wounded. He asked seven of his remaining sixteen partners to tend the wounded while the others would follow him upstairs.

That was when he saw her waiting at the end of the corridor, with her blue-hair and that package in a deeper blue cloth. She flashed them a grin before pulling a pair of purple shades out her pocket and disappearing in another corridor. Javier had tried to shoot her, but she was already out of his sight when he pulled the trigger.

He and his nine compadres ran after into the ruins of call-center room, full of cubicles. From what he could see, there were no other exit than the door he had just walked through. He ordered his men to scatter around the cubicles and they all started looking for the blue-haired thief, but then, everything became black.

At first, he had mocked Vinyl out loud for trying to scare them. Taunting her that he wasn’t afraid of the dark and his men all backed him out and shouted it wasn’t the case for them as well. Then, Vinyl responded, from where exactly, he couldn’t tell, but he clearly heard her.

“Give me five minutes to change that!” she had said before chuckling darkly. 

It didn’t even take five minutes, it barely took two before Javier started to panick. Steps coming from behind him only for no one to be there when he looked back. The sounds of a falling stack of paper that made him and his closest partners startle in fear.

It was like trying to catch a puff of smoke with his bare hands, no matter where he looked, he couldn’t find her. The darkness and the thief constantly playing on his men’s nerves tested their patience and courage to the point of breaking.

Javier had no idea who started shooting or even why he thought of doing so, he only knew that he quickly started to shoot as well. He had emptied two magazines on every sound other than gunshots he heard, hitting nothing but the walls or the discarded furnitures around.

In the dark, he met up with Miguel and Esteban near the end of the room. The three of them stood in triangle, their backs facing each other. Javier searched for a third magazine at his belt when he heard a soft thud behind him. He blinked and turned around.

He saw a brief silvery flash before Miguel gasped at the sound of a blade piercing his chest from behind. Esteban turned around and aimed at the shadow between them. With another flash of the color of silver, a long scratch appeared on his hand, disturbing his aim and making him shoot unwillingly.

The light of the shot briefly allowed Javier to see a pale face with blue spikes of hair, wearing purple goggles over her eyes and bearing a feral grin. Vinyl plunged the blade of the small asiatic sword she was carrying deep into Esteban’s throat before everything became black again.

Javier managed to reload before bursting his machine-gun at where Vinyl was just a second ago, only to see that she wasn’t there any more. The flashes of his gun only showed him the lifeless bodies of Esteban and Miguel.

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?!” Javier shouted frantically as he took a few steps back.

“Answers to a few questions,” Vinyl replied casually from somewhere. “Like who sent you punks here for example?”

“Because you think I’m going to tell you?” Javier asked with a derisive, yet scared snort. “In your dreams, bitch!”

“Well, at least I tried to be civil about this…”

        Before he could react, Javier felt the back of a fist slam his face before his gun was kicked out of his hands. Then, he felt a sharp and cold metal pierced his left shoulder. He was about to scream in pain when an elbow rammed his throat.

“Less screaming, more talking, pal,” Vinyl commented slowly. “Who sent you?”

“Go f..”

        The blade in his shoulder started to turn in his wound, making him groan and yelp in pain at the same time.

“Who?”

“........Piss o…”

“WHO?! It’s already the fourth time I asked.” Vinyl remarked, twisting the blade a bit wider than before. “And there won’t be a fifth!”

“.... Sombra… Rey Sombra sent us here,” Javier whimpered quietly, the pressure on his shoulder wound relaxed a little bit.

“Why?”

“Because Blueblood asked him to,” Javier explained, a bit out of breath, starting to cry because of the pain. “He plotted with one of Trickster’s associate to turn Trickster’s attention on something else….”

“So, Blueblood and Sombra sacrificed us?”

“Yes…”

“And, Hime?”

“I don’t know about her… I know that my boss knew beforehand, but that’s all I know…”

“That’s all I needed to know.” Vinyl pulled her blade away and stepped away from Javier.

“Th..thank you for…”

“One last thing!”

        Javier felt a gush of wind touch his throat before he felt a liquid pouring out of it. He brought his hands to his neck, trying to breath as his own blood was choking him. 

“That’s for trying to hurt my family!” Vinyl said in a cold, harsh tone before she wiped the blood off her blade on Esteban’s shirt before walking away as casually as possible.
> Stinking clothes leads to...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Uh, Miss Hutchinson?” Dash called for the forensics analyst as she kept inspecting the corridor of the abandoned warehouse.

“Yes, Officer?” Chylene replied softly, not turning her gaze toward the policewoman who escorted her.

“Why are we back here?” Dash asked uneasily as the blonde before her moved along the corridor to one of the four thieves’ former bedroom. “Didn’t your colleagues already clean everything yesterday?”

“It never hurts to check again to be sure,” Chylene remarked in a conversational tone. “After all, they’ve mostly searched around the bodies,” she winced a bit as she remembered the many body-bags that had arrived to the morgue at the same time as Twila and Spencer earlier today.

“You okay?” Dash asked with worry, resting a comforting hand on the investigator’s shoulder.

“Y-Yes. It’s just… all the deaths that happened here make me… uneasy,” Chylene explained before shaking her head vigorously. “Some law enforcer that I am…”

“Hey, it’s okay. It happens to all of us,” Dash said in a comforting tone. “If you want, we can go out to get some fresh air.”

“No, it won’t be necessary,” Chylene answered in whisper before smiling at her escort. “I appreciate the offer, but I must get back to work.” She added before walking inside the room with fresh wave of assertiveness.

“...N-No problem,” Dash let out for herself as a massive blush crept up her cheeks to her ears.

        Officer Dash looked at the soft-spoken profiler walking away from her with a short sigh. As her eyes wandered down, she realized that watching the pretty investigator walk away from her had its perks before she slapped her cheeks to clear her head. Once it was clear enough for her, she followed Chylene inside the room, finding the forensic scientist examining the bed’s contour with interest.

        It was in this bed that they had found hair of Octavia Shutnikova. The kidnapped girl had slept here, but oddly enough Twila had claimed that they found no hints of restraints of any kind in the room. No pieces of skin that would have fallen on the old mattress if Octavia had been tied up to the bed by a rope or a pair of handcuffs. No marks that indicated the presence of any of those on the bed contour, the only damage on it was clearly due to its dilapidation. 

Frowning a bit, Chylene turned her gaze away from the bed in favor of the chair standing by the desk. The chair on top of which they had found Octavia’s evening dress perfectly folded. Then she looked back at the door, about which they had found out it couldn’t be locked in any way.

“Officer Dashell, can I ask you something?” Chylene asked softly to the officer who had been glancing at the desk absently.

“Sure!”

“If you were responsible of kidnapping a rich family girl… Not saying that you would ever do such thing of course, it’s just a supposition! ...Ahem, if you were in that kind of situation, what would you do with your captive?”

“What would I do with my captive?” Dash tilted her head in confusion.

“Yes!” Chylene nodded slowly. “Had it been you in place of the person who kidnapped her… Again, I’m not saying you’re a potential criminal,” she quickly added sheepishly.

“Don’t worry, I got that,” Dash nodded with a chuckle before scratching her chin pensively. “Well, if I had been in the kidnappers’ place, I suppose I would have locked my captive somewhere she wouldn’t be able to escape easily. Probably tied her legs and arms together in a locked basement,” Dash suggested matter-of-factly. “Hypothetically speaking.”

“So you wouldn’t put your captive in a room like this one?” Chylene asked, waving at the room with her hand.

“Definitely not, but people don’t always do the most logical choices,” Dash mused slowly. “Then again, in this case there was only one way for Shutnikova to escape her kidnappers: walking out through their living room! I doubt she would have succeeded in that.”

“So you’re saying one of the four suspected kidnappers deprived herself of her bed because they knew that Miss Shutnikova couldn’t escape?” Chylene asked as she took one of the photographs on the desk after putting a rubber glove on.

“Huh… what?”

“We have proof that Miss Shutnikova slept in this bed, and most likely she wasn’t restricted,” Chylene explained as she glanced at the four smiling girls in the photograph she had taken. “And among the remains of the kitchen downstairs, Spencer said he found her saliva on a cup that contained chocolate milk and a half-eaten slice of strawberry cake.”

“Really?” Dash asked with a surprised, raised highbrow.

“Odd things for kidnappers to allow, right?” Chylene asked as she took the other picture on the desk.

        The other picture showed an eight year old girl with messy, pure white hair and bright, red eyes looking at the bamboo sword in her hands with awe as a smiling, sixteen or so year old Japanese girl was ruffling the younger girl’s hair. Both girls were wearing black Hakamas, dark green Gi jackets, with light green, moth-shaped sewings on both pieces of clothing, and nearly complete sets of dark Kendo armor. While Chylene wasn’t an expert on the matter, she thought that the picture had been taken in Japan.

I wonder if Twila and Spencer noticed this picture… They didn’t mention that Japanese girl in their report… Chylene thought slowly before glancing back at the picture of the four girls. Hard to believe the cheerful girls on that picture became ruthless murderers and kidnappers…..To think one is Rarity’s old friend... I can’t believe that they are the same girls we met at the... Chylene blinked in shock. “...The club.”

“Huh?!” Dash let out in confusion. “What club are you talking about?”

        Chylene didn’t answer the officer’s question and simply pulled her phone out of her pocket to call Twila.


~~~~~~~~~~~


“How long are we going to remain in the sewers?” Claude asked in a muffled voice as the collar of her pullover was straightened to cover her nose.

“We’ll get out at the next manhole and if there’s no one that can see us, Claude. Promise!” Vinyl replied from the lead of their little group as they followed the flow of the litter-filled water.

        The hidden chute in their warehouse was a direct access to the sewers, in which they had remained hidden during most part of the afternoon that followed the attack on their home, much to everyone but Gummy’s discomfort. The small alligator was having the time of his life swimming in the dirty water and occasionally chasing the rats passing by.

        Now the group of thieves and Octavia were walking through the stinking labyrinth after they had rested in a relatively odor-free part of the sewers to rest a bit and to share the weight of their luggage. Patty was kept away from the food and was carrying a small backpack with her laptop and the few pieces of her electronic thingamajigs that she saved from certain destruction, while Octavia and Vinyl were carrying the bags with all the food and Claude helped Jack to carry the weapon-filled case of the latter. 

        Doing her best to not puke at the smell that harassed her nose, Octavia was following the blue-haired leader while the three other thieves followed her with Patty closing the march and Gummy swimming in the brownish stream next to them. Many questions were raging in Octavia’s head, but she didn’t dare to voice them out loud as she doubted she would have any answer from her rescuers and if she opened her mouth she was certain to throw up.

“Hey, do you think there are turtles nearby?” Patty asked with excitement as if the smell that surrounded them didn’t reach her.

        None of her friends bothered to answer her questions and the pinkette started rambling on the possible friendship that could grow between Gummy and her hypothetical sewer turtles. At some point she mentioned a big rat that could share with them his experience of the sewers, because all the rats knew the sewers like the backs of their paws according to her.

        While Patty was left to her musings, Octavia did her best to ignore the glares occasionally cast in her direction by the two blondes behind her. Octavia understood that it was because of her that they had been attacked and had been forced to abandon their home, but understanding it didn’t make it easier for her to bear. She once looked back at them, noticing the more than displeased frown on Claude’s face while Jack’s face showed traces of anger, but a hint of fear and distress as well for some reason. Octavia didn’t want to ask, but she supposed it had to do with the phone call with her friend from before the first gunshot.

“Enough with the killer eyes, you two!” Vinyl called after she looked back at an intersection. “It’s not her fault!” she stated before taking the tunnel to the right.

“How is it not her fault?!” Claude snapped loudly, causing Octavia to shiver in guilt. “If she wasn’t with us, we wouldn’t be in…”

“And if I hadn’t decided to take her with us, she wouldn’t have been with us in the first place!” Vinyl explained matter-of-factly, silencing Claude almost instantly. “If I had been quicker to escape at her father’s mansion, I wouldn’t have rescued her from her brother’s assassin. If I hadn’t accepted Alard’s job, we wouldn’t have never even met her…”

“Vinyl…”

“If you want to blame somebody, Claude, blame the person responsible of the circumstances, not one of their victims!” Vinyl strongly recommended before glancing at a plaque on the wall at the next intersection. “Huh… We’re close to the Bronx Park, that’s a good thing,” she commented out loud as Claude seemed to be fascinated by her foot.

“How’s that good?” Octavia asked slowly with curiosity and her nose pinched.

“Cause I might know someone nearby who can help us get rid of the sewer perfume that we’ve been carrying around for far too long to my liking,” Vinyl explained slowly.

After that declaration, everyone followed the blue-haired leader with a renewed fervor. Octavia was quite surprised when Claude whispered a soft “Sorry for earlier.” in her ear before becoming silent again. Jack on the other hand didn’t apologize and kept the same angry frown, though Octavia realized it wasn’t really aimed at her, as the tall blonde seemed to be angry at everything she laid eyes on.

The sour mood of the short-haired blonde lasted long after they exited the sewers through a manhole located in a small alley one or two blocks North from Bronx Park. The group followed Vinyl to a small fashion boutique called “Suri’s Polos!”. Vinyl went there first and happily noticed that there was no one inside but the saleswoman, a petite woman with short hair dyed of two tones of light cyan. The girls observed as Vinyl talked to her for a few minutes before they saw their leader turning the panel around to show its “Closed” side and waving them to come despite the shop manager clearly not approving, if her scared and frantic waves were of any indication.

“No! No! No!” The petite woman shook her head many times as she flipped the panel to its “Open” side only to have Vinyl flip it back as her friends walked in. “Suri will have my skin if she finds out that I closed the shop early!”

“She won’t know, Coco!” Vinyl reassured with a smile. “You’re not going to tell her and it’s the same for me and my friends!”

“She’ll notice that some clothes are missing, Vi!” Coco argued in a scared whisper.

“That’s why we’re going to pay for what we take, Honey!” Vinyl reasoned as she flipped the switch to lower the blinds in front of the vitrine. “And for giving us access to the showers in the workshop, I’ll even give you a decent tip. Consider it my contribution to your own little shop!”

“Vinyl, it’s not a game! I could lose my job just for letting your pet alligator in!” Coco pointed at Gummy who hissed muffedly in response. “Alligator who’s teething on a boot at one-hundred-forty-nine dollars ninety-nine cents!”

“Gummy has a good fashion sense, right?” Patty asked playfully as she patted the reptile buse biting fervently on the leather of a black boot.

“Patty, shush!” Claude softly tapped the cotton-candy-haired girl on the head.

“I’ll pay for the boots, don’t worry!”

“Vinyl, no!” Coco stomped her foot as strongly as she could on the floor. “You can’t waltz in here with your friends to use the shower we have for our models and close the shop to make your purchases in peace!”

“Ok, fine, I agree on the closing thingy, it’s a bit rude…”

“A BIT?!” Coco shouted so suddenly that even Patty was startled, but Vinyl continued as if uninterrupted.

“... but come on, let us use the shop’s shower. We’ve just been in the sewers for hours looking for Princess’ purse!” Vinyl explained pointing her thumb at Octavia who blinked in confusion at that being called Princess.

“...What?” Coco asked in confusion.

“Some thugs bag jacked her! We ran after them and they threw it in a drain when they realized they wouldn’t lose us!” Vinyl explained in a very convincing tone, Octavia would have bought it if she hadn’t previously known how they had ended up in the sewers. “We’ve looked for it for hours before giving up and kinda found an exit nearby…”

“...” Coco seemed hesitating.

“Come on, Coco. You owe me.”

“I don’t owe you anything…”

“Don’t tell me you forgot last month?” Vinyl asked with a devious smile. “And if not for that, do it at least for them!” Vinyl demanded softly, waving at Octavia with the back of her hand. “We’ve been through a hell of day…”

“...Fine! Fine!” Coco lifted her hands in defeat. “I’ll show you all to the shower, and you can take some articles of our stock!”

“Thank you! You’re an angel in this dark world full of brutes!” Vinyl took Coco’s cheeks and planted a small kiss on her forehead. “A beautiful and generous angel!”

        Blushing intensively, Coco slapped Vinyl’s hands away before leading the four thieves and Octavia in the workshop after they each had chosen a set of clothes among what was on display, along with Gummy who still had his leather boot secured in his maw. 


~~~~~~~~~~~


“Sir,” Bellatrix called after knocking at the door of her boss’ room. “I have news from my contact within the Police. I have a lead on that V.S. character,” she explained softly.

        At that moment, Trickster, who had been resting in a massive chair by the chimney, opened his red and yellow eyes.  For the first time in the last two days, they had found the dangerous glint they always had when he was about to talk to one of his underlings. He slowly rose from his armchair and walked to his chamber’s door. Slowly turning the lock open and pull the oaken door toward him.

“Tell me more, Bellatrix,” Trickster demanded to the silver-haired woman in a low, cold tone.

“There was a gunfight in an abandoned train depot between a large group of Mexicans and four women the morning after Octavia’s kidnapping,” Bellatrix explained slowly.

“... Why are you telling me this?” Trickster asked impatiently. “What does it got to do with V.S. ?”

“From what my contact could gather, they found Octavia’s hair and her dress in that depot, Sir,” Bellatrix answered swiftly with a short bow. “And one of the four girls that lived there is named Vinyl Scratch!”

Trickster’s interest was immediately piqued.

“You mentioned a gunfight…”

“From what the police found, a group of Mexicans assaulted the place… More than fifteen of them died and the four occupants disappeared without a trace,” Bellatrix admitted, gulping nervously.

“... Fifteen?” Trickster’s impressed frown lasted barely the time of a blink, but Bellatrix hadn’t missed it. Her boss was now more intrigued than angry, which was always a good thing. “What do we know of those girls?”

“From what the Police found, not much. Nothing but family-less girls without any criminal record…”

“That is exactly why they are so dangerous, Miss Lambert!” a male voice came from behind Bellatrix.

        Trickster and Bellatrix snapped their heads in direction of the voice, finding Taran in company of two men they hadn’t seen before. Bellatrix narrowed her eyes and stood between the blond in a white suite and her boss, her hand reaching the inside of her jacket.

“No need for that, Trixie!” Taran lifted his good arm in sign of peace. “He’s here with me!”

“And, pray tell, why is Alard Blueblood here with you, my boy?” Trickster asked softly, causing his underlings and the newcomer to blink in shock.

“You know who I am. That’s considered an honor!” Alard commented slowly with a small bow, having recovered from the surprise faster than Taran.

“It’s not one, boy!” Trickster commented with narrowed eyes. “It means I consider you a potential nuisance.”

“From my point of view, it is an honor,” Alard chuckled softly. “Though I assure you that I’m no threat to you and I’m merely here to offer my sincere condolences for your son,” he said in a sincere tone before bowing deeply in front of the Russian mob boss. “And as well as my assistance on a problem that we seem to share…”

“How’s finding Kornelio’s murderer a problem of yours?” Bellatrix asked with a frown.

“Because Vinyl Scratch and her three friends used to work for me,” Alard confessed in an ashamed tone.

        The atmosphere became tenser than it already was as soon as the words left his lips, but the rising tension broke apart as one of the nearby doors slammed open, letting a red and yellow haired fury walk into the corridor. The cold teal stare thrown in his direction nearly froze Alard in place, and the glock cannon that touched his forehead nearly immediately after finished the job.

“Keep talking, pretty-boy!” Svetlana ordered with angry, but teary eyes, her forefinger dangerously close to the trigger. “Tell me more about this Vinyl Scratch character and I might not shoot you down like a rabid dog for being her associate!”

“Huh…. Former employer would be a better choice of words,” Alard commented, causing Svetlana to place her finger on top of the trigger of her gun.

“Well, you heard my daughter-in-law, Blueblood,” Trickster didn’t seem to mind the Swedish girl’s threats on the possible link to Vinyl Scratch. “Tell us more.”

“She and her friends were indebted to my father,” Alard explained as calmly as possible with a canon pressed to his forehead. “To pay such debt, they were supposed to do jobs for my father, and for me when my father died…”

“What kind of jobs?” Bellatrix asked with interest while Taran moved from behind Blueblood, in case the bullet would go through.

“Thievery for the most part. To an associate and me they were but a pack of cat burglars at our disposal, so to speak,” Alard answered, licking his lips nervously. “Once the debt was clear though, they stopped reporting to me for a few months. Her friends still hung around my club in Manhattan, but other than that, they stopped doing jobs for me…”

“And why would they have come here to even things up then?” Bellatrix asked with suspicion, quoting the message V.S. had left on Kornelio’s body. “Unless you gave them the order, of course!”

        Svetlana’s finger slightly pressed the trigger.

“Vinyl’s real name is...!” Alard shouted in panic.

        All eyes widened in complete shock when Alard told Vinyl’s real name, and the largest set of eyes were Trickster’s. His three underlings looked at the agape mouth of their boss who was known to barely express emotions other than a triumphant smirk. His expression was something they had never seen on his face, not even when they found Kornelio’s dead body. He kept his beyond shocked expression while he managed one word in a small, shaken whisper.

“...Im-Impossible…”
> Svetlana's prediction
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Say, Patricia, right?” Octavia asked the pinkette who nodded in response. “Who’s this Coco girl? She doesn’t seem to know about your fie…”

‘Shhhhhhh!” Patty hissed as she slammed her hand on Octavia’s lips. “Don’t talk about this so loudly!” She added in a whisper before going back to pick a hoodie for each of them from the stock.

“So she doesn’t know,” Octavia whispered.

“It’s not the sort of things you tell to your acquaintances, girl,” Claude commented softly as she tried on a purple cap. “Vinyl always made sure her hook-ups never knew a thing about her job.”

“....Her hook-ups?” Octavia asked with a puzzled expression. “Is that a slang term for friends?”

        The young Russian’s curious gaze was met by a pair of dumbfounded ones. Patty and Claude then looked at each other before the pinkette nodded in Octavia’s direction and was suddenly fascinated by a yellow and blue hat with ears on the side.

“Well, Coco’s one of Vinyl’s friends, sort of,” Claude admitted slowly. “... Huh as for what a hook-up is… Huh… How to say it mildl…”

“She’s one of Vinyl’s occasional rolls in the hay!” Jack muttered bluntly as she took a leather jacket from its hook.

“That, yes,” Claude nodded softly. “It’s a bit straightforward, but it’s that.”

“... Miss Coco doesn’t look the part of someone possessing hay.” Octavia commented with a confused, cocked eyebrow.

        Eyebrows cocking higher than hers were the only response Octavia got from the three thieves.

“It’s a figure of speech, Silly! They do the horizontal tango from time to time that’s what it means!” Patty rolled her eyes with a short giggle.

“... I’m confused now, what does a Spanish dance have anything to do with hay and hooks?” Octavia scratched her brow in puzzlement.

“Dang, y’are way beyond sheltered, ya know that?” Jack asked with a brief, mocking snort, while Claude and Patty were doing their best to not laugh at the clueless dark-haired girl.

Octavia frowned at the trio clearly mocking her about something she had no idea of, and went back to look for a jacket her size. When she didn’t find any on the shop shelves, Octavia went to back shop to ask Coco what the shop had in stock. She found the petite manager by the coffee machine, pouring the dark hot liquid in four mugs. -When she had asked earlier, Jack, Claude and Vinyl strongly forbade her to give Patty some coffee-

After giving Octavia her cup, Coco said that there should be a smaller jacket in the work room and invited Octavia to go with her, while carrying Vinyl’s cup. As they came closer to the door, they heard the shower inside wasn’t running anymore. Coco pushed the door open so that she and Octavia could enter the room.

Two cups of Arabian Mocha-Java crashed themselves against the floor a bit before the feet of the two petite girls, spilling the caffeine-filled, boiling beverages on the pristine floor of the workshop, thankfully not reaching the nearby hung clothes. Vinyl, alerted by the sudden noise, looked away from the drawings she had been examining with curiosity in favor of where the crash had come from. She was more than puzzled at the two beet red faces looking at her.

“What?!” Vinyl asked innocently before twisting her neck to look at her toned and naked buttcheeks. “Do I have a pimple on my butt?”

        Octavia and Coco quickly brought their hands in front of their respectives eyes to mask Vinyl’s birthday suit as the blue-haired girl grabbed her buttcheek and slightly pulled it upward to see if there was any swelling on her pale skin.

“PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!!!” Coco and Octavia both shouted in high-pitched voices, causing Vinyl to cover her ears with her hands.

        While Vinyl’s ears rang in resonance to Coco and Octavia’s shouts and her three partners were chuckling softly from the door that connected the back shop to the front shop, the back door of the building was unlocked and pushed open.

“COCO!! WHY ON EARTH IS THE SHOP CLOSED?!! I THOUGHT YOU KNEW…..better….”

Coco’s boss, Suri,’ shouts died down when she saw her assistant and the dark-haired girl next to her glancing in the direction of the naked woman with blue hair through their slightly parted fingers, both with their cheeks as red as a fire truck. Her gaze wandered to the trio of women and the reptile by the door of the shop, all four blinking at her in shock, while the small alligator munched on a priceless boot.

“.... You must be Coco’s boss, Suri?” Vinyl asked, while rubbing her ears to make the buzz go away before grabbing a nearby shirt. “Coco, if you want to look offended, close your fingers. Same for you, Princess,” she added for the two petite women who squealed in embarrassment  and did as Vinyl demanded, finally masking the pale nakedness from their eyes completely.

“COCO! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?” Suri bellowed in anger, causing the teal-haired girl to shrink in terror. “WHO ARE THOSE PEOPLE?!”

Before anyone could react, Suri grabbed Coco’s arm and give it a strong pull while raising her second hand threateningly. As soon as she did that, a small dart planted itself on her neck. Suri blinked a couple of times after the sting, before her eyes became unfocused. She stumbled back and forth before falling heavily on the floor.

Under the complete shocked stare of Octavia, Patty twirled her small, bright blue blowpipe in her hand before putting it back in her backpack while a very shaken Coco stepped back into the warm embrace of an half-dressed Vinyl. Octavia then frowned at Vinyl soothingly caressing Coco’s arms while nuzzling her in reassurance.

“What-What did you do to her?” Coco asked in a trembling whisper, slowly relaxing under Vinyl’s touch.

“Injected her a tranquilizer for horses,” Patty explained brightly. “The same we use when it’s Jack’s time of the mont…” Her explanation was interrupted a strong whack on the back of the skull by the blonde in question.

“Anyway,” Vinyl diverted Coco and Octavia’s attention from Jack growling at a very sheepish and slightly scared Patricia. “It’s something I should have done when you told me how much of an ass she was to you a month ago,” she explained in a comforting tone, gently pecking Coco’s forehead, deepening Octavia’s frown. “Claude, do we have some booze in our bags by the way?”

“Probably,” Claude replied with a shrug. “Why?”

“Well, from what I know, Suri loves to ditch Coco during the working hours to socialize at the bar,” Vinyl explained, still hugging the shaken girl gently. “So, I was thinking that the police would never believe the testimonials of a hung-over woman when she’d tell them that she was drugged by people in her shop…”

“I’ll go look for what we have in stock!” Patty called cheerfully, forgetting about the pain from her skull before starting her search in their bags.

“I’ll keep her mouth open!” Claude smirked before kneeling down next to Suri’s unconscious form.

“How about we move afterwards?!” Jack snapped, clearly still angry because of Patty’s attempt at humor. “We have no time to fool aroun’ for too long!” she added sternly, staring at Vinyl in particular.

“Aye, aye. I’ll just get dressed!” Vinyl stated before letting go of the teal-haired manager, causing the petite girl to sigh in disappointment. “We’ll catch up on another day, Sweetie!” she added playfully with a short slap on Coco’s right buttcheek, earning a brief yelp of surprise in response. “Princess, stop staring at my ass! It’s rude!”

        Octavia’s cheeks flared red once again when she realized her gaze had been diverted from the hug given by the blue-haired thief to the teal-haired shop manager in favor of Vinyl’s still naked buttcheeks underneath the end of her white shirt. She quickly looked away, rising her nose with dignity, to see Claude and Patty pouring the content of a bottle of bourbon into Suri’s widely open mouth. Coco giggled softly at her rosy cheeks before going to grab the jacket Octavia had asked about before they surprised Vinyl in her birthday suit. 

As if I was staring…. It’s not like she has a pretty behind or anything. Octavia thought sourly before her thoughts in question were invaded by the images of Vinyl’s naked and pretty behind. 


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


“Ha, Blueblood!” Sombra called as the blond walked inside the ManeHatOn’s lounge in which they held their meetings. “How did it go with Trickster?”

        Before Alard could speak, Svetlana walked after him inside in company of Bellatrix and Taran and answered in his stead.

“It went well, Rey Sombra,” the Swedish woman claimed with disinterest. “So well that we’re here to clean up you Chicanos’ mess!” 

        Sombra, his daughter and two other of his men who were acting like their bodyguards didn’t take the comment very well. The Mexicans glared at the yellow and red haired woman who sat on Alard’s seat while Bellatrix stood at her right, both of them smirking at their glaring counterparts. Alard and Taran both gulped nervously as they looked back and forth between the two groups.

“Just who do you think you are, girl?” Sombra asked in a low threatening tone.

“The one sent to clean the mess those four bitches created, as I already told you!” Svetlana barked in anger. “A mess you and your Macho-men only worsened! Twenty-five against four in a surprise attack, only to have fifteen of those twenty-five dead.” She shook her head while speaking in a condescending tone. “Either your guys are nothing but a bunch of amateurs, or those girls are too good….” She grabbed the pitcher of water and poured it in an empty glass that was on the table. “Both are probably the answer, but I tend to the former a little bit more than before,” She added while taking a sip of her drink.

        Bellatrix giggled softly at the two bodyguards who had taken greater offence than their boss and his daughter. One of them growled angrily and took one step toward Svetlana, muttering a curse at her. He didn’t get to take a second step.

        A splash of water in his face forced him closed his eyes for a brief moment. He heard a crash of glass against something solid and felt a strong poke on his chest. He took a step back before he fell on his back, his hands reaching for the half-buried glass in his thorax. 

All jaws dropped a few centimeters while the wounded kept whimpering in pain as he tried to pull the shards out of his chest. When they saw Svetlana coldly rest the sole of her right foot on top of the long-drink’s bottom, preventing all possible extraction. Trixie simply snorted before picking up the pitcher and another glass. While the wounded whimpered in pain and the other in attendance kept watching in frozen stances, the silver-haired woman served another glass to her friend.

Cadenza brought her hands to her mouth as Svetlana pushed her foot down, burying the broken glass deeper in the man’s chest. His pained growls turned into loud shrieks of excruciating pain as her foot came closer to the man’s body while she brought her recently-given drink to her lips. She emptied her water a few gulps later, right at the moment the glass couldn’t go deeper, and sat back on Alard’s chair while the others kept staring blankly at her.

“The house of my employer, the man who got me out of the streets and to whom I owe it all, was attacked two nights ago,” Svetlana explained slowly as she was getting comfortable. “Two nights ago, the man I loved the most on this earth was taken from me. Two nights ago, the girl I consider a little sister was kidnapped.” She turned her teal eyes toward Sombra who gulped slowly at how furiously they shone despite the sorrow also present in them. “For two nights, I haven’t slept properly, and I’ll probably not sleep properly until the responsible is caught and Octavia returned to her father. And, when I don’t sleep properly, I become irritable…” 

She paused and waved slowly at her former attacker on the ground whose breathing was slowly becoming more ragged and sounded like he was choking on the air he breathed. Svetlana emptied her glass and slowly put it back on the wooden table.

“This is why you lot,” She pointed at Sombra and Alard while targeting everyone in the room with her eyes. “Who not only worked with her, but also tried to take Octavia back from her so sloppily, are going to tell me every single detail you know about that bitch called Vinyl Scratch and the trio of lapdogs that follows her around! Is that clear?”

        As his man stopped moving and making any sound, Sombra slowly nodded at the same time as Alard and their respective underlings.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


“What the heck is the meaning of this?!” Sombra asked Taran with a venomous tone.

It was immediately after the two of them and Alard excused themselves from Svetlana and Bellatrix who were watching video footages of the Mexican’s illegal fights featuring Jack. The man under Trickster’s orders was frowning at the tone the Mexican had used on him, but he could understand his frustration.

“I hadn’t planned that Trickster would send Svetlana here,” Taran admitted in a whisper. “I thought she’d be still grieving Kornelio.”

“She’s grieving, that much is obvious,” Alard commented slowly. “Problem is her grief has turned into anger now that she knows who the culprit is.”

“Yes, but how are we going to do what we planned, if she’s here bossing us around?” Sombra asked with a displeased frown.

“We still need to get Octavia back from Vinyl,” Alard replied slowly. “With her motivation, she’d likely succeed, after that, it would be simpler to take Octavia from her…”

“Alard!” Neon called as he walked to the conspiring trio, his gaze though focused the unknown women by the conference table. “What’s going on?”

“Later, Neon!” Alard brusquely answered. “How did it go?!”

“That’s not the most important at the moment.” Neon waved off urgently. “You see those girls and the guy  that we saw with Jack, Claude and Patty last time they were at the club?”

“Yes, one of them being Jack’s old friend that we asked you to invite her over,” Taran reminded with a frown. “Other than that, they are no concern of ours.”

“Yeah, about that… Turns out that the four of them work for the Police, and two of them happen to investigate on the gunfight at Vinyl’s warehouse, and have just arrived at the club to ask questions about Jack, Claude and Patty!” Neon explained with a frown that was soon imitated by the three men he was talking to. “They are asking questions to the bouncers and the barmen as we speak!”

“Dang it! I’ll go down to talk to them myself,” Alard called before walking to the elevator shaft. “Remain here until I come back.”

        Taran wiped his face in frustration at the news of cops investigating the club and the possible affiliation between their prey and them while Sombra scowled angrily. Nothing seemed to be going according to plans and so far, the Mexican had paid the higher price of it. Neon just looked at his boss’ partners with sympathy before he decided to tell them how his little mission went.

“I know it’s not much of a relief, but the triplets will have company now,” Neon stated in a cheerful tone.

        Sombra and Taran snorted briefly at the news and the DJ/henchman’s tone, but none of the less smiled a bit because of both.

“It’s not much…” Sombra agreed slowly. “...But you’ve got to enjoy the little things.”

“Agreed!” Taran nodded slowly.


~~~~~~~~~~~~


        Cadenza’s father recorded every illegal match he had ever organized, not much as a way to have a leverage on the participants for it was as incriminating for him as for them, but as a way to help his fighters improve, especially his daughter. Providing those footage to the two women sent by Trickster had just needed a phone call from Cadenza on her father’s behalf. As soon as the recordings had arrived, Cadenza was charged by Sombra to display them to the French and Swedish girls before they exited the room with Taran and Alard, leaving her alone with the woman who had killed one of her father’s henchmen with a glass of water.

“Loosen up, Miss,” Bellatrix said in a comforting tone as she noticed Cadenza’s rigid posture. “It’s bad for the back to be tense like that,” she added while Svetlana was focused on the images displayed on the laptop before her.

“I’ll try, Miss Lambert,” Cadenza replied with a small nod, her voice as tense as her back.

“Would you like a massage to help you relax?” Bellatrix asked with a small smile. “I’ve been told that I have magic fingers.” She playfully waved her thin and perfectly manicured digits in front of the Mexican beauty who blinked at the proposal.

“Trixie, any man being jerked off by a woman would tell her she has magic fingers,” Svetlana commented, not-looking up from the screen. “That doesn’t make it true for everything said woman does with her hands.”

“Rabat-joie!” [Killjoy!] Bellatrix shook her head with a roll of her eyes.

“Huh…” Svetlana let out as the screen showed a match between Cadenza and Jack. “You participate in your father’s matches?”

“When he asks me to,” Cadenza replied slowly as she watched Jack missing her stomach with her punch. “Usually to fight Jack…”

“That happened a lot?” Bellatrix asked with curiosity, wincing a bit at the knee-strike the Mexican had landed on the blonde’s cheek. “Quite a brutal strike.”

“A good thirty… maybe forty times.” Cadenza licked her lips as she saw herself punching the slightly stunned blonde repeatedly.

“And how many times did you win?” Svetlana asked with curiosity. “Nice kick,” she added when the recorded Cadenza’s heel hit the temple of the taller blonde, sending her crashing on the floor.

        The real Cadenza remained silent as the referee on the recording started to count down since Jack didn’t seem to be moving. He had barely the time to call “Nine” when Jack pushed herself off the ring, twirled around and buried her fist just below her rib cage in a powerful uppercut. As her recorded self fell heavily on the floor, her mouth gasping for air, Cadenza heard the past, sickening crack of her ribs caused by that punch in her head.

“None,” Cadenza whispered as the on-screen-Jack left the ring while she was throwing her guts up.

“Wow…” Bellatrix let out in amazement. “She packs a mean punch.”

“She’s the muscles of the group,” Cadenza explained slowly. “Rumors say that she can stop a raging bull by taking it by its horns…. I’d hardly be surprised if they were true,”

“Anything else there’s to know about that blonde?” Svetlana asked as another of Jack’s matches was displayed on the screen.

“She’s as clever as the other three despite her brawny looks,” Cadenza explained slowly. “She’s pragmatic and straightforward: She has something to say, she says it, more often than not with physical aids to make sure the message passes. Disarming her is something close to impossible and she’s got enough stamina to run a marathon back and forth.”

“What about the other blonde, Claude?” Bellatrix asked as she looked at pictures of Claude. “Tsss, quite a cruel thing to have given a cutie like her such masculine name,” she added more for herself than anything else, but that earned her a cocked eyebrow from Svetlana, who looked away from the screen for the first time.

“You’re pitying her?!”

“Just because we’ll have to kill them doesn’t mean I can’t show sympathy over a few details,” Bellatrix answered her partner’s anger with a casual shrug of shoulders. “Anyway, what is there to know about her?”

“From what I know she had gymnastics classes and did a lot of parkour back in France,” Cadenza told slowly. “She’s easily one of the agilest persons you’d meet in this town! She’s the closest thing to a human burglar cat.”

“Any idea on how good she can fight?” Svetlana asked before stopping the footage after seeing Jack knocking a man twice her size out with one punch to the temple. 

“I’ve never seen her fight, but I can guess that Jack trained them to fend for themselves,” Cadenza explained. “Same for Patty,” she added, pointing at the pink-haired on another picture that had been taken at the club.

“Is she dancing with a rubber chicken on her shoulders?” Bellatrix frowned at the picture.

“With a cake-shaped hat on top of her head?” Svetlana glanced at Cadenza with a frown. “And that girl is part of Vinyl Scratch’s group?” The Mexican nodded. “You’re kidding me right?”

“No! Don’t let her crazy looks fool you, that girl is a real informatic genius!” Cadenza assured. “Hacking and pirating have no secrets for her. And on top of that, she has good instincts, for a lack of better term…”

“So we have the geek, the monkey and the bull,” Svetlana commented with cold eyes, pointing at the faces of Patty, Claude and Jack on the picture she was holding. “Where’s Vinyl Scratch’s picture?”

“We don’t have pictures of her…” Cadenza admitted in a hesitant tone.

“...To quote the holy, biblical words of the Virgin Mary to the archangel Gabriel…” Bellatrix started pompously. “...What the actual fuck?” she added crassly in disbelief.

“Trixie, you should maybe read the Bible before trying to quote it,” Svetlana sighed in annoyance before giving Cadenza a cold stare that froze the Mexican instantly. “Though, she’s quite right on the sentiment. How in hell have you got no picture of her?”

“Wherever she goes, no matter how many cameras there are, she would never appear on a photo or a recording unless she decided to be seen. On all the footages in which she’s from her visit at the club, she has always managed to not show her face to the surveillance cameras,” Cadenza explained, earning cocked eyebrows in response.

“Really?!” Bellatrix asked, her tone filled with sarcastic doubts.

“You think it’s pure luck your boss never even heard of her before two days ago?” Cadenza asked back with a frown, earning a dark glare in response.

        The Swedish, cold, teal stare was enough to make Cadenza nervous. Such nervousness only grew stronger when Svetlana extended her hand to her glass of water, which Bellatrix had refilled after they had carried Sombra’s dead man out. Cadenza’s hand, that she had kept behind her back slowly and discreetly made its way to the small handgun she kept hidden beneath her loose top. The light purple eyes remained focused on the teal ones during a few seconds, despite Cadenza feeling it lasted for a few hours.

        The red-and-yellow-haired woman took a short sip of her drink and put it back on the oaken surface, right next to the laptop. Cadenza let go of the breath she had been holding back until now while her shoulders relaxed just a bit.

“I suppose you’re right,” Svetlana admitted slowly as Bellatrix’s phone started ringing. “Anything else you can tell us…”

“Allo?” Bellatrix answered her phone. “.....Wait! What?!” she shouted in her phone. “On all channels?!”

        Svetlana and Cadenza frowned at Bellatrix’s shouts and were about to ask her what the reason for them was when she grabbed the laptop and opened the internet browser. Ignoring Svetlana’s question about what she was doing, Bellatrix typed the address of a news channel website and clicked on the link for the live news. The screen displayed a photo of four familiar, though younger-looking than what she remembered them to be, faces to Cadenza.

“...Researched by the NYPD for the murder of Kornelio Shutnikov and the kidnapping of his younger sister, Octavia Shutnikova, the four suspects: Patricia Pembroke, Claude Beaumont, Jacquelyn Hamlin, and Vinyl Scratch, are considered armed and dangerous. Anyone who sees any of these four girls are to make contact with the Police immediately. They were last seen in an abandoned train depot under the Buckner Expressway, close to the Bronx river. We recommend our fellow New-York Citizen to the utmost vigilance about those four girls…..”

“That’s going to be problematic,” Svetlana commented with a frown as the announcer repeated the four thieves’ description.

“How so?” Cadenza slowly asked in confusion.

“Now, the entire town knows that Trickster lost his heir and that his daughter’s missing,” Bellatrix explained with a groan. “Sure we passed the word among those we trusted to cover more ground, but the one who tipped the news changed the rules…”

“Now, all the low-life thugs in this town who heard about Ledare will start looking for those four to prove their worth to him,” Svetlana commented slowly. “Whoever informed the news shouldn’t have done so… He or she just lit up the large powder keg that is the underworld of New-York!”




> On the Bronx's roofs
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Vinyl went to warn the diminutive teal-haired girl in the workroom while her friends and Octavia were exiting the shop by the backdoor Suri, who was still drunk passed out on the floor, had walked through not half an hour ago. Her call was left with no response. She walked in the workroom, seeing Coco focused on the television screen Suri kept in the back room to unwind every now and then.

“Coco! I left the money for the clothes next to the cashier!” Vinyl said to the teal-haired girl who jumped away from the screen with a small squeak.

        Vinyl frowned in confusion at that sudden behavior from the apprentice seamstress. Coco was looking at Vinyl with the same expression she had looked at Suri before she was sedated by Patty. An expression that Vinyl didn’t like to see on Coco’s face. An expression of true fear. Confused, Vinyl took a step toward the smaller girl, only to have her take few steps back.

“Coco, what’s wro…” Vinyl’s question died in her throat when she laid eyes on the tv screen.

It was displaying the photo from back when Patty, Claude, Jack and she got all together a few years ago, with the legends : Researched for murder and kidnapping. Armed and Dangerous, written just below the picture. Vinyl glanced back and forth between the screen and a terrorized Coco before sighing wearily and rubbing her eyes slowly.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Coco shakily whispered.

“It-It’s more complicated than that….”

“What are you going to do with me?” Coco asked slowly.

“What?!” Vinyl asked back in confusion.

“Since I know…. You’ll hurt me or threaten me so that I remain quiet, right?” Coco started to shake as a leaf while looking away from Vinyl. “Is that what you’re planning to do?”

“... I’ll do as I planned should you ever find out,” Vinyl admitted with regret and sorrow filling her voice.

Gulping nervously, Coco curled up in a ball while her body was overtaken with intense shivering. She heard Vinyl coming close to her and didn’t dare to move away from what was about to happen. Coco sensed Vinyl’s body crouching next to her and heard her look for something on the desk next to her. Coco whimpered softly when the blue-haired criminal slowly, but strongly pulled her arm away from around her head.

“Here…” Vinyl whispered as she gently put the shop’s wireless phone in Coco’s trembling hand. “I won’t hurt you, little angel. I thought you knew that much,” she added as she delicately brushed Coco’s tears away with the back of her fingers.

“..A..And I thought I knew you!” Coco snarled between sobs before she glared at Vinyl with teary eyes.

Vinyl couldn’t miss the broken trust and heart behind the teal-haired girl’s tears. With all that had happened since Alard had mentioned breaking in Trickster’s mansion, the expression on Coco’s face while she was looking at her was the toughest thing she had to do. It was an expression she hadn’t seen in many years, an expression she would have never dreamed to see on the usually happy visage of the seamstress in training: Rejection. And, as much as she wanted to, Vinyl couldn’t find any reason to not agree with it.

“I suppose we never really know people, don’t we?” Vinyl whispered with a pained sigh before standing up. “Thanks for the clothes and for letting us use the shower. The money for both is next to the cashier,” she reminded matter-of-factly before slowly walking out of the back room.

Coco sniffed and wiped her tears away and looked at Vinyl walking away from her. The blue-haired woman strided over the passed out Suri near the back door. Vinyl spared a glance at the snoring mass of a woman at her foot before facing Coco again.

“I know I’m not one to talk on that matter but, you really shouldn’t let her sign your designs and drawings, Coco,” Vinyl recommended softly. “From the many drafts I saw on the desk, you’ve put too much effort in those to let her steal that from you!”

“....... How did you know they were mine?” Coco asked in a surprised tone.

“Corny as it will sound, real beauty can only be created by good people,” Vinyl explained. “That’s why I knew Suri couldn’t have drawn these.” She flashed a small smile, pointing at the numerous designs on the desk. “You’ve got a great future ahead of you, Coco. You just need to start doing the right things for it…. Goodbye.”

        And with that Vinyl turned around and walked out of the shop, with Coco watching her leave in silence. Fresh tears filled her eyes while she watched the girl disappear into the falling night. She remembered how she had met Vinyl a few months ago, after a particularly harsh dressing down from Suri. Due to the high consumption of alcohol that night, Coco didn’t really remember how Vinyl and her had met, but she remembered the blue-haired girl being there for her, listening to her, comforting her, holding her…. 

Coco remembered clearly the moment she had pressed her lips against a very unexpecting Vinyl, a state that had lead to a very short surprise before she started to kiss back with gusto. Somehow, Vinyl and her had made it back to Coco’s flat where passion made the seamstress forget all her worries for the first time since she had started to work for Suri. The morning that followed would always remain in Coco’s memories as a morning full of many first times: first hung-over morning, first-time waking up with someone, first time waking up naked, first time waking up with someone who was a naked woman snuggling her, and so on, and so on.

Ever since that day, Vinyl occasionally went to visit her to ask her how her creations were coming along, how Suri treated her, or to ask if Coco needed any stress-relieving sessions. The latter being answered by the affirmative more than once by Coco. Vinyl had been one of the few things that made her feel like going on instead of leaving the city and giving up on her dream. And now, she was gone.

Sniffing softly, Coco rubbed the tears away from her cheek with the hand still holding the phone Vinyl had given her. She spared it a look, noticing that Vinyl pre-dialed a number for her.



911



“...start doing the right things…” Coco whispered Vinyl’s last words to her slowly, her eyes fixed on the phone’s call button.

        With heavy heart, she pressed on the green button of her phone and brought the handset to her ear. Doing the right thing had never been so hurtful for Coco before this day.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


“Do you want to talk about it?” Octavia whispered to Vinyl as she was driving the van into a series of dark streets.

“Talk about what?” Vinyl asked matter-of-factly.

“What’s upsetting you.”

“I’m not upset…”

“I’m not buying it!”

“That’s good, ‘cause I don’t sell anything!”

“Ever since I’ve met you…”

“Wow, you make it sound like it’s has been way longer than two days!” Vinyl interjected with a dismissive snort.

“...You’ve been only calm and collected,” Octavia continued as if uninterrupted. “And an hour ago, you walk out of that clothes shop, take one of Jacquelyn’s metal knuckles and shatter the driver window of this van!” Octavia pointed at the empty space in place of the window next to Vinyl’s seat.

“We needed a vehicle,” Vinyl stated with a shrug. “And one with enough space for our stuff and for these four to sleep!” She pointed at back of the van, where her three partners were dozing off against folded rolls of fabric while Gummy was hissing his snores on top of Jack’s weapon crate.

“When we were in the sewers, you said that we were to keep a low profile!” Octavia reminded with sternness. “Stealing the van of Coco’s boss after Patty drugged her and Claude made her drunk isn’t low profiling!”

“...tssss. Alright, I’ll admit that’s not my brightest idea!” Vinyl confessed in an annoyed sigh. “But we needed to be on the move and quick!”

“Why?”

“Apparently, the police gave our signalement to the press,” Vinyl licked her lip as she took a turn into a small dead end. “Here’s a good place to spend the night, I guess,” she commented before turning the engine off with the screwdriver she had used in place of the keys. “Anyway, the four of us are now researched murderers and kidnappers…”

“But that’s not the truth!” Octavia nearly shouted in protest.

“It passed on the television and probably on the web too… For many people, that’s enough to be considered the one and only truth,” Vinyl commented slowly.

“... And, Coco is part of those many people?” Octavia asked, gulping nervously as she saw Vinyl’s grip on the steering wheel tightened a bit. “That’s why you are upset, right?”

“You’re one heck of a girl, you know that?” Vinyl mirthlessly chuckled. “One moment you’re completely clueless about something a twelve year old probably know, and the other you get all Shrink mode on me!”

“... She didn’t take the news pretty well…”

“How would you react if someone you knew turns out to be accused of murde…. Bad example!” Vinyl shook her head. “That’s the story of your life after all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Octavia frowned angrily.

Vinyl stared at her blankly. “You do know what your father does for a living, right?”

“That doesn’t necessary means…”

“Yes, it does!” Vinyl assured with vigor. “Your father…”

“I know he’s a mob boss, but he’s not a cruel cold-blooded murderer!” Octavia protested, her vigor matching Vinyl’s easily. 

“...” Vinyl blinked a couple of times before looking away with a roll of her eyes. “If you decided to believe the news’ truth, than have fun living in your delusions!” she commented harshly before pulling her cap above her eyes.

“I AM N...I’m not living in my delusions!” Octavia whispered after nearly yelling at Vinyl. “I just know my father… I know people died because of him…. but I also know that he doesn’t like to kill!”

        Vinyl snorted for a few seconds before pulling her cap back up to look at Octavia’s eyes.

“You actually believe that?” Vinyl asked slowly, earning a nod from Octavia. “Do you have ANY idea on why your father’s called Trickster?”

“No, I can’t say that I do” Octavia replied uneasily.

“Hum…. Come with me!” Vinyl demanded before she opened the van’s door and got out of the stolen vehicle.

        Puzzled by the request, and with her curiosity piqued, Octavia followed Vinyl outside the vehicle. Vinyl looked at the three buildings surrounding the dead end in which she had parked the van until her gaze went to the fire escape on the right one. 

        Suddenly, Octavia watched Vinyl ran toward the wall, than on it for a few seconds before she caught one of the metallic rungs with one hand. Her weight was enough to make the ladder it belonged to slide down to Octavia’s level with a sharp metallic grinding. Without saying anything or waiting for Octavia, Vinyl climbed on top of the ladder then continued her ascension on the fire escape.

        Octavia slowly climbed after Vinyl and reached for the rooftop where the cap wearing thief waited for her. Vinyl was sitting at the edge of the roof, her feet hanging in the void space between two building. She tapped the spot next to her, inviting Octavia to sit down next to her, which she did very nervously and taking great precaution to not look down.

“Don’t be scared, you’re not going to fall to a certain doom under my watch!” Vinyl stated playfully.

“I know that, you don’t have to…” The dark-haired girl started as she had taken place next to Vinyl.

        Before Octavia could finish her sentence, Vinyl’s palm reached for the space between her shoulder blades and pushed her forward. As she felt her backside leaving the cold bricks of the roof edge, Octavia’s eyes widened at the sight of Vinyl’s emotionless face becoming more and more distant. She reached her hand toward Vinyl who simply watched her fall off the roof. Octavia managed the strength to scream while she closed her eyes as if to not see death, and by extension the ground coming close to her.

        Her scream lasted nothing but a second as she touched the ground with her feet a lot sooner than she first thought it would. Her body fell forward and touched the gravelly ground with a low and disgraceful huff that escape her lungs. She grope around and noticed that there was ground all around her before she opened her eyes again.

        Octavia was lying in the middle of a five-meters-wide footbridge that conected the two office buildings together. She spun around to lie on her back and looked to Vinyl who was still casually sitting on the edge of the South building’ roof, a good two meters above Octavia, watching her with the same emotionless face as before. Confusion made way for anger in Octavia’s mind.

“DO YOU FIND THAT FUNNY?!”

“Do you see me laughing?” Vinyl asked back calmly before she let herself fall on the footbridge.

“WHAT WAS THAT?! YOU SAID YOU WOULDN’T PUSH ME!” Octavia yelled furiously.

“No! I tricked you into thinking I wouldn’t push you!” Vinyl corrected as she extended her hand to help Octavia up. “All I said was that you wouldn’t fall to your death under my watch, and you’ve got to admit that I’ve hold on to my part of the bargain.”

        The tone in which Vinyl had said the word “tricked” hadn’t been lost for the young Russian girl. Her angry frown becoming one of shocked realization was all that Vinyl needed to continue talking.

“That’s what your father does! That’s why he’s called the Trickster,” Vinyl explained slowly. “He lets people think they’re safe before backstabbing them, some time in the literary sense.”

“... I… H-how can you be so sure of that?” Octavia asked in a shaken tone that clearly showed that she was doubting her earlier assumptions. “I mean… It’s not like you’ve seen him ….do something like tha…”

Vinyl licked her lips in response before focusing her gaze on the ground for a few seconds and looking back at Octavia. The dark-haired girl’s hands came straight over her mouth when she saw the deep sadness in her the red eyes that she had believe could only glint as an expression of confidence. 

“I saw him. I saw your father threatening my mother to know where my father was or when would he come home…. He had his men holding her back from falling from her room’s window… He said that he wouldn’t let her fall if she answered his questions… She caved in and said he had taken my brother fishing and that he should be back later that afternoon.”

        Vinyl paused her tale to take a short breath and wipe the tear that had rolled along her cheek.

“His men pulled her back in. He didn’t let her fall like he said he wouldn’t...He shot her in the head instead…. I was hidden in the closet but I saw everything… I saw him put a bullet through my mother’s skull before joking about how he was a man that respects his given word. THAT is the sort of man your father is! A man who laughs at the death a woman who thought she would stay alive if she condemns her husband and her son to death!“

Vinyl looked at Octavia’s violet eyes and saw that, much like her own ruby-colored ones, they were full of tears.

“...W-Why…”

“My dad was one of his partners and…”

“Not that!” Octavia shook her head between shaken sobs. “Why didn’t you kill me or Kornelio in my father’s study? You had more reasons to do so, yet you didn’t… Why did you save me back then? Why did you save me when they attacked your home to get me? Why do you go to such lengths to keep me safe when anyone else in your position would have either abandoned me or killed me to take their revenge on my father?”

“...Revenge won’t bring my family back, Octavia,” Vinyl explained slowly. “It took me a few years, but I’ve come to accept this fact. That, and the pain is still here.” she poked at her own heart. “It’s has been there since I saw my mother touch the floor of her bedroom, and will probably be there for the rest of my life. That’s something I wish for no one… Not even Trickster, … or his children.” 

        Soft and pale hands gently grabbed Vinyl’s face after her declaration before they pulled it against Octavia’s chest. The young Russian hugged the thief with strength, yet her touch was gentle as possible. It was comforting for Vinyl. Comforting and warm. Just enough to make her hug the dark-haired back.

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t apologize for something you didn’t do, Octavia,” Vinyl whispered softly.

“I mean for what I said earlier. I spoke without knowing.” Octavia sniffed with regret, causing the thief in her arms to straighten her head. “I’m sorry… So sorry!”

“Awwww! Isn’t that sweet to hear?” a new female voice asked from behind Octavia.

“Very sweet indeed!” another woman commented in a mocking giggle.

…Oh, no…. Not them! Octavia thought when she recognized the two voices.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


        She had woken up with a very low and unladylike groan ten minutes ago with a headache worthy of being on par to one from her graduation party hangover. Her head was hurting her so much she barely noticed the cuffs or the three cuffed women at the other side of the room. Her vision had been nothing but a blur until she got used to the light given by the only light bulb of the room.

        She remembered passing the night of her forced vacations in her bed, her mind wandering about Jacquelyn and what could have brought her to a life of crime. She didn’t sleep much that night. The morning after wasn’t all that different, though she was once again visited by Neon after midday. He wanted to thank her for helping him with his guacamole issues the night before, and had brought her some of the mexican dishes he had left for her. She remembered dipping a chip in the guacamole and then it was pitch black.

        Once her head was clear enough, she recognized the three Japaneses in the room with her: the triplets from the night she had met Jacquelyn at the club. After a short freak out when she realized they were all cuffed and in what looked like a basement, and that her white blouse was covered with green spots that smelled like avocado, Rarity tried to ask the triplets where they were. She didn’t get more than a snort in response from each of the three nearly identical Japaneses.

“...Okay,” Rarity frowned at the trio. “Rude much?”

“浮気女!” [Bimbo!] the pink-haired triplet muttered under her breath.

“あばずれ女!” [Hussy!] the one with purple hair added with a displeased frown.

“家庭を壊すもの!” [Homewrecker!] the third one replied angrily.

“私は日本語を話すことができます。!” [I can speak Japanese!] Rarity sourly retorted in a fairly accented but fully understandable Japanese.

The triplets blinked in shock before they showed their wide eyes to the American in front of them.

“...How?” Aloe asked in a sheepish voice.

“I lived there for six months after I graduated,” Rarity explained slowly. “But that’s not what matters the most!” She glared at the three siblings angrily. “Explain yourself!”

“....What?” Vera asked in confusion.

“Why are you three angry at me and calling me names?” Rarity asked with a frown. “I’ve hardly done anything to you, and you’re all aggressive to me while we’re clearly on the same boat…. or in the same basement from the looks of it,” she added casually as she glanced once again at the dark grey, featureless walls around them.

“... That’s what matters the most for you?” Lotus cocked an eyebrow at the woman across her. “Finding out why we don’t like you?”

“If we want to work together to get out of here, I think that’s what matters the most, yes!” Rarity explained slowly just before the door of the room was pulled open.

“Well, to make a long story short,” Neon said as he walked in the room with a colossal mass of muscles shaped into a man behind him. “The triplets here are still sour that Jack brushed them off in favor of you a week ago,” he explained casually before scratching the three redding lines on his neck.

“Did she do that to you, Neon?” Vera asked with a smirk, nodding at the wound on his throat and the matching ones on the back of his hand. “That could be a good way to start getting over that!”

“Her pest of a cat did,” Neon admitted angrily. “It won’t be doing that again, that’s for sure.”

Rarity blinked before she suddenly lunged at Neon’s collar and strongly pulled it toward her.

“....What did you do to MY Opalescence, you fiend!?” Rarity asked in a rageous snarl as she choked the the spiky-haired man with his own collar without realizing.

        Sadly, she didn’t get an answer and Neon was saved from a death by collar as the colossus behind him pulled him away from Rarity before slapping her strongly on the face. The momentum made her knock her head against the brick wall in a small whimper. The triplets all stood up in anger before the taller man pulled his gun from beneath his jacket and aimed at them.

“Phew,” Neon let out as he massaged his throat. “I didn’t take you for someone to react so unladylike, Miss Belle,” he commented as Rarity brought her hand to her brightly red cheek. “Then again, I would never have guessed you were a cop at first glance.”

“A cop?!” The triplets let out in surprise.

“Now, William here isn’t quite as patient as I am, as you can probably testify by now,” Neon explained, pointing at the almost giant that was holding the three Japaneses at gunpoint. “So, how about you help us without any trouble?”

“Why would I help you?” Rarity asked slowly, wiping the blood coming for beyond her lips.

“... Because if you don’t… well.” Neon sighed in displeasure.

BLAM

“AAAAAAAGH!” Vera yelled in pain as she fell on the ground between her sisters, her hands over her bloody right leg, through which the bullet had flown.

“VERA!!!” Aloe and Lotus both shouted in distress before they kneeled next to her under Will’s silent but smug watch as he kept his smoking gun pointed at Vera.

        Rarity brought her hands to her mouth in shock as the wounded Japanese was writhing on the floor while her sisters were trying to hold her down. She looked back at Neon who was wincing in discomfort at the sight before them. He then glanced in the cop’s direction.

“Will you help us now?” Rarity nodded fearfully. “That’s good! We’ll get back to you on that later!” Neon nodded back before he stepped out of the room. “Will!”

The giant slowly lowered his gun and walked out of the room while Neon grabbed something behind the door and pulled something from his pocket with his other hand. From behind the door, he pulled a small red case with a white cross on each side of it and had a set of small keys in his pocket searching hand. He put the case down with the keys on top and then started to close the door.

“Not being handcuffed would help in treating her,” Neon stated, nodding at the whimpering Vera as the door was almost closed. “Also, the room is filmed and recorded, so don’t bother planning an escape.

        As soon as the door was closed and locked, Rarity lunged at the first aid kit that Neon had left, grabbed the keys on top of it to unlock one of her cuffs. As soon as that was done she brought the kit to the three Japaneses and started to look for something to treat her wound.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


“So, you’re holding the cow-girl’s childhood friend hostage?” Svetlana asked Alard with an impressed face. “Not a bad idea,” she added matter-of-factly. “Though, I wonder if it will be enough to convince them to let go of Octavia and to surrender….”

“It depends on the fact that Jack believes that we would free Miss Belle upon their surrender,” Alard commented slowly.

“You plan on setting her free?” Bellatrix asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“Of course not!” Alard shook his head with a roll of his eyes. “I’m not stupid enough to let a police officer we kept hostage up. If she hadn’t been in the force, maybe, but now it’s out of question!”

“Beside,” Sombra commented casually. “The girl’s good looking, she could be worth a lot as a whore. Though, she would need training...”

“Sombra, there are ladies at our table!” Alard chastised softly as Cadenza and Bellatrix frowned at the Mexican crime boss.

“While I don’t really approve of that business personally, it’s none of my concern what happens to this Rarity after we get Octavia back and Vinyl Scratch in chains!” Svetlana shrugged with a shake of her head. “How do you plan on contacting them for the exchange?”

“Well, we aren’t sure,” Alard replied uneasily.

“How can you be not sure?” Svetlana asked in disbelief.

“They still have their phone numbers,” Taran explained with a sigh. “But, we’re not sure which number to call, or if they even have their phones with them.”

“For all we know the police could also have their phones in custody from what they found at their house,”

“They sure were there quite fast,” Svetlana said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“From what I heard from one of my contacts in the Force,” Bellatrix commented casually. “We can thank Miss Belle for that. She was calling the Cow-girl when the attack started. After the first gunshots, she convinced her superiors to send a team there… The cops were on the move long before the assault was even finished.”

“You have a contact in the Police?” Cadenza asked in a surprised tone.

“The Great and Amazing Trixie sure does!” Bellatrix took a satisfied pose while turning to the stage persona Svetlana and Taran had warned the others about. “And that’s how Trixie managed to send a team of her own composition in the North of Bronx Park in search for our four thieves after a shop manager stated that they purchased for six hundred dollars worth of clothes from her.”

        Everyone blinked in shock as they turned to face the silver-haired woman who simply smiled brightly at them.

“And you didn’t tell us that before because??” Taran asked in annoyance.

“Mostly because, Trixie wanted to know if it leaded somewhere before saying anything,” Bellatrix explained slowly. “And my team texted me that they might have found them a few minutes ago.” 

Her friend and her business partners all started to shout at her for not telling them sooner when her phone started to ring, causing everyone in the room to turn silent. She picked it up from her jacket’s inner pocket and decided to put the call on the speaker when she recognized the caller.

“Bonnie, go left! GO LEFT!” A feminine voice shouted angrily over the sound of an accelerating car, much to Bellatrix’s surprise. “Catch those bitches!”

“Shut up! I know what I’m doing!” Another feminine voice groaned in annoyance.

“Lyre, what’s going on?” Bellatrix asked vigorously. “Did you find them?”

“Yeah, we did, but I’ve got to ask… WHO THE FUCK IS THAT BLUE-HAIRED GIRL?! I was threatening her point blank and before I could blink I was tossed on top of Bonnie and my gun had been dismantled!!!”

“WHAT?!” Svetlana’s voice boomed through the room furiously. 

“You mean you let them get away?!” Bellatrix shouted angrily.

“No, we’re following their van right now!” Bonnie replied over the screeching sound of tires on the asphalt. They are riding South-West on Jerome Avenue….hang on… They opened the back doors….”

“The tall blonde is held by the others an….. Bonnie… Is … Is that a grenade launcher that she’s pointing at us?”

“SHIT!!!!”

        The sound of broken glass followed by a loud bang rang through the room. It was quickly replaced by the Bonnie and Lyre coughing their lungs out.

“A Smoke round! Open the windows! Hurry!”

“FIND THE DAMN THING, LYRE!!!!”

“DO NOT LOSE THEM!” Bellatrix ordered angrily.

“Don’t worry! S&S are going to follow them on their bikes, and CT, Cheer, Rain and DH are waiting for them ahead… They will not escape!!!” 
> Any way I want it. That's the Way I drive it. Any way I want it!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Claude and Vinyl pulled Jack back inside the van as the cream-colored sedan drifted to stop, columns of white smoke escaping its open windows, before they closed the van’s back doors again. Jack dropped the unloaded grenade-launcher back in her crate before high-fiving with Claude and Vinyl under Octavia’s shocked stare from the passenger seat.

“......You have a grenade-launcher?!” the russian asked with wide shocked eyes.

“Among other thin’s, yeah,” Jack replied with a shrug. “So, who were those guys?”

“Some of her father’s goons, I suppose,” Vinyl replied slowly, turning to look at Octavia.

“Lyre and Bonnie are part of Trixie’s network,” Octavia explained with a nod before she noticed the confused frown. “Trixie’s one of my father’s four generals.”

“And, why didn’t you simply give her back to them?” Jack asked, pointing at Octavia. “It would have put an end to our problem!”

“They said they would bring her to the ManeHatOn,” Vinyl explained as she leaned against the right side of the van. “Which means they’re in league with that Taran fellow and Blueblood.”

“I can’t believe Trixie is double-crossing my father too,” Octavia let out with shock. “She owes him everything she’s now…”

“Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. It’s not what matters.” Vinyl shrugged. “We really need to…”

        At that moment, the Suri’s Polos’ van drove in an intersection, something hit the rear right side of the van violently. The van drifted in circles for a brief moment before it crashed into a nearby phone booth on the sidewalk, somehow missing the man who was about to enter in it. He saw a pink-haired girl raising her head from behind the steering wheel, her eyes somehow spinning in their sockets. He went to the busted driver side window to see if everything was okay.

“Are you alright, Miss?” he asked with worry.

“Four chilly-cheese fries and burgers, one with extra bacon and an apple salad to go please,” Patty whispered goofily as her eyes couldn’t focus on the man outside the van.

        In the passenger seat, Octavia stirred with a groan before looking at the back of their vehicle. The windows of the back doors were shattered and a large portion of the right side of the van had caved in on the impact. Her eyes quickly went on the three entangled and groaning figures on the van’s floor. Vinyl pulled herself off Jack and Claude with one arm while her other hand went to feel the small of her back. The tall blonde, for her part, shook her head rapidly, like a dog freshly out of the water, while the smaller one held her left shoulder with a pained wince. As for Gummy, he emerged from a pile of clothes which had apparently soften the impact for him. 

“Ya okay?” Jack asked softly when she heard Claude moan in pain.

“A bad hit on my shoulder,” Claude explained with a whimper as she tried to move her arm. “It’ll probably leave a nasty bruise tomorrow.

        Vinyl managed to stand up and cast a look through the broken, rear windows, spotting a damaged, magenta pick-up truck stopped in the middle of the crossroad, presumably where the two vehicle had crashed. The passenger of the pick-up, a woman in yellow with voluminous, orange hair shouted something at the driver, another woman whose clothes and hair matched the pick-up, before she exited the pick-up at the same time as the driver, both with guns in their hands.

“Patty,” Vinyl calmly called the still stunned pinkette on the driver seat. “Remember all the rules we taught you about driving a car? Well, I’m buying you a whole tray of your favorite cupcakes if you forget about those right now, and drive us out of here!” she nearly shouted before Patty could signaled she had heard her.

        Patty’s bright blue eyes instantly regain their focus at the mention of pastries and she pressed her right foot on the accelerator pedal just after setting the gearbox of the van on the automatic setting and putting the handbrake on. The tires suddenly shrieking against the sidewalk startled the man who had come to see how Patty and the others were doing, though not as much as the gunshots that rang through the street soon after.

“I said right now, Patty!” Vinyl shouted angrily as the impacts of bullets on the van’s exterior resonated inside of it. 

“I can’t drive fast without the proper music,” Patty explained as she searched through the radio channels. “...Too classic… Too rappy….. Too slow… Too many mentions of asses…”

“PATTY!!!!!” the four girls yelled in frustration while Gummy hissed angrily under the noises of the bullets coming at them. 

“Ha! Finally something decent!” Patty shouted with excitement as the song filled the van, bringing her hand from the radio to the handbrake. “Here we go!” she beamed as she put it off.

        The van lunged forward instantly after, causing Vinyl, Claude, Jack and Gummy to fall back and roll over to the damaged back doors of the vehicle while Octavia clawed the dashboard with obvious dread. 

“ANY WAY I WANT IT! THAT’S THE WAY I DRIVE IT! ANY WAY I WANT IT!” Patty’s loud voice sang as the van speeded away.
 
The man, who had witnessed that fast departure and the gunshots, saw the van sharply turned right after running a red light. He then heard loud cursing and turned around to see the two women who had apparently shot run back to their pick-up before the magenta clad one started the engine. Not before long, a cream colored sedan with a big hole in the middle of the front windshield stopped next to the pick-up. Both drivers shouted at each other before they drove fast after the van. Unbeknownst to the three drivers, a couple of blocks ahead of them, a street rollerblade exhibition was about to be recorded live.


**********************************************************************************************************


“Are you sure of what you claim, Spencer?” Celeste asked with a shocked expression that was mimicked by the whole CSI team and a few of Sherman’s most trusted officers, and officer Dashell who had just escorted Chylene back from the ManeHatOn.

“I’m telling you! Rarity wouldn’t have left Opalescence in the state I found her if she hadn’t been kidnapped!” Spencer explained frantically.

“How badly was she hurt?” Chylene asked with worry at the reminder that Rarity’s cat had been taken to the veterinary emergencies.

“She got lucky. That’s all they told me,” Spencer replied with a long sigh. “Do we have any idea where those four girls from the Shutnikov case are?”

“Not since that manager signaled them in her boutique in the Bronx, but why do you ask that now?” Twila replied with a confused frown. “Aren’t you worried about Rarity?”

“Who else could have taken her if not that Jacqueline bitch?” Spencer asked with fury.

“Did you find evidence of that?” Selene asked casually.

“Rarity’s apartment was in its usual state,” Twila, who had come to see it after her little brother’s panicked phone call, commented slowly. “Nothing was out of place or missing, with the exception of Rarity and Opalescence.”

“Well, that blonde was supposed to be Rarity’s old friend, wasn’t she?” Spencer retorted with a frown. “She could have convinced Rarity to let her in..“

“Miss Belle doesn’t look to me as the type of women to quietly let researched criminals enter in their apartment,” Dash commented in a doubtful tone, earning nods from Chylene, Sherman and Selene. “Even if that criminal is a friend.”

“I wasn’t talking to you!” Spencer snarled angrily. “If I wanted your opinion, I’d ask about about something you know, like fine for speeding!”

“Spencer!” Celeste snapped with narrowed eyes that silenced the young man instantly before anyone could react. “You’re being most unpleasant and rude at the moment, and if that continues, I’ll have no other choice but to ask you to leave this meeting room. Is that clear?” She waited for Spencer to nod before she looked at the insulted officer. “Officer, please do sit back down.”

        Her face glowing red from anger and embarrassment, Dash sat back on the chair she had been given on the far end of the conference table.

“Now, Twila, what exactly did you find in Rarity’s apartment?” Sherman asked, breaking the dense silence that filled the room.

“Nothing very interesting,” Twila replied with a sigh. “While I don’t believe that Jacqueline or her friends have anything to do with it..” Spencer groaned sourly as he realized his sister didn’t side with him. “...but I do think that Rarity’s disappearance is connected with the Shutnikov case though. It’s too big for a coincidence.”

“You’re thinking about the gang that attacked their depot, aren’t you?” Sherman asked softly, earning a nod from Twila. “But why would it target Rarity?”

“To get to Jacqueline,” Chylene let out before Twila could reply. “From what Rarity told me and what I saw when they saw each other for the first time in years, their connection is still very strong.”

“Exactly!” Twila agreed with a nod, ignoring another quiet groan from her little brother. “It was obvious for everyone in that part of the club.”

“What club?” Selene asked with confusion.

“The ManeHatOn,” Twila said softly before nodding in Chylene’s direction.

“It’s there that we met them a week ago,” Chylene explained. “That’s the only time that Rarity and Jacqueline were seen together, so those responsible for her disappearance were in that club too,” she paused as her fingers entangled themselves nervously. “I went back there to ask questions.”

“Alone and without warning us?!” Sherman asked with a frown.

“Well, I didn’t know that Rarity had disappeared back then,” Chylene sheepishly explained. “Besides, I told Twila where I was going beforehands, and I wasn’t alone,” she added with a subtle nod aimed at Dash.

“And what did you fin…” 

Celeste’s question was interrupted by one of her scientists’ sudden entrance in the conference room. The girl in the lab coat quickly grabbed the remote of the main monitor of the room before anyone could ask her what she was doing.

“Romana, what is going on?” Twila asked in shock, as her colleague zapped through the channels of the tv screen. “You do realize we’re in the middle of an important meeting, right?!” she asked in a yell.

“Sorry to interrupt, but you all really need to see this!” Romana explained as she kept pressing the remote ‘+’ button. “Raaagh! Where the heck is the ESC?!”

“Channel Six-Eight-Seven,” Dash let out instantly, earning questioning eyebrows from the Commissioner and the Chief of the forensics. “But, why do you want to show us the live of the Rollerblade Decathlon?”

“There!” Romana shouted as she entered the channel numbers, shocking the others even more.

“Scoot! This isn’t a good idea! This isn’t a good idea at all!” 

The panicked voice of the man holding the camera rang through the room, as he was filming shakily the young woman with short purple hair who was driving with obvious focus, and even more obvious excitement. She ignored her cameraman as she took a sudden, sharp turn, causing him shriek in fear as the camera filmed the ceiling of the news van they were in.

“....What is that idiot doing?!” Dash snapped in horror, standing up to look at the screen with intensity, ignoring the curious, raised eyebrows in her direction.

“FW, film ahead of us, not the ceiling!” The young woman reproached sternly before the camera went back on her. “I said: AHEAD OF US! This too cool to miss any second of it!!!” she shouted after noticing he was filming her.

“We’re so gonna get fired for this,” FW complained in a whimper as he focused his camera on something ahead of their vehicle. “Or worse….

“Oh, come on! This ten times more exciting than recording some rollerblades freaks…”

“Rollerblades freaks like you, you mean?”

“Well, yeah!”  

        All the cops, and the scientists in the room, minus Romana, gasped in shock, and surprise at what that FW fellow was recording live for the sports channel: a magenta pick-up, and cream-colored sedan were chasing after beat-up, clothes-delivery van about twenty, thirty meters ahead of the sports journalists’ car. The rapid, repeated flashes coming from both the sedan, and the pick-up were all too obvious evidence of the drivers’ intention in regard to those in the van.

        The conference room’s door was slammed open a few seconds later, startling the shocked scientists who turned around to see through the glass walls the officer Dash sprinting to staircase as fast as a sprinter in the finale of the Olympics, bringing her cellphone to her ear, and a beyond worried expression on her face. After blinking in confusion at Dash’s sudden departure, Chylene turned her head to Romana.

“I understand you had to report it, but why to us, and not simply to the central down below?” the quiet blonde asked softly.

“The targeted van,” Romana replied as she paused the image when the vehicle in question took a sharp turn to the right, showing its matching side to the camera.

“Su...Suri’s Polos...” Selene read out loud what was drawn on the side of the chased vehicle, her eyes narrowed at the screen. “What’s that?”

“...That’s the name of the boutique where those four girls were last seen along with Octavia Shutnikova,” Twila replied in shock before Romana slowly nodded in response.

Twila’s reply earned even more shocked gasps from the people in the meeting room. Sherman recovered quicker than anyone else, and turned to the two people from the force at his right.

“Spitz, I want the chopper ready to take off in five minutes!” 

At his order, the orange-haired woman who nodded quickly before she also ran out of the conference room as Sherman turned to the young man with short spiky dark hair who had been sitting just to Spitz’s right.

“Sentry, you have about the same time to assemble your team, and have it ready for action on the heliport.”

“Understood, commissioner,” the chief of the police’s special forces replied with assurance before he left the conference room as well.


**********************************************************************************************************


“Come on, Tavi!” Patty shouted with a mad giggle, ignoring the sounds of bullet impacts coming from the rear of the van. “Open your eyes or you’ll get car-sick,” she recommended as Octavia firmly pressed her palms over her closed eyes.

“Did you manage to avoid that hot-dog stand?” Octavia asked in a whimper as the Suri’s Polos’ van rode through the dirt path of the park they had stormed in.

“...” Patty glanced at the large spots of ketchup and mustard on the windshield before replying with a wide smile. “Absolutely!”

“Did that old woman with a cane make it out alive?”

“Of course! She didn’t even trip when we rode past her!” Patty assured joyfully. “I can’t say the same for her cane though!”

        That last comment for the pink-haired driver only made Octavia press her hands harder over her eyes so that she couldn’t see the destruction Patty’s reckless driving brought upon the city of New York. In the mean time, Jack, Claude, and Vinyl had pulled themselves just behind the front seats of the van, along with their stuff, and Gummy.

“Patty,” Vinyl called as she helped Claude checking her left arm, which was thankfully not broken or dislocated. “I suppose they’re still after us…”

        After Jack put all their bags, and her crate between Octavia, and Patty, the left rear of the van was slammed by something heavy, most likely the same pick-up truck as before, which caused it to jerk to the right. Gummy climbed on top of Claude’s leg to reach for the front seat with an annoyed hiss. 

“You supposed right,” Patty replied casually as she tried to recover her course from the impact.

Sadly, before she could correct her vehicle, another violent shock came from the right, shattering the passenger window, and startling Octavia even more. The young russian glanced outside the vehicle, seeing the top of the cream sedan just to the level of her broken window. She then noticed Lyre pulling herself outside the passenger window from her car as it kept pressuring the van to the right while still getting a little bit ahead of them. She shouted Patty’s name when she took notice of the handgun in the green-haired woman’s hand as she aimed at the driver’s seat. 

Patty’s blue eyes widened when she saw the end of the cannon pointing in her direction, and moved her hand to hit the handbrake in the hope to avoid the shot. But before she could grab it, the magenta pick-up truck slammed itself against the van, shaking the pink-haired driver who then completely failed to hold the saving handle.

Octavia and Patty barely had the time to blink before Lyre’s triumphant smirk as she was about to pull the trigger turned into an expression surprise at the same time as they heard the side door of the van being pulled open.

“CLAUDE, NOW!!!” Vinyl ordered in a feral shout.

        Lyre saw the small blonde leaping out of the open door, her knees brought to her chest, and her feet pointing forward. Muttering a quiet curse, the green-haired woman tried to point her weapon at the cap-wearing blonde before said blonde’s feet crashed into her chest. Claude groaned before pushing as strongly as she could on her feet. Both the impact, and the strong push finished to exterpitate Lyre out of her car as Claude jumped backwards through the open side-door, and straight into Jack’s awaiting arms.

“LYRE!!!!” Bonnie shrieked in horror as she saw her partner’s feet leaving the passenger compartment before her body fell behind her car.

Instantly, the blue, and pink haired woman slammed both feet on the brakes, causing her sedan to leave the left side of the van. The people in the pick-up seemed to have been too shocked by what had happened, if the fact it slowed down as well was of any indication. Patty shook her head to focus more seriously on her driving while Vinyl closed the side-door.

“For the record, I’m not doing this again,” Claude let out after a thick, relative silence settled in between the five girls as the van was about to exit Van Cortlandt Park at top speed.

        The tension broke into brief giggling fit before they heard the engine of motocross motorcycles quickly coming closer to them. Two bikers cut their road from each side of their van, one slightly stockier than the other who was lankier. The stocky-one threw a small bottle against the thieves windshield, while the lanky-one emptied a bag of shiny little objects ahead of them. The bottle exploded against the glass of the van, covering it in thick, purple paint as they heard four sharp, and loud bangs coming from beneath the van.

Because of the sudden burst of its four tires, and its painted windshield, the Suri’s Polos’ van’s driver almost lost control of it. With a series of sharp turn of the steering-wheel, Patty managed to keep the vehicle from flipping over before she activated the wipers to get her visibility again. A few strokes later, the glass was clear enough to allow her to see the thick tree they were heading into.

“Brace yourselves!!!!” Patty shouted in panic, the van’s brakes shrieking like nails on a blackboard as she pressed both her feet onto it, before the van crashed into the deep brown, strong bark.


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        As Cheer, and CT stepped outside of the former’s pick-up, which had been stopped between the two motorcycles, a grey sports car drifted to behind the crashed van. Cheer cocked an eyebrow at the two women who came out of that car: a tall, muscular woman with teal hair, and a heavily tanned skin, and a small blonde with messy hair.

“Took you two long enough,” she commented as CT, and the two bikers pulled out their weapons before slowly making their way to the van’s side door.

“Trixie called, and demanded we take care of that sports journalist that was coursing you lot,” Rain explained in a condescending tone.

“.... What?!” Cheer let out in confusion.

“I hope Lady Shutnikova isn’t too much hurt,” the diminutive blonde stated as she noticed Octavia’s unconscious form on the passenger’s seat. “Trickster is gonna be pissed at us for it….”

“Don’t worry, D! We’ll just have to say those four girls roughened her up a little,” Rain suggested as the trio came closer to the crashed vehicle.

“They shouldn’t be much of a problem now,” Cheer stated as CT, Snips and Snails stood just before them, their guns pointed at the side door of the van. “At worse we’ll just have to do as Trixie told us, and mention that Rarity chick to the tall blonde.”

        After the mulberry haired woman spoke, she nodded in CT’s direction. The curly-haired redhead nodded back before slowly reaching for the handle. She grabbed it as Rain went to check the passenger window, seeing Octavia and the pink-haired driver still unconscious. CT waited for Cheer and DH to ready their weapons before she began to pull it open. The door was barely open when a loud, angry hiss was heard from within before an even louder snap followed by CT’s pained, and terrorized shrieks.

        A three foot long alligator had surged from within the van, and it had now trapped CT’s face in his maw.

“GET IT OFF!!! GET IT OFF!!!!” CT yelled as her hands tried to pull the beast jaws open.

Snips, the stocky biker, quickly went to grab the hissing, biting alligator, but only to have his hands whipped, and slightly cut by its scaly tail. All gazes ended up on the redhead trying to pull the animal off her face while their owners didn’t know what to do to make it let go of their friend. After a few seconds, Cheer pointed her gun at frantic alligator biting her friend’s face.

“Guys, try to make CT stop moving so much!” Cheer ordered as her friend’s struggle made it hard for her to aim at the beast.

BANG

        Cheer heard a deafening gunshot coming from her right before she felt something hot piercing her gun-holding hand. The shock, and pain made her let go of her weapon. She quickly turned her face to where the shot had come from, seeing a six feet tall blonde with a bloody cut on the forehead emerging from the van, a gun in her right hand, and a long, metallic rod from which fell a series of coat-hangers in her left.

        With one violent swing, Jack bashed Rain’s head, hitting her right at the eye-level. The tealette, who had been about to shoot the blonde, was thrown against the van by the strength of the blow. She slid along the body of the crashed vehicle, and hit the ground heavily, too stunned to try to stand back up.

Jack then kicked the lanky biker’s knee from behind, making him lose his footing, and exposing his helmet covered face to her. The thief wrapped her left arm around the helmet, and pulled it toward her, allowing her to see the biker’s throat. She slammed the handle of her gun on it, causing him to choke mutedly in his helmet.

The other biker turned around to charge at her after he saw his partner falling on the ground. Undisturbed by her onslaught, Jack swung the rod again, quickly hitting the insides of his knees before promptly striking upward with it. A choked, high-pitched scream came from within his helmet, which bore the drawing of a pair of scissors, as he brought his hands down to his crotch before joining his partner on the ground.

DH fumbled to pull her gun from her belt as she witnessed three of her partners fall like flies. When she managed to pull it out to aim at the taller blonde, said blonde turned her gaze in her direction. Much like a deer caught in the headlights, DH froze when her dark yellow gaze met Jack’s green one. DH had seen, and done many scary things during her time working under Trixie’s supervision, going on a Hunting trip with Svetlana, Trixie, and Trickster for example, yet she couldn’t pull the trigger to shoot the muscular woman that was staring at her.

        DH always paid attention to the eyes of the people around her. That was how she knew how to react with them as eyes are the mirror of the soul as people said. She had seen the permanent glint of sadistic mischief in Trickster’s eyes: it was present even when he was looking at his children with a tenderness worthy of the best father in the world. She had seen Svetlana’s violent core shining in her teal eyes, even when those were genuinely showing love at Kornelio. She had seen everything in the eyes of those she encountered: the ambition in Taran’s, the need for attention in Trixie’s, the desire to be obeyed in Cheer’s, Rain’s will to prove herself, CT’s desire to stand out from the background…

        Since she could have seen all those before, DH could clearly see the glint behind the rage mixed with worry that burned in Jack’s green eyes, and it was more terrifying than everything she had seen before. It was quite more simple than everything, and that was what made it so scary: the Truth. The truth that glowed in those green orbs, backing up the silent threat they threw at her was the deal breaker for her. If DH would press her finger on the trigger, she would be dead long before Jack. THAT was the truth she was seeing in Jack’s eyes right now. 

She sheepishly dropped her gun, and bowed down on the ground in total submission. She heard Cheer shouting at her, telling her to stand up to shoot Jack down before a sickening, sharp clang silenced her. It was followed by the noise of her body falling on the dirt. DH winced at both noises, but she didn’t dare make a move for her gun.

“Gummy, heel!” DH heard a woman call from the van before the hissed growls came to an end.

        She turned her head to the right, seeing the alligator quickly running back to the crashed vehicle, leaving a wounded, and whimpering CT behind it. Then, she heard slow, heavy steps coming close to her. DH dared looking up when she stopped hearing those, only to see a freckled face with a stern expression, and even more stern green eyes looking down at her. Jack kneeled down to bring her face to DH’s level.

“Yer gal-pal said somethin’ about mentionin’ someone to me,” Jack whispered slowly as the cannon of her gun found its way against DH’s chin. “Ya wouldn’t mind being a bit more specific, right?” she asked before DH nodded fervently.