The Heist at the Chocolate Factory.

     Agony tore through Thorens' chest as the blade pierced him. For a heartbeat, he could not breathe; the air abandoned his lungs, and the ground rushed up to claim him. His body crumpled, cold dirt pressing against his cheek, while a dull ringing filled his ears. The Quiggle’s figure blurred slowly before him, swallowed by fog and distance, leaving behind only the jagged weight of pain and the sharp aftertaste of betrayal.

      His thoughts faltered, scattered like broken glass, before dragging themselves into fragments that cut deeper than the wound itself. “So, this is it. This is what all my scheming was worth,” he thought while giving some of his last breaths.

      He was not the mastermind he believed himself to be. Ambition had beaten him, devoured him whole. In the end, he had been nothing but a child chasing shadows, straining to surpass a brother who had always been beyond his reach. And in that hunger, he had become easy prey. Someone had watched him, studied him and his hearing skills, marked his striving, and placed him on the board. A pawn, nothing more. Every step, every action, every explosion had been drawn out long before he walked into it. He thought he had been weaving fate, but it was another’s hand that had tugged the threads.

      The dull throb of his heart grew heavier, slower. His trembling claw scraped the earth, searching, until it met the rough edge of the box the Quiggle had tossed aside. With effort, he pulled it close, his breath rattling with the motion. The lid hung crooked, violet dust clinging to the corners, faint but still glowing. The last trace of the Royal Purple Asteroid. His claws traced along its rim as if caressing a relic, leaving a smear of glow upon his trembling fingers.

      His lips parted, and a whisper escaped, almost broken by the lack of air in his lungs. “Just once… just to know… if the flavour of ruin was worth it.”

      He focused on using his remaining strength to lift his finger to his mouth. The taste touched his tongue while trembling, sweet but with a depth unlike anything he had ever known. It was faint, yet within that faintness was a richness impossible to name. A note of eternity in a single grain. For a moment, his thoughts stilled, suspended in that taste, almost forgetting the pain as his mind went numb to an end, but then…then the world shook.

      A wave pulsed through the fog; a strange resonance so vast it seemed the trees themselves bent to it. The voice of the Space Faerie emitting not sound but force, searching, probing every shadow.

      The air shivered, and the violet dust upon the box stirred, answering her call like a spark to flame. Light surged, bright, blinding, flowing into Thoren’s wound, into his veins. The remains of the Royal Purple Asteroid he ate were being converted into a new source of life.

      His body convulsed, then a warmth spread through him, threading life where an end had already started to close its grip. Not whole, not healed, just enough. Enough to keep him tethered. His strength was a fraction, no more than a quarter of what he once held, yet it was strength all the same.

      His chest heaved as the glow dimmed, the last of the dust consumed. His claws clenched around the box, stunned. This was no ordinary sweetness. The Royal Purple Asteroid’s true secret was awakened by the Space Faerie’s power, even without her knowing.

      Above him, the Space Faerie voice carried faintly, sorrow threaded into her tone. “It was here. I sensed it clearly. And now… nothing. Was it eaten?”

      Her presence drifted past the fog of the forest of Neovia like she was a kind of shooting star in the sky, and the weight of her search fell away. She had not found him. The dust had masked him. She believed the long-awaited chocolate was finally lost.

      Thoren lay still, gasping in the silence that followed. The pain weighed on him like chains, but the faint spark of life pressed him forward. He clutched his chest and sat up slowly.

      The forest loomed in fog, yet he walked staggering until the rocks of his hidden cave rose before him, almost at the point of dawn falling on it. He stumbled inside and collapsed upon the cold floor, darkness overtaking him at last in a necessary slumber.

      Sleep consumed him with a hunger greater than any Neopian could have for that coveted and fateful chocolate that was the despair of his life.

      The morning broke, and he awoke to aches that bound every movement, his chest scarred and his body weaker than ever. Yet he was alive. Alive, and unseen. To the world, he was gone, another casualty swallowed by the chaos.

     Thoren needed medicine and treatment to recover from his wounds and the loss of energy. Although the chocolate helped him recover, technically bringing him back to life, his body was still extremely weak. He looked at himself in the mirror, and he could only see the cruel mark on his chest from The Butler's stab, as well as the burns and wounds he had sustained the night before in the Chocolate Factory.

      His best option was to make his way toward Neovia and search for something, anything, that could guide him to the truth. The pain in his chest slowed his steps, but determination forced him forward, one uneven stride after the other. As he entered the outskirts of town, the sound of voices and the creak of market carts broke through the fog of his mind. Then, he noticed something unusual.

      A small Ruki boy stood on the corner of the cobbled street, clutching a stack of fresh newspapers under one arm while waving another in the air. His voice rose above the hum of the square, shrill and insistent.

      “Extra! Extra! Read all about it! The world’s most valuable chocolate has been stolen! The Annual Chocolate Ball ends in explosions! The Chocolate Factory is in crisis!”

      Thoren slowed, his ears twitching at the cry. His heart stirred uneasily. Curiosity gnawed at him until it broke through his restraint. He approached the boy, slipped a few Neopoints into his hand, and took a copy of the Neopian Times. Without a word, he moved away, with his claws tightening slightly on the thin paper as he unfolded it.

      The headline struck him at once, bold letters shouting what he already feared:

      ROYAL PURPLE ASTEROID STOLEN. FACTORY IN CRISIS.

      Reading those words pierced deeper than The Butler's blade. His breath grew shallow as his eyes raced over the page. The article laid out the facts with merciless clarity. The Royal Purple Asteroid had vanished, the theft was undeniable, a mysterious Kougra escaping the crime scene... but it went further.

      The chocolate had not been destined for display, as most thought, but for a grand charity auction. Its proceeds were to fund the long-planned renovation of the Chocolate Factory. With the treasure gone and the chaos of the explosions near both the factory and the underground, the plan was abandoned. Now, instead of triumph, the factory faced ruin.

      The article spoke of finances in disarray, of customers withdrawing trust, of reputation in tatters. Rumours swirled that William Truffle, the Kiko manager of the Chocolate Factory, was considering selling it outright. Thoren’s claws trembled slightly as he turned the page.

      He sat down on a worn bench in the main square, with the newspaper crackling between his claws. His gaze lowered, yet his mind roared with questions. “So, what was this all for? Was it only about the chocolate? To destroy the factory’s future? Or was it a message meant for the Space Faerie herself? What really happened back there?”

      He forced himself to keep reading, forgetting about treatments and medicines. The report detailed how witnesses claimed the first explosion took place near the ballroom. Thoren almost laughed, a bitter sound caught in his throat. “That one was me…” he muttered under his breath, recalling how he had used the mints to spark the blast that opened his way into the labyrinth. His small act is now written as a piece of the greater chaos.

      Further down, another testimony caught his attention. An anonymous guard reported that a horde of thieves had surged into the factory’s underground chambers. Several had been arrested, and their stories were chillingly familiar. A Zafara thief lay in critical condition at Neopia Central Hospital, badly wounded during the robbery. Others confessed they had been lured by letters of invitation, complete with precise instructions on where to enter. Greed had blinded them. Those thieves were baited into the same web that had ensnared him. Thoren clenched his jaw. “Others as unwary as me…” he thought, feeling the weight of the trap closing in.

      As his eyes moved toward the end of the article, another note stopped him cold. Apparently, a member of the Gourmet Club had been in the gardens that night and was the one to alert the Space Faerie of the disturbance. That same witness claimed to have seen the great explosion around the factory erupt at the very same moment as the fireworks display. “Coincidence, or calculation?” Thoren thought.

      On the following page, the article shifted from the chaos of the Ball to the aftermath. The Gourmet Club, always swift to move in times of weakness, had stepped forward with an offer. They pledged to cover the cost of the damages, with words wrapped in sympathy and grandeur. To the public, it was painted as generosity, an act of noblesse oblige. But to Thoren, it reeked of calculation.

      “Are they truly so rich that the ruin of an entire factory means nothing to them? Or is this the moment they had been waiting for all along?” His grip on the paper tightened.

     He read further, and a name surfaced like a dagger through the fog. A witness had spoken of the Kougra escaping through the gardens after the explosions. That witness was not a common guest, nor a simple passerby, but a member of the Gourmet Club itself: Lord Briartree, a Starry Tuskaninny. The article even praised him for his attentiveness, claiming he had raised the alarm at the very moment the Space Faerie descended.

      Thoren’s breath slowed as he turned the page. His eyes froze on the photograph printed there. At its centre sat William Truffle, his round body bent, his gaze heavy, his face marked by defeat. Around him pressed the glittering figures of Neopia’s elite. And at the forefront, leaning in with a polished smile, was none other than Lord Briartree.

      His words were quoted beneath the photo: he had not only offered to fund the repairs but also suggested to William Truffle that perhaps the time had come to sell the Chocolate Factory itself, so that the Gourmet Club could usher it into what he called “a new age of prosperity and refinement.”

      Thoren’s heart hammered against his chest. His mind began to weave the strands together. First, the Quiggle butler had handed him an envelope bearing the Gourmet Club’s name, drawing him into this plot from the very beginning.

      Then, when everything collapsed into chaos, it was Lord Briartree, another member of that same club, who had been conveniently waiting in the gardens, watching the explosions as if he had expected them. And now, in the ashes of ruin, the Gourmet Club stood forward with their glittering offer, presenting themselves as saviours while circling closer to ownership of the factory.

      His claws dug into the edge of the page until the paper buckled. “What do they want with the Chocolate Factory? Why was the Royal Purple Asteroid so important to them?”

      The photograph blurred as his eyes narrowed, scanning every corner, refusing to let the details slip away. And then he saw it. Behind the polished suits and practised smiles, behind Lord Briartree’s shining figure, another presence lingered. Blurred by smoke, indistinct yet undeniable, stood a silhouette Thoren knew all too well. The posture, the turn of the head, the outline of the shoulders. His breath caught. His chest clenched with both pain and certainty.

      That unmistakable Quiggle. The Butler.

To be continued…