Birthday Banditry: Part Two

Slyndar paced in his room. Blueprints, he thought, blueprints. Sketching them would be no problemo. Transportation to the correct address? That could be an issue. Didn’t the information on the card contain the address? He reached for it. Neopia Central 133759 Crunch Avenue. That wasn’t too far away. His destination was about 4 blocks from here. Nothing a nighttime bike trip wouldn’t solve. There was only two days left before this next big robbery. Might as well start the preparations.

The Shoyru rolled up a neighborhood map and stuffed it in his backpack. The planning was over; it was time for action.

. . .

It was an ordinary meeting for the Confection Culprits. Redshadow was having a staring showdown with Smirktooth, 2-1, Redshadow in the lead. Coookie (no, not a typographical error), the trainee of the group, was rearranging his Neoquest plushies for the 30th time, and Socratis was meditating in the lotus position.

The Blumaroo at the front of the room softly cleared her throat for attention.

Soft as it was, it had a large impact on the group. Coookie looked up, Redshadow and Smirktooth called a truce, and the others stayed silent. This was the way with everything the boss said. Always give your undivided attention.

All 8 pairs of eyes faced the rainbow Blumaroo, who was the leader of the group.

“Thank you,” said Hypoteny with authority. “This meeting will begin.”

Everyone settled in a chair. Hypoteny glanced around and continued.

“Angelfeathers? Redshadow? We all expect a report on yesterday’s raid.”

“Yah! Yah!” Coookie piped up excitedly. “Whajaget? Whajaget?”

The baby Acara was silenced with a look from his superiors.

“Ahem,” Angelfeathers the Christmas Zafara began, “we got there just hunky-dory, like, no problems at all, ya know? No annoying Chia Police or scouts to sell us stuff, ya know, even though we wouldn’t have bought anything, ya know?”

Hypoteny sighed impatiently.

“I know.”

“Then, like, all of a sudden, these green dudes started attacking us with snow projectiles,” the Zafara went on. “So the Lupe beat ‘em up.”

Redshadow, the tough ghost Lupe, cast a smug smile. He was assigned to protect the bandit, like a bodyguard would, you could say.

The leader showed her slight disapproval.

“Okay, tell me you didn’t mortally injure them. Our job is to help clear out inventories of Neopian stores, not to harm innocent, helpless ‘green dudes.’”

“Innocent? Hah!” the ghost pet snorted, straightening his black leather jacket. “I don’t see what the fuss is. It was just a few bruises.”

“Just a few bruises?” inquired Hypoteny, not too pleased with the reply.

“Um, if I may interrupt,” Merciless_hacker stepped in, “but I read the Chia Police report. The Grundos only lost a third of their hp and were perfectly capable of heading to the Springs unaided, but they insisted on being carried by a team of paramedics when everything was superficial. Stubborn and dramatic those Happy Valley Grundos are.”

The rainbow Blumaroo hopped off her chair and turned to speak to the fighter.

“It’s not that I don’t allow you to hone your Battledome skills. It’s just that I hope you understand. If the Chia Police went to investigate the robbery scene and found the Grundos drinking healing potion after healing potion, they would have a reason to suspect.”

The fighter shifted uncomfortably.

“Yeah, but they get knocked out by those Snow Beasts all the time.”

The Blumaroo laughed.

“Oh, of course, those Snow Throw Grundos. Okay, but remember that violence is never the answer.”

The Lupe nodded.

“Well, unless in the Battledome.”

The ghost Lupe lifted his head.

“I don’t know what you mean by violence,” the Lupe smirked. “I just wanted them out of the way, and they wouldn’t cooperate, so I had to get my way forcibly- by sneezing at them.”

Everyone raised an eyebrow skeptically.

Redshadow added innocently, “Little did I know that a sneeze could have such a large impact. Sheesh. I couldn’t help it if they were so weak.”

He paused to sniff dramatically.

“Now my actions are portrayed as violence. Oh, the Editor will never let this slide.” (Actually, I added that part in.)

He ended his theatrics with a small howl. At this, the whole group laughed.

Hypoteny couldn’t help grinning.

“Okay, end of that discussion. Angelfeathers, please continue.”

She obliged.

“Okay. So we made our way to the Neggery.”

Like all good storytellers, the Zafara paused for a suspense buildup.

“And?” everybody pressed.

The Christmas Zafara yawned dramatically, and the group rolled their eyes.

“The faerie was snoring. We coulda robbed the place clean, but the Socrat-dude said to not leave much evidence, and if everything was gone, that would be enough for the Chia Police to start tracking us down,” she explained.

The rainbow Blumaroo nodded, signaling her approval.

“You couldn’t have brought it all back anyway,” Hypoteny pointed out. “Backpacks only offer a limited amount of storage space.”

Coookie couldn’t take it any longer.

“So? Whajaget? Whajaget?”

For once, nobody bothered to silence the trainee, but the boss made a mental note to use some of their funds to provide the Acara access to more books.

Angelfeathers glanced at the leader who nodded back. Redshadow grabbed the inventory list that he had prepared earlier.

It was a moment of suspense for the 7 other pets. When a robbery had no deadline, like this one, they could spend days planning it out, and that’s exactly what the C.C. did. Hypoteny, Socratis, and Merciless_hacker had spent endless hours calculating and plotting. Seer_of_all was locating scraps of vital information. Angelfeathers and Rainbowflash, a fellow bandit, had been perfecting newly learned techniques, while Redshadow and Smirktooth were kicking major Snowager- tush in the Battledome. Even Coookie had helped. He had specially finished his lessons early each day to annoy Angelfeathers and Redshadow. This would make the pets concentrate harder and focus better, believe it or not. It was an important job, not to mention risky. When the trainee was pestering the fighter, Coookie had to keep a crate of Dewberry Revivers handy.

“Um, let’s see.” Redshadow read from the list. “Ah, Sneggs- 2, Witchy Neggs-3, Power Neggs- 5, Vicious Neggs- 1, Cookie Neggs- 3…”

The group listened in silence, and each of the members bestowed a sense of accomplishment.

“…Radioactive Neggs-2, and Evil Neggs-3. I put ‘em all in our safety deposit box. As instructed, we left the Neopians’ negg tokens untouched.”

That’s how good they were.

Coookie couldn’t resist putting his two cents in.

“That’s quite a loot there, eh?”

When everyone was finished rolling their eyes and sniggering, Seer_of_all stepped forward.

“Yes, Seer?” Hypoteny questioned.

Seer_of_all was the spy for the group.

The mutant Ixi chanted rather than spoke, “I believe I have found another task.”

“Is that so?”

Hypoteny swiftly took the pink card from Seer’s gnarled hoof and carefully shook the glitter from it.

“What’s this?” Hypoteny asked herself as she read the lines of curly script.

You’re Invited!

Come to Foozy’s Birthday Party!

When: Relaxing 2

Time: 2:00-5:00 NST PM

Where: Neopia Central 133759 Crunch Ave.

Please come! There will games, tons of treats, refreshments, and more! Please bring some snacks so there will be a variety of drinks, candy, and cookies! Also hosted by the Baby Pet Luvers’ guild.

“Hmmm,” Hypoteny murmured. She handed the card to Socratis, the Nimmo advisor of the group, who studied it very carefully.

“Nice work, Seer, but where did you locate this?”

“My younger brother. He is summoned to go.”

Coookie cocked his head.

“Summoned? What does that mean?”

Merciless_hacker smiled at the baby pet.

“Seer uses more advanced and dramatic vocabulary. ‘Summoned’ means ‘to be called forth.’” (Like that helped.)

The trainee still didn’t seem to understand. (I don’t blame him.) The information specialist sighed.

“Here, I’ll employ a term that you know: ‘invited.’”

Coookie’s eyes lit right up.

“Oh! A party! Yay!”

Redshadow asked, “Should we rob the place? I’ve heard about the Baby Pets Luvers’ Guild. They are rich, and they love investing dough in parties, so I figure they might have some nice chocolates. Should we pay ‘em a visit and check this place out?”

“It seems to be worth a visit, yes,” Socratis declared. “But, it could be a trap. Be careful young grasshoppers.”

“I’m a grasshopper?” asked Coookie, puzzled.

Everyone ignored his latest display of ignorance.

“You mean this could be a trap?” asked Smirktooth numbly.

The word seemed to echo.

“Normally,” Hypoteny commented quickly, “we’d organize a stakeout, but there is not sufficient time for such measures. Let’s just assume that this event is not bogus. We’ll need blueprints. Good ones. Information specialist?”

The yellow Draik looked up from her stock portfolio.

“Yes?”

“Blueprints for Neopia Central 133759 Crunch Avenue,” said the leader, glancing down at the card.

Merciless_hacker jotted the address down.

“Tonight?”

“Preferably,” Hypoteny replied. “Be careful. Oh, and take Redshadow with you, just in case, if he’s not too busy fighting the Snowager."

“Never,” The ghost Lupe spoke valiantly. “Defeating my rivals is important, but protecting a fellow member of the C.C. is vital also. I shall go.”

The Draik frowned at Redshadow, and the fighter grinned back. This was going to be a long partnership.

To be continued...

Author’s note: All names, characters, flavors of cheeses, places, and incidents are all by-products of the author’s weird imagination. Any uncanny resemblance or namesakes are purely coincidental. That means I made up all the names myself. Feel free to drop me a neomail about how what you thought of this part.

Don’t you just love Coookie? Oh, and the C.C. doesn’t really exist. So don’t blame them if your chocolate mysteriously disappears. Your pet probably ate it. :)