Birthday Banditry: Part Six

Slyndar was at the bottom of the staircase. (5 minutes before Rainbowflash and Smirktooth, but he didn't know that) He looked around the room. To his horror, he was in the living room. He covered his eyes by instinct, waiting for some young pet to point himself out, and he did stand out. A shadow pet in the midst of babies and faeries didn't last long. They had a combustion time of thirty minutes. (Well, not really.)

      The Shoyru grimaced as he looked around again. His knees buckled with relief. Nobody was in the room.

     That was odd.

      Where is everybody? he wondered. His stomach plummeted as he expected pets to jump out and shout, "Gotcha, Slyndar! You're busted now!"

      But no one did.

      The Shoyru listened hard. He detected noise coming from the Neogarden. The burglar crept carefully towards the glass sliding doors leading to it. Baby pets were on the other side of it, in the middle of a jump rope contest. The cookie robber spotted his baby Uni sister showing off her jump- twirl- jump trick. She had taken weeks to master that one.

      He was about to scurry towards the kitchen, when an idea hit him. Slyndar couldn't help but cackle evilly, as he swiftly locked the sliding doors to the Neogarden. This wouldn't keep them out, of course. They could easily take the front door, but that would delay them, giving him more time, and time was the key.

      The Shoyru rushed to the kitchen and quickly located the table of refreshments. His eyes widened involuntarily. There, in front of him, sat rare neggs, chocolates, and…

      Slyndar's mouth fell open. This was the most varied group of cookies he had ever laid his eyes on. It took him awhile to tear his eyes away from the splendor, but he quickly recovered. He opened his green backpack and selected a few to take with him. There were exactly a dozen neggs, so taking one would be obvious. Besides, the cookie fanatic wasn't going to lose any sleep over the neggs, but the cookies?

      The shadow burglar stopped himself from taking more. He grabbed a few other desserts and then quickly rearranged the contents on the plate to create the illusion that they were untouched.

      The pet zipped his backpack up and was just about to make his getaway when he heard an angry snarl behind him. His mind blanked on him, but he still managed to turn around slowly to see the source of the noise.

     A pink Doglefox growled menacingly and started advancing towards him.

      Even though the petpet was pink, the Doglefox had the look of a vicious Battledomer. One could tell by just looking at him. The claws, the teeth, the stamina, the method of advancement. It would have been a work of art had not one thing-It looked angry enough to shred him into pieces, like all well-trained watchdogs that spied an intruder. Either that or they would bark like mad to alert the owner. This was looking bad for Slyndar.

      He backed away tensely and uncomfortably, and there was no masseur in the house. This wasn't looking good.

      "Um, nice Doglefoxy?"

      . . .

      Rainbowflash was about to creep the down the stairs when she was interrupted by a sound. A teenage owner was unlocking the glass sliding doors that led to the Neogarden that had been locked 5 minutes ago by none other than Slyndar himself.

      The disco Kacheek stopped descending the stairs abruptly, causing the fire Jetsam behind her to bump into her. Her bodyguard started to growl.

      "What was tha-"

      The bandit silenced her associate with her hand.

      "Over there," she hissed. "See her?"

      Smirktooth nodded and eyed the table in front of them. He then focused on the owner. She had already unlocked the door and was calling to the guests of the party.

      The bandit whipped open her backpack and stuffed a few items in it. She saw that there were exactly a dozen neggs. Taking one would be obvious, but Hypoteny came up with a solution for this.

      The Kacheek took a plain negg from her fire faerie backpack and swapped it for a purple negg. Then she swapped a happiness negg for a cool negg. Good trades. She stuffed the cool and purple negg in her backpack, snapped it shut, and gave Smirktooth the thumbs up sign. The Jetsam returned the signal and pointed to the exit he had located.

      The pets heard some giggling behind them and froze. Rainbowflash frantically whispered, "This way, go-go-go!"

      They ran into another room, and it just so happened to be the dining room. Fortunately for them, it was empty. Unfortunately for them, there weren't many places for them to hide.

      Both pets desperately searched the room for some method of quick escape. No doors or windows, but something above them caught the light as well as their attention. Both pets glanced upward, not knowing what to expect. Then they saw it-a chandelier. The CC members felt a great surge of relief as they scaled the wall in unison and hung on the chandelier. They were saved.

      To the average pet or owner, a chandelier was an ordinary decorative device that can be used for lighting purposes, but to an experienced thief, it could serve as a lifeline. One would think that someone would spot them, but the chance of that was not likely. In a game of hide and seek, you would never look for your buddies in trees, right? Same concept here. I mean, don't hide in trees, but people do rarely look directly up. Despite several disadvantages, this was the best position for the Kacheek and Jetsam. (Don't try that at home.)

      Not a moment too soon. A group of baby pets walked in with Usukis in hand…paw…hoof… whatever and headed to the bandit's and fighter's right. To Rainbowflash's and her bodyguard's surprise, a black figure tiptoed behind them. When the group of pets left the room, he hurried up to the chandelier with a pink petpet at his tail.

      . . .

      Slyndar paused and thought. Well, actually, there wasn't much to think about. The enemy rank was in front of him, and a vicious Doglefox was trying to bite his… tail off. Things looked bleak for the Shoyru. Why didn't he think out his escape plan? Too late for regrets now.

      He looked ahead, and the only apparent option to him was to scale the chandelier. But there was slight problem. There were already two pets occupying the area. The chandelier swayed dangerously, threatening to break. Needless to say, it wasn't safe for another pet to get on.

      Despite the fact he had about a million questions about who the other pets were, he panicked when he glanced behind him. The pink petpet snarled, advancing towards him. By instinct, he zoomed up towards the ceiling. His wings were a blur as he hovered in the air.

      Below him, the Doglefox started barking loudly. The petpet's owner poked her head into the room.

      "What is it, Marshmallow?"

      Slyndar rolled his eyes despite the seriousness of the situation. Marshmallow? What a misnomer.

      "But, Marshmallow," said the baby Gelert, consoling her pet, "there's no one here."

      The baby pet picked up her Doglefox and scampered away, trying to catch up to her friends.

      The shadow Shoyru smirked, momentarily forgetting about the other two pets. He shook his head and smiled. They just never look up.

      . . .

      Rainbowflash and Smirktooth's eyes widened simultaneously as they eyed the mysterious pet. The shadow Shoyru turned to them, still silently hovering in the air.

      "What are you doing here?" all three pets asked in unison.

      "You don't look like you belong to this party," the Shoyru commented lightly.

      The fire Jetsam took charge.

      "Yeah? Well, you don't either," he growled rather aggressively.

      The shadow pet held his palms up. He couldn't afford to get into an argument with this fire. He had the look of a natural, born and bred fighter.

      "Yes, I know, but I didn't mean any offense."

      Rainbowflash smiled and said, "Oh don't mind him. He's a Jetsam. They're naturally aggressive."

      Smirktooth turned to the disco Kacheek with an incredulous look on his face.

      "What if he's a foe?"

      The Kacheek laughed and shook her head.

      "Foe? I think not. Show us the contents of your backpack, friend."

      The shadow Shoyru seemed puzzled by the request, but did as he was told. What choice did he have? If he didn't open the backpack, then the Jetsam would have more reason to suspect him. So he unzipped his backpack and showed them reluctantly.

      The fire Jetsam leaned to see what inside. He grinned at the sight of the stolen cookies.

      "See? He's one of us," concluded the Kacheek with a big smile.

      The Shoyru seemed puzzled by this, but kept silent.

      "My apologies. I mistook you for a spy from--" began the bodyguard, but his associate frowned at him and tapped him sharply on the shoulders.

      "Huh? Oh, yeah, heh. Sorry," Smirktooth mumbled. "Well, you came to rob the party, eh?"

      The pet before them nodded slowly, not sure if he did the right thing.

      "Well, don't worry, we did too," said the Kacheek, as she let him have a glimpse of their loot.

      The shadow Shoyru looked impressed, but slightly confused.

      "How did you obtain the neggs?" he inquired. "Taking one of those would have been obvious because there were exactly a dozen."

      The Kacheek smiled smugly.

      "It was easy really. We just switched them."

      "Switched them?" The pet looked intrigued. "Go on."

      The disco pet paused, looking down and continued speaking. She explained to him how they had brought two neggs along and switched for others.

      "Clever, you made a real profit."

      Smirktooth grinned, "Yeah, I know. Brilliant. The boss came up with that. She really knows her stuff."

      The shadow pet looked surprised.

      "Boss? So you're members of an organized group?"

      Rainbowflash nodded, and her eyes lit up with sudden realization.

      "So," she whispered, "you were that Shoyru Merciless_hacker saw."

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. I don't bite. Well, I don't anymore…

I know, I know. You're dying to know the rest of the story. Too bad, you have to wait, but you can read my other Slyndar story if you want. But I doubt you would want to.