Disclaimer: I do not own Gakuen Alice.
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Fifty Eight…Fifty Nine…Sixty!
"Now!" The earpiece blares.
The girl clad all in black jumps gracefully onto the fence, her long brown ponytail billowing in the wind. She runs with speed and agility on the uneven thin fence wall all the way to the dark gothic building glowing like a castle in the moonlight.
At the end of the fence she leaps down, landing right in front of the large wooden door. Without preamble the small graceful girl pushes through the large oak doors and steps inside not hesitating as she walks to the middle of the foreign dim room. She squints in the darkness and puts on a pair of black sunglasses, pressing the small almost invisible button on the side to turn on the night vision. The room was large, consisting of big windows that covered a fourth of the high walls hidden by dark velvet curtains, to the side was a lone piano catching dust from inactivity and in the middle was a grand staircase leading to the rest of the mansion. She spied an oak table and chairs to the left and maroon sofas with a coffee table to the right.
"Ok, I'm in." She says breaking the silence in the large room.
"Take the stairs up to the third floor and turn to the left. Its three rooms down before you reach the large window in the middle. You have four minutes and thirty nine seconds till the alarms go off." A voice informs her coming through the small ear bud in her right ear.
The girl flies up the staircase as the monotonous voice continues informing her, "There are two copies of it side by side, the one to the left is a decoy, if you touch it another stream of alarms will go off and I haven't disabled them so make sure you grab the one on the right."
"Got it," she answers arriving at the third floor.
She counts down three doors and confirms the window in the middle of the hallway before turning the knob and entering the fourth room, her pace quiet as the soft wind.
"Three minutes and fifteen seconds," her covert earpiece cautions.
She walks to the middle of the room taking off her sunglasses; the moonlight gave off abundant light to brighten the area. She surveys the area as she looks around mentally mapping it out, fifty five steps to get across, about thirty feet wide, two windows–only one open. The paintings were at the side wall twenty paces from the open window and about three from the closed one. She walks up to survey the great artwork as another warning comes through the headphone, "Two minutes and thirty three seconds."
The paintings were identical, both had matching brushstrokes, expert shadowing and the same ethereal colors decorated both canvases. To the naked eye, they were indistinguishable, but the girl's expert eyes could see the small differences, the accidental mistakes.
But something was wrong. The painting on the left had the same soft brushstrokes but lighter shadows, it looked unrealistic.
"Hotaru, you said the second wave of alarms is attached to the left painting?" She asked in mild confusion.
She could hear typing as the response came through, "Yeah, it's the decoy made recently by the con artist Andou Tsubasa, it's an acrylic so we can't measure the time by the fluid dryness but the shadows give it away."
She was familiar with the con artist's paintings, knowing the swindler personally she could see his style and form in the art; he was an expert at shading, his shadows looked more realistic then the factual piece. But in the moonlight they were a dead giveaway. She could see which the fake was clearly. She reached to remove the authentic artwork from the wall but then suddenly stopped midway and quickly ducked as a small shuriken flew her way missing her cheek by centimeters.
The weapon wasn't thrown towards her; she knew it from the moment it came soaring that it didn't mean harm; it was just a distraction to let her know of the presence of its owner.
It circled the air touching only matter as it leapt back into the hands of its thrower. She straightened not looking back at her attacker as Hotaru muttered in her ears, "And he finally shows."
"Disable the alarms on the left painting," she whispers into her earpiece. A second later she hears insistent typing and the clicking of a tongue as the girl behind the scenes concentrates on immobilizing more security not questioning why it needs to be done.
The dark girl smiles looking at the painting, her pony tail flying as the small wave of wind comes from the open door, "Natsume," she greets.
The intruder walks over and stops lazily besides her looking at the painting as well, he doesn't answer or acknowledge her and talks without prelude, "So, now you're doing jobs by yourself?"
"Technically I wasn't by myself. You've been following me since I stepped foot in here." She answers; crossing her arms and turns to him with a cold smile. His raven hair had grown since she had last seen him, it made his face look younger and his red eyes softer.
"You knew and you didn't stop to say hi?" he asks turning to face her, his countenance was cold and red eyes frosty. She noticed he was dressed all in black as well. Dark pants, sleeveless black muscle shirt and onyx leather jacket. He had a thick brown belt around his waist that was identical to hers, and much like hers it most likely contained priceless gadgets made with technology the world was ignorant to.
"You have one minute left," Hotaru informs her.
She turns her eyes back to the painting but the boy besides her doesn't look away from her, "I'm in a bit of a hurry if you didn't notice." She says impassively.
"How could I not? You've clearly been busy lately." He says borrowing a hole at the side of her face.
She clenches her jaw but tilts her head as if mulling the painting over, "Well, it is a twenty four hour job." She turns to him and gives a fleeting smile as she dismisses him, "It was nice to see you. Take care."
She reaches for the painting on the right but the boy seizes it before she can touch the hard canvas. She turns to him, eyebrow raised, "I can't fail this job, I could get suspended if I don't bring that back."
Hotaru murmurs indifferently into her ear, "its disabled. You have thirty nine seconds left till the electric shock on the fence comes back. It will take longer to halt the second time around."
It had taken Hotaru three hours to immobilize the shock. That was almost twice the amount of time it takes her to disable normal security systems. She had to leave now.
Natsume smirks down at her and playfully flaps her ponytail with the back of his hand, brushing his fingers on the nape of her neck as he whispers, "All the more reason to take it then," And he was gone, jumping out the unlocked window into the night as stealthy as a cat, a stolen painting tucked under one arm.
"Get out now; there are only twenty four seconds left." The voice says urgent now.
The small thief smiles, her neck burning where Natsume's fingers touched. She turns to the painting on the left side and grabs it.
"Your carrying dead weight, fifteen seconds left and you have company." The voice breathes uneasily in her ear.
"Stop right there!" A shaky voice yells from behind.
She stiffens a little but doesn't turn, from the corner of her eye she catches a white and blue uniform and a small black gun pointed at her. She notices the person was standing by the open window, her escape.
She walks backward three paces until the lone security guard shrieks again, "I said stop! Put the painting down and turn around."
The art robber giggles a little and turns around quickly; she flashes a grin at the guard and watches as he blinks in surprise before Hotaru urges her, "Mikan, Seven seconds!"
Time. The greatest thief of all.
Before the security guard recovers the girl jumps out the locked window breaking through glass as she leaps down onto the soft grass. Without stopping to catch her breath she sprints across the lean and bumpy fence. "Two and a half seconds." The voice notifies just as the graceful thief jumps off the fence and disappears into the night shadows.
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Mikan jumps through the open window of the hotel room. She drops the stolen painting to the floor and falls face flat on the bed. She sighs deeply, her voice muffled as she speaks into the soft mattress, "Barely made it."
Hotaru walks out of the shower wearing a fluffy white robe, she glares at the girl's tired form on the bed, "Next time you won't be so lucky." She says coldly.
Mikan straightens into a sitting position and rests her head back on the bed board as she throws an apologetic smile her way, "Sorry, I worried you again."
Hotaru walks to her bed, "Don't talk to me." She lies down and turns her face away from Mikan as she pretends to sleep.
Mikan grins and hops onto Hotaru's bed, "Are you mad?" She asks looking over at Hotaru's still face.
When no reply comes Mikan moves a bit back, "If it makes you so mad, I'll just do the jobs by myself."
Hotaru sits up quickly and snaps coldly, "Don't you dare."
The brunette smiles sadly in return looking at her through her eyelashes, "Well you don't like it when I do them." She mumbles.
Hotaru narrows her eyes, "That's because you never take any help and you always dive in without a plan. You're going to get yourself killed someday."
Mikan bites her lip to keep from smiling. Hotaru wouldn't appreciate it if she found out how sweet Mikan thought her being concerned was. Mikan grabs her best friend's hand, "I'm sorry, I promise I won't take risks like that again." She says earnestly.
Hotaru looks at her impassively, "I'm going to hold you to that. Break this promise and if the next job doesn't slay you, I'll annihilate you myself." She says tersely.
Mikan beamss from ear to ear and turns to grab the stolen artwork from where she dropped it on the floor, she hands it to Hotaru, "Another success."
Hotaru stares down at it, "How did you know this wasn't the fake?" She asks taking the canvas from her.
Mikan grins smugly, "It was easy, you said the shading gave it away. Tsubasa-senpai's shadows are a dead give away in the moonlight, they look like they're moving."
Hotaru scrutinized the painting with slit eyes, "You based it on that?"
Mikan shrugged, "It was a suspicion, and you confirmed it by telling me that the alarms were attached on the left one. They wouldn't put more security on a decoy."
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A/N: Yo! This was a pretty random drabble. I've been watching too many spy movies I guess…but do tell me your thoughts. Liked it or should I burn it to pieces?