Chapter 1
"Stop! Thief!" the old man screamed at the top of his feeble lungs as Sato leaped from the window he had used to sneak into the house. Of course, this wasn't the way he had planned to escape this time. After all, a jump from a second story window does tend to be ill advised.
Roughly landing in some shrubberies below, he grunted and groaned as he fought his way out of the branches and leaves. He looked up and over his shoulder and gave a slight wave to the man, who had now been leaning out the window, screaming obscenities at Sato.
"TREASURE HUNTER!" he yelled up to the man as he began to sprint off through the streets of Kohlingen.
This is Sato. Treasure hunter by choice, low-down thief to all others. A rather amusing young lad. He was always on his feet, always out and about, and always in some sort of trouble. He stood around five foot seven inches tall, shoulder length ivory hair, the tips stained with ebony. He was rather lanky in build, not muscular by no means, but not a scrawny weakling. He managed to be able to do what ever it was he needed to do.
Well, by this time, the Imperial guards, though few in number in this town, seeing as how it was far from the Imperial capitol of Vector, had begun to chase this "thief". Sato weaved through the crowds, ducking and even jumping over some of the townsfolk. He quickly turned down one of the alleyways, between two of the large buildings within the town.
The guards followed him closely, pushing people over and stepping on some as they pursued him. Upon turning down the alley, they came face to face with something overly large and overly white. They stopped, blinked, look at each other, looked back, then looked up.
"Kupo," bellowed the enormous moogle. He completely blocked the alley and even casted a nice little shadow over all the guards. "Ku-po!"
"Retreat!" yelled one of the front guards as he pushed his way through the rest of his comrads, going so far as knocking on of them over. They clamored away in fear, leaving the large, fuzzy moogle in the alley.
"Are they gone?" questioned Sato as he poked his head out of one of the trash cans, looking at the backside of the large moogle.
"Kupo!" the moogle squeaked. He reached up and tugged on his pom-pom a few times and in a large white cloud of smoke, the moogle returned to his regular, three foot size. He waddles up to the trash can where Sato was hiding, looking up to him quizzically, "Kupo kupo kupopo."
And this is Keypo, Sato's moogle companion. Some would say that Keypo is Sato's better half. This would be quite true. Keypo always tried to keep Sato out of trouble, tried to convince him that he shouldn't take that without asking and even tried to tell him to give that old woman her purse back. Keypo had his reasons for staying with Sato, even though most call him stupid for staying.
"Yes, well, that is all nice and good Keypo," sighed Sato as he climbed out of the trash and picked the left over bits and pieces off his clothing, "but you know better than I do, I could not have taken THAT many Imperial guards."
"Kukupo!" huffed Keypo as he placed his fuzzy little hands upon his fuzzy little hips.
"Ah, yes, two Imperial Guards...too many for me," Sato nodded in assurance to himself as he looked around then slipped his hand into his pocket. "But, hey, at least we scored the stone!"
He pulled out the odd colored stone from his pocket, holding it up to the sunlight to examine it. It was a bit dull, almost gray in color with a hint of green. Upon the surface of it, it had a crimson emblem engraved upon it. A rather seemingly useless piece of trash.
"I really don't see why he said this thing was so important. Just looks like a regular stone to me," shrugged Sato as he placed the stone back in his pocket. "Well, shall we go collect our pay for this, Key?"
"Ku-po," sighed Keypo as he flapped his tiny wings, hovering up so he was next to Sato. "Kupo kupo po po."
"Good idea. I should probably find some sort of disguise. I am sure those two bucket-heads went to get their friends," groaned Sato as he peered around once again in the alley, looking up at the windows around him when something suddenly caught his eye. "I think I have an idea, Key."
It is moments like this that people question why Keypo doesn't just leave. Any idea that Sato stated that he had, was never a good one, morally at least. And this was one of those ideas.
Upon one of the window seals was a pie. Cherry to be precise. "Quite delicious," Sato would say after he at nearly half of it, forcing Key to partake of the stolen pie.
After eating this forbidden pie, Sato had managed to wiggle his way into the house. Yet again, pillaging what ever he could find, but mostly looking for a disguise. Right?
Going from room to room, Sato came upon a dressing room, filled with jewelry. The kind your grandmother would wear. Dangly ear rings, overly large pearl necklaces, faux gems and numerous other shiny things. With a sly grin upon his face, Sato would look to Key.
Several moments had passed. Enough to sit down, ready the daily news, gossip about the juicy stories that come from Figaro Castle to the east and even have a sip of tea.
Sato and Key silently slipped back out the same window they had used to get in. But something was quite different. Sato was dressed in an ankle length, blue dress with pink polka dots, a huge, flowery hat nestled upon his head, his ivory hair tucked up and a large purse slung over one shoulder, the contents of the purse containing a lot of the shiny, expensive tidbits of loot from the house.
"In you go, Key," he chirped cheerfully as he held the bag open.
A sheer look of disgust took over Key's face. "Po...Ku...po..." grumbled Key as he climbed into the bag, burying himself into some of the loot.
"It will be just until we get out of town, all right? Don't worry..." Sato reassured Key as he got into his role. He hunched himself over, bending his knees some, pulling the hat down upon his head some, hiding most of his face as he shuffles out from the alley into the street.
Sato looked about for a moment. To his left, he noticed those same two guards making their way back to the alley. Behind them though was something different. Magitek Armor.
"Oh Lord..." whispered Sato quietly to himself as he quickly went right, shuffling along like a little old lady out for a stroll.
"It was down here!" one of the guards exclaimed as they approached the place Sato had just left. The Magitek Armor moving to stand in the entrance way, the ground slightly shook with each step that it took.
Glancing back once more, Sato hurried along a bit faster. Passing him, going the opposite direction, was a white haired, old woman, dressed very similarly to Sato. An overly large hand bag at her side, a white, fluffy, yippy little dog tucked in it, heading towards the soon to be discovered scene of the crime.
Now, at this point, any civilized, intelligent person who just commited two crimes within a thirty minute span, would play it cool while in disguise. Some may even skip into some dark hiding place and wait for things to cool down. But not Sato.
No, he decided to do something rather, well, stupid. After seeing the lady, the Magitek armor and a black cat cross his path, which just happened as he passed the lady, decided to run. And run he did. In fact, it was more of a sprint. Yes, he sprinted after seeing all this. Hell, who wouldn't?
If things were bad before, they got worse, exponentially worse in fact. Here is what happened, in chronological order.
First, as we know, Sato decided to run. This caused quite a bit of confusion among the throng of people walking the streets. A little old lady, running, maybe there was a sell of obnoxious little ceramic dolls that some people seem to oddly collect. But, that is not important. Sato had drawn more stares than a spotted chocobo doing cartwheels.
Secondly, the real little old lady had stepped into her house, only to have found it ransacked. That is where the screaming came in. She ran out, screaming something about thief and being robbed. This, inturn, grabbed some more stares, including the Imperial Soldiers and Magitek armor that just so happened to be standing right next to her door step.
Then, this caused more panic, because the man in the Magitek armor began to run in circles. Yes, this overly large piece of metal with a man in it's innards began to mindlessly run in circles, as if to try and find some sort of suspect around him. Quite confused it would seem.
The two Imperial Guards that were next to him, ran into the house, looking for some sort of lead as to who or what, had committed such a crime, though, deep down, they had a feeling of who did this.
And finally, a herd of rabbites had run into the eastern side of town. This mass of critters knocked over barrels, chewed up shrubberies, scared small children and even bit a cat or two. But, this isn't important to the story. Sato was in the western part of the town, so this was completely bunk to him.
Well, now with the scene set and the events that seemed like some sort of scripted play are now out of the way, we can get back to our looney little hero. By this time, he had shed the women's clothing and continued to sprint to the edge of town. The townsfolk on this side of town were going to see what all the uproar was about on the eastern side.
Sato slowed his pace as he came to the edge of town, catching his breath a moment as Key flew out of the bag and floated around Sato's head.
"Kupo kupo kukuku po po!" growled Keypo as Sato stood up straight, the bag still strapped over his shoulder.
"I know, we need to get out of here quickly...but how..." sighed Sato as he looked around the now vacant part of town.
"Ku...po..." chirped Key as he pointed towards a chocobo stable.
Blindly, Sato refused to look where Key was pointing, looking around silently still.
"KUPO!" barked Key as he grabbed Sato's face and forced him to look at the stables.
"You know how I hate those damn yellow birds!" yelled Sato as he pushed Keypo off his face. "Nothing more than a chicken, I says."
"Po kupo poku," argued the moogle as he flew over to one of the chocobos.
"Fine! But I won't like it!" groaned Sato as he sullenly drug himself over to one of those large chocobos. He glanced up at the six and a half foot fall bird, a saddle neatly put onto it's back. Key had come to sit upon the top of the chocobo's head, waving his tiny white arms at Sato, urging him to climb onto it.
Reluctantly, Sato climbed up onto the saddle, taking ahold of the reigns. He wearily looked at his moogle companion, his eyes screaming no, he didn't want to do this.
But, before Sato could say another word, Keypo lightly kicked the side of the Chocobo's head and barked "Kupo!" to the bird.
Now, like any other being in the known world, this one certainly did not like being kicked in the head. The bird sprinted from the stables, nearly throwing Sato and Keypo off as it jumped a few boxes.
"Oh god! I hate these things!" screamed Sato as he wrapped his arms around the birds neck, hanging on for dear life.
This chocobo was out of control. Instead of running west, which would take them out of the town, it instead decided to run east. Towards the large group of people surrounding the woman's house. The Magitek armor had now toppled over onto its side, the man in it was now out of it, laying on his back, groaning in pain.
The large, yellow bird sprinted towards the crowd, shrilling 'Warks!' escaping it's beak. Keypo had hands full of feathers as he held on with everything he had. Sato continued to hold onto the neck as he yelled, "LOOK OUT!"
The bird ran straight through the crowd, knocking a lot of people over, even jumping over some. Screams were heard coming from every direction now, the throng of people scrambling about wildly. It continued, charging down the main street, jumping over people, knocking people over as it did so. It took a slight detour, jumping up some stacked boxes and up onto the rooftops, leaping wildly between them.
Sato and Key bounced around upon the back of the chocobo, screaming all the while. The chocobo, leaped from rooftop to rooftop until it finally was at the edge of down, where it leaped wildly through the air, its feet flailing, those flightless wings flapping feverishly, squawks and squeals escaping it's beak.
Roughly, it landed on the ground, stumbled a bit, and kept running, full speed, off into the wilderness.
Now, as for those rabbites that had made their was into town had caused their own bit of trouble. They had made it to the scene of mass hysteria that Sato, Key and the chocobo had just created. More screaming, more running, more biting and more filled the area as the herd ran wild through the town.
But, that is a story for another day.
--To be continued.--