A pair of sad, disheartened eyes stared out at the happy crowd buzzing around the marketplace. Happy owners buying battledome items for their pets, paintbrushes for their pets, toys, food, books, petpets... for their pets. No one ever bought anything for other pets. If you didn't have an owner, the best you could do was fight the fierce rabble at the Money Tree.

Unless you went into thievery, of course. That was how the disheartened eyes kept open and attentive, keeping their eyes peeled for easy pickings.

The eyes belonged to a Blue Uni called Aqua. She and her sister, a Yellow Aisha named Bal, were the people Neopia had fought and won against not two months earlier. They were thieves. But Neopia hadn't understood. How could they? They all had nice, large houses with soft beds and entertaining books. They took existence for granted. They were so upper-class and so snobby. They didn't see another world from their own. The world in which you had to WORK to merely survive, the world in which you did not feel an owner's tender comfort.

The thieves knew better than to trust these invaders. The Neopians of the day assumed that these Terran creatures, these "humans" were all nice and sweet. Most were brainwashed into thinking they were "Neopets", and that the Terran invaders were the Neopians. How could anyone be so stupid as to not realise they were an invaded world? Why were these humans not on their own planet? Why did Neopia have to be their new one?

Aqua sighed as she realised she was going to have no luck today. It was Arak's fault. He should have known that too many raids in a short amount of time would make the humans cautious. Now that meant no food for at least two days. Aqua took her fraying cloth bag and headed back to the Thieves' Lair.

It was cold and dark in this area of the Catacombs. The tunnels wound onwards and on, and tended to have stairs leading down much more than stairs leading up. Beyond these winding, endless tunnels, there was an abandoned temple, from the ancient days before these humans came and took over, taming Neopians and turning them into "Neopets" instead. This temple was the Thieves' lair, where operations began and ended. It was always dusty and dark, and there was no light source at all. The room seemed to glow an eerie bluish light, however, as you were always aware of the things happening around you. It seemed clear to Aqua why it had been a temple.

A darkish shape emerged from the shadows. The cloak and the darkness did not betray the identity of the thief, but the voice did. Arak, a large and ruthless Blue Gelert, and the leader, had a low, sinister voice. He surrounded himself with Yellow Skeiths even bigger than himself, and had no qualms with "removing" people from the scene. He very clearly hated Nath, who was younger, fitter, nicer and – though Aqua denied it – Bal was sure Aqua was in love with him.

"What did you get for me?" said the distinguishing low, quiet voice asked. "I trust you have not failed me this time."

"Sorry, sir," Aqua said, eyes downcast and staring at her hooves. "The humans seem to be more cautious, what with all the raids recently."

Arak was not a fool, and he realised Aqua's point.

"Listen, girl," he snarled. "I run an organisation here. You don't like the way it's organised, you get out and you don't come back. Don't try and tell me what to do, and don't try and pass off excuses. You have a job to do, you do it."

"Yes, sir," Aqua grumbled.

Arak was silent to the point where Aqua felt she had to look up to see if he were all right.

"Go!" yelled Arak. "Go! And don't come back until the job is done!"

Aqua fled. She ran through the winding passage ways as the blue light decreased and decreased and slowly turned into pure darkness. Before it got there, however, her tunnel ran straight into the bright fiery lights of the Catacombs. She sincerely wished she could just leave Arak's gang of thieves.

Aqua walked vaguely past the market she had been trying to rob just an hour earlier. She looked across at the bustling market filled with those idiotic humans and ignorant pets, when she saw a familiar face lurking. She saw him carefully slide over to a booth and look through the items for sale. When a human came along, Nath carefully took a couple of omelettes and walked away quietly.

"Nath!" exclaimed Aqua.

Nath looked up, somewhat alarmed – but calmed down when he saw it was only Aqua.

"Hey!" he greeted her. "Gave me a right shock then, you did."

"Sorry," Aqua smiled. "What did you get?"

Nath started to walk away from the Marketplace with Aqua, and answered, "omelettes. They last longer."

"Really?" Aqua wrinkled her nose. "That's odd."

"No, not really," answered Nath. "The omelette's so big that it serves three separate meals." He lowered his voice a little. "I've even heard that, far, far away, there's a giant omelette – a bigger one – that gives out the things."

"Really?" asked Aqua. "For free? Where?"

Nath shook his head. "The far lands to the east," he said almost wistfully.

"Lands far away are amazing, aren't they?" asked Aqua. "I saw Faerieland once when I was small."

"We should explore them one day," Nath said to her. They had stopped walking by now.

"Yeah," Aqua smiled, "we should."

"How did you go?" asked Bal to her big sister as she saw Aqua stroll – practically dancing – up to the hidden area beneath stairs in a block of flats that made their NeoHome.

"Pretty well," Aqua said.

"So you've brought dinner?" Bal asked – seemingly a little disappointed.

"Dinner?" asked Aqua. "No. Those raids recently, Arak's scared all the humans into caution." Her expression changed into one of surprise and wonder as she saw a Ummagine in Bal's sack. "Where did you get it?" She reached out gingerly to touch the purple fruit, as though it would disintegrate.

Bal laughed. "I found 10NP on the floor," she said. "I managed to buy three Ummagines..." she pulled out two similar purple vegetables from the sack.

Aqua didn't know what to say, but she spoke anyway. "We'll have to ration this out," she said. "One for dinner, one for tomorrow, one for the day after, one for breakfast in three days' time..."

Bal's face fell slightly. "We're so hungry all the time," she whinged. "Can't we have something nice to eat for once... like a carrot? And a WHOLE carrot, not just the usual one-quarter I get when we actually have carrots..."

Aqua was already tucking in to a quarter of the first Ummagine. Another quarter had been cut and pushed towards Bal, with the remaining half carefully stored in the sack with the other two, whole, Ummagines. Bal sighed but did not complain and bit into the purple food. Silence prevailed for a good ten minutes before Aqua spoke again.

"Nath was telling me," she said, "that there was a land far to the east that gave out free omelettes."

"Amazing," said Bal. She didn't mention how she secretly thought that Aqua was obsessed with Nath and whatever Nath said.

"He also said that maybe we should look around some of these foreign lands together," she smiled happily.

"You DO like him, don't you?" Bal smiled cheekily. She liked teasing her sister, as her sister liked teasing her.

"No!" denied Aqua stubbornly. "He's just... nice, and that's all."

"Sure," giggled Bal. "Sure."

"Sir," said a voice quickly. The voice came from a black-jacketed, sunglasses-wearing, Red Techo. He was bowing in front of a tall figure... the tall figure of Arak, to be exact.

"Well?" demanded Arak in his usual grumpy, arrogant tone. "What do you have to report?"

"As you are quite aware, my -"

"If I'm quite aware of it, why are you telling me?" Arak snapped sharply. He did not have the time to hear things if he already knew them.

The Red Techo paused and then bowed again. "Sorry, my lord. But this news is most useful to your quest... Nath has been spotted laughing with Aqua!"

"Yes?" snapped Arak. "And what am I supposed to do about it? As much as I dislike those airheaded Unis, I can't exactly forbid them from laughing with each other!"

"No, sir," said the Red Techo, "but they were laughing about leaving Neopia Central, and heading to the fabled Great Omelette to the far east!"

"Were they, now?" Arak considered. "Thank you, Mr. Tech, you have been most informative."

The Red Techo bowed very low, said, "glad to be of service, sir," and left. Arak started muttering to himself, thinking, comparing, considering...

"Insubordination... desertion... yes... that might just work..."

Then he turned around and sank low down onto his chair.

"But I have a better plan..."