Every good thief knows that you don't attempt to steal anything when the sun is stretching it's warm fingers out across the earth. It's just stupid. Except in my case. I've got something on my side that no one else has got: shadows. Yeah, yeah, I know you're probably thinking that I'm a lunatic. But I don't lie. Unless I'm talking to the police. That's besides the point though.

I first noticed that shadows obeying me when I was nine, hiding in the house of my twenty-third foster parents home. The father was drunk -again- but the rest of the family was gone. So, naturally, he came after me. I chose the worst possible hiding spot ever though, underneath the dining table, but he never found me. At one point he crouched down to look under the table, and I braced myself for a beating. Instead he looked right though me. He later died of alcohol poisoning, so at the time I thought he was just too drunk to see me.

Several more occurrences similar to that happened, and I soon figured out that the shadows did what I asked them to. So as soon as I turned sixteen, I became one of the best criminals ever known. I made a pretty good living for myself, and I was never once caught. The cops don't even know what I look like. But they might learn.

Recently my shadows have been acting strangely. Normally I can skip the lines in a restaurant, sneak into the kitchen, and eat whatever the heck I feel like. But last week I got yelled at by the cook to get my butt out of his kitchen. Well, he used some words a little more colorful. Right now I'm sitting in a holding cell because I got caught pick-pocketing a lady's purse. This would be fine, but there's a small problem: my shadows are completely gone. All of them, even my natural one. I've been trying for hours to get them to return, even going as far as to offer them holidays off. Maybe I'm exhausted, and this is their way of telling me to sleep...

I suddenly jerked awake, my head smacking against the wall. Rubbing my sore skull, I looking around and blinked sleepily. All the lights are off and the guard is gone. The only light I see is a flickering lamp outside, shining it's dull glow though the window. Fully awake now, I concentrate and try calling up my shadows again. A dark puddle seeps into the room towards the corner opposite me, but my grin is wiped away quite quickly when I realize there is a figure standing among those shadows.

He looks younger than me, but not by much. His black hair and eyes glisten in the dim light, and his dark clothes blend into the shadows around him. His shirt has a white skull on it, and for some odd reason, the smell of a McDonald's happy meal reaches my nose. I blink, and he's suddenly in my cell standing right in front of me. I open my mouth to speak, but he quickly places his hand over it.

"Be quiet," he hisses, looking around quickly even though we are the only two people here. "My name is Nico di Angelo. The shadows aren't listening to you anymore because they serve me. My dad is... well, I'll explain that later. And yes, I know who you are. Hello brother," he explains, a smile gracing his lips for a moment. That's when I black out.


So. This is a oneshot that came to me literally five minutes ago. I might continue it, cause I have no ideas what so ever for my other stories unfortunately. Please comment if I should continue it or not.