Whew, all that inner monologue gets me hungry. I open up my tiny pantry, and it didn't take me long to scan the contents.
Empty. Perfect. No breakfast for me, then. Oh well, nothing motivates like a growling stomach.
With a small huff, I shut the pantry door, and grab my dark-pink hoodie off the floor. I look at it for a second, admiring the color of it. It's pretty dark, almost like a shade of purple, but it still has a pink flare. Pink is my favorite color, but I'm not a fan of the brighter shades. They hit your eyes too hard, begging for attention, but the darker shades are just right. Some think pink is a sissy color, but no one has ever said that to my face.
Looking down at my body, I do a quick scan of the state of my clothes. My black, loosely-fitting Pentakill shirt (one awesome heavy metal band, by the way. Their guitar shredding is simply unmatched), while slightly faded with age, looks pretty decent, with only a few cuts on the right sleeve, and a small blotch of ketchup on my stomach. Satisfied, my eyes move on to my jeans. They are too long for my legs, so I have to roll up the cuffs around my ankles if I don't want to step on them… which can cause problems if I have to "tactically retreat" if a fight's gone bad, or if some shmuck caught me helping myself to their wares. As annoying as that is, I prefer to buy my clothes for the long-term, since money is scarce. They don't have any tears in them, and just a few dirt and grass stains around the knees. Again, not bad! Looks like I don't have to worry about cleaning them today.
With my inspection done, my stomach gurgles and grunts at me impatiently. I tell it to "Aw, shuddup!" before brainstorming my agenda for the day. Selling junk, trinkets, knick-knacks and whatever else I can slap together usually keeps me fed and leaves a very small amount of leftover moolah that I can blow, but this week has been rough. There was a huge thunderstorm recently, booming and crashing around like those loud-ass, but bad-ass, motorcycles for days, and it brought huge winds blowing through the streets, ripping apart homes and businesses like paper. And just because nature didn't think that was enough, there were very heavy rainfalls too, with the alleys running constantly with overflow and sewage. Gross. Well, since people are scared of a little water and wind, not many people have been shopping around the market strip. So, I've had to resort to eating one meal a day, and my money finally ran dry yesterday. Looks like I have to play the part of street rat today and help myself to some food. Fine by me. As much as I like to try to pay for my stuff, I can't deny there's a thrill to snatching up someone's stuff from right under their noses. The dread of getting caught gets your blood surging and heart thumping, and your mind races through every scenario it can think of about how it could go wrong. When you grab it, though, and walk away scot-free, there is no high like it. It's been a while since I've had some fun, so why not spoil myself today? It's not like business is going anywhere down at The Strip, and besides, I need some time to salvage some crap from around the junkyard anyway. So, I think I'll take "a day off", and spend it swiping up some free valuables, and just generally getting into trouble. My stomach flares with excitement at the thought, and it's about damn time I had some fun!
Zipping up my hoodie, I crack my knuckles and head out the door. I pause before I shut it, to apply a small snare-wire to the door frame. A little extra security. Despite the fact there's nothing in there to steal, I just like to know if someone has been frollicking around in my home. You never know what crazies might be out here. After making sure the barely-visible wire is secure, I turn around and head towards the entrance to the yard, weaving my way around endless piles on junk. I notice the path I walk through is clear and you can see dirt, but everywhere else is littered with trash and debris. I chuckle a bit. That's me, Vi, The Piltover Janitor, slowly eradicating gross trash by walking over it, one step at a time!
On the way, I notice a small calico cat, curled on top of an old, rusty robot with a box-shaped head. The sun is shining right on top of the head, and the cat looks completely at peace basking in it. I slowly approach the cat, who lazily opens one eye and watches my approach. I gently scratch the back of her ears, and give her a few soft strokes down her body. She shuts both eyes and purrs loudly, perfectly content. I smile too. Cats are a pretty common creature around this place, and many of them like to hang out here in the junk yard. I'm no stranger to them, and I often give them any bits of food I can. They make up my very small pool of friends, and I always give them shelter and food if they need it. Cats aren't complicated. They like you if you're nice and give them small bits of attention, and how genuine they are is always refreshing when I'm feeling down.
After giving the cat one last stroke, I stand up and walk up to the rusty gate. It's shut and locked, with the big, thick bars that surround the yard in a box being too thin for people to slip on through. The gates have turned a fine brown-red color, rusting away with age, and if someone really wanted to get in, they could probably climb in or even break the bars. However, the multiple signs posted around the perimeter that read "DO NOT ENTER" in big, bold red letters tends to keep away most people, and it's a pretty safe place. I don't have the key to the giant gate, but what I do have is a hole. There's a small hole that goes under the gate, probably dug by some animal or something. It's too small for most people to get through, but I'm small enough to crawl under without much issue. I cover up the hole from the outside part with an old, empty refrigerator. I just push it over the hole, and bam, it's insta-hidden! I'm so smart I impress myself with my genius.
With my hands in my hoodie, I snake my way through the alleys, walking with my head low. I pass through what used to be considered "roads", with crumbling, faded, tired cobblestones, through alleyways tinged with red from the worn-out brick buildings, passing themselves off as apartments, businesses, jails, whatever. It all looks pretty shitty to me, truth be told.
I pass through the last clustered alleyway, emerging out to a wide open area, giving the clustered buildings, outposts, trees and people room to breathe. It's one of the few truly open spaces around the Piltover Outskirts, and though I come here pretty often, not having someone squished up to you, breathing down your neck is always welcome. It's just a mile of straight road, but here is where most people go to hang out, and like sharks swimming around in circles near a school of fish, merchants have set up all kinds of shops, stands, booths, and food part, though, is that only about 30% are run by a con artist!
Real talk for a second, though. What I really like about these stalls is, for the most part, they're made up of little carts and kiosks, meaning that the kinds of stores and goods that are available change pretty often. You'd think coming here just about every single day, for hours at a time (either for business, some good ol' fashioned pick-pocketing, or just for hoots) would get boring, as it's just a mile of kinda-open gravel road, right? Well, there never are the same sights in two different crowds. The people are all over the place, from ratty-looking hoodlums and hooligans like myself, to sharply-dressed, high-browed, smug-ass-look-on-their-face business types, to explorers and excavators (I usually see them wear goggles. What for, I have no idea, they just sorta sit there on top of their heads), to big, burly scrappy-types, to small, weasel-faced, sunken-eyed studious types.
And that's just the people.
On any average day, wedged in between the human population (which I suppose is the highest occurring of the races that live here), are the small, furry chipmunk-things (I don't mind them too much, but their high-pitched voices make my ears internally bleed, and their smell when wet is gag-worthy), blue skinned chipmunk people (apparently, these chipmunks go by the name of Yordle… and, despite the big difference in appearance, both the furry hamsters and the blue-skinned midgets are the same race! The males tend to look like hamsters while the chicks look like midget people with blue skin), and big, hulking bears known as the Ursine (a serious lot), big, hairy monkeys, and even the rare hulking, smelly Troll, who hail from the icey hell-hole known as The Freljord. Together with the ever shifting landscape of market stalls, coming to The Strip always gives you something new to look at, so coming here doesn't really get boring.
After arriving to the edge of The Strip, I pull down my hood to feel the warm sun shine it's hot body on my face.. Been an entire week without seeing the damn thing, and I don't like waiting for others to get their shit together...But even I have to admit, it feels great to feel the warmth of a pleasant day, and I let a smile escape my lips, and feel my shoulders droop, just a little, loosening up for a day of relaxation, free of the stress of finding people to either sell to or steal from, as just about the whole damn city is out mingling about The Strip, so finding some "donators" should be as easy as giving a black eye. I should eat well tonight. My stomach gurgles out a short, excited enough of standing around smiling like an idiot, I slap my hands together and rub them together quickly, feeling the heat from the friction sizzle off my skin.
Time to get to work.
It takes zero time for the smell of fresh baked bread to find its way into my nostrils, and I excitedly bound over to my future prey, my eyes scanning around for the best targets. There's a large fruit market, with several large tables draped in a yellow blanket holding rows of bright, fresh fruit, from melons to mangos to apples. The tables form a square, with the merchant and his tent in the center, sitting in the cozy shade his tent provides and collecting the money he earns. Seems to make an easy target, since he can't look at all of his goods at once.
My nose picks up the alluring scent of grilled meat, sizzling on an open grill just a small way past the fruit stall. I excitedly jog over to the barbecue stall, my eyes hungrily devouring the sights of fat, juicy mounds of beef being slowly pounded into burger patties, kabobs lined with all sorts of meats, teriyaki beef and chicken being roasted on an open grill, with customers eagerly watching the chefs work the meat, sizzling and popping on the open grill, obviously excited to sink their teeth into what they bought. My eyes also spot a fishery close by, with fish of all sizes hanging on hooks that adorn yet another stall, with large iceboxes keeping the meat fresh. If only it could keep the smell contained. My nose wrinkles. I don't like to be picky with my food, but I absolutely hate fish and seafood. It always has a reeking smell that clings to the meat, an overbearing stench that can force the hunger in your belly right out of you. Blowing a quick raspberry, I turn away from that grossness and turn my attention back to the fruits and grills. Looks like I have my work cut out for me.
I thrust my hand into my pants pocket, digging around for the only thing I need to pull off this little bout of thievery: a distraction, also known as fireworks. A little while back, Piltover was celebrating a zeppelin-race that we had won against rival science city Zaun. Being heated rivals, the brainy-nerd types of both cities are constantly trying to one-up each other, whether it be from scientific progress, competitions, or whatever else can be used to prove one city's superiority. Now, I don't pay much attention to those kinds of things, but many folks in these parts do, and when our city beat Zaun in a big-ass zeppelin-balloon race, people were celebrating in the streets for the entire night, cooking and blowing shit up with fireworks (which, I gotta admit, is pretty freaking awesome). The Strip was jam-packed full of merchants taking advantage of the celebration, and swiping some explosives from the crowded stalls was a cake-walk. I used most of my loot to have some fun that night, using bottle-rockets, sparklers, smoke-bombs with color-shifting smoke and stuff like that (even set some garbage in the dump on fire by accident), but I still saved a few bits of them. Now is the perfect time to have some fun with them.
It'd be a waste to use them to steal fruits, since they're basically begging me swipe them from the tables already. I put keep my head low, and slowly walk up to the crowded rows of fruit, watching the shop keeper out of the corner of my eye. He's sitting down under his tent, arms folded across his chest, watching the passerby, and having his eyes shift around constantly. I lean against a nearby brick building, waiting for my chance to strike. It doesn't take long for a customer to talk to him to purchase something, and he gets up off his small, blue chair to ring them through. I quickly walk over to a stall behind him, and while looking towards the crowd and sky, my hands quickly snap up a few apples and mangos. I quickly stash them into my hoodie pocket, and stoop down to "tie my shoes", having my eyes scan around me for any sign that I was caught. Nope. The suckers didn't know what hit them. I smile, quickly stand up and head away, as the shop keeper returns to his chair.
Too easy.
With my confidence boosted at that easy swipe-job, I set my eyes on the prize: the meat stall. On one side you have a merchant, obviously the guy who makes the sale, standing next to a box that holds the day's profits. He is flanked by two large open-grills, and has a few cooks working away at piles at colorful kinds of meat, attracting people to the smell and enticing them with seeing juicy meat worked into burgers, patties, kebabs, and others. The one guy who isn't cooking is yelling to passerby and all that are in earshot about his food for sale.
"Fresh meats for sale! Grilled beef, pork, chicken, all straight from the Piltover Farms! Great, juicy fresh cuts, grilled meats, barbeque, you name it, all for low prices!"
The merchant is wearing a chef's getup, with a clean, white apron that ties around his back, with a white undershirt, big, wide smile, flashing expertly cleaned white teeth, and a round, protruding pot-belly, complete with a stupid-looking chef's hat. He's not the biggest guy around, being a few inches shorter than six feet, with skinny arms and scrawny legs. He's not much bigger than me, truth be told, and this little fact makes me even more daring to swipe some lunch from under his nose.
It's a popular stall, with crowds of people oohing and aahing over the chefs at work by the grill, and has lines of people waiting to buy some food. Tons of witnesses to alert the chef of someone trying to take some free samples. Not a problem.
I quickly cross the street, opposite to the barbeque pit. I spot some kids by the steps of an old, run-down building, rough housing with each other and playing with a small, blue wagon. A brilliant idea strikes me, and I approach the kids.
"Hey guys, what'cha up to?", I ask cheerfully, hands in my pockets. I show them a warm, friendly smile.
"Nothing….", one of the boys responds, his eyes giving me a quick scan up-and-down, stopping for a few seconds over my facial tattoo, before nervously shooting down to the ground. "Just hanging out, being kinda bored.", says the other boy, with dark, dirty-blonde hair, with more warmth in his voice than the other boy had. He's a bit bigger than the other boy, who looks to be around 5 or so, and he seems more at ease with me than the other one, so I guess he's the older brother between to the two.
"I see. Well, you know how Piltover won the zeppelin race against those Zaun dweebs, right?" I dangle my words like a fishman eagerly dangles bait on the line, hoping they'll take me up on what I'm about to say.
"Duh! The whole town was super happy about that last week, weren't they?" The older brother responds excitedly, and the younger one looks on with mild interest.
"I know, it was a close race. Well, everyone is done with fireworks and celebrating, right? No one is setting off anymore. Kinda sucks, doesn't it?" I do my best to paint the picture as best I can to set up my plan.
"Yeah… they were so bright and colorful. I wish we could do more…." The little brother, hiding behind the older one's legs, peers out shyly at me, with a bit of excitement lighting up his eyes. His brother agrees.
"Well, I didn't get to use the last of mine up," I say, as I show them the last few bits I have saved up. They look on in surprise, and let out a few "oooooh"s.
"So, I wanted to ask.. what if we gave everybody one last surprise firework show?" I grin, and point over to their wagon.
"What do you mean?" The older brother says, excited but with hesitation in his voice.
"Well, no one would expect fireworks to go off now, right? What if we give everybody one last surprise? I want to light some of these babies in your wagon and push it down the street! They will be surprised to see fireworks now, but who would expect them to be moving, too? It would be lots of fun!"
The two brothers hesitate for just a second before giving in to the air of excitement I'm putting out. They both agree excitedly, and help me place the last of my explosives into their wagon.
"Okay, so now what I'm gonna do is light these babies up, and push the wagon down the sidewalk. That way, no one gets hurt, but no one will be expecting a surprise like this!"
I give the two brothers a wink, and they look at each other with excitement. Using a small lighter I brought with me (just for this plan), I quickly light up the fuses to the smoke bombs, sparklers and bottle rocket, and quickly give the wagon a big shove, sending it down the sidewalk. The fuses start hissing and releasing a colorful smoke, which starts to grab some people in the crowd's attention.
I quickly jog to the other side of the street, getting behind the barbecue stalls, and wait for my opportunity to present itself.
Soon, the smoke bombs start releasing a large screen of green, blue, pink and red smoke, and it soons drifts over into the crowds, with some people starting to panic a bit and look around frantically, and others just ask themselves "what the hell..?". Soon, the sparkles start going off as well, hissing and releasing loud, shrill cries through the air, and bright, white lights start forming in the smoke cloud's center, where the cart is.
My distraction is working beautifully. The chatter and bustle from the crowd and the yelling of the merchants quiets down in a surprised, confused silence, with only the confused murmur of the crowd in it's place. Soon, even the grill-cooks and the merchant working at the meat stall quiet down as well, and all attention is on the wagon.
Time to strike.
I quickly swipe up some meats that were on display for customers, with some chicken patties, hotdogs and kabobs suddenly finding themselves in my pants pockets. My hands work with practiced quickness, silently and instantly swiping up anything they grasp. Soon, my pants are heavier with the warm, delicious weight of free lunch and dinner. Right as I take my last item, I am about to walk away and enjoy my loot at home, when I notice the wallet of the meat merchant hanging on a holster on his belt. It is a fat, brown cloth bag that is sagging a bit from weight, and he obviously has plenty in it.
He probably has enough in the profits box and elsewhere that he wouldn't mind if it just mysteriously went missing, right?
I quickly, but silently walk over behind the merchant, whose eye are still fixated on the show in the streets. I quickly glance over to the wagon, and I see the smoke is starting to clear up a bit, and the sparklers are starting to die down. I have only a little bit longer before the fireworks die out and my distraction ends.
My left hand carefully pinches the bag between my index and middle fingers, and I slowly, steadily, lift the bag out of it's holster, my eyes watching the merchant for any sign of trouble. Eventually, I lift the bag out of his holster, and stash it in my pocket, and I quickly make my leave, right as the bottlerocket screams into the air, bursting high over the crowd, releasing rainbow-hued sparks to slowly drift over the dumb-struck crowd.
Perfectly done. I smile to myself. Sometimes, I am just so awesome I surprise myself.
I quickly head over to the boys, who were watching the whole shebang sitting on the steps of the building they are in front of, with the younger one with his mouth still hanging-open, and the older one with a big, stupid grin plastered on his face.
I walk over to them, and snap them out of their trance.
"Wow, that was awesome! See, guys? Told you people wouldn't know what hit them!" I flash a huge grin, satisfied with my plan going off without a hitch.
"Yeah, that was amazing! No one saw it coming, it was so cool!" The older brother tells me excitedly, his mouth shooting off at a million miles-per-hour. The younger one didn't say anything, but he had a satisfied look in his eyes that told me liked it oo.
"Well, thanks for letting me use your wagon for that. As a reward, here's a few coins I found laying around. It should be plenty enough to buy you a new, unburned wagon, and whatever else you might enjoy." I give them a warm smile, and hand them gold coins out of the merchants purse.
The boys eyes widen at the gold put into their hands, giving them a nice chunk of the "profits" I made.
"Wow, thanks!" they both say, in a gaspy voice.
"No problems, kiddos. You guys deserve it. You can buy three new, big wagons if you wanted, or maybe something even better! Catch you guys later.
With a wink and grin, I turn away from the kids and walk back the way I came, headed for the alleys to head back home. I now can stuff my face with no regrets, and I have enough money to buy me some new junk to fiddle around with and sell here at The Strip for the future, and enough cash to keep me feed for weeks. Jingling the fat pouch in my pocket, I feel the weight of a week's struggle of poverty and worry evaporate off my shoulders, feeling like it just took off forty pounds of worry. I whistle a small, happy little tune, and head back to my little shack, through the twisted alleys.
Or, at least, that's what I would have done, if I didn't suddenly hear "STOP! THIEF!" cutting through the air like a knife through butter. Shocked and startled, I turn towards the cry, and my heart sinks to see the meat merchant stabbing his pointer finger in my direction. Before I know it, he and some of the chefs working the meat at the open grills start charging in my direction, their eyes fixed on me, with the fiery shine of anger in their eyes.
"Ah, shit!" I spit to myself through my clenched teeth, and I start hauling ass towards the close-quartered, twisty maze of alleyways in hopes of shaking them off my tail.