Chapter 3: The Heist

Flynn Rider leapt nearly five feet into the air. He caught the gutter of a rooftop and scrambled on top, marble tiles grating underneath his penny loafers, and kept running. The Stabbington brothers were right behind him.

He had done his homework before the heist of course, like every aspiring thief debonaire should. Months of staking out and eating rats-on-a-stick under a bridge have finally paid off. He knew the layout of the castle like the back of his hand; he knew which minaret provided the best vantage point to the streets below, the patrol route of every guard in the district, where the keys to the underground dungeon were hidden and where the larder was. But most importantly, he knew, somewhere in the labyrinthine maze of towering rooftops and bell-shaped spires, was the target of their infiltration. The one thing that would change his life forever and make his dreams come true. Was it even such a mystery as to what it was? Nothing more than the royal crown of the Lost Princess! Sapphire-studded, ruby-rimmed, diamond-crested; he'll find out soon enough if all that was actually true, that it truly was beautiful as word of mouth claimed it to be. For all he knew and cared, it might very well be made of cardboard. The only thought in his mind was that that crown was going to make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. And he could dream pretty big.

Flynn hurdled a dormer, slid past a railing and skidded through an empty gutter. Rooftop running was nothing new to him. At an early age he found out that the stall-keepers couldn't catch you if you were several stories above them, which led to clean getaways with freshly-purloined food, which was always a good thing. All these dormer-jumping and gutter-grinding, these were child's play to him, second nature. The same couldn't be said to the two brothers though.

He skidded to a halt, inspecting the back of his hand impatiently as he waited for the brothers to make the jump.

He heard a horrible crash and something dying behind him, and instantly knew it had to be one of them. "How much further?" the eye-patched one (let's call 'em Cyclops) said, panting heavily, brushing the poor bird he just squashed off his sleeve. His brother Cutjack - Cyclops's twin and equal in every aspect except the number of intact eyeballs - plummeted onto the roof with all the grace of a pirate with a wooden leg trying to do ballet. He wasn't looking too good either.

"Take a breather, big guys. We're almost there." He gave them both an encouraging smile, "Good job, nailed the jumping part. I'll give you . . . an eight for that. Now you just have to work on the landing." They made a growling sound amidst their incessant panting; obviously they were not very fond of being patronized.

He leaned over the edge, checking the streets just for any surprises that might put a nail in their coffin like an unscheduled drill or surprise safety inspection- and was instead completely breath-taken by the sight.

"Wow, I could get used to a view like this," he said, dreamily. Sunlight glinted off the terra cotta roofs. Further out there was the azure outline of the cityscape, and further out still, endless green pastures, then massive impenetrable jungle for as far as the eye can see. The kingdom didn't look so bad atop this spire, for a while it nearly made him forget that it had its ugly spots too: shanty slums and shady alleyways, little kids wandering around barefoot and begging for money. Funny how he didn't see any of it up here, or maybe he just didn't want to. He had left that part of his life miles behind in blazes; it was dead to him.

"Rider."

He blinked for a second. The first thought that came to him was, "Yep, I'm used to it. Guys, I want a castle."

Cyclops's frown actually deepened. "Once we finish the job, you can buy your own castle."

Flynn made his way to the edge, and without looking down, he swan-dived. Granted, with a lot more panache than was needed to spite the brothers. His eyes were closed, his chocolate hair was fluttering madly in the wind, free-falling down several dozen feet. He landed atop a skylight with a smooth tumble-roll. The glass made a faint 'tink' sound, but otherwise no one underneath seemed to notice him. He caught the brothers mumbling discontentedly about show-offs and bashing heads. Their stunt was much clumsier; they dented a huge crater of broken ceramic where they fell.

"Good show, boys."

Cutjack huffed, "Shut up, Rider."

"You know, you have to ask, why put a skylight directly on top of the most expensive jewel in the kingdom?" He peered through the glass, "Look at it! It's just begging to be stolen!"

Flynn had only just begun when he felt a strong hand grip him from behind, and he was dragged face-down onto the roof-tiles. He thought maybe this time he'd pushed it too far, but then Cutjack was laying flat next to him too, while Cyclops was half-crouching, half-sneaking up to peek past the other side of the gambrel. "Get down," one of them hissed.

If Flynn could squint hard enough he could see it: the faint silhouette of a palace guard up in a watchtower, nonchalantly twirling a bow in his hand and periodically bending down to pick it up after dropping it. "Archer at eleven-o-clock."

Cyclops fixated a menacing leer on Flynn. "You didn't say anything about archers."

"New schedule, maybe?" he replied, shrugging innocently.

"He hasn't spotted us," Cutjack noted, "But we have to work quick." He shoved a pair of rope into his hands, watching him expectantly. Flynn looked at the rope, then to the brothers, and back to the rope again. A wave of understanding struck him, and he nodded. He fixed the pulley and began strapping himself for the skylight descent. "In and out. Quick and simple."

'The dream, Flynn,' he reminded himself, 'Remember the dream.' A private island. Enormous piles of mo-neh. Surely all this would be worth it in the end. Besides, it wasn't Eugene Fitzherbert who was stealing. It was Flynn Rider. Flynn Rider, whose world was his oyster, who could do anything he wanted, and was not the pitiful orphan boy who sold match-sticks and worked at the coal mine until his fingers bled.

They removed the window-pane with nothing but brute force, flinging it halfway across the country, and grabbing Flynn by his hair (his oh-so-beautiful hair!), they lowered him into the castle using the rope, letting him descend down slowly and steadily. Into the chamber of the Lost Princess.

Flynn never thought of himself as the artistic type, he could never really look too much into juxtaposition and contrast in interior design, other than how much the furniture cost and how easy they would be to carry away without anyone noticing. But even he could still appreciate the dazzling display of wealth slowly growing in front of him, the chandelier glow that was bathing the stately halls with a warm, mellow hue; the grand chiseled pillars; the smooth-as-glass marble floor. The one that captivated his eyes most lay in the centre of this whole panorama. Sparkling atop a royal-velvet cushion and surrounded by guards. Yes, it was as lovely as they said.

He picked it up with dainty hands. The dream, the island, the piles of money, they were all sitting delicately in his hands right now, as if he could see them right there, captured in the brilliant mirror of the diamonds. He saw exactly what he's always wanted: a castle of his own, a chariot with the finest stallions, harems, butlers, and all the chamomile jelly you could eat. He was so close. So close. So close . . .

One of the guards sneezed.

He couldn't stop himself. "Hay fever?"

"Yeah," the guard said to the suspended bandit stealing the Lost Princess's crown, and went back to guarding it.

O.O

"What's taking him so long?" Cyclops complained.

"Hold the reins. I'll take a peek."

Cutjack looked down. It wasn't hard to hear him, his voice had this irksome nasal quality that made it never leave your head, and it didn't look like he was in any sort of trouble. It just struck him as nonsensical to stop by in the middle of the biggest heist of the century to chat with the guards about allergies. Knowing Flynn, he should have seen this coming. "Uh-oh," came his brother's voice behind him.

"What?"

That was all he could say before he felt a hot blur whiz past him and graze his sideburns. The arrow would have pierced deep into the back of his head, if it weren't for his experienced fighting instincts that told him, for some inexplicable reason, to take one sidestep to the left.

"Stop! Thieves!" the cry rang out through the air as he aimed for the second arrow.

Fumbling in ecstasy, Cutjack and Cyclops pulled at the rope desperately, until Flynn shot back up like a coiled spring.

"I have it!" he cried out in excitement and stuffed the tiara into his satchel bag, just as another arrow flew straight into a chimney, "I have it."

"What took you so long?"

"Don't even bother to ask," Cutjack interjected, "Come on, let's get out of here."

"Right. Back where we came from."

They skittered across the dome, and scaled up the walls of the clock tower, the guard shooting volley after volley of arrows at them. Good thing the Sun was out, the glare was making them all the harder to hit. Down below, klaxons were wailing, guards were shouting, and a whole army of red trench-coats were pouring into the streets below them like army ants. They climbed to the opposite side of the tower, and they heard the last arrow lodge itself into the stone on the other side with a resolute thud, followed quickly by a loud curse from the archer.

"So what's the escape plan, Rider?" one of them huffed.

He nearly lost his footing. "Right, the escape plan. I have an escape plan. We need to escape! Of course!"

"Well?"

"Erm . . . the canals?"

"They've locked it up tight. Iron gates."

"Ohkay. What about the slums?"

"The guards will have it quarantined in the next hour. We'll be trapped."

"Mountainside?"

"What mountainside? This is an island."

"Okay. Okay. What about hiding in plain sight?" he said with a theatrical donning of his hood, "We could disguise ourselves. Walk incognito amongst the streets. Sneak the crown right underneath their unsuspecting little noses and when they least expect it -"

"Risky."

He clambered onto the top. "Well, I'm out of ideas," he said, throwing his hands out in exasperation, " I don't hear anything coming from you guys. There's only so much genius to go around here."

Cutjack peered into the distance. His eyes swept across the horizon, finally resting upon the green outskirts of Corona KIngdom. "There." He pointed. "We'll lose them in the forest."

"Oh sure, yeah. That sounds pretty reasonable. Though you might be forgetting a small, tiny insignificant detail here. They'll have horses!" he yelled out vehemently, "How are we supposed to outrun them?"

"Run fast. Don't look back. And if things get hairy . . . " Cyclops gave his brother a knowing look, "Throw the rider."

For all his quick wit, Flynn was pretty slow on the uptake. By the time he realized what the Stabbington's planned contingency was about, they had already slid down, vaulting from roof to roof to the palace gates. Flynn leapt over the edge, using a clothesline to rappel down to the floor where the brothers were waiting for him. They began sprinting again, past the bridge that would lead them to the forest.

"Can you just picture me in a palace?" he said with a sweet sunshine voice, as if the physical exertion of the whole morning had barely broken a sweat out of him, "All the things we've seen and it's only eight o' clock in the morning! Gentlemen, this is a very big day!"

Author's note: This has been, by far, the favourite chapter I have ever had the pleasure of writing. The opening heist scene in the movie gave me shivers, and I did my best to capture the same feeling of action in this chapter. I added a few extra dialogue, and modified a bit of whatnot, just to keep the pacing smooth.

And of course, a big thank you to all my readers, I hope you've enjoyed the ride.