Gooooooooood this took way too long. I really don't like how this chapter turned out either. The beginning is weird and I had to rewrite the end like, four times. Blah. Whatever.

Good news tho, average chapter length is getting longer as it goes on! Chapter 13 is up to almost 4k? So, yeah, that's a thing.

Be expecting another post here sometime soon.

I smirked at the hero in front of me. El Tigre gawked at me from several feet below, seemingly not entirely convinced that it was actually me he was seeing. I placed the jewel back into its spot in the sculpture, not taking my eyes off of him. I'd get it later, after I won the this fight. And man, was I looking forward to a fight.

"Are you just going to stare, or should we get on with it?" I called to him, my voice carrying the anticipation I was feeling. El Tigre shook, snapping out of whatever it was he was thinking. A thought passed through my head of how stupid he looked.

"Uhhh," I rolled my eyes. Guess this was just not his night. Oh well, better for me. I jumped down the scaffolding that was scattered around the tall sculpture, maneuvering my way between the invisible alarm lasers with practiced ease. The setup was pretty generic for a priceless artifact, and I could plainly see the connectors and receivers dotting the area. Really, it was as if the museum director wanted it to be stolen.

I landed several feet away from El Tigre, who still had yet to shut his mouth. I twisted my neck, cracking the joints in preparation of the fight.

"Well?" I assumed fighting stance and waited for him to react. It wasn't like I didn't want the first strike, but victory was always sweeter when it was hard won. He jumped again, shocked into movement, and quickly raised his hands up in a 'no harm' gesture.

"Whoa whoa whoa, what? No," His eyebrows knitted together and the corner of his mouth twisted up. It was a... confusing, expression, "I don't want to fight you!" I didn't move. No way was I going to fall for some cheap tactic used to lower my guard. Not again.

"Nice try, Tigre, but if you're not here to fight me, then what are you here for?" I all but spat out and smirked as I caught him in his lie.

"Actually, I was going to steal that," he pointed to the jewel I had not moments ago, the other hand coming up to scratch at the back of his neck. I flinched back from him, apprehensive. In all these past months of fighting him, I'd forgotten that he did evil too. Well, as evil as stealing a few things here and there was, anyways. I tensed back into my fighting stance, narrowing my eyes further.

"Well, if you want it, then fight me." My words hung in the air for a few seconds as he stared at me.

"Um, no, I didn't really want it anyway," he finally said, minutely shrugging his shoulders. I finally relaxed from my fighting pose and rolled my head. Of course. Typical hero play. First, come here to steal something, then let the guy who got here first have it. How nice of him. I turned back to the sculpture and preceded to start the climb back up. No matter what El Tigre was here to do, he was not going to ruin this for me.

This, being my first heist after a humiliating day full of ice cream and puppies followed by several weeks of solitude. When I finally plucked the rather large jewel back out of the sculpture and jumped back down to the floor, I noticed that El Tigre was still standing there.

"What?" I hissed at him. He didn't seem to notice the blatant annoyance in my voice. Couldn't he tell that he wasn't welcome?

"Duuude, you have got to show me how to do that!" He exclaimed after a few seconds of awkward staring. Show him what? How to properly steal something? The confusion must have shown on my face because he started making rapid hand gestures at me. "Those flips, with the lasers! That was so cool!" He drew out his vowels and I felt my face get hot. Was he being serious?

"I've been trying to do that for years, and you just made it look so easy! Come on, you've got to teach me!" He clasped his hands together in front of me and started shaking them. Was he… begging? What was even happening right now?

"Uhhh…" I felt my voice catch as he looked at me with big eyes. For a moment I was drawn yet again to his expression, reminding me of all those months ago, the first time I'd seen an expression like that. Something innocent and honest. And just like before, I felt myself leaning a little closer to him.

"Sure," the word was out of my mouth before I had time to process it, and Tigre was dancing excitedly away from me not seconds later. I snapped my back straight again, turning away from him. What did I just agree too?

I took a second to close my eyes. This wasn't all bad, not like the last time. After all, there were no ulterior motives to this (probably) and it was on my time instead of his. Unfortunately, there was no Frida around to spill all the details if there was something more to this. Oh well, I could just ditch at the first sign of trouble. No big deal.

"What are we gonna do first?" My bones creaked as I jumped, the voice coming from directly behind me.

"Uh, well," I turned back to Tigre and immediately made the decision to not look him in the eyes. I could not let this end up someplace I was not prepared for.

"What exactly do you want to learn?"

"Hey, watch this one." Tigre pushed his fingers onto his face and stuck his tongue out, forming what looked like a brain-dead zombie with a serious case of constipation. I choked, trying my best to hold in my laughter. I clutched my shit tighter, willing myself to be quiet. I heard his soft chuckles next to me as he finally moved back into the small space the cameras couldn't see. I glared at him when I finally had myself under control.

"Tigre, stop that. We're suppose to be using stealth," I whispered angrily. There was still a smile on my face though, and he laughed a little.

"What's the point of robbing something if you can't have fun?" He smirked at me, obviously assuming he had the better argument. Well, you know what they say about assuming things.

"The point is to not get caught, and you making faces at the cameras doesn't help." Honestly, it was a miracle we hadn't been caught yet. The amount of time Tigre spent doing childish things to the random cameras spread throughout the hedge maze was astonishing. What was even more astonishing was the amount of time the guards spent actually watching the footage, or rather, lack thereof.

He shrugged. "So? If we get caught, that just means I get to practice all these cool moves you've been showing me." I stared as he smiled at me.

"You're suppose to practice on the lasers, not the guards. Great-Grandmother El Tigre, have you even-" A loud siren cut off my scolding, and I gave him my best 'you see?' expression. He at least had the mind to look sheepish. I sighed as guards came running, and we both sprang into action.

We were almost like a well oiled machine at this point. He jumped, slashed, pivoted, ducked and weaved while I shot, gabbed, sliced, blocked and dodged. We fought well with each other, most of it coming from me knowing all of his fight styles. Even after months of not seeing him fight, I was still able to predict his moves like clockwork. After just a few weeks of training together, we were unstoppable.

"Tigre, go right!" I yelled to him. The guard that had snuck their way up beside him swung their baton, but Tigre flipped effortlessly away, a move that I taught him. It was more effective with stationary objects like lasers or traps, but he still managed to pull it off. I watched in slow motion as his back arched away from the baton, tail twisting to help give balanche. He landed not even a foot away from his attacker and swung his fist, knocking the guard flat onto the ground.

I fell to the ground as a baton collided with my shoulder. Too distracted with Tigre exchanged, I hadn't noticed the guards coming up behind me. Jeez, how many of them were there? Was this garden statue really that priceless that the owner needed over twenty full-time guards? Or were they just so bored and desperate for something to happen that ever guard in a one-mile radius came running at the sound of the siren?

Tigre rushed to me aide, bringing down the remaining guards swiftly using a nearby bench. He helped me up from the ground, smiling something wicked. I rubbed the back of my head, still sore from hitting the ground and the oncoming headache of Tigre's victory speech.

"Come on," I said before he could open his mouth, turning to the exit, "let's get out of here."

We were walking down a sidewalk, the not-even-close-to-midnight air barely cooling down from the day's heat. We had finished with our planned robbery way earlier than expected, probably due to fact that knocking out all the guards made avoiding the alarms a moot point. Tigre held the small statue in one hand, tossing it back and forth. He reminded me of a cat.

An elbow jabbed into my side, and I pulled myself out of thoughts of yarn and string.

"Django of the Brain Dead, you in there?" I made a face at the nickname. He seemed to have a lot of those, most of them unpleasant. I raised an eyebrow at him to show I was listening.

"I said, do you want to go to the arcade?" he said in a slight rush, impatience showing. Weren't we on the proverbial clock? Why did he want to go there?

"Why?" We did technically have the rest of the night free, did he want to go steal something else? I'd never been to an arcade, but I doubted that it had anything worth more than a few quick bucks. He rolled his eyes at me, shaking his head as though he just heard the most ridiculous thing.

"Because it's fun," he said as though it was obvious. To him, it probably was. He smiled at me in that way that I had come to hate over the past few weeks. I looked away from him, praying to whoever was listening that maybe this time I would have the willpower to say no to that expression. He grabbed my arm and I looked back at him.

"Fine."