Chapter 20

Skips dropped it and shook his head. He had a headache that would not let him ignore it. He decided to go back to the house for an icepack. Hopefully he wouldn't accidentally wake anyone up. However, unlocking the backdoor and listening to the silence of the house for a second he acknowledged that everyone must of gone to sleep.

He quickly grabbed what he was after and filled it with ice. He then placed it on his head as he sat down at the table. He relaxed himself and went over the conversation he had with that Hugo character.

For a so called newbie, he was more informed than what he should be. And he was hiding power in him. As long as he's been immortal, he has never known an immortal such as himself having that. Only certain ones get that power. Ones like Death or Angoisser.

His head pinched at him again and he grunted and laid his head on the table and decided for his sake that he should let it go once more and turned his attention back to that crappy cat and mouse metaphor he told Benson. And then he felt the guilt of what he had said the other meaning was. Not to give up.

But just like Hugo said. He did give up on finding Benson. He had chosen to ignore the fact that the poor unstable gumball machine was lost and needed to be found. He had made a promise that he would be there to help him when he finally opened up to him.

Only now does it dawn on him that he waited too long to want to help. Benson needed someone to go to him and tell him everything would be ok. He had every chance to do it, but instead he picked staying out of it until Benson came to him. He should have known that there was no way that would have happened.

The guy was trapped within depression and was too holed up in his turtle shell to be able to come out on his own. He needs someone to coax him out and present to him the chances he is looking for to rewrite himself.

After his head began to feel better he gets up and leaves to icepack in the freezer and began his slow trek home after locking back up. He then picks up on a sound coming from a couple of bushes next to him. Curious but cautious, he steps up to it and is dragged in. Not wanting his assailant to have the upper hand he pushes up on the guy's armpits throwing him off and he quickly trips him up by sliding his foot in behind his legs and pinning him to the ground.

"Woah! Woah, woah, woah!" Carl nearly screamed. He held up his hands to Skips in a submitting motion. The yeti rolls his eyes and helps him up. Before he could say anything he was hushed and asked to follow as the human began leading him away. They come across the Park gates where a police van was waiting for them. He ushers for the yeti to get in.

It was obvious to him that they had found out something that might require his assistance and hopped into the van and waited as Carl closed the door. He then stared over to the chair the human pointed at. Raymond turned around in it in a mischief manner. "Welcome to our secret base of operations Skips," he says to him. Once again his eyes roll in his eye sockets.

Raymond uncrosses his legs and leans forward. "Before we talk, we need to make some ground rules. First off, you will keep this secret from everyone at the Park and everyone else who is involved in this case."

Skips plays along and nods to the first one. Ray acknowledged it and continued. "Second, in here we go by code names in case anything happens and things get hairy. Comprendé?" Another sarcastic nod, but the cheetah was gullible enough to believe it. "Alright then! What code name you want? Mine's 'Speedy-Spotted-Sportier' and he's the 'Pale Hulk with a 'Stache'!"

"Uh, well," Skips mumbles.

"I got a name for him!" Carl pipes up. All Skips thought at that moment was uh oh. The cheetah man awaited quietly. "His code name is... 'General Fur'!" Ray o.k.'s it as Skips looks at both of them funny. "I'm not doing that."

"Okay, fine. Now that that's out of the way, on to why we brought you here." Ray clicks on a link on the computer screen and started typing and pulling up other things. "Pale Hulk and I have been working as undercover agents for the case of 'mysterious people and floating jewels'." No duh. "In our observations of the tapes of the security cameras we got from the places that had been robbed or the strange people have been seen in, we discovered something interesting. Check it out!"

He clicks play on one of the videos he had on the screen and motioned for him to come over. It was from one of the cameras at night and like Mr. Maellard said he watched as what looked like a priceless jewel seemed to begin floating into the air right in front of one of the guards. The poor guard tries to grab it as he called for backup, but it was out of reach and then swiftly it fled left out of view of the camera. He assumed it headed for the entrance.

He leaned back against the wall of the vehicle and sighed. Ray clicked on another few videos and they showed that the time was same time Maellard said that the mysterious people showed up and sure enough, there they were. And they walked along with the crowd, some stood around, and he noticed one of them look at a camera almost like it was wary of what it might do.

It was hard to tell what they were. Even their shapes were too odd to even think about. Another thing he noticed was that they walked a little off too. Not just one of them, all of them.

Ray stops the vids and eyes the yeti. "So what do you think? Quite questionable, am I right?"

"You are correct," Skips mumbled. "So what do you need my help for?"

"We needed a third head," began Carl, then Raymond took over and elaborated more. "This whole thing has us completely baffled. We know for sure that the thieving happens at night and the shady people appear during the day. We went further into investigation and picked out some of the people you see in the vids that could have had contact with them. No one had seen them or had any idea who we were talking about.

"After we figured that asking the maybe witnesses would provide nothing, we convinced some of the fellow guards at each place to give us some info that they picked up on, or knew from experience. They told us that whoever decided to go ahead and steal was a clever bastard or bastards. It might be believed that some pulley system was used in the theft.

"See here," he points at the vid that showed the jewel being stolen, "as the jewel gets pulled straight up and then straight left? Seeing this video kind of proves that theory. However, something seems way too fishy about it though. We just can't place it though."

Skips looks at the frozen in place picture and thinks the information over. He began to try and unravel the truth from this web of confusion. But he couldn't think of anything that could explain it in the regular scientific way, so he thought it over in a supernatural way. He thought a possibility to explain everything might be phantoms.

He wasn't sure, but he knew that most of Mr. Maellard's priceless collections had important histories to them and some of them consisted of vengeful ancestors that would of done anything to get back their jewelry. Even come back from the dead.

He turns back to the camera videos. "Could you play the jewel thievery one over?" He complies and sets it back to the beginning. As it plays they all watch closely as they jewel suddenly floats up. He then clicks the mouse fast and they stare at the paused pic.

Raymond and Carl's eyes grew wide. Skips points to what looks like a glowing transparent hand that was holding the pricy item. "I do believe that the pulley theory can be disband completely because we, my friends," he looks them both in the eyes, "have a phantom."

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