"Sir," said a voice quickly. The voice came from a black-jacketed, sunglasses-wearing, Red Techo. He was bowing in front of a tall figure... the tall figure of Arak, to be exact.
"Well?" demanded Arak in his usual grumpy, arrogant tone. "What do you have to report?"
"As you are quite aware, my -"
"If I'm quite aware of it, why are you telling me?" Arak snapped sharply. He did not have the time to hear things if he already knew them.
The Red Techo paused and then bowed again. "Sorry, my lord. But this news is most useful to your quest... Nath has been spotted laughing with Aqua!"
"Yes?" snapped Arak. "And what am I supposed to do about it? As much as I dislike those airheaded Unis, I can't exactly forbid them from laughing with each other!"
"No, sir," said the Red Techo, "but they were laughing about leaving Neopia Central, and heading to the fabled Great Omelette to the far east!"
"Were they, now?" Arak considered. "Thank you, Mr. Tech, you have been most informative."
The Red Techo bowed very low, said, "glad to be of service, sir," and left. Arak started muttering to himself, thinking, comparing, considering...
"Insubordination... desertion... yes... that might just work..."
Then he turned around and sank low down onto his chair.
"But I have a better plan..."
Sometimes, when Aqua couldn't sleep, she thought. She thought herself to sleep. She wondered what her life would have been like had her owner not abandoned her. Yet it was worse than normal abandonment – she hadn't been dropped off in the pound and hadn't been given a chance at a newer, nicer owner. She had simply been left, her owner never to return.
After a period of fruitless waiting, Aqua and Bal left their old home and then they discovered Arak's elite group of thieves. Aqua convinced herself and her sister Bal that humans were invaders, idiots, and the real villains of Neopia.
However – and she felt guilty for even thinking this – deep in the bottom of her heart, she just wanted to be a normal Neopet in a nice house with food and, yes, one of those despicable humans...
"More raids!" spat the Chia Police Chief. "This is getting worse and worse. We need to make Neopia confident that we aren't entering a period of chaos like we did with the first Meridell War way back in year 4."
"How can we do that?" asked a Chia Police Constable. "We don't even know the ringleader."
"Reward money!" cried the Chia Police Chief confidently. "If we increase the reward money to 500,000NP, informants are bound to come forward!"
The Chia Police Constable looked on uncertainly."Increasing the reward money to 500,000NP isn't going to make people suddenly know about the raids."
"You're right," agreed the Chia Police Chief. "800,000NP it is."
Aqua had been summoned. She had to go to Arak's lair for a new mission. This meant that she wasn't just waiting around the marketplace for easy pickings, which Aqua was very grateful for.
She walked along the eerie blue cave towards Arak's lair, when she bumped into a familiar person.
"Nath!" she exclaimed happily. "Did Arak summon you too?"
"Yes," Nath nodded.
"Oh," Aqua sighed, secretly wanting to go on with 'this will be wonderful' but she wasn't sure if Nath would appreciate her saying that.
Aqua and Nath kept walking along the pathway, until they got to the bluest area of the blue cave: Arak's lair.
"You are late!" he declared angrily. "Time is money, and money is something we are rather short on at the moment!"
"Sorry, sir," Aqua mumbled, but Nath was much less repentant.
"You told us one o'clock, Arak, and here we are, and it's only twelve-fifty. What do you have to tell us?"
"The two of you have been selected to rob the National Neopian Bank," he told them, coldly.
"The National Neopian Bank?" Nath asked in disbelief. "Are you crazy, Arak? Are you quite right in the head?"
Arak gave Nath a withering look, and even Nath took that as a sign not to argue.
"When are we going?" Aqua asked quietly.
"Noon tomorrow," said Arak, scarcely masking how triumphant he was.
"With all respect, Arak... I am not robbing the National Neopian Bank in broad daylight! Madness..." Nath shook his head.
"You will, Nath," Arak said flatly. "You have no choice."
"There's always a choice!" Nath exclaimed.
"Well, yes, I suppose," Arak thought, "but the consequences aren't very nice for those who fail to carry out orders."
Nath sighed reluctantly. "Fine. Tomorrow it is. Come on, Aqua."
Aqua followed obligingly as Nath swept out of the dungeon, while Arak smirked. He took out a piece of paper and scibbled a short message onto it. When he was done, he folded it and scribbled two words on the empty front.
"Send this to the Chia Police, will you?" he asked one of his Yellow Skeith cronies.
"What do you MEAN you're supposed to rob the bank tomorrow?" Bal asked her sister, wide-eyed, which munching into a Ummagine. "And in broad daylight too? That's madness!"
"I know," Aqua replied. "Sometimes you have to wonder what goes through the head of that Arak. He can't really expect us to successfully pull off a robbery in the middle of the day, can he?"
"Of course not!" Bal threw the words savagely. "He's up to something sister, and you know it. Can't you escape Neopia or something?"
"No time," Aqua sighed. "Besides, where would we go? Meridell's closest, but is close a good thing? Would the Space Station or Kreludor be better? How would we get there?"
"You could refuse," Bal suggested hopefully.
"You think Arak'd let me do that?" Aqua laughed sourly. "No no no, certainly not. He'd send at least one of his yellow brutes after me. Or you."
Bal sighed. "You should have found a better gang of thieves," she remarked.
"Is there such a thing as a good gang of thieves?" Aqua asked to herself.
That night, while Aqua slept, Bal crept out from their hiding place under the stairs. It was raining, but she didn't care in the slightest. She found her way to the catacombs, lit only by the torches surrounding the chamber. She headed down a hidden, unlit passage. After a while, she ran and then bolted: she had to be there and back before Aqua woke up.
"Arak!" she cried, upon entering the ancient temple and the end.
"Lady Baline," Arak smiled warmly, holding what appeared to be a goblet of some exotic drink. "What do you want me to do for you?"
"Call off the bank robbery tomorrow!" Bal cried desperately, her fur flinging water everywhere from her walk in the rain. "Can't you see it's madness? Aqua and Nath will get caught for sure, you big... stupid... brainless idiot."
Arak stood up and walked in a large circle around her. "My dear Bal," he said, "you really ought to learn to let go of things. You're old enough to carve your own destiny."
Bal was flabbergasted. "You know they're going to be...? I mean, of course, but..." Bal paused, mouth wide open, then she turned around and bolted out the exit. She made her way through the long passage that would, eventually, let her out at the main chamber of the catacombs.
Arak turned to his cronies. "Get her," he ordered.
The Yellow Skeiths lumbered after Bal. Although she technically should have held the upper hand, the Yellow Aisha was tired from getting there in the first place and the Skeiths caught up. They took her in the opposite direction of where she was hoping to go, and back to Arak's lair.
"You shouldn't leave us so fast, Bal," Arak said, with no trace of the warm voice that had been his three minutes before. "You might be of use to us."
Bal was dragged away by a small group of the Yellow Skeiths, to some small cell where she was to be held captive.
Aqua woke up the next morning. She had suffered from terrible dreams overnight that usually involved the owner that had abandoned her reappearing and telling her there was another way. The rest of the dream was devoted to Arak, who laughed insanely at Aqua, no matter what she did. To her, that settled it: she was going to tell Arak that she would not participate in the robbery.
Well, at least that was her plan until she discovered Bal was missing. "Bal?" she cried. "Bal, where are you?"
Probably off scavenging food somewhere, a little voice in Aqua's head reasoned. She wouldn't try to do anything silly like dissuade Arak from his robbery...
Aqua decided to go and tell Arak in the meantime that she was not participating, and that he should choose another thief instead. Maybe Laia, she was far more experienced...
It was a foggy day. Aqua headed through the fog and climbed into the catacombs, which was very wet and drippy due to being underground. She headed down the so familiar route to Arak's lair. And then she got there. Apparently Arak had expected her: he was standing right there in front of her.
"Aqua," he said severely. "You weren't thinking of disobeying my orders, were you?"
"I... I..." Aqua took a gulp and tried to calm down. "So what if I was? You don't have anything that can make me! I can leave the gang, go to the soup kitchen..."
"Bal is allergic to soup," Arak pointed out, almost casually.
"Well, yeah, but we could move to Tyrannia and both live on omelette instead..." she paused. "I didn't tell you Bal was allergic to soup!"
"You didn't need to," Arak said, "I discovered it when she refused to touch any this morning."
"This morning?" Aqua asked. "She didn't..." Finally, she clued on to all these subtle hints Arak had given her.
"That's right, Aqua. I have your sister."
Aqua gasped. This situation was not going to be easy to get out of...
