"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...
A chubby Chief Chia Police Officer read the note given to him through about ten lower ranks of the Chia Police force. He read it and chuckled amusedly, munching happily on a packet of Cheesy Neos.
"Look at this!" he told his Chia Police Constable. "I told you raising the reward to 800,000NP would help!"
The Chia Police Constable took the note. "It tells you everything, sir!" the Constable exclaimed in surprise. For once in his superior's life, he had been right. "Aqua and Nath..." he paused. "Do these Aqua and Nath Unis have any criminal record?"
The Chief Chia Police Officer didn't bother to wipe Cheesy Neo crumbs off his fingers before tapping away at a laptop in front of him. "No," he confirmed. A pause, then, "hey, I'm the superior. I'm supposed to give the orders!"
"Right you are, sir, but I think it would be best to intercept -"
"Shut up, Constable. This is what I want your junior to do: they must intercept the thieves and take them in for questioning. Then, this Anonymous person will step forward and will give him 800,000NP for his remarkable effort."
The Constable just managed to resist snorting. Yes, it took a lot of effort to write a note.
Aqua ran away from Arak's lair quickly. What should she do? Save Bal and go on with the raid? Save herself and Nath and refuse? Could she think of a way to both refuse and save Bal? If she could, that would obviously be the best option.
Aqua wandered dejectedly through the central shopping district. Outrageous bundles of clothes waddled out of the clothing boutique. Aqua didn't bother to wonder why many of them ended up stuck with sunglasses in winter. It was simply to insignificant to bother her troubled mind with. Even if she had a plan, she had no idea where Nath was, and therefore she couldn't tell him.
To ease the pressure on her mind, and possibly with some vague notion of revenge for all the times her feet were trodden on, Aqua decided to practise some simple pickpocketing. After being bonked on the head several times by angry potential victims, Aqua decided that she was a bit too distracted to pickpocket successfully that day.
As the crowd bustled relentlessly around her, Aqua was aware of her name being called. Looking around, she couldn't see anyone for all the crazy winter clothes and tall owners. Finally, with a little pushing and shoving of her own, she finally located a furious Nath in the crowd. Not furious at her, thankfully.
"Aqua!" Nath repeated upon walking closer. He's familiar face was rather comforting to Aqua, who was feeling slightly overwhelmed by the large crowds. "Do you know what that vile man's gone and done?"
"Held my sister hostage," Aqua replied glumly. "He's despicable. Just so we can give him his stupid few million NP! Who needs a few million NP? I'd be happy with 2,000..."
Nath nodded. "But do you know what else he did, Aqua?"
"No..."
"That vile man tipped the Chia Police off!" With some difficulty because he was a Uni, Nath started to drag a confused Aqua after him as he ran away from the crowds.
"What?" Aqua decided that was a useless question and amended it. "How? Why?"
"When we go to rob the bank, the Chia Police will be there, if all goes according to plan, to arrest us! And not only that, Arak earns 800,000NP for his efforts!"
"But why?"
Nath shrugged. "Maybe he heard us talking about the fabled Omelette," he replied. "At any rate, he's made sure to give you a dilemma."
Aqua was horrified, and as a result ignored Nath's 'you', assuming it to be one of those words you say instead of another while panicking. "What do we do?" she asked. "If we carry out Arak's plans... if we don't..."
Nath looked down somewhat ashamedly. "I think the best thing to do would be to go into hiding," he told her quietly. "Or, not hiding as such. Start a new life on another world. Arak and the Police would never bother us again."
Aqua looked at him. Her eyes were full of, if Nath had dared look at them, hurt and surprise. "But we can't just leave Bal," she protested, her voice with the same expression Nath had not seen.
"What would Bal say if she were here now?" Nath asked soothingly – almost reasonably. Only, it wasn't a reasonable remark, at least not to Aqua.
"Well," Aqua thought, "she'd tell us to leave her behind. But Bal is noble. Leaving her behind is nothing more than a wet cop out. You do know that, Nath."
"Well, what do you propose we do?" Nath asked kindly.
Aqua considered this question. Finally emerging from the bustling crowd, Aqua felt it was safe to speak. "When Arak leaves his lair to gloat over our organised demise – as he undoubtedly will – we strike," she told him confidently.
"Yellow Skeiths will be swarming the lair," Nath protested. Aqua shook her head adamantly.
"They are slow," she insisted desperately. "If we can get past them, we can free Bal."
"They are strong," Nath argued. "If they catch us, we're toast. You don't understand, Aqua. One death is much better than three."
Aqua stared at him. Maybe Bal's capture had juggled her perspective a bit, but Nath was starting to look far less like her idolised hero of years past and much more like a philosophical twerp . Despite the fact that he was the taller. "Are you an idiot?" she asked wildly. "Two deaths is far better than one if the alternative is lifelong guilt!"
"Lifelong guilt?" Nath asked. "You would put your life – and mine – on the line to prevent lifelong guilt?"
Aqua paused and nodded. "Of course! Even better than any of those options is no deaths at all. Are you coming, Nath?" Nath paused hesitantly. "Nath?"
Nath let out a resigned groan. "All right, Aqua. You win."
Aqua and Nath waited impatiently in a dark alcove of the Catacombs. Aqua would have longed for a nice cup of coffee to wake her up, but she had no money and stealing a cup would simply not be worth the effort, especially since Arak could exit his lair at any time and it wouldn't take long for him to realise that Aqua and Nath weren't going to turn up. Finally, a heavily cloaked Blue Gelert left the dark and mysterious tunnel. Aqua surged through it, followed closely by Nath, until it widened and they could walk together. The tunnel continued to widen until it was wide enough to fit four Skeiths, side by side, quite comfortably. Which is just what they saw.
Arak had left all of his Skeiths in a large, impenetrable block some ten feet before the entrance of the ruined temple. The immensely huge Skeiths would have been a terrifying, intimidating force to most pets, but as Skeiths can't fly and Unis can – well, they weren't exactly a good defence. Aqua and Nath soared over the block and through the rest of the tunnel as the Skeiths stomped rather slowly in comparison to follow.
"Bal! Bal!" Aqua yelled through the bars of Bal's cell. The Yellow Aisha stood up excitedly at her sister's voice.
"Aqua! Aqua!" the Yellow Aisha wailed. "Sister, help me!"
Aqua nodded. She groaned furiously as she discovered the door was locked. Well, of course it was locked. It was Arak's lair. He wasn't going to go and leave his prisoners in unlocked cells. Since when have evil people done that?
Aqua began to panic as the Skeiths lumbered into the room and made a sudden break for the trio. In a final, desperate attempt, Aqua smashed her shoulder into the door. The wood made a sickening crunch and broke entirely, enabling Bal to run away.
"Come on, Aqua!" she yelled at her sister desperately. "They're coming!"
Aqua shook her head. "I never knew wood was so painful," she muttered. Standing up, it was revealed that Aqua's entire left side was pierced with chips of smashed wood, and blood slowly seeped through.
Bal was understandably perplexed. "What do I do?" she wailed.
"Go with Nath," Aqua ordered. "Leave me. I'll slow you down."
Bal nodded sadly. The Yellow Skeiths started bearing down upon her, and with a final shriek, Nath dragged her away. Aqua moaned in pain as she lay on the floor of the cell. It didn't matter if the Skeiths killed her or not. She had too many holes in her side to live. And so, Aqua blanked out.
Bal and Nath escaped the Catacombs, no longer being pursued by big, fat, ugly Skeiths.
"What do we do?" Bal asked her sister's male friend sadly. "Where do we go?"
Nath shrugged. "Well, one thing's certain for me. I'm giving up this life of crime. Even better than seeking the Giant Omelette, I shall seek the fabled Giant Jelly of Jelly World."
Bal attempted a smile. "But there's no such thing as Jelly World."
Nath grinned. "I'd bet you a hundred NP on that, but I don't have any."
"Well, neither do I."
"Well, who's going to see if there is actually a Jelly World?"
"You will, of course," Bal answered.
"But what if I come back and you think I'm lying, eh? Why don't you come with me?"
"Well, because -" Bal paused. Why? Not Aqua. Not the thiefhood. (We all saw how well that turned out.) Changing her mind, Bal said, "I'd love to, Nath."
Nath grinned. "Excellent. Now for the fare evasion."
