THIEF! Chapter 6
Confederates
"Wow, the thief struck again!"
"I wonder who he is, and why he's doing this."
Liana continued her stealing spree. The only change she made to her procedure was that she now wore a mask. She always left her prize at the front of the house, and she always left a "Thank You" card. Because of this, she was soon known as "The Thank-you thief." And the legends that popped up around her soon surpassed those her brother had left in his wake. The Thank-you thief was the biggest celebrity her school had ever had.
Liana found though, that she felt the need to talk about her heists. To detail what went right, and what went wrong, and to plan for the next time. She therefore found herself very grateful that Bobby knew her secret, so she could talk to him about it. But Bobby had his curiosity, too.
"Liana, why do you steal? And why like that?"
"I steal, because I need to, Bobby. I steal….because it makes me feel alive."
Then, one day after a successful heist, Angel walked up to Liana as she was talking to Bobby. "You know, I've noticed that we've never had a pokemon battle, Liana. And you've been working so hard with your pokemon lately, that I just want to see how I would measure up."
"You'd beat me, silly. Why would I want to battle you when I know I'll lose?" Liana countered. "And anyway, Noctowl is still tired from our training session yesterday."
"I think you stand a fair chance, Liana. You have been training hard," Bobby reassured her.
"Then we can make it a one-on-one battle. Puh-lease?" Angel clasped his hands in mock supplication. "And if you win, I'll tell you a secret."
Liana could never resist learning a secret. "Well, ok, then. Let's battle!" And she sent out her Kirlia.
"Alright then. Go, Marshtomp!" Angel threw his pokeball, and Marshtomp was released. "Use Water Gun!"
"Kirlia, use Double Team!" Just in time to avoid the jet of water, Kirlia made illusory copies of itself and spread them in a circle. Water Gun passed through empty air. "Now," Liana said with a sly grin not unlike Jenna's, "Use Teleport."
Each of the Kirlias surrounding Marshtomp began quick-teleporting randomly around it. As expected, both Marshtomp and its trainer were thoroughly disoriented and frustrated. Angel tried to guide his pokemon to score a hit. "Use Muddy Water!" But the attack merely passed through the illusions as they continued to Teleport.
Liana's grin grew even larger. "Now Kirlia, use Psychic." Each illusion began to glow as it sent the attack at Marshtomp. Only one was real, and only one would cause damage, but Kirlia attacked without giving its position away. The mud fish pokemon flinched under the immense pressure that Psychic put on it. Angel saw that his pokemon was in trouble, and knew he had to do something fast.
"Marshtomp, use Mud Shot! Blanket the whole arena!" Marshtomp used Mud Shot, spinning as it did so. Soon mud and dirt were slinging fast in all directions. The price of this was that Mud Shot was not as powerful, or rather; its power was not as concentrated. So it wasn't strong enough to defeat Kirlia. But it did hit the teleporting pokemon, and more importantly, slowed it down. Now Marshtomp had a hope of keeping up with the sprightly psychic pokemon.
Liana saw this, and knew she couldn't afford to play around anymore. If this kept going on, Kirlia would become too tired from Teleporting, and the tide of battle had already shifted with Marshtomp's last attack. "Kirlia, put all you've got into one last Psychic!" The pokemon stopped Teleporting and began to glow with psychic energy. Then, in an instant, it unleashed its power. As the attack hit Marshtomp, it cried out in pain. Psychic was too much for it, and the pokemon fell to the ground, defeated. And Liana was surprised, because she felt a bit of the rush.
"Marshtomp is unable to continue. Kirlia wins. Congratulations, Liana. Looks like Teleport can be very handy in battle, even if that wasn't really why you were practicing it." They all turned to see Jenna walking up from the direction of the school, wearing her customary smile.
"Jenna, do you actually eat during lunch or do you just follow me around the whole time?" asked Liana as she returned her pokemon, feeling nervous and annoyed. Whenever Jenna got a smile like that, there was some sort of trouble coming.
"I eat while I walk." Jenna responded with a smirk.
"Ooh, that's creepy," said Bobby. "I wouldn't want to have a stalker."
"Anyway, Angel, what secret were you going to tell me?"
Angel looked at Jenna. Then he leaned over and whispered in Liana's ear: "I know about you, and what you do during the night." Liana froze in shock. Someone else knew?
"Oh, you don't have to whisper, Angel," Jenna told him. "I know too. By day, you're Liana, the star junior of our high school. By night, you become the star thief of our high school. You just can't stay away from the limelight, can you?"
Once she got over her second shock in as many minutes, Liana dropped to her knees. "Is there anyone who doesn't know about me?" she implored of the sky. It didn't answer.
"Well, Sara doesn't know, although she'll find out if you keep yelling it out like that." Jenna said dryly.
"How did you know?" Liana asked hopelessly. What would she do? She had been caught. Her thieving days were over.
Angel answered first. "Every day after the Thank-you thief strikes, you're as happy as you can be. And whenever the thief is mentioned, your face sort of lights up. How could it not be you?"
Jenna nodded. "And also you've been getting buddy-buddy with Bobby ever since his house was hit. Bobby never made any friends. So he must have found out it was you, and afterwards you became friendly with each other. But wipe that pathetic look off your face, Liana. We won't tell." Angel nodded at that.
Liana looked up. "You won't?"
"Nah," Jenna said. "You're not technically a criminal, seeing as you don't keep anything you steal. And you're really polite about it, with those Thank-you cards. It's more of an elaborate prank than-"
Liana suddenly rushed up and grabbed Jenna by the shoulders. "Why do you keep calling me a prankster? Do you think so little of me as that? That I am so unskilled as a random kid vandalizing a teacher's house?"
"Stop being so dramatic. Your method merely makes it less serious than an actual crime, that's all. I wasn't commenting on your skill level. Anyway," Jenna said, her smile returning; "now we all share this secret. We four are bound together by this knowledge, into one group. It is the job of us three-" and here she pointed to Bobby, Angel, and herself. "To protect Liana's secret, support her if necessary in the future, and…Keep her from going off the deep end and starting to steal for real. We should have a secret sign, a secret base, and secret meetings."
Liana groaned. This was going to turn out like that time Jenna made a secret club back when they were little kids. But, as always, Jenna had a dominating personality, and no one objected.
"So, we begin our first meeting at lunch tomorrow, and set everything up. Dismissed for now!" And now she was turning into a drill sergeant.
As they left for the day, Angel and Liana were walking home like usual. "Liana, there was something else I wanted to talk to you about too."
"Oh, really? What?"
"Well, have you noticed that, we don't really act like a couple anymore?"
"I see where this is going. And I agree with you. Just friends?" Liana stuck out her hand.
"Just friends." And they shook on it.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, they heard a voice yelling "STOP! THIEF!" Then they saw a Mightyena run past, holding something in its mouth.
"Um, Angel, you go ahead alone. This might be interesting…" And with that Liana ran off after the fleeing pokemon.