To Take a Thief
Well to start things off, I guess you can call me an average girl. I'm about 5'5", I'm thirteen years old, and I'm fast. Why did I say that last part? Well, because being fast just happens to be the only thing that keeps me alive. Okay, I guess you can't call me an average girl now, but if you ever took the time to get to know me, you might see I'm not that bad-
"Stop, Thief!"
Unless you count that out. See, I'm a thief. I know, I know, I just said the obvious. But I'm not really bad. I was thrown out onto the streets when I was five, and a gang of street urchins took me in. They taught me how to pickpockets, blend in with the crowd, and how to choose my targets. But I only steal what will get me through the night. I don't steal gems, jewelry, or any of those kinds of valuables. I stick to food, money, and other things that will help me survive in the streets.
I guess you can say I've learned chivalry. As much as thief can, though. I only take from the people who can make do without the stuff I steal. I've never stolen pokemon before either. Hell, I don't even have one! I've always known that pokemon aren't mindless things that you can order around. You can see it in their eyes. And God knows I've seen Officer Jenny's Growlithe enough to know!
I've never killed anyone either. I don't see the need to be put on the wanted list for murdering. No thank you, being a wanted thief is enough for me. The urchins who raised me though, well, they're bad. I was kicked out of their group three years ago in the dead of winter because I refused to kill anyone to get what I needed. They had always looked down on me because I had the skills to steal precious things that could sell for high prices, but never used them.
And that leads me to where I am now. I made the mistake of stealing a track team member's wallet, then tripping over one of the discarded items from the vendor next to me. Luckily for me, since today is the swap meet, it's a big crowd. Hundreds of people are in the city's square, looking at the wares. The discarded item happened to be a potion bottle, since the vendor who threw it there was a traveling representative of the new line of pokemart items.
Unluckily for me, the track member had a Spearow, I had bright copper colored hair, and the sun just so happened to be smiling that day. Now, if you're dense and haven't added that up, let me give you a clue. The reddish brown bird is a known predator in the forest, albeit small, and had very sharp eyes. My coppery colored hair was bright and shining from my first 'bath' in weeks, a.k.a. gang members dump thief in rich dude's fountain then run off. The sun was extra bright today, many people were either sitting in their homes with the air conditioner cranked up, or going around the swap meet with extra light clothing, most with hats, sunglasses, and ice cream.
I had learned to blend into the crowd a long time ago, but today just happened to make me forgetful, especially because I was extra hungry. I hadn't been feeling very well the past few days, I knew I shouldn't have stolen that trucker's egg salad sandwich, and slept past breakfast.
The red-brown bird dived down, cawing as it banged its orange beak against my scalp. I shoved my way through the crowd faster, hoping the young man wouldn't catch up. I rammed into a burly man, activating his reflexes. The annoying bird was knocked off my head by a hand almost as big as it. It cawed in pain and flapped back up to the sky weakly.
I took the moment where he was ignoring me, listening to his trainer's commands, to snatch a baseball cap from a stall and jam it onto my head, covering my copper locks and ignoring the yell of protest from the vendor. I ducked back into the throng of people, hoping the Spearow wouldn't notice. I guess today wasn't my day, karma was after me.
The bird squawked the news back to it's trainer, and as I turned quickly into one of the alleys leading out of the square, the trainer sent out a new pokemon. He was closer than I thought, because I could hear his voice commanding the new creature.
"Doduo, after that thief!"
The two-headed bird squawked back, and then used its powerful legs to launch off the ground. The brown bird may be flightless, but it can jump very high. It landed right in front of me, clicking its beaks and looking me straight in the eye with anger. The look in both pairs of eyes was daring me to try and run, but I didn't. I was frozen on the spot, looking at those sharp talons, equally sharp beaks, and powerful legs.
The owner of this creature walked into the alley behind me, blocking my escape. The brunette young man was about a foot taller than me, and all legs. No wonder he was so fast. But then again, what else do you expect from a track team member?
"Give it back, thief." He said, venom leaking out of his words.
"Give what back?" I said innocently, knowing it was no use. The brunette grabbed me by the collar of my worn long sleeve t-shirt, and brought me up to look him straight in the eyes. My feet dangled a foot off the ground, but I wasn't worried about that. No, his black eyes were what scared me. I took one glance those hate-filled irises and gulped, averting my eyes to stare into the Spearow's on his shoulder.
"My pokemon you thief. You stole it! It was in my wallet!" He yelled at me, hurting my ears. But the last thing on my mind was the pain. I hadn't known there was a pokemon in there! If I had known, I wouldn't have taken it.
"You had a pokemon in there?" I asked incredulously, finally staring into his eyes. "If I had known that, I wouldn't have taken it!" I continued, blurting out the truth.
"What!" The brunette stared at me as incredulously as I did him. He dropped me down onto the ground, where I fell flat on my ass, still staring at him. He put his hand out to me, upturned. I put the wallet there quickly and scrambled upright by myself.
"Yeah! Why would I want to steal a pokemon? Just take it and let me leave!" I said, on the verge of panicking. Stealing a pokemon is considered kidnapping by the law, and that's much worse than thievery.
"How do I know you're telling the truth?" He said, checking to see what was in the wallet. He shook something out of it onto the palm of his other hand. A half red, half white thing the size of a marble fell out. He pressed a button that was on the part where the two colors joined. The ball maximized itself to the size of a baseball in less than two seconds.
"If I said I was telling the truth, there would be no way to prove it, would there? And if I somehow did find a way to prove it, you could just choose not to believe me!" I answered as honestly as I could. I was trying to be nice, so he wouldn't try to sick the cops on me.
He seemed to consider that for a bit, and then looked at his wallet again. He minimized the pokeball with that same button at the joint and put the pokeball on his belt, and then took out two others that looked exactly the same as the first. In a flash of red light, both of the menacing bird pokemon were recalled.
"How'd you become a thief, kid?" He asked.
I looked at him oddly for changing the subject before answering honestly again. "None of your business." I answered, for the first time being rude.
"Why do you stay a thief?" He asked, still trying to pry. I wasn't going to give in. I've always considered that question, but I can't figure out the answer.
"None of your business," I said yet again. I couldn't tell what he was trying to do, but I decided that I wouldn't let him know anything. "And if you don't mind, I'm going to go now." I was still hungry, after all. I thought I saw a fruit vendor somewhere. Sleight of hand is all I need.
"Where?" He was still trying to pry. When would he stop? Couldn't he see that he needed to know nothing about me?
"What do you think my answer is going to be?" I was trying to be as rude as I could so he would leave me alone.
"Why did you steal from me?" He asked, ignoring my last comment.
"Because I was hungry, damnit!" I snapped. I'm not that good at holding my temper, as you can see.
He must have seen that I was in no mood to talk anymore, because he was moving out of my way. I started walking out of the alley, steaming. To get my temper back in control I decided to plan what I would do after I sated my hunger. Unfortunately, the young man grabbed my sleeve to stop me for another question.
"What's your name, thief?" He asked, making my temper go to the point where I might have hit him except for the fact that I didn't want him to call the cops. I decided to humor him on that one.
"Ayshen." Then I shook his grip off my sleeve, starting to run back through the crowd, making my way to find a food vendor.
After getting my lunch, which consisted of two oranges and an apple that I could somehow manage to stuff into the pockets of my cargo pants, I went back to my 'house' to eat it. The square was huge, and the warehouse district where I lived was on the outer ring of the city. But by going through alleys, houses, and over some buildings, I was able to make it there in less than an hour.
The warehouse district was mostly abandoned a long time ago when the item storage system was made, people preferring having computers in the back of their stores that can only be opened with passwords to the huge warehouses where the items always got dusty and thieves could sneak in with a lock pick and take whatever they wanted.
The alley between two long winding rows of warehouses was thick with trash and sewage. It smelled like urine and rotten eggs blended with sour milk, which very well could be what was there. I picked my way gingerly down the alley, avoiding any unmentionables. I finally came across my warehouse, a small thing that used to hold furniture for an old couple as I recall.
I slid in through the half ajar door, climbing over trash and finally finding the pipe along the wall that I could use to climb to the loft I used as my home. Most of the thieves made their homes in the bigger warehouses closer to the city or at hideouts in inns and clubs. Nobody knew of my hideout, I kept it as secret as possible and the only way to my loft was the pipe that could barely bear my weight.
I shinnied up the pipe and jumped onto the old creaky planks of my loft. No matter what, I would always be scared of that space in between the pipe and planks that was three feet wide. But the loft is the safest place I know of in Rustboro, being so high up that the only things that can get up there are things that are thrown or could fly. But I was still safe because the loft stretches out most of the way over the inside of the warehouse. So for someone to throw something up here, they have to be backed up against the wall, so therefore, if I was in the middle of the loft, it wouldn't even be near me if it even got up here.
I didn't have much in the loft. The sleeping pad I had layed out and the blanket I had over it was one of the few things I had there besides an old style lantern, a solar flashlight, some lock picks and knives, rope, and other things I find valuable. But most of those were in a backpack, except for the lantern and sleeping pad. I always kept matches and extra candles for the lantern in my bag too, I had always gotten things in quantity so I wouldn't have to go back and try to steal later when they were guarded better.
I sat down on my pad and took out one of the oranges to start peeling it. While doing so, something fell out of my sleeve. I had small pockets sewn onto the insides of my both my sleeves, and some in the torso part of my long sleeve t-shirt. I also had a few on the inside of my pants, but rarely used those.
I looked at the thing that had rolled out and gasped, dropping my orange onto the pad and ignoring it as it rolled away and stopped after hitting my pack. I was staring at the red and white marble sized object that had fallen out of my sleeve. It was a pokeball.
I take pride in this story, I think it may be better than my others. Review please! I left it at a cliffhanger for a reason.
