Friday 8:17 PM - The Crystal Mansion Fine Jewelry Store - Hallway behind the storefront
"-We're coming in.-" The field mouse's headset crackled.
Shit! You would radio me when I'm only a few feet from some warm bodies. They might have heard that! Trace the Field mouse thought panicking as he heard footsteps. After merely clinging to the wall, two of the store workers, a tall lanky Elk and a medium sized built Lynx walked past him. They didn't even seem to be looking in his general direction, so they must have been unaware an intruder was right under their noses. A predator like the lynx would have to have been on to him in seconds if he was actively hunting. They must not have seen me. He assured himself.
"Say David, you smell something? The Lynx said, pausing mid pace. He began sniffing the air rapidly, senses alert.
Trace almost had a heart attack and froze up, not moving a muscle.
"Yea..." The deer said, turning around. Trace didn't even wait to find out what he meant, before scurrying back down the hall and dove into one of the entry points his brother Gears had created, a vent just above the floor paneling. He thanked his lucky stars when the two didn't even seem to notice him as they rushed down the hallway.
"Smells like something...burning!" The David the elk yelled.
"Crap, come on. Let's check it out."
Shit! Something burning? I hope they don't realize the sprinkler system is down too. The mouse thought as he peered down the hall.
Another voice could be heard down the hallway. "It was nothing to fret over guys, Microwave almost sparked up. Maurice must have been cooking another burrito still in the foil." Trace could just make out through the vent bars a silhouette that looked something of a small wolf or a medium breed dog with grey fur.
"Dumbass Maurice. Figures." The lynx said.
"Yeah, I'm gonna chew his horns off for the fire hazard." The canine joked.
"How many times we got to tell him to take it out of the wrapper?" The elk commented.
"I'll give him a talking too after hours don't worry. You two, just head back to the lobby. Genkou-sama says if we have more bodies upfront, we might attract more customers. Been really slow lately."
"I hate working holidays."
"Yep. Me too." The stern voice said again. The footsteps faded before Trace heard sniffing, the dog was investigating. Trace held his breath for as long as could before the Dog ceased his search. Soon Trace could hear the dog leaving as well.
"-Trace, wher- the -uck are you?- We're wait-ng outside.-" Violet's voice came over the headset again. The audio quality wasn't great inside these air ducts.
"I had to lose some guys, hang on." He said unhinging the vent and heading for the back exit. The door was massive compared to so he would have to scale it with a scaled grappling hook. He tossed his hook high enough and latched it in the crevice of the push handle. After making sure the coast was clear he made his ascent. Mid climb, Violet berated him over the radio, "-What's the holdup.-" and he could clearly hear her shouting outside the door as well.
"Working on it! It's been a while since I had to pass physical education." He shouted into his mic. The nerve of this damn fox. She acts like I can just shimmy up this giant door! He cursed to himself. Yanking the taped Allen wrench key from his back, he jammed the key in the lock and twisted with all his strength. As soon as the door's lock made a loud click, the door swung open wide! No time to grab hold of the key, his footing vanished from under him. The mouse hollered in terror as he fell towards the hard floor only to fall into the soft palm of a gloved hand. Someone had caught him. The masked figure dressed in all black peering down at him almost gave him a fright before he realized it was Violet. "Damn it Violet-sama, couldn't you have waited till I was off the door?!"
"Quiet. We're on a time table." She said as she placed him on top her head allowing him to hang off one of her sharp black ears. "How many are on the payroll tonight, what species?" She asked for the factors as she and Lùn cautiously made their way down the hallway.
"Just four plus the manager." He said whispering into her ear. "Some kind of grey dog that's security, an elk worker I reckon, a Lynx, and a whatchamacallit...uh with the pointy horns" He began snapping his fingers as it came to him. "Uh... antelope."
"Good thing you're not a biologist." Raira commented.
"Whatever. Of course, the manager is that Orangutan you saw a few days ago. Fat-ass's been in the lobby all day. I assume your guy is one of the four. No customers for hours from what I saw."
"Lynx and the dog might be an issue." She said while simultaneously readying her silenced Beretta M9. "Alright lead us to the boss's office." She looked to Lùn. "Vespa-chan, head on a swivel."
"Gotcha." Lùn said with her own .22 in hand at the ready.
Soon as they got near the manager's office, they were hit with the same burnt smell Trace had overheard about. It didn't seem to be coming from the break room next door like Trace had overheard the dog from before, but rather it seemed to be coming from the office. Raira opened the door slowly and pushed in cautiously scanning all points of the room. The burning smell was definitely drenched in this room. It smelled like someone had burnt a cake and the oven in here.
The room was seemingly empty, but Raira's sensitive ears revealed otherwise. She could pick up faint breathing and a squeaking sound coming the manager's safe. The fox trained her pistol at the black iron box ready to fire, but held off as the combination lock oddly enough ejected onto the floor. A young, bearded gray mouse wearing a mouse sized welding mask and a large disc on his back with a mini-sized blow torch came out of the safe. It was their safecracker, Pick. "Sorry for scaring you like that" He apologized in a peculiar western accent that contrasted with Trace's more standard accent. "I had hide in here after some dog came snooping after I started cutting, probably cuz' of the oxyacetylene."
"What? So that was you with that burning smell?!" Trace shouted. "You almost gave us away!"
"Relax, he didn't come in and I was done before all the commotion happened. I think we're still under the radar."
Trace was annoyed and shouted down to his little brother. "Why were you cutting anyway? You were supposed to just crack the combination the way I told you."
"That hearing the clicks thing is just movie stuff, Phil- I-I mean Trace, s-sorry bro. I mean the locks was a bit newer so it's harder to hear the clicks, so I ultimately had to cut in with my torch." He said patting the tiny fuel tanks on the side of his belt. "Just glad the ape's been out of the office all day."
Raira frowned at their banter, but still commended the mouse. ""Good work regardless. What's the loot look like in there?"
"Dunno." The mouse said with a shrug.
"What?" The silver fox inquired with surprise.
"We got another safe inside this one." He said.
"Another?!" She asked in disbelief. She bent down and peered inside the case and indeed there was another smaller safe wedged inside that one with a number keypad instead of a combination lock. Whatever they were looking for must be located behind this extra wall of security.
"It was dark in there, but I can tell that that's the digital lock we were told about." Pick explained. "However, I can't do anything yet seeing that it's wedged in there. I need it out in the open to work my magic." Pick said confidently as he scratched the hair under his chin. "Gow'on and pull it out so I can get on top of it proper like."
"So, the tip was accurate. Somewhat." Raira groaned as she motioned for Lùn to come help her. "Vespa-chan come on, let's take this bad boy out." After a bit of effort, the smaller safe finally slid out. "You just need to cut into this one, too right? Have at it." She said motioning for Lùn to guard the door. "You'll have all the time you need."
"Huh?!" The young mouse asked incredulously. "No-No-No. I don't need a torch for this!" He bragged. "Remember this is the model your contact told us about in the first place. Model 93C."
Almost immediately Trace began waving his arms wildly trying to flag him down. He wanted to shut him up without tipping off Raira to no avail, but Pick continued to explain.
"They have this nice little design flaw they don't tell you about that's seen in most modern commercial safes. All I need to do is get my magnet out." He said pulling a large cloth covered disc off his back, clambered up the safe, and slammed the disc on the left edge of the safe where it stuck to the surface. "Once you place it like... so." The mouse then jumped down and caught hold of handle. The handle shifted down with his weight and the safe door swung open unlocked. "Pay dirt! See it's this nickel block located where I put the magnet that controls the lock."
Trace facepalmed and angrily screamed down to his younger brother. "You-weren't-supposed-to-tell-her-that!"
"A thousand pardons bro, you're always telling me to sell my skills!" The young gray mouse apologized with a short nervous chuckle.
Trace knew the jig was up especially when Raira grabbed him from off her head and held him in a tight squeeze front of her very pissed off face.
"And you wanted more for something that anyone could do." She growled aggressively as she raised her mask from her face and revealed her fangs. "You're lucky the first safe was worth your share or you'd be a snack right about now Trace." He expected the worst, but she just dropped him to the floor. He was surprised she didn't do more than reprimand him.
"See Vespa this is what I was talking about. Always stay wary of a hustle." The silver fox bent down and lightly patted Pick on top of his fuzzy little head. "Thank you for being honest Pick. As a reward, you get a piece of your brother's cut."
Trace suspected Raira would do more than growl at him and this was the real punishment. "OH, COME ON!" Trace protested stamping his feet.
"Aw shucks." The younger mouse said rather bashful. He clearly wasn't too privy to his brother's con, so Raira had no reason to punish him.
"That's the price for the lesson: Never get caught trying to outfox a fox." Raira said as she looked inside the box. "Doing you a favor honestly, I could just eat you." She said looking over her shoulder. "That's the deal take it or leave it."
"Ugh...fuck." Trace just shook his head and pointed at his younger brother. "I swear if you weren't so good at this, I'd have left you back home with mom!"
Suddenly Raira's ears twitched. Lùn's big ears picked it up too, somebody was approaching the office. The foxes both scrambled for ambush spots. Raira laying low by bookshelves by the door, while Lùn hid out of view on the other side of the safe. There had no time to return everything back the way it was, so confrontation was the likely option.
Just outside the door they could hear voices; and older soft voice and the younger stern voice from before. Just from scent alone Raira could tell it was the primate and...a canine, a dog. The manager and the security guard she scoped out last week.
"Mr. Genkou-sama I'm sorry, but I must insist about that raise again."
"Just because you are head of security, doesn't mean you get to hound me over that, I told you it's a lengthy process."
"But you've been saying that the whole year! I can't wait any longer and I really need the money to pay for my mother's expenses."
"Well it's been a very slow year Gin; I just can't rush it." The door handle began to twist slowly. Lùn and Raira had their weapons trained on the door. "I'm sorry Gi-"
BOW! There a loud muffled noise that went off in the distance. Followed by screaming and shouting.
"What was that?!" The older voice cried. The door quickly closed shut.
"That was in the main lobby!" The younger voice said. "Mr. Genkou-sama, please hide in your office while I try to see what's going on."
"No. I didn't set up shop in this district and not expect to be harassed by hoodlums." The sound of a pistol's slide being cocked could be heard through the door. "We will handle them together. Time to earn your keep and maybe I'll reconsider."
The shadows under the door soon disappeared as the sound of footsteps grew more distant.
"Trace what's going on? Did Gears blow one of the bombs prematurely?" Raira asked trying to get to the bottom of this.
"No, the sound is off, that wasn't the bombs." The mouse attested.
"That sounded like a gunshot." Lùn chimed in.
BOW! BOW! More of the same noise rang out walls away from the office. Followed by more screaming.
"Gears...what's going on." Trace barked into his headset.
"Giant lizards!" The radio crackled to life.
"Giant lizards?" Raira's began to feel a rare sense of dread at the mention of giant lizards. That meant crocodilians or even worse.
"They're robbing the store! They're shooting everyone!"
"Crap, whoever these violent amateurs are they're trying to steal our score!" Raira fumed.
"And the worst part: we cut the security for em. Free of charge! Ugh..." Trace whined.
There was another gunshot. This one much louder, like a blast from a shotgun. "Whoever they are they are packing." Lùn added.
"Could be those Trapjaw Hoodlums or worse, the Dokugumi." Raira stated.
Raira rushed over to the safe and began to hastily inspect the contents. A blue sapphire embedded jewel necklace, A bracelet with studded with pink diamonds and rubies. However, one really caught her eye, a crystallized form of a lizard's skull. Raira was flushed with awe at of how eloquently crafted it was or maybe this was one of those dinosaur fossils she had heard about enhanced by crystal. She could already see the price she'd hock it for as an avaricious grin formed on her vulpine face.
"We need to book. We can just make off with the safe contents and let this play out on its own." Trace said in a matter of fact manner.
"No, we can't." Lùn stated. "We have too much riding on this score. We'll just handle these clowns and finish like we planned."
"What do you mean we can't? What do you mean you want to engage those guys?" Trace shouted at the pygmy. "We can just find another score."
"This was our score and they have no right to steal from us!" Lùn fired back.
Trace was having none of this. "Look you're just a rookie, we don't need to-"
"Hush!" Raira said as she stood up and looked at the two of them. Ultimately the decision rested upon her. "Vespa is right. We have too much riding on this and I, for one, am not going to just bow out to these thugs. They picked the wrong store to rob." She paced for a brief minute, before it came to her. "Think about it, we have countermeasures in case we had to deal with police, right? We can use the same tactics on them with some element of surprise."
Trace shook his head. "Are you sure about this? That stuff was last ditch though, it might set this place on fire!"
"Worst case scenario, we all lay low for a while in the Market." Raira explained. "The cops won't come in there."
"No, worst case scenario is we all die or get caught!" He shouted at her the top of his lungs.
"That's enough Trace. We won't get caught." The silver fox assured him. "At least you won't. Vespa-Chan, I'mma need you to be a swift little fox, understood?"
"Wha-?" The small fox looked at her puzzled. Her big sister at first didn't sound too sure of herself, but quickly her tone became confident. Like she had to assure herself that the plan would work. "I understand."
"Hurry up and get this stuff in your backpack. Pick and Trace. You're hitching a ride with her till she gets you to your drop off spot."
"Hiding out in a meat market district...ridiculous, your city must have shittier a police force than New Heron City." Trace grumbled as he helped his brother gather his equipment.
"This stuff will be heavy plus I got to carry them too?!" The little fox spouted.
"What's the matter? I thought you fighting people like to stay in shape! A little weight training isn't going to be too much is it?" She teased with a little giggle.
Though the mask was obscuring most of her face, but Raira was amused to see Lùn's eyebrow through the goggles raise in annoyance. She just knew Lùn was thinking; Really? Lùn would just have to suck it up though. Raira was already hard at work for a plan to salvage this situation, and it involved the little fox following her orders to the letter. The silver fox slowly cracked open the door and peered out of it to see if the coast was clear, before heading down the hallway towards the lobby.
"Where are you going?" Lùn asked into her headset as she began scooping the hefty skull into her bag.
"Accessing the situation further." The dark fox answered hanging close to the wall. "Let's see the dead beasts who are trying to steal from me."