A Tale of Revenge and Deception
It had been a quiet few months. Not a peacefully quiet few months, but the kind of quiet that was waiting expectantly to be broken.
Rouge had long since put her new-found jewels up on display, along with her many other gems from her various escapades. As usual, she would look at them every day with partial satisfaction and partial despair. Her display case was coming along quite well, but it hadn't scratched the surface of all those gems out there in the world.
The fact that she had stolen a few particular gems straight from Nack on her last treasure hunt made them particularly endearing to her. But it also made her wary. Alas, you do run the risk of being found and stolen from when it is well-known that you are a jewel thief. Especially when you take things from a rivaling treasure hunter/bounty hunter/mercenary guy. She'd been contemplating ways to prevent revenge from coming to her.
For one thing, she knew it wasn't wise to keep all of her jewels in one place. Better to lose a few of them than all of them at once. The thing about that was...it would be a bit of a hassle to keep up with all of the places she'd kept them. She had contemplated, perhaps, keeping some in a safe in her nightclub. Maybe she'd keep the rest at home, and a few scattered in the places she was certain only she would be able to find. Except that none of those places were foolproof, and she wouldn't be able to keep a close eye on them anywhere else.
She took a deep breath, gazing at her sparkling collection behind its wall of glass. She had the growing feeling that the day was coming too soon that her display would be ruined. That, maybe even at that very moment, Nack was coming up with a plot to find his way to her.
Nack, meanwhile, had been in a rage since the day of his failure in the caves. HIs partners-in-crime had been hesitant, since then, to even go near him. Since then, the dynamite duck and the polar bear had gone off on their own misadventures for as long as they could manage to make them last.
Nack had hardly noticed.
His one solo adventure in such a long time, and a rival just had to come up out of nowhere and ruin it for him. He had taken many punches from the universe before, but for one reason or another this one ticked him off the most. Because maybe it was obvious that the world hated him; refused to let him change his unlucky status, but to have another mortal being shove it in his face was another thing. An entirely different thing. A punishable by revenge sort of thing.
He had yet to figure out what revenge entailed, but it was coming.
He sat down at his desk and wrote out plans and ideas like a madman. Except this time he wasn't going to act like a madman in its execution. He was going to be level-headed, he decided. He wasn't going to let anger bring him to act so rashly like last time. He was going to plan this whole thing out, as steadily as possible.
Rouge. This was Rouge he was talking about. He had to think in the sort of ways she would.
He knew that she owned that fancy nightclub in town. That was a start. It was possible that she lived close by it. It was possible that enough scums attended that they would spill practically anything they knew about her for negotiations. The nightclub was a good start.
And knowing what she'd taken from him, it was only fair that he took his treasure back...along with whatever else she happened to have stowed away in her house.
"Alright, whaddaya...whaya...whadya wants?"
It was about now, the tenth time asking, that Nack was beginning to question the usefulness of Rouge's nightclub crowd.
"I want to know what you know about Rouge," Nack growled in response.
"Rouge? Well, she's got some nice-"
"Do you know who I am?"
"What?"
"Do you even know what sort of person you're talking to?"
When the patron didn't respond, in favor of taking another swill instead, Nack turned his back on him immediately. His nightclub plans were going absolutely nowhere with not much hope for redemption and he was getting reckless at this point. The scent of alcohol and the blinding lights from the casino weren't helping at all.
But he took a deep breath and kept looking around for a more sober patron because revenge was going to be well worth it.
And he would stand in the darkest corner he could find until that lucky person happened into his sight.
She stood up on her balcony, looking as closely as she could at the crowd below. Though the faces of the crowd were very hard to make out, she could pretty easily distinguish one person from another. Perhaps mainly because Rouge's Nightclub tended to be a pretty high-end place and even the people that just came to get drunk were dressed in fancier clothes. And fancy clothes tended to distinguish themselves.
But there was one person in particular she was for certain that she saw.
The time had come.
She'd been prepared for the last few days, so it wasn't hard to calmly walk back into her apartment penthouse and take the next step. She started packing up her gems into her own suitcase, replacing several of them with the counterfeit version.
By the time he got there, any real treasure of hers would be long gone.
Of course, she wasn't dumb enough to believe he would give up after coming home without his own treasure back specifically. So she left him a little treasure for him to keep for himself...a few replicas of the treasure she had stolen from him in the cavern mishap. Not bad replicas, if she did say so herself.
She smirked to herself as she turned out the lights.
Nack, by now, was as subtly as possible stalking down possibly the only sober person at that hour now.
The person in question was a reptile of some sort that seemingly had no interest except in wandering back and forth between slot machines. He was quite preoccupied with this, and that was why it was relatively easy to sneak up on him. The hard part was appearing as if he hadn't been watching him the entire time.
But suddenly the weasel was shadowing behind him anyway.
"Hi," his voice was painted with a smooth silky appearance, but not so much as to give away the obvious ill intentions fact. A sober-minded man would probably be more wary of overtly innocent-sounding voices.
At first he didn't bother to respond, slipping another ring into the slot nonchalantly. "What do you want, sleaze?"
Nack was surprised at his immediate hostility, but at least it gave him a better evaluation of the dude's character. "Look, I'll make this snappy for the both of us. What information do you know about the owner of this nightclub?"
"Depends. What sort of information?" By now his chances of hitting that jackpot were gone, but a small amount was still a possibility. An unacceptable possibility, in either of their cases.
"Anything that might lead to her whereabouts or her residency," Nack said flatly.
"Hmm." The reptile had gained nothing but his own money back. "You planning a murder...or an assault?"
"Neither."
"Good. I like this casino here good enough that I wouldn't want the owner's injuries or death to be its demise. You're that bounty hunter though, aren't you? So why would I trust you that openly?" He turned to face the weasel suddenly. "You think I'm that dumb?"
"No. But you might be proving yourself dumb if you plan to start a fistfight with a famous bounty hunter who also happens to be armed."
"Hmm. Well, who said I was?" He dropped his fists subtly as if he'd never intentionally raised them.
"No one. Now, listen. You clearly know who I am. Just tell me what you know and I won't shoot you here and now." It had been so long since someone had even bothered to recognize him as a bounty hunter that the thrill of it made him overly cocky about it. He remembered the times when people had fearfully obeyed him blindly, just by recognition. Man, those were good times.
"Shoot me here and now. There are people all around us, so I'm suuurreee you won't get in grave trouble over it." He smirked in a way that kindled rage in Nack all the more.
"Yeah. Let's test that theory. Everyone here is at least half drunk, I'm sure they would want to help you out right away," he growled.
The reptile momentarily got distracted searching with his eyes for a quick escape to the next slot machine. Apparently he was rather daring, but not even courageous enough to hold his threat.
Nack smiled at him in the same sickening way.
The next thing Nack knew, he was sneaking his way across the back alleys of the nightclub. He had no idea that Rouge would keep such an obvious place as her home. A top-floor apartment so close to the club, anyone might guess that the owner lived there. Apparently she wanted it to seem all-too-easy so as to deter intelligent minds like his.
Well, not this time.
He got to the closest apartment building and began to scale the wall. Getting in from the inside of the building would take incredibly longer and probably break his cover, so he had no problem in using his climbing skills as an alternative. Revenge would be well-worth the effort.
Climbing, however, did bring back some bitter memories. He had to remind himself that this time Rouge wouldn't be waiting at the top to steal his bounty from him. Not this time.
He swung himself up onto the balcony as silently as he could manage. Now just to break the screen door in. But as he approached it, he saw that there was already an opening in the door. It was only a small crack, but it still aroused suspicion. Unless she was in a real hurry to leave the place, there was no way someone as clever as her would just leave an opportunity like that. He was questioning now if it was really worth the possible ambush to go in this way.
But, he had already climbed all the way up there….
He quietly pushed the door to the side and allowed himself in, hugging close to the walls. Very decorative and probably expensive walls, he took note of. If for some reason stealing back his treasure didn't work, he could see what he would be vandalizing.
The place itself was rather extravagant in any sense of the word. Even though it was only the size of a large hotel room, every inch of it screamed famous treasure hunter. The bed sheets were silky with gleaming designs all around the border, and her loveseat had throw pillows that were covered in jewels themselves, just to name a few of the first things that caught his eyes. But he wasn't here for any of that, and he scanned eagerly for a safe or something. Something that she would have hidden them in…
He snuck his way across the darkened room and got to the small white door that appeared to be a closet. He supposed it must have been a closet anyway, and he supposed that it was the usual place for people to keep safes.
He couldn't have really prepared himself for what he saw when he opened the door.
A glass structure, polished obsessively it seemed, stretched on as far back as the closet itself went- which was a rather impressive length for a closet. Behind the glass, rows and rows of (counterfeit, though he didn't know it) gleaming gems were arranged. His first response was to gasp, but he quickly suppressed this. He was not about to stoop so low as to give her collection any audible awe.
So he took a deep breath and went in, checking carefully around him before going.
He was only here to retrieve his own treasure, but looking at all of her other gems he began to plan otherwise. But...his own, first. He'd get the rest afterwards.
He looked along the rows until he found the familiar sight.
He was about to smash the glass and go, but he realized there was a slight opening between the top and the bottom half of the glass. He lifted, and as he suspected, it swung upright.
He took the blue, gold and green gems into his hands and found that they were much lighter than he had remembered. There was no time to think of that now. He realized in slight frustration that there was no way he could fit all of these gems into his satchel, and he certainly couldn't carry them in his hands since he had to climb back down.
He cursed, put the treasures of his into his satchel, and slipped his way out of her closet space.
He couldn't have prepared himself for what was outside of that closet.
All of a sudden, as he exited, he got that nagging feeling that he wasn't alone, just as he had felt in that cave.
He heard a voice, somewhere in another room. "Hey, nice of you to stop by."
Just like that, he went rushing for the balcony door, unhidden in his rush. She got there before him. "Ah, ah, ah. You think you're just going to take things from me AND sneak out without a fight? My, you're cocky."
He was aware that she was acting a bit...off, herself. For one thing, there was no surprise on her face that he had gotten in and stolen from her. For another, it was odd that she would have left everything perfectly open for him...and then somehow been home the whole time, undisturbing of his actions. He realized then what an idiot he had been to expect it NOT to be a trap. He'd done it again. Let anger and vengeance take over his calm collectedness. Great.
"Yes, I suppose I was…" he growled. "But if we've got to fight, just know I've got one advantage on ya." He made an obvious gesture to his gun on the side of his belt. "Now, I'd hate to ruin your pretty face, but if you don't get out of my-"
"Oh, no. Whatever shall I do about that?" She overdramatically pretended to fall back out of the slightly cracked balcony door. "You've got SUCH an advantage, I'm so afraid…" She pulled out, seemingly from nowhere, her own gun. And unlike him, she wasn't hesitant to aim it directly at him.
"Fine. You wanna play it that way?" He slipped his hand down suddenly, as if to reach for his gun, but instead he abruptly kicked, with unmistakable aim at the barrel of her gun.
As she hadn't been anticipating this, it did take her by surprise and knocked the weapon straight out of her hands, with a loud clang onto her hardwood floor. She dived down quickly to retrieve it, but taking her weapon was not his goal.
Instead, he took this opportunity to run out onto the balcony. She was three steps behind him.
He ran, nearly slipping, straight to the balcony edge, with every intention to dig in his heels, jump to his knees and begin the climb down. She had every intention to make sure that didn't happen.
As he kneeled to begin the descent, she used the force gained by her momentum to push him off over the edge. Of course, this caused her to nearly lose balance and fall, but she had her wings. And they brought her back to the top of the balcony, to watch him fall.
He gave a muffled scream, as he bit down into his arm to hush it. He wasn't going to scream, he was going to land himself in the safest way he could. He turned midair, something like an aerial trick, and positioned himself to land feet first. From his past experience in the cave, he knew he could handle it with maybe only aching joints afterwards. He was trained for this, after all.
So he trusted his abilities.
He landed as he had planned, but had not anticipated the sudden impact this time. He dropped to his knees, took a deep breath, tried to steady himself.
She landed beside him, aided by her wings. "Alright, come on, let's settle this face-to-face for once. Winner takes the treasure, deal?" She smirked widely, but he did not see this.
He looked up from his boots and growled. "Fine. Your mistake."
"Right." She spun herself quickly, midair, becoming a force of wind and power.
He took aim at this spinning tornado in front of him, and then quickly thought better of it. The bullet would deflect right off of it, and she was counting on him to consider doing this. Her mistake.
He charged at her instead, spinning himself, becoming a force like hers. And the clash between them spun them both out. They landed opposite ways.
"Well, handled it a bit better than I thought," she muttered, dusting herself off. "I guess I'm going to stoop so low as to kick the dog while it's down…" But by the time she had regained her strength to make her way over to him, he had stood up.
"Nice try." He jumped at her, attempting to push her to the ground, wrestling with as much force as he could muster.
She wasn't holding back either though, attempting to push the same force back at him, while trying to pull her way out of his hold. Only one of those attempts worked, in her weakened state.
She fell back down to the pavement, grunting at the impact.
"Well, looks like that was your mistake. First one to the ground is the loser, right?" He stepped towards her, glowering in his pride.
"I guess fair's fair," she shrugged. "Now weasel on back to your weasel-hole." She stood up and dusted herself off, and he half-expected her to start fighting again despite her words.
He wasted no time in running off, back down the streets he had come. He looked back at her briefly and saw that she was making no attempt to come after him. Instead, she just stood there, smiling. He had no idea why until he thought for a moment that, perhaps, she'd somehow stolen the treasure from his satchel while he was distracted. He quickly checked and saw that they were still there. Which made him all the more confused why she seemed so...happy about her loss.
But it didn't matter to him. He had gotten his revenge on her, and the treasure was all his. That's all that really mattered.
Rouge stood in the place beside her apartment building for a long while, laughing to herself giddily.
And he hadn't the slightest clue that he'd been tricked after all. Maybe years later, he'd put the clues together and realize his mistake. But until then, she had the inside joke to laugh at. And his real gems to keep.