A/N: A day late, yes, but hopefully the longness will make up for it? *bricked* I would've had this up on time had two different teachers not assigned entire books to read over the holiday…
Poor assignment planning aside, this chapter also contains something extra: the identity of the thief! *dun dun duun!* So, partly because you all probably would rather read that than my ramblings, and partly because I have had the worst headache all day and don't feel like coming up with something else to say, I'll keep this one short.
Thanks to Candlestic, Halloween Witch, Angelus Draco, Luna246, Molly Grace 16, and MileyLoonaticsFan96 for all of your kind words and understanding for my unexpected long break!
"So, what, did these guys suddenly get tired of banks?" Duck asked over the comm. as the Loonatics flew high over the city on their jetpacks.
"They've probably hit them all by now," Sive grumbled sarcastically.
"Jokin' aside, why would dey go after a music studio, of all things? It don't make much sense ta me," Ace said. "What could dey possibly have of value?"
They had been woken up early in the morning by the alarm sounding and a call from Zadavia, and had immediately jet out. Tech had set up the street cameras around Acmetropolis to scan for anything that moved fast enough to potentially be their thief, and they had caught him making his way into a big recording studio in the area, Sundown Records. Tech and Sive had set up a few of their traps within the past couple of days near some potential targets around town, and this was close to one of them (though the targets they had in mind were jewelry stores and banks), so the Loonatics were rushing to get ahead of their mark.
"Am I the only one here who pays attention to music?" Lexi asked exasperatedly, sounding as though the others should have known what she was about to say. "These guys recently won this huge award called the Centennial for being around for so long and supporting so many successful groups. As the name suggests, they only give it out once every hundred years!"
"Well, that would explain why he's trying to get into the awards vault," Tech stated matter-of-factly, peering at the screen on the small tablet he'd patched into the studio's cameras. Notably, the thief was still making sure that he stood out of camera range. "But unless he's a major music enthusiast, I still don't get it."
Lexi rolled her eyes. "The award looks like an old-fashioned record, and it's made of solid 24 karat gold."
"Well, dat explains dat," Ace said as the building came into view. "Tech, are we still ahead of him?"
"Yeah, we should be able to catch him just outside the vault if we hurry," he replied, checking the screen one last time before putting it away. "We should have just enough time to let him think that nothing's up."
"Great! Sive, you go on ahead and get goin' on your part," Ace ordered. The younger coyote nodded, peeling off of their flying formation and speeding ahead towards the approaching studio building.
Ace watched as she circled around the roof once until, finding what she was looking for, she went around to the back of the building and was out of sight. "Lex, Duck, once we get dere, you two look around and make sure everyone's alright. Tech, Slam, you two come with me. We gotta make sure we give Sive enough time ta get in and find dat award."
"She probably won't need that much time," Tech replied, peering down as they passed over the spot where the net was hidden, "and we don't need to fool him for that long. There aren't many ways this plan can go wrong."
"Don't say that, Tech!" Lexi chastised as they touched down on the ground and ran into the building. "You'll jinx us!"
"Uh, guys? Now's not da best time ta be talkin' 'bout dis," Ace advised as they turned a corner, only to duck back as they were immediately shot at by their thief. "We've got a plan ta carry out!"
xoxoxoxox
Phasing only her head through the ceiling of the room, Sive checked around and, only once she was sure she was still alone, allowed the rest of her to phase through, flipping once to neatly land on her feet as she surveyed the room. The sheer number of awards scattered about on shelves and tables, some in glass cases and others out in the open and collecting dust, made her wonder just how long that studio had existed. The award vault in total looked to be about the size of their training room, only it had many extra walls jutting into the room for added shelving space. Lights from the ceiling reflected off the gold-colored paint on the awards, making it almost unbearably bright. Just behind her, a massive, double-plated door stood, keeping all others out. She could just barely hear the sounds of a fight outside.
"Now if I were a big, flashy record, where would I hide?" Sive asked herself as she surveyed the room. The only problem; she had no idea what a record was, let alone seen one before. There were multiple things in the room she couldn't identify, be they small figurines on top of statues to the large, somehow significant disks hung about the room with names and dates written under them. And all of it was gold plated. However, none of it appeared to be related to what she was looking for.
Rounding a corner of one of the display walls, she stopped short, dumbly staring at the scene in front of her. "…Well," she said after a moment, her usual sarcastic note in place, "I guess if I had anything of any major value, I'd put it on display in the most obvious place, too."
Right in front of her was a massive exhibit. A few spotlights at different angles shone down on the large pedestal, painted to look like real wood. A bronze plaque describing what the glass case above it contained was drilled into the base, and inside, resting atop the pedestal on a stand, a large, golden disk- record, apparently- sat, the word CENTENNIAL embossed across the front.
Phasing one arm through the glass, Sive gently removed the record from its stand, before quickly phasing her other hand through so she didn't drop it; for gold being such a light metal, the award was surprisingly heavy. "You know, when I joined up with a group of superheroes, I didn't think that I'd be using my skills as a petty thief so much," she said to herself thoughtfully, hefting the record up to look at it, wondering if all of them were this heavy. The thing really did weigh a ton, and it was with a sinking heart that she realized that she wouldn't be able to run at her usual speedy pace while holding onto it.
Sharply turning around as a loud banging that sounded like explosive laser shots hitting the vault door, she realized that her time was up. Sive looked about the room quickly, praying for inspiration, before she spotted something that gave her an idea.
xoxoxoxox
The Loonatics had given up without much of a fight. The fact that there were only three of them helped; it did seem pretty stupid that, based on all of the trouble they'd been having, they'd send half of their force off to check the building for anyone still inside, but they were the good guys, after all, and the safety of their public did come first. It seemed to be an overall off day for them; the big purple one, during their fight, had even eliminated the most difficult part of the lock on the vault after being tripped up. A few laser shots were all that was required to get the door open after the Loonatics had fled.
Zipping into the room, one quick shot to the camera and another to the fuse box hiding behind a few trophies were all that was needed to feel comfortable to stop moving.
"Look-at-all-this-gold!" the speedy persona exclaimed gleefully. "We'll-never-be-able-to-carry-all-this-back!"
"Remember: Only one thing here is real. The prize should be towards the back," the slower persona said, voice still eerily devoid of any emotion, "and behind a wall, in a corner."
The thief took off at a rocket's pace towards the back, easily seeing the spotlights in the darkness, still running on backup battery power. However, he stopped short, still in the shadows, upon seeing the empty case.
"Wha-? This-isn't-right! Where-is-the-golden-CD?" the rash speedy persona asked indignantly, eyeing the empty case with frustration and annoyance.
"Actually, I'm pretty sure it's called a 'record'," a voice that didn't belong to either persona stated innocently from somewhere behind.
Sive could see the slight shift in the shadow as the thief turned to where she had been hiding herself even more effectively than he behind a large pedestal bearing a silvery microphone. Her tone of complete innocence only increased as she held up a gold record, asking, "Looking for this?"
"You-don't-know-who-you're-messing-with-chica," the speedy one intoned. Sive could practically hear the devilish smirk in his voice.
She saw a dim red light, indicating the business end of a charging laser gun, pointing in her direction. Of course, the thief didn't even bother to think that she could zap him with a few hundred thousand volts in the blink of an eye if she actually felt threatened; but that wouldn't have been according to plan. "Just hand it over, and no one needs to get hurt," the slow one advised, jerking the gun in her direction once just to make sure she got the picture. "This can be resolved nice and easy."
Sive smirked. "Sorry, but I don't do 'easy'."
She would've paid a lot of money to see the look on his face as she tipped over backward, phasing through the wall and ending up outside, about forty stories up, and rapidly falling towards the ground. Activating her jetpack before passing the thirtieth floor, she allowed herself to slowly continue her descent, aiming for the entrance to the park across the street and idling her jetpack engine at about ten feet up as she looked back, staring intently at the main entrance of the recording studio across the street.
Not two minutes later, the doors burst open, and a dark blur ran out of the range of the streetlights and over to the side of the building, near where she should have been little more than sidewalk art on the ground before stopping. Giving a sudden boost to her jetpack engine before abruptly cutting it off and landing on her feet, she chanced a quick look back before darting into the dense trees just off of the main path in the park. Sure enough, the noise had attracted the attention of the thief, and he was now hot in pursuit.
Running at her top speed, which was pretty fast, though still no match for the speedster hot on her tail, Sive put some added distance between her and her target by weaving through the trees, using her phasing powers to take paths that no one could possibly follow without abruptly becoming one with nature. This kept enough distance between her and the gun-toting thief such that she wasn't forced to dodge random laser fire every few seconds and could focus instead on the plan.
Breaking through the trees and making a sharp right turn, she moved so she was running on her toes at full sprint to keep her marginal lead over the thief. Now, they were on a wide, paved path lit sporadically by streetlights; there would be no reason for him to shoot, seeing as he could catch up to her with a boost of speed. She could hear him burst through the foliage behind her, snapping twigs and sending leaves flying, and she could hear the sound of quick feet gaining up on her on the path.
Now, at this point, most would be wondering "Why not have Slam or Duck do this? They could escape the thief much easier than Sive can." While this was true, there was one thing that she could do that they couldn't that was imperative to the plan.
Passing between another set of streetlights, Sive phased, and could feel the thin elastic wire net, strung up vertically between the lights, pass through her, the tingle feeling stranger than normal with such a thin and sporadically placed object passing through her. She didn't slow her pace until she heard two- two? -startled shouts behind her, the sound of the net snapping up at the top and falling down to trap its catch.
Stopping and breathing heavily from the exertion, Sive allowed herself a quick moment to catch her breath before turning and facing her catch. The others weren't far behind her, and she was sure that they couldn't wait to see who it was that was still thrashing around in the net, limbs sporadically poking through the holes in the netting before disappearing again in a bit to disentangle himself. Once he wasn't tangled in it, he stopped his wild struggling, though still squirmed around. Sive wasn't worried; unless he was the size of a four year old, there was no fitting through the holes in the netting.
Of course, this thinking crashed down around her like the roof of a shoddily constructed building as HALF the dark shadow of the thief stood up, easily slid through a hole in the net and rocketed towards Sive. She was too shocked at the turn of events to react quick enough, and this resulted in her being drop-kicked in the chest by what felt like a miniature high-speed wrecking ball, resulting in her losing her hold on the record, flying back a few feet and roughly landing on her back. The hit dazed and winded her, and by the time she got it together enough to sit up, the one who had hit her was back where he had started, award in hand, while his other half freed himself from the net much more slowly.
She couldn't help the dumbstruck look she was sure she was wearing. Now that she could clearly see what they were dealing with standing near the net just below the streetlights, she could confirm that yes, the thief was anthro, but they had gravely miscalculated. On the other hand, it did explain why it looked as though he'd been talking to himself.
"Ha! You-think-you-can-stop-us-that-easily?" the one holding the record taunted, revealing that he was the speedy persona with his speech, though his earlier speed boost somewhat gave him away.
"Now you've done it…" the slower one said as he slowly, finally pulled himself out. He moved just as slowly as he talked, still just as monotone as before.
To explain this phenomenon, one must have some knowledge of anthros. Anthros came about due to evolutionary oddities in certain parts and communities of certain species. In order to survive, adopting some human-like qualities became necessary. This led to development similar to humans, namely, the development of tools for use in the wild while adapting human-like traits to be able to make and use more effective tools; humans themselves learning of their existence helped this along much more rapidly. Eventually they became so advanced so as to be able to integrate into human society with little complaint, though there were always a few anti-anthro groups out there.
While anthros were now viewed as an undeniable part of modern society, there were still wide variations resulting from different species becoming anthros; unlike humans and their original variations of species becoming one universal race, anthros still varied greatly. They still had their fur, tails, beaks, feathers, etcetera, along with other animal-like qualities such as their respective sounds, quirks, and abilities, but one major defining factor for some was size. The average anthro, typically originating from a species that was fairly small, was typically shorter than the average human (so long as those with long ears weren't counted.)
Mice were one of these.
Instead of dealing with one fairly short thief, they were dealing with two very short mice, one no doubt propping the other up on his shoulders to achieve Tech's estimated height from the video footage. The previously dubbed 'speedy persona' was shorter than his companion, standing at no taller than two and a half feet (excluding his massive ears, and evidently surprisingly strong for his size, seeing as he could hold the record easily,) while the other, slower one was much skinnier and stood closer to three feet, and bore an expression that made it seem as though he were bored out of his mind by everything. They both wore similar outfits- black shirts, pants, and Zorro-style masks- but they also both wore sashes; the shorter one had green, while the taller had red. The slow one was the hotshot with the gun; the quick one appeared to be unarmed.
"I'll-say-this," the shorter one continued, as though completely unaware of Sive's shock, "the-net-was-a-good-idea, but-you-had-no-clue-that-you-were-up-against-the-greatest-duo-ever, Jet-Torres-and-Slo-Mo-Lopez!"
…Well, that answered another question.
The taller one, apparently Slo-Mo, facepalmed. (Sive couldn't help but notice how appropriate the name was, considering it took him a few seconds to successfully carry out the action.) "Months of careful planning, only to go up in all of thirty seconds. Muy bien, tonto*."
Sive was still shocked by the turn of events, but wasn't as completely floored as before; she was aware enough to see that she had an opportunity to make a quick getaway while they bickered. Carefully getting into a crouching position, making sure to make to obscenely obvious movements that would draw the attention of the unwitting mice, she angled herself to be able to spring up and dart back into the trees. With a few quick, furtive glances at the oblivious pair, she tensed herself, ready to spring.
She caught the flash of the laser out of the corner of her eye.
Redirecting herself, she jumped back, performing a backward summersault for added distance and to end up on her feet again as she balefully glared at the mice, a smoking, discolored area where she had previously been now between them.
"Lo siento, chica, but we cannot just let you go now," Slo-Mo stated in what may have been meant to be a tone of regret.
"Yeah, you've-seen-too-much," Jet, (also appropriately named, Sive noticed,) agreed, though he was far less serious about it. And yet, the other may have been just as jibbing; she couldn't tell without at least some inflection in his voice, and he moved too slowly to have any visual tells.
"So, that means you two are going to try to either off me or "make me disappear" or something of the like, right?" Sive asked, watching the taller one slowly approach. She allowed some electricity to crackle about her, blue eyes turning bright green in the odd Loonatic glow. "Good luck with that."
The mouse stopped, turning and stowing his gun in a holster on his belt before facing the now quite menacing coyote again. The other appeared ready to run in at any moment, but relaxed with a gesture from his taller companion. "No, no, nothing so violent. In fact, this should not hurt a bit." Then, his eyes began to glow as well; an odd yellow, one Sive remembered the connotations of.
The first robbery; the video footage Zadavia showed them; the yellow flash; everyone forgetting what had just transpired.
"He's a memory wiper," Tech had concluded.
Reacting on pure instinct, she allowed herself, all of herself, to phase, watching as the mouse in front of her gradually seemed taller, until her head followed the rest of her in her straight shot through the ground.
xoxoxoxox
"…In my defense, I didn't think she would do that on solid ground," Slo-Mo concluded after the few moments it took him to process how his target had just seemingly melted into the paved path under his feet.
"What's-the-big-deal-if-they-know-who-we-are?" Jet asked. "We-don't-have-anything-important-tied-to-our-identities."
"It is them knowing that there are two of us to deal with that is the problem," Slo-Mo stated. He looked as though he were about to elaborate, but was interrupted as they both turned towards the entrance to the park, hearing the unmistakable sound of approaching sirens and jetpack engines.
"I'll explain later. We have what we came for," he concluded, painstakingly slowly turning to his companion, "so we should-"
"There's-no-time-for-you-to-give-a-speech-hombre!" Jet interrupted. In a movement to quick to process, he swept his partner in crime up onto his shoulders, handing over the record before zipping down the path. "We've-got-to-get-out-of-here! The-fuzz-is-hot-on-our-tails!"
"I was just about to say that," Slo-Mo commented, but sounded as though he didn't really care about the interruption as he stared at his prize.
xoxoxoxox
The office seemed…overcrowded these days, and yet there were never more than two people inside at any one time. Rev assumed it had to do with the extra desk they'd assembled and shoved in across from his father's; he couldn't remember the last time the layout of the room had changed.
He wasn't sure he liked it.
Working a desk job every day for weeks on end, one may assume that Rev, being a naturally active person, would have snapped a while ago from the excess energy. It had been like that, at first; he'd insist on running every little errand (even though his parents would berate him for not taking the car to do them,) and while working, he'd always make some fidgety movements- tapping his feet, rearranging the desk and the like- until Pa got annoyed enough to tell him to stop. Neither of his parents seemed to like it when he used his powers at all; to be fair, it would be hard to work over all that.
But now, Rev found himself feeling very lethargic, with absolutely no drive to work. He didn't see why. He should have been happy with his position; his dad had immediately found him a high-ranking position in the company as a senior project manager, on the fast track to being a major part of the company. All projects in the company crossed his desk at some point. It paid well, and he never even had to leave the house to do his work; everything could be done through email. There were times he wished he was working on the assembly floor, inventing and building new toys for himself instead of looking at other people's ideas in pictures, and it would certainly have helped get some energy out of his system; but again, he couldn't argue with how good his position turned out to be.
With these thoughts in mind, the roadrunner turned his full focus back on his work, determined to get something productive done. This new resolve lasted all of three minutes. His typing pace began to slow; the words on the screen began to melt together to the point where he was rereading lines over and over again to try to decipher what they meant. Eventually, he stopped altogether, pushing his keyboard away and burying his face in his arms upon his desk.
He didn't want to work a desk job.
He didn't want to work on an assembly floor, either.
What he really wanted was to be helping his friends. Despite his parent's attempts to try separating him from the goings-on in Acmetropolis since he'd left, saying that it was no longer his concern, he could be found fervently checking news sites on his computer whenever he was alone in the office. The amount of trouble the thief was giving his teammates- ex-teammates- was worrying. He was starting to get seriously afraid that something bad was going to happen; he remembered how skilled the thief had been during their one meeting, and felt awful about leaving his teammates alone to deal with it when his speed had been a key advantage.
Straightening up and pulling his keyboard back towards him, he went on to a website of a major Acmetropolis news station. Ignoring the segment about Misty Breeze on the homepage, he scrolled down to the Loonatics heading, (the Loonatics being popular enough to have their own headline,) and was sad to find that nothing new had been posed since he'd last checked an hour ago.
"Why be sneaky about it?" a voice suddenly asked behind Rev, making him jump practically out of his chair and spin around. Rip appeared to be very amused with this display. "If I were you, I'd wave it around in Pa's face that I was ignoring him."
"Unlike-you-Rip-I-want-to-try-avoiding-getting-my-parents-ticked-off-at-me," Rev replied, pouting a bit at how easily his brother had surprised him. He hadn't even heart the office door open… "WAIT-A-SECOND-you're-in-Pa's-office-you're-not-supposed-to-be-in-here!" Rev shouted. It was true; Pa still hadn't allowed Rip into his office, not that Rip seemed to particularly care.
"Yeah, like Ma and Pa are suddenly going to start noticing me again," Rip said sarcastically, though there was still some bite to his voice. "You, on the other hand, I think are receiving too much attention from them. You need to stop listening to them before you suffer some sort of breakdown."
Rev shook his head, sitting back down in his chair. "It's-not-that-simple-Rip-they're-my-family-I-can't-just-ignore-their-wishes."
"You can if it gets in the way of what you want," Rip argued, before thinking a moment. "So long as what you want isn't destructive in any way. I don't think wanting to be a crime fighter falls under that category."
"I-can-sort-of-see-where-they're-coming-from-with-their-concerns-though," Rev conceded, not meeting his brother's increasingly annoyed look. "I-mean-Ma-did-say-how-she-was-always-worried-about-me-getting-hurt-on-the-job."
"And Dad's leading argument of no pay?" Rip retorted. "Rev, I get it; I'm the rebel, you're the Momma's boy." Rev looked like he wanted to seriously argue that, but Rip continued quick enough to stop even his speedy brother. "However, when they start interfering with your life like this, you need to stand up for yourself!"
"But-they're-my-parents-they're-just-doing-what-they-think-is-best-for-me!"
"What they think is best and what is best are two completely different things!" Rip shouted, raising his voice for the first time in what must have been forever. "Rev, you need to realize that at this point, they've lost sight of what's important! Yes, having a good job and high pay and whatever is good, but it's not what makes you happy. You've slowed down the past couple of weeks, and you're not even aware enough to realize it anymore! They disguise it by saying that all they want is the best for you, but really it's just what makes them happy; seeing you high up in the family business. They don't give a damn about what makes you happy, Rev. You need to start speaking up for yourself. I'd do it, but they won't give me the time of day. Unless you do something, nothing is going to change. You'll be stuck behind that desk for the rest of your life, and both you and I know that isn't what you want."
Neither spoke after that, and now Rev really wouldn't look at his brother. He was mad that Rip would say such things about their parents, but also embarrassed because, no matter how much he wanted to deny it, some part of him deep down knew that he was right. His parents seemed to have understood both of their sons better after the Robo-Amigo incident all that time ago; now they weren't even back at square one, but somewhere miles behind it. It made Rev feel more than guilty that he had let his parents stew so long over this that they reacted this way; but again that one part of him recognized how unfairly things were playing out for him. However, he was the one who didn't recognize these fears earlier; it was, technically speaking, his fault. The least he could do was try to go on like this, the way they wanted, for a while until he could work out some sort of compromise.
All while Rev was thinking this, Rip stood there, waiting to see how Rev would react. Noticing that his older brother was lost in thought, he left just as quietly as he came, leaving his brother to think for himself, and hoping that he would come to his senses soon.
A/N: TWO?! …Probably wasn't that surprising, really, but whatever. If I knew more about psychology, I may have made it some kind of major personality disorder, but unfortunately, they don't offer AP Psych at my high school until you're a senior or if you didn't take science when you are a freshman (which I did,) so instead of trying to teach myself an entire class or wing it, I figured it was the better way to go.
Props to anyone who notices who the thieves are based off of from Looney Tunes! Jet is Speedy Gonzales' descendant, while Slo-Mo is related to the lesser known (but still just as awesome) Slowpoke Rodriguez. (He seriously only appeared in two episodes, but was pretty epic in both.)
I originally intended to have another part included in this chapter and leave it hanging elsewhere, but no matter what I did, it wouldn't go down from my head to the keyboard correctly, so I decided to postpone until a later date. (Namely, what will hopefully be two weeks from now.) I have a major project this week, but should be free during the upcoming week to type, so I have high hopes for on-timey-ness. Don't quote me on that, though.
Reviews make me squee! (Which is why I no longer check my email in math class.)
*Very good, idiot.