More than a year had passed since their first heist. They ensured their thievery kept to an inconspicuous schedule, so as to not alert anyone in Ninjago City. Despite this, they were gaining notoriety as "mysterious criminals", with many citizens now being warned to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious. There was a noticeable change in many places Rei and Scarlet used to frequent, including security camera installations. Several wealthy neighbourhoods had greater security presence, and vicious-looking guard dogs were becoming prevalent.

The infrequency of their heists every month helped alleviate the issue, but it didn't stop Scarlet from warning Rei repeatedly about not getting caught. In spite of this, Rei found the thrill addicting. He loved the way his heart raced after every heist, and how satisfying it felt to sell what they stole to the average person. There was even a thrill when they walked around the city in broad daylight, hearing people talk about what they buy on the black market, while also saying how nervous they felt about criminal activity. Coincidentally, many of these people were also quite wealthy.

They couldn't stop rich people from buying off their black market, but Rei couldn't help but grin after hearing the same people they stole from worry about getting their new items stolen. They know they're walking targets now, he would think. Occasionally, he'd pick their pockets right then just for their audacity.

Naturally, Scarlet would give him quite the earful for this whenever she saw it. She would warn him that he was being too reckless, and that his actions would get them caught in the stupidest way possible. Every time he would apologize, but he found it harder and harder to stop himself whenever he found the urge to steal from people on the streets.

Even during their heists, Rei found himself coming away with even bigger hauls than every time before. He still made sure it could be carried out as inconspicuously as possible, but he was getting better at knowing what would earn them a good profit.

Tonight was no exception. Rei slunk into the main bedroom, eyeing the jewelry box on the vanity. He smirked, squinting through the darkness for the telltale signs of high quality. A pair of gold diamond earrings stuck out to him, practically begging for him to snag them. He tucked them into the inside pocket of his jacket, then opened the jewelry box.

Scarlet told him to wear gloves a long time ago, since they would cover up their fingerprints, so he had no worries when sifting through the jewelry. The box held a sapphire pendant, a small silver bracelet, and another pair of gold earrings. They were all small items, so hiding them in his jacket would ensure they didn't get damaged on the way back to their house.

Beside the jewelry box, he noticed there was a picture frame. The photo inside showed a mother with her arms around two little girls, all of them smiling at whoever was taking the photo. Memories of his mother, whom he hadn't seen in years, flooded back for a brief moment. Just beside the photo was a ruby brooch in the shape of a dragonfly.

Grinning, Rei grabbed the brooch and tucked it into his jacket's inside pocket, then turned out of the room, but not before grabbing the cashmere scarf hanging on the doorknob and tucking it into his bag. His bag was already quite heavy, and he didn't know if he would be able to carry anything more without looking conspicuous. He spotted Scarlet on his way out, and nodded to her.

"Think you're ready to leave?" she whispered, ducking as a dim light from a passing car lit up the hall from the window.

"Yeah. You were right, this place was loaded."

She grinned. "Of course I was right. Now let's get out of here."

The couple stealthily made their exit, fitting the window screen back into place once they were outside. They kept to the shadows as they left the neighbourhood they were in, avoiding windows and streetlights. When it came to the point where they could no longer hide, they readjusted their postures to look relaxed. Rei removed his gloves, stuffing them in his pockets, then unzipped his jacket to give the impression that he had nothing to hide. Beside him, Scarlet did the same, discreetly giving her bag to Rei so he could stuff it into the one he had. Many months ago, they discovered a way of hiding each bag inside each other without causing damage to their stolen items. After all, one bag was much less conspicuous than two.

They were soon at the edge of Ninjago City, the home stretch. The sound of the city faded behind them, overtaken by the chirping of the early autumn crickets and the whisper of wind. Their house soon came into view, and Rei stood back to let Scarlet unlock the door.

Once the door was closed behind them, Rei gave a hefty sigh. "Man...it's always pretty exciting, huh?" he asked aloud, not looking for an answer in particular.

Scarlet rolled her eyes, taking the bag from him and shrugging off her jacket. "Don't get ahead of yourself, babe," she said. "We have a lot more to do if we really want to show those rich bastards what's up."

Rei snorted, taking off his own jacket and laying it across the couch. "I don't know about you, but I could go for another round out there. And I bet I can get more stuff than you did."

She narrowed her eyes, smirking somewhat halfheartedly. "Are you trying to show me up?"

"Hey, I'm only showing off everything I've learned from you," he said with a wink, leading the way to their bedroom, where they typically sorted through hauls, and away from anyone who could possibly be looking in from outside. He laid his jacket out on the bed, taking out the jewelry from his pockets until there was a veritable mountain of it.

"Well, don't get too excited out there, okay?" she warned, laying her own jacket beside his and sorting through her haul. "We're trying to be stealthy with our hauls, not empty houses out. Besides, I don't want to be outdone by my boyfriend, of all people."

Rei laughed, rolling his eyes. "Spoken like someone who's jealous of my skills. Admit it, I'm just better at this than you are."

He meant it as a joke, but the look of rage that crossed her face caught him off guard. "You think you're clever? Seriously? You'd be out on the streets if I didn't teach you how to do your job. When we first started, you were like a baby deer crashing through houses. You didn't know the first thing about being quiet!" Rei tried to interrupt her, but she interrupted him, stepping toward him threateningly. "If it hadn't been for me, you'd have been thrown into jail by now! I am the only reason you're as good as you think you are!"

He shrank, looking down at the floor, his throat tightening. He didn't mean to make her feel insecure. "I-I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I didn't mean to make you mad."

There was a moment of silence between them, and he expected Scarlet to push or hit him. She would sometimes do it when she was angry enough, and he had grown used to being punished for upsetting her. As she would say, he earned it. However, she sighed instead, and he looked up to see her pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation.

"No, no, it's only natural that you'd get so excited," she said, cupping his cheek gently. "It's okay, babe. I know how I felt when I first got into thieving. It'll get easier to settle your emotions down the more you do it."

Rei smiled, leaning into her hand. "I can only imagine. You're so good at just treating it like any other job."

Scarlet waved her hand in mock embarrassment, giggling. "And to think this isn't even the most we can do!" Seeing his confused expression, she explained, "We've had a lot of experience under our belts with stealing from rich people's houses. But now? I think we're ready to go big. We're gonna break into that new warehouse that's gone up downtown."

Rei's eyes widened, his heart thudding in excitement. "Seriously? That's...are you sure?"

"Of course I am! But I do wanna make sure you're ready." She took his hand and guided him to sit on the edge of the bed. "So it's a new warehouse...for a certain inventor who has shown a ton of potential at his university." Rei's brow furrowed as she waited for him to connect the dots. When he didn't respond, she sighed. "It's Cyrus Borg. We're going to raid his warehouse next week."

Immediately Rei stumbled away from her. "Absolutely not. I'm not going to steal from my best friend. That would be a...a betrayal of everything we've done for each other!"

"Your best friend? You still care about him after he ditched you?" Scarlet stood up, her arms folded across her chest. "Cyrus is nothing but a sellout to the people who've always looked down on him. He left you behind when you told him we were getting back at those kinds of people! He had this coming, Rei, and you need to accept that doing this would only be fair."

"Scarlet, I don't know–"

"Rei." She fixed him with a hard stare, putting her hands on his shoulders. "Doing this would prove that you're dedicated to this life with me. I want to believe that you've learned everything you need to from me." She smiled gently, but her gaze was still firm. "If you do this with me, I'll know for sure that you're as good as you say you are at thieving. I'll never doubt you again, and I'll never leave you behind, because this will show that you'll always be with me."

Rei's chest tightened. How could she give him an ultimatum like that? Cyrus had been his friend since...forever, really. Indeed, Rei couldn't remember a time before he met Cyrus. They tackled every hurdle in life together: Rei's father dying, Cyrus' family struggling to pay for his health needs, and of course passing the entrance exams to get into NAST. Nothing ever stood between them until Rei first began working with Scarlet.

But that was exactly the problem. Cyrus no longer supported him, even though Rei still thought about his old friend. Scarlet was the only one standing by him now, effectively carrying the bulk of the weight of running their black market business. Even if she became angry now and then, she would always forgive him for his mistakes, and made up for her outbursts by showering him in affection.

Scarlet did love him. She wanted the best for him now. Cyrus was in his own world now.

Cyrus didn't need Rei, and Rei didn't need Cyrus.

"Okay," he said, releasing a gusty sigh. "Let's do it."

~o~o~o~o~

They waited for two nights to pass before carrying out their plan. Under cover of the new moon, Rei and Scarlet slipped into the warehouse through the front door. He allowed Scarlet to pick the lock and lead the way in; even now he felt uncomfortable about stealing from his former friend. With each step, he reminded himself that he was doing this for Scarlet, to thank her for loving and supporting him when no one else would.

Sealed boxes lined the aisles, each one separated by tall steel support columns. Metal stairways led to platforms above their heads throughout the warehouse, clearly as a way for workers to get around easier without getting in the way of the operated lifts, and for easy access to higher boxes. Somewhere deeper inside machinery whirred. Scarlet told him earlier that it was an industrial shredder for disposing of electronic waste and metals. The workers kept it on at night so that the noise wouldn't disrupt anyone during work hours.

The noise served another purpose of masking the sounds of intruders.

The couple split up to cover the whole of the warehouse. Far from the main doors, Rei cut into the boxes to see what he could find. In one box was a large stack of blueprints, seemingly for a kind of watch that could be used as a mini computer. In another were microchips, full of potential despite their puny size.

The excitement that fuelled their previous heists began to rush through Rei's veins again. They could make a fortune selling these goods to other inventors in the area, who would no doubt want to be the first to stake a claim on such hot commodities. Rei stored the microchips and blueprints carefully into smaller zippered bags. He couldn't afford for such potential to be damaged, after all.

The warehouse doors creaked open. Freezing behind one of the support columns, he spotted the orange glare of a flashlight lighting a trail along the concrete floors. A walkie-talkie buzzed, and some indecipherable chatter came through the other end.

"Checking the building now, sir." The guard spoke quietly, and was barely audible over the machinery noises, but Rei had been exercising his hearing for months now.

Breathing through his nose, Rei continued his way through the warehouse, his heart thumping even harder knowing a security guard was here. He couldn't explain the sudden rush. He should have been terrified, ready to drop everything and flee. But he remembered what Scarlet said when security in the city started ramping up: this wasn't a threat, but a challenge.

He caught the faintest glimpse of Scarlet's shadowed figure in another aisle, and from the way she moved, she wasn't scared. Straining his ears, the only things he heard were the thump of the guard's boots, and the thunder of the shredder. If Scarlet could keep going without a sound, then so could he.

While watching for the guard's light, Rei dipped in and out of each aisle, timing his cuts into the boxes with the abnormal rhythm of the shredder. He swiped what he could from each box, not wanting to weigh himself down too much.

The shredder stalled for a single, unfortunate moment, letting the tear of the tape on the box echo throughout the building. Rei fought back a sharp intake of breath, and saw the flashlight beam flicker in his direction. The guard stumbled to a halt, then his footsteps sounded again, careful and deliberate.

Rei swivelled his head around, and spotted a door, barely ajar, at the very back of the warehouse. He took a few long, quiet strides toward it, slipping through the door as stealthily as he could. He pushed it closed behind him, holding his breath as he listened for the guard's voice on the other side.

"...evidence of a break-in. His office is locked, though. Call for assistance...?" The footsteps grew further away, until he heard nothing.

Rei smirked. Not a great guard, if he didn't even check to see if the door was actually locked. He looked around the room, squinting in the darkness. It was a simple office setup, with a desk in the middle and assorted decorations. He frowned, wondering why there was no chair at the desk, and why the furniture was so deliberately spaced out from the walls. It wasn't until he spotted the diploma hanging on the back wall that the realization finally hit him.

He was in Cyrus' office.

The weight of his guilt crashed down again. He could feel Cyrus' invisible, accusing glare on the bag of stolen goods slung over his shoulder. He could hear gasps of horror, an achingly-familiar voice asking why, why Rei was ruining his career before it even started. He could feel hands trying to pull him out of the office, out of the warehouse, back to his home with Michiko, begging him to run from his new life.

Rei clenched his hands into shaking fists. He had been able to make it this far without any remorse. But now it was as if Cyrus was haunting the building, staring him down, locking him into a prison of his own emotions.

Rei's shoulder slackened, the bag sliding down to the crease of his elbow. It wasn't too late. He could stop this heist now. He could find Scarlet, tell her to change their mark, find a new up-and-coming inventor to steal from. If only to stop his former friend's guilt-inducing, ghostly silence.

"Rei! Hurry up!"

He jumped at the sound of Scarlet's urgent whisper. He spun around. Scarlet was peering through the door, her glare barely visible in the darkness. "What are you doing? Did you find more in here?"

Rei took a trembling breath. "Scarlet, I don't know if I can do this. I can't steal from Cyrus."

"Well, it's a bit late for that now, don't you think?" She pushed past him, scanning the desk for anything valuable. She picked up a blueprint, folded it, and put it into one of the zippered bags in her duffel. "Come on, there's nothing else in here." She opened the office door, peering out to make sure the guard wasn't watching.

"Scarlet, please–"

"Rei, I am sick and tired of you pussying out whenever things get too hard," she spat, jabbing a finger into his chest. "You're going to take that bag of stuff with you when we leave, and you're going to stick with this heist until the very end. Got it?"

His lips moved wordlessly, unable to form a proper response. A flash of light blinded them, and they both turned to see the guard aiming his flashlight at them.

"Intruders confirmed!" he yelled into the walkie-talkie. "Send in backup immediately!"

Scarlet grabbed Rei's hand, pulling him toward the staircase leading to the upper platform. Rei stumbled after her, only for his duffel bag to slip off his shoulder completely and fall to the floor.

"Halt! The police are on their way!"

They both ignored the guard, hurrying up the stairs until they were safely an entire floor away from him. Rei looked through the grate floor. The guard was shining the flashlight up at them, but ran off quickly to flick on the emergency lights. Soon, the building was illuminated with flashing red lights, a painful shift from the darkness he and Scarlet had only just grown accustomed to.

"This is all your fault, Rei!" she snapped, shoving him. "'Wah wah, I can't betray my best friend!' You are such a baby! If you just listened to me for once and done what you were supposed to, we wouldn't have gotten caught!"

"We haven't gotten caught yet!" he snapped back. He pointed to the window. "Maybe we can escape that way? We'll get out just before the cops get here!"

"Only if we survive the drop! Don't you remember why we only escape through the ground floor windows?"

"It'll be fine! Just trust me!"

They ran towards the window, now almost directly above where the industrial shredder was roaring. Rei looked outside, but his blood instantly ran cold. A police car had already pulled up, its lights flashing urgently, and down the road was an entire line of other squad cars.

Rei remembered when he was listening to the guard on the walkie-talkie earlier, and swallowed hard. "They called them in earlier. I thought that guard wasn't..."

If looks could kill, Scarlet would have murdered him five times over by that moment. "Isn't that spectacular! You heard them talking, and didn't even tell me?!"

"Ninjago City Police! We have you surrounded! Come out with your hands in the air!"

"I didn't think they'd have the cops on standby or anything!" Rei retorted, stepping away from the window. "How was I supposed to know that guard would actually call them right away?"

"By using your brain! Honestly, am I supposed to hold your hand through everything?" Scarlet approached him menacingly, the flashing red lights illuminating her mask of fury. "I swear, if we actually get out of here–!"

"You have until the count of three to leave the stolen goods and exit the building, or we will be forced to take extreme measures!"

"Scarlet, I'm sorry! I didn't think I'd start feeling this way, I swear!"

"One!"

"Do you ever think?! I'm the only reason we've even gotten this far!"

"Two!"

"I'll get us out of here, I swear! I'll prove you can trust me again!"

"Three!"

At that count, Rei spotted something large hurtling towards the window behind Scarlet. In the flashing lights, it had a slight shimmer to it. She was still embroiled in her furious argument, not noticing that something was heading their way. Rei's eyes widened as it smashed through the window, and rushed forth to try and shove Scarlet out of the way of whatever it was.

"Scarlet, move!"

He was seconds too late, and it shattered into a massive explosion of burning glass. Scarlet turned towards it. A column of fire burst forth from it, and she shrieked in agony, the fire rolling forth in a shapeless mass into her face. The sizzling of skin and roaring of fire filled his ears, a cacophony of noise mingling with Scarlet's pained wails and the thudding of machinery.

Rei lurched forward, pulling Scarlet towards him, only for another large object to come hurtling through the window, glass exploding towards them. He was faster in moving away this time, but when the object burst, the glass shot outward in several directions, the ensuing flames engulfing his vision.

Shards pierced his right eye, the pain splitting through his face and through to the other side of his head. He released Scarlet, crying out in agony as he rubbed his face, surely making it worse. Blood stuck to his hand, dripping down his cheek and onto the grated platform.

The world around him grew fuzzy and grey. His hearing grew muffled, everything sounding far away and too close all at once. He stumbled around, desperate to find his bearings, panting in between screams of shock.

Until his feet suddenly left the platform. He swung his arms, flailing as he fell toward the ground, toward the industrial shredder below.

Roaring.

Screaming.

Tearing.

Ripping.

Shredding.

Alright, so I know it's been like a million years, but BOY OH BOY, what a wild almost-three years it's been. At least I've put out this chapter now, right? Hopefully the next chapter will be out much sooner rather than later.

Anyway, leave a comment! And stay tuned!

(Also, I'll say it right now, trying to switch over to the desktop version of just to upload this chapter was a headache.)