Silhouette

James had spent an entire day digging a tunnel from a regular small sewer tunnel to the warehouse - as well as a hidden room to serve as a cache for all of their future loot. The newly dug tunnel was quite small, only large enough for a cat to go through, James didn't want to risk the Blood Angels following the ratlings down. The cache itself however was as big as a closet, the plan was to fill it up after all.

How did he deal with the rocks and bricks he dug out of the nest? Simple: he had expanded the nets to stock more of these materials.

How did he deal with the rocks and bricks he dug out of the nest for the second expansion? Simple: he had fused a lot of them together. Turns out, once infused with shadows, materials could not only be fused together but also condensed - which made it MUCH easier to stock them.

At this point, James was pretty sure he was right under the warehouse. Shapeshifting had seemingly enhanced his memory and, if this very memory was correct, he was pretty sure that his tunnel ended right under a corner of the warehouse - as for how he knew the right distance, well, let's say that being a delivery boy had taught him to evaluate distances despite obstacles, in this case, the ground.

It was now the time to test that out: it was time to breach the warehouse's floor. This would be the riskiest moment before the heist, if he was too loud the thugs could hear him and understand something weird was going on, if his estimations were wrong then he could end up outside of the warehouse or even in a completely different area, even plain bad luck could have dug right under a guard's feet.

To be safe he had ordered the ratlings to stay in the nest, just in case. Goliath hadn't stayed with him very long, he had quickly grown bored and had returned home as soon as his siblings had returned from their hunting trip. Digging tunnels was boring, even for rats, who knew?

James, in his Skitter form, to fool the thugs into thinking he would just be a mindless mutated beast, speared his four tentacles into the tunnel's ceiling, reshaped his round body into a donut to pass dirt through, and created a pair of rotating steel-hard spikes to drill upwards. Once the hole was deep enough to go through he slimmed down his body and entered, continuing to drill, taking care to ease the debris' fall with a net-like tentacle to avoid making too much sound.

"Huh, is it just me or is there some sort of grinding sound?"

"Jerome, I swear to the Nines, if you say ONE MORE WORD within my hearing range I will GUT YOU LIKE A FISH!"

"Hey, that's racist!"

"Jerome, do I have to go borrow a fisher's knife?"

"Nah, it's fine, I'll be quiet."

"Good."

"..."

"..."

"There's still a grinding sound though-"

"JEROME-"

Luckily for James, the goons he was planning to steal from were not the brightest of the bunch and their supervisor's patience had run short thanks to their usual hijinks.

And so, roughly less than an hour of grinding stone covered by the sounds of Brad yelling at Jerome as well as Joe's, Bob's, and Mickey's pleas for him to show mercy later, James finally stumbled into something other than stone.

Wood.

He had already dug through the warehouse's floor and was now beneath a crate.

He wondered how he could solve this conundrum. After all, this entire plan was based around the fact that the thugs wouldn't react too badly if their Red Dust was left alone, if by chance this crate was filled with the stuff and James drilled a hole in it, well, it would all go down the tunnel and probably make the gang's interest in locating and punishing MUCH higher. Really, in a normal situation, this might have been enough to cancel the entire thing.

But, thankfully, James realized he could just gas or shadow his way inside the crate to see what was inside. He preferred turning into a shadow, not only would he have more control but, as an incorporeal being, he may be immune to the possible side effects any loose Dust could have had on him.

And so he slithered his way in, reassured to see that the crate was only full of money. He had no reason to worry after-

Wait, full of money? James inspected the content of the crate much more closely. Wads of purple tickets, each wrapped with a blue ribbon, filled the wooden construct. On each ticket was imprinted the number "500", the word "Xerins" in small characters, a domino mask over a balance and, on the side opposite to the one he just checked, a domino mask over a planet - which was definitely NOT Earth based on the continents he could see - with a spiky halo with the number "500" a few more times, as well as a flag with a blue cross - the hospital kind - and white background, a white domino mask with golden eyes in the center of the cross. Oh, and a few random numbers as well, those used to identify money.

I'm guessing that means those are tickets of five hundred Xerins? The flag must belong to whatever country I'm in as well. However, this begs the question: how much is a Xerin worth? Is it like Yens or Euros? And- wait a second, those identification numbers keep repeating. Don't tell me...

Indeed, James' assumption was correct: one of the Blood Angels' buyers had scammed them with fake tickets. Still, to make it look realistic and pass the bare minimum checks, it appeared that a third of the money was still real.

Doesn't that mean we could take most of the real money and, by the time they notice and check on it, they'll realize they got scammed and think we only stole fakes? Oh my, that's already quite a good catch.

Still in shadow form, James carefully left the crate to get a better look at the warehouse's inside. Lots of crates and quite a few guards, but still less threatening than Mickey alone. James slithered here and there, hopping from shadow to shadow to fit in and not get noticed, and checked each and every crate in the building.

As expected, most of them were filled with Red Dust, the stuff looked like red or orange salt depending on the bag, bags which seemed to be made of good old regular transparent plastic. Still, there were also other things stored here, a few more money filled crates, one filled with guns, two with ammunitions and a couple filled with odd trinkets, probably left-overs from past transactions, random guys' way of paying, or maybe just old forgotten inventory from the people who occupied the place before the Angels.

Money was always good, of course, so James took care to remember where these were placed, going as far as to infuse a single fake ticket in each one to have some form of tracking - he even went as far as rearranging the wads to ensure the ratlings would mostly take real money while leaving enough to not make the thugs too suspicious.

Guns and ammunition, however, were much less so. Guns were powerful and incredibly useful weapons for sure but James didn't feel comfortable using one, especially since he had absolutely no training to use one and, for once, even his new shadowy instincts couldn't help with that. And, without a gun, ammunition was useless. Still, James planned to have the ratlings steal a pair and some ammo, just in case.

The odd trinkets were much more interesting. Some lighters, lamps, flashlights, tools, random scraps, nuts and bolts, a couple of gears and cogs, and, most important of all, phones. If James' hunch was right, those were phones that had been stolen and wiped clean - and, therefore, without any password. THIS could be the most useful thing to steal, at least in the short term.

The guards, fortunately, did not patrol. They just stood around, doing nothing, simply oriented so that they would see anyone trying to enter the warehouse. Quite an ineffective way of doing things if James had to be honest.

But, now that he had thoroughly scouted the place and ensured the ratlings could safely act if all went according to plan, James was ready to begin.

"Goliath, it's fine, really."

"Squeak!"

"Don't pretend you're ok. You're already afraid of hunting trips, this is far too much for you to handle."

"Squeak!"

"This is too dangerous to risk it. Lucille, help me out."

"Squeak!"

"Squeak!"

"Squeak squeak!"

"See? Even David agrees! I'm sorry Goliath but you will have to sit this one out. If you really want to get over your fear once and for all we can work on that after this is all over, but right now isn't a good time to do so."

"Squeak..."

"We won't be long, ok? Plus, once we're done, we'll have a bunch of new stuff to fill this empty nest with!"

"Squeak?"

"Trust me, it's going to be fine."

Joe looked around. Once more, he had run out of work hours ago and, once more, Brad still insisted on him sticking around to do stuff - stuff which, again, was already done. At least this time Joe had taken a notebook to write down his ideas for his future novels, the one he currently had in mind being the story of a fish who wished to go to the moon. It was still a work in progress.

Plus, this time he got to be inside. He had even prepared a lawn chair for the occasion.

He was in the middle of writing down a few ideas for the chapter during which the fish entered an ivory palace to ask for a wish from the king of the moonlit sea when he heard a noise. A weird, skittery-like noise.

Joe put down his book and looked around - and even behind - him but nope, nothing in sight. Curious. Maybe rats had begun to infest the warehouse? It wouldn't be the first time something like that happened. Still, he had to check, what if it was some kind of shapeshifter or even just some kind of stealthy guy with noise-canceling techniques?

Joe looked around, no one had noticed the noise except him. Bah, it was probably rats, no need to bother.

An hour later, as he was finishing his second draft of the meeting with the king of the moonlit sea, he heard some noise once again. And sadly, this time, someone else heard them too.

"Ok, Brad isn't there so I'll just say it: I heard something."

"Jerome, I'm not Brad, but shut up. First, you have your defective jacket, you don't even know the gang's name, you heard something yesterday too and there was nothing and now this? Get a grip, man."

"Sorry Bob, but for once, I think Jerome's right."

"Et Tu, Joe?"

"I'm serious Bob, I heard something too. Probably just rats though."

"But you know the rules."

"To my great displeasure, yes, I do."

"Not me!"

"We have to check the source of any noise, Jerome."

"But that's dumb! What if a guy just threw a rock, waited for us to go check, and then sneaked in?"

"That's absurd, Jerome. Besides, it's not like we're the only guards here. There's also Jane and Moe."

""Yo.""

"See? So, who's going?"

"Would Brad be mad if I did it?"

"..."

"I would say 'yes'. Joe?"

"Can't you do it?"

"Ah, you know, my poor, poor lungs."

"Bob, I mean this in the nicest way possible: I will hit you with a chair once we're done."

Joe got up and began to wander around in the warehouse, checking the crates as he passed. At one point he even thought he saw something moving in the dark but, when he went to check, there was absolutely nothing. He did notice an open crate, though - just one filled with rubbish from past uses of the place.

"Don't think there's anything, guys. Just one of the trash crates open."

"Jerome, did you take something?"

"No, of course not. At least I think."

"Jerome."

"Hey, I get yelled at so often that sometimes I just zone out. Maybe I took something then."

"So can we all agree I did my job and can go back to writin- I mean guarding?"

"Sure Joe, sure."

As he was about to go sit back down, Joe noticed it in the corner of his eye: a lone, really small grey rat, sniffing at a crate's opening.

"Nevermind, found it. And yeah, it's a rat."

The rat froze at his words. Well, that was weird. Wait, no, it wasn't, it was just scared by the noise and afraid of him now that its cover was blown.

"What do we do?"

"Kill it?'

Just as Joe was getting ready to answer a crash echoed in the warehouse. Joe and all of the guards turned around and were horrified by what they saw: a silvery mechanical spider the size of a dog. It had apparently just made a crate fall by accident, judging by the wads of tickets everywhere on the ground. Joe took a step back, the rat completely forgotten and the loads of cash before him simply just not registering in his brain, for he had only one thought on his mind.

"The Empress."

The spider screeched and began to skitter towards the guards, guards which began to run away as soon as the spider started moving. Their yells and the spider's screeching attracted the outside guards' attention, as well as Brad and Mickey's.

"Shoot it, you idiots! SHOOT!"

The thugs that had just come in began to fire, trying to aim at the still skittering spider that slalomed between the crates, running towards the exit. When their bullets finally made contact with the robot, it was not relief but fear that spread: each and every bullet that hit the spider's silvery body just bounced off, encasing themselves in the crates' wooden frames.

Mickey ran ahead, thick black claws growing on his fingers and even his toes, piercing his shoes, and tried to fight the mechanical beast head-on. He threw a punch, aiming to crush the thing, but it lept off at the last moment, landing on his back before using him as a jumping pad. When Brad saw it leaping at him he threw himself on the ground to avoid it.

Screams, yells, and screeching spread all around, the inhabitants of the slums surrounding the warehouse were wary, what could possibly threaten the Blood Angels? Would the fight affect them too?

Finally, the spider exited the warehouse, it looked around for a second before skittering towards the road, stopping just shy of a sewer inlet. It tried going down but got stuck past its head, forcing it to awkwardly dig and bend the entrance's metal to make space for the rest of its body. Bullets continued to rain on it - despite their uselessness - and Mickey rushed in towards its large silvery behind, readying his fist for a smashing hit but, just as he began to lower his arm, the spider passed, narrowly escaping the fist that was now firmly encased in concrete.

Mickey tried to catch it with his free arm but it was too late, his clawed hand only caught air. He could still hear the thing running and screeching down the tunnels. He growled and smashed the ground, shattering it and freeing his arm from its concrete prison of its own making.

"It got away!"

"Come back Mickey, there could be more hiding around! You two, patrol the surroundings, you three, watch over every possible entrance, and you two, go check on the inventory, we have to know what was stolen!"

""Yes sir!""

"No one messes with the Blood Angels! Not even the Empress!"

Down in the sewers, James let out a sigh of relief.

Well, that was a bit more frightening than anticipated.

He turned into a gas to escape through the gaps of the defunct spider he had just used as armor before reassuming his humanoid form.

That thing is really constricting. and sneaking it in was really hard. Still, it worked, it provided sufficient armor to protect me and even threw them off, though I wonder who this Empress is. This isn't an empire, is it? That would be quite annoying.

James stretched back, nearly forming a "n" like figure, to work out the kinks in his non-existent spine.

Still, I'll have to have a word with David, getting noticed so early isn't his style normally and could have been really dangerous.

And so, James' - or Silhouette's - first plot had succeeded, all that was left to do was sort through the loot.

And so he returned home, taking care to empty the spider's storage unit in the cache he had prepared before carrying it back in a bag-like mass at the end of a tentacle, blissfully spared from the constant yells and screams still ongoing on the surface.