Krayat was the first to enter the vault that was disguised as a barn. She had to physically restrain herself from progressing further now that her beloved was in sight, stopping at the marked-off line. Just an inch past it and the alarm would blare, destroying the toy and blowing up the entire place, possibly killing them all.

Whill joined her, giving the place a good lookover. He went through a few different waves of emotions. First, a bit of elation, since their prize was just a few steps away. Then it quickly dissolved into frustration and despair when he saw the lasers between them and remembered just how dangerous and deadly those few feet were.

Valen brought up the rear, taking a moment to dig through her bag of blood. She pulled out every vial and pellet that belonged to one of the Greaters and set it aside so as to not accidentally trigger the Fiend sensors that were also just past the line. She didn’t know if it could detect them in her bag, but she wasn’t going to take the risk.

This didn’t include Jaid’s blood, however. While the Greater had worked for the CP, and Valen’s best guess was that they were robbing some CP politician that could easily have accessed her blood, they hadn’t either deemed her threatening enough to include in their special upgrade.

Not that Jaid’s blood was actually particularly useful. All it could do was create more of itself, meaning The Bloodletter could maybe use it to torture or drown someone. But she herself would run out of energy before it could ever be used on a massive scale like a purposeful flood. Valen still kept a single vial, though—all she’d ever need—since she liked to have a stock of everyone’s blood with her for any eventuality.

With the hazardous blood removed, the woman joined the two others, getting to work as the other two continued to gawk and study the vault. She opened a vial of Rezin’s blood and sent it flying around the room, floating it in front of each camera. The blood would completely nullify the motion sensor, while also hiding their auras from the Fiend sensor. They doubted anyone was ever actually watching the cameras in the vault, but it would hide them from view as well if someone were to inspect the footage.

“Here, take this,” The Bloodletter handed a vial of blood over to The Burglar while she continued her preparations.

“And what am I supposed to do with it?” The thief asked in turn as she inspected the vial of ruby-red blood, which unlike the others, had a chain around it so it could be worn like a pendant.

“It’s Rishaki’s blood,” Valen answered. “The same stuff I use to seal the guards. Wear it on you so that I can access it. If things go wrong, I’ll use the blood to wrap you and your beloved inside, keeping you from harm… assuming I can save us in time too.”

“Very well,” Krayat wrapped the chain around her hand instead of her neck. “Let me know when you’ve finished so we can begin. I won’t need your help getting across the first time. My Curse lets me float slightly, high enough to make it through the obstacles, and it should be fine if my hand touches the ground.”

“But when I have my beloved back, things will get much more complicated. I will be unable to compress it along with my body as I’d like to, since I’d have to revert beyond the weight limit. And when I’m carrying it, floating will be almost out of the question due to the extra weight and encumberment. I’ll be able to make small jumps as well, but getting back will be almost entirely in your hands.”

“Yes, we know what we need to do!” Whill boldly declared. “I’ll get you back here safe and sound! It’ll be the easiest money I’ve ever made.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re confident,” the thief could only shrug, preferring that over the hesitance he’d been showing. “But let’s not delay any longer, we’re already running out of time.” Krayat glanced above the door, staring at the clock as it steadily ticked down. They were still above nine minutes remaining, but time was often fickle and gone too soon.

“Right,” Valen took her position, having finished her prep. “But first, let’s see if this is possible to begin with.” The Bloodletter held up a vial of aptly-described ‘blood orange’ colored blood. “Since we couldn’t use Kada’s to get through the glass, we had to specially requisition this blood from our friends at the Wandering Souls Circus.”

“This is from their prop manager, Modelle. Like her Curse, her blood lets me modify the basic shape and build of anything while maintaining its original functionality. In theory, it should let me open a hole in the glass without triggering the tamper alarms. But just in case it doesn’t, get ready to run.”

“Hmm, maybe I should wait outside for a moment,” Whill took a step back out into the fresh air.

“Sure if you want,” Valen didn’t try to stop him. “But the explosion would probably still hit you there too. I could put you in a blood coffin if you really want to be safe.”

“Err, you know what, it’s fine,” The Deterrent ventured back inside the vault. “I can be brave. Super brave.”

Valen didn’t even entertain his mumblings and flew the blood forward, weaving it between the lasers effortlessly as if she was guiding the wind. The blood careened into the glass, splashing out to every side. But the liquid didn’t go far, turning solid, becoming the glass itself—spread open like a blooming flower with a hole in the middle.

“Well, we’re not all dead,” Whill visibly unclenched his body, breathing a sigh of relief.

“Thank you,” was all Krayat managed to say before she transformed, compressing her body into just usual hand and eye, but also with an ear on the wrist so that she could listen to her team.

The hand zoomed forward, skittering across the floor at first, underneath the first set of lasers. Notably, the weight of her hand wasn’t triggering the sensor. Perhaps her secondary floating ability made the compressed parts of her body weightless.

When the thief got to the first set of rotating beams, she jumped into the air, flattening her hand, narrowly slipping through a small gap as the laser nearly clipped her flesh. But the woman made it look easy, as if she’d performed similar feats a thousand times. And the rest of the treacherous gauntlet was barely an inconvenience.

Unfortunately, the return trip wouldn’t be so simple, or their heist could hardly even be considered a caper. The real challenge had just begun. And as much as she wanted to, the woman didn’t pounce into the glass tube to retrieve the toy. She would be reunited with her beloved soon, but they needed to take every precaution.

One thing they hadn’t confirmed was whether or not the grate the toy was on had some sort of weight sensor—doubtful in case it suddenly fell over, causing the weight to lessen. But it was possible that any added weight could trigger some mechanism.

Instead, a new swirl of blood caught up to her. It was the same eggplant-colored blood that they’d used earlier for their surprise slide out of the sky, Dura’s blood. His blood could become whatever density and durability that Valen desired which made it perfect for impromptu platforms.

The blood settled into a disk just above Krayat, and the hand leapt up onto the floating fluid, now perfectly in line with her beloved toy, just inches away. And this was where Whill came into play. He held up his hand and the action figure lurched forward, right into the waiting palm of the thief.

It was the moment she’d been waiting for, wrapping her fingers around it as if giving it the biggest hug possible, never wanting to let go. That moment meant everything to her, reunited after so long, the memories of her brother and her family filling her with warmth. It was everything she needed, everything she’d suffered for. In that moment, she could consider her life fulfilled and die happy.

But it wasn’t over. She still needed to get her beloved out of there and ensure that it could never be taken from her again. Krayat took a good glimpse at the return route, and the lasers she just so easily skirted by now looked like a maze of death and ruination.

Fortunately, though, she had the exact help she needed. Some of the blood comprising her platform dripped away, forming a second platform nearby. It wasn’t another solid disk floating in midair, but rather it was tilted heavily by design.

With two fingers, Krayat hoisted the toy onto the back of her hand, wedging it partially into the chain attached to the blood vial, helping to bind it in place. Using the rest of her mobility, she leapt forward, but not right at the platform. There was no way she could have made the jump with her current burden and lessened dexterity.

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But the point wasn’t to land on the platform, just get in line with it. As she just started to fall after the apex of her jump, Whill’s Curse took hold, pulling her towards the platform, slightly slamming her into it. The landing was a bit rough for her liking, at a speed she wasn’t entirely comfortable with, but The Deterrent had warned her that it’d take some adjustment.

Krayat climbed to the top of the blood ramp, readying herself for the next jump. This time it was through the first wall of lasers, so precision was even more crucial. The first platform that she’d started on dribbled away and reformed in front of her on the other side of the beams. This time, instead of a ramp, it was a straight wall with a small jutting ledge for her to land on.

She suddenly felt the attractive pull from Whill, tugging on her glove, and didn’t try to fight it. The landing that time was far more delicate, though the flight still felt unpleasant. Being compressed was always already disorienting, but having her agency taken away and putting her trust in others made her feel ill. So far, though, things had been going smoothly.

The next jump would be one of the trickiest, through the wheel of rotating lasers. Not only did it require dead-on accuracy, but timing as well. Whill adjust his footing slightly, making the pull more of a straight shot. Valen setup the next blood platform, ready to catch the thieving hand, but the focus of the two Fiends was suddenly shattered.

“Oh, so we’ve got a repair tonight?” an unfamiliar voice chimed in from behind them. “Wait, where are the guards, who are you?!”

Krayat was mid-jump, right about to enter the lasers when their heist was suddenly interrupted. There was nothing the woman could do in her current state, so she was forced to leave it in the hands of her two accomplices.

Whill tried to continue forward, wanting to secure The Burglar safely on the next platform before doing anything rash. However, while the hand was in mid-air, both pools of floating blood suddenly splashed to the floor.

Valen had to make a sudden decision, trusting in the other two to keep the dream alive. While her Curse was extremely flexible in its utility, she could only control so much blood at once. And to subdue their new friend, she had to make a choice. Her immediate impulse told her that she needed to keep Rezin’s blood afloat in front of the sensors, or else they’d be screwed for sure, so she let Dura’s blood slip.

The Bloodletter’s attention snapped to the pellet’s of Drim’s blood that were sitting just outside the door. Fungi popped onto the scene and then exploded, the spores taking immediate effect, but the question was whether it would be quick enough before the guard could activate the trigger they’d pulled out in their hand. The group still don’t know if it’d only activate the acid bath, which would no longer be a problem, or blow the entire vault up, so they couldn’t risk it.

Fortunately, Whill intervened. The whole ordeal had been absolutely horrible timing, and like Valen, the man had to make a tough choice. He was originally going to try and stabilize Krayat in the air, holding her in place by pushing and pulling at the same time. But when the problem became more prevalent, he instead chose to drop her at the most opportune moment.

Unfortunately, there was only one timing where that’d work, since there were lasers waiting near the floors on both sides of the rotating wheel. So instead, as soon as the hand passed into the spinning mechanism, Whill deactivated his Curse. He then whirled around, snatching the trigger out of the guard's hand, pulling it to himself, just before the button could be pushed.

A second later, the guard fully lost consciousness, collapsing. Like all the rest, Valen used vines to secure them. But since she didn’t want to risk tampering with more blood, she didn’t bother storing them away. However, she did move them off to the side of the door, so they’d be out of sight and out of mind, hopefully preventing any future interference in their mission.

Both Fiends turned back to find Krayat and the hell she’d been enduring. Fortunately, the woman had managed to avoid setting off any alarms in that brief intermission, but she was very obviously struggling.

Whill had been forced to drop her over the spinning wheel of lasers just as one had passed. The woman had landed on the inner rim of the mechanism and began clinging onto it for dear life as it rapidly spun like a glove caught on the edge of a washing machine. And the centrifugal force hadn’t made it easy, especially since she was forced to only use two fingers, her others refusing to let go of her beloved toy for any reason, even at the cost of her current sanity.

At the very least, Krayat had removed her ear, compressing it back into her hand so she wouldn’t have any further sense of vertigo. But the constant rotation was making the eye in her hand want to throw up—however that would be possible. Her vision had already been heavily compromised by watering, but despite how much she wanted to slam her eyelids closed and keep them shut, the thief had to keep peeking to look for any communication from her squad.

She wasn’t able to watch it in realtime, constantly having to rest her eye, but the platform of blood sprouted back in front of her not too long later, and she felt the familiar pull almost immediately afterwards. At that spot, she took a moment to rest, looking up at the clock above the door. The entire incident with the guard had only cost them half a minute. While it fit into their budget of time, it meant they’d be closer to the limit than any of them would like.

The rest of the trip proceeded without incident, but some of the jumps were uncomfortably tight. More than once did Krayat feel the heat of the lasers against her skin and exposed eye. In those more tense sections, she opted to put herself on the dangerous side, rather than her beloved, doing all she could to ensure no further harm would come to it.

There was a time when she thought she’d have to drop the toy and pick it back up from the ground, but fortunately Valen caught onto the hand’s struggle and used the blood platform to pick up some of the slack caused by an awkward angle. And Whill had pulled the toy a bit further into Krayat’s hand so that she could get a better grip.

As soon as the thief landed once more on safe ground, she uncompressed her body. Not only did it feel good to stretch back into her full form, but it felt like an unbearable weight had been lifted off of her very existence. The second she could move her arms, she wrapped them around the action figure, pulling it into a deep hug, as if she was embracing the memory itself of her departed brother.

“Thank you,” The Burglar couldn’t stop herself from spouting. “This means everything to me, and I’ll make sure you’re both compensated properly.” She then jumped forward, hugging both of them briefly for just a second each—the most she’d embraced someone in a long time.

“Well, I guess this job wasn’t too bad,” Whill blushed in response, a bit affection starved himself.

The trio then stepped back out into the night air, mere seconds before the vault door slammed shut behind them. Valen worked on retrieving the stashed blood, especially needing Phon’s so she could prepare their trip back home.

But just before they were about to depart, Whill noticed something off. “Hey uhh, Valen, what’s up with this schmuck? Did the plant do this?” He’d noticed that the guard was rather blue in the face, certainly a disconcerting color.

“Uhh, no it shouldn’t!” The Bloodletter sprang forward, checking their pulse. “Oh zjik!” she noticed the placement of the vines that she’d callously manipulated earlier. They were wrapped around the guards neck, slowly suffocating them. The woman desperately tried to spurn their blood, to get their organs working again, but it was already too late. And the body started humming when the deadman switch triggered.

With one hand, Valen attuned to the vial of Phon’s blood, rushing to open a portal in front of them. With the other, she tapped into Rishaki’s blood, breaking both the vial still around Krayat’s hand and another in her bag, sending the blood behind them.

She made it just in the knick of time, wrapping their bodies with bloody coffins mere microseconds before the vault detonated. The explosion was strong enough to launch the coffins into the still-open portal, sending them crashing through on the other side, into a tunnel wall outside the booth for the Valen express with a bit of fire and debris to follow. Fortunately, the tunnels under the For Hire compound were built to withstand anything, only left with a few scorch marks needing to be buffed out.

And the heist crew made it out entirely unscathed. Once their adrenaline and generally rattled-minds settled down, the three of them split up. Whill went through another portal back to the West compound, gushing at the new balance displayed on his Common Card.

Valen returned to her room in the lab, originally planning to go to bed. But she was too worked up and instead hopped onto her computer and began spinning what they’d just experienced into an original fiction.

And that just left Krayat standing there alone at the end. Well, with her beloved, and that was all she needed. The woman headed for the stairs after a lot of idling and enjoying the moment, wanting to vanish into the night like a proper thief. But before she could even take the first step, her world shifted, and she found herself back in Phon’s room.

“I’m happy for you,” The Vixen greeted her and cut to the chase. “Though it seemed there were a few hiccups during the heist, from what I could see.”

“No thanks to you,” The Burglar wouldn’t easily forget the memory of her impromptu skydiving session.

“Well the whole compound is destroyed and the guards are scrambling,” Phon relayed, watching the scene unfold from the comfort of her room. “And firefighters have shown up, wondering why the heck there was a mawhgton of explosives on a farm.”

“As for the guards you all subdued, I’ve had Valen release them, and I’ve just now thrown them into the basement of one of the few buildings that’s still standing next to a bunch of booze. I also had Nathym do a quick pass with our memory converter as well. They’ll all wakeup with a bad hangover, thinking they passed out drunk playing cards, thanking Cosmos that they shirked their duties for some unknown reason. Hopefully Hower is stressed out of his mind right now.”

“But what about you, master thief?” Phon leant forward in her chair, staring at the woman with intrigue. “Now that you’ve pulled off your greatest heist, what’s next?”

“Well, I think I’ve taken your words to heart,” The Burglar was refreshingly honest for once in her life. “Now that I have what I want, I wouldn’t risk it again. So I think it’s time for a change, time for me to retire and live a quiet life—the life that they would have always wanted for me. I aim to disappear, and for your sake, convince you that I no longer need to be observed at all times.”

“That would be nice,” Phon nodded slowly at the answer. “Let’s see if it lasts when you get bored. But just this once, I’ll be nice and send you back to your home, since I of course know where your hideout is. So long, Krayat Drazah. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll get a card from us inviting you to a family reunion.”