I wasn't sure anything could have distracted Dani-- or Pack as I had known her for so long, from chasing after her stolen lizards for even a second. But seeing me stand there with my face exposed, my identity revealed, at least made her stop very momentarily. She stared with an open mouth. On the other hand, next to her, Holiday honestly looked like she wasn’t surprised at all. She just looked at me, then back at Dani, flicking her tongue out a couple times curiously as though wondering what the big deal was.
Keeping my voice as even as I could given the shock that was still running through me from the revelation of Dani's identity, I gestured toward the alley. “Is this the way they went?” We could address everything else later. Right now, the only thing that mattered was finding those missing lizards, and I wasn't going to let anything get in the way of that. I sure as hell hadn't been about to let my keeping secret identity get in the way after Dani had revealed her own. Sure, I could have just let her think I happened to see her down there with Holiday, but… but something about this situation, something about her revealing herself to me in her panic, had told me it was now or never. If I didn’t let her see who I really was right then, I never would. It was the right thing to do.
In any case, yes, this was a really huge deal, and having someone else who knew who I was made part of me scream in the background. But I didn't care. None of it mattered compared to finding those lizards.
Dani snapped out of it, reaching into her own pocket to take out her black, featureless mask. Soon, it was pulled on, even as she started walking that way. “Holiday says this is where the scent leads. They definitely ran through this place, we just need to figure out where they went from there. And when I find them, I am going to break every bone in their fucking body.” Her voice was a dark snarl, which was matched by Holiday as the lizard-cat moved ahead of her.
Taking a deep breath, I fixed my own mask before putting the helmet back in place. Then I followed, looking around the narrow alley as we moved. There were several doors and a chain-link fence at the other end that looked climbable. “You don't think they knew what they were grabbing, do you?” That would imply a much bigger problem than this already was.
Dani shook her head at that. “No, I think some stupid piece of shit just looked through the window and thought there might be some money in a rich tourist’s bag that they could smash and grab.” With that, she tried one of the doors, but it didn't even budge. It was very firmly locked. “And they're about to find out what a really stupid fucking mistake they just made.”
Before she could say anything else, I took a step that way and gestured for her to wait. Then I stood very still in front of the doorway before sinking into a puddle. I heard the other girl gasp softly, along with a cute and confused squeaking noise from Holiday. Then I was in my liquid form, and slid myself under the narrow crack. I carefully reformed there, looking around from a crouched position. Nothing. This looked like a storeroom in the back of some clothing store. There was no one there, and it was all dark. I was pretty sure our thief hadn't gone this way.
I exited the same way I got in, before explaining that much to Dani. Then I quickly added, “You don't think they'll just drop the bag when they find out there's only lizards in there, do you?”
Her head shook. “They won't find that out, not without a lot more time and help. It looks like a normal bag, but if you're not me, you can't open it without a hell of a lot more effort and tools than some random opportunistic bastard happens to be carrying in their fucking pockets.”
There was good and bad to that. The good part was that they hopefully wouldn't be able to get to the lizards before we found them. The bad part was that it would convince them that whatever was in the bag was valuable and worth actually breaking through it to get.
With that in mind, realizing we needed to hurry even more, I checked the other couple doors scattered through the alley. Meanwhile, Dani and Holiday went to the fence at the back and checked for the trail. Unfortunately, I didn't have any luck. It seems like there was no one in any of these buildings right then. It was quiet here, though we could hear lots of excitement going on just around the corner where the casinos were. Things were just starting to pick up for the evening. Hopefully, that would mean we had the privacy we needed over here to deal with this thief without interruptions. But first, we had to find the fucking person, and that was proving to be easier said than done. At the very least, they weren't anywhere in this alley anymore.
To my relief, as soon as I came out of that last building, Dani called out to me from the other side of the fence that she had just climbed over. “Come on, they went this way. Holiday found something.” Without another word, she immediately pivoted and jogged off after her companion, who seemed just as anxious to find the rest of her siblings as Dani herself was.
I started to use a bit of blue paint to hop over the fence, before catching myself. Instead, I made myself liquid and just stepped through. It was a funky feeling, but I didn’t have time to dwell on that. We had the trail again.
Sure enough, Holliday had her nose to the ground and was clearly following some sort of scent through the narrow maze between several other buildings. There was a small parking lot next to a loading dock of some sort, and she paused there, looking around for a brief moment before hopping up on the cement area right by the rolling door where the delivery trucks would back up to unload.
Dani climbed up there as well, and was about to rear back and kick the metal door when I hurriedly hit the thing with a shot of black paint just as she did so. “Hey, we’ll get the lizards back, I promise. But let's not go announcing to the entire world that we're here. We don't know how many are in there, or what they might have with them. Maybe it's just the one person and this is their hidey hole. Or maybe it's something more. Either way, let's check it out first.” I pointed up to the roof. “Let's figure out just how many asses we have to kick before jumping in to start swinging.”
As freaked out and pissed off as she was, Dani still knew I was right. She trembled a little before jumping down and rejoining me. I, in turn, painted both her and Holiday red, sending them up to the roof, where they scrambled over the edge and disappeared for a second.
With one more glance around to make sure no one was looking, I used my rainbow paint on a bit of raised brick sticking up from the roof and teleported right up there. And yes, that was something I still wasn't even close to being accustomed to. My new powers were… a lot.
As my liquid body reformed back into myself, Dani whispered from right next to me, “Boy, I guess you're just full of all sorts of tricks, aren't you?” There was more to her voice, making it obvious that she wanted to talk about all of it. But later, after we saved her little friends. I was pretty sure that it was only the fact that the lizards were missing that was stopping her from pinning me down and blurting dozens of questions. Which was fair, given I had a bunch of my own that I wanted to ask the other girl. When this was over, we were going to be busy talking about all of it for a long time. Probably for the rest of this trip off and on, to be perfectly honest.
But for now, the lizards had priority. We needed to get in there, figure out what was going on, and get them back. Some part of me almost felt sorry for the poor piece of shit who had thought that grabbing that bag would be a good idea. But no, fuck them. They were about to get exactly what they deserved. Though maybe I wouldn't let Dani break every bone they had.
The three of us crept across the roof to find the skylight there. It was small, not even close to being big enough for a person to go through, and had a metal grill across it. But we were able to crouch there and peer through it into the building below. And this one definitely wasn't just an empty shop. We could see several old recliners and couches surrounding a television that was blaring some sort of gameshow. There were people lounging around, loudly arguing with each other about one of the trivia questions that had just been asked on that show. To one side were a few tables full of what looked like stolen merchandise from tourists, including a bunch of wallets and fanny packs. One guy in a dirty raincoat was standing at the end of the last table with Dani's bag in front of him. He was grumbling to himself while trying to shake the zipper. With a muttered curse, he tried to cut into it with a knife, but couldn't break through. Which, of course, annoyed him more.
Beside me, Dani made a noise as though she was about to smash through the grate with her bare hands, find a way to get down there, and rip his head right off without so much as a single warning. But I put a hand on her shoulder, looked that way, and whispered that I had an idea. It was going to be okay. I kept my voice calm and quiet, promising her that she would get her lizards back in just a second. She gave a sharp exhale before muttering an agreement.
Before she could change her mind or get too anxious to wait any longer, I took a moment to prepare the area back down in the parking lot, in case this went sideways. Once things were ready, I focused on the view through the skylight once more. The best way to do this and get the bag away from them without any risk to the lizards was a distraction. And I knew just how to do that with a paint combination that I had figured out while practicing with Izzy a couple days earlier. So, I carefully slipped my fingers between the grate, watched to make sure no one was looking, and then sent a red-black shot as far into the back corner of the room below as I could. The whole space looked like it was supposed to be a display floor for furniture or something, and I sent my paint clear back near what appeared to be the entrance to some restrooms.
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With that done, and no one noticing so far, I hit Dani with a matching bit of paint before nodding for her to go ahead. And go ahead she did, abruptly raising her voice to shout, “Hey you stupid fucks! What the hell do you think you're doing!?” She put all her anger in that shout, immediately drawing the attention of everyone down there. Except the red-black paint combination I had used actually took her voice from where she physically was and moved it to that spot down by the restrooms.
Immediately, everyone down there was on their feet. Guns were drawn, and they raced that way, ready to deal with whoever had barged in to shout at them. I was honestly surprised no one fired a shot in the sudden panic. Maybe they were more disciplined than it looked, which was another reason why not just jumping down there had been the right move.
While their backs were turned, I grabbed the metal grate that I had already painted pink and ripped it out silently. Then I pointed, using a shot of red on the backpack that our thief had dropped in his rush to join the others. I felt Dani grab my arm and squeeze tightly just as I activated the paint on my glove and brought the bag flying up through the air. Her grip on me got painfully tight until I caught the thing, pulled it out, and handed it to her. Even then, I didn't dare breathe until she unzipped the bag, looked inside and made a small noise of relief. The next thing I knew, she was hugging me tightly. Her grip was even stronger than it had been on my arm. She was practically crushing the air out of me in that moment. But I didn't care. Her lizards were safe and she had them back. That was the only thing that mattered right then.
Of course, the second I had that thought, something caught my eye. I shifted just enough to see one of those guys in the room below. He was facing us, looking up and pointing some sort of complicated gun our way. I had just enough time to push myself in front of the other girl and activate an orange bird shape on my back before he fired. A blast of concussive force shattered the skylight and the bricks around it before slamming into me. Both of us were sent flying into the air and off the roof. Even in my daze, however, I managed to flip around, hitting Dani with yellow paint to slow her descent before turning myself liquid so that rough landing simply made me sploosh out across the parking lot.
Dani landed nimbly next to a dumpster in a corner, still holding the bag in one hand while Holiday growled and leapt from the roof to join her. Her gaze snapped my way as I literally pulled myself back together, reforming from a scattered puddle to my physical self once more.
By that point, the sliding door of the shop had been violently shoved upward, and we had well over a dozen heavily armed thugs jumping out into the parking lot to join us. And they didn't look at all happy about our presence. I felt like telling them that we had simply been getting our property back probably wouldn't go over that well. They didn't seem like the types to respect that sort of thing.
Sure enough, one of the men, a tall white guy with a blond goatee and shaved head, stepped forward with a low whistle. “Boy, if I didn't know any better, I'd say we've got a couple strangers from out of town who think they can try to fuck with our territory and steal what belongs to us. Ain’t that some rude shit for guests in our city to pull?” His words were met with muttered curses from the assembled group, who were still pointing those fancy weapons at us. And honestly, after taking a single hit from one of them, I wasn't eager to be hit by a bunch all at once. Especially considering some of them looked even fancier than that concussive gun. There were what looked like at least a few lasers involved, and I wasn't sure how even my liquid form would deal with that. This was dangerous. Dani didn't even have any of her lizards out and ready except for Holiday. I was going to have to buy her time if this went as badly as it looked like it was going to.
So, the first thing I did was focus on getting as much attention on me as possible. Which started with both hands behind my back, since raising them tended to make people more anxious than not these days with all the different powers that could be projected that way. Mine being one good example. Keeping your hands out of sight and away from people did a lot more to keep things calm than raising them did. Once that was done, I spoke up. “Well hey, we all seem to have had just a slight misunderstanding. I mean, it's clear that you people are running some sort of a very useful service, finding tourist’s lost items and returning them to their proper owners. Seriously, hearts of gold, you lot. You're doing some fine work, and I can't wait to hear about how every single item in that place was given back to its owner. Really, it just fills me with a nice warm fuzzy feeling. But see, it turns out one of your people got just a little too eager to help and accidentally picked up an item before it was actually lost. Took it right out of a hotel room belonging to one of our friends. She was holding something important for us, and we needed it back. Time was of the essence. We couldn’t really wait to go to the lost and found, where I’m sure you would have returned it soon enough, along with everything else in there, being the upstanding, model citizens you all are.”
Once I got all that out, there were several mutters from the group arranged in a semicircle around us. A few seemed a little amused, though others were rolling their eyes and sounded annoyed. But none of them made a move to actually shoot, not yet anyway. They were clearly waiting to see what the bald guy with the goatee said. Either he was the leader of the whole gang, or at the very least, he was in charge right now. Whatever it was, he seemed to consider what I was saying, before simply asking in a voice that was equally amused and vaguely threatening, “And what if we don’t believe that’s actually your stuff? Maybe you should wait for it to appear in the--ahh--lost and found so you can go through the proper channels to get it back. What with being so interested in following the rules and all like you types are.”
Making a tutting sound, I shook my head. “Oooh like I said, we can’t really wait that long. I guess that means we just--” Pausing, I made a noise of realization. “Oh. Well there we go, I know just how to handle this. See, you’re clearly concerned about going through the proper channels, which is just so admirable. But we can see you’re very busy. Too busy to go straight to the lost and found right now to get the ball rolling. So tell you what. If you’re sure that it’s a bad idea for us to just take this single bag right now, that we absolutely have to take it back to the authorities so they can make sure it’s ours, we’ll just do you a favor. We’ll take everything in that room while we’re at it. You know, since we’ll be going to the authorities to get our own bag checked anyway. It’ll just spare you the time and effort, a win-win for everyone.” My chin rose, voice dropping a bit. “Or we can just take this single bag and walk away. You know, if you think that’s for the best.”
It was beyond obvious that these people weren’t accustomed to dealing with me, and that they’d barely heard anything about me at all. I had heard a couple of them mutter the name Paintball, so they at least knew who I was. But the fact that they allowed me to stand there and talk that whole time proved they really hadn’t done their homework. They thought that as long as they were surrounding me with guns, and my hands weren’t pointed at them, that they had the advantage.
The fact that they still thought that was proven a moment later as the guy in charge took a step forward. The lightness had left his tone. “I’ll tell you what, after we beat both of you bloody, we’ll dump your bodies into the lost and found and see who actually wants to come and claim y---”
That was as far as he managed to get with that spiel before his forward pace brought him in range of the green-blue mark I’d left on the pavement. It was one of a dozen different bits of paint I’d put into place before we’d even grabbed the bag, back when I’d taken a moment to make sure we were ready. I’d figured this might devolve into a fight, so I made sure the probable battlefield was prepped.
The second the guy stepped on what I’d disguised as a bit of random green-blue graffiti, I triggered it. With a startled curse-squeal, he was launched into the sky, flailing wildly.
In the same instant, a dozen different random bits of debris and trash that I had marked with red paint went flying through the air toward other red markings I’d matched them with. The gang members were suddenly pelted from all sides. And several of the people arranged around us squealed while they fell partway through the ground, thanks to the black-pink spots they had been standing on.
Oh yeah, and then there was the blinding flash from the green-white markings I’d left all around that side of the parking lot. Dani and I (and Holiday) had closed our eyes the instant all this started going off. But our new ‘friends’ didn’t know any better. They were suddenly blinded in addition to being pelted with garbage, abandoned by the leader who was flung skyhigh, and had about a third of their number dropped halfway through the pavement.
Needless to say, it was a bad start for them. But it got even worse a second later, as Dani revealed what she had been doing. Twinkletoes, the invisible gorilla-lizard, had been grown to full size behind that dumpster before sneaking around to where two of the men with the biggest weapons were. Before they knew what was happening, he hoisted them up and threw both of them into the wall.
As for the dumpster itself, Mars Bar had been grown to full size behind it as well. He rose with a roar, lashing out to hit the dumpster and send it flying over to crash into a couple more of the guys. That was followed immediately by the one nearest them who didn’t get hit by it being set upon by Tuesday the lizard-capuchin monkey leaping out of the dumpster to claw and rip at his face. His tail snatched the gun away and flung it safely into the corner.
It was a good start. But these guys weren’t done yet. Which was made even more clear as running footsteps and shouts announced the arrival of several more who hadn’t even been there from the start. We still had work to do. And from the sound of things this wasn’t going to be over anytime soon.
Well shit, so much for that whole vacation thing.