The Notorious Misadventures of an Alchemist and a Phoenix, Chapter 23

In a broken warehouse sat a collection of animals. The phoenix had assembled a crew for a daring raid against The Scarlite Ribbon Casion, only the best of the best would do, but in reality, the squad were the first workers the phoenix had found because he was that special type of lazy.

Claire the grizzly bear sat while gently stroking a flaming skull, like some kind of bond villain. A goat that had the most beautiful yet disturbing eyes that sparkled like rainbows. Several mice that were being led by a fat white godfather-lookalike mouse who owned the information guild. And of course the phoenix.

The phoenix coughed to get everyone's attention "I would like to thank...." before the phoenix could continue to talk the godfather mouse gave a low and long squeak that caused his cheeks to wobble

"What did he say," asked the phoenix

"The mouse wants you to cover yourself up, he doesn't want to see your disgusting wrinkled turkey neck" answered the goat.

The phoenix would have slapped the snot out of the mouse for mentioning his bold skin if it wasn't for the fact that he was scared of them. The Phoenix wasn't the first being that Noah had tested his potions on. Every single white mouse in the city was part of the information guild, they made huge amounts of cash by going to places no others could go and collect information that they sold to the highest bidder. With that gold, they then went on to buy the potions from Noah to increase other white mice's intelligence. It wasn't a good idea to get on the wrong side of the information guild. If you did your enemies would so happen to find the place and code to your secret stash or the city watch would find out you had skipped paying taxes for the last five years.

So instead of giving the godfather mouse the well-deserved backhanded slap, the fury was directed at the goat that had translated. The phoenix's featherless wing curled on itself, he wanted to slap the hell out of something but the goat was an unknown entity.

The goat was part of the crew because he could warp minds and translate any language by telepathy, he maybe had more powers but the phoenix had never asked because of the goat's strangely coloured creepy goat eyes that always stared through you.

The phoenix wing relaxed, he would take it out on something that couldn't fight back later, right now was for the plan

"Goat will be the lookout, mice will be the intel and me and Clair will go for the loot" explained the phoenix.

Another long squeak from the Godfather mouse caused the relaxed wing of the phoenix to twist up in rage.

"That's a stupid plan" translated the goat.

"What would you know, you, tin bucket-eating son of...." the phoenix didn't finish what he was saying because a large floating chest had hovered over the phoenix's head, ready to drop if the phoenix finished his sentence

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"Ahhh...the plan could do with a little fine-tuning," said the phoenix as he took two steps to the right.

From that point onwards, for about three hours, a new plan was hashed out. Not once in all of that time did the chest touch the ground and it followed the phoenix promising him that one slip of the tongue would cause a slip of control that would allow gravity to take the box back.

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The Goat was on the roof of the bakery across from the Casino. He was the lookout and yet he was facing a wall rubbing his horns on the brick. None of the crew said a thing due to the threatening stare and powers the goat had displayed. His only job was to relay what was happening to the crew through telepathy.

"And some screaming, some more screaming, a little more screaming. swear words, oh fuck, oh fuck. Push through the doors" repeated the goat.

The splendid double-door entrance of the Casino busted open with great force as a grizzly bear ramed her great bulk to cause an opening.

"Go, go, go" shouted the phoenix

The phoenix jumped down some steps with a bag of stolen loot on his back. The plan had been a complex masterpiece that covered all the bases and fully used the expensive information offered by the mice. Unfortunately, the plan was too complex for the phoenix and halfway through the raid he lost his patients and went rogue.

The phoenix couldn't help but brag about how successful the job was going, even before he had left the Casino and gave a passing clerk a reason to take notice. What followed was a snowball effect of a ClusterSlug.

The mice had disappeared, and the goat was just looking, Clair and the phoenix were now at the foot of the stairs to the entrance of the Casino, closely followed by a hoard of Casino employees that all held sparkling weapons.

"Take cover" ordered the phoenix to Claire

The phoenix whipped a long duffle Bag off his back and held it with great care. Carefully he untied the top as it would explode, and with as much physical force as he could muster, jiggled the bag like a snowglobe and tossed the bag at the employees

There was an awkward moment as the Casino employees surrounded the bag with weapons raised but unwilling to do anything else to it. When it shook and wiggled, the employees took a single step back. Then a brave soul pushed open the lid of the bag to reveal a very angry honey badger.

The silence surrounding the honey badger was broken by the soft hissing and growling. One enlighted person quickly turned tail and dashed away, and one incredibly stupid person screamed.

"It's Corpral Honeeeeey........" the long screech broke the delicate balance between the stunned employees and the seething badger. What followed was a one vs many cartoon cloud fight, that involved everyone in the area. This gave Claire and the phoenix time to slither away back to their base.

Back at the phoenix warehouse the stupid bird was now tossing his ill-gotten loot in the air and allowing it to fall back on him like rain. The biggest problem was the phoenix's stolen loot was his lost feathers. This was a real kick in the nuts as the rest of the crew couldn't spend phoenix feathers, they were just too eye-catching. Whoever tried to spend them would tell the world "I stole from the Scarlet Ribbon Casino".

It was lucky for the phoenix that the mice had their plan and while the phoenix stole all of the attention, they stole all of the gold from the Casino. Of course, they didn't tell the others.

The goat had disappeared too, apparently, all of the cakes and soft pastries had gone missing from the bakery.

Claire was having a small fight with the phoenix as she tried to get her share of phoenix feathers that was only broken when the honey badger squeezed through a crack in the wall with her duffle bag in her mouth.

Honey was still in a bad mood, so she took it out on the phoenix. In the end, it was a messy fight with Honey snarling and biting, while the phoenix tried to push the honey badger back into her bag with a magical spear and Claire hiding behind the phoenix trying to stay away from those needle-like teeth. It had been a very odd day