WHO: Faihan, Alejo, Eli, Juliet (guest starring Joaco, Aether, Zeus, Hestia, Elpis, and Nyx) WHEN: Good Friday, April 15 (technically around 3:00am April 16) WHERE: UML SUMMARY: It's a heist. It goes...okay. Anyway, they escape with the goods, and that's what counts.
Faihan had a plan.
Like all great heists, it went a little something like this: wear all black (including a face covering), slip past the guards, use the already-handily taken keycard to gain entry, send in adorable animal companions known as Milk and Slappy to cause a distraction while remaining animal companion (known as Sondheim), follow the route outlined by James and Kaveh to locate the sweet spot, if any more guards show up use the bird as a failsafe to lead them away, enter secure area, split up, grab what you can, run.
It seemed foolproof.
But, then, everything always does, at first...
They started well into the night. Or, morning, to be precise. 3:00, and all was...not well.
It was an early wakeup for Faihan, but not unreasonable by his standards; he was used to being up before the dawn. Neither Eli nor Juliet had gone to sleep. Juliet had downed at least three espressos since midnight, and had arrived at the rendezvous point straight on the third rail. Eli had taken a more leisurely route: dinner, meeting with Icchi, then to Joaquin in an attempt to lead the sly fox off their trail. Though the latter turned out to be trickier than Eli had hoped. He had attempted to take Joaco home, spend some time together, then use the holiday as an excuse to call it an early night.
But Joaco said that he take Eli home. But Eli insisted that made no sense: “Then I would have to take you home again.”
Joaco does have a car, and...well, doesn’t it make sense to drive Eli back?
Eli assured him it was okay.
Joaco raised his brow, pressing one more time: he should let him pay him a ride, at least.
"Can't I have a cool exit?" Eli tried again.
Joaco sighed and said no more.
But he remained suspicious.
Later, the gang arrived dressed all in black, faces covered (and, in Juliet’s case, hair too). But, even so, Alejo was recognized by a good friend along the way. With a drink in hand, the friend laughed and asked Alejo what the heck he was doing dressed like that. Without missing a beat, Alejo told his friend to shut it and go drink at home, before he got in trouble. Spooked (it was a holy day, after all), the friend quickly turned tail and headed back to whatever he was up to.
Crisis averted.
For now.
By the time they reached the university, though the city was quiet and there seemed to be less security than usual, there were two guards positioned outside.
Faihan and Juliet sent in the clowns cute, animal companions. Milk, in particular, was expected to be too cute to resist, while “Slappy” the flying squirrel went ricocheting in to cause a commotion.
It worked well enough that Juliet could scoot past just quickly enough not to be seen, to where she unlocked the door and beckoned for the others to follow. But she must have beckoned a little too loudly, because one of the guards returned to see Eli passing through. Not too long after that, the second guard had returned to spot Eli as well.
Well, Eli thought, maybe he could take advantage of this moment and allow himself to become a distraction, so the others could sneak through. He began to spin a story about how he was looking for a specific beach, and he had never been here before, but he was visiting his girlfriend, and they have this complex game they play with each other when away from each other for a while in which they play hide and seek... Eli asked for directions and played really confused. Maybe a little drunk, too.
It was enough; Faihan and Alejo (concerned, but trusting Eli to handle himself) managed to join Juliet on the inside, where, thanks to the information provided by Jamieson, Faihan had a pretty good idea of where to go to find what they were looking for. (Hey, they hadn’t come unprepared.) Uncareful, more concerned with speed than stealth now, they were seen by the cameras. But it was no matter; they had one objective.
Meanwhile, Eli had bungled his story, and the guards became suspicious enough to call the police.
But then...
A shroud of darkness suddenly swallowed up Eli, leaving the guard confused because to him it had looked like Eli vanished after he blinked.
"What, exactly, do you think you are doing, child?" A very grumpy cat stared at Eli after relocating from the mess Eli made.
Eli looked around then jumped when he realized the grumpy cat was talking to him. "I'm just... enjoying holy week shenanigans."
Meanwhile, the gang met no direct opposition getting into the room, though one of the guards had now turned to look at the cameras. Our intrepid heroes entered the room, heedless of the consequences, and found the room to be exactly as James and Keveh had described it, less a few items here and there.
It was enough, though. Enough that, upon request, Milk was able to detect three jobstones, a sword that seemed once belonged to Pius, and a maginet device. The cat also sensed traces of a strange magic, but whatever had left the trail was not currently in the room.
Besides the cameras (which the gang blatantly chose to ignore), there were several security measures in place, including motion detectors and glass to protect the objects. All of which would naturally trigger an alarm.
They didn’t care.
Luckily for them, Alejo had brought a glass cutting tool he’d found online for $300 U.S. Dollars. Nice!
Alejo was able to cut the glass with minimal disruption. Very efficient and fast, Alejo only managed to set off one of the alarms at the final piece of glass broken.
At which point, our pesky little rodents scurried forward and tossed everything they could grab as quickly as possible into Juliet’s bag, then made a dash for the exit. It was on Alejo’s suggestion that they, once back outside, they transformed into their Chosen armor. So, wiith the help of Elpis–acting as drone, flying ahead to report on any guards or other hurdles–and Milk–blinding one of the guards just as they were about to be caught–the gang made it safely (if only by the skin of their teeth) out of the building, transformed, and dashed away separately to try to lose anyone coming after them.
Not long after, and just before dawn, the gang reconvened at the assigned rendezvous point at the beach, where Eli rejoined them, along with Sondheim and Zeus. Faihan was sure to note that the "book" (the one that had seemed so promising, though also absent during James and Kaveh’s venture) still wasn't there, and that Milk had sensed something important had been there, but was also missing.
He also asked to have the sword and magitech, after they’d been studied.
Well.
It seems Faihan has a plan. The book is what they really need now anyway, and that...well, most are starting to assume the Araki family is a good place to start looking for that. But who has an “in” there? The notoriously private clan will not be easy to infiltrate. Not especially if the book they are looking for really turns out to be as important as everybody guesses. Well, Eli plans to try.
As for Faihan, he has a sense now that what they acquired tonight, while useful, probably is not so important that it will be any good for baiting the baddies out of hiding.
Well, at least they can turn on the maginet contraption now and get the Nerd Brigade on it soon.