Chương 46: Interlude: The Phantom Thief

It was nearing ten midnight, and everyone in and around the Old Earth Museum had settled in for the long haul. Sisters were taking turns having naps, or having midnight snacks to keep their mental acuity up.

Many of the little sisters had gotten sleepy, and been guided towards either the replicas of the bedrooms in the Frilly Pink Fortress of Friendship—done up to look like the bedrooms of famous magical girls, such as Corona, Blue Angel, Frozen Garden, and Star Reverie—so they could rest, or to the pillow fort that had been built in the cafeteria, because someone always built a pillow fort.

Some of the little sisters were sleeping on the replica beds, which had replica bedsheets, replica big pillows with replica drawings depicting characters from Old Earth, replica underwear hidden under the bed, and replica magazines under the mattress.

Others slept in sleeping bags on the floor on the replica laundry, replica magazines, replica empty foil-backed bags of Old Earth snacks, replica crumbs, replica fully functional Playfield 6 with inserted replica copy of Magical Girl Battle Fantasia hooked up to a replica flat-screen TV, and replica finger-shaped massagers. While those still awake remained alert, they allowed themselves some relaxation.

Not because they thought they had nothing to worry about—quite the opposite—but because being tense would wear them out. Fortunately, everyone had managed to eat earlier that night, but given their vigil, a fourth meal would probably soon be necessary… except the Phantom Thief would no doubt know that, and likely time their strike to coincide with the nocturnal lunch… so they couldn't eat, because it would be a vulnerability… It was around one-thirty in the morning that it began.

The Kaedekin on the east side of the Old Museum—the side that the building's main entrance faced, and which had a wide lawn where the majority of the Old Earth dioramas had been arranged—had been in the middle of deciding what flavors of pizza they were going to send someone to cook in the nearest kitchen they could borrow when they heard it. A voice calling out.

"Help! Someone, please help!" It was the high-pitched voice of a little sister, sounding fearful and in pain and young. So young…

"Ah! Get away! Please, get away!" They could hear the tears. And then there was a high-pitched screech that sent a shiver down the chests of many adults, gripping their hears in terror. It was the hunting cry of a jhorobus, one of the common predators of the continent. While it held little threat to an adult, a little sister… Everyone who heard the cry were already moving, rushing to the call for help. No one ever called for help unless they needed it, even little sisters. Feet left the ground as girls took flight.

The Metro Rangers stationed around the museum were torn, half of them rushing towards the voice as they warned of a jhorobus in the city and a little sister in need of help, while those stationed around the parked mecha stayed in place while staring forlornly towards the sounds of distress and danger. What remained was a barely a third of the Kaedekin who'd been deployed in front of the museum previously, their alertness compromised by confusion, concern, guilt, and indecision.

As calls and pings flew back and forth, adding to the confusion, no one really took notice of a blot of darkness that threaded itself almost a pavement level, darting between decorative trees, lamp posts, and even the Metro Ranger's own mecha, the basic stealth spell Kaede had devised a long, long time ago in a universe far, far away serving admirably well. No automated sensors pinged them: they had been angled high to catch anyone trying to fly in, and the sneaker had been gambling on that.

Fortunately, it seemed like they'd been right. Still, with them out in the open like this, it was only a matter of seconds before someone looked out a window or just walked past, so they quickly set off the second part of the plan. On cue, a voice called out… from the completely different direction from the first voice.

"Help! Someone, please help! Ah! Get away! Please, get away!" It was both heartening, guilt-inducing and exasperating to see the rest of the east side's volunteer guards and a third of the Metro Rangers run towards the second lure. The sudden withdrawal of guards opened a corridor for them, and she took it as fast as she could, darting so close to ground level she was scraping on top of it. Then she was over grass, and she had fractions of a second before she was spotted.

Her perception seemed to slow, and she was able to dart between the obstacles in her path, making sure no one had her in their line of sight for long enough to actually see her. The black and white camo pattern of her regalia bleached into pure white seconds before she reached the walls of the museum as she made a sharp 90-degree turn to straight up, hoping no one spotted her.

Then she was over the lip of the roof, and in front of her were five sisters who seemed to be in the middle of talking, one of them pointing in the direction of the second distraction. Time slowed again as she flew past them, and her buddy scanned the area for her with both sensors and spells, streamlining the incoming data. She was very conscious of the increasing numbers of other Kaedekin on the roof of the museum, her buddy manually flagging them, doing their best to add indicators for their vision cones.

In the slowed time of their synchronization, Leah was just starting to hear the first sounds of alarm. And if someone was yelling, it meant their buddy had not only already sent pings, but had also already sent Hunter a ping asking for identification and getting silence in return. She didn't have much time. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They'd planned for this, and then planned again when they'd learned that vennplate barriers had been placed over doors, windows and vents. They'd been stumped about that, until Glacial Maxima had pointed out how it had actually simplified the problem. It meant that, taken altogether, any other point of the building would be considerably easier to breach than the doors, windows and vents. That meant the primary tactical value of their point of entry was how much attention it would get.

So Leah didn't waste any time looking around or trying to figure out what to do as she darted for the northern end of the roof as vennplate wrapped around her arm, glowing a bright white that was just a little bit disquieting. Before today, she'd never seen the need to disguise what color her venn was. It was another lie to her name, another little barb of real guilt in her conscience.

As she slammed the vennplate piercing drill into the roof of the museum, she wondered how the villains and criminals in the old world had managed to live with this feeling so easily. And then there was no more time for wondering as she had her drill expand like a flower to force open the metal roofing sheet so she could pass through, into the layer of aerogel insulation, a short air gap, another layer of insulation, and then finally the ceiling of the room below.

Leah burst through the ceiling of the dimly lit cafeteria, and was glad to see she'd positioned herself right: she was on the other side of the room from the pillow fort the little sisters were sleeping in. The little sisters in question had all jerked awake at the very loud noise she'd generated punching through the roof, and were now getting tangled up in their blankets and the fort itself.

With a forward flip she hadn't practiced since her school days, Leah landed on her feet as she decelerated herself with her regalia and the vennplate still on her arm. The room was becoming a hive of activity as Kaedekin got to their feet, pulling out weapons that they probably practiced with regularly but probably seldom used outside of sparring and the occasional particular enthusiastic animal migration.

Hunter had vennplate shields ready to pop into existence, and through their synchronization she was vaguely aware of all the pings he was refusing to answer. There was a moment where everything hung in the balance as other Kaedekin stared at them, as she heard people up in the roof yelling and crowding around the entrance she'd made, and little sisters found they'd gotten tangled up and were trying to get out without tearing through their borrowed blankets or stepping on each other.

This was going to be the only chance she would get. Leah posed, one hand on her hip, the other on her face, fingers extended and resting on the mask covering the upper part of her face that obscured her eye color.

Her hair was covered by a brown wig given to her by Nora—which was apparently for her next bit of planned criminal behavior before Meiko had asked for her help to fix Nikaede's statue—and her white cape spread out behind her while the petal-like segments of her waist cape flaring out around her legs, the two garments draped over her pink dress suit. She didn't bother taking a deep breath and just charged onto the next part of the plan.

"Ohohohohohoho!" she laughed like a crazy ojou-sama, pitched to be very annoying. It worked, because her own ears couldn't stand the sound of her voice, and nearly everyone in sight cringed at the sound.

"Is this the best you can do, sisters? Perhaps I should have given you more time to prepare, if this is the extent of the defense you can all muster!" For a moment, no one moved save for one or two using their buddy to take her picture. A few looked at each other, as if confirming that yes, this was in fact happening. Behind them, the little sisters were still struggling to get out from under the pillow fort they'd been sleeping in. Finally, someone managed to shake herself out of her stupor.

"Why are you doing this? -!" she cried, and everyone around her nodded in agreement. Leah allowed herself a moment's sigh of relief that everyone was deciding to respect tradition and give her time to monologue rather than shooting her immediately. The latter was something Kaede had sometimes done, though only against the worst of the worst villains who couldn't be trusted act honorably such as terrorist, school shooters, politicians and phone scammers. She let out another laugh, just to buy time.

"Ohohohohohohohohohohoho! Why, you ask? I'm doing this because I want to! I'm doing this because I can! Because… because… uh, can someone help those little sisters get out from under those blankets? I'm getting really worried they're going to suffocate under there." Everyone turned to look towards where she was pointing, and the closest sisters frantically rushed to the little ones' aid, picking them up and floating them to make it easier to untangle them out of their blankets.

When they looked back, Leah was already running towards the doors that led to the rest of the museum. As everyone let out a cry and the nearest sisters leapt at her to grab her, the little spheres of vennplate she'd been hiding under the waist cape which had been making it flare out dramatically exploded.

The inside of the cafeteria became a torture chamber as the flashbang spells went off in rapid succession even as Leah, eyes closed and ears plugged with vennfluid, wrapped another vennplate drill punch around her arm and tore through the wall beside the vennplate-sealed cafeteria doors. As her drill punch flared open to force the thin sheets of the metal wall panels open, the piercing tips exploded into more flashbangs to stun the other Kaedekin in the hallway.

They probably had only a few more uses of that trick to their name before it stopped working. By now the other buddies would have pinged each other, updating the network with the tactic, and it was only a matter of time before the flashbangs lost effectiveness, so she had to make the next few seconds count! Leah managed to slip past the ones outside of the cafeteria, throwing out a, "Can't catch me!" just to be that little bit more criminally irritating.

Synchronized with Hunter, the two of them ran deeper into the museum, pouring everything they had into speed and hoping she'd be able to hide the fact she was in full regalia rather than just fancy clothes. If everyone else started putting on their regalia… well, then she'd have no choice but to either surrender or seriously start shooting.

Ahead of her, sisters were turning to face her way, every door in sight behind a vennplate barrier, and it was all she could do to run past while dropping flashbangs in her wake that temporarily blinded and deafened them, exploding sequentially like a belt of illegal New Years fireworks to make the disorientation last for more than just a moment. The museum's measures were working against it now, since it meant that for the moment she only needed to worry about the people in the hallways.

The ones inside rooms were essentially stuck as long as the barrier on the other wide of their door was still being maintained. It would take precious seconds to get the attention of the one maintaining the barrier on the outsides of the doors, seconds she could use to run! Well, at least everything was— Leah frantically stomped on the thought to keep herself from finishing it and ran faster.