Chương 17: 17-Heist

Staring up at the night sky though the clerestory windows high on the nursery's eastern wall, Boss fights against tired eyes as she waits for the moon to come fully into view.

It took a lot of work to figure out the astronomy and trigonometry needed to use the moonrise to tell the time, but they'd done it, and the moon clearing the final few arcseconds will prove it's one thirty in the morning.

The perfect time for the operation to begin.

So she needs to be awake!

Boss slaps her cheeks and forces her eyes open, unaware she'd closed them and looks back at the window, seeing the moon's full disk.

Go time!

Boss turns to her watch partner with an anticipatory expression, tiredness disappearing, only to see her co-conspirator snoring as she leans against a pillow.

She shakes them awake."

Psst!"

Boss whispers, motioning to keep quiet as Happiny's eyes snap open.

"Wake the rest. It's time."

With a yawning nod, her sister gets up and wanders off to wake Assistant and the Muscle of the operation, both of whom were sleeping in their normal spots so as not to arouse suspicion.

As she does this, Boss unfolds the plan from her pouch and double checks the moon's position, the well worn paper annotated with everything they need to do in the next fifteen minutes, down to the second.

Holding up the diagram, she takes a step forward to be on the exact marker and compares the trigonometry predicted picture with the matching reality as her three handpicked squadmates form up behind.

Seeing the moon is precisely where it needs to be, Boss folds the plan up and gives one last glance around, confirming no movement among her sleeping siblings and singular remaining chansey near to the door on the overnight shift.

They're lucky Chansey was scheduled, none of this would be possible if Chansey had been here tonight.

Boss turns around to her squad and reaches under a pillow, pulling out a carefully folded blanket in the shape of a backpack and hands it to Muscle as she leans in.

"Does everyone remember what they need to do?" She whispers.

There's no hesitation as everyone nods, a product of hours of study and memorization.

Their leader smiles and puts her arm in the center of the circle, quickly followed by everyone else.

"Then we've got this. Go team!"

They throw their arms in the air with a quiet cheer that just as quickly devolves into shushing and nervous glances at nearby sleeping faces.

No one stirs.

With a quiet sigh of relief Boss holds up her left arm in the "follow me" signal they'd practiced, then winds her way through a floor littered with sleeping sisters, fighting back a yawn at their dreaming chirps.

Arriving at the door, she gives a quick glance at Chansey as she softly snores too close to their exit for comfort.

Her "follow me" signal morphs into the prearranged "all normal" signal, followed by "next step" then "group split."

Without a single sound uttered between them, Happiny splits off from the back of the line and softly pads over to Chanseys sleeping face as everyone else moves on..

Arriving at the door, Boss gives the "halt" signal which is immediately obeyed and she glances down at her arm with wonder.

Big Sis knows the best things!

Boss would have never thought of all these 'covert ops' signs without Big Sis telling her they existed.

As she quietly stops in front of Chansey, Happiny pauses for just a second before she takes a deep breath and wiggles a little to shake off some nervousness.

And begins to hum a sleepy song.

Even from a good distance away Boss can feel the love flowing from the song, followed by Muscle shaking her softly as her eyes start to droop with a yawn.

With that reminder everyone covers their ears as they shake off the song's influence with a grunt, watching Singer continue her part.

After a few more seconds they see their sister's arm rise to motion the all clear.

Uncovering her ears, Boss nods and looks to the other two standing next to the door and gives the signal. Just like they'd practiced, Muscle presses her back against the door and Boss places a foot into her outstretched arms.

Before getting chucked on top of Muscle's head.

Their leader windmills her arms to keep balance as she lands, then has to almost immediately brace herself with another grunt as Assistant is tossed on top of her head.

They wobble for a second to keep their balance as Boss looks at the lower door handle in front of her, locked, tied to the rotary switch on the upper handle.

The handle that Assistant is now at eye level with.

Twisting the lock with a click, Assistant grips onto her handle and taps Boss's head with a foot, the leader mirrors the motion on Muscle's head, and they start to wobble forward. Teetering on the very edge of collapsing as they go, waking everyone up, and ruining the plan.

But practice pays off and slowly – quietly– the door opens just enough for them to slip through.

Seeing their exit is secure, the tower of siblings is disassembled just as carefully and Singer links back up with the rest of the group.

There's a few moments of pleased smiles and the beginnings of cheers that have to be shushed before professionalism takes over again.

Filing out of the room one at a time, Muscle exits last, closing the door with a– Click.

Everyone freezes, staring up with horror at the sound of the latch.

There's a terrifying moment waiting for the sound of movement from either side of the door.

But nothing else happens.

Boss gives a quiet sigh of relief, getting everyone's attention with her eyes and raising an arm.

"all normal"

"next step"

"follow me" As practiced they form up in a single file line, hugging the right wall and following the route they'd plotted from the map they'd found on a fire escape plan. Annotated by hours of covert intelligence-gathering to fill out the basic layout with everything they need to make a proper plan.

Boss grimaces at memories of the more…

unpleasant things she had to do to get some of that information.

She does not want to think about how many desserts she had to sneak into the yard to convince one of the torchic to actually remember the room number of the place they live in.

Scanning for any unknown variables, the squad slowly waddles their way across the cold linoleum in what –to the uninformed– looks like aimless wandering across the hospital, ignorant of the days worth of planning that went into the route.

Because the hospital is not empty, night shift staffing actually means several areas are even more crowded than normal in certain places.

Not to mention the security camera coverage making many hallways unusable and many more areas no Happiny has managed to access, thus must be assumed to have total security coverage.

The restrictions leave only a handful of potential paths, each carefully drilled and memorized so thoroughly that near the end Boss was dreaming the imagined routes.

The leader signals for everyone to cross the hallway as she counts off the pre-planned number of steps. The seemingly random switch timed to be in a minimal traffic area and done so that, when they reach an intersection to continue on their way, the procession passes underneath a security camera's sightline.

Only once do they hear footsteps, forcing them to hide behind a potted plant and not daring to look out until the sound fades.

But, after six and a half terrifying minutes, Boss finds herself staring up at room 118.

The same sibling stacking strategy gets them up to the handle, but this time Boss is staring at the upper knob.

And the empty key hole of a lock.

Anxiety flares, fear of failure crowding out her mind as the knowledge of how this is breaking the rules and if they're caught everything will– Big Sis. Staring down at her with endless patience as they sit next to a storybook. Happiny on the edge of tears.

"Take a deep breath. Think it though. And try again."

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from. Please report it.

Boss… pauses, feeling the phantom pressure of her sister's arm on her back.

Takes a deep breath.

And her eyes glow a dim purple.

Love saturates the lock, tinged by the joy of endless planning and reinforced by the fact she knows she can change the world with the right idea.

She can feel the tumblers, its seams, and where each piece needs to be.

And the lock clicks open, Boss suddenly feeling headachy and drained with the effort.

One wobbling shuffle backward and the door opens just enough for them to file into the torchic nursery.

It's…

Muscle makes an awed noise that has her quickly shushed by everyone else.

Not that Boss can blame her.

The room is crazy, Although equally sized, the Happiny nursery feels a lot smaller, made more cozy by the sheer volume of blankets, pillows, and other soft things.

It's also extremely flat, with very few things any taller than a Chansey.

The Torchic nursery by contrast is vertical, wooden ramps leading to an entire mess of platforms and wall mounted cubbies that stretch all the way to the ceiling. In the far corner there's a circular patch of hearthstone Boss recognizes as a miniature battle arena, and in the center of it all…

The torchic.

Every single 'mon in the nursery is huddled together in a bowl shaped divot in the floor, surrounded by a nest of small stones and ash they've partially buried themselves into, creating an illusion the fire types are shimmering coals in a fire pit as a faint orange glow flares and dims in time with their breathing.

The squad of happiny slowly approaches, and Boss is so distracted by the glowing sight of their objective that she almost screams as she sees the form of a blaziken looming in the dark on the opposite wall.

Clamping down on that reaction she gives the sign for "halt" then "quiet."

She can tell exactly when everyone else notices.

They stand frozen, waiting to see if they'd been caught. A thread of hope that's only propped up by the fact blaziken hasn't done anything to indicate she'd seen them.

After a fifteen second span that feels like hours, Assistant leans to her leader's ear and whispers.

"Fun pokemon facts, volume three, page one twenty nine: Blaziken can sleep on their feet. Usually only when guarding their flock's nest."

Boss nods slowly, not taking her eyes off the bird.

Sure enough, as she strains her ears to hear anything, blaziken begins to snore softly.

She gives a sigh of relief.

Good, they're not caught.

Flashing the "continue" signal, the group springs back into action, making the rest of the way to the nest where she gives the "next step" signal at Muscle, who shrugs the folded blanket off her back and shakes it loose.

Meanwhile, Singer and Assistant have identified Big Sis's friend and are slowly picking their way across the nest's loose stones and thin bed of ash to get him.

Occasionally, as they cross too close to one of the sleeping 'mon, Singer hums a loving tune to quiet the chriups and gentle stirring and lull them back to sleep..

Boss holds her breath as they make it to Torchic where he's sleeping near the periphery of the nest.

They're lucky he's not in the center of the brood.

There was a plan if he'd been there, but things would have been more… complicated.

Slowly, steadily, Singer and Assistant extract Torchic from the nest, the former humming louder to keep him dreaming as Muscle waits at the edge of the stones.

Once Torchic is extracted, he's carefully placed down onto the blanket, wrapped up like a dumpling, then lifted by Muscle and Assistant before the squad makes a quiet exit.

They even remember to close the door quietly, and as the sibling tower disassembles and Torchic is picked back up for the return journey –even though the operation isn't complete– Boss feels distinctly pleased at a job well done.

Because the hard part is behind them now!

And no one even came close to catching them!

—-- –_– —-- Blaziken watches through a single barely cracked eye as the little pink blobs complete what is possibly the cutest kidnapping she's ever seen, and as the carefully stacked thieves close the door without a sound she has to clamp down on a snort.

Remaining still for a few more seconds as the soft padding of feet from beyond the door fades into silence, Blaziken finally opens her eyes and kneels down to her brood, adjusting a few of the stones that were disturbed by the kidnapping, then brushing a claw against Torchic's crest as the movement makes him stir.

As she stands up again she looks at a spot on the wall, beyond which she can sense the fire of what was –until just a few weeks ago– her most promising charge, now dim and flickering as it's carried away.

Blaziken doesn't have any illusions on being able to shield her brood from the sadness of the world.

She's not a chansey.

But ever since that day Torchic's fire had been… smothered, and nothing she's done has worked so far.

Torchic is frustratingly similar to her at that age, too proud by half to accept help from someone he thinks is looking down at him. He'd only barely perked up when trainers were selecting their starters, and even those faint embers of what his fire once was had him chosen immediately.

The 'mon rolls her neck gently with a sigh of fond exasperation.

Blaziken has heard all the stories of this year's battler Happiny. She's seen how it's affected her own brood with even such minimal contact, tonight could only be her doing.

And Blaziken doesn't want to see her most promising charge leave her care when he's not in top form.

The Broodmatron shakes out her legs one at a time before returning to her post, mind slipping back into the half asleep torpor her instincts allow when guarding the nest.

Hopefully whatever's going on with the world's most well intentioned kidnapping will get him burning again.

—-- –_– —--Google seaʀᴄh novel※fire. net Waking with a jolt, Tanya blinks as she hears the squeaky wheel of a metal cart accompanying the sound of the door opening for the morning wake-up call, the unusual sound shocking her from sleep immediately.

Taking care not to give any signs she's awake until she has her bearings, the former soldier immediately relaxes at the sight of Matron pulling the cart with an excited expression on her face, followed by a crowd of every chansey from every shift.

Something's happening, thankfully it seems like good news.

With the cart placed against the wall, the chansey softly make their way inside as well, murmuring amongst each other and giggling.

After the door closes with a soft click, Matron walks over to the light switch and whispers a countdown, tapping the wall above the switch.

And as she hits the lightswitch every chansey shouts!

"Happy birthday!!!"