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Thief in the Night Vince sat in front of a borrowed computer inside Room 16 of the Rheasville Shadow Lodging. It had been about an hour since the dance, and Vince was desperately searching for the right words with which to tell Stephanie about Chrissy. He had gone through draft after draft, still unable to figure out what to write. Finally, he made a decision. It wasn't perfect, but he was tired, and he hoped it was good enough. To: lady_stephie816@viltris.com From: redvincent0@viltris.com Dear Stephanie, There's something I must tell you, and you're probably not going to like it, but please listen to what I have to say before you judge me. Today, I danced with another girl. Her name is Chrissy Wolfreid, and she's a junior at Rheasville High School. I assure you, I do not nor did I ever have any feelings for her. You are the only one I love, Stephanie. The only reason I danced with her is because I suspect that she is a Dark Fiend, but I had to be sure, so I befriended her. I didn't mean for it to go this far, but I assure you, there's nothing between us. As soon as I know, I'm breaking it off. Stephanie, I would never try to hurt you. No matter what happens, I'll make it up to you when I get home. I promise. But for now, please trust me. Please forgive me, Vincent With a sigh, Vince clicked the button labeled "Send". Whispering to himself, "I'm sorry, Steph," he turned off the computer and climbed into the bed. As he tried to get some sleep, a tear rolled down his cheek. "Vince! You have some visitors!" shouted the old Shadow who had first greeted him. Vince had learned that his name was Rousseau and that he had once been a High Priest in the holy city of Alliatus. However, Alliatus had betrayed him and he had converted to the Shadow Religion. "Visitors? What kind of visitors?" Vince asked in reply. "She says her name is Chrissy Wolfreid!" Rousseau replied. It was then that Vincent remembered the night before, and with it his guilt regarding Stephanie. He quickly climbed out of bed, got dressed, and went into the front hall, where Chrissy and two of her friends were waiting for him. "Sorry, Chrissy," Vince said, "but I think I kinda need a shower." After seeing Chrissy nod, Vince ran back to Room 16. Ten minutes later, Vince emerged from his room with clean hair, skin, and clothes. In his hands was a large, white laundry sack. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Chrissy," Vince said apologetically. "It's all right," Chrissy replied. "It's perfectly natural for people to want to sleep in late and then smell good for their friend's friends." "Was that sarcasm?" Vince asked. "No, not at all," she replied. "Oh, let me introduce you to my friends. Maggie, Mary, this is Vincent, the guy who I danced with yesterday? The guy I've been telling you about?" The other two girls nodded. "And Vince, this is Mary." She gestured her hands toward a girl with thick, red hair. "And this is Maggie." She gestured toward a small little blonde girl. "Nice to meet you," Vince said as he shook Mary's hand. "Hi," she replied with a quiet shyness. "Nice to meet you," Vince said as he shook Maggie's hand. "You too," she said with a smile and a giggle. "So Vince, you wanna hang with us today?" Chrissy asked. "What happened to school?" Vince replied. "Um, Vince? It's Saturday," Chrissy said. "Oh, really?" Vince replied. "Sorry, I lost track of time." "So, where do you wanna go?" Chrissy asked. "I don't know," Vince replied. "Where do you wanna go?" The four of them stared at each other for a moment. "Well, it's almost lunch," Chrissy said. "You wanna go grab some burgers?" "All right," Vince agreed. "But on our way, can we stop at a Laundromat so I can get these clothes washed?" There were no objections from anyone, so the group of four started walking through the streets, walking while talking. Vince ended up accompanying the girls as they shopped at various stores, although they never bought anything. However, even though Maggie and Mary had looked at and wanted many things, Chrissy had only noticed one thing in particular. It was a digital camcorder at a local electronics store. Throughout the day, there was much idle chitchat, and none of it very memorable, but Vince did remember once incident. They were walking past Rheasville High School, and Vince noticed that one of the larger windows had been shattered. "Whoa! What happened here?" Vince asked as he ran up to the window. "Haven't you heard?" Chrissy replied. "Someone broke in last night and stole some expensive sound equipment." "Doesn't that suck?" Maggie said, letting her smile turn into a frown for the first time that day. "Now the school's gonna make us do a fundraiser to buy a new one." "Hey, I like fundraisers," Mary said timidly. Vince wasn't listening, though. He was looking at the pools of water on either side of the window. There was also frost on the broken edges of the glass. "Whoever broke in froze the glass to shatter it," Vince thought. "Could it be? Is Chrissy the Dark Fiend of Ice?" "Vince! You coming?" Chrissy shouted as she and her friends began leaving. "Yeah, sure!" Vince called back as he followed them. There was another reason that Vince didn't enjoy himself. The closer he came to Chrissy, the guiltier he felt in regards to Stephanie. He still didn't know whether she would understand or whether she would be angry. Still, Vince had a plan, and he planned to stick to it until he found his answer. That night, Vince lay awake in a bed inside Room 16 of the Rheasville Shadow Lodging. Stephanie had not responded to the e-mail he had sent the night before, and it bothered him. What did Stephanie think? After unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep for an hour, Vince climbed out of bed, got dressed, left the Shadow Lodging, and wandered the streets, trying to calm his nerves. As he wandered, he was unable to think of anything but Stephanie and Chrissy, and how the juxtaposition of the two made his heart ache. His thoughts were interrupted. Vince realized that his subconscious had led him to the electronics store that Chrissy had been looking at earlier that day. Although it was closed, someone had gotten inside. The front door, a wooden door, had been shattered. Frost remained over the edges where it had been. Off the floor, Vince picked up a piece of wood, frozen all the way through, making it as brittle as a cookie. Vince entered through the broken door and walked around, instinctively drawn to the Digital Recording section, where he saw someone holding one of the devices. The person wore a dark blue full-body suit with a mask that covered the entire face except the eyes. It was definitely female, as Vince could tell by the body contours. "Chrissy?" Vince asked. "Is that you?" The person turned around, startled, and said through the mask in a muffled voice, "Vince? How did you know it was me?" It was Chrissy's voice. "Put the camcorder back, Chrissy," Vince said in an authoritative tone. Defiantly, she pointed her free hand at Vince. A ray of energy shot out of her hand, so cold that it transformed the very air into frost, giving it a bright blue glow. Vince simply held out a flaming hand and blocked it. "Give it up, Chrissy," Vince said. "Put the camcorder back." Chrissy fired more freezing rays, only to have them melt away as they approached the warm aura Vince had formed. Suddenly, Vince gave a lunge, twirled around her, and grabbed her from behind. Gripping her with his left arm to keep her close to him, Vince pulled off her mask, letting her brown hair fall free. "Put the camcorder back, Chrissy," Vince ordered. This time, she did was told and placed the camcorder back into its shattered display case. "Chrissy, were you the thief who took the school's sound equipment?" After a moment's hesitation, she confessed it, "Yes, I was." "All right, where is it?" Vince asked. "Where's the school's sound equipment?" "If you let me go, I'll lead you to it," she replied. "Can I trust you?" Vince said. "Do you have a choice?" Chrissy said. "You'll never find it unless you let me go." After a long hesitation, Vince released her, saying, "Lead the way." As Vince followed Chrissy through the nighttime city, he noticed that she made no effort to escape. She led him down various streets to the edge of the city, then across a frozen lake--which Vince knew as Lake Rheas--to a cave. "It's in there," Chrissy said. "You first," Vince replied. When Chrissy didn't move, he gave her a light shove, forcing her in. It was rather dark inside, but Chrissy simply flipped a switch on the wall, and the whole cave lit up. Inside was a large collection of various electronics--televisions, radios, computers, gaming consoles. There were more kinds of electronics than Vince could imagine. All of them were connected by wires to a metal box, which was attached to the wall. "This is my secret hangout," Chrissy explained. "There's a power grid running around the whole Lake Rheas Park, so I tapped into it so I can run all this stuff." "And all this stuff, it's stolen, isn't it?" Vince asked. Chrissy giggled, saying, "Yeah." "That's not something you should be laughing about," Vince said. One flash of flame later, and the Dark Fiend of Fire said, "You will return it, all of it, and you will take full responsibility for what you did and make amends." "So, in other words, you want me to turn myself in," Chrissy replied. "That's right," Vince said. "If you don't, I will kill you." "Kill me?" Chrissy said with a laugh. "Seriously, you'd have to watch me go all the way to the police station just to make sure, and when you get there, the police will come after you and chase you away, and I can just tell them that you've been harassing me, and I'll get the police protection, and you'll look like the criminal. What are you going to do? Tell them that I'm the thief? You're the Dark Fiend of Fire. They wouldn't believe you. They'd think that you stole all that stuff for yourself." "Chrissy," Vince said. "You're also a Dark Fiend--the Dark Fiend of Ice, I think. Why do you think you can freeze things like that?" Chrissy was startled. "I never really thought about that," she said. "Still, you can't prove it. Either way, I win." "You don't understand, Chrissy," Vince said. "The Dark Fiends were born for destruction. What you're doing right now is just little stuff, but you have to take little steps before you can take big steps. You steal stuff now. Next, you're going to mug people. After that, you're going to attack people for fun, then fight the cops for fun. You're headed down a path toward destruction, and I'm not going to let that happen." "I don't understand," Chrissy replied. "Chrissy," Vince said. "When I first found out about the Dark Fiends, I made up my mind to destroy them, lest they destroy the world. Now, I don't want to destroy you, but--" Something was wrong. Vince could feel it. "Ragnaroks! They're here!" As Chrissy ran to the cave entrance, Vince began rummaging piles of stuff. "I see them," Chrissy said. "They a lot of soldiers and a tank." Vince found what he had been looking for. "According to this map, this cave is five and a half miles from the Shadow Lodging. That's half a mile beyond the Shadow Disruptor's range." Chrissy gave him a look of non-understanding. "They can see me out here." Chrissy still didn't understand. "Chrissy, if you help me escape, I'll leave you alone, okay?" Chrissy hesitated a moment, then said, "Okay. Do you have a plan?" "Yeah," the Dark Fiend of Fire replied. "We rush out there and try to break a hole in their formation. Then, when we open that hole, I'll escape, so that I can draw Ragnarok away, and you'll be safe in you're cave." "All right," Chrissy said nervously. "Let's go!" Vincent yelled as he charged outside throwing fireballs. Chrissy followed behind him firing freezing beam. As Fire and Ice fought through waves of soldiers, Motarius watched. He watched, then said, "That girl... She's the Dark Fiend of Ice. Mandragon! Use the Magnet Tank to shoot that girl." "Got it!" Professor Mandragon replied. Mandragon sat in the Magnet Tank, which looked like a normal military tank, except it wasn't painted with camouflage. Also, rather than sitting inside the body of the tank, Mandragon sat above the turret in a cockpit surrounded by a bubble of bulletproof glass. He began typing madly into a computer keyboard. Meanwhile, Vince was in the middle of the fray, fighting with flaming fists. The fight had dragged him far from the cave. Chrissy had hidden behind a frozen barrier, sniping the Ragnaroks from afar. One of the soldiers noticed this, threw himself flat on the ground to avoid incoming shots, and fired his submachine gun at Chrissy. The barrier of ice shattered. "Chrissy, look out!" Vince cried as he destroyed the soldier's gun with a flaming stomp. He then kicked the soldier in the head, knocking him upward. Then, he ran up to Chrissy, who had taken bullets in her left arm. "Are you all right, Chrissy?" "You do care for me," Chrissy said, smiling despite the pain. Vince barely heard the faraway computerized voice saying, "Magical signature analyzed." Mandragon pressed a button. Chrissy suddenly flew screaming towards the Magnet Tank. "What?" Vince thought. "MagiMagnet?" Mandragon turned the turret, then pressed another button. A bolt of plasma burst from the cannon and tore through Chrissy's chest. The impact sent Chrissy flying across the battlefield to a spot near the cave. "Chrissy!" Vince shouted. He sprinted toward Chrissy's fallen body. In his recklessness, he began taking bullets that he could have otherwise avoided. However, he wasn't even halfway there, before a bolt of holy energy knocked him down. Motarius had intercepted him. "Chrissy!" Vince cried out, reaching out to her. Her lifeless body suddenly froze into a solid block of ice, which then shattered. From the ruins, a demoness with black hide and long, tangled gray hair arose. "The Dark Fiend of Ice," Chrissy said to herself, staring at her new body. "Oh, no! Now that I'm a Dark Fiend, they'll come after me, too. I can't hide in that cave anymore. Well, if I have to run, too, I'm bringing my stuff with me." Lying on the floor, Vince saw Chrissy run toward the cave. Then, he saw the Magnet Tank's gun glowing bright magenta with super-charged plasma. The cannon was pointed right into the cave, waiting for Chrissy to enter. Ragnaroks had gotten out of the way to allow the Magnet Tank a clear shot. "Chrissy, no, wait!" Vince yelled. It was too late. Immediately after Chrissy ran into her cave hideout, the Magnet Tank fired the mass of plasma. Chrissy turned around, only to see the plasma engulf her. A massive explosion rocked the entire cave. Soon, there was no cave, only rocks and dirt. "Chrissy!" Vince screamed. "It's no use," Motarius said. "The Dark Fiend of Ice is dead. Her lifeforce has been extinguished." Motarius lifted his sword, preparing to strike. "You're next, Fire." |