[crow]

"Heheh... They'll never see this coming."

A shadow made its way through the city under the cover of darkness, slinking along out of sight of the few other Pokemon still awake at this hour. The whole point was not to be seen though. If someone spotted him, then the whole jig would be up, and all of his hard work would have been for nothing. Besides, wouldn't those police guys be just so smug, catching him like this? He wasn't going to have any of that.

[crow]

... Granted, once they'd figured out what he was trying to do, Lupin doubted they'd hold him for long. Heck, even his associates had said it was kind of a stupid plan, going to so much trouble for something so trivial as a prank.

But what did they know? Being a thief was all about having fun! ... And getting the better of your opponents, and being stylish as hell, and having class. That was what his parents had taught him, anyway. But what was the point of doing it if you didn't enjoy it?

[crow]

So he was going to kill a few birds with one stone here today: get the better of the cops, have a good time, and prove once and for all just how good of a thief he was, so no one would treat him like he was just some kid anymore. Sure, they didn't see the genius of it now, but the next morning, when the news broke at the station... Hoo boy, they wouldn't be looking down on him after that!

Seeing that no one was nearby, Lupin allowed himself a gleeful snicker. This was going to be good.

[crow]

The master plan in question involved him taking the keys from the police station, and to that end, the thieving portion of his mission was already complete. It had been tough, but he'd put all his hard-earned skills to use. He'd even begged Zorro to teach him all the intricacies of getting past police security to do it, which hadn't been an easy task. And then there was all the practicing...

Eventually, however, he'd gotten the hang of it, and then filching the keys themselves was pretty easy. Easier than he thought it would be, actually.

[crow]

Well, maybe this would serve as a good reminder to the cops to tighten their security... which might make things harder for thieves like him later down the line, come to think of it. Maybe this plan wasn't quite so brilliant as he had originally thought. But he'd already gotten the keys, and if he went back to return them all now, he'd have nothing to show for it!

No, he was going ahead with the plan. As soon as he reached the park, Lupin unloaded the satchel he'd been carrying, and pulled out some plastic egg capsules.

[crow]

One by one, he enclosed the keys inside the eggs, scanning his surroundings every so often in case someone passed by and saw him. His ears alerted him to any movement long before his eyes did, and he startled a couple of times when he heard the sound of something rustling in the brush... But his luck held, and no one showed up.

He wiped a bit at his brow when he was finished, having broken into something like a nervous sweat. Now to hide them...

[crow]

Lupin looked at his surroundings with new interest, a gleeful grin breaking out over his features. Where would be a good place to stash the eggs? He had to pick good hiding spots! If the cops found their keys too soon, then all his efforts would have gone to waste. He wanted to see them running around for a while before they got their stuff back!

A knothole in a tree caught his attention, and he scrambled up to cram the first egg inside. Just the barest hint of color peeked out of it when he was done. Good. Now for the rest...

[crow]

[The next morning...]

"What do you mean, you don't have the report?"

Officer Lucas looked more confused than angry, but Ace knew not to push his luck. Once the surprise wore off, he was probably going to be pretty unhappy. Which meant that Ace had maybe five seconds to get an explanation in, before his senior started chewing his tail off or something.

"Well, y'see, sir, there was a bit of an incident... All the keys are missing. All of them. I don't have the report because I can't get into the file cabinet where I put it last night."

[crow]

Ace shot Lucas a sheepish smile as the furrow between Lucas's brows deepened. Okay, so the explanation probably wasn't going to make Lucas any happier, but at least now he would know that it wasn't Ace's fault, and that yelling at him, specifically, wasn't going to fix any of it.

Of course, it didn't answer a whole lot of questions. Questions like, "What do you mean, the keys are missing?" Which was obviously the next thing that Lucas asked him, to which Ace had no real good answers, unfortunately.

[crow]

"Your guess is as good as mine, sir," said Ace, his ears drooping into an even more sheepish expression. It was first thing in the morning, so no one had done much in the way of actual investigation yet, but it was pretty embarrassing for something like this to have happened.

After all, they were the police. It was their job to catch criminals. Unless this was a prank that someone had done internally--- not likely, given the fact that it would probably cost them their jobs--- then this was almost definitely the work of a thief.