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Small Crimes Chapter 3

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Chapter 3: Partners in Crime

"So, are we lost?" Chisai looked around the giant air duct. Well, giant wasn't really the right word, he was just small; As was the female tanuki Iris accompanying him. It felt like they had been walking for over an hour through this place. Supposedly they were heading for the curator's office so they could escape from the museum out a window, but Chisai had his doubts the tanuki super thief knew where she was going.

"We're not lost." The brown furred tanuki replied with a scowl. As they approached another fork she looked left and right before going left. "I'm just... getting my bearings, I came in on a completely different side of the building and hadn't explored near the main foyer. I just need to get us in the right direction."

"If you have to get your bearing..." Chisai started, then the kitsune thought better of it and dropped the subject. It's not like he had any better ideas at this point, and even if they were lost they were at least safe in here. At just three inches tall, if they ran into that golem again all it would have to do is step on them in order put an end to their little chase sequence. It was better just to avoid a confrontation altogether.

"Here we are! Just as promised!" Iris beamed with pride as she walked towards a grate at the end of the air duct. "I always deliver as promi-" She stopped talking immediately after passing through the slits of the vent.

Chisai's blood ran cold for a moment, had she been spotted, was there something out there? He ran after her fearing for the worst. However, when he saw what was behind the grate, he fell back onto his back in an uncontrollable giggling fit.

"It's not funny." Iris remarked sourly.

"No, it's hilarious." Chisai could barely breathe he was laughing so hard. The vent they had just come out of was the same one they had originally come in through. They were right back in the main foyer. It would seem Little Miss Super Thief wasn't as perfect as she thought.

"Well shut up." Iris turned and walked back into the air duct. "I probably just made a wrong turn, easy to do, we'll head back and make our way. This is just a minor setback."

"Well, not like I had any other plans today." Chisai shrugged, holding his hands behind his head and followed the tanuki. The panic had subsided from them being shrunk that he didn't mind taking it slow looking for a way out. He was trying to figure out what he planned to do with the rest of his life. Thieving wouldn't exactly be easy when he couldn't physically lift his marks. Then again, he gave an experimental flick of one of his three tails, activating his levitation power he made the entire air duct shake.

"Hey hey! What is that!?" The tanuki hissed.

"Sorry, just testing something." The general strength of his magic hadn't weakened with size. Perhaps, there was some possibility here, he could easily levitate whatever he wanted to steal and just ride out from banks and museums atop his prize. Now that was an idea with potential.

It was at this point that the tiny fox was roused from his thoughts when he noticed the air duct was shaking.

"Knock that out." Iris hissed at him again through gritted teeth.

"It's not me." Chisai shrugged. "Maybe some of the fans are just turning on?" The tanuki was silent for a moment before replying.

"I guess that does make sense, several came on and off while I was crawling in here earlier. Guess it's nothing to be worried about."

They both walked on in silence for a few minutes, before a thought occurred to Chisai.

"Hey, Iris?" Chisai asked.

"Yeah?" She didn't even turn to face him when she replied.

"About how much do you think we weigh right now?" As soon as he asked the question both of them froze in place as realization dawned.

"I think we should run for the closest exit now." Iris replied.

"I agree completely."

The two burst into a full sprint heading for a vent to get out. It was too late, the fans turned on and both of them were picked up in a current of air and send hurling through the air ducts. Chisai flicked one of his tails to activate his arcane claws and tried to get a grip on one of the walls, but the fans were too strong and he was ripped off the wall and flung along, colliding with the tanuki who let loose a yelp from the impact. The two were bounced back and forth between the walls before finally being blown out through the vent and landing on a hard wooden surface.

"Ugggh." Iris grunted as she rolled onto her back. "Going to feel those in the morning. How much do you weigh? Seriously, that hurt."

"Weigh?" Chisai had landed flat on his face, it was amazing he hadn't broken any bones. He managed to slowly get onto all fours and then sit up on his knees. "Apparently not enough for your little detour. Brilliant idea, would you care to make any further attempts to get us killed tonight?"

"Hey!" The tanuki shouted as she sat up. "It was better than any idea you had, if you hadn't broken that thing we'd be normal size and the fans wouldn't have been a bother!"

"It's not my fault it broke!" Chisai was able to leap to his feet as anger flared again, and he felt a strange but familiar tingling sensation.


"Oh right, it must have been another three tailed green fox that tackled me."  She crossed her arms as she stood up. "At this point I'd be better getting off looking for an exit alone."

"Because you know, your escape plan worked so perfectly." Chisai stuck his tongue out at the tanuki, however as he did the scrap of cloth he had wrapped around his waist fell down to his paws leaving him naked again. This jerked him to attention to look at their surroundings, they were standing on a large wooden desk; There were several papers and pens lying around. The most noticeable feature about their surroundings, they were getting bigger.

"We're shrinking, again!?" Iris was clearly upset as she dropped down to an inch and a half and both of them kept shrinking.

"Oh great, so now we're lost, and getting even smaller. So, got any more brilliant plans to get out of here?" Chisai sneered.

"Hey at least I think!" Iris retorted. "I could just run and shout a lot like you and we'd still be stuck in the foyer. At least I made progress!"

"Oh yes, and I'll be feeling that progress for a week all over my body." Chisai grumbled, the tingling was getting more intense, he was down to half an inch tall. "I could get a lot more done if I wasn't fighting with you right now ya know! You make things way to difficult."

"Well sorry if I'm a little irritable!" The tanuki retorted. "And you're not helping by starting crap like this every time we start shrinking!"

Both of them fell silent for a moment, they had dropped to a quarter of an inch, but as they quieted down they stopped shrinking. It couldn't possibly be that simple could it.

"We're... we fighting every time we shrank?" Iris asked.

"I think, I think so." Chisai replied. Every time they had been shrinking, when they had calmed down or got distracted from their fight it had stopped. If they had been getting along the entire time they might have still been full sized. "Never thought shrinking problems could be so intense."

"Uh huh. Well, I...." Iris wasn't sure what to say, the first comment she had come up with was snarky to say the least, but being aware of what would happen if another fight started she chose to bite her tongue and examine their surroundings instead. The two were no bigger than insects at this point, finding the curator's office was going to be a lot harder now. What room were they in anyway? Large fancy desk, carpet floor, several pictures and certificates on the wall. Wait, could they be that lucky. "I think... We're in the curator's office, we can escape from here." She turned to face the kitsune, only to see that his ears were flat against the back of his head and the fur on all three of his tails standing out. He was pointing towards something behind her.

"I...Iris." Chisai muttered.

The tanuki turned, and towering above them like a mountain was a large figure made of stone with glowing red eyes. The golem! How long had it been there, how had it found them here? Either way, it was quite clear it saw them now, and it raised one stone fist choosing to deal with them in the quickest way possible.

To think, it would end like this now. She had really hoped for something more poetic to bring an end to her crime spree. Alas, it was the end.

The stone hand slammed down like a hammer aimed right for the two tiny thieves. There was no time to dodge, no time to get out of the way. It should have been over, but then the hand stopped.

"I'm.... alive?" Iris blinked, the hand had stopped barely a half inch above her head. It was trembling as if the golem was trying to move but some force was holding him back. She looked around and noticed Chisai, he was down on one knee breathing heavily and one of his tails was standing up straight to the point it looked like an invisible force was trying to yank it off him. "C-Chisai!?" She asked surprised.

"I'm gonna be honest." Chisai muttered through gritted teeth. "I'm a bit surprised that worked, I guess even a live golems still count as inorganic, so my levitation works on them."

"You saved us!" Iris shouted relieved, but then recoiled as Chisai let out a yelp of pain.

"Not for long.... This thing, weighs way more than my powers were meant for lifting. I feel like my spine is about to be ripped out through my tail. I... I can't even move or I'll lose it."

"What do I do!?" Iris shouted.

"I don't know! Do something, anything! I can't hold it!" Chisai collapsed to both knees at this point it was clear he didn't have a lot of time.

Iris wasn't sure what to do, without her spell cards she didn't have any way to combat something that size. Wait, there was an idea. It was the actual writing on the cards that was magic not the paper itself. She looked around the desk, finding one of the discarded pens and ran for it. Jumping up she was able to slam her hand against the end of it covering her hand in ink. She had to work quickly, there was no time for finesse; Here was hoping that the size of the letters didn't matter.

"Repulsion!"  She drew a symbol on the desk itself, it was one that could throw light weight objects, usually used to help sling small pellets in weapons. Iris reasoned she didn't weigh much more than that herself right now, and stood atop the symbol as she found herself launched into the air landing atop the golem. A binding card had sealed this thing from moving earlier, so it could work again, but she had a more permanent solution. "I hope this works." Iris quickly drew the binding symbol on the golem's forehead, with it on the golem itself there was no chance of it coming off and the golem being freed of its own power. She just hoped it would work.

About five seconds passed that felt like an eternity. Chisai gave out another yelp of pain as his own powers gave way and he fell back, the golem fist started forward again aiming to crush the small fox only to stop once more as the binding spell took control. This time there was no shaking or sign of the golem trying to resist, it was completely frozen. The red glowing eyes dulled and the light faded completely.

"We... We did it." Iris almost fell over in relief as she quickly worked her way down the golem to where Chisai was.

"Aha ha." Chisai had to laugh. "You know, we make quite a team. Taking down something like that at our size. If we stopped fighting and put our minds to it I bet we could empty this entire museum." He was flat on his back, it seemed he was too exhausted to stand.

"Maybe another night, I don't think you're in any shape to take anything else." Iris helped the fox up to his feet letting him lean on her shoulders. She would never actually admit it, but she was impressed by his bravado, and he had done a pretty good job holding that golem back. Perhaps, he had a point.

"Oh come now! Security is out, we could be done in an instant!" Chisai started. "But, maybe I need a nap first."

"You do have a point though." Iris mused. "With your levitation we could very well ride the loot right out of the museum. At our current sizes I doubt any form of security would even pick us up, and of course now that I discovered my magic symbols will work regardless of what I write them on."

The two looked at each other, and an identical glint of mischief appeared in both sets of eyes. While either had said it out loud, they had just agreed to a partnership that would last a very long time. They could rob places like this blind and no one would ever see it coming.

It was going to be a very profitable relationship.
It's the final Chapter of Small Crimes and our two thieves try to deal with their shrunken size and find a way to escape out of the museum. The best option seems like going through the vents but nothing is ever that easy. Will the two escape? And will they find a way to stop whatever curse keeps shrinking them? It's the final chapter, so let's find out.


Chapter 1: [link]
Chapter 2: [link]
Chapter 3: (You're Reading It)
© 2013 - 2024 calextheneko
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dacostpa's avatar
Great Story!!! Extremely creative and fun, and I REALLY enjoyed reading it. AWESOME JOB!!!!! :D