“Do you all not have any idea how dangerous what you're doing is!” Vander yells at the group.

Well the group except for Ekko, he hightailed it home the moment he saw Vander was angry.

“What's the big deal? We haven't gotten hurt yet and you've seen how much money we've made!” Vi defends, standing in front of her siblings—the leader.

“That's not the point, Vi! You're getting far too cocky and you could be hurt! Do you really think it's safe? Robbing all those places up in Piltover? Do you think it's safe for Powder?”

“Ugh! She's not that weak!” Vi scowls, “You just don't get it!”

And with that, she stormed out, the rest of the group scrambling to follow her. After they sent hesitant glances towards Vander of course—he was scary when he was mad.

The group walked in silence till they reached the arcade. Upon entering, Vi punched the wall, hard, not even flinching at the pain.

“Why does he think there's something so wrong with what we're doing? We're being careful, no one is getting hurt!”

“He cares about us,” Claggor gently tells her, “he doesn't want to risk one of us getting hurt. Or worse, being captured by the enforcers.”

“It'd suck to be in jail!” Mylo complains.

Vi holds up her hands, exasperated, falling back onto a fairly nice couch.

“Well he can keep being mad,” Powder speaks up from her newly gotten desk, stars in her eyes, “I have an actual table dedicated to working on my inventions now! I've made so much good work on Mouser!”

Vi smiles, watching as her sister begins to tinker away.

Vander could judge her all she wanted, but it was moments like this—seeing her sister so excited, so happy— that reminded her why she was even doing this.

About 2 months ago, following their successful robbery of an apartment in Bluewind Court, the gang had been on a streak! Currently at 19 jobs done perfectly.

They robbed cafes, clothing stores, toy stores, houses, apartments, mailing centers, basically everything. And they did all of it, without ever even being chased by enforcers!

The first couple robberies, kinks were still being worked out with little problems here and there, but by the time they got to the 5th one, they all had their roles down pat.

Ekko, the little genius he was, was in charge of planning the robberies. Carefully picking out the locations with the least risk and most reward, factoring into account the time of the day with the least people around, and planning their moves down to a single step.

No one's quite sure how he got a map of Piltover, their building schematics, and how he seems to know the enforcers schedules, but that's not really any of their concern.

If it works, it works.

Mylo was the lockpicker. The people in Piltover weren't dumbasses, they always locked their buildings, and busting down a door or breaking a window would draw too much attention. So it was his job to bypass whatever annoying lock was there and get them in.

The 3rd job they did, there was a keypad lock, and that did trip up Mylo, forcing them all to find a different entrance and just narrowly miss getting seen by enforcers.

But luckily, afterwards, they found a few in the dump and with Powder’s help to set them to lock, he practically mastered them.

Claggor, with his good strength and perception, was both lookout and extra muscle. Despite Ekko's careful planning, it was still wise to have someone physically there to be on lookout, something Claggor was more than happy to do. He also carried the heavier stuff of the haul, after a situation on their 2nd job where Vi almost fell down a flight of stairs while trying to carry a heavy bag.

Powder, meanwhile, was the smokescreen. Or well, distraction and cover-up. While she was still working on perfecting her explosives, her smoke bombs were essentially perfect. And after finding some thrown out computers, she was learning her way around them fast. She would set up a couple smoke bombs around Piltover, random locations really, that would be rigged to go off when they'd be committing the robbery. This was done to cause panic and force the enforcers to move towards the area and calm the crowd (even if they knew there was no real threat). And if there were security cameras or any other system,—which, there usually was— she’d have the liberty of shutting them down.

It was really fun for her to be honest.

And finally, Vi, as the leader of their gang, made sure nothing went wrong and everyone was safe. She keeps everyone in line, carries a lot of the haul, and makes sure no annoying people try to stop them and try to take their stuff, which happens more often than you might think. A good punch in the jaw usually gets them off their back however.

The bottom line was, they were being extremely careful.

Vander had no reason to be worried so much to the point of anger.

Yes, there was a warrant out for the arrest of the “Firelights”, the name Piltover had given to the elusive group of robbers after Mylo thought it'd be funny to spray paint one on the wall of a jewelry store they robbed (Vi did yell at him for that one), but that didn't matter since they wouldn't be caught.

Vander’s anger was unjust.

Before Vi could complain anymore, Ekko walked in, a couple of blueprints in his hand.

“So, I know Vander probably laid it in on you guys, but I overheard some enforcers talking about something after I left and I think you guys should know about it.”

They all looked at him expectedly.

“Well, what?” Mylo finally spoke up, “Out with it, kid.”

Ekko rolled his eyes, muttering “not a kid” before he set his blueprints down on a counter and opened his mouth to speak.

“So tomorrow, basically all the enforcers in a certain area of Bluewind Court will be off duty. For the entire day.”

Everyone looked shocked.

Bluewind Court was always one of the more heavily guarded parts, so for there to be absolutely no enforcers even if it was only in one part of it? It's practically a gold mine.

“Wait, why?” Claggor asked, confused.

Ekko shrugged, “I'm gonna be real, I stopped listening once I got the info I needed.”

“Who cares why they're not gonna be there,” Vi said, standing up, “since there's no enforcers around, we can hit so many places!”

“Or,” Ekko smirked, holding up the biggest blueprint from the bunch, “we can just hit one.”

Powder's eyes widened as she stared at the layout, “Woah…is it really that big?”

“Nuh uh, there's no way.” Mylo.

“It's not possible…” Claggor.

"How are some people born that lucky!?" Mylo once more.

“I know Vander's mad at us all right now,” Ekko said, a serious expression on his face, “but this is likely the biggest opportunity we'll ever get. We have to take it.”

“You're right, little man.” Vi grabbed the blueprint from Ekko, looking over at it, counting all the rooms, before looking back to the gang, “You guys in for the biggest heist of your lives?”

“You know it, sis!” Powder answered for the group.

Vi smirked, “All right then, gang, tomorrow, we hit Kiramman Mansion.”

—-----

(1246 words)