It was broad daylight while the group tried to sneak to the Lab, which suffice to say wasn't ideal. They just had to try to casually walk over to the back of the lab without being questioned by any bystanders, or especially anyone from the lab. If one of them saw Fundy, they would ask him why he hadn't been at work for a while, or try to start some condescending conversation, and he would be stuck for way too long in one place. Even worse, he didn't have a solid excuse, which would only lead to more embarrassment. Oh yeah and more questioning and suspicion which could ruin the whole plan which also wasn't good I guess.

"I'll show them." Fundy thought to himself as he led the group around in a big loop to the back of the place.

He had mixed feelings about the place. On one paw- HAnd, he could do research, prove discoveries, make something of himself. On the other, everyone was a jerk, or at least acted like it towards him.

"Or almost everyone." His mind flashed an image of Eret. His traitor-of-a-friend. "No no, everyone."

No minimal respect for the furry that hadn't gotten anywhere, and was only left with the throwaway jobs no one wanted. But now, he had a solid case, with the best lab partner he'd had in years, an annoying little kid, and he was going to crack the damn biggest case the worlds had to offer. They could screw themselves. He was going to get some respect finally, and it was going to be worth all of the trouble to see their faces. All he needed was to steal a few measly crystals from an overly secure lab with a ragtag of people he had either just met, or knew had no experience in thievery. Yeah this would go well!

The group walked around the back of the lab, which luckily for them, had plenty of greenery to hide in. They ducked behind some bushes and trees near the back door they were planning to use. It was on the farther end of the side of the building, perfect for looking through the windows from the outside.

"Ok so what's the plan?" Tubbo asked quietly. They all stared at the guard dead ahead, who was looking well away from their spot, thankfully.

"Ok," Fundy started, "Wilbur, you stay here and make sure it goes smoothly from far away-" He said.

"And if it doesn't?" Wilbur asked the obvious, that Fundy was trying to avoid.

"It will." Was all Fundy said. Nobody looked sure about the way he said it, but didn't argue either. Not like they could really back out now.

After an uncomfortable pause, Fundy continued to explain the plan. "Tommy, you run up and-"

"Got it!" Tommy said, rushing up and way before Fundy could finish.

"-And distract him calmly keeping his attention- and oh fuck he's already gone." Fundy sighed in annoyance.

"Language." Bad whispered. Fundy glared.

"Ok then, I guess we watch him fail, try to sneak behind, and if all else fails we run for it." Fundy said with a frown. The plan had already gone south before it had even started.

"Are you sure about this?" Sapnap asked. He was staring at his hands as he spoke, before stuffing them in his hoodie pocket when Fundy looked over.

"As sure as I am that we need those crystals." Fundy said.

Tommy was up to the guard now, and the others watched as he tried to get the guards attention as far away from the group as possible. Trying (but probably failing) at making it seem like he had come from the front. Thinking about it now, Tommy must've run in quite a big loop in mere seconds to pull it off. Jeez the kid was fast. Tubbo, Sapnap, Bad, and Fundy nodded to each other as they started to make their way around the bushes and get to the back wall of the lab while they could.

"HEEEYYYY BIG MAN!" Tommy shouted at the guard with a confident smile.

"Uhm who are you?" The guard asked bluntly. He had blonde hair and wolf ears, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrow as he looked at the child in front of him.

"Haven't heard of me? Well I thought I was pretty famous around these parts." Tommy crossed his arms and held a cocky smile lying through his teeth.

"TommyInnit, you're welcome for gracing you with my presence." He continued.

"Do you have parents somewhere or something?" The guard asked, trying to look behind Tommy to see if anyone was with him. To his knowledge, no.

"HEY I AM NOT A CHILD!" Tommy spat, uncrossing his arms.

Fundy figured this was as good a time as ever to break for it, and he signalled the others to follow him as they ran towards the back wall as silently and quickly as they could.

Tubbo was the slowest out of them, and all of the others had made it safely behind the building a few feet ahead of him.

There was a snap sound under his foot and he froze. There was a broken tree branch under his foot as he lifted it up carefully. 

Tommy's eyes widened as he saw his best friend behind the guard frozen in place. The guard started to turn around at the noise, and Tommy panicked.

"HEY LOOK! A DOG OVER THERE!" Tommy shouted in a panic, pointing behind him and away from Tubbo. The guard paused and looked behind Tommy's shoulder to see nothing there.

"Uhm there's nothing there?"

Tommy glanced behind the guard's shoulder really quickly to see Tubbo gone. He let out an internal sigh of relief.

The guard looked behind him and also saw nothing, shrugging and turning back to Tommy.

"Yeah yeah, maybe I need my eyes checked. Trick of the light or some shit." Tommy nervously laughed.

Everyone relaxed a little. Not much, they hadn't really done anything yet, but still a little. 

Behind the building, Fundy pointed to the door they needed to get through.

"The guards have access to all keycard doors, which includes this door. Bad, can you slip over through the shadows and grab it from him?"

Bad nodded, not speaking, and took a deep breath.

"Years of pickpocketing better come in handy now." Bad mumbled extremely quietly after he took a few steps from the group, preparing to jump into the shadow. Fundy was hardly able to make out the words with fox ears, so it wasn't surprising Tubbo and Sapnap didn't react to it at all.

Bad jumped into the nearest shadow and clung to the wall, keeping silent. He had to jump out to grab the keycard, which was less than ideal for right now.

Tommy's eyes went wide at Bad jumping out of the shadow silently, hovering over the card attached to the guards belt. He was really crap at this whole lying thing. Maybe an on the spot circus performance would have been a better distraction.

"So uhm- what do you guards do here? I'm uhm researching something for- fun?!" Tommy said as awkwardly and unnaturally as it could sound. Everyone held their breath. Waiting for the guard to shrug Tommy off and notice Bad next to him any second.

"Oh! well it's nice that you asked-" The guard started. The group let out a collective breath, and Fundy quietly huffed.

"Knew those jerks were self absorbed." He thought to himself, "Too bad it'll lead to their own demise." He smiled slightly.

Bad tried to grab the key carefully right as the guard moved just out of reach, still talking about his life story.

"-And I mostly became a guard to help my friend. I mean I've got the muscles for it too." The guard lifted up his arm to show his muscles with a confident smile, moving out of reach again as Bad tried to swipe at it.

Bad took his chance while the guard was closing his eyes with a grin on his chin tilted upwards to quickly grab it.

The problem was though, the card was attached to one of those annoying pulley things that retract when you let go, making this much harder. It only took a second before the guard felt the pull and noticed, immediately looking down and catching Bad right in the act.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" The guard yelled and looked at the guilty demon still holding the card.

The guard grabbed Bad's wrist, forcefully making him let go of the keycard. From behind the building, everyone was debating in their heads whether they should run out and help or not. This entire plan could be ruined if they did, but also if they didn't, which was a pretty 50/50 shot.

Tommy panicked and jumped towards the guard waving his arms in his face just enough for Bad to twist his wrist away and back up. Wilbur was watching from the bushes with a slight smile on his face, almost trying to hold back a chuckle at the scene.

"Get away kid!" The guard shouted, shoving Tommy off him to face Bad.

When the guard turned around though, it wasn't exactly what he had expected.

Bad was over 9 feet tall, and with glowing eyes and a shadowed face, it wasn't the friendliest sight.

He wasn't paid enough for this.

Bad swiftly knocked him on the head with his fist before he could react. The guard's knees buckled as his body fell to the floor forwards, just knocked out for a while.

The others ran forwards quickly as Bad shifted back to normal, with shock, fear, and admiration mixed between them.

"Well that's one way to do it." Tubbo was the first to speak.

Fundy shook his head to get his thoughts back together and keeled down the guards, grabbing the key card and using a small knife to cut the string attached to it.

"One way that works apparently." Fundy mentioned.

Wilbur simply raised his eyebrow and made a hum of approval, going back to leaning against the nearest tree. The performance was over he assumed.

"Bad?!" Sapnap asked while looking at the guy on the ground. Second guy Bad had knocked out in front of Sapnap in the last few days actually.

Bad looked at his own hands and at the body. He was at a loss for words himself.

"That was so cool!" Tommy exclaimed. "I just panicked and waved my arms in his face, and then you just knocked him out from behind in one hit, growing like 30 feet tall!" Tommy smiled, recreating it as he talked.

"I'm not quite sure it was quite 30 feet, big man." Tubbo said.

Fundy held up the keycard waving it to get their attention. "We're still on a mission guys, that was the easy part."

"Well what do I do now? The guard I was supposed to distract seems pretty preoccupied."

"Just stay here and keep watch." Fundy said. "Too many people inside will make sneaking way harder, "Especially you." He thought to himself.

Tommy just shrugged and looked over to Wilbur, deciding to hang around for a few more seconds. Tubbo looked nervous.

Fundy sighed looking at his ragtag team of (probably)newly formed thieves. "This isn't going to end well." Fundy thought to himself, more and more doubts creeping in.

Sapnap had used the time to prop the guard up against the wall a little nicer. It was less noticeable, meaning less likely to draw attention.

"Let's get some crystals." Fundy said, letting enthusiasm line his voice.

"Yeah crystal met-"

"LANGUAGE!" Bad yelled before Tommy could even finish. Tommy glanced at the knocked out body who Sapnap had propped against the wall, and didn't even try to finish the sentence.

Wilbur stifled a laugh from the bushes again. He seemed to be finding this whole thing hilarious.

"Alright guys, let's just go inside and steal now." Fundy sighed, walking back over to the back of the building without even looking back at the group. If he had to guess, there was a few seconds of silent chaos right before they stopped to follow him, and Tommy went back to Wilbur.

Bad had quickly made an apology note and tucked it under the guards hand.

Sapnap had given Bad a weird look but shrugged it off as he tried to focus on his hands a little better.

Tommy had given Tubbo a thumbs up and 'you can do it' motivational speech in a spilt second, that seemed to greatly boost Tubbo's confidence.

And Wilbur kept leaning on the tree, safely watching the group from afar and laughing at their antics.

Fundy sighed as he made it to the back of the building while the others trailed behind him.

Haha they were going to get caught.

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Thanks for reading! I decided to split it up in two because it was already getting a little long and it would take forever to get out if I didn't. I think I might switch up my original plan and instead put a different group's perspective for the next chapter, but my brain likes to flip my life choices on me in a second randomly, so we'll see I guess! Either way, finals are coming up, (kinda like right now, probably should stop avoiding them actually and start focusing in class) and so I think I'm going to take a little break to catch up on my work and possibly reread what I wrote so I don't screw everything up, and what I'm writing now will actually make sense. So yeah! Thanks for reading and all of the nice comments and votes, and have a good day or night!

(also sorta funny/sort of a pain story- I wrote this chapter like 3 times because I couldn't get it right, and yeah it's not perfect,(or even good at that) but I can tell you it's better than the other two at least. Anyone want to try to guess who the guard is? It's not important, but it's sort of like an easter egg I guess??)

(and another thing! -Reading the comment on past chapters makes me go back and read my work (let me just say I see the spelling mistakes, and while I hate them indefinitely, I refuse to fix them) and honestly it's giving me so many ideas for little details to add in the future so thank you guys so much!)