Night at a Museum

In the dim moonlight, the large, dark red gem seemed to glisten, those shades of red almost reflecting ominously against the glass walls of the display piece. Alexandrite, a gemstone that would change color depending on the light that glistened against it. In the bright daylight, it would appear to be blue or green, but now, in the moonlight, it was a dim red purplish color. Almost all sources of this gemstone had been expended only a few decades after it was discovered, making it one of the rarest gemstones with extremely finite amount. The value of it was only heightened by the size of this gem, cut in such a way that it resembled that of a large egg, so that each flat surface could reflect light in a dazzling display.

Needless to say, it was way above Sam’s paygrade.

He looked at from his place at the doorframe. It sat on a large pillar, placed within a glass display case, set in the middle of a wide, open room. The only window in the room was from above, though it had been thoughtfully covered with thick, steel bars, preventing anything but light from coming through. The empty room meant that no one could hide. And then, while he couldn’t see them, apparently there was little under a hundred invisible lines of laser trip wires that, when crossed, would seal the room, lower the gem into a secure vault beneath the floor, and send out an alarm and message to the local authorities.

Honestly, Sam had felt a bit useless being here. It wasn’t uncommon to hire heroes, or even any random Meta, to add onto security, but this…this seemed pretty secure. There were night patrol folk here at the museum too, and seemed to have a pretty good handle on the job. He only knew a few metas who could break steal, and even then the vault that the gem could sink into was apparently even tougher than that. He was only here to stop someone who could either break or bend steel, avoid invisible lasers, and then get through something that was even stronger than steel.

That seemed unlikely. Both in the sense that someone who could do all of that would actually want the shiny rock or that if someone like that showed up that they expected him to stop them. Sam was tough, he liked to think he was somewhere in that mid-tier, but against someone who could do all of that…he found his chances rather lacking. Still, he found comfort in the fact that someone like that showing up was probably not gonna happen.

After tonight, the gemstone would be moved and under the care of a different, probably more capable hero. He just had to watch it tonight. Just eight hours of…looking at a stone. From across the room. With nothing to do.

Oh boy…

He at least had a chair and a map of the museum to occupy the time.

It seemed like a relatively secure place. It wasn’t the Museum of Natural History or of Modern Art, or Metropolitan, but it was still a nice, well sized one on the edge of the city, right before the reconstruction sites. A wall of green hedges around the two story building. A large parking lot to the side, a small café, currently and understandably closed, and…it didn’t show it on the map but he knew there was a basement storage area where they kept some of the other pieces of art.

He let out a small huff and leaned back in his chair, starting to look over the map again. “Yep…this is the life of a hero…” He breathed out, trying to come to terms with the impending boredom.

The janitor went by mopping up the floor with his bucket in tow, his overalls were quite baggy and his head hung low obscured by his baseball cap. He nodded as he passed by the security without uttering a word. He mopped and swept and wiped one surface after another. He was a hunched looking man that moved with a surprising vigor in his step. All the while sneaking passing glances towards the display of the Alexandrite gem. He maintained cleaning for some time until he was able to sneak away to a small janitors closet. The janitor closes and locks the door behind him as he enters and turns to a large, gray, old locker that seems to be breathing. The janitor takes off his hat and reveals the face of a young dark skinned man with the ears of a wolf, indeed it was Ornlu the troublesome wolf thief.

From the hunch shape in his back come muffled voices clearly disgruntled and possibly British. Bobby and Tom emerge from under Ornlu's shirt, the hunchback he had is gone now. Ornlu opens the locker to reveal the real janitor bound, gagged and wearing nothing but his underwear.  

"Hmm you're doing alright in there, just shut up for a while buddy and we'll be out of your hair." Ornlu explains with a sly tone and possibly feigned New York accent. The three lads gather around a layout of the exhibit that Ornlu pulls out from a cabinet, something he had stashed away from an earlier point. There are childish markings all over the layout that are virtually indecipherable in meaning, yet the three seem to read the nonsense like plain English. "Alright boys here's the play, we gonna run distractions here, here and here. Bobby, you're going to help me portal close to that gem when everyone is distracted. Tom you need to do big boom things." The animated paintbrush and hammer nod in unison like they were going out on a deadly mission.

Ornlu was back on his "shift" mopping around some wooden carvings from a bygone era. Tom creeps along the hallways hatching his own hairbrained scheme to cause some chaos, avoiding the sight of the guards with relative ease due to his height and inconspicuous form. Bobby has painted one side of a portal in the Janitors closet and waits for the signal to finish his work.

"Stop right there villain!" Sam suddenly declared, standing from his seat and pointing to a portrait at the other end of the room.

The painting looked back at him.

Metaphorically.

Slowly, Sam fell back into the seat, his body slumping a bit. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t seem to get that heroic voice right. He had listened to clip after clip of other heroes getting that voice down. Their presence alone had commanded respect. Respect enough to make a villain halt or at least tremble, and yet…anytime he tried he seemed to come up lacking.

He stared at that portrait for a long moment. There wasn’t much else to do. It was of an older man in a suit, a pair of spectacles, and was balding with snow-white hair.  According to the label under the picture, something Sam had spent ample time doing, the man, Fredrick Whozeewhatzit, was the explorer or something who discovered the gemstone he was guarding.

He shot Mr. Whozeewhatzit a dirty look.

It was his fault he was here watching this boring rock.

He let out another long, bored groan, his head falling back on the back of the chair as he stared up at the ceiling. Just another…too many hours before he’d be done with this job and could go back to patrolling the city.

So far, the only thing eventful that had happened this evening was the janitor who had walked by. They seemed friendly enough, busy…quiet, but nice enough. Part of him wished the old man had stayed a bit longer, at least then he’d have some company here. But alas, it was just him and the portrait and across the room.

In a sudden motion again, he rose up his seat and pointed at the painting. “STOP THIEVES! YOU’RE NO MATCH FOR ME!” His voice was a bit too loud that time, echoing through the near empty halls of the gallery. He felt his cheeks darken a bit. Surely no one heard him do that. It was fine. He was fine. He just needed the practice. And hey! That one wasn’t too bad either, he might slowly be getting the hang of this whole…hero voice thing.

Just took a bit more practice.

Tom inched down the hallway away from the sight of the guards and into an exhibit hosting some old pottery and statues. He looked around with his oversized cartoonish eyes, something that could serve to draw the attention of the security from the room where the gem was. After a minute a lightbulb appears above his head as he looks upwards... Towards the ceiling lights. "Hoo hoo I got em now." He says before launching himself upwards into the light. It shatters in a rain of ringing glass shards on the ground. Tom chuckles before he hears the voice of security shouting and skedaddles off to hide in the hands of a suit of armour, now acting like a war hammer.

It was at that commotion that Ornlu picked up Bobby and dipped him into a can of rose coloured cleaning liquid, it wasn't paint but it was certainly good enough for Bobby's power to work. In mere moments Ornlu painted a brick tunnel like one might find under a bridge save for being painted into reality on the closet wall before him. Slowly and carefully Ornlu peeked out of the tunnel that had formed silently well within range of the Alexandrite. He looked at it hesitantly for a moment, his brow quivered a bit as he contemplated what this meant. Big time theft wasn't usually his gig, this was the kinda thing that god you Federal or Super hero attention. But he was too deep in it now.

There was a gulp before he reached out and grasped at the gem, now seeing it's beauty up close he couldn't help but be mesmerized and stare into it. This thing must be worth a country, thoughts of what he could buy with this greedily rushed forward and he momentarily forgot why he was trying to steal this. He was hired and should act professional, he slips the gem into a satchel on his shoulder before making sure no one had seen him.

It was an odd sight in the room where the gemstone had been displayed. Though, "had been" weren't really the right words for the situation as in the gem was still there but were just in the process of becoming "had been in the room". An easier way to say it was that the gem was in the process of getting stolen. On that first note, though, it was an odd sight...to see an entire cartoon sort of tunnel just...appear in the midst of the room and a wolf fellow...a literal wolf person, to emerge and then set his hands...paws? on the gem.

Sam had to admit, even as the person guarding the gem, that this was an incredibly intricate way of going about a theft. He wondered, for a moment, if this guy happened to do landscaping because it probably would've made just as much if he could work that fast. Still, there was the fact that there was a crime playing out before him and he hadn't quite acted yet. He had to remedy that one and quickly before this wolf guy got away.

Sam extended a hand out towards the Wolf-person and in the blink of an eye a black portal would open up beneath him. If he did fall through the portal, as intended, it would let out in the air just in front of Sam. Regardless of whether he fell or not, Sam would just lazily point at the thief. "Hey listen, man...you can't really take that. I don't think. Pretty sure...yeah, no, I am sure that is illegal. Any way I can just talk you out of this?" He asked honestly. It seemed the heroic banter he had been practicing didn't really pay off.

"I mean..." Sam rubbed the back of his head, looking away for a moment, "If you are in need of money or something we could grab some food and talk it out?" His gaze wandered back to the wolf fella, "Is it really worth it, man?"

Just as that precious gem was in reach something peculiar happened, a sense of gravity quickly took hold of Loup with a beffudled "Huh? GWAAAAAAH!" Ending with a tumble through some hole below him and then onto the floor outside the where the gem was. He looks around only seeing the young dude looking down at him incredulously. Loup dusts himself off and rises to his feet with an indignant pout. "Bruh the fuck your problem is?" With some sass like he's ready to throw hands. Bobby, still in Ornlu's hand recognized the man that had caught them was obviously security. His eyes vanished as he pretended to be a normal paintbrush. "Oh... You're a cop... CHEESE IT!" Ornlu throws Bobby at Sam's face, Sam suddenly screams in terror as he's catapulted at Sam.

The sound is more than enough to get the guards attention that were back in the hallway investigating the noise they had heard earlier. In a panic and not having a back up plan, Tom launches himself at one of the guards and conks him on the head causing him to smash into a wall and hit an alarm.

Ornlu panicked and ran for the hills trying to get out of the room, his feet were a blur in a cloud of dust, which was odd as there was no dirt on the ground. "You'll remember this as the time you ALMOST captured The night wolf" Saying that last part like it was some cool moniker.

Sam's glowing eyes blinked at the...wolf person's? sudden outcry and punklike aggression. Sam didn't think he had a problem, but he gave it some genuine thought. He vaguely was reminded of his youth working at a carnival when a few similar punks had tried to throw hands with him after he refused to give them free prizes. "I mean, well...I also have some money problems-oop. You're running away." By the time he had actually thought of what his problems might be the villain had already taken off and OH! Incoming!

He didn't get a good look of what the entity that was propelling towards him was, but it was enough to cause the hero to drop down and cover his head. Bobby would go flying past him and into a nearby wall unless otherwise stopped and the hero would be prone on the floor. Not a direct hit, but it certainly was not a great start to this chase.

He lifted his head up just in time to see the wolf's tail pass around a corner to...he was pretty sure there were other night watchmen that way. That might slow him down, right? ...right? The underpaid security guards that didn't require intensive training or training in dealing with metas? He was sure they would be...okay?

They certainly wouldn't be killed.

As the name was called, the challenged issued, Sam knew what he had to do.

He moved over to the person...entity? That had slammed against the wall. He was sure he had heard it screaming before. His hand reached out and he attempted to grab the slammed individually and hold them tight enough so that they wouldn't go anywhere.

"Hey bud! Any chance you can tell me where you guys are going?"