Eizen - All Strings Attached 2

Every heist has 3 essential phases to ensure success.

The most crucial of them—the preparation phase.

***

Initially, the plan for this heist began around 5-months ago.

For me, a heist, no matter how the valuable target is, can only be executed with exceptional planning. Of course, you'll have to think on your feet in case any plan goes awry, but the more prepared you are, the better your chance of success is.

For this particular heist, the target was a unique diamond that could only be cultivated in the Asura Region of Rehten. After the rise of people with extraordinary abilities occurred during the Rehten invasion nearly 18 years ago, Earth has seen a massive shift in all of its industries. The most popular one that rose to prominence was the Adventurer Industry.

When supernatural abilities were discovered, you would think there would be an arms race amongst all the countries to become the most dominant in the world. However, it was more of the opposite, as nations banded together to explore Rehten to prevent future attacks.

The United Nations took control during those dark times and implored those with unique abilities to become peacekeepers. Those peacekeepers eventually gave rise to the modern-day Adventurer.

The United Nations would rebrand itself to be more progressive as more Adventurers were employed. Thus, they became the Association of Adventurers, more commonly known as the AOA.

With the AOA now at the forefront of all relations dealing with Rehten, it made sense that companies would start catering their ventures towards everything from the primarily unknown world. This led to alternative forms of business opening, more importantly, the adventurer-centric companies called Guilds.

New York City, which was heavily destroyed during the invasion, rebuilt its place on Earth as the world's financial capital with the rise of Guilds.

As more people awakened their abilities, the competitiveness to get into lucrative Guilds only increased, for it was the Guilds that held the exclusive rights to grant licenses to travel to Rehten.

It's simple economics at its core fundamentals with finding a problem and selling the solution.

I knew eventually that if I wanted to get to Rehten, I'd need to join a Guild.

However, unlike my friends, I haven't awakened my supernatural abilities yet.

Despite that, while I was reading the notebook I received from Notebook-man, I saw the names of multiple locations that belonged to both Earth and Rehten. I could form a guess that my father and my birth mother, who abandoned me, were adventurers.

My father, Willard, most likely didn't have any abilities, as they did not use his handwriting for any Rehten related heists.

When Willard robbed XALES 19 years ago, it was before the invasion.

Essentially, his information was outdated.

A heist back then wouldn't work with everything magically reinforced today.

Naturally, this heist would have failed if it weren't for a peculiar item that I found in the notebook.

While I was flipping through the pages of the Rehten section, I stumbled across another entry with Willard's handwriting, dated 8 years after the invasion. That was around when we had just moved to New York City after living in Manila for 4 years.

The entry also meant that Willard met with my other father and birth mother without my knowing. Again, the target was XALES, which told me that Willard stole from XALES 9 years after his first heist.

Circled in red ink was the item he stole back then, the Valakar Molten Ruby. A uniquely shaped reddish gemstone. The exact one that I recognized my mom, Tala, wearing around her neck at Willard's funeral.

Bingo.

This was a heist that was done during the era of magic.

Before I went through with this plan, I needed to see if XALES had changed at all from what Willard mapped out back then.

I needed the help of my friend Myra Fraser, who I met during my time in middle school. She became one of my best friends over our mutual love of Japanese anime and Arcana Wars—the premiere league for Adventurers to fight against each other.

When I first brought up how I wanted to steal a specific diamond from XALES, Myra actually screamed with joy.

"Wait! Does this mean what I think it does?!"

I've confided in Myra a lot when it comes to the topic of girls and girlfriends. Compared to Ashton and Reginald, who can't keep a stable relationship, Myra has had experience dating both guys and girls. She was the perfect coach for my relationship with my current girlfriend, the love of my life, Liliana Canosa.

"I think it's about time I get serious with Liliana. We've been going steady for a while. As you know, tomorrow is never promised. Who knows when hell will freeze over again?"

Her shrieks continued as she hugged me with her curvaceous body. It seemed as if she was more excited than I was when I mentioned I planned to propose to my girlfriend.

I eventually reeled her back into my plan of attack on XALES, showing her a printed copy of the two maps Willard wrote years ago.

"The amount of detail your fathers put into creating these maps shouldn't surprise me. Each one of them is like a work of art."

"I'm sure both of them would have loved to hear that. The only issue is that these maps are outdated."

"But you have a plan, don't you?"

"You know me so well."

Myra and I connected on a spiritual level. It was great to have someone else that I could hold intellectual conversations with outside of Liliana. Come to think of it, all I ever talk about with Ashton and Reginald has mainly been about stupid things. Compared to those two, Myra has a good head on her shoulders.

A part of me regrets getting her mixed up in my heists, but she's the type of person who would feel bad if we left her out of something as secretive and dangerous as this. Also, it wasn't like I could even hide it, thanks to her ability.

"What do you need me to do?"

That's another reason I value Myra so much. She's down for pretty much anything. My older sister Diwa found herself a great girlfriend in Myra.

I walked Myra through the initial concept of my plan to steal the Garidian Stardust, a diamond worth around $2.5 million. Not the whole diamond, but just a portion the size of a tiny pebble.

I took Myra with me to XALES. She was being complimented a lot for how pretty she was. I knew Myra was self-conscious about her image. Growing up, she was bullied a lot when we were younger for the light spots in her dark skin. I had learned from her the skin condition was called vitiligo.

I remember breaking Ashton's arm back in the day when he teased Myra. Now Ashton's one of our best friends and is super protective of her, even more than me. It's funny how life works sometimes.

"Eizen, you're going on one of those tangents again."

"Ah, my bad! You know how hard it is for me."

My ADHD was getting the best of me while I was showing Myra around XALES. When we came across a piece of jewelry that I recognized in Willard's notebook, I started to get giddy and go on about what I learned from some of the advanced history books I stole from a private library.

The entire purpose of bringing Myra here was for her to survey her competition.

I mentioned before that out of my friends, including my girlfriend Liliana, I was the only person who didn't awaken their abilities yet.

Myra had a particular extraordinary ability that made her invaluable for every heist we've done for the past 5 years.

[Appraisal]

Affinity: Deva Realm

Cost: 10 Mana Cards

Rarity: Rare

Damage Type: Mind

Ability: Gather specific information about a target object for 30 seconds. Ineffective against Deva and Asura Realmwalkers.

Offensive: F

Defensive: B+

With her appraisal ability, we would gather all the information possible about XALES and its infrastructure. There were a few drawbacks, however.

The first drawback is that her ability would spend 10 Mana Cards, limiting her to 10 uses within an entire day. Using up one-tenth of all your mana for the day to get information like this needed to be used cautiously.

The second drawback is that we can't exactly come to XALES every single day without looking suspicious.

"Eizen, that's the owner over there."

"Good luck."

For my plan to work, I needed Myra to get a job at XALES. Her appraisal ability would give her all the required information about the owner and his current employees.

It's a nasty ability when I think about it. As long as you didn't awaken a connection with either the Deva or Asura Realms, Myra could peer into your life for 30 seconds.

Behind her black shades, those brown eyes of hers were combing through all the information she could about the owner's history with XALES.

I knew if we tried to just target security systems, we would just be wasting time and putting stress on Myra's health.

I believe in Myra's ability to extract the specific information needed to get the job. I'm sure even without the appraisal ability, she would have landed the job at XALES.

They spent some time in the store's backroom. When the owner walked out, he was shaking Myra's hand, and by the grin on her face, I could tell she succeeded.

With Myra's success, I mapped out what she needed to learn about while she assimilated herself into the ecosystem of XALES. She would only need to use her ability when she deemed necessary. I was worried about her overusing the appraisal skill as it's very easy to abuse but was I worried for no reason.

Initially, I thought this portion of the planning stages would take 7-months to complete. I underestimated Myra. She finished everything in 4.

***

"Everyone, synchronize your watches to 14:08 Eastern Time. Be at your positions in exactly 15-minutes."

As Ashton and Reginald adjusted their watches, I finished my canvassing of the surrounding area.

Myra spent the last 4-months becoming the most trusted employee at XALES. It was a high-paying job for her as she used her appraisal skill and natural persuasive talents to complete many high-profile transactions.

She essentially became the owner's shadow. He trusted her with doing after-hour inventory and closing duty. During that time, she canvassed the building to give us a good idea of any traps we needed to be wary of.

To my surprise, the owner didn't invest in magical security systems but hired small-time adventurers as security guards.

Although the Diamond District of New York City was one of the safer places back in the day, crime took a significant rise with the rise of awakened humans.

Myra learned XALES had many attempted robberies. She pulled the security footage for us to review. Each of those heists that others tried were all armed robbery.

They all failed.

That piqued my interest. How did Willard steal from XALES, not once, but twice?

I figured it was an inside job from the beginning. However, if my theory was correct, the trick to this heist laid with the owner.

Myra's testimonies from all the extensive research on her end proved my theory correct.

To pull off this inside job, we needed to keep the owner preoccupied at all times.

For starters, I sent in the first distraction, our gay couple, Ashton and Reginald.

Ding-Ding

"Excuse me, do you two need any help with any?" said Myra.

"Ah yes, we were looking for something to commemorate our 4th anniversary," said Ashton.

"Is that so! We would be happy to assist you. Wait right here for just a minute."

"Thank you very much," said Ashton.

Both of them were far from gay, but if there were two people I knew who could pull this off, it would be those two.

"These are two handsome gentlemen right here, Mr. Jung," said Myra.

"Hello there! My associate tells me you two required special service."

Mr. Jung was glowing with a smile so hard that even his eyes were smiling.

From all the information Myra combed through, the most interesting was that Mr. Jung favored gay couples. She learned he was a divorcee who now spent most of his nights on dating apps.

During the big sale days, Mr. Jung would take out the entire staff for dinner. Myra claimed he would get really drunk and start yelling the name of his ex-husband, who cheated on him.

With gay couples that visited during store hours, Myra noted how Mr. Jung would become wholly absorbed in the couple's livelihood that he was attending to.

Ashton and Reginald's jobs were simple, continue to bullshit Mr. Jung.

"Reggy, I think that bracelet would look good on you."

"Ash, you really do have shit taste."

"Oh no, Mr. Ashton, I think Mr. Reginald over here is right. These blue emeralds from the Bayiana Ruins in the Preta Region really fit your aesthetic."

While those two kept Mr. Jung busy, it was time for me to continue the next part of the preparation with my dynamic entry.

Ding-Ding

As I walked in through the front door of XALES, I drew the eyes of all the customers and associates.

While everyone was wearing nice formal clothing, I came in with my dusty blue tracksuit, white basketball sneakers, and black shades.

It was clear I didn't fit in, but that was the point. I was the second distraction for this heist. The type of distraction that Mr. Jung absolutely hated.

His ex-husband was a basketball athlete, and my tracksuit would invoke all those bitter memories.

"Can I get some service over here!"

I had brought a basketball with me to dribble a few times, a personal pet peeve of Mr. Jung's that I learned from Myra.

"Sir! Can you not bounce that ball in my store!"

"Oh, my bad. It's a nasty habit of mine."

"I'll tend to him, Mr. Jung," said Myra.

"No, I need you to standby for now," Mr. Jung replied.

Mr. Jung had complete faith in Myra.

Buzz Buzz

A slight vibration came from my wrist. It was my watch notifying me it was 14:08 Eastern Time.

I looked up to glance at Myra, who was behind the counter near the targeted gemstone. She gave me a slight nod while she looked over towards Ashton and Reginald on the opposite end of the jewelry store.

We completed all the preparations. All the pieces were in place.

It was time to begin the most challenging phase of any heist-

The execution.