Saturday, February 21, 2004

   Cream Filling & Nougat: Second Coating (Chapter VIII)
Alarms were beeping all around the two of them as they ran across the main floor of the plaza. Bars had dropped over all the outer glass doors and walls, and any inner doors leading to any display rooms were likewise locked down. In front of them was an open-ceiling room completely contained within the large spacious plaza; it housed the main displays of the jewel show.
"Whip'!" Nougat shouted as they came to the entrance to the display room, "what the hell's gotten into you?!"
"Yeah, so I set off the alarm," Cream shouted back as he rattled at the cage in front of the inner door, "what''ll happen, the police'll come?" Nougat stopped running and shook his head. It was then when Cream started shouting into the room, calling for Basil and Connie to come out.
"Great, he's lost it . . ." Nougat muttered to himself.

It was then when Cream spotted the top of Connie's head poking above one of the display cases inside.
"You cover this side, I'm gonna run around to the other exit and cut them off," he said before starting to run around to Nougat towards the other side of the room. Nougat grabbed him before he could get away, though, and yanked him back hard.
"Alright, we've been almost killed way worse than this before," Nougat said, his face about a foot away from the younger man's, "what the hell is up your ass today?!" Cream pushed at his partner's grasping arm.
"Not now! They're gonna get away!" Nougat pushed back, being sure to grasp on Cream's wounded wrist - Cream grunted as he did so.
"No, now!" Nougat spat hard through his teeth. "Your body's been goin' about a hundred times faster than your brain all evening, and that's gonna get one of us killed. I wanna know why!" With that, he released the wrapped arm and Cream pulled back - and swung forward, hitting Nougat in the cheek.

"Fine!" Cream shouted as he shook his trembling hand a little. "I hate this day, okay? I hate it with a deep, tireless passion! I mean sure, there's 'Mel and all, but we all know that was but a variable bright spot in an otherwise crappy day! And it's not like almost getting killed helps that!" Nougat stood silent for a couple of seconds.
"You done?" Cream nodded, emotions running high through his brow as he did so. "Good."

With that, Nougat slapped him hard across the temple, knocking him towards the wall.
"Alright," he said, "you stay here, cover this end, and think about what I've said a bit. I'll go around to the other side."
"Noug'!" Cream shouted to his now-leaving partner, "Get back here!" Nougat was already around the corner.

Cream was completely furious at that point, and looked at the high walls of the open-top room - he judged them to be about a dozen feet high, give or take. Rational thought being one of his lesser virtues at the moment, he took some steps back, charged at the wall, and leaped, kicking off the middle of it as he went up. He got a hand along the top of the wall and started to pull himself up, though he almost lost it when the obviously temporary walls started to wobble a little. He still managed to get over it, though, and drew his pistol on the two people still inside.
"Don't even think about moving!" Cream shouted at Basil and Connie, who stopped their efforts in stacking the display cases into a sort of makeshift stair over the wall. "Hey! Stop talking!"

"Now!" Basil said, signalling Connie to run to her left while he ran to his right. They both pulled their guns - Cream and Nougat's guns - and began shooting at Cream, who dove behind a counter. Connie continued to shoot haphazardly at the counter while Basil pressed his back into the wall, lacing his hands together into a stepping point. He looked at his girlfriend and said "Connie, come on!" She fired two more shots, emptying her gun, and leaped onto and over the wall with Basil's help. He himself ran towards what they had built out of the cases and pulled himself over the wall as well.

On the other side of the wall, Connie had pretty much jumped right into Nougat, who was waiting with his gun drawn.
"Why do you two have to be here?!" she pleaded as she stared down the barrel of the pistol, backing herself into the wall.
"Well, you know Whip' and I," Nougat said with a bit of a smile, "when the two of us are together, we always leave a bit of a bad taste with people." He crept forward slowly, bringing the gap between them from five meters to about three.
"Taste this!" Basil shouted as he began shooting. Nougat instinctively dove to the side, returning fire; neither man hit his target, and Basil had run out of ammunition as well. It didn't matter to him, though, as he grabbed Connie and ran towards a fire exit leading to the upper levels. Basil was glad that he had the time to take apart the panels in the doors earlier in the night before the two party-crashers arrived, and thus had an able means of escape from the plaza even if all the ground-level security systems kicked in.

They were already inside the door before Nougat could shout for them to stop . . .


(Ooh! New record! It's about 10 minutes to 2am! Haha! Yeah, I might have to do this again tomorrow . . . . . I've got another lion / dragon / kung-fu thing to do tomorrow evening [boo!] . . . later!)
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