Chapter Text
It all started when Specter Knight discovered his prized locket missing.
He had practically beaten the information on its whereabouts out of Plague Knight, accompanied Missy and Acolyte on an ill-advised endeavor in exchange for a lead on Chester's location, and eventually chased down Chester aboard the grand Flying Machine.
Of course, Chester refused to surrender the location of his locket unless Specter offered something in return. In this case, the asking price was the delivery of King Knight's full collection of heirlooms.
This posed an interesting dilemma to Specter Knight. On the one hand, he knew he could likely ask Red, Scarlet, Missy, and Acolyte for magical assistance locating the locket, which would completely bypass Chester's involvement. He knew they would likely be happy to help, and that he would likely be successful in finding his locket that way.
Even so, the mere thought of asking for help like that injured his pride. He didn't need their help— he was perfectly capable of handling this himself. He'd fight King Knight, all his rat subjects, and any other foes necessary to do it. There was no need to involve anybody else or to place himself in the unenviable position of relying on another person.
Besides, the last time he'd asked for help from Missy and Acolyte, it had gone poorly. He'd nearly been killed by the Troupple King in the process. He didn't trust those two not to make matters worse simply by involving themselves.
So, given the choice between asking his friends for help and doing Chester's dirty work, he elected to do the latter.
***
In his days as a thief, he'd planned many a heist. He would spend days with Luan casing potential victims, taking detailed notes of the site, and carefully preparing for the event. Many a night was spent sitting around the campfire exchanging ideas and avenues by which to part some fool nobleman and his ill-gotten wealth.
What he wouldn't give to have Luan's insight right now! King Knight was a threatening adversary who had bested him in combat on multiple occasions. If Specter was going to do this, he would need to rely on stealth to get in and out of King Knight's residence without being noticed.
The irony of the scenario was not lost on Specter Knight, of course. Here he was planning a theft so he could recover an object stolen from HIM by theft. Some sardonic part of his mind wanted to justify it by reminding him that King Knight was terrible and didn't deserve nice things. On the other hand, the fool had already had everything stripped of him already—his title, his power, his subjects. King Knight's fairly won heirlooms were some of the few consolation prizes left to his name.
That didn't stop Specter Knight from proceeding as planned, though. He and Luan had stolen more substantial prizes from better people before. Back when Reize was just an infant, there were some truly meager days, and they did what was necessary to keep the child fed. In spite of it all, Specter Knight didn't regret a moment of it. He certainly wouldn't regret separating a gilded charlatan from a few trinkets.
***
It didn't take a master spy to memorize King Knight's tedious schedule. A few simple days of reconnaissance revealed that King Knight worked at the Pridemoor castle cleaning the floors, and he lived with his mother, apparently. He spent his spare time at home training rats to perform simple tasks, and he kept a secret stash filled with Joustus cards, the hypocrite.
The difficult part of this equation was the fact that King Knight appeared to keep his heirlooms on his person at all times. Where did they all go? Specter Knight kept his own Curios tucked into various pockets and folds of fabric in his cloak. He saw no apparent way for King Knight to do the same.
A few days later, he witnessed King Knight open a secret compartment in his armor to withdraw his Duelist Glove (in response to someone at the Juice Bar insulting his honor, naturally). Well, that answered that, at least. King Knight was then embarrassingly escorted off the premises, and Specter Knight had all he needed to make his move.
The plan was simple: He would wait until King Knight changed into sleeping clothes and went to bed, teleport into the bedroom, open the secret compartment on the armor he had just changed out of, and sneak out. Nobody would be any wiser, and Specter would be long gone by the time King Knight awoke in the morning.
And so the night came that he would accomplish the deed.
***
King Knight's home was a medium-sized, yet humble abode on the outskirts of the Village, not far from the gleaming towers of Pridemoor. The window had clearly once afforded a nice view of the Tower of Fate in the distance; now the clearing in the trees and the East-facing windows gazed endlessly at something that no longer existed.
Despite Specter Knight's many magical abilities, he lacked a way to make himself invisible. So he had to be careful as he gazed into the windows of King Knight's home, taking note of the motions of everyone indoors. He already had to levitate in order to even reach the windows, so he also needed to watch for bystanders outside, lest they draw attention to him and end his venture before it had begun.
In this precarious position of observation, he was able to see King Knight's mother turn in to bed while King Knight stayed up for several more hours. It appeared he was polishing a set of armor almost identical to the one he was wearing, save for the magenta cast to its cape. If Specter Knight had to guess, that would likely be the armor that he'd need to search for the heirlooms. It shouldn't be difficult—King Knight had made it look so easy to open. Specter was sure he could figure it out.
Eventually, King Knight himself bid a pompous good night to his so-called "loyal rat subjects" and pinched out the candle at his bedside. Within ten minutes, loud snoring poured out of his bedroom, and Specter Knight made his move.
Specter curled his cloak in on himself and disappeared, reappearing a few feet away inside King Knight's room. Back in his proper thievery days, he had taken care to step quietly so as to not wake sleeping victims with his footsteps. Nowadays, the only thing quieter than those footsteps was levitating, so that's what he did.
Specter floated eerily over to the newly-polished armor King Knight had toiled over. Now that he knew what he was looking for, locating the secret compartment was trivial, but getting it open was an entirely different matter…
Specter Knight laid a gloved hand on the surface of the armor, first pressing gently, and then pressing firmly. The compartment would not yield. Specter grew frustrated. He lifted the breastplate from its spot on King Knight's dresser, placed it between his two hands, and quietly pressed with all his might. It still did not budge.
This was a nuisance. It had appeared to be a pressure-sensitive compartment in the Juice Bar. Why was this so difficult? Did it require a sliding motion? Specter tried pressing, sliding, and retracting the panel in every combination he could think of, but to no avail.
Specter resisted the urge to slice the armor open with his scythe and be done with it already. If he could cut through the four-foot cannonballs on the Flying Machine, he could surely handle a thin piece of armor, but it would cause a racket that would surely wake King Knight from his slumber. No, he would exhaust all other options before resorting to that.
In this case, he drew his own Dread Talon gauntlet. The razor-sharp claws afforded him some extra dexterity, and after some fiddling with it a bit, he revealed the outer edges of the mechanism that kept the compartment closed.
Specter exhaled quietly with relief. He was so close. He glanced over at King Knight, who was still sound asleep. Then he turned back to the armor.
He located a tiny part of the mechanism, a thin cord of metal the size of a quill point. With proper leverage, he could snap through it with his Dread Talon, but it would create some noise. Best to be on his way, then.
Specter teleported from King Knight's abode, checked his surroundings, and snapped the mechanism piece well outside of King Knight's earshot.
The compartment fell apart in his hands, revealing the entire interior of the compartment. This included a sliding piece of metal meant to deter exactly what Specter was trying to do. The device required a surprisingly complex series of pressing, sliding, and retracting before it would slide into place. What a novelty.
However, Specter was dismayed to learn that the interior of the compartment was empty.
He cursed softly. That gilded fool not only wore his armor to bed, but his whole collection of heirlooms as well? That threw a wrench into his plan. He didn't relish the thought of searching King Knight's armor while he slept. Unfortunately, he couldn't return the damaged armor to its location without attracting suspicion at a later date, so he had no time to locate a sleeping draught of any kind to simplify the task. (Which was fine—he didn't want to interact with the alchemists anyway.)
No, he would finish the job tonight, no matter the consequences.
Specter teleported back inside King Knight's residence and returned the magenta armor set to its proper location. He did not look forward to this next task, but he would do what must be done.
King Knight rolled over in his bed, snoring deeply, sprawled out luxuriously in all directions. The secret compartment in his armor showed tantalizingly from under the covers.
Specter hesitated a moment, but then he firmly grasped the breastplate and performed the sliding motion he had observed on the other set of armor. This time, the compartment unlatched immediately, revealing the full set of heirlooms for his taking.
Specter only allowed himself the briefest moment of celebration before he got to work unloading the heirlooms into his cloak. One by one, the heirlooms disappeared from King Knight's armor, until— wait, was that a rat??
Sure enough, there inside King Knight's armor was a rat dressed in some kind of harness. Was… was the rat an heirloom? Why was it here? Specter counted the other heirlooms and realized that without the rat, he would be short an heirloom. So the rat was coming with him.
He cursed quietly under his breath and reached his gloved hand into the compartment. The rat squeaked loudly and bit him on the hand.
Despite himself, Specter Knight cursed loudly, and King Knight stirred from his sleep.
Specter Knight was now out of time. A gold light ensnared the harnessed rat, and Specter telekinetically lifted it from the compartment. As King Knight sat up in bed, recognition dawned on his groggy form.
"You…!!" King Knight roared.
Specter Knight curled in on his cloak, disappearing from the room with all the heirlooms in tow.
There would be consequences for this. But not right now. Right now, he had a merchant to locate.