Black Masked Phantom Thief

I don't even know with the title, but this is an entry for the weekly quest. This is my first time writing literature for tokotas, and it's been quite a while since I've written anything, so I hope it doesn't make you run in terror.

1511 words.

Tokotas included:

Balsa 5018 with handler Jirou.
Kasai 5761 with handler Raia.
Zorro 3224 the masked bandit.



"What a beautiful day." Raia said while looking up at the few fluffy little clouds in the bright blue sky. "Don't you think so, Kasai?" The tokota in question looked up at her handler and tilted her head. "And on this beautiful day", Raia continued, "we have a certain agenda".

She was referring to the notice that was posted on the bulletin board in town. The flier read "Food Thief on The Loose: Recently a large amount of food has been disappearing around town. The culprit seems to be a tokota with a rather large appetite. Any information regarding the whereabouts of this tokota will be greatly appreciated, and if you are able to catch the culprit, you will be rewarded a sum of 500 TT"

"The prize money isn't much, but I need something to do, and you could use some more experience with tracking. It also wouldn't hurt to get you more used to being around crowds." She said to the tokota while smiling, but Kasai only whimpered upon hearing the word 'crowds'.

"Jirou said he'd help out as well with Balsa. I hope they're here soon. That man can be so forgetful sometimes." she said, then looked towards Kasai again. The young tokota seemed a bit antsy. She could get quite nervous from anticipation. "Don't look so grim, girl. Everything will be fine. I'm sure you'll do great." she cooed while scratching Kasai's chin. She seemed to perk up a bit after that.

After waiting for a few more minutes, Raia heard someone call out: "Hey Raia, sorry I'm late. I wanted to check in on the tokotas before I left, and kinda lost track of time."

Raia let out a big sigh, and then said "Jirou, you are way too late. Someone may have already found the culprit by now." Looking extremely apologetic, Jirou once again said he was sorry. No one could really ever stay mad at the man for long when he made that face. Raia stared at him for a bit before saying "Ok ok, I get it, so let's just get on with this."

After saying that she looked behind Jirou at the tokota he had brought with him. A greying brown roan with a curly mane named Balsa. She was a fairly well mannered tokota, who stood so still behind Jirou that Raia almost didn't notice her. Balsa was Jirou's only tokota at the time when he was hired. But now he had several other tokotas as well. When Raia looked her way, Balsa wagged her tail a bit.

"Hello there Balsa, I hope you'll help Kasai out with this job. She could use some of your tracking skills."

Balsa, and Jirou as well, were quite good at tracking since they had spent a long time living alone in the mountains. Seems they got a bit lonely up there and came down to town to look for a job. Rennir was the one who snatched him up before he could even apply for any other jobs. It's been around 3 months since then, and Jirou has fit in quite nicely. Ren always did have an eye for competent people.

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As soon as they got into town they were greeted with a commotion. Seems the food thief has struck again, this time at a fish market. Raia wouldn't pass up this opportunity to gather some information.

"Excuse me, Miss?" She asked the young woman at the cart who seemed quite disgruntled. "Sorry, we're closed at the moment." was her reply. She came off as a bit rude, but Raia could tell she was just upset with what had happened.
"What's happened here?"
"That darn tokota ran off with my haul! Such a fat thing, he doesn't need any more food, he could live off his blubber for months!"
"So you saw him? What did he look like? Did you see which way he went?"
"Ha, it's hard not to see him. How he's managed to be so sneaky until now I'll never understand! Anyway, he's brown with cream colored accents and really dark marked. He's also got three bands of teal hand paints painted horizontally across his face. And he's incredibly fat, you'll know him when you see him. I only saw him for a few moments before he ran off behind my cart." She pointed behind her. "I couldn't catch up to him. I'm sure one of your tokotas could sniff him out though." she said as looked to the two tokotas standing next to Jirou. Kasai was moving about nervously, and Balsa seemed to be trying to calm her down. Jirou was looking around at the scenery of the marketplace. They're still not very used to the hustle and bustle of town.

"Thank you for the info, Miss. We'll do our best to catch him." Raia replied to the woman who seemed to have calmed down upon telling her story.
"If you do I'd be willing to give you a deal on any fish you'd want from my cart in the future. I can't afford to have any more fish stolen by that lummox."
"That's very kind of you, Miss! See you later then."
"Yes, good day."

Raia walked back to Jirou. "Jirou, you should tell Balsa to sniff around for his scent. I'm sure it's all over this place." He nodded and told Balsa to search. Balsa spared no time and started searching immediately. Kasai, now with something to do, calmed down a bit and mimicked Balsa's movements. After sniffing for a bit, Balsa barked lightly to say she had found the scent. "Good girl!' Jirou called. "Now follow the scent, track him down".

She stuck her nose back to the ground, and went around in circles for a bit before going off in a straight line. Kasai was right behind her, and Raia and Jirou a bit behind Kasai. The two tokotas sniffing around, one seeming to know what she's doing and the other not so much, while trying to dodge the incoming pedestrian traffic was quite a spectacle. It was all Raia and Jirou could do to keep from separating from them. When they came to a fork in the path, Balsa suddenly veered off to the one that led towards the docks.

Looking up the path a bit, Raia noticed the string of small warehouses. She was sure there'd be several good places to hide with all the boxes and such. She stopped suddenly, as Balsa had stopped as well. She seemed to have lost the trail. The stench of fish in the air was probably overwhelming her senses. Kasai however was intensely sniffing the air, and let out a series of whiny barks.

"You've got the scent Kasai?" Raia asked. In reply to that Kasai barreled ahead towards the warehouses, nearly leaving the others in the dust. Once there she put her head down and moved in a serpentine pattern towards one of the open warehouses. There were quite a lot of boxes in this one, a good hiding place. Kasai once again barreled forward, running into the warehouse and around a bend behind some boxes, and started barking.

Raia, Jirou, and Balsa followed behind as closely as they could, and once they looked around the bend, they saw the reason for Kasai's barking. The oversized tokota was sitting on a pile of fish bones, and various other food scraps, while chewing on a half eaten salmon.

"Seems we've found him." Jirou announced.
"Yes, but what exactly do we do now?" Raia asked.

Realizing that he was being watched the tokota looked over in their direction. He licked his lips and kept staring, but it didn't look like he had any intention of moving from that spot for quite a while.

"This may be more troublesome than I thought", Raia said, really feeling unenthusiastic at this point.
"Do you think he's aggressive?" Jirou asked.
"Well I guess the only way to find out is to try and get closer."

Raia took on a submissive stance and started slowly walking towards the tokota who had once again started chewing on the fish. "Hey there big guy, how are you doing?" she said in a sweet voice. "You've been causing quite a bit of trouble lately. You shouldn't steal things you know." She waved for Jirou and the others to follow behind her.

Upon hearing Raia's baby voice the tokota's tail starting wagging, so she felt it was safe to get closer. In a few moments Raia was by his side, petting him gently. "You're such a sweet boy" she said quietly. "Why don't you come with us, huh?" She turned towards Jirou and asked "Do you think he has a handler somewhere who's looking for him?"

"I'm not sure Raia, but we should probably call the people who put up that flier. I don't think we'll be able to get him out of here ourselves."

She looked down at the very chubby tokota firmly stuck to the ground beating his tail against a crate.

"Yeah, good call."