The Getaway

The Treasure Trove

"Ugh... where is that goody-two-shoes? He should've been here ages ago." a mysterious voice grumbled to itself. "I got the everything he may need, and he knows it... yet he still isn't here."

The voice - or at least the source of it - continued to rant to itself whilst waiting in the utter silence of the parking lot, it's patience slowly going up in ashes more and more by the second.

"Oh, calm down already, I'm here." a new voice interjected with a grunt, breaking the silence. "You really need to work on your patience, you know - it's a virtue for a reason."

"I find it rather odd how a literal criminal, more specifically a child kidnapper, is lecturing me about manners..."

The other put his hands to his hips defensively. "Yeah, well... look who's talking. You're the one who's been so mysterious and potentially dangerous that the police had to investigate you more than a handful of times... that's really telling, isn't it?"

"Oh, shut it. You're just as mysterious as I am. You'll be investigated too soon enough."

"Okay, Benjamin, enough of this nonsense." Andre raised his voice slightly as he changed the subject. "You have what I need, don't you?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah... come on in - and it's Ben, quit with the 'Benjamin', will ya?" the humanoid shot back, sliding the door of his van open.

Andre rolled his eye and nodded before stepping in, and taking a look around for the one item he needed - which was much easier said than done, as he was inside a hoarder's van and there were items upon items stacked on top of each other - or on the walls, floors, even ceilings - and atop of miscellaneous types of furniture that were also laying around.

"Hmph, I got to hand it to you Benja- er, sorry, Ben, you sure do know how to hoard things, don't you?" Andre commented, picking up a seemingly-normal painting of an entity seated on a stool - before being startled by said entity jumping out of the painting with a roar, and scurrying away and out of the van. "Where do you even find all of this junk?"

"I have my ways, Andre... also, It's not junk, at least I don't think so... I like to think of them as luxuries, appurtenances, or even better - relics... that happen to reside in my treasure trove."

The cyclops rolled his eye and continued searching. "Uh-huh... well, whatever makes you happy then, I guess."

Both Ben and Andre went silent as the former watched the latter shuffle through each item - and greatly scrutinizing it, before eventually picking up a box full of warm water. "...and tell me, what the hell is this supposed to be? There's nothing but water inside, what possible importance could be in here?"

"Heh, I find it pretty ironic that you found that, Andy. I believe that's where I first put that Darwin kid before moving him to reside in a tank until someone bought him..." Ben said, as he racked his mind to remember all of the details. "...that someone being Richard Watterson."