Splinterbark: Chaos of the Coyote Crew

Chapter 11: The Unknown Story

Reed could not concentrate. Perhaps it has because he had spent the last three weeks going thrice the normal amount of math homework. Maybe because he could not figure out just what the Coyote Crew were up to. Or possibly it was his argument with Shelly. He threw his head back and groaned tugging at his coifed bangs in defeat. Didn't that stupid girl understand how dangerous those three were? If anything happened to Shelly... He had to stand up and get some air. The math equations were starting to dance to the rhumba on the page. Outside in the garden he inhaled deeply and tapped above his collarbone in nervous rhythm trying to clear his head.

First they attacked a smaller bank. According to Blackbird they were more known to strike larger banks and make one or two big hauls before disappearing for a few months. Then they struck the yacht. That was more their style. The flashier the venue the better. Then they were spotted at Valdus Academy. Blackbird's sources said the file cabinets for C and D were forced open. Did schools even keep physical records anymore? They were looking for someone, the voice in his head uttered. But who? Who could three thieves dressed as the leads from a decade old television show be looking for? Maybe there was a clue in the show itself?

Reed only barely glanced at the wiki when he went back to his room. He knew most of the stuff such as plot, characters, etc. The plot itself was fairly simple. Three young girls; the brave and clever Captain Coyote, the kind and empathic Blaze, and the curious and optimistic Star, had hijacked a mysterious ship known as the Firefall and was trying to escape the clutches of the space demon Dark Ghost and his son Prince Specter. Each episode they met different races either enslaved, fighting against Dark Ghost, or neutral and there was some kind of moral lesson at the end. Reed tried looking up footage but most of his searches only gave him clips of low quality or heavily edited to avoid copyright. Reed grumbled but then a thought came to him. He and Marco used to watch the show together and Marco had a habit of recording shows to physical form just in case.

He went down the hallway to the far end of the house where his brother's room was. The name Marco Ceil Altamiri was engraved in a plaque on the door. The door was locked. It made sense as Marco had his own safe he used for business papers. His mother was out again and he didn't expect his brother and father home anytime soon. Reed returned to his own room and pulled out a key he kept taped to the underside of his desk. He had gotten a copy of the key to his brother's room a long time ago and only occasionally used it if he felt a little malicious. He was surprised Marco had not changed the lock yet. He could not be that stupid. This was also how Reed had stolen the ring in the first place.

Marco's room was notably more professional looking than Reed's. Marco had a large roll top desk and a luxurious four poster bed. Several shelves lined the walls and what was not covered by shelf were posters of various racing cars-some even signed. The shelves were stuffed full of movies and TV show box collections. A sizeable portion were of mainstream and obscure anime ranging from DVD's, VHS, and even Laserdisc. Others were cartoon box collections. Marco was also fastidious person when it came to organizing. He kept all of his recorded shows on one shelf and kept in longboxes. Reed traced his fingers along the boxes looking at the lettering for the F box. He just had his hands on the box when Marco whispered in his ear,

"What are you doing in my room?" Reed had gripped the edges of the box and dunked it hard at the surprise; causing all the discs to fly out and scatter all over the room. He sat there on the floor gripping his collarbone and the longbox resting haphazardly on his head. Marco picked up one of the discs and thumbed over the title.

"Firefall Arcade, huh? Feeling a little nostalgia with everything that is going on?" he tossed as he plucked the box of his brother's head. Reed grumbled something akin to a maybe. He started gathering the DVDs from the floor trying to put them in some kind of order. Marco smirked a little as he helped clean up the mess.