Blue

A White Collar-Heist Society Crossover

Chapter Six: Changing The Game

I do not own White Collar or Heist Society

Kat may have had the best crew in the world but that didn't do much when they were separated. Almost everyone was incapacitated. The mastermind was locked in the cellar. The talented rich boy was drugged up to his gills in the hospital. The outsider was trapped by his cover, clinging desperately to any information he could get. The hacker was confused and dependent on the only ally within his grasp, unable to seat himself at a computer and find a magical program to fix the world. The beauty was in an ambulance, incoherent even to herself as she tried to think.

They were art thieves. They pulled heists. They did the impossible.

They didn't do violence.

It just was not their area of expertise. They were thinkers, dreamers, artists- Intellectuals at heart with an addiction to adventure.

The Bagshaw boys were another story entirely.

They loved to blow things up and knew all about explosions. Casually, they knew a little about fighting too. Not enough to be considered professional- everything they had learned had come from friendly scuffles with one another and attempts at recreating scenes from action movies- but enough to totally confuse a professional from their sheer brash and bizarre berserker style with the occasional awesome-looking martial arts move. They knew how to be unpredictable.

Angus and Hamish were used to getting overlooked. For example, they always seemed to exist as a joint entity to people. Angus and Hamish. The Bagshaw brothers. They weren't even twins and yet people seemed to have difficulty telling them apart. They didn't really mind that they were mashed together, they didn't even mind the shadow. It just meant they had more opportunity to do things that, if anyone at all had been paying any attention, they wouldn't have had a chance to do.

Like finding out how to create the perfect boom.

However, when Keller's minions did it, the brothers had to admit they were a little peeved. Angus probably didn't really mean it, but he did think that it stunk that the bad guys didn't even think they were worth trying to kill. Hamish was more preoccupied with trying not to quote movie heroes, not because he was worried that it would get him shot but because he knew that Angus would start correcting him if he got so much as the pitch of his voice wrong. And it wasn't very heroic to have your heroic retorts corrected by your brother. That was just kinda pathetic.

The muscle holding the gun over there heads had grown bored quickly. He was a professional but he was starting to contemplate the life choices that had lead him here, holding two teenaged boys hostage. He was fine with most things about his job, but he realized that this had to be rock bottom. Shooting people was fine. Standing around looking tough was dull but easier than paperwork or some atrocious alternative. But watching the Bagshaws was just... sad, really. They weren't even priority hostages. Keller had told him that they probably shouldn't die but he knew a good place to hide the bodies just in case.

Why couldn't the boys just be locked in a room or something? Drugged? Returned to sender?

Instead, they kept looking around- Sometimes smiling and sometimes whispering. They never looked scared, the darkest their mood seemed to get was boredom.

Donald put his gun down on the table and sighed. He looked towards the open door and into the hallway, craning his head to see if there was a clock. He couldn't remember but the shift should change at-

And that's when the Bagshaws struck. Their handcuffs had been undone forever ago, so synchronized as only two beings often mistaken as one can achieve, and but their plan in action. The plan that had been plotted with only eye contact and unrelated jokes.

Hamish kicked into the air, making a hiya! sound as his brother rolled to the table and grabbed the gun. Donald the guard wasn't sure what to do when his face was suddenly on the ground with his former captives dogpiled on him, with the remnants of his chair poking painfully into his back. He tried to roll over and get up, but found that that was going to be impossible without tearing his arm out of his socket. Keller and his money was not worth maiming himself.

Within the next five minutes, Donald was handcuffed to the stupid table, which was bolted to the floor because it was just his lucky day, and gagged with his own sock. He figured it was a sign that he should probably find a new line of work after all this.

Angus grinned as he surveyed their captured baddie, absentmindedly pushing his hair out of his eyes.

"If I said-" Hamish started but his brother interrupted him.

"Just don't. It just doesn't sound natural." Angus advised him.

"Which way now?"

"Why do you think I would know?"

"We need a map."

"And then we need to find Kat."

"Then do a good distraction."

"Big boom." Angus agreed,

"More sound or more smoke, do you think?"

"I'd say we go all out."

"Excellent." Hamish laughed, "We'll teach them not to mess with us."

And so the whirlwind of chaos that was the Bagshaw brothers was unleashed upon Keller's fortress.

…

Keller was usually confident. As he took a lazy sip of wine, he muse upon how times had changed. Before Neal had teamed up with those darned feds, he had never been caught. Now, every scheme that included Neal and his friends went sideways. However, Keller was determined to win.

He had learned that making it personal to Neal was unwise. His little band of feds and thieves alike just knew each other too well to play them off each other. Somehow his opponent had found the right combination of people to make himself next to unbeatable.

Keller may have been good but he conceded that he wasn't as good as the team. Experience had taught him that lesson painfully.

That had meant that he needed to change the game-board. Chess was overrated anyway.

He could either gather his own team of competent players or change things up. The first option was not to his style. Keller was not a team player, he didn't trust anyone and he thought himself superior to the world. Therefore, he didn't even try to assemble a crew to oppose Neal.

Of all things, Keller found his inspiration in a computer game. He had overheard how a players team had fought another guild and while the two sides were busy a thing called a 'zurg' came and obliterated all of them.

This opened his mind to less linear thinking. He always thought in two sides- good and evil, winner and loser, himself and Neal. Anything that had opposed that had be absorbed into one side or designated as a distraction. Three sides was intriguing.

He knew that Kat's little crew would ally with Neal for now, but they were born criminals. They'd keep secrets, they'd have ulterior motives, and they'd try not to get caught. They'd be a wonderful distraction.

They'd distract everyone so much that they'd forget that Keller didn't care about the silly little thieves. He cared about winning the endgame. He cared about ending Neal.

…

The F.B.I. Office was going a little crazy trying to talk to parental guardians. The parents they knew existed were spread out all over the world- no one was in the United States. The Hales were on vacation, Bobby Bishop was somewhere in Europe as far as they knew, and Gabrielle's mother might have been marrying a Duke in Monaco. It wasn't easy to contact people on a permanent run from law enforcement. Peter had no idea how he was going to save the kids from Keller when he couldn't even contact the people who would be able to pay the ransom if they couldn't find another way to free them. Not to mention that the government wasn't even supposed to negotiate with kidnappers- something that Keller seemed smug about since it forced Peter and his team into shades of legal gray whenever they had to save someone from him. Peter knew that, once again, his trusty law wouldn't cut it with Keller who knew their playbooks. He hated when things weren't black and white.

Keller held all the cards.

…

Well... Not all the cards. A few were still stuffed up Nick and Simon's sleeves. Nick had surprisinglymanaged a quick conversation with Gabrielle before she was loaded into the ambulance. She was very firm that he and stay in play. Until she had her head clear, they were all their crew had. She told him to come up with a plan- if they could rob the Henley then they could steal the rest of their crew back. He and Simon had to jump on any opportunity they saw.

Gabrielle's benediction had greatly helped to ground Simon. Her word in Nick had banished all remaining doubts he had in the outsider.

Now, they needed to find a way for a pickpocket and a hacker to save their own.

When they saw that the feds would be busy trying to contact the Family for a while they left for a 'coffee break'. They knew that it would be a miracle if they managed to talk to anybody, so it wasn't like they were going to miss anything. They really needed to process the ransom.

"We can't get the Family's collection." was Simon's first reaction.

"Why not? Do you know where it is?" Nick's newb-ness was showing and he didn't like it.

"No one knows where all of it is. I don't even think Uncle Eddie knows!" Simon waved his arms, "It's too big. Everyone has their own hiding spots- spots, plural. Even if we called everyone, it would take a few months to pull it together."

"Do we call anyone?" Nick asked, half hoping they'd have a friendly family terminator that they could just set on Keller.

"I don't know." Simon said, "I know every one would be highly upset- Angus and Hamish's dad would probably get his hands on a nuke or something, and Uncle Eddie, is well, Uncle Eddie- But they're all over the world and I don't know how much help they'd actually be. It might be too late by the time they actually get here."

"So, just us."

"It sounds like it." Simon sighed, "Until Gabs comes back."

Nick didn't say that Gabrielle, while not in mortal danger, had definitely put on a brave face so she wouldn't worry Simon. Simon really believed it was just a little scratch. Well, it was little- but the blood loss was not. It would take a while for her to recover.

"We need to find where he's holding them." Nick stated, starting to pace. "As soon as we know where they are, we can probably get them out. Do you have any idea how to find them?"

"I can't find a trail on Keller. Even if I could find out what he's been doing online, he could always have them at something abandoned and unrelated to him." Simon sounded more than a bit frustrated at this.

Nick looked at the copy of the ransom note that he'd snatched. Was there anything he was missing?

He hated the wording. Simon and he probably could scratch up a Monet and a Van Gogh. Heck, Hale owned some. Getting the Da Vinci away from the F.B.I. would be harder, but at least that was their brand of impossible. But none of that mattered because they couldn't get to the family collection. Without the collection, Kat and the Bagshaws would did.

He couldn't win by those rules.

"Then lets change them." Simon said, startling Nick out of his thoughts. Had he said that last part out loud? Oops.

"What do you mean?"

"This," the hacker gestured, "Isn't our thing. It's Keller's thing, maybe even the F.B.I.'s thing, but we are art thieves. Better than that, we're Robin Hoods. We just need to break into Prince John's castle and steal back out merry men."

"I think you lost me..." Nick gave him an extremely odd look.

"Ok, my metaphor may have went a bit far then. But I've been trying to think of what can be done in this situation because frankly, I'm freaking scared and I have no idea what to do. So, I started analyzing this logically and found that we keep forgetting something."

"What?"

"We don't need to have his ransom. We treat this just like any other job. And what does Kat do when she can't get what she needs?"

"Hmm?"

"She bluffs! We lie. We make others believe we have it and act just like we do have it. Don't you see?" Simon said excitedly, "We've been limiting ourselves to the others rules. Keller's, the feds- we've been trying to use their playbooks when really? We stink at that.

"We don't have to play Keller's game, we just have to play Keller."

Nick looked at the hacker with new found respect. He had underestimated him. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

Simon just smiled nervously and shifted around awkwardly, deciding not to mention that part of that speech was definitely quoted from somewhere.

…

Mozzie looked at the scrap of paper in his hands. It had a phone number shakily written in pencil.

"Here, Suit." he scowled, "Just don't tell anyone you got it from me. I went through a lot of trouble to get this, and even then it's only because he would want to know that his family is in danger that I am even giving this to you."

"What is it?" Peter asked as he took the number.

"A legend commonly known as 'Uncle Eddie.'"

…

Miles away, something exploded.

A\N: I'm not dead! Yeah... sorry for taking so long. Life has been busy and inspiration for this fic has been hard to come by. However after that last review popped up that called this a Deadfic, I just kinda forced myself to write and luckily this popped out. I'll try to get the next chapter out within the month and keep up with this fic better. I'm so sorry for taking eight months! It shouldn't happen again.

SO, thanks for putting up with me. I hope you enjoyed the chapter at least.

On to the reviews!

TheDarkSideWeHaveCookies- I'm glad you love the story! I apologize for not updating "soon." But I've update now! I hope you continue to enjoy this fic. Thanks for reviewing!

StarPhire27- Yeah... It's been even longer this time, hasn't it? I should probably post a little summary at the top... Then again my opening is kinda summary-like anyway. I know I had to re-read a little. I'm glad you like the cover! It's like the only cover I've actually made and stuck on a fic so far. I'm glad this caused you inspiration! I was definitely lacking in it for a while. Thanks so much for reviewing!

The Red Fedora- Whoo! Another Doctor Who fan, cool! And thanks! I hope this chapter was up to snuff as well. Also, thanks for your review!

PinkBell- Yes, Eddie will be in the next chapter, which will be fun. Yes, Peter is very black and white but Neal's made him a little more flexible, so it's a process. I think Eddie and Peter's talk will be very... interesting. Very interesting... Thank you for reviewing!

Skittles Riddles- Actually, your comment got me thinking. My plan for this fic isn't very filled in and it can be quite fluid at times- for example, I never thought the Bagshaws would get loose and start causing havoc until, lo and behold, I wrote it and then suddenly out came the rest of the chapter. Your comment in particular almost sparked Nick and Simon to try the trade in for the Bagshaws and use that to locate Kat and all that jazz. Then, I reread the ransom note and found that, well, it only guaranteed their bodies which isn't very helpful. But from that, I came up with the whole big bluffing scheme- because really, when you have nothing than that's what you got to use, 'specially when your a con who is very good at lying to people. So, thanks for the bit of inspiration! If you have any other ideas, feel free to share them because, although I probably will never copy it exactly- it introduces a new possibility to consider and since I'm dealing with such brilliant characters one of them probably thought of it and I have to take that into account. Thanks so much for your review!

QuayJaquelinXeomaraZendaya- Yay, thanks! I'm so sorry that this one's wait was so ridiculous. I'm up so the whole name story if you don't mind telling it. Mine's easy; my Papa sometimes calls me a "Sorrel-top" 'cause of my crazy hair that can't make up it's mind if it's blond, brown, or red since sorrel is a horse color. 'Unformal' came on impulse and I kinda liked it. The extra 'le' came because 'Unformal Sorrelle" looked better that "Unformal Sorrel". I haven't gotten Bobby yet, but he is coming in somewhere- but Eddie will be just as fun next chapter with his chat to Peter. I'm happy to have caused inspiration, although I haven't seen it posted yet so, well, at least I caused an idea. If you still want it written, maybe this chapter will cause more inspiration for it to actually be written? I don't know, I just would be happy to read it if you still did want to post it. The more White Collar and Heist Society crossovers there are, the better the world is in my opinion :D
I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I thank you for your wonderful review!

the . authoress .15- Yeah, it was you. I hope the site doesn't chop off your name again- this time I'll check and fix it if it happens. Thanks for the inspiration that chapter! Sorry for this long wait... *sigh* Someday I'll actually manage to update things reasonably. I'm really thinking that I'm going to rip an hour out of every day and just force my self to write something so I stop getting so behind. Thanks a lot for this review too!

The Inked Pen- Happy to hear it! (or see it, I guess... Actually, I'll read it out loud. That will fix everything! Yeah, um... moving right along.) Thanks for reviewing!

UnCreativeReader- A million thanks's to you!

Dov5e- Thanks, you left quite the STUPENDOUS review :D

Darkening- Thank you so much for reviewing! I really appreciate it!

Guest (1) - I'm glad you love it. I'm sorry for the wait but, hey, at least this chapter's here now, right? Thanks for reviewing!

Guest (2) - On a cosmic scale, it may be considered soon. I mean, it wasn't a million years, right? Yeah... I know. I'm lame. I'm so sorry for the wait, hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thank you for taking the time to review!

Seyrinah-Dragomir- Thanks for the complement! I'm so so sorry for this taking forever. I hope you at least enjoyed this chapter. Thank you so much for reviewing!

IAmDesperate- Thanks! I'm glad you like this fic- I'm sorry my lack of update skills has made you desperate. At least, here's a new chapter. Thank you for reviewing!

Guest (3) - I'm glad you like this, I apologize for how long I've made you wait. Thanks for taking the time to review. I appreciate it.

DreamingOnACloud- Well, it's finally out! I'm sooooooooooo sorry for taking so long but this was just really hard to get out. Inspiration is a fickle thing and plot bunnies came for basically everything else. Thanks for your review!

Guest (4) - Sorry. The chapters out now though, so that's something, right? Sorry again. And thanks for reviewing!

DESPERATE- Your review is quite persuasive, you know. I mean it starts out with a guilt trip and ends in a complement. It's a chasm and a carrot. Very manipulative and convincing. I dare say you guilted the inspiration right out of me. You are the reason that this chapter is being posted now and now somewhere in the far flung future. I must really thank you for that. You are hereby proclaimed a Hero of fic Blue! So really, thanks for reviewing! This story is not abandoned and it never shall be abandoned. Ever. Thanks again.

...

I feel I must apologize once again. Profusely. I feel like a monster. A horrible monster. When reviews start becoming pleas then... Yeah, I'm in trouble. I will try harder this time to get something out in a more reasonable amount of time.

Next Chapter: Chaos, Uncle Eddie, and all kinds of craziness.