Mission: Stop, Thief!

The night was dark, but thanks to the streetlamps there was just enough to see silhouettes of people, and that was all that Byakuya really needed. He had found this mission rather easily, and he was surprised that there was one that was so right for him just sitting there waiting to be taken. Apparently, there was some crook who'd been plaguing the town for the last few weeks who was going to hit the jewelry shop tonight. He'd met the lady who ran it earlier that same day when he was getting briefed. She seemed like a nice lady, if a little bit obsessive about beauty. Still, being obsessive about something was usually the make-or-break point with Byakuya. He found it rather hard to feel any sort of camaraderie with someone who was so single-minded like this, but then again not even that kind of person deserved to be robbed like this. He tried to flush his mind back over the last week and remember how the crimes were supposed to have occurred.

Around a week ago, the first crime had taken place. It had been last Tuesday if he was correct. The kindly clothes merchant down by the docks had been hit in the dead of night, and it seemed like someone had pushed something huge through the window. Byakuya had never seen a weapon that made such a mark . A tiny little pole had been found on the scene, and was apparently the tool that they had used to break the window. However, it looked much too small to have been the thing that had actually done it. He didn't understand how it could have happened, but he figured it was one of the city's wizards forgetting that the town was protected by a guild. He found it really stupid to be honest, there were so many small villages that had no guild at all but instead someone hadn't bothered to leave town and instead just decided to mess up their chances. He sighed, idiots like this made the world a much worse place to be in. However, the clothes shop hadn't been the only place to be attacked. There had been the old man who ran the armory, the little old woman who ran the bakery and the young man who ran the pet shop. However, the only things that was taken had been money from the tills. That made him think that this was just a simple case of "get money quickly". This was almost certainly a simple open and shut case the moment he managed to catch this guy. Still, he was getting a bit tired. He'd been up since early morning, planning how he would catch this guy, and now it was around 11 at night. That was around 16 hours awake at once, and it wasn't like his sleeping patterns had been that regular for the last few nights. The fight would have to be dealt with quickly and cleanly. He sighed, and continued to wait.

Around 20 minutes later, a shadow started pacing down the street. This wasn't that special, as there had been several people walking down this street. After all, Trains ran all hours of the night so there wasn't anything that unusual about it. However, this line of thought was quickly cut off when he discovered what the shadow was doing. He seemed to be holding a long pole, of some unknown material. He couldn't tell from this distance whether it was metal. This wasn't the only strange thing about it. A green ball of light started to emanate around the pole, before it stretched out and pierced through the window. A small wiggle was all it took to send the glass spilling down. Bya found himself glad that he was able to see this. The attack had been so quiet he doubted that he would have noticed if he had been forced to go off of sound alone. He watched the shadow enter the shop and moved closer. He took a hiding place on the wall next to the broken window, looking into the shop. He could tell that the man was raiding the place and was stuffing all sorts of jewelry into a bag. Bya was tempted to just run in and deal with him then and there, but he had to force back his desires. After all, there were many very delicate things in the shop and if he had done the attack in there, he would have no way to protect the merchandise if something went wrong. So, as much as he disliked it, he knew he would have to wait.

it took around five minutes for the man to have completely raided the store, before he turned back to the window. Bya had to throw himself back around the wall, and hoped that the man hadn't seen him. He wanted the element of surprise in this fight, it would make it much quicker and easier to deal with the guy. Thankfully, it seemed that he was unable to see him. He counted his lucky stars and moved to just past the corner, making sure the man would be unable to see him when he left the shop. As the man exited the crime scene, Bya counted down from 10. When he finally reached zero, he ground pounded and cast his spell. A yellow magic circle implanted on the ground and shot magic out. The ground under the man's feet softened and he sank down into it, up to his shins. As he reached the right depth, Bya cut the spell off and allowed the ground to harden again, trapping the man in the brick-laid floor. He had a minute or two before the magic wore off and the man was ejected from the earth, so he had to move fast. Grabbing the man by the back of the head, he caught him by surprise and slammed his metal fist into the back of his head. The shock seemed to be enough to knock him unconscious, and so he took the sack of jewels and placed them back inside the shop. Afterwards, he clapped his hands together and pushed them against the sides of the window frame. A magic circle appeared and then with a puff of magic, the window was whole again. It looked like there had never been a burglary to begin with.

Turning back to his prisoner, he allowed the magic to come undone and the ground ejected him, pushing his feet back to the surface. Slipping him over his shoulder, Bya started walking towards the guardstation.
"You're really bloody annoying do you know that?" he asked, to the unconscious man. He didn't expect an answer, but it made him feel better to say it. After five minutes, he finally arrived at the guardstation and threw him down on one of the chairs in front of the night-guard
"Watch this guy, alright? he's that problem thief we've been having." he said, before showing off the Lamia Scale mark on the underside of his auto-mail arm. It was proof enough that he was trustable, as they knew there was a Lamia Scale agent working against this guy. And, it appeared it worked
"good work, kid." Byakuya nodded and turned to leave.
"Night, officer."

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