Fire Avenue

Running as fast as he could through masses of people which grew increasingly more crowded by the second, Soran thought to himself:

"If it hadn't been for these frail wooden buildings and their shabby construction, I would have caught that little thief by now." He turned a corner and saw, further down the alleyway, a green little form slip into a stream of people going sideways. The lights from the street painted all passersby the color of autumn red—it was Fire Avenue!

"When I die, I'll reincarnate into a carpenter just to make sure no shabby constructions are ever built again!" he thought again, grinding his teeth in frustration.

Soran had no choice but to chase after the thief through the mass of people, but when he was about to enter the unyielding stream, the likened image of a flowing river of lava entered his mind, and his sprint came to a halt. He needed some way of catching up to that thief; ramming straight into traffic and following the flow was not going to work out in his favor considering his quarry was considerably smaller in size than he was.

Looking around, he spotted the famed red lanterns up above, hanging off of what seemed to be fairly sturdy rope (in truth, the rope did not seem that sturdy, but Soran was clinging onto hope at this point).

Clambering up one of the houses that lined the alleyway, and leaping far to the one parallel, he escalated the buildings high enough where he had the leverage to jump off and reach the ropes. Any onlooker below would have been amazed at his athleticism.

As he flew he grasped at the coarse rope, which shook the entire line of hanging lanterns, causing a chain reaction of every sixth or seventh lantern being cut and plummeting down. From the endless stream of people in the avenue, however, it thankfully didn't draw too much attention, as most seemed to be minding their own business without caring about what was happening above them.

Miraculously, he managed to spot the tiny little thief lumbering along with the crowd. The dead giveaway was the aftermath the rogue left behind them, as basically every other person they passed would stop and check their pockets, before promptly crying "thief, thief!" in bewilderment. Though, their voices were barely audible in all the commotion.

"Now you're mine, you sneaky little devil!" Soran found himself saying out loud—pleased with himself, like a newbie hunter who just caught their first rabbit in a snare trap—as he crawled his way upside-down along the hanging lanterns like an oversized, hasty sloth.

Further down the street, he could see—but mostly hear—three gentlemen: one who seemed to be communicating with the surrounding folk, one who handed out flyers of some sort, and one with a large iron megaphone, advertising and promoting the redevelopment of River Valley.

"Now we have some folk who knows what's important!" he thought to himself, becoming aloof yet again, so when he tried to grasp for the next part of the rope and grabbed a lantern instead, he quickly lost balance and fell down. However, he was quick enough to spin his torso around and yet again reach for the rope, but alas, his momentum carried too much force into the (actually not) sturdy rope and it snapped at the point where he had grabbed it.

Arching downwards in a swing, still holding on to the rope for dear life, he smashed through a few stalls, ending up hanging like a fear-stricken cat over a large cauldron of boiling soup. Looking up he saw the faces of some folk dressed quite festively, looking at him with their jaws hanging open as if their muscles had been shut off. In between them stood the culinarian of the stall facing his customers, fat and imposing, cutting vegetables and meats with a mighty cleaver. He had not yet noticed the ruckus behind.

As the cook looked up and asked (apparently repeating himself) what they had wanted to order, the customers could only look and point at the strange man hanging above the soup. "What?" the cook managed to blurt out before turning around and seeing nothing but a hanging rope.

Soran could hear the angered voice of said cook shouting something about respect behind him as he left the crime scene. He wiped the sweat off his brow—he had managed to get out of there in one piece, but now he had another issue: he was on the ground, squeezing himself among the crowd. There was no way he'd be able to find the thief now, as the crowd around him was making too much ruckus for him to be able to pinpoint the location of any bewildered individuals shouting about thieves—unless that individual had a megaphone.

"-for the sake of the future of this valley and its good folk, it's for the interest of all to go through with the redevelopment plans. We are planning to introduce clean water pumps through the usage of moisture collectors that are to be installed in the unused parts of the valley and rebuild the main plaza- wait, who are you? What the- Thief! Thief! There's a thief in green roaming about! Keep your pockets to yourselves!"

At this new announcement of a thief, the crowd seemed to scramble and move faster. After an avalanche of people, the mass cleared up a bit; this way Soran actually felt like he could take a full breath without smelling someone's body odor. And even better, now he could see the thief in full view, green coat, hood and all.

"Now you're not getting away!" Soran called out to the thief, before taking off in a chase and shouting out "I gotta pay for those repairs!" as some kind of additional war cry.

The thief took off in a sprint as well, but could not match Soran's speed. It was evident that they couldn't escape, so in desperation, they stopped, turned around, and went on their knees.

"Please, you can have it back, all of it, in fact!" The thief poured their stolen belongings out of a small sack. Gemstones, jewels, coins, necklaces, rings, watches, and other minor ornaments lay bare on the ground. "See? Just, please don't turn me in to the authorities, I beg of you!"

Before Soran could even answer, a large, imposing shadow of a man appeared behind the hooded thief. The thief was suddenly lifted by the collar of their hood into the air before the man behind, who had picked up the thief without effort, spoke.

"So this is the thief that all the commonfolk were yapping about."

Shining in the light of Fire Avenue, he looked like fierce flames. His hair seemed to flow and flicker, and his eyes were alit. Clad in nothing above the waist, his toned, unscarred body was revealed. The flickering shadows reflected on his muscles, creating an intimidating contrast. He was wearing exotic, baggy pants that, with gold adornments in the shape of flowers, tightened just below the knee. He did not have any boots to speak of, in fact, he was completely barefoot standing upon this well-tread, gravelly street. Equipped to his waist was some kind of oriental fauld, but it did not seem to provide any protection; it was essentially just a multitude of golden ornaments linked together, with a variety of differently shaped transparent red cloths hanging loosely from them, flowing smoothly in the caressing wind. Overall, his get-up had an old feel to it—the kind you might see in a theatrical play depicting the great thirteen warriors' clash, or some other historical battle.

The fierce-looking man pulled the thieves' hood back to reveal an elf girl, before continuing.

"A frail woman, being chased around the street by trained warriors and angry peasants alike," he clicked his tongue and swayed his finger. "Nay, nay—that is not very gallant at all, is it?" He proceeded to put the woman down without looking at her once, before telling her, "Take some jewels and go, you probably need it more than this fellow." His gaze remained on Soran, who finally got the chance to speak up.

"She's a thief: to the law, it doesn't matter who or what she is," he said as he scratched the back of his head. "Not that I particularly care personally. I just want my stuff back."

"I want my belongings back too!" the voice of a commoner who had caught up to the commotion was heard saying.

"Me too!" said another.

The voices kept piling on top of each other, and now there were several dozen people (many of which who hadn't been pickpocketed in the first place but dearly wanted in on the prize) gathering around the pile of trinkets and baubles. It was not long before they started fighting among each other regarding who's trinkets belonged to who. The commotion only got louder and louder, and eventually, the anger was directed at the elf thief. One man grabbed her by the arm and another one searched her pockets.

"She deserves to be punished!" one commoner was heard shouting, and the rest rallied in agreement. However, they all stopped abruptly when they saw the chest-bare man collect the treasure in one motion right back into the sack before tying it up and taking an exaggerated stance as if he were about to hurl it further than humanly possible, then he proclaimed.

"If you will squabble over it, then no one shall reap of this treasure!"

In one fell swoop, enough wind was generated to flutter all capes and coats and set all hats aflight, and before anyone knew it, the treasury sack was well on its way into the far horizon.

A moment of silence fell upon the crowd, before being broken by the man himself.

"Well, that just proves it: the best way to solve conflict is to pull the issue from its roots-" he was abruptly stopped as two mercenaries came running into the scene and proclaimed that he was in fact a 'grade A criminal' and that all civilians are to back away from that man. In their hands, they held flyers with crude, but somehow similar sketches of the man. In response to hearing 'grade A criminal', the townsfolk quickly scrambled and fleed the scene. They all knew what that meant.

"Give me that!" scoffed Soran as he yanked one of the flyers to himself. It read:

GRADE [A] CRIMINAL

THEATRICAL IMPOSTOR

COMBAT ABILITY: HIGH — PRECAUTIONS ARE TO BE TAKEN

REWARD: 100 000 CROWNS

Soran raised an eyebrow as he compared the real deal and the crude sketch.

"When was this issued?"

"Just today," one of the mercenaries quickly responded.

"By no other than the JTF themselves—that's why the reward is so high," added the other mercenary.

Soran, noticing the absolute brute strength he witnessed earlier, and not really feeling like he'd want to duke it out in the middle of Fire Avenue among these festivities, didn't really want to participate in the arrest. But on the other hand, he still didn't have his money back. At first, he thought he'd just take what was his from the thief, but she had managed to slip away with his share of the treasure after the fierce man's spectacle, so now, the prize money really tempted him.

"Turn yourself in, and we shan't need to fight needlessly." Soran reasoned with the fierce man before them. The other two mercenaries reasoned along with him.

The fierce man sighed.

"But I'm no criminal—I'm a warrior of Angus the First!"

One of the other mercenaries scoffed.

"He's a delusional freak, no wonder he's A rank."

The fierce man insisted that he spoke the truth, but the mercenary insisted harder.

"Angus the First? I remember him during my history lessons as a young lad. But he died a hundred years ago!"

"It was two hundred years ago you blockhead!" corrected one mercenary to the other.

"Either way, I don't think we can reason with him. Let's just get him!"

Both of the mercenaries engaged in combat, one charged in head first, and the other one took a flank. The mercenary in the front took out two daggers and started slashing and stabbing at the fierce man, but to no avail—none of the blows were connecting! And, in fact, the fierce man barely moved from his position.

The mercenary who took a flank removed his glove to reveal his bare hand which was ice blue and glowing faintly, and with a flash and a crackling of ice came a barrage of glowing icicles hurtling towards the man. The man's arm could only leave after-images after he parried every single icicle—shards of ice being flung everywhere—except the last one which he caught, and proceeded to make a stabbing motion towards the dagger wielder, who cowered in fear; but the man stopped mid-stab and simply broke the icicle lightly over the mercenary's head.

"Got any other tricks?" the fierce man smirked.

Both of them retreated past Soran, back into Fire Avenue.

"I ain't dealing with him, he's not A rank, he's got to be S at least!" one was heard saying.

"You got this Soran, you can take him," said the other one nervously, patting Soran's shoulder before dashing off.

All the commoners had now completely steered clear of the area as well. Only a few culinarians could be seen standing about, tending tirelessly to their craft.

"Now that they're gone, warrior, you wanted to capture me, was it?" the fierce man said while cracking his neck like clockwork.

"I need the money, it's nothing personal. I'm just a mercenary, after all."

Soran took a fighting stance, and the fierce man approached.

The wind seemed to whistle.