Saving Grace [Private]

"Ergghh! Someone catch that girl! Someone stop her!" An angry man yelled, dressed in an intricate looking white uniform. The letters "M.A.N.A." Stitched across the arm he used to point to a rather small figure, ducking her way through the large crowd she had thrown herself in. The girl was short to be sure, and seemed to be very light, as she displayed no trouble ducking and rolling through the large amount of people in the busy street. On her person she carried a small hand bag resting over her shoulder. This girl had long red hair, but it was tied intolerant twin tail hair style on both sides of her head by black ribbons. Her red eyes were locked with determination and focus, as she tried not to bite the lollipop situated in her mouth. After the screams from the angry gentlemen in white, they shifted back to look at his ash she ran. It seemed her plan had worked. He was too large to make it through the array of people as fast as she could, and he wouldn't dare thinking about using any magic with this many. A small mischievous grin formed on her mouth before looking forward.

"Woha! Where the hell did you come from big fella?" The girl questioned aloud as soon as she pushed through the last of the people on the busy street. There was a much larger man waiting for her, dressed in a similar outfit. He responded by lunging both his arms forward, in an effort to grab the girl. Her eyes widened only slightly, but her reaction time hadn't failed her. She quickly sidestepped, ducked and rolled underneath the man's legs within the few seconds. Without looking back, she sprinted down an ally way. The man growled and opened some sort of magical artifact in his hand. He spoke into it. "I got a better look at her, this is indeed Kaia Rin. Subject is heading south towards the arena." He spoke, before sprinting after her.  

The ally only got narrower as Kaia ran deeper into it. Large empty crates, and old garbage built onto this factor. A few less fortunate souls sat near a small flame, one which Kaia quickly leaped over. She turned back to notice the large man charging towards her. His pure ferocity made her uneasy, as she witnessed him effortlessly crash through the obsticals in his way. However, it seemed he had called for backup. "There she is!" Her eyes locked ahead of her again, to see the ally had split into three different directions. One of which was blocked by three MANA agents, ready to cut her off. She simply veered left, and ducked under one of their grabs. "Gonna need to be faster then that!" She called out behind her with a sly grin. However, it seemed her luck was running out. She slid to a halt to see that the path she had chosen was a dead end. A large building prevented her from running any further. Her eyes widened, and panick started to grow in Kaia's body. Her head darted around, looking for an escape. ANd she found something that might help. Without wasting any time, Kaia quickly clambered her way up a small pile of empty crates, making sure to kick a few down on her way up to hinder her chaser's game.  Once she reached the top, she leaped  from its edge, and grabbed hold of a wire, connecting two of the buildings together. She began to sloth climb her way up it, trying to reach the top of the building. However she wasn't fast enough. A blue bolt of magic crossed her face, and another behind her. She looked down to see the group of MANA agents using their magic in an effort to shoot her down. Finally, one bolt hit the wire she was hanging on to, and it snapped. "Woha!" She yelled as the wire began to swing with her on it like a jungle vine. The girl healed tightly and shut her eyes as it began swinging straight towards a window on one of the buildings. She lifted her legs, and with little effort an enough force, they shattered the glass and she tumbled inside. It seemed to be somone's house, as a young boy came rushing up the wooden steps to see the source of the commotion. Kaia slowly got up and panted for a moment, before checking her bag to make sure it was still there. Thank the gods it was. Her head darted back to the window she had just broken through and she looked down. All of the agents were still there, growling angrily at her. She smirked and gave them a playful wink before turning back and vaulting down the steps, doing the same to the boy on her way down.

"Damn it, that was too close..." Kaia whispered to herself as she panted at the back of a crowded Cafe. Her teeth were silently grinding the lollipop in her mouth out of nervousness. "I gotta find some way to keep this safe..." She whispered again, looking down at her bag...

He walked down the sidewalk dressed in the wear of the blight doctor, people and mages alike gave him space as he walked down the it. If they were to tell you why, they would have said something uneasy was about him, as if he had spent to much time with corpses or the dying. Truth be told this was zecarayus, and it was what he was aiming for.

After news of fairy tail darkening had spread and with the recent poisoning of water in magnolia, zecarayus had stayed low and away from civilization in his home in the spooky forest. He grew paranoid that with fairy tail's removal of their legal status, enemies would begin to hunt down the guild's members. So he had prepared and made an assortment of items and armor to help prepare for going out again into public, and to buy time to figure out what are the plans for fairy tail. As such the blight doctor uniform was part of his preparation, and by never removing the mask in public he has gone to town to town looking for work. Fortunately people don't like working with the dead, and undertaker assistants were in demand. This is how zecarayus managed for the first few weeks before coming to talonia looking for work again. However their was more reason then just that.

Zecarayus had while working been performing seances, necromatic rituals that involved contacting spirits for brief and vauge visions of the future. He had been doing so in order to learn of what may happen for the future of his guild and any oncoming tragedies. The most recent vision though was odd to him, occuring the night before. In it he saw a town road with empty lights as it was becoming sun down, blue larcima crystals dotted the side walk as it darkened. Suddenly a spark of fire could be seen bouncing on the side walk, when it hit the larcima crystals they blew up in a beautiful color of blue. This continued as the fire bounced, the fire bounced into the lamps and lit up the street in a fiery glow. However the residue leftover from the exploding larcimas started gathering itself, then coiled like serpents as they lunged toward the flames that were created by the bouncing spark. They would have exploded and extinguished the flame before recuperating and repeating the process on each flame lit by the bouncing spark, the road growing darker and darker until the bouncing spark was lef. Like a candle in the dark, it bounced away from the swishing coils as if running, and the seance ended with the fire consuming zecarayus's vision as it jumped towards him.

Walking down the road currently today zecarayus would have noticed it looked similar to the one in his vision. He then began to remember what he saw, a bouncing flame and the remains of larcima chasing after it once it popped it. Of course he doubted that would actually happen, but he still kept his eye out as he walked. And then he heard it from across the street, shouting men and someone running through a crowd. He looked and noticed it, someone with red hair was running away and ran into a alley way. He could tell they were short, meaning they were either a dwarf or small. He then saw other men, men in white quickly running after with "M.A.N.A." stitched in their arms. Zecarayus now curious retreated into a alley way near where he was and summoned the skeleton of a small bird. He then took out a small crystal from one of his pockets and put it into the skeleton, the energy lit it up as the skeleton bird fleshed out with feathers and all until it looked exactly like a living crow. He then sent it off toward the direction that he saw the small person with red hair run, the crow giving him a eye view of what it saw. He was able to see that the red haired person was in fact young, if zecarayus had to guess it was a girl. The crow had caught vision of her climbing away on a rope when it snapped by hostile spell casts, causing her to crash into a nearby house.

Zecarayus had the crow land on top of the building to keep tract if she left the building while he started to quickly move through the alleyways toward the building. He quickly got there, and noticed the men with the same uniforms from earlier crowding around the building. Zecarayus at this point really should not have been involved since he had bigger issues then this girl. But he had assumed at this point that the men with "M.A.N.A" uniforms and the girl had to do something with his vision. And on top of the fact that he did not like the men's willingness to use their magic with people around wanted him to resolve this issue. So to make sure the crow was on top of the building and looking around it, he would have casually crossed to the other side of the street. His goal was to talk with one of the men in uniform and try to find out what information he could, as a concerned bystander. He would have found one, a man in uniform talking into some kind of device that was in his hand. "Excuse me, you in the uniform." zecarayus would have said to the man to get his attention. "What is so important that you are casting your magic without regards for the safety of others around here?" he would have asked the man.

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Meanwhile, back in the alleyway...

"Ugh, she got away again. Alert the boss. She won't be able to evade us forever." One of the men growled under their breath to the four others One nodded, and opened a magical device similar to what the bigger one had used only moments before the end of the chase. However, before he could finish speaking, another voice rang into their conversation. The one leading them, obvious by his uniform, lined with intricate blue lined designes and what seemed to be a badge of office on his chest turned his direction to the new arrival. A strange looking man to be sure, as he wore a mask to conceal his face. The leader raised an eyebrow at his question however, and responded flatly.

"Judging by the lack of people around here, I assume you're referring to the girl we were chasing?" He questioned. However, he did not need a response as it was implied to be a retohricle inquiry. "She's in the possession of stolen property. Property that rightfully belongs to MANA. If we let her escape, there is no knowing how much danger she could put herself, and others in." While his statement did have truth, that wasn't the real reason as to why they were trying to retrieve the girl. She had indeed stolen something, but they cared little for the lives of others. All they wanted was the item she stole to be returned.

And as they thought luck was smiling upon the group, another man appeared. this time with black hair and a red outfit. He had seemed to seen the entire chase scene, as he quickly told the group about the girl's location. Or false location that was. They didn't know any better, simply taking any false luck they thought would present itself to them. "Is that so? Very well." He nodded at the others, and they quickly ran back down the alleyway, he followed last... Leaving the two strange gentlemen alone.

The man in uniform's answer gave zecarayus some thought. She stole something? How valuable is it to warrant such a chase? Of course zecarayus was going to inquire more about it, until another stranger walked up. Or rather dropped in, since he just dropped from what had to be the nearby roof to the ground. Zecarayus was surprised like the men, except he kept the confused look for a bit longer. Fortunately one of the benefits to having a mask was no one can see how you react to a situation. Zecarayus was forming his opinions of the new man when he said that the girl was already running out of town. To zecarayus's surprise, the men in uniform took it and dissapeared down the alley way.

Now zecarayus knew the information the man gave was false. This was because while he was talking to the man in uniform his crow on the roof of the building caught sight of the girl make her way to what looked to zecarayus a cafe. But the man, why did he jump down when he did? He could have been a actual bystander and wanting to help. But at this point zecarayus was a little too paranoid to think that, but he couldn't think of why else the man would be here. Silence momentary would have been shared between him and the man before zecarayus spoke to him. "Whatever your planning on doing today, stay safe in it will you?" he would have then began walking away from the stranger and towards a nearby cafe.

As zecarayus neared the cafe his crow would have flown and landed on it's perch on the roof, keeping an eye behind and to the sides of the cafe while zecarayus went inside. At this point his idea was to find her and ask herself about what was going on. Judging on her mobility he knew she would not be easy to grab, so he would have to be ready on a instant. Upon going inside he saw that the back was more crowded then usually with people talking. Zecarayus would have looked closer, but the drawbacks to his appearance was that it put people off. "Excuse me sir? Can I help you?" the lady behind the counter asked zecarayus, who didn't really wanted him their due to his appearance. Zecarayus was forced to acknowledge the lady behind the counter and turned to her to respond. "Yes, I am looking for a small girl, fiery red long hair carrying around a bag." The lady would have given him a odd look and zecarayus would have had to continue to offer a reason, "She is believed to be responsible for theft, and I would like to reclaim the stolen goods." The lady still didn't like the man in the outfit but responded, not wanting to act on speculation alone, "No I haven't and as you can see the place is crowded. Look you can look around but keep it quick, your not really welcomed here looking like that." "Of course, this shall be quick." He responded to her before going forward to look around. Zecarayus didn't really know how to convince the girl that a stranger was wanting to protect her, but hopefully if he could find her then he can try to talk to her. Or at least get her out of the way of the men in M.A.N.A uniforms. If he had found her he would have asked her to wait, otherwise he would have looked for her while his eye on the roof would have let him know if she left through the back or the sides.

There she sat silently at the back of the cafe. Kaia chewed nervously on the lollipop in her mouth as she looked over the small map laid across the booth's table. She had gotten a few strange looks from those who walked passed. Her outfit didn't exactly help the girl blend in. She needed to get out of Talonia now. That was her goal. Hopefully she could find some village in the countryside to rest in for a few days. One where MANA wouldn't track her. Of course anything short of a miracle wouldn't accomplish such a task... But she'd made it this far right?

Her head perked up however when somewhere in the crowd an unfamiliar voice was questioning the lady at the front... Someone was looking for a short girl with firey hair... believed to be responsible for theft. This was bad. Kaia proceeded to silently fold up the map and place it in her bag. She couldn't see who had asked this, due to the large group of people, but she heard the man speak clearly. No doubt a MANA agent. At this, Kaia quickly ducking her way through the group of people towards the exit, hoping she'd easily spot the white uniform of the MANA agent, but that's when she hit something. Paying too much attention to her surroundings, she didn't think to look in front. There a man with a odd looking mask she bumped into standing several feet above the small girl. She hesitated for a minute, his mask causing her to stare. But then quickly shook the thought.

"S- Sorry sir. I wasn't looking where I was going..." She said, before attempting to move past him and out the front door.

Zecarayus started to head to the back of the crowded cafe when he was bumped into. He first caught the sight of red hair and as she stepped backwards to look up at him, zecarayus realized it was the girl. His first thoughts were how he was going to tell her that he wanted to help her without coming off as treacherous. However she was already moving forward to the front door, quickly zecarayus while she was close enough would had made a quick grab for her wrist while saying "Wait!" urgently.

But what happened next would had occurred over a few seconds, but for zecarayus it felt like it was all in slow motion. The first thing was zecarayus could sense a sudden appearance of magical power, and then he would catch sight of something bright and fiery coming toward the cafe window and themselves. He would had pulled the girl in his grasp backwards, ideally to where she would be behind him. With his free hand he would had conjured up a barrier in front of the cafe window in a attempt to block the incoming blast. And then, boom.

A blast explosion could be seen coming from the front of the cafe window, exploding outwards. It was indeed made of fire, and the fire would had caught and spread to the outside of the front of the cafe. On the inside zecarayus's barrier had shattered, but reduced the impact of the blast to the hot glass shards from the broken window pelting all who were near including zecarayus. One large shard would had shattered on zecarayus mask, the mask saved his face but the impact would had caused him to stumble and fall on his knees. For the customers in the cafe, after they covered themselves from flaming glass shards, they all would had tried to leave the starting to burn cafe as quickly as possible from the entrance to the back exit. Zecarayus being one in the way of the people would had suddenly disappeared after the first few people would had stepped on him to get out by using fade step, and reappering at the back of the cafe. There out of the way of the customers getting out of the starting to catch fire cafe, he would had tried to gather his bearings before planning what to do next.

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