[Job] Engine #9 (Leila and Haru)

Leila was feeling somewhat grouchy today, while she knew she had to go out on jobs, it had meant cutting down her relaxation time, she just hoped this whole joining a guild thing ended up being worth it. The raven-haired female usually preferred to work alone, however, there was a good possibility she wouldn’t be able to complete their current mission without a partner, her magic was after all currently pretty weak and limited, so she was thankful to have Haru join her. Leila watched the city traffic whizz by, careful not to stray onto the busy roads without the okay signal.

Leila looked up as Haru mentioned that they had arrived at their destination, the guild hall of Clockwork Archer. She noted their clever little clock above the entrance, well what else would you expect from a bunch of build-make and techno wizards? Leila had never been here before, so she hesitantly followed her partner inside, only to have to jump instantly to the side a little to avoid getting hit by some sort of small magical vehicle zooming about. “And bolts...” Leila muttered in addition to Haur’s ‘this place is nuts’ comment. She immediately bit her tongue, hoping he hadn’t heard her awful little ‘joke’. As she stared around in awe, the cat within her wanted to chase all the whirling and buzzing motorised vehicles, however, she managed to keep herself composed, only her eyes giving away her true lust for playfully chasing things.

It wasn’t hard for her to snap out of it once she heard a booming voice call out behind them, while he insinuated their relationship to be more than what it really was, Leila frowned, flicking back her ears and tail occasionally twitching in irritation,  she did not appreciate his comments, not one bit. However, once he noticed Leila’s mark and gave the duo a better looking over, realising who they were his face seem to light up. While Haru was stifling a laugh, Leila was far too annoyed already to appreciate his commentary, although she did relax a little once they began filling them in to the details of the job. Leila relaxed even more so when she spotted the other Neko approach, it has been a while since she had conversed with one of her own, she’d spoken to Rose, yes, but that wasn’t quite the same thing.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this blonde furred Neko most certainly hots for Haru, honestly, Leila honestly couldn’t tell why, yes the boy was rather adorable, even maybe attractive but it’s not like he was something super special, at least she thought that for now. Plus Leila most certainly was not looking for a relationship, especially not with a guild member, that would only bring chaos, surely.  Leila overheard Cidney mutter something about her being a ‘lucky ass cat’ and groaned internally, she wasn’t about to say it out loud, but she was getting rather sick of people pairing them just because they were working together as a duo. Leila was afraid she’d say something obnoxious if she opened her mouth, so she let Haru do most of the talking, he acted so cocky and confident in himself, which only made the dark-haired neko want to roll her eyes.

She was somewhat glad when they finally left the guild hall, it was rather noisy in there, and she was constantly fighting the urge to chase things around. How awful would it have been if she’d let the urge win? It would have made Fairy Tail look like idiots. Leila occasionally stole glances at Haru, not trying to be obvious by trying to see why Cidney had been so enchanted by him, no matter how many times she looked, she just couldn’t see it, it would remain a mystery to her for now. “I suppose we do.” She sighed in response to having some time to kill, it would certainly be a while before they could attempt to complete the mission. Leila was somewhat surprised when he pointed and mentioned the skyscraper, "Of course I’m not scared of heights, plus, " She stated in a matter-of-fact tone before she looked over the building again, as long as there were shadows inside she could be confident about this, "I’m more than certain I can beat you to the top." Leila challenged back, a smirk on her face "In fact, I’m so certain of it, I’m willing to place a wager of your choosing." She stood arms folded, twitching her tail as she waited to hear the red-haired boy’s response, she always did enjoy a bit of competition, however she was not about to lose.

[WC: 784]

"You’re on. One thousand jewels it is." Leila smirked as she readied herself at the curb, she looked up towards the sky, it was still early in the afternoon, but the sun was starting to lower in the west, therefore she needed to make it to the east side of the building first. There were still people walking around, that could potentially get in her way, she would also have to be careful not to cause too much trouble for the civilians, but her type of magic would be fine to use, no one ever seemed to notice it unless directed at them anyway. Leila’s yellow eyes glanced at the small flame, waiting for it to burn out, her tail and ears twitching in anticipation, she had a game plan now, no way some little fire mage was going to show her up.

Tsss.. The fire was out, but before she even took her first step, the red-haired male was already bursting through the crowd with bright golden flames, causing pedestrians to jump out the way. If this wasn’t a race, Leila would have rolled her eyes, typical males, but this was a race and she didn’t have time to think how childish his actions were. Instead she quickly raced after the boy, transforming into full cat form mid sprint, pure black except on her left hind-leg, where it shone white with her Fairy Tail emblem. Unfortunately, his flames caused issues as their light meant she didn’t have the shadows from the pedestrians she had planned to use to help increase her movement speed. That was fine, she needed to make it to the east side anyway, so she’d need to go around a bit first, so she’d need to turn into them anyway.

Leila took a quick glance to see how her competition was doing before making it around the corner, she cursed as she saw Haru already making his way up the side of the building, she needed to hurry. The moment her paws landed on the shadows cast by the building she felt them increase in power, ah the glorious power of darkness. Now came the tricky bit, she was able to move through shadows, yea, but her distance doing so was quite limited, she’d need to take breaks along parts of the building. Leila quickly spotted window ledges she could use, if she stopped every few levels it should be alright, however, she feared the boy had already made it to the top by now. His speed really was quite surprising. The Neko shook these thoughts away, melding her cat form into the shadow and emerging out again nearly instantly a couple levels above. Perfect, she just needed to rinse and repeat now.

Over and over she slowly made her way up, upon making it to the floor below the roof she had to change her tactic, making sure there was a shadow over the roof’s edge she could actually glide to, she transformed back into her human form, balancing carefully on the window sill, careful not to fall, luckily her balance was impeccable from all her training as a child. She cast over a black shadow cat strike, a manipulation of shadows formed into the shape of a cat, then quickly transformed back into cat form and melded herself into it before it disappeared, allowing her to land on the roof. She looked around and sighed as she spotted Haru, he’d won, of course he had, he was obviously the more powerful male. However, he didn’t seem to notice her, maybe because she was in cat form, rather than human, instead he seemed to be muttering to himself.

Leila's ears pricked up as she heard her name, but she couldn’t really tell what he was saying, something about her hating him? Well she didn’t hate him, did it really seem that way? Should she apologise? If she did he’d know she was listening and she didn't want that. She sat back instead, waiting for him to finish his thoughts, after a minute or two he suddenly stood, causing Leila to jump back a bit, did he notice her trying to listen in? She almost felt the need to dash and hide, but then he started calling her name in quite a worried tone. Leila sighed, thankful he hadn’t notice her. She stepped towards him, his back currently facing her, "I’m right here." The raven-haired girl announced monotonously, "Congratulations, I owe you one-thousand jewels." She sat down in a huff, allowing her tail to move to and fro along the roof’s surface, ears flicked back, her golden orbs looking anywhere but at Haru as she waited for him to turn around.

Leila narrowed her eyes when Haru said she didn’t owe him anything, was this some sort of trap? She shook the idea out of her head, he was probably just trying to be nice to his new guild mate. She transformed back into her semi-human form, her ears and tail still remaining as always. The Joyan girl was a bit taken aback when he said her company was enough, she wasn’t exactly sure what he meant but that, but she assumed it was a compliment in some way, so she made her way over to stare out at the city below with him. Her eyes were not quite a keen as her comrades but she could still see the hustle and bustle of the city streets below as people made their way around, trying to get home after finishing up their work.

Leila kept the silence, it wasn’t an awkward one, it was the enjoyable, relaxing kind, almost as if they’d been friends for a lot longer than a couple days. Occasionally she would steal a glance at her red-haired partner, carefully examining his face and slight facial expression changes. When he mentioned not knowing his father, it made Leila think of her own. He would have been furious when he found out she had ran off in the middle of the night and she was almost certain he had sent others to track her down, but Fiore was a large place, as long as she kept a low profile she would be difficult to track. Unsure exactly how to respond to Haru, Leila simply remained silent, not wanting to interrupt any of his thought processes. As the sun set, night began to fall and the darkness grew around them, Leila began to feel magical strength increase, she had always been more powerful at night, just an added bonus of being a shadow mage.

“Wait, what?” Leila stuttered as she was suddenly picked up, she closed her eyes as she felt herself moving through the air, what the hell was wrong with this kid? There were much safer, albeit slower, methods of getting around. When they landed, Leila shot a quick glare in Haru’s direction to let him know she was not impressed by the lack of warning, her tail and ears twitching in annoyance as they waited in silence till a truck pulled up. The Joyan returned his nod as they raced to meet their targets, Haru not shy about giving them a heads up as to why they were here, a different approach than what Leila was used to, but it seemed quite effective at getting their attention as soon flames were sent flying towards them, Leila braced herself, only to feel nothing, when she opened her amber eyes, she saw that Haru was… EATING THE FLAMES!?! What the hell was this kid? Leila began to realise she had truly underestimated him previously; she would not make that mistake again anytime soon.

However, the Neko girl didn’t have time to consider the matter any further as suddenly a huge fireball was hurtling in her direction, it seemed the female leader of the group at chosen Leila as her target, probably assuming she was the weak link. While she wasn’t exactly incorrect at the raven-haired being weaker than her comrade, she would by no means allow herself to be considered weak in general. She quickly shifted her body inside some shadows in the area, melting into them and avoiding the flaming ball before reappearing behind the woman, drawing the power of the shadows towards her fists, forming cat like paws around her hands which she used to strike at the woman. “What the…?” She heard the fire mage say as she took the hits, but was still standing strong, “That the best you got?” the female mage sent another blast of flames towards the cat-eared female, who was hit with the full blast, unable to escape into the shadows fast enough this time. Leila felt herself burn from the attack, it truly was painful but she wouldn’t give up just yet. Her amber eyes quickly scanned her surroundings and she saw Haru had already taken care of the rest and was looking like he was unsure what to do now. “GRAB THE BLOODY ENGINE!” Leila yelled at him, “I’ll be fine.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, kitty-cat.” The female mage sneered as she sent another ball of flames towards her, this time Leila was prepared and quickly dragged nearby shadows towards her face, blocking the enemy’s vision of herself and the flame all at once. With a small satisfied smirk, the Neko girl quickly removed her paw like shadows and instead replaced them with razor sharp claws around her fingers. She removed the shadow cloaking her from the enemy’s sight as she stretched out the shadow claw and hit the mage with full force, not once but twice, using both hands with extended shadows. “How dare you!?!” the mage seemed somewhat enraged, “You will never have proof it was us!” she screamed as she attempted to send fireballs towards the building in the hopes of sending it all up in flames. Leila managed to block a few with shields of shadows and she was certain Haru could eat the rest, so there was no real issue as she leapt at the mage with full force, attempting to strike her with her shadow claws once more.  However, the mage used her fire magic in a similar fashion as Haru had previously before the fight and sent herself soaring away, defeated. Leila sighed in relief, while they hadn’t managed to catch any of them for good; they had still successfully collected the engine, which they could happily return to the rightful owners now for their reward.