43 The Vagabonds

Leslie sat behind the front desk of her blacksmith; drumming her fingers against the desk she sighed in contemplation. Her business had been going downhill for a while ever since the new inventions from the capital had been coming in.

The age of swords and armor was coming to a close, and as a Blacksmith this was depressing as she would have to switch from her main area of smithing, an instead practice making the small intricate designs of the new inventions.

Not to mention every time she tried to make "Bullets" or whatever they were called she wound up nearly blowing her head off!

Breaking away from her thoughts Leslie heard the door open as a slightly panicked looking man entered her store. His eyes were shifting back and forth supposedly checking to see if he was safe in the interior.

"How can I help you sir?"

Leslie did not care on why this man was nervous, as he did not look trained in any combat; nor did he look poor off, as the extra pounds around his stomach exposed his state of living.

The man quickly turned his head and spoke with a cracking voice, "I need I pl-"

But as soon as the man started to speak a loud boom resounded form the outside and her door swung open with great force. Flying through the door was a masked woman wearing a starry cloak covering her hair and back.

The man seeing this woman come in, he paled before whipping out a revolver and unloading five shots towards her. But instead of the bullets piercing her a light shield came up in front of her and blocked the bullets.

The man scurried quickly and grabbed Leslie and pointed the revolver at her head.

"Stop right there or I'll shoot!"

Seeing the predicament that Leslie was in, the masked woman halted her movement before sighing.

"Jack! Do your thing!"

Within a few second a masked man that Leslie recognized entered the building. He was the man you had caused a stir all throughout Forgemire just a few months prior. It was deemed the pink swan incident.

37 dead, 12 injured, and 4 missing, the Jack of Spades message to all of Forgemire shook it to it's very core. Of course the royal family in the center blamed him for the incident and labeled him as a terrorist. But the public was not so quick to believe them as he started taking down corrupt officials.

But what was surprising was that he didn't do it alone, him and three other masked vigilantes had started taking down the officials much to the nobility's dismay.

(If that man is the Jack of Spades then she must be Starlight.)

Leslie was oddly calm in this situation, for some reason even with a gun to her head she felt like she was safe and sound after recognizing who was standing in her store.

The Jack of Spades glanced at Leslie before sighing.

"Again? Really? Do you greedy shmucks ever get tired of holding people hostage?! I mean you're the 4th person to try it this month! Did you all go to a class that-"

As he was speaking his voice suddenly appeared from behind Leslie and a hand came forth knocking out the portly man.

"Teaches you how to escape by threatening others?"

He picked up the unconscious man and slung him over his shoulder, nodding briefly to Starlight he made his way over to the door.

But before he reached it Leslie broke out of her stupor and shouted out to him.

"Wait!"

Pausing the masked duo turned to look at her.

Blushing slightly while looking at the floor Leslie rubbed the back of her head before speaking quietly.

"Can I get an autograph?"

Snorting lightly the Jack of Spades threw her a bag of coins and and a playing card.

"There's payment for any damages done to your store, and proof that you met us."

And with that the duo walked out of the door and disappeared. Leslie was left standing agape at a crowd of people standing on the other side of the door. Seeing the empty blacksmith reporters rushed in bombarding her with questions.

Jack sat the portly man down and tied him to a chair within the basement of Arlington Manor. Inside the room stood three other figures besides Jack and the tied up man. One was Lilian who Leslie had referred to as starlight, while the other two were Gregor and Celine. They were all wearing masks and cloaks, to hide their identities.

Ever since the first meeting within Celine's estate they had formed two groups, the public group which consisted of those who could fight. And the behind the scenes group, which as the name suggested worked behind the scenes and helped out the public one.

Of course with a take downs of famous public officials by the public group had caused a stir. They were now known as the Vagabonds, it happened when a angry politician was asked his opinion on their group, to which he responded.

"Those people are just masked criminals supporting themselves by claiming that what they're doing is for Justice. They're all just Vagabonds if you ask me! That's right they're Vagabonds!"

This was quickly adapted by the media and the name of The Vagabonds stuck. With the appearances of the other three, besides Jack, they too acquired nicknames. Jack had already introduced himself as the Jack of spades, but the others simply just appeared so they were given nicknames by the media.

Because Lilian's powers looked similar to a night sky she was named Starlight. While Celine made a strong impression with her purple Mana and wicked spells, she was called Enchantress. Finally Gregor was a retired paladin, but he didn't want to show that by wielding a sword, so he would often take down his foe's with brass knuckles. All the while wielding his holy power, because of this the news papers called him the Fist of God.

Gregor picked up a bucket of water and splashed it on the man, while Jack grabbed a chair and sat down on it backwards, leaning on the back of it facing the now sputtering man.

"Hello, Mr. Quentin. I assume you know what you're here for."

The man sputtered for a little while longer before focusing his gaze on Jack.

"I won't tell you shit! AGGGH"

Hearing the man's tone of voice Lilian stomped on the his foot piercing it with her heel.

Jack winced slightly but continued acting calm towards the man.

"Are you sure about that? Because if you thought that was the worst pain that she can put you through, you are in for a very sorry surprise my friend."

While saying this Jack leaned back in his chair and started fiddling with a coin making it dart in and out of his fingers. Jack contrary to what the man might think did not enjoy torturing people, but it was necessary in order to catch the brotherhood.

The man they were interrogating currently was Fredrick Quentin, he was the secretary of treasury for the craftsmen's guild, and he had been laundering a hefty sum of money. This might simply make him out to be a greedy person that was corrupt, but what was strange was that his own personal spending did not increase as much as his laundering.

So he was a very likely suspect to be part of the brotherhood, and even manical cults needed funding. Fredrick looked at the calm masked Jack and shivered before glancing at Lilian. Seeing that no matter what he did it would be a bad ending for him he simply laughed

"Hahaha, let me tell you this, you're all doomed! HAHAHA-"

His laughter was cut short by the green flame that soon engulphed him reducing his body and all belongings to ash before their very eyes.

Jack leaned forward in his chair shaking his head.

"*sigh* Damn, Celine did you get anything on how they spontaneously combust like that?"

Celine shook her head slightly before answering.

"No, I'll I could tell was that a trigger activated from far off; that set off the Mana in his body which engulphed him."

Jack took nodded and stood up, "Alright you guys know the drill, back to our usual activities until Annalise of Reg cue us in."

The other three masked members nodded before looking towards Celine, who opened a two portals. One lead to Gregor's office, while the other lead to the library underneath Celine's house. Everyone took off their cloaks and masks before entering their respective portals.

Entering into Gregor's office Jack sat on the visitors side of the desk and drummed his fingers. It had been several months since he had declared war on the Brotherhood but little progress had been made.

(Well, I hope something happens soon otherwise I'll go down as the biggest fool in history)

=============

Elsewhere within the slums of Forgemire, Haiden was standing in front of a large group of people within a dining hall.

"As you all saw within the papers today, the Vagabonds have done us another service again! This is the 14th public take down of a corrupt official, 14! Now I don't know about Y'all standing here but I thought that there was only 3 or 4 individuals in our great city, that were making our lives miserable."

Every time Haiden spoke out cheers erupted from the crowd interrupting him between sentences.

"And we know that they're telling the truth! Old Ms. Leu, when was the last time your propety taxes were below 15 silvers? Mike, when was the last time you hade the extra time of day to go spend with your son? Don, when was the last time you went home without your back aching from hunching over 16 hours a day?"

With each person Haiden called out the cheers became louder deafening him.

"And I'll tell you what! I think this is the first time in the 18 years I've been working as a stable boy that I've been paid over 5 silvers! And it's all thanks to the Vagabonds that we now have a little breathing room for ourselves."

Haiden briefly paused to let the hollers, and whistles from the crowd died down, the crowd recognizing that he was waiting for them to quiet down quickly became a lower murmur of conversation.

Haiden, seeing that he once again had the full attention of the crowd spoke out in a low tone that if one were in the crowd would think that he was whispering into their ear, but at the same time projecting it for everyone to hear.

"Now, why is it that 4 people are doing all the work to make our lives better? I think we should give them a helping hand. Let me ask you this, who's fault is it that all these people were put into office?"

Haiden did not wait for the now silent crowd to respond, "I'll tell you who, the royalty! Now what do you think would happen to all these people making our lives miserable if we get rid of them at the source."

The crowd went silent for several seconds before a sole voice called out from within the crowd.

"But, if the Vagabonds don't even dare attack the royals, how will we be able to do that? After all they all have powers, and I don't think there's any unregistered's here right now."

This caused many voices to pop up discussing the question, some admonishing him for questioning him, and other raising there voice in agreement to his statement. Haiden turned his gaze to the vague location of the voice and smiled.

"That's quite simple actually, if you have one person try to push a boulder nothing would happen even if that person was specifically trained. But if a hundred people started pushing the boulder with him, what do you think would happen?"

After hearing this, the crowd went silent again.