A/N: Raven finally decides to show up. Also politics! But this wouldn't be tales of without politics. Thank you to my betas, xXLiquidSugarXx and sarahannmarie.

~2~

Yuri was sitting on a wall overlooking the east side of Zaphias. The sun had almost set, and so a multitude of small lights were beginning to dot the darkened cityscape. Yuri was doing better. He still felt Clay's absence like a punch to the gut, but his periodic conversations with Flynn had helped. He felt like he had traded one for the other. At the time of his life when he couldn't stand by Flynn's side, Yuri had Clay, and when Clay was gone Flynn returned as if nothing had changed.

But things had changed. Yuri knew he wasn't the same person that had chased Clay from the city two years ago. He had seen so much death, and yet so much happiness. The smiles of relief when someone heard their tormentor was gone. The beautiful change in a neighborhood once a corrupt leader was disposed of. Clay had been doing what had to be done, and it was a good work.

Yuri had long since torn the letter Clay had written him to shreds, but he had read it so many times in his grief that he had it memorized. The only other written word Yuri had committed to memory was the knights' oath.

Your actions will instill fear in the unjust and give hope to the downtrodden.

Yuri knew what he had to do. He would go forward and carry on Clay's legacy. He would just have to remember who he was meant to protect: Flynn and the people of the Lower Quarter. As long as he didn't raise his sword against them with the intent to kill, he believed himself to be in the right.

"Yuri!"

Flynn was standing near the foot of the wall Yuri was lounging on. He was wearing more casual clothes, which meant that he wasn't on duty. Yuri smirked at him before jumping down onto the street.

"Hey."

"I'm glad I found you." Flynn was very serious. "Something has come up, but we shouldn't talk about it here."

A bark rang out in the recently descended night. Repede had been running around in the nearby alleyways while Yuri had brooded, and now he was walking towards Yuri and Flynn.

"You can help me, too." Flynn gave the dog a tight smile, and Repede wagged his tail in reply.

"We can talk in my room," Yuri said.

As they walked to the inn, Flynn kept looking over his shoulder. He gave everyone they passed suspicious glances, even if it was a familiar face calling out a, "Good night, boys!"

This couldn't be good. Flynn had been given a light schedule after his major trek outside of the barrier, and he had told Yuri he was going to spend his free time looking into something unofficial.

Yuri unlocked the door to his small room, and Repede bounded inside before settling down onto Yuri's bed. Yuri raised his eyebrows at the dog before going in himself and leaning against the windowsill. Flynn looked up and down the hall before closing the door firmly and locking the deadbolt.

"Remember how I told I was investigating something?"

"Yeah, and you wouldn't let me in on it," Yuri said begrudgingly.

Flynn gave Yuri a pointed look. "You're supposed to be laying low. I'm only cutting you in now because I need you."

"The Great Flynn needs my help?" Yuri smirked.

"Yuri." Flynn wasn't in the mood to banter.

"Fine. I'm all ears."

Flynn started to pace in the confined space of the room. "There's been a string of blastia thefts all over Zaphias for the past three months. The thefts happen seemingly at random and have affected every class of citizen. No matter how many times the thefts are reported, nothing is actually done about it. No knight has been assigned to investigate. Even when a powerful noble family reports a theft, nothing is done."

Yuri had noticed places where blastia had been absent. Street lights that didn't work. Pollution getting worse. He had assumed it was because the blastia had been malfunctioning. Yuri supposed the Lower Quarter was lucky, for once. They had so few blastia that a theft would be impossible to completely ignore.

"So, why do you need me now? And what's with all the secrecy?"

"I finally got somewhere in my investigation. One of my subordinates had guard duty at the gate, and caught a man with fake papers claiming he was an Imperial mage. He had a couple of stolen blastia on him, and we couldn't find his face in any of the records of Imperial citizens."

"He was from the Union?"

Flynn nodded. "I managed to interrogate him and got him to tell me that he was working for Ruin's Gate. He was a sniveling mess. Kept telling me that he didn't want to die, even though we didn't threaten him with execution. I couldn't get anything else out of him because the third Captain sent out an order for his release."

"Third Captain? Is that still Warren Agrioli? He was in the Council's back pocket."

"Unfortunately, yes. You can see how see how deep this runs. That's not the worst of it, either. I was supposed to have a month in the city before another major assignment, but I got a message earlier today dispatching me to Halure because the barrier is down over there. A much higher ranking officer in the Schwann brigade was assigned to the mission until it was suddenly transferred to me. The higher ups want me out of the city by tomorrow morning." Flynn finally stopped pacing and collapsed on Yuri's bed next to Repede. The dog whined and put his head on top of Flynn's thigh in solidarity.

"You want me to start digging around?" Yuri had to admit that he was angry for Flynn, but he was also intrigued by the situation.

Flynn sighed. "I would rather not ask you. If you're caught—"

"I can handle myself, Flynn. Have some confidence in me." Yuri gave his friend a small smile.

Flynn dug a piece of parchment from his pocket, and Yuri got up and took it from him. Yuri unfolded the note and found a list of very familiar surnames written out in Flynn's neat handwriting. The names Randell and Furlan were circled.

"That's a list of the seven most powerful noble families in Zaphias. The two that are circled are the ones that haven't had blastia stolen from them. Both families have influential members in the council. If I wasn't leaving the city I would go investigate their main branch households."

"Breaking and entering? How the mighty have fallen."

Flynn gave Yuri a deadpan look. "Shut up."

Yuri laughed. "I have to ask. If I get evidence, there's not much you can do with it. It's not going to hold up in court, right?"

"It won't. But if I bring enough incriminating evidence to Captain Andrey he might be able to do something about it."

Yuri and Flynn had been assigned to Captain Andrey's brigade. Even though Terrence had been a disgusting example of humanity, Captain Andrey had a reputation of being an honest man. Yuri still didn't like the 'might,' though.

"I'll help. If this investigation goes well I might be speaking with the next Commandant."

A wide smile spread across Flynn's face at that. "We'll see about that. First, I have to survive Halure. My unit isn't large enough to defend the town, and I only have a few mages. The higher ups didn't bother to assign me more men for the job."

"Now you're making me want to come with you and watch your back."

"Don't worry about it, Yuri. I have a resourceful second. She keeps me out of trouble. You're doing a lot for me by looking into this. Just be careful."

"What is that, the second time you've told me? I'll be fine. I have a resourceful second of my own." Yuri smirked at Repede, who lifted his head from Flynn's lap and barked smugly.

Flynn scratched behind Repede's ear. "I can't argue with that." Flynn ran a hand through his hair before getting up from the bed. "I have to go and start getting my men in order."

"Good luck, Flynn."

"Thanks. I'll see you when I get back into the city, and you can tell me what you found." Flynn gave Yuri a crooked grin before he unlocked and opened the door. He spared one more parting glance before closing the door with a snap.

Yuri looked down at the list Flynn had given him. He hadn't known what his next step should be, but this was as good as any. He wanted to help Flynn, but he also might find someone to take care of along the way. What better way was there to find the dregs of humanity than through investigating a government conspiracy?

"Come on, Repede. We have work to do."

~2~

A slow ringing started up in the night. Yuri was perched in a tree on the Randell family's estate. There were few household guards patrolling and not a single window of the mansion was lit up. Repede was slinking through the nearby garden.

Yuri hopped down from the tree. It had just turned three in the morning. It had taken Yuri a while to find the main branches of the Randell and Furlan families since there were countless mansions with those family names worked into their gates. He had decided to investigate the Randell mansion first.

The yard of the two story mansion was immaculate, but it wasn't very well lit. Yuri quickly cut across it and shifted into the shadows by a small back door that was probably a servants' entrance. He tried the doorknob and smirked when it was unlocked. Negligence at its finest.

The door opened silently, and Repede sprinted from the garden and into the house. He'd let Yuri know if anyone was awake and moving around. A moment later Repede appeared in the doorway and nudged Yuri's leg with his head. The coast was clear.

As he softly closed the door, Yuri was greeted by the sight of an empty kitchen. His best bet would be to find the resident lord's office. It would mean shifting through documents and trying to find hidden compartments, but it was what he'd signed up for. Yuri walked into a huge dining room. The table looked like it could easily sit fifty people. His lip curled in disgust at the extravagance.

Repede stopped walking and lifted his ears in attention. Yuri froze at the sight. Repede turned towards the way they'd entered and let out a quiet growl that jumpstarted Yuri's movements. He rushed from the dining room and into a carpeted hall. He opened the first door he found and slipped into what appeared to be a sitting room.

A couple of moments later, Yuri heard soft footsteps walking down the hall. He hoped Repede had found cover. The footsteps stopped right in front of the door. The place had been clear! Who the hell was this? The doorknob started to turn, and so Yuri pressed himself into the shadows of the room and put his hand on the hilt of his sword.

The door revealed a man who wasn't wearing a guard's uniform. All Yuri could make out in the dim light was long hair thrown into a messy ponytail and a bulky form. The man stopped in the doorway and paused. Yuri could feel the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He could swear the guy was looking right at him. Yuri heard a chuckle fill the dead silent air before the man stepped back into the hall and softly closed the door. Yuri let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. What had that been about? Whoever he was had known Yuri was there. He had even laughed at Yuri, but the man had made no move to stop him.

With his sword held close and ready to draw, Yuri stepped out of the shadows. He could give this whole thing up as a bad job and try again another night, but if that weirdo reported to someone what he saw then the security would be a lot tighter the next time. Yuri would just have to press on and keep an eye out for the chuckling nut job. Yuri stopped in front of the door to the hall and listened. When no footsteps greeted his ears, he peeked into the hall before slipping into it. He made a careful dash to the stairs and was pleased when Repede met up with him.

Yuri needed to find the office. He knew it was upstairs from watching the house earlier in the night. He had seen from the tree he had lurked in that it was in one of the upstairs rooms. Yuri stopped short when he saw that one of the doors was ajar, and light was pouring from it. Repede started to growl again. Just great.

From the cracked open door Yuri saw that the man with the ponytail was shifting through the office. Yuri couldn't believe it. This guy was an intruder, too, and it looked like he was here for similar reasons. The other intruder stopped his digging and turned to face the door. Yuri saw that he wasn't actually bulky but was wearing an oversized coat. He was also older than Yuri had previously assumed.

"Ya comin' in or not?" the man whispered.

Yuri almost fell over. This guy was bizarre.

"Yer pretty shy fer a thief." The weirdo had an accent that Yuri hadn't heard since the last time he'd been in Dahngrest. Someone from the Union was digging around, too. This conspiracy was just getting more convoluted by the minute.

Yuri burst into the room, Repede following closely behind him. "I'm not a thief!" he harshly whispered in reply. "I'm here for the same reason you are."

The insane intruder was grinning at Yuri. "How d'ya know I ain't a thief?"

"There's nothing but paper in this room."

The other intruder put his hand on his chin. "Oh, yer a sharp one. Bit loud, though. Ya gotta work on yer sneakin'."

"I'm loud? You're the one that just started a conversation."

"Ya coulda ignored me, or ya coulda just come in and given me the silent stranger treatment. Ya got the right look fer it. Now I don't know about ya, but I don't got all night." The eccentric man went back to shifting through the desk.

Yuri rolled his eyes. This madman was the one that had started talking to Yuri and now he was complaining about time. Yuri walked over to the desk and saw the man with the oversized coat checking for false bottoms in the drawers. He had to be looking for information about the bastia thefts.

"I don't bite, ya know. Well, not if ya want me to," he whispered as he looked up at Yuri and wiggled his eyebrows.

Yuri raised his. This was the last place he had ever expected to be flirted with.

"But really, don't just stand there. We can help each other out, one spy ta another." A lopsided grin spread across his fellow intruder's face.

Yuri approached the desk, but the man made no move to try and attack. Repede would have his back if this guy tried anything. Yuri started working through the other side of the desk and smirked when he found a false bottom. A leather folder and a couple of letters sat in the compartment. Yuri pulled them out and put them on the top of the desk.

"Would ya look at that." The strange man grabbed one of the letters and held it close to the oil lamp so he could read it.

Yuri opened up the folder and saw a list of what looked like shipping logs. Weight and number were written next to a name, all of which were strange and probably codenames. Yuri moved closer to the lamp in order to read the cramped writing of the descriptions of what was being shipped.

The man with the ponytail peaked over Yuri's shoulder before chuckling and saying, "Ya found the crown jewel. That looks like a log a stolen blastia ta me. Now look at the signature at the end a this." His fellow intruder shoved the letter he'd been perusing under Yuri's nose. An intricately signed RF filled the bottom of the letter. "I'd bet good money that's Ragou Furlan's initials."

The Furlan family was involved in this. Yuri wasn't too sure where this guy had pulled the name Ragou from, though. Repede started growling again. His ears were pressed back, and he was facing the door of the room.

"Looks like our time is up, kid." The strange man put the letter down onto the desk and picked up two nearby books. He set the edges of them on fire using the lamp and tossed them both out of the door of the office.

"What the hell are you doing?" Yuri demanded. This is what he got for trusting some nut job.

"Coverin' my escape." The man broke open a stain glassed door that led out onto the balcony.

Yuri picked the letters up from the desk and shoved them in between the pages of the leather logbook. Smoke was started to pour in from the hallway, and Yuri could hear raised voices in the mansion. He wouldn't be going out the way that he came.

He and Repede went out onto the balcony. There was a large tree nearby, and one of its thick boughs was less than a foot away from the balcony. Yuri could see the insane man climbing down.

"I'll help you, Repede," Yuri told his canine companion. He set the folder down and helped Repede up onto the thick stone railing of the balcony before the dog jumped. There was a moment when Yuri thought he would slip off the branch, but Repede managed to dig his claws firmly into the bark.

"Can you make it on your own?"

Repede barked weakly before starting his treacherous decent. If Repede got hurt, Yuri was going to break that insane bastard's neck for starting a fire in the middle of Yuri's escape route. Yuri grabbed the folder and jumped onto the branch just as an ear splitting cry filled the night. Yuri could see the orange light of flames coming from the office windows.

Both Repede and Yuri made it to the ground safely. The insane man had disappeared but came rushing back around the corner of the mansion. "There's a whole platoon a knights lyin' in wait outside a the grounds! Someone musta tipped 'em off."

Yuri's heart sped up. If he got caught, things would end very badly.

"I got a plan. Just follow my lead," the man with the oversized coat reassured Yuri.

"Why the hell should I do that?" Yuri snarled.

"Ya could do yer own thing, and then we can both end up in a prison cell gettin' our fingernails torn out by some psychopath."

Yuri had little choice but to go along, as knights were approaching them from both sides. "Fine."

"Make like yer gonna surrender." The eccentric man moved closer to Yuri and stood back to back with him as knights surrounded them in a circle. Spears were pointed at the three of them, and Yuri saw no escape.

"You're under arrest in the name of the Emperor!" a well decorated knight proclaimed. He must have been the officer of the group.

"What Emperor? The throne is empty!" Yuri sneered. He had to step back into his fellow criminal when a spear was jabbed at him for the comment.

"Drop your weapons and come quietly!" the officer shouted.

A loud pop filled the night, and Yuri's sight was blinded by stinging smoke. He heard Repede whine and found himself being half dragged out of the midst of the smoke. The man in the oversized coat pushed Yuri towards a tree and began climbing it. Yuri scampered up the side of the tree and hurried to the highest branches. When he made it to the top he saw a haze of smoke and a group of coughing and befuddled knights swearing below him. He noted that Repede had slipped into the bushes and was most likely making his way to the small hole he'd used to get onto the grounds in the first place. The crafty man was a few branches below Yuri.

To Yuri's surprise, no one bothered to look up when the officer ordered his men to search the area. Once the area around the tree was clear of the knights, the man with the ponytail climbed toward the wall surrounding the estate before hopping down onto it and into the street. Yuri followed suit.

Yuri landed in a crouch. The moment he got onto the street a shout sounded at the end of the block. A group of knights had spotted them. The strange man swore and started running, and Yuri tore after him with the folder clutched closely to his side. The knights were right on their heels, and so it took a long string of twists and turns before Yuri finally lost sight of them.

The two of them skidded to a stop in a smelly alleyway in the Public Quarter. His fellow escapee was braced against the stone wall and gasping for breath.

"That was too much runnin' for an old man like me," he wheezed.

Yuri laughed in relief. He had really thought he was done for. Now he just needed to find Repede. "I don't know whether to thank you or call you an asshole."

The older man gave Yuri another lopsided grin. "Ya could say, 'Thanks, ya asshole' and knock out two birds with one stone."

Yuri smirked at him. "You need another look at these?" He waved the folder.

"I've seen enough. I wasn't even plannin' ta take 'em with me. Anyway, it's been fun, but I gotta go. There's more secrets out there just waitin' fer me ta uncover." The man pulled himself up from the wall.

"Wait. You have a name?" This guy might have been a weirdo, but he was a resourceful weirdo.

"They call me Raven. And who are ya, mysterious stranger?"

"I'm Yuri."

"Tell ya what, Yuri. If yer ever in Dahngrest, ask around about me. Maybe the two a us could hook up." Yuri could swear the guy was wiggling his eyebrows again, even though Yuri couldn't make out his face very well in the dark alley.

Raven must have been able to make out Yuri's indignant expression because he started chuckling. "See ya around, kid," was his parting shot as he left Yuri standing in the alleyway with the leather folder clutched in a white knuckled grip.