The large, heavy doors of the arena slammed behind Isaac as he walked out, fuming. He pushed his way through the large crowds which were in the city for the tournament. Every single word that Eileen had said was circling around his mind slowly, each one taking precedence over the other for an instant. "Quin was with me… better than you… doesn't make you mog knight enough to take on a half-decent thief… should be enough for you… pathetic… It's not like you're my boyfriend or anything… lay off and screw off!"

Isaac shook his head violently, trying to clear his mind of the words. Each one stung, even now. She hadn't meant it, he told himself. She had been angry.

But it didn't matter whether she meant it or not. She was right. He was still so weak. He couldn't take on an enemy who got close to him. Sure, he could shoot down almost anything given enough distance from them, at a close distance he may as well have been that same unarmed and untrained fifteen-year old he'd been when he left home those six and a half months ago, sitting on the iced-over sidewalk and staring up at Thom. He couldn't do anything.

He'd survived so far, though, hadn't he? He'd succeeded where his mentor, Clay, had failed on two occasions, hadn't he? And he'd battled his way alongside Eileen and Ben through several dangerous situations, and he'd been training for weeks!

As if, thought a darker side of his mind. He'd only outdone Clay through pure luck and coincidence, and when he'd had to fight Thomas he hadn't won. He'd been about to lose when Eugene saved him. And then, with Eileen and Ben…

He pushed through the edge of the large crowd, getting into the lighter crowds where he could move freely. Had he truly been helping Eileen and Ben? Or had he been the one holding them back? Eileen managed to hold off Diaghilev for almost ten minutes, while Isaac had gone down the moment he'd entered the fight. Against the thieves, Ben took on the only true foe, and Eileen mowed through three of the others, while Isaac only dealt with one.

But then he had managed to deal with one of the chocobo riders during their great escape from Cheney and his group, hadn't he? But then again, that was his only contribution so far…

"…Isaac…"

Isaac's ears instantly perked up at the sound of his name. He stopped for an instant, trying to tell if it would come again, but he couldn't pick it up through the crowds. Quietly, he continued moving, trying to keep his eyes from darting and keeping his ears wide open. He stepped more purposefully, suddenly remembering that he and his companions weren't quite welcome to everyone in this city.

"…the moogle…"

"…brown fur."

Isaac's eyes, through an amazing amount of self control didn't move to where they were. He knew he was in danger. He quickened his pace slightly, and kept his ears locked for any voice that sounded at all like those he'd just heard. He was approaching the market place, where all the artisans and craftsmen would be to attract all the tourists, and a plan was already beginning to form in his mind.

Then, he picked up a few sentences which clarified his course of action for him.

"…don't kill…"

"Capture… bait…"

Isaac reached to his side slowly, quite aware of his absent gun. Instead he reached into his pocket and felt a small piece of parchment which lay there. He knew what he had to do.

As Isaac entered the marketplace, he made a show of looking around and eventually asking a few people as to where he could find Bertram the Smith. Once he was sure of the bangaa's position, he advanced slowly, planning every word.

"Oi, iss that you, massster Issaac?" Bertram asked jovially.

"Yep, of course it is, kupo," Isaac offered, just as casually, hoping nobody noticed the slight weakness in his voice. "You can't keep me away for long."

"It iss true. You'd be ssssurprissed by how hard I try to get ssssome of the more annoying moogle cussstomersss away. Never workssss." He shook his head. "Ssso, how can I help you today?"

"Actually, kupo, I was wondering if you could give me directions as to how to make mithril, kupo. Another one of those custom sashes, kupo, but a bit more complicated this time, kupo." Isaac winced at the sound of his excessive use of nervous 'kupo''s, and decided to try harder to repress that.

"Ahh, mithril, very difficult to handle. Have you got any paper?"

"Right here, kupo," Isaac said, pulling out the parchment. "Have you got any charcoal, kupo?"

"Sure, here you go, alright. Now, you need to ssstart with sssome niccce sssssssteel…"

As Bertram listed off the long, complicated recipe for making mithril, Isaac quickly jotted down on his paper,

Bertram. Don't react to this. It's for both our goods. Sorry to get you involved in this. No one else to turn to. There are people following me. They want to kidnap me. I need you to go and find Eileen, Ben, or Ezel at the arena and tell them. I think it's the thieves. After two blocks, I'm going to run, and try to cause as much of a commotion as possible. Go please, I need you.

Once Bertram finally finished listing off the many steps involved, he asked Isaac, "Have you got that?"

"Would you check this paper for me, just to check, kupo?"

Bertram nodded, and his eyes fell to the paper. They widened for a moment, then quickly returned to their normal placid appearance. He paused for a moment afterwards, as though to consider.

"Have I got it right?" Isaac prompted.

"Yesss," he said after another moment of silence. "I can order the materialssss you need, if you should desssire."

"Please. And thank you, kupo."

Without looking back, Isaac turned away and folded the paper up, dropping it into his pocket without a second thought. He kept walking, trying to look aimless and interested at all the wares on show. But his ears were pricked, and his eyes were roving. He knew that once he started moving there would be no return. He'd have to just go and stop thinking. React.

He walked on, noting all of the movements about him, all the people displacing in their proper ways. He breathed in and breathed out. Finally, he saw what he was looking for. Several people, all converging around him, moving forward to grasp.

Well. It was time to figure out whether or not he was an actual deadweight or moogle enough to handle himself.

With one last deep breath, Isaac ran.

Once he'd started running, Isaac had been planning to start screaming for the guard, thinking it better to be captured by the palace than to be captured by thieves. However, unfortunately, that plan was ruined within two steps. For, after his first step, a vierra, with her face completely covered, stepped forward from the crowd for an instant, just long enough to throw an urn full of water at him. On the next step, a human, with a veil like Ben wore, stepped forward and threw a handful of blue dust at the water. The water instantly reached forward in one, organized tendril, entering Isaac's throat and weaving its way down slowly through the passage. Isaac choked at the feeling, and he suddenly found that he could not speak. At all. He tried gasping, choking, screaming, but none of it worked. No sound escaped his throat.

Dammit, he though, and redoubled his efforts in running. This wasn't going to be as easy as he'd thought.

He weaved through the crowds, pushing in-between people's legs and tripping more than one person. He wished that he could speak to excuse himself, but even if he could he probably wouldn't have had the time. He could already see the feet behind him speeding up, and they had one advantage that he definitely lacked: long legs. One of their strides would probably take them as far as three of his own strides. He didn't like that ratio.

The one thing he had which was on his side was his small size and ability to dodge past people's legs. If he could keep this up for long enough, he might be able to hold them off until Eileen, Ben or Ezel arrived.

Rounding his first corner, Isaac found somebody before him, he couldn't quite identify the race, possibly a vierra, blocking the path for him. She had the typical dress of a thief, and thus Isaac had to assume she was working against him. Without thought, he drew his blade from its sheath and smacked those legs with the flat of his blade as he approached. She fell to the ground, cursing like a sailor, and Isaac rushed past, glad to find himself back in thicker crowds. Here, nobody saw him. Of course, his own vision was somewhat limited in this area, but that was the sacrifice he had to make.

Here he had to run in awkward positions, going sideways as often as straight forward to make his way through. As he went, he thanked Famfrit that it was the darkness and not close spaces that he feared. He ducked, weaved and bobbed, ignoring the many unkind looks he earned. At one point, a hand reached down at him from somewhere above him, so Isaac instinctively jumped upwards and bit the fingers as they approached. The hand was quickly withdrawn with a yelping noise, and Isaac continued on.

He took a left, then a quick right, and another left, all fortunately without any more incidents. He could still hear the quicker and heavier than usual steps behind him, and their loudness showed him just how close they were, even in these close areas, restricted by the bodies surrounding them. Isaac figured he was doing well, until he took another left, and found himself staring at an impassable abyss, or so it may have been. An empty space with no crowds.

Isaac stopped dead at the sight. No doubt they had snipers on him. On the rooftops, somewhere, just waiting for him to emerge from his protection. He heard the footsteps behind him.

Isaac dove into the empty space, throwing himself forward as violently, as quickly, and as far as possible. He heard the whistling of an arrow, and crouched his feet into himself, trying to make a smaller target. The arrow clattered off of the hard earth, just as another let fly. Isaac could actually feel his fur displacing as this arrow just skimmed his head, leaving a long scratch along the back. Then he hit the ground, rolled forward once to his feet, and was off running through the crowds again.

Don't die, don't die, don't die! Isaac thought repeatedly to himself. Better to be kidnapped than to be impaled on an arrow. Why the hell did I have to aggravate them?

Isaac drove onward once more, leaning forward into his movement to try and get as little resistance as possible. A few people started struggling to get out of his way, some of the few who had seen him dodging the arrows just back there. He couldn't blame them, even though he was annoyed by how they were drawing slightly more attention to him (not that his pursuers needed any extra help). He cut his way through the crowds, trying to think of some way to lose a few of the followers.

Isaac took a moment to look around himself at the feet again, and noticed that one set of feet, these ones belonging to a moogle, were pulling far ahead of him, almost as though…

He's trying to cut me off, Isaac realized. He knows where the next break in the crowds is, and he's going to hold me there.

And then, all of a sudden, the next break in the crowds showed itself before him. It was a curve around a building, where the street took two fast lefts, one right after the other. Now Isaac could see the one thick leather strap around the moogle's forearm with the several twelve-inch blades attached to it. Knuckles. It was a gadgeteer.

Isaac met with him halfway through the turn around the building, his blade out. Their weapons met once, sending a few sparks off of each other. Isaac waited for the next attack, and when the gadgeteer punched at him next, Isaac leaned heavily back so that the knuckle flew right in front of his face. In the other moogle's moment of unbalance, Isaac drove his elbow sideways into his head. The gadgeteer cried out and staggered sideways, just as Isaac finished running around the corner and re-entered the crowd.

He was breathing heavier now. He couldn't keep this up for long. Soon he would have to turn and openly confront the thieves. But before that happened, he would have to find an open area where nobody else could possibly get hurt. It also didn't help that it was so difficult pushing through these crowds. If his voice was still working, it might have been easier. He could've asked people to move. But too bad for that. This was his condition. He had to work with it.

He saw a small space in the crowd up ahead, and took another deep breath. He would have to be careful for any arrows again. The space was being created by a juggler who was in the process of throwing several torches, a dry branch, and a package of gun powder up in the air and catching them again, much to the delight of his spectators. As Isaac entered the open area, the juggler's gaze locked onto him, and something horrible occurred to Isaac. What if that juggler were working for the—

Isaac opened his mouth in a silent scream of agony as a dagger drove into his left arm, slicing neatly through the skin and coming out the other side without damaging the bone. Isaac bent over double as he continued running, pushing into the crowds and favouring his right side so that the left wouldn't bump too much. He had to admit, that juggler was good. Even he hadn't noticed him drawing or throwing the dagger.

He chanced a glance down at his hand, and felt he might vomit. There was blood running all over his arm and over the fingers which held the wound. Gritting his teeth, Isaac grabbed the hilt of the dagger and ripped it from his flesh, screaming silently again. A long line of blood was trailing behind him in the dust, staining the earth with his life essence. He looked back down at his arm, and found himself wondering whether it was possible for a wound to bleed this much without him dying?

As if on cue, Isaac's head began spinning. Well, perhaps that answered his question. Realizing that he had to get out of the open and that he had to stop running, Isaac looked about him. There wasn't much. The doorways were too obvious, and he could be cornered easily there. The merchants wouldn't let him hide under the tables which sported their wares. Then his eyes fell upon a back alleyway which was filled with shadow. It would have to do.

Isaac ran into the alleyway as discreetly as he could. Once he was in it, he stopped for a moment to breathe deeply, holding tightly to his arm which was still pumping with pain and blood. He slumped his back against the wall and let himself slide into a sitting position.

"Sorry about all this, mate."

Isaac turned at the sound of the voice, and found, to his horror, Ridley, the Prince of Cadoan's thieves sitting next to him. He was dressed as a common street rat, but Isaac could see the bulge of a katana at his side underneath the rags. He was sipping at a flask.

"We wouldn't have had to have gone to all this trouble, you know," Ridley informed him, offering the flask. "But then you had to hear us and run."

Isaac, figuring he had nothing else to lose, took a sip at the flask. Instantly, his throat loosened, and he felt he could speak again. "Sorry, kupo. It's in my nature."

"Ah well. Are you going to go quietly now?"

"I don't think I've got much of an option, kupo," Isaac muttered, nodding his head at his pierced arm. "But it doesn't matter. I've just got to chill with you until one of my friends shows up." It hurt him to say those words, but he said them anyways.

"Oh, I'm counting on that," Ridley told him, winking.

"Showswhat afriggin' stupid wankeryou are, ku—"

Ridley's clenched fist smashed into his jaw, and Isaac fell into darkness.