Chapter 2: An after-heist offer
A little over nine years later
September 8th, 1630
In the Royal Capital of the Clover Kingdom, under a sky of stars, a figure hops across rooftop after rooftop. A boy, somewhat shorter than average, with grey hair, but for someone of his stature, he's very nimble.
This boy currently has a large amount of followers on his tail. A large variety of white, red, and tan covered people are in hot pursuit, but those on foot aren't exactly able to keep up. Only those who are flying on brooms are able to be of any use in the chase.
As the chant of people casting spells to help in the capture effort rings out, the boy starts to glow a faint green. The spells shoot right at him, but he dodges them with no visible effort, and continues on undisturbed.
As he reaches lands effortlessly on another roof, a nearby voice talks to him.
"You've really done it this time, Asta." The voice is female and monotonous, but it makes him smile.
"It wouldn't be fun if it there wasn't a challenge, am I wrong?" Asta replies, pride clearly heard.
"Besides, we found what we were after, and it's gone on with little to no issues. We just have to get to the nearest escape point, and we've completed the mission." The bird takes this as her cue to let him know where the nearest exit point is.
What neither of them notice, is that directly in front of them, a few houses down, a man with long red hair, and a star on his forehead has been waiting for Asta to cross his path.
By the time that Asta has noticed the man in his path, his attack has already been let loose.
"FLAME MAGIC: SOL LINEA!" The man shouts.
A beam of orange shoots directly at Asta's head, and even with his reaction speed, he can't dodge.
*POW*
Smacking him square in the face, Asta's feet slide out from under him, and the thrust from his running carries him forward, tumbling at the man's feet.
Not a muscle on Asta's body moves.
The man nods his head, and waves the people off from their pursuit. They all land calmly and regroup with their teammates.
With that out of the way, the man returns his gaze to the probed figure that lays at his feet. A book on his hip hovers up, and flips to a page, as the man calls out another spell.
Or, he tries to.
Before he can say what kind of flame magic he will use, Asta props his arms up, twists his body hard, and kicks the man out from beneath his feet. When the guy hits the ground, Asta uses this chance to jump off the roof of the building.
The man panics when he sees him throw himself off without hesitation, but that panic turns to confusion when he sees blue flames start to rise. Not long after that, Asta rises above the roof level, standing in what looks like a ship, holding onto the mast for support.
His arms are exposed, and blue chains made of those flames swirl around him, severed at seemingly random intervals. Not a speck of damage on his face from the blast earlier.
Without another moment, the boy waves two fingers, and the sails of the ship lower, catching wind that isn't there. At a speed that's way to fast to believe, Asta makes his departure.
"AFTER HIM, DON'T LET HIM ESCAPE!" The man regains his composure, and barks out commands to the multi-colored clothes wearing people.
They all don't know what to make of the sight that they behold, as all of them can sense that he doesn't have any mana, or magic to speak of.
They try and catch up to him, but can't follow him when he goes lower in the streets. He turns into an alley, and the ship fades away as the flaming chains die down, fading back into his arm. Flipping his hood up, he turn into the alley that leads to the black market in the Royal Capital.
As he makes his way through the crowd, he doesn't see the man following him. After he makes his way to the stall that he came here for, he shares some words with the owner, some items are exchanged, and he makes his exit.
Before he can take more than five steps, a curved blade is held to his throat.
"Don't move." A very menacing voice says. Following that, a heavy magical pressure forces itself into the room.
It doesn't faze him very much, but the blade most definitely does. Not knowing how he could escape, he slowly raises his arm in a non threatening gesture.
The next words make the ball of lead in his stomach sink deeper, leaving nothing but certainty that he's fucked six ways from Sunday.
"Dark magic: Dark Restraints."
His arms are forced to his sides, and many more footsteps can be heard from behind. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the bird from earlier watching this happen. They both know that there's nothing to be done.
All he can offer his friend in this moment is a weak smile
Before he can think any more, a hit knocks his head from behind, and darkness overtakes his vision.
(Take your time)
Upon waking up, Asta smiles at the sight of a very familiar room, with very familiar shades of blue.
"Welcome back, my dear guest."
Asta faces the man that spoke, and his smile remains.
"It would seem that you're in a bit of a predicament in the real world."
Not knowing what else to do, he nods in agreement.
"But be aware that this is not the end of your journey. Many more trials of much harder difficulty are coming, but with the skills and knowledge you have worked for, you shall have a fighting chance."
The world starts to become hazy, and they both know what this means.
"It would appear that our time is up. Remember, my boy. You can not take these trials alone. Fight with others, for the sake of others."
And with those final words, the haze finally takes over his sight.
And with that, he wakes up.
This time, upon waking up, he finds himself in a much less welcoming room.
A completely square room, with dark walls, only one exit, and only two lanterns there to light the room. Humid, and most certainly suffocating.
That last part could easily be attributed to the fact that he's not alone in the room.
Before him stand eleven people. He only recognizes a few of them. Namely, the redhead from before, the guy with the weird braid, the man with blonde hair and a red robe, and the lady with a metal helmet.
He knows none of them personally, but he's seen them in passing. Seeing that he has woken up, the redhead begins speaking.
"No name, unknown grimoire, suspected of many charges of thievery, vigilantism, unclear threats, vandalism, trespassing, possession of weapons, interference with magic knight missions, and evading capture. I assume you can see why we needed so many people to bring you in."
All he gets in response is a single 'heh'.
This serves to piss off the man with the weird braid.
An instant later, and spears of some kind of metal are pointed at his throat.
"You'd do well not to mock us in a situation like yours, boy." His icy voice snaps out.
The smile doesn't leave though, and the man with the blue hair holds his hand out, waving him off.
"Nozel, we need him alive. Stand down."
A moment passes, and the spears recede.
The blue haired man steps forwards, his grimoire at the ready. As he casts his spell, Asta charges his body with his own special trick.
"Memory exchange magic: Memoir Absolu."
A bright light appears above his head, but disappears just as fast in a zap of black and red electricity.
This takes all of them back.
"What the hell was that?!"
"How did he-"
"That's not possible!"
"Could that be a memory seal?"
Not knowing what next to do, the blonde man in red steps forward.
"Well, if we aren't getting any info from his memory, we'll see if you're willing to talk. My name is Julius Novachrono, I'm the wizard king. We've had our eye on you for a while, and we want to know is how you achieve the things you do."
The smile falls from Asta's face.
The redhead continues.
"Each and every person you've sent those letters to, has always come forward with their crimes and turned themselves in. Some have even been members of our own squads."
The man named Nozel asks the million yul question.
"What we want to know is how you make them turn themselves in willingly, even though they're aware of the consequences that would come with it."
Silence.
And finally, Asta speaks.
"My methods are my own, so don't expect me to tell you. What I will tell you is that if I didn't make them confess, they'd have continued on with their actions, and the methods they'd go to achieve them would become worse and worse."
Most of them nod at that.
"That much is true, with the positions that those magic knight members held, if they got their way, the economy would be in a deep decline, and they'd be on top." Marx comments.
Asta nods at him.
"Just about everyone I made come forward with their crimes had something to gain from the suffering of others."
With that, the wizard king says something that shocks everyone in the room.
"I see. I'd like to make you an offer."
A nod is all he gets in response.
"While your methods have been questionable at best, you've obviously been doing it in earnest effort to help those around you. But we can't just let you continue on with the way you do things. So instead, I'd like to invite you to either join the magic knights, or be sent to prison."
Asta's face contorts in confusion.
Julius continues.
"With that said, you'll have to be on a squad, so, captains, who would be interested in having him join your teams?" He says to the others in the room.
Six hands shoot up.
Nodding, Julius turns to Asta, and waves his arm.
"So, which of these squads would you like to join?"
Silence.
As he makes his decision, Asta thinks back on how he even got to this point in his life.
(Take your time)
Golden dawn base
September 9th, 1630
In the early hours of the day, the Golden Dawn members all make their way towards the mess hall for breakfast. Among those members, is a tall fellow with black hair. An apathetic gaze being cast to those that stand in his path.
Grabbing his meal, he makes his way towards the table he's sat at since he joined, his comrades already there.
"Good morning Yuno!" A cheery voice calls out from his right.
"Mimosa, you shouldn't mingle with this riff-raff so casually." A cold voice talks after her.
Not wanting to deal with this too much, he gives a calm hello, and proceeds to eat. As his eyes train around the room, a large amount of people seem to not have gotten enough sleep last night.
"Hey, what's up with all of them?" He asks
"Oh, you didn't hear?" The girl named Mimosa says, suprised.
Before she can continue, a man walks into the room, garnering everyone's attention.
Scrambling to their feet, they all salute, and shout.
"Good morning, Captain Vangence!"
He makes a wave for everyone to sit down, and they obey.
"Good morning everyone. I hope those of you who participated in last night's chase got a decent amount of sleep."
A chase?
Yuno didn't hear about anything like that.
"As I'm sure most of you are aware, yesterday's chase was our plan to apprehend the vigilante known as the 'Phantom Thief'. Well, it is with pleasure that I announce that he has been captured."
Surprise on Yuno's face is clear, but it disappears as fast as it came.
"However, that's not all there is to it."
Everyone's attention is back on him
"After he was captured and questioned, the Wizard King make a surprising offer to the man."
With baited breath, everyone waits for his next words.
"In exchange of wiping the slate clean for him, he would join a magic knight squad, and help serve the Clover Kingdom!"
An variety of outbursts are heard.
Some of shock
Some of cheer
Some of disapproval
The captain ignores them all and continues on.
"I attempted to get him to join our squad, but was unsuccessful. He has instead chosen to join the Black Bulls."
Shouts of outrage can be heard. Many of the squad members are upset at this, and demand the choice to be changed.
A single raised hand silenced them.
Yuno's
"Yes, Yuno?"
"So, who is the Phantom Thief anyways? I'm sure that we all want to know anyways."
"Ah yes, he's a rather short fellow, grey hair, green eyes, but very confident. Doesn't seem to have any family, but is powerful all the same-"
Whatever he says next is white noise to Yuno, as his mind is preoccupied with the physical description of the Phantom Thief.
No way.
Could it really be him?
The meeting the captain called ended, but Yuno sprints to his room, and immediately starts writing a letter of request to have a mission with him.
He can only hope he's right.
To be continued in Chapter three:
A.N: Hello again. It's ya boy, the writing goblin, coming at you with this shit. First things first, I'm going to cover a few things about Asta's powers. First off, he can use his persona in the real world, but not for elemental attack, only for buffs and mobility. It'll be covered more in future chapters. Next, he does have the anti magic grimoire, and so far he only has the demon slayer sword, but he doesn't really use it too much for now. He will later, but not now. Third, he joined the black bulls under the presumption that he could carry out his phantom thief business with less scrutiny. The whole thing about the black bulls is that they're the 'worst magic knight squad'. So he wants to use that to his advantage. And finally, the next chapter will be how Asta got his powers, and his first heist with it. Don't know how many chapters it'll take, but I'll get there.
Also I'm trying to follow the canonical timeline, so he's only has the grimoire for about 6 months, and around this time, it's been a week since the magic knights added new members, including Yuno and Mimosa.
Please review, I'd love some constructive criticism.
Love, BooperBauls