Could her heist falter, she needed to defend herself. While it was not the first time she considered this, she would dismiss it with the notion that she could use her abnormally long and untended fingernails. The coat, while making her extremely mobile, emitted noise far exceeding that of a good thief, so it was becoming increasingly likely she might need to learn how to fight them off. Carrying a gun would be nice, but she would have no place to keep it, and it was extremely expensive and difficult to get her hands on without any connections on her at all. Blacksmiths appreciated buyers who had a relation to them for trust purposes, be it the Magistrate Guard or a sibling. But she had her mind set. Ever since she scavenged foods, packaged or not, she would gut and slice it all up into pieces with sharp objects, such as glass shivs or used kitchen knives. Knives, in particular, she had a knack for. Though she would try to keep her distance, she would need a way to find dispersible throwing daggers, as it would definitely suit her should harm come her way. She would practice day by day where she kept her trash heap with wasted kitchen knives too dull for defense against armored knights, so she wondered if such a small, sharp knife even existed.

As the sun touched the Keep's roof, engulfing several blocks in shadows, her chance grew near. Cloaked behind the sun, a ladder beckoned her access that led to the roof of a small building: the beginning of her plan.

. . .

The Magistrate Garrison grew awfully quiet as the usual pompous evenings grew cold and still. The town tonight seemed to mostly stay indoors, away from an imminent threat. The guards outside knew nothing despite the civilians' clear knowledge of the political tension building the last couple days. One particular guard outside the Garrison, a rather macho type, frowned at this realization, suspicious, and the looming unknown threat depressed his typical extravagant and enthusiastic behavior. He raised an eyebrow to the sky in his thoughts and, out of nowhere, the Magistrate knight spotted a faint pink streak of pink connecting the rooftops above him.

"¡Mis amigos!" He pointed straight at the distant rooftop, popping the helmet off his shining metal armor. His companions gandered with him at nothing. The streak was gone, and the silent night broke due to the knight's urgency. His friends, gawking at him and confused, asked him what the issue was.

That street contained one of the lines of defense led by the Magistrate's finest knights, likely one of the riskiest moves she's made so far. The essence of vigilance swarmed her focus, and she never felt so aroused. Boundless and full of energy, the pink streak hopped from rooftop to rooftop. Her plan in action, she scouted the farthest towers; their spired and invisible eagle eyes unnoticeably stabbed her. She feared they were watching each other, but her plan will never carry out without accepting this risk. The smallest pink streak gained towards the monstrous tower that swallowed the district in its shadow as the two foes fought nature itself, one blocking the moonlight and the other adding a faint streak to break the tower's barricade of darkness, all to settle their small scores.

. . .

Chance of burglary was unlikely with the troubled town, 100% aware of the intention of the two powerful factions and one angry engineer, but the blacksmith on the far ends of town greatly suffered due to the sheltering. A fitting start to this terrible night, there was no noise, but all of his throwing gutters were gone. The sharp and cheap throwing knives seemed to leave the shop as the sleeping old blacksmith dreamed of the upcoming sales figures of "Magistrate Madness." The dream was interrupted by the exotic exclamation of a true warrior.

"BOUJOUR!"

Newspaper on his head, the blacksmith sprang up and checked his wristwatch. He looked around, aggravated, and grabbed a nearby handgun lazily and pointed it to face the voice.

"No need for that, my friend." The blacksmith's head jolted to the source of the voice and witnessed quite the exotic figure, posing with a humble stage bow. He certainly was a foreigner, but no roads connected to the abode, with his shop at the far end of town behind it, that and the 30 miles of Everlight Forest, a portion of the Enchanted Forest.

"It's 2:30 in the morning, pal," he lowered his firearm. "What brings you here so late?"

The foreigner grinned with pride, his figure outlandishly different to the human blacksmith. He was a tigron, a species of anthropomorphic tigers who splinter across the Realm, their culture strikingly different from that of the authoritative Magistrate. The tigrons lived beyond the Enchanted Forest in a grand natural landscape where independent tribes are operated by strict chiefs. While more primitive to their human brethren, the tigrons made up for it with insane athleticism and reliance on ancient chakram technology, discovered and perfected millennia ago by his ancestors. "I require some disposable weapons for my quest of honor, whatever it may bring!" He laid an obnoxious amount of credits on the counter and began to browse enthusiastically at the blacksmith's shack. While gazing upon the tigron's shopping, the blacksmith noticed with great distraught that all of his throwing knives were stolen this very night, and the blacksmith saw no evident methods for how the tigron even managed to scour the Everlight Forest unscathed and completely alone. To the tigron's surprise, while pondering his options, paw on his chin, the blacksmith fainted onto the ground.

. . .

As the morning sun arrived it did so alone. Not a soul exited the town, nothing but the faint pitter-patter of the girl's steps along the rooftop was audible. Flipping knives, she waited patiently utop the Magistrate Royal Hotel. The fancy hotel's architecture involved an angled Palladian ceiling through its center to give background to the real showpiece, a granite statue of Princess Lian. The barrier between the angled and the flat ceiling left an open-draft roof that hid her close enough to the Fortress Keep so she could eagerly watch for guard rearranging and hide from the above scouts; still staying far enough not to be thoroughly inspected by guards.

The inconsistent quality of the knives in her hands indicated shoddy craftsmanship, but to her it was plenty acceptable; they were free after all. She couldn't practice with them, unfortunately, as the small spot she hid in barely had any elbow room, sitting between getting caught and put to death and getting caught and potentially serving life in a Magistrate Dungeon. The knives twirled in her hands through the loop at the end of the grip where she flinged them around, the wharncliffe dangling on her index finger. But as the edge of the blade touched her coat, the blade seemed to react oddly, collecting pink blemishes along the blue cloth grip and along the blade itself which animated and danced around its scalloped edge. Her eyes widened at the strange magic of her new coat. That clotherier reached mage-levels of mannerisms, as she recalled his creepy viper on his hand doing his bidding. The girl forgot about it and gazed at the Keep as the day whisked away.

. . .

Corvus was reaching a breakthrough. He knew there was something wrong, and he knew it was trouble. He would do anything for the Magistrate, anything. This ancient power, he thought. This can save us! I know it can! Did he have a choice? The crystals, the battles lost, no one knew but him!

"It will save you."

That voice. It haunted him, that voice. Ever since the town of Seris fell, that soulless voice haunted him. Something was beyond his control, but he can control anything! He knows he can! He had been studying this for years! Nothing is beyond his knowledge! Nothing!

"It will save them…"

What he was doing was for the good of the Magistrate. No one else. The Resistance controlled the crystals; he is going to be under-armed and outgunned, even with the manpower he had under his thumb. The Basement of the Keep echoed with every page flip as he desperately searched for answers. He distressed at the hopelessness; the amount of power he was willing to unleash at this point drove him away from his former stoic and heroic self, and he had to pass the torch to something beyond human. The young Magistrate leader bit his lip and nervously sweat through his gaping eyes at the book on the table as a faint glowing purple orb or spirit from the base of its spine rose to meet his eyes. It was now or ever. His eyebrows lowered and his pupils narrowed as he violently grabbed the orb, violent stripes of purple and violet jagged around the basement, encompassing the room, but Corvus remained vigilant as he stared at the base of the orb, his body stanced wide and unperplexed, confident, diverting from his panicked self just a few seconds ago. Feeling as if the time was right, he swung his arms in the air, and the orb bursted into a violent portal beneath the ground as if freeing hatred itself from its shackles, and Corvus beholden forth the power and the strength he had not known he had, for the good of the Magistrate.