It was the smell of fire that brought Owl to the burning jewelery shop, and it was very fortunate that she chose that night to go out. For the townspeople, fast asleep in their homes, hadn't yet been roused by the smell, and the guard had been patrolling another area. By the time they noticed, it would be too late.
Too late for the man she heard screaming inside.
Heart in her throat, hoping she wasn't too late, Owl went in through a broken window, glad for her gloves so she didn't cut herself. The place looked utterly ransacked, but she didn't have time to care about that. Smoke filled the room, stinging her eyes and burning her nose, and she buried her face into the crook of her arm and ducked down beneath the smoke as she walked, boots crunching over broken things.
It was hard to see, so she followed her ears. A door lay ahead.
With a chair propped up against it.
Sick bastards, she thought, but she was quick to kick the chair aside. "Stand away from the door, sir!" she called, knowing better than to just grab the knob, and then she reared back and aimed a hard kick into the wooden door.
It slammed open--I've always wanted to do that!--and smoke poured out, hot flames licking filling the room. And there, curled up on the floor beside the door, was the half-conscious shop-keeper.
It was an effort to get him to his feet; he was bigger than her, and his leg seemed injured, but she managed to sling his arm around her shoulder and half drag, half walk him out of there, nearly falling several times and choking on smoke. But finally, they got outdoors--and by then, half the town had arrived to gawk. Kia, this felt familiar. How many burning buildings would she pull people from? Only this time, Ryk wasn't there to help her--
--Or get all the credit.
Owl laid the man out on ground, no longer able to support his weight, and knelt beside him with his head propped up in her lap. She snapped her fingers--which failed, because she was wearing gloves. Fail. "Someone fetch a healer! He needs--"
"I'm a healer," a voice answered, and Owl looked up to see a woman rushing over. She waved Owl aside, and Owl moved to let her take over. The guy didn't look good, and for some reason his ankle was bloody. Whoever had done it had been a sadist, that was for sure, and the more Owl thought about it, the angrier it made her. To hobble a man and lock him inside a burning building to die? Gods. Stealing all his belongings wasn't enough, but to try to steal his life, too? And in the most horrible of ways, a slow, burning torture...?
But under the healer's care, he started to look a little better, a little less ashen, though he was also moaning about monsters.
Monsters? Well, surely whoever did this had to be a monster...
It was as she waited, wanting to make sure he'd be okay and also ask him more about what had happened, that a glint of something shiny caught her eye. Turning away, she went to investigate and found...was that an earring? And then, not several feet away, was another.
Whoever it was, they had done a very sloppy job.
Owl turned back to the healer and the man. "Take care of him. I'm going to go find the bastard that did this."
And with a flourish of her cape, she darted off, following a trail of jewels just as the guard arrived on the scene.
Hopefully she could find them. As selfish as it was, perhaps this could be her moment, her time to shine. It was the first time a group of people had actually witnessed something she had done as Owl, and something heroic, too! Now if she could just find this criminal and defeat them...and surely she could, for Ryk had been teaching her, and she felt far more confident.
The trail (gods, she couldn't get over how sloppy this was!) ended at an alley.
And there, at the end of the alley, were the most horrific little creatures she'd even laid eyes on.
And they were counting up gems.
Literal monsters. Wow.
Well. Either way, it was time to do this thing.
"Hold it right there, evildoers!" she said in a booming voice that echoed impressively off the alley walls. With a flourish, she drew her sword. "Your wickedness ends here tonight! Now you have two choices! Come peacefully--or fight! Well, okay, and a third choice, which is dying in said fight, but it'd be much easier to just give up! You've got nowhere to run, little rats! And this Owl is hungry!"