Don't Forget Me

Chapter ONE

"Laharl-saaaann!"

"No."

Flonne tripped and fell face-first onto the carpet. She raised her head wearily. "I-I haven't even said anything yet."

The blue haired Overlord crossed his arms. "I know you were going to ask me to do something stupid, so I answered before you could waste my time."

"I was not!" Flonne stood up and shook her arms. "I was going to ask you to go to the arcade with me!"

"No."

The fallen angel felt herself deflate. "How come?" Laharl turned and began to walk back down the hall. A prinny led the way, it started telling the Overlord about how there was a drought in the East, to which he yelled that wasn't some genie that could make it rain. The prinny jumped and ran away, quickly replaced with another prinny that had something to report.

Without looking around he stated, "I'm busy!" The new prinny said that there was a flood in the West. "Then take the water from there and send it to the East, or something!" He barked, the prinny seemed a little annoyed but walked off to carry out the orders. Five prinnies popped their heads out of an office and followed after them, each was carrying different fabrics and objects.

"Wait up Overlord, dood!" A prinny holding a microphone and wearing a beret called.

Laharl stopped and turned around, obviously losing his patience. "If this is about another disaster somewhere not near here-!"

"No dood, 'course not!" The prinny said. "It's about your coronation as Overlord, dood!"

It had been two years since Flonne had become a fallen angel and they returned to the Netherworld, and a year since Laharl had gotten more and more 'busy', though with what, Flonne wasn't sure. Though he had been calling himself Overlord from before Flonne even met him, he had yet to be officially named so. Most thought of him as their ruler anyway, well he beat this into anyone who disagreed, so the coronation was just to document it officially and try to make it seem like he wasn't just forcing his way into the position… though he kind of was…

"This had better be important." Laharl grumbled, he crossed his arms and glared at the prinnies.

"It is, dood!" A prinny declared.

"Overlord Laharl…" The head prinny said slowly…. "Do you want a jungle, space, or R theme for the coronation, dood?"

The prinnies cowered behind Flonne as Laharl pulled his sword out of his all-purpose crimson red cape.

"Wait, wait, wait, hear them out at least!" She stuttered, partially afraid he'd hit her too.

He grumbled but put his sword back for now. The prinnies sighed. One prinny whispered, "Dood, he does overreact!"

"Spit it out before I kill you guys." Laharl snarled. The prinnies gulped while the beret wearing prinny waved at them to get into position.

"We suggest to Overlord Laharl… space detective theme, dood!" Two prinnies held up a dark blue fabric while two others dangled a space ship and a planet in front of it. Flonne giggled and clapped her hands at the display. The prinny held the microphone up and spoke dramatically into it, "Wow your guests with an out of world experience, while you blast off into next century as 'TOP NOTCH SPACE DETECTIVE LAHARRRLLL, dood!'" The planet and space ship popped open to spray confetti everywhere.

"Cool!" Flonne's eyes sparkled at the image of everyone wearing detective hats on spacesuit outfits.

Her daydream was cut short when Laharl picked up one of the prinnies holding the banner and threw it out a window.

"What're the other themes?" Laharl turned to the other prinnies. They flinched while the head prinny cleared its throat. Two prinnies held up a camo sheet while the third prinny held up a tiger doll and a busty explorer woman doll. The second Laharl saw it he grabbed the doll holding prinny with his cape and tossed it over his shoulder out the window.

"Laharl-san!" Flonne scolded, "You could have at least waited until they gave the oral part!"

The blue haired demon ignored her ranting and told the prinnies to show the next theme.

"Okay… I know you'll like this one, dood!" The head prinny declared while the other two began to fidget. "Etna-sama recommended it! Doods!" The two prinnies glanced at each other. One flapped open a dark pink fabric and other got behind and held up a giant heart. The head prinny held up its microphone as the other two prinnies squinted their eyes, knowing what would happen.

"CHOICE R: ROMANTICAAA, dood! DECLARE YOUR ENDLESS LO-!"

"That's it!" Laharl stepped forward, a dark purple flame formed around him and he got ready to blast the prinnies to dust.

"Wait, Laharl-san!" Flonne stepped in front of him as the prinnies screamed and ran away, dropping their banner and props. "They're just trying to help!" She held her arms out to each side in case he'd try to go around her.

"Help? They're wasting my time!" Laharl saw that they had already gotten away; he grumbled and turned to continue on his way. "Damn, now I'm late." Flonne didn't hesitate to trot after him.

"Late for what?"

Flonne stopped in her tracks as Laharl looked over his shoulder at her, his crimson eyes were dark and impatient, seeing them gave her a chill. "Stop following me already." He continued on. Flonne paused, unable to look away from his back, her heart… ached.

Dummy, she thought, not sure if she meant him or herself. "Fine! I'll go to the arcade without you. Have fun being a jerk!" She internally flinched at what she said; she raised her hand to her mouth and looked up. He didn't hesitate or twitch or seem to care about what she said at all, as if she didn't matter to him at all at that moment. Her heart felt like it was ripping in two, holding back tears she turned on her heel and ran down the hall in the opposite direction. Why did she feel this way?

Laharl kept walking but after he could no longer hear the fallen angel's footsteps he stopped. The slammed his fist against the wall next to him. "Why... why do I…?"

Flonne sighed again, why did she say that? …Not that he cared anyway about what she said or did! But she didn't get it… ever since a year ago, for no reason, he had begun to be more and more distant. And she thought he had made such progress, he had opened his heart so much to where he showed kindness and love! Not only that but she also had thought… for a minute that he might just… Flonne shook her head to dispel the silly notion; even if she wasn't an angel-in-training anymore she shouldn't be having these feelings for him…

"I need to play Alley Slaughter…" Flonne sighed, knowing that the game would be excellent stress relief. The arcade had dazzling lights and spotlights pointed into the sky above it to attract any and all gamers like moths to a flame. Already there were gamers of all ages flocking around the building. Some were comparing high scores, and others were begging for tokens to keep playing. Flonne smirked as she pulled out a bag of money, "Mwahaha today's the day I beat TheGhast23's high score!"

Some people heard the username 'TheGhast23' and turned to see the idiot that thought they could beat one of his high scores.

"No way, that's 'OtakuLF82'!"

"Seriously, the person who has that high score on 'Super Julio'?"

"I've never seen her in person before!"

"I gotta watch this." Some of the gamers hurried inside after Flonne.

A guy smirked as they all began to converge inside. "My highscore?"

"Gwaah look at all those tokens!" A gamer wearing a large hat pointed at the large bag of tokens that Flonne had exchanged for with the money she had been carrying.

Looking forward to the melee of murderous game play on unsuspecting NPC's, Flonne hurried over to the arcade game. The outer design of the machine had guns, ghouls, guns, spears, and all sorts of body parts strewn around, and in big drippy letters was 'ALLEY SLAUGHTER'. The game machine was actually several times larger than the others due to the nature of the ghastly game in which you kill NPC monsters. Flonne set her bag next to her feet and pulled out a coin. She popped the token into the machine and picked up the stick controller that doubled as an ax, rifle, spear, and chainsaw in the game. She swatted the stick toward the large screen to start the game.

"Etna!"

"Yes, Prince?" The demon girl cooed, her more or less faithful prinny squad was cleaning up the throne room in which Laharl would be officially named Overlord.

"What's the big idea telling the prinnies to suggest THAT theme?"

"Which theme? No use this to polish the floor, damnit!" She smacked a prinny with her spear; it quickly scuttled away with the correct floor polish. Some of the nearby prinnies gulped and continued with the cleanup.

Laharl followed after Etna as she checked up on the prinnies. "Don't play games with me, you know which one."

"You mean…" Etna stopped for a second to think of what she had told the prinnies to call it, "Choice R?" She batted her eyelashes at him and laughed as his face turned blue at the thought of what the theme proposition had been.

"Yes, that one."

"What's the problem then? I thought it was fitting."

"Like hell you did!" Laharl barked at his vassal as she continued to bully the prinnies.

The demon girl sighed, "Sheesh, why are you so stubborn? It's obvious that you li-." She was cut off when the flat side of Laharl's sword hit her head. Etna yelped and crouched on the floor, covering her head with her hands. She grit her teeth and looked over her shoulder at the Overlord-to-be. "What's your prob…lem?" She felt her voice falter a bit at how he looked right then. He seemed… troubled by something. Laharl's eyes were fixed at the open space next to her; his eyes had a faraway look to them.

"Prince?" She asked, wondering why he wasn't yelling at her again.

Laharl slipped his sword back into his cape and looked at some of the prinnies working. "Etna, stop talking about stupid stuff like that. And make sure the prinnies don't break something, if they do it's on your head." Even though he was threatening her, it felt like he was reading it from a piece of paper. L\It was like he wasn't really there at all right then. He turned silently and walked out of the room. All the prinnies paused and looked at Etna, some of them whispered to each other, wondering if Laharl was sick or something.

"Nooo!" Flonne cried, beating the panel on the arcade game. She had been killed in the game again.

"Ah, she died again." The large hat wearing demon commented. He marked on a chalk board the current tally.

Game: 54

OtakuLF82: 0

"What level was she on?" A guy asked the person in front of him.

"84, the level you're supposed to fight through a hoard of zombies in the grocery store to get supplies." The gamer answered. "I've never even made it to level 4 in Alley Slaughter, no wonder they're gamer legends!"

One guy nodded. "But TheGhast23 only made it to level 85. Though, who knows what that level is like!" While the game fanatics discussed the mystery of level 85, Flonne picked up her bag of tokens. It was empty.

"EHH?" Flonne screeched, she turned the bag upside down and began to shake it. All that came out was a speck of dust.

One of the gamers pointed, "Ah, she ran out of tokens. What'll she do now?"

The fallen angel turned around and quickly dashed to the nearest person who had been watching her play. "Can I borrow a token?"

"No." The kid said, hiding his tokens from her.

Flonne eyed the tokens for a second, whined, and then moved on to the next person. Thing is, as much as they were interested in watching her play, they were still greedy demon kids who didn't like to share.

"Pleeaasseee?" She begged another guy, only for him to back up a bit. "Oh come on, you guys, stop being mean, just one token!"

"No way…" A demon muttered near them, he was looking past the fallen angel to the game she had been at. Flonne turned her attention away from the kid she was begging to the Alley Slaughter game. A guy with messy red orange hair picked up the game stick and rolled it in his hand like it was something he hadn't seen in awhile. "It's TheGhast23! The guy who got to level 85 in Alley Slaughter is here." All of the gamers began to whisper back and forth.

TheGhast23 seemed to just then notice everyone talking and looked behind him. His eyes were a light maroon color, in looks, he seemed to be around Flonne's age. He wore a black jacket with gold cuffs and his shirt had a game logo on it. Though he was an obvious game otaku, he was an incredibly cute otaku!

"Hey," He smiled at Flonne, "You must be OtakuLF82. I've heard a lot about you. You're the one who has the high score on Super Julio, right?"

The fallen angel smiled back, how friendly, she thought. "Yep, and you have to be TheGhast23! Your high score is almost too incredible to believe. I can't even get past level 84!"

He laughed, "Just call me Sho. What's your name?"

"Flonne."

"Well, Flonne-chan, want to go play air hockey? It's on me." He held up a token, without waiting for an answer he led the way to the air hockey table. Forgetting Alley Slaughter, the fallen angel jogged to catch up with her new friend.

"Nay!" One of the senators yelled. Starting a ruckus in the room as they began to yell at each other. Laharl began to claw at the wood inside the podium again out of frustration. This was getting him nowhere. But even if he tried to force it on them, they'd still shoot it down. The part of the senate that was against it was too great a number, besides, they were still too set in their own ideas that even beating them would do nothing.

He doubted it would change even after he becomes Overlord officially…

"Laharl-sama!" One of the senators called over the ruckus, the rest became quiet immediately. Laharl knew what he was going to say, but he still looked up at them and glared at them. Even if it was hopeless, he wouldn't back down, it wasn't in his nature.

"I think it is obvious that all in the senate feel the same as they did the last time this was brought up. Once again, there is half who think it is fine, and half who do not. We will meet again in the future on this subject after everyone has time to think, but for now: meeting adjourned." After a clap of wood against wood, all the senators vanished just as quickly as they had come, leaving Laharl alone in the hall to brood.

"Damn it… still nothing has changed…" He grumbled to himself. He clenched his hands into fists and hit the podium he was standing at. It wasn't until one of the prinnies knocked at the senate door that he moved from where he was standing, to just turn his head and yell for it to spit out what it had to say.

The beret wearing prinny jumped at the venom in Laharl's voice, shivered and said, "Er, dood, Etna-sama wants to know if you know where Flonne-san is."

"Yahahahaa!" Flonne cheered, "I won!"

"Lucky shot!" Sho grumbled, eyeing the score of 6-7. Flonne turned around to start talking to other game fanatics.

"Sho…" He glanced past the admiring and curious gamers that had been watching the two legends playing air hockey. A dark figure caught his eye, he nodded and turned his attention back to the celebrating fallen angel.

"Hey, Flonne-chan, let's go somewhere." Flonne looked away from one of the people she was high fiving. She noticed that Sho seemed a bit more serious than he was a moment before.

"Where to?" She asked, thinking that he was still sulking from his defeat.

He just smiled at her and walked around the air hockey table. Sho grabbed her hand and began to lead her toward the exit. Despite herself, Flonne felt her face get a little warm. "S-Sho-kun?" Without replying they left the arcade and began to walk down the street.

Flonne looked around at the people they were passing. Some seemed to recognize her, the fallen angel immediately imagined this getting back to Laharl and felt herself fluster a bit.

"Sho-kun?" She looked back at the redhead.

Not looking back he replied, "We're almost there." Flonne ducked her head a little, hoping that Laharl wouldn't hear about this… wait, why did she care what he thought? She began to try to dispel his image from her mind as Sho continued to lead her farther and farther away from the main part of town. Before she realized it, they were in a shadier district.

The fallen angel watched a shady deal in an alleyway; in another a man was being beaten. Sho nodded at a prostitute as they gave the alley a wide berth. The much older demon smirked at Flonne as she passed.

Flonne wanted to go back and help the man, but Sho continued to pull her forward. "S-sho- kun? Where are we going?" She glanced at some people on the opposite sidewalk warily, "This place is…" Flonne squeaked as she bumped into Sho. He had stopped without her noticing in front of an alley. "Sorry." She apologized, rubbing her nose. Sho finally let go of her hand and grabbed her shoulder, she flinched as he gripped hard enough to bruise.

"C'mon." He began to push her into the alley ahead of him. Flonne realized that something wasn't right here and tried to dig her heels into the sidewalk. "Cut that out!" Sho barked, pushing her forward. Flonne fell onto her knees; she felt a pebble break the skin and winced as it began to sting. Sho grumbled, she heard his footsteps behind her as he grabbed the back of her coat.

"Hey, stop!" She cried out as he began to pull her along behind him, making her bend over to keep from tripping. "Sho-kun? What are you doing? Let go!" She tried to pry his fingers off but he was holding on too tightly. She heard him knock on a door as she continued to try to free herself. As the door opened, she glanced up, then sideways at Sho.

She looked down at his leg and wondered why she hadn't already tried it. Before he could say anything to the person at the door, she kicked him in 'that place' that Etna told her about and slipped out of her coat while he was busy with…. Er… something else. (A/N: Smooootthhh xD)

Flonne only made it a few steps before the demon who had been at the door grabbed her from behind. She managed to let out a shriek before he covered her mouth and began to carry her back. Sho was still huddled on the ground while two people sat next to him and patted his back consolingly.

"It's alright; you don't HAVE to have kids, y'know." A guy said as Flonne tried to squirm free of the person holding her. Another person stepped out and grabbed Flonne's legs to keep her from kicking.

No… Flonne thought as she was carried inside. She shut her eyes; she could see him in her mind. Laharl-san!

The door closed shut behind them.