Chapter One: The prince, the shark, the baby and two girls
"VOOOOOI!" The familiar sound rang through the mansion, shaking windows and threatening the stability of many glass objects; it was a sound that was all too common in the place where many bad things happened and a day couldn't go by without something insane happening. Like the day before when a certain prince decided that the lower members of the group that called the mansion home were his personal pincushions; they still hadn't cleaned up all the blood and bits of human that littered the basement hallways of the manor. No, nothing in that ever could occur without disaster written all over it. Though surely this time took the cake.
It started with an odd find; the second in command of the Varia, the elite assassins of the Vongola mafia family and most dangerous of beings on the face of Earth, had one out to train early that morning. Early meant of course about one in the morning, dressed in his usual black clothing, his sword unsheathed; he had his long silverish-white hair up in a ponytail in preparation for the fighting, knowing very well what might happen otherwise.
Squalo Superbi stood in the large back garden of the Varia mansion, his eyes narrowed at the hundreds of unfortunate targets before and around him, all made of straw or wood; a moment of silence fell, uncommon, followed by that scream before he struck, cutting down all of the weak excuses for training dolls. To him they weren't any good unless they screamed, moved around, put up a fight; killing the weak was all well and good but he needed something that actually gave him a fight or else all the training was stupid and meaningless.
Scoffing at his accomplishment, Squalo sheathed his blade again and started to clean up the mess he'd made out of the dolls; he glanced from pile of straw and wood to pile of straw and wood, his mind on things other than this, when he noticed sometime out of the corner of his eye, a silhouette out in the forest that surrounded their home. It was really more of a lump of matter, drenched in shadows and making it hard to tell what exactly it was, but Squalo knew one thing: it was NOT a bush. He learned what happened when some idiot mistook a bush for an intruder; the unlucky idiot, namely Levi, had gotten shot almost to death by a thoroughly pissed and unamused Xanxus. The boss hated idiots and hated idiots being paranoid.
Still there was a high chance it wasn't him being paranoid; Squalo was sure that it wasn't a bush this time and knew that if it proved to actually be an intruder and Xanxus found out he saw it, getting a glass of wine to the face would look like butterfly kisses compared to what would happen to the swordsman. He didn't feel too suicidal that day, he'd already gotten three glasses to a head and a fork in his arm during breakfast, so Squalo decided to play it safe for once: he grumbled but he made his way over to the forest, readied at any time to attack and kill whatever he found.
What he found caused another scream of "VOOOOOI!" to go through the mansion, waking up a sleepy lazy prince and a small black hooded baby, both taking naps in the living room with the tv on still. How and why they had fallen asleep was a story for another day but once that voice screamed out its anger, the two Varia members were up. Unfortunately.
The first, his golden hair still managing to completely hide his eyes and the top part of his face from sight, whined slightly as he sat up, his disturbing grin gone from his face since he'd just woken up; his tiara, usually nestled on his head like it belonged, was currently resting on the side of the couch that he had been using as a pillow for sleeping. Belphegor the prince licked his lips as he put on his tiara again and looked around slightly before turning to the second member, throwing a pillow at the baby, "Mammy-chan, wakey wakey."
The baby didn't move for a moment then got up as well, the little frog on his head looking as tired as the baby most likely was. Once more it was one in the morning and no one wanted to be woken up. Squalo outside was just lucky his screams had yet to reach their violent, dangerous leader; otherwise the swordsman would be dead. Still them being woken up wasn't much better.
"What is he yelling about so early?" Mammon said in his baby voice, partially girly and with a characteristic frown, "He's going to have to pay me for causing me to lose sleep."
"Let's go see; maybe he's being attacked by a bear,' said the prince grinning once more, "Ushishishi~"
He picked up the baby, hugging him like he was a doll instead of a dangerous assassin with powerful illusion abilities before making his way to the balcony of the living room. Not the door, the balcony. For Belphegor wasn't quite right in the head and to him, using the door like a normal person, a "commoner", was beneath a prince like him; so instead, he climbed onto the balcony railing, still holding Mammon, and jumped down into the garden below roughly three stories down. The fact Mammon made no sound and his expression as always didn't change showed this happened often and once safely on the ground, the prince skipped off in the direction the "VOOI!" had come from, letting out his own "Ushishishi~"s on his way.
Entering the back garden and going into the forest, he finally found Squalo. The swordsman was looking thoroughly pissed, his sword pointed at something, a vein throbbing in his forehead; Belphegor couldn't see at first what it was since there was a tree in the way so he moved over to look. Laying against the tree, seemingly sleep, were two girls. Two relatively normal looking girls, except that one had an sword strapped to her back, a katana by the look of its handle and sheath; the other clenched a black messenger bag in her arms, closed up tight. Both looked badly injured, bleeding quite a bit and bruised up, the girl with the bag in such a state that it would probably safer just to assume her already dead except that she was breathing. They looked like they had gone through hell and finally just fallen to exhaustion just outside of the Varia headquarters; they were no threat at this point but…..
"VOOO-" Mammon conjured up a plug for Squalo's big mouth to shut him up and Belphegor walked closer, grinning bigger at the scent of sweet, sweet blood; it wasn't his but he still loved the scent of the red liquid.
"What do we have here~?" Belphegor asked, looking over the girls, "Two lost little lambs outside the big bad wolf pack's lair? Ushishishi~"
"We should report this to Xanxus," Mammon said at which point Squalo removed the cork in his mouth.
He growled, "What we should do is kill these two and get it over with! They're intruders! VOOOOOOI!"
Mammon looked at Squalo, as did Belphegor, "You just don't want to do the paperwork required for when people are found sneaking onto the property."
"Squ-chan is lazy, like the prince, but not as cute," Belphegor snickered before setting down Mammon; before either the illusionist Arcobaleno or Squalo could stop him, the prince picked up the more injured girl into his arms, grinning, "Ushishi, this one's very light."
"What the hell do you think you're doing stupid brat? I said we're going to kill them!" Squalo said as Belphegor started to walk away.
"But the boss won't like it if you keep this a secret; we have to show him anyway," Belphegor said, "Plus this seems to be bugging you so the prince thinks he'll just take this girl to Xanxus and tell him Squ-squ was trying to cover it up."
Squalo growled, thoroughly pissed by the taunting but falling for them anyway; he grabbed the other girl, roughly picking her up; he couldn't leave the other one alone there, especially when she looked the least hurt. Plus the sword on her back meant she was most likely a swordsman and he was itching for a new opponent; maybe he could get her to wake up so he could fight and kill her in battle. Either way the shark man followed after the prince, "Voiiiii! Wait up, you asshole prince!"
Mammon sighed and followed, using Phantasma on his head to float after the two. He wasn't sure why but he just had a bad feeling about this whole ordeal.
Veneziano: A new story? Again? Yup, I'm just looking for something to do and write that might actually get some love. I'm already trying to think up chapter two but PLEASE review. Please? I do like to get feedback and it's lonely not getting any. I'm holding The Lullaby of Fate hostage until I get some for my newer stuff! DX