Disclaimer: I am sad to inform you that I must disclaim any ownership or owning anything from -Man. Just the plot, sadly. This chapter killed me; it really didn't want to get written.
Chapter Two: A Shot In The Dark
"Watch out! Do you want to burn the both of us?" The angry whisper broke the strange silence, echoing out of the slightly opened door and down the empty hall.
"Shut up! I can't see anything! Its pitch black in here." A feminine voice shot back, anger lacing it.
"Watch your tone," the man threatened. "You're only worth so much."
"Is that a threat?" The woman growled back, moving further into the room.
The man scowled at her in the darkness. "Do you have the vile?" He asked, answering her question with one.
"Yes. And it wasn't easy." She shook her head. "So much good material wasted on our failed attempts."
"Spare me your whining. Where is it?"
"Here." There was a rustling of cloth and a dim blue light filled the room, the source coming from the vile that the lady held in her hand.
"Amazing," The man breathed moving closer and gazing at it in awe. "Simply amazing."
The woman gave a small laugh. "Wait till you see what it does." The man looked at her, an unreadable expression crossing his face.
"You tested it." It was a statement, not a question. The woman nodded, turning to a plain white box bolted into the wall and sliding a card underneath a scanner. There was a hiss of steam as it opened up, the room becoming brighter with the blue light. She carefully placed the vile into box, and closed it back up, sending the room once again into darkness.
"That wasn't part of the deal," The man spat, his voice like ice.
The woman scoffed. "Did you honestly expect us not to test it, especially having such a breakthrough after so long?"
"That wasn't part of the deal, you idiot!" The man repeated, his voice slightly rising.
"And neither was this." The silence was slightly broken by a muffled 'bang' as the bullet buried itself into the man, his face becoming one of pure shock. The woman tossed a lock of her red hair over her shoulder, and replaced the small white handgun that she had pulled out back into her pocket.
"W-why?" The man gasped as he staggered back and clutching the counter. He slowly slid to floor, his legs giving out as his heart slowly stopped beating.
The woman's red painted lips curled into a smile as she walked forward until she stood over the dying man. She crouched down and leaned in, her breath brushing against the man's ear.
"If you play, you get burned."
And that was the last thing that that man would ever hear.
It was almost two days later when the train rolled into the station in Germany in the early morning, a light fog and a slight drizzle blanketing the ground and sky. From the train disembarked four exorcists, dressed in normal clothes, carrying their luggage.
"Sooo tired…" Allen groaned, stumbling off the train, his feet dragging behind him.
"Cheer up, Beansprout," Lavi said happily and clapped him on the back, "We're here now!"
Allen just groaned again and swore to himself that he would never, ever again sit next a Lavi that had had three cups of caffeinated coffee. Ever.
"So, what's next?" Lavi asked, surveying the crowded train station.
"Well, the school isn't far from here; the map says something of it being around several miles away." Lenalee looked up from the map she was holding and started leading the small group towards the direction of said school.
"So Allen, you ever been to Germany?" Lavi elbowed the short fifteen year-old, who tried not to fall over or drop his luggage.
"Yes." Allen replied, his face darkening, "I don't want to talk about it." Lavi didn't push the matter after he heard Allen mutter under his breath 'master,' 'inhuman,' and 'terrorist.'
"What about you, Kanda?" Lenalee asked the samurai, who was walking alongside her.
"Yeah, when we were looking for that old geezer." Kanda said, a small scowl coming to his face as he remembered the annoying search they had to go through. He hid the pang of sadness that hit him as he thought about Daisya, and what had taken place that night.
Lenalee gave a small laugh at the answer, and the four of them continued walking, making idle chat here and there (although it was mostly Lavi). They stopped for a bit for breakfast and took a small detour to see some interesting sights. It wasn't long until they started seeing signs indicating where the UnderEye School was, and soon they came to its opened gates. The school was in a more secluded part of the town, away from the bustling noise of the people and shops. The beginnings of a forest could be seen not far off, leading into mountains and to what seemed like a lake. All in all it had a peaceful, homey look, with flowers and trimmed trees lining the pathway to the school doors.
"Nice place," Allen commented, "It's pleasant."
"Yeah, doesn't look like anything's going on," Lavi added.
"If there's one thing we all know it's that looks can be deceiving," Lenalee said with a frown. "Especially in our line of work."
"Come on," Kanda motioned with his chin and they made their up the school pathway and to the big doors.
"We all remember what our cover stories are?" Lenalee asked, turning to her companions who nodded. "Good, let's go."
They opened the door and entered a spacious room, a large desk in the center, chairs, doors and pictures lining the wall. There were hallways leading either left of right, and other parts of the school building could be seen through the large glass window at the end of the room.
"Welcome to UnderEye School! I'm Jessika, the secretary." A young lady, with a thick accent, brown colored eyes and hair walked up and greeted them, the large smile on her face accentuated by the deep red lipstick she wore.
"Ah, hello," Lenalee answered after the awkward moment of silence that had followed. The lady seemed like she was on a sugar rush.
"We were informed that you were coming. I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your Uncle." They had fabricated the cover story that Lenalee and Kanda had been living with their poor widower uncle, who just passed away, leaving them on the streets. Because they were oh so very poor, they decided to board at the UnderEye School. Allen and Lavi, who had been good friends with them since an early age, although already homeless, had come along, all hoping for a better life. Jessika shook her head sadly and stopped talking for about three seconds before she was right back at it. "Please, just register here, fill out these forms, read these papers, sign here, circle an answer and proceed down the hall and take the first door on your left." The cherry red smile never left her face as she spoke in one breath. Jessika grabbed each of their hands and pumped it up and down energetically.
"O-okay," Lenalee said hesitantly and they were each given a stack of papers that seemed ridiculously large. They sat down in the chairs and Jessika quickly handed each of them a pen.
"Now aren't you a cutie!" She stopped at Allen and pinched his cheek, who in turn looked at his companions desperately.
"Thank you?"
"But what happened to your hair?" She picked up a strand and seemed to inspect it.
"I bleached it." Allen answered, using the story that was in the folder given to him by Komui. "A little too hard."
"Oh, you poor thing," Jessika cooed. She glanced over to Lavi and asked him "and what happened to your eye?"
Lavi grinned at her and said casually, "I got into a street fight." There was a pause and Jessika wrote down a note on a clipboard she had been holding. "And won." That last little fact wasn't in the folder that had been given to him, but Lavi was quite sure no one would mind. Especially the girls.
"Well then," Jessika clapped her hands together, her smile never dropping, "just fill those out and leave them at my desk, and then you may go down the hall and take the first door on your left. There you'll get your medical checkup, and then one of the staff members will show you to your rooms. Any questions?"
They all shook their heads. "Very good, I'll leave you to it!" She seemed to hop away like a bunny which sent shivers down their spines (and they had had more than enough experiences with bunnies to last them life time*) and went back to her desk.
"What a weirdo," Kanda said bluntly, not bothering to keep his voice low.
"Yeah," The others agreed with him. They fell into silence as they worked on filling out the questions on the forms. It was while they were busy doing that that Jessika disappeared into a door that had a simple label reading 'Teachers Only,' the door shutting softly behind her.
UP NEXT: Settling into their new rooms and classes, school begins. And so does the double crossing.
A/N: And here's chapter two! I know its three days late (ahem, I was re-watching for like the billionth time Batman: Under the Red Hood. It's a good excuse), so sorry about that, and the fact that not much seemed too happened, but I didn't want to rush things too fast. Also, I know in Chapter One I said that they would meet their teachers and fellow classmates, well, that obviously didn't happen here. It just didn't seem to fit. But it'll most likely happen in the next chapter, so keep your eyes open for that.
Please review, I really do want to know what you think, and all that good stuff. Thanks to Wolfgirlwarriorcat for reviewing XD
*Read my story; Attack Of The Demon Death Bunnies (and if you do, feedback is always welcome)