Chapter 2
*Okay, I think I lied. This is after we're looking for Cross, because I think we need Allen to have all his Crowned Clown powers for this to work. But we definitely don't know he's Neah yet. But anyhoo... as promised, we are now in Death City, and some interesting encounters are about to happen... (heh heh) :3 But anyway, you have to read on to find out any more! ^.^
And thanks to everyone who watched and faved this story! This is really exciting for me!
Thank you for the reviews XHikariSoraX, random Guests, Marisolanime fan, and lovestotoro! Answering XHikariSoraX: I think I just answered the Crowned Clown question, and the piano music is kinda a connection between the two worlds... and I just like piano music. ^.^ You do not have too many questions, and thanks for the feedback. (and I can't spell, so thanks ^.^). For Guests, Marisolanime fan, and lovestotoro, thanks for the compliments! I hope that this continues to live up to expectations! ^.^ *
2nd Night: Death City
Lavi sat up on the pavement holding his head, having woken up with a massive headache. A vague, half-memory of piano music floated through his head, but it was quickly dismissed and forgotten as he focused his attentions on more important things. Like making sure all his limbs were intact and in the right places. Once this was confirmed, and he saw that he definitively still had his hammer, he started taking stock of his surroundings. He was sitting in the middle of a street, a mildly creepy street. The buildings along the street gave a faint aura of Halloween from their appearances. Very, very strange. Had anyone ever asked what he thought of the decorating sense of the Clan of Noah, this would probably be what he would guess it would be like. Thankfully, no one had ever asked him this, so he didn't make the connection. He was panicking enough as it was. He had been in a forest with his partners, and now he was alone in this creepy city. As if summoned by the thought, Lavi heard voices up the street. His head whipped up just in time to see a flash of white hair passing the building at the corner.
"Allen!" Lavi sprang up and ran to the corner, turning around it to see a boy with white hair walking with a girl with sandy blonde hair. "All- Oh, sorry..." Lavi said rather sheepishly, scratching the back of his head as the other boy's blood red eyes turned to meet his own. "I thought you were someone I knew."
The girl opened her mouth as though to speak, but then there was a huge crash from a couple of streets over. All three heads turned.
"I'm gonna surpass God! Ya' hear me?!" More crashes followed the shouting and the boy and girl exchanged a glance.
"Black Star..." The white haired boy said in a Not Again tone of voice.
"Tremble before the mighty Mugen!" Yet more crashes. "First Illusion: Hell's Insects!" Even more crashes, this voice was much deeper than the first. Lavi looked over to see some of the semi-familiar, extremely ugly creatures floating above the rooftops two streets over.
"Yu?" Lavi exchanged a glance with the other two, and they all started running toward the source of the sound to stop their friends and teammates from killing each other.
Kanda woke up about ten seconds before he hit the ground, just long enough for him to register what was going on and roll into a crouch upon impact instead of landing flat on his back. He stood up and looked around, and determined that he had absolutely no idea where he was. His eyes narrowed and his first instinct was to reach for his sword, but he stopped. He did not seem to be in any immediate danger, and having his sword drawn might draw unwanted attention from those who would otherwise be indifferent to his presence. If anything actually attacked him, then he'd go on the offensive.
He decided to start walking around, to start learning about his surroundings, and so began walking down the cobblestone street. Before too long, he heard a voice.
"I'm gonna surpass God, Tsubaki! I'm gonna be the greatest there ever was, ya got that?" Around the corner walked a kid, maybe a bit taller than the Beansprout, with spiky, electric blue hair, eyes of the same color, and a star tattoo on his shoulder, and a tall girl with long black hair up in a ponytail who looked almost like she could have been Kanda's own sister, if he had one. The boy was the speaker, and the girl nodded along with his ranting about his own amazingness, a pleasant smile on her face. "I am the great and mighty Black*Star!"
"Che." Kanda rolled his eyes as he passed the pair. That kind of arrogance was what got you killed on the battlefield, and Kanda viewed people like this kid as nothing more than an irritating burden.
Black*Star apparently noticed Kanda's attitude and lack of being impressed.
"Hey! Yeah you!" Kanda turned to half face the boy. "You don't believe me? You doubt the great and mighty Black*Star?!" The girl, Tsubaki, started to get a worried look on her face, knowing where this was headed. "Do you want me to prove my greatness to you?!"
"Che. You're out of your league, kid." Kanda muttered, turning to continue walking.
"That's it! Tsubaki, Chained Scythes!"
"Black Star, I'm not sure that'-"
"Just do it! He's asking for it!" Kanda rolled his eyes and kept walking, he didn't have time for this. "Don't worry, I'll go easy on him." This, however was too much for the samurai to bear. That kid would be lucky if he left this encounter with more than two of his limbs in tact. Kanda whipped around and drew his sword just in time to see the girl turn into a pair of short combat scythes chained together at the hilts. Then it started.
The boy charged and Kanda dodged out of the way easily, causing Black*Star to crash into the wall of a nearby building.
"I'm gonna surpass God! Ya' hear me?!" The ninja emerged from the hole he had just made in the wall seemingly unharmed and charged again, this time fast enough that Kanda had to block with his sword. More clashing of blades and crashing into walls followed, the ancient feud between samurai and ninja playing itself out in all its fury in the clash between these two idiots. Kanda narrowed his eyes at the kid.
"Tremble before the mighty Mugen!" Kanda said, running his fingers along the dark steel blade, bright blue light following his fingers and lightening the metal. This time he attacked and he and the boy ended up embedded in opposite walls. Kanda was finished with screwing around with this kid. He slashed Mugen through the air. "First Illusion: Hell's Insects!" Several extremely ugly, floating phantom bug things came out of the rend in space Kanda just caused and started attacking Black*Star. The ninja boy started yelling incoherent noises with a few profanities mixed in, running away from the nasty creatures, causing some of them to crash into walls.
Black*Star turned around suddenly, slashed through one of the hell bugs, and started charging directly at Kanda. Not the response he'd expected. They both held their weapons at the ready and were about to collide when…
"For the love of Death, Black Star, you can't go attacking every random person with a weapon who walks down the street!" Maka's yelling distracted the blue-haired ninja for long enough that he lost his momentum and crashed into the ground a few feet infront of where Kanda was standing. He and Kanda both looked up to see Maka, Soul, and Lavi running around the corner onto the now nearly destroyed street.
"But –" Black*Star tried to defend his actions as he picked himself off the ground, but Maka cut him off.
"Black Star, really, this is the third time this week you've caused serious damage to buildings in the city because you thought someone offended you. If you're really that bothered by people doubting you, prove them wrong by doing well in missions, not by challenging them to a battle in the middle of the street." She sighed and Tsubaki reverted to her human form. She and Maka exchanged a look.
Kanda looked at the group in front of him and, satisfied that the fight was over, sheathed his sword. The hell bugs disappeared and Kanda turned to walk away.
"Kanda, where're are you going?" Lavi jogged a couple paces to stand next to the samurai.
"To figure out where the hell we are. Tag along if you want, but stay out of my way, and keep your mouth shut."
"Um, you do realize that we could just ask them where we are, right?" Lavi ran around in front of him and gestured to the meisters and their weapons, trying to get Kanda to stop.
Kanda opened his mouth to respond, probably with mixed profanities and insults, but then another familiar voice came through the air.
"Will he be okay?"
"Yeah, he'll be fine. He's – well he just has some mental issues he needs to work out. He'll probably be up in an hour or so." The first voice, Kanda and Lavi immediately recognized as belonging to Allen. The second made Soul, Maka, Black*Star, and Tsubaki perk up, and belonged to a girl the other two would eventually know as Liz Thompson. A moment later, around the corner came a very concerned looking Allen, followed by Liz and Patti dragging an unconscious Kid. The three conscious members of this group looked up at the partially demolished street, and their teammates amongst the wreckage, in confusion.
"What the Death?"
Allen came to in the middle of the street with a rather agitated Timcampy flying in circles around his head.
"Ow," he murmured, a hand to his head, and opened his eyes. He watched Tim's spazzing for about five seconds before he had to close his eyes again. "Tim, could you stop that? You're making me dizzy. Where are we?" Timcampy settled down onto Allen's shoulder and sort of shrugged. Allen got up and decided to start having a look around, hoping to find his teammates and perhaps a friendly local who could tell him where he was and give him directions. He did not notice in the slightest the creepy air about the street, nor was he remotely freaked out. Years of training with Cross had made him used to waking up alone in strange cities with no idea of how to get to anything or anyone familiar. If anything, he was almost content in this situation, at least he had Tim. Most of the time when Cross abandoned him, he took Timcampy with him.
"Hello? Hellooo?" Allen wandered the streets for a bit, calling out randomly, not remotely worried that this might attract unwanted attention. He couldn't sense any akuma nearby and he was used to dealing with street thugs. He turned a corner looking the other way, and ran smack into someone, knocking them both over. "Oh! Sorry."
"You should really watch where you're goin-" The other boy stopped speaking as soon as he opened his eyes to look at Allen. He had gold eyes and black hair, with three white stripes in his hair on the left side, and two blonde girls stood behind him on either side. His eyes kept switching between the two sides of Allen's face. "Left. Right. Left. Right." The girls exchanged a glance, the tall one with longer hair looking especially worried. Little did Allen know, the last time this boy had done this little 'Left-Right' routine, he'd destroyed a centuries-old Egyptian pyramid. Allen got up with a slightly confused look on his face, and offered a hand to the gold-eyed boy.
"Need some help?" The boy looked from Allen's face to the proffered hand, then to the other hand, which held Allen's anti-akuma weapon and was therefore not normal. And this was just too much for the OCD shinigami to take.
"YOU'RE SO ASYMETRICAL!" he yelled, backing up into the girls' legs. The taller, older, one got a somewhat pained look on her face, while the younger one just cocked her head at Allen curiously. Allen was just more confused.
"Um, so are you...?" He gestured to the stripes in the boy's hair. Wrong move.
"You – You're right, I'm garbage, I'm asymmetrical garbage, I'm a waste of space, I just need to stop living right now, I don't deserve to live I'm so asymmetrical…" He continued this rather mad muttering for a while and then passed out. The older girl sighed, rather relieved that this didn't end far more disastrously then it did.
"Come on Patti, let's get him home." She said, bending down to drape one of the boy's arms over her shoulder, the other girl doing the same on the other side. Allen looked at them, concerned and feeling kind of awkward for apparently having caused this.
"I'm sorry, but, what just happened? I mean, did I just do that, or what? I'm confused, and sorry. I – sorry"
"Its fine, he didn't destroy anything so it's all okay!" The younger girl said brightly, as the two girls started to half carry, half drag, the prone boy between them.
"Really, that could have ended far worse than it did, we all got off lucky this time. We just need to get him home." The older girl gave a kind of half smile. "Liz Thompson, by the way, this is my little sister Patti," the younger girl waved with her free hand, "And this is Death the Kid, but we mostly just call him Kid."
"I see. Allen Walker." Allen continued to look at them with concern, walking a bit ahead of them. "Are you sure – I mean – will he be okay?"
"Yeah, he'll be fine. He's – well he just has some mental issues he needs to work out. He'll probably be up in an hour or so." Liz reassured him as they turned a corner and faced the wreckage of what was once a street. All three of them looked at it in shock and confusion. "What the Death?"
Quite a while later, the situation was, somewhat anyway, sorted out. Kanda and Black*Star were no longer fighting, Kid was conscious and no longer freaking out about Allen, the Order uniforms, or Lavi's hair, everyone knew who everyone else was, the Meisters and Weapons knew, basically, where the Exorcists came from, and the Exorcists knew, basically, where they were and what was going on. They still had no idea how they'd gotten there, or how to get back, but that was something they would work on later. In the meantime…
"I'll talk to my father about this, see if he knows anything about how this happened and how to reverse it. You guys may be stuck here for a while, and people are going to start asking questions about who you are and where you came from. We can't give everyone the full explanation, not yet anyway, so I'd suggest you try to make some semblance of an effort to fit in here. Which would include finding somewhere to live and enrolling in the DWMA." Kid, once he had gotten over his OCD, took charge quite well.
"DWMA?" Allen and Lavi asked at once. Kanda just sat there glaring at everyone else, especially Black*Star.
"My father's school, the Death Weapon Meister Academy. If you have the talents to wield this Innocence, as you call it, from your realm, you can probably pass as Meisters once you find suitable weapon partners."
"What about Allen though? From the sounds of it he'd be better as a Weapon," Maka asked.
"He can't fully transform, though, which would probably raise even more questions," Kid stated simply. "A Meister classification would be safer until we know more." Maka nodded, understanding his point.
"In case you didn't notice," muttered Kanda, still glaring at Black*Star, who glared right back. "We already have weapons."
"But you don't have Weapon partners," replied Maka. "Unless your weapons can turn into humans, which it looks like they can't… Though it would actually probably be better if you didn't find partners, if we can figure out how to get you back. It would be cruel to them to make them choose between going with you into possible complications and a war, and staying here to have to find new Meisters. We need to think about this." She got a thoughtful look on her face, and exchanged a glance with Kid. Being the two smartest members of the group, at least from the Death City end, they were doing most of the thinking as to how to make this work.
"In the meantime, you guys should probably get some rest," noted Tsubaki, noticing how tired the Exorcists looked.
"Yeah. Interdimensional travel… talk about jetlag." This from Soul.
"Um, what's jetlag?" Lavi asked.
"I'm guessing they don't have planes where you come from?"
"What's a plane?"
"Yep."
"You can spend tomorrow in the library researching our world," interjected Kid. Lavi, idiot though he acted, was still a Bookman, and perked up at the mention of a library. "For tonight, we should just get your enrollment paperwork started and find you guys somewhere to live."
"I think I know a place," Black*Star said, speaking for the first time since the beginning of the explanations.
Finally the Exorcists were all settled in to their new apartment, their paperwork for enrolling to the DWMA nearly done. Despite Kanda's suspicions that Black*Star would find them a trash heap to live in, whether out of spite or sheer stupidity, the apartment was actually pretty nice. It had three bedrooms, a bathroom, a small living room, and a smallish kitchen and dining space. Several of the appliances were foreign to the trio, but they would have time to figure those out in the morning. For now, all they needed to understand were the beds, and those were the same as they had back home.
- End of Night 2 -
*So yeah. Sorry this took so long to get written and posted, but it doesn't help when you get approximately a third of the way through writing a chapter and then accidentally delete the file. The bit with Allen, Lavi, and Kanda not understanding the appliances, planes, and the concept of jetlag is because DGM is set in the past and Soul Eater, to the best I can tell, is set in relatively modern times. In the morning, the boys will be going to start at the DWMA, and their problems with finding Weapon partners will be solved. ^.^ But that's all I'm telling. See you next chapter. And remember: REVIEW!*