4 AM computer just got fixed tonight, I should really be asleep since I'm sick and LITERALLY in the middle of exam week. Thought I'd get this up-- but please, people... mention something odd that I've put in that ISNT Allen's personality. I'm glad you love him like this an' all, but really.... spare me a little and gimme what you think on the plot? I have his new character down in my mind, now I want someone to tell me they like the plot so far and speculate a bit on what's going to happen!

...oh, hint, my weird wording is deliberate sometimes. I've already dropped at least one hint in previous chapters and there is at least three in this one... spec, please?

Disclaimer: You know I dont own it and that's probably a REALLY GOOD thing...

Allen's eyes returned to the cold stare that he had given them when they had first met in that alley several hours ago. Not even an entire day. "You are all officially retarded." He muttered, keeping his face unnervingly straight.

Komui blinked several times, somehow managing to miss his later sentence. "Abaddon didn't destroy the world," he said.

"Yes, it did!" Allen insisted.

"Abaddon was the anti-akuma weapon that was forged seven-thousand years ago and it killed the Earl back then," Komui stated firmly.

"Abaddon murdered countless people on it's way to the Earl, and when it did finally reach the Earl, it was in the hands of an exorcist that was not it's conformer! It caused the flooding of the world and allowed the Earl to be revived!" Allen said stubbornly, clenching his teeth.

"Those people were Akuma and the Earl was revived because of— No one knows what revived him, what are you talking about?"

"Not all of them were Akuma. They were incredibly more advanced back then and it was nearly impossible to tell a human from an Akuma because they didn't act on impulse like the ones nowadays do— Abaddon killed without even letting its proper accomodator know what he was doing."

"Abaddon had only one accomodator at a time—"

"—And Abaddon had very bad luck and it's accomodators just kept getting killed off and was immediately found by another 'accomodator'?"

Lenalee leaned over to Lavi, whom she was sitting across from. "What are they arguing about?" She whispered.

"As sad as it is for a Bookman to admit it, I have no clue," Lavi replied. "The true story of Abaddon is something you don't learn until you're an official Bookman... I've been banned from the subject until then," Lenalee coughed softly, a sign that she didn't believe a word of that but would let it slide that one time.

"I am not doing anything that involves that damned sword!" Allen cried. "I'm screwed enough as it is without having that thing trying to do me in too!" He stood up off the bed and headed to the door, clear that he meant exactly what he said. Komui jumped up as well and shot desperate looks to the exorcists, who also jumped up, blocking the door.

Allen glared as they cut him off. "I don't even know anything," He growled, "It's pointless to keep me around, just let me walk away..."

Komui sighed, adjusting his barret and pushing his glasses up his nose. "I'm sorry, Allen, but we really cant let you go now, no matter what you believe."

Allen's face seemed to twist painfully as he continued to glare at his once-again captors. "I will have nothing to do with anything that involves that sword. If you're so desperate, use your own pathetic exorcists, don't pick on the middle-man," He hissed, his words dripping with more poison that the exorcists had though he would be able to muster.

He was scary. Kanda himself flinched, as though there had been some invisible animal that had bitten him very suddenly. Komui chewed on the inside of his lips, trying to find some other way to stop the boy. Something told him that he might not care that there were three exorcists blocking the door. "We aren't asking you to—"

Allen spun, and in a blinding flash of light, something shattered. The four Black Order workers stood stunned for a moment, Lavi, Lenalee and Komui falling over in shock, Kanda backing into a wall and using it for support. Something sharp was digging into his right hand.

Their vision returned quickly, displaying the shard of glass that had lodged itself into Kanda's sword hand. He scowled, knowing it wouldn't be long before he healed but it would be a nuisance until then. They all looked for the source of the glass and all found it quite quickly.

The window was shattered, the pack Allen had with him gone, and naturally, the white haired apprentice nowhere to be seen.

"Well shit," Kanda voiced.

000

Allen raced along the rooftops, not sure exactly how long he could stay unseen when he was so out in the open. It was fortune that there were many chimneys and the early morning gray and the smoke hid him from view rather well.

He pulled on a sleeve of his maroon trench, about the same color as the roofing tiles, as he ran, not bothering to button it up more than the first two buttons. The back flapped out like wings behind him. He might as well be a beacon on these rooves, and so he had to keep strictly to the rusted reddish brown rooves.

"Idiots," He muttered, some hair snapping into his face and then back out to the side of his head. "Trying to misuse Abaddon," He shifted the bag that was tied around his shoulder. The gray leather was large and heavy, sewn together here and there where it had split over the years, but he had carried it a long while and it was almost second nature to have it with him at all times now. Though this time around, he cradled it, not wanting to have the various items inside damaged from his chaotic dashes and dodging the dips and rises.

One thick, gloved left hand slid down to the bag and poked it, a small wiggle from inside it greeted him. He unzipped a few inches to allow the squirming yellow ball to escape the confines of the bag. It's thin yellow wings were paper thin and yet spread out as though they were made of fur were held in with two horns, the body shiny. The tail was long and ended with a puff much thicker but similar looking to the wings, and the four small animal-like limbs on it's lower end stretching, opening small clawed fingers each time.

"Sorry, Tim, it wasn't that crowded, was it?" A low hissing sound made its way from the small golden ball, who's center part had split open to reveal a long row of sharp pointed teeth that looked like they belonged on a barracuda, not a golden flying fuzzball.

"I'm sorry!" He apologized quickly. "I really am, but I couldn't have the exorcists finding you, Master would be mad at both of us..." The ball closed the line of teeth and tipped downward in a way that suggested it was sorrow for growling. "It's fine," Allen sighed. "I do miss him... Master Cross is a bastard. We're just tools to him..." He made a face and took a long jump off one inn's rooftop onto a much lower tin roof that made him stick out like that one exorcist would in a field of flowers.

But it was flat and easier to run on. Mind, Allen had no problem whatsoever with keeping his balance, but he was certainly not in the mood for such focus after that meeting with not-so-welcomed people. Kidnappers, exorcists, idiots... he would let other people decide the definite insult in there, but it was all the same to him, but more importantly running in the center of a flat rooftop would buy him more cover than a slanted one ever would, regardless of however many chimneys and plants there were, and camouflage wouldn't matter all that much if he couldn't be seen anyway.

And then his eyes both singed. The left one's pupil turned a dark shade of red and the white shifted to the darkest black. He bit his tongue. "Of all times, now?" Was the only angered comment he could get out before a large black shape flew over his head.

000

It didn't take them long to run out of the small room and begin searching for the boy they had been trying to catch for a month now already, and quite possibly that month would be nothing compared to what would happen if he got away now. Lavi, Lenalee and Kanda all spread out to different parts of the city, Komui with Lenalee, and contacting through their golems.

It was certainly not going to be a fun chase, that much they knew very quickly, as the town was large and filled with many places to hide. Enough places to hide a man for weeks, maybe longer if they went out occasionally, but the apprentice was certainly going to try to get out of town as soon as he could.

Frowning, Lavi jumped over some fallen items that had been knocked off a stand. He twirled his hammer between his fingers, more of it denied to leave his skin. Lavi could easily stop twirling and the hammer would still be attached to the skin on his fingers. Innocence was certainly a strange thing to be so attached to its users and yet still so willing to turn them into Fallen when it decided they were no longer worthy.

The cobblestone clacked under the steel heals of his issued boots, and people parted the way for him, partly because of his uniform, but probably most of them parted because he would have charged them down otherwise. He hoped they would all continue moving just as quickly as he went on, because he was only scanning the streets briefly before turning his single eye to scan the rooftops and if he were about to run into a pole he wouldn't know it.

He bumped into a lady in a pink feathered hat that hadn't managed to move quite quickly enough and shouted a swift apology before righting his balance and dashing forward again, scanning the rooftops, where Allen had surely run onto. Flat roofs, slanted roofs, roofs that were virtually non-existent for the foliage growing on them, rusted roofs... every sort of roof with a dip or dodge or odd color to make someone stand out on it. If he could get a bird's eye view of the area, he could see everyone and everything, even on the roofs. It wasn't as though Allen was hard to miss with his white hair and maroon jacket...

Lavi returned his eyes to the cobblestone just in time to avoid stepping on a dog and swerved into the first alley he found, activating his hammer with a sigh and tried to regain his breath as the hammer's handle slowly grew in his grasp. Within three seconds, the hammer had grown to the best size for riding on it, large enough to grip but thin enough to be flexible when something came in the way of the path or he was coming up from a narrow space.

"Extend," He commanded in a soft voice to not attract any more unnecessary attention to his little dark alley. The hammer jerked in his partly-gloved hand, pulling him up roughly off the ground and into the air. The buildings rose up around him, displaying the layout of the part of the city they were currently holding in. He scanned the rooftops expectantly, hoping to find the glimmer or white or a swoosh of maroon to give away Allen's position, wherever it may be. If he had noticed Lavi, he might be hiding in the shadows of a roof or plants...

His eyes found it quickly. Allen didn't yet know his Innocence, and so he could not ever prepare to be spotted from above. In fact, Allen seemed slightly panicked about something, judging by the way he was jumping rooftops like a cat would stones on a lake, and whatever had gotten him going was not Lavi's hammer.

Lavi then noticed a dark shape some ten or twenty feet in front of Allen, with a long body and limbs, leaping rooftops at a slightly slower pace, their long claws shining a slight silver in the glare of the sun. It was losing its distance from Allen with amazing pace, as it continued to turn around often and stare at the apprentice for who knows how long before resuming full-speed sprint. Whatever it was, it must have done something to get the kid mad. Even from the distance, Lavi could tell that Allen definitely did not look like he was about to let it get away.

Suddenly, the gap was much smaller and Allen lept forward, tackling the creature and knocking it and himself off the rooftops, falling them into an alley.

He shortened his hammer and sent it flying to as close to the area as he could get without being spotted and crashed into the side of the building as he attempted to stop. Several pots on a shelf fell on him, but otherwise he had managed a fairly uneventful landing. Mostly. But he certainly didn't want to stick around to meet the owner of the plants if they should happen to come around at an inconvenient time.

He grunted as his leg jarred a bit when he began to sprint down the back street towards the alley he had seen Allen knock the thing into. The city smelled like burning things back here, in the alleys, and the lights seemed to grow dim as he ran, farther away from the main streets. Farther away from the bustling people and the lit street lamps of the morning. With every few feet he got the most morbid feeling that whatever he found in that alley he wasn't going to like one bit.

He rounded another corner, the second, he would have to stop right before the third if he wanted to catch Allen off guard. There were no windows around this place. Like some sort of horrifying omen to tell him this was not meant to be seen. He breathed out a slow sigh and began to slow down just a bit.

A few crumbled bricks and shattered or stacked pieces of wood littered about the way. A hay stack was pushed up against the wooden wall of what on the other side would be a stable. A pair of broken wheels lay up against the cracked stone walls and animal droppings—the right size to be a dog's— stained the dusty ground. Lavi dodged and jumped them all.

When he reached the end of the way with an abrupt halt, almost sending him into the back clearing where Allen was with the thing he had dragged down with him.

Lavi edged his face along the wall, his cheek brushing the brick and his headband pulled up to keep his hair down against his skull as possible. He leaned closer to the edge just enough to manage to look into the alley with his left eye and see what was going on within the windowless, brick confines.

What Allen had trapped, he could now see, was an Akuma. A long, skinny, cat-like level two, with large ears and things sticking out of its yellow face that looked strangely like whiskers.

But what made Lavi's jaw almost drop with a sound like a gong was the huge white claw that was pinning the Akuma onto the wall. The huge chunk of bright whiteness was simply, in a word, beautiful, if a claw of monstrous proportions that looked as through one wrong brush against it could result in loss of life or limb. It didnt seem to have a jagged end on it at all, even the parts sticking out for slashing and grabbing seemed to be elegantly curved, and the very skin— or was it shell?— on it seemed to be layered like a work off a loom.

It took Lavi what seemed to be an eternity to realize it was Allen's arm he was looking at. Allen-bad mouthing, ragged looking, scar faced, disagreeable more-so than Yuu-Walker had this arm.

It took another long second for Lavi to realize that huge, beautiful arm was Allen's innocence. He had always thought innocence was possibly the stupidest name they could have given for the weapon of demonic destruction, but just managing to glance it out of the corner of his eye, it with its brilliant white smoothness and the faint glow that surrounded it, was certainly what the weapon had been named for.

There was no possible reason Lavi could come up with that led to the reason it was called 'Grave'.

And then, Lavi snapped back to reality, remembering who that arm was truly attached to. He wasnt sure what made him remember how Allen acted and talked and how dangerous he seemed at times, but he was quite sure it had to do with the horrifying look he was giving to the Akuma. His face was twisted darkly, half hidden in shadow, a faint red glow seeming to haunt his left cheek bones, and the exposed part wrinkled as he snarled at the demon he had pinned to the wall with that unrealistic claw.

"Spit. Him. Out." He hissed, just loud enough for Lavi to hear around his corner. "Spit him out right now!" The Akuma whizzed and hissed something Lavi could make no sense of, opening an extended mouth to make that sound, like a rusted train whistle. The silver claws flexed easily into a tighter hold, one that dug into the Akuma's equivalent of a shoulder.

"Spit him out or I drag him out!" Allen barked. Lavi needed no strain on his ears to hear that time. He cringed at the volume and venom that spouted so easily from Allen's barred-teeth mouth. Lavi got the feeling Allen wasn't joking about digging whoever was inside the Akuma out...

...so when the Akuma laughed at him, mocking him and saying he didn't have the guts to 'splurge it out', whatever the hell that meant, Lavi knew he wanted to look away. As Allen straightened his fingers and drew his right hand back, the one not an impossibly beautiful claw, Lavi had a train wreck scenario.

No matter how much he didn't want to look as Allen thrust his arm into the Akuma's stomach, he honestly couldn't look away