The Black King's Ace

by Molly Ishida

Beta'd by Ostensibly Lucidina

Chapter 3: The Black King and the Golden Ball

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted it. I had forgotten momentarily that once my immortal code was activated, I lost my geass power. Even if I didn't have an entire code, the rule should still apply. I saw that once Allen had gotten over the shock of my just walking up to an akuma and telling it to die, he had started running forward again and was right next to me.

Allen tugged at my arm, trying to pull me away from the akuma. We were only a small distance from it when it exploded. The akuma's ashes were raining down on us and mixing with the ashes of the dead police officers. Allen wore an expression of utmost disbelief. He turned to look at me. I had to pull my arm out of his grip and snap my fingers in front of his face before he would say anything, "Y-your eye. You have a parasitic innocence weapon in your left eye!" he sort of half-stuttered, half-screamed. Shock was setting in, I suppose.

I didn't know what he was talking about. Innocence in my eye? But I did gather from his look that my eye had turned red with the geass symbol in it like it did when I had geass, so I covered it. I had to get my contacts as soon as possible before I accidentally commanded someone like I did with Euphy, "Now is not the time. We will discuss whatever it is you are talking about later. We need to get Officer Moore home and to bed." We both turned to look at Officer Moore who had finally passed out from the stress of the evening's events.

Allen nodded and seemed to calm down a little as we carried Officer Moore back to her house. I wasn't very much help with carrying her, my arm was still sore, and my sling was still on. However, Allen more than made up for it. All the while, I had to make sure I didn't look Allen directly in the eye.

Allen had been quiet the entire time we were moving Officer Moore. And he remained so when we got to our room as I rummaged through my bag for my contact case. Once I had my contact in, I pocketed the case and sat down on the bed I was going to use. I pushed my hand back through my hair and looked up at Allen. He sat looking at me from his seat on the other bed in the room.

"So, what is this innocence you spoke of? And, for the sake of sanity, I am going to assume that you weren't talking about virginity."

My question seemed to finally wake Allen up from his thoughts. "Innocence is the only thing that can kill an akuma." He began, settling back onto his bed. "All exorcists are chosen by God to wield a weapon made out of an innocence fragment." He looked at me oddly. "Those who are compatible with an innocence fragment are obligated to become an exorcist regardless of anything else, including their personal opinion on the matter." Here he looked away. "They have to because only a small number of people are compatible." At this point he lifted up his left hand and took off the covering he had over it to reveal a softly glowing green cross, "This is my anti-akuma weapon, I'm a parasitic type accommodator, too. I was born with my innocence inside me, born to fight akuma for the rest of my life. My parents abandoned me on the Christmas I was five because of it." He stopped for a moment, then continued on, his voice dull. "My left eye has a curse on it as well; I can see the tormented souls that are trapped in the akuma. The only way to free those souls is to kill the akuma with innocence. My master recently sent me to find the black order where the exorcists live so that I can officially join. Master has been training me for the last five years, since I turned ten." Again, he looked at me, eyes pleading and somehow, stern. "You need to come with me to the order so that you can join as well. If you don't, I'll have to send people back out after you once I get there."

This… gave me a lot to think about, "I understand what you are saying, but I would like a chance to think this over. I'll give you my answer in the morning. I also promise not to run off, though under one condition. If my answer is no, you must let me leave town before you head on."

He nodded his head in agreement before taking off his vest, bow-tie, and shoes and getting into bed. He passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow. I also removed my jacket and footwear before shutting off the light and lying down under the soft green covers of my bed.

The room was really quite nice, almost like a hotel room. It was really lucky that Officer Moore had two beds in her guest room. The dark green quilts matched the slightly worn rug and the thin curtains. I put my hands behind my head as I stared at the dull white ceiling. The moonlight shone softly, creating a glow over the ceiling above my bed. It was all really comfortable, too comfortable to be honest.

I stood up slowly and walked over to the wooden chair by the window in between the two beds me and Allen were currently occupying and sat down. Pulling the curtain back, I gazed down at the church. The structure reminded me of the church from C2's memories... Of the place she got her geass. I wonder if Nunnally would have enjoyed seeing a place like this.

I moved my chair closer to the window and stared at my reflection. I still had a bandage wrapped around my head and taped across my nose. I shifted my shoulder, remembering how I dislocated it and how I had taken the sling off. I felt no pain from my shoulder and so reached up to take the other bandages off. The bump that I had been told was on my forehead, as well as the break that was in my nose, were both completely healed. I must have retained a bit of the healing ability from the half of the code I still had. Not all of it, I knew, because C2 had managed to recover from a shot to the head in about ten minutes. It had taken me a good day or so to heal.

I sighed and took out the special colored contact from my left eye, once again turning one of my dark purple eyes red. So I had my geass back. Could it really be that, this time, it was not really geass, but this anti-akuma weapon that Allen had told me about? And if it is an anti-akuma weapon, does that mean it can no longer be used on humans?

"Oh, power of the king are you really an innocence fragment in this world?" I whispered as quietly as I could so as to not wake Allen up. As I was looking into my left eye I suddenly noticed something a bit different about it. The light red geass shape that formed around my pupil wasn't light red, but a soft gold color. I gazed into it as hard as I could, trying to spot anymore differences.

My nose was almost pushed up against the glass when something hit it and almost made me fall backwards out of the chair I was sitting in. When I had regained my balance I checked to see if Allen was still sleeping and heard nothing but light snores coming from his bed. When I glanced out the window I saw a floating gold ball with tiny wings and a lighter gold cross sort of pattern grinning at me with teeth as pointed as fangs.

I felt my eyes widen, what sort of creature was this? As I stared the tiny creature seemed to point one of its wings at Allen's sleeping form on the bed. I gave the creature a confused look and waited to see what it would do. It opened it mouth to show him sitting on Allen's head, then skipped to another video of it coming out of the fat cats body after the cat had disintegrated. I relaxed; this must be the thing that Allen had been chasing the cat for. Judging by its capabilities it must be a projector with some sort of artificial intelligence so that it could follow it's owner and never get lost. Thinking this, I opened the window and let the little machine in the room.

The little thing flew into the room and perched on my lap as soon as I had reseated myself. I stared at it and it seemed to be staring back at me, "You have to be quiet because Allen is sleeping. I don't suppose you have a name, do you?"

The creature opened his mouth and out of it came a quieted version of Allen yelling, "Timcanpy get back here! Don't play with the cat it could eat…" The rest was cut off by static, probably when this Timcanpy thing got eaten by the cat.

I couldn't help but chuckle a bit under my breath, "You should really learn to listen you know." I petted Timcanpy and noticed that he had tiny little horns on his head and four tiny legs as well. He also had a long tail with a shape at the bottom that looked like a flame with a swirl in the middle. I hissed, the thing had nibbled on my finger a little bit to show it's affection and had broken skin with his pointed teeth. I promptly stopped petting it and sucked on my finger.

I realized something very important in that moment; I had figured out earlier that it was still the 1800s in this world, so how could they have something as advanced as this? Maybe the whole world didn't have this technology, but the order that Allen was talking about did? This leant everything a new perspective if they were indeed more advanced than the rest of the world.

Speaking of the world, "Timcanpy can you bring up a map of the world?" At my request Timcanpy opened his mouth again to reveal a holographic map of the world. I looked to where Britannia was located in my world and saw a country labeled as the United States of America as well as a country labeled Canada. I looked over to where the homeland used to be before Napoleon forced us to move the homeland to the colonies in the new world. I looked across the Atlantic Ocean and found that Great Britain was still there. This must be a timeline where the Britannian Empire hadn't been created at all; it had been allowed to stay Great Britain.

I knew that Britannia hadn't taken over any of the world and that my father wasn't here, but I had never figured that Britannia hadn't existed at all in this world, "Timcanpy can you show me which country we're in now?" Timcanpy's map zoomed in to show Great Britain, "Well, I can't exactly say I wasn't expecting it. It was either that or Japan." Timcanpy closed his mouth, cutting off the image, and flew up to my head. Once on my head, he curled into a ball and seemed to doze off. Well it seems I've found someone who likes me.

I gazed at the reflection of Timcanpy on my head and thought of the pros and cons of going with Allen to this order. I also thought of those monsters called akuma. No matter what I do in this world, I refuse to stop killing those akuma. Even if I didn't go with Allen to the order and spent the rest of my time in this world on the run from them, I would still be going after the same things they were.

Being on the run wasn't really new to me. If I had to, I could again don the Zero mask and easily stay in hiding with the money I had. If my geass did indeed stop working on humans, I had no way to protect myself from a physical fight except my gun. This order appeared to have more advanced technology than the rest of the world. I would be tied down to them as soon as I got there, forced to follow the orders of a superior. It would give me people to work with. It wasn't like a terrorist group like the one I took control of; it was probably run by the government. It would give me a place to live and possibly some answers to questions I have about this world and the akuma that I wouldn't be able to figure out right away without help. I could always leave if I ever changed my mind and go on the run then.

I could find out more about Allen. The other exorcists always had the possibility of being as interesting as him as well. But was the mystery really worth it to chance something like this? I wish I could see a real exorcist from the order to help make my decision.

That gave me an idea, "Timcanpy wake up. Can you show me the last tape you have with Allen's old master in it?" As sleepy as Timcanpy was acting he seemed to perk up a bit at the mention of his master.

Timcanpy floated down to my lap and opened his mouth to reveal a scene where Allen was backing away on the ground from a tall man with long red hair and a hat, wearing a coat that looked similar to my school coat, holding a mallet. The red haired man told Allen where to find the order and that he sent a letter to the person in charge named Kamui. That he was going away and leaving Timcanpy with Allen. I watched in fascination as he hit Allen with the mallet and left. As he turned to leave I saw that he was also wearing half a white mask and glasses. He had a gun in his pocket and grabbed what looked like a coffin before he left.

The video cut off after that and I stood up and brought Timcanpy back to bed with me and set him on the pillow next to my head as I lay down. I had made a decision. I had to see what this order was like at the very least. The people I had seen from there, so far, were too interesting. The chance of such valuable information too tempting, to pass up. I also seemed to have developed a liking for a certain golden ball that seems to like me as well.

Good or bad my decision was sure to be interesting. That was the last thought I had before drifting off to sleep.