AN: I don't know what happened but I completely forgot what day it was and that I had to edit this, but then the whole time my cat was attacking everything in my house, including me!


"They're still out there," Cross muttered, his voice, though quiet, loud against the backdrop of battle outside. It was safer in the house than it was outside, as there seemed to be akuma practically flooding the area but not getting too close to the house.

Every few hours, Allen had lurched upright, sometimes out of a deep sleep, wide-eyed and panting. His face was twisted with pain from his left eye, as though the scar was hurting him.

The units outside kept the akuma at bay, never making them a threat to everyone in the house, but that didn't stop Allen from feeling their presence, from feeling every muscle in his body tense like he wanted to do something about it. For some reason, every time it happened, the others either stared too long at him or averted their eyes too quickly, but after several minutes, it was quickly forgotten as the adrenaline passed, like the akuma were just nightmares.

Allen had just awoken from another start, his left eye throbbing, but he stayed where he was, curled up on the floor atop his bed, hugging his knees close to his chest. He was listening for anything outside, or at least trying to, as his breathing slowed, and the others offered him the favor of remaining quiet.

However, staying quiet could only last so long with Lavi, as he came by and draped his arm over Allen's shoulders, giving him a soft shake. "Hey, kid, how's your chest?"

Allen's shirt was hanging up to dry, having to be thoroughly washed since it was soaked through with blood, but in the meantime, Allen wore one of Lavi's shirts, only just covering the lump of bandages on his chest. Allen looked up at him for a moment before he dropped his gaze to the floor again, fingers gripping the fabric of his pants. "I'm fine."

Lavi tilted his head, "Really? Doesn't hurt at all?"

"It does, but it's fine," Allen said quietly, turning his attention to Cross and Bookman, speaking louder for them to hear, "What are they doing?"

"Fighting the akuma, keeping watch on the house," Bookman said, looking fairly troubled by this. "They're probably waiting until you're stable enough that they can risk taking you; if they move you too early, you'll just die in transport."

"How big is our window then?" Lavi asked, "I mean, how long until Allen's good enough to move?"

Cross snorted, "Too long, his chest got fucked up badly. We could start driving again in a day or two but we'll probably have to go early when they least expect it. But they'll probably guess we'll do that and won't let us get away easily."

"Not to mention we don't want to jostle him too much, or be caught in a situation where he has to run," Bookman put in, glancing out the window again. "In any case, it's going to storm. We can use that to protect us for now."

"Cross…" Allen looked up at the man, his eyes cloudy with worry, "that… thing from before won't come back, right?"

The man lumbered over, sitting on the floor but it seemed to irritate him. "No, it shouldn't. Those things aren't supposed to be outside like that in the first place."

Allen frowned. "What even was it?"

"Innocence; the same as Lavi's hammer, but sentient, capable of acting on its own and apparently able to gain a form to walk around in," Cross explained, not looking at Allen but instead still watching the window.

Staring at the man as he thought of what that meant, Allen grimaced and looked at the floor. "So… it wanted to become my weapon? That's what it said, right?"

"Who the fuck knows," Cross huffed, rolling his shoulders back as he leaned back. "The whole Order wants you, so don't focus on that one thing. The Order has its own agenda, but Innocence isn't synonymous with them. Whether that's good or bad all depends."

Frowning, Allen looked back up to Cross, taking in his slightly burnt appearance and the bandage barely visible under his bangs, but he appeared fine despite that. His eyes rolled to Bookman next, and he appeared fine, as well, a little less damaged, but then he turned his gaze to Lavi, who was one of the worst out of them all. His face was bruised, the spot under his eyepatch dark and swollen. He also had a series of bandages around his torso, hidden under his loose clothes. They were all tired from that attack, but luckily, they still had their supplies they left in the van during the attack, at least one bit of relief that could come from that sort of scenario.

"Allen, look up for me."

Bookman's voice startled him, and as Allen looked up, he saw Bookman crouching in front of him, running a hand over his cheek and looking into his eyes for a few moments.

The gaze was intense, but Allen found it within himself to not look away, which appeared to be good enough for Bookman as he exhaled a deep breath and straightened up again.

"Your eyes are still clear, and your mind seems fine, but still try to be careful and relax," Bookman said, the creases in his forehead becoming deeper, "In this time you should focus on healing instead of anything outside. Leave the rest to us; you'll be no good if you make yourself an anxious mess."

Allen jolted, but then nodded guiltily, not sure what he could do. Nobody was willing to step outside, particularly when Allen was feeling the presence of akuma, so they couldn't bring anything in from the van to busy themselves.

They only had each other.

Hearing an overdramatic sigh, Allen looked over to Lavi, lips pursed and eye focused directly on Allen's as he swung his hammer around in his hands, only the size of a toy. "Say, Allen, I know I'm not supposed to overload you, but how about a story to pass the time?"

Eager to get his mind off things, but not so trusting of Lavi's stories after the first night, Allen grimaced in return and glanced to Cross, raising an eyebrow.

Cross only scoffed.

"See! It's fine!" Lavi moved around and sat in front of Allen, gesturing wildly despite his injuries. "What do you want to hear about, hmm? The Clan? The Order? The outliers? Units? How about the times before? Maybe a made-up story?"

The words made Allen hear sirens, and he sat back, gawking, "Are you trying to put me in another coma?!"

"Not this time!" Lavi grinned, even as Bookman was sending him a warning glare. "I could tell you about Bookman, too; I'm just trying to mention things you've probably heard before."

Thinking about it, Allen slowly relaxed, crossing his legs and folding his hand in his lap. "Well…" he furrowed his brow, "the… Clan… you mentioned it after the Order blew up the house we were staying in, but it was when I was recovering from overloading, so you didn't let me ask."

Lavi beamed, "Oookay! I can't believe you remembered that conversation, but I'll start with them, then!"

Putting on a show about getting more comfortable, Lavi also crossed his legs, situating himself in the low-lighting so that even though the sun was being obscured by clouds, he was still easy to read, despite knowing that Allen could see well in the dark.

Once seated properly, Lavi started talking, his voice taking on a tone that Allen felt he'd only seen glimpses of when he explained things. "So, the Clan are a group of normal humans; they're not units or even accommodators. They actually hate units and the Order, and will destroy anything they find from it! Even Innocence since it'll never bond with them, so they have no use for it and only see it as a nuisance."

Uneasy, Allen shifted a little to the left.

"The Clan are made up of a bunch of individuals, each imbued with dark matter, which only mixes well with those people, and possibly those chosen by them. We don't know much about the Clan or their dynamics, but there's rarely ever more than a few members in one place at a time. The most members the Order's recorded at one time is thirteen."

"We confirmed they had at least fifteen members a while ago, if I remember correctly," Cross murmured, a little too softly to be normal.

"And we've been seeing all new faces, too! We have no idea how many members there are, really, because they're pretty reclusive," Lavi beamed. "But, these people also have powers, different from us accommodators. They don't need a weapon to use theirs, their powers are within their own bodies."

Allen tilted his head. "What kind of powers?"

Lavi thought, his head turning up to the ceiling, but then it turned back to Allen. "Ah! There's this one girl, she's been around forever; she can create random doors and is basically a ghost." At Allen's still confused expression, Lavi continued. "I mean, we can see her and she can affect everything she touches, but regardless of what happens to her, she always comes back!"

"And you know that how?" Allen asked, "Did the Order keep track?"

"They do, but we personally had a mole in their ranks for a while," Bookman said curtly, "but we didn't get much other than some powers and a few dynamics."

"So," Allen rasped, "what else about the Clan?"

As though excited that someone actually wanted to learn from him, Lavi scooted forward some. "So, the Clan is almost an organization of their own. One reigning person with their underlings, and they all work together to create the akuma. You already were told about them before, how they're created by dark matter by distorting a human's body until they're basically just a weapon of destruction."

Allen's eyes widened, and he slowly nodded. "So… the Clan make the akuma…"

"Yep, or at least, we think so," Lavi said a with a little too much pep in his voice, but it soon turned solemn. "The Order's higher ups are pretty ruthless, so they kind of use the Clan as a reason to keep doing… this," he gestured to everything around them. "After the old war ended, people thought we'd need to stop making units, but because of the Clan's akuma, the Order never stopped." Seeing that Allen was frowning and not looking very pleased, Lavi continued, "Yeah, it all really sucks, but you meet the best kind of people in these situations, right?"

Raising his eyes, Allen saw Lavi's almost genuine smile, and Allen flashed one back. "Yeah, sure."

A sharp pang ran through Allen's left eye, and he quickly turned his head towards the window, lips slightly parted as the others followed his gaze. A human-like shape was walking around, a little too purposeful to make Allen comfortable, but then Cross withdrew his gun and Lavi held his hammer more tightly in his grasp, the tension fell from Allen's muscles. These people were powerful; they could hold their own against something like this.

Not that they'd have to, as there was a flash and suddenly the presence was gone.

It felt like a clock was ticking by, but it was still so quiet.


As the storm settled in later in the day, they all readied to sleep, deciding that the others wouldn't be able to invade as the storm was reaching dangerous points in the looming shadows of evening. It was intimidating with the howling winds, the sounds of ice clattering against the house, and the earth-shaking thunder that followed brilliant flashes of lightning that left Allen wincing. He could hardly sleep, but he managed to nod off for a bit, only to wake up in the middle of the night.

His eye was sore, but it wasn't throbbing with the presence of akuma, so he figured that was a plus. The winds felt like they were shaking the house, and with that and his body hurting again, Allen decided he wouldn't be able to sleep. As he sat up, he sighed and got to his feet, deciding to stretch his legs to try and remind his body that it was exhausted and needed rest.

As he came across the window, Allen's eyes flickered out into the darkness, having a strangely hard time of deciphering what he could see with the blur of water, wind, and foliage that was being tossed about, but he could make out the edge of the van by the house, the tree line in the short distance, and another vehicle he couldn't recognize.

"What the hell are you doing up?"

Allen jolted and whipped around, wincing immediately as his chest stung at the twisting motion, seeming to irritate Cross even more as he glared down at him.

Swallowing nervously at being caught, Allen licked his lips and straightened himself. "I couldn't sleep."

"Tough," Cross said as he strode forward, towering over Allen. "Go lay down so you don't hurt yourself worse than you already did."

"I'm just getting myself tired again…" Allen looked back to the window, frowning uncomfortably at the way the vehicle was stuck out there. He wondered if it was scary for whoever inside. "Would a… car like that be okay in this storm?"

Cross grimaced, glancing out the window before looking back to Allen and reaching over to thump him on the head. "Idiot, don't worry about them. They're trained killers."

Allen winced at being thumped, but then turned to scowl at Cross. "You were a general, so aren't you just like them?"

The question caught the man somewhat off-guard, if his slightly widened eye was anything to go by, but then it twisted into a sneer. "Don't get snarky just because you learned a few things. I was considered a unit, but I didn't undergo training like the ones you've seen. That doesn't mean I couldn't kill any akuma I found; only the best and the too stubborn to die could become generals."

"Way to pat yourself on the back," Allen muttered, only to get thumped again. "Ow!"

"Quit being an ass, you couldn't land a punch on me even if you tried."

Scowling at being taunted, Allen immediately took a swing at Cross's chest, figuring he'd be able to land a hit by being so close to him, but before he could get close, Cross snatched his wrist and sharply twisted it back, Allen's knees buckling immediately with a pained whine.

Not releasing his hold, Cross merely looked down at Allen and snorted. "Thought I was kidding, huh? Don't hurry to get up." Ignoring Allen's raspy apologies and begging to be released, Cross only continued speaking. "Actually, I've been meaning to ask; why the hell did you hunt that creepy thing down? Didn't we all tell you to wake us up before you ran off like that?"

Once his question was over, Cross released Allen's wrist, allowing him to catch his breath that he didn't know was lost. As he tucked his hand against the uninjured part of his torso, Allen finally registered the question and glanced up at Cross, only to avert his eyes as he felt the guilt creep up on him. On hindsight, it was ridiculously stupid, and entirely on impulse that he did it. After thinking about his answer for a moment, Allen wrinkled his nose and looked away.

"I felt it calling me, but it wasn't an akuma, so I thought I'd just…" he trailed off, already knowing his argument was a losing one.

His defeated tone seemed to ring strongly with Cross, but he still didn't look pleased. "Did it call you like the akuma do?"

"No," Allen answered dully, "just… in my chest… it felt weird and it didn't feel dangerous at the time. It felt good to follow it, but when I saw it, suddenly it didn't…"

Cross didn't answer right away, but after a few skeptical moments, Cross sighed and crossed his arms. "Alright… but you know I'll have to be stricter with you since you decided to fuck off without listening to us, right?"

Allen frowned unhappily but nodded. "Right…"

The man gave a sigh, running a hand through his hair. "I thought I'd wait until you adjusted to being a living human being before doing this, but I guess I have no choice. Allen, do you know what a general was supposed to do?"

"Kill akuma?" Allen guessed quietly, and Cross shook his head.

"Units, including generals, kill akuma, but generals are supposed to be in charge of teaching the new units how to be efficient soldiers. We're the ones that survived to become the strongest while having enough sense of mind to teach others how to be the same." Cross gave another scoff, his eye glaring out the window. "I've never done it because it's bullshit. All units end up dying in some stupid-ass way, so why even bother? But…" his expression somehow tightened, like the topic was difficult to talk around, "your options are limited, and if we want you to stay alive, you have to be trained so you can keep up with the rest of us and hold your own."

Allen could only stare, his eyes large as he remembered where he'd heard this before. Subconsciously, he glanced over to Lavi and Bookman, fast asleep, but then he returned his attention to Cross.

"So… you'll be my general? Like Bookman is Lavi's?"

Surprisingly, Cross only looked baffled. "No, Bookman raised Lavi. There's a reason Lavi doesn't refer to him as 'master' or anything similar." Cross's eye narrowed. "Where'd you think Bookman was a general?"

"I… overheard you and Bookman talking… at the church," Allen said quietly, "you said that I was going to be your apprentice after Bookman said he did the same with Lavi."

Expecting a loud answer, Allen was only met by a quiet, thoughtful stare from Cross as he studied Allen closely. "You heard that?"

Allen shrunk back further, tensing his shoulders. "Y-Yes…"

An exasperated groan fell from Cross's mouth as he rubbed under his glasses. "Ah, dammit… you're nosey as shit."

"H-Hey!"

"Now," Cross hardened his stare, dropping his hand to his side, "if you actually want to be my apprentice, you better be prepared. I'm not going to go easy on you just because you're so pathetic looking and scrawny."

A frown immediately pulled at Allen's mouth, straightening himself and stepping away from Cross. "I'm not sure if I want to be your apprentice anymore…"

Another sneer appeared on Cross's face, and he gave a sadistic snicker. "Too bad, you already signed yourself up when you decided to be a dumbass. I'm now your master, so you better suck it up if you wanna go anywhere with it, especially if you don't wanna get killed."

Immediately shuddering, it only intensified when a flash filled the house, thundering almost at the same time and booming through Allen's body. His voice hitched, legs shaking in warning, but then Cross caught his arm and yanked him back towards his bed.

"Get back to sleep before you give yourself a concussion," Cross's voice was terse and sharp, making Allen tense, but he followed nonetheless without complaint, even as the man all but shoved him down onto the blanket. "Work on healing faster; we need to get out of here as soon as possible."

"You're both annoyingly loud," Bookman complained, drawing both Allen and Cross's attention.

Allen's eyes were wide when he spotted Bookman sitting up in the corner. "Oh! S-Sorry, Bookman…"

"Eh," Bookman waved him off before glaring at the window. "It's not like I could sleep, anyway."

"Come up a plan for leaving yet?" Cross grumbled, "Or are you going to be silent again and leave it to me?"

"Don't sass me, you overgrown fire hydrant," Bookman immediately snapped back, igniting a rage within Cross that was palpable. Feeling the heat coming from him, Bookman scrunched up his face at him, "What? Gonna hit an old man, Marian?"

"I really want to," Cross rumbled, fists trembling at his sides that sent Allen scooting away from him.

Scoffing, Bookman jerked his head away, fiddling with his needles that Allen just noticed were in his fingers. "Too bad. And I suggest that we leave in the morning."

Cross made a noise of confusion. "What? Didn't you say that Allen's not good enough to move yet?"

"Yes, the medicine still needs time to work, but you don't have to leave," Bookman looked up at him again, "Me and junior will leave and lure the units away, and you can do whatever you want." Bookman's eyes were all-knowing, and Allen felt nervous just looking at them. "Don't you like being alone anyway? Keeps things from going too wrong for you?"

There was a pained realization on Cross's face that Allen couldn't place nor understand, particularly as Cross looked away bitterly, teeth glinting in the slight light when his lip curled back. When he finally relaxed again, his expression was empty of anything but a shadow of something heavy and lingering.

"Fine. Then, in the morning, we'll make sure you two get away safely, and that they don't notice us being left behind. Just get out of here."

Lavi stirred suddenly, still fast asleep in his own spot, drawing all of their eyes before Bookman sighed.

"Ugh, he's going to complain about this the whole time we're gone…"

Cross raised an eyebrow. "Why? Like hell he actually got attached to this useless kid."

Allen winced and frowned, glancing to Lavi warily.

Bookman only snorted again. "Are you kidding? You didn't notice how clingy he was?"

Cross only gave a moment's thought before he gave a chuff. "He's always clingy. And he can cry about it later." As he turned his face to Allen, Cross glowered again, "And will you just lay down?! Jesus, you act like this is a slumber party."

Allen stared blankly at him. "What's a slumber party?"

"Get the fuck to sleep!"