The old man pushed his wireframe glasses up his nose. They'd become bent again, neglected as he poured over his work. He sat deep within the Earl's manor in a workshop, sewing together various new materials from the Akuma Egg with a needle and dark matter thread. The workshop had grown hot and he'd discarded the formal attire for something more informal like he'd worn back in the small English village.
Ronald had been busy at work for days, fabricating a new akuma to handle the Earl's request. She desired an intelligent akuma, one much like the akuma which left girls dead in the fountain in the coastal Spanish town. The Earl's target was highly specific, but a bit of chaos was to be expected. It was all to protect his family and create a new world where he and his family could live in peace.
His golden eyes focused on the stitches as he sewed up a new seam. Tying off the thread, he took the needle and pierced his finger just slightly, allowing his own blood to drip onto the seam, giving a part of himself to his new creation.
The door to the lab creaked open, pouring light in from the hallway. Ronald glanced up but didn't see anyone enter, but he knew someone had as small hands wrapped themselves around his waist excitedly.
"Papa!" she exclaimed. "What are you making?" She was his youngest daughter, Amanda, and she had missed her father after he'd buried himself in the lab for the better part of two weeks.
"Papa is making something to help fix the world," he replied to her. Placing the sewing down on the workbench, he turned and picked up his daughter, placing her on his lap.
She reached up and traced the stigmata across his forehead. While he looked different, he was still her papa. She didn't understand the transformation but she knew it made him into a superdad. "Is it really that broken?"
Ronald nodded. "Papa has to help the Earl put it back together."
Rhode leaned against the doorway. As she watched the two, she longed for her own adopted papa. While she had tried to recreate the life she once had, Cyril and Tricia were gone. It was a part of her she never could have back, and she cursed the Order every day for it. There was still a part of her that longed for what once was, but having Ronald and his family at her estate helped fill that hole in her heart.
Amanda had been upset for days, as Ronald had holed himself up at the Earl's estate with work. While Rhode knew Ronald had important work for the Noah family, she brought Amanda to visit now that his work was nearly complete.
"Lady Rhode brought me to bring you some snacks!" Amanda exclaimed, pulling some hard boiled eggs wrapped in a cloth from her small satchel. "I helped Mama make them!"
"Why don't you go to the tea room with Lady Rhode and I'll meet you there after I get cleaned up," Ronald offered, glancing at the familiar figure leaning on the doorframe.
"Okay!" Amanda exclaimed, tucking the eggs carefully back into her bag. Hopping off his lap, she bounded over to Rhode and took her hand as they left the lab.
...
They left the meeting hall in a coach. The Earl's speech still lay fresh in the Bookman's mind. She sat across from him in the coach, silently, with her hands folded properly in her lap.
Tyki sat next to Lavi, scribbling symbols and English on the page. He handed the notebook to Lavi. "Memorize this code."
Lavi glanced at it, observing every intricacy of the symbols Tyki had written. "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." It was a long sentence using every symbol in the secret language's alphabet, and below it was the same sentence written in English. There were two versions of the same sentence, one written all in uppercase and the other written in lower.
Seeing both together, Lavi's intricate mind rearranged the symbols into a proper English alphabet, side by side with their English equivalents. There were two cases of the symbols, one for upper case and one for lower just as there were in many languages across the globe. There were also symbols for numbers and punctuation. Lavi recognized many of the symbols as those used in alchemy to denote chemical compositions or processes.
Seeing the symbols now match up, Lavi was able to interpret the seemingly random mess of symbols on the wall where the Earl had stood during the meeting. The writing read, "The end always sanctifies the means," the motto of the Illuminati. There was other writing on the walls, all of which became completely clear as Lavi now understood their secret writing. They listed ideals of the Illuminati and the New World Order.
The New World Order was somewhat of an enigma. Lavi had a vague idea of what it was, that it was a plan to revolutionize the world into an enlightened place. The means or the manner of doing so was still completely an unknown. Given the motto, the means were possibly violent yet controlled, involving things most of society would frown upon or consider illegal. While Lavi certainly despised wars, there was something tantalizing about an enlightened new world. It reminded him of the previous Noah family's goals, to eliminate the wars and bring about a global revolution.
Only a brief second had passed before Lavi returned the book to Tyki, who quickly blotted out the English translation with his quill pen. The Earl smirked ear to ear, pleased with how quickly the Bookman could memorize and understand things, even when they weren't directly spelled out for him.
The coach arrived back at the Earl's estate, and she disembarked from it with a please smile drawn across her features. Along with Tyki, Lavi followed, keeping hushed about the meeting. He knew enough about secret societies to know to keep quiet about them. After all, the Bookman Clan was a secret society itself, one which predated known history and had continued to exist ever since. The headquarters was extremely secretive and the members were known only by a select few. They were similar to the Illuminati in that they valued knowledge over all else, yet the Clan took a more passive and secretive stance, enlightening only its members instead of attempting to revolutionize the world.
"Lady Camelot arrived earlier," the butler informed the group. "She's waiting in the tea room."
"Perfect~ " the Earl grinned. Slipping a finger between the snaps, she pulled off the skirt on her dress, unwrapping it around her until it was free, then she flung it gracefully at the butler. Underneath she wore a pair of puffed silk bloomers tucked into knee high boots. The butler quickly sorted out the layers of skirt tossed at him, folding it delicately as to not mess up the delicate pleating and draping which shaped the contours of the popular style skirt.
Rhode glued herself to Lavi's shoulders immediately as he entered the room. She hadn't seen him since he left for the Clan's Archives, as he was whisked away for the secret meeting just after his return.
Ronald had joined her and Amanda in the tea room, dressed in a nice vest over a dress shirt and slacks. He'd groomed himself properly though his glasses were still bent and his hands weathered. He busied himself with peeling hard boiled eggs with his daughter, placing the shells in an empty teacup. Ronald rose to offer the Earl a proper bow in greeting. Amanda had too, though she wobbled on her curtsy, still not able to keep balance properly.
"Go ahead, Amanda," Ronald urged. "Offer the lady of the house a snack."
The girl's eyes lit up as she glanced at her father then at the Earl. She quickly dug into her bag, withdrawing a single egg. Bounding over, she held it up for the earl. "Would you like one, Lady Earl Ma'am? I made it! Well, Mama made it, but I still helped!"
"What a pleasant treat~ !" the Earl exclaimed gleefully, plucking the egg from the small child's hands. "You're so thoughtful, my dear Amanda~ . Why don't you take a seat with the rest of us while we discuss some business, hm?"
Amanda nodded, crawling back onto the couch next to her father. The Earl sat across the table from them on the opposing couch, crossing her knees delicately one over the other. Taking a fingernail, she cracked the egg through the center, peeling the shell apart in two pieces. "How is your project progressing, Ronald-pon~ ?"
"Everythin's on schedule, my lady," Ronald replied. "Just a little bit more and I'll be able to breathe life into this thing. I've even spun a new thread to make sure this one holds tight."
"Excellent~ " the Earl cheered excitedly. "We'll start the plan to fix Paris when it's ready~"
…
Author's ramblings
Aaaah. I apologize for the delay. Things have been busy!
I felt like I needed to have a cute anecdote while still being somehow creepy. I haven't really addressed Ronald and his family since they'd arrived chapters ago, and Amanda is the only one I've named, though he's got a bunch of kids.