AN: Ugh... So long since I updated. I have a full excuse in my Orbz story, but I doubt you want to hear it. This took me some time to conjure but here it is. Gosh, this is not one of my better writings. . I'm sorry! I... make horrible endings...I hate it! I might make a prologue, but I doubt anyone would care. If you do...
DROP ONE LAST REVIEW. :D
shevaleon: I'm so sorry! I have no control over the stupid internet. But here you go.
nalamacleod: Thank you for pointing out the loophole. Well, it would have been if you haven't pointed it out.
The Prank...Again
The first things we heard were the rushed voices of complete strangers in Howard's place. I knew they were strangers because there were a lot of them and they weren't female voices. Last time I checked, I was the only male prostitute; secondly, costumers did not come in droves- that was actually counterproductive for a human business in the middle of a demon-wrecked town. The room was empty- and horribly crowded- so that must mean that either Howard was driven out or that he has moved out because of his personal 'scouts'. Either way, the old man wasn't here anymore and I olnly hoped that he was okay.
Our group was separated in two: the bevy of girls that looked over Trowa's collapsed form, and Treize and Wufei trying to get Milliardo and Marimeia to regain consciousness. Marimeia slowly sat up, holding one side and panting.
"I think the bastard broke my ribs," she muttered.
Catherine, hearing this, and probably ascertaining that her brother was sleeping off using so much power, went over to her. "Let me take care of that."
But Treize grabbed her. "Please, can you teleport like Trowa? Take her and Milliardo somewhere safe?"
"Milliardo?" Catherine said questionably, looking at him. The blonde had his eyes open, but his look was blank. You know those people who had emotional breakdowns and just sat there staring off into space? That was the creepy face Milliardo was giving us.
"You can take me as well," Dorothy said. "I'm no fighter."
"Me neither," Hilde agreed, barely concealing her tremebling.
"It's fine with me... but..." Catherine hesitated. "Unless you know a safe place for me to go, it's unlikely that we can easily meet up again. For part-fairies can only grant one wish, and it takes a lot out of one if it is to be done right."
"My clan's temple," Wufei offered, "It's in shambles, but it's the safest place right now that we know of, if you don't mind the occasional looters. Can you make it there?"
"I don't have enough power to take all of us up there. At least one has to stay." Her eyes were closed in concentration.
One of the strangers downstairs yelled, "We haven't checked upstairs yet!"
Of course, we were upstairs.
"I guess I'll stay." Dorothy leaned back, looking extremely irritated. Her fun games had become so serious all of a sudden; I knew how she felt.
"Gather around me! I can't concentrate if you're so spread out." We sort of had to push Milliardo to Catherine, and Hilde and Marimeia gathered around. "Don't worry about Trowa. When you all fight the Order, if you do, let Trowa shoot her. She wouldn't stand a chance."
Milliardo tapped Catherine on the shoulder.
"Y-Yes, Milliardo? I need to concentrate," she spoke slowly, as if she was speaking to a small child, "so I can take you somewhere safe."
He shook his head, crawling back next to Wufei.
"You don't want to go?"
He shook his head again.
"I'll take his place!" Dorothy automatically said.
"It's safer if you go," Wufei tried to persuade Milliardo, who only kept shaking his head.
"I hear voices in here! Tear down the door!"
"Are you sure you can't take him, Catherine?" Treize asked, looking panic-stricken as Milliardo held Wufei's hand, then his.
"Sorry," was all Catherine said before disappearing.
The only door banged open then, and the Orderlies there opened themselves a can of nude whoop-ass, which I will not go into detail about. Blood and ash looks really sexy if you at least have some pants on. More than that, it was pretty hard work with only five of us in fighting condition. The only thing going for us was the fact that they could only come in through the door, and that made them ridiculously easy targets. After that, we looked for some clothes, which consisted of leather outfits, because, seriously, this was a cathouse. Thank Fate that we found something for Treize. Anyway, instead of going out the front- that would've been dumb- or out the back, I led them to the basement- which was actually a stream of lights shining the way up and down the sewer line. Quatre was carrying Trowa, and Treize took up Milliardo, who had taken up staring off into space. I could bet both my feet that the guy was officially off his rocker. Once we were down there, we decided to stop and talk after awhile.
"Where is this going to lead us?" Wufei demanded, steering clear of the dripping pipes and the sluggish water on the side of us then sitting down on his cape. "Does anyone know what we actually are going to do?"
We all sat down around him, Heero saying, "We need to find out if the Maxwells are really dead."
Suddenly, we watched as Milliardo waved his hands. When he had our attention, he made a slashing gesture around his neck and a goofy, but nevertheless dead face.
"They're dead?"
Another gesture had him using both hands, first to make a rectangle, then acting out hammering something.
"As doornails."
He nodded.
Then suddenly it came to me: "How do you feel?"
Milliardo cocked his head to the side, looking once at Treize, then at Wufei. He put his thumbs up.
"You feel A-OK?"
He looked bewildered for but a moment, then tapped his throat, and making the signature 'I don't know' pose.
"He doesn't seem to know why he can't speak," Quatre translated for us, and he received a nod. "Do you remember what J did to you?" A shake of the head. "How old are you?"
He put up one finger. Then six.
"Wait a minute, if you believe you're that old," Wufei protested, pummeling on even as Milliardo scrunched his eyebrows in confusion, "then how do you know the Maxwells are dead?"
Milliardo's fingers pointed to both his eyes, and he made a blank stare. There was collective 'oh' around the group. His powers were back. So then we then proceeded to tell him most of what happened the last eight or so years, leaving out the part that his sister was dead. He, suddenly shy, wouldn't look at Treize or Wufei square in the face. Then he went staring off into space again.
"If they didn't kill him, then who did?" Heero looked ready to hurt himself not knowing. I patted him on the knee.
Milliardo waved. He put up two fingers, traced his naked upper lip, pulled at his nose, and made the slash-goofy-but-dead face again.
"Two more Order members were killed," Heero informed us, "Possibly, if I'm reading him correctly, S and H."
"Who the fuck is running this?" I muttered, exasperated.
"G...Une..." Trowa whispered from Quatre's lap, eyes, looking heavy, halfway open. "When...I snuck to spy.. on them...That's what...they talked about."
"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Heero demanded, 'We could have prevented it."
Bemusedly, Treize said, "I didn't read anything."
"They.. had been working on fighting against your telepathy... and.. they said...that the plan wouldn't work without Dekim."
"And Dekim died, so you didn't find any reason to tell us," Quatre finished. Trowa waved his hand to show him he was correct.
"Well, it's working now," Wufei growled sourly. "Three Order members dead and- wait, we're here!"
"Yea, your point?" I egged him. He sent me a face.
"Look, when we left they were all together, then they sent all those Orderlies to Howard's place. J has to put two and two together to know that none of us are behind it."
"But he said,"- Trowa managed to get on his knees and I realized that I had unknowingly gave him the sexiest outfit imaginable, but now was not the tiem to think on that- "that because Duo's existence is causing a disturbance, he was going to kill him."
"Is there any we could just tell J?" I asked.
"THERE YOU ARE!"
Une's screeching was like nails on the chalkboard. I heard Quatre rushing to say to Trowa that Catherine advised us to let hiim shoot her. Trowa whispered back that we had to buy him some time; he was super tired.
Une looked almost innocent when she looked at Treize. "Please, my love,"- Treize shuddered- "This is your last chance to join me. Or else the nobles of our Order will tear you to shreads."
"I'll take my chances."
Her body shook; she looked extremely unwell. "You poor deluded-"
"Look! Une. I don't like you, never have, never will. Know why? You. Are. Fucking. Insane."
"I am?"
"You never knew? Everyone has said you were!"
"But... You never did! Paranoid.. But never crazy..Never.. Do you really think I'm insane?"
"Yes! Why do you think I never protested when others said it?"
"Treize thinks I'm crazy.. Insane," Une said to herself, walking the opposite way from us. She turned once and asked Treize, "Do you think it's permanent?"
Unsure of what to say, he answered, "It's pretty much solid, in my opinion."
"I killed... Three Order members. It was so easy, just stabbed them in the back. So easy."
Forget Milliardo, Une's marbles were all over the sidewalk.
"G said... 'You'll have Treize if I was the Order supervisor' and so I helped, but you think I'm crazy, just like everyone said I was."
Now you probably think that Une makes a miraculous turnaround or at least leaves us alone.
Wrong. Actually she began to say the same crazy thing stalkers always say.
"Well, if I can't have you," she whispered, and began standing before BANG! and she went to dust. It went so quick that what all I saw was one bullet pierce one breast, presumabley hit her heart, and came out the other side.
Trowa's gun vanished before I even got a good look at it. Oh yea, and he passed out. I then had to confess that I did not know where the sewer led to and I definitely did not recommend going down there for a midnight stroll. For one, the lights stopped not too far from where we were, and it was pitch black over there. Milliardo wouldn't budge. So then we all had to stealthily move back, and who do we hear when we come back? Alex and Mueller.
They were yelling, "Lord Maxwell! Lord Kushrenada!" over and over. They were above us, still in the penthouse. Only Treize and I went up the stairs to meet them. We knew that we could at least take them on by ourselves.
Alex first pushed Mueller, then Mueller pushed Alex a lot further so that he hit Treize square in the chest. Shaking, he told him,"Order leaders J and G have offered you a compromise. They said... to meet at your mansion, Lord Kushrenada, within the next hour or else they will kill your mother and father."
"Can I not go alone?"
"No, you can't. Everyone with you must go." Then they zipped out of there.
We relayed the news to the rest of them, Milliardo had another vision and was quite enthusiastic to go. Not like anxious-about-Treize's-parents enthusiastic- like happy-let's-go! enthusiastic. We didn't have time for him to explain, for we had to speed-run all the way to Treize's house. We as in Milliardo, Wufei, Trowa, and I got onto our respective lovers backs, or into his arms, and they ran off. In half an hour we were there. Alex and Mueller were there, guarding the door. I gave Heero look, and he rolled his eyes at the spectacle.
"Only Duo first. The rest of you can go in at the signal," Mueller said, opening the big doors a crack big enough for me to step through.
Now, the next few (and sadly, last) parts of my grand adventure happened so quickly that I can only recall it in several pictures:
The nobles reenacting that first day I came here, with the party and everything? Except that they were all sitting down, looking extremely angry at me.
G leaping at me, bigger than fucking Treize and muscles the size of boulders, fanged teeth like small army knives.
Black.
A pile of ashes at my feet.
Every one of the nobles standing and transforming into their more powerful selves.
Lady and Lord Kushrenada were still sitting, languidly. Lady Kushrenada waved at me.
Then J started clapping, and that's when the rest of them were allowed in. Everyone was staring at J like he had grown another head. I was staring at J like he had grown another head.
"You planned this!" Milliardo yelled.
"Oh? My neuromagic didn't work on you? You were supposed to forget from now until you were sixteen, just before the war. That was supposed to trigger your visions back. I thought it would work." J actually pouted.
"Sorry, it didn't." Milliardo wavered a bit on his feet and glared at the rest of us to prove him wrong. It seems like seeing J shocked him so much that it actually reversed the magic.
One of the nobles called, "What's going on here, Lord J?"
"It's all really simple really," J said disinterestedly. "The Kushrendas caught wind of my fellow Order members planning to overthrow me- a split lapse in their powerful anti-telepathy guards which were truly, truly amazing. At first I didn't believe the Kushrendas, for I thought my fellow Order members knew they had plenty enough power anyway, but I guess that ending the war on such simple turns really hurt them. Anyway, they killed off the Maxwells so that Duo here could be introduced to the neighborhood and can be used as a scapegoat for their plans. Eventually, G realized that he could rule by himself and planned, with Lady Une, to get rid of the ones in on the plan to overthrow me. Must I go on?" Some of the other nobles egged him on. "Please, Lord Kushrenada, continue.
Sagging over a little like his son, and staying lying down on the pillow, Lord Kushrenada still managed to bellow, "Dekim was in on the plan too and would have got Duo in, at least, the same room as the Order members before killing them. But he was too chickenshit on the occasions. It wasn't in their plans for Dekim to die. But it was in our plans to let them kill each other, with Duo or Treize or one these hear outsiders finish off Une and G. As you can see, it has happened, without any significant deaths on the supposed good side."
"Woah! Hey!" I yelled. This was too good to be true. "Why didn't you let us in on the plan? It was fucking dangerous."
Lord Kushrenada shrugged. "For punishment on defiling a Seer, harboring a war criminal, and threatening nobles of higher stature. Not like I give a shit about any of that, but that's just how J runs."
"No hard feelings?" J asked, offering his mechanical hand.
"None whatsoever." I shook it stiffly. It was quiet in the room for a moment. "So you don't hate me or anything?"
"Of course not. You have been a great asset to the apprehension of traitors, though you're a bit of a traitor yourself." He grinned creepily, and I hurriedly let go of his hand.
"You know," I said carefully. I better try to get on his good side. "Milliardo, for a few minutes there, was sixteen again, but-" I think Treize was killing me with a glare.
"I know."
"Umm.. You do? How?"
"Because I was perfect. I did it exactly right. Too bad he's back to normal. Another try like that and he'll die, and he's just no use to me then. I was just going to let it go but you've actually a few kiss-ass points."
"Yay! Now, I just gotta avoid Treize for a bit...Wait a minute! Do I still get to live in my mansion and everything?"
"Nothing has changed except that four Order seats are open."
Seriously?
Seriously.
Seriously!
So, shit, it was all just a big plan of J to get rid of his asshole buddies, and he played us like puppets. Did I have a problem with that? Not really. Now... Could we really concentrate on peace for awhile after this horrible prank? Sure we can! And have sex all the time too!
But first, Trowa reminded us when he finally woke up and we were back at my mansion- that was not in the trouble of being disturbed by Dekims, Gs or Lady Unes anymore- we had to get the girls back. Seven guys on a road trip up north. All of them sexy as hell. Was all this danger worth it? Heero grabbed me by the waist as we got the carriages ready for the trip.
Yea, it was.