Chapter 25
The Fourteenth Awakens
Tyki pulled his lover away from the Apocryphos, allowing the other three Noahs to move in between them and the monster. He gently cradled Allen to his body, only looking down when he was certain that the rogue Innocence could not interfere with him. Tyki's eyes grew pained. Allen had fallen unconscious, bleeding out through the gaping hole in his chest. The Apocryphos had aimed for Tyki's midsection, but Allen was much shorter. If only the young man were just a little taller…
"Allen, wake up, you can't sleep here," Tyki urged him as gently as possible. It was heard to keep his voice even and it nearly cracked. The Noah of Pleasure tapped the General's pale cheek. His heart sank when no silver eyes fluttered open. "Please Allen, you can't do this!"
Tyki applied pressure to the wound while glancing over his shoulder to assess the situation. Wisely, though dangerous to humans, was ineffective when it came to this particular monster. Sheryl could do little more than distract the Apocryphos to allow Road to attack it with her candles. Tyki quickly understood that if they could not finish this quickly enough, Allen would die. He made an impulsive decision, clenching his jaw tightly.
"Wisely, take Allen!" he called to the white haired Noah. Wisely was surprised, but flew over without a second thought. He knelt next to his fellow Noah, applying pressure over Tyki's hand. He grimaced at the feel of blood seeping between his fingers. Human blood usually didn't bother him.
"I need you to make sure he doesn't bleed out," Tyki began. Wisely heard no more than that. A presence tickled the back of his mind and his gaze drifted to the body beneath his hands, eyes narrowing. "Wisely, are you listen—"
"Look," the white haired Noah ordered softly. Tyki tilted his head to look at Allen and gasped. Pale skin had become ashen, as dark as Tyki's and Wisely's. Even stranger was the normally straight hair. There was a definite waviness to the texture, a certain unruliness that was not characteristic of Allen. Tyki would be lying if he said he did not like this look, but at the moment it concerned him as much as it worried him.
Tyki hesitantly lifted his and Wisely's hand from the wound. The blood had slowed considerably.
"This boy has a Noah sleeping within him," Wisely stated, pushing back Allen's hair with a bloodstained hand as if he expected stigmata to suddenly appear. "I can feel it. Any moment now, and that Noah will awaken. We will have to decide a course of action."
"What do you mean?" Tyki demanded. "We have to get him help—"
"It won't be Allen who wakes up, Tyki. Think about it," Wisely prompted him sharply. "There are no more empty spaces for the Noah to fill; the Noah Allen hosts is the Fourteenth, and as soon as he takes control of Allen's body he will attack anyone he sees as a threat. Including us. We don't need to kill him just yet, but we do need to decide which enemy we capture: the Apocryphos or the Fourteenth."
Tyki felt a bead of sweat roll down his temple as the weight of this decision fell onto his shoulders. They had waited so long to receive a clue on the Heart's location; it would be a waste to let this opportunity slip by. But they now had their beloved Fourteenth within their grasp. They had Allen to think of as well.
"We take Alle—the Fourteenth," Tyki declared uneasily. "We can always lure the Apocryphos out again using Allen. The same cannot be said for the Fourteenth."
Wisely nodded without much change in his expression. He had expected this answer and even thought it the wiser choice. "Fine. Then let us make our escape as quickly as possible before things become even more out of hand."
The white haired Noah lifted Allen out of Tyki's arms. The Noah of Pleasure thought he was going to keep Allen out of harm's way, but he scrambled onto his feet as he realized the fact that Wisely was carrying the limp body towards the fight instead.
"What are you doing?" he shouted in a panic. He moved to take Allen away, but Wisely invaded his mind, causing him to collapse onto his knees in a brief moment of agony. Both Road and Sheryl paused in their actions. Even the Apocryphos focused its gaze on the unconscious General.
"Fourteenth," it growled.
"You wanted to stop him and save Allen, did you not?" Wisely asked in a cool voice. He shifted the dead weight in his arms. "Well here you go."
Tyki grimaced in a mixture of pain and fear, Sheryl gasped, and Road shrieked as Wisely carelessly tossed Allen's body towards the Apocryphos. The monster caught him easily.
"What do you think you're doing?" Sheryl cried.
"It's going to kill him!" Tyki shouted. The Apocryphos raised its hand.
"No, I am going to join with him."
Allen's fingers twitched, hand shooting up by its own accord. A sphere suddenly surrounded him, rejecting the Apocryphos's presence in proximity to him. The Innocence slammed into the wall with a solid thud and remained slumped against the wall as if broken. Road and Wisely were the closest to the sphere. They both winced as the barrier tried to push them away as well. But the Noahs were not as abrasive an existence as Innocence.
Tyki watched as his lover levitated in the air, standing as if he were on the ground. An eerie figure formed behind him, reminiscent of the shadow he recognized as belonging to a true Noah. And the worst part came when Allen opened his eyes. He began to laugh with all of the cruelty and darkness of any normal Noah. Only his laughter made the walls shake, made the ground tremble as if in fear. Never had Tyki seen anything more ominous than this awakening.
"Wisely you idiot!" Road cursed. "We need the Earl here! He's the only one who can stop the Fourteenth!"
Wisely suddenly chuckled happily. "No we don't."
Allen—no the Fourteenth—doubled over. The sphere disappeared and he crumpled to the ground in pain.
"Time to grab him and go," Wisely advised sagely, gesturing to the twitching white mass of wounded Apocryphos. "Before that thing gets back up."
Tyki really hated Wisely at that moment.
:.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.:
"Let me go," the Fourteenth ordered as Tyki continued to manhandle him. The chest wound had healed enough that it was no longer life threatening, but he was still in pain from the burn of Innocence and the early transition of becoming a Noah. Luckily for the Camelot family, the Fourteenth was in no condition to do anything more than complain and snap at people. This did not mean it was an easy task leading the Fourteenth onto the Ark. "It's not like we are going to hurt you," Tyki pointed out. So far only he and Wisely had conversed with the Fourteenth. Road remained utterly impassive, going as far to completely ignore his presence, and Sheryl didn't seem to know how he should act. Frankly, neither did Tyki.
"Need I remind you that Wisely of the Demon Eyes threw me at the Apocryphos?" the Fourteenth replied icily.
"We needed a distraction," Wisely said nonchalantly. The group fell silent with nothing more to say. Tyki felt more comfortable this way. It was disconcerting to see Allen's face contort, but the wrong expressions came out. It was unnerving to hear Allen's voice, but all of the inflictions come out as foreign. Tyki wondered if this meant Allen was 'erased' or merely sleeping. He prayed with all of his being that was not the case (he prayed!) and pushed that possibility to the back of his mind.
"It's been bothering me for a while now," the Fourteenth said slowly His eyes were glued onto Road. "Why am I so short? My host was taller than this."
They all stopped to stare at him, even the Noah of Dreams was surprised. Allen's body was hunched over in pain, so he was even shorter than usual, but was the Fourteenth joking?
"Are you an idiot? Your memories awoke inside of a child. He's fifteen years old you moron," Sheryl informed him incredulously. It was the Fourteenth's turn to look shocked.
"That can't be right, I gave my memories to Bookman's Apprentice! He was twenty," he argued. Road's eyes widened as things became both clearer and more confusing.
"He never had Innocence in his arm," she said out loud for the benefit of Tyki and Sheryl. Wisely had already heard her observation. The Fourteenth frowned and looked down at his arms. He gave a startled sound when he saw the black skin of his left hand.
"Is this Innocence? How the hell did it end up with me?" he wondered. He was very disturbed, his stomach churned at the thought of having the wretched Innocence as a part of his body. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Innocence, what have you done? Where is my original host?"
Of course he received no answer. At last the Fourteenth Noah looked up towards his family with a grim face. With the revelation of Innocence, he had realized he would not be able to use his powers or hope to kill the Noahs again. He wouldn't even be able to protect himself from their wrath.
"What will you do with me?" he asked quietly.
"I don't know," Road answered honestly. "We were not expecting to see you, so your appearance was not a part of our plan. The Earl will decide your fate."
"He will kill me again," the Fourteenth muttered darkly.
"Not while you're in that body," Tyki said without thinking. He felt his brother's gaze upon him and averted his eyes.
"The Earl will decide," Sheryl repeated, a note of finality in his voice. The Fourteenth ground his teeth together, wincing as the throbbing in his body became greater. He forced himself to continue forward to face his doom. He would rather meet it sooner than wait for it.
While the Noah of Pleasure held no special affection (or any real opinion) towards the Fourteenth, it made him feel guilty to watch the struggling Noah force himself to walk on. This one trait reminded him of Allen, and while this was Allen's body he could not bear to see that familiar form in pain. With a sigh of reluctance, Tyki followed the Fourteenth, looping an arm around the thin waist to help support some of the weight. The traitor eyed him suspiciously.
"What are you doing?" He tried to pull away from Tyki despite the increase in pain.
"Shut up and take my kindness when I offer it to you," Tyki spat back out. He really wanted Allen back. He hoped that Allen was still there. Somewhere.
Yay! An update. I hope you enjoy this, because it is my celebratory gift for finally getting out of school. Now I just have to wait for the fall semester…summer is going to suck.