Flashback:

Suddenly, the earpiece crackled as if Lil had finally decided to answer him back, but instead, the shark was met by a sinister voice that made his blood run cold:

"Nice try, fuckers."

Squalo's mouth moved as he recognized the faint, yet obvious sound of it breaking before the communication stopped completely; how could Lil have been captured so easily and so fast?

Chapter 26: To the Rescue?

Squalo had stood, staring at the wall for no more than a few seconds as it sunk in; Lil had gotten her ass caught, and hell knows what Russo did to her. If there was anything he knew, he was ruthless and he'd seen it.

"Shit!"

He cursed as he hurried to the big bastard's office. His silvery locks cascaded into his face more than once, but today that wasn't much of a concern. Squalo skipped steps on the stairs up to the boss's office as it got closer in sight and he slammed his full weight against the doors, which flung open.

Xanxus stared at him from a relaxed position on his desk as Squalo hurried to compose himself again.

"The hell do you want?"

"Don't give me that shit, this is important. Lil; I think something happened to her."

As expected, it took Xanxus a moment to process the information, and when he did, his eyes widened as he stared through the shark-man.

Then, Xanxus stood up and pulled one of his guns from his back pocket, pointing it at Squalo's chest.

"Don't fucking lie to me."

Squalo put his hands up and ran them through his hair in frustration.

"I'm not! Russo's voice came on and he said 'nice try, fuckers' and broke the damn thing, so how the hell'd he get ahold of it? The hell'd he do to Lil to get it?"

Xanxus lowered his gun for a moment before finally setting it down on his desk, his eyes lowering with it, until they shot back up to Squalo's face and they narrowed.

"Where is she?"

Squalo shook his head wildly, swinging his arms in exasperation.

"I don't know! The last thing she said was that she thought he was heading toward the abandoned lot, and it was quiet for almost five minutes until he picked it up!"

Xanxus breathed in deeply when he mentioned that it had been quiet, and a frustrated, tense silence followed.

"Go look, then."

Squalo took note of the way he clenched his fist and wildly fought to breathe normally. The shark nodded and backed out of the room and closed the door in his own face.

"Why the fuck would you make me do it; why don't you do it, fuckin' bastard?" He muttered underneath his breath as he sauntered down the marble steps.

Fran happened to turn the corner and look up at Squalo before doing a double-take.

"Squa-senpai, why do you look like shit?"

The disrespect that was shown would have normally ignited a shitstorm, but today was the exception.

"Kid, listen; Lil has been apprehended by Russo, and that bastard wants me to do it. However-"

"-He doesn't understand that you do not do stealth missions because you're not quiet. I gotcha, senpai. Get me an earpiece and count me in."

The frog gave two thumbs up with a speck of enthusiasm in his gaze. Squalo, of course, immediately called bullshit.

"Sure, the fuck do you want, kid?"

Fran took a moment to think about it and he shook his head. "Eh, nothing this time. I'm actually sort of worried about Lili-chan. Guy's dangerous."

Squalo handed him the earpiece in his ear and began to start back up the stairs to get another one.

"Actually remember to report in whatever the hell you're doing this time. I want to know if Lil's okay."

"Since when is it like you to care, senpai?" Fran stared at him, blankly, until Squalo shook his head.

"I don't care, but he does."

Squalo nodded toward the boss's doors and the room got oddly silent, as the tension crushed both Varia members.

He panted shallowly as he headed away from his sixth kill. Belphegor had successfully killed six people with the help of the Prince, and it was relaxing.

Suddenly, Bel didn't feel hurt or pained; he felt normal. He felt like his old self.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he pushed the Prince to the back of his mind, as he was satisfied as well.

Blood soaked the entire front of his red and gray striped shirt and spotted his jeans, but Bel didn't care. Hopefully, no one would find the rapidly decomposing bodies behind the dumpster in the back alleyway.

As he hobbled back down the street, trying his hardest not to look out of place, until he caught a glimpse of a familiar-looking guy heading toward a faded bricked building.

Through his blissful haze, he recognized the guy from a previous hit that he and Squalo had gone on, but it must have failed. He couldn't recall; it'd been too damn long.

"The fuck?"

The words tickled his lips as he began to cross the empty street on impulse and watched a girl with black hair be forced into the shabby doorway.

Did anyone else see that?

There wasn't any commotion around him, so no civilians had witnessed what he had seen.

As much as Bel's conscience tried to steer his memory in the correct direction, he couldn't deny that he had seen Lilie. Her lithe body shape was recognizable to him anywhere, but why would she be out of the HQ and who was she with?

Fran stretched as he took his first steps out of the hellhole that he called 'home'.

"Lili-chan got captured and they want me to go check out the abandoned lot near the park down the street," he muttered to himself for the sake of remembering exactly what he was doing.

The kid's shoes scrapped against the sidewalk when he trudged along, watching people walk by.

If only he was just as carefree as they were. No; he had to live the life of a murderer that lived with other murderers who were slightly more insane than himself.

"I need to get out more." Fran whispered to himself as the earpiece crackled and Squalo's voice rang loud and clear.

"VOIII; can you hear me, frog-shit?"

"You don't need to yell, Squa-senpai. I think you've broken my eardrum."

"Never mind that, you little shit. Hurry up; I don't want to get my ass kicked for not going out there myself."

Fran rolled his eyes and didn't bother to gratify the captain with an answer. So what if he was a bit slow? It'd been quite a while since he'd gotten some alone time anyway.

People stared and pointed when they watched him walk by with his huge frog hat. Fran even told himself inwardly that they had no right to stake an opinion on him because of what he was wearing, but it still bothered him nonetheless.

Stifling a sigh, he listened to the earpiece that was exploding with questions:

"Are you almost there? Do you see anyone?"

Fran clicked the button to finally respond: "I suppose I'm halfway there, and no, I don't see anyone. Squa-senpai, stop asking stalker questions and let me do my job."

Without waiting for a reply, Fran turned the thing down so he couldn't hear Squalo's attempt to put him back in his place.

Soon, Fran passed the near-empty park and spotted the entrance to the empty lot, where he slowly stalked up to.

As expected, there was no one there and it was indeed an abandoned lot.

"Squa-senpai, it's empty. Now where do you want me to look?"

Fran turned the earpiece up again as the shark gathered his thoughts.

"Uh, I think the sheet said that the next probable place Russo could be is a smaller headquarters that he has, which is adjacent to the park. It's kind of like the storage house for his family, I suppose. Also, brat, don't get smart with me."

"Senpai."

"Yeah?"

"Why are you so obsessed with me?"

Fran basked in the glory of being able to piss off Squalo without having to be yelled at in person as he turned the earpiece down and began to head toward where he was being directed to.

Though as he approached the crappy-looking building, he spotted his other, more relevant senpai.

"Senpai, what are you doing?"

The blonde froze and turned his head slowly, almost as if he had been caught doing something that he shouldn't have, even though all he had been doing was standing beside the building.

"The fuck? What's my kohai doing here, stalking me?"

Bel's voice had gained back its normal, condescending tone and his smile had reappeared. Although, his shirt and jeans had obvious bloodstains all over them.

Fran could hardly sigh enough with this particular matter.

Was that why he was in a better mood now?

"I thought I told you not to kill citizens, senpai. They didn't do anything wrong."

The smile slowly dropped from Bel's face as he looked down at his clothes and wiped a stray droplet away from his mouth.

"You don't get to tell me shit because I'm the prince, ushishi~ Either way, what the fuck are you doing here?"

Fran's eyebrows crinkled together when he began to tell Bel what'd happened:

"Lili-chan went out on a hit and, according to the captain, she was somehow overtaken and I'm trying to confirm her location."

Surprise flooded the prince's expression when his teeth bit into his pale-pink lips. "That's why I'm standing here; I thought I saw someone take her inside of there, ushi~"

Nervous laughter eased its way out of his mouth and Fran nodded, turning the earpiece on.

"Okay, Squa-senpai. That was the correct location and the prince is here, too. He says he saw someone take her inside."

It was a moment before Fran was graced with a reply, which was a relatively stoic grunt and the earpiece went silent.

Even though Lil was absolutely sure she hadn't been unconscious for long… maybe even at all, her vision finally cleared up as her one eye adjusted to the dark room that she was in.

A lone man stood in front of her, dangling her own gun in her face.

"I almost forgot to frisk you; it's a good thing that I did, hmm?"

The metal flashed with the faint light that the window emitted in the small structure. She sat atop of a couch that felt like a cardboard box and watched little creatures crawl in and out of the walls as if they were running late for work.

Thoughts of plans flashed through her mind, but with her hands bound behind her back, not many were possible.

Lil watched the man straighten his tie and fix his suit nicely, smoothing his hair without a mirror or anything of the sort. He slyly turned back to Lil.

"Varia, Varia… if I kill you, do you think my death will become a priority to them?"

Lil merely stared at him and let the thoughts race through her mind. What was she supposed to do?

No weapons; he'd taken those away from her.

She couldn't get up and hit him or he'd shoot her and kill her… if he already wasn't planning on it.

"I'm not sure… I'm pretty disposable…"

How useless.

Lil lowered her head down to the floor, studying the creaky floorboards. Why had Fran even bothered to pick her up off the streets in the first place? Her previous murders must have been blind luck.

Fuck.

Russo stopped pacing as his foot tapped her kneecap. The temptation that emitted off of his body vibrated the room as he loaded something.

Panic froze Lil as her eyes shot to him, but were immediately met with the barrel of a pistol.

Lil's eyes widened in realization when she struggled to stand up, and when she did, the metal pressed against her forehead.

"Girl, you failed. I realize how close you got to me, and I can't allow you to live any longer than you already have. This will be a message to your coworkers that they need to send higher-class grunts to do the job."

Her hands reacted with the situation as she thrust his arm away from her face as the gun fired, making a clean shot go straight through the wall behind her head.

Russo even looked surprised at Lil's sudden movement and her attempt at escape, even cursing in an attempt to calm himself.

Lil pushed her legs forward and rocketed herself to the other side of the room with her adrenaline pumping.

Gun… gun… where's the damn thing?

Russo began to fire at her and Lil felt unexpected pain in her left arm as she ducked under an unsuspecting table, quickly running through her options.

"Either he can kill you or you can do your job."

Lil took a deep breath, ignoring what she knew was a tear in her arm from a bullet, and let her eye scan the ground for her missing weapon, maybe even possibly her darts. Even those would work.

"Fucking… girl…!"

Russo's annoyed voice boomed through the entire building, and Lil wondered if any civilians had heard all of the commotion; they were only in a simple building that bordered the street. It couldn't go unnoticed… right?

"Fuck it, stupid frog. I'm going in."

The prince announced his own destination as the shots became more rapid and more noticeable. To hell with this guy; if he so much as laid a hand on Lilie, then…

"Hold it, senpai. Squa-senpai hasn't given me any directions yet."

"Who cares, you little shit? Lilie is probably getting herself killed in there, and by the time that shark-peasant answers you, she'll be dead, ushhiii~"

The laugh he let out exaggerated itself when he fought to keep himself from strangling his own kohai, but that was when a final shot rang out and everything went silent.

Fran stared at the building and took a moment to process the entire happening in his mind, but he shrugged and started toward the door.

"Whatever happened, it's over now."

His pale hand reached out to the door, but it was locked tight enough that he couldn't pull it off.

"Senpai, break it."

"You don't order me around, frog." Bel growled under his breath as he positioned himself in a crouching position next to the door as he focused on picking the lock.

It took Bel less than a few seconds before he kicked the door aside with his foot and his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

In the middle of the dark room, with Lil's darts scattered all around the floor in an assortment of color, she stood with her gun pointed at him and panting heavily.

The light hit the back of her head, and when she turned around, her green eye hardened in a way the prince himself had never seen before.

"Why are you here?"

Fran had pushed past him. "Squalo told me to come, and I picked up senpai along the way. He told me that you'd been-"

"In control of the situation, I hope."

Lil finished with so much sass in her voice, it made the blonde's ears burn. Her eye scanned him and her face tensed, but she looked away from him and to Fran, who headed to the corner of the dark room.

"Fran, why did you come; I handled the situation, so go home."

Her arm lowered the gun that it held and she stared into the corner that Fran had disappeared to, which Bel ventured further into and discovered that it was where a man's crumpled body lay.

"He's dead… how'd you do it, Lili-chan?"

Even Fran sounded a little bewildered that the one he'd come to get out of trouble had taken care of it herself, but she shuddered and her voice shook when Bel approached her.

"I had to do what he was willing to do."

"What the hell does-"

Bel began a sentence, but her demeanor showed him exactly what she meant. A hole had been torn in her Varia jacket and her right hand inched its way up to it, and the unnatural way that she focused all of her weight on her right leg was evident as a large hole appeared on her leg in the light that he could see.

Bel's eyes widened and he fell back, into the shadows of the room. She had to stand in front of this guy and ALLOW herself to get shot just to land a hit on him. What the hell was she thinking?

"Lili-chan, we need to get you back to Luss so he can fix you."

Fran prepared himself to have to carry her, but Lil smiled at him and hopped on her right leg toward the open door, leaning against the doorframe as she kept herself steady.

"Let's just go already, before police show up."

Fran shook his head, glancing around at the table and all of the spaced out shelves.

"Ah, there they are."

He took the papers into his hand as he flipped through them, nodding at them and pointing down to the ground at Lil's darts, scattered around by the scuffle.

"Senpai, pick those up."

"You don't fucking tell me what to do."

Bel bent down, picking up all of the immediate ones that he could find, stuffing them into his hand.

"Oh yeah, senpai, those are poisonous. Don't prick yourself on them or you'll die."

Lil giggled a little bit when the prince growled unhappily, and Fran started out the door with her, while Bel picked up the final immediate weapon in sight.

"Hurry; the police will probably show up soon! Stupid people… calling the police every time something goes wrong…" Lil pouted, shaking her head and hopping furiously, trying to keep up with the frog.

"Isn't that what they're supposed to do?" Fran asked, rolling his eyes at her and stealing a glance at the disgruntled prince.

Lil muffled her pain by sighing heavily until an intersection appeared in sight, and Fran attempted to put his free arm around her.

"Lili-chan, I'll help you stand-"

"No, Fran. I could've handled the situation without your help, thanks."

Lil's voice lashed out and it sounded annoyed as hell, causing the prince to look at her in confusion.

Why was she being so defensive now?

The large walls of the HQ were visible from the intersection that they now crossed with minimal traffic.

"Lili-chan, I still can't believe that you took him out without any help… your plan could have been suicide." Fran pushed on with the conversation quietly amongst all of the civilians swamping around them.

Lil hopped beside the two of them, holding her wounded arm in a stoic manner.

"You just have to learn to not care whether you live or you die. Your fear goes away and your luck increases when you do."

A tiny giggle emitted from her throat, despite all of the pain she must have been in.

"The adrenaline hasn't worn off yet," Lil moaned, hopping urgently toward the large gate and pillars that signaled the HQ. "I'm gonna fucking feel it when it does, though…"

Bel slowed up as Lil passed him and his gaze followed the back of her head. Fran slowed down to his speed.

"I told you not to doubt her."

We hit 60 follows –and almost 50 favorites-! Thanks for reading, guys! :3

Also, how'd you guys know who was going to "help" her out? Such mind reading, such good guesses q-q I'll try to make these things less obvious in the future! xD ^-^

I decided to update randomly out of boredom, and expect a chapter on Friday, as usual. :3 Next chapter, I know, I will have a good-ol'-time writing… I can just feel it.

Even so, I dunno, I'm weird, and like… I'm having doubts about this story. I mean, I do love it and I do think that this is one of my better ideas, but… I feel like I could always do better. I know for a fact that I can, so I'll begin to try even harder to make this story worth reading, hmm? Thank you for the reviews nonetheless; they help keep me afloat and they reassure me tons! ^-^

Reviews:

ddmahan922: Haha, take me to Italia with youuu q-q That pervy camera, though xD :3 Thank you for leaving me another review and your continued support :3 ^-^

MichiyoYuki: Lili-chan does have coward-like tendencies… but that's actually one of the reasons why I like her and I think that she's real, you know? I dunno, that could be just me :3 Yes, Lili-chan brought her gun, but she didn't want to use it in fear of making noise and attracting others (the gun is for face-to-face confrontations only) o.o! She had no idea that her hand was going to… do that, you know? xD However, boss-chan's reaction is something that nobody wants to miss –guaranteeing it, I think-. Yes, Bel-chan is in the same town and everything… how did you know? –about the… yeah…- D: xD ^-^ Was it waayyyy too obvious? I'll work on that… Thanks for leaving me another review, your continued support, and your input :D ^-^!

livelovehatedie: Franprobz. He's one of those rare trolls that is useful and a troll at the same time xD Lili-chan's decision was pretty dumb, I'll admit that. Psychology is the hardest class I've ever taken q-q –off topic- The prince does what the prince wants xD Yes, Bel needs some… medication at the moment. We cannot deny the fact that yes, he wants Lili-chan, too xD That isn't a bad idea, what you said, but… hmm… HMMM… maybe I could make it work… Thank you for leaving me another review and your continued support (and for that subtle hint at a certain pairing) xD :3 ^-^

animeotaku0434: Haha, I love that you said boss-chan is a tsundere xD I dunno why, but it just made me laugh :P Bel is just crazy in general, we can leave it at that xD Thank you, thank you :D –blushies- Thank you for leaving me another review and your continued support :3!

stella-chan: She probably should have… which is part of the reason why I'm editing previous chapters and stuff, because I feel like I made it much too easy q-q I'm glad you find this story exciting, though xD ^-^ Your English is quite good, so it's easy to understand :3 Thank you for leaving me another review and your continued support! :3

Chocolatluver4ever: I'm trying D: Spring Break for me is Friday the 14th, so by then I'll be able to update a lot during that time, hmm? :P Thank you for leaving me another review and your continued support! :D!

Bokviki: It kinda was his fault, just a little xD He did sorta kidnap her, I suppose… what a nub. I-I-I-I-I DIDN'T THINK ABOUT THAT D; GOGOGOGOGOOGO –spasm- xD Thank you for leaving me another review and your continued support! :3