37. Fire, Fire

Tyki glared at his kin, eyes flashing gold and back again. Rhode ignored her 'uncle' as she swung her feet, perched on one of the garden's many benches. They were far enough from the house that no one would see them together (Tyki still looked like a beggar fresh off the street, after all) but still within the Estate's walls, so no one outside could see them either.

The little girl spoke. "It was only natural that they die, you know," she stated as a matter of fact, "the Earl didn't like that you spent so much time away from home among ... them."

"So you're telling me the Earl did this." The man barely held back his outrage, and felt his skin tingle as it began to change into gray. That only fueled his anger; Tyki hated the fact that he had so little control over his 'Black' half now, that he felt like he could snap at any moment.

Rhode shrugged, smoothing out her skirt. "I'm surprised that you didn't see it coming, actually. The three didn't have any place in our plan after all, and we're getting so close to the real war—,"

"Wait," the fires Tyki felt shrank a little, "how many do you think died?"

The girl pouted up at him, grumpy at being interrupted. "Three. You had three toys, didn't you?"

Ignoring the word choice, Pleasure couldn't help but smile. "Only two are dead." After the horrible shock she had just put him through, he though Rhode deserved to have the fact rubbed into her smug little face.

The Noah of Dreams raised an eyebrow at him. "Really? But the Earl sent out an akuma. Only a level one, but its not like people stand a chance against even that."

Tyki crossed his arms and kept his comments to himself. An akuma ... was that the reason a relatively safe mine collapsed, and why Eeze moved from the 'home' he had left him to take up residence somewhere else?

"Unless, of course ..." understanding flickered, and Rhode leaped to hug Tyki's waist, "... one of your toys got a dragon?" The man wasn't entirely comfortable with how fast or easily the girl had figured out the puzzle. "One did!" The Noah concluded by the look on his face. "What color is it uncle Tyki? Is it white like Isaac? Or black? Tell me, tell me!"

"I thought we were supposed to get rid of the beasts." The man pointed out, reminding the girl of the Earl's standing order, wishing he had a cigarette to light.

Rhode laughed. "Only if they don't listen to us. But if the one your toy has listens, like Isaac, we can keep it too!"

Tyki raised an eyebrow, causing it to disappear behind his curling black bangs. "And why would the little pest want to do that?"

"Because Isaac wanted to," the girl rationalized, "and if he wanted to, others might want to too."

"I highly doubt the dragon wants to do anything I want him to." The man said, thinking about just how much the little brown disliked him and how much he hated the beast in kind.

"Oh?" Rhode's golden eyes sparkled. "And what about your toy? Would the dragon do what your toy wants?"

Tyki thought about it. "Yes. No. Possibly." He hedged, before saying in frustration: "I don't know Rhode, why don't you ask the pest yourself?"

"Okay, I will." The girl marched off, dressed in her finest and eyes toning back down to her 'human' violet shade.

"Wait!" Tyki said, following and realizing his mistake. He didn't care if the other Noah wanted to get a look at the creature but he didn't want her freaking Eeze out.

She didn't listen to him and skipped on ahead, somehow moving faster than he without any effort on her part. Apparently, he wasn't allowed to have a say in the matter. The two miles from the Estate to the inn went by much faster than they had on the way there, and Tyki had to resort to running partially on air to keep up with his 'niece.'

How the girl already knew which inn he had left Eeze, and which room they were staying in, was beyond the poor man entirely—

And then Rhode was opening the door, the boy was blinking confusedly at the unexpected visitor, and the dragon was nowhere to be seen.

"Hello!" The girl chirped, strolling over to sit herself down next to Eeze on the bed.

"... Hello?" The boy asked, looking at her in unmasked confusion.

Rhode eyed the urchin up and down, a small pout on her face. Abruptly, she demanded: "Whats your dragon's name?"

Eeze flinched and looked pleadingly at Tyki, lost and confused. The man, huffing as he leaned against the door frame of their room, nodded for him to answer.

"Nathan. Who are you?"

"And whats it's color?" Rhode pressed on, ignoring the boy's question. Tyki felt very strange seeing the two of them in the same room together; the girl dressed in her noble dress that had probably only been worn once and the boy in dirty rags that looked like they should have been thrown away years ago.

"Brown." Eeze moved away from the girl, wiggling where he sat on the bed. Tyki didn't like how the fellow Noah's eyes sparkled at the boy's answer and walked into the room, ready to intervene if he needed to.

"Oh," she didn't even attempt to hide her glee, "really?"

"Rhode—," Tyki started warningly.

Needless to say, she ignored him in favor of answering Eeze's first question. "I'm Tyki's niece, Rhode Camelot. Who are you?"

"Eeze. Just Eeze." The boy seemed confused, and was looking curiously from Rhode's obvious signs of wealth to Tyki, who was wearing clothing just as raggedy as his own at the moment. "I didn't know Tyki had family."

The Noah girl laughed, and Tyki found the sound strangely grating.

"Well, of course not! Uncle Tyki is like a secret agent. Didn't you tell him Tyki?" Rhode's eyes flickered to the man, full of mirth at the situation she was in. Eeze was looking at him now too, questioningly.

"Well ... you can look at it that way—," The man tried to explain, but was cut off by the other Noah yet again.

"How about you have dinner at my house?" Rhode asked.

Tyki felt his jaw drop at the question.

"I'll tell my father that you're a classmate of mine; he's been begging me to bring one home for a while now, but I'd rather bring you instead." The Noah smiled at the amazed expressions on both of the males. "I'd be fun."

//DRDRDR//

Lavi felt like his heart was going to explode. Gripping the wounded ear and holding onto his hammer while yelling at it to extend as far and fast as it could, the frantic organ was pumping blood in double time. With each pulse a small dribble of red squeezed it's way past his fingers, though he knew the small wound would probably stop bleeding soon do to the cold and to the pressure he was putting on it.

The Exorcist was lucky that only the lobe of his ear had been cut off and not something more substantial, like his head. Hell, he was lucky he was still alive to even be panicking about dying right now and he knew it.

Lavi had never seen his hammer move him so fast or so close to the ground; he was lucky that there were few obstacles to run into. He'd never seen an akuma move so fast before, either.

The level four was lazily (lazily! The bastard!) gliding next to him and grinned as it watched the Exorcist's expression darken. It then it hit him, smashing his right arm with an unmeasurable force, causing him to fly in a different direction all together. The hammer retracted to normal size as his concentration balked, and Lavi couldn't tell if his right hand still gripped his weapon or not.

The Bookman couldn't tell whether he was goingup or down, if his right arm was whole or broken, or even if he was still bleeding or not. Like a rock, he fell.
And then she caught him.

Breathing fire and eyes glowing, her claws wrapped protectedly around him like unbendable bars, and she hisses her unbridled furry at the akuma as her wings beat in time with the pain pulsing through his entire right side.

Right on time, Lavi would've said, but was too busy trying to catch his breath.

With his one uncovered eye half open, he watched the fire head straight towards the akuma. It dodged. The fire still got the tip of one of it's wings, but the creature was largely undamaged.

The teen felt his heart sink at the sight of how little damage had been done.

Ammy growled, lips pulled back to reveal glistening fangs and pink gums. The dragon wasn't as scared as she was angry. But, then again, she had never faced such an akuma before, had she?

"We ..." Lavi wheezed, then ground his teeth together at the pain his ribcage felt at the single word. His sentence of: 'We need to get out of here.' went unuttered.

Looking at his right arm he saw blood dripping out of his coat sleeve, the jacket hiding just how severe his wound was. The Exorcist just decided to label his arm as 'broken' and 'unusable.' Miraculously, his weapon was still in hand (blood sliding across it) and it seemed fine enough. The Innocence was also safe in his pocket, its green glow leaking out from it's confines.

And then the gunshots started going off. Ammy abruptly dodged by folding her wings and diving, painfully jarring the human held protectively within her hand-like paws. The dragon continued flying in a roller coaster like manner, causing Lavi no small amount of unintended pain, trying to avoid as many bullets as she could.

The Exorcist didn't know how long the flight lasted; all he knew was that when the orange dragon stopped moving finally and attempted to place him gently on the ground she was on the icy ground and the akuma was nowhere in sight, apparently left behind.

"Stay here." The dragon ordered in a harsh whisper, ears flickering around like saucers, indicating the akuma wasn't as far way as it seemed. "I will lead the creature away, and try to kill it. Do not move, Servant. You are hurt, and I will come back for you when I am done."

And then she flew away.

Lavi watched with one pain-blurred eye, observing her go and looking at the holes the level four's bullets had already created on one side of her. He used his left hand to pull his Innocence out of his bleeding right and gripped it as another bout of pain from his right side assaulted his brain. It took him an unknown amount of time to pull himself together again, panting and sweating beneath his civilian and Exorcist clothing.

The orange had laid him out around a grouping of rocks and shrubbery, probably in the hopes that the Exorcist would be able to hide there. But Lavi wasn't worried about himself for the moment. The picture that kept going through his mind was of the yellow dragon decomposing right before his eyes, turning into dust in the wind.

The yellow's Innocence still warmed his chest pocket, pulsing as if it were a heart beating. That was nothing unusual; Lavi had known Innocence fragments do such things since the first time he had held one.

His right side throbbed in time with the Innocence as he tried to force himself into a standing position. Partially succeeding as he made himself sit upright at least, fire burning painful notes up and down his arm and ribcage, he tried to get a better grasp on his surroundings as he leaned against a large boulder.

Gravel was scattered everywhere in sight, along with other boulders and some scant shrubbery that grew gnarled and twisted from the rough environment. The tinted blue sky was mostly blocked by the rough spires of rock that grew higher than the greenery to reach the sky, and he saw no clouds.

A cold wind hissed by the ruin like shelter of the wild, drying the sweat that beaded the injured Exorcist's forehead and stung the wound on his ear. Lavi hissed at the small discomfort, trying to focus on the minor pain instead of the major.

By damned fucking God, it hurts! He internally cursed, because he knew that talking would probably only make the ribs on his right side hurt more. The Bookman couldn't tell whether or not the ribs were broken, but as long as he wasn't coughing blood it was alright; that meant that at least his right lung wasn't punctured.

But, after a few moments, Lavi found he could finally try to ignore the pain. So he did, shutting away the physical discomforts away in a corner of his mind to be pondered later, and forced himself to look over the damage.

Wincing at the sight of blood still dripping down his right sleeve, revealing that his arm was not only broken but that the bone had probably punctured the skin, Lavi quickly used his orange scarf as a makeshift sling for his arm (only vaguely aware of the white-hot pain he caused himself). He didn't bother to take off his jacket to look over his right side, knowing that it was probably a mass of bruises, and stood up carefully.

Both legs held and Lavi grinned at the small success, carefully leaning his left side on a boulder for support with his weapon in hand. He wobbled over to where he could get a glimpse of the horizon line, trying to get a grasp on where he was and on what time it was.

The sun had sunk down into the horizon, revealing that the Exorcist had laid trapped in pain for longer than he realized, worrying him. The dragon should have returned by now; any battle, no matter how grueling, could only last for so long.

Red brows narrowed, Lavi tried to stand without the support of the rock 'wall.' Almost falling flat on his face, legs unsteady and right arm unable to be used for balance, the Bookman quickly gave up on the thought of going out to look for the dragon himself.

The Exorcist decided that staying the night where he had been left was the best available option, especially considering how cold the Greenland nights could get. With a sigh, he looked for anything remotely usable for making a small fire. The only objects he found with his sight were rocks, very scrawny looking shrubs, and stars beginning to form on the eastern horizon.

Lavi tightened his grip on his hammer, wondering if he could use the Fire Seal to keep himself warm through the night. It wouldn't require as much energy as he usually used to destroy akuma; he only needed to keep himself warm.

It's worth a shot, at least. The last time he'd done such a thing, he hadn't been conscious of doing so (though Allen had assured him it had been done, while Rhode had been messing with his mind) but if it had been done once ...

Releasing a small Hi-Ban left handed, Lavi tired to concentrate on what he wanted as he released the serpent. The small snake coiled into existence, body the orange of a healthy fire and eyes a hotter yellow, it seemed to look at him curiously before wrapping carefully around his body.

It felt warm, but not as hot as fire was supposed to be while so close to his flesh, and his clothing didn't burst into flames as the serpent touched the cloth with it's body. The chill air seemed to warm around him as well, while the strange scent of the smokeless snake filled the small enclosed space created by the towering boulders.

"Thanks," Lavi said softly to his Innocence before sitting down to lean against one of the large rocks yet again. He didn't trust his legs enough to be able to support him for large amounts of time, and he was starting to felt the pain from his right side again.

It wasn't healthy to ignore pain for too long, Lavi knew, and hoped that the dragon would come back before the dawn.

//DRDRDR//

Ammy hissed, the largely torn-apart akuma still coming at her. She had torn off an arm and leg from the monster's side, but the creature was still fighting fit. It was charred as well, with one eye foaming from being melted beyond repair, and still it came at her with it's good arm transformed into a gun of mammoth proportions.

The dragon could feel the bullets as they pierced her scaly hide, and let out a roar filled with flame in the akuma's direction. The creature only dodged by a few inches, more of it's flesh becoming black and cracking from the intense heat even as the fire missed a direct hit. It was moving more slowly now, but so was the dragon.

She could feel blood beginning to ooze from the bullet wounds, though very slowly. The bullets themselves actually kept the injuries mostly sealed, and she could pull the metal out once the creature was dead and turned to ash.

It would take her Servant longer to heal from his wounds. With a snarl she flapped forward, head striking to tear off the akuma's remaining arm in her renewed rage at the thought of Lavi's bloodied form. The level four dodged out of the way and sent a volley of projectiles into her shoulder and wing.

But, because of how close it dared to come, the dragon was able to grab the akuma in her jaws even as it turned her shoulder into mincemeat. With a crunch that echoed off of the mountaintops, half of the akuma's head went one way along with the remaining arm, and the other half fell with the torso to land and rot in parts unknown.

But Ammy was falling too. The wing that had faced the brunt of the final attack was torn and ripped; air whistling through the bleeding membrane. She tried to land as best she could with only one functioning wing, but the impact was still horribly jarring.

The hard, icy earth crushed the air from her lungs and forced a majority of the bullets deeper into her flesh as she came down hard enough to rebound, and come to meet the earth for a second time.

Shaking, and horribly aware of just how torn and battered she was now that she was no longer fighting and the adrenaline didn't pump through her system, she carefully turned her long neck to inspect herself.

From what she could see, her beautiful orange scales were splattered in red and bullets protruded from wounds all over her. The wounded wing—shredded, bloody, and limp—hung from her right side like a war-torn flag, barely connected to the equally damaged flesh that connected the wing joint at her shoulder.

She wouldn't be flying anytime soon, that much was obvious.

Slowly rising onto all fours, she shook herself off and loose bullets and blood fell to the landscape around her feet like a poisonous rain. Most of the metal protrusions remained, but she would tear them out as she dragged her body back to where she had left Lavi.

With the first step the raw flesh of her wing dragged across the rocky ground, her wounds ran with blood, and pain sang twisting cords up and down her spine from nose to tail tip. The orange snarled at her own weakness and tore one of the bullets free from the massive wound on her shoulder, frustarted.

It was going to be a long walk.

//DRDRDR//

Droog laughed, much to Lenalee's disappointment.

"It is not possible," the dragon posing as a blind beggar asserted. "It will take me many trips yet to get all of my belongings together. At the earliest, we will be leaving this place for your Order when the first snows begin to fall, no earlier."

The man shook his head, loosening the drops of the lake water that clung to his short, blond hair. He grinned at the now-slightly-wet Exorcist, dragon eyes shining in the dark.

The silver dragon only dared to go under the waves to get his belongings in the dark, when no one was looking, or far away from human docks, so that none of the people living nearby would ever guess at what sort of creature he really was, though he did wash himself off whenever he wanted to.

Lenalee looked at the already large pile of chests and boxes on dismay. How much stuff does this dragon have? She wondered in faint amazement. Already, they had sent ahead more than what she had seen in the dragon's cavern. What more could there possibly be?

"I have been traveling the world for far too long," Droog laughed all the harder at her questioning face. "I'm afraid it has made a ... —what do you call it?— ... hoarder, out of me."

"What is all of this stuff?" The girl asked, knowing that not all of the barnacle crusted boxes could hold gold and treasure; it would be impossible to have that much wealth!

Droog grinned. "Treasures. Gold, silver, rubies, pearls, and more."

"It can't be good to keep all of that so wet." The Exorcist pointed out.

The 'blind' beggar just turned his grin into a small smile, feet still in the water. "Ah, but I have made sure these boxes are properly treated. Not a drop has touched the contents within, no matter how much the outside has been ravaged."

Droog examined his pants, frowned at the fact that they were soaked through because he had just gone to the bottom of the lake and back in them, and sighed.

"Why don't you just change?" Lenalee asked, handing the man-dragon his shirt and blindfold.

"Because I don't own another pair of pants?" The beggar returned in partial confusion, pulling the ragged clothing on.

"No," the Exorcist restated, "I meant why not just change into a dragon?"

"Oh." Droog blinked at the girl. "It's not that easy, you know. I can change my size in moments, but in changing the actual structure of my body from human to dragon ... that takes time. A few hours or so to shift all the way, and then a little while to get used to being back in my own skin ..." The dragon wrapped his blindfold on.

Unseen, Lenalee frowned. The Noah of Lust could change faster than that. Far faster than that. But, then again, Droog had already asserted that he wasn't a fighter.

Fully cover by human clothing yet again, Droog searched for his cane. The Exorcist passed the wooden object into the beggar's searching hands.

"Come on," Lenalee said to him as the Finders came within sight, ready to start loading that nights batch of boxes, chests, and treasures. "We should get back to camp."

Droog tapped his cane on the ground for a moment, then said, "I would love to join you, but I think I'll just visit Inna tonight. The chill and hard ground will not bother me as much as a normal human; I am still a dragon, no matter the form."

Lenalee shrugged at that and went on her way, listening to the tap, tap, tap of the blind man's cane as he made his way into the dark town from the shore where he had been swimming.

Many of the buildings were crushed and broken, their skeletons stretching to the sky like obsidian bones. But the blind beggar walked on past the wreckage, having a proper excuse not to see the fire-stripped ruins.

But, he could still smell the stench of the charred wood. The lingering taste of burnt flesh bitterly entered his mouth with the smell, and Droog frowned to himself.

"Tiger, Tiger," He whispered to himself as he tapped his way forward along the street to where his Chosen lived with her mother and sister, "burning bright; in the forests of the night ..."

Poetry was another treasure he loved to collect. Along with gold, virgins, and knowledge.

"What immortal hand or eye; could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

//DRDRDR//

Smudge growled, low and deep, as he sat upon the top of the pyramid. He claws and scale scrapped the stone beneath him, but the black did not care.

They were surrounded.

The burning eye of the Egyptian god, Ra, glared from it's place at the edge of the world as the sea of sand began to swallow it and quench it's unending heat.

"Kanda," The dragon said, voice traveling all the way down to where the Exorcist was arguing with the new 'dragon sitter' they had found. The woman was clutching at her charge, a panicking blue who had never seen so many akuma before in his short time out of the egg, and yelling loudly at in English at Kanda, though with a slight accent.

"I know," The samurai yelled up, and then grabbed one of the archeologist's meaty arms and tossing her at one of the nearby group of Finders and ordering the company in white to hide themselves and the 'meat bag of a woman' somewhere in the maze of ruins inside.

They complacently dragged her away, kicking a screaming, while the blue was sandwiched between her and one of the many white arms dragging them both away.

Kanda drew his weapon and began leaping up the many stone blocks that made the pyramid. "How many?" He called up to the dragon as he made his way up.

"A great many." Smudge said, pointing forward towards the setting sun with an ebony claw as the Exorcist came upward at an amazing pace. "Coming from that way. Low leveled, though."

With a speed and grace not seen in most people, Yuu Kanda climbed onto the dragon with a ease that seemed impossible, considering the beast's size alone.

"Can you give me numbers?" The Exorcist said with a hint of annoyance.

"Hundreds. They are very slow." The great black head turned towards the young male on his back. The dragon's eye glittering in the gathering darkness. "Can we go now?"

"Che."

The answer was clear enough. The black flew off of the stone construct that had stood for thousands of years against wind and cold and heat, and flew as quietly as death to face the small army.

The dragon, black in the coming twilight, save for his eyes and teeth, tore into the demons as Ra's eye closed and his rider killed the monsters as easily as Death kills man.

The fire gone, only the black warriors remained in night's cold embrace as they fought demons in the dark.

END 37. Fire, Fire

AN:

Hmm. Yup. It's shorter than the last few chapters have been ... curses. But everything is moving along nicely now ... I may be able to *mumble-mumble* next chapter and *mumble-mumble* with that character ...

*continues to ponder future plot points tiredly*

Hm, and I'll be updating as the chapters come out, instead of waiting for Tues. But, it will still be semi-long waits for you guys; I have to write the chapter, send it to my wonderful beta, get it back for the super-amazing beta, and then give the chapter one final look-over before posting. Otherwise, mistakes run rabid like mutant blot-bunnies.

Oh, don't forget to Review on the way out ...

-knux33

Gremlin: *yells* HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Luke: ? *shrug* Well, the story has also passed 200,000 words.

Nathan: *rolls eyes with a snort* I just hope the author elects to feed us something more substantial than thin, watery reviews in the coming human year. And takes up some obviously needed writing classes.