Codename-SN - Your reaction is probably the best I've ever heard to one of my stories! Though I am sorry about your poor head...
sparklehannah (Guest) - I hope this is everything you were hoping for and more!
Bloop (Guest), sousie, - thanks for your review!
Also, I'm sorry to everyone for the end... don't kill me.
Chapter 7
"Um, Allen, there's a problem. Those people that you wanted to avoid are on the train. In the front." Eeez whispered for only Allen to hear. It didn't matter how quiet he was, though. Everyone else in the cart were able to tell something royally pissed the albino off. The people who knew he was running from a group of freaks were able to piece together the clues and figure it out in their minds.
Crack and Momo's skin turned a shade whiter. Complete and absolute destruction was not something they enjoyed, no matter what people thought of them because of their appearance.
Tyki could guess after hearing all of Allen's stories as well as seeing the redheaded exorcist talking with his group.
Allen all but jumped out of his seat, ready to charge into the next cart in front of them until he found the bastards he was searching for, but Tyki was the one to stop him. The man who could be thought of as his conscience was once again doing his job, stopping the hot headed teen from tearing apart the people who pissed him off and possibly getting caught by them in the process.
"Let's just wait until the next station. If they decide to get off of the train car, we stay on. If they stay on, we get off. Keep the damage minimal, 'kay?" The crazy-looking man asked. He didn't technically need to get permission, but with Allen in this state, being commanding would only cause a multitude of problems.
That, and a nice little thing for the cult members to play with was heading their way. He knew there was a chance of Allen figuring some stuff out that Tyki would rather keep in the dark for a while longer, but he wasn't the one in charge of the akuma. If the Earl was sending some this way, Tyki was not responsible for what happened to anyone on the train, including his group. Tyki might love humans, but they were all expendable in the grand scheme of things.
Allen anchored himself into the seat, hoping it depicted just how much he didn't like waiting. Eeez decided to go up to the front car when the cult members were housed. He was going to report on whether they were getting off at the next station or not. Crack and Momo were sitting quietly and hoping the frustrated Allen didn't notice them enough to release his frustrations on them.
Even when the train jerked, almost falling off the track, Allen didn't change his positioning. The others freaked out and jumped out of their chairs. Momo ran towards the front car to check on Eeez before the others could react, and Tyki waved his hand in front of Allen's face to see if there was a reaction of any sort. They boy needed to leave his trance in order to survive the attack.
Allen almost bit off the man's hand, but he was definitely responsive. The sudden change in movement from before merely didn't affect him at all.
"What you doin?" Allen growled. Tyki placed his hands above his head to appease the angry albino.
"Hey, just wanted to make sure you were still alive in there, ya know?" Tyki grinned, his glasses blocking any of his true enjoyment from view. It was time for those cult members to get destroyed by an akuma. Maybe Allen's arm will come to life again so Tyki can see what it's like. Maybe he won't have to kill the boy due to the Earl's orders. Unlikely, of course. But this kid was fun, and it's not a crime to hope.
Screaming interrupted whatever it was that Allen was planning to say. The group looked around as people streamed out of the train. Allen followed the crowd, hoping that he'd be able to find Eeez at the very least. Momo was still wandering around in panic, so he hadn't yet found the child. A redhead, however, was walking in Allen's direction. The hand attached to the brainless figure waved Allen over.
He contemplated following the redhead's silent instructions or not, just in case the guy knew what was happening or where Eeez was. Dealing with the cult member was just too much work and would take too much precious time, though. Right before he turned away, however, Allen caught sight of Eeez's dusty blond hair traveling next to the redhead's black outfit.
Reevaluating his former options, Allen walked over to where the two were. The thick crowds made it mildly difficult for any sort of movement, especially with the scrambling most of the people were doing. He made it eventually, and Eeez automatically latched onto his pant leg. Allen dropped a hand onto the boy's shoulder as a comfort. He turned his eyes to Lavi, a mild glare in place.
"Yer still a arse, ya know." He growled. Lavi grinned and made a gesture of acceptance.
"I know, I know. Just thought I'd help you out a bit. I do plan on staying with you for a while." His grin grew at the sight of Allen's angry confusion. "We should probably get you out of here for a bit, though. I don't think Eeez will appreciate seeing what's about to happen. Do you remember those akuma I told you about? Well, they're here and I don't know if you're able to activate your innocence quite yet. Wouldn't want the kid to get hurt because you aren't able to defend him, you know. Might want to head back to your little group of friends. You're the only one with the ability to fight these things. Even if you can't activate it on purpose, you can still be the last line of defence for them."
Lavi successfully distracted Allen from his first statement, instead leading to an anger about being all but forced to do what Lavi said. Allen still didn't understand what was happening with everything. First the train is attacked, now there's cult members running around and fighting an odd creature with one of those wrapped humans floating above it. There were a couple more creatures flying around, and now Lavi had a giant hammer in his hand and he too was flying across the sky.
Eeez pulled on Allen's sleeve, drawing his attention from the chaos that surrounded them. "Allen, are we going yet?" He asked quietly. The boy cast a longing glance back at where Tyki, Momo and Crack had gathered.
"Yeah, let's go." Allen shuffled through the crowd, this time dragging Eeez with him.
Eeez took a seat beside a broken train cart. The wheel had fallen off, leaving the wood reaching all the way to the ground. It made a nice hiding place and hopefully would give some protection from the creatures, even if just a little. Allen emptied out the heavier things inside of his shirt and placed them next to Eeez, making sure Momo and Crack sat down next to them as well.
Extra protection was always welcome.
Allen kept the money and cloth inside of his shirt. Money wasn't something he'd let anyone else defend, and the cloth was thick enough and could protect his skin from being stabbed by any coins that might break into sharp fragments during fighting.
Tyki seemed to be standing guard as Allen went through the process of organizing and preparing for battle. Allen hadn't a clue what Tyki thought he might be able to do against the creatures, and standing in the open like that would only draw attention to them. However, no creatures came to kill them, so Allen let it go in favor of attempting to summon that white claw that replaced his red arm.
Nothing happened. Of course, Allen expected that it wouldn't be so easy.
Tyki withdrew into the hiding place and allowed Eeez to curl up next to him for protection. Allen stepped towards the edge of their hiding place so if something came to attack, he would be the first line of defence.
"Allen, please come back here…" Eeez whispered after Allen had been standing in the open for a minute. Allen turned his head slightly to see Eeez in a crouch, prepared to stand and draw Allen back to safety. The albino gave his young friend a soft smile and a silent no, before turning back to look out at the chaos.
Just in time for a claw to slash through his eye.
"BLOODY HELL!" He shouted, holding his bleeding eye with his right hand. Without his notice, the red left arm turned a shining white and slashed through the creature who attacked him.
"ALLEN!" His group screamed, and he briefly saw Tyki holding Eeez back from rushing to Allen's side. The creature who attacked him was still alive, and it still needed to be defeated before Eeez and the others could be safe. Allen would keep them safe. With a roar, he jumped forwards with a strength he didn't know he possessed and ripped the head off of the creature.
He calmly returned to the safe spot, cursing under his breath about how much his eye currently was hurting and how much pain those cult members would go through the next time he saw them. It had to be their fault that these creatures were here, after all.
"Allen," Tyki said, intervening in Allen's rant. "I think you should sit down for a bit. I'll look at your eye to see if anything can be done to help it." Tyki was answered with a growl. Allen continued to stand guard, just a little farther into the space than before. Drawing attention was not his goal, even if it would make him feel better to rip apart more of those creatures as an act of vengeance.
It wouldn't do to have more than two of them attacking him at once, since even Allen wasn't confident in his abilities to defend four targets plus himself. Divided attention was not the best thing and at some point the other four would become a distraction that he'd have to cut loose to survive.
Well, probably not Eeez, but the others were just expendable background characters. If Tyki felt like protecting them, he could do that himself. Allen wouldn't help any of those three if he got overwhelmed and had to escape.
As predicted, two more of the creatures came to attack him during the chaos. They came in turns, so Allen's struggle didn't increase to exponential proportions. The first one managed to cut Allen's left arm, which was now bleeding heavily. He had accepted Tyki's offer to get a wrap around it to stop the bleeding, but anything more than that would take up time he just didn't have.
The fourth creature to reach their hideout was less monstrous than the others, but far more annoying.
"Wow, Allen, how'd you let them get after you that much? Really, I thought you were better at fighting than just this!" The red in Allen's vision was, sadly, not caused entirely by the blood in his eyes. Lavi just had to appear in the place they had taken shelter to piss him off for no apparent reason. In retaliation to the annoyance that Allen was feeling, he kicked the cult member square in the chest before sitting up against the broken cart.
Eeez brought a small amount of water that they had taken with them in a beaten up, discarded flask. Allen took a quick drink before dumping the rest on his eye and arm. Even if it didn't wash away any infection (which he doubted it would) they would at least be able to see what they were dealing with. Lavi hissed in sympathy before drawing closer to get a closer examination of the wound. Allen slapped his offending hand away.
"I'm fine, you arse. Will ya leave now? Bet yer cult members are in bad shape, too." Lavi patted down the teen's white hair.
"Calm yourself, little one." Tyki was laughing his ass off with Lavi's comment. "I don't plan on leaving any time soon. I got it cleared with Panda, and he said it would be perfectly fine for me to travel with you guys for a bit. You know, to record your history. Can't let such an important piece go unmonitored. I'm sure you understand. I wasn't expecting I would be the one to record yours, though."
"So what, yer leaving the cult to piss me off forever? Why don't ya get yer arse back to 'em and leave me alone. No one wants ya here." Allen spoke groggily, the blood loss evident in his speech. He wasn't able to come up with any good insults.
Eeez noticed how Allen's body temperature was slowly dropping, so he curled up next to the giant child. Tyki rummaged around for some blankets to cover the boys with while Crack and Momo searched for some method of transportation that wasn't yet destroyed.
"You, boy." Tyki called out quietly, careful not to disturb Allen and Eeez's rest. "That coat gives ya a ton of luxuries, yeah? Well, get rid o' it. Draws attention we don't need. Put this on instead." Lavi was handed one of Crack's shirts. It was a little big for him, but Crack was the shortest of the adults, as well as being as lanky as Lavi. "Just toss that somewhere. No good to bring it with us, even with all the perks."
The group was on the road a couple hours later. Eeez walked next to Tyki, careful to keep ahold of Tyki's shirt. Tyki had managed to bundle Allen up and carry the boy in his arms despite Allen's teenage body. It didn't even seem to strain the man for the amount of time they'd been walking. Lavi was the only one surprised by this fact.
Momo decided to briefly explain Tyki's strength to the confused redhead, if it could be called a description.
"Don't think about it too much, it'll just give you a headache. Trust me, I've tried. That guy is able to go on par with Allen's fighting methods and can carry more rock than Crack and I combined. But his arm's aren't even hard to the touch." Lavi questioned Momo's speech pattern in his head, but finally chalked it up to just another odd thing about this group.
"He must not be a normal human, then. The only reason Allen is as strong as he is would be because of the training General Cross forced him through. Tyki had to have gone through some harsh training to be able to draw so much power from his muscles with less effort. Maybe he knows the way to structure support to minimize strength needed when lifting. But that doesn't explain how he could carry Allen while walking for long periods of time. That would force the pressures in his back to constantly be changing, and the changing of muscles exerts energy that would wear him down with the extra weight, it doesn't matter how much support he's getting from bone and muscle placement. He's fighting gravity on an unstable surface..."
Lavi continued his incoherent muttering while Crack and Momo let it flow past them.
"This guy's crazy. Tyki obviously has been given superpowers by physicians." Momo whispered. Crack shielded his eyes from the muttering that slowly turned darker and harder to understand.
"Hey, Momo, ya think 'es gonna summon a demon 'r what?" Crack shivered, anything having to do with the occult still terrified him. "Ya know, I dun' wan' him a travel with us, agree?"
"Yeah, but there's nothing we can do about that. If Allen decided the guy can stay, I think we're stuck with him. Then again, Allen really seems to dislike this guy. Keeps calling him a cult member. But that doesn't mean anything, Crack! Don't worry about it so much. You know it's just an insult… probably."
"Than wha' was with all them flyin' creatures an' the big ol' hammer this guy 'ad?" Crack shuttered again. Momo felt bad for the guy; there really was no other explanation for what they had just seen only four hours ago. Momo settled for patting the poor guy on the shoulder.
"We'll get through this. Allen might explain what the heck is going on, and maybe the redhead will help him. This guy seems to know about Allen's past, after all. Remember what he said about Allen's training? Well, the brat doesn't remember any of that, but he had to have done something to get this strong. The redhead is completely off with Tyki's abilities - experiments makes so much more sense - but Allen has the muscle and we see him working out. That's something he got through training, and not by living in the circus. We should at least deal with this guy for a bit."
Crack didn't object, but at the same time he didn't agree. Momo took that as an 'okay, but I don't have to like it'. They let the subject drop, and Momo offered to carry Eeez on his back. Eeez initially responded with a 'no' and saying how he'll keep watch while Allen is sleeping, but after a few minutes the boy was asleep on his feet and didn't even object as Momo lifted him off the ground. Momo's portion of the luggage that Allen normally carried was distributed between Crack and Lavi. The former obtained only the less important stuff.
"Do you think Allen will be okay?" Eeez muttered into Momo's ear. His voice lulled at points as he drifted in and out of sleep while speaking. "He's strong, so he'll be fine. Right? Will…. His eye be okay?" Momo refrained from answering. The boy would be asleep soon enough, and there was no reason for Momo to give him any false hopes. Lavi had patched up the eye as good as he could, but even he had no clue what would happen. He had mentioned something about a curse that could mess with normal science and the healing process, but Momo had no desire to know more about what the crazy man was talking about.
Momo glanced over at Allen who was mumbling incoherent garble.
He looked so confused, even in his passed out state.
"You really aren't who I expected you to be… do you respond to Allen, little one?" Allen blinked slowly, lifting out of his drowsy state. There was a man in front of him with short black hair and gray skin. He was smiling. Allen felt the oddest urge to smile back at him, but refrained.
"Oi, fucked up Tyki, quit yer grinnin." Allen said once he was able to complain what this guy looked like to how Tyki was without his stupid glasses. The hairstyle was different, but the face shape was spot on. He really did look like Tyki's clone, only more sophisticated.
Allen does not like sophisticated people. They make him want to barf.
"My name ain't Allen, bastard. Don't call me nothin an' just leave." Allen leaned back against the fancy chair he was sitting on, just noticing that it was more comfy than most walls he's leaned against. The man's eyebrow raised a fraction, most likely surprised by Allen's attitude.
"Well, it would seem Cross did not do his job properly. Little boy, I am Neah, the 14th Noah. I'm hear to stop the madness running rampant in you and the Earl." He gazed down at the short boy. The red hair was unexpected, but having a kid at the age of approximately 8 definitely put a hitch in his plans. Allen was meant to be around 40 by the time of Neah's awakening.
He also shouldn't have the curse mark on his eye.
Neah looked around the boy's mindscape, noticing little fragments of memories that weren't connected to anything in particular. From the looks of it, this boy had at least three different lives all locked up in his head. It was like he had been reborn at random points of his life, which led to Neah's awakening being accelerated.
His revival didn't feel forced, but more of a gradual and welcomed event.
The child started ignoring Neah in favor of looking around. "What's the lady-man doing here? And why's it floating? Hey, it's the only guy with the dog!" Allen jumped up with all of his childish excitement, scrambling over to the fragmented memory. "Didn't the dog die? Cosimov beat him to death… yeah. So is this just a memory?"
Neah didn't speak, just watched as the boy slowly formed a chain of fragments together. Fixing his own memory would help Neah figure out what, exactly, was going on. With every mark Allen made on a fragment, by touching it or commenting on it, the fragment would slowly drift next to another, just barely overlapping with the other fragments. One of the 'lives' of this boy slowly formed, though it was more coherent than the other two. It was a young boy that looked similar to this child, just without the curse mark and with more bruises.
Another picture was forming, creating a person who looked closer to how Neah remembered Allen. The only difference was the age and, once again, the curse mark.
The boy disappeared in a sudden flash of light and a fifth of the fragments lit up with the same brightness. They strung themselves together faster than the first picture did, and Neah watched the second picture finish forming at a rapid pace. In place of the boy from the first picture, the one with red hair, a teenager lay on the ground. His hair was white, a perfect match to the picture.
