Les Shaman Miserables
Enjolren frowned. Tamanine's blood was splattered all over his arms, as he had helped the other rebels bury her. Silence was abundant, as was fear. Marioh stared at the dug-up plot of land and the makeshift cross stuck above Tamanine's grave, choking back a tear.
The tinkle of metal on a shoe alerted Opaly, the lookout, of human activity on the barricade. "Here comes a man in uniform."
An older man walked carefully down the barricade, noting the many pairs of eyes watching him closely. Enjolren turned to the man, who we know to be Jean Paijean, and glared at him.
"What brings you to this place?" Opaly asked. Opaly's hand strayed to a gun on a nearby table.
"I come here as a volunteer," Paijean answered rationally, not at all alarmed by everyone's leeriness.
"Approach and show your face!" Enjolren barked. Paijean turned from Opaly to Enjolren and the other people surrounding Tamanine's coffin. Paijean's manner of dress seemed to make many of the rebels cautious.
"You wear an army uniform…" Norilly observed, her voice tinged with anger.
"That's why they let me through," Paijean responded. Opaly walked to Enjolren's side, causing Hitosa Prouvaire to glower intensely at the rebel.
"You've got some years behind you, sir," Opaly noted.
Paijean lowered his shoulders slightly, slackening his muscles. "There's much that I can do."
Enjolren eyed Marioh, and then Jean Paijean. His expression, as usual, was unchanging. He was about to speak when Opaly pointed to the tied-up, much abused Lyvert. A bandana covered his mouth.
"You see that prisoner over there?" Opaly implored.
Ashitaire dropped an empty bottle of beer dangerously close to the disgruntled policeman. "A volunteer… like you."
Paijean raised an eyebrow. There was no mistaking it; the man was definitely Inspector Lyvert.
"A spy who calls himself Lyvert!" Kantferre cried fervently.
"He's going to get it too…" Ashitaire began to speak when a clicking noise reached his ears.
"They're getting ready to attack!" Meenefeyrac yelled to the rebels. Most of them scattered, running to their guns and their kegs. Ashitaire grabbed another bottle of beer and positioned himself near a gun-hole in the barricade.
Enjolren forced a gun into Paijean's empty arms.
"Take
this and use it well," Enjolren sneered with great menace. "But
if you shoot us in the back, you'll never live to tell!"
"Platoon
of sappers advancing toward the barricade!" a rebel yelled at
Enjolren. He grabbed a gun from under a table and positioned himself
on a ledge on the barricade. Whoever the student was, he was right,
for the Frenchmen were advancing upon the barricade.
"Troops behind them!" Enjolren confirmed. "Fifty men or more!"
Sweat trickled down Enjolren's brow. The army advanced ever closer. His instincts were screaming at him to run away, but Enjolren was too hardheaded to do such a thing.
"Fire!" Enjolren cried. Marioh, Paijean, Hitosa Prouvaire, Ashitaire, and everyone else began to shoot at the army. One after another, they fell. Blood squirted onto the rebels' faces at regular intervals, but there was no time to wash it away. Norilly tried to make sure that no one defiled Tamanine's grave at one point, and noticed a sniper aiming for Enjolren.
"Sniper!" Norilly shrieked, but before she could even cock her gun, Jean Paijean had shot the sniper from fifty paces. The man fell into his own blood.
The battle dragged on. Marioh spit some congealed blood that had entered his mouth out of his face and shot another soldier. Finally, the Frenchmen retreated.
"See how they run away!" Chatgles smiled as he rubbed some dried blood off of his brow.
Ashitaire lifted his gun above his head. "By God we've won the day!"
Enjolren, always a bit pessimistic, shook his head. Blood fell from his hair onto the ground. "They will be back again, to make an attack again."
Everyone turned to Jean Paijean, who was slipping his gun underneath a protruding piece of the barricade. Paijean looked at the blood-soaked rebels (no more so than Enjolren, who was coated in enemy blood).
"For your presence of mind," Enjolren began, wiping some blood and sweat off of his hand, "for the deed you have done, I will thank you, M'sieur, when the battle is won."
"Give me no thanks, M'sieur," Paijean urged, wringing his hands in an attempt to wake them up. "There is, however, something you can do…"
"If it is in my power," Enjolren replied, turning to the rest of his crew. Hitosa covered her mouth with a sweaty, grimy hand at the sight of all the blood and gore.
"Give me the spy, Lyvert!" Paijean demanded. "Let me take care of him!"
Enjolren nodded, and ripped the bandana off of Lyvert, and he immediately began to yell.
"The law is inside out!" Lyvert bellowed. "The world is upside down!"
"Do what you have to do," Enjolren sighed, shooting a narrow glare at Lyvert. "This man belongs to you. The enemy may be regrouping. Hold yourself in readiness. Come my friends, back to your positions…"
As Enjolren walked away, followed by his loyal followers, he murmured, "the night is falling fast…"
Lyvert scowled irately at Paijean.
"We meet again," Paijean said simply.
"You've hungered for this all your life!" Lyvert shouted, shaking miserably. "Take your revenge!"
Paijean emotionlessly removed a knife from his pocket and advanced upon Lyvert.
"How right… you should kill with a knife!" Lyvert conceded. He heard the knife slice through something, but felt no pain. In fact, the ropes binding him fell to his sides. Paijean had set him free.
"You talk too much," Paijean stated flatly. "Your life is safe in my hands."
"I don't understand…"
Paijean gave Lyvert a slight push in the direction of the city square. "Get out of here."
"Paijean, take care!" Lyvert threatened. "I'm warning you…!"
Paijean rolled his eyes. "Clear out of here."
"Once a thief, forever a thief," Lyvert spat. "What you want, you always steal! You would trade your life for mine – yes, Paijean, you want a deal! Shoot me now, for all I care…! But if you let me go, beware, for you'll still answer to Lyvert!"
"You are wrong, and have always been wrong," Paijean murmured so that only Lyvert could possibly hear him. "I'm a man, no worse than any man. You are free, and there are no conditions, no bargains, or petitions. There's nothing that I blame you for… you've done your duty, nothing more. If I come out of this alive, you'll find me at number fifty-five Rue Plumet… no doubt our paths will cross…"
Paijean picked a gun up off the table, one that belonged to Enjolren. Blood transferred from the metal to his hands.
"…again."
Paijean shot up into the sky, and then quickly shifted his hands so that it appeared that he had shot straight ahead. When the students looked over and muted applause broke out, Lyvert was long gone, into the Parisian night.
Enjolren cleared his throat. Everyone, including Paijean, turned to him. "Meenefeyrac, you take the watch."
Meenefeyrac nodded, and sat upon a short ledge on the barricade.
"They won't attack until it's light," Enjolren reasoned. "Everybody… stay awake. We must be ready for the fight… the final fight… Let no one sleep tonight…!"
A/N: Gore only gets more plentiful from here. So be warned.
A/N 2: Thank you all for your support! I just want to know if anyone here reads Pokemon fics… because I wrote a one-sided yaoi lime fic called a Nonexistent Triangle… thanks anyway.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Shaman King or Les Mis.