Title: An Assassin and White Porsche 11?
Author: Seraphim Grace
Archive: (eventually),
Always appreciated and replied to.
Rating: T
Pairings: Crawford+Ran Omi+Nagi
Warnings: none I can think of
Part 11
Crawford looked at the short Esset minion who had commanded him to meet him in this dark and rather smelly alley. "I'm here." He said. "What do you want? I still haven't been home." In fact he was sorry he wasn't armed, but Bruce Wayne had an almost uncanny eye for someone packing heat, or he would have shot the annoying little minion.
"I have been sent by the elders." The minion said. "To ensure the obedience of Schwartz in plan League of Shadows."
Crawford let out a deep sigh, one that suggested he was past the end of his tether by some way. "No," he answered, "we voted, we're not dressing up in lycra and performing petty crimes to show Batman that Esset are not to be trifled with. It's just embarrassing."
"We have ways of making you obey, Oracle." The minion told him. He opened his jacket and from a fanny pack pulled a miniature DVD player. "I think this will change your mind." He turned the tape on.
"I doubt anything you have will change my mind on this." Crawford was certain that any footage they had of him couldn't be that bad. He was wrong.
He was stood with his feet shoulder distance apart in jeans and a polo shirt, looking much younger but it was obvious it was him. He had one hand on his hip and the other held out, a very young Nagi, who couldn't have been more than five sat at his feet in a pair of furry pyjamas with cat ears and clutching George with all his might, sucking on his floppy ear. Crawford had the terrible feeling that he knew where this was going. "Co-operate and this tape will vanish." The minion said, "no one need ever know it even exists."
"You're bluffing." Crawford said, there was no way someone had footage of him doing that with Nagi, surely not, it was inconcievable.
The minion pushed the play button again and the young Crawford began a litany to the tiny Catboi-Nagi, "I'm a little tea-pot, short and stout."
Crawford steeled himself, "Schwartz is nominally a democracy." He said, "you would have to convince the others."
The minion smirked. The next image was of the same young Crawford sitting with the Catboi-Nagi on his lap, as he made arcane designs on the child's palm "around and round the garden, like a teddy bear."
"Okay," Crawford said flatly, "I'm in,"
"Are you sure you don't need to see Incy Wincie spider, just to make sure?" The minion smirked.
"Are you sure you don't need to see Mr Magnum?" Crawford managed between gritted teeth.
Across town Schuldig met a different minion in a different, but equally smelly alley. "Shoot." He said, lighting a cigarette and leaning back to lean nonchalantly against a wall.
"Operation League of Shadows must go ahead to plan." The minion told him, his face was lit by the orange glow of his own cigarette.
"Schwarz is nominally a democracy," Schuldig told him plainly. "And we voted against it, this fine body of mine would look awful in skin tight lycra, I'd look like a New Jersey Era Jon Bon Jovi minus the amazing chest hair."
"I think we can change your mind." He said. "We have booked out several of the large screens in Shibuya shopping centre and we can show this." He handed him a sealed manilla envelope.
Schuldig opened it to show a photograph of Schuldig looking like a perfectly ordinary teenager, his face littered with acne and his hair a pale mousy blonde, he had braces on his teeth and he wore a school uniform that was unflattering to everyone and in the most unattractive shade of brown. "Where did you get this?" He asked.
"We are Esset." The minion answered, "we have our ways. We have others."
"I'm in." Schuldig said quietly, "I just want this destroyed, and the negatives."
The minion smirked, "the elders said you would see it our way."
Farfarello didn't like meeting in alleys so he arranged to meet in a world wide marketed family diner that he believed hurt god. The minion looked rather out of his place with hid fedora and trench coat, where Farfarello was happily slurping on a banana McShake. "Operation League of Shadows must go ahead." The minion said, moving his fries about but without real interest in them.
"We voted against it." Farfarello said, "I've run across Batman before and well, he scares me."
"I think we can change your mind." The minion said sliding a manilla envelope across the table.
"Oh, presents," Farfarello said opening it. The pictures showed a white haired boy with golden eyes kneeling in front of an altar with his hands templed, he wore a golden tie and a medallion. It was a photo of his first communion. "This hurts god!" he managed.
"I'm sure you'd like to keep it under wraps." The minion said, leaning back into the plastic bench and trying to look nonchalant. "
"Okay, I'll do it, just make sure my costume covers my entire face, feck," he swore under his breath, "something like the scarecrow but not enough like the scarecrow that I get mistaken for him, as I said, Batman scares me."
The next morning at the Koneko a strange parcel arrived for Nagi who watched as Aya opened it cautiously. Nagi didn't get parcels and was excited but Aya was more nervous. It was a shiny saran wrapped box and written in red were the words "Voice Recognition software." Nagi squeed like a fangirl.
"oh my gosh." Nagi said, careful not to swear in front of Aya who truth be told was much stricter than Crawford about such things.
"It must be from Crawford," Aya said darkly, a night of pondering his dilemma had not given him solutions, it had just made him cranky and tired as well as confused. "So you can use your computer better."
"It must be." Nagi enthused. "I've always wanted one of these, Crawford said I couldn't have one because he had had a vision, obviously that I would need it later and he didn't want me to get lazy with my powers."
Little did he know then the real reason that he had been given the voice recognition software and the problems it would raise.
Little did he know then that operation league of shadows was underway and Nagi would be the "controller" because his injuries meant he could not actively participate.