"Did he just say Vongola Twelfth?" Hide asked to no one in particular, his eyes remained transfixed on the electric sparks coming out from the flying man's electric guitar and feet.
"Come out now, Vongola Twelfth! Or I'll kill all of these people," the electric-man yelled, he then demonstrated his power by strumming his guitar once harshly; one could see the air vibrate around him as just about everything around the man exploded.
"Th-That's crazy!" Morita yelped, pulling Hide out of his mesmerized state, "What the hell is going on here?"
"We need to find Megumi-san and get out of here!" the blonde haired boy said quickly, "It's too dangerous to even be here!"
"Right!" Morita nodded before jumping up on the table next to them, to get out of the way of the crowd, and began searching through the mass of people for Megumi and Hanabi, "There!" he pointed at last, "I can see the girls, they're heading towards the exit also! Looks like their doing fine!"
"That's good," Hide sighed with relief, "What would have happened if he had hurt them!"
"Why should he care?" the squeaky voice of Reborn made the boy spin around, "He's an assassin that's here to stop you, what would he care if some other people are hurt?"
"Reborn!" Hide called out to his tutor, if he had ever been so happy to see the sadistic infant now was the time, "Quick! Help me!"
"No."
"What!? But they're going to hurt Megumi-san and Gokudera-san!"
"Then here," Reborn tossed a pair of white leather cowboy boots at his face, "Use those."
Hide grabbed them off his face and paled, "These things again!?"
While the blonde-haired boy struggled to put the boots on his feet, Reborn looked up at Morita and tossed him something, "Here's something for you too."
"Eh?" Morita caught it and stared at what was in his hands now, "These are those gloves! The ones that have spikes coming out of them! I thought these were destroyed in that base!"
"Good observation. I had them remade into a stronger material that is also insulated and a nonconductor of electricity which was the fault of the last version of those gloves."
Morita smiled triumphantly as he eagerly pulled on the boxing gloves, "I'm not sure what all that means, but I can beat that guy, right?"
Reborn smiled at this, "Yes, you can beat that guy."
"Morita-kun!" Hide called out worriedly, "Be careful! These guys are super dangerous!"
"Don't worry about it Hide, I'll just bring this guy down in a sec!" the boxer grinned and looked up at the flying man, "All I have to figure out is how to get up there though…"
~8~
"Megumi, Kurori, get down!" Hanabi warned as she quickly led them out of the mall, "You guys will be safe here, okay? I'm going to go find the Twelfth and the giant."
"Hanabi-chan, wait!" Megumi grabbed her arm and pulled her back, "Shouldn't we stick together? I think we should also call the police?"
Hanabi hesitated to respond, she was anxious to get back into the mall to protect Hide. She recalled Hide telling her not to mention mafia stuff with Megumi around but to also try her best not to tell lies either. Hanabi wondered why but also felt that Megumi had an uncanny way of detecting the truth. Her anxiety over Hide's safety made her quickly want to respond.
"I'm sorry, but I have to make sure the Twelfth is alright," she pushed Megumi's hand off of her, "But I know that the Twelfth would hate it if you got hurt. So no matter what, you need to stay here where its safe while I go make sure he's safe."
She ran off into the busy, frantic crowd and around the mall to find an entrance back to the mall that wasn't hectic. Along the way, she took out a small, ruby-red cube out of her bag, "Good thing I took this from Nagi this morning," she muttered to herself and held out a fist. One of the rings on her fingers began to glow red before it ruptured into a violent, dark red flame. Hanabi then inserted the flaming ring into the hole of the cube she was holding and held it out.
The small doors of the cube opened and large hawk with eyes that were piercing red flew out of the box with wings the size of telephone poles and claws that were covered in the same violent red flame that was on the girl's ring.
"Tempesta Falco*," Hanabi smiled triumphantly while calling out to the hawk, "Help me find the Twelfth! "
The hawk obeyed as it took flight, a pack of cards appeared in her hands as chased after it, "I won't allow anyone to hurt the Twelfth."
~8~
Hide looked up when he saw the flying man explode, or at least heavily burnt by one of Hanabi's exploding cards. He watched as the man fell to the ground in a smoking heap, and he watched as a stupidly large bird pretty much came out of no where with Hanabi chasing after it.
His jaw dropped as the bird landed in front of them and Hanabi approached.
"Twelfth!" she happily waved to him, completely ignoring the bird, "Thank goodness you're safe!"
"G-Gokudera-san, wha-what's up with the g-giant bird behind you…?" the boy stammered fearfully while the hawk preened itself, he then noticed the bright red flame being emitted from a ring on her finger and gawked at that as well.
"Oh, these are just things I took from my brother," she said dismissively before turning back to tasks more important, "You're not hurt or anything, are you, Twelfth?"
"Um, no, I don't think so…"
"That's a relief," she said happily before frowning when she heard a groan behind her. Hanabi turned around and scowled when she saw the electric, flying man trying to get up, strangely enough though he was laughing.
"Heheh," he snickered as his singed body slowly got up, "So you're the Vongola Twelfth, little brat? Well, I'm not done yet!" he spat, "My lazy ass of a partner is here somewhere, and when he finds you, you're toast!"
"Don't call me a 'lazy ass', Ugo." The sound of metal scrapping along the concrete grew closer and closer with its owner as a torrential down pour of rain began covering the area. Hide couldn't help but notice that the raindrops somehow managed to look like they were on fire at the same time.
"Tch, I knew I recognized him! So that bastard was here also," Hanabi scowled as she suddenly became tense and suspicious.
"Oh, don't call me that, Hanabi," the rain parted like a curtain in the air and revealed a man, dressed in all black, with blond hair and brown eyes. It was funny though, since the man looked kinda like-
"Andre-san?" Hide wondered, beginning to feel sick to his stomach as he watched the man approach.
Andre halted his pace and looked at both boys with surprise, "Morita? Hide?"
"What the hell is going on, Andre-san?" the boxer asked while glaring back at him.
"What? How do you guys know each other?" Hanabi asked suspiciously while looking back and forth between the groups.
"We met only a couple of minutes ago," Hide said in a sad confusion, "Andre-san, what's going on?"
"I'll tell you what's going on, Twelfth!" Gokudera began before the man could answer while pointing straight at him accusingly, "That guy's part of the Varia, the same horrible organization that Chloe was apart of!"
"Andre-san is…? The Varia…?" he swallowed nervously.
"Twelfth? Don't tell me..." Andre's face went pale and a look of horror flashed.
"Stay back, Twelfth," she warned while taking out her explosive cards threateningly, "You can never trust a Varia assassin. They're all nothing but insane weirdos!"
"Andre!" the flying man that Andre called Ugo had shouted, "Quit standing around and kill them! One of those kids is the Twelfth candidate!"
The young man frowned and, with a grim look on his face, stared straight at Hide, "I think I know who it is…"
"You're after the Twelfth!? You'll have to get through me to get to him!" Hanabi threatened before she threw a few playing cards in bullet speed, the cards then exploded and caused a cloud of smoke to surround them.
Andre burst through the smoke cloud, charging straight towards them with his large sword swinging. Hanabi pushed Hide to the side before finding a blade pressed against her throat.
The young Vongola Candidate shivered when he spotted the death glare given to him by Ugo, and the suspension continued until a bullet ricocheted off of the sword, sending the weapon flying out of his hands. Reborn, holding a smoking pistol, called out, "I thought your business was protecting the Vongola, Andre-not betraying them."
"You should have left," Andre muttered to Hide with a hurt look on his face. He then slowly looked down to where Reborn stood and started speaking in a louder, more audacious voice as he stated, "Reborn, I was dismissed from that duty the day my Boss died."
"What's going on? Reborn? Andre?" Hide asked, panicked while looking from Reborn to Andre and the back again.
"I'm sorry about this, Hide."
"Andre here is the former Rain Guardian of the first Twelfth candidate for Vongola Boss," the infantile tutor explained.
"Rain Guardian?" he wondered and then realized that they were discussing something bigger than he could have imagined. First Twelfth? He thought, As in, the guy that was up for Vongola Boss before me?
"Twelfth, let me handle this guy!" Hanabi urged him and ushered the humongous monster of a bird, which Hide had somehow managed to forget amongst the chaos, to come forth. She then turned to Morita, who was simply stunned at everything that had been going on, "Giant! Your job is to get the Twelfth the hell out of here! Got it?"
Morita snapped out of his stunned daze and silently nodded before taking Hide's arm and running off with the boy struggling to keep up behind him. But Andre quickly took notice of this and after muttering under his breathe: "Oh no you don't…" Another sword appeared in his hands and he swung it in their direction. Hide could hardly believe it when he saw a wave of water whipped out of the sword while he swung it and slapped the two boys powerfully down to the ground.
"For your own good, don't run away," Andre said while pointing the now blue glowing sword at the two, he turned back his attention towards Hanabi and said, "I suggest you put away your little pet before something bad happens to it."
"No way, I'd rather die than run away!" the red flame on her ring burned even brighter.
"Andre!" the half-dead Ugo, who was almost entirely forgotten by now, screamed at his partner, "Just finish them off already, lazy-ass!"
The swordsman clenched his teeth and put a tighter grip on his blue glowing sword, which then erupted into a burst of blue flames. He then lunged and thrusted the sword towards Hide but halted when a voice on a speaker shouted at them.
"Stop this at once!"
"That voice!" Reborn muttered under his breath as Andre halted in his tracks
The swordsman's face became ghostly pale and he quickly backed away and towards Ugo.
"What's wrong?" Ugo wondered.
"We failed, we need to get out of here!" Andre hissed at his partner before grabbing him and attempting to run off but quickly encountered an older foreign gentleman with brunette hair covering half his face.
The gentleman swung a triangular metal blade that was coated in blue sapphire flames, sending Andre and his partner back, "Thou shalt not pass!"