A/N: Hi, Knights! Meet me again in a new round for this story. I am sorry, it took me so long to post it. But fear not, fellow Knights! We're almost there… err… I mean, not the end yet, no, but what follows after the confrontation~… there's a climax here, somewhere, I swear (even though I haven't seen how this story might end), besides, I need to incorporate some more Rudy/Kris or Dellons/Kris here as well… Oh well, it will come later. Anyway, enough with my rambling. Here's the 7th Round… FIGHT!
Disclaimer and Warning: See prologue… Also, pseudo-science (please don't take it seriously. I make them all up and even though it sounds plausible, it's not. It doesn't make any sense, trust me). Alright, please carry on.
A Gift from A Far Away World—a Seven Knights Fan fiction
© lunaryu
Round 7: Confrontation 2
Kris wasn't exactly impressed when three other Four Lords met them just outside the exit gate of the China Town, but it wasn't unexpected. Ace did say that they wanted Kris to meet their boss, so it was typical if all the Four Lords would be present with him there. Still…
"Why are you all dressed like body guards?" Kris' left eye twitched, unable to really fathom the sharp, black suits, the sunglasses, the bowties?—why in the world did they need bowties? Couldn't simple black ties be enough? Even Ryuujou Rin wore it as if it were part of her every day clothes.
Impending virtual headache aside, Kris couldn't help feeling second-hand embarrassment just by standing with them, near them. It was ridiculous and suspicious as hell. Besides, even without the absurd getup, they were already copiously conspicuous, what with Lu Bu's almost 2 meters height (like a giant), Goku's blithely slouching pose (like a yankee) and Rin's regally drinking a cup of tea (like a queen) at the roadside. Even those still couldn't compare when they showed up with that getup.
Kris didn't miss the weird stare their group received from the pedestrian around them. An Asian child even pointed at them and his mother immediately shushed him, telling him not to point, even as far as saying not to get involve with those strange people.
Kris got an urge to face-palm, but he held himself alright. He glared at the four people who were with him instead, expecting some kind of answer, but not hoping much for a reasonable one.
"It's our uniform," Goku casually replied, yawning and stretching his limbs slightly before he straightened his back. Then he faced Kris with a grin. "Cool, right?" he lowered his sunglasses a bit, revealing his rich brown eyes glinting with mischief.
Kris scoffed lightly. "I'm surprised you're not embarrassed," he rolled his eyes as he looked at the other three, expecting Ace to at least look a bit self-conscious, but the sliver-bluish haired guy just chuckled as he put his matching-with-his-friends suit back on. Apparently he had taken it off when he was on the boat earlier so he wouldn't wrinkle it. Kris scowled at him before he turned his gaze to Rin and Lu Bu.
"We should move now," the bulky, red haired man said, not even deeming Kris' obviously valid query important enough to provide him with any response.
"I agree with Lu Bu," Rin spoke calmly, putting her cup of tea aside in a metal box—a tea set compartment?—hanging on her arm. "We wouldn't want to make Boss wait any longer."
Before Kris could get his demand out of who this boss they were talking about, a limousine materialized in front of them, making Kris blink because he honestly hadn't noticed any car right there before. Since when…?—he was about to ask out loud, but was once again cut with the feel of someone's hand on his lower back.
Kris nearly yelped, not used at all with such intimate gesture, especially not from any stranger. No one, except maybe Rudy and Dellons, had the gall to do that to Kris. He was about to snap at the person that violated his personal space so boldly, with an elbow to their stomach when the limousine middle passenger door opened and familiar voice greeted him.
"Come inside, Kris," he said from the front seat and Kris' eyes widened as he saw the gray hair, the sunglasses and the branded, indigo colored suits.
"Pascal?" Kris was honestly shocked, disbelieving his own sight as he saw his landlord's face, but the pressure on his lower back pushed him to get into the car and he seemed to have no choice as his body moved to accommodate the silent but very clear order.
Kris couldn't stop staring at Pascal who just gave him a knowing grin as Ace seated himself beside Kris while Rin sat at the other side of him, coming in from the other door. He noticed from the corner of his eyes that Lu Bu and Goku got on the back seats before all doors were closed. Kris was completely trapped from all angles. Running away didn't seem to be an option anymore now.
"Before you question anything, Kris, we should go to the place where we can talk more freely without being feared of getting eavesdropped," Pascal warned and then nudged the guy on the driver seat to start driving. "Before that, you may speculate anything you want silently."
Kris wanted to do that. Speculate. But there were too many things running inside his head right now, too many questions of why and how, but mostly what the hell?!—Kris silently freaked out because this was Pascal, and judging from the formal way the Four Lords addressed him, he was most likely the boss they wanted Kris to meet.
But Pascal was his landlord. His landlord was supposed to be a real-estate agent. He couldn't possibly a secret leader of some kind of government or criminal organization, right? RIGHT?
Kris couldn't help stewing inside his head. There were too many things that he didn't know. Even without being this world Kris, he doubted that his counterpart would know what was going on either in this situation. He had no reference for this. He couldn't conjure up any solution by speculating without all the facts. He didn't even know if Pascal was his landlord's real identity.
Despite inwardly panicking, Kris did the only sensible thing he knew that wouldn't put his life in danger. He kept his mouth shut, masking his shock and alarm with false indifference that had been ingrained inside him (his counterpart) by his family since he was a child in case he had ever met situation as bad as kidnapping or being a hostage in arm robbery or in any life-threatening situations.
This might potentially be one of those circumstances after all.
~A Seven Knight Fan Fiction~
Dellons kept tailing the limousine a few meters ahead of him. It was fortunate that the street was quite crowded at this time of the day, especially during vacation week, that the limousine couldn't drive off in its potential speed. It periodically had to stop because of other vehicles in front of it and the usually annoying traffic light was proven to be a bless in disguise since it kept it possible for Dellons to track the limo.
However, the main crowded road was almost over in approximately a mile ahead. After that were a few junctions, less crowded streets, and if Rudy couldn't get their car in time to pick Dellons up for advanced tailing, they would lose the limo for good.
"Come on, Rudy…!" Dellons sent Rudy the GPS coordinate and waited for a few minutes as the limo started to move again. He clicked his tongue and followed, intending to send the updated position when the limo stopped again later. Though, Dellons didn't get a chance to do that as their rental car was suddenly at his side and Rudy opened the passenger door at the front and motioned Dellons to get in.
"Took you long enough," Dellons grouched, but silently he sighed in relief as he was seated on and buckled up his safety belt.
"Sorry, crowded traffic," Rudy sent him an apologetic smile.
"So, how is Kris?" Rachel's voice from behind Dellons asked and Dellons looked upward at the front mirror to see her slightly concerned look. Eileen was beside her with matching worried expression. Jave was behind the girls, still with slightly bemused face and Spike looked notably calm for situation such as this. Though, it was warranted since Spike did say that Kris didn't seem unwilling when he was led by Ace to the limousine.
Dellons didn't like that fact at all.
Just a few weeks prior, Kris didn't want anything to do with those Four Lords, but why did he decide to hang out with them now? Even missing out time to bond with his housemates, obviously distancing himself from Rudy; it was very weird and Dellons didn't like the thought of Kris choosing other people instead of their circle of friends no matter how possessive that might sound.
There must be other reasons…
But it opened up a second can of worm which implied that Kris kept secrets he was unwilling to share with his friends. The reason could be numerous. However, if Kris was adamant to keep his friends in the dark about it, it was most likely a dangerous one; one that could potentially be life-threatening, and although it was rather extreme of an assumption, Dellons knew Kris well and the silver platinum blond wouldn't keep secrets from them unless it was with extreme reason like that.
Besides, judging from the Four Lords' background… it's not impossible.
"Well, how is it?" Eileen's rather impatient tone pulled Dellons' back from his silent musing. He just realized that he hadn't answered Rachel's question before he fell into his wondering thought.
"I don't know. I didn't see him from outside the limo. Don't ask such stupid question," Dellons didn't actually mean to be an ass about it, but it annoyed him that he didn't know the answer himself, so his bad habit came out.
Eileen scowled at him angrily and Rachel visibly rolled her eyes at him. Dellons was back in his own head while Rudy kept taciturn as he drove following the limo, only time to time, he glanced at Dellons and at his other friends on the middle and the back seats.
"Does anyone have any information on the Four Lords?" Rudy asked a few minutes of heavy silence later. Rachel and Eileen visibly perked at that and proceeded to give him information about what they knew of those people. Dellons listened to them with half an ear as he himself recollected and compiled some information he had gotten about them from their prior background check.
"Are they dangerous, Dellons?" Rudy addressed Dellons specifically now and he turned to Rudy seriously.
"They are," Dellons nodded without hesitancy and Rudy's expression turned grave.
"Do you think they wish Kris any harm?" Jave's voice from the back snapped them out from palpable tension that had built since they noticed Kris had willingly gone with those people.
Everyone became quiet at the inquiry then.
"We don't know that, right? I mean, alright, the Four Lords can be dangerous, heck, they could be mutants or whatever, but we don't know if they are bad people. Have they done something that endangers others?" Jave continued, offering his own opinion, an objective one to boot, since he had no point of reference for who the Four Lords were and what they were capable of doing with their influence, but he was obviously willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Innocent unless proven guilty.
Dellons couldn't believe he would think this, but Jave had a point. Dellons had spent his whole life suspecting other people's motives and seeing their bad side that he forgot how to hope to see the good part. He never tried, period. It was Rudy's specialty with his naïve ideas and thinking, and Dellons' duty was to dig deeper, further, looking for skeletons and weaknesses that he could use to put them at their place when those people tried to double-cross Rudy and his friends. It was a working system in their circle and Dellons always fell into his role superbly whenever they had new acquaintances.
Now though, because Kris was involved, Rudy's gift was rather dulled. Obviously, since Kris was a person of interest. If it was Rachel's or Eileen's, or Spike's or Jave's or even Dellons', especially if it was Dellons', he would accept them with open arms, believing they had only good intentions for all parties involved without any ulterior motives. Dellons almost forgot how significant Kris was to affect Rudy's perspective.
"Jave is right," Spike spoke out Dellons and probably everyone else's thought after that little speech. "We should just wait until Kris tells us what's going on. They can't be that bad if Kris decides to hang out with them. Who knows? They might be useful someday when we need them to do a favor for us." He shrugged lightly and that was so Spike with all the calculated beneficiary thrown inside.
Dellons couldn't help snorting at that, thinking it was very funny, and Rudy chuckled beside him, followed almost immediately with Rachel and Eileens' united giggles and Jave's fit of laughter. The tension dissipated almost immediately after that, and only lingered curiosity was left at the end.
"I'd say we ought to still follow them, just in case." Dellons winked, but with a playful smirk now instead of an apprehensive sneer.
"Oh well, we do have free time to ourselves after all." Rudy smiled as he focused once more on the road and the limousine two cars ahead of theirs.
"Oh, I know! Let's play 'mission impossible' then, to pass the time! It's fitting the occasion!" Jave exclaimed suddenly, voice higher and sounding excited.
The others instantly groaned both mentally and physically as they collectively agreed that it was indeed like a spy work, tailing and stalking their mark, like in MI movie.
~A Seven Knights Fan Fiction~
Half an hour later, the limousine finally went inside a parking lot of specific building in a remote area, slightly away from the main road, hidden from prying eyes because it was surrounded by other taller and bigger buildings.
It is quite secluded—Kris thought as he noted the tall gates and the strategically placed bushes. The 'parking lot' wasn't exactly a parking lot because even though it went underground at the first outer building, it was immediately exposed once again once it passed it. Kris could see the sky and the garden around the car as it glided on a smooth paved road before it stopped right outside another building with shorter gate.
There was some kind of panel on the stone part of the gate and it scanned the car before the gate automatically opened for the car to go through.
Inside the gate was a two stories building in square shape, made mostly of some kind of metal… or metallic colored alloy. Kris couldn't know without touching it. As the car stopped once again, now in front of the main door of the building, the driver killed the car engine before Pascal got out of the car, immediately followed by the Four Lords.
Kris was purposely stalling as he looked outside the door suspiciously. Ace rolled his eyes after a couple of minutes and grabbed Kris' wrist before tugging at him to hurry up and get out of the limo. Kris sighed, resigned to his fate as he got out.
"So, where are we?" Kris finally asked as he was led to climb the stone stairs leading to the entrance of the building, yet once again was ignored. He grumbled as he finally stepped inside. All the party members were scanned first after they passed the front door. There was a guard in the same suits as the Four Lords near the body scanner, who received some dubious items from them before they went through it.
They actually bring guns with them… Where did they hide them earlier? And were those actual government-issued badges? Why didn't they just show me that the first time around they talked to me? And what are those pen-like things? Cameras? Recorders? Tasers?—Kris frowned as he eyed the pen-like shaped objects while the guard checked those things over before he handed them back to the respective owners after they passed the body-scanning.
Still, inwardly parboiling with alarming questions aside, Kris couldn't help glancing at the silent guard that had checked them as well. The man was quite tall, not as tall as Kris, though, probably around two inches shorter, with long dark hair—being tied in loose pony tail— and pale skin. His built leant into a slender side, though under that suit he was no doubt hiding wiry muscles. Kris couldn't see his eye color because of the darn sunglasses, but he got a feeling that he knew him somewhere… and if his original world memory had supplied him with the right information, the guy probably had dark sapphire colored irises.
The Night Crow?—Kris guessed and discreetly glanced at the tag stuck on the man's chest: 'Kurogarasu, Teo'. Kris was right. It really was Teo the Night Crow from Aisha. Then he openly stared at the long haired man, increasingly becoming cagy as it was his turn to get scanned. He only brought his cell phone and wallet. There was no incriminating object with him, but if he was forced to leave his phone behind, it would mean he was totally alone in this without any mean to contact outside world lest something undesirable happened inside.
"Your phone, please," Teo said, sternly but still polite enough, as if he had read Kris' mind before Kris was able to formulate a plan to hide the communication device.
Oh, well, it was not unexpected if this place was really a secret government facility. If the security was less tight than this, Kris would be even more doubtful of their real identities. It was standard, he guessed. Kris, though reluctantly, gave Teo what he had asked for, plus his wallet too for a good measure and a sign that he was cooperating.
Then, when Kris stepped under the body scanner, the alarm promptly went off.
Kris, and most likely all the personnel in his vicinity, cringed at the over-loudness of the blaring alarm. Even Pascal had to cover his ears while shouting to turn the blasted thing off.
"For God's sake. Haven't this thing volume-control repaired yet?" Pascal scowled right after Teo killed the switch of the body scanner.
"I don't know what happened. It functioned normally before," Teo said as he explained that it wasn't the first time that the alarm went off that day upon finding less-approved object on some personnel as they forgot to remove the micro-camera cuff-link from their under suit shirt when they went through body scanner. "It didn't go off as loud as that." He seemed bemused as he eyed the scanner dubiously.
Kris couldn't help swallowing uncomfortably as Teo shifted his skeptical gaze at him after that. "I don't bring anything dangerous with me," Kris said, almost defensively, reacting to that look.
"I still need to body-check you manually," Teo sighed, like it was a hassle, and Kris agreed wholeheartedly about it being a total inconvenience, especially for Kris.
"You want me to undress here?" Kris crossed his arms on his chest, lifting one of his eyebrows high enough to look indignant, but still sounding somewhat unruffled. Pascal couldn't help chuckling along with the Four Lords at Kris' rather cheeky words as Teo gave Kris unimpressed stare.
"No need to be sarcastic. I'm just going to pat you down," Teo huffed and gestured at Kris to walk toward him. "Come here for a second."
"…Fine," Kris dropped his pose after a few more seconds of persistent defiance. He went to Teo and stood still in front of him as Teo instructed Kris to spread both of his arms in a T shape before he started patting.
It was very uncomfortable. Stranger's hands on Kris' body, gliding, searching, even though it was above clothes, Kris couldn't help feeling slightly violated somehow. In went not more than five minutes and in the end as Kris said, Teo couldn't find any object that could make the alarm blare like earlier on Kris body.
"Satisfied?" Kris glared at Teo, crossing his arms again after the body pat was done. He was ignored, though. The guy didn't even apologize for the discomfort he had caused Kris.
"Maybe it really did malfunction then," Teo tilted his head aside as he wrote something down on a sheet of paper on his desk near the scanner.
"Call the IT to repair it," Pascal instructed as he waltzed around the scanner, but before he could leave, Teo grabbed his arm with his free hand, stopping him.
"I need to body check you as well, Sir," the guard didn't even spare Pascal a glance as he continued writing when he said this.
The Four Lords tried to stifle their laughter at Teo's unperturbed boldness, at Pascal's flush of discomfiture and at Kris' disbelieving stare.
"Is he allowed to do that?" Kris couldn't help asking the party near him as Teo performed his duty in checking over Pascal despite the guy's grumpiness.
"It's Teo's job," Ace answered, shrugging slightly, but Kris noticed the fond tone and gaze as he looked at Teo.
Huh.
"Ace has a crush on him," Goku whispered conspiratorially near Kris' ear.
"I heard that," Ace turned his sharp glare at Goku who immediately whistled while crossing his hands on the back of his head, feigning innocence.
"Well, I think you have a great taste. Teo does look very cool," Rin quipped, joining in the merry fun of teasing Ace whose face gradually turned pink.
"Shut up." Ace, looking annoyed and embarrassed, huffed at the knowingly smiling woman and the snickering brown haired man. Lu Bu just rolled his eyes slightly at the commonly juvenile bicker they fell into, apparently.
When Kris watched their easy banter with each other, he couldn't help picturing his own circle of friends. So even those agents acted like their actual age when they were together, as friends instead of colleagues. They were not very different from Kris and his circle of friends. There was a part of them that valued their time and life as students and it somehow brought a small smile on Kris' face.
They are dangerous, yes, but not that bad—Kris decided he could lower his guard down a little bit as he saw them in such setting.
Though, Kris couldn't say the same thing about Pascal. The guy had hidden his real identity from Kris and his friends and posed as their landlord for over a year. He hoped Pascal hadn't been spying on them all this time… Oh my God, is there any hidden camera or listening device in our house?—Suddenly Kris became much more uncomfortable as the thought crossed his mind. All their conversations, their escapades inside the house… What if they were even being spied on inside their bedrooms? Kris felt slightly sick now.
"What's wrong, Kris? You look rather pale," Rin seemed to be the first to notice Kris' changing mood for the worst.
Kris was silent for a moment before he uttered his suspicion honestly. "No, well… it just suddenly occurred to me that Pascal is your boss, some kind of government agent, and my landlord. His house must have been littered with hidden cameras and listening devices… without us knowing their existence and our privacy must have been violated at some point."
It was a warranted worry, and Kris was really sure that it was, in fact, true. So he was immensely relieved when the Four Lords instantly denied it.
"We wouldn't need you here if that was true," Lu Bu huffed, looking a bit offended at Kris' accusation.
"It's because we don't know what's going on in that house that we need to speak to you," Goku seconded, though a bit more understanding of Kris' notion.
"We promise that we will only be asking some questions we hope you might know the answers of. We never intend to harm you or your friends," Ace assured, seeming to catch up on why Kris was so worried and untrustworthy of them.
"We only need your cooperation, Kris. It is to protect our people after all," Rin smiled at Kris kindly, harmlessly, convincingly. It got the hair on his nape to stand on wits-end for some reason.
To protect our people…
How far would someone go to do that? Governments or civilians, knights or pheasants, nobles or commoners, they were all the same. Even Kris knew how far mankind would go to protect something important for them.
As long as our capabilities allow… as far as possible.
"That's what I fear most," Kris muttered lowly, too low to be heard by anyone but himself.
~A Seven Knights Fan Fiction~
Rudy was slightly hesitant when he was faced with the first building he saw the limo they had been following enter the basement driveway.
"Why are we stopping at the roadside again?" Dellons asked, turning to Rudy with raised eyebrows.
"I'm not sure how to follow them further. The limo entered that building driveway possibly to the basement parking lot. There's a guard at the driveway corner. What are we going to tell the guard when we pass him?" Rudy explained, as well as asking for a clue how to proceed from this point from his friends.
"What building is that anyway?" Eileen craned her neck slightly, jutting her body to invade Rachel's side of seat, probably wanting to see if there was any sign with a name on it from the window.
"Eileen, just let me do that, and please stop cornering me to the door," Rachel huffed and pushed her friend to back off before she herself looked outside the window closest to her, clearly intending to look for the sign as well.
Jave also looked outside the window while Spike didn't seem to bother, and opened his phone instead. Dellons was quiet as he stared at the tall building, his baby blue eyes sharp, seeming to try to assess the place, most likely trying to find other entrances that didn't have any guard.
"I should scout it first," the blond said suddenly, grasping the door-handle before pulling it in, opening the door, to the others' surprise.
"You want to get off here and go there by foot?" Rudy asked, a bit confused.
"It will be more natural if I walk there and ask the guard what building it is with a pretense that I am lost than bringing all of you with a car there and force our way in, right? I can pretend to lose my phone and is in need to borrow theirs too if I want to scout inside the building. It's more discreet," Dellons explained the matter of fact as if he were talking about the weather.
Rudy's (and probably the others as well) sweat dropped slightly, thinking that Dellons seemed to be very used to doing these kind of things as if he did it all the times. Well, judging from Dellons' past escapades and reputation, he probably did.
Rudy consciously glanced at his other friends, asking with his eyes whether it was wise to agree with Dellons' idea, but before they could answer his silent query, Dellons already took their decision with his own hand as he climbed out of the car. He didn't look like he needed his friends' approval to do what he thought was best to do in such situation anyway.
"Dellons!" Before Dellons closed the door, Rudy called him once again, frowning deeply. "Don't do anything dangerous," he warned and Dellons just smirked at him with a slightly disturbing glint in his eyes.
"Rudy, when do I ever disappoint your expectation?" the blond asked a rhetoric question because everyone knew exactly what the answer was. Never.
But that expectation was something that always filled Rudy's feeling with dread, because he expected Dellons to do everything that was risqué to get what he wanted, and no matter how many times he berated the blond for it, he never heeded Rudy's warning seriously. It sounded like a bell of doom ringing as Dellons closed the door and Rudy couldn't help sighing in resignation.
"He's going to do something really bad, isn't he?" Jave quipped, reading Rudy's peeved expression correctly. The others sighed as well, seeming to mentally prepare themselves for the worst scenario as beads of sweat rolled down their cheeks, completely in agreement with both Rudy and Jave's sentiment, except maybe Spike who was still fiddling with his phone.
"Kris's phone is off," he said a few seconds later and everyone's gaze was instantly on him. "It's out of service and my call went straight to his voice mail." Spike finally locked his phone once again and looked upward to meet his friends' eyes.
"What?" Rudy got even more apprehensive hearing it. Kris never turned his phone off after all, unless he was charging it at home, but he was not right now, so Kris turning his phone off meant he was forced to do so or there was a jamming signal that rendered the phone useless.
"That doesn't sound comforting," Eileen commented, wearing a worried look as well.
"Of course it doesn't! Kris never turns his phone off outside!" Jave exclaimed, his voice sounding a notch higher than usual. He sounded slightly panicked even, 180 degrees different from the Jave that spoke his objective opinion about the possibility of the Four Lords not wanting to do harm to Kris.
"I don't like this. Why does Kris need to turn his phone off inside the building? What are they doing inside?" Rachel mumbled out loud, her voice and expression somber and grim.
Spike was silent, but his slight frown told everyone that he was worried as well. They were obviously dying to know if Kris was alright and with no other way to answer their questions and worries, they could only count on Dellons and his solo scouting, hoping that their worry was baseless and that Kris would get out of there in one piece.
~ A Seven Knight Fan Fiction~
Kris was brought to a specific room at the second floor, and then was told to sit down on one of the chairs at the rectangle table in the middle of the room. The room walls were painted with soft cream-color and quite bare sans the linoleum table and chairs in the middle, a projector hung on the equally creamy colored ceiling, and three white screen were stationed at the front, the right and the left sides of the table and chairs.
Someone was already waiting in the room when they got there. At the closer look, Kris recognized the man in equally dark suits with the Four Lords as the driver that drove the limo earlier. He indeed discreetly removed himself faster than the others after he was checked by Teo at the entrance earlier, but Kris just thought that that was because he wasn't needed further in their discussion. It seemed that Kris had made a premature assumption again.
That man, the driver, was probably in his thirties with silver-gray hair like Pascal, reaching just slightly above his shoulders in length, wavy, bordering into curly even at the bottom part. His irises were light green with specks of yellow around his pupils. Kris didn't know why he noticed this thing about him. His expression was pretty neutral, but despite his handsome face, he kind of reminded Kris a lot to a snake. Kris didn't think he could trust him even if his life depended on it.
"Oh, Bai Jiao is here already. Good." Pascal said, walking to the man and patted his shoulder lightly before he turned to Kris. "Kris, meet my assistant, Bai Jiao. He' my driver most of the time, but he doubles as my PA and my body guard," he introduced the man and Kris nodded at him slightly, not wanting to shake his hand.
"How do you do," he said.
Bai Jiaou gave him a small smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Nice to meet you, Kris Tenebra," he replied. There was a hint of sneer in his tone, but it was probably just Kris' imagination because Bai Jiao was quick to turn to face Pascal once again to talk to him quetly, before Kris could analyze his speech further.
Ace tapped Kris' shoulder once, a gesture for him to hurry and sit down. Kris chose the chair at the right side corner. Even though he couldn't face the door in case he needed to run away at a moment notice, at least there would be no one sitting at his right side, so if he needed to move fast, there would be no one blocking his path.
The Four Lords seemed to immediately notice his choice of seat like they knew exactly why. They just gave him a wry smile and shook their heads as they also sat down. Ace was at his left side, followed by Rin, Lu Bu and Goku.
"Alright then, I trust Kris already knew you guys?" Pascal immediately addressed his subordinates the moment he sat down and they confirmed it in unison with a single nod. "Good, now that Bai Jiao was already introduced, we can start our discussion." Pascal flicked his thumb and middle finger and a full colored image was immediately displayed on the white screens on their three sides.
Kris stared at the image. It was some kind of logo that he didn't recognize, but the line of smaller images bellow the main logo… he knew them, well, most of them, arranging from CIA, NSA, Interpol, MI6, KGB and any other international intelligence organizations' logos from any other nations that Kris couldn't name one by one.
"We're the Empire," Pascal said, pronouncing the name excruciatingly slow, as clearly as possible, as if Kris was just a five year old kid that couldn't spell the word. Kris wasn't impressed at all, especially because he had never heard of such organization before. Maybe they're really a criminal organization instead of a government's—Kris decided out of spite.
"Your dubious look is very telling," Goku snickered and that earned him a slap on the back of the head from Lu Bu beside him. "Hey!" the brunet protested and Lu Bu only glared at him to shut up.
"I presumed you never heard of us before," Pascal ignored the minor squabble and continued and Kris shook his head, giving him a chance to elaborate. "Well, it's a long story to tell our history, especially to a civilian, but in a short way, we're a secret organization inside multiple secret organizations."
… A bunch of traitorous individuals from their secret organizations flocking together forming another secret organization, you mean?—Kris wanted to retort, but thought the better of it and just raised one of his eyebrows, prompting Pascal to say more.
"As you can see, we're from various ethnicities from various countries. We're working as a private sector of secret organizations."
Private?—Kris narrowed his eyes. "Who are you answering to?" He couldn't help asking. Private organization had to have a single boss. He needed to know who it was.
Pascal seemed to already anticipate the question because he only smiled at him. "Ourselves," he said and Kris clicked his tongue.
"Bull," Kris retorted sharply. "Someone must have been running this organization if it's as big as you claim." Otherwise, where would they get funding for their operation?
"Oh, but who said we're big?" Pascal grinned and Kris sent him an annoyed glare. The guy didn't make any sense.
"You're a bunch of individuals from various international secret organizations. The sheer numbers of those logos bellow your Empire already send a clear message of how big your organization is," Kris argued.
Pascal chuckled. "Yes, but only one person from each secret organization is in the Empire. We only move in a specific area of intelligence, and if you're asking about how we pay for our operation, of course we get our funding from those other organizations that create us," he explained further and Kris was slightly taken aback by this.
So, those secret organizations were aware of this Empire organization… But some of those organizations were enemies, right? What could possibly make them agree to create and support another secret organization which members could potentially leak their nation' secrets to another?
"What specific area?" Kris carefully worded his question, choosing to focus on one part first instead of clumping them all together messily. Besides, he doubted they would explain the funding procedure of a secret organization inside multiple secret organizations to a civilian like him anyway.
"Inter-dimensional shifting," Bai Jiao punctually answered the question as he clicked on a mouse that connected to the laptop in front of him and the logo on the screen broke into millions of shards that created another image with a specific point on the bottom and then branched into multiple lines and points as it went upward.
"Inter-dimensional what?" Kris couldn't help staring at the image as he asked this question, trying to understand the relation of the dotted images and Bai Jiao's explanation.
"Are you aware of the theory of alternate realities?" Bai Jiao asked and Kris nodded.
"It's a theory which believes that our world is constructed from multiple realities depending of our choices of conduct at a specific time. For example, at this moment, I, in this reality, choose to sit here and hear this explanation, but there is another reality, at the same exact time as this moment, that I am not here because I choose not to come with you guys. These realities can be similar and yet slightly different, or totally different depending on the choices made, and it causes the future to branch into multiple realities which are separated by time and space that absolutely can't integrate with each other, but sometimes can be seen in glimpse by the individual who makes the choices of experience, in a form of dejavu."
"Impressive," Pascal smirked. "You indeed study theoretical physic diligently, huh?"
"There's no proof that it's true, though, despite the belief." Kris said again, not minding the praise. "Other theories blatantly deny it, since it's proven by theory of relativity that time can't move backward, so there is no way for someone to come back to a point of his life to make another choice he already made in the first place, so it remains theoretical because there's no way to test it."
"You're right. There's no way someone can revisit a past event, but it's actually possible to move from present event to another present event," Bai Jiao said as he added something to the branches image on the screen, some kind of barrier between the branches that separated individual branch from each other. "What if the 'time and space' that separate those multiple realities are made from some kind of energy, let's say… magnetic energy, acting like a thick dimensional veil, a border between one reality and the others?"
Kris blinked. 'Time and space' is a form of magnetic energy?—this was the first time he heard that.
"What do you think will happen if there's another, larger magnetic energy that crashes into the veil, overpowering it?" Bai Jiao added another symbols on the image, a single point arrow, striking into the border, veil in the image.
"… It could… tear it apart, forming a passage between realities…" Kris was a bit astounded as he was discerning this theory. Sure, he had never heard it, but if they treated 'time and space' as a form of energy, a barrier, then larger energy indeed could break it apart, or at least bend it to create some kind of opening to let object go through from one reality to another.
"Yes, and that is a way for one reality to shift to another reality, a.k.a. inter-dimensional shifting." Bai Jiao confirmed. "It can affect only one person… or more," at this explanation, there was a star-formed object in the image that moved from a branch to the branch beside it through the 'hole' in the barrier which had been torn by the arrow.
Kris was quiet for a few minutes as he contemplated this. "You guys… are researching on this reality shifting?" he asked slowly after that.
"We're not researching it. We're monitoring it," Bai Jiao removed the branches image entirely from the screen and opened another images. A Map. America Continent map, to be exact. There was no name in each state and area, but there were a lot of red dots that blipped on it. "These blipping dots are some spots in the entire America Continent that have potential magnetic energy to overpower the energy of 'the dimensional veil'," he said, explaining further, "There are more in the entire planet, but we're in America right now, so we'll make it an example."
"So many?" Kris almost dropped his jaw at the multiple blips. Some were bigger than the others and there were four red blips that stood out most amongst them all. He actually wanted to ask how they could find them, what kind of criteria they used to measure the energy, but Kris didn't think they would be willing to share their method without some kind of payment since this had been a very well-kept secret (no journal had ever mentioned this theory before after all). Kris was already in a lot of trouble as it was, he didn't need to add to his problem by poking and sniffing around their mysterious technique.
More importantly, looking at those four biggest, blipping red dots on the map, Kris got an awful feeling that he knew where they were.
"Are those…?" Kris hesitantly gestured at those dots blipping on Manhattan Island, especially, at New York.
"Yes," Bai Jiao said, enlarging the map to focus on those four dots. "Can you recognize the specific area where those biggest dots are centered on?" he asked, clicking some more to change it into satellite image that pinpointed it to suburban area in New York which was probably the smallest part of the metropolitan city that still had enough greenery to enjoy. And at that suburban area was where Kris' boarding house stood and those red blipping dots were surrounding it.
Kris could feel his blood draining a little from his face before a denial struck him instantly.
"You're telling me… that around our boarding house is covered with spots to generate magnetic energy field, strong enough to open a portal to the other world?" If Kris sounded incredulous as he said it, it was because he felt incredulous about the theory despite the exposition before it.
"Actually, no. Not exactly strong enough to do that," the silver haired man said, sounding mildly amused, but mostly serious. "The usual activity of the field is monitored tightly by us and those spots never spiked energy in the level like these in this past month, before. So you tell me, Kris Tenebra. What did you do last month that made those spots react and generate so much energy in such alarming level?"
Bai Jiao closed the image and the screen went white once again. Kris took a deep breath before he exhaled it slowly, trying very hard not to reveal his true reaction, mostly panicky.
Apparently, it was indeed his counterpart's experiment that caused the reality shifting. It was not black magic or something supernatural from his original reality, it was science from this reality that caused the disturbance in time and space continuum. Kris wasn't transferred into another world, he merely shifted from his original reality to this reality because his counterpart created and activated the device he had built in his basement.
The device itself didn't have anything to do with space and time continuum. It was merely acting as an enhancer of energy. Counterpart Kris must have thought that the energy enhancer could strengthen other energies. At other applications, it could enhance energy of heat, electricity, magnet, any form of energy at all, and indeed it could change the world if it was developed further to enhance rare energy that had been dying, and he was successful when he activated the device. He just didn't know about those red blipping spots around the house, that his device inevitably also enhanced those magnetic field energy to such extreme level that it tore apart the 'magnetic energy that acted as a dimensional veil' of this reality. In result, counterpart Kris' reality shifted, and to balance the 'hollow space' of this reality that counterpart Kris left behind, the original Kris from Asgar was pulled into this reality.
This was… not exactly a disaster. If Kris activated the device once again, there was a chance that he could shift this reality back into his reality in Asgar. But he wouldn't know whether or not he would change reality to his original reality. If the theory of multiple realities were true, there would also be other realities beside this reality and Asgar reality. How would Kris know which reality was his Asgar reality then? He needed more research about this and a specific way to aim for specific reality that he wanted to visit.
"Well?"
Kris snapped out of his inner musing at Pascal's rather impatient word. Apparently he had been silent for too long and everyone was still waiting for his answer about what he had done that caused the energy of those spots to spike like that.
Kris couldn't exactly tell him, them, but for the sake of garnering more information, he had to say something plausible that could be the cause of this anomaly. "I'm not sure," he finally said, a bit hesitantly. "Is this why you guys want to know about my experiment that I did in the basement last month?" he turned his answer into another question mainly to stall as he was thinking about what to tell them about his experiment.
Actually, Kris didn't only build the device when he was doing his experiment. There was another experiment, a tamer one that he did which also had nothing to do with space and time continuum. It was a pet project he had developed since he was in high school, a form of stress relief that he often did when he was out of idea for his other direr, more important projects.
Kris had been building an AI. The design and programs were written in detail in those papers that he found together with the briefcase. There was also a 10 inches sized note-book in the briefcase kept along with the enhancer energy device. Counterpart Kris was building his AI in the note-book. The notebook itself was self-built from parts and processors that Kris bought with his own allowance and he assembled them together to create a running super computer in a form of a note-book or a super note-book. Kris kept upgrading the program stored in it that at some point, the note-book was able to self-learn now whenever he activated it.
Counterpart Kris often 'talked' to it. He typed something, a question or a greeting, and the self-learning program would 'respond' in a form of text as well. It had no voice modulator yet, so it couldn't 'talk' in human voice, but Kris had planned to add that later, when he had time to do it. Kris had programmed enough data and information for his AI to get curious and it often asked Kris about things it hadn't known yet. It was fun for him, like he was teaching a child. Kris realized that counterpart Kris had dreamed about building a body for his AI someday, when the world was ready to accept such sentient being that was different from human or animal, that had intelligence which could probably rival humans' someday in distant future.
It was precious for Kris, his long-life pet project. But it wasn't a secret. There was no harm in telling these people about his pet project, so he told them what he was doing in the basement of his boarding house last month and he wasn't even lying about it. He just omitted the part where he was also building the energy enhancer device.
"An AI, huh?" Pascal looked critically at Kris, as if he was searching something, lies maybe, but he didn't seem to find any as he sighed.
"We will need to check that super note-book and the intelligence that resides in it," Bai Jiao closed the lid of his laptop, also sighing.
"Fine, but don't hurt it," Kris warned seriously. "It's sentient, it has feelings," he continued like a father that tried to protect his child. In a way, that AI was his child, his creation.
"Relax. We will never do such things. We will only check out if there's any problem inside its program that might affect the magnetic field energy around your boarding house. If it's clean, we'll return it in one piece," Rin said softly with a smile.
"A sentient note-book, how interesting!" Goku seemed to be excited with the prospect of meeting the AI. But Lu Bu didn't seem to be interested in it and just mumbled about something resembling 'It's still just a machine, not a being,' with low voice. Kris glared at him for such offensive comment.
"Would you please consult with me before you remove any program if you find any that potentially can disturb the magnetic field energy?" Kris asked, pleaded even, but still narrowed his eyes at Lu Bu, since he didn't want his AI's programs sequence to malfunction if they decided to mutilate the program either way.
"Of course. Will you be able to deliver your note-book to one of us tomorrow then, Kris?" Ace requested. "We can meet at a café or somewhere more… comfortable for students like us to hangout," he entered Kris' line of sight, probably trying to distract him from making a hole on Lu Bu's head with his glare.
"Sure," Kris agreed with a sigh as well, pretending to be resigning that he had to let go of his pet project for a period of time. Inwardly though, he was quite relieved that he finally knew what caused him to be here, in this reality. This reality was very different from Kris' original reality, so the tear of the dimensional veil might be quite large, a reality where his mother and father to marry late, so Kris was born quite late as well. In result, he was younger in this reality than in his original reality.
Well, there was larger difference from this reality and Asgar reality though. The concept of everyday life in Asgar was completely different from here. The existence of dragon, monster and magic aside, the concept of godhood was utterly separated. It was like the point of choice that made the difference in this realty and Asgar reality happened thousands years ago. There was no way to trace back where it could have originated and differed from, obviously because of the lack of record of world history at that time.
Kris shouldn't thought about it that further behind, though. It would only hurt his head for sure, no matter how intriguing this theory might be.
The main problem now was: how would Kris fix this shifting? He had to proceed more carefully. If he wanted to experiment with the veils, he had to find a way to activate his device in spots that weren't monitored by this Empire guys. It would take time and patience to even try it. Not to mention that he had to have a fail-safe plan in case it went awry and it affected not only him but other people around him. He needed to keep this matter an absolute secret from anyone.
Though, Kris could worry about this at a later date. He believed those Four Lords would flock around him for the time being to keep an eye on him, and he wouldn't be able to move freely until the suspicion of him involved in those magnetic field energy spiking was removed completely. As long as he didn't activate the device, there wouldn't be any increase in the magnetic field energy, so there was no further danger on that note. Now, he had to make excuse to his friends about his sudden interest in hanging around these people…
As Kris was mulling over it, there was a sudden commotion downstairs.
Kris blinked and the others frowned because there were shouting and banging and multiple running steps echoing in the hall and they all could hear it. It must have been quite an uproar if the sound even reached inside the room. The walls were quite thick after all.
"What's that?" Pascal asked. "It sounds like—"
"KRIS!"
It was Dellons' voice bellowing Kris' name at the top of his lungs, followed closely by voices that Kris knew so well, which also screamed his name and asked his whereabouts as loudly as, or probably more than, Dellons' yell.
"Kris, where are you!?" Rudy.
"Answer us, Kris!" Rachel.
"You guys are going to be sorry for kidnapping Kris!" Eileen.
"Oh crap! No, Spike! Don't kill them!" Jave.
"Where are you guys hiding our friend!?" Spike, the berserk one.
…
Kris couldn't help face-palming as he heard them and he couldn't help imagining the disaster that his friend had caused downstairs, storming the place down like that. God, he didn't realize that they had tailed him. Of course… Of course it would happen this way.
It's my own damn fault for jinxing my luck with those lunatics around…
Kris was about to apologize in advance for any damage his friends might (would definitely) cause in this mishap, but Goku beat him to it by laughing hard.
"Oh man… your friends are completely mad!"
"It's not funny, Goku," Lu Bu growled, looking and sounding pissed off.
"Sheesh… please go and calm them down, Kris. Before they destroy our base," Ace chuckled ruefully, beads of sweats rolling down his cheeks.
"Boss should quickly hide before they see your face. They will murder you if they know what you really are," Rin immediately ushered the still gaping Pascal and the dumbfounded Bai Jiao who immediately snapped and shouted-
"What the heck are those securities doing out there that a bunch of college students are able to invade this place?!"
Yeah, it must have been quite a chaos out there. Kris had to think fast to make excuse to tell his friends about this place and the Four Lords. But what should he tell them?
"Any cover story that I can use to resolve this?" Kris came up empty with idea, the reasonable one, at least.
"Just tell them whatever. I bet they already researched about us if they have the confidence to tear this place apart anyway. Just don't mention about the Empire and what we're doing as its members. We need the fact about multiple realities to remain a secret," Ace tapped Kris's back once before he too retreated from the room through another door, a secret door that didn't look like a door at first glance since it was colored in exact same color as the walls and the lines that separated the door and the walls were quite invisible until the door popped out and was slid aside to reveal a secret passage that would probably lead them all outside or something. Lu Bu and Goku also followed Ace and Rin retreating into the secret passage and left Kris to clean up the mess.
"Great, just great." A vein popped up on his head. Of course those guys would be a bunch of unreliable, selfish pricks. He swore he wouldn't want to have anything to do with them ever again after this.
Kris huffed as he turned around to get out from the room from its proper entrance.
~A Seven Knight Fan Fiction~
"Kris!" Dellons was the first to spot the platinum blond haired man and he was so relieved that his Princess was alright, which would explain why he didn't notice how pissed off Kris looked at that moment.
Dellons hurried to run toward Kris, feeling every part of his body yearning to hold the guy close, just to make sure that he was really alright, that he wasn't hurt, and he was just about to do that when Kris clenched his fist and then whacked Dellon's head with it… hard.
"OUCH!" Dellons yelped in shock and surprise (and pain, but that was beside the point) that he actually couldn't react fast enough to dodge the usual violent assault Kris usually bestowed him whenever Dellons was being too touchy. Well, Dellons was worried sick. It was the only reason why he missed Kriss tell-tale sign. "What was that for?!"
It didn't stop Dellons from complaining as he nursed his abused head, though.
Before Kris spoke, the others already spotted them as well and they all called Kris in unison, "Kris!" as they ran toward him too, and then they promptly shoved Dellon away the moment they arrived in front of Kris.
"Hey!" But, Dellons' complaint was instantly drowned by those guys hollering at the same time.
"Oh, thank god, you're okay!"
"What's going on? Why were they holding you here?"
"Did they do anything to you? Are you sure you're okay?"
"What did they want from you?"
"Do you need us to kick their ass?"
Anyway, the barrage of questions didn't seem about to stop anytime soon and along with Kris' most likely darkening mood, Dellons irritation grew.
"Come on, guys! Give the guy a space! He won't be able to talk if you corner him like that!" Dellons shouted in the end, annoyed that they interrupted his moment with his Princess.
"Oh, right," Rudy chuckled, looking sheepish as he seemed to just realize it. The others quickly followed and stepped back a little from Kris whose left eye was twitching repeatedly now.
"You guys…" Kris growled, multiple veins popping out of his temples. Now that they got a good look at Kris, they seemed to finally realize that Kris was perfectly okay and probably was about to give them an earful for what they had done.
Dellons was tempted to watch from the sideline as Kris' wrath fell upon them, but he wasn't that lucky, because Kris scathing glare was now on him and he pulled Dellons to be placed together with the others so Kris could scream at them without having to repeat his words to Dellons later.
They all winced as Kris started. "I can't even believe—! Did you guys follow me around like stalkers?! Seriously! And Rudy! I can reluctantly understand if it's Dellons because he's an ass ("Hey!" Of course Dellons protested indignantly, but was totally ignored), but you! I expect better from you! What did I tell you about being an insufferable, suffocating mother-hen?! Jave and Spike too! I just— how did even you get roped into this… this atrocity? Oh my God! Eileen! Rachel! You're supposed to be the voices of reason here!"
Kris was still roaring in his anger-muddled self, but Dellons was secretly enjoying this out of control Kris. It was interesting because Kris was never this emotional most of the time. He looked flustered and overwhelmed as well as being furious. His face got flushed pink and it was such a glorious sight that he ended up chuckling against his better judgment.
Kris' angry ranting stopped at the sound of his laugh and Kris once again turned his deadly glare at him. "You…!" Now Kris reached his hands out before he throttled Dellons. The others tried to stop him immediately though, before he could really commit murder, by yanking Dellons' body away from Kris while Rudy held Kris from behind.
In the end, it was Rudy who could calm Kris down. The brunet apologized to him repeatedly while holding his wrists and then pulling Kris body from behind into a firm but gentle hug that seemed to be irresistible for Kris, because even though he was still agitated and snarling at Dellons, his body immediately melted into Rudy's embrace.
It was so painfully obvious how weak Kris was to Rudy's ministration. Dellons wondered how Rudy never noticed this, really. The guy was practically putty whenever Rudy touched him. It seemed like Kris' body had developed some kind of conditioned response that accepted Rudy's touch unreservedly or something. It was so disgustingly sweet that Dellons' teeth hurt just thinking about it.
"So these guys are your friends, huh?"
Someone spoke from behind the group and Dellons snapped and turned around immediately in alert only to find a shorter, sunglasses wearing, Asian man that had come up to him and his friends unnoticed. Dellons didn't even hear his steps. Who was this guy?
"Ah, Mr. Kurogarasu," Kris seemed to know the guy though as he called him.
"Teo is fine," the long, dark haired man grunted before he looked around them and saw the damage that had been done to the place and some people who laid unconscious on the ground. He removed his sunglasses to reveal his sapphire colored eyes and slipped them into the inside of his suits pocket. "Care to explain why your friends beat up our security personnel to this extent, Mr. Tenebra?" he asked, his expression calm, but his heavy voice sounded grave.
"Um," Kris squirmed a bit, wiggling out of Rudy's hold rather forcefully that Rudy had to let him go.
"Hey now! You're the ones who kidnapped our friend and were holding him here!" Dellons immediately protested, not liking that the guy seemed to hold Kris responsible for the carnage.
"Kidnapped?" Teo raised his eyebrows high, staring at Dellons with incredulous look.
"I- we're sorry," Kris said before Dellons had a chance to retort some more. "My friends got the wrong assumption. I didn't tell them that I'd be meeting Ace, Rin, Lu Bu and Goku here today. They followed me and probably thought I was brought here against my will," he tried to explain and he looked directly into Teo's eyes.
Dellons saw a slight hesitance in the glint of Kris' eyes, but he couldn't tell what the reason was before Teo let out a long suffering sigh.
"Wait, you really came here on your free will?" Rachel piped up, her eyes wide and confused.
"But these suit-dressed people! Those sunglasses! And why is this place so secluded, even needing outer, higher and bigger building to hide it? Isn't this place some kind of secret lair?" Eileen protested and the others promptly nodded to support her conclusion.
"Are you guys serious? This isn't a movie or a TV drama! This place is a boarding house!" Kris huffed, apparently still annoyed and irritated enough to raise the volume of his voice.
"A boarding house? Forty minutes away from campus?" Both Jave and Spike sounded skeptical as they said it together.
"And the security is too overkill, don't you think?" Rudy also chimed in as Dellons snorted at Kris' attempt to make excuse, because it was totally unbelievable.
"It really is a boarding house. Ask Teo," Kris said and indeed the long haired man immediately explained.
"This house is especially chosen for security reason, indeed, since the residents of this house are quite… high profiles. I presume you already know of them? Lu Bu is the third son of General Lu from China, Ryuujou Rin is the only daughter of Ryuujou Group in Japan that has connection with the current Japanese emperor, Son Goku is the second son of Son Clan from Chang' an which has been the protector of the China Jade Castle from hundred years ago, and Mikazuki Ace if the eldest son of Japanese Prime Minister. Their background is quite sensitive and their fathers and families get a lot of attention, both from good and bad people, so to ensure that they are safe while they are studying out of their mother country, they have to be in a security-controlled environment."
There was silence from the younger party as they heard Teo's explanation.
"See?" Kris huffed again.
"So you weren't brought here against your will?" Rudy asked once again, his face paling slightly now after he seemed to realize how bad a situation he and his friends had created with their wild assumption.
"No," Kris shook his head.
"But you seemed unimpressed when Ace pushed you into the limo?" Jave sounded unsure.
"Because they're dressed like him! In public! The four of them!" Kris pointed at Teo's suits. "Bowties," he made an appalled noise and expression as he turned to Jave and the others. "I am still embarrassed that I stood near them earlier in front of China Town." He crossed his arms in front of his chest now, frowning deeply.
"I didn't know you're such a fashionista, Kris," Dellons' sweat dropped.
"I am not. But people were staring weirdly, you know? It's common sense," Kris' face flushed slightly then, how cute.
"But, where are the Four Lords, then?" Rachel asked.
"Yeah, if it's just misunderstanding, they could just explain it to us in person," Eileen didn't seem to buy any of it. She even challenged them to come out.
"They're in their safety room, because they thought the house was under attack," Teo answered immediately. "It will be two hours before the room can be opened from the outside," he added, sighing again as if it was a pain.
"Oh…" Yeah, that shut everyone up.
"So… we did a bad thing, didn't we?" Rudy was the first to speak again and then looked at Teo and the previously unconscious people that started to wake up as well—grumbling and muttering curses at the college students. "Um… we're very, very sorry about this…" Then he looked down, looking very guilty.
Dellons clicked his tongue, not wanting to lower his head to admit that he might have done something wrong, but Kris' still wrathful glare at him got him to at least mutter the word sorry. Jave, Spike, Eileen and Rachel followed Rudy's example to apologize for their wrong assumption. Rachel even made excuse because Kris was an important person and that most of them seemed to prone to attract trouble, especially Dellons (Dellons protested again at this notion and once again was ignored), and that they only wanted their circle of friends to be safe.
"Um, about the compensating for the damage…" Kris asked Teo tentatively.
"That's alright. It seems that our security needs more training if a bunch of college students can beat them up," Teo smiled, but it looked eerie and all the SP behind him cringed at that. "As for the material damage to the house, you don't have to worry about that. The masters and mistress have enough allowance to rebuild this place if they want to," he continued.
"Wait, we're getting away scot-free?" Dellons was surprised, but mostly gleeful at this and that earned him a whack to the back of his head once more from Kris (and from Rudy for good measure). "I am very sorry. We'll never do something like this again…" he continued, nursing his abused head once again.
"Thank you, Teo," Kris said with a tight smile and the older man nodded curtly.
They were escorted outside the building immediately and then brought outside the outer building with a minivan.
Dellons saw their rental car parked on the roadside, just where he had left Rudy and friends inside it when he had climbed out to scout the outer building earlier. "Oh, it's still there," he mused.
"I still can't believe that you guys actually followed me. This is ridiculous! I'm not talking to you guys until you all repent about invading my privacy!" Kris refused to get into the rental car as he walked past it, still fuming.
"Ah, wait, Kris!" Rudy immediately ran after him while the other groaned.
"He'll be sulking for quite a while, won't he?" Eileen sighed, resigned.
"Well, it is our fault," Spike shrugged.
"Let's just hope that Rudy can do his magic around Kris. That will improve his mood," Jave suggested, sweat dropping.
"Or probably make it worse, since Rudy is still an oblivious dunce about Kris' feeling toward him," Rachel added, making the others moan once again.
Dellons snorted and climbed into the car and proceed to wait for Rudy to comeback with Kris in tow. He had faith that Rudy would bring Kris back to them in no time after all.
End of Round 7
Tbc…
A/N: My GOD, this round gives me headache. Oh, and if after reading this you guys think that I'm bullshitting my way through the science, it's because I am bullshitting my way through the science. I'm NOT a scientific kind of guy, so please, please, pleaaaase don't take the explanation of the multiverse things seriously. It's baseless and crappy. Just… think of it as a medium to make the story progress, okay? So I won't answer any questions about that part of the story *nods*. But I am open for ideas of how Rudy and Dellons will make it up to Kris for… ya know, breaching his trust? Down there is a button to start giving me ideas!
Teaser:
"Why, Princess… you've been very peculiar these days," Dellons purred, his silky, low tenor voice tickling Kris' ear as he leaned into him and nuzzled the side of his head.
Kris kept still as he tested the boundary of his wrists, gripped by Dellons on each side of his head on top of the sofa backrest as one of the blonde's knees was nestled between his legs and his warm body was so close, bordering into touching, on top of him.
Kris' entire body was tense in a fight and flight response, getting ready to knee the guy on his royal jewel if he needed to, but Kris had grown tired of this repetitive escapades, and he needed to teach the brat a lesson anyway for making fun of people that was older than him (since the original Kris was indeed older than this Dellons), so he forced his body to relax and then nuzzled Dellons' nape in retaliation.
"And how peculiar do you mean, Dellons?" Kris whispered back, lowering his tone as well, and promptly smirked inwardly in triumph as he felt Dellons' body shiver in reaction...
