I'm so sorry I have no idea what happened with this. So sorry everyone. I should just keel over and…. Okay not that. I'll stop now before people get angry. Thanks everyone for reminding me and keeping up with the complaints. (and this story)
Nick had to abandon his startling revelation in favour of the alarm that sounded from the scanner. There were akumas in the forest again and they were moving fast. Too fast. Nick whipped out his communicator device and pressed the alarm button.
XXX
Dumbledore was handling one of his devices in his office when the painted figure of Phineas Nigellus returned with a satisfied smile. It didn't take a genius to figure out the reason so Albus just frowned at him and concentrated on listening to the sudden whispering of the wards around the school. He suspected that the guests had something to do with it. He was right, of course, but had to ignore them. He had invited these people in, he had to trust them as well. But really, in his opinion the Christmastime was very overrated. All kinds of bad things happened during Christmas.
XXX
The Exorcist trio was running towards the Black Forest with pretty impressive leaps. The akumas were only 100 meters from the edge and if they went past it, they would be visible to all and that was something they couldn't have. These wizards had to be kept on their high horse.
The blackness of the forest swallowed them abruptly but they couldn't afford to stop. A perimeter had to be set and hope that Hagrid wasn't around. Carrie flung the sealing bugs wide to form a barrier, hoping that the akumas would be too stupid to go around it. Technology that the Earl had created was now used to stop him. Or what was left of him, anyway.
Carrie was in the middle of a jump, just activating her Innocence when she came face to face with the Level 4.
XXX
Severus was just returning from meeting the Dark Lord
(and for Merlin's sakes the man was unoriginal. The situation was made even more hilarious when Severus compared the man to his muggle counterparts. Now that guy, at least, was efficient instead of this cloak-and-dagger stuff.)
and was in a bad mood. His strides took him quickly towards the castle but he suddenly stopped when he heard explosions coming from the forest. He had a sneaking suspicion that he didn't really want to know about Hagrid's latest pet project (pun intended.)
The atmosphere changed when he came to the door. Reklaw was coming out, strangely unaffected by the biting cold air that must have assaulted him when he stepped through the door. Severus was thrown back by the lines of worry in his face. Normal people wouldn't have even noticed the difference but Snape did. The smirk on his face looked pained and worried when he was gazing at the forest. Snape had a bad feeling about the explosion being something else than he'd initially assumed. It was at opposite of everything he'd ever been taught about things you don't know now and should find out about. He squared his shoulders and looked at him in the eyes.
"Will you take care of it?" The surprise in Reklaw's eyes spoke volumes. The he grinned, a boy's smile that confirmed Snape's suspicions about his age being something else. "See you on dinner, Severus." then he closed the door on Snape's face. Severus blinked and went to report to Dumbledore. It would not do good delay it too much. Legilimency was very useful to conceal the fact that he generally associated Dumbledore with spiders.
XXX
The akuma should've been easy to dispatch. But now, even the weakest ones were alive due to the presence of a single Level 4. Gary was already lying immobile on the ground, living but it was looking bad. Carrie had taken a major hit in the beginning but was still moving, trying to distract the level 4 so that Nick could possibly take care of the lesser akumas. Needless to say, the plan wasn't working.
Carrie was struck back with way too much power and she slid across the ground to a stop, barely conscious. She could see the lesser akumas trying to break the barrier. She turned her eyes towards the baby-like, slightly rusted Level 4. It was grinning madly and starting at her direction.
Nick readied his Frisbee. He might be able to knock the thing out of flight towards the other akumas and cause them all them to explode. The chances were that it would cost them the barrier but at the moment it was the only shot he had. He opened his mouth to call his attack…
and was stopped by the sight of the akuma struggling against something. Nick did have an inkling who it was. But now it was not the time to worry about that. He launched his Frisbee towards the lesser akumas, killing them easily, at the same time dodging the Level 4 getting thrown at his direction. He turned to see Reklaw.
"You are him, aren't you?"
"Doesn't seem very productive to deny it then. What gave it away?" Nick stared at him. Was he serious?
"Well you did everything else but shout your name right at us!" So okay, maybe not that much but he'd been so infuriating at them that even an idiot would've noticed something strange.
He was answered with a sheepish look and a shrug. "Well yeah. Cannot argue that one. But in any case, you should get them out of the immediate vicinity. I'll take care of the Level 4."
Nick didn't waste time and was already running towards his teammates. On his way he passed Reklaw, except not he was now Allen Walker, and saw bizarre cracks on his face. When he'd collected Gary and Carrie he turned to have a one last look and saw how the man's disguise literally cracked and melted from his features like sand. Then a bright white light erupted from him and Nick had to go.
XXX
Harry had opened the Marauder's Map in order to look for something that was not normal. He spotted it almost immediately when he saw the three transfer students at the edge of the Dark Forest coming from inside the forest. Their speed was too fast to be normal. Harry checked the direction they were coming from and witnessed something he thought wasn't possible. There were strange stars all over the place, flocking. And in the middle was "Kal Reklaw". Whose name suddenly changed to "Allen Walker". Harry's mind went to the worst case scenario in seconds. What if there was another impostor at Hogwarts like there had been the year before? Just what had Phineas meant? The map showed the stars disappearing in a puff of smoke. Harry yelled for Ron and Hermione.
XXX
Nick felt the shockwaves rattle and finally kill the barrier. He lifted his attention from Carrie and Gary to scan the area for any leftover akuma. There was none. He allowed himself to relax.
"Do you need help with them?" Nick barely fought off a heart attack at the sound of Reklaw right next to his ear. He turned to see him looking decidedly different. He looked like the painting had described him but it was clear that he was older. It wasn't visible in his face or anywhere else, he just was. Nick lifted his eyebrows at the faintly blissful expression. Frankly, it looked like he was on drugs. He ignored it.
"Yes it would actually be nice. Could you take Gary since you most likely can make his mass move somewhere without straining anything?" Reklaw (Walker, Nick corrected himself) smiled at the jab. Probably had some fond memories himself.
They both gathered their assigned victims to their arms and turned towards the edge of the forest and the castle. Walker looked contemplating, "We probably need to take them directly to that Hospital Wing. These types of injuries are a bitch." Nick made a noncommittal sound before he realized that Walker couldn't exactly go inside the castle like this. As if reading his thoughts Walker quipped, "I'll go through the window and leave Gary there on one of the beds. Do you have a good cover story already?" Nick nodded. "Well I'll be on my way then, see you on class." And with a last, clichéd smile he left.
Nick was left in a cloud of dust Walker had kicked up. He sighed and speeded off. What excuse Madam Pomfrey would buy?
Hopefully there would be no one in the corridors.
XXX
"Blimey! Are you saying that the name actually changed?" Harry nodded almost earnestly, despite the general atmosphere surrounding the Black house. Hermione was biting her lip thoughtfully.
"Didn't you say that Polyjuice potion had effects like this on the map last year? Crouch junior was able to sneak around as Mad Eye with no problems." The all silently agreed on that one. "I can accept that he might be using the potion but it only holds for an hour and this timing looks awfully too good to be true. And what were those stars, then? Enemy? Ally? I don't think we should do anything just yet." She concluded. The boys were watching like she'd lost her mind.
"Hermione, are you sure your opinion isn't… affected in any way?" They all had not so fond memories of Lockhart. She went a little red and then flared up. "No this has nothing to do with that. I'm just thinking that Dumbledore would have taken that into account when he hired him, considering what happened last time. And the course was optional; there was a good chance that none of us would've taken it, especially Harry. And… I think I'm going to hit the books once we get back to Hogwarts. To see if there's any Walkers around." She trailed off. Ron was open mouthed. "That's your great plan? To hit the books?" Hermione was clearly frustrated. "Yes Ron, that's my great plan. Did you have any better ones?" Ron's predictable silence was cut off by Harry. "Well anyway, I'll go see if I can catch Lupin. He might know about spells that can cheat the map." He closed the door to a silence.
XXX
Snape had a generally bad feeling of the situation and was quietly waiting outside Reklaw's room, having gone there without even visiting his own room. He heard footsteps from the chilling corridor and saw the torches light up. The ambiguous character that walked into the light was Reklaw but seemed different. He had a hood on to prevent from being seen and was holding his right arm in a careful position, like it was broken. Severus clicked his tongue. Reklaw barely paused to let himself in to his room, allowing Severus to enter as well.
Severus light up the fireplace and regarded Reklaw carefully. "Is it taken care of now?" was met with an amused face. He looked like he would've shrugged if his arm wasn't wrecked. Of course that would've moved the hood and risked full exposure of his face when now only the eyes were seen from the shadows. But Severus could see some wisps of white hair escape the confines of the garment. He had enough bad experiences with people with white hair so he didn't ask.
"Yep, everything's okay." Reklaw then looked at him speculatively. "Mind if you hold my arm in place for a moment?"
"Shouldn't you be going to the hospital wing for that?" A look. "Of course not. What was I thinking?"
XXX
Albus was waiting impatiently for the remaining members still missing from the night's dinner.
Madam Pomfrey had already announced that the two transfer students had had a bad encounter with the Whomping Willow and the third one was at their bedside. They had started eating already but Reklaw and Severus were still missing. Albus was severely tempted to send a house elf after them but it turned out he didn't have to as the duo walked through the door engaged in a silent conversation. It seemed that Severus' suspicion was still present and strong as ever. Albus sighed. There wasn't much he could do.
A while later Nick walked in, looking haggard but calm, like his fears had been calmed for now. He mumbled something briefly and sat down, collecting food to his plate.
XX
Nick wolfed down his food and started collecting a second plate. He accidentally caught Walker's eyes and bit his lip, insecure how to act around this man that was shrouded in legends, lies and mysteries. He didn't know, but now, for the moment he was grateful. He hoped his eyes conveyed that feeling.
Walker smiled, so apparently they did.
After this long without updates it would be bad manners to ask for reviews. But anyway… Review?
Additional stuff… I watched Iron Man 2 yesterday and found it to be…. very traditional in the superhero movie sense. But that's okay I guess, since nobody goes to watch Iron Man 2 and expect anything too deep anyway. So factoring in the expectations I had about it, I liked it very much.
Bye! *runs in the opposite direction, hoping the IM2 distraction worked*