Like I said in the last chapter, I'll be updating more than one today. And I've decided to stop naming my chapters, because I can't think of any good names. Yes, I know. I suck.

Allen: RhiannonWolf does not own DGM, only her OCs.

Thank you Moyashi!

Allen: *twitch*

Chapter 6

"Lavi, I just can't do it." Gubbi said in exasperation, watching the rock sink.

"Yes you can, you just need to practice more." Lavi encouraged, handing her another rock.

Lynn sat down next to Allen to watch the scene unfold.

"If I didn't know any better," Allen whispered to the blonde. "I'd say that she was failing on purpose."

"She probably is." Lynn said, resting her chin in her palm. "I wouldn't put it past her to."

Allen merely chuckled in response.

"Wait…" Lynn said, just thinking of something. "Lavi said I'm two years older than you, correct?"

"Yes, that's right." Allen replied. "I'm about 15."

"Then…I'm confused." She said, frowning slightly. "You don't live here, do you?"

"…No."

"So you live in England still?"

Allen eyed her a bit cautiously. "…Around there, yes. Why?"

"Well…it's just that you're a bit far from home." Lynn said. "Job or not, you're 15. Aren't your parents worried about you?"

Allen became very interested in the rocks below his feet.

"…Allen?"

The white haired boy glanced up at the girl beside him. She was looking at him with concern.

"…Is everything okay? Do you want to talk?" she asked sincerely, putting her hand on his arm. It just so happened to be his left arm, and since Allen wasn't used to people touching his arm, he couldn't suppress an involuntary twitch when she made contact. Lynn felt the twitch and moved her hand away, unsure of what was wrong.

Allen sighed. "…I don't think they're worried. My parents, I mean."

"Why not?" she asked, secretly thrilled that he was letting her in, even if only slightly.

"I just know." He answered.

Lynn could tell that there was something Allen wasn't telling her, but she decided not to push it. She didn't want him to think she was annoying or anything. But she was practically dying with curiosity. She couldn't deny that she wanted to know more about him; about all of them really. They were such a mysterious bunch, and almost shady too. Lynn was beginning to have her doubts about the whole 'ghost hunting' thing, but she didn't dare voice them.

A couple minutes of silence settled around them, and as Lynn looked around she noticed that Caitlin was finally out of the canoe and exploring a half-submerged log on the river bank.

Whatever made her happy.

"Oh hey look at that!" Lavi cried out suddenly, pointing to something across the narrow part of the river.

Lynn turned her head to look and saw a large tree with its branches hanging out over the water. There were a couple people swinging from a rope tied to the largest branch and then falling into the water. The blonde took note in the fact that her brother was one of them.

"It's a tree." She said bluntly. "And morons."

"I have a good idea!" the redhead announced with a slightly crazy looking grin. He turned to Gubbi. "Wanna jump with me?"

"Oh this should be good…" Lynn mumbled, leaning forward a bit.

Gubbi blinked once, then twice. "…What?"

"Come on, come jump with me!" Lavi pleaded, grabbing her hand and practically dragging her over to the edge of the river. "I promise you'll be just fine!"

"But-"

"Please?" Lavi asked sweetly, bending down to Gubbi's level and giving her a pleading look.

"Uh…" the brunette faltered. "Oh…alright. But just once, okay?!"

"Yahoo!" the redhead yelled, running over to the tree with Gubbi in tow.

"Wait!" Gubbi cried, wrenching her hand out of Lavi's grip.

He looked at her in confusion.

"I don't wanna get my shirt wet." She explained, walking back over to the canoe, taking off her shirt as she went, revealing a dark blue swimsuit underneath.

Allen instantly blushed at the sight and returned his gaze to the ground, trying to hide his embarrassment. Lavi's one eye went wide and he suddenly grinned like a maniac as Gubbi tossed her shirt and then her shorts into the canoe. As she walked back over to him, the redhead gave her thumbs up.

"STRIKE!" he yelled.

"Oh God…" Allen mumbled, covering his face with his hands. Why? WHY?!

"Stop ogling me and let's go jump already." Gubbi said, walking swiftly towards the tree. Lavi caught up with her quickly and grabbed her hand again.

Lynn rolled her eyes at the girl's display. Then she frowned in irritation when she felt numerous sharp little rocks poking the soles of her feet from inside the shoe.

"I'll be right back." She said, gingerly standing up and making her way over to the edge of the water. Before she sat down however, she quickly took off her shorts, since they were denim, and tossed them in the canoe, gaining Caitlin's attention, who had returned from her little exploration for a drink.

"Going for a swim?" she asked.

"Nope, cleaning out my shoe." Lynn explained. "There's a bunch of little rocks that I wanna get out."

Caitlin just nodded before standing up herself and joining Lynn in the river.

The blonde sat down carefully, not wanting to injure herself, and then took off her shoe. She dragged it through the water and then shook it to remove the pesky sand.

She had just taken off her other shoe when her cousin Karley came running over. Karley's little friend, Megan was right beside her, giggling with excitement.

"Look at our minnows!" Megan cried, holding out a white plastic bucket presumably filled with tiny fish.

Lynn put her shoe down in order to look inside. She lifted the lid and saw that there was about ten minnows swimming around inside.

"Wow, you have a lot here!" Lynn exclaimed with a smile. "Did you catch these all by yourself?"

"No, Claire caught them." Karley said, almost bouncing up and down.

Lynn heard a scream from across the river and looked just in time to see Gubbi and Lavi go flying off the rope swing and land in the water. She shook her head at them.

"You know, you might want to let them go soon." Caitlin said, peering into the container. "So they can grow up to be big."

Karley nodded while Megan just stared at her, like she didn't understand what was being said.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of them." Claire said, walking up to them with a pink butterfly net in hand.

Lynn put the container down on the bank and then reached for her shoe.

Only to find it wasn't there.

Her eyes widened and she began searching frantically for the pink and black shoe.

"Lynn, what's wrong?" Caitlin asked as Claire, Karley and Megan walked away with the minnows.

"My shoe!" the blonde exclaimed. "I just put it down to look at their darn minnows, and I didn't even notice it float away!"

"We'll find it, don't panic." Caitlin said seriously, looking around. "Do you think it sank?"

Lynn sighed dejectedly, not liking the idea of walking around with one shoe at all. "I don't know…"

"Well here, let's check." Caitlin said, standing up. "Here, you take my glasses while I look underwater."

Lynn nodded and stood up as well. She reached out to take the glasses, but unfortunately she didn't have a good grip on them.

"Oh shit!" Lynn shouted as the glasses slipped right from her fingers and into the water.

The two girls just looked at each other.

Lynn wanted to start crying right there. First she'd lost her shoe and then she lost Caitlin's glasses.

"Shit! Shit shit shit shit shit!" she repeated over and over again, missing the incredibly dirty look Claire was giving her. "Oh holy shit…"

Caitlin bent down and searched through the water a bit before standing up again. "It's alright Lynn, calm down." She said, holding the newly found glasses. "I found them, and they're not broken."

The blonde let out a huge sigh of relief, but she still wanted to cry. She had just lost her shoe…and the riverbed wasn't any fun to walk on…

'Maybe Allen would carry me…' Lynn thought before abruptly shaking her head. 'NO WAY! STOP THINKING THAT!'

"Hey, this is yours, right?"

Lynn and Caitlin looked up to see Allen standing there, looking a bit wetter than before. He was holding up a pink and black water shoe.

"THANK YOU!" Lynn shouted, practically launching herself at Allen in excitement. She took the shoe from him happily, muttering 'thank you thank you thank you' the whole time.

"I wasn't the one who found it." Allen admitted. "A lady over there said she was your aunt and told me to give it to you."

Lynn turned to look and sure enough, her Aunt Elaine was standing there, smiling.

"Okay, be right back." Lynn said, hurriedly pulling on her shoe.

"How'd you get so wet?" Caitlin asked, looking briefly at his wet shirt.

He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Uh…I fell."

"Ah…I hope those gloves of yours don't get uncomfortable."

"I'll manage."

Lynn jogged over to where her aunt was standing. "Thank you so much!" she cried, giving her a big hug.

"Oh you're welcome. It wasn't just me though," Aunt Elaine said. "It was a group effort."

Lynn turned to the group of people in the water. "Thank you so much for getting my shoe back!"

"Oh you're welcome." One of the older men said.

"Hey, I helped too." Lynn's Uncle Michael said.

"You did?"

"Yeah, I watched it float past."

Lynn sweat-dropped. "…How is that helping?"

"Because I alerted everyone and said, 'Hey, that's my god-daughter's water shoe; let's watch it float down the river!'"

Lynn rolled her eyes. "Yeah, what a big help you are…"

The blonde said thank you one more time before rushing back over to Caitlin and Allen. When she got there, she heard the same scream from before, and saw Gubbi and Lavi hitting the water again. Will soon followed them with a yell of his own.

xxXXxx

"Lynn come on!" Caitlin called from across the stretch of running water.

Lynn looked uncertainly at her. "But I don't wanna get my shorts wet!"

"Then take them off!" Caitlin responded.

The blonde blinked and whined a little.

"Lynn, come on! It's really cool over here!" the brunette called again. She'd already taken her shirt off and was wearing her swimsuit beneath it. Her shorts were still on however.

Lynn looked around and saw that no one was really paying much attention to what she was doing. Allen was talking to someone with a dark tan about something – she couldn't hear what they were saying – and Kanda was…well…being Kanda.

The blonde sighed. "Fine…" she mumbled, slipping out of her shorts and tossing them into the canoe. "This is so weird…" she grumbled as she carefully made her way across the river, speaking loud enough that Caitlin could hear her. "It feels like I'm walking around half-naked."

"Well don't think that." Caitlin responded.

"I can't help it."

Caitlin just sighed as her friend attempted to cross the shallow part of the river. Technically it wasn't that shallow; the water rose to about Lynn's knee, and then eventually around her mid-thigh.

xxXXxx

Allen sighed as he sat down on a rock. He'd finally been doing part of his job, which was asking people if they'd noticed strange things going on. No one had, so it was possible that there wasn't any Innocence at all, just Akuma. But so far, his eye hadn't detected anything. That in itself was strange.

The white haired Exorcist scratched the back of his head. Perhaps the Akuma had moved on? Or were they just too far for his eye to detect? If that was the case, then what? What could they do? If there was no Innocence or Akuma, then they didn't need to be there. They could just leave and go back to the Order.

Mission accomplished.

Allen heard a familiar shriek and looked up in time to see Lynn slip backwards in the river and fall over, effectively drenching her shirt. Caitlin was standing on the bank across from her, shouting something that sounded like words of encouragement.

Then again, Allen wasn't really sure what she was saying.

Lynn attempted to stand up only to fall back down again.

Allen couldn't help but smile at the scene. These girls were so ridiculous, and fun to be around. This whole trip was pretty refreshing to him. He'd never admit it to Lavi, but it was a pretty good idea for them to go on this trip.

He was content sitting there, lost in his thoughts when he noticed Kanda coming up to him. Just from the look on the samurai's face, Allen could tell that something was up.

xxXXxx

Caitlin was re-applying sunscreen for probably the tenth time that day when Gubbi jogged up to them.

"Ready to go?" Caitlin asked, closing the lid and tossing it in the cooler.

"But what about the boys?" Gubbi asked, tilting her head slightly. "Aren't we floating with them?"

"Well yeah, but they'll catch up." Caitlin said, sitting down in the canoe. "Let's go."

Gubbi looked to Lynn, who was already sitting in the back of the canoe, albeit with a half annoyed half exasperated expression. The blonde merely shrugged without saying a word.

Gubbi sighed. "Fine…I'll just tell them that we're going on ahead."

Caitlin said nothing in reply as the short-haired brunette walked over to where Lavi was currently skipping rocks again.

He heard her approach and flashed a grin. "What's up Gub-chan?"

Gubbi winced at the nickname but made no comment. "Nothing, just wanted to tell you that we're going on ahead."

Lavi gave her a confused look.

"Caitlin." Gubbi said bluntly.

"Ah…"

"Yeah, she wants to keep moving."

"Well, okay." Lavi said, noticing the looks he was getting from Allen and Kanda behind him that clearly shouted 'get over here!'. "Yeah…I'm pretty sure that we have to do something real fast, so it's no big deal."

Gubbi blinked. "What do you have to do?"

Lavi smiled sheepishly. "To be perfectly honest, I have no idea."

"Alright then." Gubbi said with a soft sigh. "I'll see you later."

xxXXxx

It took roughly five minutes until the girls gave up on pushing the canoe out themselves and instead asked Lavi to help them. It took one great shove and then the canoe was once again floating in the murky water.

The three girls waved bye and then continued paddling down the river.

It was fairly quiet for the most part, since they were so far ahead of the rest of the group.

"You know…" Lynn said quietly as they floated. "…They're really mysterious."

"I've noticed that too." Caitlin agreed.

"Me too, but what exactly do you mean?" Gubbi asked.

"Well, think about it." Lynn replied, putting her paddle on her knees. "They say they're here for a job, but Allen's only 15. And when I asked about what his parents think about all this, he told me that he just knows they don't care."

"That's sad." Gubbi commented.

"I mean, I've never met someone so young and so far from home who was a ghost hunter." Lynn said, taking her sunglasses off and cleaning them with her shirt.

The funniest thing was that she said it with a completely straight face.

Caitlin rolled her eyes while Gubbi chuckled.

"Lynn, seriously?" the girl with glasses sighed. "They didn't say they were ghost hunters!"

"Because they were afraid that we were skeptics, and that we'd make fun of them if we knew the truth!" the blonde insisted, her voice rising slightly.

"Lynn, I don't think they're ghost hunters." Caitlin repeated.

"Non-believers will be punished!"

"Lynn, you believe things far too easily."

"That's not true!"

"Yes it is!"

"No it isn't!"

"Lynn, calm down." Gubbi said between chuckles.

"But-"

"Can we please not start arguing?" the short-haired brunette asked.

The blonde sighed. "Sorry. I just…oh man I wanna know more about them! I don't think I've ever been so curious about something!"

"Well, try to keep it to a minimum, alright?"

"Okay…"