Neeed sleeep.... I really have to stop staying up so late... really, it's 3:10 A.M. right now... gaaah.
Well... here's the next part of Coin Operated Boy. RodAl will be back next chapter, I swear.
I think I had a bit too much fun with the action scene.... way too much fun -cackles- really... it was just great imagining icicles rain down... I don't know if it's very well written or not, but it was definitely fun to write!
Sorry this took a bit to write... as I said before, Lenalee and Lavi are hard to write --.--' they just don't want to come out...
disclaimer – give me a break, alright? One chapter is all I ask... (warning: 'One' can be repetitive)
How many days had they been trapped in the rewinding city? Just a few too many for Lavi and Lenalee's tastes. They had spent the past few days trying to work up Miranda's confidence and get her employed, thinking that the Innocence, the grandfather clock in Miranda's house, had been responding to her negative emotions.
The way they had stumbled upon the discovery of the Innocence was rather humorous in a sense. And it all began with a cat that happened to wander into Miranda's apartment. Lavi had not been paying attention and... well, everything just kind of went forward from there.
Quite literally, forward.
And so, they found themselves scrounging around for jobs after some large fiasco they they wouldn't even bother mentioning in a mission report when they returned to the Order.
But before they got to go back to the Order, they would have to get out of the city, which brought them back to their current situation, which involved a minimum wage of a bare handful of marks and books. Lots and lots of books. Which Lavi had little objection to, but he was really having a hard time keeping his mind on his and Miranda's work and out of whatever book he happened to be holding at the time.
Miranda poked him and he jumped out of what felt like his skin, slamming the book he had been currently reading shut quickly on instinct. The poor woman, startled by this reaction, lept back and apologized profusely for interrupting him. She was on her third apology in broken English when Lavi was able to register what was happening around him.
He looked over at Miranda, sighed, and began to try to calm her down. He didn't really notice when the young boy came up to him with a book until he had been tapped on his shoulder numerous times.
"What?" Lavi asked, spinning around, his elbow almost connecting with the boy's head. "Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't notice you!" He cried in German. The boy shrugged and smiled.
"It's fine, sorry for disturbing you," He replied happily. Lavi blinked. Something was really off. The boy was odd looking, if nothing else. His coat was long and dark, the hood pulled up over his hair and covering everything about his face except for the light glow behind the seemingly silver eyes.
And even better yet, the voice almost instantly connected in Lavi's almost infinite memory. He smiled and played along anyway. "What can I help you with?" He asked cheerily as ever. The boy laughed weakly and held up a book to him.
"My friend is turning twelve, I would like to know if you would recommend it for her," Lavi inspected the book's title and glanced at the inside cover with the description on it. He smiled. For an Akuma, the demon sure had good taste for twelve-year-olds, if he was honestly playing the part of a friend and unaware that Lavi was an exorcist.
Lavi vaguely wondered about the supposed Akuma in front of him. The boy looked young from what he could see of him. Who had he lost to become an Akuma? The usual questions he had always wanted to know about Akuma, but probably never would. How the Noahs treated them, how the world looked from their view, and if the souls really called out to the Innocence to kill them like the higher-ups at the Order claimed.
He realized quite soon that his musings had led him a bit too far and he quickly shut the book, handing it back to the Akuma. "You have good taste in literature," Lavi said, smiling. "Too bad, I'd love to ask you about a few books, Akuma," He muttered darkly in English. The Akuma's eyes widened.
Throwing the book aside, the boy dashed to the door, startling several people nearby. "Miranda, keep shop! I'm going after the Akuma!" He yelled, sprinting out the door. Miranda breathed in sharply, startled by Lavi's sudden declaration of an Akuma.
"Miss?" A young girl tugged at her dress. Miranda paled. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no! She couldn't handel a customer all on her own! "Miss!" The little girl chanted again. Miranda looked down slowly, looking at the young girl, who had puffed out cheeky and looked angry about something.
"Miss, why was that man chasing after my brother?" She demanded, stomping her foot. Miranda trembled. She wasn't expected to explain to a little girl that her brother was a demon bent on destroying the world, was she? She tried to pull away and act like she didn't realize the girl was there, even though it was slightly too late for that, when a hand gripped her wrist.
"Why don't you make this easier on both of us?" The girl asked. Miranda trembled in her grip. She didn't seem much like an innocent little girl anymore. She seemed more... sinister. "Where is your Innocence? My doll cant run forever," Miranda flinched.
"Why did it have to be me?" She whispered. "Why my clock..."
000
Lavi chased the Akuma through the streets, ready at any moment for it to explode out of the boy's skin and turn to attack him. He had the same voice as the person who had ordered the Akuma to abandon their attempt to kill him earlier. If those had been level two, then this Akuma had to be even higher level than them to order them around.
Oh man, what if he was chasing a level three all alone?
He pulled out a golem, hoping it still worked inside the barrier made by Miranda's clock. "Lenalee, I found the Akuma," He hissed into it. Lenalee's startled voice came out of the other end. "I'm chasing him a few blocks down from the bookshop, he's got a black cloak on and looks like a kid."
He waited. The sound of air moving rapidly came through the golem. Lenalee was flying and carrying the golem with her, apparently. The boy took a sharp turn into a wide alley. Lavi skidded, barely following him on the sharp turn, his hammer out of it's case and ready to be activated as he saw the outline of Lenalee swoop down beside him.
"This is him?" She asked. Lavi nodded, activating his hammer and having it grow several sizes as the Akuma hit a dead end and spun in the back of the alley to face the two exorcists. They waited for him to break skin... but he never did.
Ice suddenly rained down on them from above. Lenalee shrieked in suprise and flew at Lavi, knocking them both behind a dumpster and out of the spray. Lavi grunted and twisted his head around as a long icicle plunged into the metal above them with a horrible screeching sound as the metal was bent and scraped against the ice.
"SHIT!" Lavi yelled, growing his hammer to twice his and Lenalee's size, hoping it would cover them enough to strike back. The force of the hammer expanding behind it upset the dumpster, which tipped and scattered garbage around the alley, which they learned the moment they returned to the open...
...had been completely covered in ice by the Akuma's attack. The sudden cold overtook them quickly. It was impossibly cold for fall. Impossibly cold for Germany.
The raining ice had stopped. Lavi looked around the alley from under his hammer with Lenalee. In fear of another attack from above. The boy was no longer at the end of the alley. Lavi swore as a manic laughter echoed down from above.
He managed to look up from the hammer's curve. The boy still hadn't broken skin, instead, he was siting calmly on one of the Akuma from the bar. The one with four faces on it, which had the sonic wave attack. His hood had fallen down and now Lavi could just barely make out the stock of white hair flaring wildly below the cloudy gray sky. A thin streak of red was all that identified his shadowed face from his backdrop. Even Lavi, a Bookman, would have thought him headless otherwise.
The Akuma were attacking together. The largest one swooped down again, ice and snow flooding out of its mouth as it flew towards where Lavi and Lenalee kept their defense behind the overturned dumpster.
"Move!" Lenalee yelled, flying out from under the hammer as Lavi smacked the ground, sending himself flying several feet into the air. Lenalee twirled around, flying under his legs and pushing up with her hands and the acceleration of her boots. Lavi flew even higher, more in control now, towards the direction of the white haired Akuma.
The Akuma the boy was sitting on opened one of it's mouths and out came a horribly loud sound like nails on a chalkboard. Lavi screamed, but he was in the air already and unable to change his direction. He swung his hammer up and as far towards the two Akumas as he could.
Lenalee knocked the large Akuma in the head again, flying off of it and into yet another dance with the smaller Akuma, which kept throwing scythes made of wind at her, so they couldn't be reflected or blocked, just kicked in half or dodged. She had fallen down to fight the two Akuma after boosting Lavi, hoping to buy him a clear field for just a moment while he tried to crush the leader of the Akuma.
That was when she heard Lavi's scream and saw the way his hammer shook as he threw its blunt side to the four-faced Akuma and the leader.
"Lavi, look out!" She yelled up at him, forgetting completely about the two Akumas she had been fighting a moment before. She only realized the mistake a moment later when a sudden horrible cold took over her body. She felt her arms and legs stiffening, even as she willed them to move.
Creeping up her neck and covering her face.
She closed her eyes desperately and breathed in deeply as the ice finally came all the way over her.
"Lenalee!" Lavi yelled, looking down just in time to see her freeze over completely, a large statue that grew up from the ice covered ground. He was falling by then. The Akuma had finally stopped it's supersonic attack, but Lavi was clutching his ears, hearing the obscenely loud beating of his eardrum, which he had been sure had popped.
Strands of white descended from the sky. Very thin white strands, like hair or thread. Lavi looked up as they began winding around him, slowing his fall. The white Akuma was surrounded by a cloak and lowering him slowly to the ground.
Lavi slammed his back into the wall the moment he had his own free footing. He held his hammer ready, waiting for the Akumas to attack again, though he could think of no reason why they had halted their attack and waited for him to land.
He was counting the seconds as they went by. Counting the seconds that Lenalee had been trapped in ice. She couldn't last long, people only lasted a few minutes without oxygen. Lavi could feel the panic rising as the four Akuma surrounded him. The white one, the leader, was the last to come in around him.
The Akuma turned to the largest of his underlings. "Unfreeze the girl, Road will want to play with them."
The larger Akuma nodded quickly and the ice around Lenalee began to melt away. She collapsed on the cobblestones of the snow-covered alley. Lavi watched desperately out of the corner of his eye, still trying ot focus on the Akuma in front of him.
When the white haired Akuma looked at Lavi again, he stepped forward slowly. "Good night."
"Wait!" Lavi cried desperately as the boy came closer. "What the hell are—"
He slumped onto the alley floor, with Lenalee.
All black.