Author's Note: Welcome once again to the Reactsverse fic that no one cares about.

Disclaimer: Let's be honest. If I owned any of this stuff, I wouldn't be here.

Night

It's Dark. That Is All.

Lancer woke in the middle of the night. He stared up at the ceiling, looked around for a clock, and found it on a bedside table.

One-thirty? He thought, that's too early. He flopped back down in bed, and closed his eyes.

Then he rolled onto one side and kept his eyes closed.

He rolled on to the other.

He opened his eyes, and glared up at the ceiling. The ceiling, being a ceiling, did nothing.

Lancer rolled out of bed, grumbling, and began wandering around the room searching for his pants.

He didn't really have any destination in mind, but he was feeling a mite hungry. Given that, Lancer wasn't especially surprised that his feet took him to the lobby. There was a small kitchen area off to one side that students could use to prepare heat up some food if they needed it, with a vending machine off for compulsive snackers. Oddly enough, the man that Milly had called Nails was sitting at the table facing a window and nursing a half-full bottle of soda.

"Hey," he said noncommittally.

Lancer raised an eyebrow—he had not announced his presence, and Nails had given no indication of being aware of his presence. "Hey," he replied. "You wanna be drinking that this late?"

"I have funny sleep habits," Nails said. "Comes from ticking off the local gangs every time I bend over. Actually, that's part of how I met the twins." Lancer considered this, and took the offer of conversation, figuring it was better than standing around saying nothing.

"What's their deal, anyhow?" he asked. "I've been around the block a few times, and I can't really say I've seen anything like them."

"You never can say you've seen everything," Nails mused, bringing a cigarette up to his mouth and rooting around in his pocket. "They're some kind of genetically engineered clones. I could never figure out the specifics."

"Oh yeah, you're an information broker?" Lancer recalled. He frowned. "There's someone I've been trying to find."

Nails shrugged. "Let's hear it. It'll cost you, though." He procured a lighter, and lit his cigarette.

"Fair enough," Lancer agreed. He said three words. Nails took a drag of his cigarette, closed his eyes, and brought a hand to his chin.

"I've got nothing," he said. "Last seen two years ago in Fuyuki City, then dropped off the map. That's all I've heard, at least." Lancer sighed. It wasn't any less that what he had expected, but it was still a little hard hearing that his search still hadn't brought any results. Nails gave him a look. "That's what you've been doing, isn't it. Looking for her."

Lancer shrugged. "Guess so."

The window slid open, and a man with his face covered in greasepaint stuck his head in. Lancer and Nails stared.

"Excuse me," the man said, "is Millicent Ashford in this building?" Nails and Lancer continued to stare.

"This is the men's dorm," Nails said at length. "She would be in the girl's dorm."

"Ah, thank you," the man said, leaned away, and shut the window. Lancer could hear him drop softly to the ground and speak in hushed tones.

"… Should we check that out?" he asked.

"If he was that stupid," Nails replied, "he deserves what's coming to him."

One of the problems with being connected to a network, Misaka mused, was that sometimes it can wake you up at odd hours of the night.

/15077/ Cats are far superior to dogs, explains Misaka in a mocking tone, disapproving her sister's foolishness.

/10055/ That is not true, Misaka refutes. Dogs are far more caring and affectionate, she continues.

/15077/ Cats are more self-sufficient, Misaka points out.

/10033/ Shut up. Misaka can't sleep.

/Last Order/ Yes, please be quiet says Misaka as Misaka is becoming increasingly annoyed since she also cannot sleep.

Misaka closed her eyes and rolled over in bed. In the bunk above her she could hear Milly tossing fitfully. Maybe she should try to comfort her? But how would she do that?

There was a scratching at the window, and it slid open to let a man that Misaka was unfamiliar with in. Grumbling and cursing under his breath, he tumbled through and sprawled on the floor.

"'Are you an assassin?' Misaka whispers," Misaka said in a conversational tone. Above her, she heard Milly still. The man looked at her in askance, and lifted himself to his feet.

"Yes, I would be," he said in a low voice.

"'Ah. In that case, Misaka should probably scream to alert everyone,' Misaka realizes," Misaka said. The would-be assassin's eyes widened, and he lunged. "'Aaaaah,' Misaka screams" Misaka said, her tone exactly the same. The assassin stumbled over his feet.

"Look kid," he said, grabbing Misaka by the wrist, "I don't know what youUUUUAAAAAAAARRGH!"

"'Yes, like that,' Misaka says proudly." Milly was already rolling out of bed, grabbing her pistols.

"That was probably him," Nails said. He took a drag of his cigarette.

"Probably," Lancer agreed. He sipped his coke. "Nowhere near that guy on the ship's level."

"Oh? Do tell," Nails raised an eyebrow. Lancer gave him a sidelong look, and figured it couldn't hurt.

"Some crazy bat-faunus. Adam and I tag-teamed him, and we could barely keep up." He swirled his coke. "Adam called him Koumori. You ever hear about him?"

"You got five-thousand Lien?"

Milly was running.

Currently, she didn't know how many assassins were in the building, or where they were. Her best bet was to get somewhere with lots of people—no, she couldn't do that. They could be disguised as students—Lelouch would have anticipated this probability, weeded them out. Even so, despite the past two years apparently being incident after madcap incident, Ashford Academy was no Beacon. Anyone near her would be in danger. It was why she had left Misaka behind, the clone girl's shorter legs not able to keep up. Milly had to get out—or find Kallen or Anya, accomplished fighters who could handle themselves.

She was so determined to get away, she almost didn't register the figure in front of her until they were almost on top of each other. She didn't recognize him. She was alone, couldn't take the chance on his identity. She jumped, brought a foot up in a near-perfect flying side kick that sent him tumbling to the floor, turned her fall into a tumble, came up running.

The man that she dropped pulled himself to his feet, grumbling. "Stupid, I hate this job… I should follow Mom's advice, quit, find a nice girl…" He paused, and turned to see two small, green-haired girls smiling up at him. "Who are you?"

"It's very late, isn't it Noki?"

"Yes it is, Luki."

"He shouldn't be here, should he."

"No he shouldn't. Do you think he wants to play with us?"

"You aren't making sense," the man hissed, his blood running cold—HOW DID THOSE FIT IN THEIR SLEEVES?!

"Do you want to play with us?" they asked in unison. Their tones and suddenly feral smiles left little doubt what "play" meant in this situation.

Back to Milly, who we left for a moment for no good reason at all. Let's see, running, dodging, fleeing, right.

The first warning she had was the sudden roar of a round leaving the barrel. She threw herself to the floor, skidded along, and pulled herself to her feet in time to bounce her shoulder off a wall.

"Not bad," a gravelly voice called. "Not many are able to dodge that."

Milly swallowed, suddenly very aware that the wall next to where her head had just been seconds earlier was now a smoking hole. "Well, you know," she said, trying to fill her voice with false bravado, "I've gotten kind of good at not being dead." She scanned the hall, trying to figure out who was talking.

"Over her, girl," the voice said. In a flash, Milly's guns were aimed at the wall as it exploded outwards, allowing the man who had concealed himself in the adjacent room into the hall.

He was of above-average height, with neck-length grey hair and eyes. He wore a leather jacket over a silver-grey shirt and black jeans, and his legs were encased in large, metal greaves. He grinned and cracked his knuckles.

"Looks like this job's gonna be interesting," he said congenially. "Nice to meet you, I'm Marcus Black."

Author's Note: Kind of a disappointing ending? Yeah, I was a little put out when the chapter ended up this way too. It just seemed like a natural endpoint. And man was I feeling goofy when I wrote this.

Next Time: People fight. The story continues. You know, the usual.