A Royal Spring Chapter Nine?

Idk. I'm trying to stay calm about my lack of inspiration and just find something intresting to pull off a good bunch of chapters well spent and get myself reviews again. I WILL RETURN FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CYCLE JUST LIKE A PINEAPPLE WOULD!

Only a few minutes after I left off...

Fran looked around. "I see... I defeated this group when I was in the forest. When I first came here."

"Indeed you did," said the man, before walking over to a moniter and starting a video. Fran watched with intrest, cursing himself when he saw that they had caught his dragon technique on tape. That was a secret of future illusionists, and he'd let it slip in the past. Not good. At the end of the video, Fran looked back to the mysterious man who was holding him captive.

"So what do you have to tell me?" Fran asked in a suddenly very sharp tone. His captor only laughed.

"Scared already? Listen. We just want to know what that little trick there was. And we want to know all of your other little tricks," he said. Fran made a deadpan face.

"Figure you can get me to talk?" he monotoned.

'If there's any 'tricks' I can do in this situation, it would be withstanding excruiciating torture without cracking. That IS my specialty, after all.'

'Fran? You there?'

Fran sat up a little straighter. 'Master? Master, I've been caught by an enemy.'

'What? Where are you?'

"Oh, no, we can't have THAT," Fran's captor said, before setting the room alight with Mist flames. "Heh. You'll have to be ridiculously skilled to talk to whoever that is now."

'Fran! FRAN! I can feel a barrier, but I can't sense YOU! Say something!'

'Telepathy isn't my strong suit. Those people are damned lucky,' the Varia thought bitterly, before trying to split his soul from his body to contact Mukuro. Of course, this wasn't his domain either; he hadn't even attempted it before, and as such, he was unable to do so. He hardly even knew how to pull it off.

The chains around his body tightened slightly, and suddenly shocked him with Lightning flames, causing Fran to clench his teeth tightly as he was torched by the electricity. "S-senpai," he gasped as an almost instinctive response to the pain. He closed his eyes tightly, but soon reopened them.

'No. Weakness in this situation will kill me. Strength. I need strength.' He deadpanned.

"Is this supposed to hurt?" he asked above the crackling of the Lightning flames. "Levi's face burns more."

The man shuffled slightly, wavering from the emotionless face that Fran had given him. The Lightning flames intensified slightly, but it wasn't enough for Fran to break from his usual expression. Fran mentally flinched, but he didn't budge. 'Strength,' he thought, 'because I'm a Varia. No less.'

"Talk," the man commanded.

"What's my motivation?" Fran asked, "Can I have cookies?"

"Stop playing around," his captor ordered.

"But I'm chained to a chair being zapped with Lightning," the Mist reasoned. "It's a stressful moment that I'm ruining by cracking pointless jokes. Isn't that obvious? It's totally neccessary."

"No, it's not," groaned the man. "Ugh."

Suddenly, the electric burning of the chains ceased. Fran arched a brow at the man who lead the group. "So," he started, "You're spent already? Wow. Captain Squalo can scream for a longer amount of time."

The Lightning flames came again, thrice as harsh as the last time. The man smirked when Fran jumped slightly. "We have all of our Lightning class soldiers lined up to roast you. Now TALK."

"Oh, how nice the weather is today," Fran sang as he calmed down, "Come. Let us talk. It's neccessary for forming friendship."

"You're going to surrender and tell us everything?" the guy asked, relief on his face.

"Yeah, sure. I mean, hey, what do I have to hide? We're all... uhh," Fran pretended to think about something that they had in common, before nodding with approval at his decision. "We're all vertebretes."

Fran's captor sighed and shouted for someone to stop the shocking and let Fran talk freely. When the electric burning ceased, Fran thought, 'Wow. These people are idiots. To think that I'm some cowardly, stupid child who wishes to help them...'

"Okay. So you're going to change sides?" the man asked. Fran blinked twice.

"I had a side?"

"Tell us how you created that illusion," he said.

"Mm... these chains are so tight...," Fran whined, squirming against his binds to the chair he was in.

"We'll let you out the second you tell us."

"'mnotsupposedtosaybecauseit'sasecret," Fran slurred, looking at the ceiling.

"What?" he asked.

"Mymastertaughtmebutit'sasecret," Fran repeated.

"What?"

"It's a secret, are you deaf?" the illusionist snapped.

Suddenly, the ends of the chair arms lit with faint Storm flames, and Fran began to feel uneasy. "We can blow you up right here," hissed the enemy, stepping forward.

'No, they won't. That would destroy the purpose of them bringing me here, and probably waste their money spent on the gas and such. They do say the price of gas is rising. Heh.'

"Well? What's your decision?"

Fran looked up at the man with his bored expression and said, "You realize my boyfriend is scarier, right?"

"What the hell?" he snarled. "What do we have to do to get you to crack?"

"You can't make me crack. I'm not an egg," Fran replied seriously.

"You're so damn annoying!"

Back at headquarters...

"Ushishi, that's six times in a row!" Bel cheered, applauding himself for his sixth royal straight flush.

"Bel, you've GOT to be cheating," Squalo growled.

"Who's shuffling?" Mammon asked, "I'm sick of losing money here."

"What do you mean by shuffling? I deal out the cards," Levi said.

"Shuffling, as in you change up the cards so that we don't play out the same exact round as previously. ... Hey! That's why I've been getting these crappy cards every time! Levi-chan, start shuffling!" Lussuria complained.

"Oh," Levi muttered, taking the cards back. He paused. "Uhm."

Lussuria almost shrieked with frustration, before snatching the cards away from the Lightning gaurdian and mixing the cards up. Bel giggled. "I might have been cheating a little too."

"BEL!" everyone at the table roared as the prince simply laughed. Suddenly, a Hawaiian song began playing, and everyone quieted. Bel began laughing harder as he pulled out his phone, amused at the ringtone he'd set for Mukuro.

The prince opened his phone, and, between shi's, managed to say, "Prince the Ripper speaking, the world-famous pineapple stabber."

(You IDIOT, where are you?)

"Oh? I didn't here a hello."

(Forget greetings, prince charming, Fran got himself captured!)

"Shishi, that's impossible. We're talking about Froggy here."

(Yes, he did. He telepathically told me, before a barrier was put up. What are you doing?)

"Me? Just cheating in a card game and taking everyone's money. What about you?"

(I'm panicing, of course! We need to save Fran!)

"That'll be pretty tough for you, since you're on the other side of the planet," Bel pointed out.

(YOU need to save him!)

"Where is he?"

(... I don't know.)

"That's helpful," the prince grunted, standing up and walking out of the room to head to Xanxus's room.

(Bel, I'm begging you. Help Fran.)

Bel gulped. That sounded very un-Mukuro, and so it had to be truly important.

Ten Years in the Future...

"Okay, try this. Describe the dragon out loud before you cast the illusion," Mukuro suggested, before holding up his hand and touching his middle and ring fingers to his thumb. "Make this gesture, too."

Fran did so, and closed his eyes. "Red eyes, curled horns, black body, red underside, long tail and neck, no arms, two wings, hind legs."

He opened his eyes. His thumb and middle fingers had turned into little, scaly bat wings, and there were two red dots on his index finger. His palm was yellow, and his little finger was shaped like an arrow, and it was longer, too. "I'm closer, right?" Fran said. Mukuro nodded.

"Closer, yes. But you have a long way to go yet."

-End Chapter