The Thief Lords from Beneath
CHAPTER TEN
"It will take lots of careful thought, you'll need the perfect situation, one such where they'll have no choice but to say yes." Allen Walker listens to every word that comes out of Cross Marianne's mouth as if his life depends on it. "I've known those four since I was just a kid. They all have different agendas, some you can easily relate to, others are extremely far out. In any case, they'll seem very different at first. Find a link between their priorities, use it."
"And what about you?" His question is met with a moment of silence, and then an amused grunt.
"If only because it'll be very interesting, I'll be agreeing to whatever you'll be plotting as well."
"Won't you be apprehended for offhandedly agreeing?"
"Please, if they could 'apprehend' me, they would have done it ages ago."
.....................
It is around lunch time when Allen goes to his new favourite place on earth (that is, the mess hall), but he is unfortunately not here to get his usual roast chickens and butter bread. No, he is here to approach a certain grumpy someone who is eating eastern style noodles. This is the only place to start really-- he's heard that aside from Cross, only one of the Thief Lords is nearby at that moment, and that is Froi Tiedoll.
"Uhm... Hi."
Kanda glares at him with venom, and continues to eat his noodles as Allen stands there awkwardly.
"I heard your wounds are healed already!" The former heir thereafter laughs nervously. It is a mystery how Kanda's injuries healed in just a little over a day; even with healing magic it would take at least a week. But Allen isn't here to ask about that, he is here for something else.
"What do you want?" The swordsman snaps, looking at the snow haired boy warily.
Allen guesses that the only way to 'please' Kanda in such a situation is to be direct: "I heard Froi Tiedoll was in town-- do you know where I might be able to have a one-on-one talk with him?"
Dark pupils stare at him in annoyance; the former heir finds himself fidgeting where he stood.
"Tsch, knowing that old man, he'll come to see you," Kanda finally says, which led Allen to ask:
"Why would he come to see me?"
Kanda shrugs, Allen gets ticked.
"You're Cross Marianne's Lord Heir." The voice is new, unfamiliar, it startles the snow haired boy. His head briskly turns to look at the man sitting next to Kanda.
He is tall, bulky, dark-skinned, and his face looks very, very kind. He stares at the new person, eyes wide in surprise. "Oh!" exclaims the man "I'm sorry, my name's Noise Marie, the first Lord Heir of Froi Tiedoll." He holds up his hand offering a handshake, "You must be Allen Walker."
"Ye-Yes, nice to meet you!" Allen flashes his pearly whites like he used to when meeting noblemen and takes the hand shake. "And, what do you mean by I'm Cross Marianne's Lord Heir? Uhm, I mean, yes, yes, I am his Lord Heir, but I don't see what that has to do with Froi Tiedoll paying me a visit."
"It has everything to do with it," Kanda snaps, thereafter slurping his noodles loudly.
Noise Marie continues the thought by saying, "Cross Marianne used to tease our father all the time for being soft on his Lord Heirs; he also used to claim that he would never take one of his own, and yet here you are."
"I see," Allen says, and then he pauses. "Wait, father?"
Marie scratches the back of his head, looking embarrassed. "Well yes, Froi Tiedoll has made it a point to adopt all his Lord Heirs. None of us are originally from this Kingdom you see, so that became something possible."
Allen turns to look at Kanda; eyes him curiously. He's gotten used to the man's face because of their heist, but now that he's reminded of his cultural heritage, he looks very intriguing again. He doesn't seem as unworldly to Allen anymore, but he is still exasperatingly stunning. Suddenly a glass comes flying towards the former heir's face, but fortunately, he catches it.
"What the hell are you gawking at me like that for bean? It's annoying the hell out of me!"
"Now, now Kanda--"
"Shut up Marie!"
Apparently he isn't kind to his 'brothers' either. Allen looks Kanda squarely in the eye and says, "I was reminded about the fact that you really are foreign. It's very interesting, I've met royalty from the East but no one has ever been quite as infuriating as you." None of them looked better than Kanda either.
The swordsman rolls his eyes, "Isn't that nice, our hate is mutual."
Allen smiles-- it looks very very strained. "Yes, it's nice to know isn't it? Really is a shame that your beauty's only skin deep."
Kanda snorts. "Better than not having beauty inside or out like some people I can think of."
The former heir laughs a strained laugh and he and Kanda end up glaring at one another.
Marie finds himself strangely happy for his 'brother', and slightly scared for his life.
........................
'The perfect situation' as Cross had put it, is something Allen needs to set up in order to be able to bring out his trump card.
To do that, he needs to fulfill the necessary steps, all of which he's 'organized' into an invisible checklist in his head. He's been told by Lenalee Lee that she would try to contact Cloud Nyne, that's one item (almost) taken care of. Noise Marie and (that bastard) Kanda Yuu has told him that Froi Tiedoll would surely go looking for him. That left three more Thief Lords to worry about. His own guardian, Cross Marianne, is the least of his worries because when he sent Allen off, he said he'd stay over at a certain noble lady's house until he returns. The former heir is sure that his guardian knew he wouldn't be returning anytime soon because of the Order's rules. He is sure that fact meant something (or maybe he is just thinking too much).
He turns to his side as he mulls over these things in his bed.
He's just gotten cozy in his new room. it had a bed, a desk, and it has its own bathroom. It is exceptionally dark when you didn't turn on the lights, but it isn't dreary in the least. Allen sort of wonders who on earth installed the electricity-driven lights. Some houses in Dorian had them; the electricity is derived from a power source that looks much like a box.
The skilled magicians who serves the king make these boxes by casting a powerful spell on ordinary boxes. The box will be an eternal supply of electrical energy if the process is performed correctly. But the spell to do that is a Palace secret. Did the Order steal a box? No, they couldn't have; it seems they only steal 'what was once theirs'. Apparently the three founders of the Order were once very rich noblemen who rebelled against the then King, and were 'terminated' because of it. Their belongings were given away, some to random citizens, others are sent as gifts to noblemen both of this Kingdom and foreign ones. They had a lot of possessions, some powerful magic materials, others important heirlooms, while a great deal are just trinkets and furniture.
The three were Jacques LuRim, Aimery duBoise and Vielle duBoise. The latter two were married, and Lanette duBoise was their daughter. As is obvious by now, Jacques' son was Jasper LuRim. The three founders did not live long enough to conduct the first heist. They did, however, manage to gather enough men so that Jasper could conduct it in their stead. It is said that Jasper was with his men personally on the first heist. The heist is undocumented, but something is said to have happened, and this certain event made Jasper decide he would never leave his lair again. He mentions something of the sort in his journal but is very vague.
Allen rubs his temples; he's been fed lots of information that day, certainly. It is quite a headache. But he always did think that there is no better way to clear one's thoughts than to organize them and then neatly tuck them away.
It is impossible that any of the three founders would own one of those electrical boxes. Noblemen use fire to illuminate their homes and rooms after all. Allen knows that this is true without exception. That being so, how there is electricity in the Order is still therefore a mystery. It couldn't have been obtained from a heist. Allen can think of two possibilities: some of the people they'd gathered to form the Order had brought it, or the Order learned of the spell from a certain person who's been intimately acquainted with the ways of the palace. With luck, this piece of information can actually be a key to proving the existence of Hansel duFroid.
Allen grins. Sometimes over thinking leads to great discoveries, and this is one of the rare times he's actually happy about the fact. 'Great discoveries' weren't beneficial to him in his Palace days. Cross Marianne told him that his tendency to over think would come in handy in his 'Hansel duFroid' attempt though, and he is (annoyingly) turning out to be right.
But why thrust him into the Order and proclaim him Lord Heir without warning or explanation? Why shock him? Allen is sure Cross has a purpose. He is thinking that perhaps his guardian wants him to look less suspicious. Certainly, Kanda Yuu might have thought him to be suspicious (and he did think him suspicious at first), but because things turned out the way they did, he'd seemed more idiotic than anything to the man. He isn't too happy about that but he couldn't imagine the swordsman thinking he'd try to be a 'Hansel duFroid'. Lavi the Junior Scribe is onto him though; he'd suspected it from the first time they'd met. But Allen hadn't gathered his wits then, ridiculous as his situation had seemed to him at the time… Ah, perhaps Cross really did intend to throw everyone off. But since Allen doesn't want to think his freeloading master is a genius of any sort, he sets it aside as a theory, a highly probable theory.
That left the mystery of Cross' final message and how he would contact the last two Thief Lords. Allen rolls around to lie on his other side and considers these things, his eyebrows furrowing in concentration and frustration.
Cross is probably trying to say something. He's been particular about which woman's house he is to stay in. He also knows Allen wouldn't be able to leave the Order. Why, the only way Allen could go to the house at the moment is through a heist. But what does that mean? Does he just wait for him to get a assigned to a heist there? Is there a way to make sure he got assigned to a heist situated at that house? Or is this all just Cross' way to make things harder for him and add pressure? And he's given him Timcampy too, what is with this? Maybe Timcampy is also there to lessen suspicion. Maybe Cross would take care of how he'd meet up with Allen again once he's pulled out his trump card. Whatever the case, Cross seems to think everything would work out.
Allen hopes he's right. Now he had to look up those other two Thief Lords… Winters Zokalo and Kevin Yeegar was it?
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You may or may not have read an edited version of this chapter (ch5 for details)
NOTES:
Chickens- I meant to write roast CHICKENS, Allen wouldn't be Allen otherwise. Of course, he forgets to mention he goes for seconds and usually ends up asking for platters of roast beef.
Allen's tendency to over think- Allen's under different circumstances here, while his 'Education' if we'll follow his official profile is only a 3/5 in canon, I think it'd be 5/5 in this world because he was tutored in the Palace. Additionally, while Kanda's 'Education' is a 2/5 in canon, it is 3/5 here for reasons which we'll see later.
(A/N: I love Marie; he's one of my favourite characters, I like to think that he and Kanda are close, hahaha. A lot's gonna happen from now on, the chapters might be longer, but I might update more quickly too. Just what is Allen up to? We'll see. Generally, things are going to be very unlike DGM for a while, but certain events will seem strangely familiar. The next story arc after this one however, will be very parallel to a canon arc… Anyway. Thank you for reading!)