I normally don't like to start a chapter with a message from me, but one reviewer (Celestial Moonshine :D) asked me a question about pairings that I would like to respond to.

I do my best to stay as close to the canon as possible, and because of that, there will be no official pairings in this story. This story is more about the plot than anything, and it will be very full of action, mystery, and struggle. That does not mean there will be no romance. In many cases, you might find a character experiencing small romantic feelings for someone of the opposite sex. This does not go to say that this is a "hetero" story. I do enjoy little humorous or heart-felt scenes in which two boys or two girls accidentally encounter an interesting situation, so something like that may appear as well. Essentially, there will be a lot of interaction and bonding between most if not all of the characters with no intentional romance, so the readers may interpret these scenes however they wish (just like they do with the real anime/manga anyways).

The bottom line is, there are no official pairings, just official people I try to keep in character. That way, everyone can enjoy the story.

(Also, please note that this is not the end of the quirky little family scenes. They'll be back starting chapter 4 or 5, and that's NOT a spoiler.)

II - ABDUCTION
Allen shifted his legs around a lot, bouncing a foot up and down every so often. His eyes were darting restlessly, gazing into the crackling fire for a split second before tracing the shadows on the walls. Road sat near the fireplace playing with her doll. Allen was sick of watching her flop it around in boredom. Road seemed like she had a wild enough imagination, yet she was entirely incapable of keeping herself entertained. Not that Allen faired any better.

A loud creak from a chair stretched through the room as the sitter shifted his position, and Allen's attention was drawn away from Road to the other. It was Tyki, the slick man who had sat across the dinner table from him the night before. Despite the lack of fancy dinner coat and looming top hat, he managed to still seem admirably sophisticated and comfortable, making Allen feel more and more out of place with each minute. Whether or not he felt Allen staring at him the man did not look up from his book once, even as Road began rolling around on the rug.

He kept perfect his concentration despite the loud crashing of the door caving in as Allen's worst nightmares came charging in. Devit, with a floppy Jasdero hanging from his shoulders, scanned the room deliberately, his eyes rising with his smirk as he discovered Allen hiding in the shadows. Allen flinched, crawling to the wall behind him in the hopes of escape. He didn't like the look on Devit's face at all.

"Oi, runt!" Devit jeered, causing Jasdero to giggle uncontrollably. "We've been looking everywhere for you…"

Allen began to whine nervously when Devit's hands grabbed his shoulders and pinned him against the wall. The twins' faces grew closer to his, their eyes burning darkly.

"JasDevi!" Road squealed in delight. "Play with me! I'm so bored!!"

"Later Road!" Devit blew her off. "We've got another game buddy right now."

"Game! Heeheehee!" Jasdero cried excitedly. Allen began trembling which didn't help as he was hauled to his feet. He tried to wrestle his arms free but Devit's fingers were locked tight. This was the end.

Just as soon as Allen had been sure his fate was eminent, a strong hand patted his head and rested firmly against his scalp. Allen opened his eyes and stopped his struggling to find the twins glaring at Tyki. The taller man had stridden over swiftly and was now removing Allen from his vices, looking highly bemused.

"Afraid not," he said with mock-sympathy lacing his voice like candy. "See, the kid was just helping me pick out a new book. You two will just have to go on your way and find something else to do."

"Like play with me!" Road yelled, jumping to latch onto the twins' ankles. "Play with me! Play! Play!"

"Road, do you ever shut up?" Devit screamed as Jasdero fell from his perch on his brother's shoulders.

"No, no!" Road smiled. She stood up and dragged them both from the room gleefully, her ragged doll left forgotten by the fire. Several moments of silence passed as Allen stared at the closed doors in shock, not sure what to make of those three, until Tyki removed his hand from the boy's head and sighed tiredly.

Tyki walked over to his chair again and picked up the book lying in it, browsing through the remaining pages he had yet to read. Allen watched him curiously. Had this man just stood up for him? Was there one decent, possibly not crazy person in this weird place?

"Don't get me wrong, boy," the man said, breaking Allen from his reverie. "The Earl told me to watch you until he came back. I'm just tired today and don't want to chase those idiots around."

Allen, as usual, said nothing in response. Maybe he was getting his hopes up too soon.

Tyki straightened up, closing the book decisively and strolling to the door himself. His expectant look gave Allen his hint and the boy followed him quickly. Tyki led him down the usual dark corridors and cold hallways Allen was afraid to get too used to, coming all too quickly upon a grand set of oak doors that could have used a nice polishing. They opened to reveal a long library under a low ceiling that Allen had yet to visit. He did his best to keep close enough to Tyki so as to not get lost in the thick darkness of the unlit room, but Tyki did not go far anyways.

"Can you read, boy?" came the sudden question. Allen was taken aback, realizing that Tyki's fib to the twins might not be such a fib after all. "Well?"

Allen stared. "Uh, um…kind of…"

Tyki probably would not have cared what the answer was as he pulled a dusty leather-back book from the second shelf and stacked it against the one he was holding. He walked forward again finding a nearby wall and lighting a match from what Allen thought was no where. He held it into the darkness, lighting two candelabras hanging near him. A comfy chair emerged from the retreating shadows which Tyki promptly took for himself. He motioned for Allen to sit on the floor at his side. Allen stiffly obeyed, staring at Tyki uncertainly until the dusty tome was shoved in his face. Accepting it nervously, Allen wiped the cover and squinted to read what he could make out.

Holy Bible

"Ever read it, boy?" Tyki asked offhandedly, pulling another match from thin air along with a cigarette.

Allen barely shook his head. "I've…heard some of the stories…"

Tyki took a long drag from his cigarette and blew a cloud leisurely. He held his free hand out and Allen gave him the book back. Tyki flipped through the pages randomly, finding himself somewhere near the beginning.

"They tell you the story of Adam and Eve?" he asked, nonchalant.

Allen nodded slowly. Tyki shut the book, dust spewing from it and mixing in with his smoke, and waved it around playfully.

"I like that story," Tyki admitted, talking wistfully, as if Allen wasn't there to hear him. "Right from the beginning, women take the backseat…"

Allen blinked, not fully understanding what that was supposed to mean.

Tyki's face betrayed the beginnings of a smile. "You see, it is in this story that woman causes man to sin. She tempts him to defy God, and then original sin comes into play and blah, blah, blah. You get a lot of stories kind of like that." Tyki took another long drag. The smoke was starting to crowd around Allen, making him want to cough a little. "'Women should submit to their husbands and obey,' or some such thing."

Allen wasn't quite following. He had met plenty of women before while traveling with Mana, some with men and some without. He found in many cases the exact opposite seemed to be true.

Tyki's smile was now very apparent as he leaned over to Allen. "Now, boy," he said in the way a teacher might to his student, "you haven't asked me the important question."

"Huh?" Allen blinked through the haze.

"You're supposed to say, 'Why is it, Tyki, that women are portrayed like this?'" Tyki's voice squeaked as he imitated Allen. Allen felt the air get thicker with smoke and his own uneasiness. He stiffened his back without answering Tyki.

Tyki didn't mind the silence at all. His teeth gleamed in the shadows of the library as a low chuckle escaped his throat. Allen did his best to breathe through his nose and keep calm but the smoke made it difficult.

"It is because," Tyki whispered, his voice in its lowest register, "women are inferior to men. They are more susceptible to petty desires and darkness, and thus are far more unstable in any resolves they have." Tyki's eyes were almost bulging as though each word he said brought him extreme happiness. As Allen looked into them, his eyes became clouded over with fond and terrible memories Allen didn't want to know the slightest about. Allen didn't understand a lot of the words Tyki had said, but he was pretty sure he had caught a lot of the drift.

Tyki's lips twitched as though he was about to say more, but a loud sneeze from down the hall made both of them jump. A sniffling earl appeared in the doorway.

"There you are!" he said warmly, rubbing his nose. Allen jumped to his feet but restrained himself from running over, not wanting to offend Tyki (he already had two too many enemies in this place).

"Earl!" Tyki started. "You're back."

The earl nodded pleasantly, looking back and forth between Tyki and Allen. "Did you have a good time?" Tyki's expression didn't change. Allen looked very anxious to leave.

"Sure," Tyki said, back to behaving normally. He tossed the thick book carelessly onto the table and picked up the one he had been reading before. "Nothing much happened."

"I see," the earl said, finishing the pointless pleasantries abruptly before turning to the youngest in the room. "Allen, would you come with me please?"

Allen didn't need to be asked twice. Not looking back, he hurried into the hall with the earl and breathed deep in the clearer air. The two walked in relative silence, though the air around the earl seemed excited and Allen had to jog every so often to keep in stride.

"Where are we going?" Allen eventually dared to ask after calming down.

The earl smiled wider than usual but he didn't look down at him. "I have something for you," was his only reply. Allen's eyebrows slowly rose as comprehension dawned on him. Somehow, he didn't get the feeling that this was going to be a present, but then, he had no idea what to expect at all.

The doors on the sides of the hallway were getting fewer and less frequent as they strolled. It took them nearly ten minutes to come to the end of the corridor where the strangest doorway Allen had ever seen was waiting. There was a giant gap in the wall, a strange speckled pattern of holes. They seemed to shine despite being nothing but pitch black, and it tugged dreadfully on Allen's memory. He had seen something like them before, sometime recently. Where was it?

"Through here," the earl called before waltzing through the largest opening. Allen hesitated, still unsure, but he knew he couldn't dawdle so he closed his eyes and ran through as well. A strange, enshrouding feeling covered him nostalgically, and his eyes shot open as he recalled falling through a graveyard after signing a contract.

What greeted him was not darkness but a vast, white city like some place he had seen in the South when he was younger. There was some impressive palace standing regally at the center of everything. Allen looked around in awe, but noted in confusion that the city was empty. Everyone who had ever lived there seemed to have abandoned it.

"This way, please," the earl said, grabbing Allen's wrist and leading him into one of the houses. It was dark for a second until Allen could see that it was a large room with the highest ceiling he had ever been under. How was that possible? The house they had walked inside had been barely one story tall.

The room was very empty save for one giant something in the center. It was large and egg-shaped, surrounded by bulky, black figures that weren't moving, even as he and the earl had arrived.

"What is it?" Allen asked, dumbstruck. It was so grand and it seemed to be breathing. It glimmered eerily, and Allen didn't think that he liked it at all.

"It is very precious to us," the earl said mysteriously. "It helps do what we are here to do."

This cryptic answer puzzled Allen who wasn't sure what they were "here to do," but what made him even more nonplussed was the rocking chair that had appeared out of no where suddenly sitting beneath the earl's backside. A long, shimmering string was stretching from the giant egg and into a sewing needle between the earl's fingers which he held up in the air proudly.

"Come sit by me," the earl instructed, patting the air in a spot next to him. Allen obeyed curiously, sitting on his knees. The black figures did not turn their heads, but Allen felt as though they were watching him. The earl grabbed his left wrist and pulled it to lie across the rocking chair's armrest between the two of them. The green cross embedded in the hand shined resiliently, as if it knew what was coming next. The sewing needle swooped down as though guiding the hand of the earl, and Allen shut his eyes tight a split second before it happened.

Allen screamed very loudly as something white hot ripped through his hand. His arm was kept in place by the earl's firm grip as prick after prick after prick found the shining wire threaded through Allen's skin. The earl pulled the string tightly, and Allen's teary eyes watched as his skin was tugged together, closing very painfully over the shining cross. After tying the stitch tight, the earl began again in a perpendicular direction, sealing the horizontal end of the cross within Allen's unforgiving flesh.

After releasing Allen's arm, the earl watched the boy writhe and curl on the floor, clutching at the stitches. He was not worried that they would come undone, and merely waited Allen's fit out until he collapsed exhausted in a sweaty heap.

From that day forward, Allen's hand would ache and sear if ever so much as a finger twitched.

It had to have been nearly a year now. Allen's life seemed a lot more mundane than what he had once had traveling around with Mana, though there were some interesting merits to it. Instead of living in strange places, he was living with even stranger people. Everyday seemed like a constant fight to avoid Devit and Jasdero, a battle he won not even half the time. He had caught glimpses of other people who didn't seem too interested in bonding with him, like that man Tyki always called "Sweet Tooth." This was okay with Allen, who wasn't too fond of anyone. If with anyone, he preferred spending his time with Road or Tyki, Road because she wouldn't torment him (not maliciously anyway) and Tyki because he seemed the sanest. This theory was called into question one day though, if only for a split second, when Tyki had partially crushed a bug beneath his shoe and smirked as it squirmed in pain while he twisted his foot to smash it little by little, causing Road to laugh in glee and Allen to want to throw up.

He still wasn't very used to where they were. The strange house had many twisting corridors, the majority of which he had never traveled. He was only allowed to wander a few places by himself like the dining room and the sitting room, and he had to be chaperoned if he went anywhere else. This usually wasn't a problem since one chaperone was always at hand, literally.

Sometime during his first month there, Allen had heard a loud thump from a room across the hall. When he checked to see what the commotion was, he saw the tail end of Road prancing gleefully away from some hall closet Allen had never bothered to investigate until that very moment. As his hand touched the door handle, a strange, sputtering noise was emitted from the room. When the curious Allen opened the door, he was met with none other than a tiny talking pumpkin. Head. Pumpkin head. Pumpkin head umbrella.

"Missy Road, lero!" the odd thing had screamed from its coat hanger perch, wrapped in string and necklaces Road had found amusing to decorate him with. "You better let me out of here right now or the earl will paint your fanny r-ehhhh?"

Allen had screamed, slammed the door, and ran away. Later that day, the earl had to explain to him just who Lero was. When Allen discovered he wasn't the most totally defenseless person in the family, he felt he had sort of found a new friend. Lero was a bit bossy but had nothing to back it all up with. Allen usually dragged him along when he felt like venturing somewhere new or if he was afraid he would get lost.

And he did get lost.

Today was one of those days; he got lost on the way back to his room. Road had demanded that he leave Lero with her so Allen knew he was either going to have to find his own way back or face the consequences (these varied from scolding to trauma at whatever room he stumbled upon). He had been lost for twenty minutes and was on the verge of panicking when he heard voices and stopped. Relieved, he looked around for where they could be coming from. He finally spotted an open door at the end of the hallway.

"-lay like that? …barely move it."

"…have to get used to it."

Another low mutter that Allen couldn't make out rumbled.

"…worried, Tyki?"

Allen froze. That was the Millennium Earl's voice. He tiptoed closer to the door, wondering what they were talking about.

"Of course not." A flicking sound, probably of a match. "I just thought it might work against us."

"If there's a problem with it, we'll remove it," the earl said simply. Tyki raised an eyebrow as Allen approached the doorway, causing the earl to spin on his heel grinning. Tyki took a drag from his cigarette as the earl laughed in greeting. "Lost again, Allen?"

"What are you removing?" Allen asked without thinking, placing a hand on the doorframe.

"Ah, we were just talking about a performer!" the earl said, gliding to Allen's side. "Tyki-Wyki was going to take you to see a show tonight. Would you like that?"

Allen and Tyki blinked at the same time. Tyki's muttering of, "'Wyki?' That's a new one," was mere background noise in the earl's looming presence.

Allen was rooted to the spot at the idea. A show. Was he really going to see a show? Was he going to be able to go outside after what felt like a century since he had seen the world?

"Really?" he asked quietly, finding his lips suddenly very dry.

"There's a circus troupe in London that Road really wants to go see," the earl said encouragingly. "You two can go to it tonight, if you'd like."

Allen's face lit up like a light. Pure, real excitement welled up inside him like it hadn't in a very long time. "Yes please!"

The earl chuckled and Tyki sighed, the latter clearly not looking forward to it.

Loud music was blaring from the tent down the street, making Allen and Road both bounce on their heels. Road had been giggling madly ever since they had left. Allen figured that his new home must have been somewhere in London since all they had to do was walk out the black, holey door to get there. To think, he had been so close to his hometown and never realized it.

Balloons littered the streets and bobbled in the hands of other smiling children all around. When they reached the ticket stand, Tyki had the two wait on a bench for him to return. Road swung her legs up and down on the bench, her smile never faltering once.

"I can't wait!" she shouted, throwing her hands into the air. "This is going to be so much fun!"

Allen couldn't help but agree with her. He had been something of a traveling performer himself with Mana and was excited for a bit of that old fun and familiarity.

Road suddenly perked up, her eyes widening as she gazed across the street. Allen followed her line of sight and saw the ice cream stand she was now watching fondly.

"Tyki told us to stay here, Road," Allen warned but she wasn't listening.

"Alright!" Road shouted, jumping to her feet instantly. Allen, recognizing he was about to be left alone if he didn't do something quickly, stood up as well, but Road was already dashing down the street.

"Road!" he called. "Wait for me!" Allen pushed through the crowd, apologizing where he could. Road was no where to be seen, not even when Allen reached the ice cream stand.

"Oh no! Where'd she go?" Allen cried, looking around frantically. Road wasn't appearing anywhere, and there were dozens of candy and balloon stands all around, their signs poking over the heads of the people flooding the streets. Road could have gone to any of them. Allen nervously gathered his resolve to plunge into the crowd.

A strong hand grabbed the collar of his jacket from behind, making him gag and sputter. Allen barely got a glimpse of a tall person with a big hat and long hair before something hard hit his head and he passed out.

The crowd was thickening surely, and a little gaggle of kids had tripped Road on accident. "Ow!" she screamed. "Stupid punks!" She pulled herself up to sit and rubbed her scraped knees tenderly, little tears pooling in her eyes.

A hand appeared before her nose invitingly. Road looked up into Tyki's bored yet soothing face and allowed him to help her to her feet.

"You okay there?" he asked sweetly, and Road responded by giving her brother a big hug. Tyki put a hand on her shoulder and that was all, but Road could have cared less. It was all the comfort she needed.

The hand clenched a little, digging into her skin. Road flinched even though it didn't hurt, and she looked up at Tyki again.

"Road," Tyki began, his voice low and dangerous. "Where is Allen?"

Pulling back slowly, Road peered through the crowd just as Tyki was doing. The bench they had been sitting at was occupied by a little girl with her doll and grandmother resting before the show. There was a long line by the ice cream stand that Allen definitely was not part of nor anywhere near.

"Allen?" Road tried calling over the bustling street, but there was no way he'd hear her unless he was very close by.

"Road, did you lose him?" Tyki's eyes narrowed angrily though they gleamed with something akin to panic as well.

Road looked up once again, not shrinking back from Tyki's glare but closing her eyes sheepishly before squeaking, "Oops."

Hours later, Road would be very sad. She would not have gotten any ice cream, having been forced to search the city with Tyki until they found Allen. She would not have gotten to see the show, since when they did not find Allen they had to go back home and tell the earl. She also would be spanked for the very first time in her life.