Once Lenalee regained her bearings, she found herself in a white villa like location. Around her were Lavi, Kanda, Chaoji, and Crowley. Aside from them Lero, the companion of the Earl, was with them.
Apparently, Lavi and Kanda had decided to start threatening Lero on how to get out.
"Where are we?" Lenalee asked out loud.
"You are all currently in Noah's Ark!" Lero said arrogantly. "And there's no way that any of you are going to leave this place..."
The ground beneath them began to shake and the sound of crashing buildings a few meters away broke onto oblivion.
"...alive!"
Lavi grabbed the umbrella like golem and glared at it menacingly, "Ok here's the deal, if you want to live, you're going to get us out of here... otherwise, your going to witness a slow and very painful death."
Kanda flashed his Mugen to deliver the point across.
Lero gulped at the killing intent the two exorcists were practically oozing with.
"I – I wouldn't tell you even if I did know!" Lero said defiantly, though his voice quivered showing his true feelings. "The Earl said that this place will collapse in 3 hours."
Lavi sighed as he let go of the golem, he took a look at his surroundings and surveyed the area. The ark was definitely falling apart, and they only had 3 hours to find the exit. They were in a huge pinch no matter how he looked at it.
"Let's find a way out of here." Lavi finally said, "Sitting here and waiting for the destruction of the ark won't do us any good. Let's look around at all the buildings for a door out of here."
Lenalee nodded as she attempted to stand up. Her legs were still weak from the exertion when she pushed her Innocence at the fight against the level 3 Akuma. Despite this, she had to persevere, she can't die here when everyone is waiting for their return.
Lavi, having noticed Lenalee's struggle to get up, went to her side and aided her to her feet. "There's no need to exert yourself Lenalee."
"Where currently in a pinch here," Lenalee said as she tried to stand on her own, "I need to pull my own weight, I don't want to feel like a burden to everyone here."
Lavi sighed. "Well if that's how you feel about it, then go ahead, but if you ever need help, don't hesitate to call us."
Lenalee nodded while Lavi started to walk around and open random doors.
The doors in question lead to various empty rooms. If the situation wasn't so dire, they would have taken the time to actually enjoy the tranquility that the ark could have provided. Some doors however – those with a particular number – lead to a dark abyss.
When they found one such door, Lero opened his mouth, "it's useless! The ark has already been disconnected to the outside world!"
After opening a few more doors, the ark shook once again. The floor below them suddenly began to break apart. Lenalee, due to her currently limited mobility was immediately knocked to the ground by the quake. Kanda, having the highest mobility out of all of them, quickly ran from his safe location towards Lenalee and brought her out of the ground that was falling apart.
"Thanks, Kanda..." Lenalee said as Kanda placed her back on her feet.
Kanda merely tched and looked over to everyone else. Everyone had gotten out uninjured, but the ground was rapidly breaking apart. They needed to get out of this place fast if they wanted to make it out alive.
"It's like there's no way out of here..." Lavi mused as they looked over at the destruction from a crossroad.
"There is a way out of here you know."
Lavi jumped before glancing to his left and recognized the man as the person that Allen owned in Poker. He was incidentally holding an odd looking key.
"Ah! It's thick lens!" Crowley and Lavi said upon recognizing the man.
"...that isn't my name you know..." The man sweatdropped at the weird way the two had remembered him.
Kanda however wasn't as compliant as his companions. His hand was already ready to draw his Innocence. "That guy is producing a lot of blood lust."
A checkered door then appeared behind the man with the key. The door opened, revealing a female Noah that was wearing a gothic themed dress.
It was Road Camelot.
The exorcists quickly tensed and brought there Innocence out into the open.
The Noah however, didn't pay attention to them and looked over the exorcists.
"He's not with you?" She asked after a moment of looking over them.
"What do you mean?" Lavi asked, a bit taken aback by the sudden question.
She kept talking as if she hadn't heard Lavi, "The Earl said that he was definitely in the Ark... maybe he went ahead?" Turning to the man with glasses, "Hey, Tyki did you see him here?"
The said man removed his glasses and soon his skin started to change color to that of a Noah.
"That Noah..!" Lenalee and Lavi said as they recognized the man as the one that Allen encountered.
"No... All I've seen is his companions." Tyki said. "I've got to give that kid a real beating... cause I had to put up with what the Earl and those midgets said..."
"Who are you talking about?" Lavi asked.
"Hmm... Looks like they haven't actually met him yet." Road said thoughtfully.
"Well no matter," Tyki tossed the key that he was holding to Lavi.
Lavi catches the key with his left hand. "What's this key for?"
"It's the key that can open 3 other doors and Road's door." Tyki explained. "By opening Road's door with that key, you can get out of this place."
"What is the meaning of this Tyki?" Lero, who had been silent throughout the encounter, spoke up. "The Millennium Earl would never approve of this!"
Just as Lero said this, a building collapsed onto where Tyki was standing.
"T-The building collapsed onto him!"
"Is he dead?" Lavi asked to no one in particular.
"Hunting for exorcists are pretty fun." The voice was that of Tyki. It seemed to be coming out of the rubble. "I'll place the door on the top of the tallest building. If you get to the door before it crumbles then you win."
"I heard that the Noahs are immortal." Lenalee said. "How is this playing fair?"
She suddenly heard the sound of laughter. "I don't know where you heard that girl. We are still humans too you know. We only look immortal, because you guys are too weak!"
As he said this, the ground that they're standing in began to collapse.
"Damn! Run!" Kanda said as he immediately went to Lenalee's side and picked her up, knowing full well that she couldn't hope to escape in her current condition.
Crowley on the other hand went to assist Chaoji.
Once they ran away from the immediate area of destruction, they began to look at their options.
"No matter how you look at it, we're trapped!" Lavi said as he panted at the exertion he went through just to run away from the destruction.
The choices that was presented to them basically gave the question 'do you want to live or not?' It seemed like there was only one answer, but could they actually achieve it?
"Well I'm familiar with Road's ability to move through space." Lenalee said.
That statement alone had basically cemented what they were going to do.
"So there's no other choice huh?" Lavi sighed as he clutched the key tightly.
Looking at each other the exorcists now had one question left to answer... who was going to open the doors?
Crowley nervously approached the door that he was directed to open with the key. He sighed to himself, he sucked at games, now he had to add another game that he sucked at: Rock, Paper, Scissor.
That was how they decided who would open the doors with the key. He had apparently chose rock while everyone chose paper.
If the situation wasn't so dire, he'd probably ask for a rematch. Then again, he had agreed that the game could be used as a decision maker.
Once Crowley opened the door, it opened a scenery that they had never seen before.
"Stop." Kanda said.
Everyone stopped at their tracks, nearly toppling over each other.
"What is it Yuu?" Lavi asked as he straightened himself. He nearly fell face first to the ground before them, until Chaoji grabbed hold of his collar.
"Someone has already gone here before." Kanda said as he crouched to the ground.
Surely enough, there was imprints of footsteps on the ground.
"Could it be the person that they were looking for?" Lenalee asked.
Judging by the footprints itself, there was only a single person's foot step. So it could mean that the person whom the two Noah was searching for, had already gotten ahead.
"Whoever it could be, they must be finding a way out of this place like us." Lavi said.
It was the only conclusion that Lavi could draw. If they needed the key to open such doors, how did this unknown person open a door?
It was highly unlikely that the Noahs were the one that traveled through this path as they could just use the checkered door to practically travel from one point to another.
There were two possibilities: either it was actually a Noah (which he had scratched out already) or this person could be another way out of here - or at the very least, a person that wasn't with the Noahs.
Looks like the choices wasn't so restricted after all.
"If we could catch up to this person, we might find an alternate way of getting out of this place." Lavi said.
Everyone nodded as they started to go inside the building.
The building was nothing like the villa that they were in moments ago. The interior was a lot like what one would see at the outside of a desert plains. There was one thing odd though. There was a bright rainbow on the horizon despite the night sky, and stars that looked a lot like what a child would have drawn was present at the night sky. It looked pretty surreal if one was to consider the absurdity of it all.
After walking onwards for a few minutes, Kanda stopped them once again.
"He's here."
Confused by the rather open ended statement, everyone looked onwards and noticed a hulky looking man approaching them.
Lavi could recognize the man as he fought the muscular Noah during the fight at Edo.
"You guys go on ahead." Kanda said as he drew his Innocence.
Everyone looked shocked at him for a moment.
Sure he was strong, probably stronger than any one of them here despite not being a General. But it had been reported that the Noahs, had taken down a General all on their own. Forget the fact that the Noahs aren't immortal, how could an Exorcist, who's not even a General, beat one?
"Yuu?" Lavi said uncertainly.
"He's mine."
"But Kanda, you can't..." This time Lenalee interjected. Is he intending to sacrifice himself for their sake?
"Don't misunderstand me. I have no intention on dying here." Kanda said calmly, answering the unasked question. "That Noah is after the general I'm protecting. I'm only doing this to finish my mission."
Author's Notes:
Okay, it's been a while.
I admit that I've been rather lazy on writing for this particular work and I'm sorry for that. I'm currently in college and my schedule really doesn't give me much time to write on multiple written works. I don't know when I'll start regularly updating this fiction again, but I'll at least try to update once every six months (or even sooner if I can squeeze it in or I get a sudden burst of motivation – like an awesome chapter of DGray-Man [which mind you, has not updated in a while]).
Anyway, this chapter is pretty much just a look into the Exorcists' side. Next chapter would be a split between Allen and the party's (which is how I'm going to refer to Lavi, Kanda, Chaoji, Crowley and Lenalee's group until they meet up with Allen), ventures.
As you might notice this chapter doesn't have much difference from canon, but of course that would change once the party meets up with Allen (and of course, it's still a long time from getting there).
As always, please input a review, be it a simple comment, a correction or constructive criticism.