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31_days2008-01-03 10:46 pm
sophiap.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2008-01-03 10:46 pm
[Jan. 03] [D.Gray-Man] End of Days, Part 3
Title: End of Days, Part 3
Day/Theme: Jan. 3rd/ a mountain of violent sins
Series: D.Gray-Man
Character/Pairing: Ensemble, with a few OCs
Rating: R
Notes: AU set right before the end of chapter 134, but assume spoilers through chapter 143 and following.
Part 2
"The Chief's not going to be happy," Tapp panted.
65 had sped off to the main research labs. Reever, Johnny, and Tapp had no chance of keeping up with him, but they still ran. According to Branch Chief Bak, the gate to the Ark would open up any minute now.
Reever could only imagine Komui's reaction when he found out that by interviewing the strangers he had missed Lenalee's return to Headquarters. "Oh, he's gonna be pissed."
"I called... downstairs... told... Jerry..." Johnny was matching Reever and Tapp's pace, but his face was so red he looked boiled.
"Has he started cooking already?" Tapp asked. "He'd better."
Reever almost asked if Jerry thought Allen's coming back was a good or a bad thing, but thought better of it.
When the reached the main lab, 65 was flitting and swooping about the room, shying researchers away from the broad space at the foot of the stairs and chittering away in its strange voice about the good news. Reever hoped it had the good sense not to say anything about their unexpected visitors.
He and Tapp stopped at the foot of the stairs, hoping to catch their breath before... well, Bak had only told them to expect a gate.
Johnny had fallen behind a few seconds. When he caught up with them, he stood wobbling on the lowest step, bent over with his hands on his knees. "I think I'm gonna puke..."
Tapp moved several steps to the side.
* * *
At that exact moment, in a place that could not easily be defined, Johnny's sentiments were being echoed quite loudly and quite angrily.
"Can't you play us in any smoother?" Lavi begged. He clutched at the piano lid and tried to keep his footing. Almost everyone else was already on the floor, deliberately or otherwise. As for Lavi, while Johnny had looked boiled, he looked pickled.
Allen kept playing and shot Lavi another look. That as as far as he dared break his concentration. The soft, lilting and unknown melody that he played as from memory (but with no memory of having learned it) didn't match the shuddering and lurching of the Ark.
If only they had been able to open a gate directly into Headquarters... Cross had put a stop to that plan right away. They had to get the Ark physically out of Asia, he said, and preferably to somewhere safe. Say, for example, Headquarters. He hadn't spent all those miserable, lonely months slumming it up in Edo just to have the Earl or the Noah take the thing back again.
Allen suspected that if Cross felt he had to go back to HQ, he was going to damn well do it in style. Anyhow, the bastard had stolen a couple of bottles of Chief Bak's shochu and had worked through enough of it that he probably didn't even feel the Ark's crazy jerking around.
"Almost there..." he said, jaw clenched almost to spasm. The melody softened; the Ark dropped five feet straight down. Lavi went flying. Someone (Allen hoped it was Kanda) shrieked in shock and surprise. Fortunately, no one seemed to be hurt. Well, hurt any worse.
Allen looked over to Miranda and Lenalee and he felt something that wasn't hunger twist in his stomach. The Time Record had sapped so much of her strength, and right before they re-entered the Ark, it was almost as if someone had finally cut the last string holding her upright. And Lenalee... She was sitting quietly and the look on her face was the look of someone trying very, very hard to be brave and not complain.
If only he could go over there, but he had to keep playing, had to keep letting out the melody that would carry them home.
One last plagal cadence, and the Ark gentled itself into place, stopping its strange movement as the last note dropped into silence.
"I'm really sorry about that." Allen's words shook with nervous laughter, and he didn't quite meet anyone's eye. The Ark hadn't wanted to leave its old home, but now that they were here, it seemed happy enough to acknowledge him as its master. He couldn't explain it, and had a feeling he wouldn't want to even if he could.
"Is everyone all right?" General Tiedoll was on his feet the instant the Ark stopped and was at Kanda's side in a moment. Kanda glowered and flicked one hand in a "go away" motion. Tiedoll simply reached down and smoothed his bangs before leaving him to check on Lenalee, then Marie, then Miranda...
Cross sat in a corner of the room, and simply rolled his eye. He probably would have done the same if one of them had been sitting in the middle of the room with a compound fracture.
"Lenalee!" Lavi crawled a few feet, then managed to push himself to his feet so he could limp over to Lenalee. "We're here. Can you stand up?"
Tiedoll and Marie were hauling Krory to a standing position, Tiedoll gently trying to shake him awake. "We need to get him and the rest of you young ones to the medics--right away."
"No one's dying, Froi. First things first, you know that." Cross stood up, straightening his long form with an easy grace that belied that fact that--by Allen's estimation--he had drunk enough to kill two grown men.
Chaoji's two friends froze, a wobbly but grateful Miranda propped between them. Chaoji himself was turning puff-cheeked and red, and would have started shouting something, but Cross kept on talking.
"The Earl's Akuma plant is on this Ark, and don't you think he's going to want it back? The sooner we have it out of here, the better."
Allen could feel the plant (the egg, something inside him supplied without being asked) lurking and seething in its chamber in the Ark. "Master's right," he said, ignoring Lavi's incredulous you're actually defending the bastard? expression. "I need--it needs to be out of here."
It being there was like having a splinter lodged deep in his skin. Its darkness made it seem huge, like a mountain overshadowing the Ark even though it was contained within it. Lavi said nothing. He simply regarded Allen coolly, an oddly Bookman-like expression on his face.
"You and young Walker can deal with the plant," Tiedoll said without any bluster but. "I will make sure these children get the care and loving attention they need."
Several voices raised in various kinds of protest at once.
So quiet as to be almost unnoticed, Bookman simply observed all that was going on.
"Please, everyone," Lenalee stopped protesting that she didn't need Lavi to carry her, and raised her voice just loud enough to be heard by everyone in the music room. Everyone quieted down, even Cross. "Let's just go home."
* * *
A pattern of rectagles simply slid into existence in the lab. One of them was emblazoned a glowing 3. Another glowed brighter for a moment, and then several shapes appeared.
"If those are Akuma..." Reever said.
"We're fucked," was Tapp's all too cheerful answer. "Nah, it's them--look."
Cross simply hopped down from the gate. For some reason, it had materialized several feet above the floor. He looked at Reever and grinned the kind of grin that caused hairs to raise on the back of every neck in the room.
"We brought you a gift," he said. "My apprentice will help your men get it out."
Two men Reever had never seen before came out next. A third stranger helped Miranda down to them. Even before Tiedoll and Marie manhandled Krory out of the gate, Reever was barking orders, telling whoever was closest to a phone to call a medic.
Bak had said they were okay, he thought furiously, but so far both Krory and Miranda were unconscious. Frankly, Miranda looked like hell. One of the men with her called out that Lady Exorcist was getting worse, and he could no longer get her to wake up.
Lavi was next, and the idiot was trying to carry Lenalee.
Reever was happily agnostic, but right then he was thanking God that Komui wasn't there. It was too much to take in all at once--the short hair, the bandaged legs, the cuts and abrasions.
"What the hell are you thinking! You can barely stand yourself!" Reever ran up to the gate and reached up. Komui would have had an aneurysm if he'd seen Lenalee and Lavi like that, but Reever had the idea that he came under a slightly different classification. "You think you're going to jump down from there like that? Here."
Lavi hesitated, mouth pressed to a thin line, then slowly knelt down, wincing and bobbing up a little as his left knee refused to bend any further. Lenalee looked around the lab, eyes growing wide as she didn't see who she hoped to see.
"No worries, Lenalee. He's fine. We just had some unexpected visitors right as you showed up." Reever let Lenalee sink into his arms and managed not to jostle her as Lavi handed her off. "He'll be furious to find out he missed you. We may have to take pictures."
That got a soft laugh, and Reever was able to make himself smile in response. He sobered up fairly quickly, though as he got a good look at the bandages going up her legs.
"Don't worry, Reever. I'll be fine," she told him, but he didn't believe it for a moment. "We're okay. We won."
The medics were rushing into the room, stretchers at the ready. Both Kanda and Marie protested they didn't need any help, but Tiedoll overruled them. "Hardly looks like it."
"But we did." Cross sauntered up, and he was smirking about something. It was the kind of expression that made you want to remove it with the business end of a broken bottle. "We took something away from the Earl that he won't be happy about losing."
"What's that?"
Cross told him.
"Oh." Reever let that sink in a moment. And another moment. He passed Lenalee off to a medic without even noticing he was doing so. "Oh."
That's when someone yelled from one of the phone stations that there was a problem in Hevlaska's chamber and Komui wasn't answering his phone.
Really, today just couldn't get any better if it tried. For the first time in a very long time, Reever could have used a good, stiff drink.
Part 4
Day/Theme: Jan. 3rd/ a mountain of violent sins
Series: D.Gray-Man
Character/Pairing: Ensemble, with a few OCs
Rating: R
Notes: AU set right before the end of chapter 134, but assume spoilers through chapter 143 and following.
Part 2
"The Chief's not going to be happy," Tapp panted.
65 had sped off to the main research labs. Reever, Johnny, and Tapp had no chance of keeping up with him, but they still ran. According to Branch Chief Bak, the gate to the Ark would open up any minute now.
Reever could only imagine Komui's reaction when he found out that by interviewing the strangers he had missed Lenalee's return to Headquarters. "Oh, he's gonna be pissed."
"I called... downstairs... told... Jerry..." Johnny was matching Reever and Tapp's pace, but his face was so red he looked boiled.
"Has he started cooking already?" Tapp asked. "He'd better."
Reever almost asked if Jerry thought Allen's coming back was a good or a bad thing, but thought better of it.
When the reached the main lab, 65 was flitting and swooping about the room, shying researchers away from the broad space at the foot of the stairs and chittering away in its strange voice about the good news. Reever hoped it had the good sense not to say anything about their unexpected visitors.
He and Tapp stopped at the foot of the stairs, hoping to catch their breath before... well, Bak had only told them to expect a gate.
Johnny had fallen behind a few seconds. When he caught up with them, he stood wobbling on the lowest step, bent over with his hands on his knees. "I think I'm gonna puke..."
Tapp moved several steps to the side.
At that exact moment, in a place that could not easily be defined, Johnny's sentiments were being echoed quite loudly and quite angrily.
"Can't you play us in any smoother?" Lavi begged. He clutched at the piano lid and tried to keep his footing. Almost everyone else was already on the floor, deliberately or otherwise. As for Lavi, while Johnny had looked boiled, he looked pickled.
Allen kept playing and shot Lavi another look. That as as far as he dared break his concentration. The soft, lilting and unknown melody that he played as from memory (but with no memory of having learned it) didn't match the shuddering and lurching of the Ark.
If only they had been able to open a gate directly into Headquarters... Cross had put a stop to that plan right away. They had to get the Ark physically out of Asia, he said, and preferably to somewhere safe. Say, for example, Headquarters. He hadn't spent all those miserable, lonely months slumming it up in Edo just to have the Earl or the Noah take the thing back again.
Allen suspected that if Cross felt he had to go back to HQ, he was going to damn well do it in style. Anyhow, the bastard had stolen a couple of bottles of Chief Bak's shochu and had worked through enough of it that he probably didn't even feel the Ark's crazy jerking around.
"Almost there..." he said, jaw clenched almost to spasm. The melody softened; the Ark dropped five feet straight down. Lavi went flying. Someone (Allen hoped it was Kanda) shrieked in shock and surprise. Fortunately, no one seemed to be hurt. Well, hurt any worse.
Allen looked over to Miranda and Lenalee and he felt something that wasn't hunger twist in his stomach. The Time Record had sapped so much of her strength, and right before they re-entered the Ark, it was almost as if someone had finally cut the last string holding her upright. And Lenalee... She was sitting quietly and the look on her face was the look of someone trying very, very hard to be brave and not complain.
If only he could go over there, but he had to keep playing, had to keep letting out the melody that would carry them home.
One last plagal cadence, and the Ark gentled itself into place, stopping its strange movement as the last note dropped into silence.
"I'm really sorry about that." Allen's words shook with nervous laughter, and he didn't quite meet anyone's eye. The Ark hadn't wanted to leave its old home, but now that they were here, it seemed happy enough to acknowledge him as its master. He couldn't explain it, and had a feeling he wouldn't want to even if he could.
"Is everyone all right?" General Tiedoll was on his feet the instant the Ark stopped and was at Kanda's side in a moment. Kanda glowered and flicked one hand in a "go away" motion. Tiedoll simply reached down and smoothed his bangs before leaving him to check on Lenalee, then Marie, then Miranda...
Cross sat in a corner of the room, and simply rolled his eye. He probably would have done the same if one of them had been sitting in the middle of the room with a compound fracture.
"Lenalee!" Lavi crawled a few feet, then managed to push himself to his feet so he could limp over to Lenalee. "We're here. Can you stand up?"
Tiedoll and Marie were hauling Krory to a standing position, Tiedoll gently trying to shake him awake. "We need to get him and the rest of you young ones to the medics--right away."
"No one's dying, Froi. First things first, you know that." Cross stood up, straightening his long form with an easy grace that belied that fact that--by Allen's estimation--he had drunk enough to kill two grown men.
Chaoji's two friends froze, a wobbly but grateful Miranda propped between them. Chaoji himself was turning puff-cheeked and red, and would have started shouting something, but Cross kept on talking.
"The Earl's Akuma plant is on this Ark, and don't you think he's going to want it back? The sooner we have it out of here, the better."
Allen could feel the plant (the egg, something inside him supplied without being asked) lurking and seething in its chamber in the Ark. "Master's right," he said, ignoring Lavi's incredulous you're actually defending the bastard? expression. "I need--it needs to be out of here."
It being there was like having a splinter lodged deep in his skin. Its darkness made it seem huge, like a mountain overshadowing the Ark even though it was contained within it. Lavi said nothing. He simply regarded Allen coolly, an oddly Bookman-like expression on his face.
"You and young Walker can deal with the plant," Tiedoll said without any bluster but. "I will make sure these children get the care and loving attention they need."
Several voices raised in various kinds of protest at once.
So quiet as to be almost unnoticed, Bookman simply observed all that was going on.
"Please, everyone," Lenalee stopped protesting that she didn't need Lavi to carry her, and raised her voice just loud enough to be heard by everyone in the music room. Everyone quieted down, even Cross. "Let's just go home."
A pattern of rectagles simply slid into existence in the lab. One of them was emblazoned a glowing 3. Another glowed brighter for a moment, and then several shapes appeared.
"If those are Akuma..." Reever said.
"We're fucked," was Tapp's all too cheerful answer. "Nah, it's them--look."
Cross simply hopped down from the gate. For some reason, it had materialized several feet above the floor. He looked at Reever and grinned the kind of grin that caused hairs to raise on the back of every neck in the room.
"We brought you a gift," he said. "My apprentice will help your men get it out."
Two men Reever had never seen before came out next. A third stranger helped Miranda down to them. Even before Tiedoll and Marie manhandled Krory out of the gate, Reever was barking orders, telling whoever was closest to a phone to call a medic.
Bak had said they were okay, he thought furiously, but so far both Krory and Miranda were unconscious. Frankly, Miranda looked like hell. One of the men with her called out that Lady Exorcist was getting worse, and he could no longer get her to wake up.
Lavi was next, and the idiot was trying to carry Lenalee.
Reever was happily agnostic, but right then he was thanking God that Komui wasn't there. It was too much to take in all at once--the short hair, the bandaged legs, the cuts and abrasions.
"What the hell are you thinking! You can barely stand yourself!" Reever ran up to the gate and reached up. Komui would have had an aneurysm if he'd seen Lenalee and Lavi like that, but Reever had the idea that he came under a slightly different classification. "You think you're going to jump down from there like that? Here."
Lavi hesitated, mouth pressed to a thin line, then slowly knelt down, wincing and bobbing up a little as his left knee refused to bend any further. Lenalee looked around the lab, eyes growing wide as she didn't see who she hoped to see.
"No worries, Lenalee. He's fine. We just had some unexpected visitors right as you showed up." Reever let Lenalee sink into his arms and managed not to jostle her as Lavi handed her off. "He'll be furious to find out he missed you. We may have to take pictures."
That got a soft laugh, and Reever was able to make himself smile in response. He sobered up fairly quickly, though as he got a good look at the bandages going up her legs.
"Don't worry, Reever. I'll be fine," she told him, but he didn't believe it for a moment. "We're okay. We won."
The medics were rushing into the room, stretchers at the ready. Both Kanda and Marie protested they didn't need any help, but Tiedoll overruled them. "Hardly looks like it."
"But we did." Cross sauntered up, and he was smirking about something. It was the kind of expression that made you want to remove it with the business end of a broken bottle. "We took something away from the Earl that he won't be happy about losing."
"What's that?"
Cross told him.
"Oh." Reever let that sink in a moment. And another moment. He passed Lenalee off to a medic without even noticing he was doing so. "Oh."
That's when someone yelled from one of the phone stations that there was a problem in Hevlaska's chamber and Komui wasn't answering his phone.
Really, today just couldn't get any better if it tried. For the first time in a very long time, Reever could have used a good, stiff drink.
Part 4