I looked up into her piercing eyes, watching as she approached me with a twisted smile on her face, "Stay the hell away from me!" I found myself shrieking and quickly tried to conjure up some techniques of self defense from my memory. None came.
It didn't matter, though, because the strange people with the weapons suddenly surrounded her.
Now that they were closer I could see them more clearly. They were all wearing suits and glasses. As I mentioned before, each was carrying a weapon. Now that they were closer I recognized these weapons to be various gardening equipment. That was pretty weird, but I was just glad to see the woman turn her attention away from me.
"Riley!" Someone grabbed my shoulder. I yelped and slapped Ciel in surprise. He looked offended for a second but that quickly changed back to his usual serious demeanor, "We can't stay here!" He grabbed my hand and dragged me away.
As we ran down a hallway, I could hear a fight going on in the room we had just left. There was shouting, struggling, and roars. It began to get louder even though we were moving away from it. When I glanced back, I could see why- she was following us! In an instant she was right behind me. She raised her hand and swung it at me, but only managed to graze my arm. It was enough to make me stumble and fall. Luckily I caught myself against a wall and was able to keep running. Looking back again, I saw that the man in red had jumped on her back to restrain her.
Ciel and I ran outside and into the garden. He lead me through the dark, around flowerbeds and shrubs until we reached an orchard. Then we finally stopped to sit down and rest.
"Ciel, what was that all about? What happened?" I shuddered in fear, clinging to him for comfort.
He ignored my question and said instead, "Don't worry, Sebastian will be able to take care of it. He'll probably come for us in a little while," He looked at me, then, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm alright," I assured him.
Just then there was a huge crash. We peeked out from behind the tree and gasped in unison. Where the mansion had just been standing, there was nothing more than a dust cloud rising up off of the ground.
He jumped up and shouted, "Riley, stay here!" Then ran off in the direction of his house. Well that was alright with me, I didn't want to be anywhere near that scary woman who had tried to kill me! I sat down against the tree again, feeling suddenly weak.
I must have dozed off, because it jerked me awake when I heard footsteps nearby. I kept quiet; I could see nothing, so maybe that meant that they couldn't see me either. A few feet in front of me I could see a flash of something gold that I recognized as eyes. That's when I realized there was a dark figure standing over me. I screamed and kicked out at whatever was there. The dark figure crouched to my level and said, "I've found you, miss Riley!"
"Mr. Undertaker, please stop doing that," I felt like I would burst into tears, "I already feel like I'm gonna faint without you sneaking up on me!"
"Well, have you tried covering that wound yet?" He sat next to me against the tree.
I looked at him blankly, "Wound?"
"You're bleeding, miss Riley," He informed me, and touched a place on my arm. I felt it and realized he was right.
"Oh yeah- that lady scratched me!" I felt for the wound so I could cover it, but it was too dark, "I can't see a damn thing!"
"Hm? It's not that dark..." He said casually.
"Well, if you can see, then help me out before I bleed to death,"
He didn't answer, but I could hear him doing something. Then he was wrapping a long piece of fabric around my bleeding arm, "That should do it," He tied it off.
"Thanks," I smiled at the place where I thought his face might be, "By the way do you have any idea what happened earlier? Before that woman appeared?”
“Hm~? Did something happen?”
"Yeah, all these people appeared out of nowhere!"
"People?"
"Yeah, they were all carrying weapons and nobody else was paying them any attention, for some reason,"
"Are you sure they were there, then?"
"Are you calling me crazy? Of course, I almost ran into one of them. He was wearing all red and looked like a drag queen!"
"Well, then let's go find the others," He said quickly, standing and helping me up, "We probably wouldn't want to meet any of those people with just the two of us,"
I nodded in agreement, but felt like he was rushing to get away from the topic. That meant he probably knew something, but didn't want to or wasn't aloud to tell me.
Oh well, I'll just have to find out on my own!
I followed close behind him as we made our way through the dark. I tried to walk on my own, but I stumbled and ran into stuff so much that I reached out and grabbed at his sleeve. Even then I tripped, this time almost dragging him down with me. He ended up carrying me the rest of the way.
"Sorry you're having to put up with me..."
"Oh, don't worry. I intend on charging you,"
"...huh? Are you serious? I ain't got any money!"
"I don't want your money,"
"Then what?"
"Make me laugh!"
"....huh?" It was a simple request, but when asked directly like that my mind just went blank, "But you already amuse yourself so easily!" I protested. He only chuckled.
“By the way, where’d you go earlier?” I asked, stalling for time.
“....Go?” He asked somewhat reluctantly.
“Yeah, you totally disappeared without saying anything!”
“.......”
“That was so mean! If you’re gonna just run off mid-conversation like that then at least give a reason! Plus that’s when those people showed up looking like terrorists, I really could have used your company! Nice timing-really,”
He only looked at me strangely before snickering.
“What is your problem?” I demanded, frowning at him. The look on my face only seemed to make him laugh more.
“Sorry. It’s just that no one has lectured me like that in a while,” He giggled.
I beamed at him, “I win,”
He cocked his head at me, “hm?”
“I made you laugh, I win,”
“Oh, I guess you’re right!” He grinned.
When we got back to the rubble that had been the Phantomhive mansion, people were mulling around, dazed. Some were hurrying off to go home, looking shaken. There was dust in the air, giving the place a post-apocalyptic look. Still, though, Undertaker’s grin never faltered.
We found Ciel sitting on what remained of the porch, looking glum, while Sebastian restrained the strange woman from before. This time I found she wasn’t really quite so fascinating as she was scary. Her face was twisted in anger and her teeth were bared. When she wasn’t roaring in rage she was shouting obscenities at Sebastian, who was sitting on her back looking as though he had smelled something unpleasant. I noticed the woman was now wearing a dog collar around her neck but decided not to question it.
I sat next to Ciel and patted his back sympathetically. Looking at the bits of broken wood around us I shook my head, “That’s a damn shame,”
“What’s a shame?” He asked, only sounding half interested.
“Just look at all this wasted lumber. Do you know how many trees this is?”
He only glared, as he usually did, “It doesn’t matter. Sebastian will fix it,”
“If you say so...” I was looking around at the wreckage doubtfully, when movement caught my eye. Worried it might be a person in the rubble, I jumped up and ran over to help. Before I could even start searching, a tall man stood up out of the mess of floorboards and tiles and began brushing himself off, completely ignoring me.
I waited for a minute, staring at him. When he still didn’t acknowledge me I said loudly, “Hey, you,”
He looked down at me as though I were a nuisance. That’s when I recognized him as one of the men from before, “Ah, it’s you,” He said in recognition.
“I’m sorry- have we met?” True I had seen him from across the room, but he hadn't even looked my way; and I didn't remember actually meeting him.
He leaned closer and stared into my face, as though to glean my deepest secrets from me. I backed away uncomfortably, listening to see if anyone was nearby. If this guy jumped me, I didn’t think anyone would make it in time.
“No,” He said finally, straightening up, “I suppose we haven’t,” He promptly hopped over a 20 foot pile of rubble and disappeared somewhere. I realized my mouth was hanging open and closed it before running back to where the others were.
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AN: Sorry this chap had to end like this.... I just don't know how to end this one and transition to the next one. So the next chapter will be rather abrupt and will not really expand on this one at all.
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