[You might suddenly find yourselves in a school by yourself, without the sign of any of the others nearby. On the bulletin board nearby was a note with the following words
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As Allen had found himself in yet another unfamiliar hallway it really was becoming apparent that all the stories he had heard from the other residents were turning out to be accurate. He was still convinced that the place was nothing to do with the Ark though and that just made him scowl: it reminded him of how much of an idiot Kanda was being. Their experiences with one another since arriving in the strange tower had not been some of the best by any means, but Allen forced himself to remember that almost all his encounters with Kanda boiled down to be negative ones.
It didn't remove the bad taste in Allen's mouth that had been left in the aftermath of his and Kanda's last few clashes with one another.
Regardless, there were more pressing matters at hand, like the new surroundings and the unusual clothes Allen had found himself wearing. Or not so much wearing as was hanging off him--the navy blue janitor's overalls he had on were pulled up to the middle of his biceps on each arm and rolled over upon itself at the legs. He'd found a mop in his right hand and for some time stared at it in utter bewilderment.
After his mind settled on the idea it was simply the strange place that they had been brought to being, well, strange, he shuffled his way to the corridor, pausing every so often to tug one of his pant legs back up which refused to stay put.
As he came toward the door of the mystery club, Allen paused and stared. He couldn't see anything to start with, but after a moment of consideration he stepped in. His eyes didn't adjust right away and he couldn't make out anything around him right away, but there may have been something inside that would indicate what they were being asked to do in this situation. He was a little distracted with looking to his left and right however that when he felt himself bump into what felt like a human form he jumped back a step instinctively.
"Ah--! I'm sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going! I didn't mean to--"
He blinked then, his expression shifting from apologetic cheerfulness to something almost bordering on uncomfortable. He seemed to shake it off rather swiftly, narrowing his eyes to instead present what he considered to be his usual partly standoffish attitude around the older boy.
"What's going on? Another test? What... are you wearing?"
The door had barely closed behind Kanda when he heard the latch lick open again. He had been standing in the semi-darkness of the room, trying to give his eyes a chance to adjust so that he could try to find some sort of a switch to turn the lights on.
And then he was being run into by who ever was coming through the--
"Oi, Moyashi, if you're going to go falling down in the dark do it by your damn self!"
He glared down at the younger boy, able to see his white hair and pale skin easily in the dim light. The overalls, however, he couldn't quite appreciate for the time being, and he only gave an irritated "Tch" at the question about his clothes, not least of all because he didn't have the faintest clue what he was wearing and had absolutely no intention of admitting that to Allen.
Instead, he turned back towards the room, drew his sword, and ran his fingers down the back of the blade, activating it so that it glowed with a pale radiance that illuminated at least a few meters' radius around them.
Both men might suddenly that the door has locked itself shut behind them, making it so that no one else could come in. If they look back in at the center of the room, they might notice the mysterious box that magically appeared there. Around them, the books and the masks and all the strange trinkets seem to be watching, if not laughing at them.
Allen shot a glare at Kanda in the half-light provided by the activated blade in the other Exorcist's hand. He was about to snip something at him perhaps when the door had snapped shut behind them.
Allen turned his head quickly toward the sound, his body language suddenly completely different; his shoulders moved back, his legs tensed and he seemed ready to engage with whatever may come flying out of the dimly lit room to attack the two of them.
When nothing came right away he didn't exactly relax, but his eyes fell upon the light switch on the wall which he moved over to tentatively to flick on, illuminating the room.
Then he noticed the box in the middle of the room. His eyes narrowed, moving to stand shoulder to shoulder with Kanda and nodding toward it lightly.
Kanda had looked sharply around as well when the door clicked shut--the sound different than when it had closed behind him the first time, and his posture shifted as well, the sword in his hands no longer being held just for light but ready to receive whatever attack might now be ready to spring on them.
He was still scanning the darkness on the far side of the room when Allen turned the lights on and had begun to make out what looked like scattered hollow faces without eyes and fleeting glints like bits of metal or glass. As well as the box that sat on the floor in the middle of the room.
His first thought was similar to Allen's--That was not there a moment ago. And then the lights came on and he did a bit of a double take seeing the absurdly oversized jumpsuit that the other Exorcist was wearing rolled up at wrists and ankles.
He gave him the once over, decided it wasn't the time to bother asking even if he did care (which he didn't), and forwent offering an answer to Allen's question, not because he was ignoring him but just because it seemed too rhetorical a question to actually require a reply.
"We're supposed to be answering riddles," he said instead, staying where he was beside Allen for a moment. And then without bothering to wait for further discussion, he stepped over and kicked the top of the box open with his foot.
"Do youz have ta kick it so hard? Man, ya think people ain't working me hard enough." Here's a sight to behold. It looks like you are now face to face with an irritable chicken.
"All right, all right, already! Guess I better git this over with." And he'll be pulling out three cards and showing them to you.
"Woah--!" Allen stepped back as the box burst open and the yelling feathered speaker appeared.
He blinked twice when the chicken finished speaking before glancing at Kanda to his side. He looked quite confused by the whole thing and maybe a little disturbed before he turned his gaze back to the chicken once more and stared for a moment.
When the box had sprung open, Kanda's reflex reaction was to raise his sword to a ready stance, the point of the blade pointing straight at the creature that leaped out.
He held that posture all through the chicken's griping, not that it seemed to make much difference. It was only after the loud-mouthed bird had pulled out its three cards and held them towards him that he lowered his sword, glaring first at the bird and then briefly at Allen.
He gave an irritated Tch--as much at Allen's oh-so-helpful prodding as at the absurdity of a talking chicken (guess it went perfectly with the talking cat)--and then reached out and took the leftmost of the three cards, turning it around and holding it up so that he and Allen could both see it.
Immediately the card puffs into smoke, slowly forming the following riddle in the air above Chicken.
"A boy was at a carnival and went to a booth where a man said to the boy, "If I write your exact weight on this piece of paper then you have to give me $50, but if I cannot, I will pay you $50."
The boy looked around and saw no scale so he agrees, thinking no matter what the carny writes he'll just say he weighs more or less.
In the end the boy ended up paying the man $50. How did the man win the bet? "
As the words appeared, Allen read them carefully and by the time he is finished a wicked little smirk had appeared on his face.
"I know this. I may have even seen someone play tricks like this at the circus first hand when I was a kid," he mutters, looking back down at the chicken.
"He wins the bet because he writes 'your exact weight' on the piece of paper. He said if he couldn't then the boy had to pay him $50, but he could and he did, that's how he won."
Kanda had only just been rereading the riddle when Allen began to speak, and he'd looked around sharply at him, a little surprised. The answer had not, to say the least, been immediately apparent to the swordsman. And though Kanda wasn't ever likely to admit it, he was actually a bit impressed.
He looked at the card as it landed in Allen's hand and then back at the chicken, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth--it had certainly not escaped his notice for a moment that the bird had called Allen by the name which Kanda usually called him, and in a twisted sort of way it added a hint of humor to the situation they were stuck in.
He breathed a short Hmph, almost a laugh and sheathed his sword. "Are you the bird that damn cat kept complaining about?"
"Been complaining about me, eh? Why that good-fo'-nutin stupid red-furred loud-mouthed leader-wannabe! I oughta make 'im work hard fer all the damn whining he keeps going on and on about. Ya think it's easy bringin' in people from the outer world? No, not at all. You guys way more than a damn tractor and a half and I ain't getting any sleep just because I can't get in hundreds o' youz. But nooo--- He just has to go on and on about me bein' lazy! Well, whoz the lazy one now, huh?! But then, youz guy wouldn' know that, huh? Of course, you git the good stuff and a bed, while I'm stuck haulin' my butt off to the workroom to do all the dirty stuff they ain' willin' to touch. Ya take one day in mah place, and I sure in hell woulda guarantee you'd go running back to the comforts of the Tower."
Allen blinked down at the card that lay in his hand, then glanced back at the Chicken and almost on pure habit saw red at the nickname.
"The name's Allen! Allen, damn it! Not bean sprout and anyone who told you otherwise is wrong!"
As it turned out, his tirade has nothing on Chicken's. He stared in stunned silence at the small feathered creature's ranting before looking at Kanda out the corner of his eye as though to say 'Well, you did ask' before chuckling nervously.
"It does sound like you do a lot of work and get little appreciation... You could just not bring people from other worlds here, I suppose. It would be less work for you, right?"
Well, it doesn't hurt to ask...
He holds up the card then with a smile, feeling quite pleased with himself for getting the riddle right.
For a moment Kanda only blinked in surprise at the tirade. He hadn't exactly been expecting to get that in response when he'd asked.
He definitely wasn't going to offer the damn bird platitudes for its complaints the way that Allen was though. "The comforts of the Tower?" he scoffed, almost speaking right over Allen and cutting him off.
"Tch. You expect us to thank you for locking us up in a damn penal colony and making us play these stupid fucking games for your amusement?
Oh, this did not look good and Allen had a feeling he could see where this was headed. There was a sudden worry that if Kanda continued with his rant back at the Chicken and insulted him that there could be consequences. It was certainly in the creature's power to give out the wins, it made sense to Allen that the option to remove was also present.
As this thought came to him he gave out a little distressed squeaking noise, his arm moving suddenly then to slap his hand over Kanda's mouth before he could really stop himself. He'd deal with the swordsman's ire after though, he just needed to stop him mid-sentence.
"A-and then... er... y-you could get some well earned recuperation time! B-but he's not going to do that, he'd never try to do that. Ehehe! W-what a sense of humour Kanda has, right?!"
One way or another Allen felt like he was drawing his last nervous chuckles here.
It didn't remove the bad taste in Allen's mouth that had been left in the aftermath of his and Kanda's last few clashes with one another.
Regardless, there were more pressing matters at hand, like the new surroundings and the unusual clothes Allen had found himself wearing. Or not so much wearing as was hanging off him--the navy blue janitor's overalls he had on were pulled up to the middle of his biceps on each arm and rolled over upon itself at the legs. He'd found a mop in his right hand and for some time stared at it in utter bewilderment.
After his mind settled on the idea it was simply the strange place that they had been brought to being, well, strange, he shuffled his way to the corridor, pausing every so often to tug one of his pant legs back up which refused to stay put.
As he came toward the door of the mystery club, Allen paused and stared. He couldn't see anything to start with, but after a moment of consideration he stepped in. His eyes didn't adjust right away and he couldn't make out anything around him right away, but there may have been something inside that would indicate what they were being asked to do in this situation. He was a little distracted with looking to his left and right however that when he felt himself bump into what felt like a human form he jumped back a step instinctively.
"Ah--! I'm sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going! I didn't mean to--"
He blinked then, his expression shifting from apologetic cheerfulness to something almost bordering on uncomfortable. He seemed to shake it off rather swiftly, narrowing his eyes to instead present what he considered to be his usual partly standoffish attitude around the older boy.
"What's going on? Another test? What... are you wearing?"
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And then he was being run into by who ever was coming through the--
"Oi, Moyashi, if you're going to go falling down in the dark do it by your damn self!"
He glared down at the younger boy, able to see his white hair and pale skin easily in the dim light. The overalls, however, he couldn't quite appreciate for the time being, and he only gave an irritated "Tch" at the question about his clothes, not least of all because he didn't have the faintest clue what he was wearing and had absolutely no intention of admitting that to Allen.
Instead, he turned back towards the room, drew his sword, and ran his fingers down the back of the blade, activating it so that it glowed with a pale radiance that illuminated at least a few meters' radius around them.
Reply
Penalties: 0"
Both men might suddenly that the door has locked itself shut behind them, making it so that no one else could come in. If they look back in at the center of the room, they might notice the mysterious box that magically appeared there. Around them, the books and the masks and all the strange trinkets seem to be watching, if not laughing at them.
Care to take a look at what the box holds?
Reply
Allen turned his head quickly toward the sound, his body language suddenly completely different; his shoulders moved back, his legs tensed and he seemed ready to engage with whatever may come flying out of the dimly lit room to attack the two of them.
When nothing came right away he didn't exactly relax, but his eyes fell upon the light switch on the wall which he moved over to tentatively to flick on, illuminating the room.
Then he noticed the box in the middle of the room. His eyes narrowed, moving to stand shoulder to shoulder with Kanda and nodding toward it lightly.
"Was that there a moment ago?"
Reply
He was still scanning the darkness on the far side of the room when Allen turned the lights on and had begun to make out what looked like scattered hollow faces without eyes and fleeting glints like bits of metal or glass. As well as the box that sat on the floor in the middle of the room.
His first thought was similar to Allen's--That was not there a moment ago. And then the lights came on and he did a bit of a double take seeing the absurdly oversized jumpsuit that the other Exorcist was wearing rolled up at wrists and ankles.
He gave him the once over, decided it wasn't the time to bother asking even if he did care (which he didn't), and forwent offering an answer to Allen's question, not because he was ignoring him but just because it seemed too rhetorical a question to actually require a reply.
"We're supposed to be answering riddles," he said instead, staying where he was beside Allen for a moment. And then without bothering to wait for further discussion, he stepped over and kicked the top of the box open with his foot.
Reply
"Do youz have ta kick it so hard? Man, ya think people ain't working me hard enough." Here's a sight to behold. It looks like you are now face to face with an irritable chicken.
"All right, all right, already! Guess I better git this over with." And he'll be pulling out three cards and showing them to you.
"Youz with the long hair. Pick one."
Reply
He blinked twice when the chicken finished speaking before glancing at Kanda to his side. He looked quite confused by the whole thing and maybe a little disturbed before he turned his gaze back to the chicken once more and stared for a moment.
Then he lightly elbowed the older boy in the arm.
"Guess you'd better do it, Kanda..."
Reply
He held that posture all through the chicken's griping, not that it seemed to make much difference. It was only after the loud-mouthed bird had pulled out its three cards and held them towards him that he lowered his sword, glaring first at the bird and then briefly at Allen.
He gave an irritated Tch--as much at Allen's oh-so-helpful prodding as at the absurdity of a talking chicken (guess it went perfectly with the talking cat)--and then reached out and took the leftmost of the three cards, turning it around and holding it up so that he and Allen could both see it.
Reply
Immediately the card puffs into smoke, slowly forming the following riddle in the air above Chicken.
"A boy was at a carnival and went to a booth where a man said to the boy, "If I write your exact weight on this piece of paper then you have to give me $50, but if I cannot, I will pay you $50."
The boy looked around and saw no scale so he agrees, thinking no matter what the carny writes he'll just say he weighs more or less.
In the end the boy ended up paying the man $50. How did the man win the bet? "
Reply
"I know this. I may have even seen someone play tricks like this at the circus first hand when I was a kid," he mutters, looking back down at the chicken.
"He wins the bet because he writes 'your exact weight' on the piece of paper. He said if he couldn't then the boy had to pay him $50, but he could and he did, that's how he won."
Reply
The smoke in the air then turns into a card once more, with the word CLEAR written on one side and GYM on the other, and lands in Allen's hand.
"Youz gots two more, so don't get cocky."
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He looked at the card as it landed in Allen's hand and then back at the chicken, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth--it had certainly not escaped his notice for a moment that the bird had called Allen by the name which Kanda usually called him, and in a twisted sort of way it added a hint of humor to the situation they were stuck in.
He breathed a short Hmph, almost a laugh and sheathed his sword. "Are you the bird that damn cat kept complaining about?"
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"The name's Allen! Allen, damn it! Not bean sprout and anyone who told you otherwise is wrong!"
As it turned out, his tirade has nothing on Chicken's. He stared in stunned silence at the small feathered creature's ranting before looking at Kanda out the corner of his eye as though to say 'Well, you did ask' before chuckling nervously.
"It does sound like you do a lot of work and get little appreciation... You could just not bring people from other worlds here, I suppose. It would be less work for you, right?"
Well, it doesn't hurt to ask...
He holds up the card then with a smile, feeling quite pleased with himself for getting the riddle right.
"So, what does this card mean for us now?"
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He definitely wasn't going to offer the damn bird platitudes for its complaints the way that Allen was though. "The comforts of the Tower?" he scoffed, almost speaking right over Allen and cutting him off.
"Tch. You expect us to thank you for locking us up in a damn penal colony and making us play these stupid fucking games for your amusement?
"I could just cut your damn wings off and then--"
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As this thought came to him he gave out a little distressed squeaking noise, his arm moving suddenly then to slap his hand over Kanda's mouth before he could really stop himself. He'd deal with the swordsman's ire after though, he just needed to stop him mid-sentence.
"A-and then... er... y-you could get some well earned recuperation time! B-but he's not going to do that, he'd never try to do that. Ehehe! W-what a sense of humour Kanda has, right?!"
One way or another Allen felt like he was drawing his last nervous chuckles here.
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