Prelude

Everything was going so well.

It had been at most an hour and finally, finally, Allen could see an end to this Level 1 Akuma horde. He knew this particular mission wouldn't be easy, seeing how Allen was accompanied by Lavi, Kanda and Lenalee – and really, when those fifty or so Akuma appeared before them in such a busy street Allen internally thanked Komui for not making this a solo mission.

What he, and obviously the Black Order, weren't counting on was for the Millennium Earl to pop out of thin air, assess the situation for under a minute, and with a flick of his hand and a large grin he summoned what Allen believed were at least two hundred of those monsters.

Two hundred trapped souls.

He had never seen so many suffering souls at once. It took everything he had plus the reassuring words of his friends ("Allen, man, I love you and all but if you puke right now I'm really not helping you." "I don't. Vomit anywhere near me and I'll fucking kill you." "Boys, will you please concentrate?") for Allen to regain his senses and activate Crown Clown once again.

The Earl disappeared before the exorcists began their attack, and Allen had never strained himself as much as right then and there whilst trying to protect his friends from any stray bullets that might mortally wound them, taking advantage of his immunity to the Akuma poison. Almost an hour later, most of the souls had been freed and the tired exorcists took turns to purify the Akuma due to their clear exhaustion.

And maybe it had been that. The exhaustion had dulled their senses, and Lavi didn't notice the creeping Level 1 approaching him from behind and pointing its cannon to his head. Allen didn't think much about it, he just launched towards Lavi and pushed him out of the way, receiving the full force of the bullet with his innocence but being thrown nonetheless to the nearest wall at full force. He felt his head hit the hard stone of the wall, and heard the concerned cries of his friends before everything went black.

"Every time I see your face I lose my motivation."

A white clown outfit, and on the left side of his face a red star, unique to that clown.

"And your disgusting arm! Useless."

Cosimo had always been that way. Making him suffer in places where outsiders could never see.

He wanted to cry.

He wanted to scream.

He wanted to escape.

But Red knew the reason behind Cosimo's frustration; the new clown had stolen his popularity.

Again. He was covered in bruises again. Red hated it. Hated it, hated it, hated it.

But that dog had been so nice to him…

"What are you doing? I hate clowns."

"And I hate children and audiences that don't laugh."

"You… why aren't you crying?"

Then again, who was this clown?

He woke up to the bright light behind his closed eyelids. Slowly, silver eyes opened and he saw a white ceiling that definitely hadn't been there before.

Weird.

Last he could remember he received yet another beating by Cosimo; although if he his memory didn't fail him, he managed to land a blow or two on the disgusting man. Cosimo must have outed himself if he had ended unconscious.

And this room, so white and… clean. Completely opposite to that dirty circus he refused to call home. Had that other clown – Mana, was it? Maybe he'd brought him there to treat his wounds?

He heard mumbling behind the closed door and assumed it to be that Mana clown and a doctor, or something. With a heavy sigh, he sat himself up from his resting position on the bed, clearly noting the pain at the back of his head, and as carefully as he could snatched the needles and whatnot out of his wrist. He rubbed his face slightly while carefully heading to the bathroom, the medicine that they gave him whilst unconscious had made his vision blurry and the silver-eyed boy wanted to wash his face before heading out with Mana. He needed to get back to the circus before someone decided to tell on him to the ringleader.

And he refused to lose yet another dinner.

Drowsily, the silver eyed boy turned on the faucet of the small bathroom and he let the cool water run over his face before grabbing the nearest towel to dry himself completely. Then, with a slowness which during other circumstances he would've attributed to a drunk Cosimo, he lifted his head, blinking a couple of times to re-adjust his vision and stared into the mirror.

And he kept staring.

And a silver haired teen with a red scar on his face stared back at him from inside the mirror. A few more seconds passed before he lifted his right hand, and paused in shock as the silver haired boy did exactly the same.

Silence and then –

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL?"

Short? Yes.

Although I'll probably have (the definitely longer) next chapter up by the weekend. En fin, this will be an attempt at humor after a while, let's see how this turns out.

Spelling/grammar mistakes, please do tell; I'm trying to get better at my English here and I'll definitely correct myself ASAP.

Hope you enjoyed, see you next time!