That Butler, Confident

I own nothing but my OC.

≤speech in Indian language≥

'thoughts'

"speech"

{setting/stage directions?}

SOUND EFFECTS

An entire sentence like this, without quotes, is narration for dreams or stuff like written letters.

=†=†=†=†= scene shift/time shift

—^—^—^— change of perspective/area of action within one specific time frame/location

Previously:

Meanwhile, back at the mansion, poor Finni was lying on the ground with blood all around his wounded head.

"…" Jummbo stared down at his violent handiwork. "I had no choice. Please, forgive me." He turned to leave but was stopped when something pulled on his cloak. "!?"

"Pleeease!" Finni said from behind him. "I'll get a right scolding 'cos of yooou!" Slowly, Jumbo turned his head to see that Finni was standing up again, clutching the back of his cloak with one hand. "Young Master told me to do this… and Mister Sebastian put me under strict orders… never to let anybody in here," he finished with wide eyes cast in shadow.

SPLAT!

"Awww, brother!" Finni said, staring at the bleeding Jumbo, who had slumped down from his initial point of impact with the stone wall behind him. "Just look at all the blood that's been spilled!" He started to move closer to where he had ended up throwing the intruder. "Hooow awful. I hate pain, you know." He wish he didn't have to hurt the man. If only he'd left. Jumbo twitched.

"Brother, sister, please run away!!" Jumbo yelled suddenly at the top of his lungs. "Something is amiss at this manor!"

"!?" Peter gasped when he heard the warning cry from the tree they were in.

"Jumbo!?" Wendy said, alarmed. "Peter!"

"C'mon, then!!" Peter told her, wasting no time in going to their friend's aid. He and Wendy jumped and flew from tree to tree as they made their way around the manor to Jumbo. "!!" he gasped, shocked by the scene before them. Jumbo, that Jumbo… had been knocked clean through a solid stone wall. They could tell from the blood splatter and how still the little they could see of him through the hole in the wall was that he had been killed. "I don't believe this…" Peter said as he and Wendy stared at his body, horrified. " 'Ow could Jumbo of all people..."

"Pleeeeease don't raise your voices at this hour," Finni requested of the unnaturally still Jumbo. "You'll wake Lady Elizabeth."

WHIZ.

"!!" Finni was startled when something hit his hat and zoomed past his neck. It looked like a wire. "Ah!" he gasped when it retracted and took his hat with it. Finni followed the hat with his eyes and saw that the culprits appeared to be a boy ad a girl in colorful costumes.

"Bastard, 'ow dare you!" Peter yelled, firing one of his wires again at a tall topiary. He dashed forward from his spot in the tree and swung himself at Finni. " 'Ow dare you kill Jumbo!!" he roared, firing two more wires from his other hand directly at Finni.

"Wah!" Finni cried as he dodged. "What are you doing?" he demanded as Peter landed on top of the topiary tree. "Kah!" He punched the topiary right out from under him.

"Wot—!?" Peter cried in alarm, only just managing to jump away in time as the whole thing came crashing down.

"I sooo liked that hat too..." Finni said, glancing at his target out the corner of his eye. "Why, now I can't keep this hidden anymore." The serial number tattooed onto the back of his neck showed clearly in the moonlight.

WHIZ.

Wendy swung herself down to perch on top of a tall garden sculpture. She fired two more wires at Finni, but he dodged them, too.

"And after Young Master made a present of it to me!" Finni said, grabbing another topiary and ripping it up by the trunk. "The young master… doesn't give me injections every single day like those other people did."

"!?" Wendy gasped when he hurled the topiary tree straight at her with alarming speed and strength.

WHACK!

Peter only just barely managed to pull her out of the way in time. He used his wire to swing them up onto the landing in front of the door at the top of the outdoor stairs, hoping higher ground would help them.

"Young Master doesn't make my friends and I kill each other," Finni stated with determination as he ran after them and delivered a powerful punch to the wall beneath them. "Nor does he keep me locked up."

WHAM!

"I love this place," Finni said, smiling through the dust from the rubble. "And that's why… I made up my mind. I'm going to protect this place."

"Is 'e a monster!?" Wendy asked as she and Peter jumped and flipped and swung themselves up to the second story.

"But 'e's more of a lazy bones than us!!" Peter said. He may have caught them by surprise, but they had the advantage now. "Let's go Wendy."

"Right!" she replied. They leaped down, pulling a wire taut between them as they flew towards Finni, aiming for his neck.

"We'll slice 'im in two!!" they said together.

BANG!

A lone bullet pierced through Wendy's head, killing her instantly. It took Peter a moment to realize what had happened, but then her corpse started to fall, pulling him down with its dead weight.

"WENDYYYYYY!!" Peter screamed, landing along side her. "Ha!" he gasped when he turned to glare at their attacker only to find Finni charging at him once again. "Kuh!" he grunted, flipping out of the way just in the nick of time.

WHAM!

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Peter kept flipping and flipping, dodging the bullets shot at him by a hair, only stopping once he was safe behind a corner.

" 'Ell, a sniper!?" he exclaimed, breathing hard. "It's comin' from the west roof!? All them bullets… 'Ow many snipers do they got on their pay!?" He fired another wire at one of the chimneys and leaped into the air, pulling himself up with the wire. "This maggot'll 'ave to wait!" he said, referring to Finni. 'I got to see to the sniper first,' he thought anxiously. He swung himself up onto the roof. "Where's this sniper at, then—!?" Peter was astonished by what he saw. Rows and rows and rows of rifles lined the rooftop. 'B—Blimey!!' He kneeled down and picked up one of the discarded rifles. "?" He was surprised further. 'This rifle… don't have a scope on it. But 'e made the target from this far off… with one shot—!?' He didn't know that he had already become a target again himself. It was the maid's turn to step up.

"I obey… Young Master's command to the letter!" Mei-Rin said, bracing herself for another round on the opposite roof. She made sure her glasses were secured on top of her head and out of the way. "To greet my master in a tidy manor everyday—that… is a maid's duty." She held one rifle in each hand. "The housemaid… shall purge the filth from this manor!" She raised both rifles, aimed using her keen eyes, and fired.

BANG! BANG!

"!!?" Peter winced in pain when one of the bullets got him in the arm.

"Tch!" Mei-Rin clicked her tongue in disappointment. "I missed!" She tossed the guns in her hands aside and quickly moved onto the next pair she had lined up. She spun around and fired before her prey could get too far.

BANG! BANG!

"Bleedin' 'ell!" Peter yelled, running for cover, Once again, Mei-Rin immediately dropped the rifles and reloaded

BANG! BANG!

"No way I can get close like this!" Peter complained. " 'Ow many are there…?" He risked a peek. It was hard to see so far away in the dark, but there was no mistake. "… One!? Just one!?" he said incredulously. He gasped as something occurred to him. 'Don't tell me, all them rifles there… are fer savin' on load time!?' Peter immediately prepared to flee. "Curses! Jumbo was right." He shot another wire out to hook on a tower-like thing sticking out of the roof. "We got no choice but to fall back at once! I'd best let Dagger and 'em know." He kicked off the roof and swung himself through the air. "Got a bunch o' barmy buggers 'ere, that's wot!" But then, another disturbing thing occurred to him. 'Barmy? Well, somethin's off, all right… even wiv all 'em rifles, 'ow come the sniper can attack so spot-on so fast? It's like 'e's got 'is 'ands on a pistol…' His eyes widened with fear. 'Don't tell me—!?'

"It is no use," Mei-Rin said firmly, her eyes fixed on the target. "no matter how far you run, little rat… it is..." She watched as Peter tugged on the wire to try to make it go faster. "… As if you are standing right in front of me."

CRASH! SHATTER. THUD.

"Nn?" Elizabeth said, stirring in her bed when she heard a sound from the hallway. "What was that sound?" she asked, sitting up and rubbing her eye.

"Lady Elizabeth, is something the matter?" Mister Tanaka asked, stepping into the room partly with a candelabra in his hand, keeping the door mostly closed behind him.

"Mister Tanaka. Didn't you hear a very loud noise just now?" she asked, getting out of bed.

"Hoh, hoh, hoh! You must have been dreaming," he said kindly. "You will catch a chill, so please do return to bed." He couldn't allow her to see the mess in the hall that Peter's corpse had made when it crashed through the window. With that job finished, Mei-Rin put her glasses back on.

—^—^—^—

Beast and Dagger looked back over their soldiers in the direction they heard gunshots coming from.

"They got guards… looks like," Dagger said.

"Yeah," Beast agreed.

"Can't expect else from a wealthy aristocrat. Let's leave them to Brother Peter and the others and head for the target ourselves," Dagger suggested. There were no arguments, so they slipped in through a door together and found themselves in the main foyer. They were making their way up the stairs when something unexpected happened.

"Hoh there, I've been waitin' for ya!" a man in a chef's uniform said from the landing, calling attention to himself. They were startled to realize he was there. "Finni's out in the backyard, and Mei-Rin's got her hawk eyes on the flanks," Bard continued with a cigarette in his mouth. "So if anyone comes, It'll be right through here at the front—Besides… Whoa!" Bard said, startled when Dagger introduced himself by throwing three knives at him without warning.

KLING! KLANG! KLING!

Quick as a flash, Bard whipped out a frying pan and used it to block the blades.

"Hey, ya jerk!" Bard said, sweating nervously. "That's dangerous! And I wasn't done talkin' yet!"

WHAP! CRACK!

Beast lashed at him with her whip.

"Heey, hold it! I ain't really into that rough stuff, lady!!" Bard told her as he dodged. "Geez, everyone wants to be Solomon Grundy, on the fast track to death. Talk about a waste." He noticed someone else had joined them. "Hey, Finni. Let 'em have a taste… of one of your cannons!" he said, prompting the gardener to step out of the shadows and hurl a marble bust at them, pedestal and all.

WHAM!

Dagger and Beast barely escaped. Finni picked up another. They ran for it.

" 'Ang on! 'Ow's this even possible!?" Dagger asked, paling in shock as he and Beast hightailed it out of there, dodging more busts and statues as they went.

WHAM!

"Kuh!" Beast was nearly hit by the last one.

"Tch!" Dagger furrowed his brow and threw more knives to cover their escape. Bard and Finni ducked behind another bust and its pedestal for cover. Beast ad Dagger made themselves scarce before they could recover.

"All right," Bard said, surveying the damage. They had succeeded in cutting them off from using the stairs there.

—^—^—^—

"We'll off 'em later!! Let's get our 'ands on the target first!" Dagger said as they ran through the mansion to the next room.

"Got it. We'll start by goin' through all the rooms one by one," Beast agreed as they reached the first door and opened it. The door was pulled taut, and they realized too late that it was hooked up to the bell system in the room, rigged to ring it the moment it was opened.

—^—^—^—

RING! RING!

Bard looked the instant he heard the bell and took note of the room it belonged to. Time to move the troops.

"Mei-Rin, the rats are in the drawing room. Cut them off from the west wing," Bard instructed her through the speaking tubes.

"Yes, sir!" Mei-Rin answered back from the other end.

"Finni, you head there from the main hall. Don'cha get lost now, ya hear?" Bard ordered his second soldier.

"Yes, siiir!" Finni responded dutifully with a salute.

—^—^—^—

"A trap, huh?" Beast said as they ran, furrowing her brow in annoyance.

"Sis, I'm so sorry!" Dagger apologized for setting off the alarm. As they reached an intersecting section of the hallway, Beast's eyes widened at what had been waiting for them around the corner. She gasped and immediately threw her whip out to grab a nearby painting from the wall. "Duck!!" she shouted at Dagger.

"Eh!?"

WHIIP!

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

The once beautiful portrait was riddled with bullets. Further down the hall was Mei-Rin with her glasses pulled up on top of her head, wielding two guns. Her sharp, merciless eyes were locked onto them with an unwavering gaze.

"The folks of this 'ouse give those kinda things to a li'l lass of a maid!!?" Dagger yelled incredulously, turning blue with shock, as he retaliated with a swift spray of daggers. Mei-Rin quickly stepped inside another room, dodging the deadly attack with ease. Then she fired back.

BANG! BANG!

Dagger and Beast took off running again, going back the way they came, and cleared the corner to get out of the sharpshooter's line of sight.

"We're turnin' back, Dagger!!" Beast shouted anxiously. They ran with all their might, but it wasn't enough. Something was being dragged through the darkness up ahead of them. They could hear it.

"!!" they both gasped when they realized someone was emerging from the dark. It was the gardener again, and he had another statue.

"The rats!" Finni said with a big smile when he spotted them, hoisting the statue up over his shoulder, preparing to strike. "Found yooou!"

" 'Im again!" Dagger exclaimed in alarm.

"C'mon, let's head down!" Beast said, leading him down the stairs.

"Yah!" Finni shouted, flinging the statue at them.

WHAM!

It missed, so he grabbed another.

BAM!

And another.

CRACK!

Beast and Dagger were pale as death and sweating bullets from all the very near misses, but they were both still alive and in one piece, unlike the stairs. The stairs had been almost completely destroyed. They were unusable.

"Wot's wiv this 'ere lot!? This place's right mad!" Dagger exclaimed.

"Yeah," Beast agreed. "Given the state of things, the earl's probably holed up hidin' somewhere. We've no choice but to meet back up with Brother Peter and the others."

"And ol' boy Joker ain't 'ere today neither..." Dagger added, furrowing his brow with worry.

"… Joker..." Beast said, touching the scarf he had wrapped around her before they parted. They reached another room and stopped running. It was full of food canisters, jars, bags, barrels and shelves lined with pottery and other tableware. "Where are we…?" Beast wondered.

"Goin' up and down the stairs squawking up a storm must be rough for you geese," Bard said, startling them as they became alerted to his presence. "This is the ends of the earth," he said with a smirk, calmly sifting some flour at one of the counters. "Welcome to the kitchen."

"Well, aren't you a happy-go-lucky fellow, facing us unarmed!!" Beast said, taking a crack at him with her whip.

"Whoops!" Bard said, dodging and holding the sifter up to shield his head. "Silly girl." He dodged more attacks from Dagger. "The kitchen's the chef's sanctuary and his alone… the butler himself ain't allowed to stick his nose in." The chef smirked. "This place's stuffed full of tools even the butler and head maid don't know about. For example!" He ducked behind a large object covered by a sheet. Dagger's blade bounced right off it.

CLANG.

FLAP.

Bard whipped the sheet off, revealing a gleaming gatling gun. He grinned.

"!?" Beast and Dagger gasped in alarm. They weren't exactly sure what they were looking at, but their instincts sensed they were in danger. Bard pulled the trigger.

BOOM!

The gun went off with an explosion of sound and bullets.

"Wot the 'ell iiiiis that!!?" Dagger cried, tackling Beast out of the way. The bullets just wouldn't stop coming!

"This is the latest weapon that Master Hiram's brought me from back home in America," Bard explained helpfully while he continued his relentless attack. "Here we go!" he smirked, holding his cigarette with his teeth, as he readjusted his aim to follow the fleeing intruders.

"SIS!" Dagger yelled, pushing her out of the way again. The sacks of flour that were hit exploded in clouds of fine particles. Bard made sure to hit as many of them as he could as he went. "With this baby, fighting wars'll be a whole different story from when I fought in 'em!! The chef's specially treating you guys. Make sure you savor it!"

CLINK. CLINK.

In the silence that followed the torrential assault, you could hear the empty cartridge shells hitting the floor.

"Nnn," Bard said, scratching the back of his head while he surveyed the damage through the clouds of flour. That entire wall of the kitchen was ruined, but his quarry seemed to have escaped. "It packs a seriously powerful punch, but its precision leaves something to be desired, huh? Gotta let the young master know to hold off on mass-producin' 'em."

"Nn…! Kuh!" Beast groaned from her position on the hard floor. Why did Dagger have to push her so hard? How long was he going to stay on top of—Her eyes widened, and she gasped when she saw the state he was in. "DAGGERRR!!" she screamed, horrified to see his bloody body riddled with bullet holes. He hadn't just pushed her out of the way—he shielded her! "Dagger!! You fool…!" she cried, shifting to hold him in her arms.

"I'm… Gla—! d… yer all righ..." he managed to groan. It was hard to breathe, let alone talk. "Sis… run to ol' time… Tell 'im…" Tears streamed down his face as he smiled sadly at her. "I'da… loved to take… ya there… Sis… o'er… the 'ills..." His eyes closed and he fell limp in her arms.

"DAGGERRR!!!" Her scream overflowed with grief and agony.

"I woulda rather met a babe like you in a pub, drinkin' warmed-over beer or somethin'," Bard told her. She had his sympathy, but he wouldn't show her mercy. She and her friends were killers too, after all.

"You won't get away with this!!" Beast yelled with tears in her eyes as she immediately jumped to her feet again and lashed out at him with her whip. Bard ducked, and she knocked over a bowl and ripped open another sack of flour. Another flour cloud bloomed in the room.

WHIP!

"Oops!" Bard said ducking behind the table again, making her hit another flour sack and another.

"You think you're going to get to turn tail and run like that!!?" Beast demanded angrily, trying to spot him through all the airborne flour dust.

"No, ma'am. Finny!!" Bard yelled, signaling his cue to act.

WHAM!

Beast was startled when one of the walls seemed to explode into rubble, sending debris flying everywhere.

"Wha—!?" she exclaimed, holding up an arm to shield herself.

"The prep work's all taken care of," Bard said, climbing up and out of the kitchen with Finni's help. "I told ya from the get-go. The kitchen holds a whole bushel full o' secrets. Here, I'll let ya in on one. 'Flour' burns easier the finer it is. If the concentration of flour in the air gets high, it's just like an explosive gas." He paused to look down at her. "You ever hear the story about the flour mill in Minnesota that shot eighteen folks up to high heaven?"

"!?" Beast gasped, filled with fear. Bard finished climbing up and struck a match. "Sorry li'l lady… but this here's our calling."

=†=†=†=†=

They are private soldiers, carefully selected and hired by myself and my man, Sebastian here," Ciel said coldly, referring to his servants back at the manor.

"Wha—!?" Joker gasped, alarmed.

=†=†=†=†=

"To protect the secrets and honor the Phantomhive earldom, come what may," Bard said, lighting his cigarette.

=†=†=†=†=

"That..." Ciel continued. "… is what it is to be the servants of the Phantomhive family."

=†=†=†=†=

Standing in the moonlight out in the clear night air with Finni and Mei-Rin, Bard flicked the burning match into the kitchen. Beast's eyes widened as she watched it fly through the air above her. In that instant, she suddenly thought of all her friends, her family. She would never see them again.

"Jo..."

KABOOM!!

The kitchen of the Phantomhive estate exploded in a fiery inferno.