A Royal Fall Chapter One

Hello, new fans! And, of course my loyal readers, welcome BACK!

ALL RIGHT! This is the FIFTH out of SIX in the A ROYAL series. If you haven't read the series, you may be confused by references to the earlier fanfictions. The correct order is... (A Royal...)

Meeting, Winter, Spring, Summer, and this one is Fall. The last one will be A Royal End, coming out after this fanfiction...

I'll be giving a little background to the plotline here. If you read ALL of A Royal Summer, you know what's going on here already, but you don't have everything yet...

Again, background.

A week before Fran's return to the past...

Mammon stepped over to the keypad and punched in 'B2669182759XS,' disabling the spirit wall that had been put up. "There's no point in having it up," he told the Rain guardian beside him, "May as well just disable it, right?"

"Yeah, may as well," Squalo agreed, "Hell, we should just get rid of the system..."

Rasiel sighed, holding his head in a hand as he rested. "Ugh," he groaned. "This is no position for a king."

He stood up, and brushed himself off, glaring daggers at the building ahead. "I'll get you for this... my shadow of a little brother. Not only did your stupid little brat friend play me for a fool, but your idiot boss... gah! I'll kill you!"

The man shook his fist angrily in the air, shouting multiple curses at the building itself. After exhausting himself, he growled, "Oh, screw it." Things just weren't going his way. After a life of being pampered, this prince was getting the life- or death, as it was- of a loser. It infuriated him.

Jil leaned against a tree and made a minor snarling noise, before saying, "I'm going to ruin you."

A week later...

"Bel-senpaaaai," Fran whined, "Haven't you had enough ice cream yet? I'm bored."

Belphegor shook his head, shoveling in another clump of ice cream into his mouth. "Sorry Froggy," he said in a muffled voice, "I'm not gonna stop until I've cleaned this whole thing out!"

"Is this about boss again?" Fran asked, "I told you. He's not obliged to give you whatever he has for his own birthday. Seriously."

"Squalo got cake though!" Bel complained.

"Senpai. Get over it," Fran sighed, patting the prince's head. "Fish-face happens to be Xanxus's girlfriend and all that crap, now get up before you have a heart attack."

Bel sighed, putting a lid on the ice cream container, and muttered, "Only because it was Froggy's orders."

Fran smiled, and hugged Bel after the ice cream had been put back in the freezer. "Senpai," he began, "I'll do better than Squalo did for Xanxus, come your birthday."

Bel grinned. "Thanks, Froggy."

The two left the dining room in search of better entertainment. "Wanna go outside?" Bel asked. "It's nice out there."

"Like you would know," Fran snorted, "You haven't taken your eyes off of me since I got back here."

"You never showed the prince your new moves," Bel giggled. "Can't he at least get that?"

Fran shook his head. "No way. But I didn't tell you about the time that I broke my ankle. Wanna hear about that?"

"Nah," Bel said, "I don't want to hear about how you just loved having Lussuria all over you like a mother hen."

"Whatever," Fran muttered. Suddenly, the illusionist felt a burst of cold air, and he was temporarily stunned, hugging himself as he shuddered. "... Ugh... senpai... did you... did you feel that?" Fran asked, looking back up at the prince. Bel shook his head.

"Is Froggy okay?" he asked. Fran nodded.

"Yeah... yeah, I'm fine."

"... Okay," the prince replied uncertainly. His kouhai had suddenly clutched himself and shuddered like he'd been hit by a blizzard-cold blast of wind. What was fine about that?

"Come on," Fran said, tugging on Bel's arm. "Let's head out."

Bel nodded, and followed the other for a short distance, occasionally looking over his shoulder. What was up with that sense of foreboding?

"Hey, boss," Squalo said, hastily combing through his hair. "You're a year older."

"Don't remind me again," Xanxus grumbled, buttoning up his shirt. "I'm just a year closer to dying."

"Don't think like that," the Rain guardian told his boss, "Think of it as being... uhhh..."

"Heh. You can't find a reason for it to be good either, can you, Squalo?" Xanxus laughed, walking over. Squalo glared at him.

"You're another year closer to retirement," he suggested. The Sky rolled his eyes.

"Squalo. We're Mafioso. There is no retirement. Unless you count death itself."

The silverette groaned, and placed a hand on his boss's shoulder. "Come on, boss. You aren't alone. I'm getting older, too, you know."

Xanxus held back his smile and said, "Yeah, but at least I still look good."

Everyone who was still in the Varia headquarters heard a loud scream that echoed for a few minutes after it had ended.

Bel ran outside and began stabbing fallen leaves, while Fran simply paused to enjoy the welcoming autumn air. The Mist sighed, outstretching his hand just as a blown leaf landed on it. "It IS nice out here," he commented, looking up. He frowned. "Of course, it looks like there'll be rain any minute."

The prince looked up at Fran and grinned. "Get over here, Froggy~," he sang, gesturing the younger man over. Fran smiled and hopped down the stairs and over to his senpai. He was just about to go and hug the prince when another unusually cold blast of air pierced right through his chest. The illusionist froze. He felt like he'd been stabbed with an icicle. Something was trying to get to him. It was similar to an experience, long ago, when he was lost in a snowy forest with nothing but Belphegor's mink...

"You're spacing, Froggy," Bel said in a somewhat sad voice. "Right before hugging the prince."

Fran blushed lightly, and came forward, wrapping his arms around the Storm guardian. "Sorry senpai... had another little blast of cold air."

"Shishishi. Froggy's having cold flashes. He's getting old."

"Senpai, you're thinking of hot flashes. And that's definitely not it," Fran protested, "and that's a chick thing."

"Ushishi! Whatever~!" Bel hummed, hugging his kouhai tightly. He WAS worried about the 'cold flashes' Fran was going through- they seemed odd. And Fran's body language told the prince that the most recent one had been like a cold knife through his heart.

The prince had killed enough people in that way to know.

That night...

Bel slipped out of bed and snuck out of the room, leaving his kouhai peacefully asleep. He walked down the halls to Mammon's room, where he gave a small knock. A tentacle slid out from beneath the door, and Bel stabbed it, which resulted in a pained groan from inside the room. "Monta, it's me," Bel hissed, "No need to get squiddy."

The door opened, and Bel walked in, to find the Acrobaleno sitting at a desk, multiple tentacles extended from beneath his cloak so that he could multitask. He was typing, writing, reading and turning pages while getting more books and reports from the shelves, and putting other books and reports back ON the shelves.

"What are you doing?" Bel asked, stepping aside so that a tentacle could close the door.

"Same thing I always do. Research," Mammon replied.

"Oh," Bel replied awkwardly. "... Any time to talk?"

"Belphegor, also known as Prince the Ripper," Mammon said, "Of royal heritage. Killed his brother at the age of ten, and slaughtered the rest of his family in their sleep, before he was recruited by the Varia, private assassination squad of the Vongola. Regardless of his background, the former prince followed Xanxus without question, just as all the others had. He committed countless murders with an unrelenting lust for blood, unstoppable by anyone. Until about three years ago, when he met Fran, an assassin trained by the infamous Mukuro Rokudo. Although Fran wasn't even close to the prince's ideal, they fell in love and trusted each other almost right from the beginning. They have already gone through many hardships, and their relationship continues to progress. Last updated on October third, xxxx."

Mammon turned, folding his hands and placing them in his lap. "What do you need to talk about?"

"Uhh... what do you know about random gusts of cold wind?" Bel asked, taking a seat on Mammon's bed. The illusionist saved whatever he had been working on, and typed in keywords in a search bar. He opened a file.

"Report One, made by Superbia Squalo, Rain guardian of the Varia, in the absence of Mammon/Viper, who has been dead for three months. 'There's been a lot of strange occurences since the death of Verde, who died four months ago. Although it pains me to cut us off from one of our most knowledgeable members, a dead Mammon is of no use to us, and we are now installing a Spirit Wall to keep any dead idiots from infiltrating the HQ.'"

"Satisfied?" Mammon asked, "I'm busy, you know."

"Wait, Monta," Bel complained, "Are you saying that Fran's experience could be ghosts?"

"Could be," Mammon replied, "We uninstalled the Spirit Wall just last week. No need now, all the Arcobaleno are alive, and almost anyone else doesn't matter. We could just exorcise them or something."

"Really?"

"No, not really," the Arcobaleno laughed, "Bel, please. What being is left to hang around?"

Bel felt a sort of lump form in his throat. "I... don't know," he answered. "What is left?"

"Pfft. No one other than the Millefiore," Mammon sighed, starting to flip through another book. "Please, Bel. We already killed them. They can't touch us anymore."

"Okay...," Bel sighed, then backing out of the room as a tentacle approached.

"If you would please, Bel, leave me to my work...," Mammon sighed.

The door was slammed behind the prince as he exited, and he frowned.

What could be done if no one cared?

-End Chapter

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