Chương 65: CHAPTER 64 – A Date Among The Engines

The gentle fall of snow accompanied the bustle of the morning, as dozens of people gave themselves over to laughter and window shopping.

"All this money, and I have no idea how to spend it…" Lance murmured, polishing his glasses while making sure to keep a firm hold on his small companion's hand.

"Why not buy yourself a pair of glasses?" Jeanne smiled, also holding Rea's hand tightly. The girl was bundled and wrapped in garments heavy enough to withstand even the sharpest cold. Lance fixed his gaze on both of them before putting his glasses back on with his free hand.

"Why? Are these ruined, or are they ugly?" His voice was quick, and it was immediately lost among the myriad of words filling that shopping street. Rea shook her head, freeing herself from Jeanne's grip and pointing at him.

"You look too old! Lancy is young." The girl smiled, leaving Jeanne struggling to hold back her laughter and Lance confused and beet-red.

"Who told you that name?! It was Monica, wasn't it?!" Lance covered his face, looking around through the gap between his fingers. In the crowd, he managed to catch sight of a shop sign, a conspicuous wooden and iron board depicting a pair of frames.

"Would you… Like to stop and take a look?" Jeanne asked, gently taking Rea's hand again and smiling at poor Lance. The boy nodded, making his way through the crowd toward the shop. The entrance was rather simple, decorated with two columns of dark wood joining the sign above.

"Good day, might I help you?" A young woman approached the couple, studying Lance closely. Her uniform was stained with ink and glass shards, her pockets overflowing with tools and thin fragments of metal.

"Good day… I was looking for a pair of glasses with a rounder frame." The lady looked him straight in the face and nodded. She immediately presented a shelf with dozens of models, ranging from simple rigid frames to glasses with decorated, luminous temples. Jeanne and Rea immediately spotted a pair lower down, with thin edges and an unusual bluish colour.

"Try these." Rea smiled, rising on her toes to rest the glasses on his nose. The shop assistant handed him a mirror, leaving the boy rather perplexed.

"I could not say. These are cute, but the style does not quite convince me…" They struck him as too slender and too mature for someone like him, and his nose simply could not warm to them.

"I understand the idea of giving Rea something to occupy herself with… But would it not be better to have Maverick make them?" He thought, putting them back on the shelf as both Jeanne and Rea watched him with disappointment. The thought of leaving crossed his mind when his attention fell on a single pair of glasses with a dark, minimal frame, decorated on the bridge with a thin signature. A spark traversed his synapses, immediately feeling a connection.

"Those?" He asked, drawn in by that elegant, clean shape. The shop assistant studied them for a moment with a smile before carefully picking them up and cleaning them with one of the cloths poking out of her breast pocket.

"This pair was recovered from the old battlefields. It's still a mystery how this pair was recovered with not even a scratch. The frame is onyx and black metal, decorated with a golden signature on the bridge. The glasses bear the name of a certain Adam, perhaps a lieutenant from one of the many armies that fought in that war." Rea and Jeanne were immediately captivated by the story, while Lance held them in his hands.

Something about that pair of glasses convinced him, and the feeling only grew as he grew accustomed to their weight on his face.

"They suit you divinely! But unfortunately, and I do not mean to be rude, I do not think you can afford them." The woman murmured, somewhat troubled, whispering the price into his ear. Lance went pale for a second before nodding and reaching his hand into his pocket. Under the cashier's astonished gaze, he placed a wad of black banknotes in her hand.

"That should be enough for the pair, miss." The shop assistant counted them quickly, losing colour in her face as the sum grew. Lance fixed Jeanne with a perplexed look, then the smiling woman.

"That should cover it… Are you quite sure you do not want anything else?" She smiled, immediately seizing a case in which to store them after polishing them.

"I do not believe so…" He smiled until he heard a compliment behind him. Jeanne had decided to try on another pair, thin, with slightly squared lenses. She checked her reflection, smiled, and tried to put them back.

"May I get those as well?" He asked the shop assistant, pointing behind him. She smiled, nodding and asking Jeanne to hand them over.

"There is no need! They do not even suit me…" She murmured, while Rea shook her head. Lance shrugged, setting aside the money for the woman.

"I certainly wish my own boyfriend treated me this well…" The NOIR pair stared at the woman, transfixing her with monstrous, confused looks at the same time.

"W-we are a c-couple…" Lance murmured, taking the bag with their purchases. The woman covered her face, winking at Jeanne and Rea. After a brief exchange of farewells, they left, hiding their faces in their own clothing. The street grew freer as they drew closer to the plaza, allowing the beauty of the snow-covered fountain to fill their eyes. The plaza's bricks were a deep blue, growing steadily paler as they neared the sculpture at the centre of the entire complex.

The fountain was shaped like a shell, its first section carved into the ground and rising abruptly into a half-sphere.

"It is magnificent…" Jeanne murmured, fixing her gaze on the statue that towered over every passer-by. Covered in snow, the violet eyes of the marble woman studied everyone who crossed that space, conveying strength and gentleness at the same time. Her robes flowed down to the base, blending with the rest of the structure.

"It is impossible to think this is the work of a human being." Lance smiled, doing his best to distract himself from that gaze, so ethereal and ancestral.

"Jeanne, Jeanne… Who is that lady?" Rea pointed at the statue while tugging at the girl's dress.

"That is an old legend born during the war. A woman lost her son in battle, weeping for him night and day on the beach. It is said her tears moved Termìe so deeply that they withdrew from the war." Rea listened attentively, and yet the moment Jeanne looked her in the face, the girl shook her head.

"I do not think it is true… Everyone is like my father. They are all liars who do not cry." Jeanne moved her lips to speak, but something held her back.

"In any case, you really must love art in general. I have never seen someone so well-informed." A nervous laugh rose from her, immediately colouring her red.

"I-it is only a story someone once told me! It is a coincidence…" Rea huffed before calling out to Lance with a tug.

"She is a liar too! Jeanne makes beautiful drawings and always works when no one is around!" Jeanne's mouth fell open, and she threw herself to the ground in an attempt to silence Rea. The girl darted behind Lance, sending Jeanne tumbling to the ground in the middle of the plaza. Lance watched her with a smile as she babbled apologies and groans.

"I had already figured that out a while ago. The first time we ever saw each other in our room, there was an easel by the window." Lance gave her a hand up, doing his best not to look her in the face.

"You could show them to me every once in a while…" She immediately shoved him away, seizing Rea and walking off, shaking her head. Lance sighed, nodding respectfully.

"I could try blackmailing her with food… That might work." A faint smirk appeared on the boy's lips before he immediately let it fade.

"Lautre is decidedly not a good influence on me… I will ask her nicely another time." He smiled, taking Rea's hand and beginning to walk toward a street that opened onto another row of shops.

"So why did you buy this glass in particular? T-they do look good on y-you." Jeanne blabbed, trying to lower her gaze.

"Take it with a pinch of salt but... I believe these are some kind of relic." He examined them, feeling a strange tingle through his fingertips.

"But shouldn't they choose you? Like Lachesi did?" Lance shook his head, putting them on again.

"I don't know how they work yet, but I think they are artificial like your canvas or my gun." They both kept walking, reaching a district full of reddish and blue lights, built in a mixture of stone, iron, and dark wood. Wherever the eyes could land, they would have found shop after shop.

"Luxury…" Jeanne murmured, fixing her gaze on the windows displaying bags and garments by famous brands known throughout the island. Lance watched the cars pass close by, letting the echo of the engines distract him from the continual chatter behind him. Suddenly, a warm, sweetish scent reached his senses, carried on a faint wintry gust.

"Is that Lautre's gift?" Lance smiled, tapping Jeanne on the shoulder. She looked down, nodding and beginning to stroke her own neck. Lance smiled, turning his attention back to the cars passing beside him.

"You are not being honest at all…" Rea huffed, pulling away from the two of them and pointing her finger directly at the boy.

"You always make such a fuss but never see anything through the way you want to! You are no different from that liar." Rea began shouting, leaving Jeanne and poor Lance dumbfounded.

"Is this an adolescent crisis?! But she is not even an adolescent!" Rea smiled, all while keeping the stream of teasing active. Lance, on the other hand, had his eyeballs spinning.

"Rea, I am so sorry… Can we talk about it?" He smiled, drawing slowly closer to her with trembling hands. In a single instant, from a heavy, opaque black car, a hand reached out from the cabin and seized the girl by the shoulder, dragging her inside, under the gaze of the two of them. A jet of scalding steam, the smell of burning rubber, and the car vanished from their sight. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"REA!!" Jeanne immediately lunged toward the moving car, stopped by Lance with a firm tug of her arm.

"You will not catch up to it without drawing attention. I will follow it and send you the signal the moment I locate it." The girl nodded, separating from Lance, who had already begun making his way down an alley. Far from prying eyes, Lance began climbing the walls of the houses, digging his own nails into the bricks. A few seconds later, he found himself atop one of the rooftops, a thin, greyish thread dancing before his nose.

"It certainly moves fast, for a car…" His figure vanished, replaced by a dark bolt with pearlescent edges. Shards of roof tile lifted into the air as the streak continued to race forward. Within a few moments, the distance between Lance and the car had nearly vanished. The vehicle took a sharp turn, disappearing inside a large greenish warehouse, identical to the others in the surrounding area." I feel like my vision is improving... Might be the glasses?"

"What a dreary place… Is this the industrial district?" Judging by the smell of various chemical substances and the constant rumbling of machinery in the distance, Lance nodded and slowly approached the great rusted gate. Every part of the building had been left to rot, clumsily decorated with low-quality paint, now crusted and dead.

"Better to let only Jeanne know. I still have a human heart, after all!" He pressed the screen of his watch and then hid it beneath his sleeve. He fixed his gaze on the metal wall before him, striking it with his knuckles. Not a sound came back, only the constant clatter of pistons and the huffing of chimneys. Suddenly a bullet struck Lance square in the forehead, bouncing off him to the ground.

"That is decidedly not an exemplary welcome!" This time, he put his fingers into the metal, directly into the hole left by the bullet. The gate was reduced to torn sheets of metal, and now the light illuminated the faces of the criminals inside. They had already raised their weapons, but something had already stopped their fingers from firing.

"Come now! You all seem like perfectly reasonable people! Where are the tattoos and the drugs?!" Lance, shaped as he was by years of fantasies and various disappointments, had never actually dealt with organised crime, and all the stories once used to warn him had only helped construct a rather absurd image of what a criminal was.

"This guy is completely off his rocker…" One of them murmured from atop one of the metal scaffolds. A second bullet struck him squarely in the shoulder, bouncing off again. Everyone stared at him with wide eyes; some dropped their weapons to the ground, while others took a step back, growling insults.

"Listen, I am here for a little girl. About this tall, dressed in sweaters and wool?" The criminals looked around at one another, nodding slowly. A minute later, Rea stood before Lance, frightened but with no visible wounds. Lance sighed, embracing her and smiling at her.

"Why do you kidnap children? Don't you have some kind of moral code or something?"

"It... Does pay well. Those nobles are pretty lax with money." One of the criminals on the ground answered, holding the gun with trembling fingers.

"Oh well, that figures... OH HELL NAH IT DOESN'T!" Lance stomped the ground, making the whole building tremble. All the criminals watched around, dumbfounded.

"I am not a man who is fond of violence, so if you could all turn yourselves in, you would truly be doing me a favour. Do it for your own good, please." The boy pleaded, but everyone raised their weapons and pointed them at him again. A metallic sound, followed by screams and Lance's own cries out. A whitish mass emerged from the shadows, seizing another of them and carrying him off into the darkness. A hail of lead lit up the darkness, with little effect.

A shower of glass shards and a deafening noise accompanied the entrance of another figure. Despite the cold, his attire consisted of a simple tank top.

"I am sorry…" Lance murmured, covering Rea's eyes as the man and the tendril reduced the poor criminals to hospital patients.

"You wretched sons of bitches… CAN I ASK WHAT THE HELL YOU FUCKERS THINK YOU ARE DOING?!" The figure took two of them by the neck, throwing them onto the pile of bodies. From the darkness, a woman stepped forward, one Lance recognised far too quickly, unfortunately.

"Thank you for stopping me earlier…" Jeanne smiled, without closing her eyes, sending a shiver through poor Lance. Lautre laughed behind her, until Jeanne turned to smile as well, frightening even him. While the woman stroked Rea's hair, the man began scribbling in a notebook, showing it to Lance.

"I do hope you do not make her lose her wits too often…" Lance read in his mind, making sure no one else had seen. He nodded immediately, and Lautre smiled, pointing behind him.

"Thank you all so much for coming. It is strange, though…" He murmured, fixing his gaze on the watch clumsily hidden beneath his sleeve.

"What?" Jeanne asked, wiping the tears from Rea's face with her bluish handkerchief.

"I only sent the signal to you. How is Lautre here?" Without even looking at him, he pointed his finger at him, but before he could explain or say anything, a figure appeared, elegantly dressed in a flame-red suit. In his hands, a golden envelope with a honeycomb pattern made of black wax.

"Je veux juste adresser mes compliments… Lance Klint." The moment he took a step, two figures levelled blades at his throat. Behind him, an enormous hulk of a man placed his hands around the man's skull. A gleam lit the beams across the scaffolding, highlighting the enormous rifle in one of the figures' hands.

"I believe you sent the signal to the entire Agency…" Lautre smiled, pointing his finger at Edvard, his blade drawn against the man's throat.

"Honestly… I was sleeping so soundly." A yawn reached them from behind, revealing two figures illuminated by a faint little flame.

"I am not a portable heater, you know." Maliard tapped her on the shoulder, trying to keep her awake. Noel and Hoku drew their hands even closer around the man dressed in red, who showed no sign of fear whatsoever.

"So then… Just so as not to hold anyone up. Who the hell are you? Come on, out with it. Everyone is more amicable with a gun to their head, am I wrong?" Lautre pressed the barrel of his small white pistol against the man's forehead: its shape slender, with a long metal blade connecting muzzle and trigger.

"Yes, you are quite right, and I apologise for the disturbance. My compliments on your efficiency, truly. I only wished to deliver an invitation in a somewhat more official form, but I had not expected to find our guests all gathered together." He slowly extended the letter to Edvard, winking.

"Yes… But you have not answered my question. I asked who you are, not what you do to bring home the bacon." Lautre huffed, pulling the pistol away from his forehead.

"I am Winoc, advisor to Machinamentum. A mere secretary." He smiled with a slight bow. Edvard did the same, ordering Noel and Hoku to step back with a gesture. Winoc and Rea's eyes met for a second. His narrowed gaze opened slightly, revealing his bluish pupils.

"Forgive my forwardness, but that girl belongs to the Termìe Empire." At those words, both Jeanne and Rea immediately took a step back. The smaller of the two took shelter behind Lance and Lautre, while Jeanne pressed her arm tight against her side.

"From what I understand, it is not a thing she likes to discuss…" Lance pulled down the collar of his jumper, revealing the small cube attached to the chain around his neck.

"Nor do I, but even your companion… Carries a little of that empire's blood. Those eyes are not native to this archipelago." This time, Winoc's furrowed face turned toward Jeanne, who slowly drew closer to Lance and Rea.

"I understand you, girl… It cannot be easy living after everything that has been done to you. After the war, what happens to those like us cannot even properly be called slavery." Rea gripped the boy's leg with force, and he slowly stroked her head with a smile.

"Are you from Termìe as well? It is hard not to notice that gaze, and that hair, so pale." He pointed to Hoku, sheathing his blade. Winoc nodded, adjusting the golden cufflinks at his wrists.

"I imagine you are all familiar with the human trafficking, or the prostitution, reserved for all those like us…" Lance released his grip on Supplicium, pulling Rea close.

"After that war, we paid the price. Because of that, they dumped onto us the hatred of a decade of horrors. That is why I understand your hostility." Monica furrowed her brows, pointing a finger at Lance.

"We have nothing against you for your eyes… But the last time I recall anyone speaking that way, the boy here lost an arm!" Remembering, Malcolm had been the only person Lance could recall who had ever spoken that language.

"Monica... It was my hands..." The secretary smiled, dusting off his jacket.

"And here I was, so worried. I had imagined Madame Lexa's friends to be good people." Suddenly, an extremely long and peculiar automobile appeared outside the warehouse. It was as tall as a door, and as long as the street itself was wide. Steps descended from its door, revealing an interior upholstered in red and gold.

"The instructions for dinner are inside that envelope. If you wish, I have a luxury car waiting for you." He smiled, slowly approaching the door and bowing. The driver stepped out, rolling out a long red carpet all the way to the gate.

"All this pomp makes me sick…" Maliard murmured, watching the long fabric come to a stop right in front of him. Everyone grew excited, beginning to offer their thanks and board the vehicle.

"Unfortunately, I do not believe I have room for one more person…" Winoc murmured, troubled, fixing poor Lance while everyone else was already seated inside.

"I will walk…" The boy smiled, though in his mind his true thoughts were already beginning to take shape in words.

"AND ONCE AGAIN WE HAVE ESCAPED AN EMBARRASSING GATHERING! While the others waved him off, Lance waved back with one hand, while the one in his pocket closed intermittently into a fist in a gesture of triumph.

"I wish you a pleasant journey back, Mr. Lance." Winoc smiled, climbing up beside the driver and indicating the route with a gesture. The vehicle left behind quite a cloud of dust, thick enough to obscure Lance's glasses.

"I wanted them to be a surprise…" He sighed, putting them on carefully. The moment his eyes drew close to the lenses, they grew sharper and more alert. His sight, and even his body, began to feel more sensitive and attentive. Lance blinked repeatedly, unable to make sense of it.

"Now I'm almost sure that there is Frequency in these glasses." Seized by the frenzy of discovery, he took them off and threw them to the ground. After a dozen stomps, the glasses were as good as new on his face.

"This honestly feels like a cliché from some comic book…" He strained his ears toward the air, but aside from the rumble of the cars and the sound of the winter wind, he could not make out a single voice or murmur.

"At least these seem harmless." He cheered up, buttoning his coat and heading toward the hotel, Jeanne's gift still in his pocket.