As midday turned to late afternoon, the sound of arrows whizzing past and swords slicing through the air could be heard. A crowd gathered to watch the battle taking place on the roof of a house; one of the roof tiles came loose and plummeted to the ground, narrowly missing a bystander.
"Take back what you said," shouted a woman in a blue police uniform before thrusting her blade towards the man in the beanie. "And if you do it, I'll just have to arrest you"
Hearing this, Robin merely smiled and pulled the string of his bow, which held an arrow with a red tip, before—Twang—the arrow shot forth and headed towards Ciel; in mid-air, flames ignited at the arrow's tip—CLANG—her blade deflected the arrow, sending it soaring through the air.
Holmes stood outside the red telephone box; footsteps were heard, and he saw that it was Alice, gaping at the fight on the roof. "Why don't you stop them?" she asked Holmes.
Holmes glanced over before turning his gaze back to the two of them engaged in an intense battle. "I've tried, but they're too determined to fight" he said, and indeed, he was not the sort of fighter capable of stopping two lunatics up there.
Alice produced a card in each hand—the letter A in the centre of the card transformed into roots, which swiftly burst out of the cards towards the two of them. The roots managed to grip Robin tightly until he couldn't move, struggling hard to break free.
SLASH, SLASH, SLASH—the sword sliced through those roots like they were carrots, "You'll have to try harder than that, Fables" she heard someone's footsteps and quickly turned—blocked my shotgun stock with her blade.
She knocked me back, but I managed to land on the roof tiles in a flash; I raised my shotgun before pulling the trigger—BANG—the bullet flew out, making Ciel look up; unbeknownst to her, I had already tackled her legs, causing her to fall—the moment she opened his eyes, the muzzle was already aimed at her forehead.
"Teal" Alice called out, and it immediately caught my attention and stirred my emotions.
"My name is Red—" but before I could finish my protest, I heard the sound of hurried footsteps; I turned back towards where Ciel had been sitting in pain, but she was now gone. I looked up to see Ciel running and jumping down into the alley, sliding along the wall before landing safely.
She ran, leaving us and the crowd below behind, as she slowly faded from our sight. "Anddddd she's escaped" I turned to Alice, who seemed to have done that on purpose to create an escape path for Ciel.
"Alice, that's enough, let him go," I said, pointing my thumb towards Robin, and immediately the roots released the poor man and his backside slammed against the hard roof, and his cries of pain could be heard.
Below, Holmes was trying to calm the crowd and disperse them; I wondered what made adults like them argue so intensely? If it was because of his hatred for the Fables, Holmes should have been caught up in the fight too.
The four of us gathered again in the alley; Robin sat telling us what had actually happened on the ground whilst treating his own cuts. Once the story was over, he winced softly as the cotton touched his still-wet wound.
Alice and I exchanged glances before responding to Robin's long story, "You can't control your emotions, can you?" Alice and I said in unison.
"Sorry if I tried to stand up for US," he retorted sarcastically. I knew his intentions were good, but that wasn't the way to deal with Ciel.
On hearing that, I tilted my head slightly before asking, "Why are you trying to stand up for the United States?" And that immediately earned me an annoyed look from Robin.
"You know perfectly well I wasn't saying that!" Robin shouted, and before long Alice had to explain it to me so that I could understand what Robin had said. "You really don't get it?!"
"Instead of fighting with her, it's better to just toy with her feelings—that's what we've been doing all along," I said, and that took Robin by surprise. "Just be nice; her annoyed expression is actually quite entertaining, you know."
Hearing that, Robin gaped in shock, unable to believe what he had just heard. "You two are actually more cruel than I am, huh?" he said in astonishment.
Alice folded her arms and sighed deeply. "Well, we'll go our separate ways now and meet up at the bar later tonight," she said, since the disappearances only happened at night.
"Mr Holmes, could you please help us?" Alice turned to the detective. "We're actually trying to investigate another case as well."
Almost instantly, Holmes replied, "An unusual murder case?" He was far quicker than Alice in his deduction—could he be using his Everafter ability? But we didn't even know what the sign was when he used it.
"Just as one would expect from a great detective," Alice murmured, equally impressed by his powers of deduction.