Snippet #2551203

Hildegarde locked her hands together over Alastor's chest, entangling her fingers with one another. She was currently standing behind the Rizzo leader, leaning her bosom into his shoulder blades. She had her arms atop his shoulders, her forearms coming together in front of Alastor's body like a triangle, its north-most vertex composed of her clasped hands. Slowly, perhaps even unconsciously, she cracked her knuckles. It seemed to sooth her.

Hildegarde brought her head down to Alastor's ear, releasing her breath across his delicate flesh with practiced tact. When she opened her mouth to speak, her words came out a mere whisper."Why don't you just crush them yourself, Al?"

For Alastor's part, he seemed eerily calm and statuesque. It was as if the Rizzo weren't currently engaging the enemy, and Hildegarde wasn't currently pressing herself against him. With his expression, he might as well have been watching waves crash along the rocky shoreline of some far off beach. Hildegarde knew better, though. Alastor wasn't calm, he was bored. It's why she asked her question in the first place.

Alastor sighed, his eyes quickly scanning the reception-area-turned-arena. "We're here for the other rings." He turned his head slightly, which allowed his eyes to meet Hildegarde's. "You guys can have your fun, but I'm not going to waste flames on the likes of them."

Hildegarde bent her leg right leg at the knee, her heel nearly making contact with her backside as she leaned even deeper into Alastor's back. This shift in weight caused Alastor to hunch forward slightly in order to maintain his own balance.

"Then who will ya waste your flames on?" She asked, her voice confident in its homely southern bent. "You already grounded that skate punk of a flame king, and after this little skirmish, it's only a matter of time before the remainder of his primitives show." Hildegarde touched her right cheek to his left. "What if I need you then? Gonna sit that fight out too?"

The area under Alastor's eyes grew several shades pinker, his eyes themselves darting to the right, in the opposite direction from Hildegarde. From their perch high atop a neighboring building, the two Rizzo had a direct line of sight on the battle that was unfolding below. In response to the monstrous armor-like presence before them, one of these so-called "Varia" had created a foggy haze; it was probably an attempt to mask some form of counterattack. That brought a smirk to Alastor's face, albeit a slight one.

These primitives were one hundred years too early to effectively engage in combat with the likes of that particular beast. They had no idea what they were messing with.

Hildegarde, not satisfied with silence as an answer, shifted her weight once again, this time in the opposite direction, pulling her boss backwards. This latest stunt from the Quasar guardian caused Alastor to lose his balance entirely, making them both fall back towards the roof. When they hit the dirty cement tiling that made up the rooftop, Alastor found himself straddling Hildegard, his palms flat against the ground on either side of her head, her hands still on his shoulders.

"What was that for?" He asked, his tone neutral but his face still slightly flushed.

As he looked down at her, she simply grinned back up at him. "Letting the others have their fun, like you said," she muttered with mock innocence.

"What?"

Though she was a woman, Hildegarde was definitely the stronger of the two. With her hands still on his shoulders, she brought Alastor's torso closer to her own. "Trev and the others can take on those primitives. That means we have time to make a smidgen of our own fun."

Alastor's face scrunched in confusion, but before he could open his mouth to speak, Hildegarde turned things around. She used her grip on his shoulders to roll to the side, causing them to exchange positions. Now she was straddling him, and he lay pinned under her.

Alastor and Hildegarde had been best friends since childhood, and she considered herself to be his most loyal... well, everything. Friend, follower, soldier, defender—anything he or the Rizzo needed her to be. She was his right hand, and would gladly destroy the world if he simply commanded it.

Ever since the day they met more than half a decade ago as little kids, Hildegarde has been playing these types of physical games with Alastor, as she did with all her friends. When her mother was still around, she would always something about her "acting tomboyish," and that wrestling and rolling around was a "boy thing". Such discouragement had absolutely zero impact on Hildegarde, who did what she wanted anyway. Though she toyed with most of her friends in an overtly physical manner, it had always been something distinctly different when it came to Alastor. Hildegarde could feel it in her chest, then and now. It had long since become much more than a simple sense of friendship between them, though she wasn't sure her glorious leader had fully come to terms with that fact... or if he was even aware of what she felt for him.

So she would make it clear, here and now. This was the perfect place: in the middle of a war zone!

"Al," Hildegarde began, her accent thick, her expression devoid of jocularity. She locked his gaze within her own. "I want to have your children."

...

If Alastor's face was flushed before, it turned as red as a ruby now. "B-bu... I don't—wha?" he sputtered, her words derailing his usually lucid and coherent train of logic. "Uh—"

Without warning, something struck Hildegarde in the side of the head. The projectile impacted with such force that her head was thrown sideways, blood and spittle flying from her mouth as she gasped in surprise.

And then she became as silent and unmoving as a statue.

There were no words. There was no time. After what seemed like an eternity, Hildegarde simply stood, the expression on her face menacingly neutral, even as a single strand of blood found its way from the side of her head to the bottom of her chin.

Alastor knew that look. "Garda," he said, using an elbow to prop himself up. His tone had resumed its authoritative tenor. He pointed at her when he said his next words, ensuring he made eye contact. "No killing."

Hildegarde didn't react as another projectile smashed into her face—the top of her head this time. She was prepared for it. The blood-red object exploded immediately upon impact, disintegrating into nothingness.

"You didn't say no maiming, though" she muttered, leaping off the roof and taking flight. Maroon flames exploded from the bottom of her boots as she hurdled towards the source of the attack.

Alastor stood, dusting himself off with a few curt flicks of his wrist before straightening his collar. As usual, it was a sharp suave gesture. Though Hildegarde's earlier words bounced around in the back of his mind, this wasn't the first time she'd said something completely off-the-wall. Nor would it be the last. He'd save digestion of her... uh, desires for later.

Alastor sighed softly, taking the opportunity to survey the scene below. He might not be able to take a bullet to the face like Hildegarde, but he wasn't particularly worried about being sniped. Worst case, he could just suck it up and use his flames, after all, though he doubted it would come to that. The Rizzo completely outclassed the current set of riffraff below, that much was obvious.

Hildegarde seemed to be making her merry way towards one of the Varia members. Whoever it was, he looked completely normal save for the massive red wings that emanated from his back. They were composed of Storm flames, by the look of them. A rare flame type, back in the future.

Whomever ended up being on the receiving end of Hildegarde's rage would come to regret it. He just hoped he wouldn't have to step in to save the poor bastard from a horrible death.

That's when something in Alastor's periphery drew his attention. Looking to his right, Alastor spied the remains of the stage where the Vongola brass had been giving their little press conference several minutes earlier. The area was still covered in a thin gray mist, though it was quickly thinning. What'd caught Alastor's eye was not the mist itself, but a bright golden light that shined from within it. Squinting, Alastor could make out the source of the luminescence.

It was the Varia who'd attacked him earlier—their Sky ring user—and something in his hands was giving off quite a bit of energy. He even began to feel its radiant heat from where he stood, dozens upon dozens of meters away.

Suddenly, the Varia unleashed his attack, making a wide diagonal swing with his arms, curved upward. A thick yellow beam of energy shot forward immediately, following the arc of his swing like an impossibly long staff. The beam of light bisected what remained of the mist cloud, dispersing it entirely, but it didn't stop there.

Several dozen meters away, in the distance behind the mist, stood a pristine skyscraper of an office building, which existed on the other side of the street from the Vongola headquarters building. The beam of molten gold-black light struck that as well, entering the skyscraper near its bottom right side and moving upwards diagonally to exit a moment later near its middle left side.

It was as if a samurai had sliced a tree trunk in half. The newly bisected building succumbed to the temptations of gravity almost immediately, the top portion beginning its downward slide along this new diagonal axis. The screams of bending girders and splintering glass panes reached even Alastor's ears until, after a few seconds, the building imploded entirely, collapsing in on itself in a massive black plume of dust that enveloped the area surrounding the Vongola headquarters building.

Alastor was leaning over the edge of the roof in order to secure a better view, his hands firmly gripping the guardrail. His eyebrows were raised high in surprise. For the first time since he arrived in this time period, he was, for lack of a better term... impressed.