Current music:	Yosuke Sakanoue - Ari to Kirigirisu
Entry tags:	baron reinhold, flora, layton, luke, professor layton

[Professor Layton] The Final Challenge

_{Title: The Final Challenge
Rating: PG
Fandom Professor Layton
Characters/Pairings: Layton, Luke, Flora, Baron Reinhold. Onesided Flora+Layton if you squint.
Word Count: 1774
Disclaimer: I don't own Professor Layton and that fact makes me cry at night.
Summary: Baron Reinhold takes the matters of his daughter's protection very seriously. Flora isn't quite sure what to think about any of this.}




A/N: The first two thirds of the fanfiction's dialogue are lifted DIRECTLY from the game, so that's owned by Level-5 too. Also, I really...don't know what I was on when I wrote this.



-


The two of them stood looking shyly at one another, in the rubble of the flying device that Layton had pieced together. The mark on Flora’s neck had faded.

‘Professor!’

Luke ran towards them, his feet nimbly skipping over charred pieces of wood and cloth. There was a tremendous grin on his face as he hugged Layton around the middle – ‘Thank goodness you’re all right, Professor!’

When he looked up at the sky, his mouth was slightly open in awe. ‘Don Paolo’s flying contraption was something else...I really thought we were done for back there.’

‘Yes, it was all quite dodgy. But...’ Layton smiled. Flora blushed slightly as he turned towards her. ‘...he also provided us with the answer to one of our ongoing mysteries. Do you remember that awful noise we heard the first time we visited Reinhold Manor?’

‘The one that spooked Claudia? Oh, so that must have been the noise.’

Luke patted the boy atop the head. ‘You’ve put it together! The racket was likely Don Paolo’s contraption making a crash landing. If that’s the case...’

The two continued to banter about approximate times and the greater ramifications of Don Paolo’s entrance. Flora busied herself with looking at her shoes, her hands clasped tightly at her chest. She still barely knew this strange man and his loud little assistant. And yet...

She was brought back to reality when the boy said her name –’Flora is the Golden Apple everyone’s been looking for...’

Flora looked up. They were talking about the treasure. Her father certainly had been wealthy...
The Professor was still talking. ‘The Baron would need to hide it somewhere only the Golden Apple would know to look.’

Luke gawped at her again. He didn’t seem to have any grasp of proper manners; she coughed, and looked irritated, but he continued to stare at her. It didn’t feel right, being glared at like that. ‘Flora knows where the treasure is hidden?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, speaking more to Layton than to the rude staring boy who assisted him. ‘but I don’t know about a treasure or anything like that...’

He gave her a charming smile – a gentleman’s smile, one might say. Suddenly, she was very glad it was he who had breached the tower before anyone else. ‘Let’s head back to Reinhold Manor one more time. I suspect we’ll clear everything up there.’

Aware her cheeks were feverishly warm, she nodded.

~

‘Professor, do you really think the treasure could be located here?’

Luke’s shoes were muddy. Flora knew they should be focusing on greater things at the minute, but at the moment the greatest thing to her was how this little boy was leaving dark footprints all over the floor of her familial home. She clasped her hands together tighter; so tight that the knuckles began to squeak.

‘Look closely at this painting, Luke.’ Layton’s voice was therapeutic in its smoothness and clarity. Flora focused on that, instead. ‘I’m sure it holds the key to the Reinhold fortune.’

‘But I’ve already looked at it,’ retorted Luke. Flora was beginning to think Luke was a manner-less little guttersnipe.

‘If we solve this mystery, Luke-’ how did the Professor always sound so patient, so charming? ‘-I’m certain we’ll come face-to-face with the Reinhold treasure. Touch the painting where the Golden Apple is hidden.’

Flora almost spoke out of turn, in protest. Luke had shook her hand before; his hands definitely weren’t very clean, almost like he’d been digging around in grimy old jars or something. She didn’t want someone like that touching her painting!

Luke stood on his tiptoes to get a better look at the painting. He tapped his chin for a minute with one finger – that was slightly endearing, Flora admitted, like a Layton in miniature – and then smiled in satisfaction. ‘I think I’ve got it!’

The tip of his finger rested on the bodice of the Flora-painting. Flora felt herself pinkening all over, and she hid her face in her hands.

‘Now, Luke,’ Layton said. ‘It’s important to be a gentleman.’

Flora gave a half-moan behind her cupped hands. Luke laughed – the nerve!- and mumbled, ‘Just kidding, Professor. I remember now, it’s right here.’

He pressed the section of the painting where her birthmark was, and all three of them heard a resounding click of an unlocking mechanism. ‘Aha! A switch!’

‘The switch seems to have activated the wall,’ Layton nodded.

The wall gave way to a small but brightly-lit walkway. The trio stood looking at it for a moment, a little perturbed by it.

‘To think that Reinhold Manor held the secret behind this painting all along,’ Luke breathed. ‘It looks like there’s a passage that leads farther in.’

What genius, Flora thought savagely to herself. I can certainly see why you were picked as an apprentice.
‘Oh,’ she said aloud. Some things were best left unsaid.

Layton took her hand. ‘Let’s see where this passage goes.’

~

The chamber behind the walkway was impossibly large. Flora could almost feel her eyes expanding, attempting to drink more of her surrounding in – gold, bars of it, coins of it, jewellery made of it. Everything as far as the eye could see was glittering and beautiful. She knew her father had been rich, but this...this! This was something else!

‘Oh my goodness, look at this place!’ her voice came out high and breathy. She felt wound up so tight she could scarcely draw breath – and for once it had nothing to do with the fact she forced herself into a corset every morning. ‘I had no idea...’

‘Now how in the world did you know that the switch was hidden in the painting?’ Luke was fixing Layton with a questioning eye.

‘Listen closely, Luke.’ Layton was looking around the large room with a composed sense of detachment. Flora felt her appreciation for him increase; surely lesser men would have gone crazy, grabbing at anything they could lay their hands on. ‘Wisdom wasn’t the only thing Baron Reinhold required of potential guardians for his only daughter.’

Luke nodded.

‘You saw it too, did you not?’ Layton used one hand to carefully brush Flora’s ponytail away from her shoulders. She wished she would stop blushing. ‘That mark on her neck, that only appeared once she laughed...In other words, Baron Reinhold set out one last requirement for the potential inheritor to his fortune.’

‘Not quite last,’ said a voice that didn’t belong to Luke or Flora.

Flora froze. She hadn’t heard that voice in...in years. If she wasn’t mistaken...

‘Father?’ her voice shook.

‘Flora,’ said the disembodied voice of Augustus Reinhold. ‘My little Flora.’

‘Where’s that voice coming from?’ Luke was frowning and his arms were folded. Flora was getting annoyed again. This was her tearful reunion scene! Why did Luke always have to open his big mouth and ruin everything?

‘Flora, you’ve made it here at last,’ continued her father’s voice.

‘That voice...!’ She could feel tears blossoming on her eyelashes. ‘Papa, is that you?! Papa!’

‘My dear Flora, had the village watched over you as I would have?’ Typical Papa, always fussing over her protection. She loved him for it. ‘I built St. Mystere for you so that you would never have to know true loneliness...’

As her father talked to her, Flora became aware that Layton had the most curious expression on his face. It looked almost suspicious. In fact, he seemed to be murmuring something to himself, something about ‘not quite last...so there’s another challenge...?’

‘Please know,’ Flora’s father boomed, ‘that I want nothing more than for you to be happy. Whether the person by your side right now can give you that or not is up to you, I suppose.’

Flora smiled gratefully. Of course she was happy with the person next to her – she turned, expecting to beam up at Layton, only to realise that he’d wandered off to the other side of the room. Luke was stood next to her, wiping his nose on his sweater sleeve.
She recoiled and stuck her nose in the air. Boys.

‘And to you, who have found your way to my daughter’s side, you will have my heartiest congratulations...’

Layton frowned. ‘Will have?’

‘You have proven yourself an adept hand at puzzles, a kind soul who will look out for my daughter’s wellbeing. Only one challenge remains...’ the voice paused. ‘The world is a dangerous place. I want to know you are up to the task of physically protecting my dearest, only daughter.’

‘WHAT?!’ Flora, abandoning her manners entirely, looked around the room in bafflement. ‘Papa, what did you...’

A door at the back of the room swung open, revealing a towering behemoth of black fur and body mass. It was a bear.

Typical Papa. If she’d thought he’d overreacted by building a village full of robots just to keep her safe, then this definitely took the proverbial biscuit.
Flora turned towards her two companions, her eyes bright with alarm. ‘I didn’t- I thought-’

Luke was sighing with resignation. ‘Another bear, Professor.’

‘It feels like this happens every time I get called out for these sorts of requests,’ Layton nodded, his fingers curled around his chin. ‘Almost as if it’s a thinly veiled excuse to sic a bear on me. Fetch me my rapier, Luke.’

‘Right!’ Luke produced a well-crafted fencing sword out of seemingly nowhere.

‘B-but...’ Flora reeled in the background. She needed a cup of strong tea and some smelling salts. ‘This is...Your...Your specialty is puzzles, Professor!’

‘And fencing,’ Luke chirped in.

‘I’m a dab hand at archaeology too, my boy,’ Layton added.

‘He lectures at a college back home,’ Luke told Flora, in the same proud tone that a parent would use to announce that their youngest son was taking piano lessons. ‘And invented a unique blend of herbal tea.’

‘Hush, now.’ Layton was smiling.

The bear, feeling rather left-out, bellowed and made a lunge for the group. Layton took a firm grip on the rim of his hat and began to lash it away using the fencing sword, his mouth pressed into a thin line of concentration. ‘Take Flora outside for a moment, Luke. I’ll take care of this.’

‘Yes sir!’ Luke took hold of Flora’s wrist with his very unclean little fingers, but Flora was so confused and distressed that she didn’t think anything of it. The two of them sped down the walkway, the sound of steel on fur – and the accompanying moans of pain from the bear – echoing all around them.

‘This game is ridiculous,’ Flora complained bitterly.

‘Is it?’ Luke looked backwards as they ran. ‘How do you feel about time travel?’

---

I requested ptps to illustrate this |D
You can see the animation here.