Sam waltzed in through the front door of the quiet house that afternoon and shut it in an obnoxious fashion, walking swiftly into the whitewashed living room.
"Honey, I'm home!" she called, flinging her bag onto the couch next to Corytha. The blonde looked up and blinked, tucking a piece of her short wavy hair behind her ear. She smiled.
"Hey Sam, how was work?"
"Eh, it was fine," the redhead shrugged, plopping down in the adjacent recliner. "Some dude came in today with neon blue hair. It was actually kinda great."
Corytha laughed a bit and continued to work on her laptop. She was making a new zoo on her Zoo Tycoon game- an endangered animal sanctuary. Getting bored did things to a child. In her case she needed to design something.
"Where's Reagan?"
"In here," came a voice from the kitchen.
"Damn it! I thought I beat you home for once," Sam scowled, glaring over her shoulder.
"Nope~!" her friend sang.
"One of these days, Dutois," Sam called, jabbing a finger towards the ceiling. "Mark my words!"
Within a few minutes a piece of paper was dropped into her lap. Reagan stood there grinning, her sapphire blue eyes unblinking for a moment. Sam raised an eyebrow and picked up the paper to find 'my words' with several strange lines around and inside the lettering.
"The hell is this?"
"I marked 'my words,'" she said simply.
Sam blinked and stared back at her. Suddenly the two of them snorted then started laughing, and if that wasn't bad enough, one of them laughing usually caused the other to start laughing even harder, because they found each other's laughter to be amusing.
Needless to say, in a short amount of time both of them were writhing on the floor and holding their stomachs. Corytha looked at them in mild concern.
"I swear, one day someone is going to confront me about this, and all I'll have to say is that I live with lunatics," she said dully.
They both sat up, wiping tears from their eyes.
"You know you love us!" Sam laughed, having finally regained her composure.
Corytha laughed quietly then closed the laptop and set it on the table.
"Well neither of you have work for a while now," she said, getting to her feet to stretch. "And it's summer! We should think of some stuff to do."
Reagan got up and grinned, heading over to the desk to grab something from the locked drawer on the bottom.
"Lucky for us, my grandma is awesome," she said, reaching in and pulling out a thick envelope. Sam's eyes widened. "Oh geez, what is that?"
Reagan held it up with one hand while she held the other behind her back and closed her eyes, smiling.
"This, my friends, is six thousand dollars of emergency funds. That is, my grandma basically left us with enough money to do what we want this summer, provided we're not leaving the state. She said we could use this to go places or go shopping or whatever it is we might need. Of course we can't just blow it all either, so we'll need to think it through."
"Reagan, have I told your grandma how much I love her?" Sam asked, snatching the envelope and practically drooling as she stared at it.
Reagan laughed. "I believe you have, actually."
For the next few hours the girls hung out in Reagan's living room and talked about what they could do over the summer. By the end of it, both Reagan and Sam would be attending the same college, and Corytha would be taking courses online. School had let out a few days ago, and on the last day Sam brought all of her things to move in with her two best friends. They would be living together for at least the next four years and none of them could have hoped for anything better. Thanks to Reagan's grandmother, the house was paid for completely. Corytha had already lived there for a year after some unforeseen circumstances at her old home had left her needing somewhere to stay.
After a while, Corytha made sandwiches for the three of them for dinner, while Reagan's dog Sadie hurried inside to greet everyone for the first time that day. It seemed that the merle australian shepherd had been after rabbits again, judging by the dirt that covered her paws. Once they finished Sam pulled Netflix up on the television and scrolled through her list of favorites until she found 'anime.' She was the biggest anime fan of the group, though her friends often watched it with her too.
"Which one do you guys want to watch?" Sam asked.
"I don't know… geez, you have so many of them," Reagan said, staring dumbly at the screen. Corytha nodded silently in agreement.
"Hmm…" eventually Sam paused on one of the options and grinned, eying her friends repeatedly.
"Oh geez, that one?" Reagan gestured to the one Sam had stopped on.
Hetalia.
The anime was so random that sometimes Reagan didn't know whether to laugh or stare in confusion. Sometimes she did an awkward mixture of both. She did like it, although not nearly as much as Sam seemed to. The redhead would watch it hours on end, often repeating old episodes and finding her favorites before rewatching the whole series again. She had posters and shirts and other objects relating to the show. She'd even called it her 'spirit animal' one time.
For the most part, Cori and Reagan watched shows with her but remained minor fans- Sam was the main fangirl out of them all.
"It's funny, but you just rewatched the whole thing last week, didn't you?" Reagan asked, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.
"You can never watch too much!" Sam declared, starting it from the first episode.
Corytha facepalmed and shook her head. "Of course you would say that."
Sam pressed a finger to her friend's lips and shushed her.
"Shhhh. Look at the pretty people."
Corytha exchanged a concerned glance with Reagan before turning their attention to the television.
Eventually they were all sitting together enjoying snacks with Sadie laying in front of them. They'd already progressed halfway through the first chunk of the show, the Axis Powers. Corytha seemed ready to fall asleep while Reagan was forcing herself to stay awake as she peered at the screen. Sam was still wide awake and laughing at the goofy little things that happened here and there. You'd think she'd memorized the entire series at this point, but she always managed to find something new.
"This show is beautiful," she said, wiping a tear from her eye as she calmed down from another laughing fit. "Wouldn't it be great if countries were actually people here?"
Reagan snorted. "If the fate of our country was in the hands of that guy, I think I'd move to Germany."
Sam smirked and turned to her friends as the episodes continued on behind her.
"No but just imagine if you were walking down the street somewhere and suddenly you saw like America in DC or something. I'd probably have a fangirl attack, myself."
"Hey, Sam-"
"But I guess you have a point about the fate of our country at that point…"
"Sam, there's somethi-"
"Better yet, we could move to Switzerland and ignore the rest of the world!"
"GUYS."
Corytha's voice stopped both of them and caused them to look at her in confusion.
"What, Cori? Sheesh," Sam said, rubbing her ear.
"Something is wrong with the tv," the blonde said, pointing at the screen.
All eyes went to the tv. The screen, for some reason, had gone black, save for a white dot glowing in the center. That, and the device was making a strange screeching sound. It was quiet, but it was still fairly annoying. Sam mumbled something under her breath and got to her feet, walking over to investigate.
"This is weird," she said, She pressed the buttons for both changing the channel and turning the television off. She'd even pressed the netflix button multiple times. "Nothing is working."
"The heck? This tv isn't even a year old!" Reagan groaned, getting to her feet now. When Corytha got up to help, the center of the screen appeared to expand, and Sadie had even started to growl at the strange sounds coming from it.
"R-Reagan, I think it's busted," Sam commented as she backed away.
"Sadie, what's wrong?" Corytha asked, trying to hold the dog still. Sadie's growling only increased until she barked at the screen in a defensive manner.
"She never gets like this…" Reagan said, staring at her in shock. "Something isn't right here…"
"I'd get away from the tv, Reagan," Sam advised, watching as the light seemed to be growing and… stretching out from the screen?!
"It's not going to explode-" she started dully before both Corytha and Sam's eyes widened.
"R-Reagan, that light is expanding out of the tv!"
She whipped around only to find the light had taken up nearly all of the screen and was now infiltrating into the room itself. Something stirred around the edges.
"REAGAN, GET BACK!"
Sam and Corytha shot forward to grab her by the arms and pull her away. As they did, a sudden bright flash of light surrounded them. They felt their bodies getting pulled somewhere and blacked out instantly.
"I can't believe you actually brought them here!"
"Well none of you were listening to me!"
"You don't just go around kidnapping people to prove a point!"
"Dude, you even brought a dog over!"
"Why is everyone yelling?!"
As the arguing escalated more and more, Reagan stirred from her position. As the feeling began to return to her body, she felt herself lying on a carpeted floor. A pounding headache was making it difficult to want to move, but as it started to fade she hissed and rubbed her head in confusion. What is going on here? She wondered, clenching her eyes shut in an attempt to force away the headache.
Shortly after she felt a wet nose prodding at her face and cringed, opening one sapphire eye to see who it was. Sadie stared back at her, whining a bit in concern.
"Hey, girl," she said weakly, twisting over and petting the dog behind her ear. Sadie whined again and pressed her head against Reagan's forehead. "I'm alright…"
Sadie pulled back as Reagan pulled herself upright and held a hand against her head. There was still a lot of commotion going on around the room, although some of it had died down for some reason. Once the pain had faded and she realized the room had gone mostly quiet, she blinked and turned to see what was going on around her. She was met with perhaps the most confusing scene of her entire teenage life.
A very large oval table filled the large room, and it was surrounded by a multitude of characters that looked oddly familiar. Some of them were whispering while others were looking at her, some in concern, some neutral, and others…. Well, kind of creepy. Skipping over the latter, once her gaze fell upon a familiar face standing nearby, she froze and her eyes widened.
Is that… who I think it is?! She wondered. A certain man with slicked back blonde hair and blue eyes stared back at her. Before she could exclaim, she glanced to her right and saw both Sam and Corytha still unconscious at her side. Sadie was pestering Sam now, dabbing at the girl's side with her front paws. We blacked out… and now we're… here?
"Hello there, bella~!"
Reagan jerked in surprise and snapped her head in the direction of the familiar voice to find a young guy with brown hair and an unnatural curl floating off to his right. His eyes were closed, but he was smiling at her brightly. That face… the Italian accent… he has to be, but… how?
"H-Hello…?" she replied, voice nearly gone from shock.
Suddenly the other man she'd noticed before came walking over, stopping a safe distance away next to a few other people who were standing and now looking at her. She cringed inwardly, hating the attention.
"How do you feel?" he asked in a distinctly German accent.
"..." she blinked, mentally slapping herself upside the head. Answer him, idiot! "...Okay, aside from a headache…"
Beside the german, a man with dirty blonde hair and thick eyebrows gave her a concerned look and stepped closer, getting down onto one knee so as to not tower over her.
"What is your name?" he asked with a British accent.
This is getting weirder by the minute, she thought. "R-Reagan… Reagan Dutois," she replied. She glanced to her friends and decided she needed to take charge of the situation, seeing as this no longer felt like a dream. "T-These are my friends, Samantha Overby and Corytha Foster."
Sadie turned and stared at her a moment.
"And my dog, Sadie."
The dog went back to nudging Sam, causing the redhead to groan. She threw an arm out lazily to move the dog away then went back to her normal position, causing Reagan to sweatdrop. Seriously? At a time like this and you won't wake up? Thank you, Sam.
Since no one else was moving to speak at the moment, she gulped lightly and turned to look at the British man, narrowing her eyes slightly out of curiosity.
"Would you mind telling me where we are, exactly…?" she asked.
He seemed to grow flustered at this and rubbed the back of his neck. "W-Well, you see, ah-"
"Dude you messed up bigtime!" another familiar voice, this time American, laughed from the side.
"Shut up, you git!"
Reagan blinked as her expression fell. This is going to take a while. She turned her attention to Sam and poked her in the side. The redhead seemed to cringe but did nothing. So she prodded her again, this time taking note of how she would move and then return to normal. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously at this.
Don't tell me she's….
Finally she karate chopped her friend firmly in the side, causing her to jerk up and flail for a moment.
"What the hell-?!" Sam exclaimed, glaring at Reagan. "Why did you do that?!"
"Why were YOU pretending to be asleep?!" she shot back.
Sam crossed her legs and scowled, glaring away towards the window. "I was just taking my time getting up."
"Yeah right," Reagan muttered. Sam finally looked out towards the room. As soon as she did, Reagan watched as her jaw dropped and her expression froze. The redhead began to poke Reagan in the arm, rapidly progressing faster as the full extent of what she was seeing began to hit her.
"Reagan… Reagan, it's…"
She grabbed her friend's wrist to keep her from poking her more and gently put it down a safe distance away from herself.
"I know, Sam," was all she said.
"..." Finally she looked at the German and jabbed a finger in his direction. "Yo! Germany! Explain what's going on here!"
He looked at her in surprise, looking for all the world like he was shocked at her words.
"Do you know who we are?" he asked.
Sam cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah, you're the countries."
Reagan mentally facepalmed, beginning to panic on the inside. This wasn't going to end well.
"How do you know who we are, dudette?" America asked, staring at her.
"...You're not… cosplayers… are you?" she asked, tilting her head. When he frowned and shook his head she was half ready to take a running jump from the window. What did they mean they weren't cosplayers? Sure they looked real and all, but…
"Why would you assume we are from an anime?"
Both the girls looked over to find Japan standing there, also looking confused. Leave it to him to know what cosplaying was. Sam furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.
"Because… you are…?" she attempted in reply.
"Japan, explain this," Germany demanded.
"It would seem that England has brought them here from a world where we're a show. We're fictional characters to them," he analyzed quickly. He pointed to Sam's shirt, which somehow they'd failed to observe before. The main characters were depicted there in a pile. Germany sighed at this and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Since you know who we are, we won't waste time with introductions, then. We will wait until the last one wakes up to discuss this."
As they waited for Corytha to get up, Sam and Reagan looked around the room and recognized just about everyone in it. From the main axis and allied powers to characters like Prussia, Spain, Romano and more, it seemed like just about every country from the show was in here, save for the Baltic Trio. All of the Nordics were there, Australia was even there, and Canada. Luckily the girls had been left in the corner, though Italy had brought over chairs so they could sit instead of staying on the floor as they had been doing. Only a few of them had even listened to the previous conversation, meaning most of them probably were unaware of all the details right now. Thank goodness for large spaces.
"Okay, what the hell is going on here?!" Sam hissed, looking at her friend urgently. "Why are we in a room filled with fictional characters?!"
"You're asking me?" Reagan replied in a hushed voice. "I don't know! Though from something I heard earlier, England might be the one we have to thank for this."
"Of course it would be his fault," Sam growled, casting a glance in his direction. "Are you sure we aren't dreaming though? This feels unreal."
"I've been up for a while now," Reagan sighed. "I tried pinching myself and doing other things but it's not doing any good. And besides, after what happened with the tv? It felt like we were getting sucked somewhere before getting knocked out back there."
"I felt the exact same thing," Sam nodded, slowly coming to realize this was no illusion.
They continued talking back and forth until they noticed Corytha petting Sadie on the head, waking up a bit from her previous state.
"S-Sadie?" she said softly, confused from the sounds surrounding her.
"Corytha!"
Corytha sat up now, alert and awake after her name had been spoken. Before she had a chance to see who'd said it though, her gaze was stuck on the scene before her. It took her all of a moment to assess where they were at before looking to Sam and Reagan, somewhat shocked to find her friends here as well.
"S-Sam? Reagan?" she murmured, her voice scared. "W-What's going on? What is this?"
Sam looked at her sadly and began to explain the situation.
"We're in the World Conference room of Hetalia, Cori… Reagan thinks England has something to do with why we're here but they haven't told us yet."
Reagan nodded in agreement and frowned at the blonde's slightly horrified expression.
"B-But that… shouldn't be possible…" she whispered, beginning to shake slightly. Sadie whined and pressed up against Corytha's legs, sensing her discomfort somehow. Germany looked over at this.
"Ah, you're awake," he said. She cringed a bit and sunk into her chair, gripping the arms like they were a lifeline for now.
"Since you're all probably wondering how you got here," he glared at England, "Would you like to explain, England?"
England muttered something under his breath but walked over and fixed them with a somewhat guilty stare.
"Y-You see, for a little while now there was a debate as to whether other worlds existed or not… so I made a spell that was supposed to show people in another world," he explained. "B-But for some reason instead of just showing people, it ended up dragging you here, it seems."
Though the explanation seemed farfetched, it was so simple that Sam almost had a hard time not believing it. She didn't want to, but there wasn't much else she could do. Or Reagan. Corytha would try as hard as possible to deny it until she couldn't anymore.
"So you're telling me we're all here because you just had to prove a point?" she stated with a small scowl.
"Pretty much!" America piped up.
"I-I'm sorry about this," England said, his face beginning to turn red a bit from embarrassment.
Sam cocked an eyebrow but said nothing.
"As fascinating as all this is, is there a way you can send us back?" Reagan asked, giving him a slightly pleading look.
"Aww, you're leaving already?" Italy seemed to pout, disappointed that he wouldn't get to show them anything while they were here.
"We don't exactly belong here," Reagan added, giving him a sad glance.
England sighed, unable to look at the girls due to his mistake.
"A-Actually," he said, "You might be stuck here for a little while."
All three of them froze.
"Since I didn't anticipate it would actually bring anything here, currently I don't have a spell that will send you back," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'll have to try and make a new one, but it could take a while to perfect."
Sam huffed in annoyance and threw her head back, throwing her arms up and clutching at the air.
"Fan-frickin'-tastic!" she growled. "Now we get to spend our summer stuck in a tv show!"
"I guess it's like Corytha said, we needed something interesting to do this summer," Reagan joked quietly, staring at the ceiling.
"T-This isn't what I meant!" the blonde defended quietly, looking away nervously.
"Well now that you dudes are here, you can chill with us!" America grinned, flashing them a thumbs up.
"I guess they will be needing somewhere to stay," Japan added.
"Since this is my fault, you're welcome to stay at my house," England offered. Suddenly France appeared next to him.
"Bah, they'll get bored staying at your place," he intervened. He pulled out a rose and winked at them with a smile. "Perhaps they would like to stay somewhere more exciting~?"
"...I call England's house!"
"Me two!"
"Me three…"
France looked shocked at their choice and stared in horror towards the wall behind their heads, smiling faintly in disbelief. England smirked.
"Take that, frog!" he stated triumphantly.
"Oh please, this isn't a popularity contest," Sam said, glaring at them both. "He got us into this mess, he gets to help get us out of it."
Germany eventually pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, not entirely sure how things had progressed here so fast.
"Would you girls mind stepping into the lobby for a few moments?" he asked.
The three of them got to their feet and made their way out the double doors quickly with Sadie tagging along at their heels, eager to get out of the spotlight with so many people there.