While splitting up would have been better to likely find everyone quicker, it was decided that the six of them would stick together since right now only America and possibly Germany and Italy could safely handle some of the creatures the missing ones had turned into if they had already changed enough to start losing their human side.
America himself was pouting at not being able to use two of his new abilities. The superstrength didn't really count since he had always been abnormally strong even for one of their kind. "This would be going a lot quicker if I could just fly around and try using my x-ray vision to find them, you know."
England was clutching onto his cape on his shoulder since he still didn't quite know how to use his wings adequately yet and would likely end up tiring himself out trying to keep up with them anyway. "Knowing you, you'd end up using your laser vision by mistake and doing who knows how much damage..."
Pout deepening, America crossed his arms and glared at the pavement in front of them. "Why do you always gotta say stuff like that?"
England sighed and patted him on the side of his neck (the only part he could reach right now) consolingly. "Just keep on the lookout for them."
Although he was unable to use some of his new powers, America still found that he had the superhearing that he could freely use. "Now that I think about it...I'm glad that this increased ability to hear isn't driving me nuts from not being able to block out stuff. But anyway I think I hear something over there in that wooded area."
He'd pointed to the large expanse of trees off on one side of the road. Canada couldn't help his/her shoulders from drooping. "Searching for creatures that could potentially hurt or even kill us in a large, dark, spooky woods... Yeah, how did I not see that coming."
"Kesesese... Because it's so unawesomely cliche?"
Everyone looked up and saw a large, black bird perched in one of the nearby trees.
Germany scowled up at his brother-turned-bird. "What are you doing up there? Why did you run off?"
Prussia made a shrugging-like motion and flapped his wings a few times to take off, quietly gliding over and landing in front of them softly. "Hey, I didn't run – or fly – off! But even though I'm an awesome eagle, that doesn't mean I wouldn't have been squashed under that big ape."
England was quick to try and refocus the group. "It's great that we've found one already, but we need to keep moving and quickly. I still don't like the idea of splitting up, but now we have two people who could get a good view from above. Germany, Italy, Prussia, why don't you three head off that way," he pointed to the left side of the wooded area, "and the rest of us will go further to the right. Did you see how many of the others went this way, Prussia?"
The large eagle pushed himself off of the ground before settling himself down on his brother's shoulder. "I think I saw everyone but Russia and Belarus go this way, so at least it should be easy enough to find everyone."
With a nod England turned back to America, Canada, and Seychelles. "Let's get going. The sooner we find everyone the quicker we can go after the other two."
The others nodded, but Seychelles was quick to stop them for a moment. "I think we should go over everyone – or everything anyway – we're looking for since there are quite a few."
America nodded in agreement. "Well, there's France as the Beast, and Romano as your guys' grandpa, right? Spain and Cuba are both lions. Greece sort of is too with that costume of his."
"A chimera," England added.
"Right. Um... Japan was a white fox."
"A kitsune I imagine."
America gave England a dry look. "Yeah, yeah. Anyway... Um... Hungary and Austria are centaurs – ha, got that one," he gave England a triumphant smile, and England gave him a bland look in response, "Switzerland and Liechtenstein are a sheep and a wolf. Is that everyone other than Russia and Belarus?"
Germany was quick to agree. "Yes, but now that that's settled we should go. Come on, Italy." The Italian jogged off after him, and the three soon disappeared into the trees.
The others quickly turned to the right and headed off, not really knowing quite which way to go, but America pointed out where he thought he heard voices coming from.
It took them several minutes to find what they were looking for (America grinned sheepishly, saying he still wasn't quite used to the superhearing and hadn't realized they were so far away.), but they eventually came across a rocky outcropping that led further northwards into a small mountainous range. In a clearing near a cave in one of the cliffs a dark-colored lion with a mane of black dreadlock-like hair sat looking towards and yelling into the cave, "I don't care what you look like, you pompous pervert! We need to find our way back! It's your fault we're lost now with your stupid desire to hide yourself!"
Canada was thankful to have found the two but sort of cringed at how mad the lion sounded. He'd been (unintentionally on both of their parts) on the receiving end of that anger a fair share of times. "Cuba?"
Cuba perked up at the voice and trotted over to Canada as a voice that was obviously France's called out from the cave, sounding both angry and hectic. "I cannot let anyone see me like this! I look positively hideous!"
England was quick to answer that as he was growing increasingly aggravated by the Frenchman. "You always look hideous. Get out here now!"
There was a pause before a tentative, "...England?" and then uproarious laughter. "I had already forgotten you sound like a hinge in need of oil, what with your constant squeaking." France's large, furry figure made its way out of the cave entrance.
While he had been about to yell back at France for the comment about his voice while stuck as a fairy, England looked the other man over and promptly cracked up again, nearly falling off of America's shoulder in the process.
France was hardly pleased with being laughed at while he looked like an overgrown dog with horns. "Yes, yes. I'm glad someone is having fun. Are we going back now?"
America couldn't keep the laughter out of his voice nor the smile off of his face at the Frenchman's appearance, and England's laughter wasn't helping. The man-turned-Beast even had sticks and leaves stuck in his hair and fur from his run through the woods. "Yeah, as soon as we find the others. It's great we already found two of you though." He paused and shut his eyes as he tried listening for any other voices. He could hear Germany yelling at Prussia and Italy to quit messing around and look for the others. No matter how hard he tried though, he couldn't seem to hear any of the others. Maybe he had worse control of the superhearing than he'd thought. Frowning, he looked at the ones standing around him. "I can't hear anyone else other than Germany."
England collected himself and looked around them as he thought about what they could do. An idea soon came to him. "Some of them are mythical or magical creatures. I could probably sense them if I was able to concentrate enough, especially since I'm one now too. I'll need everyone to be quiet though."
The rest of the group was somewhat skeptical, but it's not like they had much else to go on at the moment, so they nodded and waited to see if he could do it.
Closing his eyes, England tried to concentrate on first himself and then slowly work his magical awareness further out from him. He wasn't quite sure this would work, but he could normally tell if his magical friends were around him back at his home, so he could only hope he could sense the others if he tried hard enough. Magic was so much easier to sense in his own country.
The others were growing a bit impatient, but after a few minutes England opened his eyes and looked up again. "It's faint..., but I think I can sense someone over that way." He pointed a little back the way they came but off more towards where Germany and the others had gone.
America looked that way, tempted to try his x-ray vision but deciding not to attempt it. He really could mess it up somehow and use his laser vision instead and end up setting the mostly dry, half-dead woods on fire or something equally as disastrous. "Should we see if Germany and the others find whoever it might be first? I think they're closer."
England shook his head. "No, we should find whoever it is then move on. We shouldn't waste time hoping the other group finds whoever it is first. We're at an advantage in abilities to find the others anyway just with your superhearing and my ability to sense other magical and mythical beings. Let's go."
Germany was almost ready to hit his head against one of the nearby tree trunks. His brother was being particularly annoying and not very helpful at all just sitting on his shoulder for most of the time, and Italy was sort of creeping him out with the sudden changes in his personality. On top of that they hadn't found any trace of any of the ones missing other than some broken branches on bushes and tufts of fur and fleece. He would have to guess they'd been at this for half of an hour already, which didn't bode well with England's prediction.
He was about to ask his brother to try flying around to see if he could find anything when they heard a loud commotion coming from ahead of them. They quickly made their way towards the voices.
"Your sense of direction is still horrendous! How do you even survive stepping outside of your house? ?"
"I beg your pardon? ? I have no problem finding my way around, thank you very much."
"Bullshit! It's because of you that we're lost. I need to find Liechtenstein!"
"Both of you calm down. I'm sure she'll be just fine." Hungary kept any comments about Austria's sense of direction to herself. "We should try and find our way out of here. I can't believe we made it so far into these woods before stopping. I'd forgotten how fast horses can run..."
Germany, Italy, and Prussia entered the clearing the two centaurs and the sheep were standing in.
Prussia slumped down a little on his perch on his brother's shoulder. "Well..., that's anticlimactic. We found three of them already without anything awesome happening."
"I'm just glad we found them at all." Germany walked over to the other three. "You three, come on. We need to find the others and get back to America's house quickly. It's already been at least half of an hour since we've changed. If England's prediction is correct, we have roughly an hour or so before we start truly losing ourselves to our costumes."
The three had turned to them when they had entered the clearing, all looking relieved (Or at least they thought Switzerland looked relieved; it's kind of hard to tell on a ram.) at having been found by people who likely knew the way out.
Italy gave a victory cheer and raised his now-not-a-toy sword. "Wonderful work, everyone! Now onwards to find my brother, big brother Spain, Liechtenstein, and the others!" He started to march off in a random direction but was thankfully stopped by Germany grabbing a hold of the back of his cape.
"Italy, stop that! We have to stay together and go about this in a proper manner; we can't just head off in a random direction." He sighed and turned to the recently-found trio. "Have you seen any of the others since you ran into these woods? Though I doubt it since they're not currently with you."
Switzerland shook his head as much as his current form would allow. "When I was trying to get away from Russia and the collapsing house I wasn't really looking where I was going. It was like I was too panicked to pay attention to anything but getting away... I think Liechtenstein was nearby, but we lost each other in the trees. I came across these two, but the aristocrat had already gotten them lost."
Austria was quick to protest. "Hey, if you found us, then you're as equally lost, fool." He/She was still trying to cover the very female and bare chest with his/her hair and arms.
"That still means we're lost, idiot!"
"Enough!" Sighing and rubbing his head at the oncoming headache, Germany tried to regain control of the situation. "Brother, why don't you lead them back to the house. You can come back and help us look afterwards."
Prussia ruffled his feathers and looked quite put out. "What? Lame. I don't want to miss anything, especially since nothing's even happened yet. By the time it would take to lead them back and return you'll have probably found everyone and had some kind of epic battle or something!"
"Brother, you're being ridiculous. Lead them back and then come back here! You can fly and find your way out of these woods quickly then fly back just as quickly. The longer you take to complain, the longer this is taking to get done!"
The large eagle waved a wing like he was trying to dismiss the conversation. "Geeze... Okay..." He flapped his wings a few times before taking off and heading up above the canopy. "Come on. Let's get this over with."
Switzerland didn't want to go though. "I want to stay and find Liechtenstein. She's likely on her own out here."
Hungary and Austria had moved to follow after Prussia. The former turned around when Switzerland voiced his desire to stay. "I don't know if that's wise. You're a sheep right now, and she's a wolf. We should go back to where it's safe and she won't have a chance to attack you."
Switzerland looked appalled at the thought. "She wouldn't attack me!"
Austria had turned around as well and spoke up. "We know you two are close, but this is a highly unusual situation. We don't know what might happen once this...spell or whatever it is starts changing more than just our appearance. You said yourself that you were too panicked when you ran away from America's house to pay attention to where you were going. That doesn't sound like you at all."
Staring down at the ground, Switzerland was reluctant to say anything to that.
Prussia was circling around overhead. "Come on, guys, let's get a move on. We're running out of time."
"All right. I'm coming..."
Watching the four of them go, Germany looked back at Italy who seemed to be practicing attacks with his sword. His form was actually rather admirable. Shaking his head to try and clear his thoughts, Germany moved to grab his attention.
Hopefully finding the others would be as relatively easy but not as time-consuming.
It took America and England's group around twenty minutes to come across the one England seemed to have been sensing.
Laying on a large flat rock near a small stream, Greece seemed completely asleep, which...didn't really surprise anyone, though it was sort of amusing he was still like that even when changed into one of his mythical creatures.
"Should we wake him up?" America was reluctant to wake other people up since he hated to be woken up himself.
England nodded, though it was hard to tell with him being so small. "We don't have a choice. We need to hurry up. We don't know if Germany and the others have had any luck either."
"Okay."
America walked over to shake Greece awake since he normally couldn't be woken up by someone just talking to or yelling at him. When he had reached for the chimera's shoulder though, the snake-headed tail shot up and would have bit America if he hadn't used his new superspeed to move out of the way quickly out of reflex.
England went tumbling off of his shoulder in the process though and had to quickly right himself mid-air with wings he was still unaccustomed to using. "What happened? ? Are you all right, America? ?"
Not feeling any puncture wounds or even scrapes from the snake's fangs, America waited for him to fly back over and let him settle back down on his shoulder. "I'm okay. Sorry about that. I just sort of instinctually moved away really quick. The superspeed just made it a little too quick. Sorry."
England pulled up the sleeve-strap that had slid down during his fall and sat back down on the younger man's shoulder. "No, it's all right. We'll need to be careful though. I have a bad feeling..."
America frowned as his brow creased in worry. "I hate it when you say that."
Greece blinked open his eyes and stretched and yawned, showing off impressive fangs and claws. When he looked over at the group he paused and visibly grew tense.
America and the others then felt England's bad feeling themselves. Had too much time passed by and Greece didn't recognize them anymore?
Germany and Italy had no idea which way to go now, so they reluctantly ended up wandering further into the woods with no idea where they were going or if they were even getting close to anyone. The small signs in the dirt and plant-life had started trickling away not long after finding the other three.
Germany would estimate they had been wandering for at least another twenty-five minutes and was growing increasingly apprehensive about their situation. He couldn't sense anything different about himself other than the obvious physical ones like the much longer hair that he'd had since the change first happened, but since Italy didn't seem to realize his own personality and physical changes that was hardly comforting.
A loud roar soon echoed throughout the woods, and the pair turned to where it seemed to be coming from. Was it Spain? Greece? Cuba? Maybe France? They took off into a run, Germany knowing that it definitely wasn't a good thing that whoever it was was actually roaring like the lion or lion-like creature he'd been turned into.
Crashing their way through some bushes, they came upon an interesting sight. Or it would have been had it not looked like Romano was about to run one of the lions through with his sword. Germany rushed forward and tackled South Italy before he could follow through with his attack. Italy in the meantime had stepped forward to block the lion's path towards the two, sword held out and body positioned in an assertive stance, ready to attack if need-be.
Romano pushed Germany off of him with an impressive show of strength and quickly stood back up, picking up his sword and readying to attack again. "Germania? ? What are you doing? ? You know not to stop me in the middle of a match! I almost had the beast too."
Germany felt something like a ball of dread drop into the pit of his stomach. Romano was already that far gone? That didn't bode well for the others then. He decided to play along though, since it would likely make Romano more agreeable. "This...beast isn't one to be killed. It needs to be taken back to be locked away...for...a match later on. In front of a crowd...at the Coliseum. We have the place for it ready, but we should be going. It's almost time...to...um...to eat. It would be best to have a good meal before a big fight."
Romano seemed to debate with himself over Germany's words before breaking out into a big grin and laughing heartily, patting the tall blond on the shoulder in a friendly manner. "Well, you should have told me, though I didn't know you liked the Coliseum fights that much. Let's subdue this beast and head off then." He turned to the lion who had stayed oddly quiet since Germany and Italy had arrived.
Based on appearance Germany would have to say the lion was likely Spain since he remembered Cuba being a darker color and having a darker mane. If the two were actually fighting though, then that meant Spain seemed to be at least partially lost himself, though it was somewhat comforting that he hadn't actually attacked them yet. Germany didn't want to get his hopes up and let his guard down though either way.
Romano stepped up beside his brother who smiled at him and received one in return. They both readied their swords and rushed forward before Germany could stop them.
Spain seemed caught off-guard at the double attack and scrambled to move out of the way of a swing of one sword, only to have the hilt of the other come down on his head hard and knock him unconscious.
Germany had been about to yell out a reiteration of "Don't kill him!" but cut himself off when it seemed like they both understood and had merely attacked Spain to knock him out.
The brothers both sheathed their swords and picked up one end of the fallen Spaniard's lion body and draped it over a shoulder. Italy then turned his head towards Germany. "Well, where is this place you said to put this beast?"
"Uh..." Germany slowly dropped the outstretched hand he'd been holding out when he'd been about to yell at them and sighed, feeling a bit overwhelmed all of a sudden. "Let's wait for my brother to come back. He can lead the way better than I can."
Greece hadn't calmed down any and had even crouched down like he was going to attack if anyone came too close. The snake-head-tipped tail was poised like a cobra ready to strike as well.
England tried not to move even if he was the least likely to be seen. "I should have known that's what the bad feeling was about..."
America kept very still himself. "Not helping."
Cuba moved back until he was partially behind Canada, who peered down at him with an odd look on his/her face.
Their movement caught Greece's attention though, and he growled once before backing away and running off into the trees.
America lurched forward out of reflex to stop him but stopped mid-step. "Oh crap. What now? We can't just let him run away!"
England was trying to keep track of where Greece was heading. "I agree, but we need to handle this delicately. He can harm any one of us easily, and I don't know what's in the venom of the snake's fangs."
"Can some of us stay back here, since we won't be of much help and can get hurt...or worse?" Cuba was still hiding behind Canada.
Canada was looking worryingly down at Cuba but then remembered something. "Oh maple... Your costume was the Cowardly Lion."
France was becoming visibly frustrated with the situation, though the others couldn't tell if it was because of his costume or not. "Let's all just follow him and knock him out and carry him back to the house. Someone check in with Germany and see how much progress they've made."
"Not that I want to agree with the Frog, but it's a decent idea. America, lead the way since you're the one of us most likely to be able to handle Greece attacking you." England didn't want to say he thought France could probably hold his own in a fight with his current form but might lose himself enough to end up hurting Greece if they ended up in a fight. "The rest of us will follow you." He fluttered his wings a few times to take off from America's shoulder and hovered nearby as they started off into the trees.
While he would normally be pleased (and sort of surprised) at England telling him to lead them so adamantly, America was a little put out that it seemed the only (or at least the main) reason England was doing so was because he was the best shield.
– And this is all I have for any of the rest of it for now, but I thought I'd show it anyway. –
"You know... With all of the chaos I completely forgot about our annual scare contest."
"America... I don't want to deal with anything Halloween-related for at least the next year..."
"Party pooper..."
...
"Hey, England...? I have a favor to ask..."
"I hate you..."
"Oh, come on, England! We'll be doing a bunch of good and helping Finland and the other Santa's and stuff!"
"Why do I have to be a reindeer? ?"
"Because you're cute in the costume and you had one anyway?"
"Ugh, you owe me then. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to alter the spell to make it only change us physically, not mentally in any way?"
I had actually wanted to include Turkey as a genie, but he was already that last year. ~w~ I was also thinking of having Canada change into a mouse costume so he and Cuba could be the Lion and the Mouse, but I think I'll use that idea in a different way somewhere else. I also wanted to have Denmark as a mermaid and Norway as a troll, and Iceland and Mr. Puffin would be dressed as each other and would switch places, but I couldn't think up outfits for Sweden and Finland. And I know Japan was a kitsune in the Halloween pictures two years ago, but I wanted him to be one of his mythical creatures along with Greece. I was tempted to have him come as Godzilla and then battle King Kong!Russia, but... Oh well.
