Dan blinked. "Syl whats?" he asked, clearly mystified.

Amy whacked his arm. "Sylvianos!" she hissed. Although the act was perhaps uncalled-for; Dan was perpetually confused, as if he always walked into the the middle of a movie. Still, she wished he'd pay attention for once. Here she was, getting worried, and he hadn't even heard the name properly.

"This is serious," Nellie warned. She sat forward in her seat, bracing her arms on her knees. "The end of the world is at stake."

"Yeah, I picked that up," Dan muttered.

Whack.

"Hey!"

Amy just gave him an innocent look. "What?"

Dan grumbled to himself, but he didn't reply.

"Anyways," Fiske cleared his throat, "Back to the problem at hand."

"I have a few questions." Amy raised a hand. "First of all, exactly who are the Sylvianos? Are they kind of like us, famous people in history?"

Dan groaned. 'Please, no more research,' he pleaded silently.

Fiske suppressed a chuckle at his great-nephew's obvious abhorrence of intellectual work. "No research in this one, Dan; no worries."

"Oh, thank the lord," Dan sighed with relief. Amy rolled her eyes.

"You're such a drama queen, Dan!" she exclaimed.

"I'M a drama queen? You are sooooooo not going there-"

"Hey! Kiddos! Enough bickering for once, okay?" Nellie cut in, thoroughly irritated. "Some Sylvianos are famous people- after all, not every talented person in the world can be a Cahill, right? I'm pretty sure that you've heard of at least some Sylvianos- there are actually a bunch. Charles Manson, Kurt Cobain-"

"Kurt Cobain's a Sylviano?" Amy shrieked, outraged. "But- But-"

"HA!" Dan exclaimed. "I always knew there was something weird about that guy!"

"Can we get back on topic, please?" Fiske interjected. Dan and Amy were silent at once. "The Sylvianos are definitely a force to be reckoned with. They are, without a doubt, the one thing that could completely destruct all the Cahills in the world- not to mention the world itself. To defeat them, we would need a lot of help."

"Who from?" Amy asked.

"Our relatives," Fiske answered grimly, sharing a look with Nellie, who knew exactly what he meant. For a moment, Dan and Amy were silent, thinking that this wasn't too big of a deal. Then-

"You do not mean our old clue hunting enemies!" Dan shouted.

"I'm sorry, Dan, but we don't have another choice. Grace picked you all for the clue hunt because you showed skill and promise; our best bet to defeat the Sylvianos would be to work with them."

"By 'them,' Fiske," Amy began quietly, "you don't mean the- the Kabras, do you?"

"I'm afraid so," Fiske sighed. "They're the heads of the Lucian branch. An alliance with them would, in this scenario, be invaluable."

"I don't like them any more than you do, Amy," Nellie said, smiling wryly. "But we need their help."

Amy took a deep breath and nodded. She always knew that she would have to face them again someday; she had just hoped that it would be a long, long time from now.

"The Holts, too?" Dan asked, distracting Amy for the time being.

"Of course. As well as the Wizards, Alistair Oh, the Starlings, and whoever else is willing to help us," Fiske said.

"That's a lot of people," Amy gulped. 'Who want to, or have wanted to, kill us,' she added silently.

"You're right," Nellie spoke. "And we need even more than that."

There was silence for awhile. Finally, Dan rubbed his hands together and proclaimed, "Let's get this show on the road."

"Not so fast." Amy held up a hand. "I still have questions."

"No, we are NOT going to a library," Dan said.

Amy glared. "Not that!" She turned to Nellie and Fiske, eyes searching their faces hopefully. "What other information do you have about the Sylvianos? Do you know anything else? We need more information if we're going to convince a bunch of people that hate us to help us."

Nellie glanced at Fiske, giving him a look that said, 'Your turn.'

Fiske nodded. "Our resources on them are limited," he explained. "The Tomas have almost never kept tabs on them; neither have the Janus, although they have kept records of anything important. The Ekaterina were smart enough to keep some surveillance. The Lucians weren't quite as resourceful, however. The Madrigals were focused on other things, so the Ekaterinas are our best bet. However, even though the challenge of the clues is over, they will be reluctant to tell us anything."

Amy nodded slowly, digesting the information. "So no one knows anything?"

"They enjoy being secretive," Nellie put in. "But we may have a better chance of understanding the enemy if we can all combine what we know. That's why we need to contact everyone."

"But what are they even trying to do?" Amy asked. "Destroy the world?"

"It's a possibility," Nellie shrugged. Amy paled. That wasn't very comforting.

"Don't worry," Fiske said quickly. "Once we have more information, we'll figure something out."

"Like I said earlier," Dan cut in impatiently, "let's GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD."

Everyone agreed, and Nellie flipped open her cell phone. "So. Who are we going to call first?"

Ever since Alistair Oh had become the Ekaterina branch leader, thanks to Bae's well-deserved death (in Alistair's opinion), all of his calls were directed to his office. Therefore, when his home phone rang suddenly- in the middle of the night, no less!- he had every right to be suspicious.

Tentatively, the aged Korean man climbed out of bed, grabbed his cane from where it was leaning against his bedside table, and walked to the phone in his room. Not even the cane made a sound. Alistair picked up the phone hesitantly, lifted it up to his ear, and asked, "Who is calling?"

"Is this Alistair Oh?"

The voice on the other line was young, female, and startlingly familiar. However, for the life of him, Alistair couldn't identify the person, no matter how hard his brain was working. While he tried to figure out who had called him, he questioned sharply, "Why do you want to know?"

"Is this Alistair Oh or not?" The voice sounded slightly aggravated. "We don't have time to play Twenty Questions."

Now the voice sounded even more familiar to Alistair. "Not that I am Alistair Oh," he began slowly, "but prove that you know Alistair."

A new voice- still female, but younger and significantly more recognizable- answered him. "Y-You were present at the death of H-Hope Cahill and Arthur Trent. There, you st-stole a sheet of paper with a riddle on it that led to one of the thirty-nine clues from between some b-books. Grace Cahill in-invited you to her will reading at her f-funeral, and you chose t-to join the hunt for the thirty-nine clues."

Alistair's eyes bugged out of his head as he replied, utterly astonished, "Amy?"

"Y-Yes."

"My dear girl!" Alistair's tone was instantly jovial. It had been so, so long since he had heard from his niece and nephew; and many nights, he had found himself wondering about their well-being. Suddenly, it occurred to him that something was wrong; otherwise, why would they call him, when he had betrayed them so many times? "What did you call about?"

"The Sylvianos are rising." The first voice was back, and now, Alistair realized that it belonged to Nellie Gomez, Amy and Dan's au pair. Her words struck a chord of fear into Alistair's heart, and he found himself gasping in horror (even though he hated when the idiot Janus actors or actresses did that in movies). "We need your help."

"How do you know they're rising?" Alistair inquired worriedly. "We haven't seen or heard anything from the Sylvianos in years! Decades, in fact!"

"They've used those decades to engineer the natural phenomena that are currently spreading across the earth. You can't possibly think that all of these natural catastrophes are actually natural, do you, Alistair? The tornadoes? The hurricanes and tsunamis? It's too big of a coincidence."

This new voice was deep and clearly masculine; Alistair new for a fact that he had never met this person before. "Who are you?" he asked abruptly.

"You don't need to know. I'm allied with Amy and Dan," the voice responded. Alistair could tell that that was the best answer he would receive, so he decided to drop the subject. For the time being.

"Alright, then," the Korean said, "I do see what you mean. But, the Sylvianos... this is very, very bad."

"No duh, Sherlock!"

Alistair chuckled. "Hello to you, too, Dan."

"Hey, Uncle Alistair. So, are you going to help us, or what?"

It only took Alistair a minute to make his decision. He had heard rumors about the Sylvianos and the destruction they were capable of; the so-called 'natural' catastrophes were only more evidence of that.

Besides, Amy and Dan needed him. This was a chance for him to win their trust back- for good. He wanted that more than anything in the world.

"Yes. I will help you."

"Well, that went well, I thought," Nellie gave a sigh of contentment as she sat back. "I'll admit, he sounded tired, but at least he's on our side."

"He was an easy one," Fiske said. "This is only the beginning, and our tasks will more likely become harder rather than easier."

Dan rolled his eyes. "Right, who's next?"

Nellie shrugged. "I don't know. Fiske?"

"I suggest the Starlings. You never interacted with them much in the past, and so you do not hold such strong grudges against each other. Do you all agree?" They all nodded, and Nellie punched in the numbers.

Sinead Starling smiled to herself as she painted/removed her pink nail polish. 'I can't believe I wore the same nail polish for a whole day!' she thought. 'It's just disgraceful! Besides, pink is soooooooo yesterday!' She held up the bottle of sparkly pink nail polish next to her. 'Sparkly pink is the new fad!'

Suddenly, the phone rang. Of course, Sinead wasn't surprised. She was, after all, the most popular girl in school. And Ted and Ned were both tied for the spot of Most Popular Boy- they weren't nearly as popular as Sinead, though. It was impossible. No matter what they said.

"SOMEONE GET THAT PHONE!" Sinead yelled.

"YOU GET IT!" Ted shouted back. Or maybe it was Ned. Sinead really couldn't tell the difference.

"I'M BUSY, YOU INGRATE!" Sinead screamed back. "MY NAILS ARE WET!"

"WHO CARES ABOUT YOUR STUPID NAILS?" One of Sinead's brothers- probably the one who hadn't already spoken, she guessed- cried back. "AND WHY ARE THEY WET, ANYWAYS?"

'Oh my gosh.' Sinead rolled her eyes; sometimes, her brothers were such idiots. It was surprising that they were Ekaterinas, really. "I'M TAKING OFF MY NAIL POLISH AND REPAINTING THEM!DUH! NOW GO GET THE PHONE! THAT RINGING IS HURTING MY EARS!"

"THAT'S BECAUSE THE PHONE IS RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR BED! SO PICK IT UP ALREADY!"

Sinead rolled her eyes. "Clearly, I have to do everything around here," she grumbled heatedly under her breath as she carefully picked up her phone, making sure not to let her nails touch anything. "What do you want?" she asked into the receiver.

"H-Hello? Is- Is this S-Sinead St-St-Starling?" the voice at the other end asked.

"Duh," Sinead replied. 'Wonder what the girl wants,' she pondered internally. 'Her stutter is horrendous. Poor thing. Probably only has three cars.' "And I repeat, what do you want?"

"Y-You don't r-remember me, d-do y-you?" the girl asked from the other end, her stutter still prominent. And very, very annoying.

"'Course I don't," Sinead said, and then popped her bubble gum. "You haven't introduced yourself! Who taught you manners, a baboon?"

The girl's voice was even quieter now than before. 'Oh, I guess I offended her. I feel sooooooooo bad,' Sinead thought sarcastically, smirking, as the girl answered, "I-I'm s-sorry, you-you're right. I sh-should have i-introduced m-myself first. I-I'm A-Amy C-C-Cahill."

Sinead sat up straight on her bed when she heard the girl's name. It couldn't be... "Amy? Amy as in my cousin and former competitor in the thirty-nine clues hunt?"

"Y-Yes," Amy replied. "And a-about the cl-cl-clue hunt... C-Can we just p-put that b-behind us? Pl-Please?"

"Why not," Sinead shrugged nonchalantly, even though Amy couldn't see. Amy may be annoying- 'She always was,' Sinead reflected almost fondly- she had always been pretty nice to Sinead. Even though Sinead had a tendency to "accidentally" spill her juice on Amy's clothes at Grace's prior gatherings. (Really, Sinead had been doing Amy a favor. Spilling juice on her clothes forced her to get new clothes. They were still just as ugly, though.)

"O-Oh, good," Amy sighed, sounding very relieved. "L-Listen, there's a b-big problem, a-and w-we need your h-help."

"What's the problem?"

"H-Have you ever heard of th-the S-Sylvianos?"

"The Sylvianos?" Sinead shrieked quietly. "Have I heard of them? What kind of question is that? I'm not stupid! Of course I know that they're our enemy family and that they're evil and that we should crush them like bugs! Why would you even ask something like that?"

"I-I'm s-sorry, I didn't m-mean to be o-offensive. I h-hadn't h-heard of them, s-so I d-didn't know i-if you would have, either."

Sinead sighed. "Whatever. What's going on with the Sylvianos?"

"Y-You know all the e-earthquakes a-and the t-tornadoes a-and other ca-calamities that have been p-popping up r-recently?"

"Duh! Why?"

"The Syl-Sylvianos are c-causing them."

Sinead paused, and then asked, "You're kidding me, right?"

"Wh-What?"

"The Sylvianos can't cause natural disasters! It's impossible! They're natural, after all-"

"I-I thought th-the same, b-but the S-Sylvianos are c-causing them. Y-You have t-to believe me, S-Sinead."

The young Starling sighed. "Why are you telling me about this anyways?"

"The o-only way we can b-beat the S-Sylvianos is if w-we all work t-together. Th-that includes you. A-And your brothers."

With her nose scrunched up in distaste, Sinead responded, "Do my brothers really have to be involved in this?"

"Yes, we do."

Sinead groaned. "Ted, Ned, if you were going to pick up the phone and eavesdrop on me, why didn't you just pick up the phone in the first place like I asked you to?"

"We only decided-"

"-That we would eavesdrop-"

"-On you when we heard that-"

"-You were talking to Amy-"

"-Meaning that something big was up."

Sinead banged her head against her bed. "I hate you two, you know that? God, how I wish I was an only child."

"I agree w-with you th-there, Sinead," Amy chuckled. 'Oh, right- she has a brother, too,' Sinead remembered suddenly. 'Dave or something, I think.' "So, are y-you three in, o-or not?"

"We're in," the Starling triplets answered together. Then, they all groaned; they hated when they did that.

Chapter written by:

Joelle8

music4evah

Slight edits made by:

troubadour12