Welcome back you few, oddly silent viewers! It's the second chapter, hot diggity dog, as you cool kids say. For whatever reason, be it lines or a bunch of symbols, they don't show up on the story, which makes it harder to distinguish the Author Note from the rest of the story. So I tried to make my own line break as I typed this, then copy and pasted the line breaks with the story onto here. I'm not sure why this happens, but let's hope it works.
Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia or HetaOni.
Line Break Let's See If This Actually Works Blah Blah I'm A Member Of The Midnight Crew
Chapter 2: Learning How to Scream
Some days just suck. This is a fact of life. That day was one of those days. The thing is, when you wake up on a concrete floor in the only spotlight in a dark room with the effects of a glowing feeling gone and leaving you cold and clammy, rest assured it's one of those days. There's not much you can do about that. Except scream.
"Huh-wha-huh?" I said sleepily. Of course, it actually helps if you can scream on command, like I can't. The floor was gray and chilling. The spotlight came from high above, and I got the sense that the room was as wide as it was tall. A bunker, perhaps? It felt so empty, though, it must have been abandoned. The heavy echo of a door opening and closing meant I was no longer alone. Steady steps seemed to come from all directions. I was dizzy, but I tried to sit up.
"I doubt you can get up so quickly, but you can try." I froze at the accented voice before me. Either this lady speaker was faster than I thought, or the room wasn't nearly as big as I imagined. Also, was that a cockney accent? I was terrible with identifying accents, so I might have been wrong. "You're very calm, so I guess you haven't looked at yourself yet."
"Huh?" I was still woozy. Then the mysterious girl stepped into my spotlight, and I learned how to scream. "AAAAAAAH!"
The blonde anime girl blinked. This was clearly not her first time doing this. "Let me know when you finish," she said, stepping closer. I scooted away, making choking sounds. The girl pulled a mirror out of her green jacket pocket. "Have you looked at yourself since you woke up?"
"W-what?" She handed me the mirror, and I learned how to scream again. It seemed I would be learning that lesson a lot that day.
"Bloody heck," said the lass, "Is it really all that shocking to you lot? I was startled, sure, but this is ridiculous." I was too busy looking at my clothes with wild abandon to answer.
My much shinier and brighter red hair brushed its tips at my never before seen green uniform, black cap, white gloves, and ridiculous array of weapons, which included a sword, a knife, a pistol gun thing, and a blade that might have been a katana, but I wasn't sure.
The girl stuffed the mirror back into her pocket and held out her black gloved hand. "Let me help you up, then." I squeaked and backed up to the edge of the spotlight. Have you ever had an anime character talk directly to you and reach out to you? For the record, it's very creepy. The girl rolled her obscenely large green eyes. "I don't have time for this," she muttered. She wrapped her arms around and hoisted me up without a problem. I held myself awkwardly, shoulders tight, elbows bent, hands clenched. She dusted off her own green uniform and set her hands on her hips, looking at me sourly. "Look, we don't have a lot of time, so I'll make this short; I'm Brittany Davis. Temporary head of the Cult of Veneziano. I've summoned a lot of people here to help save the nations from the Oni. Are you with me so far?"
"Um," I said.
"Good." She grabbed my wrist and tugged me back the way she came. Before we stepped into the blackness she snapped her fingers and the lights flipped on. I blinked rapidly and looked around. We were indeed in a bunker, the only other occupant being a large blimp that was gray as a rain cloud. I looked at all of the things around me I was pulled along. It all looked so strange, like a drawing redone in 3D, but better and almost realistic. I took a gingered glance at Ms. Davis and our clasped hands. She had a firm, business minded grip. It was odd, watching our hands sway steadily, drawn just as I had seen on my favorite animes. I turned my head this way and that, watching how what I saw was shifted to match my perspective. It was more tightly drawn, it seemed, as if a hundred drawn pictures had been included in every second of framing, or more so than a usual anime, anyway.
Then I looked at the back of her head. No doubt she was pretty, though most anime characters are drawn that way. Her yellow hair tipped the collar of her green jacket like claws, and I remembered that her dark eyebrows were thick, not like England's but Hong Kong's. She wasn't stick like, like I was, but very broad of shoulder and steady of arm. She probably works out a lot, I thought.
We reached the far end of a wall, which was lined with a full length mirror and push doors. Ms. Davis shoved me at the mirror and grumbled, "Look at yourself, be shocked, get over it, and then let's move along. Quickly, if you please."
"A bit of an irritable sort, eh, Ms. Davis?" I muttered as I touched my face.
"Just Brittany, please, and…" Brittany pinched her brow and sighed. "I don't mean to be a grump, alright? It's just… You were the last one to get here, and I'd like to do this before something goes wrong. It's hard, Author, being the temporary leader of a cult you technically created. It's hard—"
"—And no one understands," I finished. "I'm sorry for pointing it out. But people aren't machines, you have to consider human meddling when making plans."
"I know that now. But I'm still a terrible hostess, even by American standards."
"I haven't been to too many formal parties in America, but I'll take your word for it and move on, unoffended." I stared into the mirror, eyebrow raised and lips moved to the side in contemplation. My hair was much wavier now, and not streaked with brown and blonde like red clay. My eyes were wide and solid blue behind green wire framed glasses. My nose was a bit bigger than the average character's, but not greatly so, and my freckles were very faded, fewer and farther between. The most curious things were the two cowlicks in my hair. I was no stranger to rebellious hairs, but these were different. There was thick, crescent shaped one on the right side of my middle part, and a thin strand that curled in a spiral and seemed to float just beside the left side of my head. They seemed to move in an imaginary wind, and pulsed gently, or perhaps my eyes were tricking me. I reached up to pat them down when Brittany grabbed my hand.
"Best not to touch them, mate."
"It's just hair—"
"Oh look, a door, shall we go out?" Brittany said quickly.
"Um, sure," I said, slowly following her out into the bright outdoors. I could have sworn I felt something on my head twitch and bounce, maybe with anticipation. I wondered if my new curls were their own sentient beings…
Line Break Let's See If This Actually Works Blah Blah I'm A Member Of The Midnight Crew
And cut! That's a wrap, take five, etc. etc.
That turned out better than I worried it would, so yay for that. Don't get too used to the rapid update, though, I'm working on a side project, currently (You can make a guess if you look at the poll on my profile) and I don't have the next chapter written down. At all. So it might be a while.
Everyone say hello to Brittany! She's a bit overworked, as you can tell, but I hope you get the sense she cares about each of the members of the cult. Let me know what you think of her (Also let me know if I played the slang a little oddly. I watch Doctor Who and Sherlock, but I'm not fluent with British phrasing. Tips are welcome!)
Dear Readers, I'm glad to see that I've attracted a nice variety of audience members, (Hello to the readers in all of those countries beside America, I think there's someone from Ecuador, Venezuela, Singapore, I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of others, but thank you all for reading. I'm not excluding you, American readers, you're equally appreciated.) That being said, I would really appreciate it if you could all leave a review. You know the Japanese title, -dono? It means master, or mistress. People can say that the author is the master of the story, but I think the real donos here are the Readers. You have influence on how the story goes, more than you might think. I would really like to see something that shows your opinion; it was good, it was bad, whatever you want. I took off the profanity filter to see if that was maybe interfering with the review button, and guest reviews are more than welcome. Most of the reviews I write are Anonymous, so don't be afraid. Or at least pretend to care, if you don't. I know being an author is a two way street, but I want to know what you think, and even taking the time to read, as wonderful as that is of you all, can't tell me everything. Please... *Piano plays* Say something I'm giving up on you. *Can't sing*
Okay... just wanted to get that off of my chest. Please, leave a review, check out my other stories, leave your opinion on the poll on my profile, and I hope I'll see you all soon. Until then!