Gillian led Allison, Ariana, and Felicity through her house. They walked down a long corridor on the second floor.
She hadn't hesitated at all when they had asked to come and use Prussia's stuff. She just wondered why Prussia's stuff? Their counterparts were bound to have the same, or even better technology. Maybe this was a setup? Maybe Robynne said, 'Hey, you should make Gillian feel important because she isn't'? Puh. Stupid. Gillian knew she was and always would be the most awesome out of the bunch of them, she didn't need to be in their plan to feel needed!
"Hey, Gillian," Ariana began, while scanning the walls with her bright emerald eyes, which were now half hidden by the glasses she had acquired two or three years ago. "Why is it that we didn't see this 'control room' you two had five years ago?"
"You didn't know where to look," Gillian replied. "The better question for you is, why the heck do you wear your hair like that?"
Ariana gasped shortly, before grabbing her semi-lengthy pig tails and holding them down so it looked like her was down. "None of your business, shut up…" she growled self-consciously.
"Ugh, I'm so boored!" Allison whined, hands stuffed in her coat pockets. "Why did I agree to this stupid crap?!"
"I think this is fun~!" Felicity exclaimed, perking up immediately and bringing her arms close to herself.
"You think everything is fun," Allison complained. "I only find fun in video games, TV, talking, hanging out, eating, heroic stuff, YouTube videos, music, games, sports, cute stuff, adventuring, and cool stuff like that."
"You seem to think a lot of things are fun, Allison!" Felicity said happily with an overly cheerful tone. You could practically see that cat smile on her face… If that was possible in real life, that is.
"Omigod, I can't take this anymore!" Allison shouted. "You're so freaking cute and perky! How do Louella and Kierra spend so much time with you without grabbing you and hugging you like a teddy bear?!"
"Will you two shut up already?" Ariana questioned, obviously annoyed. "We're almost there anyway, right, Gillian?"
"Actually…" Gillian started. "…I forgot where the room is."
"No way! You're kidding!" Ariana and Allison cried in unison, while Felicity exclaimed, "It doesn't matter since we had fun together the whole time!"
"Stop being such an adorable optimist!" Allison whined, melting. "It's so cute, I'm going to explode!"
"Allison, you stop being a pervert!" Ariana commanded. "If we didn't know any better, we'd think we brought Francisca with us!"
"How am I a pervert when she's a year older than me?" Allison queried.
"How do you find her cute when she's a year older than you?" Ariana countered.
"Stop being babies, both of you!" Gillian yelled over the noise. "And people say I'm the immature one!"
"If you would've remembered where the room is, we wouldn't be yelling," Ariana pouted.
"It's been five years since Prussia and I have been near that room at all," Gillian said. "Why do you think we'd remember such an insignificant room for so long?"
"Hey, Gillian, you sound really weird right now!" Felicity informed cheerfully.
"Huh?" Gillian asked.
"You kind of remind me of Robynne!" Felicity said, while Ariana and Allison stared with 'oh crap' surprised faces and shadeless bodies.
Gillian finally lost it. Her face turned red, and she balled up two fists. "WHY DO I KEEP DOING THIS?!" Gillian demanded, looking up and waving her fists in the air dramatically.
"It's not that big of a deal," Ariana tried to comfort, breaking the dramaticness Gillian had going on.
"'Not that big of a deal'?!" Gillian cried. "How would you like it if you started to sound like Francisca?!"
"You have a good point," Ariana dwelled.
"Whatever y'guys," Allison said. "Does Prussia know where this place is, or what?"
"I don't know but it's worth an ask," Gillian replied, attempting to calm down.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Prussia!" Gillian called after looking for twenty minutes or so.
"What?" She heard the former country bark from downstairs. Gillian led her guests down the stairs to the basement.
"Jeez, it took you long enough," Gillian growled. "What are you doing down here, anyway?"
"Well, I'm trying to design the most awesome room ever down here. I already have a ton of stuff bookmarked online that I want to buy and put down here, so I'm trying to clear some of this stupid stuff out of here and put it in the attic or something, since we don't really have a use for it anymore," Prussia explained as he picked up a box of indiscernible items that looked exceedingly old.
"Then how come we didn't see you walking down the hallways or going up and down stairs or anything?" Gillian questioned suspiciously.
"Well, I got distracted; there was this bird outside and I didn't know if it was mine or not, so I needed to see if it would fly back inside," Prussia said.
"Did it come inside?" Gillian wondered.
"No," Prussia answered. "But hey, do you want to see the design I have for this place?"
"Heck yeah!" Gillian shouted, completely forgetting the three women behind her.
"It looks like we've been forgotten," Ariana observed.
"Well, it looks like we better find this freakin' control room by ourselves," Allison said. "Otherwise, we'll have to wait for these two to stop freaking out about a party room. Uhh, everyone knows mine's the best! Hello?"
"Whatever, this will be fun~!" Felicity cried excitedly. "And I'm sure if we all band together and search really hard, we'll find it in no time!"
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
A few hours of searching later, night began to break. Allison looked out the window. "Argh, it's getting dark," she complained. "I'm going to get lost if I try to get home in the dark."
"You're saying you wouldn't if it were daylight?" Ariana wondered.
"We seriously need to ask Gillian where to sleep. Those guys have been chilling out in the basement for hours now," Allison said. Her companions agreed, and they descended down the stairs to the basement.
They were greeted with silence at first, before Gillian whipped her head around and noticed the three standing at the foot of the stairs. "Oh snap," Gillian said.
"'Oh snap' is an understatement!" Ariana shouted.
"Ditching us for a ton of hours until night is totally not chill!" Allison agreed.
"So, where do we sleep?" Felicity asked with her voice completely free of anger or resentment.
"Upstairs in the old bedrooms, I guess," Gillian responded. "I'm not tired, so while you sleep up there, I'll find the control room and tell you where it is when you wake up, okay?"
"Whatever," Allison said with a shrug. Together, her two friends and she went upstairs to the place where Gillian had told them to sleep.
The entry room was in the shape of a small familiar circle, with three couches centering a small table. Surrounding this furniture was fifteen or so doors. Behind twelve of these doors sat bedrooms, decorated with flags from all around the world from when most of the gender swaps were living here. One of these rooms served as a storage room closet, but had a grand piano in its center from when Robynne had been held here. Then, there was a door that led to an enormous room with a throne in it that made Prussia feel important. And the last room was… a bathroom. Really, you thought it would be another epic thing? No. Bathroom. Deal with it.
"I wonder if the decorations are still here," Allison said.
"I think Prussia and Gillian would be too lazy to go room-to-room up here and take everything out of the rooms," Ariana assumed.
"Hey, maybe we could sleep in the rooms we used to sleep in!" Felicity suggested.
"Why not, I would feel weird with any other flag on the wall," Allison agreed. So then, the three girls split up and found the rooms they had once been held prisoner in five years ago. When Allison entered her room, it was covered in cobwebs and dust due to lack of use, and the American flag hanging up on the wall was falling down on one corner, revealing fresher-looking white paint behind it. Oh well, Allison thought. Can't always sleep in luxury. Then she giggled at the image of Ariana freaking out over how dirty and 'unsanitary' her room was. Anyway, after that, Allison climbed into the sloppily made bed after shutting off the lights, and immediately gave way to her fatigue. She didn't even bother taking the bobby pins out of her hair or removing her shoes.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The next morning, Allison woke up to harsh sunlight streaming through her window (Which lacked blinds or curtains), and growled unpleasantly. She hated mornings, especially when she can sleep longer but is woken up by lights that won't turn off and can't. She got out of bed groggily, and stumbled lazily over to the door. She reached for the doorknob, and tried to turn it.
Clunk.
"What the heck…?" Allison mumbled to herself when she found she was unable to open the door.
Clunk.
"C'mon, stupid old door," Allison hissed, trying not to be loud for now, or else Ariana would bust down her door and rant at her forever.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
Allison could've tried forever to open the door, but she stopped, already knowing why it wouldn't open. It was locked from the outside. Her eyes widened in an indistinguishable burst of either rage or scare, and she shouted exceedingly loudly.
A minute or two later, Allison heard pounding from somewhere outside her door. "Allison! What the hell do you think you're doing?!" She heard Ariana question loudly from a room or two away, making the British girl's voice somewhat muffled.
"Have you tried opening the door yet?" Allison asked loudly.
Allison listened closely, and heard footsteps, and then the familiar clunk, clunk, clunk sound these doors made when locked. "Huh?!" Ariana cried in disbelief. "Don't tell me they're starting with this again!"
"What's going on?" they heard Felicity wonder from a couple rooms over.
"We're locked in our rooms," Allison explained shortly.
Felicity gasped. "What? Are we going to get hurt again? I don't want to get hurt! I hope out friends don't get hurt, too!"
Suddenly, the three of them heard a click noise that repeated around fifteen times, before only the sounds of birds from outside could be heard. Allison, curious, attempted to open the door again. She turned the knob, and the door swung open. Soon enough, her two friends realized that their doors were unlocked as well and exited their rooms.
However, a little bit afterwards, they heard rapid footsteps climbing up a staircase, and Gillian entered the room. She looked exhausted.
"What the heck's your problem?" Allison questioned immediately.
"I found the control room," the woman panted. "I flipped a switch to see if it still worked, but then I fell asleep. When I woke up I heard banging upstairs, and noticed the switch I flipped locked all of the doors up here, so I unlocked them."
"Okay, where is it?" Ariana asked.
"Follow me," Gillian prompted. Her company nodded together, and they soon went upstairs and explored a bit.
Eventually, in the first floor hallway, Gillian entered a room with an extensive library. Now, anyone who read the first chapter and can remember everything that happened, and I mean EVERYTHING, then 1 :) I feel sorry for you for having such an active memory of something like a FanFiction instead of a foreign language or something more useful and 2 :) You must expect this room to have cobwebs and stuff everywhere, right? Nope, not this time. Remember five years ago when Gillian said she had about how Prussia can become big and powerful and rub it in people's faces? Well, her idea was that Prussia should get all of his old journals and publish them, replacing 'questionable' names (A character named Hungary? WTF?). Being who he is, fan girls made his journals popular worldwide and stuff, but whatever. The main point is, while looking for all of his journals, Prussia managed to clean up the place a bit. A bit of dust was present, but the only person who would likely notice would be Robynne… or Ariana when she's in charge, when she seems to notice everything everywhere somehow.
Gillian strolled around a bit, before she grabbed the leather-bound spine of a large dictionary and removed it from the shelf. Allison, eyes wide with excitement, grabbed it and started flipping through the pages. "Cool! Where's the secret button?" she questioned.
"There is none," Gillian said. "That would be ridiculous, how would we get that to work? No, Austria gave it to Prussia a while ago, I think." She reached her hand into the empty slot in the shelf. Soon enough, she seemed to grab something, and began pulling it. It looked like she was straining, however; how long was this rope or whatever she was pulling? Soon, Ariana decided to help her out. However, even with two nearly full grown women pulling it, it just wouldn't seem to budge.
"…Allison…" Ariana groaned, voice shot with effort.
"Hey, what?" the woman asked, before noticing what was going on. "Oh, yeah, okay!" she said, before marching over to the bookcase. "Clear away, people! The hero's going to try this out!" she commanded, before cracking her knuckles and grabbing the rope. She then began to yank it as hard as she could, without seeming to have trouble at all. After a few seconds, Gillian noticed the bookshelf beginning to rumble.
"Allison, you should stop pulling now," Gillian advised.
"No way! A secret door or anything hasn't appeared yet, so I'm going to keep pulling!" Allison shouted determinedly. "C'mon, secret door, appea-!"
She was cut off when the bookshelf abruptly shot up into the air, carrying Allison with it, and, as the front of the bookshelf came less than a meter away from the ceiling, the American was thrown into the ceiling and fell back on the bookshelf.
"Allison!" Felicity cried, worried her friend might be hurt.
"Are you okay?" Ariana asked without sincere worry. "If you're hurt or something, I'd be more than happy to call up one of the other gender swaps and ask them to take your place."
"Yeah, I'm fine," Allison said with a muffled voice, holding a thumbs-up out from her place on the ceiling. "I feel like a cartoon character," she added.
"Wow, let's get the giant flyswatter," Ariana said sarcastically. "Stop messing around and get down here."
Allison crawled out from the small gap between the front of the bookshelf and the ceiling, and fell onto the floor face-first. "Still okay, I'm guessing?" Ariana assumed. "No random broken leg?"
"Nope," Allison responded, picking her face off of the ground.
"C'mon, y'guys," Gillian said, motioning for them from the control room behind the bookcase. Allison and the other directly went in.
"Here it is," Gillian pronounced, as if she were introducing a friend.
The three of them looked around. The room was huge, but kind of dirty. There were blank computer screens lining the walls and sitting on a nearby table, and cords and wires were threatening to trip them if they took a single step without watching where they were going. Gillian went over to a switch on one of the monitors, and when she switched it on, the entire room lit up with the start up screen of an operating system. Except one screen was different; a large screen in the center of the sea of monitors, which seemed to boot up immediately and display a map; it seemed to be closed in on a location already.
Allison turned to see Ariana, and noticed she was looking at the screen with an odd, confused looking face. "What's up?"
"…Is that…?" Ariana asked herself, before shaking her head. "No way."
"Is it what?" Allison questioned nosily. When Ariana didn't respond, Allison persisted. "Ariana?! Is it what? C'mon! Tell me!"
"It's none of your business," Ariana growled, while still observing the screen closely.
"Hey, I got you your birthday cake for your sixteenth birthday party, and it was good, right?" Allison asked. "If you liked that cake, you have to tell me what's up."
"No, I despised that wretched cake," Ariana responded. "Coconut shavings are one of my least favorite things to eat on a cake the entire planet. And not to mention, I don't even like cake."
"Puh, you can't tell me with a straight face you don't like cake," Allison denied.
Ariana grabbed Allison's head, and spun her around so they were looking eye to eye. "I don't like cake," she enforced. "I also don't like chocolate, pie, candy, or any kind of ice cream that isn't vanilla." Allison swore she heard Ariana mumble something else and saying it was an exception, but Allison disregarded it as being her imagination.
Allison slowly removed Ariana's hand off of her head, before saying, "…Then you have no sense of taste." She went back into her regular tone. "Seriously, what do you like?"
Ariana ignored her and continued to research the map in silence. Allison scowled. "Dude, I freaking need to know what she's obsessing about with that map," she thought determinedly.
"So anyway," Gillian said once all of the computers started up. "What do I need to search?"
"I don't know," Allison admitted.
"But you saw them!" Ariana growled, annoyed. "Don't you think it would have been smart to get their names?"
"But I needed to get to our meeting," Allison defended. "I didn't have time to talk to three geeky girls! And I wasn't even sure if they were swaps! None of us are sure, remember?"
Ariana looked away with angry defeat, before looking back and nodding. "Yeah, I suppose you're right," Ariana said. "Maybe we can get clues from how they spoke or how they managed to go on vacation in Washington, DC."
"They'd have to live close enough, because it would be boring going on a fun vacation there if you live in California or something," Allison observed, sounding quite intellectual.
Ariana agreed with a nod. "If I can recall what I learned in school when was a kid, they'd have to live in Virginia or Maryland."
"Well, this looks like a job for Google Maps!" Gillian cried over-dramatically. She jumped into one of computer chairs and started to surf the web, before going to Google Maps and searching 'Washington, DC'.
A few minutes later, Gillian reported, "Okay, according to this, to live close enough to Washington, DC, they'd have to live in one of these cities." Gillian rolled out of the way so the three of them could have a look.
"In Virginia, its Alexandria, Arlington, and McLean, and in Maryland, Silver Stream, or Bethesda. At least, it looks like that to me," Ariana named. "And that's just the ones nearly directly beside DC."
"Well, that's how close it would have to be," Gillian said. "Right?"
"I guess," Allison said.
"Well, we should search through the newspapers there at first. Hopefully one of them did something noteworthy in their pasts," Ariana suggested.
Gillian nodded, before going back to the computer and typing some things into an advanced-looking system. It was an hour later, when Gillian said with weariness, "Bingo." She got out of the way so the bored gender swaps could view. "She looks like Estonia, right?"
Allison butted her way in. "Yeah, that girl does look like one of the girls I saw in DC."
"What city is this newspaper from?" Ariana questioned.
"A small-time high school paper from the suburbs of Alexandria," Gillian responded.
"Hmm…" Ariana dwelled. "Now we know what school they go to. But just to make sure everything matches up for this girl, we need to read that segment."
The paper, dated from the school year that recently ended, showed a girl who the caption named 'Edwina' wearing a blue sweater vest over a dressy shirt with a medium length beige skirt, medium length sandy blonde hair, and glasses. She was recognized for being a junior reporter for a local (but not big-time) newspaper.
"Seems about right," Allison said.
"Okay, you guys need to go to that city and try to find their houses," Gillian said.
"Not needed," Ariana observed. "At the bottom of this page, it lists the names of the reporters and where to send mail to."
"Sweet! Their real addresses are there?" Allison asked, not bothering to look herself.
"No, PO box numbers," Ariana said. "But then we can go to the box and wait for her."
"But the school year's over," Allison said. "Who'd send mail?"
"We will," Ariana said. "We'll go there, write a letter for her, send it there, and then wait for her to notice."
"Okay, she'll randomly check her PO box during the summer, sounds legit," Allison said.
"No, we'll go to the box and ask the person there if they'll call this 'Edwina' girl to get her to come get the mail," Ariana said. "Then we'll follow her home."
"This sounds very complicated!" Felicity noted, but didn't sound disappointed or negative in any way.
"Yes, but it'll work," Ariana said.
"And you guys will seem like stalkers," Gillian said. "Glad I get to stay here."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
A day or two later, Raelyn heard the doorbell from her home's living room, and went to answer it. "Hey, Tora, hey, Edwina," she greeted.
Since their DC trip, Raelyn hasn't been the same. She's been kind of paranoid, nervous, and more quiet.
"Hey, Raelyn," Edwina greeted.
"Hey," Tora repeated.
"I'm glad you all could come over," Raelyn said. She led her friends to her room, where they then sat down on her bed.
Edwina noticed something on Raelyn's side table, and picked it up. "Still only halfway through?" she verified, flipping through the pages of Soul Eater volume 1.
Raelyn chuckled lightly. "I haven't had the time to read it," she said.
Suddenly, a ringing noise sounded from Edwina's pocket. "Hold on," she said, before pulling her cell phone from her pocket. She answered it. "Hello?"
Incoherent mumbling sounded from the phone.
"Huh?" Edwina asked.
More mumbling.
"Oh, okay." Edwina hung up. "I got some mail in my school PO box," Edwina said. "Wanna ride our bikes to the post office?"
"Sure, I'm glad you both biked here so we don't have to drive," Raelyn said.
A few minutes later, the three of them were riding down the street on mountain bikes. They rode for five minutes or so with bright J-Pop music blasting in their ears, before they all parked at the post office. They dismounted, paused their iPods, and entered the building.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Allison, Ariana, and Felicity hid in the nearby bushes, watching as the girls entered the building. "All three of them came," Ariana observed silently. "Now we just wait for them to exit."
Soon, the three girls exited the post office, Edwina holding a letter. "They've got bikes," Allison pointed out, despite this being clear to all three of them. Ariana promptly shushed her, and they watched as the three of them left.
"Go!" Ariana hissed, shooing her friends from the bushes. "We need to catch up to them before we get lost!"
Allison nodded, and bounded towards her car. "C'mon, get in," she told her friends impatiently, before flooring it.
Ariana was flying around limply in the passenger seat, while Felicity was looking out her window with huge, sparkling eyes. "You nutcase!" Ariana managed to yell, before being slammed into the car window and quieting down for a while. Allison simply laughed and went even faster.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Raelyn and her friends arrived at her house once more. They went back into Raelyn's room, and Edwina opened the envelope she had gotten in the mail. But before she could read it out loud for her friends to hear, Raelyn's bedroom door opened, revealing a familiar young girl. "Hey, Azusa," Raelyn greeted.
No, the three girls aren't seeing K-On characters in the room suddenly. This is Raelyn's little sister, whose name is Ashleigh. She's only kind of into anime like the girls, but doesn't read manga or listen to the same kind of music. She would be a fourth member of their group, but she's only ten. She gets a different nickname every time the girls to Raelyn's house and happen to see her, and it's mostly because of how adorable she looks: she has plushy cheeks alive with freckles, bright blue eyes, and reddish-brown hair, a bit of which was taken aside to form a side ponytail on the left side of her head.
"Azusa?" Ashleigh asked, putting a finger to her cheek. "That's K-On, right?"
"Yep," Edwina praised. "You're getting better at this."
"Yay!" The young girl cheered. "Maybe soon enough I'll be able to watch Hetalia with you guys! Won't that be fun?"
"Yeah," Tora said with a chuckle.
Ashleigh came closer to the girls and saw the letter in Edwina's hands. "What's that?" she asked.
"We don't know yet," Edwina said. "Do you want to read it with us?"
"Sure!" Ashleigh cheered. She got onto Raelyn's bed, and looked over Edwina's shoulder as she read the letter out loud.
"Dear Edwina," she began. "Soon, three women will be at the door of the house you are at right now. Let them in and allow them to come upstairs (And maybe give them cookies). This is important… and confidential. So don't tell anyone, okie-dokie? From, Anonymous."
Raelyn gasped and grabbed her bed pillow. She flung it against her face so only her huge worried eyes were showing. "What if that woman's with them?" Raelyn questioned, as Ashleigh asked if she was okay while poking her sister in the back of the head.
"The chances of that are slim," Edwina comforted. "Even if this does have a bad air to it."
"Whoever wrote this sure talks weirdly," Ashleigh commented.
"Yeah, you're right, Azusa," Edwina said. "Who goes from 'This is confidential' to 'Okie-Dokie'?"
Soon enough, they heard Raelyn's mom shout from the living room, "Rae! There's some people here to see you! They say it's important!"
When Raelyn ducked down into her pillow instead of responding, Tora called, "Send them in, please."
Later, their bedroom door opened gradually, before the trio gasped at the women standing in the room. The first woman pointed to Edwina. "A-ha! Edwina!" She cried victoriously. She turned to her two companions. "I told you we didn't start following the wrong kid halfway here!"
"Maybe so, but you still nearly ran over a cat on the way," a second woman said in a mean tone with a British accent and a glare. "Not to mention the splitting pain in my forehead."
"At least you drove out of the way just in time!" the third woman said cheerfully with an Italian accent.
The three girls were dumbstruck, while Ashleigh looked on in amazement. "Your voices sound so cool!" she exclaimed, running up to the British woman and pulling on her skirt. "Say something else!"
The woman looked at Ashleigh oddly. "This is the first time I've ever gotten such an odd request," she observed. "Now, what should I say?"
"Red leather, yellow leather?" The third woman suggested.
Ashleigh removed her grip off of the British woman and instead stared at the third woman intently. "Your voice is even cooler!" she squeaked. "Now you say something!"
"Okay!" the woman agreed. "Hello, I'm Felicity, and these are my friends Ariana and Allison, what's your name, little girl?"
"Awesome…" Ashleigh mumbled with starry eyes.
"Awesome is your name?" Felicity wondered. "That's so cool!"
"No, it's Ashleigh, but your voice was so cool-sounding," Ashleigh said. "Where are you from?"
"Italy," Felicity answered. "It's very pretty and fun there. There is pasta, and cities, and-"
She cut herself off when Ariana waved her hand so she could start speaking to the girls they were here for. "So, you three," she started, pointing to the wide eyed girls sitting on Raelyn's bed. "Who are you all?"
"Edwina, Raelyn, and Tora," Edwina introduced slowly with her voice cracking and pointing to everyone named in order.
"Sweet, their names match up!" The woman introduced as Allison said.
"It's the woman from DC," Tora mumbled to her friends.
"She really is female America…" Edwina said, as Raelyn whimpered.
"Why is she so afraid?" Allison asked.
"I think she's afraid that since there's female you guys, there's a female Russia out to get us," Tora explained.
The gender swaps exchanged looks. "Well, we'll make sure you're safe," Ariana ensured, voice sounding unsure.
"So, what are you three here for?" Raelyn spouted quickly, words muffled by her pillow though her eyes shove above it.
"Okay, so, we think you guys might be the gender swaps of the Baltics," Allison said. "You know who they are, right?"
The three girls nodded, while Ashleigh shook her head and repeatedly asked, "Who are they?"
"I think we already figured that out," Edwina informed.
"So now what?" Raelyn asked sacredly, sounding like a little girl.
"What are we going to do now?" Ariana asked her group silently.
"Dude, what makes you think I know?" Allison countered in the same way.
"It was a general question, it wasn't focused at you!" Ariana hissed.
"I don't even know what you guys are talking about!" Felicity exclaimed brightly.
"Well, we'll have to come up with something and see what they think is the best idea, I guess," Ariana reasoned.
"So, dudes, do you want to hop in our car and drive off?" Allison asked.
"No, we aren't supposed to get in cars with strangers," Raelyn responded shrilly.
"Okaay… I'm beat. Ariana?" Allison asked, pointing to the woman.
"Uhh… maybe sometime, if it's okay with your parents, I mean…" Ariana didn't know how to put it. "Maybe we could take you to meet the Baltics? And, maybe some of the other countries and gender swaps, too?"
"Actually," Edwina started, "that sounds like a good idea. But how would we get our parents to agree to that?"
"You have a good point," Ariana observed. She took out an index card and a pen from Allison's coat pocket (Allison exclaimed, "I had index cards and pens on me?!") and scribbled down a number, before handing it to Tora. "Here, on the off chance your parents do agree to this, call this number, and we'll make plans."
"Who's number is it?" Tora asked.
"Mine," Ariana replied. "But depending on when you call, England might pick up, so just know that. Don't call between four and five-thirty pm, okay?"
"What do you do at that time?" Edwina questioned, this being just one of the many questions floating in her mind right now.
"Well, I kind of go visit a little childhood friend of mine," Ariana replied, an imaginary sweat drop the perfect accessory for her face right then.
"Who?" the three girl's questions kept coming.
"…Sealand," Ariana answered after brief silence.
"Dude! You still hang out with that kid?" Allison questioned."No way, that's so weird!"
"Hey, shut up," Ariana demanded, growling.
"So yeah, call her maybe, or whatever," Allison said, leading her friends and herself out of the room as Ariana facepalmed at the bad retired reference.
Raelyn smacked her face with the pillow, and screamed in it. "We're gonna meet her!" she cried.
"Hey, calm down," Edwina comforted. "I doubt any of them would be dumb enough to introduce us to her."
"Well, one of them seemed smart enough to avoid doing it, but those other two were complete ditzes!" Raelyn argued.
"We can't agree to this if Raelyn doesn't feel safe doing it," Tora said.
"Yeah," Edwina said. "I guess when we get older, we might be able to go and meet them on our own or something."
Raelyn sniffled. "I don't want you both to be disappointed…" she said. "I guess, if you both want to, then… I could get over it for a while."
"You don't have to do that if you don't want to," Tora said.
"No, I'm going to agree to it," Raelyn said, newfound determination in her tone. "I don't want to let you guys down or think I'm a wimp!"
"That's great," Tora said. "We'll ask our parents tonight, since my mom's going to be here soon."
"Agreed," Edwina said.
Raelyn nodded.
"Can I come too?" Ashleigh asked.
"Oh, yeah, Azusa was here the entire time…" Edwina realized, frozen. "Uh, no, Azusa. Forget everything you just heard and saw."
"No, that was so cool! I want to go with you to meet people!" Ashleigh said.
"We aren't even sure if our parents are going to let us or not," Tora said.
"Well, if Raelyn can go, I'm coming, too!" Ashleigh announced defiantly.
"But you don't even know what Hetalia is," Raelyn countered.
"Yes, I do! Italy and Germany and Japan and stuff!" Ashleigh denied. "And one day you called me 'Kumajirou', too!
"But you don't know who the Baltics are," Edwina said.
"I just haven't gotten that far yet!" Ashleigh whined. "Pleease?"
"No!" Raelyn demanded.
"Hey, don't yell at Azusa!" Edwina joked, but with a half-serious tone.
"She's my little sister, I can talk to her however I want!" Raelyn disagreed.
"I'm telling!" Ashleigh threatened, running towards the door.
"Hey, fine, you can come!" Raelyn prevented. "Just don't get us in too much trouble, okay?"
"Okay," Ashleigh promised with a sweet smile.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
As the three women were driving back to the airport so they could all fly home, Allison asked Ariana (who insisted on driving this time), "So what were you freaking out about on Gillian's GPS thing?"
"Nothing, I wasn't freaking out about anything," Ariana answered. "Be quiet."
"No, you were all like, 'No way, that can't be right!'" Allison argued. "What was it about?"
Ariana sighed. "If it will get you to shut up…" she mumbled, before explaining in a hushed tone, "The place that was pulled up on the screen reminded me of my home when I was a child, before I was ever aware I was a gender swap."
"That's it?" Allison asked. "But that was, like, five years ago or something. I bet by now your parents forgot your name."
"That's the thing. I've forgotten what my parents look like. I only remembered what my house looked like because I was always outside instead of inside, with my family. In retrospect, if had spent more time with my family despite the fact they didn't like me, I wouldn't be where I am today; with a lot of friends-minus Francisca-someone who knows exactly what I mean when I say it, and every day is full of excitement for me," Ariana reflected. "I'd probably be in college or something right now if I still lived with my parents. No, scratch that- they wouldn't care enough to send me to college- I'd probably be a lowly McDonald's employee by now."
Allison stared at Ariana with brightened eyes. "Whoa," she said. "I didn't realize…that suddenly you're being a whiny teenager."
"Did what I just said mean anything to you?!" Ariana questioned in disbelief.
"Yeah," Allison said. "I learned that if that chick who wrote Twilight ever needed more inspiration for a stupid depressed chick, she should come to you."
"Hey! I was certainly not being whiny!" Ariana argued loudly.
"Yes, you were, you were being the token whiny depressed girl! Seriously!" Allison countered.
"Say another line about me being whiny and I'll throw you out of the sun roof!" Ariana threatened.
"Uh, Ariana, everyone and their mom knows that you can't throw me anywhere, since you're weak and have jelly arms and you can't even pick up a bookshelf," Allison said.
"A normal person shouldn't be able to lift a bookshelf on their own without any assistance!" Ariana shouted. "You only could because you're America's counterpart!"
"Yeah, and that makes me automatically cool!" Allison announced off-handedly.
"I don't even know why I bother sharing my life with you…" Ariana growled, facepalming. "The sooner I get home, the better."
Hey! DON'T QUESTION MY LATENESS. My South Park fanfic just got a huge boost in popularity so I'm writing that at the same time, I'm starting a Soul Eater fanfic (it's a one-shot for now), I have school, and I'm writing a BOOK. Yeah. During the summer I had no problems with three out of these four problems, and even the last was eliminated due to the fact I write fanfics by day and write a book by night. So yeah, I'm busy to say the least.
But anyway, I'm sorry for focusing a bit much on the original characters this chapter, but if I didn't, we'd miss important details. And if you're wondering about the car scene, I kind of felt like adding that as a bit of a sub plot.
Also fun fact! At that part, I almost considered them wrecking the car! I decided not to, since A:) that would be incredibly time-consuming and stupid and B:) If I wanted them to crash, I'd make them crash when Allison was driving. So yeah, they're fine.
One more thing before I end this off like usual; Shoutout to my sister, who the character of Ashleigh is named and kind of based after. No, she's not an annoying little kid, but her name is Ashley and she is a ginger and she likes anime, so yeah. Also I added the random anime nicknames for my own weird pleasure, don't question me.
So yeah! This has been another chapter of this fanfiction wrapped up without a huge cliffhanger, since it is really long. Be sure to share this, favorite this, and follow it or me, whatever. Just so you know, I'd love it if this or more favorably Genderswapped Nations was recommended for Hetalia Axis Powers fanfics on TvTropes, since I like TvTropes and I like knowing peoples summaries and opinions about me and what I write. Also if you do want to put it there, don't tell them I told you to. Seriously, that would suck for both of us. Mostly me, but still.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this, and if you do, well, you should check out my other fanfics! See you soon (if my teachers will let me write without being buried in work and papercuts)! :3