Happy Friday, my lovely readers! I gotta make this quick, since I'm at a friend's house, but here's the next chapter!
DISCLAIMER: Well, I kinda own the cast at the moment, since they're all in my house... though holding them against their will probably doesn't count...
BEGIN!
By the next morning, all the pasta had disappeared. The cast had no idea how it happened; the mountain had still been there when they went to sleep, and none of them had heard anything out of the ordinary that night.
When questioned about it, Night refused to say anything, though they did hear her muttering something about the Magic Book and NPCs. For the sake of their sanity, they decided not to question it.
At the moment, the nations were all gathered in the dining room. Night had gone off to her imagination (she wouldn't say why), and had told them to entertain themselves until she got back.
They were all sitting around the table, and for the first time were having a meeting in which they were all paying attention and attempting to come up with ideas. It seems being kidnapped and held against your will can do wonders for team building.
"We need to get out of here." England said decisively. Everyone else nodded.
"Yes, but how?" Hungary asked. "That book lets her know of everything we're doing."
"We need to take it from her, then, aru," China spoke up. "If she doesn't have it, then she can't stop us."
"But she has it on her all the time," America added, for once not blathering on about his hero-ness. "She'd see us coming long before we'd be able to get close to it."
Romano spoke up for the first time. "Maybe we don't need it. The only way she can see what we're doing is if she reads it. So we just have to wait until she's asleep, and leave then."
"But how will we get past her security system?" Japan asked quietly. The nations thought for a moment.
"How about I rip it out of the wall and crush it with my pipe?" Russia asked, smiling pleasantly.
The others all leaned away from him, terrified expressions on their faces. Italy even started waving a miniature white flag.
"Th- thank you, Russia, but I don't think that will be necessary." France replied hesitantly.
"What we need is for someone to go first and scout out the traps."
"GAH! Who said that?" America started looking around frantically for the source of the voice. There was a sigh from the seat next to France.
"I did." Everyone's heads whipped around, zeroing in on Canada, who waved slightly.
"Oh, right. My apologies, Ca- Cas- …er…. Canada." England remembered just in time, and Canada smiled.
"It's alright."
"He's right, though," Spain remarked thoughtfully. "But who would be stupid and crazy enough to do something like that?"
There was a pause, then everyone turned to stare at Prussia, who was doodling the word 'awesome' over and over on his notepad. At the sudden silence, he looked up, a little worried, but not surprised (with his awesomeness, who wouldn't want to stare at him?) to see everyone's eyes on him.
"What?"
The midnight hour saw Prussia slinking quietly out of his room. He stepped lightly into the hallway, glancing both ways before treading carefully towards the stairs. It was his job to go first and find a safe way out of the house, then walk the others through the route using walkie-talkies they'd found in a drawer labeled Watermelon Seeds.
…They'd decided it was safer not to ask.
Prussia couldn't believe his luck in scoring such an awesome part in the plan. Everyone else had to wait around in their rooms while he got to do all the awesome spy work. Suckers.
As he continued, looking out for any traps, he made a mental list of possible exit strategies. The front door was definitely out; Germany had learned firsthand of the electric force field around it when he'd attempted to get the mail one day. His eyebrows were still singed.
So, the back door it was. If that didn't work, he'd start with the windows and go from there.
Just as he was reaching the top of the stairs, he felt his toe press down a hidden switch in the floor. Eyes widening, he leapt forward, just managing to grab onto the railing. Looking back, he stared in horror at the pit that had just appeared in the floor.
Were those… alligators? He stepped closer, only to flinch back when one of them snapped at him. Okay, most definitely alligators.
He was beginning to see why everyone else had wanted to stay back. Still, someone as awesome as him wouldn't give up that easily, and he continued down the stairs.
He was halfway down when he noticed something on the next step. Kneeling, he looked closely, only to see a thin string stretched across the length of the stair to trip anyone attempting to walk down. He snorted.
So cliché.
He easily stepped over it, only to trip over a second one on the step below and tumble to the bottom of the stairs. He groaned softly, rubbing at the growing bruise on his forehead.
Correction: cliché, yet highly effective.
He got gingerly to his feet and kept walking, making sure to give the faintly glowing front door a wide breadth as he passed. He'd rather keep his awesome eyebrows intact, thank you very much.
He made it through the foyer without incident. However, as he passed the doorway to the kitchen, dozens of knives and forks, and a single spatula came flying through, close enough to nick his shirt, and impaled themselves in the wall. (Except for the spatula, which fell rather ineffectively to the floor. One can only wonder why it was included in the first place.)
He jumped back, eyes wide and staring fearfully at the sharp and pointy objects that had almost killed him. He shook his head slowly. "When did she even set this stuff up?"
Prussia continued down the hall, peeking slowly into each room as he went, and getting more than a few nasty surprises. Some such surprises were a giant creepy clown doll that almost landed on top of him, a piano that landed on his much-abused head, and a motion-sensor paintball gun that blasted his uniform with a coat of pink.
He was getting increasingly frustrated as he made his way down the hall, torn between the need to scream and grudging admiration for Night's creativity in her traps.
The Prussian was almost to the end of the hallway when he heard footsteps and low voices. Eyes widening, he darted into a room that was, to his immense relief, empty of any traps. Leaving the door open a crack, he peered into the hallway to see two teenage girls walking through it.
One was blonde, with slanted hair and sharp green eyes. She was wearing a military uniform, though the jacket was tied around her waist, and was hefting what looked like a flamethrower over her shoulder. The other had long black hair in a ponytail and eyes that were glowing faintly red. She was decked out in a leather jacket and short plaid skirt with suspenders hanging by her sides, and was carrying a guitar that was glowing the same color as her eyes.
Prussia, the smart little birdie that he is, figured that these must be a few of those OCs that Night had warned them about. He strained his ears, trying to hear what they were saying.
"This is so boring!" the one with the guitar was complaining. "I thought Night wasn't going to make us patrol anymore after Bakuhatsu ran into a wall and blew it up because he thought it was an intruder!"
The blonde sighed. "Yeah, but someone opened the alligator pit, and Night is worried that the cast is going to try something funny. So she wants us to make sure everything's quiet."
Prussia's eyes widened, and he shrunk back further into the shadows. Crap, if Night knew something was up, they didn't have much time. He turned his attention back to the hall as the black haired girl rolled her eyes.
"I don't know what she thinks they're going to do, Willow. I mean, with all her traps, no one's going to get very far." She sighed. "I can't believe I gave up playing paintball for this. Me and Rina spent all day yesterday going over strategy!"
"Oh, quit whining, Aya." The blonde, Willow, replied irritably. "The next shift should be here any minute, and then you can go run off and do whatever you want."
As if on cue, more footsteps where heard coming down the hallway towards the girls. Prussia only had a moment to wonder who it could be before two boys came around a corner, meeting the girls right in front of the door he was hiding behind.
Aya grinned, running over and hugging the one with black hair and red eyes so similar to her own. "Hey, cuz! Good to know you and Kaito are here to let me off the hook!"
The boy with black and white hair holding a huge sword, Kaito, sighed slightly before turning to Willow. "So, anything to report?"
Willow shook her head. "No, it's been quiet. I really don't think that anything's going to happen, but you and Akito should check everything over anyway."
They nodded, and the girls walked off in the direction the boys had come from. The boys headed down another hallway perpendicular to the one they were in, and soon not even their echoing footsteps could be heard.
Prussia waited a few minutes to be safe before letting out a relieved breath. That had been far too close for comfort. Still, that didn't mean he was off the hook yet. It wouldn't be long before those two boys came across the traps he'd sprung, and then they'd realize that someone was up who wasn't supposed to be.
He was running out of time.
He crept out of his hiding place, going as fast as he could while still remaining silent. Luckily, it seemed he'd sprung all of the traps in this part of the house, and he made it to the back door with little difficulty.
Smirking to himself, he reached for the doorknob. He turned it, and-
AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!
A loud alarm started blaring throughout the whole house, and a red light began to flash from an unknown location.
He froze as he heard multiple footsteps, and soon he was surrounded by Night, the rest of the cast (who were all half-asleep), and the two boys from earlier. The one with the sword stepped forward, holding it threateningly against his throat as he asked,
"Who are you and what are you doing here?"
Night yawned before waving him off. "It's okay, Kaito, he's supposed to be here. He's part of the cast that's staying for a while."
Prussia let out a sigh of relief as the sword was sheathed, then drew another one when Night suddenly turned to him, a dark expression on her face.
"So, care to explain what you're doing down here in the middle of the night?" She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. Prussia gulped slightly before rearranging his expression into his usual smirk.
"Someone as awesome as me doesn't have to explain anything. My awesomeness lets me go where ever I want, whenever I want!"
Night's other eyebrow went up. "So, you weren't trying to escape, then?"
Prussia grinned, confident in his ability to bluff his way out of this. "Nope! The awesome me was just being awesome, as usual."
If Night had a third eyebrow, it would have gone up.
"Oh, really?" She pulled the Magic Book out of her pocket and started reading aloud. "…The midnight hour saw Prussia slinking quietly out of his room. He stepped lightly into the hallway, glancing both ways before treading carefully towards the stairs. It was his job to go first and find a safe way out of the house, then walk the others through the route using walkie-talkies…"
The cast was beginning to get nervous, and shot worried glances at Prussia. Night snapped the book shut before turning her attention back to the paint-covered nation.
"I'm not sure what that sounds like to you, but it sure seems like an escape attempt to me."
She turned to the rest of the cast, who were all attempting to sneak out the door before she set another axe on them.
"You guys are off the hook since none of you actually left your rooms. However," she turned back to Prussia as the rest of the cast breathed a sigh of relief. "You broke a rule. As you can see here-"
Night motioned to the wall, where the rules had somehow been painted while they were all standing there, "-rule number seven clearly prohibits escaping. And rule number ten states just what happens to rule breakers."
She smirked, clapping her hands. As Prussia somehow managed to grow even paler, the floor behind him opened. Soon, he was staring into a dark hole, the bottom of which wasn't even visible as far as he could tell. He turned back to Night with a gulp, only to see her wearing a Roman soldier outfit and looking extremely excited.
"I've been waiting forever to try this out!" She grinned, not bothering to explain her two second costume change. She began walking towards the, now petrified, Prussia.
"Quick, someone do the line!"
The cast members had no idea what she was talking about, but luckily Kaito seemed to understand what she meant. Sighing, he spoke in a half-hearted mumble. "This is madness."
Night grinned diabolically, stopping just a few feet from Prussia. "Madness? THIS. IS. HETALIA!"
She kicked Prussia square in the chest, sending him flying backwards and into the hole. As his screams faded away, she sighed happily and took her helmet off.
"That was so much fun," she said dreamily, ignoring the horrified looks of the cast as they realized one of their own had just been exiled for the rest of their time in this nutjob's house.
There was a moment of silence as Night just stood there, completely oblivious to the looks she was getting. After a few more minutes, she sighed again.
"Alright, I'm bored." She scribbled something in the Magic Book, and Prussia appeared, curled up on the floor in a fetal position.
"OH, GOD, WH-" He looked around for a second, then sighed in relief, "I'm back!"
"Uh…"
The cast members stared, dumbfounded, as Night help Prussia get up.
"What? But I thought rule breakers stayed in the dungeon until the end of the story!" Germany cried in confusion. Night grinned.
"Yeah, or until I get bored. And think about it: Prussia is the King of Awesome. So, without him, this story loses over half of its overall awesome. The jokes would get even more stupid and cliché than they already are, and our ratings will go plummeting into the ground. Then I'd lose my job and be forced to live on the streets in a cardboard box!"
She suddenly started sobbing loudly. "I DON'T WANNA BE A HOBO!"
Kaito sighed, allowing Night to sob into his shirt as the shot a sympathetic look at the flabbergasted cast. (Note: It is my new goal to have used every single synonym to the word 'confused' that I know by the end of this story. Something tells me it's not going to be very hard.)
"Don't worry, this happens a lot. We'll take care of her; you guys might want to go to bed. Knowing Night, you're going to need the sleep."
Needless to say, the cast was already halfway up the stairs.
And, there you have it! I hope you all enjoyed it, and weren't too put off by the appearance of a few of my OCs. See you all next chapter!
