21 November 2010

MI6, London [Ballistics Department]

0909 GMT

Bang.

Bang, bang.

Bangbangbangbangbangbang.

With every gunshot, England flinched. Not because of the noise, of course. His earmuffs were doing their job perfectly. It was just...

Bang.

A bullet skipped off the lino floor.

Bang.

Another flattened itself onto the wall.

Bang.

This one somehow ricocheted off the ceiling, and then off the floor, and then skittered off in a basically random direction.

The (wannabe) shooter, who was none other than the incompetent Italy, twisted around and mouthed something.

'What?' yelled England, uncomprehending.

Italy mouthed the thing again.

'WHAT?'

Belatedly, he remembered the earmuffs and tore the blocky orange things off.

'WHAT?'

'I'm EMPTYYYYYYY!'

'Then RELOAAAAAAAAD!'

'I've run OUUUUUUUT!'

'What do you MEEEEEAN?'

'I didn't bring SPAAAAAAAAARES!'

'Oh, you IDIOOOOOOOT!'

'I'm SORRYYYYYYYYYY!'

Italy started to cry. England, already immune to it after an intensive half-year "training", ignored him and stomped over in a surly manner.

'You're going to be on your own by tomorrow, Italy! Your assessment is going to be given to you, you're going to stop this bloody training, and you'll still be as useless as ever!' he roared at the quivery Italy. He'd been saying those exact two sentences for the past month now; the only change being the word "tomorrow" replaced respectively.

'B-but I can shoot now...'

'BUT NOT ON TARGET, WHICH IS THE WHOLE POINT!'

England scowled at Italy, who had Italian tears and English spit all over his face.

'I'll get Martin to look after you for a while. I have some important things to do.'

21 November 2010

Germany's house

0916 GMT

'Hallo?'

'Good morning, though I'd beg to differ.'

Germany sighed, suddenly feeling stressed. He hadn't heard that voice for precisely twenty-three hours, ten minutes and two seconds, and he'd hoped not to hear it for a much longer while.

'Don't give me that!' snapped England on the other end of the telephone, sounding incredibly like a disapproving mother. 'We know precisely what will, or more like will not, happen in a little more than twenty-four hours from now. That miserable flop is going to fail...as usual.'

'Please, England,' Germany groaned, completely exasperated. He'd had this exact conversation for the whole entire (maybe not) past month. 'Just another day? I'm holding my end of the deal here and I'm watching Top Gear every day.'

'Is it in German?'

'Sorry?'

'I said, is it dubbed with German?'

'Um...'

Germany could almost hear England's sarcastic green eyes roll.

'He's not going to get perfect in one day,' England said, a heavy dose of resignation in his voice. 'It's not going to happen.'

'But you have to keep your end of the deal, England,' Germany told him reasonably. 'He won't let you down. I'll see what I can do.'

That last part was futile hope; a lie.

England seemed to know it too, but if he did, he didn't give any indication.

'Fine,' he said, grumbling. 'One more day. Bye.'

Germany sighed as he set the receiver down heavily. There was almost no hope left. He couldn't convince England to let Italy stay a bit longer; only an idiot would. But the consequence would be that Italy would still be as incompetent as ever, with no proper spying system.

He suddenly felt rather tired. Germany flicked on his computer, waited for it to boot up, and then clicked the Google Chrome icoon. Typical of him, the homepage was a newspaper website. The headline today was positively enormous; blocky, black letters that screamed out the latest huge happening.

The cogs of Germany's brain started working (not that they weren't working before). The next thing he knew, he was stretching for the phone and dialling a number he had never dialled before.

21 November 2010

MI6, London

1230 GMT

Quickly dogging the footsteps of the petite blonde lady leading the way, he hitched his stiff new satchel higher up his shoulder nervously, not wanting his beloved iPad to fall out. Attractively red Converse shoes slapped conspicuously on the floor as he tried to discern, philosophise, meditate, contemplate, ponder, and keep his hair out of his eyes at the same time.

'Please try to keep up,' said the blonde lady, who was effortlessly shooting along.

He mumbled something that wasn't rather nice under his breath, and said aloud, 'You, like, walk t' fast.'

The blonde lady didn't reply; she just took larger steps.

Presently, she stopped abruptly in front of a heavy, carved wooden door and he collided slightly into her. She fixed him a stern look, he apologised insincerely, and then she straightened her blouse.

'Now, don't do anything silly when you're with him, OK?' she hissed at him, with an obviously disdainful glare at his casual clothing, as if she had sorted him into the "silly" folder just by a swift glance.

'I've 'ad exper'ence,' he replied dully, hitching the satchel up again.

She sniffed very loudly, as if she heartily disagreed (she probably did), then rapped politely on the chocolate door.

'Come in,' permitted a familiar voice.

The lady wrestled the door open ('WD40,' she muttered), pushed him in and snapped the door shut after.

He shuffled forward inch by inch, scuffing his shoes onto the thick carpet, not really wanting to look up.

'Hong Kong!' cried the person at the desk.

Of course, it was no other than England, who he had a rather terse sort of father-son relationship with.

'Englan',' acknowledged Hong Kong, still not really looking up.

'Hong Kong!' cried a completely different voice.

In spite of himself, Hong Kong twisted around to see the bouncing figure of Italy about to break his chair...if England had not glared poisonously at him. Then, England looked back over to Hong Kong, who was extremely confused as to why Italy was there.

'Well, I haven't seen you in such a long time!' England said in a fatherly way.

Hong Kong grunted expressionlessly in response. This was extremely abnormal of England's normal character, but he was always like this of late, for some very mysterious reason.

'Look how you've grown!'

'Oh, like, seri'sly...'

'You can always stay over, you know! I've still got your room.'

'I to'ally don't g've a damn.'

England looked affronted. 'Well, that shows how much you love your dad. Ungrateful kids.'

Hong Kong ignored him.

'Well,' England sniffed as he slouched back into his spinny chair, 'I suppose you weren't here to see me for some nice reason, then?'

'No,' said Hong Kong bluntly. 'In fact, I've go' a case that mi', li', interest you. It's abou' pasta.'

21 November 2010

MI6, London

1237 GMT

Hong Kong could see England talk, but all he heard was a high-pitched scream of, 'PAAAAASTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!'

It was quite piercing, and the normally expressionless not-quite nation scrunched his face up and stuffed his fingers into his ears.

The screaming died down after about a minute, or when Italy had run out of breath; whichever was slower and more painful. Hong Kong and an earmuff-ed England stared as Italy swayed on his feet, and then collapsed onto his chair, semi-unconscious.

That was the last straw for the chair. It too collapsed; a pile of splintery matchsticks was soon stabbing at Italy's bottom.

'Well,' said England in a reasonable tone as he edged his loud earmuffs off, 'I never liked that chair anyway.'

Hong Kong unplugged his ears cautiously as well.

'Those earmuffs 're to'ally ugly.'

England scowled, subconsciously stuffing the offending object behind his back. 'So? And stop talking like that; I can barely understand you.'

'So what?' Hong Kong retorted in Cantonese.

England scowled even more. 'Did you just call me an idiot?'

'No.'

'You said something in Chinese, though!'

'I am Chinese.'

Hong Kong's satisfaction at England's purpling face did not show, but he felt it quite intensely.

First after-hiatus-written chapter.

Time lapse due to lack of momentum in previous parts.

I improvised heaps on Hong Kong's speech...

Constructive criticism highly encouraged.

I don't own Hetalia.

-Fobwatch