Magitalia

Chapter Ten- Golden Thread

The slamming of the door behind Ludwig drew his brother's eyes.

"You're home early," Gilbert remarked nonchalantly, but something, maybe the way Ludwig shook his head or clenched his fist or something made him change his tune. "What, did something happen?"

"Yes, actually," Ludwig muttered under his breath. "Something" didn't begin to cut it. Pretty much everything possible that was completely unexplainable had happened in the past several days.

Why did Gilbert seem to always get so excited at the prospect of his problems? "Really?", he questioned, red eyes widening. "What happened? Get in a fight? Feli get a new girlfriend? Spilled water on your nerdy planner thing?"

"Uh, no," Ludwig flatly stated. He wasn't sure whether to be upset that his own brother thought such things would set him off, or that come to think of it, all of those things would probably set him off.

As he proceeded to hang his coat up and start walking in the general direction of his room, Gilbert interrupted him with an annoyed "Well, why are you all pouty then?"

"I am not 'all pouty'," he protested, trying very hard to keep his face in as neutral an expression as possible to maintain this claim. "I am just not in a particularly good mood due to circumstances that would take too long to explain."

His brother smirked, like that was to be taken as a challenge. "Oh come on, I'm done with work for the day, and Gilbird and Fritz are asleep," he complained, gesturing to the birdcage next to his computer, which as he said, contained two sleeping canaries. "So I have time, and what sort of big brother would I be if I didn't worry about your problems?"

What had they said about telling people? Feliciano had pretty much said he'd have told them all about it eventually had they not been attacked, so there didn't seem to be a major problem with telling people. On the other hand, Arthur had expressed his desire not to involve civilians… while all but forcing him to leave. "I could explain things," Ludwig decided. "But you wouldn't believe me."

Gilbert chuckled. "Really? You think someone who hangs around Toni and Francy-pants would have anything left to not believe?"

Remembering the many, many crazy things his brother had come home late and attempted to explain to either him or his late grandfather, Ludwig sat down next to Gilbert. "Fair point. I can try to explain, but first I need a new notebook."

Grumbling, his brother stood up, went over to his desk, and plucked a cheap spiral-bound black notebook from the bottom of a stack of various papers. "What, do you need to explain it with spreadsheets or something?"

Ludwig pulled a pen out of his pocket. It was the blue one he used to notate his brother's schedule, and he supposed it would work well enough for this. "Practically. See, it's a very long story and I'm not too sure how to explain it properly."

How had Feli started the other day? That conversation, all he could remember of it was his friend crying in his arms after having been impaled, and he cursed his memory for focusing on that. No, wait, Kiku had compared it to something, and he smirked. "Well, you know that show you threatened to disembowel me over if I told anyone you watched it?"

"Which one?", Gilbert questioned.

His mind blanked on the title, so he searched for it out loud. "Ah, you know, the one with the- the girl who transforms and is like, the Moon Scout or something."

"Sailor Moon?" He nodded, and Gilbert gave one of his odd laughs. "Kesesese! What kind of complicated equation starts with Magical Girls?"

"Apparently, my life," Ludwig sighed. "See, a few days ago, Feliciano told me that he was-"

"Gay?" Gilbert interjected hopefully.

Why did his brother have such a one-track mind? It got a bit annoying at times, how he seemed to care more about him getting together with Feliciano than he did about him on his own. "No, that he was like that Sailor Moon girl, except instead of the moon he's the Magical Soldier of the country Italy."

For once, his brother didn't say anything stupid. He didn't say anything at all, actually. Just stared at him like he was the one being stupid. "I wish I was joking," Ludwig added after a minute. "But given he transformed right in front of me and proceed to fight a crazy woman who attempted to kill us with scarves and survived blows humans shouldn't be able to survive, I don't think that's the case."

"Okay, so Feli's a Magical Girl," Gilbert said after a minute with a shrug. "Can't say it surprises me that much. Bet Kiku likes that; he loves those kinds of shows."

"Well, he's Japan, so I'd imagine he likes it."

Gilbert stared at nothing for a second before laughing. "Okay, this is actually awesome. Like, almost approaching my awesomeness level. So you three fight monsters in the name of justice or something?"

This seemed like a good opportunity to begin using the notebook. Ludwig flipped it open and started writing about their enemies, explaining it out loud as he did so "We fight other countries that are working together to… well, possibly to capture us, but they haven't been trying particularly hard to do so. The last one just asked them for their skill sets and left. Not even the, erm flying invisible rabbit that gives the others advice seems to know what exactly they're going after. But they attack us without provocation, so-"

"Wait, go back: 'flying invisible rabbit'?"

"I wish that was a joke," Ludwig muttered as his brother dissolved into laughter. "Apparently it prefers the name 'Flying Mint Bunny'."

Though Gilbert continued to laugh even harder, Ludwig's focus was pulled by a familiar chime from his phone. Quickly, he read the message Feliciano had sent: "Just fought Norway. He's really strong, but England did a bunch of cool magic stuff and we beat him."

Another text came a second later. "England said he'd bring us home so don't worry about picking us up. See you tomorrow!"

Several emoticons followed the message, including one that looked like it was blowing a kiss. This was probably why Gilbert, who was reading over his shoulder, said "Awe, my future brother-in-law's so cute, isn't he? Who's England, some other friend you have I don't know about?"

Ludwig took this opportunity to add his least favorite non-enemy Country so far into the notebook. The entry was something along the lines of "England is Arthur Kirkland, powers are 'cool magic stuff', apparently. Doesn't want civilians involved." He explained his feelings towards the man to his brother as he did so in much less polite language.

"Wait, his name's Arthur Kirkland?", Gilbert questioned. When he nodded, another bout of weird laughter began. "Francis told me about a British-y guy called that. Said he was a stick-in-the-mud. Weird, you usually go for guys like that."

"Not when they're telling me I shouldn't interfere in the lives of my friends."

"Why not interfere? I mean, if those two are awesome Magical Girl countries, aren't you?"

The previous day at the diner, he'd vaguely overheard that possibility come up, and Feli had told him more about that on the way back. "Well, they think I could be Germany, but I'm not certain," he admitted.

"Well then, how do you activate your inner Germany?", prompted Gilbert, clearly unable to say it with a straight face. "Didn't expect to be saying that today. Or ever."

Wracking his mind, he tried to remember how it had been said that they transformed. "I'm not certain. One moment."

Quickly, he pulled his phone back out and texted a simple question to his more magical friends: "Remind me, how do you transform? There's some sort of item thing involved, right?"

Kiku alone quickly responded (Feliciano had probably fallen asleep in the car again): "Yes. With an item someone important gives to us like Feli's cross necklace we can use their love to power our attacks."

After a second, Kiku added: "Oh my god that sounds really stupid out loud. My life is a Shoujo manga and I can't stop it. Also, why are you asking?"

He texted a single word back: "Gilbert" and hoped that would be enough.

"Apparently with jewelry given to us by people we care about," Ludwig said, processing how stupid that sounded and letting out a (very) small chuckle. "Mein Gott, this really does sound like a cartoon for little girls."

"You German-ed! See, it's working already!", Gilbert happily exclaimed. "But, like, do you even have any jewlery? Did gramps give you anything? Or Feli, he's artsy, right? You could probably ask him and he'd make you a friendship bracelet or something."

Friendship bracelet… Vaguely, he remembered something about one of those. "I think he made me one when we were children, but I haven't seen it in years. I think I lost it somewhere, perhaps."

An odd expression crossed Gilbert's face. One that clearly read "Oh crap". "Uh, I think I actually might know where that is!", he quickly exclaimed and ran into his room at breakneck speed. A few moments later, he returned with a shoebox labeled "My awesome stuff, do not touch" in handwriting that must have belonged to a much younger version of his brother.

"Okay, no idea how, but I was looking through my stuff a while back and I saw a little string bracelet thing that might be what you're talking about," Gilbert said with nervousness that translated the sentence for him. Translation: "I just remembered I stole that from you when we were kids. Sorry, here it is."

He dug out a slightly faded looking loop of three pieces of embroidery floss braided together that seemed far too big for a child's wrist. Memories flooded back, of his dear friend blushing and forcing it around his wrist, quickly apologizing when it turned out to be too big to fit even when wrapped around twice. "This is the one," he said, taking the strings in his hand. "Do you think this could work, though? Even if I am Germany, this was given to me so long ago that…"

"Wait, look at it for a second," Gilbert prompted. "The colors, I mean."

The colors? They were faded, but one string had clearly once been a much brighter red, now looking almost pink, another was a faded yellow, almost gold and the last a dark grey that had to have once been black. Those colors… Something pulled at the corner of his mouth. "Black, red, gold: that's the German flag, isn't it?"

"Well, it's official: my brother is Magical Germany," Gilbert declared. "So you go do your Magical Girl stuff and show that dummkopf England up, and I'll see if I can get a hold of Francy-pants and tell him about his bad taste in friends."

Ludwig wrapped the bracelet around his wrist. It was too big even now, and he had to wrap it around his pinky finger as well to keep it in place. The feel of it felt familiar, but not just because he'd worn it out of obligation until his brother had swiped it. No, there was something there other than simple threads. There was a power, a connection, the thing that would stop the people he cared about from drifting away. He felt stronger, like he could actually fight if he wanted to. Heat and energy surged around his wrist, and he stood up and went to the door. Feliciano- no, Italy needed to see this.

AN- Aaand we have Sailor Germany, right on schedule. Sorry if it feels like I'm jumping around a bit, but trust me, between the end of last chaoter and the beginning of this one, all that happened was everyone went home, met up with England again the next day, and he sent Germany home while everyone else fought Norway. Sorry if not much happened this chapter, but we needed more Prussia in this story. Who has multiple birds! And one named after his most favorite ruler! (Totally didn't get his insult towards England from an anime I don't watch. Yep. Totally didn't do that.) Also, everyone is slowly realizing that they can't escape the girliness of the plot they are in. Kolkolkolkol...

So, if anyone cares to help, I need a few little details to be worked out. For one, what should England's transformation trinket be? I couldn't find anything on his outfit that seemed fitting, but I made something up for the others, so I can make one up for him. Also, what powers and/or weapon should Turkey have? I want to use him for a little fight sequence thing later on, and he's pretty much the only one I have no ideas for.

So, thank you for reading! -Twilight Joltik