Mattie woke up the next morning to a text. She picked up her cell phone, and noticed it was from Allison. It read, and I quote; 'gkdhcvkhgcvbelcbgekry'.
"What's this supposed to mean?" she wondered out loud as she responded to the text with the same words.
'Who's this?' Allison's responding text was.
'Mattie! You know, Canada's gender swap?' The Canadian girl replied.
'O yea. Why r u txting me?' Allison asked in the weird text language Mattie hated to read.
'You texted me first…' Mattie explained plainly.
'I did?' Allison's question read.
As Mattie was about to respond with a 'yes', her phone rang again, and this time Allison was calling her.
"Hello?" Mattie asked.
"Heh, sorry for texting you," Allison said, sounding as if she were in a hurry. "I must've sat on the phone or something. "
As Allison prepared to hang up, Mattie asked, "Why do you sound so rushed?"
"Oh, that," Allison responded in a tone that said, 'Why do you want to know? That's not an interesting question.' "I'm just trying to save Ariana."
"Save Ariana?" Mattie questioned, her voice going a little bit louder than usual, which was surprising. "Save her from what?"
"Prussia," Allison responded, as if it wasn't a big deal. "I'm just gunna bust in there and kick his-"
Mattie interjected before Allison could finish. "Wait!" she said. "Can I go with you?"
"You're only going to get in my way," Allison replied. "But every good hero needs an incompetent sidekick that's only half as awesome as the hero!"
Mattie ignored Allison's not-meant-to-be-but-was insult and kept talking. "I just want Ariana to recognize me more and pay more attention, because the only time we've ever really talked is right after she kicked me in the gut at Louella's place."
"And how's following in my footsteps going to help with that?" Allison asked. "Besides, I don't even know what you're talking about."
Mattie sighed away from the phone before answering, "If I save her, no doubt she's going to notice I exist."
"Okay," Allison said. "I'm at the airport already. I'll be waiting for you when you get there." There was a long pause, before Mattie heard Allison continue, "And don't take too long! I just ran out of snacks!"
The long beep signaling Allison had hung up sounded, and Mattie closed her phone. She climbed out of bed, and began getting ready.
Once Mattie had taken a bus to the airport Allison was (vaguely) talking about, she began to look around, but didn't see the American 'hero'.
As she was about to go through another doorway, as hand grabbed her shoulder. Mattie shuddered, and turned around. Allison was glaring at her with blue eyes.
"What took you so long?" Allison questioned quietly (for once), so she wouldn't draw attention to themselves.
"I only took an hour or so!" Mattie cried silently.
"Ugh, whatever," Allison sighed, muttering something like 'sidekicks aren't late, only heroes can be late'. "I hope you brought money."
"Huh?" Mattie questioned. "I thought you would be paying!"
"I ran out of cash buying fries at a restaurant on the way here!" Allison exclaimed, getting louder as she went on. "Did you at least bring a credit card?"
"Yes, but it's only for emergencies, and Cana-" As she was about to finish, Allison took the card from her pocket and inspected it.
"You've never used this, by the looks of it," Allison observed, even though she had absolutely no way of knowing that and was most likely just guessing.
"Hey, give it back," Mattie commanded in a non-commanding tone.
But Allison of course didn't hear her; she was too busy buying two (first-class) tickets for the next plane to London.
"Canada's going to be disappointed," Mattie sighed sadly.
On the plane, Allison and Mattie were sitting beside each other and talking.
"What'd you bring with you, sidekick of mine?" Allison asked rudely.
"Only the credit card," Mattie said. Allison still hadn't returned it, but Mattie didn't want to get mad at her or anything, so she didn't mention it.
"Oh, because I brought all this food, but ate it all on the way here, and while I was waiting, and stuff," Allison said.
"I don't see why you'd bring all that," Mattie said. "All you need to bring is money and some clothes, if you're going to be staying for an extended amount of time." As she was about to continue, she heard snoring. She turned around, and noticed that in the whole ten seconds or so she had been talking, Allison had fallen asleep. To make matters more miserable for Mattie, Allison had also swiped the pillow they had been sharing, and now Mattie had to sit through an entire plane ride from North America to Europe, with nothing to entertain her but some crappy in-flight movie the plane had to offer.
When the plane finally landed, Mattie had sat through the same movie for far too long, and was more than ready to depart. She shook awake Allison, who had a pool of drool left stained on the pillow, they left the plane.
After taking a second bus (That Allison, again, paid for with Mattie's emergency credit card), the two North Americans were at England's doorstep… not metaphorically, either.
Allison knocked on the door harshly, shouting, "Hey! It's Allison! The hero! Open up! I wanna help!" As her shouts along the same lines of that continued, Mattie simply rang the doorbell a single time, which made Allison stop abruptly, turn to Mattie, and question, "Seriously? You think that's going to get his attention?"
Right after Allison said that, the door opened, and England was there, glaring at Allison. "Why'd you have to be so loud?" He questioned with anger. A few minutes of ranting about the noise later, he let the two inside. Allison and Mattie sat on a sofa together, while England sat on a separate sofa.
"So, you've come to rescue Ariana?" England asked.
"Yup, but first we gotta get the details," Allison said. "When'd she go missing?"
"On the day of the World Meeting," England answered.
"Did you discover any clues?" Allison countered.
"Just some blood, and my umbrellas were all over the floor," England replied.
"Hmm, I see…" Allison said, making her sound intelligent.
"I bet Ariana was in a fight with the umbrellas," Mattie whispered to Allison, who seemed to act surprised.
"Huh? Oh yeah, that's what I was thinking!" Allison lied unconvincingly.
"Can you just leave now and start looking?" England asked, obviously getting sick of Allison's idiocy.
"Of course!" Allison exclaimed, standing up heroically and pointing at the ceiling. Mattie nodded before standing up as well and walking out with Allison.
One plane ride (and one credit card charge) later, Mattie was hopelessly following Allison around was they wandered around aimlessly looking for Prussia's place (which was some random building with only three floors, that would be really hard to miss because it has strobe lights and other bright things, making it a wonder anyone could possibly sleep in there).
"This way!" Allison announced, pointing for her right and marching off.
"I'm pretty sure that's the way we just came from," Mattie pointed out.
"Oh, yeah," Allison said, before pointed to the left. "Then let's go this way!"
Mattie could clearly see the bright lights to the south, so she suggested, "Let's go this way."
"Sidekicks don't know directions!" Allison said. "But, I'll go with you anyway. Not because I don't know the way, but every sidekick needs their time in the limelight!"
Mattie didn't respond, like usual.
They finally reached the gleaming building, which was Prussia's 'awesome palace' (A nearby neon light claimed). Allison run up to the door and began slamming her fist against it, like she had at England's place, but with more bad words and threats. Again, Mattie simply rang the doorbell and the man opened the door. "What do you two want?" he asked, only recognizing Mattie because Allison was standing right beside her, and two Allisons would be weird.
"Where's Ariana?" Allison questioned.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Prussia lied.
"Yes, you do!" Allison shouted. "Now let us inside so we can look!"
"No," Prussia replied with a smirk.
"C'mon, 'ya douche! Let us in!" Allison growled.
"Please?" Mattie asked silently, but it was not overheard.
"The awesome me still says 'no'," Prussia said.
Mattie thought, "This guy's grammar is just as bad as Allison's text talk,"
"And the cool hero says 'yes'!" Allison shouted.
They kept saying 'the awesome me' says this and 'the cool hero' says that, until Mattie just walked past them and went inside. Neither of them seemed to notice, of course.
Mattie stepped up some stairs in Prussia's foyer, and was in a hallway. She looking in all the doors (And in them found; 1:)A bathroom, 2:) A bedroom, 3:) a library (with cobwebs and dust everywhere), 4:) Some weird pink bedroom with fuzzy stuff and empty beer mugs everywhere(Mattie closed the door immediately and shuddered with the thought of what that was for), 5:) an alarming amount of birds, and finally, drum roll please… 6:) An empty room (Wow, impressive.).)
Eventually, in the hallway, she found some stairs leading to the third and final floor of the building. Piano music began to echo in the hall at she scaled them carefully. Once at the top, she looked around. She recognized the small living room that was the room where she and the other gender swaps conversed for an hour every day. It seemed to be without life now that it probably wasn't being used anymore (Honestly, it was a bad investment on Prussia's part to include a room he'd never use after a week or two in his renovation plans).
Suddenly, Mattie heard doors all open in unison. She became startled and looked around, and saw that three boys had just exited separate doors and were now roaming around the room. They, too, didn't see Mattie.
Then, the piano music grew louder as the boys opened a door that seemed to be a storage room closet, but in reality was huge, and had a grand piano in the center (Seriously, where does Prussia get the money for all this stuff he's not even going to use or even think about after this whole situation is over?). Playing the piano was a brown-haired girl with glasses, who stopped when the boys entered and stood up. She walked out of the closet, the boys following her, and they all sat of the sofas in the center of the room.
As they talked, Mattie began to sneak over to one of the doors that hadn't opened like the rest. She tried to open the door, but found it to be locked. She pulled a bobby pin out of her hair and carefully picked it (A seemingly useless skill Allison had taught her on the bus ride to the second airport). Eventually, the door knob clicked, and the door opened. Sitting on the bed was Ariana, who looked over to the door when it opened. "Hello?" she asked. Obviously Mattie wasn't visible to her.
"I'm right here!" Mattie said, trying to be as loud as she could but failing.
Ariana heard her anyway. "Mattie?" she asked.
"Yes," Mattie answered. "C'mon, let's get Francisca and those other kids and leave."
"How did you get here, anyway?" Ariana questioned as Mattie fiddles with Francisca's lock.
"Bus, plane, another bus, another plane, and a long walk," Mattie listed. "And then I just slipped by Prussia and Allison as they were fighting.
"Allison's here, too?" Ariana sounded only moderately surprised.
"Uh-huh," Mattie affirmed. "Like I just said earlier, she's busy fighting with Prussia at the front door."
The doorknob finally clicked over what seemed to take forever, and Francisca was there, sitting on her bed as well, until she, too, noticed her door open. However, instead of questioning who did that like Ariana had, she leaped off her bed and gave Ariana a hug. "Yes! You rescued me!"
Ariana tried in vain to explain that Mattie had saved her as she was being hugged. Meanwhile, the three boys and the brown-haired girl had noticed they (Ariana and Francisca) were standing there. They went over to them and began asking tons of questions, before Ariana broke out of Francisca's hug and led them down the stairs to the second floor.
They went into the empty room (After failing to get there only twice, going into the bird room and the fuzzy pink room (Which Francisca, for some reason, liked) ), and Ariana opened the single window in there. She looked down, saw a bush, and commanded, "Everyone, jump out the window and land in that bush down there."
Mattie nodded and attempted to Jump first, but one of the boys cut in front of her before she could go.
"I must see sister Iscah again!" the boy cried, before leaping and landing safely in the bush.
Mattie tried again, but was cut off by another one of the boys. "I'm worried, I need her for comfort right now," the boy said, before also jumping.
Mattie endeavored again, in vain as the final boy and the brown-haired girl jumped out together.
Ariana and Francisca went next, and then, to Mattie's surprise, Prudence suddenly busted through the door to the room and jumped out after them. Mattie was getting quite sick of this, so she finally jumped out the window, being the last to do so.
Prudence was chasing Allison (who had recently conceded from her argument), who was chasing Ariana, who was chasing Francisca, who was chasing the gender swaps Mattie had just met. Speaking of Mattie, she was chasing after Prudence. Suddenly, a helicopter flew down from the sky and dropped a ladder, and the new gender swaps, Ariana, Francisca, and Allison climbed into it. Prudence failed to get on, but Mattie ran past her and managed to grab the ladder as the helicopter began to go higher in the sky.
Mattie, fighting against the strong winds, actually managed to get to the top of the ladder, only to see that the door was closed. She knocked on the door, until she noticed that there was actually a doorbell on the side of the helicopter for some odd reason. She pressed it, which opened the door, letting Mattie into the helicopter. Why there was a random button to open the helicopter door from the outside, Mattie didn't know. It was probably just and American thing or something.
Mattie pulled up the ladder, before closing the door.
Everyone stared blankly at the door. "What was that?" The brown haired girl asked.
"I'm Mattie," The Canadian said softly. No one heard her.
The ride continued, until Allison announced they were over Ariana's place. "Okay, time to jump," Allison said, handing Ariana a parachute.
"What? You expect me to jump from this thing?" Ariana questioned.
"Heck yeah! Heroic rescues call for heroic escapes, like a kick-ass helicopter, and a heroic reunion for the kidnapped person, which is jumping from the helicopter!" Allison shouted.
Silence for a couple seconds.
"You're kidding, right?" Ariana asked.
"No," Allison said. She pushed Ariana over to the door, strapped on the British girl's parachute, and then opened the door and pushed her. Allison watched closely, until she saw the parachute open, before telling the pilot of the helicopter to keep going.
After that, they dropped off Francisca, before landing back at America's place.
America came running out of his house to see the helicopter in awe as Allison exited. "That was awesome!" He exclaimed, giving Allison a high-five.
"Haha! I know, right?" Allison questioned.
"We're still here!" The brown-haired girl called.
America glanced into the helicopter and saw the brown-haired girl and the three boys. "Who are they?" he queried.
"Just some other gender swaps Prussia had also kidnapped," Allison said.
"And they're staying here?" America questioned.
Allison was about to reply, but froze. "I… forgot to drop them off at Ariana's place…" she said. God knows why she was going to drop them off with England and Ariana, but she was.
"…Oh," America said. "Well, we always have your room for them to sleep in."
"Who said they're sleeping in my room?" Allison asked. "I think they should sleep in-"
"One, two, three, NOT IT!" Allison was interrupted by America's rather childish way of saying, "No way, they're going to sleep in your room, not mine!" while he put a finger on his nose.
"Aww, no fair!" Allison groaned, before leading the four new gender swaps into her house. Soon enough, the only one left outside was Mattie.
"Looks like I'll have to take another bus," Mattie sighed, reaching into her pocket to search for her credit card, before remembering Allison still had it.
"Allison, you jerk," she mumbled, looking to her shoes as she began to walk off.
Super sorry for the even LATER chapter!
What happened was, I had this Chapter 100% finished, but then it got deleted off of my computer and I had to rewrite it! It took me two hours and it was a very sucky time :P
But in all honesty, I like how I wrote it this time better than I originally wrote it.
Here are some differences I can think of right now, because I think that would be interesting to imagine while the next chapter is being written (If you don't care, don't read, because there are a TON. Just skip to where it ends for details about the next chapter):
….
*Originally, Mattie got left outside of Prussia's house while Allison went in
*Prussia never said the word 'awesome' all chapter
*The place where the gender swaps were was originally an attic
* There was a random Ariana POV (For new Fanfic readers, that stands for 'Point of View')section in which Ariana noticed Allison (and Mattie, however she at first believed she was an Allison clone and then mistook her name for 'Mary') at Prussia's front door
* More on POVs:
-After the point where she got rescued, it was Ariana's POV
- The transitions of the POVs were kind of hard to follow (First Mattie, then Ariana for a short time, then Allison, then Ariana for the rest of the story)
* Mattie never entered the helicopter and instead just hung on to the ladder the entire time
* The only locked door that got picked was Francisca's (Using Allison's bobby pin, not Mattie's), Allison broke down Ariana's door
* They escaped out the front door (Somehow without getting caught)
* Mattie's credit card was only used once, for the plane to London, and Allison didn't steal it
* Allison didn't refer to Mattie as her 'sidekick'
* Allison didn't buy snacks on her way to airport
* The weirdest one overall: The original 'butt-text' from Allison had a random cat smiley face emoticon (:3) at the end for no reason
* Allison didn't text talk
* The strobe lights on Prussia's place weren't included
* Allison announced she was the hero so many times it got really repetitive (and I mean really repetitive!)
*The only 'cuss word' was said by Prussia, which was 'What the hell do you want?' immediately after he opened his front door
- I was going to write that in again, but I felt it wouldn't be necessary, as Allison's line about the helicopter was the perfect use of a bad word what would actually be appropriate because it's funny, while the question was not and had no reason to be included, as it wasn't necessary to continue the plot or very funny.
*Prussia's place of residence wasn't explained very well
* Mattie was going to be banging her head on the airplane window as they were exiting the plane at London
* Mattie added, 'And Francisca' when Allison questioned where Ariana was (She wasn't heard, of course)
* England was going to reveal he suspected Prussia; instead, Allison knew the whole time
-On that topic, originally England didn't mention anything about the umbrellas, and Mattie didn't say anything the entire time.
* Two things concerning the scenes inside Prussia's house leading up to the part where Mattie/Allison (In the original) find the new gender swaps;
- Allison looked under a couch cushion for Ariana before discovering the stairs
-Allison didn't inspect the other rooms first like Mattie did
*Ariana, as she was climbing up the helicopter ladder, was going to shout, "Overkill!", as a reference to Chapter 5, 'Hamburgers and Hurt', when she made the same comment when Allison brought a helicopter to Louella's house.
* It would be discovered Allison called up someone to bring in a helicopter (It's still the reason the helicopter came, it just isn't seen, is all.)
* Mattie getting left in America's front yard without money for a bus wasn't there (Because, being in Ariana's POV, and Ariana being the first to exit the helicopter, she didn't see that happen. Also because Mattie would still have her credit card.)
* All of the random Lampshading in parenthesis weren't included (See below change)
* The original had narrator-esque little comments (Ex: In the ten seconds Mattie talked, Allison had also stolen their shared pillow to sleep on. Wow, that sucks.)
….
Whew, that took a while. Anyway, if you wanted info on the development of the next chapter, I've already started it. I'll just have to change it a little to make it better correspond with this updated chapter, but other than that, expect it to be done pretty soon :D
Until next chapter, see ya!
PS: One more thing, it's not really that important, though; my sister watched this show that's episode names are done in the same way as my chapter names. That was never my intention (To copy their way to name episodes/chapters), just to make that clear. I don't like that show, and my sister doesn't either, so my titles don't have anything to do with theirs.