The next few minutes consisted of pure combat. It was chaos, to put it simply.
Alfred's snipers were doing more of the taking out. It was the nations down there fighting man-to-man that drew the Frost Men away from the hotel. The creatures were more intently focused on the closest nation, making it easier for the snipers to target them.
Alfred reloaded the next magazine. He watched Gilbert fight the FM. The Prussian was a demon when he got serious—he was as awesome as he said he was. His skills were a little bit rusty after centuries of no conflict, but wielding those two duo swords, even Alfred had to admit he was shaking in his shoes.
He couldn't observe the east side of the hotel, but he could spot some action from the north and south. Denmark was all the way up at the front lines. Afterwards came Norway and then Iceland.
To his right, Alfred made out England in a swarm of marble white, a magical barrier protecting him from harm. The Brit was doing some sort of tranquilizing spell that froze the Frost Men in their place. A few got across him, but Russia made sure they didn't pass an inch over his threshold.
He wondered what was passing through each of their minds at the moment.
Gilbert was having the time of his life.
One nearly got him on the shoulder at first, but two minutes in and he remembered all the combat abilities he'd obtained over the couple years he'd been alive. He felt the way he did all those centuries ago when he raided on Turkey. It was exhilarating.
Of course, he knew his own priorities. The snipers were doing an awesome job aiding him in his fight.
It became sort of a mantra to him after a while: spin, stab, parry, block, spin, stab, parry, block . . .
He'd realized that these Frost Men had a distinct fighting pattern to them. The ones he was fighting couldn't possibly be the ones deployed to kill him. In fact, they were easy to defeat.
Gilbert stabbed at their mouths with no problem. They towered a few feet above him, but once you got them close enough to bite your face off, with their mouths open, it was easy to mark the X and follow through.
He was grateful for being ambidextrous. Most of the nations were, but others were strictly one-handed only—something to do with the average population being this handed or whatever.
He didn't know how long he'd been doing this for, but fives minutes after, he clashed swords/claws with a Frost Man that was a little bit more stubborn than the rest.
Gilbert knew that this Frost Man here had been the one sent to kill him.
He let the rest of the FM past for Kiku to deal with. He had only eyes for this one in particular.
The plan at first was to let a few Frost Men in for Russia to deal with.
This was Arthur's role. He was to freeze the majority and let the rest past for Ivan to defeat. But partway through his spell casting, he suffered a severe drain. The spell switched off and a swarm pounced at him.
Thankfully his barrier was still active, but the paralyses spell had been completely negated. By what, he wasn't sure. But right now, this wasn't the time nor place to fathom such things.
Arthur slashed at a FM blocking his way with his pirate sword, and whirled around. "IVAN! MY SPELL'S BEEN BLOCKED! I CAN'T FREEZE THEM ANYMORE!"
Ivan didn't reply. Either he couldn't hear, or he was perfectly fine with bashing more heads in.
"Dammit," he cursed.
He had to get creative.
There was obviously more of these monsters lingering in the shadows of the buildings somewhere. They weren't completely stupid; they knew not to run down the street and announce their presence so openly.
There had to be more further away from the hotel, waiting for the right moment, the right point in time where the hotel was at its weakest defense—then they would strike.
Arthur fought his way through the remaining FM and let the rest pass him. He started down the street, clutching at his abdomen. He didn't know why, but he had a feeling his power drain wasn't just a coincidence. He also felt a pain at his side that wouldn't go away.
Something's wrong.
Emil was worried. He stood nearest to the hotel, having his brother in front of him and Mathias at first.
As always, the Dane fought expertly. Emil often thought the huge axe was impractical, but it got things done quickly. Instead of killing the FM through the mouth, he chopped off all the sharp parts of the monster's body. That left the FM feeling confused and weak.
The de-clawed group of Frost Men staggered towards Lukas, who finished them off with a stab through the head.
But something else was nagging Emil. He could feel it in his gut, a certain emptiness that should be filled . . . but wasn't.
Emil spared a glance behind him. On the east side, he could hear the machine guns firing with all they had. Were Berwald and Tino okay?
Well, Mathias had things handled. He could leave for a bit and they wouldn't notice, right? Just to see if Sweden and Finland were all right.
Emil ran across the sidewalk and turned the corner. Immediately the empty feeling in his gut deepened. He gripped his sword until his nails dug into his skin.
The east side had been completely overrun.
Up above on the hotel wall, a few dozen FM were scaling up the side. The snipers were trying their best to get them off, but their guns were more equipped for short-ranged combat. Some carried knives or hand-guns, but they weren't enough.
Where are Berwald and Tino?
Better question was, what the hell was Switzerland doing at this time?!
Emil set out to search for the Swiss. He was at the front lines; he should have been able to protect the others! Why wasn't he doing his job properly?
But the journey was difficult. He had to fend off several FM on his own. He immediately regretted the decision of veering off from his duties. He should be defending the north side with Mathias and Lukas.
Instead he was here, looking for missing nations.
He risked a glance behind him. Most of the Frost Men hadn't really bothered with the snipers. Overall, they ignored the nations. Supposedly, these FM weren't the ones deployed to specifically target these nations.
Soon the snipers began to realize they weren't in danger and went back to shooting what FM they could target.
The rest of the FM on the hotel were still scaling their way to the top with no problem.
There's no time to worry about them!
Emil headed off deeper into the city. Hopefully, wherever Vash, Berwald and Tino had gone, they were still alive.
"Uh . . . Feli. We've got a problem."
"Ve? What is it, Elizabeta?"
Hungary was leaning over the east side of the hotel. "It's rather difficult to explain how it has come to be, but . . . we've got incoming."
"I knew something was going to go wrong," said Matthew.
"You jinxed it!" Feliciano accused. "So what do we do? If they come up here—"
Matthew tossed him Alfred's gun. "Take this and start shooting them off."
"What?! I can't aim properly from this distance!"
"Doesn't matter. As long as you make them fall off, that'll give us more time for the transmitter's completion."
Feliciano stared at the gun as if it was a foreign object from space. He gulped and Ve'd meekly.
"I will assist," said Elizabeta. "If one gets on the roof, I will stab them. For now, do your best in shooting them, Feli."
Feliciano's hands shook as he handled the gun. In the end, he had to settle for two hands.
Aim and fire, he mentally chanted. That's easy, Veneziano. You can do this.
Matthew busied himself with the last wire. Immediately an idea sprang into his mind.
"Feli, Elizabeta, buy me some time."
"What do you think I'm doing?!" Feliciano screamed, firing the gun. A few times the bullets bounced off the railings and missed the FM completely, but he got the hang of it soon enough and began shooting the things through the head.
"What are you going to do?" Elizabeta asked Matthew.
The Canadian scoured the roof, taking note of the amount of cables and metal lying around.
"Well . . . I'm actually hoping on electrocuting this building."
". . . Matthew. Stupid ideas is your brother's job."
"I'm serious," Matthew stated. "Alfred's stupidity is contagious. But it's so stupid, that it just might work."
Elizabeta sighed. "Okay. What do I have to do?"
"Alfred . . . czzzzsshhhhhh . . . America, come in."
Alfred held the radio to his mouth. "Yeah, what?"
"You might want to come inside and see this."
"Ugh, fine. Just give me a second."
Alfred engaged the automatic setting for his sniper. That's what he loved about this gun. The sheer size of it meant it was programmed with a bunch of different commands. Ergo, he could pwn stuff without him being around to pwn stuff.
He made his way inside, where Lovino and Antonio were waiting for him.
"You done yet?"
Antonio made a reluctant face. "Er, we—that is, er—"
"We have a problem," Lovino said.
"Don't we always?" Alfred sighed.
"This time is different." He stepped aside to reveal a basketball-sized, antique diving helmet-shaped contraption with a weird whirring bullhorn attached to the top of it.
"The fuck is that?"
Lovino scowled. Apparently he didn't appreciate Alfred's response.
"This is the stupid transmitter, stupid American. Unfortunately, it's too heavy for either of us to lift, so we're calling you, a obvious superpower, to carry this stupid thing up to Matthew and my stupid little brother."
"Too heavy?" Alfred stepped forward and tested how he would carry it. "Are you sure you're just not strong enough, Lovi?"
"Do not question my strength!" Lovino snapped.
"Yes," Antonio said, nodding sagely. "You best not."
"I just don't like using it all the time, that's all . . ."
"Why so defensive, bro? Man, Italians really are useless."
Lovino pushed his sleeves up. "That's it. I am going to pomodoro roba incollare la tua camicia e appendere fuori al sole. Vedi come ti piace! Cazzo di bastardo!"
Alfred waved his arms. "Ooh, I'm so scared."
Antonio face palmed. "Roma, if you need a lesson in insulting, I'd be happy to help. Also, try to keep your language consistent."
"JUST GET THE DAMNED THING TO THE ROOF!"
Alfred laughed obnoxiously as he hobbled out the door. Man, this thing was heavy. He was carrying at least half a dozen bowling balls, all packed into the size of one.
"You better do your job," he told the weird helmet thingy. "Or you're going to have the whole world's death on your conscience."
These are just tiny little snippets of what's happening altogether. Oh yes, and what Romano said up there, it goes something like this: "I am going to stuff tomatoes down your shirt and hang you out in the sun. See how you like that! Fucking bastard!"
And yes, he really does need to work on his insults.
Next chapter: England