Notes: Can I just say I flipping hate this new computer? It randomly switches into Chinese. I guess it's because my parents got the new Windows 7 program in Chinese, and I flipping hate it. Can't even type my accents without a random language change… maybe I'll get a laptop with Windows 7 in French. Or a Mac.

Disclaimer: Haven and Artemis Fowl belong to Eoin Colfer.

Part XII

"Miss Takara, you have a visitor," Nurse Suzine announced, poking her head into the room. Takara looked up from her book, paling when she saw Mr. Hugh enter.

"H-hello," she stammered, crawling back on her bead and leaning against the wall like a child caught with her hand in the biscuit jar. Mr. Hugh took a seat, his expression businesslike.

"Hello," he replied, taking out a document. "We're here to discuss the child."

Takara had to hand it to him for nonchalance. "Yes, the child," she mumbled.

"But before we talk about that… how are you?" Mr. Hugh looked at her levelly. "The treatments are effective, I hope?"

Takara nodded. "Y-yeah," she whispered. "My brain feels like mush."

Mr. Hugh laughed shortly before consulting his documents again. "Well, at least you're still cracking jokes," he remarked drily. "Now, about the child. Are you planning to abort?"

"No, should I?" Takara wondered aloud. She hadn't even considered abortion, even when they told her that she was pregnant. Maybe it was because her brain felt like mush.

"It would be the most expedient way to handle the situation," Mr. Hugh replied. "You see, the nurses fear that this child will be born a Mary Sue. It was conceived while you still had large amounts of Glitter in your bloodstream, and since your Glitter Levels have only diminished to 140, the foetus still remains in a Glitter-rich environment and will try to absorb as much of it as possible. Abortion means one less Mary Sue in this world, and it will save us the pain of having to de-Glitterify the baby after birth."

"B-but… I-I don't want to kill," Takara stammered. Leave it to Mr. Hugh to cold-bloodedly discuss killing something within her. Hadn't he harmed her enough?

"The foetus hasn't even been born yet," Mr. Hugh pointed out. "You haven't even completed the first trimester."

Takara shook her head. "Look, you've already taken so many things away from me," she complained. "I don't want you to take this child from me, too."

Mr. Hugh looked sharply at her. "You do understand the risks of carrying a Mary Sue foetus?" he asked harshly. "And you know the costs of raising this child, not including the de-Glitterification? Are you willing to handle that?"

"Are you willing to murder something so helpless?" Takara retorted.

"Look, Takara," sighed Mr. Hugh, leaning towards her as if about to divulge a secret. "If we had been any other couple in any other place at any other time, I would have agreed to raise the child. But to do that at IAHF is costly. The other Nations pay generously to maintain that state-of-the-art Nursery and to keep their Chibi Nations there. You and I don't have high enough salaries to do the same."

"But there's got to be an alternative to abortion," Takara reasoned. "I don't want to see the child killed."

Mr. Hugh frowned. "Would you be willing to give it up for adoption, then? Provided that someone here at HQ is willing to raise it? The PPC Nursery is a more inexpensive choice, after all."

Takara paused. "That seems like a better option," she said after a moment.

"A crossover Mary Sue," lectured Hermione on Thursday afternoon, "is a Mary Sue that usually acts as a bridge between two fandoms. She can be a witch who meets Arthur, or a Nation who goes to Hogwarts… maybe a Time Lady who meets the Nations and then goes to Hogwarts. Sometimes the Mary Sue will claim parentage from both fandoms – the daughter of Gilderoy Lockhart and Francis, perhaps."

"Ew," Ron grimaced. "Hermione, blokes can't have babies."

"Never stopped a fanbrat before," Hermione pointed out. Wizard Arthur winced in agreement.

"Those two would get along splendidly, though," he added. For the occasion, he was wearing the Harry Potter spoilers shirt. Several students were cowering in their seats, trying not to read the shirt. Even the Harry Potter characters were looking anywhere except there.

No one wanted to be notified (or reminded) of the fact that Snape killed Dumbledore, after all.

"Let's try a more unlikely couple, then," Hermione sighed. "How about the daughter of Arthur and Lily Evans? That makes her Harry's half-sister, too."

"But my mum never –" spluttered Harry.

"Who knows," Draco remarked snidely, smirking at Harry's shocked reaction.

"That's still likely to happen," Wizard Arthur cut in, folding his arms. "I mean, maybe before she got married to your dad, Harry, she –"

"MY MUM WOULD NEVER!" screamed the Boy Who Lived.

"Well, for a time she did hate your dad's guts," Wizard Arthur pointed out, smirking.

"Fine, something even more unlikely," growled Hermione. "Sirius Black and Gilbert Beilschmidt."

"That's even more likely than Arthur and Harry's mum," Ron groaned.

"Harry and Alfred."

"They both have hero complexes," Draco snapped.

"I don't have a hero complex!" Harry protested. "I just… find myself saving people all the time!"

"Sure, Potter, and I'm Celestina Warbeck," Draco remarked drily.

"Wait, you are?" Ron echoed.

Hermione groaned. "Ron, sarcasm isn't a Muggle invention," she complained. "Fine, someone give me an unlikely couple for our crossover Mary Sue."

"Snape and Feliks," Natashia Fernandez said immediately. Several of her peers winced.

"Yup, that's never gonna happen," Harry agreed. "Can we list a couple that might actually biologically produce a child?"

"Arthur and Bellatrix Lestrange," Laurel Martin answered. "Since she seems to have the hots for Lord Moldyshorts."

"How dare you disrespect the Dark Lord's name!" snapped Draco. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were snickering with the rest of the class. The enraged Malfoy drew his wand and turned Laurel into a pine martin.

"Circe's pigs, Ferret-face, you didn't have to Transfigure her," Ron rebuked.

"Would you like me to turn you into a weasel, Weaselhead?" Draco retorted.

"Back to crossover Mary Sues!" Hermione barked. "A crossover Mary Sue, like we said before, is a bridge between two fandoms. She might be a witch that meets a Nation or a Nation that goes to Hogwarts –"

"But what if we used a canon character for that?" Karin Guarez asked.

"I meant an Original Character who does that," Hermione corrected. "Anyways, she might be descended from canon characters in both fandoms, or she gets together with one or more of the characters in each fandom."

"Using our example," Wizard Arthur agreed, "we can talk about my imaginary kid with Bellatrix Lestrange. She'll be the personification of London, and an extremely talented witch despite the fact that not all wizards live in London –"

"To be truthful, we try not to live in Muggle cities," Ron pointed out. "Too many people to Confound."

"Yes, there's probably a higher ratio of Muggles to wizards in cities like London," agreed Hermione. "But back to the imaginary child. Let's see… she also has to outdo the rest of us, so she'll be smarter than me."

"And better at Quidditch than me," Harry added.

"Richer than Weasley – wait, everyone's richer than Weasley," Draco sneered. Ron cuffed him.

"She'll be prissier than Malfoy," the redhead growled. Harry snickered.

"And apparently there's a prophecy made about her that Arthur kept secret from Bellatrix; he took the child away from her at birth because he didn't want her to become evil," Harry added. "But that's actually a good idea, I think. If Mary Sue was raised by Bellatrix, she'd be fit to go to Bedlam."

"Can you imagine it?" Ron snickered. "Bellatrix would probably use the Cruciatus Curse on her own kid to discipline her. I'd take Arthur's cooking over that any day."

"Great, back to the cooking insults," growled Wizard Arthur. "Can you see just how annoying, unoriginal, and damaging a crossover Mary Sue can be?" Several students nodded.

"But wait, wait, the Mary Sue's not complete without ensnaring someone!" Hermione exclaimed. "She'll end up with… Malfoy!"

"No!" snapped Draco. "I would never!"

"Come on, she'd be pureblood and prissy, just like you!" Harry exclaimed. He paused. "Only she'd be in Gryffindor, since most Mary Sues go there."

"Nope, I think this one goes to Slytherin like a good hipster Sue," Wizard Arthur deadpanned. "Gryffindor's so mainstream."

"Yup, definitely with Malfoy. And then she'll turn evil for a period but then be converted back to good because she missed hanging out with Alfred, who's in Gryffindor," Hermione reasoned. "I think you get the picture."

"That last part made no sense, Stranger," Draco snapped. "If she's going to be with me, shouldn't she be evil all the time?"

"No, because here's the good part – she makes you and Harry become Best Friends Forever because of her conversion," Hermione said, grinning evilly. Draco cowered.

Wizard Arthur coughed. "All right, all right. I'm passing out these packets for homework. There are four crossover Mary Sues in here, and you have to point out their similarities, their differences, and what makes them unoriginal. All of them are crosses between Hetalia and another fandom – and not just Harry Potter."

"Here, why don't we list the Sues for you?" Hermione offered, taking one of the packets. "Here we have Arlinaria Silverwyn, the personification of Middle-earth, who falls in love with Arthur Kirkland. The two of them join the Fellowship of the Ring."

"So that's Hetalia and Lord of the Rings," agreed Wizard Arthur. "Next one is Carrie Pevensie, who is taken to my house to escape the bombing of London. She discovers Narnia through my kitchen cupboard. Once there, Aslan declares her the personification of Narnia and lets her marry Prince Caspian."

"Hetalia and Narnia," Shelby answered.

"Next one," said Harry, "is the state of Massachusetts, Tiffany Calanthe Berezi Euterpe Jones. She's the daughter of Alfred and…" he paused. "Ew."

"What?" Ron demanded, looking over Harry's shoulder. "You-Know-Who!" he screeched.

"Alfred and Voldemort?" Wizard Arthur echoed, causing Ron and Draco to flinch. "That… that…"

"That's bloody impossible," agreed Harry. "Anyways. Tiffany goes to Hogwarts, gets into Gryffindor despite being Voldemort's kid, and falls in love with… me."

"I guess there's one in-law you will never get along with, Harry," joked Wizard Arthur. Harry looked ready to bang his head against the nearest hard surface.

"The last one," announced Ron, "is Orchid Sakura Short, personification of Haven." He paused. "Whatever that is."

"It's an underground city of faeries," Anastasia Debby explained. "It's from Artemis Fowl."

"Okay," said Ron, looking unsure. "Yeah, so apparently she's the personification of… faeries. She… uh…" he squinted at the page. "She and Arthur fall in love, of course, because he likes faeries."

"Won't there's be a height difference?" Draco complained.

"Yeah, maybe, but she's got this bloke named Artemis Fowl after her as well." Ron nodded. "Yeah."

Some of the students were already panicking and asking for information on the other books. Once class was dismissed, the students (excluding Laurel the Pine Martin, since she had to be turned back into a human) all scrambled to get to the library. The majority of people were trying to get to the copies of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Some of them fainted when they saw how thick the books were.

"We're just going to have to collaborate on these," Jennifer complained as she took her seat with the other Anglophiles. "Who here knows about the Lord of the Rings without needing to get a book?"

"I've seen the movies," Merka offered. "Only… they were really long and I fell asleep during the boring parts."

"Great," groaned Kriss. "We're dead."

But trying to figure out the similarities and differences between those four crossover Mary Sues would soon become the least of the students' worries.

"Wait, we're… going out… in that?" complained Celeste on Saturday morning. Her roommate Hotaru groaned and buried her head under a pillow.

"It's a fucking blizzard out there!" the other fangirl whined, her voice muffled by her bedding. "We're all going to die of frostbite!"

"Why did Ludwig have to pick today for the Survival Skills seminar?" Celeste moaned, thudding her head against the windowpane. Outside the wind howled and the snow fell furiously. "Why?"

That was the question on pretty much everyone else's mind when they gathered at sundown outside the Orientation Hall. Everyone was bundled up and carried a mountain of blankets in addition to their supplies. Only Karen DuLay looked eager for the trip; she was practically bouncing with excitement and seemed to carrying tubs of… was that petrol?

"Karen, I don't think you're going to be able to start a fire with all of this wind," Kiri Olaveja pointed out as Ludwig arrived on the scene with SatW Norway in tow.

"Shut up, I want to listen to Ludwig," Karen growled back, as the German started giving instructions.

The students soon found themselves trekking after Ludwig in the cold, lugging along their backpacks and other camping equipment. SatW Norway and Ludwig were up front, laughing about something while the students trudged behind wondering what was so funny about walking about in a blizzard.

"I bet Ivan asked General Winter to do this," KyAnna complained to Monochrome Cloud.

"Evil bugger," Monochrome agreed, her head bowed against the wind. A few paces away, Andy was trying to light a cigarette, but his lighter kept going out. Next to him, Sara Parker was clutching a bottle of Danish beer (she had paid the beer ghost to steal it from SatW Denmark on Friday) as if her life depended on it. It might have, since alcohol did provide warmth.

"You know, Luddy," Karen DuLay hollered as they finally stumbled upon their campsite (the Academy buildings had disappeared by now, replaced by a forest of bare tree trunks and frosted firs. "Aren't we supposed to spoon for warmth out here?"

"He's not going to spoon with you," Kiri Olaveja retorted.

"And who says he's going to spoon with you?" Karen retorted.

The other students began to set up camp.

"Ouch," whistled SatW America as they watched the mayhem from Kiku's camera feeds. The intrepid Japanese voyeur had installed weather-resistant cameras on the trees near the camp a week ago.

"Is that… fire?" John Bull demanded, puffing on his cigar.

"Mein Gott," SatW Prussia muttered. King Europe bounced behind him, trying to see the screen.

"For the love of peace, Prussia, take off that hat!" King Europe finally exclaimed, exasperated. "You're blocking the view!"

"The awesome Prussia doesn't listen to orders from stinking third-world countries like you!" Gilbert snapped. A gasp rang through the National personifications.

"He called someone third-world!" SatW America exclaimed, ever the tattler. "Daddy, daddy, make him go to jail! You said it was a bad word!" SatW England rolled his eyes.

"I'm not even third-world!" King Europe spluttered. "You're part of me, you nonexistent Nation!"

More gasps. "Isn't that a bad word, too?" SatW America asked.

"Calm down, America," SatW England growled. "They're insults, yes, but they're not bad words."

"What does third-world even mean?" Afuganisu-tan asked Pakisu-tan.

"It means someone just emerging from imperialism, someone who usually has economic and social instability, not to mention a corrupt government," SatW Sweden cut in before Pakisu-tan could reply. "It's one of the worst insults Nations have."

"But how Gilbert used it doesn't make sense, since King Europe did the imperialising," Seychelles pointed out sadly.

"He still used it with the intent to insult," SatW Sweden replied.

Everyone turned their attention back to the screen. Apparently Karen DuLay had set several students' tents on fire, but that didn't seem to perturb the others. They were pretty cold, after all.

"She's trying to sneak into Ludwig's tent," Sister Germany said suddenly, frowning.

"There go the Mochis," Kiku replied, pointing to some white blobs parachuting out of the nearby trees. "Lduwig, Desutchland, Allemange are converging on her right now."

"That's got to hurt," Meriken sighed, leaning against Alfred nonchalantly.

The door to the room opened and Mr. Allen strode in with Arthur and the Bled Pinjas. "What's going on?" the Course Coordinator demanded.

"Ludwig's Winter Survival seminar," explained SatW England, looking away from the screen to smile at Arthur.

"Lovely. Well, the Bled Pinjas –"

"You two were responsible for repainting the guest rooms?" Point Man Arthur demanded, pointing an accusatory finger at Pirate Arthur and Ninja Kiku.

"It's an IAHF tradition," Ninja Kiku replied cheerily. "We have information for you regarding the whereabouts of the disappearing Nations."

"Who died this time?" Belgium demanded, discreetly scooting away from SatW Belgium. The nerdy redhead looked rather put off by that.

"The PPC Tech department finished developing their tracking devices today and gave three of them to us," explained Ninja Kiku. "We put them on MI6 Arthur, DGSE Francis, and McCarthy Alfred. They all disappeared earlier today. MI6 Arthur and DGSE Francis went to your world," here he pointed to the SatW Nations, "and McCarthy Alfred went to our parallel universe."

Dead silence. "Wait, wait, you never told us you had a parallel universe," SatW England snapped. "What is it, exactly?"

"A parallel universe where everyone wears cat ears and prances around shirtless," Francis replied immediately. "There are at least twenty-three versions of me."

"The versions of Alfred there are horrendously perverted," added Arthur. "And there was that one version of Antonio that Assbitch liked…"

"Either way, it's cracky," Alfred agreed. "They're pretty much separate from us."

Mr. Allen nodded. "It's a start, though," he said. "We can go to the parallel world and ask for help from them. They seem to know how to travel between worlds, since they did that during one of the previous Christmas Bloodbaths."

"Try to get Parallel France Number 23," suggested Tino. "I heard he's friendlier than the others."

Mr. Allen pushed a couple of buttons on his Remote Activator and summoned up a portal. "Someone needs to come with me," he said.

"We be goin' wi' yeh," Pirate Arthur drawled. "Jus' in case yeh turn inta Mr. Hugh."

"Yes, we can't have you stuck in there forever because you broke the portal thingy," Ninja Kiku agreed. "Let's go."

"Good luck," the others called as the three of them stepped through the blue doorway. The portal flickered and then disappeared as soon as Mr. Allen vanished.

"Here's to hoping they make it back in one piece," SatW Denmark declared, fumbling for his beer. He paused. "Okay, which one of you stole my beer?"