Warning: swearing.
Chapter Twelve
It was as if Lilli Zwingli had sliced open and peeled away one layer of the world to reveal another. It was still the same world: the same trees, the same buildings and cars and everything, but that 'everything' was washed with a layer of gray, the colors dulled and lifeless.
And everything had frozen.
The trees were posed in the middle of a strong gust of wind, leaves suspended in midair and refusing to flutter to the ground. The guards had frozen as well, many of them with funny expressions that one tended to find when you stopped an action movie in the heat of the battle. Vash was there too, inconspicuously frozen at his post by the door, forest green eyes staring unmoving in front of him, his rifle slung limply from his shoulders.
"Whoa…" Mathias was busy examining the frozen figures. He had plucked a bullet suspended in midair and was now trying to stuff it back into the gun. He left it stuck at the mouth of the barrel, then experimentally pinched the holder's cheek. The flesh that he had pinched became stuck in the position, Mathias's thumb and forefinger imprinted on the man's cheek as if he was made of clay. It was both fascinating and revolting.
"Try not to change things too much. If you're going to move things, please remember to place them to the original position. Otherwise, it interferes with the time lapse inside and outside the Zone," Lilli informed them, sounding almost like a tour guide. "This is especially the case for organic beings such as humans."
"Zone?" Lovino inquired, then startled when he took in the girl—no, the woman—who now stood behind him. She was petite, with golden hair hanging just below the shoulders and familiar blue-green eyes. The stranger was small in stature, but her figure was full and complete, and her face was too sharp to be that of a young girl's. It took him a moment to realize that this was Lilli Zwingli.
"What the fuck happened to you?!"
Lilli's head tilted thoughtfully to one side, and she gave him a smile – a girl's smile: small, timid, mysterious. "I think you know very well what happened to me, even if you have not experienced it personally."
And then she glided past him towards her brother, not sparing a glance for the frozen guards poised around them. "The Zone is the area where I control the flow of time. I can slow it, I can stop it, but I can only do anything within the boundaries of the Zone. It's complicated, and I don't really understand it either, but the world outside the Zone will always only see the world inside the way it was before the Zone took over. The clock Inside may still be turning, but it would not be seen by anyone outside the Zone, and the only way they would know how things inside the restricted area has changed would be for them to enter the Zone."
She brushed an affectionate hand over Vash's cheek, and a shiver seemed to ripple though him as color filtered onto his form. Vash blinked, slightly baffled as he unfroze from his spot, and for one moment he was the stiff soldier with a fierce temper, sharp words on his tongue and ready to snap or bite when he caught sight of Lilli.
His shoulders sagged, and a slightly dazed expression of bewilderment flitted over his fact. He raised a hesitant hand to touch the young woman's sharp jaw-line, trailing down her slender neck to rest on a bony shoulder. He looked lost, and there was something incredibly sad in his misty green eyes. "Oh gosh, Lilli, he murmured. "I'm so sorry."
But she simply offered a gentle smile and replied in the soothing voice of a mother comforting a distraught child, "You always find a way to save me, Brother."
"How very interesting, Lilli." Then Lovino had to interrupt, because things were getting a bit too sappy for his mental health. "Your abilities intrigue me." And there was a minor pang of guilt, because Lilli Zwingli's abilities were actually amazing, but the price for these powers to control the time in a certain area limited inside this Zone was steep. At the rate she was aging, he wondered if she would be able to live another decade before her body expires. "This," he gestured at the pair of siblings, "is all very sweet, but now that we've got the gang, we should get going. Oi, Køhler!" he shouted at the tall blonde, who was currently examining another guard's tool belt, spilling random weapons on the floor and tucking those that caught his eye onto his own belt.
Vash shot both of them a stinky look, but said casually enough, "Just stroll inside and grab the man. Should be simple enough."
"I can't touch anything," reminded Lilli, gesturing to emphasize the importance of her warning. "It would become free of the Zone." While gesticulating her hand accidentally brushed against the guard poised right beside her, and there was a ripple of color as the man unfroze, confusion and alarm flickering over his face as he took in the sight of his comrades still stuck in a moment of the past.
Equally alarmed but much more level-headed as he actually knew what was going on, Vash bashed the butt of his rifle into the man's head, and he crumpled to the ground without another word.
There was a moment of silence as all four of them stared at the unconscious man. Then—
"Oops," Mathias commented, and Lilli gave a sheepish smile. Vash shrugged and Lovino grumbled, "Let's go already."
Vash kicked open the Prison doors, his hands gripping the rifle tightly even though there wasn't much use for it as long as his sister did not unfreeze any more people. The halls were lined with unmoving figures, all under the effect of the Time Zone. The group paid them no heed, and with Vash in the lead, Lilli right behind, and Mathias and Lovino bringing up the rear, they twisted and turned their way to the V.I.P. rooms. The guard was familiar with the locks binding Gilbert's doors, and Mathias observed with curiosity as Vash quickly entered a password to a pad on the wall beside the thick iron door.
The machine beeped twice in affirmation, but nothing happened. Frowning, Vash reentered the password, this time more slowly, with the same results.
"Why isn't this working?"
"Is this building on lockdown mode?" Lovino asked.
The guard answered, "Yes, but it is Red Protocol. Only in Black Protocol would all locks, including the inner ones be completely shut down."
"Maybe it's still frozen?" Mathias suggested, and Lilli, perked up from where she had previously been wandering around the area, a bit bored.
Vash observed the gray light flashing from the machine, and sighed heavily. "Maybe."
Lilli stepped forward and poked at the device on the wall and the metal door beside it, then stepped aside to let her brother enter the password one more time. The machine beeped again, light flashing green this time, and there was a curious whirring sound inside the door. A panel of the door slid open to reveal another device, this time with a small, smooth screen to which Vash pressed his thumb to. It gave the same affirmative beeping, and beneath it, another metal panel slid open, revealing a single, simple lock.
"Are you serious," Lovino deadpanned as the guard unclipped a chain of keys from his belt.
"It's the V.I.P. rooms," Vash answered somewhat defensively. He selected a small, silver key and unlocked the door. It was heavy and made an ugly screeching noise as Vash hauled it open, and Lovino peered in fully, expecting to see a small chamber dimly lighting the prisoner in his chains, not—
Another stupid-ass door.
"Holy Motherfucking God," Lovino swore, throwing his hands into the air in exasperation. "What kind of dumb design is this?"
"A paranoid design," came the curt, sullen answer as Vash chose another key and inserted it into the keyhole.
Mathias chuckled, and patted Lovino on the shoulder. "Don't worry, friend. We have all the time in the world." There was something absent-minded about his tone of voice, more so than usual. The blonde was gazing around their dull, lifeless surroundings. Before the Zone had taken over, the Prison had been drab and grey, and afterwards, it seemed to have barely changed except the silence in the halls was suddenly empty of the fear and madness seeping from cracks beneath the cell doors. It seemed more desolate and detached, colder, with the slight air of an abandoned madhouse.
Mathias was taking this all in intently, his brows furrowed.
There was a small click, and, leaving the key in, Vash began to slowly turn the large wheel in the middle of the door.
Lovino huffed, but did not say much else otherwise. Mathias baffled him; at times he was an utter airhead—unwillingly reminded Lovino of his stupid brother sometimes. But if you were even remotely educated in the history of the Underworld, you would know that firstly, Mathias Køhler was a legend; and secondly, Mathias Køhler was dead. Except he was not dead, and Lovino was fairly certain that if he was a legend, Mathias would probably not be standing right next to him. Except he was.
And that was what had baffled him the most, to be honest. The stories depicted Køhler as some kind of rebellious prince. He was valiant and courteous, charming and perhaps a terrible flirt. He was not some kind of dunderhead with a head and character swaddled with cobwebs. He was supposed to give Lovino the help he needed to find and save his brother, not drag him into a mess of mysteries and aimless quests.
The wheel began to turn much more smoothly, and it grinded to a halt with a crisp click. Vash grunted in satisfaction, and began to pull the door open. Mathias stepped forward to help. They gave one mighty heave and sent the door skidding around its hinges, slamming into the first layer of metal with a rattling clang.
Mathias's last comment had made him think. Contrary to popular belief, Lovino was a thinker, and as he watched Mathias pat his hands and grin at the rest of them, he caught his eye momentarily and saw a flash of something strange.
Something bright, something alert, something utterly and completely terrified.
And Lovino wondered just how much of Mathias Køhler was cobwebs strewn over rotten paintings of broken scenes, and how much of him was a polished golden mask.
The group of four entered the V.I.P. cell room to find the scene mostly unchanged: the albino prisoner was chained and immobile, half-starved and bruised—Vash was able to deliver him irregular meals to postpone his execution, but he couldn't stop the other guards' ill-humored games. Gilbert was also trapped in time, but Lilli touched a hand stop his matted silver hair and the ripple of color revived him enough for him to let out a loud snore.
"What are you going to do about those?" Vash asked, gesturing at the chains. "We can't exactly smuggle him discreetly out of the state with those things on."
"Keys?" Mathias suggested, still acting somewhat odd, but Lilli was the one who noticed right away,
"There aren't any keyholes."
"Zzzz," Gilbert snored.
"The Zone…" Lovino said slowly, addressing the young girl. "When you touched Gilbert to free him from the Zone, were the chains freed as well?"
The young woman thought for a moment, observing the chains around Gilbert's wrists, then shook her head. "I don't think so."
The brunet nodded, and stepped up with a confident smirk. "It's moments like these when you should be kissing my feet and thanking God for my existence." He ignored Vash's eye-roll and grabbed Gilbert's shoulders. He took a deep, heavy breath, the tension in his shoulders draining away as he seemed to take one step backwards—and both he and the prisoner disappeared from sight. The chains did not move from where Gilbert had left it, frozen in time, but there was a groan in the hallway and the sound of bodies hitting the ground.
Mathias and the siblings peered out the cell door to find Lovino Vargas struggling under the weight of an assassin—now freed from his chains—despite Gilbert Beilschmidt being not much more than skins and bones. The albino spluttered into consciousness from the brunet's rough handling, and they became a tangled mass of limbs on the ground.
"That was… surprisingly easy." Vash was unimpressed.
"Nein!" Suddenly Gilbert was wide-awake, and he began thrashing wildly. "I'm not a virgin! It's not worth it!"
"Nobody would want a piece of you!" Lovino screeched, slightly out of breath from being crushed under Gilbert. "And you're on top of me, idiota! Get off this instant! I fucking freed you and this is how you repay me?!"
"Quit fooling around!" Vash barked. "Get up! Despite Køhler's reassuring comment right there, we don't actually have all the time in the world!"
Mathias chuckled as he helped the two up from the ground.
"Whoa." Gilbert swayed slightly on his feet, a bit disoriented but grinning widely. "I feel so light. This must be freedom. You!" He singled out Lovino with a bony finger. "You should be honored for having saved the awesome Gilbert Beilschmidt from his un-awesome prison and no doubt untimely demise!"
Lovino made a point to ignore him, turning to Vash instead. "Is there a time limit to the Zone or something?"
"Technically speaking, there is none." Of course, it was Lilli who answered. "But the world outside the Zone is still turning, and it's best to not drag the difference out too much."
"Zone?" Gilbert was curious. "Hey, aren't you Vash's little sister? Why do you look older than him?" He noticed the frozen guards poised at the end of the hallways. "What's happening? It's cool and everything, but how did you get me out?"
As the group began hurrying towards the exit, passing several more unmoving guards (Gilbert made sure to give every single one of them a mighty kick, much to the annoyance of the only mobilized guard), Vash gave Gilbert a quick recap. When his less-than-satisfactory summary of all the exciting events thus far ended with an even more unsatisfying, "And now we're here," Gilbert frowned at Lovino.
"If it was that easy, why didn't you just get me out the first time you jumped into my cell and scared the crap out of all of us? Not that I'm complaining about the girl because—damn, your powers are pretty awesome, y'know—but you could have just freed me the entire time with a simple abracadabra?"
"No," Lovino answered curtly. At the others' expectant expressions however, he sighed and explained, "First of all, it's not abracadabra or Avada Kedavra or whatever. It has a name and it's called teleportation. Second of all, if I had tried to teleport you out before, the chains would have been wrenched out of the wall with you because you were in direct contact. I got an idea when Lilli was explaining the concept of the Zone and how Inside and Outside are completely detached. So when Lilli touched you to free you from the Zone but not the chains, you became separated from them, and then I can get you out without the chains."
"So basically, I was your lab rat," concluded Gilbert sourly as they emerged from the Prison and cut their way through the masses of guards and neat rows of cars to where Eduard remained seated in the sleek, black, Underworld vehicle.
"Well, you got out, didn't you?" Lovino rolled his eyes. "Stop bitching."
"The awesome me don't bitch—"
"Oh, shut up already. Your voice gives me a headache."
Lilli pulled open the car door and tapped Eduard on the shoulder, and everyone pooled into the car as the motor restarted.
Everyone, except for Vash, that is.
"Aren't you coming with us? It fits." Mathias patted the sparse space beside him, but the guard shook his head.
"I can't come with you. If I suddenly disappear, people would suspect, especially since four Underworld prisoners had escaped today. I can't attract any more attention, which is why I'm staying right here until Lilli unfreezes things." Vash gave them a curt nod and bent over slightly when Lilli leaned over Mathias's lap to plant a warm kiss on her brother's cheek.
"You take care now," the older brother murmured as he ran an affectionate hand through his younger sister's short golden locks. "I've already contacted Emma, so you'll be staying with her until I can get to you. Be good, okay?"
"Ja, Bruder," Lilli answered quietly, her expression sad. She sat back again, freeing Mathias from an uncomfortable position (not that he had minded much, that was), and Vash shut the car door. He went around to where Eduard was rolling down the window, and the Underworld hacker gave him a thumbs-up.
Vash nodded. "You know where to go and what to do. Good luck."
Eduard replied with a tight-lipped smile, "May the gates of Hell never open."
"Pray the gates of Heaven remain closed," the guard muttered in return and stepped back. These were strange words. Unfamiliar blessings made in lieu of the birth of murderers and liars and thieves. But this was the jargon of the Underworld, and no matter how much they despised it, this was the world in which they were born and raised and it was the only world they could truly live in.
The window rolled up, and the car began to pull out of the parking lot. Vash watched it twist into the forest path before spinning on his heels and marching back to his former post. The world around him was gray and unmoving, the silence dominating and daunting.
He waited.
They had driven for around two minutes when Lilli spoke up.
"Can you stop right here for a moment?" she requested, and the car rolled smoothly to a halt in the middle of nowhere. Not completely nowhere, however: they seemed to be close to the edge of the Zone. Lovino could see wind ruffling the leaves on the trees just beyond an invisible line a few meters in front of where they've stopped.
Then, just like before, Lilli lifted her hands above her head, palms facing the sky; but this time, she followed this motion with a quick flip of her hands, then let them sink, palms now facing downwards. There was a sigh that breathed through the land and swept out behind them, and then Eduard was speeding down the road again, no doubt to make sure to drag out the distance as much as possible before anyone in the Prison realized what had happened.
"You look fifteen again," Lovino noticed.
"The Zone is never gone," Lilli explained. "It's always around me, and now that you are Outside, you can only see into it the image of when it had been frozen. To the others I will always be fifteen, until you enter the Zone."
Gilbert raised an eyebrow. "Forever fifteen, huh. Sounds depressing."
Lilli smiled softly and shrugged, directing her attention away from the conversation to the window. Trees flashed past: a boring scenery, but Lilli found herself unable to look away. After several long minutes of driving in silence, the view outside still had not changed, although she was sure they were close to the main road by now—
The young girl startled and twisted, peering back at the road. But the car had taken a turn and the pale blue smudge in a mass of green and black had disappeared. She settled back in her seat, brows furrowed tightly as she wondered:
Why was there a boy hiding in the forest?
"Boston? Why Boston?"
Eduard shrugged. "Of course, I'm not taking you to Boston. I'm taking you to the airport, where there will be some people to pick you up to take you to Boston."
"Sounds exciting." Gilbert approved, sighing contently where he was comfortably wedged between Lilli and the window. "Home, sweet home, Boston is."
"I want to go to New York," Mathias piped up.
"Why?" Gilbert asked. "Aren't your friends in Boston?"
"They are in New York."
"Why on Earth would they be in New York? They live in Boston."
"We agreed we'd meet up in New York." Mathias was stubborn.
Gilbert gave him a strange look. "Why do I have the feeling that we're not actually talking about the same people?"
"I'm sure it can be arranged," Lilli said placidly. She had been putting out fires left and right in the past forty minutes in the car. She was curiously efficient and eager, whether it was because she was naturally talented at calming people down, or because she did not want to be caught in the middle when the two mentally-crooked men sitting on her two sides began fighting.
Meanwhile, Lovino Vargas had Eduard Von Bock trapped in his stubborn persistence.
"It's not about money, Mister Vargas."
"Then what do you want?" the brunet demanded.
"Safety," their driver replied curtly. "Peace. To be left alone until the storm blows over."
"The storm isn't going to fucking blow over for a very long time, Mister Von Bock, and it most certainly will not be going anywhere if you're just going to sit on your ass and do nothing about it."
"If you haven't noticed, I'm smuggling you out of the state. How much of that is 'sitting on my ass'? And how is helping you find someone possibly still in the labs going to help the storm blow over?"
"You don't have to find him, per se. Just keep a lookout for any kind of news."
"I regulate the cameras and security in the Californian lab. I'm not a secretary and I most definitely have no information whatsoever on our late Australian cousin."
"It's Number 32." Lovino was going to pretend that chunk of the conversation had not happened.
"You owe me, Mister Vargas." Eduard blew out an exasperated breath. "You owe me double."
"I'll pay you back."
"If you can. You're dead according to the legal world and a criminal in the illegal one. Pardon me if I don't have much faith in your ability to pay your debts."
"Now listen here, you cheeky bastard—"
"Of course," Eduard interjected smoothly, "I can always choose not to help you. It'd be easier for all of us, right?" He glanced curiously at the Italian. "Honestly, I don't know what you're getting so riled up over. You know it's true."
Falling silent, Lovino scowled viciously out the window.
After a moment, Eduard spoke up again, "I mean, in the end, I was trained to be a hacker." He gave a nearly imperceptible sigh. "I'll see what I can do. Number 32, right?"
Lovino nodded slowly. "Either that, or look for someone named Feliciano Vargas."
They stepped out of the car by the airport, and Eduard frowned at his watch. "They're late."
"No, we're not," a voice murmured beside Lovino, and if anyone asked, he did not nearly jump a feet into the air.
A man had had appeared out of nowhere. He regarded the ragged group through a pair of round spectacles, hugging a stuffed polar bear tightly.
A mechanical, recorded voice spoke from the toy, "Who are you?"
"Mattie!" Gilbert was evidently delighted, greeting the man with a manly hug and his characteristic cackle. "How're you doing man? They haven't rooted you out yet, have they? How's Alfred?"
"Not yet," 'Mattie' accepted the hug. "We're safe, although we had to do some serious trading business before they stopped sending people to trail us."
"I like your talking bear," Mathias said, poking at the stuffed animal.
"Glad to see that you haven't changed one bit, Mathias," the bear's owner said. "You still don't remember anything." Now he addressed the entire group. "Alfred is waiting in the plane. We should get going."
Looking slightly irritated, Lovino held up a hand, signaling the conversation to pause. "Okay, wait a minute. Sorry if I come off as a distrustful, rude, temperamental Italian—which I am—but, who the fuck are you?"
"My name is Matthew Williams," the man said, tucking his polar bear under an arm to shake Lovino's hand. "I am your pilot. Well, copilot actually, but Alfred—the pilot—and I will be bringing you back to Boston."
"And what are we supposed to do once we get there?"
Matthew shrugged. "That is neither in our deal nor our business to care." And before Lovino could spout out another question, Matthew asked, "Does everyone have their stuff? No forgotten luggage? Okay, let's go."
There was a chorus of goodbye's and thank-you's for Eduard (Lovino also making sure to send him a sharp look that was returned with an exasperated huff) before the black car pulled out from its spot and they parted for their separate ways.
It had been quite a while since he had last met either Matthew or Alfred, and truth to be spoken, Gilbert had expected this plane ride to be much more interesting. With Alfred's overwhelming personality that tends to dominate the entire atmosphere of the plane, often covering Matthew's already weak presence with his loudness and openness, Gilbert expected to enjoy a plane ride filled with music and lots of shouting. Maybe a few purposeful dives just to shake the passengers up a bit.
Instead, he was met by silence.
Gilbert hated the silence.
It was the one thing that seemed to refuse to leave him alone. The Prison had been filled with a tense, suffocating, foul silence broken only by the loud stomping of guards and their overly-loud laughter. Maybe the guards had felt the silence as well, and that was why they found it necessary to be extra loud in the Prison.
The silence in the plane was less foul, but it was just as tense and suffocating. They had walked into the plane to find Alfred making a call, and one look from the two pilots had everyone—even Mathias—clamping their mouths shut. They took off when Alfred had finished his call with a very uncharacteristic "Yes, ma'am," and no one bothered to start a conversation after that.
Well, that wasn't necessarily true; Gilbert had tried to ignite conversation several times, and he nearly succeeded twice with the help of Mathias, but then Alfred's phone rang, and everyone froze, abandoning the weak attempt of a social interaction in favor of a hushed tenseness while Alfred's loud, bold voice became the only audible sound above the roar of the plane engine around them.
"Hello?" It was obvious that the American pilot was trying to sound as casual as ever, but his voice was strained. There was a pause as the person on the other end of the line spoke, then, "Yes ma'am, I understand. Thank you for telling me. When shall we be there for the transport?"
Gilbert shared an alarmed look with Lovino, who seemed to be the only person who understood the meaning of that final word.
After working with an Underworld trader for such a long time, Gilbert was well-versed in black-merchant vocabulary. If it was objects that were boarding the plane, it was 'trade', or from time to time, 'transfer'. But transport, on the other hand, was another topic. Black market traders like Antonio seldom used that word, because he was a weapons' dealer. But there was another type of trafficker who focused on something much more terrible.
Transport. Human transport.
"In three days? Of course, we'll be there." One last pause. "Yes, ma'am, thank you." And then Alfred quickly hung up.
"I thought you two were on the lighter side of the market?" Gilbert demanded. Alfred and Matthew were Antonio's preferred pilots for handling his products, and they were well-known in the milder circles of the black market.
Their pilots' faces were ashen.
"We were," Matthew murmured, barely audible over the plane, "But if Magyar is the one keeping tabs on you, you're probably going to do anything to stay on her good side and under her radar."
Magyar.
—she had tucked the white blossom behind her ear, and her laughter was clear and bright, hopeful despite the brutal war that had torn apart their lives—
That simple name had caused so much goddamned trouble in his life. Gilbert nearly laughed. It was difficult to believe that he had once known this woman—known this girl.
—her lips tasted like salty almonds with a hint of sweet wine, her body was soft and warm beneath his, but he knew full well the strength and power these graceful lines held—
"She's in California," Alfred said, strangely quiet. "We just barely missed her. As a matter of fact, she is at the Prison, investigating the breakout."
—there was smoke in the air and she was laughing: a broken, maniacal sound that rang in his head. He tasted blood in his mouth and wondered when the pain would catch up with this war-worn body, if he could even feel the pain at all—
And Gilbert really laughed then. The others looked at him like he was crazy—and he probably was—but he laughed anyway. He laughed until he nearly doubled over in his seat, and his breaths came out in painful wheezes that rattled his bruised ribs. He laughed until black spots danced across his stinging eyes and felt something warm on his cheeks before he realized that he was crying. He was laughing and weeping or maybe he wasn't really because—
—she had been so beautiful, so wonderful, better than a dream come true. But best of all, she had been his—
—somehow he knew. Somehow he felt the world tilting beneath him, people rushing on with their foolish lives, beacons of darkness in the midst of thousands of pinpoints of light, and he knew.
The phone rang.
"Hello?"
Lovino, sitting in the seat behind him, gave the back of his seat a hard kick, and Gilbert forced himself into silence. But his breaths still came out heavy, and Lilli, in the seat next to his, watched in concern.
"Mathias!" Alfred sounded shocked with a touch of panic mixed with relief, which was truly strange. This day was filled with such surprises. "It's for you!"
Mathias took the phone, shouting to be heard. "Mathias Køhler speaking! Who is this?" He paused, then repeated loudly, "Who are you?" Suddenly, he was delighted. "Oh, hey! That's so great! Long time no see! Or hear, actually, ha. I'm on a plane right now! I'm going to Boston! Will you pick me up? What? I can't hear you!"
In an attempt to hear what the person on the other end of the line had to say, Mathias plugged the phone into the plane's speakers—an unexpectedly smart move.
Less smart was his disregard for the fact that Alfred usually had the volume at its highest, and the result was a sudden explosion of sound shaking the entire plane.
It was a boy's voice, and a familiar one at that, but Gilbert could not put a finger onto it until he gave the final name. "No, we can't pick you up, Mathias. We're in California. We tried to find you and…" the voice had started off strong, but then it had begun to wither and now it completely cracked. "And now Lukas is gone."
And then suddenly, there was only static.
I did say I would take a long time...?
I know, I'm awful, I'm sorry. At least it's long, which is good. I feel like my chapters are getting longer and longer. Is that a good thing?
Also, if anyone was confused about the chaotic chain of recent events (because I kept on getting confused), here's a timeline:1. Mathias is kidnapped, Lukas and Emil goes to California.2. Mathias meets Lovino.3. Lukas and Emil enters the Prison and searches for Mathias.4. Mathias and Lovino escape, meets Vash and Gilbert. Then, they head for the labs. When they could not be found, the alarms were sounded.5. Lukas and Emil got found out, Emil escaped, but Lukas was captured.6. Emil starts working his way out of the forest.7. Mathias and co. saves Gilbert, passing Emil twice in the forest but never actually noticing him much.
Thank you all for reading, and please Review!