Chapter 12

Mashing it up

Mathias and Emil came back to the house at the same time Arthur exited the study. They felt the smell of fish throughout the house and they were met by Francis coming out of the kitchen. "Well, dinner is now ready!" He exclaimed when he saw the others. Arthur was still deeply lost in thought and walked into the kitchen without a word to the others. Francis sighed at him and turned towards Mathias. "Feeling better?"

"Yes, thanks" he rubbed his cheek without thinking about it. "I'll eat in here, can you tell Matthew that I'm sorry?" Francis nodded.

"I'll tell him, you should go get the other two. I think they're both still asleep." Mathias and Emil walked into the living were they saw Berwald curled into a ball sleeping with his head in Lukas lap. Lukas himself was resting his cheek in his hand with his elbow securely placed on the armrest while quiet snores escaped him. Mathias noticed a flash as Emil took a picture which woke the sleeping child. Before he was fully awake Mathias looked at Emil.

"You'll never let them forget this, will you?"

"Never" Mathias chuckled and walked over to the still sleeping nation, passing Berwald that was trying to wake up. Careful to not wake him up, Mathias crouched next to Lukas and very slowly put two fingers over his nose and squeezed, effectively stopping his breathing. It didn't take many seconds before Lukas flew up from the couch and turned around.

"Dammit Mathias! I've told you to stop doing that!" There was a silence that filled the room before Lukas took a stumbling step backwards while he held both his hands over his head. Mathias was quickly up and grabbed him by his arms.

"You remembered" Mathias tried to look Lukas in his eyes but was only met with confusion. Emil slowly made his way over just to hear Lukas answer.

"I don't know…I didn't…I can't…" He stumbled over the words and torn himself out of Mathias grip. He turned his back towards them as fast images flew through his mind, images that he couldn't make any sense out of. He fell down on his knees and whispered "Stop…I don't want…Leave me alone…" Emil couldn't take it anymore, he had never seen his brother panic like this before and he felt like it wasn't right. He ran over to him and took his hands before he forced him to look into his eyes.

"Pull yourself together!" Lukas looked at him and tried to focus "You're always so strong, you've always kept me safe, I can't see you like this" He wiped a few tears that had formed in his eyes before he added "You're my big brother!" Emil saw how Lukas eyes got glazed as he fell backwards and even more images filled his head. The images only showed for a fraction of a second but Lukas could make out small glimpses of it. A small child crawling towards him, the same child taking his first steps and then, a little bit older, the child is sitting at a table sticking out his tongue. The images continued to rush through his head even when he fell unconscious.

"What's going on?" Arthur had hurried back when he heard the upset voices from the other room.

"I don't know! He just suddenly remembered things and then passed out!" Mathias was panicking a little when Arthur hurried through the room with a worried expression.

"Let's put him on the couch" Together, they managed to lift him to the couch and after a quick check up Arthur decided that he wasn't in any actual danger. They all sighed in relief and Arthur looked around at them. "I guess it's time to explain what I found in that room"

"Yes, please" Arthur sat down and tried to figure out how to explain this and decided to once again start from the beginning. The rest of the nations came back from the kitchen just in time when Arthur begun talking.

"When we use magic we have to use a lot of our own energy to perform it. If the spell is too strong or if we run out of energy the spell will instead start draining our life force." He closed his fists thightly, obviously remembering something from his past. "A long time ago, when magic was believed in, our energy wasn't drained so fast and we could easily use many large spells in a row but" He shook his head "It's not like that anymore."

"But, what about Lukas?" Emil swallowed, this didn't sound good.

"Yes, Lukas." Arthur nodded towards the couch "He was indeed very powerful but this was even before you existed" He looked at Emil but turned around when he heard a chuckle behind him.

"That was good times, wasn't it Ber?" Mathias looked at Berwald that didn't seem as excited.

"He always set the boats I built on fire"

"That's because all of your boats would sink and they still do, remember last summer? You should just stick with furniture" Mathias giggled while Berwald pouted before they both looked at Arthur and waited for him to continue.

"You might have figured out that spells doesn't just come from nowhere, they are invented but there hasn't been any new spells invented in hundreds of years." He stood up and waved to the others to follow. "Until now" They entered the study were they could see Arthurs notes mixed along with Lukas. He walked up to the symbol and pointed towards it. There were circles within circles and in the spaces between them they could see small symbols written. "Each of these symbols represents a spell, look here." He pointed at the space between the two smallest circles, that were in the very middle, were they could see only two symbols. "This one is Mathias spell and this one is Emils spell. Then in the next circle we can find both Berwalds and Tinos, plus multiple others. I believe that the people closest to Lukas are in the most inner circles." He looked at the others and waited to see if they understood.

"But what does it do?" Arthur looked at Emil and continued.

"It uses all the spells written here and creates multiple layers of shields around a certain area. The spells are supposed to get mashed together and create a spell like no one I've ever seen before." His eyebrows furrowed and he crouched down. "Theoretically, it would have worked and when I look at the notes I can see that he checked the calculations multiple times. I'm not sure what went wrong"

"But how do we break it?" Mathias felt guilty, what if it would have worked if he didn't interrupt? He shook his head, he had already went through this in his head enough times. He had done the right thing.

"That's the problem" Arthur stood up. "To erase this, we'll have to break the spells one by one, starting with the ones in the outer circle and then work our way in" Arthur saw how the others slowly realized.

"There's hundreds of symbols there! It'll take ages!" Tino started pacing through the room and returned to his old habit of biting his thumb nail.

"I know" Arthur sighed "That's why we should have the world meeting tomorrow already and have everyone send me their symptoms so I can find who to help first and send some of them to Romania" The others saw how he stumbled a bit and yawned "I'll just figure out the details and then…" Francis caught him before he could hit the floor.

"I think you should go sleep now" The exhaustion was finally catching up with him as he looked at Francis.

"I don't need you damn help, you bloody wanker" He wasn't speaking clearly so Francis easily put Arthurs arm around his shoulders and carried him towards the guest room he had been assigned earlier.

"You don't have a saying in this" They heard the bickering continue as they walked up the stairs and the others chuckled. Tino smiled at the other nations.

"I guess we'll have to wait then, so let us all just enjoy our…" His smile faded as he remembered "…probably now cold dinner" Berwald tugged at Tinos pants and looked up at him.

"I'm sure it's still good" Tino couldn't help himself so he picked him up and gave him a big hug before he realized what he was doing and put him down, both of them blushing like crazy while the others made their way into the kitchen.

.

"I think he's waking up"

"Sssh don't ruin the moment, we've waited for so long!" Gilbert slowly opened his eyes and was met with a strong light coming from a lamp in the roof. While his eyes focused he wondered how he'd gotten there and where he actually was. He remembered walking along one of the more secluded beaches, which he did when he wanted to be alone for a while. It didn't happen very often, he enjoyed company, but everyone has those kinds of days. Then suddenly he was knocked down on the ground and was now waking up in this strange place with strange people and was his shirt missing? Gilbert had finally woken up completely and sat up, causing water to spill everywhere. He barely noticed the fact that he was sitting in a bathtub because of the five people right next to his face all holding notebooks, microphones or cameras.

"Do you understand us?" A girl with short brown hair asked, she seemed to be around 20 years old.

"What?" Gilbert didn't know what else to say even though hundreds of questions ran through his mind. He looked around the room. It was small and it seemed to be in a cellar of some sort. A big table was placed in the middle of the room and there were piles of books and notes placed on top. On the wall they seemed to have put up newspaper pages and old photographs with color coded strings running between them. It was like something you would see in a very old crime movie where the detective was creating a time line of the crime.

"He spoke!" The group of people looked very excited and started whispering to each other, giving Gilbert time to look down. His shirt was indeed gone for some reason and his legs felt weird so he moved his eyes to them.

"WHAT IS THIS?" Water flew as Gilbert gripped the edges of the tub and tried to lift himself but the group were already there, pushing him back down.

"Calm down, we do not wish to hurt you! We are friends!" Gilbert barley heard the soft voice as he kept looking at the fin that begun somewhere around his waist and continued for as long as his legs usually reached. Two of the people were standing not too far away taking pictures when one of them sighed.

"Mermen are even more incredible than I imagined"