Chapter 8: Master Plan

3 weeks later:

"Fuck. My. Life," I grumbled as I stepped out of the school, two limbs bleeding and my hoodie torn. I looked down the pavement and spotted Celty waving at me with her "motorcycle" at her side. Since she was only staying here for vacation and had no work to do, I started getting used to getting a ride from her every day. People thought of it as quite strange that I always got a lift from some girl who never takes off her strange helmet, but, then again, that would just be another thing to add to the list of why these morons hated me so much.

"How was your day?" she typed, same as every day those past few weeks.

"Don't talk about it," I scowled.

"Wait, what happened to you? You're injured."

"Somebody shoved me this morning so I tore my good hoodie and skinned my arm, my psychotic biology teacher threw a beaker today and some of the glass slit my thigh and that blond bitch threw something at me again so now I have a raging hematoma on my cheek bone. Now can we please leave?" I angrily listed off in one breath.

She put her hand over her chest in shock but found it right not to ask any more questions. She quietly teleported a black helmet onto my head, clambered on to her vehicle and waited for me to hop on. With my head hanging low, I lazily slid on to the back, grabbed on and gave her the signal that she was free to drive back home.

We drove into the parking lot of the mall about 10 minutes later and, unlike most days, Celty kindly dropped me off in front of my office. Joey was still supervising business in my place so he was nowhere to be found. However, I was happy to know of that. To tell the truth, all I really wanted to do was sit in my office and do paper work like the boss I… was.

The thought of not being the boss any more had crossed my mind many times before, but only now was it really hitting me. Being the situation I was in, there was a good chance that I would never manage this mall again all because of that stupid phony inspector. This fact, only now, hit me like a banana to a brick wall; hard.

With these horrible thoughts weighing me down, I slinked into my office and slumped down into the couch, my arm over my eyes to keep from looking at the cruel surrounding world around me. I sat there in silence for than 5 minutes before remembering why my bag was so heavy again today. I loudly groaned before rolling to my side and falling off the couch. I pulled myself up, dragged my bag across the floor into the kitchen and slammed it on to the table I reached into one of my lower cabinets and pulled out a brand new, family sized box of Cheese Nips. Sadly, I slumped into one of the chairs, yanked out a pencil, spread out my homework, and decided that it was now or never. Just for motivation, I glared at my text books for a few seconds, and began my task with a bellowing statement of, "I will END you!"


"You know, the point of homework is for you to learn," L said as he intently looked over the sheet I was holding out to him.

"Damn it, I don't want you to do the sheet, I just need you to help me do these damn proofs!"

He suspiciously looked over the sheet a second time as if to make sure I was being honest. "Alright, I believe I can help. I'm not that much of a savvy in the ways of mathematics, but I'll see what I can do." He was so lying. He knew he was fully capable of doing a simple math proof but he decided to be rudely modest instead: modesty wasn't one of his strongholds.

"So why do you need help with this? You've been listening to your teacher in class, correct?" he asked as he started to pull apart the equations in his head.

"Yes, I have! The thing is, since the first day, the teacher found out that I knew way more than the rest of her dipshit class. So she's been expecting more of me! She gives me advanced homework without giving me the lessons so I can't do it! She's giving me advanced tests too, and if I fail those, I fail the class!"

"Well that sounds awfully unfair. Have you tried asking her about it at all?"

"Yeah, but when I try to say something to her she just gives me more homework!"

"Isn't that considered child abuse?"

"I don't know! That's something YOU should know!"

He was silent to this, shocked that I would call him on something like that.

After a little while of looking over the work, he did his best to teach me how to do the proofs. His teaching was really accurate, but even with his teaching I still didn't get it. I had a few melt downs and my headache progressively got worse, but my homework was done within an hour and a half. I thanked him an apologized for freaking out so much. Thankfully, L completely understood.

From the candy shop, I gathered my Spanish and world history homework and dragged myself to the warehouse. I thrust open the heavy metal door and, remembering Japan's map routs, took the quickest path to the center of the facility. When I arrived, my face confusedly scrunched up as I witnessed Celty doing a little dance on the floor as Russia sadly stacked up a deck of Russian cards from the floor.

"What's going on?" I weakly asked.

"Oh, Celty and I pass the time by playing cards all day. This is the first time she's won. She was so happy that she kicked my cards across the floor."

"Huh… that sounds like fun."

"Say, are you feeling ok? You look sad."

"Oh, it's nothing for you to worry about. Thanks for asking, though…"

"If you say so."

"Hey, do you know where Spain and Prussia are? I need them for the rest of my homework."

"Hmm. I think Spain is-"

"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" I heard from above us. Dive-bombing from somewhere up in the rafters came a scream and a slam as the person landed on the concrete floor. A few yards in front of us, landing by one of the closest shelves, who else should appear but…

"Speak of Awesome and he shall appear!" Prussia cockily announced.

"Prussia, good thing you're here. I need your help with a-"

"Bitch, you look awful! What happened to you? Did the little baby girl man boy give you a lecture on pianos? Ha ha ha!"

"… history assignment." Suddenly, I realized his previous piano related comment had been directed towards Austria. "He didn't give a lecture, but this is all directly his fault."

"Well what the hell do you want?" he rudely asked as he took a look at his nails.

"My history teacher gave me an extra credit assignment on you and I can't use my text book. I just need to ask you a couple of questions."

"You have to do an assignment on me? Hah! Looks like even the class rooms would rather learn about me over all of you!" he gloated as he motioned all around the warehouse with his index finger.

"Actually, I'm the only person who got the assignment. I'm the only person who knows who you are."

"Oh, they all know me! I'm Prussia! Now come with me! I can answer all of your questions in my lair!" he demanded as he dragged me away by my wrist.

"Good lord, he's got a lair?" I mentally groaned. "I don't thing I authorized that…"

"Oh, but we stomped those cry-baby assholes into the ground! With me in the war, there was no way we could lose! Those two prissy boys, England and Austria, could barely put up a fight against me!"

"Oh, good God, make it stop!" I quietly moaned with my throbbing head beat harder by the second.

By now, Prussia had been gloating for the past hour and I was desperately in need of an aspirin. As much as I hoped he would stop, he just kept going on and on and on and ON. Any other day, I would be happy to deal with his proud ramblings, but being in the drastic condition I was in, I could hardly bare it.

So yeah, for about the past hour or so, I had been kept hostage, so to speak, in Prussia's "lair." All it really was was a shag carpeted pocket on the third level of the shelf farthest to the back of the warehouse. At a glance, it almost seemed like something that the teens from That 70's Show would use as a small club house. On the inside, Prussian flags ranging smallest to largest were plastered on the walls, matching the slate gray carpet. With the ceiling not being high enough for chairs, Prussia had improvised and had set out four custom made bean bag chairs with his flag design placed on all of them. Come to think of it, it was even less of a lair and more of a narcissism cave. Though it was barely a competition to the playboy mansion, the fact that he had it gave him yet another thing in this world to gloat about.

"Why would you call me anyways? Aren't you better acquainted with Germany?" asked an annoyed voice from the ground floor. At the sound of this voice, my head perked up and a smile sprouted on my face, seeing this approaching human as a beacon of hope for my sanity.

"Hey, are you up there, Prussia?" the voice called up.

"What do you want?" he angrily called down with his head sticking out the small exit of his lair. Following his lead, I crawled across the carpeting and wriggled next to Prussia to see who it was. I looked down, hands placed on the edge of the floor, to see a slightly angry looking Switzerland looking up at us, his cell phone held up to his shoulder to muffle our conversation. His green eyes seemed to hold his regular irritation in them but, unusually, held a strange sense of confusion in them as well.

"Is Dagas in there? I have a phone call for her," he called up.

"Yeah, I'm up here. I'll be down in a second," I replied. I crawled past Prussia and watched my step as I clambered down the metal latter under the entrance. While inching down, I concluded that I would have to go get Prussia a safer latter later on, being that I felt like I was stepping down a wobbly death trap. I jumped past the last rung and asked Switzerland once my feet were safely on the ground, "Who is it? Tax company?"

"No." He let out an angry sigh. "It's Austria."

I looked him in the eye and felt my face scrunch up into the ugliest face I had made in a long time. My eye twitched and my hands balled up into a pair of tight fists.

"Yeah, I know," he sympathetically agreed as he handed me the phone.

"Hallo, Miss Dagas. Have you been situated into a school yet?"

"I'm gonna fucking kill you, you slimy son of a bitch!"

"Shall I take that as a yes?"

I sighed. "Yeah, I have, and I can't stand it! I'm literally being beaten to a bloody pulp because of you!"

"Well that's too bad… Goodbye then."

"Don't you dare hang up on me you little fucker!" He ignored my threat and hung up anyways, leaving me in my tragic misery.

"What did he say?" Switzerland asked as I handed back his old silver Motorola.

"He just wanted to know if I was in school…" I groaned.

"Why? What is it to him if you go to school or not?"

"If I didn't find a school to go to he was threatening to call the cops on me; not going to school at my age is apparently illegal."

"Well why don't you do something about it? You're stronger than this! Don't let him just stab you in the back like that!"

"Well, even if I was stronger than this, I still wouldn't be able to do anything about it. He'll tell the police if he catches word that I left and I'll be locked up until I'm 18. And let me tell you, there's no way in hell they'd just let me go because I'm a manager."

"Well, if you can't do anything, then why don't we do something? We could talk to him for you, or maybe talk to the superintendent. We could get you out of there somehow," he insisted, a pained look clouding over his face.

"No, nothing would happen. You can try but you guys will either be brutally turned away or thrown in jail with me. It'd be best if you just stayed out of this…"

"But you-"

"Stay out of it! It's not for you to deal with! I don't want you guys to get hurt or yelled at because of me! It's none of your concern! If you really want to do something, try looking for a new manager for this place! Because it's all over, Switzerland! They're gonna keep me locked up there until I'm done with school and the mall closes! There's no way I'm going back to being the manager again, so you might as well suck it up and start looking!"

I looked down at my feet and wiped at my eyes to hide my welling tears. I sucked it up and looked back up to Prussia, my eyes turning a light shade of red. "Hey, Prussia. Could you send down my things?" I sadly called up. Unfortunately, I had made a bad choice in words, causing Prussia to simply throw both of my notebooks, my pencil and eraser out the entrance, inevitable sending them dropping on to my head. I didn't oppose, I didn't yell or scream, I simply gathered my things and sadly walked away.

"What's up with her?" Prussia asked from his perch.

"What time is it?" Switzerland asked back.

"Why should I tell you? Answer my question first!"

He sighed and pulled his phone back out instead: 7:22. "Hey, Prussia! Can I use your hide out tonight?" he called up.

"And why would I give it to you, mister prissy-pants?"

"I'd like to hold a quick meeting there. Just come down here, I need you to help me gather up some people."

"Of course you need my help! I'm better than you at everything!"

"Sure you are…" he mumbled.

"So, who do we need to find? Some wimpy losers?" he asked as they walked forward.

"Some of the sneakiest people I know: the Hitachiin twins."


The next day:

"Alright, and then we have the quiz tomorrow, class, so be read for that," the spanish teacher said as she wrote down the agenda for tomorrow on the white board. "So, for the rest of class, we'll-" And just like that, I was saved by the bell once again, dismissing us for lunch.

Fearing for my life, I sprang out of my seat as fast as I could and bolted out the door to avoid the hungry stampede. Behind me, I could hear the crowd of hungry people from my Spanish class stomping down the hall, but with lungs ablaze, I ran down the stairs and made it to my locker before they got the chance to trample me.

"Ho! Made it!" I gasped when I made it down the stairs.

"And where do you think you're going?" asked one of the pot smokers standing once again in front of my locker.

I angrily sighed. "Step aside. I just want my lunch."

"And what do you have for lunch today? Octopus?" one of them rudely asked.

"No, today I have a sandwich, you know, like normal people eat."

They looked at each other and, finding no other way to make fun of me, they stepped aside.

"Yeah, back off, yah bone heads," I barked before leaning down to my locker. I undid the lock, grabbed my lunch, put my messenger bag inside and slammed it shut, passing by the potheads with a menacing air in my step.

Walking up the steps, I looked around carefully to make sure I wasn't about to be ambushed by the blond's regular posy. I never really did figure out her name, so I continued to just refer to her as "the blond" or "the bitch." It made things simple. However, today, the halls were oddly quiet on this end of the school. Of course, I could hear loud chattering off in the distance, but nowhere in my proximity did I see more than a single emo kid in the hall.

"This is a little weird," I warily said. I chose to ignore it and walk towards my regular hall way where I normally ate. No sooner did I find my spot, when out of the blue, one of the blond chicks who I never pay attention to began to bolt right for me. "Oh my god! What are you doing here?" she screamed at me in a frantic voice.

"Um, eating. Why?" I cautiously asked.

"Oh my god!" she repeated. "There's some guy that just walked in the front door of the school and he's, like, really cute! I mean, I've seen cuter, but he's, like….. EEEEP! You just gotta come see it!" she squealed.

"O-okay," I stuttered.

"Yay! Follow me!" she cried before running off in the direction of the front of the school. I lazily followed her, thinking that Flo Rida or Kanye West had showed up. For a while, I wondered why I was even following this chick. Then again, if this caused a full scale school riot, at least it would get me out of biology.

In a few minutes, we reached the balcony that hung over the opening to the front of the school. We looked down and the girl, yanking me to the ledge, cried as she pointed down, "Down there! He's down there!"

"Where? I don't see him," I complained. Indeed, I couldn't see a thing. Blocking my view was just about the entire female population of the school. They had formed a thick, ever moving wall around the boy, therefore, it was impossible to even see the ground under them. "Jeeze, you'd think I'd be able to at least see the guy after walking all the way over here," I complained to the blond.

"If you really wanna see him, why don't you try, like, walking through the crowd?"

I lifted an eyebrow at her. "Are you crazy?"

She shook her head. "Just try it! I mean, you look big enough to shove them away."

I gave her a nasty glare, realizing this was another way to call a person fat. "Yeah, looks like you could, too," I vengefully stated.

She gasped at me. "Really? Oh no! I knew I shouldn't have eaten that tic tac this morning!"

I rolled my eyes and decided to take her word for it and try to force past the crowd. I trotted down the stairs and the second I got to the ground floor, the crowd was only a foot away. "God, this is gonna take a while…" I mumbled. Evidently, someone in front of me heard my outer thinking and, knowing of my reputation so far, when she turned around, she grimaced at me turned back around. Most would take offense to that motion, but I took it as an opportunity.

Feeling like the king of the world, I simply stepped into the crowd and watched as most of the girls squirmed away from me, probably in fear of catching my fake parent's homosexuality. If somebody were to stay put, I would gladly shove them away, no problem. Come to think of it, this had been like a cake walk to go through, what with all of the school population hating me.

Eventually, I made it to a point where I could jump up to see the guy past the last two layers of the crowd. At least, that's what I assumed. Sadly, I was too short to see past them, making me pissed to no end. I stood in the middle of the crowd, sulking for a moment as I began to think that I would never see the guy. However, short or tall, I couldn't just let this slip past me. I was determined to see the guy before he had the chance to leave. "This shall not stand!" I courageously shouted out. Much like a moron from a cheesy spy movie, I bounded to the ground and began to crawl my way past the rest of the crowd. There was quiet enough screaming and squealing from the other girls I crawled past, but like I cared if I touched their converse.

Slowly but surely, I finally reached the front. Once I did, I was spat out of the cluster and slapped to the floor. Seeing the clearing in the crowd, I smiled widely and hoisted myself up onto my knees. Figuring that I had already gotten the guy's attention, I looked up with my beaming grin to look him in the eyes. Who met my eyes, however, stunned me into a frozen state.

"Oh no…" I gasped as I looked up at the man. His back was turned to me when I first saw him, but it was undoubtedly who I thought it was. He turned around, showing me his pretty-boy face, and I was immediately positive. My eyes bulged out of my head and my face twitched furiously as he grinned mischievously at me. "Y-y-you?" I exclaimed.

"Now what's with that tone? Aren't you glad to see me?" he asked with his normal troubling grin.

"Hi- Hikaru? What in God's name are you doing here?"

Indeed, it was Hikaru, in the bad boy flesh. Somehow, they had allowed him into my school, and now he was here, attracting the entire female population with his charms, as usual. He stood before me, dressed in his most expensive pair of tan khakis, a black t-shirt, an expensive jacket and the finest scarf on the market, which I assumed had been imported. I shuddered and backed into the crowd, slamming into the wall of feet behind me, as he continued to smile menacingly at me.

"Well now, you don't seem happy to see me at all," he sarcastically stated. "You must be stressed out."

"Like hell I am!" I sneered behind gritting teeth.

He leaned down to where I sat on the floor and placed his finger flirtingly under my chin. "Aw, did something happen at school already? You poor thing. Should we take you home?" he tauntingly asked as he slowly pulled his finger out from under my chin. I began to shudder profusely at his farce wooing attempts.

"Ahahah…" I stuttered as he looked me in the eye. "Hi-Hikaru. Uh, people are staring…."

"Oh, really? I hadn't noticed," he said sardonically as he looked up at the other girls.

"Oh my god! Bitch, how do you know him?" snapped one of the girls behind me.

I looked up and suddenly realized that I was being looked down upon by every single girl in the crowd. They looked down to where I nervously sat, crossing their arms, snarling and tapping their feet at me like I had just killed a puppy. Jealousy and malice filled the room and I scrunched up even further as Hikaru's eyes stared cynically into my very soul.

"Yeah, we know each other. Quite well, actually," he announced to the crowd, his voice as sly as ever. "In fact," he paused to add emphasis as he stared off into the crowd. "We used to date."

"Ah! No!" I hissed, my face turning red as ever. "No, stop! Don't say that! You're gonna-" I struggled to stop him. Still, he continued on, rewarding me with an even worse reputation than before.

"Yep, we used to date. I'm a free man, now," he said, checking his nails. "I'm up for grabs… so, who wants to go first?"

Immediately, the girls swarmed forward, ignoring my existence and stepping on me just to get to him. They stormed forward like a stampede in the jungle and crowded around him, staring at his features like he was God himself.

"Damn it, what the hell does he plan to accomplish with getting me trampled?" I sneered from under the crowd. And then, suddenly, it hit me: "Wait just a second… there can't just be one. That's impossible… where's the other one?" I frantically thought.

Ironically after I thought that single notion, I began to hear a different kind of screaming and squealing from behind, and just like that, I felt myself being grabbed from behind. Behind me, a pair of arms hoisted me up off the ground and began to run off with me like I was a stolen teddy bear at a carnival. In front of me, I witnessed a path being formed as I was whisked away by my unknown capturer. Faster than the speed of, well, myself, he bolted me through the crowd and, all of a sudden, as we reached the end of the crowd, my assailant sprang high in to the air, causing me to scream as loud as I could. I watched and screamed as the floor under us began to grow farther away and, as I began to think this was the end, we landed on the second floor right in front of the balcony. Once his feet had touched base, he continued to run off until we were completely unseen by the crowd.

"Oops, sorry ladies, but I must be going," Hikaru insincerely apologized. Then, he too ran off into the direction I had disappeared into, leaving the girls startled, astonished and feeling like they had just gotten a back hand to the face.

"Put me down! You little, ack..." I snapped while trying to wriggle out of my capturer's grasp. Indeed, he did eventually put me down, but only when we had reached one of the darkest, emptiest halls in the entire school.

"Jeeze, I was trying to save you. No need to yell," said my capturer once he had put me down. When I turned around, it was no surprise that Kaoru was the one who had kidnapped me, though I still found it hard to believe.

"Did you get her?" Hikaru asked as he walked towards us.

"Yep. She doesn't look too happy, though," he shrugged.

"You idiots! Of course I'm not happy! You just caused the entire female student body to hate me even more with that display! What were you thinking?" I hissed.

"We were thinking we were trying to help you," Kaoru innocently replied.

"Help? How was that helping? What shit are you trying to pull?"

"Oh, come on. You know that was fun," Hikaru slyly said.

"Fun? Fun is going to Chucky Cheeses and ruining a kid's birthday party! This was insanity! Do you know how much trouble I'm going to get in when they find out you two did this on my account? They're gonna think I was trying to sabotage the entire student body!"

"Oh, please. Take a pill. They aren't going to get that pissed," Hikaru shrugged.

"Besides, we weren't following your orders. No one is gonna punish you for that," Kaoru said with a smile.

"Oh-ho! You think so, now? Well let me tell you, you have no idea how terribly this school hates me! They will do anything to get me in trouble!"

"Hmf, anything?" the two simultaneously asked in disbelief.

"What, you don't believe me?" I snapped.

"Personally, I don't think they can punish you in any way for something as minor as this," Hikaru said.

"Oh do yah, now?" asked a rather muscular voice for a woman.

We all turned wide eyed to the woman standing behind me. It was the rather large hall monitor from the office, and let me be the one to tell you, she hated my guts from the moment she met me, on the account that she hates people eating in her hall ways.

"I want your butt in the office pronto, Dagas! And bring your little friends with you, too."

"Damn it!" I hissed. "But I didn't do anything!"

"I don't care! Get to the office right now!"

I groaned as loud as ever. "Fine… come on, guys…" I sighed.

"If you say so," they simultaneously said.

"Damn, that's freaky," she mumbled as she led us to the office.

Once we had gotten to the office, the hall monitor forced us to take a seat as she explained what happened to the vice principal and showed him the tapes of the twins alleged "rescue attempt."

"Good God, what in the world is wrong with you, girl?" the vice principal barked at me after viewing the tapes.

"For the last time, it wasn't my idea! I don't know what got into these two to make them do that!" I defended.

"Like I believe that for a second!"

"But it's the truth. We were told by somebody else to do it. It wasn't Dagas' idea at all," Hikaru casually said.

"Oh, don't try to defend her! I don't believe either of you for even a second!"

My skin became cold as I witnessed the two rudely sticking their tongues at the woman. I suddenly got the sensation that I was about to be sent to juvenile prison just because of their outbursts. It was just unbearable to even sit through.

"So, since I'm gonna get mauled by these people anyways, could you at least tell me who told you to do this?"

They looked over to each other once, closed their eyes and said in unison, "Switzerland told us to."

"Switzerland? Damn it, I told him to stay out of this!" I snarled.

"He said he wanted to help you. Something about how you weren't happy and someone needed to do something about this," Kaoru stated.

"Help? What kind of help does he think that was?"

"Ahem!" the hall monitor called over to get our attention. "Now you and your friends got five seconds to explain yourselves or I'm haulin' your asses to Juvie!"

"We just wanted to break her out of your crummy school," Hikaru explained.

"None of you were being nice to her and she got upset about it. Besides, all she wants is to go home. I mean, you could at least kick her out instead of send her to Juvie," Kaoru suggested.

"Oh, I'm doomed," I groaned, slapping my hand to my face.

"We just might if she decides she wants to pull more of this bull crap! I swear to God, I aughta call the cops on all three of yah right now!"

"Or," the two simultaneously said with grins on their faces.

"Or what?"

In just a few moments, the two sprang out of their seats, pulled out their signature dark green hats, slipped them on, and said in unison, "We could play the "which one is Hikaru" game!"

It now came to me why the two were oddly wearing the same casual outfit today: they had been planning on doing this all along. And so, this, I figured, would be my absolute downfall.

"What in God's name is that?" the hall monitor exclaimed.

"If you figure out which one of us is Hikaru, then you can kick us out. If you don't, then we get to take Dagas home," the two challenged in chorus.

Both the large woman and the vice principal glared at them horribly, feeling unimpressed as ever. "You can't be serious…" the vice principal scoffed.

"Ah-ah-ah! Once you've started the game, someone has to finish it!" the two said. "So who's Hikaru?"

"You," the hall monitor said, pointing to the twin on the left. "You're Hikiru, or whatever your name is. Now get the hell out of here or I'll make the cops drag you out."

"Oh! Incorrect! You didn't find Hikaru! Guess we get to take Dagas home," they slyly said before grabbing me by both arms.

"STOP!" I angrily shrieked at them before they could get the chance to take me away.

They looked down at me with confused looks in their eyes. "But, isn't this what you wanted?" Kaoru asked.

"You wanted to go home, right?" Hikaru asked.

"No, I didn't. I said I wanted you all to stay out of this. I said that this was my problem and you can't just solve it like this…" I coldly stated as angry tears began to bring themselves up. "I said that everybody would just get in trouble with me if you tried to intervene, and that's exactly what's gonna happen if you don't go home like they said…"

"But, Dagas…" Kaoru tried to softly object.

"No, just stop! I told you guys to stay out of this and I meant it… just go home."

"Dagas, we can't just leave you here," Hikaru said.

"Damn it! I said go home! Just go back! I don't want you all involved with my own problems! Just get out! Don't you ever come back here again!" I screamed at them as I choked back pained tears.

They looked down at me, pained, apologetic looks on their faces as they watched me sniffle back my tears. Though they would normally crack another joke at this, they now realized that they had seriously upset me. With lowered heads and low spirits, their shoulders drooped down, they began to leave the room. "We're sorry…" Kaoru sadly called back. His face grew even sadder when I refused to look back at him.

The two left and I was set alone in the room once more, fearing what they would do as punishment to me. I got a scolding and a detention date after school, but that didn't cover the rest of the punishment I received.

When I finally left the school 2 hours after it was over, Celty was still waiting for me, being the only person on the curb. It was no surprise that I had gotten beaten by the angry mob of girls after school, but it took Celty by complete surprise. She struggled to get an answer out of me to what was wrong, but I never said a word. I held on to her tighter that day as we rode home, feeling broken to pieces. I was like a helpless little seahorse in the middle of an empty ocean. There was nothing I could do about all of this now. I just had to sit back and watch as my friends try to help while I tirelessly turn them away, leaving my life to crumble before me.

I returned home and refused to speak a word to anybody else. Switzerland tried desperately to explain himself to me, but he was the last person in the world I ever wanted to talk to. He too was ignored. I went to bed early that night, listening to my world around me pass by perfectly fine without my aid. It seemed as though the mall could function fine without me around. I fell asleep, thinking that I could go to Juvie right now, and it wouldn't even make a difference here.


"What happened? Dagas wouldn't talk to me when she got back," Switzerland asked

The twins sadly shrugged. "Things didn't go well," Hikaru admitted.

"She really doesn't want us doing anything about it," Kaoru concluded.

"Damn… We need a new plan," Switzerland scowled.

"Um, actually," Hikaru objected. "Maybe we should just back off. You never know: maybe they'll kick her out of the school before it's too late."

"I doubt it…" he angrily mumbled.

"Then what do you suppose we do?" Kaoru asked.

"We already exhausted all of our ideas in that meeting last night. And it sure doesn't look to me like you've got anything in mind," Hikaru rudely pointed out.

There was a pause as Switzerland angrily thought, his knuckle placed thoughtfully under his chin. Then, at not a moment's notice, his eyes widened and a tiny, thoughtful, devilish grin crept on to his face. "We may have exhausted all of our own ideas, but that doesn't mean we're all out of them…"

"Pardon?" the two said.

"Isn't that a little bit of a backwards thing to say?" Kaoru asked.

"Not at all… You two," he said in a leader like tone, a single finger pointed at the twins. "Pass on the word: everyone is to meet tomorrow night at the center of the warehouse an hour after closing. Nobody can tell the boss. Got it?"

They nodded, but with wary looks in their eyes.

"Good. Make sure everyone gets the message… accept for Dagas and Joey; I can talk to him about this myself."

"Yessir!" they agreed before splitting up into two different directions to spread the word.

"Looks like we've still got something up our sleeves…"


The next night. 11:30 pm

Location- warehouse

"Could somebody please explain why we're here at this ungodly hour?" Ciel complained.

"Ungodly? Please! You're just cranky because it's past your bed time!" Masaomi taunted.

"Stop arguing. It's not going to solve anything," Miharu pointed out.

"Agree with your pirate clone, why don't you? Oh snap!" he retorted.

Both Ciel and Miharu glared at him, surprisingly with the same look.

This little argument broke out into chattering, arguing and yelling of all different types that echoed though out the entire warehouse. At this time, all of the employees were all sitting in a circle in the middle of the warehouse, though none of them had any idea as to why. All they knew was that they were to show up at that time at that place and that the hour of the night was making them all tired and pissed.

"Hey, everyone, please calm down!" Switzerland called out in his meek voice. When no one would quiet down, he called in his back up. With a pound of his fist onto an empty crate that was being used as a podium, the backup crowd control cried out in the possibly manliest voice known to man, "EVERYONE SHUT UP!"

"Germany?" the room cried out in confusion. In place of his usual table-pounding speech, Germany stepped aside and handed the floor back to Switzerland.

"Listen! All of you need to calm down and pay attention! I'll explain all of this once everything is ready!"

"When what's ready? You countries finally trying to kill the rest of us off?" Leon accused him.

"No! That's not it at all!"

"Then what are you trying to do? Gag us with socks and make us watch Dr. Phil?" Morty threw out in a fit. To this, the whole room went silent.

"Really?"

"Dude, why would you even say that?"

"That is just… no! That's horrible!"

"Don't even go there, man…"

A few more scolding sentences were thrown out at him before abruptly ending as the door to the warehouse creaked open. The room went silent again as a single pair of footsteps drew near to the center where the group was gathered. After a few minutes of silent waiting in anticipation, from around the corner, Joey appeared and announced to Switzerland, "The bird is in the nest. All clear."

"What's with the spy code?" one of the employees asked.

"I dunno. I felt like a spy, so I did a code like a spy," he shrugged.

"Whatever. We're all here, so now we can start," Switzerland said at his crate podium. "I'm going to get right to the point: we need to get Dagas out of that school."

"Um, I don't know about you, but I think she's made it painfully clear that she doesn't want our help," someone in the crowd objected, followed by a flurry of discouraged murmurs.

"I know, I know, it's a stretch! But she needs to get her out of there!"

"I agree. The teachers have been apparently merciless to her," L stated, obviously from experience with the homework situation.

"Really look at her! This is killing her from the inside out!" Switzerland stated.

"Oh, that phrase is so cliché!"

He cleared his throat and moved on. "We have to stop this! And we have only until winter next month! Once the shopping season starts, it's all over! We need to act by then!"

"How the hell do you suppose we do something as bat-shit insane as that?" Mello questioned.

"We'll need a good game plan, first off," B said.

"Exactly! This is why I wanted you all here," he paused and leaned forward on the podium. "Any ideas?"

"Why don't we just kill em' all?" Shizuo suggested.

"No, then we'll all be in prison for being accomplices," someone pointed out.

"Why don't we report all of the teachers in for sexual harassment?"

"No: too suspicious."

There were a few more individual ideas thrown out, though all of them were pretty illogical. Thought after thought was blurted out, but nothing could be agreed on. As the ideas were thrown out, an unsteadiness began to fill the room as something from the back of the room started to gain some attention. From the back of the room, an unfamiliar, hooded man steadily made his way to the podium. He traveled around the circle, people staring suspiciously at him as he passed by. He soon made his way to the podium, moving Switzerland aside and stepping up. He quickly gained everybody's attention and waited for the room to grow silent. He reached up and pulled off his black hood, revealing a face that could be simply described as "bejeweled." His makeup was think, his pants were tight and his hair was… fabulous!

"Hello there… My name is Adam Lambert, and I think I can help."

"Oh… oh my god! You're A… uh!" There was a slam, and at the back of the circle, Greil was passed out cold on the floor.

"Adam Lambert?" half of the circle asked.

"Why in the world are you here?" someone asked.

"Well, I don't know if it was a paradox or what, but somehow I got locked in one of your boxes here. I couldn't help but overhear your meeting and think of something while I was trying to break out. Now, like I said, I have a plan. A master plan that cannot fail, and I don't care if you understand it!"

"Hah!" Greil loudly giggled as he vaguely regained consciousness.

"Now listen: what we're going to need for this to work is a list of the school schedule for the next month, an entire map of the school, and all of your participation… and if you have it, I'd like to borrow a Bedazzle Machine."


12 days later~

"Oh, you just think you're bleeding."

"Um, I actually am bleeding… right here," I protested to the nurse as I pointed at my cheek bone that was now a gruesome shade of crimson red.

"You're lying! That's just catsup!" the moronic blond nurse insisted.

"Damn it, could I just have a band aid?"

"You don't need a band aid to cure a catsup stain! Now get out of my office!" the nurse ordered.

I gave her a snarl and left with my hand held under my chin to prevent it from dripping on the floor.

Today I was forced to survive another dreadful day at this school once again. I had gotten to the point of being able to accept death by school work or mutilation, but what really frightened me right now was the thought of the blond finding something along the lines of a sharp rake to chuck at my head.

My existence had become quite dreary these days without my mall. What's worse was the fact that I had chosen to ignore my employees in the hopes that they would quit getting involved with this. That was an unfortunate decision to have made. Without them, I was the very definition of "forever alone." But was I to do now? Say "I'm sorry for telling you all to get the hell out of my life"? Some would take that as a valid apology, but most of the people working for me wouldn't think of it as even a valid statement. Really, there wasn't much I could do about anything now.

"Hey, bitch!" I heard from down the hall. "What happened? You pop a zit?" the blond sarcastically asked as she pointed to my bleeding face.

"I did not! You threw an Alvin and the Chipmunks happy meal toy at me! You nearly stabbed my eye out with that damn things' foot!"

"Oh, don't be such a drama queen!"

"This is not drama! This is the anger of a rodent karate-kick victim!"

"Oh, stop with your whining! Besides, your mood should be better with the rally coming up today… I'm sure you're going to love it," she sneered as she struck a pose to flaunt her navy blue and gold cheer uniform. "Tootles!" She then pranced right up to me and swacked my open wound with her pom-pom.

I let out a fake sniffle and cupped my hand over my open face. "No it won't… I have no pep…"

Today was the day of the school's annual pep rally. Taking a closer look at any pep rally, all they really are is a chance for the cheer squad to flaunt what little skill they possess. As for me, pep rallies have always upset me. You sit in the cold bleachers for half of the day, listen to gay songs that were never popular in the first place and the school gives up valuable money and time for a worthless cause.

In every single way I wasn't looking forward to today. Sadly, the rally was mandatory, so I would be forced to tough it out and, if I got lucky, fall asleep until it was over. I highly doubted the people around me would let me sleep in a million years, but I could dream, couldn't I?

At the end of lunch, we were all hauled into the large gym. I cautiously viewed my surroundings and found a wave of stuffy teachers at high posts all about the bleachers. They were stationed to keep watch over the delinquent students. And when I say "delinquent", I mean anybody who they catch breathing wrong. Shuffling in, I could see those teachers had their work cut out for them. Merely having the ability to hear clearly gave you the opportunity to hear the voices of the dangerously moronic delinquents surrounding the area.

Soon, we were all seated and forced to wait about a half an hour for the cheer team to set up. While waiting, people seemed to find looking at the wet, bloody wad of tissues on my face to be a good pass time. It felt like I was the mentally challenged lion behind the big glass window at the zoo.

Sure enough, the rally started at last, and the moment it did, my ears were bombarded by the sound of ape like screeches from the larger jocks in the school. Along with the screams and hollers, I was forced to watch the cheer squad routine that had been timed poorly to a shitty Miley Cyrus song that had been played 500 times on the radio maybe 8 years ago. At one point, I tried to sleep through the horrid display, but the hawk-like teachers thumped me on the head every time I would doze off.

Once the routine was over, one of the more immature teachers grabbed a bull-horn and began to start the announcements. He started by listing off the time of the next football game that everybody knew about for weeks. He then said something about another fundraiser (probably made so that the teachers could get a higher salary for this quarter) and then started with something unexpected.

"Also, the captain of the cheer squad asked me to give out a special announcement… Um, apparently, all new students that have been enrolled into this school in the past month… will be vigorously slapped by the student body after the assembly."

I cringed in my seat and watched as every single person in the gym glared down at me, some with evil smiles others with menacing sneers. By the end of today, I had been doomed to walk the earth looking like a fruit that had been dropped on the floor one too many times. Though I had been waiting for the students to attack me right then and there, nothing happened. There was only silence as, what would have been loud screams and an ambush upon me, was replaced when the gym doors suddenly burst open in a flurry of excitement and… glitter?

In the doorway stood, literally, a man in black. His eye liner, his jacket, his gloves, his skinny jeans; all black. Although it was hard to see through the thick crowds of people, I just barely caught a glimpse of his face, which held a suspicious look to it. Not bad suspicious, but a look that would make it known that something was up.

There was a moment of silence, but that was soon broken. Belting out of his lungs came the noise of a wailing angel, far surpassing the talent of all the Jackson 5 combined. It echoed loud and proud off the four walls of the gym, sending some into a trance and others into a state of awe as the voice of this man gave way to his identity.

His extended, awe inspiring note ended, gaining every single person's attention, and with that, he waited silently for the first reaction. From one of the upper levels of the bleachers, a scream was heard loud enough for all to hear. "Oh my god! It's Adam Lambert!" The female students sprang up from their seats and began squealing with glee like a hoard of toddlers at a Wiggles concert. As I struggled to push past the rushing crowds, I saw through the gaps of people that the famed pop star was struggling to look around for something. And it wasn't the kind of looking where he was just waving and soaking up the attention from his adoring fans. He was looking around curiously for something. Or someone.

He looked around for a bit longer and suddenly stopped, looking straight up at the bleachers that I was standing on. He gave out a smile, pulled out his rein-stoned, midnight-blue phone and began to formulate a text. Now, I was a bit confused by this, but the rest of the screaming students didn't seem to care. From what I could see, he sent out a quick, simple text and slid the phone back into his leather jacket. Again, I found it a bit suspicious that a pop star would stop to send a text while out in a public place, but I tried to just go with it.

As he stood in the middle of the gym, fangirls having to be held back by the teachers, I began to hear a faint noise. It remained quiet, but even over the screams of the girls, I could still hear it getting closer to the school. As it got closer, I started to become a little antsy to see what it could be coming from. Maybe it was Adam's tour bus or his backup singers. I highly doubted it, but let me tell you, nothing I could have ever expected could match up to what entered this school.

I stood up as high as I could on top of the bleacher I had been sitting on to see if I could identify what the sound was. Before I could decipher it, however, the sound abruptly stopped. This heightened my suspicions even more. I decided to stick with the idea that it had all been in my head. That thought was proven wrong after the following events.

I drew my attention to the back of the gym, which was where I thought the sound had been coming from. Standing by the back doors, a peculiar man in a janitors' uniform was messing with the locks. He jiggled a couple locks, periodically brushing back his shoulder-length blond hair, and as quick as a fox, he undid every last one. Quickly and quietly, he pulled out the dividing bars between the four doors in the back, pulled them wide open and kicked down the kick stands on the doors. As swiftly as he had appeared, he bolted away to the other end of the gym, seeming to be running away from something behind him.

The sound from outside suddenly started up again, causing me to jump a little as it had become louder than before. By now, the noise was clear enough for me to finally figure out what it could be from where I sat. I listened closely and became startled as I made out the noise to be the sound of several revving engines just outside the doors.

With the happy screams suddenly escalating to quick shrieks, two cars, a red Chevy and a silver Subaru, screamed loudly into the center of the gym, clearing the crowd away in an instant. Leading in front of them, a jet black motorcycle raced in, screeching to a halt in between the two cars. My eyes grew wide and my body began to shake as I came to the realization of what this was: the loud distraction, the suspicious custodian, the vehicles that I could easily recognize together! It all made sense now! This was a jail-break.

The room had cleared from the talking and the screams. Only the sound of the engines filled the room. There was a long silence, the mass of people becoming more nervous as the clock ticked. Slowly, Celty, atop her vehicle, raised her arm to the sky and apparated her signature scythe from the air, startling half of the crowd out of their seats. As a layer of gloom appeared around her, he revved up her motorcycle, pulled up the front wheel and held up her scythe high into the air. Her vehicle brayed at an ear splitting volume, erupting another wave of hollers and screams from the students.

She brought down the wheel of her bike and the room filled with screams once more as a horrendous rumbling came from above the gym. There was screaming, rumbling, and, surprisingly, flapping noises everywhere I could see. Panicked, I looked up into the gym's sky lights and immediately ducked for cover, the windows shattering open, sending shattered glass on to people's heads. When I looked back up and removed my hands from my head, I stared in alarm as the huge, flamboyant bird, Ho-Oh, burst through the windows with Morty soaring on its' back, howling with glee as he swooped all about the room. Following him came a wave of bird pokémon with Falkner in the lead atop his prized Pidgeot. From behind him, a swarm of my other employees came swooping in on top of a flock of newly caught Staraptors.

At the very end by the back doors, the final wave of people from my mall charged in, bearing water pipes as weapons. I prayed they weren't the water pipes in any of our stores as I found Russia with the biggest pipe leading the wave.

At one end of the room, the students around me swarmed to get out of the front doors while, at the other end, the gym teachers tried to fight off the ground brigade. I stood where I was, shocked that this was actually happening. Paralyzed by fright, I hardly noticed it when Morty began to descend his Ho-Oh towards me. Without stopping his bird for even a second, I was swooped off the ground by the bird pokémon, my lungs going hoarse as I screamed like an 8 year old at a haunted house. The bird rose higher and higher until the two of us could see the entire gym.

"What a view, eh?" Morty commented as he looked down at the scrambling people.

"Morty, what the hell are you all doing here?" I screamed, my voice cracking on every other word.

"We'll explain once we get back," he assured.

He tightened his purple scarf a bit and patted the bird on the neck, sending us into a quick dive back to the ground. Just before we would have hit, he veered the bird up, landing it safely on the ground. He reached his hand down and picked up the once person we had landed right next to: Adam Lambert.

"Hi, how are you? Call me Adam," he said to me as he hopped on the bird right behind me and held out his hand.

"Oh… oh my… Adam Lambert?" I squealed.

"The one and only."

"Wha… y-you're… what the hell is going on here?"

"I told you, we'll explain once we get back! Now hang on tight! We're blowin' this cracker barrel!" Morty enthusiastically warned. As fast as a bullet, we soared up the open sky light, high above the frantic school and over the roads of screaming drivers. We all tightened out grips on the bird and Morty patted it on the neck once more. With that, it began to majestically fly north, carrying us home.


"Whoa! What a rush!" I exclaimed once we landed in the empty parking lot.

"Ain't it?" Morty agreed as he brought his Ho-Oh back into its' master ball.

I turned around to view the crowd behind me and saw the rest of my employees brushing their hair back, clambering out of cars and carefully trying to dismount off of birds. Looking around, I saw that whatever they had planned, it was pretty well made. Each person had their own individual part that suited their style and each one played a part. The more violent ones got water pipes and the more hyper-energetic ones got to have fun on their own bird. It was so well thought out, it made me smile. Though, it didn't have the impressment powers strong enough to answer my one question.

"So, Morty, now that we're all back, why the hell did you all storm the school like a band or rampaging barbarians?" I furiously screamed.

"I resent that!" England angrily called out.

"Well?" I stood in my usual, angry stance, arms crossed, eyes swelteringly irritated and foot maliciously tapping on the ground.

"We came to save you," he innocently said.

"What?" I asked, arms unfolded in fading rage.

"We could all see that you were suffering at that school," L elaborated.

"And you kept saying that you couldn't do anything about it," Switzerland pointed out.

"So we did something about it," Falkner finished as he started piling the birds into his stack of poke-balls.

"B-but… I told you all to stay out of it! Didn't any of you listen?" I angrily yelled.

"What, you thought we would actually heed to that?" Matt scoffed.

"We couldn't just leave you like that: that would be cruelty," Suzaku said.

"W-well… well none of that explains why Adam Lambert is here!" I objected as my eyes started to well up a bit.

"I just happened to have broken out of a crate when they were having their meeting in the warehouse about two weeks ago. Your situation sounded bad so I helped out in devising the whole plan," Adam explained, a proud look glued onto his cheery smile.

"Lemme guess; it was your master plan, and even though you explained it to me anyways, you didn't really care if I understood it at all?" I questioned.

"…Actually, yeah! That's exactly what it was! How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess," I shrugged.

I turned my body around rapidly as I felt a little tugging at the end of my hoodie. Looking up at me with a mopey look in his big eyes, Honey meekly asked as if I was about to hit him, "You aren't mad at us… are you, sama?"

On any other day, I would have said that I was completely furious with them. This incident would probably get us shut down by the cops in just a couple hours! But as I looked at the shameful, apologetic faces of all of my employees, it finally came to me; this was a group of people who would go beyond the majority of the working class people in the world and put their own jobs on the line to rescue their own ruthless boss. I now knew, I wasn't just the cold hearted manager I feared they hated. I wasn't that at all, just like they weren't my employees at all. They were my friends, my only friends… and my family… and I was that to them. These people cared dearly about me and I tried to push them away this whole time when I needed them most. Even when I gave up on them, they refused to give up on me: and that was one of the little things that gave me good reason to live.

"Are you crying?" one of them asked.

"N-no… I just got an eyelash in my eye," I sniffled.

Honey knew I was lying and immediately hugged his arms around my waist. Around me, my tears overflowed as the people around me began to crowd in and join the group. A few hung back, being that they didn't like hugs, but I could still see them smiling sweetly at me.

"Oh… I love you guys! I don't ever want to abandon you all like this again," I promised to all of them. The group murmured happy replies and hugged tighter as we enjoyed this sweet moment. At least, we enjoyed it while it lasted.

From the front of the parking lot, a poof of smoke appeared, carrying Sunni and Austria with it. Sunni's face seemed unusually amused while, as for Austria, his was quite disappointed.

"Thank you," he said to the hobo when they arrived.

"Don't mention it," she replied before poofing back from where she came.

"Uck, that was the filthiest form of transportation I have ever taken! Never again," he grumbled as he brushed off his regular royal blue robes. "Is Dagas here?" he asked, a menacing anger in his tone.

I scrunched up into the group in the hopes that he wouldn't see me, from the front of the group, B, Mello and Russia made a protective wall around all of us, water pipes in hand and vicious looks on their faces.

"Oh, don't make such a fuss. I'm just here to deliver a message."

"What do you want?" I asked as I emerged from the huddle of people.

"I've received word from the school board. They seem to have made a decision after you big exit."

"Oh, just say it! I have to go back to school? Juvenile hall? Are they gonna shut down the mall? Oh! Worse! Are they gonna ship me off to die of malaria in the deep jungles of Africa?"

"No! Nothing of the sort! Now listen! They have spoken with the super intendant and have made a big decision," he said in a stern tone. "They have agreed…" there was a long, suspenseful silence. "You, and your employees, are legally banned from an education in every school district in the state of Illinois. This ban will go on all of your permanent records, making it near impossible to gain an education in any school in the U.S."

"Rock on!" America called out from the back.

"Yes, what you said."

"Wait, if we're expelled from every school in this state, then why were you so steamed when you got here? This has nothing to do with you!" I pointed out.

"I personally take it as my problem because I'm the one who forced you to go to that school in the first place. I failed to see the error in that, so now we have half of a public school in shambles. I take it as my own fault, not yours."

"Um… if you say so," I shrugged.

"Well… while I'm here, might I-"

"Um, about that," I said before walking towards him, wrapping my arm around his shoulder and walking him towards the exit. "You're gonna love this, see, the problem is, um…" I violently snapped my hand into a viper grip on his shoulder. "I'm still in charge of this property and what I say is law! Now get the FUCK out of my mall!" Without a moments' hesitation, I grabbed him by his puffy ascot, pulled him to the end of the parking lot and slammed him down onto the sidewalk just inches behind the border that separated my property from the public property. "And stay out, you stuffy son of a bitch!" I cackled a bit like a drunken witch and stomped off, feeling proud in my long awaited victory.

"Yo, Austria!" Prussia called over once I had fully stormed away. "Du! Ich! Sclafzimmer! Jetz! Or I shall seize your vital religions with the power of a thousand Prussian armies!"

And thus, all was finally right with the world once again. Balance had been set, all of us were in the right place, and this exiting chapter of our lives was finally said and done.


Now remember, children, the moral of this story wasn't just that you shouldn't let Austrians into your house. The moral was that bullying people is bad, and if you don't leave people alone, well, they'll crash into your school on fictional birds and hit your gym teachers with water pipes… or something. Good night New York!