| IMPORTANT NOTES |
○ This is set between the tenth and eleventh books (Into the Gauntlet and Vespers Rising, respectively) of the 39 Clues, not including the certain flashbacks○
○ I do not own either of the series. The 39 Clues belongs to Rick Riordan and Axis Powers Hetalia belongs to Himaruya Hidekazu ○
The IKEA-labeled plane was flying over the southern coast of France at around five in the afternoon when the pilots received a transmission.
[ Norway? Sweden? ] It was England.
[ Britannien? ] Sweden asked in his usual low tone.
[ Did you manage to get them? ]
[ Yes ] Norway replied. [ But England, why did you change the venue — ]
[— I don't want to talk about it!] the Brit on the other line snapped at him.
The two Scandinavians sat silently after being told off. Later, England cleared his throat and spoke.
[ Sorry about, chaps. Now tell me...where in the world are you? ]
Sweden checked the radar on the panel and confirmed their position. [ R'ght 'bove C'nnes. ]
[ Cannes? As in...Cannes, France? Hm...can you land in the small airport a little bit outside of Monaco? I'll immediately inform her of your arrival. ]
[ Switching vessels...? ] Sweden thought aloud.
[ Well, it's not like you want to get caught in a severe storm at sea, now do you? ] England pointed out.
The Swede grumbled a reply, and the Norge made a course for Monaco.
[ Roger than, England ] Norway said.
Eisenhower Holt stared off the coast of Alexandria, silently watching his three children playing in the clear, crystal waters nearby. And when I mean playing, I mean wrestling and trying hard enough to get not drowned by the other. He also watched as the albino man he recently met joined them.
Gilbert launched himself into air (after jumping off a prissy Austrian) and cannonball-ing into the water, creating a relatively big splash that knocked the Holt children off their feet. Hamilton's, Reagan's, and Madison's head broke the surface with a sharp breath, but began to laugh soon after the Prussian yelled out "The Awesome Me totally knocked you down, dudes!" accompanied with a weird laugh that sounded like "kesesese!".
Unfortunately for them, the Swiss man had to cut between their fun time. "Gilbert! We don't have time for fun and games! Now get out of the water or else!"
"Or else what, Zwingli?" the Prussian talked back domineeringly. The Holt children held back their laughter after he mention Vash's surname. "You'll shoot me with your precious guns, the ones Gupta's dudes confiscated back at the airport?"
Switzerland was nowhere near happy about it. He tried his best to explain to Egypt about the situation and that keeping his guns beside him would do him and the others a great favor. BUT NO. Prussia just had to open his big, fat mouth and remind Gupta of the little incident they had a few years ago.
"It wasn't meant to turn out that way!" Vash could remember himself screaming out his defense back at the airport. "Those submarines exploded by accident!"
Returning to the current times, he and Gilbert were rallying at each other with various, colorful German and Swiss swears. And even to some point, both men were just making them up.
Later, a sharp scream in Hungarian was heard. "POFA BE! Both of you!"
It came from Elizabeta standing on the beach beside Roderich. Hungary's hands were on her hips as she glared at the Swiss and the Prussian (but she had a stronger glare on the second); Austria's hand was on his face (Prussia concluded that he just did his casual facepalm).
"Will you please act like proper adults?" Roderich scolded them. "At least in front of our guests?"
Moments later, the Holt children and Prussia rushed back to shore and had a change of clothes. Once everyone was gathered, Roderich introduced the Holts to a dark-skinned Egyptian he and the other nations knew very well.
"Herr und Frau Holt, this is our friend, Herr Gupta Muhammed Hassan."
Egypt held out his hands for Eisenhower and Mary-Todd to shake. As they shook hands, Gupta was wearing a neutral expression. In fact, he wore the very same expression through most of the time he spent with the group.
Austria said that Egypt would be taking them to a pier, where they will take a submarine to Insula Academiea. There was a bit of questioning from the Holts, mostly Eisenhower, and from (the ever-annoying) Prussia. But in the end, everyone agreed to come very much thanks to Hungary and Switzerland's "persuasion".
"Why must we take these old, horrid submarines?" Ian Kabra asked the Asians with spunk.
"Yes," Natalie agreed with her brother. "I'm afraid that my outfit might get ruined by the rust and salty water — "
Im Yong Soo plugged his ears with his long sleeves before he could hear the next of the Kabra children's whining. They had not stopped ever since the group left London via Land Rover LRX. Now they were in at a sea port in the south of Spain, and Ian and Natalie have yet to put a sock in it.
Alistair Oh was staring at the vast, crystal blue waters before him. On the island of Crete, it was rather windy. But he didn't mind; he had been invited here by his brethren of the Ekaterina branch. An e-mail was sent to him the previous night saying that he needed to report to Crete in Greece as soon as possible. There were no conditions attached to the message that said of any circumstances in such case that Alistair does not travel to Greece, but deep in his conscience he had a nagging feeling that he just had to go. So he did.
Now here he was, patiently waiting at the designated port. And yet, the one who sent to message was still not there.
Alistair checked his wristwatch. A quarter to five. Fifteen minutes. The Ekats had made him wait fifteen minutes longer than he had expected.
Alistair was beginning to think that this was all a hoax, a scam. He felt ridiculed, having been told to travel to a location halfway across the world and played for a fool once he got to there.
He was ready to back out on this when he recognized three awfully familiar faces coming towards him.
"Uncle Alistair?" "Uncle!" "Hey!"
The Starling triplets wore a creative mixture of confused and gleeful faces. But Alistair was just staring at them in disbelief. He blinked twice, rubbed his eyes, and blinked again. He wasn't imagining things, the three children were real and running towards him.
"You..." He was in a slight shock, but most definitely not at a complete lost for words. "Children, what are doing here?"
"We were just about to ask you the same thing, Uncle," the only girl of the three, Sinead, replied.
Alistair was dumbfounded. "Don't tell me...were you the Ekats who sent me that e-mail?"
"Eh?" the boys, Ned and Ted, said in unison.
Sinead was getting frantic. "What — but we — I give up." She hung her head and facepalm-ed.
"Yo, my peeps!"
The four Ekats turned their heads to the father-son duo approaching them. The teen-aged boy was waving as them as he flashed a bright smiled in the direction, and his father was busy button-smashing on his Blackberry.
"Broderick? And Jonah, my boy," Alistair said breathlessly once the Wizards came upon them. "What in the — "
"Chill, Uncle!" Jonah assured the man. "We're just here for some fan service."
"Fan service?" the Starlings asked simultaneously. "On the island of Crete?"
Broderick pocketed his phone and stepped in. "Well, I don't see any reason why you Ekats are here, too."
Sinead was about to argue with him, three heads popped out of three barrels nearby. Two blonds, and one brown-haired man. The tallest of the three raised his hand and addressed the confused Cahills.
"Pardon me," he said curtly. "But may we intrude?"
Everyone else was staring at them with wide eyes. "UH — "
"Don't worry," the man told them. "I'll explain everything."
AND SOON AFTER~
"You were the one who sent us those e-mails?" Alistair and the Starlings yelled at Estonia.
Eduard frowned. "Why did you say it like it's impossible?"
"That's highly the case here," Sinead said. "I mean, how could you know our e-mail addresses in the first place? Only an extremely skilled Ekat — er, I mean, computer whiz would be able to trace our addresses!"
Eduard pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and smirked. "There's more than meets the eyes, little girl."
Sinead looked taken aback, and she shrunk between her brothers.
"Wow, it looks like you guys have been hoaxed," Jonah said smugly.
Much to his displeasure, Lithuania cut in. "Um...I'm sorry, Mr. Wizard, sir. But...that text message and call from your fan was...erm..."
Toris was fiddling with his fingers and staring down while Jonah and Broderick stared at him in bewilderment.
"WHAT?" father and son screamed at him with a thundering voice.
Alistair was stifling a laugh, but the Starling triplets made no effort whatsoever to suppress their laughter.
"Oh, the irony!" "It's simply killing me!" "Jonah's been hoaxed!"
The Wizard boy's ear were pink. He wanted to yelled at them, to shut them up, but instead he turned back to the Baltic Trio and asked them, "Tell me the truth! Were the text and call for real or not?"
"I'll, like, totally answered that for ya, Jonah!" said a girly voice from behind some crates. The crates concealed the person's body, though they can see a head of shoulder-length blond hair.
"Hey, you!" Broderick bellowed at the mystery person. "Come out here this instant!"
"Like, no prob!"
They expected some frantic blond girl to come at them. Alas, it was a man. IN A SKIRT.
"Like, omigawd~! It's actually you!" Poland squealed as he looked at Jonah.
The Cahills were too busy gawking at the androgynous individual to react in any other way.
Feliks placed his hands on his hips and pouted. "Are you, like, gonna stand there and stare at me, like, all day? Well, I totally don't, like, blame you anyhow~"
He threw his hair back and fluttered his eyes, causing the four Ekats and the Wizards to shrug and step back.
"DAMMIT!" Broderick screamed. "I want an immediate explanation!"
Just then, a flash of silver blinded Broderick. The next second, a quickly-as-lightning gust of air rushed past Broderick's left ear. Or at least what he thought was a gust of air.
There was a loud thump from behind the Wizard man. Everyone turned their heads to the barrel Ned and Ted were seated. A shiny and ,surely, sharp knife was struck into it so hard that only the helm can be seen.
None of the Cahills had any time to scream or shriek when a large shadow was cast over them. It came from a woman at the top of the pile of crates from where Feliks had emerged earlier. She had long, silvery blond hair and poison purple eyes that could pierce the soul as deep as her knife had pierced the barrel. The two knives she held in each of her hands didn't lower the tension of the current situation.
It seemed that the Cahills were not the only ones who were scared of the woman. Eduard and Raivis were trembling like hell, and Feliks's face was pale with fright. Toris, on the other hand, kept his composure and spoke up.
"N-Natalia!" he beckoned the woman, and she looked at him. He flushed a bit and gulped, then continued. "Please don't hurt them!"
The woman ("Natalia", as what Toris called her) looked at him with a deadly glare for a moment, then placed the knives into the holsters on each of her legs. She then jumped down from the pile of crates and landed in front of Toris. Crossing her arms and closing her eyes, she told him, "I am the brawn of this section, and I would prefer it if you let me have my way for once."
"If we did, then probably we'd all be dead by now," the Latvian, Raivis, spoke out of turn. Again.
"RAIVIS!" the other two Baltic men scolded him.
But it was too late; Belarus had already grabbed Latvia by the collar and lifted him above her head, ready to throw him off the Cretan port they all stood upon.
As Eduard and Toris rushed to help Raivis, Feliks attended to the fear-stricken Cahills.
"Don't, like, totally mind them!" he told them, waving away the matter like it was nothing. He proceeded to rummage his pocket and soon took out what looked like the mere keys to a car attached to its remote control. Everyone thought so until the Pole pushed a button, and a submarine slowly rose out of the water a few meters offshore.
"So, in the meantime, how about we all go in the sub?" Feliks asked them casually with a wide grin.
"This — is — so — AWESOME!"
Dan couldn't keep it in his system for another second. He just had to let it out. And creep the hell out of the people around him. Again.
And as much as Amy wanted to call him a dweeb, she herself was fascinated by the ancient submarine she, Dan, Nellie, and the Nordics were in.
After getting of Berwald's IKEA plane somewhere outside Monaco, they went into the city and down to the port to board the current vessel they are taking to get to the World Summit. Arvid and Berwald were the captains of the submarines, and thus took charge and went to the control while everyone else had to stay in the passenger area.
In said area were various maps and charts either taped or glued to the walls. It may stink like a hobo's butt, but Amy loved it.
Meanwhile, Dan was enjoying the bright, flashing lights around the sub as he listened to Mathias giving them an exclusive tour of the sub.
He pointed to a green, glowing circle on the wall. "And this here's the do-hickey that let's us know if there are any other ships and subs in the area."
"Um, Mathias?" Dan began. "I'm not exactly an expert on submarines and stuff, but...I think that's called a radar."
Mathias stood there dumbfounded for a moment, then recovered his composure. "Uh...yeah! I-I knew that..." he said, rubbing the back of his neck and grinning in a silly way.
.o.o.o.o.o.
"Natalie, please stop checking your appearance in that fiberglass," Ian scolded his sister, although it sounded a tad bit smug.
Natalie abruptly stopped, turned and glared him. She then put her hands on her hips and "Ian, please do stop admiring yourself in that radar glass."
At the seats up front, Vietnam and Taiwan did simultaneous facepalms.
"How did we get stuck with them..." Vietnam groaned.
Taiwan was on the verge of pouncing at the Kabras and wringing their throats dry. "Why didn't Yao let us capture Dan and Amy instead...?"
"Like, omigawd~", Poland exclaimed. "This chapter's, like, totally too short!"
The others were silent until Lithuania spoke up. "Um...how about some crack?"
The other Baltics, the Asians, the Germans, Hungary, and the Nordics all stared at him like he was a crazy man. "Are you effing kidding us?"
On other hand, Denmark, South Korea, and Prussia jumped for joy and cheered loudly. "OH YEAH! CRACK FOR THE WIN~!"
Everyone else groaned and facepalm-ed.
"Why must we do this?" Roderich asked the group.
"That's because our series is easily abused!" South Korea remarked.
"And a fun one to do so, at that!" Denmark added, grinning childishly with Prussia.
Seriously pissed off, Norway, Hungary, and Asian girls stepped in. Norway punched and slapped Denmark; Hungary hit Prussia in the nuts with her frying pan; and Vietnam and Taiwan each slapped South Korea before telling him on his older brother (who, apparently, couldn't care any less).
Some crack never hurt, right? Ehehe...Anyways~! Just finished reading Vespers Rising (had to beg to me mum to let me buy it), and it was MARVELOUS. The first two chapters showed so much of the Family genre (I adore this genre despite its rarity), and Jude Watson's part (last part; present day with Amy and Dan) made me love Dan more than ever. 3333
"CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH" xDDDDD