| 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○
○ Ido not own either of the series. The 39 Clues belongs to Rick Riordan and Axis Powers Hetalia belongs to Himaruya Hidekazu ○
The eight smirking men and fifty or so people in the upper rooms proved a great threat to the people in the center of the room, Cahill and non-Cahill. And to prove this, Eisenhower Holt suddenly charged at one the men who responded by flailing his arms and screaming like a little girl.
"DAD, NO!" the Holt children shouted the instance he dashed at the unsuspecting man.
Three meters before the Eisenhower could land a punch on the screaming man, two other men had stood between them. A tall, blond man with a great build had grabbed Eisenhower's beefy fist with one hand and was applying great pressure to the Holt's shoulder with the other. Another man, black-haired and somewhat short, stood behind Eisenhower and held a ancient-looking katana to his neck.
"If you dare endanger our trusted ally," the black-haired man said darkly.
The blond man holding Eisenhower's shoulder added plenty more pressure to his shoulder, causing him to wince.
"We will not hesitate to wipe away your very existence from the face of the Earth,", the blond continued the black-haired man's statement in a stern and intimidating German accent.
The Holt gulped as his pulse raced. He eyed the shiny metal of the sword positioned at a alarming distance from his neck, then to dewy-eyed man whom he was supposed to attack tearing up with relief.
"Ludwig, K-Kiku...!" the man said frantically. "Please let the m-man go!"
Ludwig and Kiku stared at their ally, then exchanged blank expressions. And without further ado, Ludwig released Eisenhower's hand and shoulder and Kiku withdrew his katana. Yet the Holt was not spared from Ludwig's merciless, last-minute push, which sent him flying into his family, all grouped together. With the Holt family knocked down, most of the people watching had smiles appearing on their faces and laughs bursting out of their mouths.
"You are lucky that Feliciano-san is very forgiving," Kiku told the Holts as he returned his sword into its sheath.
"This is barbaric..." Amy said in a soft and shaky voice.
Dan, having heard her claim, could only shudder in agreement.
"What do you want from us anyway?" Natalie screamed at a very tall, silvery blond-haired man who wore a gentle smile that seemed to hide the history of a man of sin behind it.
The man replied by cocking his head to the side and sweetly saying, "It's simple really. Just revenge."
Those words sent chills down everyone's spines.
"Ivan, stop scaring them — " a squint-eyed man told him off, finishing his sentence with an unusual interjection, " — aru!"
A man with a deep French accent cut in and said, "But alas, our recruits themselves may have already scared them out of their pants." He paused, and a malicious smile spread across his face. "Hm~ I would like to see that. Honhonhonhon~"
"Merlin's beard, you yourself are making them tense, you frog!" the Englishman scolded him. "And let me do the talking from now on, you got that?"
He turned from his squabbling allies to the Cahills. The man's expression changed to a calmer one as he smiled and bowed in a gentlemanly way to them.
"Please do mind my manners, for we have yet to introduce ourselves," he said. By now, all the other seven men at the doors had silenced themselves.
The Englishman spoke. "My name is Arthur Kirkland, the representative from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
"Yo, dudes!" an American voice happily yelled and everyone immediately turned towards it. "The name's Alfred Foster-Jones, from the land of the free...THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!" He said the last few words with pride as he pumped his fists into the air. "Iggy over there" — Alfred addressed Arthur, who immediately replied with a "You bloody wanker!" — "calls me 'pig' and 'wanker', but you can call me 'Al' for short!"
As Arthur marched up to Alfred to bicker with him, the rest of the men stepped up and introduced themselves.
"I am Francis Bonnefoy, from nowhere else but the country of love..." — he flipped his golden, shoulder-length hair with much flair that he practically sparkled like Edward Cullen — "France~"
Irked, everyone backed away.
And the Russian man's greeting didn't seem any more welcoming than the Frenchman's.
"Eh, I am Ivan Braginsky of Russia. Become with me, da?" he said while smiling innocently and giving off an evil aura.
"My name is Wang Yao — " the Chinese man began, but was rudely interrupted by an obnoxiously loud laugh.
"AHAHAHA! WANG! His last name is 'Wang'!" Alfred jeered before getting wrung by the neck by Arthur.
Yao sighed heavily, then continued. "Wang Yao of China, aru!"
"Ve~! Ve~! Ciaoooo~! I'm Feliciano Vargas from Italia~!" the Italian gleefully introduced himself.
The German man, Ludwig, was quite hesitant. "Hm, My name Ludwig. Just Ludwig. My surname is not that significant, really..."
Feliciano interlocked Ludwig's arm with his own and said, "Yeah, he is my best friend from Germany!"
With this, Nellie and the other nations started to giggle at the cutesy Italian trying to hug his German more-than-an-ally-but-less-than-a-lover.
Lastly, it was just the Japanese guy. "Hello," he greeted them with a low bow. "I am Honda Kiku, hailing from Nippon. It is very nice to meet you."
Right about then, Francis and Ivan had managed to separate Arthur and Alfred. Living up to his pride of being a gentleman, Arthur dusted himself off and addressed the Cahills in what you could accept as a very mature tone.
"Now that everyone has properly introduced themselves to you, I shall now state your purpose of being in our presence."
He clapped his hands twice and the floor beneath the Cahills began to glow; a gigantic glowing symbol of the G8. Then above them, the dark ceiling lit itself, forming the symbol of the United Nations.
"The seven of us," Arthur told them. "are members of the Group of Eight, otherwise known as the G8. Wang Yao today is standing in place of Matthew Williams, our representative from Canada.
"The people you see here and up there" — Arthur motioned to the seven other men at the doors and all the nations in the upper rooms — "are part of the United Nations. You only see half a hundred of us because certain executives could not make it due to confidential circumstances.
"Us, the United Nations and Group of Eight, had been monitoring your family, the Cahill family, for more than five hundred years. We have seen what you have done, experienced what you had dealt with, and felt all the pain you had inflicted upon the beings of our world. In short, you have quite a history just within yourselves."
Finishing his speech with a contented smirk, Arthur held his hands behind his back and watched as the chaos unfolded.
"WHAT?" "I don't quite understand you...!" "This is crazy!" "I may even think that you're much weirded than us!"
"Dare call me a sadist, because I am gladly watching you lapse into panic and dysfunction," Arthur said, smiling and closing his eyes. "As I merely wished to see a soul other than myself suffer."
Eisenhower, shaken yet determined, stepped up and said, "Now what?"
Arthur raised an eyebrow at him. "Hm?"
"What are you gonna do now? Now that you have us in your clutches with nowhere and no way to escape?"
"Oh, is that what you think, Mr. Holt?"
"...Huh?"
[ Arthur used Smart Talk! ]
[ Eisenhower is now confused! ]
[And the crowd goes wild! !]
"You mean, we have a choice?" Alistair asked the Brit.
"Yes, actually there is," Arthur replied coolly. "You may choose to step out of this room right now. But then, where will you go? Do you even know the way out of this room, this academy, or this island? And even if you do, will you be able to survive the trials of the sea and sky ahead of you? And even then...!"
A maniacal laugh slowly began to come from Arthur as he witnessed the horrified faces of the Cahills. The other seven men, his allies, were staring at him with much worry.
Suddenly stopping at mid-laugh, he spoke in a grim tone. Arthur looked at them menacingly with a partnering smile of wickedness.
"Even if you manage to escape from us now, we shall continue to hunt you down. "
"Each and everyone of you will be coming with one of us," England had said. "Further details shall be explained later on."
Mayhem broke out. Everyone was confused and furious; all were at unease and in worry.
"Are you effing kidding me?" Ian Kabra shouted together with his sister Natalie.
"I'm pretty sure that my insurance won't cover anything if they the company can't even find my body," Jonah said with a hint of sarcasm.
"Oh?" Arthur cocked his brow at the Wizard boy. He shook his head. "Oh no, no, no, my dear boy. We simply can't get rid of all of you. After all, you are Cahills. If we attempted anything of the sort, I am very sure that it will not be sightly in any way at all."
England was smirking like the way sinister villains would when they're plotting something really evil. This sent chills down everybody's spine right then and there.
Arthur cleared his throat and spoke again: "Well, if there are no more violent reactions...may I suggest that I tell you whom you're assigned to?"
Animals, Amy thought. We're like animals held up for sale, then slaughter.
"Now I know how the papers in a businessman's filing cabinet feel like," Dan tried to crack up his sister, but her empty response told him that a joke was the least thing they needed right now.
"The Holts — you will be with Ivan over there," Arthur told the Tomas family as he pointed to the tall, blond man eerily smiling and waving at their direction. And for some reason, they could also feel that a certain someone in the upper rooms was secretly plotting his immediate demise.
Despite the forbidding aura emitting from Mr. Braginsky, the five Holts still approached the tall man and stood beside him as the rest of the Cahills were paired off.
"Alistair Oh, go to that obese and stupid American — "
"Hey! That's not nice, Iggy!"
"Kabras Ian and Natalie, Yao and Kiku will take you under their wings."
"Hmp," Natalie huffed out deviantly, her chin up high and all, as she and her brother walked up to the two Asian men. But deep inside, even Ian knew that she was just hiding how scared and terrified she was.
"Misters Broderick and Jonah Wizard — you head out with that...frog," Arthur said, and with the last word in utter disgust.
"Why do you speak ill of my name, Angleterre?" Francis Bonnefoy asked him with a pseudo-whine.
"Sinead, Ned, and Ted Starling," England continued in a raised voice drowning that of France. "Ludwig will watch out for you."
The German at one door did not cease crossing his arms even as the Ekaterina triplets ran over to him.
Three more children to take care of, he thought and made a mental note to keep his brother at a distance from the Starlings when he comes back to Berlin.
"And finally..." England began to say, turning over to Amy, Dan, and Nellie. "Dear Madrigals, Feliciano shall — "
The Englishman didn't even get to finish speaking when the Italian man sprinted across the room, screaming like a giddy fangirl, and pulling the three Madrigals into a tight hug.
"Ve~! We're gonna have so much fun together~!"
Awkward faces were made, and an equally awkward aura was shared around the room.
Germany would have fully wished to storm at his frantic ally and tear him and the suffocating Cahills apart. Instead, he kept in mind of the strict instruction England gave the seven of them half a year of preparation ago: Keep calm at all times, and don't give them that idea.
More than a dozen ports were located at separate docks around the island. At each of them were at least three submarines, ready to depart. The members of the UN were grouping together and — more or less — leaving the island in peace.
It was just that some people didn't share the same goal.
"This is such a pain," Broderick Wizard groaned, massaging his temple, as he and Jonah trailed behind the blond Frenchman.
At another dock, Alistair Oh was filled with regret while he walked with the loud Alfred F. Jones to their submarine.
"I am far too old for this," the Ekat said sadly, feeling every worn and tired part of his aged body.
"Well, at least we're still together...right?" Reagan tried to cheer up her glum family following Ivan Braginsky at Port F.
On the eastern side of Insula Academiae, Ian Kabra was having trouble carrying his sleeping sister on his back.
"Please, Kabra-san," Kiku Honda pleaded to him, "let us help you..."
"I don't need your bloody help!" the Lucian boy spat back at him, proceeding to boarding the submarine further down the dock.
Along the way, he could Natalie's warm breath and — "Effing hell...", he swore under his breath — drool on the nape of his neck.
With a heavy sigh, he let her be. I just hope she won't get any nightmares...But who wouldn't — with all mayhem going on right now? Then he remembered the Clue Hunt, and concluded that there wasn't much of a difference. Except for the fact that they were penniless. And alone.
All the way back at the southwestern part of the island, Amy, Dan, and Nellie practically dragged their feet across the olden planks of the port and towards their submarine. Meanwhile, Feliciano Vargas was gleefully skipping, swinging his arms, and singing some random Italian song that would weird out any real human being.
"And I thought that the Clue Hunt was unbearable..." the three Madrigals said at the same time.
"Yah~! What a cute little kitty~!" Feliciano squealed as he huggled Saladin, who'd just emerged out of the sub.
"He escaped his pet carrier," Nellie said in a quite amused tone. "Genius. Pure win."
I wish we could do the same thing right now, Dan and Amy thought, wishing this will all their little hearts.
But of course, not all wishes come true. Not without a little hardwork, they don't.
GAAAAAH, I'm so sorry everyone! Research 1, Chemistry 3, and Pre-calculus are really getting on my nerves these days, so I haven't been able to continue the story lately.
But anyway, here it is: Part Nine! I am fully aware that it is very short and not that meaty, either, but we can at least get the story going, right? Right! Now, go on with your personal lives.
[EDIT] Typos. Typos everywhere.