CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Oh Great

It was odd having someone to talk to. Obviously he always enjoyed having a nice conversation, but that was before this all happened. Before the kidnapping and the torment. Before all hell broke loose.

But after being locked up in the dark for god knows how long, it just seemed a bit awkward to talk to someone else, friend or foe. He wasn't sure what to say or how to say it. It was all just so weird and foreign. Whenever he did speak his voice seemed so odd, so unfamiliar.

At times it was nerve racking. Otherwise it was just scary.

It surprised him how after such a small time, he suspected a week though telling time was rather hard in his cell, that his state, both physical and mental, had degraded greatly.

He had always heard stories of how people lost it when they were alone in dark and often secluded areas, but even then it was over normally a period of a couple of weeks, sometimes months. But it hadn't taken nearly that long for it to happen to himself, and it only scared him more.

He likely would've remained in his lonely, scared state if Lukas hadn't arrived. The two spoke back and forth and though it was mostly Feliciano stumbling over his words and trying to stop himself from looking like a fool, yet the Norwegian didn't seem to think much of it. He was after all a bit preoccupied, trying long and hard to find an exit or some form of tool.

But Feliciano had already looked everywhere he could and kept repeating that there was no way out, yet Lukas continued to ignore him. He looked through every crevice and every hole. He traced every crack and not one inch of that room went uncovered. As Feliciano had said before, there was nothing. Lukas was a bit disappointed but had expected it and dealt with it.

Afterwards the two ended up just sitting down and spoke about what exactly was going on.

Feliciano shared his experience with the two-ps, catching Lukas up a good bit on the events that had occurred recently. Obviously he couldn't say exactly everything, only being able to speak of things that he had seen or been apart of. But that was plenty of content on it's own and they were able to sit there and have a long conversation. Lukas rarely commented though, keeping quiet and only saying one or two things every so often.

Later on they suspected it to be late and decided to get some shut eye. Lukas hadn't slept during his flight and was at that point rather tired. Feliciano wasn't exactly but didn't want to bother the other and after a few moments was finally able to fall asleep. They awoke later on in the day.

Lukas was up first and Feliciano likely wouldn't of woken up if it hadn't been for all the yelling going on. He had jumped from his spot when a shockingly loud voice echoed through the room. Panicked, he quickly sat up and looked around in an attempt to find out what was going on. He calmed down a bit, though not by much, when he saw Lukas fighting with someone through the small window in the door.

Feliciano's mind was still trying to piece everything together and the words they shared just didn't connect correctly. They were in a language he understood but his brain just didn't seem like it wanted to do it's job and put the words into sentences. He slid back against the wall and rubbed his eyes, trying to stop the blurriness that had coursed through his vision. One eye ended up closed as he rubbed the other, yawning.

He could barely see the door being thrown open, slamming hard against the wall and causing Feliciano to duck down instinctively.

He watched Allan try to grab at Lukas who had obviously insulted him but was held back by his own brother who placed him in a locked nelson hold. Allan tried to break free but couldn't and was also unable to swing any punches. He couldn't kick either and when he tried to it just looked a tad awkward. But his outburst had also drawn plenty of attention from others.

A few more arrived and people more or less struggled to pull away a raging Allan who was a literal second away from choking Lukas out. All the while the culprit seemed unphased by the outburst altogether and remained calm, at least on the outside, as the other was dragged away.

Feliciano was still confused overall and didn't get how this all started. He figured someone had come for one of them and Lukas ended up intercepting them. One way or another Allan was now pissed and someone was definitely going to get hurt. They pushed Allan back down the hallway but he was still set on getting his hands on Lukas. A good five minutes later and he was out and the two-ps began to do what they had intended to do in the first place.

Kasper and Sebastian restrained Lukas and then escorted him elsewhere, closing and locking the cell door before Feliciano could do anything.

He shakily climbed to his feet and then stumbled over to the door. "Lukas!" He cried out, slamming a hand onto the steel unintentionally, hurting a few fingers but ignoring the pain for the most part. He looked out the window but by that point they were gone. He fell to his knees and applied pressure to his hand, popping a couple of bones as he did. He didn't know what the two-ps intended but he knew it was not good.

. . .

"You were supposed to restrain him Allan, not rip his freakin lungs out!" Andrew snapped, struggling to keep a hold of the other. Allan continued to struggle before pulling his elbow back and popping his brother in the jaw. Realizing that he was on the right path, he pulled his elbow back again and again, each time hitting harder and harder until he finally hit in just the right spot and the hold broke.

"Dammit Al!" Andrew spat, tasting blood in his mouth, a disgusting flavor. He grabbed for his brother a second time but ended up having his legs thrown out from under him with a well placed sweep. While he was on the floor Allan jumped up and ran off towards the cell hallway again, still in his fit of rage.

As he neared the hallway he thought he had a home stretch but that was all cut short when he felt a sudden stabbing pain in his shin. He fell face flat onto the ground, instinctively gripping his shin as pain surged throughout the limb. He grimaced and rolled onto his back trying not to cry out, when he felt the far too familiar feeling of cold steel against his neck. He opened an eye to see Viktor standing above him, shovel pressing against his vein.

"Damn commie!" Allan hissed, now knowing exactly who had stopped him.

"We don't have time for your immaturity Allan." The other scolded. "The obvious sexual tension between you two doesn't help either."

"S-Shut up!" He replied, sitting up as the blade end of the shovel was removed and he was allowed to move a bit more freely.

"He's right you know." Andrew muttered as he covered his mouth with a napkin, spitting into it and then looking briefly to identify blood before folding it up and throwing it into the trash. "We have a job to do. And I'd prefer that you didn't muck it up thanks to your over prideful self."

"Yeah yeah yeah whatever. And it's not like I haven't done anything to help us! If anything you should be the one starting to haul ass. You've barely done shit!"

"Stop arguing idiotas, we have no time for your pointless bickering." Sebastian barked as Kasper moved Lukas to another area of the shop. Upon sight of him something sparked in Allan's eyes that showed more rage, but he was obviously holding it back for the sake of others.

"Good..." Sebastian muttered as he followed Kasper but instead of heading into the "chamber" as he was he went outback. He had figured he was alone outside but quickly learned otherwise.

Two people were out and he soon identified them to be Jean and Oliver. He didn't know what they were doing outside but it definitely seemed to be without good intentions. He knelt down behind a small container, within general range of the two as they spoke and he began to eavesdrop.

"We just need to know what exactly is going on Oliver, okay? Lanzo and I are both concerned about what's going on and it seems like you know something we don't. We just want to set things straight and make sure that our little pact is for the better, not worse."

Sebastian caught that rather quickly. He had already known things were getting rather suspicious. Luciano was making decisions that before he seemed like he never would. Even though Luciano and Kuro bickered and fought often, Sebastian never thought either would actually kill one another. It obviously struck as odd.

And now Jean and Lanzo had some form of a pact? What this was about he questioned even more and now he was far more interested then he had been at the beginning.

"What did you see?" Oliver remained silent and Sebastian peeked out briefly to see that his face was pained.

"I-I'll tell you only because I trust you... But I don't want this getting around okay? It would be bad for just about everybody..." Jean nodded.

"You can trust me Angleterre. I won't tell a single soul, human or country alike." Oliver shakily sighed.

"Alright if you say so..." Sebastian peaked out again. He spotted Oliver's face which was scared and Jean's whose was dead serious. Oliver took a deep breath then started, Sebastian ducking down again so he could listen and hopefully not get spotted.

"I know you already figured some things out and... and I guess Lanzo did too. But there's more to this then you know, then anyone knows. I-I think Kuro might of known this too or... maybe was just... getting close to and that's why Luciano killed him.

"But we've all been lied to. Luciano... he's set up this kind of an illusion and put it in front of our faces and carved it into our heads. He's smart I'll give him that. He tricked all of us, everyone last one. And we all just walked into it. Right into his trap...

"What trap?" Jean asked, Sebastian leaning a bit closer so he'd be able to hear everything just a bit clearer.

"Jean, Luciano plans to kill us. All of us. Take our land and our countries. All of our citizens that we've protected, all the leaders we've served. He wants to rule the world basically. And we're... we're helping him."

"What!?" Jean blurted but quickly covered his mouth to stop himself from drawing attention. Sebastian was also extremely shocked but his reaction was only noticeable in his widened eyes and a slight shift in his position.

"Jean, Luciano's known something from the very start that we didn't. Our... counterparts and ourselves. We're linked together and-and in more ways than one too. Not only are we the same country... but we're also the same life.

"Literally I mean if one of us dies then we both die. It's like our bodies are connected to the same flame. And when that flame dies out then so do we..."

"That's why Luciano had use bait all of our counterparts into that warehouse and then set it to blow. He knew that if he killed them then we'd die next and by the time our citizen's woke up the next morning they'd be part of Italian territory. But that didn't work all as he expected. He planted bait in that one log cabin. Bait that was supposed to lead the remaining stragglers into the warehouse. But one of them stayed behind and that's when Luciano had to do Plan B, which was burn the place. And that's exactly what he did.

"And whoever was in that building met a lot to Kuro. And that's when he ran in... and ended up dead.

"But by this point Luciano's realized that our counterparts aren't dead. They're alive somehow, escaped the blast radius and made it out alive. Which is why none of us have fallen yet. But until we do he won't stop... and that's what really scares me." Jean nodded, understanding everything just a bit more. He was at least glad that Lanzo and his suspicions were correct but this news was far more devastating than he wished.

"Merci Oliver. This information will be put to go use. This will all be over soon... I promise."

And then they fell silent. Sebastian figured their conversation was over officially and he needed to get away before they realized their talk had been eavesdropped on. He crept back over to the door before his foot slipped and a couple of objects fell over, drawing the duo's attention immediately.

"...What was that?" Oliver asked as they moved over to investigate.

Feeling rushed, Sebastian moved over to the door and scooted inside without a second extra. He was glad to have slipped away with such ease but now he needed to speak to Lanzo, immediately. And last he saw, the Prussian had snuck off into the basement where he seemed to spend most of his time.

So that's where he went. Avoiding the group of people in the living room/general dining room area, he went down the steps and entered the sleeping quarters. He remained silent upon entrance and until he actually saw Lanzo who seemed to be laying down on a mat, staring up at the roof.

"Abend." Lanzo muttered after glancing slightly over to the left before turning back to stare at the roof.

"...Tarde," Sebastian finally replied after a moment as he moved farther into the room. "Lanzo I need to speak with you." This drew the German's attention, obviously for a lot of different reasons. As far as he knew his message to Gilbert was a success as Shay had returned unscathed, but that was only assuming that whoever did get a hold of the note didn't hurt the poor bird (Which obviously ruled out Luciano and similar, since they'd probably dissect him.)

"W-what do you need to talk about?" He asked as he quickly sat up, barely avoiding from hurting himself.

"Kuro."

"What about Kuro?"

"Did he tell you anything before he got himself killed?"

"What?"

"Did he tell you anything before he got himself killed?" Lanzo glanced at Sebastian, slightly irritated and angered but trying not to show it too much. It wasn't that he was angry that the Spaniard had confronted him about the topic, but simply his wording. How he seemed to put it, it was all Kuro's fault that he was "killed" and Luciano had nothing to do with it whatsoever. Luciano didn't put someone of importance in that burning building and forced Kuro to go in and risk his own life in order to save them. But maybe Sebastian was just ignorant.

"Why do you care?"

"Because it's-"

"Ah, good." Sebastian and Lanzo both turned to the doorway, turning on their heels and their facial features turning shocked. There stood Luciano, Leonardo, and Allan. For how long they were unsure but they only hoped that they hadn't heard too much. But it was rather hard to think clearly when you're staring down the barrel of a revolver.

"Good job Sebastian, you caught the traitor~" Luciano hummed, his brother smiled. Lanzo gulped.

"Traitor?" Sebastian asked, already knowing the answer but trying to not be so obvious.

"Sì. Lanzo here has been seeping information out to our counterparts as of recent. We saw him send out his stupid little bird with a message attached. Sure enough it was sent straight to one of their houses." Lanzo's hands turned into fists. He had known from the very beginning that it was risky, but he hadn't expected it to get this bad this quickly. And now he was trapped with no way out. Leonardo kept his aim on Lanzo's head, Allan moving closer to restrain him.

"Did you really think you'd get that far poco Prussiana?"

"You want to turn back on the security system?" Vash asked, looking up from his book he had been glancing over more than reading.

"Ja. If we have any intentions to keep people in and others out then a security system is what we need." Ludwig replied. Vash nodded, agreeing that a security system would help out a good bit.

"Maybe so," He began, standing up from his seat and placing the book on a nearby coffee table. "But we'll have to mess with the settings on it a bit... I don't even know if the damn thing's working right." He crossed his arms and looked Ludwig in the eye. "Any ideas?"

Ludwig shrugged. "We'll just have to look around a bit. I know the American has one somewhere in here."

"And it's not already activated?"

"Apparently not." Vash sighed.

"Alright let's go find it. It'll give us something to do anyway..."

. . .

"Oh no... this is bad. This is very bad!" Arthur exclaimed, causing Vladimir to jump from his spot and nearly drop his journal.

"W-what is it?" He asked after shakily getting to his feet and heading to meet Arthur across the room.

"The spell... it has another requirement." He said after reading over the bit again and again, not wanting to believe it.

"Are you serious?!" The other asked, snatching the book and reading over the spell again. They had just spent the last couple of hours rehearsing their parts of the spell. They didn't need to but until they had Lukas they might as well get the phrases and whatnot down while they had the chance.

Now the news of another requirement was near heart wrenching. This requirement could create or destroy plenty of events and the process altogether. Especially one like this, which was a complete game changer.

"There's a freakin time limit!?" Vladimir blurted out, becoming both irritated and pissed as Arthur already was.

"It would appear so, and this means that we need to get Lukas back here ASAP. He said he's already arrived so he should show up soon. But we might as well inform the others of this discovery... it's a rather terrible one."

"Agreed. But please make sure it's the last one okay? I don't want to be surprised again."

"Yes, me neither. Let's hurry though, if this statement is true then that means we only have so long before we lose our time slot. And if we lose our time slot who knows when we'll get it back... it could be millions of years from now for all I know."

"Why is there even a time limit?!"

"It seems as though there's only so long that a certain loophole can be opened. When you try transporting one being it opens for a few seconds, being able to transport that single person through it without much more trouble."

"But..."

"But when you try transporting multiple people, generally over an average of five, it takes much more time and energy as you can obviously tell. That means that the loophole can only be opened for so long and not all of them may go through, causing misconfiguration and similar. But if we send them through at a specific time, because of the way the universe is currently set up then it guarantees that they will get through safely."

"But only if we send them in at that exact time frame?"

"Yes."

"Great."

. . .

"What do you mean he wasn't there!?"

"What I mean bastard... IS THAT HE WASN'T THERE!"

"But that doesn't make any sense! He sent Arthur a message saying he had arrived."

"Well he must of left before we arrived because we didn't find him."

"... Do you think the two-ps got to him first?"

All heads turned to Matthew who had been sitting right next to them, patiently waiting for a moment to speak. But of course that didn't seem like it would be coming anytime soon so he decided to instead speak up and break the yelling match that had started upon the news given by the two last arrivals.

They were, at the moment, discussing or, more or less, arguing over the topic of Lukas. Lovino and Francis had returned telling of their time at the airport, which had been extended a good bit after learning that even though the Norwegian had reportedly arrived, he was nowhere to be found.

This obviously drew multiple alarms and now people were panicking, some silently others... not so much.

"I sure as hell hope not aru..." Yao muttered, crossing his arms and looking to the side. Right now they needed Lukas more than they ever had before. And with him gone they had a definite problem.

"What if they did?"

"Let's not jump to conclusions so quickly Amerika..."

"But what if they did? Then what do we do? Do we force Kuro to tell us where and then storm the place? Even if we do, why didn't we do that from the very beginning to get back Feliciano?"

"Because it's risky idiota. Storming the place risks the hostages getting killed. You should know that!"

"It could still work!"

"But are we willing to put Feliciano's life at risk even further?"

"I swear to god if you get my brother killed I'll have your head on a stake!"

"Ey, Roma calm down."

"Don't call me that you bastard!"

"This is getting out of hand quickly aru!"

"Where's Heracles-san?"

"Dang it Kiku, speak up!"

"Y-yes sir!"

"We still need to decide what we're going to do about Norvegiya."

"Why do you suddenly care Ivan? You didn't seem to a moment ago."

"Al calm down!

"Amerika I would prefer if you'd stay out of my face. We don't want you getting hurt da?"

"Will one of you schwachsinnige do something!?"

"There's nothing we can do Gil."

"Well we have to do something Liz, they're going to tear each other apart."

"Th'n why don't you get inta it Mr. Awesome?"

"Shut up Ross!"

"You know he's right."

"Oh great and here comes the aristocrat deciding to point out something else that doesn't meet his royal standards. Weren't you the one that said it's not nice to argue in other people's houses?"

"Gilbert!"

"Oui, calm down! We don't need another fight to break out!"

"EVERYONE SHUT UP!" And just like that everyone stopped. It had seemed that Arthur had wandered in with intentions to share the even more dreadful news that most seemed like they weren't in the mood for when he instead found himself in the position to take back control.

"Merci mon chéri." Francis muttered, just to break the silence ever so slightly. Arthur just sighed.

"Now that that's over with, Vladimir and I have very important news. Vlad?" The Romanian stepped forward with the spell book under his arm.

"We have very, very bad news. You see, it would seem that Arthur has discovered another requirement hidden away in the spell description. It would appear that, in order to send back all the two-ps at once, we need to deploy the spell within two days or else we lose our required time frame. And once we lose that, we lose our only chance."

"...Why don't you just send them back one by one?"

"Because that takes up time and energy and if we were to stick to doing that it could take near weeks to fully send them all home. And by that time Luciano could kill more people. We're not willing to take that risk which means we need to act as soon as possible. Has Lukas arrived yet?" Everyone fell silent again, no one with a reply. It took a moment but Arthur and Vladimir quickly realized what that unbearable silence actually meant. "...They took him."

. . .

It was nearly impossible for them to remain calm after hearing that news. But they tried their best and poofed up a plan a good hour later.

"Alright we'll send four people into the two-p's base after getting the location from Kuro. When we send those four in their goal is to find and escort Lukas out of the building and to safety. If you can feel free to get a hold of Feliciano as well but until you can, don't risk it. Also try to avoid running into any two-ps at all costs. This plan will go into full effect tomorrow morning after we rest and eat. We'll also decide then who to send in. Any ques-"

Then they heard a knock on the door.

There was three knocks in total, spaced out about half a second each. All loud and obvious as the room fell silent. No one was really sure what to do. Ludwig and Ross eventually stood up and went over to the door, peaking out briefly to see no one there before opening the door. They figured someone would jump out and try to attack them but no one was there. All there was, was a CD in a see through case located right at their feet. Written on it in sharpie was "Surprise Surprise".

Ross picked it up and brought it back inside, handing it over to Alfred who seemed as confused as everyone else. They debated on what to do before finally deciding to put it into a player and watch it on the big flat screen TV. So they put it in, started the TV up, dimmed the lights, and watched.

At first it was just a black screen. There was some muffled sound but aside from that, there was nothing. But that was at first. You could see the motion of a camera, previously facing the ground but now moving up to look at something. First you saw a pair of feet tied to the front two legs of an old chair. The ropes were obviously tight and they seemed rather uncomfortable. Then the camera moved up again, zooming out a little bit. You saw their pants, specifically jeans, that appeared to have blood splattered on them. You could also see the shadow of someone nearby. Moving up farther, their torso was identified. A white hoodie that was also bloodied. Blood came down from above and across the front. Their arms and chest were tied up, also tightly, against the back of the chair. Now the shadow was trailed up to a large figure, back to the camera but leather jacket visible. And then their face was revealed. And that's when people realized what was going on.

It was none other than Lanzo himself in that chair, battered heavily as it was obvious. Blood flowed down the side of his head from several heavy hitting blows. His lip was slit and his nose near broken. The collar of his hoodie was open, revealing his shirt that was an obvious sign of attack as his entire chest was scattered with small cuts. The camera stopped moving, being placed down on a flat surface and then left there.

Then Luciano appeared. Just about everyone appeared pissed when he strolled onto the scene.

"Go get Kuro." Arthur ordered. "He needs to see this."

Luciano walked up next to Lanzo and placed a hand on the back of the chair, leaning against it. Allan stood to the side, the shadow of his bat being faintly noted.

"Ciao bastardi, it's me again. And look who I've got a hold of~" He placed a hand on the back of Lanzo's neck, pulling his head back slightly to fully allow the viewers to see the wounds inflicted on his face and neck area. Gilbert clenched his hand, keeping it low so as to not be so obvious. By this point Kuro had arrived. His hands still restrained and himself having a bit of trouble walking but being supported up by Heracles who had fetched him in the first place. And just by the expression on his face you could tell that Kuro was out right enraged.

"Did you idioti really think you could slip a spy past me so easily? I knew you had one on your side, I always did. I just played along so you'd think you were safe. And now look at what's happening to your poor friend here..." That was the signal for Allan to come up and land another strike to Lanzo's head. It was a strong one that made plenty of sound on contact, exaggerating the power behind it and forcing the Prussian's head to violently turn to the side.

Lanzo grunted, head remaining low as he began to cough up blood, repetitively gagging. Kuro muttered something in Japanese but it was too low for anyone to be able to fully identify.

"Take this as a warning. With the snap of my fingers I could have you all taken down one by one. But, that wouldn't be very fun now would it? Just know this, as long as I'm alive... none of you are safe." Luciano moved away from Lanzo as Allan stepped forward, bat at the ready. Luciano positioned himself so he'd take up most of the screen and you could only hear the pained sounds Lanzo was emitting as he was beaten.

Luciano smiled, a glimmer in his eyes. "Ci vediamo presto."

Idiotas = Idiots (Spanish)

Angleterre = England (French)

Merci = Thank You (French)

Abend = Evening (German)

Tarde = Evening (Spanish)

Poco Prussiana = Little Prussian (Italian)

Amerika = America (Russian)

Idiota = Idiot (Italian)

Norvegiya = Norway (Russian)

Da = Yes (Russian)

Schwachsinnige = Morons (German)

Oui = Yes (French)

Mon Chéri = My Good Man (French)

Ciao = Hello (Italian)

Bastardi = Bastards (Italian)

Idioti = Idiots (Italian)

Ci Vediamo Presto = See You Soon (Italian)

A/N:

**Sigh

I regret everything and yet nothing

So yeah. Shit just went down. Lukas seems to be really getting onto Allan's nerves, just a bit. Jean and Oliver had a nice little scene and Sebastian has learned a few things. Lanzo's got caught /finally/ and now he's getting the shite beat outta him. Arthur and Vladimir found out that the disappearance of Lukas is really going to hurt them, and all these things going around are really getting into people's heads. Kuro has an even better reason to know murder Luciano. You know, aside the fact that he basically set Kiku on fire but now he's also beating his best friend. It's not looking good for them one way or another.