Chapter 4. Bring Me To Life.
Alfred was nearly in a blind panic, but he was smarter than just allowing his enemies to see his weakness like that. He was still on the floor, unable to move anything but his head. He ensured that his breathing came out evenly as he desperately tried to find some way out of this mess. He hadn't expected them to have someone that could actually disable his prosthetics. He would have to take that into consideration when he returned to the king. Yes, he was going to return, it just seemed that this was going to be more difficult than he thought it would be. The person in charge was still trying to talk to him, even as the person Alfred attempted to hold captive was lead out by a few other people. He was alone in the room with the leader and the man that had disabled his arms and legs.
From what he could tell just by looking at the man in front of him, he could tell instantly that he was a foreigner, not originally from this country. He had a small accent to prove it, but other than that, he seemed accustomed to the way people normally lived in this country, meaning that he had been there for quite a lot of his life, if not all of it. The other man was from Kormall, their country, and seemed too well groomed to be anything other than a nobleman. At least, he used to be a nobleman, if he was in the revolutionary army.
Alfred knew he was going to have to play this smart, especially since they seemed to have full control over his limbs. Yet, even when he couldn't move or when he was asleep, they didn't try to kill him. Which mean they had entirely different aims than Alfred did. He could use that against them. If he was lucky, he could just kill all of them as he got away.
"We will not harm you, lad," the leader sighed heavily, kneeling down about a foot away from Alfred. He was a little scared of what Alfred could accomplish even without his arms, which made Alfred slightly proud. The problem was, he really could do nothing. That was one downside to his prosthetics, they were mechanic and that meant that they could, apparently, be disabled fairly easily. He just hadn't come into contact with anyone before that could do it. "We just need you to cooperate with us."
"It's not exactly like he has much of a choice," the man with the small computer chuckled slightly and Alfred set his glare on him. He fought back a smirk when he found that the man shuddered at the eye contact.
"If you won't comply, then I'm afraid we will have to use force," the leader sighed, standing up and looking at the screen, most likely to see the radius of capability that thing had. "We will allow you to move, but only as we see fit. Francis, if he moves suddenly, you disable him. If he leaves your line of sight, do not wait and disable him."
"Of course," Francis nodded with a smirk and Alfred immediately felt the control of his limbs return to him. It took a second for all of the functions to return to him and he was quickly sitting upright. He supposed getting to his feet too fast would result in him falling again. He would have to be smart. Find a way out of this with patience. He could find out weaknesses as well so that, once he did get away and even if he didn't kill all of them, his team would have a higher chance of taking them out. He would find a weakness, a way out, soon enough.
"Now, you're name," the leader relaxed slightly upon realizing that Alfred was cooperating with him, at least for the time being. Alfred could only guess what the man had up his sleeve and he just had to hope that Alfred had something better.
"Alfred," he said easily as he stood up all the way, ensuring he was slow enough so that Francis wouldn't do anything and also fast enough so that he wouldn't seem very weak.
"Arthur Kirkland," the leader stated. Odd that he felt a need to make sure his last name was known…Alfred would have to tuck that information away for the time being. "You already know that idiot's name." He pointed to the man behind him.
"You are too kind," Francis chuckled, keeping a secure grip on the little computer in his hands. Alfred would have to find some way to gauge how fast his reflexes worked in ways other than losing the function of his limbs. He would have to get a handle on the personalities of those around him first in order to be able to use them and find out all of their weaknesses. If he was lucky, he could even get one of them to test Francis' reaction time so Alfred could see how long of a chance he could have to run. Then he'd just have to find out the radius that his little device had and get away successfully.
"Alright, then, Alfred," Arthur nodded to him, obviously keeping enough distance between them in order to ensure he would at least have time to fight back, should Alfred attack him. He was smart, but Alfred had to wonder how smart. He seemed to be coming up with all of this on the fly, which meant that either he had no plan or the plan he had originally had gone out the window.
"What do you want with me?" Alfred interrupted him bluntly and Arthur blinked in surprise before relaxing slightly after Alfred's sudden outburst. "Why did you kidnap me, of all of the people you could have kidnapped?"
"To be honest, we have followed your group for some time," Arthur sighed heavily, choosing to lean against a counter for the time being and get comfortable. He crossed his arms over his chest, but Alfred noticed that he put a lot of care into making sure he looked extremely presentable, from the clothes down to his mannerisms and the way he talked. It was almost like he was scared of being looked down on. "I noticed that there was the same group of people doing the same kinds of dirty jobs for the king; assassinations and the like. I got curious and, even before I founded this group, I knew a little about you. The revolutionary army agrees with me when it comes to the understanding that, if we want to accomplish anything, we would most likely have to find a way to deal with a group of assassins such as yourselves."
"What do you know about us?" Alfred asked. How had he allowed something like that to slip past his guard? Sure, he had dealt with other assassins before, none of them were trained for as long as he and Matthew were, Kiku was the only one that was near the same level as them. "And how did you find out this much about us?"
"I'm not going to reveal how I know," Arthur smirked. "I may get the chance to do it again, after all. We don't know any of your names or much about any of you in general. We know how many members there are, their specialties, and some of their personality. If I'm going to be honest, we would have preferred someone else, at least at the start of this mission. Our goal is not to kill any of you. Our goal is to…change your minds, I suppose."
Change their minds? About the king? Alfred took a moment to process the information and it seemed that Francis was uneasy about the quiet, resting his hand over what Alfred supposed was the trigger to stop him from moving. A part of his mind was almost…infuriated. With just the thought of someone attempting to make him dislike the king. The very thought was traitorous, dumbfounding.
"You won't," Alfred said clearly and Francis seemed to jump. He wasn't used to high stress situations. It seemed like not a lot of people here were used to high stress situations. Even when Alfred had that one man with a knife to his throat, everyone seemed to be terrified. Alfred was used to everyone he knew keeping their emotions locked down, unavailable for anyone to see. And now he could clearly tell the emotions of everyone around him. It was a very odd change of pace. "I'm always going to be loyal to the king."
"I know," Arthur sighed. "We will just have to see how this goes, now won't we?"
Matthew sighed heavily, leaning against the wall. It was a simple chaos around him, a riot started by who-knew-what, and he was sent to quell it. This was his first mission in charge. He was told to bring only one person with him, it was a small riot that could be ended by killing just two people. He decided to bring Gilbert with him, since he was almost afraid to separate from him. If all went well, he could at least bring good news to Ivan. He deserved that much. Gilbert was just a few buildings away, Matthew had to remind himself. He was right there, they would find each other at the end of this mission, and everything would be alright.
Matthew fired the first shot to signal to Gilbert that he was ready. They never needed any kind of communication devices in this group. Well, they did at first, but they grew to understand each other well after being around each other and fighting together after so many years. They didn't need to communicate with words, following the plan and communicating with actions was much easier for all of them.
The first man fell, he seemed like the most influential, with a microphone and a picket sign in his hand. When he fell, the riot got worse and Matthew made sure he shifted into the darkness. Gilbert's turn. Matthew had to move. No two bullets could come from the same place, they had to think that this was an act of the king, he would probably use more than just two people to quell a riot, that was what they had to lead people to believe.
Gilbert's shot rang out just as Matthew was halfway to his new spot. Matthew glanced over and saw another person that seemed like an influential figure fall. A few people cried over his body and a few others seemed to lose their momentum, a little frightened by the shots. Once Matthew was in his new place, he wasted no time in firing his next shot and a lot more people slowed down, looking around for the sources of these shots. There were no soldiers in the area, at least not now. This would stall enough time to get the soldiers here and they would have a nice, easy job cleaning up once everyone was calmed down. Albeit calmed down by fear, but they were still calmed.
Gilbert fired the last shot it seemed they needed and Matthew could already hear the soldiers so he left, winding through the buildings until he made it a fair distance away, in front of a dank, rundown shop where he would wait for Gilbert. He would up waiting about two seconds.
"You good?" Matthew asked casually. They had to seem like regular people on the street. To all of the passersby that weren't a part of the small riot, they were far from assassins.
"I'm fine, Birdie, don't worry about me," Gilbert smirked, mussing his hair and Matthew scowled slightly, but he smiled on the inside. Gilbert was fine. Everything was fine. Matthew hugged him tightly for a few seconds before he separated and started walking with purpose to where their shuttle would greet them in about half an hour. This was finished a lot sooner than they had expected it would. "Didn't expect it to only take four, that was way too easy."
"Part of the reason has to be that those revolutionaries weren't involved," Matthew mused, looking up at the gray sky. It had always been such a dank color, ever since he could remember, but for some reason, in some of the books he had read, it was described as a light blue color. He had to wonder why. "There was more intelligence behind the last riot, when they were involved, and they were nowhere near this one. It just happened because people were idiots."
"Gotta give those revolutionaries credit," Gilbert shrugged. "It was kinda smart, what they did."
"What they did was go against the king," Matthew muttered. "That's something I'll never forgive. Then there is the other matter altogether that they took my brother form me. If I find a single one of them, I won't even hesitate."
"Glad to know you've got priorities straight," Gilbert chuckled, running his hand casually against the nearest building. "Gotta say, I haven't been on many missions lately, this was kinda nice. Your brother does seem to hate me." Matthew smiled slightly when he noticed Gilbert talked about Alfred in the present tense, obviously for Matthew's sake. "At least with you around, I get to actually do something."
"Whenever we do have to work, though, that means something has gone wrong," Matthew sighed and stopped just a few feet from where the shuttle would come. It was a wide street with many cars driving along it at impossible speeds to control. Matthew knew that the cars drove themselves, much like the shuttles, it was still rather odd, though, how fast they could go and still be under control, no matter the weather. "I just wish for once that everything would be calm. Maybe that would lighten the load on the king."
"Nothing's ever going to be calm," Gilbert said. "No matter how happy one group is with how things are working out, one group's not gonna be happy. There's always gonna be problems, no matter how many people you kill."
Matthew decided to change the subject. He didn't like the way Gilbert's voice sounded when it was so serious. "I'm thinking about asking Kiku to help me with dinner tonight, try something new. It might be a good way to perk up everyone else." The other three on the team were also taking Alfred's loss rather hard, though they did a good job of not really showing it. Kiku had become even more introverted than usual, only coming out of his room when necessary to eat or gain information on a mission. He never talked, either. Elizabeta and Roderich seemed to only talk to each other in hushed tones, though they did talk to Matthew, only with sad eyes.
"Awesome," Gilbert stretched, leaning heavily against a wall across from Matthew. "You're regular food's awesome, Birdie, don't get me wrong, but some new food is always fun. Puts a little spice into life."
"I'm sure," Matthew laughed slightly. "As soon as I'm done reporting to king Ivan, I'll ask Kiku to help me get to work on it. I am pretty hungry."
"You know what else you could do to fill yourself up?" Gilbert grew a wicked smirk.
"Gil, don't even start," Matthew rolled his eyes, but a small smile did play on his lips. He let out a small, inaudible sigh. He wasn't supposed to show weakness outside of their home. He was assassin, he wasn't supposed to let things like this get to him. But just seeing Gilbert, hands splayed behind his head and leaning like he was, against the wall…The smile came back.
"There's that smile I've been looking for!" Gilbert said cheerfully, walking towards him casually. "You know, we are supposed to be blending in here, so try not to act so stiff around everyone. It's okay to look human, you know."
"I know," Matthew said, looking up the short distance of the difference of height between the two of them. "But you shouldn't be acting so nonchalant, either."
"Looks like we've got a problem," Gilbert hummed, leaning just a little closer and Matthew scoffed, shaking his head and looking away stubbornly. "I think the way I carry myself is perfectly awesome!"
"And perfectly obnoxious," Matthew smirked as Gilbert balked, placing a hand over his heart dramatically. "You already stand out with your hair and eyes, but you also have to be loud, boisterous, cocky, annoying, patroniz-" Matthew was cut off suddenly by a pair of lips and he backed up just slightly into the nearest wall. Matthew gladly kissed him back, thankful for more of a distraction. This was what made Gilbert awesome; he knew what to do to at least help Matthew forget. They separated after what felt like not enough time and Matthew huffed. "And a jackass."
Gilbert simply laughed.
Cuties. PruCan is still my OTP, though it is not the main pairing in this fic. It's just the only one in the spotlight for now because Valentine's Day. USUK will happen, they just have to warm up to each other enough to stand each other's presence. Currently, Alfred hates Arthur for no other reason than Arthur going against Ivan, but hopefully things will start warming up soon! And I have dropped some subtle backstory hints here and there, but you'll probably get a backstory for everyone in here. If not, I'll just make some for y'all so you can at least see some of what made these characters who they are.
Anywho, please review! It's great and I'll love you forever!