Chapter 17. Take Flight.
Alfred jogged up to the house that was their headquarters, stopping just in front of Gilbert, Antonio, and Francis, who were busy laughing and congratulating themselves. They saw Alfred and smiled at him.
"Great job, Distraction!" Gilbert laughed happily. "Never had a more perfectly executed Formation A!"
"And it had been so long, I was worried you wouldn't have remembered!" Francis chuckled.
"Where is the speaker?" Alfred asked.
"Don't worry, Arthur's escorting him to a few people that will take him to Merkatus," Antonio smiled. "We should celebrate! That mission went so perfectly!"
"Ah, I should cook something!" Francis said happily, swiftly ducking inside of the house. Gilbert smirked, looking where he went, before glancing at Alfred.
"Come on, then, hero, let's get inside," Gilbert smirked and Alfred followed him and Antonio into the house.
"I'm no hero," Alfred muttered as he walked into the house. The three chatted excitedly, apparently choosing to ignore Alfred's statement in favor of discussing what Francis would be cooking. Ludwig and Lovino were nowhere to be seen, most likely tucked away into their rooms. Alfred chose to follow the three into the kitchen, as there was nothing better to do at that point aside from go into his own room. Francis was already rummaging through the cabinets and pulling out ingredients. It almost reminded Alfred of Matthew, but Francis seemed far more excited about it than Matthew ever was, humming a small tune to himself.
"That was pretty impressive, Distraction," Antonio chuckled, turning to Alfred, who blinked at the sudden attention. "And only six bullets, huh? You could've used more, you know."
"I'm not one to waste shots," Alfred said simply.
"This your first time not killing someone on a mission?" Gilbert asked casually.
"Yes," Alfred answered honestly. He even thought back to the first time he had gone on a mission for the king. He had been thirteen. He figured he could consider himself strange…He had killed someone and it didn't even matter to him. What had mattered was the praise he had gotten once he, Matthew, and Kiku had returned unscathed.
"Damn," Gilbert nodded thoughtfully. "It was a little weird for me, too. And I was only a part of your team for a year, huh?"
Alfred thought about that as well as he sat down at the simple dining table. Gilbert had only been a part of their team for a year. It had been years since they had someone else join and he hadn't thought anything about it. Because the king said so. And yet, in that year, he had managed to get so close to Matthew. And everyone else.
"Well, I say we stop thinking about the past and celebrate the present," Francis chimed in, breaking Alfred out of his thoughts. He was right, Alfred had already decided it was a bad idea to dwell on the past, he couldn't change his decisions after all. He hadn't eaten much recently and this would be a nice break. He was sure Francis was used to cooking a lot with a group like this, so that was good, at least. "We should have a big dinner to celebrate. And who knows, it might help a few others out of the past."
"Yeah, West is such a loser when he's mopey," Gilbert sighed dramatically. "And I'm fucking starving. We were out there forever!"
"You're so dramatic," Antonio laughed. "It was perhaps a few hours at most."
"Hours I could've spent doing something else!" Gilbert chimed.
"Like what?" Francis asked as he started pulling out bowls and preparing his food. They bickered like old friends, like Alfred assumed that they were. It was so different from his old team, who would just sit in wait for the next mission the king laid out for them. Here? They were laughing with each other, making jokes, acting like nothing bad had ever happened to any of them. But Alfred remembered what they had looked like just a day before. What had changed? Nothing…
"Do you understand why I sent you with them now?" Arthur asked simply behind him. Alfred glanced over at him. His face was slightly red from the cold outside and the bruise was still there, but he stood as he normally did, glancing at him from the side.
"Well, I know why you didn't send me with Ludwig or Lovino," Alfred sighed heavily. Arthur nodded towards the living room and Alfred followed him silently, leaving the three to joke loudly with each other in the next room. "It's because they work so well together. And how they work is…unconventional."
"How anyone acts in this line of work is unconventional," Arthur scoffed, a small smile playing on his lips. "But, yes. Your movements are rather stiff, rehearsed, if you will. They go by instinct and they're more than able to change a plan on the spot if they need to. I wanted you to have a…change of pace."
"Why?" Alfred asked.
"You need to learn how to work with an entirely new team," Arthur shrugged. "It stands to reason that you would need to learn quickly, but I'm sure it wasn't too difficult for you. You also need to learn how to work with different personalities than you are accustomed to. From what I understand, your old group was rather…toned down in comparison to this."
"The most lively one was Gilbert," Alfred said simply. It was just a fact.
"I understand Matthew was there?" Arthur asked simply.
"He was different," Alfred muttered. That was easy enough to tell, even from such a distance.
"Gilbert said that as well," Arthur nodded.
"It's our fault, I know that much," Alfred sighed heavily. "He's angry and I understand. If I was in his shoes, I'd feel the same way. We both betrayed the king and…"
"I will never ask something of you that you aren't capable of," Arthur said simply. "I'll never force you to make a decision you can't make. I can promise you that much. You do understand what this group intends to do, though, right?"
"You intend to take the king off his throne," Alfred said.
"By any means necessary," Arthur stated. "Knowing that, you are still willing to participate in this group?"
"I don't have much of a choice to turn back," Alfred chuckled humorlessly. "I can't go back. I've already betrayed him."
"And I'm not going to ask you to do much other than that," Arthur said. Alfred knew what that meant. If they were going to kill the king, Alfred would be far away. Who knew what Alfred might do if they point a gun to the king's head? There was a long pause between them. "I'm going to make sure they don't destroy anything. If you would like, my computer is at your disposal." He motioned to his personal computer, which sat open on the table in the living room. "Do what you want with it." With that, the man simply left Alfred alone in the room.
Alfred thought back to all of the questions that had risen in his head just a few hours beforehand. Arthur had said that they had looked in the wrong place for him, what could that even mean?
Alfred swiftly sat down in front of the computer and quickly went onto the web. He moved quickly, though he knew he didn't really have to. He hacked into the king's server, experienced from doing it often with the king's express permission. He gained access easily and looked up one, simple word.
Kirkland.
There weren't many. In fact, there were three. One of them was dead. Alfred glanced at the two that were alive, finding that they were simple civilians, one working with security cameras and the other working to keep the city streets clean. Nothing stood out that Alfred could find. He clicked on the dead one.
It was a woman. Her picture clearly showed long, bright red hair and bright green eyes that seemed to almost sparkle, even in the photograph. She had been a noble. Her manor had been sold when there was no benefactor to care for it, about five years ago. The servants had all gone off to find other jobs. She had plenty of money, died by a simple accident, or what seemed like an accident. She had been run over by a car that hadn't seen her, which was incredibly unlikely.
The better reason for her death; Alfred remembered that face. He had memorized it long ago. He remembered clearly killing her and the instructions were to ensure that it seemed like an accident. She was suspected of revolutionary activity, but it wasn't confirmed. Ivan hadn't been able to show his true strength by making her a clear assassination target. That was Roderich's first kill on their team.
There was no one left to take care of the house, though it mysteriously stayed running for three years after her death, by the hands of mysterious benefactors, most likely revolutionaries. But there was no further information. There was a possibility Arthur could have been connected with her, but how? How could they find him? What did he mean by looking in the wrong place? Even servants were kept track of, but Arthur's face didn't show in a single one of the profiles…
Alfred searched the name Arthur. He swiftly narrowed the search by giving details of how he looked, just that. There were a few men, but none of them looked like him, they just happened to have some of the same features as him. It didn't make sense.
He searched the name Alfred. He narrowed down the search easily and nothing came up as well. No picture evidence of either of them. Alfred shook his head.
He searched the name Gilbert. Alfred narrowed down the search once again. He could find him, vaguely referenced in something that the king couldn't clear without it being suspicious. It was a page about his brother Ludwig, and his mysterious disappearance. Alfred drummed his fingers against the table. Arthur couldn't be in the same boat as him. Alfred and Matthew had been found as children during the time of turmoil, when there was no care for records. When Ivan had taken the throne. Ivan had chosen to make them invisible. But Arthur? Yes, maybe he had come around during the time of chaos, he looked no older than Alfred…but if he had been taken in by anyone other than the king, there would have been at least one record of him. On top of that, he was a foreigner…It didn't make any sense.
"Alfred," Arthur said, making Alfred flinch slightly. He hadn't realized just how far into his own thoughts that he had gotten. Only now could he hear the chatter in the kitchen, only now could he smell the food wafting through the air, feel the hard couch beneath him, see the house around him. "Dinner."
"Right," Alfred sighed, shutting the computer before standing to join them.
Ivan absently tapped his finger against the table as he listened to the old men speak around him, make his decisions for him. He didn't mind anymore. It used to annoy him, but, recently…he couldn't bring himself to care. They had all been immensely angry at the loss of Gilbert and Alfred. Gilbert, who had only come in a year ago, had seemed so promising and devoted. A poor boy willing to do anything for the crown, even erase his own life. And Alfred?
Ivan felt the loss as well. Alfred had remained devoted to him, despite everything and Ivan's attempts to get further from the boy and for the boy to think of him as just a man. But he had just left? It didn't make sense. He had vanished without a trace and Matthew had returned from his most recent mission only to tell him that Alfred was there, working with revolutionaries alongside Gilbert? Nothing made sense.
"Ivan, do you understand?" one of the men asked and Ivan raised his eyes to look at them all in turn.
"Yes," Ivan lied. That was all he could do. All he could ever do around these men. They had a chokehold on him from the moment he'd met them and they had given him the "good news". That he was to be king. But in name only. All of the decisions came from the minds in front of him. "What would you like me to do?"
"Smoke them out," one old man said, angrily. They were mad at Alfred. They would have given Matthew full permission to kill him, along with the rest of the team. But Ivan cared too much about the boy. Alfred and Matthew were the closest thing to family he had left, after all. Perhaps he was biased. "Make them think that they're winning, it will make them act rashly. And give your team full permission to kill Alfred and Gilbert on sight."
"Of course," Ivan nodded. For the first time in his life, he would be disobeying orders. The only reason he had given Matthew permission was because he knew he couldn't do it, couldn't pull the trigger on those two. He couldn't allow Alfred to die. It would be his one act of rebellion. All he needed to stay sane. And here he thought he had run out of all rebellion.
Some word of advice I have for people; timelines are like Jesus. I was realizing a while ago that this story was getting a little too complicated for me and so I made a timeline with their ages and shit. It's been my best friend recently. And it was a killer timeline; 30 years, if that tells you anything. But, yeah, some advice from an author, timelines will save your ass more ways than you would think.
And we got another glimpse at Ivan and how he's doing in this situation. He's a bit of a mess, but don't worry, all will be explained eventually. The family line was important, if you didn't catch it. Also, we learned about this mysterious, dead character that may or may not be affiliated with Arthur. But we're still unable to find him. How intriguing.
Next chapter gets even more intriguing, I promise. And mayhaps the USUK will be starting. Only time will tell!
Please review!