Disclaimer: I don't own it, I just ship it

Warning: AU, strong language, boy x boy pairings, violence (more so bullying in the beginning), and because this was inspired by the manga Iris Zero, there may be some minor spoilers for it.

Thanks again for all your lovely support! This chapter will cover the first Student Council meeting...yeah. We'll see how THAT goes ;)

oOo

Early Thursday morning, dew clung to the leaves like summer clung to the roots below, warming the earth and warding off autumn for just a little longer. There was the makings of a chill in the air, but it always seemed to warm up as the day went on. Unfortunately for the resident Iris Zero, that wouldn't happen for another hour or two, so he tugged his thin jacket tighter and began walking at a brisk pace towards his school. He balanced a bookbag in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. Today had the potential to get ugly, so he wanted to be prepared. For the Italian, that usually meant caffeine and lots of it.

Lovino yawned as he arrived outside the Student Council room around the same time as Kiku, who spotted him right away. The black-haired boy quickly caught up to him. Lovino glanced around, glad there weren't any other students around to give him grief for hanging around World Academy's Elite. He didn't feel like putting up with their shit this early in the morning. Then the Italian spotted something worse. Something that made his blood run cold.

Kiku was carrying a sketchbook.

As Lovino had learned from his recent encounter with the SHIP club, nothing good ever came from one of its members jogging towards you with a smile on their face and a sketchbook in their arms. Hell, anytime any high-ranked member of the SHIP club approaches you at all is usually a good time to GTFO.

"Lovino-san! I was hoping to go over the final designs for your Commissioner uniform with you at some point," He said politely. "Do you have time for that before the meeting today?"

The brunette groaned, but nodded. Best to get this out of the way with Kiku (the lesser of two evils) versus his psychotic club president. Kiku smiled politely and followed him through the door discussing fabric types and how he and Elizabeta thought a knee-length trench coat would be most appropriate given his job's need for mobility, while retaining some of the traditional feel of a detective's boot-length trench coat. Just as Lovino decided to tune him out, Kiku's half-formed sentence died in his throat.

"Hey, guys! Thanks for coming!" Alfred greeted them from the meeting area below.

"What the fuck did you do to the place?!" Lovino spat out, shocked.

"You like it?" the Student Council President rested his hands on his hips and admired his own handiwork.

The old curtains were replaced by new vertical blinds that matched the interior walls; currently they were pulled back so sunlight could stream in. Banners depicting some kind of logo that seemed like a cross between World Academy's crest and some anime Kiku had leant his friends were strung up and flowing on the breeze of the open windows. In the center of the room was a whiteboard containing some bizarre equation that only made sense to Alfred (judging by the amount of times 'HERO' was written). And for reasons Lovino didn't understand, there was a giant aquarium filled with what looked suspiciously like piranhas displayed off to the side.

And those were the minor alterations.

The front tables where the student council usually sat had been remodeled. Instead of facing the front, Alfred had arranged the first five in a circular pattern. Each chair had a colored cloth draped over it and a banner beside it. In the middle of the table formation was a giant globe that looked suspiciously like a beach ball. On each work station, where the dull grey Student Council badges should have been was a small black box. Inside each box was a badge inlaid on an armband to pin to one's sleeve that corresponded to the color of the banners of each chair. The old grey badges themselves had been replaced with a dazzling silver.

"If you want to sit by each other, Lovino is the green banner and Kiku's black," Alfred explained as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I'm red, of course."

"Of course," nodded Kiku.

Lovino gave him a look.

"The Red Ranger is often the leader of various Sentai shows…uh, Power Rangers, if you will."

"Hell, yeah!" Alfred fist pumped. "I knew you'd get it, Kiku!"

"I'm leaving," the Italian announced. He could handle crazy, but this was starting to get circus-crazy.

"Aw, you can't leave, Lovi! You have Student Council obligations to be here!"

"Call me 'Lovi' one more time and I'll reveal your middle name, Alfred F—"

"—I can give you another color if you'd like!" Alfred quickly cut in. "Would you prefer blue? Or maybe white?"

"I'd prefer you start making sense before the others get here!"

For some reason, the more Alfred tried to explain his reasoning to Lovino, the more confused the Italian became. Kiku seemed to understand most of what the crazy blonde was rambling on about, due to their shared obsession with video games, anime, and movies. It was almost worse to hear Kiku's calm, rational voice try to explain to Lovino why Alfred's rearrangements were perfectly natural and had a sound logic behind them. He was starting to doubt his own sanity until the second tsundere entered.

"What the bloody hell is this?!" Arthur roared. "What did you do now, you daft idiot?"

Looks like I'm not the only one who's not a fucking morning person… Lovino thought to himself.

"I know it's not perfect," Alfred scratched his head. "I put in a request for a round table, but it won't be in until Friday."

"…WHY?"

"Because I may be the Hero and fearless leader, but I didn't want you all to feel intimidated by that! This way, we all sit as equals!"

"How…thoughtful?" Ludwig tried without success to find a middle ground. He had walked in just behind Arthur.

"That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard, and I put up with your 'Batman' phase as kids…" Arthur crossed his arms, refusing to sit at the ridiculous table.

"Aww, I thought you'd like it for sure, Artie!" Alfred's face fell. "It's totally like King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table…except I'm King Arthur, not you. Sorry."

"Well, since this isn't Camelot or 5th Century Britain, I suggest you change it back."

"No can do, I already put the work order in!"

"Then I'll just have to wait for your nephew to betray you and—"

"Spoilers!" Alfred covered his ears. "Not cool!"

The non-bickering members of the Council sighed and found seats. When the cousins showed no sign of stopping their little argument, Ludwig stepped up to his position as Vice-President.

"If you two are done, we really should get started on the actual meeting…"

It was enough to get the two to stop trying to strangle each other, although Alfred looked ready to jump the table when Arthur took his chair with the red banner. Kiku was able to convince Alfred to settle on blue by reminding him that both Captain America and Superman had a lot of blue in their costumes. The President was still a little sore about it, but figured he'd have to get used to compromise eventually…and if he was successful with his cranky cousin, he could be successful with a pit of pythons.

At least Lovi got green…

Alfred's eyes glanced over towards his friend who was shoving Kiku's notebook further and further away from him. They had followed Alfred's insistence that Lovino was green and Kiku was black. Ludwig had taken the seat with the yellow banner, if only for the reason that it was the closest to the door he entered.

Alfred ran a quick scan with his Iris and found that each member was best qualified to wear the color they had chosen. Minus Arthur being a tool and taking his color, it had been the colors he'd selected for them too. This was enough to put him back in a good mood as Ludwig droned on about the paperwork that needed to be completed at each meeting.

Kiku was dutifully taking the necessary notes, having snapped open his laptop to create digital copies to post on the school website right away. One of his goals was to release them on the school website (a much-neglected student council page had been created a few years prior) in hopes of getting the rest of the student body involved and informed. He hadn't anticipated all the editing and omitting he would have to do before submitting the meeting minutes…especially when the two tsundere members decided to tear out each other's throats.

"And how goes the cutting down on crimes, Lovino?" Arthur asked smugly.

"About as well as keeping the budget balanced," the Italian retorted. "How much did you allot to the dance again? It's your last homecoming, so I'm sure it was quite a bit…"

"Leave the numbers to me and focus on bullies, since you so obviously have that under control, you git," a flustered Brit snapped back.

"I'd need a fucking police force to deal with all the assholes here!"

Kiku stopped typing. This was going to take a lot of editing.

Ludwig coughed and tried to get them back on track to the agenda he made for the meeting. Even if it wasn't part of his Vice-President duties, he would have just to keep this group focused on something that didn't involve screaming at each other.

"First we'll have to get access to the school website to be able to update it with pertinent information," the German read off his to-do list.

"Alfred and I took care of that already," Kiku nodded politely. "I'd like to post meeting minutes and event updates weekly…after a little more work."

"Good," Ludwig nodded. It was a godsend to have Kiku on their side. "Then, next we'll have to finalize signing out the room for our meetings to avoid scheduling them at the same day as monthly Class Rep meetings."

"Oh, I already did that," Alfred waved it off.

The others just stared at him.

"I had to submit that to the same people as the work order for the room, so I figured I'd just do both," he shrugged.

"And you didn't even ask us?" Arthur snarled.

"Didn't have to," he grinned. "I asked the secretary for a copy of all of your schedules to make sure you were all free."

"I'm pretty sure that's illegal, bastard," Lovino frowned. He didn't like the idea of anyone poking their nose in his business. If the secretary had just handed them over to someone as clueless as Alfred, who else was able to get a copy?

"Nah, I told her it was official Student Council business!" he laughed, passing out the meeting dates for them to look over. "And I promise I'll only release them to your fangirls if I need to blackmail you!"

As much as both tsundere officers wanted to press the issue, nobody could argue with the dates and times Alfred chose. Extra points were awarded when Ludwig mentioned that some of these dates conflicted with Roderich's after school piano lessons, so he would most likely miss those days.

Ludwig continued to list off necessary tasks for them to complete by the end of the week (submitting a list of Student Council goals for the semester, setting up a student survey system, compiling a file for potential community projects, developing a plan to address any outstanding school reforms from previous years, etc.), but the majority of it had already been handled, most of it by Alfred, surprisingly enough.

"I wanted to get the boring stuff out of the way, so we could focus on the fun stuff!" he exclaimed.

Ludwig looked over the copies of paperwork Alfred planned on turning in after the meeting to find it flawless. He didn't see how this could be possible. Alfred told him he didn't want to waste time redoing rough drafts later on when he could be playing Call of Duty.

The others couldn't tell if their President was capable or cracked.

Just for a moment, the gang was actually at a loss for what to do. This lull was interrupted by a knock at the door. A happy Headmaster popped in to see how things are going. Alfred assured him things were great and Ludwig submitted all the required paperwork to Headmaster Shinawatra. The Thai was impressed to say the least.

"You five have done an outstanding job!" Kasem praised them. "I can't recall a Student Council this well-organized so early into the school year!"

Good thing he didn't walk in here ten minutes earlier… was the general consensus Kiku viewed through his Iris. Maybe they could agree on something, after all. He tried to stifle a chuckle.

"Since you are such a skilled group this year, I was hoping you'd be able to help me with a situation that's been brought to my attention…"

"What is it, sir?" Alfred asked, remembering to mind his manners.

The Headmaster explained there had been a string of break-ins to the cafeteria kitchens. Nothing of any great value had been taken – just some uniforms left in the laundry bin, food lying on the counter for preparation, and some miscellaneous items from the food storage room. The general consensus was that it was a student or staff member turned to stealing by a family situation. The majority of the staff and students who went to school here were loaded, but not everyone. Even a wealthy family could fall on hard times…that could push a person to rash behavior. The Headmaster wanted to know who and why, so he could assist the person behind it if needed. There were many programs and funding available to help others at World Academy. He'd also prefer to not get the authorities involved if possible. It wouldn't be wise to risk both the school and the culprit's reputation. The Student Council could consider this a training exercise and way to show their reliability and skills to the rest of the school.

Ludwig accepted the Headmaster's offer immediately. His parents' strict upbringing taught him to obey his superiors and it was hard to rank above Headmaster Shinawatra at World Academy.

The others nodded their consent, but not everyone was happy about it. This was voiced the very instant Kasem had left the room and was out of earshot.

"What the fuck was that about?!" Lovino crossed his arms.

"We couldn't very well ignore the Headmaster…"

"The hell we couldn't," Lovino rolled his eyes at the Vice President's reasoning. "Maybe that's how they do it on the mothership, but you're on Earth now, potato brain!"

From Ludwig's other side, Arthur continued the assault. Honestly, what had compelled him to sit between the two of them? He'd sooner sit on the floor before he made that mistake again.

"Alfred blindly accepting goose-chases I could understand, but you?" Arthur shook his head. "I have better things to do than chase rumors about robbers and bread thieves!"

"Like what?" Alfred felt like he should stand up for the disgraced German…He also wasn't thrilled about the jab made at him too.

"Like a CEO meeting starting at 4:00 PM tonight," the young entrepreneur replied dryly. "You're doing this one without me."

"Fine, we didn't need your help anyways, Eyebrows," Alfred huffed, unable to argue with his cousin's 'excuse.'

Arthur just stormed out. Everyone remaining in the room was wise enough to let him be. The remaining members managed to finish the meeting shortly after. As they left, Alfred tried to take some of the heat off of Ludwig's strained shoulders over their recent assignment.

"I guess it's true what they say about the Headmaster's mad diplomacy skills!" Alfred rested his hands behind his head.

The others nodded absently. They had been debating on the culprit being staff or student, wealthy or poor, driven by family situation or driven by a dare or possible prank that needed supplies. Alfred opened the door to let the others out and they found themselves face to face with Gilbert, Antonio, and Feliciano…who looked surprised to see them. Gilbert tried to give them a fake excuse about checking in them after their first gathering, but his younger brother saw right through his lie. Ludwig was already in an irritated mood and demanded his bruder tell him what they were really doing outside the door.

"Okay, fine. Bets may or may not have been placed on the outcome of your little meeting here," Gilbert grinned. "By the way, Lovino, if you had to guess, how many curse words did you say at the meeting?"

"Why the fuck should that matter?"

"59."

Everyone turned to face Kiku, who held up the meeting notes.

"And that's just the English ones…" the Japanese boy sighed. "I still have to double-check all the phrases you said in Italian."

"Haha! Fratello has a potty mouth!" Feliciano laughed while a grumpy Gilbert slammed a ten dollar bill into Antonio's hand.

"I'm surprised Francis wasn't in on it," Alfred glanced around. "He loves this sort of thing."

"He took off to calm his un-awesomely spastic boyfriend down," Gilbert explained. "I knew Lovino would make it through the entire meeting!"

"Ve…Francis and Antonio lost big on that one…" Feliciano sighed.

"I can't believe you bet on this stupid shit," the older Italian huffed…before his brother's words registered in his brain. He angrily turned on the Spaniard. "Wait, you didn't even bet on me, bastard?!"

"L-Lo siento, Lovi!" Antonio held his arms up in futile peace offering. "I thought for sure you'd storm out first if that bushy-browed cabron said something mean to you!"

"And I thought we were family, asshole!"

"That's why I thought I was right!"

This wasn't the correct answer and Antonio paid for it in the form of several punches to his arm and one particularly painful kick to his shins. By the time it settled down, Kiku checked his phone and regretted to inform his friends that he wouldn't be able to assist them. There was a family emergency he had to take care of after school that was unavoidable.

"If it gets resolved quickly, I'll return to assist you," Kiku promised.

"Great, your Iris would really come in handy for this case!" Alfred smiled. "But seriously, family comes first, so don't push yourself. We'll be fine here."

Kiku thanked him and took off to gather his things. As Alfred looked around at his remaining council members – Lovino and Ludwig, who would sooner kill each other than work together peacefully, he got an idea.

"Didn't you guys know there's a strict school policy about spying on Student Council meetings?"

"V-Ve! Is there really?!" Feliciano looked alarmed.

"You're bullshitting us…" Gilbert said, but even he looked unsure. "Ludwig! Tell me he's lying."

Ludwig only coughed curtly into his hand, refusing to make eye-contact. Gilbert took that as confirming Alfred's words. Feliciano drew the same conclusion and his lower lip trembled. He didn't want to be in trouble again, especially just after Roderich caught him in the Student Council room. Ludwig figured it wasn't lying if he said nothing and let the two jump to their own crazy conclusions.

He really didn't want to spend the afternoon with an airheaded president with a hero complex and Feliciano's moody brother.

"I'm willing to overlook it if you help us on this case afterschool…"

"But I can't! I have plans I can't get out of!" Antonio protested; a twinge of worry in his voice.

"Then you owe the Student Council a favor at a later time," the President grinned.

"What?!" Gilbert screeched. Like hell he wanted to be stuck on a wild goose chase. "You…you've got to be bullshitting us..."

"I'm not bullshitting you, I'm blackmailing you," Alfred smiled innocently.

"D-Dammit…" the albino hunched his shoulders. "Fine, I'll help you."

"I'd love to help out!" Feli beamed. "Thanks for not reporting us!"

"I'll just have to help you guys out with something another time…" Antonio scratched his head. "Maybe decorating for the homecoming dance? There's never enough volunteers for that, right?"

"That sounds good," Alfred nodded.

Antonio took off just before Mount Lovino erupted. The job their Headmaster had given them was total crap to begin with. There was no force on earth that could convince him recruiting his space cadet brother and another potato bastard would make it any easier.

"Screw this! I'm not a fucking detective!" he spat.

"Police Commissioner…Detective…close enough."

"If that's my title, then give me some cops to boss around and they'd catch the culprit!" Lovino turned his wrath towards Alfred. "This isn't my fucking division!"

"But you're so good at figuring things out," Alfred countered. "Right, guys?"

The others nodded their agreement.

"W-Well, I'm an Iris Zero, you don't want to work with someone like that, do you?!"

"D-Don't say things like that, Lovi!" Feliciano tightly hugged his brother. "You know that doesn't make you any less of a person!"

"Honestly, I think being an Iris Zero is one of your better traits," Ludwig blurted out, wincing slightly when Lovino gave him a deathglare. "Besides, I already work with you."

For better or for worse…

"And as if the Awesome Me is afraid of the supposed 'Iris Zero curse,'" Gilbert moved his fingers into heavily accented quotation marks. "Kesesese! Feli and Toni hung out with you for years and they turned out alright."

Lovino thought that last part was questionable. Seeing that he was now stuck, he grumbled his consent to help out. He'd help, but he wouldn't like it, dammit. Stupid eyebrows bastard and rice bastard stealing all the good excuses…

"What if I came too…?" Matthew spoke up, causing the other five to nearly jump out of their skin.

"Holy shit!"

"Ah!"

"When did you get here?!"

"Holy mother of fuck, you nearly gave me a heart attack, Mattie!"

Matthew looked down.

"I've been here the whole time…I was waiting for Alfred…"

"Then you're bound by the same rules as Feliciano and Gilbert!" his brother jumped on the opportunity for another recruit. "You have to help us find the Headmaster's missing kitchen supplies or whatever! The six of us will form the dream team of detectives!"

A collection of sighs and groans escaped the others. As they dragged themselves off to their morning class, each resigned themselves to the task ahead of them.

"…I knew I should have called in sick today," Lovino grumbled.

oOo

A/N – This particular Student Council dangerously walks the line between highly effective and completely insane…

I know there weren't a lot of Irises in this chapter, but there will be lots in the next!

-Rajikka

Translations

Fratello – Brother (It.)

Kasem Shinawatra – My made up human name for Thailand. "Kasem" means "Happiness" and "Shinawatra" means "Does good routinely" (Thai)

Tsundere – A type of character seen in anime or manga known for appearing cold or hostile, but having a hidden sweet side. "Tsun Tsun" is the aloof or irritable side, while "Dere Dere" is the lovey dovey side. (Jp.)

Stronzo – Bastard or Asshole (It.)

Cabron – Bastard or jackass (Sp.)

Lo siento – I'm sorry (Sp.)