Lol, so a few things happened since my last update. My aunt visited twice, I went to go see my Nana in the valley, and wow I missed her. My two baby cousins, my other aunt, and my grandpa were there too. I had a long talk with my grandpa about high school, sports, comedians, and astronomy. Oh, and math. Of course that, he's a mathematician who worked for Nasa. :/ He teaches college now, though. Now that I think of it, my dad got a master's degree in math too, I think...

No wonder it's my best subject.

I had, at some point, broken up the banter between Gilbert and Arthur. I don't know how, but we ended up walking together, me in between the two as they both seethed in pathetic, childish anger. I didn't feel like being the babysitter, so I ignored them as we went along. It was just me and my thoughts for quite a while, and as time passed by, their heads seemed to cool down, and their anger seemed to disperse into a bundle of thoughts that they each roamed as we walked down the path.

"We're almost to our next destination, you know."

I side glanced at Arthur, raising an eyebrow. "And our next destination is...?"

Gilbert snorted. "An entrance to an underground tunnel."

I looked at Gilbert in confusion, crossing my arms.

"I've been through here millions of times and have travelled very far into these wood, and I have never come across an underground tunnel."

"Yeah, well, that's why we call it a Secret Emergency Tunnel. Or SET for short. You should calm down, it's not like you're going to know everything."

I growled, now suddenly feeling stupid. And usually, when someone makes me feel stupid and childish, I become bitter. "I better set up a noose for you, that's what I should do."

Arthur laughed and punched me in the shoulder, making me topple into Gilbert once more.

"Shit!"

"This boy cracks me up! Wait 'till Liz meets him, man, she's going to love him!"

Gilbert glared at Arthur, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and rubbing soothing circles over the spot that I'm sure is going to bruise sooner or later.

"Yeah, well, I don't think she'll like to meet him battered and bloody. Quit abusing him, you pirate!"

Arthur looked offended and stared as Gilbert gently inched me away from the other.

"I am not abusing him! It was just a friendly punch to the shoulder! And before that it was only pats on the back!"

"Which all hurt a ton, and I would prefer it if you would stop... Please."

Arthur stared at me in shock a moment, but sighed nevertheless. He shrugged and walked ahead of us.

"At least you're polite and honest. Most people would either not say anything or simply lash out at me with all their wrath."

I snorted, crossing my arms. "Trust me, if you had punched me one more time, I would have went ballistic on you."

Arthur began laughing, and the ground shook, making me have to latch onto Gilbert's sleeve to keep balance. Gilbert rolled his eyes, and I glared, mouthing the words "Fuck off, it's not like I want to."

Root sprouted from the ground, and I watched in horror as one curled around and up my leg, making sure to have a firm hold on it all the way to my thigh. I was, by this time, freaking the hell out, latching onto Gilbert's whole torso as it began trying to pull me down. I glanced up to see what happened to Arthur, but saw that he was smiling, one hand out in front of him, controlling the pest that was trying to bring me down under. Anger burned, lighting up a furnace inside me I didn't know was there, and I screamed so loud that even the quaking couldn't block out my voice.

"CALL BACK YOUR LITTLE DEMON ROOTS! THEY'RE LEAVING EVIDENCE, AND THE COUNCIL LAB WILL DETECT WHERE THE QUAKING IS COMING FROM!"

In an instant, it stopped, and I fell in a heap on the ground, nearly bringing Gilbert with me. He was bent over with my arms still wrapped around his torso. I let go, got up, and brushed myself, not bothering to help Gilbert up because I was now in a bitchy mood.

Arthur walked up to me and patted my shoulder. "Imagine if you did go ballistic on me. A lot worse would have happened to you."

"I'm sorry, but you must be misinformed. I didn't want to hurt you. But if you want to see a little snippet of what I can do to you, you better hold on tight."

Laughing began echoing, and shadows peaked out from the darkest shadows, approaching Arthur as swiftly as possible. Arthur laughed, not knowing that my shadows were not simply shadows, and I felt challenged.

"Choke."

Arthur's hands threw themselves at his throat, and he began choking himself. His eyes widened in terror, and he squirmed, but couldn't move from his spot, and I smirked at his confusion. Honestly, all he needed to do was look at his shadow to realize what was happening. My little friends were holding his shadow down, and moving his hands up to choke himself. Not hard to figure out.

"Release."

Arthur gasped for air and fell to his knees, coughing in his spasm of panic.

I crouched down and patted him on the shoulder. "Imagine if you did try to kill me. A lot worse would have happened to you."

"Why I outa- NO ONE defeats this pirate!"

Arthur got up and quickly put his fists out in front of himself, and I rolled my eyes.

"That's enough, you two."

We both turned towards Gilbert, who was already way ahead of us, his hands in his pockets, casually, as if he hadn't seen a damn thing.

"Let's just get to the tunnel already, we've been here long enough. Frederick is probably worried sick by now and waiting."

Arthur and I shared a look, shook each other's hands in a newfound respect, and ran to catch up with Gilbert.

We left the giant hole in the ground... That kind of unsettles me.

We had walked for another half hour before we spotted Frederick in the distance, leaning on a tree while sipping what I assumed tea from a little plastic teacup. I don't have the faintest idea where he had gotten it, though. He sure as heck wasn't carrying it before the journey.

"I see you two have finally made it."

I'm pretty sure he was trying to look at both me and Gilbert, but his eyes kept flicking over to me as if he wanted to say something. I sort of felt guilty for ditching him for Gilbert, but at the same time, I was glad I did. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have met Arthur, nor would I have calmed down from my pissy mood over being kidnapped. And I wouldn't have been getting along with Gilbert as well as I was now. We seemed to get along fairly well now.

"Well then, let's go. Seeing that Arthur is here, I don't need to press the button."

"Right, right."

Arthur walked over and cracked his knuckles out in front of himself.

"I want everyone to stay close to me, or else you could get left behind."

Gilbert pushed me to go up first, and I suddenly felt terrified as of why he would do that, so I swatted his hand away, grabbed him by the ear, and pulled him with me, him laughing the whole time. Frederick seemed to hesitate at first, but joined us nevertheless. When Arthur deemed us all close enough, he sat down lotus style and joined his hands together. His body seemed to relax, and he took deep breaths.

"No one make a sound. This has to be done correctly."

I raised an eyebrow and turned to find an explanation from either Gilbert or Frederick, but Frederick wasn't looking and Gilbert shook his head, indicating it wasn't the time. So I remained silent and watched, mind mixing with questioning thoughts over what will happen. Of course, that was answered fairly quickly, as the ground began to shake, this time more violently, and both me and Gilbert were leaning on each other for balance. The patch of ground that everyone was standing on began to lower, sinking into the earth, and now I was sure that I had every right to be absolutely terrified. I kept my mouth shut, though, obeying considering the fact that my gut told me to, as well as Arthur.

The more the ground sunk, the more terrified I became, and I could see a hole in the side open up as we slid down. I noticed that it was the tunnel, and this was how it was hidden. Wow. Most creative way to hide a tunnel.

The ground soon stopped moving, but considering that Arthur was still on the ground and Gilbert and Frederick had not made a move, this wasn't over. We waited for about another minute, and Arthur stood up and stretched.

"There is no one in the tunnels. I temporarily closed off the WG tunnels. They think it's another cave in, so that means no soldiers will be crawling around here any time soon."

"WG?" I whispered under my breath as Arthur continued talking.

"World Gov," Gilbert answered.

"Ah." I nodded, and joined in to listen on the conversation between Frederick and Arthur again.

"Anyone of ours?"

"Aside from the hideout, no. The ones currently in the hideout, however, is limited, so I advise extra caution. So far, the only ones gathered is Kiku, Lovino, Ludwig, Elizaveta, and Antonio."

I scrunched my face up, remembering once again of the Spanish man that was transferred to our little town. Toni... Man, that infuriates me. Stupid waiter.

"That seems like enough for now, if no soldiers are approaching. Anyways, let's make haste. I'm sure everyone wants to meet the new member."

Member? Member of what? I think I need to pay attention more often...

We travelled down the tunnel quickly, apparently having to leave Arthur behind to close up the giant hole we made in the ground to get into the tunnel. It was dark, and there was torches lined far apart from each other, flickering and dim. So dim that my shadows could pass through easily, which surprised me.

It was a long walk, and by now I was tired as fuck. The whole day went by with nothing but walking, and it had already been darkening outside when we entered the tunnel. It was probably black outside now. I'm not used to this kind of exercise, no matter how slow it was.

At the end of the tunnel, we finally reached a steel door covered in many locks, each different from the other, and the word "confidential" written in gold, curly, uppercase letters on a plaque beside it. Frederick stepped forward and did an eye scan, showed a WG badge, scanned his fingerprint, and unlocked a voice command. It was not hard to figure out that he had some connection to the WG. And, of course, this made me much more confused than I was in the beginning, considering that we just apparently blocked any other WG official from our direction. Not to mention that we had messed with the council, and if he was a WG official...

Well, that just meant that I'm screwed.

The door slid open, and I was guided inside reluctantly by Gilbert's arm. There were people inside, mostly men, and all were in different sections of the room, wearing some sort of skin-tight jumpsuit with individual colors. There were two people on one side of the room, a woman who had gigantic tree arms attached to herself, swinging her arms around viciously at wooden targets, and a young asian man with a brownish green aura encircling himself, standing in military position, eyes closed. In the middle of the room stood a man with blonde hair and bright blue eyes, standing perfectly still over a pool of water. Next to him was the waiter, gushing gusts of wind and giggling in childish excitement. Then, on the far right of the room, stood a boy with red-brown hair, blistering in hot, melting metal, which honestly scared me half to death.

"Well, welcome to the gang, Roddy!"

Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing, turning to stare at me, and I was suddenly quite frightened.

I am not good with people.