All eyes were on me, and I gulped, suddenly finding it very hard to breathe in this atmosphere. I pulled on the collar of my shirt, tugging it down to get in some breeze, and scanned over the people in front of me, analyzing their thoughts and movements, hoping I could quickly figure what I could say, but found that I was completely choked up and too nervous to say shit. I thought maybe Gilbert could help me out, but when I glanced at him, he wasn't even looking at me or expecting anything from me. He was simply smiling like a complete dork, hand on his hips, chest puffed out, all proud over something that I couldn't quite tell. I nearly made a face, but kept it in, not wanting to look like I wasn't impressed or anything. Because I very much was, as I have never seen anyone have molten metal poured on them without giving a shit, even if they could manipulate fire.

"Gilbert, is this the person we've been expecting?"

I focus my eyes on the blue-eyed man, watching him approach us with some sense of leadership floating around him, and I raised an eyebrow. I look at Gilbert, and he was still smiling, but it looked much more fake than dorkish.

"Well this is the guy we wanted, but I can assure you, he's not anything like we expected."

"I can't tell if that was a fucking insult or a compliment," I deadpanned, crossing my arms.

"Take it as both, honey."

"Don't call me that."

"Roddy."

"Don't call me that either."

"Fine! Roderich!" Gilbert threw his arms in the air dramatically as if he gave up. "Anyways, like I said, welcome to the gang! Let me introduce you-"

"We can introduce ourselves, Gilbert."

Gilbert glared at the blue-eyed man, crossing his arms. "Well fine, then. I guess none of you need me! You all think I'm unwanted anyways!"

"Your yelling is certainly unwanted," I grumbled. "Seriously, Gilbert, we just spent a whole day, from 6:00 to now, doing nothing but walk. Have some sympathy for someone who, first of all, isn't a morning person, and, second of all, does not really find exercising their forte."

"Yeah, well, sympathy isn't really my forte."

I rolled my eyes. "I figured."

Gilbert laughed, and I chuckled along with him.

The man in front of us coughed, effectively getting our attention. He stood in a military pose, looking much more sharp than the Asian man had while doing so. "I am Ludwig Beilschmidt. The moron next to you is my brother, Gilbert Beilschmidt. This is a militia unit #13."

I furrowed my eyebrows, feeling a sense of familiarity. Beilschmidt? Where have I-

Holy shit.

As Ludwig continued rambling with his eyes closed, I took out a book from my messenger bag. It was the same book from last night, and I quickly flipped through the beginning pages, looking for the one page that I was sure to have "Beilschmidt" written in it. And there it was, written in the bold print.

"-and that concludes the explanation- Hey, are you listening?"

"This is the famous family known as the Beilschmidt family. There is a rumor that there is only one male in the family every 100 or so years that is born with a different factor."

Ludwig raised an eyebrow, stepping over to gently take to book from my hands. He skimmed over the words, eyebrows scrunched up in concentration, and when he seemed finished, he closed the book and handed it back to me. He didn't say anything, simply turning around and nodding for everyone else to introduce themselves. I was worried for a moment, since that response was completely unexpected and out of place, but I decided to ignore it for the time being and listen to what everyone else had to say.

Metal guy walked up, still dripping, the only thing noticeable now was his eyes. Green.

"I'm Lovino of Italia, and don't say shit about my hobbies, got it, bastardo?"

"Hobbies? And did you just call me a bastard, you fucking assh-"

Gilbert put a hand to my shoulder, shaking his head. I took that as a sign that this "Lovino" character always called people shitty names. That or Gilbert thought Lovino would kill me if I picked a fight with him. Which is impossible, since it would be so easy to snap his neck without even touching him. Seriously, I could have easily have done it with Arthur, it's no different with him, covered in molten shit or not.

Antonio walked up, waving, with a light-hearted smile planted on his lips. "You already know me! How's it going, Rodrigo?"

"Awful, thanks for caring." I gave him a smile to match his own, and he faltered, apparently very uncomfortable with my response. Well, good. I was going for that anyways. What he deserves for lying to me all this time. I mean, are you fucking kidding me? I knew this guy for, what? Four years? And now he's suddenly working with the very person who fucking kidnapped me? That seriously pisses me off. Damned Spanish bastard. Huh, probably what Lovino calls him.

The woman of the group began laughing, loud and confidently, an arm wrapped around her stomach. "This kid is hilarious! His attitude is just fucking perfect! I love it!"

Once she calmed down enough, she walked up to me, and instead of giving me a hard handshake like I had expected, she picked me up into a giant bear hug, crushing my insides with big tree arms. I could hear my body snap. Not like cracking my knuckles. Like my ribs snapping. And it felt fucking awful.

"My name is Elizaveta! I've come from Hungary specifically for this team! Nice to meet you!"

"Roderich," I somehow managed to choke out. "Now could... you..."

"Oh. Right."

Elizaveta dropped me and retracted her giant tree-like appendages, and I fell on my ass, taking in a big gulp of hair, too big. I began coughing, and I tried to quickly calm down when I noticed the patient-looking Asian man step forward, simply staring at me as he waited for me to stop. I got back up, finally feeling calm, although I was sure my face was totally red and screwing up into an uncomfortable expression. The Asian man still waited though, and I wasn't exactly sure whether to feel embarrassed or not. I simply took a few deep breathes, and I waited.

"My name is Kiku. Honda Kiku."

I jumped, as his voice was sudden, and everyone else in the room seemed a bit surprised as well. His accent made it fairly obvious that he was Japanese. It was strong, and I doubt he has been in this... "unit" for a very long time. That's probably why he didn't introduce what country he had come from.

"Um... Nice to meet you." I shifted from foot to foot. "Do you want me to call you by your last name, Honda, or...?"

"Kiku is perfectly fine. We're not in my home country, so it is understandable."

He bowed, and I awkwardly stood there, wondering what the hell I should do. Gilbert seemed to notice how uncomfortable I was, and, thankfully, he clapped his hands to get everyone's attention.

"Alright, guys! Now that introductions are over, I think it's time to explain to him what he's here for."

Everyone gave Gilbert an incredulous look, and I had an inkling of what they were thinking about and what one of them was probably about to say.

"Don't tell me, bruder..."

"The bastard listened to Duchess?!"

"I knew you were an idiot of a man, but really? Really Gilbert?"

"Gilbert, we're great amigos, si? But as your amigo, I must say you are an idiota."

"Gilbert-san, that is truly pathetic."

I snickered at Gilbert's dismayed expression, and he sharply turned towards me, an extremely angered look on his features. I looked away and whistled innocently, hoping that it bothered the shit out of him. And it seemed that my mission was accomplished, as he began growling, and the flames in his hair were cooking brighter than before. I didn't even need to look to notice, the light was bursting from his head well enough to cast shadows around the room. I snickered even harder, as he looked like a candle. I like that. I'll call him candle-head from now on.

"All of you just shut the fuck up, alright?! I get it, it was wrong to listen to Duchess, but can we just get over that and do what we need to do? I did something wrong, so it's about time that we correct that mistake and tell Roddy-"

"Roderich."

"Yeah, whatever. And tell Roderich why he's here."

I sighed. If I knew he was going to give me a ridiculous nickname from the get-go, I wouldn't have told him my name in the first place. Roddy? What kind of stupid name is that for a male?

My mind wandered off somewhere for a bit, but it snapped back immediately as Ludwig coughed into his fist, and I blushed in embarrassment when I noticed that he knew I was off in lala land. Well, I guess this is one of the reasons why I'm not very good with people.

"Well, then... Roderich, let me again explain what this place is. This is unit #13 of-"

"Yeah, militia, I got that part. It was everything else I didn't hear."

Ludwig raised an eyebrow, but proceeded nevertheless.

"I see. Well, this militia was organized by Friedrich Wilhelm, or as we call him, Frederick. And he just so happens to be the man who found you, surprisingly, even though we already had some agents living in your town." Ludwig sent an annoyed look to Antonio, who simply gave a sheepish smile as if that would immediately fix his anger.

"This militia was created for a purpose-"

"I could only assume."

Ludwig rolled his eyes. "I was getting to the purpose. Anyways, our goal is to bring the WG system down. With the help of Frederick and many of ours spies who are current soldiers of the WG, not to mention our own specially trained soldiers, we think we can shut down the system. Everything fake will fall apart, and nature will have it's control over earth again. Animals will no longer suffer, and the so-called 'peace' will become reality once more. Reality is cruel, but we believe these hardships is what create people. The people today are-"

"Soulless? Fake? Puppets? Yes, indeed. I completely agree. But what does this have to do with me?"

Ludwig sighed, and Gilbert offered to explain this time around. "You are someone who is discriminated, yet much more intelligent and powerful than the people who discriminate you. That was the first thing that got us to think about having you join us. We thought you may wanted to prove your strength and gain the authority you deserve. The second thing that got us going was your power in general. We've heard of the things you've done, but absolutely none of us believed that you could wield darkness. That was a shocking discovery, a very good one. You are the only person who, we believe, on earth to be able to wield such a power. And the fact that it is so much more effective than people think just adds to it. We've heard rumors of how dangerous darkness could be, and those rumors led us to your town in the first place. Frederick didn't know of your abilities until I came along with your bag."

"And now the bag comes into picture?" I rolled my eyes. I was not that special, it's not like I'm the most powerful person on earth. I was far from that.

"Yeah, the bag. I found a book in it. A very important book that contained crucial details of today's life and the life people lived in the past. You have all of this information planted in your head. Intelligent isn't even enough to describe all you know. You know how to make good weapons without even using them, and you know how to assemble old weapons- you can reinvent weapons. The gun and the katana, all of those! Because you have read all of these books."

Gilbert turned around, a fairly confident smile prominent. "This guy is the key to everything! And the cutest thing about this, he doesn't even fucking know how valuable he is!"

Did that fucking moron technically call me "cute?"