Hey, I'm back! Remember when I used to update, like, every other day? Yeah, me neither. So CONjuration wasn't as fun as I thought it would be, it was a first year con so there wasn't much there and my girlfriend and I were kinda ignored by her friends most of the time. But I did meet some cool people and got some loot from the dealer's room. Though I would've rather been home watching scary movies with my friends and stuffing my face with candy for Halloween, I feel like I totally missed it.

Also thank you so much for your support and telling me I'm not a crappy writer. It made me happy and gave me some confidence to keep writing this.

And I'm also in the process of coming up with a Moulin Rouge AU for Hetalia since all of the ones already on here are either incomplete or not the pairing I want, so look forward to that! I probably won't wait until I'm done with this one to start it. Though I'll probably wait until this one is done before starting the 50 First Dates AU.

Anyways, enough of my ranting, I've kept you all waiting long enough.

Enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 7

"So...let me get this straight. When the sun comes up every morning, you turn into a swan."

"That's right. And the following night, if I want to turn back into a human, I have to be on the lake. But why wouldn't I want to?"

The group of cursed animal friends were sitting by the lake, the sun currently high in the sky. Ivan had gone hours ago and hadn't been seen since. No one knew what he did during the day. Arthur had a theory that he slept during the day just to be able to torment him at night, like a vampire. Then again, Arthur didn't get much sleep these days either. He would usually stay awake at night to enjoy his time as a human while he could.

"All he needs is a little moonlight. Me, I have to be smooched by a lovely royal," Francis puckered his lips and kissed the air.

Antonio raised an eyebrow. "Why must it be a royal?"

"I don't know, I read it in a book once."

"Well there's no problem then! The awesome me has a great plan," Gilbert announced, puffing out his chest in pride.

"We'll just fly over to Prince Alfred's castle, lead him back here, you'll change back into a human, and live happily ever after!"

Arthur had to admit that was good in theory. But there was a problem. "How will I find him?"

Gilbert slumped down in exasperation, his cocky attitude leaving him for a second. "You don't know where he is?"

"I don't even know where I am! I was in too much shock and panic to pay attention to where we were going when I was kidnapped."

"I bet he knows," said Antonio, pointing to the castle of Swan Lake.

Francis just rolled his eyes at his friend and his seemingly dumb statement. "Of course, but how do you expect us to get the information we need? Just stroll on up and say 'Monsieur Ivan, we'd like to leave now. Do you have a map or something?' "

Arthur and Gilbert gasped, their eyes widening with realization. Really, how did they not think of this before? They shouted in unison, "A map!"

Francis shrieked and covered his mouth, knowing he just gave them an idea to do something dangerous and stupid.

"Let's do it!"

The two birds flew all around the castle, looking in each window searching for some kind of library or study, any room that might have a map. When Arthur spotted one, he flew back down to the lakeside where Francis and Antonio were waiting.

"It's hanging on the wall in the upper chamber."

"Arthur will keep a look out at the window, while we go inside and retrieve the map."

Francis crossed his arms over his chest. "We?"

"You're not going to help us?"

"Oui. This plan if applied will be simply suicidal! You'll be a sitting duck!"

Gilbert nudged the frog with a smirk. "No fear."

"Suppose that I do this. Who knows if we'll live through this!?"

Francis began walking away, determined to not die. Arthur wasn't going to take that.

"Our team is shy one green and handsome volunteer."

Now that got the frog's attention. His first compliment from the prince! And probably his last. He thought about reconsidering for a moment before saying, "No way! No chance!"

"No choice," Antonio stepped in front of him, stopping him from abandoning their mission.

Gilbert tried to encourage him, "No fear!"

They ended up having to drag Francis to the castle doors, but once they arrived the French frog gave up the struggle and continued on into dangerous territory.

The inside looked worse than the outside. The walls were in desperate need of a good paint job and the room could use a nice rug and better lighting. The only light came from the large window on the other side of the room, the old chandelier hanging from the ceiling without candles. The curtains were ripped and tattered, any furniture was overturned and out of the way, and there was dust and cobwebs everywhere. You'd think that over the past ten years the sorcerer lived there, he would have cleaned the place up a bit.

On their way in Antonio got stuck in the door when it tried to close on him.

"Note to self. If I ever need something done quickly, call a turtle," Francis complained as he helped pull through from the gap.

Up some wobbly stairs and down a cluttered hallway later, the Spanish turtle stopped again. "I think I pulled a muscle."

And that was it for Francis. "I'm gonna die! I knew it! I'm on a dangerous mission with a lame turtle! You're gonna get us all killed!" In his rage and with all his flailing about, he kicked a suit of armor which then proceeded to fall to the stone floor. The loud crash alerted Toris, Ivan's servant, who came rushing down a staircase to investigate the commotion.

Before he could make it all the way down, his attention was pulled to a window where he heard a tapping sound. He had just seen the swan flying away when he turned around. Something suspicious was happening and he had to figure out what. The animals had never come to the castle before, so why now? Were they just messing with him, trying to find something to do? Or did they actually have some kind of plan, some reason to be here? Whatever was going on, he knew he had to stop it.

The Lithuanian followed the swan up the stairs while the others made their way to the upper chamber to find the map. Somehow when they got there, Antonio had been the first to make in inside.

"Beat ya."

While Gilbert opened the window for Arthur, Francis climbed his way up the table to get to the map on the wall. Once the window was open, Gilbert took the pin holding the map up out of the wall causing it to fall on the frog. He then scooped the paper up in his talons after rolling it up, then made his way to the window to hand it over to the prince. But before he could reach him, Toris rushed over and closed the window.

"Yikes!"

"Quick, follow my awesomeness to the door!"

With quite a few sports-like methods of keep away, Toris chased the animals all throughout the castle. He wasn't exactly sure what they wanted with the map, but he knew it couldn't be good. And who knows what Ivan would do to him if he let the prisoners do anything he didn't like! If they were planning to escape, Ivan would kill him if he let them succeed! These thoughts motivated him to run faster, fearing for his life.

But in the end, the animals managed to escape the castle. Though not without injury.

Arthur pointed to the map that was spread out on the ground in front of him. "There's Alfred's kingdom. When do we leave?" The only answer he got were moans and groans of protest from his injured friends.

Back on Alfred's castle grounds, Lovino was sitting outside leaned up against a tree eating a tomato when the prince approached him. The blonde didn't say anything, just placed a torn page from a book in front of him, a picture of a mouse printed on it.

Lovino, not really getting what he was trying to tell him said, "It's a mouse."

"The Great Animal."

The Italian prince just laughed and smirked up at his best friend. "A little small, don't you think?"

"Well yeah. Until it changes into this." Alfred layed another page on top of the first one, this one just a picture of a large dragon.

Lovino raised an eyebrow at the creature on the page, not quite understanding what his companion was saying.

Alfred knew it was strange, and maybe a little hard to believe. So he elaborated. "An animal that can change it's shape. A harmless creature at first, but by the time it gets close, it's too late."

"So you mean...it could be anything?"

"Anything."

At first the Italian didn't think anything of the fly buzzing around him and his food. But with the thought that anything could be the Great Animal, he panicked. He yelped and fell backwards trying to get away from the insect, dropping his precious tomato.

"Chigi!"

So after re-watching and analyzing the movie, I keep seeing all kinds of holes in the story and thinking of ways I could have been a much better villain. I mean, he spends 10 years coming up with a plan to take over William's kingdom, and that's the plan he comes up with? There are so many other things he could do! Change the appearance of his servant to look like Odette, marry her and rule the kingdom. Or he could change his own appearance to look like William! And he's spent months asking Odette to marry him but she keeps saying no, I think you need to change your plan instead of wasting all this time.

I will be pointing out more holes and ranting more about it when the time comes. But for now I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I've already started on the next chapter so that should be up soon.

Also I'm sorry if you were looking forward to the No Fear song, I really didn't want to put that song in the mix because they're on a kinda dangerous mission, singing is not a good idea if you don't want to get caught. So instead I put a little bit of the lyrics in as dialog.

See y'all next time!