Romano eats my face… What is with all these meadowlarks, eh?
Very few things make the Great Prussia jittery, but one of those things is dealing with Italians. Now, I don't want to stereotype. Some of my fangirls are hardcore fiber artists, and seeing as I have particles in all eleven dimensions, it's not wrong to say they're actually breathing down my neck at every waking moment. But Germany's got the same thing I do. As much as Italy charms him, it also irritates the heck out of him… and sometimes makes him jittery.
It was a whole big stink when the Allies sacked Sicily in '43. Britain managed to slip a dead body with "crucial information"about a Greece attack right into Hitler's hands, and since the mustachioed toilet was preoccupied with werewolf offensives, he didn't have time to dismiss Mr. Rottenface Wimblydon as an actual British soldier. The German werewolves went to Greece, and the Allied werewolves sacked Sicily. And where the werewolves came from, not even I know. Germany says it was that propaganda man, but wasn't he a zombie?
Southern Italy hasn't all recovered from the devastation. Some buildings are still straight out of a warzone, while others have been remodeled… and not remodeled again. Naples is beautiful, of course, until you remember it's sitting right on top of a world-ending volcano. And Sicily is rugged. Worn down, lovingly or forcefully. There are still bite and claw marks in the old roads of Palermo, and every so often you can hear weird growling at night.
Not to say Italy Romano's a werewolf, but I wouldn't be too careful.
"Rules of my house are like this. You don't explode my microwave. You don't put stinky sock feet up on my table. You clean up the messes you make. We don't need any more messes around here. You water the plants before the soil gets dry, not after. You don't talk to the neighbors. You don't go outside at night."
"Because of the wolves."
"You don't be a wise guy. You don't curse in God's name. You don't laze around in your underwear anywhere the Virgin can see you, mio Dio," he continues, crossing himself. "And you don't do anything stupid, eh? My little brother says you are creeping around and whooshing into thin air. This island is cursed enough."
"Your little brother is stealing my fruit gummies!"
"He steals everyone's fruit gummies. You let him. Ciao."
With this, Romano leaves his squalid Palermo apartment, leaving me with the task of watering his plants. It's a good gig, but no parties at night, and not even an ocean view? Looks like I'll be watching some daytime Italian TV. Damn, Germany's Italian is better than mine. I'm sure I missed half of what Romano was trying to say in English with his terrible accent. I get Germany wants me to go bug some other people right now, with all the trauma he's going through lately. (Why won't he listen to the John Mayer CD!?) But plants aren't that fun to bug.
I laze around for an hour, stealing looks at the Virgin statue, who's definitely staring back at me. Jesus, I mean Ceesus, three days in Palermo with possible werewolves skulking around!? Not that there are any werewolves anymore, but still…
My phone manages to ding even with spotty wi-fi. I've gotten an email from America!
«Duuude… Meteor shower tonight! You said you could fly me up to see some up close! Or we could just watch them safely. I got that guac salsa you like!»
The green gunk!? I love that shit!
My spine feels like it's dipped in cold paint. I turn and look at the Virgin. She… hasn't… moved, has she?
«Sounds awesome, but I'm babysitting a bunch of plants and a creepy statue in Palermo.»
«See any werewolves?»
«Not yet. But I can't come over tonight. I have to be a responsible person, as low as Romano's expectations are.»
«Dude, that SUCKS! I don't know when it's gonna happen again! You gotta come! Please?»
Ach, kids. I'd release a goodly amount of slap-ass on America's… ass… for being whiny with his elders, but I'm not opening a wormhole in this apartment anywhere that statue can see me. Banishing any thoughts of fun from my mind, I plop myself back on the dusty couch and wonder if there's anything in that cupboard over there besides pasta and garlic cloves.
The phone dings.
«What if I got two jars of guac salsa?»
«I'm in,» my fingers type faster than the speed of awesome.
A few hours later, and the moon is high over Palermo. Not a good night to be out. It should be about time to head to America's for dinner before we get ready to stay up late. I'll just slip on my hoodie and make a wormhole in this closet! There. No statues or rosaries or shrines of any kind will see the blasphemy I'm about to work.
But before I can start pushing and pulling the fabreality, I get a message from Romano:
«Stay up tonight. They target houses where people are sleeping.»
"Okay, there are definitely werewolves on this island!" I screech. But I've already made my commitment! Two jars of American guac salsa I didn't have to smuggle out of a store in my butt pockets! And spending time with my new friend on a Friday night!
I mean… it has to look like there's someone awake in this apartment. Hm, hm, hm! I can't haunt the place either! Maybe the only God worth mentioning is a benevolent painting, but nothing's what it seems in southern Italy. Ancient magic is at work here…"
Well, that's what I need! Someone who knows exactly how to take care of this place for a night! I need a Romano! It should be easy-peasy to steal one from another world and have him look after this one.
I snatch a broom from the corner. Romano's touched this. There's a microscopic amount of his magical essence infused in its wood. With my left hand, I jiggle space-time until I can phase through, then reach my arm in and send out a "call." I need the being who has this same essence! The most Romanoish being there can be! I feel my fingers touch Anticanon, then slip through another wall. Romanoish features manifest in my mind. I need eyes like green vineyards and a body so hairy it could get a farmer's tan naked.
My fingers grasp something, and I'm hit with that exact Romanoish essence. With a mighty yank, a person comes crashing through the wormhole and into the closet with me. He curses rapid-fire, then rises. I open the closet door. Nailed it, didn't I?
"Nice to see you again, Romano. I'll just be leaving now. Enjoy your apartment. Water those plants or something. I couldn't understand what you said earlier. Before and after? Just make sure they're wet."
The person doesn't move. Is he alive? I get a clear look at his face.
It's Romano, but half his face is an obsidian skull, and his eyeballs are all white and creepy looking. The dip of flesh just under his Adam's apple opens up, and out comes an extra arm that wraps around my neck, pulling me closer.
"What business do you have pulling me from world to world?" He asks in a stronger, deeper voice than usual.
"Well, you're gonna watch the apartment while I go hang out with America, okay? It's just for tonight, and then I'll send you back. You gotta stay up so the werewolves don't get in and the plants get watered. Also, you can't be creepy in front of the Virgin, so you're messing things up big time right now."
Romano's arms grow and stretch down to bolster my feet to the floor.
"You're not an ordinary being. I sense power in you, similar to my own."
"Well, that's dandy. A world where Romano's the Ascended One? What's Vene at 99% earth power like? I bet Venice is unsinkable!"
"Look beyond this lackluster body I possess. I'm not 'Romano.' I'm Lgva, the Face-Eater, and you're Preußen, the Greatest Man."
My blood goes cold, but my white skin can't get any whiter. I was warned of this back when I first died and met the toga guy…
"The universe is a system of perfect balances. Every One has its Other. As such, The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived and Never Died has his opposite. He is a being called the Face-Eater. He is the only one powerful enough to destroy you. He can't appear naturally in your own world, but if you ever face him, you must banish him immediately."
"Oh… it's nice to finally meet you, Face-Eater. I thought you'd look a lot scarier."
The Face-Eater sprouts an extra pair of arms and grabs my shoulders, inspecting me, though I can't tell where his eyes are looking. "Where you represent Chaos in a world of Order, I represent Order in a world of Chaos," he says, spitting that last word.
"You're an orderly being? Really? With a face like that?"
"My home is most convoluted and confusing world in the entire universe. I'm the most rational being that exists there. Nothing is as it should be. All messy, messy chaos. Not a moment of peace! Dio mio, I haven't slept in ages! Being tossed around from world to world, descending into a physical form, possessing a 'Romano,' eating faces, laying waste to the world until all is more orderly than it was before… This universe is chaotic at its core, really. I despise chaos, but Romanos like it, you know? And Romanos are the only beings who work well with my essence. They like to fight, and as they do, I fall through the grooves of consciousness until I'm nestled perfectly. Maybe in a distant time I was a Romano myself. Oh, but with thirteen dimensions, there's too much to keep track of."
His breath is hot on my face. I stay absolutely still — a skill I've had to learn from being an albino soldier in the field. Crap, this is my natural opposite? An ageless monster who feeds on faces and tea?
"You said… thirteen dimensions."
"Of course. Eleven naturally-occuring, and two utterly chaotic in nature. That's why all of existence is a base thirteen system. It's why our spirits are made of iron. Thirteen and thirteen, together."
I can feel myself sweatdropping at each sour word.
"So, eh, you're gonna acknowledge that I'm your opposite and just cooperate here, right? 'Cause I have to go hang out with this world's America, and I really need someone who understands what it's like to be Romano in order to watch this apartment for the night. Water the plants. Don't upset the Virgin. Do you like pasta? I think that's all there is in there."
His stomach gurgles noisily, but he doesn't swivel his head. Instead, he leans closer. A long black tongue rolls out and licks my cheek. And then Creepymano is gnawing on my face, and I'm screaming.
"Wait! No! Stop! OOOOOWWWW! If you eat my face, won't that upset the balance!? Come on, we're EQUALLLLLS!"
"If I eat your face, you just won't have a face."
"Yeah, but I LIKE MY FACE!"
The Virgin's gonna have to see some chaos. I put my palms together and summon my energy orb, bright pink in the light of the room. Then I shove it into the Face-Eater's stomach and blast him into the wall. He gets up, dusting himself off, and stretches both arms until he can grab me around the legs and chest. My face goes rushing by the room, right to his mouth, and he takes a bite out of my cheek, chewing gleefully.
"I always start by eating the world's Veneziano, but a Prussia's good for the heart. I've picked the skull of a thousand sad-sack, non-ascended Prussias. You just happen to have incredible power locked inside. I'll sip some of that, too. The universe hardly cares, anyway. We're nothing but pointless accessories to the Grand Scheme of Things."
Pink lightning flickers off my skin. I melt out of his grasp and reassemble across the room, where I take the butter knife from my belt and change it into a sword.
"You wanna taste my unbreakable blade, Face-Eater?"
He pulls a crystal pistol out of thin air and shoots me through the stomach with something cold and stingy. I fall on top of the Virgin, watching horrified as my middle starts to freeze over with a bluish glow. My sword tumbles to the floor with a boost on the dusty carpet.
"Oh, I am NOT going down to an Italian!" I screech, forcing myself up on wobbling knees. My stomach won't move at all, but my legs are still working for the time being. I stomp on the carpet, and a warp opens up, splitting the living room in two halves, separated only by an empty hole of blackness and cosmic gridwork. The Face-Eater's back bubbles and ruptures, letting two black wings come free. With a flap, he's over the gap, battling my pink lightning fingers as they scrape and claw at his form.
"You don't deserve to eat my face!"
"I didn't deserve to be summoned right in the middle of my feasting. It's not like I want to destroy you, but I will if I'm able."
"No lady wants to see Prussia go down!"
With that, I land a punch on his skull. My left fist rings with pain, and a few awesome tears leak out, but he's distracted enough for me to seize the top of his head with my right hand. My legs finally give out from the paralyzing shot, and I wrench him down with me to the floor, both of us rolling dangerously close to the warp in the carpet.
"If you banish me to another world, I'll eat Prussia's face first."
"Why faces? Why not toes or something?"
"Once you have eaten one face, you must eat every face!"
"Oh yeah? Then let me eat YOUR FACE!"
I squeeze my hand tighter around his skull. My body's half limp, but I still summon the power to freeze his molecules. He fights back hard. My own physical body's twitching and distorting, phasing into higher dimensions without my control. But he's suffering the same fate. We're true opposites, equals in power and purpose. My teeth clench as I see the gridwork of reality going hazy. My world shakes. My universe shakes. My hair all floofs out, and I feel all jittery inside. I'm freezing up, but entropy's locked on the Face-Eater… at least, as long as I'm grabbing him.
I kick myself forward. Both my legs are hanging down into the warp, but my face is close enough to where I can… just… get a chunk out of his face…
CRONCH.
I take a bite out of his obsidian skull and crunch it up until I'm able to swallow. He gives me a what-the-hell kind of look, and I reciprocate. All I wanted was a guy to watch the plants. Now I'm eating another guy's face. Whoop-di-doo and a jar o' guac salsa.
"You wanna call this a draw? I mean, if eating faces is your thing, I guess I can't stop you from doing it. I'm gonna keep being chaotic if you're gonna keep making things orderly."
"The more powerful you become, the more chaotic you become. Don't you know that? Surely you've realized that by now."
"Yeah! It's a cosmic balance thing. I'm not dumb. Will you just promise to watch the plants for a night, and not eat anyone's face until I let you go back to your own world? Then you can eat faces to your heart's content."
"I have no heart. Only face."
"Fine. Will you do it?"
The Face-Eater stares into my iron soul, then lays his head on the carpet, defeated. "One day, I will eat the face of the Greatest Man."
"One day, I'll make the Face-Eater have some fun. But then we might annihilate each other, and none of the women would like that. So you're gonna water the plants. I'm gonna go get guac salsa. 'Kay?"
He nods. Finally, I release my grip and am blasted across the room. It takes me a good twenty minutes to reverse entropy on everything, including my own face. The Face-Eater even gives me a few tips on how to manipulate the fabreality easier, but when I learn new skills, a bucket of eggs drops from nowhere and splatters on my head.
Then, when all's well, face restored and no memory of fighting my cosmic opposite, (What!? I met him!? Was he big!?) I greet my very-confused alternate reality Romano and show him where all the plants are. Then I'm sidling out of the apartment and getting ready to teleport across the ocean.
A low growl echoes in the stillness of the night. I freeze just as a hulking, hairy shape looms over me. I see gleaming teeth and shiny claws and two great ears pricking at the slightest noise.
"Forgot my wallet," the enormous bipedal wolf slurs as if drunk. He stumbles past me and ascends apartment stairs that are too weak for his weight.
The guy's got a weird curl sticking out of his fur.
~N~
Romano's very, very proud to be Italian. Definitely the stereotype of devout tough-on-the-outside, flimsy-on-the-inside. And extra hairy, of course... in a certain sense... but in one world, he's a dangerous fellow.
Lgva = Elg-vah
Updated by Syntax-N FanFiction . Net August 24th, 2020. Reposters more cursed than this.