Paint it Another Colour

Chapter 23

Sadik - Turkey
Heracles - Greece
Gupta - Egypt
Nastaran - Iran
Farrah - Iraq
Aaron - UAE
Karim - Saudi Arabia
Tarkan - Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
Glafkos - Cyprus

Gupta felt out of place.

They'd had a meeting. Not a World Meeting, but a smaller meeting, like the ones the Nordics had, and the G8. They didn't really have a name for theirs. Maybe something to do with Middle East? It was all nations from that area, like Nastaran, Farrah, Aaron and Karim, plus himself, Sadik and Heracles for some reason, but it wasn't like they were invited to other meetings, so he went along. Normally everything went alright, more controlled than World Meetings or any other for that matter. This time however, chaos had erupted the second someone mentioned the counterparts return. He couldn't quite remember who it was who had brought it up, but there was an uproar and nothing could be heard among the shouts.

Now, they were all leaving the building sheepishly, as though embarrassed for the uproar, and Gupta was virtually sandwiched in between Sadik and Heracles, who were arguing over his head. Usually, Tarkan would be there for him to share the awkwardness with, but Tarkan hadn't been feeling well recently, and Glafkos had refused to let him leave the house, thus explaining his absence to the situation.

"At least I know how to control my economy" Sadik shouted over his head at Heracles who made a tutting noise of irritation and snapped something else back. Gupta wasn't quite paying attention to it at all, which he should have been really. He knew that it could sometimes get out of hand, but it was Glafkos who knew when they'd gone too far, not him. He contemplated saying something to shut them up, maybe shouting something random.  They got scared easily, so whatever he said, they'd most likely freak out for a minute and then go quiet for a while. At least it'd shut them up for a bit. Something about counterparts?

"Why do they look like us?"

Gupta froze for a second and blinked. That was basically what he was about to say, except he never opened his mouth to say it. Then...

Heracles had stopped walking a couple of seconds ago, Sadik looking at him with a confused expression, before turning to follow where he was pointing.

They'd come to stop in what looked like some sort of park. It was a small one, them walking along one wall and being able to see the opposite wall, and there were the people Heracles was pointing at. Gupta couldn't see them properly from where he was standing, but he could make out a headdress similar to his own, a mask and a dog of some sort near the people. With what was going on at the moment, no one could pass anything off as coincidence.

"Crap" Sadik yelled, numerous people turning to frown at him.

"What are you doing idiot?" Heracles gave him a bored look. "You know they'll just hear you and come over? You won't improve anything."

"Well are we just going to stand here and do nothing?" Sadik glared at him. "I say we go over and beat them up. I mean, it's not coincidence. It can't be, so we should go and show them not to mess with us." He started to storm over.

Gupta put out one hand and grabbed the back of his coat, not flinching besides that. "You're not the Ottoman Empire anymore you know."

Sadik hissed and stopped trying to get away. "Shut up."

"He's right though" Heracles said. "We can't just recklessly storm in. It wouldn't work. Firstly, we need an army of cats..."

"We'll do no such thing" Sadik snapped. "Nothing of that sort at all."

"So what will we do then?" Heracles gave him a death look.

"Nothing" Gupta muttered, getting the attention of both of them.

"What d'you mean 'nothing'?" Sadik demanded. "We can't do nothing. I mean..."

"Nothing" he repeated. "We'll carry on walking, we'll get out of this park, go elsewhere and talk about this rationally like civilised people."

"And what would that achieve?" Heracles said. "Doing 'nothing'?"

"Instead of doing 'nothing', we could charge in there and see what they're like, how bad they are" Sadik stared down at him, backing up Heracles.

"By doing nothing" Gupta glared up at them both. "We achieve not harming ourselves, our people, or anything, but we also gain the news that lots more people have counterparts than last time, and we'll have a basic idea on who else does, because right now, we know virtually nothing about our current state. We can work on the attacking some other day."

Sadik threw a longing look at the three on the other side of the park, who somehow hadn't noticed them, and then sighed. "As usual, Guppie knows best" he groaned, shoving his hands in his pockets and stalking away.

"So" Heracles watched him leave. "Now what?"

Gupta shrugged. "Phone someone?"

Heracles nodded and pulled his phone out of his pocket, tapping the screen a couple of times before putting it up to his ear. He waited for a second before pulling it away and frowning.

"What?" Gupta mirrored his expression.

"Kiku's not picking up" Heracles said thoughtfully. "He always does."

"Clearly not today" Gupta said blankly. "Try someone else, and lets move away. They could look over at any point and see..."

He trailed off, glancing across at them. They weren't looking directly at them, but that might have been the best thing for them to be looking at given the circumstances.

Sadik was talking to the counterparts as though they were old friends. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything seemed alright, and it was, until the one in the black mask drew a sword. At that point, Heracles ran. It took Gupta a couple of seconds to react, but followed him shortly after. By now Sadik was on the floor, no passers by seeming to have noticed, and the one with the dog had slung him over his shoulder. Gupta knew they wouldn't get there in time, but he still ran, paced just behind Heracles. The counterparts and Sadik left the park, the other two not far behind, and started into the crowded streets. By the time Heracles had got to the park gate, they were heading towards a narrower street. This was his town. The meeting had been held in Greece. This was his place, and he knew they had them. It was a dead end. There was nowhere for them to go.

He stopped just at the entrance to it, Gupta not noticing and colliding with him.

"What..." he started, silenced as Heracles carefully put a finger to his lips.

"Its a dead end" he grinned there's nowhere they can go!"

He waited a second, picking up a bean that was resting against a nearby wall before charging forwards into the alley.

Nothing.

"I thought you said this was a dead end" Gupta said. "That there was nowhere they could go."

"It is" Heracles frowned. "At least... it should be but..."

"So... We lost them?" Gupta sighed.

"And Sadik" Heracles nodded. "Appears so."

*

Sorry if there were any terrible grammar or anything in this. I typed it on my phone so it's a nightmare XD I mean, my phone doesn't even know that 'the' is a word sometimes!!!!
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