Paint it Another Colour

Chapter 38

"Okay" Ludwig surveyed the meeting room carefully, taking in the sorrowful, distraught faces. "Two nations have disappeared, Francis and Sadik are still missing and nine of us are dead, never to return, and they're going to keep on coming at us. Would anyone mind if I read out the list?"

Gilbert laughed. "Wow, you really know how to lay it on hard don't you West?"

No one else responded, so Ludwig proceeded to read off the list, waiting for a reaction after every name as though confirming that they were actually dead. "Natalya, Katyusha, Ivan, Sebastian, Lucia, Lukas, Lili, Mei and Yao."

"Not to forget of course" Peter shuffled himself forwards off Arthur's lap to stand up. "That Berwald, Tino and Matthias are missing. Berwald and Tino went to Norway before I'm assuming Loki was killed. They've still not returned."

Emil cleared his throat. "Actually, they found Berwald and Tino early this morning in Sweden. Er... Berwald's in 'intensive care' and... er... Tino's dead."

Peter stared at him in a confused way. "No he's not, you're making that up" he cried. "Stop lying Emil."

"Look, Peter..." Emil started.

"No, they're not dead" Peter shouted, a few tears starting to make tracks down his face. "They're not."

Arthur picked him up and held him. "I'm sorry" he muttered.

Emil watched them for a while not looking to far off crying himself. "There's still no trace of Matthias or even where he went."

Ludwig sighed. "This is getting worse and worse as it goes along."

"Thanks for narrating that" Emil snapped, standing up and slamming his hands down onto the large, central table. "Because none of us knew that we're all screwed, coz that's what you've just told us. We don't need telling."

"Emil, calm down" Leon said from next to him. Emil slowly lowered himself back into his chair and put his head into his hands.

"Have you got any further in figuring anything out?" Ludwig turned to Arthur and Vladimir.

"You act like it's an easy thing to do" Vladimir sighed. "Creating a way to get rid of them without killing them. It usually takes practice and trials, but we don't have the time, so even if we did come up with a solution, it wouldn't work quite as well as we'd have wanted to, or it would be unreliable, and if anything went wrong we wouldn't be able to do anything to help it."

"We have ideas" Arthur said doubtfully. "But I'm not a hundred percent certain that any of them would work. We had an idea, but somehow the counterparts got there first, so we have to be careful."

Matthew cleared his throat and carefully stood up, scanning the room for opposition. "C... can I speak?" he asked quietly. Ludwig glanced up at him and nodded, sitting down hurriedly as though relieved of the switch in attention. Matthew took a deep breath. "I know where their base is." Almost every head turned sharply in his direction to stare.

"Hey?" Alfred stared at him. "You do? You never said."

Matthew ignored him. "They have Francis, and Sadik there, and I know where they're keeping them. If we organise a search party, or something like that, we can go and bust them out, and in the process get an upper hand on the counterparts, maybe get rid of a few more of them, because I think that we've gone past the point where we can just do everything peacefully."

"It's a big thing" Alfred said.

"But you're forgetting" Elizaveta said from the other end of the table. "It's all very well saying we can get rid of some more of them, but how many more of us will they get rid of? We can't just go ahead assuming that we all survive perfectly. That won't happen."

"But then again" Gilbert glanced over at her. "What are we doing now? Now, we're just wallowing in our own misery and declaring that more people are dying. At the rate we're going, everyone's going to die fairly shortly, and won't even have done anything about it. Nine are dead, Lovino's lost his memory, Feliciano can't speak, five are missing, we can't continue like this."

"But if we go we'll die" Roderich stood up next to Elizaveta

"I know" Gilbert growled. "But if we stay here our fate isn't going to be any different." He glanced around the room for a second. "Vash. You want to avenge Lili right?"

Vash groaned. "Please don't bring me into this."

"This is one war you can't stay neutral in Vash" Ludwig said, standing up alongside Gilbert.

Vash sighed. "Well, yes, of course I do, but..."

"So, you'd accompany us if we went in right?" Gilbert raised an eyebrow. "Accompany us to make sure that came thing doesn't happen to Francis and Sadik, and make sure the grief you're experiencing isn't duplicated to Matthew and Arthur and Alfred and Heracles and Gupta?"

"Well..." Vash started again.

"And if you saw Liesel, that bitch, you could kill her, and get back at her for killing your sister" Gilbert watched him closely, sensing his discomfort but not letting go. "Get rid of Voss at the same time, because he's just in the way."

"What about this other way Arthur was talking about?" Elizaveta pointed out. "That could be really dangerous if that went wrong couldn't it?"

"Well..." Arthur started.

"Don't you dare say 'yes' Vash" Roderich warned. "It'd kill us all."

"He's a free man Rod, let him speak his mind" Gilbert snapped. "And anyway, if you're too chicken to come, you stay at home with your piano."

Roderich gritted his teeth at him.

"Why is this up to me?" Vash asked tiredly.

"Fine" Gilbert turned to the rest of the room. "Kiku, Leon, Yong Soo, Kyung Soo. Avenge Mei and Yao? Emil, Peter? Lukas and Tino? Feliciano? Sebastian and Lucia?"

"Kill them all, they don't deserve to live" Yong Soo shouted, jumping up onto the table, shortly followed by Kyung Soo.

"We should go" he shouted. "Show them we're not scared of their stupid tricks and cheating, because they are."

"There you go Vash" Gilbert glanced at him. "You're not making the decision alone."

Vash gave a small smile. "Let's get things sorted then" he said.