Crystalline Constellations

S1 E4: The Link Between Us [Part 1/2]

"Huh. That's weird..." Commented Jenny to herself 2 days later, on the morning of Friday, November 30th, only half an hour before she'd have to head out the door for uni. Right now she had her phone in her hand and was gazing down at its screen in confusion, furrowing her eyebrows at what was on it.

"Why? What's wrong, signorina?" Asked Italy, sat on the sofa next to Germany.

"I have this friend from the U.S. Her name's Sandra, and we talk via this app called Discord every day, but for the last couple of days, since about Tuesday I think, I haven't had a single message from her or any sign of her being online. I know she'd probably be busy or something, but 3 days on the trot does seem a little strange..."

"I think your suspicions might be right that she could just be busy." Reasoned Ludwig. "I mean there's no way of telling, because of her country having different time zones to this one."

"I hope so. It's just, I don't really know, I just have this feeling in my belly that something might be wrong. Maybe something bad happened..." She just stared for a few seconds at their skits. "But that's an extremely low possibility, I'd say. Something must just be keeping her occupied." She added after this, a lot more for her own reassurance than an answer to Germany. "But anyway, it's been a couple of days now, so what are we gonna do about getting you 2 home?" The change of subject was extra reassurance to herself.

"We could go out and look around just in case any portal thingies appear like the one we ran into!" Suggested Italy perkily. This was exactly what caused his fellow country to roll his eyes off into space and sigh heavily.

"We don't have time to waste out there randomly chasing after an invisible gateway for hours, especially Jenny who only has half an hour before she needs to be at university!" Scolded the blonde sternly.

"It was an honest mistake, commander! I thought it was a fair enough idea for a second!"

"Hang on..." The girl tapped her chin. "I think this gemstone I found, this thing that's given me these cryokinetic and hydrokinetic powers and the armour form and stuff might actually be the answer." She brought out the small, smooth Neptunian object from the pocket of her jeans. She could create and manipulate ice and water without having it with her, but she needed it to transform into her newfound armour which turned her blood blue in that form, and always kept it with her after Wednesday due to her growing curiosity.

"Oh? As in... the power it has?" Queried Luddy.

"I think so. I mean the gate between worlds that sent you both here only appeared a week after this thing fell onto this planet. It just seems like too much of a coincidence for it not to be the cause."

"So you're saying we use it to open the gate again and send us home?"

"We can't open up the gap just yet. I don't know why, but it's like this has become part of me, and it's running low on transdimensional energy right now. We need to wait a couple of months at the most, I think, for it to be powerful enough."

"What can we do until then?" Said Italy.

For the last few seconds, whilst she had been speaking, Germany had been sitting with his chin in his hand, staring into the distance in deep thought.
"Do you know whether the gem's energy can be used for communication, instead of outright opening a portal?" He spoke up.

"Hang on just a sec..." She fondled the jewel with her fingers momentarily, fixing her attention on it, as if testing it. "I believe so. Why?" 

"It's just an idea, nothing more than a theory of mine, but perhaps we could use its transdimensional energy to not physically get back to our own world, but open a communication channel to it?"

"What, you mean like a phone call?"

"Exactly." 

"That's a blissimo idea, Ludwig!" Complimented Italy happily. "We can tell the others where we are, 'cause they must be crazy worried about us!" 

"We'll need something to use to actually talk with the Hetalia universe on if we're gonna do this." Added Jenny. "Like a transmitter."

And then, just as she said this, the presence of her computer on the table a few feet away caused her to start eyeing it.

"Are you sure that'll work?" Said Germany, noticing exactly what she was thinking.

"Well all we really need is the energy from this." She held up the dark blue crystal for them to see. "And the only other thing we'd need is any operating system to do it on. We still have a few minutes yet before I need to go, so let's give your idea a try!" 

"Ve~, she's right, let's give it a shot!" Said Feliciano. 

"Alright then. It's our best option at the moment." 

So with that decision, after taking a moment to decide exactly how they'd do this, she sat down in the chair in front of the PC screen, with Italy and Germany both walking up to the desk and standing behind her. She gently placed the crystal next to her on the oak wood desk, only needing to use her mind without physically touching it at all to channel its power of crossing universes into the computer. Since a week ago, the private practising she'd done had given her more control over the powers granted to her brain, so this was still fairly new to her, but she was nevertheless fairly confident. Jen put both her hands on top of the keys in the middle row on the black keyboard like she was plugging them into it as if it was a phone charger for her hands, and, feeling a little under pressure because of Lud and Feli watching everything she was doing, she did the same as she would when someone was watching her during a music exam when she was younger: she just focused her attention on the task at hand and got to it without thinking about anything else. 

She promptly closed her eyes and did what she did when using her other abilities she'd gained, which was to confine her thoughts to what she wanted to achieve, so she made sure, in the darkness of the inside of her eyelids, she pictured the Hetalia world. Every episode she'd seen, all the moments and the scenery in it, and tried to picture her reaching through into that world. She didn't see it because of her eyes being closed, but her computer screen abruptly switched on without anyone pressing a single button on it, showing just black at first before a rough estimate of hundreds and hundreds of numbers, maybe even thousands, appeared on the screen in codes, racing past each other. Specifically, just 1s and 0s. The numbers used in binary code. The gemstone on the desk was pulsating brightly in a fluorescent glow during all this, to which Germany hurriedly ran over to the windows next to the door to the landing and shut the curtains so that no one would see what they were doing. 

For the next few moments Jenny thought she'd got it. She was so close to finding the right code, the correct frequency which the Hetalia universe was on, but something went wrong st the last second. She inadvertently broke her concentration and the world she was in came rushing back more unexpectedly than ever before in her life that it caused a tiny gasp to slip out of her lips. 

"Just take your time. Don't rush it, ja?" A strong hand put itself on her left shoulder delicately, which she soon realised belonged to Ludwig, telling her this softly in encouragement. This was exactly the type of thing that she liked to write about in her fanfictions, so hearing it come true made her cheeks turn a tad pink in blushing due to the cute imaginings in her head. But she soon decided to focus on this task for now and squee later, so she shut her eyelids again and gave it another try, calling forth mental images of the series into her brain and, eventually, mentally saw herself in the void of her computer, reaching for the right set of numbers in the binary code, and could still detect her gem shining again like a miniature star.

After what felt like an eternity, she felt it. She'd found the frequency for Germany and Ital's world. 

"West, is that you?" An excited voice with a German accent was suddenly heard on the computer, coming straight from that world, and all 3 of them in the human realm knew straight away who this voice belonged to.