Ok. Here goes; the first chapter of Sonata: Schutzengel universe second generation.

Warnings: HETEROSEXUALITY! Yuri, and minor yaoi, Mafia!talia, Nyo!talia, language, violence, violins, flutes and guitars. Musical terminology, angst, epiphanies and mentions of incest, just not how you think.

Summary: Every family has skeletons in its closet, right? What Daniel Beilschmidt didn't realise was that the skeletons in his family closet wore cement boots. Armed with a strat and some blank staves, Dan takes a journey through music, college and a dark heritage he didn't know he had while trying to remain sane and inspired.

Please note: Unless it's absolutely necessary, I don't like to use OCs in my fanfiction. Therefore, the Nyo!talia verse come in handy, and as I am rather fond of the characters in there, I use them extensively.

Julschen: Nyo!Prussia.
Daniel: Nyo!Hungary
Chiara: Nyo!Romano (said Kee-ara as far as I am aware. Shortened to Chi (Kee))
Anne: Nyo! Austria
Antonio: Spain ( Called Francisco – his middle name – to avoid confusion with his mom yandere!)

I think that's everyone.
Pairings: PruHung, HungAus, Prumano, SwitzLicht, Gerita, Spamano, AusLicht, Franada, USUK . . . Uh. Everyone is sleeping with everyone else. Let's just leave it at that, kay? Please bear the Nyo!characters in mind!

I hope you enjoy ^^

"You really didn't have to walk me to my dorm, Chi, I can find my way around just fine. Actually, you didn't have to come with me at all; don't you have to be in school?" Daniel Beilschmidt asked the girl behind him, who tossed her auburn hair and snorted gently – not so much that it would be unladylike – if derisively at him.

"Dan, I'm taking a family crisis day; my stupid big brother is going away to university; I'm grieving," she said, her voice and face sombre and distressed.

Dan couldn't help but laugh out loud at that, "How does anyone ever believe you? We aren't even related!"

If you had asked someone to guess which of the Vargas siblings was Dan's best friend, most people would have said Antonio (known by various shortenings of his middle name, Francisco to prevent any confusion with his mother, Antonia) who, being eighteen and male was closer to the Hungarian's age and was the same gender. So they would be bros, right?

Quite spectacularly wrong, actually. Dan and Sisco got on about as well as a disease and its antibodies. They constantly bickered and on a couple of occasions it had even turned into a flat-out brawl, which had to be broken up by Dan's scary uncle Ludwig. Though Chiara was the more antagonistic of the two siblings, and at age sixteen, the younger, she and Dan got on surprisingly well. This may have been because she had idolised him from a young age as a big brother figure (far superior to her actual brother, for whom she held a high disregard). She had even started learning music at the same time as he did, picking up a violin rather than a guitar.

They stopped outside a door marked 206. Dan smiled a little nervously, sure he had travelled, but he had never really stayed anywhere by himself for any extended period of time. He had always had at least one member of his very extended family with him (most of whom he was pretty damn sure bore no relation to him whatsoever.)

"This is me," he grinned, feeling the butterflies of the Milagros beanfield shrivelling his internal organs apprehensively.

"Keep yourself out of trouble, idiota. You know what you're like when you don't have me looking after you. You'll probably trip down the stairs and die," she smiled her false smile.

"Thanks, Chi," Dan's smile broadened and he punched her lightly on the shoulder.

"Chigi! That counts as abuse in fourteen different countries, bastardo!"

"Whatever," he pulled her into a one armed hug, "scat, or you'll miss your flight back home."

"Flight, schmite. Take care of yourself, no one else will." And with that she turned on her heel and swished back down the corridor, her heels clicking on the tiled floor. Dan had to laugh and shake his head as she flipped off a guy who whistled at her. It was so Chi.

He opened the door to his room and looked at the man passed out on one of the two beds. He was face down, but he had an army green greatcoat on and close-cropped brown hair and darkish skin.

Dan shrugged, placing his guitar carefully on the bed before dumping his suitcase unceremoniously on the floor, earning a grunt from his new room-mate. He glanced at the man's luggage; Sadiq Adnan. Well, that was a name he hadn't encountered before.

He looked around the room. It was small to the point of being pokey, and largely taken up with Sadiq's drum kit. Maybe they could jam sometime?

~====o)0(o====~

His theory of composition class was surprisingly small, there were four other guys and as many girls. One of the guys had to be as tall as Uncle Ludwig, with steel, square-framed glasses. Another was small and quiet, but the way he was glaring gave Dan the creeps. Yet another was dark skinned and bald, though he had quite a lot of gold facial jewellery, and Dan wondered how he didn't get mugged for it when he walked down the street. The other was Sadiq, who in addition to being a drummer also played the alto saxophone, which he had with him now. The words "Sax to be you," were emblazoned across its case in what looked like stencilled spray-paint.

The girls were a distinctly separate crew. While the guys were chatted in and amongst themselves, with the exception of one, the girls were sitting fairly quietly. There was a dark-haired girl in a neat pencil skirt and blouse who caught Dan's eye. She was a refined kind of beautiful, and he liked it. Another girl had short ash blonde hair and was talking quietly to a tall girl with long, messy blonde hair. But the girl who he kept having to look at was the one who just wouldn't shut up. She was talking loudly in an accent that Dan recognised as being distinctly German. Everything about her screamed LOOK AT ME! Her too-short-to-be-decent white vinyl miniskirt, her deep blue bomber jacket, the antique ruffles on her shirt (to disguise that she was flat-chested, no doubt. He had seen Uncle Feli pull that stunt too many times) her ass-length white-blonde hair and the boots (white vinyl, to match her skirt) that laced up to her creamy thighs.

She was hot, but she was also fucking irritating. Momentarily putting aside the manners his mother drilled into him and resorting to the store of crude profanities that both of his parents had instilled in him from a young age, he called to the loud-mouthed young woman,

"Halt den mund!"

"Spreken sie Deutsch?" she fired back immediately, totally ignoring his demand for her to shut up.

"Ja-" he began, but was cut off when she raised a hand for a high-five.

"Like a boss, man! I'm Julchen," she said as he stared at her hand in confusion. "Dude, don't leave me hanging!" He slapped their palms together.

"I'm Daniel,"

"You're honoured to meet me, I know," Julchen gave a wicked smile before returning to her seat, leaving Dan a lot confused and more than a little pissed off. The lecturer marched into the theatre, shrugging off his jacket.

"Hello, all," he said brusquely, "I am Peter Kirkland and I will be taking you through the theory of practical composition. You all have five minutes to think a snippet of song that describes you, why it does that, and you have to play it for us. Tune up!"

The cacophony that ensued that could only be compared to an elephant trying to pass a gallstone the size of a Buick in the middle of Mardigras. One alto sax (Sadiq), one tenor (which was the surprisingly short girl with ash blonde hair and almost violet eyes) one electric guitar (Dan), a piano (the dark-haired girl), a flute (Julchen) A clarinet (the blonde woman), an oboe (the tall dude), a double bass (from the creepy dude) and shockingly enough, a synth from the bald guy with a colander for a face.

"Righto, time's up and ladies, first, chaps. Which one of you would care to lead?" both the tall, wild-looking blonde and Julchen said,

"Me!" at the exact same time. Professor Kirkland pointed at the blonde,

"Clarinet comes before Flute alphabetically, sorry, love but this young lady gets to go first."

"Thanks prof," he blonde woman said, standing, "I'm Christina. I'm from Denmark and this song describes me because it's almost as epic as I am," she smirked, touching the instrument to her lips and beginning to play one of the more haunting movements of Clint Mansell's Lux Aeterna.

The professor nodded, "Very good, Christina, though a little sharp. And you, love?" he asked Julchen,

"I'm Julchen, I come from Germany, and I chose this extract from Sacred Power of Raging Winds by Rhapsody because I figure that if you have talent, you should show it off," she said before drawing a deep breath and launching into a complex and staccato piece that in terms of tempo and fingering was more suited to a recorder than a flute. When she finished playing, her cheeks were slightly pink. Daniel knew the song, and much though he hated to admit it; she was very good. Maybe they could play that song together sometime, it had some great riffs. Maybe Sadiq could kick in with the drums?

The next girl was the petit, if formidably curvy, blonde, "I'm Tina," she smiled shyly, "I'm Finnish. People tell me I'm jolly," she said, picking up her sax and proceeding to rattle off a medley of upbeat Christmas carols.

Finally, it was the dark-haired girl's turn. She sat stiffly at the piano for a moment, as though uncomfortable with the spotlight, "My name is Anne," she said quietly, she also had a German accent, though there were slight differences, "I am Austrian," that would explain that, "And I will be Preforming Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, it is my favourite piece," the room stilled as she played, moving with the music. It was slow and sad, longing for something other.

There was a stretch on unfathomable quiet as she lifted her fingers from the keys, though she had only played for a minute, the lack of music resonated profoundly, yearningly around the room.

Then it was on to Sadiq, who played a jazzed up version of Istanbul, Not Constantinople (he was Turkish, go figure) and the tall guy, who it turns out was Berwald from Sweden and played the Oboe piece from Peter and the Wolf. Because he liked how there were no words.

The bald guy (Gupta, from Egypt. Who'da thunk it?) played an excerpt from a song called Sofi Needs a Ladder by a band called "deadmouse," which was spelt Deadmau5, apparently. Dan wasn't much fond of trance, but Gupta really rocked his synths.

Daniel's impression of creepy-double-bass-guy was only cemented when the Norwegian, Lukas, broke out into Daniel Licht's Blood Theme, which Dan recognised as the creepy tune they played when that popular TV serial killer was chopping people up. Finally it was Daniel's turn.

"Hi, I'm Daniel, and I'm sort of Hungarian. I like this song because it says my name," he said, playing the very first riff he had ever learnt, Smoke on the Water, but with the added accompaniment of him singing "Dan-Dan-Da~n, Dan-Dan-DanDan, Dan-Dan-Da~n Daniel!"

"Very good, all of you," professor Kirkland said, grinning, "Now, what is it about these compositions that makes them so popular? Some are timeless classics, such as Beethoven, some have their own cult like Mansell. Let us dissect the composition. What makes it tick? Not the metronome, that's for sure."

~====o)0(o====~

Chiara arrived home a day later utterly jet-lagged. A round trip to England wasn't exactly her idea of fun, especially not when she was met at the airport by her idiot bother,

"Buon giorno, principessa," Antonio grinned lazily, his pet turtle, Señor Tortuga sitting on his shoulder. He knew that she didn't like amphibians, or reptiles, whatever the fuck that thing was; she hated it, "have a nice trip?"

Chi adjusted her sunglasses, "Stai zitto, fatass, it's none of your business."

"Aw, sorellina, you wound me," he grinned.

"Fuck off, Sisco, just take me home." Her brother laughed as he complied, his smile not quite reaching his eyes.

Chiara Vargas, at the tender age of fourteen, had discovered that her parents were – to her eyes, at least – super villains. However, she didn't mind. Super villains always got to wear better costumes, and Dan didn't seem to mind at all. Dan was her idol; she always followed his example, even if it got her into trouble. It wasn't until about a year after that that she realised that Dan didn't know about the dark and dangerous things their parents did. Which really did give her the perfect justification for calling him an idiot, how dense could he be?

But now, at sixteen, she no longer idolised her friend, and she was far more deeply involved in the intricate web of the family than either of her parents knew or would have cared for. In fact, she had her own little network going. It was for that reason (she had a few errands to run, her father to suck up to, so on and so forth) that she didn't get a chance to check her emails until later that evening,

To: VargasChi (at) ymail "Chiara"
From: DannyB (at) yahoo "Dan"

Hey, Chi!

Miss you already, kid. You'd really fit in here I think. I know you'd definitely smack a bitch; there's this chick called Julchen, she's irritating as fuck, but she's also fucking good at playing the flute. . .

Chi smiled. As long as Dan was happy and she wasn't going to have to organise a hit on any of his teachers, she could go to bed.

~====o)0(o====~

Daniel kicked off his shoes, listening to Sadiq snore (The poor guy was still running on Istanbul time) and flopped back onto his bed. He had been worried about homesickness, but his classes were keeping him too busy for any kind of worry, and he was actually pretty happy with his current situation.

Life was good.

Like that was going to last. . .

~====o)0(o====~

Here we go guys! This is the first chapter of the story that I am now having some serious doubts about; please let me know if you like it ^^

~RutheLa