Warning: OCs within. Not a canon in sight. Run now, while you still can! Also, I can't write action for crap.
Rating: T for swears and some violence.
Note: For 15animefreak15, who won a trivia, and also has long helped me get Ohio right. She's my go-to for Midwestern history, and I sorely need the help. So, a present that I've owed her for a while now. Hope you like it.
Ohio finishes her check on the security systems on her new rented shack in the middle of nowhere, satisfied that she's safe. After setting the alarm codes to the motion sensors, the State slams home the deadbolt. Despite the money she paid for all the fancy gadgetry that she doesn't entirely understand Ohio trusts the piece of metal to keep her safe more. A house isn't complete unless there's a deadbolt on the front door, after all. How else do you stop people from breaking in and stealing all your stuff?
Though it's not really thieves that Ohio's worried about. Honestly, this shack deserves the title. It pretty much consists entirely of a living room with a couch, a closet, a bathroom about the same size and a small kitchen. There are only two windows, which then again is fine. It's not like Ohio was planning on doing anything stupid like bird-watching through the windows, anyway. And besides, smaller windows are less of a security threat. Ohio didn't bring much with her anyway; just her shovel, her football gear and a bunch of tins of Buckeyes. It's not even like she has anything worth stealing, except for her Harley, but the Buckeye State is confident that no one can undo the clamp she left on it. Well, it's less of a clamp and more of a chain tied to the back wheel that's attached to a set of cinderblocks buried underground. Bike locks are for sissies who don't own shovels.
But Ohio is out here in the middle of nowhere for a reason, actually. It has to do with politics, and also the upcoming election. See, Ohio is a swing State. This means that she -unlike most of her irritatingly repetitive "siblings"- doesn't go into an election already knowing who she's going to vote for even before the primary. Ohio likes to actually hear what candidates have to say before she casts her electoral votes. Usually, this just means that she gets extra focus during campaigning season, which she doesn't mind. After all, it's nice to get that sort of attention. It makes Ohio feel in charge. Well, she's already in charge, but the amount of money the candidates spend on winning her favor is still pretty nice. Usually she's able to try and wring all sorts of promises out of the candidates to get votes.
Ohio used to love just basking in the glow of attention she got during election season. It always felt great when the campaigners poured their money into her economy and promised her the moon and the stars for her votes. At least, Ohio enjoyed the attention until the 2000 election. After that, she wasn't sure if she wanted to have anything to do with politics ever again. Everyone had been yelling at her to vote one way or another, and it had just made Ohio's head hurt. She had wound up just wanting to be left alone by the time it was over. In fact, she was more than ready to go crawl into a hole and never come back out.
Even though she doesn't like Florida much, Ohio knows that the Sunshine State really must have had it far worse, since she wound up being pulled in so many directions that she wound up splitting the vote on a third party candidate, an act that Ohio thinks the other State carried out almost from spite. Still, Ohio is already on unsteady enough ground with Florida due to the Buckeye State's dislike of Michigan, so Ohio really doesn't want to make things any worse for herself. Finding her doormat replaced by a trapdoor to an alligator pit once was more than enough, and Ohio really doesn't want to see what else Florida has up her sleeves.
Ohio hated getting pulled and pushed that way during the 2000 election. After all the animosity that wound up happening over it, she decided to never let it happen again. But of course, she couldn't –and still can't- snap her fingers and get her people to start block voting the way easily-led morons like the way some of her "siblings'" people do. No, Ohio wouldn't do that to her people even if she could. They like having choices, and so does she. But the real problem is when other people decide that she needs "help" making her choices. Specifically their help.
So after the 2000 debacle, Ohio had come up with a plan. She was going to just going to ignore her "siblings" when they came to try and win her over. It sounded okay in her head, nice and simple. Of course it was going to be nothing like that in reality. Ohio really can't blame her siblings for wanting her to vote with them, after all, she is pretty awesome, if she must say so herself. But they really need to learn to leave her alone. All she wants this year is some plain old peace and quiet, something she wasn't able to get last election season.
Four years ago, Ohio had just ignored the campaigners, figuring that they were all smart enough to leave if she asked them as politely as she was able to, which pretty much amounted to not trying to beat Texas with her shovel. Texas and his band of merry campaigners had looked crestfallen, but they had left, and the same happened for Massachusetts, only with more swearing involved. Ohio had figured that they had gotten the hint, and had about a week's worth of undisturbed normalcy, ignoring the usual stupidity from Michigan and his merry band of troublemakers.
Then things had suddenly gotten a lot less normal. The campaigning States had started showing up everywhere Ohio went. Outside her office, at her front door, the local coffee store, the McDonald's down the block; even though Ohio changed her daily routine several times over in under a week in order to throw them off, they kept finding her somehow. After enough time being followed like that, Ohio had started to get paranoid, glancing over her shoulder constantly, looking for anyone carrying posters or signs. She had started to worry that the next time someone would come over and tap her shoulder that she would reflexively break their jaw with her shovel or something.
Eventually, the Buckeye State had just shut herself up in her apartment in an effort to get away. She didn't open the door for anyone, started having her food delivered to her door, and telecommuting to work. That only lasted until they started camping out in the parking lot and Ohio's landlord had come to complain. When she went outside to try and dislodge them with her shovel, Massachusetts and Texas had started trying to outshout each other for her vote. After a few minutes of that, the two of them had gotten into an all out brawl. Ohio doesn't remember much after that, just a feeling of rage, a blur of red and then her landlord evicting her as an ambulance scraped Texas and Massachusetts off the pavement.
This year, Ohio intends to make sure that doesn't happen again. On some level, she understands that the States who get Election Fever aren't in full control, and it seems to be only more so these days with the Obama supporters. Ohio hasn't seen Illinois yet, and for a good reason. She really, really doesn't want to see what's happened to him. Well, it could be worse. She could be Nevada, who's trying to keep the two campaign-crazy sisters from killing each other. Then again, things are probably pretty bad at the Regional Meeting, since the Dakotas are probably trying to defend their Republican sensibilities against a fevered Illinois. Which is why Ohio is here, and not there. She likes her sensibilities the way they are, thank you very much.
The Buckeye State sits down on the lone green couch that will also be serving as her bed until election season is over and turns on the television and puts her feet up on the arm opposite her. The Game is coming on, and Ohio wants to see her team beat the crap out of Michigan's boys. Just like Toledo, he's going to go down hard, again and again. It's almost funny how the other State thinks he can win this time. The Buckeyes are going to murder the Wolverines and Ohio plans on enjoying every minute of it.
All in all, this little getaway seems to be shaping up into a nice vacation. She's got her feet up, her football, her quiet; all she needs now to make this complete is her candy. Ohio waits for a commercial break, then stands up, walking leisurely from the main room into the tiny kitchen. Ohio makes her way to the bag she left on the counter, full of groceries that should last her for a good while and of her necessities she brought from Cincinnati. She rummages around the bag until her fingers hit a small metal tin, and the Buckeye State smiles, having reached the candy they named after her.
All the best things are Buckeyes; her favorite peanut butter and chocolate candy, her favorite football team, and Ohio herself. It's good to be her. The State pulls the tin open and pops a candy into her mouth, still smiling. Then she turns, and starts walking back to her couch, and her football, the tin in hand. This is shaping up to be a great-
Thud. Ohio spins around, startled by the noise that came from the window.
"Gah!" She shouts, dropping the tin full of candy, hand automatically going to her hip where she used to carry her handgun. There, pressed against the window is an impossibly wide-eyed Illinois. Ohio darts forward and thumps the window with her fist, hoping that this will be like tapping the glass on a fish tank. Not waiting to see if her trick worked, Ohio pulls the curtains shut, and presses herself up against the wall, breathing like she's just finished a marathon, adrenaline pouring into her system.
Ohio waits a moment or two, breathing hard, trying to convince herself that Illinois wasn't there at all and that his appearance here in the middle of nowhere was just a trick of the light. Nope. No good. Ohio tries not to panic, but mostly fails. Why didn't the alarms go off? It probably has to do with the fact that Illinois never really forgot any of his skills from his days as the Mob, but Ohio didn't think he knew how to get around high-tech motion sensors. What she's more worried about is how he found her. Probably
This is what she gets for tempting fate like this, for wanting to be happy with her impromptu "vacation." Ohio walks steadily back into the living room and is about to sit back down on the couch and try to ignore what she saw when she hears it; a series of thuds, this time from behind her.
With a feeling of dread making her stomach drop into her toes, Ohio turns slowly to look at the window behind her. Pressed up against that window is not only Illinois, but several other States, counted among them Arizona and California, all with the same wide-eyed, delirious grins that Ohio has learned to recognize as symptoms of Election Fever. Jumping up from the couch, Ohio draws the heavy curtains shut over the larger window, and listens as the confused silence quickly turns to a rapid pounding of fists on glass.
Knowing that the window won't hold out for long, Ohio runs over to the closet and takes out her football gear and her trusty shovel. Eventually, the crazed campaigners are going to break into this house on way or another, either by beating in the door or the window, and she wants to be prepared this time. As the pounding on the window gets fiercer, Ohio pulls on her padding and hefts up the shovel, ready for battle. Abruptly, something heavy hits the door, making the deadbolt rattle in its place. They're trying to break in the door! Crap, there has to be more of them out there than Ohio thought there were.
Ohio twitches a little, glad at least that her deposit on this rundown shack wasn't a lot to pay, since there's no chance she'll be getting any of it back at this point. The sound of cracking glass interrupts her thoughts and Ohio takes the deadbolt off the door. As the glass cracks some more, the sound of slogans being chanted picks up and Ohio looks through the little eyehole in the door. She sees the Dakota twins lifting what looks like a trashcan; that must be what they're using as their battering ram. Ohio almost growls as the two of them back up again, ready to try and break the door in. Of course the two of them are involved in this crap. The Buckeye State should really be used to their nonsense by now.
She waits for the twins to back up farther, then start running. As they advance o the door, Ohio drops her shovel and sharply pulls back the deadbolt. Then, just before the twins can ram the door, she wrenches it open and the twins continue through the doorway, a surprised look on their face. The two of them clumsily drop the trashcan, but their momentum carries them further and the two go crashing into the closet. Ohio quickly slams the closet door shut, and then races to the couch as the sound of cracking glass gets louder.
Ohio strains herself, sneakers sliding on the coarse carpeting in the shack as she pushes the couch up against the wall, blocking the closet door. In spite of herself, the Buckeye State grins; the twins may be slippery, but she'd like to see the twins magic their way out of this mess. The glass window behind her finally shatters, and Arizona, California and Illinois tumble into the main room in a heap, eyes still impossibly wide. Ohio shudders; it reminds her of Japan's eerie cartoons.
As the tree States start picking themselves of the floor already babbling slogans, Ohio picks up her shovel from the ground and runs out the door. As soon as she's out the door, she looks around, taking everything in, trying to come up with an escape plan. Almost immediately, her stomach sinks into her shoes. There are at the least ten other States out in front of the shack, and Ohio gulps, going just a little bit pale. And unfortunately, her day only keeps getting worse as she spots the last person she wants to see.
"Enjoying the game, Ohio?" Michigan asks her with a smug grin, standing on a pile of wreckage from what must have been some sort of complicated machinery. "You did a pretty good job of giving these guys the slip, and I've got to admit it took me a while too. But hey, I found you after a while, in the end. Having a pair of friends who work with NASA means that I literally have an eye in the sky as long as I can convince them to give up their precious ethics for a good cause. And you'd be surprised at just how much Florida doesn't like you, Bucky."
Ohio stands there, shaking in rage as the campaigning States begin to close in behind her, unable to say anything as Michigan continues, other than a few spluttered phrases. "But-! But-! But-!" Ohio splutters.
"But-! But-! But-!" Michigan mimics. "Jeez, you can't even string a sentence together." The Wolverine State smirks at her, apparently not reading her killing intent. "Aw, cat got your tongue?" He continues condescendingly. "Anyway, I figured it would only be good manners to pass along what I found out to mygood buddy Illinois." Michigan's grin gets a little sharper as Ohio's eyes go wide on him. "Then I sent your location to Arizona and her crew. It was only sporting that each side get the chance to swing you, after all."
"I am going to murder you." Ohio says quietly, still shaking from barely suppressed rage, her fist making a dent in the handle of her shovel.
Michigan raises an eyebrow. "Oh really? So soon?" He asks her, still grinning infernally. "Even before you realize just what I've done, exactly? You know," the Wolverine State continues "it was pretty heartbreaking to take this sweet machine apart, but then I remembered exactly whose fat ass rides around on it, and then I realized that I had no problem at all with putting it out of its misery." Ohio doesn't even notice as Illinois latches onto her shoulder and starts screaming in her ear, too focused on what Michigan says next to elbow the Prairie State in the face. "That poor Harley." Michigan shakes his head, feigning remorse. "It didn't deserve such a pitiful existence."
Ohio finally spots the tires in the wreckage, and then the rest of Michigan's words along with the slogans of the rabid States are drowned out by the roaring in Ohio's ears as everything goes red. "You want to swing?" She asks Michigan, deadly quiet, twitching a bit, her fists kneading against the shovel, not caring that the metal in the handle is biting into her hands a little.
Michigan's grin changes, and something in his eyes flashes for a moment, but then it's gone again. "Though you'd never ask." He says, still grinning, his tone almost joking and even though he's looking anything but serious, Ohio knows that the Wolverine State is ready for anything she could possibly throw at him. She expects him to be that way, and Ohio smiles.
"Then let's swing, nancy boy." Ohio says, cracking her knuckles around the shovel, growling low, smiling just a little, the sort of smile that most of the Midwest knows to run from.
Michigan continues to grin. "I thought you'd never and jumps at her, foot snapping up for a kick, and the fight is on.