America entered the building, knowing that this time, he would be the first one there. Nobody ever came an hour early, after all.

He was met at the entrance by Echo. "Oh, hello Mr. America," she greeted kindly. "What are you doing here so early? Isn't your meeting in," she paused to look at her silver watch, "an hour?"

"Well, duh," America said. "But I'm the host, and this building is the absolute coolest. I thought it would make me an awesome host to show up the earliest."

Echo nodded, but she was a bit annoyed with how casually America was speaking. It was a pet peeve of hers for people not to be formal when talking with someone they didn't really know, especially with business. "Okay!" she said, feigning cheerfulness. "Anyway, if you would like to go and head up to the room early, it should be ready for you to enter by now."

"Thanks, dude." America left, and Echo took a deep breath.

"He is beyond annoying," she muttered. She smirked, and pulled out her phone, typing in a text message. "Well, at least him coming earlier means I can hopefully get things started quickly, I can't imagine how long I'd have to wait if he came late."

She finished typing, and sent the text, looking it over afterwards, and reading it silently.

'The first of 24 has arrived. America is here, now we just need to wait for the others.'

She smiled, not the cheerful smile she had on in front of the other countries, but a menacing, almost evil-looking grin, one that would never fail to terrify someone out of their own skin. Echo knew her plan was going to work, and she would make them proud. She would finally get what she wanted, and all it took was something as simple as this.

No one was going to stop her, especially if she had control of the whole "company". All her workers were either in on her plan, or bribed into staying silent. If any of them said a simple word, she could have anyone, and everyone, at their throats.

She worked hard to get what she wanted, and if this was the way to get it, then boy oh boy, of course she was going to get it.

'-'

Time was passing quickly, and by now, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and England has arrived as well. They were all lead up kindly by Echo, who was thankful she was a good actor or else the whole thing would be absolutely horrible. She especially didn't like England. (I love how I'm referencing things no one will understand, I mean, Echo herself is a reference) And she didn't even know why, it was just a gut feeling that England and her would not get along, even without her whole secret fiasco going on.

Echo was pacing around, near the entrance of the building, and hoping she didn't appear stressed to anyone coming along. No one could know of what she was doing, and she was worried about the succession of her plan. She had put so much time into it, she had to make sure that nothing failed, even in the slightest. The door opened, and Echo turned towards it, smiling.

"Hello there," she said cheerfully, taking in the appearances of the people in front of her. There were six of them, all blond. Of course. "You must be the Nordics, correct?"

Their reactions and hellos were mixed, and Echo could hardly make out who was saying what. Thankfully, she was at least able to gather that, yes, they were the Nordics. She knew that officially, there were five Nordics, and that the sixth one must be Sealand.

"Anyway," she said, trying to talk over the six, who seemed to not be able to stay quiet. "I'm Echo Jaris, CEO and founder of this beautiful company, and I will show you to the meeting room you will be placed in. The little micronation with you is allowed in as well, don't worry about that. I'm sure that he won't be much of a problem anyway. Just please follow me."

Echo lead them up through the building, her patience draining slightly every second she had to listen to the nations. She had to stay polite as of now, she would be able to get rid of them if she pleased later. The puffin that followed one of them, she remembered her files on them saying it was Iceland, was especially annoying, and as they were on the steps up to the room, she stopped and turned around.

"Mr. Iceland, am I correct?" she asked. The nation nodded simply, and she continued. "Okay, well, Mr. Iceland, if you would like, I could hold your puffin in a room close to the place you'll be holding the meeting in, just until the end."

Iceland didn't look convinced. "Mr. Puffin's been with me forever, I can't just hand him to some stranger."

Echo sighed. This was going to be harder than she thought. "I promise we'll take good care of your pet for you."

Iceland glanced at Norway, who shook his head, but shrugged as well. Iceland turned back to Echo.

"Thanks," he said. "But no thanks. Mr. Puffin always comes to these meetings, he'll be fine."

Echo kept the smile on her face, saying, "Okay then! He is yours, after all!" She, however, was not happy with this, and added on in a quiet murmur, "I guess he's just an uninvited guest I'll have to get rid of after all this."

Echo continued to lead the Nordics back through the building, up the stairs, and into the room where the other countries were currently waiting. Looking inside, she saw about 18 countries already there. 'Hmm,' she thought. 'Time already?'

Echo quickly counted the number of countries inside her head, including the Nordics.

'21... 22... 23... 24!' Echo grinned. This was going to be absolutely perfect. Knowing that she wouldn't have to worry about keeping up the act she had plastered on in front of the nations, Echo laughed. It was a loud, evil one, as cliche as they come, and it turned the heads of everyone in the room towards her.

"Oh, you all are such idiots!" She cheered. "This is going to be absolutely perfect!"

"Wait, what are you talking about?" A voice, America's, asked. Echo turned her head towards him.

"Uh-uh, I can't tell you now! You're going to have to wait for this little game of mine to begin if you want to find out! Tah-tah, I'll see you all later!"

Echo quickly exited the room, slamming and locking the door behind herself, and pressing a small button on the wall. Her grin looked even more menacing than before, if one were to look at her, they would surely think that this woman was insane.

And Echo watched through the glass door as the room filled up with a green gas, and the countries started falling, one by one, onto the cold ground of the meeting room.

Falling, falling, falling.

Hehehe this was a lot of fun to write even though most of it was on a phone. I'm going to keep this short, but yeah.

In the next chapter you'll learn who the 24 countries were (I've already revealed some of them in the text, see if you can name all 12 of them), and I'll have time to write it since I'll be in a car moving across the country, so chapter two should hopefully be out tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe today of you're lucky!

Tah-tah!

~Kota