I would like to thank the beta reader for this chapter Near Horror. Thank you so much!

Tokyo

Kiku sat on his porch and sipped his green tea as he gazed at his garden. The reporters had come, he told them only what they needed to hear, and they left, clearly not satisfied with his answers. Of course, there were some still camped outside his house, waiting for him to tell them more, but he won't until he wanted to.

He sighed and looked into his cup of tea. For now his people were fine with him and there was hardly any violence. They had their own lives to care about. But...there were some of his citizens who were clearly upset with his existence. He just hoped they wouldn't do anything drastic.

But just in case, he had his sword next to him and there were a few plain clothes JSDF members were among the crowd outside. Kiku looked up when a bird flew out of the huge cherry tree near his pond.

Kiku put down his cup next to the small tea pot and checked his watch. He had a 10 more hours before the meeting...but he knew there was no way he could leave his house.

"I guess I'll read until the meeting," he said to himself as he grabbed his sword and walked back into his house. As soon as he closed the door, the teapot shattered as a bullet hit it. Another went through the door. On the other side of the door, Kiku pulled out a radio and said, "There is one in the cherry tree near the pond. Comb the other trees and the pond for anymore."

Kiku turned it off and walked into his room. "I think I should play a dating sim than read now..."

On a empty beach in Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

A black boot nudged the still and small form of TRNC. The boy's body did not react and the boot removed itself.

"I think that did it," said the owner of the boot, a gruff looking man, said to his small party. They put their guns away and took off their gas masks and approached the body.

The lone woman in the group walked over and turned TNRC over and picked him up. She cradled him and checked him over. The boy was unconscious and would have a nasty headache when he awoke. She gave his head a motherly stroke and glared at the man.

"The sleep gas was working! You didn't have to bash him on the head with your rifle like that!" she said hotly. The man scoffed and pulled out a cigar and lit it.

"Look, we don't know anything about these things. For all we know he could've been able to fight that gas. And stop treating him like a child, for god's sakes! He is five years older than you," said the man. He took a long drag from his cigar and blew the smoke in the woman's face. She coughed and waved it away.

"Anyway, the job is done. Now we take the kid back, collect our money, and move onto the next job. We have to go to Scandinavia next and collect another boy. Now that one will be dangerous because there are two of those nation things there living with him. We have much to prepare if we are going to take down quickly! Now come on!" The man walked away and the other men followed.

The woman scowled at their backs before glancing down at TRNC and she smiled sadly. "Sorry kid. A job is a job." She was about to walk away before she noticed a small red hat in the sand. She picked it up and put it in his hands. "I think you might want this when you wake up." She then ran after the group.

Soon they were gone and all that was left was a destroyed sand castle and the metal canister that destroyed it.

Somewhere in Egypt

Gupta took a sip of his water and gave Anubis, his dog a sip as well. The hot desert sun was beating down on the small tent they set up. They still had a long way to go to Gupta's oasis getaway but it was too hot to move on and he wasn't going to push the camel too hard.

Gupta sighed and looked at the beautiful and dangerous sands of the Sahara that he escaped to during the night. His boss called him and told him to leave Cairo before the people woke up and heard the news and did something drastic. He calmly got up, packed his things and Anubis into his Jeep and left his home. That was at midnight.

He had ditched his car and bought the camel when he noticed the news had reached the people that morning. Lucky for him he was already far away from most major cities. He knew, however, you couldn't be too careful. There could be people to take advantage of this situation.

But, these were his lands, his mother's lands. He knows every nook and cranny, every sand dune and oasis, every tomb and crypt. Those people will never find him.

He closed the flap on the small tent. At sunset he will move again and he will voice his concerns at the meeting and figure out what to do now.

Seoul, South Korea

Im Yong Soo yawned as he left his apartment for a food run. He had been up all night playing Ragnarok Online because it was his day off. He wanted to get back quickly so he was just going to buy some candy and instant meals from the small market near his home.

He hummed as he walked down the street, with his hoody on and covering his head. He passed a sweets shop and looked into the window at the food. As he looked, he noticed that a black car had stopped when he had. Yong Soo's eyes narrowed.

'I shouldn't be on protective detail today,' he wondered. 'Who are these guys?

He walked away from the window and kept on walking into the market, pretending that he was window shopping but really following the car. He stopped at electronics shop and almost screamed in shock.

The news was on the and they showed his face and his name and where he lived. "How did this happen!?" he whispered. He could only stare for a few more moments when he remembered the car. He turned around and saw some of his boss's men.

He frowned and walked over them. "What has happened? Who did this!? And why follow me like you did?"

The men frowned. "We are sorry sir but we don't know. We are still looking into this. Agents are at your home and gathering your things now. We are transporting you somewhere else. Somewhere safe."

Yong Soo sighed and got into his car. "Fine. Just make sure this place has an internet connection and a private room."

"Why sir?"

"I have to tell my RO friends I won't be on for a while...and I need to contact some people..."

Roanapur, Thailand: Triad Office

Hong Kong reclined in the huge armchair and sipped his tea. He savored the rich taste and then placed it back on the saucer. He glanced at the man sitting on the couch across from him. The man was wearing sunglasses inside and was lighting a cigarette.

"So this Lagoon Company is bringing Thailand here?" he asked the man.

"Yes, Hotel Moscow hired them to,and they had gotten a call from some official in Moscow to do the kidnapping," said the man.

'Most likely it was Russia who called that woman...but why?' he thought. "Have your men made contact with Taiwan yet and made sure she was okay and warned her about any threats?"

"No they, haven't they are still in, well, Hong Kong doing damage control and getting info on the leak."

"Okay. She is pretty strong anyway, so I'm not too worried. Also, Mr. Chang, did your men bring you the report of what happened to my home? Is it still there?" he asked before taking another sip of tea.

Mr. Chang took a drag and blew out the smoke and picked up a paper to read from it. Hong Kong frowned at the smell. "By the time my men got there, your house had been broken into by the hunters and they trashed the place and took some of the valuables."

Hong Kong closed his eyes and sighed. "Damn it. What else was stolen and did they close my place off?"

Mr. Chang flipped through the papers. "Some statues, a suit of armor, some of your clothes, things from your office-"

"Wait. What things from my office?"

"Some books, official papers and disks."

Hong Kong eyes widened. "Shit. Shit! Those papers were from China and England!"

"And what is so important about them?"

"England used to keep important papers about his navy and security with me for safe keeping and I was preparing to send them back to him and China's papers were about the exact might of his army and what they were making! Those disks had schematics to various weapons and military bases."

"And the books?"

"The addresses of the other nations were in them..."

"So...the people already know those right? Then what is the problem?"

"The alternate addresses of the nations were in those books. We just don't have one house we live in, you know." Hong Kong placed the tea and saucer on the table and put his head in his hands. "There is nowhere for us to hide if those become public..."

Mr. Chang put out his cigarette. "What do you want me and my men to do?"

Hong Kong stood up and headed for the door. "I'm going to the docks to wait for the Lagoon Company. I need to know why Thailand was taken and if my hunch is right, Russia will be there too. Call Hotel Moscow and tell them I'm coming and call your bosses in Hong Kong to find out who took those books and papers, to seek them out and eliminate them before they are leaked and released to the public!"

The door slammed shut and Mr. Chang chuckled as he pulled out his cell phone. "This is becoming more interesting by the hour..."

Havana , Cuba

Cuba licked some of his vanilla ice cream as he watched the crowd of his people riot and cheer in front of his home. He watched as they broke into his house.

Of course he was in the house across the street from his home. He sighed and was lucky that most of his personal items were moved out the night before ( like those pictures of Canada he had...).

He took another lick of his ice cream. "Canada...I need to call him before I leave for this meeting...He must be all locked up in his house and angry at America like I am! That bastard of a brother of his...This has to be America's fault! Only he would do something this stupid!"

Cuba ate the rest of the cone and walked away from the window. Someone had a lot of explaining to do. And damn it, he was going to get answers!

On a plane to somewhere

"Feliks!" Toris whispered harshly, "This has to be the stupidest thing you have ever thought of! What if someone notices us!"

Feliks scoffed as he bookmarks his magazine. "Like, calm down Toris and remember my name is like, Felka now. Get it straight or people will like totally notice us." He straightened out the skirt and continued to flip through the fashion magazine.

"And like anyway this was the only way I could think of for us to get to the meeting, and let me like remind you that like you put together, without getting like mauled by the press-Oh! This top would like totally match those jeans I bought the other day! I hope my boss was able to get them when they took some of my stuff! So what about you Rasa? Will this top match?"

Toris sighed and gave up. The dress he was wearing made him cold and the heels made his feet ache. And he bet the makeup he was wearing was smearing. But, Feliks was right, it was the only way for them to leave their countries and he would have to give Feliks some credit. He did think this through, from the clothes, the fake names and passports, and the plane tickets. All he had to do was send the emails out to the others and set up the location...a location he hoped was still secure...

"Like hello Rasa? Are you there? I was like talking to you the whole time!" Feliks interrupted his thoughts.

Toris smiled. "Yes Felka...that top does match."

"Good. I wonder if Feliciano will be there...he can tell me if these match and look good!"

"I don't think he will be there in person...but I bet if you call him after all of this is over with maybe he can help you with this?"

Feliks sighed and closed the magazine. He looked into his lap and whispered, " Which one of us would do this to us, Toris? Was it on purpose or accident? And like, I have a feeling something bad has happened and I feel like something big is going to go down..."

Toris put his hand on his friend's and rubbed it. "I don't know, that is why we are all going have this meeting to talk reasonably and find out how this happened. And maybe we can find a solution to this."

"Yeah..." Feliks said softly. Then the stewardess walked by and saw Feliks distressed look.

"Oh...is your friend okay?" she asked.

Toris smiled and made sure his voice was at a higher pitch. "No miss. She's fine. It's just some problems she is going to through. A internal problem."

"Ah... so it's a feminine problem then?" she asked. Then her voice dropped to a whisper and she leaned forward. "If you want, we have some things on board to help you with your...problem."

Both of the cross dressers sputtered and Felks spoke up. "No, no, no. It not that kind of internal problem. But I do have a question." Feliks opens up the magazine. "Do you think these shoes and this shirt match?"

Toris sighed as Feliks hid away again into his fashion and chatted away with the stewardess. He looked out the plane window with his head in his hand. They were going to land soon and then they would have to take a boat to the next place they were going.

He hoped that Feliks had packed something light for where they were going or it's going to a long, long trip and knowing Feliks, he was going to complain the whole time...

In a tropical jungle

"I should like, totally kill you for this Liet! You didn't tell me the meeting place was in damn jungle!" exclaimed Feliks as he pushed aside another branch. "It's hot and I'm sweating and my shoes are totally ruined!"

Toris sighed. "It's the only place I could think of we can meet without anyone wanting to follow us... And I told you should've bought those boots back in that village."

Feliks scoffed. "Whatever. Anyway, how far do we have to go?"

Toris cut down a few more branches. "We should be at the building right… now." He brushed aside a huge leaf to reveal a concealed building. "Here we are!"

"That's it? Where did you find out about this place?" asked Feliks as he walked to the building.

Toris let out a small chuckle. "It's actually one of the places Alfred used to have his Anti-Soviet meetings. They keep updating the computers in here so we can have one huge real-time meeting, even if we all can't be there."

"Liet... how do you know… You know what? I like, don't want to know how you know this," said Feliks as he pulled the door open. "Let's just get inside before something comes and eats us."

Toris just smiled, nodded and followed Felks in. They walked down a long hallway that started to lead underground. Soon they were at a door with light peeking out from the sides. Toris pushed it open to reveal a room with a long table and many computer screens on the wall.

Sitting at this table already were the few nations who could escape their country.

Cuba was reclining in a chair gazing at the ceiling. Denmark, for once, did not look happy, and was trying to get dirt off of his boots. Francis was reading Voltaire. Norway was whispering to something in the air and Eduard was at the computers, booting them up and trying to connect the other nations. The nations stopped what they were doing to look at the new arrivals.

"You know, it would be wise if the person who set up this meeting was here before the others," said Norway flatly.

Feliks looked like he wanted to say something rude, but Toris stopped him. "We had some trouble on the trip to the jungle. I'm sorry to keep you all waiting."

Norway said nothing in reply. Cuba sighed, "When is this going to start? I want to tear into that bastard America for doing this to us!"

Eduard looked up, "I'm almost ready. Many of the nations are signing in already and I'm ready to connect them at your command."

Toris dusted himself off and Feliks pulled out a brush to straighten his hair again before they sat down. Denmark stopped dusting himself off and looked at the screens.

"Let's get this started then," he said. "The faster we do this. The faster we can find out who outed all of us."

"Okay, Eduard. Go!" said Toris with a serious face on.

Eduard pressed the buttons. "Connecting."

Alfred's house, USA

Alfred made sure his suit was correct and the curtains were closed before proceeding to his windowless panic room. He locked the door and turned his computer on. Equipped with a headset, he began working on finding a secure line to connect to the meeting's network.

He reached the network where a computer voice said, "Vocally verify who you are and your access code."

Alfred cleared his throat and said in a commanding tone, "This is Alfred F. Jones: United States of America. Access code is... Hero of Bunnies."

"Code accepted. Welcome Mr. Jones. Connecting to network 2506."

'Wait...THAT'S MY SECRET NETWORK! How did Toris know about that place!?'

The computer screen flickered over to show the meeting room. The others waved but Cuba was about to rant at him when Alfred cut him off.

"Asshole America! What have you-"

"TORIS! HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT PLACE?!" he screamed, shaking the monitor.

Toris laughed nervously. "Let's talk about that after the meeting. The others are coming on now."

London, England

Arthur made sure the obscuring and silencing spells were working before turning back to the computer screen.

"Good day everyone and America. Let's get started on fixing this problem, shall we?"

The outskirts of Ottawa

Canada smiled at the screen. "Here we go. We can all have a civil meeting to find out what happened."

In a manor in the forests of Germany

"Move over, Gilbert! This meeting is for present nations only!" said Elizabeta as she pushed Gilbert out of the chair. "Go stand guard or something! Roderich will sit here."

"Elizabeta..." started Roderich.

"Hell no! This meeting needs my awesome presence! And I'm in danger here too!" he yelled.

"I'm hungry, can we make pasta after this? I never did get to cook lunch," said Feliciano trying to stop the fighting.

"No, we are certainly not having pasta for dinner."

"But why?"

"We can have pasta! Don't listen to that weak piano brat-OW! You hit me!"

"Because you deserved it!"

Ludwig couldn't take it anymore. "Everyone quiet! Gilbert will stay. We are already connected to the meeting. Everyone can hear us!" he roared.

There was a collective "Oh! Hi everyone!" said to the screen.

Lapland

Peter was in the living room watching Power Rangers with Hana-Tamago while Berwald and Tino set up the connection.

"We are on, Berwald," said Tino.

"T'nks, m'wife," said Berwald.

"Stop calling me that!"

Naples, Italy

"The mafia has confirmed that Feliciano is safe. He had been shot at, but no harm was done," said Antonio.

Lovino let out a sigh. "That's good. Now close the curtains and we'll log on to this meeting."

Bern, Switzerland

Vash made sure his guns were on hand and Liechtenstein was armed, just in case someone attacked them while they were talking to everyone at the meeting.

His boss had called telling him he was in trouble for shooting at that reporter, but he didn't care.

All he cared about was his sister and to find who out of their number did this.

In the air

Yekaterina sat in the private part of her plane and connected to the meeting. Hopefully, her brother and sister were going to attend.

She made sure everyone was gone before greeting the others.

Minsk, Belarus

Natasha adjusted her black wig as she walked into the Internet cafe.

"I want a private room and I don't want to be disturbed," she commanded the owner.

"What are you going to give me?" he asked with a bored look on his face.

Natasha handed him a stack of bills. "Is this enough?"

"G-Go ahead."

"Thank you."

Brussels

Belgium took out a bite of chocolate as she adjusted her camera.

"Hello," she said.

Somewhere in Latvia

Raivis cowered in the closet as he set up everything. It was the only place they would never find him.

In a field in Greece

Heracles used his wireless to connect to the network. He wanted to go back to sleep, but he also wanted to know how the others were going to fix this problem.

A kitty crawled on his head as the feed became clear.

"..."

Somewhere in China

Yao found the empty room they provided for him cold, but useful. No one would bother him.

"Who did this-aru?!" he demanded as soon as he was connected.

Somewhere in the Middle East

Sadiq was asleep on a train and oblivious of the meeting that was going on at that moment and oblivious of the two men watching him from the other side of the train.

One of the islands in Seychelles

Seychelles dried her hair as she looked at the laptop and said, "Someone better explain to me what the hell is going on!"

Northern Iceland

Iceland bundled up more into his huge jacket as he completed the process to log on. He said nothing when he was connected to the meeting. He waited for everyone to stop yelling at each other.

The Outback

Australia adjusted the satellite before logging into the network. He paused when he heard a howl in the air and then kept going.

"G'day mates! Now who or what caused this shitstorm?"

The backstreets of Taiwan

No one noticed the bleeding girl as they passed her in the alley. No one except one lone figure.

Tokyo

Kiku got comfortable and adjusted his headset. "Good evening everyone. I take it everyone is well?"

On a plane

The female bounty hunter tied up the still knocked-out TRNC and then stroked his head caringly. "I'm sorry, but this has to be done. Soon it will all be over." She tenderly put his hat back on his head.

The desert

Egypt was quiet but fuming as he waited for the others to log on.

South Korea

Korea felt underdressed as he noticed some were in suits. His agents were still getting his things. But the situation didn't mean he couldn't be cheerful.

"Hello big brother!"

In Roanapur, Thailand

Hong Kong and Thailand were led to Hotel Moscow to "talk" to the head of this branch of the Russian Mafia, and her old friend.

They were then taken to underground to a room with two computers. Standing in front of the computers were Balalaika and Ivan. Ivan smiled.

"Hello! I'm glad for you to join me. We will talk after this meeting with the others." It wasn't a question.

Thailand growled and Hong Kong looked on angrily. "Let me speak to them! There is something important I have to say!"

"Fine. Just don't let them know we are here together." Ivan turned on the computers. "Let's talk to the others, okay!"

Thailand sat in front of one of computers and Ivan on the other.

"Now let us begin this meeting."