While they were all distracted, Japan had grabbed one of his katanas. They wouldn't be much good against his robot, but having one on hand made him feel slightly less anxious.
"Now that it is damaged," he told the others. "We should focus on stopping the power cells in the chest," he pointed to a bunch of blinking lights in the robot's chest. That will freeze it and it will hopefully let go of them."
"But it moves too much. There's no way we can climb up there," said France.
Hungary looked around and saw a big rope among some debris near a destroyed part of the garden. "That, do you think we can use it to trip the robot? If we take it down, destroying the power cells will be no problem."
"We used it for a festival a while ago, but I think it might be strong enough," said Japan.
"Fine," said England, walking forward. "I'll distract it while you two use the rope to take it down. Japan, keep an eye on Spain and Prussia and try to catch them if they fall."
The others nodded, and England climbed to the roof of the house. Using one of France's guns, shot at the blasted remains of the robot's right eye. He missed by little, but the robot still turned towards him. A yellow light in the center of its forehead shone, and England knew it could see him.
"Come get me, you twat!" he shouted.
The robot moved towards him, taking a shaking step, and then lifted his left arm, where he held Spain.
England reloaded and shot again. This time he missed by a lot more, and the bullet hit the robot's arm.
"Stop that you idiot! You'll hit me!" shouted Spain, and made a crude gesture at England.
"I'm trying to get him to let go of you, you bloody wanker!" shouted England.
The robot stepped forward against the house, and punched the roof with Spain still trapped in its hand. It moved so fast, England barely jumped out of the way.
When the debris cleared, the robot lifted its arm wit Spain's limp body hanging.
"¡España!" shouted Prussia, still caught in the other hand, with tears falling from his eyes. "¡España despierta! (Spain wake up!)"
But Spain wouldn't move.
"What the hell is going on in here?!" shouted Romano, coming into the garden through one of the holes in the wall, followed by Italy, Germany and America.
Romano's eyes trailed up until he saw Spain's body hanging from the robot's hand. His face lost all color.
"Spain! Spain! No!" he ran towards him, dodging the robot's feet when it tried to step on him. He took out a gun from inside his suit jacket and started shooting. Italy ran after him.
"Romano! Be careful!" he tried to run towards his brother, but Germany held him back.
"Wait Italy! It's too dangerous!"
"Stay back!" shouted England. He tried to run, but a piece of the roof fell under him and he fell down into the house. America saw him and before he could even think about it, he was already running towards into the house.
Hungary saw him pass "Well, there goes our distraction, and some very good help," she said. France patted her shoulder.
"Don't mind them. We have to keep going."
Hungary nodded at him and they both took their ends of the rope and ran around the legs of the robot.
Prussia's bird flew in front of Germany and Italy, chirping desperately. Germany looked up and saw Prussia wildly reaching towards Spain.
"Bruder!" he let go of Italy and ran forward, until Hungary nearly crashed against him.
"Out of the way!" she said. Germany saw what she and France were trying to do and rushed to help Hungary pull at her end of the rope.
Inside the house, America pushed away pieces of the broken roof and walls, looking desperately for England, but he couldn't see anything among the dust. Suddenly he saw a small light. It moved around, as if calling to him.
"England? Is this your magic England?" he called, but got no reply. Still, he followed the light and soon found England trying to carry an unconscious Japan out of the house.
"America? What are you-?"
America hugged them both. "I found you! I was so worried when I saw you fall from the roof! You're so old I thought you would break your-!"
England hit him in the face. "You idiot! That robot thing still has Prussia and Spain! You should have stopped it first with your ridiculous strength!"
America glared down at him, then took both Japan and England and threw them over his shoulders.
"I had to make sure you were alright," he said, as he made his way out of the house. "How could I just leave you like that?"
They came out of the house to see France, Hungary and Germany try to take down the robot. America let both nations down and ran to France's side.
"This thing won't go down!" yelled France.
Romano ran past all four of them and jumped up the robot's leg, climbing with an ease and agility that Germany could barely believe. He reached the robot's shoulder easily and ran down the arm.
"It won't let go!" said Prussia. "I think it's stuck!"
Romano growled and blinked away tears of rage and frustration.
"Like hell it won't let go!"
He recharged his gun and shot at the yellow sensor in the robot's forehead. Then he shot at the blinking lights in its chest until he had blasted them all out. The robot shook, and slowly opened its hands.
Romano jumped to catch Spain in midair and use his own body to protect him from the fall. In the ground, Italy ran to catch them both, and only too late realized that was a bad idea, but by then he was crushed under his brother and Spain.
"Ugh, fratello…," he grunted, then fell back.
Prussia held on to one of the fingers in the robot's hand, but when it moved, it tripped over the rope around its ankles and fell over against the house.
Prussia was unconscious.
Or dreaming.
Either way, even if he was hallucinating somehow he was glad he got to hear Old Fritz play the flute for him again.
Frederick looked down at him, smiling like he had back then.
"You were always getting into so many strange problems," he said, and his voice was made of all the whispers at Sanssouci.
"So says the guy who was best friends with Voltaire."
The king laughed and passed a hand through Prussia's hair.
"I suppose we were two of a kind, do you not?"
Prussia nodded, and took that hand in his own. He cried, but he had no tears in this dream, so his cries fell silently into his heart. "Have you been looking down at me?"
"Always."
"Please wait for me, all of you. I've missed you so much."
"Always, my dear. We will wait forever, and happily so."
He opened his eyes, and found his face wet, but he knew the sadness he had felt then was too much for tears, so why-? Germany pulled him up in a crushing hug against his chest.
"You're alright!" his brother said, and sobbed a little.
"Heeey, w-whut happened?" he said sluggishly. He could barely lift his head, much less think straight. Germany
"You were crushed against a house by a ton of metal and then you… you just…," Germany started crying again. "I couldn't wake you up! I just couldn't and I…"
Prussia smiled and patted his hand. "Shhhhh…Shhhh... I'm fine…fiiiine. Just, hanging out wi' Fritz for a while…"
Hungary leaned over them. "He's hallucinating. It will probably stop in a while," she said, and wiped at Prussia's face with a warm, wet cloth. "He used to do this when we were kids. Babbling about saracens and whatever."
"I'll kick you," mumbled Prussia.
"You can't kick a lady."
"I'll wear a dress and kick you."
"You do that dear," she said, and went away.
Germany shook his head. "I don't know what happened tonight, but don't do it again," he grabbed the front of Prussia's coat and glared at him. "Don't ever do something like this again."
"I love you."
"No, you hear me right now, Bruder, I thought I'd lost you!"
But Prussia was already unconscious again. Germany glared at him some more just for good measure. "And you're grounded. Forever. You are now grounded forever."
Behind Germany, Italy snickered. "Ah, Prussia is always so upbeat."
"I sometimes can't believe him," said Germany, and wrapped Prussia up in a blanket to carry him to one of Romano's mafia cars.
Romano himself was crying in the ground next to an apologetic looking Spain, who wanted to hug him but got slapped every time he tried. "You were all dead, you idiot! Who do you think you are to pretend you're dead, you fucktard!" yelled Romano. Around them, a few stylishly dressed mafiosos shuffled their expensive shoes around.
"I'm really sorry Roma," said Spain and tried to sneak an arm around Romano's shoulders, but the Italian slapped him across the face.
"You said you would be home idiot! And then you go and get kidnapped by a robot! How dare you!? I thought you were hurt! Or worse! I hate you!"
"I'm really, really sorry Roma," Spain wanted to add that he was sorry for being punched against a building by a robot but thought that might sound too sassy at the moment. He went for the next thing in his mind. "But still, I'm very happy. Because I was rescued by Romano!"
Romano slapped him again, but not as hard this time. "You fell on me! You damn better be sorry! And I'm sending you the dry cleaning bill for this suit!"
Inside what remained of the house, England and France knelt and bowed in front of Japan, who gave a long suffering sigh.
"I'd just like to know what prompted this madness," he said.
England and France stopped in mid bow.
"Well, you see… it was…," started France, searching desperately for an explanation that wasn't we were all idiots.
"It was my fault!" said England suddenly. Everybody stared at him and he turned red. "I…my magic. It got out of control and affected us all. I'm very sorry, you know my wand is sometimes…not accurate enough."
"You did all of this?" asked America. "With your dumb wand?"
England glared at him. "Yes. I already said I was sorry, alright? It was an accident!"
Japan was about to say something, but France spoke first.
"Ah, yes, a very unfortunate accident," he said, nodding.
Hungary put a hand on England's head. "An awful accident, but nobody is really at fault here."
"True," said France, and patted England's head too. England growled and stood up.
"We will pay for the repairs to your house, so don't worry about that Japan."
"We?" asked France.
"Yes, they will all pay for the repairs to your house," said Hungary, and stepped away discreetly.
"I'm pretty sure Spain and Prussia will have something to say about that," said France. England nodded and got up.
"They will, but who cares?" he said, and bowed one last time. "Now if you will excuse me. I'm sure at least Manchester will want to know of me."
He left, and America followed him. "So, what really happened?" he asked.
England shrugged. "I just said I had an accident with my magic"
"Yeah, that must have been one hell of an accident when you left this in my house," said America, and took out England's wand from his pocket.
"What the-?! How did you?"
"You left it at my place last time, when I invited you to my party. I thought you would realize where you left it and come back for it, but you didn't so I went to your house to give it back and invite you again," he said, and examined England's wand closely. It shone in the same way that the light that guided him in the house had shone. England took it harshly from his hands.
"Don't touch that! And anyway, nothing happened. If you really must know, we had a bad idea that ended worse than we expected, and that's it.
America smiled tiredly. "Whatever, you look good in that," he said and passed a hand over England's jacket. "You once said you would take me on one of your ships, but you never did," his hand trailed lower, to England's waist, and he pulled him closer. "You still owe me that one."
"I-I…don't have any more pirate ships…"
"You have a wand that works miracles and you say you can't get a simple pirate ship?"
England blushed. "Well, I could try."