A/N: Thanks for reading. And just some quick side notes. At some point I make a reference so to avoid confusion I added the video which I reference. Plus, Christopher A. Wray is a real person, I don't own him or anything. He was the head of the FBI (I believe) around teh time I wrote the outlines of this story. That was during 2020. I also had some fun with theorizing and researching about who of the countries was the oldest and wrote down what I think in this chapter (I also used the manga and anime for reference). It's not very detailed, but I still want to be accurate, so... I just left some things for you to interpret. ENJOY!
NYC – 12:36 – United States of America
"Yeah, don't worry, bro. I'll be suuuper careful." I assure my brother as I stroll through the busy streets of New York. I left early this morning so that I could nation hop to Washington and then catch a plane to New York. For the others in Moscow it's only 9:36 AM in the morning. For the ones in Berlin it's 7:36 AM. For me it's 1:36 PM. But I'm not eating lunch here, rather breakfast.
"I don't want you to get caught, America. Plus, it would only worsen the situation. So I hope you're speaking the truth. And-" He then becomes silent and I hear some talking from the other side of the line. I patiently wait both for the light to jump to green and for Canada to continue whatever he was saying. Okay, never mind, I've never been much of the patient type. I impatiently wait for a response and the light to turn green. "Ah, I have to go, but remember, be careful. Bye America." Canada finally says and I smile, even though he can't see me.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll be careful. Bye, dude!" I say before ending the call. Sometimes my brother is too concerned about me. Like I would ever get kidnapped. I would punch anyone in the face before they could even lay a finger on me! I'll still be careful though. I am smart enough to know that they could ambush me like they did with Germany and Turkey. And then I won't be able to fight back either.
I happily start walking again as the light turns green and look up at the Empire State Building in the distance. I can also see the Chrysler building from where I am right now. I'm so proud of my country, we managed to go from a mere colony of that stuck up Britain to a world power! We surpassed all of the European countries and we're still at the top. Or were, lately things have been going a slight bit downhill. I think China rules a lot of the economy now. Oh well, we still have legal guns. Though I'm slowly starting to doubt if that's actually safe. More and more incidents have been happening with accidental shots killing people and gang wars are always so dangerous in the big cities. That would be a lot more difficult if guns were illegal.
I wonder if Christopher A. Wray will hear me out. I know he and I are not on speaking terms ever since I accidently set back the investigation on some major drug cartel. I was reading through some files and I accidently spilled some soda on the files. A lot of important information was lost, but luckily they had back-ups of most things. But not everything... Like I said, it was an accident!
Anyway, that's all in the past now. Today we have a really urgent situation, countries are being kidnapped and I need to- I mean we need to save them. I know I can't do it all on my own. That I do realize.
I look at the street I'm supposed to walk into right now. It's under construction, the whole street. Why couldn't they have only partially blocked off the street? Sometimes I really wonder who is in charge of all these dumb decisions. That way I can go have a talk with them. But there's so many dumb people in this world, I can't possibly have a talk with all of them. This road block forces me to go all the way around several blocks. I groan, I don't want to walk all the way around!
I glance to the side to see a network of alleys. Of course! I can take a short-cut through the alleys and I'll be there much faster. I'm so smart. I give myself a pat on the shoulder before determinedly strolling inside the alley and continuing on my way.
I wonder if the others are discovering anything interesting. Maybe they'll find some secret map or some secret codes. That would be so much fun to decipher. And of course I would get a chance to show how smart I can be solving all of the mysteries that surely have been piling up. And then England can't deny my genius. It would be perf-
TONK
A sudden pain in the back of my head makes itself known and before I know it, everything becomes fuzzy and I lose my balance. I stumble to the ground to see a man with an indented frying pan in his hands leaning over me.
"Huh, this is easier than I expected." He says as he grins down at me. I shake off the blurriness and open my mouth to protest and punch that man in the face. But he brings the frying pan down over my head again.
TONK
This time, I black out.
I groan as I slowly wake up again, my head throbbing violently.
"Oh, he's alive." I hear someone retort sarcastically, I get the urge to snap at them. But I decide against it and instead slowly open my eyes. A softly lit room with grey walls and a concrete floor appears. I look around and the first thing I notice is that I'm leaning on someone. I lazily look up and come face to face with a smiling Belgium. I quickly startle awake and jerk upright.
"I'm so sorry for sleeping on you." I quickly apologize. She laughs in response and lifts her hands to show she's not mad.
"Don't worry about it, I laid you on my shoulder myself, otherwise you would wake up with your head on the floor. That would have been less comfortable." She explains.
"So, he's number seven. How many more countries are they going to abduct? This cell is becoming rather crowded." Portugal suddenly says to my right and I look around the room to see the six abducted nations all sitting against the wall of a room with their hands shackled together and to the floor. I look to my own hands to see I'm no exception to the predicament. I chuckle to myself, do they seriously think these weak shackles will hold a super power like me?
"I don't know, maybe he'll be the last? They already had to improvise when shackling his hands to the floor. It seems they only accommodated for six of us." Norway points out and I look at the ring bolted into the ground my shackles are connected to. It's the same ring Belgium has been shackled to. I then look around all the others have a ring to themselves.
"Their mistake, I'll just break these shackles within seconds and bust us out of here." I say with a grin. I quickly pull upwards with my hands and tug at the chains. I can hear the chains being pulled straight, but they don't budge. I grunt as I put more effort in, they still don't budge. But I keep pulling and pulling. I'm not giving up that easily. I put all of my might behind the next pull and hear the chains rattle again, but there is no movement, not even a creak or groan. That's weird, normally I would have broken them already.
"Don't waste your energy, Amerika1." Netherlands says, sounding rather bored. I look up at the tallest nation and frown. "We've all tried it, it never works. We think either this room or the shackles or something are affecting us. We can't feel our own countries and we've lost our inhuman strength. Luckily our healing still works properly." He explains and I look down at the cuffs around my wrists. So basically he's saying, we're really trapped. Well, so much for telling Canada I wouldn't be caught.
"Where are we?" I ask the others in the room. Germany looks up at this and sighs before speaking up.
"We're not sure. Our guess is somewhere in between Turkey and Norway and not too far from Brussels. More we don't know. So, either Eastern or central Europe. But-" He trails off and I understand what he's trying to say. They can only guess. I ponder over his answer.
"It's weird actually, the only more central or eastern European countries in here are Germany, Belgium or Netherlands. But none of you can feel whether or not we're inside your borders?" I ask them, looking at the three countries in question.
"No, we're absolutely certain we're not inside one of our own countries." Belgium answer and I frown.
"That's really weird because none of the other countries could sense you inside their borders either." I relay the information to them and silence falls upon the room. We all look a bit at each other questioningly, then where are we? The only explanation I can think up for this is that we're either in a boat, under water or in a plane. But there is no background noise or slight rocking and moving around, so that's almost impossible.
The only options still open are either under water in the ocean or maybe inside one of the micronations' borders. There weren't any at the meeting so that's a possibility. They would of course come see what we're all doing here, but it could also be that Black October is holding them in another room. Then there would be no way the other countries could know where we are.
"So, basically, we're none the wiser about where we are." A deep sigh. "Putain de merde2." Belgium mumbles the last part. I've never heard her swear much so it makes me kind of uncomfortable to hear the vulgar words come out of her mouth.
"Watch your profanity." I joke, referencing to an old video3. But of course no one laughs with me.
"This isn't something to laugh at, Amerika." Germany reprimands and I reluctantly stop laughing and slump a bit against the wall.
"Oh, let him laugh. He's still young and stupid." Turkey says, trying to defuse the situation.
"Hey, I'm not that young! Germany is younger than me!" I protest. Netherlands laughs.
"You're still the second youngest here. In fact, I think either Turkey or Norway's the oldest here." Netherlands looks towards the two nations in turn and Turkey smiles knowingly in answer.
"Norway is the oldest." Portugal answers. "Turkey, Belgium, Netherlands and I are about the same age. Then it's you, America. And then comes Germany." He explains easily. Wow, I didn't know Norway was that old.
"You make me sound as old as China." Norway mutters softly, clearly embarrassed. The poor guy. But no one can beat China. That dude is thousands of years old! Unlike me.
"Hey, be quiet, I think I hear something." Turkey suddenly pipes up and everyone listens intently. We can hear footsteps starting to approach our cell. "They're coming again." Turkey then says and you see everyone tense up. Did they catch another nation? Who is it going to be? I hope it's not Canada. I look up as the door is unlocked in three different places and then slowly opens.
"Good day, my precious prisoners." A woman says as she walks inside, two soldiers close the door behind her again.
"Who are you?" I immediately ask, not afraid of her. I don't care if she's a serial killer or a homeless person. She called us her prisoners so she must be the one behind this.
"Oh my, eager are we? Well, I expected no less of the famous nation, the USA." The woman smiles creepily at me and I scowl at her. She then proceeds to look at everyone currently in the room other than herself with that same smile. "You must all be wondering why you're here, no?" She then asks, fixating her gaze on Germany.
"Well, I'd like to know why you assholes kidnapped us, yes. What business do you have with us? How do you know of us?" Turkey impatiently asks from beside Belgium. The only female nation present leans a bit away from the rough man and his barking questions, trying to avoid being hit by his flailing arms.
"The how isn't any of your concern. The why however I can answer." The lady looks at Turkey before answering. "You nations are a mystery to us, you appear to have been present since ancient times, if our research is correct. We have photographic evidence of Mr. Netherlands here in the 1830's with Ms. Belgium beside him. We have recovered a painting of one particular British nation with very unattractive bushy eyebrows from the 1600's. We have restored another painting of one Mr. China from the late 1350's. Mr. China also seems to appear in a drawing of the construction of the Great Wall of China." The woman explains.
"So, you see, we have figured a lot of you countries have been around for a very long time. Some we could only trace back to the nineteenth century or the seventeenth century." She then looks at me and Germany. "But we were still intrigued. After some more research we managed to make a list of every living country around the world, their names, where they live and a picture of their face. And we now want to exploit some things we have discovered about all of you." Her smile never leaves her face. It also occurs to me the woman has a New York accent. Is she American?
"So what, you're stalkers? Great job." Netherlands sarcastically points out and the woman turn her sharp gaze and soft smile towards him.
"I would be careful about my words if I were you, Mr. Netherlands. We have realized you are all somewhat immortal. But that doesn't mean we can't hurt you." Her smile falters for a bit before she then looks away from the tall nation again and the smile appears again. "Now, if Ms. Belgium and Mr. USA would be so generous as to follow me, that would be very kind." The woman then knocks on the cell door and four soldiers enter. The four soldiers approach us and unhook our shackles from the floor.
I look at Belgium as we get dragged to our feet. She looks a bit hesitant, not sure about what to do. I give her a determined look and shake my head at her. We wait for the perfect opportunity. Our nation strength isn't back yet, we'll have to wait it out for a little more because they have guns. It won't keep 'kill' us, but we'll still be out of the count. Belgium nods and we silently follow the soldiers as they push us in front of them and after the woman.
So, we silently follow as they lead us into the hall and close the cell door behind us. I can see Belgium glance behind her, probably worried about her brother. But as we walk away from the cell, she straightens her back and confidently walks beside me, not showing any weakness. I follow her lead and also straighten my back.
The halls of the building are all rather plain, they look like walls from a normal building. But the windows are boarded and we can't see outside. Not much else to see here either except for some lights hanging on the ceilings and closed doors on the right side of the hall. I wonder where they are taking us. Torture chamber? Wouldn't be my first time. Interrogation room? Wouldn't be my first time either. Well, I guess I'll just have to find out!
We walk down a storey and go through even more plain looking halls with boarded windows and black clad soldiers walking occasionally by. We enter a darker hallway and I wonder if it really is going to be a torture chamber. But I wouldn't know what information they could possibly want from us. We've stopped in front of a door now, so I'll figure it out soon enough.
The strict looking lady opens the door for everyone to enter and watches us wearily as we are pushed in before her. The soldiers escorting us push their guns in our backs and we enter the room. Belgium goes in first, still holding her head proudly and glaring at the soldiers already inside the room. She may be smaller than most here, but she has a few centuries of experience more than these soldiers.
I enter after her, also keeping my head high. If they think they can simply beat us into submission or something, they've got another thing coming. We're not that easy to manipulate. Beside, I'm the hero! I'm supposed to refuse even if I have to die for it. That's how it goes in the movies at least. The room itself is rather dull, no furniture or anything, just four beige walls and a door.
"On your knees." One of the soldiers orders and they push us to the ground. They place us in front of the wall, beside each other and five soldiers behind us, their guns trained on us. I nervously tug at the shackles around my wrists. They're tight and my nation strength still isn't back. I wonder how they were able to keep it back.
"Start the live-stream." The woman barks as she goes to stand in front of us. Surprised, I look up and see a camera. I look to the side, towards Belgium, she also looks to me and there is confusion in her eyes. She seems equally surprised. But then she seems to realize something and looks back in front of her. Ah, right, we might get some more information through this live-stream.
"Hello everyone, you can call me Domitor." The woman starts to talk. I look to Belgium again and frown. Domitor? That's Latin.
"Tamer? Conqueror?" I whisper towards Belgium. She shrugs, also seemingly confused by the name.
"Silent." The soldier right behind me bonks the back of his weapon on my head and I yelp before glaring at the soldier. But I quickly just stare out in front of me again before zoning back in to the monologue the lady is having at the moment.
"If you do not agree, we'll keep killing these two countries and keep bringing disaster to their respective homelands until you do agree." The woman laughs evilly and I glance to my left again. Belgium seems to be both trying to stop herself from laughing at the evil cackle and frown from the sentence she just said.
Just what exactly is this evil lady with a Brooklyn accent and very uncomfortable looking shoes trying to achieve?
1 Dutch / German = America
2 French = for fuck's sake/bloody hell (Belgium speaks three languages; Dutch, French and a bit of German ( wiki/Languages_of_Belgium).)
3 watch?v=hpigjnKl7nI (the meme thing)