Warning: This chapter is not beta read.

15. The Rampaging Chapter

...in which America is having fun

"In this world," Mrs. Ally started slowly as all free nations had gathered. "Living beings themselves are not born with magic. Not even we nations are. What holds magic is the land we live on. We simply reside on it and as time goes we've been able to come and use the magic the land offers. Okay, not everyone can do it, some are just not compatible enough and some in turn are far better at it than others. But basically what that means, is that bloodline or upbringing or anything like that doesn't make you a powerful magician by default. They help though... but it's where you reside that matters the most. All areas have their own quantities of magic and well... those living on them can really just adapt to the amount they happen to have."

"Sounds unfair," Hong Kong said and Mrs. Ally nodded.

"Life is. Okay," she said and took a deep breath. "It's so hard to explain this simply..." she mumbled, shaking her head and continued. "Because of this, magic becomes a reason of war for us. Among the five nations around here, your enemy -the southern big nation- has the weakest magic of us all as I think we've mentioned. Despite his area of land being big, the flows of magic are weak and scarce. I have the strongest flows. In turn the other of your allies... you know, the man who was here with me the first time we came - has the third strongest magic of us all."

"And I'm guessing the war maniac one we've already defeated has the second weakest then?" Russia said in between but was among many others surprised by the shook of their ally's head he received as an answer.

"No, he in fact has the second strongest."

"Then why would he attack us and attempt destroy his information sources?" China asked bewildered.

"Because he's a war maniac," Mrs. Ally said as if that explained everything. "The rank of the second weakest in magic belongs to the nation you have not met."

"The one Northwest from here? So why hasn't he done anything then?"

"Because he is a coward and has self-competence problems."

Without bothering to continue on the subject, Mrs. Ally continued to explain about the magic. "You've got the basic idea of how magic works here now, right? Okay, then we kinda get to the point, which is this no-man's-land. You see, even on global scale, this place is very peculiar. It's what we in this world like to call 'a nest'. All magic flows start and end in various nests around the world. That's why, having a nest on or close by your own territory makes the flows of that area more rapid. What makes this place peculiar in the sense is that the nest is so close to the surface, while they usually are further down the ground," she explained and took a deep breath.

"Hold on a second," Norway interrupted. "If I understood that right, isn' it weird that our enemy's 'magic flows' are scarce? Isn't he close to this place as well?"

"You're sharp," their ally complimented and nodded to him. "But I was just about to get to that point. That is another reason what makes this place peculiar: this nest doesn't spread any flows around itself, but savours everything to itself. None of us around here have power over the other because of this particular nest. In fact, the power and quantity of magic this no-man's-land has is far beyond any of ours. Which is a reason that in history we fought over the rule of this area numerous times."

"The old trenches..." China pondered, mumbling aloud enough for other to hear as well.

Mrs. Ally nodded to him too. "You would have found similar ones from almost any direction." Then she sighed. "Okay. You see the thing is, we've kinda learnt our lesson now. Especially after an international committee got involved. As you have seen, this land's magic is so powerful it has a will of its own. Our magicians also believe that it actually is spreading flows from it, but they are going downwards: the opposite of a usual nest. Before we can know for sure this nest doesn't connect anywhere, disturbing this place could potentially damage any other magic flow or even another nest, and as such damage the whole magic net itself. A problem of that calibre is a worldwide incident."

"And still you are letting us fight here like this?" Russia asked. "Isn't that a bit stupid of you?"

Mrs. Ally laughed. "Well firstly, we never thought this would escalate this much, since we never thought you'd put up such a fight, okay. Secondly, even when it did, we doubt this is enough to disturb the nest. We've done worst in the past. But an atomic bomb is whole new story. Your enemy will never get through with that without international attention."

"That's right!" China said and straightened from his thoughts. "The bomb. We have to stop it and we need your help. Enough with the magic talk, we need to get moving."

"Wait!" Norway objected. "I still haven't heard explanation to one thing."

"What?"

"The will-o'-wisps."

Their ally sighed again. "I told you. The magic came to protect its territory. We have encountered same kind of things in the past here. I don't want to count the amount of people we've lost for that. That is one of the reasons we no longer fight over this place: the land itself immediately reacts to any more major spell or a bigger explosion, and creates a counterattack. The will-o'-wisps are the first warning. However, that's not the only thing the nest can do and it can also spread the effect outside the no-man's-land borders, which are of course only human made so why would the magic care? That's why we prefer not using any magic here at all. There's no telling what will happen and the threat is big."

"Does that answer you question, Norway?" China asked. "Because I want to get the atomic bomb off my neck as soon as possible."

Norway nodded.

"Good," China said, nodding back and raised his voice to speak to everyone. "So this is the situation now: our enemy has given us one day to surrender completely, until he threatens to drop a nuclear bomb in the forest.

"I swear to you, we'll do everything we can to prevent that," Mrs. Ally said and took out some papers from a bag she had brought with her. "Before I got here, I already made sure my people send out official warnings and informed the other countries around. But from all I know, we should perhaps take other measures as well. I'm not sure our threats will make it in time or will he be in so sane state of mind he'll listen. He has already went beyond normal sanity as you've been hurting his pride quite a lot and he still has refused to accept his army can't take down some dozens guys with only a few units."

"We've tried making some counter attacks. The choices have just been limited."

The next thing they did was discuss with their ally about the various bad strategies they had come up with. Assassination received an instant no. According to their ally it would only make it worse, and it'd be very difficult for their allies afterwards to explain they had nothing to do with it. Which wouldn't be entirely true, since it couldn't be done without their help. Their ally proposed that some of the nations would have come with her for further negotiations with the enemy and perhaps so buy them more time. The nations were reluctant. While most of them saw it as the most effective option they had, their experiences about negotiations were not bright: first America and then Germany had been shot down in the middle of a conversation with their enemy.

It turned out Ms. Ally wasn't sure about the option herself. While it was diplomatically the right thing to do, she did state that the man they were dealing with was not only insanely proud and stubborn, but also very bad at listening to others and too used to getting what he wanted. Joint negotiation with the nations would also show that she was also openly supporting them, which even if the nations got back safely, would lead to her having problems of her own; a thing that she didn't look forward to, to put it simply, although she did express herself with a slightly more colourful language.

"This is not about paper work," she said. "I'll do that as much as I have to get this mess off my neck. But I really don't have resources to go into war with that guy. And don't think that this isn't a reason enough for him: it is, if he's just angry enough. So I don't want to provoke him any further. That fight won't turn out like the one you're having here, okay, he does have heavy artillery and air force and all the kind you haven't seen. You've just been lucky. And your other ally's country is between us and I'm quite sure our dear southern acquaintance doesn't give a shit about that. Plus he doesn't like me to begin with."

"So what about you went there alone or with the other nations around here?" China proposed.

"Oh I will," their ally assured, pointing at China. "No matter what we decide here, he's going to get an ear load from me. The problem is that he's expecting that, okay. So he won't listen. What we need is an impact, something he hasn't thought of that we'd do. If we can throw him off course, he'll hesitate, reconsider and that's when he starts listening to reason."

"Then sending us with you will probably only make matters worse," Hong Kong said and smiled a little. "He sorta hates us."

"Then what about a sabotage?"

All the nations turned to look at the hut door, where the suggestion had been heard. Ms. Ally was about to ask further clarification, but shut up, confused, when everyone else seemed to be more stunned about the person talking than the matter discussed.

"I'm not quite on the top of the situation yet, but Seychelles explained me the basics and I listened to your discussions," England continued, adjusting the walking cane he was leaning on while Seychelles was supporting him from the other side. He coughed a little as his voice was still a bit grumpy even after getting some water. "But if he has no bombs to drop we'll be clear, right? Stealing them might be hard, but rendering them useless could be easier if we just get someone near enough." He turned his head and remaining eye to look at specifically one of the faces among all that were looking at him wide eyed in shock, and pointed at him slightly with the hand that was resting over Seychelles' shoulders. "Wouldn't you be able to do that, America?"

.

A good while later

"You've really gone too far this time," a man standing by a table tried say as sternly as possible.

"I don't have time for you," the enemy nation said, not trying to hide how irritated he was by the other's presence. He stomped to the other side of the room to the door leading out and opened it for the other. "Go back home to read your books if that's all you want to talk about."

"Stop!" the other man shouted, surprising the other by raising his voice which he usually never did. This was the one local the nations hadn't met and who had so far kept his hands out of the whole deal. But he had kept a close eye on things and had now stepped up to voice his opinion, only to shrank back when the other nation turned back to look at him.

"Excuse me?" the southern nation asked genuinely confused.

"I'm sorry," the more timid nation said immediately and raised his hands. "But... no one's going to agree with what you're doing."

The enemy nation walked back. "Inside information: I know. More inside information," he said very calmly and leant closer. "I don't care."

"I figured..."

"So quiet down and let me do what I must. You of all people should understand me." He grabbed the other nation by his collar and pulled him close to stop him from gradually escaping. "So why don't you man up for once and watch how adults do things?"

"You're missing the point, you can't just-"

"Quit being such a pacifist, that's so annoying. I think a few bombs would actually be good for you."

"Why don't you leave it at that, you big bully," said a female voice from the door and the nations' female ally walked in with one of her assistants closely behind. "Okay?"

The enemy nation let go of the other man who was greeting the woman in relief and let his own greetings be forgotten. "What are you doing here?"

"I let myself in," Mrs Ally almost light-heartedly replied. "Your staff said I'd find you here. And I see they were right: here you are, doing what you do best and being a general ass."

The enemy nation scowled at her. "And let me guess, young mistress, you're here to say a word against me as well?"

"You bet your hills I am," Ms. Ally said with an angry tone. She then pointed at the third nation in the room. "Doesn't that fact that even he came here to say no to your plans tell you something about how bad they are?"

"Was that a compliment?" the coward nation asked cautiously.

"No!" the female ally said and glared at the man. "If there is one thing I agree on with him, it's that you should man up."

"Well..."

"And if you think that growing a beard will solve it, you're wrong, okay?"

"Shut up, both of you!" the enemy nation ordered in frustration. "Neither of you were invited and I have stuff to do so GET OUT!"

As if in cue a sound of an alarm rang through the facility, shutting all the nations up for a second.

"What the..." the enemy nation said and after checking the window if there was something immediately suspicious in sight, he ran to the door. Just then it opened and a human man almost collided with him.

Quickly surviving his initial surprise the official straightened up. "Sir! Intruders in the storage department."

"Intruders?" the nation repeated and squinted. "Well get rid of them. How many are there?"

"We are not sure yet, but the reports have informed about five armed men."

The nation sighed. "If it's just five, get rid of them already," the nation ordered and pointed a direction to run for his staff member who immediately leapt away. "And don't blow anything up!" The nation shouted after him before turning to glare at his fellow locals. "What did you do?"

"What? Me?" The other man pointed at himself, unbelieving.

The enemy nation scoffed. "I'm not even suspecting you, now what did you do?" he pointed at the female nation who simply glared back.

"That's rude, okay? I don't know what you're talking about."

.*** *** ***

America was having a blast. Days of sitting and laying down hadn't been good for his sanity, but God did this help. Thanks to his enthusiasm, the alarm had went off far earlier than expected but it was not like it really bothered. Him at least. He was currently positioned on an iron walking ledge that surrounded the big storage room he was in some three meters from the ground level. Thinking back to the plan they had, he should make his way to the opposite side of the room to enter the next phase. But he could as well have some fun while doing that.

America ran to next cover, shooting at the guards that were trying to catch him. His shoulder had been extra tightly wrapped for this occasion which slightly bothered his movements, but he would get used to it soon enough. Seychelles had also given him an extra painkiller package to consume just in case. But as blowing off some steam and some adrenaline was exactly what he had needed, America didn't even give it a thought.

From what he had figured out, their plan of confusing the enemy about their actual numbers had worked. Right now, the enemy guards and soldiers should be making plans to defeat many intruders and taking cautions according to that. So far everything was going according to the plan but America should get to position as quickly as possible to keep it at that. Otherwise, his partner and the other group would be pissed.

He slipped from cover to cover, shooting at anyone who tried to get in the way of his fun time and making his way around the building. When he deemed he was close enough and the covers available too scarce for a safe breakthrough, America took out one of the three grenades he had. Throwing it of the iron ledge, in the middle of a group of brave soldiers who had come out of their hiding to encircle him, America pulled out sunglasses from his chest pocket and put the on, chuckling.

"Can life get much better?" he wondered slightly, covering his ears as the warning shouts for a bomb changed into surprised shrieks when the stun grenade exploded, illuminating, blinding and deafening pretty much everyone but him in the room. "This is so awesome."

"America!" he heard an annoyed little shout nearby.

America looked at his partner who was coming to him as quickly as he could, covering his eyes from the light.

America laughed and handed the other another pair of sunglasses. "I'm coming. Don't be so uptight, we can have a little fun too, right?"

Canada huffed. "Can you please stop joking around? What are you even doing here, we're supposed to be over there!"

"I'm on my way there right now, of course," America answered. "I- oh, whoops," he interrupted himself to shoot at a soldier that had climbed up to the iron ledge to get them. Then, throwing another light grenade and a smoke bomb for good measure, he grabbed his brother and ran off to the right spot for the plan to continue. "See? We're just fine."

"One day," Canada swore. "I'm going to kill you."

.*** *** ***

"The attackers disappeared for a moment after the flash grenade explosions," a guard officer reported as the enemy nation marched over the yard where dozens of patrols were now running around. "We relocated them soon afterwards in a nearby parking area. As we guessed, five men. From their outfits, we figured they're some sort of activists."

"Get them alive," the enemy nation instructed. "At least a few of them. Where exactly right now?"

"The rear side of Area 2 warehouse parking lot. They are apparently trying to steal a vehicle."

"Well don't let them. Send more people to block the gates."

"Already done, sir"

"Good. Then–." The enemy nations stopped on his tracks and fell silent. Wait… That doesn't make sense. The information leaked almost immediately, that much I know. But there shouldn't have been time to arrange an activist terror act. It's too soon. They don't organize this fast. If so who organized this? That damn young mistress? I'm ready to swear it's her, but she hates environment activist more than I do. She wouldn't ask them to do anything just to… The reason is somewhere else. Buying time? Some sort of diversion? And where did they come in from? They couldn't have prepared to get past everything so fast…

"Sir?"

She couldn't have…

.*** *** ***

"America," Canada whispered and glanced back nervously. "We got to hurry so come on."

"Coming, coming," America said and joined his brother again. "Is it soon now?"

"Any minute."

"Oh, I can't wait to hammer some justice into those nuclear weapons."

"Hammer? I hope you don't mean that literally, because that might not be the brightest idea–"

"Great ALRIGHT! Let's get started then!"

"Quiet down, this is a stealth mission!"

.*** *** ***

The female ally raised her gaze from the clock. "You're up," she said quietly to her assistant who had been standing obediently behind her, attracting as little attention as possible.

Now he grinned and looked up with enthusiasm, raising a hat away from his eyes. A classic disguise was the best. "At last? Oh I've been waiting for this…"

"It's decades old technology for you," their ally reminded as the so called assistant walked away to do his part of the sabotage. "Are you sure you can do it?"

"Please," the other just said, sounding offended. "It's going to be too easy. But I'll enjoy seeing their faces." He grinned and chuckled with excitement.

"You… he… he's…" the timid foreign nation stuttered and looked at the female ally, while pointing at the assistant. "D-did you–"

Mrs. Ally grabbed him by the collar and yanked him closer to her smiling face. "Okay so, you being here wasn't part of the plan, but if you as much as utter a word of this to someone I'll make sure he'll drop a nuclear bomb to your place next time, okay?"

By the door, Korea cracked his knuckles. "Okay then, Mr. jerk nation. I'll override your whole system for you in a second, so sit back and enjoy the show."

A/N: Well hasn't this been quite the wait. I apologise to anyone who I have so shamefully betrayed by leaving my account unattended for so long. I cannot be sure I can finish this now, but I shall try my best and finish this story as well as others and publish new things. If any of my old readers is still out there, THANK YOU for your patience, support and compliments. I don't deserve them at this point, but I owe you this story.

This is the only chapter where you'll see this much of the foreign nations. Also, unless I can recontact my previous beta-readers, which doesn't seem likely right now, chapters shall be unbetad for a while. I've tried to be extra careful with things myself, but alas: I sometimes grow blind to my own things as I write and cannot see mistakes. If there are huge mistakes or inconsistencies, please note them and I'll try to prevail.