The nations all slept over in America and Canada's hotel room for lack of a better place to stay since the hotel had no more rooms available. China and Japan both slept on the floor with an extra sheet and pillow. Germany claimed the bathroom, and Russia thought he was sleeping next to America only, so he ended up crushing Canada unknowingly. After Ivan finally fell asleep, Matthew crawled out from under him and put his arms around Alfred, shaking like a leaf. Both brothers stayed up quite a while past the time that the others did.
For America, the reason why wasn't just because of Russia, although he could have sworn he heard him muttering "kolkolkolkol" a few times. Neither one of the brothers wanted to let their guard down lest they become one with Ivan in their sleep. But once it was apparent that Russia wasn't going to get up in the middle of the night, Matthew calmed down enough to sleep. Alfred, however, stayed up nearly the whole night thinking about Arthur.
-
England squinted at the sudden brightness. He shut his eyelids temporarily until the door banged shut again. When he looked back up, he was staring at the leader of the organization who had kidnapped him and his fellows.
"How dare you?" the man asked him. His entire body was covered in black cloth and his face was hidden behind a dark mask. He was unarmed and it didn't look like anybody else was nearby.
Arthur spat back, "How dare I what?" He seemed genuinely confused amidst his rage at being kept in such a disgusting and dirty place.
"I guess my underlings hit you in the head too hard," the man said, his voice amused and playful. He put his own head and body low to the ground, so he was on the same level as Arthur. "Does Alfred F. Jones ring any bells?"
The imprisoned nation immediately reacted: his body jolted, his eyes widened, and his heart beat wildly.
"So you do remember," the evil leader laughed. He stood back up again. "Alfred F. Jones," he repeated. "America."
"How the bloody hell do you know about that?" Arthur inquired furiously. "And where is he?"
On purpose, the man did not answer England's first question, but his tone of voice changed to one of annoyance and anger. "Gone, thanks to you. We may have most of the nations now, but the fact that he escaped pisses me off. He is the top superpower, after all."
"That's why I helped him," England said. "If you wankers got a hold of him, it would be especially bad for the rest of us…" But his face betrayed his most private and hidden thoughts for a moment.
"You're lying," his captor observed, sounding bored. "It's so obvious – you're in love with him and it drives you mad."
"I'm not in love with –" the country began to protest before getting cut off.
"Oh, Arthur Kirkland," the man said, as though he were chiding a child. "Arthur, Arthur, Arthur. Your ex-colony? Really? That's kind of low, isn't it? He's such an idiot, as well. Always eating hamburgers and not caring about anyone else. What do you see in him?"
"Who are you?" England asked. He was shocked that someone could know that much about him and not be a nation.
"My name is Wren. I am no one of importance; as of yet, anyway." The man shrugged. "But before I go, I'm going to tell you what things disgust me and what things piss me off."
Arthur was silent, mulling over what he had said about Alfred earlier.
"What disgusts me is that you nations actually fall in love with each other and never take your job seriously. You're supposed to represent your country honorably. But, well, I suppose you guys still are human, after all. When I first found out I was surprised." Wren paused, and Arthur wondered if he was smiling behind the mask. "But it's a good thing most of you are weak. The world will soon belong to me."
"You sound like those bloody villains in those stupid movies America watches," England said, unable to control his chuckling.
"Speaking of Alfred, what pisses me off is that you let him escape," Wren continued. "Therefore, you must be punished."
Arthur immediately grimaced, knowing that he was powerless to stop whatever punishment this man deemed worthy of him receiving.
Wren slammed his boot against Arthur's stomach, knocking the wind out of him and making him bring his knees up to protect his torso. He continued to kick at the helpless country over and over until England was slamming against the wall with the force and his back was hurting. But through all of this, he didn't make a sound, which infuriated his tormentor even more.
"I want you to scream with pain," Wren ordered him. He stopped, panting with the amount of effort it took to harm the other man that much. "Why won't you scream!?"
Arthur looked up at him boldly, his body bruised but his spirit unscathed.
Wren loathed that face. He bent over on his knees and grabbed the blonde-haired man's injured arm. The nation glared at him, but he didn't say anything.
Laughing maniacally, Wren twisted the arm, harder and harder with each passing moment, so that after a few seconds Arthur cried out in anguish. The sound of his voice echoed in the cell, reverberated outside the room, and rung out into other ones near it.
England finally had his arm released, relieving him of some pain. Wren was still laughing when he exited the cell and asked him tauntingly, "Where's your hero now?"
Arthur uncurled himself from the protective ball he had been in and laid on the floor like he had before. "Alfred," he whispered through gritted teeth, "You better be getting your ass over here right now."
-
America exclaimed, "You know, these European hamburgers are pretty good in their own way!" He munched on one, completely content. That morning, they had all piled into the van, which had plenty of room for all of them, in order to decide on what to do and start thinking of a plan. Alfred had forced the countries to stop at a McDonald's close by.
As he ate with a practically invisible Canada next to him, Japan and China checked out the technology inside the stolen vehicle, and Germany and Russia sat in the back watching.
"It has GPS," Japan reported in a slight monotone. "In fact, all of this hardware is pretty nice. It's very advanced."
"Maybe there are some coordinates to their base in it," Germany said. "Could you find that out, Kiku?"
"I'll try," the nation replied.
Meanwhile, Matthew was yelling at his brother to stop eating and start helping the others. But this had limited success because he didn't seem to notice him.
Finally, America said, "Would you like a hamburger too, Mattie?" Apparently, he did know he was there (which surprised even Canada), but he had chosen to ignore him. It wasn't like he never did this to anyone else, however, this was the straw that broke the camel's back. Matthew had been getting increasingly mad at the bigger country the whole trip.
"America, do you even care about what England might be going through right now!?" He burst out angrily and so loudly that even the other nations had heard him. They all wondered when Canada had gotten there.
Alfred put down his half-eaten burger. He looked serious again. "Mattie, of course I care," he told him. "It's just nice to take a break from everything once in a while and relax. That's why I eat so much." He smiled over at him warmly. "It takes a load off my mind."
Before a suddenly flustered Canada could reply, a voice came out of the van that didn't belong to any of the countries inside of it.
"Vehicle #4?" It seemed to be coming from a sort of voice receiver in the dashboard. "Vehicle #4? Come in. What is your status?"
Everyone was speechless, unsure of how to respond. America got up, briskly walked toward the van, and almost started shouting at it to tell him where Arthur was. Luckily, Matthew grabbed him, and Japan made a low "shh," noise that wasn't picked up by whoever was on the other end. Then, he mouthed to Alfred that he had an idea.
"Um, yes, this is Vehicle #4," he started. After a pause, he continued, "We were eluded by our original targets, but we have captured America."
Alfred's eyes widened with eagerness and understanding.
"Good. Actually, that's great. Perfect, even. Bring him in as soon as you can." Unbeknownst to them, Wren was the one speaking. He had to stop himself from snickering in excitement at this great piece of news.
"We have…lost the coordinates," Japan said. "Could you send us instructions on where to go?"
The leader sighed and replied, "Yes, fine. Here you go." A screen popped up on the GPS and the directions to the base appeared.
"Thank you," Japan answered. "We shall arrive shortly." A click on the other side signaled that the conversation was officially over.
"Alright, Kiku!" Alfred cheered. "You're awesome!"
"It's a dangerous plan…" Germany thought aloud. "How will we slip through? We don't have their uniforms, do we? And how will America free everyone and get out? He'll probably get locked up or something as soon as we get him in."
"It's simple, aru!" China broke in. "I have their uniforms and masks. I took it off of them earlier just in case we needed them. Always think ahead, aru yo! They're in the back of the van."
"And when we get in, we can pretend to be the guards," Russia offered cheerfully. "We'll make sure America is safe and we can also free the others at the same time, da!"
"What do you think, Germany?" Alfred asked expectantly.
"Well, they're good ideas, but it's still a very risky plan…"
"Don't worry! Danger's a part of any good mission!" America exclaimed, his boundless optimism returning to him. "And the heroes always win!"
--
A/N: I'm glad you guys liked who I chose to accompany the North America brothers on their journey. ^^ And I'm so happy that people seem to really like this story!
Wren is a character I've made specifically for this story...Though his name is slightly based off another character of mine in one of my original stories. But I think I made him a bit too sadistic. Hahaha. Poor Arthur. And poor Alfred, having to sleep next to Ivan. I'd be scared. I hope Arthur never finds out about that! xD
But I bet Alfred sleeps boxers that have the U.S. flag printed all over them~!
