As Matthew Williams, you have woken up to a lot of things. These things varied from having a miniature, but rather heavy-weighted polar bear curled up on your chest…to having a hungover, naked albino man curled up on your chest. Over your low-keyed existence, you've gotten rather acquainted with the involuntarily-learnt art of waking up to strange things.
Yet, you've never before awakened to a vigorous, jaw-unhinging shake of your shoulders and a shout in your ear, Are you still alive, bro?
A lone violet eye opens blearily, a quiet, groggy voice asks, Alfred? Alfred, what the hell kind of question is that?
Your brother lets go of your shoulders to rest his palm on the wrinkled bedsheets beside you, to lean down and scrutinize your face, You seriously don't know? Don't you know, the shit that just went down?
You begin to sputter, ask indignantly what he's talking about and is this another one of your conspiracies and Alfred please it's too early in the morning to be such a hoser, when. When you realize.
You feel a tugging at place where your heart should probably be, at the empty space that used to house your pride and history and everything Canada, now gone. You see the belated panic flickering sporadically over your brother's face, of the injuries inflicted on aforementioned face (Good God, Alfred, your mouth, what happened to your mouth?).
And just like that, you know. And Lord, do you know.
Alfred sees the stark surprise on your face, and nods grimly. Yeah, so. Apparently, the entire world decided to become a totally shitty evil-clone movie. This has happened to all the other guys too, can't ya feel it?, and yes, you can.
My…you scramble for a word to call this intruder, imposter that you haven't even met, yet you know what he wants and you know what he's done. …Him. He's in me right now, right? I mean, my country.
Yeah. Ha ha, I guess ya chose a great time to sleep over at my place, man. Avoided his villainy clutches like a fucking ninja, you did. Alfred clears his throat, trying to lay off on the childish language, and you admit that it doesn't fit with the face that his lips are swollen and oozing strings of teeth and bloody spittle. So, um. You passed out, as soon as, uh, It, happened. And meanwhile, in pops this America-impersonating asshole, slamming my face into a table and acting like an overall un-heroic dick.
Suddenly, you can audibly hear a scowl in his voice. I don't know who he thought he was. No, wait, I do. He claimed to be the New America, to which I said bullshit, I'm the one and only America and I'm here to stay! …He ended up saying a lot of things that I'd really…rather not be hearing. The scowl is more of a wince now, and you wonder what exactly this alternate of his had brought up to him. 1812? The Vietnam War? His independence, and what he had to do to earn it? Despite how many of the other nations deemed Alfred as childish, they knew full well that over his relatively short lifespan, he has racked up plenty of regrets. Brother's intuition tells you, however, that you shouldn't bring that up right now.
And, so, you…?, you prompt.
He chuckles sheepishly. Well, see, about that. I…he hit a chord there. No, shit, actually, he hit so many chords he was practically banging a piano, no, he was practically banging the piano's mom-
Alfred.
Huh? Oh, yeah. Um. A cough, a shift to a less awkward position. I kind of…snapped on the guy. Not sayin' he didn't deserve it, the things he was bringing up, who the hell did he think he was? I couldn't hear that stuff, I can't even hear it in my own head. So. I killed him.
…Killed him.
Don't look at me like that, do you realize the totally dog-shitty position we're in? Killing these dudes is probably the exact thing we need to do.
Yes, I understand, but.
It was either that or he'd kill me! I know he would've. And, it's not like…I was trying to do it? I didn't even, like, shoot him or anything, I just yelled back. I don't remember what I said, exactly, but there was something I said that made him go all…fuzzy? And then he exploded? Is that the right word for it? I wouldn't call it that, really, but it's the closest word I can think of.
Al, your mental dictionary isn't really-
Your snark goes ignored, as he rambles and mutters on to himself; attention span ephemerally terrible as always. You'd usually get frustrated about this, but it comes to you that with spoken word, Alfred was able to kill this malicious alternate self that tried to use his own regrets against him. You realize, this could come in handy, and make a mental note of this.
Alfred stands up, makes an ungracious snorting sound as he wipes at cracked, scabbing lips. If he'd hadn't said whatever he said, in his blind rage, he'd have gotten off with much worse than a bleeding mouth. He stares out a window, with a strangely contemplative expression.
You sit up, raise your eyebrows at him.
Al. The rest of the world is like this, we can tell, but we don't even know if the others managed to kill these…nation-clones like you did, for all we know, they could be dead themselves. My alternate is probably looking for me, either that or doing God-knows-what with my country. This isn't something…anyone was prepared for. Al, what're we going to do, eh?
He turns around, grinning. There was something hard and set in his smile that you could only describe as America, even though he technically wasn't anymore.
Wha'dyou think we're going to do? We're going to be heroes.A/N: This chapter's called "I Need To Stop Writing When I'm Half Asleep", alternatively, "Wow Writing Canada Is Really Hard".
But, anyways. If you're confused, what happened was that Canada had been staying over at America's house for ~brotherly bonding~ the night the Incident happened, and had passed out; thus leaving America and 2P!America to a verbal duel that left America accidentally killing 2P!America with one spoken phrase.
Are you going to see how this verbal battle went? Are you going to know what sort of word works as the 2P's weakness? That's for you to find out and for me to have actually no idea what to do with myself, oops.
I'll have the next update by tomorrow, I think!