"So, you still haven't found those prisoners... What were their numbers? 2, 89 and 54?" England asked, standing next to several HCS guards, dressed as one himself.
The guards nodded, one muttering "It's really frustrating, because it's like our boss is testing us. Seeing how long it takes us to capture one of them, it sucks."
"You think he already knows where they are?" England asked curiously, faking surprise.
"Pf, duh! Nothing escapes him here. It didn't even escape him that Boris, a well respected and very hygienic scientist working here, picks his nose! I mean come on, who cares for that kinda knowledge?"
The other guards nodded in agreement, England shrugging it off.
"Well... See you guys round. I've got a few things to do before I can take my break." England replied, waving them good bye. Once they were out of sight, he hurriedly located the first flight of stairs.
The way things were going, he wouldn't find anything useful. He'd already tried a few floors upstairs, but those were always very busy. It was hard to sneak by or pretend to be a coworker without being caught. Besides, most were rooms he'd already been in before, such as the experiment rooms.
He ran down several flights, until he reached a floor beneath the prison cells. He carefully opened it, looking left and right. No one was there.
Sneaking in, he looked around. Nothing of interest, it was just more halls and more doors, that lead to more rooms, probably stuffed with more useless information.
This place was almost as bad as a labyrinth, the only difference being that you knew where the entrance to the labyrinth was and therefore, also knew where an exit was.
In this place, he didn't even know how he got in here. England opened a random door, looking in curiously. It was another office. Sighing, he entered, closing the door behind him.
He took the helmet (that has a visor) off his head and set it on the desk.
He sat down in the office chair and curiously rumaged through the paperwork.
He filed through them, frowning.
"Chemicals to disable sight on the prisoners short-term..." He read. "... Relations of landmass and population to person." England pulled the paper out of its file after reading this.
He had a sneaking suspicion he already knew what was in it.
"Question: Is the person of a nation able to feel pain if the landmass or population is harmed?
Experiment: Some bombs were put up in the major cities of Estonia and detonated. The experiment is to observe Prisoner 43 (i.e. Estonia) for reactions to this.
Result:-"
England stopped reading, stuffing the paper back into its folder. Those bloody damn terrorists. He never liked them, they'd always been trouble-makers and they never made anything better.
He continued through the files on the desk, switching to using the computer. Someone had forgotten to logout and left all the files open for England to scan through.
"Hang on, what was that?" He muttered, going back to a previous page. It had a blue map of the entire world, with several locations pinpointed with a red circle, next to it, written in red as well, the names "AB1, AB2, AB3, AB4, etc."
"AB?" England asked confused. He noted that B probably stood for Base. And all locations were in a place beginning with A... Antartica, Artic, America, Australia, Austria, Afghanistan, Atlantic Ocean, etc.
England frowned, studying the Bases coordinates and memorising them. If he ever got out, he was so going to blow every single blasted HCS base into tiny smithereens and then do a victory dance on them.
OK, maybe not a victory dance, but it sounded like a downright good idea. It wasn't very dignified, but England, though he tried so hard, found it incredibly difficult to stay dignified around the others anyway. Losing it delibrately won't kill him.
He finished remembering the coordinates, feeling smug that he'd been able to remember the coordinates in such a short period of time (However, he doesn't actually know how much time has gone by).
Losing interest in the computer, he went back to shuffling through the paper files again, searching for notes. He found one and pulled it out of the folder.
"How to Kill a..." He froze, staring at the title. "... Nation..." He whispered lowly, unable to merely think it.
But how's that possible? You can't kill nations, not just like that anyway, I mean, give a nation a fatal injury, they'll recover, heck, if you cut their heads off... Well, actually, no one really knew what happened then, but a stab through the heart certainly wouldn't kill a nation.
Just hurt worse than hell.
Annoyed, he tore the paper in two and decided to crumple it up as well, until he noticed a gun pointed at his head.
Oh dear... He thought, slowly looking up to meet his captor's eyes.
"Hello Mr. Kirkland, what do you think you're doing?" The HCS Leader asked, a sick grin on his face. England didn't reply, just glaring at him, still sitting in the office chair.
"Ah, playing silent, hm?" He chided, nudging England's foot with his own one, looking calmly into England's eyes. England immediately pulled his foot away from the other man's one, his glare tenfolding.
The leader smirked. "Ah, so you are still alive, for a moment I thought you had died. Now, unless you want me to kill you, don't move." He ordered. England pushed his back into the chair, his face changing from calm hate to angry hate.
"As if I'd follow your order." He hissed, kicking the man in the guts. The leader was caught off guard, for a moment absolutely shocked by the blow and England proceeded to kick the man in the guts again, now that the leader was lying crumpled on the floor.
Usually, England wouldn't hit a man while he was down (unless it was France of course); he thought it was just wrong and cruel to hurt someone when he was already hurting.
However, he really, really hated the HCS leader right now, so any of his own morals went out the window, leaving glass shards behind.
The man, in his hurt state, managed to swipe England off his feet, having swung his legs around between kicks and hit England around the ankles.
England landed with an "oof" on the floor, quickly clambering back to his feet, when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his shoulders and heard a loud noise, that would be comparable to thunder.
He had been shot.
He hissed, holding his shoulder as blood oozed from the wound. He was on his knees. Another bang, another shot; this time on his thigh.
"Just to make sure you don't try anything." The HCS leader snarled, as he breathed heavily from being beaten up. England glared at the man, trying to get to his feet, but fell back down.
He frowned, noticing that the wound on his leg was unable to heal, because there was a bullet still being lodged in it. He started searching for the bullet, pain shooting through his whole body as he looked, or rather felt, for it. He had to do this fast.
After a few agonising minutes, he had managed to remove the bullet (how, no one would know, it was a miracle) and let out a silent sigh of relief.
He looked up, realising the HCS leader was finishing his call for back-up.
England slowly tried to get back to his feet, as quietly as possible, in hopes that he might be able to escape, but the HCS leader whirled around immediately, gun pointing at England again.
"Don't bother. You're caught, admit defeat." England glared at him.
He couldn't get caught now, he still had to find an exit! ... But what if Japan and... What was it again... That nation... Canuska or something, had already found an exit? Then his struggle would be for nothing.
England bowed his head, his hands falling to his sides in silent surrender. He couldn't stand there for long, soon losing his balance and collapsing back into the chair behind him. The leader smiled and came over, not that England noticed. His wounds were
really starting to hurt now. Especially the one in his shoulder.
He jerked when he felt something sharp jab into his neck. His hand immediately shot up to rest on it. He lowered the hand to see blood. The bloody idiot had jabbed him in an artery in the neck and it was now bleeding.*
"That's better, was it really so difficult?" The man cooed, leaning over him, a satisfied grin on his face. England resisted the very strong urge to punch him.
"What did you do? What was that?" He demanded, struggling to sit up in his wounded state. The leader forced him back in the seat.
"Just to make sure you're not all healthy, nice and dandy by the time my back-up arrives." The leader replied, a sickening smile on his face. England found himself pushing himself back into the seat again, trying to keep the man as far away from himself as physically possible.
"Ah, there's my back-up coming." The HCS leader muttered, his head rising at the sound of patting feet. England heard it too, but pretended not to care. The HCS leader stood up straight again and winced, pain shooting through his body. He frowned and touched the places he'd been hurt in gently. He winced again and let out a low growl. Stupid Prisoner...
"It wasn't a good idea to beat me up you know... If I remember correctly..." He leaned on the chair with his arms, hovering over England.
"... Your name is England, isn't it."
The man stated this, he didn't ask.
"You have no bloody right to use my name." England replied, now looking up to glare at him. The man ignored this and pushed the chair away, it thudding against the wall, along with England.
Just then some HCS guards entered, looking at England puzzled. Wasn't that one of their coworkers? Why was he wounded?
"Detain him." The HCS leader ordered. The men stood their limply, the uniform England was wearing baffeling them completely. Annoyed, the HCS leader repeated himself, adding in "That's an order, in case you idiots haven't noticed!"
Immediately they sprung to life and forced England to his feet, half dragging him to the door. England tried to struggle, but found that he was too weak and tired.
Damn, those wounds deffinitely weren't helping him. And the fact they'd be healing at human speeds wouldn't be helping.
He sighed deeply. Back to being stuck in a cell, isolated from the world... Not that him escaping by himself was part of the plan, but whatever.
The HCS leader hovered over the computer. He turned white when he saw that the file to the coordinates of every HCS-base was open.
His head shot up and seemed to look at England frustrated, England glaring back.
"You better not..." He whispered half to himself.
England smirked at the fear on the HCS leader's face and stuck his tongue out. Right now he didn't care how childish that act was, it was annoying the heck out of the HCS leader.
The man frowned and sat down, quickly clicking a few things on the computer, before a smirk crossed his face.
"Prisoner 54, I think you're a bit too cocky for my liking. Obviously, you haven't broken yet, unlike the others. But, to my great luck, you're an idiot. Don't you know? Unless you work here, you'll never find an escape." He grinned, ruffling England's hair.
England shook his head in response, as if to shake the man's hand off.
"Guards, follow me." He ordered. The guards looked at each other puzzled.
"Aren't we going to take him to join Prisoner 2?"
Prisoner 2? Wasn't that that guy... Er... Cunoda?
"You will follow any of my orders and will not question them." The two immediately nodded and dragged England behind themselves, as they trod after their leader.
England noted that there were four guards in total. Give him any other day and he'd have beaten the crap out of them as if he were merely swatting a fly... But he was so... Why did he feel so tired? Blood loss? Impossible... But then again...
"Stop! Open this door." One of the guards jumped out and opened it, and everyone entered. England gasped as he looked at the thing inside the room. Or rather, the person. He opened his mouth to say the perosn's name, but his throat had turned dry, he was unable to speak.
"Now, if I remember correctly, this man is one of your friends." The HCS leader asked, folding his arms. England was still unable to say anything. "Let him go." The HCS leader ordered, the guards immediately letting England go.
"P... Por..." England stuttered, as he slowly walked up to the glass chamber, as if in a trance. "What did you do to him?" England demanded, turning to glare at the HCS leader.
He merely grinned, making England pale. England remembered seeing the title "How to Kill a Nation" in the folders he'd been filing through. The title echoed in his head.
"No... No, it... No..." He stuttered, as he looked between the human and the nation. "Portugal!" He yelled, his hand bashing against the glass, in hopes that the nation, that seemed to be asleep, would wake up.
"No, he can't be... It can't be, you can't kill like that!" The words kept coming out. "He can't be..." He gabbled. He leaned against the glass chamber, his finger tips touching the place were Portugal's own finger tips touched it. "No..." He whispered in disbelief.
"You can't be..."
Suddenly, he was spun around and pressed against the glas chamber, two menacing eyes glaring at him.
"Listen carefully. Do not test my patience ever again. Or you will end up like him."
England stared at the leader completely shocked for a moment, before he settled for giving him a death glare again. "You b-" He began, only to be inturrupted.
"Ah, ah, ah. Do not test my patience." England frowned. The HCS leader grabbed the hem of his HCS uniform and threw him back to the HCS guards.
"Take him to Prisoner 2. Now all we have to do is track down Prisoner 89." The HCS leader announced storming out of the room.
England stared at Portugal's frozen figure. He couldn't be dead, it wasn't possible! He struggled, but the guards kept a firm grip on him.
They dragged him several floors up, him struggling all the way, just to make it difficult for them. On the way, everyone gave them odd looks, thinking that England was working for the HCS, the way he was dressed.
They sat him down on a chair and chained him to it. Then they left. He was alone in a room, bleeding, hurting physically and in a mental turmoil.
Portugal... Dead? But... Nations... They can't be dead... No... How many had they killed? Those rooms he passed, how did he know they didn't contain more dead nations? What if they were the only ones left, what if they're all dead?
It can't be... It can't be... It can't be... It can't be... It can't be...
"It can't be..." England whispered quietly, tears sliding down his face.** Oh. He had said that out loud. England opened his tired eyes. After Prussia had left them again, this time utterly convinced they were insane, they had returned to the hotel rooms and talked to Germany and Japan.
The afternoon had been incredibly busy. They had organised the world meeting and set where it would be (it'd be in London, England's house).
After that, they proceeded in moving back into England's home, since it'd be cheaper. They also needed to prepare it for the upcoming meeting.
England frowned his head in the pillow. Although he'd recovered most of his memory, it wasn't quite all there yet.
His memory was kinda like a book review right now. He had the basic summary of it, but absolutely no details.
Which made him have occasional flashbacks.
Apparently, he recovered whole bricks of memory during the night though. He looked around his room and shuddered. It was almost creepy how absolutely nothing had changed in it within the decades he'd been gone.
It was like he had stopped changing with his people, which is a considerably bad sign. Detachments often meant you were probably going to be replaced soon.
Isn't that what technically happened to the Roman Empire or something? He couldn't really remember, he had been pretty young back then and early memories had always been a bit of a fuzz, whether or not because he'd been drugged into not remembering.
He knew why he hadn't been able to remember now. The dosage of drugs that made a nation forget had been far stronger with him.
It had taken something emotionally sensitive to him to help him filter the drugs out completely, if that conclusion was logical.
Ireland and him had a pretty upsetting history together.
It was long and it was bloody.
And it happened to be sensitive enough for England to remember (which made him wonder why he hadn't remembered with America... Then again, they had patched quite a few things up since then).
He sighed, closing his eyes. He had thought the last two weeks had been a living hell. He'd been very, very wrong. This week, so far, had been the worst.
Tiredly he yawned, turning to stare at the ceiling. That's right. Portugal was dead. He needed to figure out a way of telling Spain this, without having an Armada 2 attack his country.***
He relaxed in his duvets. Man, he hated that HCS leader. He had invaded his private space who knows how many times during their brief encounter and he had killed who knows how many nations...
He sighed again. Oh, how he hated that man right now.
"Gilbert, where have you been?" Roderich asked annoyed from the sofa. Gilbert shrugged in reply, and flopped onto the sofa right next to him. Elizabeta frowned at him.
"Gilbert, don't make me get the frying pan. Answer Roderich's question." Gilbert muttered something about stupid girls eith stupid crushes, before turning to look at him.
"You know those guys we bumped into yesterday?"
"Yeah?"
"I met them again today, they're the ones that bailed me out, so that you didn't have to."
"So that's where you've been."
"But they're unawesomely weird. Claimed I was a country... Er... Trussia? Mmh, something like that. Weirdos. They're a total laugh though, they're totally serious about this whole country business."
"What strange people." Roderich commented. He continued reading the newspaper in his hands. Gilbert turned the TV on. And thus, all forgot about the strange occurance from that day.
* I really have no idea how much blood would bleed from an artery in the neck if a needle had been stabbed in it once, but I know it'd deffinitely bleed. A bit.
**It is possible to cry while sleeping/dreaming. I've done that three times before, each time when I was having a nightmare. It's really not pleasant, trust me.
***Trust me, England was not thrilled about the Armada. He was quite nervous about it, to say the least. And really, although he won, historically, one of the guys to have beaten the Armada said that it wasn't a victory, because too many sailors (from both sides) were broken, a lot had defeated faces and empty looks. It's very sad really. :(
I had waaaaaaaay too much fun writing this chapter. o.o I'm a bit worried I made Iggy a bit too much of a "hero"-type character (i.e. not villainous, neutral or anti-hero), but thinking about it, all fanfiction writers fail to get a character that's not theirs completely correct.
Anyway, in my head, I'd say Portugal is Englands best (and by that, I mean something along the lines of only) friend (or at least, one of the only people England would refer to as a friend). Portugal and England, you see, have the worlds longest alliance. What I think's funny about that, is that according to my information resource, Portugal always responded to England's call for help, but when Portugal asked for help, England didn't do anything or at least, didn't do much at all. And the alliance continued existing, even though England didn't help! Funny, huh?
I hate writer's who overreact when given just a tiny, winy bit of good old fashioned critism. I was given something that isn't even critism and I threw a hissy fit. I am soooooooo sorry for that guys. Made my interest in the story faulter and I cannot believe I'm one of those kind of people. =.=" Fail on my half. I should get a tougher skin and stop being so sensitive.
Because this chapter essentially only involves England (and the HCS leader-OC (STILL NAMELESS)), I added in an extra scene of normality, to tune things down a bit.
Review?