Germany watched as realizations took place before him.
Murmurs aroused again, but instead of taking an offensive tone, they were more concerned. He even saw a littler hyperventilating, although it was slight and only for a brief three seconds. Finally, everyone is serious now. Germany thought, relieved that the world wasn't totally doomed.
He spoke (thought, actually) too soon.
"Alright! Here's the plan. Germany, you back me up. Japan, back me up too. Oh, and Engl-" America pointed at each country as he spoke their name excitedly, ready to be out and running. Germany had heard one too many stories about America liking to be 'the Hero' from one too many people, and he had always thought that they were exaggerating his enormous ego, but he soon found himself mistaken and that everyone was right about America.
"America, how about this." Germany said, stopping America from adding Estonia onto his 'You're-my-Back-Up' list. "We all split up into groups by geographical region. These doppelgangers are strong, apparently, so we're not going to track down our own by ourselves. Minimum of three per team. Start looking for the ones who seem the most dangerous. Perhaps their level of danger corresponds with the size of land."
Japan cleared his throat softly. "If that is the case, then I would like to say I barely got out on time from my own fight with my doppelganger. I do not have a tremendous amount of land compared to others, so the bigger countries will be much more difficult to deal with."
Germany expected people to start talking again, but no one did. They looked expectantly at him, which flattered him a little but there wasn't any time to be flattered. Instead, he went to pull out a large, wide chalkboard and rolled it behind his chair. Quickly, he drew world map as accurately as he could, disregarding the borderlines, of course. His hand would die when it came to Europe and Africa if he had to draw the borderlines. When the map looked distinctively correct, he turned.
"Alright, so if the doppelgangers' strength are based on land mass, then the ones we must watch out for are..." He pointed to the left side of the chalkboard at the very top. "Canada."
Canada, who sat near the back, was shocked that Germany actually remembered that he was a country. He was even more surprised when he was named first. Although Canada wasn't sure if being named first was a good thing in this situation he was just glad he was remembered for once.
"America." Germany pointed below Canada. "Mexico. Brazil. Russia. China. India. And Australia."
He gave the room a long sweep with his eyes. "We'll start with those countries." Germany had the few countries he knew who would be a big help in organizing the nations help him. He knew Japan was level headed and he had him line everyone up in an orderly fashion. Germany also knew that England could keep his head if he wasn't around France or America, and so he had him help assign a country to a certain team.
"Each team is to track down these countries' doppelgangers." Germany yelled over the chatting of countries. He was generally concerned about the North America continent because the entire continent had only three countries and they were all on their list.
"Hey, since we're investigating around in my country, does that mean I'm leader?" America asked England and Germany when he got to the front.
England sighed and rubbed his head. "I honestly want to say no, but it's your country and you know it better than anyone else. What about you, Germany?"
Germany nodded his approval and the ecstatic American bounded towards his team. Since his neighbors would also have to be 'team leaders', America's team consisted of the countries who didn't live by any of the seven bigger nations (poor Canada, they seemed to have forgotten him again; even Germany had forgotten despite the fact he pointed Canada out first). America was content with them, and he started to talk about where his darker self could be hiding.
It was noon when everyone was sorted out (Canada still didn't have his team so he numbly joined another), and Germany sent them on their way, only saving a few countries at his house as 'headquarters'.
"But Germany, if everyone else has a darker self, wouldn't yours be around here as well?" England asked Germany, watching the world pass him as they exited.
Germany hadn't thought about that, but he didn't let his alarm show. Instead, he said to England that he had contacted his army and they were searching the country. England seemed satisfied and Germany excused himself to the lavatory, but we all know what Germany was going to do, don't we?
Within a few minutes, every soldier in the German Army went looking for the fake Germany, even though to them it sounded quite odd.
When he got back from the 'lavatory', he found that Estonia, one of the few nations he kept back, had already set up computers and monitors around the conference room. "What is this?" he asked the country, impressed with the technology.
Estonia smiled and pushed his glasses up a little higher on his nose. "I took the liberty to place a tracker on every country who was here. Now we know where they are, even if they get captured."
"Very impressive." Germany leaned forward to watch the red blinking dots move in massive groups across the world.
"And if you use the mouse to hover above a dot, it tells you which country it is and their background information." Estonia added, demonstrating. He hovered the mouse above a random dot and America's background information pulled up along with his birthday, interests, and a picture of him grinning at them. Germany noticed that there was a green square at the top left corner of the profile window.
"What is that?" Germany asked.
"It's the status of the country." Estonia explained. "Green stands for active, yellow stands for captured, and red if well...you know. Anything can happen." he added grimly.
Germany nodded. "I see. And, well, where did you get this information about America?"
"Facebook."
"Ah."
Germany glanced around the room again. England was at the chalkboard, writing out the countries to the side and where they were heading to. There was enough room on the chalkboard left to draw the world map three more times, so England had plenty of room to work with. In fact, he was currently drawing little chibi heads of each country, a skill he somehow managed to acquire. It seemed to be something Japan or Korea would draw. But then again, who said that England couldn't draw?
"Let's see, Estonia is in charge of the overview..." Germany muttered to himself. "If anything happens, he will be able to tell us. England is organizing everyone and updating everyone statuses...let's see..." He turned to Vietnam, another country he deemed responsible. He had heard of her history once or twice from China, and it was good enough for him.
"You will be the messenger." he told her. "Any information and Intelligence we get here will be passed on to everyone else by you, got that?"
Vietnam nodded and Estonia, who had been paying attention, instructed her to put the headset on and had her test it with the other countries already out there. Other than trackers, Estonia had seen to that every nation that left Germany's house had an earpiece so that Vietnam could communicate with them, whether it was one at a time, a certain few, or everyone.
Germany left them at the table and passed England, who was murmuring to himself, although when Germany passed by, it sounded as if England was talking to some mythical creature. He ignored the strange thought and went to the window overlooking the city. In the streets, he could see his troops march up and down the streets and his people stepping to the side in confusion. He sighed, his heart heavy. He may seem tough on the outside, but like every country out there, he loved his people. He hated to frighten them by showing off the army because that meant that something was up.
There was no other choice, however. In order to find his own doppelganger, he needed troops out there. He would have to make up for his people's fear later, after the ordeal was over.
"Germany, come look at this!" Estonia said sharply from the computers. Germany tensed and ran to the computer. Estonia pointed at the far east monitor and zoomed into so that the dots were not only piled on top of each other, but were now about a few centimeters wide and they were running all over the place.
"What is going on?" Germany asked hastily.
"There is something going on with one of the units in China." Estonia said quickly.
"I thought there were about eighty or so countries per team." Germany said uncertainly. Eight big countries, eight teams, two hundred countries. Wasn't that the right number?
"Germany, all eighty of them in one group in a place like China isn't the best." Vietnam said calmly. "It would be faster to split up and it will not create a scene."
Germany had forgotten about that in the heat of the time. He felt embarrassed by his brief naivety and muttered, "Right, sorry."
"Who are there?" England asked.
Estonia went through the dots and each profile pulled up. "Japan. Thailand. Malaysia. Taiwan. And...hold on..." He chased a lone red dot on the screen in order to pull up the dot's profile. "Korea." he said at last, after Korea's dot stopped for a few seconds. They watched as the dots dashed away from an invisible point and separate, only to meet back again seconds later.
"Vietnam, contact them right away." Germany ordered.
Vietnam nodded and left them to go to another monitor a few chairs away. She sat down in a chair as she punched in some things on the keyboard and spoke into the microphone. "Japan," she said quickly. Good call, Germany thought. Japan would be able to be frank and not exaggerate things, like Korea. He too had heard stories about Korea and maybe he had heard one too many stories about him.
Vietnam paused and then said quickly, "Could you repeat that?" Silence. "China? The real one or the doppelganger?" Silence. Germany, Estonia, and England watched her expression grow from concern to shock. "Are you sure?" She then covered the mic and referred back to the three. "Dark China is after them."
Estonia nearly jumped up from his seat. "They have extra trackers on them." he said quickly. "Tell them to get one on him." The words tumbled out of his mouth so quickly that Vietnam hesitated, as if wondering what he had said but seemed to grasp the concept soon.
"Japan, please try to put a tracker on Dark China." she said as calmly as possible. She listened for a moment, and then shot a look at the monitor that showed her family. The dots were moving southwards, zag-zagging around the screen. "I see. There is a road you can take on the right coming up in two blocks approximately. Take that road and you will be able to get into the campus. Doesn't China stay there sometimes to visit and talk to the students? Perhaps you can take refuge there."
Silence again. Vietnam sighed and said, "Then please get there as quickly as possible. Thank you." She ended the connection and glanced back at the other three. "I told them to go to the Guangzhou University. Like you thought Germany, Dark China is very difficult to handle. Japan said that Dark China is very fast and strong. Malaysia had got hit once and is bleeding now." she said grimly.
Germany scowled and muttered something in German. Before anyone could do anything, he turned sharply on his heels and left the computers. He scanned the chalkboard, reading through the names England had written out in neat letters. He located a column of countries that weren't present at the meeting and were either captures or on the run. Or perhaps oblivious to the situation. There were many of them to his surprise. So many that the column was the fourth longest.
"England," he said slowly. He heard England leave the computers and walk to his side.
"What is it?"
"China's status says unknown here."
"Well, we don't really know where he is, do we?"
Germany stared at the word 'unknown' next to China's name. He glanced over his shoulder at Estonia and Vietnam. Then he glanced back at the chalkboard. "Make it clear that we know for sure that there is a doppelganger of him and where he is."
England nodded and picked up the suddenly short stick of chalk and wrote out to the side where Dark China was spotted at.
"Where is Dark China again, Estonia?" England called over his shoulder.
"Guangzhou."
Vietnam frowned. "Guangzhou is very close to Macao and Hong Kong. Regionally, I mean."
Estonia shared her frown. "It is. You don't think they could be there, do you?"
"By 'they', do you mean the real ones?" England asked from his chalkboard.
"Most likely." Vietnam said thoughtfully. "If Dark China is there, then what is his purpose there? Perhaps he acts as a guard. Guards aren't supposed to be around unless there is something worth guarding."
Germany interrupted. "Estonia, who else is around the area?"
Estonia zoomed out of the city and located several more dots scattered around China. To humans, traveling took days. For some odd reason, countries tended to travel faster and were able to travel to another country within hours. Some even walk home, despite the fact that their home might be located on the other side of the planet.
"It shouldn't take them long to get to Guangzhou." Germany said. "Vietnam, tell them to go there."
Vietnam nodded and went to do her job while Germany told Estonia to check up on the other countries outside of China. England was busy drawing new chibi heads for China's darker counterpart, wondering how to make China's doppelganger noticeably different than the original. He decided that adding 'angry eyebrows' that slanted downwards would suffice.