The halls leading out of the factory-style room was a labyrinth. There was a countless amount of times where New Zealand, Australia, and Malaysia swore they thought they had been through a particular hall before and encountered dead ends. One of the few good things about the maze was that they did not seem to hear any doppelgangers approaching.
"How is that good?" Malaysia asked. "Aren't we supposed to go interrogate?"
"That's only if we can't find a way how they control the explosives." New Zealand said.
Ten minutes passed in their search yet nothing was to be found. They didn't even run into a doppelganger.
"We should try looking in the rooms then," Australia said, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
"Why didn't we do that before then?" New Zealand asked, slightly irritably. "I mean, if we did that, we might have found something by now."
"I guess we're too much in a rush to think carefully," Malaysia suggested quietly.
The three exchanged worrisome glances. If they didn't think things through enough, how many mistakes were they allowed to make before they fail?
Most of the rooms they first peered into were empty save for a handful of tables and chairs. There were several maps plastered on the walls, each one of them written over in Chinese. Not a single thing scribbled to the margins of the map made sense to them.
"I knew I should have took Chinese lessons," Malaysia scowled to himself. Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair and added wearily, "From the looks of it though, doesn't it kinda look like they're expanding?"
Australia peered at the maps, one by one, with a contemplating gaze. "Expand what, I wonder..."
"Could it be that the doppelgangers are working against each other too?" New Zealand pondered.
"Hm?" Australia blinked at him.
New Zealand, troubled, gave Malaysia a glance. "Is it just me, or is it that no matter how well the doppelgangers work together, they're still 'hatred', right? How can they work together so well without fighting?"
"It's as if they know the consequences and choose to work together in order to gain a similar goal, which is, of course, to get rid of us and make a new version of earth, right?" Malaysia added pensively.
"Yeah, that sounds right," Australia said. "Although, they're still doppelgangers that hold our hatred and grudges, so they're bound to still dislike certain countries' doppelgangers. They're probably working together temporarily and then they'll rebel when they have all that they want and get more. Even as an ally to each other, they're still enemies at the same time."
Silence. Then Malaysia sighed again, sticking his hands into his pockets. "Must be hard to work together if there's no trust." he murmured. "You truly don't know what your 'ally' could be thinking."
The other rooms had books scattered around, and though Australia and Malaysia couldn't tell if any of the books were the ones that Dark Thailand had taken from that glass dome room, they could tell that the books were somewhat important by the way they were arranged. Neatly stacked with several small bookmarks, the books were, according to the titles, a collection of Intelligence gathered on several countries along with basic information about its history.
"Well, some division is doing its research..." New Zealand murmured, putting down a book with his information. He coughed and uncomfortably stared at it a little longer. It was as if he was exposed to the doppelgangers since they had so much knowledge about him.
"Let's continue," Australia said softly. "We still have to find that master remote."
It took them an hour to finally come across a room of doppelgangers and it relieved them that there seemed to be no indication of other people outside of the 'factory'. The one thing that ruined their relief was the fact that the 'master remote' was no small thing.
The room they stumbled upon where the doppelgangers were all residing in was a major control room with rows and rows of monitors overlooking the 'factory'. Fortunately, they noticed that none of the monitors showed the halls; of course, if they did, they would have been found out long ago. Unfortunately, they realized that if they were watching the factory area, then wouldn't they have rushed out to stop them?
"No, wait...listen," New Zealand said.
The three of them quieted themselves and caught one of the doppelgangers murmur, "...images frozen like that...cameras aren't functioning right...they haven't wired them correctly, those people of his, that or we didn't lower their hate enough for them to think clearly..."
"That makes some sense. I guess we're lucky," Australia whispered.
There was silence in the room after the doppelgangers reached a conclusion on how to deal with things from there. They promptly went back to work, but unlike the composure of the doppelgangers they've seen before, there was something...off about them. They were no longer calm, collected, and knowing. They seemed tensed, strained, and their true nature seemed to be leaking into the atmosphere.
They shot brief looks to each other, making eye contact with a glare before breaking away. Some gritted their teeth and muttered under their breaths. The three countries smiled to themselves. Perhaps their efforts were finally taking its toll on their darker counterparts.
However, they still had work to do.
"We have to hurry," Malaysia mouthed to them as to not make a sound in the dead silence. Pointing at his watch nervously, he lipped, "It's past an hour and China will worry,"
"No kiddin'," Australia mouthed back.
But what were they do to? If there was a way to deactivate the entire base, then it would give them time to evacuate it and destroy it.
Before Australia and New Zealand could suggest an idea, however, Malaysia already had one in mind. He left the others to watch intently by slipping into a side-room, giving them a hand motion that they interpreted to be a signal to stay down.
Malaysia disappeared from their sight, leaving the two to wonder what the country was up to. Several minutes passed in tense silence, but they trusted Malaysia to do whatever it was he was doing. They were not disappointed when Australia suddenly spotted Malaysia right above the doppelgangers, balancing slowly, carefully, on the steel beams that supported the ceiling.
"What is he doing?" New Zealand whispered to Australia.
Australia hushed him, eyes darting back and forth between Malaysia and the doppelgangers who seemingly are oblivious to the country hovering over them. Squinting, Australia frowned as Malaysia slowly tied a package of something to the beam, securing it tightly before moving on.
New Zealand had the right question; what was he doing?
They watched Malaysia attach the packages all over the beams and somehow, he managed to stick them to the ceiling itself. More than once, doppelgangers would pause, freeze completely, and listen. They would give no other indication of listening other than their stopping their work, but Malaysia caught on to what they were doing and froze as well, waiting for them to continue again.
When they thought he was done, they were completely wrong. Malaysia caught their eyes and held a finger to his lips and a hand that probably meant 'stay down'.
He silently slinked off and out of their line of vision again and didn't return until several minutes later with more things to attach to the ceiling and, surprisingly, China was with him. They moved quickly, but they constantly kept an eye on the doppelgangers from below.
New Zealand narrowed his eyes in confusion and then brightened. "Ohh, I see. They're setting everything up."
Australia grinned. 'Setting everything up' was most likely a reference to their plan. Those were the explosives that the others had taken off of China's people. The explosion would cave in the room and water from the lake would flood the base.
"Now all we have to do is activate the explosives and get the heck out of here before the water overwhelms us," Australia whispered.
"Okay, but how?" asked New Zealand.
Australia's mind racked for ideas as he made his way around the room, using the covert of the banister running along the room. New Zealand did a quick double take before following him, whispering incredulously, "Now what are you doing?"
"I'm looking," Australia mouthed, noticing how close they were to the doppelgangers now.
He peered behind his shoulder, anticipating a, 'For what?' look from his friend, which he anticipated right.
"I'm looking for something to activate the explosives," he mouthed to New Zealand.
New Zealand nodded and tapped Australia's shoulder to get his attention again. "I'll look on the other side," he mouthed to him.
Australia nodded and they parted ways.
Malaysia and China agreed silently that they had planted enough bombs for now and went to search for Australia and New Zealand. They met up out in the hallway, where Australia and New Zealand looked quite proud of themselves.
"What's with the smile?" Malaysia asked, feeling a smile tug at his lips merely because of the fact they were smiling.
New Zealand, whose hands were behind his back, lifted a remote control and waved it. "Took us forever to get a hold of this," he said. "We had to wait until Dark Singapore left to get this, and believe me, it was no easy feat."
"Great, aru," China said. "Now let's get out of here and be done with it."
"We still have to help Japan if he needs it," Australia said as the four hastily walked away from the room. "Remember that every team has another team to assist after they finish their mission."
"Yes, yes, we know," China said impatiently. He stared at his watch intently. "Vietnam's probably got everyone out by now," he murmured to himself. "Now let's go back before their cameras start working again."
"I say we got lucky," Malaysia said, sticking his hands into his pockets.
New Zealand laughed gently. "Yeah, I say so too."
Vietnam eyes them carefully when they approached the rest of the group on the bridge. When she noticed the color of their eyes and their triumphant expressions, she relaxed a little. "I'm guessing that you got it?" she asked quietly.
"We did, aru."
She nodded curtly and then moved her glance towards the lake. "Then you should flood the base before they realize what hit them."
China scanned the crowd for Wy and when he found her, he held the remote out to her. "You want to flood it?"
Wy grinned and snatched the remote out of his hands. "You bet,"
Dozens and dozens of eyes were fixed firmly on the flat, placid surface of the lake. Wy eagerly pushed the button, savoring her moment of glory where all the big countries depended on her single movement to complete their ultimate mission.
There was nothing at first, but then at once, a heavily muffled boom sounded form underground, causing the earth to rumble a little bit. The water, clearly disturbed, crashed onto the shores, carrying debris. The doppelgangers would surely not drown. No, they wouldn't, but something told China and the others that with their base gone, they'd lose the will to fight and lose their physical body, returning to the original.
They were already our with each other and their current situation anyway, according to Australia and New Zealand. And sure enough, no 'bodies' washed ashore. No human-like figure floated in the water and nothing came up to fight.
They were done. They had saved their part of the world, and they could only rush to assist Japan and hope that the rest of the world would hurry up and save itself.
Two down, five more to go.
I apologize for the lateness of my update. I am actually quite stressed out recently and I'm so sorry this chapter has been pretty short. I planned a huge ending for the Suzhou Hideout but ah, alas, I could do no more. As I read back, I feel as if my writing style has drastically bled out on this chapter and I'm in no mood to correct any errors nor do I have the energy to do so even if I wish it.
I realized that I really need to hurry and get to the conclusion of this story, however it will actually take some time even though I say it's getting close to the end. But just how far is the end? Well, we're multi-reading different plots, right? We finished Suzhou, we finished Los Angeles, we're currently in the middle of Omsk, Edinburgh, and Kawasaki. We still have Bordeaux (France) and Schwerin (Germany).
Wow, we still have quite a bit to read (well, write on my part), don't we? And then we have the final arc (which is still a secret! I haven't mentioned it to anyone, I don't think) and then the epilogue. And then I can finally devote my attention to my newer Hetalia project, Unknown Fear.
If you haven't read it yet, feel free to or you can just stick to Doppelganger until the end and be done with my stories. Either way, I don't mind.
Thank you for your support everyone. And wow, 400 reviews? Amazing! I really have to thank you guys because if it weren't for you guys, I woudln't have continued the story to be the story it is right now.
As always, thank you for reading! Please don't get too annoyed with my lateness. I was usually punctual at the beginning of this story where I updated almost every day. Oh dear, I'm envious of my past self because of the time she had.
Thanks again! :)