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The Watchtower Facility
September 16th
2:44 AM
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[Russia's POV]

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"HEY! STOP!" I sharply shouted as I jolted up from the seat I sat on.

I then rushed to the direction of the noise and tackled the intruder, violently pinning them down to the ground, temporarily immobilising them. The person held a large amount of files in their arms. I shoved them away and pierced them with an angered glare.

"What do you think you're doing here?!" I exclaimed furiously.

To my surprise, they did not mutter a single word, nor did they move an inch. I squinted my eyes to try and figure out who the intruder was, but the veil of darkness covered their face and body, making their flag undistinguishable. I violently grabbed them by the collar, picking them up from the ground and throwing their body right against a wall. The flashing red lights of the monitors illuminated their face, showing their true identity. The nation wore a thick bandana across their chin, along with a pair of matte sunglasses on their eyes. I swiftly took the bandana and flung it across the room. I grabbed the sunglasses and threw them to the ground, violently stepping and crushing them before kicking them away, making them disappear in the darkness. Their face was now as clear as a glistening pearl in the moonlight. My eyes widened as I furrowed my eyebrows in utter shock.

"CANADA?!" I yelled in anger as I pierced him with a cold glare.

He turned his oddly calm gaze to observe my reaction and I could see a sheepish grin etching on his lips.

"The one and only." he replied in a malevolent voice as his glare transcended from sly to malicious. "Oh, what a coincidence. How come you're here? Nobody knows about this place."

I lowered my gaze and stormily grabbed him by the neck, blocking the passageway of his throat and choking him. He forcibly coughed as his maleficent grin dropped, showing a rather disappointed look.

"The same applies to you." I replied coldly. "Why are you here?!"

At first, Canada hesitated to respond, but when he opened his mouth to try to comment any further, a violent cough escaped his lips. He had trouble breathing. I abruptly let go of his throat before kicking him in the stomach, making him yelp in pain and slide to the ground out of the excruciating agony he made himself suffer through. He growled as he covered the affected area with his arms, signaling that he was going through unbearable pain.

"You're so ruthless..." Canada muttered as he slowly got up from the ground, his arms in a crossed position, hiding his stomach.

Upon hearing his comment, I extended my arms to reach the wall and blocked his way.

"You're not going anywhere." I angrily hissed at him. "If you don't tell me what your true intentions are, I'll make sure you won't come out alive."

He didn't seem fazed about my warning.

"You think I'm that foolish?" he scoffed. "No matter what you do to me, I won't leak a single thing. Plus..."

He took out a grapnel from the hidden bandolier across his chest and extended his arm to aim the ground. He released it and the weapon caught the snatched folders from the drawers. With the push of a singular button, he retrieved the files that he was looking for.

"I already have what I wanted." he added with a mischievous grin. "How convenient!"

He maniacally laughed as I tried to snatch the weapon from his hands. He had a tight grip on it, but eventually, I successfully got it away from him. I angrily growled as I threw the grapnel far away from his reach, itself blending in with the darkness of the room.

"Ugh, you're no fun." Canada mumbled as he rolled his eyes displeased.

"Fun? You call INFILTRATING INSIDE AN ESTABLISHMENT FUN?!" I brutally yelled at him. Anger began to flow through my veins, making me livid.

"No need to yell in my ears like that," he ironically commented. "You know they're sensitive."

"Why are you the one to infiltrate here?! You are by OUR side! You're one of US!" I exclaimed in a furious tone of voice with hints of confusion and bitterness being traced.

"Let's just say I wanted some information on a few people." he replied with a smirk. "Too bad you're here, making my job harder than it already is."

Before I could unleash my anger any further, a long and high pitched beeping sound was heard from the hijacked monitors. The irritating noise got louder and louder until half of the speakers were on the verge of death. Large pop up windows appeared on the monitor screens, displaying one singular message, written in big, bold red text.

"Self-destruction imminent. Please evacuate facility."

A disturbing audio tape played in the background, along with loud and grainy white noise accompanying it.

"One hundred and twenty seconds until self-destruction
is complete. Evacuation is recommended."

I stared at the monitors with widened eyes and I furrowed my eyebrows. Self destruction?! Oh great.

"Ah, yeah, I forgot to tell ya," Canada commented. "There's a self-destruction system put in place. Oops, my bad."

My horrified glare landed on the intruder and I gave him a bitter and angry glare before rushing to the vault type door to open it, but it wouldn't bother opening itself, not even if I tried spinning the mechanism. I used my ankles to try and burst it open, but nothing worked.

"Oh... Uhhhmmm..." I could hear Canada comment as he stared at the door, looking at how all of my attempts at escaping were failing. His voice radiated uncertainty, and at some point, regret.

"This didn't go as planned..." he whispered to himself before running to the door.

I used everything I could. Hands, ankles, knees, even my head, but to no avail. I only harmed myself in the process. I slid to the ground and yelped in pain, already regretting my decisions of using body parts to attempt to open a metal door. I quickly shot up from the floor and rushed to pick up Belarus in my arms, who was still somehow asleep, even after all of that noise and conflict.

As I approached the vault door yet again, I could hear the same voice echoing from the monitors behind my back. I turned my head to see that a countdown was put on display. Exactly two minutes on the clock before the self-destruction phase.

"Sixty seconds until automated self-destruction is imminent. Evacuate facility."

All of the lights in the room turned a neon shade of red as I turned my head to the door. From the same bandolier across his chest, Canada pulled out an electric breaching mechanism and planted it on the door, setting a timer and adjusting some settings.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! ARE YOU CRAZY?!" I yelled as my eyes narrowed in anger.

"Shut up you blockhead," Canada replied as he turned his head around to face me. "I know what I'm doing."

He then cranked up the breaching mechanism to its most destructive phase and took a few steps away.

"Back off, this thing will do some damage." he warned me as we both backed away from the vault door.

"THIS IS NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING!!" I yelled yet again as the same voice from before gave more warning messages, updating the countdown. "YOU'RE GETTING US KILLED!! YOU IDIOT!!"

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CAN YOU SHUT UP ALREADY?!" Canada passive-aggressively raised his voice at me. "CAN YOU NOT TRUST A DUDE THAT HAS SEVEN YEARS OF EXTENSIVE MILITARY TRAINING EXPERIENCE?! Oh right, you have TRUST ISSUES!"

I wanted to punch his face so badly, but that meant dropping my sister to the ground, therefore, I hesitated to do so. I gave him a furious glare before staring at the vault door. The breaching mechanism entered its last ten seconds of existence, making itself loudly beep through the chaotic background noise. We both then backed away even more as we gradually braced our ears and body for the imminent explosion.

Three...

Two...

One...

BOOM!

The mechanism violently exploded right before our very eyes and I immediately turned my back from the vault door, acting like a shield against the vicious force of the electric bomb. Belarus was safe and sound in my arms, a sigh of relief escaping my lips. Canada swiftly grabbed something from the ground and put it in his bandolier behind my back.

"Come on!" he exclaimed while making his escape.

I glanced at the monitor screens for the last time and thirty seconds remained on the countdown. The numbers rapidly changed as I kept backing away from the screens. I turned away and made my swift escape, dashing through the doorframe and draining my stamina. I ran father away from the facility and I stopped at a five meter distance, uncontrollably panting. Canada sprinted somewhat farther away than me and turned around to witness the explosion of the century.

BOOM

The Watchtower turned into fragments of cement under the destructive explosion of the hijacked computers. Thankfully, the facility was isolated from the rest of the kingdom buildings. I turned my head to glance back behind and my eyes widened. The explosion was much more disastrous than I thought it would be. However, I was glad that I survived such a cataclysmic event.

I sighed in relief as I stared into nothing, silently zoning out. Thoughts began to pop up in my mind yet again.

"Hey, uhm, can you put me down?" a voice made itself audible.

The voice startled me. Thankfully, it was just Belarus who woke up.

"Ah, sorry..." I replied as I slowly put her down with a nervous smile.

"What did I miss? I heard some stuff but I don't know what happened." she asked with curiosity flowing through her veins.

"Uhhh..." I hesitated to reply to that. "Well, The Watchtower crumbled to pieces..."

"I missed a whole explosion?" disappointment was heard from her tone of voice. "Why do I miss everything interesting? Also, what's Canada doing there?"

I turned my head around to see Canada with his back turned to us. He was doing something that I couldn't see clearly. I raised an eyebrow and turned back to Belarus. I hesitated to tell her the full story.

"I'll tell you later." I replied to her.

She still looked like quite the disappointed person, but her face somewhat lit up as she heard those words come out of my mouth.

"Canada, what are you doin' there?" Belarus asked while approaching him.

He quickly turned his head to her and hid whatever he was holding.

"What? Nothing." he responded swiftly. "Nothing important."

My suspicions rose higher than ever before. He was acting strangely, and I did not like it one bit. He was definitely up to something again.

"Mind showing us what you're doing?" I asked with suspicion and notes of doubt in my voice.

Before he could reply, his immediately went wide as his head was turned around.

"What?" I asked confusedly.

"Yeeep, we're in a pickle." Canada replied in a lower tone.

"What do you mean?"

"Bro, look behind you!" Belarus exclaimed as she glanced in the same direction Canada did.

I turned around to her request and to my surprise, twelve soldiers appeared, forming a horizontal line all across. They were all dashing towards us like lightning bolts piercing through the misty clouds of the ether.

BANG

A bullet flew with massive speed towards us and glided past my face. I dodged it just in time before my skull would get penetrated. The soldiers looked quite impressed by my move, but it wasn't long before they tried to harm us yet again.

"HEY! GET BACK HERE YOU SCUMBAGS!!" one of the soldiers screamed to the top of his lungs as he ran towards us with negative intent.

Canada shook my shoulder to grab my attention and directly stared into my eyes. He pulled me a bit closer and he whispered something in my ear.

"You both distract the guards, I'll knock them out. Got it?"

I was extremely hesitant at first, but since we were in a situation of life or death, I nodded approvingly.

"What shall we do?" I asked him in a low voice.

Canada put a few gadgets into my hand and told me his plan.

"These are distraction grenades. Release the trigger and throw it at the soldiers. They won't be able to see a thing, powder will hit their eyes. I left a few more stuff just in case. Start whenever you're ready, give me a signal."

I nodded as I tightly held the powdery weapons with my hands, determined and ready for action. I gave Belarus a few of the grenades and told her the plan.

The time finally came.

As the soldiers were running towards us, I pulled the safety pin from the grenade, swinging my arm and throwing it with immense force. It landed right in front of them, letting out a white exploding powder, temporarily blinding the targets. They forcibly began to cough as the dust entered the passageway of their throats, making them helplessly choke beneath the fumes. Belarus kept the grenades in her hands, waiting for the right moment to throw them.

When the powder rose from the ground, Canada dashed towards the nearest tree, climbing it with agility and swiftness. Belarus and I kept our eyes on the enemies, tracking their every move and taking action if necessary. I wasn't paying attention to what the other was doing, but I had to have faith, or else we all would have died. As the white dust began to wear out and disappear in the atmosphere, the soldiers aimed their barrels at us and loaded their rifles. But to their surprise, it didn't work. A thick layer of frost summoned on the trigger of the weapons, making it almost impossible to shoot. I could hear aggressive yelling and shouting from them as they tried to break the ice, all of them miserably failing to do so.

Thundering bullets fell from the sky, piercing through the soldiers' bodies and making them collapse to the ground. The ground slowly got tainted with crimson liquid and audible screaming of agony was heard before the last soldier bowed his head and kneeled, falling onto the floor. Maniacal laughing was heard from sky-high levels. I raised my head to see Canada swiftly landing onto the ground and grinning triumphantly, with a precision-tech rifle in his arms.

"See? I knew what I was doin'!" he replied with a smirk. "I knocked those guys out like bowling pins!"

I had to say, that was pretty impressive. I slightly nodded and furrowed my eyebrows as I looked back at the decimated Watchtower.

"I didn't get to use mine, can I keep these?" Belarus asked with curiosity.

"Yeah sure!" Canada replied with a friendly smile.

Belarus instantly grinned and shoved the grenades in her inventory. I had a few more powdery weapons in my hands, so I decided to give the remaining to her. A wide smirk carved on her lips as she took them, hiding all of them somewhere in her mechanised backpack.

"Cool! I get to keep all of these juuust in case!" she commented while closing her backpack.

"You and your obsession with weapons." I rolled my eyes and slightly smiled.

"Ehm, speaking of which, where do we go now?" she asked while directly staring into my soul, probably out of accident.

"We have to go back to The Base," Canada swiftly replied. "We have to communicate to the others that The Watchtower is now just a bunch of concrete on the ground."

"Ah, right, The Base... Well then... LET'S GO!!!" Belarus exclaimed as she rapidly took my hand, dashing towards the middle of nowhere.

"Hey hey slow down!!" I insisted for her to calm down, but of course, that didn't work.

"Hey! Where are you two going?!" Canada shouted. "The Base is THIS way!"

Belarus dragged me in the opposite way. Bela being Bela, I suppose. Canada started leading us towards the establishment. On our way there, I could already feel uneasiness taking control of my mind. My heart felt heavier than even before. For some inexplicable reason, it kept lingering through my brain.

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The Base
September 16th
5:38 AM
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We arrived at The Base. We all stopped walking as I began to examine the building from the outside, just to make it clear that we were all going to be safe for once. After a few seconds, my left hand touched the doorknob. Belarus turned her head to Canada, who was scavenging through his inventory.

"Aren't you coming with us?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

Upon hearing such a question, he glared at her amusedly before laughing.

"Oh Belarus, you're so funny. You're receiving a negative answer. It wouldn't be good for me to enter the facility after such a destructive event, no?"

"Of course it's not, YOU'RE the one that caused it all." I angrily mumbled before opening the door in front of me. In a flash, Canada disappeared with no trace of him passing nearby to be seen.

I entered the establishment and Belarus was the second to do so. She stood behind my back, looking at the interior of the building.

"Woow, this place is sooo pretty!!" she childishly exclaimed.

"Bel, you've been here before." I replied as I rolled my eyes, facepalming and heavily sighing.

She glanced at me unamused as she blew a raspberry, slightly pushing me away. Typical Belarus, a childish thirteen year old. Average behaviour.

Everybody from inside The Base was staring at the screens, as if something horrible happened. At first, I thought they found out about the explosion of The Watchtower, but who knew, maybe I was wrong. I approached the station and glanced at one of the nations. Their eyes were fully widened as they were scanning some files. From the back of my mind, I already knew something was wrong.

"What are you guys doing?" I asked curiously, raising an eyebrow while standing near the other.

"Uuuuhmmm... This is not gonna sound good..." the other replied worryingly.

"What do you mean? Tell me, it can't be that bad." I insisted.

I then leaned a little forward to look at the files. A familiar picture of a young girl was hung by a red push pin. I then immediately recognized the picture and my face already got tense. Why were they looking through her files?

"What's with that?" I asked, already quite worried. I did not look forward to where the conversation was going.

"Well... To put it simply..."

"She's missing."

My eyes widened as I immediately backed away, not believing the words of the other nation.

"No, you can't be serious!" I exclaimed. "Look, this isn't April Fools, it's not funny!"

"I'm not kidding," they insisted as they opened a window towards the security cameras. "She was last seen in the Southern part of the kingdom, somewhere around 5:30 PM yesterday afternoon. Here, take a look."

I took an anxious look at the footage. Maybe it wasn't my sister? Maybe it was someone else? Belarus popped up from behind my back, her eyes already widening to their fullest extent. This was not a good sign.

As we both carefully watched the footage, the person who was identified to be our sister vanished from the video tape moments after playing