It's been three years now since the war between 1ps and 2ps. The 1ps who were claimed dead are alive again, memories restored and the only thing different is the still double personification of Russia, but even Viktor isn't bothering anyone anymore...
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Juan and Antonio were early to the meeting. Mavuto had left them shortly after they'd dropped off Giselle, and so they sat by in the empty meeting room. Antonio had his feet up on the huge table, head lolled back, earbuds rammed into his ears, making no signs at all of wanting to communicate. Joao sat for a moment, twiddling his thumbs, listening to the distant beat coming from Antonio's music before he stood up and started walking around the table, tapping each chair in turn, saying each name imprinted on the back: Antonio, Joao, Diego, Santiago, Camilla, Andres, Juan, Mariana, Jett, Logan, Lin, Bharat, Karim, Mavuto, Imani, Zuma, Kiku, Leon, Emil, Vash, Vladimir, Arthur, Ludwig, Gilbert. Compared to normal, there weren't that many of them left.
Joao got back to his chair and sat down, sighing. He glanced at the chairs next to him where the South American nations were supposed to be sitting. Normally, they would be here early through at least one of them panicking. That was all it took – one of them. Instead, their chairs lay empty. He thought for a second, then pulled out his phone, called Diego and placed it up to his ear. After a few rings, it went to answer phone.
He sighed. Idiot had probably forgotten to charge it again.
He tried again with Andres. Nothing. Santiago. Nothing. Mariana. Nothing. Juan. Nothing. Camilla. Nothing. To get no reply from one or two of them wasn't that strange at all. Most of the time, they all just relied on a couple of them to have phones on them; but to get nothing from all was worrying, especially Camilla, who always seemed to have her phone on her. He leaned over and punched Antonio's arm.
"Hey" Antonio pulled out his earplugs and took his feet off the table. "What was that for?"
"Have you had any contact with..." Joao hesitated. "Juan? Camilla? Diego?"
Antonio pulled a slightly gormless-looking face then shook his head. "Juan barely says two words, ever, Camilla always seems busy and as for Diego, I thought he was yours to watch out for? Why are you getting me to look out for the ones you should be looking after? I can barely look after myself." He nudged him. "Get it? Look?" Antonio laughed as though it was the funniest thing ever and put his earbuds back in.
Joao rolled his eyes and cursed under his breath, tapping into a satellite and observing its photographs. It was a 'just-in-case' idea, so he wasn't expecting much. A second later, he tapped Antonio again. Antonio growled and turned to him, removing one earbud.
"What?"
Joao didn't say anything, just turned his phone towards him so he could see the latest picture.
"What?"
Joao sighed, remembering the slight problem of sight and stared at the picture himself.
"The entire of the American continents have gone. Both of them, like they never existed" Joao said, tapping the picture a few times to doubly check as though it could be a trick. Nothing changed. "But... I phoned them yesterday. They were fine yesterday."
Antonio's mouth was half open, and he lunged as if he wanted to grab the phone, but ended up holding onto Joao's shoulder. "There... there aren't any islands?" he laughed weakly. "They're not gone. That's... We already basically knew about central and North America, but South still had six on our side."
Joao shook his head. "It's the fact that someone was obviously able to get to them, kill all of them, and get out without being killed..." he trailed off. "But, that's not possible. You trained them all in fencing, right?" Antonio nodded. "So, they can all fight. But..."
"Maybe they still had some on their side" Antonio suggested. "It would make sense, and it would mean that they would've died in the process, because like you said, it's not like they're defenceless or anything." They both sank into silence for a second. "I bet it was Desi" Antonio said, trying to crack a joke. "Juan's damn llama was always a bit psychopathic."
Joao didn't laugh, although he knew that given any other situation, he might've done. "They're all dead" he glanced over at Antonio, who was giving the wall a reassuring look. "How are you so calm about all this?"
Antonio shrugged. "I guess I just don't believe it yet. I mean, there isn't exactly any evidence for me to see, is there?"
"Then hear it" Joao snapped. "They're dead."
"Are you okay?" Ludwig appeared at the door, frowning, Gilbert stood a bit behind him.
Joao opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it in frustration and shook his head. Antonio glanced in his direction and then towards the opposite corner, where he probably assumed Ludwig and Gilbert were. "South America's been destroyed. They've all gone. All of them. Santiago, Diego, Juan, Mariana, Andres, Camilla..." he swallowed and stopped. "Dead."
"Oh" Ludwig said, devoid of emotion with the obvious impression of someone who wasn't quite sure what they should be doing. "I'm... I'm sorry."
Gilbert burst into the room, shoving past Ludwig and ran around the side of the table to hug Antonio. "Toni, that's so unawesome! I'm so sorry." He cleared his throat and put on his best French accent. "Und I too am 'ugely sorry for your loss, even zo I am not 'ere to tell you myzelf."
Antonio smiled and hugged him back. "Good French accent."
Gilbert bowed deeply and sat down in his seat next to him. Ludwig stayed at the door, holding it open as everyone else filtered through slowly. When everyone was finally in and seated, Arthur stood up at the front and glanced around them all.
"I feel like we're finally starting o gain a proper advantage on those wankers" he said, eyes shining. "Just this week you" he gestured to Ludwig and Gilbert. "Managed to get rid of those ones you found away from their base. Allen, Flavio, Francois and Joao's counterpart" Arthur nodded at them.
Ludwig shook his head at him and stood up. "However good that may seem, they appear to already be clawing back at us" he said, Arthur's smile slowly fading off his face. "South America has disappeared."
What little remained of Arthur's smile disappeared in less than a second. "What? But... that's impossible... I mean..."
"We've already all been over this" Joao shouted. "South America has disappeared. Everyone's dead." He sighed. "It's not like any of you cared much anyway." The last part was barely a whisper.
Arthur swallowed. "Well... I suppose we're still... we still have the upperhand?"
"What does that matter anymore?" Vash's head had been dropped to the table. He rarely spoke now-a-days, simply drifting about, and most of his time spent in the meetings, would be asleep, or something similar. Now, he dragged his head up slightly and gave them all a dead look. "We're all going to die anyway. Why does having the 'upperhand' matter? I mean, we're not going to hold on to it for that long anyway, are we?"
"There's no need..." Ludwig started.
"There's every need" Vash sighed, wrapping his arms around his head as though he could blot out what they were saying.
"He has got a point though" Lin said, glancing around the room worriedly as though someone were going to judge her. "I mean, at this rate, everyone's going to die. We're all going to die."
Uh... Happy Christmas!! Christmas update #2. It could be worse, I mean, yesterday's update with Vladimir and Viktor was supposed to be out today. It held huuuge character death though, and I didn't want to make any of you sad on Christmas!! That wouldn't be fair!!! Also, thank you so much everyone!!! I glanced at this book this morning and there was 4k views!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!! MiddleEarth4eva
