"Agent 10 at your service," he bowed, "but call me Five Eyes, or Five for short."
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(Russia POV)
America's face immediately lit up, "Mr. Fifteen!" he chirped giddily as he jumped up to claim his high-five, "I haven't seen you in three years!"
Five laughed, "I know right? I've been stationed on Earth for what seems like forever now! I'm starting to believe that HQ has forgotten about me."
He turned his attention to me next, "Sorry about that, we got carried away..."
"I'm used to it by now," I shrugged, knowing that Ame had ties everywhere. Five's sunny expression suddenly darkened a bit as he became more perspicacious.
"So I see that NATO wasn't exaggerating at all. You really are..." he trailed off. America suddenly stiffened with a clear warning written on his face.
"HELLA TALL!" Five laughed lightheartedly, "Seriously, what do you eat in the morning?!"
"I know right?" America joined in with his usual vivacious self. Had I only imagined the cautionary glare?
No. They had something to hide of course.
We began our training with the usual hand combat drills. America was agile and his movements were quick and erratic which made him almost impossible to read. But I was not too bothered by that and managed to block and counterattack successfully.
Five nodded as we sat down for our short break.
"Nicely done! I see that NATO trained his brutal strength into you, huh Ame. And Russia... I don't think I've ever seen anyone move so fluently! Where did you learn that?"
I bit my lip as I tried to remember but, unsurprisingly, nothing came to me.
"I don't know. It just started to come naturally to me after a few fights."
"Fascinating..." he murmured to himself, "Well I'm not gonna discourage it. It's working well for you."
Something about his remarks finally clicked into place.
"Sir? Are you a spy?"
He tilted his head a bit, "What makes you think that?"
"Well... you are very perceptive, sometimes eerily so. And you are stationed on Earth doing solo missions so I assumed... sorry."
"No no no! You're absolutely correct." he smiled gently, "I'm the Head of the Intelligence and Communication Corp. But office work is not my cup of tea so I'd much rather stay in the field doing all the dirty work."
America smirked, "So you're here on NATO's behalf, to keep an "eye" on us?"
"That's right. The real me is still somewhere in the west, I think it was El Salvador, to monitor situations over there ever since his... demise."
Now I was confused, "The... real you?"
"On yeah! I forgot to tell you didn't I?" he tapped his lips thoughtfully, "Let's just say, I have a very unique cloning Awakening that gives me the edge in espionage."
"He rips a bit of his soul out of his body and shoves them in statues," America whispered while Five wasn't watching, "It's really freaky to watch."
"Anyways, my area of expertise is not combat. Stick me on the frontlines and I'll be the first to die. What I am good at is fine-tuned control and endurance, something that both of you lack right now."
"That sounds like a shitload of work," America grimaced as he fumbled with his gold metal cuffs.
"Well, think about it. If you ever find yourself against an extremely tough opponent, your usual power-up-and-blow-everything-to-bits-while-you-can tactic won't be sufficient. The final match you had against China is a good example and you were only able to pull ahead by a hair," Five stated matter-of-factly and America folded his arms and glared at his shoes.
"What I'm saying is," Five continued, "you need to find a way to extend your meager duration cap of 30 minutes."
"Okay okay. Endurance, I get it," America rolled his eyes, "But how do I do that? The nature of my Awakening is simply too draining to keep on for extended periods of time."
"Well? What do you think the options are?"
America bit his nail as he thought, "I could try to find a way to get more energy, something like an emergency battery pack," he mused but quickly shook his head, "No. It's unwise to rely on something like that in battle... so the only option is to reduce my energy consumption. But that's impossible because it's just how my Awakening works."
"Oh, but that's where you're wrong," Five chuckled.
"Well? What do I do then?" America groaned in defeat and a sly smile creeped into Five's face.
"Have you heard of Partial Activation?"
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He took the next few minutes to explain, "You normally infuse a cloak of fire around your entire body right? The energy wasted is massive so partial activation is-"
"I'm only going to infuse selected parts when I use it!" America finished, "Holy shit that's smart!"
Five, a bit miffed from the interruption, nodded, "In a nutshell, yes. But it will take away the overall damage you do. To put it in perspective, instead of throwing suns, you'll be throwing moons. Still impressive, but less than what you are used to."
"Now there's you... " he pointed to me, "Since you've been hiding your Awakening all this time, I'm going to assume you never did the Pinnacle Test."
"The what now?"
"The Pinnacle Test," he repeated, "It's where we determine your limits and assign you your score on the APR scale.
"The what-what scale?"
"The Awakening Power Rank Scale," he sighed, "You really are new to this huh. America, you can explain."
"Basically they push you until you are about to die and record how long you are able to last, the consequences it puts on you. Then they tally it up with stuff like your age of Awakening, how practical your trigger is and how much damage you can cause with your abilities."
"The APR is a 20 point system and all those who score above the perfect 20 are put into the Class SSS+. Currently, only 2 countries are listed in there, though I'm hearing some discussions about bringing Germany in as well, considering how much he is improving."
Five ran his hand through his hair as he thought aloud, "I digress. In any case, I don't think it would be wise for us to initiate a Pinnacle Test without the proper medical teams here. But without it, I won't really know what you lack since I've never seen you in action before."
"Then let's get to it!" America chirped, obviously excited to finally fight. Five nodded as well.
"That would be a good start. Okay, Russia. Give it all you got so I'll be able to confirm what I've been told."
We stood on opposite ends of the flat, dirt field, staring each other down and ready to strike.
"As your supervisor, I allow you to use your Awakenings to the fullest extent. Excluding Sunfire of course. We'll build up to that."
Once the words were out of his mouth, the metal cuffs around our wrists made a 'ker-chunk' sound and expanded to hover above our skin like a halo.
America was the first to react and immediately burst into a giant blaze of light. Gusts of scorching air swirled around him and suddenly, he was no longer there.
"Hey!" his voice came from behind me. A giant spear of ice surged up from the ground, barely able to block his incredibly destructive blow. I leapt back just in time to dodge the splinters of ice that were propelled by the impact. I quickly activated to my maximum potential as well, knowing that if I didn't, things would be over quickly.
The ground beneath me started frost over as a gleaming ice blue aura shielded the rest of my body. With a small shift in my feet, deadly pikes erupted from the ground, one after another.
Ame flipped and dodged at impossible speeds, but it was what I expected. Instead of trying to catch him, I guided him carefully, slowly trapping him in tighter and tighter corners.
A pressed smile played on Five's lips, "Incredible control... impossibly accurate if I were to say so. Almost as if he's had experience using it... but according to the report, he's never consciously used it before..."
After a while of this, America noticed what I was playing at and with one swift motion, incinerated all of the barriers I had created.
"Hmph," I growled under my breath but it was fine. The longer I could drag the fight, the easier it would be. But America obviously realized that fact as well because he began to focus his attacks directly on me.
Giant tides of glaciers rose from all around me, blocking and shattering after every blow. Ice and dust littered the ground around us and I began to feel a sharp tingling in my fingertips. I glanced down, and a thin sheet of frost was starting to climb up my arm. I bit my lip and rose my arm into the air, noticing that my movements had become uncomfortably stiff.
"So this is what a consequence is..." I grit through my teeth as small shocks of pain began to ripple through my limbs.
"The first conscious usage will always bring the greatest consequences. But don't worry. As your body adapts, the effects will begin to diminish but no one has ever completely overcome it."
Droplets in the air began to crystalize into tiny needles, then giant javelins. One by one, they were sent down with their points gleaming for blood. America was unfazed and with a giant blast of heat, the ice shards exploded. However, I wasn't just standing around. The final spear was waiting by my side and with one mighty kick, it was sent flying towards my opponent.
This time, there was an impact. He was able to dodge the tip but the way I had kicked it had made the spear rotate like a disk. Unaware of that, America was caught by the tail end . And with the heat from his body, the spear exploded and the Superpower was knocked backwards.
He coughed and stumbled a bit, but when he stood back up, his face was adorned with the most sinister smile I had ever seen. Something had obviously snapped.
He walked up to the spear fragments.
"I'm not just a ball of kaboom energy y'know," America chuckled as he picked up the broken shard of ice thrice his size as if it were nothing more than a pebble.
A sudden ripple of energy rushed up his arm and the white-hot shard was propelled forward at a speed that sent a mini shockwave through the air.
"RIGHT BACK AT'CHA!"
It was far too fast for me to dodge in time so I put up my guard, prepared for the impact.
It never came. Instead, the shard burst into a cloud of steam, blocking my vision. Before I realized it, he appeared right in front of me, parting through the mist with a dagger of fire blazing in his palm.
"Checkmate," he whispered and then the world was engulfed in white.
(Nobody POV)
"No way," Five gasped as the wind began to part the steaming cloud.
America grit his teeth in pain as he stared at his bleeding hand. It was encased in a cage of shining teal ice. Russia's breathless face was on the other side, just inches from his hand but the ice had saved him from the final blow.
"Not good," America thought. He had poured a giant chunk of his energy into the last attack. He was sure he had made it impossible for Russia to counter in any way but that obviously wasn't the case.
"The Unbreakable," the blazing country snarled, "Judging from your expression, it's still an instinctive reflex, not a conscious one."
A gold spark began to dance around the ice that held his hand in place. Violent hissing followed right after and this was enough for Russia to realize what was happening.
It was as if the sun was brought from the heavens and crashed into the earth. When the searing heat and flashing light finally dissipated, all that was left was a burning crater and one country was standing, victorious...
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America was completely drained and the flames were finally snuffed out. He had lost control of himself and overshot his personal boundaries. Again.
"Look at you, all tired and sore. Remember that you have another 40 kilometers to get back." Five teased.
"I don't even know what that means," America groaned and immediately knelt over and hurled.
Five brought him a bottle of water, which he chugged in an instant.
"How's Russia?" America gasped in between swigs. Five pointed over to where Russia lay unconscious. Small burns covered his skin but they were already starting to disappear.
"He's going to be fine but," Five glared accusingly, "that was uncalled for."
America tugged at his collar sheepishly and Five sighed, "We'll also have to work on your control. Both of you."
With a snap of his fingers, the cuffs snapped back to their normal size, fitting snugly on their wrists.
"Y'know I don't have enough energy to even light a candle right now." America whined as he rubbed his wrists.
"Yeah, no. I'm not taking any chances."
After a while of silence, Five glanced wearily at the sleeping country.
"Right now, you two look like normal human beings. Nothing special at all. But it's incredible the things you guys can do. I was especially caught off guard by his performance today."
America stared at his hand, slowly clenching and unclenching it, "The Unbreakable, it felt the same- no... It was the same." he muttered, "The Pinnacle test can wait. I think we can work with his old data."
"I was thinking the same thing," Five agreed softly.
"I'll contact my superiors and have them dig up Soviet's files and then we'll start from there."
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Battles go brrrrrr. I had a very good time writing this so... THURSDAY IS NOW THE NEW FRIDAY
offeronlylaststhisweekseeinstorefordetails
Five Eyes and America:
Five Eyes (FVEY) used to help Britain babysit America and his brothers when he was off his missions, mostly because he was the only one able to keep track of all four of them at once.
After a while, Ame gave Five the nickname, "Mr. Fifteen" because of an argument about why he was called Agent 10 instead of Agent 5.
(Maybe a story on this later)
Just a little fact: When I was planning the story, I actually made "files" on the Awakenings and APR for some countries. They are really fun to make and I don't plan on stopping XD
Another long ass chapter. Maybe this will become my standard from now on... hahaha kill me.
Now have some dialogue that should have happened after:
Five: What's with you and your aversion to saying his name? Are ye' still traumatized? SovietSovietSovietSoviet-
America: No! It's nothing like that. I just feel like I have a mouthful of shit after I say it...
Five: You certainly have no problem spewing cuss words everywhere.
America: ...
shut up.
Five: sovietsovietsovietsovietsovietsovietsovietsoviet...