The Austrian Empire sat alone in the garden, staring up at the frozen faces of Prussia and his father. He had to figure out how to undo the gold. If he did, he would finally feel... happy.
He knew he should have probably started with a leaf or something easy first, but he was so excited to get going, that he began with Prussia.
His friends had given him some helpful tips. PE had told him about how he envisioned himself becoming visible when he wanted to stop his power. The Russian Empire said he imagined his branches dying to get rid of them. It seemed like all AE had to do was imagine Prussia standing in front of him, not gold!
It wasn't that easy.
At first, he had tried visualising all the gold suddenly disappearing, but the process seemed too fast. Then, he tried to think of the gold slowly 'dying', and vanishing from Prussia's skin. That didn't work either.
It had been days of practising before AE finally got an idea. "T-try imagining waves pulling back or something!" He remembered Prussia saying the day his father died. That had to be the solution!
He envisioned the cliffs Prussia used to fly at, with its golden beaches and crystal clear water. He imagined the waves pulling away at the gold sand, revealing black sand underneath.
Then he opened his eyes.
Prussia had watched AE every day of his life, doing his best to guide him from the afterlife. As a ghost, he couldn't do much, but he was able to plant ideas in his friend's head. Like when AE was trying to stop his gold touch, he planted the memory of him saying "STOP!" in his head. It was the same thing with the waves.
Now he was back in his actual body. Not a flying ghost. A solid being. It felt amazing!
"You did it! I'm back!" Prussia cried, hugging his favourite country in the whole world.
AE laughed, then stopped in shock. His face was no longer solid gold. He could speak!
"What the...?" AE said, his voice hoarse from not being used for years.
"Did you not mean for your voice to come back?" Prussia asked. AE shook his head, looking bewildered.
"Oh, my heads hurt!" A voice said behind them. Prussia turned to see the Holy Roman Empire standing there, no longer a statue frozen in the position of a hug.
Father! You're back! I missed you! AE said in sign language, seeming to forget that he could talk now. He reached out to hug HRE, but stopped himself, probably remembering how his father had 'died'.
"It's alright, bring it in!" HRE chuckled. AE put on his gloves and ran over to him. Prussia watched from a distance, smiling faintly, before a sharp burst of pain distracted him.
He looked down at his hand to find that it... wasn't there. After it had been turned to gold by AE, Prussia had sawed it off and cut each finger at the joints. Then he had put it all back together with his magic to move it.
Now it was in bloody pieces on the ground, as if the wounds had just been made. "Ow ow ow ow ow." Prussia gasped, holding the stump.
What's wrong? Oh... AE signed, looking down at the mess.
"Can you turn it back to gold? I'd rather have that than a painful stump." Prussia asked.
"Yeah of course!" AE said, finally remembering to talk. He first touched the remainder of Prussia's hand, and although the gold spread quickly, AE stopped it before it got too far. Then, he picked up the pieces of Prussia's hand and turned all of them to gold.
"Thank you." Prussia sighed in relief as the pain disappeared. Then he used the dark tendrils of his power to put his hand back together.
"Did you... mean to revive me?" HRE asked, turning their attention back to him.
AE furrowed his brow. "No... I was going to do Prussia, then move on to you." He said.
"Hm. Interesting."
"Wasn't this gold before? And this... and this, and this, and also this..." AE rummaged through a bunch of items in the garden, murmuring to himself, sometimes in sign language.
Prussia remembered from his time as a ghost that a lot of things in the garden used to be gold statues. Now they were all ordinary.
"Does this mean... everything I used my power on is back to normal again? Including..." AE trailed off.
"The Roman Empire." Prussia finished. As if the name summoned him, Prussia felt a powerful force grip him. He was being mind controlled.
Not on my watch! He thought as he reached inside of his own mind.
A long time ago, after a particularly bad war with the Roman Empire, Prussia had taught himself how to stop the mind control. When fighting with others, every time he was hurt, he was able to shake off the possession. ROE didn't seem to be very tolerant with pain.
In a different war, the one where ROE died, Prussia found out another way to stop it. A better way.
Prussia had been watching himself fight the Austrian Empire, and could see that his friend was losing. Instead of watching for longer, he shielded away from the sight.
When he did that, he found a world inside of his mind that he didn't even know existed. The ground was covered in black ash, and the sky was dark except for a silver glow in the distance. Tall, strange structures covered in shadows and black feathers rose from the surface.
Eventually, he saw that he was tied up, and the Roman Empire was in front of him, controlling his physical body's movements.
Prussia managed to wriggle out of the ropes, and attacked ROE, knocking him to the ground. The Roman Empire fought back, but because he was taken by surprise, Prussia was able to stab him with a sword he had conjured from his mind. Then he was brought back to the physical world, free from ROE.
He had just enough time to prevent AE from being controlled before ROE had a hold of him again.
The next time, he was in chains, and chains are a lot harder to break than simple rope. He hadn't managed it, but AE was able to defeat ROE on his own.
Back in the present, Prussia knew he hadn't had much practice since that incident. But he tried anyway, hoping ROE didn't get too powerful in the time that he had been frozen.
Inside of his mind, Prussia found himself in chains once more. Shit. He thought.
Remembering how he had conjured a sword from the depths of his mind, he tried imagining a key to the chains. Not only did the key appear, but a lock appeared on the chain as well! To be fair, it was his own mind, so anything was possible.
Prussia then summoned a sword and charged at ROE. He was ready though, and dodged out of the way.
"I remember how much trouble you were." The Roman Empire hissed. "You were the one who caused me to die! Well I'm back now, you won't find me so easy to distract."
ROE launched a stream of gold daggers that he must have conjured at Prussia, who deflected them with his sword. Then he flew into the air and dive bombed ROE.
ROE pushed him away from him, making Prussia land with his back to ROE. The Roman Empire used the advantage to stab him in the back. The black and white country spat a string of curses as he turned to face his enemy.
I don't have time for this! Prussia thought, imagining he and the others killing each other while being mind controlled.
He visualised ROE getting knocked aside by one of the imposing black pillars that were scattered across the landscape. His mind complied, and ROE flew six metres before he found himself on the ground again. Of course, ROE retaliated, and created a gaping hole under Prussia's feet.
Then Prussia was falling. He tried to unfurl his wings, but chains wrapped around them, rendering them useless. He instead used tendrils of dark magic to curl around him, slowing his fall until he was on the ground.
Prussia looked up out of the hole, and saw ROE back to controlling his physical body. Prussia broke the chains around his wings with a thought, and flew out of the hole.
As ROE turned to face him, Prussia sent a giant spike through his heart. The body of the Roman Empire disappeared into dust, sent out of his head.
Prussia was then thrown back into controlling his outside body. The first thing he saw was AE and HRE staring at him with eyes not their own. AE, with his gloves off, started to reach towards Prussia.
"I'll get you under my control eventually, Prussia. Either that, or I'll kill you." The two mind controlled countries said.
Prussia took off in the opposite direction and into the castle, hoping to find someone to help him. But every door he opened, he saw his friend's mind controlled. RE, PE, GE, A-H and probably more, they were all enemies now.
So he flew away from the castle, glancing back at his old friends. I'll find a way to help you all. He thought. Because there was one more place he could go for help.
(1584 Words)
I have decided to start posting Mondays, since I have a lot of stuff going on now on Tuesdays. I literally have 2 hours of free time. It sucks. So Mondays it is! We are nearing the final battle, which takes up half the book because I can only write fight scenes!