Inveigle
/inˈvāɡ(ə)l/
verb
persuade (someone) to do something by means of deception or flattery.
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Australia and New Zealand left at 9, and where suppose to arrive by 10. Unfortunately, while on their way to the UN headquarters, Australia and New Zealand had encountered some heavy traffic. It left them stuck for an entire damn hour and a half, so they were unquestionably going to arrive late. Perhaps even an entire hour late. So, Australia had the brilliant idea to just... speed up a tiny bit. Definitely a tiny bit.
"DUDE! Slow down!" New Zealand stammered out as Australia went completely past the speed limit. He felt as if his heart was going to escape his chest from the speed they were going. "We're absolutely going to get a ticket for this!"
"Who cares?" Australia grinned, but did slow down the vehicle a bit after seeing New Zealand's anxiety.
"Your mom! bitch!"
"WE HAVE THE SAME MOM DUMBASS!"
New Zealand really hated this man.
He listened to the sound of gravel grinding beneath the car's tires, mixed with the roar of the engine. He looked at Australia, whose gaze was completely focused on the road. Australia was on a mission: get there fast. He pushed the pedal to the floor, and the car surged forward, racing the clock with each passing moment.
New Zealand spotted the UN headquarters appear in the distance, and it was clear that Australia did too, as he began to speed up once again. He quickly and suddenly turned the steering wheel to the right as he entered the parking area, but unfortunately, he hadn't been able to slow down yet.
New Zealand cursed out as the car began to drive towards a nearby wall.
"Oh what the fu—"
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"Where in the world are those two idiots?" Canada grit his teeth as he checked his watch. It was 10:56, and Australia and New Zealand were nowhere to be seen! Did they just say that they would come here with no plan to actually follow through? He swore, if that were the case, they wouldn't hear the end of it.
He then heard a loud screeching noise, like tires against the road. His head snapped towards the sound, watching as a familiar car swerved into the entrance to the parking lot, before disappearing in the sea of parked cars. He expected to hear a crash right after, but it didn't come.
Huh. So they did decide to show up.
Crossing his arms, Canada watched as his brothers walked out of the parking lot, unscathed. Well, physically unscathed. New Zealand honestly looked absolutely terrified, his skin all pale. Australia had his usual expression on his face, unbothered by the entire thing.
"That was to be expected." Canada thought to himself. "Australia doesn't get spooked easily."
As soon as the two of them were close enough to Canada to hear him, he spoke.
"You're late." He immediately pointed out, raising an eyebrow.* "Care to explain why?"
"Uh, traffic." New Zealand responded, receiving a short nod from Canada as he hummed.
"I see. Well, I'm sure you know what we brought you here for." Canada said, adjusting his glasses. "Our... father is missing. We don't know where he is. Now, do you have anything that could give us a clue of his whereabouts?"
"No. How about you, Kiwi?" Australia turned towards New Zealand, who only shook his head in response.
"Huh. Well, that leaves us in a bit of a predicament." Canada looked away. "I would check the CCTV footage for anything that could tell us what happened to UK, but unfortunately, I don't have access unless UN gives me that access. What else can we do in the meantime?"
"Oh! We can check his house." New Zealand suggested. "America has the keys. Wait, where is America?"
"He went to do just that." Canada responded. "Anything else?"
"Well, we could try to search for him in the area?" Australia shrugged. "I don't think we'll find anything, but it's worth a shot, right?"
"I suppose so, yes." Canada nodded slowly. "Are we going to bring anybody else?"
"Oh! Yeah! Fiji! Fiji! Fiji! Fij—" New Zealand immediately chanted, before getting shushed by Canada.
"Alright, alright. You're acting like a child." Canada huffed. "We can bring Fiji. Is that all?"
The both of them shook their heads, as Canada nodded.
"Anyways, I have this. The files in this folder contain recent information about UK." Canada explained, waving the folder in his hands to draw Australia and New Zealand's attention to it. "UN gave it to me so I guess he's just telling us to deal with it ourselves. I suppose he wants us to do some detective work. Go ahead and read it."
Yeah. That was annoying. UN had just given them the job to track someone down. Canada didn't even think any of them have any experience in that.
Canada handed the folder over to Australia and New Zealand, before turning to pull out his phone. He was sure that he had Fiji's number saved somewhere here. Ah. There it was.
He pressed the phone against his ear as he made the call, listening as the phone ringer one, twice, before the sound of Fiji's voice could be heard on the other side.
"Hellooo?" Fiji spoke. There was the sound of shuffling in the background, as if Fiji was doing something.
"It's Canada. I just wanted to request your assistance." Canada spoke.
"Hm? What is it?" Fiji asked.
"Well..." Canada began, pausing for a moment to sigh. "UK is missing."
"Really?"
"Yes. Did you not hear me?"
"... So you want me to help you find him?" Fiji asked, his voice noticeably growing tenser.
"Mhm. Are you willing?"
There was a moment of silence as Fiji didn't respond, and Canada waited for his response. Eventually, Fiji spoke.
"Yeah, okay, sure." Fiji agreed.
"Great. Just meet us in my office at the UN headquarters." Canada nodded slowly.
"Wait, who else is joining the search?" Fiji asked. "Is it just your brothers?"
"Yes. So far." Canada replied. "But America wont be joining us for now."
"Okay, okay. I'll go get ready."
Canada ended the call and put his phone back into his pocket. He turned towards Australia and New Zealand.
"Come on, lets head back to my office." He said, turning to enter the building. "Wouldn't want to stand in this burning heat for any longer."
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"So, where will we be searching?" Fiji asked, raising an eyebrow as he walked down the sidewalk along with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
"I dunno. The forest?" New Zealand briefly replied without a thought.
"Hell nah man, the forest is weird, with weirdo snakes and spiders!" Australia said, making gestures with his hands that nobody could really understand.
"Isn't that your thing?" Fiji laughed as he raised an eyebrow
"Yeah but it isn't your guy's thing so you might get scared..."
"We won't get scared Australia. We can handle a spider." Canada rolled his eyes as he shook his head.
"Okay! Let's go then!" Australia nodded as he adjusted his backpack and immediately turned towards where he knew the forest would be.
Eventually, they reached the forest. The trees were spread far apart enough for lots of sunlight to pass through their leaves, making it pretty easy to see. Everyone began their search, splitting up, but not wandering too far from each other.
As Canada looked walked towards a large tree, he spotted something in the distance. He moved towards it, spotting a large wall with a small opening. He stopped in front of it and he felt his shoulders sag.It was a small abandoned building. It seemed to have been abandoned for quite a long time. He traced his hand over the vines and plants creeped around cracks in the concrete, before turning to look at the rest of the abandoned building.
It was quite open, with tons of cracks. It didn't even seem to have a roof. He could see pretty well inside of the building, but it didn't do much, as all he saw was a ladder. An extremely broken one. There was only a single step attached to the thing.
He looked further, and spotted an opening that led deeper into the building. It had less lighting than the rest of the area. That was all he could see so far.
"Hey guys!" Canada called out, grabbing their attention. "I found something. Maybe we can search here."
The others began to approach the area. Upon seeing the building, New Zealand immediately protested.
"NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE, We are not going in an abandoned house what if we get in trouble! Huh?" New Zealand shook his head.
"NZ, WE FINALLY MADE PROGRESS AND YOU'RE PROTESTING?!" Australia tilted his head as he looked towards the abandoned building.
"Oh my God Canada... I didn't think you'd be the one to say it." New Zealand frowned as he crossed his arms. "You know what.. you three idiots go in the abandoned house.. I will go ahead and just stay here and keep guard y'know! Just to make sure."
"Okay, sure. You can do that." Fiji chuckled as he sighed. "You'll just have to stay here all alone."
New Zealand merely stayed silent as the other three began to make their way into the abandoned building. The darker area was... a lot larger than they originally thought.
"Alright." Canada clasped his hands together and looked at Australia and Fiji. "Both of you, go explore the hallway over there and I'll explore the hallway over here."
He pointed at the opposite direction the hall behind the two. They sighed and nodded.
"Alright, sure." Australia said. Canada watched them leave.
Once they were out of his sight, he walked into the hall he was supposed to explore. he spotted a few spiders and cracks in the walls before he stopped in front of a room. It didn't have a door so, he peeked through it. There, on the ground, was a small piece of fabric. He recognized the shade of the cloth to be the same shade as the tie UK would wear to formal events.
They all did a bit more searching, before regrouping at the brighter areas of the building. Canada stepped up to reveal what he found first.
"Alright since everybody is here I found some... evidence? relating to UK's disappearance." Canada pulled out the piece of fabric.
"It's just a piece of fabric?" Australia raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms
"This fabric is most likely to be the tie that UK would wear during events like meetings." Canada explained. "It appears to have been torn by tugging on it until it ripped apart. I'll check if UK attended any formal events before he was reported missing. Then we might be able to find the date he had gone missing."
"Ooh, we are making more progress." Australia nodded, before pulling out a few blue, white, and red shards, placed in a plastic bag. "Here's what I found."
"Aussie, those are literally just shards of... I dunno, plastic?" Fiji took a closer look at the shards, before gasping. "Oh. Nevermind."
"And... what exactly are those?" Canada tilted his head as he looked at the shards.
"When a country, or union is heavily damaged, their flag pretty much shatters." Australia responded. "You didn't know about that?"
"...Of course I know, I just didn't think that those actually would be UK's shards." Canada shook his head as he closed his eyes. This was pretty much the equivalent of finding blood on the floor, or bones.
"Oh shit. Should we keep searching?" Fiji asked as he sighed.
"Yeah! We're finding a lot so far." Australia nodded as he turned to look at Canada. "What do you think, Nada?"
"... Yeah, yeah. Let's keep searching." Canada responded as he opened his eyes. "You and Fiji will search that area over there, while I'll search over there."
"Okay. Got it." Australia turned towards the area they were supposed to be searching, while Fiji followed behind him.
As they all split up again to explore more of the building, the strange feeling had appeared. It sent shivers down Canada's spine and he gulped, walking into a new area.He spotted a few shards laying on the ground, almost like a trail, leading to a room.
He looked around, stepping into a large room, rows of tables scattered across the floor, they had writing on it that he couldn't understand from this far away. Before he had the chance to walk forward, he heard something.
"You have to leave." They had said, their voice being similar to Ontario.
Canada froze.
"...Ontario?" He spoke, confused. He thought something had stopped them from talking years ago. He thought he couldn't hear them in his head anymore. What had stopped that?
"He knows you're here." Another voice chimed in, similar to Nova Scotia.
"How are you able to talk to me?" Canada asked, ignoring what Nova Scotia had said. He heard another one sigh and talk.
"Leave." Quebec said. His breath stopped. He hasn't heard her voice in a long time as she had stopped pitching her ideas to his.
Suddenly, Canada felt a feeling as if something was running towards him, something he knew was dangerous. He gasped and sprinted in the other direction. He felt it beginning to catch up to him and he ran faster. He needed to get to the main room and meet up with the others. Was he even going to make it?
Canada leapt forward, reaching the line that separated the chamber and the corridor. He huffed as the feeling slowly began to disappear.
As he caught his breath, he called out.
"Quebec? Ontario? Nova Scotia?" Canada asked, wondering if he could still hear them. Instead of hearing any of his territories, he heard someone else reply.
"Dude—" Australia looked down at Canada's panicked form. "Who are you talking to?"
"Uh— No one. I thought I heard my territories talking..." Canada replied, waving a hand. He didn't want to tell them what he had experienced. He wasn't sure why. He felt some sort of... sticky feeling in his chest, like tar seeping through any bone or organ in his body, a feeling that made him want to vomit.
He stared down at the hallway and felt it stare back.
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edited due to spelling errors.
Okay so I honestly forgot about Wattpad for a while, and when I rediscovered this story, I decided to continue it
life has been kinda shitty for me so far so im really sorry for not updating for a while, also really sorry for the worse writing here, i haven't gotten the time to write much in the past couple months
i'll add art for this chapter once i get my drawing pad fixed, as it is currently broken
anyways, i hope you enjoyed the new chapter, please inform me of any spelling or grammar errors
edit: chapter art has been added!
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