USUK One Week Anniversary Prompt 5
Quote Prompt: To love would be an awfully big adventure - JM Barrie. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get any other prompts done by tomorrow, which is a shame, but I'll try.
Alfred Jone's Temple of Doom: America is so close to finding the treasure he's been searching for...if only he can survive the final challenges.
Word Count: 2,332
America and Lithuania entered the decaying temple, keeping an eye out for any ancient booby traps lying around.
“Mr. America, are you sure it’s in here?”
“Yup! If you take into account all of the evidence and clues we’ve found up to this point, this is the only place it could be.”
“I’ve been thinking though…is it really worth going through all this trouble just to get…that?”
America stopped walking and turned to face his companion. “That is worth any and all trouble I have to go through, no matter what.”
“Mr. America, please be reasonable, you could lose your life in here!”
“And even then it would be worth it! We’re so close right now. We can’t just give up after coming all this way because of something like death!”
“…This place is probably haunted…”
America shivered. “E-even so…it’s still totally worth it. This is the greatest treasure in the world and until now, no one has been able to get at it. I’m going to be the first, and I’m not giving it up without a fight.”
“If you insist…”
They walked into the first room where the door immediately shut behind them. The room itself was rather small, but tall, as the walls extended several hundred feet above their heads and there was no ceiling, just the night sky looking in on them. The floor was actually grass with a large circle of flowers in the center, and the walls were covered with moss, giving the room an outdoorsy feel. Around them they could hear the light laughing of thousands of tiny creatures, yet could see none of them.
“It was rumored,” Lithuania said, “that this place is heavily guarded by fairies and strong, ancient magic…”
“I’m not afraid of magic. We need to figure out how to open the door on the other side.” He charged forward.
As soon as he stepped into the circle of flowers, America felt something tug at his legs, forcing him to stop, and at his arms, dragging him towards the center.
“Something’s got me!” he shouted.
“It’s the fairies! Remember what Mr. Norway said? You have to ask them for help!”
“I don’t need their help!”
“They supposedly know more about the treasure than anyone else! Sometimes you just have to accept these things, Mr. America! Appeal to them! Speak from your heart!”
“But I…ugh, fine. Excuse me, fairy-things,” he stopped being dragged, but the invisible grips on his limbs tightened, “uh, I can’t see you…but I know you’re there, so please listen. I know the treasure you’re protecting is precious to you, and you care about it very deeply and don’t want it in the wrong hands, but it’s precious to me too! I don’t want to see it lost or broken any more than you do. But, I can’t just leave it hidden away for the rest of its existence…I need it. I’ve always needed it I suppose…it just took me so long to realize it. So please! You don’t have to help me I guess, but at least don’t hinder me in my quest!”
Nothing happened for a good five seconds before suddenly America felt his arms and legs be released. He stumbled forward at the unexpectedness of it as Lithuania rushed forward to help him. After the both left the circle and made it across the room to the door, one of the fairies showed herself to them.
“You may call me Miss Fairy,” she explained, “We have judged you, and have decided that your heart is pure and your intentions are good, America. I will help you when I can in the challenges ahead, but be warned, there is nothing I can do if your will wavers along the way.” At a snap of her fingers to door opened.
“My will won’t waver.”
“He means to say thank you very much, Miss Fairy. Any help to get us out of here alive is most appreciated.”
“Even with my help, there’s no guarantee that you’ll come out of this alive,” she smirked. Lithuania paled.
“HAHA! It wouldn’t be worth it if it wasn’t this dangerous! Let’s go!”
The next room they entered was pitch-black when the door shut, save for the pedestal on the far side by the other door. A light seemed to admit from it so they could clearly see what was on it.
“Scones?” Lithuania asked.
“Scones,” Miss Fairy agreed.
“So…do I have to, like…?”
“Yes. The door won’t open until every last scone is gone.”
America and Lithuania looked at the scones, then at each other, and simultaneously shuddered.
“Are you going to help us, Miss Fairy?” Lithuania asked.
“Are you nuts? Those could kill me! Good luck though.”
“You don’t have to eat any, Lithuania.”
“Mr. America, don’t be a fool! There’s no way even someone with your horrible food sense can make it through all those scones alive! There must be a dozen in there.”
“Baker’s dozen actually,” Miss Fairy corrected.
“It’s fine. I’m the one who wants the treasure anyway. You shouldn’t be forced through that torture for trying to help me…besides you’ve done more than enough already.”
“Mr. America…good luck”
He gave his friend his best Hollywood smile before turning back to the scones and steeling himself for what he was about to do.
It’s worth it, he kept repeating over and over again, It’s worth it it’s worth it it’s worth it…
He took a deep breath and started shoveling the scones into his mouth.
America woke up sometime later lying on the tiled floor of a different room. The moonlight lit up this room, revealing a large ceiling held up by several columns along the room’s edges. As he sat up, he noticed cage in the middle of the room. Inside the cage was Lithuania and Miss Fairy.
“Mr. America! You’re alive!”
“Yeah…why are you in a cage?” he stood up and walked forward, still a bit dazed.
“No don’t!” Too late. As soon as America got within a foot of the cage, three statues on the side of the room sprang to life and attacked him. America barely had time to dodge out of the way.
“Those are the Ancient Guardians!” Miss Fairy shouted, “The Scottish Guardian, the Welsh Guardian, and the Irish Guardian! They’ve been protecting the treasure since before the temple was built, and they won’t go easy on anyone who tries to steal it, no matter what your intentions are!”
America dodged skillfully as they triple teamed him again. “So I just have to beat ‘em? No problem!” He jumped out of the way of another set of blows and crouched down to pull out his gun.
“NO! YOU CAN’T!!” Miss Fairy screamed at him. “They’re too connected! If you beat them, then you forfeit the treasure forever!”
“WHAT!?!” He put his gun away and dodged to the right as they attacked again. “Then how are we supposed to get out of here?”
“I can open the door, but I need the key to the cage.”
“And where’s that?”
“…One of them has it.”
“How am I supposed to get it from them if I can’t beat them up?!”
“I don’t know! Don’t yell at me like that!”
“Mr. America,” Lithuania chimed in, “I’ve been thinking…you remember what Mr. Prussia said to you that one time?”
America ducked under a fist, flipped backwards to avoid a kick, and jumped to the right to avoid a head-butt. “Um…when was this? Prussia says a lot of things.”
“That time when you punched him in the face. He said that sometimes when someone intrudes on something precious to you, you just want to hit something out of frustration because people, nations and I guess, don’t like to share.”
“Yeah, and then I punched him in the face,” another dodge to the left and a quick roll out of the way. “He deserved it! Canada’s too good for him anyway.”
“Yes but after you punched him you gave them your consent. It’s the same thing here! Mr. Canada is precious to you, right? Well, this treasure is precious to the guardians as well!”
“So, you’re saying I should let them beat me up?”
“It’s worth a try…”
America sighed before silently agreeing and standing still, waiting for the inevitable blows.
And come they did. Miss Fairy wasn’t kidding when she said that they wouldn’t hold back. By the time they were finished, America had cuts and bruises on every part of his body, a broken nose, several missing teeth, and too many cracked ribs to count. Somehow he still remained standing on his own will.
This apparently impressed the guardians, who gave each other a nod. One went to open the door while another went to unlock a cage. The third clapped America on the back for a job well done, which caused him to collapse in his weakened state, but Lithuania was there to catch him.
“Mr. America! Are you alright? Can you stand?”
“Y-yes, I should be fine…”
“Hang on, I’ll heal you,” Miss Fairy started flying around his head, chest, and legs and soon America was completely healed.
“Thank you. I don’t trust these guys to start randomly attacking me again though, so we should keep moving.” The others agreed, and the three of them quickly left the room behind.
The last room was the treasure room, and America could see it, right over there just out of reach, behind the giant wall of ice. All he had to do to get over there was get through the huge rainstorm, complete with copious amounts of thunder, lightning, wind, and rain, which seemed to only exist in this room.
“These are the temple’s natural defenses,” Miss Fairy explained, “Very few people have gotten this far, and no one as of yet has been able to survive.”
“Looks like you need to get some of the fire in these lanterns across the room to melt the ice wall, Mr. America,” Lithuania deducted, “but with that storm in between, it looks like that’s impossible.”
“Improbable,” America corrected, “Just because it looks hard doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”
“You should be proud you’ve gotten yourself this far,” Miss Fairy said, “No one would think less of you if you backed out now. It’s not worth your life.”
“Yes, it is. I’ve made it this far, I can’t just give up now!” He looked around the room for anything that could help him. “It looks like this is the only fire in the room.”
“It is.”
“But if I try to take it across, the rain will put it out, so I guess I can’t melt the ice wall.”
“You just said you weren’t-”
“I said I couldn’t melt it, but like hell am I going to let some damn ice stand between me and my treasure. I’ll tear that damn wall down myself.”
“Mr. America you can’t-”
“If I’m not strong enough to tear down a wall in the middle of one of the worst storms I’ve ever encountered, then I don’t deserve the treasure. Lithuania, Miss Fairy, you stay here; you’ve done enough already.”
“Mr. America…” he nodded, “yes, I understand…I’ll try to make sure Mr. Russia doesn’t dance on your grave should if you don’t make it back.”
“That’s all I could ask for.” Without thinking of much else except getting through the storm and breaking down that wall, America charged ahead.
He got lost and confused several times, soaked through to the bone almost instantly, almost strike by lightning at least six times, possible more he lost count, and may have gone deaf due to the thunder, but eventually he did make it across to the wall of ice.
A quick look back discovered that he couldn’t see Lithuania or the door anymore, but that didn’t matter; he needed to look ahead and focus. America took a deep breath and started punching the wall.
The storm hadn’t sapped him of all his strength, and he was making progress. Ice has the unfortunate tendency to shatter and as a result, ended up cutting up his hands and arms and face when it started flying everywhere, but that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that after the first minute of punching the wall he couldn’t feel his hands anymore. When they finally gave out he resorted to kicking at it or head-butting it, or whatever he needed to do to destroy the wall and get his most precious treasure.
America had lost track of the time, it could have been five minutes or five days, but eventually with one final kick the wall shattered into a million pieces.
“I…did it,” he started laughing, quietly at first, but it got louder and louder until it was booming off the walls. “I did it!”
He sauntered forward, ignoring the cuts on his still numb hands, climbed up the plateau, and grabbed his treasure off the pedestal.
He finally had it, finally had what he had spent his entire life searching for, even if he didn’t always know it, even if he lost his way sometimes.
He finally had England’s Heart.
Suddenly the temple started shaking around him.
“Mr. America!” The storm had let up and Lithuania ran towards him, “Mr. England is quite the tsundere! He’s not going to let you just waltz out of here now that you have what you’ve been searching for!”
“Let’s go!” he jumped down from the plateau and ran for the door, Lithuania at his heels, “How lame would it be if we died after finally getting what we came for?”
***
“That’s not what happened,” England stated.
“Of course it’s not exactly what happened…it was much harder than that,” America countered, “but your brothers did beat me up.”
“And I’m sure you went so easy on Prussia and everything,” he sighed, “I do hope the story doesn’t end there though…”
“I dunno feel like sticking around and finding out?”
“With you, America, forever.”
A/N: Lame ending is lame. And looking back, it probably would have made more sense if Japan was America's sidekick, but I just can't get the image of Lithuania following America half-way across the globe on an epic Indian Jones type adventure.
Alfred Jone's Temple of Doom: America is so close to finding the treasure he's been searching for...if only he can survive the final challenges.
Word Count: 2,332
America and Lithuania entered the decaying temple, keeping an eye out for any ancient booby traps lying around.
“Mr. America, are you sure it’s in here?”
“Yup! If you take into account all of the evidence and clues we’ve found up to this point, this is the only place it could be.”
“I’ve been thinking though…is it really worth going through all this trouble just to get…that?”
America stopped walking and turned to face his companion. “That is worth any and all trouble I have to go through, no matter what.”
“Mr. America, please be reasonable, you could lose your life in here!”
“And even then it would be worth it! We’re so close right now. We can’t just give up after coming all this way because of something like death!”
“…This place is probably haunted…”
America shivered. “E-even so…it’s still totally worth it. This is the greatest treasure in the world and until now, no one has been able to get at it. I’m going to be the first, and I’m not giving it up without a fight.”
“If you insist…”
They walked into the first room where the door immediately shut behind them. The room itself was rather small, but tall, as the walls extended several hundred feet above their heads and there was no ceiling, just the night sky looking in on them. The floor was actually grass with a large circle of flowers in the center, and the walls were covered with moss, giving the room an outdoorsy feel. Around them they could hear the light laughing of thousands of tiny creatures, yet could see none of them.
“It was rumored,” Lithuania said, “that this place is heavily guarded by fairies and strong, ancient magic…”
“I’m not afraid of magic. We need to figure out how to open the door on the other side.” He charged forward.
As soon as he stepped into the circle of flowers, America felt something tug at his legs, forcing him to stop, and at his arms, dragging him towards the center.
“Something’s got me!” he shouted.
“It’s the fairies! Remember what Mr. Norway said? You have to ask them for help!”
“I don’t need their help!”
“They supposedly know more about the treasure than anyone else! Sometimes you just have to accept these things, Mr. America! Appeal to them! Speak from your heart!”
“But I…ugh, fine. Excuse me, fairy-things,” he stopped being dragged, but the invisible grips on his limbs tightened, “uh, I can’t see you…but I know you’re there, so please listen. I know the treasure you’re protecting is precious to you, and you care about it very deeply and don’t want it in the wrong hands, but it’s precious to me too! I don’t want to see it lost or broken any more than you do. But, I can’t just leave it hidden away for the rest of its existence…I need it. I’ve always needed it I suppose…it just took me so long to realize it. So please! You don’t have to help me I guess, but at least don’t hinder me in my quest!”
Nothing happened for a good five seconds before suddenly America felt his arms and legs be released. He stumbled forward at the unexpectedness of it as Lithuania rushed forward to help him. After the both left the circle and made it across the room to the door, one of the fairies showed herself to them.
“You may call me Miss Fairy,” she explained, “We have judged you, and have decided that your heart is pure and your intentions are good, America. I will help you when I can in the challenges ahead, but be warned, there is nothing I can do if your will wavers along the way.” At a snap of her fingers to door opened.
“My will won’t waver.”
“He means to say thank you very much, Miss Fairy. Any help to get us out of here alive is most appreciated.”
“Even with my help, there’s no guarantee that you’ll come out of this alive,” she smirked. Lithuania paled.
“HAHA! It wouldn’t be worth it if it wasn’t this dangerous! Let’s go!”
The next room they entered was pitch-black when the door shut, save for the pedestal on the far side by the other door. A light seemed to admit from it so they could clearly see what was on it.
“Scones?” Lithuania asked.
“Scones,” Miss Fairy agreed.
“So…do I have to, like…?”
“Yes. The door won’t open until every last scone is gone.”
America and Lithuania looked at the scones, then at each other, and simultaneously shuddered.
“Are you going to help us, Miss Fairy?” Lithuania asked.
“Are you nuts? Those could kill me! Good luck though.”
“You don’t have to eat any, Lithuania.”
“Mr. America, don’t be a fool! There’s no way even someone with your horrible food sense can make it through all those scones alive! There must be a dozen in there.”
“Baker’s dozen actually,” Miss Fairy corrected.
“It’s fine. I’m the one who wants the treasure anyway. You shouldn’t be forced through that torture for trying to help me…besides you’ve done more than enough already.”
“Mr. America…good luck”
He gave his friend his best Hollywood smile before turning back to the scones and steeling himself for what he was about to do.
It’s worth it, he kept repeating over and over again, It’s worth it it’s worth it it’s worth it…
He took a deep breath and started shoveling the scones into his mouth.
America woke up sometime later lying on the tiled floor of a different room. The moonlight lit up this room, revealing a large ceiling held up by several columns along the room’s edges. As he sat up, he noticed cage in the middle of the room. Inside the cage was Lithuania and Miss Fairy.
“Mr. America! You’re alive!”
“Yeah…why are you in a cage?” he stood up and walked forward, still a bit dazed.
“No don’t!” Too late. As soon as America got within a foot of the cage, three statues on the side of the room sprang to life and attacked him. America barely had time to dodge out of the way.
“Those are the Ancient Guardians!” Miss Fairy shouted, “The Scottish Guardian, the Welsh Guardian, and the Irish Guardian! They’ve been protecting the treasure since before the temple was built, and they won’t go easy on anyone who tries to steal it, no matter what your intentions are!”
America dodged skillfully as they triple teamed him again. “So I just have to beat ‘em? No problem!” He jumped out of the way of another set of blows and crouched down to pull out his gun.
“NO! YOU CAN’T!!” Miss Fairy screamed at him. “They’re too connected! If you beat them, then you forfeit the treasure forever!”
“WHAT!?!” He put his gun away and dodged to the right as they attacked again. “Then how are we supposed to get out of here?”
“I can open the door, but I need the key to the cage.”
“And where’s that?”
“…One of them has it.”
“How am I supposed to get it from them if I can’t beat them up?!”
“I don’t know! Don’t yell at me like that!”
“Mr. America,” Lithuania chimed in, “I’ve been thinking…you remember what Mr. Prussia said to you that one time?”
America ducked under a fist, flipped backwards to avoid a kick, and jumped to the right to avoid a head-butt. “Um…when was this? Prussia says a lot of things.”
“That time when you punched him in the face. He said that sometimes when someone intrudes on something precious to you, you just want to hit something out of frustration because people, nations and I guess, don’t like to share.”
“Yeah, and then I punched him in the face,” another dodge to the left and a quick roll out of the way. “He deserved it! Canada’s too good for him anyway.”
“Yes but after you punched him you gave them your consent. It’s the same thing here! Mr. Canada is precious to you, right? Well, this treasure is precious to the guardians as well!”
“So, you’re saying I should let them beat me up?”
“It’s worth a try…”
America sighed before silently agreeing and standing still, waiting for the inevitable blows.
And come they did. Miss Fairy wasn’t kidding when she said that they wouldn’t hold back. By the time they were finished, America had cuts and bruises on every part of his body, a broken nose, several missing teeth, and too many cracked ribs to count. Somehow he still remained standing on his own will.
This apparently impressed the guardians, who gave each other a nod. One went to open the door while another went to unlock a cage. The third clapped America on the back for a job well done, which caused him to collapse in his weakened state, but Lithuania was there to catch him.
“Mr. America! Are you alright? Can you stand?”
“Y-yes, I should be fine…”
“Hang on, I’ll heal you,” Miss Fairy started flying around his head, chest, and legs and soon America was completely healed.
“Thank you. I don’t trust these guys to start randomly attacking me again though, so we should keep moving.” The others agreed, and the three of them quickly left the room behind.
The last room was the treasure room, and America could see it, right over there just out of reach, behind the giant wall of ice. All he had to do to get over there was get through the huge rainstorm, complete with copious amounts of thunder, lightning, wind, and rain, which seemed to only exist in this room.
“These are the temple’s natural defenses,” Miss Fairy explained, “Very few people have gotten this far, and no one as of yet has been able to survive.”
“Looks like you need to get some of the fire in these lanterns across the room to melt the ice wall, Mr. America,” Lithuania deducted, “but with that storm in between, it looks like that’s impossible.”
“Improbable,” America corrected, “Just because it looks hard doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”
“You should be proud you’ve gotten yourself this far,” Miss Fairy said, “No one would think less of you if you backed out now. It’s not worth your life.”
“Yes, it is. I’ve made it this far, I can’t just give up now!” He looked around the room for anything that could help him. “It looks like this is the only fire in the room.”
“It is.”
“But if I try to take it across, the rain will put it out, so I guess I can’t melt the ice wall.”
“You just said you weren’t-”
“I said I couldn’t melt it, but like hell am I going to let some damn ice stand between me and my treasure. I’ll tear that damn wall down myself.”
“Mr. America you can’t-”
“If I’m not strong enough to tear down a wall in the middle of one of the worst storms I’ve ever encountered, then I don’t deserve the treasure. Lithuania, Miss Fairy, you stay here; you’ve done enough already.”
“Mr. America…” he nodded, “yes, I understand…I’ll try to make sure Mr. Russia doesn’t dance on your grave should if you don’t make it back.”
“That’s all I could ask for.” Without thinking of much else except getting through the storm and breaking down that wall, America charged ahead.
He got lost and confused several times, soaked through to the bone almost instantly, almost strike by lightning at least six times, possible more he lost count, and may have gone deaf due to the thunder, but eventually he did make it across to the wall of ice.
A quick look back discovered that he couldn’t see Lithuania or the door anymore, but that didn’t matter; he needed to look ahead and focus. America took a deep breath and started punching the wall.
The storm hadn’t sapped him of all his strength, and he was making progress. Ice has the unfortunate tendency to shatter and as a result, ended up cutting up his hands and arms and face when it started flying everywhere, but that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that after the first minute of punching the wall he couldn’t feel his hands anymore. When they finally gave out he resorted to kicking at it or head-butting it, or whatever he needed to do to destroy the wall and get his most precious treasure.
America had lost track of the time, it could have been five minutes or five days, but eventually with one final kick the wall shattered into a million pieces.
“I…did it,” he started laughing, quietly at first, but it got louder and louder until it was booming off the walls. “I did it!”
He sauntered forward, ignoring the cuts on his still numb hands, climbed up the plateau, and grabbed his treasure off the pedestal.
He finally had it, finally had what he had spent his entire life searching for, even if he didn’t always know it, even if he lost his way sometimes.
He finally had England’s Heart.
Suddenly the temple started shaking around him.
“Mr. America!” The storm had let up and Lithuania ran towards him, “Mr. England is quite the tsundere! He’s not going to let you just waltz out of here now that you have what you’ve been searching for!”
“Let’s go!” he jumped down from the plateau and ran for the door, Lithuania at his heels, “How lame would it be if we died after finally getting what we came for?”
***
“That’s not what happened,” England stated.
“Of course it’s not exactly what happened…it was much harder than that,” America countered, “but your brothers did beat me up.”
“And I’m sure you went so easy on Prussia and everything,” he sighed, “I do hope the story doesn’t end there though…”
“I dunno feel like sticking around and finding out?”
“With you, America, forever.”
A/N: Lame ending is lame. And looking back, it probably would have made more sense if Japan was America's sidekick, but I just can't get the image of Lithuania following America half-way across the globe on an epic Indian Jones type adventure.