Alfred was determined to go out like a hero. He stood strong, waiting for the sound of the trigger and the inevitable pain of death. He wondered, would death hurt as much as he thought? Or could it be a painless experience?

What was running through his mind at the thought of death? That was a good question. The first thing that popped into his mind at what might have been his last moments was his time as a child. He thought of Arthur, and all the times he'd spent with him. It almost gave him comfort to think of these times. Although it was strange, all the times they'd thought and argued and acted like they hated each other, now the thought of his older brother calmed him.

He thought of the time Arthur had given him his toy soldier set. He'd been so excited at the time and he'd play with them every day. He'd replay awesome battles Arthur told him about with the soldiers, and he'd make small sound effects with his mouth and throw them all over the place. Then he'd laugh and collect them all again. He'd always pick one to sleep with, to remind him of his big brother in his dreams.

Then his thoughts changed to the time he'd declared his rebellion with his first boss, Washington. He'd had doubts at first, but he was convinced they were doing the right thing. Did he have regrets as he was fighting his own brother on the battlefield? He asked himself that question himself sometimes, and he could never come up with an answer.

Visions flashed through his mind of all his times with Arthur, Francis, Ivan, Tony, Kiku, Yao, Feliciano, Ludwig, even Mathew. It was strange, he seemed to be the only one who ever saw him, and even then that was only half the time, but now at his death it seemed natural to remember him. Could this be the acceptance of death clearing his mind?

Alfred waited, but the bullet didn't come. He looked once again into the rearview mirror and saw the brown-haired man behind him staring at him with a psychotic look in his eyes, like he was about to shoot him, but he was frozen in time. The gun in his hand was shaking from anger, or possibly insanity, as he aimed it at his head.

He wondered, why would his double be so unwilling to take his life? Wasn't that his mission here? He passed the thought from his mind, he could think about it later, for now, there was only escape from the clutches of his firearm and escape death. He reached forward with lightning speed and put the car in gear, then floored the gas.

The jolt sent his double back, then as he pressed a button he opened the windows to his car. The open windows then blasted the 225 mph winds right into his 2P!s face, shooting him back into the seat behind him. He kept the gas going as the speedometer slowly crawled its way up the gauge. The winds inside the car were pushing down on the felt leather sets so hard that it was actually tearing at the leather, along with the skin of his counterpart.

The gun was pushed out of his hand as well and it had been blown out the back windows by the air flow. The empty back roads didn't delay him at all as the speedometer never dipped below 260 mph. He knew he needed a better plan than this, the air was starting to push him against his seat as well as he struggled to push his face forward, using all the strength in his reserves.

He knew he'd hit a more populated road soon, and as well as he was doing now, not too bad for this level speed, he knew the first moment cars started appearing he'd hit someone. As much as he wanted to face his 2P!, he knew he couldn't. He was starting to pass by houses, not many, but houses nonetheless. There were innocent people in their homes without a clue as to what was going on. He couldn't put their lives in danger as easily as his own, he only had one choice to get stop this fight before it begins.

It wasn't very heroic, he knew it, but it was his only choice to save the lives of innocents. Then again, the most heroic thing was to save others, and that was exactly what he was doing. He mounted up all the strength he could and reached over, his 2P! watching him closely, yet still unable to move due to the roaring winds.

He opened the glove compartment, the force of the winds nearly crushing his outstretched arm. He pulled the lever and as soon as he did, random papers he'd never thrown away flew around the car and into his and his 2P!s face. He feared that his moment of temporary blindness would cause them both to crash and die, but he lucked out and as soon as he removed the paper, he was able to veer right out of the path of a tree.

He couldn't look at the glove box, for his eyes had to be on the road at all times. Despite it being mostly straight runs, there were a few turns he had to be wary of. He'd left what he was looking for there a while ago and hoped he'd never have to use it, the thought of it might have made him cry, but the winds blowing against his face made that almost impossible. On the inside door to the glove box was a small keypad with a dial-pad code to it. It was the code he used for everything, and he never told anyone, not even under life-or-death circumstances.

It was an explosive, wired throughout the whole car to explode at any preset time. The winds threatened to force his hand away from the keypad and enter a wrong number, which would cause automatic detonation. He managed to keep his hand steady for the most part, feeling at the numbers on the keys and pressing each one individually.

He was starting to pass by more houses now, eventually he'd start finding cars and then it'd be impossible to drive at this speed. He entered his code, S-A-R-A-T-O-G-A, the time when he truly announced his presence as a nation. Nobody else knew this code, nor would anyone know it, but him.

The panel read "Code Accepted," and asked for a detonation time. The winds were cutting at both of them now. The other's jacket was nearly torn to shreds at the force of the wind and it was now starting to pierce his flesh. With the pressure on him for so long he made a move to reach up to Alfred, to stop him, but received a quick and brutal elbow in the nose, sending him falling back into his seat, blood now pouring from his face.

Alfred received a look of pure and utter hate from his 2P!, but it didn't matter. Rushing his hands now, he set the time for thirty seconds, and started the timer. It started counting down; twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven, he had to get out.

He reached over and unlocked his door, using all his might to push it open. His 2P! reached up again, but only received another punch in the nose from Alfred. As he cried out in pain, the sounds of the wind nearly drowning him out. The blood poured onto the black leather seats, but it didn't matter now, the seats themselves would not last much longer now.

Alfred reached over to the gear shift, and set it to neutral to keep it driving at the same speed he had it. He then stood up and leaned out the car door, threatening to push him to the ground before he'd composed himself. Then, with one last look back at his car that he loved so much he jumped onto the asphalt.

Maybe jumping onto the asphalt of a back road from a car that was going over 260 mph wasn't the brightest idea he'd ever had. Then again, when was the last good idea he had? His legs collided with the asphalt, then his arms, finally he rolled across the road at an incredible speed, doing his best to slow himself down, but not doing such a good job of that.

Finally he stopped, his arms and legs were bleeding and he was almost sure he had a broken rib or two. He was lucky it was only that, or maybe it was the fact he almost never broke bones. It could have been the fact that he drank milk every day, or maybe his strength keeping his bones in a protective case, or maybe that he was just a lucky son of a bitch, but in any case he wasn't seriously injured.

He lay there on his hands and knees and turned his neck to watch his car drive off into the distance. He counted down the seconds in his head. "Five… Four… Three… two…" He waited, and then, a huge flash of fire and smoke erupted from his precious car. It engulfed surrounding foliage in a firestorm of death and destruction in an almost beautiful fashion.

Luckily, there had been no civilian houses around, but something strange was inside the flames. A face, the face of a skull was inside them. He stared at it and it seemed to stare straight back, and even though he knew exactly what had happened, he couldn't believe it himself. He remembered back to the world meeting room, when he'd slammed his bat down on the ground and they'd erupted in flames, disappearing.

Now here he was, trying to kill him with flames he should have known, but he had no time. He tried to stand up, to face him, but he heard his rib crack beneath him and fell to the ground again, only one hand holding himself up. He'd destroyed his car for nothing, he'd only prolonged his death from Allan's hands.

He looked over, his eyes half-closed from the pain of a broken limb. He watched the flames envelope into the form of Allan above him, a broken picture, but still recognizable. The form watched him, and then just as Alfred awaited the burning sensation of flame and smoke, as opposed to the bullet he'd faced earlier, neither did this pain come. Alfred's 2P! simply disappeared, leaving behind only smoke and the burnt wreckage of his car.

He was curious, why had Allan not killed him? Was his double just as wounded as himself? Has the blast effected him, and he only managed to escape at the last moment? It would explain why the form was broken, but would he come back? It didn't matter right now, all that mattered was getting to safety. He tried to stand once again, but heard the crunch of bone beneath his flesh and fell toward the ground, landing on his face and breaking his glasses.

Now he was nearly blinded by the combination of losing his glasses, his head slamming onto the ground, and shards of glass possibly slashing his eyes. He lay there in pain, he wasn't dying, but he would be if he didn't get up soon. He blinked repeatedly, trying to regain his vision. Luckily the broken glass had missed his eyes by only a hair, literally. They'd been caught by his eyelashes and now fell to the ground in front of his eyes as he blinked.

He pushed his hand toward the ground once more, forcing his body up. He forced as much as he could, he felt his body lose contact with the ground. Then his thighs, until he was on all fours again. With a sweep of his leg, he brought one up, then pushed his hands off the ground so that he was in a kneeling position. He ignored the massive pain in his ribs and closed his eyes, breathing in and out, preparing himself.

With one final heave, his other knee lifted from the ground until he was standing. He then extended his arms to gain balance, before taking a moment to instill his surroundings. The closest houses were one hundred meters in either direction and both just happened to be uphill, lucky him.

He began to walk toward the house opposite the burning wreckage, best, whoever he met first not be met with the sight of flames and burning trees in their front yard, they'd think he's some kind of criminal the way he looks. On top of that, he didn't think he could stand the sight of seeing his beautiful car that he'd spent so much time on, destroyed as it was.

As he started walking he received a jolt of pain from his left leg, he'd either twisted or sprained it, but either way it was only going to be more inconvenience on his nice long walk uphill. With his current run of luck he wouldn't be expecting anyone to walk outside and help him either, most people in rural areas like this would prefer to stay inside their houses when they heard something of the sort.

He limped up the hill, forcing himself to stay upright. He placed a hand over his rib to prevent it from moving too much inside him. Every step sent a shock of pain up his leg, and he simply prayed that the his leg would go numb and the pain would stop. He kept walking, but the house didn't seem any closer to him, it might have been the need for it making it seem no closer, or perhaps Allan had put him in an eternal illusion so he would continue walking forever and get nowhere, in any case, it wasn't all that great for his moral.

Then he began to hear something, just on the edge of his audible capacities. At first, he assumed it was nothing, a hallucination brought upon by hitting his head on the ground too hard. Then as it became louder, he stopped in his tracks, looking around for any possible source. Then, above the trees he saw a faint black dot against the sky, then as it grew larger, as did the sound coming from it.

As it came into sight it became clear what it was, it was a pure black chopper with the insignia for the United Nations on it, then in the pilot seats were Arthur and Francis, both of whom were looking directly at him. They began to slow their speed as they neared the road, the smoke from his car acting as a beacon for them to land.

Alfred watched them, an enormous smile on his face forming. He wouldn't have to walk all that way, his brother had come, as had Francis. Perhaps this had something do with his thoughts before in his car, and in the back of his mind he made a vow to never speak those thoughts aloud, and God himself forbid in front of Arthur.

As they landed the chopper, Francis opened the side as Arthur nodded from the pilot's seat. They were both wearing standard pilot uniforms and the helmets to go with them, despite Francis likely rejecting it beforehand, for fear it would mess up his hair. As he jumped out of the chopper he threw the helmet aside, his hair that seemingly stayed eternally stylish was in a mess at the sudden removal of his helmet.

That didn't seem to bother him, he sprinted forward and took Alfred's arm around his neck, taking the pressure off his sprained ankle. He was so grateful for this as Francis led him toward the chopper. The blades on the chopper continued to spin, blowing air towards them, but not enough to blow them over or lift the chopper. Then again, after the 270 mph winds of his car, this was like a light summer breeze to him.

Francis was speaking to him, but the sound was drowned out by the sound of the engines and the blades cutting apart the air around them. He didn't care what he said anyway, all he cared was that he was here, and as was Arthur. He helped him into the chopper and onto a stretcher waiting for him. He pushed it away though and simply sat on the bench on the other side of the chopper.

Arthur peered from the pilot's seat to Francis, who closed the doors and nodded. He started up the engines once again and they took off, leaving the scene of destruction behind them. Now that he was in the safety of the chopper, the only thing on his mind was how he would deal with his 2P! the next time they met, and how he'd get revenge for being snuck up on.