M

"WAIT WHAT!!!" Mandara shouted, causing everyone to turn to him. 

They all gave him strange looks since he was a foreign winged country in Germany, but Mandara shouldered his way to the front to confront the curator, "What do they mean lost, how could you possibly lose my father's crown?" 

Saying that was a big mistake, because all the reporters started targeting their questions at Mandara. MA saw this happen as he got out of the car and ran over to try and help his brother away from the reporters.

L

When Germany got the crowd, his presence also drew the attention of reporters. They asked him, "Mr. Germany, how did this happen? Was the Crown stolen? Do you have any solid leads? How long has the Crown been missing for? How will this affect Germany's newly-formed relationship with Mandara?" 

 They were asking Mandara, "Mr. Mandara, given your reaction two days ago upon seeing the Crown, how do you feel now? Where were you? Do you have any ideas as to who would take your Crown and why? Is this a conspiracy from unknown enemies following your recent trade alliance with Germany?"

M

Mandara was very overwhelmed, sure he was used to talking to the press back in his country, but this was so sudden and unexpected that he was rendered speechless. MA had made his way to Mandara and positioned himself in between the reporters and his brother. With MA there, Mandara felt safe enough to try and answer a few questions.

"Everyone please listen, I had no idea that the crown was missing and I don't know who would want to take it. But rest assured, I am certain Germany has his best investigators on the case and my brother and I will do everything we can to help as well."

L

"Is this true, Mr. Germany?" The reporters, having heard Mandara's answer, turned on their own country for a response. 

 Germany was busy answering the first round of questions. "I had no idea this had occurred. If it was stolen, we will find it and return it to its rightful owner. Whoever is behind this is attempting to sow divide between our two countries, and I will not let that happen." 

Then the reporters coming from Mandara started to crowd around him and Germany got a little nervous from the pressure. 

"J-Ja, we will have our best investigators on this case. In fact, my Uncle Wehrmacht is already in the museum searching as we speak."

As if on cue, Wehrmacht burst from the museum doors. Several reporters broke off to swarm him but instantly recoiled when he spread out his wings and shot them a red-eyed glare. He despised the press. 

 "Germany, we need to talk," Wehrmacht said, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder.

"Dad!" Iremacht pushed through the crowd. "Can I come? I can help - " 

 "Nein," Wehrmacht said to his son as Germany jogged up the steps and into the museum. "You stay here with Mandara and MA. Call Bundeswehr so he can clear these camera crews." 

M

Mandara and MA looked at each other upon seeing how angry Wehr was, then Mandara walked closer to the militant, "Wait, I'm coming too, Thunder you stay with Iremacht." 

 MA's eyes widened, "No, if your going then I'm going with you." 

 "Thunder I need you to stay here, someones got to stay with Iremacht" Mandara said, but MA retorted, "Trigger I'm not a babysitter, I am your militant entity, I'm supp-" 

"And I am ordering you as my militant entity to keep an eye on Iremacht" Mandara interrupted, keeping his voice calm so as not to rile up his brother. 

 MA didn't like that he was left to babysit, but being the compliant militant he was, he stood up straight, saluted Mandara, and walked over to Iremacht. 

 With MA out of the way, Mandara turned back to Wehr, "What is it Wehrmacht, have you found something?"

L

Wehrmacht didn't answer Mandara right away; he led them inside first so the reporters wouldn't hear them. As he turned towards Mandara, he caught Germany's eye and a brief message seemed to pass between the two. 

 "We're on the case," Wehrmacht said to Mandara. "So far, we don't think the Crown has been stolen. Just misplaced. I've got the workers scouring every inch of this museum for it. And if Germany doesn't fire the curator after this, I definitely will." 

 Germany just hummed. "So there's nothing to panic about." 

 "Not at the moment," Wehrmacht said slowly. Once again, the two Germans met each others' eyes. Wehrmacht narrowed his.  

M

Mandara eye darted between the two, there was a palpable tension in the air that even a non winged country could sense. 

 Mandara has had enough "Ok, what is going on here, ever since I had discovered the crown there has been nothing but tension between you two, and you Germany, there is something that your not telling me or Wehrmacht apparently. Ever since today started your phone has been vibrating non stop, I could feel it in my wings, and it has hardly done that the previous days. You said out there that you didn't know anything about the crown's disappearance, but Wehrmacht had to have told you at some point."

L

"He didn't tell me," said Germany at the same time Wehrmacht said, "I didn't tell him." 

Wehrmacht spoke next. "This was a sudden case. I thought I could find it quickly but it's beginning to get out of hand. I was about to call Germany - " 

 "You did call me," Germany said. "I felt vibrations from my phone while on the car." 

 "Must've been one of the museum workers who finally decided to report it to you," Wehrmacht finished smoothly. 

Then Germany addressed Mandara's concern over his ringing phone with a practiced answer, "Like I mentioned before, my chancellor is very paranoid. She sends me texts about her political troubles even though she knows I refuse to get involved. And naturally, there would be tension between my Uncle and I." To reinforce that point, Germany turned to Wehrmacht. "If it's about the retirement, I know I hurt you. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to." 

 Wehrmacht shrugged along. "It was about time."

M

Mandara continued to stare at the Germans, he had so many questions jumbled in his mind that he couldn't find the words to voice them. 

 He did eventually speak, "O-ok, so what do we do now? Thunder and I kind of promised Iremacht that we would take him to a shooting range that Bundeswehr was at, but I can't in good consciousness leave when my father's crown is missing, it's the only thing I have left of him."

L

Germany nodded. He understood Mandara's concern and wishes to stay, although that would...complicate things. Germany glanced at his watch. He just had to hold out for a bit longer. 

 "The shooting range can wait," Wehrmacht reassured Mandara. "I'm sure the kid won't mind; he's probably as preoccupied with our problem as you are. If you want, you can help me. The workers are searching the first floor. I'll go up to the second floor - I highly doubt it's up there but worth checking at this point. You and Germany can go to the storage downstairs. You might have higher chances if someone happened to have lost it in the amount of antiques we've got down there."

M

Mandara nodded, "That sounds good, I'll even go get MA and Iremacht to help." Mandara then frowned when he mentioned Iremacht, "On second though, Iremacht will just watch, because I don't trust him handling antiques, but I also don't trust him being unsupervised. But other than that, I'll go get them, see you down there Germany." he said, softly nudging Germany before running outside to find Iremacht and MA.

L

"Bundeswehr, get your butt over here, we've got a situation," Iremacht was shouting through the phone. "Mandara's Crown is missing and the press is here." He winced as all the reporters converged on MA since Mandara, Wehrmacht, and Germany weren't there. 

 Just as he shut the phone, Iremacht spotted Mandara coming out and yelled, "Hey, what's going on in there? Can we go inside?" 

--------------

 Meanwhile, once Mandara was out of sight and Wehrmacht had gone upstairs, Germany dashed to the storage room. It was a humongous place with shelves and shelves of jars and chests and weird objects of all sizes. Germany went straight for the door at the very back. He knocked in a pattern on the door. It opened to reveal a museum worker, who held up the OK sign. Germany nodded and shut the door.

M

Mandara looked towards Iremacht, "Yes we can, I'll explain everything inside, Thunder come on." 

MA gladly obeyed and ran inside with Mandara and Iremacht. Mandara closed the doors when everyone was inside so the press wouldn't follow them. He then went to explaining, "Ok, so from what we understand, the crown was just misplaced thank the Gods. But with that being said, the three of us are joining Germany to search the downstairs storage." 

 He gave Iremacht a serious look, "Iremacht, I am trusting you to be very careful while searching, otherwise I'm gonna make you wait up here by the door, do I make my self clear?"

L

Iremacht bobbed his head up and down. "I know where the storage is, I'll take you there!" And he scampered off down the hall in the direction of the storage doors. 

---------

 In the storage room, Germany made sure the back door was locked before shuffling between the shelves, pretending to be searching. He rummaged around the boxes. His eyes flickered every now and then to a particular corner of the room. 

M

Mandara and MA quickly followed behind Iremacht until they made it to the storage room. When they entered, they were immediately met by a maze of shelves containing a countless amount of books, chests, boxes, and artifacts of all shapes and sizes. 

"This place is massive" MA breathed, "where do we even begin?" 

 Mandara thought for a second and came up with a plan, "We will start from the front middle and work our way to the back, Germany and I will take the left side while you two take the right, I'll go find Germany while you guys get started." Then he left to do just that. 

"Come on Iremacht, this is gonna take awhile." MA said in a unenthusiastic voice, but started looking anyways.

L

"It's kinda like hide and seek," Iremacht said, trying to lighten MA's mood and make this somewhat fun. "The Crown is hiding. Here Crown-y, Crown-y, Crown-y...." 

On the other side of the storage room, Germany had heard Mandara's distant voice. "I'm over here!" he called out, walking through the maze of shelves to meet Mandara at the front of the left side and being careful not to knock anything over.

M

MA glared at Iremacht, "Don't do that, our father's crown is not some lost puppy and is definitely not going to come when called, so please take this seriously." 

"Oh come on Thunder, the kids just trying to lighten up the mood, let him have his fun." Mandara called back to the two when he heard them talking. He then spotted Germany making his way over to him, "There you are, you and I are going to search the left side of the room."

L

Iremacht ducked his head sheepishly when MA reprimanded him but instantly brightened at Mandara's defense. He stopped calling for the Crown though and hummed to himself instead as he searched. 

Germany glanced at Mandara's wings. "Careful, the right side is rather cramped. I'm not too worried about you knocking stuff over but I'm afraid of things falling on your wings and potentially breaking them." 

 He started looking between some more shelves, making sure to check the ground too. He also dragged a stool around so he could search the uppermost shelves. All the while, he constantly snatched glances at the far corner of the room. 

M

Mandara sighed at Germany's concern, "Well, it wouldn't be the first time." he muttered under his breath.

He quickly went to searching so he didn't have to think about that dark time. Every one was careful to be very thorough searching while also being careful to not break or knock anything over, Mandara did accidentally bump a vase with his wing, but was able to steady it before it could fall. About a hour had passed by the time they got to the halfway point, and both the brothers were getting frustrated. 

 "I can't believe we have spent a whole hour searching and haven't found it." MA said, "Trigger how you doing over there?" 

 Mandara was gonna answer, but a artifact he moved ended up stirring up dust that caused him to start sneezing, though his sneezes were more like squeaks.

L

"Awww, I wish I had cute sneezes like yours," Iremacht called towards Mandara. 

 "Cousin, behave!" Germany yelled back.

Iremacht rolled his eyes and looked through another box. He had to admit, he was also getting as frustrated as the Mandarian brothers. If the Crown was in the storage room, it should have been placed in the front. Iremacht decided to change up his tactics and beelined for the back. In the far corner was a box and that's where Iremacht started searching. 

M

Mandara chuckled when he stopped sneezing, "Thanks, it's definitely better than Thunder's, he sounds like a atomic bomb going off, right Thunder." 

 MA didn't need to answer because as if on cue, he sneezed as well, with enough force to knock over a small cup in front of him. Mandara laughed at the coincidence and even MA did a bit too. He then noticed that Iremacht made for the back.

"Iremacht what are you doing over there, we haven't finished this section." he said.

L

Iremacht heard MA's sneeze from all the way in the back and nearly had a heartattack. His startled reaction made him jump to his feet, bumping against the box in the process. The box shifted back a few inches. He heard MA call for him but didn't answer because his eye caught the shiney edge of something sticking out behind the box. Iremacht knelt down and pushed the box away. 

His eyes widened. "MA...MA come here. Is this..."

M

MA didn't give him time to answer as he bolted towards Iremacht.

"What did you find?" he asked, he looked to where the kid was looking and his eyes widened just as much as Iremacht's. 

"TRIGGER!!! Trigger I think we found it, there is a crown over here behind a box." he shouted.

He wasn't completely sure since the last time he saw the crown was three centuries ago. Mandara stopped looking and ran to MA and Iremacht, trying to not knock anything over on the way there.

L

"Is this the one?" Iremacht asked excitedly, carefully lifting up the Crown. "I can't believe it was back here this whole time. I'll call Dad and let him know we found it."  

Germany also darted between the shelves after Mandara. Sure enough, there was a crown there - just like he'd suspected it would be. He kept a straight face as Iremacht handed it to the Mandarians.

M

Mandara is the one that took it, he had never been so careful with something in his whole life. He inspected it to see if it was the right one, then he found a jewel that cast any doubt out the window. 

"This is it" Mandara beamed, "It has a jewel cut into the shape of our crest." 

 Mandara was so happy to have found it, but MA was skeptical, "Can I see it for a second, please." 

Mandara looked at him confused, but gave him the crown anyway. It was a little difficult for MA since he had his right arm in a sling from his gunshot wound, but he did his best to look over it. 

When he finished, he side glanced Germany, but ended up putting on a smile, "Yep, this is definitely the right crown, let's go take it to Wehrmacht so he knows to stop looking." 

 Mandara was slightly confused by MA's tone of voice, but thought nothing of it, instead he took the crown back from his brother and started to lead everyone back upstairs, with MA trailing in the back of the group.