Forget! [Hetalia: Iceland x Reader]

"It's Trial 2 of your program, Kiku," you said into your mouthpiece quietly. "We want it to work without any near-death experiences this time, okay?" You saw Kiku nod from the monitor hanging by a refined metal set which had dropped down from the ceiling. He had the guilty expression on his face and dipped his head slightly.

"Gomen, [Name]-san," the polite Japanese man apologized. "I've fixed some major issues with this program we've been testing lately, but because Doitsu-san is absent today because he was busy with his work, I've decided to add in another part to the game: online connections."

You grimaced just a bit, but corrected your posture before he noticed you via webcam. "Alright, can you explain that to me?" Kiku nodded in response, and began to key in some stuff into his laptop. Small windows with holograms and digital simulations popped up onto the monitor as you sat into the simulation chair, putting your sleek hologram glasses on; you seemed to fall into a trance as something clicked in your head, and you were in an abandoned city terrain. However, the holographic windows still hovered in front of you as Kiku's voice echoed as he explained, louder than ever.

"This is the world-wide web, correct? Our old system used to be hooked up to a router, our own small community. If I enter in a code…" You could hear him tapping rhythmically on the keys of his Acer, and a faint, almost undetectable beeping noise echoed in your newly-obtained headset. A hologram of your network zoomed out as a pulsating green line traced to the world's network. "…Now you will be able to join in on multiplayer games I've created with this program. Good luck."

The ringing echo and the ambience noise buzzed to a halt as Kiku cut off connections with you, and you straightened out your grey nylon jacket and smoothed out your tough blue jeans. However, you kept the headset on just in case Kiku wanted to warn you about anything that might go wrong at the last second. Rough concrete buildings with obvious damage and wear on them littered with bullet holes surrounded you on either side of the street you walked down as the gravel crunched noisily under your feet.

Something clinked behind you in one of the buildings as you instinctively reached for your gun. It was loaded with at least ten bullets, and you were a deadly shot—literally. You moved your glasses up slightly, which were tinting your vision a dulled green. However, it helped you differentiate some light from dark objects.

But even with your high-tech toys, you were no match for the speed of the three shadows that confounded you all at once. Something had slammed you into the ground as you clenched your teeth painfully—you could feel your HP draining away. It lifted you up slowly and was about to throw you down again when a calculating voice commanded, "Stop your troll, Norway."

"It's not a troll, it's an ogre," another voice replied hastily as the ogre dissipated into emerald mist, causing you to drop a good five feet and scrape your face against the ground. You closed your eyes, trying to prevent yourself from crying. Even though this was just a sort of simulation, it still hurt a lot. You tried to pick yourself up, but found you didn't have enough strength.

"See, she's just a harmless little girl," the voice continued sleekly. "There's no need to just attack her, even if she is armed." A pale hand was offered to you, and you put your own into it as you were helped up. Your headpiece was practically indestructible, and luckily it folded away into your ear before anybody noticed you were pretty much a beta tester. You coughed a little and replied a low "thanks" in that special dry tone of yours. Then you looked up, and your eyes widened.

"I-Iceland and Norway?"

"[Name]…?" Iceland questioned, surprised as you were. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought this would be a fun game, but…" You smirked at a poker-faced Norway. "Some people just can't stop their trolls from attacking random strangers."

"It's not a troll," Norway protested, or should you say, stated blatantly in a monotone. "And the point of this game is to kill each other."

You shrugged at his response, and looked around—turns out it was just Iceland and Norway here. Denmark, Finland and Sweden were nowhere in sight.

"Hey, Ice…" you began to ask. Iceland cut you off and replied, "Just call me Emil. Emil Steilsson."

O-key.

Last thing you remembered was him repeating his name before something pierced your jacket, and you blanked out.

-

"[Name]…! [Name]…!"

Someone was calling to you. You opened your eyes a crack, but regretted it because the light caused you a massive migraine. You groaned and sat up, slightly drowsy. There was a pain in your back and your arm, and when you pushed up the sleeve of your surprisingly-cool jacket, there was a small puncture which had just stopped bleeding. Then you noticed that someone had placed two hands on your shoulders and his blue eyes were staring straight at you.

"What," you snapped, your temper influenced by your pain. "Who are you, anyways?"

You shoved the person back, as someone caught him as he stumbled, off-balance. He was slightly shocked, as someone suddenly pointed a crude metal rod at your neck. You squinted as your vision refocused, and realized it was a pale blond guy. A name instantly popped into your mind: Sweden. His stoic expression reminded you of the situation you were in.

"Don't shove Iceland," he said, moving the rod another inch closer to your throat. You swallowed and turned away, glaring at all those other strangers all the while. "We just took you in, you little brat. You should be grateful."

You blinked. You don't remember any of this happening. Another blond guy edged nervously up to Sweden, watching you with hazel-brown eyes as he whispered something into his ear. Sweden continued to try and intimidate you (it worked) but then lowered the rod, letting it clatter to the floor. Then you continued to inspect your newfound enemies with a careful eye.

The guy with the almost platinum-blond hair and the blue eyes and a puffin on one shoulder—another name came back to you in a flash. His name was Emil Steilsson. He seemed to be shocked that you had shoved him, but you just turned your eyes down and looked at the other guy. The other guy with some sort of blue sailor's cap, tousled hair with a darker color than Emil's, and an ahoge floating off the side of his head; something along the lines of Norway. He watched you as if you had betrayed him as well, but looked away from you. The blond people were Finland and Sweden, but there seemed to be something missing from their little clique.

"Traitor," Norway said in a hushed voice. "Are you pretending to have forgotten that we were the people that saved you?"

You felt… you felt violated. Violated, guilty, and distrusted. It wasn't a good combination of emotions. You gritted your teeth. How could you explain to these people that you really couldn't remember a thing? All because of that small action towards Emil; now you wished you could just take it back. You looked up calmly at Emil and said, "I seriously can't remember a thing."

Emil gazed at you with an unreadable expression, and as he opened his mouth to speak, the wooden door of this small chamber opened and let a little light besides the light from the window leak in. It closed again, and you realized this was the big boss you probably had to deal with: Denmark, or Mathias.

"Hey, hey," he said nonchalantly, dressed in a red t-shirt and matching black pants and tie. "Who's this chick? I've never seen her around before." You looked away from Emil, and continued to sit with your legs crossed. A small voice clicked in your ear, and you tuned out Mathias and tuned in to the little voice speaking.

"Hello? [Name], do you read?"

Your response: "…Who is this?"

"You don't know who I am? I'm Denmark, King of the Nordics!" Denmark responded to you, thinking you were actually talking to him. You barely noticed as Norway reached over and choked Denmark with his own silk tie.

"It's Kiku. I got a reading from your headset, and your vitals are okay, but it looks like you don't remember anything at all due to data loss. Do you remember who I am?"

The voice seemed familiar, but you couldn't bring yourself to say anything in particular.

"Hello? [Name], [Name]? Do you read?" You shook your head, and pressed the small headset hidden away in your ear to turn it off. There was a brief second of static, then it stopped and you could finally focus on Denmark talking.

"…and that's how everything happened," Mathias finished off, shrugging. Shoot, you just missed out on the short explanation of what happened! You shrugged and he sighed, "Man, this lady is hopeless. Well, I'll be in the lounge with a beer if you need me!" Then the door slammed shut as everyone except for Emil left. He kneeled down as you froze up, the heat rising in your cheeks.

"[Name], do you seriously not remember who I am?" Emil asked, cupping your cheek gently. You were going to push his hand away, but you just ended up touching the tips of your fingers to his hand. It was, to your amazement, really warm.

"I just don't remember what happened before this," you explained softly. "I remember everyone's names… everyone has a familiar face and everything, but just not the events before." At your words, he closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. His puffin squawked and flapped its wings slightly, but other than that it was silent.

"Alright," he murmured, taking your hand and helping you up. "I'll at least try and get you back to your host server so your data can be recovered. This game's code has been corrupted somehow lately, but we haven't realized how; I suppose it was after this player who calls himself 'Master Magician' started to battle and stuff, so if you get out of this game, you'll remember who you are."

You shivered when he said "if" you would get out of this RPG.

"Oh. And I forgot to mention," he continued, leading you out of the room into the hallway and out of the building. "If you get your memories back, please come and visit me. That might sound weird, but…" He shook his head, as if to rejuvenate his thoughts. You squeezed his hand.

"That would be fine by me," you replied, smiling at him for the first time since your obvious memory loss. He hesitated, but then smiled back slightly and turned away.

-

"Kissed and made up, huh?"

"Shut up, Denmark."

"Aw, I wish our family was like that."

"…"

"So this girl… You like her or what?"

"Shut up, Norway. I've liked her for a while."

"Look at his poker face! Not for just a while, Ice—probably an eternity!"

"…S'probably true."

"Sweden, quit joking around!"

"Calm down, Ice… Love is a natural thing! That's what I learned from France!"

-

Two glasses tinkled as two men said, "Cheers!"

"[Name] and the Nordics were easily swindled, oui?"

"Bah! Indeed! This was a mission well done, no matter how easy it was!"

"Now we just need to stage a similar scene, where I'll inject the Nordics with a similar fluid, which causes permanent memory loss, as opposed to just short-term memory loss."

"Alright, sounds like a brilliant plan. Let's put this into action! But remind me, how is the other fluid different from the one we injected in [Name]?"

"See, the brain releases special chemicals when one gets a concussion. These chemicals have its benefits—it helps the brain heal from any bruising, oui? But a larger dose causes memory loss…"

"That's spectacular! Never thought I'd say this, but you're a genius! A master magician and a mastermind who also specializes in love… We are the perfect team against all foes!"

-

"Let's go this way. There's this hole in the coding, and you can practically force an exit out of this program," Emil said as he pointed at a dark alleyway. You gulped and continued to walk into the shadows, but just as you continued walking and Emil coaxed you forward with encouraging words, you walked into a wall—literally.

"Ow," you mumbled as you massaged your hurting nose. Emil ran up to you and felt his hand down the wall as he breathed, "It's gone."

Another painfully ironic memory: something about Kiku fixing the bugs?

"I've fixed some major issues with this program we've been testing lately…"

Darn you, Kiku!

"I just remembered," you piped up in a small voice. "The admin patched up some holes to this RPG just this morning, and as he sent me in he wanted me to check on them…" Emil stared at you, but then he looked down and clenched his fists.

"That was our only way out," he growled through clenched teeth. "We're trapped. This entire game is like a death trap." You stood there as you put the pieces together. It was like a paradox; it was a game inside a game, because the last time you didn't actually exit and you were back in the "real world," explaining why Ludwig or Feliciano wasn't there—they had escaped through one of these loopholes somehow. And the Kiku back there wasn't the real Kiku; it was a fake.

"I just want to get out of here," you muttered sullenly was a single tear trickled down your face. In a flash, Emil had swooped you into a hug as his puffin flew off in a flash to tell the other Nordics about this finding. You could hear and feel his heartbeat, which was really comforting, and hid your face in his jacket.

"It's alright," he soothed you as he stroked your hair, noticing your small hiccups. "Don't worry, we'll find a way out."

"I don't think so!"

A flash of red light practically froze Emil in place as he threw you behind a row of garbage cans. You nearly screamed his name, but you slapped a hand over your mouth before anything bad happened because of you. Luckily, the mystery man who'd petrified Emil didn't notice you; you screamed in your mind's eye as you realized Emil was only trying to protect you. Another pair of footsteps stepped in and started harassing Emil, sneering and throwing unintelligible taunts at your helpless escort.

"Look at him," the caterpillar-browed man snickered. "Helpless and defenseless—where's that serum that you concocted, France?"

"Here," the Frenchman replied smoothly, holding up a cruel-looking syringe filled with amber fluid. You noticed Emil's eyes suddenly narrowed, but he had no choice but to just stand. It looks like the time limit on your serum was up, because slowly your memories were leaking back. You could feel them coming back—but this wasn't the England and France that you knew. These were the crude images this program had generated. England and France in real life were your BFFLs!

"Get away from him!" you screeched angrily as you dove for the unprepared England's feet. He hollered something, but just as he fell to the concrete ground, before this image of France could do anything, you swept out a quick leg and knocked him off his feet as well. You grinned triumphantly as you picked up a wooden stick that was in England's hand—a wand!—and then waved it randomly. Luckily, it was still stuck on that incantation which petrified people, so they lay frozen on the floor. You looked into Emil's eyes, and you could read his expression; he was immensely grateful.

As he unfroze by a witty wave of your wand, you embraced him tightly and whispered, "I guess as long as we have this, this is the key to our problems, right? Freezing our opponents in this game while we wait for some sort of rescue from the outside world?"

"No," he replied. You cocked your head, stunned.

"This is our key," he continued, taking it from your hand and snapping it in two. Some ambience noise and static mingled together, and suddenly you blacked out with that awful feeling of being betrayed in your heart as you fell through the darkness, mind spinning.

-

"Oh thank Gott, they're back! [Name]!"

"Ve~ [Name] and the Nordic Five, plus some other people too! What a great siesta this will be!"

"That was sugoi! We managed to get them out!"

You were suddenly carried up into one giant group hug just as you realized that wand was the bug of the entire game. And Emil was the one who had figured out it was the bug of the game.

"Guys… guys…!"

You couldn't help yourself from shedding a few happy tears as you realized these were your real friends—and England and France weren't the evil people in the game. You didn't have that tight nylon jacket on (which, you had to admit, was sort of cool) anymore, and you were in your regular outfit: hoodie plus blue jeans.

And subconsciously, you reached for your ear and nothing was there. The glasses and the headset were gone—every trace of the game was gone, and it was like the game had backfired on itself; now the game was destroyed, corrupted when your memory was nearly lost because of this small error.

Then you stopped as the racket went on, noticing the Nordics were leaving; Iceland was the last to leave.

You mouthed, "Bye, Emil Steilsson," and saluted him with your right hand, beaming all the while.

He saluted back with one of his cute, rare smiles, and left the room in his brown jacket.