Happy birthday, Canada! Today, July 1, is Canada Day. And since I like writing stupid crack, I wrote this in honor of it. The full title is - Crouching Polar Bear, Hidden Badass: The Rage of Matthew Williams (Not Really). Do you not love how stupid it is?

It would go down as the Day That Must Not Be Spoken Of*, and it was all because of one Matthew Williams, otherwise known as the living and breathing (and partially invisible) personification of the country of Canada.

That's right.

Canada.

* Also known as the Day In Which The World Learned What A BAMF Of Sweet, Sweet Awesomeness Canada Really Is.

The infamy of the Day only became legendary because Canada decided to answer the knock at his door.

He was seriously considering against it, too. He was this close to ignoring the innocuous tapping and pretending he wasn't home. He had a headache, after all, and he'd planned to spend a peaceful day without any interruptions. But alas - Canada had a kind heart, and what if someone needed assistance?

Unknowingly giving in to Fate, he answered the door...

... and the lights of Ottawa flickered briefly as the mightily startled nation gasped and clutched at his chest.

America was drenched in blood, reaching out to Canada with shaking red fingers. He had an agonized expression on his face, which quickly morphed into one of great mirth* before Canada could even properly react. America almost doubled over on himself in laughter.

"Dude!" he choked. "Dude... your face! Oh my god... it was perfect! Ahaha!"

As America almost killed himself laughing, Canada tried to calm his racing heart, bewildered. "What?" he asked. "America... you..." The blood. It looked so real.

"It's a prank, man!" America explained, tears glistening in his eyes. "Just a prank! Jeez... you look like you saw a zombie! Haha!" He dissolved into quiet giggles, shoulders shaking.

It was annoying, being laughed at like that. As Canada processed the explanation, he rubbed the ache in his head that had become even worse, and irritation settled in. His brother was so stupid sometimes. "A prank? Why?"

"We're all doing it!" America said. "Oh man... it's turned into international prank day or something. You might want to watch out, though, France has some disturbing stuff planned. Hey, can I use your shower? I need to clean up for the prank I'm pulling on England. Thanks!" Stepping past Canada, America headed for the bathroom, chuckling to himself.

Canada sighed and closed the door, ruefully eyeing the small trail of fake blood that America left. He headed to get some paper towels, shaking his head. Of course America would remember him long enough to pull a prank on him.

"I hope the rest of them don't bother," he told Kumajirou.

As per the way of the world, they did bother. Much to their eventual regret.

* His record for holding in laughter is so pathetically small that I'm not even going to bother to tell you what it is.

It should be known that Prussia was the catalyst for it all.

You see, non-existentiality was kind of a bummer, and sometimes it made him a little melancholy. And Prussia, well... he was the type to exploit even his own melancholy.

The first domino went something like this:

Pssh. Whatever. They'd only gotten rid of him because he was so much awesomer than them.* Everyone was just jealous.

Yeah. They totally deserved to get pranked or something.

...

Yeah.

* Trufax.

Prussia started with Germany, the easiest target, first and made him think that France had pranked him. He did the same with England, whose brothers decided to get a little revenge on him themselves and therefore joined in. Next was Romano, who believed Germany was pranking him. North Italy thought it was all great fun and wanted in on everything; to be safe, Romano teamed up with him, thinking his brother too dense to prank anyone on his own. Spain joined them cheerfully, and Romano was Not Amused by the number of idiots on his hands. Denmark thought it was all hilarious and somehow brought in all of the Nordics; Finland proved to be quite the prank master, belying his sweet nature. And one by one, more dominoes began to fall. Even Russia getting curious and joining in with much dark chuckling and Belarus in tow wasn't enough to scare anyone off. Pretty soon most of Europe was involved.

Asia tried to stay out of it, but when South Korea decided that he wanted to have fun, too, things escalated pretty quickly from there. Some nations like America and Australia joined in for the heck of it, and America managed to drag most of the Western Hemisphere into it with him by pissing Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, and Cuba off, who in turn brought in most of Central and South America between them.

Canada held out a long time. He was quite a laid-back individual, and he really just wanted to have a quiet day. But he could only stand so much pranking. After receiving an unpleasant surprise in the mail, eating maple syrup that'd had liberal amounts of pepper poured on it, finding the toilet seat stuck and unable to be opened, and almost eating one of England's scones, along with a host of other small pranks played by nations who were annoying enough to remember him now, he'd had enough.

When Canada had enough of something, he sometimes developed a riotous, slightly pyromaniac tendency that occasionally morphed into the ability to rant for hours on end or else break large trucks.* But sometimes, when Canada was angry, he didn't show it... at least not outwardly. No - this anger was characterized by cold calmness and an incredibly devious tendency.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, the pranks brought on the latter.

* Especially when the situation involved losing a game of hockey to America.

America was cracking up over England, who was soaking wet as a result of America's prank, and England was starting to get incredibly fed up with his brothers and all of his former colonies, who of course had to take a shot at their older brother. While England yelled and America leaned against the wall, weak from laughter, no one noticed Canada arrive.

"I got you so good!" America crowed, oblivious to England's angry tirade. "That's for the horrible scone you hid in my hamburger!"

"I never did that, Scotland did! He's been stealing them and sending them to everybody! And they're not horrible!" England seemed prepared to continue shouting and informing America exactly how he was an irresponsible, ungrateful git, but he stopped in mid-yell, frowning. "America... are you... are you bleeding?"

America looked down and saw blood seeping through his shirt. "Hmm. Must've had some left over from the prank I pulled on Canada."

"But your head..."

America became aware of a tickling sensation on his head and reached up. He felt sticky blood there as well, and his eyes widened slightly. "What?"

Now he was aware of all sorts of place he was bleeding - his shoulder, his arm, his legs. He started to panic. "Shit! England! I'm bleeding!" He didn't even know where it was coming from! "England, I'm bleeding!"

"I know that, shut up and let me look at it!"

"But I don't even know where I'm bleeding from!" America really started to freak out now, flailing and seeing that the other side of his stomach was starting to bleed as well. "Ack! It's in my eye! England, help!"

"Calm down!"

And of course, he didn't calm down. It took several minutes of flailing for England to ascertain that it was all, in fact, fake blood.

America turned redder than the fake blood itself. "W-What the hell? Where did it c-come from? Ghosts?"

"Don't jump to conclusions, idiot," England said, though he, too, looked unnerved.

A safe distance away, Canada was chuckling to himself. That had been way too easy; there was a definite advantage to being almost invisible.

"Kesesese!"

He turned to find Prussia coming up behind him, snorting in laughter. "You did that?" the albino nation asked, looking impressed even as he giggled. "That was almost as awesome as me! He was so scared! Hah!" He clapped Canada on the shoulder. "Invisibility is awesome! We should totally team up!"

"Really?" Canada asked. He didn't know that Prussia was the one who had started it all, but it didn't really matter, because Prussia hadn't pranked him at all.

"Yeah!" said Prussia. "I still have some awesome ideas left!"

"Actually, I was just going to get revenge on everyone who pranked me."

"We can do that too!" Prussia grinned. "Everyone else is forming alliances, and no one else is awesome enough to team up with the awesome me!"

Canada smiled. It was nice being thought of as awesome, for once. "Okay," he agreed, and they went off to make diabolical plans.*

* There may have been skipping involved. They were on a prank high, you see.

Romano was munching on a tomato, projecting a cloud of irritation that alas, couldn't dampen the endless cheerfulness of Veneziano and Spain. That in itself wouldn't have been so bad, but his brother had the habit of spoiling half the pranks they tried to pull, excitedly babbling about it to their victim before it was pulled off. And Spain just went along with it, laughing and occasionally trying to get together his Bad Trio, but no one knew where Prussia was, and you couldn't have a trio with just two, right? Argh. Stupid bastards. Romano took another bite of his tomato and chewed viciously.

"Romano, you need to cheer up!" Spain said with a grin. "This is great fun, sí?"

Romano grunted. "It would be better if one of my pranks on Germany actually worked!" he said, shooting a glare at Veneziano.

"Oh, he's just excited," Spain said.

"No shit," Romano grumbled and bit into his tomato again... then immediately started choking and gasping for air.

"Romano!" Spain cried, pounding him on the back. "Are you choking?"

"No," Romano gasped, turning desperately this way and that, searching for water. "Hot!" They were at Spain's house, their temporary base, and he dived for the faucet.

It took a long time for him to recover.

Outside the house, Prussia and Canada were cracking up together. Prussia wiped away a tear. "Black pepper and habanero. We're geniuses. And you... you're like a ninja! He didn't even see you! Ahaha!"

Canada was quite pleased with himself and his abilities. That had been for his maple syrup, and he was starting to get really into this now. Who knew pranking could be so fun?

France received his own surprise in the mail that very nearly reduced him to tears, much to everyone's shock. Cuba's toilet malfunctioned so badly that he was covered in... stuff, sending him into a rage. He blamed it on America, of course. And Scotland ate one of England's scones unknowingly and had to be hospitalized.

These weren't the only things. It seemed that every prank the nations pulled were being turned on them in some way, so much that they were starting to grow nervous. No one knew who was responsible for it, and they eyed each other with suspicion.

When America and England arrived at the site of their next world conference, which had unofficially become neutral ground*, they found most of other nations there, taking cover.

"How's Scotland?" Hungary asked in concern.

"Well, he can't really die, so he'll be fine," America answered, while England glared daggers at everyone and dared them to make a comment about his cooking.

"I want to know what's going on," China demanded, coming forward, and there was a chorus of agreement. "Who started this? Was it you, America?" he asked, in a tone that made it clear he believed it to be so.

"No!" America said defensively. "Ya'll were already in the middle of World War III when I jumped in."**

"And who's been using all of our pranks against us, huh?" Romano demanded, still in a rage over his flaming hot tomato. "Answer me that, bastard!"

America shook his head. "Again, not me. Someone managed to get fake blood all over me, for crying out loud!"

"You rigged my toilet, America!" Cuba cried and would have lunged at him had there not been several other nations in the way. Thankfully, he was clean, much to the relief of said nations.

"Did you not just hear what I said?"

Everyone dissolved into arguing, which was to be expected, and a more sensible nation dragged them out of it, also as expected.

"Enough!" Germany roared, glowering, and the nearest nations to him retreated a safe distance, eyeing him nervously. "SHUT UP! We're never going to figure anything out if we don't work together!"

The arguing subsided into muttering, accompanied by many a suspicious glance and silent but blatant accusation.

"Germany's right," England said, which was quite big of him, because he'd probably received the most pranks.*** "We can't just hide in here. We need to figure out what's going on." He eyed France with great suspicion. "This all seems to have started with you, frog."

France, who still hadn't quite recovered from his mailed prank and had been only moderately consoled by North Italy, shook his head mournfully. "I swear, Angleterre, I didn't prank either you or Germany."

Several voices were raised in doubt.

"I didn't!" he insisted.

It looked like everyone would start arguing again, but to their surprise, it was Russia's quiet voice that calmed everything. "What if it wasn't France?" he suggested. "We may have an unknown instigator in our midst."

Several nations looked like they wanted to accuse him next, but no one dared. They dropped the notion that France had started it, too, and suddenly grew very nervous.

"But then..." Japan said, "who did?"

The lights suddenly went out, plunging them into darkness. It was accompanied by cries of alarm, and the next few minutes found everyone scrambling for the exits... all of which were locked.

"Shit," said Romano, which just about summed up the situation.

The room went cold, and the nations huddled together nervously, despite their earlier suspicions of each other. Several pulled out weapons, which shouldn't have been allowed at the site of the world conference but no one questioned it because hey, they were all being pranked.

"Is it ghosts?" America squeaked. "Are ghosts pranking us?"

"There's no such thing as ghosts," England reminded him.

It seemed that he was proven wrong when a low moaning started. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, filling the room and sending the more cowardly ones cringing against each other in the center of the cluster of nations. The only one who didn't seem perturbed was Russia, but he was Russia, so no one thought much of it.

"ARGH!" Romano said, and everyone spun around to look at him. He was practically clinging to his brother and trying to pretend that he wasn't. "Something touched my shoulder!"

"Germany, protect me!" North Italy shrieked.

It was as if a phantom presence had come among them. Several felt cold breath down their necks or felt a hand briefly touch their shoulders, all while the moaning continued, and a faint whistling of wind picked up. Things were dissolving into chaos quickly, and even the firmer nations were inclined to grow incredibly nervous. Some were yelling, others were using whoever they could as a shield, and some were trying to pound one of the doors down. It was worse than the Halloween Incident of 2008, because absolutely none of them were in on it, and this was considerably more embarrassing for those who considered themselves 'tough'.

Then, all of a sudden, it stopped; the lights came back on, the doors opened, and two people were doubled up laughing in the corner.

"Prussia?" Germany asked in shock, simultaneous with America's squeaky, "Canada?"

The two nations were laughing so hard that they had to lean against each other for support. "Your faces!" Prussia choked out. "You guys were so scared! You wimps actually thought ghosts were doing it! Kesesese! We're so awesome!"

"It was you two the whole time?" China demanded, arriving at the correct conclusion first and bringing the others around to it.

"Who do you think started everything?" Prussia snorted.

"But... Canada..." America said.

Canada drew himself up and shrugged, grinning. "You guys needed a taste of your own medicine."

The other nations seemed to have a hard time comprehending that the quiet Canada had managed to pull all of their own pranks back on them, mostly because they'd only just recalled that he was capable of such things.

Prussia and Canada were still snickering together, and the others were starting to feel incredibly foolish. More than foolish. They just hoped to God that neither Prussia nor Canada had a camera on them.

"Shall we call a truce?" England suggested, when everyone else seemed too embarrassed to talk. "Unless anyone would like to continue."

There were still rather scary gleams in the eyes of Prussia and Canada. Everyone agreed to a truce right on the spot, and most of them agreed never to speak of what had occurred, ever again.

They all departed from the conference hall to go hide in their own countries for a while, giving Canada nervous glances as they did... all except for Russia, who came to stand in front of Canada, smiling. "That was very impressive," Russia said.

It took Canada a moment to realize that Russia was complimenting him. "Thank you," he said, eyes widening a bit. "I think."

Russia nodded. "I think we will have to watch out for you more, da?"

Canada smiled, uncharacteristically assertive. "You might."

Russia departed with a nod, still smiling. Prussia and Canada watched him go, rather bemused, then shrugged and exchanged a high five. "That was awesome!" Prussia said. "We need to work together more often."

Canada felt a lot better. His headache was gone, and it was good to be him. "Um... you wanna go get some pancakes or something?"

"Sounds awesome!"

They got pancakes with liberal helpings of maple syrup, and everything was good and glorious and awesome on that day... except, you know, for the rest of the world.

* Switzerland wouldn't let them anywhere near his territory. He was quite adamant about it with the way he waved his guns around and very nearly shot half of them.
** He had a habit of doing that.
*** But he was still wily and endlessly clever, and he'd managed to dodge out of about half of them - an admirable feat.