Long AN at the bottom, you're welcome to skip it, though. This is the prologue. I posted a different version of this and the AN, in For Your Reading Pleasure. You don't have to read the AN though, as most of what I mentioned there will be in this story.

I am borrowing things from a lot of different mythologies, discarding what I don't want, putting them into a blender with Hetalia and pressing frappe. I hope you enjoy.

Something Different

It had started with what he had thought was a cold, which then turned into something that felt more like a sinus infection, though the doctor was unable to find one and just said his sinuses were 'inflamed'.

Right along with it, he had noticed that his desire for meat had also gone up. What was once a burger once or twice a week soon turned into at least three of the largest burgers he could get (or as many smaller burgers he could buy cheaply) a day.

The real kicker came when he had decided to buy a steak, planning on grilling it for dinner. Instead, he had found himself eating it raw, before he had even put it on the grill. He'd laughed it off, and quickly cooked it before finishing.

Then one morning, he had woken up naked and in pure pain, some of his furniture overturned and definitely not where it had been the day before. Everything, including his jaw and even his teeth, ached, and he felt like he was starving. What scared him the most though, was that he had changed, his eyesight was so much better that his glasses now made his vision worse, and the persistent sinus infection was gone, leaving him able to smell things much better than he had before. It was evening by the time the pain began to fade, and he could move his aching body to get to a bed.

During his clean-up the next day, he noticed on his fallen calendar that the previous night had been a full moon, and he tried to write of his sinking feeling as his cat cautiously came out of hiding. His cat was never cautious.

Quietly, he replaced the lenses of his glasses with plain glass and tried to explain everything away- he had probably gotten drunk, which was why his furniture was out of place and the memory of that night was so poor (never mind the fact he couldn't find any bottles to support this theory), and done something stupid that ended with him hurting himself (he ignored the lack of bruises) and of course his sense of smell would be, no, seem better, he'd gone for almost a month with a sinus infection. As for his eyes, well, over time, one could strengthen one's vision by slowly moving to lesser lenses (he steadfastly ignored the fact that he had gone from needing glasses to not needing them practically in one night).

Another month of eating a lot more (cheap) burgers than was strictly healthy, dealing with senses that made him jump at sounds no one else heard, and he reluctantly set up a camera in his basement, before locking himself in before nightfall.

The next morning, once again in incredible pain and very hungry, he woke up and found himself faced with a very scratched up door, and gnawed on furniture. When he finally could move without pain, it was close to evening again. He retrieved the camera, rewound it, and began to watch in dawning horror as he changed into . . .

He buried his face in his hands, unable to deny the footage on the screen. He, Alfred F. Jones was a real werewolf.

"Okay Jones, don't freak out, you can figure this out, just, do some research, there's probably a way to fix this." He quietly told himself, "bad things happen to heroes and they don't quit, so you can't either." Filled with renewed hope, he began to focus on finding a cure, ignoring the snow outside.

Across the rather sleepy little town, an Italian artist smiled as he finished another painting. "Done!" Feliciano Vargas beamed as he began cleaning up his paints. His current model absently stretched as he moved out of his position. "Thanks for the help Antonio!"

"No problem, Feli, where's Lovino?"

"Ve, he said something about making pizza. Oh, that reminds me, would you like to stay for dinner?"

"I'd love to!" Antonio smiled. "I'll go talk to Lovi while you clean up."

"Okay, I'm sure brother would love the company!" Feliciano smiled, before turning to finishing cleaning up, sounds of his brother shouting at Antonio for not wearing a shirt soon reached him. "Ve, brother really likes Antonio." Feliciano mused, before moving the painting of Antonio to dry. Quietly, he picked up another painting of green plants that was still unfinished due to his inability to get the detail on it just right. Normally, Feliciano did his best, but there was something missing in the painting that had him stumped.

Meow. Gino, his cat, hopped onto his stool.

"Ve, I'll figure it out eventually." Feliciano decided, and put the unfinished painting away again. "Let's go eat!" He scooped up his cat, who purred and gave a cheerful 'Ve-nya!' as his owner carried him downstairs. He didn't see the two moving balls of light, that came from the window to hover over the unfinished painting, before one followed him down the hall hiding and dimming slightly to watch.

"Look Feli, it's snowing!" Antonio cheerfully pointed out as he held on tight to Lovino, who was seconds away from throttling the Spaniard (or claiming to be, as he was no longer struggling and only grumbling insults).

"Yay! I wonder if Ludwig would want to go ice skating tomorrow." Feliciano wondered.

"You're not seeing that potato bastard again!" Lovino shouted, annoyed.

"But, fratello . . ."

"No! He's a God-damned Pervert, and you need to stay away from him! Especially while that bastard's brother is in town!"

"Ve, Gilbert lives with Ludwig . . ." Feliciano blinked.

"That's my point!"

"Lovino, Gilbert's not that bad," Antonio started, intending to stick up for his friend, but Lovino would have none of it.

The rest of dinner was spent alternating between eating, and Feliciano trying to convince Lovino that Ludwig was not a pervert, the three unaware of being watched.

On Main Street, shops were closing as the night settled over the town. Most people were rushing home to warm up as the snow began to fall harder.

The only person not rushing wore an old-style thick winter coat and ragged scarf, quietly watching the people go by. With a small smile, he watched as two drunks left the still open bar, one clearly more intoxicated than the other.

He liked this little town, it was far different than the land he had originally come from, and he wondered what summer would feel like. The best part, he'd decided, about the town was that there was no way his sister would ever find him here, this town was off the beaten track, and he had only found it by accident.

Deciding to head to the bar, before someone complained about his loitering again, he was distracted by a little girl in pig-tails spinning with arms outstretched. Her mother was busy with a little baby who was fussing from the cold, and so didn't notice when the little girl spun a little too fast, slipped and bumped into him. He caught her before she fell.

"Oh! Sorry, mister!' The little girl straightened, embarrassed. He let her go, not wanting to cause more trouble than he could afford.

"It's alright little one, but you should be a little more careful."

"You talk funny!" The little girl blinked. "Are you from another country?" The fascination in her voice made him smile.

"Yes, I am from Russia. Is that your mother?"

"Oh, yes! Mama!" The little girl quickly got her mother's attention as he walked her back to her mother. The woman looked up and a brief flash of alarm crossed her face, before vanishing into a wary expression.

"Marya, what have I told you about talking to strangers?"

"Sorry Mama, I ran into him!" The little girl apologized. "He's from Russia!"

"Russia?" The mother blinked in confusion.

"Yes, I just moved here. I am afraid my height made it hard for me to notice your little one until we bumped into each other." He apologized awkwardly. The woman's expression softened a little.

"It's alright. I have to get these two home before they turn into icicles, but it was nice meeting you, Mr?"

"Braginski, Ivan Braginski."

"Anna Pavlov." The woman smiled, and left, Ivan watched her go as briefly the wind blew the snow up around the three of them.

Ivan headed into the bar, where he calmly ordered a bottle of Vodka. He stayed in the bar, not socializing, before deciding he'd be better of drinking at home. With a soft sigh, he left the bar and began walking.

Taking a shortcut through an alley, he felt his lips twitch into an innocent smile when he saw a young man with a pipe in front of him.

"Give me your money!"

"Nyet." Ivan calmly grabbed the pipe, which began to freeze under his touch. In moments, the ice reached the would-be mugger, who found himself figuratively frozen in horror as it spread onto him, painfully freezing his hands to the metal.

"De-Demon!" The would-be mugger whimpered, looking up into a playfully-cruel gaze.

Minutes later, Ivan cheerfully left the alley, and the would-be mugger was still frozen in place, this time literally. Before he completely left the alley, however, he turned back with a smile. "And it's 'Daimon', not 'Demon', I am not from Hell." He corrected belatedly, before continuing on his way.

He'd have to go through his stash of weapons later, he decided, most were collected bits of rubbish he used like clubs, but they helped keep idiots at bay.

This story is mainly because I really dislike the characterizations of America, N. Italy, and Russia in most Supernatural/Fantasy fics. Go read a few, and you'll soon notice, Russia is usually evil, America is usually a idiot with no survival sense, and N. Italy is . . . well, let's just go with out of character and leave it at that. I realize this is fanfiction, but c'mon, Russia isn't nice, probably is mildly sociopathic, given his treatment of Lithuania, but he's also not outright evil; America, while prone to acting without thinking, is still smart, imaginative and strong; N. Italy . . . gah, there's a long list, but let's just go with he should be extremely reluctant to deal with the supernatural on purpose, make several mistakes, and not just exist for the sole purpose of being the damsel in distress for Germany.

So, this is my interpretation of how (and what) they would be. The rest of the story will include how the others fit in to the story as well, but it will mainly focus on these three. In the outline, Russia and America have a lot of action, to the point you might question why I insist on keeping N. Italy as a main character, but he is a vital character . . . he's just not on the offensive through most of this story.

Also, as everyone is technically human, most of them are going to age normally. So they're going to be older than the ages given to us. People and things normally age due to the passage of time. (In particular, America is going to age from the 18/19 year old he normally is written as.)

And thus, I'm actually going to have to pay attention to how many days pass between full moons in this story, because it gets ridiculous when there are apparently only full moons for a month during a werewolf story.

Finally, regarding the inevitable question about pairings; I'm not going to do any. This is going to be pure friendship and brotherhood (for those characters with brothers.) France will of course be slightly indiscriminate in his flirting and attentions, and Germany and Italy will have their odd relationship of calling each other friends when it's so blatantly obvious they feel a lot more for each other than they're willing to admit (Germany because he's pretty repressed and Italy because he apparently doesn't go through and label his feelings.). Seriously, it's really hard to explain away their interactions as anything other than two people that are so close to taking the next step in a relationship but continuously failing due to miscommunication and everyone else getting in the way.

I'm still not writing them as an outright pairing, though. Sorry.