Saki: Hello there, whoever it is that you are. This is my first story on . Please forgive any horrible mistakes; I'm learning. I originally wrote this for my three friends (and if you haven't realized already, they are the main protagonists, along with, um… me), but they've agreed to allow me to publish it online for the world to enjoy. So, enjoy. And if you have the time and heart, please drop a friendly review.

Summary: An introduction to Kelsie Wulfgram, Patriot of Germany and the first of four heroines in this story. She's also the Queen of Clubs, hence the title of this chapter.

1. Ace of Clubs

A girl named Kelsie rolls over and scrapes the sleep from her eyes.

"Uuugh," she groans.

She flips her bedraggled self upright. Her caramel-colored hair is in an atrocious state, despite it being cropped shorter than most girls would dare. It feels to her as if every strand is standing rebelliously stick straight. She'll deal with them later. With chocolate brown eyes, she looks around, suspicious. Always suspiciously looking around, she is, out of a diehard, well-trained habit. She's in some sort of countryside, in a car…

…and they return to her, all at once, in malicious torrents of muddled thoughts and feelings. Memories.

Last night… she thinks, oh, mother…last night…

-xXx-

After the eternity of five high-powered minutes, the car chase is over.

The former pursuers and their vehicles are now totaled. Kelsie looks at the three wrecked automobiles with the eyes of a car lover and can't help but appreciate their sleek and speedy design. Buried partway in the ditch are two gem-sparkling Audis and one gleaming silver Porsche. Too bad there's nothing but the junk yard in their future.

As for their drivers, they look as if they'd jumped into a human-sized food processor set on high. Kelsie smiles darkly. Her man's got one hell of a powerful gun with him. And one hell of an aim. There's no way any one of them is still alive.

"Who are they?" Kelsie asks. "Or rather, who were they?"

"Country-hunters," he replies. "Apparently, there's this new idea spreading around that the world would be better off without them, so they've begun to hunt us down. Vash has been having fun with them for weeks now, and I hear the cult has been around in America for years." He gives Kelsie another one of his sly sideways looks. "It's one reason why I brought you to Germany. To get you away from them. I didn't think they'd follow us."

"Huh."

"Aren't you scared? You know they could've killed you."

"Not really. Not when you're with me. Come on. I don't want to be caught here when the cops come. I've heard stuff about the German police, and they do not sound like a happy bunch."

Kelsie walks off into the night, heading back toward their sleek black Mercedes. He follows several precarious paces behind her, his mind preoccupied and muddled. But he knows the antidote for his headache. He knows her well.

-xXx-

She smiles warmly as she rubs her bare shoulders, trying to expel the early autumnal chill from them. Looking her left shoulder, she sees her tattoo. It's a black club - as in the playing cards suit - with a small red spade nestled at the heart of it. Her three friends each have a corresponding version, all in the same place on their left shoulders. It's how they remember each other whenever they drift their separate ways.

She keeps on smiling. It goes without saying that Kelsie wishes she could travel back in time and wrap herself in the night all over again. I addition to the aforementioned high speed chase, the previous night had included a bar, a sexy hot car, some music, a few kisses, and him. Always him, with his hardwired muscles and his lemon licked candle tongue blonde hair. He wore that hair slicked back, sort of like Elvis Presley, but in a much more refined and respectable way than the King. His eyes had shone so very icy last night, icy blue like Norwegian fjords. Of course, nothing too overwhelmingly intimate had happened; he'd said she was too young. Nonetheless, she desperately wants a replay. The memories are magnetic.

It's the ruddy backlands of Germany, the countryside. It's a soulless black Mercedes-Benz SLX, the car. She'd been sleeping in the passenger seat, which is leaning back as far as it can go, a makeshift bed. She smiles as she remembers the reason for that. A push, a pull. An intensity. Her blanket is a tired old jacket, German army-issue. It smells deeply of cologne, but the wearer of the jacket and the cologne isn't present at the moment. By some inexplicable instinct, she knows that from the first sniff. Doglike, she is. But she also knows he can't be that far away. There's no place to go. They are parked in the middle of pure and utter nowhere.

She readjusts her seat-bed, rolls down a window, and tosses out a name.

"Ludwig…"

Germany.

Saki: So there you go. The flashback is from a story I wrote for Kelsie a long looong time ago

Next Chapter: is all about the Patriot of Switzerland / Queen of Hearts. And Vash Zwingli himself. He's kinda-sorta there, too.

Disclaimer: I do not own APHetalia, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Audi, or the country of Germany. And this will probably be the most extensive disclaimer I will ever write.