A/N: Erm, fair warning, if you absolutely hate RusAme, FrUk, PruCan, or the Silk Road pairing(China x Ancient Rome), you will probably not like this. It is a bit pairing centric.


He always felt so alone. He felt like they could never see him, for he was. He was ancient, his first memories from thousands of years ago - long before even the oldest of them had existed. He had been friends with their grandparents. "The Ancients" the children began to call them, never remembering that he was as ancient as Rome. The Roman Empire, Gaul, Britannia, Keivan Rus, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Persia. So many "ancient" nations, but to the personifications of today China had never been one of them. Never mind that he had been alive for all of their creations. Just ignore that he knew so many of the long forgotten secrets of the world.

The World Wars came and went, more horrific than anything he had seen before. At least, that was the case in terms of sheer destruction. His younger brother left him, betrayed him - his younger brother who was still older than most of Europe. He fights, joins in on the battles that he so hates, watches as the allied powers pair off until he is the eternal third wheel. France and England, America and Russia, Canada and Prussia. The two who had been feuding since their creations, the two who nearly destroyed the world, the two who would be forgotten - inevitably, always. He smiles and laughs and pretends his heart doesn't shatter seeing Rome appear, seeing him sing like he used to, always such an imbecile. His imbecile, who called him a silken maiden, even though he wasn't ever a maiden.

Everyone seemed to think he was a joke. He seethed inwardly - he wasn't a pokemon, or a bank, or a servant for them to boss around. Why did they all find him strange? So what if he was late sometimes - meals were important and relaxation was essential to a functioning body. They all seemed to think he could be manipulated, controlled. Like his former rulers, they forgot the most important think about him - about China, about the ancient force that he was. To be on the wrong side of the mandate of heaven was a fate no one would enjoy.

~time-skippy, line-breaky, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey STUFF! AKA the plot appears~

It was the day of a World Meeting - there always seemed to be a meeting, unlike the old days when you might see a country once, if you ever met them. He would go, and he would smile, and he would be polite and offer them food. America would have a stupid plan, and everyone would fight. Chaos would reign until Germany shouted at them all to behave themselves for once in their lives there are important matters to discuss! This would repeat itself and they would accomplish nothing. England and France would end up locked in a closet together, Russia and America would argue over Alaska, Veneciano would irritate Germany, Spain would flirt outrageously with Romano, Greece would sleep, Japan would agree with America, Hungary would smack Prussia with a frying pan, and at the end of the meeting they would all return home. Everything would be absolutely, wonderfully, horribly normal. However, when China arrived at the meeting nothing was normal.

Everyone was quiet. Germany and Veneciano were presenting something. There were no funny cartoons involved in the presentation, and everyone else was already there, a full half hour before the meeting was supposed to begin. And in all of China's rather expansive memory, there was no instance of a meeting beginning on time, let alone running ahead of schedule.

"Ah, you've arrived." Germany commented, "Go sit down and take notes. We attempted to contact you about the changed time, but no messages went through to your phone."

"Well, I apologize for my late arrival. I certainly have no idea why your calls would not go through." China calmly replied (Don't look so surprised, Japan had to get the habit of complete tranquility from somewhere, you know).

America interjected, "Bro, we didn't call you. Nobody does that anymore! We sent you a text, of course! Hahahahahaha!"

"Texted, aru? I have no idea what you are talking about!"

"Dude, seriously?! Where have you been living, under a rock?" America exclaimed. Meanwhile, everyone was staring at the spectacle unfolding before their eyes.

China muttered, "'text,' isn't that the word for written language? What is that American going on about?" as he pulled out his phone and sat down. When China had extracted his phone from the depths of the bag hidden within his admittedly absurdly long sleeves, America snatched the phone away from him.

"Whoa, this thing is old! It's hardly better than a bag phone! I don't think it even has a screen, much less a text function!" When America shouted this, Estonia suddenly appeared. They started spouting techno-gibberish and fiddling with his phone. Germany seemed to be weighing his options mentally, and apparently decided to just ignore the weirdness occurring - it was a common occurrence, after all - and resume the presentation.

Germany began speaking, "moving back to the topic at hand, the Ancients are generally respected throughout the world for their wisdom as our predecessors. Ancient Rome was best known for…" Suddenly realizing what the meeting was about, China gasped quietly. His eyes darted around, as he tried to anchor his consciousness in the present time. Trying to block out the memories he knew were about to assault him.

None of the other nations seemed to notice that China was acting strangely, but then he started to slide out of his chair, losing consciousness all the way. He hit the ground with a crash, and a strange silence fell over the room as they stared at the unconscious nation. The allies rushed to him, arguing all the way. They hovered around him, not knowing what to do.