Alfred absolutely hated the cold. If he could, he would stay inside his house the entire winter season, but he couldn't very well skip work for three months, so he had to endure the cold as best he could. But even though he hated the season, there was one good thing about it. The snow. Yes, the snow was pretty, and watching it come down on a brisk Christmas morning was nice, but there was something so much better that could be done with snow.
Alfred rubbed his hands together to stay warm as he sat behind a wall built up by snow, which sat at a top of a hill, giving him the perfect view of everyone passing by, which was perfect for assaulting- er... taking aim at his unsuspecting targets.
Alfred silently decided the next person to walk across this path that he knew he was going to make him or her his first target. Alfred sat at the top of his fort in anticipation for the next ten minutes. How long could the rest of the nations possibly take in the hotel?
Currently, everyone was in Canada for their next world meeting, which didn't start until tomorrow, but everyone always got to the meeting place a day in advance. Alfred arrived a few days earlier since the meeting was in his neighboring country and his brother was hosting the next meeting, so Alfred figured his brother would like a few pointers in how to host the world meeting since he was the hero and all. But to Alfred's surprise when he arrived, Matthew had already prepared everything that needed to be done, leaving Alfred with nothing to do, but sit around and play some video games until everyone else arrived.
Alfred was snapped out his thoughts when he noticed someone he recognized come out of the hotel. It was Natalia, Ivan's younger sister.
Oh this is gonna be good. Alfred thought. He reached his hands into the snow and quickly made a few snowballs, keeping his eye on the Belarusian girl, making sure he never left her sight. When she was in close enough range, Alfred stood up and threw the snowball. The snowball made its mark when it hit Natalia in her head, and Alfred cheered at his perfect aim. Natalia shot her eyes up in Alfred's direction and with one swoop of her hand she pelted a snowball right back at him. Alfred barely managed to evade it, and was hit a second later with another snowball.
Alfred immediately hit the deck, and picked up another snowball and threw it at Natalia. Some missed, some made its mark. Natalia was pretty much stuck, Alfred strategically had the better position for a war, he could see everything Natalia was and could do, and she had no fort of her own like Alfred did. So Natalia did what the only thing she could do if this was real war, charge up the hill and take out the enemy, and claim the fort as her own.
When Alfred noticed Natalia charging up the hill, he already knew what she was going to try to do, after all he has been in his fair share of wars, and this tactic he remembered well from the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War.
Alfred readied his ammunition, with a snowball ready for firing in each hand. When she was about half way up the hill, Alfred began firing away his snowballs, one right after another. Natalia managed to avoid most of them, but the few that did make contact with her didn't slow her down one bit. When she was within range of her target in a matter of yards, she jumped up and threw her snowballs.
Alfred avoided the seven snowballs thrown at him, but he couldn't avoid the eight one, which he found was shockingly painful. Snow shouldn't have hurt that much. When he looked down at his arm he noticed mixed in with the flaky white snow was a deep crimson red color. When Alfred looked behind him in middle of a small pile of snow, which used to be a snowball, was a small hand knife.
Alfred quickly shot up from his position and ran away from the fort when he saw Natalia was in the range of a yard. At the top of the hill Natalia chased Alfred around in circles, throwing more knife-infested snowballs at him.
"You crazy bitch! You don't put knives in snowballs!" Alfred yelled, dodging on the snowballs. Eventually Alfred was getting tired from all the running, and his speed was slipping. If he didn't come up with a plan soon, he was going to be a shish kabob. It was at that moment he saw what could save him from this entire mess; coming out from the hotel was none other than Ivan Braginsky. Never before did Alfred ever think of Ivan in such a way, but at that moment, Ivan became his savior.
Alfred stopped in his tracks and turned around to Natalia, who stopped as soon as he stopped running and walked up to him suspiciously, getting ready to throw another snowball at Alfred.
"Any last words?" Natalia asked.
"Not really, just thought I would let you know I see Russia down at the bottom of the hill," Alfred replied. Natalia dropped her snowballs and charged to the bottom of the hill.
"Brother!" Natalia yelled. Alfred watched Ivan stop and hesitantly looked to the direction of where he heard his name being called. As soon as he spotted Natalia, he ran, and she chased him around the block. "Brother! Let's get married! Married! Married!"
Alfred continued to watch as Natalia chased him around and eventually they left the premise and ran around the Canadian streets of Toronto. Alfred almost felt sorry for Ivan. Almost.
At the corner of his eye, Alfred saw Arthur making his way out of the hotel building, and he ran back to the top of the hill to get ready for his impending attack on Arthur.
Down at the end of the street, Matthew was sitting on a bench with a perfect view of the entire event between Alfred and Natalia; he watched Alfred as he ran back up to the top of the hill, as Arthur made his way out of the hotel with Francis following not that much after. Moments later, Matthew saw a snowball in Arthur's face and he heard Alfred's laughter booming over them. Arthur quickly wiped off the snow from his face and started cursing at Alfred and ran up the hill to teach him a lesson.
Alfred will never learn Matthew thought to himself, and closed his book when he noticed Francis coming his way.