Nico: Hi! I'm so sorry I've been gone. I've been bombarded with homework, and pressure from "my future career". Actually, I tried uploading the chapter... I think on Wednesday, when I was in a real crummy mood. Before I could save it the chapter, I accidentally pressed the Back button, and all the work was gone. Looking back now, I really think I wasn't in the best of moods to be uploading anything. Now, however, I got some of the workload off my back, and I'm... not yet back to writing. No. Right now, I'm too busy to write. I won't be back until after my exams are done, which will be after three weeks. I wish I could squeeze in some time to write, but right now I have to stay focused for my studies. I hope you may all understand and remain patient, and thank you if you do.

Anyway, this chapter is the start of a new arc in Diplomacy! Yay! Welcome to year 1915! When previous tears have long dried, new ones are shed! Now the alliances really start to twist, but for what reasons and how long will they last? And to what cost? This arc as well as the next one will be focusing on France and Britain (I'm not pairing them together if you're wondering).

I hope you all enjoy the chapter!

I DO NOT OWN HETALIA: AXIS POWERS!

1915

Diplomacy

Once again the diplomats met up in Switzerland's capital, Bern. Bern is such a nice place, Nikolai thought. She had accidentally gotten to Switzerland's house early, and decided to play tourist and look around. It's not cold like Russia, Nikolai smiled as she took a seat in a bench of a park.

"Well bonjour, ma cherie~" Nikolai quickly turned around to meet the face of the French diplomat. "Are you 'ere all on your own?"

Nikolai did not answer. She didn't really trust the Hubert.

"Hm? What is zis? You know, I don't take lightly on women zat give me ze silent treatment~"

"What do you want, Mr. Valère?" Nikolai demanded. His presence was not welcome.

"I merely wanted to discuss our plans for ze war," Hubert said. "Why discuss in a room where we may be eavesdropped, when we can do it before hand in such a romantique place?"

"Mr. Valère," Nikolai snapped. "If you want to discuss about anything that has to do with the problem at hand, you will speak to me about it during the meeting."

"Zen... what if it 'as nozing to do with the problem at 'and?" Hubert raised an eyebrow, in a promiscuous manner(1).

Nikolai stood up, "Then don't even bother." The Russian diplomat spun around to leave.

"Zey crushed our troops," Hubert said and noticed Nikolai stop. She turned to face the Frenchman. "Ze German troops. We both attempted to invade Belgium and Alsace, we lost."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Nikolai said turning back around, yet feeling a bit uncomfortable with the situation.

"What do you suppose we do?" Hubert asked taking a step closer to the other diplomat. "What if Germany tries to invade France?"

"...How many troops you have left in France?" Nikolai asked.

"We 'ad 10,000, we sent 3,000 to Alsace, 3,000 to Belgium, and 3,000 to Mediterranean Sea. We only 'ad 1,000 troop until we 'ad a growth of 10,000 troops," Hubert said in a grim voice.

"Дурак!" Nikolai snapped immediately. "Have you no sense? You never leave just 1,000 of your troops back in your country! Yes you have your objectives from your leader, and yes you have your rivalries, but if you lose your country there will be no chance for you to fight at all!"

"So… what should we do?" Hubert asked, a bit surprised when Nikolai lost her usual cool composure(2).

Nikolai sighed. "It's too late now. With German troops in Belgium and Alsace, they can invade you at any time! If 3,000 of your troops couldn't handle 3,000 of 5,0000 German troops, you'll have to pray that 10,000 will be able to take on 8,000!

"No, you're out of luck on this one. I can't help you without having my troops spend two to three years just to get to your side of Europe. You better make alliances with someone close by, Italy or Britain, I do not care, both if you want! All my country can do for you now are send supplies and a minority of our troops by the North Sea, and you better hope Britain doesn't intercept us! You better get an alliance with Britain at the very least. Just know that my country won't be able to save your ass, and if your country falls, Germany will target mine next!" With that Nikolai turned and left the French diplomat in a slightly frozen state.

"'ow not cute," Hubert pouted.

Soon the meeting began. When all the diplomats had taken their seats, Vash started the meeting. "With the start of 1915, we shall start another diplomatic meeting. You are free to speak upon your countries and your leaders, make alliances with other countries, and discuss on battle plans."

Adelheid stood up from her seat and approached the Italian diplomat. "Mr. Angelo."

"M-Ms. Fritzi!" Alfonso stuttered. He had been given no orders for this meeting. Veneziano was stubborn and would not ally with anyone else until he was allied with Germany. The shock of seeing the contract being signed by his boss was too much for the nation. Could it be, Alfonso thought, could she want to make an alliance?

"Here," Adelheid took out a letter from her folder and handed it to Alfonso. "That is a letter from Germany, he told me to deliver it to you, so that you will deliver it to North Italy. Do you understand?"

"Yes ma'am, but... may I ask you something Ms. Fritzi," Alfonso said.

"Make it quick," Adelheid said. Alfonso noticed a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"Why... why is it that you..." Alfonso sighed, he racked his brain trying to find the words. "What do you think about this abstinence from alliance, between Italy and Germany?"

Adelheid stared at Alfonso. "Why do you ask me this question?"

"Well, Ms. Fritzi," Alfonso said. "You're not like most people. From what I know, you follow rules to the last atom of the ink it's written with. However, I know, as a human, you must have some opinion to those rules behind your monotone voice and neutral frown. Surely... Mr. Germany is suffering from this as well...?"

"Mr. Angelo, I will not have this discussion," Adelheid cut Alfonso off. "Germany has not been 'suffering' as you say, we are well on our way to complete control. Soon, your boot of a country(3) will also fall to Germany. By then, there will be no sign of 'friendship' between Germany and Italy." With that Adelheid left, leaving Alfonso speechless, but not thoughtless.

As Adelheid made her way back to her seat, she felt a tug on her jacket. She turned to see the nervous diplomat of Britain.

"H-hello, would you... I mean... would Germany like to make an alliance with... Britain...?"

Before Adelheid could answer, Hubert dashed to Theodore.

"Salut Teddy!"

"H-Hubert?" Theodore turned around. He was a bit shocked to see Hubert behind him. The two had known each other since their childhood. Theodore's father and Hubert's father were friends, and that was how they knew each other. While it was hard for the two to contact each other from different countries, the two kept in touch through letters.

It was probably what shocked Hubert when he noticed who was in with his childhood friend, Adelheid Fritzi, the German diplomat.

"What's up Hubert?" Theodore asked.

"D... Do you still want to make an alliance with France?"

"He was about to make an alliance with Germany," Adelheid said.

"Fermé la bouche ! Teddy, you can't be serious. You want to join zem? Come on Teddy, ally with France!"

Theodore was shaken further. He had never seen Hubert so angry.

"Negative," Adelheid said, butting in once again. "You join with Germany and we will be able to take down Russia and France. Besides, doesn't Britain hate France?"

"Sacrebleu! Zose are lies!" Hubert yelled. "All complete lies! Teddy zink about it for a moment! It's Germany! Zey have the world's strongest land army! Give them the chance, and zey'll sail to Britain, and invade you the second you turn your back on zem!"

"Inconclusive, Mr. Valère, you are making false accusations out of anger. Out of the fact you can't handle that the German army completely eradicated 6,000 French armies."

"Teddy, listen to me!" Hubert grabbed Theodore's hand, slightly aggravated by Adelheid's words. "What was ze reason Britain even joined ze war? Because zose Fritz's(4) invaded Belgium! Britain declared war on Germany! Why would you ally with zem in war?"

"...Because..." tears began to form in Theodore's eyelids. Hubert immediately released his tight grip on the younger man's hand. "Belgium... is one of our objectives as well..."

"Teddy..."

"Britain... really does hate France, and... if we side with Germany, we'll be able to work together due to our mutual hatred towards France..."

"Teddy, no, please! These can't be your words!" Hubert watched in horror as Adelheid took Theodore's contract.

As Adelheid and Theodore walked off, Theodore stopped to whisper to Hubert, "They're not."

Nico: Whew, things seem to be heating up. Adelheid doesn't want Germany and Italy to ally, while Alfonso does. Hubert really seems to hate Germans at the moment, and Adelheid giving him the cold shoulder. Hubert is shocked with Britain's alliance with Germany.

Notes:

1. Hubert is not really a pervert. He just spends too much time with Francis, that he's adapted to his antics. You'll see Hubert's real personality later on.

2. Nikolai's personality, I would compare it to Iceland's. On the outside, she's composed, but on the inside she holds a lot of emotions. Adelheid is too, except on higher level, than Nikolai. When angered, Nikolai starts to show her Russian accent, and if even more, she'll start speaking in a loud, fast slur of Russian words.

3. What Adelheid is saying here can be thought of as a pun or an insult. The country of Italy looks like a boot on a map. However, Adelheid probably meant it as an insult (as she is not "punny"), saying that Italy is "insignificant".

I, as the writer, mean absolutely no offense to Italians. It's a character's dialogue, of their perspective, not mine.

4. Fritz was a term used by the French for Germans, during WWI. It's not very well heard of, since people are more familiar with WWII terms for Germans (I will not state them, since this is a WWI story not a WWII story).

Once again, I, as the writer, mean absolutely no offense to Germans. It's a character's dialogue (and said character just had his father and brother killed by the German army in the story if you recall), of their perspective, not mine.

Translations:

Bonjour, ma cherie - Hello, my darling

Romantique - Romantic

Дурак - Fool

Salut - Hello (although I think it's more casual, like "Hi", it can also be used as "Bye")

Fermé la bouche - Shut your mouth

Sacrebleu - Damn (literally, I think it means "sacred blue", referring to the sky. My French teacher, who taught me this word, told me that this would be similar to "Oh my God")

An apology to all the readers who don't like the cliff hangers I leave for almost all the chapters. I don't like reading them either, but at the same time cliff hangers just seem to force me into reading more, and they really make a story interesting.

I guess it's time for my usual end story blurb. Uh... Well, lately, thanks to one of my friends, I've been getting hooked on the TV show Merlin. It's really cool, but I was almost shocked at the time of the episodes. Since, for the previous 4-5 months, I've been watching Hetalia episodes, which are 5 minutes long. Merlin episodes are an hour long. Yeah. Nonetheless, it's really cool, and at times I find myself thinking Arthur from Merlin is Arthur (Britain/England/UK) from Hetalia, with slimmer eyebrows.

Oh, lately I've been reading stories, and looking at pictures of Hetalia Potter. It's really interesting, seeing all the countries categorized into the four houses, especially when Canada is mistaken for America, and placed in Gryffindor with his brother, while there was only one story that placed him in Hufflepuff (I took a quiz once, and that's what I got too). I'm a bit of a Harry Potter fan. I started reading the series in second grade, only stopping in the middle of the second book when it got a bit too bloody for my tastes (I had a small stomach for that at that age). I did watch all of the movies, except the most recent one (I saw the trailers though). I however, have two friends who are Harry Potter fans, one who dressed up as Voldemort for Halloween (and she even has this light up wand), the other knows the reason behind Voldemorts name (If I recall... "Vol" means "escape" and "de mort" means "the death", and Voldemort in the story really does "escape from death") and every last atomic detail of Harry Potter.

Before I end off my ending blurb, I wish to share with you my discovery! I've watched a lot of Hetalia fan videos, and Hetalia fan stories, and a common thing for Russia to say is "Vodka is Russian water". At first I found it funny, but I finally found out after watching this video of a guy with a Russian accent. This guy pronounced all his "V"s with "W"s, so he'd say "wodka" instead of "vodka". I found that interesting and kept saying "wodka" until the epiphany came over me. "Wodka" sounds like "Water" (in my sense), "Wodka" was "Vodka" in a Russian accent, meaning Vodka, because it sounds like the word water, is called Russian water! ...Right?
I don't know, I just thought of it while I was in the library with my friends. I was supposed to be working. I was very productive in my work.

Well, I'll be away again for my culminating assignments and studying for my exams. Luckily, I finish my exams in two days, so I will spend the remainder of exam week writing, and hopefully uploading as well. I hope you look forward to it, and thanks to all the people who read this story, left a review, added the story to your favourites/alerts, and just for all the readers who enjoy the story. It means a lot to me. I know I may not be the best of writers (My lowest marks are from English class) but one of the things I enjoy the most is writing (go figure). And knowing people are enjoying something I enjoyed making, is wonderful.

I hope everybody sticks along to the very end, because there's still a few more arcs, and a whole lot of chapters still undone. And I hope you all continue to enjoy reading the stories, as I enjoy writing them.

Please Read and Review!