Nico: Hiya! I'm back!

I'm so happy to be back, I really am. The past couple weeks I've been hit with culminating projects, and then exams came. I have never been so confident in my exams, especially my history exam (yay Hetalia!). I just finished my last one today, so I have the rest of the week to work on my stories! So, since I'm writing, I'll also be uploading too!

If anyone has noticed, my profile as a detailed sum-up of all my stories, and if you go see the Diplomacy section, you'll notice that this story will be active for a very... very long time (26/70+ of the chapters uploaded!). So if you're upset with the length of the chapters, I'm sorry but with 70+ chapters, I think that's already pretty good (this is my longest story yet, in word count and in chapters!). Also, in case if you're wondering why I'm ten chapters ahead in writing, it's because I like to double check my work before uploading, this is mostly in case I want to change up the direction of the story, so yeah.

Anyways I'll leave the rest of my monologue for after the chapter.

I DO NOT OWN HETALIA: AXIS POWERS!

Movement

Russia

"And so that is what I think we should do for this year," Nikolai concluded her statement. She stared, slightly agitated, at the nation before her. Russia, although he seemed to have been paying attention, also seemed like he knew not a word Nikolai had spoken.

"Could you repeat that, Nikol?" Ivan smiled.

"You weren't even paying attention!" Nikolai whined before sighing. "Alright, I'll say it again. First, we will send some supply ships to France. Right now we have 16,000 troops on the home front. We have 4,000 in Poland, and 2,000 in Balkans, clearing two of our three objectives. Our last objective is Serbia, which, sadly, is two years away from our country.

"Austria-Hungary already has 6,000 of their troops in Serbia, meaning our 2,000 in Balkans can't enter unless we have over 6,000 troops. So my plan is to send a majority of our troops to Balkans for this year, than the next we send them to Serbia. Austria-Hungary won't be able to outnumber them."

"Actually..." Ivan said. "There is a flaw, what if they do, outnumber us?"

"They won't," Nikolai said. "We can send in 14,000 of our troops over to Balkans this year, leaving 2,000 in Russia. Austria-Hungary have a small army, sir, almost as small as Italy! The only way they can beat us then, is by sending all of their troops to Serbia to beat us, and they would never do that! By sending all their troops, they open their borders for our attack from Russia!"

"Да, but what if during this year, they send say 7,000 troops to Serbia," Ivan asked. "They'd then have 13,000. Then the next year comes, and right before we can attack Serbia, they send in another 7,000? We'll be outnumbered."

Nikolai huffed. "Then, we make it seem like we're not aiming for Serbia."

"Hm?" Ivan stared at Nikolai, finally catching interest in the conversation.

"If we make it seem like we're just strengthening our hold on the countries we've captured, they won't suspect us of aiming for Serbia. Out of our 16,000... we'll keep 2,000 in Russia, send 2,000 to Poland, and send the remaining 12,000 to Balkans."

"Hm... they will surely catch it though. There is a large slope in numbers," Ivan said. "Why else would we send in the majority of our troops to a country?"

"Because that country may be our highest objective," Nikolai said.

"Hm... you seem to have put a lot of thought into this plan, да?" Ivan asked. Nikolai simply gulped. Ivan smiled.

"You do realize your plan is very much a gamble," Ivan smiled as he took out a bottle of vodka. "If we don't play our pieces(1) right, Russia will fall."

Nikolai's head lowered, upon hearing the vodka bottle pop open.

"Но, I have been through enough wars to know that war itself is a gamble." Nikolai looked up. Once again, the nation's eyes were different. His face held a smile, but his eyes showed sorrow.

"Sir..." Ivan took a quick swig from the bottle before returning to the discussion.

"I am in agreement with your plan," Ivan smiled, closing his eyes before the diplomat could further search into them. "Please be sure to tell Lithuania? He's in charge of the troops really."

"...right away, sir," Nikolai stood up from her chair cautiously.

After Nikolai told Toris off the plans, Toris told Nikolai to be careful.

"What for?"

"Finland's told you about the last diplomat right?" Toris asked. Nikolai had not forgotten, but technically, she did not know exactly what had happened to the last diplomat.

"Well... I..." Nikolai started but Toris interjected.

"I don't know if the same thing will happen to you, but I need you to understand," Toris placed both his hands on Nikolai's shoulders, like a parent talking to their child. "Whatever happens, whatever you hear, whatever you assume might be happening, do not ever enter the basement."

Nikolai watched as Toris left with the 12,000 troops to Balkans, and 2,000 troops left for Poland.

No one noticed, but Nikolai did. She noticed the scratch under Russia's chin, and Lithuania's slightly crooked nose.

Nico: You know what I just noticed? The cliff hangers I leave aren't really cliff hangers for those who know their history (Psst! Brush up on your history and you might just know what is coming up next!), since I try to keep the story historically correct.

Notes:

1. This line was at first going to be "if we don't play our cards right". I changed it after doing some research on chess. (Psst! Sometime in the 1917's arc will be chess!)
(Psst! These are somewhat-spoilers!)

Translations:

Да - Yes (да - yes)

Ho - But

Now back to my monologue (which people usually skip... I'm hurt a bit...). Today I went to this ramen store close(ish) to my school. Instead of my usual milk tea or blueberry slushie, I chose something different. I chose Guava Milk Green Tea. See the past couple days, my friends had been telling me how great guava tasted, so I thought I might as well give it a try. I ordered the drink with my meal, and in less than five minutes comes this beer glass of pink. I stare at it and my mom stares at it. It looked like pepto-bismol (pink medicine for the stomach), and my mom said it tasted like medicine. I found it pretty nice. It was a mixture of sweet from the guava, milky from the milk, and that refreshing taste of green tea. It wasn't bad, but I felt a lot of eyes on me while I drank the bright pink beverage. Ha...

Well I'll stop blabbing around. Expect my daily uploads to return!

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