Notes: I am so psyched for chapter thirty-nine. :'D It shows just how much of a nerd I am, researching little-known treaties and alliances. (Yes, you may guess on which pairing.)

Part XIII

"Worst. Camping. Trip. Ever."

"Screw the Quest for the Ring, that was the Camping Trip from Hell."

"You weren't even on the Quest, Loki."

"Shut up, a demon can dream."

Come Monday, the students were still trying to warm up in language class. The teachers didn't sympathise with them – in fact, they found the students' misery amusing.

"You think you have it bad, eh?" the Rome-Wall demanded in Latin class after Sabrina complained about the temperature for the umpteenth time. "Try being a wall sometime. You'll be so glad to be a part… whatever you are."

"But we're cold," whined Sabrina.

"Get a grip, girl," snapped the Rome-Wall. "We're going to talk about the adjectives of irregular comparison today. Someone please come to the board and write them down for me. You will, Franklin? Good."

Franklin got up and walked to the board, taking the marker and looking expectantly at the Rome Wall.

"Right. First line, first column, write 'bónus, bóna, bónum'. Same line, second column, write 'mélior, mélius'. Same line, third column, write 'óptimus, óptima, óptimum'." He paused to let Franklin write. "Can anyone tell me the correlation between these?"

"They all mean good, but the second column list comparatives and the third column lists superlatives," Franklin immediately said. "After all, in other languages like French, the positive is 'bon', the comparative is 'meilleur', and the superlative is 'mieux'."

"And 'optimum' means 'best'," added Sabrina.

"Good, good," the Rome-Wall turned to Franklin. "Next line, then. Write 'mágnus, mágna, mágnum'. Then 'máior, máius'. Then 'máximus, máxima, máximum'."

"Great, greater, greatest," Eva Danielson said immediately.

"Next line," replied the Rome-Wall, "write 'málus, mála, málum'. Then 'péior, péius'. Then 'péssimus, péssima, péssimum'."

"Bad, worse, worst," listed Sabrina.

After Latin class, the Rome-Wall's students met up with the Italian students. "Lovino gave us a pop quiz!" whined Lydiacatfish. "I forgot everything!"

"No, you didn't," consoled Hotaru.

"Easy for you to say, you probably have top marks in the class," snapped Lydia.

"I'm just naturally talented at languages," Hotaru boasted. "But still, I don't think you did that badly."

"It was a pop quiz!"

The Italian and Latin students met up with everyone else outside the cafeteria. "We wrote essays in French today," Kiril Loris reported, slinging an arm around Enrique Escatara. The werewolf growled at him. "Shush, dog."

"Takes one to know one, leech," Enrique snapped. Kiril would have glared, but his chocolate-fountain eyes ruined the glaring effect.

"You two are cute," Kitty Smith remarked with a smirk as she walked past into the cafeteria. "Oh hey, we have wontons for lunch today."

"RoChu versus Pandaburger?" someone called.

"Kochagumi never gets represented," Grace whined.

"That's because people don't like Kochagumi, what with the Opium War and everything," Karin Guarez explained.

"But the angst!" Grace flapped her arms wildly. "The opium-induced angst! Poor China!"

"China's not so poor nowadays, if you come to think about it," Alice Wang pointed out.

Jennifer took a seat at the North America table as usual. "Valentine's Day comes up in two weeks," she noted cheerily.

"You're only happy because you have Workbitch," pouted Lucia as she sat down with Merka. "Think of all the poor lonely souls out there!"

"Oh shush, I bet Kitty and Anita are planning to play Cupid," Jennifer rebuked. "They might even rope in Aloisio Guerra."

"But Aloisio's obsessed with Karen DuLay," Merka pointed out, grimacing. She, Lucia, and Jennifer had shared a tent on the Camping Trip from Hell, and Karen had set theirs on fire in the middle of the night. They still had the burns and the singed hair to prove it.

"He's also a Cupid," Lucia said, grinning. "Maybe…"

"Nope, it's not going to happen," Merka sighed, patting the mermaid's shoulder. "She's too far gone."

"A mermaid can dream," retorted Lucia.

The snow started receding in February. After one last snowstorm halfway through the first week, the snow levels started dropping. Chibi Ivan had been recording the depths of the snow; according to him the highest snow levels were in December with an average of 91 centimetres. Now the snow was only 30 centimetres deep.

"I think the snow will go away by March," he had announced proudly to the other Chibi Nations in the Nursery, but they were too busy squabbling amongst themselves to pay attention to him.

Mr. Allen and the Bled Pinjas returned the first Friday of February. "Oh, you're back," Aviator Alfred said as Pirate Arthur stepped through. "The students were wondering where you were."

"I'd bin workin'," snapped Pirate England. "'S none o' yer business."

Mr. Allen took the stack of notes from Ninja Kiku and gestured for Arthur. "Parallel Francis gave us some insight into the crossover plothole," he said as soon as they had left the room. "Apparently your theory is correct."

"Of course," replied Arthur pompously.

Mr. Allen raised both eyebrows. "He also said that you have sealed that plothole before."

At that, Arthur paled. "What?" he echoed. "How would he know?"

Mr. Allen looked at him intently. "Is he speaking the truth?"

"He must be bluffing," Arthur replied immediately.

"Bluffing about what?" Mr. Allen wondered, feeling a headache come on. Mr. Hugh was starting to emerge.

"That's of no importance. What else did the Parallel Frog say?" Arthur demanded.

Mr. Hugh tilted his head to the side and blinked at Arthur. "Well… he said that over the summer he had witnessed you sealing the crossover plothole because a smaller crossover crisis had happened then, around the time Bled was created. I really wouldn't know, since I appeared in August, a month after the crisis."

"How did he witness it?" Arthur asked.

"Are you saying that you did seal the crossover plothole before?" Mr. Hugh countered.

Arthur sighed. "I'm sure there's a more permanent way to seal that plothole, because what I did made it close only temporarily."

"What did you do?" Mr. Hugh asked.

"Look, I said it takes unresolved sexual tension to create a crossover plothole, yeah? Well, to seal it, I thought that resolving the tension would do the trick. The thing is, I didn't resolve it with one of the visitors. So that might be why it was temporary. I'm hoping that actually using a crossover pairing will make the thing go away."

Mr. Hugh nodded. "Right. Well, here's to hoping that you and SatW England can solve this."

Arthur looked at Mr. Hugh sharply. "What are you insinuating?"

"We have to start as soon as possible," Mr. Hugh replied. "First, you and SatW England, then you and Point Man Arthur. If neither works, we'll go down the list you created."

"I'll get on that, then," Arthur replied, his cheeks flaming red.

"Adding another sticker?" Jennifer asked Megan, on one of the rare occasions that the alien was in their room. "Who did you sleep with now?" Already, Megan had five stickers on her wall: Andrew Ho, Lucia, Sabrina, William Ofritas, and Enrique Escatara. Jennifer only knew that because of Kitty and Anita's chart.

"Oh, Ryosuke Nakayama," Megan replied nonchalantly. "I think I deflowered him. He came ridiculously quickly."

"I did not need to know that," Jennifer groaned. "It's not TMI Tuesday, you know." She paused. "Who's the next target?"

Megan smirked. "Oh, I wonder," she purred, turning away from her wall.

"It's not me, is it?" Jennifer demanded, wrapping herself in her blankets. "Go away."

"Why not?" Megan grinned. "Come on, Jennifoos. Friends with benefits, what about it?"

"Nope," Jennifer replied. "Merka's got enough on her hands dealing with Lucia's post-relationship angst issues. I don't want to overburden her with mine."

"Wait, wait, Merkity-derkity and Luchie-poo are going out?" Megan looked bewildered.

"Sort of," Jennifer remarked, shrugging. "It's on the chart." She got out of her blanket cocoon and put on her coat. "I'm going to take a walk. Go find someone else to add to your wall."

"Oh, yeah, I gotta meet Andrew. I heard they finally resurrected Charlie Tenterden!" Megan grinned wickedly. "Shall I wear my stilettos?"

"Why are you asking me? I have no fashion sense." Jennifer left the room and took the finally-repaired elevators to the first floor (since the stairs still tended to screw themselves over, after all). She skirted by a couple just outside the girls' dorm, but she doubled back in surprise when she saw who they were.

"Look, we're not going anywhere," Alexander was saying to Kriss.

"How can you tell?" Kriss demanded, looking at him petulantly.

"It had been the same thing before," Alexander replied. "Nothing's happening between us. Not since January, that is – it's all déjà-vu to me."

"Come on," Kriss snapped. "You can't take that as grounds for breakup. You should've just told me."

"It's a bit… I think we've just become too familiar, you know?"

"I've never heard you being this eloquent," Jennifer remarked snidely, causing the couple to turn around in surprise.

"Speak of the devil," muttered Alexander. Jennifer flashed a sunny smile at him.

"Trying to figure out how to dump Kriss? So much for British gentleman," she harrumphed. "Just get to the point. When we were going out, I could tell you wanted a breakup but were too polite to tell me, so I did the honours."

Kriss rolled her eyes. "I don't think you're helping this, Jennifer," she muttered.

"No, I'm not," agreed Jennifer. "I'm just going to leave now, with my parade of awkward turtles." She nodded. "See you on Monday."

"Wait, what?" Kriss demanded. "Monday? But…"

But Jennifer didn't hear her, since she was already well on her way towards the Staff Section.

Kitty and Anita frowned, watching the camera feeds. They had access to surveillance systems in the student sections of the campus, because Shinbun-kun had enlisted them as 'cub reporters'.

"Shame we can't get anything on the staff," Kitty lamented. "I suppose this will do."

"You know it," Anita agreed. "Why can't Mariam join our team, though?"

Kitty grimaced. "Look, your friend's nice and bubbly and all that, but she needs to learn how to spell."

"You sound like Mr. Allen in GrammarBootCamp mode."

"Well, that sounds nicer than 'Grammar Nazi', I suppose," Kitty sighed, turning back to the chart. "Looks like Kriss and Alexander are well on their way to the breakup arrow."

"And Jennifer's going to the Staff Section because…?" Anita frowned.

"Well, duh. Workbitch." Kitty snickered. "Who else is next? Megan and Charlie?"

"Looks likely to happen," Anita agreed. The two girls settled back, watching the screens.

Meanwhile, Jennifer entered the Staff Section to find a crowd gathered around the remains of a swordfish. "Isn't that Seychelles's swordfish?" Jennifer asked, trying to suppress the bile that rose in her throat at the mere mention of Seychelles.

"Yeah, she's disappeared," SatW America said, gesturing to Francis. The Frenchman was looking particularly distraught.

"First Nataliya, now Seychelles. Do we know where she went?" Francis asked as he frantically looked for evidence on the swordfish.

"There were no tracking devices on her," Arthur replied, appearing with Point Man Arthur. Both of them looked rather dishevelled.

"Didn't work?" Mr. Allen asked, glaring at Jennifer as the fangirl sidled by, flashing her pass. "We had hopes on those two."

"That could be it. Since everyone anticipated it, it didn't work," Arthur replied, sending an apologetic look at Point Man Arthur. "Apologies about your arse, man."

"You didn't apologise to me," SatW England snapped, still looking uncomfortable. Jennifer inwardly squealed as she passed him by to meet with Workbitch, who was hovering at the end of the hallway.

"What's going on?" Jennifer asked the secretary as they left the group.

"Trying to resolve the plothole," Workbitch replied, kissing her forehead. Mr. Allen watched them leave, a disgusted expression on his face.

"I still can't believe he'd stoop to that level; he can't be that desperate," the Course Coordinator sighed.

"You're one to talk; you impregnated a Mary Sue," Arthur retorted before slinging an arm around SatW England. "And I'm not apologising to you because what's the use of an apology if I'm just going to repeat what I did?"

"You wouldn't!" squeaked SatW England, turning bright red. "Not in public, you twat!"

"Of course not, I'm not a Frog," Arthur replied, glaring at Francis. "Speaking of which, we're now moving down the list. Francis, you're with Marianne tonight."

"Oho, fitting," Marianne chuckled darkly, resting a hand on Francis's arm.

"I'm sure we can get in another possible couple," Kiku pointed out. "Sebastian, you're with Heracles."

"As you wish," sighed the demonic butler. "I'm just one hell of a –"

"We know," Ludwig interrupted tersely, arriving on the scene with Chibitalia trailing behind, panting. "Mafia Lovino disappeared."

"And Chibi Romano! Mio fratello!" added Chibitalia, looking on the verge of tears. "We have to hurry up!"

"We can't do anything with anyone underage, so the list excludes Afuganisu-tan and her friends. But Meriken's on the list, along with her colleagues Britain and Russia." Arthur held up his list. "John Bull and Uncle Sam opted out of the process, and we're not about to force anyone into this. I'm trying to pair people off based on their likely compatibility with each other…" he trailed off. "Eames, you don't mind spending the night with Alfred, right? Our first choice for you would have been Francis, but he's a little busy."

"Course I don't mind," Eames replied slyly, while Alfred looked betrayed.

"I thought I was going to go with Meriken, Artie!"

"Come off it, you git; you're not getting married to him," Arthur snapped. "All I want you to do is to resolve some unresolved sexual tension. You don't even have to sleep with him. Just a snog should do."

"But chances are, if there is any UST between you two, you'd want to go beyond that," Kiku pointed out.

Alfred pouted, but he left with Eames all the same.

Ludwig watched him go, and then looked at Chibitalia. "I hope we didn't scar you for life," he remarked quietly. The little Italian boy shrugged.

"I already figured it out," he said innocently. "You know how fangirls are."

There was a pregnant pause. And then Ludwig growled.

"I'm going to kill those fangirls."