Author's Note: Bleh, I'm sick, so I'm posting this now to make me feel better (no, I did not write this when I was sick, that would be awful). Awesome Prussia's turn now. I found it VERY interesting that Prussia didn't join the Napoleonic Wars until AFTER the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved. Prussia's boss was Frederick William III, his second boss after Old Fritz.

Dissolution of Holy Rome: Prussia

Something was missing. Something was gone. No, someone! Prussia didn't know who, but he knew this feeling all too well. This aching pain in his chest. Someone in his family was dead. It was just like when Vati (1) and Mutti (2) disappeared. They were just suddenly gone, even though they weren't killed, to a place where he couldn't find them. Who was dead? Who was gone now? It could only be one of his brothers, but whom? Definitely not Spazzy Switzy. He hadn't once put himself on center stage since he'd drifted away from them (and that little scrap during the French revolutionary campaigns didn't count because the battles had moved over to his land). And it probably wasn't Loser Austria either. Sure, France's boss had kicked his and Russia's collective asses at Austerlitz, but that wasn't enough to kill someone who had experienced centuries-worth of defeat (and *grumble, grumble* victory *grumble*). He probably would have heard something about it much sooner than now if it really was Austria who had kicked the bucket so to speak. But if it wasn't Switzy or Ass-tria that only left... the one brother he had never once made any attempt to ever interact with... little Holy Roman Empire... But no, that... that couldn't be...! It wasn't... Prussia was out the door in seconds, swinging his cloak over his shoulders without even informing his boss or anyone else that he was leaving. He was headed for Vienna. Austria had been Holy Rome's guardian once when the kid was still around and if he was going to get any answers, he'd probably find them there. He just hated that he had to ask... Austria of all people.

He did get his answers. All of them. Their youngest brother, Holy Rome, who'd been missing for 160 years, was dead. Austria's. fucking. boss. had abdicated the throne of the Holy Roman Empire and dissolved, no, killed their little brother. Prussia rarely ever got mad. He was beyond mad now. He was a raging, inferno of Hellfire.

"YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!" he was so fucking close to rending him to tiny shreds! "HE WAS OUR LITTLE BROTHER AND YOU JUST LET YOUR FUCKING EMPEROR KILL HIM, YOU FUCKING WIMP!"

Austria was on his feet and yelling at him just as loudly, "I DID NOT! You think I WANTED this, you fool? ! I RAISED HIM FOR VATER'S (3) SAKE!"

"And a REAL fine job you did too!" he bellowed in a sarcastic ferocious growl, "Couldn't even keep track of ONE little kid and LOST him for 160 FUCKING YEARS!"

"And where the HELL were YOU all those years ago when he was still around! ? ! Playing 'Knight' and 'Servant' over at Poland's and Lithuania's house? ? ? You could have helped me watch over him so that I wouldn't have to do it alone, but YOU turned your back on him and left ME to take care of him! You wanted NOTHING to do with him and the only GOD DAMNED help I EVER received was from Hungary! And don't you DARE start blaming me for losing him when you're JUST AS GUILTY for not finding him! DID YOU EVEN SEARCH ONCE? ! ? !"

Austria was breathing heavily when he had finished and there were hot, angry tears gathering at the corners of his furiously-narrowed violet eyes. Prussia turned on his heel with a snarl and left Vienna in a fury. His heart felt pained and constricted like it wanted to snap or snap something! Safely away from any civilization in one of the German forests, he screamed a coarse, ragged, throaty scream of frustrated anger and guilt and tears spilled from his eyes. Twenty years ago, this same month, it was his Old Fritz and now it was Holy Rome. He hated August. He was the absolute portrait of fucking weakness and God he fucking knew it. That's why he was here. If he'd stayed a second longer in Vienna, he'd have lost his head and in front of Loser Austria no less. Absolutely unforgivable to show such weakness. Once all the stupid weakling tears were finally gone, Prussia stood up from where he had knelt down on the forest floor and with hard, vengeful blood-red eyes, he glared west where he knew France was. France was the one who killed his little brother. Holy Roman Empire would be avenged.

When he returned, he immediately sought out his boss, Frederick William III. He hadn't fought in a war since the failed French revolutionary campaigns under Frederick William II and what a rude awakening that had been! He had idly (unwillingly) sat by while Napoleon had traipsed through Europe and conquered whatever land he damn-well pleased. He had been pissed off in July when Napoleon had created the Confederation of Rhine. He was interfering with German land that was now (willingly) supporting Napoleon against the rest of the German lands. That had rankled deeply, but now this... this was personal! This was his immediate family that France was fucking around with!

He located his king and marched straight towards him. He didn't care that he looked murderous. "The Confederation of the Rhine has killed Holy Roman Empire and has pledged support to Napoleon. They are his allies and his power is increasing with the increased amount of territory that he successfully-conquers. If we do not act now, then we will end up more or less the same. I'm sick of sitting around here remaining neutral. It's weak and un-awesome. Well, I'm done with it! I'm going to take down France whether I have your approval or not!"

They were not Old Fritz. They would never be Old Fritz. But he was still Prussia and though he was not as powerful and awesome as when Old Fritz had been his boss (the battles fought under Frederick William II were proof enough of that), he could still hold his own and kick ass. He could not have lost so much of his strength within the short twenty years since Old Fritz had gone. Prussia was completely confident that he could give France a run for his money.

Oh, how very wrong he was.

Prussia, along with the surprisingly-awesome woman that was Frederick William III's wife, Louise, finally convinced the man to join the Fourth Coalition with Russia, Sweden, Britain, and one of his relatives, Saxony, against Napoleon. In October, Prussia sprung into action against the French forces. October. Prussia had long-understood and accepted (unwillingly and with much depression) that he would never have those wonderful, golden years with Old Fritz again, but he still expected that he could pull off a Prussian victory; his bosses were still the Hohenzollerns after all. Battle of Jena and Auerstedt.

He was completely slaughtered. He was shocked, humiliated, and in total disbelief. How? How had he become so... so weak in such a short amount of time? ? It was only twenty fucking years! ! !

"In all fairness, Prussia, we've been waiting for you to make a move since Russia's refusal to accept the peace terms of the Third Coalition," France said with an apologetic shrug to the captive country.

Prussia growled, but couldn't do much more, even if he wasn't trussed up like a turkey. At least his bosses weren't captured too. That would only make this even more humiliating, but he hoped they would get away from Berlin. He was sure that's where Napoleon was heading next. He had no army, or at least, it certainly wasn't something he was proud of, so he couldn't protect them. Their best hope was to leave him and his heart behind and save themselves. He didn't like it, it wasn't awesome at all, but it wasn't cowardly either. This was a 'tactical retreat'.

()()()()()()()()()

Prussia was finally released from French capture nine months later as a result of the Treaty of Tilsit, but it was hardly freedom. Even with the efforts of his queen, who he was coming to adore and admire more than he had ever thought possible towards a woman (and she wasn't even Prussian), who had come from the very east of his land, his old motherland, just to save him and attempt to salvage his honor in this shameful treaty, he lost half his territory to France and Poland (with some going to Russia also), had a huge war indemnity, and was now forced to serve France or else. His hands were practically tied from 1807 onward until 1813 when he got his chance.

He hated Russia, but they both agreed in that neither of them wanted to be France's ally in this war and were extremely pissed off that they were forced to be as a result of the Treaties of Tilsit. The only thing that pissed him off more was that Russia got the chance to strike back first when France actually tried to invade Russia in winter. The resulting chaos of that failed campaign was exactly what Prussia had been waiting for to break France's leash on him to get him back for the humiliation he'd suffered in the Treaty of Tilsit and to fulfill his original goal of avenging Holy Rome's death. Prussia and his people had gotten their acts together since that awful memory that was the Battle of Jena and was much stronger and more organized than he had been as a result of all the reforms he had undergone. And Queen Louise, bless her soul, that wonderful awesome woman, had been such an unconquerable foundation of support to lift his spirits up out of the depression that had threatened to overwhelm him many times (all of Old Fritz's hard work for naught) right up until her last breath. Thanks to her efforts (Louise equals revenge!) and his peoples' indomitable recovery, he was ready. Now he was awesome again!

He was not the only one reneging against France's tight military control either! By 1813, Sweden, Austria, and himself had slipped out of France's grasp and joined Russia, Britain, Spain, and his older brother, Portugal, to give France a well-deserved ass-kicking. They were all out for blood, for one reason or another, and didn't stop until they had Paris, France's heart, and forced Napoleon's abdication. They had won and the Battle of Nations at Leipzig had been awesome, but it wasn't quite the victory that Prussia had been hoping for. It satisfied him and his desire to overcome his humiliation and avenge his beloved Queen, but it wasn't enough of a strike to honor Holy Rome. He almost wanted Napoleon to come back so that he could punish him and France properly for murdering his youngest brother. The details of the wars still weren't finalized. He was gonna have to meet up with everyone else in Vienna so that they could undo all the damage that Napoleon had done and redraw the fucking map again. Of course he would be redrawing the map because he was so awesome!

But first, he wanted to go back home and be back in his beautiful Prussian territory before he had to deal with those other losers to get the rest of his land back. He was passing through the forests of Thuringia, the name for Vati's heart when he had still lived. It was so tranquil and serene that he wondered how such a place could have possibly been Vati's heart, of all people. He did not expect to run into anyone; people didn't usually venture into the deep forests alone, and he was shocked when he did. It was a young lad, probably about thirteen years old and he looked pretty beaten-up. There was a broken sword next to him and Prussia wondered if the the kid was dead. Just as he decided to run up and poke him in the forehead to check, he brought himself up short and stared down at him in a kind of fascinated horror. This feeling he had in his heart... the place where Holy Rome had been was filled up! He hadn't noticed it before! But that could only mean that someone had taken over the land that Holy Rome had once represented and that spot could only be filled so... completely by a direct blood relative of his, a son of Germania because he was his mother's only child. Was it...? Was it this boy? It had to be! This kid must be his new youngest brother! But that was only possible if Vati was still around... The eight-year-old boy within him that hadn't ever stopped searching wanted to rush off and try to find his long-gone father, but he didn't. It was stupid and would get him nowhere. Germania had disappeared a long time ago.

This kid was his youngest brother... his new youngest brother and he looked like he was in poor condition. Kneeling down beside him, Prussia saw that he was breathing well and though he looked incredibly beaten-up and had several bruises, he didn't appear to have any severe injuries (though he did suspiciously wonder why there was a broken half of a French sword stained with blood next to him). Prussia could only come to one conclusion about his little brother's condition... He was sleeping. Prussia had absolutely no qualms about poking his cheek to wake him up.

The blond lad gave an annoyed grunt and half-glared at Prussia for disturbing him. "Who are you? What do you want?" he grumbled.

Prussia was speechless. He spoke German, not any particular dialect of it either, which gave credence to his guess that this boy was also Vati's son, but that wasn't what took away his voice. The hair was an incredibly pale, bleached blond and his eyes were a cool, almost-icy light blue. He looked... just like a younger Vati! This was absolute PROOF that this boy was his youngest brother! Then a thought struck him. Wasn't Holy Rome blond-haired and blue-eyed too? He was almost sure of that, but it had been so long ago that he couldn't remember the shades on top of the fact that he hadn't cared to remember them back then. He regretted that now. But maybe... just maybe what if this boy really was Holy Rome somehow, but grown-up a little?

"I'm the Awesome Prussia, your big brother, and I wanted to make sure that you weren't dead!" Prussia answered in response to the lad's question, "So what's your name, kid?"

"Um... I'm..." the boy scrunched up his eyebrows and put a hand to his forehead in intense concentration, "I'm not quite sure, but I think... I think I'm Confederation of the Rhine? I'm sorry, Prussia, I can't really remember all that well."

"Ah, I see. Well, that's okay, nobody cares if you remember unimportant stuff like that anyway!" Prussia exclaimed enthusiastically.

So this boy was the unknown representation of the Confederation of the Rhine, or what was left of it. It was an absolute mess right now and probably wouldn't last as it was when he was done in Vienna. It was completely understandable that he wasn't sure if it was his name or not considering his dubious origins. But it answered the main question he had in his mind. Confederation of the Rhine couldn't be Holy Roman Empire. Holy Rome was killed in August and Confederation of the Rhine here must have been born a month or two before that when it was created. It was kinda odd though that there was a representation of that confederation considering how it was created by a bunch of already-existing German relative representations like that condescending asshole, Bavaria, and Saxony and Hesse and whoever else hadn't been killed off by France in his creation of the Confederation of the Rhine. It got him thinking though... Perhaps he wasn't really so much the Confederation of the Rhine itself, but a sample of the conglomeration of German people living as a part of the Confederation. It would certainly explain why he had no regional dialect. He wanted to take this kid home with him. If he wasn't careful, he would lose yet another little brother at the Congress of Vienna if they got rid of the Confederation of the Rhine and didn't replace it with something else. Staring at the bored-looking Confederation of the Rhine, it was hard for him to stop thinking about how he looked soo much like Vati! Then Prussia suddenly grinned as an idea came to him. He knew exactly how he was going to save Confederation of the Rhine's life while still appeasing the other victors, himself included.

"Right then! From now on, you're going to live with me, little brother, and you will be known as German Confederation when I come back from my boring-ass meeting with all the other loser countries in Vienna to fix up what stupid France messed up! But I will call you 'West' because you are to the west of me and I'm awesome!"

"Right... Then... then I guess I'll call you 'big brother' then, right?" Confederation of the Rhine asked with a wistful look very much like one seeking approval for something.

"Aww, don't be so formal, West! Just 'bruder' (4) will work fine for me! Or you could call me 'Awesome-Big-Brother Prussia'! ! !

Confederation of the Rhine flat-lined and punched his newly-discovered older brother in the stomach and Prussia made such a dramatic fuss over it that Confederation of the Rhine couldn't help but giggle. Prussia smiled warmly when he heard his baby brother's laughter. Holy Rome was gone forever, but maybe he had been given a second chance to start over with the upbringing of a little brother. He would not abandon Confederation of the Rhine like he did Holy Roman Empire, nope! He would make sure that Confederation of the Rhine had all the skills and resources to deal with the world on center stage and not have to struggle to make himself known like he did (having to work for Poland sucked!). He promised himself that he would do things right this time and so he was in a relatively good mood when he arrived for the Congress of Vienna with all the other map-drawers.

Yay, not many weird translations for once! :D Don't worry Prussia, you'll get to properly kick Napoleon's ass for Holy Rome when he comes back from Elba! :)

(1) Vati - Dad (I always imagine that Prussia would have a closer relationship with Germania than Austria, for example)

(2) Mutti - Mom (lol, Prussia is certainly not going to call his mom "Mutter" :P)

(3) Vater - Father

(4) Bruder - Brother

Just to clarify, Holy Rome never became Confederation of the Rhine like he thinks. He has been living off the general German population, as Prussia suspects, to heal and survive as much as he has (and he's grown-up a little because of the consolidation of German states and the beginnings of the creation of a unified German identity). The reason why his hair color is slightly different from the first chapter to this one is because of one thing: puberty. Puberty can change hair color, it did for me. My hair used to be a really light brown when I was younger and now it is solid brown. Same with my brother except that his hair went from regular brown to dark brown-nearly black.

I just came up with Spazzy Switzy because it's an alliteration and I can totally imagine Prussia calling him that to tease him (and then running away because Switzy pulls out his guns and starts going ballistic. lol, just think of how ballistic he'd go if Prussia reminded him of the times when he used to wear the Swiss Guard uniforms! :P)

I don't think Austria would really curse all that much, but he might curse more when he's around Prussia than otherwise. This legit happens, my own dad has four older brothers and whenever he's around any of them, he curses a whole lot more than when he's not.

I really wanted to emphasize the fact that it was only twenty years ago from Jena that Old Fritz died because Otto von Bismarck actually makes a reference to this. Bismarck warned Willhelm II (the last German Emperor) in December 1897 of the eventual collapse for his exact words were "Jena came twenty years after the death of Frederick the Great; the crash will come twenty years after my departure if things go on like this" and he predicted accurately too! O.O

The references I made to Poland (and Lithuania) are because Prussia was a fief of Poland (later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) from 1525 to early 1656 by first becoming a fief to Sweden and then obtaining full sovereignty later that year (which was recognized by Poland the following year thus ending Prussia's tenure of servitude for good). He did come under the Brandenburgs before the Thirty Years' War, but just barely, and was probably a whole lot more concerned in freeing himself from Polish servitude (lol, Prussia as a servant XP) and getting stronger again than actually meeting Holy Rome (Hell, he benefitted from the Thirty Years' War!)

Portugal still does not have an official character design much less a gender, so I chose a male Portugal for a couple reasons and many of them based upon my interactions with a Portugese man here on FF, actually. In talking with this person, I learned that he got very mad whenever somebody mistook either his language as Spanish or thought that Portugal was just a Spanish province (like really mad, it was a little scary!) So based on that, I'd imagine that Portugal would look very similar to Spain to the point where people would mistake HIM for Spain (kinda like how people mistake Canada for America) and I think it would be VERY difficult to mistake Portugal (if a female) for Spain (even though I do want more female countries). It... also doesn't help that an awesome artist on DeviantART and tumblr by the name ctcsherry designed an AMAZING male!Portuglal (and created a great personality for him too!) that I just spazz over every time I read the Age of Discovery comic strip that she made!

(Warning: Historical Figure Promotional Spiel)
If there was a woman that Prussia loved with the same fierce devotion and loyalty that he loved Old Fritz, it would probably be Queen Loise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Frederick Willaim III's wife. She was not Prussian, but she certainly loved Prussia, and she was fondly remembered over 100 years later well into the mid-20th century and probably longer.

It is written that Louise was "Prussian nationalism personified" and she was a woman strong of heart during a low, depressing point in Prussian history (as a result of the French occupation) which raised the spirit and morale of not only her husband, but the Prussian people as well. While the terms for the Prussian half of the Treaty of Tilsit were being arranged, Louise agreed to come (by her husband's summoning) to beg for less-damning results for Prussia, and she agreed, but only to "save her Prussia" (hence why I decided that Prussia should be captured by France until the terms were set) and she had been advising him to accept no shameful peace for Prussia should still maintain his honor.

Louise had requested a private interview with Napoleon and threw herself at his feet to beg favorably for Prussia and though she'd failed and he'd tried to destroy her reputation by suggestions of infidelity, he failed and only immortalized the love and admiration that the Prussians already had for their queen (and the epression "Louise equals revenge" was a pretty common one in the wars between 1813 - 1815 against the French). Louise was so important to her husband and the Prussians, that after she died (she died young, only 34), Frederick Willaim III established the Order of Louise on the anniversary of her birthday as a female counterpart to the Iron Cross. Man, I could go on and on about this woman and how awesome she is. I love her as much as I love Maria Theresa of Austria and both were AMAZING women in their own ways! :)