Disclaimer: Hetalia and its characters do not belong to me - unfortunately - they belong to their respective creators/owners.
Author Note: So glad that I finally buckled down and finished this. I promised, didn't I! Anyway, enjoy and leave feedback!

Chapter 4

Phase #11 (Claim your land)
[concept by Hetabee]

Sealand knew that as soon as he glanced at the next plan that things weren't going to go well. He glanced up at Ladonia. "I'm not so sure we should do this next one."

Ladonia stood from his sitting position and bent over Sealand's shoulder to look at the fort's phone. "Seems simple to me."

Sealand frowned at him, remembering yesterday. "Yeah, but you get out of control when you get a little power." He continued, mumbling as he scrolled through his cell phone again, "Helped you and you tried to conquer my room."

"Well, I was actually trying to take over your dad's house." He shrugged, unapologetic. "Your room was a means to an end."

"Do you even hear how horrible you sound right now?"

"Psh! Whatever! You have to be tough when you're in a war."

"You're not in a war with my papa – for the last time-!"

"That bastard has what's comin' to him!"

Sealand pressed his hand to his face, now realizing how others felt about the micronations whenever the countries told his group that they were being annoying. "You're not going to get him to recognize you if you destroy him."

Ladonia paused at that, scratching his cheek. "Oh. You make a good point."

Sealand shook his head. "Anyway, to get back on track," he held out wide canvas paper to Ladonia, "you should try to draw your flag. Then we can make copies of it and hang up the fliers around different cities." Sealand looked at his art supplies (courtesy of a generous donation from Kugelmugel) and smiled. "With this, people and countries will want to see what the fliers are all about, check out your country, and BOOM! Recognition at last."

Ladonia, who had been gazing at the canvas paper, nodded. It did sound like a good plan. And one that couldn't be messed up. He then set the canvas paper on the floor and grabbed a few markers. "Let's get started, pipsqueak!"

"...Pretty sure I'm older than you."

"Shut up!"

"No, you!"

Well...maybe they would implement it after they had their scheduled fight for the day.

vwvwvwvwvwvwvwvwvwvwvw

"There! Done!"

Sealand glanced to the paper being held out proudly to him. He studied the drawing. It looked like...well, green. Nothing but the color green. "Your flag is so...colorful, Ladonia," he couldn't help the sarcasm that filtered in as he said his friend's name.

"Tch!Whatever. Means kids can actually draw my flag."

Yeah, kids like you, Sealand thought as he stared unimpressed at the drawing. "There's only, like, one color. How will this get people's attention?"

"Are you blind? Look," he pointed to faint (squiggly, uneven) white lines, then flapped the paper up and down. "This is the Scandinavian cross. Means I'm a legit Nordic and anyone who says otherwise can go suck it."

"Okay," Sealand agreed, mind already on something more important. "Now all we have to do is make copies." He grabbed Ladonia's hand ("Hey!") and pointed forward. "To Papa's copy machine!"

Twenty minutes and many, many wasted copies of malformed paper later ("'S'okay. I'm sure Papa can buy more ink later."), they finally had enough fliers to spread around the country.

"Hm...some of these are a little crooked..."

"Who cares. So long as they know who I am, it's fine," Ladonia said as he clutched the fliers to his chest with an excited smirk as they walked around town. When they came across a store or a light pole, Sealand would tear off a peace of the tape he carried and he would put it on the surface, allowing it float there for passersby to see. This continued for some time when Ladonia let out a sigh.

"I wish we knew if it was working or not."

"Why not find out?" Sealand asked as he sat on a bench and opened Ladonia's laptop.

"What! Where did you-! Where were you keeping that?" was the question that concerned Ladonia the most.

"Doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does! You didn't keep it in your-your-?" Ladonia stuttered, horrified, as he shot a glance at Sealand's lower regions.

"Here we are," Sealand said as he opened Ladonia's web page. He scrolled through the website. "I don't see many hits. Bollocks."

"Ugh! That's cause we're doing this your way. We're doing it my way now and I'll be sure to get popular. Watch and learn!" Ladonia walked away with the tape and fliers and swiped a stick from the ground near one of the city's trees.

"Ladonia, what are you-?"

The stick went into the soil with a violent jerk and Ladonia stood proudly beside it once it had been planted. "This is a flag of Ladonia!" he yelled at everyone in the square, causing many tourists and families to turn towards him. Sealand slowly shut the laptop as he watched, a mix between curious and anxious. "Get to know it because many people already do, and one day it (I) will be a great country. When that happens, Sweden will fall!"

People continued to stare, confused at him, as Sealand swooped forward and hurriedly shushed him, pushing him away from the square. Once he had been pushed far enough, Ladonia finally slapped Sealand's hands off him.

"What's your problem!"

"You can't just declare war on other people, especially if you're in the country surrounded by its citizens! Do you want to have an angry mob chasing you?"

"Psh! Like they could catch me."

Sealand shook his head at his friend's obstinacy and faced away. "I guess we'll have to move on to a new plan; this one didn't really work. Maybe...we should start an Internet page? A petition? More people might see it that way. Do you know any good advertisement sites, Laddy?" Silence. "Balls, he left."

Meanwhile, Ladonia was crossing over into other countries, arms full of their supplies from earlier. For every few miles of land he came across, he'd stick in his self-made flag, claim the land for the country of Ladonia, then continue walking. Though he had left the country of Sweden behind, he had run out of fliers after many hours of walking and had to walk back to Sealand's house.

Once back, he entered the house with a self-satisfied smirk.

"Now check the hits, Sealand," he gloated as he caught his breath and wiped some dirt and wet leaves from his tired face, feeling better as the warm house began to influence his chilled body. "I bet I've got a lot of support now."

Sealand looked up from his place on the living room couch, cell phone in hand. "Oh, hey, you're back."

"Yeah, I'm back. Did you hear what I said?"

"Yeah."

"So do it."

"I'm busy," he replied as he typed a text to his pal Latvia. Sweden walked out of the kitchen at that moment, having gotten home from work while Ladonia was out, and looked at them, no longer surprised that Ladonia was in his house again.

"Dinn'r will b' ready soon," he told them and he walked back into the kitchen as Ladonia hissed at him like an animal until Sweden was out of his sight.

"Good comeback, 'Donia; you'll win the war with him in no time like that."

"Shut up. I worked hard today." He would deny it with his dying breath that he became whiny and pleading at the end of that sentence. At least it got him what he wanted as Sealand looked at him again and exited from his text messages, bringing up the Internet on it and going to Ladonia's website. Ladonia walked over, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "Well? Well? How many hits do I have? A million? A trillion? The whole world?"

"Uh...nine."

"Nine."

"No, wait, some of those are from us. Uh...three."

"I went all over the world and I only got three people to look me up?" He sank to the floor and placed his forehead on the rug under the coffee table. A long, drawn out 'whyyy' came out of his mouth and ended with a small scream muffled by his cheeks. He felt a pat on his head as Sealand leaned over the couch to pity him at a better angle. Ladonia couldn't even get up enough energy to swat the annoying kid's hand away.

At that moment came a knock at the door and Sweden left the kitchen to answer it. Sealand looked on, curious, as the door opened to reveal Norway.

"Hey, Norway! Wassup?"

Norway nodded at them, taking in stride the crushed Ladonia on the floor, and looked back to Sweden. He held up a few bundles of sticks. "These were all over my country. Well, 38% of my country. Thought you all might know how they got there." He placed Ladonia's make-shift flagpoles in Sweden's arms. As one, the elder countries turned to give the boys a glance.

"Ah," Sealand piped up, "we were trying to get Ladonia recogn-"

"Hey! They don't need to know my business!" Ladonia said as he got to his knees, attention focusing on something else besides his failure. He pointed to his flags. "And what do you mean that they were in your country? I walked all over the continent!"

Norway tilted his head to the side. "I highly doubt that since they only reached a small distance into my home. Unless you skipped a few hundred miles?" His last sentence was drowned out by Ladonia's very loud groan.

"I didn't even make it out of Nordic territory! Ahhh!"

Sealand patted his head again and Norway turned to Sweden. "I'm not sure how to address him claiming my land in his name. I know a couple of countries would have gone after him for it. Had he made it that far. By walking."

"Stop focusing on that! And I was just trying to spread my name around." Well, actually, he was claiming the land for himself, but Norway could be kind of scary sometimes, so he kept his mouth shut about his previous true intentions.

Sweden invited Norway into the house as he left to put the failed flagpoles out of sight. Sealand took this moment in Ladonia's pain to ask Norway to stay and have dinner with them.

"Sure, why not," he said as he walked with Sealand to the kitchen. "We'll invite my brother, too."

"And Denny!"

"Ugh."

Ladonia stayed prone on the floor. "Whyyyyyyy-" he continued to moan his situation to no one in the room as Sweden passed by him, pausing briefly to throw a blanket over Ladonia. "I'm not going to sleep down here!"

Phase #17 (Finale)

Ladonia hid from the Nordic family inside the house as he crept outside, knife in hand. Yesterday Sealand had informed him that they were now at the end of the list. And so far nothing had worked. So, after much thinking, Ladonia decided to 'go for broke' – as the saying is – and attack Sweden directly to force the country to recognize him. Of course, he couldn't actually attack the country, no matter how much he wanted to – the guy was a behemoth.

This was why his current plan, sans Sealand, was to slowly, and secretly, destroy the country's property. If he wasn't seen, there'd be no evidence he did it, right? Ladonia would wait until Sweden was broken mentally, worried about who was destroying his stuff, then Ladonia would reveal himself and demand recognition in exchange for ceasing his attacks.

He chuckled as he reached the tires of Sweden's car. Making sure he was still hidden from the outward windows, he readied the knife and plunged it into the tire with a pleased smile. This'll teach that-

FSSSSH!

Ladonia yelped as the air suddenly escaped around the knife loudly and he fell back on his posterior. Then huffed in humor at himself. That was easy.

He repeated the action to the rest of the tires until all four were deflated and the car sank down to the ground. He stared at the obviously damaged car. Uh... Maybe he went too far?

Nah, it was fine. 'Desperate times,' as the saying went. He then crept to the side of the house and hid. It wasn't long before the object of his ire came out of his house, heading toward the car as he put his wallet in his pockets, only to stop short at the sight of his car a few inches lower than it should be. As Ladonia watched, Sweden stared at the deflated tires before taking a breath and turning (almost to where Ladonia was hiding).

"L'donia."

Nope, he wasn't falling for that; he'd come out of hiding when he chose to, and not a minute before then. With that thought, he smugly crossed his arms and leaned against the house walls, out of sight. Sweden waited a whole minute before going back inside the house and shutting the door.

Ha! Ladonia cackled inside his mind. He'd won this battle, and, even better, his enemy had acknowledged his attack. This was the best plan he'd ever had. And it was all his idea!

What should I do next? he thought as a familiar sensation started pulling at his skin. Maybe break a window when he's not home or something...? I could..., he paused as the sensation got stronger, and he had just enough time to look at his static-looking fingers before his surroundings blinked to black. Ladonia frowned and rubbed eyes to find he was suddenly back in his laptop, the familiar surroundings lighting up around him.

He tilted his head to the side in confusion. "My battery...?" he wondered aloud, a little worried. But he thought Sealand was helping him keep an eye on that.

He began to feel irritated. That was one of the reasons he even bothered to stay here in the same house as his enemy!

Just as he was beginning to work up a good rant for the little doofus, the screen which showed the outside world lit up in front of him to show Sweden's face, with a worried and guilty-looking Sealand barely-seen in the background.

Ladonia felt his mouth fall open. He had been counter-attacked! No, not only had he been counter-attacked, he had also been betrayed! "Traitor!" he screeched as he jabbed a finger in Sealand's direction, who quickly disappeared entirely from view.

"Sorry, 'Donia! You don't know how scary Papa can be when he's angry! What did you do to him?"

Before Ladonia could reply further, Sweden cut their conversation short. "L'donia."

Ladonia scowled at the enlarged image in front of him and crossed his arms. "What."

Sweden leveled a stare at him. "What y' did was bad. And y' know it."

"Pft! Whatever." Well, maybe he did go a little overboard. But it worked! He got Sweden's attention, after all.

"Apologize."

He gave the Swede a disbelieving smile. "What? No! I got what I want."

"And that is?"

"Uh..." he faltered at the expressionless stare coming from Sweden, "your recognition of Ladonia being an actual country..." He couldn't help but phrase the end of the sentence as a question as Sweden's eyes bore into his.

"...That is what th's is about?"

Ladonia flinched and looked angrily down at the floor of his inner home.

Okay, so that had hurt.

He knew the elder country would be angry at Ladonia's actions – that was part of Ladonia's get-attention plan – but he didn't think Sweden would actually look down on him, much less admit it. He'd been working hard these past days to get recognition from the man. Working harder than he ever had before. Because getting recognized was important to him – to all of the micronations. If they couldn't get recognition as an actual country, it was as if their existence was...was lesser than that of others. Like, in the end, they didn't matter.

It hurt that Sweden thought so little of his cause.

Ladonia grasped the bottom of his shirt as he glared, his bottom lip definitely not wobbling and tears definitely not in his eyes. His eyes remained firmly in front. He wouldn't break down in front of this asshole. That was his pride.

He heard Sweden sigh, then his surroundings lit up. Confused, he glanced to the left to see that his power cable had been plugged in, a charging symbol on the battery icon. He looked up when he registered movement in front of him. Sweden bent down so he could be eye level with the laptop screen.

"Fine. Y' got my recogn'tion."

He stared, frown frozen on his face. "...What?"

Sweden blinked slowly. "I said y' got my recogn'tion. I recogn'ze y' as a country."

"Ah..." Ladonia felt tears well up in his eyes for a different reason. He had gotten it. It had happened. "Really?"

Sweden nodded.

Ladonia suppressed a squeal. Instead, he cheered and bounced around his inner laptop surroundings. He pumped his fists in the air. "I did iiit! I got recognized as a countryyy!" His heart filled with joy and energy, and his world never looked so bright.

Sweden cleared his throat, and Ladonia paused in his revelry to look up at him.

"Now th't y' have it, would y' please stop destroyin' my house?"

Ladonia frowned. "I don't know, I'm still in a war with you."

Sweden shook his head, looked up at the far wall, then back to Ladonia. "H'w about a truce?"

"Maybe," Ladonia said as he folded his arms.

Sweden tilted his head forward. "The country of Sweden officially off'rs a cease-fire t' the country of L'donia."

Ladonia felt his heart about to burst again. County of Ladonia. It sounded unreal to finally have that title. He could feel his eyes glow. "The country – the best country – of Ladonia accepts the cease-fire of the country – the lamest country – of Sweden. The country of Ladonia guesses so."

Sweden nodded again and stood to leave. "What d' y' want for dinn'r?"

Ladonia blinked after him. Then, he transferred out of his computer surroundings to the outside world and followed after. "I wanna have whatever Sealand's most hated meal is. That little smartass betrayed me to you. It's like getting the middle finger while being thrown into the ocean to drown. It's embarrassing, really." Ladonia didn't notice as Sweden held the door open for him, the elder looking content, and followed him downstairs.

End.

Post Script - Thanks to all of you who reviewed and offered concepts to help keep this fic afloat. A special thanks for Hetabee's support from the beginning - you were my metaphorical strength! I now know episodic-type fics are not my forte, but it was a nice experience anyway.