Prologue – Venice?
Raiden was a cyborg fighter employed by Maverick Security Consulting Inc. A normal day in the job was supplying security, although in rare cases, the job also involved fighting enemy soldiers. In such rare cases, soldiers would be cyborgs under another private military company (PMC), or even Unmanned Gears (UG), autonomous war machines, under the same company.
And they were, for about ten or fifteen minutes. Barely ten minutes after that, Raiden was fighting medieval soldiers with swords and spears, without HF enhancements. The situation sounded like something out of a wacky 80's movie.
How did this happen?
It all started in Guadalajara, Mexico, shortly after Raiden had purchased an authentic Mexican civilian disguise and stealthily made his way into the sewers with Blade Wolf. The AI had been outfitted with an upgraded body courtesy of Doktor. Remote piloting and AI wiping had been disabled, so Wolf was free to aid Raiden as he chose.
The two entered the sewers to investigate rumors of Desperado involvement, and eventually managed to encounter a laboratory hidden in the sewers. A stray shot fired by an Unmanned Gear, however, triggered an explosion from a strange device that wiped out everything from his vision, and subsequently, the entire lab.
Boris knew something was wrong when all of Raiden's vitals suddenly vanished, as if he had suddenly gone offline without warning.
"Raiden! RAIDEN!" Boris shouted into the codec. There was no response.
"Dammit!"
And then, Raiden and Wolf suddenly appeared aboveground. They had gone from the sewers in Guadalajara to a European city bustling with people. The gondolas and the water around the buildings seemed to indicate that they were in Venice.
"Communications unavailable."
"Impossible, in a city like Venice, there's got to be some signal-" Raiden began to check. There wasn't any signal. Not in a giant city like Venice.
"Are we…are we in the past?"
"Location match: Venice, approximately 73.5 percent."
"Venice, huh. What year?"
Raiden quickly noticed that some of the gondolas had docked at his shore, and these gondolas were filled with soldiers. But not cyborg soldiers: soldiers in plate armor with swords, spears, battle axes, and bows.
"Well, we seem to be in the medieval times."
This was how it all began.
For Corrin, things had not gone according to plan.
His Hoshidan army had made it into Cyrkensia and found an opportunity to defeat King Garon then and there. And they had formulated a plan: Azura, disguised as the night's singer Layla, would perform for King Garon, enabling the other soldiers to capture him in the middle of the performance and put an early end to the war, forcing Nohr to negotiate for peace. But Garon was under heavy guard, and some of his troops were stationed around the entrance to the stage, before the disguised Azura had even walked onstage to perform.
"Well, well, well, just what do you think you're doing, Corrin?"
Corrin's head snapped towards the king of Nohr in shock, before realizing that Garon was addressing somebody else: the person on the stage surrounded by guards.
"I think you have me mistaken for someone else." The other said calmly.
"Zola?!" Takumi snapped.
"I-it wasn't me!"
"I had expected a plan, but nothing so utterly foolish as this." Garon continued, apparently oblivious to the fact that the figure he was addressing wasn't Corrin. "What possessed you to appear before me without any of your men? I can execute you here and now."
The figure started to speak but quickly burst out laughing, somehow unable to take Garon seriously. What being on earth could have the brass balls to laugh at King Garon to his face?
"Don't do it Father! Corrin is sick!" Elise, Corrin's adopted younger sister, shouted.
"If you mean to die in front of me to stop this war you are a fool." Garon growled. "When you die, I will invade Hoshido and take all of it, banishing the Hoshidans to the darkness of Nohr."
"Father! No!" Elise begged.
"Heh, your daughter is right on this one. I'd listen to her if I were you."
"Execute him!"
The cavaliers closed in with their weapons, but were just as soon blown ten feet into the air before landing in the water in several splashes. Corrin gaped, his wasabi plate-wide eyes following the height of the splashes to their cause.
The figure appeared to be a ninja in scanty black armor with white hair and the shiny face plate of an unknown Nohrian knight over his face. For all the muscle it accentuated, it was a grim look, too grim to be Hoshidan, but leaving too little to the imagination to be Nohrian. Corrin could only think that such a figure was on neither side of the war.
But in the meantime, a kidnapping attempt with Garon and his siblings on full alert would be too risky. He had to escape quietly and head elsewhere.
Shakespeare in Venice was turning out to be great so far. Raiden considered himself more a movie person than a theater person, but given the events that had happened so far, he might consider taking Rose and Little John to a theater instead of the movies next time he had the chance to catch a break.
Ten minutes into past-Venice, a dozen armored soldiers with swords and spears (not even the high-frequency variety) had rushed him, only to be unseated from their horses and dumped unceremoniously into the water around the stage with a variety of capoeira and breakdancing maneuvers. Being a cyborg ninja gave Raiden the unique privilege to do so, especially in medieval Venice. The HF Blade would be absolutely overkill, so he kept it sheathed in this encounter.
A volley of arrows flew his way next, but Raiden, not one to be entirely ungrateful for free entertainment, decided to entertain his entertainers by cutting into perfect halves lengthwise each and every arrow fired at him.
The archers weren't amused. Amazed, maybe, but not amused. Oh well. In due time, he'll learn how to make patterns out of the arrows for their amusement, but until then, they could enjoy the free diving lessons he would provide them.
"So it's come to this. You dare to point your sword at our king… The same man you once called Father."
A blonde man on horseback but no helmet approached him, flanked by a woman with cotton candy hair and no helmet and a foot soldier with no helmet. Maybe the lack of helmets had something to do with his surprising entrance.
Basic battlefield protection aside, Raiden looked down at the sword in his hand, which he had pilfered off of one of the soldiers he knocked into the water earlier and which he had used to cut a volley of arrows into perfect halves not too long ago.
"This isn't my sword." He replied with an innocent shrug. Strangely the blonde man didn't seem all that amused. Perhaps a diving lesson was in order?
The blonde horseman drew a sword cackling with electricity. Of course, it was without the hum of an HF blade, but the electricity was there. Medieval technology, Raiden had to admit, was more advanced than he had given credit for.
"You've changed, brother." The blonde man said. "What have the Hoshidans done to turn you into this?"
"Hoshidans?" What were they, some codename for the predecessors of the Patriots?
Raiden was interrupted by a transmission from Blade Wolf.
"Raiden, it would be beneficial for you to stop playing around with the medieval soldiers and assist in finding a way back to the mission field." Wolf had opted to patrol for a return route or signs of a return route prior to his confrontations, switching to Bluetooth so they could at least communicate in a time when satellite signal was utterly absent.
"I know, I was just having some fun-"
"You call this slaughter fun?!" The blonde shouted.
"Slaughter is fun!"
"Now's not the time, Peri."
"I agree with the blonde nobleman. Or have you forgotten that we are still on a mission?" Wolf intoned.
"…Right. And by the way, nobody died."
"That reason alone hardly excuses your conduct towards an outmatched enemy force."
Ignoring Wolf's critical remarks, the cyborg ninja broke into a ninja run, directly over the prince and his retainers and back to his mission.
Meanwhile in Corrin's army…
"Where's Zola?" Corrin asked.
Takumi carried the Nohrian sorcerer, or at least his corpse, back to his brother.
"Dead. Two halves of an arrow straight through his chest. Must have been when the black ninja was cutting the arrows in half."
A/N: Just getting this idea off my back for a while. I've been able to play Fates not too long ago. I would be able to continue it depending on how far I progress through Fates.