Introduction:
Hello everyone, and welcome to my story on fire emblem: awakening. What you are (hopefully) about to read is a result of a series of ideas I've had on what would make a fun storyling and how to fix some of the original story's shortcomings. First and foremost of those, I wanted to add significant depth and overall competence to the main villains, whose motivations are, quite frankly, heavily lacking IMHO :) There are a number of other ideas I had, but I'd like to bring those up one by one rather than spilling them all right away.
That aside, another thing I wanted to do was to write a Lucina/Robin-centric story that is different from the other masses of those. If you read through this first chapter, at the end you will probably understand why.
Lastly, I am a large fan of realistic and more darkish fantasy stories. Expect Game of Thrones-ish like realism, as far as I can push it within the established lore of the fire emblem universe. People WILL sometimes die, as they should in the kind of wars the Shepards are involved in.
Also, thanks go to Bartholemew Kamiro for beta reading the first half of the chapter.
That said, enjoy the chapter!
Disclaimer: I do not own fire emblem awakening.
Warning: minor spoilers for the Future's past DLC 3, if that matters to you. This story deviates from the setup almost immediately.
Know your enemy, chapter 1: In Grima's wake.
Ylisse was in ruins.
Even the castle, the last bastion of humanity in the war-torn World, had been turned into a cruel cacophony of half-recognizable structures that had once belonged to a larger whole.
For as long as she could remember, Lucina had called this place her home.
From here, she had assumed command of Ylisse's forces when her father died. She had been only twelve years old, tasked with defending her entire race from the Risen and the traitors that worshipped Grima.
She had believed for so long that, despite the horrible losses sustained against their enemies, they would somehow find a way to win; to somehow pave the way to a brighter future. She had to, otherwise she would have lost her sanity long ago.
There had even been a spark of hope a few months ago, when Tiki, the voice of Naga, had come up with a plan to reawaken the Falchion's power. It would have been a weapon that could have actually killed Grima, the root of all destruction that had gripped the world.
But now…
Yesterday, Grima had appeared before her and lady Tiki while they were inside the castle of Ylisse, and had killed the priestess seemingly without any effort whatsoever. No, that wasn't right. The reality was even worse; Grima had come for her and Tiki had been forced to sacrifice herself in order to save her.
In the end, despite all of her experience and martial prowess, Lucina simply fell short of the power of a living god. And Tiki, the closest thing to a living god on the side of light, who might have stood some chance in her stead, had paid the price for it.
And now she had failed again. Instead of running away from the city, she had elected to hide among the ruins, hoping against hope that her friends would show up with the gems needed to perform the awakening.
It would have given them a perfect opportunity, the strategist inside her had reasoned. Grima had finally exposed himself; he was within striking distance inside of a city of which she knew every hook and cranny; it might have been possible to sneak up on him and stab him in the back.
The more emotional part of her had simply refused to leave her home out of principle. In her mind, this place was the last vestige of hope and without it…
The princess shook her head. No matter the reason, it didn't change the current situation.
Grima had found them.
"DO NOT MAKE ME REPEAT MYSELF," the being in front of her called out. Purple clouds of dark magic radiated from the human body he inhabited, which stared directly at her with cruel reddish eyes. From the very few glimpses she had had of this being in the past, she had always figured that the body was some kind of reanimated corpse that Grima used as a puppet; the translucent form of the actual dragon surrounding the solid human body had been a way to visually remind all who saw him that he dominated mankind. She had thought it had been a way to further discourage the remaining resistance.
Now, she wasn't so sure. There was a real consciousness and overwhelming malevolence behind those human eyes. It was the kind of being, or man, that would slaughter and torture countless innocents without a second thought, just for its own amusement, as it had done innumerable times in the past.
Memories of such atrocities flooded her mind and she tried her very best to suppress them. Back then, there had always been a more powerful warrior to challenge it, to draw it's attention away from Lucina and her friends as they escaped the battle.
Now, no one would come to save them. All of the old shepherds were dead. Of the new shephards, only Gerome, Severa and Laurent had made it back to deliver her the fire emblem and one of the gemstones needed to perform the awakening.
They were four stones short; all of their other friends whom she had sent out had not returned from their respective missions. It had been weeks; why hadn't any of them returned yet? Were they all –
The hopelessness of the situation forced her to confront the only sensible conclusion, the one she had dreaded during the past weeks. Her friends had failed; they were most likely all dead.
'Dead because I asked them to. I ordered them to go on a hopeless mission and they all accepted, for my sake. Gods forgive me, I had no choice!'
Her stomach felt like ice.
"So you continue to defy me, " Grima said, moving ever closer.
Lucina froze. The thing had actually spoken with its human mouth. Did that mean the… man standing inside of the dragon silhouette was still alive? Or was that the real Grima instead?
...How many of the fallen shephards had had that same thought, right before they died?
"Tell me, why do you cling to hope? Naga's voice is dead. Your minions have failed; some have been captured by my Risen, others are dead. You cannot even complete the Awakening! Surely you realize you have lost?"
The dragon let out a long sigh, purple smoke trailing from his incorporeal nostrils. "This will be your last chance. NOW GIVE ME THE EXALT! THE ONE KNOWN AS LUCINA!"
Lucina, in turn, steeled herself. No matter what she thought or felt, she was a leader. She had always been a leader. She'd never show fear! "Do you really think we will hand these artefacts over to you!?" she spat.
"Your words are empty," Gerome added, his voice icy. "You have no hold over our the others and they will be here soon. Today is the day that you die, monster!" Minerva blew smoke through her nostrils below him, something Gerome had once told her was a clear sign of her approval.
"That's right! There's no way any of them would let themselves get captured! Even the less worthy ones," Severa added.
"I'm inclined to agree," Laurent cut in, adjusting his glasses. "It is more likely that you're bluffing. If it were as you claim, you would have proof. You have refused to or are unable to present any, ergo you lie. There is no logical reason to trust you, either. Accepting your proposal is unacceptable in any way."
Lucina briefly smiled despite the situation; the fact that her friends were unwilling to give up further kindled her own willpower. But then she slid back into her mask; the normal hard and serious expression she always had.
It was time to fight a god, without the awakening ceremony. Deep down inside, she knew that they probably stood no chance.
She unsheathed the Falchion regardless. They didn't have to win; all they had to do was to keep Grima busy, to buy enough time for the rest of their friends to join them...
"We refuse!" She cried, clutching the emblem and the Gemstone with her other arm. To her sides, her friends all tensed. Severa raised her shield and slid into a defensive stance while Gerome readied his lance. Minerva leaned forward, readying her body for a massive pounce which would cross the 30 or so feet to Grima without any trouble. Laurent drew power from his tome and held the collected essence at his palm, a concentrated fist of pure electrical energy.
They'd fought together countless times. And each of those times, they had survived. Despite their age, they were the best that humanity had left to offer; destroyers of countless risen.
Yet Grima only laughed, completely unconcerned with the display of defiance. "Foolish girl. I do not care about the fire emblem or the gemstone. I have already won."
"What do you mean? Explain yourself!" Lucina replied.
"Did you think this was anything other than a game for me? Do not insult my intelligence!" Grima cried. Smoke flared up around him and waves of dark magic flew outward, making everyone present stumble backwards.
"I am ancient! Did you honestly think that I would be unaware of the one thing able to kill me, servant of Naga? Did you honestly think I did not foresee this!?" Grima bellowed, beginning the handwavings for a spell.
Lucina had been about to cry out a warning, but the attack came too fast. Laurent's beam of magic shot forward, but missed. Gerome barely managed to steady himself as Minerva fell backward from the force, while Severa ducked behind the remains of a small wall. As far as Lucina could see, they were all encased in a purple cloud.
Then came the spikes.
Screams of pain followed.
Years of near-continuous battle had given the princess almost supernatural reflexes and it was only by the grace of those that she herself escaped with only one of them skewering her through the stomach. Nauseating pain flared up immediately and it was only by surpreme force of will that she continued to stand, clutching the bleeding wound with the same hand holding the fire emblem.
Lucina gasped in horrer as she saw that her friends had not been so fortunate. The image was horrible; Gerome's heavily armored form sat slumped on a prone Minerva, who in turn lay in a bool of a readily enlarging pool of her own blackish blood. Severa had blood all over her legs, and struggled to stand but couldn't manage.
Even Laurent, who was by far the most knowledgeable about -and consequently resistant to- magic, was bleeding from numerous cuts in both his clothing and his face. "S-such extreme quantities of magical power..." the mage muttered through grit teeth. "It," he gasped, "defies logic."
Or as anyone else would put it, they were doomed.
'Hold out,' Lucina told herself. ''The others will be here soon. They have to be!"
"Don't think... you can... defeat us so easily!" Lucina cried, cursing herself for letting the pain get to her.
Grima smiled. "Defeat you? You were beaten from the start." The tone of amusement was infuriating.
"You! Stop speaking in riddles, damned cur!" Gerome suddenly spat, all the while sliding himself from Minerva's body to the ground. He would have collapsed on contact if Lucina hadn't rushed forward in an attempt to awkwardly support him. Her stomach wound hurt like nothing she had ever felt before, but she was NOT going to let her friend fall prostrated to their enemy!
"Very well then," the being in front of them declared. "Know that I destroyed all the gemstones years ago. What you have tried to seek were replica's; imperfect creations of my power designed only to draw the remaining servants of Naga from their fortress. I believe you carry one of them."
The gemstone Lucina possessed suddenly tore itself from the emblem, flying right into Grima's outstretched palm. It instantly dissipated into a cloud of black smoke, just like one of the many surrounding the dragon's human body.
"Ah, such pure magical essence," Grima spoke approvingly.
"No, that's impossible! The voice said-" Lucina sputtered, refusing to believe it.
"-What she thought was the truth, the truth I gave her. I know of Naga's machinations and how to imitate them," the dark god cut in.
"You... you flilthy bastard!" Severa cursed through gritted teeth. She had pulled herself up on Minerva's scales and clung to them desperately. Lucina was afraid to look at her legs; they were a mass of red from what she could see. If they somehow survived this, would she ever- ?
The princess' vision suddenly spun and she threatened to lose her grip on Gerome. She forced the feeling of light headedness away and realized that she was losing too much blood, herself. If Brady didn't get back to heal them soon...
"There is no need to feel ashamed," said Grima. "You are humans and you fell to the trap of a god. It was the only possible outcome."
"Bull...shit!" Severa insisted. "You were afraid of us! So you had to use traps like a coward!"
The body clad in dark clouds shrugged. "Believe what you will, servant of Naga. It changes nothing. The Grimleal and Risen whom I've left behind have your friends, or the ones who still cling to life, at least. You are all that is left. Do you require proof? Here it is."
The human form moved, and the sound of a single metallic item falling to the ground rang throughout the ruined city.
"Is that... Inigo's ring?" Laurent asked.
"He must have lost it in the fighting," Lucina countered immediately. "It doesn't mean anything."
"AT TIMES, I DO FIND HUMAN STUBBORNNESS AMUSING. HE IS DEAD, HUMAN. HE DIED HOLDING A BRIDGE WHILE THE ONES HE SOUGHT TO PROTECT WERE CAPTURED BY MY MINIONS," Grima chided while his translucent dragon form flared up again.
"Liar!" Severa said through gritted teeth. "Think you can keep pushing us around? I've... had... enough!" She took a few stumbling steps forward.
"Severa! NO! Get back!" the princess yelled.
"OH? I SEEM TO HAVE A POINT TO MAKE," The dragon said lazily.
"I... won't... let...!" The swordswoman began, speaking after each wobbly pace.
Grima stood in place, patiently waiting her approach.
"Fool! Stop that!" Gerome yelled while shrugging out of Lucina's grip. He took two paces before he stumbled from his wounds and fell. He caught himself halfway by supporting himself on his lance, but it was clear that there was no way he could move further.
'Just one spell,' Lucina thought in horror. 'He needed only one spell to do this to us... even to Gerome, of all people?'
Severa, in turn, refused to listen. Just as she came within a few paces of the god, she suddenly lunged forward far quicker and attacked more precise than Lucina would have thought possible in her state.
'A trick?'
The princess' eyes widened as Severa's blade struck true, burying itself in the human figure. Had she actually managed to-?
Grima hand shot out and grabbed her friend by the wrist. The sound of cracking bones was nowhere near as loud as the scream of pain.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
"SOME LESSONS CAN ONLY BE LEARNED BY FORCE," the dragon said. Inside the cloud of darkness, the human form drew some kind of weapon.
"WAIT!" Lucina cried, struggling to move forward but held back by the intense pain from her wound. "Stop it! Please!"
"IS THIS REALLY THE BEST YOUR SERVANTS CAN DO, NAGA? WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN ASHAMED BEHIND THAT MASK OF BENEVOLENCE?," Grima idly asked towards the sky, before setting his gaze back on his captive. Lucina saw the slashing motion he made she saw the effect. A streak of black light covered her friend...
And she was torn apart.
"NO! SEVERA!" she screamed.
The image in front of her was almost too horrible to comprehend. What had once been her friend was now a mess of blackened meat of which some pieces were still recognizable. Grima's dragon form seemed to smile at his work.
Gerome looked away. Laurent was speechless.
Lucina's gaze was locked to what had once been the woman so close to her that she had been like a second sister to her. And now that she saw what had became of her, she knew.
Grima hadn't been lying; Their friends had failed. Naga and her voice had been defeated, as had they. Grima would kill them all and that would be it; all their years of resistance against the Risen had been for nothing. Countless sacrifices of good men and women would amount to nothing. All their struggles, all the hardships they had endured meant NOTHING.
The world was destined to be destroyed.
"Why?" Lucina found herself say.
The dragon form focussed on her. Gerome forced himself up and made to stand in front of her, protecting her as he had always done, but she took a step past him. She didn't deserve his protection; the three of them were all that was left. Rank held no meaning, regardless of what he thought.
...and that was even without taking into account that she was the one who had sent all of their friends into the fell dragon's trap. Their blood was on her hands as much as it were on Grima's.
"DO I NEED A REASON?" Grima spoke, amused. "AND IF I HAD ONE, WHY WOULD I TELL YOU?"
"WHY DID YOU LET US LIVE SO LONG!?" Lucina yelled, unable to keep the anger and sorrow from spilling over. "If it is so easy for you to finish us, why didn't you!? Why only now? What reason did you have for letting us keep resisting!?"
The human figure in the black cloud walked towards her, taking along the dragon outline as he went. Gerome tried to force himself past her again, but she held him off. This time, for what little is was worth, she would protect him instead.
"Hmmm. Since you alone carry the blood of Naga now, I will grant you an answer. Simply put, I was bored," the fell dragon answered, stopping just a few paces away from her. Lucina knew that if he wanted to, he could kill both her and Gerome in an instant in the same way he had killed Severa.
"That... cannot be the truth," Laurent commented. "It does not make any sense! Only a completely insane-"
An immense tidal wave of dark magic suddenly flew towards him. The mage barely had enough time to raise a defensive barrier before he was hit by the spell.
When it cleared, it left a shallow crater filled with a faintly sizzling purple glow. Of Laurent, or any of the structures in a 20 feet radius around him, there was no trace. It was as if they had suddenly stopped existing.
Lucina looked away. There was an overwhelming urge to cry at the hopelessness and sorrow of the situation, but she refused to give Grima the satisfaction.
"Oh, I am sorry. I felt that being interrupted every other sentence was growing tiresome," the fell dragon's human body said, even adding apologetic hand gestures in a complete mockery of human mannerisms.
"You were bored," Lucina stated. "Is that really your reason for destroying the entire world? For ruining everyone's lives!?"
"No, that was for revenge, servant of Naga. Leaving it just weakened enough for some meaningful resistance to arise, that was to entertain us while we searched," Grima answered. "You were an admirable amusement. For that, you have my gratitude. It also marks you as worthy."
The strangest thing was, she actually believed he was sincere. Perhaps it was despair or perhaps it was just her sanity slipping away, moments before death.
"Searched? For what?" Gerome spoke through gritted teeth, still clutching his spear despite his wounds. "What... ugh... what could possibly drive you to commit genocide the way you have? And what do you mean by 'worthy'?"
Besides her master, Minerva's prone body let out a weak hiss.
Grima's gaze shifted towards them. In Lucina's mind, there were two brief images of both Severa and Laurent having died at only a moment's notice.
She reacted instantly, throwing herself forward so that she was barely a pace apart from the dark god. "No, ignore him! You said you wanted me? Well, I am here. Let him go! He was just a soldier following my orders..."
The princes was unable to hold Grima's gaze as flashes of her friends came to her, brief images from happier times.
Of Degel, with her endless drive to become the perfect female soldier, whose exercising regime was supposedly even harsher than that of her father.
Of Severa, always full of snarky comments yet probably by far the most dedicated one to her safety aside from Gerome.
Of Brady and his many foul mouthed comments whenever someone managed to hurt himself. But who, when it came down to it, had a surprisingly soft side.
Of Inigo, who had been systematically rejected by every woman he had hit on as long as her own memory stretched, yet who had never let his smile or energy falter, even when pointed out his failures by Nah, which had been by far one of the most humorous conversations in the past years. Strangely, looking back at it, Inigo had never tried to hit on Lucina herself, and she had never figured out why. She never would, either.
Of Laurent and Noire, arguing on whether or not Noire could start studying dark magic under his tutelage, often leading to comical scenes of blood and thunder. It was too late now, either way.
Of Owain and his sword hand, the duo which had often argued with Cynthia over which of them made the more proper hero.
Cynthia...
Her sister had never taken their mother's death well. Some part of her sanity had stopped working then and Lucina had never been able to restore it.
The list of memories went on...
"They all were," she added, sounding hollow and tired even to herself.
"Lucina..." Gerome started.
"Go," Lucina stated.
"And leave," he grunted, "Leave you to die? Or whatever else that thing decides to do to you?" the soldier replied dismissively.
"Gerome, as your Exalt, I hereby order you to run; take Minerva and go. This will be the last thing I ask of anyone," Lucina continued in the same hollow tone.
"HUMANS AND THEIR EMOTIONS," Grima mused. "IT-"
"What is it that you want of me?" Lucina cut in, not wanting to give him any time to reconsider killing her friend on the spot. Maybe if she held onto some momentum she could maintain control of the conversation. If only Gerome would stop being stubborn and choose life, maybe he could even find a way any survivors, provided there were any. He was strong enough to do it.
The obscured human figure rested his head on a closed fist, as if thinking. Some part of her was disappointed that, even from this close by, she still couldn't see what the body must have looked like. If she had known which human had become this avatar of destruction, would it have changed fate?
"YES. IT IS TIME THIS GAME IS ENDED," Grima agreed, luckily deciding not to kill Gerome for speaking. Both his human and dragon head turned to stare straight at her simultaneously. "YOU WILL GIVE YOURSELF TO ME, SERVANT OF NAGA. YOU WILL BE MINE IN BOTH MIND AND BODY, AND YOU WILL DO SO WILLINGLY. THUS, THE LAST OF HER CURSED LINE WILL TURN ON ITSELF. DO SO, AND I WILL SPARE YOUR FRIEND."
"I accept," Lucina replied instantly, not even concerned about what that meant. Right now, the only thing that mattered was that at least one of her friends survived. Perhaps she'd get one shot at Grima with his guard down. After that she'd kill herself if Grima hadn't done so already. It was a very morbid plan, but it was the only thing that could be done.
Grima laughed, then scared her out of her wits by suddenly launching himself backward through the air a good twenty feet. "Then come and accept my gift," he said, extending his human arm. For the first time, both the dragon and the human head fixated completely on her as she began to walk forward, following her every step of the way.
'Why is he doing this? Did he increase the distance just to make it more of a torture for me? To gloat over his victory more!?' the princess thought bitterly as she slowly moved forward. The wound in her side made every step both a physical and a mental torture.
She dropped the fire emblem to pressure the wound more. After all, it was only added weight. There was something really humiliating over having forced her friends to go through such a tedious journey to recover it, also their last journey period, only to let it drop to the floor. Effectively, it was no more than a piece of metal among a ruined city.
Something behind her stirred. Gerome mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like 'Minervykins', but that couldn't possibly be right.
It almost made her look around one last time.
As she approached the dragon further, she was suddenly stricken with a horrifying thought. 'What if I lose my own will after I touch him? Will I still have the strength left to end myself?'
Even though she knew that any hesitation on her end could be the death of her friend, she was unable to keep the tremor out of her arm as she slowly reached for Grima's. No. She wouldn't go in fear! She loathed this thing with every fibre of her being, and decided to focus on it. The faces of her friends resurfaced one final time as she imagined them being killed, or worse, by risen or Grimleal. When she reached the last two, Severa and Laurent, her hate was so strong that it had completely replaced fear. It was so strong that even if she were to lose herself completely, at least some of it should remain.
He took her hand in a strong, rough grip. Strangely, its hand felt very... scaly, for a human.
Then came the blackness.
Gerome watched Lucina go. Tons of emotions fought for dominance, all of them relating to hidden feelings he had never shown.
He wanted to curse fate. Now, at the end, it would be his weakness that forced Lucina to sacrifice herself? It was both laughable and pathetic.
He was even too weak to stand properly; the only thing he could do was watch helplessly as she limped forward, into the arm of the thing that kept staring at her with a predatory grin...
'Its attention is on her alone!'
Lucina had a chance.
As soon as the realisation hit him, he forgot his self-pity and acted. He let himself fall to the side, then rolled up to Minerva. Next to the wyvern herself, her armour and the gear she carried were both damaged badly. All in all, it was a miracle she hadn't died yet.
'Though the same can be said about me,' he realized bitterly.
Luck beyond luck, the bag that carried the item was undamaged. In this simple bag he had a vial of the extremely rare elixir, the most powerful healing concoction still known to the humans. He had taken it from the corpse of a Grimleal traitor months ago, yet neither he nor his friends had needed its protection. Until now.
He threw out a bleeding arm and managed to clumsily grip the potion. Yet his fingers wouldn't move to uncork the bottle; he couldn't move them accurately somehow. It had to be related to his arm being pierced by spikes; it had felt oddly numb and cold afterwards even for a wound.
But he still had enough strength left to crush the glass instead.
Much of the precious liquid was lost. He only drank a few drops, barely enough to cover the most severe wounds. The effect was nearly instantaneous; he could feel the feeling in his arm returning, among other things. He glanced quickly to the side and saw that Lucina had crossed over half the way to Grima.
The soldier forced himself up to his knees and snuck closer to the wyvern's head, hoping the companions massive size would provide some cover from Grima should he look their way.
"Minervykins," he said, drawing her attention. Her massive head slowly turned towards him, accompanied by a pair of intense yellow eyes easily the size of a human fist.
He would miss those eyes.
"Drink this," he said, emptying the remainder of the vial over her tongue. It wouldn't be nearly enough to fully heal a wyvern, but it would have to do.
She stirred a second later, regaining some of her intensity. She huffed softly, asking what he wanted to do.
"There is but one thing I can do," he whispered. "The same thing I've always done. I need you to do what I told you if disaster ever came upon us."
She hissed, indicating it was suicide.
"We have no time to argue. Please. Do this for me."
She shook her head.
Lucina had almost reached Grima.
"Then I'll go alone." He tightened the grip on his spear and stormed forward.
She was being pulled into a void of nothingness, in which there were only herself and the figure nearby. The surrounding ruins of Ylisse, as well as all the pain from her wounds, faded into the same blackness and became more nondescript while the human in the blackness became clearer. It wasn't until she was nearly completely in the void that she realized who it was that she was looking at.
It was the human form of Grima, without the obscuring smoke. And she knew that person.
She had been only a little girl when she had seen him last, well over a decade ago, when this man had advised her father in any and all battles the old shepherds had taken part in. Each and every time, they had emerged victorious against overwhelming odds. He was a legend in his own right.
"Are you... Sir Robin?" Lucina asked, completely taken off-guard. "But why are-"
The answer was obvious and shock gave way to rage. Chrom had been betrayed by one of his closest friends. Robin had disappeared without a trace. The old shepherds had always been very vague when discussing their tactician afterwards, and now she knew why; they had tried to hide this information from their children!
This was the true identity of the man, or god, she had been fighting all of her life.
Robin, in turn, only gave her a cold leer.
She reached for the Falchion, only to find it missing.
'What? Where-'
Robin crossed the distance between them in an instant and grabbed her by the throat. "I've waited so long for this, Naga. If only you were here to see what would happen to the last of your line," Grima's voice sounded from all around.
Lucina couldn't speak. For a moment, she wondered why she wasn't choking. But then the pain began.
It wasn't a normal pain, the kind produced by a cut, blunt trauma or even a broken bone. It was the kind of cold pain a person felt when their very soul was ripped apart from the inside and was slowly replaced by something alien. If she could have, she would have screamed.
She pulled on Robin's arm with all her might only to realize that it was an unbreakable hold. This was strength far beyond what was possible of a normal human. Still she tried.
Eventually her arms fell limply to the side. She was frozen as her very self was being pushed out, further and further away...
...it was becoming hard to think...
...What was her name? Why was she here...?
Then she fell.
The last thing she remembered was the man in front of her looking at her with a puzzled expression.
Gerome left his spear impaled in Grima and threw Lucina backwards. Behind him, Minerva swiftly took her unconscious form in her mouth and made to fly off.
Grima stood in a daze, blinking in confusion. The masked soldier knew that if he let Grima completely snap out of whatever daze he was in, he'd be instantly killed. Minerva and Lucina would follow soon afterwards. He HAD to buy time, and he only had one idea of how to do so; both times Grima had attacked, the human body had used its arms.
He bull rushed the dark god's human form to the ground and managed to grab both his wrists before Grima finally turned to him. The black clouds surrounding the fell dragon seemed to burn his flesh right through his armor, but he held. There was no other option.
"YOU? HOW?" Grima asked, beginning to move his arms. To Gerome, it seemed as if he was trying to stop a rockslide with his bare hands, so unnatural was the being's sheer strength.
But he held.
"It's because I fight for someone else," Gerome replied through gritted teeth, forcing the arms back up, if even for a moment. He thought Grima's eyes widened slightly, just before... 'something ' launched him off of the fell dragon.
'Wind magic... so it doesn't need its arms, after all?''
The masked soldier landed in a heap some twenty feat away, feeling the ribs of his left side break as he did. He looked up just in time to see both of Grima's forms staring at him with matching looks of absolute hatred, the human arm already extended towards him.
More importantly however, Minerva was out of sight.
Thus, even knowing he was finished, Gerome smiled. He pictured Lucina in one of the rare moments that she had done so too. That was as good of a final image as any. He could tell his parents that he had died saving hope.
Then the blast of darkness came for him.
Something nudged her side.
The touch was faint, and Lucina was tired beyond belief. She also had a headache unlike any she had ever experienced before, even that one time where she had been intoxicated with-
Another push.
"Let me sleep," The princess murmured, uncaring of who it was.
Something scaly gently brushed against her cheek. Strange. It felt so tender? What kind of scaly being would-
Her mind cleared momentarily and flew back to the moment where her arm was grabbed by Grima. And then there was something that happened in the darkness… something excruciatingly painful and humiliating; yet it was hard to remember what, exactly.
She stiffened and suppressed a feeling of rising panic. Did the fell dragon actually lay next to her? If that was so… If he'd…
She didn't want to go down that line of thought.
The princes felt the familiar weight of the Falchion on her side, mentally preparing the attack.
There was another brush against her skin.
Lucina bolted upright, drew the Falchion and continued the motion into a lightning fast thrust aimed directly at…
…Minerva.
Her eyes widened and she barely managed to avoid skewering the wyvern through her eye.
Gerome's mount drew away, too slowly to have dodged the attack, and snorted. She looked at the princess wearily, then slowly lay down beside her.
It was only then that Lucina saw the wounds on her massive scaly form; there was dried black blood all over her, mixed at times with patches in which her scales were missing entirely. Flesh jutted outwards from some of those, whereas others were intact areas of lightly coloured… 'wyvern skin', as she decided to call it, yet without the scaly coverings.
In short, Minerva looked like an entire squad of Risen and Deadlords had hacked away at her mercilessly, then clumsily healed her up only so they could mostly repeat the process. It pained her to see such a proud creature reduced to such a state.
Sighing softly, she put away her sword, kneeled next to her and gently padded her on the snout, as Gerome had told her to do if Minerva was ever upset.
This seemed to calm her somewhat.
"Minerva? Where are we? And where is Gerome?" She asked, thoroughly confused. They weren't in the city any longer, nor were there any ruins in sight. It was just a barren landscape, akin to most of the world.
'And what about Grima himself? Did he just... let us go?'
She instantly felt some shame for not asking the wyvern how she was, first. On second thought, that had an incredibly obvious answer, so perhaps it was better that she hadn't.
The wyvern turned her head away and pointedly avoided eye contact.
"What? No, don't tell me he's-!"
She couldn't say it. Minerva still looked away.
"Why? I told him to flee! You could both have been fine!" Lucina cried in frustration. "Why didn't you let me sacrifice myself for you!?"
The wyvern snorted, then stared directly at her, implying that there was something incredibly obvious she was missing. But Lucina didn't notice.
She was crying; this time she couldn't stop her tears. Her failure was absolute. ALL of her friends were either dead or would soon be. Even if she decided to search for any survivors, she had no idea where to begin looking. And even if she did get any of them back, what was the point? The fire emblem was worthless. There was no way to actually harm Grima without the awakening.
There were only two possible outcomes to this scenario. Either the fell dragon would find her eventually and try to 'make her his in mind and body', or she decided to end it herself. Was that not preferable to continuing a pointless struggle even longer?
She drew the Falchion.
Minerva's eyes widened in fright. She struggled to stand up quickly but fell down halfway.
"Father, I'm sorry. I'm... just not sure why I should go on. I've lead everyone into ruin. Nothing I can still do will ever make up for it," Lucina spoke through her tears. "Maybe you would have seen some way to a brighter future, but I- I cannot. I just... want to see the others again."
Lucina let out a sobbing chuckle and readied her sword. She contemplated on whether or not she should have ended Minerva first, but that wasn't her own choice to make.
She closed her eyes.
Minerva bellowed.
"Lucina! Stop this!"
The exalt froze, then whirled around. She knew that voice. But it couldn't be...?
A translucent form of a green haired woman clad in a red outfit stared at her from behind. "Lucina. Please, don't act too rashly. You are not alone," she spoke soothingly.
The princess laughed humorlessly. "So I am hallucinating now," she concluded, still having the Falchion pointed towards herself. "I saw Lady Tiki die right in front of me."
The priestess shook her head. "No. What you saw was my physical body being destroyed. My spirit yet remains."
The exalt didn't believe her. "Prove that you are real," she demanded.
"I'd rather not," the voice of Naga replied. "My strength is waning. Even manifesting myself in a visible form is taxing. I have already spend too much of my remaining power piecing your soul back together."
There was a flash of Grima - no, Robin, Lucina reminded herself,- grabbing her by the throat as he did... something to her. That had happened, and there was no way anyone else could know. Unless they were an omnipotent being, like Tiki had been.
She dropped her sword. "Why!? If you are real, why didn't you help us earlier today? And why should I even trust you now?" Lucina shouted. "My friends are all dead! I sent them away at your advice of finding these stones, right into Grima's trap!"
Tiki closed her eyes and sighed. "I am sorry, though I fathom that does not give you any comfort. I allowed myself to be mislead, underestimating the fell dragon, and we all paid the price. As for your first question, had I intervened, Grima would have destroyed me. He believes I am dead."
"What good does that do?" Lucina replied, hollow. "It is over. With the gemstones destroyed, Grima has won. You told me this yourself."
Tiki came closer and looked her straight in the eyes. "I see I was not able to completely remove his taint," she replied in sorrow. "This defeatist attitude is not natural for the Lucina I knew."
Lucina would have replied but Tiki cut her off. "Listen, Lucina. Time is short; I can sense Grima approaching quickly. There is one thing we can still do to save this world."
The princess bit back a sarcastic response of why she was only told this after the plan they had staked everything on had failed, and allowed a tiny bit of hope to pierce her dark thoughts. "Really? Then what is it?"
"I will send you back in time," Tiki explained, "to the moment before the wars with Plegia and Valm. It is where Chrom met Robin."
"Where my father met Grima, you mean," Lucina corrected automatically, even before wondering about a thing such as time travel even being possible. There was a certain bitterness in knowing that crucial information had been systematically kept from them until it had been too late. At least, that's how she saw it.
"We had hoped that you would never have to find out," Tiki's image replied, sorrowful. "But yes; Robin is the one who killed your father."
'Grima is coming,' Lucina thought. 'Stop standing around and do something useful!' she chided to herself.
"So what you want me to do is to kill Robin before he becomes Grima," she stated, picking up the Falchion and turning towards Minerva. The wyvern was now standing, albeit with difficulty, and eyes the form of Tiki wearily. At the very least, if the priestess was a mere illusion, Minerva had the same one.
Now If time was short, and if she was going, she'd need supplies. The wyvern didn't object as she cut the cords holding the bags that hung from her sides.
The priestess was thoughtful for a moment. "Yes. Perhaps that is the best choice."
"So why haven't we done this before?" Lucina then asked, picking up the fallen goods and placing them in her backpack. She idly noted that there was one bag filled entirely with masks, even though most of them were broken.
Tiki hesitated. "Because-"
"BECAUSE THERE ARE A FEW PROBLEMS WITH WHAT SHE SUGGESTS."
Lucina spun around. Minerva growled. Tiki gasped.
There, not even 30 paces away, was Grima's human body. There was no trace of the dragon form, making him resemble a vaguely humanoid cloud of purple smoke more than anything. How had he gotten here?
Minerva hissed quietly as the form casually walked towards them. Lucina could feel the wyvern's entire body tense, as if preparing to pounce on him in a moment's notice. She subtly bound her left arm through one of the reins, still holding the Falchion with her right.
"MOST NOTABLY, " Grima continued, completely uncaring, "IS THAT ACCORDING TO THE THEORUM OF CHRONOS THE ELDER, ANY INTERFERENCE MEANS THAT THE PRESENT TIME WILL BE COMPLETELY DESTROYED, ALONG WITH EVERYONE IN IT. THEY WILL BE BOTH ERASED FROM EXISTENCE AND WILL NEVER EXIST, ALONG WITH THE TIME TRAVELLER HERSELF, DUE TO THE INFINITE POSSIBILITIES OF A FUTURE BEING ALTERED. CONCEPTION IS ONE OF THOSE POSSIBILITIES."
The princess' eyes widened slightly as the implications hit her. Both her friends and she herself would never be born?
The voice of Naga tensed.
"YOU WERE GOING TO TELL THE HUMAN, WEREN'T YOU, BASTARD CHILD OF NAGA? OR DID YOU INHERIT HER PREFERENCE FOR HALF-TRUTHS?"
"Do not presume to know me, beast. You are nothing more than a weapon without a purpose," the priestess replied scathingly.
"AS YOU ARE A PRIESTESS OF A 'GODDESS' WITH NO MORE FOLLOWERS," the fell dragon answered, amused. "BOTH OF US ARE RELICS, YET IT IS ONLY BY OUR WILL THAT THE FUTURE IS SHAPED."
"Tiki," Lucina spoke, "Do not listen to him! I do not care what may or may not happen to me. Do it. Send me back!"
The priestess hastily began channelling some kind of spell.
"And therein lies the second problem," said Grima, manifesting his dragon outline. "YOU DO NOT CARRY OUT A PLAN WHEN YOUR ENEMY KNOWS OF IT!"
Lucina saw it happen before it did. Even before Grima had a chance to attack Tiki, she acted. "Minerva! Go!"
The wyvern let out a massive roar and crossed the entire distance to the fell dragon in a mighty leap. The swordswoman, being bounded to it by her arm, was violently janked along with her, the force almost enough to dislocate her shoulder.
Grima idly looked at them and made another slashing motion, a streak of black light flying towards them. Minvera evaded to the side, but was still hit. She shrieked in pain and landed roughly on her side unwounded side, near Grima's feet.
Lucina, however, was not hit. She let go of the reign and landed within striking distance of a surprised Grima.
She knew she had only seconds to act and automatically fell back on a series of two consecutively strokes aimed at the human body's vital area's. The first one, intended to steady herself and put her opponent off balance, glanced harmlessly off of the scales.
But that wasn't the intent; it had told her that the scales were angled upward. She continued the motion into a jumping slash angled downwards and felt the blade slide through along the scales, then into flesh.
Grima stumbled backward, as she pulled the Falchion out. Even though the fell dragon regained his balance almost immediately, the blade was still covered in a few faint patches of blackish blood.
It showed her that even a god could bleed.
The thought had not even finished in her mind as another streak of black light flew right at her, impossibly fast. She instinctively raised the Falchion to block. Her vision gave out as the light suddenly intensified.
She wasn't sure what happened, but the next moment she was on the ground twenty feet away, pain all over her body. As her vision cleared, she could see Minerva's body to the side, with both one of her legs and her left wing having been torn off by the effect of the first attack. A very quick glance at herself told her that she was still somehow in once piece, though bleeding from a number of wounds.
Grima teleported next to her. "The voice cannot protect you twice. I suppose I will have to settle for just killing you."
The fell dragon raised his arm to fire.
Lucina summoned all of her remaining strength and forced the Falchion through the human body's foot.
The dragon stumbled and Lucina could feel an enormous blast of energy barely washing over her.
Then she fell into the ground. Blue light surrounded her as Grima's image began to distance itself further and further away, until it was only a small purple speck of dust. Then that, too, disappeared.
Lucina let her eyes close as fatigue and pain claimed her consciousness.
Grima watched the pool of symbols and blue light disappear, then turned to the voice of Naga. Her form was fading rapidly; she was a construct of ancient magic allowing a deceased individual to act out a certain amount of power before being removed from the world entirely.
One of Naga's machinations. A tool of great destruction, as it had proven in the past.
He teleported next to her image and grabbed her fading soul with his own. The bastard child's eyes filled with pain as he forced her mind to tell her where she had send the human. She was strong, stronger than he would have expected a half-breed to be. Her skill with forbidden magics was also admirable, considering this was one that could never have been used before.
But her mental fortitude was nowhere near the level of her mother, or him. Eventually, her fading mind broke like a twig trying to hold back a raging river.
All of the girl's memories on Lucina and her other companions flooded into Grima's mind, and he smiled. He then let the girl die.
He decided to stay a moment, to watch the effect that this sending to the past would have on this world. Was the theorum right? If so, how would Armageddon come? There weren't many things he hadn't seen yet over the ages, and the prospect of learning something no one else knew piqued his interest.
First, there were winds of increasing intensity, up to the point where large rocks were effortlessly heaved up into the air. As those continued to grow more and more dangerous, the earth itself lost coherency as pieces of land tore themselves apart from each other, then raised and lowered themselves seemingly at random. Those pieces of land, too, were torn apart by the violent winds, then reduced to dust as these pieces of land smashed into each other.
He heard the panicked voiced of his Worshippers, the Grimleal, begging him for salvation or deliverance, though their voices were quickly silenced as they fell towards their deaths into fissures in the unstable earth, or were torn apart by the winds. Life itself began to leave the land as this was true for all living things in equal measure.
Grima flew up as the land around him crumbled to dust, the winds unable to do anything to his form, and he continued watching. Eventually, the land and waters themselves seemed to fall deeper and deeper away, until nothing was visible but a black void.
He smiled. Like the theorum suggested, this timeline had ceased to exist entirely, except for the one thing that existed beyond the reach of the laws of time and nature; he himself.
As he opened a similar gate in time, he felt distinctly excited, like he hadn't been in a long while.
There was an entirely new world out there to destroy.
Lucina woke up to a feeling of distinct weightlessness, floating in an abyss of blue. Strange symbols of white light guided what appeared to be a tunnel of sorts. Behind her, the tunnel ended in a dark void. In front of her, there was a speck of light.
She took a moment to collect her thoughts. As far as she could guess, this had to be a place in between time, or apart from the normal time. The princess felt a distinct feeling of hope, as the fact that she was alive meant that Tiki had succeeded in sending her back. Now, all she had to do was reach the other end of the tunnel and kill Robin.
She tried to stand, but immediately stopped; moving was distinctly painful. She slowly, using the movements that hurt the least, rummaged through her bag to find some medicine. Eventually she found a medicine pack including a few vulneraries and some ointment. She tried to drink the vulnerary, only to find that the liquid did not fall out. It hung suspended in the bottle.
She unsheathed the Falchion and let it go.
It, too, remained floating until she took it back into her hand.
Apparently, nothing here moved unless she directly made it happen.
She idly wondered what explanation Laurent would have given for this, then forced all thoughts of her deceased friends from her mind. She wouldn't let herself become distracted or emotional.
Not knowing what else to do, she smashed the bottle and drunk the fluid while it hung right in front of her.
She could feel the effect of it as it slowly recovered some of her strength. She then took a good look at her wounds, and was horrified at how many lacerating wounds that one spell had managed to inflict on her; there was at least one large gash on each arm and leg, a few on her torso and one in her neck. She pulled of her tunic and started to apply ointment to the wounds, so that they would heal faster and not get infected.
If she was going to assassinate someone, she'd rather be as prepared as possible. Of course -she gritted her teeth- that didn't lessen the immense sting of these ointments.
Just as she finished patching herself up, she could feel... 'a change' in the tunnel. She looked around behind her and realized that the darkness was growing gradually larger. A moment later, the tunnel started shaking.
Her eyes widened in fear and she immediately ran at the other exit as fast as she could, glancing around occasionally to see that the darkness grew larger and larger, much quicker then the speck of light on the other end.
As she realized that she wasn't fast enough, she cursed herself for taking unnecessary time to address some of the wounds. Was she seriously going to fail, after having come so far, because of something that insignificant?
She reached at the light just as the darkness caught up with her, then extended ahead of her. She was forced to watch in apathy as the blue tunnel disintegrated in front of her, impossibly much quicker than any human could have ran.
She was left standing in utter shock as she realized their last hope had just been snuffed out.
Just as she was about to give up entirely, there was another change. The darkness itself seemed to tremble as a massive purple tunnel appeared right next to her. Then, a glowing purple mass of dark energy raced through it with enough speed to make the speed at which the previous tunnel had fallen apart look like a casual stroll.
'Grima,' Lucina realized.
She knew that the only thing left to do was to take a gamble.
The princess steeled herself and jumped into Grima's tunnel.
She was immediately swept away like a leaf in the wake of a storm. Her speed grew until she no longer knew what was happening.
"Chrom, we have to do something!" A somewhat highly pitched voice said.
Lucina slowly opened her eyes.
"What do you suppose we do?" came the answer. "Nothing like this has ever happened before."
Images of a blue haired, regally dressed man and a younger, blond-haired woman became increasingly clear.
"Well, she has a brand, doesn't she? That makes her family! She's even got blue hair like you."
The man paused. "I don't know. It doesn't explain the Falchion or-"
"Look, she's awake!" the woman cut in, quickly setting herself down and mostly obscuring Lucina's view.
"Hey there, I'm Lissa! What's your name?" She said, smiling at Lucina from up close.
It took a few moments for the blue haired princess' mind to clear to process who she was looking at. Could it really be...?
"Maybe you should let her stand first, Lissa," the man said in a friendly way, then he turned towards her.
"Come on, let's get you up," he said, extending his arm.
She took it without thinking. Was this really happening? Or had she died after all?
He pulled her up, then quickly supported her as she stumbled. "Easy now. It's clear you just had a pretty rough fight. Think you can stand?"
"I- fa- Yes," Lucina managed, barely keeping her thoughts and emotions in check. By the gods, was it hard not to cry.
"Good," Chrom replied, letting go. "I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me."
He crossed his arms. "Who are you? Why do you have a brand in your eye, and why do you have a sword that's completely identical to the Falchion?"
Before Lucina could answer, a new voice spoke up. "My lord. The other stranger is waking up."
A single thought cut through the chaotic mess that was Lucina's mind.
'Grima!'
Author's notes:
Evil cliffhangers are evil, I know, but I couldn't find a better cut off point. I think I did a decent job in characterising everyone, though it was a bit hard to imagine how Lucina, or any of the other shephards, would react to total defeat.
One of the other thoughts I had for a basis of a good story was to start off Lucina in the worst possible scenario for her, along with her knowing who Robin/Grima really is. There are a lot of cool scenes that could be written from this and I have a lot of coop concepts for some of them.
I'm hoping to hear some thoughts from readers on what they felt about the chapter. I'll continue the story so long as there is some sort of feedback on it.
-kind regards,
Dieuwtjin