Adventure of Shadows

Chapter One

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the game Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and I'm not making any money from this fic

Summary: Calista is a witch and a fan of Fire Emblem. She finds a spell to send herself into the game and save her favourite character. However, she accidentally sends her best friend into the game instead; and Lindley is completely unprepared

Warning(s): Strong violence; original characters; spoilers for Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon; minor spoilers for the sequel (book two) to the game; possibly some slight inconsistencies; no actual spanking in this chapter, but there will be later

Timeline: Set after the events of book two of the game. Wolf has fought Marth and company, and has been left for dead. Marth is Emperor of Archanea and is married to Shiida

Author's Note: Oh, and in case anyone's wondering? Calista's meant to be a weird, obsessed fan girl

Lindley closed the living room door behind her and stared at Calista, spread out on the floor with books, papers, and black candles strewn around her. "What are you doing?" she demanded. "Are you crazy?!"

Calista looked up at Lindley, who nearly took a step back at the wildness she could see in her friend's eyes. "I told you I was going to find a spell to help me go into the game and save Wolf." She nodded to the copy of the game that she had set within a circle of candles. "I can open the gateway, go through, and bring Wolf back here before he even gets wounded."

"Wolf is a character from a game." Lindley flopped down onto the floor opposite Calista. "He's make-believe; he's just a character. He's not real. And it's not healthy to be so obsessed with a character." She started collecting the papers up, and grabbed the game. "Come on. Let's just put all of this away, and you can go online and read fan fiction about Wolf."

"No way!" Calista lunged and grabbed some of the papers back. She then started chanting some weird words which sounded like fake Latin. Her voice rose to a crescendo, until she was almost screeching.

"For goodness' sake, stop it!" Lindley grabbed at the sheet of paper, dropping the papers and the game as she did so. And as the game fell onto the floor, an intensely bright light came out of it.

Calista had to close her eyes, but the light still seemed to pierce through her eyelids. It seemed like an age before it died away, and when she opened her eyes again, she had to blink several times before she could see properly again – and it was only then that she realised what had gone wrong. "Oops..."

Lindley was gone.

When Lindley opened her eyes, she realised that she was outside – and appeared to be in a field of some kind, though she couldn't see the edge of it. She sighed heavily and pushed herself into a sitting position, looking around and trying to work out exactly where Calista had sent her. She'd seen enough of her friend's powers – even if they didn't work as planned – to know that Calista had some talent as a witch.

And this was yet another spell which hadn't worked out the way it was supposed to.

Lindley stood up and brushed at her trousers, trying to get any grass stains off. After another look round, she realised that she was definitely not going to be able to find her way back home easily, and took her mobile out of her pocket. She waved it through the air, and wasn't too surprised to see there wasn't any signal. There weren't any houses around that she could see, and what phone company would set up phone lines where there weren't any houses.

"So what was your plan, huh, Calista?" Lindley muttered. "I hope you've got some way of getting me out of this place. Stupid idiot friend who can't be bothered to learn proper spells!" She continued in this vein for a few moments, ranting and raving at the sky and wishing that her friend was there to hear her rant. That, of course, changed to her wishing that there was someone around who she knew.

It was the sound of galloping hooves which pulled Lindley out of her thoughts. Someone was coming! It was about time.

Lindley turned round and, as the rider came towards her, started jumping up and down. "Hey! Wait!"

The rider adjusted his course, and started for Lindley. It wasn't until he was really close that she realised he wasn't going to stop. She threw herself to one side, and the rider galloped past, almost brushing against her. Lindley avoided getting hit by the horse's flanks only because she landed heavily on the ground; and then she just lay there with the wind knocked out of her, before climbing to her feet again.

It took Lindley a moment or two to realise that the rider was turning round, holding what looked like a big stick with the point aimed at her. All she could do was stand there, frozen – her mouth wide open – as her mind attempted to process the fact that someone was trying to kill her.

And then something went whistling by her ear and thudded into the rider's chest. As the man toppled sideways, the horse reared up, hooves flailing wildly.

Moving purely on autopilot, Lindley once again flung herself to the side, landing on the ground for the third time in less than an hour. She winced at the bruises she was beginning to feel – but the pain was quickly forgotten when her vision refocused.

Lindley had never seen a dead body before. She didn't know any seventeen-year-old who had. But the man had an arrow sticking out of his chest, and there was blood... so much blood. Lindley had time to notice the awful whiteness of his skin before she scrambled away and started retching.

"Are you hurt?"

Lindley jerked backwards, away from the strange man who loomed over her. Underneath the terror and disgust, some part of her that was still sane noticed the little details; such as the dyed purple hair which fell in a curtain over his face, obscuring one eye and looking exactly like the images of Wolf Calista had insisted on showing her. She also noticed that he was holding a hand out to her... and that blood was pooling around the fingers of his other hand, which he held clasped to his side.

"Are you hurt?" The man took a step nearer to her as he repeated his question.

Lindley scrambled back, watching the man with wide eyes. "Please... go away!" She couldn't see a bow near the man, but he was the only one who could have shot the person on the horse. And why was she in the middle of this? There was a dead man next to her, and the person who'd killed him was standing in front of her, and probably about to kill her as well. She whimpered, and moved back even further.

The man collapsed onto the ground, like his legs wouldn't support him any longer. His mouth opened in a silent gasp of pain, but he kept his hand firmly pressed against his side.

When Lindley pushed herself to her feet, she felt a little better; but she avoided looking at the dead body. Even thinking about it made her feel sick, and so she attempted to push it right out of her mind, as she struggled to decide what to do next. "I have to go home," she whispered. "I want to go home..."

"The king I served is dead now." The man looked up at her. "I fought against the man who is king now. If I survive these wounds, I'll take you as far as his city – but then I will have to leave you."

"I don't want to go anywhere with you. You..." Lindley found that she couldn't say the word 'killed', so she just jerked her thumb in the direction of the man's body. Even though she could see that the man in front of her was hardly dangerous in the state he was in now, a part of her still thought that she shouldn't let her guard down.

The man looked up at her, still managing to focus despite the obvious pain that showed on his face. "If I hadn't killed him, he would have killed you." He spoke with a little pause between each word, and Lindley could see that he looked extremely pale. "You're alone, and you're unarmed. Unless you're a mage, you'll need protection." As he spoke, his voice got quieter and quieter.

Lindley found herself looking for the horse. Despite its momentary panic when it lost its rider, the horse now seemed to have calmed down; and Lindley could see that there were saddlebags attached to it. After another glance at the man – who didn't seem about to move – she stepped over to the horse.

"Calm the horse down first. The animals are well-trained, but still get scared easily."

"I know! I do understand that!" Lindley snapped without thinking, and then flinched when the horse flicked an ear. "Oops." She rubbed her palms against her trousers – trying to get rid of the sweat on her hands – and then reached out to let the horse sniff her hand.

Even though the horse didn't look very impressed, it still deigned to allow Lindley to stroke its nose. Keeping one hand on the horse, she reached her other hand round to undo one of the saddlebags, and then stepped backwards and over to the man. She still wasn't sure she felt safe around him... but he had saved her life, and was now in danger of bleeding to death.

Lindley bit her lip against the thought, and attempted to push it out of her mind, even though her flesh crawled at the smell of blood from the dead body. Purposely looking away from the former rider – though it didn't help her to stop picturing the body – she knelt in front of the wounded man and opened the bag. "What's your name?" she asked, a little hesitantly.

"Wolf. My name is Wolf." The man's eyes were closed, and when Lindley reached out to touch his hand, she found that his skin was clammy. "There's a water flask... in my belt. You will... have to..." Once again, his voice faded away to silence; and he slumped onto his side on the ground.

Lindley's fingers were trembling so much, she found it difficult to get the bandages out of the bag. Abandoning it for the moment, she worked the water flask out of Wolf's belt and pulled the stopper out.

After a moment or two of trying to work out whether it would be best to pull his shirt away from the wound or remove the clothing entirely, Lindley decided that it would be best not to struggle to pull Wolf's shirt right off. Holding the flask in one hand – it was heavy, but not unbearably so – she took hold of the hem of his shirt, and pulled it up and off the wound, wincing at the way the fabric was almost stuck to the wound.

Wolf didn't stir, even when Lindley poured some water onto the wound. She put the stopper into the flask again and put it to one side, and then wondered if she should wipe the wound with something. But she didn't have any clean tissues to hand; and the thought of touching the blood more than she needed to made her feel sick. As it was, she had to keep swallowing as she finally got a long bandage out of the bag, and gingerly wrapped it around his waist, tight over the wound. "Couldn't think to bring safety pins, could you?" she muttered, tying the bandage into as secure a knot as she could.

Once she was finished, Lindley pulled the shirt back down, wincing a little at the bloodstains on it. She then stood up and looked around, trying to decide whether or not she should try to find her own way back home. Staying away from Wolf seemed like a good idea, and she had just bandaged him up. However, he was unconscious; and if she'd managed to get transported somewhere where there was a war going on, it would make sense to stay with someone who knew what was going on.

And she wasn't going to let herself wonder why – if there was a war going on – Wolf and the other man hadn't been using guns or any weapons like that.

Lindley noticed that there was a bow and a quiver of arrows on the ground a short distance behind Wolf. Even though her first inclination was to leave them where they were – he did have a sword in his belt – it would make her feel better to have it close by. So she picked up the bow and quiver and carried them back over, placing them between herself and Wolf before she sat down and tried to work out just how she was going to get back home.

Stupid Calista and her stupid ideas.

Calista slowly picked up the game, biting her lip as her mind struggled to process the fact that she'd just managed to send her best friend into the game in her place. She wasn't stupid; she knew exactly what she'd done. All she could do now was hope that she could set up a counter-spell from outside of the game.

At least the spell she'd used would have made sure that Lindley was able to understand anyone she encountered. And the spell should have deposited her near to where Wolf had fallen... but there was no way Calista could guess what might have gone wrong because of Lindley's interference.

After clearing up the candles and papers – her parents definitely wouldn't appreciate signs of the path their daughter was taking – Calista sat down on the couch and put the Fire Emblem game into her Nintendo DS.

Instead of the proper game screen showing up, however, the title screen showed the words: Fire Emblem: Adventure of Shadows.

"Wait... that's not supposed to happen!" Calista stared at the game that was... completely different to the one that was supposed to be on screen. The spell was just supposed to send her into the game; there shouldn't have been any danger. It shouldn't have started a whole new adventure.

Hesitantly, Calista tapped the stylus against New Game. And then, without any introduction at all, she found herself staring at the screen image of a field. There were two people in the middle of the field – one lying down and one sitting on the ground – and a horse behind them. Half-afraid of what she might find, Calista touched the stylus tip to the person sitting, only to be confronted with a computer graphic image of Lindley and a brief explanation of her statistics – including the fact that she was on level one. Tapping the stylus on the other figure revealed that it was Wolf – and his health points were extremely low.

"What's going on? This isn't how it's supposed to be!"