Dan's Awakening
By DarthMarth
Chapter the First—"The Dan Awakens", or "Dan Forswears, Swears Revenge"
Recap: The tactician Dan's mission to save the land of Elibe at the head of his small band of skilled, unusually attractive fighters from all corners of Elibe was going well. Thanks to the Fire Emblem player's guide he had somehow come to possess, he was known for always having a "master plan" to see the band through every fight on its mission to stop the dark druid Nergal from plunging the world into war and dragonflame. But one day, at the threshold of the Shrine of Seals, Dan's hatred for the prepromote Marcus and his general exasperation with his units' foibles got the better of him. He ran off and engaged Marcus in single combat, finally slaying the sucky Paladin after an exhausting and awesome battle. But then, when the party's flying units inadvertently spent the party's gold reserves many times over on an ill-advised shopping spree, Dan grew so enraged that he exploded. Literally.
But this was not the end of Dan's story. Not long after his explosion, Dan found himself awake, having been resurrected as a morph by Nergal. In exchange for his restored semblance of life, he was tasked with undermining and destroying the group he had once led—a mission he was all too happy to accept. He pursued a number of schemes for making his former comrades' lives miserable, such as murdering Marcus in his tent, rendering Guy mute, possessing Lucius with a demon, and sending Wil to the strange land of Magvel, where Dan's younger sister Danielle gave him the dreaded prepromote treatment.
Meanwhile, the party was forced to sell Eliwood into slavery to pay off the debts accrued at the Shrine of Seals, leaving Florina the only rightful bearer of Durandel—but would she be prepared in time to wield it against the dragons Nergal sought to unleash on the world? After bringing Wil back, along with Dan's older sibling Danske and the casts of two more Fire Emblem games, our heroes set sail for the Dragon's Gate once more. Nergal resurrected Marcus as a morph to lead his defense, but Dan, still nursing his grudge, fought him a second time, only to fall at the Paladin's hand. After being resurrected with no memory of his time as a morph by the mysterious bishop Renault, Dan led the party to final victory over Nergal and his dragons, no thanks to Florina. His siblings and friends never did tell him how he became a servant of Nergal and tried to kill them, and so they all lived happily ever after. Oh, and Lute found that four is the most perfect number.
Then, one day, Dan woke up in a very familiar situation...
My...my head...where am I?
Dan felt the sensation of grass under his head, and a gentle breeze blowing past him. His body felt weak, and his face was strangely numb. He opened his eyes and saw more grass waving in the wind all around him. He sat bolt upright; all he could see was prairieland, broken only by a few trees. His mind began to race.
The plains of Sacae...how? I've been...sent back. Back to the beginning. A second chance...a chance to do things right. He laughed aloud at the glorious absurdity of the situation. "This time will be different! This time I'll cherish my units for all their quirks! I won't verbally annihilate them for minor shopping errors, or spontaneously combust at major ones! I might even let Marcus live! This is perfect! Hah-haaaaah!" He fell back down onto the grass, grinning from ear to ear. I can't fail, not this time. Not only do I have a player's guide detailing the whole adventure, I've actually lived...well, most of it. He still suspected his siblings had been keeping back certain details about what had happened in the last five or so chapters where he'd been dead, but it probably wasn't important anyway. He'd been dead, after all. Feeling a familiar shape in his tactician's robes, he reached into the specially-sewn inner pocket where he kept the guide and peeked at it—
Wait, what!? Who the flurn is he!?
He shoved the guide back into his robes and froze, hearing approaching voices. A girl's voice: "Chrom, over here! I think he's coming to!"
A blue-haired man—the man from the cover of his unfamiliar player's guide, he realized with a shock—and a blonde-pigtailed girl in a hoop skirt came to stand over him.
"I see you're awake now," the man (Chrom, Dan supposed) said. He seemed oddly surprised at this fact, his eyes briefly widening. He turned to the girl, narrowing his eyes in anger, and spoke under his breath. "Lissa, did you really have to?"
"Hey there!" the girl (Lissa) exclaimed, holding back laughter. "I found him first and I was bored," she said equally quietly to Chrom.
"There are better places to take a nap than on the ground you know," the man continued, chuckling. "We'll discuss this later," he said to Lissa. They seem to be having two conversations at once...
Dan sat up. "Have either of you seen Lyn?"
"Who's Lyn?" Chrom said.
"Okay… We are on the plains of Sacae, right?"
Chrom furrowed his brow in concern, or confusion. "...no, we are in the Halidom of Ylisse. You're not from around here, are you?"
Dan felt a heaviness in his chest. So he hadn't been taken back to the beginning, but to a different adventure altogether. An adventure, he supposed, that was detailed in his new player's guide. "...no, apparently I'm not."
"Oh, I've heard of this!" Lissa said. "It's called amnesia."
"It's called a load of pegasus dung," a heavily-armored man said, walking up. "Appearing in our path, claiming to have no memory of his past, speaking of fantastical lands… Milord, he's clearly an enemy spy!"
"Hey, no I'm not!" Dan said. "I don't have amnesia, either. I remember plenty, but it...doesn't make sense anymore, I guess."
Chrom looked a little uneasy. "Do you remember your name, at least?"
"It's Dan."
"And I'm Chrom," Chrom said. "This is my sister Lissa." He turned to the armored knight, who still looked none too pleased at the newcomer. "And this is Frederick the Wary, living up to his title as always."
"I still cannot condone you fraternizing with this man," Frederick said, frowning at Dan...wait, is he suppressing a smirk? "I would gladly share my lord's trust in you, stranger, but my station mandates otherwise. I cannot ignore the distinct possibility that you may be seeking to undermine the Shepherds."
"Hey, be cool!" Dan protested. Definitely a Kent, if I ever knew the man.
Chrom stepped between them, trying to defuse the situation. "Let's take Dan back to town and then sort this out. Then you'll be free to go."
"Uh, Chrom, that could be a problem…" Lissa said. Everyone turned to see what she was looking at: smoke rising from the horizon, and distant hints of flames.
"Blast! Brigands! They've set the town ablaze! Lissa, Frederick, on me!" He charged surprisingly quickly toward the sortie, followed by Lissa and a huffing Dan; Frederick effortlessly mounted onto his nearby horse and caught up with them.
A few minutes later, they were approaching the town gate. Chrom began to slow down. "These bandits won't be bothering anyone again. They'll rue the day they crossed paths with the Shepherds…"
"And blades, milord," Frederick added.
"Er...yes, Frederick. Paths and blades." Frederick nodded slowly.
Dan finally caught up to Chrom. He'd taken the time to think a bit about his situation and sneak in a few peeks at his new player's guide, and his course of action now seemed clear. "Chrom? You seem like the main char—uh, I mean, an important person, and you found me in a field to boot. I'd like to join these Shepherds. Have you any need for a tactician?"
Chrom smiled. "I appreciate the offer, Dan. The Shepherds can use all the help they can get, and a tactical mind could be a great boon to our cause. Can you fight at all, maybe with a sword, or use magic…?"
"No, I...pretty much just plan strategies and direct units," Dan said, uneasy about how Chrom was looking at him expectantly. He had briefly used a sword against Marcus after being revived, but since exploding and being revived his abilities weren't what they had been, and long hours in front of Erk's Mage-o-vision had since done away with whatever residual fighting skill he'd had.
"You're sure?" Chrom said. "A pity. Well, then, guy-I-just-met, tell me where to go!" Frederick glared at him.
Dan felt himself starting to slip back into the familiar. Lissa was clearly a healer to be kept back from the front lines, like a less-annoying Serra, and Chrom was a sword-wielding Lord just like Lyn or Eliwood (hopefully not Eliwood). He turned to Frederick; he looked kind of like a Paladin, but seemed a lot more heavily armed and armored. "And what do you do, Sir Frederick?"
"I would think it should be obvious at a glance," he replied. "I am a Great Knight." From skimming his guide, Dan had learned that in this game—that is, adventure, Cavaliers could promote to Paladins...or Great Knights, somehow.
"Oh, a pre—er, Great Knight, eh?" Dan said. "Well then, you can just hand me all your weapons and then ride into wherever the bandits are the toughest."
"What!? You cannot be serious!" Frederick said, eyes widening. He turned to Chrom. "Milord, I told you it was a bad idea to trust this stranger!"
"Soft, Frederick," Chrom said. "I think there's more to Dan than meets the eye...this must be the first stage of an ingenious trap!"
Sure, you can think that, Dan thought, suppressing a smirk. It'll make it that much easier to kill off all the stupid prepromotes.
"What about me, Dan?" Chrom said.
"Hold for now. Let's see what happens with Frederick." Dan supposed Chrom might be angry after the bandits killed Frederick because of his malicious orders. He began surreptitiously looking for possible escape routes he could use to escape an irate Chrom and Lissa.
"I am in position, tactician Dan! What now?" Frederick said. His horse was standing apathetically in the midst of a mob of bandits, whose cheap weapons were having no discernible effect on his armor. Dan winced as an arrow bounced off Frederick's eye with a bink, but the stalwart knight seemed not to notice.
"Uh...hold! Just...hold there!" Dan said, frowning. It looked like killing Frederick off would have to wait for stronger enemies. He turned to Chrom. "You can pwn—I mean, advance on them whenever you want."
"...okay." Chrom raised his cool-looking sword and charged at the bandits with a yell. They belatedly broke off from trying to hurt Frederick as Chrom ran an axe-wielding man through. He engaged the rest of the bandits, with Frederick shouting advice.
"Behind you, milord! Watch out for that archer!"
Watching them, Dan realized how close he was standing to Lissa. He tried to inch away a few feet without her noticing. When she turned to him, he grasped at a semblance of conversation. "So...uh...have you known your bro...er, Chrom long?"
"Yep! All my life!" Lissa said. "So...are you reeeaally just an amnesiac, or are you a spy after all?"
"...just an amnesiac," Dan said flatly. "Sort of." He hoped Frederick would drop it after the battle was over.
"Oh. Well, for the record, I didn't think you're a spy. That's just Sir Frederick for you, always paranoid…"
"Thanks." He realized Lissa had been staring at him very intently. "Is there something wrong with my face?"
"Uh, no, of course not...tee-hee… ...I had better go heal Chrom!" She ran off to her brother, who was finishing off the last of the bandits. Dan followed more slowly. Strange girl.
"Your stratagem worked perfectly, noble Dan!" Chrom said excitedly as he approached. "Frederick was the bait, and I was the trap!"
"I still cannot recommend trusting this man, milord," Frederick said, frowning. "I could almost swear he tried to get me killed!"
"Frederick, while I appreciate your caution, it is surely misplaced regarding our friend Dan," Chrom replied. "He helped to save innocent Ylissean lives. That's enough for me."
"Sigh… Very well…"
"Anyway, we should return to Ylisstol and report back to the exalt."
"Yaaay, civilization!" Lissa cheered.
"And sleep on pine needles," Frederick added.
"Aww…" As if in response to her mood, her pigtails drooped down lifelessly. ...how does she do that?
"Come along, Dan," Chrom said, leading them across a bridge toward the east side of town.
As they crossed, Dan looked down into the lazily flowing river. It was especially still today. He froze at the sight of his face. It was colorfully painted all over, to look like...a flower? His clenched fists began to tremble as he stared after the departing Shepherds. Lissa… I will have my revenge… I swear it. He began to reconsider his assessment of her being less annoying than Serra…
Somewhere else in the blowing sea of green, a little beyond where the Shepherds had found Dan, a dark-skinned sorcerer came to stand over another unconscious black-robed figure. A sinister grin spread across his face.
"At last, I have found you… ...my son."
This is it—after seven years, Dan is back! In my recent, second playthrough of FE: Awakening I have accumulated five pages (and counting) of jokes, satire, and alternate plot to share! Hopefully at least a few of you remember the original fics and are excited to see what Dan will be up to in this one, but if not, I give them my totally neutral, unbiased recommendation. I'm excited to see what I can come up with as an adult with better writing experience versus my eccentric sixteen-year-old self, and hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing it!
Dan: Liiissaaaaaaaaa! Get back here so I can paint your face to look like a flower! Or, uh...Frederick's face!
Lissa: La-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-laaaa…
Frederick: Lissa, come gather some pine needles for your bed! Being miserable builds character!
Lissa: Aaaaaaaaaooooooouuuuuuuuuggghhhh… Coming, Frederick...
Dan: Chrom, why didn't you say anything?
Chrom: Er...well, I figured you couldn't see it, and it would be less distressing if you just didn't find out…
Dan: Flurn...well, that explains why everyone in that town was staring at me.
Don't look at me, I'm just the omnipresent, omniscient voice that tells people to read and review. I have no power outside this bolded section at the end.
Dan: Some help you are, voice...