A/N: Some unavoidable copying of game-lines. Can't start out of nowhere, you know. Forgive me. I own nothing of VP Silmeria—or Lenneth—this is merely for my own amusement in between leveling up in preparation for the Seraphic Gate (yay!). ALSO, I'm not sure exactly what happens to the mortal soul when a Valkyrie is placed dormant in their body, or what's supposed to happen, and no one else has ever bluntly mentioned it anywhere online that I've seen either, so I kinda winged it on that part. Don't hate!

Valkyrie Profile Silmeria: Alternate Ending

"Let me," Alicia said suddenly from her place kneeling on the ground reaching out to the floating crystals, "let me be the vessel." Brahms just looked at her, holding his shoulder.

Behind her and over her head came Rufus's voice. "Are all of you people crazy?!"

The Lord of the Undead frowned at her, and carefully explained that it was not the same as hosting a single Valkyrie in her body—that all four souls, including the host body's, would fuse, in order to create a new, more powerful being. "Much as I once melded with a man named Dylan," he added.

But the princess calmly stated that, for the sake of the future of the world, she didn't care what happened to her, which made Rufus jerk forward in surprise.

"The strain on your body will be too much," Brahms insisted.

"You're injured," she argued back.

"When your body fails, the soul will fade. I am still stronger than you, Alicia. We can't have your body—the four souls—fading out on us mid-battle," he said evenly.

"It won't. And I don't care if it happens afterward, as long as Lezard is defeated."

"How can you say you don't care?" Rufus yelled at her, his tone angry but his expression anguished as he rushed forward to grab her by the shoulders, looking down at her face. "Think about what you're saying."

"I have," she said earnestly. "I've been thinking about it a long time. Ever since I was little, I've always wanted to be separate from Silmeria. But once it happened, I felt so…empty."

"Silmeria's soul was meant by Odin to join with yours; her memories suppressed, and live and die as a human, joining the cycle of rebirth. But your personality, your soul," Brahms said gently, "wasn't strong enough to contain her, and she awoke. Your souls were connected more deeply than anyone could imagine, but you were never fully joined, still two separate souls in one body."

Alicia turned her head to him, looking bewildered, still in Rufus's grasp.

"You will always be connected. But humans weren't meant to live as you and Silmeria were. You must find a way to strengthen your own soul and live as your own person, or even if Silmeria is returned to her own body at your side, you will never be whole."

"I don't understand," she began. Rufus's fingers tightened on her shoulders, watching Brahms intently, as was Angrim, off a ways from them.

"Your soul is used to her presence beside it. But she can't live that way forever. She is a Valkyrie. She was created for a purpose—preparing for Ragnarok. She can't do her job properly while she is resting inside your body." He took a step closer to her. "For that reason, it must be me who is the vessel. In this way, the three Valkyrie souls, after the battle, will be released into the cycle of rebirth, and allowed some peace at last. You will learn to stand alone. And I will finally be able to die."

"But…" Rufus and Alicia said at the same time.

"They won't be with us anymore!" Alicia cried.

"Who's going to do the job of Valkyrie in the meantime?" Rufus asked.

Brahms considered, looking aside, his hand twitching slightly as he felt, and resisted, the urge to rub gingerly at his shoulder. "Lenneth said she was the Lenneth of an alternate future. Then the Lenneth of our time must still sleep, wherever it is Valkyries rest while not on duty. Freya would know."

"Like Freya would tell us!" Rufus exclaimed, diverted by this thought.

"Do you think we'd end up with two Lenneths?" Angrim asked conversationally, as if it was a small matter. "Or that she'd float back to her own timeline?"

"I don't know," Brahms answered.

Meanwhile, Alicia stood silently, looking agonized. She frowned, shaking her head. "I don't know how to be without her. Even being alone this long was hard, but I thought we would be reunited."

"You aren't alone," Rufus reminded her, shaking her a little. She looked up at him wonderingly.

"But you'll go to Valhalla."

"So would Silmeria, if we got her back," he returned. "Don't you want to be there when we find her again?"

Hope flashed across her face, briefly. "But…would Freya allow me to wait for her there?"

Angrim walked up to them at last, reaching out to pat the princess on the back lightly. "Hey. If Rufus is king, and he says so, doesn't that mean they have to do whatever he says?" Alicia looked at him questioningly.

It was time to step up to the plate, even if the thought of facing off against Freya was more frightening than fighting Lezard. Inwardly, he shook of the image of Lezard's face being superimposed by a bigger and scarier image of an angry Freya. Rufus straightened up his spine, trying for an aura of confidence. "Of course. And you're still undead, so you can go in and out anytime you want. That sound good?" he said in his usual lighthearted manner, like he was asking her dinner menus preferences, nothing big.

Finally a sad smile tipped the corner of her lips. "Okay…but are you sure, Brahms?"

He nodded.

"Okay," Alicia sighed. "Let's do it."

Lezard was prepared, powerful, and obsessed—a strong combination. But they were determined, and desperate—perhaps an equally powerful mixture of emotions and will. They each downed a nectar potion before facing him, and checked their weapons, and Alicia prepared to heal at a moment's notice. Then there was nothing left to do but enter the final chamber.

He greeted them in his usual smarmy manner before his gaze turn deadly, narrowing as he summoned his spell books, dropping his false cheer. Gungnir remained clenched in one hand.

"Please be patient," he said over his shoulder to the crystal-encased Valkyrie. He raised his arm leisurely, waiting for him to enter his range, an expectant look on his face. Ignoring him, they rushed ahead and split off to either side, going around, momentarily startling him. As one, they raised their weapons and began to attack to shining gem.

"It's way harder than my photon-crystals!" Alicia cried to no one in particular.

"Weak fool!" Lezard laughed at her, teleporting to have her in his range. Rufus shot over her shoulder at him but he merely moved to the side—his speed was much increased since the merging of his soul with Odin's. Rufus was forced to use more powerful attacks while Lezard focused his attention on the girl struggling to dash out of his way quickly enough.

"Blinding Blaze!" he yelled, shooting the mage in the back.

"Curse you!" he yelled, thrown off balance, wobbling in mid-air, his cape fluttering around his black-clad form, but by no means was he subdued. Immediately he straightened up, pushing up his glasses with his index finger in a familiar gesture that would have been goofy in any other setting—it was a rather ridiculous motion for a crazy man-turned-god to make, and it threw Alicia, for one, off for a moment, remembering their first meeting. "I hope you didn't think this was over," he growled ominously as he waved out his hand and hit the half-elf and princess with a spell. Icy shards flew through the air and they tried to shield themselves.

Alicia responded with a healing tincture that hit all of them, and they scattered throughout the chamber, trying to stay out of range as they readied themselves for another go.

Abruptly Lezard seemed to recall there were two others fighting against him and teleported to a random place in the room. Spotting the two heavy warriors, who were making their way closer to the sealed Lenneth again; he called out, "Lightning Bolt!"

"Ugh!" Angrim yelled, though Brahms gritted his teeth and made no sound. They dropped to their knees, arms splayed out for balance, but Rufus and Alicia attacked Lezard from the side, using their most powerful attacks.

"Nibelung Valesti" dropped Lezard onto his side, but it failed to stop him permanently.

"If only I had more strength," Alicia murmured sadly, thinking on Brahms's earlier words.

"No time for that now!" Rufus shoved her aside just in time. "Aah!" he screamed as Lezard spun about and used Gungnir against him, all the while laughing maniacally. It didn't catch him straight on, but Rufus took much longer to rise than before. They didn't even notice that some of the mage-god's own magic hit his captive's imprisoning gem.

"Heal!" Alicia gasped, thrusting her hand out at him.

Brahms and Angrim took advantage of the distraction and attack from behind, Brahms with his bare—but powerful—hands, Angrim dropping his blade straight over Lezard's slightly-glowing head. Stunned, he froze in mid-air.

"Now!" Brahms called, and again they went at the seal. A crackle of pure magic, like lightning striking, alerted them to Lezard's regaining his control and summoning his powers, but they continued on without turning. Lezard threw another spell at them, but the effects were blocked by the nectar potions, though they were too stressed to spend much time being grateful at just that moment.

"Hurry!" Alicia begged, as if they weren't already trying with all their strength. She lifted her sword once more.

Shhk! The crystal cracked across the front, distorting Lenneth's face.

"This is it," Angrim whispered gruffly.

The sound of bells rung throughout the room as the crystal shattered, sending them dropping back a few feet. Immediately Brahms rose and went to Alicia's side, grabbing her by one arm and raising her up on her elbow. They spoke quickly, and Brahms left her to dash across the room to grab the smaller crystals waiting by the entrance before positioning himself in the path of the floating blue soul.

Lezard didn't notice any of this—indeed, not even the shard of crystal that flew at his face, slicing into his cheek on its way by. "Lenneth!" he cried out, reaching up, in complete shock at the floating blue glow dancing around in the chamber above their heads.

Lenneth's soul, drawn toward her sisters' displaced spirits in Brahms's arms, made its way towards him. It was much harder to cast the necessary spell on himself rather than someone in front of him. But he managed to break the smaller crystals, his hands glowing red as the lattice underneath his feet as all three souls were drawn back into his arms in a flash of white light. The figure that leapt forward was unlike any they had ever seen before.

Dark skin, much like that of a Kalstad native only duskier, encased in pale indigo fabric of her bodice and skirt and its longer sheath, darker leg and shoulder armor, black sleeves and heeled boots. Contrasting platinum hair, almost white, cascaded down the back. Eyes opened, revealed to be amber, outlined in faint red. A sword was pulled at her side, from seemingly nowhere. It was much larger than even Dylan's had been, absurdly wide and heavy-looking for her delicate-looking limbs.

"Valkyrie," Rufus whispered in awe. There was no other name for it, although the original Valkyrie of legend, as far as he'd ever known, certainly hadn't included the merged soul of an undead being, perhaps of the three sisters, though. Who knew?

Who cared? Winning, even more than survival, was what mattered now.

"Oh!" Alicia gasped, a longing look in her eyes. But Rufus privately felt she wouldn't even have been able to enjoy her moment reunited with Silmeria, because the new being she would have been part of wouldn't even begin to recognize the two souls as separate anymore to enjoy each others' company.

He shook his head, to find his mind wandering at such a moment, and focused on catching his breath, his eyes—like those of his companions—sliding over to check the mage-god's reaction.

Lezard had gotten over his shock, rage beginning to sound in his voice. "You absurd, pitiable fools! Does your folly never end? Very well." And he declared himself the arbiter of their fate, the herald of their eternal doom. The source of their destruction. He'd clearly gone over the edge of the edge, if such a thing were possible. For once, Rufus successfully resisted the urge to make a wise-ass comment.

"Let it be done!" was his answer from Valkyrie.

And so it began again.

Lezard seemed perfectly content to destroy Valkyrie, though she contained Lenneth's soul—possibly because she looked nothing like his beloved goddess. "You will pay," he growled ominously.

"I shall give you peace," Valkyrie said calmly in return as she attacked. The others did their best to keep up.

"You fools! I am a god!" Was that the madness, causing the glazed look in his eyes? Surely it was. "Explosion!" They were knocked off their feet.

He moved faster than expected. Rufus, Angrim, and Alicia fell behind, as the two beings dodged around the battlefield, Lezard teleporting and Valkyrie dashing much more quickly than any of them could manage.

By random chance, Lezard teleported in front of them, his back to them, focused on Valkyrie.

"Oh unseen power!" Valkyrie called, aiming her sword at him. "Cleave from this body the breath of life!"

"Right," Rufus said to himself, gripping his weapon. Louder, "Time for this to end!" Angrim and Alicia picked up on his thoughts and followed his actions, attacking. The united four souls, the sisters and the vessel, quickly joined them. Lezard attacked in turn as soon as lack of breath forced them to pause, ignoring Valkyrie in favor of riding himself of a smaller nuisance.

"Dark Savior!" And when that failed to kill them, he cast great magic on them. "Bow to me! Worship me!" he commanded as they fell over again, crying out.

Alicia produced a healing tincture from a little bag made of magically-toughened animal skin tied to her sword belt behind where the blade was normally sheathed, where she kept several small precious items. Luckily it was a more potent spell than the various arcanums, with a wider range, and not the sort that had to be drunk. Dropping the glass container at their feet resulted in a whoosh of cool air launching bright white feathers around their forms, healing them as they touched their bodies.

Meanwhile, Valkyrie ignored all of his words as he continued to rant at them, barely reacting to his attacks aside from picking herself back up. Perhaps she didn't feel the blows the way the others did, but they followed her lead. After their nigh simultaneous attacks at his back, after the effort of lugging themselves across the battlefield again as quickly as they could after his next teleportation—trying to avoid his attacks—she followed up with her own final attack.

"Divine assault!"

The power flowing from her in waves of color, the immense wings sprouting from her back were something to been seen and hardly believed. Her nibelung valesti was one Alicia could never have hoped to match on her own. "Purify!" they heard her voice above the shockwave—and Lezard screaming. When the blinding light of her attack cleared, they saw Lezard flat on his back, still gamely holding on to Gungnir.

He looked up blearily, seeing Valkyrie not very far away gazing down at him, and picked himself up to totter unsteadily in her direction. "Lenneth's spirit," he gasped. "Lenneth's soul…it all belongs to me! Now die!" he stabbed her mid-section in a final burst of energy.

"Uh!"

"No!"

Alicia and Rufus cried out at the same time. Angrim merely gaped that even he could be alive still after such an attack, never-mind get up to counter-attack.

Where the tip of Gungnir met her flesh was a glowing light and she blinked slowly at him, opening her eyes again with a serious expression. "A soul is something no other can possess." She did not otherwise react, though behind her Alicia stood with her hands over her mouth, staring tearfully at her back.

Lezard glanced at the lack of blood, and finally back into her eyes, resignation causing his shoulders to slump. "A god…is not as almighty as I expected." He could not kill her, or so he thought, could not reclaim Lenneth's separate spirit.

"Now you see," she said, finally a bit of emotion slipping into her voice; contempt. Surely that was Brahms's influence.

Lezard faded away, not simply dying as expected, Gungnir dropping to the floor.

"What's going on?" Alicia said.

"Is his body fading away back to his own time?" Angrim asked.

Valkyrie turned to them, the glow at her stomach increasing. "Rufus." The half-elf started at her sudden attention. "You must take Gungnir. Go to the top of Yggdrasil and Lezard's barrier will be gone."

"And…then?" he questioned nervously.

She smiled. "Then you will become a god. Return to Valhalla."

"Won't you come with us?" Alicia pleaded. "Let me heal you. Or…something!" She stepped forward, desperate not to lose Silmeria.

Valkyrie only closed her eyes briefly. "No. This body is failing."

"But…who will look after the orb?" Rufus said desperately, wishing he had someone older and wiser and more experienced in the ways of the gods to advise him—to continue to advise him. He'd expected Silmeria to be around when he attained his godhood.

"That is for you to decide. Choose well." With that, she sighed, and her body broke into sparkles of light—much the way Lezard's had, though her departure was accompanied by glittering feathers puffing into the air. Alicia cried out, reaching for her, but she was already gone.

The heavy warrior picked up the orb just as Rufus reached tentatively for Gungnir. "Okay…what now?" Angrim asked no one in particular. In response, a wave suddenly shook the ground, making the floor ripple and the walls tremble.

"Uh!" Rufus exclaimed as they flung their arms out trying to keep balance. Thunderous sounds began all around them. "We have to get out of here! This place is falling apart!"

"But!" Alicia said, still looking toward the last remnants of feathers on the ground where Valkyrie had been. He exchanged glances with his other companion, who nodded. He grabbed one arm and Angrim grabbed the other.

"Gotta go, princess," Angrim said. "This place won't be around much longer without Lezard's stolen power to support it." They half-carried her out—she was facing backwards—and she stumbled. They all did, barely making it out the doors to a safe distance to watch the castle fall into itself and great clouds of dust spiral into the air. They dropped the all-important treasures onto the ground to stare at the ruins.

Alicia, freed from their grip, covered her face with her hands. "Silmeria!" Finally, a moment of weakness broke through, and she let out a shuddering breath.

"We'll find her again," Rufus said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Come on. Let's get out of here." He was mortally tired, and wondered if immortality would cure that—or if it would haunt him still, along with many painful memories.

She sniffled a bit, but after several moments nodded, the same endurance that had gotten her through their previous journeys showing again in her eyes when she again raised her head.

"You two are going back to Yggdrasil, then, huh?" Angrim said. "What about the orb?"

Rufus and Alicia exchanged glances.

"Well…" Alicia trailed off. They looked at him meaningfully.

"Huh?" he said in surprise, stepping back. "Me? You want me to take it?"

"Do you want to go back to Valhalla?" Rufus asked dryly. He could no more picture Angrim living out his days there until Ragnarok than he could see Freya being happy about his return. A moment of panicked longing for a hiding place far, far away from Valhalla was suppressed at the latter part of that thought.

"Uh…" He lifted his arm, elbow crooked, to rub at the back of his neck. "They did have some good food, but…the drink was nowhere near my standards."

"Right," Rufus said evenly. Alicia permitted herself a small smile.

"Eh, it's too stuffy there for me."

"You're still an einherjar," Alicia said softly, "even though your Valkyrie is gone." His jaw clenched at the indirect mention of Hrist.

"Yeah? What's your point?" he said challengingly.

"Nothing!" Alicia said quickly. "It's just…you won't have to worry about growing old. You're the perfect one to watch over the dragon orb. And I know in my heart we can trust you. I know…Silmeria would have said the same thing."

He looked away. "Even though I betrayed you?"

"You didn't really have a choice about it," Rufus argued. "And you came around, in the end. You were here when we needed you, when it really counted." Beside him, the princess nodded, with forgiveness in her expression. She'd never been one to hold a grudge, and Rufus was trying to pick up some of that quality for himself. Besides, allies were rather important to him at this point…

"…Okay." Angrim returned her nod. Never one to dwell on the past—he reached down, picked the orb back up. "Alright then, how do we get out of here before Midgard falls apart?"

Alicia reached into the inner pocked of her vest, close to her heart. She pulled out the shard of the water mirror, which had miraculously survived the battle without breaking into tiny unusable pieces.

"How'd you get that?" Rufus asked, eyeing her as he bent to retrieve Gungnir.

"Hrist dropped it when Lezard took her and Lenneth," she explained. Sadness touched her face, momentarily. "And Silmeria. I thought I'd better pick it up."

"Good thing," he muttered, astonished at his own carelessness not to wonder about the shard's whereabouts before. He didn't want to be stuck here forever. Speaking of…

"Okay," he said, nodding. "We'll use the shard to get back to Midgard, anywhere you want to go, Angrim. Then Alicia and I will return to Valhalla."

"So we part ways," Angrim said thoughtfully.

"Surely we can keep in touch, somehow," Alicia replied, distressed at the thought of losing anyone else.

"Oh, I'm sure we'll see each other again."

"Yeah," Rufus smiled, the first touch of real humor in a long time making him add, "We'll just look for you in a tavern, right?"

Angrim smiled back unapologetically. "Bound to be in one of them," he agreed.

The water mirror deposited them outside Coriander, at Angrim's request. "There's always monster-slaying to be done here," he explained. "And a good enough inn. I'm glad to get away from all those warring kingdoms just now."

Alicia hugged him. Somewhat bashfully, he hugged her back; avoiding Rufus's gaze while doing so, then shook the half-elf's hand. "See you around, your future majesty."

"Eh, don't call me that," Rufus complained. "It's bad enough they might make me were the crown."

Angrim nodded towards Alicia. "You're the new king, right? They have to do whatever you say."

"So you think they listen if I say I'm not wearing it?"

"Wasn't talking about the crown," he said grinned. Rufus blinked; understand and a slow blush spread. "Take care of her."

"I will."

"Take care of yourself!" Alicia said firmly, also blushing a little. They used the shard to return to just outside of Yggdrasil, in a field of waving grass and shining white flowers, eternally blooming.

"Well…come on," he said, swallowing hard. 'I'm going to be a god…'

"Rufus…" Alicia murmured. "Do you remember?"

He glanced down at her. "Remember what?"

"When I said I wanted to be watching when you became a god?"

Her words flashed through his mind, as well as an image of her lips on a blood-red stone. He glanced down at her hand. "Yeah, I remember."

She smiled slightly. "I'm glad…I get to be there. Even though I lost Silmeria."

He turned to put his hands on her shoulders. "After things settle down in Valhalla, we'll look for her, okay? I promise."

She nodded, glancing aside. "I know. After she's reborn. I'm sure I'll be able to sense her, if I'm near enough."

"So…you want to wander the continent?" he asked, baffled and a little put-off. She must have seen the look in his eyes.

"Not forever! And not yet. She may not even be born yet. So…we have some time." Now she did look him in the eye. For the second time in so many minutes, he blushed as her meaning sunk in.

She wanted to stay with him. She wanted to find Silmeria, of course, but until then…and maybe even after…she would remain at his side.

'Maybe after her soul grows stronger, while we wait, she won't need to be with Silmeria all the time.' Selfishly, he hoped so. He knew she cared for him, and that she didn't know how much he cared for her. Even he hadn't known, until she'd almost melded with the three goddesses of fate. He wanted her to want to be with him as much as if not more than Silmeria.

"Okay," he said after a moment. "I'm glad, too." The heat in his cheeks increased as she continued to smile at him and he let go of her, rubbing the back of his head. "Well, let's go. No time like the present."

.

.

A/N: Even in youtube, do you know how hard it is to get a good look at Valkyrie's outfit? She won't stand still, or obligingly present front, back, and side views of herself. How rude.

Valkyrie's words to Rufus about the barrier reference a hidden scene that can be obtained after the defeat of Odin by going all the way back up the scene of the battle to see a magical barrier Lezard put up.

I changed Valkyrie's last line, "nothing can rule another's heart" because in my mind that's not what Lezard was referring to in regards to a god's power or lack thereof. He didn't come all that way in his madness and die only to have a last minute change of attitude or sudden insight about love itself. As far as I'm concerned, he meant that he wasn't strong enough to defeat Valkyrie, to separate her four combined souls.