Chapter 1

Awakening

When she first opened her eyes, Robin saw a blue sky.

It may have been because she was feeling like pain all over, but she felt an ache in her heart as she stared upwards. She imagined a smiling blue-haired face and a bright-eyed blonde staring down at her, a kind and welcoming hand reaching out for her to grab on…

And then it was gone, carried away by the wind.

She closed her eyes. She wanted to stay there and never wake up again, not until she saw that face again.

Dry lips parted, a voice hoarse with disuse croaked, "H-heh…leave it to Chrom to be late."

As she slowly mustered the strength to sit up, her thoughts drifted to another blue-haired beauty.

Lucina.

She felt her eyes water as tears threatened to leak out. Her dear sweet Lucina. She could only imagine the heartbreak Lucina must have suffered when she sacrificed herself to stop Grima. And Morgan, how could she forget her beloved son? It pained her to think that his energetic-self would be dampered with her disappearance.

"I'm sorry Morgan, Lucina, but it had to be done…For the safety of the future…" she said to herself more than anything. What would the future be if she hadn't made the choice? Would the selfishness of being with her friends, with her family be worth the uncertainty brought by Grima's survival?

The temptation to lie back down spiked, but she pushed herself into a sitting position when she felt cool metal on her left hand. A steel sword. This galvanized her into actually looking around her surroundings. Soft grass waved in the subtle breeze, and massive trees towered around the clearing like eternal sentries. In the distance she could see white-capped mountains seeming to be as immobile as…well, a mountain.

I just woke up in some godsforsaken forest, I think I can be forgiven for not sounding like one of Owain's 'masterpieces,' Robin thought to herself with a slight smile.

The smile abruptly disappeared once she thought of her melodramatic companion. The feeling of solitude, of desolation wormed its way through her heart. Oh how she wished for a familiar face. Hell she'll even take Inigo's flirting.

On a whim, she yelled out, "Okay guys, it would be a great time for all of you to surprise me by coming out now!"

As expected, no one responded.

She let out a deep sigh. "Well, I guess I can't expect them to know the exact location and time when I came back. Still, it would have been nice to see a friend."

Robin picked up the sword, the familiar and worn-out grip fitting her hand perfectly. This was the same sword she woke up with all those years ago, with some upgrades of course. It, along with her signature Plegian cloak and very first tome, covers now worn and faded with repeated use and patch-worked pages from many nights of painstaking repair, was one of her few possessions she treasured with her heart.

The other was her ring.

Almost panicking, she pulled off her glove. An assuring glint off her finger greeted her, and she sighed with relief. If she lost it…

Robin suddenly realized the ambient sounds of nature had gone quiet. A low growl caused her to turn around.

The snarling visage of a wolf greeted her, emerging from the dark forest. Her hand reached for her sword, absently noting there were additional tomes scattered around. If it was just one wolf, she could take care of it easily, but that was the thing wasn't it? Wolves never came alone.

As if to emphasize the thought additional growls echoed around her. More of the wolf's companions entered the clearing, no doubt ready to pounce on an easy prey. Internally she cursed herself for being so stuck in reminiscence and self-pity that she didn't notice her surroundings. Good job Robin, you lead a crack team of the most talented warriors in the entire world to kill a continent-sized Evil Dragon and how do you die? To a random pack of wolves.

Her mind, the greatest asset the Shepherds ever had and her distinguishing characteristic, went into overdrive, trying to make up for lost time. The clearing was roughly ninety feet in diameter and she sat in the exact center, giving her about a second of time to act if the wolves pounced. The only cover nearby was a large rock about twice the size of a horse. Running away was out of the question, they'd already surrounded her and she couldn't outrun them on foot anyway. Her only option was to fight.

Robin's free hand hovered over a tome of fire spells. If she could launch an area attack, she could scare them off. A ring of fire would not only allow her to cut off any attempts to attack her, but it would hopefully be flashy enough to prove she was way more trouble than she was worth.

As she slowly opened the tome, the wolves suddenly snapped their head to the side, their growling intensifying as they slowly started to retreat from whatever agitated them. Curious, Robin turned to the source.

It was an unnatural thing.

Its physique was some twisted amalgamation of humanoid and canine qualities, its legs bent like that of a wolf yet hunched over as a feral human would. Its fur was a deep black, dark enough that even in broad daylight she almost couldn't make out the details. To contrast, nearly pure-white bony spines thrusted themselves out of its arms, its back, its legs. On its head more of the bony material covered its face, giving the impression of a mask. An design of intricate red lines were inscribed throughout the mask, which Robin might have called beautiful enough to be done by an artist. And its eyes…

Robin shivered as she gazed into the blood-red eyes, and almost as if in response the beast snarled. Eyes that seemed to stare into her soul; that despite everything she went through in the recent years pinned her like an unblooded peasant facing down a charging mounted knight line. Eyes that held intelligence behind them, of a thinking being. Eyes that spoke of an unimaginable, unspeakable amount of pure hate.

A distant part of her mind noted that the wolf pack she had been so worried about had already fled.

Seemingly tired of the standoff, the beast pounced, letting out a roar as it lept into the air, claws outstretched to slice her in two. It was a testament to her skills honed by years of combat that Robin was able to shake herself out of her stupor and roll out of the way. She felt the heavy thwump as the beast crashed down to where she was standing just seconds ago, and it was already turning to her and readying another swipe.

Robin dodged to the side, and with a bit of wind magic pushed herself and the beast farther apart.

Snarling, the beast lunged forward, attempting to crush her with its own body. Once again she rolled out of the way, and while the beast was attempting to stop its momentum, Robin aimed her own sword attack at the beast's exposed back, hoping to strike somewhere vital. With all of her might, Robin swung her sword.

Thunk!

To her surprise, her sword only embedded itself an inch into the beast's hide. Turning its head to her, a wet snarl on its tongue, the beast retaliated, its claw grazing Robin's arm.

Pain exploded in her limb. Robin bit back a scream as she leapt back to avoid another of the beast's swings. Now she didn't have her sword, not that it seemed to do much anyway. She certainly wasn't the strongest physically of the Shepherds, but she expected her attack to do more than piss it off. What is that thing made of?

Positioning herself between the rock and the beast, she was rewarded when another of the beast's lunges caused it to crash into the rock. Now that she had some breathing room, she pulled out one of her oft-used electric spells, Thunder.

As the beast was recovering, Robin chanted the necessary words, the tome responding by enveloping her hand in electricity and surrounding her with glowing sigils. With a cry of "Thunder!" a ball of lightning was unleashed from her hand and struck true, hitting the beast in the shoulder and throwing it back.

Despite this, the beast was apparently still not finished, attempting to stand back up on shaky legs. It let out a growl as Robin channeled yet another Thunder, charging her in an attempt to stop her before she could complete another attack.

Robin was quicker, her bolt of lightning striking the beast square in the chest and arresting its momentum. It landed in a heap just less than a foot away from her.

With the immediate threat now over, Robin braced herself on her knees, the adrenaline subsiding as she panted from the exertion. Between gasps she breathed out, "Heh, I still got it."

Robin winced as she felt her injured arm blossom in pain once more. Blood was already staining her cloak. With her other hand, Robin reached into a specific compartment of her cloak, hoping that she would find it…There! She pulled out a vulnerary and gulped down its contents. Already the pain was dulling, though it will be a while before the wound was fully healed.

With her arm now in workable condition, Robin went to pull out her sword. With a grunt, it slid free, however Robin noticed little specks of black floating away from it. Kneeling next to the corpse to get a better look, Robin could see the entire body was releasing flakes of black dust and smoke, with a lot more coming from the small wound that she inflicted on the beast. The beast was disintegrating before her eyes.

She couldn't help but compare it to the Risen.

Even the wound was peculiar. Instead of blood or fleshy muscle, under the black hide it was…just red. It had no texture, just a solid mass of crimson material. A cautious touch confirmed that it wasn't wet. Robin looked to her sword, dread starting to boil up. The blade was spotless. Not a single speck of blood marred its form.

Just like the Risen.

She recoiled, leaping to her feet as her mind processed the implications. The beast was clearly not natural considering its corpse was evaporating and that it didn't seem to follow ordinary biology with the lack of blood. The way the wolves retreated from the thing implied that they have encountered more beasts like it. The beast's visage was clearly meant to instill terror, and its pure red eyes brought to mind the Risen's own glowing ones.

Were these beasts some form of advanced Risen? Ones not constrained to a humanoid form? But…that didn't make sense! She sacrificed herself to kill the Fell Dragon. It would only make sense that the death of Grima would end the threat of the Risen as well. Was her sacrifice in vain? Was Grima still out there? Did…did she cause her family so much grief for nothing? Panic started to set in as she ripped off her other glove, the one that had the Mark of Grima.

It wasn't there.

Unfortunately it didn't calm her down. If Grima was gone, then why were things that looked and acted and died like Risen running around? There had to be some connection between these two, the number of similarities between them were were too numerous to ignore.

She suddenly thought of the difficulty she had fighting the beast in melee. As one of the Shepherds her fighting ability was leagues above the average soldier. If she had to resort to magic to make any meaningful headway against the beast, then the vast majority of the armies would be nothing more than fodder. Magic users were relatively rare and only comprised at most a fourth of any army. Even amongst the Shepherds, the number of tome-users including herself and Morgan could be counted on two hands. Even if they had a numbers advantage, any encounter with even one of the beasts would end with significant casualties.

She whipped her head up at the sound of a twig snapping, getting into her own signature form, sword in one hand and tome in the other.

With grim satisfaction Robin confirmed that there were in fact more of the beasts. There were roughly a dozen of them, though the way they kept shifting between each other made getting a clear count challenging. Were they doing it deliberately? These ones seemed a lot more…cautious than the first beast. Do they know what I'm capable of? The way she felt some of them glare at the tome she held seemed to say yes. Perhaps they have some sort of hivemind…that is a terrifying thought. If they could learn from the mistakes of others even if they weren't present, it meant the same tricks wouldn't work twice.

Once again Robin found herself outnumbered by a superior foe. Once again she felt herself longing for her companions, for someone to watch her back. Heh, Tharja would probably have some hex to get out of this situation. She took solace in the fact that unlike the pack of wolves earlier, at least she wasn't completely surrounded.

She'd have to depend on her spells if her performance against the first beast held true for these ones. Thunder and the other spells of its level won't kill them fast enough before they overrun her with numbers. Elthunder should be able to fell them in one shot.

Then as if to mock her, it came.

It was another of the wolf-beasts, however even hunched over it towered over the others. More bony spikes jutted out of its back and shoulders, and with each step Robin felt the very ground tremble. Like subjects to a king, the smaller beasts parted before the giant. It regarded her with cold, calculating eyes, before rearing on its legs and letting out an ear-splitting howl that was joined by its kin.

In response, Robin could only utter, "Well shit."