If anyone wants to be a complete fangirl over the new Pokémon games, Birthright and Conquest (yes, I've seen those memes and I love them), I'd be happy to share the literal docs I've written up over building teams for every Fire Emblem character. Also, I am stuck in Pokémon GO hell.
The Opera House used to be known as Arena Cyrkensia, hosting the most spectacular contests any man, from the mightiest king whose purse overflowed with riches, to the poorest beggar who could barely scrounge up a coin for the entrance fee, could hope to see in their lives. Anything from tests of strength against dozens of teams at a time, to shows of beauty and grace, were exhibited. When the city fell into decline, the arena was one of the first buildings to be boarded up. Eventually, a playwright and his Chevois wife bought the title to the land, undertook a renovation process that totalled six years, and held a grand reopening which was attended by almost every citizen. No more battles or contests were held (the pair were of the opinion that they were much too vulgar a spectacle); instead, beautiful operas, concerts, and plays were performed to the delight of the citizenry, who admired the pageantry and engaging stories that played out before them.
Tonight, the most fashionable opera on tour was playing its first night in Nestra. The house was packed, as was expected, and the most exclusive box had been reserved for the Nohrian royal family, who visited the port city often due to king Garon having been a long time admirer of the house's most famous singer, Layla. The fisherfolk and courtiers in attendance would both sneak peeks up to the the gold furnished box and the red velvet curtains that obscured the royals from view.
Also tonight was the ambush planned for the Nohrians by the Hoshidan army. Their nobles and soldiers had disguised themselves among the gentry and commoners alike - even some of the fishmongers selling their wares outside the opera house were in fact armed to the teeth.
They waited amongst the audience with bated breath. They would strike the moment the performance would end, and the curtains closing would mean they could slip into the box and kill Garon once and for all.
A breathless silence fell over the audience as the lights dimmed and the orchestra sitting in the gondolas - carefully arranged in a stately pool that separated the stage from the seats and walls - began to play; the curtains to the royal box opened to reveal Garon in his usual silver and black finery. His children, the princes Marx and Leo, and the princesses Camilla and Elise, were similarly attired in black, gold, pinks, purples, and reds. The king leaned forward eagerly as his favourite performer emerged from an elevator trap door in the stage's centre. Unlike her usual roles, she played a villainess tonight, and she would begin the show with a prologue to be sung and narrated by her. Her midnight blue gown and gold accessories glittered on her slender arms as she clapped her castanets with a vicious pleasure meant to convey her character's wickedness.
She sung a song of the hardship she went through as a child, and of being forced into a brothel to make her way in life. Eventually, the ruler of a land who conquered her own chanced upon her in the streets one night. He was smitten with her beauty, and, being the noble soul he was, lifted her out of poverty and married her out of the goodness of his heart.
But endless riches and power were not enough, Layla wailed and wept. The king had four children fathered by his previous wife, whose memory he honoured and loved. They were beautiful, virtuous children beloved nationwide, and the jealous queen could not stand that. Worse still was the fact that they were to inherit his vast estate should he die or abdicate - not even a tuppence for her! So she plotted, and schemed, and vowed that she would kill each and one of his golden children so she could have his riches and his heart and his kingdom all to her selfish self.
"That's the plot? My gods - what is subtlety anymore? They should have just titled this flaming trash heap 'I am Garon's official bootlicker and I have no concept of personal dignity'," a merchant with gray hair tied into a long tail grumbled.
His companion, a redhead hiding her face behind an intricate Izumite fan, smacked him hard. "Shut up Takumi."
And so progressed the opera, with the audience fawning and reacting accordingly to the eldest prince's marriage, the king's murder, and the disappearance of the youngest daughter. The intermission came and went. They were nearing the end soon, and the scene currently playing was the revelation of the widowed queen having machinated the terrible deeds committed against the royal family. Her final song was that of a classic villain, explaining her motives, the joy she took from inflicting pain on her enemies, and how she would still die happy even though her plans had been foiled.
"Ah, but see here! Soft children, sheltered children, how does your lofty perch feel?" Layla's tears suddenly stopped as she pointed an accusing finger to her cast mates. "Is it high enough to lecture your inferiors from? Is it long enough to reach into your neighbour's garden and snatch fruit from the lovely trees they had cared for and toiled for themselves? How you make me laugh, to teach me about goodness and morals, when it is clear that it was lacking from a time beyond your wretched father!" The actress screamed passionately.
Up in the royal box, Garon scowled. However much he favoured Layla - which was usually expressed in his frequent visits and his more than generous donations to the opera house - he had certainly not expected such sentiments to be issued from her mouth, even if she was not the playwright or editor. If anything, this sounded suspiciously like the content of those rabble-rousing pamphlets authored in Hoshido and smuggled across to Cheve to be distributed to the poorest parts of Nohr.
The theatre's owner, the great-grandson of the opera house's founders, broke into a light sweat. "This...this is not in the script. I have no idea why she has deviated so much or why she chose to do so," he stammered apologetically.
Prince Marx shared a look with his siblings before leaning closer to Garon. "Sir…?" His armoured hand brushed Siegfried's scabbard questioningly.
The king raised his hand. His terrible scowl had deepened. "Patience, my son. I would like to see where she is taking us with this...creative liberty of hers."
Layla circled her confused stage mates in a predatory fashion. They had no idea how to interpret dialogue from her they had never rehearsed with, and so stayed silent to avoid any potential gaffes. The audience loved it, however, amazed with the seemingly real consternation the nobles reacted with to their wicked stepmother.
"You ask me to consider my evil deeds; you ask me to consider not destroying your pitiful, pampered lives and to think of the kingdom's needs," she snarled and clicked her castanets. "When my life was destroyed by your father's selfish actions!"
"Whatever could you mean? He was nothing but kind and loving to you!" the young woman playing the eldest princess sobbed and clutched her pearls dramatically.
The widowed queen smirked cruelly. "Kindness and love mean nothing to the Dark King! I will spare you and grant you forgiveness only if you atone for the misdeeds of your lineage, and all the devastation they have wreaked upon the land," she laughed.
"What misdeeds? What devastation? You speak lies, witch!" the eldest actor tried to improvise.
"Poor children, sheltered children! How your father's lies have rendered you so! Do not worry. Before you die, you will all come to know of the atrocities committed in the name of your throne!"
Layla began to sway and twist aggressively in place. The orchestra, too, was completely dumbfounded before they realised she was dancing, and scrambled to think of an appropriate song for a dance they had never practiced with. The quick-thinking conductor motioned the first stanzas of the Black Water mehter, and the drums and santur and flutes were soon blaring to life.
"Embrace the dark you call a home," Layla's voice carried powerfully over the stage, "gaze upon an empty white throne…"
"Father?" Princess Camilla asked nervously. The king, upon hearing the first notes of the song, began to twitch and groan uncomfortably in his seat. Under his gloves and gauntlets, his fingers grasped the armrests in an vicegrip.
"A legacy of lies/a familiar disguise," the actress was a warrior on stage, twisting and snarling and roaring and slashing the air with her hands. The audience was completely enraptured with her powerful performance. To their absolute awe and wonder, water from the pool began to flow to her hands, the whips to the punisher queen's movements, swirling and cutting around her in forceful strokes. The few drops that escaped her centre of gravity floated and glimmered like stars around their beautiful young sun.
"This is most definitely not in the script - YOUR MAJESTY!" the theatre owner shrieked. Garon was convulsing violently in his seat; his hands tried to find purchase on the armrests again, but his seizing was too uncontrollable. His tongue lolled out of his jaw and his eyes rolled all the way back to his skull as buckets of sweat ran down his head.
"Father!" Leo and Camilla shot out of their chairs and tried to hold him in place.
"Loosen his collar! And don't hold him! Lay him on his side so he won't bite off his tongue!" Elise, the youngest, was the most knowledgeable of her family in the matters of the medical realm, and took the situation by the reins as she pushed her father's chair away and laid him on his side. One of the soldiers in their entourage removed the king's cape and another his crown.
"Sing with me a song of conquest and fate/
the black pillar cracks beneath its weight/
Night breaks through the day/
hard as a stone/
Lost in thoughts, all alone…" Layla was power and strength personified as she sung a terrifying picture of a ruthless conqueror's legacy, dazzling and frightening the audience all at once. When she reached the final notes, she slumped to the floor in defeat - a marionette with cut strings. When she rose some moments later, it was to thunderous applause.
The royal box was in chaos as they tried to resuscitate Garon, who no longer shook but now lay unconscious. Amid the scuffle, Iago, king Garon's retainer and court magician, narrowed his eyes suspiciously. There was something off about the dancer ever since she had taken to the stage, and his lord collapsing before her song only confirmed this. But what was it?
It helped that she stood perfectly still as the crowd threw flowers and grains of rice at her. It was the perfect opportunity to search her from afar. Iago's smile widened triumphantly when he was able to pinpoint the source of her power.
"The pendant!" he whispered as a snap of his fingers loosed a bolt of darkness towards the singer's necklace.
The actress barely dodged it. A shallow but long wound opened on her skin as the shot cut through her neck, severing the pendant's chain. Immediately, the illusion cast upon it faded away: where a curvaceous and dark skinned performer with pink hair once stood, a pale young woman with floor length blue hair took her place.
Marx, who had turned away from his father to observe Iago, was astonished by the revelation. He leaned over the railing, squinting his eyes in recognition. "Azura…?"
"It seems the Hoshidans have been treating her well enough if she volunteered to assassinate for them," the sorcerer drawled loudly. The commotion in the royal box, and "Layla's" sudden transformation had brought all activity to a complete standstill, making everyone in attendance hear Iago's voice loud and clear.
"I am not acting for Hoshido," Azura said firmly.
"No? Then, pray tell, for whom? You're not hateful or cunning enough to come up with such a stunt by yourself," Iago giggled.
"We act on the behalf of peace!" the man's voice echoed powerfully as he dropped down to the stage from the theatre's rafters.
The dancer looked relieved as he removed his cloak, exposing his silver-white hair, red eyes, and black and white armour. Certain audience members stirred in shock to see the young man revealed to them - the merchant from before snatched up the redhead's arm to keep her from running to the stage.
"Corrin!?" Camilla barely restrained herself from leaping to the stage, joy lighting up her face at the sight of the young man's confident stance. "You're alive! Oh my darling, I am so glad to see you!" she cried out.
"His name is KAMUI!" A robed figure from one of the front seats threw off his disguise, revealed his sun-red armour and flowing white kataginu as he unsheathed his ōdachi. Prince Ryōma trembled with undisguised rage as he met the eyes of the Nohrians head on. "You...you usurpers, you child snatchers, you thieves, have no right to use such a name nor be so familiar with him!"
"Such a confident statement should best be paired with facts, if there were any to support it," Leo sneered as a dazed Garon was helped to his feet.
"Such a big-headed braggart would look better if he kept his mouth shut!" princess Hinoka discarded her fan and dress as she jumped on the top rail of the seat before her, the naginata she had stored inside her clothing now unfolded to its full length. Prince Takumi had thrown off his merchant's vest to display his yumi, and princess Sakura stared fearfully up at Azura and Kamui on the stage. Tension crackled like lightning between the opposing families. The frightened audience, forgetting their initial instinct of flight, hung back to watch the scene unfold before their eyes; even the guards who were posted to the doors and to the private boxes leaned in closer.
"Both of you should stop this at once!" the third son of Nohr and Hoshido was visibly distressed by their mutual hostility. The way he wore his heart on his sleeves was one of the reasons they loved him so, and gave his words some attention at the very least. "Kamui or Corrin, you are still both my families. And if you've any love for me and for your countrymen, then I beg of you, listen closely! Allying with each other is the only way we can bring peace and stop the plot behind the war."
"He's right," Azura said, stepping to his side and placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We came here because we kept finding too many coincidences in our investigation...and they all led back to the same source," her yellow eyes trailed up to the royal box. "In retrospect, we shouldn't have been too surprised. The conditions in Nohr have made it far too easy to breed the kind of evil we have seen."
"How dare you imply such a thing," Marx growled. The hilt of his sword pulsed darkly, but he didn't draw it. "You say you do not work in Hoshido's interests, yet all we have heard so far is lies and attempt to besmirch the name of Nohr."
"I am not finished," Azura replied evenly, never once taking her eyes off the box's occupants. "And despite what Hoshido may or may not believe, you are not as implicated in the throne's plots as most would think."
"What're you talking about? The crown princes, not being implicated? What kind of nonsense is this? They're nothing but Garon's personal attack dogs! Every raid, every march, they all do it on his orders!" Takumi snarled.
"Very astute of you, Takumi." Azura's uncharacteristically quick retort stunned him into silence. "And yet you forget that it was because of them that duke Izana was rescued from imprisonment and that Sakura is alive because of Leo's intervention," the young princess blushed when she was mentioned by name; Leo grew flustered when Camilla cast a critical eye over him but did not try to explain Azura's statement. "You all have much more in common than you think. We all want to see peace - the only way we can make that wish come true is if we band together against the threat that Garon's power-hungry scheming creates."
"Father has only acted in Nohr's best interests -!" Elise tried to argue.
"Interests that yield more bloodshed than they do crops," Corrin said. "You've known him for a longer time than I have Elise...he was never this violent before, was he? Leo said it himself: that he used to be a loving, doting father and an even-tempered king before Katarina's death. Tragedy is an all too easy way to take control over someone, and unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before he succumbed."
"Corrin...where are you going with this?" Camilla asked. To her unease, Garon began twitching in his chair again, and she was afraid that another seizure was building up. "What are you implying?"
"That Garon is not the true puppeteer moving the strings."
"Don't be so cryptic Corrin. You come here and talk to us of a far-reaching conspiracy and the need to ally ourselves against it - but where is the proof? What more can you offer besides a grand gesture of friendship? Do not take us for fools, brother," Marx's grave response had Ryōma reaching for his sword again, but Azura stepping closer to the royal box made them all pause.
"You all saw the effects my song had on him. Were he a normal human, no such thing would have happened. But the truth is that an evil presence has taken up residence within Garon, and I'm the only one who can expel it," the dancer tied the broken chain of her necklace around her neck and parted her lips to continue her song.
Garon suddenly shot out of his seat and pointed a finger straight to Azura. "Kill them. Kill them all!"
The audience truly did flee this time, scrambling over each other like ants to reach the doors in time. Iago's powerful dark blasts cratered the stage's surface, and though Azura managed to dodge them all, she turned too late to see an enormous black ball of condensed evil hurtling her way.
"Watch out!" Corrin slammed into her and rolled them both out of harm's reach. Before the cackling Iago could gloat over his fired shot, the pool's water erupted into a column of fury, stunning the onlookers as 16 meters of pure muscle rippled powerfully against the attack. Dragonair's waterfall had successfully blocked Iago's move, and the blue dragon curled protectively around the downed pair.
"So it's that kind of relationship, is it?" Garon said as he observed Corrin and Azura helping each other up; the way they held each other, not to mention the glint of matching rings on their fingers, made him laugh cruelly. "I should have known that you'd find each other sooner or later. Mikoto was never very good at keeping her secrets, was she? No matter. It all ends the same, but I have to thank you for bringing yourselves to me instead of bothering having to track you down!" His voice changed suddenly, taking on a malevolent, ancient rasp like the layers of rock underneath a mountain. "Iago. Have Macbeth seal the doors. I do not want anyone to escape this place."
"Father...what?" Leo picked himself off the floor with a groan, wincing as he touched the blood on his forehead. "What are you doing? What's going - Elise!"
His younger sister was held up by her neck, choking against the guard's fingers uselessly and turning purple from the effort. Her attacker's eyes had turned a bright bloody red, and parts of his skin and clothing had become translucent, revealing to the royal siblings the true nature of their father's influence as the men protecting the royal box turned on his children.
"Marzia! Go!" Camilla's noivern popped out of its apricorn ball with a snap and snatched the man up in her powerful jaws and shook him violently, letting go of Elise; Elise's bewear Arthur caught the princess and threw themselves off the balcony to safety. Marzia and Camilla followed soon after, and Camilla hauled Leo up by the scruff of his collar to sit behind her as they flew down to the stage with their sister.
"How does 'I knew your father was pure evil' sound right now?" Takumi sneered at Leo as the Nohrians and Hoshidans gathered onstage. The archer's noctowl flapped agitatedly as they all surveyed the smoking rubble of the royal box, trying to locate Marx amidst the dust cloud obscuring their view.
"Shut up," Leo replied.
"Look!" Sakura's scream cut too close as a blast launched Marx out of the box and down below to them. The only reason he didn't crack any bones was his empoleon breaking their fall and coming precariously close to the water as they rolled to a stop. Sakura ran to them and pulled out her sun festal to survey them for damage and blood, but, seeing only scrapes and bruises, tried to help them stand and pushing against Marx's trembling body with all her might to get him up.
"A pity it had to be like this," Garon's new voice echoed and scraped horribly against their hearing as the dust cleared. "You weren't so bad as his children."
"Who are you and what have you done with father?" Elise cried.
"That's something you will never find out!" He laughed triumphantly as he blasted a bolt of icy power against the opera house's ceiling. The structure buckled and cracked almost immediately, raining down rock and metal as the nobles and their pokémon scrambled to avoid the falling debris. They were almost frozen in place as a freezing breath blown out of Garon's mouth had them stop moving and left them vulnerable to the crumbling structure and Iago's potential attacks.
"I will not allow this!" a new voice shouted determinedly. A tiny dancer robed in black and green materialised next to Azura, who recognised the newcomer immediately.
"Meloetta! But - how? I thought you stayed behind in the Bottomless Canyon -"
"Never mind that - what's important is getting everyone out of here. I can continue your song, but I'm still not up to full strength, so the best I can do is hold him off while you take everyone and go."
"But what about you?" Hinoka stammered through her frozen lips as everyone huddled closer to the small pokémon. "Saving us only to stay behind? That sounds like you're sacrificing yourself."
"Oh, please don't," Sakura cried. "We've lost too many people already, we can't let that happen to you too…"
"Sweet child," Meloetta smiled kindly and dried her rapidly freezing tears as the wind and ice continued to blast over them. "You've known me for so little and you've come to care for me already. Your big heart will serve better if you're safe and sound." The dancer pokémon turned away from them with a determined weight to her stance, sparing the rest of the company only the slightest of glances before returning her attention to Garon. "But the truth is that I cannot hope to face Garon and whoever controls him head to head; our hopes lies with you all. Here...I will do my best to bringing us all closer to stopping them."
"Meloetta," Corrin's tears began to drop steadily down his face before his lips set into a thin line of grim acceptance. He had not let go of Azura for an instant and she hugged him back tighter. "Thank you."
"This won't be our last goodbye, my prince...all I ask of you is that you keep everyone...that you keep your wife safe."
Meloetta's song formed a powerful wall of sound that pushed back against the wind and the ice - Garon immediately clapped his hands over his ears and roared in pain, his skin and clothing bubbling over like a freakish stew of human components as Meloetta sang the song of conquest. Iago's toxicroak Macbeth had finished destroying the door handles with her powerful acid and tried to attack them; dragonair was able to break out of her frozen stupor long enough to send the frog flying back with a powerful blast of water.
"If I may…" A timid man with tired eyes and a once red jester's costume apparated between them all, with a frightened ditto hanging off his shoulder and a drowzee holding him steadily.
"Zola! How are you still alive?" Leo snarled and started towards the disgraced former court magician before Ryōma held a hand out to him in warning.
The man grimaced, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "I know that I have committed many sins...and it's too late to apologise for all of them...but Lady Azura, Master Corrin, and Lady Meloetta...I am in their debt, and I will do whatever I can to repay it."
"Less chatter, more escaping," Zola's drowzee snapped. "Gather round everyone; teleport is not an easy move and it takes a lot of energy to pull off, so the faster we do this, the better. That's it, everyone hold on to me and to each other, we don't want to lose anyone in transit!" The princes and princesses formed a ring around the drowzee, holding each other firmly after having recalled their pokémon back to their apricorns. Takumi and Leo had almost refused to hold hands before their exasperated sisters forced them together with annoyed hissing.
"Here we go everyone - it's going to get very bumpy!" was drowzee's only warning as she turned her hands over, faster, and faster, and faster, until the little spinning light she held within her hands engulfed them all in a blinding sphere and flashed out of existence right before the opera house imploded.
~oOo~
Despite being a steel-type, and thus well protected against the effects of ice and snow, the aggron hated the cold, dark place their master spoke to them from. Following Katarina's death, Garon had allowed the room with the ceiling's effigy to fall into disrepair, hardly ever bothering to enter out of his deep-seated depression.
That is, until he started hearing the voice.
"This will not do, Bölverk." The ancient, icy rasp thundered from his mouthpiece in the ceiling. In all the time it had occupied the room, it had turned it into its personal ice cavern, complete with corners full of frozen stalactites, and a large pool that was the result of years of ice water dripping from the ceilings and walls to cover the floor completely. In fact, it was hard to hold Garon's useless, damaged body up when all it did was keep slipping on the wet marble. And as Bölverk was also a partial ground type, the water was a supreme irritance. No matter how loyal he was, he hated these types of audiences.
"We beg your forgiveness, my liege," the aggron hefted Garon up higher in his arms. "We had not anticipated Azura's interference, nor the turncoat Zola's. We had everything under control before those pests barged in. And we have captured the pokémon that let them escape," be motioned to Meloetta's unconscious body crumpled up in a defeated heap at the floor.
Silence. And then, "...what of Corrin? Surely he was expected. That fool of a boy was always too sentimental to not come running back."
"We had already written him off after the skirmish in the Giant Chasm. That he was alive after that is nothing short of a miracle. But I promise on my heart, my liege, next time he will be left off worse than dead."
"No."
Bölverk paused, unsure of what the voice meant. "I..beg your pardon?"
The voice seemed to relish the confusion in his voice, laughing heartily at his expense. "Our lord wants him alive this time, Bölverk. So I'm sorry to disappoint your little fantasies, but you won't get to use your claws on him again." His wicked laugh bounced off loudly against the ice slicked walls. "I daresay he would be most disappointed if he found the goods damaged."
The aggron resisted the urge to growl in annoyance. He hated being kept in the dark like that. "...May I inquire as to this...rather sudden change of plans?"
The voice laughed again, louder and shriller this time. "I myself am not privy to most of what our lord's mind harbours...but he did mention wanting his son back. Do not fail us again, Bölverk," the presence dissipated from the cavern room with a flash of dark light as it retreated back into the Distortion World to reconvene with their master.
I wonder who can guess who are the mysterious beings working with Garon and Bölverk against Nohr and Hoshido? Also, Azura's dragonstone necklace is totally a dragon type mega stone in this universe.