Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem Heroes.
Pilot: Welcome to Zenith
Arvis Velthomer was content. His forces had been amassed and he was ready to claim the land of Jugdral as its new Emperor. Chiefly, two cavaliers, battle-hardened and ready to charge were by his side. Ahead in the field, there was a fire mage, and on the far right there was a thunder mage. He had been winning all day and no one seemed strong enough to face him and his army. And even if they had the sufficient manpower, they'd fall just like Sigurd's army- tired and beaten only to be burned to a crisp by Arvis' elite mages and their Meteor spells.
Suddenly, with a flash of light four horse-riders appeared far ahead. Arvis didn't know any of them personally, but it appeared that the Loptr sect's intel on heroes from other worlds was true. The four horse-riders brandished their weapons and Arvis chuckled.
"Call for the armored division to attack their rear. And send for more of our troops!" He commanded to a cavalier who nodded and rode away. Arvis' fingers caressed the raised golden-orange embroidery of his tome- Valflame – and felt its intense heat. As soon as those horsemen got near him, he would incinerate them on the spot. The thrill of performing another public execution with the divine weapon was undeniably satisfying. Arvis snapped out of the fantasy to find the enemy group – prancing?
"Alright Roy, you've got Gale-force. Couple that with that Blazing Durandal of your Dad's and you can go on a warpath! I'm a little jealous." Ephraim exclaimed, clutching Siegmund - his flame lance - eagerly as he moved his horse a little to the right.
Roy sighed and eyed the field ahead of them. "There's a blue mage right ahead. We shouldn't tread lightly. This Arvis fellow's smart. The Sigurd from Zenith said he was clever. I'll try and clear a path." He moved his steed ahead of the rest of the group, turning to the others.
"Ephraim, you're gonna just charge ahead, right?" Roy asked.
The blue haired lord nodded, banging a fist to his blue and golden breastplate. "That's right. As soon as we're clear to attack, I'm going."
Titania groaned and spoke up, bringing up the rear of the group. "Will you at least talk to the man before we go in, weapons blazing?" To make a point, she lowered her emerald axe and looked to the enemy commander. "Arvis Velthomer. . . If he attacks us we're through. It might be better to let him speak first- "
"Captain Titania" Lyndis spoke finally. "This man has cause our dear friends Sigurd and Deirdre to suffer for undue cause. We can talk to him once Kiran brings him to Zenith." Lyn notched her Brave Bow+, and turned to Roy. "I'll clear out the lance cavalier if you can take out that blue mage." She suggested.
Roy's eyes narrowed. "Alright, well, before we begin, let's check our skills – I need at least Life and Death 2 equipped in order to-"
The quartet of horse riders' chatter was cut off as Arvis' authoritative voice was projected around them – probably magic bullshit.
"Contemptable fools! My Hellfire will consume you utterly!" Everyone stopped as Arvis kept speaking.
"Bring as many as you wish! Many have fallen today and you four will be no- "
He kept talking and Ephraim rolled his eyes. "I'm going in! Keep up!" The blue-haired yelled and was off.
The rest of the team yelled various things to Ephraim who was too engrossed in impaling the red mage to his right with Siegmund to listen to any of them. He grinned deeply as the mage struggled briefly, arms twitching wildly before he faded into the either just like everybody else who died in Sacred Stones (except for Emperor Vigarde whose vanishing act due to some magic bullshit was somehow distressing, Ephraim noted).
"You moron! Roy yelled as he kicked his horse and raised Blazing Durandal above his head. True to form, the blade caught fire and he ran across the battlefield, swinging the blade rapidly above his head, slashing the blue mage once across the chest and then striking again with an overhead slash, finishing his target off. It would have been a brutal, bloody mess, but since Fire Emblem Heroes was a rated T game, the man just faded away. It desensitized the whole killing thing, Roy mused. Durandal pulsed twice with a white light as each strike fell and Roy felt re-energized. He stopped for a moment to see Lyndis and Titania charge, meeting Arvis' personal guard horse to horse.
Arvis groaned as his mages fell – sad, but predictable. He knew his armor division could easily outmatch the horses once they arrived, and all he needed to do was wait with Valflame's impatient will to burn them all to a crisp. He realized that due to his own tome's heightened worry (Each divine weapon was somehow sentient due to some magic bullshit he had to research further) that the attacking force had divine weapons of their own. There was a flame lance and a blazing sword, wielded wildly to take down his mages – for goodness sake, the redhead was swinging that giant blade around as though it were a victory flag! Arvis wondered when the hell his reinforcements would arrive but then mentally slapped himself as they'd only appear at the end of his next turn.
Titania ran at the lance cavalier, steering her pale steed to the side and slamming her emerald axe into his chest. The blow would have normally killed him on the spot, but he still had some HP left. With a swing of her wrist, she hit him a second time and he fell, HP reduced to zero, before he and the horse he rode on vanished.
Meanwhile Lyndis raised her Brave Bow+ she'd inherited from one of the many Gordins their Summoner Kiran had conjured and fired off two shots, both going into the enemy horse's kneecaps. Deathblow 3 in her A slot and Attack +3 sacred seal meant her shots were lethal unless you were a knight, were named Brave Ike, or had one of those stupid raventomes. As with Titania's victory, the fallen foe vanished, leaving only Arvis.
The red mage spoke up as though the lot of them were stupid. "I'm surprised you all charged at me like that. You do know most of you are going to die now, yes?" He asked, looking to Titania, who was a few meters from him. "My reinforcements will be here soon and you'll all die brutally." He said, before wondering if they'd vanish just like everybody else that died in this specific battle. "Of course, I'll have to sentence some of you to death myself," He said, raising Valflame to unleash hell on the axe wielding paladin in front of him.
He thought of the flames which consumed Sigurd's life only about an hour ago (Sigurd didn't vanish into thin air, right? Arvis had to ask himself upon seeing all the bloodless carnage and disappearing bodies).
And nothing happened.
"What?! Why can't I kill you with Valflame?" Arvis shouted."
The bow Rider to his right of the axe paladin spoke up. "Wait, Fall-a-flame? That's how you say it? But it's spelled like it should be said VAL-flame." Lyndis observed. Then she remembered her other bow, the Mulagir which prior to Fire Emblem Heroes was given a different name that she wouldn't know since she wasn't actually in Fire Emblem 6. She clenched her fist at how non-canon her shiny game-breaking, meta horse form was but at least it wasn't super gaudy and just there for fans to get hot and bothered from like those seasonal variants. Her thoughts trailed off as her question hung in the air.
"Oh, that's right." Roy said. "Kiran gave me the Quickened Pulse seal earlier. That gives me another cooldown charge." The Phearean raised his fingers to count on one hand as his Durandal pulsed brightly.
"Which means?" Arvis asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh." Roy started at the man's question. "Well I also have Blazing Durandal" – Roy waived the sword around as though he was waving to Arvis- "This blade gives me the effect of Heavy Blade if I attack a weaker opponent like that mage." Roy explained."
"So due to that I can't attack?" Arvis asked, incredulously." "End your damn turn!" He yelled, now aware of the game board he was on.
"Well I have the skill Galeforce, so that means once I get five cooldown charges, I can move again." Roy said matter-of-factly. "So technically my turn's not over- or rather I get another turn right now."
Arvis' eyes widened for a second before seeing that the youth was right. All the other horsepeople were grey, signifying they'd moved. But Roy was still as ginger haired, blue armored, and white horse riding as Deirdre was gorgeous. Arvis took a step back, wondering how fast Roy was, before he suddenly was looking at a still image of Roy, showing all his stats plain as day.
"How did I get here? What is going on?" Arvis asked again, now more confused than annoyed.
"Dammit Roy, explain it to him after you gut him." Arvis heard the voice. From the lance wielding psychopath who had way too much fun impaling his mage Arvis figured. But then again, he just about an hour ago had the time of his life simultaneously hyper-cucking and roasting Sigurd simultaneously. He paused and had to ask himself what the word 'cuck' actually meant but assumed it was just after-spill garbage vocabulary from whatever portal had summoned the horse death force to his world.
Roy looked down at his sacred blade, totally not a euphemism for his masculinity, and was a bit crestfallen. "I dunno guys, this feels too easy. Both Vanguard and Brave Ike said it took their team forever. Besides, I feel like Reinhardt now and it sucks".
Titania frowned. "Well every other team can't move three spaces a map. Plus, you're the only person here with Galeforce and this Arvis fellow just didn't plan for that. Don't beat yourself up about that. At least you can double him without a Bravesword and aren't universally hated in arena."
Roy nodded. "You're right."
Then he had his steed run up to Arvis - who now had snapped out of his daze looking at Roy's stats - and with two more swings of Durandal reduced Arvis' HP to zero. "MAGIC BULLSHIT" Arvis thought to himself as he faded into the void.
STAGE COMPLETE
The sky above them exploded in golden letters as the horse riding heroes all teleported back to Zenith.
…
… One loading screen later
Kiran reclined, tossing the two rainbow colored orbs the horse team earned as completion of the mission in his right hand as he turned to the quartet on their arrival.
"One turn?! Against Arvis no less?! Jeez, Horse Emblem was a good choice for Fire Blessings!" Kiran stood up and gave them all a customary high-five, except for Lyn who was fine with just exchanging bows with Kiran. "Jugdral can suck it!" Kiran yelled out. "Blaze-it Durandal is the MVP! Roy's our boy!"
Roy sighed bashfully as the tactician celebrated. "That was even cooler than the time I accidently clicked on auto battle and Sonya somehow tanked Valter and he took an Aura and an Excalibur to the face!"
Ephraim placed his holy, one-of a kind, sacred, legendary, adjective-adorned flame lance Siegmund on the Divine Weapon Rack (next to Fjorm's ice spear of Nifl's highest peak, Leptyr, and Camus' lance of the Three Regalia, Gradivus) mentally glad that that sick animal Valter's curse lance wasn't a divine weapon. "I'm gonna go on a break!' Ephraim shouted as the team all disbanded.
Roy left to go check on his Mom and Dad while Lyndis left to find Brave Ike to spar. That left Titania with the summoner Kiran, and the rest of the heroes who were lounging in the lobby of Askr castle.
"You know, Roy was the key to our victory, but we needed everybody there to pull that off". Titania said to the summoner, not really caring if he heard her or not. Kiran had that effect on people, they'd just tell him all about themselves, not really expecting a reply, glad enough to speak.
Titania dismounted and tossed her standard Emerald Axe+ into a pile of other more common axes and sat next to Kiran who was looking at their magic tome he called a phone. Her horse snorted and wondered off, led by Donnel and a bored Clairisse to the gigantic horse/pegasus/wyvern stables that Titania could confirm smelled awful.
"Well I'm just glad that my horse force slash fire blessings team pulled though. I'm sick of using Rein to thunderbreak anything that moves. Tinyhands is a good unit, but. . . "The summoner trailed off before setting down his phone tome and pulled a thin black rope from the folds of his robe that Titania somehow knew was a 'charger'. The summoner raised up an orb and shoved the charger into its center, before attaching the other end of the rope to an exposed hole in their phone.
"YES it works!" The summoner said, before setting down both orb and tome and turning to Titania. "I just feel like he's not always needed on Horse Emblem." Titania smiled, despite not really knowing much about Kiran, he was a warm person. Or. . . maybe it was the circumstances that made the summoner seem warm? She didn't want to think about it too hard. Her mind went to a pile of laundry she wanted to wash, but for now she was happy resting.
Then Kiran turned to her and Titania just knew he was grinning under his robed hood.
"Wanna see Arvis' face when we summon him?"
Titania frowned. Not really would have been her go to answer, but she reasoned he would have questions about Zenith. That, and she'd need to steer him clear of anyone else from Jugdral, at least for the time being. In her experience, heroes that Kiran summoned to Askr whose stories had been 'spoiled' didn't react very well at first.
They got up and walked to the summoning stone outside.
Kiran pulled out their own divine weapon- Briedablik- which was a small device not unlike a bowgun. The device in question whirred and shone as Kiran leveled it to the summoning pool. He fired and a blast of rainbow-colored-light left the front of said device.
The stone glowed momentarily as the impact of the blast caused a bunch of smoke to clear the room.
Then Arvis stood before the pair, clad in black robes with his long, blazing red hair, looking like he'd had the worst headache ever.
"Where am I?" He asked, before he recognized Titania with horror. Then he noticed Kiran and felt unnerved by the summoner's uncaring demeanor.
"Welcome to Zenith". The summoner said.