Author Notes: Awakening really opened up a whole can of worms with its whole cross-universe motif, so I thought this was a good time to try out an FE fic. Yes yes, I know, I already have one - that thing is so old, though, and to be honest, I have no idea where it was going. Let's try something new! I hope you enjoy!
Chapter 1: Cosmic Wrath
Avenghelst was burning, and not with the red tongues of any normal fire. The flames seared bright white, with cores blue as lapis, blue as ocean - an unholy inferno. Fire from the depths of an evil heart. The refineries of the industrial district blew sequentially as the demonic flames spread, releasing blackened umbrellas of towering, acrid smoke seen hundreds of miles across the flat landscape. Citizens of the squalid fiefdom poured from the smoldering buildings onto the shit-covered streets, clambering over the bodies of their kin, tearing off clothes afflicted by the devilish flame, unable to quench its terrible thirst.
And yet, as the city died, Jäger knew that they had only themselves to blame.
He drew his blade and pressed the button hidden beneath the guard, lighting the instrument with a vibrant stygian blue. He stood atop the steel wings of his pegasus, a creature melded with the advances of modern technology, the pedestal upon which Jäger would claim his throne. The grasslands surrounding the city had been mostly spared by the fiery baptism of the cosmos, the breath of the Raptured Dragon. It was there that Jäger and his brothers-and-sisters-in-arms made their final stand.
"Brothers," Jäger called out, his voice booming over the waving wheat. He looked with an admiring eye to the men at the front of his army, the few who would listen to his pleas. The noble king of Pherae and his vassals; the stalwart Shepherds of Ylisse. He looked to the skies, to the knights of Ilia and Kralin, to the pilots of Skene and Nevehan, flying in a V-formation toward the heart of the nation. Over their comm systems, they could hear their leader speak.
"And sisters alike," the misfit lord continued, his short lavender blonde hair waving like the grasslands before them. The women in the crowd steeled their gaze at Jäger - Lady Lyndis, her Mani Katti gleaming in the light of the evil fire as if hungry for the souls of the unrighteous; the lithe Lucina, wielding the heaven's Falchion itself; the lonely Eirika, rapier in one hand and fallen brother's lance in the other.
"As we face certain death in these next hours, I ask that you look into yourselves! Look to the strength you have fostered, to the companionships you have built! Were it not for the faces around you - those faces once strange, some even alien - not a one of you would be here today, to fight for your world, to fight for the lives of those who cannot! To fight for those who will not!"
As he spoke, a massive flaming stone streaked through the sky and smashed into Castle Avenghelst, the heart of their nation. Once thought the most beautiful construction in the combined history of taguel, manakete, and human, the cathedral-like walls came tumbling down, turned to ash and melted rock beneath the force of the falling meteor. Jäger did not turn to look - those who could see it behind him felt their hearts sink into their stomachs. They'd fought for that castle for so long - for its symbolic link between the species, for its tumultuous but storied history. For those who had died to secure it in countless wars over the centuries, on all sides. For the knowledge lost inside.
The rumblings of the ongoing war threatened to drown out Jäger's speech, but he pressed on, screaming with every little bit of air he could squeeze from his lungs. The steel pegasi above began to spit fireballs into the heart of the city, at the forming body of the world's death knell.
"If you wish to defect, I bear you no ill will! But know, that after today, there are only two possible outcomes - the defeat of the Raptured Dragon, or the eternal death of all else! Whether you fight for glory, family, or your own selfish reasons - all I ask, is that you fight!"
The thieves and assassins in his audience turned to acknowledge one another - the mercenaries and myrmidons bowed to Jäger's will. This was not a day for selfishness. For what use had they stockpiled wealth, if tomorrow, the world would be gone?
Jäger turned to face the city. He watched the smoke trail up into the sky, deforming around the nearly invisible face of the Raptured Dragon. Its eyes glew like the sun at high-noon - a light so powerful one couldn't help but turn away. But Jäger refused to turn.
"For life!" he cried, holding his stygian blade to the sky. "For love!"
He looked to the steel pegasi in the sky. Somewhere up there, his love had already begun the final battle.
He glanced back over his shoulder toward the army.
"For man and womankind, human or otherwise! Aethernauts, to arms!"
Lyndis and Lucina roared at Jäger like feral beasts of the wildlands; Eliwood and Hector's troops raised their lances and swords, their glowing tips like fireflies in the smoky night. The Reed brothers shared what was surely a final embrace; the dragon children, their last kisses.
The cosmic dragon came into full view at precisely the thirteenth-and-a-half hour of the solstice, as the shadow of their planet cast its darkened blot on the brilliant gas giant above. The sight of the beast was something that nobody had prepared for; its body followed no rules of science or physics, or even magic - alien geometries with tentacle-like growths sprouting from seemingly midair, with no distinguishable arms nor legs nor heads nor...
It was a being that none could comprehend, with a body that stretched all throughout time, and eyes that had watched each and every member of the army from their birth up until this point.
There was but one Beast that the dragon could not possibly see coming.
In the skies above, a single pilot gripped the reigns of a pegasus forged in the deepest part of the gas giant, that heavenly blue body hovering constantly in the sky. The Beast whinnied as it came to face the Raptured Dragon. The eldritch horror turned to face the horseman, in every possible timeline.
Its pilot felt the future suddenly vanish, the past become nothing but a fable - the pilot's skin turned inside out and his brain strung out across a thousand possible existences. He saw his wife - his husband - his children - his pets - his birth and his death, and the nothingness that was the universe without his presence. And just like that, the pilot was gone, everywhere, everywhen. He had never existed.
But the Beast remained.
Jäger looked to the skies, and saw the Beast hovering before the abomination which had claimed Avenghelst. Something had changed.
Jäger had lost his one weakness. Love.
He kicked his own pegasus in the side and launched into flight, his army storming the city beneath his mount's hooves.
Review, please! I've gotta get to bed, but please let me know what you think! It's a bit different, sure, but if I'm merging timelines, the possibilities are endless!