Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem. All relevant (and some irrelevant) information comes from Spellbinding Radiance and the wiki.
And I know I probably got the timezones backward.
Chapter 1: Succession and Secession
Simferopol, Crimea
Elincia woke up to a loud booming, crashing noise.. She bolted upright in her bed, cursing. At first she thought it has been a car accident, or a bolt of lightning. A bright flash coming through the reinforced glass window helped clear her mind.
Simferopol was being bombed.
"Hurry up!" one of the guards shouted. He hammered on the door.
Elincia jumped out of bed, stumbling in her sleepy state. She quickly got dressed, throwing on a plain T-shirt and jeans that were a knockoff of a popular Western brand. She grabbed the shoulder bag she had packed the previous day before and threw the door open.
"What's going on?" she asked the guard. He was a large man with a greying beard, dressed in a cheap, rumpled suit. A pistol was in his hand.
"The Ukraine," he replied grimly. "They've made their response."
Another bomb shook the presidential residence, causing Elincia to nearly fall. The guard grabbed her and pulled her up, half-dragging her through the chaotic hallways. House staff and guards rushed from room to room, trying to find or make somewhere safe. Her father was nowhere to be seen.
"My father-" Elincia began.
"Is very busy. We must go, on his orders."
They emerged from the wide, exquisitely panelled hallways into a corridor of grey concrete. Another explosion sent a cloud of dust and chips raining down on them. Another pair of guards had joined them, and they had their weapons out and at the ready.
One of them carefully opened a steel door marked with a short string of Cyrillic lettering. On the other side were several vehicles- a pristine Hummer, a pristine Lamborghini, a pristine Corvette, and a dirty Lada. The first guard motioned Elincia into the Lada and got in the driver's seat. It took him three tries before the engine finally caught, sputtering twice before smoothing out.
It was a terrifying experience driving through the wartorn streets of Simferopol. The radio was tuned to a station consisting of nonstop emergency alerts, which only added to the terror. Elincia found herself subconsciously curling up in the back of the Lada, stark terror mixing with utter sadness.
Around them, the once-proud Crimean capital crumbled and burned. Though Ukrainian troops hadn't reached Simferopol yet, their bombers pounded the city with unguided bombs. They landed everywhere and killed indiscriminately. Elincia watched in horror as a trio of bombs struck an apartment building. It shuddered before collapsing, slowly but surely crumbling into dust.
The streets they drove through were cratered, covered in dust and rubble. A mixture of rain, fuel, and blood flowed in rivers down the cracked pavement. The streets were littered with bodies of men, women and children, twisted and mutilated in horrifying ways. Abandoned cars littered the streets, mixing with a traffic jam of people desperate to get to safety. Several times they had to detour through alleys, sidewalks, even a mall, to get around the mess.
Although it was early in the morning, the city lit up with an eerie glow. It was not the usual glow of the city- in most areas the power had long since been cut off. It was the glow of fires, lit by bombs igniting pulverized houses and leaking gas mains. Pumping stations had failed and water lines had broken around the city, leaving firefighters with little to work with. It wouldn't have mattered. No one dared to go into the open to fight the fires.
It seemed like an eternity before they left the city, though it was only minutes. Destroyed city gave way to country, peaceful save for the bombs rapidly moving away into the distance. Elincia stared straight ahead, her mind reeling in a drunken stupor. The driver mentioned something about an airplane, but it didn't register. It took her a minute to realize the blurring in her vision was tears.
The driver pulled the car to a stop outside the airport. "So, do you understand what you must do?"
Elincia shook her head, trying to clear the confusion and crushing weight from her mind. "I, no, uh-"
"You are now Lydia Slavslow, Serbian-American, daughter of refugees. You are taking American Airlines flight- that is evacuation flight for American and similar nationals- to New York. A man named Sergei will be waiting for you. Do you understand this?"
"Um, I think so," she said weakly, wiping the tears from her eyes.
"Good. Get fuck out of here." He opened the door, motioning her out of the car and toward the terminal. He handed her an American passport. "Good luck, Elincia. Your father sends his love, and also this number. 521775. I know not what it means."
"Hello," she said to the lone occupant of the terminal in broken English. "I am American. I am here for evacuation flight."
"Do you have any ID?" the woman asked. Elincia noticed that she was wearing a UN emblem, but it barely registered.
"Yes." She produced the fake passport, which the clerk flipped through before handing it back.
"You're on Flight 117, next one out. It's an American Airlines 747, leaves in fifteen minutes. With the way things are going, it might be the last one out."
She headed through the security gate (manned by one guard who simply waved her through) to the nearly empty departures lounge, sitting down on one of the few intact chairs next to a middle-aged man.
"You got a name, girl?" the man asked with an American accent. His tone wasn't rude- it seemed that was just the way he talked.
"El- Lydia. Lydia Slavslow."
The man blinked, adjusting his cowboy hat. "How the hell do you pronounce that?"
"Slavslow." In fact, she had probably jumbled the pronunciation horribly.
"Well, miss Slav-slew, we sure picked a hell of a time to leave, didn't we. This little rivalry just turned into a shooting war. Wish I coulda got out sooner. How the hell things got so bad, I'll never know."
He paused. "What's your story, girl? You look like, what, nineteen?"
"Twenty-one," she corrected. It was the age in her passport, not her actual age.
"Any reason why you didn't get out earlier?"
She shrugged. "I could not."
"Name's Marlowe. I'm in the oil business." They continued to chat until the woman announced- in English and Russian- that the plane was now boarding. In fact, 'chatting' mostly consisted of Elincia nodding and half-understanding everything Marlowe said about oil and his lucrative enterprise.
She followed the other passengers blindly onto the plane, buckling in as the lone flight attendant instructed them to. The Boeing jumbo tumbled down the runway, jarring its nervous passengers. In her hazy state Elincia realized that they weren't her people. They were foreigners, trying to escape an irrational war.
As the jumbo jet floated away from the runway and into the clouds, she couldn't help but stare at her homeland, illuminated by bombing, below. It was dark, and each flash of light revealed more destruction, framed by flaming neighbourhoods. She spent what seemed like most of the flight blankly staring out the window before falling asleep.
Washington, D.C.
"Mister President!" the Secretary of Defense called, entering the Oval Office with the Secretary of Defense in tow.
The President held up a hand, motioning to a CNN steam on a small television set. "I already know. Take a seat."
They sat down by the President, on the other side of his old wooden desk. The leader of the nation stirred his tea. "I didn't think it would get this bad this quickly."
"I think it took us all by surprise, Mister President," SecState replied. "We knew there was some serious political turmoil in the Ukraine, especially in Crimea."
"Uh huh. We even offered to intervene."
"Yes, sir, and the response from the Ukrainian was as expected. Ever since our friend Roman came to power, Crimea's been antagonizing the rest of the country."
"Looks like they finally seceded," the President observed, sipping his tea. "But the invasion? The carpet bombing? It's inhumane. This could easily be resolved peacefully."
"At this point it seems that they President of Crimea is not entirely rational," SecDef advised. "Thankfully, Eastern Europe seems to be pretty stable right now, and it's unlikely that this will spread to the current problem area of the Mideast."
"The UN is calling an emergency meeting-"
"Thank you, John. I know," the President replied. He sighed deeply. "Something about this situation doesn't feel right."
"I agree, sir," SecDef said, nodding. "What the Ukrainian army is doing is exactly the opposite of what needs to be done to quell a rebellion, civilized or otherwise. Their strategists and tacticians aren't fools, Mister President. They know what they're doing. And what they're doing isn't COIN at all."
"I think at this point, Mister President, it's clear that we are not dealing with rational men," SecState added. "We already know that 'King Roman of Crimea' is in a questionable mental state at best. What took me by surprise was the Ukrainian reaction. It seems that the Ukrainian President may have a few marbles loose as well."
The President nodded. "We need to find out what's going on, fast. I want a threat assessment on my desk as soon as possible."
John F. Kennedy International Airport
"Welcome home, Miss Slavslow."
The words bit into her like a particularly angry snake. She was no longer the Princess of Crimea- not that she ever really was, officially, but it still felt like a part of her had died. She forced a smile and said quickly to the customs officer, "Thank you."
Then she stepped across the thin yellow line into the United States of America.
She quickly collected her single bag from the luggage claim and proceeded out to the front of the terminal. She searched for Sergei- it didn't help that she had no physical description to work with. Some people held up signs, but not one of them read "Sergei", "Lydia", or "Elincia", in Latin or Cyrillic.
There was a sudden bump on her shoulder, and a whisper. "Blue Ford sedan, Virginia plates."
"What?" Before she even knew who the mystery man was, he was gone.
Seeing no other option, she chose to follow his instructions. It could be a trap, of course, but she was a trusting individual and the thought barely occurred to her. She exited the terminal into the cool New York breeze and followed the signs to the parking lot. At least, she thought they went to the parking lot.
Her interpretation seemed to be correct. The car was parked in the middle of a row, in between a small Honda and a large SUV. It was a sedan, carried the distinctive Ford logo, and it was steel blue. There was a single man with brown hair inside. She was about to open the door when a strong hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back.
"I said Virginia plates," the voice hissed, before he mouthed an apology to the driver. He led Elincia to another, nearly identical car a few spots over. Once they were seated, he immediately started the car.
"My name's Ike, by the way," he told her, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. "I work for a private military contractor- that's a politically correct name for a merc band. Your father hired us to protect you."
"What happened to Sergei?" Elincia blurted out. Wasn't she told to wait for Sergei?
He hesitated. "He's... unavailable."
"What do you mean?" she asked, innocently unaware of the hidden meaning of Ike's words.
"I mean 'bullet in the back of the head' unavailable. Probably the same reason your father paid to protect you." He put the car into gear and pulled out.
Simferopol, Crimea
They met in the cellar of what had once been a beautiful residence, now sitting ruined and abandoned. The stones of the cellar were as grey as their mood. It was dark, the cellar illuminated only by a single battery-powered lantern.
"You're late," the man in the cellar, a broad man in a leather jacket, said. He spoke Russian with a Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg, he constantly reminded himself) accent. With surprising deftness, he plucked a Marlboro out of its package and lit up. The cigarette emitted an orange-red glow in the darkness, casting odd shadows of its own.
"I had to avoid the bombs and the soldiers on my way here," the newcomer told him, nervously. He had a strong Crimean accent- a local. He was skinny and lithe, and wearing a ripped jacket and crumpled tie.
"And what is it you want?" He puffed on the cigarette. "It must be important for you to contact me with these events around us."
"You already know what I want!" Of course he did. "I want to get out of here, a nice safe trip to Sochi."
"You want extraction. It would be very dangerous for us. The roads are blocked and the last plane flew out of Simferopol this morning. No, I think it would be rather not beneficial for us."
"I can't stay here!" the Crimean protested. "They'll find out what I have done! They'll execute me! Don't you realize that?"
"I understand. That is why this is necessary." The Russian produced a small Kahr pocket pistol and pointed it at the other man. At this range, even in the dark, he could not miss.
"You promised me none of this would happen!" the slimmer man protested, making one final attempt to reason. He realized that there was now a very good possibility that he would be killed anyway. "You promised that this would prevent war, not cause it!"
"I am sorry, my friend. There can be no loose ends." He raised the pistol and pulled the trigger three times.
No one heard. The sound of guns was now a constant reality in Simferopol – one little pistol wouldn't add much to the din. The agent's corpse would end up with the other war dead, rotting on the street or in a mass grave if he was lucky.
The Russian holstered his pistol, straightened his jacket, stubbed out his cigarette, and removed a satellite phone from his pocket. The message he sent was simple- even if someone could break the 256-bit AES encryption, the resulting phrase would be meaningless. The pawn is out of play.
New York
"So, what's your story, Princess?" Ike asked as they slowed to a crawl in the thick New York traffic. He continued to drum his fingers idly on the wheel.
"Um, I'd rather not talk about it." She was still replaying the scenario over and over in her head, making her stomach churn and flip end over end. Though she hadn't eaten in hours, she was not hungry, not in the mood to eat.
Ike continued pressing, his curiosity piqued. He stuck a cigarette in one hand, produced a lighter and lit up, contaminating the rental vehicle. With his luck they would total it before the day was through anyway. "The only name they gave was a codename, 'Princess'. Any significance to that?"
"Uh, yes, I was technically the Princess of Crimea, I think, my lord." She remembered the bold words of her father.
"I shall be King of Crimea," he boasted, raising the glass of vodka high into the air. "The Ukranian fools will bow before me. Putin of Russia will kiss my feet. I shall bring the great nation of Crimea into the twenty-first century, a true world power."
He rubbed Elincia gently on the head. "And I suppose that makes you Princess Crimea, for real this time, hmm?"
Ike raised an eyebrow, echoing, "My lord? What the fuck is that shit? Lady, I'm just some poor dumbass with a skillset that happens to be conducive to getting a certain, rather unpleasant, kind of work done. Runs in the family."
"Is that not the proper honorific?" Elincia asked, confused and for a moment drawn away from the plight of her and her people.
"You're probably looking for 'sir' or 'mister', of which I am neither," Ike corrected. He slammed his hands against the wheel. "Fuck this traffic! We're gonna be here a while."
He fiddled with the radio, finally getting it tuned to a station that had some news and not just crappy music.
...announced his intent to secede from the Ukraine, after pulling off a political coup that dissolved the majority of the legitimate government and left him in de facto control of the territory. He has declared himself first President and now King, making broad claims about Crimea's dominance. Rumours say that he has created his own secret police, reminiscent of the Nazi German SS, and simply executed many of his opponents.
The Ukrainian response has been swift and brutal, leading many to call into question the true nature of the situation. As of this morning, Ukrainian forces have pushed all the way to the Crimean capital of Simferopol. There has been little opposition, with most Crimean military units defecting or disbanding after the coup. Reports indicated that guerillas loyal to the King have begun a campaign of asymmetrical warfare, similar to the Taliban in Afghanistan and rebels in Syria. So far, the status of the renegade King is unknown.
International reaction has been almost universally negative, with most parties pushing for a peaceful solution and an end to the violent. The President describes the uprising as "the act of a madman" and insists that "a peaceful compromise must be reached by both parties." President Vladimir Putin of Russia has taken a more neutral stance, stating that it was well within the Ukraine's right to intervene, but also stated that careful actions must be taken and offered to provide a neutral third party for negotiations-
A colossal bang shocked them out of their focus as the taxi in front of them exploded, in a split second reduced to a twisted mess of ash and rubble.
"Shit!" Ike shouted. He swerved to the right and hammered on the accelerator, squeezing between two pickup trucks and shearing off the side-view mirrors. A rocket streaked into where they were a moment earlier, blasting a crater into the pavement.
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck..." Ike swore, knuckles white on the wheel. He jerked the vehicle to the right, narrowly avoiding a motorbike as he pulled onto a side street. He gunned the accelerator, pulling past a slow-moving van and tearing its mirror off.
Behind him, Elincia had turned white as a sheet. Simferopol had been terrifying in its own way, but she was numb at the time, the experience surreal. Now, she was being attacked directly in a place she thought she was safe. It was visceral and all too real.
Crimea. Her mind drifted back to it. Not for the first time, and not for the last. Whether she was really the Princess or not, it was her home. She remembered what her father had said, what seemed like boisterous bragging at the time but was now terrifyingly prophetic.
"Crimea, my sweet," he said, tapping his daughter on her shoulder. "Crimea is a strong land, of strong people. Throughout history, we have been a footnote, an aside. We have been under Greek influence, Roman control, the Goths, the Huns. We have been under the rule of the Russians three times, and now the Ukrainians. One day we will be strong and free-"
"Fuck!" Ike shouted as the impact jarred Elincia into the present. He shouted through the cracked windshield at the woman in the Honda Civic they had T-boned. "You dumb bitch! Trying to outrun a guy with a fucking rocket launcher here!"
He jammed the car into reverse and stomped on the pedal, smashing the bumper of the car behind them before stomping on the brakes, throwing the shifter back into drive and hammering on the pedal again, swerving around the Civic.
Without warning, he jerked the car to the left, tires screeching as it struggled to make the acute angle of the turn. Horns blared as he ran the light, and Elincia found herself slammed up against the door. "What are you doing, my lord?"
"Shaking off a tail," Ike replied, gunning the accelerator and driving past a trio of sedans by swerving onto a sidewalk. "And for fuck's sake, will you stop calling me that?"
"Um, yes, okay, my lord," came the meek response.
Ike sighed. "Look, Princess, I know I'm being a bit of an asshole right now, and I'm sorry. I promise I'll make it up to you later, but right now, I'm under a lot of pressure."
"Elincia."
"What's that, some Russian swear word?" Almost there. He just needed to turn right here.
Elincia grabbed for the nearest grippable surface as Ike jerked the vehicle to the left so violently it briefly ended up suspended on two wheels. She glared at the man as much as her wet eyes allowed. "It's my name."
"Oh, shit, sorry. It's a beautiful name- you might want to hold on." He stomped on the accelerator again, then pulled the handbrake and slammed the wheel to the left at the same time. The vehicle skidded in an almost perfect 180, leaving behind angry black streaks on the pavement. It swerved twice before pulling out of the powerslide. "Don't worry, it's a straight shot from here."
"What happens now?" Elincia asked, suddenly realizing how lost she was. Still reminiscing over a fallen homeland, not sure if her father was alive or dead, now in a foreign land with a limited command of the language and next to nothing on her.
With men she knew nothing about trying to kill her.
Ike shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know. My father, Greil, he's the one who knows everything. I'm just a dumbass who followed my dad into his profession instead of getting a decent career. I just shoot things."
He pulled into a parking spot behind a nondescript grey apartment block. He gestured for Elincia to get out of the car before stepping out, slamming the door, and locking it twice.
"Welcome to Greil HQ, better known as a shitty not-so-safehouse in the fucking Bronx."