Okay, a little backstory on Path of Liberty. It was planned as an April Fool's joke from the get-go. What is not a joke is the disclaimer in the first chapter. I have never played any Fire Emblem games. I have not watched Let's Plays or gameplay videos to any appreciable extent, either. I started reading Spellbinding Radiance a while back because of the April Fools swap with Mass Vexations, and I've perused the wiki to understand the story. That is my extent of Fire Emblem knowledge.
Path of Liberty was intended to be a badfic. I deliberately avoided playing the games or watching in-depth videos, using only the wiki and other fanfics as a guide. The intent was to go in (mostly) blind and write something that looked like it was written by someone who had no idea what they were doing. What better way to accomplish that than to have no idea what you're doing? For reference, here are some author's notes from earlier versions of the fic, when it was split into more chapters.
I had literally no idea what I was doing when I wrote this chapter.
Some of you may be wondering why this is so different from the games. Well, I read some fanfiction and lurked the wiki for a while, and decided to try my own hand at some Fire Emblem- Radiant Whatever fanfiction. Of course, there's not really any point in rehashing canon the same way so I'm taking the plot, setting, and characters and twisting them a bit.
It is supposed to happen here, and the weird names are just translation errors, right?
Okay, so basically, I have a friend who I thought was really into Fire Emblem. I was hoping to get him to write a chapter for this story since he has more knowledge, but, alas, it was not to be. Not only does he possess a moderate degree of illiteracy, but he also likes Golden Sun and Chrono Cross, not Fire Emblem. Hey, they're all JRPGs, how the hell was I supposed to know?! And he passed English!
As a conciliatory gesture, you can have what I banged out to trick him into thinking that I knew what the hell I was doing. I basically copypasted from the wiki and hoped that it was right.*
Okay, I'm back writing, and I have no fucking idea what my friend just wrote. I'm trying to follow up on it the best I can. Now that the introductions are done with...**
Wait, hold on a sec. Why are all the names so weird? And why doesn't anyone have a last name? I've taken some liberties with the names because I don't know what else to do.
Meet General-Colonel Natasha Petrine, one of my favourite characters from Fire Emblem, mostly due to Spellbinding Radiance. Petrine doesn't sound very Slavic, though, more Germanic or even Romance (Italian or French, not Spanish so much). Although I guess if you consider her being Branded (ie with some mixed up ancestry) that makes sense... sorta. Though why she would end up with a Nazi name is anyone's guess...***
Fuck it, just apply the MST3K Mantra and don't think about it too much.
* I actually did this. I might post this just for humour.
** This was written under the assumption that I could coerce one of my friends into writing a chapter. Yes, the author's note a few entries above is factual. I don't know my JRPGs.
*** I liked Petrine in Spellbinding Radiance, although apparently that depiction is nearly as true to canon as mine.
For the record, though, I do understand that Fire Emblem is *not* supposed to take place in the real world. As I conceptualized this fic more and more, I found myself getting more serious about it. Originally, the chapters were short and extremely poorly written. Chapter one was created by combining three or four shorter chapters and fixing them up. I also started planning out the story better, and I actually know how Path of Liberty is going to end. I have some ideas for Flashpoint Dawn (Radiant Dawn) as well.
But it's still an April Fools' joke in that I have no intention of ever writing it. The fact is that I am simply far too busy to carry on three or four full-fledged stories at the same time. If there's interest, though, I can post a summary of where this was going to go. If there is enough interest, I may reconsider.
In the meantime, though, there are still a few bits that didn't end up in the first chapter. I didn't fix these up the same way- there may be inconsistencies.
New York, United States of America
Greil tapped his foot against the floor, leaning against the TV. He casually removed a cigarette from his breast pocket and lit it with a scratched and dented Zippo. He held it between thumb and middle finger- the second digit was conspicuously absent from his right hand. "So, what's it gonna be?"
"I'm sorry?" Elincia asked, confused and more than a little scared. Titania nodded to her- she couldn't tell what the muscular woman meant by that. Mist gave her a wink. Shinon shook his head, and Soren stared blankly, unmoving.
"Your father, the esteemed King of Crimea, paid for us to escort you from the airport and away from danger," Greil explained, puffing on the cigarette. "It cost a pretty penny, too. After your boy Sergei was killed, well, that makes it a dangerous assignment and our rates go way the hell up."
He tossed his cigarette to the floor and ground it under his boot. "You are now out of harm's way. Hence, the contract is fulfilled."
"So... you're not going to protect me anymore?" Elincia asked. Yes, Ike was rude, and she was sure half of these people were psychos for hire, but she felt... secure. Stable in a world that had been turned upside down.
Greil sighed and took a deep breath. Before he could say anything, Titania took over. "Girl, we're a private military contractor. That means we get paid half for a job, with specific terms. Once those terms are fulfilled, we get the other half and move on. I'm sorry, but business is business."
"Commander Greil?" Elincia pleaded, a begging look in her eyes. "Surely you will not leave a young woman, one who has just lost her homeland, in this... place?"
"Commander Greil?" He raised an eyebrow. "I topped out at E-5, and that was a long damn time ago. Greil or even Dan is fine."
"Take my advice," Boyd told her. "Go become a prostitute. If you're lucky, your pimp will protect you."
"Surely you can't be serious?" Mist asked them, her eyes darting between her cold, uncaring father and slightly nervous brother. "She'll die if we don't help her!"
Titania shook her head, giving her commander a disapproving look. "She's right, Greil. Leaving this... princess on her own would be morally questionable-"
Greil stood up and, like a bolt of lightning, stepped in front of the woman, stopping his fist an inch from her face. She stoically refused to bat an eyelash. "Don't you dare tell me about morally questionable!"
"I'm sorry," Titania half-apologized. "There's just no other way to put it. We're trying not to do the same things that brought up here in the first place."
"This business is morally questionable. You all knew that when you signed on. You knew that we would try to make up for our mistakes, but we wouldn't be saints," Greil lectured, but he sounded conflicted, like he was trying to reason with himself. He suddenly whirled on his son. "Ike, what do you think?"
Ike chewed his lip, carefully formulating his answer. "This is America, the land of the free. Elincia is free to make whatever choice she does."
He shot her a look. "We'd be much more inclined to protect you if you made it a profitable venture for us."
Greil nodded slowly. "We can protect you, Elincia, for a moderate fee. I'm willing to go half our usual rate. As much as I would like to help you, we're still a business. That's the best I can-"
Suddenly, the window exploded, and Greil dropped to the ground, clutching his throat. There was a second bang, and part of his head exploded in a red mist.
"Fuck! Sniper! Get down!" Ike shoved the shrieking, blood-splattered Elincia to the floor as the other mercenaries scrambled for cover. Many of them had readied their own weapons.
"Reese, get your ass over here!" Titania shouted, motioning to the bleeding Greil. She knew he was probably already dead, but Ike and Mist- damn it! She thumbed off the safety on her Glock 23. "Where the fuck is he?"
"Apartment building, fourth floor, right side," Shinon said, steadying his own rifle against the ledge of the smashed window. "Damn, he's gone."
"I'm going after him!" Ike told him, a flood of mixed emotions running through his mind. He forced them back, focusing on the man who had just shot his father. He was armed with only a handgun, but really, the knife in his belt would do the job just fine.
Rage flooding his system, he bolted out the door, taking the staircase to ground level two steps at a time. His motions instinctual, he unholstered his Kimber Custom and cocked the hammer, its positive action subconsciously reassuring.
He hit the ground running, literally. Ike bolted out of the grungy double doors to their building and onto the cracked, filthy street. He turned sharply, nearly falling over, and dashed to the other building where the shots had originated.
And was nearly hit by a car. The dark red sedan didn't swerve or brake, and at the last minute Ike realized this and dove out of the way, ripping his shirt on the rough concrete.
The driver gave him an apologetic look and slammed on the accelerator. In an instant, Ike was up and shooting, putting all seven rounds into the car while it was still close enough to hit. The rear windshield shattered, several more rounds passing through hitting the interior of the car.
Swiftly and efficiently, he dropped the single-stack magazine out of the handgun, slammed in another, and racked the slide. He got off two rounds, both misses, before the sedan disappeared around a corner.
Adrenaline rapidly draining from his body, Ike holstered his pistol and stumbled back toward his father.
Resse shook his head, a cigarette between his bloody fingers. "Sorry. There was nothing anyone could do."
Ike nodded slowly, before turning and grabbing Elincia. He slammed her into the crumbling brick wall and snarled, "I need to know everything, NOW!"
Pain shot through her neck as her head impacted, stars jumping across her blurred vision. Ike seemed like a good man- a bit of a jerk but good- but she saw only rage in his eyes.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
"Jesus Christ, calm down!"
"Squeeze her harder!"
"Hey, don't you think you're going a little overboard?"
"Ike, stop. You're hurting her," Mist pleaded. Ike refused to respond, and Elincia was quite clearly in a lot of pain. "Ike, this isn't what our father would have wanted."
*I didn't write the part in between. What you're about to read is a video will left by the late Greil.
"I've had a long and storied career. Some of it you know about, some of it you don't. After I left the Marines, Blackwater gave me an offer I couldn't refuse. So I took it. Technically, we were a protection service. There was one mission... I don't want to give details. It still gives me nightmares- well, if you're watching this, none anymore. We... we shot civilians. That's all we fucking did, all we fucking did was abuse and shoot civilians!
"Now you know, son. Now you know why you don't have a mother anymore. Now you know who your father really was. There was never an accident with a table saw. One night, I had a nightmare, a bout of PTSD, and I killed her. I killed her. I cut my own fucking trigger finger off to keep it from happening again. Like that would do any good.
"I wish I could atone for my sins. But if you're watching this, then I never did. Shit, I was never good at this mushy stuff. You need to know one last thing, though. Fire Emblem. Remember that, Ike. God, I hope the time never comes, but if it does, you'll know it. Remember me."
The video cut out, leaving Ike staring at the screen. Slowly, Mist began to cry, her tears soaking into his shirt, but he didn't notice. He didn't feel much. The blood rage he had first felt had dried up and turned to sorrow and grief, and now even that was gone, leaving him empty, lost.
