"Hello! Let Us Not Kill Each Other!"

[ Date Redacted ], [ "a.2012" ]

013-R "Trey"

Ashen Wolves

Ylisstol, Ylisse, Ylisse (previously "Unknown City, Unknown Country, Unknown Continent")

"When you place two things side-by-side, they provide context for each other. When that context appears to be contradictory, it creates a mental dissonance that the audience has to resolve. It forces us to stop and think."

—Dan Floyd of Extra Credits, on dissonant juxtaposition in the video "Word Choice"

"Halt!"

I gulped as we stopped short, hands up. "Oh, boy."

The man in light-blue armor had turned his horse around to face us, silver lance pointed at our heads. "What business do you people have to warrant following us?"

We were all standing in the middle of the street leading out of the capital city. Daily life in this place—as far as I could tell, anyway—was going about as usual. Vendors advertised their goods and wares. Kids played with balls and other toys. People in garb that definitely did not scream "2010's Earth" walked up and down the road, discussing things that had come up in their lives.

Somehow—and I'm guess that this is some kind of Zero-related thing—they never noticed that three important people had stopped to notice five literal nobodies who had been following them.

From the left: there was a blonde girl with wild pigtails on either side of her head and wearing a yellow-and-white "casual-wear dress". Next to her was the closest thing I've seen to a knight: a man with brown hair, stern eyes, bulky light-blue armor that somehow didn't affect his ability to ride his horse, and a silver lance that was aimed at a certain someZero's face (I'll get to them later, please hang on). And next to him was a man with cobalt hair and eyes, a sympathetic expression on his face, a blue short tunic and pants, a silver(?) pauldron on one shoulder, an uncovered tattoo on the other, and a sword at his side.

On my right, Bluefield shifted uncomfortably, hands up. "Sir, I'd…really appreciate it if you would take your lance away from my face."

On my left, Vespyr looked at the sight of the knight pointing his weapon at her senior teammate with some amusement. On my right (again), Bluefield wore a Why me? expression behind his glasses. On his right, Dreyza scratched the back of her head, wondering if she should break this up and bring that up (I'll tell you later). On her right, Kyoku, annoyed, huffed a tuft of dark hair out of his face, looking to the side.

The knight narrowed his eyes further. "I think not. Not without a valid reason to pass off your behavior."

"Frederick, are you like this with strangers all the time?" That was the blonde girl, looking up at the knight, with a concerned look on her face.

"Stay back, milady," the knight—well, Frederick—warned. "They may be dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Bluefield asked (Kyoku looked at him here; with a WTF? face.). "I suppose. But to you? Absolutely not."

I had this sneaking suspicion that Mister Knight was the most suspicious of us, but nevermind. "And what, might I ask," said he, "makes you say that?"

Dreyza stepped forward, in front of Bluefield. She was in "to business" mode. "Sir"—she was talking to the guy on the right, with the tattoo—"I understand that your people have been suffering attacks by shadowy monsters in the past week?"

"How you can address milord in such a manner, I—"

The blue-haired man raised his hand, silencing his companion. "Relax, Frederick. They may be foreigners, but it seems they may know something about those monsters."

That statement took us aback, with Bluefield being the most surprise. I mean, this blue-haired man—who we barely just met—seems to trust us.

I rubbed my neck, the presence of the Glint Scythe resonating from there. "That's one way to put it, Sir…er…"

"Chrom," said the blue-haired man, looking over at me. Sir Frederick had pulled his lance back by this point, clearly not comfortable with this situation. The blonde girl looked on, relaxing her grip on the staff she was holding behind her back. Right, did I mention she had a staff behind her back?

"Well, nice to meet you, Sir Chrom," Dreyza replied, smiling. "I'm Dreyza, and I lead this group of mercenaries. That's Vespyr,"—she waved cheerfully—"that's Trey,"—I shyly raised my hand—"this is Bluefield,"—he nodded—"and this sour-face on my right is Kyoku."

"Oh, thanks a lot, Leader…" I sensed the feeling of…being insulted in his Cockney accent.

Yes, Kyoku tends to be bitter about 75% of everything. He's also our squad's medic, so we Wolves kinda have to deal with it from time to time.

"Right." Dreyza turned back to face the three world-natives again. "And who might you all be?"

"Well, as I've already stated, my name is Chrom," said the blue-haired man, putting a hand on his chest. "The knight who pointed his lance at your colleague's face is Frederick the Wary, and next to him is my sister, Lissa."

"Your sister, huh?" Dreyza turned to regard the blonde lady. "Guess that means we're something alike."

Lissa perked up at that. "Really?"

"You and your big bro are working in the same group, right?"

"…Oh!" The lady clasped her hands. "So your brother works with you, too?"

Dreyza nodded proudly, while Bluefield, being Bluefield, hunched his shoulders as if to say, "Oh, boy…"

Lissa looked between the two siblings, then it clicked. "Oh, so he's your big brother?"

"Yep," said Leader.

"But you're the leader of your group?"

"Pretty much."

"Aw! Lucky! My brother leads a militia called the Shepherds. I just recently joined up as a healer."

Why were both parties being this open? is probably the question that Frederick and I were sharing.

Blu held up his hands. "Well, to be fair, I'm objectively worse leadership material than your brother or my sister. That's why I'm just our squad's advisor."

"Not to interrupt on this conversation," Frederick cut in, "but, what do you five foreigners call youselves, as a so-called 'squad'?"

Okay. Here's what rammed in to my mind at this exact point in time: I found something ironic that a group of Shepherds were having a mostly-amiable conversation with Ashen Wolves.

Shepherds. Wolves.

Shepherds. Wolves.

Oh, crap.

Inwardly, I panicked. Of course I did. I mean, the dissonant juxtaposition was probably enough to make the Shepherds think we're up to no good.

And then Kyoku interrupted.

"Did you guys hear that?"

Huh?

Dreyza turned to him. "Hear what?" she asked.

When Kyoku turned to her, I saw his face slowly change from What the freak? to Oh, crap. "…Umbral. One kilometer south. It's attacking someOne."

And just like that, he dashed off—past Chrom and Frederick—through the southern entrance of the capital. Frederick's mount whinnied in surprise.

"What the—HEY!" Blu raced after him. "What are you doing?!"

Vespyr patted my shoulder. "All right, newblood, get your butt into bloody gear." And with that, she and Dreyza raced past the Shepherds as well, leaving three Ones and one Zero a little surprised.

Then I finally snapped out of it. "I[t]—hey, wait up!" And I trotted after them.

[ N/A ]

"Well, that…escalated rather suddenly," Chrom said, scratching the back of his head as the foreigners ran off.

"Milord, there are a handful of villages and towns in southern Ylisse," Frederick finally said, as soon as his ruffled steed had calmed down. "Loathe as I am to say it, those…people will likely get lost within an hour's time without direction."

"Well, what're we waiting for?!" Lissa exclaimed. "We've got things to do there, anyway. Let's get after them!"

"Wh-Hey, Lissa!"

As the three Shepherds raced out through the southern entrance, they failed to notice two separate parties watching them—parties that, to be fair, would be easy to miss.

On the left-side rooftop, if facing south, stood a pair of stark-white twins. Skin that could be mistaken for dull-yet-fine china. Formal outfits of pure white, including turtlenecks. Two pairs of grey eyes watched their five "employees" and their new acquaintances running down the road—the first step towards the task of extermination. In synchronicity, Vaire each took one step forward, and was gone.

On the right-side rooftop stood a man with no arms. An albino with crimson eyes and messy white hair. A white "straitjacket" with the sleeves untied, loosely hanging down to the waist. One could easily assume he had arms, just like anyOne else. But Noan didn't care about that anymore. With a crooked madman's grin plastered across his face, he turned and jumped off the roof, looking forward to what would happen next.

And so began, the road to the beginning.

"world-natives" - the plural form for entities who reside in a given world or universe

"Inwardly, I panicked." - Uh, why? —Kyoku