In the ruins of a once peaceful town on the Plegian-Ylissen border, several soldiers clad in black Plegian platemail were slowly going about the grim task of sifting through the burnt ashes of the town in a vain attempt to find survivors and collect the dead for burial. As the men continued with their grim charge, one of the soldiers approached what was their leader standing near the center of the town, "Captain Valens, the scouts returned."

The Soldier with purple trimming on his armor, which denoted his rank, was sitting as he wiped sweat from his brow and tried to get the soot and ash from his red hair out. Finally giving up on the task, he set his halberd down and turned to examine the town while speaking with the man, "I take it by your tone our fears are realized?"

The man nodded, "Unfortunately yes, the Ylissen Knights are currently making for the border back into Ylisse as we speak; they are moving slowly though as they seem to be carrying a fair deal of loot and salvage from the town," The sergeant spitting out the last part with particular disgust.

Closing his eyes and sighing, the captain dreaded the implications of the sergeant's report, "So,there is our answer then, they are literally carrying the evidence of their deeds with them. So this is it then, our fears have returned; the Ylissen Crusaders have finally come to finish what they started."

As the captain and sergeant stood there trying to determine how to deal with the situation before them, their attention was suddenly grabbed by a portal unexpectedly opening in the town center and spitting out what looked to be a mage. With tensions amongst the soldiers already high, the portal suddenly opening near them promptly resulted in them all ceasing their current activities, drawing their weapons, and quickly forming a circle around the hooded mage.

As the soldiers prepared to lunge with their halberds while the mage started casting, the captain rushed forward to intervene before his day worsened anymore, "Hold! Lower your weapons, don't strike!" The captain then turned to address the mage while gesturing he meant no harm, "You there, are you a member of the mage corps, that was a Plegian teleportation spell if I am not mistaken."

Seeing that the men had heeded their captain and while not sheathing their weapons, they had lowered them, Robin ceased his own casting, "No, I'm not a member of the mage corps, but what happened here?"

The captains attention returned to the burnt bodies around him, "What do you think, the Crusade happened; Ylissen knights came through and burned the town and put its populace to the sword before carrying off everthing of value."

"Why?" Robin asked, his voice laced with disbelief.

The captain gave him an incredulous look, "What do you mean why? Isn't it obvious, Plegians worship Grima, and that's all the excuse Ylisse needs to abandon their pretenses of moral superiority and act like animals."

"And I suppose Grima told you that Ylisse did it as opposed to bandits?" Robin replied back.

The captain calmly responded despite his agitation at the mage's attitude, "No, he did not. My scouts however gave me an interesting report about a group of Ylissen knights making for the border from this direction." Robin held his breath at this point, the captain however was not yet finished, "Even more damning is the fact that they were also covered in blood and ash, as if they were part of a bloodbath and then attempted to burn away the evidence of their deeds." Noticing he had Robin's full attention now, the captain drove his last point home, " I suppose they could have been fighting our own soldiers and simply had burned the bodies after the conflict, but that leaves the incredibly awkward question of why they were loaded down with carts of loot and salvage that appear to be from a town and not a company of soldiers."

With the captain finished, he and robin silently stared at each other while robin reached the same conclusion that they had attained earlier. As Robin was about to break the silence, he heard the flapping of wings and noticed that coming down from the morning sky was an out of breath wyvern rider on an equally tired wyvern. The rider quickly scanned the group of men before him, and upon setting his eyes on the captain, quickly dismounted and ran to him while panting, "Captain, as you ordered I took your request to the duke as fast as my mounts wings could take me."

The captain noticing that the rider was alone, took on a sullen look as he dreaded the result of his request, "and you returning alone means that his lordship has decided that dispatching the riders I requested was a waste of his time?"

"Uhhh… well his lordship said he was… preoccupied with more pressing... matters," was all the flustered rider could manage to stammer out.

All the while the captain's face began to take on varying hues of red before settling on a bright red that matched his hair, hearing the last word made him pop in a quite spectacular fashion, "Preoccupied? He is Preoccupied, with what, cowering in his castle while his people die around him?" Flailing about in his rage, the captain took his helmet and vented his rage upon it by simply throwing it as hard as he could at one of the nearby burnt buildings, "I had hoped my father was simply exaggerating his tales of the last Crusade, but this seems pretty similar to him telling me of how the Plegian citizenry were burned out of their homes and slaughtered like cattle while the so called noble protectors of the kingdom cowered in their castles to scared or lazy to act. "

"Let me help," Robin said as he came to a decision.

The captain could not help but scowl at the hooded mage, "Don't bother, I'll go ask Grima for help, you don't need to do anything."

Suppressing a smirk at the irony of his statement, Robin focused back on the ruin around them, "Fine then, you go back to your Duke's castle and ask Grima; meanwhile, those knights will simply cross the border and this town can go unavenged, or you can come with me and make sure that they never are able to do this to another town." If anything, Robin wanted to see these knights for himself.

The captain looked around at the town slowly, then slowly nodded his acceptance, "fine, how do you think we can stop a full company with just a dozen men then?"

Robin couldn't help but smile as he thought back on all the times Chrom set him out on impossible tasks, "quite easily my friend, quite easily."

As the sun slowly climbed higher into the sky towards midday, Captain Valen's and his patrol of wyvern riders found themselves doing what he thought was stupid at best. As he spurred his mount forward with a mage he had only just met, he pondered how he expected them to stop a full company of mounted men-at-arms and knights with just one mage and a dozen riders. Of course with the raiders moving slowly, getting ahead of them and laying an ambush would be a simple task; expecting them to make up a forty man difference in the opening of an ambush was ludicrous however.

I suppose I could just run in there and start pirouetting with my halberd and see if that works. Chuckling to himself,Valens decided that he might as well break the silence and enlighten himself on what sort of plan he had gotten him and his men into, "So, this plan of yours, care to share it with me?"

Robin hated heights, he hated the vertigo he got from being on some of the higher works in castles and towers, he hated the heights of the palace upper floors, he certainly hated being several hundred feet above the ground on the back of a wyvern. With his eyes glued to back of the captain's back and the handles of the saddle gripped as firmly as possible, Robin feared to move his head for the possibility of seeing the ground and experiencing the usual nausea that would follow. Closing his eyes, he focused on the question at hand and did his best to steady his voice, "well, first we find them."

"And then," Valens continued, obviously expecting more.

"Then I observe, analyze, and plan more." Robin replied nonchalantly.

"Thats it," Valens replied in disbelief.

Robin sighed, "They are loaded down with multiple heavy carts as your scouts said, not only will this slow them down considerably, but as they enter the forests on the Ylissen side of the border, they will be forced to use only a few certain major trails and roads. Once we locate them, getting ahead of them and setting an initial ambush will be easily done, we target the leader and once he is gone either three things will happen. One, they mob together and push forward as a group down the narrow trails with their loot, and we simply fold back into woods and pick them off one by one until they are all buried. Two, they panic and scatter into the woods around them, we control the sky and can thus easily find them and pick off most of them, some will escape no doubt, but still a good outcome. Third, as we fold into the woods they attempt to give chase, if thats the case we simply lead them off into the woods and they will slowly spread out in the trees while we quickly regroup and pick apart the smaller disorganized groups one by one. Good enough?"

Not expecting this response, Valens was simply taken aback and somewhat impressed by the hooded mage's plan, "alright, so I was wrong about you, maybe you aren't as insane as I thought."

As the pair finished talking over the finer details of the plan, the lead rider signaled to the rest to land. As the dozen wyverns set down in the shrubbery of the plains, the lead rider quickly dismounted and jogged towards the captain and his passenger, "captain, were nearing the area I saw them last; given their pace I would venture a guess that they are about ten miles ahead of us. Probably just now entering the western edge of the woods that run along the border."

The captain nodded, "good, tell the others to take a rest before we take to the sky again." At this the scout nodded and quickly left the two, "So, if your prediction that they will be using the Velson trail to escape is correct, then getting ahead of them and setting an ambush should not be difficult at all then."

Robin nodded at the captain's appraisal, "Unless they dragged their loot this far to simply abandon it halfway home and melt into the woods, they only have one path they can take home at this point."

Hearing this, the captain gestured to two of his men to join them, "gentlemen, I am in need of some scouting, take to the sky and locate the company you found earlier as discretely as possible; once you find them hurry back and report in."

"Yes captain." the two replied before they hurried to their respective wyverns and took off.

Valens watched the two take off and fade into the distance as they set out to complete their task, once out of sight he lazily sat down against his wyvern, "you may want to get comfortable," Yawning as he shifted into a comfortable position, "we could be here for a little bit."

Robin being no stranger to battle, knew that fighting or preparing to fight were not the number one time occupiers of soldiers, but rather the waiting. Finding a comfortable spot, he propped himself up against a tree and for the first time in over a few days, fell asleep.

Robin's eyes fluttered open. Looking around he found himself walking in the familiar halls of the Palace of Ylissetol. Passing through the archway leading to the throne, he saw Chrom standing over a table with all their maps and plans draped over it. As Robin got closer, Chrom eventually looked up and frowned at him; as Robin reached the table Chrom walked around it until they were face to face, "So it was a lie all this time, you were just using me and the others as a joke!"

Caught off guard by Chrom's outburst, Robin could only sputter in response, "Wha- no, it wasn't! I don't know what you are talking about."

Hearing this only made Chrom angrier, "Don't know! How could you not know, what kind of fool doesn't know who they are?" Chrom then began chuckling, "I guess the same kind of fool that would believe a crock story about a god with amnesia."

As Chrom began to approach Robin and draw his sword, the tactician began to backpedal away from him towards the door, "Chrom, you have to believe me, I didn't do this, I never knew!"

His anger returned, Chrom quickened his pace towards Robin, "You could of prevented it all, all those people dead in the Plegian raids, and those lost in the following war." Stopping for a moment Chrom closed his eyes, "Emmeryn, struck down in cold blood by one of your assassins."

Robin suddenly hit something behind him, looking back he saw that the doorway he came through was now simply a solid brick wall, "Chrom, I couldn't have prevented any of that, I-"

"LIES," shouted Chrom, "you could of easily done so, you just didn't want to. Why would you care, we were simply a means to an end for you, tools to be used and discarded after you were done with us. Well, you won't succeed, I'll make sure of that."

As Chrom quickly raised the Falchion and lunged towards him, Robin instinctively rushed forward with magic building in his hand, before he knew what had happened, Robin saw Chrom gripping Falchion with one and a gaping hole in his chest with another as he staggered back from Robin before finally collapsing.

Robin stood there, not knowing what to do or what to say he simply froze in place. As he stood there, he started to hear laughter, the laughter of a child to be precise, an eleven year old he knew by the voice of it. Realizing the source was getting louder and closer, Robin felt dread start to spike throughout him as he realized in but a few moments she would enter the room and see his deed.

"Robin, you're back!" spinning around, Robin saw that the doorway turned wall had now reverted back to a doorway, except now it also held the eleven year old princess in its passage.

Lucina smiled at him and began to walk towards him to welcome him home until she stopped and an inquisitive look creased her face, "Where is father, didn't he come back with you."

Almost as if his torment was scripted, Robin watched as Lucina's eyes widened as she saw her father's corpse behind Robin; "Father," she yelled as she ran by robin and tried to pick up Chrom's body. Looking back at Robin, she noticed the blood on his hands, "You... you did this, how could you?" she said with tears in her eyes, "You were our family."

As Lucina began to rip into Robin with her words, he shrunk away as he withered under the weight of the guilt her voice thrust upon him. As she bore into him with hate and malice, Robin felt as if the world was upon his back and crushing his very being while grinding it into dust. As he began to hear Validar's signature cackling around him, the room and its contents began to spin and spin until it all blurred together and finally went black.

Robin awoke to a feeling of dampness, after regaining his bearings he realized that he had been sweating quite a bit during his sleep, "you alright, you look as though every pore in your body emptied water while you slept?"

Looking up, Robin noticed that Captain Valens was standing over him holding a piece of bread, "Scouts are back, you were on the money; we are getting ready to take off so eat while we walk."

Valens paused as he recalled the mage's earlier nausea during the first flight that morning, "though if you can wait till we land, that might be for the best. My wyvern and I would probably not be appreciative of you vomiting half eaten bread on us mid-flight."

Robin nodded at the smiling knight as he pocketed the bread and walked with him to his wyvern. Before he knew it the flight was in the air moving to head around the knights and get ahead of them on the trail. As Robin began to feel the nausea from before return, he shut his eyes in an attempt to combat it. Once closed though, all he could see were images from his dreams, of Chrom's anger and death, and Lucina's tear stricken face screaming at him. Eventually he left his eyes open, deciding that nausea was indeed the lesser torment.

Looking back at his passenger, Valens noted that he had never seen anyone with such an adverse reaction to heights, "I have to say, you really don't enjoy heights, do you?"

"No, I really, really don't enjoy heights." Robin felt somewhat frustrated by this, "I wasn't always like this."

Valens raised an eyebrow at this, "You learned to be afraid of heights? usually its the other way around in that regard. I take it there is a reason though."

With a frown Robin recalled the memory, "I actually took a fall from a pegasus, we were in an air battle and I got knocked from my partner's mount." Closing his eyes, Robin recalled the second battle of Themis during the first war with Plegia; in which he rode with Cordelia and her Pegasus Knights and was knocked from her Horse during the skirmish with Plegia's Wyvern Knights, "She was able to descend and catch me, but falling like that really left an impression and ever since then flying has terrified me."

Valens nodded, "Fair enough, I always liked wyverns better than Pegasi, much harder to fall off of."

Robin chuckled, "They have their ups, but I have never had a Pegasus try to eat me... at least not yet."

As Robin scoped out the location of the impending ambush, he noticed the scout Valens sent towards the Knights running towards them while signaling that they had about 15 minutes before the knights would arrive, "So this is it then, are your men ready?"

Valens was busy examining his weapons and armor prior to the fight, "As can be, how about you?"

Smiling Robin reached into his coat to pull his sword, though his smile quickly turned into a grimace as his hand grasped an empty sheath. Cursing himself Robin realized that he had lost his sword at the table and left it there after...

"Valens noticing the mage fumble through his coat, knowingly walked towards his wyvern, "Forgot your weapon I see, no matter. We have a few spares on hand, its ludicrous how fast these things break. Got a preference, we have a few swords and a halberd or two."

"The sword will work." the sword he lost was a gift from Chrom, part of him wanted to return to the table and retrieve it, part of him wished nothing more than to pretend that place did not exist and never return.

As Valens walked into the woods to await the signal, Robin pushed these thoughts from his mind as he leaned against a tree to wait. Not long after, he began to hear the unmistakeable sound of horse hoofs pounding on hard dirt and carriage wheels grinding into it behind them; while it was soft at first, the noise slowly built and built until Robin opened his eyes and saw the company round the turn. As Robin looked at them any hope of them not being the culprits vanished, he could easily see they were covered in spots of soot, ash , and blood, while he could also hear some of them laughing and joking about their recent deeds of 'glory' amongst one another as they brazenly towed the final bit of damning proof with them.

Upon seeing Robin, the first of the mounted men halted and looked back towards what Robin presumed was their commander; once the the man in question took note of what he saw before him he began gesturing to several of the knights and giving orders to those around him. Robin knew he was definitely the commander at this point.

As the company of knights apprehensively halted, two of its members started to cautiously trot towards Robin with blades drawn. As they approached Robin, they noticed the markings upon his coat and simultaneously adopted cruel sneers as one turned back to the others, "hey everyone, I think we have a lost Grima-worshipper here." The two knights snickered as they got closer, "Is that right? Are you a lost little Grimleal?" Then they both took on dark looks as they glared at Robin, "we can be sure to make certain you go home."

As these two knights approached him, Robin felt heat build within him as he fumed over how these men who were members of the Ylissen army, the army he had rebuilt, carried themselves like animals. How they had loosed themselves upon an innocent village the moment they were without supervision and sullied the colors they wore. The anger built and built as they approached him and readied their blades for an unwarranted strike. Until finally the anger made Robin snap, Robin began to chuckle, not his usual lighthearted chuckle, but a deep sinister laugh that made the two knights freeze as they neared him.

Then it happened in an instant, the the two men noticed a purple aura start to emanate from the man before them; his arm shot up faster then they could follow and before they could even move a purple glowing orb the size of a melon shot from his hand. While it passed between the two men, the force of its passing knocked both of them and their mounts to the ground while its intended target, their leader, stared in shock for a moment before being hit squarely in the chest by it. With a loud crack, the orb exploded in the center of the company of knights throwing men and mount clear of the blast. While most of the men survived the impact, their leader was no longer able to rein in the ensuing chaos.

As men who were tossed about by the spell slowly stood up and staggered about as the concussion from the explosion wore off, one of the knights who had not been near the the blast wordlessly screamed as he charged the mage who had just assaulted them. With his vision narrowed and mind clouded with rage, the charging knight failed to notice the mage smirk at him, or the shouts of his compatriots behind him, or most importantly, the shadow growing around him. Just as he realized his fellows were shouting warnings to him, he saw the shadow over him; as he noticed this though, he felt a burning pain in his shoulders as something sharp dug into him and tore him from his mount. After being carried for a good twenty feet in the air whilst shrieking in agony, he was finally released so as to plummet to the ground below.

Witnessing the arrival of several wyvern knights who were now circling the party and striking at them, cries of ambush rose from the surviving members of the company; moments later Plegian soldiers appeared from the trees flanking the road throwing javelins, spears, and axes into the crowd of knights as they frantically tried to block their aggressors attacks. The remaining sergeants in the company at this point rallied their men and started heading off into the trees around the road to try and rout the attacker as Robin suspected they would; the Plegians seeing this, simply pulled back into the trees with ease as their pursuers slowly got deeper into the woods and quickly spread out amongst the trees. Valens seeing that the knights had ventured into the woods and spread out, signaled his riders to prepare to attack , their combined hovering being the signal to those on the ground to prepare their own strike.

Noticing shadows flitting above the trees, the knights quickly halted their pursuit of one of the ambushers and began tossing their own javelins into the air in an attempt to ward off the wyverns; before, the wyverns were forced to fly high above the crowd to avoid such missiles as the open road offered no obstacle; but with the trees between them and the knights below, they could easily dodge what few attacks made it through the thick branches and foilage. For the knights though, the thicket was insufficient to prevent the wyverns from simply crashing through the trees and crushing those they landed on, after which they would simply spring off the ground and fly back above the trees before anyone could react and try to strike back at them.

One by one the knights watched their members be carried off or crushed by the wyverns above while javelins and axes still came from the trees around them, until finally their numbers were thinned to the point that Robin and the Plegians on foot with him came out from the trees striking towards the outer edges of the enemy mob. As the riders above continuously swooped down and disrupted the Ylissens each time they began to regroup, Robin soon found himself in the melee that had risen between the two sides.

His blade crashing against that of the knight before him, Robin and his opponent traded several blows as they ducked and weaved to avoid their opposite's strikes while trying to land their own. The knight finally attempted to split Robin's head with a heavy downward blow from his sword; sidestepping to avoid the blow, Robin saw his opening. Before the knight could recover from his swing, Robin slammed his foot against his opponent's shoulder, sending the knight flailing backwards and colliding into the ground with Robin following quickly for the coup de grace as he jammed his sword into the knights exposed neck and severing it before he could react.

As Robin retracted his sword, he quickly surveyed the field around him. The Plegians seemed to have achieved the upper hand in the fighting; the Ylissens were now in total panic and being quickly cut down one after another by the footmen they faced. Every time a handful of Ylissens would try to present a solid front to the plegians, Valens and his riders would quickly descend from above shattering the trees around them and the unfortunate men below them. The Ylissens were quickly falling all around him and soon only Robin and the Plegian soldiers were standing as bodies of the Ylissen knights littered the floor around them.

As Robin stood there examining the remains of the battlefield, he noticed that the Plegians, satisfied with their work, were heading back towards the road to regroup. Taking one final look at the battlefield, Robin spun around and began to walk towards the road as well; rounding a tree he heard a rustle next to him, reflexes kicking in, Robin quickly ducked and rolled as a blade passed through the space his head once occupied.

His attacker however was ready to continue despite his opening's failure, he brought his arm back and struck Robin in the head with his pommel, sending robin forward into the dirt. Rolling over as his vision swam, Robin took sight of his enemy as he prepared a spell to try and counter the man. Locking eyes with one another, the man before Robin froze as Robin's hood had fallen and he saw his hate filled red eyes meet his own. Not expecting the sight before him, the man hesitated long enough for robin to quickly launch a spell into his chest knocking him back a few feet and staggering him. Seeing the fight from above, Valens quickly descended and landed between Robin and his assailant as the knight stumbled backwards. While jabbing at the man with his halberd, Valens had his Wyvern snap at him with its fangs while attempting to sweep him off his feet with its tail. Under assualt from so many different angles at once, the swordsman's defence quickly began to crumble until he was finally caught by the wyverns tail and knocked to the ground; not missing a beat, Valens quickly followed with his halberd and stabbed the man squarely in the chest, retracting it as he crumpled to the ground in a bloody heap.

With his duel won and the threat subsided, Valens turned towards the red eyed mage with a frown, "I wondered why you kept your hood up the entire time." Dismounting from his wyvern, Valens slowly walked towards Robin, "but you helped us bring a little justice into the world," he said as he bent low and offered Robin his hand, "and for that you have my thanks regardless of what your eye color is." Robin smiled as he accepted the hand and got up from the ground. "So," Valens began with an inquisitive look, "I do have to ask who you are though?"

Robin simply frowned at the question, "You wouldn't believe me regardless, so the answer is pointless." He said dismissively.

Valens was not easily dissuaded, "Try me, I've spent some time around Plegian mages, you get used to the strange and mysterious with that bunch."

"Very well," he said with a sigh, "I was the one you were going to go ask for help originally."

Valens blinked in confusion for a moment; recalling the conversation the two held in the town, the realization dawned on him as his eyes widened and jaw went slightly slack at the claim he thought he just heard.

Grima had returned.

AN:Big chapter, hope it looks good and you guys have fun with it. Please leave your thoughts and suggestions so that I can continue to improve. Also, please leave a comment on how you thought the fight went; a lot of this is stuff I am trying out for the first time so I am interested in your thoughts on that scene especially.

Also wanted to address some things you guys brought up.

Dane Namor: I always thought the fate bit was present regardless of Lucina's intervention, Validar ascribed to the belief that events were fixed and already decided(in his favor), while Robin and Chrom felt that with enough will you could do anything. Basically I see Awakening having a theme of External locus of control versus internal locus of control be one of its main points.

SuperPanda900: was chapter two inspired by that picture? No, did I recall it while writing it and see the parallel, yes.

Reaver Artorias: while villains being evil for the sake of evil can work in writing, it usually is because they are unhinged(the joker from batman would be an excellent example of this in my opinion). Validar never came off to me as unhinged so I wanted to give him some focus and reasoning for his actions that would fit with the story and make him a bit more believable.

Reynard: sort of, you are correct in that Robin and Grima are the same person and that their difference is not one of being different people, but rather the differing results one person achieves when events and choices around them change. Altered time-line Robin and Grima are simply the same person, but with differing choices that result in wholly different outcomes. Exploring this is very interesting and part of the reason I chose this as my first story.

Anyways, happy reading and see you all next time.