Fire Emblem: Revenge of the Dan
By DarthMarth
Chapter the Fourth-Beware the Hyper-Coffee
Dan the morph slipped into the pathetic tent his former party had used for an armory, an invisible shadow in the night. This was too easy, he thought. Not that that's a bad thing. Sure, he could have simply slit everyone's throats while they slept and had them all dead by morning, but where would the fun have been in that? He wanted to ensure that each and every person that had served to torture his existence during his position as Tactician would pay. Oh, they would pay dearly. He took a Steel Axe from a wooden rack in the tent, then hefted it high and brought it down with force impossible for a human...
"EEEEEEK!" The piercing shriek of the distressed Serra woke everyone up in an instant. "Come quick! It's awful! EEEEEK!" She screeched once more for good measure. Merlinus ran in, huffing, puffing, and covering his ears.
"What is it? What's happened to my beautiful armory? It's-OH ELIMINE, NO!" he quickly ran to a table containing the Pure Waters Florina had bought in the battle outside the Shrine and put one that had been knocked over back in perfect alignment. "It's okay, daddy's gotcha," he said in his most counseling voice. Serra stared at him as though he'd committed a despicable crime.
"Not THAT! All my awesome Life staves have been snapped in two!"
"Oh? Oh my goodness!" Merlinus almost jumped out of his skin as he saw the damage that had been done. Metal shards were strewn about everywhere, and the shattered staves periodically emitted sparks.
"What's happening?" Lyn said as she walked in, looking sleepy.
"Someone smashed all my beautiful staves!' Serra screamed. "Do something!"
"Oh, no..."Lyn said. "This can only mean one thing..."
"No more Nabatan Roulette?" Hector/Nino said as he/she came in, looking disappointed.
"Okay, that. But also, someone has snuck into our camp! We're too vulnerable at night! Sain, Erk!" she said to the two magic users, who had conveniently just walked in. "We need to double-no, triple our night watch! Come up with some kind of hyper-stimulating potion to keep people alert!"
"Right away, milady," Erk/Canas said. Bartre also conveniently walked in and handed them a book entitled "Hyper-Stimulating Potions to Assist Night Watches," and the three immediately walked off, beginning to read.
"That axe man never ceases to amaze me..." Lyn said, staring after them.
"WHAT? Our Life staves have been destroyed?" Marcus yelled in his cozy Tactician's tent as Lyn relayed him the news.
"I'm afraid so, Tactician Marcus. We're already quadrupling our night watch to address the problem of nighttime assassins."
"Ugh, this is terrible!" Marcus cried. "Not being able to resurrect everyone...this changes things." He strained to lift a 2-foot tall stack of battle plans from his desk and tossed them into the conveniently located and extremely hazardous bonfire roaring in his tent.
After several more days, Florina's training sessions hadn't gotten any better. She was dreading today-Dart had promised her chin-ups, and then some more chin-ups. As usual, he made her feel completely helpless; she had to rest her arms for several minutes in between chin-ups, all the while watching Dart do one-handed ones with Wallace weighing him down in full armor. (30 strength is an amazing thing, after all)
"Hey, look at it this way," Wallace said happily. "You have to do half as many!" Both of them laughed uproariously as if he'd made the world's best joke, but it just made Florina feel worse.
Deciding that chin-ups were a great form of exercise, Wallace combined them with Florina's laps, rigging up an enormous bar to his armor and running alongside her, forcing her to either run full tilt or do even more chin-ups. As usual, the sun was setting by the time she finally finished, knowing that training with Karel would be even worse.
Also as usual, she was right. Karel had (finally!) decided that her horizontal slash had improved from abysmal to mediocre, and his death threats had become sparse...so he had her start with downward and upward strikes. The threats began anew, and she kept dropping her stick. Lyn had to intercede several more times when Karel threatened Florina to the point of tears; he'd supplemented his customary death threats with lethal sword strikes precisely pulled back at the last second to terrify her even futher. She finally finished late, and slumped down tiredly next to her sister for dinner.
"And now, for the first time ever, and, uh, ever, presenting..." Wil went on building the crowd's nonexistent excitement up, pretending to speak into a stick. "Our crazy trans-personality peoples, with their new cool names! Nector!"
"Yay!" Nino/Hector jumped up and down for joy. As Wil spoke each of the names, everyone politely clapped, then returned to eating dinner as though nothing had happened. Unfazed, Wil continued.
"Cerk!" he yelled next, pronouncing it like "Kirk." Erk/Canas gave a quick bow.
"Eddie!" Sain/Erk ignored him; general mutters of confusion were heard.
"Priscino!" Nino/Priscilla turned away from Raven momentarily.
"Hectas!" Canas/Hector jumped up and shouted "Wooo!" in a distinctly un-Canas-like way.
"And Sainzilla!" Priscilla/Sain sobbed even harder at having attention called to his/her confused state; Bartre comforted him/her in a distinctly un-Bartre-like way.
"Can we just eat?" 'Eddie' asked.
Afterward, everyone gathered around the mages' tent.
"Welcome to the new night watch!" Lyn addressed everyone. "It is our duty to keep this camp safe, secure, and...safe!"
"You said 'safe' twice," Heath commented.
"Quiet," Lyn cautioned. "Whoever has been sneaking around our camp could be anywhere!"
"You sure aren't being quiet," Heath continued. Lyn gave a quick hand signal; Kent walked up behind Heath and hit the back of his head as punishment.
"Okay, here is the potion," Cerk said, holding a bottle filled with brownish liquid. "I call it Hyper-Coffee."
"What's coffee?" Lyn asked, confused.
"I don't know. It's extremely concentrated, so everyone, take one drop. Any more, and you'll never sleep again," Cerk ended on an ominous note.
Kent, the long-timer in the night watch, was first. He put a drop into his milk and drank; almost immediately afterward, his eyes grew slightly wider and his hands began to tremble.
"Interesting," Kent said, his voice quavering slightly. After seeing its effect on the stoic Paladin, everyone else lined up nervously and began taking the potion.
"I must warn you," Eddie added. "It can tend to lead to...overexcitement." He got an illustration as Kent went nuts.
"DIE MOUSE DIE!" he shouted, whacking the ground around him with his sword. Everyone stared; Florina clung to her sister, wondering what the potion would do to her.
"It sure is lucky Nector's already in bed," Lyn said thankfully. The hyperactive Lord already had to be tied into bed each night, and they had kept the existence of the Hyper-Coffee a secret from him/her.
"So, who all is on the night watch now?" Hectas asked.
"You mean who isn't on the night watch?" Lyn answered. Besides Nector, only Tactician Marcus and Serra (who claimed she needed her beauty rest) were in their tents; everyone else in the party was guarding them.
Contrary to what she'd been fearing, Florina didn't feel very different after a drop of the Hyper-Coffee in some water. She had a strange urge to fun and jump around like crazy, but her reserved nature kept it from rising to the surface. She held her lance in one hand and current training stick in the other; Karel, who had waived his right to the Hyper-Coffee and probably never really slept anyway, had taken to randomly attacking her, usually resulting in her humiliation.
As she'd expected, Karel lunged from behind another tent, his sword drawn and eyes crazed. She shrieked with fear and surprise, but surprisingly, almost reflexively, brought her lance and stick up in an X-shaped block. Karel's eyes actually registered surprise, as did everyone around her, impressed by the girl's incredibly fast action.
"Maybe it was the Hyper-Coffee..." She murmured to herself as Fiora and Lyn congratulated her and Karel walked off, cursing under his breath.
Dan chuckled as he watched the night watch from a tree, invisible in the shadows. Those fools, he thought for the hundredth time. With all of them guarding the perimeter of the camp, it would be only too easy to do whatever he pleased inside it. And he had the perfect idea after overhearing the last conversation...
He slinked into Nector's tent; the Lord was sleeping (and snoring) heavily, chained into bed. He ripped a page out of a nearby picture book and wrote 'Candy in the mages' tent' on it. Remembering that Nino couldn't read, he flipped it over and drew a crude picture. He left it sitting on Nector, then flew off into the night, laughing madly...
Has Dan brought total chaos upon the camp? Will Nector ever sleep again? Is Hyper-Coffee the key to Florina's swordmastery? Who isn't on the night watch, anyway? Will we see any Sainzilla destruction? Is Marcus a terrible tactician? Is Merlinus a compulsive-obsessive organizer? Find out all these or not in the next chapter!
That's the fourth chapter! R&R, everyone! And yes, the "candy" Dan directed Nector to is the Hyper-Coffee. Prepare for havoc.
Dan: I am so evil now.
Sure are.
Kent: DIE FLORINA DIE!
Florina: EEEEEEEEEK!
Uh oh. Stupid Hyper-Coffee.
Legault: Can I be in the cool story thing?
Yeah, sure, whatever. R&R! Oh, and one more thing: in the next chapter, SOMEONE. WILL. DIE.
Karel: I sure hope it's Florina.