Anna smiled as the six new heroes gathered around her. "Now I'm sure you are all wondering why your clothes changed…" she began.

"YEAH AND WHY DO I HAVE FOX EARS?!", shouted Karn.

"I WAS getting to that!", Anna snapped back. "When you all traveled through the portal, it basically changed you into the Fire Emblem class that matched your personality." She walked around the circle, stopping in front of each of them.

"Lyle the Thief, Reina the Myrmidon, Eliza the Cleric, William the Tactician, Lillian the Mage, and Karn… the Kitsune."

"Wait… I'm a... kitsune?!", asked Karn. "Ok that… may not be so bad." He reached a hand up and began feeling his ears again. Suddenly his face twisted up in a pained expression. A ripping sound could be heard around them. When Karn looked back, there was now a long black furry tail sticking out of his pants. "Now this is too weird"

Eliza couldn't help but start laughing. "Oh my God you look so cute!" she ended up laughing so hard that she fell to to the ground gasping for air. "Ok… I'm sorry that was too funny." the other champions all nodded with amused expressions on their faces. Lyle then cut in.

"So if we are in the Fire Emblem world, Anna. Won't we need weapons? We are in the middle of a field and if we know anything about this universe, it's that bandits are everywhere."

"Oh yeah! Nearly forgot. Circle around me everyone!" Everyone re-circled around Anna and she picked up her staff. "Naga give me strength…" she murmured. Striking the ground with the staff, it began to glow until the staff rose into the air and split apart. It turned into several different weapons and each went to one of the warriors around Anna. Lyle reached up and grabbed an Iron Sword, Reina an Iron Katana, Eliza took hold of a healing staff, William and Lillian both received tomes, and Karn reached up to get a beaststone. Anna, reached up and the staff returned to her as a Silver Sword and a Physic Stave. "There. Now you should all be set. Sadly I can only give you the base forms of your weapons, but we'll buy something better once we get to our destination."

"And what exactly is our destination?", asked Lillian speaking up.

"Well we have to get to Lux, the Edenian capital." Anna said simply. "From there, we'll gather Edenian army and begin our campaign into Dral. Simple logic."

"It's not that simple…" replied Lyle. "I think I speak for all of us when I say we have no actual combat experience. We just play the Fire Emblem games for fun" The others nodded in agreement at the point that Lyle had raised. Anna began to giggle.

"You all don't realize it do you? The second you touched those weapons that my Genesis staff gave you, the knowledge of how to wield them and fight was directly implanted in your minds. You can not only use them, but you'll find you can fight rather effectively. And, Karn, turning into a fox should be no problem for you. Now we seriously need to hurry. The capital is a three days trek from here and with my lu-". Anna's voice was cut short by a sudden growling sound from the nearby woods. "Naga damn it…" she muttered. "Everyone, your first fight is going to be much earlier than expected."

"Sorry, but what exactly was that?" asked William with a cautious air in his voice.

Anna replied. "Well the Dral empire decided at some point that regular soldiers weren't enough so they had their dark mages go to work and develop monsters that are stronger than seven men and can fight for impossibly long periods without rest. We call them… Darklings. They look like regular animals except their skin is black as pitch and their eyes glow as bright as a hellfire. Their one weakness is to go for the heart. Slice that and they go down pretty quickly." As if on cue, a horde of Darklings suddenly came rushing out of the forest. Anna quickly took up her sword and dispatched an oncoming bear Darkling with a single slash. "Remember! Aim for the heart!"

As the group of monsters drew closer, each member raised their weapon. A snake like creature dashed in close to , she tried to raise her staff in a pitiful attempt at self-defense Reina dashed over, trying to kill the creature, but was stopped when it was burnt to dust by a fireball.

"Don't worry", said William his fire tome still glowing brightly. "I'll keep the healer protected. You just focus on taking out those… things." Reina nodded and turned back to the fight. Lyle was dodging attacks from three darklings at once and managing to fight them back at the same time. While it all looked impressive he was actually shocked that his own body could perform these maneuvers. When a creature that vaguely resembled a wolf swung at him, Lyle ducked the claw swipe and managed to get behind the creature. He kicked it in the back sending it staggering in Lillian's direction.

Lillian saw the monster and raised her own tome. The book began to glow a bright yellow and Lillian instinctively raised her right hand as an electric current started to charge up. A blast of lightning shot from her palm and struck the monster in the chest. It stood there for a few moments as the electricity did its damage. Then it fell onto the ground and promptly disintegrated.

Karn was trying to dodge attacks from the various creatures that were on his tail. His attempts at fighting back were limited to punching and kicking the darklings when they got too close to him, albeit not being a terribly effective strategy. Eventually, Karn found himself down on his back and a darkling looming over him. Right before it was about to bring down the final blow, a sword swipe could be heard. The darkling vanished and Anna stood over Karn.

"You do realize you can fight too right?" asked Anna as she helped Karn to stand. "You have a beaststone for Naga's sake! Please use it."

"But I don't know how!" replied Karn. "You do realize this isn't exactly my world here?"

"I do" Anna said. "Look, I'm no expert with shapeshifters in this world, but I have been told that transforming is easiest when you take your emotions into consideration. Like a sudden rush of anger or a desire to help someone out could spur the change. Like I said, I don't fully know. That is for you to figure out." She promptly dashed off to go assist another member of the group in their fight.

Karn stood there for a few moments and then pulled out the beaststone he had received. He looked up and saw a few of his comrades fighting against the last of the monsters. He saw how hard they were fighting and a determination filled him. He raised the beaststone as it began to shine in his palm.

"RAHHHH!" came a sound across the battlefield. Suddenly a large black fox landed right in the middle of everyone. Two blue flames circled around it as it stood there. It growled again and the flames suddenly began to fire off at the darklings and slowly incinerate every last one of them. Once they were all ash, the fox curled up and changed back into Karn.

"Well I'm glad you all did very well in your first fight." said Anna as they marched down the road en route to the Edenian capital. "Props to you Karn for unlocking your beast form and learning how to use FoxFire. Not many kitsunes ever learn how to use their flames, and you did it like a pro!". Karn nodded sleepily from William's back. Turning into a fox for the first time had left him pretty drained, so William had offered to carry him for a little while to let him rest. "Ok then…" continued Anna. "Now that we are on the road, it's just a few short days till you all get to receive your heroes welcome at Lux!"

As they passed by another forest, the group was completely unaware of a pair of eyes watching them from the trees. The eyes watched the small group and a smile crept onto their owner's face. "So these are the people Anna has found to defend Edenoi? Hmm…. This is going to be more fun than I'd hoped!" The person reached down and picked up a long black sword from the ground. With a single slice through the air, the sword cut open a portal and the figure stepped through it and vanished.


Well this only took my whole Spring Break to finish! LOL. Still fun to write this series and I'm working on getting back a serious commitment to another series I've been putting off. Also, will the group make it to the capital? Who was that person hiding in the trees with the awesome sword? Those questions will be answered later. See you all then!