"Maya, Jason, help cover our left side!" Robin pointed to a small hill. "There's an outcrop of rock over there. Most of our supplies are stashed there! Think defensive! Pair up and go!"
I nodded. At Robin's words, I felt a strange flow of heroism in my veins. Maybe it was adrenaline, sure, but there seemed to be something other than just smarts in play with the tactician's ability to order people around.
"Jason, let's go," Maya said, grabbing my arm and running off towards the rocks. Our backpacks and saddlebags were lying propped up against the stone, and from behind rocks and trees, almost out of thin air, came the Risen, hissing and glowing. They seemed to come out of nowhere, but they were slow. We got to the bags first, Maya opening hers to grab her spellbook. I opened mine for a different reason.
A black and white feathered head popped out of my leather satchel and looked around. I could hear the Risen shambling towards us, and I notched an arrow, keeping my bow at my side. Henrietta looked around and coo'd. Leaning down, I whispered to her, mumbling to stay inside and keep safe. She needed no further words, and ducked back into my bag as I closed it up. I pulled back on my bowstring. "Okay then, shamble-heads. Let's tango."
The air lit up as Maya blasted a cone of fire in front of her, blasting down several Risen. I opened fire, aiming arrows for the knees in an attempt to keep the undead from moving any further as Maya finished them off. We had a height advantage, sure, but there were way more Risen down there than there were people up with us.
A Risen reached for Maya's calf hungrily, but I pivoted in time, shooting it through the skull and watching it disappear in a cloud of smoke.
"Nice shot," she deadpanned.
I grinned. "Late and without Starbucks, I know." She blasted down a cone of Risen with a searing fire spell again, and I shot down two in rapid succession, before taking out another with a thrown dagger. The Risen kept coming, but Maya and I could take them down almost as fast as they arrived.
I looked across the field and saw Matt and the others fighting as well, taking down swathes of undead monstrosities. Hopefully soon we'd have reinforcements, or we might lose the stuff. I sighed, and shot down another few Risen. "Hey Maya," I said, "Where do you think these guys are coming from?"
Maya sighed. "I don't know, hell?"
"No, like where in this field?"
"I don't know, over there?" She pointed, and I followed her finger across the field. I didn't see anything, but it didn't matter, because I lost my focus.
"Shit! Get down!" Maya shouted, and I obliged. As I dropped to the ground, I felt the hair on my neck tingle and closed my eyes against the bright flash of a lightning bolt. Looking down at the scorched Risen, I smelled a faint odor of ozone.
"Maybe next time you could give me more warning when you are shooting lightning? Or maybe not distract me?" Maya had nearly burned straight through me.
"Maybe you shouldn't stand in front of me!", she snapped. "You have a bow! So use it from the back! You don't need to throw yourself into danger, nor do you need to ask stupid questions in a fight!"
"Robin said to fight defensively! How is burning your partner alive fighting defensively?", I yelled. "Knowing something important isn't stupid."
Maya groaned. "Neither is standing in the middle of a horde with a bow! I can't believe you!"
"Stop being so pedantic!" I shouted back. She was wrong, and, like always, she wasn't letting anyone change her mind. "I hate it when you get like this. This always-" I was cut off by a whistling noise, followed by a sharp pain between my shoulder blades, just off center. "..used…" I fell to my knees. I was suddenly overwhelmed by pain on almost all of my body, but my right arm went numb. "...to happen…" I toppled forward, my face smacking against the rock. I could feel blood wetting my face and my mouth, but I couldn't move much. I could hear Maya screaming, but in slow motion and like behind wool. It was hot, probably from fire spells, and I felt my skin burn and blister, but couldn't seem to leave my own head. It was dark.
After what felt like a long time, I felt boots tramp my way. I could recognize Lissa's voice, and Chrom's. "Is he gonna be okay?", said Maya, her voice filled with dread.
"I hope so," I heard Lissa's usually cheery voice say. "But I don't know. The hatchet landed very close to his spine. Chrom, Maya, keep the Risen away. I need to do some Cleric-ing!" I could feel hands touching my blood soaked shirt, and then the soft warmth of a healing staff. And then I felt the pain. I guess it makes sense, if you are injured but your pain is dulled because your nerves are fucked up, that as it repairs you should feel the pain all over again. But it was...unexpected.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!", I screamed as loud as my lungs could scream. I was suddenly aware of every single thing happening. All I could think of was the stories of people who wake up during surgeries and get to see their own appendix being taken out. I felt stabbing pain digging down through my back and fanning out across the entirety of my body. My right arm still felt numb, but now with pain rather than lack of feeling. My fingers were spasming and my shoulder felt shattered. The burns on my skin where Maya's spells had accidentally grazed were like pain icing on the metaphorical suffering cake: my cracked and blistered skin feeling like I was being flayed alive, much worse than any oven burn I felt as a child. My throat felt raw and I could taste blood, and it felt like my cheek was ripped open. Opening my mouth forcefully so as not to bite my tongue off, I screamed again.
Chrom's deep voice came from above me. "Lissa, can't you stop him from screaming? It's drawing the Risen to us!"
"I'm on it!" Lissa lifted my head and, after a ripping noise, I felt a piece of cloth jammed into my mouth. "Okay," she said. "You might not hear me, but if you do, I want you to bite down on this hard. Don't worry, though, this shouldn't hurt at all!" She was lying. It hurt like a bitch. But I could feel the uneasy knitting together of flesh, spreading out from where Lissa must've placed her staff on my back. Slowly the pain eased, but I was pretty sure I was biting through the fabric in my mouth.
I heard Maya's voice from above me. "Is he okay? Lissa?" She sounded... worried? I was in incredible pain, but I felt a little better, suddenly. She was worried about me, and Matt probably was too. I hadn't come through to this crazy war torn world alone, I had friends who worried. I tried to speak, but I was hit again by another wave of pain.
"AAAAGH!" I screamed, and I heard Lissa and Chrom fussing again. Lissa touched her staff to my back again, and the pain started going down.
Chrom shouted again. "Lissa! Keep him from screaming better!"
"I'm trying!"
"Stay here with Maya and Jason. I need to go down there with everyone else. Maya, can I trust you to keep these things safe, with Lissa's healing?"
Maya's voice steadied. "Sir, yes sir!" She said, and I thought I heard just a hint of sarcasm in her voice. My vision fuzzed, but I was starting to regain feeling in my body that wasn't pain. Lissa pressed her staff against my back again and my stomach turned. The pain was fading, and even the soreness in my throat from screaming was healing. This really was magic. "Uuuuugh", I groaned out, flopping over onto my back. I opened my eyes into the bright sunlight to see Maya and Lissa standing over me, like the opening cutscene of the game we were now stuck in. "Hey guys," I croaked, "what'd I miss?"
Lissa and Maya grinned and Maya helped me sit up. "How're you feeling?" She said.
I frowned. "Like I just got axed in the spine."
Lissa cocked her head. "You did!", she said, too cheerfully.
"I know you just woke up," Maya said, looking behind her. A groan echoed from below and I noticed groups of Risen heading our way. "But are you ready to kick some zombie ass?"
I struggled to my feet, wincing with pain before bracing myself on her shoulder. I smiled, and grabbed my bow. "I thought you'd never ask."
(POV SWITCH: Matt)
As soon as I began to run towards the fortress, I regretted my decision. I have never been what one would consider stealthy, and as soon as I broke into my sprint the two risen turned towards me. Shit. I thought, slowing my pace slightly. No use rushing to my death, now was there? What was Robin thinking? Was I a sacrifice or something? No, I thought, you're thinking to hard into this. Just go! I cleared my mind and broke into a sprint again.
The risen began to advance on me, splitting to either side of me as they did so. The risen on my right roared, spewing purple smoke everywhere, and charged me. I stopped and readied my sword. The first swing came horrizontally at my chest. I ducked backwards, like I was doing limbo, and came back up swinging and landing a hit on the risen's arm. He wasn't even fazed. In the same motion of his first swing, he brought his axe back towards me, aiming for the right side of my stomach. I jump to the left, almost losing my footing on a rock I hadn't seen. The risen on the left was upon me now too. He brought his axe down and would have smashed my head in if I hadn't put my shoulder guard up in time. With this risen bearing down on me, the other was free to get some hits in. I had to move. I kicked the first risen away, falling backwards as I did so to avoid a swing that would've connected with my spine. I bet that would've sucked. I scrambled back to my feet and got back into a battle stance. The risen on the right got all excited again and decided to charge ahead without his friend. I was ready this time. As the risen tried once more for my chest, I shouted in righteous anger (It felt like the thing to do) and swung downward as hard as I possibly could. I cut off the risen's arm at the elbow, sending his axe to the ground. The risen roared in anger and tried to punch me with his good arm. I grabbed the arm by the wrist and pulled him into my raised knee, sending the risen sprawling down. Quickly, I thrust the sword into it's chest and watched it disintegrate.
I panted hard, marveling at my work. That was a mistake. I lost focus. The second risen was upon me, and he had just embedded his axe into my side.
"... Ah…" Was all that I could muster as I sank to the floor. I looked up weakly. The risen lumbered over to me, slowly raising his axe. My hand fumbled at my belt, undoing one of my elixors from the leather and raising it to my lips. The axe was raised, he was close now. Drink! I yelled to myself in my mind. I held my head back and chugged like I was die if I stopped. And I was. My side began to glow blue but it was happening too slowly. I closed my eyes and braced myself for the blow. I heard a sickening sound as blade cleaved through flesh… but I didn't feel any pain. I opening my eyes. A bronze sword stuck out of the risen's chest. As it dissapated into smoke, Stahl came into view. He just looked around for a moment, looking to see if there were more risen, and then turned to me smiling.
"You're name was Matthew right?"
"Um… yeah." I said, trying to maintain my dignity.
"There's no reason for you to be fighting alone you know right? Why didn't you have anyone help you?" He asked, tilting his head to the side.
"Robin told me to do this on my own." I said. I still didn't know why.
"Ah, I see. Well, I finished my portion of the risen early so I thought I'd look around and see where I can help. You need anything?" Gah, he was just so nice!
"Nah, thanks, I'm good now." I gestured to my side, which was now fully healed from the elixor. "I should be able to make it to the fortress now." Stahl nodded and spurred his horse to another portion of the battle. I slowly rose up and began to walk towards the fortress. Out of no where and arrow shot out of the fortress and landed by my foot. I broke into a sprint (I was getting tired of this) and ran back and forth to try and avoid the arrows. The flew by my one by one until I finally managed to reach the fortress. I ducked inside to find a risen archer. This one wasn't as aggressive, and it just stared at me. It leapt at me after a moment and I slashed it down.
"You're not supposed to be here…." Said a voice in my mind. Oh boy. This wasn't good.
"Hey Grima." I said back. Grima laughed.
"How delightful, you're trying to play this casually. If I were at my full power I would destroy your mind right now, but I digress. You know this world. You're not from this world. I will not have you interfering with my plans. I have won this battle once already, and I refuse to lose it this time. Naga may have reversed time for you, but in doing so she is now very, VERY weak. You lost this battle before it began. You should have let my archer kill you. You have no goddess on your side anymore." So the archer was his. I guess that was the first assassin we would be seeing.
"Get out of my head." I said calmly.
"If I had more power, I would be making a nice little home for myself here, even if for now I must retreat. Naga's power taints you and banishes me from your mind. I doubt we shall be speaking like this again. But know this, Matthew. You will die here. And before you do, I'll destroy everything you learn to love."
"I won't let you."
"I don't need your permission. Good-bye, performer. This stage is too small to have both you and I on it." I felt Grima's essence leave my mind, and it didn't seem like he'd be coming back. I sighed and looked out the fortress window. Chrom and Frederick had just taken down the Risen Chief.
(Jason)
The rest of the battle went similarly to the beginning: Maya and I shot down groups of the Risen, with the exception of Lissa being there to heal us up if a Risen got to close and to keep us focus. Out across the valley, the Risen groups were starting to to thin. I saw the giant Risen chief fighting against Chrom, Robin, and Frederick, and as he fell, the others seemed to stop coming. With their commander down, the Risen dispersed and the ones we took out were not replace anew. We were winning.
"Hey, you guys, it looks like we've cleared the Risen away mostly," Lissa bubbled, "Should we go down to where everyone else is? You know, it can't be good to be separated and all that and-"
An undead moaned behind me, and I pivoted and shot through its skull. "That's probably a good idea," I said. "Let's grab what we can carry down, though." We tossed a pack or two each over our shoulders and headed down towards the field where the rest of the fighting was happening. I noticed Vaike gleefully finish off several Risen that Virion had pinned to trees or the ground with his arrows. Miriel pointed at one of the zombies that seemed to be crawling away, and smiled slightly as it exploded into flames. Stahl and Sully were racing around on horseback, trampling or spearing any stragglers. Lissa, Maya, and I approached the small hill where Chrom and Robin were standing talking with Matt. Behind them, Frederick stood guard.
Chrom noticed us standing there first. "Jason! It's nice to see that you're recovered from that axe. It looked nasty when it hit."
Matt looked worried. "Oh yeah, I heard you took a hard hit. How did that go?"
I shrugged. "I've done worse. And besides, I had Maya's 'protection'." I elbowed her with the elbow that had been most badly burned. "Eh, I'm fine. How did everything fare down here?"
Robin opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by a squeal. We all looked around, panicked, before realizing the source of the scream. Sumia. We all broke into a dash over the hill towards her. She was the weakest of the our band of mercenaries and stayed back during fights, often tripping over her own feet while marching. I was pulling my bow from my back, Chrom and Matt had their swords drawn, Maya and Robin had spellbooks out, and Frederick was galloping towards us, Lissa sitting sidesaddle on the back of his horse. We came over the hill to see...nothing.
"Oh no! Sweetheart, what happened to you?" Sumia had her arms wrapped an enormous white horse with…
"Wings?" Maya raised an eyebrow, standing on the crest of the hill looking down at Sumia bandaging a gash on the pegasus' side. "Is that a fucking pegasus?"
I nodded. Everyone seemed held in awe before Chrom snapped back into the moment. "Sumia!," he shouted running down towards her, "Be careful! That is an unpredictable wild animal!" As he approached, the Pegasus reared and whinnied.
Sumia touched it gently, calming it. "Chrom," she said, "you should stay back. She's startled very much right now. I'll stay behind with her while you all move on towards Regna Ferox, and make sure she heals well, okay? I'm not much use in a fight anyways."
Chrom looked back at Robin. The tactician nodded. "I think that's best, Sumia," he said. "As long as you stay safe here, and make sure to get back to us as soon as possible. We don't want you stranded out here in the wilderness."
She grinned. "Will do, Robin! I'll catch up as soon as I can." She turned back towards the pegasus, and our group walked back towards where we came from.
"What was that?" Matt asked me.
"Um...Sumia getting a pegasus, I guess?" I replied.
"No, I mean...that's not how it happens in the games. Everything is a little bit off right now...I don't know why but-"
Maya cut in. "I don't think you need to fuss, Matt. Like...we are here, too, and thats very different, so obviously this isn't just like the game."
Matt sighed. "Yeah, I guess. Just...if the most basic of things is different, what will happen to the rest of the world."
I didn't want to think about the implications of this discovery. It was like the stock market, or the weather, or any other complex system. The butterfly effect could take hold, and something as simple as Sumia meeting a pegasus in the wrong field could change the course of events to come. And with such a minor detail being changed already, just days after our arrival to this timeline that wasn't our own, I was afraid of what changes we would see after we'd been here for weeks, months, or, Naga forbid, even years.
A/N- No song this time! So the reason why we had that little POV switch thing in the middle is because...you already see what Maya and I are doing in the first half, and Matt had ideas for what to do in this battle. Since I didn't want the timing of chapters to be too simultaneous, we thought this would work better. So yeah, anyways, first BIG fight, first interaction with Grima, first notice of changes, first major injuries. I hope you guys all enjoy~ Also, if you have any songs that you would like to see in this fic, shoot us a message and we'll see if it fits for what we have planned. :)
