No takers? Making me write my own Outrealms…oh the bothers…

In all seriousness, I'm very happy with the direction this story is going. And I know what I want to do with my Outrealms now, so no harm done.

With no further ado...

Lesson #8: Control

"Don't give in Robin! You can fight it!" Chrom shouted. "Think of your first memories. Think of our bonds!"

"FOOL!" Validar shouted back. "She is my daughter and Grima's chosen vessel. This is her destiny!"

And then Robin did the last thing in the world that either of them expected her to do. She laughed.

"…Robin?" Chrom couldn't make sense of it.

"You find this amusing?" Validar took it for a sign that he had won.

"I'm just trying to decide which of you is the bigger idiot," Robin chuckled. "You if you still believe I'm your daughter, or Chrom if he still believes meeting him was my first memory."

"WHAT INSOLENCE IS THIS!? I AM YOUR FATHER AND MASTER; OBEY!" Validar flexed his control magic...to no avail…

"…Is that all?" Robin mocked him.

"How!?" Validar demanded. "How did you break my control?"

"The control was never yours. I broke nothing," Robin explained. "All along it was I who controlled you; controlled you so completely that you believed the strings that moved you were yours to pull."

"Lies. Lies! YOU LIE!" Validar would not believe it. He couldn't believe it. How could this BE!? "I gave you life! I raised you to your calling! I…"

"You entered Aversa's mind and made her believe there was a kinship between you. Do you really believe that a higher order of being would be incapable of doing the same to you?" Robin brought the truth crashing down on him. "Can you recall the face of my mother? The night I was conceived? A single childhood memory?"

He couldn't, and Validar broke down as the truth of Robin's words struck him. It was wrong. It was all wrong. What had he DONE with his life? Everything he had ever known...everything he had ever believed…

"…and that day in Southtown?" Chrom didn't like where this was going.

"Not a necessary deception. But a convenient one," Robin loved where this was going. "A woman with no history is a woman with no motive. It would have been simple enough to make one up and make you believe it. But it was simpler still to make you believe I needn't have one."

"Why though?" Chrom still didn't get it. "Why the deception?"

"Do you know how many times Grima has been summoned?" Robin asked in lieu of answering.

"That's not what I asked."

"Three." Robin didn't particularly care what he asked. "Once in the reign of the Third Zunami Empire. Once again in the days of The Flood. And once more in the Saga of King Marth. Each time a champion rose, and each time Grima was cast back into eternal slumber. The sages say that once awakened Grima must be so bound or it will destroy the world and conquer all; a summoning can have no other outcomes. The Sages are WRONG. There is a third possibility. Grima can be unmade, and its power transferred to the one who unamkes it."

"…You don't mean…" Chrom paled. Robin's true intentions finally dawned on him.

"Two things are required to summon Grima; the Emblem and the Sacrifice. Validar delivered the Sacrifice. You delivered the Emblem. And now…I have no more use for you..."

Chrom and Validar never saw her draw her sword, but with a single cut they were both felled.

"TRAITOR!" Fredrick roared, and the Sheppards broke against her.

But Robin's thunder roared louder, and Fredrick's fight left him when a bolt of it smashed through his armor. One-by-one, the Sheppards met their fate.

"Poor little Lucina; what are you thinking?" Robin advanced on her when she was the last one standing, ignoring the dead and dying strewn around her and the cries of those who had not perished instantly from her blows.

Despite herself, the princess retreated and trembled.

"I was right all along. Why did I back down? I should have killed her when I had the chance. Do not trouble yourself with such thoughts. Take solace in knowing that there is absolutely nothing you could have done to stop this," Robin had her cornered. "Even if you had struck at me with intent to kill, your blade would never have cut me."

Lucina mustered the last of her courage and came at Robin screaming with a heroic strike. But the attack bounced harmlessly off of Robin's Pavise.

And then Robin ran her through, and Chrom cried out as the woman he had once considered his closest friend in the world killed his daughter in front him.

"I said I had no more use for you. This may have been…premature…" Robin stepped over Chrom and went for Validar. She tossed him the Fire Emblem. "There is one more thing you can do for me. Go ahead and summon your god, so that I may kill it."

"Did you know?" Lyndis asked.

"I didn't want to know," Mark admitted. Love had a strange way of blinding men to obvious truths; one reason among many why that precious, precious thing that moved men's souls had fallen out of favor with him. "I was blind to it."

He had to have known. It had been wishful thinking at best and willful ignorance, more likely, that made him believe love had changed her. That her lust for power had abated when her passions entwined with his own and that motherhood had made her a kinder, gentler Robin.

"Then what you told me that day in Araphen," Lyn still flushed at the recollection of how she had thrown herself at him. "Was that because…"

"There is no because; it is what it is." If Lyn had expected Mark to be any more open now than he was then, she'd have been disappointed. "I told you I could offer you something physical and nothing more. And I spoke truth."

"Do you still love her?"

"…"

"Mark?"

"She needs to be stopped. That's all that matters."

That's a YES. Lyn was no man's fool. But she pushed no further on that front, and asked only "Can you stop her?"

"Before she absorbed Grima's power I would have been equal to the task. Barely. As she is now…"

Mark trailed off, and again, it was what he didn't say that gave Lyn her answer.

"There is a way. I can raise myself to her level." Mark had not yet exhausted his seemingly endless bag of tricks. "It will be dangerous and I will have to risk all, and the pursuit of power may consume me. That is why before I attempt it, I must first make the rest of you a match for what I am today. Should I fail—should I lose myself—you must kill me."

"I would never!" Lyn refused. "Even if I could. How could you ask me to end your life?"

"Have you forgotten where we are?" Mark laughed. "Who said anything about death being The End?"

"HE DID IT!" an ecstatic Florina interrupted them.

"Who did what now?" Lyn would have liked just a little more time to see where the Grandmaster's head was at, but that clearly wasn't going to happen now.

"Hector achieved Ignis."

"…Really?" that was a surprise to Mark. In his last conversation with the young lord Hector had told him that his purpose was to become stronger, and Mark had scolded that strength was merely a means to end. Purpose was what you did with it. Hector had scoffed at the distinction as though it meant nothing to him, and Mark had thought the call of Ignis still completely beyond him. But if Florina told it true…

"…Great…now I need another technique to one-up the bastard…" Lyndis could wield her Ignis now at will, as could Eliwood. Hector was still a ways behind them, but she had no doubt that now that he had achieved manifestation he would soon be able to do the same. "Whatcha got for me, Mark?"

"Learn to fight in armor." Mark advised her, not for the first time. And then he took his leave. That Hector had grown stronger since he stopped neglecting his training and started getting closer with Florina, Mark had no doubt. But Ignis? Could he really?

Mark found him sparring with Eliwood. His technique had improved immensely; what Linus had taught him of shields and what Florina had taught him of embracing rather than fighting Mark's lessons, he had taken to heart. With shield blocks on top of plate mail Hector's form left very few openings, and it was only by the reach of his longsword that Eliwood was able to dance around his guard and put any damage on him at all.

But when Eliwood dealt his damage he glowed a fiery red, and the damage was catastrophic. Hector crackled blue and clashed against Eliwood's Ignis and even managed to push the prince back...for a moment. Then Eliwood shouted and burned brighter still, and Hector fell backwards and collapsed as fiery red spirit energy overwhelmed the crackling blue.

"Not bad for a first attempt. You're almost there…" Eliwood panted and sheathed his sword. It had taken the full of his exertions to beat Hector back. Then he caught sight of Mark with Lyndis and Florina. "You were watching?"

"…I was…" Mark reflected upon what he had just seen. The technique had been sloppy and the manifestation hadn't been stable, but there was no question. Hector had used Ignis. As for Eliwood…

"What did you think?" Eliwood expected high praises.

"There is a flaw in your technique." Mark had first seen it when Eliwood found his inner fire and split the mountain. Then had seen it again when Eliwood took up the habit of sparring against Lloyd. And now saw it once more in his bout against Hector. "You use too much power. That's why you tire yourself out so quickly."

"But that's…I thought…I don't even use half as much power as you do!" Eliwood thought breaking clashes with power overwhelming was exactly what he was SUPPOSE to be doing with the completed technique.

"Nor should you. You haven't that much to use. But that is not the problem; your power is still growing. The problem is the power you do have is not being used efficiently."

"I don't understand…I use the technique exactly as you do..." Eliwood's first instinct had been to enter battle blazing and swing as many times as he could before the blaze died down. This he now knew to be error. And so he flared only on the clash or when his blade struck home and then immediately simmered down to conserve energy, just as Mark had taught him. "What am I doing wrong?"

"I will show you." Mark removed his robe and took a bare-chested stance; knees bent and arms crossed and feet planted firmly on the ground.

Eliwood drew his blade.

"Away put your sword; you shall not be needing it for this lesson," Mark instructed. "Try to move me."

"Move you?"

"From this spot." Mark deepened his stance. "Push against me and try to move me."

Eliwood pushed and shoved and slammed against him as hard as he could. But Mark would not budge.

"HARDER!" Mark commanded. "Your most forceful push; put some flare into it!"

Eliwood glowed and fired up and slammed into Mark with the power of his Ignis boosting his shove. And still Mark would not budge.

"This force that pushes against me; you are using all your power to produce it." Mark noted. "Do you feel my resistance?"

"Urghhhh," Eliwood could only affirm by way of grunting. It was like pushing against a castle wall.

"How much power am I using to hold you back right now?" Mark asked.

"Nothing. You're just THERE." Eliwood was beginning to grasp his meaning.

"More than nothing. But less than you," Mark saw that he understood. "Now I'm going to push against you with the same level of power that you use to push against me…"

Mark flared—no brighter than Eliwood—and Eliwood went flying.

"That is the difference between releasing your power in controlled, precise movements and letting it bleed out in a wild gush." Mark donned his cloak once more. "You have learned the basics of the form. Build upon them."

"What about me?" Hector had regained his footing. "Where do I go from here?"

"…I don't even know where you are…" Very few things baffled Mark. Hector's progress baffled him. "What purpose moved you to call out Ignis?"

"Growing stronger," Hector answered.

"That's not possible. Growing stronger isn't a PURPOSE." Mark furrowed his brow in frustration. "WHY do you want to grow stronger?"

"Well…you told me that I wasn't even in the top five anymore and that REBECCA was stronger than me. And…I don't know…I guess that just made me realize I was slipping…"

"Competitive spirit alone didn't get you there," Mark knew there had to be something else. "If not being the strongest bothers you, it means there's something you want to do with your strength. What is it?"

"Dunno." Hector shrugged.

"Then for the life of me, I don't know how you did what you just did." Mark thought about it every which way, and it was still absurd. The only explanation that vaguely made sense was that Hector DID know; but was just too embarrassed or unexpressive to say it. But Hector had never been one to be unexpressive or embarrassed, and if he was now, the Why? of it raised more questions than it answered.

"That was WAY better then my first time! You're going to be so strong!" Florina ran up to Hector and gave him a big hug, and it occurred to Mark then what it was that could move Hector's soul so boldly but leave him too timid to speak. He said nothing more of it, and advised Hector how to go about completing the technique.

Later Mark would make the rounds to see the rest of his students. All were growing stronger; each at their own pace.

Raven had failed to make any progress in achieving Ignis and had begun to grow frustrated…until Mark suggested he failed to progress not because he lacked ability, but because his soul was meant to be weaponized in a different form. Sure enough—as impossible as it had been for him to learn Ignis—Raven responded naturally to lessons in Aether. And even with an incomplete version of the technique, Raven could go toe-to-toe with any of the lords.

Rebecca too had begun to pull ahead of the pack; all her lessons finally falling into place and the bigger picture finally starting to click. She was fast and strong and clever—nimble in leather and brutally efficient with her weapon of choice—and when she fired her Astra one arrow became five arrows. Even the sword was becoming familiar to her, as she trained with Lowen and taught him what she knew of rising up from humble beginnings.

Heath and Legault and Farina had reached at least a basic understanding of the fundamentals, catching up to the slower veterans who had never learned anything more.

Kent and Fiora continued to push each other to new heights, and Sain was never one to lag behind Kent.

Nino, as predicted, showed explosive growth the moment she came under the tutelage of one who actually cared to develop her tremendous power (Mark still could not believe that as deep as her inner strength ran, Sonia had never once seen fit to tap into it). In a week's time she had outpaced Lucius, Canas, Erk, and Priscilla…and still her growth rate showed no signs of slowing down.

Linus and Lloyd and Jaffar were troublesome. They presented the same problem as Marcus. It was an easier thing to learn than to unlearn, and they already knew so much it was difficult for them to start over from scratch. Mark found that teaching them his art was like teaching an old fisherman who had made his livelihood at sea how to live off of planting and sowing; a harder thing than teaching a blank slate of a youth who had never made any livelihood at all. They were starting off at a higher level. But they would learn slowly if they learned at all, and sooner rather than later they would be overtaken.

…then there were the stragglers…

Wil was hopeless.

Dorcas and Bartre and Oswin were old men set in their ways.

For all his talk of becoming the world's greatest swordsman, everything about Guy was mediocre.

Matthew was as crafty a man as any Mark had ever met and there was no one he trusted more when a plan called for stealth or deception, but in open combat his skills were lacking.

Serra was a fine healer and pleasant company. But her head was in the clouds, and though she could certainly strike a man dead with a spell if she wanted to she didn't have the heart for it.

"INCOMING!" Erk raised the alarm, and Mark sidestepped a beam of Thoron that Nino had fired off without any idea how to aim such high-level magic.

"Eeeek! S-S-SORRY!" the girl cowered as though expecting a beating, and Mark again found himself wondering just what the hell Sonia had been doing for fourteen years.

"…Carry On…" was all Mark offered by way of response, and Nino relaxed when she saw that he meant her no harm.

They are ready, Mark decided. It was time for the next phase of their training. Tonight he would treat them to the Hotrealms and Spiced Rum and a Master's Feast. And they would toast in his honor.

Tomorrow they would enter The Dungeon. And they would curse his name.