When Wishes Come True
Jina: Okay, okay, I promise: no muses, whatsoever. None. Nada. Zippo. Nunca!
Matthew: Why not? We're not that bad.
Jina: AAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!... NO! You're taking over my mind! I do not have control over my own thoughts! NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…..
Matthew: Oh, just get over yourself and deal with it. We're, or at least, I'm, here to stay.
Hector: Me too.
Oliver: Me too!
Eliwood: Me too, even though I wasn't invited!
Jina: to think of it, none of you were ever invited. Except maybe Oliver, once, 'cause I felt bad about taking away his twin. So why the heck are you all here? What is the purpose of having muses, anyway? For me, at least, you just take up writing space. Why did I ever want a muse, anyway?
Matthew: You can ask us the meaning of life, too, and you're just as unlikely to get an answer. Well, a true one, at any rate.
Jina: sigh Oh well. One of you, do the stupid disclaimer.
Eliwood: I'll do it! I never get to do it! Ooh! Pick me! Pick me!
Jina: Don't' be such a dork. Fine, do it. Hurry up, these people are tired of waiting. I'll bet you at least 90 of them never even read these disclaimers, they skip over them. So just get it over with.
Eliwood: Jina does not own Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken. Or Blazing Sword. Or whatever the translation is in English, Jina doesn't know, so neither do I.
Jina: Shut up. Sorry, I didn't mean to snap. But whatever. I'm apologizing to a figment of my imagination…. Scary…Oh! Yeah…. Hey reviewers, thanks soooo much for reviewing! I really appreciate when you let me know if I've messed up the characters or anything.
But I have excellent news! I started a new game on my FE thingy, so I could make sure I was far more accurate. I now have completed Lyn's story in this new game, and right now I'm on the Dread Isle fighting Uhai in Hector mode! Yay me!!! I also made sure to take notes on who was in each chapter, who joined each chapter, who we fought, that sort of thing. So now all my fanfics will be a lot more accurate! Hoorah! Hurray! Huzzah! Sugar high! Woooo!!! Yeah, I know, I'm a dork, I got over it, so should you. Anyways, I just thought I'd tell you this, 'cause it means my stories will hopefully be better, and also it is my excuse for not updating for sooooo long. I feel bad, I know you all you loyal readers' inner children are withering away without new updates from me to keep their fragile joy and amusement sustained. Hehehe… Just kidding. Anyways, on with the fic!
P.S. If there actually is a gang out there named 'Blade', I'm sorry for taking your name, and if I did it's purely coincidence, and if you're actually cool and not losers like the people in my story, I'm sorry for that as well. Please don't kill me.
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Chapter Eleven: Getting Back To the Game Plot (Sort of)
"So, Matthew, are you going to go confront Hector or not? You know that he's going to try to run away. It was obvious by the way he stormed off when Lord Uther refused to send help to Eliwood of Pherae, to assist him in finding his missing father. I think you should go with him. He'll need your help. He's too hotheaded to be able to think clearly in many situations." whispered the voice of Lora, who for three months had been living in Castle Ostia, after traveling all through Elibe alone.
"I'm going to go, of course. The young master isn't good at considering the consequences of his actions; he just kills anybody who gets in his way, swinging around that overly-large axe of his in dangerous ways." Matthew, her fellow thief and best friend replied.
The two had gotten to know each other really well, in the time they spent together in Castle Ostia, playing tricks on Oswin and Hector, scaring everyone in the hallways by popping up out of nowhere, that sort of thing, stuff that thieves like them enjoyed doing for fun. Lora had never been happier, except… she still sorely missed Oliver. She knew why she couldn't see him, though.
The plot of the game, at this part of the story, says that one year has passed since Lyn's campaign ended. Lora knew that, while for the game players it was only a matter of seconds between campaigns, she would actually have to spend a year in the FE world by herself, until the right amount of time had passed. So she had waited, doing what she could to make her new world better, since she could actually kill people here and not get arrested. She never had been able to figure out how that little part of the game worked in the other world, but now she simply dismissed it as a fact of life and circumstance. But she had been lonely, and the only people she could really talk to were murderers and bandits, who never make very good conversation. And after spending three months in Ostia with Matthew and Oswin and Hector, she wasn't feeling lonely anymore.
"Of course he swings it around wildly! He is self-taught, after all. Being risky and dangerous is Hector's personality, so his fighting reflects it, I guess. Anyways, my sources (namely myself) tell me he is in the throne room, preparing to go. You did tell him you would bring him his axe and some traveling provisions, and since I have his axe here, you just need to get the provisions, and get down there before he comes storming up here and chops your head off for holding him up." Lora told him, handing him Hector's axe. Matthew took it, and then looked at her in sudden realization.
"Hey, I just thought of something. Where are you going to go while we are gone? What will you do? Are you going to stay here, or travel again?" he asked her. Lora froze, as she finally realized that if Hector and Matthew, and later Oswin and Serra, were going to go rescue Eliwood…Eliwood would be with his new tactician…Oliver. Which meant that Oliver was back in the game right now, but with Eliwood. And she was in Ostia. Where Eliwood wasn't. And she, as of yet, was not going with Hector and Matthew to save Eliwood. Which meant that she wouldn't be able to meet up with Oliver, at least not for awhile. She could join later, when they returned to Ostia, or travel separate from Matthew and Hector and meet up with them after they joined Eliwood and the rest, somewhere. But did she really want to be alone again? Did she really want to wait even longer to see her brother?
"Oh, Elimine, I hadn't thought of that. Umm…" Lora said, biting her lip.
"Come with us! That way, if the young master gets mad at me, you'll be there to make sure he doesn't chop me into little pieces. Seriously, though. Come with us. We might not be back for awhile, depending on how long it takes us to save the Marquess of Pherae." Matthew instantly suggested. Lora laughed inside herself when Matthew said this, for she knew that they were in for so much more than they expected, so much more.
"Well, I have nothing better to do, so… I guess I'll come." Lora replied, relieved. Now, she could go and see Oliver again, and still be with Matthew, and help Hector, who was also her sort-of friend, though it was almost a like-hate relationship, 'cause he got very upset whenever she took his stuff just for fun. Also, though her friends didn't know it yet, she, alongside them, would be saving their world. Something she had always read about in books, seen in movies, dreamed about, she would finally be able to do it. With Oliver there, too. She couldn't wait to leave.
"Alright, go talk to him, keep him busy, and I'll get the few things I own to bring with me." Lora hurriedly told him, and disappeared. Matthew too, disappeared, after thinking for a minute about what he would say to his lord.
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"Matthew, having you along is bad enough, but bringing another thief, to rob me and harass me the whole trip? No. She's not coming." Hector snapped. Matthew winced.
"Please, young master. She will be as helpful as I will be, which is very, very helpful," he added, seeing Hector roll his eyes, "Maybe even more so 'cause she's a little stronger than me."
"Please? Pretty, pretty please? I promise I'll be good and helpful and I won't take your stuff, so pleeeaaaase?" Lora pleaded. If Hector forbade her to travel with them, she couldn't very well go, 'cause, as a lord and the Marquess of Ostia's brother (plus the fact that she had been staying in his house for three months), he did have power over her, if only a little.
"Oh, ah…fine," Hector grumbled, "Nut you had better keep your promise, or else I'll sell you to the next group of bandits we see."
"Yes!" Lora sighed in relief. Matthew smirked.
"This trip won't be so dull, after all."
"You have to behave too, you little sneak." Hector said, shooting a glare at the cheery thief. Matthew only shot him an innocent, offended look that said, 'Who, me?'.
"You won't even remember we're here, except that you won't have to fight all the enemies yourself. And, you won't have to pay big money to get supplies, obviously, considering our, um, professions." Lora told him in a reassuring voice.
"Sure... Are you ready to go, because we're not waiting for a long time for you. We've got to get out of here before Uther or Oswin find out my plan."
"I'm already prepared. Hold on, we'll be back." Lora replied, and she and Matthew disappeared after glancing at each other quickly.
"Darn thieves, who do they think they are, anyway? Sneaking about like that, lurking in the shadows." Hector grumbled. Abruptly, an unfamiliar figure popped up out of nowhere, clothed entirely in black, their face hidden, except for a pair of vague and mysterious, angry eyes…
&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Oliver's World &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"So, what do you need too know about our 'friends' to help us get rid of them?" said Cian as she leaned back in a rusty old computer swivel-chair and folded her arms across her chest, looking at him inquisitively.
"Well, what is their gang called?" Oliver asked.
"They; thinking they so cool and hot and whatever; decided to call themselves 'Blade', and they decided that this garbage dump, and the surrounding streets, which is our territory, actually belongs to them. They're mean, tough, older than us, (even me), and they don't mind beating up innocent little kids, like the ones I take care of." Cian replied, sighing heavily, with a look of extreme dislike on her face.
"How often do ya fight?" Oliver asked. These 'Blade' people were sounding quite nasty.
"Well, every once in awhile, like especially when business goes down in the restaurants around here and where they stay, and there ain't enough food for everybody. The weird thing is, though, Blade wasn't always this way."
"They weren't?" Oliver inquired, now quite confused.
"No. Not at first. They were just another pack of us street-rats, in the beginnin'. They were older than us, and tougher, but they was like us: hungry, cold, tired, alone except for the rest of us hungry, tired, lonely people. That's why we make gangs and packs; we ain't got no one else. But, they got themselves a new guy, a nasty one. Real mean, real tough, no conscience. He turned them around, from being just another group of kids like us, to being rivals, fighters, greedy little idiots who don't care 'bout nothing else besides stuffing food in their mouths and getting the rest of us out of the way." Cian told him, a far-away look in her eyes as she recalled the events that led up to their awful situation.
"Their leader, Kyla, she was alright," she continued after a moment, sadness flickering in her eyes and across her face as she said the name, "A little rough around the edges, a little aggressive, cold-hearted at first, even; but she would never have attacked us, in the beginning. Her and her gang often took on older, crueler, rivals, the ones who would eat us for food if we didn't get them anything else; she'd get rid of them druggies who scum up the streets, the murderers hiding from the law. But she would never hurt a kid, not any of these brats. She actually brought a few to us, for me to take care of. She was a fairly good person, strong, uncorrupted like so many other things in our world; or so we thought. You see, Kyla, well, I'm pretty sure she's about eighteen years old, and she was lonely for love, I guess. Something like that. That's the only reason I can figure she'd turn on us kids like she did.
Kyla met a guy, named Stefano, when she and her fighters where taking care of some drug-lord. He was alone, and harmless-looking. He had no place to go, he was only nineteen, and he already knew a bit about how to fight… Kyla took him into her gang, and he worked his way up from 'new guy on the block' to 'boyfriend'. She fell in love with him; he supposedly was in love with her too, and… He got his hands on the controls of the Blades. Now, for money, any piece of scum can go up to them, and but their sighting skills, and get rid of people in their way. Druggies, murderers, criminals, all them idiots; if they can afford the Blade, they can get them to 'dispose' of anyone.
But, business for the Blade is going down. A gang can only kill so many people before the police find 'em out. So now, in their spare time, they're trying to take us over, get rid of us, lighten their competition for food. We can fight, at least us older ones can, but… They got skills, and practice, and experience, and we don't. We lost a fight to them a few weeks back; they took the "Judie's Pizzeria" area, where the best food can be snatched. We can't keep fighting, though. We almost lost Lonny to them; they knifed him, and he only just was healed enough to leave the bus with the little ones last week. The only one of us besides me who knows any first aid is Marnie, and she's only ten, and though she helps, she can't do that much. So, the short version of it is; we don't start fighting and winning, we don't got much of a chance." Cian finished, looking sad, and weary. Oliver guessed that she had been fighting for these unwanted kids for a long time, and it was beginning to wear on her, drag her down.
"So, we don't have enough fighters…"
"No, we got plenty of fighters. They just don't got any experience, and we only have me, Marnie the ten year old, and Corlin, to fix 'em up if they get hurt. I'm taking care of little kids who would rather play tag or with a doll, or have a tea party, or with toy soldiers. These kids, I can't make 'em fight. They're babies, practically, for heaven's sake. How can we fight, and lose, and maybe die; when I'm trying to help these kids survive?" Cian interrupted, looking desperate. It was obvious she had spent many a day trying to figure this out.
"Okay, so how many kids you got over twelve?" Oliver asked. He didn't think he could ask anyone younger to fight. Fighting scars you for life, you can forever see the blood of your victims on your hands, hear their voices in your mind, see their faces, their eyes… Oliver couldn't force that on innocent kids.
"Uh, about, five, maybe? We've got the three littlest ones, about five kids who should be in grade school, three kids who are about eleven or twelve, a thirteen year old, me (I'm fifteen), and Corlin, who's thirteen. I think there's a few more, but I don't know their ages, though I'm pretty sure one's as old as me, and the other is twelve. That's everybody, I think. Oh, and you, Tony. How old are you?" Cian told him, counting the kids off on her fingers.
"I'm fifteen." Oliver replied.
"Oh, that's good. Do you fight?"
"Not really, though I do know how to, a little. I'm mostly good on strategizing."
"Say what? I ain't a dictionary, ya know."
"Yeah, well… anyways, I can help you plan out your fights, so that you don't lose. Fighting isn't everything. A good plan will help you out, especially since we have a total of about two people who can and will fight."
"If you say so, Tony. I wouldn't know. I ain't a runaway, I never really got a education, or whatever. I don't know much about figuring things out, and all that jazz."
"So that's why you need me. I can do it for you, and then all you have to worry about is beating off those Blade idiots and keeping you flock-herd-gaggle-"
"Pack."
"Right, pack. I knew that. Whatever. You can protect them. And then, you'll beat the Blade gang so hard, they'll run away crying, back to wherever they belong. I do the planning, you do the protecting, everyone's happy. Deal?"
Cian seemed to think about this for a moment, then grinned and said, "Deal."
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"That was fun." Lora said, wiping blood off her daggers as she walked up to Lord Hector.
"Definitely. I haven't had so much fun in quite some time." Matthew agreed, stepping up beside her.
"Yeah, sure. I'm just glad we managed to get out of that alive. Matthew, you almost died there, when they one assassin got you with his axe." Hector grumbled.
"I was fine. A little scratch, that was all. Nothing big." Matthew said cheerily.
"I'm sure he'll be fine," Lora told Hector, "If he isn't, we can just get rid of him."
"Hey! You can't get rid of me! I'm important. You would be helpless without me, you know." Matthew protested, smirking. Lora and Hector snorted with laughter.
"Shouldn't we get going, now that we've gotten rid of those imbeciles? We do need to leave this castle, at some point. My brother won't remain oblivious forever, and if we want to escape without notice for awhile, we've got to go now." Hector said.
"Right, of course. Do we need anything else for our trip?" Lora asked Matthew.
"Of course not. I'm the one who packed everything, so we have everything I thought we'd need."
"What did you put in here? Knowing you, you packed me ridiculous things I'll never need."
"I did not! Let's just go, before we get stopped." Matthew quickly replied, and then disappeared into the shadows. Laughing, Lora slipped away into the darkness as well. Hector, being a slightly more normal person, just grumbled and mumbled as he clonked through the hallways in his heavy armor, muttering something about "stupid thieves" and "think they're all that" and "just because they can disappear…".
After a while, the trio of Matthew, Hector, and Lora escaped Castle Ostia, and were traversing the countryside. None of the three travelers was saying much, each thinking his or her own thoughts, and remembering, and planning.
Hector was lost in his thoughts of Eliwood's father's whereabouts, what all those assassins hidden in the castle meant, and how the heck they were going to save Marquess Elbert of Pherae if was indeed captured.
Lora was thinking about Oliver, and how he was doing in his world, and whether or not he was staying out of trouble without her there to help him out of it. She was also thinking about the end of the game. Now that they were in Hector/Eliwood mode, they were that much closer to finishing the game. Lora didn't know what would happen at the end of the game. Would she still be here? Would she return to Oliver's world? Would she cease to exist? She was thoroughly lost, confused, and feeling rather depressed, walking down the lonely country roads with her companions with nothing but these thoughts to keep her mind busy.
Matthew was thinking about Leila, a fellow spy and an assassin from Ostia. She was beautiful, with crimson hair that covered one eye, one of a pair that almost exactly matched her hair color, mysteriously. She was smart, and a good spy. She had been given an "important mission", or so she told Matthew. She had been gone for several months now, and Matthew knew next to nothing about her assignment. He wasn't worried, because Leila was stranger and more cunning than he was at times, and was good at getting herself out of sticky situations. But he still missed her. He wanted to talk to her more, introduce her to his parents, be with her more…He really liked her, but they were spies, and loyal to Ostia, and they both had work to do. After her and his mission were both over, Matthew thought he might ask her to put aside the dangerous lives they led, and settle down with him. He couldn't wait. Lora would like her, Lora and Leila were alike, and Lora… Lora. Matthew was still confused about Lora. How he felt about her, her about him. They were friends, good friends, and he liked it that way. Did she? He hoped so. He didn't want their friendship to end. She was one of the only people he had ever trusted, and it was hard to earn his trust. They were just friends, right?
The three companions (well, lord and servants) traveled on in silence, moving steadily down the roads and lanes and paths that led them to Eliwood, a noble quest, a new journey, and a lot of change.
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Author's Notes: Oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodness! I'm reeeeaaaaallyy sorry it took me soooooooo long to get this chapter done. I dunno, I just… had not time, not too much inspiration, and a lot of false starts. Now, at least, it is done. Ha ha! I've finally accomplished something! I'm not lazy! So there, math teacher lady! So there! Yeah, homework (cough cough way too much math homework cough cough) has been keeping me busy. Hopefully, I'll get another chapter up soon. I just have to think of an idea for it… ah! Oh, beautiful butterfly that is all inspiration; why have you flown so far away??? quote from some movie I watched while babysitting yesterday, something about Dalmatians or something, like a zillion or a million or a hundred of them. Yeah, but don't worry, readers! I will come up with something, something interesting (I hope), I promise! Okay, so make sure you tell me what you think of this chapter, if you can. Is the gang stuff too stupid, should I get rid of it? Is some mafia-like gang actually called Blade gonna come kill me in my sleep? Oh, and did anyone see how I made the gang situation like the Black Fang? Anyone? Any takers? I wasn't sure if it was obvious enough. Message me or something if you don't get it, but you should. I think. I might just be delusional and think I made them alike, or something. Or I'm just delusional, anyway. Whatever. Yay for random rambling no one cares about! Anyways, I hope you liked this chapter. Please do me a HUMUNGOUS (spelled right?) favor and review this for me! If you think me story sucks, don't just move on from it! Tell me that you think it stinks (but nicely, please) and why! Thank you! And thank you to you b-e-a-U-tiful people who already review every chapter or whatever. Need I say how cool you are? Thanks!
p.s. OH MY GOODNESS! I just looked at the 'live preview' thingy for this chapter and the whole flippin thing is in italics! Not sure why, but whatever. I can't fix it. Then again, it might just be my computer that's being stupid like that. Anyways, all I want to say is, I didn't make the whole thing in italics, it just came out that way, for some reason. Grr!