Robin found himself standing atop a large plateau. Save for the lone Risen before him, not a soul was in sight.

Said Risen didn't deign to bother with formalities. Wordlessly, the assassin attacked his target, his single-edged blade lethal in its speed and precision. For the first time in this era, Robin was forced onto the defensive in a straightforward sword-fight. The tactician, seeking to steal back some momentum, lashed out with a kick at the Risen's leg, only for the assassin to shield against the strike with a raised shin before countering in kind. Robin blocked the blow with his elbow, but the resultant opening forced him to use Pass to disengage lest he be impaled. The tactician landed with a skid some feet away, but the Risen did not pursue, waiting patiently.

"Who the hell are you?!" Robin asked again. "Answer me!"

"You're insistent, outlander. My name is forfeit, but you may have my title if it interests you so greatly. I am called Porcus, Twelfth among the Deadlords."

Robin's jaw dropped. This was Porcus?! But that wasn't right at all! Porcus had been bald, with a large nose, two eyes, and a frail frame! What's more, he had fought with a bow, not whatever the hell that projectile back there had been!

Back there. Robin swallowed dryly. The pace of combat had been so frantic that he hadn't even had time to internalize what had just happened. Gods only knew where he was right now. He took a deep breath to steady himself. Calm down. Reason things through.

This was a Deadlord. Deadlords had extremely stringent summoning conditions, one of them being a minimum maintained proximity to their master. Even putting aside Warp's range, Robin couldn't possibly be more than a few miles from Aversa—and consequently, the battlefield—right now. But how had he been sent here in the first place? Staff-based magic was not a specialty of the Grimleal, and no ordinary mage could cast Warp (assuming that the spell had been Warp; Robin was hard-pressed to think of alternatives.). It was a technique believed to have been lost centuries ago, just like Reflet's light magic.

Oh. Of course. That was the rub. Robin straightened his back and narrowed his eyes. "Can I take it that Canis is the one who sent us here?"

Porcus arched a brow. "Oh... You're somewhat sharp. I have no fondness for my summoner, so I won't bother with denial. And frankly, I couldn't care less about what happens to the Nohrian."

The tactician blinked. Nohrian? What the hell was a Nohrian? ...No, forget it, there wasn't any use in fretting over that detail. At the very least he would have to assume that this version of Canis would also be markedly different from the one he had encountered in his own world.

A realization caused Robin's blood to become as ice within his veins. Canis was in all likelihood still at the border pass. Lucina flashed through the man's mind, prompting him to set his teeth.

Don't panic. He'd defeated a Deadlord before; he could do it again. Eliminate the threat, then return to Luce's side with all haste.

"Sorry, 'Porcus'," Robin murmured, "but I have somewhere I'm needed. I'll be sending you back to hell now."

The Deadlord angled his katana. "By all means, end this disgraceful charade. That is, if you can."

Gangrel gritted his teeth as he clutched at splintered flesh and bone. "Well now!" he shouted for all to hear. "What a bellicose declaration of war you've offered us, Exalt Emmeryn! Does the sanctity of parley mean nothing to the spawn of Naga, you treacherous sow?!"

At their king's words, affronted Plegian soldiers began to bellow in support.

Gangrel glanced downward at the Princess of Ylisse. The little brat had slept through such grand happenings. The king had half a mind to hack the pathetic excuse for royalty to bloody pieces over what had occurred just now.

But no, that would be rash. The king snapped his fingers, prompting some of his surviving attendants to approach and carry the Ylissean girl away, while others set to splinting the monarch's arm.

Gangrel drew his Levin Sword and held it high. "Friends! Brothers! See now the heart of the enemy! If they wish for war, then by Grima we shall give it to them!"

Fierce war-cries sounded in approval.

The Mad King pointed his blade at Emmeryn. "Kill them all! The man who brings me the exalt's head lives in luxury for the rest of his days!"

Plegian soldiers surged forward down slopes and into the valley below, and wyvern knights took to the skies.

Emmeryn watched numbly. How had it come to this? Where had she gone wrong?

"Your Grace, you need to fall back!" Reflet declared. "It's not safe for you here!"

"But-!" the exalt began to protest.

"It's done, Emm!" Chrom agreed, drawing Falchion. He addressed the Knight Commander. "Frederick, get her out of here!"

The brunet man unceremoniously lifted the exalt off of the ground to ride sidesaddle. "Forgive me, milady, but we must withdraw."

"Frederick, don't!" Emmeryn pleaded. "There's still a chance to make this right! We can still-"

"Emmeryn," Frederick said softly but firmly. "There is only one thing left that we can do." With that, he spurred his mount, and the horse galloped off, carrying a distraught exalt with it.

The woman grimaced, then produced a Rescue staff from the folds of her clothing. The exalt's implement began to glow with white light. She wouldn't abandon her sister.

The spell failed. Emmeryn's mouth opened in dismay.

"Counterwards?" she breathed. But who could have placed so potent a barrier around Lissa?

Still shaken, Lucina stood ready alongside her father, mirroring her Falchion to his own. Laurent, Kjelle, and Reflet took up positions at the rear of the formation. "Here they come," the tactician observed dryly of the descending cloud of wyverns.

"Godsdammit!" Kjelle cursed. "A Deadlord?! Why'd it have to be fucking Porcus who showed his ugly mug?!"

"Robin imperiled," Laurent said as he flipped open his Arcwind tome. "But where?"

Lucina readied her blade even as a wyvern rider swooped down at her with axe held high. She wouldn't stand for this. She had not come this far just for everything to fall apart again. Wherever Robin had been sent, wherever Aunt Lissa had been taken, she would find them. Nothing would stop her.

"Get out of my way!" the princess screamed as she brought Falchion down on a wyvern's neck.

Aversa was preparing to enact the next stage of her overall strategy when two figures of interest caught her eye.

What first drew her gaze was the gleam of the accursed Falchion. That Prince Chrom wielded the unholy fang was known. What was not known was that a second Falchion-wielder accompanied the Nagaspawn. But how was that possible? All records indicated that the foul blade was completely unique; even Grima's Truth revealed as such. But the dragon's bane proved its authenticity in the way the mysterious masked warrior struck down wyverns. The regalia's edge corroded scales and cleaved wings off of the reptiles like a child stripping legs from a fly. This was the genuine article, or at the very least a replica of such quality as to be indistinguishable from the authentic.

But more pressing than even that was God.

Aversa's mouth hung open. Why was God here, much less fighting for the Ylisseans?!

The woman's wits caught up to her. No, that wasn't God, though this person was the next-closest thing. The umber eyes gave her away: this was Robin. Master Validar's wayward daughter had finally emerged, and as a traitor, at that, striking Plegian men out of the air with bolts of lightning. Aversa pursed her lips. Disposal of the turncoat was the dark flier's first instinct, but she recognized that notion for the heresy it was. Robin could reject her destiny all she liked, side with the doomed as she pleased, but fate would not be averted so easily.

God's words rang in Aversa's ears. Her priority was the stranger, the one who had taken two Deadlords to ensnare. If Aversa was to proceed according to plan, then the next step would be to send Canis to Porcus's side and focus their combined might on the extermination of the threat that even God did not take lightly, the opponent who had by necessity been removed from this battlefield for fear of the catastrophic damage he could inflict upon Plegia's army.

But that plan had been made before these new, mitigating factors had been revealed. What was one man against reclaiming the Heart and stamping out Naga's bloodline? Even if the stranger somehow bested Porcus, he was still too far away to impact the course of this battle. He would be weakened, and could be finished off once Aversa had dealt with the apostate vessel and her heathen comrades.

"Canis," Aversa murmured. "You have new orders. Go forth, and slay the Ylissean royalty and their retainers. But bring the white-haired woman in the coat to me. Alive. Do you understand?"

"But that's Lissa's family, right?" the Deadlord questioned with a pout.

Aversa scowled. "You dare speak back to your master?"

Canis faced her summoner with a startlingly defiant expression. "Who said you're my master? You're just a flunky, like that sleazebag Iago."

Aversa's lip twitched in irritation, but she restrained herself. "Go. Obey." She held out Grima's Truth.

The Deadlord rolled her red eyes. "Ok, ok. Anankos, you don't have to be such an absolute hag about this." The Eleventh snapped her fingers, and a black-armored steed materialized from her shadow, an undead destrier dragging itself out of the darkness to grow and expand until it stood towering over the two women. Canis nimbly hopped onto the great war-horse's back—a vertical leap higher than she was tall—patted the animal on the neck reassuringly, then spurred her mount into action. The equine Risen lurched forward over a cliff's edge to gallop across the empty expanse like a pegasus.

Aversa watched her servant's departure with folded arms. As Grima's Truth was the medium through which she controlled the Deadlords, so long as they were active, she would be unable to assist them with spellcraft of her own.

But that was fine. Deadlords deserved their legendary status. Even that little girl was an unparalleled terror when it came to battle. She was best-suited for support, yes, but against vermin like these, the weakest direct fighter of the Twelve would still more than suffice.

Reflet swallowed dryly. "H-Hey. A-Anyone else seeing this shit?"

Lucina gasped at the approaching, airborne stallion and its rider. "Canis!" she hissed. There was no mistaking this Risen, so like a cherub in appearance—a fallen angel if there ever was one.

"Another Deadlord," Laurent murmured as he tore apart the last wyvern knight in his proximity with wind magic. "That's... concerning."

"Wait, wait, that kid's a Deadlord?!" Chrom asked in disbelief.

"Sh-She's adorable!" Reflet whispered. "But she's also creepy as hell! B-But she's so cute! But she's also-"

"Reflet! Not the time!" Chrom snapped. "We've got incoming!"

The squadron retreated warily as Canis came in to land. They formed a half-circle around the Deadlord, all far more on-edge than they ever would have believed a youth could have induced from them.

"Hi!" the blonde girl cheerily waved, oblivious to the atmosphere.

Reflet was caught between a desire to return the greeting and a powerful compulsion to flee. There was something sinister about this child, something enigmatically more unnerving than even a Risen Chief or an Entombed, either of whom could leave the tactician paralyzed in fear with their mere presence. On a primal level, Reflet understood that she and her friends were in mortal danger.

Kjelle felt no such trepidation. A memory from eight years prior rose to the forefront of her memory: the night that Knight Commander Sully had fallen. A chance for retribution, for catharsis, had suddenly appeared. Where justice for the present was lacking, it would be stolen from the future yet to pass.

"You!" the knight growled. "You're the bitch who killed my mother!"

Canis tilted her head, confused. "Uh, did I? I don't think I did..."

Kjelle hefted her lance, Luna blazing along its shaft. Of course, she knew that this wasn't the same Canis responsible for her birth mother's death. The original—a somewhat inaccurate qualifier, all things considered—Twelve had all been destroyed completely, long before the portals through time had opened. But that didn't matter. An enemy was an enemy, and this one would feel damn good to put down.

The daughter of Sully yelled at the top of her lungs, then hurled her lance with all of her might.

After three minutes of uninterrupted dueling, Porcus drew first blood. The Deadlord's katana slipped past Robin's guard, grazing the man's side.

Immediately, the tactician felt a mix of fiery pain and frigid numbness stemming from where he had been cut. Alarmed, he retreated, and while in motion took his blade and dragged it across his wound, causing blood to spurt out fiercely.

"Well now," Porcus murmured from some distance away. "You think fast on your feet."

Robin glowered at the Deadlord. "So, your weapons are envenomed, huh? That's pretty godsdamned annoying."

Porcus's expression was inscrutable behind his cloth facemask. "Dead is dead. Doesn't matter how the target winds up that way."

"Ironic, coming from a corpse," Robin retorted. The tactician was wary. The Deadlord's blade had only made light contact with his body, and he had caused himself to bleed forcefully enough that any poison should have been expelled before it could have taken full effect. Still, there was no telling what the attributes of the toxin were, and the cost of his precaution would be significant stamina loss. Being caught by another attack could well prove fatal. Winning against a Deadlord was already a difficult order; aiming to do so without sustaining further injury was lunacy. Robin pulled his torn coat upward and pressed its fabric against his injury to stem the bleeding.

The Twelfth clasped his hands together around his katana's hilt in the Sign of the Snake. "No more ironic than from one whose fated is sealed. Ninja Art: Inevitable End!"

A roil of unease rippled over Robin, and suddenly he felt himself somewhat light-headed, as if under the influence of Anathema. Robin pursed his lips. No, that wasn't quite right. He glanced down and found that a dark patch was blooming along where his coat was held to the wound he had just sustained. The tactician's eyes shot wide.

Shit! Hemophilia!

So that was Porcus's game. No wonder he hadn't pursed earlier when Robin had retreated with Pass; the Deadlord welcomed any expenditure of energy from his target. The Twelfth's intent was to sap Robin of his stamina completely before moving in for the kill, and toward that end, the tactician had been robbed of his blood's ability to coagulate.

Robin grimaced and leveled his blade. This was bad. He would continue to bleed so long as Porcus was in range, and any further damage would exacerbate the issue.

I need a clean shot on him, Robin realized. That's the only way out of this mess. Just one clean shot. He took his most aggressive stance, the one he had modeled off of Lon'qu's style.

Porcus reacted in kind, katana held level.

As if signaled by the peal of a silent gong, the two dashed forward, both accelerated by their respective use of Pass. A blur of blades consumed the air around the men, a cloud of scraping sparks and quicksilver.

Within the haze, Porcus sensed an opening.

"Luna!"

The Deadlord swung his sword, and a deep scar was gouged into the plateau, earth shooting upward like a geyser.

Robin's feint had succeeded. He had been unharmed by the powerful blow, having sidestepped it at the last possible second. In the instant that Porcus was overextended and exposed, the tactician drew a tome.

"Thoron: Sol!"

Green-tinged lightning burst from the tome, barreling toward the Deadlord. Porcus grunted and made to evade, but even the master ninja's extreme speed was outstripped by the spell's pace.

"Aegis!" Porcus shouted.

A flaring blue aura emanated from the Deadlord, but even this was not enough to brunt the impact of Robin's magic fully. Porcus was swept off his feet and sent tumbling across the plateau. He righted himself like an acrobat, boots gouging furrows in the gravelly surface as extreme friction brought him to a halt. His black breastplate had been sheared away, revealing his sigil on a burned right pectoral muscle: XII.

Robin grinned in triumph as he felt his own wound close. Thoron hadn't inflicted nearly as much damage as its caster would have hoped, but at the very least he had succeeded in healing himself with Sol. Robin still had strength to spare, and Porcus was now in worse condition. At the current rate, the tactician was favored.

The only sign of concern Porcus gave was a barely audible "hmph". The Deadlord sprung into the air, far higher than Robin would have thought possible without the use of Acrobat. The Deadlord drew a single ringed projectile from the metallic box on his belt. The Twelfth performed a series of gestures the form of which Robin couldn't perceive.

"Ninja Art: Shurikenfaire!"

Porcus threw his weapon. In the blink of an eye, the lone shuriken split into hundreds, covering the entire expanse of the plateau.

Robin blanched at the overhead net of projectiles. "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me!"

Pass wouldn't get him to safety, nor would Acrobat. He had no options for evasion.

Porcus made the Sign of the Dragon.

A storm of silver stars rained down upon the tactician.

Canis held her right palm flat.

"Ginnungagap!"

Darkness burst from the Deadlord's hand, flowing over Kjelle's thrown lance and eroding it into nothing—Luna and all.

"Oh shit!" was Reflet's exclamation before her own name followed. A barrier appeared between Kjelle and the Deadlord's magic, but the protection was insufficient by far. Ginnungagap shattered the spell without being delayed in the slightest.

Kjelle gaped and scrambled backward, but the shadow magic sloughed over her shoulder pauldron, corroding the metal instantaneously and causing the flesh beneath to boil and blister. "Fuck!" the knight cursed.

Her comrades sprang into action. Chrom and Lucina darted toward Canis from opposite angles, while Laurent took aim dead-center with his Arcwind tome.

Canis was completely unconcerned. She set aside her tome and pulled a staff out, which she raised overhead.

"Enfeeble!"

Waves of bright light buffeted the Shepherds, and no sooner had they experienced this did they each feel as if gravity had suddenly multiplied in intensity. Lucina was incredulous; this was even more severe an infirmity than what Validar's Anathema had inflicted.

Twin Falchions swung at Canis, but the Deadlord used her staff to parry these strikes without apparent effort.

"What the hell?!" Chrom shouted, utterly baffled.

Canis frowned as she drew another tome. "Sorry about this, mister!"

Lucina was agape with horror. "Father!"

Arcwind, infused with Luna, struck Canis head-on, nearly dislodging her from her mount.

Laurent glared at the Deadlord. "Try me."

Canis, completely unharmed, smiled brightly at the mage. "Wow, that was strong!"

Reflet shivered involuntarily. Laurent was powerful enough that even Robin had admitted to being unwilling to take the bespectacled man's attacks head-on. Yet this Deadlord had shrugged off the mage's offense like it had been nothing.

"Not good," Laurent understated.

To reinforce this notion, Canis held aloft a new tome and said a single incantation.

"Ragnarok."

In the valley below, two mercenaries, one female and one male, had been slipping through combat as observers rather than participants, angled toward the Ylissean side of the conflict. Both took notice of a conflagration blooming up above them.

"Ok, that's definitely where she is!" the blonde woman declared confidently.

"And that's the last place that I want to be!" whined her companion, who was covered completely in heavy desert wear.

"Quit your bitching and transform already! Gods, we don't have all day!"

Reflet sank to her knees, straining for breath. Beside her, Laurent nearly dropped as well, only remaining standing through force of will. Wisps of light and wind drifted away.

Canis applauded enthusiastically and appreciatively. "That was awesome! I can't believe you actually stopped my Ragnarok!"

The two living spellcasters had in fact managed to do just this, but only by pushing themselves to their absolute limits. Reflet had never conjured five barriers at once before now, and Laurent had sunk every ounce of energy into his Arcwind that he could muster. And all this had been in service of just barely countering a magical attack that had been almost on par with Validar's Vengeance-enhanced Arcfire—a spell assuredly lesser than whatever the hell Ginnungagap had been.

Reflet nearly vomited.

We're going to fucking die!

Again, though, Kjelle did not share the tactician's sentiment. Despite having only been saved from incineration by a last-second intervention, the knight charged undaunted, the second lance that she carried pointed at the throat of the undead horse upon which Canis rode. The knight's weapon tore through the animal's neck, coming just shy of piercing Canis herself. Black blood sprayed over Kjelle's right side from head to toe.

Naturally, as the horse was already dead, it did not falter. Kjelle blinked her eye that wasn't coated in ichor in surprise, registering only at that instant that trying to forcefully unseat Canis would take some doing.

The Eleventh puffed out her cheeks in irritation. "Hey! He's a good boy! Leave him alone!" She swept her hand out at Kjelle. "Fimbulvetr!"

A torrent of frost sprang from the Deadlord's hand and swept over Kjelle. The knight would have been flash-frozen if not for Lucina and Chrom launching another tandem attack. Their offense forced Canis to dispel her magic so that she could defend with her staff.

Despite this saving grace, though, the horse's blood on Kjelle's body had crystallized under the extreme cold. Half of Kjelle's world went abruptly dark, and she found herself unable to move so much as muscle on her right side.

Canis, for the first time feeling slightly pressured, changed her tome with unfathomable speed—how the Deadlord was swapping between spells so quickly was indiscernible to her opponents.

"Lightning!"

Twin bolts of electricity shot to Canis's left and right, toward Chrom and Lucina respectively. Both father and daughter were too dulled in their movement as a consequence of Enfeeble to do anything other than guard, but even their respective Falchions' enchantments were unable to fully dampen the electrical currents. Both members of the exalted line cried out in pain as the lightning raced through their bodies, then fell over, each twitching erratically.

"Chrom!" Reflet shrieked in dismay.

"Lucina!" Laurent likewise shouted.

Kjelle attempted to grit her teeth, but her jaw was frozen in place. She couldn't even budge her right foot from the ground, and was completely helpless as Canis raised her hand overhead. The Deadlord was evidently preparing a spell that would kill all three of the incapacitated Shepherds should it be unleashed.

Laurent struck with Arcwind, but the spell was no more effective than it had been before. Reflet hastily conjured protective barriers around the three at most risk, but the tactician knew in her heart that these were little more than token gestures.

Kjelle struggled with all her might to break free from her icy bindings, even as the sting of frostbite crept through her body, even as what little light that remained available to her encrusted right eye disappeared into darkness.

Shit, shit, shit! Not like this! At least let me get a good hit in on the bitch, godsdammit! Godsdammit, godsdammit, godsdammit!

Canis opened her mouth.

"Ginnun-"

A Taguel bounded up the side of the canyon wall, soaring above and over the Deadlord. The woman who had been riding atop him leaped off the halfling, glowing in violet light.

"Galeforce!"

In a streaking movement like a falling star, the blonde mercenary descended upon a startled Canis, who only barely managed to shift herself away in time.

"Luna!" the newcomer exclaimed.

A steel blade passed through the Deadlord's right elbow, severing the forearm completely and sending the Risen's tome tumbling over the edge of the cliff.

Canis blinked in mild surprise at her black blood-spewing upper arm. "...Huh?"

The mercenary landed, then gracefully rose and flicked aside one of her hair's twintails. "Gods, I leave you all alone for a few months, and this is the shit you get yourselves into?! Are you trying to make me angry?!" The Taguel she had arrived upon was now faced toward Canis, growling and bristling as he stood between the Deadlord and Kjelle.

The knight gaped. "N-No way...!" she breathed. "Is this for real?!"

From where she laid, barely conscious, Lucina smiled in near disbelief.

"Yarne! Severa!"

"Impressive," Porcus begrudgingly admitted as he stared down at his target, a scarecrow in a freshly-sowed field of shuriken who had weathered a silver tempest.

The Twelfth considered while he dropped back down from the apex of his leap. "I see... You used Pass to distort space around yourself so that you would have adequate room to deflect my shuriken." Porcus narrowed his one glowing, crimson eye. "Alas, it seems you had some difficulty nonetheless."

Robin panted raggedly, shuriken embedded in his shoulders and calves. He forced himself to rise even as Porcus touched down, hastily tearing the projectiles out of his flesh while he still had opportunity to do so.

With an activation of Porcus's own Pass, the tactician was once more beset upon by the Twelfth. Blade rang out against blade. Robin's movements were somewhat slower than before, but not because of polluted veins.

That was a failing of Shurikenfaire, Porcus reflected; since it could only replicate the base characteristics of a weapon, a poisonous coating was not spread to the copies.

Still, while Inevitable End remained in effect, even those minor wounds would continue to compound their bloody interest. The target was now trapped in a downward spiral with no end in sight—the white-haired man was no bound by an invisible, negative chain.

Robin immediately set about proving the contrary. Space rippled between the two, and Porcus erroneously took this to mean that his enemy was about to retreat. Robin lashed out, though, and his green-tinted blade reached across a greater distance than it should have to stab Porcus through the shoulder.

"Sol," Robin growled.

Another strike came, a hamstring that would have crippled Porcus had he still been among the living.

"Sol!" Robin reiterated through clenched teeth.

Porcus's face was completely slack with shock. He had definitely been about to block that attack, so why-

Robin's blade scythed through Deadlord's left clavicle, splitting the Risen's chest down to the fourth rib before Porcus caught the man's blade with his own.

"Sol," Robin whispered with finality. The injuries he had sustained from Shurikenfaire were now completely disappeared.

Porcus grunted and shoved Robin away before hopping repeatedly backward. The Twelfth threw out a volley of shuriken in order to dissuade his quarry from pursuing. While Robin deflected these, Porcus came to a halt some twenty feet from the tactician and straightened his back.

"Localized activations of Pass to phase your weapon through my guard... Ingenious." Porcus fixed his glowing eye on Robin. "I will acknowledge this, outlander: You are a worthy opponent."

Robin repressed a sarcastic remark. He had already spent too long in this engagement as was. He took a deep breath to collect himself, and swiftly mapped through the next thirty steps that he could take to defeat the Deadlord.

Hopefully, he would only need the first five.

Robin dashed forward, blade held low and umber eyes alight with the flare of one who knew himself to be the inevitable victor.

But Porcus would not be so easily vanquished. As Robin neared, the master ninja made the Sign of the Boar, angling his closed fists downward and pressing them together at the knuckles and wrists. Fire emanated from the Deadlord's wounds, swelling and writhing, ready to burst.

"Ninja Art: Pyrotechnics!"

Robin eyes shot wide. Ok, I really don't like the sound of th-

An explosion of flame rocked the plateau.