As soon as we get settled down back in Garreg Mach, I head into my chambers and transport myself back to Earth. Every time I do, I wonder if there's going to be someone in the random spot in the woods I picked to enter Fódlan from, and yet again I'm only surrounded by trees. I pull up the mask that rematerialized with this version of me and jog over to Lucina's and Robin's house.

Along the way, I can feel Thales' presence, and the direction towards him tugs at my mind. I wonder if this is what it's like to have migration instincts and to know where to go.

Morgan answers as usual when I hop up to the front porch and ring the doorbell.

"Hi, Claude. Nice to see you not covered head to toe in your own blood."

"Hey, I was fine the last several times I've visited. What do you think makes this time different?"

Morgan shrugs. "You seem to break everything in your body. Too bad you weren't born with the Aether ability like me and mom. It was a lot of fun standing surrounded by dozens of enemies, healing off their attacks and blowing them to bits when they dared to strike me."

"Well, I'm not superhuman like you two. Though…" Do I want to get them dragged into my mess? "If you really like fighting, there may be a chance for you to show your skills."

"Really?" Her face lights up. "Sweet. I mean, not that I enjoy the killing part of it, but getting my power level over 9000 feels nice, you know?"

"Can't relate. And it sounds like you've been watching too much anime."

"No such thing." She gestures for me to enter. "Come on. I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to catch up later."

There's still a bit of latent surprise whenever I enter this house and feel my shoulders relax. Right now it's warm and smells like cookies. It feels like home. I try to bat away the suspicion that rises in my mind. No, the idea of having a place where I can relax with people who care about me isn't too good to be true. I have to believe that.

Robin is in the living room typing away on his laptop, the mechanical clicks loud enough to remind me of a typewriter. I know that most of what he does here is research, which I know has to involve more reading than anything else. Maybe he's taking notes on everything he comes across and compiling them into a curated body of knowledge to teach him how to govern Ylisse. For a moment, I feel a spike of envy. Strange, since I know from experience that being a leader is awful, but doing research knowing that your findings will actually matter is something I wish could happen to me.

The two of us chat and make small talk, but I don't bring up Thales yet. For that, I head into the kitchen to see Lucina on her phone as chocolate chip cookies are on drying racks. She grins when she sees me, and she gestures me over. We hug, and as usual I let myself fall into her arms and think about nothing besides the way she's holding me.

"I always worry when you go off to war," she says, "Even though I know how competent you are."

Well, I haven't told her about the many near-death experiences since Byleth's disappearance. Edelgard coming close to crushing my skull during the negotiation at Garreg Mach, Caspar nearly killing me and Lysithea letting me go at the Tailtean Plains, Lorenz being a razor's edge away from skewering me with his lance at the Great Bridge of Myrddin, Caspar almost killing me again at Fort Merceus, Hubert using Dimitri as a hostage to force me into a vulnerable spot in Enbarr, Lysithea constraining me with magic in the Imperial Palace as my lifeblood was fading, Thales forcing me to my knees at Shambhala.

All things considered, it's a miracle that I'm still alive. Right now, it's my duty to survive and build a better Fódlan in memory of those who have fallen. No, that's not quite right. More than their lingering will, what matters are the lives of real people. Their friends and family who witnessed the brutality and must be protected from future harm.

"You're deep in thought again," Lucina says. "What's up?"

"Remember Thales?" I say. "He's back on Earth again, and I have some sort of magical tracker in my mind that will lead me to him."

I see her posture stiffen into battle readiness. I've learned that it conveys more determination than discomfort.

"Oh, that's a neat trick," Lucina says. "Could have used that one back when we were fighting our war. We going to chase after him?"

"Well, I don't want to push you into anything…"

She smiles at me. "Family sticks together, Claude. We're sure as hell not about to abandon you to the Slithers now."

"But I don't want you to risk your lives."

"Too damn bad. We're all people in charge of our own lives, and we've faced more dangerous threats than a mole person with weird magic and no pupils. Ask Morgan to tell you about the fight against Grima and she'll talk your ear off for an hour about all the epic 'outplays' she did. If you're coming, we are too."

I feel a smile spreading across my face. Morgan would describe real battles using pro gamer terms.

"Thanks, Lucina. Though we should probably check with Robin first, shouldn't we?"

"Hey Robin!" Lucina projects her voice to travel through the house. "Are you okay chasing Claude's magical stalker and hunting him down?"

"Yeah, just give me a sec and we'll plan it out."

Lucina gives me a look that says, I told you so. I wonder if this is how normal families work. Not hunting down shady mages, but having each other's backs. My birth parents are still around, I guess, but I already know they won't care if Thales offs me. Or maybe they would, in a possessive way. Like they're the only ones allowed to hurt me.

It doesn't matter. I've found my people, and it's time to end Fódlan's strife once and for all. I know this should feel climactic since hunting down Thales is the culmination of everything I've worked towards, but I'm not nearly as nervous as when I was staring down the Imperial army at Enbarr. I can't tell if my confidence is good or bad.

A few minutes later, Robin walks into the room with his laptop in hand. He glances at the cookies, and Lucina nods. He starts eating one and his eyes light up.

"These are good," he says.

Lucina rolls her eyes. "When you react this way every time, I get the feeling you're just trying to make me feel better."

"Or they're awesome every time. Claude, have you tried one?"

Honestly, I could use a little sugar right now to jazz me up. I pick one of the still-warm cookies off the cooling tray and bite into it. The chocolate is half-melted and gooey like in those commercials where they break apart the cookie and stretch the chocolate between the two halves. By the time I finish the whole thing, I realize I'm hungry. After asking for permission, I make myself a sandwich and scarf it down while Lucina explains the situation to Robin.

"Well, it's good to fill up before a journey like this," Robin says, smiling at me. "You know, I've been thinking a lot about how we could make cane sugar accessible to regular Ylisseans without the brutal colonialism over here on Earth. It doesn't grow in our climate that well, and relying on external trade for it will drive up the prices for our people."

"Focus, Robin," Lucina says. "Hunting down Thales."

"Right, right. Claude, can you point the exact direction where Thales is? I'll try to see if we can narrow down where he might be before we all hop in the car."

I close my eyes and point in the direction that my instincts are tugging me towards.

"Would you mind rotating your body so your shoulders are aligned with your arm?" Robin says. "We'll get a more accurate reading that way."

Oh, that's a good point. Don't want the angle to be off-center from my shoulder angle. I follow his instructions and point again.

"Okay, got the angle," Robin says. "You can open your eyes now."

He leans over the kitchen counter and opens his computer. After what has to be less than a minute, he gestures me over. He has a map pulled up, with a line extending out from our town that I assume is the direction I pointed in. It heads mostly east and slightly south.

"I didn't bother putting in any sort of error bars," he says, "But they'd go out in a cone-shape. Still, the results are striking, don't you think?"

A line that crosses through the southern area of New York…

"You think he's in New York City?" I say.

"That's the highest probability scenario," Robin says. "Lucina, do you want to take a look at this?"

"I trust you. To New York City we go, then?"

"Well, I don't trust me, fully. There's no good estimate that only comes from one data point. If it's okay, Claude, I'll have you repeat the pointing some more times so I can get a range of cardinal degrees, and then run some basic stats on those. I know it's tedious, but getting a good estimate of where he is now will save us time in the long run."

Fine by me. I repeat the pointing a total of eight more times and after gathering the values Robin draws out the upper and lower boundaries for what he says is approximately a 95% confidence interval. I don't see him run any numbers on the computer, so I think he's doing all the calculations in his head. Even the outer bounds are within the general New York City area.

"The variance in the direction was quite low," Robin says. "Send my compliments to whoever designed that tracker. They clearly put effort into making sure it was precise."

"Can't exactly do that. Had to kill the poor guy."

"Ah. That's a shame. He still wanted Thales dead, yes?"

I nod.

"Then let's fulfil his wish as thanks for giving us such a powerful tool," Robin says. "I'll be ready to go in less than an hour."

I blink. "You're sure about this? I mean, I'm sure you have plans…"

"We're in a pandemic, remember?" Lucina says. "There's not much to do. Besides, we want to catch Thales before he can move again. All things considered, driving to NYC isn't that bad. If we need to take a plane, it will be harder to bring our weapons."

That's true enough. As I open my mouth to respond, I see Morgan burst into the kitchen.

"Did I hear that we're hunting someone down?"

She looks way too excited for me to be comfortable. Robin returning her grin with a smirk makes me feel a bit better. Her parents have managed to wrangle her through an entire war, so I should be able to trust them to keep her in check.

"Bring your tomes," Robin says. "Nothing that does anything too flashy, since we don't want to attract attention."

"Ugh, fine, I won't create puddles of lava all over the ground. Killjoy."

"You need multiple tomes?" I say. "I was assuming it was like a wizard's spellbook."

"Yeah, I'm convinced it's all a ploy by the shopkeepers to sell more of them," Robin says. "Each tome can only fit one spell. It's ridiculous."

"Limited uses, too," Lucina says. "That's why I always go with my trusty Falchion instead."

"Speaking of which," I say, "How are you going to lug that big sword around without attracting attention?"

"Oh, I usually pretend to be a cosplayer," Lucina says. "You tell the authorities there's a con going around and all they never question it. At least, they don't question someone who's small and looks vaguely Asian."

Huh. Seems weird that there are people that don't get constantly trailed by authorities, but I guess that's the life some people live. I suppose I can't be too angry on my own behalf at this point, since the people who suspect I'm dangerous are right.

"We can have you pack a concealed handgun," Robin says, "And you can take your dismantled assault rifle in your backpack and assemble it if we're out of the public eye. Lucina tells me you're quite the shot."

"I get by."

We all fall back into the military rhythm, which means no chatting for now. Battles are primarily waiting for the action to start, but it's important to be as prepared as possible before then. Turns out, it doesn't take me long to pack up my weapons, food, and water, so I take the excess time to message Dimitri about Thales being in the area. He thanks me for the warning and says that nothing strange has happened yet. I'm going to hope it stays that way.

Before I know it, we're on the road headed towards the largest city in America. I assume that once we get closer I'll be able to pick out where Thales is in the city. This time, he won't get away. Lucina is doing a low-effort cosplay of Link from the Legend of Zelda, which makes it funny to see her at the wheel. She drives at a faster speed than I'm normally comfortable with, and I'm glad that she at least doesn't look anxious or make any crazy driving maneuvers. Tense, yes, but still in control. I wonder if this is the beacon of security other people see me as back in Fódlan.

Robin is riding shotgun, and his eyes are glued to his phone screen for the entire journey. When I catch glimpses, I see that he's scouring the news for any sign of something happening in New York City. A couple hours into the drive, I get a string of messages from Dimitri.

Hey Claude, so this might be related to what you mentioned about Thales

Power in a lot of Manhattan started to go out

And the police are acting weird

Like, even weirder than normal for the NYPD

Normally they leave Manhattan alone but it looks like they're trying to keep people from getting into Central Park for some reason

The entire situation reeks of Thales. Central Park, huh? Guess my first visit to one of the most iconic places in America will be to kill. I message Dimitri to stay safe and relay the message to the others.

"When we get close, we'll need you to tell us which direction Thales is in again," Robin says. "But it does seem like Central Park could be a possibility. From what you've told me of this fellow, he doesn't seem like he's one for subtlety."

"Yeah, I'm half surprised he didn't decide to storm the Empire State Building to make a whole show of it," I say.

"I think that would be more exciting," Morgan says. "But hopefully he's not dragging innocent people into his schemes if he's doing something in a park?"

I don't trust Thales to keep civilians out of this. I can tell that I'm antsy in my seat, and I debate asking Lucina if she can speed up any. But I know that she's going as fast as she can while still being safe and not getting us pulled over. I expected waiting for battles to get easier as I participated in more of them, but I'm just as nauseous as I was six years ago standing guard at Garreg Mach while Edelgard and Byleth marched on the monastery.

I get another text from Dimitri.

You're already on your way here, aren't you?

What makes you think that?

So you're not denying it. You always get yourself involved with these messes

I can't let Thales finish what he started. You've seen what he's capable of

Arundel…

Be safe, Claude. We have no idea what Thales is planning

When am I ever not safe?

My hand will cramp if I type out every time you threw yourself into danger

Rude. Love you, Dimitri. I'll message you when I'm done

Love you too, Claude

I grin as I put my phone back to sleep. It's a good reminder that he cares about my safety as much as I care about his. If anything, he's the stronger one between the two of us for supporting me as I head off to possible death about once a month for the last year. In his place, stuck in an apartment on my own not knowing if the person I love is okay, I'd drive myself crazy pacing around the room for several hours each day.

When we get close to the city, we get caught in traffic. Robin has me repeat pointing in the direction where Thales is a few times, and we're able to confirm that he is in the direction of Manhattan, though he could be in the area of Queens beyond. My geographic knowledge of New York City is limited, so I don't fully realize we've crossed into Manhattan until I see the Empire State Building. I give Lucina directions based on where I feel Thales, and doing so takes us right up to the entrance of Central Park.

This is it. Time to end this parasite of two worlds here and now.

Police are guarding the main entrance, but there's no way they can cover the entire perimeter of a park so large. We're able to find parking on a side street and Robin leads us to one of the wooded areas where we can slip past the police without being spotted.

As soon as we're surrounded by trees, I can feel that something about this place is… off. I glance over at the others, and I can tell they notice it too. I squint into the distance and make out wisps of darkness flitting by. There's no scenario where that's good news. As I walk, I assemble my assault rifle. If a cop catches me with this it's bad news, but that's the risk I'll have to take. I need a clean shot on Thales before he can see me or else he'll teleport away again.

We keep making our way through the woods, avoiding the official paths and stomping through the underbrush instead to keep ourselves hidden. This is something I noticed people doing in the Fódlan war, obscuring themselves in woods to make them harder to track and engage.

And then as we continue, I see puddles of a dark mire where more vegetation should be. Robin hesitates, and then looks back at me.

"Is this something he can do?"

"New to me, but I'm not exactly surprised. I bet it's dangerous."

He gives a curt nod and we continue on. Robin leads us to the official paths, and I can tell that he's tenser than before. It's important to find Thales quickly before whatever he's doing here can spread. The patches of mire grow larger and more plentiful as we get closer to Thales.

As we go along the path, we stumble across a large group of people with what look like scald burns over their legs, except dark wisps are floating off their wounds. Lucina rushes over and kneels down next to the person who looks the worst. She pulls out some healing potions from her pockets and tries to get the civilian to drink them.

I glance over at Robin. "You and Morgan should help these people out. If they look okay, try to find other people who are hurt. I'm sure there are more."

He raises an eyebrow. "You're going to take Thales on by yourself?"

"I mean, all I need to do is track him down and snipe him before he can see me. Your help is better used here. In fact, me being alone might be better for the stealth facor."

"Once these people are safe, I'll be right behind you," Morgan says. "Stay safe, Claude."

I meet her gaze and nod. Seeing the conviction in her eyes makes me realize I shouldn't have worried about how she was going to perform in a serious situation.

"I'll be back before you know it," I say.

I run off, barreling through the underbrush on a straight line path towards Thales. He can't be far now. And this time, both of my homes are under attack from him. I'll write the ending to his story myself.

#

As I get closer still, I burst out onto the walking path and stumble upon corpses.

I'm numb to the shock of seeing dead bodies at this point, but the fact that they're here is troubling. I bend down to examine their wounds. The areas of dark bog and mire are still around, but it doesn't look like those sorts of wounds. Instead, most of them look like they suffered from slashing wounds. Some of them have a strange wound pattern that alternates between shallow and deep like someone pressed a notched sword into them. Like…

Before I can finish the thought, an arrow whizzes past my ear. I whirl around to see my doppelganger staring at me with dead eyes, readying another shot.

"How'd you miss that one?" I say. "Try using your eyes next time."

Puppet Claude doesn't respond. I dart out of the way as he looses an arrow, and I run back into the foliage. He fires a couple more arrows into the underbrush, but I've already maneuvered around. The tricky part of this whole mess is that I don't know if I can kill him. My situation is strange, to be sure, but it's possible that my life is still tied to his like everyone else from Earth. If I seal my own death warrant, it has to be after I see Thales breathe his last.

So instead, I level my assault rifle at his legs and fire. Shots take him in the thigh and calf, and he buckles to his knees. I take the opportunity to run forward and knock the bow away from him while he's still in shock. He looks up at me with glassy eyes, and I slam his head into the ground hard enough to knock him out. Hopefully I don't give him a long-term concussion.

That was easy enough. Now I need to keep heading for-

"Seiros, where are you? I will kill you!"

The voice is deep, booming, and one I don't recognize. But when I turn in the direction of the sound, I do recognize the person there.

Byleth.

I take a deep breath. This isn't shocking, considering that the wounds on those poor civilians looked like they came from a whipsword. I raise my gun and take aim at them.

"Face me and face death." The low pitch and high volume are out of place for someone of Byleth's frame. "I will find Seiros eventually. You are nothing more than a stepping stone on my path to crushing them."

I aim for the chest and fire. As soon as I do, Byleth lunges forward. A few of the bullets hit, but it doesn't even seem to slow them down. I scramble back out of melee, but the Sword of the Creator extends into its whiplike structure when Byleth lashes out. The attack catches me, and my vision goes red. I land on my shoulder, and it takes me a second for the pain to fade. When I come to, Byleth is standing over me, blade at my throat.

After all the progress I've been making, all of my victories against Edelgard and the Imperials, there was still one person I never proved I could beat. And here they are again, reducing me to nothing with a single attack.

My fate was never within my reach after all. Whoever controls Byleth controls Fódlan and Earth alike. It's as simple as that.

"Don't kill him," comes Thales' voice from behind. "I'd like to… study him some more."

"You promised me Seiros," Byleth says. "Where is she?"

"Patience, Nemesis. We are nearly there."

Nemesis? The same dude who nearly tore Fódlan asunder 900 years ago? Wait, I remember now that Thales wanted to implant the Crest of Flames in Edelgard so that he could create another with the power of Nemesis to finish what he started. But then he got access to Byleth, and to subjugate them…

"Thales…" my voice comes out as a groan. "What you did with my doppelganger… was a test."

A test to see if minds could be crushed, if they could be wiped blank and programmed to act how Thales wanted. And when Thales found out that they could, he did the same to Byleth. But instead of reprogramming from the ground up, he stuck Nemesis' mind inside. And with Divine Pulse, Byleth's body is more powerful than Nemesis ever was.

All this time, we've been turning a blind eye to the real threat.

"I will destroy Seiros now," Byleth, no—Nemesis—says. "Give her to me!"

"Fine. I will transport you to Fódlan. This test run was a smashing success, after all."

I growl, but it's all I can do. Too weak to stand up and fight. Morgan, I hope you're on your way.

After a few seconds, Nemesis vanishes, taking the Sword of the Creator pointed at my throat with him. Thales takes his place, a smile spreading across his face as he stares at me with his pupil-less eyes.

"You're quite the persistent one, aren't you?" he says. "No matter. I'll look forward to picking apart your mind when you're in more of a controlled environment. Any test I could do now would be so unscientific."

I try to spit at him. The saliva arcs low and lands on my own shirt.

"It's quite unfortunate, you know," he says. "I was hoping to do more testing. The people of Remire were just a precursor, you know, and for actually crushing minds I had such a small sample size. I felt like an inadequate scientist. But no matter. Nemesis will swallow Fódlan in darkness, and the reign of the Fell Star will end."

Good. Keep him monologuing. He still looks hurt from the wounds I gave him in Shambhala, so maybe I could… but I don't have my gun on me. Still, he doesn't know about Morgan and the others. That's my ace in the hole.

"You're going to need to take a little nap," Thales says. "Don't worry. By the time you wake up, all of your pains and anxieties will be gone."

Dark magic erupts around me. Pain. I writhe and struggle to stay conscious. This can't be how it ends for me. I won't let it-

A gunshot. The magic stops. Thales crumples and falls to the ground.

It's too late. I'm losing consciousness. Am I dying? As the world grows fuzzy around me, I see someone approaching.

"Thank… you… Morgan…"

"Hang in there, Claude. I'll take you somewhere safe."

That's not Morgan's voice. It's a male voice, and one deeper than Robin's.

…

Dimitri?

"You're going to be okay," he says. "You're going to be okay."

Dimitri. I can tell that he's carrying me princess style. Must be not to disturb the wounds on my body. I let myself smile before drifting off into unconsciousness in his arms.

End of Part 3

Have I lived in New York City before? No. But have I visited enough to put an accurate representation of it in my fic? Also no.

Besides me not knowing what goes on in NYC, I hope this chapter was enjoyable! :) I've been waiting quite some time to put Byleth back in the story...

And I will never stop complaining about how this damn site doesn't have an align right option. Totally ruins the texting exchanges.

We just have some more interludes and a short part four, and then we're done. Thanks for sticking with me all this way! :D