Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem or anything associated with it.
A/N: Hi again! I really have nothing to say this time, so on with the story! (That was definitely the shortest Author's Note I have EVER done…)
Last time on Blazing Light…
As soon as Lyn put her hands on the sword, a bright flash turned everyone's eyes away from the sword. She quickly took a step back from the sword, confused to what is happening. None was more shocked than the priest, though.
"Amazing… To see it happen with my own eyes," the priest said, amazed to what he just witnessed before his eyes. "You… are the rightful owner of the Mani Katti,"
Lyn was downright shocked. She was just some random nomad on the plains. She couldn't really be the one chosen by the legendary Mani Katti itself.
…Yet something felt… right when she laid her hands on the hilt of the sword. However, she just tried to fight the truth with denial.
"Me? No, I'm nothing special," she tried to deny, although the priest was clearly firm in his decision.
"Yes… You are the owner of the Mani Katti. If you need proof, just draw the sword. If it comes out, then you are the one who is chosen," he directed. Still not convinced, Lyn picked touched the hilt of the sacred sword again, the glow intensifying yet again. With the sword in hand, she slowly slid it out of its sheathe, revealing the sword in all its glory.
"It came out… effortlessly," Lyn commented, still in shock of seeing that she is the wielder of the sacred sword of Sacae. However, even she couldn't deny what was rightfully hers.
"I never thought I would see this in my lifetime, so I must thank you. The sword is yours, so keep it, and use it in your plight," the priest said, with a sincere smile on his face
"I will," Lyn replied, with a fiery determination in her eyes.
XXXXX
Later, after the incident with the Mani Katti, the quartet made their way towards another village in their path to the Bern border. When they got to another village, it was still about noon, or a little before. With the four of them, they doubled back on horses to save time, though Lyn outright REFUSED to go with Sain, only increasing the green-clad knight's obsession with her.
At the village, the four stopped for a moment for a supply check.
"It seems that we are fine," Lyn said. "We can rest for a while before we continue, right?" she asked towards the others. They all gave a satisfactory nod. Shortly after, their attention was driven away by a loud yell. They quickly ran towards the source to find a Pegasus on top of a man, with a purple-haired knight moving the Pegasus while profusely apologizing.
"I-I'm so sorry!" the knight apologized, after getting the Pegasus off the man.
"Urrggh! That thing fell on me! I'm gonna kill it!" the man yelled, brandishing an axe, running straight for the Pegasus. He was grabbed by a hand on his shoulder, which caused him two turn around to his partner.
"Hey, those Pegasi are rare, ya know. They're only found in Ilia. Why kill what you can sell?" the other man theorized, before taking full notice of the purple-haired girl. "And the girl doesn't look half bad, either…," he theorized. Seeing the logic in the statement made by his partner, the man's snarl turned into a lecherous grin. That's when Lyn burst out of their hiding spot, with everyone following behind her in surprise at the sudden action.
The Pegasus knight's eyes quickly widened at the sight of the Sacaean. "Lyn?"
"Hey, leave her out of this!" she yelled, quickly coming to the Pegasus knight's defense. Seeing that their cover was blown, Aracho sighed and rushed out along with the others, weapons drawn.
"Eh?" the bandits yelled in shock. He turned his head in surprise, and the Pegasus knight took the chance to run over to Lyn's side. The bandit was a bit dazed when he had to quickly sidestep to avoid being trampled by the girl's Pegasus. After realizing what happened, the bandit let out a predatory growl at the girl and by extension, the group.
"Y'all ruined my perfect plan! Your gonna pay! Come on out, boys!" the brigand leader shouted, holding up a steel axe in the air. Not more than a few seconds passed before the whole town was swamped with bandit members left and right. "Heheh… Let's see ya get pass this! Let 'em have it!" he commanded before falling back to the town exit.
"Two fights and it's barely noon… What's next?" Kent whined, readying his lance and steed. Meanwhile, Lyn was talking to the Pegasus knight before coming to the group.
"H-Hi, I'm Fl-Florina. D-do y-you mind i-if I can fight w-with yo-u?" she stuttered, making Aracho raise a brow, not at her speech, but her hair color and face.
"Sorry, she's a little afraid of boys…" Lyn said, comforting Florina a little. That was not why Aracho was staring a little bit.
'She looks familiar', Aracho thought, but quickly shoved it out of the way, for now. "Fine, but first go to the house up north and tell them to hide for cover." He commanded with an air of authority. She nodded and took her Pegasus to the sky, heading north to the house.
Meanwhile, the remainder of the group charged ahead, while Kent stayed behind a small bit to guide Florina when she returns. Their first opponent was a myrmidon accompanied by an archer and a bandit. Lyn was handling the bandit with ease, however Aracho was definitely struggling with the myrmidon and the archer that never gave him a break. He was slowly losing the fight and would be forced to back down….
Until an arrow sizzled through the air, landing in the skull of the bandit with the bow.
When the archer was taken care of, Aracho quickly spurred back into action, his vigor returning in strides. Within seconds, the myrmidon was caught off guard by a side swipe to his right side, making him hiss in pain. Before long, Aracho would end it with a quick throat slit, and turn to see a kid with brown hair in a blue archer garb with brown boots.
"Thanks for the help, but who are you?" he asked. The boy sheepishly scratched his head for a second, seemingly oblivious to what's going on.
"Oh right, I forgot about that. My name's Wil, and-"
"EEEEK! An archer!" A scream occurred, which turned out to be Florina. Wil quickly turned around, as did Aracho, at the same time Lyn came to her side, sword poised to strike down Wil.
"Woah, wait! I'm with you guys," he hastily replied, lest he get killed by the crazy green head. Lyn looked over to Aracho for confirmation, and removed the sword from Wil's direction as he nodded, gaining a grateful sigh from the terrified newcomer.
"With all of those shenanigans aside," Kent interrupted, "The only one left out of the bandits is the boss. Shall we?" His question was led by a chorus of "yes" from everyone.
With the lackeys gone, the only one left was the boss. When they arrived to the ruined village, they found the leader, waiting patiently with his giant axe. Florina calmly stepped up outside of the ragtag group. "Um… Excuse m-me?" she asked the brigand politely, but couldn't finish her sentence, much to the impatience of said brigand.
"Well, what? Come out with it lass!" he yelled, creating a small "eep" from his target, before she steeled her resolve and began talking, this time at a much better pace.
"Well, there's been enough blood for one day. Can we just… stop fighting now?" she asked quietly, but loud enough that everyone heard her. Her question was met with various reactions, to nose pinching, to face-vaults, and the blank stares that seemed to scream 'are you kidding me'. The silence was ended by the brigand, who was twitching heavily in annoyance.
"Are… you kidding me?" he asked calmly, before exploding in a fit of rage. "You have a giant horse with wings land on me, kill all of my henchmen, and you just want to cut the leash there!? Oh hell no! Raise your swords, I ain't listening to no more dumb-ass excuses!" The brigand raised his axe before charging, aiming right at Florina. She raised her lance to block and buy time to get airborne, however the axe cut through the lance and went straight to her head, and would have split it in half if not for the efforts of Lyn and Kent.
The brigand took a few steps back, using the heightened elevation to take use of, and useful it was (1). None of the group could touch him, aside from the shallow cut or a lucky arrow in the leg. The bandit was angry, and anger gives people extra power they normally wouldn't have.
Lyn was getting very sick of this nonsense. He should be gone already! Lyn took a step back as the brigand attacked Kent and Sain with a deadly vengeance, with it taking the combined force just to barely hold him back. Then, she had a lightbulb moment as she stared at a tree ruined by the bandits, but it was enough to get her memory going.
"Aracho!" she called, getting the blue-heads attention as he ran by her side.
"You have any ideas?" he asked, responded by a nod from the Sacaean.
"Remember that spelled you used this morning? The one with the giant lightning bolt?" she pointed out while Aracho had a look of sheepishness on his face, having the decency to be embarrassed about forgetting the technique he just learned THIS morning. He shifted through his mage outfit to pull out a book with lightning bolts adorned across the cover of it.
"Lyn, tell them to come back when I'm almost done," he said seriously. She was about to asked how she would know, but he beat her to it. "You'll know when I'm done."
All she could do was nod, and advanced to fight with Sain, Kent, and, Wil while Florina stayed on the sidelines, trying to recover from the shock of her life flashing before her eyes. Meanwhile, Aracho started chanting, this one had to hit, it just had to! At the end of his chanting, 3 white circles made of pure magic surrounded him before creating an arcane symbol (2) that had him in the middle. Lyn, who had caught sight of the powerful magic, shuddered, as it was like she could feel the energy coursing through the air.
"Everyone pull back!" she yelled, much to the confusion of those who didn't hear about the plan, which was just Sain and Kent, who were on the frontlines for most of the fight with the boss. Nonetheless, the two pulled back, and in good timing, too, as Aracho just finished his spell and was ready to fire it.
"Bolting, strike!" he yelled, the three orbs and the arcane barrier seemingly disappearing inside of Aracho as he shouted the spell. The brigand wondered why they had retreated, and didn't have enough time to see that the other boy was readying a spell. He couldn't register what would happen next as he was struck by a bolt of lightning, eliciting a scream so painful that everyone flinched at the sound of it. The bandit couldn't scream anymore, as he was vaporized on the spot, leaving the aftermath a coal-black man with ash surrounding him for a 7-foot diameter.
The Bolting spell wasn't finished either, as it left electrical pulses everywhere, as seen when Lyn's and Florina's hair suddenly became afros, with Lyn's hairband falling out. Even all of the guys, besides Aracho who was completely unaffected, had hair standing up in many places. At the sight of everyone, Aracho couldn't help but laugh loudly at their new hairstyles, which was met by contempt, embarrassment, and anger.
For that, Aracho was awarded with a punch to the shoulder, face, and his leg… dangerously close to something.
"Okay, Okay, SORRY!" he said as he was dragged along by a frizzy Lyn followed by the rest of company.
XXXXX
After that whole fiasco, Florina and Wil were properly introduced to the group, however Aracho couldn't get Florina out of his head. She just looked so… familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on it. It was very obvious she has the feeling about him as well, considering that she is a great deal less nervous around him than Kent and Wil (3). As they traveled, Aracho had enough of wondering and came out with it.
"Florina?" he asked, getting attention from the purple-haired teen. He beckoned for her to come over, to talk in private, and she slowly did so, which was unnoticed by anybody. Aracho looked over her head to see Kent and Wil talking casually, along with Lyn who continually rejected Sain's attempts to woo her. "Have I met you somewhere before?" he said quietly, as not to be heard by anyone other than Florina, "You seem so familiar to me, but I can't put a finger on it,"
Florina let out a sigh before telling her side of the story. "I have the s-same feeling too, it's like I know you from somewhere, and I can tell we knew each other." Aracho could only nod, before her next comment. "Your hair color reminds me of my sister, though (4)," she noted, and that grinded all of his gears until they stopped completely. 'Sister… Light blue hair…' Aracho thought before a name suddenly hit his head.
"Is her name Fiora by any chance?" he said out of nowhere. Florina nodded surprisingly, amazed that he knew her sister's name.
"H-how did y-you know?" she asked.
"I don't know. Maybe we can try and find this out later," he said, indicating a fort in the distance that looked awful from the outside. Florina nodded and the two started some other off topic conversation, which naturally flowed between the two, as if they had known each other for years.
A few moments later, the group arrived at the abandoned fort, and the group looked inside, with Aracho in front. "Well, looks like we're crashing here tonight," Wil said, much to Sain's chargin.
"We should not sleep in a place filthy as this," he said, turning to Lyn and Florina. "We deserve a better place, like a motel!"
"Well, knucklehead, we're tired and the animals are too, so we're sleeping here," Kent shot back, and he was indeed correct. The horses were panting louder than usual and Florina's Pegasus already taking a nap. Whining about losing the "argument", he unpacked the supplies, which included everyone's sleeping bags, while the rest unpacked from their own respective bags.
"Okay, so there are six people and three tents. So we can bunk two to each?" Wil said, after carefully observing the supplies when they were set up. That was replied with grunts of approval.
"I'll bunk with the beautiful-" Sain started, before being interrupted by Kent, to the relief of the two ladies of the group.
"No, you're bunking with me. You need to learn some restraint," the red-armored knight chastised, much to the disappointment of Sain. That put a smile on everyone's faces, as they needed some comic relief after two battles in one day. What happened next surprised everybody, though.
"C-can I bunk with you, A-Aracho?" Florina asked in her shy little way, but it didn't mean it wasn't any more shocking to the group. Aracho was going to ask why, before he saw the look in her eye that promised a conversation about earlier, and closed his mouth.
"Okay, if that's fine with you," he said, with a hint of apprehension about what Lyn would think of this, however one couldn't not see any anger in her gaze. No, there was just confusion, anger, and finally acceptance. "And that means that Lyn will be in a tent with Wil, if that's fine with you two," he implied, getting two nods for an answer. That was before a small thump shortly after the sleeping arrangements had been made, which got the attention of the group. They readied their weapons, and peered around the corner to see a young woman using the wall for support, as her legs were clearly weak-looking and unhealthy.
The group put away their weapons and came to the woman's aid, and set her down at the site where they decided to camp out. "I'm sorry to trouble you about this," the woman started after they all were settled down with the two Caelin knights keeping guard outside. "Have you seen my husband, Dorcas? I have a picture, but I'm not that good of a drawer," she added. All of them looked to see a picture of a man with red-hair and a sleeveless yellow shirt, as well as a black necklace on him.
After a while, they all gave up, coming to the conclusion that they have never seen the man before. Natalie gave a dejected sigh as none of them knew the whereabouts of her husband. "Please, if you can, help me look for my husband? He left to get me medicine for my sickness, but that was days ago!" she explained, starting to get a good deal more frantic than calm.
"Don't worry, we'll look for your husband, okay?" Lyn soothed, calming the woman down, for the most part.
All of a sudden, Sain busted through to the back of the fort, clearly in distress.
"We're being attacked! We're surrounded by bandits!"
XXXXX
In the game, there is a mountain right behind the boss in chapter 2.
Basically my version of a critical hit, combined with an already large spell.
She is outright banned from seeing Sain, and Aracho… well, no spoilers yet…
Aracho does have light blue hair, like a certain person…
A/N: With me, you have to get used to cliffhangers, but to be honest, I'm still alive, and in the words of some guy on fanfiction who I don't remember "Life kicked my ass, I got back up, and it kicked my ass again." Just to show you, I have NOT given up on this story, nor will I EVER!
And now, Review, Fave, Comment, and see you next chapter!
Blizzard, Out!