Day 20 of the Great Tree Moon, 1180
"Hey kid, time to wake up," were the first words Byleth heard upon leaving that strange dream amongst strange dreams. Unlike the day before, she made sure to be quick about getting dressed, save for the glasses that were resting against her forehead, but that didn't mean her thoughts weren't in a similar state of disarray. "You dream about that girl again?"
"No, she wasn't even in this one," Byleth said. "But there was a blue tent and singing and a big nose…" Byleth strained herself to try and remember whatever she could of the dream.
"A big nose? Did you eat a bunch of weird food again? You always do that when you're in a mood."
"I don't do that."
"The last time your sword broke, you ate raw chicken and waffles covered in soy sauce; last year, when I took back the mead you tried to hide from me, you started eating bacon-wrapped celery and oysters with a side of goat milk; six years ago, I spend one day in the Alliance by myself and come back to find you covered in pasta sauce, chocolate ice cream, and fried peaches. Don't even get me started on the Grilled Byleth—"
"It wasn't one day, and all of those were good ideas, conceptually."
"For whom?" Jeralt asked with a sigh. Byleth didn't want to talk about that anymore, so she tried to remember the first dream she had, the one that she really cared about.
"Dad, I never had any friends, right?" Jeralt gave her an odd look that she couldn't figure out how to interpret.
"Not that I'm aware of. Why?"
"There was another part of my dream. I was a child at this building, and I was—"
"Jeralt! Sir! We have an emergency! Three kids are being attacked by bandits and are requesting help!" One of the mercenaries suddenly barged in and interrupted Byleth.
"We'll talk about this later, kid." Byleth nodded her head, pulled her glasses down, and that was the end of the conversation. She quickly followed Jeralt and the other mercenary outside into the village. There, she was greeted with the sight of their company and the three children in question who, as it turned out, were far older than that; at first glance, none of them appeared to be any more than a few years younger than her. They were all dressed in black uniforms with either gold or silver accents and capes colored red, blue, and yellow. The one who wore the yellow cape was a dark-skinned man with a bow and quiver strung over his back and the top part of his shirt open; the one who wore the blue cape was a man with blonde hair who held a spear in his right hand and had pieces of armor spread around his uniform; the one with the red cape was a white-haired woman wearing red stockings who held an axe in her left hand.
Byleth breathed a sigh of relief. The men looking like the boys from her dream was odd, but the girl had brown hair, not the woman's white hair, so it had to just be a coincidence. It had to be, yet the woman still seemed to project something odd at Byleth alongside the other two, an odd energy she couldn't quite get a read on.
"Apologies for bothering you so late, but we're in the middle of an emergency," the blonde-haired man said.
"It's fine, we were already up, anyway," Jeralt said. "So, you three say you were attacked by bandits?"
"That is correct. We were out camping in the woods to train for the beginning of the school year at Garreg Mach when we were suddenly ambushed," the white-haired woman said.
"You're from Garreg Mach? I knew I recognized that uniform," Jeralt said with a sigh.
"No doubt those guys are after our lives and our gold, but it's all yours if you help us fight them off. The gold, I mean. Don't know about these two, but my life's fine where it is," the dark-skinned man said.
"Keep it. I don't want your money."
"Did those Draugr give you a concussion, Dad?" Byleth asked. The dark-skinned man laughed at that, but Byleth didn't understand what was funny about worrying about her father's mental health.
"Look, I just don't want to deal with Garreg Mach, you know that, right?" Byleth nodded her head. "Good, so let's just help send these kids back on their way as soon as we can." Jeralt stepped away from Byleth and jumped atop his grey-colored horse, Gamigin. "Kid, take the girl with you in case there are any archers or mages. The other two have more range, so they're with me. Let's move out!"
The blonde-haired man met Jeralt with a, "Yes, sir!" while the dark-skinned man gave a more casual agreement, and the company and guests headed out of Remire to confront the bandits, Byleth and the white-haired woman following up from the rear.
"Does your father have some kind of problem with Garreg Mach?" the white-haired woman asked.
"I don't think he hates the school," Byleth said. "My dad doesn't really like the Church, so the fact that the Central Church is there probably makes him not like it by association."
"I see. And how do you feel about it? The Church, I mean."
"I don't know. No one's allowed to talk about the Church around me or my dad, so I don't know anything about it other than that he doesn't like it. Honestly, I have no strong feelings one way or the other." The woman made a face that quickly vanished, but even still, Byleth didn't understand it. That was why she hated meeting new people; it was hard enough to understand the ones she already knew, so trying to figure out strangers was just stress she didn't particularly enjoy.
"Well, we can talk more about that later, Miss—"
"Byleth."
"Byleth, yes. My name is Edelgard, please show me what you can do." Byleth nodded her head and she and Edelgard kept walking with the mercenary band. As they walked, Byleth heard Edelgard's words being repeated in her head, only they were said by a younger-sounding girl and with a greater deal of familiarity.
Byleth did what she could to put it out of her mind.
Byleth and the rest of her father's mercenaries quickly reached the forest on the outskirts of Remire Village. The torches lit for keeping watch for nighttime Draugr attacks provided enough light to make the bandits visible. There were only a little over a dozen bandits to contend with; they had the advantage in numbers, but that didn't mean they could let their guard down.
"These guys are coming up from the right, so the leader's probably over there, too," Jeralt said. "Kid, you lead half the company that way, I'll lead the other half to the left and try to meet up with you."
"Understood," Byleth said. She took Edelgard and half of the company through the right side of the forest while Jeralt took the other half and the two unidentified men through the left side, and both halves quickly found themselves embroiled in combat. Edelgard jumped ahead of Byleth and swung her axe down on an approaching bandit, downing him in one one-handed swing. While taking down her own opponent, Byleth was able to see the blonde-haired man easily breaking through a bandit's armor with his spear and the dark-skinned man effortlessly sniping at another with his bow.
Nice to know that they won't let this just be an escort mission, Byleth thought as she launched a fireball at a bandit's face.
"Dammit! Where the hell did these guys come from?!" The shout came from a tall bearded man Byleth assumed to be the bandit leader.
"We came from over there," Byleth said, pointing back towards Remire.
"I think that was rhetorical," Edelgard said while knocking another bandit away with a kick. While the other bandits dealt with the larger company, the leader charged at Byleth and Edelgard with a wide swing of his axe. Edelgard parried it with her own axe, and when he stumbled back from the impact, Byleth charged forward and kicked him in the face, followed by a fireball into his chest as he hit the dirt.
"Dad's coming." Byleth directed Edelgard's attention to Jeralt and his half of the company coming up from the left side.
"I saw you take down their leader as we were coming over. Truly admirable work," the blonde-haired man said.
"Looks like we picked the right village to run and hide in. The gods above must be smiling down on us, or something," the dark-skinned man said.
"You kids can talk when there's no one left who can fight," Jeralt said as he charged at one of the bandits. He was right, Byleth thought. There were still enemies running around, meaning they still had to fight and couldn't afford to do anything else.
"Die!" As that thought went through her head, she saw the bandit leader suddenly jump back onto his feet. Byleth's hits were too shallow, it seemed, and he took advantage of that to play possum and attack the first person who provided an opening for him; in this case, it was Edelgard after setting her axe down for a moment to catch her breath.
It was a good plan, but unfortunately for him, Byleth hadn't taken her eyes off of her all night, so she was more than prepared for the attack. She got between Edelgard and the bandit leader and countered his axe with her sword, hitting it with enough strength to send it flying out of his hands along with two of his fingers. The blonde-haired man attacked him with his spear and the dark-skinned man fired an arrow at him, but he narrowly avoided both as he ran off to retrieve his weapon in the dark of the night, his bloodied fingers in tow.
"Slippery little rat," Edelgard said before turning to Byleth. "Thank you for saving me, Byleth. I asked you to show me what you're capable of, and you've more than done just that."
"I'll say! I knew mercenaries could be brutal, but I never thought it'd be like that," the dark-skinned man said.
"I'm always as brutal as I need to be," Byleth stated.
All of a sudden, there was a tingling sensation running through her body.
"He's getting away! Together now!" The blonde-haired man pointed his spear in the direction of the bandit leader. Byleth could still feel the tingling sensation, but she elected to ignore it as the four of them charged after their target. However, before they could barely cross half the distance towards him, they stopped when a bright light came down from the sky that enveloped the four of them. The faces of Edelgard and the other two, faces that could do a far better job of conveying shock, showed that they were just as confused as her, and for good reason. No other parts of the forest were being illuminated, and it was too early for sunrise, so it couldn't have been the morning sun.
It especially couldn't have been the morning sun because normal sunlight didn't contain traces of blue, green and purple.
"Weird," Byleth said.
"How is that all you can—what is that?!" That was all the blonde-haired man had time to say before it happened.
Before the giant rainbow shot down from the sky and swallowed them whole.
After a few seconds, Byleth regained her sight and was able to take note of several things: first, and most importantly, she and the three people she was tasked with protecting weren't dead; second, they were all inside the giant rainbow that swallowed them earlier and were now floating and flying through the air, somehow; third, Edelgard seemed to be closer to her than she remembered, like the girl had tried to grab her before they were swallowed; fourth, they were no longer in the forest, but what appeared to be a strange, endless void colored an ethereal blue, one far different from the blue that the tent she saw in her dreams was dyed.
"What the hell is that?!" The fifth thing Byleth noticed was most likely what the dark-skinned man was also noticing: a giant tree vaguely in the shape of a dragon, roots vaguely resembling feet and a tail, branches stretching out to resemble claws and three wings, two on the sides and one running down the center, and the top of the tree resembling a toothy maw. The roots, branches, and tip of the tree were all also wrapped around giant yellow spheres covered in leaves and some sort of black mist, and each of the spheres projected different images for the world to see; the rainbow they were trapped inside of seemed to feeding into the sphere entangled in the bottom left foot, one that projected an image of a lush forest bathed in light.
Almost as soon as Byleth took note of that, the four of them seemed to rapidly accelerate towards the forest sphere; Byleth didn't know how fast they were going, but since Edelgard and the other two were now screaming, it was safe to say that they were going rather fast.
When Byleth was a child, she tried riding a pegasus for the first time, and after being airborne for five seconds, the pegasus bucked her off and she hit the ground hard enough to leave her arm broken for three weeks—it would have been four, if not for her mysterious healing power. It was safe to say that her most recent fall from the giant rainbow was far larger and harder than that, yet when she hit the ground, there was barely enough impact to leave a bruise; when she and the others stood up from the grassy field they landed in, she saw that their landing didn't leave a single sign of impact in the ground. It was all rather odd.
"Is everyone okay?" Byleth asked.
"I'm fine, yes," Edelgard said.
"Much more okay than I thought I'd be," the blonde-haired man said.
"Speak for yourself, because I'm in terrible pain!" the dark-skinned man said.
"What?! You are?! Where?!"
"It's my ass! I-I think there's a crack in it!" The sound immediately following that was Edelgard and the blonde-haired man putting their respective hands to their respective faces.
"Seriously, Claude? You're doing this now?" Edelgard asked. "Now's not the time for—"
"Take off your pants," Byleth interjected.
"""What?!""" Edelgard, the blonde-haired man, and the dark-skinned man Byleth now knew as Claude asked.
"I know Faith magic, so I need to inspect your injury." Byleth held up a hand and ignited a small flame in her palm. "Depending on the severity of it, I might have to cauterize the wound."
"Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa! I was kidding! It was just a joke, so please don't set my ass on fire!" Claude shouted.
"A joke? Right, I know about those." Byleth made the fire in her hand vanish.
"Man, you're the first woman since my mother to give me a heart attack."
"If you're having a heart attack, then I'll need to—"
"Not being literal, please don't do anything!" Byleth didn't understand what she was doing wrong, but she complied, regardless. "Moving on, where the hell are we?"
"I'm not sure," the blonde-haired man said. "Whatever sort of magic that rainbow was carried us somewhere completely new in an instant. At least it felt like an instant, but considering that it's not dark anymore—"
"No, you were right, Dimitri," Edelgard cut in. "Just because it's light out doesn't mean that it's daytime. I'm looking up at the sky, but I don't see anything that resembles a sun." Byleth, Claude, and the man she now knew as Dimitri looked up at the sky. Just as Edelgard had said, there was no sun in the sky, yet it was still as blue as any normal sky and the surrounding area was still lit up like any outdoor area would be in the middle of the day.
"Weird," was all Byleth had to say about it.
"Weird hardly even covers it. Add in that strange rainbow, the giant tree, and the sphere of light we were sucked into, and it's clear that we're not in Fodlan anymore. Not anywhere I've ever been, at least."
"If we're not in Fodlan, then where are we? Who sent us here, and why?" Dimitri asked.
"We can worry about that later. For now, we need to go," Byleth said. Before anyone could ask for clarification, Byleth pointed at the river in front of them, sparkling as if they were looking at flowing light rather than water.
"Right, if there's a river, then we might find people living downstream who can give us some answers. Good eye, Byleth. Guess you're getting the most out of those specs," Claude said.
"My prescription is up to date," Byleth said. Byleth started walking closer to the river, but after only taking a couple of steps, Edelgard called out to her and asked her to stop. "We need to start moving."
"Yes, but since we're spending far more time together than any of us thought, we should do a better job of introducing ourselves," Edelgard said. Byleth shrugged her shoulders at that. "I'll start. My name is Edelgard von Hresvelg."
"My name is Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd," Dimitri said.
"And I'm Claude von Riegan," Claude said.
"Is that right? So that would make you three, respectively, the princess of the Adrestian Empire, the prince of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and the heir to House Riegan of the Leicester Alliance," Byleth said. That was surely the reason those names sounded familiar to her, even with the little she knew about Fodlan society. That was surely it. "I could have sworn that Duke Riegan had no living family, though."
"Yeah, we were all pretty surprised by it," Claude said.
"In any case, now that you know who we are, allow me to offer you the chance to lend your services to the Empire once we make it back to Fodlan. You've more than proven yourself a capable warrior—"
"Which is why her talents would be far better suited for the Kingdom. We don't have anyone quite like you, so you'd be a true boon to us all," Dimitri interjected. Edelgard threw a glare at Dimitri that he returned in kind, though Byleth didn't understand why.
"Jeez, at least buy the poor girl dinner first," Claude said. Claude was currently winning.
"So we're to believe you have no plans of stealing her over to the Alliance?" Edelgard asked.
"Of course I do, but my way of doing it is far more elegant. I'm gonna spend this little adventure of ours building up a priceless friendship with her, then after we become best friends over saving each other from a giant monster—I just assume there's gonna be a giant monster somewhere—that's when I get her to go home with me." Claude stepped over to Byleth and put an arm around her shoulder. "How's that sound, Byleth? Pretty good, right?"
"Personal space," Byleth stated. Claude quickly removed his arm from her. "Let's go." The three of them followed after Byleth. As they walked, she thought more about the idea of her going to one of their homelands, and if she was being honest, she couldn't pick one, even hypothetically.
All three places were more or less equal in terms of food, so it was hard to decide.
Byleth, Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude followed the sparkling river for over an hour, and while not a single trace of civilization was discovered, more and more details about the place they had ended up at became known. The air smelled nice no matter where they went, like milk and honey and hand lotion. The flora bore little to no resemblance to anything in Fodlan, not even surrounding nations like Brigid or Morfis. The trees and flowers were either far larger or far smaller than anything Byleth had seen before. The flowers bloomed outwards to make themselves look like small suns; the bark on the trees had a spiral coloring that alternated between brown and white gold, and the leaves were a bright yellow that matched the light illuminating the area.
However, what was most peculiar about the flora was that none of the specimens they came across were completely organic. If Byleth looked at them closely enough, she could see that they had pieces of metal woven into their construction, metal far smoother and far better built than anything she had ever come across; after that realization hit her, she began to notice that even the grass beneath her feet had a metallic quality to it. As far as she knew, metal couldn't sprout up from the ground like a plant, so the flora had to be man-made. Why someone would go to all that trouble, she had no idea.
"Someone's here," Byleth suddenly said, throwing an arm in front of the other three to get them to stop. She pointed her sword towards the top of a large tree. Standing on top of one of the branches was a small figure, definitely a person, but their form was obscured by the shadow cast by leaves.
"Put that thing away. It's rude to point a sword at people, you know," a familiar voice said. Byleth recognized it in an instant, and when she stepped out of the shadows and started floating down to the ground, it became clear that it was the little girl she always saw in her dreams.
"Everyone grab your weapons! We don't know what she's capable of, so be ready for anything!" Edelgard said, jumping in front of Byleth with her axe at the ready.
"You're certainly quick to the draw," Claude said.
"It's fine. She's completely harmless, utterly incapable of hurting anyone," Byleth said.
"I wouldn't go that far," the girl said, her bare feet now floating a little above the ground. After a few seconds, Edelgard sighed and put down her axe.
"If you can trust her, then I won't do anything for now," Edelgard said.
"Anyway, we're just relieved to finally meet someone here," Dimitri said. "Byleth, how do you know this girl?"
"She's a tiny, nameless amnesiac who lives in my head and visits me in my dreams," Byleth said.
"I'm sorry, what? Then again, after everything that's happened today…"
"It's definitely true, though she's certainly not much for conversation," the girl said. "Our connection allowed me to see that Byleth was heading down this path, and it also allowed me to learn the names of her good-looking companions. Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude, thank you for providing me with the extra company."
"Wait, were you the one who brought us here?" Claude asked.
"No, that wasn't me. I'm pretty sure it wasn't, at least."
"You're pretty sure? What does that—where even are we? Do you know that?" Edelgard asked.
"Of course! I think. Wait, wait, something's coming to me. What is it, what is it?" The girl snapped her fingers before pointing up towards the sky, dramatically. "Oh yes, that's it! This place isn't Fodlan or Morfis or Almyra or anywhere else that exists in your world. This world is none other than Yggdrasil, the World Tree, and we're inside my home, the realm known as Alfheim!"
"Huh. How about that?" Byleth said.
"Please have a bigger reaction to something like this!" Dimitri said. "Little girl, is what you're saying true? Is your home really some other world separate from ours?"
"That's right! I think," the girl said. "I mean, I'm certain about Yggdrasil existing on a separate plane of reality, but I'm honestly not entirely sure if Alheim is my home. I do know that I feel a sense of familiarity while being here, though I honestly can't remember when I first arrived. I also have a bit of resemblance to some of the more ornery inhabitants, but I don't know if that's enough for this to be my home. I think. Full disclosure, this probably wasn't the best time for a visit."
"What are you talking about? And what do you mean by other inhabitants?" Claude asked.
"And what do you mean by ornery?" Edelgard asked.
"Hide," Byleth stated before stepping behind a tree.
"Oh, I can answer both of those questions. Everyone do like Byleth and hide!" The rest of the group wasted no time following Byleth's lead—Edelgard and the little girl hiding behind the same tree as Byleth and Dimitri and Claude going behind a bush. At that point, Byleth was sure that everyone had seen what she had seen: a mysterious black sphere of energy appearing in the air out of nowhere. It quickly expanded and became flat, and from there, a man dressed in all black robes stepped through it as if it were a doorway of some sort.
"Okay, hurry it up. We don't have all day, you know!" More footsteps sounded off from inside the dark doorway, though they sounded far lighter than the man's footsteps. Soon enough, ten figures exited the doorway to join the man in black. They were all tall, lanky figures with pitch-black bodies draped in white robes, insectoid wings sticking out of their backs, and pointy ears sticking out of their heads. Byleth assumed that the ears were why the little girl thought they were related, but beyond that, there were very little similarities between the little girl and those creatures.
For starters, the little girl had an actual human face as opposed to the blank mask void of emotion that the creatures all wore.
"Okay, let's make this a good one today. Nothing too fancy, just need to get people's attention."
"Yeah, yeah, we know the drill," one of the creatures said, its voice simultaneously rough and soft. It took a few steps in front of the man in black before putting its hands out in the air. As it moved its hands apart, the air ripped apart and created a hole in space roughly the size of its head. The creature then flattened itself out, lifted itself into the air, and flew into the hole and vanished from sight. Byleth couldn't see it clearly before the hole vanished, but she was sure that the hole was showing a restaurant in western Faerghus.
"Yeah, this one's gonna cause a nice little stir." Another creature stepped forward and began the same process as the previous one.
"Who's that guy supposed to be?" Claude asked.
"I don't know, and I don't think the stir he's trying to cause is anything good," Dimitri said.
"Really says a lot about your so-called friends," Edelgard said to the little girl.
"I never said they were my friends! Don't lump me in with people who do the kind of stuff they do!" the little girl said.
"What are they doing?" Byleth asked.
"They're-They're… Darn it, I just had it! It was a really bad thing, too, and it just slipped my mind!" The little girl pounded her fist against the tree in frustration.
Wait, hold on, Byleth thought too late for it to be any good. The obvious outcome of hitting a metal object occurred: the sound of the little girl's fist echoed out through the area, and the man in black and the creatures stopped what they were doing and turned in their direction.
"Didn't think a place like this could have rats," the man in black said. A blast of dark magic shot out of his hand at the tree the little girl struck; Byleth pulled her and Edelgard away moments before their hiding spot was destroyed, thus fully exposing them to their enigmatic enemy.
"Any chance we can hash this out over a meal?" Claude asked as he and Dimitri stepped out from their bush.
"Kill them!"
"Yeah, I was afraid of that." Claude drew his bow; Dimitri readied his spear; Edelgard readied her axe; Byleth drew her sword; the little girl got into a fighting stance from the safety of Byleth's shadow. Two of the creatures stepped forward with postures full of rage. Byleth had no idea what those things were or what they were capable of, but she assumed she would be ready for anything they could throw at her.
She was wrong. She was not ready for them to explode into puddles of dark goo and then for each of them to reform into a pumpkin with a face carved into it atop a cloak and a floating hand holding a lantern. That was hardly something anyone could be ready for.
"Hee-Ho!" the pumpkins shouted. They held their lanterns up high as fireballs flew out of them. Byleth shouted for everyone to move; the group managed to avoid the attack, but the resulting burn marks created from them suggested that their magic was at a higher level than Byleth's. A less than ideal conclusion to arrive at.
"That was too close! Little girl, what did those things just do?" Dimitri asked.
"I think—No, I'm absolutely certain this time. The form they were in before was a mask, and this is their true form!" the little girl said.
"Might not be giant, but I knew there'd be monsters," Claude said.
"They're cuter than before," Byleth said.
"Even if they are, they need to go down all the same," Edelgard said. Three more of the creatures stepped forward. "Come on everyone, we can't falter and die in some place no one knows exists. The only option available to us is—" The three creatures exploded into puddles of dark goo and reformed into a trio of giant rats made of metal with cannon-like objects on their backs. "Th-The only option available to us is… is…"
"Edelgard?" Byleth saw all of Edelgard's composure abandon her. Her face started sweating, her legs started shaking, her eyes started blinking in rapid succession, a complete turnaround from how she had been acting before. One of the giant rats let out some sort of roar, and then Edelgard dropped her axe with a scream and jumped behind the remains of the tree. "Edelgard!"
"What's gotten into you?!" Dimitri asked. Edelgard didn't respond with anything other than incomprehensible mutterings. The little girl went over to her side to console her, but Edelgard was still being uncooperative.
"Talk later, fight monsters now!" Claude said. Byleth didn't have a problem with that, so she charged at the creatures. One of the untransformed ones exploded and reformed into a small skeleton wearing a black coat and wielding a knife. The skeleton met Byleth's sword with its knife, and with a "Hee-Ho!" effortlessly blocked her attack, knocked her sword out of her hands, and blew her back with a blast of dark magic from its mouth.
That was probably bad.
"Damn you!" Dimitri said. He stabbed his spear at one of the pumpkins, but his weapon shattered on impact and the pumpkin started hitting him in the face with its lantern. The second Dimitri managed to dodge a swing, his body glowed a pale light as he punched the pumpkin in its face. The pumpkin received a bit of a dent, but it didn't look seriously hurt as it shot Dimitri down with a fireball. In the midst of that, Claude shot arrows at them, but they all bounced harmlessly off of their bodies. Before Claude could so much as gasp, one of the metal rats ran over and tackled him to the ground.
"Ha! You morons! As if ordinary weapons like those could do a thing against these beasts!" the man in black laughed. The last three creatures exploded into puddles of dark goo that melded together into a single large one that quickly reformed into a large rooster; the rooster crowed so loudly that Byleth, who barely dodged a swipe from the skeleton as she picked herself up off the ground, thought her eardrums were going to burst.
This is not good, Byleth thought as she grabbed her sword. She launched a fireball at the rooster that hit it square in the face and sent it back a bit. She fired another one at it, but the dented pumpkin Dimitri fought intercepted the blast with its lantern, absorbing it and somehow restoring its head to its natural state. The rooster crowed once more and fired a blast of wind with its wings that blew Byleth, Dimitri, and Claude backward. This is really not good.
"Oh no oh no oh no—Hey Edelgard, pull yourself together, already!" the little girl said.
"This isn't how this was supposed to go. Those kinds of things weren't supposed to be here. Why do I have to see those monsters? Why do I have to see them when I'm with these people? Especially… Especially…" Edelgard mumbled something like that over and over again as one of the giant metal rats approached her and the little girl and the other creatures approached the rest of the group.
"Somebody do something! I don't want to die before I even know who I am!" Byleth wanted to answer her request, but she couldn't figure out what to do. They were all stuck in some strange world filled with monsters that shrugged off her attacks like they were nothing and hit too hard for comfort. In all likelihood, they were all going to die.
Byleth thought that that was something she could accept. For herself, the life she lived was one where death was always around the table, so she thought it'd be better to just accept it when it finally came for her. For the others, it was unfortunate, but there was simply nothing that could be done to save them, so there wasn't any merit in drawing out the inevitable. They were all going to die, and that was the end of it, plain and simple.
That's how it should have been, yet when one of the giant metal rats moved too close to Edelgard for comfort, Byleth still found herself jumping in front of her and the little girl and slashing at it with her sword. Her weapon didn't break on impact like Dimitri's did, but she was still being pushed back, regardless.
"Didn't I tell you it was pointless? Stop this useless struggle and just die already!" the man in black shouted. Byleth knew he was right. She knew it was pointless, she knew it'd be easier if they just accepted that they were going to die, but she couldn't. The little girl was the closest thing she had to a friend, so if she really thought about it, she didn't want to see her get hurt. Then there was Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude. She had known the trio for a couple of hours, she barely knew anything about them, but the more she thought about any of them dying, the more her chest started to hurt, almost as if there was something inside there. She didn't know what that was, she didn't understand what that was, but she didn't hate, so she couldn't help but want to follow it through.
At that moment, her sword broke through the metal rat's defenses and pushed it back, a deep cut making its way into its armor.
"What?!" The sight was enough to make the other monsters stop in their tracks. "How?! You don't have the strength to harm anyone here, so how?!"
I don't know. I don't get it, either, Byleth thought, suddenly feeling out of breath and energized at the same time. I don't know why I'm here, and I don't know why I'm trying so hard, but I don't think I can stop myself. On instincts she didn't recognize, Byleth started rapidly running her left index finger through the air, a tracing of pale green light appearing in tandem. She kept at it in a wild pattern, and when she stopped, an intricate symbol resembling a flame appeared in the air in front of her.
"Byleth?" Edelgard asked, seemingly regaining some of her composure.
"What are you doing?" the little girl asked. She didn't know what she was doing. She didn't know what needed to be done.
All she knew was that there was one word that kept echoing in her head.
Besides that one word, all of a sudden, there was a strangely familiar scene playing out in Byleth's head. She was a child-like she was in her dream, and the other kids were there as well. The four of them were sitting on a wooden floor, most likely inside that strange building, and there were small ceramic cups filled with something that smelled like the kind of drinks her father had too much of.
"Drink." Standing in front of them was the man in the mask from the first dream. When no one did anything, he motioned with a heavily scarred hand for them to pick up their cups. The four of them picked them up and took a collective sip. It burned and tasted terrible; definitely the kind of drink her father liked.
"Endure it. With this drink, you children shall have your hearts forever bonded." The brown-haired girl started coughing, so Byleth—sitting on her immediate right—patted her on the back. "Finish it all, and then we will begin the game that will set all of our fates in motion. That game is called—"
"Persona!" The foreign word left Byleth's lips as she slammed her hand against the symbol of flames in the air. The metal rat she injured charged at her once more, but before it could attack her, a sword stabbed it through the head and made it vanish into ash.
The sword didn't belong to Byleth, though. Emerging from a pillar of green fire behind Byleth stood the owner of the silver sword, said owner being a tall, pale-skinned woman who wore a leather skirt, a thick fur belt, and chains around her forearms. Her chest was bare, but there were no signs of nipples or a belly button; the only things that could be seen were a small scar in the center of her chest and a red tattoo than ran up her left side and around her back until it reemerged on her head atop the horned, metal mask she wore. The mask gave no indication of emotion or personality; the only thing it gave away was an opening in the back that allowed a long mane of blue hair to flow out.
"I am thou, thou art I. I am one who inherited the warrior spirit of the Red explorer, Freydis!" the woman spoke, her voice a distorted mirror of Byleth's own. "My child, if thou desires it, then I will lend thee mine power and take you to the farthest reaches of the world, no matter how many must be slain on the way!"
"All right, then," Byleth said. Her companions all looked dumbfounded by what was transpiring, and she didn't understand it either, but now wasn't the time for confusion. Now was the time to do the one thing she did best: fight.
Without a word, Freydis dashed forward and stabbed at another metal rat, her sword running straight through its hide and tearing it in two. At the same time, Byleth charged at the pumpkins with her sword held high. They launched balls of fire at her, but with speed she didn't realize she possessed, she dodged their attacks and got in close enough to cut them down and turn them to ash. The skeleton ran up and cut her leg with its knife, but Byleth quickly kicked it down and disintegrated it with a fireball.
The last of the metal rats started firing the cannon-like object at Freydis. The ammunition was small and flew out at incredible speed, each one piercing Freydis' flesh without fail; for some reason, Byleth found her own body getting injured in the same spots as Freydis. She didn't want to keep dealing with that, she wanted it to stop, and as if responding to her will, Freydis fired a beam of light from her sword at the metal rat that blew it into the air where it vanished in a burst of light. As it vanished, her mysterious healing power activated and erased the worst of her injuries.
The only creature left was the rooster, and as soon as the thought crossed her mind, it crowed and released a blast of wind at her and Freydis. Byleth used a newfound well of strength to stand her ground, but she could hardly move against the wind. Freydis could hardly move, either, and when attempting to use her light magic, it faded out before it could reach its target. Byleth couldn't let this keep going. She needed something to hit it from afar, something that could pierce through its wind.
Out of nowhere, an object appeared in her left hand. It looked like the cannon-like object the metal rats had, but far smaller and built in a way that naturally fit in her hand. There was a small metal bit that her finger naturally went to that felt like it could be pressed down on. The weapon's sudden appearance was odd, but Byleth just shrugged her shoulders, pressed down on the metal bit, and launched a tiny cannonball at the rooster that flew through the wind and pierced through its neck. The wind ceased as it paced around in pain, and Freydis took that opportunity to jump over and decapitate the rooster, its head and body turning to ash in tandem.
"They're all dead! Inconceivable!" the man in black shouted. "How?! How can you have that power?! Only the elite of the elites are able to harness it, so how can you—"
Byleth silenced him by stabbing her sword through his foot.
"I'd like some answers," Byleth said. Up above her head, watching everything play out was Freydis, her new power. Her latest mystery.
Her Persona.
I had no idea how to properly describe it, but Byleth's gun is a Thompson Contender.