Charlie: Hello folks. Sorry for the long wait, but I wanted to mass update, and translate one of my earlier scripted storys back. I liked that one, so I'm hoping it'll be just as good. Some of you may remember it. It's "A day at the Office." If you don't know it, go check it out. It's a flat out comedy thingy. Anyways, this chapter of "A Tactician and a Thief" will be dedicated to my reviewer, X. Now, if you haven't seen X's reviews. It's quite…an eye-opener. Anyways, I have promised all pointless flamers that you'll get ridiculed. Not that I don't mind. I mean, by all means, go ahead and flame me for bashing Matthew. I need more people to pick on anyways. But folks, if you're gonna flame, telling me "YOU SUCKZORZ BECAUSE MATTHEW ROXORS YOUR SOXORS!" is not a good flame. Well, enjoy. And now, let's all take the pleasure of laughing at X. Nameless and Angel of Fate, you can start us off . And I do not own Fire Emblem. Oh yeah, and I originally planned to mass update all my fics...but I thought I'd get this one up early. The others still need a bit fixing up.
A Tactician and a Thief – Chapter 4
A Stale New Beginning. (New format to be cleaner with the title)
Charlie surveyed the surroundings. It wasn't pretty. Their only exit was blocked by a big burly ogreish guy, and archers and soldiers blocked virtually every last corridor imaginable. Sighing the young man turned towards a sandy-haired thief next to him.
"Tell me Matthew, if you knew about this earlier, why didn't you TELL me? It would've saved us so much more time."
"Well, I didn't expect there to be so many of these people." Matthew replied.
"Right, well unfortunately, you weren't smart enough to consider the people hiding behind other people. Or did you forget that the average knight's armor rivals the Hindenburg in size?"
"Oh shut up. You're the tactician, now get us out of here." Matthew grumbled, unhappy about having his screw up pointed out.
"Easy for you to say. Meh, oh well." Charlie sighed before turning towards a blue haired youth in heavy armor. "Lord Hector is it not?"
The man nodded.
"Good, you look like you have very good strength, plus you have a huge axe and heavy armor. I trust you know what to do with those soldiers and knights down there?" Charlie asked pointing towards a southward bound corridor littered with knights and soldiers.
"Of course. I'll smash them like the bugs they are." Hector roared before charging down the hall and causing general destruction and chaos.
After Hector had gone, Charlie turned towards Matthew. "Say, how do you typically fare in dodgeball?"
"…Umm, I am fairly decent. Why?" Matthew replied, but he had a growing suspicion. "…Oh dear, I have a bad feeling about this…"
"You see those archers over there?" Charlie said point towards the western corridor. "I hope you can dodge arrows well, because I ain't bringing Melodie through there unless the archers are all dead."
"…Wait a minute…you want ME…to go through THAT death trap?" Matthew said incredulously.
"Either that or you can follow Hector." Charlie said
Matthew took a look at Hector wildly swinging his axe around, beheading everything from enemy knights to the occational statue.
"…You got a third option?" Matthew said, not wanting to lose his head in an accidental swing from his young master.
"Sure, I could kill you right now." Charlie threatened.
"Point taken. Time to play some dodgeball." Matthew muttered before heading off towards archer city.
As Melodie and Charlie watched the thief head into archer city, Melodie began to fret over him.
"Will he be alright?" She asked.
"Eh…he'll be fine." Charlie replied. "…I hope."
"What's that supposed to mean?!" She screamed frantically.
"Er..nothing…come on…lets go." Charlie said before heading down the corridor to follow Hector.
Up ahead, Matthew began dodging the rain of arrows that hailed upon him. As he stole a glance backwards, he saw Charlie lead Melodie off towards Hector's corridor.
"…Oh that backstabbing son of a…." He muttered as more and more arrows flew his way. He sighed and kept dodging. After all, the archers had to run out of arrows someday.
When Hector smashed his way to the back door, only a lone knight stood between him and freedom. So he stood there, waiting for the others to get to him. Not long after, the new kid Matthew brought with him, Charlie, showed up. Hector had to hand it to him. The kid knew the kinds of people Hector was good against. He was gaining some valuable fighting experience.
"Where's Matthew?" Hector asked Charlie as he walked up with a squeamish Melodie.
"Eh, he should be here soon, either that or he's dead already." Charlie said.
Melodie fainted upon hearing the mention of death. Fortunately, Charlie caught her before she fell into a pool of blood Hector so kindly left on the palace floors.
"Well, he better be here soon. I think the chap at the door is getting impatient." Hector said, noting the knight at the door, who was currently screaming phrases such as "ARE YOU GONNA STAND THERE ALL DAY OR ARE YOU GONNA COME AND KILL ME?" Charlie had to admit, it was getting annoying.
Moments later, Matthew arrived with a few arrows sticking out from his arms and legs. Amazingly, the archers managed to hit just about everything but his vitals.
"…I hate you Charlie." He muttered while pulling out arrows from his limbs and wrapping himself up.
"What? Me? After all I've done for you?!" Charlie said sarcastically. Hector choked to hold in his laughter.
"Right…I should be THANKING you for my blood loss, extreme pain, and the dislocation of my spleen, which I still haven't been able to find." Matthew retorted.
"Oh shut up and go kill the doorman." Charlie said waving at the knight guarding the door.
"You don't really expect me to do that now would you?!" Matthew said even more incredulously, hoping that it was a joke.
"Of course! After all, you are the best fighter there is in all of Lycia!" Charlie said with a sarcastic admiration.
"What? Who said that?!" Matthew asked.
Charlie pointed to a person who stood in the shadows with dreamy eyes. "Him…err…or her……it. Yeah. It. Can't tell if he/she/it is male or female. All I know is he/she/it has a single letter for a name. And all he/she/it's been able to say was: 'You suck. Matthew is the best. You suck…Matthew is the best!' It got a bit annoying. But since you are CLEARLY the best of the land, I'm sure a simple knight would pose no problem." Charlie said with an amazingly straight face.
Matthew grumbled as he pulled out his dagger and headed for the knight, who seemingly is glued to the spot he's standing on. As he walked up, he found that the castle employee had come out of the shadows, and was cheering him on with crazy cheerleader chants. Matthew groaned, the cheering just had reduced Hector and Charlie into laughing fools. .
When Matthew came up to the knight, the knight took one look at him and started laughing.
"AHAHAHAH! What's a little boy like you gonna do?" He chuckled.
"I have come to take you down." Matthew replied.
"In your state?" The knight gasped. "What're you gonna do to me? Bleed on me?"
Matthew was furious; he pulled out his dagger and stabbed the man in the chest…or at least his chest plate. The dagger snapped upon contact and fell into two pieces on the ground, useless. The knight laughed and raised his lance...
The next thing Matthew saw was Charlie and Hector's laughing faces. The fan…thing was next to the two, ane he/she/it was diligently patching up his head.
"…ugh, what happened?"
"Well, you broke your sword on his armor…got hit in the head, and passed out." Charlie said. "Hector here dragged you out of there."
"Oy…" Matthew groaned. "Was it that bad?"
"Well, considering the knight was yawning when he hit you…yeah." Hector answered.
"Yep, now you just rest now." Charlie continued. "Hector, go finish him."
"Aye." Hector nodded before stalking off.
X, or so people in the palace call him/her/it, immediately tried to stop the lord. "But Sir Tactician! You must give Lord Matthew a chance! He will do better!"
Charlie stared at the creature. "At what?! Dying?! No thanks! I think the janitor's had enough blood to clean from these floors."
"No! At defeating the enemy and proving his strength!"
"Right…" Charlie said. "You keep thinking that while I go with the realistic approach here. Finish him Hector!"
Hector needed no further encouragement as he raised his axe and slammed it into the knight, killing him.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" The knight screamed balefully with his last breath. "AND I WOULD'VE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT IF IT WEREN'T FOR YOU MEDDLING KIDS! …and that THING!" And thus he died.
Hector put away his axe and joined Charlie and Matthew. Melodie was stirring, so everyone was relieved, except for of course X, who was on his/her/its feet protesting the "indignation Charlie placed upon Matthew's head by not allowing the greatest warrior of all time fight." Charlie and Hector looked at each other making rather rude gestures about the creature's sanity during the his/her/its 10 minute long speech. When he/she/it finished, the two bound and gagged him/her/it, and shipped the creature off in a box to the Ostian Mental Institution, where they hope that the man would receive something to right his head or euthanasia. Secretly, both men hoped for the latter option.
After that had been taken care of. Charlie and Hector gingerly carried Matthew and Melodie out of the blood stained back of the castle and headed out into the city. After stopping by at Charlie's room in the local inn to allow Melodie and Matthew to fully recover, the four set out for Pherae, seeking to help a friend in need. Little do they know that they'll find something much bigger…and much more catastrophic.
Charlie: Yeah, half-assed ending. But my eyes are killing me right now. Stupid allergies. Anyways. The chapter's will be getting shorter for now because I'll be going by one game chapter at a time. Of course, some chapters will be longer…and others will take two chapters to finish. So yeah. I'll try to keep it moving along as fast as I can. Now to answer my dear reviewers.
Nightmare: Heh, well everyone's entitled to their opinions. Matthew is quite charming. And about the bashing…it'll get worse, but I don't constantly do it so yeah. Hope you won't mind it too much
Nameless: Heh, glad you like my fics that much. Meh, Lyn won't have to do much. I have plenty of plot twists coming
Angel of Fate1: yes dear sister. You know I cannot resist.
X: My dear X. My how I enjoy your flames. Really, I do. But I must say, you insult me when you assume that I like Jaffar. I don't. Jaffar is a creepy, disturbed mental case. Well, it's been jolly good meeting you. Don't pointlessly flame again. I can do worse than what I just did.
Well, hope you enjoyed. I dislike making examples out of people. But don't flame me just because of a difference in opinion. Flame me for bad spelling, grammer, my half assed ending, anything. But if you pointlessly flame me because "Matthew roxors and I suxors," I will ridicule you. Well, good day folks. Leave a critique if you feel like I need one or deserve one. This chapter is kinda not that characteristic to my style...but it's close enough. I'm still a bit rusty from Hawaii so bear with me.
