Charlie: Hello. Sorry for the freakishly long wait. Anyways, I'm gonna continue this. Thanks to everyone who reviewed and gave me nice comments (or bashed X). To each their own opinions, I will respect the fact that many of you like Matthew. One of my very good friends is a Matthew-fan. However, I do want to be respected for my dislike of Matthew. But if you feel like flaming me and going "OMG YOU SUCKS AND MATTHEW ROXORS!" I will just do to you what I did to X. Anyways, this chapter, random insanity, someone leaves (guess who) and we meet Jellywood- I mean Eliwood. Enjoy.


Hector, followed closely by Matthew, Melodie and the newly acquired tactician Charlie raced towards Pherae in hopes of finding young Lord Eliwood whose father went missing. Along the way, the foursome met up with a knight and cleric of Ostia, who were sent by Hector's brother Uther to look after the hot headed lording. They were soon nearing Pherae. Unfortunately, they suddenly saw a large amount of bandits ahead of them.

"Charlie, come take a look." Hector said.

The tall tactician went forward and squinted against the sunlight. He scanned the field.

"Hmm, a ton of brigands, a few warriors, couple of rogue Pegasus knights and a few archers." Charlie said. "Nothing special. Looks like a dirty raid to me."

"Should we help them?" Hector asked.

"You're the Lord here." Charlie returned. "Personally, I would want to take every single one of them and smash their heads into a sharp rock. But then, that's me."

Charlie smiled at Hector who smiled back and brought his axe to the front.

Serra saw Hector get ready for battle and squealed.

"YAY! A FIGHT!" She screeched. "FUN!"

Matthew and Oswin smacked their foreheads as they prepared their weapons. Serra was always the most excited about battle, even though she never fought. Secretly, both men wished that the cleric would soon become a bishop, so she would actually be able to taste battle.

Meanwhile, Charlie directed Hector towards the Pegasus knights and had Oswin guard against any stragglers that Hector failed to catch. Matthew, being the unfortunate one, was ordered to do hit and fade attacks against the biggest massed bandit group Charlie could find.

"Okay, remember Matthew, don't get hit." Charlie said.

"Gee, thanks for the support." Matthew groaned and headed into what he was sure was a suicide attack.

The thief moved nimbly in and out of the enemy's line of sight, slowly picking off members to the side.

After making sure that all his men were okay, Charlie directed his attention towards another group of fighters the bandits seem to be focusing on. Using his keen eyesight, the tactician tried to make out the leader of the other group. His eyes landed on a young man fighting with a rapier who had a head of flaming red hair.

"HECTOR!" Charlie yelled as soon as he figured out who the man was.

"What!" Hector hollered back after loping the head off another bandit. "It better be important!"

"Look to the South field! Is that Eliwood!" Charlie asked.

Hector got confused and blindly looked around.

"Sigh…South is to your right!" He yelled sighing heavily.

Hector then looked in the right direction and saw the beacon of red hair.

"ELIWOOD!" Hector called out. "IT IS HIM!"

The red haired youth must've heard the call because he looked up and saw the ragtag group and waved. Charlie waved back and then signaled for Eliwood to try to fight his way up. The young man nodded his head furiously in agreement and urged his troops North.

Unfortunately, that's when the tactician noticed that a brigand had snuck up behind him. Moving quickly, the man flung himself to the side and avoided being bisected by mere inches. The tactician quickly drew his sword.

The fight between the bandit and Charlie wasn't much of a fight at all. The bandit swung forward fiercely and the tactician struggled to keep up even though he had a sword. Soon, he was pushed up against a tree and with one swipe; his sword came free of his hands.

The bandit smiled menacingly and raised his axe to deliver the fatal blow. Charlie knew it was over. Faced with death, the tactician watched the axe rise above the bandit's head and then fall.

He waited for the final blow.

He got nothing but a agonized screech.

When Charlie opened his eyes. He saw Melodie with the axe through her shoulder blocking him from certain death. The bandit was confused as he pulled his blood soaked axe back up. But soon he saw that he had two targets now, and one was quite and attractive one. He bared his rotten teeth and got ready to swung again.

Charlie leaned over and held Melodie close to him, applying pressure to her injured shoulder. He knew that he would die soon, but he hoped that the girl in his arms would be spared. He was suddenly shaken from his reverie when the bandit's dead body fell to the ground with an arrow through his neck. When Charlie looked up he saw a green haired archer girl holding an iron bow looking at him with a concerned expression. Wasting no time, he gestured towards the injured Melodie and asked for the girl to fetch Serra.

Moments later, Serra came with a shriek and began fussing over Melodie's injured shoulder. Charlie went back to see the progress of the battle.

When he arrived at the battle field, he noticed that Matthew was standing there with a bloodied dagger and an expression of absolute glee.

"Oh man, I saw the whole thing!" Matthew snickered.

"What!" Charlie asked confused.

"You my friend!" Matthew said bursting with uncontrollable laughter. "You got owned by a bandit!"

"…oh shut up Matthew." Charlie grumbled and he left the shrieking thief for Hector.

"We've mopped them all up." Hector said. "So, what's Matthew so happy about?"

"Charlie got owned by a bandit!" Matthew shouted.

"What!" Hector said and he to began to laugh. Charlie was now officially pissed.

"That's it!" he shouted and proceeded to throw rocks at the laughing thief and lording.

That's when Serra showed up with Melodie.

"She's bad, we need to get her to town." Serra said.

Charlie nodded and had everyone pack up and retreat into a nearby village.

That night, Matthew and Charlie stood outside the inn they were staying at while waiting for the doctor to finish.

"That was rich my man, you got owned by a pirate." Matthew said with glee.

"Oh will you SHUT UP with that!" Charlie groaned. "Anyways, how many allies did we gain?"

"Well, we got Eliwood and that Rebecca girl who saved your neck." Matthew counted off. "There's Marcus of the Pherae Knights and Lowen as well. And Bartre and Dorcas, two fighters. I'm sure you remember Dorcas."

"Yes, I do." Charlie said. "Now all we need is-"

Charlie was cut off by a swarm of girls who slammed into his unfortunate companion.

"The hell?"

"UWAH! HE'S SO CUTE! WHEN DID YOU GET INTO TOWN!" One of the girls screamed.

"TAKE ME WITH YOU!"

"HE'S MINE!"

"I WANT TO HAVE YOUR BABY!"

Charlie stood to the side and laughed as Matthew attempted in vain to escape the death trap of fangirls. He was about to help buthe thensaw Hector with the doctor so he turned around and left Matthew to his fate.

"How is it doc?" Charlie asked.

"She'll live, but she won't be able to go anywhere for a month." The doctor replied.

"This is bad Charlie." Hector said. "I know how you feel about her, but… Eliwood wants to find his father, and well… we were thinking about leaving her behind."

Charlie stayed silent for a while. "Okay… it's better this way anyways. She won't be in danger."

The two men thanked the doctor and bid him farewell.

"So, how do you feel?" Hector asked.

"Well, I'm not drinking." Charlie said.

"Is that a good thing?"

"You tell me. I drink when I'm happy, but when I drink, bad stuff happens."

"Heh. Well, get some rest. We'll spend a day here. You can say your goodbyes." Hector said.

"Thanks."

"So…what's happening to Matthew? Is that a gang-rape or something?" Hector asked as he watched Matthew getting savagely swarmed.

"No, just his fans." Charlie chuckled. "I hope we don't have to leave HIM behind as well. I need cannon fodder."

"Hehe." Hector chuckled.

Just then, the men were interrupted by a strangely familiar voice.

"OH GODS! YOU MUST SAVE HIM!"

Charlie and Hector turned around and saw an all too familiar face.

"YOU!" The men said in unison.

"Yes, it is I, X! And I have come to avenge my idol! How could you let Master Matthew be swarmed like this!"

Charlie and Hector exchanged glances. "After you?" Charlie asked.

"Watch and learn bandit boy."

"Hey! Now THAT'S hitting below the belt" Charlie said as he watched Hector knock the consciousness out of the…thing that called him/her/itself X. The two then proceeded to bind and gag the creature and dump him/her/it into a nearby garbage dump.

"Well, that takes care of that. Get some sleep Charlie. We're heading to Santurez soon."

Charlie nodded and headed into the inn.

Hector marched to where Matthew was being drowned in attractive and not so attractive young girls. "Having fun Matt?"

"Get…me…out…" Matthew begged.

"All right, party's over! GIT!" Hector said waving his arms around wildly.

The girls all screamed bloody murder and ran away as fast as they could. Matthew was in a poor sight. His face muddied and covered in what looked like lipstick. His clothes were in tatters and he was covered in cuts and bruises.

"Quite the ladies man, aren't you?" Hector asked.

"I never felt so violated." Matthew groaned stretching his legs out.

"Heh, well get some rest. We leave for Santurez in two days. Eliwood say that there's some information about his father there.

"Okay…how's Melodie?"

"Bad…" Hector said. "We're leaving him behind."

"Charlie's okay with that?" Matthew asked.

"Yeah, he took it well." Hector said. "But he's not drinking."

"Give him some time, he'll get so wasted that you'll make it your sworn goal to ruin his day so he wouldn't drink." Matthew joked.

"Hah, don't joke like that kid before I throw you to the wolves again. Now come on, lets go." Hector said.

The two men shared a good laugh and went into the inn. From the garbage ditch, a bound and gagged X struggled fiercely against his bonds.

'I'll get you!' He screamed in his mind before the garbage collector hit him over the head with a shovel thinking that he was a raccoon.


Charlie: Okay, I'm still warming up. And I haven't been feeling good today. This took me like…hours to type. This little…yes. Anyways, it'll go on. Melodie's being left behind. Yep. And amazingly, I didn't drink. Well, enjoy and please review!

Oh by the way, X got two cameos because he pointlessly flamed me twice. We are now officially even. But if you guys like X, I'll make him show up and get abused every chapter.