Hello there everyone. This as you may or may not know is my second fic. I was previously writing under the name of 'The knight who says Ni' so if you want to read my other story which is considerably longer, then as it's not up on my new profile yet you'll have to go on my old name. Anyhow, new name, new story. I had a lot of fun writing it and I hope you enjoy reading it, if of course you can be bothered and are not just flicking randomly through stories. Well, if you are, I don't really care.
Legal rubbish: This story belongs to me. However, nothing else really does it seems. Shame really... if everything did the world would be a much more interesting place.
Dedication: This chapter . . . at least is dedicated to JestaAriadne who got me started on fanfiction. Lets count it as a very belated birthday present. Go read her fanfics. But not until you've read this one of course .
Prologue:
An old man sat in the centre of a vast library with a small glass of wine on the table next to him. His sad pale blue hair almost grey now wafted slightly, batted by the breeze. His armour, now too big for his ancient form fitted round him like a coffin. An ancient long sword hung by his side. His fingers twitched nervously, always wanting to grasp something which was not quite there. He smiled sadly.
"Hello there," he said. "I gather you would like a story. Well, I have found a good one just for you. It's quite long and it's one of my more interesting adventures, so are you settled comfortably? Then I shall begin"
He opened the book with shaking fingers and cleared his parchment-like throat. Then he began:
The Marth Monologues
"Um . . . Hello there, my name is Marth, you may have heard of me . . . I starred in one of the fire emblem games. Of course you wouldn't have played that as it was in Japanese . . ." said Marth in the games shop, attempting to purchase a GBA.
"I don't suppose since I have made you some income from my games . . . well not you necessarily because you probably weren't around when I was actually in games . . . you would care to reduce the price of this small gaming machine by 10 Alterian gold pieces?" he said. hopefully.
The shopkeeper raised an eyebrow.
"Hehe . . . " said Marth, doing the clichéd anime big grin.
25 seconds later, he was lying on the street. The shopkeeper had shown surprising speed for a man so fat.
His cape billowed annoyingly in the wind. Marth opened his eyes in order to remove the offending object and found himself staring at the cigarette strewn ground. A globule of chewing gum, carelessly discarded, lay disturbingly close to his nose. He sighed and rolled over, being careful to keep his blue hair away from the floor lest it fall on the chewing gum. As he rolled over, a sight worse than the foul street met his eyes.
"Yo!" said Roy, leaning directly over him and grinning goonishly, his eyes closed exposing his grin even further.
"ROY!" said Marth, scrambling backwards like a confused spider and consequently knocked his head on the wall. Roy followed him, still grinning with disturbing joviality. "What the hell are you doing here?" screamed Marth, clutching at his head.
Heads turned. It was surprising that they had not before as the sight of a blue haired young man wearing a large cloak with a sword on his waist and another cloaked weirdo grinning like a maniac is not the most usual to see in town, however it was a Sunday and people were busy with their shopping and could only be aroused from their stupor by a loud noise or possibly a murder occurring right in front of their eyes, if the visibility was good.
This unusual loud noise also made people notice the costumes and just the sheer unusuality of the two characters. This had the effect of several people fleeing in fear, some laughing, several saying 'Oooh lookit them funny people' or similar comment and a group of schoolgirls shouting:
"OMFG! BISHY! BISHY! BISHY! LOL! ROFL! YO CNDY CN U C THE BISHYS!"
and somehow accomplishing this extraordinary linguistic phrase with a degree of success. The other people merely shrugged and strolled away with the expression of people who see this sort of thing every day.
Several minutes later Roy had dragged Marth into an alley which for the sake of storytelling convenience was just there and, now that he had regained his breath, was once again grinning like a wolf in a sheep pen.
"How the devil did you get out?" said the terrified Marth.
"Long story," said Roy, somehow still grinning while he spoke.
"But-but-but-but…..we aren't supposed to be in the same world; I only met you at the social evenings…" said Marth. His mind floated back to the horrible visions of the 'Fire Emblem Social Evenings' which were intended to be 'a fun time for all the family with an opportunity to sample a taste of the various Fire Emblem kingdoms' (most of which involved alcohol (in increasing percentages of proof as the night wore on)), however generally they ended up in a fight which could be more accurately described as a small scale war. Also, there was always one person who felt the need to remove their clothes and dance naked on a table. 90 of the time this was a man and twice it had been Roy. Marth had remained notoriously sober during these evenings and therefore had the opportunity of watching the whole spectacle in graphic detail, generally from beneath a table and/or tablecloth.
"Yeh, I know," said Roy with considerably happier memories of the social evenings, most of which for the same reasons as Marth. "But it looks like I got out as well" he continued grinning like a murderer in an old folks home.
"You mean . . . !" said Marth, the '!' being pronounced as the noise made when all the air breathed in in one breath is swallowed at once.
"Yesss!" said Roy, his grin expanding until it seemed it would expand out of the sides of his cheeks.
"But HOW?" said Marth, staring wide eyed at the vast grin, possibly wondering if it could get any bigger, possibly if there was any way to escape from the alley and possibly which was the best leave-in conditioning shampoo.
"Well . . . It wasn't exactly the normal method," said Roy , his grin shrinking slightly but still resembling that of a tiger which has just seen a gazelle which is too fat to move.
"You didn't do anything illegal did you?" said Marth with the feeing that although this was not exactly above Roy, he would only do so accidentally or not knowing why.
'Heavens no!" said Roy, a man who considered a sword a fashion accessory and that attempting to chop people in half was 'merely something to do to pass the time'.
"Well, how the hell did you-" said Marth, suddenly cut off by the sound of footsteps and the rapidly approaching cries of:
"BISHY, BISHY, BISHY, WHRE R U? COM OUT BISHY! WE THINX U IS SOOOOO FIT etc."
"-tell me later," said Marth nervously. "We can hide out in my apartment!"
"What's an ap-" began Roy -
"NEVER MIND!" said Marth, unintentionally giving away their position, "Just come on!" Marth pleaded, desperately attempting to drag Roy away by his cape as the girls rounded the corner.
"BISHY!" they cried just as Roy, dragged by Marth, disappeared up the fire escape.
Marth and Roy arrived breathlessly back at the apartment. Well, at least Marth was out of breath; Roy however was not, as being dragged around is not very tiring. However, because Marth had been doing the dragging, he was breathing heavily enough to be two people. He collapsed on a chair and gestured to Roy to do the same.
"Who were they, Marth?" asked Roy, whose grin was rapidly returning.
"Nothing like what I've ever encountered, " admitted Marth "But I believe they are called 'Fan girls'. He removed the sound from his mouth as though it was a rotten grape.
"What's so bad about these 'Fan girls' then?" said Roy, without the dislike with which Marth had said it; his grin was now much wider, resembling that of a Acuphiliac on a bed full of nails.
"Um . . . " said Marth, correctly reasoning that Roy would not understand many of his reasons for avoiding them. His mind worked overtime to come up with a reason which Roy could comprehend. "Because . . . " he intoned as Roy watched him intently as if he was attempting to understand the whole concept of 'thinking' so that he could possibly try it later . . . if he could be bothered.
After around 5 seconds Marth had worked out a reason which, although not entirely true, Roy would believe and, what was more important, would make him wary of the 'fan girls' also.
"Because they eat your brains," said Marth with as much seriousness as he could manage.
Roy blinked.
"O.o" was what he basically said, though in not so many words.
Marth, for the first time in a long while, grinned, admittedly at his own cleverness but at least he managed a smile.
There was silence for a while.
"Want some tea?" said Marth. He instantly realised his mistake but it was too late.
"What's tea, Marth?" said Roy, understandably really.
"It's a drink they have here," said Marth, rising. Although he had not managed to get a hang of the whole fashion sense of this world had grasped the concept of hot drinks with relative ease.
"Actually, I could do with a drink . . . " said Roy, not that it really made much difference for Marth was already at the kettle pouring himself a cup. He was, however, careful not to put any sugar in Roy's cup. However, he failed to remember . . .
"Here you go Roy," said Marth with as much warmth as he could summon.
"WOW! Thank you Marth!" said Roy excitably at the prospect of trying a new drink; who knew, it might contain alcohol. He then attempted to swallow it all in one go before letting out a small yelp of pain.
"Yes Roy . . .it is hot. I thought you might have noticed from the steam coming off."
Well, knowing Roy, he would probably have not noticed this factor if he had written it in letters a foot high on the mug.
"Yeph . . ." said Roy and attempted to fan his tongue with a free hand.
"Thank the gods he didn't try to fan it with the hand with the tea in it," thought Marth to himself.
Now he was sure that the tea was reasonably cool, Roy hazarded another sip. This time he was not burned and decided that, although as of yet there was no drunk feeling settling over him, the 'tea' was really quite nice. He gulped some more down . . . yes it really was quite nice.
Marth then realised what he had failed to remember beforehand. Tea contained caffeine. Marth knew about the certain properties about caffeine from a personal experience one night in a Starbucks when he had drunk 7 espressos. Before this he had not known about the caffeine. After he certainly didn't. About 9 hours later, when he had reached a relative stage of calm when he could actually control his movements, he realised his error. And now the constantly hyper Roy was drinking added hyperness in liquid form. Marth thought about 'dashing the cup from his hand' in a dramatic fashion, but it was too late. Roy had drained the last dregs and was now, as was his habit, licking round the inside of the cup. He stopped suddenly and looked around wide eyed.
"Wow!" he said, grinning extra wide, "Do you see the pretty colours too, Marth?"
"Well," thought Marth later, "at least I didn't give him coffee."
No one really had anything to say. Well, Marth had plenty to say but he was going to keep quiet for the moment. Roy seemed to be interested at the carpet as he was staring at it obsessively.
Minutes passed
A tumbleweed rolled by the two sitters. Their eyes followed it.
"Oh look . . . a tumbleweed," said Roy, breaking the silence of the room.
"Yes indeed," said Marth, desperately trying to keep the conversation going.
"Mmm . . . " said Roy, his gaze once again returning to the carpet.
Marth coughed loudly. This was the delicate part which he had attempted to avoid, but he knew it had to come at some time. He must approach this delicately.
"Roy," said Marth "How exactly did you get out?" Marth had never been much good at subtlety.
The awe inspiring grin once again returned to Roy's face.
"Well, as I told you before it's quite a long story," said Roy with the air of one who did not like saying things more than a few sentences long. His brain needed time to breathe, and somewhat deeply after the few sentences.
"Well tell it anyway," said Marth, now quite irritated.
Roy sighed then began:
"It's like this, Marth. You remember the last time we met? Let me see, that would be 6 months ago at the Fire Emblem Social Evening No. 66, you remember?" Marth shuddered visibly. Roy grinned seeing his expression. "Yes, I see you do remember it . . . we had a good time then didn't we, eh?" Marth desperately wanted to shake his head but he nodded glumly. "Anyway, after that I didn't see you anymore, not even at the next Social Evening so I knew something was wrong"
" . . . " said Marth guiltily looking away. He had in fact planned to skip the next Social Evening, however certain things - such as travelling to a different world - had happened. Meanwhile Roy was still talking,
"So I made some enquiries, it seemed no one had seen you in a very long time. Eventually I decided to go to Altea to find out what had happened to you."
Marth looked at the floor. The thought of Roy turning up in his peaceful little kingdom and spreading inanity and violence all around as others would do with bread and butter . . . Roy was not deliberately dangerous, as has been explained before. He was a kind of accidental danger. For example: "No lad, that's not how to light a pipe, you need to do it like this . . . oops! Ah well, the grass is on fire but no worries, that forest over there will stop the flames!" Accidental dangers are generally far more dangerous that intentional ones. As well as being much harder to deal with. The thought of Roy arriving in Altea made him feel weak in the knees. Meanwhile Roy was droning on, his eyes screwed up with the concentration on remembrance.
"I hiked over the hills for around a month and a half before I reached your place," continued Roy, causing another wince from Marth "When I got there I made some cunning enquiries."
Marth thought: "Yes, and your ideas of making enquiries Roy, generally involve shaking people and shouting 'WHERE IS MARTH EH?'", but he said nothing.
Roy had taken this opportunity to take a break. He stopped to try and remember what happened next and possibly to let his brain cool down. If brains were computers, Roy's would have been one with an extremely slow fan and not even worthy of a Pentium of any sort. After he had recuperated he continued:
"No one seemed to know, apart from the fact you had gone away in search of some excitement. Then I talked to your wife-"
"SHH!" said Marth angrily. "We can't let the fan girls know I'm married lest they seek revenge! And although they are bad enough when they don't know they would be worse if they knew I was married."
"Why?" said Roy in all seriousness "What could be worse than having your brains eaten?" It took Marth a few seconds to work out what exactly Roy was saying.
"Um . . ." he said "eat your spleen as well . . ." he added feebly.
Roy almost fainted.
"MY SPLEEN!" he yelled, "BUT IT'S SO IMPORTANT!"
"Actually," said Marth intelligently "The spleen isn't very important at all; it really just sits there, releasing stuff."
"But it sounds so cool . . ." said Roy sulkily.
"Moving swiftly onwards," said Marth "what happened then?"
"Well," continued Roy "As I was saying I spoke to your wi-"
"Shh!" said Marth "Remember the spleen thing; let's just call her 'the person to whom I share a bond'."
"Okay, okay, I spoke to 'the person to whom you share a bond', anyhow she told me that you had gone away for a while. So I asked 'the person to whom you share a bond' what you had gone to do. 'The person to whom you share a bond' replied that you had gone off to seek for some excitement. 'The person to whom you share a bond' then added that you had said something about finding some new work. I asked 'The person to whom you share a bond' what you were planning to do and 'The person to whom you sh-'"
"What?" said Marth irritably
"Can I just call her TPTWYSAB?" asked Roy, somehow accomplishing this extraordinary linguistic feat with surprising ease. "It's just that 'The person to whom you share a bond' is so very long and boring to say. "
"I suppose so," said Marth boredly. "Or you could just say 'her' once in a while you know"
"OK whatever," said Roy. "Anyway I asked her where you had gone, and she told me that you told her you were going to the job centre in the end zone."
It should probably be explained at this point that the 'end zone' is a point at which all universes converge. Although the end zone is only one place it has links to every single universe imaginable and unimaginable. Thus it can be said that once at the end zone you can go anywhere so long as you are prepared to exit at a specific point and travel the rest of the way at your own rate. Every planet has a single end zone and there are also a few lying about in empty space. These space ones are called black holes. The end zone itself resembles a small gap in the space time continuum from the outside however like a small worn down airport from the inside. This phenomenon of why the airport was never improved has forever remained a mystery as no one can be bothered to solve it. Because from the outside it is in fact a hole in the Space and more importantly the Time continuum, time does not in fact pass inside the end zone so there is no need for excessively overpriced airport food because you can never get hungry there. There are several other names for end zone pathways on various worlds. Such names include: Wormholes, Warp gates, Plot holes, and on the far off planet of Grandiesinos VII a 'Squesdessle" however because no one there has access to the internet, there shall be no future references to the planet.
"Thank you narrator," said Roy, happy that he did not have to say all this
"Go on," sighed Marth who had never liked the narrator very much anyway. "Damn right!" he continued "What happened then?"
"Well," said Roy, who did like the narrator "Erm . . ." said Roy, Who DID like the narrator. "Right ho, anyway . . . so I decided to go to the end zone myself"
"Really," said Marth with all the warmth of an ice cube, "and what, pray, did you find there?"
"Well . . . it was like a really bad airport," continued Roy "There wasn't even any food there and I was hungry." Marth sighed at this idiocy as he was intelligent enough to know about the space/time rules.
"So you asked about me?" said Marth irritatedly. "How nice of you to be so caring."
"Yes," said Roy happily "Anyway I asked at the desk and they remembered you-"
"How odd" said Marth sarcastically "I wouldn't have thought they would have remembered a blue haired prince."
"Actually all they remembered was the tiara," said Roy. Marth growled and, seeing his expression, Roy nervously continued. "Anyway they told me that you had come to this world and that you were planning to feature in some new game coming out."
"That's right . . . " said Marth, fearing what was coming.
"Well anyway I went to the representative of this game in the end zone and he told me that there were no more places in the game. The last one had just been filled by some hedgehog or something."
"Ah, good!" said Marth, brightening up
"However . . . " said Roy
"Oh no . . ." sighed Marth. Roy ignored him
"I caught up with him just as he was about to travel through the worm hole, I felt quite sorry for him because someone had dyed him blue I think . . . and err . . .unpleasantness followed," he said nervously; this was the part he was dreading.
"Go on . . ." said Marth curiously
"Well . . . I tried to stop him and asked if I could have the job. He stared at my hair and shouted something about "Red hair, eh? Well, you do look different Dr. something or other . . .but you can't fool me!" and err . . . then, then he leapt at me.
Roy, despite his low intelligence, was a good fighter; he had trained at the finest dojos all around the Fire Emblem world.
"I'm afraid reflex took over and I - my sword cut - . . .well . . . lets just say it was a bit messy and now Mr. Hedgehog won't be getting up again. "
"I . . . see . . . " said Marth, thinking about disembowelled hedgehogs.
"Anyway," said Roy uncomfortably, "I went back to the game representative and told him that the hedgehog had been taken ill and could I take his place. Eventually he agreed. So I set off through the wormhole."
"Oh yes," said Marth who seemed to be trying to escape down the back of his chair, "how did you find it?"
"Swirly," said Roy with the air of a philosopher.
There was a long pause
"Yessss….." said Marth, breaking the silence because Roy was staring at him "So that's how you got here. How exactly did you manage to find me anyway?"
"Deus ex-" said Roy
"Umm Roy, that's not exactly what Deus Ex Machina is, you know." Said Marth, happy to prove his intellect.
"Um . . . no," said Roy "Deus ex was the name of the tour guide and as I was going to say he showed me where you might have gone."
"I see," said Marth, internally vowing revenge on this Deus ex for telling Roy where he was.
"And you know the rest," said Roy. "I never did find out which game we're going to be in anyway." Marth shuddered at the word 'we'.
"Well it's called-" began Marth but then there was a loud hammering at the door. Both Marth and Roy leapt up from their chairs and span round to face the door. It was too loud to just be a mere knock, someone was trying to get in. Both men looked at each other awkwardly. The door caved inwards suddenly. Both swordsmen stared at the broken timber in horror as a voice called out in loud tones:
"BISHY!"
END OF PART ONE
Hmm and there you go. A cliff-hanger for the end of the first part. I will definitely continue this tale and I hope you enjoyed the first part. If you did then the small purple review box is right there so please use it. I would much appreciate some comments or plot ideas, whatever you want to say really. Flames will be used to cook soup so I can finally eat. If you are looking for something to do while you wait I advise you watch 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' as it really is rather good. Anyhow I shall hopefully see you again for part two of this epic ahem tale of 'The Marth Monologues!'
Until then…
Sezan.