New chapter poggers, I hope you enjoy!

"Open your eyes…"

"Wake up, Link"

Link sat up, cold sweat drenched his body, flashes of the calamity coursing through his mind. He looked up to see a panicked Jeralt and Byleth, who looked more curious than anything, standing there.

"You alright, kid?" Jeralt asked.

"Nightmare." He said as his face regained his usual stony exterior.

"Well, that must be one hell of a nightmare, to scare some like you so much. I girue you don't want to talk about it, so I won't ask but… If you ever feel like talking, we're here for you."

Jeralt was genuinely concerned for Link. Over the past 6 months he's grown very find of him, but whenever he was asked about his origins, Link just brushed the topic off, or straight up ignored them.

Before Link could reply, however, Samson barged into the room.

"Captain Jeralt, sir, sorry to barge in but your presence is needed."

"Alright. Link, Byleth, follow me."

They nodded as Jeralt went for his equipment, Link quickly took off the sweaty shirt he was wearing and donned his usual, worn down blue tunic.

With the Master Sword on his back, he rushed outdoors, only to find three teenagers wearing very similar black clothing. Uniforms was Link's guess.

One of them, a tall, blonde young man, with a blue cape strapped over his shoulder was the first to speak.

"Please, forgive our intrusion. We wouldn't bother you if the situation was not dire."

"What do a bunch of kids like you want at this hour?" Jeralt asked coarsely.

"We're being pursued by a group of bandits. I can only hope you'll be so kind as to lend your support."

"Bandits? Here?"

"Yes." This time, it was a young woman with white hair, which Link found far too similar to the Sheikah, but, different from the blonde one, she had a red cape on her shoulder. "We were caught by surprise while resting at our camp."

"They're after our lives..or our gold. Either way, the situation wasn't looking good, so I just ran for it." Spoke the last one, a yellow cape this time.

"Ah, so that was your aim, Claude. And here I thought you were acting as a decoy for the sake of us all."

"Dimitri, his intentions were as clear as day. You will prove a lacking ruler if you can't notice deceit behind a person's actions." Answered the white haired woman, clearly annoyed at her companion.

"And you will prove a lacking ruler yourself, if you look for such deceit behind every action, Edelgard." Dimitri quipped back.

"Alright, that's enough. If there are really bandits chasing you, they'll attack the village as well. So this is no time for squabbling." Jeralt said, rather angry. "Byleth, follow me. We're going to the village, stop any bandits from attacking. Link, you'll protect this brats, not a single bandit gets past you, understood?

Link nodded.

"Hold up. Time out. You expect one guy, our age no less, to defend us from a group of who knows how many bandits by himself?" Asked the one with the yellow cape, called Claude by his companions.

"Yup." Jeralt nodded, the trio looked like they were expecting him to say he was joking, which never actually happened.

Link nodded.

Before the trio could keep protesting, Jeralt led Byleth and the rest of his mercenaries to the town

"What should we do?" The girl named Edelgard suspiciously scanned Link, looking rather wary of his obvious foreign origin.

"Nothing." That said, he drew the blade of evil's bane and started scanning the forest, looking for any signs of bandit activity.

"Wait, you can't seriously be thinking of taking half a dozen bandits by yourself?" Claude asked with bulging eyes.

"I believe Claude may be right, perhaps we can aid you? I'm sure there has to be a few weapons we can use in your group's current lodgings." But Link didn't answer to Dimitri's offer for help, and before the trio could argue anymore-

"Heh! You brats didn't really think you'd be able to run from me, did you?!" They heard a shout, which quickly revealed itself to be several men wearing torn clothes and carrying rusted weapons

"Hey, you! With the blank stare! Outta my way!" He snarled at Link, who didn't even deign to reply as he readied his weapon.

"Fine! You'll die along those noble brats!" He said as he commanded his men to attack

All the bandits attacked at once, Link didn't even show signs of dodging, which only alarmed the trio behind him, who closed their eyes, not wanting to see the brutal scene of a man their age being run through by all those bandits. But the scream they were waiting for never came, when they opened their eyes, they saw Link surrounded by a red, glowing aura, and the bandits pushed back, most who had lost their weapons, which the trio quickly found to be flying around in all directions. Link, however, gave them no time to come to their senses, he readied his sword for a strike, which the trio noticed wasn't really going to hit any of the bandits, due to the distance between them and Link, yet, their shock only grew when the young Hylian swung his sword, bringing down lightning from the heavens, cutting through the bandits as though they were butter.

"What the hell! Nobody said anything about such a monster interfering!" The leader had backed away in fear at a moment none of them noticed, he glanced around, and his eyes shone when he saw Edelgard standing there unarmed, with a shout, hi charged at her, who looked more annoyed than anything, but the lack of a weapon on her person aside from a small dagger made her panic. Right before the leader was about to reach her, however, Edelgard noticed a flash of blue, and a young, pointy eared man had parried the blow that was aimed at her, wondering how he had arrived in front of her when he was nearly a dozen feet away just a few seconds ago.

"Dammit! That bastard didn't say anything about mercenaries, I'm getting the hell outta here." And so he did, running with his tail between his legs.

It seemed like the bandit threat was over, so Link sheathed the Master Sword and looked at Edelgard.

"Are you alright?" Link offered her a hand, which she took and got to her feet.

"I'm quite okay, thank you. Though I am quite curious as to how you got to me so quickly." Link shrugged, then turned back to Remire to meet with Jeralt.

"Hey, pal. I've never seen magic like that before, how'd you learn it?" Claude,who seemed too overly excited approached them.

"I didn't."

"You didn't learn it? Then how can you use it?"

"It was…a gift from a friend." Edelgard noticed a flash of sadness in Link's eyes, though it was gone as quickly as it came, she figured whoever this "friend" was, they're no longer around. "Enough chatter, we need to go meet Captain Jeralt"