-North Plegian Desert-
"Shouldn't we be preparing for an assault on Plegia, now?"
"Hierophant, I don't tell you how to manipulate and control people using your fanatical religion." Robin said. "In exchange, I think it's only fair that you don't try anything remotely involved in tactical planning and leave in all to me, the Battlemaster."
"It wouldn't be wrong to say-"
"Don't care." Robin said. "Seriously, I don't care at all. All you've been doing is throwing out cryptic comments. From what I understand, that's also what you use to do in Plegia – just show up when you felt like it and toss out the odd comment or two. If not for the fact you somehow made hierophant, no one would give you a second glance, given the way you act. What's your deal?"
"The cryptic comments come with the territory." Hawk smiled. "Surely someone like you would understand?"
"Eh, fair enough." Robin said. "So, if you're going to be that kind of a cryptic sage type person, why are you near my frontlines?"
"I have to be somewhere." Hawk said. "And, if at all possible, I'd like to help you with this coming battle."
"So… about that…" Robin said.
The Longfort was a distant line on the horizon, a thin steel border on the edge of the horizon. The Feroxi had opted to build their defensive wall in front of what would otherwise be an impenetrable natural border of mountains, making for effectively two walls which had to be crossed. A fight straight through it would be nasty, without an extended siege. And even with one, it still would be difficult.
The Valm forces were building fortifications. Makeshift wooden palisades, trenches before them, and spike traps all over. Ballista were being erected, as well as spell towers for the Plegian's long-range dark mages. Robin surveyed it from a distance. Vermil was helping with the spell tower, Zulas was directing. And the Hierophant seemed unwilling to leave his side.
As far as Robin was concerned, that was certainly a good thing. It made his plan easier. Robin suspected that the Hierophant wasn't blind to his true aims, but also suspected that the Hierophant would think he'd be the one to carry them out. And it that was case, if the Hierophant never left his side, then Hawk was the in perfect position to be blindsided.
"From what you're doing, it's obvious that you intend to use this as a defensive line, and concentrate your main forces eastwards, attacking Ylisse when they come for us." Hawk frowned. "But this doesn't bode well for your plan to attack Regna Ferox."
"Huh. Guess you do have tactical acumen." Robin said. "Not enough, though."
"What are you planning? Are you trying to bait them into an attack with this?" Hawk shook his head. "No. For that, only the appearance of fortifications would be necessary. You actually intend to use this as a defensive perimeter."
"That's correct, in direct contradiction of your plan." Robin said. "Come on, figure it out…"
"Battlemaster, you need to get the Gemstone from Basilio!" Hawk blinked. "Ah. You have a spy in Regna Ferox, intending to steal the Gemstone, don't you?"
"No."
"You can guarantee that they'll attack us, even if we sit back. You intend to provoke them."
"No."
"…You're betraying me."
"For shame." Robin gave the Hierophant a wicked side-eye, made all the more potent considering he only had one. "What world do you live on that you'd guess betrayal third? For me, it'd be number one on the list. I understand that as a religious fanatic your priorities may be slightly different, but I can't imagine that as the Hierophant of the Grimleal would get this far without having betrayal as the second assumption for any erratic behavior."
"You're betraying me!"
"Obviously." Robin shook his head. "Why is this so difficult for you to understand? Just because I'm the Fellblood doesn't mean I share your ideals, alright? I don't care for the Grimleal, I don't care for Grima, and I especially don't care for that ritual of yours. Honestly, how many people have you stepped over to get that position? Might even be more than me, I personally opted for the quantity of the stepping stone. You seem more like a numbers guy to me."
"Traitor!"
"Yeah. And you can't do anything about it, which is the funny part. You can't kill me." Robin responded. He kept his gaze on the Hierophant. "I'm the last of the line of the Fellblood, which to be fair is my own fault considering I was directly responsible for the death of Validar, the previous King. If I die, the bloodline goes with me. You've got no choice but to suck up my betrayal. Kind of sucks to be you, eh? Next time don't put your faith in a mortal man."
"You're planning something!"
Robin shrugged.
"You're planning something … something not here." Hawk repeated himself. "Something now. That's why you're fine with telling me!"
"Well, I got talked out of killing myself." Robin responded. "And, even though I'm doing my best to get the Gemstones to Ylisse, I'm not exactly the type of person to only have one plan. The second contingency was to get Chrom the Gemstones and have him Awaken, with the capacity to seal away my bloodline. The first – well, I'm sure you've figured it out now."
Hawk snarled and vanished in a flash of light.
"Warp magic." Robin idly noted and frowned. "Didn't expect that. But it's not like he can do anything about my first contingency. What kind of second-rate genius does he take me for? I didn't tell him so that he could stop me, even if he did have warp magic. I'm not going to destroy the Dragon's Table."
-Dragon's Table, Three Days Earlier-
"Barrels, barrels, barrels! Move people, move!" Ravena shouted. "Let's go, let's go!"
The junior-sized tactician was standing in the middle of hundreds of moving Valmese soldiers. Ostensibly, they'd been sent there to set up a reinforced center in preparation for the more elaborate ritual. But they carried supplies that weren't necessary for the ritual.
Oil. Barrels of it. Wagons and caravans full of barrels of oil. And fire tomes, dozens upon dozens. Ravena had spent quite a while with Vermil, helping the fire mage with his experiments in the art of conflagration. And they'd discover that oil, heated under pressure, with the right additives could generate tremendous volumes of explosive force, even more so than a Flare spell in large quantities. They'd also discovered that Fire tomes served as excellent fuel for heating up the oil.
So the barrels of oil had Fire tomes seeded under the barrels. And the barrels were tightly sealed by soldiers who were instructed that they were being sent to the front lines. Once that was done, another group, not instructed of the barrel's contents, were sent to put them to a different part of the warcamp, told it was nothing more than a logistics error. The ones transporting the barrels were informed that they contained food, alongside Dire Wolves more than happy to ensure that they weren't open.
And now that they reached the Dragon's Table, Ravena had informed the soldier there that the barrels contained ritual equipment, and thus must be placed in very specific areas. Areas near pillars, for instance, or walls, and a very large cluster of them right in the center where the table's main circle was.
"Heh." Ravena smiled as she watched the scene unfold around her. The Grimleal sent alongside them had been detoured thanks to well-placed bribes and swapping a few men around, and they wouldn't arrive for another two days. At that point, it'd be too late, and the Valm forces would slip away, using their own guides to head back.
"It's a good day to be Robin's adopted daughter."
-Dragon's Table, Now-
No…
Grima warped into place, right before Dragon's Table. But before him was a complete mockery of what it used to be. It'd collapsed, collapsed completely it on itself. The ruins surrounding the table where now small mounds of dust, getting smaller through the desert winds.
The Table itself was in giant pieces. The building no longer existed, and it was obvious from the magic that Grima sense that the Table's ritual magic was gone as well. Intentional or not, it seemed that they'd used tomes in their destruction of the table, and a Shadowgift user had sent them off. And disrupting a magic ritual had the same ease that tearing down a building had – any decent sized explosion would do it.
Robin's work wasn't impossible to undo. But the amount of damage he'd done meant that it'd take generations of the faithful to restore the Temple to pristine shape. The Table would need to be rebuilt, piece by piece, spell by spell. Certainly it'd never be fixed in Robin's lifetime, not in time for Grima to try and perform the Awakening on him.
"My lord!"
"You." Grima stared. A Grimleal sorcerer was kneeling before him, almost weeping. Beside him, a few hundred Grimleal had assembled as well. Some of them were trying to shift the rubble but failing to do anything of note. The rest were on their knees, bowing to him. Not that it did anything to quell his rage. "WHAT HAPPENED HERE!?"
"It was like this when we arrived, I swear, Hierophant!" The sorcerer said. "Our most holy site, the place of the Fellblood's Awakening, destroyed, on the eve of our victory. I have no excuses. Somehow, a force managed to attack, destroy the Valm forces, and destroy the Table."
"Eve of our victory. What a joke." Grima shook his head. "No, you fool, that was the Valm. We've been betrayed by the Fellblood."
"Impossible."
"No." Grima shook his head. "Merely an oversight on my part. It seems that Robin ended up with the opposite of what I expected, somehow. Though perhaps I should have expected it. Power-hungry leaders rarely want to just hand over his power. He must have been more knowledgeable than I thought about the ritual. Probably Lucina's fault."
"My lord? Surely, it couldn't have been your fault."
"Ah, yes." Grima looked at the sniveling sorcerer trying to appease him. He shook his head. "This is a setback, I'm afraid. I didn't expect this. So I suppose the only thing to do is to wipe the slate clean and prepare to start again."
The sorcerer was destroyed with a casual wave of his hand. The travel back in time had taken away a great deal of his power, and he could no longer count on a feast at the table to give him the back him former strength, but even still these ants were nothing to him, and especially not the rank-and-file dark mage of the Grimleal. Grima attacked them, growing progressively angrier as he cut his path through the ranks of the Grimleal.
"DASTARD!" Grima howled. A wave of his hand and dark energy crashed through a rank of barbarians, turning them to ash. A gesture with two, and dark spikes grew, impaling the sorcerers. Despite the Table's destruction, it wouldn't stop Grima from feasting on their souls, meager as it was. "THAT DOUBLE-CROSSING SON OF NAGA WILL PAAAAAAAAY!"
-Plegian Desert-
"Everything went well?" Robin chuckled as Ravena walked up behind him. She was eating something Robin couldn't identify for the life of him but assumed that he had eaten it before as it had to be Plegian cuisine. It was a series of chunks of meat, skewered on thin wooden sticks. Ravena had six of the sticks, held between her fingers and was taking turns biting chunks clean off the sticks. "And is it my imagination, or are your snacking habits getting worse?"
"Local cuisine." Ravena said, as if it explained everything. "So, did he swallow the bait?"
"He warped there." Robin shrugged. "Swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker. So what did you do to the Table?"
"Blew it sky-high. It was kind of horrifying, to be honest because we had a pillar of black smoke the size of a mountain, and stone chunks raining from the sky like hail. I've never even heard of anything like it." Ravena said. "Kind of like Vermil's Flare spell, except a thousand thousand times stronger."
"Huh. A Megaflare."
"Yeah, something like that." Ravena shrugged. "It's not going to be easy to put back together. The Awakening can't be done there anymore."
"Now, I'm sure you're wondering why I passed up on the amazing offer of godhood and the ability to crush my opponents to powder beneath my heel." Robin said. "Really, I was tempted there."
"No." Ravena said. "Not curious at all."
"…Really?"
"Mmm." Ravena ripped a piece of meat off the stick with her teeth. "Fine. I'll ask. Why?"
"First rule of dealing with eldritch monstrosities." Robin said. "NEVER CALL UP WHAT YOU CAN'T PUT BACK DOWN!"
"Yup. Figures." Ravena said. "Too paranoid too call up any power that you don't think you'd be able to kill. But you'd be fine doing it if an Awakened Chrom was around."
"…Maybe." Robin considered. "Still risky, though. Not for nothing, but it would have been really helpful to have that power considering we've got a few wars ahead of us."
"So, what happens when the Hierophant gets back?"
Robin smiled. "That's an if. And not a very strong if at that."
"Oh." Ravena blinked. "He's … not coming back, is he?"
"Nope."
-Dragon's Table-
A man in Plegian Hierophant's robes stood inside a ring of corpses, laughing maniacally. Wounds such that they were caused by dark magic were on most of them, though a few suffered indications of tears and slashes that wouldn't look out of place on something torn apart by a wild animal.
Not that any of the injuries gave Dant any pause, and especially not since she was concealed. Very few people could detect her, and when she was making as conscious of an effort as she was, that number was down to one. And the Plegian Hierophant wasn't that one.
Desert Hawk. That was his name. Robin's note indicated that he was to blame for the war. That irritated Dant, not necessarily that the war happened, but more because her assignment was keeping an eye on Plegia to make sure these kinds of stunts weren't pulled.
Robin said there was nothing I could do. Dant reminded herself. But that still doesn't make me feel better. Dastard's responsible for my failure. He will pay.
She ran a finger over the blade of choice for this mission. A Dragonslayer sword, one she'd filched from Ylisse's armory, and reforged to be as deadly as possible. Effective against dragons, and still quite deadly against humans. Rumor mill spun a tale that the Hierophant was secretly a manakete in disguise, and some of the attacks he'd used fit that theory, even though he hadn't transformed himself. Normally, Dant left the paranoia and conspiracy stuff to Robin. But she wasn't taking any chances.
Dant slowly stepped from her cover. She'd missed the Valm destroying the temple but got into place well before the Plegians did. And thus got a choice hiding spot. A nook high within Table rubble. Dant considered the idea of plunging shot. She shook her head. She'd do this one straight. Might as well.
A sturdy rope let her rappel down. The Plegian Hierophant noticed her.
"Who are you supposed to be?"
Dant shrugged and started walking towards him.
"No matter." The Hierophant raised his hand at her. Dark magic coalesced within it. "I'll be honest, I'd kill you no matter your answer. You should have stayed undercover. I might have missed you."
"Yes, but then I would have missed you as well."
"An assassin." The Hierophant said. "I see. The Battlemaster? Yes, he wouldn't be one to leave loose ends, would he?"
Dant shrugged and kept walking closer.
"And you think you can take me? Desert Hawk, the leader of the Grimleal?" Hawk shook his head and blasted at her with dark magic. Wind kicked up beneath her, and a giant dust cloud emerged to swallow the blast right as it reached her. It cut through, but no one was there, and the dust cloud quickly spread. The Hierophant frowned as he tried to make out shapes in the dust.
Dant used the dust cloud to her advantage and dashed past him. The Plegian Hierophant turned, trying to find her, but he was too slow. His magic was strong, but he couldn't hit what he couldn't see. Someone of the Hierophant's caliber could probably sense the magic in people. Sand wouldn't blind him against normal assassins.
Too bad for him that Dant's Shadowgift let her block his powers. She rarely used it, considering her natural affinity for wind magic was near useless, her dark magic skill nearly nonexistent, and how effective putting three feet of steel through someone's chest could be. But it was good enough to cloak herself so he couldn't sense her.
"Who are you!? And how are you doing this!?
"Guess." Dant said, right behind him.
"Die!"
Hawk spun around and blasted the direction that the voice had come from. Dant flipped over him even as he did and rammed his through the back. Hawk flinched as the sword emerged through his gut. "Wrong. Not that it was much of a guess in the first place."
"How…?" Hawk was cut off as blood poured from his mouth.
"Wind magic for the sandstorm, Shadowgift to block your tracing magic, and I'm just that fast." Dant kicked him off her sword and sheathed it. "And if you're wondering who I am, I was the one who was supposed to deliver the Fire Emblem. Oops."
"Robin… will pay." Hawk grimaced as blood poured from his wound. Dant just cheerily smiled and walked to a nearby barrel, left aside. "Grima … will have the last laugh…"
"Lucky me." Dant said, ignoring the dying Hierophant and looking at the barrel. "Seems like one the explosives that Robin used to destroy this place didn't make it in. Tell me, Hawk. Have you ever been rubbed down with oils? Because, let me tell you, it feels great. Here, free sample."
Hawk cursed but did nothing as Dant rolled the barrel over to him and stabbed a hole through it, letting the oil leak out all over the man.
"So..." Dant said. "Message from Robin. I presume now would be a good time for it, seeing as you're kind of bleeding out on the floor over there, and I'm currently dousing you with oil in preparation for your funeral pyre. Kind of a 'now-or-never' moment, you know. Incidentally, if you've got some kind of last confession, I'm all ears for that. I mean, I'll just laugh at you, but now's the time."
"Die… bi-"
"Ahem!" Dant interrupted. "Robin congratulates you on your successful manipulation of him. He wants you to know that you'd actually be a pretty capable opponent if you put effort into it, or a good lieutenant. However, you also happen to be a religious fanatic, which means that you've got a fairly large weakness – you happen to somewhat insane. You thought that Robin had to follow your beliefs which he, in actual fact, does not follow. That's why you were able to be tricked."
"You'll pay … too…"
"Hard pass on that one." Dant shook her head. "Listen, fool, you thought I could get the Fire Emblem? Is that some kind of a joke? And that Robin would actually listen to you? What messed-up world do you come from where stuff like that happens? Got news for you, buddy. This ain't your world. It's ours. Screw things up for Robin, and you just have to pay the price."
"If… only you knew…"
"And there you go off again. Listen, scum. You're worthless. You think you're the star? The villain behind the scenes who manipulates everyone? Well, you're wrong." Dant snapped. "All you are is the sorry little fool who thinks he's the focus. Some asinine moron who decided to interfere with things beyond his comprehension. You aren't the protagonist here. Robin is. This is his story now, not yours, so would you kindly go to hell."
With that, Dant tossed the torch onto the oil-soaked hierophant.
-Ylisse Barracks-
"Sister." Inigo warmly greeted Lucina with a hug. The leader of the Future Children stiffened, but Inigo was never one to be put off by her typical facade. "It's good to see you."
"It's good to be back, Inigo." Lucina said. "And, would you mind?"
"Aw." Inigo let go and stood back. "Would you really do this to your poor brother who's been deprived of your company for almost a year at this point?"
"Inigo…" Lucina said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Where are the others?"
"Business as usual, eh?" The younger of the Exalt siblings adopted a serious look on his face. "Yarne and Nah are on perimeter duty. Kjelle and Brady are guarding the entrance. And Noire is … in the library, I think? Maybe archery? She's not the easiest person to keep an eye on, seeing as she either hides or bites your face off when you go looking for her. We're all same old, same old. But what about you guys? How are the rest of you?"
"Still alive." Gerome reported.
"Alive and kicking!" Cynthia cheered.
"The journey was pleasant and fruitful." Laurent reported.
"Hmph." Sevara rolled her eyes. "Nothing hard, really. Only problem was keeping an eye on this idiot and trying to stop him from going on about his sword hand."
"That's mean…" Owain looked crestfallen. Then he pulled out a sword. "But I found this! Trip to Valm was entirely worth it. It's the legendary sword Missiletainn!"
"Don't ask." Lucina said, sighing and holding up a hand at Inigo's curious expression. "Please."
"Does he mean the legendary sword Mystletainn?" Inigo looked at the sword. "Because I've actually heard of that, it's a legendary crusader's sword. That could be really useful."
"I said, don't ask." Lucina scowled. "Now we're it for it."
Owain opened his mouth to begin a lengthy monologue which no doubt would have included the phrase sword hand at least seven times, only for Sevara to coldcock him before he could get a sentence out. The would-be Scion of Legend dropped like a sack of grain with a very satisfied looking ginger-haired mercenary next to him, her arm outstretched.
"Sevara?"
"Yes?" Sevara innocently blew on her knuckles.
"That was entirely inappropriate. No matter how annoying my cousin is, slugging him in the face and knocking him out is escalating too much. Use your words next time." Lucina said. "Also, on behalf of all of us present, thank you."
"Anytime, Lucina."
"You're still going to have to drag him to Brady for healing. And be careful." Lucina turned to Inigo as Sevara ignored the second part of her orders and started dragging the semi-conscious Owain by the leg. "Get the rest of us. We need to discuss things."
-Ylisse Barracks-
"It's too late, or I suppose, too early, but I've collected them." Lucina opened the pouch before the assembled Future Children, revealing four Gemstones, to astonished faces. "Tiki's, Ferox's, Plegia's, and Valm's. The only one we're missing is Ylisse's, and the Fire Emblem itself."
"Sis…"
"No way…"
"Fascinating." Laurent pushed his glasses up and focused on them. "This includes the one you were missing in our time, and thus stopping you from performing the full Awakening, and thus necessitating our journey back here. You've succeeded where we once failed."
"…Yes, Laurent." Sevara sighed. "Way to point that out."
"It may work to our advantage that was the case in our time, though. We'll be able to know Awaken Chrom much earlier than we would have been able to Awaken Lucina." Laurent said. "It's possible that we'll be able to reduce the damage caused by Grima's Awakening. Truly, this is quite a momentous windfall for us."
"Yes." Gerome agreed. "So it's imperative that we get this to this world's Chrom as soon as possible."
"No." Lucina said, with a note of finality in her voice.
"Uh, sis…?" Inigo raised his hand. "Why aren't we doing that?"
"Two reasons. The first is that I promised Basilio I wouldn't do it. He had a point – it'd draw the Shepherds away from the front lines. And I don't break my promises." Lucina said. "Besides, from the beginning, I never intended to give it to Chrom. I had another plan in mind. One that Morgan helped me with."
The Future Children all blinked. Morgan's plans were infamous among them. They usually worked, but they also had a reputation for being somewhat insane. And her amnesia wasn't going to make them any better.
"Not one of those plans." Lucina said. "Our original plan was to change our history. But it's becoming more and more clear that, while we can change minor events, the major events will always overrule what we're trying to do. Trying to Awaken Chrom to kill Robin might not work because destiny would just overrule it. But there is something we can do, something that no one, not even Robin would suspect, and something that's completely immune to destiny. And once we do that – well, there's a good chance that we can flip the table completely and start the game without Destiny deciding to screw us over."
"YES!" Cynthia pumped her fist. "That sounds exactly like something a hero would do."
"Um…" Noire nervously held up her hand. "…What exactly are we doing?"
"Performing the Full Awakening." Lucina said. "On one of us. It's something that Robin won't see coming, and something that can't be affected by destiny, because we haven't tried that in our time. Morgan is going to get the Fire Emblem to us."
"Is that why she's not here?" Cynthia sighed loudly.
"She said she needed to be on the frontlines if she was going to be the tactician of the fight." Inigo said. "She said not to expect her to show up until all the fighting was over. She also said that it'd be best if we never show up fighting, so we could retain our status in Valm, should the need arise."
"That makes sense." Lucina frowned. "But since when does Morgan make sense? This war must be negatively affecting her."
"So, once we've got the Fire Emblem, you're going to perform the Awakening?" Inigo asked.
"No." Lucina smiled and offered him Falchion. "Our best chance is you performing it."
"…Yeah, this is a Morgan plan." Inigo blinked. "WHAT!?"
"Ah, the dark horse possibility." Laurent said. "Yes, sounds like a good idea."
Inigo looked around the room, despairing as the rest of the Future Children dissolved into nods and agreements with the plan. "…But I can't use Falchion."
"No. We've never tested to see if you can use Falchion. You've got the Brand." Lucina said. "Honestly, I'm kind of ashamed we didn't test this out until now. You're almost as good at swords as I am, and your footwork is even more nimble. You'll be fine, especially with the rest of us fighting alongside you. But you're the best candidate right now."
"…Just tell me one thing?" Inigo winced and grit his teeth. "This'll get me the girls, right?"
"Change of plans, I'm doing it after all."
"I was joking, sis!" Inigo protested. "Joking!"
"Inigo, this isn't something to joke about!"
"Uh, that's kind of my thing." Inigo hung his head. "I'm the levity guy, you know? The one keeping a smile on everyone's face? But push comes to shove, I'll be fine, Lucina. I'm a member of the House of Ylisse. I'll fight with everything I've got if it comes down to it."
"He's got a point. Inigo, for all his flaws, is almost as good on the battlefield as you are, Lucina." Nah defended him. "I think Inigo will be fine."
"Well, he's backed up by our resident Divine Dragon, so that's a point in his favor." Lucina sighed. "And Morgan's plans usually work. Fine. Inigo – get to work. It's time to finally tilt the game in our favor."
A/N: Just to clarify, while Hawk is dead. Grima's still alive. A sword through the chest, even a wyrmslayer sword isn't good enough to kill him. Though, ah, don't expect to see him for a while. A long while. Also, next week seems a good week to take a break, don't expect a chapter, though hopefully I'll be able to go straight until the end of the current arc after that.
