Hi. Enjoy.
3 weeks later
Lewis woke up to the sound of paper being scattered everywhere and someone cursing, a lot of cursing to be exact. After running his hands down his face to wipe the drowsiness from his face, he looked outside to see the darkness of night giving way to the first rays of sunlight. Wearily, he looked at his doorway to see Miriel patiently waiting by the doorstep and Robin who was on the floor covered in paper.
"What? How can you live like this? And Chrom complains of how much paper is in my room!" Robin snapped as she brushed off the sheets of paper.
"Hey, careful! Those are prototypes of the new periodic table of elements that I am working on with Maester Zeff!" Lewis snapped as he jumped off his bed.
Miriel took the moment to lift a piece of paper and examined it carefully. "An interesting method of organizing them. Atomic numbers and mass?"
"It has to do with that concept of atoms. I've been trying to recalculate molar mass and such, but it is quite tedious. Also, my paper on that subject is almost done. I plan on a presentation a week from now." Lewis held out his hand for the paper.
Miriel handed back the paper as she began recounting her discussions with Lewis during the last two weeks. "Yes, the theory you proposed that all matter is made up of charged particles called atoms which are in turn made of protons, neutrons, and electrons. They, in turn, create larger objects through this electromagnetic force, strong force, and weak force. Yet, you still haven't been able to find an explanation for.."
Suddenly, Robin stood up and yelled, "Stop! Just stop! Not when I am here. I don't want another headache this early!"
Lewis smirked at Robin, "Okay."
"You get that disgusting smirk off your face or I am making your first mission with us hell." Lewis immediately removed his demeaning smile at Robin's words. She would do it, no questions asked.
"So nothings changed right?" Lewis desperately tried to switch the topic.
Robin shook her head as she began reminding herself of their current mission. "Nothing. We are going to Thetford to take care of some highwaymen that took advantage of the lower presence of pegasus knights. You, Lissa, Stahl, Vaike, and I are going on this trip."
Lewis frowned at the last sentence. "Wait... That's not what we agreed on. It was supposed to be..."
"I know..." Robin grumbled in annoyance. "But Lissa was feeling cooped up in the castle and blackmailed me into putting her in the group, and I can't let Virion be the team leader in that case or Chrom would chew me out. So I had to switch me and Virion. He's going to be leading Sully's team."
"It's nice to have a healer, but damn it." He and the boys were supposed to go brothel hopping after taking out the bandits, but with Robin leading instead of Virion, that plan flew out the window. Since he was part of the Shepherds, he couldn't very well visit brothels in the city of his employer so he was looking forward to going someplace else, but that plan flew out the window.
"What? You have something against me being team leader?" Crud. Lewis hadn't meant to say that out loud.
"Nope. Nope. I am perfectly happy. I just wonder why you could possibly think that I have reservations about you being our team leader. Perhaps it has to do with you shocking me three days ago to get the last slice of pizza?"
Robin snorted. "It was all fair game."
"Robin. My dear friend. Fair is not throwing lightning around like Darth Sidious."
"You didn't say anything about it in the rules." Robin assumed Darth Sidious was a villain, and Robin was not going to ask Lewis for anything at the moment, even a clarification of his strange allusions.
"Which is why you had no right to complain when I gave you a mud bath. Perhaps you would like another one?" Lewis made a motion of reaching behind his desk as if to take out a bucket of something.
Robin eyed Lewis suspiciously before storming out not wishing to test his bluff. Miriel watched Robin storm out before turning her attention back to Lewis. "Must you antagonize her so?"
Lewis merely shrugged as Miriel wouldn't understand the shits and giggles that came with word sparring. Besides, Robin was the one who started it, and Lewis was going to return whatever Robin threw at him a hundred-fold. Lewis held a philosophy of treating his friends like they treat him. If they treated him with respect, he would return that respect. If they treated him with sarcasm, he would return sarcasm. However, Lewis didn't feel like getting into a social discussion with Miriel first thing in the morning.
"And what are you doing here Miriel?" Lewis deflected.
"I've come to give you these," Realizing she won't get an answer, Miriel handed Lewis a box before continuing, "and I have come to pick up your suggestions of improvements for the steam engine. I also have a letter of thanks from the Hierarch concerning your donation of a printing press. He gives his thanks for providing the church with a machine that will make it easier to spread Naga's teaching to the masses."
Lewis tried his best not to cringe at being praised by a traitor. So far, only the royal family knew about the betrayal, and they were working hard to find evidence of his crimes behind the scenes. Until then, nobody else could know. As for why he gave one to the church for free? They were the best equipped to send missionaries to the population and teach them how to read. That was his condition to give the machine to the church for free whereas he sold one to Guild maester Aurus, head of the merchants, for a large sum of money. Lewis read through the scriptures, and Naga's teachings weren't horrible in his opinion. It was quite similar to the Bible. "Thanks. Anything else you need?"
"Guild master Ferrum wants to have a talk with you about the massive blast furnace after your mission. He wants your input on the prototype they built. He also wanted to say that your advice of mixing the rocks you call coal with the molten iron produced a higher quality iron as you said." Lewis nodded as he gave Miriel the revised blueprints she came for.
"Thanks for helping me with all this."
"No, thank you for informing me of the scientific process. You truly have no idea how much of a relief it is to possess a method of gaining a deeper understanding of my observations of the natural world. If you need assistance in anything, please do not hesitate to ask." Lewis merely nodded as he bade Miriel goodbye.
Lewis unwrapped his package to reveal two pistols. They were the pistol versions of the Springfield minus the rifling. Realizing his need for a backup weapon for close combat that wasn't his Springfield and sword, Lewis commissioned the royal blacksmith to make him a pistol using the Springfield as his base. The blacksmith locked himself in the room for over four days pouring over Lewis's rifle before coming out and replying it could be done. After Lewis proofed the barrels a week ago, these two beauties were the result. The blacksmith was even kind enough to add in two holsters.
Ylissean metallurgy wasn't as behind as he thought. They were already on the cusps of multiple breakthroughs, but the lack of incentive as well as the over-reliance on magic was holding everyone back. As a result, Lewis was able to utilize his knowledge that he gained about the Industrial Revolution during his school trip to the United Kingdom to great effect in Ylisse.
After grabbing his pre-packed bags and his Springfield, Lewis went out to the meeting place for his very first mission. In a way, Lewis was excited. It showed that the fruits of his hellish training were finally beginning to show if Frederick gave him the green light. Lewis grimaced as memories of Frederick's fanatical fitness hours came to him.
'You call those pushups! I want to see REAL pushups!' Frederick yelled as he put his foot down on Lewis's back and pressed down.
'You better run faster boy or Daisy here will bring you for one hell of a ride!' Frederick tied Lewis to the back of his horse. The only problem was that Lewis wasn't on the horse.
'Dodge! Dodge like your life depends on it!' Lewis desperately tried to survive the sparring ring as Frederick chased him around the training grounds with a wooden spear.
'Fight you fool! Show these dogs who's the master!' Frederick yelled as he unleashed four dogs that were deliberately starved on Lewis who was covered in steak with no weapons... in the middle of a field with no tree in sight. He almost died that day.
Lewis shuddered. Lewis did consider if Frederick wasn't just trying to kill him, but when he saw that Frederick was doing the same to all-male recruits, he felt better. In all honesty, if it wasn't for magic being able to heal his muscles much faster than normal, Lewis would not be walking out of the training without some permanent muscle damage. He now understood why Fire emblem characters were capable of such flashy moves. Healing magic allowed for far more brutal training, and Lewis was sure that magic was changing the way muscles were forming. His muscles didn't feel the same for they felt harder than before. Heck, Lewis wasn't sure he had muscles when he first felt his arms. He thought they were replaced by some prosthetics at first with how metallic they were beginning to feel.
On the topic of magic, Lewis finally found out why technology was so inconsistent in the Fire Emblem worlds. The culprit was magic. Due to magic and the existence of flying beasts, there was no incentive to progress technologically. Magic also made it far easier to regress due to how easy it was to monopolize production processes.
Magic wasn't something that could be easily taught or replicated for it was more of innate talent. As a result, any deaths or assassinations of important mage engineers can have huge ripple effects across the world. For example, one hundred years ago there was a mage family that produced self-writing quills. These quills were able to write without a human as long as one supplied spirit dust to the item. As a result, they effectively functioned as the printing presses of the time. However, the mages maintained a tight monopoly on the production process, and magic was not something that could be easily reverse-engineered.
After a couple of political spats, assassins were sent after the family and everyone was killed. With the entire family killed or driven to hiding, the world has lost its only producer of self-writing quills and once more the world's technological state regressed as the quills began breaking down from the march of time. The world once again lost its ability to mass-produce written texts.
After learning this story, Lewis bashed his head against the desk much to the surprise of Lissa who took it upon herself to teach Lewis how to read their written language. He soon realized that the incredible tasks he had in front of him. No wonder this world was constantly getting their ass kicked to the stone age by world-shattering events. No WONDER they couldn't develop effective countermeasures for Grima and was forced to rely on Naga despite having so much time on their hands. Forget technological advances as Lewis had initially planned, what this world needed was massive political and social reforms. This world needed someone to introduce the concepts of patents, copyright, and Napoleonic laws AND TO STOP F*CKING RELYING ON ASSASSINATIONS AND DUELS TO RESOLVE EVERY SINGLE SPAT. If he was to enforce these reforms, Lewis was going to need more political and social power...
This was why he still stuck with the Shepherds instead of quitting to take GUild master Aurum's request to become his apprentice. He knew how primitive this world was. Despite Ylisse being a nation of 'peace', the people still viewed military achievements highly. As a result, Lewis planned on building a power base domestically through his contributions to technology as well as militarily through the Shepherds.
Thankfully, he had the ability to fight at range so the danger he was in was extremely low. That being said, he still despised one aspect of military life. The marching. "Are we there yet?"
"Shut up Lewis," Robin growled back. Lewis merely shrugged before he went back to trying to read Hours of Magic: The Origin of Elemental Mages. With how important magic was to the scholarly field in current times, Lewis had to be able to converse with other scholars on the topic of magic.
From what little he could understand, the Fire Emblem tomes were merely catalysts for the spells. Attempting to use magic without a tome takes far too long or requires a higher magic reserve. The only difference between tomes and chemical catalysts was that tomes were consumed after the reaction.
Lewis tried to get more information on mana or the production process of tomes, but such information was either extremely vague or under a strict monopoly. Mana was a byproduct of a person's soul, and magic was the application of willpower on one's mana. As if that explained anything! What was the energy state of the soul? How could mana be converted to other forms of energy? What even counted as willpower! At this point, Lewis was content on describing magic as the greatest bullshit to be ever gifted to man.
Lewis could feel a headache every time he tried to apply scientific thinking into the world of magic. It just didn't work. Then again, Lewis's body wasn't able to use magic for he lacked a magical reserve according to Miriel. His soul wasn't producing mana like other humans. Miriel described his magical reserves as having atrophied into oblivion. In a way, it made sense. If Earth's legends had a hint of truth to them, Earth's humans were once capable of magic; however, it seems as if Earth's humans lost their ability to use it which was probably a blessing in disguise after seeing how much magic was holding humanity back in the world of fire emblem. Sadly, at this point, Lewis was just making up excuses for being unable to cast magic. Even he as a child wished to throw fireballs with impunity. Grumbling with annoyance, Lewis put away his book.
"So, did you bring some of your hamburgers?" Stahl's words snapped Lewis out of his brooding.
Lewis smiled broadly as he patted the back of his pack. "I made sure to bring the patties, vegetables, and seasoning. We are going to have to hunt for the meat though."
"That's great! I can just taste the burgers soon." Stahl's mouth hung open, and some drool began leaking out of the sides.
"Stahl. You're drooling."
"Oh crap!" Stahl quickly wiped off his drool.
"It's alright." Lewis laughed at Stahl's embarrassed expression. "I'm really happy that you enjoy my world's cooking. Also, I appreciate your help in recreating my world's foods."
"It's my pleasure to help! It's always fun to experiment with new foods. Especially tasty foods like that pizza you made. Oh! Before I forget, you mentioned how pizza can have multiple toppings correct?"
"Yeah! You can add peppers, pepperoni, little meat sausages, and mushrooms! The possibilities are endless!" Lewis emphasized as he began looking forward to cooking pizza once he arrived back to Ylisstol. Perhaps it was time to move on from simple cheese pizza and start experimenting.
"That's great! I managed to snag this fruit from a traveling merchant the other day. What do you think about using this as a topping?" Stahl rummaged around his pack before pulling out a pineapple. Lewis's smile froze on his face.
Sthal, ignorant of the expression Lewis was making, continued. "I tried one, and it was cool and sweet with a hint of sour. I think it would make a great... Lewis. Are you alright?"
Lewis glared at Stahl for even thinking off using pineapple as a possible pizza topping. He summed up what he wanted to rant with a simple, "No. Just no."
"But..."
"Stahl. Sweet and sour fruits don't belong in a pizza."
"Well, I think you are wrong. The mixture of sour pineapple with the cheese and tomato will go heavenly together."
Lewis decided then and there Stahl was in need of some education on pizza etiquette. There was no way he was allowing a pineapple pizza lover to be born in Ylisse. He had enough friends who were pineapple pizza lovers, and he would be damned if another was formed in this world as well. His friends... Lewis's rant died in his mouth as a sinking feeling welled in his chest.
"J-Just do whatever you want."
"Are you alright Lewis?"
"Yes." Lewis found another reason for hating marches. Besides his aching feet, he was no longer keeping himself busy. When he was no longer keeping himself busy, unwanted feelings started welling up. Doubts, fears, nostalgia...
"Do you need to sit down for a bit? I can make some room on my horse if you need to."
"And let you carry all that stuff. I don't want to be a burden."
"Nonsense. You're a friend, not a burden." Stahl began moving bags off of his horse onto his shoulders.
Lewis quickly put a hand on Stahl's shoulders and stopped him. "It's alright. I was just feeling homesick all of a sudden."
"I see. I know what you mean. There are times when I want to go back to the little shop and see my pa and ma again."
"At least you can go back," Lewis grumbled.
Stahl cringed as he replayed the conversation in his head. "Sorry, that didn't come out as intended."
Lewis just shook his head before walking ahead. "It's fine. It's been good talking to you."
Stahl watched Lewis rush ahead with sadness. Lissa silently appeared beside Stahl. "He's doing it again, huh?"
In the past week, Lewis has been interacting less and been busy with all sorts of work and meetings. If he wasn't training, he was meeting with the guild masters or maesters in the university, or he was locked in his room writing papers on new revolutionary scientific theories that had the universities in an uproar. Everyone had been trying to get him out of his slump to no avail; thus, Robin decided on a plan to change up his schedule with something new. Normally, Frederick wanted to give Lewis four weeks of training, but Robin convinced Frederick to give his seal of approval a week earlier by emphasizing that Lewis was a longer-ranged unit who will not face much close combat.
"Yeah, but he's been a lot more talkative than before. I think this mission has been doing a lot of good for him so far. He looks more energetic, wouldn't you say?" Lissa considered Stahl's words with a couple of glances at Lewis.
"Yeah. You're right. That's good. Robin's plans always seem to work."
"Is that jealousy I hear?" Lissa pouted as she turned her head to face the other way.
"No... It's just... I'm royalty, you know that, right?"
"Yeah."
"And I haven't really been doing royalty things. Emmeryn's busy trying to maintain peace and making sure everyone can have a smile on their face, Chrom's busy trying to protect that smile by founding the Shepherds which he supports with his own money, and then there is me who haven't done anything."
"Well, I beg to differ. You've been a real big help for those at the temple."
"But the work I do there isn't... I don't know... unique? Someone else can replace me with hardly a sweat. It's not like I'm the best healer..."
"I think you're being too hard on yourself. Sometimes, Lissa, it's the little things that matter. You may not think too highly of yourself for working there, but to all those people who are too poor to afford a proper doctor or medicine, you are everything to them. Just make your mark one step at a time."
"Wow. Those are some deep words there."
"They're not mine. My grandpa told it to me when I was still working in the apothecary. It was when I was starting to get lazy with brewing the potions."
"Either way, thanks for telling me that... But those feelings return every time I look at Lewis and Robin. Like look at them. They aren't even Ylissean, but in just three weeks, Lewis has been making connections with all those big shots, and I just know he is planning something really big while Robin has been invaluable in planning more effective patrol routes for our smaller army."
"I should remind you that Lewis is an outrealmer, and Robin is someone capable of the tactician arts. Hardly grounds for comparison." Stahl patted Lissa's shoulder to straighten out her back.
"Yeah... By the way, I've heard hamburgers for lunch?" Lissa asked, desperate to change the subject.
"Yup! Lewis got everything, but the meat."
"Yes!" Lissa gave a small jump in excitement. Suddenly, Lissa got a small coy smile as she edged up to Stahl and gave him the 'puppy face.' "May I have half of your burger?"
"Uh... Sure?" Stahl spluttered out with a look of extreme disappointment. At those words, Lissa's expression darkened as she bonked Stahl with her staff.
"Ow! What was that for!?"
Lissa sneered as she grabbed Stahl's collar and yanked him closer. "What did I tell you about being too nice! Learn to say no or people will just take advantage of you!"
"But, I just want to be helpful..."
"There's being helpful, and there's being a slave! Now chin up and we're doing this again." While Lissa was lecturing Stahl about his inability to refuse someone's plea, Lewis was busy trying to brainstorm the flintlock mechanism. Lewis currently ran into problems with recreating the priming caps so he decided the best way to 'modernize' Ylisse's military was with the flintlock muskets.
While he was busy drawing out the changes between the flintlock and the caplock mechanisms, Vaike sneaked up behind Lewis and grabbed him for a headlock. "Put away that piece of paper. We're outside! Breath a little!"
"You would never say that to Miriel's face."
Vaike paled as he laughed nervously. "The Teach may be brave, but he ain't got a death wish."
"I beg to differ. The bar fight ten days ago was pretty..."
"Shhh! Not with Robin here!" Lewis glanced at Robin's direction before whispering back his confusion.
"Why?"
"She's still super pissed that we went drinking without her."
"I don't see what's the point then? We've gone drinking..."
"I then footed the bill to the Shepherds. Considering how Chrom put her in charge of our finances..."
"You crazy son of a bitch. You know how much Robin hates it when we use Shepherd's finances for our night outs. Why the hell did you do that when we already set aside money..." Lewis hissed back. Now he understood why Robin was more pissy than usual the next day. Lewis thought it was because it was her time of the month, but it was because of Vaike.
"I know!" Vaike interrupted. "But I drank too much, and it turns out I ended up telling the barkeeper to bill the Shepherds instead of putting it on our tab."
Lewis groaned as he remembered that Vaike had taken a chair to the face that night. It would make sense that Vaike wasn't thinking clearly. Hell, none of them were. For crying out loud, Lewis woke up in the ditch next to some random house where he had to help Virion flee through the window of some girl's bedroom. Then, the husband of that girl came barreling out of the front door with a shovel. Lewis tried to calm the situation, but he ended up puking on the man instead so he was forced to run cross country with a half-naked Virion through the wheat fields of Ylisstol. To top it all off, they had to help Chrom get down from some abandoned barn's roof.
Chrom doesn't remember how he got there, but Lewis could after drinking some tea. It was a bet that he couldn't wrestle a pegasus with his bare hands. The pegasus freaked out over a blue-haired drunk trying to give it a nice hug so it burst out of its stables out into the night sky with Chrom still on top of it. Lewi didn't say anything though because the bet was actually Lewis's idea, and Lewis preferred not letting Frederick get an idea of exactly how his liege got stuck on the roof of a rickety old building.
"Anyway, I just wanted to say that you should take a break."
Lewis gave an exasperated sigh. "We are going to go take out a bandit problem. This is far from an ideal position to take a break."
"Hey, if we ain't fighting or training, it's a break in my eyes."
"Of course, you would think that." Lewis snarked back.
"I'm just trying to say take it easy until we actually get there. This is the most relaxed I've seen you been this entire week." Lewis nodded as he gave Vaike a thumbs up.
"Thanks. I'll bear it in mind." Vaike returned the thumbs-up with a fist bump. It was a misunderstanding that Lewis never fixed because he was too lazy to properly explain the 'thumbs up' to him.
"By the way, it sucks that Robin and Lissa decided to tag along, doesn't it?" Lewis returned an understanding smirk.
"Oh yeah, I was looking forward to it."
"Hey, who says we can't still go?" Lewis looked at Vaike as if he grew a second head.
"You've got balls Vaike. I'll give you that. Alright, what's the plan?" Lewis and Vaike spent the next ten minutes hashing out a way to sneak out of the inn without Robin or Lissa noticing. When Vaike crept away to where Stahl was, Lewis saw Robin take Vaike's place.
"So, what were you guys planning?" Lewis tried his best at the poker face.
"Nothing much. Just Vaike telling me to loosen up." Robin stared back with suspicion before rolling her eyes.
"Don't loosen up too much. I don't want to drag back a corpse."
"Robin. That's a given. I won't loosen up during battle."
Robin sighed as she revised what she meant. "I meant to keep your eyes out for any ambushes."
Lewis stared back with confusion. "This is hardly ambushing territory. There's no tall grass, and no trees to hide behind."
Robin rolled her eyes and pointed to the skies. "You should never underestimate the possibility of an ambush from the air."
Lewis sighed as he was once more reminded that these medieval people who were still using swords had flying mounts. "Yeah. I forgot about the pegasus and wyverns."
"And that's why you aren't the tactician~" Robin sang as she began skipping.
Lewis leveled an annoyed gaze at Robin. "You're still salty that I beat you at poker."
Robin glared back. "You didn't need that money. I needed it."
"To buy the Ribbald Tales series?" Lewis returned with snark.
Robin growled back, "I don't want to hear that tone from someone who also bought it."
Lewis sighed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Look, if you want it that much, I'll give it to you. Fifty Shades was a far better book and that says something."
"What's Fifty Shades?"
"It's a book from my world that's similar, but the ribald parts are not as tame. You know, if I have time I'll probably make a killing if I published some proper... err... you know what I mean. Anyway! Once we get back come to my room, I'll give the series to you."
"Thanks! You've no idea how much I've been looking forward to reading it."
"Be prepared for some disappointment."
"Sumia liked it." Lewis coughed and began laughing at the memory. Sumia was as red as a tomato when Robin asked what she was reading. Sumia all but stammered out that it was a good book before she ran out of the room through the window.
"Yeah. Let's go with that."
Meanwhile, the other three members of the group were watching Lewis and Robin's interactions with intrigued expressions. Lissa was the first to speak up. "I am surprised at how easily they can switch tones like that at the drop of the hat."
Vaike laughed as he gave his opinion. "I think they would make a great married couple."
Stahl shook his head as he remembered some parts of Lewis's drunken rantings. "No way. You know how Lewis really feels about Robin."
Lissa's gossip sense began tingling as she turned toward Stahl. "Don't stop there. How does he really feel about Robin?"
Stahl shook his head as Vaike put a hand over his mouth to emphasize the secret. "Can't. When we drank that night, we men and a Sully swore an oath that whatever comes out of our drunken mouths stays silent no matter what."
"Oh, come on! Why do you guys have all the fun while I'm stuck at the castle learning wine etiquette!" Lissa kicked over a rock as she pouted.
"Ah don't be like that! How about this? The Teach will bring you to a tavern in Thetford after our bandit mission and all five of us can go drinking. What about it?" Vaike exclaimed.
"You really mean it!" Lissa began jumping up and down.
"You betcha!"
Stahl stared at Vaike in shock. What are you doing! Chrom and Frederick are going to kill us if they find out we went to a tavern with Lissa! What about our plan! Stahl communicated with his eyes.
Don't worry! We can make sure that she only gets diluted stuff. I think it's more fun if we just go drinking with all five of us instead of us three sneaking out. Vike reassured Stahl.
What about Robin? She will never agree!
You underestimate the teach's powa!
We are so dead.