Chrom found himself in an empty room. Everything in the room from the floor to the walls consisted of nothing more than a black void, but it didn't feel that strange to Chrom. He wasn't even sure why he thought of it as a room. It was almost like he was floating on nothing, but he didn't question it. He just turned to see the one object in the room and focused on that, knowing somehow that it was the only thing that mattered. It was a table with two chairs, and on the table was a game of chess, waiting to be played. Seated across from the table was a young man. He had light brown hair and brown eyes, and he gave a grin that briefly seemed friendly, but was more cocky than anything when Chrom looked at him more closely. He was sure he'd seen this man before, but he couldn't place it. "Well if it isn't the old man? How's it going?"

The man's voice reminded Chrom of the events that had sent the past several weeks into motion. "Conrad?! Y-you're the kid from the bar!"

"I have to take a break from the ladies every once in awhile."

"You're dead!"

Conrad shrugged. "Don't think too hard about it. Come on. Want to have a quick game?"

Chrom sat down in the other chair and looked at the chess board. "Alright. Why not?"

"Alright. I'll be black. Now white goes first."

Chrom knew how to play, but he was never that interested in chess. He shrugged and took one of his pawns, basically at random, and moved it two spaces forward. Conrad smiled and watched. "Aw. Always send the pawns first, right?"

"I guess."

"The people take two steps forward, away from the sovereign. They think they're moving towards freedom, but they actually play right into his or her hands."

Chrom slowly looked up. Conrad's normally smooth tone was gone. He'd been very serious when he said that. "W-what?"

Despite what he had said, Conrad didn't move his pawn first. Instead he took his knight and moved it from B8 to C6. Chrom took the pawn to the right of the one he'd moved and sent it forward. Conrad moved his own pawn forward. "Brother beside brother. The common men, the workers, the farmers, the soldiers, the hedge born, they come to be unified. They no longer believe in the divine right of kings. They come to believe that they can rule society. They ask for a share of the capital. They ask for a share of the means of production. They ask for things that have always been controlled by a landed elite. They believe they are taking power from the upper classes, but they play right into our hands. We will create a society controlled not by armies or kings or religion, but by capital. Those who control the capital will control the human soul. A world based on money and trade, not fealty. Feudalism is dead. The new world is built not on social class, but on capital." Chrom moved his pawn from F4 to E5, taking Conrad's pawn. Conrad just smiled and took his piece off the board. "A small sacrifice for the greater good."

Chrom looked down at the chessboard for an instant, but looked back up to see that Conrad was gone. In his place was Courtney. Chrom immediately tensed up with rage but, for some reason he couldn't understand, he didn't want to stop playing. Courtney attached a kind of hook to his prosthetic arm and moved his queen to H4 in a rather ungracious manner. "Heh, always liked chess. Something about being able to control all these pieces. You can make them die for you, all for the greater good." Courtney glared back at Chrom. "Of course, you'd never sacrifice any of your soldiers. Would you?"

Chrom looked down to the board to find a sight that almost made him jump from his chair. The pieces were gone. In their place were people. Small figures that stood in place, fiddling with their equipment or pacing back and forth. Courtney's pieces had become Grimleal soldiers, but Chrom's pieces had become the Shepherds themselves. Each one was unique. Cordelia and Sumia had formed from pawns, and they casually maintained a conversation. Stahl formed from a knight, and he seemed to be napping. Lissa formed from a bishop, and she seemed bored. The pawn Chrom had moved close to Courtney's side of the board had become Donnel, and he seemed worried by the knight, which turned into a mounted Grimleal soldier, that he was in the path of. Each and every chess piece was a Shepherd, and they all turned to look at Chrom whenever his hand was near them. Courtney noticed the look of shock on Chrom's face and gave a sadistic cackle. "W-what the hell is this?!"

"Make a move, boy!"

Chrom looked down. He saw a number of moves he could make, but part of him hesitated. He didn't want to do anything that would get one of his pieces removed, but it was impossible to win that way. Everytime he hovered his hand over a Shepherd, they would shake their heads and freak out. None of them wanted to be moved, and Chrom couldn't bear to look at their expressions of terror and dread, but he steeled himself and reluctantly moved Sumia one space forward to G3. Sumia drew her weapon and looked around in a panic, and Cordelia seemed to call out to her. Chrom finally had to turn away.

"Heh." Courtney didn't "attack" any of the Shepherds, but instead moved his queen, represented by some kind of artillery piece, to E4. "The Grimleal has an endless amount of soldiers. If we lost a thousand lives to kill one rebel, we'd still come out on top of all these rebellions. We'll never run out of soldiers. You won't make the hard choices." Chrom looked back down. He noticed that his queen was none other than his younger self. Chrom didn't feel guilty about moving him, so he took himself and moved him to E2. Courtney responded by moving his queen all the way to H1, putting it well within Chrom's side of the board and taking his rook. The rook was represented by Lon'qu, and Chrom watched in agony as Courtney's artillery fired on him. A cannonball seemed to tear right through his arm, leaving him to slowly die of shock and blood loss. Courtney's cannon then wheeled its way to the square. Worst of all, the other pieces seemed to watch. Courtney's Grimleal soldiers cheered, while the Shepherds cried out in horror. "And yet, for all of our willingness to sacrifice our soldiers, they live better under us then they did under the old world regimes. Our society gives people the chance to move up in life. I was just a peasant in Ylisse. Now I rule over the land rednecks like me used to work. Aversa and Gangrel were just commoners. Now they rule over humanity. There's no place for blue bloods in our new world. We're a society of workers! Farmers! Soldiers! Proletariats! You're nothing anymore, boy! Now everyone that stands with you will die alongside the rest of your feudal regime!"

Chrom had to close his eyes and take deep breaths to not snap at Courtney. When he opened his eyes again, Courtney was gone. High Inquisitor Aversa was sitting across from him. "You!"

"My, if it isn't Prince Chrom. How long has it been? You remember me don't you, darling? I'd forgive you if you didn't. Last you saw me I was a defeated woman, begging the strong, handsome, righteous young prince to spare little old me. Now?" Aversa giggled. "Well now you'd be doing the begging if we ever encountered each other again. I always did look forward to the day you'd be on your knees." Chrom didn't give her anything to work with. He just looked at the board and planned his next move. The pieces were normal pieces again, and Chrom could plan his actions without worrying about anyone dying. He took his knight and moved it to F3, hoping he could take the queen when it moved. Aversa smiled and held her finger over her queen, gently caressing it while looking into Chrom's eyes. "They say this is a man's world, but it isn't really. The most sought after commodity in history isn't gold or silver or anything like that. It's women. Men fall over themselves trying to win over beautiful women. Sure the patriarchs have built a society where they hold the wealth, the power, the weapons, but they're not in control of their own minds. They're always thinking about their next conquest, but are they really the ones doing the conquering?" Aversa didn't move her queen. Instead she took her bishop and moved it to E7. "Some men spend their lives chasing wealth. They don't rule wealth, wealth rules them. Now imagine a commodity even more sought than that, and imagine that this commodity has a mind of its own. Now if a woman isn't careful, she'll find herself little more than a thing. To be seen and not heard. But if a woman knows what she's doing…" Chrom moved his other knight to C3, and Aversa again put her finger on her queen. "She can wrap men around her finger. They'll do anything for us. We twist their very thoughts. They spend their lives desiring us. Chasing after us. Protecting us. Caring for us. Us their girls, their babies, their property. But all the while we're in their ear. Shaping them. Them who think themselves better than us. More intelligent. More powerful. More deserving. Look at history. Behind every good man is a good woman. Marth and Caeda. Alm and Celica. The First Exalt and the Pegasus Knight by his side. You and the Queen of Ylisse. Now look at the men without women in their lives, or at least without women that truly supported them. Gharnef. Hardin. Validar. Walhart. Gangrel. They all fell to the chivalrous heroes." Aversa smirked. "And the women by their side." Aversa took her finger off the queen and instead moved her pawn to D6. Chrom reached out to make his own move, but he tensed up as a hand rested on his shoulder. Chrom quickly turned to find his wife smiling down on him.

"Go ahead, Chrom." Maribelle said with a soft voice. "Make your move."

"W-what? How?!"

"Make your move, darling."

Chrom had many things he desperately wanted to ask, but he was startled at another hand on his other shoulder before he could. This time it was Sumia. Chrom had always considered her a friend, but they weren't close enough to be touching like this, and yet Maribelle didn't react. Both women just smiled down. "Yeah, come on. Make your move."

"I-I don't-"

Olivia also walked behind Chrom and slowly put her face by his left ear, her whispering sending a shiver down his body. "Yes. Don't think. Just move."

"Mmm." Sully added as she took the same position by his right ear. "It's not like you to wait. Make your move."

Part of Chrom was disturbed by how close they all were, but part of him almost enjoyed it. Wanted it. His four allies all ran their hands along him in a slow and suggestive manner while giggling. That first part of Chrom tried to tell them to stop, but he couldn't quite form the words. He just shivered and almost moaned before he caught himself. It'd be pleasurable if Aversa wasn't shooting him a devious smile from across the table. "Women can own a man's very mind." Chrom glanced back to the board, but images began to flash through his mind as soon as he thought about his next move. They were of women, including the four by him now, all scantily clad and in provocative poses. The images raced through his mind so quickly that it was impossible to see any one of them clearly, but he could tell what he was seeing from the similarities in the dozens and dozens of racy thoughts that involuntarily tunneled their way through his mind. It was more traumatizing than erotic, as the images refused to cease. Dozens became hundreds. They became more intense everytime he tried to think about his actual move, and were also accompanied by soft giggling and whispering. Chrom's eyes flickered around the board, but nothing made the images go away. Aversa's smile widened, as if she knew what was happening to him. "And when we have that kind of power, what do men hold really but their own egos?"

Maribelle, Sully, Sumia, and Olivia leaned closer to Chrom. Their every word made the images worse. "Aren't you excited?" Olivia asked. "Make your move. I want to see what you do."

"Go on, darling." Maribelle whispered. "Go on. Move."

"Make a move. *Giggles.* Don't you want to?" Sumia added.

"Come on." Sully playfully teased. "Come on. Come on, Chrom. Make a goddamn move!"

Chrom didn't think or plan ahead. He just wanted it all to stop. He reached for the nearest piece, his king, and moved it to F2. The images finally went away, leaving him with just Aversa's smiling face. She took her knight and moved it to E5, taking Chrom's pawn. "Bad move, sweetie."

Chrom turned to the four women in annoyance, but they were no longer there. He looked back to see that Aversa too was gone. In her place was Gangrel. The rage Chrom felt at the sight of Courtney and Aversa was nothing compared to what surged through him now. "Once again the two of us face each other. Our lives really are intertwined aren't they? We're two birds of a feather. Two peas in a pod. Two threads in the same stitch. Two sides of the same coin. Two insects under the same boot. Two corpses in one grave. We are similar, but we never face. Always on opposite sides. It's like we're in a game. Our fighting is part of our stories." Gangrel laughed as he looked over the board. "The question is, how much blood will we spill before our battle finally ends? A war between Ylisse and Plegia. Emmeryn's brains rendered nothing more than a splat on the ground. My Plegian generals killed or wounded. An entire group of pirates wiped out. All the Shepherds but for a few killed. How many more people will die or have their lives destroyed for our battle?" Chrom went into a fit of rage, but again he couldn't seem to bring himself to stop playing. Instead he became more short sighted in his moves, and he focused mainly on just taking pieces from Gangrel. In turn, Gangrel abandoned the strategy his predecessors had set up and just chased Chrom's king with reckless moves. Gangrel slowly forced Chrom's king towards the left of the board with his queen. Chrom sacrificed several pieces to keep his king from being taken until he was able to take Gangrel's queen with a bishop. From there Gangrel focused on bringing his pieces up. The two armies gradually moved towards each other. When they came to blows, both men became taken over entirely by their fury. Chrom couldn't even remember his own moves. It all blurred together. He just concentrated on taking as much from Gangrel as he could, and he didn't think twice about losing his own pieces. All that mattered was hurting Gangrel. Within a few dozen moves, almost every piece on the board was gone. The sight filled Chrom with an inexplicable sense of dread, as if more than just chess pieces had been lost. Gangrel gave an unhinged smile, as if reveling in the "death". "That's how you know we're hero and villain, Chrom. I don't know which of us is which, but that's how I know this is the relationship we have. People die whenever we face each other, and yet we never do. We're survivors. Other people are just footnotes, but we're great men. Our fight is all that matters. We are all that matters, and everyone else is just part of our story. We need each other."

Chrom tried to look back to the board to plan his next move with what few pieces remained. He couldn't quite remember what pieces were left, but he could have sworn he still had a bishop and a knight. When he looked back however, he instead found a rook and several pawns on his side of the board. He looked again, and once more the pieces were different. More than that, the Grimleal had more pieces than they did before. Chrom looked again, and realized that the Grimleal now had twice as many pieces as he did. It was as if they'd been resurrected. "Y-you're cheating!"

Chrom glanced up to see that Gangrel was gone. Validar himself was seated across the table, and he gave a menacing smile. Chrom looked down to find that all of the Grimleal's pieces had come back, and yet he was only left with a few. The exact pieces he had seemed to change each time he looked, and he wondered if it really mattered. He couldn't win anymore with such a disadvantage. "Don't you see the futility of it all? This was never a world of man. We were always living in the shadows of gods. The Fell Dragon's ascension was inevitable. No human force could stop it. Not the law. Not the courts. Not the armies. Not the oligarchs. Not the heroes. This was never man's world." Chrom looked down to the board to see an impossible sight. Every single piece on the board, both white and black, had become a black king, with the sole exception of his white king. There was no way Chrom could win. Even if he took a king from the Grimleal, they wouldn't lose. He could take two thirds of all the pieces, but he'd still lose if he lost his one king. He could maybe win small victories, but the Grimleal wouldn't lose the game. Chrom tried to move his king regardless, but the Mark of Grima suddenly appeared on every square on the board. Whenever he moved the piece closer to a square, the symbol would glow, and he felt an overwhelming sense of dread as if he knew each move would somehow doom him. "Every single move has been planned. Engineered. It's the regime's game. The Fell Dragon's resurrection could not be stopped. There is no way out. The future cannot be changed. Your move."

Isaiah's words went through Chrom's mind. "The only way to win… is not to play." Chrom thought for several seconds, sighed, and took his king off the board. Validar began to give a horrifying laugh. Gangrel materialized next to him, and he also laughed at Chrom. Aversa, Courtney, and Conrad soon followed, all cackling at Chrom. A red light began to bathe the area, and Chrom looked up to see six blood red eyes looming over him. He couldn't see what they were attached to, but he knew what it meant. He just stood up, turned, and walked away. The laughter followed him as he did. It tormented him to his very soul, and nothing he did could make it stop. Chrom tried to cover his ears and stumble away, but it wouldn't end.

"Chrom?" The noise instantly calmed Chrom, and he looked up to find Ophelia smiling at him. Chrom looked back, but the table and the Grimleal were gone. He turned back to his grandniece to find Soleil and Caeldori standing next to her. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah. I'm fine." Chrom slowly smiled, and he felt at ease for the first time. "Thanks to you three."

"Gah!" Chrom shot awake. He'd been slouched over in his chair, and only then realized he'd even fallen asleep. He was greeted by a sharp pain in his back. "Ah! Damn wooden chair."

"You fall asleep on us, old man?" Chrom looked over to Soleil, who had found it humorous. "Come on now. You're about the same age as Cordelia right? She could still keep up with us. You're too young for mid afternoon naps."

"Yeah, well-" Chrom rubbed his back. "Time and I don't exactly have an amicable relationship."

"You look rough. Is there a certain age where power naps stop working?"

"I… had a strange dream."

"So… you're too tired to train some more?"

Chrom was far too tired to move like that right now, but he was pleasantly surprised. He was worried Soleil wouldn't want to again after what happened the previous day. "I'm sorry, Soleil. Maybe in an hour or two."

"Alright. If we're still here by then."

"I'm honestly surprised to see you so eager."

"Well Caeldori was getting on me about not training enough. Same as old grandma. Heh, was Cordelia kind of a hard woman when she was younger? Or was she more like me? You know, I bet she was. Old people are always getting on young people when they see a lot of their younger selves in them."

"I'm sorry, Soleil. I honestly didn't know her that well thirty years ago."

"Oh. Huh. I guess I thought you knew everyone. She talked a lot about you."

Chrom was saddened, again feeling guilty for how much he took her for granted. "Yeah."

Soleil could tell she'd upset him, and she smiled wider. "Well she could be real strict with us. The two of us were always going at it. It was annoying at the time, but it's kind of funny looking back at it."

Chrom heard giggling to his right, and he only then noticed Ophelia at the other end of the table. "You two were always arguing, but she'd be happy to see you training now."

"Nah. She'd still be on my butt." Soleil did a nasally and exaggerated version of Cordelia's voice. "Now Soleil, I'm glad to see you training more, but training just one day isn't enough. I'm going to need you to practice for about twelve hours a day every weekday, m'kay? Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I'm going to need you to train on Saturdays and Sundays too, mm'kay?"

Ophelia smiled. "She did not sound like that!"

"Now Soleil, I heard you've been harassing the village girls again. If you want I can get you a date with just me and my belt buckle, mmm'kay? If Ophelia and Caeldori ask about your bruises, we'll tell them you walked into a tree, mmmm'kay?"

"S-stop!" Ophelia responded, though she was clearly amused. Soleil did a routine where she was herself before pretending to be Cordelia again.

"Now Cordelia, it takes more energy to frown than it does to smile!" "Yeah Soleil, well, it takes more energy to deal with your Pegasus dung than it does to just slap the crap out of you, mmmmm'kay?"

Ophelia snickered. "She wasn't that bad!"

Chrom took it more seriously. "She threatened you?!"

"What? N-no! It was just an exaggeration! I was joking." Soleil sat back in her seat. "It feels good to laugh about it, you know? Helps… helps us move on. Speaking of moving on, do we have time to eat first?"

"I don't think so. Caeldori will be back any minute now, and we've eaten enough of Isaiah's food."

Soleil shrugged. "I was getting sick of the food here anyways. You know what I haven't had in a long time?"

"Hmm?"

Soleil's eyes seemed to stare off into the distance. "Steak. Oh gods. Come to think of it, I haven't seen a cow in years. I hope they're not extinct."

"I'm sure they're still around in the Grimleal controlled lands. Their officers can have steak every night if they want, while the rest of us scrape by."

Soleil was only half listening. She still seemed to be fantasizing about her hopeless craving. "So what would you have if you could eat any food right now?"

Ophelia thought about it. "I don't know. Maybe some noodles."

"That's boring. How about you, Chrom?"

"Hmm. I could go for a meat pie."

Gaius poked his head through the hallway, as if he'd just materialized from thin air. "Did someone say pie?!"

"Uh, yeah. I was talking about a meat pie."

Gaius groaned. "Oh. I thought maybe you had a fruit pie?"

"The hell would we get a pie from around here?" Soleil shot. "You see any bakeries around here? All I see is sand!"

"It's just that I've gone so many days without sugar! ARGH!" Gaius slumped over to a chair, sat down, and allowed himself to fall into the table. He then moaned for several seconds without moving. "I need sugar!"

"What are you, four years old?"

"I have a medical condition!"

Soleil shook her head. "It's like they put a child in a middle aged man's body."

Isaiah entered the room and crossed his arms. Soleil and Ophelia looked away from his stern glare, but Chrom just nodded and readied himself for what he'd say. "Caeldori's back. It's time for you to go."

Soleil slowly met his gaze again. "Um, Isaiah… s-sir? Is there no way we can talk about this?"

"No. You need to leave."

"But we have nowhere else to go!"

Isaiah's expression softened somewhat, showing that he wasn't completely cold, but he didn't change his mind. He just sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry. I want to help you, but I can't let you stay here anymore." Isaiah looked at Chrom, knowing he'd stop Soleil from arguing any further. "You fellers have armed men after you. You can't bring a war to my homestead. You already took one family from me."

Chrom slowly nodded in agreement. "Yeah." He said quietly. "We won't put your family at risk."

"But-"

"SOLEIL!" Chrom snapped. Soleil tensed up, not used to Chrom being angry with her. "We will not put Isaiah's family at risk. The Arch Surg is still after us, and we won't risk any fighting here. I've taken enough from him."

"Um… alright. I'll… uh… I'll go talk to Caeldori."

Soleil and Ophelia got up, and Isaiah followed them to make sure they left. Chrom decided to follow them out. He found Henry looking out towards Isaiah's carriage as it made its way back to the homestead. "It looks like Cordelia II and Sully's replacement are back from The Saltworks."

Isaiah glared at him. "Did you really have to put it that way?"

Henry shrugged as the carriage pulled in front of the homestead. As tense as the mood was otherwise, Ophelia and Soleil were relieved to see Caeldori hop off the carriage and walk towards them without a trace of a limp in her step. Ophelia and her embraced tightly. Soleil didn't feel it was appropriate for her to do the same, but she still gave her ally a genuine grin as she turned to her. "Caeldy!" Ophelia exclaimed. "Your leg is finally better!"

Caeldori smiled proudly, as if she'd overcome a failure on her part. "The Grimleal may be oppressive, but those doctors are well educated. It was quick and easy… once the cutting was over anyways. Maybe someday they'll have anesthetic that knocks you out completely. Oh well. I've taken worse." Caeldori also turned to Chrom in excitement, and it was then that she caught the tone of the older men. She looked to Isaiah and Gaius as he stepped out of the house, and their expressions weren't any softer. "Is… is something wrong?"

Soleil sighed. "Caeldori… we can't stay here anymore."

"Has something happened? Did you do something, Soleil?!"

"Oh shove off! I had nothing to do with it!"

"We were attacked by a Risen." Chrom answered.

"A Risen?! Not a Tunneller?!"

"No. It was a Risen."

"But… how-"

"I heard that an Arch Surg officer was capable of summoning them when we were at their fort a few days ago. I think he's using them as scouts. They're looking for us. If there's the slightest possibility that they've found us, we have to leave. We cannot bring a war to Isaiah's homestead. Especially not after everything he's done for us."

"Oh." Caeldori looked to Ophelia and Soleil, as if expecting some kind of good news, but their smiles were gone. "I see."

"I'm sorry." Isaiah said, though his words were more half hearted than they had been with Chrom. "I have to think of my family. Now everyone is already packed. We were just waiting for you to get back. It's… it's time."

"I see." Caeldori looked back to the badlands. "That makes sense."

Chrom looked back to Isaiah. "Thank you for everything."

"Of course. You can always come back, you know. It'd be nice to see each other every once in awhile. It's just… you can't stay here now. Not if you're being hunted."

Matilda seemed saddened for an instant before perking up, as if remembering that the house was now hers again. "Well, that's that. Come on, Caeldori. I'll help you back. Wouldn't want y'all to get a late start."

Caeldori stepped closer to Chrom. "Well… there's something I think I should tell you. We… we were followed here."

"What?!"

Matilda nodded. "Yeah. A small group of people started trailing us as we made our way from The Saltworks, but they left a ways back."

"But… it's possible it wasn't a coincidence. I just think you should know."

Chrom seemed to panic, but he calmed himself when he realized he was unnerving the girls. "Let's be safe about this. Aurora and Minerva are in the stables. We're leaving right now."

"And what. You think you can just fly away?"

The group turned in a panic to find over a dozen Risen cutting them off from the stables behind the homestead. Algol stood in the center. He grinned from ear to ear, giving an almost skeletal appearance, and shouldered his axe. "Damn it." Chrom muttered under his breath. He turned to Isaiah, as if to apologize, but only got a cold and bitter look in return.

"Y'all should have left last night!"

"I-I'm sorry."

The group looked over to see Cervantes, Farber, and Pheros approach from beside Algol. Cervantes smiled and held his axe while running his other hand through his beard. Farber gave a stern glare and readied his weapon with one hand while preparing a spell with the other. Pheros stood in front. Though she was a middle aged woman of average build with nothing more than a healing staff, she had a surprisingly threatening appearance. As intimidating as the men beside her were, her glare was the most severe of all. "Chrom. We would have words."