23: The Q&A special!

Guest 2: You'd be cocky too when you have just learned how to spam kickass magic, wouldn't ya?

There's to say that she's now gonna have Chrom to at least comfort her some. Death knocked some sense into her about the urgency of doing stuff you always wanted to do, when you're a soldier.

I always thought that Nagi was the current Naga, but I am not sure. Gonna have to look into it later.

Anyways, without much further ado, get ready for the Q&A special! Read and Review if you wanna see another one, still review if you don't want to.

So… you know how I said those guys signed up for target practice?

(Because you have a death wish?)

'You make it sound like it's a bad thing.'

(I'm not gonna deign that with a reply.)

Anyways… Well… they did sign up for target practice. But…

(Let's cut to the chase; he got his ass handed to him.)

'Oi! That's so not true! I defeated them all!'

(But at what cost?)

'Well…'

I stared at my broken left arm as it bent at an uncomfortable angle. I think Law has been messing with my pain settings, because a broken arm should bring at least some degree of pain. Either that, or my pain tolerance has skyrocketed on its own again because of how much abuse I put my body through on a regular basis.

(A bit of column A, a bit of column B.)

Damn.

Lilina had also died so for a while my only line of defense was mmmmagic. Which was a pretty good line of defense, mind you.

So, after getting my arm in a makeshift cast (kids remember: Elixirs do not heal broken bones, FYI) I stared in the direction that from the position of the sun I guessed was north. I've realized something.

I have absolutely and positively no fucking idea what to do now.

I mean, there's always the outpost that's about a good fifty kilometers from here… I should probably check in on Cordelia, Marth, Emmeryn and the rest of those who stayed behind to see if they're doing okay…

*ding*

What… What was that?

(That was Marth calling.)

Alright, yeah. I'll do that, and see what I can do over in Ylisstol. I'm still not ready to be a Shepherd again, but I can at least be Nick. That would be simple enough.

I wonder how my Einherjar's doing…


I got back from my latest lesson at UNI, bone tired and sweaty. After taking the subway back to home, I found it completely empty. Mom was probably off doing something or mourning again on Ni's grave. Police had completely given up on finding him, saying that his body was probably burned by someone, though they have no clues on who.

I was about to toss myself onto his bed, only to find out that it was occupied.

By him. A blue aura was around his body, seemingly disappearing into thin air.

What the fu-

"Well, about fucking time you showed up. Hold on, sorry-" He coughed into his fist. "Beh, era fottutamente ora che arrivassi."

(AN: Enter translation mode! For the sake of my, your, and everybody else's sanity, assume that the following dialogue is in Italian. Thank you.)

So many questions were racing through my mind. So I asked them.

All at once.

"WHEREWEREYOU, WHYAREYOUHERENOW,WHYAREYOUJUSTLAYINGTHERE, AND WHY ARE YOU DISINTEGRATING?!" I asked. A look of surprise crossed his face as he listened to me scream before he resumed his usual deadpan expression.

"Well, I missed you too, Fra'." But I was having none of that shit.

"ANSWER! ME! NOW!" I screamed in his face. He sighed.

"Alright, in order… In Ylisse, I just managed to get here, because, and because I'm an Einherjar." I listened to his replies, and my very intelligent reply was this.

"What?"

"Yeah, that's what I thought as well. This is gonna take a while to explain…"


One explanation that took a while later…

I pinched the bridge of my nose. This is some serious mind fuckery. I opened my mouth to speak, but then closed it. This repeated for several times before I managed to say what I was trying to say.

"So you're telling me that you suicided" he winced as I said that, accompanying it with a kick to his legs that he didn't even bother trying to dodge "and somehow wound up in Ylisse. A whole lot of shit happened, and now he's sent you over to fill his fucking place over here?!" I didn't curse often, but this just takes the cake.

"And you expect me to believe you?!" He shrugged, his usual "devil may care" attitude showing off. "I mean, you can choose not to believe me, but I'm disintegrating here, so…"

I opened my mouth and closed it once again, before I asked. "Why are you disintegrating anyways?"

He shrugged irritatingly once again, before saying "You know D&D?" at my deadpan, since I had been the one who introduced him to it he continued "Well, as I've recently found out, Earth is a dead-magic zone. I'm surprised it's taking so long for me to disintegrate at all. I've been here for two hours already."

I stared at him before massaging my temples in hope of warding away the headache that was brewing up. It didn't help at all.

"So. What am I even supposed to do with all this information? Am I supposed to go after you or something?" I asked warily.

"I mean… you did in the original timeline, though I'm not privy to the exact mechanics of that. Just thought I'd inform you."

"And why should I even go there in the first place? It's a world wracked by warfare every twenty years AT BEST. And I'm no fighter." I ran my hands across my face.

"Well… I know just five words will probably sway you." He gave me a shit eating grin.

"And they are?" I asked.

"Francis. You. Have. A. Daughter."

"So what if I ha- WHAT." I blanched when I heard what he said. "I have a wh-what?"

"A daughter. Her name's Rose."

"That is, if I go there I will have a daughter, right?" The ghost shook his head.

"From what I've seen, we're already into Timeline numero two. So no, that's not a thing." I felt whatever little blood I had in my face leave it.

"By the way, now that I think about it, I've done a lot of changes to canon. Like, say… I may have slightly killed Cordelia via butterfly effect. She should be fine now, though."

"Y-you what?!" I asked, completely dumbfounded.

"Yeah… it's part of the reason I left the Shepherds."

"Y-you left them!?" I asked him, once again swept off my feet. Why was he so nonchalant about this?!

"Hey! In my defense, keeping things canon is a lot harder than it should be. Especially when the past/future you has already fucked up so many things. Can you believe that it's barely chapter 6 and Lucina is already a Shepherd?" Nick asked.

"Just-Just… how much stuff did you change?" I asked, exasperated.

"Well… I saved Donny, though his village is a goner. I killed a whole lot of people" I winced at the blasé tone that he took. Just… what had become of my brother?

"I obtained magic-" he demonstrated this by summoning out of his freaking hand a fireball… that quickly extinguished. "Right. Anti-magic zone." He frowned. "Anyways, I did the paralogues, Frederick's lost a leg" a sound came out of my throat that suspiciously sounded like a choked cat "I saved Anna, I saved Anna, got some Einherjars like yours truly, Emmeryn is now a narcoleptic and that may have slightly been my fault? Sorta? I dunno. I obtained some sick equipment and… I think the changes end there. Oh, right, I also became a Spirit Charmer from RD! I think." I raised an eyebrow inquiringly, never having played Radiant Dawn.

"it's hard to explain." He shrugged, unhelpful as he had been this whole conversation.

"Just… why are you so unfazed by all this?" I asked, a bit of desperation in my voice. Just what had this world done to my little brother?

"Oh, that's easy. I'm literally about to die, so it has no consequences on me." He said, shrugging once again. "If you ask the real me, though, he'll probably lock up or even start crying. He's done that a lot lately."

"Just… give me a moment, alright? I need some time to think about this. You're not disappearing soon, are you?" I warily asked. This monster wearing my brother's face really unsettled me.

"I follow orders Francis. Tell me what to do and I'll do it." He winked at me. With a final shudder, I closed the door behind me (in his face) and went to toss myself into my mother's bed.

Or rather…

"Wait, no!" The Einherjar called. "That's where the portal-" but I couldn't hear him anymore. The only thing I could hear was the low hum of what I would later learn to be a portal.

Shit.


Nick stared at the portal closing as he watched his brother go. He sighed, removing the mask of indifference on his face that he had adapted.

"There couldn't have been a more stupid start to a story…" he put his face in his palms for about a minute before standing up.

"Well, I've got like… 30 minutes or something… might as well use them." He said, moving over to the computer before he realized something.

The POV hadn't left.

"Huh? What is it now?" A muffled voice could be heard from behind the camera.

"And we're doing this NOW? This is a sort of important moment, you know. We're beginning with the second protagonist!" Nick threw a hand to the portal to get better his point across. An audible shrug came from the same person as before.

"I've literally 30 minutes to live and you want to waste my time like this?" More muffled speech, but this time the words "contract" and "einherjar" could be heard.

"Ugh, fine… tear reality apart at the seams just so you can make stupid omakes…" He pouted, tossing himself onto one of the two beds. "Your story is shit anyways…" A box was tossed in his face, and he opened it to reveal a few slips of paper.

"Welcome to the first and hopefully last Q&A where your favorite (I hope) protagonist reads out the questions and answers them! That's kind of obvious given the fact that this is a Q&A! And since the Author is a desperate fuck we'll be reading some reviews that he wants me to answer as well!" He said. Grumbling from behind the camera could be heard.

"So, without further ado, let's get onto the first question! This one comes from Kidemonas!" He grabbed a slip of paper with some text on it.

"Why doesn't Roy" he frowned at the name. "have the Binding Blade?" Nick said, before crumpling up the paper and tossing it behind himself. "Well, that's a very simple one to answer. I tried doing it once and…

"Roy's our Legendary Boy!" I called. I saw the card exit my pocket as I stared at him expectantly. Then I felt the tug of mana from the weapon in his hands. And I puked. Thankfully Roy got the hint and unsummoned himself.

"Perhaps when I'm a better mage and learn to handle mana better I'll be able to summon it like that. But to put it short, it's like when I try to summon Marth with a Falchion user nearby; it becomes the actual legendary weapon instead of a glorified Wyrmslayer. Thank you for the question. Next one!" he said, pulling out another slip of paper.

"This one's from… a person that wishes to remain anonymous. Alright then."

"Nick is a Gary Stu, and the fanfic sucks." He said. "This is literally all this thing says." Nick took a deep breath as he processed that, before putting on a smile with way too many teeth.

"Well, fuckface, thank you for being our very first hatemail. Now, when you go tell someone that he's annoyingly perfect, make sure that they actually are. Considering I fail in most of what I do, especially trying to avoid people dying, that's clearly not the case." Tears could be seen pooling up in Nick's eyes, but his hand reached up to remove them. "Moving on!" he reached into the box.

"Oh, another one from Kidemonas. "If you think about it, give Nick a Bow and Arrow and he could be passed off as Wolt (best archer) or Gordin." A sharp intake of breath from Nick. "Alright. Perhaps let's stop reading questions that remind me of my missing best friend, thank you very much. Anyways…

"I actually cannot use a bow and arrow. My right eye" he waved a hand in front of it "sees all blurred. I used to wear glasses, actually they're right there" he pointed to the desk where the computer was "but I didn't put them on when I attempted to suicide for OBVIOUS reasons. It's also been a while since my hair's been green, so… yeah. Another one!" He grabbed the next question.

"This one's from… another anonymous guy! Woohoo!" He said in the most deadpan voice possible.

"How do Einherjars work in this world? It seems they are different every time they are mentioned…" He stuck his tongue out in thought before snapping his fingers.

"Right! Here's how I can explain. So, what you're seeing here" he pointed to himself "is an "instance" of the "computer" that is Nick's brain. Since I am so familiar with this form, it is the one I took. What you're gonna notice is that my hair is brown" he pointed at his head which sported brown, long-ish hair "and there's some other minor differences that I'm not gonna point out. Anyways, I am an instance of the original Nick's soul operating, instead of inside a body, with a golem made entirely of mana. The card is like a computer, though infinitely more complex. The body you see is the case."

"Now that I think of it, I was summoned by Anna, and the blue glow is around me. My knowledge of my situation probably stems from the fact that in my lifetime I did, in fact, know these things. I still am a hollow thing with a ghost of the original Nick's personality. Still got the charming looks though!" He winked.

"Next question! This one's from Guest 2." Pause. "What a name. Alright then. This is actually a whole slew of questions! Let's get this over with quickly so I can hurry up and die. The first one is…

"What if Nick told Lucina" He sighed. "Alright, for the sake of my sanity, the questions that refer to "Nick" I'll just say "you" alright? You can't answer so it's alright. Moving on…

"What if you told Lucina about Groundhog day? How would that go?" He paused, putting a finger on his chin. "Considering how stressed out Lucina is at the moment and how strained our relationship is, there's a good chance I'll be put to the blade. If that didn't happen, she'd probably find it terribly ironic or downright insulting. Next one…"

"What if you got the royal armory to pump out "True" Steel and became a wealthy tycoon like Rockerfeller and basically kickstarted capitalism?"

"Well, I'm fairly sure that's what the future me did. Anyways, to answer your question… I plan on doing that now that Marth is the ruler. Also, Emmeryn would probably have me put to the fork in the name of peace for warmongering if I gave her troops advanced equipment so that was a big no-no. Perhaps later…"

"Why are you fine with nobility? Nobility continue to keep the society feudal, and he's grown up with a Capitalist Democracy (I think for the democracy part, anyway. Maybe he's british. Or australian. Actually, doesn't Australia have a democracy? Maybe he's British.)"

"Oh, this one's easy to answer! I'm not. Never been fine with nobility, but when the only example of democracy I have is running the nation into ruins, I'll gladly take the alternative! It's not like I live under any kingdom myself. No paying taxes baby!" he tossed his head back and laughed. "I have no idea why Future Nick didn't remove monarchy in Plegia. Perhaps he couldn't? Whatever, I'm getting sidetracked. The point is, it doesn't affect me, so I don't care for it. I'm kind of occupied with saving the world. Also, FYI, I'm Italian! Pizza, pasta, spaghetti, mandolino, making a mockery of my culture! Anyways, next is…"

"Why don't you put to use his extensive knowledge of how Japan exists to embarass Lon'qu to death?
"Lon-chan..." Nick deadpanned towards the camera.

"I barely see the guy anyways, running away from Ylisstol notwithstanding. Most of the time we steer clear of each other. I have no patience to try and befriend someone who's clearly uninterested in me. And anyways…" he put his hands in the air "I really like having hands. Such an endeavour would probably result in the loss of them. Next!"

"Why does Nick just accept the world he's living in despite having a strange amount of Japanese culture in it, and likely suffering from a huge amount of culture shock because feudalism?" Nick sighed.

"Well, I did run away. Not being able to look at the Shepherds straight wasn't the only reason I left. Anyways, most of the culture shock I had was adjusting to the new clothes, new foods and new living conditions. It was… better than my expectations, at least at first, so I wasn't too much like a fish out of water. The worst part was not being able to use a phone and having your hand twitch every minute or so towards your pocket to try and read a message or check the time. I'm getting better though, thanks for your concern!

"For the feudalism part… as I said, as I live (or at least used to) with royalty on a daily basis, how much do you think my lifestyle has changed, battles for my life every other day notwithstanding? I laze around all day like trash and I did that in this dimension too. It's not like I can build muscle mass anyways… moving on from that depressing train of thought, next!"

"Is the language Indo-European in origin? Does it have gendered words like Spanish? Does it have many Latin words/bases? What concepts does it have that English lacks? Like words for ideas we don't have words for? Does English have ideas it doesn't? Ex) Does it not have a word for "greed" and thus the concept of wanting things too much is foreign?"

"Unless I've somehow gone crazy/have something altering my brain, it's still good old english. At least the spoken word. Instead, even though the english language was far easier, some fucker after the time of Marth but before the time of Grima went and had a blast reworking the alphabet, thus making my knowledge of words completely obsolete!" He fistpumped sarcastically. "I miss reading so much…" he took one last look at the page and crumpled it in his hand, tossing it behind himself.

"The next question is from-" but it flew out of his hands, shooting itself into the portal. "Huh. Well, it's not for me apparently. Guess I'll just grab another…"


Meanwhile…

A letter flew straight into the Lodestar's hands while he had been resting after a long day of being. He let out a surprised hum. "A letter?" He asked no one in particular. When he opened it, the paper inside it slipped outside by itself.

"From… Scorin? I suppose that's a pen name." he mused.

"How are you dealing with ruling your country generations after your lifetime?" He read aloud. "This isn't canon, right?" He asked nobody in particular. Out of the air, a soft hum of confirmation rang out. He sighed.

"The first thing I should mention is that I miss Caeda terribly. Things are not the same without her." He sighed once again.

"And, despite what I initially imagined it has been surprisingly… frustrating." He ran a hand through his hair unconsciously. "After the initial awe of the fact that I "returned from the dead to lead Ylisse to greatness once again" he said, too refined to make air quotes "It has been decided that I would become Ylisse's new ruler in wartime. However, this also means that with the loss of power from the Exalt right now, the surprisingly few" a look of genuine surprise crossed his face. "power hungry nobles have started to try and make advances towards me. Some, in a more literal way than others…" he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly as he recalled the latest damsel that had approached him with… intent.

"Worry not, though. My heart will forever and ever be Caeda's. Another thing that is a, sadly, rather inconvenient setback is the fact that this is a new court with new advisors, and I have already paid for that after our hierarch's sudden betrayal." He let a bit of bitterness in his voice, before recomposing himself. "Also, the borders have changed quite a bit. Who would've thought that after barely two thousand years things would've changed so much?" He asked in a tone that was split between genuine curiosity and sarcasm.

"Overall, it has been very hard…" He ran a hand through his hair unconsciously once again. "But I hope I can offer two lifetimes' worth of wisdom for the good of Ylisse." He smiled. The letter seemed to be content with the answer, because it flew off right in time as another girl approached Marth, swooning over him even as he sighed wistfully.


Lucina panted, the heat of the desert catching up with her as she practiced swing after swing, always trying to better herself, a trait that she perhaps picked up from her sister. She grabbed the canteen she knew to be empty, trying to get those last few drops that weren't there out. She sighed when it didn't work.

Suddenly, a letter flew into her hands as her skin reddened from the heat paled considerably.

"Oh dear Naga, they've found a way to find us even here…" She whined, opening the letter and hoping to get it over with as soon as possible.

"From" She coughed as her dry throat screamed in protest of her talking. "From Scorin" She raised an eyebrow at the name.

"Was Nick able to prevent or at least stall a first generation Shepherd's death with his foreknowledge of the future?" she frowned.

"Well, I hadn't found out about this "foreknowledge" until very recently so…" She sighed, anger leaving her body after a deep breath. "I assume he must've tried rather hard; it wouldn't have made any sort of sense otherwise. And despite me wanting to kick his ass for it, I shouldn't have taken it out on his younger self." She cracked her knuckles. "However, if he somehow crawls back from the death like he usually does, he can bet there'll be hell to pay. He'll wish he had remained 6 feet under." The letter made a show of raising an eyebrow… somehow, at Lucina's OOC behaviour. She simply smiled at it, asking "Was that enough of an answer?" It simply closed itself. She kept smiling at it, her silver sword suddenly cutting it in half. "Good. Don't come back."

"Alright, the second-to-last question is… uhm…" he tried to pick up the letter, but it seemed to be stuck to the bottom of the box. However, with some hard tugging on his part, the letter…s came loose. All started flying at him, trying to be read first. When he managed to get ahold of one of them and read it, his face immediately turned red as he stabbed himself in the chest with a knife, the card clattering to the ground.

The cameraman moved forward, picking up one letter before a snort, then a chuckle, then full blown laughter came as he read the letters' content.

Shipping letters.

"We'll see guys, we'll see. Now, I think there's one last letter?" Ninni51 asked, moving towards the box as he waved a hand in the air, prompting all of the letters flying around to go into one of his long sleeves where they disappeared.

"This one's from… another anonymous. What's with you guys being so afraid of people knowing your name?" he sighed.

"Well. It reads: I have 3 questions." "Go ahead." He replied, despite being the one who was reading the letter.

"Why is Nick a soldier?" he asked himself, before grabbing his chin.

"Well, you know how Soldiers in Fire Emblem are. Mostly cannon fodder, right? Then RD had the bright idea to make them into perfectly serviceable units. Nick, being a very self-deprecating person, imagined himself during the fight to simply be "One of many fighters, no one important" and so it happened. Of course, the circumstances played against him too, but regardless of what weapon he picked up he would've been one of those enemy cannon fodder classes like soldiers, mercs, fighters… archer wouldn't have worked for him." He pointed out, waving his hand in front of his eye the same way Nick did before.

"Why are there so many Nicks in this story?"

"Well, dear anonymous, I have been challenged by someone who doesn't have a nickname to call them by on this website, to make a story where I could fit as many of myself without breaking the Willing Suspension of Disbelief. I like to believe I'm doing a decent job."

"Can you somehow end this chapter with a reference?" He closed his eyes, before grinning at the camera. With a snap of his fingers, he started disintegrating much in the same way that the Einherjar did before; if much faster.

"I don't wanna go, my dear viewers…" he said before disappearing completely.

We've finally got this thing out of the way! We'll… maybe next week return to your scheduled programming. What do you think? Was your thirst for knowledge sated? Myself, I enjoyed this chapter.

Now, my dear readers, I would like to borrow a few minutes of your time to ask you a favour. I would like to see (I'm forcing nobody, but it'd be real nice if someone did), a review that is… an actual review. Like, how the overall fic feels, if there's something that you do not like, how I could improve, perhaps a numerical vote, all that good stuff. Thank you in advance to whoever decides to do it!

I had forgotten to post Nick and Lilina's new stats. Pardon me.

I think that's about it. Thank you everyone for being awesome. Ninni51, out! *drops mic*

Nick's Party

Nick

Otherwordly Soldier

Lv 1 Exp 73 (My bitch ass promoted at level 17, flame me)

Class: Basara

Stats: Hp: 33/33 Str: 16 Mag: 20 Skl: 17 Spd: 20 Lck: 13 Def: 12 Res: 24

Skills: Riposte; Toss; Rend Heaven; Ice gift (Ice spells cost only 1 HP to cast)

Status: Broken arm

Items: Uruz; Algiz; Fire Card 7/10; Elixir (1/3)

Supports: Miriel B;Roy B;Kellam C;Marth C;Ricken C;Sully C; Lilina C

Lilina

Delightful Noble

Lv 15 Exp 57

Stats: Hp: 30 Str: 8 Mag: 18 (+2) Skl: 8 Spd: 12 Lck: 12 Def: 5 Res: 11

Skills: Magic+2 ;Absolute focus

Inventory: Bolganone;Elwind; Vulnerary

Supports: Roy S; Nick C