In the cool darkness of the forest, where the only light came from beams of moonlight streaming through the canopies above, Rebecca was sweating bullets. With one hand, she brushed away the green hair that was stuck to her face. With the other, she held her green-blue bow Rienfleche, while also bracing herself against the branch upon which she was perched. Only about 50 meters away stood the hulking four-armed warrior that had just made a mockery of Ostia's greatest warrior. As she stared at his body, which lay some distance to the left, she saw no movement, and feared the worst. Sweat began to bead at her chin and fall to the underbrush below. Rebecca glanced over to Lyn, who crouched behind a bush nearby, her glowing white Mani Katti in her hands. There was no sweat falling from Lyn's face; only tears.
Rebecca grimaced. Poor, dear Lyn... Her love of Hector was second only to Eliwood's, and yet she herself had ordered us to hold steady while the tactician put together a plan. I can't imagine how she must be feeling right now. She glared back into the darkness of the trees with impatience. How much longer could they take back there? Every moment Hector lay there in the grass brought him closer to death, if he was not dead already. Suddenly, the huge warrior began to approach Hector's body. No! This was the time for action. As she scanned the forest around her, she noticed various other silhouettes belonging to her comrades. Difficult as it was, she could at least make out her husband Wil, Karel and Karen, Legault, and Dorcas hidden amidst the trees. Further back, she heard the clopping of a horse. Whether it was a pegasus or warhorse like Rath's, she could not tell.
Just as she began to wonder if perhaps their tactician had given up hope and fled to save his own skin, she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She nearly fell out of the tree in her fright, but when she turned she was met only with the soft face of her old comrade Matthew. And yet, it was not so soft now. The expression it wore was as grave and serious as she had ever seen. "Listen carefully, and listen close. The moment that thing reaches Hector, you unleash hell on it. Your arrows will signal the start of the attack. Good luck." Without another word, he turned and leapt down from the tree and sped toward Wil's position, landing and running so quietly Rebecca had to wonder whether he had touched the ground at all. He should have relayed orders more often. He's not too bad at it. Now especially.
She turned back toward the field. The huge warrior was nearly upon Hector's body. Three seconds. Her bow-arm went up, and the other went to her quiver. She felt the smooth wood of the arrows she had brought for this hunt, and slid one out. Two seconds now. She brought the arrow forward, notched it against the string, and pulled back with inhuman strength. The monster's footsteps were somewhat closer now, and as it stepped, she felt its vibrations through the branch. One second. She aimed for its neck. Rienfleche would shoot her arrow forward faster than the eye could catch, with enough power to cleave a boulder in two. Pray let that be enough! The monster finally reached Hector, the titanic sword and trident in its two upper arms prepared to strike. That was not going to happen. Not on Rebecca's watch. With precision honed through countless battles, she loosed the arrow.
Before it had even hit its mark, Rebecca had already slipped another arrow out of her quiver and set it against the string. She looked up just in time to see the arrow embed itself below the titan's cheek. At first it hardly seemed to notice, but in moments another arrow came flying out from the darkness to the left, connecting with its face but bouncing off with a loud twang. At once, the monster let out an angry roar, one that was quickly matched as dozens of warriors poured out of the forest toward it. There was a bright light at the monster's feet, and when Rebecca looked, Hector's body was no longer there. She smiled. Good job, Serra. Now we can let loose. Taking a deep breath, she set off two more shots in succession, now aiming toward her target's joints, and was only vaguely aware of the mounted riders taking off toward their enemy both below and above her.
As she fired off shot after shot toward the creature, she was dismayed to find her arrows were far less effective than she had anticipated. Though she had not been able to tell at first, the four-armed monster's quick, flowing movements as it clashed with her comrades on the field suggested her attacks had not hampered its ability to fight in the least. What manner of monster... It was then that she noticed something else at the edge of her sight, far in the distance. Against the backdrop of the burning Ostia, on the other side of the huge warrior from her and her comrades, stood an armored silhouette. Rebecca stopped for a moment to gaze at the figure, and after a few moments her sharp eyes could make out several features: a strange hunk of metal on its forearm, the hilt of a thick sword sticking upward over its shoulder, and... some other manner of object she had never seen slung over its back.
She wasted no time. Turning back toward the darkness, she let out a loud whistle. In seconds, Matthew was up on a nearby branch; yet again, she was surprised by his ability to appear out of nowhere. There was no expression on his face. For one who was normally so jovial, that communicated more than any frown or grimace could. Is Hector well...? She sighed. That was stupid; of course he wasn't. And all they could do now was put their hopes in Serra to fix him up. But unfortunately, that was the least of their problems. "Matthew, there's someone else out there! A warrior, with a huge sword and some weird-looking armor. He isn't attacking or anything, but he's no friend of ours, that's for sure." Actually, it wasn't for sure, but that was what her gut feeling told her. And that feeling had never betrayed her before. At first, he seemed confused, as if she was talking nonsense. She motioned him over, and he hopped over to her branch, his eyes squinting to notice the distant figure Rebecca pointed at.
"No way..." he muttered, turning to Rebecca. "By the time I got here Hector had already been facing that monster. Had he clashed with this warrior before that? I must inform the tactician and Eliwood." Without another word he scurried back into the darkness, and Rebecca was alone. Rebecca turned back just in time to see the massive warrior slowly stumble backward and fall dead to the ground, the force of its fall shaking the entire forest and nearly knocking her off her branch. "Yes!" she yelled, her cry of joy nearly drowned out by those of the warriors on the field.
At least, those that still lived. Her mood turned somber quickly as she scanned the battlefield and noted the bodies strewn about. Far more of her companions had died in this one engagement than during their entire campaign against Nergal. While a few she had seen earlier were gone - teleported out to be healed, most likely - the majority lay silent and motionless in the grass. As much as her experiences had steeled her against such, she began to cry. Though she did not sob, the tears that flowed down her face did not stop, and the sorrow she felt was unlike anything she had ever experienced. She looked up at the battlefield through those tears, and despite the blurriness of her vision she could still make out that armored figure in the distance. "You will answer for this!" She screamed toward him. Brushing the wetness from her eyes with the back of her hand, she grasped her bow, and took aim.
She never got the shot off. As she pulled back the string, she was suddenly overcome by light. There was no time for her to experience the heat and force that came along with it, before her body turned to ash and everything went dark.