Waking up in this bed felt somewhat... nostalgic. After who knows how long being who knows where, this particular feeling was surprisingly calming. He grasped at the empty space next to him. His eyes moved over to his hand.
Sighing, he stood, slipping on his tactician's robe. He found himself look back at the bed. Was it someone in particular he was looking for? Or was he just pining for anyone? With a bit of unease, he left his room. As he did, he caught Lucina walking towards him, holding her younger self.
"Uncle!" the younger Lucina said, waving her arms at him.
"Hello Lucina, and hello Lucy." he said smiling. It had been brought up in casual conversation yesterday that they'd come to call the younger Lucina 'Lucy' to avoid confusion.
Lucy giggled, before holding her hands out to have Robin hold her.
He took Lucy from her older self's arms. "And how have you been?"
"Good, now you're here! Lucina said you were gonna find Mommy and Daddy."
"Yes, ma'am," Robin responded, "I'll have them back in no time."
Lucina cleared her throat. "Robin."
"Um... yes?"
She chuckled a bit, before continuing. "Everyone's heading to the throne room. I was taking Lucy back to her room, but she wanted to talk to you so badly. Can you take her there for me?"
"Huh? Well, sure I can."
Lucina smiled. "I can tell the others to wait."
"Wait? What does that mean?"
At that, Lucy giggled in his arms.
"See you there," Lucina replied, before leaving him with her. Lucy did a tiny salute as Lucina walked away.
"Well then... Shall we go, Princess?" Robin replied.
"Yay!"
Robin quietly stood, looking at Lucy sleeping in her bed.
She had talked to him nonstop about a multitude of different things, mostly stories he'd heard already. He listened nonetheless, smiling the whole time. He was just glad. Little Lucy was another constant between loops. Before long, her talking slowed down, and she nodded off.
He quietly left the room, closing the door softly.
He then made his way to the throne room.
"What took you so long, Daddy? Gawds, do you know how long we were waiting for you?" Severa snapped at him the instant he got within earshot.
"Sorry... Lucy had a lot to talk about."
That elicited a few sighs, eye rolls, and chuckles.
"Anyway... any progress from this meeting of the minds?"
"Nothing substantial, unfortunately," Laurent said, adjusting his glasses, "we have nothing to give us a lead. Our best bet, we've decided, is to wait until some more Simulacra appear."
"And I'm saying that we can't just twiddle our thumbs while we wait!" Lucina argued. "Who knows what's happened to everyone? By the time those things appear, everyone could already be..."
There was an uncomfortable silence that followed.
"U-Um... I r-really think... I mean, we don't have any other ideas..." Noire spoke up.
"We go find them, of course!" Lucina said, her voice betraying how unsure her voice was.
"Y-Yeah!" Cynthia chimed in.
"Look for them... where?" Laurent rebutted. "Like I've explained, we have no leads. No clue on where to search..."
"B-But..." Lucina stammered out.
"They're so confused... it's pitifully adorable."
She sits at a long table, on which rests a chess board, already set up. A pack of cards lies to the side of the board. She waves her hand across the chess board, and all the chess pieces, except for the white king, magically change color to a deep crimson. She then takes the pack of cards, shuffles them, and quickly deals 29 of the cards onto the table. She takes the remaining cards and sets them aside. She fans the 29 cards on the table, then takes one of them at random.
"Seven of hearts... interesting."
The chair she's sitting in glides over to the side, putting her in front of a map. She lays the card on the map, then her hand hovers over the chess pieces, and she deliberates.
She settles for a pawn, and brings it toward her. She fiddles with the piece for a few seconds. Her everlasting smirk widens to a grin.
"This'll do... Let's start our game, shall we?"
And in saying so, she drops the pawn onto the card on the map.
The argument was abruptly ended when a loud booming noise reverberated throughout the room. The room shook, and confusion gripped the group.
"Tha heck was that?!" Brady was the first to speak up.
"I... don't know..." Morgan stammered, clinging to him, "Father?"
Before Robin could respond, a guard barged into the room. "E-Exalt! Something has landed in the courtyard!"
Everyone looked at each other, before all rushing to the courtyard.
What Robin saw was beyond any sort of explanation he had.
In the center of the impact crater, a large black crystal stood, about eight feet tall and four feet wide.
"What... is that?" Severa whispered.
"I don't know, but..." Robin started.
"...it looks like we found our lead..." Laurent finished.
She snaps her fingers.
"Hey, uh... any idea why it's glowing?" Yarne asked, and everyone's attention turned to the crystal. There a weird black glow that surrounded the crystal as it shimmered.
"Nnngh!" Robin grunted as he felt an intense headache hit his temples. He fell to the ground, as black spots dotted his vision. He gritted his teeth, trying to endure the pain, but his mind was overwhelmed by it. He felt close to unconsciousness, and before he slipped fully under, he could hear everyone calling not only his name, but also Nah's.
"What..." Lucina said, blinking. One moment they were there, doubled over in pain. The next, the were just... gone. Gone in a dark flash that interrupted her vision for literally a millisecond.
Yarne rushed forward, pounding at the crystal.
"What did you do?! Where's Nah? What did you do with her?!" he shouted, his face a mixture of anger and disbelief.
Everyone else just stared at the crystal, utterly confused.
Robin shot up, looking around. It felt like he couldn't have been out for more than a minute, but... where was he? He didn't recognize this place at all. He looked around, finding himself in the room of some sort of temple. The walls were dark brown, dripping an unknown green fluid that Robin wasn't planning on touching... ever. There was a low growling noise occurring throughout the rooms, and an... off smell. A dank wind blew through the room, ruffling his robes. He noticed that there was someone else lying nearby.
"Nah...! Hey, Nah, are you okay?" he said, rushing over and scooping her up. Her eyes opened slowly, and she scrunched up her nose.
"Khhhh... R-Robin? Where are we? ...What's that smell?" she asked him, as she lifted her head to look around.
"Your guess is as good as mine. You can stand, right?"
Nah nodded, and Robin let her down.
"I don't like this place... how did we get here?"
"I... I'm not sure... the last thing I remembered was that crystal started glowing..." Robin replied.
"That... crystal? Wait, where is everyone else?!" Nah asked, concern flashing on her face.
"Judging from what I heard before I fell unconscious, it's only us here. I think we're the only ones who got... whatever happened to us..."
"Does that mean everyone else is safe?"
"I'm not sure, Nah. I think the more pertinent question is... how do we get out of- what was that?" Robin said, pointing down one of the hallways. He caught a mass of black moving along the hallway at a junction.
Nah looked at where Robin pointed.
"I... didn't catch it."
Robin reached for the Elfire tome he had gotten back at Southtown.
"Do you have your stone?" Robin asked, looking over at Nah. She nodded, Showing him the stone in her hand.
"Right. With how dreary this place is, I'm betting we're... somewhere underground. Then our best bet would be to find some stairs up if we want to get out."
Robin began to head down the hallway.
Nah looked uncertain, but she nodded and followed.
"Let's find out how you play your pieces, Robin. Let's see how yours stack up against mine."
A/N: And thus we are introduced to the trinkets. The black crystal is the first of these trinkets, and... well... Robin's going to have his work cut out for him.
You'll notice that this is were the naming scheme changes; I'm still not sure what I was going for with the old naming scheme, so when the actual meat of the story came I decided to change the naming scheme a bit.
A word of warning in advance: the pacing in the story is going to take a weird turn. The main arc will involve these trinkets, and there are quite a few of them. And though each trinket will do different things and bring them into different situations, most of the general details will not change between the trinkets.
Think of each trinket as the equivalent of a chapter in the game, or more accurately, a Megaman level.
As for why the trinket chose Nah... well, that'll be revealed in the next chapter.
As always, thanks for reading. Please leave some more reviews, and stay tuned.
(Also why do I always post these things when it's 2AM?)