"That's incredible! Where did you learn that technique, Morgan?" Hale exclaimed as the enemy disintegrated in his daughter's magic blast. She looked at her hands, which were still giving off black smoke. She shook her head and put away the tome she had been using.
"I… don't know, Father. That just happened. I didn't intend on using any special moves." She looked at him, where his hand once bore the mark of Grima.
"We have to see if you can do that again. Look! There's another cluster of enemies. Let's get in position." The two moved through the trees and got behind the enemy's archers, who were paying attention to the night skies for any roaming fliers.
"How am I supposed to do that again? I didn't even know how I did it the first time." Morgan whispered, already working out how the two of them would split up the enemy forces.
"Just use your magic as normal. You remember how we're going to engage?"
"Yes. Are you ready?"
"On my mark." Hale waited a few seconds, carefully reading the strengths of the enemies before him. A few archers, a few axe-wielders, and a single myrmidon. The men holding axes were bulky, slow. Very easy to dodge their attacks. The myrmidon almost seemed bored, and was the farthest away from them. He would probably be last.
"Go!" Hale fired a burst of Thoron, the lightning spear piercing the archer directly in front of him, the attack's extended range zapping the one behind him as well. Morgan jumped from the trees and unleashed Bolganone's wide-reaching fury on the axe-wielders, catching most of them in its flame. The once-bored myrmidon was now shaking in fear as he saw his comrades decimated in seconds by the two mages, and was considering just running away. The other archers attempted to retaliate, but were quickly killed by Hale's blade. The last axe-wielder screamed in rage as he whirled his axe around in a dash towards Morgan, but she easily dodged the unwieldy attack and beheaded him with her own sword.
"What did I do to deserve this?" The myrmidon uttered as the two tacticians advanced on him. Noticing that he had yet to attack despite having an ample opening, Hale halted and began to speak.
"Do you wish to surrender? Or are you just hoping that we'll let our guard down as a result of this gambit of yours?" He asked the swordsman, who looked at Morgan charging up another spell. The myrmidon, still shaking, sighed and unsheathed his sword.
"No! I won't let you trick us!" Suddenly, the fireball Morgan was holding became imbued with a black, smoky aura, which was then launched at the myrmidon as he dropped his sword on the ground. The dark fireball made contact with him and instantly disintegrated him and the sword, Bolganone's lava-like ripples giving off the same smoke as the spell dissipated.
"Morgan! What have you done?" Hale shouted, noticing that his daughter's hands were giving off that black smoke from before. Realizing that she had killed a surrendering opponent, she started shaking and fell to her knees, unable to turn her eyes away from the pile of black dust she had just turned the swordsman into. She hadn't meant to do it. She was only charging the spell to intimidate him, and yet… she let it go.
"I didn't want to do that! Father, you have to believe me! That was an accident!" She shouted, beginning to cry. Hale looked around and noticed that the shadows from the trees were converging on the two of them, making everything darker, blurrier. Morgan seemed paralyzed, not even moving as the shadows enveloped her. Hale couldn't move either, forced to stay still as the darkness overtook the both of them…
…giving way to the ceiling of his bedroom in Chrom's palace. He took several heavy breaths, looking at the window indicating that it was sunrise. He laid his head back down on the bed, trying to remember what had just happened. Morgan utilizing some form of dark magic and accidentally killing an enemy who was in the middle of surrendering. Neither Hale nor Miriel had ever dabbled in dark magic before, but perhaps Morgan had the Shadowgift, the ability to use dark magic without any prior training. If that was true, then why didn't Laurent also have it?
"Wait, what am I doing? It wasn't real. Just a bad dream." Hale shook his head and got out of bed, heading to the palace's dining area to have breakfast. When he got there, he immediately saw Vaike at one of the tables getting up to meet him. Aside from Stahl, who was too engrossed in eating his food to notice Hale come in, he was the only one there.
"Hey, look who decided to join Teach for an early morning breakfast? C'mon, Hale, go get something and we'll have a chat. Stahl! Check out who decided to get up at the crack of dawn." The cavalier looked up with a bunch of food in his mouth and waved as Hale went to get something. He sat down across from Vaike, who was consuming a sausage link.
"Mm. You don't look so good. Didn't sleep well?" He asked. Hale blinked and took a bite out of his food. That was the first dream he could remember having since he came back to Ylisse, and it wasn't a particularly good one. Compared to the one he had about people returning through the Outrealm Gate, this dream was far clearer.
"Not as well as I would have hoped." He didn't feel like recounting the dream to anybody. Hopefully, he would avoid having to mention it to Morgan. She probably wouldn't be up this early if she could help it – she had inherited her father's tendency to stay up late into the night working on new strategies and reading books, which meant she slept in quite often now that there was no longer a war to fight.
"Aw, that's no good. Well, nothing a little food can't fix up! Dig in, Hale. I hear Chrom wants to go and drive a few bandits out of the country today, so we're gonna need that energy. You know Stahl here is just raring to go. Right?" Vaike elbowed Stahl, who chuckled and looked at his now-empty plate.
"Actually, I just came down here so I could get some fresh food. I'm really supposed to be training some new recruits along with Sully later this morning. You'll have to deal with the bandits without me!" He got up from the table, intent on getting more food. Vaike turned around and noticed he was getting an entire plate's worth of stuff.
"That guy eats like a horse. Hey, Stahl! Leave some for everybody else, huh?" Stahl came back to the table.
"Don't worry. This'll be enough for me." Hale watched Stahl and Vaike have a conversation about their eating habits. He needed an opportunity to do something outside of Ylisstol, and Chrom's bandit-purging mission sounded like just the thing. Perhaps he'd let Morgan take command over their movements this time. She had never gotten the chance to do so before, though they had discussed the possibility before Grima's death. There was also a Second Seal he wanted to utilize, too…
"We'd be honored to have you lead us, Morgan. If Hale thinks you are ready to guide an army, then so do I." Chrom said to Morgan as the force of Shepherds began to move towards the southwestern edge of Ylisse. Each one had become far stronger in battle since Hale first joined them: Maribelle no longer needed an escort as she was now capable of fighting with magic, Sumia could now heal allies while flying on her pegasus, Miriel was now proficient in the use of staves with Laurent following in her footsteps, and Ricken actually got taller.
"Don't forget about me. I've been practicing how to fight with an axe." Kellam spoke from beside Chrom, wearing the heaviest, bulkiest armor out of the entire group.
"Oh. There you are, Kellam. I was beginning to wonder if you had stayed behind to help Stahl and Sully train the new recruits." Chrom turned to acknowledge the knight. He sighed and took his place at the front of the formation. He had only been there the entire time, like always – and yet people hardly noticed him, even in a general's huge armor. Perhaps acting as a human shield for the others would alleviate that, he thought.
"No, you wanted me to come with you."
"I see. Well, Morgan will be directing us this time around."
"You said that Lucina and Kjelle are currently on a sightseeing tour, right?" Hale asked Chrom. Both of his daughters had inherited their parents' proficiency in combat; the two of them together could take on nearly any enemy that came at them. No one was truly worried for their safety.
"That's right. Last I heard from Lucina, they were about to visit Tiki. She had said she wanted to learn more about Marth, about what the world was like thousands of years ago." It would have been nice to have them help with this bandit problem, Hale thought, but the array of Shepherds they currently had should suffice.
After riding for about an hour, the Shepherds came to a fortified mountain base near the borders of Ylisse. Pegasus knights patrolled the skies, with archers and mages watching from the forts' ramparts. Doubtless there were plenty of warriors waiting inside as well. To add to the fort's defense was a moat, except in the place of water were hundreds of thorny bushes – unable to immediately kill those that fell in, but would cause a painful death for someone unable to get out of them.
"Our scouts have reported that there doesn't seem to be any shortcuts we could take to get in, with there only being two entrances from the front or back across drawbridges. Every angle of the fort is equally defended. Whoever is commanding these forces must know a thing or two about strategic defense. What are you planning, Morgan?" Chrom asked the young tactician. She took the information the scouts had given her and drew up a map of the outside of the fort, marking all the enemies' positions on it. There were only two entrances the Shepherds could reasonably use, those being the two drawbridges that the enemy hadn't raised yet, as they weren't expecting an attack at that moment.
"If they'd raised those drawbridges, we'd have a much harder time getting in there. Okay, we'll do this. Let's split in two groups. Sumia, Cordelia, you two will stay on the borders of the fortress and make sure reinforcements don't show up. Chrom, you'll take half our forces and storm the back entrance, while Kellam will lead our frontal assault. I'll go with Kellam's half, and Father will accompany Chrom's half. Kellam, you'll have Lissa, Miriel, and Vaike along with me. Chrom, that means you'll have Maribelle, Laurent, and Ricken alongside Father. We'll have to defeat every enemy we come across; I don't think these are the types that'll just surrender. Is that clear?" Morgan spoke to the army, who all gave affirmations indicating they understood. She did a quick head count to make sure everyone was present, but noticed someone important was missing…
"Father? Where is he?"
"I'm right here. I just needed to change real quickly before we started." Morgan turned around to notice Hale wearing a completely different outfit than before: gone were his iconic Plegian robes, which were replaced with a tight-fitting blue-and-yellow… thing that she'd seen the various Annas wear, but with a red-and-yellow scheme instead. She broke out into a grin, which fell into laughter at how silly it looked on him.
"Aw, come on! This is supposed to help me move around faster. I'm already starting to understand how to use healing staves. I bet I can learn how to pick locks much more quickly thanks to the Second Seal." The blue Seals, rather than augmenting existing power, redirected the user's abilities towards other specialties. Now that the Anna that had accompanied them returned to her traveling business, they no longer had someone capable of opening doors and chests without a key – at least, not since Gaius had gotten a legitimate job running his own candy shop in Ylisstol. Hale had enjoyed having someone with those capabilities in the army, and now he could be that person.
"Okay, okay. But I don't see how you're going to be able to sneak around wearing that!" She chuckled.
"I still need the hat, though." Hale mumbled to himself; perhaps Morgan wouldn't think the outfit as silly with it. That hat was very stylish.
"Alright! Everyone's here, then. Are we all ready to go?" The Shepherds all responded that they were.
"You know what to do! Let's drive these bandits out of Ylisse!"
A/N: Ricken actually rides a horse as a Dark Knight, like Morgan. So while he typically has a higher view than most of the Shepherds, he still complains about his height. I imagine that he'd probably be as tall as Chrom when fully grown. But enough about him. Hale is now a Trickster; but whereas the game completely strips him of his ability to use offensive magic, he'll keep it in this story. Anyone else who uses a Second Seal to re-class themselves will also keep any weapon/staff proficiencies they would've lost, except nerfed a little bit (Hale's A-level magic is now B, for example). The next update, like the last one, will be up in a few days. Let me know what you think!