So this is obviously not Saturday but I had finished this chapter and was wondering if perhaps you readers would like me to go by the schedule or to simply upload them when they're finished. If nobody really gives their input on this subject, I suppose I'll go with the schedule uploading; which could potentially not happen this week considering I've uploaded this earlier than planned.

In other news, I'm glad that I haven't done something horribly wrong yet; and that people are enjoying this so far. My biggest surprise has to be how well Auden is being received so far. I made dear old beard man on a whim and had planned to never see him again for a good while. Glad to see I made a good choice on keeping him around.

Just had to ask that question and get my happiness out of the way. I'll stop getting in the way of the chapter's start now.

Italics will be character's thoughts and /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ will indicate a scene change.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem nor do I own anything else I may reference. I only own my OCs.

A Dream?

"There was another time where I was locked into deadly combat with a bear. Nothing more than my bare hands left to protect me from the feral beast," Auden said as we continued to walk along a designated path.

The path was one that Auden explained would lead us to the capitol. Not that there really was a path. It was just him looking at a map, and then looking around as he said, "Yup, this is the path!"

I feel that I'll be questioning his intelligence fairly shortly when we end up in Plegia somehow.

In the meantime, I've been forced to listen to him ramble on about his past adventures. Or dreams he has had of what he may believe to be past adventures. No matter which one they are, I don't believe them in the slightest.

I swear he is just talking to hear himself talk.

In other news, I've been trying to come up with a reason for being stuck in this death zone I once called a video game.

Dream? This would have to be the most vivid and uncontrollable lucid dream I've ever had if that was the case, and I've only ever had one other lucid dream too. Spent that one turning people into animals. It was well worth it.

Ok, maybe it's not a dream. So what else could be happening? Did my 3ds screens really suck me into them by chance? I… I don't even want to try and think about that.

So dream and 3ds kidnapping are out of the question. Maybe… Just maybe… I've become a chosen one for some God to make the right choices in leading the people of this world into a bright future.

Me? A chosen one? A God chose me. And I haven't even gotten a fucking diploma in college. Well, I guess I graduated high school so I must be a bit more qualified to be some chosen one than that guy in that Tool song. Then again I don't feel that good about relating myself to the guy in that song. Here's to not waking up from a coma and going insane.

Seriously, this all sounds pretty damn stupid. Whatever the reason is, I'll just be glad to find out what the fuck it is.

"I then locked the bear in a deadly headlock. Needless to say, he wasn't happy. Oh ho. He thrashed about, but he could hardly get away from me!" Auden continued in his story that I was hardly paying attention to. My hearing was fading in and out of the conversation as I was trying to discern my current situation of being trapped in a fictional world. When I actually listened to his story, I just wanted to pick and prod at the little details of his story.

"And you're sure this bear attacked you?" I asked being slightly exhausted.

"Huh? What are you talking about? Of course it attacked me! Weren't you listening?" Auden asked in slight shock.

"Yeah, I've been listening and I don't know how believable your story is. Where I'm from, bears aren't really that aggressive unless they feel threatened," I replied not really thinking of the potential differences between bears from my world and this one.

"Well, this one was different! He jumped out of the bushes while I was setting up camp!" Auden said.

"And what's with it being a he? Maybe it was a she. That'd make more sense. She might've thought you'd hurt her cubs or something," I continued in the nitpicking of his story.

"Boy, you sure know how to kill a good story," Auden said as he rubbed the back of his head while we walked, "Haven't you ever told a story before?"

"Not about personal experiences. Besides, nobody would listen to one of my experiences even if I had any," I answered.

"Of course they would," Auden answered joyfully, "Hell, you could tell one about today. And it doesn't hurt to stretch the truth a little, you know?"

"So you're saying I should just leave out the part where I did nothing," I said back to him.

"Well…" Auden sheepishly grinned as we continued in our walk.

Night had jumped on us rather quickly. Probably because of how much time we spent in the village fighting bandits and putting out fires. We had started through a forest only a few minutes ago. This forest would have to be the one the Risen pop up in and that meant no stopping.

Auden attempted to get me to stop a short while back to set up camp but I refused with the, "I don't like sleeping in forests," excuse.

Before I continue on with anything else, I'd like to point out that my nice new red shirt was obviously cut on my left shoulder. It left a break in the clothing that revealed my white skin underneath. While I talk about my left shoulder, my deep cut I received from that bandit's axe was thankfully healed by Lissa, but there was still a cut left. She told me it wasn't a scar or anything. Apparently, healing will only take it down to something like a cut and then it's up to the body to heal it. Also, my shoulder still kind of feels like an axe was run through it. It might be the aftershock or something.

Anyways, back to my red shirt, my blood had stained part of the shirt. Thankfully, it's not terribly noticeable. It's still a little irking though that my clothing is already getting messed up.

Why couldn't they have ruined the handkerchief bandana?

Strangely, our walking speed seemed to be dwindling as we got slower and slower. I looked over to Auden whom was carelessly continuing in the slow walk.

"Come on… pick up the pace. I don't want to… be in this forest any longer than I need to be," I said in an exhausted state trying to get him to go a little faster.

It was for his own safety. He can take on bandits no problem but Risen are a different story I'm sure. Also, we have no healer on the team now so there won't be any miraculous survivals if one of us gets hit with a fatal wound.

Auden looked to me with a puzzled expression. He then retorted with, "I'm not the one slowing down. You're the slow one. I'm just keeping pace with you."

I took a brief check on how I was walking and he was apparently right. I had slowed down and I wasn't getting any faster. A short while back I had started to lose most feeling in my legs, but I threw it under the bus as being the least of my concerns. My head was starting to feel a little light as well but I didn't want to stop.

It would seem that both of these problems I should've taken note of are hitting me harder now than they were before.

"It's whatever. We'll just keep going at-" I tried to respond to him but I tripped from my lack of real coordination in walking.

I fell to the ground and barely managed to catch myself by throwing out both of my hands infront of me. I then started to slowly push myself back up.

"Hey, hey," Auden said as he helped me up to my feet, "You need to rest, Vince. Loss of blood can take a lot out of ya."

"You lost… way more than me. I'll be fine," I replied trying to keep walking.

"Yeah, I have and I'm pretty used to the feeling. You on the other hand are going to take a break whether you want to or not," Auden said while lying me onto my back.

"No, you don't understand… Danger… there's…" I attempted to dissuade him from setting up camp but I couldn't find the energy to do so.

"Danger? You're talking to the guy that wrestled with a bear! No danger is too much for me!" Auden replied enthusiastically as he punched his chest.

No… Auden… You can't fight…. These things…

My mind blanked as my eyes shut on me. I had fallen asleep in the forest soon to be overrun by walking corpses.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

With the sun having set a while ago, the group of Robin, Chrom, Lissa, and Frederick all decided to set up camp for the night in the forest. They gathered up fire wood and even killed a bear for its meat.

The four individuals gathered around the fire and started to dig into their meals. Well, half of them were digging in. Frederick kept a safe distance from the cooked meat of the bear he killed, but he excused it as not being hungry. Lissa, on the other hand, made it apparent that she wasn't letting the bear meat anywhere near her mouth like a certain bug.

Robin and Chrom, however, were enjoying the meal quite profoundly. The tactician was enjoying it far more than his companion.

"Yuck! How can you two eat that stuff?!" Lissa questioned the two males eating bear meat.

"It's a part of the joys of traveling, Lissa!" Lissa's brother Chrom replied enthusiastically before taking another bite of the bear meat.

Lissa then looked over to Robin who was practically hounding the meat down in large quantities.

She let out a dejected sigh as she quietly said to herself, "And I thought only Chrom could be the way he is."

"What was that, Lissa?" Chroma asked.

"Nothing, dear brother," Lissa answered with a smile.

"Well then get to eating. You could use it," Chrom said blatantly as he tried to hand some bear meat to his sister.

This comment had struck a nerve somewhere on Lissa and it wasn't a pleasant one. She replied to her brother with, "Me?! What are you trying to say, huh? And what about Frederick? He hasn't even touched the stuff since he killed the thing!"

All eyes shifted to Frederick who gave them a small smirk as he avoided looking at the bear meat Robin and Chrom held. He waved his hands in front of himself as he said, "No, no. I'll be perfectly fine. Milord and milady need to eat more than me."

"Frederick, you know I worry for your wellbeing on these trips. There are times when you never eat during them," Chrom said to his knight.

"Really?" Robin asked with his mouth full. He then swallowed his food and continued with, "You don't eat anything during some of these, Frederick?"

Frederick looked back and forth between the three other campers with a small smirk. It was a strange expression he had. It was one to express calmness but his actions were slightly off of being calm. He then said calmly, "I do eat on these trips. I just eat after you've all gone to bed. It's why I stay up later than the rest of you."

The other three all seemed to have a realization at the same time as they nodded in understanding to Frederick's answer. The three went back to looking at the fire as Frederick sneakily wiped away a bead of sweat that had formed on his forehead.

"Hey, wait a second," Lissa suddenly said.

The entire group looked at Lissa while Frederick started to visibly sweat. Lissa then looked to Frederick as the other two in the group did the same. She then pointed at him and said, "How did you kill the bear? You didn't take your lance so I was wondering how you did it."

Robin and Chrom nodded as Chrom added in with, "Yes, I was wondering that as well."

Frederick's visible sweat suddenly ceased itself altogether as he let out a sigh of relief. He then gave the three others in his party a smile as he asked, "Have you ever heard the tale of the man that wrestled with a bear?"

The three younger individuals shook their heads no and waited for Frederick to continue.

"Well, there was once this man. Strong and brave was this man as he set out on a heroic quest. The quest in tell was to slay a powerful and evil dragon. One night the man had just started setting up his camp when suddenly…" Frederick started to tell his story as the other three carefully listened.

Some time passed and the group was told of the heroic adventures of some… man. They were on the edges of their seats at some points and even let out some gasps at other points. Frederick held no punches back in the telling of the story. He even got up at some points and helped for his audience to visualize the story by performing the actions he was describing.

Too soon, however, the story was over and almost the entire audience of Frederick's story was left satisfied. All but one person who will surely voice their disapproval of the story shortly.

"Wow! So he wrestled the bear while fending off invaders of a nearby village?" Lissa asked with admiration.

Frederick nodded in confirmation and awaited his next question.

This time it was Chrom that asked, "And then the villagers rewarded him by giving him the secret to the dragon's weakness?"

Frederick nodded again in a proud state that his audience understood the entirety of his story.

"And then he went to the dragon and beat it by shooting a venom arrow into its chest? Special venom meant to kill dragons?" Lissa asked another couple of questions.

"Yes, and the villagers erected a statue to serve in his honor and they renamed the village after him," Frederick stated as fact.

Chrom stretched his arms back as he said, "That was definitely a good tale, Frederick. It had just the right amount of action that a hero's tale needs."

"Who care about the action? I loved the ending! Finding your one true love is every girl's dream," Lissa exclaimed with a twirl.

"Thank you, milord, and, milady" Frederick bowed to Chrom and Lissa in gratitude.

Chrom was about to head off for bed when he noticed Robin still sitting. Robin was seated cross legged on the ground with his arms crossed across his chest. It was clear that he was upset about something.

"What's wrong, Robin. Was Frederick's story not enjoyable?" Chrom asked his tactician with concern.

"No, I didn't like it." Robin stated with a frown.

"What?!" Lissa exclaimed in shock, "But what about the romance? It was amazing!"

"That's not it. It's just… I didn't like the ending fight with the dragon," Robin said with a permanent frown on his face.

"W-What was wrong with the dragon fight?" Frederick asked in shock that somebody didn't enjoy his story.

"It ended in one move! I had thought up this big plan on how the dragon would be killed and it didn't happen! All that planning for nothing!" Robin shouted out in sadness.

The group felt confusion settle onto their shoulders until they all quickly understood. The life of a tactician was definitely thoroughly implanted into Robin's head. Even if he doesn't remember anything else, tactics, swordplay, and sorcery were second nature to him.

Chrom placed a hand on Robin's shoulder as he assured him, "Don't worry. We'll find a dragon and then you can tell us your entire brilliant plan."

"Y-You think so?" Robin asked.

"Well… No, but it could happen!" Chrom stated with a grin.

Chrom's assurance of the possibility of a dragon in the future surprisingly calmed Robin down a little. It calmed Robin down while it left Lissa worrying about having to face a dragon. She just hoped that there would be some of that special dragon killing venom lying around.

"As much as I enjoyed telling us all a story, we should head to sleep now, milord," Frederick stated as he took notice of the dying fire.

"You're right, Frederick. We'll all get some rest and then we'll tackle tomorrow with our fullest energy," Chrom said to his soldiers.

The group agreed with the idea and started to make their way to their personally chosen, comfortable, cold spot on the ground. They all stopped halfway to their destinations when Chrom suddenly said, "Wait a second!"

Frederick stopped the fastest in his tracks as he started to sweat bullets again.

"P-Please don't tell me to eat anything, milord," Frederick thought in a panic.

"Frederick," Chrom said sternly. He glared daggers at the knight causing him to almost break his calm demeanor. He then continued with, "that story didn't explain how you killed the bear at all!"

Lissa joined in with a, "Hey, that's right."

For the second time today, Frederick had avoided what he believed to be sure doom. He then quickly pointed out, "I wrestled with it. That story was my inspiration to try doing so."

The others in the camp paused briefly as the thought of what their companion Frederick had just told them. He had wrestled a bear… to death. There was no possible way that they could get that out of their heads.

"Now, if you'll excuse me. I've got a nice spot in the dirt over near that tree with my name on it," Frederick said as he walked calmly towards a tree he pointed to.

He walked directly past the other three who were hopelessly staring in one definite direction together.

"Never anger, Frederick," Chrom said to his two other companions quietly.

"Agreed," both Robin and Lissa quickly said in unison.

They then went their separate ways towards their dirt beds. They each laid themselves down on the ground and fell asleep in the cold confines of the forest. Unbeknownst to them, however, they would be getting a rather rude awakening from some walking corpses and a giant fire fairly shortly.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Risen!' I yelled as I shot up from my sleeping position.

My breathing was quick and out of pace as I tried to calm myself. While doing so, I took the opportunity to look around myself. A normally unclean room surrounded me on all four sides. I was even back in the confines of my bed that I had carelessly fallen asleep in.

I-I'm back? W-Wait. Did I even leave? Was it really all a dream? I swear it was so real that I couldn't have possibly dreamt that up.

I wiped my forehead with my hand and noticed that I was sweating profusely. At the same time, I noticed that I was back in my regular clothes. Blue jeans and a regular t-shirt. No handkerchief bandana in sight.

I really am still on Earth. Am I just losing it? Jeez… What did I eat to give me crap dreams like that?

Shifting my body, I hung my legs off of my bed and planted them onto the floor of my nice, normal room. I took a peek out of my blinds and noticed that the sun was just starting to rise. The beauty of my room is that my window is pointed to the east so I'm only welcomed by the sun in the morning until it passes over my house.

I must've slept through the night. It was late afternoon when I fell asleep. Man… that means I missed out on dinner.

A couple of knocks came from someone on the other side of my door. The sudden noise shook me from my thoughts as I turned to look at the door.

"You can open the door," I called out to the individual.

My door is opened and the person to enter was my mother. My mom was fairly old and a good amount shorter than me. She had the same color hair as me but she usually died it blonde to avoid any unsavory gray hairs.

She entered into my room and gave me a quick, "Good morning."

"Morning, mom," I said back to her with a smile.

"It's nice to see you awake at this time," my mom said in a joking manner.

Can't say I'm not accustomed to this usual teasing. I was fairly nocturnal in my way of life. I'd sleep through mornings only to wake up mid-way into the day.

"I got my usual ten hours of sleep. I'd say I'm pretty close to fully rested," I answered back in a similar joking manner.

"Good, then you can get started with your chores," my mom said now getting a little more serious, "You can start by cleaning this room and your dad wants you to mow the lawn before he gets home."

"Ok, mom," I deadpanned.

With the orders now finished, my mom exited my room and went downstairs.

Was fighting bandits worse than chores? Can't say I could tell.

The day went by fairly quickly with me having almost constant work to do. The work was almost unbearable, but it's either this or I'd probably get kicked out. Not sure if it would really happen but I'd rather not find out.

I'd like to say I had an easy time doing the chores but that would be giving me too much credit. It was nearing the start of summer and that only meant shitty hot weather. I found myself drenched in my own sweat after mowing the lawns. Also, the actual physical labor was oddly a bit more difficult than usual. Not that I couldn't handle modern day physical labor, but there was something else that felt weird. My left arm felt oddly sore and I couldn't understand what could be bothering it. Perhaps it was because I didn't stretch or something?

Either way, I finished the work and went straight for getting a shower afterwards. No sense in walking around in my own filth after all.

I entered my bathroom and started to get the shower ready. I loosened my body and found my left arm still giving me problems. It felt as sore as it did while I was performing chores. I hadn't the slightest idea on what it could've been.

Brushing aside the pain in my arm, I took off my shirt. When I got it fully off, I noticed something in the mirror in front of me. On my left shoulder was a red cut. As if something had recently cut my arm and it was starting the healing process.

I didn't do anything to cut myself. Where in the world did-

No, wait. I-In that dream. An axe sliced into my left shoulder! Lissa healed the wound but it left a cut!

There's no way. This is just a coincidence right? I must've cut my shoulder yesterday and that event made itself out again in the dream, right?

Yeah… You have strange cuts related to dreams popping up on you all the time… Tch… No… No, you don't have strange cuts related to fucking dreams popping up on yourself!

Ok, paranoia active.

I know that I didn't get any cuts yesterday except in that dream. Either I've got short term memory loss, I'm an oblivious idiot that doesn't notice when they cut themselves, I'm going insane, or I legitimately was in Fire Emblem in what I thought was a dream.

Please, let me be oblivious.

Being me in my paranoia state, I shut off the shower and put back on my shirt. I exited my bathroom and went back to my room. On my desk in my room sat the devil himself. In the form of my 3ds.

I find what I'm about to do idiotic, but I'm about to perform it anyway. As I inched closer and closer to the demon of a console on my desk, my heart started to race. Each step closer to it made me feel like I was going to be plopped back into the hell hole of the game that was currently inside it.

When I was within arm's reach of the devil's creature, I flipped it open and hopped back to take cover. I feared that the screens would become vortexes or maybe even the entire console itself.

My fears were quelled, however, when nothing happened. All that resulted from my stupid paranoia was that I now have opened my 3ds on my desk. Nothing more, nothing less.

It was far from what I expected but then again this is real life. It isn't a Sci-Fi movie in the slightest.

Still, I didn't stop my worrying. I still had more investigating to perform. If things check out with my 3ds, then I can at least stop freaking out about this cut. Until then, I'll remain a paranoid mess.

In another part of my investigation of my 3ds, I turned the beast on. The handheld console started up and I had it play Fire Emblem: Awakening which had been sitting inside of it. The game started up as normal and things seemed to be going just fine. I got past the start screen and things got a little funky.

There was only one option; New Game. There was another one but it was blanked out for some odd reason. That option was continue. I found this to be rather sketchy as I know that I still had my previous save files on here. Also, shouldn't there be more options? I know that there should be an Extras, a Copy and a few others but they weren't here.

I tried ignoring these oddities and went ahead to starting a new game. The game didn't even bother to ask me about a difficulty, or even what mode I'd like to play on though! It even skipped the avatar creation part and went straight into the game. Things didn't stop being weird there, however, because the game skipped the Premonition by going straight into the Prologue.

The fuck is going on?! Well, at least it's starting the Prologue like normal. Robin getting picked up by the Shepherds. Ok, ok. So now they head to the burning village and fight the bandits. Alright, it's still going normal with the game putting the battle into a strategy style of play. Hey… What are those green units to the right of the main characters?

As if to spit on my hopes that things were going right finally, two green units ran onto the bottom right of the field. One was indefinitely a mercenary class and the other… Well, I have no clue what the hell that one's supposed to be.

Like any other ally units that appear, they started conversing. A portrait of a man with black hair and a beard wearing a white vest slid onto the screen along with one of a younger individual with a red shirt and brown hair.

I don't like where this is going.

The mercenary was the first one to start with, "What's your name, kid?"

That sounds… too familiar.

"I'm not a kid! And what's with the sudden interest in names?! If we die here, then our names aren't going to matter or anything!" the other green unit said in protest.

No, no. It's just like…

"I like to know the names of people I might be fighting beside. It shows trust. Trust that will aid us on the battlefield. My name's Auden," the mercenary unit said.

That. Fucking. Dream.

Well, if that's Auden, then that must mean…

"My name's Vincent. Since we might die here, I'll let you call me Vince just this once," the other green unit with my name replied.

I'm… I'm… I'm in the fucking game… while I'm not in the game… What?!

So that's Chapter 2 in a nutshell. It might be less eventful than the last one but this is where I planned to end it.

Can I say right now that things might only get weirder? Because things might only get weirder considering it's me writing this thing.

So if you didn't notice, the story Frederick was telling was originally Auden's tale of one of his past adventures. It is supposed to be a classic moment of stories being past around so much they get thrown out of proportion. It got so thrown out of proportion that the story merely calls the hero a man and not Auden. I wrote Frederick telling this story because in the game the characters do kill a bear and I just so happened to start off the chapter with Auden talking about wrestling a bear. I figured, why not put in an invisible link between the two occurrences because Frederick wrestling a bear to death sounds awesome?

Anyhow, Vincent's back in the real world while he has a video game version of himself in the game. How will this go?

If you have any questions, concerns, or anything at all, don't be afraid to send it in a pm or put in a review. I will respond to any questions and fix any problems that I possibly can concerning this fic.