Author's Note: It's baaaack! Due to an unexpected number of people actually liking this story, I'm back to stay. Please feel free to read part 2 of the ongoing story. Enjoy...

Chapter 2: Buddies and Bear Meat

I'm dying

I hear Lissa crying out loud, Frederick a solemn look on his face.

Dear gods, why did it happen like this?

I lie splayed out on the ground, tasting death in my mouth. Looking towards my friends, who are huddled around me. Using every ounce of strength I currently have, I force out of my lungs,

"How in the Hell are you guys eating this stuff?!"

The taste of Death in my mouth is actually bear meat.

I never realized that something would taste this bad. It's too gamy and there absolutely no flavor to be had in this thing. Apparently, Lissa seems to feel the same exact way, pleading with her brother Chrom for something, anything, that would taste better than what they were eating now. Frederick just refrained himself from eating, citing that he was not really that hungry. The only ones that seemed to enjoy themselves with this monstrosity of a dish were Chrom, Robin, Zaine and Walt.

Hearing my outburst, my friends could only snicker as they went to town stuffing their faces.

"Niko, I've told you before that you can't out-eat us," Walt said before burst into full on laughter.

Zaine then adds with,"Yeah dude, we've been eating deer before, it's not that much gamier than even that."

Robin now joins in after chewing a big chunk of leg meat, "Oh come now, it's not that bad. I find it to be quite enjoyable."

Chrom then adds, "Well perhaps if you didn't get carried away casting your fire tome as many times as you did, the meat wouldn't be singed as it is."

I could only groan at this. As if they think I've actually hunted for anything and went all Circle of Life on it before. I desperately search in vain for a good comeback to shut these idiots up, when a voice speaks out for me.

"Well, I agree with Niko," says Lissa, in her usual upbeat manner. "It feels unnatural that we're eating bear. It's like were messing with the food chain or something!"

Finally I get some backup. I almost forgot about how she sounded back when I played the game. She sounds, kind of cute in a way-Wait, bad Niko. She's a princess. You're just a nobody from another world who became a hired soldier to her brother. Your influence equates to about a hunk of charred bear meat when you get hungry.

"Well, next time we will try to get something better for our two princesses," Walt responded sarcastically.

Really man? Really!?

"That's it, I'm going to sleep," I say finally fed up, refusing to deal with these idiots and their incessant laughter. I lie down so I can enjoy some peaceful sleep.

In my dreams, it's not so pleasant. The sky is blood red, dark and foreboding. I find myself running from hulking undead monsters. I try to get away, but I trip and crash into the ground. I can only react enough to see one large zombie bring his sword up, then speeding down towards my face.

I awake suddenly, seriously disturbed by that dream. However, what terrifies me more is Walt standing over me with the widest toothed grin I've ever seen. As he keeps that smile looming over me, i hear something in a ghastly whisper.

"I'm gonna kill you."

Congratulations. You have now achieved pure terror!

"Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" I scream at the top of my lungs.

As the laughter starts pouring in, I recover my breath and realize what just happened.

"Dammit guys," I start speaking in my overly dramatic tone of voice, "I told you two to never...do that...again!"

How they managed to time that correctly as soon as I woke up is beyond me. It was well executed to say the least, even though they almost gave me a heart attack!

Suddenly,their laughing fit was over. I look over to my right and notice a very large figure towering over us, wearing light blue armor and a stern look. He spoke in a very calm but forceful voice.

"My apologies if I am disturbing your fun, but so it seems to be, my lord and his sister are currently trying to sleep not even ten feet from this spot. Please do keep it down."

We all answer quickly,"Y-yes, sir."

For someone who appears so nice and welcoming, Frederick actually is kind of terrifying in a way, if he got even Walt to comply.

As soon as he walked away back to where he was resting, all three of us look at each other with the most surprised of faces.

Zaine starts whispering,"Guys, did you all notice ho-"

"Ssshhhhh," I shush him immediately. "You hear that?"

We all turn around as we hear the bushes rustle behind us. Thinking of it as another bear, we all draw our weapons. Walt then says that hopefully the meat this time won't be burnt. I only groan.

But what comes out of the bushes is not a bear, but a person. A rather familiar person at that.

"Hey, watch it!" the stranger says. "Don't push me like that."

That voice, it sounds very familiar.

"Cole," We all say at once."Is that you?"

Coming from the bushes right behind him is Robin, holding a book of some sort.

"Excuse me guys, but I found someone suspicious near where I was sleeping. He had a dark tome on him, so I think he might have been about to ambush us."

Cole then responds, "No, I wasn't! I was just hiding from some assholes who were trying to kill me!"

Zaine goes up to Robin."It's okay, he's a friend of ours."

Cole finally notices us. "Zaine? Niko? Walt? you guys are here too?"

Robin nods, understanding the circumstances and gives Cole back his book. "Seems strange that you three have a dark mage as an ally.

Great. Showoff Cole is the most broken class that was in the game. Why is it that my friends have so much better luck?

Just then, we hear explosions far off from us. The sky turns red, and a giant blue Eye of Sauron appears, leaking hordes of zombies like teardrops.

This causes the inner zombie slayer in Walt to stir to the surface, maniacal grin plastered on his face.

"Dudes, I think this place got a whole lot interesting." He then starts to rush headlong into the fray.

"Walt!" I yell, all of us running after him. "You crazy bastard, wait up!"

We all end up in an open field, surrounded by these animated corpses. I look and see Chrom and Lissa fairly close to us. Frederick comes riding in, obviously annoyed his sleep was disturbed again.

As everyone regroups together, we finally begin to witness the strategic brilliance of Robin, tactician extraordinaire.

"Alright everyone. We need to root out as many of these monsters as possible. That is why our frontline fighters shall draw them to the group allowing magic casters to steadily pick them off from the safety of those abandoned forts."

For an amnesiac found in a field a few hours ago, he seems to be quite capable in this situation.

Chrom then rallies his troops,"Okay everyone, let us stop these foul beings as quickly as possible, before they spread to any nearby towns!"

We all shout in response as we break the huddle going to our assigned positions: Cole takes the fort closest to the enemy, me in the centermost one, and Robin in the back to survey the whole battlefield.

We are about ready to initiate our plan when we see two people running onto the field as well. One is a woman with short red hair on top of a horse, which I immediately recognize as Sully. Which means that the man following her with a bow slung over his shoulder is smug nobleman Virion.

After witnessing Sully deliver a very painful looking kick to the Archest of Archers, they join us in the battle as well. The fight notably goes pretty well for first hour. Up until the zombies start showing up with bows do we have to break formation. We all start to round up the remaining forces, dodging the assault of arrows as we can. I take a look at everyone fighting individually; Walt going to town hacking the Risen in half, Zaine keeping distance knife tossing while Frederick finishes them off, Virion and Sully replicating the same tactic, Cole exploding them using what appears to be a Flux tome, shouting and Robin and Chrom together, mixing together both swordplay and magic in deadly combination. Even though we're barely close to being an actual army, The Shepherds are quite the effective fighting force.

It's at this point that I realize that Lissa is all alone, with absolutely no way to defend herself. I look around furiously, and find her fairly close to me. With giant zombie equipped with a tomahawk not too far from her. It appears to be the leader from what I noticed of its actions. I may be able to disrupt the chain of command. I aim my hand, ready to let the flames destroy the foul creature, but i notice that its axe is raised and ready to fly straight at Lissa.

Dammit...

I can kill the monster, but that means that she would probably die too.

...Dammit...

Without thinking, I sprint straight for the princess.

...Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit...

I get up in front of her, pushing her back, and react in pain as the axe cuts a deep gash into my shoulder. I pull it out, and feel unimaginable pain.

DAMMIT!

Kneeling on the ground next to me, Lissa uses her staff and, in a terrified voice says,

"Everything's gonna be alright. I'll get you patched up, I promise."

"No. get...to Chrom," I manage to get out. "Get someone to help."

"B-but...," she quickly replies.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine," I lied. I knew with that mammoth of a Risen would probably kill me before I even bled to death.

As just about that was going to happen, and I close my eyes to prepare for that final swipe, I realize it never came. I open my eyes to see a blade coming out of the chest of the leader. The blade then proceeds to veer straight up and bisect the Risen in half. The monster doubles over and falls down, disintegrating into violet mist.

Behind it stood the person who held the sword responsible for its death. A man wearing a white robe, a black cloth tied around the back his pale blonde hair like a martial arts headband. Oddly enough, he's also wearing glasses.

Wait a minute. Katana? Pale blonde hair? Glasses? It couldn't be him, this guy's way too serious to be hi-

"Well now," the guy says while looking at his sword,"Looks like this things now an actual Killing Edge, huh?"

It is him. Who else of my friends could possibly be in this place and arrive so very conveniently at the last possible moment? Really, Naga help me.

"Damn it...Tristan," I utter at the supposed comedian.

Everything starts to appear blurry to me as I start to pass out from blood loss.

"That joke was in terrible taste."I immediately fall to the ground.

And now I'm out.

Dammit...

A/N: Two more unexpected allies join the party. What will this make for the Shepherds? Will Niko pull through his grave injury? Will someone try to smack Tristan for that awful pun? Find out next time on Fire Emblem: Seven Stars.

P.S.: Sorry for taking so long to release this chapter. I intended to release this chapter Saturday, but college demanded me that I write three different essays that week. Nevertheless, I will try to release them as frequently as I possibly can.

As always, feel free to favorite/follow/review as it will be greatly appreciated. Keep Cookin'!