Heyo, everybody. Apologies for the delays; I was up in Boston setting up my apartment for the next three years. So that was a little tough to live with for four days. And since I was busy eating out, setting up posters, and assembling furniture brand-made from Ikea, I wasn't able to get anything written. The fact that I was in the same small hotel room as my parents didn't help anything either.
But we're back! So we jumped back to the present, so let's see how the timeline has changed!
Chapter 4: First Timeline
When Ike came to, he was awake almost instantly.
The mercenary promptly stood up and looked around him to find a landscape covered almost completely in a thick fog, the land charred and burned almost completely. When he sniffed the air, he noticed the scent of smoke filling his nostrils, and the mercenary promptly coughed rather violently at this.
"Ike?" asked Maria, who was just looking up as Ike did this.
The mercenary looked down to his lover and helped her up.
"Oh, you're okay," he said. "What was that about?"
"I don't know, but I think we scared away our target," she replied. "And I'm pretty sure we've just wasted a use of the time crystal."
"Why do you say that?" asked Ike.
Maria then proceeded to undo the fist her hand had involuntarily clenched into to reveal the blue crystal. However, Ike instantly noticed the fact that there was a perfectly straight surface where the edge of the crystal had been. This revelation surprised Ike, but what was even more alarming was that the light on the crystal seemed to dim just the slightest bit. Looking at this, the mercenary took the crystal from his lover's hand and looked at it, awed.
"Oh, dear…" he said simply. "We've only got a few chances to make things right, don't we?"
"Well, there's one thing Hades didn't tell us…" replied the cat with a shrug.
Right then, Ike and Maria both noticed the unconscious forms of Cecilia, Calvin, and Fiordiligi all around them. Fiordiligi had just woken up, and she began groping around for anything that she could get her hands on. The next thing she grabbed was the breast of a then half-conscious Cecilia. This unintended action woke the Elibean native up almost instantly, and the next thing anybody knew the female was standing up crossly grabbing herself.
"Hey!" she shouted angrily. "Frisk something else!"
This resulted in Ike smacking Cecilia on the back of the head. The girl reeled forward slightly before noticing Ike's glare in her direction.
"She's blind, damn it!" he cried. "For Ashera's sake, cut her some slack!"
"She turned to that strange man like she could see him!" countered Cecilia almost immediately. "Explain that!"
Maria, Ike, and Fiordiligi were all very still at the mention of this. Ike and Maria looked to each other and then to Cecilia, their eyes registering shock.
"So you noticed it too?" asked Ike.
"Huh?" asked the purple-haired human, putting her hands on her hips. "You mean you find it odd too?"
"I… I was able to see his spirit sign…" replied Fiordiligi.
Cecilia raised an eyebrow, very unconvinced by this explanation. "Spirit sign?"
There was a cough, and then all three individuals who had sight noticed Calvin leaning on his elbows as he adjusted the hat on his head slowly.
"Perhaps it has something to do with… you know… their journey to the underworld?" asked the priest simply.
Maria glanced to the side nervously before chuckling uncomfortably.
"That's… pretty much it, yes…" replied the cat.
"Yeah," added Ike with a shrug. "It started like this…"
"And that's how it happened. And hence, why we're in a totally different timeline right now…"
Cecilia and Calvin both nodded at Ike's explanation, still slightly confused but willing to take Ike's explanation anyway. Cecilia shrugged, twirling some strands of her hair in between two of her fingers as she looked at Ike.
"I see…" she said. "You think we were pulled in because we were in the same small space?"
Ike shrugged in reply. "Could be," he said. "And now that we know what happens where, we should be able to move faster next time…"
"It's nice to not be under a six-hour time limit in each portion of the future, at least," added Fiordiligi. "Then we can figure out what happened where…"
"Speaking of which…" said Calvin, looking around him at the fog-ridden landscape. "What did happen in those twelve and a half years, anyway?"
The roar of a nearby dragon was suddenly heard, and all five darted their heads up to find a red dragon towering over them menacingly. At this, Maria jumped back in shock as Ike readied Ragnell.
"Crap, I knew we should've kept our weapons on us, Calvin!" cried Cecilia.
"No talk, damn it!" cried Maria as she tried to drag Fiordiligi away from the scene. "Just act!"
Cecilia was the first one to react to this, and she launched an ice spell at the towering creature. Ike jumped up after this, and Ragnell connected with the creature's body, slicing it rather cleanly as Ike landed on the ground. The dragon let out a roar of pain, but before it could move again it was hit by another ice spell sent in by Cecilia. The dragon let out a roar of pain before falling to the cold, hard ground. Calvin and Maria both were awed by how quickly the dragon was taken down, and how easy it seemed to be.
"How…?" asked Calvin.
"Probably because Ragnell was blessed by the goddess Ashera…" replied Ike with a nod. "That should take care of that."
Cecilia however, suddenly noticed something amiss within the fog, and suddenly she pulled on Ike's cape.
"You spoke too soon!" she exclaimed, pointing into the now thinning fog. "Look!"
And in the fog everybody except Fiordiligi was able to make out the forms of an entire army of dragons advancing towards a point very far from where the group was. The dragons towered over the charred landscape, giving off an almost vicious air as they marched on. At this, Maria grabbed Fiordiligi's hand just before Ike took a hold of the unoccupied hand.
"Let's get out of here!" shouted Ike a little too loudly for discretion.
Most of the dragon heads turned in their direction absurdly quickly, and before Ike knew what had happened he felt himself get tugged by Cecilia as they began to run. The mercenary would have objected verbally, but he then noticed a stream of fire that barely caught the edge of Fiordiligi's dress. The mercenary's eyes remained wide, even as he felt himself get pulled forward by Cecilia. They ran as quickly as they could, dodging the stray jets of fire that were being launched in their direction by the dragons that were chasing them.
Finally, however Cecilia let out a gasp of surprise, and all heads turned to find a black dragon directly in front of them. The dragon roared in front of the other dragons that were chasing them, and for a second Calvin and Cecilia had both ducked down.
It was when the priest had pulled down on Ike's pants that they noticed the pleasantly surprised expression on Ike and Maria's faces as they seemed to recognize the dragon. And indeed, their intuition was correct, for then the black dragon breathed a grey mist at the fire dragons that were chasing them. The remaining dragons noticed the two dragons that had been caught in the mist, and as those two fell the fire dragons retreated as quickly as they could, fearing the wrath of the mysterious black dragon that had come along. The cat laguz looked behind her, making sure the fire dragons were far, far away before pumping her fist in the air.
"I knew it!" she replied with a bright smile on her face. "Kuranga would pull through for us!"
Calvin's head jerked up as he and Cecilia both stood up, and then his eyes were very wide as he saw the black dragon in front of them transform into the familiar face of Kuranga the seer.
However, even the familiar face of Kuranga was distorted; now his head had been shaved of its black hair, and in its place a tattoo of a grey flame was seen riding along. It seemed to flicker around on Kuranga's head as his scarlet eyes gazed at the group.
"K… Kuranga…?" asked Calvin uncertainly as he stared at the now bald dragon laguz.
"Hm?" asked the dragon. "I don't believe I know who you are."
"Oh, it's a long story," replied Ike, shaking the dragon's hand fervently. "How've you been?"
"It has been very difficult," replied the dragon sternly as he looked to Maria. "I sense that you have come here from a time warp?"
"Yes," replied Maria with a nod. "And unfortunately, we dragged these two from an alternate timeline."
"And I saw you in that timeline," added Calvin with a polite nod. "So that's why I recognized you."
"Ah," replied the dragon concisely.
"Yeah…" added Cecilia with a rub of her head. "So, you know what's going on here?"
The dragon nodded sternly. "The blackheart known as Nergal came back from the dead," he began. "And he tried to take over Idoun's mind. I assume you know this, seeing as how I caught the briefest glimpse of you during the battle."
This mention surprised everybody greatly. "B-but how?" asked Maria. "You didn't even look in our direction the entire battle!"
"You would be surprised what my peripheral vision can catch," replied the dragon. "So I assume you saw Nergal leave, right?"
"I think so…" replied Ike, suddenly realizing who the man with the robes was. "That was Nergal?"
"Yes, come back from the dead to attempt to take over the world," replied Kuranga. "Again."
"So what happened after he fled?" asked Cecilia.
Kuranga gazed out into the distance, the fog having lifted to reveal a very charred landscape that was in front of them. "After that, Idoun created war dragons," replied the laguz solemnly. "Nergal wasn't specifically the worst problem; king Zephiel of Bern was the one who tried to bring back the dragons… After Idoun went out of even my physical power, the dragons radiated from Bern into Elibe, and then they ravaged everything in their path…"
"Oh, no!" shouted Fiordiligi.
"That's terrible!" added Calvin.
"Thankfully, there was a glimmer of hope," replied the dragon solemnly. "We were able to find a place to hide, and since then a small number of humans throughout Elibe have been fighting a resistance movement against the dragons…"
Calvin and Cecilia nodded to this, but Ike was confused. Thusly, he crossed his arms in front of him. "But if Nergal got away, that can't have been all there was, right?" he asked.
"He came back," replied Kuranga, his speech now slightly more impassioned. "And he brought an entire army of… fabricated people… Oh, they were disgusting!"
"So now, it's pretty much a free for all war," continued Maria, looking out into the thin fog from where they stood.
"Precisely," stated Kuranga, his head hanging solemnly. "And that is when you came in."
Everybody in the group nodded, and then Fiordiligi came forward, tripping over her own foot and forcing Ike to catch her.
"Fiordiligi?" asked Kuranga.
"I've lost my eyesight," replied the lady as Ike helped her up. "Do you know what happened to Willie?"
"Oh, Willie?" asked Kuranga, his eyes suddenly going very solemn. "Well… He was in a resistance unit to the West… But his unit was attacked by morphs… The casualties were high…"
Fiordiligi leaned forward, her eyes watering. "Oh, no," she said. "Don't tell me he's dead!"
Kuranga was silent, and instead of replying to Fiordiligi's question he looked down to the ground. "I guess there's no good way to say it," he said softly.
This was all that the lady needed, and she was then trying to stifle dry tears behind her eyelids that covered her unseeing jade eyes.
"Oh, no…" said Maria, shaking her head solemnly as Ike draped his arm around Fiordiligi's shoulders.
"It's not that big a deal," replied Cecilia. "I mean, we can always go back and fix the timeline…"
Fiordiligi sniffed, her tears not coming out as she looked around. "Yeah," replied the woman. "What's supposed to happen in the last timeline we produce?"
"Willie remains alive," replied Kuranga with a curt nod.
"Oh, okay," replied Fiordiligi, smiling softly as she heard this. "I just hope I'll be alive at that point."
"At any rate, we've wasted enough time here," stated the seer. "Come. I'll take you to the base of the human resistance here in Bern. And come quickly!"
Everybody followed the dragon, Maria leading Fiordiligi along quickly as the black dragon moved through the burned earth into a dark tunnel.
The tunnel seemed to extend forever, the darkness beginning to get to everybody even with the torch that Kuranga had picked up about a quarter of the way in. Cecilia was beginning to get very restless, and she started whistling to the great chagrin of everybody else in the tunnel. Ike was attempting to resist the urge to hit his companion as Maria simply grinned sheepishly, trying her hardest to just lead Fiordiligi down the tunnel. Calvin paid it no mind, instead preferring to look to the cavern wall. The whistling went on for quite some time before finally Maria groaned, more to get Cecilia to stop whistling.
"My Goddess, could this tunnel stretch any longer?" asked Maria suddenly, surprising everybody in the tunnel and causing Cecilia to stop whistling.
"I'm rather surprised, actually," said Fiordiligi. "I figured that the first person to snap would've been Cecilia."
"Hey!" shouted the Elibian.
Kuranga slowed down a little as Ike suddenly noticed a slight dip in the earth beneath them.
"That won't be necessary," replied Kuranga. "We're here."
And then Ike looked out to find a cave with a stone wall that seemed to house everything there. There were cots laid out where many, many wounded people lay. It was silent, meaning that most of the wounded were either sleeping or dead. Ike sincerely hoped that it was not the latter. The sight was only differentiated by the presence of two people there. The one was a rather lonely swordsman with long brown hair and a very tattered red cloak that had taken on a dark crimson color from the dust it had collected over many years of use. He was sitting by a cot attending to a young woman with orange hair that was tied into two very unorganized buns. The other was a tall woman with long blonde hair that despite years of dishevelling activity still seemed to have a beauty that rivaled that of Fiordiligi.
As soon as Kuranga entered the cave, the blonde woman came over to the dragon quickly, bowing before him quickly.
"Oh, milord Kuranga, you're all right!" she said with a great amount of relief in her voice.
"Please, you should know better than to call me 'milord', my queen," replied Kuranga with a respectful bow. "I had a run-in with dragons trying to save these people..."
Guinevere then noticed the five people behind Kuranga. When she looked at them, she quickly bowed as she looked at them.
"I'm Guinevere, the proper queen of the nation of Bern," she said gravely as she shook Ike's hand.
"And I'm Ike," replied the mercenary. "And these are my friends Maria, Fiordiligi, Cecilia, and Calvin."
"Nice to meet you, dear," replied Maria with a smile and a nod.
"My..." said Calvin, looking at all of the wounded. "Do you need any help with your wounded?"
Guinevere's expression lit up slightly, sapphire eyes glittering in the torchlight. "Oh, would you?" she asked.
"Of course," replied the priest, taking out his staff. "Come on, Cecilia. We've got a lot of work to do."
The purple-haired female nodded quickly, following her companion as Guinevere led them to the wounded that needed attention. Ike and Maria both turned to Kuranga, looking at him.
"So you're stuck in caves, why?" asked Maria simply.
"There is nowhere else we can go," replied the dragon laguz stoically. "All of the shelter on the surface has been destroyed and setting up tents has the danger of us being noticed by the others outside. As well, we are never safe from the morphs no matter what we do as they just warp past our defenses..."
Ike looked around the caves, indigo eyes holding a strange mix of wonder and shock. "Wow..." he said. "That's pretty terrible..."
"Terrible is an understatement," replied Kuranga as the cat laguz noticed the mysterious swordsman suddenly standing up and heading to the dragon. "We're the last true people left in this place..."
"Except for you, Kuranga," said the swordsman suddenly, startling Kuranga's three companions. "You are a dragon."
"Rutger, please, can you drop it already?" asked the dragon with a heavy sigh. "Need I remind you that I have always been on your side since this war began?"
"I never said that," replied the swordsman. "Just that the statement is not... correct..."
The Tellian mercenary shrugged indifferently to this and pointed at Kuranga. "And what's wrong with that?" asked the mercenary. "He's still on your side, and it's rather handy, don't you think?"
The swordsman was silent in reply. The silence irked the mercenary to no end, and when Maria finally let out a dissatisfied breath the mercenary spoke.
"Well, fine," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "I was just pointing out one simple fact."
The strange swordsman turned around and walked back, dusted crimson cloak flowing behind him quite readily. Kuranga shook his head at the retreating figure.
"Poor thing," said Kuranga softly. "Rutger has always been like that ever since the incident twelve years ago."
"Why?" asked Fiordiligi. "Did he lose a loved one?"
Kurnaga nodded. "She was an Etrurian noble," he said. "He had a crush on her. When she was killed by the dragons after that battle he simply could not take it anymore..."
"And then this..." continued Maria, her gaze on the swordmaster softening.
"Granted, he was always rather... silent..." added the dragon mirthlessly. "But still, this is a reason for concern... I think he might have taken her death the wrong way..."
"That's rather terrible..." sighed Fiordiligi softly.
To this, Kuranga simply chuckled mirthlessly, scarlet eyes blank as he did this. "It always has been ever since that incident," he replied. "Come, let us get some rest."
The mercenary and his two companions could not say no to that, so they simply followed the dragon deeper into the cave and onto the softest spot possibly attainable on the stone walls of the cave.
Some time later, Maria and Ike were both laying down on one of the cots that Guinevere had set up after their arrival. Maria's hands were on her belly as Ike held her by the waist, the woman on top of her lover as Ike simply felt her against him. The two of them were trying to sleep, what with how quickly night had set in upon them. The group was scattered amongst the cots, with Fiordiligi close by Kuranga and Cecilia and Calvin both close to each other in a remote spot of the room far away from Ike, but the mercenary didn't really mind. After all, it gave him some much-needed time to just be by Maria's side.
"You know..." he whispered quietly into Maria's ear as to not wake anybody up. "I... I should've asked you what you thought about parenting before all this..."
Maria was silent, contemplating Ike's question as she shifted slightly.
"To be honest?" asked the cat softly. "I was kind of afraid of this."
"Really?" asked Ike, raising an eyebrow as he asked. "Why?"
"Well, you know..." said Maria. "At first it was because we weren't married. And second of all it was because it was caused by Gaston's... well, you know... But I got over those two factors, because you've been incredible to me ever since my pregnancy. You've always been great to me."
Ike gave Maria a confused look. "Really?" he asked. "I think I've been horrible to you."
Maria was equally confused by this reply. "Is it because we've been journeying non-stop ever since I got pregnant?" she asked.
"Yeah," replied the Tellian, gaze casted on the ceiling. "I haven't even once stopped you, even when we were on Magvel. I think I should've left you on Magvel and come back for you later. That way, our child wouldn't have to deal with moving all the time..."
"But that would've been cruel, too, not being there for your child," replied Maria as she too looked at the ceiling. "Plus, I would've had to wait twelve and a half years for you to come back, and our child would probably be either alive or dead depending on which timeline was correct. Trust me Ike, it's better this way. Because I at least know that you and the baby are safe, and I know I won't have to lie to our child when he grows old enough..."
"Are you sure?" he asked. "I mean, we're adventuring parents, so wouldn't that be a problem?"
Maria shifted in Ike's embrace so that she was on her side. Her hand took to lightly stroking the strands of cobalt hair that she had come to love so much.
"To be honest, that was another one of my concerns," she said. "Raising kids while adventuring is probably a lot of work. And that was probably the biggest reason why I was so afraid." Here, Maria's hand unexpectedly took one of Ike's hands in its grip. "But then I realized that it couldn't be worse than what would've happened if we had settled down..."
"And that would've been...?" asked Ike as he leaned in closer to his lover.
"Well, that the world would be in danger," she said softly, her lips quivering slightly. "And I don't know what we would do if our child was caught in some... well, messed up world."
Ike craned his neck, and when he did his lips settled over Maria's forehead softly. The mercenary kissed the cat softly before moving one of his hands to Maria's lavender hair, playing with it.
"I dunno," replied Ike. "But the fact of the matter is, we'll find a way."
"I know we will when you're around," replied the cat laguz.
And then, there was the sound of a portal opening from the entrance of the cave. And before Maria could comprehend the sound, Ike sat up, looking into the entrance of the cave and seeing torch lights in the distance with a bunch of cloaked figures.
"Oh, dear," he said a little louder, standing up from the cot as Maria sat up. "Morphs!"
Ike called this last word out, but unfortunately it only woke up Cecilia and Kuranga. Then, the opponents burst in with a loud screaming sound that woke everybody up a little too late.
What proceeded could only be described as a massacre; Kuranga was able to get Fiordiligi out of the way in time, and Cecilia had jumped out of the way with Calvin in her arms, but most everybody else that was at the front was not so lucky. In a matter of seconds, everybody immediately around the entrance of the cave had been murdered ridiculously quickly. This was enough to rouse everybody else in the cavern, including Guinevere and Rutger. In a matter of seconds, the mysterious swordsman had begun cutting away at the morphs long enough for the other men to stand up and ready their weapons. By the time they were, however, the intruders were already around half-way across the cave. Ike grabbed Ragnell and rushed forward to join the fray, hoping to help. As he did this, however, the morphs were beginning to greatly overpower the human opponents, and within a matter of minutes Ike and Rutger were the only ones left fighting, with Guinevere standing against her back as Kuranga found himself weighed down by all of the morphs above him.
Before Ike could get overpowered by the morphs, however, he suddenly felt himself get pulled into the tunnel of colors that he knew was the time-warp. He looked around, and saw Calvin and Cecilia slowly get up from where they had played dead and Fiordiligi groping the air where Kuranga had been defending her. Ike suddenly realized nobody else had been pulled into the warp space with them, and he sighed in relief as they returned to the patch of grass where they had started their journey to the second timeline.