Everything seemed fine at the moment for the prince of Ylisse; they had found the alliance his country so desperately needed, all it took was for him and a few of his fellow Shepherds to win a tournament that takes place in a couple of days. Yup, he was having a great day and it seemed like almost nothing could take him out of his great mood.

"Hey Chrom! How about a fight? We haven't had one in a while!"

Well, he did say almost.

"No Vaike, not now."

"Awhh c'mon, I won't hurt you too much, and besides, Lissa can use her staff on you afterwards." Vaike teased, grinning confidently. 'I got you right where I want ya.'

Chrom almost rised to the bait, fists clenching and jawline hardening. But managed to reign in his irritation with a resigned sigh. He wasn't about to let himself get distracted, he needed to help Robin with planning.

"Sorry Vaike, maybe some other time."

The blonde warrior's brows furrowed as his attempts at goading the prince into a fight were avoided. But soon that grin made its way back into place as he got the ultimate plan.

Folding his arms to his sides, his eyes seemed to bore into Chrom's, whose own eyes seemed to widen in surprise as the unexpected action. Opening his mouth Vaike began his brilliant plan.

And started making chicken noises while flapping his arms together.

"Bugooock Chrom's a chicken buck buck bugoock!"

Chrom for the most part just stood there, not knowing what to do with the current situation happening in front of him. But he could get the strange feeling that he being mocked by an idiot, but it was also embarrassing to look at.

"I… I'll be leaving now." He said quickly, already turned by the time he finished talking, and began walking away.

Seeing his prey running away, Vaike quickly followed. Still acting like a chicken though.

"Buck buck bucAAAWK!"

The Other Way - Chapter Seven

It seemed that the Shepherds had seemed to have settled in when Robin walked into the mess hall. They were off on a spare bench brought in to accommodate the sudden guests. Stahl was practically inhaling his food, while Sully was trying to get his attention to talk about how he needed to train harder with her. Miriel had walked off in search of a library. Sumia took her food and also left to take care of her newly acquired pegasus, who had suffered some wounds from the border battle, and Lissa was not too far behind when he had seen them walk by. Chrom was doing his best to avoid a suddenly eager Vaike who had out of nowhere wanted to have one of their battles. Meanwhile Virion was off chasing every maid his eyes found themselves on. And Frederick was glancing suspiciously at everything that could pose a threat to his male charge, clearly not taking the very near death of Chrom very well, as he hadn't left him out of his sight since then. Robin was pretty sure he was missing something… but couldn't figure out who or what. And what was he doing exactly? Well currently he was mulling over who was going to be in the upcoming tournament. He was supposed to do this with Chrom but he looks a little… occupied at the moment.

Being the tactician was harder than it seemed, and a lot more stressful too. Almost twice they had almost lost Sumia in that earlier battle, and it was weighing heavily on him. Only a quick interception of magic and luck saved her from the archer he hadn't seen. There were plenty of other close calls but they were less, panic inducing as that moment was.

Now if only he could get these damn battle layouts finished. Glaring at the roster currently held in his hands, the snow-haired tactician mentally willed it to give him answers, only to receive the obvious response of silence as it was a book. Chrom was an obvious answer since he was the leader, but what about the others? Stahl and Sully had great mobility, but he was worried that the West Khan had armored knights. But in that case Vaike with his hammer and Miriel with her tomes would prove valuable. But Vaike wouldn't be able to handle the more speedy enemies like the Myrmidons they encountered before, and there wouldn't be anything to defend Miriel if she's cought out of position. Lissa and Virion? The same problem. Sumia? He had the vast suspicion that there would be archers present in the fight. It seemed that Frederick would be the best option so far; he just had to hope that there weren't any powerful mages on the other side. And the fact that he knew nothing of their ally in this battle didn't help in the slightest.

"Arghh," he groused, dropping the book onto the table in favour of rubbing his temples. Briefly overcome with a vast feeling of helplessness.

"You okay?" asked a concerned, if not slightly amused voice.

Looking up he watched as Darren sat across from him, placing a rather large helping of food in front of him. The dark haired boy was wearing a strange smile on his face; it looked almost nostalgic, for some reason. Sighing, Robin nodded, "Just trying to figure out whom to send for the tournament."

Darren nodded, closing his eyes in the progress. Remembering how paranoid he was during his first play through at this point in the game, though it was taken as a nod of sympathy to Robin. Deciding to help the tactician, he reached his hand out to take what looked like the Shepherds roster, receiving a startled noise from Robin as he did so. Inside it the familiar look of the roster from the game was there, it was just all, ink though. "Neat drawings," Darren commented, seeing how everything was obviously handmade, absentmindedly beginning to eat his food which was left unattended until now. His observations were cut short as the roster was roughly taken from his hands, the last the he saw was the drawing of Frederick with a small comment next to it in small text saying "jerk".

"What'd you do that for?" said an irritated Darren.

"I should be asking you that!" A flustered Robin replied sharply. There was a reason he didn't show anyone the roster, it was one of the few things he felt embarrassed about. The last person who tried peeking into it was shocked by an 'accidental' Thunder, though, he did warn Vaike not to do so in his defense. Ever since then no one has tried to look into the roster.

"Sheesh, fine I was just trying to help out."

"Huh? Help out?" Robin said dumbly.

"Sure, two minds are better than one right?"

'Well three actually but I'll let it slide this time.' Grima added, directing the thought to Darren.

Robin narrowed his eyes at the other boy, clearly suspicious of his actions. "And why should I just let you?" He questioned, holding the book closer to himself.

Darren sighed in exasperation. "C'mon don't be like that. You're acting like Mr. Wary over there." He said while jerking his thumb over where Frederick, was at the moment, glaring at a servant who had come to take the plate away. "We're both going for the same thing right? Winning the tournament and all?" Seeing the tactician nod his head he continued. "See? Same side here, so I'd like to help you out since it looks like you weren't getting anywhere by yourself anyways."

Reluctantly, though more so for different reasons than one might expect, Robin handed him the Party Roster. Snatching it quickly Darren began to skim the pages, only taking note of the names and their respective stats. It seemed like everyone was well rounded; with no one in particular being the most advanced, well except for ol' Freddy of course. But that's beside the point. With no one person ahead of everyone else by a large margin meant no one that could deal enough damage for the weaker units to gain experi– 'Gah! This isn't a game anymore you idiot! These are real people!' He mentally reminded himself. Noticing something odd with the page he was staring at, he began to get to get Robins' attention.

"Hey, Robin?"

"What?" Robin mumbled, being recently brought out of his thoughts.

Pointing to a page Darren answered: "You're missing someone."

"Eh?" Scrambling to get up, the tactician nearly ran around the table to look at the object in Darrens' hands. Picking up the roster he studied the page, and sure enough, there was someone missing. The unknown persons stats were there, but the areas where their portrait and name should be were blank, leaving an extremely confused Robin to look back into his already confusing memory.

Meanwhile, Darren took the book back into his own hands, and stared at the stats of this unknown character to see if something could jog his memory. He was positive it wasn't him, as he wasn't in the Shepherds group. So who was it? It was clear that this person had high defense, close to rivaling that of the overpowered early game Great Knight.

Grima snickered from within Darrens hood, having already figured out who the mysterious Shepherd was, much to the boy's ire.

Robin however, also heard the silent snickering and looked around in attempt to find the source. Causing Darren to freeze as he saw this, and mentally scream at the miniature dragon to shut up. But let out a barely audible sigh of relief when he saw Robin go deep into thinking.

Somehow the action of hearing something and not finding the cause reminded the amnesiac of a similar event that took place only a few hours ago. An orange suit of armor suddenly appearing in the battlefield, and the owner was actually–

"Kellam!"

"Yes?"

"GYAHH!"

Darren had jumped up from he was seated when the unexpected voice was heard, and was currently trying to calm his heart down to a level where it wasn't trying to hammer itself out of him. Grima was faring better than his partner, but not that much.

Kellam watched guiltily as a slightly paler Darren slowly sat down again. In his defense, he was eating rather peacefully when his name was suddenly called. So he automatically responded to the call.

"At least we know who is now," Robin said with a nervous smile, in attempt to get a response from the boy. "It was Kellam!"

Said person tried to apologize then, but it seemed that his natural talent seemed to take effect at that moment, meaning the disappearance of one giant suit of armor. One really confused Robin. And one especially shaken Darren.

"Oh…"

After getting over the next to supernatural event that is Kellam, both Darren and Robin had finished with their planning about an hour and then some later. Well, actually Robin had done most of the planning and tactical stuff, since Darren and Grima had no such experience on the subject beyond their knowledge on the game; Grima, because he never needed it before since he was a dragon, and Darren because there simply was no need to. So they were both subjected to giving whatever advice and hints they could about the upcoming battle; possible enemy types and who among the Shepherds would have the best advantages among other things.

Rising from his seat Robin stuck out his hand towards Darren, a somewhat tired smile on his face.

"Thanks for the help Darren." He said smiling.

Darren scratched the back of his head with one hand while the other reached for the outstretched hand, laughing sheepishly for a moment before responding.

"I was glad to help, even if I didn't do much."

Robin looked like he was going to say something else, but the sounds of rapidly approaching footsteps distracted the tactician.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't get here any sooner Robin," panted a semi-exhausted Chrom. "It's just that Vaike was bothering me for so long and I couldn't get rid of him when–"

"Chrom," Robin cut in, raising his hands in a calming gesture. "It's fine anyways. I got some help from Darren here while you were… preoccupied. So we're already finished with the plans."

Chrom sighed in relief as he realized that nothing had gone wrong because of his inability to attend his meeting with Robin. At least now he could worry about other things like…

"Hey Chrom! Where'd yah run off to?"

Vaike.

The trio watched as the blonde ran by the door, and Chrom once again sighed in relief as he ran past it without noticing him. But that relief rapidly faded when he saw a head peek in from the entrance. The blonde warrior grinned as he walked into the room, heading straight for our distraught prince.

"There you are!" He said happily, then after taking notice of the other people in the room, he added. "Robin? What're you doing here? And… uh…" trailing off as he couldn't remember the third person's name.

"Darren." Said boy replied.

Awkward silence filled the room as no one else spoke after that. But before things could become unbearable, Robin remembered he had been asked a question and was glad to answer it at the moment.

"Well Vaike, Darren and I were just finishing up on our plans for the tournament." Glancing over at Chrom for a moment he then added with a painfully obvious fake smile, "The same plans me and Chrom were supposed to make."

Chrom winced at the hidden venom found in his tactician's voice. "I thought you said it was fine." He reminded.

"And you said you finished it already right?" Vaike helpfully supplied. "That means me and Chrom here can finally get to our fight? I've been tryin' to all day you know?"

Happy to get out of what seemed like a dire situation with his tactician, Chrom whole-heartedly agreed to the fight. Who knows what Robin would do to him if he was unprotected, having somehow lost his wary retainer around the first few minutes of Vaike's chase.

"Sure, I don't see why no–"

Or at least he tried to.

"How about you fight me?" Darren interrupted, stepping into the conversation after being ignored for so long with a grin and a mischievous look in his eyes.

"Huh? Why can't I–"

"Because you'll be busy." Robin also cut in, having seen the look in Darren's eyes and wanted to take part in what was going to take part. Already he had thought of a suitable –yet playful– punishment for his leader's aloofness.

Finally catching on the prince's eyes widened as he fearfully stepped away from the pair. "Busy, with what?" He asked slowly. His fears were only confirmed when Robin, his ever helpful tactician and good friend, slowly grinned at him. That look when he came up with a plan before every battle thus far, clearly visible in his eyes.

"You'll be going over the plan."

Chrom blinked. "That's it?" Well, maybe it wasn't that bad after all. Maybe he was just over thinking it. There's no way Robin would do anything so devious to him.

If anything Robin's grin grew wider at the prince's comment.

"Then you are going to write about anything that could be changed, then you are to inform those who were picked for this mission, and then after you've done all of that. I want you to personally check on our supplies to make sure we have enough vulneraries and that our weapons are in good shape." With each consecutive 'then' Robin took a seemingly menacing step towards Chrom, resulting in another step back for the prince.

"And why do I, um, have to do any of this?" He tried in vain to get out of the situation.

"Because I'm the tactician."

"And if you don't we'll get Freddy to come after you." Darren added with a smirk.

Knowing that there was no possibility of him escaping his fate Chrom sighed resignedly, slouching over in a very un-royal-like manner. "Alright…" He muttered.

Darren and Robin shared a sidelong at each other for a moment, before simultaneously reaching up and high-five'd each other. From there Robin handed Chrom a few papers that were previously inside one of the many pockets in his robe.

"Here you go."

Once Chrom had exited the room Darren turned to his white haired partner in crime, a single eyebrow raised in amusement.

"Didn't you just give him one of the the first drafts?"

"Yup."

The so-called 'first draft' was one of the many early plans Robin had made shortly after Darren arrived. Each draft consisted of one team, their preferred positioning on the battlefield, and the kind of playstyle they were going to use; from aggressive to defensive, or to split up into multiple groups in order to cover more ground, or to move as one and pick more isolated targets. Of course they had already made their final copy by the time Chrom had arrived, having gone through many of the drafts and fixing up the one that was the most promising.

Suffice to say, but Robin works fast.

"Heh, well it was a little harsh for my tastes, but nonetheless well played." Darren admitted with a small chuckle.

"Well you were the one who started it in the first place." Robin shot back, before looking at the remaining person who had yet speak since he arrived. "Besides, don't you have a fight to begin?"

Looking at the forgotten member of their group, Darren's face visibly switched from being playful to a more confident look, but still retained a small, playful grin.

"True. How about we get right to it, right Vaike?"

Snapping out of a daze visibly, Vaike looked over the boy, sizing him up. Sniffing, it was clear he did not like what he saw.

"Hopefully you'll put up a fight or at least long enough for me to get a workout." He boasted confidently.

An eyebrow twitched as a nerve was struck. And even as his grin became obviously strained, Darren reached out with a hand.

"Wanna bet?"

A little more interested in the matter, Vaike leaned in a bit.

"How much?"

"Fifty."

"Fifty huh? It's a bet."

And so the two shook hands, never letting their smiles down even as both began laying down pressure on the others hand. Small arcs of lightning even seemed to make an appearance as the two stared off.

Oh yes, it was on.

AN: I lost it! The most beautiful –and not to mention very distracting– butterfly I have ever seen in my life! Ahh what a tragedy. Oh well, here's the new chapter.

I actually wanted to add the next scene to this chapter as well, but I'm trying to keep chapter lengths more or less the same. But that doesn't mean I won't try making longer chapters in general, it's just so… hard to. I just find it hard to make good descriptions.

Y'know, I'm actually currently writing a FE one-shot that I recently came up with. It will hopefully reach 10k or more words once I finish, since it would be covering a lot of the storyline, but not enough that there would be nothing left to explore. So if you eventually see it (I say eventually 'cause you should know now how easily I get distracted.) give it a review on how it was; if you liked it, why you didn't, stuff like that. 'Cause I might want to eventually make it its own story alongside TOW later on.

Well anyways, thanks for reading, leave a review if you want, and if anything, I want some criticism on how this story is looking so far. So I can try to explain it or fix said problems in the previous chapters and know what to watch out for in later chapters. So feel free to do so.