Author's Notes: Well, only chapter 4 and I am already off my posting schedule significantly. My excuse is that I have been extremely busy this last month with my co-op work term coming to an end. Between the full work week, my co-op reports that need to be done, and me putting in extra time to hopefully make sure I get a letter of recommendation out of it, my writing time got cut a fair bit. It also didn't help that I had to push my origional chapter 4 back a chapter and fit this in here to fill a time hole I had accidentally created so I had to go over this chapter a few times to make it so that I didn't feel it was just shoehorned in.
A bit of a result though is that I am not sure how well this has been proofed, I believe I managed to catch most of the errors, but I am also sure that I will quickly have a good number pointed out to me/stumble on them myself the moment I post this up. Also the chapter size has gotten slightly larger again. I think 3,500-4,500 word chapters are going to be the norm from here on out.
As always hope you guys read it and feel free to point out any errors. Replies to reviews will be at the bottom this time.
Disclaimer: Still don't own Fire Emblem, wish I did so they would all get official English translations.
Chapter 4: Tagging Along
The first thing I thought to myself when I woke up was something along the lines of 'Thank god I was still young enough to avoid hangovers.' My second thought was a confused; 'Why do I feel heavier…?' When I cracked open my eyes I quickly figured out where the extra weight was coming from, and it made my face burn like I had gotten hit by another fireball.
Sometime during the night Amelia had detached herself from my arm and half rolled onto my chest. It took me more than a few seconds of furious mental backtracking to remember why I was in this position in the first place, and I wasn't even sure I remembered all of it. I took solace in the fact that our clothes were still on, and that no one else was awake yet. With extreme care I attempted to extract myself from the situation, and failed miserably. With only the slightest stir to warn me, Amelia's eyes opened, and she quickly went as red as I was.
"I think, if we just stay quiet, we might be able to get out of this without anyone being the wiser," I whispered.
"Too late," A rough voice came from the door, and we saw Gilliam standing there with a rather exasperated look on his face. At the sergeant's words, Amelia and I leapt to our feet, going redder still.
Then the rest of the squad was rudely woken up by the sound of Gilliam slamming the haft of his spear against his armour, and Amelia and I's embarrassment was temporarily forgotten as we laughed at Aran leaping out of bed and faceplanting on the floor. A mutter of "Ugh my head," came from the hungover soldier.
Edward on the otherhand was up and ready to go, which surprised me a bit. Frankly I was certain he would have had the worst hangover out of any of us. Leonardo, who should have been the most active out of any of us, groaned and rubbed his eyes, rolling out of bed. My guess was the only sober one among us hadn't been able to get any sleep thanks our antics.
Koel and Nephenee's reactions were rather odd though. Despite the pair having woken up in separate beds, they still blushed as heavily as Amelia and I had. The game of avoiding eye-contact that resulted between them became acutely uncomfortable. We took our armour and weaponry from the room, and stood in the corridor. Even there, there was awkwardness, chiefly between Amelia and I. Sadly the rest of the squad picked up on it, and while Leonardo and Aran didn't say anything, Edward decided to jump on it.
"So those what's up with you two?" He asked with a devilish grin that grew wider as Amelia began to stutter;
"W-w-we d-didn't do a-anything."
"Yooou sure? Cause you sound like your lying," Edward said, winking at Amelia as she started to stutter again.
Just as I was about to put a clamp over Amelia's mouth to keep her from giving the swordsman anymore wrong ideas, Leonardo cut in with an annoyed tone, "Drop it, Edward."
"Ohh come on just having some fun," The younger soldier said.
"Doesn't matter, I had enough of you having 'fun' last night."
As the two argued back and forth. I took the time to dress myself, putting on my armour and checking if my weapons had gotten dull. By the time we were all ready the other embarrassed pair came out in their full gear. I wondered how much of last night the two of them actually remembered, as it was I could only guess 'all of it', which made me wonder what happened when we had lost track of them.
"Soo….ho-" Edward started before Koel silenced him with a glare.
"Just stay quiet and no one gets their throats slit." The older man said.
"Shutting up now" Edward muttered as he backed off.
"I would prefer if everyone was in fighting shape, we have work to do." Gilliam said as he rejoined the group, "Apparently there is something wrong at the border, and the Prince wants to deal with it personally."
"So what's that got to do with us?" Edward asked.
"He requested we go with the Shepherds, apparently we made a good impression with them."
The rest of the conversation was rather drowned out in my mind because I was too busy internally cheering that we had managed to become plot important.
"Ok recruits, fall into formation!" Gilliam said as I zoned back into the conversation.
We all snapped to attention quite well, Amelia and I took up the rear of the small column we made as we marched through the halls of the barracks. I took the time to lean over and whisper to Amelia "So, how about we never talk about last night again?"
A bit of a blush came over her cheeks again as she replied "Agreed."
Shortly after that we reached the entrance of the barracks and were greeted with the sight of the Shepherds milling around in the courtyard infront of the building. Gilliam quickly pulled us to a halt infront of Chrom and threw a salute, which we all copied.
"7th Recruit Squad reporting my Lord," Our sergeant said with a salute.
"You're just in time Gilliam, also you can drop the formalities," The prince replied back.
"As you wish my Lord," Gilliam said, which elicited a small sigh from Chrom.
We barely got more than a moment before the prince turned around and shouted to the group milling around "Shepherds, move out."
"Wow, I didn't realize Ylisse was this big." I mumbled as we marched for our fifth day. Apparently we were making incredibly good progress though and would be arriving on the border shortly.
As it was the trip had been incredibly boring. The Shepherds had generally kept to themselves, and it really didn't help that we felt like we were the odd people out in this group. Which was completely true seeing as we were just some random squad of recruits brought along to help.
Still though I had expected them to be a bit friendlier. As it was Stahl and Lissa were the only two who really talked with us, and even then they rarely did so for long before they were called off to do something. Gilliam was significantly more popular than the rest of us though, possibly because unlike the rest of us he already knew a good number of the Shepherds from his years in the army.
The Exalt's Pegasus Knights on the other hand were significantly friendlier surprisingly enough, or well most of them were. Out of the four of them all but Phila were atleast approachable, though one of the girls, a rather young purple haired girl, apparently named Florina, more or less refused to talk to anyone other than Amelia or Nephenee. The other two girls were easier to talk to. The oldest one of them, Fiora, was rather protective of the youngest one, and her rather vicious gaze had driven Edward away from further attempts with Florina a good number of times this entire trip.
The third of the group, Farina, was the most approachable out of all of them in my opinion. The middle sister was rather crude yah but that wasn't really a downside as far as I was concerned. Whenever I managed to get free of Edward and Leonardo I found I was either spending most of the travel talking to her or Amelia. At the moment Amelia was chatting with Nephenee and Florina, while Edward and Leonardo were shouting at eachother about something I really didn't care about. Which left me walking aside Farina's pegasus.
"Shit is this ever getting boring," The dark purple haired girl said from atop her pegasus, "I hate having to walk places."
"That complaint would have some more weight if you were, you know, actually walking," I said, the long march was leaving me sorer and sorer every morning.
"Bah, details," The girl said with a dismissive wave, "Either way we've turned this trip from like two day's flight into the better part of a week's march."
"Ya well most of us don't have flying horses to let us move around."
"Maybe you footsloggers should get some, then I wouldn't have to be bitching at you about slowing us down."
"Can men even fly pegasi?" I asked, it was an honest question I had, since I don't think the games ever had a male pegasus knight but I couldn't remember if they had said why.
"Nah, pegasi can't stand men for some reason."
"Then why did you even suggest we get our own?"
"Cause I couldn't tell you were a man under that face plate and armour," The girl said, punctuating it with a tap to my back with the spear she was carrying, causing my armour to rattle.
"A small price to pay if it means I don't get a spear through the gut."
That conversation might have gone on a bit longer if it wasn't for Amelia arriving on my other side, the girl having evidently broken off talking with Florina.
"I still can't believe we are actually going to be fighting alongside the Shepherds," The blone girl said for what had to be the twentieth time since we left the capitol. The almost hero worship levels of glee in her voice was enough to still make me smile even if it had started to get old.
"Not much longer now I think," I replied, I certainly wasn't feeling anywhere near as eager as Amelia for the fight itself, because my initial happiness at being connected to the plot had been tempered by the relation that we were little more than a re-occurring squad of faceless mooks still, or at best some mauve shirts. Which meant our chances of survival hadn't really increased that much.
I could tell Amelia was about to say more and Farina was about to cut in, but they were both cut off by the message that we had arrived being passed down the line. Gilliam seemed to appear out of nowhere and barked, "Squad, halt."
We all stumbled to a stop and prepared our weapons. As Chrom and the Exalt walked off to, if I remember the game right, meet with the leader of Plegia. Which left us and the rest of the Shepherds to sit here and hope things went well, of course no one, especially not myself, thought this situation was actually going to come to a peaceful resolution.
The anticipation had to be the hardest part, as it always is. Very few things are worse than an actual fight, but then spending any amount of time thinking about how badly it could go is one of them. But it wasn't actually that long before Chrom and the Exalt returned, the prince shouting "To arms Shepherds, this is a rescue mission now. Gilliam, you and your troops follow us and guard backs."
"Yes my lord!" Everyone responded as we jumped to action. The Shepherds heading up the cliff in pursuit of their leader. While we followed behind, eventually they left us to guard the base of the mountain and make sure that no Plegians tried to swing in behind the Shepards.
After the initial rush of adrenaline wore off we all realized that we likely were not going to be doing much this battle. Most of the fighting would be happening up the hill, and I was fairly sure that we were just camped out on the bottom of the map right now.
The silence that hung in the air was rather stifling though, none of use liked having to wait to see how the battle would turn out. A conversation might have helped but in all honesty the rest of the squad, other than Koel, Gilliam, and myself, were pretty much stunned silent that we were actually 'fighting' with the Shepards. It was kind of funny looking at their faces. Though as I was nearly laughing at the slack jawed Edward and Amelia, I noticed it seemed to have gotten suddenly darker.
Which was when Koel and Gilliam both shouted at about the same time "Wyverns, above us."
All our heads snapped up at that point, just intime to see a trio of the dragon like creatures diving at us rapidly. We had barely five seconds before the trio reached us, and I got to say Leonardo pulled off a rather impressive snap shot that clipped one of the wyvern's riders in the shoulder. At the same time Gilliam shouted for us to scatter, the bulky knight moving surprisingly fast for all his armour.
We all complied with that order, none of us wanting to get squished underneath the giant lizards. We went so far as to bodily throw myself out of the way, landing in a clatter of armour and, on my end, causing my visor to snap down. I was still on the ground when the three wyverns landed with enough forces to make the ground shake, luckily enough for us the three were a bit stunned as well, both from the impact and at how their prey had managed to escape them.
We managed to get just enough time to push ourselves off the ground before the wyvern riders pulled themselves together and attacked. One of them going for Gilliam while the other two tried to keep us from interfering. Which they were rather good at doing with the advantage of height and having large, scaly, angry lizards on their side.
As it was having an angry mass of scales, claws and teeth, bearing down on you, with the added danger of a lance armed soldier riding on the back of it, was not an enjoyable experience. Even worse was that the massive bulk of the creature meant that it was near impossible to dodge fully around it, which left me with the options of either getting crushed by it, or hoping that stabbing it with my lance would drive it back. Deciding on the latter option I dodged a bite from the wyvern and drove my spear forward. With the size of the wyvern it was just about impossible to miss, and I managed to drive the tip of the spear into the creatures shoulder. It met a lot of resistance, the creature's scales acting like a set of armour. Still though the lance bit deep enough to cause the creature to rear back causing the wyvern riders lance to smash me across the side of the head and throwing me down to the ground again, instead of run through my gut like it was meant to.
My lance came with me though, along with a veritable fountain of blood from the wyvern. Throwing my arm up to keep blood out of my vision slits I saw from the corner of my eyes the wyvern and its rider recover and leap back up into the air, I wasn't sure why they hadn't gone in for the kill till I saw Aran and Amelia standing beside me with their lances at the ready.
"Thanks for the save," I said as I pushed myself back into a standing position, my head still ringing from the hit.
"Don't thank us yet, they are both still in fighting condition," Aran said as the wyvern rider looped around to dive on us, this time not giving us a chance to fight it on the ground. I was amazed the wyvern was still flying, seeing as its still bleeding wound was right near one of its wing joints. Not amazed enough to be distracted though, and in what had to be one of the dumbest things I could have done, when the wyvern passed overhead, trying to cut us apart with the creature's taloned legs, I stood my ground and stabbed upwards with my lance. One lance being ripped out of my hand and one hit to the head courtesy of the wyvern's tail later and I was flat on the ground.
Still though, the lance in its belly, along with another one at the base of its wing thanks to Aran, did manage to put the wyvern into a crash dive. The giant of a lizard shaking the earth when it landed with a loud 'thud' along with the crack of wood. If I hadn't been lying on the ground trying to sort out which way was up at the time I might have figured out that my lance had just shattered into a million pieces. Instead I started grabbing the ground around me, trying to find the weapon.
"Dammit where is it," I growled as I heard the sounds of fighting from where the wyvern had gone down.
"Screw it," I said after another few moments of searching and pushed myself off the ground while drawing my sword and pulling my shield off my back. Turning to the sound of fighting I saw Aran and Amelia both fighting the now de-mounted wyvern rider, who was being driven back by the two of them. As I watched the rider failed to pull back from blocking a stab from Amelia in time and with a clang of steel followed by a disturbingly loud squelch, the rider was run through the gut by Aran's lance.
Scanning the rest of the field I saw the rest of the squad fighting the other wyvern and rider, the lizard looking a bit worse for wear while the rider on its back had an arrow jutting out of his shoulder. I also saw Gilliam still dueling one on one with the last attacker. He was holding his own but between the teeth of the wyvern and the lance of its rider, he wasn't able to go on the offensive.
Deciding that Gilliam was the one who needed the most help I raised my sword and ran up on the wyvern. Luckily for me they were facing the opposite way from me so I managed to get right up behind them before the wyvern's tail whipped toward me, more likely just a natural movement then an attempt to kill me. Regardless though it was coming at me from the wrong direction to block with my shield so instead I slashed downward with my sword. I felt scales, flesh and bone all give way before my blade as I chopped a good third of the tail off in a single swing, eliciting a pained roar from the wyvern. The stump passing just inches infront of my helmet and sprayed me with another wash of blood.
"Gah fuck that hurts," I shouted as wyvern blood sprayed through the vision slits in my helmet and got into my eyes. The stuff felt like it was boiling and I recoiled in pain, forcing my visor up to I could try to wipe at my eyes with my sleeve. When I opened up my eyes again I immediately pulled my shield up, deflecting a strike from the wyvern's stumped tail that had been flying my way, the impact causing my teeth to shake.
On the other end of the wyvern, Gilliam was still dueling with the rider and mount, though the extra distraction I was providing managed to elevate some of the pressure on him. Either way the pair we were fighting was effectively keeping us both at bay, as every time I tried to move forward the tail came down again, striking from my left so that I could not chop at it with my sword without exposing myself.
The breakthrough came in the form of one of Leonardo's arrows, embedding itself in the rider's spine and causing him to go limp. Gilliam, now relieved of one of his attackers, managed to rapidly switch to the offensive and knocked the wyvern's head to the ground with the blunt end of his spear, before twirling it around and stabbing through the creature's skull, causing the whole lizard to tense up for a moment before going slack.
The lack of any other noises in the area lead me to believe the other wyvern and rider had been eliminated by the rest of the squad, and a quick scan of the area confirmed it, the beast lay dead from a multitude of wounds along with its rider.
Before any of us could say anything Gilliam shouted "Form back up, we don't know if there is more of them."
"Yes sir!" We all replied as we ran and formed up around our sergeant, though I was stopped by an armoured gauntlet, Gilliam staring at me for a moment before he added "And someone give Hans a vulnerary."
"What for?" I asked as Edward tossed me a vulnerary.
"You've got a concussion, and your head is bleeding. It won't fully fix the concussion but should help," The knight said before addressing everyone, "This attack does not change anything, we are going to stay here, everyone keep your eyes on the sky this time. I didn't expect they would have air cavalry but we won't make that mistake again."
Then a blinding bolt shot through the group of us and blew apart a tree, quickly followed by the sound of thunder.
"Or you know, as fun as cloud watching sounds, we can just beat up these guys," Koel said as a team of brutes and a mage stepped out of a thicket of trees.
The Plegian mage let loose another poorly aimed lightning bolt at us and instead hit the ground well infront of us, while the brutes took advantage of the disorienting thunderclap to cover the distance between our groups. I was quite thankful I had a sword at the moment as the axe users easily got to close to use a spear effectively.
It didn't take much to bash away a rather poor axe swing from one of the brutes with my shield I pushed off my back foot and ran my blade through his neck, a rather unpleasant splattering of blood followed my sword as I pulled the weapon back.
My quick takedown of the brute gave me a chance to repay Amelia for saving me earlier, striking out with the pommel of my sword and catching a brute that was winding up a swing on the girl in the side of the head, sending him sprawling. I'd be tempted to say that the Plegian army didn't even train most of its "soldiers" seeing as these guys telegraphed their attacks so badly they might as well have had neon signs telling me what they were going to do.
As it was though I had spent too much of my attention on that second brute, and it was only luck that a bolt of lightning meant for me instead passed right infront of my face.
"Leonardo can you please deal with that bastard," I shouted as a ruffian struck out at me with his sword, the attack deflecting off my shield with a clang. The lightly armoured Plegian dodged out of the way of my counter attack before he struck out again and again. I managed to block the next two strikes as well before I managed to get an opening, driving forward with my shield I threw his swing off and chopped my sword into his flank, sending him tumbling down in a pool of blood.
A third Plegian started to rush me before he took an arrow to the throat, causing me to turn and give Leonardo a glance as he shot another arrow into the brush line. Following the arrows trail I saw that our bowman finally take out the Plegian mage. Around me the rest of the Plegians were falling to our teamwork and their own incompetence.
It helped that there weren't really that many of them, and we had the advantage of a ranged combatant who could actually hit something. As I moved to take a swing at the soldier Amelia was fighting, the Plegian toppled over with a sword wound in his back. Koel standing there with a rather dour look on his face, a quick glance showed a good number of Plegians who had died in the same way.
That group though seemed to be the last of them as we spent the rest of the battle on our own with the carnage, which was less than pleasant. Luckily for us we didn't have to wait long before the Shepard's came back with Ricken and Maribelle in tow, and shortly after that we began the trek back to the capitol.
Response to reviews:
Void Songs: Hopefully this chapter doesn't ruin your expectations, and trust me when I say B-Team will be back on its own soon enough
Catoust: Ya Chapter 3 underwent a major change very late in its writing and as a result the ending got a bit messed up, hopefully I didn't make the same issues here even with the edits this chapter went through. Hopefully there won't be to much filler but its good once and a while to space out events.
Agothetiny: Sorry for the delay again, I will hopefully have more time now that I will be going back to university (1 to 5 hours of work a day instead of 8 hour of work a day) I will be able to get the post rate back ontrack.
Thanks for all the reviews, and hope I don't disappoint you guys again till finals season. ;)