World Of Revelations Part 6: Fort Jinya Part 1
Ephraim scratched his head, walking with his trusty spear at his side as he tried to think of what to do.
While the current King of Renais had always been on a quest to become a stronger and more capable military strategist, and more recently he was also making some time for learning diplomacy techniques from his sister… he had never really bothered to try to understand how to capture the heart of a lady.
Ephraim didn't see himself as a father…even when he had finally accepted the idea that he couldn't give his sister his clothes and make her king instead, he hadn't started to consider wanting to start a love relationship. He had focused on restoring Renais and helping his neighbor to the south, to protect all the people for whom Lyon had been willing to do almost anything.
He was very grateful that Duessel was the new emperor of Grado, the amount of pain in head that this avoided him was considerable.
The point was, in the midst of all that disaster (both human-made and natural) he hadn't had time to think about that kind of thing.
Yes, the lack of an heir could cause a crisis if something ever happened to him, but it's not like he wasn't the uncle of twins (apparently his bloodline was prone to doing that) so he hadn't felt the need to rush it.
And then there was the major problem: being the king in itself. It would be very difficult for him to find a partner that he was sure he could trust... Eirika was already lucky that she married her bodyguard.
The other solution would be to try it with one of the Magvel princesses. However, he didn't want to force Tana to marry him merely for political reasons, she didn't deserve that… that, and the obvious detail that Innes would take it upon himself to use him as a practice dummy for his target practice.
L'Arachel? She simply lived too far away to start and keep a relationship working, and she also was the apparent sole heir to Rausten's throne… He would basically be solving his country's succession crisis by causing another in the country whose sacred stone kept the demon king sealed now that the original Fire Emblem was gone.
And now that he had the demon king in mind, he remembered that Kiran had suggested he should grab the stone, put it inside a fairly sturdy compartment, and throw it to the bottom of the ocean... something about how that had been done to another demon king who had been sealed in a "rice cooker" (the idea of more than one demon king was very unnerving if he was honest) so only people with very advanced submarine technology could find it.
Another idea was to wait until he had space travel technology and launch it deep into the cosmic void, hopefully getting sucked by a black hole.
The second option would require more time... but to tell the truth, the King of Renais now had to wonder why no one had tried the first one.
He realized that he was straying from the subject… which once again showed how little he actually knew about it... this explained why he hadn't tried to do much to woo that blue-haired princess who had given him the defeat of his life.
Thinking of that mark in her eye that made her stand out forced a smile into his mouth.
Well, there was another reason why he hadn't tried anything.
Ephraim was quick to react and recognize that the weapon wielded by that blue-haired beauty was identical to the one carried by his current rival in Askr, the Exalt Chrom.
During one of the few conversations he had had with Lucina during lunchtime, she explained that the Chrom was her father and that she came from the future.
After facing the apparent incarnation of evil and having been summoned, that idea was not strange at all so he didn't question it... heck, in theory, the heroes were summoned from multiple parts of the past, so in theory, he was a time traveler too.
And knowing that she was Chrom's daughter… made the situation rather awkward.
So he was in a difficult situation.
He wanted to woo the daughter of his current rival's future, who in turn was from a world totally different from his, which implied that if he wanted to take Lucina home with him, that would require taking her away from her original world and therefore she probably wouldn't be capable of seeing her family ever again…and all this while he wasn't sure how to woo a lady in the first place.
Even escaping from Valter seemed like a walk through the park by comparison...
However…
He would never enter into a battlefield that he wasn't sure if he could make his way through to reach victory… so he would have to be patient and decide if victory was possible in this kind of "warfare".
And speaking of battlefields.
Being in that canyon hadn't been an experience he would call pleasant, but the terrain was easily defendable.
This was not the case with these plains.
Hoshido was beautiful, he was no denying that, and certainly quite unlike anything he had seen before in his trips through Magvel but the plains were not the best place to have a battle.
At least the mountains were left behind and that prevented ambushes with archers.
"Boss, boss!"
Ephraim blinked a few times, finally noticing somebody was trying to get his attention.
He seriously was deep in thought if he had forgotten that Amelia and Shanna were walking with him… or rather, Amelia was walking and Shanna was riding.
"Sorry, sorry, was it that you need?" Ephraim looked at his apprentice.
The spearwoman Amelia looked at her weapon as she answered. "I wanted advice about what class should I go for now that my basic training is complete."
Shanna kept her classic smile. "Don't you want to try learning to fly a pegasus, Amelia? The feeling of riding through the sky is wonderful."
Amelia rubbed her chin as her face indicated she had doubts.
"I don't know… I mean, it sounds lighter than this somewhat heavy armor, but I feel that if I don't manage to adapt to it, I won't be able to consider myself a true warrior capable of overcoming my weakness. I was considering riding a horse… and yet I feel like I don't have a lot of affinity with animals."
Ephraim patted her on the shoulder. "Horsemanship is not as easy as it seems, one must use one's own legs more than what it seems necessary, and sometimes it requires gaining the trust of multiple horses, not to mention they are creatures that can be scared easily." That last detail was the reason he hadn't tried to ride again since he came to Askr.
It was already incredible that the horses of his old army did not constantly panic given the horrid monsters they had fought in Magvel.
Although perhaps he should improve himself a little more, in addition to his constant archery duels with Innes, the King of Renais wondered if he could have some talent with axes. Magic on the other hand... although he did consider it, apparently Eirika was the one who had obtained some talent in that type of combat.
Using her thumbs on the horse/pegasus rein grip to give commands to correct the walking of the animal, Shanna nodded as she thought of another idea. "A bicycle seems to be simpler to understand and control even if the current models are mere… what was the word they used to describe it?"
"I think they are simple prototypes." Ephraim just shrugged.
"Maybe... although I think they only give them to mages at the moment." Amelia sighed. "I think for now I'll try to continue gaining experience as spear infantry."
"Do you want to train with me then?" Shanna smiled at the soldier girl. "I also requiere some experience in ground fighting."
"It would be nice for you to gain experience on spear combat styles that are from outside of Magvel." Ephraim agreed.
"Thanks for the offer." Amelia smiled as she closed her eyes.
"You know, I wonder what Robin has planned to deal with our opponents." Shanna balled her hand into a fist and waved it excitedly at the prospect of battle.
Ephraim became more interested upon hearing about the upcoming matchup. "According to what I heard, we are now heading to take a fort that has the name of Jinya." Ephraim did not understand why, in recent days, he had been given a position in the new "council" of the order of heroes. Unlike other leaders, he had not brought an army from Magvel to think that he had power over a fraction of the growing army.
"We have to take it in order to have better ground control in these lands." The idea was to block the capital of Hoshido from all contact with the outside, so it was first necessary to take control of that place.
How this would be done was another detail… and it was something quite new.
He hoped that none of those who would be selected were afraid of heights.
This time, Cordelia had taken the responsibility of spying on the enemy from above using the already famous telescope.
In truth, she felt very nervous holding this thing since it was not exactly designed for observing while flying, the size made it difficult to hold correctly and a single mistake could cause it to plummet.
The fortress that she saw was a building with walls in the shape of a circle and a large tower in the center. As it should for any kind of fortress like that one, it had several vigilance towers… nothing out of the ordinary. The presence of archers was perfectly expected and the amount was not negligible at all. The defending infantry at the gates would make any attempt at a direct assault unsuccessful.
After making a mental report on everything she had seen, she simply flew back to the army… although somewhat annoyed, since this was about the seventh time that Robin had asked her to spy on the foe without really deciding to initiate the raid.
Corrin had desired to attempt to talk to the people of Hoshido first in case the occupation of the nation was the result of another manipulation... but the recent small battles with Emblian and Hoshidan forces had made him understand that would not be worthwhile.
However, he did not fully understand the current plan of his fellow strategist.
"Why are we sewing this much?" That would be a translation of his question according to Hinata.
Sure enough, several women of the order were making large amounts of "cloth".
Robin, for her part, really couldn't put it into words. She just rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Tell him that the only other person here who understands Miriel's complex vocabulary is not with us right now, the only thing I comprehended was something about neutralizing the speed at which we fall using the force of the wind." And it was precisely the wind that made her think of alternative plans in case this failed.
She had learned of this kind of strategy long ago.
Drawing was still not his forte, and the map of Europe on the table was downright pathetic and oversimplified to the point Italy looked like the top of a triangle.
There was not even a very good consistency between the different versions of the map that had been generated as it was required to draw new versions to continue explaining history since it was being done by drawing lines and other objects on them. All this to depict different moments in the history of the continent through the years.
Next to it were other very bad drawings of tanks, planes, ships, submachine guns, and almost every kind of weaponry a modern army had.
"After the disaster of trying to surround the Red Army, Hitler preferred not to risk it and decided to send the reserves of the army to Italy in order to stop the Allied advance through the area." Kiran's finger marked with a circle the area on the map that was "supposed" to look like Italy. "The red army saw this as an opportunity, the Soviets launched a brutal counter-offensive undoing all the progress made by Germany during the whole battle of Kursk. If the Battle of Stalingrad was a severe setback, this marked the end of the German possibility of launching a major offensive ever again.
Robin had been learning about history for at least four consecutive hours and from what she understood, they were barely halfway through the entire chronology of the so-called 20th century, the century of chaos. "And the allies managed to take over Italy?"
Kiran smirked in amusement. "Easy, the Italians are a bunch of useless in war, and another of the reasons why the decision was made to send the reserves to Italy was because the Italians themselves decided, after the bombardment of Rome the supposed holy city, to kill Mussolini and well… they changed sides or something like that, this part is not entirely clear to me."
That was something she frankly didn't expect.
"Hard setback for the Germans, the Italians have betrayed them… again." He laughed like a madman at that.
Robin was honestly about to laugh as well, history was repeating itself. "I feel a deja vu."
"Prepare to say again more times." Kiran laughed as he shook his head. "Just as they couldn't stop the Soviets, they also couldn't stop the allies in the battle of Montecasino... pretty hilarious considering they made their own defensive line called the line... uh, the Gustav line." Kiran laughed again at a silly coincidence and continued explaining. "Similar to the Maginot line, the idea was to stop or turn back the enemy advance but the allies managed to break it."
Robin rubbed her chin, and with a slight smile, she shook her head. "Sounds like revenge."
"And it gets better. Despite these victories, reaching Berlin would take at least another 4 years... so the Americans, the British, and the Canadians decided to open a new front." The miserable bastard smile he had on his face made Robin immediately figure it out.
"Please don't tell me they disembarked in France..."
"HAHAHAHA, indeed they did." Kiran continued to laugh a lot, placing his palm on his forehead.
"So even though the Germans dominated France this time so they didn't have a countdown to beat like during the first big war…they still couldn't stop the allies?" She would have thought that it would be more logical for the allies to convince Spain to let them disembark, but no… the history was certainly very ironic.
"Indeed, welcome to Operation Overlord." He then made a circle in an area on the north side of France. "Of course, it was not something easy to carry out, it was a project that required a great battle of deception intelligence. The allies made up two fictitious armies, one in the south of England and the other in Scotland, these simulated the typical activity of a campaign over the radio reporting false problems and talking about people who did not exist… all to convince the Germans that the landing would be elsewhere." He marked another area which he named Calais. "However, there was one factor that could destroy the entire plan and it was uncontrollable… the weather."
Among the factors that had been essential for that operation to succeed... the wind. The plan required that those using this new technology not be blown too far off course by the power of the atmosphere.
Unfortunately for Robin, the methods of being able to predict the weather in the way that the Terrans did was something far out of reach yet. Thermometers had already been invented, but things like barometers and anemometers of high accuracy were missing… things that Kiran himself admitted to not being completely sure how they functioned in the first place or how to measure with them in high scales.
And that level of scale just wasn't something she could tip in her favor.
And indeed, she had a miserable misfortune in this case. the Hoshidan wind had been quite significant, in the few tests that Miriel had done with Sumia's help, Raigh had a hard time landing in the correct place.
And then, on top of that, there was another factor that she truly wanted to have for the next operation, something that would prevent her plan from being discovered too quickly.
Kiran had once said that she would love to see her dressed as "Sailor Moon"... and although she couldn't truly punish someone in the name of the moon... she genuinely hoped that luck would bring the moon and the wind into acceptable conditions soon.
Although at least the time of waiting had served to sew and check the material before using it.
When you are a night guard in a tower, the most common thing is to constantly look towards the horizon, looking of a possible enemy to "call" the alarm as soon as possible.
And today was one of those days that was considered riskier given the lack of moonlight.
That's why the torches were constantly being fed to maintain even minimally decent visibility.
The "mistake" that would cost these guards their lives is that they rarely looked up at the sky above their heads.
While Wyvverns and Pegasi could come from above, they always used to do so from a not-very-high altitude… so none of them noticed the small flying force above them beyond what would be anticipated.
Camilla gave her adoptive brother a few small pats to encourage him and she also performed a hand ritual to "bless" him in this task.
Corrin swallowed hard at how high up they were… and then he let himself fall into the air.
Very close to him, many others were in full free fall as well.
Kaze, Gaius, and Matthew were the most important members of the operation given their abilities, plus the other ninjas accompanying them, but even Raigh and Ephraim found themselves falling... plus Shanna, who for some reason insisted she wanted to experience this.
Even without a very strong wind blowing from north, south, or any other direction the king of Valla commenced comprehending what Miriel meant by: air resistance.
And so they let the canopy be free.
It immediately moved up and began to unfold.
The change in speed was somewhat abrupt, but Corrin made sure to hold on strongly to the strings as he had been told to.
And then everything went…slow.
He couldn't see it due to the darkness of the night, but his companions had, almost all of them, the same expression of astonishment and relief at feeling how this worked without problems.
The problem is that these people had decided to activate the parachute waaaay before what was truthfully necessary... nothing strange if one took into account that it was their first time doing this, but...
The descent soon became somewhat boring.
On the positive side, the few that had wind magic of their own used it to correct their direction if they felt they were moving away from light sources that could be seen on the towers.
Corrin made his best to ensure he was close to Kaze, so when they both landed on top of the watchtower they both looked at each other for a moment before nodding and slowly beginning to descend a bit more.
Two soldiers were on duty at that time, one of them looking at the horizon while the other took a little break by sitting and counting the money he had received thinking about what kind of toy he could buy for his daughter. When Corrin and Kaze used gymnastic-like techniques to enter the tower through the "windows", this soldier was the first to react, but Kaze was fast and cut his throat with his knife, silencing him with his other hand.
The remaining soldier barely turned around to witness Corrin's sword piercing through his skull.
Once they went inside the tower through the internal stairs it didn't take too long to find enemy archers who would spring into action as soon as they received an order… who were quickly annihilated by the king and the ninja.
In the other watchtowers, something quite similar was happening.
Shanna impaled an enemy soldier through the neck.
As much as she was a little unsettled at having to use a method like this, it was necessary if she didn't want to allow one of them to shout too loudly or simply blow the horn to warn of an attack.
The longer it took them to realize what was happening, the more disorganized the enemy line of defense would be.
Raigh silenced one of his opponents with his dark magic.
Regarding the magician, the only thing he appreciated was that on this occasion he was not asked to attack after midnight, which would already be horrible for his sleep cycle.
"Don't go too far." He ordered to the pegasus knight.
"Okay!"
"And don't talk too loud either." Raigh growled slightly upon hearing her response.
Shanna covered her mouth with both hands and giggled in embarrassment.
Raigh shook his head in frustration.
Women.
Even so, what bothered him the most was the fact that he could not extract any quintessence from these corpses given the little privacy he had at the moment.
Ever since the black mage had heard from his "father" how Nergal had used morphs as soldiers, they had both discussed the possibility of doing it themselves... even if one of the two halves of Kiran's personality had refused to cooperate with the idea.
However, given how little they knew about how to create a morph, it had made them reconsider that the idea was not viable in the near future...
Even so, the experiment with the flies had given promising results and after testing with more bandit prisoners how much quintessence could be inserted into a human before causing a death by overdose (which turned out to be not dissimilar to water, with 4 liters of quintessence being the cap before internal damage began, albeit with different replacement times) Raigh had not hesitated to add more of said substance to his internal reserves.
The young black mage calculated that his current lifespan should be at least 3.5 times that of a normal human.
The lack of "fusion memories" was an indicator that if you wanted to use quintessence you should extract it when it was still fresh... hence his current frustration.
Now the hard part would be convincing his mother and brother to use it too... which he couldn't do if he didn't get it in the first place.
As for the King of Renais, inside another watchtower, he was really impressed with this kind of strategy… maybe he should try to learn more about the more "modern" style of warfare.
Similar feelings were held by the pair of cousins from the Jugdral continent. Seliph and Leif watched each other's backs while silently killing the guards.
Robin had the telescope "glued" to her eye, looking directly towards the fortress and analyzing the progress of the operation.
After learning a little about the style of strategies of the allies on what is known as D-Day, she decided to put the concept of the paratroopers into practice.
The darkness of the night certainly did not allow her to observe, at first, more than black shapes falling slowly on the towers, but it did not take long for the Grand Master of Ylisse to notice that many of the shadows that were the guards on the towers were no longer there.
So far the results were not disappointing.
Exploring all the possibilities that new technology allowed seemed like a good idea.
Now, if only the dynamite could be stabilized...
She waited...
She waited...
And she waited...
…
…
…
And then she finally saw what she had been waiting for.
The gates of the fort opening.
it seemed surreal how this could be happening...
But with advantages as great and unknown to the enemy as these, Robin understood better why Kiran refused to admit that he was a better tactician than she...declaring himself a cheater.
Perhaps she should train him more at the same time that she learned more about how to use technology to innovate.
Robin turned her right hand into a fist as a smile appeared on her face.
It was time to win!
I really wanted to finish this first part before Engage was released... or well... officially, apparently UK stores already sold someone a few copies and the content is leaking,
I'm going to have to avoid Facebook and Twitter to avoid spoilers.
I don't expect great things from the story, or at least I don't hope for anything comparable to Three Houses (and honestly I think it's for the best, that game divided the fandom reeeeeally hard), but the gameplay looks good and the intro song, well, it is not very common one for a Fire Emblem game but I still like it. I'll have to complete the game (happy to say it will arrive to me on the same day of release) and make the decision if the continent of Elyos will also be considered as existing in this fic (I mean, I already feel like there are too many continents to realistically be possible for all of them being on the same planet). The characters from what I've seen in Heroes, seem funny so far, so a small positive point.
Something certain is that I can't wait to see all the chaos that will happen the day Alear enters Smash XD. The tears of Smash fans were and will continue to be delicious.
If you want to know, I don't consider Alear's design inherently bad, I just think that what really makes them look "ugly" is the lack of symmetry, I modified my PNGtuber to have the same dual blue and red design in the hair but with actual symmetry and people have complimented it... I also got lucky and got Alear in Fire Emblem Heroes!
Although the apparent color implications they have is something I'd like to take inspiration from. I don't know if I ever said this, but while Kiran is primarily an expy of Robin, he must also have things in common with all the other avatars as tribute. As for Shez it was a bit of luck the whole thing about wielding two swords and liking the idea of facing a copy of themselves, and my original concept for Mark and Kiran was more like how Sothis and Byleth interact.
I wrote Amelia's scene having her possible promotions in Sacred Stones in mind, so I tried to do some research on horsemanship... which I feel I should have done in the chapter where Nino receives riding lessons.
Regarding Sacred Stones, you may be interested in trying two hackroms: The first one is called The Sacred Trilogy, basically an improved version of the base game with improved sprites, a more useful interface (with visible life bars on the map to better visualize which units are in danger), 3 possible promotions for each normal unit and an alternative promotion for Ephraim and Eirika. In Ephraim's case, he becomes able to wield the entire weapon triangle (while his normal horse promotion gains the ability to use bows (probably a reference to Tana's support with him where he mentions that Innes challenged him to an archery duel)) and Eirika the ability to use anima and black magic (Heroes reference I guess) which I really liked since she's pretty much a red mage from Final Fantasy... the only bad thing is her husband Seth is no longer the god he used to be for balance reasons lol.
The other one is called Sacred Echoes, a demake of Fire Emblem Echoes using the Sacred Stones rom, in theory it is already completed. I tested the beta and it looked pretty well done.
I was very happy to see that the Journey Through Pressure fic received a new update. I too find myself in strong WWII humor (blame it on me buying a Steam copy of Call Of Duty World At War), hence I decided to use a few pieces of wisdom from recorded history on Operation Overlord strategies (Day D) for this chapter (and I plan to keep adding parallels, I already basically wrote Nifl as a mixture of France and the Soviet Union)
Regarding how the story of the war between Askr and Embla ended in canon... don't expect any of that here at all XD. Especially since the role I have for Embla and Askr (the two characters themselves) is quite different (in particular, some may remember that Embla has been described as the goddess of art) and well, Embla… is the "mother" of a certain person.
I also saw a review of somebody complaining about more grammar errors... and honestly I'm surprised I still let shit pass the radar even though I do read everything as I'm translating it... so I've been going back to correct more stuff. It works for me though, since it allows me to read the whole thing again to ensure I don't write a plot-hole... and realize if I've forgotten about a certain thing (like Fae, who I guess I can excuse her abscence as makanete levels of sleeping... man, I feel like Dragon Ball Super's writers trying to get Majin Buu out of the story the laziest way as possible... lol)
I watched Dr. Stone, if you want something even more focused on a guy trying to replicate modern science in a low-tech world, that's your option!
As a bonus, I want to show you what Kiran Mark would look like if he were ever transformed into an Emblem (ie a "ghost clone" like the ones in Engage).
Alear: So... there's something I don't understand.
Kiran Mark: Of all the Emblems I'm probably the one who holds more knowledge, so ask away or forever hold your peace.
Alear: Why do you phrase it like that?
Kiran Mark: You call our skill Engaging and I'm in a literal ring, a ring which is a copy that the "original" used as his engagement ring to his dear wife, if you're going to leave things that easy for me to make jokes don't expect me not to take the opportunity when I see it, Pepsi.
Alear: I see… so… Lucina told me that time travel is possible… but she said that doing so would create new timelines… but your power doesn't seem to make any sense to either she or me.
Kiran Mark: Lucina's experiences with time travel don't take into account the fact different timelines could interact in a circular way. I'm the Emblem of the Time Loops. My time travel is designed to do not interact with other timelines, it's different. You could even call me the Hero Of Time if we consider what my powers do.
Alear: But… how?...
Kiran Mark: I create a passage, a path, a Gate, through time inside a single timeline. Time is not something absolute, it's relative to the observer and it's affected by space. My powers are pretty much like having two wormholes and using time dilatation in one of them.
Alear: … it worries me that whenever I summon myself and then I go back in time to help… myself, I sometimes try to do something different yet it seems I cannot do anything but what I was destined to do in the past.
Kiran Mark: Lucina may think she can change fate, but as I said time loops are something that may happen even due to the interaction of two timelines. You cannot do something different because you simply can't.
Alear: But that makes it seem I'm just like a puppet following a script…
Kiran Mark: Do you realize you're complaining about being a puppet to the literal "AI" clone of a being who, as far as we know, is long gone and said clone cannot really do more than serve you?
Alear: Oh! Oh! I… I… I'm sorry…
Kiran Mark: It's fine. As a perfect copy of the "original", and it's thanks to that specific factor, I don't care I'm a copy. At least I had more luck than other Emblems who weren't designed to do not care about their situation.
Alear: …I'm still not sure what my mother was thinking when she made you all…
Kiran Mark: She probably wasn't even thinking, but returning to the subject: If the events could differ from what you see your future self doing, it would violate the Novikov self-consistency principle: only self-consistent trips back in time, of the inside a single timeline kind, are permitted. "One often meets his destiny on the road one takes to avoid it."
Alear: But I want to do something different!
Kiran Mark: Oh, is that so? Well, what happens if by doing so you cause the death of your past self?
Alear: …
Kiran Mark: Due to it being time travel inside a single timeline, that event would contradict the fact your past self is supposed to go back in time to become your current self. The consequences of that kind of possibility are unknown. In the best scenario you, and by that I mean both versions of you, would be erased from the existence and so would I, because paradoxical items aren't meant to exist… in the worst one, the reality itself could be destroyed.
Alear: But… but… but…
Kiran Mark: But what?
Alear: But where is my free will…
Kiran Mark: When has it ever been demonstrated that anybody has "free will"?
Alear: …
Kiran Mark: Think about this, so long as you can keep summoning yourself from the future that means you are undefeatable during the whole process your future and past selves are in the same moment of time… now, if you suddenly are unable to summon yourself… well, it's time to dread.
Although I used the clips they have shared on Twitter as a base, in which the hero asks something and the Emblem gives a bigger speech as answer, I wrote an entire full support because I felt like it lol.
Honestly, the concept of the Emblems seems a bit creepier than summoning heroes in itself (which already can fall on conscripting, something a videogame called Summon Night Swordcraft Story 2 uses as a plot point)... like, really? creating a copy of a person just to serve you? I would get it if they volunteered for that but even Arthur 97 pointed out the problem with this concept in his Awakening One Shot Collection (chapter Emblem Thoughts). Heck, wasn't there a comic about Heroes that depicted the summoning as doing that? with a creepy ending of a Robin being killed after discovering this fact?
Anyway...
The ring in theory sounds similar to Lyn's one, but with the difference that the "time clone" can do different stuff from the "main" one, it can attack other units and go do whatever else you want them to do.
Basically, it would work like this: using its power would give you a copy of your unit for three turns, and after that, the "original" unit leaves into the past (meaning the unit you get to keep is the "time clone"). When using the engage transformation, you get 4 clones instead. The weapon the Emblem Ring gives you is the Master Sword and the secret art is: Ending Blow (Effective against "broken" units, dealing 2 times the normal damage)
However, it's balanced by the fact you cannot make them exchange items with other people and you also must protect both units because if you lose the original one you cause a TIME PARADOX! (Sorry, Metal Gear Solid 3 reference lol) and you lose both the ring and the unit… but if the future one dies, then you get to keep the ring (you still lose the unit, since the original one must go back in time to die just like their future self). In the case of using the Engage transformation, the units would have a number to let you know who is the "most past" version and who is the "most future" one. (With 4 being future, 1 being past)
I think some of you may remember Kiran Mark has a copy of Goku Black's ring (which, fittingly, it's called the Time Ring), so Emblem Kiran Mark's ring would be another one just like that (I know Goku Black says in the anime that the ring gives him acausality, aka the impossibility of being erased due to paradoxes, but that's just a bunch of bullshit to me).
The mention of the Hero Of Time is because in Ocarina Of Time you can time travel with the Master Sword, but unlike the one that happens at the end of the game which creates the new timeline, the Master Sword allows time travel inside a single timeline: it's similar to how in Oracle Of Ages all the time travel is done with an artifact that generates stable time loops (which explains how the Song Of The Storms exists).
Basically, to wield this ring you must, as Doc Brown would say, be capable of thinking fourth dimensionally.
Only heroes with high intelligence could do that… which suits it very well since this ring holds the Emblem of the smartest hero.
I'm gonna explain it again in case there are some people confused. In Zelda there are three types of time travel:
Universal "Wormhole" Time Travel, Multiverse Timeline Time Travel, and Divine Pulse Like Time Travel.
Universal Wormhole time travel gets its name because it works similar to how a possible time machine with wormholes would work: by creating a wormhole and causing time dilatation to one side, they would stop being "in the same time" from the perspective of an outsider but from inside the wormhole the clock would remain the same (which again, works with the idea that time is not absolute, it's relative).
Say you have a wormhole with both sides in 2020, January 17 at 2:00 pm, but then you use the time dilatation thing. You can get a situation in which one side of the wormhole is connected to January 17, 2027, 2:00 pm… while the other is on January 17, 2034, 2:00 pm. If you spend time in the past and suddenly the hour says 4:00 pm, the moment you go back to the future your time of arrival will be January 17, 2034, 4:00 pm. More or less that's how the Master Sword's time travel works in Ocarina Of Time. You can never go further back in time than the original creation of the path through time with this type though.
Multiverse Timelines Time Travel does allow you to go further back than what you should be able to, but to avoid paradoxes this time travel instead sends you to the past in a different parallel timeline.
This is what happens at the end of Ocarina Of Time and that's how time "splits". This also could explain how the Hero's Shade and the Hero Of Twilight could appear together even though Links are reincarnations: due to Link being sent back in time to a point in which he had not even started his adventure in the first place… there's another Link at the Kokiri Forest who exists at the same time the one who just arrived from the future (similar to how Lucina from the future is a different person from the one that was born in the present) so in the second timeline there are two spirits of the hero… while the future timeline no longer has one, explaining why there wasn't a Link to fight Ganon when he eventually returned.
Wind Waker's Link is described by the King Of Hyrule as not having anything to do with the Hero Of Time… and it's true. Unlike Twilight Princess Link, who is recognized as the chosen hero immediately, Wind Waker Link MUST prove to the gods that he's worthy of wielding Master Sword… because he does not have the original spirit of the hero.
Only after completing his journey, his soul is considered worthy as a replacement spirit.
Majora's Mask version of time travel works more like Divine Pulse in canon. If time was a sentence with words, you'd be writing something… before changing your mind, erasing part of that sentence, and then rewriting the rest… therefore, this would be the only type of time travel that could actually change the future.
So the Emblem Ring of Time's powers would use the first type, while Naga's power during Awakening used the second one (same with Askr's gates). Sothis's power in canon uses the third type… but honestly the third type not only is broken as fuck but it also does not have some basis in theoretical physics so I'm changing Divine Pulse for my story. To what exactly? that's something you'll see later.
This more or less fits with what Kiran said to Robin about free will back then when he was telling the story of his past: Infinite timelines mean every single possibility must exist, so maybe instead of time splitting due to our decisions, there are infinite versions of ourselves each one with their own destiny to fulfill, even the destinies that are mean to interconnect at some point.
At the end of the day the concept of free will in fiction is bullshit from a meta-perspective though, the writer controls everything.
A shame there's not a fourth type of time travel though, it would be fitting given how time is the fourth dimension.
If you are still having trouble understanding Wormhole time travel, search for this video on youtube: Time Travel with Wormholes Explained, by The ScienceVerse.
