I do not own Fire Emblem Awakening or any of its characters.
Gateway
Corbin flipped off of his back, landing on his feet only for the point of Lucina's blade to drill into his chest. He sailed backward, slamming into a tree, and groaned as Anna healed him. It had been weeks of training every day, but Corbin was only barely making progress, meanwhile, despite Lucina claiming to not hold back, the more they trained, the harder she hit him and the faster her attacks seemed to come at him. Robin joined the training sessions every few days, and Anna, Lissa, Maribelle, and Phila, who could apparently also use magic staves, alternated who'd be spending the entire day healing Corbin.
Corbin pushed himself up, took a breath and charged back into training. The day passed much the same as every other, with Corbin failing miserably to challenge Lucina and Anna having to heal the minor injuries and cracks in his bones caused by the training swords over and over. However, like every other day, Corbin refused to stay down no matter how many times Lucina took him down. Finally, they stopped for the day and Anna took her leave.
"I'm sorry, I'm not progressing," Corbin sighed.
"It's going to take time," Lucina said. "You're progressing faster than most people. It's only been a few weeks."
Corbin nodded, then reached into the bag he'd brought his and Lucina's lunch in, pulling out a replica of the mask Lucina had worn when they first met. She blinked in surprise as he offered it to her.
"You bought me a new mask?" Lucina asked, accepting it.
"It's metal this time, so it won't break, but I know the reason you had it was to hide that mark in your left eye, so I figured you'd appreciate having it back," Corbin said, glancing at the mark, the same as Chrom had on his shoulder.
Lucina nodded, pulling the mask on but leaving her hair down. "Thank you."
Corbin nodded. "You're welcome. I'll see you tomorrow."
Lucina nodded, and Corbin walked away.
Corbin narrowed his eyes slightly, then lunged, only to deflect Lucina's blade. He moved to strike back, but she spun out of the way, deflecting his blade and drilling a strike into his back. He staggered forward, then spun, knocking a stab away and striking back at her again, only for her to once again parry and counter successfully. They continued in this way for several more hours before stopping to rest for lunch, Robin and Anna joining them, Anna having been training Robin in between rounds of healing Corbin.
It had been months, and while Corbin was getting better, it wasn't enough, and it was grating on his nerves that it wasn't a faster process. However, even after months, Lucina assured him that he was making good progress, so he kept his mouth shut about it and instead continued to stubbornly challenge her again and again.
Lucina grunted in pain as Corbin's sword slammed into her side, sending her stumbling away. Corbin blinked in surprise, eyes dropping to his sword, then back up at Lucina. For a moment, she regarded him in silence, then nodded, a ghost of a smile playing at her lips.
"Well done," Lucina nodded. "Again."
Corbin nodded, returning to his ready stance, then moved to meet her lunge. They traded blows rapidly, both parrying and countering repeatedly. Despite his earlier success, she rapidly beat him black and blue, but unlike when they'd started, this time, he was able to score several strikes against her as well. It wasn't much, and she was still vastly better than him, but it was proof that the eleven months they'd been training together hadn't been wasted. Finally, Lucina lowered her sword and Corbin did the same, allowing Lissa to walk over and heal them both.
"Better," Lucina nodded, watching Lissa walk away before continuing. "We have just over another year before the next issue arises. You should be more than ready by then."
Corbin nodded, looking up at the darkening sky. "You can't tell me what it is, can you?"
Lucina shook her head. "If I reveal too much, it could make things worse than they already are."
Corbin nodded just as a huge, brilliant, blue light shot into the air to the south. He frowned, looking to Lucina, whose eyes were wide with surprise. "What was that?"
Lucina shook her head. "I don't know."
"Should we go check it out?" Corbin asked.
Lucina considered for a moment before nodding. They mounted their horses, along with Lissa, and quickly spurred their horses south, toward the light. Within minutes, Robin and Anna caught up to them, sharing a horse. Corbin glanced over at them, catching Robin finishing adjusting her shirt, and grinned. Robin grinned back, nodding subtly. After a year of flirting back and forth, she and Anna had finally gotten around to realizing both of them were being serious.
"And Phila."
Corbin's mouth fell open as he stared at Robin, his mind taking so long to process her words that when his horse jumped over a log, he fell off. "Ow. How?"
"We invited her out for drinks when Chrom and Cordelia ordered her to take time off," Anna explained while Corbin clambered back onto his horse. When we started to make out at the tavern, she made a snarky comment about feeling left out, but then when we offered to let her join in she actually considered it, so we included her."
"We would have thought it was just the alcohol and a one-time thing, except that in the morning, once everyone was sober, it happened again, and then she's been staying with us whenever she's off since then," Robin added.
Corbin shook his head. "You two are just...ridiculous."
Robin grinned, and the next several hours of the trip were spent discussing Lissa's shock that Phila was attracted to women, the shocking revelation that Phila and Emmeryn had been together prior to Emmeryn's death, and then discussions about who among their friends they were expecting to get together. Recently, Ricken and Maribelle had been inseparable, so that relationship was a given, even if both were dragging their feet to take the next step, Lissa revealed she and Vaike were engaged, Sully and Kellam had been spending a lot of time together, Sumia had been asking Lissa and Robin for advice about Frederick, who was completely oblivious, Donnel and Olivia were seeing each other, Nowi was chasing Gaius around against his will at all times, and Tharja was completely obsessed with Robin for reasons unknown, though she scared Robin, so Robin had been avoiding her. Probably the biggest shock, however, was that Lon'qu, who was petrified of women and who couldn't be inside of ten feet of any female without having a panic attack, had married Panne, who had been giving him a type of tea she drank at night to block nightmares, allowing him to get used to her presence and be around her long enough to fall in love with her.
Finally, they reached a beach, seeing an island in the distance that was glowing the same shade of blue as the light they'd seen earlier. They all piled into a small sailboat and pushed off, crossing the water quickly, then ran inland until they found the source of the light. A massive, stone gate, easily fifty feet high and twenty feet wide, stood in the center of an enormous, glowing, blue, spell circle. Aside from the intricate, intersecting and overlapping circles, characters from a written language Corbin didn't recognize shone in a circle on the ground around the gate, and as they watched, the intersecting circles began to rise and spiral around the gate, passing all the way around it without touching it and passing through the ground harmlessly. And there, standing before the gate and just outside of the spell circle, stood the Risen Corbin. He turned, grinning horribly at them, then turned back to the gate just as the stone doors began to grind open.
Light began to spill through, shining so bright that it was hard to look at. Then, out of the light stumbled creatures. Humanoid creatures with burlap sacks over their heads and glowing eyes shining from small holes in the bags, a loin cloth, rotting flesh, and six inch claws. First there was one, then three, then five, then ten, then over a dozen. Corbin narrowed his eyes, shaking his head.
"What are those?" Corbin asked.
"Risen," Lucina answered. "Very powerful Risen that shouldn't exist in this time. That massive doorway...it's an Outrealm Gate."
"A what?" Lissa asked.
"A portal through time and space," Lucina said. "The point is, it needs to be closed, and those things have to die!"
"Got it," Robin nodded. "Then let's go!"
They all charged, drawing their weapons, and rapidly tore into the creatures. They didn't seem particularly fast, but they were strong. The first swipe Corbin tried to block knocked his sword out of his hand and left several gashes across his chest. Lissa healed Corbin instantly as he blasted the creature with a lightning bolt, but once it had stopped bouncing backward, it began to rise again.
He snatched up his sword as another of the Risen staggered over to fight him. He ducked aside from a swipe and slashed it across the chest, but it merely let out a gurgling, clicking groan and swiped with the other hand. Again he avoided it, slashing the creature across the side and back, but it turned, backhanding him and hurling him backward. He rolled backward to his feet as it charged after him, the thing actually breaking into a horrifying sprint. It leapt forward to tackle him, and he dropped into a crouch, slashing over himself and splitting it from the left shoulder to the groin, and it turned to dust.
He glanced around desperately, and saw both Robin and Lucina were having better luck. Robin was keeping her Levin Sword covered in a constant layer of lightning using it to deal extra damage when she slashed the Risen, and was using lightning spears to stun or kill further targets, aiming for the head. Lucina, on the other hand, was hacking off limbs, then targeting vital points like the heart or head. As he spotted her, she slashed a thigh to stop the Risen from moving, then stepped back out of the way of a slash. Once it had passed, she slashed the chest and turned, slashing off an arm swinging toward her bafor stabbing backward into the first creature's heart, then pivoted around it, avoiding the second creature's other arm at the same time as ripping her sword free of the first Risen, then spun, severing its spine and finishing it. Anna passed the second Risen in a leaping pirouette, lopping off its head and killing it instantly.
Corbin shook his head. They could take a lot of damage, but they weren't immortal. He just had to fight smarter. He just had to actually use what Lucina had been beating into him. After all, this was exactly why she'd been training him. Including the Risen simply watching them struggle, grinning horribly all the while.
Corbin narrowed his eyes, then charged back into the fray. A Risen lunged at him, and he spun around it, severing its forward leg at the knee, then stabbed it in the head once it had landed. He turned as another lunged at him, but he stunned it with a cast of Thunder, then slashed its head off. He stepped around its corpse and slashed the back of one's neck as it was moving to slash Robin. It dropped on the spot, beginning to rise again, only for both of them to stab it in the chest, killing it. Robin turned toward Anna, who was beginning to struggle, and Corbin headed for Lucina.
Things were deteriorating quickly as she got closer to the gate. For starters, the Risen were still emerging, so there were more near it than where Corbin and the others were. For another thing, in order to reach the gate, Lucina would have to get past the Risen Corbin. And so, Corbin all but shredded his way through the Risen between them.
He slashed a leg, then a neck. He ducked out of the way of an arm and stabbed a heart. He slashed a head in two vertically, severed a Risen across the abdomen where there was only the spine to offer resistance. He stabbed through a skull, lopped off an arm, shattered a knee with a kick, severed a head across the middle, blasted a head into ash and fragments with a lightning bolt. Finally, a gap opened between him and Lucina. She was directly between him and the Risen Corbin, and she was struggling to fend off a trio of Risen monsters, but he could help with the Risen as soon as he reached her. Except, the Risen Corbin finally began to move.
His Tome spiraled to hover in front of him, the Risen Corbin pressing his palms to either cover. Corbin's blood ran cold. Lucina was in his way. He couldn't deflect this one. He couldn't save her from this. He couldn't stop the attack. But he could attack back.
His Tome raced to the same position as the Risen Corbin's, and he slammed his palms into the book. Then, even as he ripped them away, he rammed his shoulder into Lucina's back, sending her sprawling to the ground. Then, a bolt of purple lightning exploded into Corbin's chest at the same instant as the electricity in Corbin's hands burst and vanished. Instantly, dark clouds filled the sky over the island. For a moment, less than a second, the clouds were illuminated by golden lightning. Then, for barely an instant, the lightning connected to the ground, passing through about half of the Risen monsters on the way, incinerating them. Then, it was over, and Corbin was lying in a smoking heap.
"Corbin!" Robin shrieked.
"No," Lucina breathed, staring at him in wide-eyed shock before turning to glare at the Risen Corbin, who was fuming.
More of the Risen monsters emerged from the portal, but as they did, the rest of the Shepherds, along with the Pegasus Knights, arrived. Lucina shoved herself to her feet, stalking toward the Risen Corbin. One of the creatures stepped into her way, only for her to turn, spinning around it and severing it across the chest. Another leapt at her from the side, but she stepped back, swinging her sword around to greet it, killing it in the same fashion as the last. As two more moved to meet her, Robin stepped up beside her, splitting one down the front with lightning screaming along her Levin Sword, killing it and allowing Lucina to easily, and literally, disarm the other then decapitate it. Chrom, Lon'qu, and Anna together shredded their way to Lucina and Robin, but as they reached them, the Risen Corbin turned.
"Oh no you don't!" Lucina snarled. "Get back here, you bastard!"
She lunged, slashing a Risen out of her way without bothering to kill it, only for Robin and Chrom to catch her by the arms, stopping her from chasing the Risen Corbin through the gate, which ground shut behind him. Lucina raged and fought to be free, but once the gate was closed, she sagged to her knees, crying in frustration.
"Bastard!" Lucina shouted, then looked over to Corbin again.
Lissa, Libra, and Maribelle were using their staves to heal him again and again, but nothing seemed to be happening. Lucina stood walking over to him, and knelt, staring at what remained of his chest. The entire front of his torso had been charred, and in some places was missing, allowing his blackened ribs and scorched internal organs to show through. Inside his chest, his heart was visible, just barely fluttering in a failing attempt to keep him alive.
"Come on, Corbin!" Lissa shouted. "Stay with us!"
Finally, Anna knelt, offering a staff to Lissa. It was gold with a winged figure at the top and a gold ring, blue gemstones set into the figure's chest and the bottom end of the staff.
"Use this," Anna suggested.
Lissa didn't even question it, dropping her own staff in favor of Anna's, but as she cast a healing spell with it, the light was blindingly gold, spread to fill the island, and lasted for nearly a minute. As it faded, everyone blinked the light out of their eyes.
"Oh, shit, it's broken!" Lissa yelped as the staff disintegrated into glowing gold dust and faded.
"Corbin!" Lucina yelped.
All eyes dropped to Corbin again, staring at his restored, pale flesh. He groaned, eyes fluttering open and rolling in their sockets for a moment before he smiled tiredly.
"What was that staff?" Lissa asked.
"It was a Goddess Staff," Anna said. "It can only be used once, but it can heal anyone who's not dead of any injury, no matter how severe. It was also one of only two in existence."
Lissa shook her head. "Thank you."
Anna nodded, then looked around as the last of the Risen were quickly slaughtered. As she did, her eyes locked with an exact replica of herself standing beside Robin.
"Big Sis!" the Anna with Robin cheered, running over to hug her. "What are you doing here?"
"I've been studying this Outrealm Gate for three years," the elder sister said. "I hid when that Risen showed up, but otherwise I've been here every day, then sleeping in a small village on the mainland coast."
The younger Anna nodded, smiling, as the others joined them. "Robin, this is my eldest sibling."
"Nice to meet you," Robin smiled, taking the younger Anna's hand. "I'm Anna's girlfriend."
There were several surprised reactions.
"Oh, good catch, Sis!" the elder Anna grinned. "Now I'm jealous."
"This gate," Lucina said. "How is it here? Who built it? How can it exist?"
"I have no idea," the elder Anna shook her head. "I only know how to use it."
"How?" Chrom asked. "What can it do?"
"It transports you to alternate timelines," the elder Anna explained.
"Alternate timelines?" Lucina frowned.
"Time is like a crack in ice," the elder Anna explained. "It follows the crack as its history. But if you could go backward in time and make a change, you don't change the shape of the crack, you just make a new crack branching off of the first. Some timelines that you can get to through the gate are almost identical to this one, but others are so different that you couldn't possibly recognize it. And when a new crack is created, a new timeline, there's no way to know what that new timeline's future will be, because even the smallest changes can have incalculable effects on the flow of time in that timeline."
"That sounds really complicated," Corbin said, finally sitting up and accepting a spare shirt from Robin.
"It is," the elder Anna nodded. "Now, this Outrealm Gate can, in theory, connect to any timeline, but I've only learned to connect to a few, and each one is completely different than this one."
"Wait, you've gone through?" Lucina asked. "But Outrealm Gates are one-way trips."
"Normally, yes," the elder Anna nodded. "When they're created without a solid structure as a base, a structure that exists across all timelines. But this Outrealm Gate is different. It connects to itself across all of the timelines, and as long as the doors are open, you can pass back through. Like I said, though, I've only managed to connect to a few other timelines."
"Even so, that's incredible," the younger Anna marveled.
"Where did that Risen Corbin go?" Frederick asked.
"I'm not sure," Anna shook her head.
Lucina and Corbin shared a meaningful glance before she helped him stand. For a few minutes, Lissa and Robin fussed over Corbin, making sure he was actually fully healed, then everyone said goodbye to the elder Anna and started home. At the beach, those without pegasi piled into a group of boats, Lucina making sure she, Corbin, and Robin were alone together.
"Thank you for saving me, but why?" Lucina asked.
"I couldn't have borne to see you hurt," Corbin said.
"What?" Lucina asked.
"I didn't want you to be hurt," Corbin said. "So, I saved you. In retrospect, I know it was smart to save you, because only you can help avoid the dark future facing us, and it was smart because you're the better fighter, but none of that even occurred to me at the time. I just didn't want to see you hurt."
Lucina stared at him for a moment, then shook her head. "You're a fool."
Corbin shrugged, glancing at Robin, who grinned and silently flashed him a thumbs up. He rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "So, how long until you try to convince Anna to visit her sister again?"
"That depends," Robin smirked. "How soon can we get to shore?"
Corbin snorted, catching Lucina restraining a smile while facing away from them. Sure enough, almost as soon as they hit land, Robin darted over to Anna, beginning to talk to her in a hushed voice, Anna laughing within seconds, nodding after about a minute. Corbin shook his head, chuckling to himself.
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