Outlaw Knight

by Ernestrunningaway

Beaten by his nemesis, abandoned by the man he gave all he had for, and lingering on the brink of eternity, Arthur was certain his time was at an end as he looked to the dawn one final time. But by the will of fate, or some silent, unknowable power, he awoke to a foreign land, tended to by strangers. Among them, none confounded him more than this cobalt-haired girl with a sword...

8. Fódlan's Throat: Witch Hunt

"Over here, my lord!"

Ferdinand turned and looked ahead, finding Sir Volkmar von Lichtenswald crouched over a pile of sand and rubble, waving at him.

Without a word, the young noble gestured at his Astral Knights to pay attention to him, then pointed at Volkmar.

Lady Rosamunde von Arnheim lifted up her visor, squinted in the other knight's direction, then dropped it back down. She nocked an arrow into her bow and nodded at Ferdinand.

Taking a breath to steady himself, Ferdinand minded his steps and led the way as he slowly walked towards Volkmar.

It had been three days since a mercenary from Jeralt's company, a white mage named Tekla Schneider, disappeared in the middle of the night, presumably captured by either the Almyrans, or another, mysterious group. To his eternal shame, Ferdinand had been involved in a drinking spree with Lady Catherine and her fellows that night, and he had been too inebriated on ale and brandy to remember all the details when one of the key witnesses to the incident, another mercenary named Shez, recounted what happened after a generous serving of beer and white magic.

"Any more sign of the eastlanders?" Another one of the Astral Knights, Sir Maynard von Rutger zu Walstrenk, kept his gauntleted hand resting atop the spell tome strapped by his side as they moved through the deserted mountain pass.

"None yet, brother," Rosamunde whispered. "But keep your eyes open, all the same."

Ferdinand looked behind his shoulder and nodded. "Be ready for anything. Saints know what we will encounter here."

Upon reaching Volkmar, Ferdinand bid his knights to set up a perimeter as he approached his second-in-command. "What did you find, sir knight?"

"This used to be a campfire." The knight said, in his usual, understated tone-of-voice. He reached down and brushed away the sand and loose rocks, revealing cindered wood and ash. "I'd say they were here a day ago."

"In that case, they should be close." Ferdinand nodded as Volkmar stood up. "Have you any clues as to which direction they headed?"

"As expected from a renowned tracker and his protégé, they covered their tracks well." The knight pointed northeast. "But not well enough. I believe they proceeded in this direction."

"Then our course is clear. Let us proceed, soldiers."

As Ferdinand and the Astral Knights carefully followed the trail Sir Volkmar set them on, the noble thought on the past two days following Tekla's abduction. After a generous meal of beef and Tailtean blackcap soup, Ferdinand remembered spending an hour in the training yard, washing himself, then immediately heading to the infirmary where Shez was being treated after being severely wounded while trying to defend Tekla. By speaking with Shez, Ferdinand hoped he could acquire new insights as to what could have happened during the night of the incident. It was the least he could do after his misadventures with Lady Catherine.

Unfortunately for Ferdinand, Shez was less than cordial with him when he pressed him for details about Tekla's disappearance. The mercenary seemed guarded around the noble, as though suspecting him of something dastardly. Of course, Ferdinand couldn't exactly blame him for viewing him in that light, given how suspiciously he came across. It didn't help that he was always wearing armour and an enclosed helmet.

After a few excruciating minutes of unhelpful back-and-forth, Ferdinand did manage to acquire scant bits of valuable information about those responsible for the white mage's abduction. Ferdinand was surprised to know that Shez had already encountered the dark mages before, and with some further prodding and cajoling, he was able to discern enough details to know without a shadow of a doubt that indeed, those responsible for House Ordelia's woes and countless other atrocities around the continent were the same people behind Tekla's disappearance.

With his newly-acquired knowledge of the situation, Ferdinand ignored the barbs Shez threw his way and bid him a speedy recovery before leaving to find his friends Arthur and Byleth. He was hoping they wouldn't mind assisting him with his investigation in the mountains while they still had plenty of time before the expected Almyran siege.

Instead of finding the two of them anywhere in the fortress, however, it seemed as though they also vanished without a trace. Thankfully, after talking with Captain Eisner and General Fischer, Ferdinand learned that they weren't also kidnapped, but rather, Arthur packed up his gear and made clear his intent to track the pale-faced outsiders and find Tekla as quickly as possible. Byleth, of course, wouldn't let him go without someone to watch his back, so they headed east shortly after picking up a trail inside the fortress.

Not one to leave his work to be done by someone else, Ferdinand quickly mobilised his knights and also left the fortress that afternoon, hoping to pick up Arthur and Byleth's trail... or rather, have Sir Volkmar pick up their trail. The knight spent most of his youth travelling the continent, hunting game, and spending his nights under the stars, whereas Ferdinand spent his training with weapons, studying governing, and horseback riding. Out of everyone in his company, only Volkmar had a prayer of tracking someone like Arthur Morgan.

"The trail leads here," Volkmar said, gesturing at an opening in the mountain pass. "Come on, this way."

"Perhaps we should go one at a time?" Sir Maynard inquired. "This looks like a good place for an ambush."

"I agree, which is why we should stick together instead." Lady Rosamunde said.

"There's no need for caution, lady knight. This place is deserted." Sir Volkmar insisted.

Ferdinand nodded as he unsheathed his arming sword by his side. "We will proceed as one, but be on your guard."

Barely twenty paces into the opening, Sir Volkmar was proven wrong when Ferdinand heard a sharp whistle from the side. He turned to the noise, shifting his stance to receive a potential foe, only to find himself staring down the twin barrels of a shotgun.

"Leicester?"

Ferdinand raised one hand and used the other to slowly, deliberately sheathe his arming sword by his side. He then pulled up his visor, revealing his eyes.

"Adrestia."

Humming softly in affirmative, Byleth put up her gun to point at the sky. "Ferdinand. Arthur was right to think we were being followed, but wrong to think it was Almyrans."

"You knew we were coming?" Volkmar tilted his head to the side.

"Since yesterday. You disturbed several tripwires along the pass." The young mercenary said, matter-of-factly. "We lured you in here with a false trail so we can be rid of you. Fortunately, I do not think we will need to do that."

Rosamunde chuckled at Volkmar's expense. "It seems you've been played, sir knight."

"It seems I have. I still have much to learn." Volkmar nodded. "My compliments to Mr. Morgan."

Ferdinand looked around the perimeter. "Speaking of Arthur, where is he now?"

"Up here, kid!"

The noble shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked up, finding Arthur positioned atop a ridge directly above them, holding his rifle to point at the sky. "Mr. Morgan! We have been looking for you."

Arthur shouldered his weapon and began climbing down. "Wasn't expecting to run into you out here. Did you find trouble making your way through these mountains?"

"We ran afoul of three Almyran patrols, but they were nothing we could not handle. We are proficient fighters not only on horseback, but on foot as well." Ferdinand said proudly, eliciting an amused scoff from Arthur. "But enough about us. How fares your mission to rescue your mage?"

Arthur and Byleth glanced at each other before the older mercenary turned to Ferdinand again. "Won't do us any good standing here, talking out in the open. Come on, we'll take you where we made camp."

Camp, as it turned out, was a secluded, craggy nook shielded from the sun by the mountains towering above. Making their way inside, Ferdinand and his knights watched with mounting concern as Arthur and Byleth got to work disarming a dizzying array of traps and alarms before letting their Adrestian guests in without fear of accidental death or maiming.

"Find a rock and take a load off." Arthur said, shaking off his tattered duster and draping it over a spot on the ground. "Got some coffee left in the pot this morning, if any of you eight fancy a cup." He sat down on his duster and shrugged off his satchel and bandolier.

While some of the knights helped themselves to some coffee, Ferdinand opted instead to kneel down next to Byleth and help her set up their campfire. "You could have told me you were heading out to the mountains in search of the villains who abducted your friend. I would have been pleased to lend you our aid."

"Nothing against you, boy, but this ain't your fight." Arthur said as he fished out an oil-soaked rag from his satchel and began cleaning his rifle with it. "You got your own problems. It wouldn't be right to rope you into our business."

"Why would it not be?" Ferdinand asked, baffled. "You selflessly offered to assist my cause, it is only just that I offer you my own support. And besides, I would not say this is strictly your business, Mr. Morgan."

"Do you know Tekla?" The younger mercenary looked up from her work to stare at Ferdinand.

The noble shook his head. "Well, no. I have not had the pleasure of making her acquaintance before, which is a shame. I heard she is a sterling healer, and a genial companion."

"Then why are you out here with us?" Byleth continued to prod. "Arthur told me you were seeking another hideout being used by the strange mages we fought in Hrym. Not that I am displeased with your presence here, but should you not be devoting your efforts into this mission of yours instead?"

"Ah, you did not let me finish," Ferdinand held up a gauntleted hand. "The morning after the night of the incident, I took it upon myself to gather information concerning Tekla's abduction. I suppose it is my way of saving face in light of my... undignified behaviour... during the festivities."

Arthur laughed at the undoubtedly shameful image that popped into his head. Ferdinand was mortified to also find Byleth cracking a small half-smirk at his expense.

"Heh, you was stumbling and clanking up a storm in all that armour. I almost didn't think it was you." The older mercenary said, still chuckling. "Catherine got you real good that night, kid."

"Erm, I am afraid the fault does not fall solely on the lady knight's shoulders. I was the one who insisted that we kept drinking past the one beer I owed her..." Ferdinand admitted reluctantly. "Saints above... that woman was relentless. It was as though she was immune to alcohol."

"You speak as though you were trying to get her drunk." Byleth observed in a matter-of-fact voice, an innocent look to her.

"N-not very noble of me, yes..." Ferdinand radiated discomfort, but it was not in his nature to back down. "But you are correct, that was what I intended to do. And before you ask — no, my intentions were... um, not as dishonourable as you might think. I simply wished to make her too inebriated to realise I have not told her about why I was here, and what I intended to do."

"Damn, Ferdinand, I'm impressed. Didn't think you had it in you to think of somethin' like that." Arthur said. "Did it work, though?"

"I pray to the goddess it did. In truth? I could not remember."

Another round of laughs and chuckling ensued, and this time, Ferdinand's own knights joined in... except for one.

"Amusing this might be, we should not become distracted now." Sir Volkmar said, his back turned to the group as he kept watch for intruders at the entrance to the camp. "We still have a job to do out here."

"Alright, alright, we had our fun. We're making too much noise." Arthur breathed in and out as the merriment died down. "Before we got side-tracked by this foolishness, you was saying something about investigatin' the bastards who took Tekla. What did you learn?"

"That our quarry is one and the same." Ferdinand sent a grateful nod Volkmar's way before continuing, "I have deduced through your wounded... if temperamental... friend's description of the abductors he tried to fight off in Tekla's defence that they are from the same cabal of pale-faced foreign mages we encountered in Hrym... the ones whom my father had shamefully associated himself with."

Arthur folded his arms as he gazed ahead with a pensive look on his face. "You know, I thought about that... when Shez said a bunch of "pale freaks" took Tekla that night."

Ferdinand unfastened his helmet and tucked it under his arm. "Do you remember what I told you about the letter I received from Lysithea von Ordelia, Mr. Morgan? She wrote that a group of these villains had at one point established a hidden refuge in this area, somewhere in the mountains. She promised to tell me everything she knew about the nature of my father's partnership with these mages and assist me in my efforts to bring them to justice if I could locate this refuge, put its dastardly inhabitants to the sword, and bring proof of the death of their leader, Chilon."

"If those outsiders are truly the ones responsible for Tekla's abduction, then this Chilon should know where his underlings took her, and if she is still alive." Byleth said. "We should join forces once more."

"I was just about to say that, Ms. Eisner." Ferdinand nodded. "If fortune favours us, we may rescue Tekla, bring justice to House Ordelia, and learn more about their plans in one fell swoop, bringing me closer to my goal of undoing my father's work, and redeeming the name of our house. Do you find this acceptable, my friends?"

Arthur shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

"This could be exactly what we need, Arthur." His companion looked to him. "We tried to breach their defences yesterday, but we were forced to retreat before they overwhelmed us in sheer numbers. Between the two of us, a crest-bearing noble, and seven of the Empire's warrior elite, we just might be able to pull this off."

"I... don't understand. Pull what off?" Lady Rosamunde asked, hand on her hip.

The older mercenary turned to her. "A little southwest of here, we found... well, it looked like a place where a lotta people fought and died, only someone else came back the next day, took the bodies, and scrubbed the blood stains."

"They weren't able to fool us, however." Byleth said.

Arthur nodded. "The sand's disturbed, and there's rocks with bits smashed out of 'em. Anyway, we set up a couple dynamite traps and a bunch of tripwires around the place and spent some time trying to make sense of what we found... but it didn't take long before a bunch of unfriendly Almyran-looking folks turned up."

Ferdinand listened intently. "And what happened next?"

"The fight was over as soon as it started — there was only nine of 'em. There might've been more, but they must've run into our traps and got blown to pieces." Arthur said. "Left one of 'em alive. Tried to ask real nicely about where they was holed up, but the man wasn't in a cooperative mood. Son-of-a-bitch kept calling us fools and mayflies instead of answering our questions, so I tanned his goddamn hide and broke a few fingers until he had a drastic change in attitude."

Ferdinand blanched at that. "Mr. Morgan, what did you do? Did you... torture that man?"

Arthur's expression was that of pure disgust. "Back then, had I known he was working for those bloodless, child-murderin' freaks, you goddamn bet I would have made him suffer. But no, I just beat the shit out of him and made him take a nap on a pool of his own blood."

The noble raised his brows in alarm. "Please listen, Arthur. If we are to bring these monsters to justice, we should take care not to become like them."

"Heh. I ain't the one doing unspeakable things to kids and murdering my way through the continent for God-knows-what reason." There was no mirth behind Arthur's smile, and his eyes brimmed with barely-restrained fury. "These bastards deserve worse than what they'll get from us."

Ferdinand opened his mouth to argue further, when he spotted Volkmar shaking his head at him. He sighed again. "My friend, I am afraid this is something I vehemently disagree with... but now is not the time for conflict between comrades. We should return to the task at hand."

"That... I can agree with." Arthur nodded as the anger slowly left his eyes. "And just so you don't get the wrong idea, I didn't beat that feller half-dead just 'cause I can."

"You did it to acquire information. Yes, I understand. I do not approve of your methods... but you had your reasons." Ferdinand nodded glumly. "You learned something from him, at least?"

"We did. The man was quite cooperative when put under pressure." Byleth spoke up. She glanced at Arthur in concern before continuing, "As it turned out, their hideout was just there, hidden close to where we were standing. After learning what we needed, we made our way to the hidden refuge and passed through its concealed entrance, weapons drawn. We were only a few steps inside when we were set upon... and there were dozens upon dozens of them, much more than we expected."

The girl breathed in and out, letting her the gravity of her words sink in before she continued, "We did not have the tools for a protracted battle at that time, so we decided on a fighting retreat. After losing our pursuers and falling back to safety, we moved camp to here and made plans to approach the area less directly, because a frontal assault with only two of us would only end in disaster."

"With the bunch of you here, though..." Arthur let the rest of his words go unsaid as he stood up, shouldered his rifle, and retrieved his coat, satchel, and bandolier from the ground.

"Then it is decided. We should depart to assault the lair of these fiends as soon as practicable. Let righteousness strengthen our resolves and justice be our guide."

...

---

Shez closed his eyes and waited for the familiar soothing wave of healing magic to wash over him.

"There." The white mage looking after him patted him on the back. "That should take care of the pain and keep your wounds from reopening... for a day, at least."

The young man nodded. "Right, I gotta go do some training. All this lying around's going to get me rusty and fat."

"By all means, merc. You're strong enough to walk, which means there's no more reason for you to linger here. There are other soldiers who need beds."

Shez paid the Alliance healer no more mind as he left the infirmary and immediately made his way to the training grounds. After having been forced to lie down in bed for a few days with nothing to do but sleep, eat, and stare at the ceiling, he wanted nothing more than to lose himself once again to his unending goal of improving himself as a warrior.

Still, even after all this time, Shez couldn't get himself to forget about what happened that night, when he left the barracks, took a shortcut in a dimly-lit alley on his way to Quartermaster Bernhardt's stores, and found Tekla in a standoff with three ominous figures wearing black and purple robes, with disturbingly pale complexions and blood-red eyes.

The scene unfolding just ahead of Shez made him instinctively feel on alert. Tekla's back was turned to Shez as he carefully inched his way to them, intending to eavesdrop on her conversation with the dark figures. He braced himself for the worst as he drew close, only to look on in open-mouthed shock as one of the robed figures seized Tekla by the shoulder and pulled her close before the four of them quite literally vanished into thin air, leaving nothing but dust and glowing arcane particles in their wake.

The young man broke out of his hiding place and searched the area, his mind racing as he tried to figure out what he just bore witness to. This proved to be an error in judgement, as suddenly, two more dark figures emerged from the shadows, brandishing short blades and daggers as they proceeded to come at Shez, murderous intent clear in their blood-red eyes.

Unprepared as he was, and without his armour to protect him from the wicked edge of their blades, it took every bit of his skill and his stubborn refusal to die in a dark alley smelling like piss to drive his assailants back with only a single arming sword to defend himself with. Wounds covered Shez as he parried aside a sweeping attack before countering with a thrust, impaling one of his opponents in chest. Shez clenched his teeth and breathed hard as he took hurried steps back, trying to see where the other attacker went.

Moments passed, but he could see no sign of his second opponent. Wary of surprises and painfully aware of the fact that he was slowly bleeding out, Shez turned his head to see the attacker he just ran through, only to find that their body had disappeared where it once was on the ground a moment ago. Alarmed, Shez called out to the second assailant to reveal themselves and finish the fight, but he was only met with stark silence. It was clear they had retreated, presumably after taking their fallen comrade's body.

From there, everything occurred in a haze after Shez's injuries started to take their toll, now that the immediate danger had passed. Bruised and bleeding, Shez remembered stumbling his way to where he deduced Captain Jeralt would be, then finding himself being tended to by Arthur, Byleth, and strangely, Lady Hilda Goneril. It wasn't long before he found himself in an Alliance infirmary, being fussed over by mages and physicians.

Time passed excruciatingly slowly as Shez waited for the healers to mend his wounds. Now that he was allowed to do as he wished, his drive to become a better warrior only strengthened. If he was as strong and tenacious as Arthur, or as agile and lethal as Byleth, he would never have been hurt as badly as he did. He resolved to ramp up his training, to never again be in such a vulnerable, helpless position.

"Hey, kid! It's Shez, wasn't it?"

Upon making his way to the training grounds, Shez was met with the sight of Lady Catherine holding a training greatsword over her shoulder, wearing a patchy cotton tunic and the bottom half of her usual set of plate armour. "Aren't you supposed to be in the infirmary? That was one hell of a beating you took that night."

The young man took note of how the knight's well-toned arms glistened with sweat. It took some effort to tear his gaze from them. "I'm not spending another minute lying down. I gotta get back into shape before the barbarians decide to attack."

"Well, I suppose there's no arguing with that," Catherine nodded, casually swinging her sword down and planting it on the ground. "I'd offer to spar with you, but I'd probably just put you back in the infirmary again, with the way I train."

Ouch. Shez suppressed the urge to flinch. "Yeah, I get it. I have to get stronger... get on Arthur's level. Only way I'd last a minute fighting you."

Catherine's expression softened at his crestfallen tone. "Hey, chin up there, kid. We all have our strengths, and Morgan's is with his, uh, guns." She put up an encouraging smile. "And I've seen you fight for real, in our sortie out in the desert. The way you swing those swords, I think you'd have no problem besting the old man up close."

Shez shook his head. "I mean no disrespect, lady knight, but have you seen Arthur fight without his guns? I could tell he was pulling his punches every time we sparred, 'cause he'd break something if he hit me with all he's got."

The knight goggled at him. "Really? He's that strong?"

"Yeah, and that's just in a practice duel. I'm not arrogant enough to think I'd be long for this world if we fought for real."

Catherine winced, looking intensely disappointed at something for a split second. "Damn! Where the hell could he have gone..." She put a palm on her forehead, closed her eyes, and sighed.

Fortunately, her bright attitude was quick to return. "Well, that may be the case, but you shouldn't give up! Arthur's got a decade or so on you, so he's spent much more time fighting and getting stronger. Keep training, and a few years from now, mark my words: you'll be giving him a run for his money."

Shez sighed. "Maybe. But I don't plan on stopping at Arthur's level."

Catherine nodded, feeling proud of the boy's ambition. She opened her mouth to say more, when she was interrupted by a commotion happening at the entrance to the training grounds. Both of them turned their heads to see a vacant-eyed General Holst Goneril practically carrying the limp, screaming body of his sister into the yard.

"Hooolst, let go of me, you stone-faced brute! How many times do I have to ask you!" Hilda's high-pitched squealing echoed throughout the yard, drawing the attentions of everyone present. "Gosh, they're looking at us! I've never been so humiliated!"

"This is for your own good, Hilda." Grumbled her brother as he dragged her further into the yard. "I don't want to have to bury your body in the coming days. You must keep up with your training."

"No one would have to bury anything of mine if you'd just let me stay at the back!" Hilda sighed harshly as Holst set her down near the training dummies and blocked her escape route with his wide, muscular bulk. "This is just cruel..."

"You'd be thanking me by the end of this war." Holst said. He looked around the yard, as though searching for something, then held his gaze when he saw Lady Catherine watching the scene with a bewildered expression. "Ah, lady knight! Greetings."

"General," Catherine nodded back. "Have you informed the duke about the developments we discovered?"

"Indeed I have, and I am pleased to inform you that in light of the evidence that an Almyran siege is imminent, the armies of House Goneril should reach the fortress within a few days." Holst said, his words causing a wave of surprised murmurings from the people within earshot of him. "With that said, if you are willing, perhaps you'd do us a further service by spending some time training with my sister here?"

"Hmm," The knight studied Hilda, who shrank back from her scrutiny. "You're stronger than you look, aren't you, girl?"

"Wh-what? No..." Hilda nervously waved her off. "Can't you see these noodly arms? I can barely do a single push-up, let alone lift a sword!"

Shez looked at Hilda more closely, finding it extremely hard to imagine a bright-eyed, delicate-looking girl like her could be a warrior. He wondered what the hell was her father thinking, forcing her to participate in the defence of the Locket.

Holst sighed and shook his head at his sister. "You're not getting out of this one that easily. Lady Catherine is known for learning much about a person at just a glance."

Hilda groaned, her face scrunching up in intense annoyance. "Ugh, you are such a pain." She turned to Catherine, a resigned slump in her shoulders. "Alright, let's just get this over with, lady knight."

"Actually, I think it won't do you any good sparring with me just like that," Catherine said. "First, I want to see what you're capable of. Shez, why don't you spar with the young lady over here?"

"Me?" Shez looked at Hilda, then to Catherine, a deadpan look on his face. "Seriously..."

"Come on, kid, just indulge me here," Catherine said, before turning to Hilda. "What do you say, girl? You think you can take down one of Captain Jeralt's best mercenaries in a practice bout?"

Hilda seemed to take a little more interest in training at Catherine's suggestion. "Well... I guess it's better than getting smacked around like a toy by the Thunderbrand lady."

Moments later, Shez stood before Hilda in a circle of spectating Alliance soldiers, as well as Lady Catherine and General Holst.

"Please, please, please go easy on me!" The noble girl called out to him from her corner. "I'm not used to this, you know!"

"I was going to!" He shouted back, feeling a bit silly at being roped into this situation. He didn't like to fight girls, especially pretty ones. "Aren't you going to pick up a weapon?"

"Oh, right!" Hilda looked around with girly, exaggerated movements. When she spotted a nearby weapon rack filled with practice weapons, she walked over to it and quickly made her choice. "Alright, I'm ready!"

"Finally. Let's get this... over... with..." Shez had to keep his jaw from dropping in shock as he beheld the graceful, wispy-looking noble girl prance back to her spot, effortlessly twirling around a gigantic wooden greataxe a little taller than herself in her hands as she did. "What in the..."

"Um... so, are you ready?" Hilda held her axe low with both hands as she adjusted her footing to fall into what looked like a very practiced combat stance. "You're not gonna hurt a delicate little flower like me, are you?"

"Should've known..." Shez shook himself out of his stupor and put up his practice swords. "You have a crest."

"I thought you knew!" Hilda said. "No worries, I'm sure a strong and handsome mercenary like you will beat a weakling like me anyways."

The young man shook his head in disbelief. "This must be some kind of twisted joke."

...

---

"Over there."

Taking a breath to steady himself, Ferdinand poked his head from above cover and used the scope Arthur provided him to gaze ahead, towards where the older mercenary had been pointing at.

Below the elevated patch of sand and rock they had been using for cover, several pale, foreign-looking figures in dark purple robes and inconspicuous black armour could be seen, each of them carrying metallic crates, barrels, racks and other, more unfamiliar-looking equipment as they emerged from a nearby opening carved into a formation of rock jutting out from the sands.

"What do you see, my lord?" Lady Rosamunde lifted her visor as she tried to figure out what was happening below them.

"Hmm. They appear identical to the mages I faced in Hrym with our mercenary friends here. These outsiders must be Chilon's minions," Ferdinand said, as he continued to study the situation unfolding before his eye. "If I must hazard a guess, I think they are in the process of displacing their supplies."

Some distance away from the presumed entrance to their hidden lair, the strange figures were taking their things to a nearby platform with glowing arcane runes engraved into its metallic surface. When one of them placed a crate or a piece of equipment on the platform, it quickly disappeared in a flash of magical light, presumably warped to another location elsewhere.

"They're packing up." Byleth said the unspoken words in everyone's minds. "We are fortunate to have arrived here on time."

"But to where, I wonder?" Ferdinand asked out loud as he put a metal hand to his chin.

"Does it matter? We got a job to do here." Arthur said.

"Agreed, Mr. Morgan." Sir Maynard nodded. "We should not waste time. How are we going to approach this?"

"We can charge down from here and strike them fast and hard enough to keep them from reforming their ranks and retaliating." Sir Volkmar suggested.

"Leave it to you to suggest a frontal assault." Lady Rosamunde shook her head at her fellow knight. "There's got to be a better way... one that won't end in us getting overwhelmed and cut down one by one."

Arthur heaved out a frustrated breath, as though remembering something unpleasant. "I got a plan." He reached into his satchel and pulled out something familiar to Ferdinand — a red, cylindrical stick with a fuse, filled with some kind of magical, highly-destructive material.

"I don't think they will let you get close enough to use that, Mr. Morgan." Byleth said.

The man looked at his companion, smiling with obvious fondness. "Won't need to." He reached behind and plucked one of the arrows in his quiver, then brought out a length of string from one of the pouches hanging from his belt.

As realisation dawned on Ferdinand's face, Arthur used the string to bind the explosive stick onto the arrow. "Just need to wait for the right moment, then... boom. The rest of these bastards should be easy pickings from there."

"Your confidence in this plan emboldens me." Ferdinand put up his mail coif and fastened his helmet back on. When he next spoke, his voice was tinged in a metallic rasp. "Lady Rosamunde, stay here with our friend. You too, Sir Engelbert. I think your bows would see the most use up here." He then turned to Byleth. "Ms. Eisner, care to accompany the rest of us down? We will take our positions within reach of the enemy and wait for Arthur to do what he does best."

The young mercenary nodded. "Right behind you."

Ferdinand led the way as he and his company plus one blue-haired girl with a gun and a sword traversed the dusty path down from their hidden spot as stealthily as they could. The knights moved from cover to cover, taking care to remain in the shadows and move slowly so as to muffle the sound of their feet, and their heavy plate armour clinking together. Above them, Arthur kept an eye on them as they carefully advanced. Ferdinand glanced his way every now and then with his own eyes at first, then his scope as he put more distance between them. He was comforted to find the man occasionally staring back with his binoculars.

Once Ferdinand's party reached a good distance to their quarry, he gestured at the knights positioned in the rear-guard to give Arthur their signal.

After some time, Ferdinand nodded at Byleth as they prepared to leave cover and charge onward. "Perhaps when this is over, you would grant me the honour of having you over for tea."

She blinked, turning his gaze to him from the enemies converging ahead. "I prefer coffee, but I think... I think I would like that." Ferdinand felt as though he accomplished a monumental feat, seeing the smile on Byleth's face, however small it was.

"But for now, my lord," It was gone as soon as it appeared, unfortunately. "Perhaps we should focus on the task at hand."

"Ah, yes. Duty calls..." Ferdinand sighed. He opened his mouth to speak more, when a loud explosion erupted a short distance ahead of them, forcing him to clam up as he dove further into their piece of cover. "That appears to be our cue!"

"Stand by!" Byleth pulled herself up from cover to assess the situation, with Ferdinand following close after.

Amidst the screams of the dying strangers and the alarmed shouting of their living comrades, Ferdinand could see many of the hooded figures were now on the ground, their limbs twisted in unnatural ways, if they weren't dismembered outright. Piles of discarded and shattered equipment were scattered here and there, and even as their wounded comrades cried out in pain and called out for help, none of those outlanders who remained uninjured made no move to assist them, preferring instead to draw their weapons and begin looking around for threats.

Another explosion in the ranks of the foe jolted Ferdinand from his gawking. Hoisting up his poleaxe, the noble rallied his knights into battle as he advanced headlong into the fray. "Take them! Justice for House Ordelia!"

The twin barrels of Byleth's shotgun erupted one after the other as Ferdinand and the Astral Knights rushed out of cover and charged the foe. Three of the pale warriors who were standing closest to Ferdinand's party were either maimed or cut down outright by buckshot before they could realise what was happening — the rest fared no better as they were overwhelmed by the rapidly advancing knights. As the Astral Knights carved their own way deeper into the scattered enemy formation, Ferdinand easily parried aside a wayward swing of a sword by what looked like an enemy officer before retaliating with a quick jab of the blunt, steel-tipped end of his weapon into the man's face. Dazed and sent staggering backwards from his blow, Ferdinand met no resistance from his opponent as he hefted up and brought his poleaxe down on the outsider, cutting through his armour and splitting his shoulder in half. Moving quickly past the broken body of his foe, Ferdinand proceeded to eliminate four more of the enemy warriors in his path one after another before they could put up an adequate defence.

"The surface-dwellers have returned!" One of the mages shouted as he began preparing a spell. "Defend yourselves! The primitives are here! We must— gurkh!" He was promptly silenced by an arrow through the mouth.

Byleth had put away her empty shotgun and also waded into close combat with her sword. Three of the enemy warriors and a mage tried to meet her charge, expecting to easily defeat a lone mercenary. Byleth gave them no time to realise the fault in their judgement as she intercepted the warriors and methodically cut them down with an inhumanly quick slash to the throat for each one. By the time the third warrior's body fell to the sand, the pale mage had finished conjuring a ball of dark magic, which she promptly hurled at Byleth at point-blank range.

To the mage's visible surprise, the mercenary contorted her body in a way that the orb only glanced past her, scorching the end of her lapels.

"Back, filth!" The dark mage hurriedly tried to put up a ward to shield herself from whatever Byleth had in store for her, but she was too slow. Byleth slashed upwards and slashed off her left hand, then channelled the momentum of her falling sword into a downward thrust, impaling her foe through the ribcage from above.

The mage coughed blood from her mouth as the mercenary retracted her blade from the sheathe she made in her chest. "Worthless... beast..." She grit her teeth and tried to conjure another spell with her remaining hand, forcing Byleth to put her out of her misery with a swift, beheading strike.

Meanwhile, Ferdinand ordered his knights to fall back and avoid overextending as the pale outsiders began to rally, having had recovered from the shock of being ambushed. As the enemy started pelting at their formation with arrows and thrown projectiles, with synchronised movements, the Astral Knights broke formation with speed and grace that belied their armoured appearance. Ferdinand waited for the barrage of projectiles to diminish before he put up his weapon and charged back into the fray.

"All together!" The noble cried out to his knights. "Into the jaws of death!"

"Into the mouth of hell!" They chanted back. As one, the Astral Knights dodged projectiles as they advanced, easily keeping pace with their leader as they overtook their foes in an unstoppable wave of steel and righteous fury.

His resolve strengthened by contempt for the unjust, Ferdinand brought down his poleaxe and smashed aside his opponent's shield before thrusting up and spearing the warrior through the heart, then the throat. Another warrior tried to come at the noble from behind with a greatsword, but Ferdinand was ready for him. Shoving aside his previous opponent to bleed out on the ground, Ferdinand pivoted around as he doubled back to evade the incoming blow, the greatsword's edge missing him by mere inches. As the foreigner attempted to regain his balance from missing his attack, Ferdinand dug in his heels to arrest his momentum, lifted his poleaxe above his head, and jabbed its pommel against his opponent's face, causing the warrior to stagger backwards, dazed. Ferdinand hefted his weapon and stepped forward to deliver a finishing blow, only to be left confounded when the outlander suddenly collapsed on the ground, an arrow sticking out the side of his neck.

"Huh?" Ferdinand turned to witness Arthur entering the battle with Rosamunde and Engelbert beside him, all three of them loosing arrows into the enemy ranks as they rushed into the thick of it. When the outsiders moved to intercept them, Arthur was the first to put away his bow, taking up his handaxe and knife in his hands.

"Come on then, you chalk-faced bastards!" Arthur violently deflected his first opponent's thrust with his axe before smashing his own head into the man's nose, reversing his grip on his knife and burying it hilt-deep into the warrior's abdomen. Scowling in contempt, the mercenary ignored his opponent's screams as he dragged his knife and disembowelled his victim. His next foe came at him with a charging overhead swing of her bardiche, which Arthur intercepted with a lunging swing of his own axe, aimed for the polearm's haft.

The pale warrior hobbled backwards with a shocked look on her face as she hurriedly dropped the disarmed polearm in her hands. She was quick to unsheathe the arming sword hanging from her side however, and immediately reversed her steps and launched herself at her foe, swinging her sidearm with reckless abandon in hopes of overwhelming the mercenary. In response, Arthur raised his weapons and easily blocked and deflected the desperate series of attacks the foreigner threw at him before deftly regaining the upper hand by suddenly lashing out with his blade in between his foe's careless flailing, its serrated edge slicing across the warrior's eyes and nose. As his opponent cried out and clutched at the bloody ruin that was her face, Arthur slid his knife in between her ribs, then brought down his axe into her neck.

Between Ferdinand's knights and two of Captain Eisner's best mercenaries, the battle was over within moments. Ferdinand delivered a blow of grace to a dying foe on the ground before gesturing for his fellows to rally on him. "Report in, soldiers! Is anyone injured?"

"Nothing major, my lord." Sir Volkmar said as he scraped off the flakes of gore staining the underside of his maul. "Our initial assault could not have been better executed."

"Thanks to Deadeye Morgan's explosives." Lady Rosamunde said.

"And his bow." Sir Engelbert nodded, the old knight's armour clinking as he moved his head. "He loosed faster than Lady von Arnheim and myself, but his arrows always found their marks. Captain Eisner is fortunate to have a marksman like him in his company."

"Nonsense," Arthur shook his head. "You two did more good than..." He trailed off when he noticed Byleth glaring at him with a faint scowl on her face, her brows furrowed in annoyance.

"You should accept praise when it is given, Mr. Morgan." She said.

The man sighed. "...yeah, thanks, I guess."

Ferdinand allowed himself a small chuckle at the situation before he returned to the matter at hand. "The entrance to Chilon's lair is just ahead, and our way is clear. Are we ready to proceed?"

"The Knights of House Aegir remain fit for combat, Lord Ferdinand." Rosamunde said, thumping a mailed fist to her breastplate.

Byleth loaded fresh shells into her shotgun. "As are we."

The dark look on Arthur's face returned. "Let's go find Tekla... then we cut the heads of these bloodless snakes."

After making their way to the entrance and carefully checking for any hidden surprises and dangers, Ferdinand and his party set their torches alight and began advancing through the poorly-lit hideout of the dark mages.

Along the way, Ferdinand couldn't help but marvel at the strange interiors of the place they were in. It was as though everything they encountered — from the scattered bits of equipment still inside, the peculiar magical devices mounted to the walls, and even the walls themselves — were made out of a dark-hued, unusual metal.

"What a strange material..." The noble said out loud. Experimentally, he reached out and touched one of the walls, his gauntleted hand clinking against its metallic surface. "I believe I have seen this before..."

"We all did, when we raided that hideout in Dieterswalde," Volkmar said, his head swivelling from side to side as he scanned the area for threats. "Which is good. This means we're on the right track."

Arthur had discarded his bow for his rifle as he covered the rear of their formation. "Sounds like the bunch of you have been around."

"We have not been idle since our time in Hrym." Ferdinand nodded. "I only pray that my father has not caught wind of what I had been doing, recruiting his knights to my cause and undermining his operations behind his back."

"Yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath, kid."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Let's just say you ain't meant for an actin' career."

With lit torches and noisy armour, the group had no choice but to trudge along the dark path down the pale-faced outsiders' lair, eyes peeled for any sign of movement or shadow, expecting any moment to be the one where arrows, knives, and other projectiles were flung their way.

Strangely, no such thing came. Even as they proceeded deeper into the lair of the foe, none of the dark mages or their minions appeared to ambush them.

"Somethin' don't feel right here, girl." Arthur tapped his fellow mercenary on the shoulder. "Keep your eyes open."

Byleth took a moment to respond to him. "There is... I can hear something."

Ferdinand looked behind his shoulder. "Ms. Eisner?"

"From where?" Arthur asked her, a dubious look on his face.

The young mercenary let out a breath she was holding. "Cover me, please?"

Arthur looked like he was about to say something, only for Byleth to suddenly move past him at a brisk pace, her shotgun drawn as she advanced deeper into the compound. As Arthur sputtered and ran after her, Ferdinand spent a second in stunned silence before gesturing for his knights to follow after them.

"Byleth!" Arthur called out in a hoarse, whispered shout. "Goddammit, what the hell is you doing? Get back here, girl!"

"Do you not hear it, Arthur?" His companion only glanced behind her shoulder briefly before forging on, not even breaking her stride. "This way. Come on!"

Ferdinand heard Arthur curse as he followed Byleth through a corridor to the left of the path they were on. Once his party reached the junction leading to the corridor where the two mercenaries disappeared into, Ferdinand ordered half of his knights to stay behind and form a defensive position before rallying the rest into following him into the corridor.

"That noise!" Sir Maynard exclaimed as they proceeded further along the sparsely-illuminated way. "Do you hear it too, my lord?"

Ferdinand could scarcely make it out amidst the heavy, metallic footfalls of his party, but if he focused hard enough, to his rising unease, he could hear a distant, muffled sound that could only be that of a man screaming in agony.

"Consarn it, we must pick up the pace!" He said, putting away his poleaxe for the arming sword hanging from his side. At such cramped quarters, a long weapon would prove detrimental to staying alive. "Move, move!"

Soon enough, Ferdinand and his band of knights caught up with their mercenary comrades, finding them in the midst of opening a locked metal door. As they neared, Byleth turned around and raised her hand to them in greeting as Arthur continued to struggle against the door, his large frame heaving with exertion as he repeatedly tried forcing it open with his shoulder.

"The screams come from behind this door," Byleth stated to obvious. "I am certain we will have to—"

"Stand back," Ferdinand looked to Arthur, finding him jogging away from the door. "And cover your ears! All of you!"

Before Ferdinand could ask what was going on, one glance at the red stick stuck to the handle of the door made him bite his tongue and do as he was told. Mere seconds later, the door exploded inwards, stirring up a massive cloud of dust that completely obscured visibility.

This did nothing to stop Arthur, however, as he pulled up his scarf to cover the lower half of his face, cycled his rifle, and immediately charged through the opening he made.

"Ferdinand!" Still rattled by the explosion, Ferdinand had to be shaken into reality by Byleth. "We have to move! Arthur is—" Gunfire from further ahead interrupted her. "Time to go!"

The noble shook his head and quickly followed after the mercenary with his knights close in tow. As they ran over the shattered remnants of the metal door and advanced past the dust cloud, Ferdinand was confronted by a hideous sight. At the centre of the room was a blood-soaked table, and strapped to it was a naked man, with his abdomen split open down the middle. Ominous-looking devices surrounded the gutted man, their metallic appendages looming over him, and strange, glowing panels hung from the nearby walls.

More gunfire forced Ferdinand to divert his attention back to the present. Looking to where he heard the crack of Arthur's gun, to his surprise, he found Arthur amidst the corpses of several dark mages, the rifle in his hands practically glowing red with how quickly he fired it at the few that were still alive. Byleth, Maynard, Engelbert, and the other knights moved to assist him, but Ferdinand stood his ground, knowing it wasn't necessary.

Mere seconds later, the rest of the outsiders were dead, either shot in the head, or hacked to bits by the blades of the Astral Knights. Unfortunately, the Imperials and their mercenary comrades arrived too late, as the man on the table had died some time ago, likely just after they breached the door.

"What in the name of the goddess were they doing here...?" The noble tried to examine the devices and the panels scattered around the room, but their purpose eluded him. He tried to approach the table at the centre of the room, but the stench proved too much for him, and he would rather not empty his stomach into his helmet.

"Goddamn," Arthur had no such problem, walking up right next to the corpse and staring at it. "Poor bastard."

Byleth looked at the corpse, then at Arthur, then back to the corpse. "What did they do to him?"

The older mercenary shook his head, grimacing. "What's it look like? They gutted him like a damn fish." He turned away from the gruesome sight and looked to Ferdinand. "This place... we ain't leaving until we kill every last one of them freaks squatting in it. Right, kid?"

Ferdinand sighed. He examined the corpse one last time, only now noticing the scorch marks on the dead man's skin, as well as what looked like surgical incisions scattered all around. "I agree, but we must not lose sight of our goal. Chilon must..."

"Oy, you there!"

Everyone turned to the direction of the distant voice, which turned it to have had come from what looked like a group of holding cells in the far corner of the room.

"If you're not one of those hooded bastards, I need you to get me out of this fucking cage!" It continued, louder this time. "Come on, before more of them come!"

The group stood in silence for a moment.

"Be careful," Byleth said. "This could be a trap."

"That's what I thought." Arthur grumbled. "What about you, Ferdinand?"

The noble wasted no time. "Right, then. Sir Landrich, Sir Adelhard, set up a perimeter and keep an eye out for threats. Sir Maynard, Lady Ulrike, I need you to search the room for anything notable and report back to me when you are done. Arthur, Byleth, shall we investigate the cells together?"

"Lead the way." Byleth nodded.

"I see anyone wearin' a robe, I'll shoot the bastard." Arthur said.

And with that, the three of them drew their weapons and made their way towards the voice.

"Hello?" The voice rang out again, and this time, Ferdinand could tell it belonged to a man, albeit one with a strange, unfamiliar accent. "Are you still there?"

"Step into the light, right where we can see you!" Arthur shouted, before Ferdinand could speak his mind. "Nice and easy, partner!"

"You're not one of them, aren't you? Thank God." Slowly, the unmistakable figure of a copper-haired young man wearing a strange, foreign-made dress uniform revealed himself from the darkness of the cell he was confined in, his gloved hands clutching at the bars. "Smash the lock on this door and let me out. Please, sir."

Ferdinand gave the strange prisoner a cursory examination. The man looked young — he was likely older than him or Byleth, but only just. He had a scraggly, unkempt beard that appeared to have been well-groomed once, and he wore a multi-pocketed tunic and a pair of loose trousers that were dyed in a shade of dark, slightly yellowish brown. Over his outfit, he wore some kind of tight-fitting harness made out of woven cotton that allowed him to carry around several small leather pouches, an empty sheath for a small blade, and a water canteen.

The man's ensemble reminded Ferdinand of how Arthur dressed, in a way... but somehow, it seemed different as well, like how Imperial soldiers looked different to Alliance soldiers.

"You sound like you're from England, son." Arthur said to the man, lowering his rifle to point at the ground. There was a hopeful expression on his face that was not there before. "You got a name?"

The prisoner licked his lips nervously before he put on a brave face and straightened himself.

"Corporal Victor Sturges, Lancashire Fusiliers, 1st Battalion." He said, in a martial-sounding cadence, only undercut by the unsteadiness of his voice. "I'm sorry, but, you're American, aren't you? You, uh, sound like it."

A strange, almost relieved look appeared on Arthur's face.

"You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you say that." The older mercenary said. "I've been stuck here in this goddamn continent for almost a year, and you're the first feller I met to have an idea what America even was."

Corporal Sturges looked taken aback. "I beg your pardon?"

Arthur waved him off. "Never mind that. Come on, let's get you outta that cage."

Ferdinand and Byleth watched Arthur shoot the handle off the cell door before kicking it down. He seemed less tense and ill-tempered as he took the prisoner by the shoulder and practically hauled him out of the cell.

"Are you sure about this, Arthur?" Byleth asked her companion upon leaving the cell.

"Never been more sure." He said. "Sturges, these kids are with me. You can call me Arthur, but I'll let them introduce themselves. Play nice now, you two."

"...Hello." The younger mercenary bowed her head at the baffled-looking former prisoner. "My name is Byleth."

"And I am Ferdinand von Aegir. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Corporal Sturges." Ferdinand did the same, with a bit more flourish.

"I, uh... hi." Sturges stared at the both of them for a moment, then looked to Arthur, the uncertain expression remaining on his face. "Are those swords? Why are you lot dressed like this?"

Arthur smiled ruefully, patting the man on the shoulder. "We're a long way from home, boy. I know you have a lot of questions you're itchin' to find answers to, but right now, it ain't safe for us to stand around while I tell you everything you'll need to know. You brought a gun with you, right?"

Sturges gulped, nodding tentatively. "Ah, yes... but those freaks wearing hoods, they took my rifle, my kit, and all the ammo I was carrying."

"Did you see where they took your things?"

"No... but I think they should be still somewhere in this room."

"Right, we'll go look for 'em, then." Arthur said, shouldering his gun. "Won't do you any good running around this place without a weapon."

"In that case, I think we should search different corners of the room." Ferdinand suggested.

"Good idea. You kids take this side while the two of us look that side. Come find us if y'all find something."

Moments later, Ferdinand busied himself with searching through the other cells in the holding area, with Byleth nearby doing much the same.

"I just about had enough of this place," The noble shook his head upon finding yet another skeleton in one of the cells. "Let us finish searching this area, and quickly."

"That's the plan." Byleth said, sighing. She seemed to be deep into her own thoughts. "...Ferdinand, what do you think of that prisoner we freed?"

Ferdinand took a second to answer her, "I admit, I am unsure what to make of him. I noticed that he seemed familiar with Arthur's mysterious homeland, and Arthur immediately knew that he used firearms, which to my knowledge are only found in America. Perhaps Corporal Sturges and Mr. Morgan share the same point of origin?"

"Unlikely." Byleth crossed her arms and looked to the floor. "The way they talked was almost completely different to one another. And the corporal's style of dress... it may look similar to Arthur's, but I see enough differences to make me think it is not the same." She started drawing circles on the dusty floor with her boot, perhaps unconsciously. "I can only conclude that their home nations must have been close enough to interact, given how they both have access to firearms."

Ferdinand thought about it for a moment, before she shook his head and gathered himself. "This is all very fascinating, but I believe we should return to the task at hand. The sooner we finish our business here, the sooner we can return home."

Byleth let out another breath and let her arms fall to her sides. "I suppose I can always ask Arthur about it later... or perhaps question the corporal myself."

A few more minutes passed by, but Ferdinand and Byleth's search still yielded no fruit... only dust, unfamiliar magical implements, indecipherable tomes, and the desiccated remains of former prisoners in the open cells and the surrounding area. They were just about to turn around and leave at the end of another futile search, when unexpectedly, Ferdinand came across another cell with a locked door — the only one in a row of open cells.

"Byleth! I may have something here."

The mercenary was by his side in a moment. "What is it?"

"This cell... it is locked."

She blinked. "Yes..."

"All the other cells we searched were either open or unlocked, and the only other cell we found that was locked contained a living prisoner. Perhaps we will find the same thing in this one?"

Byleth still seemed skeptical, but nonetheless put up her shotgun. "Leave it to me."

After the mercenary blew off the lock, the noble insisted on opening the door for her. Before doing so, Ferdinand had prepared himself beforehand for whatever stomach-churning horrors that could await him behind the door. When he swung it aside, however, he found out that no amount of mental preparation could have prepared him for a charging tackle that swept him off his armoured feet.

Lying on his back with his assailant looming over him, Ferdinand had a second to take a good look at her before he was forced to put up an arm in order to block the fist she threw his way.

It was a woman wearing some kind of segmented metal armour, with rectangular plates sewn together in horizontal rows to protect her torso and arms. In contrast to her upper body, the woman's lower half was more lightly armoured, with skirt plates made out of leather and scant bits of metal protecting her shins.

Uttering an angry string of words in a tongue unknown to Ferdinand, the woman's voluminous black hair whipped around her face as she proceeded to rain blow after blow on the noble below her, who grit his teeth as he blocked her rather ineffectual punches. From her sunken cheeks and the dark rings around her wild, frenzied eyes, the woman clearly was not at her best, both body and mind.

Ferdinand was content to let the prisoner flail and tire herself out before he could attempt to subdue her. Certainly, she was too weak to truly hurt him, especially while in his armour. Byleth, however, had had other plans.

With surprising strength, the mercenary seized the woman from behind and yanked her off Ferdinand. Screaming in desperate fury, the prisoner whipped around and tried to hit her attacker with her elbow, which Byleth easily blocked before proceeding to restrain her in a neckhold.

"Desist, if you know what's good for you!"

Unused to the uncharacteristic hostility in Byleth's voice, Ferdinand took a second to gather himself and stand up. "Ms. Eisner, stop!"

Byleth visibly tightened her grip on the woman as she looked to Ferdinand. "Are you unhurt?"

"Yes, I am fine, but please unhand the lady. She appears starved and acutely distressed... she must have mistaken us for her captors."

After some careful scrutiny and a firm nod from Ferdinand, Byleth let the woman go, pushing her some distance back.

Taking a breath to steady himself, Ferdinand dared to take a step towards the woman, one gauntleted hand held up in a placating manner. "Please, remain calm..."

Instead of doing as she was asked, the woman retreated from Ferdinand's advance, her dark eyes looking back and forth from him to Byleth with suspicion.

Seeing his approach was not working, Ferdinand stood his ground and reached up to undo his helmet. After taking it off and letting it fall to the floor, the noble once again tried to approach the prisoner. "We are only here to help..."

The woman stared at him as though surprised and confused at what she was seeing, but she did not move. Ferdinand thought about pushing his luck and reaching out to her, but decided against it. He stood opposite to her, tentatively waiting for her to make the next move.

A few more seconds passed before a grimace came to her face. Without a word, the woman turned her back on her rescuers and retreated further into the room.

"Ferdinand," Byleth walked up behind the noble before he could instinctively give chase. "She clearly does not want our help. We must return to the task at hand."

As much as Ferdinand disagreed with the notion of leaving a vulnerable-looking former prisoner to her own devices, he had to come back to their original goal eventually. "Yes, you are right. Let us find our comrades, and see how they fared in their own search."

Arthur and Sturges' search, as it turned out, proved to be significantly more productive than theirs. After a short walk, Ferdinand and Byleth found both men in what looked like a storage area near the room they were previously in, having had busied themselves with sorting through tables and racks adorned with what were clearly firearms, bundles of munitions, and other, stranger weapons and implements.

"...on the three-nought-three millimetre, like this one." Sturges held up a bullet for Arthur to see. "Most of the guns work on these..." He pocketed the round and shrugged. "Well, the ones I recognise, anyway."

"No kidding," Arthur hefted what looked like one of his shotguns. This one, however, looked like it was created by a master craftsman, and was made almost completely out of a matte-black material and darkened steel, with angular ridges built onto the top of the receiver, just ahead of the sights. "Ain't seen anything like this before."

It was then that he noticed Ferdinand and Byleth nearby. "You're here. Did you kids find anything?"

Byleth shook her head. "Just more old bones and dust..."

"And another prisoner." Ferdinand said. "We found a woman in one of the cells... she seemed to have mistaken us for her captors and tried to attack me."

Arthur arched one of his brows. "That right? And where's she now?"

"She ran away from us, though it is likely she is still somewhere close." Byleth said. "Though it is clear her stay here has taken its toll on her, she appeared quite capable still. She certainly looked like a warrior, what with that armour she was wearing."

Arthur nodded at that, grunting in muted satisfaction. "That's good. Means she can make it out of here on her own."

"I do not know," The young noble folded his arms, looking down to the floor. "It just does not feel right, leaving her to fend for herself in a place such as this."

"We cleared the way through to here, didn't we? She'll be alright, boy." Arthur said, trying to be encouraging. He then turned to the side and gestured at the contents of the room they were in. "Now, if you two don't mind, we'll need help getting all the guns and ammo in here into them chests, so we can carry them back to the fortress after we finish our business here."

Minutes later, and after Ferdinand summoned some of his knights to help, all the guns and munitions in the storage area were reorganised into boxes and chests and stacked into a neat pile in the previous room, close to the holding cells.

"Careful there! Don't you dare drop those!" Sturges chastised one of the knights after she almost lost her balance carrying a crate full of guns. "Those weapons belong to my mates."

"You mean there are others with you?" Byleth spoke up.

Sturges stared at Byleth for a moment before he nodded, "Yeah, I was with my section when these bastards ambushed us. There were eight of us at the start, they killed two and took the rest of us captive." He looked around, licking his lips. Worry was etched into his features. "I don't suppose any of you lot know where they are now?"

"We have not come across any others like you, I am afraid." Ferdinand shook his head.

Arthur crossed his arms and put a hand to his chin. "Well, maybe we did."

Sturges looked to him, his expression brightening a bit. "Ah, good. Can you show me where they are? It'd be nice to see a familiar face."

The mercenary sighed and nodded. He turned and gestured for the other man to follow. "Over here."

Ferdinand, Byleth, and the knights trailed behind Arthur and Sturges back to the centre of the room. They were barely a few paces to the table with the dead man strapped to it, when Sturges muttered an oath and suddenly ran up to the table, his gloved hands gripping the blood-stained edge.

"Oh... oh, God, no..." The corporal stared at the mutilated corpse with wide, shocked eyes. "Henry... what have they done to you?"

Arthur walked up next to him. "We got here just a minute too late. I'm... I'm sorry."

Sturges shook his head. He reached over to the dead man's neck and plucked off the small metallic chain he was wearing, which had a pair of inscribed metal discs attached. "This... this is what happened to them, when those demented bastards took them from their cells." He pocketed the chain and closed his eyes, his mouth set in a quivering frown. "I'm not leaving this place, until they're all fucking dead." When he opened his eyes again, they glowed with the wrath of a man bent on vengeance. "They'll pay for what they've done. Mark my bloody words."

Arthur nodded slowly as he uncrossed his arms. "Get in line, then. That's exactly why we're here."

With a grunt, Sturges drew his rifle, pulled back the bolt, loaded fresh bullets into the chamber, and pushed the bolt back with a resounding clack. "Then what are we waiting for?"

After hiding away the containers of firearms they gathered to be acquired later and a little more combat preparation, Ferdinand's party returned on their way to regroup with the other knights that were previously left behind to defend the corridor entrance. To his relief, Ferdinand found the other half of his men still in position, having had suffered no casualties while their comrades were away.

"Nothing to report, sir knight?" He asked.

"We held against three wandering enemy patrols. They have been dealt with." Sir Volkmar said. The Astral Knight turned to look at Corporal Sturges and raised his visor. "And who's this?"

"Friend of mine. He's here to help." Arthur said, in an abrupt tone that brooked no argument.

Volkmar shrugged. He then pointed to Ferdinand, or at least, the space to the left of Ferdinand. "And her? Is she your friend, too?"

Out of everyone in the group, none were more surprised than Ferdinand to find the armoured woman he and Byleth let out from her cell standing close to the noble, as though she simply materialised next to him. Slung over her shoulder was a metallic longbow pilfered from one of the slain outsiders, and in her hands was a glaive, also taken from the dead.

"Not as far as I know, no." Arthur glanced casually at the woman, his hand already sitting atop the holstered pistol by his side. He nudged Ferdinand with his armoured elbow. "How about you, kid? Know this girl?"

Ferdinand blinked away his surprise. "Yes, she was the other prisoner we freed! Please, friends, give me a moment!"

Before Arthur could voice his skepticism, Ferdinand approached the former prisoner, his poleaxe strapped to his back, his sword secured in its sheath, his visor raised, and his arms outstretched to show his peaceful intent. This time, the woman did not flee, and simply looked at her rescuer with exhausted, though focused eyes.

"If you are willing to accompany us, my lady, we would be more than glad to protect you until we return to safer environments. You can count on that." The noble swore with a confident nod, then gestured to himself. "I am Ferdinand von Aegir. What name should we call you by?"

The woman continued to stare at him and say nothing, though looking a little more confused, from the narrowing of her brows. After another awkward moment, she did open her mouth to say something, but what came out of it was a whispered string of indecipherable, almost lyrical-sounding foreign words.

"Uhm, come again?" Ferdinand's confusion must have been obvious from his body language, because the next sound that came out of the woman's mouth was an annoyed groan.

"Mayu." She said, patting her chestplate in slow, deliberate movements. "Ma-yu. Mayu desu."

Though still a little uncertain, Ferdinand nodded to convey his understanding. "Ah, yes. Pleased to meet you... Mayu."

The young woman nodded back. She extended a hand to him, and Ferdinand reached out to take it, when they were interrupted by a nearby explosion of dark magic that toppled a few unfortunate knights that were standing too close to it.

"Here they come!" Rosamunde dove behind cover and nocked an arrow into her bow. "Defend yourselves!"

...

---

Panting in exertion, Shez staggered backwards, his arms aching from all the repeated blows he had to parry aside with his blades. He found himself not minding it, however, as it was a good pain.

"You alright there, kid?" Catherine called out from her spot in the crowd that had gathered to watch him fight his sparring partner. "That was a solid blow."

"Yeah, I'm good!" The mercenary shouted back, mouth split in a faint grin as he breathed heavily. He raised one of his blades and pointed it at his foe. "How about you, milady? Getting tired yet?"

Hilda groaned like a reprimanded child. "Ugh, you're still standing? Goddess, this is just too much work!" She planted her axe on the ground and leaned on it as she turned to a member of the spectating crowd. "Hooooolst, can I give up yet? He's obviously better than me!"

"Come on, Hilda! Can't you see he's flagging? You've got this, just one more good hit!" General Holst relentlessly cheered his sister on. "No way you're losing to a crestless mercenary!"

"Alright, alright, fine!" Hefting her axe back up from the ground, the noble returned to a combat-ready stance. "Okay... you ready?"

Shez wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "Show me what you got."

With that said, without any more warning, Hilda suddenly broke into a sprint towards Shez, her weapon held to the side to strike him with a swinging lunge from below. Shez made to dart aside and counterattack, but Hilda was ready for him. Moving faster than the mercenary anticipated, the noble reeled back her weapon and suddenly lashed out with its handle, shoving her foe back and throwing him off-balance.

Gasping, Shez barely had time to put up his blades to block the overhead blow Hilda brought down on him. Such was the strength behind her strike, the mercenary's legs buckled and he was forced to go down on a knee, his arms shaking as he struggled to keep the noble's blade from falling down and ending their bout once and for all.

"Wow! You actually blocked that!" Hilda gaped at Shez from above, looking genuinely impressed. "Only my brother ever managed to—"

Shez saw an opportunity, and being the opportunist that he was, he took it. Gritting his teeth, the mercenary inched his body to the side, letting the axe hanging over him fall down where he was kneeling a second ago. Hilda yelped as she was thrown forward by the weight of her weapon, leaving her momentarily defenceless. From there, it was a simple matter for Shez to go on the offensive, raining blow after blow on Hilda before she could fully recover. The girl attempted to create some distance between them and put up some measure of resistance, but Shez's quick and relentless attacks kept her on the backfoot.

After a decisive blow from Shez knocked the axe from Hilda's hands, the pink-haired noble simply held up her hands. "Whoa, whoa, okay! That was totally on me."

The mercenary nodded tiredly, putting down his blades. "Haah, you let your guard down..." He breathed deep, trying to catch his breath. The noble, in contrast, did not sound as breathless as he did. "Saints, now that was a workout."

Hilda smiled cheekily. "This one, though, is on you!"

Shez never saw it coming. One moment, he was on his feet, winded but confident in his victory. Yet in another, he was lying supine with his back to the ground, his jaw stinging from the underhanded punch Hilda landed on him while he wasn't paying attention. Grunting, the mercenary tried to scramble up to his feet and retrieve one of the blades he dropped from the ground, only to come up to the sight of Hilda looming over him, her axe held above his head.

"Alright," He sighed, lying back down. "I'll give you that one."

"Haha! I won! Hilda, Hilda, Hilda!"

With that said, Hilda was quick to drop her weapon and help get Shez back up to his feet. It was bitter enough as it was to lose a fight, but it was made even worse when it was accompanied by the sound of a crowd cheering for his victorious opponent.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Shez would be lying if he said she did not. It almost seemed laughable, how a girl like her could hit so hard. "Hrrm..." He massaged his aching jaw, his eyes to the ground to keep himself from looking at the cheering crowd. "Damn. It stings, but at least you didn't break anything."

"Ah, heh, sorry about that..."

"Don't worry about it. You did well, I guess."

"Aw, thanks!"

Some time later, after a quick examination by a healer and a small blast of white magic to the face, Shez bid the others farewell and planned to head straight to the barracks and go to sleep. He would usually continue his training for a few hours more before spending some time unwinding in the Defender's Rest, but he thought it wise to take it easy on his body for some time, given the extent of the abuse it endured in the past few days.

He only hoped his wounds have not reopened. It would be a terrible inconvenience to wake up in blood-soaked bedsheets.

Before he could take another step along the path leading outside the training grounds, however, Catherine took him by the shoulder and dragged him back, laughing as she did. "He-hey, where do you think you're going? Don't tell me you're tired already!"

"Tired and humbled by a girl with a giant axe, yes." Shez droned, eyes half-lidded. "Okay, okay, it's been mostly fun, but I gotta get some rest if my body's going to heal properly."

"Oh, right..." The knight of Seiros retracted her hand, nodding in comprehension. "Well, I better let you go, then. But before I do, though, tell me, have you seen Morgan around? I've been looking everywhere for him since yesterday, and he's nowhere to be found."

Shez threw up his hands, shrugging. "I dunno. Haven't really seen any sign of him or Byleth in a while, but I wouldn't worry about it. These two disappear together often, sometimes for weeks at a time."

Catherine arched a blonde brow. "Oh? I've heard stories from the other mercs about something like that, but I wasn't sure if it's true." One corner of her lips twisted upward in a half-smirk. "So, Captain Eisner's girl has a thing for rugged older gentlemen, eh?"

"What? Ah... shit, I didn't mean it like that." Shez scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "Just... forget I said anything. Arthur denied there was anything going on between them, but what those two actually get up to when no one's looking isn't any of my business." He inhaled sharply. "If you don't mind me asking, why did you want to see Arthur, anyway?"

"What else? That bastard kept slipping away before I could have a proper spar with him!"

"Why not spar with Byleth? I'm sure she'd give you a better fight than him. Well, in a swordfight at least."

"Hah, already did. Crossed swords with her a few times after our sortie, and she's every bit as good as I was expecting... but even the Ashen Demon was not good enough for the likes of Thunder Catherine!" The knight said, laughing. "I hope she told her squeeze all about our duel. That should give him extra motivation to try and beat me."

"Yeahhh, I'm staying out of this," Shez said. "No way I'm..."

"It's coming from above!"

"It's going to hit us!"

"Look out!"

"Take cover!"

"INCOMING!"

Shez had just enough time to turn his head at the guardsman shouting nearby and look above where he was frantically pointing before he found himself launched in the air and off his feet by a massive wave of force. His vision went dark for goddess knew how long, and when he opened his eyes again, he realised he was lying face-down on the ground, breathing in dust and the earth.

Coughing, Shez crawled up to a knee. Turning his head to where he thought the source of the shockwave that knocked him on his arse was, the mercenary was shocked to find a massive, flaming boulder had smashed into the roof of a nearby armoury, flattening most of the structure and setting it ablaze. "Ah..."

"Kid! Hey, you alright?" Shez turned to see Catherine running to his side, her armour and most of her face lathered in a thin layer of grime and ash. "We have to find cover! More of these rocks are falling from the sky!"

"What? How!"

"You gonna ask questions all day? Come on, let's get out of the open before we both get flattened!"

As more flaming boulders rained down on the fortress, Shez, Catherine, and several House Goneril soldiers rushed away from the exposed openness of the training grounds and scrambled into the fortress for whatever cover that could be found. They hunkered down and waited for several moments for the barrage to stop, but the hail of fiery death was unrelenting.

"Damn it!" It didn't take long for Shez to get sick of seeing random buildings and walls get smashed and unfortunate soldiers get messily killed. "We have to do something, and quickly!"

Catherine raised her arm and shielded her head from a spray of dirt and crushed masonry that came from the nearby impact of a flaming rock. "Got any bright ideas?"

Shez looked around. It took him some time and a bit of squinting to spot the flash of pink hair in the distance. "Over there! I think I saw General Holst!"

The knight nodded, teeth grit. "Move from cover to cover and stay behind me. Do not stop for anything. Come on, let's go!"

In most circumstances, the path to General Holst should be short and risk-free. As it was, Shez and Catherine were forced to move past debris and rubble, jump over the mangled bodies they came across, and periodically seek cover from the rain of fire coming from above. By the time they reached the general, he and the soldiers around him seem already poised to move out.

"General Holst!" Catherine raised an arm and hailed the man before he could take a step further. "Wait for us!"

Beside the general, his sister nudged his arm and pointed at the knight. "Brother, look! Lady Catherine's here!"

General Holst looked to where Hilda pointed, his grim countenance briefly returning to its usual, genial state. "Ah, Lady Catherine! Thank the goddess you're alive, we could use your sword-arm!" He also raised his hand, signalling for his soldiers to hold position. "I've received word that the Almyrans have commenced an attack on the walls. I am on the way to reinforce them now. Will you join us?"

"I'd like to, but I have to gear up and mobilise my knights! Not to worry, we'll make our way to the walls as soon as we can!" Catherine then turned to Shez. "What about you, kid?"

"I could use more bodyguards. Come join us, Shez!" Hilda said.

Shez resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Alright, alright, I'm coming."

...

---

"Suffer, mayfly!"

Ferdinand grunted as he felt the force of the blow of the enemy's axe down his arms. He was starting to feel fatigue setting in from all the fighting and running he had been doing thus far, but his unwavering confidence saw him through as he parried aside the outsider's attack and swiftly countered with his own, his poleaxe slicing across the warrior's throat before aiming low, his rebounding swing cleaving the foe's legs from under him.

"Heads up!" Volkmar gestured at a ridge up ahead with his maul, its underside dripping with redness. "Spellcasters!"

Ferdinand turned to where the knight was pointing at, and found a small group of dark mages entering the fray, having just finished positioning themselves in an elevated spot with a good view of his party below. The noble was quick to shout a warning to his knights as he prepared to start dodging balls of dark magic, when the mages started falling one by one, each felled by an arrow.

Ever since she started tagging along with the group, the strange warrior apparently known as Mayu had proven herself to be a competent archer and an even better glaive-wielder, but with a disturbing tendency to put herself in harm's way. After forcing the dark mages to stop trying to cast their spells and seek cover, Mayu put away her bow and recklessly strode near Ferdinand in the frontlines, impaling one of the foes attempting to intercept the noble in the back as she did. She did not seem to care that she had overextended, and she now faced four other outsiders at once.

Instead of doing what was sensible and initiating a fighting retreat, Mayu launched herself at her opponents, to Ferdinand's horror. After going through the trouble of freeing her, the thought of seeing Mayu meet a violent, unjust end shortly afterwards caused Ferdinand to abandon all reason as he cleaved through his current set of opponents and waded further into the thick of it, drawing attention to himself as he cut down or smashed aside anything standing in his way to his ally.

By the time Ferdinand reached Mayu's position, she had been backed into a corner by a formation of shield-bearing outsiders, the bodies of those the warrior had slain barely slowing down their still-living comrades as they moved in to finish her off. Visibly exhausted and facing imminent death, Mayu simply grit her teeth and put up her glaive. Fortunately for her, Ferdinand did not fight his way to her just to watch her die.

Bellowing a war cry, the noble charged the shielded outsiders from the side. They reacted too late as he crashed into their flank, wildly swinging his poleaxe in wide, inelegant arcs. Two of the outsiders were beheaded before they could react. One put up her shield too slowly as Ferdinand smashed it aside before splitting her head in two. At least one of them seemed ready for Ferdinand as she sidestepped his latest swing and lunged forward as he tried to recover, battering him with a series of quick strikes of her warhammer.

Ferdinand grunted with the impact of each blow against his armour. With significant effort, he put up his poleaxe and tried to block or parry the blows yet to come, but it thankfully proved unnecessary. Thanks to the noble drawing attention to himself, Mayu had dealt with her opponents and flanked the warrior on Ferdinand, her glaive cleaving deep into the enemy's shoulder with a heavy overhead strike.

"Haah, my thanks." As Mayu positioned herself to defend him from the foes that surround, Ferdinand planted his poleaxe into the ground and took a moment to breathe. With increasing trepidation, he took in the sight of the many outsiders now surrounding them, having had gone too far ahead of their allies. "...consarn it, we should not have come this far! We have to make a stand... here and now!"

His strange ally stared down the enemy. With deliberate movements, she plunged her glaive down into the ground and drew her longbow over her head, nocking an arrow from the quiver by her side as she did.

Ferdinand nodded and stood in front of her, adjusting his stance for a drawn-out battle. When the outsiders started charging them, Ferdinand did his best to defend their position as Mayu loosed into the enemy ranks, her arrows making their marks on mages and other archers more often than not.

Propelled by desperation and the will to see his duty through, Ferdinand erased all thoughts of his accumulating exhaustion as he fought on, smiting foes left and right, refusing to let them come near their position. He and his erstwhile companion fought shoulder-to-shoulder, frequently swapping positions as needed, but never parting from each others' side.

They fought on despite the increasingly grim odds. As the battle went on, however, Ferdinand began to notice Mayu's arrow volleys becoming more infrequent. Sure enough, after what felt like another grueling minute of heavy fighting, Ferdinand glanced over his shoulder to see Mayu throwing away her bow, the quiver poking from behind her hip noticeably empty.

As a fresh wave of foes advanced over the corpses of their fallen comrades, the strange warrior uprooted her glaive from the ground and marched up next to the noble, the words coming from her mouth still made no sense to Ferdinand, but the alarm and urgency behind them made their meaning plentifully clear.

"Fear not, this is not the end!" Ferdinand swore as together, the two of them turned to face the incoming tide of foes and stared death in the face. "We shall not be overcome! Stand firm, and we will win!"

They prepared themselves for the fight of their lives, but unexpectedly, the advancing enemy horde stilled their charge and made no attempt to attack. They simply drew to a halt just beyond the range of Ferdinand and Mayu's polearms and put up their shields.

Wary of tricks, Ferdinand glanced behind his shoulder, expecting more outsiders to come from behind, but only saw a few stragglers in the process of being wiped out by his knights and their mercenary allies.

"What the hell was you thinkin', kid?" Arthur was quick to chastise Ferdinand as he and Byleth jogged up from behind with Corporal Sturges trailing close, the soldier cursing to himself as he struggled to clear a jam in his firearm. "Charging in like a goddamn lunatic... I didn't think you'd be dumb enough to pull something like that!"

Ferdinand grimaced. "I did what I must, Mr. Morgan."

"Your armour is dented." Byleth pointed out. "Do you require medical aid?"

"I appreciate the concern, but I am unhurt," He lied, ignoring the waves of pain that came with every breath. He decided to not linger on the subject. "Sir Volkmar, casualty report."

The Astral Knight stood up straight. "Lady Ulrike is suffering from a concussion after taking blow to the helmet from a mace, but I believe she will recover. Sir Engelbert..." His posture slumped ever so slightly. "...he caught an arrow through the visor. It was quick, I do not believe he suffered."

Ferdinand sighed. "I will make the arrangements and inform House Malum. We will make time to return to the Empire and mourn our dead, but for now," He turned to look at the outsiders gathered just ahead, still remaining in place with their shields raised and spears held up. "We are here to avenge them, and ensure their sacrifice was not made in vain."

Moments later, the enemy lines split down the middle as they parted aside for a towering figure encased head-to-toe in a gigantic suit of plate armour, holding a thick, metal pavise-shaped shield in their left hand, and a double-bladed axe crackling with arcane lightning in their right.

"Primitives." The outsider knight's voice was masculine and suitably deep, sounding as though his helmet amplified its sonorous tone instead of muffling it. "You have gone far enough."

"Not far enough, I say." Ferdinand was certain this one was Chilon. Lysithea's description of his arms and armour matched this outsider completely. "Justice will not be satisfied until your body lies dead at my feet, Chilon, along with the rest of your minions!"

Chilon swivelled his head to look down on Ferdinand. "You. We know of you." He hefted his axe over his pauldron. "Ferdinand von Aegir. Your father is adamant that you have not discovered us. He has chosen to ignore all presented evidence and insisted you pose no threat to our goals. Perhaps he will change his mind, after we bring you, and the heads of your followers to him."

"You are welcome to try!" Ferdinand said, holding up his poleaxe. "Come, then! Let us end—!"

The noble felt a hand on his shoulder. "Hold up there, kid." Arthur brushed past Ferdinand, his gaze locked ahead at the leader of this dark mage coven. "Let me get in a few words with this armoured freak."

"Arthur, wait..."

"Chilon!" The mercenary brazenly advanced past his allies, putting himself in between them and the first rank of outsider warriors. "We got business, you and I!"

Chilon pivoted his whole body to face Arthur, his plates ominously clinking together as he moved. "And you. The unforeseen variable. Your presence here is testament to Kronya's incompetence. You should have terminated her when you had the chance."

Arthur furrowed his brows at the outsider. "Whatever you got going with the other freaks in your little circus, I ain't got the patience to hear it. Let's get down to business." He cycled his rifle. "Your mages have one of ours. Tekla Schneider... you took her from under our noses, right in the middle of our fortress. Where is she — where the hell have you taken her?"

Chilon hefted his shield up, then plunged it down into the ground. With his armoured off-hand free, he used it to gesture at his warriors behind him. A moment later, a more senior-looking dark mage stepped forward, dragging a young woman wearing a mercenary's cloak and attire by the arm.

"Tekla!" Arthur called out as soon as he caught sight of his missing comrade. "Hang on, we're coming to get you!"

Byleth soon took her place alongside Arthur. "We will have you returned to the fortress shortly, Tekla!"

"Just forget about me, you two!" Tekla called back. "Get out of here, now! Chilon's got you right where he— aaa-aahh!"

Ferdinand watched in horror as the mage keeping Tekla captive subjected her to a lightning spell, forcing the healer on her knees.

"Be silent." Chilon's sonorous voice boomed. "You have caused enough interference. To think, Thales had high hopes for you..."

Ferdinand felt himself overcome with righteous fury as he watched Tekla suffer at the hands of the dark mage. "Stop this madness!" The noble exclaimed, rushing ahead to stand beside Arthur and Byleth. "Soldiers of the Empire, to your positions! Prepare for battle!"

"Take this interloper away from here. Leave the duke's son alive and terminate the rest." Chilon pulled up his shield and brandished his lightning-wreathed axe. "You will fail, Ferdinand von Aegir."

The noble gripped his poleaxe tightly as his knights formed a protective half-circle behind him and the two mercenaries as they fell in. He also noticed Mayu among their ranks, having had seamlessly taken her place in their formation. "I trained for this moment, villain. Today, you meet a fate most deserved! To arms, comrades!"

Chilon pointed his axe at Ferdinand's group as they charged forth. "Vengeance for Agartha! Forwa— hrrm!"

The outsider knight stumbled back as Arthur and Byleth opened fire with their guns, their shots failing to penetrate his armour, but leaving unsightly craters and indentations in its once-pristine surface.

"Hrrrmh..." With a rumbling groan, he steadied himself, put up his shield again and used it to block the next volley of bullets the mercenaries fired his way. "Your primitive weapons will not save you, surfacers."

As one, Ferdinand and his knights started a fighting retreat to more advantageous positions. Lady Rosamunde and the other archers loosed arrows into the enemy ranks as they fell back, while Ferdinand, Maynard, Volkmar and Mayu protected them from the advancing horde of outsiders. All the while, Arthur, Byleth, and Sturges picked off enemy bowmen and spellcasters wherever they could be spotted.

"Hold this position, my knights!" Ferdinand declared, after they reached a narrow corridor. He cleaved aside a charging foe before planting himself in front of his party. "Fight with all you have! Let virtue prevail!"

And thus, the battle had truly joined. Ferdinand stubbornly remained at the front of their entrenched formation, smiting foes left and right as he parried or redirected blows meant for himself and his allies around him. More than once did they manage to strike his armour, but the noble shrugged them off, so consumed was he in his crusade for justice. The blood of the outlanders splashed against his plates and covered most of his uncovered head within moments, and yet they still came.

"Ferdinand, a word!"

It took a moment for Ferdinand to realise that Byleth had made her way next to him, having had discarded her shotgun for her sword. "Arthur and Corporal Sturges have set up explosives just behind our position! If we can retreat further back and lure Chilon to overextend, we can end this in moments!"

The noble wiped his face with the back of his gauntlet. "They did what? That is—"

Suddenly, Ferdinand found himself on his knees as he felt a violent, painful spasm go through his entire body, his muscles refusing to obey as arcane lightning wracked his form.

"My lord!" Sir Maynard was by his side in a moment, teeth grit in worry as he continued flinging balls of whitefire in the enemy's direction. "Stand away, you brutes! Back!"

Ferdinand watch his knight dig into his heels and attempt to cast what seemed like a major offensive spell against a foe that eluded his sight, when he was suddenly interrupted by a rain of arrows that forced him to shield himself with a barrier spell.

"Watch out!" Ferdinand heard Byleth shout. "On your right!"

Maynard noticed the imminent danger in his midst too late. He strengthened his barrier to ward an incoming blow, but it proved useless as Chilon brought down his enchanted axe and shattered it effortlessly before continuing its brutal descent.

Maynard screamed as the axe cleaved deep into his shoulder, its lightning-infused edge rendering his armour useless as it seared the flesh underneath. Ferdinand could only watch in horror as the outsider's next blow split the knight's head in two in a gruesome display of blood and sparks.

"Your efforts are in vain, Ferdinand von Aegir." Chilon's rumbling voice reverberated from his helmet as he turned to face the noble. "You have failed."

Ferdinand attempted to move, but his body continued to disobey him. He tried to speak, to shout his defiance, but in that dreadful moment, even the simplest of actions was beyond his ability.

"Stand aside." Chilon advanced.

Byleth stood in front of Ferdinand, her reddened blade in hand. "I think not."

Chilon hefted his axe and made to strike it into the ground. "Then perish."

The mercenary did not waste any time. She pushed Ferdinand to the side before jumping in the opposite direction herself, deftly avoiding the bolt of arcane lightning that streaked towards her. She didn't wait for Chilon to approach her, however, as she immediately charged the towering outlander, sword raised above her head.

Chilon raised his shield and blocked Byleth's overhead blow with it before shoving her back. With nimbleness that seemed to belie his heavily armoured bulk, he proceeded to go on the offensive, swinging and slashing at Byleth with his axe, forcing her to duck and weave.

"Submit." He demanded.

She sidestepped his overhead. "Never."

As Chilon's axe planted itself on the ground, Byleth moved to skirt around her opponent. Chilon seemed to have anticipated this, however, as he reared back and lashed out with his shield. Byleth clearly had not expected such a thing, from the clumsy way she dodged the slab of metal thrust her way, but she recovered quickly and pressed her advantage, abusing her superior speed and agility to bypass Chilon's guard as he recovered and rain down a series of heavy blows on his armour.

Sparks flew and more unsightly gouges were carved into Chilon's plates as Byleth continued her unrelenting assault, landing swing after swing at her armoured foe, parrying or deflecting aside his attempts to fend her off as they came.

Eventually, Byleth finished her assault with a heavy overhead strike, with enough force behind it to shatter shields. Certainly, it would have split any other shield in half... but not Chilon's.

"Hrm!" Chilon let out a muffled grunt as the shield was knocked off his hand. Byleth saw her opportunity to end the fight as she held her sword to level at her foe's lesser-armoured throat and lunged with it, angling the blade to slip between the plates.

"Cease."

Even as Ferdinand struggled to regain control of his limbs, he couldn't help but gawk at the sight before him. In an astounding feat of inhuman reflexes and strength, Chilon caught Byleth's sword in his free gauntleted hand, clutching it by the blade and stopping it dead before it could impale him. Byleth attempted to wrench her weapon free from her opponent's grasp, but Chilon's strength proved much greater as he yanked the blade backwards with such force, Byleth was forced to release her grip on it.

"This ends now."

Chilon tossed the blade to the ground before bringing his axe down on it, the thunderous force behind the blow instantly shattering the weapon into pieces. Byleth instinctively raised her arm to shield herself from the flying shards of metal, which was a mistake that almost cost her her life when Chilon then attempted to do to her as he did to her sword.

"Be still, primitive!"

Ferdinand grit his teeth as he slowly crawled his way back up to his feet, using his poleaxe to prop himself up. Though still wracked with spasming waves of agony throughout his body, his eyes never left the scene in front of him, the rhythmic beating of his heart ringing in his ears as he watched Byleth dodge Chilon's frenzied blows again and again, her mask of indifference having been cast aside for an expression of mounting desperation.

"Ferdinand!" The mercenary shouted, even as she weaved and ducked under her foe's unrelenting attacks. "I'll keep him busy! Retreat, while you still can!"

The noble growled, ignoring the pain as he willed himself into a combat-ready stance. "I... will not... back down!"

Byleth looked behind her shoulder, just long enough for Ferdinand to see the silent, pleading look on her face before Chilon lunged and seized her by the throat with his free hand.

"Pathetic."

Ferdinand could no longer stand and watch as Chilon proceeded to lift Byleth up from the ground by the neck, clear off her feet. He barely managed a couple of steps before he found himself beset by a number of the foe who were rallying to their leader, forcing the noble to defend himself.

"A shame." Chilon rumbled, even as he throttled Byleth. "You are skilled, for a surfacer. It is a waste to terminate you. But there can be no peace, not until this world is scoured clean... until every last beast is slain."

Byleth struggled with all her might, but like Lysithea before her, all her attempts to escape Chilon were in vain.

Fuelled by desperate haste, Ferdinand dealt with his foes without his characteristic finesse and grace as he cut the inferior warriors down one after another, but with each one he killed, two more seemed to replace them. He risked letting them through to his guard when he attempted to check on Byleth, hoping to find her still alive. What he saw made his stomach drop.

Byleth was still in Chilon's grasp, her legs swaying with every movement as he continued to hold her up in the air. Her eyes were closed, and the skin on her face was cyanosed.

In that moment, Ferdinand felt his mind go blank. One of the wretched fiends drew close behind him, perhaps thinking he was struck so dumb, he would have been a much easier kill than before. When the warrior raised his flanged mace to finish his quarry, Ferdinand turned around and used a single hand to thrust his poleaxe at the outsider's head before his weapon could land, the sheer force of his strike collapsing the front of his foe's skull as it brutally pierced its way through and out the other side.

Undaunted by the sudden and gruesome death of their comrade, more of the enemy warriors dared to cross Ferdinand. He spared them no remorse, no respite, and no quarter as he hacked, stabbed, and bludgeoned his way through their ranks, intending on carving a path to Chilon, whom had tossed Byleth's limp body aside and moved to recover his shield.

Unfortunately, no matter how many of the pale abominations did Ferdinand put down, they simply kept coming, throwing themselves in between the noble and his target with seemingly no regard for their own lives.

With time, as the enemy's casualties mounted, so did Ferdinand's wounds and exhaustion. His spirit blazed with righteous anger, but his body was battered and spent, far past its breaking point. He knew Chilon wanted to take him alive, but he would not let them. Drawing on the final embers of his strength, he resolved to die here, fighting injustice... his honour untarnished.

Fortunately, fate had other plans for him.

Without warning, half of the enemy warriors attempting to overwhelm Ferdinand collapsed on the ground, having had their heads blown open by a rapid series of precise gunshots. The rest had no time to prepare as the remaining Astral Knights, spearheaded by Arthur, Volkmar, and Mayu, engaged them in melee.

Ferdinand shoved the body of the foe that had fallen on top of him and wiped his face. When he opened his eyes, he bore witness to the sight of Arthur crashing into the enemy's surprised ranks, his axe in one hand, and a pistol in the other. Flanked by Volkmar, Mayu, and the other knights, and given covering fire by Rosamunde and Corporal Sturges just behind, Arthur formed the tip of the renewed offensive as he hacked and shot his way through to Chilon with ferocity and viciousness the likes of which Ferdinand never seen in him before.

"Fools," Even amidst the din of combat, Chilon's voice could be heard. "Do you think our leader would let this slight remain unanswered? The Scions of Agartha will not rest until you are exterminated to the last!" For once, he sounded genuinely desperate as he watched his forces get torn up. "Cease this folly, and you may have your mage!"

Arthur carved an outlander from shoulder to sternum, dodged a blow from another, and emptied two rounds into the offending warrior's abdomen at point-blank. "Spare us your bullshit!" Ignoring his victim's pained groans, the mercenary blew apart the warrior's head with another point-blank shot to the skull. "I'll have your head, you soulless bastard!"

Chilon grumbled in frustration as he lifted his axe in the air and waved it in circular motions. A horn sounded from the back of the enemy's ranks, and within moments, the bulk of the remaining enemies began to inch back, before retreating from the battle entirely. They didn't seem to care for their comrades who were still locked in combat with Ferdinand's party, who were soon wiped out to a man without support.

With the battle soon concluding, Ferdinand wasted no more time finishing off his current set of foes before hurrying over to where he saw Chilon toss Byleth's body. Reaching the fallen mercenary, the noble looked to her, then to Sir Maynard's corpse nearby.

Sighing harshly, he shook his head, blinking away the tears. He knew it was inevitable that he would lose comrades in battle, but he found he was not prepared to lose friends, as well. Doubtless there would be more dead friends in this crusade of his, and with a defeated slump of his shoulders, he realised he must become stronger if he were to retain the nerve to see things through, and become the duke his father should have been.

"God... no."

Ferdinand turned to his side, unsurprised to see Arthur rushing to his side. "Mr. Morgan..."

The man ignored him as he strode over to Byleth's corpse and dropped to his knees beside her. His expression twisted in terror and denial, Arthur immediately began looking for signs of life, checking for pulse and putting his ear next to her heart.

"I failed." Ferdinand said, head bowed in shame. "I was not strong enough to aid her."

"No, no, it ain't your fault..." Arthur spoke, but Ferdinand could tell his mind was elsewhere as he frantically tried to find a pulse, no matter how faint. "Not breathing. Can't find a pulse. She's... she ain't..."

Ferdinand let him grieve for a moment, wanting to join him, but knowing he mustn't. Not now. "We will avenge her, Arthur. We will avenge them all. Count on it."

"Revenge... is a fool's game..." Arthur mumbled. Slowly, he let go of the girl's lifeless body and closed his eyes, his shoulders beginning to tremble. "Revenge... is a fool's..."

"Arthur, please," Ferdinand put his hand on the man's shoulder, hoping to bring him back to the present. "We have yet to rescue Tekla. Do not lose yourself here, not now."

Instead, Arthur continued to shake as his voice turned from grief to rage. "Revenge is... a fool's... game!"

Then suddenly, Ferdinand found himself pushed aside as Arthur stood up. With stilted, almost mechanical movements, the man pulled out his repeater rifle, loaded fresh cartridges into the gun and cycled it before he wordlessly strode onward, deeper into the cavern.

Shocked, Ferdinand's first instinct was to go after him, worried that he will meet the same fate as his fallen ward. He almost did run after Arthur, only to be cut short when his remaining knights arrived by his side.

"Not many of us left still standing, brother," Volkmar said as he worked to catch his breath. Behind him, Rosamunde helped one of the knights to sit down as she helped him unfasten his armour and dressed the wound underneath. "But those two prisoners you found seem eager to continue. What are your orders?"

Ferdinand looked over Volkmar's shoulder and sighted Mayu in the process of finishing off a wounded outlander on the ground, a vengeful expression on her face. Just some distance behind her, Sturges could be found standing over Byleth, shaking his head.

"Bloody shame." The soldier muttered as he turned away.

Ferdinand sighed. "Sir Volkmar, I need you to hold this position and tend to our the wounded... and please, watch over our fallen and keep our exit clear."

The Astral Knight saluted his lord with his weapon. "I will remain here with Adelhard and Ulrike. They will not get past House Aegir's finest."

Ferdinand nodded gratefully at him before regarding the others again. "As for the rest of you..." He flinched as the distant sound of gunshots echoed through the cavern. "Form up! Let us finish this, here and now!"

Emboldened by the noble's words, the group sallied forth, in the direction where Arthur took off to.

Rosamunde pointed ahead. "There he is!"

And it wasn't long at all for them to find the man, who was steadily advancing towards a cluster of foes, seemingly unconcerned for his own safety as he ventilated skulls without missing a beat. Warriors charged the mercenary as archers and dark mages flung arrows and fell magic at him, but Arthur remained unnaturally steady as he stepped behind cover, propped his gun above his vantage point, and picked off the archers and mages from there. With the last of the distant threats on the ground, Arthur swiftly left cover and continued to advance, his rifle's barrel seeming to glow in the dim light of the cavern as he shot down each one of the charging warriors before they could come near him. Though Arthur seemed to have lost his reservations about conserving his munitions, his unerring accuracy and speed with a firearm only seemed to improve.

Ferdinand was among the first to reach Arthur. "Forward, comrades! Spread out and protect the flanks!"

But even with the support of his allies, Arthur continued his reckless assault, seeming as though the others were beneath his notice. The mercenary barely made use of cover as he marched unflinchingly onward, swiftly blasting holes into the heads of his foes with an aim so precise, it terrified his own allies. Archers were picked off before they could draw their bows, mages were shot down shortly after they revealed themselves, and warriors were either summarily dispatched before they could come close, or were cut down by Ferdinand's party.

Such was the slaughter the group inflicted on their opponents, the already demoralised ranks of the dark mages started to break. Ferdinand called out for the others to remain cautious, but the man driving their momentum forward did not seem to hear him as he relentlessly hounded the foe. When his rifle inevitably ran out of bullets to shoot with, he simply slung it over his shoulder, drew his twin pistols from his sides, and resumed firing.

"The enemy horde is thinning. Chilon should be almost out of minions to throw at us!" Rosamunde said.

"Remain vigilant!" Ferdinand shouted.

Arthur slid behind cover and ejected his empty magazines. He stared into the distance with cold, listless eyes as he methodically reloaded his pistols and stepped out into the open again, firing his weapons the same, lethally-accurate way as before. With the rate of which the group had been exterminating the outlanders, it didn't take long at all for Chilon to be forced to reveal himself once more.

"You will go no further!" The outlander knight declared grandly, clearly having had lost his composure. The same, higher-ranking dark mage who was holding Tekla hostage reappeared beside his master, but this time, he was holding a crooked dagger to the captive healer's throat. "Make another step, and this one dies!"

"Do your worst!" Tekla spat a mixture of blood and saliva onto the ground. She turned her head to address the group. "Don't listen to him. My life isn't worth his."

"Still your treasonous tongue, apostate!" The mage holding Tekla hostage struck her above the head with the pommel of his dagger before holding her closer, pressing the blade hard enough against her neck to draw blood.

Ferdinand turned to Arthur, finding him calmly loading bullets into a magazine before feeding it into one of his pistols. He then turned to Rosamunde, whom had already drawn back an arrow against her longbow, her sights locked towards the dark mage restraining Tekla.

"Do you have a clear shot, lady knight?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Take it."

The arrow's flight was short, but it struck true all the same as the mage reeled backwards with a pathetic gurgle, weakly grasping at the shaft of the arrow sticking out of his eye. Acting quickly, Tekla snatched the dying mage's dagger from the ground with one hand, and used the other to knock down a handful of enemy warriors positioned nearby with a blast of white magic, clearing some space for herself.

Chilon let out a frustrated noise. "After her!"

"Rosamunde, Landrich, Sturges, protect Tekla!" Ferdinand ordered. He was about to ask Arthur if he could personally retrieve Tekla, only to find himself startled to see Chilon's shield fly out of his grasp and clatter against the ground, a gaping hole blown out of its scorched, blackened surface.

"Damnation!" Chilon shifted his bulk to retrieve his damaged shield, only to be sent staggering backwards by another explosion that sundered his armour, obliterating a section of his breastplate under his armpit and exposing the grisly sight of chainmail and flesh crudely and painfully fused together by the heat.

Arthur put away his pistols and pulled out his axe. Not once did he take his eyes off Chilon's battered form before he started striding towards the outlander.

So focused was the mercenary on his quarry, however, that he completely failed to notice the danger lurking in his midst.

"Arthur, look out! Behind you!"

At Ferdinand's shout, Arthur turned around and put up his weapon, but he was just a little too late to solidify his guard. A small, ashen-skinned woman wearing a revealing black-and-orange suit fitted with autonomous, tentacle-like, stinger-tipped protrusions from the back easily bypassed Arthur's defence and plunged her dagger in between his plates, into his flank.

"Ah-hahahaha!" The pale woman broke into unhinged laughter as she ducked under Arthur's retaliatory swing, then backed away before he could pull her into his knife. "Did you miss me, Corpsefinder?"

"Goddamn lunatic," Arthur grit his teeth as he pulled out the dagger sticking out of his side. Ferdinand couldn't help but notice the sickly, purple-tinged redness coating its surface. "Out of my way!" He tossed the blade away and drew his pistol, aiming it at the pale woman.

In an instant, the redheaded assassin's cheerily murderous expression turned into abject fear as Arthur opened fire at her. The stinger-like projections jutting from the back of her outfit darted to intercept the bullets, but as soon as they made contact, the stingers came undone in small explosions of fire and metallic shards, sending the woman sprawling on the ground, dazed and bleeding.

"Conniving... surfacer... scum!" She gasped and sputtered as she slowly crawled her way back up to her feet. Scowling, Arthur shook his head and strode past the woman. "No, no, no, get back here! Don't you ignore me!"

Before the woman could catch up to Arthur, Ferdinand put himself in between the two of them and took a swift, experimental swing at her, already anticipating her retaliation. Instead, his half-hearted blow caught the assassin almost completely by surprise as the hammer-head of his poleaxe struck her in the arm, catching her before she could properly avoid the blow.

"Aaahh!" It was only a glancing hit, but it had enough force behind it to cripple the assassin's arm, visibly bending it out of alignment. "Insolent beast! I'll strip the flesh from your bones!"

Ferdinand ignored the pale woman's shrill blustering and moved to finish her off. Rearing his weapon back, he swung at her from the above. As expected, the assassin darted aside to avoid the incoming attack, but Ferdinand had only intended it to be a feint, and it was a simple matter to use his momentum to change his false swing into a lunging thrust aimed at the creature's black heart.

The duel, such as it was, should have ended then and there, but Ferdinand's weapon did not find purchase in the assassin's chest. The tentacles jutting from her back, despite losing the sharp, stinging tips they once had from Arthur's exploding bullets, remained functional and lengthy enough to seek out and wrap themselves around the haft of Ferdinand's weapon before its spearpoint could bury itself into her flesh. Eyes wide with surprise, Ferdinand dug into his armoured heels and tried to pry his weapon loose, but the grasping tentacles proved stronger as they wrested the poleaxe from his hands and tossed it aside, out of his reach.

"Now, you die!" The assassin screeched as she lunged at Ferdinand with another dagger she picked up from a dead comrade. The noble hurriedly unsheathed his sword from his side and deflected aside her blade before it could sink into his throat. He attempted to strike her down in the same stroke, but the nimble outlander bent her body in such a way that his follow-up strike missed her completely. Undeterred, Ferdinand then attempted to wrestle the assassin down while she was still in grappling range, but she easily dodged out of his way, before retreating to a safer distance.

"You are slippery, I will give you that..." Ferdinand said to his foe in between laboured breaths. "But you cannot win this fight, not in your state! Surrender, witch!"

In a startling display of resilience fuelled by hatred and spite, the pale woman raised her crippled arm and allowed her tentacles to wrap themselves around it before violently bending it back into alignment.

"Haaah... hrrm, they called me a fool. Ridiculed me. Subjected me to humiliation after humiliation," She flexed her arm, clenching and unclenching her hand. When she turned to look at Ferdinand, he couldn't help but be intimidated by the anger and resentment behind her crimson gaze. "I'll show them! I'll show them all!"

As Ferdinand and the assassin began their duel anew, Arthur had already butchered his way through Chilon's remaining bodyguards and engaged the knight in hand-to-hand. While Chilon had already given ample demonstration of his prowess in battle, his injuries, his mounting exhaustion, and his lack of a shield had all taken their toll on his performance in his duel with the vengeance-fuelled mercenary.

"I cannot be defeated!" Chilon bellowed as he swung his enchanted axe at Arthur, who dodged it aside. "Not by the likes of you!" He raised his weapon and attempted to summon lightning to smite Arthur with.

"Shut up!" The mercenary raised his axe and smashed it against Chilon's breastplate with such force, the knight stumbled backwards, the energy wreathing his axe fizzling out as he scrambled to maintain his footing. With his opponent hobbled, Arthur bent at the waist, braced his shoulder and charged at Chilon, who was helpless to resist as the mercenary crashed into him and tackled him into a wall, leaving him exposed and too stunned to mount a proper defence as Arthur proceeded to grasp his axe with both hands and rained down one overhead blow after another on his victim like he would a mace, crushing Chilon's armour and sundering the tender flesh underneath.

"Your demise... is certain..." Forced down to his knees and breathing heavily, Chilon eventually mustered the strength to raise his axe in a final attempt at defiance. Roaring in grief-stricken rage, Arthur struck Chilon's arm, in the unprotected joint near the elbow. His strike bypassed the outlander's armour and found purchase in the chainmail layer below, weakening it. Arthur's next blow hit the exact same spot, but this time, it broke through the chainmail and sunk into Chilon's flesh, biting deep until it cleaved right through.

The discordant howl that came from Chilon's helmet gave Ferdinand and his own opponent pause, enough to make both of them stop fighting to witness Arthur continuing to savagely maul the dismembered Chilon with his axe, which looked to be close to breaking. One final, heavy-handed blow to Chilon's neck shattered the weapon completely and caused the outlander to topple over on his back with his good hand clutching desperately at his ripped throat, gasping and gurgling as the blood that was merely dripping from the openings in his faceplate began to run down freely, pooling into the earth under him.

Ferdinand recovered from his shock before his opponent did. "Your leader has been righteously slain. I ask again, fiend..." He brandished his sword, holding it so that it could easily be swung down or thrust forth. "Surrender, or die alongside him!"

"That pitiful slab of metal," The assassin lunged at Ferdinand, who tried to cut her down as she propelled herself forth. "...was nothing to me!" She twisted her body aside and evaded his blow. Ferdinand had to resort to swinging his weapon in wide arcs to keep her at a distance. "The wretched Corpsefinder did me a favour by ending him — one that I intend to repay by bathing in his blood!"

"That's not happening any time soon."

The assassin was about to pounce at Ferdinand again, but was interrupted by a torrent of white magic that swept her aside. Growling like an enraged animal, she jumped back onto her feet and raised her dagger to attack her assailant, only to find herself staring down the barrel a pistol.

"Stand down, Kronya." Tekla said, her hands glowing with an incandescent light as she stared the assassin, who was apparently called Kronya, down. "It's over."

Behind the white mage, Arthur kept his gun pointed at Kronya with Sturges standing close by with his own rifle held downrange, ready to fire. This standoff lasted for a tense few moments before Arthur used his gun to gesture in the air above Kronya's head.

"I'm givin' you ten seconds to drop the damn knife, and put your hands where I can see 'em, missy." He barked, in a rough, angry voice that seemed to suit his ragged, blood-spattered appearance. In that moment, he seemed less like a soldier-for-hire and more like a bloodthirsty bandit.

"Huh..." Kronya's red eyes were wide with disbelief as she looked around, finding herself to be the only one in the outlander side still on her feet. The rest were either dead on the ground, or were about to be finished off by Mayu, Rosamunde, and a few other knights.

In the end, the would-be assassin wisely decided to do as she was told, the frayed tentacles protruding from her back bobbing down as though slumping in defeat.

"You insects bore me." The pale woman said, a smug, unsubtle smirk remaining on her face as she spoke. "Your victory here changes nothing. Capturing me will only hasten your painful and inevitable demise... but do feel free to come and restrain me."

She laughed, the murderous glint in her eyes intensifying. "...if you dare."

Ferdinand sighed and put his sword back in its scabbard. "Bind her hands and find a way to remove those appendages from her back. Do what you must, and if she tries anything... kill her."

"Oooh, how frightening!" The pale woman continued to taunt even as Rosamunde and another knight took her by the shoulders and started shoving her around. "So nice to finally meet the Aegir-spawn in the flesh. Your greedy, pig-headed excuse for a father is convinced you are too naive to notice his scheming and too soft to turn against him, despite the truth screaming in his face. How will he take it, I wonder, when I bring him your limbless, eyeless hide?"

"Be quiet, murderer!" Rosamunde pushed her along. "Come on, one foot after the other! Corporal Sturges, we could use another pair of eyes here."

Sturges shrugged and walked after them. "Might be smarter to just kill the bitch and be done with it..."

Ferdinand could hear Kronya's mocking laughter as she was ushered out of sight by Rosamunde, Sturges, and the other knight, but it was her words that lingered in his mind.

He had suspected Ludwig was beginning to become suspicious of his behaviour as of late — after all, he had been frequently missing his regular lessons with his tutors, tended to disappear from the family estate without explanation, and returned with mysterious new scars.

What he did not expect was the apparent fact that his father had thought him incapable of turning against him, and if Chilon and Kronya were to be believed, even went as far as ignoring his dark mage allies when they provided him with evidence of the secret crusade his own child had been waging against him.

Despite how such a thing undoubtedly worked in his favour, Ferdinand couldn't help but feel slighted. Did his father think he was too meek or too stupid to pose a threat to him and his corrupt practices? To think, he once thought his father was proud to have him as an heir... it hurt Ferdinand more than he realised, to think on the possibility that Ludwig had thought less of him than he believed.

"Lord Ferdinand? Do you require medical aid?"

Tekla's voice snapped Ferdinand out of his thoughts. He turned aside to find the mercenary healer standing before him, looking at him intently.

"Ah, well, I may look like Ferdinand von Aegir, but rest assured I am not—"

"Arthur already told me who you are. Don't worry... your secret stays with me."

The noble's shoulders armoured slumped, his many injuries now beginning to wear him down, now that the danger had passed. "In that case... yes, I could use some healing if you would please, Ms. Schneider."

"Wonderful. Please, sit down and relax. I will need you to take off some of your armour and hold still for a moment..."

Ferdinand did as he was told and let Tekla do her work. Soon, he felt some of his vigour return as the girl applied the last of her white magic on the cuts and bruises he sustained, and any internal damage he might have had.

"Ms. Schneider... about Byleth..." Ferdinand began, unable to keep his guilt in check. "She... perished, on the journey here. Chilon killed her."

Tekla looked to the side and stared off into the distance. "I know..." Her voice was quiet, and heavy with sorrow. "It should have been me. This never would have happened, if I hadn't let the Agarthans take me."

"Agarthans... Chilon mentioned that word before." Ferdinand said. "Is that what his people were called?"

Tekla sighed. She began fastening the pieces of Ferdinand's armour they removed back onto his plate harness. "Yes. They call themselves the Scions of Agartha, and... as you can imagine, they have been working in secret to undermine the realms of Fódlan from below the ground."

"You know about them?"

Tekla took a moment to answer, "...more than most." She said, with some reluctance.

Ferdinand put a gauntleted hand above Tekla's own, a feverish gleam in his eyes. "Please, you must tell me what you know. These Agarthans must be stopped, before they cause more harm!"

The healer put up a strained smile as Arthur walked by them. "I intend to, my lord." She said to Ferdinand, looking saddened as Arthur completely ignored her and continued walking past. "But not now. I have people to heal, and bodies to help bury."

Ferdinand wasn't in the mood to argue, nor did he wish to. Standing up, he was quick to run after Arthur. "Mr. Morgan! Are you alright?"

"Do you need healing, Arthur?" Tekla also called after him.

The older mercenary stopped walking and turned to his side. Ferdinand's eyes grew wide as Arthur pressed a heavy object against his chestplate. "This is Chilon's axe..."

"Here's your proof, kid." The man said. With Chilon and his minions dealt with, he looked more sad than angry, and his voice no longer had the rough, unkind edge it had before. "Lysithea should remember who it belonged to."

"Yes, I would hope so." Ferdinand nodded as he accepted the weapon. "I... I am sorry, for how this endeavour turned out, my friend. I had hoped that..."

"No, no, don't apologise," Arthur said, shaking his head. "Like I said, it ain't your fault. If someone had to be blamed, it should be me. I was the one who let her tag along." The mercenary sighed, long and weary. "Now, I just gotta... bury her and figure out how to go about it with Jeralt."

"Let me assist you, then." Ferdinand was quick to offer. "And you do not have to shoulder that burden alone. I will accompany you in breaking the news to your captain."

"You shouldn't. We're trying to keep your identity a secret, remember?"

"I led this sortie, which makes me responsible for every soul in it... Byleth included. It is the right thing to do."

"And I'll be there, too." Tekla said. "We should get moving. I believe one of the other knights mentioned you left your most wounded soldiers behind. If you'd please show me where they are, my lord?"

Ferdinand gestured at her to fall in. "Follow me. They should not be too far behind."

Sir Volkmar was true to his word. More than a dozen dead Agarthans could be found surrounding his position, but the stalwart knight held firm as he alone protected their wounded comrades.

"My lord, thank the goddess you are alive." Volkmar saluted Ferdinand with his maul as he approached. "The area remains secure, despite the enemy's efforts. I believe I would have held out on my own, but I certainly would have sustained injuries had someone not been watching my back."

Ferdinand noticed Arthur briskly walking past him and Tekla, but he paid the man no mind. "What do you mean? Adelhard and Ulrike's wounds would have prevented them from aiding you. Who did you fight alongside with?"

Volkmar raised his visor, smiling uncharacteristically. He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Arthur calling out from ahead. "Byleth!"

"Byleth?" Ferdinand turned and was stunned to find Byleth not only standing, but walking unassisted despite the new bruises around her neck. "By the saints, am I seeing things?"

Arthur swiftly closed the distance to Byleth before coming to a stop just in front of her. "Are you... are you okay, girl?"

Byleth nodded silently as she stared at Arthur with glassy, unfocused eyes. Without a word, she let the shotgun in her hands slip from her fingers as she stumbled forward, seeming to have lost her footing.

Arthur did not hesitate as he scooped her up in his arms and held her tightly. "Damn it, kid, don't ever frighten me like that..."

Tekla closed her mouth and swallowed. When she spoke, her voice conveyed her own shock. "We should... uh, take a look at her."

By the time the two of them reached Arthur and Byleth, the former had helped the latter to sit down, with her back against a wall. Ferdinand was happy and relieved to see her alive, but he could not help but be confounded at how that could be. Arthur said she had no pulse and wasn't breathing. How could she have survived?

"She's injured and exhausted, but she doesn't look seem as though she's in mortal peril," Tekla said, after spending a moment examining Byleth. She wasted no time applying her healing magic on the girl. "Are you alright, Byleth?"

"It's alright, kid." Arthur held her hand in his own. "Don't talk if you need to rest. We'll get you back on your feet soon, you hear?"

"I'm fine, Arthur," The girl said, in a strained, whispered voice. "It is... good to see you, Tekla..."

"Likewise," The white mage said, nodding. "Forgive me, but I have never seen anything like this before."

"Seen what?" Arthur asked her, a concerned look on his face.

Tekla held out Byleth's arm, revealing that she put two fingers on the girl's wrist some time ago. "She has no pulse."

---

A/N: holy crap. I am exhausted.

Anyway, how are we doing? It's been, what, two or three months since the last update? I honestly can't tell as I'm writing this, I've been so busy all this time, I hadn't had a good stretch of time to boot up Word and work on the story like I normally would. But that's alright — I should be a little less busy, now that Christmas is just around the corner.

I hope.

Also, I wrote the first sentence of this chapter thinking I can finish it with the Almyran siege and end the "mercenary" arc to transition into White Clouds, but it just didn't happen, as I would have trampled over a lot of my plans just so I could quickly get the story along. I don't want to negatively impact the quality of the chapters so I could proceed writing the bits I'm excited to write about. I'm not that kind of author, I'm afraid.

On the bright side, I'm now 100% sure the next chapter would be the last one before the brief and very small (should be less than 5000 words) transition to White Clouds. It'll be heavy on the action, as you can imagine, but that's okay, because White Clouds is more focused on character interactions in general. Since this is a Fire Emblem story, there'll still be combat-heavy parts, of course, but it'll be nothing compared to the war phase.

Well, maybe. All my plans are always subject to change.

One other thing, I'm experimenting on having other characters beside Arthur having the chapter POV, in preparation for White Clouds with its huge cast of characters and generally shorter chapters. Did I overdo it? Was Ferdinand and Shez the right choice? Please let me know in the reviews!

Alright, on to the reviews:

shadyxlr

Byleth died! Well, not really, but she could have.

To be honest, I actually thought about letting it stick, you know. It'd be a challenge to write the rest of the story without her, for sure.

Bob of the A

Funny you should mention cliffhangers, I also thought about ending the chapter just as Byleth "died". But that's incredibly cruel, and I would have been pissed if I was a reader.

Fourhead

Thank you, and let me tell you, the story's fun to write, too!

x-x-TheBurnedMan-x-x

The Warwolf was exactly what I was thinking when I wrote about Arthur reading about trebuchets and Scottish castles. And I hope this update, though long overdue, made your day as well! Oh, and of course,

Slava Ukraini.

kerrowe

Ferdinand's story is tied to Lysithea in this story, yes. They're overdue for a personal meeting, for sure. As for Tekla, well... she might be a little more than just an ordinary white mage...

Rook435

Here we are again! Sorry it took so long. This one's a little longer than the last one, but it took three times as long. Lots of proofreading and revisions, too. I actually wrote Corporal Sturges to be Jack Marston instead at first, but I felt... wrong (for a lack of a better word), putting him in the story, as he felt like he's basically another Arthur.

I haven't been spending time reading fanfics lately, but I would like to read that one you mentioned. I'll have a look around to see if I could find it when I have the time... totally not because I want to, I dunno, steal ideas or anything, hehe... heh.

And oh yeah, I'm really excited to write about Ferdinand meeting Lysithea in person, too. They're going to have a much deeper, more interactive relationship in this story, for sure. I also realise I haven't been writing a lot about hats so far, but that changes now. Starting next chapter, Arthur will have a hat or some kind of helmet (or both), whether he likes it or not.

DOOT76

Always nice to see your name in the reviews! Sorry for the long wait, but it's done!

That's EXACTLY how I imagined quite a few action scenes when I was writing them. Holy crap. It's so riveting to imagine scenes of actual war recreated in RDR2 as in-game missions, haha.

Yeah, that's my fault he didn't mention the huge white gator. Forgot about the thing completely, which is understandable, because it was so traumatising. Imagine THAT thing in real life galloping at you. Arthur could definitely use his irregular munitions when facing wyverns, but after the events of this chapter, his ammo problems may have just become a little worse. Good thing he got a bit of a resupply with the stuff Sturges' section came to Fódlan with.

Come White Clouds, there'd be a hell of a lot more character interactions with the bigger cast of regular characters. I'll sprinkle in some combat scenes and disturbing horror stuff to make sure you don't get sick of them, ahaha.

FlamelessRider

Thanks! I try my best.

Spartastic 4

Thank you, as well!

CharmanderUsedRazorLeaf

I'm a reader too, and I have discerning tastes. I sometimes read my own stories like I wasn't the author and see myself in a reader's shoes to gauge whether the story's any good. I hope I'm doing good.

Scr4ftyboi

Ah, I do have plans for Arthur to take classes out on field assignments (he'll also be teaching one or two subjects, I'll leave everyone to figure what they are), but most of the time, he'll only be tagging along when Byleth needs him for something. After all, she's still the professor, not him. His role in the monastery is... a little different.

Oleander

Big war crimes. Small, portable package.

ENDDRAGON369

Not that kind of story, lmao.

LazyTitan12

Thanks! I hope I'll have enough time to keep writing these next few days. It's been a hectic and exhausting past few months.

SW11037

Thank you! I'm tempted to just write Arthur's unit card here, but I think it's more fitting if I did at the start of White Clouds. Also, yes, Authority is Arthur's budding talent in this story, but I wouldn't say it's his bane, as well. Going by how this story's gone so far, I'd say his biggest bane is Swords, haha.

Anon2000

Hmmm, maybe.

DaedalusFlights

And here it is! I can't wait to write Rhea in, too.

...

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Looks like that's it for now. I'll come back to this chapter to do a little more proofreading and adjusting. But for now, back to work, I guess?