Welcome to the "Fierce Deity Beats the Crap Out of Everyone" chapter.
Chapter XIX
Pain was all we knew for that precious moment. Our flesh hardened and stretched, elongating into a more perfect shape, a harmony between Σιγίλφάσμα and ξενιστής. All that we could see was the light of our transformation, outshining even the Sword of the Creator and the otherworldly gleam of Zahras blazing from the tear in the veil.
It stopped hurting. The world returned to us. The Sealed Forest. Garreg Mach Monastery. Fodra. Solon's command ate at us, demanded that we throw ourself at the enemy, that we rip and tear until it was done. Our foes were so small when we were like this. Once they had been taller than Link Harkinian. Now we towered nearly eight inches higher than the one called Dedue.
The Fell Star was interposing us and her allies. We were interposing them and Solon. They would not slay the Agarthan. None would survive a single strike.
We took a clandestine moment, while everyone else was still gobsmacked by our appearance, to admire our new form. Gone was the weak, scar-ridden body of the Hero of Time, the Hero of Termina. Nor were we the Fierce Deity that slew Μιζέρια, enfeebled by absence from Fodra as it was. Fodra augmented us, strengthened us with glorious purpose– to crush all opposition to Agartha. Our hands were covered in dark cobalt plate bordering midnight that extended to our elbows, after which it gave way to blackened, less voluminous armor that covered our biceps and our legs. Our chest was constructed of a silver breastplate, which was splashed with streaks of red and blue paint that we knew from experience matched the markings on our face. Every inch of our armor was coated in eldritch circuitry that flowed like frigid lava, augmenting our might even further. It was, of course, a perfect fit. We brushed a lock of bone-colored hair away from our murky golden eyes, a perverted facsimile of the divine power our previous physical body had once held. We felt our sharp ears stand proud in the cold winter air. The conical hat stayed on– it fit the look and stayed true to our champion. Its celestial blue color was reciprocated on the fringes of fabric protruding from our chestplate's shoulders and hips.
Huh. The arrow was still embedded in our hand. We lazily yanked it out and snapped it between our fingers, ignoring the shameful ichor-oil-plasma cocktail that oozed gently from the hole. To call it a wound would be an exaggeration; we could not feel pain, as such useless sensation was offloaded onto the champion. And why would we need it? We were Κατάκτηση, in the form of the Fierce Deity as our champion called it– we were all that was war, violence, and bloodlust. There would be no salvation for the opponents of Agartha.
Our soon-to-be victims recovered from their initial shock.
"Is that– surely that cannot be Link!" Ferdinand breathed.
"Great, this one has a boar side too," Felix said, tightening his grip on the hilt of his sword.
"Those markings… are they being prayers of…?" Petra wondered.
"Why would you save Solon?" Claude demanded. "That doesn't make any sense."
"Whoever you are– stand aside or be cut down!" Jeralt's first and best apprentice ordered, doing her very best to keep her voice steady.
"So after everything, you show your true colors…" Dimitri stated in a terrifyingly flat cadence. "And to think that I saw you as… we will suffer your presence no longer."
"N-no, this cannot be…" Flayn whispered, pale as a sheet, a flicker of recognition in her verdant and blasphemous eyes. "I do not believe that Link would be… a host of…"
How dreadfully boring. We summoned our weapon. In an explosion of mist, the double helix condensed, dripping with blood unspilt. The part of us constrained by mortality was slightly relieved that Ashe wasn't actually here right now. We could feel their fear wriggling in the light, but more importantly, we could feel the embers of their resolve heating anew. The pressure of our presence dampened that to the best of its ability. Their determination would not save them; it never did. Our slate-gray sabatons, glowing a soft blue with archaic power, jingled near-silently as we took one heavy step forward.
"Everyone," Byleth said, doing her best to corral her allies. She raised the Sword of the Creator skyward, the bone shining the color of a dying blaze. "Solon remains our top priority! We will–"
The Third Axiom.
Whatever she was about to say next was cut off when we pounced upon her. She could barely get the Sword of the Creator in the way of the attack that would have surely rent her in twain had it connected. The attack was enough of a reason to divert attention away from a retreating Solon and onto the god whose wrath had been set upon them.
"Nobody touches our professor!" Leonie hollered, attempting to flank us while Lorenz did the same on the other side. Dimitri was charging forward and had almost reached us, a manic expression of pure and unadulterated hatred chiseled onto his face. Felix and Dedue were hot on his heels. We deflected a blast of wind magic from Annette and sent it towards Claude, diverting an arrow that hit the wing of the wyvern that Cyril was riding. The Sword of the Creator was the only thing protecting Byleth from our onslaught. We took a long step backwards, easily extricating ourself from the deadlock with the newly-Nabatean Fell Star, before we found a draconian Hookshot in our right hand. Ah, our champion's weapons had received an upgrade from our harmony as well. How quaint.
We fired it into the crowd, and the resistance came as it grabbed onto one Ferdinand von Aegir, dragging him and his horse within swinging distance. He tried to bring up his lance to block the judgement that was to come, but we both knew that was utterly futile. Our first swipe shattered the weapon. The second was just barely ducked under, but he did not have time to react before we threw ourself into the air and fell upon him, spinning counterclockwise to add yet more momentum to the swing. It cut through his waist with ease, and the resulting beam of pure energy utterly eviscerated the man as well as cleanly decapitating a charging Caspar. The beam continued its flight until it was interrupted by Cethleann's belly, which it was only able to cut a mortal gouge into as opposed to cleanly sailing through. We then proceeded to pick up Ferdinand's very dead horse with our off hand and throw it at Petra, crushing her under its weight, while simultaneously fending off both Felix and Dedue with the double helix.
The image of the moon formed over us, rivulets of dark magic arcing towards it. The part of us that was still Link Harkinian would have been terrified by it, but we were merely surprised that the enemy had access to Luna Λ. That attack actually had a chance of harming us, as it was designed specifically to ignore resistances. A cursory glance revealed it had originated from the double-Crested girl. Even with the support of Dorothea, Mercedes, and Annette, she was already dead. Judging by the bob of her throat, she knew it too.
We caught an arrow from Claude and threw it at a pouncing Dimitri with enough force to pierce his skull. We moved to parry a hit from Cyril, only for that crimson sword to wrap around our blade and slow it just enough for his attack to strike. Our champion's fellow monastery worker's axe connected with our neck. It did not draw even a drop of internal miasma. In retaliation, we dropped our blade, put our thumb and pinky on each of his temples, and cracked his head open like an egg, spewing Almyran brains and viscera across our armor. The double helix dissipated into mist, and it was no problem to resummon it and stab both Lorenz and Leonie in one strike like a shish kebab. Felix and Dedue had backpedaled to support those who remained. All that was left was them, the ranged fighters, and Byleth.
We rather boredly cast Bohr X on Lysithea, a spell designed to bring even the strongest to their knees on the verge of death. She was able to dodge the magical attack, but not the blade beam that immediately careened towards her. She managed to remain standing, interestingly, but she stopped that foolishness when we closed the distance and annihilated her and her nearest four victims with a single Spin Attack. Cethleann had managed to break away from the group and was currently trying to escape into the underbrush of the Sealed Forest, grievously wounded though she was. A single cobalt crescent dashed those hopes against the stones.
The last one standing, aside from us of course, was the Fell Star, and–
A wave of nausea passed over me and I collapsed to the ground, very much un-Fierce Deity'd. What had happened? I had… I had…
Solon had ordered me to kill them all. And under the Third Axiom, I had had no choice but to oblige.
"I am terrified by you… even though an emotion like fear has no place inside me." Solon admitted, taking a shaky step backwards. His eyes alighted upon me, and in that moment I knew it was over once again. I didn't have time to escape from earshot. "That means you must be eliminated. Κατάκτηση–!" I stood rigid, unable to do anything save wait for the inevitable command. His next words fell like a gavel.
"Kill them all."
Claude reacted first, an arrow immediately loaded into his bow. He fired a shot directly at Solon, flying with a truest intent towards its target–
My feet carried me faster than should have been possible, and before I could stop myself I was swinging my off hand directly into the head of the arrow. The iron pierced my palm, sending fingers of pain clawing from the impact site, but its momentum was halted mere inches in front of Solon's face. I could confirm that it didn't hurt less the second time around.
The Second Axiom.
The pain was enough to halt my concentration. Time had slowed to a crawl, but I could feel the wood of the mask in my fingers. The Sword of the Creator stretched towards me, towards the mask, but Agartha would not be so easily denied. I interposed my lower torso clumsily with the attack, and while the glowing sword tore through my flesh, the mask found its way to my face all the same. Pain was all we knew for that precious moment. Our flesh hardened and stretched, elongating once more and for the first time into a more perfect shape, a flawless harmony between Σιγίλφάσμα and ξενιστής. All we could see was the light of our transformation, outshining even the Sword of the Creator.
It stopped hurting. The world returned to us. The Sealed Forest. Garreg Mach Monastery. Fodra. Solon's command ate at us, demanded that we throw ourself at the enemy that dared to stand against us. They were so small when we were in this body. Once they had been taller than Link Harkinian. Now we towered nearly twenty centimeters higher than the one called Dedue.
The Fell Star was interposing us and her allies. We were interposing them and Solon, our circuitry alive and primed to strike with merciless precision. They would not slay the Agarthan, loathsome as he was. None of them would survive more than a single strike.
We did not wait for the miscreants to process this. Immediately we were upon them, charging into the fray with the double helix glinting in the evening sun. Byleth retreated into the blades of her comrades, who were understandably very confused about the whole ordeal. Not that it would matter. They could ask questions from the grave.
Target number one– Lysithea. She did, after all, have access to Luna Λ, which meant that she was the most capable of dealing damage to us. Target number two– the Fell Star. She was the only one who had a Relic. Target number three– everyone else. Their lives were interchangeable, and worth less than the effort it would take to identify their brutalized corpses once we were through with them.
Leonie's upper chest intercepted a stab intended for Dimitri, running her through without a second thought. We swung the heavy blade across the crown prince's chest, the force of our strike catapulting the impaled student's lifeless body off the double helix and into a retreating Claude. We batted aside a blast of thunder from Dorothea, reflecting it directly at Lorenz, before unleashing a beam of pure energy from the tip of our sword that mowed through Annette like a hot knife through butter. Cyril fired a straight shot from atop his wyvern; we countered with an inferno of Din's Fire that conveniently pushed Dedue's sphere of influence away from Mercedes, who was swiftly disemboweled. We used her collapsing body as a springboard to vault over Felix's head– an easy feat considering how short he was, especially in relation to our harmonic form– and bring our blade down upon that annoying dark caster.
Lysithea did not have time to scream.
Neither did Petra, as we grabbed her neck with our off hand. She had come remarkably close to stabbing us in the back. It was completely futile, naturally, but the Brigid princess had nearly landed a strike. With no effort at all, we crushed her windpipe and swung her over our head. With a mighty roar, we brought her body down upon Cethleann, who was crushed like a paper bag struck by a poleaxe.
We stabbed the bodies once, just to be sure the Nabatean was dead. Speaking of Nabateans, where was–
The nausea hit me like a wave, and it was all I could do to not vomit out the entirety of my digestive tract. Suffice to say that I felt terrible. Dry heaves wracked my body, but the Word made me freeze all the same.
"Kill them all."
Pain in my hand. Pain in my stomach. Pain of the transformation. Pain of knowing that at the end of this I would once again be forced back into that Goddesses-damned child's body. Pain of killing all of my friends and allies we had grown to care about over the last year. Pain of the Divine Pulse ripping it all out of my hands. Pain of having to do it all over again.
Blood on my hands. Blood from my chest. Blood from the stumps where their heads used to be. Blood staining the stone floor beneath our boots.
My hands were shaking. My insides were shaking. The mask was shaking. Dimitri's hands shook as he tried to stab us. We caught the shaft of his spear between the gap in our double helix sword, and with an effortless twist, we shattered it. And then we shattered him.
And then we shattered Dedue.
And then we shattered Caspar.
And then we shattered Claude.
And then we shattered Cyril.
And then we shattered Annette.
And then we shattered Ferdinand.
And then we shattered Mercedes and Cethleann at the same time.
And then we shattered Leonie.
And then we shattered Felix.
And then we shattered Lysithea.
And then we shattered Petra.
And then we shattered Dorothea.
And then we shattered Lorenz.
And then, what Nemesis had shattered long ago and what had since been reforged, we shattered anew.
Champion, Katáktisi comforted as I voided the meager contents of my stomach upon the earth. It was doing a terrible job of it. Solon will not stop until the Fell Star makes him. Until then, there is nothing that can be done.
This is… all your fault! I snarled. I wasn't in my right mind right now, which made sense considering I had just brutally murdered my classmates and friends five times over because one evil bag of wrinkles decided to say four syllables.
I know, Katáktisi admitted, as Solon barked the Word once again. There is something I can do to ease this pain. Cede control to me. Go to that silent place. I will weather the storm in your stead.
Sweat was pouring from my hands. Ngh… like hell you will, I snapped, as sweat caked the inside of the mask. You want me to give up. This will pass… and only– and only the two of us will remain! No sweat escaped Leonie, Lysithea, or Caspar because we had cut all three of them to pieces with a single blade beam. No sweat escaped us from our exertion.
"Kill them all."
Claude reacted first, an arrow immediately loaded into his bow. He fired a shot directly at Solon, flying with a truest intent towards its target–
Byleth's grasp clamped down on my left wrist, just before I could intercept the projectile. With an impossible strength behind my wiry limbs, I yanked my hand out of her hold with enough force to dislocate my shoulder. While I was too late to block Claude's attack, the Agarthan seemed to have the situation handled by teleporting on top of a nearby cliffside. My entire arm burned, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as the slow and inevitable collapse of my will to the Second and Third Axioms. The Fierce Deity's Mask found its way to my face all the same.
I tried to run. I bought time for Solon to run from the clearing. Neither the students nor the Professor bothered to try to run from the Fierce Deity. The water of life ran across the rocks in a great flood, staining it liquid rose.
"So the Fell Star consumes even the darkness itself," Solon whispered. Tearing herself from the rift was Byleth Eisner, although I was too busy collapsing to my knees and trying not to cry my eyes out to take too much note about it.
"I am terrified by you…" Solon admitted, taking a shaky step backwards. His eyes alighted upon me, and in that moment I knew it was time to do it again. The sound of the rattling of umbral steel didn't pass into my ears, or maybe it did and I just wasn't in the right mind to understand its significance. "Even though an emoti– urk!"
There was a low whump as Solon's body hit the floor. "This is… not the end…" he managed, his speech labored. "Thales will carry out our mission… some… how…" His corpse stopped twitching. I would have casted Heal on him without a second thought, or perhaps Nayru's Love. Every instinct in my body was screaming for me to do just that, but every scrap of energy had been leached from me over many cycles of time's cruel flow. Truth was, I couldn't have reached him in time in my current state. Frankly, I could hardly stand. All was quiet for a long second; everyone else was processing his dying words, and I was busy trying not to collapse from timeloop-induced exhaustion. For the first time in seemingly ages, the Axioms were silent. He was dead. He would not be mourned.
"Thales…" Dimitri repeated. "Does he also serve the Flame Emperor? It can't be…"
"Hey, Link, you good?" Cyril whispered, having dismounted from his wyvern and crouching by my all but prone form.
"Ugh…" I bit back a sob. "No. I… don't think I... ow, my… everything hurts…"
"Hey. You've got blood on your face. Lemme wipe it off for you…"
I gently pushed his hand away. Macabre visions of the deaths I had put him through clamored for attention in my mind's eye. A sickening nausea made itself very known to me. "I think… Solon did something to me before you all got here. Something similar happened when I faced him in Remire Village, and–" I shivered, horrible memories swimming at the forefront of my mind. I had killed them all— not only that, I had done so in the most malicious and painful ways possible. I had spewed Cyril's brains out on the stone with my off hand, without a second thought. Self-loathing and disgust were coursing through my veins. "I'll probably just visit Manuela when we get back to the monastery."
"I'll get Mer… Mar… Mercie. Yeah, Mercie. I'll get her." He stood and departed.
"Solon did something to you, huh," a nearby Lysithea repeated. "Describe what happened to you in Remire for me?"
"No," I shot back, perhaps a bit too quickly. "I… don't want to talk about it."
"Ridiculous. You could–"
"Just. Don't." She relented.
"Your Highness, we should return to the monastery," Dedue informed.
"Please, go ahead. We'll catch up."
I lagged behind the group for a while before splitting off and doubling back. Mostly, I just couldn't deal with seeing their faces.
"Professor," Dimitri was saying, "I'm glad you're okay. And you seem relatively unscathed. I'm… I'm so relieved. What's more, Jeralt's foe is dead, though we took little pleasure from it. Professor, I must ask– what happened after we were separated? You look… different." It was true, she was different. But she couldn't be too different, I reasoned. She still had access to the Divine Pulse, still could turn back the hands of time.
"The goddess gifted me her power," Byleth said slowly, each word placed as carefully as a chess piece. That made more sense.
"The goddess appeared, and… gave you her power? It's as though the legends of old have been made flesh." Dimitri closed his eyes contemplatively. "It's hard to grasp, in all honesty. But having seen you pierce the sky with my own eyes, I find myself unable to doubt it."
"A legend of old, huh?"
"Yes. The legend of Saint Seiros. It is said that she received a divine revelation from the goddess and was gifted her power. Long ago, the goddess dispatched Seiros to defeat an evil king who went mad with power. Perhaps the goddess saw the goodness of Seiros within you too, and wished to help you in your quest to defeat evil." He chuckled for a moment. "If you're Seiros, granted power by the goddess, I suppose that makes me… Ah, never mind. I'm getting carried away."
And, like clockwork, Byleth collapsed. I guessed all the rewinding time stuff really got to her. I couldn't blame her, honestly. I felt like doing much the same.
"Professor!" Dimitri exclaimed. "What's wrong?! Are you… uh, are you asleep? What is happening these days… it matters not. We must get you help and fast. Sorry, Professor, but I have no choice but to carry you back."
Without further ado, the crown prince scooped up the comatose professor and made to exit the clearing. I knew enough about Fodraese 'history' to piece together what Dimitri was going to say. He was going to compare himself to Wilhelm von Hresvelg, the first Adrestian Emperor and the first devotee of the Church of Seiros. I knew he wasn't really interested in Byleth romantically, but Nayru, did he say the most mushy things sometimes.
So why didn't Kronya–
The Command is kept secret from the common Agarthan, Katáktisi revealed, sensing my question before I could utter it properly. This prevents my power from falling into the hands of splinter factions that may be disloyal to the Agastya. Knowledge of it is given only with explicit clearance. Solon is a researcher that once worked on the Crestwraiths; that is most likely why he had access to it. So I didn't have to worry about running into a random Agarthan civilian and having my free will forcibly stripped from me. Good to know.
I could hear worried calls for my name, so I headed back to the main group and reluctantly permitted Mercedes to examine me. She eventually admitted that she didn't immediately see anything wrong, but she still insisted on directing me to the medical wing to see Manuela once we got back. Somehow, Dimitri and Byleth had gotten here before me, and she was asleep with Archbishop Rhea singing some song about flames burning bright at the foot of her bed.
"On the swift…. river's drift, broken memories alight…"
Their hair matched, I noticed. Almost.
"Tell me what happened," Manuela demanded, but not in a haughty tone. More like in a 'I want to help you as best I can but you're going to need to do exactly what I tell you to' kind of way.
"Solon was there," I whispered. "He cast the Professor into somewhere called Zahras–" Rhea paused her singing in shock. Evidently, she knew about the void between dimensions. "She… escaped and cut him down. But Solon, he… said something. Something in a language I cannot identify. And I…" I played up a shudder, holding back genuine tears. "I felt something that I shouldn't have felt. I… I…"
"Shh," the physician said softly. "You don't have to talk about it right now if you don't want to."
"..."
"We'll go into further detail no sooner than you're ready to. Got it?"
"But–"
"No buts, young man. Doctor's orders," she smiled. "You helped take care of me after that business with the Death Knight. Now it's my turn to help take care of you. Physically, you're just fine, but given what happened, I'm prescribing a week off of your scheduled work for the sake of your mental health. Got it? Good."
I gaped like a dying fish. Not only was that the most unexpected blessing I could possibly imagine, it was also the most heinous torture I could possibly imagine.
I think the only chapter shorter than this one was the prologue. For those of you who are curious, the reason I changed the Fierce Deity's design is to make it sort of a melting pot of the original Fierce Deity and the Titanus, with a little bit of Arval in there too for good measure. The Majora's Mask design is cool and all, but I wanted to better reflect its origin as a piece of Agarthan technology.
Review please!
Equilized Enigma (FF): Oh. Oh yes. As an aside, I just wrote in a scene in post-timeskip involving the Mask of Truth, and that was really fun…
LoneGrim (AO3): I do feel a little bad about just how vile last chapter's cliffhanger ended up being, but this chapter (short as it ended up being) deserved its own focus.
Lord_Ecramox (AO3): Sounds about right, haha.
CuddlyManaki (AO3): Sorry, not sorry!
Backpack Bandit (FF): The Anna scene was actually a recent addition to the story because it feeds into a plot point in the mid-timeskip. She's so fun to write.
xander1009 (FF): Chapter 18 was definitely one of the lower points in Link's career (at least as far as Fódlan is concerned). There are a fair number of W's left in the pre-timeskip, so stay tuned!
DarthFlores (AO3): I'm sure you could! Link typically takes the role of the straightman with characters like Sylvain and Alois, and the role of the funnyman with characters like Seteth and Ashe. The part that's most fun for me regarding Annette, specifically, is that she and Link can flip-flop between being the funnyman and the straightman on a dime. It gives them an energy that Link doesn't really share with the rest of the cast. The two of them are definitely sharing a braincell whenever they're in the room together– and hoo boy, you are going to like the opening of next chapter.
Louie Yang (FF): Curiosity killed the Hero of Time, haha. In his defense, though, Solon wouldn't have had a reason to use the Command if Byleth hadn't broken out of Zahras– a move that nobody there could have possibly anticipated. Plus, he kind of felt obligated to go after failing to do anything about Jeralt's death, so that played into it as well.
:) (AO3): Thank you!
Tribolium_Morio (AO3): Forgive me, but what are the other two? I don't think the Tragedy of Duscur and the Insurrection of the Seven really count since they're not against a specific race or ethnic group.
Aemon_Targaryen (AO3): I'm not asserting that Rhea herself is actively endorsing the injustices that the people are committing– what I'm saying is that if people under your jurisdiction are doing bad things and you don't take any steps to stop it, that's facilitation. While I appreciate your continued comments and support, I'm not going to argue about this anymore.
quadjot (AO3): 3
Pet Peeved (FF): Honestly, I think the better explanation that I didn't think of until now is just that Nemesis is singing in a different language. The translation of Fodra to Fódlan is kind of like that of Spain to España, in that respect. Unfortunately, I've dug a hole for myself now and have to commit to it. Oh well.