I do not own Fire Emblem Awakening or any of its characters.

The Other Side

Corbin frowned as he walked into the clearing, finding it empty. Lucina had spent every day for a year and a half, now, without fail, and now, of all days, she was missing. Now, when he had brought her a gift that had been being made for months.

He began to turn, planning to head back to Ylisstol, only to instinctively use the gift to bat a sword aside. It was a basic steel sword, and its wielder wore a full-length black coat and a black, burlap, executioner's hood, like the Risen monsters had worn, with a soft, black eye mask over it to hold it tight to the wearer's face and keep the wearer's sight from being narrowed.

Corbin narrowed his eyes as he dropped Lucina's gift and drew his sword. The assassin lunged, thrusting, and Corbin deflected it before countering. However, the assassin deflected the blade as well, and they began a long, lethal dance, twirling and dodging around the clearing, their blades clashing near-endlessly. Several times, the assassin came close to landing a blow on Corbin, but each time, he avoided it. And several times, he nearly scored a strike against the assassin, only for the assassin to also avoid a loss. Then, finally, the assassin's blade, chipped by repeated impacts against Corbin's superior one, broke off with a single, powerful blow from Corbin's blade. As the broken end of the blade stabbed into the ground, Corbin held his blade to the assassin's throat.

"You scared me, Lucina," Corbin smirked, lowering his sword as Lucina pulled off her disguise. "I thought you were gone."

Lucina shook her head. "You fought well. You've improved a lot."

"Thank you," Corbin smiled, then nodded to her gift, which was a few feet behind her. "Brought you something."

Lucina raised an eyebrow and walked over to the large bundle of metal tied together and quickly separated the pieces. It included a pair of dark blue armored boots and grieves that would reach up to her thighs, a matching cuirass that reached to the bottom of her ribs, pauldrons, and armored sleeves and gloves. All of the armor had gold highlights around the the joints, and the armor was accented by a shield, slightly larger than a medium buckler, with a pair of straps on the back to attach it to Lucina's forearm without hampering the use of her hand. The shield itself, however, was a butterfly styled after her mask with gold highlights around the wings.

"It's beautiful!" Lucina breathed, setting a hand on the shield.

"It's magic resistant," Corbin explained, or, at least, the shield is, and the armor and shield are all lined with a layer or magic-resistant rubber that will shield you from lightning magic, especially. It's not a perfect defense, but at least with this, I know you'll survive meeting him again if I can't counter his magic."

Lucina stared at him in surprise for a moment before smiling and hugging him. "Thank you. You're a good friend."

"So are you," Corbin smiled.

Lucina stepped back, beginning to pull the armor on, surprised that everything was such a perfect fit. Just as she finished attaching the shield, however, Robin and Anna rode into the clearing, leading a second horse.

"We need to get to the Outrealm Gate!" Robin said urgently.

Lucina and Corbin all but leapt onto the second horse, and the four of them raced south. As they did, Anna explained that her sister had sent a message that something was wrong and that she needed help immediately, and had named Corbin and Robin as needing to be there specifically, but that they hadn't had enough time to search for anyone else, so the four of them were going to have to try and deal with whatever was wrong without help, again. Corbin swallowed hard, feeling less than enthused by the thought of going to the same place he'd nearly died with one less person than that battle had included, but as they quickly ran to the gate, they found that, while open, the gate stood alone, except for the elder Anna, who stood before it with her sword drawn. There was no sign that there had been any kind of battle, and yet the Elder Anna looked tense, and the air on the island was alive with a charge of danger.

"What's going on?" Corbin called out as the four of them ran over.

"Something connected to the Outrealm Gate from the other end," the elder Anna warned. "Nothing's come through yet, but that's never happened before."

Corbin nodded, all four of them drawing their swords. "Should we go through and see what's on the other side?"

Robin immediately shook her head. "If what Anna said before is true, for all we know, the air there could be toxic, or we may step through into lava."

"Good point," Corbin nodded. "So, what, then? We wait for it to close?"

The others all looked around at each other, unsure. Finally, Corbin sighed, taking a deep breath, then holding it as he stepped through, bracing for pain. For a moment, the briefest of instants, he was blinded by the light, but when it faded, it left behind total and absolute darkness. For a moment, he was afraid he'd actually gone blind, but then realized that he was standing in a shaft of light spilling from the Gate and it was only that the world around him was entirely and completely devoid of light. As Robin and Lucina stepped out of the Gate with Corbin, something in the darkness clicked rapidly, like a sort of inhuman speech, and a chill raced up Corbin's spine as an air of danger crashed down on all three, all three's weapons snapping up, Corbin's Tome racing to his fingertips, aimed out into the darkness. For several seconds, they all peered into the darkness around them silently. Then, a flicker of light caught Corbin and Robin's attention off to the right of their group. Both turned, Lucina following their gaze, and they all stilled as they spotted a torch in the distance, probably half a mile away. There were a pair of figures inside of the light of the torch, but they were too far away to make out. And as they watched, something dark and inhuman lunged into the light for the briefest of moments, only for one of the figures to slash it with a sword, forcing it to retreat. Corbin shook his head. They couldn't leave whoever it was to die at the claws of monsters.

"Robin, go back through and get torches from Anna and her sister, and tell them not to let the Gate close," Corbin instructed.

Anna nodded and hurried back through, returning a moment later with three torches, passing two to Corbin and Lucina, then lighting both with her own torch. Then, after a three count, the three of them charged out of the light of the Gate instantly. The effect was instant. A deafening chorus of chittering and clicking erupted around them and something lunged into the light in front of them. For the split-second it was there, it looked to have a vaguely reptilian body, but its head lacked eyes, instead having a pair of what looked like bull horns sticking up from its skull about where its eyes should be. As it entered the light, its pitch-dark body began to hiss and smoke, burning, and it shrieked in pain, slashing at Corbin with a long, blade-like foreleg. His sword deflected the strike and the creature retreated from the light, vanishing. The three of them continued to run, undeterred, only to pass through several boulders. Corbin wished he could see in the darkness so he'd know where they were, but he simply pressed on. Then, something leapt up from the darkness. It was more humanoid than the last creature, but with each limb nearly four feet long, its hands and feet bearing long claws. All three ducked under a slash of the thing's claws, the thing blatantly ignoring its own flesh burning off. Its face was missing, replaced by a gaping maw ringed in teeth, from which the clicking, chittering sound they were hearing was echoing.

Corbin and Lucina lunged once the swipe had passed, slashing the thing across the torso and splitting it, the thing crashing to the ground in a spray of dark blood, lying unmoving as they continued to run. The other two figures were racing toward them as well, but a multitude of creatures were swarming around them. They could make out silhouettes from their angle to the distant torch, now. No two shapes looked alike, but that could have been a trick of the darkness. As they left the boulders behind, the sound of flapping wings reached them from above, and they all dove to the ground just before a pair of oddly-shaped feet bearing a multitude of wicked talons missed a snatch for Robin. As the thing began to fly away again, Robin rolled over, firing a lightning spear up at it, the spear piercing the thing's chest and briefly illuminating something that looked only vaguely like a pterodactyl with a long, barbed tail, two heads, coin-sized, scab-like spots over its entire body, and spikes spread over its body at random.

The three of them began to run again, only to skid to a stop as something of a cross between a dog and a porcupine streaked through the light. They all heard something rattle, and Corbin instinctively grabbed both of the others and dove to the ground just before a barrage of quills passed over them. Corbin sent a lightning bolt the way they had come, but the dog thing was gone, though the bolt did strike something that looked like a spider with a trio of scorpion tails in place of an abdomen, but when the end of one of the tails crashed to the ground inside of their torches' light, it looked like an armless torso with the head severed at the nose and replaced by a mess of spikes. All three continued to run. More and more of the nightmarish creatures assaulted them, few dying, and each one was more grotesque and inhuman than the next. There were things that looked like half-melted corpses with gooey muscle tissue sticking to bones but with rounded, horn-like growths sticking out of the sides of its head, there were creatures with canine bodies with the head missing and the entire torso opening across the middle from the front as a mouth, there was a mass of liquid flesh and eyeballs that tried to absorb them, only for Corbin and Robin to blast it over and over until it was ash, there was a creature like an upright canine but with claws arms sticking out of its body all over, some clinging to itself, others helping support its weight, and others reaching toward Corbin and the others, there were creatures that consisted of a long trunk about three feet in length with a fang-filled mouth filling it, then five long, fleshy tentacles tipped in five different blade-like ends, the tentacles positioned about where the extremities and head of a human might be, but the thing in no way resembling a human as it dragged itself across the ground with its tentacles.

Finally, the trio reached the pair they'd been trying to save just as a creature with a massive, humanoid body but its head replaced by several bloody, half-melted, humanoid upper bodies launched itself into the darkness, grabbing one of the pair. It crashed to the ground with them and rolled out of the light, only for Corbin to instantly charge after it. Within seconds, he caught up to it and its three upper bodies all roared in pain, the monster recoiling from the light of his torch. The person it had grabbed instantly lunged off of the ground, raising a thick, yellow Tome, and chanted an incantation so fast Corbin missed it, the spell sending a lightning bolt exploding into the creature and dragging it backward before erupting into a massive explosion, killing several more creatures as well. Corbin quickly dragged the person to their feet and and sprinted back toward the Gate, the others doing the same. More and more nightmarish creatures tried to attack them, but between Corbin's sword and this person's magic, they were able to keep them at bay. In the other group, Robin was using her spell tome and the other person they'd been trying to rescue was using what looked like a Levin Sword, if Corbin's split-second glance was accurate, to keep their group clear, the third person acting as a middle ground between Robin's magic and Lucina's blade. Ahead of them, the light of the Gate began to grow closer. Except, as they neared it, the four capable of magic all using a Lightning Bolt to clear their path, the light began to shrink as the doors ground closed. Suddenly, Anna emerged from the Gate, pulling futilely at the doors, shouting in effort.

"Robin, hurry!" Anna shrieked, jamming a steel sword between the doors, only for it to instantly break.

All five of them tore across the ground for the Gate, but it was closing quickly. They pushed themselves hard, Corbin shouting in effort as he pushed his body to its limit, hearing several of the others do the same. Then, Lucina dove through the Gate, followed by both of the people they'd rescued. Corbin followed them, and just before the Gate closed, Robin dove through with Anna in her arms. Corbin groaned, letting his head rest on the ground as his heart hammered away in his chest.

"We...made it," Robin panted.

"I'm never...ever...going back...there," Lucina panted.

Corbin groaned as a response, then pushed himself up, surveying the two people they'd rescued. The pair were very clearly twins, one boy and one girl, and wore outfits shockingly identical to Corbin and Robin's. However, their faces, while bearing an obvious family resemblance, were different than Corbin and Robin's, and both had short, dark blue hair. The boy's hair was longer than Corbin's but neater, and the girl's hair was cut just above her shoulders and was slightly wavy. As they stood, both regarded him carefully, then the others as well.

"What are your names?" Corbin asked.

"Morgan," the boy answered.

"Megan," the girl identified herself. "How old are you?"

"Twenty one," Corbin answered.

Both twins nodded, then smiled. "It's nice to meet you, Father."

Corbin sighed, nodding. "I thought that might be the case. What were you two doing in there?"

Both twins grimaced. "You ordered us to go through."

"I WHAT!?" Corbin yelped. "No way!"

Morgan nodded. "You did. You said that we'd come out somewhere else, but that we'd be needed there, and that we'd probably never come home."

"But our world was already being destroyed by Au...by Grima, so it wasn't too hard a decision," Megan explained. "You, me, and Morgan were the only three humans left. The monsters from that place killed everyone else after Grima opened the Outrealm Gate. Even Mom's gone."

"Who is your mother?" Corbin asked, only for both twins to cover their mouths for a moment.

"You ordered us not to spoil anything important in order to protect the flow of time and bring about a better future," Morgan explained.

"So we can't tell you anything," Megan nodded.

Corbin sighed, nodding. "That makes sense." He frowned. "I'm sorry that you'll never see your father...er...the other me...you know what I mean."

The twins both nodded, then hugged him, beginning to cry. Corbin held both, struggling to wrap his head around the fact that not only did he suddenly have children, but twins as old as him, all while he was still single.

"Come on," Robin finally said. "We should get back to Ylisstol. Oh, but before that, where's your hug for your aunt?"

Morgan and Megan laughed, stepping forward and hugging her, Robin smiling happily as she hugged them back. Finally, they separated and everyone headed back to Ylisstol.

Corbin smiled as Morgan struggled to plot a way around Corbin's strategy. Both he and Megan had been trained as Tacticians by the Corbin of their own time, but the training had been interrupted by Grima apparently opening an Outrealm Gate to the same place they'd found the twins, pulling through hundreds of the nightmarish creatures and sealing the fate of the twins' timeline. Now, Morgan and Megan were alternating training with Corbin and training with Robin, both of them giving them books on strategies to study in order to help them grow. Meanwhile, Corbin and Lucina had continued their daily training sessions, both of them beating each other black and blue at every opportunity.

"How'd he do?" Lucina asked as Corbin finally walked out into the field to train with her after another fifteen minutes of Morgan failing to beat Corbin.

"He's getting better," Corbin admitted. "But he lacks experience."

Lucina nodded, then lunged, Corbin meeting her strike head on and beginning their usual dance of blades. As they continued, they traded the upper hand of the battle over and over before Lucina finally took him down. He groaned, but forced himself up anyway, smiling at Lucina.

"Good work today," Lucina smiled. "You've grown strong."

"Thanks," Corbin smiled. "See you again tomorrow?"

Lucina stared up at the clouds for a moment before shaking her head. "We're not going to be able to train together for a while. I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Corbin nodded. "I know you well enough to know you have a good reason."

"Thank you," Lucina smiled, offering her hand. "I'll see you again soon."

Corbin took her hand only long enough to pull her into a hug. After a moment of hesitation, Lucina returned the hug.

"Be careful, Lucina," Corbin urged. "No matter what you have to do, be careful. And if there's anything I can do to help, I will. I promise."

Lucina smiled, nodding. "I know. I'll see you as soon as I can."

Corbin nodded, and Lucina turned, walking away from the clearing. Corbin turned the opposite direction and returned to Ylisstol. As he wandered through the palace, where he and Robin had been officially living, along with Anna living with Robin, for the last two years, and where Morgan and Megan had been living since they arrived in this world, his mind searched for any reason why Lucina wouldn't be able to train him for a while, but no matter how hard he searched, he could only think of one answer. War. He was pulled from his thoughts as he passed the door or Robin's room and heard both Phila and Anna's voices mingling with Robin's in a less than wholesome chorus of vocalizations. He grinned, shaking his head, and walked into his room, unclipping his sword belt and setting it beside his bed, setting his Tome down on the bedside table before shedding his clothes and changing into his bedclothes. As he climbed into bed, he stared out the window, wondering somewhere in the back of his mind how long it would be before he could see Lucina again. Then, he'd slipped into the sweet oblivion of a dreamless sleep.

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