"Hah!"
"Urk!"
"Cha!"
"Grgh!"
"Come on, Ananias! You can do better than that!"
Ananias raised his guard up as he tried to get his bearings. "And you would know that, how?"
"Less talking, more fighting!" Lyn ordered.
"But you're the one who -"
Lyn then hit Ananias with a rapid and unrelenting barrage of blows with her practice sword, and while Ananias was successfully able to guard against them with his own, Lyn was no slouch in the strength and power department either. With each attack he blocked, he could feel the grip he had on his sword deteriorate more and more until there was practically nothing left. "Rah!" Lyn cried, seeing the perfect opportunity to finish Ananias off and immediately taking it by giving Ananias one great, big swing of her practice sword and forcing his out of his hands.
"My sword!" Ananias cried, his eyes pathetically following it as it flew through the air and away from him.
"It's not over yet!" Lyn warned, rushing towards him in order to give him the "finishing blow".
Seeing how quickly Lyn was closing in on him and seeing how doomed he was without his weapon, Ananias closed his eyes, clenched up, and prepared for the worst. "Grck!" When the worst never came, he nervously opened one of his eyes to see Lyn's practice sword pointed at his neck.
"Do you yield?" Lyn asked, smiling confidently.
Ananias let out a frustrated sigh. "Do I really have a choice?"
Lyn chuckled before putting down her sword. "No, but I guess you can say that it just didn't feel right otherwise, you know?"
Ananias rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say," he grumbled, before going to fetch his sword.
"Hey, don't give me that!" Lyn chided. ""If you're not satisfied with your performance, than maybe instead of grumbling about it, you should put some more effort into your training."
"Yeah? And what's the point of training if I'm just not cut out for it, huh?"
"Don't say that! You're actually not that bad. You were able to keep up with some of my attacks, weren't you? Your defense is fine. It's your offense that needs work."
Ananias let out an exasperated sigh. "And how do you suppose I do that?" he asked.
Lyn smiled. "Simple. By gaining some conviction!"
"Conviction?"
"Right. It's your lack of conviction that keeps you from reaching your full potential. Without it, you can't possibly expect to beat anyone!"
"So? Isn't beating people more your job?"
Lyn gave him a confused frown. "Huh? What's that supposed to mean?"
Ananias sighed. "Look, I appreciate you trying to help me to get better at fighting, I do. But we've got to face facts here. You're... you! And I'm not. Your skills with a sword dwarf mine, like, ten times over! I have no chance at matching your level of skill!"
"I'm not asking you to match me," Lyn reassured him. "I'm just trying to help you improve, that's all."
"Look, I could improve until the cows come home, but that doesn't change the fact that you'd still be better than me by a whole country mile and then some. So why don't we just stick to what we're good at and just leave it at that?"
"Ananias! I'm surprised at you! I didn't expect for you to have such a rotten attitude about this!"
"A rotten attitude's got nothing to do with this!"
"It does too! Ananias, you're condoning stagnation!"
"I am not!"
"Really? Because that's certainly what it sounds like to me!"
"I'm just saying that we should all just play our roles, that's all! If you want to improve, then fine, improve. Just so long as you're improving in the way that's right for you."
"Oh, really? So what's my role then?"
"To be one of our greatest warriors and to lead us to victory," Ananias nonchalantly answered.
"Okay, and what's yours?"
"To support guys like you."
"Oh? So you could never help lead us to victory then?"
"Please, have you met me?" Ananias scoffed. "There's no way, in any world, that I'm a front-runner."
"Not with that defeatist attitude you won't."
"Like I said, it's not about having an attitude. It's about accepting the facts!"
"Well, I don't agree with your 'facts'."
"Well, you should. Admit it, compared to you and every other warrior here, I'm nothing."
Lyn's eyes widened in surprise. "What? Ananias, that couldn't be further from the truth!"
"All evidence to the contrary."
"Well then, I'll just counter your evidence with some evidence of my own."
"Oh? And what exactly are you trying to prove? That I'm just as valuable out there as the rest of you are?"
Lyn smiled knowingly. "No, just that the rest of us are just as much 'nothing' as you are."
Ananias raised an eyebrow at this response. "Um... what?"
"Okay, hear me out. First off, what exactly do you think of me?"
"Um, seriously? You're Lyn. You're great. You're one of our best fighters, probably one of the greatest fighters that I've ever seen. And from what I've heard, you even have royal blood flowing through your veins! I have no doubt in my mind that you must've been a really important person back in your world."
"I'm flattered that you think that, but just as I suspected, you assumed that because of my skill with a blade and my royal heritage that I was someone of great importance back in my world, but that couldn't be further from the truth."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Well, first of all, from the day I born, I didn't know a thing about my royal blood. So for all I knew, growing up, I was just another girl in a nomadic tribe. And second of all, when certain events started happening back on my world, it was really my good friends, Hector and Eliwood, who were leading the charge. I just sort of helped out whenever I could."
Ananias' eyes widened in surprise. "Wait, really?"
Lyn nodded. "Uh-huh. Sure, I still had a stake in all of it, but compared to Hector and Eliwood's stake, I was practically -"
"Nothing," Ananias finished.
Lyn smiled. "Yep. In some ways, I was just a glorified soldier, following my lords and tactician into battle. Not too much unlike you, wouldn't you say?"
"Humph. So even the great Lyn can get sidelined, huh?"
"It has nothing to do with being sidelined or not. When I joined Hector and Eliwood's fight, I basically agreed to take part in something far greater than myself. Something so great, that all of my personal problems seemed so small by comparison. And even now, in a new world, with a new fight, I think that's stayed very much the same. We're all nothing in the grand scheme of things. So I guess you can say, in a sense, that none of us are really any less important than the other. There isn't really any star player, any pawn, or any roles or hierarchy. It's just us. We're all we have. And that's part of the reason why I came to spar with you today. Because as one of my beloved friends, I would like nothing more than to see you better improve yourself and to survive in the oncoming fights ahead. So, how about it, Ananias? You ready to take your training to the next level?"
Ananias chuckled. "Well, in the grand scheme of things, I still doubt that it would make much of a difference, but if you started off as nothing and got to be as good as you are now, and can still be considered nothing in some cases, then maybe there's no harm in improving... just a little bit."
Lyn laughed. "Well, it's a start!"
Dual Special #1:
Ananias: Lorca and Anna tribes, unite!
Lyn: Together, we're unstoppable!
Dual Special #2:
Ananias: Can you slow down for me, Lyn?
Lyn: Aw, but you're improving, Ananias!
Dual Special #3:
Lyn: Let's ride the wind, Ananias!
Ananias: Lead the way, Lyn!
Dual Special #4:
Lyn: Don't fall too far behind, Ananias!
Ananias: Easier said than done with you!
Author's Note: The next Warriors supports will be:
4. Lucina
5. Celica
6. Sakura
7. Owain
8. Marth
9. Lianna
10. Chrom
