The following is a fan work based on the video game Fire Emblem Awakening. I do not claim ownership of the game, its characters, world, premise or anything else contained within. Fire Emblem Awakening is owned by Intelligent Systems, and published by Nintendo. Please support the official release.

I hate my job.

I had come to this realization a couple of days ago. I had worked here for two years, at minimum wage. Five days a week, three in the afternoon until midnight. Stocking shelves until the cashiers went home, and then having to take over for them and sell beer to some of the sketchiest people I'd ever had the displeasure of being within five feet of. Not to mention when I had to help those useless idiots on cash during the day. And all the shitty customers.

Some days I'm honestly tempted to go downtown after work and pick a fight with some crackhead just so I can get shanked and put out of my misery.

It thankfully, wasn't too busy tonight, for a Friday it was practically dead. It meant I didn't need to be too aware, and I could while away the hours grinding mobile games. The way we blocked off the doors and registers late at night, made my job as pseudo-security/cashier a little easier. Of course the owner was too cheap to actually get any proper security in here, despite how much stuff gets stolen.

I glanced up at the clock, ten-thirty. The beer section would be closing in half an hour. A small smile rose to my face, wonder how many dumbasses wouldn't get here in time. How many would I be able to say "no" to? I admit, it filled me with a certain amount of joy being able to shut down those drunks that could never figure out when we closed it down. It wasn't like it was a new thing, and it's advertised in store, on the radio, and on TV. Had been for years.

The rope is there for a fucking reason, dumb motherfuckers.

I glanced up from my phone as the front door slid open. With a sigh, I pocketed my phone, and nodded as the pair of customers, a man and a women found the path through the registers and bee lined for the beer section. Because of course they did. They were wearing winter coats. I'd have to keep an eye on them when they left.

It took them ten minutes to come through the register. I say that, but only the women came through with her purchase, the man stayed back. "I.D" I droned.

"I don't have it." She replied.

"Then I guess you're not getting this." I stated. Taking her booze off the register and putting it behind me on the counter.

"That's fucking bullshit!" She argued.

"No. It's the law." I replied.

"I'm twenty four!" She hissed.

"You look fifteen." Replied. My voice taking on an annoyed tone.

"I want to talk to your manager!" Oh, this fucking bitch.

"No manager here. And if yhere was, they'd say the same thing." I replied and that was the truth. The only other employee here was my fellow grocery stocker turned cashier turned floor cleaner. While I usually let him be in charge, he wasn't technically higher ranked than me.

"Well I'm not leaving until I get my beer!"

"Guess you'll be waiting for a long time. But if you're not out of the store by midnight, I'll call the police. Oh, and we stop selling alcohol at elev-" I cut myself off, my eyes catching the movement of the man she had come in with, going back out the way they had come in. I spotted something metallic poking out from under his coat. "Hey!" I shouted, already stepping out from behind the register. "I see that!" He ignored me. "Hey!" I started running.

He turned his head and saw me gaining on him, and bolted. Fucking asshole.

"Drop it!" I growled as I nearly caught up to him at the door, but stumbled and lost a lot of ground. Trying to delay me, he dropped a six pack of beer cans, but kept running, revealing that he had at least one more pack on him. So I continued to chase him out into the parking lot.

Wait, what the fuck was I doing? This is exactly how I broke my wrist last year. I swear to god if that shit happens again-!

Just as I was about to catch up to him again, he turned, pulling out a knife. But I was too close for him to get a good shot in. His sudden loss of speed meant I had the perfect opportunity. At least this was different.

I ducked down and tackled him, wrapping my arms around his waist and upper thighs, just the way I had been taught to do when I played football. We impacted the cold pavement of the parking lot, he hit his head as we fell and the knife fell from his hand. Not wasting anytime, I shoved him onto his stomach and sat on his back. I pulled out my phone and started dialing the police. I'd probably get in shit for this, but at that moment I didn't care.

"Provincial Police, what's your emergency?" came the voice of the operator.

"Hi, it's the Millanding Convenience. There was an attempted shoplifting. I caught him out in the parking lot. I've got him restrained." I explained quickly. The adrenaline starting to catch up with me.

"Ok, what's the address?"

"Um…Six-Eight-five-" I started, trying to remember the place off the top of my head.

I felt a sharp pain in my back. "Ah fuck!" I cursed, turning and dropping my phone. There was the women, her face contorted in anger.

"Get the fuck off of him!" She screamed, pulling back her knife, now coated in my blood. And she went for another thrust.

My vision flashed with rage. "You fucking bitch!" I growled and tackled her in return. She screamed in surprise as she fell backwards. I didn't let up when she landed, I started swinging, a right hook to the face, then a left. Right jab to the nose, and another and another. I only stopped when her face was a bloody mess and she stopped screaming whenever I hit her.

I climbed off of her then and looked down at myself to see her knife buried in my stomach. "Ah fuck." I growled. "That's not good." I retrieved my phone which thankfully had survived the drop, the call was still going through.

"Hey!" Came the voice of the operator. "What's going on? Are you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm still here…" I ground out. "He had an accomplice. She stabbed me. I beat the shit out of her." My vision spun, I tried to put pressure on the wound when I remembered the other wound on my back. I slumped down to sit. "Can you guys hurry? And I need an ambulance too…"

"Ok, we're on the way, stay with me ok?"

"Y-yeah, I'll try." I choked out. "Fuck this hurts. Worse than when I broke my wrist last year."

"How did you do that?"

"Almost the exact same way. I was chasing a shoplifter across the parking lot, slipped and fell…I tried to catch myself and broke it." I explained.

Oh hey there ground. Nice of you to come up to meet me.

"Hey! We're almost there. Stay with me ok?" The voice was distant now. And I felt cold. It didn't hurt anymore at least.

"Hey? Talk to me!"

Shit…Am I dying?

I could see red and blue flashing lights pulling into the parking lot as my vision started to blur and fade.

At least it's not my problem anymore.

I let out a groan as I came to consciousness, my mind taking a second to register that I was, in fact, not dead. Nor was I bleeding out. In fact, aside from a slight chill, I was fine. I rose to my feet, sub-consciously noticing that the clothes I was wearing were not mine. I was in a temple of some sort, illuminated by a blue glow from the ceiling, giving everything a matching hue. The interior was mostly open, sparsely populated with pillars reaching all the way to the ceiling. A staircase built into the floor a few metres away from me indicated that there was a second floor below. Furthermore, I was alone.

"Where the fuck…?" I muttered. Shit, did the afterlife actually exist? Was God going to show up and start going through the list of reasons why I was going to hell? Or was this simply what my brain decided to imagine in the few seconds it had before I finally died?

I took a second to look myself over. I was dressed in a coat of gambeson, a sword hanging from a worn leather belt at my hip. I wore simple linen trousers and an old set of leather boots. Furthermore, I noticed that a cheap looking backpack was resting against the wall I had been sitting against. One of its arms was missing, and it had a few patches sewn into it, likely to block holes torn into it from wear. I hefted the pack up, the weight indicating that it was full. "The hell?"

Before I could go through its contents, a loud crash came from the stairs leading below. The echo of hurried footsteps soon followed and a young women dashed up into view. She spun in place at the top of the stairs to lob a ball of flame down the steps before she continued on. She paused when she spotted me, though, panting.

"Run! Risen!" she exclaimed before taking off across the temple's interior. She looked vaguely familiar to me, but in my disorientated state, couldn't place her. Instead, I turned my attention to the stairs. Taking her words to account, I started to retreat in the direction she had ran, not turning away from the stairs.

"Wait…Risen?" Did I hear that right? I heard them before I saw them. The rasping groans lead the shambling corpses of greyed, stitched together and mismatched limbs and bodies. Nearly a dozen eyeless sockets stared at me, filled with tiny beads of red. I definitely recognized those. "Oh fuck!" I cursed, turning and sprinting after the women.

What the fuck?

Why are there Risen?

Where the fuck am I?

A ball of flame soared through the air and struck the leading Risen, blasting it apart into a cloud of sickly purple ash. "Hurry!" The women called, throwing another ball of fire into the pack as I tried to outrun them and cussing under my breath. Now that I could take a good look at her I finally recognized her.

A mop of medium length black hair framed her features that I could make out at this distance. She wore a black coat with golden trim and purple eye patterns going down the arms. It was clearly a few sizes too large for her. Beneath that, she wore a cream coloured shirt and baggy pants and a pair of boots. At her hip was a sheathed sword and opposite that was a side bag containing a large tome that she had one gloved hand pressed against, the other outstretched as another ball of flame began to form in her grasp.

That was Morgan. From Fire Emblem Awakening.

There was some serious fuckery afoot.

After the next ball of fire, I spun, grabbing my sword and drawing it. It was admittedly pretty clumsy, but I had never held an actual sword before so I wasn't going to worry about it too much. Morgan's spells had had a solid effect on the Risen's numbers. Only a handful remained, and those that did were looking worse for wear.

Feeling the oddly comfortable weight of my sword in hand, I stepped towards them. These Risen weren't armed, at least in the traditional sense. Instead of carrying weapons, their fingers extended into long, misshapen claws. As they approached, the stench of what I could only assume was the smell of rotting flesh reached me nose and I fought the urge to wretch. I assumed what I hoped was a stance fitting of a sword and waited for them to approach.

They shambled forward, one last fire ball connecting with one next to the front, then the leading Risen lunged at me, claws extended. I stepped back to avoid the swiping claws and lunged forward in retaliation, sword extended tip first. I felt resistance as I stabbed into its chest, but it didn't so much as flinch in pain. Instead it slowly looked up at me, moving in short, and jerky motions. Its beady red eyes meeting mine as it breathed a puff of noxious smelling smoke.

It raised its claws to rake at me again and I instinctively flinched, subconsciously closing my eyes in preparation for the hit.

My sword suddenly came lose as the sound of steel biting into flesh reached my ears and I opened my eyes to see a second sword sticking from its neck as the rest of its form began to dissipate into the haze it breathed. Morgan tore her sword free and grabbed me by the shoulder with her off-hand, pulling me back a few steps. Of course she was a fair bit shorter than me, so it probably took her more effort than it should have. "First time fighting Risen?" She asked, throwing another ball of flame at the last risen and blasting it into ash.

"Yeah, sorry. First time actually using this sword too."

She nodded in understanding, sheathing her sword in a practiced motion. "Well for future reference, you generally want to either sever, or destroy the head. Or destroy their heart." She explained. "They just shrug off everything else."

"N-noted." I said, fumbling to sheath my own weapon. "Robert." I introduced myself, extended my hand in greeting. "Most people call me Rob."

"Morgan." She replied taking my hand to shake and smiling. "Do you uh…happen to know where we are? I can't remember."

"You can't remember where you are?" I asked, my mouth moving faster than my brain.

Of course she wouldn't remember that, she has amnesia, you dunce! My brain shouted at my mouth. Or it would have, if that was possible.

"I don't remember much of anything, actually." She explained sheepishly. "Not really sure how I know how to deal with Risen…Or even that they're called Risen."

"We're in uh…" I mumbled, trying to remember where Morgan's paralogue took place. "Northwestern Ferox." I said after a second pause.

"Are you sure? Took you a second."

"Sorry, just woke up, and then I almost got torn open by a Risen." I replied. "So…what now?"

"Well I was looking for someone, we got separated while out on our walk." Morgan explained. "Though if we're in northwestern Ferox, I must have wondered way farther than I thought. No idea how I missed the longfort…"

"Well, do you remember where you last saw them?" I asked, already knowing full well that she was looking for her father, Robin.

"In Ylisse…Somewhere."

"Well that narrows it down."

"Yeah, sorry. Can't remember exactly." Morgan laughed sheepishly.

"Well, whatever." I said. "We'll start heading south then, at least until we hit the longfort."

"We?"

"Well yeah, I'm not going to just let a young women wonder around a dangerous land all by herself."

"I don't mean to be rude but if anything, I can't let you wonder around a dangerous land all by yourself. You can barely hold that sword properly." Morgan retorted.

"Yeah…um…Can…Can I come with you?" I asked, already imagining how my ineptitude was going to get in her way. If she even let me come along.

She smiled up at me as she spoke, "Of course! I'll give you some pointers on how to use your sword too! So let's get going!" With that she spun and started heading off in a random direction. She took a few steps before she turned back to me with a sheepish grin. "You wouldn't know where the exit is, do you?

After wondering around the temple for an hour or two looking for an exit, we found one, only to find that not only had the sun set, but a blizzard had blown in, making travel impossible. We ended up setting up back inside a little bit to stay out of the wind and cold.

Of course, that didn't mean we had a fire.

I did, however, have time to look through my pack now. I found a a few days' worth of rations, mostly jerky, with a few pieces of hardtack. Should last us a few days. A canteen, that was about two-thirds full, meaning there must be a water source decently close. There was also an old map of the continent, the only real markings being the names of major cities, and the longfort. There was also a small hide pouch of gcoins, held shut by a piece of string. And lastly was a whetstone, brand new from the looks of it. Of course, while I was taking stock, I had time to ponder my current situation.

I had been fucking Isekai'd.

Fucking bullshit.

One of the most overused tropes in modern anime, and here it was, happening to me like I was in some bad fanfic. Glancing across the room we were holed up in. Morgan slept peacefully, curled up in her coat and using her tome as a pillow. I thought maybe this situation wasn't so bad. Sure I was shit at fighting, but I could just add that to the list of things that I also sucked at.

It was a long list.

But at least I wasn't alone. Morgan was here, and I felt like she could protect me if push came to shove.

Now there's a thought. A six-foot-six, two hundred and seventy pound grown-ass man, hiding behind a little girl. Talk about fucking pathetic. But I could change that. Before she nodded off, Morgan promised to show me the basics of swordplay in the morning.

I wasn't sure if she actually remembered how to use a sword, or if it was just so ingrained into her muscle memory that her muscles reminded her brain.

Of course, she didn't have anything on her aside from her clothes, and weapons, so we'd be living off what supplies I had been plopped down here with. That being said, maybe I hadn't simply been plopped down here. I wiggled around my right wrist a bit, not feeling the pain sticking around from when I had broken it. My lower back too, hadn't so much as ached since I had stood up for the first time. The sprint hadn't even winded me either, meaning I was clearly in much better physical condition here, than I had been when I had died.

Had I been body swapped? If so, the bastard who swapped with me got the worse end of the deal, bleeding out in a parking lot was way worse than following along behind a cute, amnesiac tactician in the cold. And watching her sleep peacefully, I couldn't help but find her extremely cute.

Hold on, now I was starting to sound like a creeper.

Then there was the other option that whatever had put me here, at least had enough mercy to fix all the fucked up shit with my body. I felt my stomach, my gut was gone, not quite replaced with abs, but it had flattened at the very least. I guess I could live like this.

Unless I got screwed over by medieval level healthcare. Sure they had healing staves, but as far as I knew, all that did was fix broken bones and cuts. If I got sick, I might just be screwed. Shaking my head I replaced everything into my pack as I had found it, and set it up to be used as a pillow. I sprawled out, before deciding to curl up instead. Better to conserve body heat. Especially since I didn't have my comforter.

I was going to miss that blanket.

With that final thought, and despite how uncomfortable the stone floor and my makeshift pillow was, I found myself drifting off to sleep.