Chương 8: [1-2] Oops! Dropped the Vatican

If not for Adelheid calling it the "Floating City," Hague's first thought would've been that it was built on the slope of a hill. It looked like those Brazilian favelas, tiered rows of buildings descending until it finally reached flat ground. But it lacked the shape of a hill, where everything descends evenly in a circle from the peak. Instead, to Hague's left and right the city ended with abrupt, sharp cliffs. It was no natural landform.

What Adelheid said made the picture clear in his mind: a floating platform of land that one day came crashing down, then sank to one side because of the lack of balance to its base. The buildings only proved it. The small ones, the little houses and marketplaces of no importance, were all built recently, on terraces dug into the slope to regain a semblance of proper flatness. But anything old, anything big and grand, like the domed basilicas or the gigantic citadel-like structure he just exited?

Those lurched precariously, held upright by flying buttresses that seemed much more hastily erected than the monuments they supported.

"The last Hero brought it down," Gaspar said.

"Which just about explains why they're not so fond of your kind around here."

"Witness how time and ignorance distort truth," Adelheid said.

"The Hero performed no such act. It was Polymath Wisdom who, during their final battle—""We'll have time to relive the great battles of history later, Your Highness. We better move, unless our goal's to get embroiled in the great battle of today." Gaspar pointed down the slope of the city. At the lowest edge, where the tilted land platform touched flat ground, there was a big white wall. Another recent addition.

It pointed straight up, not bothering to extend past where the land rose enough to form a natural barrier with the cliffs. Given Hague's elevated angle, it was possible to see past it. An army camped outside, on the left bank of a large lake that extended to the horizon. It had to be the army those priests were so scared of. At this distance the army looked like ants in orderly ranks, but bright banners streamed to remove all doubt. Above, tracing loops in the sky, were what Hague first took for great white birds.

So an army knocked on the gates and the garrison all went out to ask "who's there?" That explained why other than the seven from before, they never saw a single guard in the Pecknaos palace. Hague hoped that meant they could cross the city and find Adelheid's friend Signy without trouble. He wanted more units for his army before he got into another fight. To that, the world instantly said fuck you.

They didn't take a step before a vast flapping beat preceded one of those great white birds dropping out of the sky on them. What soared between the portico columns wasn't a bird, but a horse. A horse with wings bigger than an albatross. Hague remembered the class listed for Marpasia and her soldiers: Pegasus Rider. The flying horse whinnied and kicked its legs in time with a flap of its wings to halt its forward momentum, bringing itself in for a landing.

Saddled atop it sat a soldier dressed like Marpasia's underlings, mastering her pegasus with reins gripped in one hand while the other clutched a spear.

"Princess Adelheid!" the soldier called over the last few wingbeats while her pegasus came to a halt.

"I beg your pardon, but Captain Marpasia is desperately needed at the front. Have you seen..." Her voice trailed off. Her eyes first fell on Polymath Truth, slumped on Gaspar's shoulder, and then on Hague. Hague already had a good idea what to expect. Yelling, terror, violence. Instead, the soldier's face went grave. She looked young, even younger than Clotilde, though maybe only because of the freckles spattering her face. That didn't matter.

Hague saw in her the sort of seriousness he only saw in speedrunners when they well and truly locked in. In the span of a second, she had processed the situation and decided exactly what to do. Her hand dropped the reins and shot for a tiny brass bugle on her hip. She was going to call for help. She moved faster than anyone expected. Gaspar started to lift his axe, but he was slow, especially with one arm dedicated to carrying Truth.

Adelheid stared dumbly, like she wasn't aware of the implication of what was happening. That left Hague. He was only a few steps from the horse. He didn't carry a weapon; it manifested automatically when he attacked, and weighed nothing. With the speed of a punch he could strike. One hit wouldn't be enough to kill, but maybe he could knock the bugle out of her hands if he aimed it right. That'd buy Gaspar time to finish her off. Would his Famespirit appear outside of combat? No time to wonder.

He stepped forward, trying to gauge how far his sword would reach from his memory of its size and shape. The horn was already rising to her mouth. Her throat seized with a sharp intake of breath.

"Whoa! Watch what you put your pretty lips on, sweetie." It was a low, deep, even sultry male voice. A voice that sounded like syrup, or maybe Hague thought so because suddenly it smelled like syrup. The pegasus knight flicked her eyes toward the speaker and Hague looked too.

"Oh my god," Hague couldn't help saying out loud. Everyone he'd seen so far looked generally within the bounds of some late medieval/early modern European setting. Gaspar in armor, Adelheid in a cape, all the religious dudes in cassocks and chasubles or whatever the fuck. This guy? This guy standing at the top two steps of the portico, drawing a bowstring tight with the nocked arrow aimed square at the pegasus girl's chest? He looked like what a space alien might imagine a medieval European looked like.

His vest had no sleeves. Plus a diamond shape cut out of the middle to expose a good amount of bare pectoral muscle, the kind of thing you'd call a boob window on an oversexed anime girl. A lacy red cravat spilled out of his throat like blood in an artsy stage rendition of Sweeney Todd. (Hague had a regular in chat who always talked about Sweeney Todd.) His belt and by extension his pants hung extremely low on his hips, with a gold buckle in the shape of a V that pointed right down to his crotch.

One pant leg was rolled up for no fucking reason. His boots had one inch platform heels. Everything was fur trimmed. Also he had the darkest skin of anyone Hague saw in this world so far. That was nothing, though. Under a hat that was half cane-strutting dandy, half Australian outback (one brim folded straight up to clench an ostrich feather), between two dangling turquoise earrings, his face was covered in tattoos. Swirling symmetrical patterns of black ink, especially around his cheeks and chin.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. It was like. It was like. Hague knew exactly what it was like. It was like Awakening. Fire Emblem was an old franchise but never really a popular one. Its earliest games didn't even get released outside of Japan, because the good folks at Nintendo thought it was too hard and boring for dumb Americans to handle, with its permadeath mechanics and dry high fantasy melodrama.

Even once the series got an international release thanks to a boost in popularity from Super Smash Bros., it never gained any traction beyond the niche. Hague was in that niche, though, him and his mentor and the handful of other diehards on Serenes Forest, and when you're a diehard you don't care what anyone else thinks of your special thing because it's yours. The exclusivity becomes a badge of honor, a distinction.

Hague sure thought he was hot shit to be good at this brutal game too difficult for lesser gamers to touch. His own little plot of land. Nintendo didn't quite like the lack of reach, though, and after a string of big, grand, epic, well-written, expensive flops, decided to consign the franchise to the shadow realm where lesser Nintendo properties go, with maybe one installment per decade if you're lucky.

They told Intelligent Systems, the studio responsible for actually making the games, that the next one would be the last. So IntSys went for broke. They made a game completely unlike any other Fire Emblem, or rather a Frankenstein abomination of every other Fire Emblem, bits and pieces stitched together haphazardly and grotesquely. Fire Emblem Awakening was a parody of Fire Emblem. Self-referential jokes at the expense of every classic trope, comedic send-ups of past characters.

Time travel bullshit, alternate universe bullshit, all to justify shoving anything and everything into the pot. Fanservice, fanservice, fanservice. To match this energy, the character designs went crazy. Though in the past you might get girls showing a lot of leg, now it was just ridiculous. Women went into battle with hoop skirts and garter belts, guys with armor so insane it looked more like a spacesuit with jetpacks. Any sense of realism went out the window in exchange for style and sexuality.

The game printed money. It overnight transformed Fire Emblem from niche to something resembling mainstream. It saved the franchise entirely. Those original diehards on Serenes Forest didn't quite care for it. Hague's mentor crashed out.

"Awakening is a fucking travesty," he said.

"It's a fucking affront." He boycotted the game. He unleashed rant after rant about the fanservice bullshit and the stupid tourists gobbling it straight off the ground.

"They don't give a shit about Fire Emblem. They don't care about the game. The strategy. That's what Fire Emblem is about. Not this trash." Hague didn't care for the waifubait either, the self-insert avatar unit, the dating sim elements, or the trashy storyline, but he thought his mentor was going a little far.

"It's still Fire Emblem. It's still the same core game." Actually, he felt like it made some really cool gameplay innovations, though he refrained from attempting to say anything positive in front of his mentor. It didn't matter what he said. His mentor dropped out of the fandom entirely. Hague held on. All the goofy newer anime Fire Emblems, he played as much as the old games—more even. That was what the viewers wanted. He cracked jokes, made fun of the stupid shit, but it was lighthearted.

Not bitter like his mentor. Still. Seeing this guy here dressed like he waltzed right out of Awakening, Hague had to admit it rubbed him the wrong way. Like the goddess, Sophia, was making a joke at his expense. After all, her outfit was pretty bizarre too... Chat, of course, weighed in. tulsasiivat: hagues gay lover has arrived The newcomer pulled back the string of his bow and said, "What's your name, little soldier girl?" The pegasus rider's eyes narrowed. The bugle remained an inch from her lips.

If she talked, even to say her name, she would have to move the horn away. Then she wouldn't be able to blow it so quickly. For a long time, she did nothing. Hague thought she might try to blow anyway. She looked extremely severe despite her freckles, like she would think nothing of sacrificing her life if she did her duty. In Fire Emblem, bows were super effective against flying units. Was that true here? If so, sacrificing her life to do her duty didn't matter.

If that guy let go of the bowstring, she'd die before she got the chance. She lowered the bugle.

"I am Benedicta Virtue, 7th Squadron, Lucian Escort." In response, the guy slackened his taut bowstring, though he didn't put the bow down. That made Hague feel more at ease. Since he was standing right next to the girl, it would've only taken a tiny adjustment to send an arrow at him instead. And maybe the guy would want to, once he realized who Hague was. But the guy kept his eyes focused on Benedicta.

"I'm going to cut you a deal, little soldier girl."

"Just shoot her, Tuatoru," said Gaspar.

"Shoot her and be done with it." The guy—Hague supposed Tuatoru was his name—shook his head.

"I'm not fond of killing cute girls." Benedicta responded with a snort of contempt.

"I'll let you call your squad and tell them all about what you've seen on the Pecknaos portico. But you're going to give us a head start first."

"Are you nuts?" Gaspar said.

"Kill her! You have the advantage, kill her now. Tuatoru!"

"You're not the one paying me, old man." Tuatoru never took his eyes off Benedicta.

"I don't take orders from you."

"I," Adelheid started.

"Nor you either, Your Highness." He said it with a sly smile, like it was his own private joke, though Hague wasn't sure what the joke was.

"Signy's not here, so I'm free to operate as I see fit. And I don't see fit to shoot down such a pretty young thing." Gaspar looked like he was about to explode. His Eggman face shined beet red, more thermonuclear than when Hague made Adelheid put her sword away in battle.

"You contemptuous, philandering, disrespectful Tau Nuian trash!"

"The bugle, Benedicta sweetie," Tuatoru said.

"Toss it down at my feet." Benedicta's eyes remained stone. But she dropped the bugle with a casual wave of her hand.

"Good," said Tuatoru.

"Sometimes you Lucian ladies like to die for absolutely nothing. Glad you've got an ounce of sense in that head of yours."

"You're the one with no sense, boy." Gaspar shot his face toward Hague.

"He might not listen to us, but he'll listen to you alright! He knows what you are. Order him to shoot her now!" Hague wondered about that. He also wondered if he wanted to order it anyway. He understood the situation: leaving Benedicta alive meant she'd fly back to her squadmates and sound the alarm. It'd take longer than the bugle, but it'd happen anyway. And what then? Another fight? With a "head start," as Tuatoru called it, could they escape?

Z3zol: kill kill kill Z3zol: only room for one waifu in this party Phandelmo: Let's see if we can make Gaspar so mad he pops Benedict_SC: the hell is my non-evil opposite doing in this game? you can't let her live The_Nuremberg: Have her drop her weapon THEN kill her The_Nuremberg: That way its another war crime Voortigern: Are those Maori tattoos on Tuatoru's face? JordanVonAir: this guys a douchebag Voortigern: New zealand representation!!!: D estellaris: nooooo spare the pegasus girl, she's cute!

spaceicecream subscribed and said: Hell yeah I love romhacks! 1!

"Let's," Hague started to say. He didn't know what he was going to say. Killing someone at your mercy is different than killing someone trying to stab you. So instead he said, "Thanks for the sub, spaceicecream!" That moment, Gaspar took things into his own hands. He hoisted his axe to swing. Benedicta reacted instantly with a sharp tug on the reins of her horse. Horses are way bigger when you're standing next to one than you feel like they should be.

The pegasus even more so, since its wingspan gave it a whole lateral dimension. The wings lashed out as the horse took flight and buffeted Hague in the face. He went flying back until Adelheid caught him. If the "attack" hurt him, he couldn't tell. Didn't see the forcefield shimmer. Gaspar was too slow. Benedicta took to the air and got outside his reach before he had a chance to attack. He snarled at Tuatoru to shoot before she got away.

But Tuatoru was already shouldering his bow and returning the arrow to his quiver.

"Better move if you wanna make use of that head start, old man." No better argument than that. Spitting white feathers, Hague hurried after Tuatoru into the city. Two minutes later, horns pealed above. The alarm was sounded.