"I'm about to save your life… from him."

Lucina had run through this moment a hundred times in her head - she had only heard stories of the day her father was gravely wounded by an assassin, on the very same day her aunt was killed. An assassin in the garden, and a veritable army attacking the castle from the front. This night was where the future would change, where the disastrous events of her childhood would be averted. With practiced motions, she swung back and neatly cut the throat of an assassin that had broken through the wall of the garden, approaching too quickly for Chrom to defend himself. The dead man's sword clattered down near Lucina's feet, and she quickly flicked the blood off of her sacred sword.

"I trust this proof will suffice?"

"Yep." Robin said flatly, drawing his sword and spellbook from his robes.

They heard a rustling in the bushes, and Lucina turned around to look at the source of the noise. She cursed at herself for a brief moment - the second assassin had burst through the hole in the wall, and was rushing towards the masked swordsman that killed his comrade. Attempting to give herself space, she stumbled over the fallen weapon and failed to put her sword up in time. With a clang and a horrified shout, the assassin swept his blade across Lucina's face, catching her mask and slicing it neatly in half.

Her mask gone, her hair fell about her face, and the woman Robin had seen in Regna Ferox was now visible to her father. His hand glowed with a green energy as he charged a wind spell with which to save Lucina, but he was beaten by the Prince, who dispatched the second assassin with a fast attack.

"You… you're a woman? Are you okay?" Chrom said, not hiding his incredulity.

"Quite the actress, too. We need to go inside now, Chrom, Emmeryn is in danger!" Lucina ran ahead of Robin and Chrom into the castle with her sword still drawn, the pair of men following close behind.

"Did you know about this?" Chrom yelled at his tactician, who shrugged and said with a little lie, "No idea!"

Bashing open the door, the trio sprinted down the hallway leading to Emmeryn's room, and encountered the other Shepherds that had been alerted to the break-in and had suited up to protect the castle, bodies littering the ground around them.

"Robin! What are your orders?" Frederick shouted over the din of battle, as he whalloped a Plegian assassin with his armored fist and cut him down with the sword in his other hand.

"Frederick! Kellam! Hold the stairs! Miriel, go with them and give them breathing room when they need it. Virion, Sully, Stahl, the three of you will hold the west stairwell. Chrom, Marth, you're with me in the center, nearest Emmeryn's room. Lon'qu, protect Lissa and Maribelle, heal anyone that gets hurt." the Tactician bellowed out, and the Shepherds gave a roar in response and cut their way to their positions.

The tactician, the prince, and the formerly-masked swordswoman stationed themselves in the center of the castle, protecting a long hallway from the invaders. Time became a blur for the trio as a near-constant stream of attackers charged their positions, and were beaten back one after another. Robin heard a crashing and a strange cry from behind him, and turned around to find the source of the noise — and a giant rabbit-like creature bounded from his right, covered in blood, holding a carcass in its mouth.

The tactician raised his sword and shouted, "What manner of sorcery is this assassin?"

With an alarmed look in her eyes, Lucina grabbed Robin's sword arm and said, "Hold, Robin! Panne is an ally."

A light flashed from the rabbit, and revealed herself to be a woman with long brown hair, floppy ears, and markings on her body. "You know of me, man-spawn?" the taguel growled, looking distrustfully at the restrained tactician.

"Yes… I knew you would be here. Chrom, Robin, this is Panne, she is an ally of the Exalted family, we can trust her." Lucina explained, thankful for the momentary lull in the fighting.

"Very well. I trust you. Panne, my name is Robin - can you protect the west stairwell?" Robin let his sword hand drop in relief.

"Do not presume to give me orders, man-spawn. I am here to fulfill my warren's debt to the exalt, nothing else." She transformed back into her bestial form and bounded towards the west, almost bowling over the archer Virion as he walked back, holding his bow and arrow at a red-haired man ahead of him with a lollipop in his mouth.

"Prince Chrom! This young man claims that he is not here to kill the Exalt, and surrendered himself to the archest of archers!"

Chrom looked the man over and said, "Can you fight?"

"Blue, I'm a thief. I was forcibly drafted to steal something, but I'd be happy to help you and yours for a fee." the red-headed thief said, adjusting the candy.

"I would normally find that despicable, but we need the help." the prince said, fumbling around for his gold pouch, and knocking a pouch of some candies to the ground. The thief quickly snagged the bag and popped one in his mouth. "Sold. Where do you want me? I'm Gaius, by the way."

"You'll work for candy?" Robin shook his head, and pointed back to where he came from. "Protect the west stairwell with the giant rabbit and the knights. Virion, switch to the east."

Chrom stared down the empty hallway and declared, "I'm going to go check on Emmeryn. Robin, Marth, stay where you are." He darted off before Robin could object.

"I'm gonna go after—" Lucina said, but stopping halfway as she saw another squadron of Plegians rushing up their hallway, axes at the ready. Easing into a battle stance, she quietly said, "Never mind."

Robin's left hand glowed with magical energy as he prepared a spell, and he said, "I'll take the left two, you get the right two." With a fierce battle cry, the tactician unloaded the electrical spell he had been preparing into the chest of the leftmost Plegian axeman, dropping him where he stood. The axeman's companions, though, didn't slow a bit, bull-rushing the Ylissean duo with axes at the ready.

Robin blocked the initial swing from his foe's axe, and with a mighty push he sent the Plegian man back a couple of feet. Lucina patiently dodged her two opponents' attacks, moving like water around them, waiting for an opening in their defenses. Sensing a weakness in the larger of the two axemen, she struck at his side, scoring a deep wound that left him open for another blow to the chest, taking him down. Spinning with fury, she brought the guard of her other opponent down and ran him through with her sacred blade. With a grim set to her features, she flicked the blood off her sword and turned around to see Robin delivering an electrically-charged punch to the face of his foe, sending him flying. The last remaining Plegian hit the ground with a wet thud, convulsing with electrical energy.

"Nicely done," Robin remarked, "I don't hear anyone else coming this way, but we should still stand guard so the others won't get flanked."

Lucina nodded, and said, "After this is over, Robin… I need to talk to you."

Out of the corner of his eye, Robin saw the last axeman he had dispatched painfully pulling himself off the ground, and readying his axe in a last-ditch throwing position. He was aiming straight for Lucina, and before he could charge a spell, the axe was in the air.

Time slowed down for Robin at that moment. Lucina wasn't looking at it, and she wouldn't have been able to pull her sword up in time to deflect it. The tactician did the only thing that he could think of to protect the time-traveller - he threw himself in front of the ax and took it straight in the shoulder, the head burying itself in his flesh.

"Robin!" Lucina screamed, catching the falling tactician in her arms, her sword clattering to the ground. The axeman, with a satisfied look in his eyes, fell to the ground, his last act achieved.

Lucina's injured ally groaned, the ax painfully embedded in his shoulder still. "Call Lon'qu and Frederick to hold this spot and take me to Maribelle, please…" he mumbled in her ear.

Lucina complied, and started dragging the tactician away to the makeshift medical room that Maribelle and Lissa had set up behind the lines. She heard Frederick storm down the hall, and frantically yelled, "Robin is hurt! I'll get him to the healers, you and Sir Lon'qu need to protect the hall!"

Frederick merely nodded, his gleaming armor stained with Plegian blood, turning around to face the hallway where two more Plegian assassins raced towards him. Swinging his axe around in a figure-8, he bellowed a challenge to his foes, holding the corridor that Lucina could escape with the wounded tactician.

The future princess dragged Robin into a small room that she thought Maribelle and Lissa had set up in, and found that it was simply a storage closet. Cursing to herself quietly, she laid Robin out on the ground and barricaded the door using Falchion as a wedge.

"Damn it, Robin… why did you do that?!" she hissed at him, pulling back his coat to reveal the growing pool of blood on his shirt.

"The axe was going to hit you." he mumbled, his face looking pale.

She sighed. "This is going to hurt, Robin," she said, placing one hand firmly on his torso and the other on the axe embedded in him. With one fluid movement, she yanked the axe out of him and caught some of his blood on her face, firmly clamping his mouth shut so that he would not shout and give their position away. Rummaging around in her pack, she found a bandage roll and began to bandage up his wound, first sterilizing it with a salve and then pressing on his injury to stop the bleeding.

"I would've been fine, Robin. I can take care of myself." she told him, pursing her lips while pressing hard on his injured shoulder.

"Lucina, you came to the past for a reason. I don't know what that reason is, but you've come a hell of a long way to do whatever it is you're going to do, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let some Plegian bandit hurt you," the tactician said, breathing heavily in pain.

"You barely know me. How do you know that this isn't an elaborate plot for me to steal the Fire Emblem, or worse?"

Robin paused. "Chrom took me in without knowing me, despite having every reason to leave me in that field. He took me in, and made me the tactician of the Shepherds because he tries to see the good in people, and he instinctively trusted me. I try to take after his example. I trust that you are our ally."

Lucina paused. "You really are just like him, you know that?" she said quietly, checking underneath the bandage to see if the bleeding had slowed.

The tactician's eyes narrowed as he heard a thumping noise coming close to the door of the closet the duo had holed up in. He grabbed Lucina's arm firmly, mumbled an apology, and yanked her down as an ax embedded itself in the door of their hideout, worryingly close to where Lucina's head had been. Raising his injured arm with a wince, he hurled a bolt of lightning out the door and into their attacker, dropping him near-instantly. It was only after a few moments on the ground that he noticed her breath on his neck, and realized that he had pulled her directly on top of him. Judging by the redness in the princess's face, she had rapidly realized the same thing, pulling herself off of him and dusting herself off.

"Thanks for that," she mumbled, picking up Falchion and re-sheathing it. She reached down and hoisted Robin up unsteadily, catching him when he swayed a little.

"We should go find Aunt Lissa now," she continued to mumble, the redness not quite departing her cheeks from the unexpected close contact with the tactician. Lucina kicked down the remains of the door, and supported Robin with one arm while they left the closet.

Robin felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to tingle, and a bad feeling washed over him. Charging another spell in his hand, he said, "Lucina, I've got a bad feeling about something."

Raising an eyebrow, she said, "What is it?" as they turned a corner and saw a tall Plegian sorcerer with dark skin staring them down with a malevolent grin on his long, angular face.

Looking over Lucina, his eyes widened and narrowed. "You should not be here," he said to her. "And you," he pointed at Robin, "will be coming with me." With that last word, he unleashed a wave of dark fire at the couple, only barely deflected by an electrical barrier the injured tactician conjured. Gently dropping Robin, Lucina drew her sword and wordlessly charged their Plegian foe, whirling with fury. Validar effortlessly stepped back and drew his own sword, raising it in a challenging position.

"Future girl, did you not learn your lesson already?" the sorcerer said, swinging his sword at her lazily, "You cannot alter fate. His return is imminent. Nothing is different."

Lucina blocked his lazy attack and unleashed a powerful strike, pushing his guard down and athletically kicking him in the side. "As long as I draw breath, monster, I choose to fight!" she exclaimed, drawing back to give herself room to maneuver.

Holding his side a bit, Validar righted himself and laughed. "Did you not tell her, boy? Does she not know who your f—" he said, cut off by a sword protruding from his back, his mouth gaping open. Chrom pulled his bloodied sword out of Validar's back and wiped the blood off on the dying man's coat, as the sorcerer fell to his knees with the same surprised look on his face.

"No… this can't end yet. Not yet." he said, finally collapsing in death.

"Sorry I'm late," Chrom said sheepishly, "Just checking on Emmeryn and taking down the last of the assassins." He looked around, and saw Robin grimacing on the floor, his ax wound still bleeding heavily.

"What the hell? Marth, what happened here? Lissa! Maribelle! Robin is hurt, get over here now!" the panicked prince shouted, rushing over to his friend's side.

"Easy, Chrom, easy. I'll be okay," Robin said, hoisting himself to his feet with Chrom's help, "Emmeryn is alright? The rest of the assassins are dead?"

"She's fine, brother. Let's get you to the healers."

With the news that the Exalt was in good health, Lucina let out a massive sigh of relief, and finally broke a small smile. In silence, she followed her father and his tactician as they walked down the hall towards the makeshift hospital room that the Shepherds' healers, led by Lissa and Maribelle, had set up. She listened to them banter as if they had known each other their entire lives, and felt the tiniest bit of hope that she had actually succeeded.

They found the healers without further incident. The room had several beds hauled from other rooms of the palace, most of them with injured guards atop them, surprised by the attack and unable to defend themselves successfully. Fortunately for the Shepherds, there were no serious injuries beyond that which Robin sustained - merely the usual light cuts, scrapes, and bruises that characterized everything the Shepherds did.

Lissa rushed over to the injured tactician, and said, "Oh Naga, what happened to you, Robin?" She took him off of Chrom's shoulder and laid him out on a bed, removing his coat over his weak protests. Lissa grabbed a pair of scissors and cut away both the ruined fabric of his shirt and Lucina's bandage to reveal the still-bleeding ax wound. Lucina watched her aunt work with fascination - in her time, Lissa had died while she was no older than 12, and the years of destruction and flight had taken its toll on her. In this time, she was still a young woman, vibrant and full of hope.

Reaching for her healing staff, she focused her energy and poured herself into closing the wound, a faint white light enveloping the staff and her patient. Before her very eyes, Robin's wound closed and Lissa let the spell go with a gasp, briefly losing her balance and being caught by her niece.

"Thanks," she said, before getting a good look at Lucina for the first time without her mask, "Wait a second. Marth? You're a woman!"

"Yes, milady," Lucina said, trying not to look her aunt in the eyes.

"You're really pretty!" the healer exclaimed, prompting another round of blushing from the future princess.

Robin sat up in the bed and rolled his injured shoulder gingerly. "You're really getting good at this, Lissa. It's like I never had an ax embedded in my shoulder!"

"Aw, thanks, Robin!" Chrom's sister replied, distracting her from complimenting Lucina, "Take it easy for awhile, though. You lost a bunch of blood and I can't replace that yet."

He nodded, putting his coat back on over his tattered shirt. Glancing at Lucina and Chrom, he said, "What next, Chrom?"

The prince grinned. "First, I think we all desperately need to bathe."

He was right, of course - the three warriors were all covered in blood and reeked of a battlefield.

"Let's go, and let Lissa have some space here. Come see me later, sister."

Lissa nodded, and gave Robin and her brother a quick hug before returning to her business, healing another guard that had seen the business end of a Plegian spear. The trio gingerly stepped over the corpses of assassins in silence, the stench of death starting to permeate the palace, making their way back to the Exalt's chambers.

"Marth," Chrom said, stopping in the middle of the hall, facing Lucina, "Is there anything I can do to repay you for this? A favor I can grant? Anything. You've saved the lives of both of my sisters now, and the life of Robin. There has to be something."

She let a faint smile appear on her face for a moment. "Hearing you offer is reward enough. History has been rewritten."

"What happened here today? What terrible future have we prevented?" Robin asked curiously.

"Emmeryn was killed tonight, the Fire Emblem stolen, and Chrom was crippled. All of these events led to a cataclysmic war, and the end of mankind itself," Lucina said darkly, "But I'm sure that sounds like madness to you."

Chrom paused. "No, it doesn't. I have this feeling that I can trust you, and I hope to one day repay your favors."

She nodded, said, "Perhaps one day you will," turned around with renewed purpose, and left Chrom and Robin.

The prince scratched his head. "There's something about her that's puzzling me, Robin, and I can't quite figure out what it is."

The tactician chuckled, and said, "Don't worry, friend, I'm sure that tonight is not the last time we'll see her."

Chrom laughed. "I'm sure you're right. Let's go see Emmeryn, the Council is assembling to plan our counterattack."

"I'm part of the Council now?"

"Of course you are. Why wouldn't the Grandmaster of the Army of Ylisse?"

There was a dead pause in the conversation for a few beats.

"Wait, I'm the what now?"

After an excruciatingly long meeting where Robin discovered that he had been promoted from "tactician of the 12-person Shepherds" to "commander of the hundred-thousand strong Ylissean Army", recruited the thief Gaius and shapeshifter Panne to the Shepherds, and planned the mobilization of the army against Plegia, the exhausted tactician finally made his way back to his room in the palace to take a well-deserved bath and go to sleep.

Stopping just in front of his door, he noticed that it was slightly cracked, and he had definitely closed it fully before leaving the previous morning. Wary of assassins that might still be lurking in the palace, he lit a fireball in his left hand, drew his sword with his right, and burst through the door to confront the assassin he was sure was hiding in his room.

Instead, he found Lucina, fast asleep on a chair near his bed. The sound of him bursting through the door didn't wake her, and Robin sighed. He extinguished the fireball, relaxed his sword hand, and quietly shut the door.

"I guess camping in the wilderness for awhile takes its toll," he thought, taking off his coat and hanging it on the door. He unstrapped his sword, put it on its rack, put his tome on the table, and removed his boots and gloves.

Looking at Lucina on his chair again, he ran his hand through his white hair. The tactician grabbed the blankets off of his bed and gently draped them around the sleeping princess, before collapsing on his now-blanketless bed out of exhaustion and drifting off to sleep.