A/N: This is sort of off-the-cuff. I'm replaying Path of Radiance and way too many ideas are coming to me while I play for me to not start another big ol' project. It'll be 14 chapters in total. Some short, some long, some funny, some sad.

This story is going to skip through moments in the game in a pretty episodic way, though it will all come together at the end.

To clarify early in, here are the supports for the characters that I am using:

A-Supports
Ike & Titania
Mia & Rhys
Astrid & Makalov
Rolf & Marcia
Ilyana & Gatrie
Mist & Jill

B-Supports
Titania & Mist
Rhys & Rolf
Mia & Ilyana
Ike & Reyson
Astrid & Gatrie

This is crazy. Mia is crazy for being here.

The same night she is recruited by the Greil Mercenaries, their heroic commander dies. The next day, one of the knights and his friend, the archer, storm off the campgrounds. The blue haired boy who is always scowling becomes the new commander, and their camp is immediately swarmed by the Daein army during a heavy rainfall.

Madness. Utter madness… though it is an opportunity. An opportunity to meet her greatest archfoe yet. It's for that reason that during their first battle, she keeps her eyes mostly trained on the red headed paladin, Titania. The way her silver ax cleaves through the enemy is inspiring; she makes it seem so easy.

Ha. Titania is sloppy sometimes though! True that she's funneling a miniature army of knights and archers into one passageway and she is technically taking on like ten different foes at once with her hand axes — but! — she misses!... every once in a while at least! That's something! Mia can use that to her advantage and —

"C'mon Mia! Hurry up!" Ike shouts, his blade locked with the lance of an armored knight who is far too close to their camp to their liking. Mia darts over to assist Ike in killing the swine, but his blade overcomes the lance and he runs the sharp of his sword through the armored chest of the man.

It's very loud, and red drips from the black, the man stooped over in agony.

Ugh. Show-off. Ike is a show-off.

Mia runs ahead and vaults off the top of the armored knight, rolling into the midst of combat beyond them; she needs her own foe, she's not picking off the drips Ike weakens. Ike shouts something over Mia's shoulder, something like, "What are you doing? Fall back! Rhys can't heal you from there!"

Tsch. Rhys. Who's Rhys? Is he the pale, sickly one? Noooooo thank you! Mia can handle herself.

Her sword clashes with a fellow myrmidon. He's a little stronger than her, but she's definitely faster. At least as long as he's wielding that ugly, steel thing. Way too heavy for someone with his kind of build. He swings again, missing dramatically, sword smacking against the brick wall. Mia smiles and sheathes her sword, pulling out the sickle from her belt and rushes ahead. She cuts at his chest and then at his neck, and it's over. Her first kill with the Greil Mercenaries. Took a little too long to get to that point, but it's okay. There will be many more.

A fighter wielding a poleax rushes at her, weapon lunging towards her stomach. She sidesteps it and rushes forward, slashing her sickle across his chest, drawing blood. But he merely gnarls his teeth and swings again. She ducks this time, left hand grabbing the metal rod to steady herself, and she pivots, slashing him again in the chest. He screams and pushes her off of him, swinging for the umpteenth time.

What the heck! He should be dead by now! Two swings of the sword! Two! How is that not enough?

This time, the fighter strikes her. Right in the leg. She stoops low and tries to swap the sickle out for the sword, but her fingers fumble and drop it to the ground. But it's okay, she's got a good enough grip on her iron sword, which she raises high with one arm. Maybe she should have used that since the beginning… she's just had better luck with that sickle of hers.

She darts ahead to strike the man down, but all of a sudden a fireball (of all things! a fireball!) surges through the cascading rain, leaving behind a little pocket of steam, and nails her in the chest, knocking her back into the stone wall. The fighter closes the gap fast and rushes her, poleax stabbing into the stone. He's slow so it's not hard to dodge, but she is weak and finding it hard to breathe, her chest moving so fast she's afraid it might split in two.

She sees a flash of red and watches in awe as Ike swings his blade into the fire totin' mage, killing him with one stroke, limp body elegantly sliding off the length of his sword. Ike moves without even looking at the soldier, charging at a farther back mage with this beautiful transparent, pink cape.

So beautiful that Mia has to consciously remind herself that she's fighting to the death right now. She swings at the fighter desperately, leaving quite the mark on his bicep, and this time he roars.

(Ashera, how is this man still alive?! Or is she just that weak?)

Mia dodges another swing from the beast and then impales him in the chest, the last of her strength draining away with the fatal stab. They both fall to their knees, her thin arm struggling to pull free the blade from his chest. Like knights who were unworthy of Excalibur. She must look so foolish…

Overhead, Mia can see two bad omens: one a small thundercloud no bigger than a shield ominously gliding through the skies, surely to destroy her, and the other a soldier armed with a javelin chagring at her.

"Ike!" she screams, not sure who else to call to. Oh, how she wishes she introduced herself to the others… like green haired guy and his — um — brother, other green haired guy! Goodness. They might be helpful just about now.

The soldier snarls at her, kicking Mia in the chest and knocking her to the ground. He raises his javelin high, laughing as he prepares himself to vanquish her. Simultaneously, the thundercloud drifts over her face and that's just great — death by lightning and a spear. Simultaneously. It will be archived forever in the history books. Wonderful.

Mia's head limply falls to the side, cheek pushing into mud, and past the corpse of the fighter she sees Ike offering a hand to the mage that's about to kill her with lightning magic and — "Ike! What are you doing?!" she shrieks.

The thundercloud rumbles and glides back an inch, now hovering over the head of the soldier. The beautiful mage in violet robes finishes her incantation — how small her lip movements are — and lightning surges from up above, striking the soldier in the helmet. He shrieks, dropping his javelin, armor blackening and vibrating from the volume of the blast. Mia blinks and cranes her neck to see the violet mage, preparing for a second spell to finish him off —

— not on Mia's watch —

— so Mia rises to her feet, scooping her sword from the mud, and swipes the man's head clean off his shoulders. It lands at her feet and she grins, waving over to Ike and the mage, proof that she, Mia the Great Myrmidon, can handle herself —

"Hey Mia," Ike grunts, roughly shoving a hand onto her shoulder, as if he hardly noticed a thing. "This is Ilyana. She's friends with Daniel, Jorge, Muston, and—"

Mia snaps her fingers. "That's the name of those guys! The green haired brothers — "

"What?" Ike raises an eyebrow. "No, the merchants. She's friends with the merchants, but got drafted by Daein. She's one of us now. She's uh — " he twists his head back to look at this Ilyana. "She seems sick and those tomes are kinda heavy for her, so stay by her side. I'm going to relieve Oscar at the entrance, okay?"

That okay isn't really a question though; Ike zooms off before Mia can protest that maybe, just maybe, it's Ilyana who should assist Oscar while Mia shows off just how much of an asset she is to Ike and — no use stewing in it. Next time. Soldiers are already coming from around the corner to kill Mia and the newbie.

Mia rushes to Ilyana's side, right hand drifting to her satchel for a vulnerary, but Ilyana's frail hand take Mia's before it can grab the thing. Mia looks over to Ilyana, whose eyes, though gorgeous, are kinda faded.

"Hi, I'm Ilyana, I'm friends with Daniel, Jorge, Muston, and — " Ilyana speaks slowly, like she's reading off of some far away tome. " — Aimee. I got drafted by Daein, and — "

"I know!" Mia shoves Ilyana's hands away. "Switch to a lighter tome, we have work to do, Ilyan—"

"Hey Ilyana! I'm Rhys!" the ever chipper Rhys says with a cute little salute, waving his mending staff at Mia. "Glad you're part of the group."

"Oh, hello Rhys," Ilyana's eyes glide over to the ginger boy. "I'm Ilyana, I'm friends with Daniel, Jorge, Muston, and — "

Goodness gracious, this Ilyana is cute. Though she has more in common with Rhys — the two are both sick like the plague. Mia doesn't really stand a chance, but she does make an attempt:

Mia stabs the incoming soldier through the eye holes with her sickle, blood splashing onto her orange tunic while Rhys nearly turns away to vomit. "Hey Ilyana, my name's Mia by the way! Let's be friends!"

They fail to defeat the enemy, but fortunately two of the Laguz warriors come in during their last breaths to save the day. Mia spends some of her time that night apologizing profusely to Commander Ike for failing in her duty to kill at least twenty of the Daein army, and he sort of blows a gasket and shouts at her.

Ike immediately apologizes at least, running a hand through his blue hair, murmuring something about how he hasn't been himself lately, leaving her with a gentle reminder that she doesn't need to kill twenty men like Titania does and that even he struggles on the battlefield at times.

Mia's positive that this stems from Ike losing his father so violently. Everyone at the camp seems to be feeling it. The Green Haired Clan sit in silence, red-headed Titania goes to the forest to weep, the ginger boy reads from tomes in silence, the raven haired one looks at maps far more than necessary and yells at anything that moves, Ike's little sister sews up their torn clothing, and Ike slowly moves through the camp making stilted small talk with the others.

They are all grieving. She doesn't know these people, but it's obvious that it's not always like this. Mia feels guilty. If she had a choice, she'd sit at a table with the Green Haired Clan and brood as well. But that would probably make them mad. Because her hair is purple, yeah, that makes sense.

She does feel sadness over Commander Greil though. The moment he ushered her over to help Ike and his team, she already kinda saw him as a father figure. She planned on keeping that relationship, since she really did need an actual dad… that is of course, if Greil rejected her offer to be her arch-foe. If he had said yes, she would have cried though and then they'd be back to the father-daughter dynamic.

Dammit. She needs to be stronger. Can't cry in front of every father-to-be.

So Mia feels lonely. It's only been two days of this doom and gloom, and she's sure it'll pass, but it's not very fun to stick around.

"Um… excuse me… please let me pass…"

Mia turns her head to see the beautiful mage in violent, Ilyana. She hops off her crate and gets even more in the girl's way. "So… um… hi, Ilyana. Hey, I was thinking, would you want to duel me? At dawn perhaps?"

Ilyana tilts her head to the side. "Um…"

Mia sighs. "That's okay. It wouldn't be much of a challenge, would it? You look really sick and I'm in tiptop shape, you know. So, um, where are you going?"

"Aimee…" Ilyana sighs. There are three other names, Daniel, Jorge, and Muston, but the girl doesn't seem to have the strength to utter them. "Sorry, I'm just really hungry. I don't want to talk right now."

Mia nods. "Can I go with you? Is that okay?"

Ilyana doesn't say anything. Just kinda stands there.

Super awkward, awkward enough that Mia feels the need to add on some sort of justification. She should probably say something like, I need to survey the challenge everyone in this company presents! but she's too tired and kind of sad for that kind of bravado.

So Mia just says, "I need friends."

"Hm, okay," Ilyana nods and takes Mia by the hand. So handsy this girl! Their hips bump together and Mia feels warm inside. Ilyana's thin lips part to reveal a toothy grin. "You can be our friend."