"At the current rate we are traveling, we should be arriving at the valmese continent in about a week," Chrom informed at the others present. He was currently leading a war council consisting of himself, Frederick, the two Khans, Virion and his retainer Cherche.

"Any chance we could speed things up? My axe is itching for a good fight already," Basilio patted the aforementioned weapons strapped to his side.

"Well your arse can just sit tight and wait like the rest of us oaf," Flavia clicked irritably.

"I said my—"

"I know exactly what you said."

"To answer your question, Khan Basilio," Chrom interrupted, seeing how the two of them were about to start bickering once more, "we cannot unfortunately. At least, not our entire armada. The vessel we are currently in could, theoretically, go faster; as stated by prince Robin, the ship has been modified so that, should we want to, it could be powered and carried by his own magic rather than the oceans currents and the wind."

"Yes and I believe our...friend, has stated that he possesses enough magical reserves to transport us there and back again in less than two days if we ask him to," Virion added.

"Well? Then what are we waiting for?"

"If you wish to do so your excellence, then by all means; go and ask our royal guest yourself," Virion responded simply, noting that the large man pulled back upon hearing the suggestion.

"It's not just that Lord Basilio," Frederick cut in, "we also need to remember that we are leading an armada of our own into enemy territory; and, unfortunately, they do not possess the same "modifications" that this vessel possesses. If we were to speed up our trajectory, not only would we be heading into the enemy's forces completely alone, but we would be leaving our own forces behind to face the valmese armada by themselves."

"Which brings us to the main reason why I called for this council," Chrom turned towards Cherche, "you told me that you have information concerning Walhart's armada. Would you care to share it with us?"

"Yes sir," the pink haired knight stood up in order to address everyone, "I recently came into contact with one of Lord Virion's informants stationed at the port. It would appear that Walhart has learned about our refusal to align ourselves with him and instead take up arms. As such, he has deployed his entire armada in order to confront us at sea."

"What?!"

"My dear, are you certain of this information?" Virion asked.

She nodded, "I am. Believe me, I too was skeptical at first, but I had Minerva fly ahead above the cloud line in order to remain undetected. She managed to make her way to land, where she confirmed that the Conqueror's entire armada taken their barricade formation a couple of miles off the coast yesterday."

"Dastard! He is going to try and wipe us out before we even reach him!" Flavia cursed.

"The fact that he is sending his entire naval force to do it must mean that he sees us as a real threat. Perhaps the all mighty conqueror is just as human as the rest of us; and all humans have a chink in their armor that can be exploited," Basilio grinned, "if we managed to make it past this first hurdle, perhaps that will show Walhart—and more importantly his men—just how unprepared THEY are."

"A beautiful though my dear khan, but you are underestimating the strength of the valmese navy," Virion said grimly, "even with the generous supplies given to us by Plegia, our numbers are less than half of theirs. Walhart may be a monster, but he is no fool. Once he conquered the entire continent, he understood that the only threat to his power would be one that came from outside; as such, he has reinforced his navy even more so than his troops stationed in Valm. He made sure that anyone coming for him would either be crushed at sea, or be severely weakened by the time they reached him."

"Hey I'm trying to be optimistic her Mr. Bib!"

"Enough," Chrom said calmly, "you are both right. We must not underestimate Walhart's forces, but at the same time we must not sink into despair because of how daunting it seems. We have come too far to even consider that as an option. The Valmese armada hasn't reached us yet, so we still have time. So, I ask all of you present, what will our next move be?"

Flavia spoke up, "I believe I state the obvious when I say that facing them head on as we are is out of the question, right?"

"Aye Khan Flavia," Cherche nodded, "while I have no doubt in our men and their fighting prowess, the reality is that the enemy has far more troops than we do at sea. The only way we could possible overcome such a force would be if we had some sort of secret weapon, one with enough destructive power to level an entire city."

"Morning everyone."

Oh gods... Chrom groaned.

The prince of Plegia strode through in, stretching his arms and his back once he was in. He was barefoot and bare chested, wearing nothing but a loose pair of grey trousers, and his hair was complete mess, simply falling past his shoulders.

"Morning was several hours ago; we are now well past noon," Frederick said thinly through gritted teeth, "though if you are just waking up now, I can see why you would not be able to make that distinction."

"I wasn't sleeping, I was meditating," Robin responded, "and I would have stopped sooner if I had known that there was going to be a war council; however, it would seem like you lost my invitation."

"I didn't inform you because I had a feeling you would do nothing but make a scene and distract us; and here you are proving my point," the knight snapped back, "you clearly know the importance of this meeting, yet you present yourself in such a sorry state. Just because you were just sleeping—"

"Meditating."

"SLEEPING," Frederick continued unconvinced, "does not mean you can simply show up like this. Look at you: barely clothed, hair unkept, face unwashed, you should be ashamed of yourself. Contrast that with lord Chrom: impeccable and ready for anything. You could learn a lot from him; actually, you SHOULD learn everything from him."

"Hey no need to comment on my appearance, that's just rude; you don't see me pointing out all that brown on your nose."

"Enough Robin," Chrom said noting the vein on his retainer's forehead beginning to bulge, "I was the one that ordered Frederick to not inform you about the meeting. Like he said, I thought you would distract us by...being you, to say the least. That being said, I was going to brief myself you on everything we discussed later."

"Well at least you're honest," the prince pulled a band from his pocket and tied his hair back before taking a seat. With a snap of his fingers, his cloak materialized onto his shoulders before he leaned back on his chair, "so, large armada standing in between us and Valm; what are we going to do about it?"

"We still haven't decided," Flavia answered honestly.

"Well in that case, might I make a suggestion?"

"This should be good," Basilio crossed his arms.

"I say we blow it up."

"Ha! I must admit, even I wasn't expecting something that foolish, and I was already expecting you to say something foolish," Basilio laughed thinly, "tell me, how do you suggest we "blow up" an entire armada? By lighting our own ships on fire and then hurling them at the enemy?"

"Actually I was just going to suggest magic."

"We don't have time for this Robin!" Chrom said impatiently, "I'll say this only once; either stay here and make an actual contribution to this war council, or step outside and wait for it to be over. If you already know what we've been discussion so far, then you also know that we don't have time to lose. We have only a few days, at most, before Walhart's forces are upon us; we need to figure out how we are going to deal with them, and every minute counts."

"I mean I was being serious but whatever," Robin mumbled disappointed.

"Does anyone here present have any ACTUAL suggestions?" Frederick asked.

"If I may," Virion turned his attention to the white-haired prince, "earlier in the meeting I brought up that you had boasted how you would be capable to power your ship to the point where it could reach the valmese continent in a day. I ask you now: were you being serious or was that just a shallow display of arrogance from your part?"

"You know, if I was going to lie about something to make myself look good, I'm pretty sure "how fast I can make a boat go" wouldn't even be in the top ten."

"Answer the question," Frederick ordered.

Robin rolled his eyes, "fine. Yes, I was being 100% honest when I said that."

"Then I may have a solution to our problem," standing up, the archer took a large parchment his retainer handed to him and unrolled it on top of the table, revealing it to be a world map. After a minute of searching, he pointed at a specific part of the ocean, "we are roughly around here—"

"A few inches to the left and you're spot on," Robin said without looking.

"As I was saying," Virion gritted while discreetly edging his finger, "our current course is leading us to Valm's main harbor; after all, it is the only one where we can disembark such a large military force. We had, of course, considered the possibility of encountering Walhart's forces there, but having him send the entire armada to meet us at sea is a bit of a curveball. Fortunately, I did come up with an emergency plan for this situation."

He moved his finger to the lower right side of the continent, "there is a smaller port here, used primarily for fishing by the local villages in the area. My reports tell me that, due to their relatively small size and peaceful nature, these villages have only a handful of valmese troops patrolling them."

"And how would this help us with the situation at hand?" Chrom asked.

"The Conqueror's armada is massive in size, but it is not unlimited. He can't block off the entire continent at the same time. If he has gotten wind of our campaign, then he will most likely hedge his bets and place his blockade by the main port and its surrounding areas. That would roughly cover all of this," he made a large circle in the aforementioned area on the map, "as you can see, the fishing port is far enough to be considered a safer option. I'm not discarding the possibility of Walhart sending a few ships there, but it seems rather unlikely that he will send more than what we can handle."

"Just because it is unlikely doesn't mean that it impossible," Cherche cut in, "forgive me Lord Virion, but we must not forget that neither Walhart and his advisors are fools. Surely someone has considered the possibility of the Ylissean League using that fishing port in order to land in Valm. We cannot discard the possibility of the Conqueror having sent more than just a couple of ships to safeguard it."

"Correct, which is where he comes in," he pointed at the white-haired prince, who was barely paying attention

"Sorry what was that? I have to blow something up?"

"No. We need you to power this ship so that we can scout the fishing port in order to see if there are any enemy ships guarding its waters; and should that be the case—"

"I blow them up. Got it."

"No! We simply use your magic for a hasty retreat so that we can reassess the situation."

"If I may Virion," Chrom interjected, "while I see the value in your plan, I must ask: wouldn't it be a safer bet to simply go around and land on a port on the other side of the continent?"

"Unfortunately, my dear commander, the other side of the continent possesses only one port where we could disembark; right here" he pointed at a space in the upper left part of the map, "and it is located right at the capital of Valm, right in front of the Conqueror's door step."

"What?! How is it possible that there is only one port in that entire half of the continent?" Frederick asked incredulously.

"Because, my good knight, the majority of that territory belongs to Chon'sin, a kingdom that has practiced isolationism for generations. Before Walhart took over, they rarely interacted with the other provinces around them, and even less so with your continent. Therefore, they felt no need to build any sort of fluvial transportation network, thus the lack of ports in their territory. As for Valm, the province where Walhart hails from, it was the smallest independent nation in all the continent, barely having enough goods to trade with the others; they only ever needed the one port."

"However, even if there were more ports on the west side of the continent, I would still strongly advise against trying to reach them," the lord continued, "the detour we're making now to the fishing port south will add, at the very least, two weeks to our campaign. If we were to try and go beyond that, it could take months for us to sail around Valm. We can't assure that our supplies will last that long, and that's nothing to say of the morale of our men. I think everyone here can agree that the last thing we want is to face the Conqueror and his forces in those conditions."

Chrom nodded, "of course. Now then, if anyone has anything else to add—"

Robin raised his hand, "I have a question."

"Robin I swear, if you say "blow it up" again—"

"Let's say we go with your plan," the prince ignored Chrom and spoke to Virion, "what happens to the rest of our forces while we do reconnaissance?"

"We would have them wait for us here, away from the valmese territory and in unclaimed waters."

"Okay, but isn't that just leaving them out in the open to be slaughtered?"

"Excuse me?"

"You are assuming that Walhart only deployed his navy to form a barricade around the main port and/or most of the eastern continent. What's to say that the entire fleet isn't LITERALLY heading this way as we speak in order to destroy us all?"

"Because that would make little tactical sense. The distance between us and the mainland is vast enough for a trip to take several days, and these waters are known for being dangerous and unpredictable with their untamed currents and sporadic tempests. No tactician in their right mind would send all of their naval forces at once in those conditions, the risk is to great."

"See, there's your problem: you're assuming that Walhart is thinking like a tactician; but he's not a tactician, he's a conqueror. He subjugated an entire continent under his foot, and he is already looking to expand his reach to Ylisse; and he wouldn't do that unless he knew he had the power to do so. The way I see it, Walhart has no reason to rely on tactics when he has sheer strength and power at his disposal. I see no reason why he wouldn't just send his entire armada to make sure we are wiped out as soon as possible."

"I highly doubt the Conqueror would go that far," Virion said firmly.

"You are severely under estimating Walhart."

"And I believe you are over estimating him. He is a formidable foe, make no mistake, but he is not an infallible god."

"I'm not saying that. I know that he is still human, one that Prince here could probably defeat in a one on one battle, under certain circumstances; but he's a human who has obtained nearly unlimited military might, and he has shown to have no trouble using it at his every whim."

"Please. What you are suggesting would be like burning down a house to kill a cockroach."

"Seems like a viable strategy to me; I know I would probably do it."

"Yes, well we aren't fighting you, we are fighting Walhart."

"Your point has been made Robin," Chrom said before addressing the others, "now then, if that is all there is to discuss, then we should vote. All those in favor for Lord Virion's plan?"

Everyone responded with "aye", except for Robin.

"Then the motion passes. We shall wait for the rest of our ships to arrive to our location so that we may relay our plans to them. Once that is done, we head out to the mentioned fishing port. Will you be ready by tomorrow?" he asked the plegian.

"Yeah sure," he shrugged.

"Good. Then I believe this war council is over. You are dismissed."

That Night

The feroxi soldier raised the bottle to his lips, only to find that it was empty. Grumbling under his breathe, the tossed it overboard and leaned against the mast right after he heard the splash.

Great, now I'm stuck doing rounds without any more mead, he thought miserably, only one bottle a night, who the hell does Basilio think I am? Some snot nosed welp who gets drunk whenever his mother pours a few drops in his little cup?

He grumbled once more, crossing his arms while fuming and looking up at the night sky. It was peaceful, serene, the full moon shinning brightly without a single cloud in its path. The water around them was pitch black but calm, with the lack of any strong winds resulting in not a single wave forming or crashing around the ship. It felt as if the whole ocean—if not time itself—had frozen; it would be beautiful if it wasn't so damn eerie.

"Freaking hell, I don't like it," he muttered, fidgeting nervously, "feels like something's going to appear right behind me at any minute; another bottle would definitely help my nerves. Maybe I can sneak another out here one without—"

He suddenly stopped, noticing something in the horizon. Pushing himself off the mast, he walked towards the bow of the ship, trying to get a better look at whatever it was through all the darkness. He squinted his eyes hard, and then felt his heart drop.

Warships. Hundred, no thousands, of warships standing before them, spreading out and soon covering the entire horizon line. He could see them making their way towards them, each one of them dwarfing even the largest plegian battleship, with the one in front of the fleet reaching the size of a fortress.

He took a step back, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing; however, he soon snapped out of it, knowing that he had to sound the alarm.

I have to warn everyone! We have to retreat before— "GAH!"

His chest suddenly burst open, blood and guts flying out and splattering onto the boards. He fell forward, hitting the deck with a loud thud while his consciousness slipped away just fast enough for him to hear one last thing before everything went black.

"Nyahaha, sorry; but I can't have you waking everyone."

The white haired nudged the corpse with his foot, grinning proudly at his work.

"Henry!"

"Wah!" he spun around and saw Robin looming over him, glaring at him.

"What is this?" he asked gesturing at the dead man in front of them.

"Uumm...well...you see..." the young boy poked his fingers nervously.

"I told you to get rid of any sentries DESCRETELY. What part of this says discrete to you?"

"B-But I had this new curse I wanted to try out! It's really nifty: it slowly makes the victims heart swell up in size and then burst before they even know what is happening. Look, it's really cool. It was so strong that it even tore through his chest. See, see?!" he said excitedly while lifting up the body to show his work.

"I don't care," Robin said sternly while crossing his arms, "I gave you specific instructions and you disobeyed them. I am very disappointed in you Henry."

The boy's face fell after that last comment, letting go of the corpse before hanging his head and sagging his shoulders. Robin managed to hold on to his demeanor for a few seconds before letting out a sigh. He reached out and petted his head affectionately, causing the mage to look up and see that he was smiling again.

"What am I going to do with you?"

"So you're not mad at me?" he asked hopefully.

"Oh no, I definitely still am. You still need to be punished; therefore, you are going to stay here and clean up this mess while I go and greet our guest."

"What?! No fair!" he pouted.

"Henry if there is anything that you should have learned at this point in your life is that life isn't fair. Once you learn that, you can get used to it and make the best of it."

"Can I at least keep the body?"

"Knock yourself out."

"Yes!"

"You really are an incorrigible little scamp," Robin chuckled while ruffling his hair, causing his retainer to beam at him, "now, if you will excuse me, I have some guests to entertain."

"Men, it is time to prove your worth!" Ignatius barked, followed by the cheers of his men, "our glorious leader Walhart has given us the most important task in this campaign: to stop the Ylissean League before they reach Valm. He extended to them an offering of peace, a chance to side with him as he tears down this broke world and erects a utopia from the ground up. Not only did they refuse, but those Ylissean dogs dared to raise their swords at us in response. The Conqueror has made it clear that those who do not stand with us are against us, and any who stands against us will be crushed by the full might of the Valmese Empire!"

He pointed at the lone ship anchored before them, "our intel tells us that the leaders of the Ylissean League are currently abroad that vessel. Perhaps they thought that they could sneak past our armada with such a puny thing; or perhaps they thought the Conqueror would simply overlook them and expose some sort of weakness in the process. That foolish way of thinking shall prove to be their undoing, for tonight we shall sink not only that pathetic vessel, but all of the others that shall be arriving soon enough."

"However, we are not to kill the commander of the Ylissean League: the Exalt Chrom. He is to be brought to me alive at all costs, so that we may chain him up and bring him with us to Ylisse. I want his people to see the man who foolishly rejected Lord Walhart's proposal of peace and thought he could stand up to him. No doubt his men have been spreading rumors about our glorious Walhart and his mission to bring order to this lawless world. They have probably labeled us as barbarians and heathens, eager to slit the throat of men, women, and children alike to satiate our bloodlust; but we will show them otherwise. We shall storm into their cities, yes, but we will do so without spilling a drop of blood. We will show them how their leader's pride brought him to ruin, and how it almost brought the lives of his people to ruin as well. Then, we shall give them, the people, one last chance: swear their alliance to Walhart and his cause, and they will be able to live their lives in peace. We will harm no one, except those who dare to raise their blades at us. We will show them, show everyone who we are: we are not monsters lead by despot, we are liberators lead by a visionary! And that visionary's name is Walhart the Conqueror!"

Another thunderous cheer resonated through the warship, followed by others coming from the rest of the fleet until it sounded like the entire ocean was cheering for the Conqueror. Ignatius felt his chest swelling with pride for his men, their loyalty to Walhart's cause inspiring even himself. The Conqueror had the outmost faith in him to lead the attack by sea and pave the way for him to Ylisse.

I have the skill, the manpower, and the ironclad will to carry this mission through. The exalt may be a strong opponent, but lord Walhart has put his faith in me, in all of us, to apprehend him. He believes in us, and we must not let him down! These ylissean curs are nothing compared to the Conqueror. They aren't even worthy of standing in his shadow! There is no reason for him to waste his strength on them; tonight, we shall end this war before it even begins! Nothing will stop us!

"That was quite the rousing speech."

Ignatius snapped out of his thoughts, "who said that?"

"General!" one of his men pointed behind him. Turning around, he saw a figure leaning against the ships railing and with their back turned to the full moon, causing their face to be concealed in darkness.

"Who are you?!" the soldier barked.

The figure pushed themselves off the railing, getting close enough for the moonlight to reveal his face. He gave them a small bow before talking, "a good evening to all of you. My name is Robin, prince to the Kingdom of Plegia and hierophant of the highest order. I apologize if my Valmese is not up to your standards, but I only learned your language about an hour ago, so I am still having trouble perfecting my diction and syntax; I do hope it is not too much of a barrier between us."

"Dastard! You dare mock us?!" the man spat while unsheathing his sword.

"Hold," Ignatius extended his arm in front of the man.

"B-But general, he's our enemy, and he's standing right in front of us—!"

"I said hold," Ignatius repeated firmly, his eyes not leaving the cloaked man before him while his mind returned to the last thing the Conqueror had told him before they left Valm.

"Ignatius, you have proven yourself again and again in the battlefield during our conquest of Valm. Your dedication to our cause combined with your unparallel skill with a spear are why I am leaving the armada under your command. I have no doubt that you and your men will be able to subdue the ylissean commander and spearhead our campaign into Ylisse. Once you reach the continent, I want you to continue and have the nations of Ylisse and Regna Ferox surrender; but do not attempt to invade Plegia until I arrive. There is a man there whom you must not confront, a man who is far more dangerous than anyone else you have ever met. Only I can defeat this man, and should anyone else try to fight him, they will not survive."

"His name...is Robin."

Ignatius looked at the man before him, trying to figure what it was that lord Walhart saw in him. Other than his unnatural white hair, there wasn't anything that jumped out from his appearance. He wasn't even wearing any armor or carrying weapons, and his current stance left him full of openings.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

"Right, about that. Listen, I was hoping that maybe you could not attack us and let us past your barricade, if that's not too much to ask."

The general blinked, "surely you jest."

"Look, I'm going to be straight with you: I would prefer if we did this the easy way and avoided all of the mess that comes with us fighting head on. The begging for mercy, the screams of pain, the gurgling while drowning on one's own blood, the smell of burning flesh, and so on. It's all really unpleasant, and unlike a certain sadistic—yet charmingly cheeky—friend of mine, I don't particularly find enjoyment in all of that. So I figured we could just skip all that and have each party continue on its merry way."

"Do you now? And what if we refuse? Will your companions suddenly descend upon us and destroy the entire Valmese fleet?" Ignatius sneered.

"Oh no, just me," Robin responded honestly.

The general gripped his lance tightly, his patience waning with every word that the man before him uttered, "and how do you plan on doing that?"

"I was thinking magic."

"A magic user? That explains a lot," he spat, "you lot are all the same: thinking you are cut above the rest simply because you can make flames burst from your fingers and the like. That arrogance, that smug sense of superiority, I despise it. I, unfortunately, know a man—if one can even call him a man—who also believes he is above everyone else because he can pull a few parlor tricks. As much as I wish to drive my spear through his bloated body, I have been ordered not to; so I suppose you will have to do," he took his stance and pointed his spear at Robin.

"I would not do that if I were you," Robin warned.

"Or what? You will incinerate me with fire? Fry my bones with lighting? Cut me to pieces with wind? If you and the others think that we have not prepared ourselves to fight the dark mages of Plegia, then you're even bigger fools than we thought you'd be. My armor was made specially to fight the likes of you: infused with a mineral alloy that repels magic, I could take on an entire platoon of magic users without even a scratch!"

"Huh, that is impressive; and unfairly broken if you ask me."

Ignatius grit his teeth, "I don't know why the Conqueror deems you as such a threat, but it doesn't matter. I shall kill you myself, and present your body to him as a trophy once he arrives to Ylisse. I am Ignatius, greatest general to the all mighty Walhart!"

With a final battle cry, the general suddenly charged forward with enough momentum to crack the floorboard under him. Moving at a speed that seemed impossible for someone his size and carrying such large armor, he tore through the distance between him and the prince, who simply raised his eyebrow surprised; as he got closer and closer, Ignatius pulled pack his arm and concentrated all of his strength on it before trusting with all his might at Robin's chest.

The spear crashed through the wood frame, pinning the purple cloak against what remained; but the prince was nowhere to be seen.

"What?!"

"I warned you."

Ignatius turned his head and saw Robin—sans cloak—standing in the same spot as before, almost as if he hadn't moved an inch. Seething, the general tightened his grip on his weapon before pulling it out of the wood and aiming for the man's head.

"That's not nice," Robin sighed, pointing his finger over his shoulder at the man behind him.

Ignatius suddenly froze, his eyes bulging as he felt every muscle in his body go rigid right before his spear reached Robin. He tried to trust his arms forward, but could not. He focused on his legs, trying to finish his charge, but they were unresponsive. He tried to order his men to charge forward and skewer the intruder themselves, but he was unable to do even that. He was completely and utterly immobilized, save for his eyes twitching from side to side desperately.

"General Ignatius!?" his men stood back confused, unsure of what they should do.

"Do you want to know what your mistake was general?" Robin asked calmly, not even bothering to turn around and face the man behind him, "you didn't heed Walhart's warning. See, there was a reason why he probably told you not to fight me. No matter how strong you may be, or what kind of armor you are wearing, you could never even hope to lay a finger on me; because even if you are prepared to deal with magic users—"

"—you must certainly aren't prepared to deal with me."

Robin flicked his finger upward, causing Ignatius to suddenly begin to rise into the air, his eyes moving back and forth desperately while his limbs went limp and his spear feel to the ground with a loud clang.

"You know general, if you were already making a custom built armor, you could have taken the chance to also change its design; yet for some reason you decided to keep its weird, ugly potato-esque shape. Personally, I would have gone with the older designs from hundreds of years ago. You know, the ones that were more...square."

Robin clenched his hand, causing Ignatius' body to seize up and begging to shake, his eyes bugging out as he began to convulse. Suddenly, he started screaming in pain as one of his arms rose up and began twisting and turning before shooting straight into his armor like an arrow. Soon his other arm followed, then one leg, and then the other, all of them followed by the sickening sound of bones and metal twisting and breaking. He kept screaming in pain, until his head was suddenly pushed inside as well, silencing him. His men watched in horror as the armor kept twisting and bending, blood dripping from its orifices to the sound of metal and bones being compressed. Soon there was nothing left but a metal cube about the size of an apple, which then dropped down onto Robin's palm.

Robin set down the small cube on the floor before turning his attention to the other horrified soldiers, "you know, I didn't want to do that; or what I'm about to do to all of you either. I would have preferred to simply blow your armada up, like I originally wanted. It would have been a quick and painless death for all of you. Unfortunately, my companions did not think I would be capable of doing it, so they tried to go around your armada to avoid direct confrontation. I personally have nothing against avoiding bloodshed, so I had no problem going with that plan; but then you had to come out here, to try and take us out before we even came close to Valm. Now I need to get rid of all of you, and I can't just blow you up because that might alert the others. So I'm afraid that we're going to have to do this the messy way; but don't worry—"

"KILL HIM!" one of the soldiers roared while pulling out his weapon and charging forward, followed by the others.

The prince's eyes turned red, "—I'll make it as quick as possible."

The next morning

Chrom walked into the room, finding Basilio and Flavia already waiting for him, "you called for me?"

"The oaf here has something he needs to tell you," Flavia growled while pointing at the large man. Chrom looked at Basilio, who seemed uncharacteristically nervous, not even looking the exalt in the eye.

"Is something wrong?"

"Yes oaf, is there something that you want to tell the commander?" Flavia asked thinly.

"For Naga's sake woman, no need to twist the blade any further," he muttered embarrassedly. Eventually he turned to face Chrom, "it would seem...that one of my men is missing."

"What do you mean?"

"One of the men I brought with me on this campaign, his name is Ulrich. Hell of a guy, top three fighters in all of West Ferox. He was on sentry duty last night, and now we can't find him."

"Khan Basilio that sounds rather troubling. If what you say is true, then that means our forces might have been breached by the enemy, trying to pick us off one by one."

"Oh we thought so too Chrom; until we found these," Flavia reached under the table and pulled up a sack that make loud clinking noises when she did. She tossed it at the blue haired royal, who caught it and then opened it to see that it was filled with empty bottles of mead.

"Where did you find this?"

"I found them sprawled around the stern of the ship, right next to the railing," she answered simply while eyeing the other khan.

It took a minute for Chrom to put the pieces together, "oh..."

"That blasted fool," Basilio grumbled while pressing the bridge between his nose, "he swore that he had it under control."

"Oh well if he "swore it" then there was clearly no way this could have been prevented. After all, the promise of an alcoholic is as good as gold these days, isn't it," Flavia asked sarcastically.

"Be very careful what you are about to say woman," Basilio warned, "I don't care if you are the East Kahn, I won't just stand here and let you talk about Ulrich like that in front of me. Have you no respect for the dead?"

"Not when the person in question is dead because of his own stupidity."

Basilio was about to snap back when he felt a hand grabbing his shoulder. Turning around he saw Chrom standing next to him, his face solemn.

"I'm sorry for your lost, Khan Basilio," he said sincerely.

"...thanks boy."

"Anyway Chrom, we called you here to let you know what happened before rumors and hearsay began spreading around. Basilio accepts full responsibility of the occurrence, and he has agreed to confiscate any alcohol his men might have at least until we reach dry land. I would also like to take this chance to apologize for this disgraceful situation, and assure you that the rest of us feroxians are not like this and will not cause any problems for this campaign."

"Flavia please, it's okay," Chrom reassured her, "it was an unfortunate accident. This sort of things happens. What matters now is that—"

"Milord!" Frederick burst into the room, out of breath and looking rather pale, "enemy ship sighted!"

"What?! Gods dammit, why now?! We can't retreat without alerting the rest of the fleet first," Chrom swore under his breathe, "how many enemy vessels are there Frederick?"

"One sir."

"Guess we don't have a choice," pulling out Falchion the exalt ran out of the room, the others following after him. Soon they reached the top deck, where the other soldiers had already gathered and where all waiting. Looking over to the horizon, Chrom saw the unmistakable silhouette of a ship amongst the mist making its way towards them.

"To your stations everyone!" Chrom ordered while his men grabbed their weapons and got into position, "I want heavy units and cavalry stay behind, make sure that no one boards the ship. Everyone else follow me; we are bringing that vessel down!"

"Chrom!"

He turned to see his wife and her pegasus ready to take off. Nodding, he climbed up behind her before she cracked the reigns, causing her steed to spread its wings and fly off.

"We need to cut off their sails before they can ram their ship into ours; do you think you can get me close enough to do that?"

"Yes, especially with this mist," she assured him as they made their way towards the enemy vessel, "we'll be in and out before they even know what hit them."

He squeezed her waist, "just be careful, please."

She simply nodded. The warship was almost upon them, separated only by the thick veil of mist.

"Now!"

She cracked the reins once more, causing her pegasus to speed up and burst through the haze.

Chrom's eyes went wide, "what the hell?!"

The warship was in absolute shambles. The mast had snapped and was barely hanging on, the sails were completely shredded, and the hull of the ship was full of holes and splintered wood. It looked like the vessel had been through an intense battle, ready to collapse and sink at any moment.

"What...what happened here? Where are the valmese soldiers?"

"C-Chrom?" he suddenly felt his wife beginning to shake as her voice cracked, "you n-need to see this..."

Chrom turned his attention to where his wife was looking, and felt his blood run cold.

"Dear gods..."

As the mist began to dissipate, a gruesome sight began to unveil before them, one that could only be described as a massacre. The entire armada laid in ruins, destroyed ships everywhere they looked. Breached hulls, torn off helms, and some vessels even looked like they had been ripped in half; but none of that really caught their attention. After all, how could anyone notice anything else but the carnage of blood and gore spread throughout the ocean, body parts tainting the water itself crimson red.

"G-gods..." Sumia whimpered, feeling her composure falter.

"Get us back to the ship, now," Chrom ordered weakly. Sumia nodded and pulled the reigns back, redirecting her steed back to the others. By the time they had landed the others had already seen the nightmarish site spread out before them, with every single member of the Shepheards experiencing the same combination of horror and disgust towards what they were witnessing.

"Naga above..." Lissa whimpered, clutching her staff tightly.

"Darling please, come inside," Maribelle urged her, trying his best to maintain his composure even with his face being deathly pale. The princess didn't respond, her eyes glued to the scene that was visibly making her sicker and sicker the more she looked.

Chrom didn't say anything as he made his way to the front of the ship, where a familiar white-haired prince stood alone, staring ahead at the remains of the valmese ships. He didn't say a word when Chrom reached him, his face a complete blank in regards of emotions. The exalt suddenly felt slightly lightheaded, resulting in him grabbing onto the railing before his legs gave way under him.

"I would tell you to breathe, but something tells me the taking in the smell would only make it worse," Robin said calmly.

The lord felt his grip tighten, "Robin I swear to Naga, if you say anything to make try light of this situation—"

"No need for threats Prince, even I have my limits when it comes to situations that deserve a good quip or two."

"...how could this have happened?" Chrom managed to ask eventually.

Robin shrugged, "these things just happen sometimes."

Chrom looked up at him, "what did I just say to you?"

"I'm being serious here Prince."

"That does not make it better," Chrom said through gritted teeth his anger rising, "how could you possibly say that? Something this...this horrible, it doesn't just happen!"

Robin turned to face him, his eyes uncharacteristically cold, "okay Prince, let's say there was a reason for all of this. Let's say that this wasn't the result of some random event which we have no control over. That would mean that someone, or something, deliberately did this. All of this. They did so knowingly and willingly, all while these people probably screamed in pain and begged for mercy. Now answer me this Prince: do you really want to know what kind of monster would do all of that? And if you had the chance to meet it face to face, would you ask it why they would do something so inhumane?"

Chrom didn't answer.

Robin placed his hand on the man's shoulder, "trust me Prince, sometimes it's better to not know everything. Some things are too much for people to comprehend, so they take solace in not knowing. They turn to religion, they claim that its fate, and sometimes they just don't think about it. The world is a large and scary place; you don't want to know what makes it turn."

"Why not? What could possibly happen by knowing the truth?"

Robin looked at him dead in the eye, "you end up like me."

With a final pat on the shoulder, Robin left Chrom alone to stew on what he said.

Author's note: I hope you appreciate the sacrifices I make to get these out when I do. Nah, I'm just kidding, I have nothing left to sacrifice.

Anyway, we find ourselves once more in the company of "Sassmaster Robin." And, like I promised last time, he demonstrates exactly what a vessel for Grima is capable of. Makes you wonder what exactly he's planning, doesn't it?

As always, I hope you enjoyed it and leave any comments and critiques you may have down below. See you next time!