Uhm... This is my first fic, so please don't flame.

I rewrote this chapter, twice, because I have become disgusted with how it was done, twice. So, it's not necessary to reread, it's just written with gooder grammar, and maybe a few other new things.

Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem, Intelligent Systems, or anything else Fire Emblem related, except this story.

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Chapter 1: Dawn of Destiny

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He chuckles as he hears the stories told of him, and how he has taken the title of an old friend, "Living Legend".

The purpose for which he wields this title is and was because he once saved the continent, and perhaps the world, from a mad man, Nergal. Nergal's intent had been to resurrect dragons from ancient times, and use them to conquer Elibe.

He commanded the army that crushed Nergal.

And now, with a new enemy on the horizon, twenty years later, he will return, and once again save Elibe.

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"Master Eliwood! The bandits from the Bolm mountains are attacking us! They'll be at the castle gates in minutes!" Merlinus cried.

"Blast!" Eliwood muttered. "If I weren't in this state, I would teach them a lesson!" he roared, the effect lessened by the short coughing fit which followed.

"Mister Eliwood?" a young voice inquired, walking into the room.

"Lilina," Eliwood said, "you must hide somewhere. This castle is going to become a battlefield soon."

"No, sir," she forcefully replied, standing her ground. "I will fight, too!"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Eliwood sternly said, coughing some, before continuing. "If something were to happen to you, I don't know what I would say to Hector." His voice was solid, one which left no room for debate.

"To my father? But..." She trailed off, looking down in dismay.

He calmed visibly. "It's going to be all right," he soothingly told her. "Roy should almost be here by now, so if we can hold off on our own until then, he'll drive off the bandits."

She nodded, turned, and exited the room.

After the door shut behind her, Eliwood called, "Merlinus! I want you to send a messenger to Roy, informing him of this attack immediately!"

"Y-Yes, sir!" Merlinus quickly replied, shooting out the door as fast as his aged body could carry him.

Merlinus, since the days of Nergal, had become old and weak in body, but stronger and less timid. His face remained quite similar, and he wore a long, dark green cloak.

Sprinting down the steps to the courtyard, he found the knights scrambling around, running this way and that. "Lance!" he hollered, greeted by the familiar teal-tinted Cavalier.

"Yes, Sir Merlinus?"

-Castle Pherae, Gate-

"Boss!" a scrawny bandit with a large head called. "The people inside the castle have barricaded themselves in!"

The leader, a larger man with a regular-sized head, approached his subordinate, chuckling as he did. "Even Eliwood, the greatest Knight in Lycia can't beat an illness, eh?"

The scrawny bandit chuckled in reply. "You were right when you said there wouldn't be many knights 'cause o' their getting' ready to take on Bern."

"Of course," the leader indignantly. "Who do you think I am?" The scrawny bandit shrunk, apparently appeasing the leader. "But you never know when reinforcements are going to come."

Turning to his troops, the leader continued. "All right! Kill off the guys in the castle while we still got time!" he yelled. "Then the treasure is all ours!"

Walking from the leader, a particularly large bandit muttered to his accomplice, "Castles ain't the only place with treasure. Let's go his the villages and get some loot!"

"Yeah!" his accomplice replied as they charged into a nearby village, followed by a few others.

It wasn't a minute before they left it, multiple buildings burning and roads covered with corpses.

- South of Castle Pherae-

Lance had, fortunately for speed, left before the bandits had surrounded castle Pherae, and he had ridden southwards, passing a village he knew to be called Isola, before a little red-head came within sight.

Roy waved to Lance and had the group quicken their pace. The Cavalier slowed as he approached the young Lord. "What's the matter?" Roy asked. "Why are you in such a hurry?"

"Master Roy, bandits have appeared and are attacking Castle Pherae as we speak!"

"What?!" another Cavalier yelled. "Is Lord Eliwood safe?!"

"He was inside, commanding the defenses. But I don't think they'll be able to last."

A large man, green-haired with large, orange armor, moved to be next to Lance. "Excuse me," he began, as if the matter at-hand was far less urgent, "Lance, is it? Is Lady Lilina safe?"

"Lasy Lilina is inside the castle," Lance curtly replied.

"No... I shouldn't have let Lilina go to the castle before me..."

"Master Roy!" the smallest of the group spoke up from the back. "Regret won't solve anything! Hurry, we must take the castle!"

The eldest, an old, frumpy Paladin voiced his agreement with the Archer. "Wolt is right. We must hurry!" he said, his voice filled with seldom-heard energy.

Roy nodded. "Alright," he said, "this is what we'll do..."

-Isola-

He stood, leaning against the wall of a tavern, the name of which amused him greatly. 'The Violent Goat' it was called, and as for why such an atrocious name came to pass, the man would never know.

He chuckled as he thought of it, only to be brought out of his reverie by a knight riding into the village, through the opened gate.

He conversed with a young villager, with several more older villagers, before accepting a bundle and riding out. Following this, they moved to shut the gates.

The man quickly move from the shadows. "Excuse me, but I can't be pent up in here. I've an appointment with the Marquess," he said.

During his stay, he'd been a prominent Ilian business man, visiting Eliwood to offer his mercenaries' services. He had been offered a free room, but he declined. Taking from the poor was the government's job. And, once he finished doing what he had come there, he would return, and take the free room.

Fair was fair.

He exited to the village, the Cavalier having long since charged onward, leaving the corpses of between eight and nine bandits. All in all, an excellent job from what the man speculated to be a significantly small group.

He turned the corner, many Pheraen villages designed as rectangles, and noted the long line of dead and bloodied bandits.

All in all, he would have puked his guts out, if he hadn't seen that site already at least twenty times. In fact, he realized, he was generally the one who caused these unfortunate fates to the bandits.

-Castle Pherae-

Roy slid to a stop in front of a bandit, clutching his Rapier tightly.

"You damn idiots!" the leader muttered. "Can't you take on these bastards?"

"Lay down your axe and you will be tried in court."

"Huh?" The statement had caught the bandit by surprise. But as he processed it, he began to chuckle. "What? To be found guilty? What sort of fool do you take me for?!" he yelled, shouldering his axe. "I am Damas, and your killer!"

With that, he tore through the air, rushing at Roy, and swinging his heavy axe overhead, but cleaving only the grass.

Roy had sidestepped the swing, and stabbed the bandits' side, so deeply that the sword protruded from the other side.

Pulling the blade out and sheathing it after a quick wipe down on the grass, Roy rushed into the castle gate, which had been broken through in the attack. But thankfully the inner-castle was clear of bandits, as Roy was met with cheers as he entered.

His small party soon followed, and he lifted an awkward hand in acknowledgment, before calmly walking into the castle itself, and sprinting to his father's room from there.

"Father! Lilina!"

"Roy, is that you?" his father asked, just before Lilina rushed into the room, hollering "Roy!" at the top of her lungs with glee.

"Father, Lilina..." He trailed off, his eyes tearing up, ever-so-slightly. "Thank goodness you're alright."

-Outside Castle Pherae-

"Excuse me, sir, but the Castle is temporarily closed to visitors," the soldier said.

"Ah, but is it closed to occupants?" The man didn't think he was that good at impersonating other people, and consequently, he didn't do it often, but it seemed to be the quickest way to gain entrance to the castle without drawing unnecessary attention to himself.

"Eh? You're not an occupant."

He chuckled softly. "I am under the orders of Marquess Ostia to come and speak with his lordship, Roy of the mercenaries Marquess Eliwood wished to hire. I believe it is rather urgent," he said, stopping there. He did not want to oversell it.

The guard looked skeptical, but stepped aside nonetheless. The man nodded his thanks, but rolled his eyes as soon as he had passed the guard. Security here is a joke, he thought.

He knew the castle front and back, it having been in several of the boring tactical books he had read during the past years. His footsteps became hastened as he marched up the stairs, and, with some effort, reached the second floor of the castle, the floor which Eliwood resided in.

Passing each door, he heard nothing in each, until he heard a muffled sniffle behind one door. Smiling, he pressed his ear to it, and, fortunately for him, it was indeed Eliwood's personal room, and, based on what he was hearing, Eliwood had his son Roy, and someone else the same room.

He listened and listened, until the opportunity presented itself. He would not simply barge in, that would not do for a a grand entrance. Instead, he would barge in, but at a key moment, with a fitting line, that would leave them astounded.

The door swung open. "I believe I may be able to help with that little trifle, Marquess Pherae," he said, smiling, and exaggerating the title.

"M-Mark?!" Eliwood cried, astonished.

"In the flesh," Mark smiled.

"H-How?! What? Why are you still...?" he began, each question interrupted by the next.

"Okay, I'll assume you were going to ask how I got here, what I'm doing here, and why I'm still young." Mark replied. "So I'll answer those questions. Tricked a guard, and really Eliwood, your security is awful, I'm here to help Roy, of course, and..." Mark paused to think of the third question, smiling when he did. "And, I have no idea. But it looks good, right?" he added with a drop of sarcasm.

Eliwood chuckled nervously, smiling as his laugh died down. "Oh," he said, "Roy, Lilina, this is Mark. He was the one who led us to victory twenty years ago."

"Pleased to meet you," Lilina said with a smile.

"Oh, yes, pleased to meet you," Roy added.

An awkward silence engulfed the four, in which Mark scratched the back of his head, and sniffed loudly. "Uh... So..." he finally said. "Just, uh, keep going...?"

"Ah, right," Eliwood said. "Okay, so now we have an accomplished tactician."

"I would like to join Roy, as well, Mister Eliwood! My father is in charge of the main army, and my magic could be of some help to Roy!" Lilina chimed.

Mark chuckled. Hector had a girl, ha! I'll have to pay him a visit soon.

"No, Lilina," Eliwood sternly replied.

A defiant look spread over the young Ostian's face, and she replied, "Why?"

"With Hector's absence, there is no one currently sitting on the throne of Ostia. The people must be feeling uptight as well. You, being the princess, must return and ease the tension of the people until Hector returns."

She looked as though she would argue, but he cut her off with, "Am I wrong?"

She looked down in defeat. "No sir..."

Eliwood smiled and patted her head, before turning to Mark, who had moved to be next to Roy. "Alright," he said, "you two must go to the Bern border and meet with a mercenary group that I have arranged a contract with."

Mark snickered. Apparently his guise had not been entirely inaccurate.

"I'll send Merlinus along with you. He'll be very helpful with his knowledge." Mark looked skeptical; Roy looked thankful.

He voice his thanks to the Marquess, who replied, "You can do it. Go, and show them you you are: the next Marquess of Pherae!"

Roy and Lilina exited the room soon after, leaving Mark and Eliwood alone.

Eliwood coughed some, holding a fist to his mouth and clearing his throat. "Yes," Mark said, "thank you for bringing up the topic. That is one of the reasons I came here. You've been bedridden for two weeks."

"Yes, well, the Healers say I'll be able to sit on the throne once more in a few more days."

A doubtful look set over Mark's face as he waited patiently.

"Alright, fine," Eliwood finally said. "It's been coming and going for about a year, but hasn't been this bad until now. The Healer's say it will continue to be this way, leaving and returning worse, and for longer, until I finally can't take it anymore."

"And you haven't told Roy," Mark said, pinching the bridge of his nose and shutting his eyes. "It's just going to get worse and worse, the longer you wait." He paused. "If I end up revealing it some foolish manner, you can't hold it against me."

"Well, then, I may as well just tell him," Eliwood said with a chuckle.

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I think I'm finally happy with this beginning, right here. If you would be so kind as to... review, on the subject?

Thanks in advance.