Bandit Trouble

"Lord Eliwood," said Marcus quietly and worriedly as he trotted besides the Marquess, "is it really wise for you to set out personally like this?"

Eliwood simply laughed. Marcus was one of his most experienced and trusted knights, who had proven his valor repeatedly before, during, and after the successful campaign against Nergal, but in this instance he felt the man was being overcautious. "As always, I appreciate your concern, Marcus. However, as the lord of this land I have a duty to protect its people, yes? I've received several harrowing reports of the atrocities this new group of bandits has committed. I'm not simply going to stand by and let them do as they please!"

"Of course. But why not leave this to me? Surely my lord has not lost his confidence in my abilities?"

Eliwood laughed again. "You know better than that, Marcus. Truthfully, though…it's a bit of an indulgence on my part." He reached a hand to his back and unlimbered the sword sheathed there—and it was definitely no ordinary sword. A gigantic weapon with a hilt and grip made of burnished gold and a blade of gleaming bluish silver, it had a sapphire gem set into its pommel which glowed brightly with eldritch magic. It was easily as large as Eliwood and his horse put together. "I've just got a hold of this mighty Falcon Sword, after all. Surely you can't blame me for wanting to try it out in combat, yes? Besides, there are many…unbecoming rumors floating around. I've heard the people are calling me a 'weakling' and similar things! Triumphing over these bandits will prove to them I'm more than capable of being their protector!"

"I see. I'll trust your judgment, milord," replied Marcus. "But must Lady Pherae accompany you as well? If we were to lose both of you…"

"Are you worrying about me, Marcus?" asked Lyn, who was riding on the other side of her beloved husband. She and Eliwood looked at each other, and shared a laugh. "Even though it's been a year since we defeated Nergal, I'll assure you my sword arm isn't the least bit rusty. A woman of Sacae forgets neither the wind of the plains or the path of her blade!"

"Marcus, I appreciate your concern, but the two of us alone would be more than enough to handle these scoundrels," said Eliwood, smiling. "With you accompanying us, they don't have even a sliver of hope!"

Though the voice of caution continued to echo in his head, the elder knight had to concede that neither Eliwood nor Lyn's prowess in battle could be denied. Thus, he simply nodded and continued to ride on to the southwest of Eliwood's castle until they reached their destination.

Clearly, they were expected. In front of the entrance to a small cave stood about a dozen men. In front of them was what Eliwood thought was their leader—and indeed, "what" was a more accurate description, in some ways, than "who."

The man was grotesquely obese, easily twice the size of any two of his ratty minions put together. His folds of blubber spilled over his torn, dingy bandit's garb, and Eliwood was amazed his pudgy fingers could even hold the Killer Axe in his right hand.

"Bwuhbwuhb wuhbwuhebwheubuehbwuh," he exclaimed, "so, foolish, weak, Eliwood DARES to challenge the amazing, the insurmountable, the unmatched, the glorious, the glamorous, the unstoppable, the sublime, the awe-inspiring, the almighty, the beautiful, the inexorable, the powerful, the MAGNIFICENT, the HANDSOME…TENGEN TOPPA GHEB? Foolish, weak Eliwood has chosen today to die! GET HIM!"

"Whaaaarrrrrr!" exclaimed the twelve bandits as Eliwood, Marcus, and Lyn calmly dismounted. They raised their shoddy axes and burst into a wild run.

Their charge ended almost as soon as it started.

Before they'd even closed half the distance, three of them went down with screams of pain, javelins protruding from their chests. Before Marcus had a chance to ready another one, though, a streak of green flashed by him. Faster than the eye could see, that streak flew by one, two, three more bandits, leaving them clutching at their bloodied throats and gasping for air. The six remaining bandits didn't even notice their comrades had fallen, it happened so quickly. Lyn, at this point, had appeared behind them, but they didn't notice her either. She didn't even bother to strike while their backs were turned, though—she knew her husband could deal with them.

And Eliwood did that spectacularly.

As the sextet neared him, he tightened his right hand's grip on the massive Falcon Sword and allowed a vicious, Go Nagai-esque batshit insane grin to spread across his face.

He unleashed his blade in a single horizontal sweep, the blade's girth creating a miniature hurricane as it blew through the bandits with more force than one could imagine such a weapon could produce while being held with one hand.

And it left nothing in its wake but a rain of blood and spattered giblets across the ground.

TENGEN TOPPA GHEB, however, wouldn't let that dissuade him. "You fools!" he exclaimed. "Bwe! Bwe bwe! ! You've fallen into my TRAP! Those bandits were just…a DISTRACTION! NOW FEEL THE TRUE POWER OF TENGEN TOPPA GHEB!"

With a wild cry of "WHUUUUUUHW HYUHWUHW HWHWHWHWUHWHWHWH UWWUHWUH," the mighty bandit lord charged towards the earstwhile heroes, Killer Axe held over his head, the ground beneath him thundering under his bulk.

Marcus simply sighed and closed his eyes while Lyndis deftly sidestepped the human blimp's uncontrollable charge, once again allowing her husband to deal with it.

"WHUUUUUUUHWHUWHUHWHUHWHUHWHUH-What…huh?"

TENGEN TOPPA GHEB said this as he suddenly felt his charge stop, and looked down in amazement to see the GARgantuan blade of the Falcon sword protruding from his belly.

"I'll never understand why you knaves choose to throw your lives away like this," said Eliwood as he withdrew his blade and turned, allowing TENGEN TOPPA GHEB's colossal corpse to crash to the ground behind him. "Is it so hard to simply live a peaceful, honest life?"

"Your kindness is one of the many things I love about you, Eliwood," said Lyndis, sympaythy in her eyes as she walked up to him, "but scum like these bandits aren't worthy of it. They made their choices, after all. They simply suffered the consequences."

Eliwood nodded, but as he, Lyn, and Marcus turned to their horses, they were stopped by a horrifying, chilling laugh coming from behind them.

"Whuhwhuhwhuhwhuhwhuhwhuh….WHUUUUUUUHWHUHWHUHWHUHWHUH…" The trio turned back in shock to see TENGEN TOPPA GHEB rising to his feet, the wound in his flabby middle seemingly healed completely!

"What the…what sort of fell sorcery is this?" exclaimed Eliwood, readying his sword once again. But it would not be a Killer Axe which would meet his steel—that had been discarded on the bloodstained ground next to the bandit. No, TENGEN TOPPA GHEB was now holding something in his left hand. He held it into the air, allowing his foes to get a good look at it.

At first glance, it seemed to be a blood-red egg. However, the fact that it had a nose, a pair of eyes crying blood, and a mouth that opened to let out a piercing, unearthly scream was enough to tell Eliwood it was actually an evil artifact, a means of summoning demons from the Astral Plane—a Behelit.

"NO!" they all shouted, but it was too late. The evil grin on the magnificent bandit's face widened along with his entire face—he was growing. In a transformation too gross for a T-rated fic (check out the second volume of the Berserk manga if you're interested), TENGEN TOPPA GHEB had been transformed into a enormous, slimy creature which resembled nothing so much as a titanic slug with the bandit's fat human face slapped just underneath its eyestalks.

"BWUUUUUUHBWUHBWUHBUWH," the beast exclaimed, "YOU CAN'T WIN NOW! BEHOLD THE POWER OF ONE OF THE GOD HAND'S APOSTLES!"

Eliwood, though very disgusted, was not at all afraid. "Oh, please," he spat, an expression of pure distaste on his friend, "I killed a dragon. A dragon, by the Saint! I can deal with an oversized slug. Marcus, do you think cooking a slug is much different than cooking a snail?"

"I'm not sure, milord, but I'm sure some of my techniques for escargot could be applied to this as well…"

"Excellent!" grinned Eliwood. "GHEB, YOU'VE PLAGUED THESE LANDS LONG ENOUGH! YOUR REIGN OF TERROR ENDS HERE, AND YOUR DOMINION OVER MY DINNER PLATE BEGINS NOW!"

"YOU CAN'T RESIST MY GIRTH!" came the monster's response. Rearing back, the slimy creature sent forth a pair of amorphous, blobby pseudopods from its flesh straight towards Eliwood, intending to bury him under their mass. The Knight Lord was much too fast for that attack, though, even while (or maybe because of) he held the huge Falcon Sword. With a GAR, manly, bloodcurdling scream, Eliwood lept over the gigantic slime tentacles straight into the air, bringing him face to face with the Apostle's monstrous visage. Still wearing his Nagai grin, Eliwood twirled in the air, spinning his sword along with himself. A single sweep of the weapon elicited a terrified, pained roar from the creature as it found its human head separated from the rest of its pustulent body, which dissolved into clouds of acrid black smoke as Eliwood landed gracefully on the ground and wiped his blood-and-slime-stained blade on the grass.

"Is…is it finally over?" asked Lyn hesitantly, and all three of them marched up to the fleshy blob on the ground to see if it was dying.

"G-Griffith-sama!" whimpered the dismembered head of TENGEN TOPPA GHEB THE SLUG. "H…help me! Please! N…not like this! I'm too magnificent!"

Whoever Griffith was, he apparently denied his underling's request. "nnnnnNNnn NNNNNNnnnnnnNNNN NNNoooO OOOooO oOoOoO OOooo oOOOO" screamed the sublime, magnificent, almighty, and HANDSOME bandit lord as what appeared to be a portal to a hellish dimension opened up beneath him, and his head was dragged screaming into its depths by a legion of wraiths and phantoms.

"Well…um…now is it over?" asked Marcus, thoroughly confused.

Not yet. "Look! The sun!" called Lyn, pointing upwards.

"What the…is it an eclipse? But none of the astronomers said TODAY would—" started Eliwood, gazing at the black disc which seemed to have eclipsed the sun in the sky, but his voice was cut off when he and his friends, in the span of a single moment, suddenly found themselves in another world, facing otherworldly foes the likes of which they'd never seen before.

With a load roar in his ears, Eliwood, Lyn, and Marcus found themselves standing not on Pherae's grass but what seemed to be a field of screaming red faces, not at all different from the Behelit. Above them, on giant red hand composed of millions of those red faces, stood the God Hand TENGEN TOPPA GHEB THE SLUGhad mentioned.

On one finger was a strange, skeletal creature with a bulbous head that looked vaguely similar to a human man's oversized brain superimposed on his skull. On the next was a naked woman whose tiltillating parts were covered up by her batlike wings. On the middle finger was what seemed to be a pillbug combined with a fat man, followed by a strange teardrop-shaped creature with a human face and hands wearing glasses floating above it. On the last finger stood the leader of the God Hand, Griffith. He was seemingly the most normal-looking of the bunch—aside from his cape which seemed more like a bat's wings, he was at first glance a tall man of excellent physique wearing a suit of pitch-black armor with a helmet shaped like a hawk's head. However, his inhuman nature became apparent when you noticed the sinews and ligaments crisscrossing every inch of that armor, and how its greaves terminated in hawklike talons rather than human feet.

"Black Swordsman," said Griffith, in Toshiyuki Morikawa's super-manly voice (he once broke a mic playing Tekkaman Blade while screaming VOLTEKKAAAAAAAAA), "our Apostle's desire to live called us here, but he was proven unworthy. We offer you the same power. Now—"

"First off, I don't accept, obviously," said Eliwood impatiently, "and secondly, by the name of the Saint, who's this "Black Swordsman" person? Are you talking about Karel? I haven't heard from him since we left the Dread Isle."

"Karel?" replied Griffith in confusion. "Who? Isn't your name Guts?"

"That's Eliwood!" exclaimed Lyn. "The lord of Pherae! My beloved husband! There isn't even anybody in Elibe named Guts!"

Griffith and the rest of the God Hand were silent for a moment.

"Oh. Sorry."

With another flash of light, the trio found themselves standing back on the Pheraean field they'd been on a few moments ago—no screaming red faces or demonic God Hand anywhere in sight.

Eliwood was about to comment on how utterly bizarre the whole thing was, but he noticed that somewhere in the previous battles, his clothes had become ripped and torn, exposing his strong, manly physique, muscles slick and gleaming under the sheen of sweat produced by his exertion. His beloved wife Lyn couldn't resist this, and she quickly leapt into his arms as he responded to her embrace with a deep kiss. Things would have gotten hot and heavy if this wasn't a T-rated fic and Marcus gave a couple of disapproving-sounding coughs. As it was, all three were satisfied with a job well done and returned to Castle Pherae. THERE, things got hot n' heavy and Roy was conceived, but you don't have to hear about that. Suffice it to say errybody lived happily ever after (until Lyn died somehow and FE6 started).

~*THE END*~

::Linear Notes::

1: If you happen to read this, Lord Lelouch, you do know everybody's writing these fics because YOU kept requesting them, right? My bro Marius and my bro WA both mentioned your shenanigans so I decided to write this. XD

2: Sorry about the GHEB, everybody (and for what it's worth, I had nothing to do with that weirdass Chinese Food prompt over at the anon meme, that was probably somebody from Gamefaqs or wherever they love Gheb. I haven't even been anywhere near that meme since I finished Path of the Sword) but Writer Awakened insisted. Hope you like this bro :D