#We know from the other routes that the second he fired those javelins his days are numbered

[inkperch]

Just saying, a lot of Edelgard's White Clouds interactions with TWSITD are a hell of a lot more forgivable when you remember its not just an Emperor and the devil she made a deal with, it's also a deeply traumatised teenager forcing herself to continue to interact with her abusers because she's trying to convince herself that her suffering at their hands meant something.

(with a side of a very clearly displayed implication that they won't hurt her while she's useful to them-)

[frozenartscapes]

Monsters Don’t Save People - Part 2

I was inspired to do a follow up to the first part, found here. I might have kinda combined it with what happens in Shambala but with someone else we know who can turn into a giant, magical monster.

---

“What do you mean you lost them?!”

Her scout captain took a step back in alarm, not used to hearing such an outburst from the Emperor. “I...I apologize, your Majesty,” he stammered, “But after that attack in the village the other day... In the chaos, we lost the trail. I’m afraid we have...erm, nothing.”

Edelgard grimaced, her teeth gritting so tight they were beginning to hurt. “There are no signs anywhere of where they might have escaped to? No magic signatures? Discarded weapons? Footprints?”

He shook his head in dismay. “We will keep looking, your Majesty,” he vowed, “And your spymaster is conducting interrogations of the surviving villagers as we speak. But...it’s not looking hopeful.”

A spike of frustration and anger shot through her heart. She clenched her fist to the point her gauntlet strained under the pressure. “Then keep looking. You may go,” she commanded.

The scout captain nodded, failing to hide his relief, and scampered out of her tent to the relative safety of their base camp.

Once alone, Edelgard returned to her desk with a map of Fodlan spread out across it. Little flags and markers traced the path they had taken so far, all on the hunt for Those Who Slither and their hideout. They had been following a decent lead, until their foe took drastic action, flooding a village along their route with mutated monsters in an attempt to distract them.

Apparently, it had worked.

Edelgard let out a low growl in frustration, scouring her map and attempting to figure out where they might have run to. Every possibility didn’t seem likely. Her enemy this time around wasn’t as predictable as a foreign power. They were elusive, sneaky, and desperate. They could have led them on a wild goose chase before warping across Fodlan, for all she knew.

Anger surged again. Foolish. She was foolish for thinking this would be easy. She should have kept following at a distance. Assembling her Strike Team and attacking Those Who Slither alerted them to her plan. And now they were back to square one because she couldn’t be patient.

She had spent too long being patient. She didn’t have much time left, she couldn’t afford to be-

CRACK!

In her rage, she had slammed her fist down on her desk. But rather than stopping when it met the wood, she had struck with such a force that it went right through, splitting the solid wood desk messily in two.

Not expecting the table to give, her momentum sent her stumbling forward, into the wooden debris. She caught herself before she was flat on her face, but still had to take a moment to recover from the shock.

She let out a long, shaky breath. Calm. She had to keep calm.

She pulled her hand out of the wreckage of her desk and was anything but calm.

Black, charred skin. Long, razor-sharp claws. They had ripped clean through her metal gauntlet, leaving the shreds dangling from her hand.

With a startled gasp, she staggered backward until she collided with the edge of her bed. She shakily sunk down, eyes never leaving the monstrous appendage.

‘Breathe,’ a voice in her head instructed her, ‘Breathe. Calm down. Or else it will get worse.’

She struggled to take in a few weak breaths, but panic was quickly taking over. Her wicked hand clenched into a fist under her will, confirming that this was, in fact, real and a part of her.

Tears pricked in her eyes. ‘So it does come easier, now...’

“Edelgard?”

Her head shot up toward the entrance to her tent. Another attempt at a deep breath, and: “Yes?” Her voice only sounded slightly strangled, so she took it as a victory.

“Is everything all right? I heard a crash... May I come in?”

It was Marianne, and while she would rather not have anyone see her like this, of all the people who could have come to her tent she was probably the best. Edelgard gulped, and hid her mutated hand behind her back.

“Everything is...fine. Yes. You may enter.”

Marianne entered the tent with a look of concern on her face. Her eyes first landed on the destroyed desk, and a gasp escaped her lips as a hand shot up to cover her mouth. “Oh dear!” she cried, “What happened?”

‘Shit,’ Edelgard thought to herself. She had forgotten that she’d have to explain the desk. Her monstrous hand twitched behind her back.

Marianne turned toward Edelgard and her worry shifted in an instant. The Emperor’s face was deathly pale, her eyes wide and brimming with unshed tears, and body trembling like a leaf. It was such an odd sight to see of the woman normally so unflinching.

“Edelgard?” Marianne asked softly, “Are you ok?”

“I...” She thought about lying. But her confident “yes” had been caught in her throat. She might have been able to sound convincing but she knew she didn’t look it.

Marianne noticed how the Emperor held one hand tightly behind her back, and her frown deepened. “Are you hurt? I can take a look at it if you want, or I can go and get the Professor-”

“No!” That word fell out of her mouth before she could stop it, and it came tumbling out as if she fumbled something easily breakable. When she met Marianne’s confused and startled gaze, she sighed, “No. D...don’t get Byleth. Not...not yet.”

Marianne tilted her head in response. “But...” she began slowly. Something was wrong. Edelgard shared everything with her fiancée. Even Marianne knew that.

Edelgard swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, resulting in a few wayward tears falling down her cheeks. “Promise me you won’t tell a soul about this,” she choked out, attempting to maintain authority despite feeling more and more like a helpless child chained up in a cell.

“I promise,” Marianne breathed. Concern filled her voice, but there was a gentle earnestness to her that gave Edelgard the confidence to reveal what was hidden behind her back.

Marianne gasped when she saw the monstrous appendage, her hands flying up to cover her mouth in shock. Though her eyes, wide with horror, showed a slightly different emotion.

Edelgard looked away from her, glancing back down to inspect her hand with morbid curiosity. “I...don’t know what happened,” she explained, trying desperately to hide the tremble in her voice, “I...was angry. Frustrated. And when I went to slam my hand on the table it just...”

She sighed heavily, clenching the hand of the Hegemon into a tight fist. “I suppose I will have to be more careful, now. Ever since becoming the...that thing...to win the battle a few weeks ago, my emotions have been...strange. More potent, and more volatile. This is proof, now, that it’s...dangerous...”

Marianne still gazed upon her with those big, brown eyes. Yet despite the lingering shock on her face, she took a step forward. Then another. Slowly, she approached until she stood right in front of the Emperor.

Then, without a moment’s hesitation, took that horrid hand in hers.

Edelgard couldn’t hide the terror on her face. She wanted to rip her hand away, but restrained herself only because she feared what those claws might do to Marianne’s delicate skin. As she floundered, struggling to find words that would gently tell this sensitive woman to get away from her for her own safety, Marianne did something she rarely ever did to anyone.

She smiled at her. Reassuringly.

“You are not dangerous, Edelgard,” she said softly, carefully running her thumb over the rough, charred skin.

“Yes I am,” Edelgard breathed, unable to tear her eyes away from her hand.

“Tell me, Edelgard: Am I dangerous?”

It was with those words that the Emperor found the strength to beat her fear. “Of course not,” she answered, confident, as she met those warm brown eyes.

“Then you are not, either,” Marianne told her simply.

Edelgard’s eyes widened. Of course: her Crest...Maurice...

“But you never... I have...”

“Perhaps I haven’t,” Marianne said with a small sigh, “But as long as the Crest of the Beast dwells in my blood, there is a chance. Do you still think me safe to be around?”

Edelgard nodded, perhaps a little too eagerly. “I would never consider you dangerous, Marianne. You’ve proven yourself to me countless times over.”

Marianne gave her hand a small squeeze. “And I watched a great, magnificent creature place herself between myself and a monster, all to protect me and my companions,” she said softly, “You could turn into the Hegemon right now and I wouldn’t be afraid. No one would.”

Edelgard stared into that gentle gaze, focusing only on the comforting touch of a fragile hand against her demonic one.

She had been so caught up in her emotions she didn’t even feel her hand change back.

“There, see?” Marianne said with a delicate laugh, “All that worry for nothing!”

Edelgard regarded her bare hand in total shock. Never had she been happier to see her scarred skin - at least it wasn’t that sinuous hide anymore. She looked back to her companion and offered a grateful smile. “I really must thank you, Marianne,” she said earnestly.

“No need to thank me,” Marianne replied, “I would not be here if you hadn’t helped me overcome my own fears. I simply returned the favour.”

———

Finding Shambala turned out to be the easy part, much to everyone’s dismay. Edelgard had been forced to dial it back, but her initial attack had scared Thales enough for him to fire a second warning shot, much like Arianrhod. Though that still meant undue soldier and civilian casualties, Those Who Slither had chosen to obliterate a small fort town rather than target anything big.

The mistake they made in doing so, however, was that it allowed Hubert and Linhardt to track the magic signature, something they had been working on since Arianrhod had been destroyed by a Javelin of Light.

Now they knew where Shambala was, and it was time to raze the snake nest.

It turned out the technology of Those Who Slither in the Dark - or the Agarthans, as they had learned - was far more superior than any of them realized. Edelgard even found herself cursing Thales and his ilk for utilizing such medieval and antiquated procedures on her and her siblings when it was obvious the Agarthans were well beyond that.

Still, she had to put it all behind her for the moment. The Agarthans had learned of the army sent to destroy them, and like fire ants out to defend their hill, were swarming them with wave upon wave of mages, monsters, and golems.

She and Byleth worked to keep the Eagles together, moving as one powerful unit rather than splitting up. But that eventually proved to be impossible in the onslaught of chaos, and eventually, Edelgard found herself alone.

She took down another mage with a Crest-enhanced swing of her sword, breathing heavy and sweat dripping on her brow. The brief lull between enemies allowed her to survey the battle taking part around her, and a fear she was becoming too familiar with struck her heart once again.

“Truly a shame, isn’t it? To lose so much…potential.”

Her blood went cold. Her grip tightened around Aymr’s handle. She spun around, rage boiling in her soul. “You,” she spat.

Thales seemed bored at best by her fury. “You once told me that your little human friends were strong, capable warriors,” he drawled, “Seeing them here now, I’m almost inclined to believe you. We could have made them better of course…” He paused when someone - Annette, it sounded like - screamed in fear and pain. A wicked smirk stretched across his face. “But alas… Nothing will remain after today.”

“You’re right about one thing,” Edelgard growled, readying her axe, “Nothing will be left, but of this wicked place! Of you and your miserable people!”

“Put that thing down, girl,” Thales warned, “Don’t forget who made it for you.”

“And now I’m going to prove how great a mistake that was!” She surged forward, letting out a fierce war cry as she swung Aymr back.

Thales merely raised one hand, and she collided with a solid forcefield of energy before she could so much as touch him. The resulting blast sent her flying, Aymr landing further away with a clatter.

“Do you realize what you could have been had you stayed with us?” Thales demanded as he stalked toward her. Before she could pick herself up, he struck her with another shockwave, sending her careening away.

“You could have been the greatest Emperor Fodlan has ever seen!” Thales declared. Another wave of his hand, and she felt some unseen energy pluck her up into the air, only to hurl her into a nearby pillar.

“You could have been a legend!” Another wave, and this time she was thrown into the far wall with a sickening crunch.  

“You could have been a god!” He pitched her high this time, slamming her up onto a platform elevated above most of the fight. Her body crumpled to the floor of the platform. She struggled to get her breath back, struggled to shake the spots from her eyes.

Thales appeared beside her out of thin air, and grabbed her by the throat. He hoisted her up so she could see below them, at all of her forces currently being just as trounced as herself. “But you can still be something,” he hissed into her ear, his slimy voice sending shivers down her spine, “Once this is all over, we’ll rebuild you. Fix the flaws we missed the first time. Yes… Perhaps grant you a third Crest… Mend that meddlesome mind of yours so that you’ll obey… You might have to be replaced, of course, but your contributions to the Empire will still be highly valued.”

Edelgard struggled against his hold, but no matter how hard she kicked and thrashed she couldn’t escape. Memories began to flood her mind, and suddenly she was twelve again, fighting against this same hold to no avail while her family died around her.

But then Thales let out a pained shout, and released his hold on her as if he had just been burned. Or shot.

“Y…you leave her alone!”

She looked up from where she was on the floor, only for her heart to seize in panic. Bernadetta, bless her, was standing a few feet away, aiming a nocked arrow at the Agarthan’s head. She was trembling from head to toe and was pale as a ghost but she still stood, staring down the most dangerous man on the continent.

Thales reached behind his back and tugged the arrow from his shoulder blade with only a small wince. “And what are you going to do?” he sneered as he stalked toward the terrified archer.

“What are you going to do?” Uncle Volkhard - no, he wasn’t her uncle anymore - let go of her neck and allowed her to fall to the floor, his attention now turned entirely to one of her older sisters.

Before her sister could respond, he struck her, hard, with such a force it knocked her to the ground, her bold, defensive stance rendered utterly useless.

“Take that one next,” her not-Uncle growled at one of the mages, and they hauled her beloved sister away before she could do or say anything about it.

They threw the corpse back into the cell a few hours later.

“No…” she breathed. She pushed herself up as far as she could, only sitting, really. A violent cough sputtered up from her lungs, bring a good portion of blood with it. And the pain that shot through her side told her she likely had a couple broken ribs. And even if she could stand, Aymr was down on the lower level and all she had left on her was a dagger.

She was once more that helpless little girl in a dungeon, unable to so much as protect her siblings the way they tried to protect her. Thales was going to kill Bernadetta, and all she could do was watch.

But then a low growl escaped her throat. One that wasn’t human.

Amidst the panic seizing her heart, she felt a fire growing. One that quickly became a raging inferno, boiling her blood and searing her skin from the inside out. This time she didn’t fight it, didn’t try to stop it, and it came naturally. Her bones split and stretched into something that almost felt normal, her skin ripped apart and hardened into charred leather and scales and for the first time since they got to Shambala she felt safe. She flexed wings she didn’t have seconds ago, swished a tail that hadn’t existed.

She was nothing but claws and fangs and dark magic and righteous, protective fury.

Thales prepared to crush this trembling little human like the bug she was, but suddenly a massive hand grabbed him, claws narrowly missing anything important.

Bernadetta watched as the Hegemon yanked Thales away from her, and her paralyzed eyes met those sinister red ones of the monster before her. The creature offered only one word, one that would ensure the archer’s survival: “Run.”

And so Bernie did.

Thales chuckled from her hand. “So the rumours were true,” he laughed, “You did produce the anomaly. Oh…my wondrous weapon!”

Edelgard slammed him against the wall, squeezing until she could hear his bones breaking. “I’m going to enjoy this.” Her voice came out rumbling, distorted, every bit as menacing as she felt. But he was squirming, and for once she did not care how much blood she was about to have on her hands.

“Yes…yes…” Thales gasped, “Such power… Never…never forget…who gave it to you!”

Something inside her stirred. Her head swam in emotion, all her tightly bottled anger and resentment being released and feeding her actions. She couldn’t contain the twisted grin that spread across her face. Finally. Finally. She’ll have her revenge for what he did to her. For what he did to her family. And what better irony - to be killed by the very monster he helped design?

But then another scream pierced through the vindictive clouds in her head. Suddenly the roaring thoughts of crushing Thales, of tearing him apart and bathing in his blood, were overcome by the sounds of the battle around them. Shaken by the shift in her mind, she dropped Thales, turning to observe below them.

The Eagles - her friends - were losing. Mercedes was administering a healing spell to Annette as Ingrid and Marianne fought off a monster trying to reach them. Hubert and Dorothea were doing what they could against the mages, but were clearly outmatched. Ferdinand, Petra, and Caspar had been pinned between two massive Titanus. Lysithea and Linhardt were both taking cover, trying desperately to heal each other. Ashe had found Bernadetta and the pair were attempting to provide cover but there were too many enemies. And Byleth…

She watched as Byleth charged at a particularly large Beast, managing to sink her sword deep into its throat only to have the blade be stuck there. The Beast went unfazed by the weapon and batted her away. It then ran at her, teeth bared and waiting for blood.

“You’re still…going to lose,” Thales taunted as he struggled to his feet, “Kill me now, girl, and you’ll still lose.”

Her jaw set, her mind made up. With a swish of her tail, she swatted Thales away like the insect that he was. She then leapt over the ledge and entered the fray.

Byleth braced herself for the Beast to bear down on her, waiting for its teeth to pierce her armour. But then there was a loud crash, the ground shook underneath her, and the Beast charging her was slammed away by another, more familiar Beast.

“El!” Byleth shouted in alarm, suddenly more worried about how and why Edelgard had once again transformed into the Hegemon Husk.  

Edelgard killed the enemy Beast with one swing of her claws. “It’s alright, my Teacher,” she said in a voice that did little to comfort Byleth at that moment, “I am in control this time.”  

Her red eyes then locked onto the golem about to crush Caspar under its foot. “Call the others back into one group. We must take our enemies as a unit.” She then surged forward, throwing the golem away as if it were a mere toy.

Byleth shook her head, snapping out of her stupor, and raised her sword to rally allies near her together.

Ashe and Bernadetta ran up to meet her, both helping Lysithea and Linhardt limp forward. “Is that…Edelgard?” Ashe asked, his face pale as he watched the mutated Emperor fight against the golem.

“She did it again?” Lysithea demanded, “Is she crazy?”

“She…she did it to save me,” Bernie stammered, shrinking in on herself as she spoke, “Oh gosh… I…I hope she doesn’t get stuck like that b…because of me.”

“It’s ok,” Byleth assured them, “I think El’s got this under control.” There was a loud bang and a flash of blue-green light as the Titanus exploded under Edelgard’s dark magic.  

“I certainly like our odds,” Ferdinand said as he and the others joined them.

“I’ll say! Did you see how she just smacked that thing away!” Caspar exclaimed, “Saved my ass for sure! I owe her one!"

“What’s the plan now?” Dorothea asked as mages and soldiers began to flank them.

“We fight, and win,” Hubert declared, reading magic in his palms, “For her Majesty!”

There was a low rumble, and cracks of dark magic surged through the ground under the enemy’s feet. Spikes erupted from the openings, decimating the group. “I appreciate the sentiment, Hubert,” a demonic voice said behind them, though the smirk was unmistakable even with the distortion.

As the Eagles regrouped, so did the Agarthans, surrounding them with groups of soldiers and mages. More Demonic Beasts burst from the shadows and charged. Archers lined up from the ramparts high above. A final Titanus exploded through the wall behind Thales’ throne, sword glowing and ready for blood.

“Ashe, Bernadetta: take the archers!” Byleth commanded, “Ingrid, cover Ferdinand, Petra, and Caspar as they take the soldiers. Mercedes, stay with them in case they’ll need healing.”

“Hubert, Dorothea, and Lysithea: mages. Marianne, you, Byleth, and Annette take on the Beasts. Linhardt, stay with them.” The Titanus slammed its sword into the ground, resulting in a wave of molten rock and fire to surge out toward them. Edelgard held out one hand, and a shield of purple energy stopped the wave before it could reach them. “The big one is mine.”

With everyone good with their tasks, the Black Eagle Strike Force moved out in one formidable unit. When one hit, another was there to hit again. If someone had their back turned, someone else was there with a shield. Magic and arrows flew true and swords and axes hit with strength and accuracy. United, they were unstoppable.

The Titanus fell to Edelgard’s claws and she turned to find the battle over. Those Agarthans left alive were fleeing, and all the major threats were dead. She couldn’t stop the small smile that broke through the scales on her face.

As the Black Eagles gathered together to celebrate, wicked laughter echoed through the city remains. Edelgard whipped around and let out an involuntary snarl when she spotted Thales, clearly too injured to fight, kneeling on what was left of the dais.

“You…will never enjoy your victory,” he declared through heavy breaths. His cold eyes met Edelgard’s one final time as the floor underneath him lit up in archaic runes. “For all Agarthans.”

The entire city began to vibrate. Dust and rocks were shaken loose from the ceiling. Linhardt, who recognized the runes, gasped in alarm. “No, it can’t be!”

Suddenly the entire ceiling was ripped open with a massive bang, rocks and debris raining down around them. Now that they could see the darkening sky, it became clear what Thales had done. A bright light appeared in the sky, almost like a star. But then it grew brighter, and brighter. Purple circles appeared as a giant column leading the light down to the ground. More lights appeared in the sky.

“That idiot isn’t that crazy, right?” Lysithea demanded in a panic.

“Head for the exit!” Byleth shouted, “Now!” She turned to El, who was still staring at the sky. She didn’t like how the Hegemon’s wings twitched in anticipation. “El, let’s go!”

Edelgard turned, just a little, so she could see Byleth. Magic began to form around the skeletal wings on her back, filling them in to resemble something more like an eagle’s. Something that could actually fly. “I’m sorry, Byleth,” she said softly, nodding to her family, “I won’t let him do it again.”

And with that, and a mighty flap of her wings, she was off and into the sky.

“No! El!” Byleth screamed as she watched her love go. She wasn’t the only one, as the others from the team all had similar sentiments.

Edelgard stared down the first Javelin, magic and fire dancing down her long arms and collecting in her hands. Once enough energy had charged, she released the powerful blast. The moment it connected with the tip of the Javelin, the entire thing exploded in a massive, brilliant fireball.

Another column of circles formed nearby, and she quickly swooped into that path to take out the next one.

And the next.

Her position was too awkward to catch the one after, and she was forced to watch it strike the opening of Shambala and hope she had bought everyone some time to escape. Another column formed, and she snapped out of her worry and intercepted that Javelin.

Byleth could only watch in horror. Edelgard seemed to be doing fine, but the few Javelins that slipped past her were really starting to bring the city down. Thales had been lost in the chaos, laughing like a maniac as the boulders from the ceiling caved in around him. It had been made abundantly clear just how destructive one Javelin was, and El was up there swooping directly into their paths to take them out, narrowly avoiding the infernos.

El managed to destroy one more Javelin, and what seemed like the last one. And for a brief second, there was a moment of respite where it felt like she could breathe. Like Byleth could breath. Edelgard spotted her down below in the rubble, and the universe stopped. Just for them. It was over, they both survived. Things could finally…

Byleth saw it first. That flash of light, the circles… She shouted for El, hoping she’d see it in time. Edelgard whipped around, only having enough time to see the gold tip of the Javelin before it struck her directly.

The explosion rocked the city now exposed to the elements. A chorus of screams and gasps was overpowered by the loud boom. Rocks and dust blocked out the sky, fire rained down upon them, forcing them to take cover.

As the dust settled, Byleth shot to her feet, shoving aside rocks and debris as she began a frantic search. “El!” she called out, hoping - praying. Yes, she just watched the woman she loved more than anything take a direct hit from a Javelin of Light but the Hegemon was virtually indestructible and Edelgard was even stronger than that. She had to have survived. She just…she had to.

She pushed a large boulder out of the way, revealing what was left of Thales’ corpse, half-buried under the rubble of the civilization he was once so proud of. A maniacal grin still smeared across his face. Byleth clenched her fists tight, so tight her fingernails dug into her palms. After all that, after every life he destroyed, he goes out like that? Crushed by some rocks moved by his own hand?

She spun away, feeling her anger beginning to reach a boiling point, and that’s when she spotted her. That red cape, so easily seen through the dust.

Byleth raced to her side, falling to her knees and carefully scooping the Emperor up into her arms. She felt so…fragile, now. And cold, despite the burns on her body. But, despite her injuries, her chest still rose and fell.

“El…” Byleth uttered, resting her forehead against her beloved. “It’s over.”

Slowly, lilac eyes fluttered open. A faint smile danced across Edelgard’s lips. “My Love,” she whispered, “We won.”

“We did, El,” Byleth replied, feeling tears on her cheek and not caring in the slightest. She heard the other Eagles shouting. She spotted Dorothea all but dragging Linhardt toward them. “Just hang on, a little longer. And I swear to you will have that day where we do nothing at all - just lounging around and eating as many sweets as we can.”

A breathy chuckle escaped Edelgard’s chest, a violent cough following not long after. “I’ll…hold you to that…” she said weakly. Her eyes began to droop shut.

“Just hang on, El. Hang on…”

…

“The path we walk isn’t at its end yet.”

———

Enbarr in was at its best in the Garland Moon. It was warm, but it wasn’t yet so unbearably hot it almost made one wish for a Faerghus winter. All the trees had fully grown all their leaves, the first of the summer blooms were in full swing, and birds sang without a care in the world as they flew about the gardens. The sun sparkled off the water in the Palace fountains, warming the stone balconies and filling the rooms with soft yellow light. The air was fresh, with a touch of salt from the nearby sea.

Edelgard drew a deep breath in from where she stood on her balcony, wincing only slightly. Her ribcage was still fairly sore, but the fresh air was more than worth it after spending so much time trapped in her bed.

“El?” Byleth’s concerned tone came from inside, causing her to sigh lovingly at her wonderful fiancée.

“I’m out here!” she called, and Byleth was there in moments, not trying to hide her relief.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed yet,” Byleth scolded, though her playful smirk and tone gave her away.

Edelgard pouted, just a little. “I’d argue that the healing benefits of a pleasant, summer day were too good to pass up,” she countered, “Besides. I made it out here on my own, didn’t I? That should mean something.”

Byleth frowned a little, looking around the balcony for something. “That’s…right,” she said slowly, “How? You can’t really walk yet and we had to steal you cane after you kept sneaking down into the…” That’s when her eyes landed on the small hand axe El kept near the bed should an assassin ever try anything. The handle on it was just long enough. “…study.” She levelled the woman she loved a tired glance. “An axe, El?”

“I am nothing if not resourceful,” Edelgard stated in defence.

“Well, you won’t need it for this,” Byleth said as she pulled out on of the chairs at the little table on the balcony, holding a hand out to assist El over to it. Once she was seated, Byleth  returned to the room for a moment, and Edelgard could hear the sounds of tea being prepared. Sure enough, Byleth came back with a tray of tea and an assortment of various pastries and cakes.

“It’s not a mountain of sweets, not yet. Manuela says you still have to watch what you eat until your injuries are fully healed,” Byleth said, “But I just thought that… Well, this could be the first of many leisure days to come.”

“The first, huh?” Edelgard said with a small laugh, “Funny. I feel as though I’ve had nothing but leisure days since our return from Shambala.”

Byleth smiled as she poured their tea. “I’d like to point out that a coma isn’t exactly relaxing,” she teased, “Nor is lying in bed worrying about your Empire.”

“I wasn’t…always worrying…”

“I walked in on you at one point trying to will yourself into good health, El. You never stopped worrying.” She chuckled slightly at the thought. “But today felt like a good one for taking a break.”

Edelgard took a sip from her cup, breathing in the warm scent of bergamot and feeling it sooth the lingering rawness of her throat. “I suppose it is,” she said softly. She gently reached out and took Byleth’s hand in hers, brushing one finger over the gold and ruby ring she had given her beloved. Byleth did the same, admiring how her father’s ring looked on Edelgard’s slender hand.

“I really must thank you,” Edelgard said after a pause, eyes never leaving their intertwined hands, “I…don’t think I would be where I am now were it not for you.”

“El, I…”

“I’m not even talking about the war,” Edelgard admitted, “I… There was an incident, not long after the village where I became the Hegemon. In a moment of anger and frustration, I began to turn into it again. And I was so afraid to tell you because…” She drew a deep, long breath, clenching her free fist. “I’ve known I was a monster for a long time. I might not look it. Or sound like it. But what they did to me… It changed so many things. I couldn’t…I couldn’t let you see just how truly lost I was.

“But then in Shambala, when we fought together when I was… It felt just as natural as ever. Like I hadn’t changed who I was at all, despite being a giant, hideous creature.”

“The Hegemon isn’t hideous,” Byleth said quickly.

Edelgard laughed. “It’s alright, Byleth. I know what I looked like.” She frowned a little then, almost mournfully. “It’s still…disconcerting that such a creature dwells under my skin. But that was the second time it fully came out and all I wanted to do was keep you all safe… I don’t know if such a thing would have happened had it not been for you.”

Byleth offered her a comforting smile, squeezing her hand a little for added emphasis. “I’m always going to be here for you, El. We all will be,” she said, “And I wouldn’t be here without you, either.”

Edelgard returned the smile with a warm grin of her own. Her heart fluttered in her chest, overflowing with emotions she hadn’t felt in what felt like an eternity. Watching Byleth now before her, trying and failing to daintily eat a pastry, only renewed the fire in her heart. Her friends were all safe. Her Empire and all of Fodlan was safe. Her family was safe.

And she knew what it truly meant to love again.

“Thank you again for this, Byleth.”

“You deserved something special. Happy Birthday, El.”

[crackimagines]

Blood of the Eagle, Lion, and Deer (evil!Byleth AU)

AU Masterlist Here!

Withering Flower - Chapter 6

With time running short as the Javelin of Liberation already en route to Garreg Mach, Edelgard, Claude, Rhea, and Dimitri form an unofficial alliance to take down the Knights of Nemesis.

They all converge onto Gronder Field.

—–

The Elites of the Fell Star Journal - “The Battle of Gronder Field”

What I remember about Gronder Field... It was hot, it was muddy, chaotic.

Nothing at all like the previous battles. 

Of course that's pretty much the way it was for all of us, wasn't it? 

All the experiments, all those years of training...it doesn't really prepare you for all the screaming or the blood, does it? 

Frankly I'm still amazed we ever made it through the first few minutes, never-mind the first hour.

—–

1 Day Later after Chapter 5...

Byleth walked alongside his men as they transported the Javelin of Liberation to Garreg Mach. It was in a large metal container being carried by several horses on a cart.

Almost half his forces were here to defend the cart with their lives. He would have been at Garreg Mach fortifying it for an attack, but he did not anticipate Shamir and Alois going rogue.

Though in hindsight, he should have.

Regardless, there was no point in wishing what could have been.

All of this was going to end soon, his plans would be set in motion.

But for now, he was anticipating the arrival of all four factions. He was hoping to slip by unnoticed, but realistically they’d be here any minute now.

And sure enough.

Three armies peered over the horizon bearing Blue, Red, and Yellow banners.

Another army appeared to the hill Byleth was going to escape in, bearing a silver banner.

It was near the House Leaders’ armies that he saw something peculiar.

Shamir, Leonie and Alois were there.

...Leonie.

He had expected to see Shamir and Alois, but he didn't think to see her again. 

She was supposed to be dead and yet...

(Byleth) "Percy."  

He unsheathed the Sword of the Creator and heard footsteps.  

(Percy) "Sir." 

Though he looked calm, Byleth could see in the corner of his eye that he was shaking. 

(Byleth) "You willingly come to me, knowing what's about to happen?" 

(Percy) "I'm proud to have served in the Knights of Nemesis, but I will also not turn my back on my friends. I am ready to accept my fate, sir." 

(Byleth) "...You were a good kid, Percy." 

(Percy) "Thank you sir.  It's been an honor." 

With a swift strike, he slashed at Percy's chest, with him falling to the ground. Byleth had no time to mourn the loss. 

With the upcoming battle, there was more of his own that would fall.

...

Byleth had just killed one of his own soldiers. 

Even though they were so far away, Leonie could tell exactly who it was.

(Leonie) “Percy...”

Alois and Shamir lowered their heads in respect, but put their hands on the hilts of their weapons as Shamir unsheathed her bow.

(Alois) “We’ll make sure his death isn’t in vain, Leonie.”

(Leonie) “Thank you...”

(Shamir) “Look sharp. They’re getting into formation.”

...

Rhea saw the House Leaders stare at her, and she responded with a nod.

The Knights of Seiros were ready.

...

The Generals of their respective armies stood side by side.

(Judith) “Well, this is an alright battlefield to die in.”

(Gilbert) “Very optimistic...”

(Death Knight) “Realistic. Who knows what Nemesis will be throwing at us here.”

(Rodrigue) “If I can protect my son and our future for the Kingdom...I’ll be all right with this.”

(Gilbert) “Annette...Hmph. I agree.”

(Death Knight) “...”

He slowly looked over to Mercedes.

...

Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude walked up to the front together, surveying the area.

Edelgard couldn’t help but feel a sad tinge of nostalgia.

[Between Heaven and Earth - Fire Emblem: Three Houses]

(Edelgard) “Years ago we fought here as classmates…”

(Dimitri) “And now, we stand together against someone who was once a friend.”

(Claude) “As far as big class reunions go, this one’s got to be the worst one in history…”

(Rhea) “There is to be no mercy for these heretics. Do I make myself clear?”

(Catherine) “Crystal.”

(Seteth) “Loud and clear.”

(Alois) “If we are to die today, then we die doing the right thing.”

(Shamir) “Something we should have done long ago…”

(Leonie) “Alois, Shamir. It’s been an honor.”

(Byleth) “I never wanted it to come to this. I’d have much preferred if we were able to find a way to work together but…Wishing for friendship was a foolish thing for what I have done.”

(Rhea) “KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!”

(Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude) “FOR PEACE!”

(Leonie, Alois, Shamir) “FOR THOSE WHO HAVE PERISHED, WE DIE IN GLORY!”

(Byleth) “WE ARE THE KNIGHTS OF NEMESIS, AND WE SHALL KNOW NO FEAR!”

And so, the Battle of Gronder had begun.

The first forces to begin the fight were Rhea's.

Soldiers charged in, swords and lances raised high straight towards Byleth.

(Riddhe) "What is she doing, her men must know this is suicide!"

(Byleth) "That's exactly why she's sending them in. She'll stop at nothing to kill us. Direct the men while I'm out there."

(Riddhe) "Yes, sir!"

(Byleth) "Since she's so insistent on throwing her life away, MAGES! RELEASE THE WOLVES! BEASTS, IGNORE THE FIGHT AND GET THE CART TO GARREG MACH AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!"

The Javelin of Liberation then began being dragged by several demonic beasts. At the speed they were going, they'd be long gone once the fight was over.

However, this now meant they would only have very few heavy hitters on the field and Byleth decided against pulling his trump card out yet, it was too early.

And Byleth was not going to summon more, if the worst case scenario happened, he needed to save the magic for warping him and his army out of the fight.

He furrowed his brow and decided to observe the battle for now.

Byleth was far back enough from the fight to worry about snipers, and his position was heavily fortified.

He was going to determine when direct intervention was necessary.

Soldiers took the horses from the cart and charged them straight towards the House Leaders. They were joined by other squads of cavalry, meeting the Empire's and Kingdom's head on.

Squads of Mages began casting a large circle around them and after a few seconds, the circle started to glow into a bright light, summoning forth several demonic beasts.

2 giant wolves spawned from the circle, and charged into the Knights of Seiros, crushing and ripping apart any soldier they came across.

(Edelgard) "Rhea, that idiot! She's going to break up our formation walking right into him like that!"

(Dimitri) "Nemesis and his commander are moving to meet us head on!"

(Claude) "I'll be moving to reinforce Rhea before they get overrun by those wolves."

Edelgard and Dimitri nodded and advanced with their soldiers as the Alliance forces moved to flank from the sides.

(Claude) "Stick to the trees and make them come to us!"

Edelgard motioned her soldiers toward the enemy, and turned to Hubert.

(Edelgard) "Take the Strike Force and help the Blue Lions take care of the commander! I will be on the frontlines with Prince Dimitri! Do NOT engage the professor!"

(Hubert) "Understood. You heard Lady Edelgard, move out!"

...

(Alois) “TAKE IT DOWN!”

Seteth's wyvern grabbed one of the wolves by the neck and bit into its eye as it was being distracted by Alois and Catherine.

Using Thunderbrand, she stabbed it into the other eye, making the beast stop, and having Alois deliver the final blow with an axe to the neck, forcing it down.

Another wolf was about to charge them, being interrupted by a hail of arrows, making it grind to a halt as it fell over.

Catherine, Alois, and Seteth looked back at the trees and nodded, a gesture of thanks to Claude and continued to move towards the Mages.

(Claude) "Keep the pressure on those beasts and watch out for any more that might come in!"

(Hilda) "Claude, we'll be moving in from behind to catch them off guard."

(Claude) "Be careful then, and strike hard and get out of there!"

The Golden Deer students stuck to the trees as Claude kept watch.

Rhea slit the throat of a soldier before setting another on fire with her spell.

Catherine and Seteth barely managed to catch up with her as she continued to slaughter any who tried to attack her.

Alois stayed behind picking off any of the stragglers.

Seteth splitting a soldier in half with his axe as Catherine cut one down, they both turned to her.

(Catherine) "Lady Rhea, you need to stand back!"

(Seteth) "Catherine is right, it's too dangerous! We don't know what else might-"

(Rhea) "I DO NOT CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO ME! THAT CHILD WILL DIE BY MY HANDS IF IT MEANS I WILL HAVE TO LOSE EVERY OUNCE OF BLOOD IN MY BODY!"

(Seiros Knight) "F-FORCES ARE WARPING IN FROM BE-"

The soldier with them was electrocuted and fell to the floor.

All three of them saw a squad of mages teleport in, and fired wave after wave of fireballs at them.

Before Catherine and Rhea could react, Seteth pushed them out of the way with his wyvern, making them tumble over and barely dodge the fire as it hit him.

Seteth was thrown off his mount and landed into the grass.

(Catherine) "Seteth! Tch, DAMN ALL OF YOU!"

Picking up Thunderbrand, she charged with Rhea and began brutally cutting down the soldiers one by

Flayn was trying to heal any injured when she saw Seteth get thrown off, making her instinctively run to him.

(Claude) "H-Hey, FLAYN!"

Doing her best to avoid the carnage, Flayn ran and knelt over to Seteth.

(Flayn) "Father! Are you alri-"

Her blood ran cold as she flipped him over.

Most of his face and his front body was burned off from the attack, leaving a mess of charred bones and blood.

(Flayn) "F...FATHER!--"

That was the last thing she screamed out as she felt her entire body go numb, and fell over to the ground next to him.

Rhea, taking her sword out of a mage's head, looked to where Seteth was, and saw his burnt face and Flayn with an arrow through her heart.

(Catherine) "Flayn...!"

(Alois) “Damn it, NO!”

Rhea said nothing and instead roared out even louder, charging right for the snipers who shot Flayn.

(Sniper) "We've been spotted, retreat to-"

The Sniper's head was lopped off as Leonie rode by with her horse, swinging her sword and running over anyone in the way.

(Sniper 2) "SHIT, AMBUSH!"

(Leonie) “TAKE THE SHOT!”

An ice spike went through his chest and he fell over.

Marianne finished casting her spell and got behind a tree as soldiers were coming to reinforce the snipers.

(Hilda) "Anyone fancy looking up there?!"

Ignatz and Shamir threw themselves against the tree next to Marianne and peeked out of cover.

(Ignatz) "That one, up on the cliff directing artillery!"

...

(Riddhe) "Direct your fire at the Knights of Seiros! If Rhea gets too close, our right flank will be completely open!"

The Mages began casting another spell before one of them yelled out.

(Mages) "INCOMING!"

Everyone looked up and saw a lone Pegasus rider coming at them.

(Riddhe) "ARCHERS!"

A small group of archers aimed at the rider and let the arrows loose.

The Pegasus rider twirled around, gracefully dodging the arrows as she kept coming at them.

Several more archers got into formation and kept up the barrage, but the rider kept avoiding them.

(Riddhe) "The hell?!"

No lone rider should be that fast. Their archers were some of the best shots in the army.

Riddhe didn't realize what was special about that Pegasus rider until he saw the symbol of a lion on the side of the pegasus's helmet.

(Riddhe) "Shit, shit, SHIT! PREPARE FOR CLOSE COMBAT, THE BLUE LION CORPS IS UPON US-"

(Ingrid) "Defenseless, are we?!"

Ingrid swooped down and used an axe to send Mages flying into the air, breaking up their formation.

Archers tried taking another shot at her until a circle formed around them, and froze them completely solid.

(Annette) "ARCHERS DOWN!"

(Hubert) "Rush them!"

(Sylvain) "Got it!"

Sylvain and Ferdinand charged in on their horses, slashing at the enemy soldiers who were still trying to get their swords out.

Riddhe pulled out his sword and was about to enter the fray until he saw an arrowhead emerge from his mouth.

He dropped the sword and fell to his knees, shakily trying to reach for it before another arrow went through his brain, killing him instantly.

(Shamir) "Target down, nice shot kid."

(Ignatz) "Don't thank for me taking a life."

The rest of the Blue Lions and Black Eagles got to the others, finally wiping out the artillery unit as the Golden Deers continued attacking the right flank, eventually joined in by Rhea and her men.

...

Dimitri spun his lance around, killing every soldier around him.

(Dimitri) "Gilbert!"

Gilbert spun around and slammed his shield into a soldier trying to charge him, being cut down by Rodrigue.

(Gilbert) "There is no end to these soldiers!"

(Rodrigue) "I'll hand Nemesis one thing, he sure has an army!"

Edelgard and the Death Knight cut down the enemies next to them, letting their forces charge ahead of them.

(Edelgard) "Keep pushing, we're driving his main forces back!"

(Judith) "Looks like the boy and Rhea did their parts as well! We're starting to rout their men on the left!"

(Dimitri) "Good, now let's-"

Dimitri stopped in his tracks, and everyone else did too.

All of the Knights of Nemesis pulled back and got into a guarding formation, stoppong their attack.

Several Alliance and Empire soldiers charged them, trying to take advantage of the situation.

(Death Knight) "YOU FOOLS, WAIT!"

The soldiers were instantly killed and sent flying back, torso and arms flying high into the air.

When everyone looked back into the crowd, Byleth was slowly walking out, de-activating the whip function in his sword.

(Byleth) "I have come too far, and killed too many to be stopped at Gronder."

Everyone immediately raised their weapons as Byleth continued to walk at them.

(Gilbert) "Your Highness, Lady Edelgard, stand back!"

(Judith) "Protect the kids with our lives!"

(Death Knight) "Acknowledged."

(Rodrigue) "With pleasure! HAAAA-"

Rodrigue was the first to charge Byleth on his horse.

Byleth did not bother moving out the way, and instead raised his hand.

Everything grinded to a halt, with nothing making a sound anymore. Slowly, everyone began to reverse, putting back Rodrigue before he even charged.

Byleth slowly walked alongside Rodrigue, waiting for time to stop reversing.

(Byleth) "2 more to go."

(Rodrigue) "With ple-AAAGH!--"

Everyone immediately looked to their left, Byleth suddenly was behind Rodrigue, looking straight at them as the Sword of the Creator plunged into the back of his chest.

(Gilbert) "RODRIGUE!"

Judith and the Death Knight swung their weapons at Byleth, him ripping the sword out and deflecting their attacks with relative ease.

Gilbert came around the side, swinging his axe down as the Death Knight and Judith kept him down.

(Byleth) "One more."

Again, everything stopped around him and the pressure was let off his sword. However, he didn’t have much time to act.

He backed up a safe distance from when he just killed Rodrigue and activated the whip.

Time resuming, The two swung at an empty space, realizing too late where he was.

Byleth was several feet back from where they would’ve hit him, and he swung at Gilbert who tried to block with his shield.

The shield was split in two as the whip reached Gilbert’s chest, splitting it open, and with him falling over.

(Death Knight) “LADY EDELGARD!”

Byleth’s eyes went wide, barely able to deactivate the whip and time and block Edelgard.

CLANG!

(Edelgard) “YOU WILL FALL TODAY, PROFESSOR!”

(Byleth) “Not...until, I AM DONE WITH MY PLANS!”

Byleth kicked Edelgard back, Dimitri and Judith beginning to rush him.

He deflected Judith’s attacks with ease, but rolled out the way of Dimitri’s.

He was confident in blocking everyone’s attacks, but Dimitri’s brute strength would snap his arms in half with how hard he was swinging Areadbhar.

Judith came in from behind and tried to impale Byleth, but he swung around and knocked her sword into the air, bringing the sword back down and cutting her chest.

Edelgard, Dimitri and the Death Knight got into position, slowly starting to surround Byleth.

(Byleth) “With one Divine Pulse left, staying here is suicidal! MEN, WE’RE RETREATING!”

Byleth turned back to them as his forces formed a small blockade around him.

(Byleth) “MAGES, RELEASE THE PRISONERS!”

The mages did as they were told, leaving a summoning circle right above the cliff where the Blue Lions and Black Eagles were and casted a spell around them, using the last of the energy to get out of the battlefield.

(Rhea) “No...NO! NO DAMN IT! YOU’RE NOT GETTING AWAY!”

Rhea’s body began to glow, and the figure slowly started to larger and larger.

“YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE MEEEEEE!”

(Catherine) “LADY RHEA, WAIT!”

Byleth and the rest of his forces teleported back to where the Demonic Beasts were dragging the Javelin back, but in the distance, he saw Rhea turning into the Immaculate One.

(Byleth) “Tch, of course she’ll force us to use it. DEMONIC BEASTS HALT! MAGES, ACTIVATE THE JAVELIN OF LIBERATION AT MINIMUM POWER! IT WILL BE DAMAGED, BUT WE HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO REPAIR IT BACK AT BASE!”

(Mage) “Understood! ACTIVATING!”

As Rhea took flight, she was about to charge headfirst into Byleth until she saw a bright light coming from the sky.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHH!”

After the sky was lit on fire, Rhea hit the floor, causing a mini-earthquake around Gronder with the impact.

The sky cleared up and Rhea slowly started to transform back into her human self, everyone trying to shake off the intense light that blinded everyone.

Catherine and the others surrounded her, trying to see if she was okay.

(Catherine) “L-LADY RHEA!”

Her hands slowly shook as Catherine took it.

(Rhea) “D-Don’t...let...him...succeed...- “

Her hand fell to the floor, and her dress started to turn red.

(Catherine) “No...! NO NO NO!-”

Alois turned his head away, and couldn’t help but feel guilty for her death.

He may have not liked her after learning the truth but...

...

Byleth was walking with his men until he suddenly felt light headed, and fell to the ground, dropping the Sword of the Creator.

(Mage) “C-COMMANDER!”

(Knight) “Wait a second, his hair!”

Byleth’s hair turned from the bright green he had, slowly to the dark blue.

(Mage) “Someone carry him, and let’s go! We don’t have a moment to waste!”

...

(Annette) “Ack, w-what in the-”

Her eyes went wide when she looked back down, seeing Gilbert on the ground.

(Annette) “DAD!”

She was about to run after him, but Felix grabbed her by the arm.

(Felix) “What are you doing?! We don’t know if there’s enemies still here!”

He said this, but he was fighting every instinct he had to go down to see Rodrigue. 

This was a bloody battle, and the last thing he needed was to lose anyone else.

Annette started sobbing, and Mercedes went to hold Annette. Sylvain, Ingrid, Dedue, and Ashe walked next to Felix, looking at the bodies scattered all across Gronder.

(Ashe) “So much death...”

(Ingrid) “To die on a stupid field like this is...is just-”

(Sylvain) “You...don’t have to finish that, Ingrid.”

(Dedue) “It is a tragedy...”

Edelgard, Dimitri, and the Death Knight lowered their weapons for the moment.

(Dimitri) “Gilbert, Rodrigue...”

Claude slowly rode up on his Wyvern, closing his eyes once he saw Judith.

(Claude) “We’ll...We’ll make sure no one died in vain today, in all sides.”

(Death Knight) “...What did Nemesis mean when he said, “release the prisoner”?”

Edelgard and Dimitri started to look around and noticed that the circle that was in front of the mages wasn’t here anymore.

(Edelgard) “What the...?”

...

(???) “H-Help...us!”

The Blue Lions and Black Eagles quickly looked around, not sure if they heard something.

(Dorothea) “H-Hey...Didn’t that sound like?-”

(Randolph) “Help...us!”

(Fleche) “Please!”

There was suddenly a bit of smoke surrounding the area, a circle encompassing the area they were in too.

(Caspar) cough cough “Where’d this smoke come from?!”

(Ferdinand) “That sounds like General Randolph!”

(Bernadetta) “And a little girl?”

(Petra) “They are in the sounding of pain!”

Hubert nodded and went near the cliff they were at, looking at Edelgard.

(Hubert) “Lady Edelgard, General Randolph and his sister Fleche is here!”

(Edelgard) “R-Really?!”

There was some good news at least.

Though...Why did Byleth only now decide to release them?

(Ashe) “We have to help them!”

(Ingrid) “Right, come on!”

(Sylvain) “We’re right behind you!”

(Dedue) “Hmph.”

(Felix) “H-Hang on guys!”

The Blue Lions stopped and turned to Felix.

(Mercedes) “What is it?”

(Felix) “Does something about their voices sound...off?”

The Black Eagles stopped moving as well and started to listen.

(Randolph/Fleche) “P-Pleas̶̊͜ë̵͉́.̸̘͠.̷̮͊.̷̭̓h̷̘̾e̴̫̊l̶̳̄p̸͍̏.̴̹̋.̴̛̯.̵̦̽u̷̩͘ș̸͐.̷̰͠.̶̥̾.̶̪͆!̷̩̂"̷̺̑

Everyone’s eyes went wide as Hubert said quietly to everyone.

(Hubert) “Everyone...Backs against the cliff. Now.”

Both classes started to slowly back up as their voices intensified.

(Randolph/Fleche?) “H̷e̵l̶p̶ ̵u̶s̸!̶ ̴H̷E̷L̷P̵ ̵U̷S̴!̴ ̸H̶E̶L̴P̴ ̴U̸S̵!̸”

The Golden Deer students were on the ground, slowly preparing their weapons.

Leonie looked back at Claude and gestured up to the cliff, raising her sword as her horse backed up.

Everyone took the hint, and raised their weapons.

“H̷̘̫͊͗̏̂̐̄̋͑̕͜͝E̶̞͙͉̝͕̗͔̝̬͈͋̚L̴͖͑̈́P̶̰͇͈̿ ̷͔̙̆̏̈́̾́̐̓̀U̸̺͍̇̀̕S̸̡̡̛̝̪̳͋͑͠!̷̧̠̞̜̩̓͛̽̕͠”

Bernadetta was the first to scream when they emerged from the smoke.

First came Randolph’s head, and saw Fleche’s face connected to it. Randolph’s right and Fleche’s left eye connected to form a single eye, one with two pupils and filled with bloodshot red. 

As they walked out of the smoke, their heads were connected to a single body. Several limbs stuck out of them, as if a child had created this unholy abomination that stood before everyone. 

It was several body parts of different people apparently, all crooked and bent.

Some of them had formed scythes from the bones that came out of them.

The circle began to glow even brighter, prompting everyone to look down at their feet.

(Dedue) “OFF THE CLIFF, NOW!”

No one had to be told twice. 

As the circle began getting brighter and brighter, everyone hopped off the cliff and landed right in front of the Golden Deers, looking back up.

It finally enveloped Randolph and Fleche, turning into a massive demonic beast that looked something out of everyone’s nightmares.

It was in a ball-like form, with several disjointed feet at the bottom and hands coming from the side, some broken with the bones sticking out and some arms trying to grab for anyone nearby.

(Leonie) “GODDESS, THAT’S WHAT HE WAS DOING TO THEM?!”

(Alois) “WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT?!”

(Shamir) “He was trying to research the concept of fusing people together to make a stronger unit, but that...thing is what it amounted to! After a short while once the experiments were failing, he just took the bodies we took from the civilians to make that thing!”

Everyone was taken aback by the horrific monstrosity that stood before them.

(Hilda) “I-I THINK I’M GOING TO THROW UP-”

(Hubert) “NOT NOW!”

(Dedue) “Tch, we would be wasting time fighting this thing!”

(Dimitri) “Dedue is right, but we cannot let this thing live!”

(Catherine) “Leave that thing to me...”

Everyone turned to Catherine as church forces surrounded her.

(Catherine) “Byleth is already getting ahead of us! Take what remains of your forces and get after him! If he activates the Javelin of Liberation while we’re all fighting this thing, then Rhea and everyone else would have died for nothing!”

She held Thunderbrand firmly in her hands.

(Catherine) “The bodies of the dead will not be desecrated by this thing!”

Shamir, Alois, and Leonie stood by Catherine, looking at the monster.

(Shamir) “We...we helped this thing be made, so the responsibility falls on us too. I left you alone before. I won’t be doing that again.”

(Alois) “Same here.”

(Leonie) “We’ll keep it distracted, everyone else JUST GO!”

Although no one wanted to leave them to this thing’s mercy they were right.

(Death Knight) “We are wasting time! We need to get moving!”

(Claude) “All forces, on us! LET’S MOVE IT!”

Everyone snapped out of their state of shock, and the Alliance forces followed Claude. Dimitri was the next to signal to move out, then Edelgard.

Edelgard couldn’t help but look back as sounds of fighting had erupted.

(Edelgard) “Professor...”

She closed her eyes.

It wasn’t any of their faults.

It was hers. If she hadn’t left the professor right when he needed her the most when Jeralt was dead...Maybe things could have-”

Dimitri put his hand on Edelgard’s shoulder.

(Dimitri) “It is too late for regret. El.”

(Edelgard) “D-Dimitri...”

(Claude) “He’s right. Right now, it’s up to us to make sure we can fix our mistakes.”

Edelgard nodded.

(Edelgard) “Right. We must not falter now.”

She started to take the lead, and eventually Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude walked side by side to end this where it all began.

Garreg Mach Monastery.

----

The Elites of the Fell Star Journal - “The Beginning”

In our bones, we knew the war was almost over.

Fodlan held its breath, waiting to see which side would make the final daring move. 

As expected, Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude went for the kill. 

And the moment they were in sight, everything fell into a mini-civil war. We had loyalists that fought for Byleth, and those who wanted to defect and the fights began to grow violent.

Personally? I didn’t care for either side, after what had happened in Gronder? I just wanted to live.

Because in our bones, we knew the war was almost over. 

For better or worse, we knew this battle would be the beginning of the end.

----

[Escape - Darling In The Franxx]

[hergrim]

French tactical developments in the 14th century.

The French get a bad rap in a lot of older scholarship and, as a result, also in pop-history and movies. The near-constant defeat of the French has been taken as evidence that the French, in their arrogance, preferred to keep their "chivalric" tactics and rely solely on the massed cavalry charge and individual prowess for most of the the Hundred Years' War. 

The truth, though, is that the French already made massive changes in how they fought by the time of Agincourt and, importantly, they made many of these changes early in the HYW, not late. While they had never relied solely on the cavalry charge, having made extensive use of combined arms tactics all the way back into the 11th and 12th centuries, they altered this dynamic considerably during the first decade of actual combat against the English.

I'm going to trace the development of French tactics through the end of the 1360s, where they had very nearly completely matured their tactics against the English. At some point in the near future, I’ll take up the second half of the story and talk about the very interesting changes made in the 15th century.

French Tactics Prior to the Hundred Years' War

Starting at the Battle of Courtrai in 1302, we see the French combined arms system as it had been more or less for several centuries. Both the French and the Flemish put their crossbowmen out in front of their lines, with the French placing light infantry (bidauts, Spanish javelin men) behind their crossbowmen to bolster their line. Behind the Flemish crossbowmen, though, was a solid formation of infantry, while behind the French crossbowmen were mounted men-at-arms. The French crossbowmen drove off their Flemish rivals, and the Flemish line moved back from the edge of the stream in order to get away from the French missile fire. The French crossbowmen, however, were running low on bolts and the bidauts were not adequate for standing up to heavy infantry, even if they were good at skirmishing. If either force crossed, the Flemish would probably destroy them against the stream.

On the other hand, the Flemish did look to the French like they were in retreat and, if pushed immediately and not given time to regroup, could be defeated. They therefore launched a cavalry charge across the stream. This is where they went wrong - there wasn't enough room on the other bank to fully regroup after crossing, and there were a number of ditches on the other side that were full of water and broke up the French formation further. The result was that the French didn't have the space to launch their charge, except in the center. There they very nearly broke through, and some of the men there began to flee, but reserves came up and reinforced it. As a result, the French were forced back against the stream and into the ditches all across the battlefield, which is where most of the casualties were taken.

It really needs to be understood here that the French were very nearly successful. True, they did underestimate their opponents and also misinterpreted a tactical withdrawal for the beginnings of a rout but, in spite of the sup-optimal battlefield conditions, they came close. Had the battle been fought on open ground, they still might have lost, but the battle wouldn't have been the disaster that it was.

By the time of the next major battle, Mons-en-Pévèle in 1304, the French altered their plan of attack slightly. They brought along siege engines to target the Flemish formation - although the Flemish managed to destroy these before the battle started - and started off by skirmishing and staging a false charge to test the Flemish resolve. When this failed, they tried repeated charges in conjunction with an attack on the wagenburg at the rear, but this failed as well. After retreating to their camp, Flemish went on the offensive and attacked the camp. This plan almost succeeded, but failed when the French rallied and attacked the disordered Flemish infantry, solidly defeating them.

Cassel, in 1328, was the culmination of what the French had learned from Courtrai and Mons-en-Pévèle. The French again deployed some siege engines against the Flemish, but rather than mount cavalry charges they stuck to skirmishing and ravaging the Flemish countryside around the static Flemish position. In essence, they besieged the Flemish camp and forced them to take the offensive. When they did, a mounted reserve was used slam into their flank and crush them. The heavy losses suffered in this phase of the battle meant that the French could then break the final Flemish defensive formation and claim total victory.

French Tactics From Morlaix to Poitiers

Not too long after this, the HYW began. The first two major campaigns, in 1339 and 1340, ended with not battle, but with both sides standing off from the other and daring each other to make an attack. This was in keeping with lessons the French had learned fighting the Flemish, while the English knew they had too few men-at-arms to successfully storm the French field fortifications. It was only in 1342, at Morlaix, that the first land battle of the HYW was fought.

The English army probably had 2400 men, about half archers and half men-at-arms, while the Breton force had, at most, 3000 cavalry, 1500 Genoese and a large number of Breton infantry. The numbers for the Bretons, reported in English chronicles, are probably quite high and can be halved or reduced by 2/3 for the cavalry, as Charles only had 1000-1500 at St-Pol-de-Leon (actually Restellou, see below) in 1346 and 1800 at La Roche Derrien in 1347. The Genoese numbers are more likely, as the survivors of 14 Genoese galleys destroyed as a result of an English attack (11 ships deliberately burned by the Genoese, with 3 escaping) were probably present. However, contracts from 1337 and 1338 show only 25 crossbowmen per ship and that the other 180 fighting men were equipped with coats-of-plate, helmets, mail collars and shields. If 1500 Genoese were present, about half the fighting men of the ships, probably somewhere under 200 of them can be said to be crossbowmen for sure.

What happened at the battle isn't precisely known, but we do know that the English had time to dig pits and trenches in front of their line and disguise them. The French then either launched a cavalry charge at the English or sent their best infantry forward to fight with the English. The confusion comes from Henry Knighton's use of the word "galea" ("helmet") in discussing the first attack. While galea is most often used to refer to knights, as it is by Adam Murimuth, it is occasionally used to refer to well armoured foot soldier. In the absence of any other use of the term by Knighton, it's likely that this was his intended meaning.

What this means is that Charles of Blois had already begun to use the next adaptation of French tactics: the use of heavy infantry. While later it would be dismounted men-at-arms who made the attack, this seems to be one of the first experiments in the new tactic. In this case, the tactic didn't really work and the infantry were beaten off before they reached the defensive trench. The archers aren't mentioned in the battle at all, but they must have played a major role in this phase of the battle.

A cavalry charge was tried next, but the disguised pits and trenches broke it up and the French were hardly able to reach the English lines. Those who did were captured, while those who were driven off before coming into contact had to contend with the concealed traps as much as when they advanced. The result was a French defeat and heavy losses among both the infantry and cavalry, but it was nonetheless an innovation.

1346 sees two battles where the French, although unsuccessful in both, had changed their methods once again. The first, the battle of Restellou (once known as the battle of St-Pol-de-Leon), was a comparatively minor affair, although it was one of the most incredible English successes. 80 English men-at-arms, with 100-120 archers and 80 bidowers (probably Gascon javelin men) fought off a French force that included something between 1000 and 1500 men-at-arms, large numbers of crossbowmen and large numbers of other infantry.

The English took up a position on a hill between the two halves of the village of Restellou, likely forming the men-at-arms between the two sets of buildings with the archers among the buildings themselves. Behind them they formed a defensive barrier of carts and horses, perhaps with the bidowers as guard. Charles divided his force into two sections. The main force, consisting of 500 of his best men-at-arms, was sent up the hill in a frontal assault supported by the crossbowmen and some of the light infantry. The second force, 400 mounted men-at-arms and many of the light infantry, he sent around behind the English.

As Clifford J. Rogers notes, if the two forces had attacked simultaneously then the English would have been destroyed. However, in order to sneak up on the English, the second force would have needed to make a 13km trip and so only arrived after the initial attack had been made. Subsequently, the hill the English were on would have made it impossible for the two forces to co-ordinate an attack and the English must have beaten off one attack only to deal with another. By the end of the day every man of the English was wounded and most of their horses had been killed, but the French withdrew as night fell and the English, not having lost a single man, were able to march overnight to safety.

The frontal assault by the dismounted men-at-arms, supported by crossbowmen, presaged French tactics at Poitiers a decade later, while the mounted assault on the rear would become part of French doctrine in later decades.

The second battle was, of course, Crecy. Wherever the English made their stand - and this has come into question in the last few years - they also used wagons to form a defensive position at the rear of their army and may have even placed wagons in front of their archers. The French adapted their tactic at Courtrai and sent considerable numbers of crossbowmen out in front of their army. This was actually a substantial change. Whereas earlier armies might have had 1-2000 crossbowmen and other missile troops, it's plausible that the French deployed 4000 armoured crossbowmen, both Genoese and crossbowmen from the towns. Some sources suggest the presence of javelin men from southern France/Spain or other infantry behind the crossbowmen, and then a strong force of French cavalry behind all this.

It seems that the French plan was to copy the English to an extent, but to adapt it to their own circumstances. While archery was not unknown in France, and bows were more popular than crossbows in many areas, heavily armoured crossbowmen with pavises offered advantages of their own. Their shields could take the sting out of much of the English archery, while their heavy armour meant that they could stand up to an attack much better than the crossbowmen and light infantry at Courtrai. That, at least, was the theory.

However, at Crecy, Philip VI seems to have advanced with his vanguard very fast in order to try and bring the English to battle before they could link up with the Flemish forces to the North or otherwise escape. As a result, the crossbowmen were marching without their armour or pavises. When they engaged the English, who may well have been protected by the wagons, and with the ground turned to mud by the rain, the Genoese were unable to load quickly under fire and were soon put to flight. This, in turn, put any infantry behind them to flight and caused the French cavalry to launch an ill-advised charge.

This is where the disaster happened. The French cavalry and the fleeing crossbowmen and infantry came together in a mess that stopped the charge and allowed the English archers to inflict heavy wounds on the French horses who, maddened, went every which way. The English vanguard then advanced and carried out heavy slaughter among the French. Subsequent attacks were managed better, but ultimately the French were soundly defeated.

Although the French made some extremely bad mistakes at Crecy, most importantly not waiting until the next morning to attack, it's clear that they had a new plan to deal with the English. It was an evolution of older tactics and, properly carried out, it stood a good chance of succeeding. Unfortunately, the political and tactical situation (Philip had lost a lot of political capital in not fighting the English in 1339/40 and had every reason to think the English might flee during the night) resulted in a bad modification to the plan.

In between the Battle of Crecy and the Battle of Poitiers is the Battle of Mauron, fought 1352 in Brittany between Guy de Nesle on the French side and Walter Bentley on the English side. Bentley, on arriving in Brittany, had quickly destroyed two minor French forces besieging Monfortist castles but was intercepted by Guy de Nesle near the small village of Mauron. The English, according to the Chronique Normandie, had about 1500 archers and men-at-arms and the French 1400 “combatants”, although Jonathan Sumption has suggested the English only numbered about 750 men.

The English had not been able to find an ideal piece of ground, so they settled for forming up at the top of a long slope, with a hedge at their back and archers on either side of the men-at-arms. The French all dismounted, save for a hundred and forty men-at-arms under the lord of Hangest, as they had the year before during the Battle of Saintes (a very minor battle, with few details beyond the French dismounting) and advanced up the slope, which was covered in thick underbrush and tired the French men-at-arms.

While the precise details of the battle are lost to us, we know that the English were forced back against the hedge because the lord of Hangest succeeded in either partially or completely driving off the archers on his flank. For unknown reasons, two large bodies of French men-at-arms suddenly retreated and, as a result, the archers on the flank opposite the lord of Hangest were able to flank the rest of the men-at-arms. This turned the tide in the favour of the English, who managed to rally and defeat the remaining men-at-arms. Somewhat above 800 French men-at-arms were killed or captured but, although we don’t know how many English were killed other than the 30 archers executed for desertion, we do know that Bentley’s force was badly mauled and he himself suffered serious wounds.

Mauron makes clear that cavalry could absolutely charge archers and win through against them if they didn’t have any sort of natural or artificial barrier protecting them. It also demonstrates that the French had settled on dismounting to fight the English before Poitiers. Not only had they done so in the South of France a year earlier, but at Mauron they showed that, when a small force of cavalry was kept in reserve to chase off the archers, it could be used to inflict serious damage on the English. The battle might have been a defeat, but it was the closest the French had yet come to victory.

Only four years later, the French came even closer to winning at Poitiers, and this was again the result of them adapting to the changing face of warfare. The battle plan had been adjusted from Crecy slightly and more resembled Charles of Blois' plan at Restellou. The vanguard consisted of crossbowmen behind shieldbearers who, by number, equaled the English archers, supported by heavily armoured knights on the flanks to ride down the archers and by a further battle of dismounted men-at-arms behind.

The French had intended to fight the English that morning, but the Black Prince, who was in a bad position lacking food or adequate water, attempted a maneuver that would either allow him to either disengage or to fight the French as they moved to intercept him. This caused the two forces of French heavy cavalry to make a precipitous attack that might nonetheless have worked if the English had been less disciplined. The attack on the English right was caught in a lane between two rows of hedges and annihilated, while the attack on the English left was repulsed and the mounted men-at-arms retreated to the flank of their infantry and formed a barrier against the flanking archers with their armoured horses.

The English archers were eventually lead in a flanking movement to attack the rear of the armoured cavalry, where the horses were unprotected, which provoked the horses into flight, crashing through both the vanguard and the battle behind. A mounted attack on the flank of the crossbowmen and infantry then seems to have been made by the English left, in conjunction with the archers, putting it to flight.

A second, stronger, attack was then made by the second battle, led by the Dauphin. In spite of being outnumbered by the English overall (The French likely had only 8-10 000 men-at-arms and 3-4 000 infantry in three/four divisions, while the English were in a single formation of 6000 men), this was a hard fight that the English nearly lost. It was, however, beaten off and the English thought they won the day, as the third battle, under the Duke of Orleans, appeared to flee. This was likely the result of King Jean II's order that, considering the heavy fighting, his youngest sons should be removed from the battlefield being misinterpreted and large numbers leaving with them.

The third and final attack was launched by the king and was quite probably the largest attack of the day, with the king having gathered the remnants of all the previous attacks, including many crossbowmen and shieldbearers from the vanguard. The English archers, exhausted, wounded and running so short of arrows they had to retrieve them from dead or dying men, had little impact as the French formed up a shield wall and advanced to meet the English again. In desperation, the Black Prince sent the Captal de Buch with 60 men-at-arms and 100 archers in an encircling maneuver to attack the French from the rear and, to restore the confidence of his men as they saw what appeared to be the Captal fleeing, advanced to meet the French.

This desperate ploy of making an attack on the French rear was ultimately what saved the English from defeat. Although the attacking force was tiny in comparison to the French forces, it had the advantage of surprise and the brittle morale of the French. already they had been beaten twice, and many of the men who had been beaten were in their ranks. The result was that, attacked from the rear, they broke and fled, resulting in the capture of Jean II of France as he stood defiant and refused to flee.

Poitiers is a good example of how the French had adapted and learned from their experiences so far. This time, in spite of the English provocations, they didn't attack the night they arrived on the battlefield and waited for the next day. As had been the plan at Crecy, before circumstances had changed, they deployed shielded crossbowmen to counter the English archers that, had the English stayed within their initial lines, might have worked. Importantly, however, the French were now using very heavily armoured mounted men to try and charge through the English archers in order to allow the men on foot to reach the English men-at-arms and engage them. The dismounting of their men-at-arms was also, while not unique considering previous variations in Brittany, was the first time it had been done on such a wide scale.

For all they had done right, however, the French had made a mistake: they had split their battles up into forces which were each smaller than the English which meant that, although the French men-at-arms were well armoured and superb warriors, they were always fighting at a numerical disadvantage in spite of their larger army. While this did allow them to wear down the English, it's entirely possible that the Dauphin's battle might have prevailed over the English if it had had the men from the Duke of Orlean's battle to throw into the fight.

French Tactics From Poitiers to Nájera

After Poitiers, there are a couple of interesting smaller battles, almost skirmishes, that are of interest in addition to one large scale battle.

The first is the battle of Nogent-sur-Seine in 1359, between Sir Eustace d'Ambreticourt, a Hainaulter knight serving the English, and Sir Broquart de Fenestrages, a French knight fighting on behalf of the Duke of Normandy. d'Ambreticourt had 400 men-at-arms and 200 archers and had underestimated the size of the French force, which consisted of 1200 men-at-arms and 900 heavy infantry. He drew up on a small hill in the middle of a vineyard, with his archers in his front and had his men-at-arms dismount and shorten their lances to five feet.

The French formed up in three battles, all mounted, and charged. Two attempted to break through the English men-at-arms, first one and then, in support, the other, but these charges were stopped dead by the solid formation and lances of the English. The English archers, who seem to have retreated behind the men-at-arms and taken a position higher on the hill, started to shoot down into the melee but were then forced to beat off the third French battle. While this mounted force was unable to charge down the archers, who continuously re-positioned themselves to avoid being overrun, they did prevent the archers from supporting their men-at-arms. Then, when the French heavy infantry finally caught up with the cavalry, they went around the main fight and pushed up into the archers. Protected by pavises, the 900 foot soldiers were able to ignore the arrows of the English and rout the archers thoroughly, the third battle pursuing and slaughtering or capturing every archer and all the servants with the baggage.

While this was taking place, the first and second battles broke the line of English men-at-arms so badly that there was no chance of rallying. The French then captured or killed the English at their leisure, with only a few managing to escape to the town of Nogent, where the English had a garrison.

Nogent-sur-Seine is an interesting battle for a number of reasons. Firstly, it shows that the French desire for a cavalry charge was not a pointless adherence to an outdated method of war. Even against well positioned, disciplined and armoured enemy the cavalry charge could still defeat infantry when used correctly. Secondly, it shows the use of the flanking attack by cavalry which, as I’ve noted above, became an increasingly important part of French tactics. Thirdly, it highlights the limitations of archers. Philippe de Commynes famously said that archers are only effective when they number in the thousands, and Nogent-sur-Seine is a good small scale example of this. The English simply didn't have enough archers to attempt to flank the French cavalry or to effectively beat off the heavy infantry. Another 200-600 archers might have made all the difference in the battle.

The second battle of note is the Battle of Cocherel in 1364. Fought between the forces of Charles V of France and Charles II of Navarre, it was part of a dynastic dispute over the inheritance of the duchy of Burgundy. Jean de Greilly, also known as the captal de Buch and commanded the Naverrese forces, had 700 men-at-arms, 300 English archers and 500 good infantry of other sorts. Bertrand du Guesclin, who commanded the French army, had around 1500 men-at-arms. The two armies converged near the village of Cocherel in Normandy, with the French blocking the progress of the Navarrese/English and the Navarrese/English taking up defensive positions on a steep hillside.

There followed a stalemate as the French were unwilling to attack such a strong position and the Navarrese/English force was similarly hesitant to advance to the attack. A lack of supplies ultimately decided the manner, as at Poitiers, since the French force began to retreat. Seeing this, the English contingent of men-at-arms and archers immediately came down from the hill to attack the French and the captal was forced to follow. The French, who had prepared for the eventuality of this attack, quickly reordered themselves on foot and stood against their opponents.

As at Nogent-sur-Seine several years previously and at Auray later in the year, the English archery had little effect on the French men-at-arms as a result of their shields and armour. They fell back through the English men-at-arms, who had previously opened to let them through, and fought hand to hand with the French in support of the men-at-arms. The fighting then became a savage melee that the Navarrese/English force had begun to win.

The battle was turned by two measures. Firstly, the French had detailed thirty of the best knights mounted on the biggest and best armoured horses to push through the press and carry off the captal. Aided by some Gascons on foot, they managed to succeed in doing just this.

Secondly, du Guesclin had kept a body of 200 Gascons in reserve, something the captal had failed to do. In the wake of the captal's capture, this reserve flanked the Navarrese/English army and attacked the guard the captal had placed around his flag. Killing the guards, they tore down the captal's standard and precipitated rout by the enemy force who, seeing their standard overthrown, came to the conclusion that the day was lost.

The main lesson we can take from this battle was that the English were continuing to aggressively counter attack when the situation presented itself and that the archers were finding more and more use not just as archers, but also as skilled light infantry who could contribute to the intense hand to hand fighting of battle. Both of these factors would be key at Auray later in the year.

Auray, fought four months after Cocherel, was the final battle in the quarter century long War of Breton Succession between John de Montfort, whom the English supported, and Charles de Blois, who the French supported. Monfort and his English allies had 1600 men-at-arms and 800-900 archers, while Charles de Blois had somewhere between 3000 and 4000 men-at-arms.

Both sides dismounted drew up in a single line, divided into three main battles, with a rearguard. The English mixed their archers with the men-at-arms and, although the precise details of their deployment aren't mentioned, they were likely positioned in front of the men-at-arms in each battle. The French advanced to the attack, climbing a gentle slope to the English. The archers had little effect as at Cocherel, and it’s likely they then withdrew to the rear of their battle to support the men-at-arms by plugging any gaps and fighting around the edges of the battle to prevent any flanking.

Before the battle there were a number of defections on the French side, and these may have been the men of the rearguard, which did not play a role in the battle. In contrast, the English rearguard played a vital role, moving up to support John de Montfort's battle early in the battle when it looked like being overrun and collecting those who were "thrown into confusion" (possibly those trying to sneak away from the battle) and guiding them back to their proper positions. It also made a decisive final attack when Charles of Blois' standard began to waver. The end result was the routing and destruction of Charles of Blois' army, the death of the duke himself and the ending of the Breton War of Succession after almost a quarter of a century in the favour of the English preferred candidate, John de Montfort.

Auray serves to repeat the lessons of the previous battles. Men-at-arms, in plate armour and carrying shields, were for all intents and purposes invulnerable to English archery when there were only limited numbers of archers. An active reserve, as at Cocherel, proved to be an immense asset and significantly contributed to the victory, while the archers' role as good light infantry fighting hand-to-hand with the French helped the English to defeat the French. The increasing role of the English archer in this role would come to its highest level at Agincourt.

The final battle of this period, the largest of them all, was the Battle of Nájera in 1367. Part of the First Castillian Civil War, it was proxy war in a similar vein to the War of Breton Succession, fought between King Peter of Castile (the English preference) and his illegitimate half brother, Count Henry of Trastámara (the French favourite). Henry had managed, with the help of English mercenaries among others, to oust Peter and gain nominal control over the kingdom. Edward III sent his two sons, Edward the Black Prince and John of Gaunt, at the head of a small English army to aid Peter in regaining his throne. Some additional English garrisons from southern France and mercenaries who had been serving Peter and defected now, aided the ousted king, in addition to numbers of Gascon men-at-arms and other, non-English, mercenaries.

At first Henry attempted to avoid battle and wear the Anglo-Castilian force of his brother down by denying them access to reliable food. While this did have some success and the English were desperate for food by the time of the battle, Henry began to lose support as his brother began recapturing towns and the English laid waste to the countryside in their foraging. With one large garrison of 600 men defecting, and hearing of threats of defection from other sources, Henry had to force a battle.

After some initial skirmishing and success on Henry's side, the English managed to flank him by a night march around a high ridge and arrayed themselves for battle on a broad plain. The Castilians, who had been prepared for battle to come from another direction, were nonetheless able to rearrange their lines to fight the English and both sides advanced to the attack. This was an exceptional attack by the English, who almost always stayed in their defensive position for the first part of a battle, that is explained by two factors. Firstly, they were almost out of food and needed to win in order to put Peter back on the throne and gain access to more reliable supplies. Secondly, unlike almost every battle in the Hundred Years War, the English weren't outnumbered by their opponents.

Numbers for the English are hard to estimate but, based on the more reliable chroniclers and other English armies of the period, they probably had somewhere around 5000 men-at-arms and 5000 archers and other light troops. The Castilians had around 4500 men-at-arms and an unknown number of light cavalry and slingers, javelin men and crossbowmen. The fact that the English and Castilian forces had similar numbers of men-at-arms, however, likely gave the Black Prince enough confidence to attempt the dangerous advance.

The dismounted English men-at-arms advanced in a single line, divided into three battles with archers attached to each battle, although the manner in which they were deployed isn't clear from the sources, while the Castilian force had four battles: a dismounted vanguard made up of French mercenaries, two wings of mounted men-at-arms and a large main battle of men-at-arms behind the vanguard. In front of the vanguard were Genoese crossbowmen, and slingers, javelin men and light cavalry were in front of the wings.

Neither the English archers in front of the English center nor the Genoese in front of the French had much effect on either formation, but those on the wings managed to quickly route the Castilian light infantry and, after one attempt to charge, the heavy cavalry there as well. The French had had some success against the English men-at-arms, but with the routing of the Castilians on the wings the English were free to attack the flanks of the French, first by shooting into them and then by sending in the men-at-arms. In spite of an attempted charge by Henry, the usurper, most of the Castilian main battle fled as well and the Gascons were ultimately crushed.

Although it was tactically an English victory, in the long term Nájera was a disaster for the Black Prince, bankrupting him when Peter refused to pay what he owed and, since Henry escaped, the civil war continued and soon ended with Peter's death. Tactically, the main takeaways are that English archers were still ineffective against men-at-arms when facing them head on, although they were more effective when deployed against the flanks, and that the English use of defensive positions was mostly down to being outnumbered rather than an inherent part of their tactical system.

Select Bibliography

Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century, by Kelly DeVries

The Art of Warfare in Western Europe, by J.F. Verbruggen, tr. Sumner Willard

The Great Warbow, by Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy

War Cruel and Sharp, by Clifford J. Rogers

The Wars of Edward III, ed. Clifford J. Rogers

"Sir Thomas Dagworth in Brittany, 1346-7: Restellou and La Roche Derrien" by Clifford J. Rogers, Journal of Military History Volume 3

The Crecy War, by A.H. Burne

The Agincourt War, by A.H. Burne

The Hundred Years' War, Volumes 1-4, by Jonathan Sumption

The Battle of Crecy, 1346, ed. Andrew Ayton and Sir Philip Preston

The Battle of Crecy: A Casebook, ed. Michael Livingston and Kelly DeVries

In the Steps of the Black Prince, by Peter Hoskins

To Win and Lose a Medieval Battle: Nájera (April 3, 1367), A Pyrrhic Victory for the Black Prince, ed. Donald Kagay and L. J. Andrew Villalon

[ramialkarmi]

This 24-year-old used Snapchat to launch a startup so successful, he turned down jobs at Facebook and Uber — all while fighting cancer

24-year-old Khallil Mangalji is a happy guy. He just closed a $1.8 million round of venture funding for his two-year-old startup, Fiix, and got some good news about his health.

The cancer tumor he's been fighting for the past year while launching his startup is in retreat and the prognosis for a full recovery is good, he told Business Insider.

His young life is a reminder that good things often require hard choices, teamwork and, sometimes, fighting with everything you've got.

An annoyance leads to a startup

Mangalji is CTO and one of three cofounders of a Toronto startup called Fiix, which sends licensed mechanics out on house calls to do minor auto repairs like installing new brake pads and changing tires or oil.

Fiix was launched two years ago by Mangalji and his two college buddies Zain Manji and Arif Bhanji, who would hang out and dream up apps to generate some cash while they finished their computer science degrees. They had already tried a few things, none of them successful, like an "Airbnb for weddings" and "a magnetic weight lifting app," Mangalji tells us.

But on this particular day, one of them had to deal with getting snow tires put on his car. The local shops were all booked up, so he was forced to hire someone off of Kijiji, Canada's version of Craigslist, who was coming to his house to do the work.

When the mechanic was done they looked at each other and said, "That was much easier than going to a shop. What if we could build an app to do that for everyone?" Mangalji recalled. 

And so their startup was born, initially called Tire Swap. The guys rounded up some licensed mechanics, built an app to send them to people's houses to change tires, and were shocked that in the first week "80 people paid us to use the service," he said. By the end of the month, it had serviced "hundreds" of customers, he said.

Soon customers started asking if the mechanics could do more stuff, so Tire Swap became Fiix. Today, Fiix has completed 4,000 repairs for people, is on track to do $1.2 million worth of repairs this year, and keeps three mechanics so busy they left their shops to work for Fiix customers full-time, he said. All told there's 15 mechanics registered on the system, he said.

Fiix is only in Toronto, but with that nearly $2 million in seed money led by Javelin Venture Partners (backers of Thumbtack and a bunch of other auto-tech startups), the founders hope to start expanding to other areas.

Snapchat leads to $20,000 and Y Combinator

Fiix bolted onto the startup scene in a highly unusual way. 

Mangalji was initially going the traditional route with his career. In college he landed prestigious internships at Pivotal Labs, Apple, BitPesa (a bitcoin/blockchain startup in Africa), and Facebook. When he graduated he landed job offers from Facebook, Uber, Medium, and others, he said.

Mangalji is convinced he landed so many offers because he could show them Fiix. They were interested in how it was built and were especially impressed it was earning revenue.

While a friend of his advised him to blow off a job and work on Fiix full time, he ignored that advice and accepted an offer from Uber.

But right before he was going to start the job in May, 2016, Justin Kan announced he was accepting pitches for a Y Combinator Fellowship via Snapchat. Kan is best known as the co-founder of live video platforms Justin.tv and Twitch.tv. Scrappy startups were sending Kan Snap video pitches laden with bad attempts at humor. Just for kicks, Mangalji, Manji and Bhanji made their own.

They were shocked when Kan's followers, who were voting on the pitches, chose Fiix among the best of the bunch. This won them an interview for a YC fellowship spot, which they aced. They were told to be in California the next day. They literally booked their airline tickets from Canada to San Francisco on the cab ride to the airport.

And Mangalji made the hard choice to call up Uber and turn down the sure-fire job. He was going to focus on Fiix instead.

They ended this first YCcombinator experience with $20,000 and a bunch of Amazon Web Services credits.

But the real break happened without them knowing. In early June, a top "Product Hunter" saw their YC pitch and posted their app to Product Hunt. Fiix became the second product of the day on June 6, 2016. Visits to their site shot up 6,000%, and more customers started rolling in.

A cancer diagnosis

Things were going well for the Fiix team when Mangalji received the devastating news that he had cancer.

His first response was cheerful determination.

"I went in with the attitude, I'm going to be able to do this. As a cofounder, you have to have mental toughness. I thought, if you have a problem, as long as you mentally feel you can overcome it and never let that change, you will," he told Business Insider.

But he hadn't counted on being cut down at the knees by the cancer treatments themselves. They drained him.

"Everything gets deteriorated. You start to lose more than energy and strength. The hardest thing to lose is the mental freedom. My thoughts started to loop more," he said. 

The treatments were in three-week cycles — from easy weeks to hard weeks — over three months. On those hard weeks, he couldn't eat or hardly get out of bed, much less focus on work. So his cofounders carried him on their shoulders, put in the extra hours when needed, and just did his work for him, he says.

More Y Combinator, more bad news

The treatments ended and Fiix got accepted into the full Y Combinator program. The three of them moved to California. Mangalji describes that time like the HBO show "Silicon Valley" as in, "a bunch of sweaty dues living together in a house drinking a bunch of Soylent and trying to build a billion-dollar company."

Then, his cancer came back.

As a Canadian, his treatments were covered by the national health system (even the care he needed in California). But when the cancer returned, he had to go home for another three months of chemo.

He posted a heartbreaking YouTube video on that day, saying "I'm not really that worried about it. It's just like another thing to get through," although he was clearly discouraged.

Flash forward to today, and the cancer is in retreat and Fiix is still growing — the cofounders have hired three more people.

Obviously, for Fiix to become a billion-dollar startup, it will need to grow from one city to a national or international market. That's no small task and few startups have done so successfully.

But for Mangalji, just being able to try is a joy.

"I appreciate our opportunity to do something that matters. Most people don't have that opportunity to do things that matter. They have to worry about getting food every day or getting shelter," he says.

"There were times when I couldn’t eat enough or couldn't stand and I didn’t have the freedom to work on Fiix. But in times like now, when we can work on Fiix, it's a luxury."

Here's the video.

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