Altered Emblem Ch. 18

Byleth thought that Sylvain would be angry. She thought that witnessing his own brother’s death in such a brutal fashion would affect just about anyone. She herself didn’t know how she would react had someone did the same to Jeralt. For all that her face could be expressionless, Jeralt was still her father, and she’d be damned if she let anyone kill him on her watch.

But Sylvain? Bar an open mouthed expression, there were no exclamations, no despair. Rather, he stared at the scene with a strange, hollow detachment. His lips parted, but no words came forth, just a sharp exhale, like he'd forgotten to breathe.

Then, after a beat, he exhaled again, slower this time. A deliberate thing. Measured.

Byleth watched his hands, expecting them to tremble, expecting some sign of grief, of rage. But his fingers, which had been curled into loose fists at his sides, simply relaxed. A flicker of something unreadable passed over his face, then smoothed away, leaving behind a smile so casual it might have been mistaken for indifference.

"Well," He said, his voice light. Too light. "Guess that settles that."

The words rang false to her ears.

Miklan's corpse lay still on the ground, the Lance of Ruin lay in his unmoving hands. Blood splattered all over the floor, as the sound of panicked cries echoed out. The rest of the men with the elder Gautier had flown into a panic at their leader’s death. While they panicked, the rest of Byleth’s students cleaned up, even as they were themselves shocked at the instant death of Miklan.

The Archer was standing next to the body, an eyebrow raised as he stared, “All that talking and he just drops dead after one shot.” A kick to the side, and from the corner of her eye, she could see Sylvain startle, “Disappointing.”

Sylvain let out a quiet breath, one that could have been mistaken for a chuckle if not for the way his shoulders tensed. Byleth caught it, that fleeting moment of stiffness before he rolled them back, exhaling as if shaking off a weight that refused to leave.

"Yeah," He said, his tone easy, practiced. "Guess that’s how it goes when you’re not as strong as you think you are."

Byleth cast a look at Sylvain. Just earlier, he was all about trying to talk his brother down. How he was still his brother. And now?

A bitter laugh as the Professor continued to stare, "You're wondering why I'm not that fussed about this, aren't you?"

Byleth took a moment to direct her students into a controlled formation, tightening the noose around the remaining enemies. She didn't bother ordering Sylvain.

Almost uncaring of the chaos around him, the normally upbeat student chuckled humorlessly, "You know Professor, Miklan was a right bastard. Made my life hell, even before discovering that I had the family Crest."

A body fell in the background, cut down by the duo of Dedue and Dimitri.

"Did I tell you how he shoved me into a well just to try and kill me? I barely survived back then."

Ingrid was shoved behind Felix as a mercenary took a cheap shot. The mercenary couldn't react in time to block her student's sword through the neck.

"But he was still my brother, you know? I get why he did it; if I were in his position, then I may have turned out the same. I never held a grudge against him, even through all of that. I...pitied him."

The Archer looked up from his position, golden eyes narrowing at something Byleth couldn't see, "A foolish notion." He said, but even then, there was a hint of distraction in his voice.

 "Maybe."

There was a stench that filled the room. Byleth's nose wrinkled at the scent. She could hear Sothis gag inside her head, having somehow smelled the same thing as she did.

Sylvain didn't seem to notice, "If anything, the only person I can say I hated is my own damn father. He saw everything that happened and just stood to the side. It shouldn't even be our job to deal with Miklan. Only, my father's demand was for me to deal with my own brother."

The scraping of flesh against stone. Byleth raised the Sword of the Creator towards the sound, only to see nothing but the still still form of Miklan. Oddly enough, the Archer had his weapons pointed right at the corpse, glaring all the while.

"Imagine that? What kind of father wants his sons to go kill each other?"

It happened then. 

The air turned rancid, the scent of rot curling in Byleth’s lungs like something alive, something clawing, something wrong. A scent that did not belong to mere death but to something that refused to die. The blood pooling beneath Miklan’s body churned, darkening, thickening, until it writhed with grotesque purpose.

Then, the first scream tore through the silence.

It was his voice - Miklan’s - but it shouldn’t have been. It was a sound scraped raw, twisted by agony, warped into something neither human nor beast. A ragged, howling thing that clawed at the ears and curdled the blood.

Sylvain had frozen, breath caught in his throat, but now he stumbled back, eyes wide. An aborted attempt to reach out to his brother, stopped by Byleth's own arm.

From the Lance of Ruin, black mud spilled forth.

The sludge slithered like a living thing, crawling up Miklan’s cooling flesh, sinking into the wound on his head. Mud filled the gap. Limbs spasmed. Bones cracked.

The mud did not stop.

It lurched outward, flinging itself in splattering tendrils across the chamber, each arc moving with grotesque purpose. Where it landed, the very stone sizzled, eaten away as though the room itself rejected its presence.

Byleth’s knees threatened to buckle as the wrongness of it all crashed over her in waves, a pressure so immense it rattled in her skull.

Then Miklan's body moved.

Not in the way that one would walk. No, his very flesh rippled under his skin, tendrils of the mud pushing itself underneath.

"Fuck this, I'm out of here!" The mercenaries that had been in the process of being detained by her students screamed. Her own students stood in horror at the scene. None of them moved to stop the mercenaries.

They didn't have to.

Flesh writhed. The black mud ripped out of Miklan's skin. A claw, larger than Byleth was tall. It stretched, reaching the fleeing men and women. Grabbed one, lifting it up as more mud formed into a beast far larger than any that Byleth had ever seen.

The mercenary barely had time to scream before the claw clenched shut.

A sickening crunch. Bone and armor alike crumpled as the body folded in on itself, limbs flailing before going eerily limp. Then, as if to drive home the horror, the beast’s grip slackened just enough for what was left of the man to slide free. His broken corpse tumbled to the stone floor, a grotesque heap of twisted limbs and shattered steel, his face locked in an expression of sheer terror.

Jagged teeth met it.

A nightmare given form. A thing neither man nor beast, but something other, something wrong.

The black mud that had once slithered like liquid now hardened into a monstrous hide, its texture somewhere between chitin and petrified sinew, shifting and pulsating.

Its arms were too long, ending in talons that curved like obsidian scythes, thick and jagged, each one large enough to cleave a knight in two. Its legs were bent at unnatural angles, shifting between bestial and skeletal.

Its head - if it could even be called that - was a mess of appendages. No eyes to speak off, only a maw lined with rows of canines. Blood coated it as it chewed its victim with unrelenting vigor.

It finished soon enough. Then, it turned its head towards them, and roared.

Whatever this thing was, this was not something that should exist.

Thunder cracked as the Archer fired - or had he already been firing this entire time? Byleth couldn’t tell. Just looking at the thing was making her faint. The sickly smell of the mud filled the entire chamber now, and it was only growing stronger.

“LOOK OUT!”

It was Sothis’ voice that snapped her out of it. The demonic beast - because what else could it be - lunged at her, completely ignoring the Archer pelting it with shot after shot. It moved too fast for something of that size. She was already moving, but it was far too late.

Suddenly, a kick to her side. Byleth felt the wind leave her lungs as the Archer launched her away. She crashed right into Mercedes, the girl being caught off guard herself. 

“Professor!” Dimitri had rushed towards her, alongside the rest of the Blue Lions, “What…What is that thing?!”

“Stay back!” Byleth barked, her voice cutting through the chaos. Her students hesitated, their faces pale but determined. Dimitri gripped his lance tightly, his jaw set, while Felix and Ingrid flanked him, weapons at the ready. Dedue stood like a wall, shielding the others, his expression grim. Even Sylvain, who had been so eerily calm moments ago, now looked shaken, his hands trembling as he clutched his lance.

The Archer, for his part, did not fight like an archer.

His weapons were now one, formed into some sort of curved twin blade. The man was practically dancing around the monster before them, slicing and cutting into it. The monster’s roars were contrasted by the silent efficiency of the Archer.

Yet, it did not matter.

The beast’s skin steamed up as every wound the Archer dealt would heal near instantly. Slashes bigger than Byleth could hope to achieve were regenerated in seconds. 

‘Sothis, do you know what this is?’ She didn’t make it a habit to talk to the goddess in her head in the middle of a battle, but this was an exception. Byleth had no idea what the hell this thing was, and she’d be damned if she ran in blindly.

“I-I don’t know!” Sothis sounded panicked, “This looks like a demonic beast, but it’s some type I’ve never seen before!”

“It’s a Soul Eater.” The Archer replied to them, much to their surprise. His tone made it clear that he would not tolerate any distractions, and that they should listen, “Or some type of Soul Eater mixed in with whatever cocktail of mud was in that damned Lance.”

‘You know how to kill it then?’ From her perspective, it looked like the duel between beast and man was similarly matched by the other. Neither side looked to be giving ground, despite the massive difference in size. She had known that the Archer was far stronger than his chosen name would imply, but to see him deflect a blow that would have flattened anyone else was staggering.

“I know a few ways. But…” At that, the dark skinned man sounded almost reluctant. Not in the worried reluctant either. No, he started to sound like he just plain didn’t enjoy the words that he sent over to Byleth, “...I’ll need your help.” Byleth never thought she’d hear the equivalent of pulling an arrow through your shoulder inside your head, but somehow, the Archer sounded like he’d rather do that than tell her he needed help.

‘What do you need?’ But that didn’t mean she’d hold it over his head. Not right now. Not when her students were in danger from an opponent that was way out of their league.

“I need you to distract it.” The Archer said, his voice clipped, efficient. “I need time to prepare. A couple of minutes at most.”

Byleth didn’t waste breath questioning him. The Archer did not ask for help lightly. If he needed time, then whatever he was about to do would be decisive.

“All of you, stay with Gilbert. Do not engage unless absolutely necessary.” She ordered, "Gilbert, if anything happens, I leave you in charge. Get them to safety if you need to."

“But Professor-” Dimitri started, his face a mask of worry.

“No arguments.” She cut him off with a glance, “This isn’t something you can fight.”

Felix looked like he wanted to protest, but Ingrid’s hand on his arm kept him still. Dedue said nothing, only nodding in acknowledgment. The others followed suit, albeit reluctantly. Even more so in the case of Gilbert, likely the man was warring with the idea of just leaving it all to Byleth. He was a good man like that, but both of them knew that someone needed to be in charge if the worst came to pass.

Had things been different, maybe he would have been the one charging into the fray as Byleth was. But the Professor had one major difference between the two of them.

She had the Sword of the Creator.

The Sword whipped through the air, just as the Archer deflected another blow. The limb that had been meant for him hit nothing, leaving an opening that Byleth ruthlessly exploited. The Sword carved nothing but a slight cut, despite her throwing her entire weight at the damn thing.

That was enough for it to focus on her instead of the Archer, however.

And when the first, true blow hit her back several paces, she knew that the Archer was even stronger than he let on.

She could only hope that he came through before this thing ground her into just another blood splatter.

…

Commissioned by: FireRogueWolf25