Distorted Realities Ch 1: Awakening

I DO NOT OWN ANY CHARACTER FROM FIRE EMBLEM. THEY BELONG TO NINTENDO/INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS.

Distorted Realities

Chapter 1- Awakening

"I'm tiiiiired! Let's take a break…"

A loud moan broke the silence of the open countryside as four figures made their way down the dirt path that traveled through it. The smallest of the group and the one who let out the moan was a young girl who had long golden hair tied into two feathery pigtails and wore a bright yellow dress with a hooped skirt. She looked exhausted as she was practically dragging her feet as she walked along in a slumped over position, a few beads of sweat on her brow from the exercise she clearly wasn't used to getting. She stopped and turned to look pathetically at one of her companions, a tall young man with dark blue hair who wore a white and navy outfit with a tattered white cape.

"I guess we have no choice…" sighed the man as his eyes scanned the horizon ahead of him. Turning to the girl with a smile, he pointed over his shoulder towards a cluster of buildings in the distance. "The village is over there. We're almost there. Then we'll take a break."

"What? Really!? GREAT!" the girl squealed in delight, her elation washing away her fatigue as she bounced around in excitement. "Working hard is important, but breaks are important too! Hurry up! Oh, let's get something to eat, too!"

"Wait Lissa! Slow down, you're going to get hurt…" called the man in blue as Lissa began to run and jump through the tall grass on the roadside in order to cut a path directly to the village.

The third and forth figures –a brown haired man in sky blue plate armor and his horse which was wearing similar armor- watched the newly animated girl's antics, a smile growing on the man's face as he watched the two. His smile quickly turned into a frown when Lissa let out a scream as she fell backwards, disappearing into the tall grass.

"Are you all right?" "Lady Lissa!" Both men rushed to her side to see what happened and found her sitting on the ground rubbing her backside.

"Owwwwww! What was that? Ugh…" she groaned in pain, looking around to see what she had tripped over. Her eyes quickly fell upon a prone figure lying before her, the green color of their robes almost blending in with the grass around them. Aside from the robes, which were trimmed in gold and were a deep crimson on the inside, the female figure wore a striped grey shirt, grey pants with a purple and black gold-trimmed belt, and tall brown leather boots with gold laces. She had dark skin and black hair framing her face, wore a pair of glasses and seemed to have a strange mark on the back of her right hand. What shocked Lissa the most was what seemed to be a green tail with red stripes and tip stretching out behind the girl, as well as what appeared to be red and green ears on her head and small red wings sprouting from her back.

"… Um… what?" Lissa looked dumbfounded at the strange figure before her, her mind slowly trying to make heads or tails out of what she was seeing. Her mind snapped back to attention once she realized that the figure was a person –albeit a very strange looking one- and let out an alarmed shriek. "EEK! C-chrom! S-s-someone's collapsed here!"

The blue haired man followed her gaze down to the figure and he nearly jumped with a start as he looked down at the strange figure she had tripped over. The armored man gripped at the silver tipped spear he carried with him as he took a step back.

"By the Gods…!"

...

Pain.

That was the first thing Jazzmine noticed as she started to wake from a dreary slumber. Her foggy mind seemed heavy as a painful migraine seemed to split her head open, feeling akin to a hot knife that someone stabbed through right eye and out the back of her skull. She was used to getting headaches like this due to staying up late, but this one seemed to burn so painfully in her mind that it took her a moment to realize she could hear the sounds of people talking around her.

"..rom. ..e have … .. ..mething…"

"We.. ..at do … ..opose we do?"

"I-I don't know…"

Did I leave the TV on again? She thought drearily to herself as her hand instinctively went to rub her temple and she slowly began to open her eyes. The bright stinging light made her squint in confusion as she was sure she had turned off her light before going to bed. As her vision slowly came into focus two figures seemed to kneel down to look at her as she stirred.

"I can see you're awake now" said a vaguely familiar blue haired man as he smiled down at her. Shocked, Jazzmine's mind snapped awake and instantly entered into a panicked state at the realization that there was a strange man standing above her. As he leaned down further and stretched his hand out to her, she felt her body tense up before it instinctively sprang into action. "There are better places to take a nap th-"

WHACK.

The sound of her fist slamming into the man's face rang out with a loud crack, causing the second figure to jump back in surprise as the man recoiled in pain away from his attacker. Jazz scooted back as far as she could manage on her back before stumbling a bit, eyes wild as she prepared to either fight or run away as quickly as possible.

"Who the HELL are you!?" She screamed, looking around frantically as she tried to figure out how someone had managed to get into her bedroom. However a quick glance around her revealed that she wasn't inside her home at all but instead in the middle of an open field. The only people around were the two people ahead of her and a flash of silver revealed a third man in heavy blue armor moving quickly to stand between her and the first two with a spear in hand. "Where the hell am I? What's going on here?!"

The man in blue armor took a threatening step towards her, causing Jazzmine to back further away as he pointed his spear at her with murderous intent in his eyes. The look made her want to get up and run away as fast as possible but thankfully before either of them could move the girl with blonde pigtails ran up to him and pushed his spear down.

"Whoa-wait Frederick!" called the blonde girl frantically, looking worriedly between the two of them. From the look on her face it was clear she could see the fear and panic growing in Jazzmine from the situation, and she quickly tried to de-escalate the situation. "I think we just surprised her!"

"She punched Lord Chrom in the face Milady!" Frederick growled, making a jabbing motion towards her with his lance, earning a squeak from Jazz. "The beast is crazed Lissa!"

"I'd punch Chrom in the face too if he were the first thing I saw when I woke up," she countered, tugging back on the spear in vain. "And don't call people names!"

As the two argued back and forth Jazzmine began to take note of their names and strange appearances. The girl named Lissa wore a dress that was nearly identical to the dress of one of the characters from her video games –Fire Emblem: Awakening- and her hair and voice were even similar. The Frederick guy also wore near identical armor as the person of the same name from the same game, and looking over at the third guy she punched who was just now sitting back up, she noticed that he looked like the Chrom from the same story as well. The only difference she could tell was that they were obviously flesh and blood moving, breathing people, not anime looking video game characters.

Cosplayers… She thought, it being the only rational answer. However, the 'fake' spear that the 'Frederick' was pointing at her certainly looked like it was made with actual metal, and prop weapon or not it certainly didn't look like something she wanted to get stabbed with. Maybe I should try to apologize? I rather not be killed by a guy playing dress up first thing in the morning for punching his friend…

"Enough!"

At once everyone's attention was drawn to the Chrom look-a-like as he rose to his feet rubbing his bruised cheek, 'Lissa' and 'Frederick' halting in their tug-of-war game at the sound of his voice. Despite the other man's protest 'Chrom' walked back over to Jazzmine and smiled apologetically as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Listen Miss, I'm sorry if I startled you, but we mean you no harm," he said, giving a sideways glance at Frederick to put his lance away. He could see how scared and confused Jazz was at being woken up in a strange place and having a weapon pointed at her, so he smiled comfortingly as he stretched his hand out for her again. "Can I help you up?"

"S-sorry… I.." she stuttered, nervously glancing between Chrom and Frederick, not sure if she should take his hand. The death glare she received from the fake knight told her she'd be safer not touching Chrom, so she quickly scrambled to her feet without his aid. "I-I'm fine thanks. Sorry about the whole… face… punch…thing…"

"Its quite all right, though you do have one mean punch..." he said as he dropped his hand ignoring her rudeness given the situation. "I thought you might have needed some help since we found you laying unconscious out in the middle of this field."

"You're lucky it was us who found you, since brigands would have been a rude awakening. Well, ruder anyway." Lissa giggled softly as she walked closer to get a better look at Jazz. "My brother was being too nice for his own good it seems. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine but... where exactly am I? How did I even get out here?" Jazz asked as she began to look around. She was indeed in the middle of an open field, a far cry from the suburban neighborhood where she lived. She couldn't spot any of the tall buildings of the city nearby and she couldn't even hear the sounds of cars on a nearby highway. How did I end up in the countryside? Was I kidnapped and dumped somewhere?

"How far outside of Richmond are we?" Jazz asked. The three cosplayers looked at her with a confused expressions and her heart began to quicken in fear again. "You know: Richmond, Kentucky. We are still in Kentucky aren't we?"

"I'm sorry, but I've never even heard of a country called Kentucky." Chrom said, earning a confused look from Jazz at the way he phrased that. She'd never heard someone refer to Kentucky as a country before(it was a State obviously), which gave her the chilling thought that she might even be outside the U.S.A. "We're in the Halidom of Ylisse, just outside of Southtown."

"Ylisse?" she repeated, instantly recognizing the name as the name of the fictional country of the game that they were cosplaying from. She felt a tinge of annoyance as her anger flared. "Uh, Ylisse doesn't exist, its from a game. I'm serious guys, where the hell am I?!"

"Ma'am, I can assure you that you are indeed in Ylisse and that it does exist," Chrom stated, looking at her warily as if she were mad. However his insistence only seemed to make the girl angrier. "And I'm not sure what you mean by 'game'..."

"Clearly you do, since you're dressed up as Prince Chrom, Princess Lissa, and their knight Frederick," she shot back, getting bolder and angrier by the second. "I don't need a bunch of LARPers playing make believe, I need to get HOME!"

The three of them recoiled in shock at her words and looked at each other with grim expressions on their faces. Finally, the Frederick of the group stepped forward to stand between her and the others as he looked at her with a deadly expression.

"First you attack the Prince and then accuse him of being an imposter? Some 'Larper'?" he asked threateningly, taking an intimidating step towards her as he lowered his spear again. Jazzmine didn't move however and defiantly stood her ground as she stared the knight down. "Who do you think you are to speak to milord Chrom in such a way?"

"If he's Chrom, then I'm Robin-" Jazz began as she started to wave her right hand mockingly, only stop in shock when she noticed a strange purple mark on the back of it. The mark that the Avatar character Robin had in the games. The Mark of Grima. Surprised, Jazzmine quickly looked over herself, thanking God that she wasn't dressed as Robin as well but just as shocked to find that she was wearing strange green robes with gold trim. Looking them over she realized she was dressed like her Mii Brawler from Super Smash Bros and turned her neck to see if she she had the Mii's wings as well. They were there and colored red but something else even more disturbing caught her attention.

She had a tail. A bright green, red tipped tail.

"What the fuck!" She yelled, stumbling backwards only to fall on her ass in disbelief at the sight. As she landed on it she felt a sharp pain coming from her tail and watched as it twitched involuntarily, which quickly threw her mind into hysterics. "WhatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuckWHATTHEFUCK!"

The three Ylisseans were even more shocked and confused then before at the girl's sudden outburst after looking herself over and it was clear from her growing hysterics that she did NOT know what was going on. Cautiously the three stepped forward to try to calm her down but when she saw them she scrambled back with a petrified look in her eyes.

"STAY BACK!" Jazz screamed, trying to get up so she could run away. "This can't be real! YOU can't be real!"

'Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down!" Chrom called, concern etching his face.

"YOU calm down! I have a TAIL!" She screamed.

"And wings and long green ears." Frederick stated simply, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You did not know this?"

"Ears?" Jazz squeaked, hands flying up to grip two long, furry, sensitive... things... where her ears should have been. This seemed to be the final straw as her face drained of color as she fell to her knees and curled up into a ball, whimpering incoherently.

This cannot be happening... this cannot be happening!

"Frederick!" Lissa gave Frederick a sharp slap to his side as she chastised him. It was clear she didn't know and the knight felt a slight tinge of guilt seeing her reaction. Lissa slowly crept up to the fallen girl but she didn't get a reaction as Jazz had her eyes tightly shut. "U-um hey... Are you alright?"

Jazz only shook her head in response, clinging to her ears tightly as if she were trying to pull them off, tears beginning to form at the corners of her eyes. Worried, Lissa knelt down beside her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. The girl flinched under her touch but made no attempt to move, only squeezed her eyes tighter.

"Listen, my names Lissa. But I guess you already know who I am huh?" she asked soothingly, getting another small nod. "I guess you know Chrom and Frederick as well too. I don't know what's going on, but we're Shepherds, so we can help you if you're lost… Your name's Robin right?" She asked, remembering her say the name earlier.

"N-no…" Jazz breathed out softly, shaking her head a little. "My name's Jazzmine. Jazzmine Mathis…"

"Ok Jazzmine. Everything's going to be alright. Ok?" Jazz slowly opened her eyes to look at her and Lissa gave her the most reassuring smile she could manage. Slowly she began to sit herself up and seemed to look hard at Lissa before turning her gaze to Chrom and Frederick, still looking a bit shaken up.

"Are you really Princess Lissa?" she asked in a flat tone.

"Yep. Though you don't have to call me 'Princess'." Lissa said with a smile.

"And you're really Prince Chrom of Ylisse?" Jazz asked, looking directly at the blue haired man.

"Yep. I am Chrom and this is Ylisse." The lord said with a slight bow.

"Frederick the Wary I presume?" she asked the armored knight, narrowing her eyes slightly. This earned her a small giggle from Lissa and a chuckle from Chrom, but the Knight only frowned.

"Hmph. I title I wear with pride." He said stiffly. "You seem to know much about us if you know even that nickname."

"Enough to know that this has to be some sort of bad dream," Jazz said, rubbing her temples. Everything about this situation was giving her a headache again, but the splitting pain told her that this was either the most real dream she'd ever had or it was cold hard reality. "Please don't tell me that I got sucked into some fantasy world and that I'm still at home in my own bed. This has to be a dream right?"

"I can assure you it isn't. This is no dream or fantasy or anything of the sort." Frederick said simply, causing her face to fall again.

"Listen, it's obvious that you're lost and very confused right now, so why don't you come with us?" Chrom said, hoping to keep her from her hysterics again. He reached out his hand again in an offer to help her back up. "Why don't we go to town and see if we can sort things out there. Maybe someone there knows something about where you came from and where this Kentucky place is."

If I'm where you say, then that's highly unlikely… Jazz thought skeptically to herself as she reached up to take his hand. As he pulled her up the purple brand on the back of her hand caught her eye again. Please God tell me I'm not Robin of all people. This is the worst day ever…

"Milord, are you sure that's wi-" Frederick began to protest again, but a sharp look from Lissa cut him off. It was more than clear that Jazz was a person who really did need their help, no matter how strange she was or how uncomfortable he felt about her. "Just exercising caution Milady. Someone has to…"

"Duly noted Frederick. But aside from that left hook, I doubt she means us any harm." Chrom said simply, causing an embarrassed flush to spread over Jazz's face. "And don't worry about that. It was mostly my fault."

"Sorry…" She apologized again anyway, rubbing the back of her head as she looked away. Fredrick will never let me live that down I'm sure…

"It's fine." Chrom gave a reassuring smile as he turned to start leading the way again. "Now come on. We're nearly there."

"Don't worry Jazzmine. We'll get to the bottom of this." Lissa said brightly as she grabbed her hand to pull her along. Jazz merely smiled and let the girl lead the way as she'd rather walk with Lissa than with Frederick, who took up the rear and kept a close eye on her. She knew Frederick wasn't the trusting type and as she looked back at him she noticed the firm grip he still had on his spear. Her thoughts were cut short when she suddenly walked into Lissa, who had stopped dead in her tracks as she looked ahead of them with an expression of fear on her face.

"Chrom, look! The town!" She screamed, pointing straight ahead.

Following her gaze Jazz looked up to see dark clouds of smoke rising into the air coming from some buildings that lay just beyond a hill, which had blocked their view of the town before. The sounds of screaming could just barely be heard.

"Damn it! The town is ablaze! Those blasted brigands no doubt…"Chrom swore, horror and fury etching his face. "Frederick, Lissa! Quickly!"

"What about her?" Frederick asked pointing at Jazzmine.

"Unless she's on fire as well, it can wait!" Chrom yelled as he took off running.

"Aptly put, Milord."

"Let's go already!" Lissa cried as Frederick quickly got saddled up on his horse and pulled her on as well, taking off as soon as she was secure.

Jazz was suddenly left alone as she watched them race off towards the town. She knew very well what was about to go down and she hesitated for a moment at the thought of running into a burning town full of bandits. She wasn't a hero! But as the sounds of more screaming reached her ears she felt her legs move instinctively and before she knew it she was running full speed towards the sounds of chaos.

Aaaand after a few weeks it's finally done. The official first chapter of my little self-insert. My computer wanted to break down too as I was writing this, and I had to rewrite some of it over. If it hadn't, I would have had this posted yesterday.

So yeah I guess this is a decent length chapter for me to start off with. I originally want to make it even longer and end it after the battle with them camping in the woods, but I felt a real person like me being dropped in the Shepherds lap required more of an explanation then Robin. This me isn't some amnesiac without much to talk about, so I can't hand wave over the campfire conversations as quickly as the game does. I have to take that chance to blow some minds and drop some unbelievable truths on them, and that's worthy of a whole chapter in itself, hence the split. But don't worry, that means the next chapter will come out quickly. Maybe.

And yes, I punched Chrom in the face. It was a knee-jerk reaction that most people would have to being woken up by a stranger, but there's another funnier reason. I almost didn't do it a first, but then my favorite video game quote From WoW Cataclysm popped into my head. When a drunken dwarf sees Deathwing for the first time he says "I'm gonna punch that Dragon in the face!" and he does. Chrom has the blood of the Divine Dragon Naga in him, ergo he's a dragon. Ergo, I had to punch him in the face.

Logic

*Edited. Let me know if you spot any mistakes I missed.

Fanfiction.net link: www.fanfiction.net/~sneaselgir…