Robin vs Corrin (PROLOGUE)

A blazing battlefield, with soldiers charging and retreating. Fallen soldiers, unconcious or worse, clutter the fields.

A blue-haired warrior finds himself swinging his blade to everyone that approaches him, tearing apart soldier after soldier with his disciplined warrior’s strength.

He is overwhelmed, but he marches on.

In the distance, he sees a woman with long white hair approach him, and he squares himself for battle, until he is asked to—

“STOP!”

His grip is still on his weapon, but he ends his charge.

The woman reveals herself as she steps out of the fog of war.

“My name is Corrin, and I am in charge of the opposing army. We’ve both lost heavy forces in this fight for territorial control. That being said…I have a proposition for how we can settle this without making this a hollow victory for either of us.”

——-

“And that’s the story?” a feminine voice asked.

"Yes. I know it sounds farfetched...but it's the truth."

She nodded sagely. "Right. And I might as well start warming up..."

She fired her fist into the prince's shoulder, causing him to yelp in pain. "I-I knew you weren't going to react well to this, but I can assure you that it was the best option--"

"Throwing me into a fighting style I know almost nothing of against an opponent I don't know? It's genius, Chrom. Gods, why even let me work in this army when you're obviously the superior tactician?"

Chrom sighed. "We've prevented a lot of losses doing this, Robin, I promise. You have a few days to train...and your opponent as well, who as far as I'm aware might have no idea about this sport, either."

-----

"What do you MEAN you don't know how to box?!" Takumi asked frantically.

“W-well, that’s not entirely true…I actually do know hand-to-hand, but in hindsight, waging an entire battle on my skill on it wasn’t the best idea…”

Surrounded by her “family” (at this point, really just an army of either mercenaries, ninjas, blood relatives, and people she’s known since childhood), they seemed justifiably worried.

“Y-you’re my big sister! I don’t want to watch you get beat up…” Elise said. “You dominating in battle is one thing, but getting beaten by someone else with no way to help you is another…”

Ryoma, a wielder of the blade, scoffed. “You have such little faith in Corrin? She’ll lead us to victory, surely…though I will admit, this isn’t exactly the way I was expecting her to do so…”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, I guess.” Corrin replied sneakily.

“No matter what happens, I’ll be there to treat your wounds. But I know I won’t have to.” said her purple haired big sister, Camilla.

Continuous chatter from all sides of the army happened, as Corrin darted her eyes around trying to keep track of everyone.

—-

“Wait. If she’s a Lord—or a lady, I suppose—then why aren’t YOU fighting her? You have the physical advantage!”

Chrom suddenly got incredibly nervous. Well, he already was explaining this, but more so than before. “It’s just that…er…please forgive me when I say this, but…I didn’t want to fight a lady.”

A long pause. Robin stared within her blue-haired superior’s eyes, judgmentally.

“I-it’s not because I thought I would win because of my gender! Or because I thought I’d lose…it’s…”

“Oh, please. You’re searching for a better excuse harder than we've been having to search for Kellam.” Robin got closer to Chrom. Uncomfortably so. “Tell me, do all women scare you? Is it the idea that they might be stronger? Or are you trying to be a gentleman in the middle of a BATTLE, of all things?”

Chrom blushed furiously. “I-it’s mostly the former, at this point in time…listen, I’m sorry, but I figured you're the tactical mind of this army. I figured you’d think of something, even if it’s not a field you’re familiar with.”

“I’m sure I have some books on it and I know how to train. Just don’t get upset at me when I’m walking around camp with a black eye for a few days and we’ve lost a territorial advantage, alright?”

Chrom laughed, and folded his arms. “With you as our fighter? That’s not going to happen. I’m sure of it!”

——

Corrin ordered her massive clash of warriors together and got them to focus. She stood before them confidently.

“I’m going to need all the help I can get for this if I want to win this fight.”

"We'll help you in any way we can." came the voice of Niles. "After all, watching milady cause another one suffering with her fists is an exciting prospect..."

"Remember that I'm trying to knock them out, not kill them."

Niles groaned in disappointment.

"In any case, I'll need sparring partners who refuse to hold back. Niles, you'd probably be perfect for that, as much as I dread it. Rinkah, would you mind?"

The warrior woman nodded seriously. "A mastery of the fist is only one of my many battle talents."

"Perfect! I'll also need some training tools, but we might be able to improvise with what we already have around camp..."

And so, the lord and tactician worked with their armies and companions to prepare themselves for a type of battle they had no prior knowledge of. Training, sparring, and (in Robin's case) researching happened at a rapid pace. Both had become fairly well-versed in the art of boxing, confident that they could win.

-----

Well...mostly.

Corrin stood in one corner, staring down her opponent with a serious expression.

"Am...I actually going to able to do this?" she asked her cornerwoman, Azura. While she refused to show it outright, she was genuinely nervous. A lot of people were riding on her, and she still knew very little about what exactly Robin stood for or how she'd act.

"The others have helped you do everything that you physically could to box against this girl, Corrin. You'll be fine." she said soothingly, rubbing Corrin's shoulders.

Robin was in the other corner, ignoring the gaze whilst in a deep thought.

"I've noticed that there's some slight disorder among her ranks. It's possible that she barely trained at all. This might be quick, but that's only wishful thinking..." Lucina suggested as her second.

"VERY wishful. The possibilities hardly matter." Robin observed harshly back to the blue-haired princess. "I won't know until after the first round whether or not I can do this...but it's hard to ignore the part of me that says I will."

The referee, Anna (one of the many sisters in the Anna family), called both girls to the center. She was a totally impartial judge, not with any of the armies, despite her sisters knowing both very well.

The two girls stared each other up and down.

"So...we're both wearing swimsuits, huh?" Corrin observed awkwardly.

"Never trust the dark mage for your clothing choices..." Robin replied, sighing.

"No kidding..." Corrin replied. The person of the same role in her army had caused her to be in this skimpy outfit.

"Alright, ladies! The rules are simple: you get three minutes every round to fight, and the fight doesn't end until one of you can't move...or if it looks like you never will again, assuming you're doing that bad."

Corrin gulped quietly, but Robin noticed and smirked at her. "At least she seems to understand this was a bad idea...I can use that to my advantage." she plotted internally

"Don't hit each other below the belt...but considering how much you two are showing off, it seems like a hard target to miss. And you're both smart enough to know that you shouldn't be slicing each other to bits with weapons at any point, either. That being said, we'll get started shortly!"

Anna left the two to their devices. Corrin prepared to walk back to her corner, but Robin stopped her verbally.

"Choosing this as a way of settling a fight was an incredibly grave mistake." she said in a dark tone.

Corrin smiled right back at the threat. "No matter how competent you might be at this sport, I can't give up with all of my family surrounding me! You'll have to kill me if you want to win."

"Being a tactician, I'll do whatever it takes to assure victory for my army. I'm not backing down, and I'm not going to be merciful. And honestly, looking at you, I probably won’t even need to worry about going that far.”

“What the—?! Well, YOU’RE going to regret underestimating me once I give you the thrashing you seem to be asking for!

“The only thing I’d ask for is for you to get ahold of yourself and accept defeat!”

“It’s gonna be hard to accept defeat once I put place my foot on your—“

“WHOAkay, ladies! Break it up and get back to your corners!” Anna finally interrupted the back and forth banter.

While the two were neutral towards each other before, they quickly became enemies before even throwing a punch. They stared at each other with furrowed eyebrows and were only pulled back once Anna returned, snapping them out of their standoff.

Corrin scoffed at Robin as Robin gave her a glare that could kill a man (or, as it has once before, make Chrom rapidly apologize). The tactician turned around, holding that glare, before smiling over to her corner woman Lucina to show that she knew exactly what she was doing.

"It was nice to vent a little frustration on the woman who put me in this ridiculous situation in the first place." Robin remarked to Lucina. "Maybe it's the heat of battle, but something is driving me to put her in her place. I can only hope my mindgames got through to her, despite her brave face."

“…were those REALLY mind games?” Lucina asked.

Corrin growled angrily in her corner, Azura attempting to soothe her anger with a gentle humming tune.

“Who does this girl think she is? Awfully cocky for someone two sizes too small for that swimsuit…”

“Now, now. Turn the anger into focus. You have a reason to fight beyond that petty squabble. It’s for Nohr AND Hoshido now.”

The two girls were taken out of their corner discussions as their armies shouted and cried out their names, offering words of encouragement and hopeful statements. It was this that would drive the two to fight, once the sound of the bell rang to signify their battle.