SS Endgame Eirika: Demon King

Win or lose, it'll be all down to Rausten's last treasure.

But first, we get one last flashback.

Lyon and Eirika's last goodbye.

It's... kinda weird. They treat this friendship as significant, but they also kinda treat them as having only visited one time and stuffing as much of their character journey as possible in that one visit. The imagination fills a lot of gaps here.

I hope you two will, you seem to have a thing going.

The less you think about the specifics of this part, the better, I think.

Especially considering this element feels like it needs two visits- a first encounter to inspire him and a second to bear fruit.

...Actually, it's explicit. Eirika had to know Lyon before he started his experiments.

Not literally, but the sentiment was there. Eirika was the main person giving Lyon any sort of encouragement to help him reach his many goals. Ephraim, too, but he's less active about it than Eirika is, and I think the nature of his respective bonds means it doesn't mean as much coming from him.

Truly a platonic friendship there.

Things Innes and Lyon have in common: For some reason, you're not allowed to marry Eirika unless you're badass enough to beat Ephraim on his turf.

Eirika thinks this obsession with Ephraim's spear is utterly ridiculous and wants no part of it. How fitting, then, that her ultimate love interest is someone with self-esteem to spare, who wouldn't dream of partaking in this ridiculous ritual because she's already well assured that she is better than him.

The fact that Lyon won't actually come out and propose until he's "conquered" Ephraim is the only reason Eirika didn't walk out of Grado with a ring and a whole lot more anxiety over the war than she already had. Honestly, it was probably a mercy in hindsight.

You already were, Lyon.

Now, though?

Surprisingly, Eirika is able to get through to Lyon, the person.

At the last possible moment, it sounds, but at least we get one last goodbye.

Lyon takes the chance to reveal something that, so far, nobody on Eirika route has ever really questioned.

Lyon losing the battle of wills with the Demon King in the first place.

Eirika, of course, doesn't really blame him for that, since it seems like anyone would've lost that battle.

Lyon's not talking about that bit. He is technically at fault, though- although the only thing that really means is that he shouldn't have gotten that far in the first place, not that he should have put up a fight when he was there.

No, what Lyon is saying is that his Ephraim route self- the version of him that sees the darkness the Demon King can provide and wants in on it- is still present. The only thing that's really different between routes is which of the pair has asserted the most control.

Lyon became the Demon King because he didn't challenge his thoughts of beating Ephraim and marrying Eirika. He allowed his base desires to manifest, and now they're running rampant.

Eirika, confronting that side of Lyon at last (even on Ephraim route, she hasn't been told yet), forgives him for having those feelings at all.

Wanting more than you have is only natural. Acting on it, less so, but that's why we communicate with one another. Had Lyon overcome his concerns and asked for Eirika's hand outright, way back then... well, perhaps he might have been content with what he had, and the Demon King wouldn't have found him such an appealing heart to convert.

Although, on a narrative level rather than a symbolic one, Lyon might've been too far along the process of studying Sacred Stones to get out of awakening the Demon King and doing something cataclysmic anyway. It's not like he can tell his mages "I've got a girlfriend now, I don't need to unlock the power of life and death to feel satisfied in my life, we can put the Stone back now."

The tragedy of Lyon's ambition has dawned upon him.

And his last request is to make sure it doesn't hurt another soul.

It's too late for him now. It's not too late for her.

By the way, it is too late now. The Demon King won't be letting go until we make him.

The Demon King is profoundly unimpressed with Lyon making an epic tragedy about his own lack of self-esteem, and would like to move on to the part where he kills Eirika and becomes the king of all Magvel.

This is his favourite part of the proceedings.

And Eirika is more than willing to fulfill Lyon's last request and put a stop to it.

The Demon King calls her bluff.

Eirika wasn't bluffing.

The battle is now ready to begin, but we first, I have to be the bearer of bad news: Despite the fact there are exactly as many women as there are deployment slots in the final mission, Ephraim has forced himself to take one of those slots, and we must, at long last, make a decision about who to bench.

It's her or Marisa, really. Tethys or Myrrh, too, but the lack of Support is what really pushed her down.

Ephraim will be carrying our keys- there are two last treasure chests to pick up.

This map is a two-flank sort of map, and our party will be split in twain.

Master Seal in one, Angelic Robe in the other. Really, only the latter is worth it, and probably only if you're doing postgame anyway. Is an extra 7 HP really worth going out of your way to collect and apply here?

The Wights have miscellaneous occasionally-interesting junk, but here we see the usual form of dracozombies: The sprites are different and the stats are much lower, but they are mini-Morvas in practice and should be treated as minibosses.

And up top, Lyon, flanked by six Gorgons. Some have Shadowshot, some have Stone, and all of them are going to be a pain to have to face.

Our map looks like this. There are some reinforcements, but surprisingly not many.

+7 Mag, +6 Skill, +4 Spd, +5 Luck, +9 Def, +10 Res, and oh yeah, we can't count out the +29 HP. Lyon's pact with the Demon Lord has worked out pretty well for him. Naglfar, in turn, is an additional +10 Might and +25 Hit over Fenrir with no extra weight slowing him down. His undoing, of course, is that he hasn't gained any Con. He's not at 0 AS anymore, but he's not impressing anybody with that 4 AS. It will take a lot of doing to kill him, though, with HP and defences that high.

Lyon himself, incidentally, is a Necromancer, and while it doesn't matter in the context of him being an enemy unit, it's interesting to note that Necromancer can summon Phantoms, like Summoners. I assume Lyon doesn't use it because it wouldn't really do anything but slow us down.

This is what a Draco Zombie looks like on the stat page. A 26 Might hit scares us less than a 36 Might one, but we should still treat them with caution and respect.

You have enough Door and Chest Keys in the wights to get both treasures.

There are also Gorgons with Stone guarding the chests. In case you thought Ephraim could work unmolested or something.

L'Arachel starts by noticing this guy can be oneshot. He'll be a problem for us later, why not deal with him now?

The map theme for this leg of the battle is Promised Land, a very nervous, tense theme that seems appropriate for challenging the revival of the Demon King on his own domain.

Lute has a better idea.

By the way, did you think, because we were in the final map, that the enemies would stop being this pathetic?

The real hard part is not dropping these into the Convoy.

They're all jumping into my palms!

Ephraim opens the door to the first chest...

...Did Lute miss? No Accuracy on her Support is costing her once more.

It's always scary when they can try.

We can go no further than this if we do not want to disturb the Dracozombie.

Myrrh hangs out just out of range.

Not that her HP is too bad for it.

Yes, Tana's in range, what of it?

All right, this side...

Marisa opens the door herself. Ephraim can just steal on the way out.

Neimi takes bait duties.

And Amelia overkills her to safety.

Eirika suggests Marisa open the chest herself.

And, with Tethys, takes out the Gorgon too.

Haw haw.

This is what a normal Dracozombie looks like. Morva looks like black Myrrh- these guys stand tall (and slightly off their battle platforms) and have bone showing.

Also far less accurate, but Tana's Javelin isn't piercing their hides much. Or, well, perhaps it is and isn't hitting anything vital because zombies don't have vitals.

Neimi misses the dodge.

On the other hand... she has Bow.

Amelia humiliates this guy.

...Literally who designed it so an Assassin who opened the door can't reach the Chest in one movement? That's cruel for no reason.

Fine, fine...

Neimi decides to show off Nidhogg, to a) prove she can and b) show the beam of light happens on all Twins. This guy really did not deserve to be whacked by it.

L'Arachel gives her a helping hand.

Money! If only there was a vendor to sell it to before the map is over.

...It suddenly occurs to me that I'm not actually sure whether Lute is enjoying the x2 Might for using a Sacred Twin or the x3 Might for clipping a winged unit to the ground.

Lute has 28 Mag and this guy has 14 Res, with 18 Might on Excalibur, so the numbers seem to suggest x2. Lame.

Either way, it's a oneshot. Also, Excalibur is a bit more involved than the Wind Sword. I believe the Wind Sword's animations are based on Aircalibur, a weaker variant spell that was in FE6 as a high-level anti-air magic spell enemies could throw at you in bulk. For some reason, FE has erred to making Excalibur itself do that job.

This is the domain of the archer. I'm going to want Tana sitting in that with a ranged weapon.

...Also, L'Arachel didn't siege tome the other guy, what's the point of having siege tomes past me?

That'll get him out of the way.

...Eh, Myrrh's fine as long as she's not distracting the wight with the bow.

It's funny when the Wights do it. It's sad when it's the bigger ones.

Archer neutralised.

And I think that's his friend, too.

These reinforcements are set to spawn once the opposite side's flank has advanced to a certain point where they'd be threatening. A neat gimmick, but neither side is exploiting it unless you're trying to use never-before used units (a feat which has been done).

These three are going to take their time catching up.

Well, OK, that didn't take so long. Eirika now has her HP boost.

Only some of these guys are going to be annoying, so all of them have to go eventually.

The main issue is putting a competent unit on that specific spot, to prepare for the enemies north of there.

Tana will take point on this side.

And both Tana and Neimi have their Support partners.

Myrrh makes this guy regret showing up.

Lute doesn't need a wing-clipper, she can just thunderbolt him.

As previously mentioned, this is supposed to be our introduction to Gwyllgis, they just showed up earlier for Ephraim and Difficult Mode.

Tana knows how to handle them.

Neimi, meanwhile, is being harassed by the eyeballs.

...And for some reason, not the elder baels that live up here.

Marisa: "I'm helping!"

Perhaps this will convince the elder baels to move.

...Not that Amelia is in range of Neimi, but that'll be fine.

Now that is tempting. One use of Purge to eliminate one Stone user?

And more Magic to come? Hell yeah!

Lute one-ups L'Arachel by scoring a crit.

Vanessa and Lute are going to start picking away at Lyon's guard.

Tana and Syrene are going full flank.

Ephraim is working on making himself out-of-the-way.

Thwack.

Surely you had a hit rate on Syrene?

Somehow, this hit. That's all that can be said about it.

Everything else did not.

Right, we're filing in for the big finish next turn.

Tethys is out of people to Dance.

The Wights in the way won't move, so focus on the Gorgons.

These two profited pretty nicely out of it.

Right, I don't want to deal with you, even if Tana is about to take a hit from Lyon.

At least it'll let the enemy pretend it's doing something with its time.

Lute won't even let them have that.

Lyon challenges Tana, and brings his battle theme Prince's Despair with him. It suits him well.

Lyon one-ups the dramatic nature of the Summoner attack animation by pulling over his cape in the wind-up before unfurling for the spell's release.

Naglfar is a purple storm, before turning into a black hole effect, ending in purple thunderbolts striking the target.

Or not striking, as the case may be.

It's not enough, but it'll make me feel better.

Oh hey, this one gives me a Killing Edge!

Give me that.

...You can keep that.

The reinforcements are so easy to take care of.

L'Arachel goes a round with Lyon. Beyond the fact they are, in some respects, competing for the role of Eirika's lover, this makes sense on the part that L'Arachel is the one who knew the lore that Lyon was unsaveable. It's only right, then, that L'Arachel helps put him in the hole.

And hey, we can see a little of Ivaldi while we're at it.

A scan of light, before the sun shines down and summons beams of light.

You missed Tana, what made you think you were hitting the Light magic user?

One last Myrrh kill.

And one for Syrene, too.

There can be only one person to finish the job, however. Time for Eirika to do as she promised and be the one to save the man she once knew.

For the man you could have been...

Hey, if the Heroes gave us these Twins, they clearly expected us to use them,

Eirika's Sieglinde deals a heavy blow.

And, at last, Lyon is able to hit something! Eirika finishes him off.

Well aren't you easily amused.

I can't object, so am I. Look at all those stats I clearly have room to use.

Lyon is down, although it definitely feels like that wasn't it.

For Lyon, though, everything is back to as it once was.

Ephraim tells her to approach with more caution, but after the fight we just had, I don't think we have to worry about him too much. Let Lyon have his peaceful defeat.

And so Lyon dies in Eirika's arms. In a manner of speaking.

Lyon is happy to know that the twins came to bail him out of his stupid plan in the end.

Lyon finally plucks up the courage and comes out and tells her how he feels.

Unfortunately, it seems that's the last thing he ever said. It might've been a decent relationship at first, but poor Eirika is going to have to deal with that guilt before she moves on. Sure, at least it didn't go unsaid forever, but...

Lyon disappears.

Although considering all this pitch-black and "Lyon was the only thing between us and the Demon King", perhaps we shouldn't be in a hurry to celebrate.

Hello, you.

He brags about his revival for six textboxes. The equivalent scene in Ephraim route has actual exposition, and I have to wonder which scene was written first. I think I prefer to imagine it as this being the first version.

Darkness and lightning, you can't have the evil revival of darkness's king without that.

...

OK, he's far, far bigger than any other unit in the game (look at him, he's occupying 6 tiles of visual space when most units only rarely take up more than maybe the tile directly above them), but this camera angle doesn't do a very good job at flattering how big and terrifying it is that the Demon King has been revived at last.

He is accompanied by an appropriately dark and scary tune in To Light The Dark, but in looking for it for the blog, it turns out this was the overworld map theme after Chapter 19. Not that it loses its impact being recycled...

It's much more terrifying up close.

And now we have to kill it.

I think I'd be a little terrified too.

Fortunately, there's twelve of us, and only one of him.

Let's show him what we're made of.

Everyone files in. Even Seth, for some reason.

I'm serious- Seth is here because he's a permadeath-proof character, but a) Seth doesn't say anything and b) Innes isn't here too.

Oh hey, we did give the Stone to L'Arachel after all.

L'Arachel has been preparing her whole life for exactly this.

She's got her ideas and we should listen to her.

L'Arachel has the greatest news we could hope for.

A secret weapon!

It's the corniest weapon of all, but now's not the time to complain!

If we want to defeat the Demon King, we must use the things Lyon lacked: A support network, magical relics left by our ancestors built for this purpose, and a whole lot of girl power.

Prepare yourself.

Let's do this.

To coincide with this dramatic cue, we get the final map theme in gear now. A more triumphant refrain seems in order.

This triumphant moment of everyone pitching in with a cute quote appears in the GBA and 3DS games only. It is Fire Emblem tradition? That is a surprisingly large portion of FE, so I suppose so, but it's surprisingly absent from Tellius and Fodlan, two of the worlds that treat their supporting casts well.

In part, the issue seems to be that there's only so many ways to get a triumphant little quip. Shadows of Valentia made the lines more substantial, and between that and the smaller cast, that game has my favourite set of this dialogue.

Amelia stammering like she's not one of the best units here.

Tethys is next to speak, despite the fact that Neimi is next "in line". It's clearly not based on the order they're listed in the deployment roster (Neimi appears after Amelia in that, too). It's not like it matters too much, but Dozla has a funny quirk.

Marisa: "Why are you all complaining? It's just a job, same as anything else."

Myrrh's cute.

Don't worry, Neimi, you're earning your spot. Let's put it this way, you weren't in consideration for the bench. At all.

At least someone has.

L'Arachel gets the last call. I suspect this isn't by design, because Dozla's line tries to pretend it follows hers (that's why it's so funny if he doesn't.)

Natasha: …Prince Lyon.

Let's pretend the reason Natasha is sitting out is so she can process her grief in peace, unlike the rest of us who have to beat a demon first.

Our battle cries have been heard, and they meet the Demon King poorly. For him.

The Demon King is now impressed that we're planning on winning with just one Stone.

This seems to be an expression of his plan to win through brute force, not an expression of insufficient power.

Sacred Stone, SHINE!

...It can't have been that easy. Everything we've done, everything we've lost, that couldn't have just been solved by letting out a triumphant battle cry.

There's one more stage to this boss fight.

Well, not this bit, this is for Eirika to handle later on in the narrative.

This is our final battle.

A giant, lumbering beast that probably matches us pound for pound, counting all the horses we brought.

This step is said to have given the Five Heroes a lot of trouble, but chiefly for the unnammed people. Although we never hear anything about what the Heroes get up to after fighting the Demon King: Who's to say they made it out alive?

Oh hey, you do have something to say.

Let's see if we can pull off something impressive with less loss of life.

Now that the battle begins, Seth has wandered off. We'll manage.

The Falcoknights are marching up in formation. So what is it we're fighting, then?

Those stat caps are literally broken. And yeah, this happens to be the only place in the game where the Demon King's name "Fomortiis" appears. 18 Speed is kinda bad, but it turns out that Ephraim must have a Speed cap if he wants to double with Siegmund: Don't underestimate it because it's the only stat that's not getting a bonus.

15 Might, 60 Hit, 0 Wt, +10 Mag/Skill/Luck/Def, +15 Res, Magic attack. 1-3 range, and he'll start with this equipped. Most people have seen this one.

15 Might, 80 Hit, 10 Crit, 0 Wt, +15 Str/Skill/Def, +10 Res, physical attack. Only 1 range, and you'd think it wouldn't hurt so badly, but if he does decide to switch to this, it's an actually scary attack and not just notable because it happens to be the best animation on the entire GBA.

I've seen him use this, but it's not his first resort. Perhaps he wants to optimise the people he hits. But yeah, anyone in Demon Light range gets sent to sleep- I knew there's a reason Latona heals Sleep.

Everyone moves in. So what's his response.

Summoning a small army of monsters. I've never seen him do anything else on his first action. I've also never seen him do it again.

I think I've never seen him summon an army so pathetic. Two Entombed, and only one thing that's better than a Wight.

This EXP isn't good for anything, but might as well.

Syrene Javelins this Entombed in order to stand next to the Demon King.

...And also gets this, I guess.

Lute gets this one.

And cleaning up the Wights.

Myrrh's final level is moderate.

Vanessa stands here.

Tana readies Vidofnir and rallies her Supports with Eirika and Syrene. Vidofnir is still Effective on the Demon King, which shall be his undoing, but only 21 damage is highly underwhelming considering the Tana we've had this whole time.

Tana spoils her secret weapon ahead of time.

Now that is a final boss. Those muscles, that skeletal face... he may not look that impressive on the overworld, but this is a guy who means business in battle. Breaking Fire Emblem tradition, he is not a dragon (although since dragons in Magvel are monsters, perhaps he's close), but put this guy in a Final Fantasy game and he wouldn't look out of place.

The Demon King's boss theme is, what else, Return of the Demon King.

Once again, I miss the triple-trouble shot of the critical animation, but we have shattered that ?? HP and revealed the truth: He only has 120 HP, the game is just not prepared to show you how much health an enemy has if it's bigger than 99 (map) or 80 (battle). This lets him live a crit from Tana, but just the one.

Demon Light has purple mist swirl around, before being drawn into the gem on his forehead. He screams, and an attack lands. Despite being under True Hit, he scores the hit. Don't worry, despite how scary he looks, he does still obey all the same accuracy checks as everything else.

Wow, the Sacred Twin flash is bright if you're on the wrong frame. I hit, but don't crit.

Eirika decides she doesn't need to pitch in and scores one more kill.

So does Lute, thanks to Tethys.

That was worth it.

L'Arachel is unfortunately unable to double the Demon King without a Body Ring, so she does need this.

Eirika: Lyon… Lend me strength!

(Eirika boss quote with Fomortiis.)

But there could only be only person who takes down the Demon King, and that would be the person who's been bragging about doing exactly that this whole time.

...Did I just beat the final boss on Turn 2? That's normal. The fact the Sacred Twins still have their x2 Might on him means that you're going to have a lot of options for ways to deal massive chunks of damage. 22 damage isn't a big number, but it is one sixth of his HP and we have twelve guys.

The Demon King dissolves into dust, and his head screams in terror as it is the last thing to go.

Next time: Cleaning up a world at peace.