Part 63: Genesis

: You are the only morph to whom I've given emotions. It won't suffice to simply refer to you as a number. ...It is said that man was sculpted by the hands of the gods. If so, then you, who were sculpted by my hands... And I, whose labors gave you breath and life... What are we, then? What does that make us? In your fabricated heart, which I gave unto you, what is it that you believe, Kishuna?



Now then. Genesis.



Bring your best, because Genesis doesn't fuck around. You're going to want a healer in both groups if you can spare it, and for the love of god, make sure whichever healer is in the right group has a Restore staff.



The main thing to note here is that all of the generic enemies are magic users. This gives you a huge advantage if you can catch them inside the anti-magic field. Of course, they can't make it that easy. Almost every bishop has a Purge tome, several sages have Bolting tomes, and the druids have Eclipse. If the druids don't have an Eclipse tome, they've got Luna. And some of them have both.

And our only res-blessed fighter is Lyn (and I guess the pegs, but they're kinda a given). This is HHM taunting us.



But that's not all. There's a bishop with Berserk and a pair of sages with a Sleep and Silence staff all on the south route that actually goes to Kishuna.



2 HP, 2 Str, 1 Skl, 1 Def, 2 Res. What Kishuna needs with strength, skill, or resistance, god only knows, but I'll take that bonus over more HP and defense.

I don't think there's really anything I can add about Kishuna's numbers that anyone doesn't already know at this point.



I want to give a special shout out to this fucker right here.



Never tread lightly around Luna. You're not going to dodge it, and it's going to hurt like hell.

Luna should be treated with the same respect as Killing Edges when enemies have them. What with sharing the massive crit boost and all.



Now, the first surprise of the map. Kishuna now moves around, and he takes that anti-magic field with him when he does. For better or worse, he's always the first unit to move. On one hand, he might neutralize the unit that's about to wreck your shit, but usually it just means that the druid you thought was safe is now Luna-ing your units.



With a little setup from Priscilla and Hector, Guy kills a Druid to max out. And gets more strength, which is literally all that matters for him. The druid is also nice enough to drop a Door Key for us.

Pictured: the new Best Worst Level Ever™.



Like I said, usually you just get screwed over when it comes to Kishuna moving. The entire northwest corner just went from helpless to capable of nuking anyone in range. You have to be overly cautious on this map.



Guy is basically set for life at this point. He's in great shape with strength and he'll easily cap speed and skill, so all we're really looking for at this point is for him to pick up some defense/resistance on the way.

Bit of extra Con would go a long way, too. Of course, there are only so many Body Rings, and far too many people with not enough Con. Dilemma!

Nino only needs one to use Thunder without a penalty, and no one short of Pent with a Body Ring or Erk with 2 can use Elfire without one anyway, so we should still have one floating around at endgame. If Guy keeps this up, I'll probably toss it his way.



Pictured: Justice.

Canas is absolutely indispensable on this map. He can easily tank the magic hits, and nuke the shit out of them in response. In fact, I basically let him take this entire side and have Fiora and Raven cut across to the other team.



Fuck yeah, Swordmasters. I don't know if I ever really discussed them since we never got one in Eliwood's story, so we might as well now. Swordmasters are the epitome of dodge-counter-kill style fighting. Like berserkers, they get an automatic +15 to critical, and unlike Dart/Hawkeye, they generally have very high skill (caps at 29). Aside from making them extremely accurate (which is pushed even higher by the generally high accuracy of swords), this boosts their critical rating even higher. Also, with a speed cap of 30, they laugh at the prospects of being doubled and can dodge basically anything you can throw at them. Their biggest problem will be strength, seeing as it caps at 24 and swords have much lower Mt than axes do, but for the most part criticalling every other turn will make up for it. Ideally, you can take a swordmaster, throw them into a group of enemies, and watch them dodge everything and critical on the counter-attack. One of my personal favorite classes to use.

Note that he's getting 25 crit with an Iron Sword. Yes, he's fighting a morph, but give him a Killing Edge and it'll take more than a bit of luck to stop him.



Fiora catches a bishop using Purge and quickly kills him off.



Oh, and one more thing. Kishuna automatically flees after the fifth turn, and opens up most of the locked doors/breakable walls when he does. Hope you remembered a Barrier staff.

The only chapter where the Asshole Reinforcements are already on the map.



Priscilla isn't the best choice (I'd kill for Canas or Fiora to be here), but she's got a very good luck stat and enough speed and resistance that she shouldn't be in too much trouble walling here. Plus, the position guarantees that only two units can hit her head on.



Fuck me, Guy's asleep and Fiora's not close enough to take over for Priscilla while she puts that Restore staff to use.



...Double Fuck. Priscilla's silenced now.



Oh, sorry, did you think I meant all the reinforcements?

And then we have reinforcements from behind. There's also a mage from the northwest corner (he actually killed Legault my first run), but Canas is nearby to deal with him. Hector heads up and kills the shaman.



Yes, put Legault to sleep. Excellent use of your staff.



Lovely. She backs up to heal and Fiora takes her place.



Canas levels up killing lowly mages.



Oh COME on.



Great. My healer is silenced, all of my people who can dodge or have resistance are asleep, and there's a small army of promoted mages coming from the south. This situation got Guy killed on another run.

Fuck this map.



For now, the only thing I can really do is rescue Fiora and have Priscilla come back after popping a vulnerary or two.



She levels dodging an attack from a sage.



Fun fact: despite a unit being unable to do supports if they're silenced, the other unit can initiate the conversation just fine. I actually back Raven off here, because he'd easily kill any of them that came after him, and if he got hit by them all, he's dead. Purge and Eclipse assholes there still have one charge.



Thank christ, I can heal again. Guy wakes up as well.



And then Hawkeye goes and misses, fucking over my counter-charge. Now I have to weather another round of attacks I'm really not in any shape to be taking.



Desperate times call for desperate measure, I suppose. Raven starts by killing off the bishop in front of Priscilla. Guy follows up by killing the sage behind him and Priscilla retreats, leaving us with a sage and druid in the immediate vicinity, with another druid on the way, but not in range yet. If both of them hit Guy, he's dead, but the druid is using Nosferatu rather than Luna, so he should be in the clear.



Sure enough, he pulls through.



Now we can start cleaning house. Fiora starts by offing the sage, and Hawkeye follows up by critting the Luna druid. The Nosferatu druid find himself in a similar fate by Raven.



Finally, the bishop plays right into my hand. Sure, Raven is berserked now, but that's why we brought the Restore staff, and he just so happens to have moved into range for us to attack him. So Raven returns the favor, and that's the last of the mages on the map.



Now our attention turns to these final assholes. Just like in Eliwood's story, they all have very good ranged weapons, so you want to take them one at a time if you can.



The full treasure haul is a Silver Blade, Secret Book, and Berserk staff.



Canas offs the hero, and Priscilla takes care of the general for a pretty terrible level. Fiora toys with the Swordmaster who can't hurt her thanks to his Light Brand, and then she sets up for Guy to take us home.



Fucking hell, Guy. You're making everyone else look bad.

Except me!

One last conversation, this one in Pherae after we get the Afa's Drops.



: ...Art, I owe you an apology. Hm? You remember, when we first met? I doubted your ability and...said some things. Well, I was wrong. You know what each of us are capable of doing, and you direct our hands based on that knowledge. It's because of you that we've won our battles so far. Art, you're an imposing tactician. ...What? Did I say something strange? Why does everyone think I've got nothing nice to say!? Anyway, I'm counting on you again, Art.

...Apology accepted.

D'awww.

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Resets this chapter: 3

Total resets: 33