They encounter resistance, and find someone locked up!

They headed into the fortress, and were immediately set upon by a group of bandits. "Form up!" Byleth shouted as Bernadetta shrieked, and shot an arrow in a blind panic, which ended up hitting one bandit in the throat, and making him fall.

"Hey, nice shot!" Caspar complimented her, unaware that it was completely unintentional. The next bandit met his end at Ferdinand's lance, followed by Hubert using his dark magic to slay another. The group stayed together, and on the move under Byleth's orders, keeping close to walls to make themselves a challenge to surround. An arrow flew through the air at Linhardt's head, but was knocked clean out of the air by Shez swinging her sword.

Before anyone could marvel at her reflexes, she used her special shadow warping ability to move towards two bandits, cutting them down as they passed. "Press forward!" Edelgard shouted, moving in with her axe, and killing three bandits before they could react, having been distracted by Shez. Petra moved like a dancer herself, dodging attacks and landing debilitating cuts on enemies as Dorothea shocked several others. Caspar moved in to finish those who were wounded, before yelping as one bandit managed to hit him with a fireball, and making him go down.

"It's okay, I got you!" Linhardt shouted, already moving to heal Caspar. Byleth immediately moved to cover them. Five bandits made the mistake of trying to capitalize, and attacked Caspar, as well as Linhardt, trying to take out their healer. They met swift ends at Byleth's blade.

As the battle continued, the students gaining ground, Sothis returned from her scouting. "Master, there's somoene locked up in a dungeon that way!" she told him, pointing. "And... I saw some odd mages appearing in some other rooms. Some sexy lady, if a bit on the overly pale side, was leading them!"

The last of this first group of bandits went down, and Byleth nodded. Before he said anything though, Jeritza, who had held back from participating too much at this stage, stated, "We should check the dungeons. The bandits may have prisoners." Byleth blinked, but pushed down any questions of how Jeritza might have come to a conclusion he needed Sothis to inform him of. It might have been a conicidence, and they had more pressing matters at the moment.

They proceeded to fight their way to the dungeons, and soon found a girl in an Officer's Academy uniform chained up. She looked up in shock. "Are you... here to rescue me?" she asked. She then noticed Edelgard, and her eyes widened in relief and joy. "Lady Edelgard!"

"Monica! How did you end up... no, my questions can wait," Edelgard stated, immediately going to unchain her. No one could tell that her surprise to see Monica here was staged, except a couple of people who already knew.

"Yes, let's get out of here," the girl, now known as Monica replied, grabbing a spell tome discarded by a bandit mage to fight with.