After playing Earthbound again and experimenting with the Selective FE8 PME, I decided to attempt to incorporate The Binding Blade in a modern setting. This story will take many cues from Earthbound and Percy Jackson. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Fire Emblem and Earthbound belong to Nintendo.

Prologue: The Scouring

Long ago, there lived the Manakete tribes, draconic beings who held tremendous power, which inhabited the Earth since prehistoric times. Legend has it that a faction of them rebelled against the Greco-Roman gods, and as a result, they were inflicted with a terrible curse.

First, after they were done fighting, the Manakete fertility rate was cut in half. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

Second, if they stayed in their true forms for long periods of time, their minds would gradually degenerate until they became mindless beasts.

Third, a subliminal hatred for dragons was instilled into the consciousness of humans under the Western Civilization umbrella. Humans started spreading nothing but lies about dragonkind, with their weaving of tall tales involving vile and greedy dragons. During the Middle Ages, the common folk of the European continent became disillusioned with their reptilian neighbors and drove them away from their towns and villages. The harsh years that followed led to a decline in Manakete population due to all of the dragon-slaying activity overseen by European lords and knights.

However, some manaketes fled to different parts of the world, where they thrived.

The Fire Dragons, with their mighty wings and four legs, hid all around Europe, and yet they were relatively common to be seen by humans, leading to tales of armored knights on horseback rescuing princesses from fire-breathing dragons, which makes me think about why aren't there any stories of female knights saving princes too. I guess the world was not as kind back in the day.

The Ice Dragons, with their wingless reptilian features, flourished in the harsh frigid northlands, such as Canada, Scandinavia, and Siberia, with small colonies settling in the southern edges of Chile and New Zealand.

The Wyverns, with two legs and two wings; bodies optimized for flight, scattered across Europe and Africa, mostly sticking to the Mediterranean.

The Mage Dragons, with their elongated bodies and mastery of the arcane, fled east and inspired the artisans of China and Japan.

The Earth Dragons, large terrible beasts, stalked the flat lands of Africa and the Middle East, often terrorizing the local humans.

The Divine Dragons were a mysterious group, and nobody knows where the heck they went.

Of course, there were probably more species of manaketes, but they either became extinct or obscured from the passage of time. There are also other species of dragons unrelated to manaketes. These dragons aren't sapient and do not have sufficient sentience to reach a soul level of one (The Soul Scale is a measure of a being's sapience. Common animals and monsters have a soul level less than one, sapient dominant species such as humans and manaketes have a soul level of exactly one, and anything with a value of more than one is either a supernatural being or spirit, or a deity.)

Now, you may ask, what is the taxonomic classification of the dragonkin? Let me answer that too. Domain Eukarya, Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, Class Reptilia, Clade Archosauria, Order Dracoformes, Family Draconidae, Genus Draco. Each type of dragon is its own individual species. Although fully reptilian, somewhere down the line they picked up some humanoid traits along the way, allowing them to take human form and interbreed with humans. When they assume their human forms, manaketes seal their dragon forms into dragonstones. Although their genetic makeup does not change, the dragonstone acts like some sort of activator, containing genetic instructions to re-activate the draconic traits in the dragon's DNA, which lay dormant in human form. When they take human forms, their draconic traits become dormant. It's sort of like binary code; their dragon form is one, while their human form is zero.

Although their human forms are physically exact replicas of the human body, they lack distinct mammalian traits and are still considered reptiles. They still reproduce by egg-laying and the females cannot produce milk.

The way hybrid offspring is brought into the world depends on the parents. If the female is a human, then the offspring is born live in human form after a pregnancy period of similar length to a typical one. If the female is the manakete, then the child is laid in an egg and hatches in dragon form after nine days. If the female is equal parts half-human and half-manakete (Again, perfectly balanced, as all things should be.), then it's a fifty-fifty coin toss scenario that is left up to the Random Number Gods.

And that's all for now! That's all the information we've got surrounding manaketes. However, in the eighth century, due to the human-dragon conflicts in lands under Western Civilization's grasp, the humans of Europe banded together for one final plan to obliterate the dragons: the forging of eight legendary weapons, along with the reforging of a ninth...

Aachen, Western Europe, ~776 CE

The palace of King Charlemagne was filled with great noise. Cooks were busy preparing food, minstrels performed for the nobility, alchemists conducted experiments, and knights sparred in preparation for future conflicts, whether their foe be dragon or Moor. However, the commotion all stopped when the palace gates opened wide with a slam, and before them, a man of Nordic origin had arrived, bringing with him a cart covered in cloth.

This was Weyland the Smith, and although he was Norse, he had experience working with metals from far-flung places. Celestial Bronze from Greece, Imperial Gold from Rome, Stygian Iron from the Underworld, Adamantine from Mount Olympus, and of course, Bone Steel, the metal used by his own people. As a master blacksmith, he learned how to fuse these magical metals with ordinary ones, creating weapons capable of harming both mortals and monsters. Due to this, he was commissioned by Charlemagne to forge several weapons for a secret plan.

And here he was now, with the fruits of his labor, er, labour. It's medieval Europe, so I'll try to emulate British spelling and Middle English as much as possible, even though this took place in France.

"Milord!" He addressed the king, "It is finished."

King Charlemagne understood immediately, and ordered for the hall to be cleared, with the exception of those in on the plan. The blacksmith entered and took away the cloth covering his cart, and immediately the weapons gleamed brightly in the eyes of their beholders.

Durandal, a blade borne from imperial gold, adamantine, and regular steel. A flaming enchantment was placed on the sword, granting it the ability to combust on command.

Armads, a battleaxe forged from imperial gold and regular bronze. It had an electric enchantment on it, causing it to spark with lightning when swung.

Maltet, a lance made from silver and bone steel imbued with ice dragon blood. Its icy enchantment made it cold to the touch, freezing anything that came into contact with its tip.

Mulagir, a bow made from imperial gold, with a quiver containing arrows of bronze, both of the regular and celestial variety. No enchantments were placed on it, although it was imbued with a blessing: the wielder's aim was always true, no matter the circumstances.

Eckesachs, a Germanic sword reforged with iron and bone steel for the purpose of slaying dragons. The blade was powerful enough on its own that it didn't need any enchantments or blessings.

Along with these weapons, a powerful archmage had inscribed three magical tomes with three powerful spells, and the smith had brought these with him as a favour for the archmage, who was his closest companion.

Forblaze, an elemental spell which drew its power from supernatural fire. The tormenting flames of Tartarus and Helheim, the warm hearth of Hestia, and the metal-melting forges of Vulcan. It was also laced with powerful Egyptian magic, making the flames even stronger than their origins.

Aureola, a divine spell made from the power of an otherworldly deity, smiting its targets with the light of judgement.

Apocalypse, a grimoire imbued with the world-ending prophecy of Ragnarok, striking enemies with both mystical and mental fear.

"And what of the ninth weapon?" The King of the Franks asked the blacksmith, "Hath I not commissioned a third sword? The blade that would seal the dragons away for eternity?"

"Milord, please understand!" Weyland pleaded, in fear of frustrating the powerful ruler, "I was afraid it was too powerful for thy court. Hath I brought it with me today, it would hath set thy palace aflame, causing a great tragedy!"

"Very well." Charlemagne replied, "I shall distribute three of these weapons to my champions. Some, we shall give to the Moors in secret to avoid suspicion of having so many powerful weapons. And for the rest, they shall be given to others. With these weapons you have forged, o great blacksmith Weyland, we shall drive these dragons out of Europe!"

"And how shall we cover up this quest from the common folk?" Roland, one of Charlemagne's champions, asked the king, "Surely, would the peasants not realise it and oppose thy intentions?"

"Fear not, honourable Roland," the Frankish king replied, "We shall claim these weapons were for fending off the Moors. That ought to distract the people away from our secret war against the dragons. Prepare our greatest men, for tomorrow, we ride to rid this world of all dragons!"

And so, the event known as the Scouring began. Across Europe, knights slaughtered manaketes by the numbers, covering it up with battles against the Moors, removing kebab as they removed dragons too. And so, dragons flee, yadda yadda, and the rest of history happens. However, most of the dragons had built ships in secret, sailing across the Atlantic with the few humans still friendly to them. They reached an island off the East Coast of the undiscovered (at the time) New World. There, their best astronomers and mages began working on a portal to transport them to a far-off world free from persecution.

This portal would soon be known as the Dragon's Gate.

An Island in the West Atlantic Ocean, circa Late 8th Century CE

The portal the mages had built fizzed to life, and on the other side was a world similar to Earth, albeit untouched by dragons and humans for now.

"It worked." A mage dragon wizard stared blankly at the portal, then the success sank in. "It worked! IT WORKED, GUYS! We've successfully opened a portal to another world! It's time to go! Move it, everybody!"

Immediately as he said those words, the refugees, both dragon and human alike, began marching into the portal in an orderly fashion, bringing with them seeds and livestock from all over the planet. Once they were sure everyone was on the other side, the mages who built the portal in the first place sealed the passage, cutting their ties to planet Earth forever.

However, some dragons still stayed behind on earth, and this is where our tale begins. As time passed, most of humanity had forgotten about magic and dragons and the old gods, dismissing them as silly made-up stories.

But they were still around. As the gods moved to wherever the heart of Western Civilization was, the rest of the supernatural followed them too.

Back in the late 1990s, a teen from New York City by the name of Eliwood Pherae went on a quest with his two best friends Hector and Lyndis. Why the three of them? Because quests were always done by groups of three unless the Oracle said otherwise. Don't question it.

They had to stop the evil sorcerer Nergal from reopening the Dragon's Gate and absorbing quintessence (life force) from the dragons. Although Nergal was a formidable enemy, the three had help from their friends, and a mysterious girl named Ninian.

Over time, Ninian and Eliwood fell in love, and once they knew they were ready and got the approval of their companions, they got married and consummated their union. This led to a son being born in the year 2004, and his name was Roy.

Unfortunately, right after Roy was born, he and his mother suddenly disappeared. Eliwood spent ten years searching for them, his efforts all futile.

Until one day in December 2014, with the help of a young man on a quest of his own, he was reunited with his family.

And then he found out Ninian was a Manakete, an Ice Dragon, to be exact.

He still loved his wife anyway, not caring even though she was of an entirely different species. In fact, his reaction to being told the secret by his wife was to say that it's "hot", which resulted in a well-earned smack from his beloved Ninian.

So they lived happily ever after, with Eliwood's job at Hector's company, Lycian Enterprises Ltd., they were financially stable and Roy made some friends, like his neighbor Wolt and Hector's daughter Lilina. However, this fragile peace is about to break, and our story starts at LEL's New Year's Eve party...

Stay tuned for Chapter I: My Best Friend Turns Into A Dragon

This is Vanillite the Dragonslayer, signing off.