Disclaimer: Don't own nothin' except David and his fighting style.

"Will you stop yelling at me!"

I woke up abruptly to the arguing of Shana and the mysterious woman. My head was pounding and my jaw was aching. I slowly turned toward the voices and vaguely made out Shana, Lavitz and the woman. "Could you stop shouting please?" I was surprised at how weak my voice sounded, and more surprised though at the excruciating pain in my jaw as a spoke.

Within a second Shana stood at my bedside. "Lie still, that Giganto broke your jaw."

I moaned. "Crap. Who is she?" I asked with difficulty, staring at the woman. "And where is Dart?"

"Ah, I'm here." Dart's voice almost sounded as weak me. I turned and saw him lying on the bed next to mine. The strange armour he was wearing was gone. He looked at the woman and sat up. "Hey, we meet again and again you save my life."

"You know her?" Lavitz asked.

"I'm Rose." She pointed out Dart's memento. "I became interested in that and followed you here. I wanted to see if you could be a Dragoon." She took out a similar stone, except this one was a dark violet. It began to sparkle brightly as did Dart's. "That is proof I didn't follow you for nothing. You deserve to rule dragons."

"My god, I never would have thought this power was concealed in my father's memento." Dart examined the spirit, then put it away.

Lavitz folded his arms and inquiring looked at Rose. "How come you know this? I heard about Dragoons from Minister Noish. It was they who freed the humans from the Winglies. And it was thought to be of legend."

"Well it's better than ignorance." She gave him a sharp look. Obviously Lavitz had offended her.

"So that's all. You just saved him because you knew Dart is a Dragoon?" Shana asked. She took the bandage from my head and applied a new one.

Rose shook her head. "At first yeah, but there is something else." She leaned against a bedpost and glanced outside. "The fire I saw burning in my old friends burns in you. You know who to protect, where to go and what to do, just like they did."

"Where are they now?" I asked and winced slightly as pain shot through my face.

"Gone." Rose's short answer mirrored the grief I saw in her eyes.

"Gee, I'm sorry. Maybe I was wrong about you," Shana apologized.

"Don't worry." Rose shrugged. "I'm used to being hated."

I saw something then, I sure didn't like. Rose's whole being seemed to be giving off something ominous and it scared me. Who was she, why did she know so much about Dragoons if they were supposed to be the stuff of legend? I banished the questions for now, deciding I would find out sooner or later.

I sat up and carefully touched my right jaw. Suddenly Shana grabbed my hand. "Don't touch that. It has to heal first. If you'll let the potion do it's work that is."

"Yes mum."

"Tease." She moved over to Dart, offended looked at me and stuck her tongue out. Dart stared at her, then at me. But before he could speak, we heard someone shouting outside.

"Please, someone help us! The fort is under attack!" We rushed outside and saw an exhausted knight. He ran towards us. "You gotta send reinforcements. The Seventh Fort is being overwhelmed by dragons."

Lavitz blinked a few times. "Did you say 'dragons'?" The knight nodded. Stunned Lavitz looked at us, then at Rose.

"It is not possible. There is no way," she whispered.

Dart walked to the gate. "Well, what are we standing around for? Let's go, they need help." He didn't wait for any answer and rushed off.

Shana ran after him. "Wait for us!" We followed her example and soon caught up with him at the edge of a swamp, not far from Hoax.

Dart had slowed down to a walking pace and with sword drawn took a path on the right, which seemed to lead directly to a fierce battle. I followed his example my daggers ready. The pain of my jaw was subsiding a little and I thought it must be the healing potion doing it's job. I felt a little ridiculous with the bandage though, but fighting Shana, no I definitely passed for that.

Our little group continued along the path, hearing battle cries and soon we reached the fort. I described it with one word. Terrible. The Basil knights were being slaughtered. Immediately we came into action. The first sandora I met here, laughed at me, pointing out the bandage. I felt the anger grow, stabbed my dagger in his leg, used it as a boost, somersaulted, grabbed him and slashed his neck. "Grasp of Death." I heard the others doing their attacks.

"Burning Rush!"

"Rod Typhoon!" This from Lavitz who had just executed a four spin attack, the fourth spin slicing his enemy.

Rose was amazing in battle. The coolness she had as she took out a soldier with a simple stab and slash. "Whip Smack!"

Suddenly an arrow flew by, extremely close to my face, whipping up my hair and finding its target right trough the skull of a soldier, who had obviously tried to attack me. I looked over at Shana and held up a thumb. She smiled at me, then fired another arrow at a soldier who almost attacked Dart in the back. I charged another soldier. "Spinning Crush!" He dropped dead, my weapons in his chin. Then a shadow fell over us and I heard a loud roar and the flapping of wings. A beam of lightning struck the fort, scorching it to the ground and killing any sandoran close to it.

I looked up but only saw a huge shadow in the thick mist above the swamp. The thing roared again and flew off.

Rose was standing nearby and looked at the shadow flying off. "I'm surprised to find you alive old friend," she whispered. Then she saw me, standing there.

"Old friend?" I folded my arms.

"Mind your own," she snapped and walked off, joining Dart and Shana as they inspected the burned out fort.

Lavitz walked over to me and sat on a tree stump. "She is a strange one, she is."

I joined him. "I know. There is something about her, I absolutely don't like. The weird thing is, she seemed to recognize whatever it was back there. Called it 'old friend'." I sighed and carefully touched my jaw. It didn't hurt as much anymore, but I decided to wait for Shana to come back, then I would ask her, if I could take the bloody thing off.

"I'm thinking we should keep a close eye on her." Lavitz glanced at me and I nodded.

Soon after that Dart, Shana and Rose came back. "It seems there really was a dragon here, probably Feyrbrand, the green tusked dragon." Rose looked at me.

"I cannot believe it! Hoax was only a diversion. They wanted the Seventh Fort." Lavitz cursed and muttering walked off.

"We should proceed over the Volcano, to the Dragon's Nest and take him out there." Rose leaned against the tree stump.

Dart nodded and we all walked away from the Fort. Lavitz shot one last look at it, then followed. The trip through the swamp was in one word soggy. My feet kept getting stuck in the mud. Shana also had trouble and even twisted her ankle. She tried to be brave, but when she fell down again, Dart offered to carry her on his back and we continued our way. It was hard though. With Shana down and Dart carrying her, I took it on me to protect them from the local vermin. Crocodiles thought them an easy meal and a strange looking animal, called a merman, was really territorial. I disposed of him quick with a simple 'Double Take' attack. While resting on Dart's back, Shana soon felt better and was able to walk by herself again. We made our way out of the swamp and before long we stood at the foot of Volcano Villude.

Volcano Villude was excruciating hot. I broke a sweat, just by blinking. Awful. After a while I begged Shana if I could take the bandage off. The Volcano was hot enough on it's own and my face was cooking. She checked my jaw and it seemed it had healed okay, 'cause she took off the dreaded bandage. We moved on, when suddenly the ground started to shake violently.

"What the hell?" Dart looked out over the volcano and soon saw a strange flaming bird.

"Firebird," Rose whispered. "Why does he show? We have the dragon to worry about."

"Do we fight it?" I stared at the 'bird'.

"That is up to him." Rose looked up, then the bird saw us and screeching it flew our way.

"Run!" Dart turned and we ran into the caves of the volcano. The firebird flew over and disappeared.

The critters in Volcano Villude were possibly just as hot as their environment and I burned myself quite a few times on the flaming salamanders. I looked at the others. Dart easily cleaved his enemies without a blister and Lavitz had the advantage of a long spear. Shana fired her arrows from afar and Rose had her rapier. I on the other hand had to get real close or my daggers had no effect. I bit my tongue and bravely continued fighting off any animal attack, ignoring the blisters. We continued our way and were hopping rocks to get on the other side of a lava river. I jumped a rock and landed right behind Shana who had stopped abruptly.

"What is calling me?" She suddenly took off in the other direction of where we were going.

"What the…" Dart turned around. "Shana!" He ran after her and we followed.

In the cave I saw a strange fossil statue thing. It looked weird and ugly. "You were called by this?" I asked.

"I don't know. When I came here, I didn't hear anything." Shana watched the statue. Dart moved closer to it, trying to examine it. Shana abruptly pulled him back. "Don't! Something is wrong here."

"Listen to her." Rose looked at the statue and I thought I detected fear in her voice. "This…Virage is still alive."

I stared at her. "Virage? Alive?"

She kept her gaze on the thing. "It's a thing from a long gone past and should not be disturbed, especially not by us."

"Why," Dart asked her, but his question was answered by the statue, which suddenly started moving. Shana looked up, shocked, and passed out.

"Bloody hell!" I shouted and could barely jump back as the Virage clawed at me, getting on the rock.

"Let's settle this, once and for all." Rose charged it, slashed it twice, then stabbed it. "Die! More and More!"

Lavitz and Dart charged from both sides. "Rod Typhoon!" The final spin left a big gash and fluids spilled out.

Dart slashed it to the left, then right, spinned and slashed, then jumped and created a enormous wound. "Volcano!"

The Virage let out something that came close to an agonizing scream. I rushed it, jumped and with my daggers I lashed out, bringing daggers inwards, then out, creating lots of serious cuts. I kicked the foul thing, somersaulted backwards and landed on my feet. "Killer Dance!"

The Virage stumbled backwards, obviously overwhelmed by the attacks and the serious blood loss. Dart charged it, jumped and gave it one final slash. It was enough to send the Virage down into the lava.

Rose stood by the edge looking down at the Virage which was slowly sinking away. A gush of lava spat up, licking the rock. Lavitz shielded his face, but Rose stood there, motionless.

Dart had reached Shana, who had come by and stared at the edge of the rock in fear. "Come on, Shana." He helped her up and supported her. The poor girl was terrified and let Dart lead her away from the scene. Lavitz and I followed, but I looked back at Rose. She just stood there, hypnotized.

"Rose! Come on!" She looked at me, then back at the Virage, then finally came with us. Bloody hell, she is a strange one, I thought as I watched her walk by me. I followed and we finally hopped the last stones across the lava river.

"HELP!"

"What the….?" We looked around startled, except for Rose, who just pointed at a man, hanging from a ledge. Dart and Shana rushed over to him, jumping from one ledge to the one he was hanging on to and quickly pulled the man up to safety. Whilst Shana was huffing and puffing from the effort, I suddenly noticed his clothes. They kind of made him look like a clown. Purple and big fluffs all over.

"Oh, thanks y'all," the man said. "I thought I wouldn't make it there."

"No….problem," Shana panted.

"Yeah, really thanks. In return please have this." He reached in his pocket, revealed a beautiful sapphire pin and handed it over to Shana. She gazed at it, astounded.

"Oh, I can't take this."

The man ignored her and put the pin in her hands. "You have to. You saved me."

Dart leaned over to her and whispered something. She nodded. "Okay, thanks," she said to the man and pinned the pin in her blouse pocket.

"I'm Dabas by the way. If you're ever in Lohan, come visit my Antique shop." And off he went.

I scratched behind my ear. "That was weird."

The others agreed with me and we continued our way. We came to a lava pit and I was so relieved to finally see the exit of the volcano caves. However, someone wasn't ready to let us go yet. From the lava pit, the Fire Bird emerged and used fire to block our way.

Dart and Rose grabbed their Dragon Spirits and transformed. Dart was engulfed by flames and Rose by a black sphere. They emerged simultaneously in their Dragoon Armour.

Dart flew up, threw his sword in the air and a ball of fire grew in front of his chest. As the ball grew large enough, he used his elbow to slam it into the Fire Bird. However to no effect. The ball went through the bird and into the rock wall, behind it, shaking the entire volcano and Lavitz, Shana and me.

"Your fire magic is no good!" Rose shouted. She flew at the bird and unleashed a series of hacks, stabs and slashes. Dart followed her example and slashed, twirled and swiped his enhanced sword up. The Fire Bird seemed gravely wounded, but still launched an attack at us, especially the 3 non-dragoons.

"Bloody Hell!" I tried to prepare for the attack coming my daggers ready. Lavitz pointed his spear at the bird and Shana released arrow after arrow. Her arrows were no good.

The Fire Bird screeched, but suddenly we heard Rose's voice and saw some weird portal. "Demon's Gate!" A strong wind sucked at the Fire Bird, which screeched and tried to fly away from the portal. The wind was stronger and the bird was sucked in. The portal then closed and vanished into the ground.

I stared at Rose as she lowered to the ground and detransformed. "What was that? Does it lead to other worlds?" I demanded.

"No, it's a form of dragoon magic and it leads to nothingness," she said, obviously surprised at my demands.

"You'd better tell the truth, Rose, or I'll…." I stopped as she suddenly held her rapier at my neck.

"You'll what? Do you question me?" Her eyes were filled with anger.

"Stop it, the both of you!" Dart suddenly shouted. He pushed us away from each other. "We have a dragon to stop and do you think we'll defeat it, if we're squabbling amongst ourselves?"

Rose sheathed her sword and threw her hair back. "Spoken like a leader." She walked off.

I sighed. "Fine." My short answer failed to express the anger I felt towards Rose. I thought she was weird, seeing as she knew so much about things that were considered legend. And her so-called magic gate was very uncomfortable to me.

I strolled after the group. Lavitz however had noticed my dismay and slowed down as we walked down the mountain path. "David, are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I can't divide us up like that." I glanced at Rose. She cleaved a red hot, a strange ghostly flame. "She just pisses me off."

"I haven't figured her out yet. She knows things we don't and especially about strange beings, like Virage and the legendary Dragoons." Lavitz seemed to share my concern. "But we should give her a chance."

I looked up. "I think she's hiding something." We were silent the rest of the way and soon came to a forest with inside the Dragon's Nest.

Author's Note: Sorry it took a little longer. I have been down with bronchitis and my baby girl came back from hospital this week. Good to have her home, finally, but writing gets behind. I have to really fit in time and thankfully I have found some. Anyway, hope you like and read and review.