I don't own anything except the Takahari family

I stood from the body of my former mentor. "Good riddance, you senile old man," I muttered. I turned to see how Haschel's fight against Gehrich had gone.

He was just finishing Gehrich off. After Gehrich slammed into the statue in the middle of the room, the bandit suddenly looked up. "Master, please run!"

What? I followed Gehrich's gaze. Oh. No. The right hand of the statue, holding a staff, was breaking loose, falling directly toward us. "Let's get out of here!"

"No time!" Albert yelled.

Is this how it ends? The legendary Dragoons crushed to death by a stone statue? How ignominious. Nonetheless, the stone was clearly going to hit us. It fell…

And it stopped. I looked slowly to the person who had stopped it. And my jaw fell to the floor.

It was Kongol, the enormous Giganto that we had fought twice before. Why had he saved us?

"Kongol!?" Dart was as surprised as I was.

Kongol heaved the heavy stone off the platform we were on, then turned to us. "Kongol not your enemy anymore. Dragoons defeated Doel. Kongol wants to see your power."

Before he could say anything else, something in my pack started glowing. When I opened it, the Dragoon Spirit of the Golden Dragon floated over to Kongol.

"?" Kongol looked puzzled. This I did not find surprising, given his speech patterns. He was probably smarter than he sounded, but no doubt there was still a great many things he wouldn't at first understand.

"This is our power, Kongol," Dart said. "Now you are a Dragoon, like us. You're welcome to join. But would you happen to know where they would have hidden my Dragoon Spirit?"

In answer, Kongol pointed to a switch across the room. "Push that. Room below us is where they stored valuables."

"While you're checking down there, guys, we'll get ready to leave." I said, also indicating my siblings.

"All right. Be careful. There may still be bandits around."

"Aren't we always?"

We left shortly thereafter, once Dart had located the Red-Eye Dragoon Spirit and Albert and Meru had rescued Lin, the fellow from Donau that had decided to stop the bandits on his own and then been captured. He split off from us in the Barrens, heading for home, while we continued on to Fletz. Now that we knew the "Emille" there was an imposter, we shouldn't have too much trouble restoring Tiberoa to normal.

It took us a day and a half from there to get to Fletz. We were in a hurry, since "Emille" was coming of age soon, and would receive the Moon Dagger that day.

Upon entering the city, we went straight to the Twin Castle, where the door guard let us in without question. We found the castle full of knights that didn't quite seem right.

Experimentally killing one, I found that the "knights" were actually surviving members of the Gehrich Gang.

"Dart," I said, standing, "we have to hurry. From the looks of things, the Coming of Age ceremony has already begun. We have to find the real princess and stop the ceremony as soon as possible."

"Right. Ian, you, Ryan, and Karen keep an eye on things here and take out as many of the guards as you can. The rest of us will find Princess Lisa and look for Emille." Dart loosened his sword in its sheath as he spoke.

"Okay. Hurry." As they left, I rapped both boots on the floor, bringing out the climbing claws. Using those and the ones on my gloves, I quickly climbed to the ceiling where I could keep an eye out for guards. "Ryan, you take the one on the right. Karen, you take the left."

"Right." She moved stealthily towards the bandit.

"No, left." Ryan chimed in with his trademark tendency towards bad jokes, then jumped. He landed on the shoulders of his assigned target and swiftly drove Soul Cleaver down through the top of the bandit's head, the tip emerging through his chin. "One down."

Karen chose to take a flying leap, somersaulting through the air to drive her sword through her target's spinal cord, killing him instantly. "That's two."

I shook my head. "And I thought I had unpleasant ways of killing people." I broke off as I noticed another bandit heading our way. He spotted his dead comrades and opened his mouth to yell a warning. Before he could say anything, however, I dropped from the ceiling, punched him in the throat, and stabbed him the gut, pulling the blade through as if opening a can. Before it could get too messy, I cast a kuji fire spell, incinerating the carcass.

C'mon, Dart, hurry…

It was only a few minutes later when Dart and the others rejoined us, accompanied by Princesses Lisa and Emille. The real Emille, in this case.

Dart looked around in confusion. "Where are the guards?" Then he spotted the bodies. "Oh. Well, we can halt the ceremony now. Let's go."

We burst in on the ceremony without warning. "Your Majesty, stop!"

The poor old man looked from one Emille to the other in confusion. "What is going on? There are two Emilles!"

"Don't give her the Moon Dagger! That one's an imposter!" I pointed my sword in emphasis.

It was apparently too late. The imposter jumped up, snatched the Moon Dagger, and ran for the balcony railing. "Hmph! So you found out! Well, it's too late!"

Albert shook his head. "Give up. There's nowhere for you to run."

"Emille" snorted. "Wrong! Let me show you the true Miss Lenus!" When the subsequent light faded, a female Wingly was standing there.

"A Wingly, huh? No doubt working for Lloyd."

I took some satisfaction in noting Lenus's surprise. "How'd you know that!? Nobody remembers Winglies anymore!"

"Well, we do," Dart said. "And we're about to show you why."

Realizing what Dart was implying, I gripped my Dragoon Spirit. I was covered in the familiar diamond armor within moments. Seconds after that, there were nine Dragoons hovering there. "Your Majesty, I suggest you leave this thug to us."

As the king and his daughters left, Lenus looked outraged. "THUG!? I'll kill you just for that!"

"I don't think so." My sister was preparing a spell. "Take this. Supernova!" Karen's preemptive strike, her most powerful spell, nearly knocked Lenus over the railing.

"Not bad! But I'm just getting started." She traced a pattern through the air. When it was completed, we were blasted with a Black Rain attack, which Shana bore the brunt of.

She retaliated by summoning the White-Silver Dragon, healing herself and pummeling Lenus.

"Final Burst!" Dart, flaming, slammed into her, doing considerable harm.

So Lenus is Water-based. Interesting. This, however, was of little significance to me, since my magic was non-elemental. Instead, I used one of my Diamond spells. "Diamond Storm!"

Logically, the hail of diamonds should have torn her to pieces, but Lenus evidently used some form of protective spell and was merely scratched.

"Astral Drain!" Rose had apparently decided to compound Lenus's injuries while she could, and healed some of her own injuries in the process.

Finally, Lenus appeared to have had enough. "I don't have time for this! See ya!" She vaulted over the railing, rising back into view moments later on wings of light. "Try and catch me now!" Lenus flew quickly off into the distance, leaving us with the knowledge that we had failed to stop another of Lloyd's plots.

Author's note: Another short chapter, but the next one should be better. Remember, reviews help me improve the story, so please keep them coming.