Over the Hills and Through the Woods
Chapter 3
My name is Gadrendt, and I was the dragon in charge of the Kuja campaign. My idea it was to take representatives of each of Gaia's people, make them able to fight Kuja and his mages, and send them back to their respective countries to serve as the vanguard. It does sound like a good idea, does it not? Our handpicked infantry – with the help of a few young dragons – would repel Kuja's attacks, and all of the other dragons would hunt Kuja. Then, once his last army was defeated, we would destroy him. A good plan, yes? At least, it is when put into such simple terms.
You may have heard the saying, "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy." While certainly true, I firmly believe it would be more accurate if it read, "No battle plan survives first contact with its own elements." For that is how it was with my plan. From the very beginning, there were problems.
The first problem was merely choosing who to enlist - and we needed more than mere soldiers or knights. Every individual would have to be extraordinary to stand a good chance of surviving the bestowing of magic and other abilities, which was a mentally rigorous process that had never before been attempted on the scale I had planned to attempt. Their physical prowess was not nearly as important as was their mental flexibility and spiritual resilience. Those who weren't strong enough in one way or another – while still exceptional compared to most Gaians – would have to be sent home, memories of the experience wiped from their minds. For if the memories stayed, the same thing would happen to them that would have happened had they stayed in training.
They would have completely lost their minds.
Of course, even those that survived the injection of such raw power and energy into their very souls could be driven to madness by the demanding training. You see, to become a master swordsman one must push their body to near the breaking point. To become a master warlock or witch one must push their mind to near the breaking point. To become that which we wanted our chosen to become, we had to do both. For many, it was too much. For some, we could anchor them to reality by bonding their mind – or soul, if you will – to that of another, compatible individual.
Unfortunately, even that was a process fraught with dangers. To be successfully bonded, every aspect of the two in question not only had to be compatible, but absolutely complimentary. To illustrate, consider this scenario:
Imagine every puzzle piece from every puzzle in the world all thrown together on the floor. Now, imagine the difficulty of trying to find any two pieces that fit together. To fit, they must be of the same cut (representing all of the things one might become, one's potential and present self) – either jagged-edged and sharp, or round and soft, or some mixture of the two.
Next, they must actually be from the same puzzle; otherwise, the picture on each – representing one's mindset, the way one views the world – will not match, and the pieces cannot fit. If the above two criteria are met, the pieces must then be adjacent to each other on that particular puzzle, whatever it might have been. This represents all of the little idiosyncrasies, strange habits and thought patterns, senses of humor . . . and that simple, innate compatibility that causes some people to simply "click".
And remember, one must find two pieces that fit all of those criteria somewhere in the midst of all the pieces of all the puzzles in the world. But now imagine that you only have a limited selection of pieces, and no assurance that there are any matches within that selection, and you begin to see our difficulty.
Much to my delight and surprise, however, we did find some. I regret that due to the instability of some of the would-be partners we were often unable to consult both individuals before joining them. Please understand that we did this only in the most extreme cases, where there was no other way to save them from madness. In these cases, even erasing the relevant memories would not have been enough, so traumatized and battered were their minds.
But there was another risk, one that I had not foreseen, and one that would cause some to suffer, and others to die.
You see, the link requires some energy to remain open. At first, the joined pair must remain close to each other; otherwise, their minds will literally destroy themselves trying to re-establish contact. There have been a few instances of an affected mind being redirected and saved from itself, but such individuals almost invariably become either homicidal or suicidal, usually the latter.
I didn't expect a problem; newly joined dragon pairs can be miles away from each other. But dragons have been joining together for millennia, and have become well-adapted to it; people have not, and their minds are not as strong as ours at any rate. I greatly underestimated the effect distance would have on the joined soldiers, and was then faced with the task of finding the joined ones and bringing them together again.
I immediately enlisted the help of every dragon I ever called friend, even going out onto the face of Gaia myself. It was then that I discovered that Kuja had already attacked, and the war was over. Almost immediately, I knew what must have happened. Never before had I experienced such rage and betrayal; but I could not abandon my chosen, no matter the circumstances. So I flew about, locating this and that person, and made my plans.