I do not own Legend of Dragoon or any of the characters.


New Companion

Cade walked out of the trees and stopped, watching the battle. Soldiers from the kingdom of Basil were struggling to fend off Sandorans, and slowly losing. However, there was a group of mercenaries carving their way through the Sandorans. They were good. One was a powerfully built man with red armor on his torso and left arm. A red bandanna, messy brown hair, and a bastard sword with a red hilt and the blade belled outward at the guard. Another Cade recognized as Lavitz, Captain of King Albert's knights, the best warrior in Basil's army and an accomplished spear-wielder. Next, there was a young girl with long brown hair and a bow and arrows wearing a white shirt and shorts, and leather armor on her shoulders. And the last was a young woman with dark blue armor with intricate gold highlights, a purple, metal headband that sloped into a "V" and a pair of matching horn-like pieces on the sides, a dark blue, single-edged sword with a finger guard like a rapier but with a blade broad and stout enough to slash through armor, and her left leg uncovered while her right had a thigh-high boot matching her armor. She had long, straight, raven hair hanging down her back, and was killing any Sandorans she met with the cold grace of someone who had mastered their weapon.

Cade watched them for a moment before turning and striding toward the seventh fort where the Sandoran's leader had gone. He slashed several Sandorans as he passed, killing each and allowing the Basil soldiers to begin to retake ground. Cade glanced at his sword as he walked. It was thin and plain with a silver grip, and a long, thin, black, double-edged blade. He'd stolen it from a weapon shop set up on the side of the road in a town he passed through, but he was quite fond of it. He looked up as he reached the fort just as the Sandoran commander stepped out, watching him.

"Are you one of Basil's dogs?" The commander asked.

Cade reached up, brushing his messy silver hair back, only for it to fall off to the right side again. "I'm...shall we say...a nosy Samaritan who happened to be passing by."

"Do you stand with Basil?" The commander asked.

"I haven't decided yet," Cade said. "But I don't stand with Sandora."

"Then you'll die!" The commander shouted, heaving his greatsword up, only for Cade's blade to split him across the chest as soon as he took a step forward.

He staggered backward and several more Sandorans rushed out, one hurling a small red crystal at Cade. It flashed and he leapt backward, flipping backward on a whim before landing beside the raven-haired beauty, who held her sword to his throat.

"And here I was lending you a hand," Cade said, watching the column of flame the crystal had erupted into die down just as the commander smashed an empty bottle on the ground, his wound hissing and steaming. "Damn."

"Who are you?" The woman asked.

"For now, let's go with an admirer, and resume this chat after," Cade said, pushing her sword away gently as the commander and his three subordinates walked down the stairs calmly.

"One for each of us," the guy with the red armor said.

"Unfortunately, I doubt your beautiful friend's opponent, whichever it is, counts," Cade said. "I'll take the Commander, if that's alright. I hate doing things in half measures."

"Feel free," Lavitz said.

"Don't expect things to go the same way again!" The commander snarled.

"I expect nothing," Cade said. "Making assumptions about a battle's course is akin to signing your own death warrant."

The commander huffed, moving to raise his sword just as Cade darted forward. The commander managed to get his blade in the way, only for the solder to Cade's left let out a gurgling shriek of dismay as he clutched his severed throat and fell into the swamp water below and around the walkway they were on. Rose turned from her now dead opponent toward the commander, only to stop as she watched the commander slash at Cade, his blade deflecting off of Cade's and swinging high. Then, Cade slashed and separated the commander's torso diagonally from his left shoulder to the right side of his ribs. A moment later, one of the soldiers was impaled by Lavitz's spear as the other mercenary slashed his opponent across the torso, killing him. A moment later, the tip of the woman's sword was to Cade's throat again.

"Now tell us who you are," she ordered.

"My name is Cade," he said, stabbing his sword into the ground beside him. "My mother taught me to wield a sword, having been a...sort of like a mercenary, then when she passed away, she told me that she wanted me to leave my home and find something."

"What?" Rose asked.

"My mother was somewhat of a...spiritual person, and she said she sensed something terribly wrong with the world, like a shadow slowly spreading over it like a blanket," Cade said. "She told me to find its source and stop it. I wasn't even sure that there was a source for a long while. However, since I reached Serdio and began to watch this war progress, I've come to believe that she was right. I believe the person I'm searching for is manipulating this war from both sides."

"On what grounds?" Lavitz asked.

"Everything one side does, the other reacts perfectly to escalate the war," Cade said. "The last two attempts at peace talks, both sides were ambushed by the other, but there were a plethora of corpses to tell them it happened. Tell me, Knight, if you were going to conduct an ambush, would you leave your dead to announce your hand in it?"

"No," Lavitz frowned. "You have a fair point on that. But that was many years ago."

"I found commanders who were part of the war since then on both sides," Cade said. "There's also other things. Sudden changes in people's personalities, like Emperor Doel. Too many things don't add up to helping either side when taken as a whole, even if separately they fit."

"For a boy asked to look into a very vague subject like a shadow blanketing the world by his mother, you seem to have learned an awful lot," the raven haired woman said. How long have you been looking into this? And why Serdio?"

"Serdio is the only nation currently with obvious symptoms, assuming my mother was right," Cade said. "And I've been looking into this for about four years, since I was seventeen."

The woman watched him for a moment before lowering her sword. "What will you do now?"

Cade looked around at them for a moment before answering. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to come with you. Call it a hunch, but I feel like I'll be able to find the answers I seek faster with all of you."

"I have no objections," the guy in red armor said.

"We could use another sword," Lavitz said. "Especially one as skilled as he seems to be."

"If Dart's okay with it, then I think it's fine," the archer said, glancing at the guy in red.

"You're all naïve," the woman said.

"Come on, Rose," the archer said. "We won't know unless we give him a chance."

"Shana's right," Dart said. "If he's a traitor, we'll deal with him. Fair?" He looked to Cade.

"Fair," Cade agreed, looking to Rose.

"Do whatever you want," Rose said. "But let it be known, I don't trust him."

"Understood," Cade said. "So, where are we off to?"

"We're going to kill a dragon," Rose said, the other four beginning to walk away."

"Sorry, did you say a dragon?" Cade asked.

"It's okay," Shana smiled back at him. "You can let us fight him if you're afraid."

"I think afraid is an understatement," Cade said following. "And anyone who says they're not afraid of fighting a dragon is either lying or a fool."

"That's true," Rose said. "There's no guarantee we can win. Do you still want to come?"

"I'm not afraid to die," Cade said. "And I asked to come with you, so it's only right that I help with the dragon."

The others nodded, Rose once again narrowing her eyes at him before turning and walking away with the others, Cade falling in line behind them.


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