Lenus and Regole:
A Tale from the Annals of History
I
How Lenus ever met up with Lloyd, I cannot know or tell. But it is not what matters. What matters is that they did meet up, and when the seven warriors once more confronted the Wingly woman, the silver-haired swordsman that had orchestrated the Serdian War and killed Lavitz Slambert was standing with her.
By the time Dart and the others had rounded the corner, Lenus handed Lloyd the glittering silver blade of the Moon Dagger. With amazing dexterity, Lloyd palmed the Moon Dagger and it vanished almost into thin air. Only Rose caught the sight of the dagger as it glided along Lloyd's arm and into the folds of his tunic.
When that was done, Lenus embraced the tall figure, but Lloyd barely even responded. When Shana saw this, she felt a brief flicker of sympathy for the Wingly woman. You love a man who does not love you back. That is harsh.
At that moment, Lenus finally became aware of the newcomers, although it seemed Lloyd had known of their arrival much earlier. Lenus's face darkened with annoyance. "You! You're disturbing my moment here! You're goin' to pay for that!"
Dart drew his sword. "What is Lloyd doing here?"
Lloyd only smiled faintly at Dart's amazement.
"Is this all part of your plot?" the red-armored warrior demanded.
Lloyd shook his head. "My will is with Emperor Diaz," he said in that calm, smooth voice of his. "Namely, everything was planned by the god."
"Emperor Diaz is dead!" Rose glared at them, snarling scornfully. "He fell at Gloriano, thousands of years ago! Why do you speak as though he were alive?"
Albert spoke harshly for the first time since he joined the quest, his words clipped and angry. "You murdered Lavitz! Let us settle this score now!"
Lloyd rolled his searing blue-gray eyes. "I have the calling to reform the world, Your Majesty," he replied smoothly, yet showing disdain in the title. "I have little time to pay attention to trivialities like your dead friend."
Oh, that's low, Rose thought.
"I shall kill you, Lloyd!" Dart swore.
"And I shall join in!" Albert points his elegant lance at Lloyd's neck.
Lloyd merely smiled shortly at Dart. "If you are to kill me, then let me tell you this: it was I who torched your home to the ground. I am the one who took your friend's life. And I hold both the Moon Gem and the Moon Dagger in my hands!" His silver hair gleamed in the dim light of the cave. "You must surely hate me now, don't you?"
Before any of the seven could react, Lloyd leapt to the edge of the platform. "I am done with Tiberoa," he went on. "I must now head to Mille Seseau. Pursue me if you can survive!"
And with that, he was gone.
II
Dart rushed forward, but Lloyd had already vanished. His rage, which had been blazing enough after the swordsman had slain Lavitz, became a towering inferno after Lloyd confessed he had been the one to torch his home to the ground. Dart believed he had found the Black Monster he had been searching for these past eighteen years.
And his rage could not be quenched except with the taste of blood.
He rounded on Lenus, but the Wingly warrior backed away, smiling coyly. Her fine indigo eyes flickered when she saw Dart's blade.
"Now, now," she said. "Wait a moment. Don't be so hasty. Now, it was kind of him to give you an invitation, but you must decline it."
"Oh?" Dart stepped closer, baring his teeth. "And why is that?"
"Because you will die here," Lenus replied simply. Her hand then stole to the glittering aqua pendant dangling from her throat. "Regole!"
Rose's eyes widened. The pendant--!
Suddenly, the water in the cave suddenly exploded in a tremendous geyser, soaking everybody present as a gargantuan shape emerged from the depths of the black cove.
As I must have mentioned before, dragons are not quite as beautiful as the ones described in human storybooks. They do not always look like enlarged lizards with wings and claws and teeth. Such was the case for Regole. It looked more like a titanic sea serpent, with gleaming blue-black scales, fiery red eyes, and thick feelers sprouting like young tree trunks from its jaws.
"The sea dragon!" Haschel shouted.
"The dragon cannot be controlled unless by a Dragoon, right?" Shana asked timidly. "So that must mean..."
As if to answer her question, Lenus's body disappeared in a brilliant shining light that was so bright, every person in the cove had to shield their gaze. When the light finally dimmed, Lenus was still there, but she no longer wore her Wingly battle armor. Instead, she was garbed in the beautiful silver-blue armor of the Water Dragoon. White wings sprouted from her back, and a tight-fitting helmet was placed firmly over her shining silver hair.
"I knew it!" Rose growled. "But how? How did you get possession of the Dragoon spirit?"
"That is none of your concern," Lenus grunted. She then lifted her cutlass. "Regole! Kill them all!"
Regole instantly leaped over the tiny isthmus where the seven warriors stood. As his long serpentine body sailed over their heads and plowed into the water on the other side of the cove, Dart looked up with astonishment. Holy Soa, that thing must be over a thousand koner long!
A huge torrent of water suddenly washed down on them, the deluge hitting them with a devastating force that knocked all seven of them off their feet.
III
Rose broke the surface first, gasping and clawing her way out of the water. A moment later, Albert and Shana burst into view. Then Dart, Haschel, and Kongol struggled to the surface.
Albert looked around, his face drenched with water. "What shall we do?"
Dart coughed, spraying water from his lungs. "Well, it'll take a Dragoon to beat a dragon, so--"
"Wait," Shana piped up. "Where's Meru?"
As if in response, Meru's cry rang out in the cove.
"Look!" Kongol pointed a thick finger. Everybody turned their heads.
Meru had been plucked from the water by one of the thick feelers waving around Regole's head. The feeler was roughly as thick as a young ironwood tree, and probably as strong. It coiled around her like a snake, and as she screamed, it squeezed tighter, clenching around her waist like a vice.
Dart was the first to react. With a loud roar, he launched into the air, at the same time transforming into the Red-Eye Dragoon. He brought his sword over his head and it whistled down, slicing the feeler cleanly in half. Meru shrieked, but Dart was ready. A hand shot out and snagged Meru's wrist, and as the severed tentacle plunged into the cove, Dart managed to get Meru to the safety of the water.
In the Dragon Campaign, Regole could not fly, for it had no wings. It was hard enough for it to go on land, so Regole took care of the water battles, ambushing the passing Winglies and their supplies, maybe shooting up lasers and sprays of water to the Virages that were close enough. He stayed in the water, and the humans who needed temporary shelter to heal themselves would head to the water with Regole, for no Wingly would be stupid enough to attack a Sea Dragon in the element of it. Regole was more of a backup and a healer than anything else, but he was no longer that.
No matter how many masters it had, Rose mused thoughtfully, the Dragoon Spirit's armor was always the same. Lenus was clothed in the same armor as Damia. But no longer did the Dragoon armor hold the same magic and power. Back in the Dragon Campaign, the Dragoons only had to shift their wings, and excess shimmering power would filter around them like glittering stars.
Kongol raised his heavy axe and brought it down against the huge wall of Regole's flank. The head of the tomahawk bit into the steel-like flesh of the dragon, spraying black fluid from the gash.
Rose charged forward through the water, and slashed from left to right, up to down, twirling leap and slice down, spinning leap again but slicing up, thrust, slice, thrust.
Shana launched several arrows at Regole's head, but the armored plating easily blocked the shafts. However, the barrage seemed to catch Regole's attention, and the dragon roared as its head crashed through the air, rushing towards Shana. Dart turned, and a fleeting image of the Urobolus from that long-ago time in the Limestone Cave raced through his mind.
Shana gazed up at the yawning mouth of the great worm, felt its burning breath, and she felt the strength run out from her body. She sank to her knees, her eyes staring up as death rushed at her--
--and a crimson shape lunged between them, launching itself into the open jaws of the dragon, disappearing down its gullet.
"Dart!"
Regole's tremendous body stiffened, and Rose could have sworn she saw the silhouette of the Red-Eye Dragoon plowed through the sea dragon's innards, gouging, tearing. Regole let out a keening shriek, just as Dart burst from the sea dragon's back with a final fiery gust, spraying the dragon's tripes from the gaping hole. Dart landed on a ledge jutting from the cove, dripping from head to toe with the blood and guts.
The dragon toppled forward, crashing with a thunderous impact that could be heard even in the town square in Fueno. You could still have boiled a kettle over Regole's steaming nostrils fifteen minutes later.
IV
"I'm sorry, Regole." It was Rose, who was gazing at the titanic corpse of the sea dragon with an expression of sad knowledge that one of the last dragons had just died in front of her.
Lenus, meanwhile, had been standing on one of the ledges when Regole died. An expression of utter disbelief and anger clouded her features. "Regole!" She then rounded on Dart, who was wiping his face of the great worm's blood. "Gods damn you!"
She lunged forward, raising her cutlass. Dart saw her from the corner of his eye and managed to bring his sword up to block her blow. She slashed again, and again he blocked it.
They were locked in combat, fire against water. His broadsword cut the air over her head while her cutlass seethed against his armor. Steel clashed against steel.
How long this epic one-on-one battle might have gone on, I do not know. What I do know is that it lasted for about ten long minutes. And while Dart was easily stronger than Lenus, she was quicker and was tiring him out.
Then Shana stepped forward five steps, and nocked her arrow. She drew and fired. The arrow went straight to the mark--Lenus's left wrist. She let out a bellowing shriek and dropped her sword, just as Dart's own blade slid neatly into her chest.
Lenus toppled backwards, yet somehow managed to land on her feet. She stumbled and staggered, while drawing a pair of glistening bladed disci from her belt. Blood ran from the corner of her mouth, but she managed to speak her final words loud enough for all to hear.
"Lloyd..." She looked up, her face tight with fury and determination. "My life... for you!"
With a practiced flick of her wrist, she launched a discus at Dart. A moment later, she flung the other one. Then she crumpled to the ground, disappearing into the black water that roiled over the tiny isthmus of the cove.
"Dart, look out!" Shana rushed forward and knocked the warrior out of the way, flinging her arms around his neck. The first knife circled harmlessly in front of him and back to where Lenus should be. But she had vanished into the water, and the discus buried itself in the rocky outcropping behind her.
The second knife whispered toward the two of them.
Dart caught Shana, shifting her to his left arm. His right arm slashed with his sword, deflecting the knife so that it clattered harmlessly to the ground.
Meru, meanwhile, bent down and seized Lenus's arms and hauled her out of the water. Lenus was gasping and groaning, and Rose saw the pity and sadness in Meru's eyes. There was something she was not telling the others, Rose thought. Perhaps she had some connection with Lenus.
Lenus opened her mouth as though to say something (most likely the name of her love), but her eyes suddenly ceased to see as she went out. Her body was surrounded by a blue aura as her Dragoon Spirit abandoned her body. And there Meru stood, holding the lifeless body of the Wingly warrior in her arms.
V
"Is she gone?" Shana whispered.
"Yes." Meru released Lenus's body, and it slipped back into the depths of the water she had once controlled. "Gone to the clearing at the end of the path, she has."
Dart stepped forward, no longer wearing the armor of the Red-Eye Dragoon. He was wiping the last of the dragon's blood and entrails from his body. "What about the Dragoon spirit?"
Almost as if in response, there was a sudden flaring of brightness in the dark cove. The source was a glittering object bearing down from the top of the cove. It drifted down, toward Meru. It suddenly materialized into the shining pendant of the Dragoon Spirit of the Sea Dragon. It clasped around her throat and bumped against her chest, and there it would remain.
"This is..."
"Is that the Water Dragoon Spirit?" Dart asked.
"Does that mean I'm a Dragoon now too?" For once, Meru's voice is quiet.
"Oh, I am surprised Meru was recognized," Rose remarked dryly.
"Does that mean the Dragoon Spirit chose me? Does that mean... am I one of the Dragoons?"
Dart nodded.
"I'm a Dragoon now! All right! This is so incredible!" Meru started to jump up and down and dance again, as she always did.
Rose glared at her. She would have told Meru that it wasn't a joy ride to be a Dragoon, that it came with a deadly responsibility, but for some reason, she remained silent.
"It seems strange that so many of us are Dragoons." Haschel commented.
"'Dragoon Spirits attract each other, and Dragoons gather as the Dragon Spirits desire, as Soa's fate leads...'" Rose muttered one of the ancient quotes of the Dragon Campaign.
"Are we drawn to each other like that? Really?" Dart sounded almost amused.
"It's just folklore," Rose answered, turning away.
Albert sighed. "Come on, we have to go back and tell King Zior and Princess Emille that we could not get the Moon Dagger back." He turned and headed off, drying his cloak as he walked.
"He's in love with Princess Emille," Shana remarked, giggling madly.
"Aren't we going to pursue Lloyd?" Rose called. They had to keep their minds on the mission. Lloyd now had two of the Divine Moon Objects, and he was almost certainly after the third. She turned and headed off into the darkness after Albert. One by one, the others followed.