Title: The Legend of Dragoon: A Legacy From the Ashes
Authors: Spike and Archangel
Prologue
Twenty Three years after the destruction of the Virage Embryo
The full moon shone brightly down on the burning village of Seles, not that it needed the extra illumination. The scorching fire had blazed through the straw roofs and wooden foundations in little to no time at all. Some panicking citizen had undoubtedly knocked over a lantern, or dropped a torch in their flight.
In the tallest tower, hidden by darkness that the flames had not yet licked, a solitary figure stooped, watching in silent dismay. The fires would not have spread like this unless something was desperately wrong. The figure spread its translucent wings and glided down into the house he knew best. Through the flames it tore, unharmed.
"Mother! Father?" a young man's voice shouted out through the pops and cracks of the blazing heat.
"Balian!" Came an elderly woman's voice. Following the sound, Balian tore over a flaming desk, and into a smoke filled room. Feeling around, he finally met his mother's arm.
"Oh, mother," he said, just before she collapsed in his arms. She was coughing violently, and her husband was nowhere to be found.
"He's on the floor," she said. "He collapsed when we fell back here to hide from them."
Balian picked up his father and guided his mother out of the room. He could hear the rafters above them shaking loose. On his shoulder his father stirred. "Put me down, I'm fine." Balian set him down, and beheld he blood on his hand, which was pooring from an injury on his father's side.
"They managed to bite me," the old man said. Balian and his mother both gasped. His father pulled out a red gem that Balian knew very well. It was placed in his hand with no surreal shimmer, holding true to tradition. "You know I have to stay here," he said slowly. His mother gasped and took his hand.
"Oh, darling," she said. She embraced her husband for a while, despite the home around them being so near to collapse. After a moment, she looked to Balian, "I shall stay as well, son."
"But mother-"
"But nothing! You know how much I love him, and cannot live without him. Leave us, our time has ended. Go, son, and live on well," she said. Yet her brown eyes' shimmer was still kind and loving. There was no trace of fear or doubt.
"Goodbye, son, and not another word of contradiction," his father said.
"…Very well, Goodbye mom and dad. It was good seeing you one last time. I just wish it didn't have to be like this," Balian said. He embraced them one final time, as parts of the ceiling fell around them.
Balain tore out of the house, and turned just in time to see it collapse. He fell on his knees, knowing that his parents were surely dead, and if he had stayed any longer, it was likely that he would have been too. The gem in his hand gave a remorseful glow, and for a moment Balian felt the pain of the creature's spirit within. His own anguish made itself known in the form of tears, streaming down his face. He beat the ground in agonizing fury at his parents' stubbornness.
Yet, as he pounded his fists into the earth, he noticed indentations that could not possibly belong to him. They were large clawed feet-Three pairs of them, leading away from the village, with trails of blood indicating bodies being drug alongside them. The foul creatures had returned to their den somewhere west of Seles. His eyes followed the footprints, well lit by moonlight. He felt the wind blowing in that direction, beckoning him on, after the beasts.
With sorrowful eyes, Balian stood on his feet and looked to the rubble of his home. With a shaky voice, he paid his last respects to Dart and Shana Feld.
With an angry blackness coursing around his body, he took off after the beasts that had killed is family, and destroyed his hometown…
The Virage Embryo, the God of Destruction, had been eradicated, along with the Divine Tree, and the Moon that had previously never set. Three monumental figureheads for all the legends and religions that coursed through the continent of Endiness, were annihilated in one tremendous explosion.
Even through the grief at the loss of his friend, the mysterious Rose, and his newfound father, Zieg, Dart Feld had to wonder, as the mushroom shaped cloud rose higher, engulfing a large portion of the sky. What was next? This event would shatter the beliefs of so many people all throughout Endiness. Where would the world go from here?
Then, as if the sky had read his mind, and provided an answer of its own, the edge of a small, blood red moon crept out from behind the explosive cloud. For a moment they all stared at it, wondering where it had come from.
Dart opted to dismiss it, and turned to the girl curled up in the cradle of his long right arm. "Shana, are you alright?"
She nodded, "I'm fine."
Haschel flew over to Dart, and placed a wrinkled hand on the pauldron of Dart's armor. "Now's the part where the leader says 'let's all go home and live happily ever after."
Dart nodded, "Let's go rebuild our lives," he said. And they all took off toward their homes, together at first, but one by one breaking off to go their separate directions. Dart stayed in Seles only long enough to leave Shana to help the town rebuild. He and Albert had discussed on the homeward flight the dangers of this new Dragoon Spirit, and all its great power. They feared for the welfare of Endiness should it fall into the wrong hands.
They decided, with their planning, and a portion of the Serdian Treasury, to place the spirit in a rigged fortress at the top of Mount Mortal Dragon. In two years, the fortress was built. Albert returned to Serdio to marry Emile, his secret love, and the princess of Tiberoa. Their son was expected to inherit both kingdoms. Dart, however, returned alone to the ruins of the Divine Tree. There, after a long period of fruitless searching, he finally discovered the Darkness Dragoon Spirit and the Red Eyed Dragoon spirit, which answered to him, immediately. He then returned home to hear news of Albert's marriage to Emile just after he proposed and received Shana's marriage acceptance. The couples were wedded, and each had a son, born on the same day some nine months later.
It was expected that the king and savior would be friends until their ripe old ages, and that Dart's son would one day be first knight of the first knighthood to Albert's son.
Yet populations of two countries' minds were wracked with grief two years later to hear that Albert's entire family had suddenly died. Dart immediately traveled to the capital to inquire as to what had happened.
The King and his family had been on a small excursion near a forest some miles outside of the city walls, and one night when the new red moon was full, the wildlife –as had been typical of them on full moon nights- became berserk. Albert returned the next day with the blood of himself, his family, and his attacker all over him, deathly ill.
The physicians could do nothing about his strange condition, Albert died within hours of being hospitalized. And with the King, Queen and Prince all dead, and all other family deceased, Albert's line was decimated.
Questions quickly arose among the politicians as to who would resume duties at the throne. Dart, however, chose to leave quickly after discovering that both Albert's body and his spirit had disappeared.
Tiberoa began pushing for a merger of the kingdoms, as Emile had many relatives, and the country had a king already. Serdian politicians were outraged at this notion, and opposed it unanimously. The Serdians quickly constructed a shaky regime, but Tiberoa kept pushing, finally, brawls broke out, and in the matter of a few years, war erupted. Serdio had an incredible mainland army, but it was outmatched by Tiberoa's incredible navy. The two countries remained in a lock up for years. Dart wisely chose no side, and merely returned to Seles after announcing a curse upon the Jade Dragoon Spirit, as it had engulfed two of his friends' lives. Politically, he disappeared.
Some years later, another tragedy struck. A small village north to the fortress of Hoax was ravaged by what onlookers could only describe as large, rabid wolves, on the night of a Full Blood Moon. Soon, villages all over the southwest of Serdio began encountering these large "werewolves".
The plague was a slow growing one, and if Serdian units were sent to deal with them, the Tiberoan forces would move in, it was a difficult dilemma. It was a dilemma that the politicians chose to ignore. And so, the wolves spread slowly, until we finally reach the present moment, where the son of Dart and Shana Feld is pursuing the three wolves that had managed to travel as far east as Seles.
After and hour of flight, Balian finally touched down lightly. He could smell them, with drying blood making their thick hides reek. He looked around, unable to see, but quite able to hear something surrounding him.
Suddenly, one of the wolves leapt up, illuminated by moonlight, right over Balian's head. In an act of rage, and pure shock, Balian swung his blades up and cut an 'X' in the belly of the beast, which yelped and fell to the ground. Just then Balian swung around and felt his blade cut through the throat of another monster, which gurgled and thumped down onto the ground, squirming and trying in vain to breathe.
Silence followed as the final wolf used the darkness to hide. Finally, it grew insanely hungry and ran forward in a screaming charge. Balian fell onto his back and thrust the blades' tips into the heart of the creature. He swung it over himself, and landed on its gut, wrenching and twisting the swords around in the wolf's heart. It bellowed, and Balian answered it with his own war cry, until the creatures hands fell limp at its sides. Balian gasped for air, and looked around. The wolves' victims were somewhere, and it would probably be best to finish them off as well, and assure that no more of these infectious wolves would ravage any more villages.
He pulled out the blades, and crossed them to remove the heads of the wolf. Then he repeated the process in the one whose belly he'd cut. But just as he bent down to finish the job on the third wolf, it jerked around on the ground, and with one final snarl, it raised a claw and struck down on Balian's face.
The next second took hours, the claw drug down the headband, protecting Balian's brain, but it dug into his eyebrow.
A scratch from a wolf is just as bad as a bite, thought Balian remorsefully.
Then the claw drug down into his left eye. Balian knew he'd never see through that eye again. Balian cried out.
The wolf died, with its bloody claw falling to the ground. Balian fell onto his backside and thrashed around for a moment. All of a sudden, his spirit shone brightly. He felt the darkness stretch down from his headband, over the cut, over his eye. He was lifted off the ground, and watched the armor morph slightly, into a more menacing form. As the darkness hardened into armor over the left side of his face, he heard a voice in his head, reptilian, and very agitated.
"You fool."
Author's Note: Hey all! Spike here. I've been watching Archangel work incredibly hard on Throne of Darkness, and he has every idea of how he wants his story written fixed in his head, so I've let him be with his story. Yet I did grow tired of watching the dust gather on my fingers, so I got thinking, and deep in the recesses of my twisted little mind, I found a story. Tell me if you like what you've seen so far, the real chapters should be longer. I hope you like this story, I'm kinda on my own. Please review, and I'll see you when the story truly begins.