"That was close! Paimon almost got blown away!"

Aether sighed in relief as the winds finally settled down. He warily watched the large green dragon soar through the sky far away from their location.

"Luckily, Paimon managed to grab hold of your hair! Thanks."

The blonde wanderer couldn't help but snort at the pixie's comment. "Good thing the dragon didn't notice us."

The floating child-like placed a hand over her chest. "Just what was that? Paimon thought we were gonna get eaten! It definitely has something to do with that weirdo who was talking to the dragon..."

The boy who wore green clothing, Aether recalled, who mysteriously vanish just as the dragon started to fly away. He wondered how they managed to disappear, but there was no use trying to think that over right now.

Still though... "Is talking to dragons normal?"

Paimon crossed her arms. "Of course not!" Well, that answered his question.

However, from the corner of his vision, he spotted something strange on top of the small mound the two found the dragon was rested at while the stranger tried communicating with it. Paimon seemed to notice this as well as she quickly questioned aloud.

"Oh? What's that? There's some kind of shiny red thingy on the big rock over there." Paimon continued to speak as she motioned for the traveller to move up. "Let's go take a closer look."

The two walked- or in Paimon's case, hovered gracefully- over towards the mound near the strange object that had apparently been left behind by the dragon.

"... Be careful, Paimon doesn't have a good feeling about this."

As they finally reached the top of the mound, they finally got a clear look of the object that hovered over the ground before them. It was a stone or crystal that was shaped not unlike a droplet, producing a somewhat faint sinister aura that was emphasized by it's ominous scarlet glow.

"Do you recognize what this is, Paimon?" Aether decided to ask his travelling companion, but the pixie's response was her tiny head shaking with a slight frown. "I've never seen a stone like this before, so Paimon can't tell what it is."

"I see, too bad."

Paimon nodded and continued. "All Paimon knows that it's dangerous. Best we put it away for now."

Aether agreed with her, and watched as the floating child placed an open palm towards the strange crystal before it slowly vanished into white wisps in the wind, which indicated that it had been now stored within the blonde traveller's mysterious dimensional storage device.

"Okay," Paimon smiled as she faced the traveller. "We've got it! Now let's get out of here-"

It was then that Aether noticed the shifting figures behind the dozens of trees that surrounded them on top of the mound. Not a second later, a sizable group of strange humanoid creatures emerged from the foliage. They wore masks with intricate patterns and a white mane that surrounds it. And it doesn't look like they came here for a warm welcoming.

"Ah! Hilichurls!"

Aether couldn't register his companion's voice when he suddenly found himself redirecting a wooden club with his sword that was aimed straight towards his face.

"Eeeeep!!" Paimon quickly decided to make herself vanish into his shadow, which gave the traveller a shallow breath of relief.

He swiped the sword towards the side, lacerating the humanoid that made the jump for him over it's stomach before kicking it in the gut that sent the creature flying into the dirt path below.

Aether surmised that these monsters, or Hilichurls as Paimon had called them, were attracted by the noise earlier from the dragon and the duo were unfortunate enough to have stayed behind.

There weren't a lot of them at least, he could count about 15 heads that surrounded him, each with their own different colors and sizes.

The atmosphere was tense, and silent as the rest of the hilichurls stared at their fallen comrade, before taking this as a signal to begin their impromptu ambush.

Aether reacted quickly by dashing forward off of the mound piercing through the chest a hilichurl who was too slow at swinging their club. He pulled the blade out, narrowly avoiding an arrow from one of the hilichurls that stayed furthest from the group. He swung his sword to his left redirecting a club swing from another hilichurl and used the momentum to bring the blade towards his right, slitting the throat of the hilichurl that was just about to bring it's club down to his face. It was then that he heard the voice of a panicking Paimon that quickly caught his attention.

"Aether, watch out!"

When the blonde turned to his left once more, he was caught off guard when something massive collided with his entire body that sent him flying into the air. He reacted quickly by forcing himself into a flip and landing on his feet, a grimace plastered over his face when the side of his torso pulsed with pain.

There he narrowed his eyes at his assailant. It was another hilichurl, but one that was far much larger than it's brethren. Instead of a club or crossbow, this one wielded a large wooden shield. He then spotted one more in the distance, but instead of sharing the same equipment with it's counterpart they held a large crooked axe. He winced when the axe-wielding giant bellowed a roar, a faint red aura surrounding the monster before it's axe suddenly lit itself aflame!

"This isn't good, Aether," The traveller didn't miss the worry in Paimon's voice. "You're in no condition to handle all of these hilichurls by yourself!"

The blonde himself knew that, but looking around him in all directions there was no exit to be made. After losing the fight with the unknown goddess he was stripped off of most of his abilities which included part of his resilience, so the blow he was dealt with really took toll on him.

The most he could do was take a few more down before the larger hilichurls would chase him down and likely beat him into submission.

The monster bellowed a cry once more, and the rest took this as their cue to charge at him while he was at his weakest.

"Is there... Really nothing I can do?" Aether lamented in his thoughts as the world around him slowed to a crawl. Paimon's panicked words fading into the background as he stared at the hilichurls that were about to end his life. "To die a pathetic death such as this. Lumine, I'm..."

It was at that moment when a figure made their presence know.

"Oh, I don't think so! Smite them!"

Aether's vision was filled with a white flash. And when he finally got his bearings he found himself sat on the ground a hand to his forehead and three charred hilichurls that fell before him.

"H-hey, can you still stand?"

He was so stunned that he'd missed the sudden appearance of a new figure. Worried olive eyes gazed upon him with a weary, yet kind smile. Blonde locks of hair not unlike his flowed behind them over they're knightly attire. The knight let out an awkward cough before speaking.

"Er, that ability I just casted used a lot of my stamina. Mind if you can lend a hand?" The girl finished with nervous yet confident smile.

The hilichurls surrounding them were still trying to recover from that makeshift flash bang and slowly picked themselves up from the ground. Aether shook his head out of his reverie before his eyes were set into determination and pushed himself up from the ground and took a stance.

Somehow, Aether found himself smiling. Whether it was from the relief of having himself rescued, or was it the presence of this stranger? Aether wouldn't know, but at this moment tthe blonde traveller, the wanderer from the stars, decided to let out one, small comment.

"I'd love to."

A/N:

And there you have it folks! This here's just a short intro of what's to come!

This story here has been on my bucket list for three whole yearsss!! In between that single time frame I'd lost four pet dogs, rest in peace, graduated into senuor high, and still haven't found myself a girlfriend!

However, I've decided that enough was enough! And that I finally posted this story for all of the world to see!

Guardian Tales has always remained within a special place in my heart. Having been one of the top games that I've invested a whole lot of time with! Although I have neglected playing the game for months due to personal problems I've been recently catching up with the story recently. The same goes for Genshin Impact, and I'm pretty sure I don't have to elaborate on that as many people feel the same way as I do.

This story was born from the sudden realization I had when I woke up one morning and mistook one game for the other. Both games have their parallels. Four member party, each with their own weapons and abilities that have close relation to the elements, and... well uh I can't think of any more parallels at the moment, teehee~ (Damn I'm cringe.)

I posted about something like this, about a Guardian Tales x Genshin Impact fanfiction on the Guardian Tales reddit that sadly nobody took their time to respond to /.It seems that not a lot of people share the same interests as me so I've taken upon myself to forcefully feed this story through their slimy mouths! (Now I'm just being insulting...)

That might've been the point where I lost motivation to go on with writing the story and just decided neglecting this one until I had a better reason of doing so.

But now it's here and that's all that matters! Hahahaha!

Anyway, I've been a little rusty with my writing, so I hope the way I conveyed this short introduction was decent enough. Stay tuned for more! I figure that I might post the next chapter around next week or so. Until then, farewell!