According to legend, Grandmaster Meio's forces were soundly obliterated by the Shura. They had no need for weapons, as they tore their adversaries apart with their bare hands. They had no need for armour, as any weapon used against them shattered against their muscles. He even deployed countless assassins, but all of them wound up dead.
As the Rain Masters faced the increasingly likely threat of extinction, Meio was forced to come to the same conclusion as every other challenger before him: the Shura were invincible. He would need a different approach.
The greatest minds under Meio's control came together to rebuild one of the most marvellous Lost Items since Leon's legendary ship; the Divine Punishment Satellite, which hung far above the planet's atmosphere on the very doorstep of outer space. Meio and his subordinates would operate the device from a remote terminal, creating controlled singularities that would annihilate anything they touched.
Except when it came time to neutralise the Shura, something was wrong. Observing their village from the Divine Punishment Satellite's camera, they found it almost completely deserted. Only a single woman remained: the Shura Elder, the mightiest warrior of the mightiest race.
And as Meio stared into his weapon's camera feed, he realised that she was LOOKING BACK!
Then the entire Shura population entered his chambers - having wiped out his guards with ease - and informed him that their Elder had invited him to meet.
For the one time that didn't involve Leon, Meio admitted defeat. The people of Nahul would never again intrude on the Jungles of the Shura; the only interactions between the two sides were through the Zaterrans, who were ancient allies of the Shura and who had submitted to Meio's rule. As Nahul became more and more isolated under his grip, the Shura became the subject of myths and bedtime stories.
The Boogiemen of Nahul.
It is fitting then that Leon was the one to bring them out of hiding; being the origin of myths and bedtime stories was his entire deal.
Huan Strongarm: A Bartfort Folktale, by Lufas Maphaahl
"Fire!" Every commanding officer in Meio's fleet was screaming the same thing, but it did little good: the wolfdog leapt from ship to ship, growing closer to the flying fortress with each passing moment. He was too fast and agile for the soldiers to maintain any degree of accuracy, and the few bullets that hit him bounced off harmlessly. Pietru flew at his side, having the time of her life.
"This is so much fun!" She ducked and weaved through the hail of gunfire, too experienced a flier for any conventional marksman to hit. "Is this why you get into trouble everywhere you go?"
"It's not on purpose, you know!" A few airships began to deploy Armours, which Leon used as platforms to gradually leapfrog his way closer. "Booyah!" With a victorious woof he made one last jump, landing on the nose of the fortress. The turrets built into the ship shot uselessly into his sides as the crew members waiting for him on deck panicked and scattered, although one very brave soldier began firing into his face with a manly battlecry. "Give that guy a raise."
Leon was now face to face with one of the colossal airship's main guns, which slowly swivelled until he could see straight down its barrel. In a deeper part of the ship, a man with a red naval uniform, a pegleg, a hookhand, an eyepatch and a beard watched the wolfdog on his monitor. "Fire!"
With an ungodly sound the cannon went off, launching its payload at point blank range. For a moment the gigantic hound disappeared from sight.
The Captain's jaw dropped as the smoke cleared. "Not… possible…"
Somehow, Leon had caught the shell between his teeth; no one could tell why it hadn't gone off, but the sheer force of the impact had sent him skidding backward across the deck. He was now dangerously close to falling off the side, and had carved long rents into the deck with his claws.
"Huan," said Pietru cautiously. "Do not eat that."
Leon spat the shell back down the barrel of the cannon, blowing it up from the inside. "Why would I eat it?"
"You were wagging your tail!"
"Because it was cool!"
The explosion had opened a massive hole in the ship's hull, which they gleefully entered. Leon began tearing apart anything that looked important, while Pietru helped where she could with her ice breath. "They're trying to cripple us!" The Captain slammed his hook down on his console. "Send in the Frogs!"
Several robots that hopped on two legs tried to attack the pair, armed with large metal pliers on their faces like ugly beaks, but the wolfdog crushed them with ease.
"How? How is a mere animal so strong?"
After totally losing his sense of direction, Leon found himself bursting through the ceiling. He emerged on the deck, only now in a totally different part of the fortress. A two legged mech that reminded him of the WarMECHs from Final Fantasy stumped ominously towards him, this time with a pilot visible in its cockpit. Their voice echoed out from unseen speakers, rendered tinny and robotic by the bad sound quality.
"Those who wield too much power," said the pilot ominously. "Those who bring only chaos… they are simply not part of the program."
Twin spears attached to the mech's underbelly fired like javelins, bouncing uselessly off Leon's chest. "This is stupid," he huffed, swatting it with his paw and knocking it on its side. The pilot squawked in rage, but the impractical design made the machine completely incapable of righting itself. "Four-limbed supremacy. You loser."
He tore another hole in the hull, continuing to wreak merry havoc on the ship's innards. "He's back inside, Captain!" The various officers on the bridge were nearly beside themselves with panic. "At this rate the Balrog is going to fall out of the sky!"
"Where is he now!" Through the monitors they saw the wolfdog crash into the main hangar, where smaller craft were being ejected from high-powered launchpads called Catapults; one such Catapult was inactive, which was why Leon hadn't realised that he was standing on it. "Activate that Catapult!" The Captain began barking orders as inspiration struck. "Launch him into the sky!"
Leon yelped as the device activated; although the ground didn't move he found himself sliding at top speeds towards the hangar doors, running frantically in place as the tiny Elder Dragon fluttered anxiously above his head.
"We're doing it!" The bridge echoed with premature celebrations. "We're going to make it out of this!"
They fell silent as Leon managed a desperate burst of speed, rocketing off the Catapult and directly through the hangar's back wall. As the Toa Tesukatora followed him through they realised that they were in a strange hallway; gravity had seemingly inverted, and both beasts were now standing on the ceiling.
The Captain's voice had gone faint with terror. "Where are they now?"
One of his officers checked his monitor. "Well, they're in an Altered Gravity Hallway, so… probably not far from the Anti-Gravity Device."
He swallowed down the lump that had formed in his throat. "And what happens if the Anti-Gravity Device is destroyed?"
"Then the Balrog will collapse under its own weight, sir. It will trigger a chain reaction that will cause the entire fortress to explode."
After long silence, the Captain turned and fled towards the escape hangar. "Abandon ship! All hands abandon ship!"
Around this time, Leon and Pietru had found themselves in a bizarre, spherical room; the altered gravity meant they could walk around its circumference like a miniature version of the Vortex World from the third Shin Megami Tensei game, and a spherical device made of polished golden metal floated in a steady orbit around the centre of the room. "That looks important."
"Dibs!" Pietru floated up to the device and spewed ice breath into its vents, causing it to spark and short circuit; they both cried out as the natural laws of gravity reasserted themselves, dumping them unceremoniously on the floor. "Owie…"
Leon's ears pricked up as a series of explosions began going off elsewhere in the ship. "That can't be good!" He picked up Pietru by the scruff of her neck and shoulder bashed his way through a wall, fleeing as the fortress began to erupt into flames on all sides.
They emerged on the tail end of the colossal airship, where the Captain and his officers were piling onto an escape craft; the one-eyed, one-legged, one-handed man had pulled a whip from his side, and was furiously attacking his own men to let him through. He noticed them at the last second, dropping his whip and babbling with his hands in the air.
"I'm sorry! I give up! My name is Captain Beard Jr! I can help you! Please don't kill-"
A fresh explosion caused the escape ship to tilt, causing Captain Beard and all of his men to slide screaming into the empty sky. No one was piloting it, causing the craft to turn uselessly in place; Leon shrank to the size of a normal dog and leapt through the air, landing smoothly in the open doors.
The force of the impact pushed the craft through the hangar door, allowing them to float to safety as the flying fortress fell out of the sky; while they were inside it had drifted over the Desert of Hungry Insects, which meant it caused minimal damage as it crashed and exploded into the empty sands.
"Thank god," sighed Leon, dropping Pietru onto the floor. "That was cutting it close."
"You asshole!" The tiny Elder Dragon wrapped her forepaws around his ankle and bit him, kicking with her hind legs like an angry house cat. "Never! Pick me up! By my scruff!"
"Gah!" Leon wailed, falling melodramatically onto his side. "You have slain me, mighty beast!"
"Shut the hell up, Huan!"
It wasn't until they finished horsing around that they noticed the deck starting to tilt: slowly but surely, the escape craft was falling out of the sky. "Is anyone driving this thing?"
Pietru fluttered to the cockpit and checked the empty driver's seat. "Uh oh."
They careened out of the sky, crashing into the jungle that separated the snowy peaks of Nahul from the Desert of Hungry Insects. In the branches of one of the massive, tropical trees, a single pair of eyes observed their arrival.
The man was a giant, even compared to the tall, lanky assassins of the Rain Master race. Where their skin was pale and yellow his was a golden bronze, his rippling muscles barely contained by his ragged clothing. His shaggy black hair partially obscured his eyes; they were so dark they were almost black, much like Leon's had been before his battle with the Fatalis dyed them red.
The Shura had been made aware of the God Hound's arrival.
In Nahul, Meio received a call from his chief scientist. "Schlange? What is it?"
"I have bad news." The man's voice was perfectly calm and detached, which was how Meio knew it wasn't his fault. "The dog monster escaped from your bounty hunters and boarded the Balrog, after which… after which it seemed to destroy it from the inside. I just watched it crash into the Desert from my laboratory window."
The sorcerer screamed with rage, destroying everything within arm's reach. The Occuluncus shivered in fear, while the freezing axe rattled defiantly against its restraints. "The Balrog!" Meio howled. "How much time, money, effort, blood and tears did we throw into that project? And now it's all gone, all because of some animal! A beast with no real mind of its own! And now I cannot even avenge myself upon him, lest I incur the wrath of the Shura!"
"Things may not be so dire as they appear," said Schlange soothingly. "Please bear in mind, the Balrog was very nearly obsolete: you yourself delivered to me the power source that will fuel its replacement. If anything this is a blessing; if we examine the wreckage then we can locate weaknesses that the hound exploited. Just like with any machine, each successive generation can only be mightier and more perfect."
Meio had calmed down, slightly mollified by the scientist's logic. "And the hound? If the Shura get in our way…"
"Then they must nonetheless honour their pact with the Zaterrans," he pointed out. "If we deploy them to hunt down a dangerous monster then they will be obligated to facilitate the search; at worst they will not interfere, and at best they will help us catch him."
Meio's lips curled over his ugly yellow teeth. "And by happy circumstance, you - who command the Zaterrans - will receive all the glory for slaying him. Is this not so?"
"My only glory is in serving you, Grandmaster."
This earned a harsh bark of laughter. "Very well. Deploy the Zaterrans. And Schlange?"
"My lord?"
"Send your deadliest creation to aid them. No more lucky escapes."
"Of course, Grandmaster." Meio sneered as Schlange signed off, glowering at the terrified Occuluncus.
"There will be no escape," he hissed sadistically. "There will be no rescue. Your friend will die, one way or the other."
"He's not my friend," sobbed the Occuluncus. "I barely know him!"
This made Meio pause. "What?"
"I'm telling the truth! We met not five minutes before you arrived!"
The sorcerer scowled thoughtfully. "So… you do not know what he is?"
"I know he identifies as a wolfdog, but that's it, I swear!"
"Then where did he come from?"
"The Cullis Gate that Twin Pupils told me to guard!"
The blood drained from the Grandmaster's face. "Twin Pupils?" Meio whispered. "A Cullis Gate… Is it operational?"
"It was disabled from the other side," said the Occuluncus, careful not to mention that Meio could fix it if he just teleported over with a new Prism. "It's useless now."
For a long moment, the ancient man fell silent. Even the freezing axe temporarily ceased its attempts to escape. "Then tell me, servant of Twin Pupils: where did the Cullis Gate lead?"
The Occuluncus cringed, but new that Meio would only torture the information out of him if he lied. "The Kingdom of Holfort."
If he had been able to open his single eye, he would have seen an indescribable expression creep across Meio's face. "Holfort? Could he be here to rescue…"
"Rescue who?" Nobody answered. "…Sir?"
Meio had left, leaving the Occuluncus and the axe alone in his office.
A laboratory based in an old castle was built into the side of one of the surrounding mountains, offering an excellent view of the City of Nahul, the Jungle of the Shura and the Desert of Hungry Insects. In the lab's inner sanctum, a monitor displayed a live feed from hidden cameras that had been gradually placed in the jungle over the course of many years. A man stood before this monitor, watching as Leon and Pietru dragged themselves from the smoking wreckage.
The man was wearing tight fitting aristocratic clothing over his bulging muscles, with skin tight white pants tucked into huge brown boots. His bright purple waistcoat was festooned with medals, and on his head he wore a monocle and powdered wig that nicely complemented his ridiculous handlebar moustache.
His name was Herzog Schlange, and he was the most brilliant scientist under Meio's command.
"A magnificent specimen, isn't he?" A huge glass cylinder sat in the centre of the room, connected to both the floor and ceiling. The specimen inside began wildly banging on the glass after spotting the supernatural wolfdog. "Unfortunately, it seems I will not have a chance to experiment on him while he is still alive. A shame."
He began walking in a slow circle as the specimen became increasingly frantic.
"He can't hear you," he observed. "What you are seeing is a video feed from many miles off." Schlange looked out his window, where the immense heap of flaming wreckage was still spewing ugly black smoke into the sky; like the rest of Nahul's industrial waste, it only added to the dense clouds overhead. "That vessel he destroyed was called the Balrog; one of my finest creations. And now I have an opportunity to rebuild it."
He placed his hand on the enormous test tube, leering at the specimen on the other side.
"The Anti-Gravity Device is outdated. I require a new source of energy: a spirit, filled to the brim with elemental power. I need you. That is why the Grandmaster teleported into your room as you slept and stole you away: so that you can act as living fuel for his ultimate weapon. A weapon with which we can conquer the entirety of Darhan. And if you believe that the hound is here to save you, remember that Grandmaster Meio left no evidence at all of his intrusion. No one can come to save you if no one knows you're here."
The door slid open as Schlange left the room, leaving a last parting remark over his shoulder.
"Then again, I doubt anyone would want to save you even if they did: you are only a quarter spirit, after all."
The woman floated in the glass cylinder, suspended by transparent liquid; she had been stripped nude, exposing her voluptuous body to the world. She was lucky that Schlange wasn't motivated by conventional desires.
Her hair was the same radiant blue as Chris Fia Arclight, as she was his ancestor: Canaria Fia Arclight, who Leon and his companions had found slumbering within the catacombs beneath the Monastery bearing her name.
And Schlange was right. Nobody knew she was there.
Boss: Flying Battleship Balrog
Summary: this chapter is equivalent to Stage 3 of the original Strider, occurring on the titular airship. In theory it is named (in-universe) after the Balrog from Lord of the Rings: in actuality it is named after Balrog from Street Fighter, which is actually a distant prequel to the Strider series. Seriously. Zeku (the master of Guy from Final Fight) is heavily implied to have created the Striders.
Fun Fact: Balrog was originally going to be named Mike Bison after the real world boxer he is based off; stuff happened so they renamed him Balrog. Except they already had someone named Balrog so they called that guy Vega, and that name was also taken so the last guy got the name nobody wanted and became M. Bison; logically, this must mean that Bison's real first name is Mike and he just tells everyone that the M stands for Master because he's an asshole.
The cannon that Leon destroys after boarding the fortress is called the 1st Main Cannon - the Balrog has six altogether according to the wiki page - while the robot that attacks Leon on the deck is called Mr Elephant. Yes, really.
And yes, Captain Beard Jr is his actual name. You can't make this shit up. According to the wiki he's Spanish, which never really comes up in the original game.
Recap: Canaria is the ultimate ancestor of the Arclight family, and a contemporary of Leon's ancestor. She was in a love triangle between Ikus Fou Seberg and the unnamed progenitor of the Arclight line, which Arclight ultimately won. Her grandmother was a sea serpent, making her one quarter spirit. After Canaria died in childbirth, the serpent carried her to Holfort in hopes of using the dungeon's magic core to resurrect her, but died in the process. The ancestors of the main cast established the Kingdom of Holfort and later Canaria Monastery to protect her resting place, while Ikus (and Moz) personally stood guard over her body.
Little is known of how they met, but in his first appearance Sir Onemore mentioned that the ancestors of Leon and Julius were both from branch families of the Fort family of the Kingdom of Elfrieden: this was actually Canaria's homeland in her home series - Realist King - where she went by the false identity of Juna Doma.
In Chapter 17 the protagonists entered her tomb in search of the Axe of Ikus, which Brother Wid needed to combat the phantoms haunting him. Olivia accidentally revived Canaria when she tried to heal her; while she never interacted with Leon (because he fainted like a scared little bitch) it can be assumed Canaria knows who Leon is and remembers when his friends escorted her out of the catacombs. She then took shelter with the monks until she mysteriously disappeared, which Leon didn't discover until the events of Chapter 21.
Clearly, she was kidnapped by Meio. Curiously, Abbot Laurent told Leon not to look for her, claiming that she didn't want to be found. Make of that what you will.
Side Note: Meio has some serious range on that teleport, doesn't he?