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The Guardian Dragon Chronicles

Dragonslayers

"Are you sure?" Acorech asked.

"Of course, I am sure!" Sara exclaimed.

Acorech grinned, and he cried, and he hugged his wife. "That is great news!" he cheered.

"People often worry about what kind of world they are leaving for their kids, but we do not have to worry. This world is surely more at peace than any other. The only people who would dare disturb the peace are those who are exceptionally insane like Rak was," Sara reveled.

"Rak was certainly crazy, but I do not think he was as bad as he seemed. He could have killed me, but he did not. He left Calic and Alakin for dead, but did not actually finish them off. Despite what was said and done, I do not think he intended to kill us," Acorech spoke.

"That does not excuse what he did!" Sara responded.

"I know," Acorech said. "But bringing us together does!"

"Stop making light of everything that happened!" Sara snapped.

"It pains me to think about what transpired, but I want to remain optimistic. I want to believe that everything works together for good. I want to hope that our union is just one of many blessings to come from Rak's doings. I may laugh, but I still mourn," Acorech responded.

"Let's change the subject back to the fact that we are now parents," Sara requested.

"What are we going to name our child?" Acorech asked.

"What if I end up giving birth to twins?" Sara asked.

"Then we will have to be prepared with two boy names and two girl names," Acorech answered.

After some deliberation, the couple decided that they should not delay sleep any longer. Acorech did not sleep as long as the others. Inspired to remain diligent and filled with renewed enthusiasm, he woke up at dawn. He was ready to depart when the others were convening for breakfast.

"Where are you off to in a hurry?"

"There are noble deeds to perform in the South, surely just as there are some to perform in the North, East, and West," Acorech answered.

As soon as he had said that, Dragonheart Temple was attacked.

"Grab Dragonfang!" Kardonyth commanded.

"Do not worry! I know!" Acorech responded. While he rushed to grab the weapon, the others rushed to defend the palace. They began to counterattack when he joined them. His firm landing between his friends and his enemies caused the battle to be put on hold. "Who are you?" he inquired.

"I am Uldric, the Vermillion Knight. My companions are Uldren, the Crimson Hunter; and Uldor, the Scarlet Mage. Together, we are the Dragonslayers," the leader spoke.

"I beg your pardon?" Calic questioned with widened eyes.

"You have overstayed your welcome. Your deaths are overdue!" Uldric exclaimed.

"What could we have possibly done to warrant this consequence?" Kardonyth asked.

"Villainy and petty crime have been occurrences of extreme rarity. Your presence has silenced evil for far too long! Those such as us who dream of the life of heroic adventures have had no choice but to live simple lives. If we slay you, malice will plague the world again! We will resurrect the age of heroes!" Uldric shouted.

"Fools! We and heroes can coexist! Cid is proof! Surely others will arise," Acorech replied.

"Cid is deluding himself. He is no hero. Solving people's problems just makes him a vassal!" Uldor laughed.

"We bring peace to the world and this is the thanks we get?" Kardonyth responded.

"You want to endanger the welfare of the innocent for the sake of selfish, vain glory!? Disgusting! You all make me sick! You dare to value your own gain over the lives of others!? You are the ones deluding yourselves! You are not heroes, you are villains!" Acorech yelled.

"It can be argued that heroes restore balance. Light cannot exist without shadow. Night complements day. Good and Evil once existed in a perpetual cycle. You did not create harmony, you disrupted it." Uldric responded.

"Heroism is more than just fighting evil, it is about fighting injustice no matter what form it takes. Heroes do not fight for themselves, they fight for others. The more they care for them, the stronger they will be. People are precious to me, but now that I know what it is like to love, I have a better understanding of what it means to fight." Acorech said.

"Heroes fight evil to end it once and for all! Only evil would seek to perpetuate itself!" Calic exclaimed.

"Your very existence is a travesty. You are not gods. You are neither omniscient nor omnipotent. You may be different, you may think you are better, but you are foolish to believe that you can protect the world. You are just four individuals. For every one person who catches your attention, there is at least one person who goes unnoticed. How many people have been left to wonder why they were not good enough for you- why the odds were in someone else's favor as opposed to theirs? You are just going to have accept evil as a force of nature. Perfection itself is imperfect. I mean, in a sense, the world is perfect in those slivers of time when nothing goes wrong. The world is perfect until something goes inevitably wrong. You think you can create a perfect world inhabited by inherently imperfect people? That is laughably absurd! You could have been content being heroes, but you presumed to be saviors. That is your sin. For that, you are condemned to death!" Uldric ranted.

"Enough! You may have given up on the world, but do not take it out on us!" Acorech yelled.

"Killing you all will prove that we are noble and our cause is just," Uldric said.

"Your mild intentions render your resolve mediocre at best. You cannot hope to have even the slightest chance at besting us unless you are driven by the passion of hatred and desperation," Kardonyth said.

"That will not be necessary. Our skills our sufficient. Do you think we would come to challenge the Guardian Dragons unprepared?" Uldren asked.

"Do you think several years of experience is any better than hundreds? In our experience, arrogance counteracts all experience. Besides, there is three of you, and four of us. The odds are in our favor,"

"Rumor has it that a single individual, not to mention having only 'several years of experience,' had been giving you lot a run for your money. I think we will fair just fine," Uldren replied.

"Go home and stop wasting our time! I have better things to do than entertain the arrogant!" Acorech shouted.

"Go ahead and mock us. Your words will be chosen more carefully when they are your last," Uldor replied.

"So we have come this far, yet humanity is still doomed," Calic lamented.

"'Doomed?'" Uldor questioned.

"A group whose members put themselves above the others will destroy itself. You are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem!"

"There is nothing left to say. This ends now," Uldren said.

"Agreed," said Alakin.

Uldor began casting magic without hesitation. The targets were his comrades and himself. "The Guardian Dragons themselves cannot hope to hold their own against the ultimate combination of spells. We have increased resistance to physical and magical attacks, increased power, and increased speed. You are doomed!"

The Guardian Dragons attempted to harm their foes. They tried punching, kicking, scratching, and biting. The trio dodged with ease.

"Mercy will be your undoing," Uldric teased. "This battle can only end in death. Yours, or ours. The latter will not be the case!"

"No." Acorech asserted. "We only had to kill one person, and that is only because he proved unsubduable. Fighting does not have to end in death!"

"Correction.Naivety will be your undoing," Uldric responded.

Acorech, finally using Dragonfang, charged Uldric. Their swords clashed.

"You can breathe fire. What do you need a sword for?" Uldric asked.

"You could learn magic. What do _you_need a sword for?" Acorech mocked.

"That is not quite the same. Your comparison is flawed." Uldric remarked.

"Like I give a damn!" Acorech snapped.

Uldric performed a swift action that Acorech barely dodged. Meanwhile, the others were barely dodging Uldren's barrage of arrows and Uldor's occasional blast of fire.

"That is the difference between Rak and them," said Calic. "He wanted to prolong our suffering, they just want to get this over with."

"I just want to get this over with, too!" Kardonyth shouted.

Whenever the Guardian Dragons tried to get close to Uldren, he was quick to increase the distance each time.

"There shouldn't need to be heroes! You want to be heroes? Go to another world!" Acorech shouted.

"Why go through the trouble when we can remain here?" Uldric asked.

"You know what? You are the ones who are naïve!" Acorech shouted. "You have some fantastic conceptions about the life of a hero, but you truly do not know it. Perhaps the finite life you have would render career heroism as a grand and satisfying profession, but centuries of experience has revealed the truth. It is no better, no different than any other vocation. In the end, it is simply perpetual banality."

"Hypocrites!" Uldric exclaimed. "You would let anyone else pursue this dream, but only attempt to dissuade us because we are a threat to you."

"How dare you! You have no right to accuse us of hypocrisy!" Kardonyth shouted. "You yourself have said that your lives as heroes depends on us not being heroes- not being alive for that matter. So maybe you were born a few centuries too late to enjoy being a hero in all its glory, but there are not any professed soldiers throwing a fit because there have not been any wars. Grow up!"

"So much for there being nothing more left to say," Uldren sighed.

"All this chatter is not going to distract me," Uldor laughed as he renewed the magic he used earlier. "You can forget about finding the opportunity to strike, if that is what you were hoping for."

"So what you are saying is that without your cowardly enhancements, you all would be vulnerable and able to fight like real men?" Kardonyth derided. "If that is the case, then I will not be distracted either. I have a plan, so my fellow Guardian Dragons will guard me at all costs."

"Oh? You have a 'plan?'" Uldor laughed.

"What are you talking about, Kardonyth?" Calic questioned.

"Just trust me," Kardonyth responded.

Without any sort of strategy, Acorech continued to focus on Uldric while Calic went for Uldren, and Alakin went for Uldor. Still unable to do anything other than dodge, the three made their best effort to keep their foes from attempting to attack Kardonyth as he kept himself immobile and silent. The ballet of violence continued for so long without any developments that it became maddening for both teams.

"Why don't you guys fight like 'real men'- literally?" Uldric inquired. "Taking on the form of a dragon is pointless if you will not actually do anything a dragon can."

"Let me reiterate myself. We strive to incapacitate as harmlessly as possible. We are not the violent monsters the legends describe us as," Acorech explained.

"You are fools! Mercy is a threat to peace! You spare a transgressor, and they live to transgress again. That guy you struggled against... how much chaos could have been averted if you had killed him right away?" Uldric asked.

"You would end violence with violence and call that peace!? Mercy_is_ peace!" Acorech exclaimed. "What better peace could there be than coexisting with the repentant?"

"At the expense of the lives on the innocent?" Uldric questioned. "How many of them would have to die before someone potentially has a change of heart?"

"If we do not give people the chance to reform, then they will not be inclined to," Acorech answered. "The absence of mercy is detrimental. If we do not spare evil, evil will thrive. It sounds ironic, but it is true!"

"Heroes do not have to be merciful," Uldric said.

All of sudden, Acorech, Calic, and Alakin reverted to their Human form.

"Ha. There we go," Uldric grinned.

"That was not us..." Acorech stated as he dropped Dragonfang.

"I am unable to still cast magic!?" Uldor questioned.

Coming to a sudden realization, Acorech turned around to look at Kardonyth who appeared to be suffering.

"No way! He is pulling the entirety of this world's Mana into himself!" Acorech exclaimed, causing the others to turn around as well.

"Fool! A single body cannot contain that much Mana! Is he _that_desperate to hinder me!? He is going to end up killing himself- not that I am complaining," Uldor laughed.

"Enough, Kardonyth!" Calic yelled. "This is foolish! It is not worth it!"

"I am putting him out of his misery," Uldren announced.

By the time that the Guardian Dragons had turned back towards him, the arrow had already been fired and was heading straight for Kardonyth. Unable to stop it, they feared that they were seconds away from witnessing his death.

Acorech reached into his pocket, pulled out a ring, and put it on. In an instant, he was right in front of Kardonyth, clutching the arrow.

"How!?" Uldren shouted. "There is no way you were faster than that arrow!"

"I wasn't," Acorech replied. "We did not need to be faster than you all either. On behalf of all of us, I am ashamed we did not think of them sooner."

"'Them!?'" Uldren questioned.

"He is talking about the rings that bend space for us. That distance which took the arrow a few seconds to travel was shortened enough to require just a few steps from him," Calic answered.

"Hurry up and give us Mana back, Kardonyth!" Acorech shouted.

Kardonyth reverted to his human form, releasing all of the Mana he had accumulated, screaming in agony as it happened. He fell to the ground several seconds later.

When the spectacle had ceased, Calic and Alakin equipped their rings. They and Acorech again transformed into Dragons. Then, in the blink of an eye, they had closed the distance. They flashed in and out of perception, unleashing a barrage of physical attacks until their foes lay unconscious. They achieved victory before the Dragonslayers could comprehend the turn of events.

"And just like that, we are dragging more miscreants off to jail," Acorech sighed.

"Do not sound so exasperated. We do this everyday," Calic responded.

"Not so fast," said Kardonyth.

"What?" Calic asked.

"If we put them in jail, Uldor will just use magic to break out. We cannot give the Dragonslayers the chance to strike again," Kardonyth stated.

"You are not suggesting we kill them, are you?" Calic questioned.

"No! After what happened with Rak, I made sure that magical threats would not get out of hand ever again. It turns out that the Mage Guild has a dungeon for deviant mages. They keep them silenced, so nobody has to worry about the prisoners using magic. We will send Uldor there. Uldren will go to jail, but let's send Uldric to Gaia. It sounded like he did not want to go to another world and seeing as how he will be in a foreign land with no resources... it will be punishment enough for him. Basically, separating them seems like the best course of action," Kardonyth explained.

"Sounds like a plan," Calic replied.

"You are the only one who knows how to open portals, Kardonyth, and it sure looks like you will not be able to cast magic for a while," Acorech said.

"Oh, yeah..." Kardonyth responded.

"Do not sound so nonchalant! I'll be damned if you make Crystal a widow doing something so stupid like that ever again!" Acorech snapped.

"It seemed like our only option at the time, but don't get mad at me! You did not think about the rings until later! Kidding. We all forgot. We are all to blame. We are a team, after all," Kardonyth said.

The Guardian Dragons did not waste any more time. They put each of the Dragonslayers in their designated places, then went on to continue performing their roles. Kardonyth, however, had to remain at the palace to recover. When the others had returned at the end of the day, they all convened at Acorech's request.

"What is our end goal?" Acorech asked.

"What?" Kardonyth questioned.

"How does this all end?" Acorech inquired.

"What do you mean?" Calic asked.

"We were tasked with keeping the people of this world protected, and to that end we live perpetually. However, we were not given an actual objective. Is it really the perfection of the world? Since our mission is the purpose for our existence, are we just tools to be disposed of when we achieve our goal? I want to know what we are working towards and if we are even permitted to live beyond that," Acorech said.

"Do not forget we must also guard the Dragon Treasures. This world would end before we do, assuming that we are hopefully never killed," Calic responded.

"I have been forgetting about the Dragon Treasures, to be honest," Acorech stated. "Something does not seem right, though. It does not add up. Who are we protecting the Treasures from? The whole time we have been alive, Rak has been the only one to come after them. I do not know when we started operating under the assumption that they are supposed to be secret, but I think that happened because no one else has come after them. Granted that the Dragon Key itself probably is supposed to be secret, the Treasures themselves may not be. It may just be that the world does not know they exist. There seems to be no record of their existence, and if there is, they may be referred to something else other than 'Dragon Treasures.' If their existence is unknown, then there is no point in guarding them. If their existence is unknown, if their existence has no record, how did Rak find out? If there are records out there, where? How would Rak have found what we could not in the whole time we have been alive? At this point, the existence of the Dragon Treaures is not even a myth or legend. Given that no one else has come after them, I have a hard time believing that they are not unknown. Then there is the mystery of their existence in the first place. The fact that they exist within a temple that was created along with us means that they were created along with us as well. What is the point in creating 'dangerously powerful artifacts' that we cannot use whatsoever and are supposed to attract evil? Things are not making sense anymore!" "That is a lot to think about, but I would prefer not to think about it. I would rather focus on performing our duties," Calic responded.

"Don't you at least find it suspicious that that voice only spoke to us that one time?" Kardonyth asked. "No communication since we were told all that we need to know."

"Perhaps the sole purpose of communication was to tell us all that we need to know," Calic replied.

"I cannot help but think about what was said today," Acorech said. "I know that we were instructed to act heroically only as Dragons. However, with that in mind, as the heroes for the people, aren't we inadvertently sending the message that they are incapable of being heroes themselves- that people are hopelessly inclined to behave poorly? The Mercenary Guild used to pride itself on being heroes for the people, now its members have basically been reduced to servants. We have monopolized heroism. Was that always an inevitable consequence? Valiance has been diminished. Is it fair to expect people to be honorable when generally there is no expectation? We have been the sole enforcers of order, and we have been taken for granted. What happens if we are wiped out? The chaos that would ensue would undoubtedly be more severe than the chaos that preceded us."

"Remember what the voice said. Humanity had its chance to be its own hero. Part of the reason we exist is to clean up its mess," Calic said.

"Then why are we half Human and half Dragon? Shouldn't we be fully Dragon in that case?" Acorech inquired.

"I do not have all the answers. I only know what we know. We only know what we need to know," Calic answered.

"Then that does make us tools!" Acorech exclaimed. "We were targeted specifically because of the duties we know relatively little about. If we are going to be threatened just because we do what we do, then I want to know why we do them!"

"Is just making the world a better place not enough anymore?" Calic questioned. "The Acorech I knew helped others without question. Now you imply that being a hero depends on having all the answers!? Where is your passion!?"

"I want to be a hero, but I never chose to be one. None of us had a choice. We were simply created, and given a purpose, but not given a choice. Since we were not given a choice, we should have been given all the answers. We were told plenty, but it is not enough anymore," Acorech said.

"Wake up, Acorech!" Calic shouted. "Leaving here to perform our duties is choosing to perform them. We have chosen to be Guardian Dragons every single day of our lives. The incident with Rak may have caused us to second guess ourselves, but we know better now. For all intents and purposes, the specifics of the Dragon Treasures do not matter. We must protect them nonetheless. It should not matter that they have not been the focus of many villains. That just makes things simple, more peaceful. The less you have to focus on the Dragon Treasures, the more you can focus on people. As long as you do what you do for others and not for yourself, you should not need answers. Remember what Cid said when we were last on Gaia. Part of the responsibility of having a child is to ensure that the world is worthy of them. Make this world worth Sara giving up Gaia for it."

"You do not need to tell me that!" Acorech cried.

"Then, what is your problem!?" Calic questioned.

"If humanity is beyond saving itself, then it is beyond changing, right?" Acorech asked.

"I can see where Acorech is coming from. I too question the morality of people," Alakin said. "Has wicked conduct been ceasing because hearts have been changing, or simply because people fear us? If the threat of our intervention was gone, would people remain moral, or return to wicked ways? Have we truly changed the world, or merely been keeping evil at bay?"

"We need to have faith and trust that people have changed," Calic responded. "Our circumstances may not be ideal, they may not be favorable, but we still move on and work hard so that we can say with confidence that our lives are worth living. We were not born, we were created. We know not the love of parents, only the brotherly love we have for each other. People age and die, but we live on and on and on. We may very well be tools, but nonetheless we have worked hard these hundreds of years. Our endless mission may very well end someday, and if our efforts prove unsuccessful, then our pitiful existence will have been all for nothing."

"'Pitiful?'" Acorech laughed. "I really want to believe that being a Guardian Dragon is an honor. We have what no one else does. We have both limitless time and an endless number of chances to set things right."

"So set things right," Calic said. "If you care about people, and if you care about your efforts being fruitful, then stop worrying about being a Guardian Dragon and just be a Guardian Dragon. I know you can still be the Acorech that you used to be."

Nine months went by. Tension and anxiety still haunted the Guardian Dragons, but their bonds strengthened. They persevered, despite their doubts. They lived their lives as if they would not end, not realizing that what was to be their final day had come until the "final battle" was fought.

To be continued...