Unknown Savior

Leon woke up after an undocumented amount of time had passed since getting knocked out. His head felt like there was static from a TV inside of it. As he rose to his feet he stumbled; his legs felt like jelly. He leaned against the wall behind him, getting focus in his eyes, surveying his surroundings. Two dimly lit torches were all that gave light to the room.

"Those look fresh. Someone else is definitely here and likely saved me from that dragon."

He looked at his shirt and saw the massive rip up the seam of his left sleeve, where the person grabbed him.

"My shirt shouldn't have ripped that easily. I wonder what kind of force might've done that? I hope I'm not in a serious predicament, with a serial killer that likes to chase their victim for the fun of it. Or, a political type who'd put me 6 feet under by boring me to death."

Leon felt his legs firmly under him enough to start moving forward. He took one of the torches in hand to guide him through the darkness. The cave he was in was tight, with many narrow passages that forced Leon to move upwards on natural steep slopes.

He felt the ground shake as he continued upwards, the sounds became louder as he made his way up. He quickly slipped into a crevice large enough for him to fit as what looked to be foot tall roly polies rolling down the slope at high speed.

"Yikes! Were those super sized roly polies?! I mean, they're usually harmless but getting run over by them is not favorable."

He waited several moments before attempting to climb once again, making sure nothing else would follow. After what felt like an hour of climbing upwards, Leon made it to ground level again. He let out a deep exhale as he felt tired.

"Ugh….finally made it out of that."

He looked forward and saw light, hopefully meaning he could escape without running into the person who seemingly helped him. The narrow passage opened up into a spacious room, though the light was blocked out as he got closer leaving only torch light that he had, as he stood in the mouth of the tunnel.

"Ahhhhh, nice to see that you're awake~!"

Leon quickly moved the torch around to get a view of the feminine sounding voice that spoke to him. "Where the hell did that come from?!"

"My bad. I'm just out of view aren't I?"

The feminine voice spoke again, as a short few footsteps came towards Leon, the person before him came into view, a woman who stood eye to eye with him. Her icy blue hair reflecting the torches' light off of it, her silver eyes felt like they looked through him. The woman's figure could've made a man melt if she'd pressed onto him, especially with her tight purple leather attire with highlights of red, which make her pale complexion as well as her hair and eyes pop out moreso.

"Are women just this beautiful on Zeleon or do I just run into them ironically?"

Leon thought to himself as she looked at him peculiarly still as he hadn't audibly responded to her. He realized this as his mind scrambled to string words together. "Erm...are..you the one who bailed me out?"

The woman smirked as she realized he was overthinking himself or just enamored by her looks. "Yes. I bailed you out. Now praise me like the queen that I am-"

Her words cut off as she couldn't keep herself from laughing at the facade she was putting up. Leon was visibly confused by her display.

"Hehehe. I apologize, I wanted to play a joke but I couldn't do it. You look nervous and stressed enough as is. Now, allow me to be proper and introduce myself. My name is Courtney Huntington, and I did save you from that dragon. But...I must ask. Why are you in this territory? Dragons have their offspring here during early spring, and most, if not, everyone knows that."

Leon sighed as he wasn't sure how to tell her without raising an alarm. His mind raced again and ultimately decided to speak the truth. "I...er, I know you won't believe me. But….I'm from Earth."

His voice shook as he spoke, lacking any kind of confidence. He thought she'd attribute that to lying but instead she carefully put both hands on his shoulders. "Deep breath. In….and….out. In….and….out."

Courtney breathed deeply with Leon following suit, soon his body relaxed as he did this with her. Meanwhile the torch dimmed in his hand making light scarce.

"See? That wasn't so bad, was it Earth human? Now, let's move out of here and head back down where I put you."

Courtney smiled and skipped her way back down in the darkness Leon climbed out of. Leon clamored after her as she took off without him, as they headed back down into the now dimly lit room from the torch slowly going out. Leon sat himself in the far corner, still untrusting of Courtney, whose personality counters his, with her exuberant teasing, as well as the gentleness she's already shown.

"So. What's your name? Or shall I just keep calling you Earth human?"

Her cheeky tone made Leon look at her with a blank stare on his face, as if saying he didn't want to be joked with at the moment. He exemplified this with the stern tone he responded with.

"My name is Leon Atkins."

"Well, nice to meet you Leon. What brings you out here away from home?"

"Again….my story will sound crazy. But, I came out here as a test on a craft capable of intergalactic travel. However, since crashing here, apparently it was all an elaborate set up by Queen Serena to make me the new Guardian candidate."

Courtney's eyes lit up when he finished, moving herself closer to him.

"Serena chose you? You don't even understand the kind of prestige that has. She's universally liked by the other four races as well as humans. Not to mention her guardian picks lasted 15 years respectively with Atticus' only lasting 2."

Leon shook his head with a somewhat sarcastic smile over his face.

"Well. I'm probably her first major mistake. I've never properly fought, been trained, or anything. Even disregarding that I'm hardly hero material."

Courtney scoffed at his response.

"Leon, let me enlighten you. The heroes who trained to be in that position are generally full of themselves, and too overconfident. The greatest heroes are the ones who never wanted it, but the world around them needed it. Based upon your dismissive attitude, you're definitely the latter of the two."

"Ok, ok. So I match a type, I'm sure others do as well. But..I heard something interesting. What did you mean by the four other races?"

Leon spoke quickly in response as she smiled, as if enjoying this back and forth.

"The other four races are those of intelligence other than humans. Komodrons, Vampires, Werewolves and of course Dragons. As a collective, the 5 races coexist under a peace treaty that's near expiration."

"Wait….Vampires, Werewolves, and….what's a Komodron?"

Leon scratched his head at what Courtney told him.

"Komodrons are a lizard warrior race, they live by older, more vigorous customs to keep their group strong. They rarely communicate to other races as they'd rather keep to themselves, and are incredibly territorial."

Courtney sighed after speaking as her eyes seemed to sadden visibly.

"Leon. Please reconsider being a Guardian. Zeleon is a beauty, and I'd like to keep it that way. As things stand, the Werewolves and Vampires are likely to go to war. Atticus is causing issues with keeping the peace with the other 4 races with his brash behavior. I can't help but think things may crumble."

Leon sighed, Courtney's expression as well as the tone of her voice told him the whole story.

"Alright...fine. Besides, if I can somehow make a push to get a new peace treaty in place and create a new era on Zeleon…..it's something that would be unthinkable. My own planet will never know true peace, impossible to change when the highest percentile never wants it to."

Courtney's eyes glimmered as she almost hugged Leon, but he held his hand out to stop her, which she did.

"Not a touchy person, huh?"

"I think it's pretty obvious I'm not. But, I would've let it go if I hadn't still had some serious questions."

Courtney smiled and turned towards Leon, looking him in the eyes.

"Oh? Well ask away, I have absolutely nothing I need to hide from you after all."

"First and foremost, you shredded the sleeve of my shirt when you grabbed it. While it's not that tough of a material a person wouldn't be able to do this casually. Secondly, you use that cutesy act to throw me off of just how insanely knowledgeable and smart you are."

Courtney smirked at him.

"What are you trying to say Leon?"

Leon pulled out the curved knife he took from the castle as he stood to his feet.

"What I'm trying to say is, you're not a human."

Courtney couldn't help but smile at Leon's sudden display of outright boldness.

"Well. You caught onto me Leon, impressive."

Her eyes turned jet black, as she had gotten to her feet, looking him dead in the eyes. Her mouth opened as she bore her fangs at him.

"The better question is, what's a poor Earth human like you going to do against a vampire? Well? Show me Leon Atkins."