Hero’s Heart

Hero’s Heart

by Vernon Hodge

There once was a baby at an end of the river that was found by a wandering hero. The wandering hero was confused and looked to see if he could find the baby’s parents near the river. He looked for hours, but he couldn’t find the parents of the baby anywhere. He didn’t want to leave the baby alone by a river, so he decided to take care of the baby and bring him to his home village. When he went to pick up the baby there was a ripped note and a box behind him. The note had said, “Please take care of my son Dai.’’ After that the note had lost the rest of what it said. The box was locked but the key was on baby Dai’s chain, so the hero didn’t want to open it because it looked like it was meant for Dai. The wandering hero picked up the baby and the baby woke up with the biggest smile on his face, and the hero told Dai, “I’m going to be your GRANDPA Gohan.” Dai smiled with joy and Gohan took Dai to his home at Windmill Village.

A couple of years pass and Dai and his grandpa Gohan are still living in Windmill Village. Windmill Village is a small village that’s constantly windy and is surrounded by mountains. Only a couple of people live there and Gohan became the elder since he is the oldest and was once known as a legendary hero. Dai is now only six years old and he lives with his grandpa Gohan who’s 50 years old and his wife Delilah, who is 48. Gohan trains Dai to be a hero so he could travel the world and find his birth parents. Dai is not the only student of Gohan. Gohan also trains another little boy named Robin who is seven years old. Robin is the oldest, and he has to take care of his two siblings for his mom to work. Robin’s father is a white knight, so he tends to leave for important missions often. But even though he does, Robin still dreams of becoming a white knight and fighting alongside his father. Robin knows that a white knight gets important and difficult missions that haven’t been completed in 10 years. He has always thought highly of his father and never felt abandoned. Gohan is now starting to teach them how to be proper heroes by showing them sword techniques and hero spells. Gohan doesn’t know a lot about spells, but he is a master swordsman and is famous for his

dragon sword technique, where it incorporates fire dragon magic and sword skills. Dai is always excited to do sword training, but he doesn’t really like spell training one bit. Dai always says, “Spell is too hard to do, let’s do sword training, it’s cooler.” But Robin is the opposite; he likes both swords and spells. Gohan decides to train them until they master all his techniques and become true heroes.

Ten years have passed and Dai is finally old enough to become a hero and is about to embark on his adventure to find the truth about his life and parents. Before he goes, he says his farewells to his family and friends that he grew up with in Windmill Village. Dai goes back home to go pack his bag with all the things he needs for his journey. As he walks into his room, with swords everywhere the eye could see and looks like he never cleaned it once, he reminisces about all the time he spent living together with his grandfather. Dai looks at his wall. He could see the hundreds of slashes he has put on his walls from his sleepless nights training to keep up with Robin so that he doesn’t fall behind in Gohan’s training. After he is done packing and leaves his room he spends his last day with his grandfather Gohan and his best friend Robin. They have a party to celebrate how they have been training together for 10 years and have finally mastered everything Gohan taught them. Robin is also leaving the village to pursue his dream of becoming a white knight, so he decides to leave the village to join Knight Academy in the capital of the kingdom. Even though they will both be leaving the village, they swear that they will meet up again when their goals are complete.

Before the night ends, Gohan tells them a story from when he was a great hero of a famous group called Falling Petals and how it was formed. Gohan said, “The Falling Petal was a group which was originally made up of three commoners and a prince. The prince was a rebel and used to sneak out of the castle to experience the lives of the people in his kingdom. One night he ended up in the slums where all the most dangerous people and criminals live. Word spread that a prince was spotted in the slums and he ended up surrounded by criminals. My two friends and I helped the prince escape by fighting off the criminals with our sword skills. We couldn’t beat all of them so we had to run out of the slums to the castle. After we got close to the castle, the people stopped chasing us since they saw all the knights at the front entrance. One of the knights said, ‘My prince, are you ok, you’re covered in blood?’ But the prince wasn’t worried about that.

He just had a happy look on his face and was grateful that we saved him. The king was furious and kept a very close eye on him, but, every once in a while, the prince snuck to come and find us and we would hang out and try new sword techniques. In the end, the prince begged the king to let him travel the world and he eventually gave in, but my friends and I swore to protect his life as we traveled.”

Dai asks, “What happened to the prince?” and grandpa Gohan told him that the prince is now the current king. Both Robin and Dai jump up in confusion and both say “YOU KNOW THE KING?!” Gohan just laughs and says, “Go to sleep. You have a long journey ahead.”

The next day Dai and Robin are at the village exit about to go on their journey. Everyone is there to wish them good luck on their adventure. Robin’s mom came and gave him his dad’s first sword and told him, “Don’t keep your father waiting for my son.” He hugs his mom and says, “I won’t.” Dai’s grandfather Gohan walks up to Dai and tells him, “This is a box and note I found when I found you by the river.” Dai looks at the note and asks where the rest is. Gohan explains that was all for today and then Dai tries to open the box, but it is locked. Dai’s confused but Gohan points to his heart and Dai finally realized that the key he had all along was for this box. He opens the box and sees a necklace with a crest that looks like a phoenix head. Gohan looks surprised but tells him, “This is your first clue to find the truth.”

After that, Dai hugs his grandfather and says his farewells and goes on his journey, which was even harder than he expected. Gohan just looks at a Dai in the distance and says, “The world we live in is so small I would have never guessed that you were their son.”

It’s been two days since Dai left the village and he has been looking for a village all this time. He thought it would be easy, but Dai had no sense of direction at all. To make it even worse, Dai spent all his money on swords and armor instead of food. He thought it was all over till he spotted a town in the distance. He rushes over there as fast as possible to find so much food and water once he’s there. He goes to the entrance of the town, and they check to see if he has a bounty on his head. Once he got in, he saw the town was huge with many people and buildings. The town was called Alabasta, a town covered in sand and a ton of tourist attractions. They had a whole bunch of shops and amusement parks that had a cowboy theme. Dai was so excited

he wanted to look at all the stores and go to all the amusement parks. Then he suddenly remembers he is starving and goes to find a place to eat. He couldn’t find a place that would let him eat with no money until he saw a poster for a bar hiring a hero to catch a wanted criminal. Dai takes the poster and heads to the bar, hoping they will feed him if he accepts the job. The people at the bar agreed to his condition and explained the situation about the person Dai needed to find. They said that the man was named Diablo and he is gathering people to storm the capital by threatening them. The people later explained that Diablo took their son and wouldn’t give him back if the son’s father didn’t join the battle against the capital. The boy’s father was a retired commander who had military secrets and techniques, but once he retired he bought a bar in his home village.

Dai, after hearing their situation, understands what type of person he is and is furious. He tells them, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure I get your son and stop this man.” After that, Dai heads out looking for this man named Diablo. Dai was searching for hours but couldn’t find any clues until he spotted a crowd of men surrounding women who looked like they were knights. Dai gets closer to hearing their conversation and hears the woman say, “I will not let you gather people to attack my king and the capital.” The man in the center says, “I’m Diablo. I wouldn’t lose to no knight and especially to no woman.”

The lady laughs and says, “No man has ever beaten me and you cowards are not going to be the first.” Diablo, in a rage, cast an attack spell and charged in with a sword. Diablo and the mysterious woman knight started to fight in the center. Diablo is losing and calls to his men to fight and, before they could move, Dai comes in with his sword and his fire dragon sword techniques to stop the men from attacking. Dai says, “It wouldn’t be fair if you all fight this woman.”

She laughs and says, ”Thanks for your help, but they could never even lay a scratch on my armor.” Dai and the mysterious woman knight join forces and instantly defeat all the criminals. It was all over, Diablo and his men were unconscious on the floor. Dai and the woman tie them up and look in the nearby buildings to see if there are any captured people. Dai finds them and tells them to hurry home before it’s late. After the people leave, Dai goes to talk to the woman, but they are shortly cut off by a platoon of knights. Instead of the knights going to collect the criminals, they rush to us and say, “They’re the traitors and it looks like she has an accomplice.” Dai

stands confused while the woman knight grabs his arm and tells him to come with her. Dai, with a scared look on his face, runs with the lady for hours until they could finally escape.

Dai is very confused and worried and asks the lady, “Who are you? I thought you were a good guy but the knights are after you.” The lady tells him, “I’m Ezra Scarlet. I serve the royal family as the commander of a legion soldier that protects the royal family at all times.” Dai is still confused. “If you’re that important, why are they turning on you?” he asks. Ezra proceeds to explain that on her last mission it was a setup to try to get rid of the royal protectors to kill the royals with no problems and she needs to get back to the capital before their plan springs into action. Dai says, “Oh that’s it, I’m in and I have someone in the capital that I want to protect.” Ezra tells Dai, “This isn’t a job for you but me as a commander. I owe the king so much and I’d rather die than see him die. Do you understand how this is not for kids?” Dai says, “Come on, you saw me fight already and two is better than one. Please I want to save the king too.”

Ezra realizes she has no time to be trying to convince him not to go but instead she says if he could lay a scratch on her then he has a chance and is strong often to fight with her. Dai accepts the challenge and he gets his fire dragon technique ready. Ezra notices his technique and prepares to show him hers. They both are serious but Dai makes the first rushing in to go for the first attack but Ezra vanishes before his eyes. All he hears is a gust of wind and he suddenly ends up flying back to the ground. Ezra taunts Dai and says, “If you couldn’t block that, why even try to go?” Dai, after being hit to the ground, realizes the gap between his skill and hers but Dai just starts laughing and says, “This is fun.” Suddenly Dai becomes quiet and sprints his way to Ezra. Again she suddenly just disappears and all he can hear is wind.

Dai closes his eyes and is able to sense the wind direction and where she is going to come from. In that instant, he charges his best sword attack and swings it at full power. Ezra sees his courage and forgets to hold back. Dai was sent flying back while Ezra was just fine. Dai laughs and says, “That was great and there is still so much for me to learn.” Ezra shows Dai her arm and Dai sees that her armor on her right arm was completely shattered. She tells Dai, ‘’You did very well against my sword technique and you’re ready to fight alongside me.” Dai jumps with excitement but soon realizes how bad his body hurts from her attacks. Ezra felt bad so she used a healing spell to help him

walk. Ezra tells Dai to hurry up and they embark on their journey to the capital. But before that, they decided to set up camp for the night. When they’re about to go to sleep, Dai asks Ezra, “What did the king do to make you such a loyal knight?” Ezra started to explain her past and her connection to the king: “When I was young I lived a life of stealing to provide for my family but once I was caught I was lucky enough to run into the king before the knights put me in jail. The king said, ‘What did this young lady do to get herself in jail?’ The knight explained all my crimes but he still spared my life because he thought I could be a good soldier based on my past and strong body. He offered to put me in knight school and take care of my family if I promised to stop doing crime. I stopped and then I trained and worked my way up for many years to be in my position and thank the king for this life.”

Then she asked Dai what was his reason to travel. Dai explained his situation about his journey to find his family and showed her the note that was with him when I was a baby. Once she saw the letter she jumped and said, “This is the paper we used in the castle which means your parents are royals.” Then she remembers 16 years ago the kingdom was attacked and they were trying to kidnap the king’s newborn baby. The king decides to send the baby off with a note and its necklace with the previous commander of the royal family guard. They defeated the enemy but they couldn’t find where the commander was. It turned out the commander fought the leader of the attack to the death and both ended up dead. The only thing that the commander had left was a piece of the note that the king gave him in his hand. She asked if Dai had a necklace with a crest of a phoenix on it and he showed her the one that was in the box grandpa gave him. Ezra was so happy and said, “I’m glad that I found you. It must be fate that you and I are going to save your family.” Dai is still in shock but even more excited to save the king. Ezra and Dai decide to go to sleep to prepare to fight in the capital.

After two long days, they made it to the capital to stop the king from dying but the evil knights were one step ahead. Dai and Ezra were fighting them off, but they overwhelmed them so they had no choice but to surrender. They took them to the throne where the king should be but instead it was different. Ezra, in rage, says, “Where is the king?!” The unknown man walks up to Ezra and tells her, “You don’t have to worry about him” and laughs in her face. Dai, after realizing that he was going to lose his dad and mom before even meeting them,

was in a rage and, because of that, the necklace started to glow. The crest was shining in the necklace and he could feel the power inside him growing. Dai looked up and focused all his newly found power on the unknown man, but the man said, “You’re not the only one that has power” and he used the same power as Dai and knocked him unconscious.

When Dai woke up, he was in a jail cell with cuffs on to stop his magical powers. In the cell were Dai, Ezra and the royal family. The king explains that the reason that they were in the cell was that Dai’s older brother Mugen became power-hungry and overthrew his father. The king wanted to explain more but, because Dai used the power for the first time, it took too much out of him and he slept for two days. He woke up just before the knights came to bring them to the execution platform. The knights walk all of them to the outside execution platform. Dai thought it was over because he couldn’t use his sword and his time with his family was over. Then Dai heard his name screamed from one of the knights in the crowd. The voice sounded very familiar and he remembered Robin was also in the capital. He looks up and sees Robin using the fire dragon sword technique to free Dai and the rest. Robin heard about Dai getting captured by other knights so he snuck onto the execution platform. He tells Dai, “You can’t do anything without me.” Dai laughs while Robin gives them weapons to fight back. Dai gets his sword and Robin and Dai fight together to take care of all the evil knights. In a flash, Dai and Robin defeat all the evil knights like it was nothing.

The king notices the technique they used to fight and says, “That’s Gohan sword skills, he must have trained and taken care of Dai.” Dai tries to use the power he newly discovered to beat his brother but it wasn’t enough. Then the king told Dai not to use anger but think about who you want to protect. Dai tries to focus while Ezra and Robin fight his brother. While Dai is focusing, Ezra uses all her power to try to stop Munga but she hesitates because she was fond of him. Munga takes advantage of her hesitating and deals a blow to the chest. Finally, Dai has enough focus and shoots his last shot of power at his brother. Instead of killing him, the blast cleared him of all the evil in his heart because Dai just wanted to keep his family together, not kill his brother he just found.

A dark aura started to flow out of his body and Mugen went back to his old self. Mugen was imprisoned for what had happened

because he did kill tons of different people. The king made Robin’s dreams come true by making him a white knight, and he was able to go on a mission with his dad. Dai decides that, since one of his goals was complete, he wanted to travel the world and get stronger. The king let him go but let Ezra go with him to train and protect him. After they left, Gohan came to the capital and shared his moments of Dai’s childhood with the king because they both figured out their connection to Dai.