Darios

Darios (ダリオス, Dariosu) is the prince of Grisstone, and the childhood friend of both Rowan and Lianna.

Underneath his cool, calm, and brotherly nature, Darios held the desire to gain more power for himself, which made him the perfect puppet for Velezark.

As he is the tutor of the Aytolis twins in swordplay, Darios has the exact same moveset as them.

Story Mode History
Darios arrives in Aytolis at the beginning of the game, and spars Rowan while Lianna watches. After defeating Rowan, Lianna is about to spar with Darios herself when the Gates of the Other World suddenly open, causing monsters to flood the palace. The three work together to fight off the monsters, and meet up with Queen Yelena to make their escape. However, while running through a cave, Yelena is separated from the rest by large boulders, and gives the Shield of Flames to Rowan and Lianna before urging them to go on without her.

After that, Darios continues serving as a mentor and ally for the twins as they find heroes of other worlds to power up the Shield of Flames with the heroic orb essences from the chosen heroes called Gleamstones.

When the Gristonne army, led by Validar, attacks the Ylisse and Aytolis armies at Aytolis’ dragon temple, Darios becomes disillusioned by his father's betrayal and begin to cast away his loyalty from his home kingdom.

Sometimes after recruiting most of every heroes from Awakening and Fates' timelines. Darios got an information about what his father Oskar and Velezark up to, as the enemy armies led by their ruthless leaders will be gathered inside the Grisstone’s castle and planning to take over Aytolis completely. When Takumi and Ryoma questioned about Darios’ allegiance, Darios assures his allies that he maybe loyal to his home kingdom, it was his father who led their kingdom’s downfall. As Rowan, Lianna and Darios concerned about the safety of the Shield of Flames and the twins themselves, Darios objects his close friends’ ideas about him watching over the shield under his care, but reluctantly have no choice to do it.

During the the heroes' attack on a Gristonne fortress to restore his kingdom and removing his father King Oskar from his throne for his tyrannical allegiance with the villains across the universe and Velezark, Darios is trapped inside the castle and unable to escape from the enemies’ barrier, thus ended up being possessed by the spirit of the dragon Velezark before the heroes arrived and rescue Darios, and recover the Shield of Flames which was reluctantly under Darios’ hand. Because of Darios' unintentionally hidden lust for power and obsession to become stronger, Darios ended up becoming Velezark's perfect host, who corrupts his will. After all 5 of the Gleamstones were gathered into the Shield of Flame, Velezark, using Darios' body, initiates its plan. It reveals itself as Oskar's co-conspirator and steals the Shield of Flames for their own evil purposes, and so the twins pursue him.

When they catch up to him, they find that Oskar and the Velezark-possessed Darios also have Yelena hostage. Oskar and Darios prepare to sacrifice Yelena to revive Velezark's full power, though Darios makes the proposal that if the twins surrender their weapons, he will spare her. When they do so, he turns to kill her anyways, but is stopped by Takumi, who predicted this outcome. The twins retrieve their weapons, and Rowan forces Darios back as Lianna rescues Yelena from the magic circle she was being held captive in.

With Yelena rescued, the twins attempt to get Darios back from Velezark's possession when Oskar approaches him. The possessed Darios reassures his father that the situation is under control before suddenly running him through the stomach, saying that all that was needed was royal blood, regardless of whose blood was planned to be sacrificed. With Oskar as the sacrifice in Yelena's place, Oskar's body is absorbed by the magic circle to fuel Velezark's full power into Darios' body. During the battle against his fellow heroes, Darios manage to fight back Velezark from the inside for the heroes to defeat him.

After the twins defeat him, Darios fully regains control over himself and pleads for them to kill him before Velezark manifest itself from his body. They refuse to, and believing there must another way to save Darios, but was too late. Velezark begins to separate from Darios' body, using the Gristonne prince's life force to materialize its body. Although Darios is freed from the dragon's possession, it is short-lived as Darios pushes the twins away from one of the dragon's attacks and is impaled by a sword made by the Chaos Dragon. Using the last of his strength to return the Shield of Flames, the floor under him gives way and he fell into the depths, which shows a void of space-time below as the twins scream his name in despair at the loss of their old friend.

History Mode Appearances
Darios appears in Together to the End, where the end goal of the map is to defeat him and the other bosses of the map.

Boss Encounters

 * Chapter 17: Royal Blood
 * Chapter 18: Chaos Dragon's Might

Trivia

 * As an ally unit, Darios is always a Lord, and as a boss unit, Darios is always a Great Lord.
 * According to an interview, the developers had intended to make Darios playable in a downloadable scenario but ended up not having the development time to do so.
 * As Darios is a negative version of the Aytolis twins while as a boss unit, he also has a negative version of their personal swords that's named Risyl (リジル, Rijiru). As he is a boss unit however, Risyl doesn't have a Unit slayer-type weapon attribute.
 * He shares some similarities to Gunter from Fire Emblem Fates, as both good warriors were initially revealed to have been possessed by an evil dragon on certain last chapters of their respective game series (with Gunter's case being in Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation). Unlike Gunter, Darios is killed in the battle.
 * Darios also shares many similarities with Lyon from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones; both are princes off their respective kingdoms who have close friendships with the twins of a neighboring country. Both princes are revealed to be possessed by the final bosses of their games and steal the protagonists' symbol of hope (Lyon destroys it, in his case). After their possessed selves are defeated for the last time, they both die apologizing for the trouble they've brought the twins.