Fan Fiction ❯ Harry Potter and the Hero of Time ❯ The Final Battle ( Chapter 17 )

Chapter 17-The Final Battle

When everyone had vanished, the few who remained turned to face Drakan. The demigod began by turning into a Death Armos, a floating stone sentry from the inverted Stone Tower Temple of Termina. Link fired an energy disk from the Double Helix Sword, and the monster flipped upside-down. It then turned to shadow and landed right-side up on the ground. The next monster was a dementor, twelve feet tall, with gray, scab-covered hands and a mouth like a death rattle. Professor Lupin fired a Patronus at it and it turned to shadow again.

When Drakan reformed this time, he was an Obsidian Knuckle, an Iron Knuckle variant armored in pure obsidian that absorbed all light. The axe was dripping with human blood, but Link was already ready with Nayru's Love. After the breastplate fell off, Drakan turned into a death knight, a once-living knight who committed an unthinkable act and was cursed to unlife, rather like the Ringwraiths of Middle-earth. Gandalf hit the creature with a blast of fire and Drakan landed on all fours.

This next transformation was very strange, and very startling. Drakan turned into a huge snake made of rock that glittered with jewels of all sorts in its flesh. A soft patch in his midsection indicated a weak point. Drakan soon grew a huge shell and four legs, rather like a turtle, only made out of huge rock. From two holes in the shell grew two elemental heads-one of fire, one of ice.

"He's a Trinexx," Lexicon said, consulting his book. "A Trinexx is a type of three-headed dragon that looks like a turtle. Its shell is made of black diamonds and studded with jewels. The trick to defeating him is to hit the fire head with ice and the ice head with fire." Alzeroth conjured a spear of ice and pierced the fire head with it, causing Drakan to rear back in pain. Raistlin summoned his fireball spell and the ice head crystallized like the fire head before it as the magical orb of bat guano and sulfur struck it.

Drakan was not done by a long shot, though. He clenched the ground with his humongous claws and began to leech black energy from it. The castle began to crumble as Drakan absorbed the concentrated evil energy holding it together into his body. Drakan began to swell as he absorbed the magic and altered his form to his ultimate level.

"He's going to destroy the castle," William shouted. "Play the Song of Soaring!" As the music rang out, they vanished in a cloud of owl feathers and reappeared on the peak of Pentagram Mountain, next to an Owl Statue. The castle was clearly visible as it collapsed into the lava pit below its floating perch. As one tower collapsed, its negative energy flew up to a swelling cloud of darkness at the top of what used to be the keep. The keep itself was soon gone, feeding the swelling power of Drakan, and then something strange happened.

From the ground erupted all sorts of monsters-ranging from explosive Nejiron to cunning Garo Robes to skeletal Stalfos knights. All sorts of monsters rose from the ground and marched to the castle's island, where Drakan snatched their energy with tendrils of purple lightning. When the monsters' negative energy was assimilated, they turned to stone and crumbled into ash moments later. When the castle was nothing but swirling clouds of impotent dust, the rest of the altered, mutilated countryside was next to follow.

"What does my son think he's doing," William asked. "Play the Song of Soaring and warp to the Opal Tower, while there's still time!" They warped just as the mountain began feeding Drakan, who had now taken on the shape of a dark face carved of black smoke and purple lightning.

"What's going on," Darunia asked as the survivors landed.

"Drakan, cunning lad as usual, is absorbing all the negative energy he expended to conquer Elsewhere," William explained. "He is using the vast amounts of negative energy to transform himself into a form he believes will be strong enough to destroy me. I have a potion, though, that will help me fight him." He snapped his fingers, and a cauldron simmering over a small brazier of mystical Blue Fire appeared from the ether. Inside the cauldron, William had added lacewing flies, fluxweed, knotgrass, the wings of a bat, a pint of quicksilver, and a drop of molten steel. The resulting potion was bright silver with blue and red patched.

Blue Fire is a type of magical flame found in the Ice Cavern north of Zora's Fountain in Hyrule. It has the power to melt red ice, and it also appeared in one room behind the Water Medallion door of Ganon's Castle. Blue Fire is a cool flame that tends to soothe wounds rather than inflict them, except against golems made of red ice. Quicksilver, the element mercury, is called tamex, the false metal, among Krynnish dwarves. Lacewing flies, fluxweed, and knotgrass are ingredients in Polyjuice Potion.

William then conjured the Rod of Holiness and began stirring the potion. He made the addition of a pint of wolfsbane extract to the potion and then poured out some into a beaker. When William drank the beaker, his face contorted in pain as the potion reached his stomach. It was soon coursing through his blood, altering his body and mind in ways that made the demigod retch over the side of the tower. William soon collapsed to all fours and began to make noises that no human could ever make, no mammal, even.

"What's going on," Link shouted. "What's he transforming into?"

"I believe I can answer that," said a cultured voice from behind them. "I am Kasuto of Kataan, in the south of the country of Hyrule. William is transforming into a solid version of his Patronus, using a variant of Polyjuice Potion called Patromorph Cordial. He could transform into a silver dragon on his own, but that would expend unnecessary amounts of energy and make him less effective in combat."

"Kataan is the hidden village of the Sheikah," Impa explained. "It is about a hundred south of Lake Hylia through a stretch of forest and fen that very few could cross. We train in secret there, developing our disappearing trick, among other things. Kasuto is the magistrate in charge of Kataan."

"Magistrate as in judge or mayor?"

"Quite, miss," the mysterious Kasuto of Kataan replied. "Now, when William is transformed, I shall need some help fitting this lance and saddle to him." Kasuto clapped his hands in the quick Gerudo fashion and the saddle and lance appeared. They were both quite large enough to fit a dragon three hundred feet long. The lance appeared to be made of a mixture of silver and steel, strong enough to pierce anything, even the hide of a dragon.

"Is that a Dragonlance," Professor Lupin asked, pointing at the lance.

"Forged from magical dragonsilver from the well in the Dragon Mountain of Southern Ergoth," confirmed Lexicon. "It was forged, indeed, by Theros Ironfeld himself, the most powerful smith in all of Ansalon. The lance and saddle are made to specifications William provided three weeks ago."

William, meanwhile, was contorting in pain. His arms and legs began to bulge with muscles as his simple clothes merged with his body, forming silver scales and a gem-studded underbelly. Behind his arms, two huge, bat-like wings emerged from the blades of his shoulders. William's gentle face elongated into the snout of a silver dragon as his eyes turned solid cyan. His transformation completed as his fingers and toes became long claws sharp as diamond.

Kasuto and Professor Lupin took up the saddle and strapped it around the huge bulk of William's dragon body. The lance and its shield fit into a slot near the stirrups on the left side. Professor Lupin, someone who read the Dragonlance books, soon mounted in the back seat on the saddle. He helped Link up and they both strapped into the saddle.

"Be careful," Zelda shouted up to her husband.

"Don't worry," Link shouted back. "I can handle piercing Drakan with a lance. Just get ready to toss him into the Evil Realm when we get back."

Just then, Cyan Bloodbane and Ember landed on the battlements of the tower. Raistlin mounted the green dragon and readied his strongest spells. Ember had no rider, preferring to fight alone after the death of his human comrade, Dragon Highlord Verminaard, a cleric of Takhisis. Suddenly, a foul wind began to blow about the tower.

"Get everyone downstairs," William ordered Alzeroth. "Drakan is going to leave no tower standing if he wins, so get them out of here via the Transdim chamber. Listen, old friend, if I'm destroyed, you have to be off of Elsewhere. When I die, this planet will be soon to follow in a fireball that will destroy all who remain."

When the dragons prepared to take off, the black cloud over Drakanian Temple began to billow and grow. It stretched toward the Opal Tower as purple and green lightning began to crackle through the air, leeching energy from whatever it struck.

"Here we go," said William as they flew into the billowing mass. Inside, the clouds were thick, and lightning from across the spectrum crackled about them. The clouds billowed out in all directions from a central point. The Dragonlance pierced the darkness, drove it back into itself as the dragonsilver shone with ever greater brilliance. As the darkness fell back, it became shadow, and the shadow became light, pure sunlight that streamed forth from the sky, illuminating the magic-ravaged world.

"It will take years to recover, if it recovers at all," Link said. "To think that one being, mortal or no, could have the power to destroy a living planet…"

"It is far easier to destroy than to create," Raistlin said. "That I know all too well. I once sought godhood, and had I succeeded, I would have destroyed Krynn." (Read the Dragonlance Legends trilogy, and that'll verify that.) Just then, the last of the shadows vanished and they beheld the dark power of Drakan.

Drakan was huge, thirty-nine miles long from snout to tail, the largest dragon ever in existence. His body crackled with unholy violet electricity as he beat the air with his sixty-six-mile-wide wings. Drakan had razor-sharp claws and no less than three heads. The left head was a chill blue in color, the color of ice magic, as evidenced by its frost breath. The right head was the red-orange with yellow streaks of molten rock, the color of fire magic, with enough heat near it to melt even iron. The central head, though, was human in form, not dragon. Drakan's middle head was pale white in color with solid violet eyes and a huge amethyst in the middle of his forehead.

"What do you louts think of me now," Drakan said, his voice creating a sonic boom. "I am Drakan, and I am invincible!"

"Oh, really," William said as he dove toward the fire head. He inhaled and unleashed a huge cone of frost that made the red dragon's head flop down lifelessly. Ember melted the chill ice around the cyan head with his powerful flame breath and it too was gone. Drakan was down by two heads, and still had yet to make a move. Suddenly, the amethyst gem on his forehead glowed and unleashed a shaft of purple unlightning at Ember. The red dragon took it in the right flank and literally froze in midair.

"What's happening?"

"Link, Ember is a dragon of evil at heart. The shaft of un-lightning must be a way to drain the life from him, or else he would have just shrugged it off." William concentrated his will and then teleported Ember away from the clouds. He then dove down at Drakan's left breast, where the heart would be in a human. The lance pierced the shield of unlightning and struck Drakan's chest where the black arrow killed Smaug the Golden over Esgaroth more than 8357 years earlier*.

When the holy artifact penetrated Drakan, the god screamed in rage. He began to shrink, reverting to his human form as the magic that sustained him fell away in great layers. Where the magic hit the ground, it restored the peace that Drakan had subverted to his own use, sealing the chasms in the ground and recreating forests and plains. Raistlin took Drakan, who was unconscious, onto his dragon as they flew back to the tower.

When they got there, the Sages had opened the portal to the Evil Realm and secured it with the amulets. Drakan fell into the circle of white light and the portal closed, sealing the evil deity in the plane of elemental evil forever.

*It is generally accepted that Middle-earth was a European analog of about 8300 years ago at the time of the Ring's destruction. The Hobbit was published 8300 years after the Ring's end, in 1937 AD. 1995-1937 = 58 years between publishing and the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Smaug was killed in TA 2941 (the 2941st year of the Third Age of Middle-earth), and the Quest of Mount Doom began sixty-seven years later, give or take a week or two either way.