CHAPTER 28
The Battle of New York
As he and the roc carrying Witch Greble spiraled down towards Central Park George reviewed his options. He was supposed to hold off attacking and destroying Greble until star-powered Freedom returned but on the other hand he had to protect the city. Could he do both? He was beginning to wander if he could do either! The Witch had great power, he sensed. He didn't like this stalling tactic; it hadn't turned out very well in Africa.
Right now he spiraled down a mere hundred yards ahead of the roc, baiting the Witch to a relatively deserted part of the Park and City and keeping himself between the Witch and the people she apparently sought to consume.
He was deeply puzzled by Witch Greble and her behavior. Weren't witches supposed to be afraid of dragons and their Chosen? Yet this witch had overpowered Mary and was clearly stalking him instead of fleeing from him! What she said and was doing now suggested that she didn't fear him at all!
What most puzzled George was that he sensed dragon, not just witch, within the strange being that rode on the shoulders of the roc! That didn't make any sense at all! But there it was; there could be no mistaking it! But whatever the form of the Witch, Freedom would soon return thousands of times more powerful; he should wait to attack this creature if he could. When Freedom returned with the energy of thousands of suns this creature would clearly be over-matched. Yet the witch was in no particular hurry to attack him. She seemed to want Freedom to attack her with the energies of thousands of stars and all the colors of all dragons!
George landed in a small clearing moments before the roc landed only fifty yards from him and the Witch climbed off of it. The monstrous bird-like beast immediately flew off and would probably terrorize the City, but George stayed focused on the Witch that finally faced him. Beneath the female human form that she wore like a shroud she was fully as ugly as he expected: roughly humanoid in form but distorted by age, neglect, hate, and rage; diminutive but seething in power cold and deadly. A large indistinct black mass seething of Evil and dragon power covered one of her arms.
"I enjoyed killing your parents, young Chosen, especially your mother Joan," Greble said, her screechy voice amplified to almost painful levels. Over a few seconds her form wavered and became that of Joan, smiling at her son, then writhing in pain and fear and screaming as she died in agony. "My settling the score with her made for great theatre, I thought," said Greble, as her own form replaced that of Joan.
"Soon I am going to kill you, witch," said George. "Why do you have no fear of that?"
"Attack me and you'll find that I am invincible," said witch. "It is I that will soon consume you!"
"I don't think so," said George, who still made no move to attack.
"Obviously we're both waiting for your dragon," said Greble. "You because you think he will save you, and me because I hunger for him and will enjoy it when you watch each other die, White Dragon's Chosen!"
There was a sharp 'crack' of a sound, followed by several others, and Greble flinched as several high-powered rifle slugs struck her. The event startled George; whose total focus had been on Greble. The sniper was a man in military uniform, the Chosen soon discovered by using his dragon eyesight. In response the Witch glanced towards the man, but instead of falling dead as she expected him to he ducked out of sight and retreated. George noted that there were several others in the trees surrounding the clearing but they held off their attack for now.
"I blocked your attack," the Chosen told the Witch. "You'll kill no more humans."
"Change of plan then," said Greble. "I hunger for human lives. We won't wait for your dragon."
A tendril of blackness shot out from the Witch and washed over and around George. It was cold and Evil, and despite his great dragon strength the Chosen collapsed to his knees, stunned and disabled by pain!
The gloating Witch moved to stand before him, grinning widely. "See, foolish boy? I have no fear of dragons or their puny Chosen," she said. "I have powers that your naive dragon never dreamed of!"
It was Evil that she wielded, George realized, forged by dragon strength into a weapon so powerful that he couldn't oppose it! Dragons could destroy limited amounts of Evil, yes, but this was more Evil than even a dragon Chosen could long resist! But he had to! He sensed that his elfin artifacts, the helmet, sword, and body armor, still held power of a sort different from that of dragons, and now he drew strength from them. He was dragon yes, but he was also human, a human that had been infused with elf powers! His hand had been clutching his elfin sword by the hilt, and now he drew the enchanted weapon out of its scabbard, inch by gleaming inch, though it took all of his strength.
"Ha!" said the Witch, as she smiled in amusement. "I see that even as I drink in your dragon energy you also have meager elf powers to draw from!"
White elf lightning shot out from the sword and enveloped the Witch, startling her more than it hurt her. In that moment her grip on George's dragon-self loosened and he did what any dragon would to defend himself, he spat green fire at his enemy! From his mouth and eyes it issued, wave after wave of it, washing over the witch from head to toe!
Witch Greble screamed in pain and thrashed about, but there was no escape! In less than a minute she was reduced to a smoldering pile of ash and cinders.
The Witch Greble was no more!
The young Chosen breathed a deep sigh of relief. He had done it! The City, Earth, and Narma were for the time being safe! It was over at last!
He looked about and saw from the surrounding trees and bushes perhaps a dozen well-armed men and women emerge, smiling and holding their weapons in a relaxed way. "Doctor Cross sends his greetings, Mr. Lock," announced one of them, smiling. "There is still a roc at large but we can probably deal with it ourselves. We have some powerful air-to-air weaponry converging here."
George shrugged. OK, so maybe it wasn't quite over with, but it would be all over soon. Johnny would probably want a New York tickertape parade, but he just wanted himself and his friends to get safely back to a normal life including high school.
Suddenly all the men converging towards him stopped and backed away, fear appearing in their eyes as they raised their weapons to point them up at something behind George, something huge that rose high above them and suddenly blocked off the light of the sun!
The Chosen sensed it even before he could turn to look at it: an overpowering presence that was both dragon and Evil! From the still smoldering ashes of the Witch an immense darkness gathered and grew, a black swirling blackness over a hundred feet across that rapidly grew much larger. In the swirling blackness could be glimpsed gigantic legs, necks, tales, wings, and claws, and a dragon's head with red eyes and a gaping mouth filled with black teeth! At last it all consolidated into a monstrous black dragon, similar in appearance to Jewel but more than a dozen times her size!
It was however a seriously deformed dragon. Its legs were crooked and contorted, and many of the outward jutting spines that ran down its back were half broken off. One of its red eyes was half closed and oozed with black pus, and many of its black teeth were shattered or missing.
"You destroyed my useful little host!" it roared, in a voice so deep it could only barely he heard, though so loud that it rattled bones, "but I was tiring of her anyway and I am anxious to get on with this after thousands of years of waiting!"
"Your story goes back to far earlier than that," I suspect, said George.
"Yes in sum total it goes back many millions of your years, human," said the Dark One. "I see that despite your obvious limitations you have managed to gather some dragon knowledge. For millions of years I have exploited elements such as dragons. I also destroyed countless inferior beings such as humans and elves, yet I needed to allow some to survive to entice the birthing of dragons. Now that program has at long last culminated in the birth of a White Dragon! In recent millennia humans have become the favorite Chosen of birthing dragons. Meanwhile gullible elves have spread wide the myths that I created."
"The White Dragon will destroy you!"
"That is a myth I created to allow me to harvest the seed I planted!" said the Dark One. "When I consume it fully the White Dragon will both renew my internal structure and feed me vast amounts of energy! That's what they all do; the dragons feed me and renew me so that I may survive and gather yet more Evil!"
Johnny was right, George thought! Things were indeed far more complex than the elves knew!
"To what end?" George had to ask, though he suspected the dreaded answer.
"The end of this Multiverse that teems with vermin life structures such as humans and elves!" the Dark One boasted. "My Horde sought out life and destroyed it wherever they found it, and gathered in the energy of countless stars and what Evil they could find. I have consumed most free dragons now, and most of my Horde. While feeding me they have slowed life's advance but not fully stopped it; that will only happen when there is enough Evil gathered in me to destroy the structure of this entire Multiverse!"
"Freedom and I won't let that happen," said George. "Evil has corrupted you and you're falling apart! We'll stop you now forever!"
"Empty words," said the Dark One. "I will use you to renew my dragon structure by adding unto myself the structure of the green dragon, and renewing all the colors of my dragon self. Then I will absorb the energies of the stars that your White Dragon will bring to me. And then I will greatly enjoy destroying all life on this world and on Narma! You have served your purpose by hatching the White Dragon for me to feed on. Nothing of life will survive in this world or that one!"
As long as he could keep the Dark One talking he stood a chance, George reasoned. Freedom would soon return; he had to! He tried to move but still couldn't, somehow the Dark One held him perfectly immobile. Neither could he scry or speak telepathically! He tried to fire off a bolt of white elf lightning at the towering Dark One but failed. He could do nothing! And he felt weak, more weak than he had ever felt since getting his elf and dragon powers.
He was totally helpless! He could do nothing when he found himself floating in the air towards the dragon! He at first feared that the dragon would literally devour him. Instead as he hung in the air in front of the dragon's face its black tongue suddenly shot out and enveloped him completely!
The Chosen felt even weaker then, and he had to fight to retain consciousness.
"I feel much better already!" said the Dark One, as he pulled back his black tongue from his tiny human-sized victim. "I have already renewed my dragon structure with yours, including that of the green dragons. And I have absorbed most of your energy! I will not destroy you completely yet however; I want you to see your dragon die and then watch me destroy all the life of Earth!"
George was too dazed to even respond. Dimly he witnessed helicopters, unmanned aircraft, and fighter bombers attack the Dark One using bombs, missiles, and guns but the giant dragon seemed to hardly take notice. Instead the Dark One was busy healing himself. Broken teeth, spikes, and other injuries soon disappeared. Finally the perfect black dragon glanced up and mentally shrugged as a human might do to shoo away mosquitos, and all the weapons and the humans with them exploded in dozens of fire-balls.
Around them the City was in panic as Manhattan was rocked with explosions and gunfire and hundreds of sirens screamed. A dozen downed fighter aircraft and attack helicopters lay broken and burning in and around Central Park, buildings burned, and hundreds of thousands of people fled the area, mostly on foot. Images of a skyscraper-sized black dragon filled all news outlets.
Panic only increased when a second dragon, this one white and as large as the Dark One, appeared to face it.
The White Dragon was magnificent and glowed with energy, but the black one appeared much healthier now that its injuries and deformities were gone!
The tiny Chosen was immediately knocked away by Freedom, to come tumbling to rest near the Southern end of the Park, more than a mile from the impending battle of titans. Barely conscious, George could only prop himself up on his elbows and watch the dragons from afar.
Green flame belched from roaring dragon mouths at each other, so hot and bright that many sensing elements of human camera devices burned out and human onlookers had to cower behind anything solid they could find, and so loud that hands covered ears in a useless attempt to block noise that shattered windows and other resonating items. Fleeing birds dropped dead from the sky, battered and smoldering from the light, heat, and sound!
In the heart of Central Park, the battling titans were locked in deadly embrace: crushing necks and tails wrapped about each other, teeth, claws, and spikes punched through stubborn dragon scales to rip and tear away muscle and bone that almost immediately restored itself.
George was reminded of the battling Sisters at Harry Simple's elf forest, but this battle was much more powerful and violent. Here there was no elfin magic to dampen sound or heat, or cooling pink mist to rejuvenate devastated forest. Shredded trees, ash, dirt and stone rained down like a hailstorm. Storm-clouds gathered and lightning danced over the fighting dragons, making them more visible as they fought within the debris shrouded arena they created.
Gradually however, dragon flame abated, and struggles died down. If it was only a matter of dragons fighting, White would have triumphed, for the White Dragon had the purest structure and most energy by far! But the Dark One had something more: a vast reservoir of Evil that resisted dragon flame and form, a formless void that defied and defiled all structure and reason! It hung about the Dark One as a black mist, a paralyzing, choking darkness that now extended from the Dark One to cover every inch of Freedom. Dragons can destroy Evil. Freedom destroyed much of the mist but it was quickly replenished by the Dark One. There was simply too much of it! It disrupted the White Dragon's ability to move or think or fight! The Dark One was an unholy mixture of perverted dragon structure and formless void that could not be overcome. It became distressingly obvious to Freedom and to human witnesses that the Dark One had triumphed!
From afar George watched on helplessly. He could sense Freedom's energy being gradually sucked out and into the Dark One, vast energies of suns and exploding suns. Worse he could sense his dragon's growing despair. George tried to rally his own strength as he knew that he must, but his own form was also covered over with a thick black haze of Evil that was slowly eating away at him.
Even his elf talismans of power were drained of energy: his golden sword, armor, and helmet were dull brown and powerless. He couldn't even attempt to stand up, much less attack the vast creature that was draining the life from his White Dragon! He slumped back to lay flat upon the ground. He no longer had the strength to even prop himself up to watch his dragon's death. His head spun. Perhaps he would mercifully lose consciousness before the Dark One finished with Freedom and came for him. Perhaps he would be lucky enough to die before the Dark one killed the people of this City, country, and world. Perhaps. Was it wrong to hope for death? He drifted towards unconsciousness.
It seemed almost a dream when someone held his head up and looked deep into his eyes. It was someone that he used to know. Someone that he cared for! "Mary?" he asked.
"GET YOURSELF TOGETHER, DRAGON CHOSEN," she said, her thoughts clear and strong. "YOUR DRAGON NEEDS YOU!" She removed something from her neck: a shining amulet with the image of a unicorn on it. When she attached it around his own neck the world seemed to stop spinning, and he found himself breathing deeper and stronger.
Mary smiled at him then, and it was something more beautiful and powerful than he had ever seen before! Strongly enough she then did something that he had only fantasized about of late: she bent down and briefly kissed him on the lips. But it was not only love that she was expressing: a jolt of dragon power surged from her into him, raising his conscious awareness a hundred-fold!
"Wow!" George managed to say. Much Evil still enveloped most of himself, he could see, but the unicorn amulet was helping him begin to gradually dissolve and push it away.
Mary stepp
ed aside and a glowing white unicorn took her place. The unicorn bent down its majestic head towards him and by exercising much willpower George reached up with a weak and shaking hand to grasp its perfect, spiraling, glimmering horn.
"WATCH AND LEARN HOW THIS IS DONE, CHOSEN ONE," said the unicorn.
Through the unicorn George could see more clearly the Evil for what it was: a discordant taint that broke down the perfect mathematical order of the Universe; a formless anti-substance that defied all logic and order and spread chaos and nothingness devoid of structure. There was a certain primal tempting allure to it, an urge to pull it dangerously close and experience unbounded strangeness and freedom from ordinary existence, but from the unicorn and from deep within himself we could sense the wrongness of such a course, as it would be a denial and abandonment of all logic, structure, harmony, life, love and beauty for a formless, soulless, all-consuming void: a deceptively false infinity.
He railed against that choice, against embracing Evil. The answer in the end was astonishingly simple: the restoration of the order to existence! With that understanding he could feel the all the remaining Evil in and around him dissipate into the oblivion of nothingness, and his innate dragon structure and strength restore itself fully!
"YOUR NAME IS CHARM," he said to the unicorn as he released its horn, and received in return a sound like laughing bells. "YOU HELP THE ELVES WITH THEIR FORESTS!"
"AMONG OTHER THINGS," acknowledged the unicorn. "THEY ARE GOOD STUDENTS AND YOU HAVE ALSO LEARNED WELL! MOSTLY AS WITH DRAGONS I SIMPLY REMIND VARIOUS CREATURES WHO AND WHAT THEY FUNDAMENTALLY ARE. THEY DO THE REST; JUST AS YOU HAVE DONE."
"TRUE UNDERSTANDING AND STRENGTH MUST COME FROM WITHIN," noted George.
The unicorn laughed again, an ultimate expression of the unbounded joy of life and existence: of love and hope and everything that was good in this and neighboring wondrous universes of the Multiverse!
Meanwhile a tiny figure riding a strange bat-like creature flew down to land next to him. Pipen Luciduarn Ken-Warga the Third, Elf Mage of Narma, spryly dismounted from the whisk and lay his tiny hands on George's helmet. "You have carelessly allowed your elfin gifts to drain away their power, Chosen One. But then you lack in experience and elfin wit and wisdom, so I suppose you can be forgiven this once, just as I have very often been." The helmet regained its golden color and power, as did the vest and sword, and George could feel elfin strength also return to himself. "Compared to dragons or unicorns elf power isn't much, great Chosen One, but perhaps it will help tip the balance in our favor."
A tall thin oldish human then reached down and helped George stand up, though by now he was feeling dragon-strong again. Henry Cross smiled at him. "Is there anything you need George? We humans are even weaker than elves, but we have a great interest in this battle also."
George slowly rose to hover a dozen feet above the ground. "Just try to move people away from here," he told Henry. "My friends and I will do the heavy lifting."
Mary flew up to sit behind the spike-frilled neck of Jewel. She wore a second unicorn amulet, George noted, as with a downward stroke of her gigantic wings the Last Sister began to rise above the Park.
"WILL YOU JOIN IN THE FIGHT?" the White Dragon Chosen asked Charm.
"INDIRECTLY VIA MY AMULETS," replied the unicorn. "I HAVE GIVEN THEM ALL THE STRENGTH THAT I DARE TO CONSUME THE EVIL. I MUST PRESERVE MUCH OF MYSELF FOR ANOTHER GREAT TASK THAT WILL NEED TO BE DONE AFTER THE THREAT OF THE DARK ONE IS REMOVED. GATHER YOURSELF, CHARMED CHOSEN ONE; YOU WILL NEED DRAGON STRENGTH AS WELL AS UNICORN PURITY AND WISDOM TO WIN THIS BATTLE."
George first circled the park, extinguishing raging fires by drawing heat energy to himself. Mary on Jewel followed in his wake, as did the tiny elf mage riding a whisk. They both watched what George did and were soon duplicating his efforts. George scryed Freedom and was pleased to find that though defeated the White Dragon still retained his structure and much of his strength, though he was held helpless by the Evil managed by the Dark One. A black mist covered all of the White Dragon, Evil that pressed in on him relentlessly and mercilessly, slowly eating away at him like a corrosive acid.
George's scrying action at last drew the attention of the Dark One, who lifted up his great head to follow the progress of those who circled him, while still continuing to drain energy from the White Dragon that lay crushed and motionless under his Evil-covered black claws. "COME CLOSER, TRAITOR SISTER," the Dark One taunted Jewel. "YOU PLAYED YOUR
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