Rage of the Rathalos (Saga)

[Harry Dresden]

Harry was a little irritated. Not two hours in this Omniverse place and he was already having to look up to someone. 6'2" was a respectable height, and he towered over most of the people he talked to in Chicago. The wizard was too used to being tall to be at all comfortable in a conversation with someone over seven feet high. It didn't help that he was met with, of all things, Camelot, as a location. "They all this tall in Camelot?" The Chicago native's voice was laced with sarcasm as he removed the bike helmet, remembering the pink color and sighing inwardly.

The tall stranger asked what brought him to Camelot, and Harry gave the best answer he could, which, honestly, wasn't much. He'd been tempted to say "doughnuts" and leave it at that, but he felt that would be a bad first impression. He wanted to know what the tall man, and the woman wearing what looked to be a real-life version of the armor from the old Metroid game, could and would do before he pissed them off. He might mouth off to the Queen of Air and Darkness, but he knew what she was likely to do. Contrary to popular belief, the wizard was not devoid of self-preservation. While he thought about that, he heard the tall one say they were after... a dragon. Memories of his encounter with Ferrovax sprang to his mind, and Harry briefly considered turning and leaving, but these people didn't know what they were getting into. After a brief pause of consideration, Harry said, "Might as well." He added under his breath, "Not much else to lose here."

Harry accepted the armored woman's ride on a lizard with only a little hesitation, putting the pink helmet back on despite his irritation with the thing. One bone-jarring ride later, Harry stumbled gracelessly off the reptile looking only slightly green around the gills, discarding the helmet as he took in the sight of the dragon. Nowhere near as much power as he expected was flying around. A dragon of Ferrovax's caliber would have obliterated the surrounding area in the time he'd taken to look at it. This one was being occupied by one young adult, not much older than William and a great deal less built. The wizard rushed forward, coming to a halt about thirty feet from the dragon, staff held in his charred left hand and blasting rod in his whole right one. Rather than any fire magic, Harry reached inward for soulfire, drawing in his confusion and hardening his will before thrusting all three through the staff towards the dragon with a faux-Latin shout; Forzare!

The spell took effect, a huge spectral hand coming into being and seizing the dragon's mouth and throat, pushing it upward and away from the town and the other combatants. "I can't do this for long, take advantage while you can!" Confusion was an emotion like any other, but using it in magic was tricky; Harry had to focus to maintain the spell, though the evocation had enough contact with the beast that Harry could walk slowly out of the monster's direct line of sight, behind a small shed. He could do fourty-five seconds under these conditions. What happened then was up to the kid with the sword. Swords had a good track record against dragons, mainly because of the power of things like faith. The green-hatted kid had Harry's vote of confidence. A stray thought almost made the spell waver; maybe this was the kind of thing the original Merlin thought about Arthur. The comparison to the current Merlin this entailed made Harry shiver.