After the distress call from Ginny, Balthazar had had no time to grab any relevant combat artifacts from Azkaban. Instead he had portaled directly to Ginny’s location with all haste directly from the Wolf-Kin clinic as quickly as he could.
He had noticed that Ginny had grabbed the portkey and been transported away luckily. Now all that remained was defeating Fate and her puppet Lord Voldemort.
Balthazar eyed the golden dragon charging him with a critical eye. Fate was a being with incomparable power and able to observe deep secrets of the universe like none other but the greater entities tied to concepts could. But despite her great power, her deep understanding of the fundamental concepts of magic…
She was inexperienced with combat with an equal. The golden dragon was perfect, so realistic that most wouldn’t be able to determine the difference between it and the real thing. There was conceptual power behind the construct as it roared and dived down towards Balthazar from above, containing the very essence of what a dragon was.
Yet despite all of that… Fate had forgotten that it was not a real creature still. Balthazar folded his wings and dived below the golden dragon as Fate circled on the perimeter, preparing more spells no doubt even as she guided the great dragon in its attacks.
The golden dragon’s claws passed over Balthazar’s face by only a couple feet. He was focused, and flared out his wings to stop his fall. The dragon tilted and circled around to make another pass to attack Balthazar. He remained hovering in place, flapping his wings, as the dragon roared again as it flew down towards him. He waited to charge his spell with even more power as the golden dragon’s mouth became shrouded in blazing golden flames as it prepared to breathe its fire at him.
It opened its jaws wide and prepared to fire its blast at him… and that’s the moment that Balthazar moved. He tilted horizontal to the ground and folded his wings around himself and raised his hands above his head.
His body began to rapidly spin in place and shot forward like an arrow, a red shield of magic appearing like the point of a spear above his raised hands. Just as the dragon was about to blast him with its flame, Balthazar’s body speared into its throat and into the center of its body through its throat. Directly past all the scales infused with the essence of a dragon and thrumming weight of Fate’s magic.
The inside of the dragon was not made of flesh and bone, but of golden magic. It was like an empty shell with the interior thrumming with the golden magic animating it as Balthazar arrived past all of its defenses through its open mouth and through the golden flames.
Inexperienced, one must remember that just because a construct looked like a creature didn’t mean that it was that creature. Something that Fate had evidently forgotten as Balthazar halted in the center of the dragon construct still spinning rapidly with the spear point of magic allowing him to pierce through. At just the right moment, Balthazar detonated his spell fully and in a massive explosion shredded the complicated threads of magic that animated the golden dragon from the inside. The construct roared in pain and shifted. Balthazar went weightless as the golden dragon’s wings faltered and it began to fall.
Balthazar released corrosive mist around himself in billowing clouds. The construct was aligned to fire and so its magic would resist his usual attacks. One of the reasons that Fate had sent it against him. The mist ate away at the interior animation constructs of the dragon and with one more pained roar the creature began to dissolve like fire burning spots in paper.
Balthazar waited for a moment before flaring his wings and darting out one of the growing holes in the scales of the dragon as it fell towards the earth lifeless.
Just as he emerged, a massive beam of light launched from the dark cloud of Fate’s puppet above. Balthazar immediately summoned a mirror in front of himself and reflected the beam back to its sender.
The beam seared away at Voldemort’s body for a few seconds and Fate screamed in surprise before she halted her own attack being reflected back at her.
Balthazar flapped his wings and ascended again in a burst of motion as he channeled his magic into them. He noticed that Voldemort’s body was scorched by Fate’s attack. After so many large scale attacks in quick succession, even Fate was forced to take a break as her puppet struggled to keep up the pace without breaking down.
“Who are you, Beyonder?” Fate asked, using magic to infuse her magic to have her voice boom through the skies, “What do you seek? You will not find it on this planet forgotten and left to rot by the wider universe.”
“I simply wish to live as I wish,” Balthazar answered with a booming voice of his own, “It is your aggression that has brought us to this point.”
“No, no, no!” Fate raged, “You mean to stay? Smear your infernal red across the wonderful blues of my painting? Of plans I’ve been refining for tens of thousands of years! I’ll crush you! I’ll feed your soul to the void! You think this vessel is the strongest? There are more! Ones that will crush you like an ant beneath their boots! Leave now from my world or be PURGED FROM IT!”
“Why do you fight me so?” Balthazar asked, “Is there no compromise we can reach?”
“There… THERE IS NO COMPROMISE!” Fate said, changing what she was going to say at the last second, “I compromised with those Atlanteans. The Beyonders… I was weak. When they begged for me to let them stay I let them, sympathetic after the destruction of their former home. I gave them shelter, worked around them and kept the plan going despite their minor interference. Yet then they broke my designs! Got involved with the world against the agreements. Saving the wrong people, killing even more important ones. Giving this world technology and magic far sooner than what should have been. I’ve spent thousands of years repairing the damage they’ve done to everything! I begged them to stop, to retreat back into the land I’d given them in the ocean. I had to destroy them! I didn’t have a choice! I won’t let that happen ever again! All Beyonders that come must leave or die. It’s the only way to be sure. So, leave or die Beyonder. The one who sank Atlantis will have no trouble dealing with you.”
“Then there truly is no compromise,” Balthazar said heavily as he floated there flapping his wings, across from Fate who looked like a dark cloud with two golden eyes piercing through the gloom.
In an instant the both of them released the spells they’d been preparing for the whole time they spoke. Both aware of the other but believing their spell to be superior.
Fate released thousands, tens of thousands of golden chains as thick as Balthazar’s arm from her body. Each of the chains weaved and writhed like snakes slithering towards Balthazar. All moving like they were hunting a mouse as they slithered through the air towards Balthazar in a single golden wave.
Balthazar’s own spell was a little different.
He flapped his wings once and shot far into the sky, the golden chains slithering after him quickly as more and more of the constructs continued from Fate’s body to give chase.
Balthazar now was far above, Fate a small dot down below to unenhanced eyes. He released his spell and pumped all the magic Teregatt supplied him into its working. One moment there was Balthazar. Then there were two. Then four, eight, sixteen, thirty two…
Balthazar’s body was doubling over and over as he began to fall, each of the magical constructs mimicking him by diving off at an angle as they replicated. The constructs with their own basic intelligences kept replicating as they all fell down towards the earth far below. The golden chains snaked up vertically through the air as if it was solid ground, pausing only for a moment before splitting up between the constructs.
Balthazar’s constructs were a near perfect representation of him visually and even magically. But as soon as they took more than one solid blow they would dissolve in raw magic. Balthazar’s illusions kept doubling as all of them fell downwards towards the golden chains that came to meet them.
The moment finally came after what felt like forever. Tens of thousands of Balthazar look-alikes covering the sky with their bodies. A wall of golden chains rising to meet them, ready to strike. Ten or more of Balthazar’s constructs existed for each of the golden chains as Balthazar drew deep on the stored energies of Teregatt.
With a massive crash, the two forces met. In an instant the skies devolved into absolute chaos. Balthazar’s autonomous constructs ducked and weaved through the clouds of chains expertly, all moving inwards towards Voldemort’s body in the center of the mass of chains.
Each of the chains dissolved Balthazar’s constructs with a single solid blow. Even as Balthazar flared his wings and rolled to the side to dodge a flailing chain, he witnessed a chain wrap around one of his constructs and squeeze before it could escape. It puffed into mist and the golden chain closed fully with a loud clang.
Balthazar kept moving, getting ever closer to Fate’s puppet by the moment as she was distracted by his agile doubles approaching her and dodging the blows from her golden chains. The numbers of his constructs were rapidly dropping, but even now they were still doubling as they kept charging inwards through the mass of flailing chains. More constructs were lost as the number of chains grew more and more by the moment as all of the Balthazars grew ever closer to the center.
Balthazar closed his wings before flapping again to shoot himself up and at an angle through a gap in the golden chains converging on him from all sides. He flapped his wings again and darted deeper into the tangle even as his constructs came with him. The golden chains behind him crashed together with a loud clank as they tightened around the space where he had been like a closing fist. He eyed the distance to Fate and then nodded to himself after a moment. This was close enough.
With a single mental order, all of the constructs began to activate their final sequence. They stopped doubling and their magic signatures rose dramatically along with Balthazar’s own. In unison, every single of the Balthazar’s shifted from physical constructs to pure illusions, only their magic signature being mimicked and nothing else.
All of them turned horizontal as they had for the golden dragon and began to spin. The cone of the red spear point of magic appeared above all of them as their rotation speed increased. Over half of the constructs were eliminated by even this brief pause in their frantic dodging. Despite being illusions, a direct impact with the magic of the golden chains would still disperse them. But any partial blows would ‘heal’ as the construct redistributed its magic to refill parts that had been removed when it passed through the golden chain's magic and was dissolved.
As one, all of the Balthazars, illusion and real alike, shot towards where Voldemort’s body floated. Creating this nest of golden chains was a powerful play, but it also rooted Fate in place, unable to nimbly move and dodge as she could before.
Balthazar could see the golden eyes of Fate frantically darting around and making furious gestures with her hands as she directed her web of chains to eliminate all the Balthazars before they reached her. With their magical signatures identical, Fate seemed to be unable to isolate which one of them was the real Balthazar during their surprise attack.
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Balthazar plowed directly through a chain that went to strike him as his body sped directly towards Fate’s body at full speed.
Fate’s golden eyes immediately turned in his direction and she focused all her chains on him alone while ignoring the others. He let go of the illusion spell and in an instant all his doubles dispersed into mist. Fate thought that she could stop him now that she had spotted him. But it was too late. Her chain constructs were too spread out and he was already within her guard. He plowed through five more golden chains without even slowing as the distance between him and Fate shrank rapidly.
At the last moment Fate tried to dodge downwards, but Balthazar slightly changed the angle of his body to fall with her. It was too late, Fate almost pinned in place by the golden chains that she herself had created.
Balthazar reached Voldemort's body with his spear point… And passed through. The direct strike on Voldemort shredded his body on impact, Fate too surprised by Balthazar’s attack and distracted by his decoys to manage to put up any kind of magical defense in time.
With the massive blast of a sonic boom, Balthazar forcibly stopped his momentum before hitting the ground as his momentum continued, barely even slowed after passing through Fate’s puppet. His little spark of intrinsic magic was straining to provide all that it could as it was drained to completely empty for every spell that Balthazar cast. But Teregatt provided the difference in magic energy and kept him going with the amount of magic energy he needed for the fight.
He flapped his wings and turned around to watch where Fate and Voldemort had been a few seconds ago. The golden chains were dissolving from the center outwards after the death of their caster. The golden chains slithered mindlessly, moving in whatever direction they had been moving last when Fate had been controlling them. Like fire burning down a thousand fuses, the golden chains all burned to their ends and then dissolved into mist starting from the center of the their mass where Fate had used to be.
Balthazar looked around. The area below was remarkably undamaged from what he could detect. Fate had likely kept the collateral damage low so she wouldn’t hurt her precious pawns. Balthazar did the same due to not wishing to hurt the innocent himself.
He felt a sense of victory as he flapped his wings and began to descend back down the graveyard. But it was short lived. Fate was aware of him and possibly even Teregatt after this. Whatever great warrior she had prepared, he had no doubt that they would be a world shaking power. One that was likely greater than him in power by a massive margin. The few Atlanteans that had escaped to other worlds had talked of that man as undefeatable. Casting massive spells like they'd never seen effortlessly. Or at least that's the rumors Balthazar had heard at one point while he was still fighting for Teregatt.
He had no idea how long this champion of Fate would take to awaken, he assumed that since they had not appeared for this battle that it must be a long process.
But he had to make his preparations now. There was no more time. Sometime soon Azkaban and Teregatt would be under full assault by Fate.
And when that happened emerging from the nested wards and fortress that Balthazar and the other residents of Teregatt had built would be tantamount to suicide.
There would be no saving Ginny from danger a second time.
Balthazar could only hope that the awakening process was on the order of years or decades instead of the weeks or months that he thought was far more likely unfortunately.
His thoughts were interrupted as he saw a boy he never expected to see again standing there in the graveyard, staring up at him with wide eyes. Balthazar had never seen the body of Harry Potter before, but he could sense the magic of Eric Smith within the boy.
“Balthazar?”
Eric said in a faint voice,
“You’re here?”
— — —
“Balthazar?”
Eric said in a faint voice as he tried not to panic,
“You’re here?”
What was he doing here? He had heard of the Balthazar from Azkaban but had put it off as a coincidence. He had thought that it was impossible for Balthazar to come to earth physically. For anyone to do so. How could this be happening? He had thought that he would be free of that hell!
“Yes, I am here,” Balthazar said in a nauseatingly familiar voice that Eric had heard so many times before.
“And I have no time for your questions and no interest in taking you back to Teregatt. Or hell as you took to calling it,” Balthazar continued, “I will now transport you back to the maze of the triwizarding tournament.”
“Balthazar, wait…” Eric shouted, desperate for answers. What did this mean? How was Balthazar here? Who was the person with golden eyes that was powerful enough to almost match somebody of Balthazar’s power?
But before he could finish his sentence the world shifted and suddenly changed around him. Eric reached up and stumbled forward slightly. His hand came down and slapped on the empty pedestal where the triwizarding trophy had sat less than fifteen minutes ago.
He felt the smooth surface dumbly for a moment before his hand clenched into a fist. Ginny had taken the trophy back! Everyone would think that she had won!
All he had to do was grab it again and he would have transported back as the crowning champion. Then Harry, Ginny, would have been the one who had to have an unsettling encounter with Balthazar instead of him. It still sent shivers down his spine, witnessing the raw power of the apocalyptic battle that had occurred in the sky above him as he gaped at the display.
Eric looked around and saw that he was alone. Fleur must have left at some point. He would really have to apologize to her after this. He kept making mistakes recently. First by not giving Ginny and her friends' water in the cocoon, Alexa maybe being just a little too close to actually drowning in the second task, and now he’d forgotten to cast a numbing spell on Fleur before punishing her for what she’d tried to do to him.
He resolved himself to be better in the future. Next time he was about to have some fun he’d try to think of what could go wrong and make sure to not forget anything important anymore.
Eric tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the pedestal in front of him for a moment. Yeah. He was being sloppy, it would take just a little focus to make things go perfectly from now on. He had never really cared about winning the tournament anyways. It had just been a fun thing to do, he had just been annoyed after the first task after Rita Skeeter’s articles. Gotten more invested in the results because of her taunts. But he’d fixed that issue, and she’d only write positive things about him from now on.
So, overall he’d gotten what he had wanted then, really. Ginny could have the fame. She was all humble and whatnot, he was sure that it would just cause her more trouble. And her family was poor, she’d probably use the cash prize better than Eric having it sit in the Potter vault in Gringotts somewhere, forgotten by everyone but his goblin account manager.
Yeah, probably for the best the Ginny had won actually. Eric had had a lot of fun with the events at least, and that’s what mattered.
Now, to find his way out of here. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to navigate all the way back to the original entrance, that would be a pain…
— — —
Deep beneath Britain, was a cave. It was not a natural cave, but one carved by the magic of its single occupant. In the center of the cave was a shallow lake, and in the center of the lake, was a small island. In the center of this island was a gleaming sword rooted in a stone, gleaming from the beam of light shining down on it from the ceiling.
Next the sword, splayed across the rocks as if a drunken man falling asleep where he had fallen, lay the single occupant of the cave. He had a long beard and weathered skin. He looked old, weathered, weary, even while his eyes were closed. Yet despite this, his body absolutely hummed with so much magic that occasionally it would crackle and spark and form shimmering sparks of light that danced around his unconscious body.
After over a thousand years of sleep, this man slowly opened his eyes as he was roused by the tugging of the golden chains weaved throughout his whole body.
“Foul wench,” The man croaked weakly, “How do thee wish to torment me this time? You have stripped my spirit to the bone with thou craven behavior. Thrown into a rage when things do not bow to your petty tyrant designs. Who has drawn your ire in this age?”
The man’s eyes flashed golden and he spoke again, this time in the angry voice of Fate.
“Invaders, at least one of massive power, beyond even my normal efforts to kill or expel them. This is a repeat of the Atlanteans, I’m sure of it. If they stay then everything will go wrong…”
The man’s eyes returned to normal, “I care not,” He said, “If they clear your foul webs then I shall laugh, for then you will have nothing as I have nothing.”
His eyes glowed golden again, “You don’t believe that. Once, in the past, you saw the necessity of what I do. To keep this world for only those within my designs meant to create a world best for all if it's given enough time to flourish. You had a chance to turn back then. You accepted becoming my champion for the protection of our world with open arms, glad to help me.”
“Accepted in a moment of desperation and foolishness. The naivety and idealism of a young man,” the man rasped as his eyes returned to normal, “One for which I pay for even now. Atlanteans, doing nothing but assisting the world they claimed home as best as they could. Slaughtered to the last by my hand because their help and compassion was not expected by the tyrant above.”
“We do our best work together,” Fate said, “Work with me. The Atlanteans had to go. I gave them every chance to leave and move elsewhere when things began to grow unstable with their disruptions to this world.”
“Yes, an entire people evicted from their homes of dozens of generations due to your tantrum,” The man replied bitingly, his body barely even moving on the rock even as he spoke weakly.
“Thy words are poison, and it is only when you forced me to sink Atlantis that I recognized the taste. Quit your false sympathy. I see you for what you are now. Do what you are already itching to do. Whether I will it or not.”
“Merlin…” Fate said, “You’ll understand. You’re the only one powerful and ancient enough that you could. Don’t let your guilt over what I forced you to do make you forget why you agreed to be my champion in the beginning.”
“Enough!” Merlin said before letting out a hacking cough, “I have done my best to weaken my body in this prison without thy gaze noticing my efforts. I am done listening to your lies and foul manipulations. You golden eyed craven.”
“Very well,” Fate said sadly, “But think on my words. It doesn’t have to be like this. Be the willing Champion that you’ve been in ages past.”
“Pah,” Merlin spat, “A man too foolish to feel the collar around his neck. My eyes are open, and they can shut no longer to your nature. Take control as you so dearly wish to.”
“As you wish,” Fate said sadly. The golden chains pulsed inside of Merlin’s body and began taking control of him slowly. His body was weak, on the brink of death without quite pushing over the edge where Fate would have stopped him.
“Oh, Merlin,” Fate said, “I wish it didn’t have to be like this. But I can’t let my feelings get in the way of everything I’ve built on this world. Sometimes I wish I could. But I’ve spent too long, worked too hard. I can’t just throw it all away for one man.”
Fate began to gently pulse Merlin’s magic in a steady rhythm to heal him. She took extra care to focus on the magic to ease his pain and suffering, even if she knew that he wouldn’t thank her for it.
It would take some time, but Merlin would be healed again and ready to destroy the foreign infection of the Beyonders as he always did.
Fate kept going, but felt pensive as she did so. Every time she controlled Merlin it felt like her heart was being torn in two. He had been her deepest friend, someone she trusted as completely as someone like her could trust someone who was so far below her in power. She’d do almost anything to prevent having to awaken him and deal with his hatred for her again. It just hurt so much, even for someone as powerful as she was. Seeing someone she cared for so much hating her with every fiber of his being.
She had thought that letting him play the kingmaker a thousand years ago with King Arthur would help cheer him up. She had several other people who could have filled the role, but Fate had thought that Merlin would have enjoyed playing his part. To live a full life among people like he had used to before what had happened at Atlantis.
She’d even moved things around in Merlin’s role in a hope to make things more comfortable as another sort of apology to him for what happened with Atlantis so long ago. But in the end it had only made him hate her more somehow.
Merlin began to slowly heal from his self-inflicted damage and neglect over the last thousand years in this cave, still unmoving as he lay there with golden glowing eyes. Fate hoped that one day that he would understand, forgive her for doing this to him when she needed him most.
But she understood he probably wouldn’t ever forgive her. So she kept controlling him even as her heart ached and she felt the melancholy well up within her as it did each time she did so.
Fate pushed down her feelings as she always did. She had some Beyonder scum to expel first and she could try to make up with Merlin after it was done. They were both immortal, as long as Fate had enough time she was sure she could make him understand why she was right…