The Dragon Hunter

                    By: Ethan Hayward

    A long time ago, the world was attacked by dragons. But there was a child who grew up while this was happening; his name was Ethan. When Ethan turned 13, he decided to become a dragon hunter to save his village! He had hunted for two years when he finally figured out where the dragons' fortress was.

 He had a friend named Brady, with whom he grew up; Brady was a dragon hunter too. They located the fortress and attacked one cold night, but the dragons were too strong, so they had to retreat and come up with a new plan!  The next week, they were eating lunch when a dragon broke through the window and grabbed Brady.  Brady yelled, and Ethan ran after him, but the dragon brought him to the fortress.

 Ethan didn’t know what to do, so he went home to make a plan to save him.

The next day, a dragon broke through Ethan's back door. He thought it was there to take him too, but he was wrong—it was actually Brady. Brady explained that when he was taken to the fortress, the dragons turned him into one of their own. They were about to mind-erase him when he shot a blast of ice and froze the dragons.

Then he came home. Ethan said, "Tell me something no one but Brady would know." Brady replied, "Hmm, your name is Ethan, and your favorite color is green." "Correct," Ethan said. "Okay, I believe you."

"Honestly, it isn't even a curse," Brady said. "You're crazy," said Ethan. Brady did a loop in the air and said, "Look, now that I'm a dragon, we can attack from the inside." "Fine," Ethan replied, "but once the fortress is destroyed, we have to figure out how to turn you back. Deal?" "Deal," said Brady.

As they set off, the Dragon King realized that now that Brady was a dragon, he could attack from the inside. He ordered his henchmen to find Brady and mind-erase him. Meanwhile, Ethan and Brady

were trying to find the fortress. "Just a bit farther," said Ethan. "Ugh, we've been walking forever," Brady complained, "Can't I just fly there?" "No," Ethan insisted, "no one can see you." Suddenly, they were surrounded by two dragons.

Thinking quickly, Brady grabbed Ethan, pretending to have captured him. The henchmen, fooled by the act, escorted them straight into the heart of the fortress. Once inside, they located the central pillar that held the structure together. On Ethan's signal, they attacked.

The ground shook as the Dragon King descended from his throne to stop them. Brady took to the sky, performing a loop in the air before unleashing a massive blast of ice that turned the King’s fire into frozen mist.

While Brady kept the King distracted, Ethan struck the weakened central pillar.

As the fortress began to collapse, they found a glowing ancient pedestal. Ethan grabbed a shimmering pendant from the altar just as they burst through the crumbling gates. 

 In the quiet of the ruins, Ethan held out the pendant. A flash of green light enveloped Brady, and when it faded, he was human once again.

"Deal's a deal," Brady said with a grin. The world was finally safe, or was it? 

Then, a strange man wearing a black hood came from nowhere. The Dragon King was getting ready to blast a big ball of fire, but the man said, "Wait! You don't need to waste your energy on me. I want revenge on Ethan and Brady, too.

When we were little, it was my first day of school. When I entered the room, they started laughing at me because I was bald. From that day on, I swore my revenge!" 

The bald man reached into the folds of his black hood and pulled out a jagged, purple crystal that pulsed with a rhythmic dark light. 

"This is the Echo-Stone," he whispered. "It feeds on the memories of those who mocked me. While Ethan and Brady celebrate in the village, this stone will drain the very joy from their hearts."

The Dragon King let out a roar that shook the remaining pillars of the fortress. "Then let us begin! I want to see the look on Brady's face when his precious victory turns to ash!" 

Down in the village, the party was in full swing. Ethan was laughing with the blacksmith, and Brady was

showing the children how to track a dragon’s footprint in the mud. But suddenly, the bonfire turned a sickly shade of violet. 

 The music stopped as a cold wind swept through the square, and the villagers' laughter died in their throats.

Ethan gripped the hilt of his sword, his eyes darting toward the dark woods. "Brady... do you feel that?"

Brady nodded, his face pale in the strange purple light. "The dragons are gone, but something else is here. Something that feels like... a memory."

From the shadows at the edge of the village, two glowing red eyes appeared, followed by the mocking laughter of

a man who had waited years for this moment. The revenge of the bald man had finally arrived.

"You thought the world was safe because you broke a few wings?" the hooded man mocked, his voice echoing with a thousand bitter memories. "I have spent years in the silence you created, forging my hatred into a weapon!" 

The Echo-Stone in his hand erupted with a pulse of gravity, pinning the villagers to the ground. Brady struggled to lift his feet, feeling as though the very earth was remembering every mistake he had ever made.

"I will not let you take this peace!" Ethan roared, drawing his blade, though his hands trembled under the weight of the dark magic. 

The Dragon King let out a guttural laugh, stepping over a shattered festival table. 

 "Your peace was a lie built on the rubble of my kingdom!" he bellowed, his molten chest glowing brighter as he prepared to blast the square with a wave of inferno.

"Wait," the hooded man commanded, a cruel smile touching his lips. "Don't kill them yet. I want them to watch as I turn their precious home into a monument of the day they laughed at me."

From the center of the village, a massive spire of jagged 

black glass began to tear through the cobblestones, fueled by the energy of the Echo-Stone. The celebration that had lasted for hours was now a fading dream, replaced by a nightmare years in the making.

The hooded man’s face twisted with a bitter rage as he hoisted the pulsing Echo-Stone high above his head. "You laughed at me once, but you will scream now!" he shrieked, channeling all his years of resentment into a swirling, jagged ball of pure violet hatred. With a violent thrust of his arms, he launched the projectile straight at the two friends, the air hissing as the dark magic tore toward them.

Ethan braced himself, raising his sword to meet the blow, but before the ball of hatred could connect, Brady lunged forward with his palms outstretched. A sudden, deafening crack echoed through the square as a massive, jagged wall of frost erupted from the cobblestones, catching the dark energy in a spray of 

white mist and frozen sparks.