Dragon Hunters()

Submitted by Tornado Dragon

After Lian Chu, Gwizdo, Hector, and Zoe narrowly avoid getting killed during their second confrontation with a dragon comprised of many small bats in the floating ruined city marking the End of the World, Zoe complains to Lian Chu about how Gwizdo displayed nothing but cowardice during the entire ordeal and that his cowardice almost cost her her life. Lian Chu silently walks away from him, as does Zoe and Hector, leaving him to feel ashamed of himself. Later, while Lian Chu is sharpening a scythe that he picked up during the aforementioned confrontation, Gwizdo approaches him and tells them that they could be relaxing on their little dream farm right now with the upfront partial payment they received from Lord Arnold, but Lian Chu replies that, when the World Eater is dead, they can have their little farm. Gwizdo angrily tells Lian Chu that they are all going to die, and all because of a little girl who dreams of knights. He then points out to Lian Chu that life is not a fairy tale and that knights always die in real life, and he doesn’t want him to die as well. Lian Chu tells him that he can just leave if he doesn’t want to go into battle with him, so Gwizdo declares that he will and stomps off. Gwizdo spends a period of time traversing the many floating pieces of buildings, and when he reaches a dead end, he sits on the floating piece that marks the dead end and allows himself to float around aimlessly on it while he hangs his head in depression. Meanwhile, having become very concerned about Gwizdo’s whereabouts, Lian Chu decides to go and look for him while Zoe and Hector are sleeping.

Gwizdo soon finds himself confronted by two of the bats that made up the dragon he faced, and they proceed to mock him for his insecurities, shortcomings, and fears. However, he soon discovers that the bats are only visible to his eyes, and he realizes that he is beginning to lose his sanity. He runs around the ruins freaking out until he falls off of them and starts plummeting towards the ground very far below, but thankfully, Lian Chu appears and catches him. They then notice a glowing red light flying through the clouds nearby, and after Lian Chu realizes that it is heading in the direction of Hector and Zoe, he tucks Gwizdo under his arm and chases after it. Meanwhile, a flock of sheep standing near Hector and Zoe feel the presence of the red light drawing near and start bleating in distress, which wakes Hector and Zoe up, and they look and see that several red lights are now flying around in the clouds. Moments later, all of the lights start to make threatening actions against them from below, but thankfully, Lian Chu and Gwizdo make their return. After Zoe informs Lian Chu of the strange goings-on taking place beneath them, he readies himself for what will surely be an attack, but all Gwizdo does is descend into insane ramblings and actions like Sir Lensflair, whom the quartet met along their journey while he was returning from the End of the World. Just then, the red lights reveal themselves to be a bunch of boar-like dragons, and they start to threaten the lives of the protagonists. While Lian Chu does his best to fight them off, Gwizdo tells a wacky story to Zoe using his hands as puppets, where he admits to her that he and Lian Chu are just a couple of rogues and not the brave knights she believed them to be.

Lian Chu’s battle with the dragons causes the large chunk of floating building they are standing on to slowly fall and crash onto the ground, and the force of the crash brings Gwizdo’s mind back to normal. He then notices that Zoe is missing and starts calling out to her, but Hector shows up a minute later and directs him and Lian Chu to Zoe, who is lying on the ground not far from them and is apparently near death and unable to use her legs. She tells Gwizdo that she knows now that life isn’t a fairy tale, but she still considers him and Lian Chu to be her favorite heroes, even if they aren’t knights. She then tells Lian Chu that he is even stronger than her fictional hero, Silver Knight Gothik, and that’s no fairy tale; all he has to do is believe, and she tells Gwizdo that Lian Chu needs him in order to succeed. She finally asks Gwizdo to promise her that he will carry through to the end so her death won’t be in vain, and he swears that he will. She then reveals that she has been faking her condition when she springs back to her feet and hugs Gwizdo, and she explains that she was just testing him to see if he loved her, and he passed. Though very shocked by what Zoe just did, Gwizdo quickly shakes it off and tells her and the others to come along with him because they have a World Eater to slay.

As they search the surrounding area for the beast, a large chunk of a building comes flying in and break down a bell tower. When the bell rings upon hitting the ground, the World Eater awakens and rises up from the earth, and it reveals itself to be an enormous skeletal dragon. Lian Chu orders the others to run for cover, and while Gwizdo, Hector, and Zoe watch from afar, Lian Chu charges at the dragon and tries to attack it, but he shatters the blade of his scythe on its teeth. The World Eater then starts to inhale everything around him hoping to swallow him, but Lian Chu fights the force of it and then runs and hides in a nearby spot, having become overwhelmed by his horrific memories of the World Eater’s previous rampage when he was a boy and how it killed his family and destroyed his home. Gwizdo, Hector, and Zoe get caught up in the suction and find themselves barely hanging on to one of the World Eater’s teeth, and after Zoe cries out to Lian Chu for help, Lian Chu suddenly remembers how he took up his mother’s knitting needles (which he still carries) in the aftermath of the destruction and drew a picture of the monstrous dragon with them before driving them into the eyes of the drawing, and this gives him an idea.

He runs up to the dragon and orders it to leave his friends alone, so it stops trying to suck them up and lets them fall to the ground. Lian Chu declares to the World Eater that he does not fear him, so the World Eater sends out a magical shockwave that creates a wall of fire around them all, and then it tries to inhale Lian Chu again. However, Lian Chu sticks his knitting needles onto the dragon’s teeth when he is pulled up towards them, then uses the needles to scale up the beast’s mouth and onto its snout. He then runs towards the dragon’s eyes in order to stab them both with the needles, but unfortunately, the dragon throws him off its head. He lands on the ground and winds up getting separated from one of his needles, which is soon left teetering precariously on the edge of a chasm. After he runs over and reclaims it, the World Eater hits a large piece of a building over to him that knocks him over the edge, but when the dragon looks down into the chasm to watch him fall, Lian Chu throws his needles right into its eyes. The World Eater screams in agony, and soon after, it gets stricken with multiple lightning bolts, which causes it to explode in a brilliant flash of light. When the light fades, we see that the dragon is no more, and its death has caused the world to turn into a beautiful scene of floating islands, flower petals, and flying white bunnies under a bright blue sky, and the four protagonists are lying on the grass unharmed. Soon after, Gwizdo starts to make plans for his and Lian Chu’s farm to be constructed in this lovely landscape, and he tells Zoe that they plan to include a bedroom for her in their house for whenever she wants to visit them. The quartet then hug each other.

However, when the four friends go back to Lord Arnold’s castle so Lian Chu and Gwizdo can collect their fee, Arnold – who has regained his sight thanks to the dragon’s destruction – reneges on the deal after he sees Gwizdo and Lian Chu and considers them to be just a couple of lowly rogues who pretended to be knights. Zoe tries to vouch for the duo by emphatically telling her uncle that they really did save the day, but Arnold refuses to hear any of it, thinking that she is just lying to him. Zoe shouts that he is even more blind now than he was before, and after he furiously replies that he is sending her off to the convent, she declares that living there would be better than living with a bitter, heartless, ugly old fart who doesn’t even love her. She then heads for her room, and Arnold demands that she return to him immediately while readying his hand to give her a spanking. Gwizdo then angrily stands up for Zoe, telling Arnold that he is a loser and that he doesn’t know anything about her, and he adds that he considers Zoe to be kind, courageous, and intelligent, and someone who deserves much better than a dishonest, self-centered, miserly old uncle. He then challenges Arnold to say something about that, so Arnold spanks him instead and then expels him, Lian Chu, and Hector from the castle.

As the trio walk away from the castle grounds, Gwizdo is initially annoyed at how the proceedings went and tells Lian Chu that he is upset with him for not coming to his aid, but Lian Chu replies that he did a great job on his own because, if it wasn’t for him, Zoe would’ve gotten spanked. As they keep on walking believing that they are back at square one, Zoe – who had overheard every word that Gwizdo said about her – suddenly catches up to them and tells them that she is coming to live with them on their farm. She then opens up a bag that she has with her and shows them that it contains a large amount of gold coins that she took from Arnold’s treasury, having taken it so they can finally make their dream farm a reality. The movie ends with the four friends walking off together hand-in-hand and singing happily.