A red star the size of the moon appears near Earth. Wriggling out of it is the Space-Bat-Angel-Dragon, who lands on Australia. Who is the strongest being that can defeat this creature?
Location: Earth
In-character
No knowledge
Win con: Death of either the Dragon or opponent.
Space-Bat-Angel-Dragon feats:
It lives and travels in a star in the Orion Constellation.
One day there came strange news. Everybody was talking about it. Round eyes, bushy mouths, frightened voices – everybody was talking about it.
One of the stars of the night sky had begun to change. This star had always been a very tiny star, of no importance at all. It had shone up there for billions and trillions and sillions of years in the Constellation of Orion, that great shape of the giant hunter that strides across space on autumn and winter nights. In all its time this tiny star had never changed in any way.
Now, suddenly, it began to get bigger.
Astronomers, peering through their telescopes, noticed it first. They watched it
with worried frowns.
That tiny star was definitely getting bigger. And not just bigger. But bigger
and Bigger and BIGger. Each night it was BIGGER.
It traveled from the Constellation Of Orion to Earth in a few days, moving so fast it could break the Earth apart if it hit.
Bigger than the Dog-star, the large, coloured twinkler at the heel of the Hunter
Orion.
Bigger than Jupiter, the great blazing planet.
Everybody could see it clearly, night after night, as it grew and Grew and
GREW. They stared up with frightened faces.
Till at last it hung there in the sky over the world, blazing down, the size of the
moon, a deep, gloomy red. And now there could be only one explanation. That star was getting bigger because it was getting nearer. And nearer and NEARer and NEARER.
It was rushing towards the world.
Faster than a bullet.
Faster than any rocket.
Faster even than a meteorite.
And if it hit the world at that speed, why, the whole world would simply be
blasted to bits in the twinkling of an eye. It would be like an Express train hitting a bowl of goldfish.
No wonder the people stared up with frightened faces. No wonder the astronomers watched it through their telescopes with worried frowns.
But all of a sudden – a strange thing!
The star seemed to have stopped.
While the Star is said be be bigger than Sirius and Jupiter, it seems to be only perspective, as its corrected to only be the size of the moon.
There it hung, a deep and gloomy red, just the size of the moon. It got no
smaller. It got no bigger. It wasn't coming any nearer. But it wasn't going away either.
It took five days for the Dragon to come out of the star.
On the fifth night, the astronomers saw that it seemed to be either a bat, or a black angel, or a flying lizard – a dreadful silhouette, flying out of the center of that giant star, strait towards the earth. What was coming out of the giant star?
It takes a few days to travel to Earth from where it parked it’s star.
Each night, when the astronomers returned to their telescopes to peer up, this black flying horror was bigger. With slow, gigantic wingbeats, with long, slow writhings of its body, it was coming down through space, outlined black against its red star.
Within a few more nights, its shape had completely blotted out the red star. The nameless, immense bat-angel was flying down at the earth, like a great black swan. It was definitely coming straight at the earth.
It took several days to cover the distance.
However later in the book it takes only a few seconds/ to minutes to reach the sun from Earth and come back twice.
But then his laugh stopped. The Iron Man was pointing upwards, at the sun.
"There is the fire for you," he shouted. "You go and lie there. Go and lie on the sun till you are red-hot."
The monster gazed up at the sun. He felt strangely cold suddenly. But how could he refuse? All right! And he set off.
With slow giant wingbeats, he lifted his immense body off the earth, and flew slowly up towards the sun, while the whole earth watched...
Slowly he covered the distance, getting smaller and smaller as he went. At last he landed, a ragged black shape sprawled across the sun.
It should be noted that he was wounded, when he came back from the Sun and when it went back again.
Then they saw him returning, a blazing shape tearing itself off the sun. This shape became red as it flew. It was writhing and growing larger. Slowly once more it became the black bat-winged shape of the dragon flying back to earth, down and down, bigger and bigger, cooling as he came, until
BUMP!!!!
The monster did not laugh. He set off, up from the earth, beating his colossal wings, writhing his long ponderous body up into the sky towards the sun. Now it was his turn. And he did not laugh. Last time had been too dreadful. But he went. He couldn't let the Iron Man win. He couldn't let the Iron Man of the earth beat him in this terrible contest.
And so all the telescopes and cameras of the world watched him flying into the sun. They saw him land among the flames, as before. As before, they saw his great ragged shape like an ink-blot sprawled over the center of the sun.
No, there he was, here he came. Slowly, slowly, down through space. Much more slowly than before. His white-hot flying body cooled slowly to red as he came, and as he grew larger, coming nearer, he finally became once more black. And the great black shape flagged its way down through space until
BUMP!!!!!!
When the dragon landed it caused a worldwide earthquake.
Next morning it landed – on Australia.
Barrrump!
The shock of its landing rolled round the earth like an earthquake, spilling
teacups in London, jolting pictures off walls in California, cracking statues off their pedestals in Russia.
The thing had actually landed – and it was a terrific dragon.
He is the size of Australia.
Terribly black, terribly scaly, terribly knobbly, terribly horned, terribly hairy, terribly clawed, terribly fanged, with vast indescribably terrible eyes, each one as big as Switzerland. There it sat, covering the whole of Australia, its tail trailing away over Tasmania into the sea, its foreclaws on the headlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Luckily, the mountains and hills propped its belly up clear of the valleys, and the Australians could still move about in the pitch darkness, under this new sky, this low queer covering, of scales. They crowded towards the light that came in along its sides. Of course, whoever had been on a mountain-top when the dragon landed had been squashed flat. Nothing could be done about them. And there the horror sat, glaring out over the countries of the world.
It’s higher than the Hindu Kush and its head was the size of Italy.
It lay over Australia higher than any mountains, higher than the Hindu Kush in Asia, and its head alone was the size of Italy.
The Indian Ocean only comes to its bottom lip.
For a whole day, while the people of the earth trembled and wept and prayed to God to save them, the space-bat-angel-dragon lay resting its chin sunk in the Indian Ocean, the sea coming not quite up to its bottom lip.
It could surface wipe the Earth by licking it.
But the next morning, early, its giant voice came rumbling round the world. The space-bat-angel-dragon was speaking. It wanted to be fed. And what it wanted to eat was – living things. People, animals, forests, it didn't care which, so long as the food was alive. But it had better be fed quickly, otherwise it would roll out its tongue longer than the Trans-Siberian railway, and lick huge swathes of life off the surface of the earth – cities, forests, farmlands, whatever there was. It would leave the world looking like a charred pebble – unless it were fed and fed quickly.
It’s voice rumbled the Earth for an hour.
Its voice shook and rumbled around the earth for a whole hour as it delivered its message. Finally, it ended, and lay waiting.
Humanity tried to kill the thing with everything they got, it fails.
No, they wouldn't feed it. The people of the world decided they would not feed this space-bat-angel-dragon or whatever it was – they would fight it. They would declare war on it, and all get together to blast it off the face of the earth. And so it was that all the peoples of earth declared war on the monster, and sent out their armed forces in a grand combined operation.
What a terrific attack!
Rockets, projectiles of all sorts, missiles and bombs, shells and flame-throwers – everything was tried. The smoke of the explosions drifted out over the Pacific like a black, crawling continent. The noise of the battle shook the world almost as much as the landing of the dragon had done, and for much longer.
Then the noise died down and the smoke cleared. And the peoples of the world cried in dismay. The dragon was actually smiling. Smiling! Aircraft flying daringly near photographed the vast face smiling, and the picture was in all the papers.
It was smiling as if it had been well tickled.
Now the peoples of the world were worried. They were all great fighters. All spent their spare money on preparing for wars, always making bigger and better weapons, and now they had all tried their utmost to blast this thing off the earth, and what was the result?
The dragon merely smiled, and not a scratch could be seen anywhere on its body.
Human weapons had no effect on it.
But that wasn't surprising. This creature had come from the depths of space, out of the heart of a star. Nobody knew what it was made of. Perhaps it could not be destroyed by any means whatsoever.
The Iron Man challenges it to sit on the Sun till it’s White-Hot, it survives, though burned badly.
Now at last he spoke to the monster.
"If you can't bear to be made red-hot like me, then you are weaker than I am, and I have won, and you are my slave."
The monster began to laugh.
"All right," he roared. "Build the fire, and I'll lie on it."
He laughed again. He knew the Iron Man couldn't build a fire the size of
Australia. But then his laugh stopped. The Iron Man was pointing upwards, at the sun.
"There is the fire for you," he shouted. "You go and lie there. Go and lie on the sun till you are red-hot."
The monster gazed up at the sun. He felt strangely cold suddenly. But how could he refuse? All right! And he set off.
With slow giant wingbeats, he lifted his immense body off the earth, and flew slowly up towards the sun, while the whole earth watched...
Slowly he covered the distance, getting smaller and smaller as he went. At last he landed, a ragged black shape sprawled across the sun. Everybody watched. And now they saw the monster begin to glow. Blue at first, then red, then orange. Finally, his shape was invisible, the same blazing white as the sun itself. The monster was white-hot on the sun.
Then they saw him returning, a blazing shape tearing itself off the sun. This shape became red as it flew. It was writhing and growing larger. Slowly once more it became the black bat-winged shape of the dragon flying back to earth, down and down, bigger and bigger, cooling as he came, until
BUMP!!!!
He landed – this time much more heavily than before, on Australia. He landed so heavily that all over the world bells tumbled out of church towers and bird-eggs were jarred out of their nests. The monster stared down at the Iron Man.
But it was hardly the same monster! His horns drooped, his face was wizened and black, his claws were scorched blunt, his crest flopped over limply and great ragged holes were burned in his wings. It had been terrible for him on the fires of the sun. But he had done it, and here he was. The fires of the sun are far, far hotter than any fires here on earth can ever be.
"There," he roared. "I've done it."
It does it a second time to though afterwards gives up do to its wounds. It skin is burned so badly it turned into diamonds.
At last, the Iron man looked up at the dragon. He could hardly speak after his ordeal in the flames. Instead, he simply pointed towards the sun, and jabbed his finger towards the sun, as he gazed up at the monster.
"That's twice," he managed to say. "Now it's your turn."
The monster did not laugh. He set off, up from the earth, beating his colossal wings, writhing his long ponderous body up into the sky towards the sun. Now it was his turn. And he did not laugh. Last time had been too dreadful. But he went. He couldn't let the Iron Man win. He couldn't let the Iron Man of the earth beat him in this terrible contest.
And so all the telescopes and cameras of the world watched him flying into the sun. They saw him land among the flames, as before. As before, they saw his great ragged shape like an ink-blot sprawled over the center of the sun. They saw him begin to glow red, then orange. And at last they could no longer see him. He and the sun were one blinding whiteness.
He had done it again! But was the sun burning him up? Had he melted in the sun? Where was he?
No, there he was, here he came. Slowly, slowly, down through space. Much more slowly than before. His white-hot flying body cooled slowly to red as he came, and as he grew larger, coming nearer, he finally became once more black. And the great black shape flagged its way down through space until
BUMP!!!!!!
Heavier than ever, he landed on Australia. This time the bump was so heavy, it knocked down certain sky-scrapers, sent tidal waves sweeping into harbours, and threw herds of cows on to their backs. All over the world, anybody who happened to be riding a bicycle at that moment instantly fell off. The space-bat-angel-dragon landed so ponderously because he was exhausted. And now he was a very changed monster. The fires of the sun had worked on him in a way that was awful to see. His wings were only rags of what they had been. His skin was crisped. And all his fatness had been changed by the fires of the sun into precious stones – jewels, emeralds, rubies, turquoises, and substances that had never been found on earth. And when he landed, with such a jolt, these loads of precious gems burst through the holes scorched in his skin and scattered down on to the Australian desert beach.
But the Iron Man could not allow himself to pity the space-bat-angel-dragon. He signaled to the engineers.
"Round there," he shouted.
And the engineers began to pour in the oil. But what was this? An enormous woofing sound. A booming, wheezing, sneezing sound. The space-bat-angel-dragon was weeping. If the Iron Man got on to his furnace again, it would mean that he, the monster, would have to take another roasting in the sun – and he could not stand another.
"Enough, enough, enough!" he roared.
"No, no," replied the Iron Man. "I feel like going on. We've only had two each."
"It's enough," cried the dragon. "It's too much. I can't stand another. The fires of the sun are too terrible for me. I submit."
Its can listen to the Music of spheres.
"Alas," said the space-bat-angel-dragon, "I am useless. Utterly useless. All we do in space is fly, or make music."
"Make music?" asked the Iron Man. "How? What sort of music?"
"Haven't you heard of the music of the spheres?" asked the dragon. "It's the music that space makes to itself. All the spirits inside all the stars are singing. I'm a star spirit. I sing too. The music of the spheres is what makes space so peaceful."
It heard the sounds of warfare of Earth from his star in the Orion Constellation.
"Then whatever made you want to eat up the earth?" asked the Iron Man. "If you're all so peaceful up there, how did you get such greedy and cruel ideas?"
The dragon was silent for a long time after this question. And at last he said: "It just came over me. I don't know why. It just came over me, listening to the battling shouts and the warcries of the earth – I got excited, I wanted to join in."
At the end of the story after losing the challenge the Dragon became the Iron Man’s slave and was ordered to sing for humans. It put its star back in the Orion Constellation and lived in the moon. The song it sang had the effect of making people all over the world more peaceful.
"Well, you can sing for us instead," said the Iron Man. "It's a long time since anybody here on earth heard the music of the spheres. It might do us all good."
And so it was fixed. The space-bat-angel-dragon was to send his star back into the constellation of Orion, and he was to live inside the moon. And every night he was to fly around the earth, through the heavens, singing.
So his fearful shape, slowly swimming through the night sky, didn't frighten people, because it was dark and he couldn't be seen. But the whole world could hear him, a strange soft music that seemed to fill the whole of space, a deep weird singing, like millions of voices singing together.
Meanwhile the Iron Man was the world's hero. He went back to his scrap- yard. But now everybody in the world sent him a present. Some only sent him an old car. One rich man even sent him an ocean liner. He sprawled there in his yard, chewing away, with his one ear slightly drooped where the white heat of that last roasting had slightly melted it. As he chewed, he hummed in harmony to the singing of this tremendous slave in heaven.
And the space-bat-angel's singing had the most unexpected effect. Suddenly the world became wonderfully peaceful. The singing got inside everybody and made them as peaceful as starry space, and blissfully above all their earlier little squabbles. The strange soft eerie space-music began to alter all the people of the world. They stopped making weapons. The countries began to think how they could live pleasantly alongside each other, rather than how to get rid of each other. All they wanted to do was to have peace to enjoy this strange, wild, blissful music from the giant singer in space.
Who can defeat the Space-Bat-Angel-Dragon?