Well, this may be the Season to Be Jolly with peace and good will and all that, but the King of Dragons, Draco Rex, is always ready for battle, as witness one of the mightiest weapons a warrior ever brandished: the devastating DRAGON’S TAIL!
As I developed Draco and his powers, it occurred to me at some length that something was missing. Draco is a hero in the same spirit as another mighty warrior Prince from another comics universe, one who is famous for his very distinctive weapon. But the image of wielding an invincible hammer didn’t fit Prince Declan’s profile; he needed another tool of battle, one that was as unique to him as the aforementioned hammer is to the chap from the other side of the Rainbow Bridge. A little bit of thought on the matter produced the perfect answer. What better weapon for the King of Dragons than an all-powerful tail? I at once seized on the idea of a whip that would put Indiana Jones himself to shame!
Draco Rex never leaves home without the Dragon’s Tail. The Tail is a whip made of a fictional metal such as you would only find in comic books, a metal that I’ve named Thraxium. (In the movie Dragonslayer, the dragon’s name was Vermithrax Pejorative; look it up. I used the “thrax” part of that monicker to name my substance.) Thraxium is a metal that completely resists all physical damage; you have to manipulate it at the molecular level to have any effect on it at all. The fists and powers of the most powerful superhuman opponents can’t so much as put a mark on it, lacking any molecule-controlling powers as I mentioned.
The Dragon’s Tail has been artfully woven from Thraxium cords into one of the most unbreakable objects in existence. The cords have also been alloyed with another fictional substance, one that is familiar to devotees of UFO and flying saucer mythology. The ufology crowd calls it Element 115; to Draco’s people it is Varonium. This is the purported power source for UFOs that enables them to fold and warp space for interstellar travel. In Varonia they use it to power their space/time-travel technology. The Tail is thus made of a Thraxium-Varonium compound. The Thraxium makes the Varonium safe to handle, and the Varonium gives the Tail some extra-special and very powerful functions.
Using the Dragon’s Tail, Draco can travel back and forth from Varonia in the Junction to this Earth, or to any other Earth in any other time period or alternate history that the Junction has catalogued. If needed, he can also teleport himself from place to place in the event that he needs to get somewhere faster than he can fly (though his top flight speed is about 300-400 miles per hour.) But there are other, more awesome things the Dragon’s Tail can do in battle. By spinning or cracking the whip, Draco can create enormously powerful spatial warps with which to smite his foes! Imagine you’re a villain going up against the King of Dragons and he cracks his whip at you: a second later you’re smashed by an onrushing wall of distorted spacetime that at full power can hit harder than a tsunami! A crack of the Dragon’s Tail can flatten a super-powered enemy from a distance, crush an advancing army, or demolish a whole section of a city in the time it takes to tell it. Coupled with his other powers, the Dragon’s Tail makes Draco Rex one of the most terrifying and unstoppable champions of justice that an evil-doer can face. Moreover, the Dragon’s Tail is “keyed” to respond only to the handling of Draco himself or his even more powerful mother, Tiamat, Queen of Varonia. If it is ever separated from the Prince it will automatically teleport itself back to him.
Limitless strength, invulnerability, the power to summon and control fire and firestorms, flight, and the Dragon’s Tail all combine to make Draco Rex one of the mightiest heroes of the Quantum Universe. Fortunately, he is also one of the friendliest and most affable--as long as you’re not a bad guy!
