Drake

(also known as Blademaster Drake, Drake of Valore, The Nightmare King, Demonslayer Drake, Dirk Dazzler, Arthur Pendragon, or Dray)

Drake is a recurring character in Legend of the Ultimate Sword. He is a male Valore, born on the Valore homeworld in Primeverse, and an Avatar of Zan. His father is officially recorded as Alroit, but due to Alroit's injuries, he is incapable of having children. Alroit's brother Taliro sires a child with Alroit's wife Elena at Alroit's request, to produce an heir which is considered entirely legitimate by Valore customs.

As the true firstborn son of Taliro, Drake manifests strong Zan influences, as well as strength and powers somewhere between a normal Valore and a Zet. After the Zet are born, Drake takes on the dual role of elder brother and student to them. He is inspired by them to create the first Ultimate Sword and, as its creator, his existence is cemented into the fabric of reality.

He volunteers to pilot Xylinia's experimental spacepod to search the cosmos for Taliro, but is thought to be lost when his spacepod encounters a spatial anomaly and vanishes. His original destination is not known, but he emerges on the other side of the Mazzaroth Disaster, causing his continuity to be fractured along with Primeverse's. A different version of Drake lands on a different planet in each timeline, and due to the effects of Zanhoshi Fusions on Alphaverse, this results in the appearance of multiple Drakes throughout history. Once a version of Drake is retconned into Alphaverse history, he gains memories of the lives of all previous Alphaverse incarnations. As he is also the only Alphaverse character to witness Primeverse events firsthand, he has quite a unique perspective of the events of LOTUS.

As far as the Alphverse Zet are concerned, Drake did not exist until the Zanhoshi Advent, whereupon he appeared out of nowhere in their midst, as if he'd always belonged there. From their perspective, when Drake's spacepod is launched, it explodes before reaching orbit. They are understandably surprised to see him later, on other planets. His repeating existence is one of the biggest clues to the nature of the Mazzaroth Disaster and its creation of the LOTUS multiverse.

The various incarnations of Drake are described below, in the order in which they appear in Alphaverse history.

## Blademaster

Upon finding himself stranded on planet Trida, Drake learns that the native Tridan society of low-tech tribes has been completely subjugated by the sudden appearance of an advanced army led by a tyrant called the Dragon Lord. Using his skills at blade-making, Drake joins the tribal rebellion against the Dragon Lord, providing them with weapons imbued with his paranormal smithing skills. He marries and has a son named Thane, who he trains to succeed him.

Drake eventually forges a new Ultimate Sword, the scythe Arafel. For a time his rebellion gains the upper hand, but the Dragon Lord appoints a Dragoon Captain named Rin, who wields Dragon Slayer. Rin catches Drake off-guard and slays him, causing his son to take up Arafel in revenge. The resulting Zanhoshi Fusion retcons Thane into having been Thanatos the Zet the whole time, and Thanatos struggles to deal with the incomprehensible sight of a Drake who should not even exist, and whose very death made it possible for Thanatos to be reunited with his long-lost brother.

## of Valore

"Drake of Valore" is the name under which Drake does business after being stranded on planet Trintia. He makes a name for himself as a swordsmith and farrier in the Trintia kingdom's capital city, until his notoriety earns him an invitation from King Tremayne to produce a ceremonial heirloom sword for the monarchy. To collect the quality of metal needed for the work, Drake travels to the country of the Amazons, where he falls in love with an Amazon who is actually Dragoon Captain Rin incognito. They have a one night stand, she helps him procure the metal, and he returns to Trintia to begin work.

While traveling back home, Drake witnesses the fall of a "shooting star" and goes to investigate. He discovers Taliro's crashed spaceship, and provides the injured Taliro with enough energy to transform into his dragon form to recover. He then collects some of Taliro's spilled blood in a vial, and departs before Taliro regains consciousness.

Based on a premonition, Drake forges not one sword but two identical ones using Taliro's blood, both Ultimate Swords: Ragnarok and Kralizec. On the day the swords are finished, a red-headed young man appears out of nowhere in Drake's shop, and Drake entrusts Ragnarok to him before he vanishes as suddenly as he appeared. That same day, the Trintia kingdom is sacked, Krazilec is lost, and Drake is slain by the Fire Queen's troops.

## The Nightmare King

### First

During planet Seidia's medieval cultural period, a version of Drake arrives who is unusually hostile, and possesses powerful telepathic abilities. He takes tyrannical control over the world, setting himself up as the Nightmare King and ruling for nearly a hundred years uncontested. He is eventually struck dead upon his throne by a Zanhoshi that falls from the sky and pierces his chest. The sword is dubbed "Nightmare Slayer", and for a time the castle becomes a shrine to the defeated tyrant. However, over the next five hundred years, his reign is all but forgotten, and Nightmare Slayer is lost to history.

### Second

Five hundred years after the death of the first Nightmare King, his last living descendant - a historian named Damien Knight - witnesses the signs of a second coming. Unable to convince but a handful of others of the coming danger, he races to find the lost Nightmare Slayer before the new Nightmare King arrives in full.

Not long after Damien's journey begins, a second Drake does indeed arrive on Seidia. He is nearly identical to the first in powers and behavior, but wields the Zanhoshi Prime of his timeline - the Nightmare Zero. Using it, he begins a repeat of the first Drake's takeover, though much more slowly due to Seidia's more modern technology and higher population density.

Eventually, Damien acquires the Nightmare Slayer, and meets the second Nightmare King in battle. As Damien delivers the final blow, a Zanhoshi Fusion occurs, changing history so that there was only ever one Nightmare King. This changes Damien's history as well, retconning him into being the present Drake's son. Thanatos the Zet, one of Damien's companions, mourns the loss of another Drake, and determines to discover why Drakes keep appearing.

## Demonslayer Drake

(also known as Dirk Dazzler)

Not long after the Seidian Colony Ship arrives on Jedia, another version of Drake does as well. He teams up with Thanatos and Genji to fight off the aggressive native inhabitants, taking part in what history later calls the "Ogre Genocide". Drake's memories of his past lives awaken near the end of the genocide, and he gives up the fight to become a pacifist. For hundreds of years, he lives as an itinerant blacksmith, fixing whatever needs fixing wherever he goes.

Nearly a thousand years after the establishment of the colony, Drake encounters Thanatos again, in the company of Hadric Knight, Damien's son. The two convince him to take part in their plan to learn the true nature of the changes being made to history by Zanhoshi Fusions, and to that end he joins the Sunstruck Circus under the alias "Dirk Dazzler". Ultimately his fate is not explicitly made clear, but it is implied that he perishes alongside the rest of Jedia's population during the planet's eventual destruction.

## Arthur Pendragon

No information is given in canon on the subject of Drake's Earthly incarnation, beyond an offhand reference to "Arthur" being his name in another life, and an Avatar of Lord Mezzo being his trusted advisor (presumably the true identity of Merlyn).

## Dray

The version of Drake that arrives on Draygo Prime is, curiously enough, from a timeline where the Valore all look like Draygons. He fits right in under the alias "Dray", and lives a peaceful life among them until the Kyugen War. He is killed in the war's final cataclysm, and his identity is stolen by Taliro, who pretends Dray survived the blast to gain enough popular support to become leader of their society. He is, unfortunately, the shortest-lived version of Drake.

## Trivia

* In reality, there is an equation called the Drake Equation, which is used to give a rough estimate of habitable planets in the observable Universe. Despite the fact that at least one version of Drake shows up on every non-terraformed habitable planet in LOTUS, the ZTG Devs insist he was not named after the equation.
* If Drake reminds you of Duncan Idaho... keep it to your damn self.