Ancient Dragon

The **Ancient Dragon** is a Briton Red Dragon who appears as the main antagonist of the short film *Little Witch Academia*. It was sealed deep within the dungeon beneath the New Moon Tower of Luna Nova until being released by Diana from its sarcophagus-like prison due to mistaking it as a disguised treasure chest. Upon its freedom, the dragon feeds on magic to grow and become stronger before proceeds to go for Sorcerer's Stone situated above New Moon Tower, only to be destroyed by Akko's Shiny Arc.

## Appearance

Initially, the dragon had a smaller form that was much lizard-like. In its lizard form, the majority of it is red with a white underbelly, wings that still in development state due to their small size, a big head compared to his body, and eyes that glow in yellow. However, by gradually absorbing magic energy, the dragon becomes bigger and monstrous. After struck by Hannah and Barbara's first few magic bolts, it eventually grows slightly larger and is able to stand with its hind legs once again.

In its second form, the dragon's skin becomes brown and its underbelly is now crimson. Its horns grow longer and its upper snout is now covered by gray armor plate. The dragon also becomes muscular in stature as well. Also, the dragon's size is now more or less larger than a T-Rex. Its wings, now larger and muscular, allow it to take flight.

The third form of the dragon is a bit larger, with the majority of its body shifting to dark blue and the underbelly becoming bright red. Its lower jaw is now bulkier with a pair of spikes protruding to the back of the head. Dark swirls also formed on the underbelly right near the limbs, and spikes also grew across its spine.

In its final form the dark blue of its skin becomes black, its face now possesses sharp features with a mouth full of sharp teeth and the upper horn's color matches its underbelly, spikes on the spine have become longer, and neck and tail become longer.

## Behavior and Characteristics

As with other Briton Red Dragons, Ancient Dragon has an aggressive and hostile behavior. It looks for magic of any kind to feed on. This particular red dragon also quite intelligent, provoking Hannah and Barbara into attacking it with spells so that it could regain more power.

## Powers and Abilities

The Ancient Dragon has all abilities of Briton Red Dragons including flight, a long powerful tail, fire breath, resistance to poisons, durability, and ability to absorb the power from magic attacks, potions and items and using its energy to become stronger.

## History

### Background

This Briton Red Dragon has been imprisoned for a long time deep within cavernous systems beneath New Moon Tower's dungeons, locked up within a cursed iron maiden which rumored to be designed for draining witches of their blood. Said iron maiden also covered with tapes with runes all over them as additional measure to keep it trapped while preventing it from aging at the same time, possibly because witches who responsible for the dragon's imprisonment at that time has yet to develop a spell strong enough to fatally overload its system and thus resorted to do so while it's still a baby to prevent the worst.

### Little Witch Academia (film)

By the events of the short, Diana, Hannah, and Barbara stumbled upon Ancient Dragon's prison while looking for rare treasures for their assignment. Mistaking it to be a disguised treasure stash, Diana unsealed the cursed iron maiden despite her roommates' fears. Finally freed yet hungry from not eating magic for so long, the baby Briton Red Dragon weakly snarled at the three witches, goading Hannah and Barbara to make fun of it with weak magic blasts that it shrugs on ease. Unaware with the dragon's unique ability to absorb magic to grow, Hannah and Barbara continued their magical assaults, a mistake Diana failed to warn them upon realizing what's going on.

Having attained enough strength to breath fireballs and fly, the Ancient Dragon, now in its juvenile form, blasted its way out of the dungeon, passing through Akko, Lotte, and Sucy who searched through one of dungeons' chambers that filled with junks. Reaching New Moon Tower hall, the dragon terrifies the students who have reached the surface level, prompting Ursula to activate emergency lockdown to keep it from escaping, resulting it to comically stuck on activated wooden bars. Unfortunately, Mary provoked other students to bombard the trapped beast with magic, resulting an explosion that not only freed Ancient Dragon, but also further accelerated its growth by the time Diana catched up with it.

Knowing that they can't afford to let the dragon escape and growing stronger any further, Ursula tasked Diana to help evacuate the students while Akko, Lotte, and Sucy set out to secure the academy's Sorcerer's Stone. The blue-haired professor on the other hand, attempted to distracr the dragon with conjured energy flare. Unfortunately, she can only distracted Ancient Dragon for so long as it eventually after Akko, Lotte, and Sucy instead, apparently attracted by Shiny Rod's awakened magic. Sucy tried to stop the beast with vials of poison gas in her disposal, only for it shrugged the attack and reached its fully-grown state through absorbing said gas' magic residue before blasting the Manbavaran with a burst of fire and continued the chase.

Knocking Akko and Lotte into the top of the tower, Ancient Dragon attempted to break in, at which Shiny Rod absorbs excess magic from Sorcerer's Stone much to the former's surprise. Ursula appeared and urged Akko to pass her the staff, but is knocked aside by the beast before the Japanese could do anything. Finally managed to punch its head into the tower, the dragon attempted to devour the Stone only for Akko knocked it to the ground with a blast of magic. Realizing that she can use Shiny Rod's magic, Akko grabbed the Sorcerer's Stone away and jumped off the tower as she attempted to change the Rod into a broom to no avail.

Evading the beast's maw and losing the stone in process, Akko, trapped on the dragon's tail, becomes helpless by her predicament until she heard Chariot's message in her head. As this happens, a large boulder on the head in courtesy of Ursula unceremoniously disoriented the beast, launching the Japanese to the air before plummeting to the ground far below along with it and the falling Sorcerer's Stone. Strengthening her resolve with her believing heart, Akko successfully turned Shiny Rod into bow form and killed the beast with Shiny Arc arrow, overloading the beast into rapid burst of firework-like explosions. Afterwards, she is saved by Diana before watching the Sorcerer's Stone absorbed excess magic released from the dying dragon.

## Gallery

*For more images related to Ancient Dragon, see the file category:* Category:Briton Red Dragon images*.*
Yoshinari's artwork for both Yoshinari Yō Gashuu - Illustration Hen and 2013 film"Little Witch Academia (リトルウィッチアカデミア ) Staff Book illustration by Samurai Champloo, Steven Universe animator Takafumi Hori (堀剛史) @porigoshi"Artwork of Atsuko Kagari and the Briton Red Dragon made by Takafumi Hori (堀剛史) @porigoshi that was posted on his Instagram for Animazement 2014
## See Also

* Briton Red Dragon, Ancient Dragon's species.