by Paul Cude
"It's even better than I imagined it would be," stated Tank, dreamily.
Peter and Richie stopped fighting and moved closer. Split into two, the screen had the view of the giant arena on the top half, and a close up picture of one of the goal mouths on the lower half.
"Is that live?" asked Richie.
Tank pulled his attention away from the screen, frowning at the battered and bruised cucumber in her hand.
"Sure is."
"The quality of the picture is incredible, despite the fact that it's in black and white."
"I think they must have integrated some of the latest film and broadcasting technology from the humans into it."
"It does look fantastic."
As they all looked on, the images changed. The upper image zoomed out to show the entire stadium, the cavern roof and the surface of the lava lake, while the lower view changed to show a rocky overhang on one side of the stadium. Concentrating on the bottom half of the screen, all three of the friends anticipated what would happen next. They weren't disappointed. With no sound available through the television, only their increased breathing could be heard as suddenly a triangular portion of rock face peeled back to reveal a hexagonal entrance with bright neon lights streaming out of it. Moments later, out flew two teams, the Gipsy Kings with their players surrounded by dark auras, and the Indigo Warriors surrounded by light. All three cheered on seeing their team enter the stadium.
* * *
Across town, it was a very different story. Manson sat at the bar of 'Ye Old Ale House', high up on a cherry red bar stool. Behind him, his fellow first team players were amusing themselves with a very silly drinking game about bunnies. Most of them were now very drunk indeed. Manson was not. That's not to say he hadn't been drinking, because, oh, he had. It was just that the drink, much like for Tank, had absolutely no effect on him at all.
He had, up until five minutes ago, joined in with all the different drinking games... the one with the matchbox, the one with the coins, the one about aliens, all of them, but now he sat, elbows propped on the dark wooden veneer of the bar itself, nursing a tankard of ale, consumed by anger, hate and rage. Mulling over events in his mind, blocking out the rowdy revelry that ensued behind him, loathing and disgust rolled off him like an angry sea in a violent storm.
'That sap Bentwhistle has no idea. No idea at all. His friends are just as clueless. Ohh... look at us, we're really useful little dragons doing just as the Council demand with our little human pets. Ohh... we're untouchable because we're smarter than all the humans. Ohh... the humans are our little darlings, we must look after them for the future of the planet. Huh! Boy, are you all in for a big surprise. Yes, that's right, not everything's gonna go your ever-so-laid-out dragon way. When the time comes, you're all gonna be punished for what you did, ohh and your little human pets are gonna suffer like they've never suffered before, while all of you stand by, helpless to intervene, you... smug... self righteous... sanctimonious... spineless... lackeys.'
Manson looked up from the beer-stained bar, straight into the terrified face of the bartender, a middle aged, bald, pot bellied, snivelling weasel, if appearances were anything to go by. He couldn't understand why the idiot of a man had such an expression on his face. He was certain he hadn't blurted any of that out loud. Looking down at his hands, however, he soon realised why. The metal tankard that he had been drinking from looked like a child had crafted it from play-doh. In his rage, his hands had quite literally squeezed it into something unrecognisable. Delving deep into his right pocket, he pulled out a crisp, clean fifty pound note and tossed it on to the bar in the direction of the tender.
"Sorry about that. Don't realise my own strength sometimes. I hope that about covers it."
Nodding frantically, the man nervously picked up the note and headed swiftly down the other end of the bar to continue polishing glasses. Manson shook his head and sneered as he did so.
'Another one for retribution,' he thought.
Looking around, he could see the drunken antics of the pesky humans he called teammates were getting more out of hand with each minute that passed. He even heard the word 'curry' being mentioned, and knew that it was time to make his excuses and leave. Dropping down off his stool, he added a slight wobble as he staggered to the nearest corner beside the dart board, dropping the misshapen tankard into a filthy looking bin that stood there. It made a resounding THUD as it skittered through all the crisp and cigarette packets, before hitting the bottom.
Adding a slight stagger to his limp, he carried on over to his teammates, walking stick in hand. Feigning a smile, he told them he had to go, using his age as an excuse for not being able to keep up. While everybody jeered and made sarcastic comments, nobody thought anything more about it as he was the oldest member of the squad by some way. After slurring his goodbyes, he gingerly walked to the door and headed out into the cold air. Turning left outside the main entrance to the pub, he walked along the badly paved footpath past the windows, all the time exchanging rude gestures with his teammates inside, while putting on another bout of staggering.
Once clear of the pub, he straightened up and walked briskly to the adjacent car park, where he promptly jumped into his black Mercedes. As he tossed his walking stick onto the back seat and settled back against the soft leather, he thought about what a day it had been. He'd been more than a little reckless. Deep down he knew he shouldn't have risked revealing himself like that to that berk Bentwhistle, but he was pretty sure he would end up having to deal with him one way or another, whatever happened, and he wasn't about to let a jumped up little jerk like that get the better of him at anything, let alone hockey. It wasn't just the fact that he couldn't have Bentwhistle, a bloody dragon, getting the better of him, he also needed to keep up the appearance of being a prolific hockey player for the other part of the plan to fall into place.
Turning the key in the ignition, it was only now, as the perfect purring engine thrummed into life, that he realised just how risky the day had been, vowing next time to be more... clinical and not let his emotions get in the way. What would the others say if they knew how... rashly he'd acted? Thoughts of terrible recriminations ran through his mind, that is until he forcibly pushed them away.
'Oh well', he thought, 'it's not like they're going to find out any time soon.'
* * *
Back at Peter's house, the three friends were glued excitedly to the mute television, an intriguing mixture of food and drink spread out on the living room floor. The dips that had been prepared in pirate style were strewn all over the place, accompanied by an assortment of bizarre additions. A large bottle of ketchup was the centrepiece, from which Tank periodically covered a carrot, stick of cucumber or massive stalk of celery, wolfing down the whole thing in one go, much to the revulsion of the other two. Beside the ketchup there were jars of mayonnaise, a bowl of coleslaw, pickled onions, strawberry jam, marmalade, chocolate and marshmallow spread, and a large jug of very cold gravy. Young dragons like to experiment with an array of tastes and these three were no different, especially in the privacy of Peter's home. As well as the vegetables being dipped, there were sponge fingers (Peter's favourite), bread sticks, iced buns, marshmallows and I kid you not... pencils. Oh yes... pencils, a dragon's staple snack when humans aren't looking. Most prefer the 2B or 3B variety because the darkness comes across as tangy when consumed.
You may think the food odd, but only as much as the drinks the three friends were downing. Peter had developed a taste for lime cordial... NEAT, straight from the bottle. Richie was on her third Baileys and lime (something known as a cement mixer), which it had to be said was more like a meal than a drink, while Tank was being the most conventional of the three by drinking a 'Mississippi Mud Pie' or orange juice, lemonade and coke.
In any other situation, Peter would have gone berserk, had any part of his house looked like his living room currently did, but he was far too interested in the match to care about anything else. They all were. Abrupt
ly the split screen views that they were watching changed to one, showing both teams performing their fly pasts for the electrically charged crowd. Both teams were flying around the edge of the subterranean stadium in opposite directions, both at exactly the same height, so when they met, they curved in and out of each other at breakneck speed, almost faster than the watching crowd could comprehend, all to rapturous applause.
Two laps later, the teams broke off and headed towards the roof, directly in the middle of the stadium.
"Come on Warriors!" shouted Tank at the silent television, startling the other two.
"Kick their scaly asses!" joined in Peter.
Tank and Richie looked at each other in mock shock.
"Who rattled your cage?" teased Richie.
"Just getting into the spirit of things," Peter replied.
Tank let out a great big belly laugh, while at the same time tossing a ketchup covered carrot high into the air. Richie and Peter watched the orange vegetable turn end over end, before disappearing into their friend's gaping mouth.
All three returned their attention to the game, with the view having changed from both teams hovering in mid-air, to ten glowing crystals over one of the goal mouths. As the friends watched, one crystal winked out, and all at once the three said,
"Nine." One by one the crystals continued to wink out, with the friends counting down as they did, knowing that the massive crowd in the stadium were no doubt all shouting their hearts out.
"Four... three... two... one..."
As the last crystal winked out, the view on the screen returned to both teams hovering high up in the centre. From out of a concealed hole in the roof shot the metallic laminium ball, almost faster than any of the dragons could see, bouncing off the chest of one of the Gipsy Kings players, winding him momentarily. With the ball in play, mayhem ensued. The three friends all unknowingly inched closer to the television, trying to make out what was going on in the mass of players and see just who had the laminium ball. Camera angles changed at random, making it hard to focus on any one thing. Both teams were still very much in the same area they'd been when the ball had come rocketing out, only now the action was frantic with tackles, raking talons, whipping tails and raging fiery breath. It was a sight to behold and looked very much like something from a prehistoric nightmare.
With both mouth guards having slipped out of the action to take up their normal positions, the melee in the middle became less of a jumble. Out of nowhere one of the Gipsy Kings players broke free, making a headlong dive for the lava, only pulling out at the last possible second, zooming inches above the smouldering surface, heading towards the Warriors’ goal mouth. Players from both sides of the congested pack gave chase, with the Gipsy Kings players holding off the Indigo Warriors, one even dumping Barf unceremoniously into the lava.
The Gipsy Kings players had done a reasonable job in holding off their opponents, much to the dismay of the three friends at home, and had given the player now hurtling towards the goal with the laminium ball nestled on the end of his tail a free run at the Warriors’ mouth. Although a good position for the Gipsy Kings, it was by no means a sure thing, because soaring in the players' way was a certain Silverbonce, the oldest player in the game and, most players and fans alike would agree, the craftiest and one of the most talented to ever grace the sport.
As the player with the ball rose from the surface of the bubbling lava, he slowed his ascent just slightly in an attempt to find the best position for a good shot. As he did so, Silverbonce drifted out of the mouth to narrow the angle. Only it appeared to everyone, including the player with the ball, that the old mouth guard had got his angles all wrong. A huge gap had opened up down Silverbonce's right hand side, leaving an easy shot for the eager Gipsy Kings’ youngster. Grinning at the thought of the easiest goal he'd scored in a long time, the young player with the ball threw all of his momentum downwards and at the same time hurled the ball with his tail into the great big gap left by the Warriors’ mouth guard. Not waiting to see what happened next, the relatively inexperienced dragon turned towards the fans, puffed out his chest, opened up his wings, all as if to say, “How great am I?” waiting for the inevitable applause.
It was a real shame he'd turned away, because if he hadn't, he would have seen a real master at work. As the ball left the young dragon's tail, bound for one of the teeth in the goal mouth through the gap that Silverbonce had deliberately left, the wily old mouth guard let out the most amazing jet of blue and orange tinged flame from his giant prehistoric jaw, with such precise timing that it hit the ball almost square on, deflecting it well away from the mouth, off into the side of the cavern. He coolly gathered it up with his tail, before playing a sublime pass out wide right to Flamer, who was just now picking it up with his tail. Meanwhile, the young Gipsy Kings forward, puzzled by the lack of appreciation, was still trying to get his head round the fact that the whole mouth was still intact and his teammates were expressing more than a reasonable amount of displeasure with him right at this very moment.
Flamer, having gathered the ball in, had taken flight heading towards the lower right hand corner of the massive arena. Cheese and Barf were speedily heading in the same direction to help him. Steel, meanwhile, had sneakily lost his marker and was soaring along the upper left cavern wall, trying hard to be inconspicuous. The Gipsy Kings, with the exception of their young forward, were rallying their defence, getting players between the laminium ball and the goal mouth.
Peter, Tank and Richie sat mesmerised on the living room floor, munching on various combinations of food and guzzling down drinks, but not once taking their eyes off the action on the screen in front of them.
One of the Gipsy Kings' defenders thundered out towards Flamer, talons out, clearly hoping to dislodge the ball and inflict injury at the same time. But Flamer was having none of it. At the very last instant, a quick flick of his tail was enough to send the ball flying surely into the path of Cheese, who took it at speed and headed up in the direction of the mouth, partnered by Barf. Two more Gipsy Kings players drifted down into their way, with the mouth guard anxiously moving from side to side behind them. Still nobody had spotted Steel, who was by now only a few metres out from the mouth, but way out on the left hand side. Looking at each other after a telepathic agreement, the two Gipsy Kings players nodded, and then both drove towards Cheese and Barf as fast as they could. Both Warriors only had an instant in which to react, but that was all they needed. They knew where Steel was, it was just going to be a matter of getting him the ball. Cheese feinted right, bursting left at the last moment, doubling over into a sharp dive. Entering the dive, he gave a flick of his powerful tail, pushing the ball as hard as he could towards Barf.
Barf, meanwhile, wasn't quite as happy as he'd hoped to be. Having given everything he'd got in an effort to lose his Gipsy Kings marker, he'd only managed to gain a few metres on him rather than shed him altogether. Spotting the ball steaming towards him on one side and his challenger on the other, Barf realised there was only one thing to do. Pouring on as much speed as he could find, he surged towards the ball, knowing that he would get to it a fraction of a second before the player got him. On reaching the ball, instead of gathering it in, the expected course of action, he gently brushed it with the back of his right wing, ever so slightly changing its trajectory. Fans from all around the stadium let out a collective gasp, thinking that it was just poor play. As the ball left his wing, Barf closed his eyes and braced himself for the unavoidable. The Gipsy Kings player continued on his path, totally missing the ball but ploughing into Barf, sending him spiralling out of control towards the steaming red lava. All of this happened in a split second, and the only dragon in the stadium to have any idea about what had just happened was Steel, who, as he watched Barf plummet, sent his friend a telepathic 'thank you'.
You see, Steel was gliding in the same unmarked position that he'd been in for the last thirty seconds or so, and as the ball rocketed towards him, he knew that it was all
that Barf could have done to deflect the ball in his direction because of the onrushing opponent, deliberately taking one for the team. With one giant flap of his wings, he sailed to meet the ball as it flew straight into his path. Because none of the Gipsy Kings had realised he was there, or that was where the ball was heading, the mouth was totally unguarded on the left hand side, leaving Steel with a clear shot. Not even bothering to collect the ball, even though he had plenty of time, Steel smashed the ball first time with his tail, destroying one of the teeth in the middle of the mouth. A resounding roar went up around the arena from all the Indigo Warriors fans. Flamer, Cheese and the worse for wear Barf all soared across the cavern to congratulate Steel, while Silverbonce remained guarding the mouth, pumping his wings in delight, trying to stir up the crowd even more.
Back at the house, the three friends were going wild. Jumping up, Tank knocked over his drink, Richie roared with delight, while Peter used some very colourful language to sum up his feelings, most unlike him.
"That was the best goal ever!" cried Tank.
"Did you see what Steel did?" bellowed Peter, "because clearly the Gipsy Kings didn't. He was amazing sneaking up like that. Who'd have thought that was even possible. He is a GOD!"
"Well... he's alright I suppose," mused Richie grinning, "but I could take him."
All three burst into a fit of laughter and it was only the sight of the restart taking place some thirty seconds later, that brought them out of it.
"Come on Warriors, make it to the final... pleeeaaasssssseeeee!" hollered Tank at the top of his voice as the action got underway.