by Paul Cude
As goads went, he wasn't sure it would work, not knowing her personality all that well. But what he did know was that she was already steaming mad from watching the White Dragon having been torn in half directly in front of her. A few provocative words might just help rile her up.
Peter and Tank had exactly the same thought simultaneously.
"UH OH!"
Knowing their friend as well as they did, and having a pretty good idea of just how she felt having witnessed the brutal death of the one she loved, there was now no doubt in their minds that things had just taken a huge turn for the worse, if that were at all possible given the current situation. It would be all but impossible for the young lacrosse player to ignore everything Manson had just said. If he'd wanted to provoke her and prod her into killing his father, he'd probably just achieved his aim.
Huffing at the disgust she felt for the words aimed towards her, deep inside Troydenn's belly her hand wobbled almost imperceptibly, as fury and rage roiled off her and a smoke-like fog clouded her normally clear thinking brain. 'WANT!' There it was again, that word, fully encompassing her body, pumping through her blood stream, weaving in and out of every sinew, every fibre of her being. What did she WANT? The answer stared directly back at her, already there, not taking any time at all to form... she wanted to kill him. Here and now. It was an overwhelming urge, irresistible, overpowering, almost an addiction. Normally, she'd have been one of the most equipped beings on the planet to fight off all of these things, loaded to the core with self confidence, belief and faith that she could achieve anything she set her mind to. But not now, not after seeing what had happened to Tim. Her defences were not just broken, they'd been fully swept away by the onslaught of pain. Her suffering was not there for everyone to see, but it was there and had left her vulnerable and in a position to be abused and manipulated. Manson had known that, and was in fact counting on it to achieve just one of his many goals. And no matter how hard she fought (and she tried, by God she tried) there was never going to be any other outcome. Boiling with rage, anger and wrath crushing her soul, eventually she conceded defeat and let the darkness consume her. Mustering every ounce of strength and as much magic as the dagger would let her, in one passion filled act of revenge, as much for her as the one she'd lost, she shoved the dagger as far as she dared into the prehistoric creature that had caused so much trouble for the dragon domain over the centuries, and be damned with the consequences.
Glass splintered, books dropped from shelves up in the library, pages torn, scattering everywhere, as every being there winced in pain at dying Troydenn's last, shrill roar. Eardrums of those closest exploded, apart from Richie who'd gained limited protection because of where she stood. As the grotesque scream subsided, the mammoth dragon's sinister black body wobbled somewhat, before shaking uncontrollably. Still consumed with her act of vengeance, Richie remained rooted to the ground firmly below the dying dinosaur. Her mind screamed, "RUN," but her body ignored it completely.
Exactly the same thought ran through the heads of two beings on totally opposite sides of events playing out.
'SHE'S DONE IT! HE'S DEAD!' For George it was nothing short of sad, despite what had gone on in the past and the fact that his nemesis had promised to torture him for many months to come. A small part of him had hoped to talk him round, maybe even provide some sort of redemption and a turning point in everything that was going on.
For Manson, it was majestic, and he was nothing short of ecstatic. Washed away were his fears. No longer did he have to worry about his father invading his mind, controlling not only his thoughts, but his body as well. For that, he had to thank the young lacrosse player. Perhaps it was time to get right on that.
As the giant prehistoric corpse finally collapsed, almost on auto pilot Richie leapt and rolled from under the mighty beast, jumping to her feet right in the corner below the secretive entrance she'd appeared from a little earlier. Glancing up at the now exposed housing, she knew the only way back up there was to take dragon form and fly, something that in her current condition was a complete impossibility. Having her memories back was one thing; unlocking the bonds of her DNA that maintained her ape like form was something else entirely. As the tiny particles of dust started to settle and the ground stopped shuddering, Manson closed his eyes and directed his commands telepathically towards the guards.
Leaving the King's Guard dragons they were watching over, half a dozen of the vile looking dark prehistoric monsters stalked forward towards Richie, all of them drawing their swords from their black scabbards, a high pitched metal ring splintering the air.
Panic consumed Peter. They were going to kill her here and now and he had to stop it, he just had to. With everything he had, he fought to break free of the magical binders constraining him.
Tank was of the same mind. They weren't going to take her, not as long as he breathed. And so all thoughts of the king's magical ring put to one side, he readied himself for action, knowing that in all likelihood, he'd be dead in only a matter of moments.
Although most of her mind was elsewhere, she knew exactly what was playing out around her. She was in trouble. Big trouble! Janice had a pretty good idea of what was coming. Peter and Tank would not see their friend harmed, and would most certainly lay down their lives to prevent that from happening. Redoubling her efforts, she fought to persuade her friend, the living weapon, to do her bidding.
Broken and feeling as though he'd been hit by a freight train, the rugby player in him bubbled to the fore, watching what was about to unfold in front of him. Although she didn't play his sport, their bond had been forged, as he knew they were pretty much the same inside. And knowing that others around him were almost certainly about to give their all in a futile attempt to save the young lacrosse player's life, Hook pushed aside the pain and prepared for one last hurrah.
Despite things looking as hopeless as ever, Amelia Battlehard recognised her one and only opportunity, and with a polished black blade twitching against her throat, she doubted she would survive long enough to join in. But the others, those under her command, deserved a chance, no matter how remote, to fight for their lives, their king, their domain. Closing her eyes, she prepared to send out the go ahead.
Startled from the shock of seeing his ancient nemesis killed in front of him, all the king could think of was just how wrong things had gone, and how much worse they were about to get. Part of him longed for the ring, but given that it had done nothing but ignore him, he couldn't see how that would help the current situation. Helpless, all he could do was look on and pray for some sort of miracle.
38 Gatecrashers
A pinprick of light, somewhere in the middle of the private residence, that's how it started. Barely visible, even with the super enhanced senses of the individuals present, it wouldn't be long before the magic feeding it lit up the room, announcing its presence to all and sundry.
Gripping the laminium dagger so tightly that the impression of its hilt almost burned into her palm, Richie faced her attackers with all the gusto she'd lived her life. Unafraid, well for herself anyway, the only reservations and fears she had were for her friends. Unfortunately though, even those thoughts hadn't managed to manifest themselves anywhere near the forefront of her thinking. Still clouded by darkness, anger, fury and thoughts of more retribution, she had little awareness of the trouble she was actually in.
Oddly, it was Janice that noticed it first... with a little prompting from her new found friend.
'Something's happening... something significant. Be ready,' warned the weapon.
And then it increased in size almost exponentially. Everything and everyone stopped and stared in awe as the whirling, twirling vortex of writhing, dark energy manifested itself in the form of a giant, blinding, green wormhole right in the middle of the residence. Magic churned around its circumference as thick, crackling, black tendrils of charged energy tried to snake free. Thunder rolled, shaking the ground. Looking more liquid than either solid or gas, the
wormhole's constantly rotating accretion disc bubbled and writhed as tiny concentric ripples echoed out from its centre.
Manson threw Earth a look, wondering if it were somehow her doing. Her puzzled response had him swiftly conclude that it wasn't.
Bruised and battered, his spirit almost torn in two, slumped across the cold marble floor, George, the current dragon king, could only guess at what had appeared before them. There had been legends, documented somewhere on the upper levels of this very library, about extremely powerful beings, able to cast portals from one part of the planet to another. But as far as he knew, those that could do this were all long gone.
'If not that though, then what?' he thought to himself.
Janice could barely keep up with what was going on. Not the appearance of the wormhole though. She'd sneaked a peek through mainly closed eyes. No not that. Fu-ts'ang's excitement. There was lots of babbling, something about the 'lost soul not being broken any more, and about to return,' whatever that meant. All that she knew though, was that she needed to be ready to act. Things were still balanced on a knife edge, and this could well be their one and only chance.
Peter's brain felt scrambled. He'd been using all his mental force to try and access his magic and escape from these blasted binders when 'whooof', out of nowhere, that thing had appeared. It was hypnotic, dreamy almost... the colours, the movement, the slow rotation of the energies inside and out. Feeling as though he could watch it for hours, part of him knew not to get distracted. Not now. Richie was still across to his right, surrounded by dark dragons, their drawn swords reflecting all the colours of the unusual portal that had appeared out of nowhere.
Hook's adrenaline had peaked and was currently being held in check by his tremendous willpower. As he was about to strike, the humongous energy hole had appeared out of nowhere, pausing everything that was going on round about him. Noting that Tank and Peter had reined in whatever it was they had in mind, he'd stalled, waiting to see how events unfolded before he chose to act. Having no idea what he was looking at, by the expressions on the stunned faces of those all around him, it appeared that he was not the only one.
A split second away from sending the signal, just as it had sprung to life out of nothing, given everyone's reaction it had been a good job she'd stopped. Whatever it was, it was just too much of a distraction for her plan to have worked. Even the drooling idiot brandishing the blade to her throat had turned around somewhat to get a view of what was going on. Deep down inside she wished for some help from whatever that thing was. Getting lucky had never felt so good.
A blossoming, yellow sparkle sizzled around the outside of the ring, fizzing and buzzing, jumping and arcing, preceding the main event. And then the liquid parted!
In all his glory, much to the astonishment of the naga contingent of Manson's ragtag army, out slithered Vasuki, a fiery rainbow of magic igniting the air around him. Hushed gasps of surprise filled the chamber. But that was nothing to what happened next.
Following on behind, brilliant bright chains of laminium crisscrossing their bare torsos, out stepped Flash and Fredric, their bulging muscles gleaming against the backdrop of magical energies, ready for practically anything.
Behind them out poured Yoyo's ragtag band of young dragons, all looking much the worse for wear, a mixture of fear and anticipation crisscrossing their prehistoric faces, followed by the dragon himself.
The liquid eye of the wormhole parted twice more, but strangely nothing else appeared. Well... not anything visible to the naked eye anyway.
Almost as quickly as it had materialised, the wormhole vanished into nothingness, leaving the air around where it had been charged with magic.
In the annuls of history much would be made of this very moment. Stories would be told, songs would be sung. On the outcome, much depended.
Earth's surface. Nevada, United States of America.
Looking out from the end of Santa Monica pier in Los Angeles, the cool, salty breeze teased his brown, flowing locks as white crested waves washed up onto the beach below him. Scorching sun beating down on his exposed arms, he tried to push aside the warmth that flowed into him, shuddering at how it made him feel, the exact opposite in fact to his longing to be deep beneath the sea he stood so close to. Basking in memories of swimming in cold, blue ocean waters, he pulled his phone out of the pocket of his light blue jeans, brought up the appropriate number and, knowing what a momentous event this was, hit the dial button. All he had to do was wait for an answer and then he could hang up. It happened exactly that way, and he hung up after barely three rings. Job done, he headed down towards the beach, determined to feel the sand, and more importantly the sea, between his toes.
Simultaneously, all five seismic shockers burst into life, the magic captured inside them combining seamlessly with the technology to generate a series of formidable ground quakes that instantly destroyed everything in their vicinity. The solar farm south east of Vegas shattered into a billion tiny pieces. In India Springs, the Joshua tree's roots were decimated immediately, along with half the buildings in the town. East of Vegas, a mountain exploded in a fountain of rubble and debris, killing several hikers and wiping out any existence of the well used trail. Tyres flew hundreds of metres in the air in every direction, shelling unsuspecting residents of Pahrump with huge rubber bombs, something that added more danger to the earthquake they were now experiencing. Though all of this was nothing to what would happen momentarily. You see, all the ground quakes were scheduled to converge at one point and one point only... LAS VEGAS!
Full to capacity with high rolling gamblers and a myriad of tourists, the city itself never knew what hit it.
As unsuspecting visitors snapped away with their cameras, the famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" neon sign splintered into a thousand parts, electrical sparks dancing like the devil as it did so.
Not far away, the Hoover Dam in the Black Canyon on the Colorado River suffered a series of devastating fractures to its main structure. Water being water, it soon found its way into the cracks and, with the expanding force of mother nature behind it, applied more vigour than the remaining concrete could handle. In an explosion worthy of any action movie, the entire dam came crashing down in one go, with thousands of tons of concrete crashing into the river below, and the full force of Lake Mead being released instantaneously. Within minutes downstream was flooded beyond belief, along with a tiny part of Boulder City. Bedlam, as well as water, had been let loose.
In a mere moment, the ground quakes united somewhere close to the strip. Not only did the earth move but, for a tiny second, it also appeared to roll. As it did, buildings shook, roads and sidewalks rippled, cars were strewn into the air, fire hydrants burst, gas mains ruptured and electricity cables tore free of their housings. People were thrown in the air and to the ground, and, for the most part, those were the lucky ones, as they'd been outside. Inside the buildings, it was a totally different story. Ceilings tore in two, crashing down one, two, three storeys and more, crushing anything in their way. Windows fractured in a spider web type of fashion, most breaking immediately afterwards, sending dangerous shards of glass ripping through rooms, unpredictable gusts of wind very nearly sucking a number of innocent bystanders out of their penthouse suites.
Across downtown Las Vegas, a hub for business, containing hotels, high rises, historical buildings, residential and retail, folks poured out of buildings, looking to get out into an open space as quickly as possible, doing their best in the chaos to keep themselves safe. For most it worked, though a few were less fortunate, sustaining major injuries through sheer bad luck.
The famed Las Vegas strip, nearly seven kilometres long, didn't fare nearly as well. Closer to the epicentre, the ground had simply erupted in places, causing massive sinkholes to appear out of nowhere, buckling the spokes on the High Roller Ferris Wheel, reducing the Rialto bridge at the Venetian to dust, and the gondolas that rode the liquid beneath it to nothing more than children's toys. Terrifying high pitc
hed screams accompanied the ear splitting crash to the ground of the humungous Ferris wheel, all its riders dying on impact. Further along, the fabulous Wynn resort came crashing down into its own vivid blue swimming pool, sending up a mushroom cloud of dust, debris and death.
The Bellagio coped little better, its ground floor giving way under the stress, the rest of its massive superstructure rolling into the vast eight acre lake that, up until that point, had hosted the regular choreographed water feature that tourists so loved. Death and destruction accompanied terror and fear on the rollercoaster ride of their lives.
Dizzying red and yellow hanging lanterns in the Palazzo fractured, their remnants hurtling towards the ground, some injuring frightened tourists trying to exit the building, but other than that and some superficial damage, the resort remained unharmed.
What only moments before had been one of the wonders of North America, now very much resembled a scene from a third world war zone. Devastation had rocked the desert like never before, bringing about the kind of death toll only seen in movies. It was horrific, apocalyptic, and not the kind of thing anyone should ever be caught up in. But for the naga agents across the world, some bound by magic, others giving everything for the safe return of their king, it was just another cog in the machine, and something to be immensely proud of.
39 Deese Guys And Their Disguise
Off in the distance thick, black smoke spiralled into the air from the sporadic raging fires that littered the bleak and desolate landscape that was a far cry from the busy, bustling metropolis that it had been only a matter of days ago. Masked in the darkness provided by the outreach building on the outskirts of Fleet Street, Steel explained his thoughts about what he'd seen, and about the plan that had been slowly developing in his mind as he'd snuck back from his reconnoitre.