"Casey Base to Foxtrot Two, come in... over," crackled around the icy overhang as Flash struggled to retrieve the radio.
Setting down his water bottle and stuffing the rest of his ration bar in his mouth all at once, he held down the long black button on the side of the radio.
"Casey Base, this is Foxtrot Two... over," he shouted above the harsh wind.
"Just checking up to make sure you're okay doc," came a squeaky voice through all the static.
"Thanks Casey," replied Flash, strangely comforted that these people he barely knew were concerned for his wellbeing. "I'm just checking one more site, and then I'm heading back to base... thanks."
"Okay doc, good luck, see you when you get here. Don't forget the darts tournament at Splinters tonight... starts at 20:00."
"Thanks Casey, I'll try and make it... Foxtrot Two out."
Relative silence returned to the valley, apart from the whistling wind that had started to whip up the soft powdery snow a treat. Flash bent down to retrieve his water bottle. As he did so, the tiniest glimpse of colour caught his attention from the corner of his eye. Blinking in astonishment, for just a moment he could have sworn he'd seen the tiniest patch of crimson at the bottom of the solid wall of ice and snow that made up the overhang he was now standing under. Striding over to the wall and crouching down so that his entire lower half sunk into the powdery build up of snow, he rubbed at the wall with his gloved hands, clearing away the beautiful flakes in front of him. It wasn't until he'd rubbed away a decent sized portion of the wall that it hit him.
"Dear God, it can't be," he muttered only to himself, his breath freezing in the cold as he did so. Beneath the thick ice of the wall making up the overhang, was a crimson coloured wing. The thick membrane and wiry sinew could be seen clearly now that he was up close. He knew exactly what it was, well... not what, but who... Professor Rianne Pilkington, to be precise.
Flash's pulse raced as he crouched in the snow inspecting the frozen body of the lead scientist. A million questions raced around his spinning head, chief amongst them was: why on earth is she in her dragon form? No dragon in their right mind would turn into their true form in these conditions. They wouldn't last more than a couple of minutes at most, before they died horribly. It made absolutely no sense.
'There's nothing in the world that would make me return to my natural state here. Nothing,' he thought, tears streaming down his face.
Then, the most unbelievable thing in the world happened. A loud laugh pierced the howling wind, from just behind him. Standing up and turning around all at the same time, he struggled to comprehend the vision he saw before him. Two medium sized nagas, one very nearly gold all over, the other a purple bluish colour, stood not twenty feet away, grinning wickedly in his direction. The nagas were quasi-humanoids, with snake shaped bodies and a top half resembling a scaly, reptilian human. Both had tails about fifteen foot long, rippling with muscle and scale. Nearly seven feet tall, they both swayed from side to side like deadly cobras. Flash's first thought was that he was dreaming, and that perhaps he'd suffered some sort of trauma, maybe falling and knocking his head. Deep down inside though, his little voice screamed, "DANGER!" over and over, as loud as it possibly could. The golden tinted naga shook his head back and forth, before letting out a low rumble and grinning.
"Ahhhhh... it seems they've sent another one."
His partner smiled at that.
"When will they start to learn?" he replied, chuckling.
Flash couldn't work out where they'd come from, how it was that he couldn't sense them telepathically, why the cold or snow wasn't affecting them, or why they were behaving like this. Putting on his best smile, in the name of diplomacy of course, he addressed the golden coloured naga who seemed to be in charge.
"Please let me extend greetings and honoured intentions directly from the dragon king himself, clan of the mysterious nagas," he shouted calmly over the wind, phrasing his words in much the same way as he'd heard the king do on numerous occasions.
Both nagas' expressions turned serious, their wicked grins disappearing. Flash knew he'd made an impression.
'This diplomacy thing is a doddle,' he mused, hoping that the two snake-like beasts would consider helping him recover the bodies of the missing scientists, which could prove unbelievably difficult if they were all in dragon form. As both beings pressed forward, friendly smiles adorning their scaly faces, Flash breathed a sigh of relief, bending down to retrieve his discarded water bottle for a second time. Distracted for a split second, he had virtually no time to react when both of them spun around simultaneously, their long, scaly tails heading straight towards him at high speed. Pushing himself back against the icy overhang, Flash tried desperately to bring his right wrist round, to unleash the toxic darts in his watch, but knew almost immediately that he was too late. As the pain from the impact rippled through his body, and darkness started to claim him, his last thought was,
'What the hell is going on?'
3
In the Freezer
Not far from where Flash had been captured, at least not far as the crow flies, crude electric lights flickered and spluttered in a vast underground cavern looking, not for the first time, like they were about to plunge the whole place into total and utter darkness. Chained side by side along a vast icy wall were four prisoners, all from very different eras and all, despite appearances, anything but homo sapiens. The first, a human shaped dragon, sat on the wet icy floor, clad only in a dark, all-in-one thermal under suit, shaped much like a pair of wild west long johns, only much more up to date and made from heat insulating material. His hands were manacled to the frozen wall above his head, forcing his arm muscles to stay taut all the time he remained on the floor. His cover was that of a scientist, at least while he roamed amongst the humans of the earth, disguised as one of them. Despite his thermal clothing he was bitterly cold. Ice and moisture on the ground seeped through his suit, attacking his delicate human inspired flesh. Because he was a dragon, he was more susceptible to the cold than any other being on the planet. The biting pain from the ice, moisture and the sub zero temperatures caused him to keep on passing out. Each time he came round, all he would know once again was agony. This is how it had been since he'd been captured and taken there, more than two months before. Occasionally, from a long way away, he caught the odd glimpse of human shapes that seemed to have some sense of authority, but the only person or thing that came anywhere near him was a mean, young human, dressed in clothes and rags that looked to be decades out of date. Arriving every few days, he would kick and beat each of the prisoners until the amusement wore off, before tossing scraps of rotten fish to each of them. Other than that, the prisoners saw no one in the vast, desolate, freezing cold cavern.
Prisoner number two was manacled to the slippery, white, icy wall in much the same way as the first, some twenty feet or so further along. The big difference though, was the fact that this prisoner was a... naga. Although the naga in question looked haggard and filthy, clearly this was anything but an ordinary specimen of their race. Still looking magnificent and regal, despite his captivity, shades of blue flickered in the twinkling light along his entire body, right to the very tip of his tail which was the darkest blue imaginable, standing out abruptly against his icy white confines. Further up, the scales gradually lightened, almost in concentric circles, until the very palest sky blue beset his head and the ever moving gills off to one side. Clearly his captivity had taken its toll, but anyone who observed closely and knew what to look for would have recognised the keen glint in his eyes and would have realised that this was an exceptionally intelligent creature, far from being broken. In fact, this stunning looking being was the single most important in its entire race... he was the king of the nagas and had been imprisoned against his will for decades.