Two minutes later he climbed to his feet, peering around the corner that joined the adjacent corridor which led to his room. With the furry hood on his jacket down and his goggles resting atop his sweaty hair, he walked confidently down the corridor, all his senses alert for anything out of the ordinary. Having no idea who the leader of the nagas was, only that he or she was most certainly on the base, gave Flash the creeps, with him finding it hard to believe that his room wasn't under surveillance, in case of an unlikely return. A beep from the phone in his pocked caused him to quicken his pace. Whipping it out as he stepped through the open door and into an alcove that had three rooms attached to it, he looked down at the timer as he stood just outside the three closed doors. With the display showing 48 seconds, he knew that the mess he'd made out by the rocky overhang was about to be cleared up. In less than a minute, a diversion of devastating proportions was about to present itself, all of Flash's own making.
Before leaving the site of the ruined skidoo, he'd piled up all the equipment he couldn't use or carry, along with the bodies of the human shaped nagas, around the ruined vehicle. Siphoning as much petrol as he could from its fuel tank, he'd covered the immediate area before priming the explosives the nagas had been carrying. Attaching the explosives to the face of the overhang for greater effect, knowing that when they went off, it would bring down hundreds of tons of rocks onto the skidoo itself, he covered any trace of what had really gone on, with the petrol residue helping to make a half decent explosion, that combined with the rock itself should devastate the whole area. Because it wasn't that far out from Casey Station, it should, if everything went to plan, cause a very nice diversion. While doing all of this, he'd had to use up more of his magical energy, casting a mantra that would link the timer on the phone and the primer on the explosives. The mantra itself was relatively simple and foolproof; any dragon with a year's worth of mantra training would be able to cast it successfully, with the only weak link in the whole thing being the timer on the phone. If for some reason that failed, then the phone wouldn't pass the small charge from itself to the primer and the explosives would fail to detonate. Flash glanced down at the phone before returning it to his pocket. In less than ten seconds he'd know if the whole thing had worked. With his hand poised on the handle of the door to his room, his human shaped heart thumped just that little bit harder in his ears.
Seconds later, Flash wasn't disappointed. The sound of the explosion was impressive to say the least. It echoed throughout the whole facility. Turning the door handle silently, he moved swiftly into the room, one hand on the pistol with the silencer in his pocket. A quick look confirmed there was no one lying in wait for him; the room appeared to be exactly as he'd left it, but he didn't believe for one minute that one of the nagas hadn't been through it at some point in the time he'd been away. Pulling one of his giant kit bags out from beside the bed, he could hear chaos in all the adjoining parts of the base. An alarm was ringing somewhere close by, with plenty of footsteps running down the main corridor. Breathing a sigh of relief, he opened up one of the side zips of his huge bag. Delving into the deepest recesses of the pocket, he felt what he'd come back for. Pulling out the small, black, zipped bag, he swiftly opened it up to check that it hadn't been tampered with. Inside the bag was a seemingly brand new blood sugar monitor that diabetic humans use to help them control their condition. In the middle of the bag sat the monitor itself, alongside a sealed container of test strips and most importantly of all, the lancet pen that contained sharp needles to pierce the skin so that a drop of blood could be obtained and dropped onto the test strips. So convincing was the kit, that it would easily fool any human diabetic, or specialist diabetic doctor or nurse, come to that. All was not as it appeared though. It was in fact, something the geniuses at the equipment development lab had set up specifically to support the Crimson Guards, just like the watch he'd been wearing when he'd arrived. The lancet pen in the kit was in fact a specially disguised storage device. Not just any kind of storage device, it has to be said, but one for compressed magical energy, mana, whatever you like to call it. Used correctly, the pen could take the energy from a dragon at a time when they had no need for it, and store it indefinitely until it was required. Flash always made sure the pen was topped up and ready to be used. By turning the top of the pen that swapped between different needle lengths, a certain combination would allow the compressed magical energy to become attached to one of the needles, and instead of pricking a finger to extract a small amount of blood, the device would instantly inject the user with all the compressed mana it held.
Perched on the edge of the unmade bed, he fumbled with the lancet pen, his hands shaking from the day's events. Just as he finished turning the top of the pen in the correct combination, his back erupted with yet another painful seizure, for what seemed like the thousandth time that day. As the pen cartwheeled to the floor, Flash fell back on top of the bed, writhing in agony as wave upon wave of excruciating pain zigzagged over his back. Heat rushed through his comparatively frail human shape. Normally there's nothing more a dragon likes than heat, but this was different, almost evil in its intent. It shot upwards from his back, bathing his head and neck, causing sweat to break out. It took all his willpower not to throw up as he rolled about on the soft bed. With the pain and heat battering his already weakened body, he could have been forgiven for not hearing the door to his room open quietly and then close in exactly the same way. Burying his head in the sweat covered pillow, he breathed deeply as the pain started to subside. Lying face down on the bed, as this seemed slightly less painful than lying directly on his back, his thoughts darted back to the lancet pen and recovering all the magical energy he'd already lost. Draping his right hand over the side, he scrabbled about on the floor with his fingers, trying to find the pen, without any luck. Abruptly, a rapturous, throaty laugh enveloped the tiny room. Very slowly, he rolled over. Standing at the foot of his bed was a tall, blonde female scientist, Dr Alison Manilow, if his near perfect memory served him correctly. She was holding the primed lancet pen in one hand, a pistol with a silencer in the other.
"Looking for this?" she enquired glibly.
Flash considered his options in all but a split second. He needed the lancet pen. If he could get to it, taking her down shouldn't present too much of a problem. Without the pen, he was almost certainly destined to die here and now.
"You've caused us no end of problems today," she sneered, a hint of steel in her throaty voice.
Not knowing what else to do, Flash just gave her the biggest, toothiest smile he could muster, hoping it might anger her enough to get distracted.