But Flash had already darted through the door and disappeared around a corner.
Three bulky guards pursued him into the waste disposal centre. Not quite sure why they were chasing him, they figured he must have done something wrong, that and the fact he was now inside a deeply restricted area and clearly running from them.
Meanwhile, he was on the lookout for a huge industrial incinerator that he knew existed somewhere inside the facility. Buried somewhere deep within it was the emergency entrance to the dragon domain. If he was right, he was searching for an innocuous looking plate, that, if touched in the right place, would move for just the briefest of moments and allow a human shaped dragon back into the underground world. Undoubtedly, the inside of the incinerator would be extremely hot and dangerous, no doubt full of toxic gases, contaminated needles, and other hazardous medical waste. These things were why this particular entrance was regarded as an emergency only entrance, at least that was his understanding. Very few emergency entrances existed, because there were so many other ways of returning back underground. But some did, thank God. He'd never really given it much thought before, but he did today. He wouldn't have made it to another, that's for sure, and so this emergency one, if he ever found it, might just save his life.
A dark haired woman wearing a lab coat and holding a clip board stepped out in front of him from an office off to one side. Her frown quickly turned into an angry look as she pointed at him with her free hand.
"Who are you? What do you think you're doing?" she asked snootily. "You're not allowed in here, you know. Remain where you are while I contact security," she ordered.
In a strange way, Flash was impressed. Even in his weakened state, he was a good deal taller than she was; his strength must have been obvious, as his bulging muscles were clearly visible through the ripped sections of the thermal base layers he was wearing, and yet here she was, fierce and defiant, ordering him to keep still and wait.
'Impressive indeed,' he thought, standing only three feet from her. In different circumstances, he might have sought her out, got to know her. Unfortunately he really didn't have time for any of this, and much as it pained him to do it, and it really did, he had to take her out of the equation, now. Because of his training, he knew everything there was to know about human physiology. Every nerve, every muscle, every blood vessel, he knew them, more so than any other dragon, and even they knew an incredible amount. They had to, to perform and maintain the mantras that held their human disguises in place. But Flash and his fellow Crimson Guards had an altogether different knowledge. They knew where to strike a human to kill, maim, incapacitate or inflict the most pain possible. Humans across time had done all these things to each other, different factions claiming that they had more knowledge and were better at it than others, but the truth was, the understanding Flash had gained was far more intricate, detailed and dangerous than anything that had gone before it.
In the blink of an eye, Flash decided what had to be done, based purely on need, with the little voice in the back of his mind playing its part as well, urging him not to hurt this fiery little human too much. Quick as a... flash, he let go with the sharpest and strongest punch he could. It connected with the dark haired woman just below the temple. Before she hit the floor, Flash caught her in his arms. Lowering her gently to the cold, hard surface, he rolled her onto her side and checked her breathing, before deciding to procure her lab coat. Quickly whipping it off her, slipping his arms through the sleeves as far as they'd go (not very far), he then sprinted off further into the heart of the disposal centre. It was a reasonably sized place, and he was just guessing where he had to go, following his gut feeling if you like. Reaching a junction in the corridor, he stopped momentarily. Pausing to catch his breath and make a best guess about which direction he should go in next, he felt the hot stabbing pain of one of the spasms, start to creep up his back. Knowing time was of the essence, he darted left, the stolen, ill-fitting lab coat flapped about in his wake.
Meanwhile, the flurry of guards giving chase had found the unconscious woman on the floor of the corridor. A brilliant purple nebula bruise had just started to blossom out below her temple. One of the guards stayed with her, while the other two continued to give chase.
Flash found himself in a corridor that was considerably darker than all the others. Through a series of glass windows, he could make out a room up ahead with a lot of computer monitors in. If he was right, and he hoped to goodness that he was, this would be the control room for the incinerator. Slowing to a walk, he crept along one side of the corridor, sticking to the shadows, determined to confirm whether or not it was the control room before he entered it. While he could see some of the monitors from where he was, a large part of the room was still obscured. Assuming there were people working in there, how many, he just didn't know, pressing his sweaty head up against the glass, he looked at the bank of monitors nearest to him. It took only a few seconds to realise that this was indeed the control room, and by the looks of things, the incinerator was just cooling down from having been used.
'Perfect,' he thought, turning his back on the glass and the monitors. 'There should be some sort of access in the control room into the incinerator, even if it's just a maintenance hatch. All I have to do is overcome whoever is in the control room, use the hatch, and then BAM, I'm back in the dragon world.'
Taking a deep breath, pushing the nagging pain in his back aside, he decided to stroll into the room, size up the situation and then act... quickly, relying on the element of surprise and the fact that he could respond to the situation much faster than a roomful of human technicians. Keeping his head down, he strolled quickly down the corridor, turned right into the control room, all the time poised to act. On entering the windowless room, he found two people slumped over their keyboards right in front of him. Before he had time to figure out exactly what was going on, a rasping voice drifted out from behind a bank of computer servers that he'd already passed.
"I knew you'd head for this place. You dragons are so... predictable, just like the silly little humans."
Instantly, he whirled round, all the time aware of the nagging pain in his back. There, standing across the room from him, was a large, bald headed human, very tall and very strong from the looks of things, dressed in a green surgeon's gown similar to the one Flash had discarded earlier. All hope of returning to the dragon domain with the information he'd gleaned, seeped out of him. Clearly the human in front of him was no such thing, and was instead almost certainly a naga, here to destroy him.
"I thought from what I'd been told that you'd be so much... more," rasped the naga, chuckling just a little. "Apparently you've caused a significant amount of trouble, even killing some of my people; no mean feat. And yet here you are before me, weak and pitiful. No match for any of us really. It must have been luck. What do you say?"
For the first time in his entire life, Flash was speechless; he had no remark, no witty comments, no famous last words... nothing! All he could think of was how close he'd come to returning with the information, and how he would never find out what was really going on.
Without warning, the naga sprinted towards him, diving at the very last moment. Despite all his training, Flash couldn't avoid the collision. It was as though he were wading through treacle, his arms and legs barely responding to his brain's commands. All he could do was make sure it was a glancing blow, rather than the full on contact the naga had hoped for. Gracefully, the naga rolled up onto its feet, while the contact sent Flash flying into a desk, smashing his head onto a large monitor that had subsequently fallen to the floor. Grinning confidently from across the room, the naga laughed.