"I think it might just be about time for a drink, don't you?" announced Gee Tee.
"I'll put us all on some hot charcoal," declared Peter, looking to be helpful.
"That wasn't quite what I had in mind, child," purred the master mantra maker, a mischievous glint in his eye.
Understanding immediately, Peter wondered just how Tank might react to what was about to happen. Dragging his tail in the direction of the nearest filing cabinet, Gee Tee was about to try and reach up when in one leap, Tank jumped and grabbed something long and silver off the top. Slamming back down onto the floor, Tank held out the dusty, silver cylinder towards the old shopkeeper.
"Would this be what you're after, by any chance?"
Gritting his teeth, Peter held his breath. Flash stood, bemused by what was going on. Gee Tee turned his head back over his shoulder, giving Peter an icy glare, not realising that he hadn't revealed the old shopkeeper's secret.
"It might be," replied the master mantra maker.
"Hmmm," voiced Tank, clearly enjoying every second of the Emporium owner's discomfort. "I have to ask why you would want some..." Tank took a deep breath and blew off part of the thick layer of dust, "Peruvian Mantra Ink."
As a single thought circled throughout his head, Peter's lips creased into a tiny smile. Tank knew about the ink, and what it really was. The follow on thought was: how? Most certainly, he himself had never even so much as hinted at its existence.
"Might I ask how you know?"
"No... you might not," countered Tank, grinning from ear to ear. "But you should know two things. One... Peter didn't tell me, as I assume from your little glance at him, that he knew. And two... you're not nearly as sneaky or clever as you seem to think you are." And with that, in one fluid motion, Tank whipped the cap off the cylinder and let a small sip run gently down his throat. Peter, Gee Tee, and in particular Flash, who had no idea what was going on, all looked on in anticipation. Rolling his head and neck from side to side, seemingly swirling the liquid round and round inside him, Tank's face changed in an instant, but not how Peter pictured it would. A dreamy quality etched itself across the rugby playing dragon's bold, rugged features. Peter could almost see the liquid making its way up inside his friend's neck. Effortlessly, Tank opened his mouth just slightly and exhaled. A long, drawn out, blue flame, tinged around the edges with red and orange, snaked out across the room. Gee Tee, Peter and Flash all looked on in awe. Just when Peter thought it couldn't get any more amazing, the flame started to curl up in the air and form a shape. The line of flame cut off and then started again, in much the same way. All the time the room's occupants stared in disbelief. Four separate lines of flame hung in the air on the far side of the room, as Tank stood making tiny motions with his fingers. Ever so slowly, the flames twisted and turned and... changed. Changed into four separate letters, spelling out the word... T... A... N... K.
Surprisingly, Gee Tee was the first to react.
"Very good. I'm... impressed. Some of my tutoring must have rubbed off after all." Tank grinned and shook his head.
Peter patted his friend on the back gently to get his attention.
"How did you get it to do that?" he asked. "When I had a go, it was like a raging tempest that I couldn't control."
"The raging tempest responsible for that slag heap of a filing cabinet that I spent most of one morning cleaning up?"
"Uhhh... yeah, sorry about that," replied Peter sheepishly.
"You two must think I've got the brains of a politician," ventured Tank, offering the silver cylinder to Flash.
Still a little behind on the conversation, his experience had enabled him to catch up on a few things. Gripping the dusty cylinder, he put his nose directly above the top and sniffed.
"If I'm not mistaken... 'igneus saevio'... very impressive."
"Igneus saevio?" questioned Peter, just beating Tank and Gee Tee to it.
"Yeah, means... 'fiery rage'," remarked Flash thoughtfully, "from my least favourite beings on the whole planet... the nagas. Although, to give them credit, this was one of the best things they've ever produced and if memory serves me correctly, it was specially concocted for one of the dragon kings, a gift for the aid he rendered them in some kind of battle they were losing. A gift that incorporates all their renowned alchemy skills, I might add."
The three others all looked on in astonishment.
"Anyway... bums in the air," Flash announced, taking a slightly bigger sip than Tank had.
"I think you mean... bottoms up," corrected Peter, in a voice that sounded very much like that of a teacher.
"I know what I meant," gurgled Flash, much to Peter's chagrin.
It soon became clear that Flash was also adept at controlling (if that was the right word) the 'drink': it didn't hang around inside him, as it had in Tank, but seemingly using his hands, and his fingers in particular, Flash managed to burp, belch and expel all sorts of intricate 3D shapes, his latest being a rather impressive love heart.
After watching Tank and Flash master the art of drinking, or controlling, igneus saevio, Gee Tee quickly resumed where they left off, and in no time at all was hurling all sorts of intricate shapes and patterns throughout the workshop. The master mantra maker bowed at the mock applause, and then it was Peter's turn. Having watched his friends work almost miracles, he was more than a little tense, which was totally understandable really, given his previous experience with the disguised Peruvian mantra ink. Grasping the silver cylinder with both hands, Peter gulped down the tiniest sip he dared, with the three others looking on. Moments later the pleasure from the drink worked its way down his throat and circled around the top of his stomach like some out of control train. Despite this, he felt more relaxed and in control of the situation than the last time he'd tried some and was starting, or so he thought, to control the drink with some very intricate patterns that his fingers were making. That was, right up until the point where Tank's oversized head popped up directly in front of Peter's face. Briefly, Peter wondered if he was doing something wrong, but it turned out Tank had something else in mind for his friend. Instantly Tank sucked his cheeks in as far as they would go, while at the same time screwing up his nose and turning cross eyed.
Peter reacted in the only way he could... he laughed. Not just a little laugh, but the mother of all laughs, and couldn't for the life of him remember seeing anything funnier than his friend's face at that very moment. As the tears started to run down his face, it suddenly dawned on him that the igneus saevio had, for all intents and purposes, escaped the clutches of his control. As this registered somewhere deep inside his mixed up DNA, he wondered why Tank's funny face had disappeared, to be replaced by his normal face, crying tears of laughter. It was then that he noticed that Flash, too, had tears of laughter running down each of his cheeks, dripping like water from a drainpipe during a storm, onto the floor. Gee Tee, from a sitting position behind Peter, was slightly quicker on the uptake than Peter himself, and with a speed and agility that belied his age, dived headfirst across the workshop, the tiniest flap of his wings helping him on his way. It was then that it happened. There was nothing Peter could have done to stop it, that was how quick and without warning it was. The single biggest, rip roaring fart in the world exploded from Peter's bum, forcing a blue and green whistling fireball to rip a hole in the back of his trousers, totally destroying the chair that the old shopkeeper had been sitting in only a split second before.