'What am I to do next?' he thought.
As the guard's belly bulged like an overinflated football and heavy water sloshed out of his mouth, trickling rapidly down his chin, the freed dragon standing next to Hook held out his arm and said,
"You can stop now. I'll finish this."
Releasing the pressure on the trigger of his rifle, the strapping rugby player kept his finger hovering above it, just in case he was needed again. Stepping forward towards the statue-like guard whose eyes and nose were bulging in much the same way as his belly, without any ceremony or fuss the freed dragon pulled back his head and did exactly what the guard had been about to do to him, only moments before. He let rip with the mother of all flames, the heat from which Hook could feel radiating off him from where he was, over ten feet away. Concentrated on the guard's belly, despite supposedly being immune to heat or fire, the intense stream of flame lit up the guard's scales, forcing them to glow brightly. Whether that was the result of the intense heat radiating out of the freed dragon's jaws, or the fact that the guard's belly was bursting with heavy water, wasn't apparent. What was apparent, however, was the fact that something had to give, any second now! Glowing the brightest red possible, the remaining scales that had been holding the bursting belly in place disintegrated simultaneously. SPLAT! The guard's stomach exploded with such vigour that soft tissue and organs shot off in all directions, some landing on the roofs of houses over fifty yards away. Hook dropped to his knees, at the same time turning to face the other way. It was a good job he had. An array of the dead dragon's scales sat buried in the metal on one side of the ancient backpack. Letting out a sigh of relief, the strapping rugby player turned to look at the freed dragon beside him. He shouldn't have been surprised. He really shouldn't have. But he was. The ecstatic looking dragon was just swallowing what looked like a large organ of some description, his jaws, cheeks and stomach covered in thick green blood. A long tongue darted out, licking the glistening scales down both sides of his mouth and the underside of his jaw clean. Turning to look at the rather stunned human, deadpan, he ventured,
"Hmmmm... Saturday night. Can't beat a takeaway."
And with that, he smiled, before turning and limping back off towards the action. Tears of laughter rolled down Hook's cheeks.
Casey pulled in a massive breath. Richie stood her ground, worried about being fooled again. This time it wasn't a feint. A scorching line of flame hurtled towards the ragged looking lacrosse captain. As was her prerogative, she met it full on. Holding the laminium dagger out in front of her, she siphoned off some of its power and used it to form a shield in the shape of a hemisphere. Sizzling orange, yellow and blue tinged flame bounced off the barrier, deflecting harmlessly away. Casey's smile disappeared instantly. Lunging forward, all thoughts of battle tactics out of the window, the evil ex-classmate of hers was determined to exact revenge for every wrong he considered he'd been on the end of. In a million years, she wouldn't have expected him to do that. Momentarily stunned, she was caught off guard. Swiping at him as he rushed her, a thin line of blood along the end of his jaw gave her the briefest feeling of satisfaction. Unfortunately, he'd breached her defences and hit her at speed, butting her up in the air. Tumbling head over heels, she landed hard on her back, the laminium dagger clinking to the ground many yards away. As he wiped the blood from his jaw with his hand, the smile returned to Casey's face. It was nearly over.
Turning into a cacophony, the tiny voice in Flash's head screamed that something somewhere was very, very wrong. Turning in a circle, it instantly became obvious what it was. The last time he'd looked, Richie had been more than holding her own, but he watched helplessly as the dragon torturer butted his friend into the air, praying silently for her to right herself as she dropped to the floor. She didn't, instead landing badly. She was in trouble. And he knew with every fibre of his being that he couldn't possibly get to her in time. What to do now?
Standing next to Flash, Janice turned with him, horrified at what she witnessed. Richie crashed onto the cobbles... HARD! She couldn't believe that anyone could get up from that, but knew if anyone could, it would be Richie. For a long time she'd found herself jealous of the young lacrosse player. Jealous of the relationship she had with her... boyfriend (currently that was too strong a word, but that's how she felt about him), her lover... PETER! But recently, she'd found herself admiring, believing in her. Tonight for instance, she hadn't particularly wanted to go out, and was worried out of her mind about Peter. It was so unlike him not to turn up and to be out of touch for so long, and on seeing the young lacrosse captain at the pub, Janice knew that she shared that worry. She also knew that Richie would leave no stone unturned in finding both Tank and Peter. She'd been right, and had followed her on the most unbelievable, the most incredible, the most downright dangerous quest, in just being there, trusting this awesome young woman with her life. Tears streamed down Janice's face as she watched, clutching Fu-ts'ang for all she was worth.
It came down to this. All his training, with every weapon imaginable, was for the most part irrelevant if you didn't choose the right weapon for the job in the first place. But sometimes, sometimes you just had to improvise with what was available. Mind racing through every possibility, one by one they were erased from the list of things that might work. All this happened in less than a hundredth of a second. That's how it worked in the Crimson Guards, and despite his rather sticky DNA position, Flash still considered himself affiliated with the elite troop.
As the last of the tears plummeted to the floor, Hook turned to see where he and his loaned backpack could next be of use. It was then that he spotted her, crashing desperately to the ground. Hairs on his arms stood to attention as his mouth ran dry, knowing he had to act. But he was over one hundred yards away, and she probably only had a few seconds at most. Instinctively, he twisted the dial on the rifle to the narrowest setting for the jet of water, flicked the switch to full power, while at the same time in his mind figuring out the trajectory he needed to hit the approaching dragon. It didn't seem possible, but he had to at least try. Standing tall, he aimed and fired, having calculated the trajectory spot on, with the water travelling as far as it could from where he was. However, it wasn't far enough. It must have dropped about thirty yards short of his intended target, the evil dragon with the whip who was now almost on top of Richie. Despair swallowed him up. There was simply no way he could run thirty yards with the backpack on, aim and fire in the time Richie had remaining. Frozen in place, the rifle dropped to his side as he watched the inevitable. Grief ripped his heart out. After all the violence he'd seen in the last hour, it couldn't end like this... COULD IT?
Flash knew exactly what Casey was going to do. It was exactly what he would have done if their roles had been reversed. With Richie immobile on her back, the dragon was going to line up his whip with her neck, and then... BAM! He would separate her head from the rest of her body, and was just moving in position to do so right now. Feeling sick to his core, in all his time, all his missions, he'd never felt under so much pressure. But he'd been taught to thrive on pressure, to embrace it, and... TO USE IT! He did as he'd been taught.