Robes soaked in disgusting, human coloured blood barely visible through their dark brown colour, covered from head to toe in dust, reeking of smoke, toasted flesh and supernatural power, Earth strolled casually up the side of the pile of debris Manson perched atop, taking in all the action, getting ready to enjoy the impending death of his enemies. Sharing a glance, neither said a word. They'd didn't have to; their thoughts, like the expressions on their faces, told their own stories, their destinies intertwined almost as if fate had fashioned them that way.
Directly below Flash, much the same battle was taking place on the ground as Vasuki, king of the nagas, fought furiously with members of his own beloved race, very much against his will and better judgement.
Using an expanding, circular, sonic wave, Vasuki threw back a ring of three of his kind all trying to attack him at once. Knowing that they weren't down for good, he proceeded to press his advantage. At the first sign of naga reinforcements he'd tried to be a good king, do the right thing for his kin, trying to only stun them, take them out of the fight temporarily. Of course it hadn't worked. They'd got up and joined back in with some of their allies, almost costing him his life, but teaching him a very valuable lesson. On the field of battle, there could be no holding back. You had to give it your all, at all times. It was do or die, there was simply no other way. And so it proved to be. Without hesitation, driven on by a sense of self preservation and a determination to stop the abomination of a world that the murderous Manson was trying to create, the naga king ruthlessly used his superior magic to cut down swathes of his own race, in an effort to stop the violence. Unfortunately it wasn't working. The more he destroyed, the more appeared in their place, driven on by some kind of forced magical will. Inside, it broke his heart.
Aware of Flash, his rescuer from that Antarctic nightmare, fighting furiously above him, he too threatening to be overwhelmed, the thought of fleeting respite filled his thoughts. Through the throng of vicious antagonists, he'd briefly caught sight of the giant shield that had moved over to the other side of the arena, now no doubt protecting the king and those that had been fighting alongside him. Realising just how hopeless their position had become, inside his serpent-like head he hatched a plan, one that might cost him his life, but could well save his rescuer above, who he knew had given everything to come back to that Antarctic prison. Opening his mind out into the arena as he continued to stave off attacks, he searched frantically until he found what he was looking for. In a mental kind of knock on the door, he screamed out inside his head, hoping to be noticed.
"FLAAAASSSSHHH! FLAAAASSSSHHH! It'ssss meeeeee... Vaaasssuuukiii. Opeeennnn upppp!"
Suspicious beyond belief, fully knowing that it might be a tactic used by the enemy in an effort to dominate his mind, particularly with a horde of other nagas on the rampage, he wondered how they would know him by name as he glanced down in the direction of the ground at Vasuki himself. One look was enough to confirm Flash's suspicion that it was no ruse. Filtering the contact through a tiny hole in his fortress-like mental barricades, the ex-Crimson Guard asked Vasuki what was so important that it couldn't wait.
"We'llllllll beeee oveeerruuuun sooooon. I caaann clearrrrr ussss a path onnn the grouuuund. Buuuuut weee haave toooo goooo nooowww."
Using a gravitic attack to crush all the bones in an oncoming dragon's wing, Flash swirled round to face the next mid-air attacker, there and then realising the king of the nagas was right. Enemy reinforcements were swarming in from every direction... dragons in the air, nagas on the ground. There was simply no way they could outlive those kind of odds, something the still smirking Manson far below him was no doubt counting on.
"DO IT!" Flash sent out through the link. "I'll be ready."
"I wiiiillllll neeeeed toooo use uuuppp every laaast biiiiiit oooof my maaaagic. I miiiightt noooottt maaake it."
"I understand," replied Flash, wondering what the hell that might mean.
Summoning up a brief icy storm that froze two potential attackers mid-flight, the ex-Crimson Guard circled around only to find himself face to face with the most gruesome and frightening being he'd ever encountered, and that included his little dalliance in Antarctica that still haunted his dreams to this day. There, only a few metres away, closing in at a dizzying speed, was a battle scarred, dark brown and green, three-headed dragon, spitting fire from each of his disfigured jaws, madness rolling around each of his six eyeballs. Any other being approached by this would have frozen up completely. Not Flash. Using a tiny sliver of magic to hugely increase his mass momentarily, he tucked in his wings and let his prehistoric body drop like a stone. It did, narrowly avoiding the creature's violent attack. Out of its reach, Flash returned his mass to its normal density, used his tail as a rudder, flapped both of his powerful wings, and whilst barrel-rolling, at the same time circled as tight as he dared, pulling around and back in behind the macabre beast, hot on its tail so to speak. You'd think with three heads, it would have awesome all round vision, but that didn't seem to be the case with this monster. The way in which its necks were fused together provided all three heads with limited mobility, something that Flash was now about to use against it. Powering his mighty wings as hard as he could, turning on a short burst of speed, Flash glided right up to the back of three heads without the monster even noticing. Pleased at having negotiated his wake without any problems at all, the affable ex-Crimson Guard gathered up all his strength, courage and in this case... rage. Without hesitation he plunged down towards the fiend's exposed back, jaws wide open, fangs bared, ready to take a huge bite. Hitting with the kind of precision you'd expect from a dragon with his experience, his jaw crunching through scale, sinew, soft tissue and bone about half way down his adversary's spine, it was a spectacular attack, almost certainly the most audacious and brilliant aerial assault that had played out that day. With no warning and the ferocity of prehistoric apex predators that had roamed the planet long before his race had been conceived, it was over in a moment, 'Three Heads' plummeting clumsily to the hard surface, far, far below.