Striding barefoot across the frozen floor of the cavern, chest puffed out, magic oozing from every pore of his glistening body, Peter's grandfather approached the broken form of the most wicked being he'd ever encountered. Part of him wanted to exact revenge, make him pay for the evil deeds he'd carried out over the course of decades. It was more than part of him... most of him in fact. But that tiny part of reason which had long since been responsible for keeping him sane throughout his captivity, roared at him to get it over with, if for no other reason than to help the others and get a better understanding of the much bigger picture. And so without further ado, Fredric called forth the might of all of his supernatural power and with a fury built up over decades, unleashed a devastating magical attack that no being on the planet would have been able to defend against. Air atoms imploded, fire and electricity forked out of Fredric, crossing the gap between the two enemies in the blink of an eye, incinerating every last molecule of the depraved jailer, leaving only a steaming, charred mess scorched into the ice. Briefly soaking up the wave of satisfaction that rolled across him, it was then that his professionalism and training kicked in, and the former founder of the Crimson Guards returned, the outcome of the underground battle now totally and utterly assured.
Earth's surface. Primm, United States of America.
Having just finished brushing his teeth for what seemed like the hundredth time, he sucked in a breath mint, hoping against hope that it might just brighten up his senses and get rid of the stale, musty cigarette odour that permeated the whole of the room he'd paid handsomely for. Buffalo Bill's hotel and Casino! Come to Primm, see the sights, stay in the lap of luxury. What a crock! Any cheap, roadside motel would have been cleaner, and CHEAPER! Still, he did at least blend in. There was a conference of some sort. He wasn't sure who was running it or what it was for, but the attendees were nearly all single businessmen. And so the hotel was full to the brim with them, ideal for him and cementing his cover almost perfectly.
Strolling out from the pathetic excuse of a bathroom, he wandered over to the window and gazed out over the rollercoaster layout that surrounded much of the car park, towards the mountains off in the distance beyond the sand drenched plains, dotted with towering electricity pylons. What a truly dreadful place this was, he thought, longing not for the icy wilderness that he thought of as home, but just a body of water, any amount of water... a creek, a lake, a reservoir... anything. Just not that godforsaken swimming pool that so many of the single businessmen had now decided to descend upon, forcing every female even thinking about a swim to scatter like bathers at the beach sighting a fin cutting through the water.
Watching tumbleweed tumble, and tiny grains of sand carried on the ever present breeze disperse in a multitude of directions, his thoughts turned to what he was here to do. He'd been tasked... no, ordered to bring Las Vegas, north of his current location, to its knees. How he went about this was left to his discretion, but that was what he'd been told. And he would carry out those orders to the letter.
Not at all like most of his race, he was an exceptional type of inventor, which was unusual in itself and caused him to be shunned by most like him, that is until they wanted something only he could achieve, he who could combine magic and technology like no one else on the planet. Nothing was beyond his means. Possibility was only held in check by how far his imagination stretched. Quite far, as luck would have it. Turning away from the window, he strolled across the beer stained carpet, all the time ignoring the smell, to the singular table adjacent to the breakfast bar. Opening the dark duffel bag, he reached in and pulled out a shiny silver tube, about fifty centimetres long and four centimetres in diameter. Spinning it round in his hands, he admired it from every possible angle, occasionally taking pride in his false reflection in the window. It was a marvel of technology, even by his standards, and had taken him nearly six months to fully develop the idea and turn it into a functioning prototype. Well, five functioning prototypes, to be exact. Over the last week, he'd planted the other four in what he hoped were strategic points circling the city of Las Vegas.
The first he'd hidden in a tyre yard in Pahrump, off to the west. Having scouted the location during daylight hours, it had been no great shakes to break in at night and hide the seismic shocker (that was the name he'd come up with for the devices) amidst the looming tyre towers. Even if they were looking for it, nobody would have a hope in hell of finding it. He was quite proud of that.
The second had seem him slip on his hiking boots and head out onto a little used mountain trail east of St George which itself was east of Las Vegas. The walk was exhausting, but paid dividends. He'd found the perfect place to bury the next shocker. Once again pride ran through him at the thought that nobody would find where he'd put it. It was almost the perfect crime, although nothing untoward had come about so far.
Next he moved on to India Springs north of the gambling metropolis, but not before spending a day recovering from his exertions on the mountain trail, back in his hotel in St George. Sunburn had been something of a problem. Of course he could have magically adjusted his form with just a few words and removed it, but others had seen him on his return and so lying low for a day seemed the appropriate resolution. He'd gotten away with it and learned a valuable lesson for the future with that one. He'd cleverly buried the third shocker beneath a lonely Joshua tree on the outskirts of town, having taken a walk with all of his human photography kit. Nothing too unusual in that.
For the fourth shocker, he'd crept up through the mountains in the pitch black, not such a difficult task enhanced by his magical legacy. Over the course of half the night, he'd snuck into a huge solar farm south east of Vegas and, using some magnets of his own design, had attached the shocker to the back of one of the tens of thousands of solar panels at random. The odds of anyone finding it before it was used were astronomical... lottery winning odds in fact.
And so here he was in Primm, looking to locate the last of the five seismic shockers and get the hell out of dodge before setting his cunning plan in motion, via a cell phone, from a long, long way away. Having had a good look around on his way into town, he'd examined and then discarded a few locations already. There'd been a fountain directly outside one of the filling stations. It didn't look as though anyone would pay too much attention to it, but he couldn't be sure and so had opted for something else. There'd been quite a bit of vegetation surrounding most of the parking lots and malls, all of which he could have used, but still he couldn't settle. It was only when he pulled into the hotel lot and saw the rollercoaster track surrounding half the hotel, that he knew he'd found the answer. And so that's what he settled on. Under the cover of dark he'd take a walk, claiming that he needed to clear his head. And then using some of his own magnets, he'd attach the last seismic shocker to part of the roller coaster. It should blend in seamlessly with all the other metallic elements of the design. Once far enough away in a few days' time, he'd dial in using the number only he knew, setting off the magic which, when combined with the technology, would cause ground quake after ground quake, powerful enough to do some serious damage to the world's number one gambling city, spreading fear, chaos and confusion throughout. Las Vegas wouldn't know what had hit it.