With the shield lowered, there was nothing to stop another magical attack; he knew, however, that it just wouldn't come. Not that they wouldn't want to of course. No! They wanted him alive. They wanted him to suffer. And no doubt he would, over and over again. Almost broken to his very core and with little hope left inside him, he concentrated on the ring, and commanded it to rebuild the bridge that they'd blown into smithereens only a short time ago. With only the intake of breath from those dragons around him for company, strangely there was nothing from the exotic piece of jewellery. Not a peep. Once again he gave the order. Once again, it was, oddly, ignored.
Energy and magic sapped by the binders that held him in place, blood dribbling around the base of his neck and onto his chest, for the first time in an age he felt totally hapless and lost. Allowing himself to be captured and now used, without putting up even a hint of a fight had now cost the king and more importantly, the kingdom, any chance it had to rally against the deceitful acts that had been perpetrated against it. Alright, he'd been taken by surprise, and once confined by the power draining binders he'd had no chance to do anything, but he was pretty sure that others would have found an approach. There was no way in hell that Tank would have stood for all of this. Without a doubt, he would have found a way to escape and fight back. Gee Tee was another. Some fancy spell or other would have set him free, with more of his unusual, ancient magic no doubt inflicting serious casualties on the psychopaths that were behind all this.
Watching the king from a distance, head spinning, the breath of Manson's evil queen washing over his left ear, Peter's thoughts turned to his friends: Tank, Richie, Flash, Gee Tee, Yoyo... were they even all still alive? He didn't doubt for a minute that Richie was blissfully ignorant of her surroundings on the planet's surface, just like his love... Janice. Part of him felt sorry for Richie, not able to remember her true heritage. The rest of him envied her for not knowing the double-dealing hell that was now playing out, here, far underground. The others though, they had to at least be in a world of trouble. If Manson had gotten this far, then clearly he had plans for the rest of the world. Nagas would almost certainly have been the order of the day. Fighting back the tears, he tried desperately not to think of them as dead. But given the situation he found himself in, that was the only logical conclusion he could reach. Figuring the rest of his life could now be measured in minutes, rather than hours or days, he vowed there and then that he would look for that one opportunity to make somebody on the other side pay... with their life.
With enough to worry about already, the king had no idea why on earth the ring was failing to comply with his intent. Pushing everything else aside, he used the full force of his will to once again echo his command. The silence in his mind was brutally shattered as the ring screamed throughout his very being, shocking him to his core. Never in all his years had such a thing happened, and it took everything he had left not to drop to his knees. Lost in a melee of psychic screams, the monarch did everything he could to try and understand what the ring was trying to tell him. Almost instantly it became clear that it was some kind of complaint, rebellion against his chosen course of action, laid out in the most vigorous of fashions. Using what little energy he had left, he tried to lay it all out in front of the ring, explain the rationale behind his thinking, in the hope that it could be brought onside. But it wasn't to be, with the fabulously flamboyant band steadfastly refusing to do his bidding. Without warning, the enigmatic piece of jewellery became silent and inert.
Dropping his head into both hands and letting out an almighty sigh, the king propelled his voice across the void, out towards his enemies.
"The ring has refused to rebuild the bridge. I've done everything I can to try and convince it otherwise, but it's simply out of my hands now. You'll have to do it yourself."
Manson's queen, Earth, cackled uncontrollably.
"Look at you old man, unable to even persuade an outdated magical relic to do your bidding. PATHETIC!" she spat.
Still clinging on to Peter and Tim's necks with her razor sharp nails, Earth looked back over her shoulder towards the array of nagas behind her.
"USE YOUR MAGIC!" she commanded. "REBUILD THE BRIDGE!"
As one, half a dozen of them slithered forward, the sickening noise of their bodies shifting across the ground inducing terror and fear into Peter and Tim simultaneously.
Painfully pulling her captives back from the death defying drop by the nails dug deeply into their flesh, ignoring their muffled screams, Earth made way for the six nagas, keen to see the extent of their magical abilities.
Slinking around so that each of them faced outwards and the tips of their tails all touched in the middle, the snake-like creatures formed a circle and all closed their eyes. Moments later a loud hum echoed throughout the chamber and the air almost felt like water, thick, heavy, pushing out against everything. Immediately every being there developed a headache, blistering agony blossoming out from behind their eyes and noses, some almost unable to stand because of their acute anguish, as the strange and unusual magic filled the air.
If not for the fingernails piercing their muscles, the two hostages, Peter and Tim, would have dropped to their knees, instead choosing to close their eyes and ride out the wicked waves of pain that assaulted them.
The magic was powerful, he had to give them that, but it was nothing he hadn't experienced before in his many centuries of service to the domain he'd dedicated his life to. Stoic spirit almost crushed, he chose to remain standing, steadfastly ignoring the assault on his false human appearance, a little part of him remaining open to the mysterious ring on his finger, hoping against hope that it would relent and at the very least talk to him. But so far... it wasn't to be.
Wrapped in darkness, the air around her abruptly took on a whole new dimension. Closing in, it felt as though it were trying to crush her, consume her magic, bury her spirit. Pulling the dark cowl down over her face, she smiled as the original pain from behind her eyes, that which had caught her by surprise, faded somewhat. The cloak, however it worked, had provided her with some kind of protection, for which she was eternally grateful. Now if only the others would arrive and join the party, then she could get on and finish this. Impatience was starting to eat away at her.
'Statuesque' would describe the circle of nagas. Not one of them moved a muscle, but clearly they were in contact with one another. Out of nowhere there was a brilliant, bright flash, followed by a booming thunderclap. Dragons on the king's side of the chasm dropped to their knees, afraid for their very existence.
Earth smiled as her eyes refocused, the brilliant, bright white light fading into nothingness as out in front of her, every conceivable shade of brown rock materialised from absolutely nothing, melding seamlessly with that on which they were already standing, a slight crunching ricocheting around all the walls as it did so. It wasn't quick, taking almost four minutes in all, but it was a rare sight and pleasurable to watch the smugness being wiped from the faces of the king's supposed protectors as they realised that now there really was nowhere to run. As the air returned to normal and the headaches disappeared, evil started to slide across the magnificent bridge that had just materialised out of nothing. Clearly, it was over now, and nothing could stop them ruling the planet, once and for all.