Tank couldn't take his eyes off what was happening, like one of those awkward videos people post on the internet, thinking they're funny when they're most certainly not. It was a car crash moment. His thoughts, just like his friend's, centred on whether or not a fight would ensue. He hoped so, if only for the distraction it might create. If it allowed him to retrieve the ring, then who knew what was possible? Not having liked hearing that previous monarchs had taken days or even weeks to bond with the magical artefact, he needed it to be instantaneous, here and now. If it was, just maybe some kind of resistance was possible. If not, then they were all well and truly up that creek, with only their hands to use as paddles. That was something that didn't bear thinking about.
'Crikey,' she thought. 'You go for ages without any psychopathic dragons coming along, and then like buses, two arrive almost at once. What are the chances?' Not knowing what to make of what was going on down below her, she let a little more of the power from the laminium dagger fill her now human body, sensing that the time to strike might almost be upon her. If the two bat-shit crazy dragons down below could effectively neutralise each other, a rescue attempt might just be a real possibility, however unlikely. In her mind, it all came down to the King's Guards, dotted around the residence. If they could put up some real resistance against the nagas and dark dragons tasked with holding them captive, and if she could free one or two of the others, then just maybe they could finish off the leadership of the rebellion and... BOOM! Everything would be back to normal. But for that to happen, Manson and the matt black dark dragon had to start fighting each other. Otherwise it was all a waste of time.
Earth's surface. Washington DC, United States of America.
A tiny, high pitched alert echoed out from the speakers sitting either side of the two giant LCD monitors, indicating that the anonymous account he'd set up had received yet another email. Dropping his oddly shaped lower half to the floor, having had both legs draped across the front left edge of his polished wood desk, he reached for the wireless mouse and clicked the icon on the screen.
'Wow!' was all he could think, as yet more money ratcheted up the total he'd so far brought in for his own personal use from the ransomware attacks. It had only been running for a little over four hours, but now stood at somewhere in the region of eight million dollars. Deliberately avoiding law enforcement agencies, he'd let loose the virus across the world, at first targeting institutions that relied heavily on technology such as hospitals, power grids, pharmacies and refineries, creating as much chaos as he could, before moving on to the average home user. The more mayhem the merrier he'd been told, and that had been what he'd aimed for. The money itself hadn't been important to those higher up, it was all about distraction, and that was something he could get behind.
'I'm a genius,' he thought, reflecting on all the coding and other hard work he'd had to put in to reach this very point. He was, however, more than a little paranoid and with that in mind, strolled over to the panoramic widow that wrapped itself around the tenth floor of his Georgetown condo. Instead of glancing out at the sunrise that had just started to edge above the glistening, flat water of the Potomac, silhouetting the tiny craft moored out in the middle of the slow moving body of water, he pushed his face right up to the reflective surface and glanced down at street level to the entrance to this particular block, hoping for all to be quiet. It was. There was NOTHING! And that included not a single black SUV skidding up to the lobby, with a dozen agents all converging on his position. That was good, he told himself. And besides, he and the others that had done all the work to put him here were way too smart to get caught out by the FBI or some other federal law enforcement agency. No doubt money had changed hands, palms greased as suspicious photos of important people in compromising positions had been brought to the fore. All of this told him he should be safe, at least for now. How much longer would it go on? This was all part of the effort to have his king released from captivity, but it had been going on way too long for his liking. Those at the top had got it wrong, as far as he was concerned, and were now being used, or worse, played with like an injured bird being dragged into the house through a cat flap, with absolutely no chance of escape. The first to laud and recognise everything the king had done for their race, pain tore away at his magical body hidden away behind this false form, at his belief that it was time to let their leader go and break free from this spell these evil dark dragons constantly held over them. Of course, it wasn't his choice. He was just a tiny link in the chain, able to offer up very little in the way of input. For just a moment, he imagined being free along with the rest of his kind, surfing the achingly cold, white water of the Antarctic, gobbling down whole penguins, rolling in the soft snow. A wave of pleasure at the picture rolled through him, before another high pitched alert jolted him from his thoughts.
32
A Room with a View
Lying prone, ignoring the blazing fires in the reflection of the window, the view was almost entirely as he remembered. Well... apart from the wicked looking beasts patrolling the perimeter, some strolling purposefully in pairs, others slithering in and out of the wreckage on their own, all armed to the teeth with magic and, by the look of things, all prepared to use it. It had been many decades since he'd been here, for an interview with one of the papers if his memory served him right. They'd wanted to know all about the Emporium's fall from grace and just who might have been behind it all. So he'd headed across London early one morning to meet a very attractive and very intelligent reporter in her office, in one of the buildings he was currently looking out on, right at this very moment. Fleet Street itself, here in the dragon domain, was a series of high rise offices, the tallest over twenty storeys high (second only to the council building in Buckingham), all laid out in concentric circles around the country's main node exchange, a single storey building lying smack bang in the middle of those circles, housing the mystical crystals that amplified the telepathic transfer of information. That was their objective today. As the memory of that day splintered into fragments, his thoughts centred on that reporter, hoping she'd not been anywhere near here when things had gone straight to hell. Back in the here and now, Gee Tee locked his vision on a point out past the nearest fires, trying desperately hard to see the front of the building that contained the telepathic node, the whole reason they were here.
"Well?" asked an impatient voice from the darkness back towards the stairwell, on this... the eighth floor.
"It's well guarded," answered Steel, resting next to the master mantra maker.
"But can you see the node exchange? Is getting there unseen a real possibility?"
Scales covering the old shopkeeper's chin wobbled like a jelly on a unicycle traversing a cobbled street, as he turned to face the newly reborn laminium ball player.
"What do you think?" enquired Steel.
"I think there's still too much we can't see. While it doesn't look too bad from here, there could be an army in there waiting to ambush us."
Steel concurred.
"What do we do?"
"A little reconnoitre, in my opinion, should work wonders. But I don't know who to send."
"I'll go."
"Is that wise, young one?"
Steel chuckled softly at the master mantra maker's reference.
"While my body is yet to harden fully, my mind has a vast wealth of knowledge and experience to draw on. Best of all, I'm topped right up with magic. My mana reserves have never felt so vast. And don't worry. I'll be careful. I've too much to live for now. Who on earth ever gets a second chance at life, especially in a brand spanking new body? It'll be okay."