Unkempt, bruised, battered, and clad in laminium chains, Fredric, now free from the captivity of the icy hellhole in Antarctica, knelt down on the floor, head bowed, his long, matted, scraggy hair concealing most of his face. Having survived the tortuous ravages of decades in confinement, it was ironic that his first taste of freedom should break him almost immediately.
Floating on the air, dodging and ducking brilliant bolts of blistering magic, George's mind finally reached his friend. Not wanting to startle him, the king rubbed his mind across the back of Fredric's head, something akin to a human handshake. Normally a reaction would be instantaneous, but not now. Stumped momentarily, the floating will changed tack, deciding that perhaps startling was what he needed. Now he tapped... tap, tap, tap... hoping a more concerted effort would have a noticeable effect. Not so. Searching his memory, scanning the vast array of knowledge he'd accumulated across his time walking the planet, he discovered another tactic, one he'd only used once, many, many decades ago. Enclosing Fredric's head, the consciousness poked and prodded this time, but once again to no avail. It was as he thought though: his friend had erected a mental barrier, something only usually done in times of danger or close quarters combat, like now. To the king's mind, it felt very much like a dome made from brick, mortar filling the gaps and all. So with that in mind, and with what felt like his last chance at reaching his friend, his consciousness dropped onto the top of the brick and effectively turned into liquid. More than anything, this required an awful lot of magic, something the king lacked by not having his majestic ring any more, and a mighty amount of concentration. This he could manage. And so having held the liquid in place with quite a lot of effort, slowly he allowed a few tiny drops to trickle down the side, searching and scouring for any gap at all, no matter how infinitesimal. One by one, he let even more go, each and every drop trickling across the course surface of the brick, some following the maze of the mortar, until finally every last inch of the surface of the protective dome had been covered. 'Blast,' he thought, frustrated at not having found a way in. It was then that he realised what he had to do, back across the other side of the chamber, deep within his body. Recalling his consciousness, he used a little of his magic to create a soothing wave of healing energy that he let run riot throughout his being. With not quite so much pain inhibiting his aged limbs, he staggered to his feet, looking for some way to cross the distance between himself and his friend without getting fried. In all his time, he'd never done anything like this.
From one king to another...
Flattening himself close to the brilliant white marble floor, he soaked up the refreshing cold, almost missing the icy confines of Antarctica. ALMOST! With no time to dwell on that, he rolled three times to his left, raised himself up to full height, ducked out of the way of the oncoming razor sharp blade his dragon opponent scythed in his direction, and in his mind, conjured up the words he needed. Foreign to all but his own distinctive race, the language, combined with just enough willpower and magic, produced a spectacular result. From just above the dark grey dragon, a dozen needle sharp, ice encrusted stalactites rocketed down, inundating their target, piercing it in over nine places, the most lethal of which punctured the beast's skull. Instantly dead, the prehistoric corpse toppled forwards. Effortlessly, Vasuki slipped out of the way as the giant shadow did its best to consume him.
Momentarily free from any opponents, again he reached out for his brethren, something so instinctive it was positively built into his DNA. But again there was nothing. Well, not nothing exactly, more of a kind of static, perhaps a magical interference. Resigned to not being able to help his kind, at least for the moment, the powerful, strong and proud king glanced around to see where he could be of most use. Charging towards the nearest dark dragon that had just touched down from the air above and was about to launch an assault on the still kneeling Fredric, Vasuki vowed two things to himself. One... he would help his new found dragon comrades right to the very end if need be. And two... he would not spill naga blood here today, even if it meant sacrificing his own life. While these two things might be contradictory, he was determined to do no more harm than had already been done to any member of his race.
Slithering across the marble, the naga king sank his long, needle sharp fangs into the prehistoric beast's scaled tail, and was rewarded with a very satisfying scream of epic proportions. Relinquishing his hold on the magic he'd prepared, he let it loose and watched as forked lightning tore open the supposedly invulnerable scales of his opponent. Heading in for the kill, he kept his telepathic senses open to everything around him, hoping for some sign or contact from any of his race. He wasn't optimistic though.
From two true kings, to one wannabe pretender...
Powered by pure, unadulterated evil, Manson's rage reached tipping point, and in a magical act so astounding, he used the power of his mind to rip Flash off him and tossed him angrily against the nearest wall. Flash impacted with the force of a sledgehammer being wielded by a power lifter, all but leaving an imprint of himself in the cracked, fractured and smashed construction. Sliding almost comically to the floor, the 'clink' of the chains wrapped around his torso barely audible over the magical racket that played out across the rest of the chamber, the courageous ex-Crimson Guard valiantly surged to his feet, greedily gobbling up as much of the magic as he could from the laminium chains he wore.
Jumping up, shaking himself off, whilst at the same time using a miniscule amount of magic to repair his false human features, Manson was both surprised and annoyed to see Flash almost immediately get back to his feet. This on its own was enough to set alarm bells ringing throughout not only his head, but the rest of his body as well, and he was unable to remember any being he'd ever met that would have got up so quickly from a hit like that. Whoever this newcomer was, he was good... and powerful, he thought. Cursing his luck, unable to believe these new found obstacles that had been placed in his way, he delved as deep inside himself as he dared, searching for the most wicked of his magic. Finding it almost instantaneously, he found himself faced with a choice. Five deadly spells sat lined up against a wall in his head, each giving off matt black wisps of evil looking dark vapour. Selecting not quite the worst, he conjured it up in his mind and, with barely a glance, spat it out in the direction of Flash, who by now was running steadfastly towards him.
Head pounding like a pneumatic drill and blood gushing down his cheeks, Flash surged forward with all the speed he had. A blur didn't do him justice. On closing the gap to about half way, a succession of black tendrils rippled from the would-be king of this world's right hand, expanding out much as a spider's web would over time, only this happened in a split second. Caught off guard by not only the speed in which his opponent had reacted, but by the look of whatever strange mantra had been used, the ex-Crimson Guard had to re-evaluate all his options in far less than the blink of an eye. As the remarkable magic closed in around him, powered by the metal he wore, Flash leapt up and over, just off to his right, forgoing an immediate opportunity to get to his chief target. Sailing through the air, he felt ever so slightly smug at having skirted the dark dragon leader's attack, and was already preparing his next move. Thoughts of that disappeared in an instant as a liquid fire pain tore up his left leg, from ankle to shin, so bad in fact that he wished he were dead. Instead of forward rolling and bouncing back up to his feet, Flash crashed to the ground face first, breaking his human shaped jaw instantaneously, not that he noticed at all. The pain from the tendril of magic that had sliced open his left leg was all consuming. Nothing else existed or mattered. Thoughts of everything else were long forgotten as the ex-Crimson Guard writhed around, almost bound inside the laminium chains that circled his chest.