* * *
Being here sent shivers down his spine. Goodness knows he'd been here often enough that the locals knew to leave him well alone; he felt safe enough and had no doubt that he wielded a sufficient amount of power to deal with anything thrown at him. Still, he shouldn't have to mix with the kind of low life that called this place their home. Moving swiftly on, he vowed to himself to make this his last trip to this tatty, desperate, run down, scum ridden hellhole.
* * *
Drawing the cloak around himself in the shadows as he crouched on one knee, panting, he watched as the councillor surreptitiously glanced back over his shoulder. Of course this wasn't just any cloak, it was the laminium cloak that he'd worn on his last outing to the Mantra Emporium, the one that would stop anyone sensing his presence, yet wouldn't stop anyone from physically spotting him. With his heart beating in his ears, confident that he was totally hidden, the king watched to see what would happen as the councillor stopped at a darkened entrance to a nondescript alley. Sure enough, after only a few seconds a creature appeared, half obscured by the shadows. The king's first thought was that it was another dragon, but on closer inspection he was sure that it wasn't. It was difficult to determine, due to the shadows and from what the king could tell, there was no way he could get any closer without revealing himself anyway. There were scales... plenty of them in fact, but something about the way they rippled looked and felt wrong. Plus, he could see no hint of any wings. At first he thought they might have been folded neatly back, just like Rosebloom's were, but the more he looked, the more certain he was that there weren't any there at all. While he wasn't one hundred percent sure, he was confident enough to tell himself that what he was looking at was nothing short of what young Flash had dealt with in Antarctica and Australia... a NAGA! At first he was stunned, too shocked to even move, but it didn't take long for the anger to rise up and fill his veins.
'How dare one of those creatures be living here in MY WORLD!' he thought, before rational thinking started to kick in, and he remembered the fact that he was here, alone, with no back up and no help. He had to be careful. There was no telling who or what else was in that alley. For all he knew, there could be half an army in there.
'Watch, observe and remember,' he told himself.
As he looked on, a rather heated and animated discussion broke out between the councillor and the creature. From what he could make out, Rosebloom had brought something with him, a piece of paper or parchment of some sort, and was about to hand it over. But things weren't going that smoothly for the traitorous councillor. It looked as though he expected something in return, something that clearly wasn't forthcoming.
'The cheater cheated,' thought the king. 'What a shame!'
Standing in animated conversation for another couple of minutes, Rosebloom clearly unhappy at the turn of events, getting more and more agitated as time went on, it turned out that whatever the creature said was more than enough to persuade him in the end. Reluctantly, the councillor handed over the sheet, said a few departing words, then turned and padded away. On turning, the king noticed for the first time a very real fear on the dragon's face, and that frightened him more than seeing a naga here in the dragon domain. Tucked well out of sight beneath his cloak, he waited quite a while, giving Rosebloom a big head start, not wanting their paths to cross on the way back. During his wait, he watched the mouth of the alley, desperate to know what secrets it held, but too afraid to get any closer. Before setting off, he thought briefly about coming back in force with the King's Guard, but dismissed it out of hand straight away.
'That creature and its cohorts would almost certainly have moved on by the time we got back,' he mused. 'Besides, all it would really do is alert Rosebloom that I'm on to him, something he clearly doesn't know at the moment, but would if I arrived here with a contingent of soldiers. I'll bide my time, but we will meet again, and when we do... they'll be hell to pay,' he promised, getting to his feet, vaulting into the air and off over the rooftops in the direction of home.
26
Steel Yourself!
New Zealand was a stunningly beautiful land, and all three had been having a wonderful time since arriving, but now it was time for the reason that they'd come all this way... LAMINIUM BALL! Following the winding crowd, eager to get to their seats, the three of them couldn't wait for the match to start, with Flash eyeing everything, mouth agape like a small child on Christmas morning, not surprising really given that this was his first laminium ball match and, quite frankly, he'd never seen anything quite like it. Various vendors sold all sorts of mantras, hats, socks, jewellery, flags and plastic laminium balls, as well as every type of food imaginable. Currently he wore an Indigo Warriors hat shaped like a rocket, with a huge cheese shape adorning the top. Having adopted the Warriors as his team, and with Peter's favourite player being Steel, and Tank's being Silverbonce, the ex-Crimson Guard had decided to plump for Cheese as his preference. Unsure why, he liked the name and there seemed to be plenty of Cheese merchandise to choose from. So with his newly bought hat on his head, a new pair of socks tucked into his pocket, a hot dog smothered in charcoal sauce in one hand, and a stack of charcoal covered doughnuts in the other, he tried desperately to keep up with his friends as they moved through the rather excited crowd. Sharing a look, Peter and Tank laughed at the thought of their very tough friend never having been to a laminium ball match before. Flash had been totally taken in by the atmosphere of the match even before it had started. Boy was he in for a treat when the game actually came alive.
* * *
Deep below them, the teams lined up. Steel stood at the front, chest puffed out, eyes focused straight ahead, as was his ritual. Looking calm, motivated and ruthless, he felt anything but. Truth be told, he was worried, and not just a little, knowing better than to turn around and look towards the back of the line where Silverbonce was standing, despite feeling the need to do so. Sure the old mouth guard was feeling the same way, and if his account of what had happened in Austria all those years ago was anything to go by, then lives might well be at stake. It was hard to concentrate on going out there and playing laminium ball, even though that was what he was paid to do. It was his job, his profession, his passion and not only did he love it, but he felt honoured and privileged every time he took to the air. He only hoped today that the feeling the two of them shared, turned out to be totally innocent and harmless.
* * *
Squeezing past a whole host of other dragons, eventually the three friends found their allocated seats and tried to sit down. It wasn't a quick process though. First they had to sort out their massive beakers of fizzy drinks, align all their snacks... charcoal popcorn, a selection of pencils, crisps, chocolate covered charcoal... the lot. It was a good job there was a great deal of leg room, mainly due to the fact that they'd chosen to attend in their human guises, in a show of solidarity towards their permanently changed friend, while their seats had been configured for huge natural dragon forms. So once done, they reclined, looking a lot like babies in high chairs in the massive oversized dragon seats. Moments later the lights dimmed and the audience started to clap.
Echoing through the solid rock wall in front of them, the clapping did little in the way of disrupting Steel's focus. His mind was well and truly elsewhere. It was too late now, he realised. Between them, he and Silverbonce had found nothing that presented any sort of danger, try as they might. And now he would have to go out into the arena and concentrate on doing his job to the best of his ability, however hard that might be. Trying one last time to push away the nagging sensation of danger deep inside him, without much luck, he watched as the slightest of rumbles heralded the wall in front of him rolling gently out of the way, revealing the darkened stadium, lit up by only the rolling surface of the lava below. Turning to look at his counterpart on the opposing team who was standing right next to him, he nodded and then the both ran forward and jumped. Immediately Steel veered left, dropping slightly lower than the exit when he did so. It had already been agreed that the Warriors would take the lower plane on the display lap. One by one the team members all flew out of the hexagonal hole in the wall, the Warriors all following Steel, the Dunedin Dinosaurs trailing their captain off to the right, ever so slightly higher up than their opponents. Both teams flew past each other at incredible speed at a point in the arena exactly opposite the entrance from which they'd just come into the arena. After three laps, the players all scrambled up into the middle of the stadium, high above the lava, with the displays at each end starting their countdowns from ten. With that uneasy feeling still threatening to overwhelm him, Steel cleared his mind of everything except... LAMINIUM BALL!