Bentwhistle the Dragon Box

by Paul Cude

  Ignoring his half torn off thumb, consumed by the total need to destroy this runt of the litter, Fredric flexed his muscles, putting all the power he could behind a well timed punch aimed directly at her face. Before it had a chance to connect, a huge jolt of kinetic energy exploded between them, tossing him back some thirty metres or so in the air. Landing with a 'THUNK', the former Antarctic prisoner shook his head in an effort to stop his ears ringing, blood trickling from both nostrils, rather a large chunk of rock sticking out at an odd angle from the top of his left thigh. Delighted at the result of her lesser known naga magic, Earth stood up from the pile of debris and, with a sickly smile, brushed herself down, the snakes in her hair writhing, wriggling and hissing wickedly.

  Face and body feeling as though they were on fire, and not in the way a dragon might like, Fredric angrily ripped the chunk of rock from his bloodied thigh, tossed it off to one side and promptly used the laminium in the chains that still adorned his chest to heal all his wounds. Dust and tiny particles of debris spewed out of the thigh wound before the falsehood skin knitted itself back together. Simultaneously, the thumb that Earth had bitten down on fully regenerated, the bone growing back right in front of his eyes, before a layer of skin spread out of nowhere to cover it up. Impressive, but not as much as his nose clicking back into place all by itself, the blood from the nostrils running back up inside.

  Despite her utter revulsion for him, she did at least admire his talent for wielding the magic at his disposal. The problem he had though, was just that... the magic at his disposal. She had pretty much all that, and everything the nagas had deigned to teach her on top. As they stood there, facing each other across thirty metres or so, she knew one hundred percent that she had him. Never mind the laminium chains he was drawing power from wrapped around his bare torso, they'd never get the chance to make a difference. In the end, all it would come down to was... MAGIC! Who had the most powerful spells, and just who could weave them the best. His time, she knew, was most certainly running out.

  Amongst the carnage and pandemonium, Vasuki remained bent over Flash's prone form, having exhausted nearly all options. The regal looking naga king had done all that he could to try and heal the gaping wounds caused by the pure beam of plasma Flash had absorbed to save George, his rightful king. In doing so, he'd all but literally broken the human shaped form he currently resided in, if that were even still the case. Vasuki could not magically either heal the wounds outright, or even encourage them to heal of their own volition. And with such extensive injuries, there was no way this human shape could survive much longer. If Flash's consciousness were indeed still locked away in there, it looked very much as though that was where he was going to die.

  Racking his knowledge filled, experienced and ultimately cunning brain, the newly returned leader of the nagas searched frantically for any sort of alternative, desperate for the being in front of him not to die. Rummaging through huge amounts of irrelevant and useless information, finally, just as he thought all avenues had been exhausted, he found something... interesting. Sure he couldn't heal Flash's human figure in its current condition, this something might just be able to skip a step in the animation process, so to speak, and return the ex-Crimson Guard to all his prehistoric greatness. There was however, one proviso. His consciousness had to be intact... in there somewhere. If that had flickered out, then it was well and truly over, and no magic on this planet or any other would be able to return him.

  Ushering those immediately under his command out of harm's way when that giant part of the roof collapsed nearly on top of them, they'd only just managed to regroup in any meaningful sort of form. In some aspects they'd been lucky, although it didn't sound like that. Two nagas and two dark dragons hadn't fared so well, having either been killed or injured so badly as to no longer be a threat. Scattering so quickly on the king's command, had left them briefly vulnerable individually. Amazingly, all of them had come through unscathed. There'd been a fleeting moment when he and Captain Battlehard had to fly down and help fight off three demented dark dragons determined to take down one of the more seriously injured of the group, but they'd gotten there just in time and had been able to whisk him back to the main force before they'd been compromised any further. Now they found themselves in pretty much the same position as before, only about fifty metres off to one side of the pile of rocky remains, slightly nearer the shield housing their comrades. As the king allowed his magic to bubble up to the surface, casually swatting away a naga who'd tried to sneak up close from behind the bodies of several of his comrades, his thoughts turned to prolonging the life of those fighting all around him. Was it worth trying to make for the shield? How would that benefit them and would it just prolong the inevitable outcome of this very one-sided affair? As supernatural missiles and unrecognisable magic once again bombarded their position, his mind pondered those very questions.

  Facing off in what was proving to be a properly epic battle, father and daughter stood amongst all the wreckage, each waiting for the other to make the first move, each full of anger and rage, each for different reasons.

  Bloodlust slowly simmering, Fredric's calm and common sense was, in a very small amount, starting to return. Without taking his eyes off the kin that was trying to kill him, knowing that even for a fraction of a second that could be fatal, the cool, calculated tactician in him tried to observe everything else going on around him. Vasuki leaning over Flash's decimated body almost crushed his spirit... almost, but not quite. Then there was the king hovering in mid air above a group of his guards and at least one councillor, filling him with pride and reminding him of times gone by. Some of the adventures they'd had were out of this world, and even more precarious than the situation they currently found themselves in, unbelievably. That was when his heart nearly broke. His grandson! Peter! Channelling his magic behind the shield, fighting alongside his friends, giving his all to make a difference at a time and place like this. Fredric's chest swelled with pride; his insides though, were a completely different matter, with the boy's mother right across from him, trying to tear him limb from limb with her spiteful, dark magic. Oh yes... he recognised what she'd been using for what it truly was. Dark, dastardly and evil best summed it all up. No dragon should be caught using it, for various reasons, but mainly because of how corrupting it was. Any being using it for any length of time would be driven completely insane. Perhaps that's what had happened, he thought, eyeing his adversary, all that time ago. No matter. It was done, and as far as he was concerned, there was no going back. Not now, not ever... not even for the boy's sake.

  Speaking of the boy... man... dragon, you know what I mean... presently still applying the cool, healing magic to his friend when the need arose, Peter looked out from the protection of the shield at everything going on in the rest of the king's private residence. It was utter pandemonium. Nothing in his upbringing or dragon training had ever prepared him for something like this... how on earth could it? Glancing over at Flash's motionless body, currently guarded by what he assumed was the naga king fresh from Antarctica, he knew for certain the ex-Crimson Guard wouldn't have been fazed by any of this at all, no doubt being able to take it all in his stride. At least he would have, had he been in any state to do so. And there was the king, fighting tooth and nail above the group of dragons that had, for so long, valiantly held off Manson's force, bringing the bridge down in the process, trapping themselves right in this very place, only deigning to give up at the threat presented to his life and that of the White Dragon... TIM! There, unnoticed, amongst all the debris and rubble, magic and mayhem, lay the crumpled body of Richie's one true love, lost and forgotten, a victim of circumstances well beyond his control. Out of nowhere, a tiny tear dropped from the corner of the young hockey playing dragon's eye, traversing the smooth skin of his cheeks, before encountering the resistance of the usual stubble, slightly longer than normal because of his continued and unexpected incarceration. There it zigzagged down his chin, occasionally weaving th
is way and that, searching for the path of least resistance, which it found just before reaching the drop off. Once there, it had little choice, its momentum carrying it off the precipice, the single, tiny drop riding through the air, the loneliest entity in the entire vicinity, (at least the magic had magic for company) its molecules clinging to each other for dear life, as the ever approaching floor rose up to greet it. And then with the teeniest splash in the world, it was over, gone, barely noticeable, long since forgotten, much like Tim's stint in the dragon world. At the very best, he would no doubt be a footnote in the tomes of dragon history, and that was if they somehow made it out of here alive, something right at this very moment he doubted a great deal. For a split second he wondered what sort of effect Tim's death as the White Dragon might have had on the beings here all around him. Were they resigned to dying and Manson winning? Had their belief been decimated? Or had they not believed the prophecy, that every dragon knew so well, in the first place? For him, it didn't matter. Glancing up at one of his two best friends, the one currently keeping every dragon here safe, powering the shield with a little assistance from the borrowed laminium she both wore and held in her hands, the pride he felt at not only being her friend, but knowing her since a dragonling, and having been lucky enough to have her in his life, swelled his chest a great deal. It would have had she just been his friend, just been Richie Rump through all of this. But ever since that very first, unexpected moment when he'd witnessed the full force of the damage inflicted upon her back, on that fateful Saturday morning in her flat in Salisbridge, damage that the most potent dragon magic couldn't cure or heal, he knew there and then, however impossible it seemed, that she was the true White Dragon and not her lover, Tim. Convinced beyond belief, Gee Tee's agreement of his assessment was all that he needed to be one hundred percent positive about his friend's pivotal role in the historic events going on all around them. And now, in the midst of this utterly hopeless situation, it was what kept him calm, stopped his confidence from shattering and gave him hope. Hope that they would prevail and that the dragon domain would stand firm. Hope that the majority of the humans and dragons of this world would survive these dark days, going on to thrive in the future. Again adding a little of his fairly tame magic, at least that's what it seemed like, to the thunderous power rushing through his friend, he marvelled at the supernatural magic she controlled. If it had been him, there was no way the shield would still be in place. In fact, he didn't think he could have produced something so stable and so big in the first place. What he did think though, was this. He'd do everything in his power to keep his friend alive, because he was convinced she was the key to everything, to the survival of not only every being here, but almost certainly every being across the face of the planet. And if it ended up costing his life... so be it. Leaving the love of his life... Janice, he stood up and walked across to his friend, vowing to himself to protect her at all costs. No pressure then!

  Instinctively, he knew that he'd found exactly what he was looking for from within the long, complicated strands of DNA he was immersed in. All Vasuki had to do now was touch the magic within the human shape and let it show him how to flick the switch that would start the transformation back to his rightful prehistoric shape. Hoping that what was left of Flash would recognise him as a friend and not react to his serpent-like form as an enemy, the naga king picked through the twisted and broken fibres all around him, searching for that ever elusive spark of mystical power, reasonably sure he could achieve his aim of saving the broken being before him.

  Magical mayhem exploding all around them, the two, father and daughter, faced off, each disgusted with the other, each driven by righteous fury at what had happened, neither willing to acknowledge the trigger point in their interconnected lives that had led to this very moment, neither willing to back down or budge even an inch. Today, there would only be one winner. One survivor! Each of them was sure the reasons that they firmly adhered to justified their actions, not just now but far off in the past; both knew deep down that if that one event had gone the other way and if destiny had intervened, things might have been so different. It hadn't, and now here we are, the fate of the planet hanging over the edge of a precipice, two close family members on opposite sides, willing to give their all to destroy the other, one ready to save it, the other hoping to destroy it. If you think your family's peculiar, then you should say a prayer for this one, because nothing good is going to happen here today. One way or another, evil will prevail.

  With a snarl on her face and all the ferocity of a starving predator, the twisted Earth drew forth as much magic as she could hold on to in one go and, breaking into a sprint, launched it all at her father. Flaming cranberry coloured projectiles closed in on his position, his deranged daughter not far behind. Momentarily he paused, waiting for his young blood to show her hand. So that was it, he thought, watching the malevolent magic head his way, all the time in the background keeping an eye on his approaching adversary. Hastily, his body tossed up between staying put, deflecting the incoming energy away and departing the immediate area. Instinctively, he chose the second option. With the kind of speed Flash would have been proud of, Fredric let out a snort of contempt at his daughter's pitiful effort, before diving off to his left, his unruly, long, matted locks swaying this way and that, almost having a will of their own, much like his approaching offspring. Through all the magic zinging around the battlefield, Earth checked out her dad, confident she knew exactly what he was thinking. Sure enough, instead of holding his ground, he chose to tumble off to one side.

  'So predictable,' she thought, knowing full well that would at some point be his total and utter undoing. Landing tentatively on his feet, careful not to slip on any of the debris he'd stumbled into, the former Antarctic prisoner siphoned off the power he needed from the chains adorning his torso, and as cool and calculating as you like, released a line of explosive magic, tearing across the marble floor. Curving around in an arc to follow the path of her loser father, surprise screamed loudly in her ears as the floor between the two of them started to explode, the detonations shredding the exquisite, white, shiny marble, on their way to make her pay. Intuitively and aided in no small part by the supernatural power deep within her, she leapt off to one side, somersaulting over a trio of dead nagas, skidding to a halt behind their grisly cadavers. Not totally surprised to see her sidestep his latest attempt, Fredric focused his mind, intricately moved his fingers and, putting not quite all his will behind it, cast the next spell.

  'Hopefully that might have more luck,' he thought, as the magic in question did his bidding, bringing forth a gigantic, sizzling, electrical net, about thirty metres square, precisely above her serpent wriggling head. 'Let's see how much she likes that!'

  Surprised at his magical ingenuity, hundreds of options of how to defeat it raced through her head in barely a second. One stood out. With a cast iron mental grip, her wayward and excitable magic took hold of the nearest pile of rubble that had fallen from the ceiling a short time ago. Directing all her power, she willed the huge stack to come to her. It wasn't quite as instantaneous as she'd hoped, but as her father's net started to drop, the mountain of rock slid across towards her.

  Grinding his teeth in frustration, the founder of the Crimson Guards looked on as the massive mound of debris slid across to his daughter, the top of which pierced his net as it fell towards the ground, arcing and spitting electricity all over the place. As soon as it slid to a halt, avoiding all the sparking and flickering voltage, Earth quickly dived into a recess in the mass of rock, hidden away from the lattice trap that had by now totally fallen to the ground, spitting and hissing violently, bright blue energy crackling everywhere, magic that, had it caught her, would have incapacitated her for a very long time. Pleased to have countered all that he had, her nerves were starting to fray, whether through anger or fear or even a mixture of both, one thought alone inhabiting all of her. It was time! Time to finish it, and of course... HIM! With the click of her fin
gers, a deluge of water rained down out of nowhere, flooding the surrounding area, shorting out what was left of the powerful grid designed to take her down. Striding out of her hidey hole, looking both magnificent and mad, with cool, foamy water sloshing around her ankles, the resolve in her eyes was clear for Fredric to see, even at forty metres. Gnawing fear spread across his belly for the first time in decades. Imprisonment had been what it had been, and throughout all the torture he'd always known that he could have been killed. Quite early on he'd come to accept that, something that had fashioned his resolve and steeled the chilly confidence that the near solitude had provided him with. This, however, was something different all together. So far she'd matched him, magic for magic, and he had the ominous feeling that she was only getting warmed up. This did not bode well. Glancing around to see if support of any kind was even vaguely in the offing, it instantly became clear that it wasn't, and obvious to him that he was well and truly on his own. Wishing to just live a quiet, happy and productive life with his best friend George, and the grandson he loved so much, with a force of will stronger than most beings would ever know, he pushed the dangerous thoughts aside, and harnessing the laminium wrapped around him, brought forth some of the vilest magic he knew, hoping to very quickly end things once and for all.

  Standing so close that the static electricity from all the power she was channelling made his slightly shorter hair stand firmly on end, over the noise of all that was happening on the other side of the shield, he asked,