Stepping out of the ruined building
Owen looked to the epic Godzilla-esque carnage going on in central park and
fixed his glasses back over his nose, with Oberon and Titannia swatting away
the seven dragons their children swarmed from wherever they had been in the
city and engulfed the two like bees. Biting, scratching and clawing at the
giant pair of beings. But with the entire clan and their brood in one spot it
meant that Owen had his chance to escape and meet back with Xanatos at the
place he mentioned over the phone.
Stepping into the car he had
‘appropriated’ on the streets Own turned on the ignition and drove off.
Cranking the air conditioner to full blast and hanging several air fresheners
over the back view mirror the man looked around to the dung smeared, fly
ridden, currently on fire city. His composure was of course wooden as usual.
Behind that façade though Puck looked like he was going to puke, repeatedly.
Things had gotten WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY out of hand and with his king and queen
surrounded and being swarmed over the little imp started to worry. In a box by
his seat he had two items Zanatos had sent him to get, one being the Phoenix
gate; the magical item capable of traversing time and space, the Casket of
Winters, a Norse relic containing the northern winds, potent enough to flash
freeze an entire continental coast and lastly a small iron sword… One Puck knew
Far too well. The fairy cleaver was an iron sword forged by a race of Goblins
that had angered Oberon centuries ago, enough so that he had them wiped out!
Yet the sword remained, the greedy little buggers made the sword in their
thievering image where the blade would take the properties of those it slain,
and since it had been used on a hydra, a cockatrice and even an efrit, Puck
didn’t know what fate would be crueller; cutting his finger on the thing and
being reduced to a mortal shell, poisoned to death by hydra venom, turned fully
to stone, broiled to death or a combination of all four! Certainly an
unpleasant whammy.
Making it to the empire state building
Own took the slow elevator ride to the top of the building, not at all surprised
that the music could still play while riding up the many floors to the roof.
Once there he found Xanatos overlooking the burning city where Overon and
Titannia still found the hundreds of dragons and their seven masters. Turning
to see Owen finally arrive the man smiled under his paper breather mask he had
over his face.
“Ah good, you arrived, I hope traffic
wasn’t too unpleasant.”
“No sir, however the streets are rather
mucky. No different than any other Thursday afternoon.” Handing the items to
the billionaire Xanatos pocketed the small trinkets and hefted the casket over
towards the city. “This should be rather interesting; weather reporters will be
pretty baffled at snow in July. Opening the casket an explosion of cold flew
out all over the city and beyond, blanketing the streets in ice and snow that
instantly smothering the fires out. But the more impressive feat was turning
the hudreds of dragons to solid ice and the two giant beings they had been harassing
for the better part of half an hour.
When he closed the lid on the casket
the entire city had been flash frozen in sub zero temperatures, even the clouds
overhead began to sprinkle snow now that the temperature had dropped 40
degrees.
“Brrrr! That’s brisk, Owen please hand
me that coat.”
“Here sir, well done, but what of the
dragons and devastation?”
Putting the winter coat on Xanatos
smiled and looked towards where central park was. “Oh we’re not done yet Owen,
here comes part two of my plan.” At that moment the silhouettes of Titannia and
Oberon in the ice began to shrink, returning to their original size and leaving
a frozen hollow statue where they once stood and phased through the ice back
out into the open air. Snapping their fingers, the two teleported to the roof
of the Empire State building and glowered at the smirking man.
“Ah your lord and ladyship, I hope I
helped in keeping your hands from getting dirty.”
“What do you want… Son-in-law?”
“First off what if I told you I could
fix all of this with little effort and you can go back to Avalon without any
worry of the mortal realm EVER knowing this all took place?”
Scoffing at the man’s query Oberon narrowed
his eyes. “And what pray tell could YOU do to fix all of this?” Reaching into
his coat Xanatos produced the Phoenix Gate. “Well played human, give that over
to ME and we shall fix this point in time, consider this an even trade.”
“Nu-uh, I will be doing the fixing.”
Sneering Titannia landed on her feet
and made the air around them spark with static. “And what makes you think YOU
can declare the conditions of our OH MY GOODNESS, HE HAS THE DAMN SWORD!!!”
Snapping back into the air Titannia grabbed hold of her husband in shared
terror at the little iron sword Xanatos waved around playfully in his hand,
even Owen took several safe steps away from it.
“Here’s the deal, I fix everything and
YOU reward me for my troubles. If not, we just wait for the ice to melt and
start this all over again OR you try to take the gate from me.” Giving the
sword a playful swing the others cringed at hearing it whoosh in the air.
Looking over their shoulders they spotted the seven giant dragons slowly
stirring from their icy prison, the Odin’s eye making it that although not
flash frozen like the rest oft their children they were merely trapped in
tonnes of ice, ice that was rapidly melting.
“Do we have a deal?”