It was a cold day in November and snow was falling lightly on the long piers of the Chelsea Docks. When a flamboyant looking man wearing a large waistcoat appeared as if brought in by the snow itself. He was very fat and tried to conceal it by growing a very long and pointy beard. Which in actual fact just made him look fatter than he really was. He was bow-legged, and if you looked at him you wouldn't be able to tell which way he was going because his feet were pointing in opposite directions. His shoes were shiny and polished, and had small metal hooks on the back as if they attached to a kind of stirrup, or something of that sort.
He looked around once, twice, three times to see if anyone was watching him and coming to the conclusion that no one was he pulled a light green bag out of the overlarge jacket he was wearing. Without the bag in his coat he didn't look nearly as fat as he had moments before although he still had a considerable amount skin left hanging around his waist.
After turning his head for a fourth time he scurried of and jumped onto the barge docked next to him. Despite his constant checking he failed to notice a hooded figure standing behind an elegant looking barge-only a rich person would own but would never use-watching his every move. The hooded figure ducked a few moments later when an assortment of men all wearing large overcoats, hoped onto the barge one by one in a long line so uneven that it seemed like they'd orchestrated it on purpose.
The dark figure gracefully followed them but put his foot down awkwardly in an attempt to keep quiet and slipped on a bit of the ice that was spread all over the narrow docks, and for a second his face was revealed. It was an old man his face full of shock and his eyebrows knitted together. He would've been handsome had he not had the expression on his face, that he could and would harm a fly if one happened to come by.
He stood up, dusted himself of and jumped onto the barge with such athletic skill that it was hard to believe that he wasn't an Olympic gymnast. He climbed onto the roof leaned over the side and peeked through the window. Inside the barge it was cramped with 35 rather fat men trying to sit down on three benches, many managed to fall of several times and there were a lot of curses being used that weren't appropriate for men of their age to know let alone say. But with the addition of more seats everyone found somewhere to sit and somehow one of the men had managed to smuggle 10 packets of biscuits on board under his woolly coat while another had brought a kettle and some teabags.
They were half way through finishing the biscuits when they realised that the man that had climbed aboard first, who seemed to be the leader of the group was missing. When he re-entered after using the bathroom, followed by an awkward pause as he stared at them guiltily trying to hide the biscuit crumbs, they brushed themselves off looked at each other, made some sort of connection with the situation and took their coats of at the same time.
After their coats were of it became apparent as to why they needed them, none of them were wearing anything except for identical tattoos on their midriff, if you looked closer you would've recognised it as a dragon. The only individuality the men had was in the colour of their tattoo. (Each man had his own colour or shade). The tattoos were even all in the same place just above the right hip as if in response to the display of oddness he had just witnessed the man who was standing took of his coat and let it fall to the floor.
He also had a tattoo but it was in a different place, just above his right nipple. His dragon (a blood red colour) seemed to be alive it was twisting and wriggling around his belly button. Everyone inside (and outside) was watching it transfixed when it gave a roar. The roar seemed to vibrate around the whole room and one by one seemed to wake up the other tattoos. Who also started to dance and wriggle about.
Once the Tattoos had settled down the leader pulled out the light green bag he had been holding before he had come on the barge. Then he spoke for the first time "Councillors" he started. "We are gathered here at this secret location to discuss the 402nd Sargonian Circle. As we all know Mister Vincent-Hyde's competitor one the last Circle" He nodded towards a smug looking man with bushy eyebrows and a hawk like nose whose overcoat had a black and silver lining unlike the brown everyone else was using, it made him look like a gigantic bird of prey, a look he was probably going for.
An outbreak of muttering followed this statement with "Cheat" and "Shortcut" being unmistakably used. This didn't seem to anger Mister Vincent-Hyde who continued to look smug as he turned around to listen to his leader start speaking again. "Anyway" the leader continued trying to silence the group so it didn't turn into an all out bar punch up-minus the bar-, "We are not here to discuss the finer points of the last circle," He stared pointingly at some of the most obvious mutterers "but those of an upcoming one" he said. Has everyone found their heir?" He asked. He looked around the room and was satisfied when everyone nodded. "Good, then I think I can give you each one of these. But remember you cannot tell your heirs under any circumstances about this competion" As he said this he glared at Vincent-Hyde, who gave a nonchalant shrug, still looking very pleased with himself, "As I understand some of you bent the rules to your advantage last Circle and I want no repeats" he said, as he fished an object from his bag.
It was see-through and roughly the same size and shape of a chicken egg. But despite its size it transfixed everyone in the room and they looked hungrily towards the bag where they knew there'd be more. He was about to hand it to the first man sitting on his right when a short man with a pointy rat face spoke up "But Celal" he said "Yes" answered the leader " won't the Harmin' s try to steal the eggs if you give them to us now?" he asked. Celal snorted, "They wouldn't dare attack us, and how would they even know where we are, this is London no one knows there way around?" he replied. The short man made a small coughing sound, and a pointed gesture at a dazed man with corkscrew-like hairs protruding from his nose and ears, who didn't look like he knew the days of the week much less the way around London, and started saying " Matt knows his way around" When Celal interrupted him. "However you do make an excellent point," he said. "I'll get my son Darwin to guard the eggs you can meet him on the corner of Stamford and Hatfield's Street and collect your eggs half an hour after the person before you. Make sure you're not followed" Celal said, this time addressing the whole barge. The men nodded, shook hands, put on their coats and left as fast as they had come.
Outside and under his hood the cloaked man twisted his face into what looked like a grimace. However he knew that it was a smile. As the men walked out of the barge they formed the same straggly line they had on their way in and walked towards the end of the pier. Snow was still falling gently on the icy boards and it carried them away as fast as it had made Celal appear. However inside the barge Celal was cowering his head in his hands whispering to himself, when the short man appeared he bent over Celal's shoulder and asked him what was wrong.
The thing was Celal had no idea. Ever since the start of the last circle he had been feeling awful, he was moody, hungry and he was always angry at the other councillors. He just couldn't bear to look at them. The way they sat all together and tried to be perfect, but failing miserably and the fact that they didn't have a shred of individuality(He didn't even know all their names)were all the things that annoyed Celal. Well at least Vincent-Hyde decided to personalise his coat. not that any one of them needed a jacket. It wasn't even part of the uniform.
All these thoughts were coursing through Celal, when the short man-he thought his name was Zane-tapped his shoulder. "You know, I don't like some of my fellow councillors either" he said. Celal grunted he didn't have time for wishy-washy pimpy-pampy nonsense. The man sighed and sat down on a bench facing Celal. "Celal I know you don't know who I am" he said taking of his glasses "But your going to have to trust me on this one you will get through it. after all you can't get back on the horse if you don't fall of it in the first place." He said trying to cheer up Celal. "Come on Celal" He said further trying to please his Leader "I know a great restaurant on this side of the river, I can properly introduce myself we can have a coffee and then I can pick up my egg. My Heir will be someone to watch this year, I'm telling you. He's my grandson. Problem is he's always in trouble I just hope he's grouped with people that keep him under control and his mentor better be tough." "Don't worry" smiled Celal "I know just the man."
With those final words he stood up motioned to Zane that they could leave and took one final glance around the barge to see that all was in order. Outside it was bitterly cold, and Celal quickly followed Zane to the Coffee Shop he'd mentioned. Not bothering to take one final look around and make sure that no one was watching.
Satisfied that they were gone and that no one was around the hooded figure climbed of the roof slipped and checking to make doubly sure no one was around he started to scour the boat, looking for something useful that might help him on his quest, he knew that the eggs were gone, but he'd be able to find them later what concerned him now was that he needed something to keep track of the heirs. Then while going through a particularly ugly wardrobe he came across what he was looking for. He reappeared several minutes later and with the same twisted smile he started his long journey towards Stamford Street.
A few hours later he reappeared strolling across Kings College campus and turned onto the corner that Celal had mentioned. As he watched, Mister Vincent-Hyde stepped up to a man that resembled Celal so much that he could only be his son Darwin. They both took furtive glances around but failed to see the hooded figure that was now only metres away from them.
Darwin produced the light green bag from a large overcoat identical to the one worn by the men on the barge. As soon as Darwin made the transaction Vincent-Hyde scurried away. The cloaked man who was now standing behind a newspaper stall watched them to familiarise himself with the process. As more and more men went up to Darwin the bag got less full until there were only three eggs left. By this time it was very dark and the only light was coming from some street lamps. This seemed to be what the figure was waiting for and he jumped out from behind his hiding spot and crashed into something surprisingly soft. As he turned around to see what had caused him to fall over for the second time that day a good-looking boy of about 13 with the same bewildered look on his face staring at him a confused look on his face, because he couldn't see who he had bumped into "Sorry" the boy muttered "Get out of my way you brat" the hooded figure spat, and started running towards Darwin.
Blake Mather was having a bad day. Firstly today was the last day of school before the summer holidays. Unlike most children Blake hated holidays because his mother always sent him to live with his crazy grandfather, who lived in Oxford. The train rides were a nightmare with screaming babies and sticky stuff from who knows where plastered all over the seats, and when he did eventually get to his grandfathers house he was always creeped out by the live mice in cages the various hunting trophies nailed to the walls and the various weapons sticking out from alcoves in the wall and anywhere else there was room to put enough swords to last an army. Whenever he left the house people would point and stare at him with his grandfather.
The only good thing about Oxford was that his two best friends lived there. Chase and Chandler were identical twins with blue eyes and spiky black hair they were a lot taller than Blake and teased him for being the odd one out, because Blake had Blonde hair that always fell over his green eyes. Chase and Chandler were the most mischievous kids he'd ever met, they set of fireworks in the garden, shaved the neighbours cats and switched their dad's headache salve with toothpaste. It was this craziness that made them best friends with Blake who despite being skinny was fast and had an eye for trouble (his grades suffered quite a bit because of that) the first time he had met the twins was when they had pranked him, he had been minding his own business on the way to get the mail when he fell over a tripwire that was attached to a converted party popper, which instead of firing of the usually colourful strings fired talcum powder all over Blake. He looked around-completely white-to find the culprits, when he saw the twins leaning jauntily over their shared fence. This incident resulted in a huge prank war, which Blake was ashamed to say the twins won, after a prank involving certain potatoes.
However the twins enthusiastically greeted Blake into their 'gang' when they realised his thirst for adventure. Blake's thirst for adventure was probably why, when a hooded figure bumped into him on Stamford Street and Blake couldn't see the face of the person because it was completely covered, he wanted to know what was under the cloak. He watched as the cloaked man rushed towards a figure wearing a ridiculously large overcoat, it looked so big that Blake wouldn't be surprised if he was carrying around black market organs or sneaking around some sort of illegal property stolen from the CIA or MI6.
As it happened the man was holding a light green bag and as Blake watched the hooded figure ran up to it and snatched it away from the man. Shocked that someone had been robbed right in front of him Blake followed the robber who had by now passed him into a dark alley. He followed him until the man (he guessed it was a man) stopped. There were no lamps here. It was completely dark and Blake could hear the man's heavy breathing. It was coming at him from all sides now. He looked around but all he saw was an old hut seemingly leaning against the walls of the alley. Out of fright he grabbed a nearby fire escape. When he realised he could run up it he sprinted so hard and so fast he nearly passed out, but he managed to get onto the roof. If it had been dark on the ground it was nothing compared to how dark it was on the roof.
Blake heard that same deep breathing and he seriously started to freak out when a swishing sound started right behind him. He turned around and squinted…He couldn't see what he was looking at it was very lumpy and very big as he was pondering this he saw the hooded man running towards it. Blake jumped into action. He grabbed the cloak hard and pulled. But it was so dark that he couldn't see who was under it. Blake made another lunge this time going for the bag the thief had stolen. He managed to grab the corner and was surprised to find that it felt soft, and strangely alive. Blake shook away the hideous thought and concentrated on giving the bag a tug. It ripped and as Blake watched, an egg-like object fell out and started rolling on the concrete. Blake stopped to watch it roll away leaving the man time to escape on what Blake now presumed was a private helicopter.
After the Helicopter was gone. Blake was really exhausted from all the running and jumping about and he started to sway on the spot when he realised that he could still see the strange object, he rushed towards it albeit in a rather haggard way and decided to look at it closer. He held it up to his face and noticed how it had the same strange sense of being alive as the bag did. He had been examining it for a minute when the victim of the robbery rushed up behind him knees bend over gasping for air, when he regained his breath he started towards Blake.
Darwin saw that Blake was holding an egg and assumed that he was the thief. He grabbed him up by the scruff of the neck "where are the rest" he shouted his spit flying everywhere "tell me now boy, or you'll be getting it" "I-I-I d-don't have it sir" Blake stammered and he started to explain what he had seen.
When Blake reached the end of his story Darwin put him down looking very guilty as he patted down Blake's collar. As soon as Blake finished speaking Darwin started interrogating him about the hooded figure, but Blake told him that he hadn't seen the mans face, Darwin sighed, his dad was going to kill him they now only had 33 eggs left instead off 35 and that meant that some competitors would have to miss out. "Where are we going to find two knew dragon eggs?" Darwin muttered to himself. "Excuse Me," said Blake "what did you say?" "Um…err… I said why don't you come into my cabin and rest your legs" Darwin replied as he put his arm around Blake's shoulder and led him firmly down the fire escape and into the lean-to style building he had seen earlier.
Once Blake had struggled down to the hut he was slowly regaining his strength. Inside Darwin sat him down and he started brewing coffee. He whistled to himself all the while and when he was done Blake was forced to tell him that he didn't like long blacks. Darwin looked a bit put out as he threw away the rest of the coffee "So" Darwin started "My name is Darwin, what's yours?" "My name's Blake" he replied. " I'm sorry I don't know anything, but I was only trying to help." "Its quite alright may I see it" Darwin said, and Blake handed over the egg.
Darwin gazed over it for quite some while, he even took out a microscope and held it so close to the squishy surface that Blake wouldn't be surprised if it burst. Finally he gave out a sigh of relief, it wasn't damaged apart from a small crack that hadn't done anything to its contents. He turned to Blake and said "I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about this, in fact it's probably best if you forget this whole night. Come on I'll bring you home, where do you live?"