February 20th, 2016

In the Scotiabank Saddledome in Downtown Calgary, Alberta, Canada,

It is nearing nighttime on the day just after the Calgary Flames took it to the Vancouver Canucks. Outside it is pouring down rain, while inside, Johnny Gaudreau bids farewell to his captain and all of his teammates. Sean Monahan, Jyrki Jokipakka, Dougie Hamilton and a few others remain still with their young superstar.

"Hey, I gotta go, I think I dropped my mouthguard on the ice or in the bench!" Johnny remarks, flinching slightly at the sight of two bite marks that are evident on the side of Sean's neck. How had he gotten those again? "I kind of need that, you know."

"Leave it to you to forget something or drop something," Sean chuckles, ignoring the bizarre look from his friend. "I'll just tell Gio that we'll once again be late to dinner because 'Johnny Hockey forgot something on the ice'!"

"It'll be fast, I think I remember where I dropped it, because I remember Engels smashing me into the boards during the practice." With that Johnny walks out of the locker room and heads to the ice. He bursts from the tunnel and launches onto the smooth, slippery surface, still wearing his skates.

Johnny skates over to the boards where he's remembered he was hit. He finds his mouthguard at once and brushes the ice off of it. He sticks it into his mouth and then looks around the empty rink. It feels good to be there, on the ice, skating alone. Yeah, he may have dinner to get to, but the rarity of skating alone is just too good to pass up.

So, he takes a lap around and then halts at center ice, where he takes a deep breath and spins around like a ballerina. He leaps into the air, twirling in two complete circles and lands on his feet once more to the sound of sarcastic clapping coming from behind him. He freezes in place as he spots two shadows walk up behind him.

"Little Johnny Gaudreau," a voice hisses like a snake. "All you're missing is a pretty skirt and a tiara, Princess."

The young Flame forward frowns, recognizing the voice. "What do you want, Voracek? You gonna grab me like some little kid and make me score a goal for you again?" He snorts and rolls his eyes in disgust at the memory.

Voracek laughs, skidding to a halt behind him, where he towers over the smaller hockey player. "It's not like you to mouth off to me, Little Johnny Gaudreau. Surely you know better than to talk to superiors like this?"

Johnny finally whirls around to find himself looking at Jakub Voracek, a Philadelphia Flyer, and Henrik Sedin, a Vancouver Canuck. Voracek has a snake-like tongue flickering from his mouth, while Dorsett is exuding black energy from himself. "Hey Vora and Henrik, um, I just dropped my mouthguard here during practice on accident... why are you both looking at me like that?" He steps backward into the boards.

"There's no time to talk, only s-s-s-sleep," Voracek hisses, flicking his tongue out. His eyes flash a beady red color and turn snake-like in appearance.

Johnny sees it and steps back momentarily in a stunned shock, throwing his hand down to his side. It glows orangish-red like fire.

Voracek laughs wickedly. "Are you going to challenge me, Little One? I don't think that's a s-s-s-smart thing to do."

"Don't underestimate me, Vora!" Johnny retorts. "And what are you, Kaa from the Jungle Book?" he then questions, mustering his bravery.

"No, it's-s-s-s me, Jakub Voracek, the one who you used to know and who you slewfooted during the game." He transforms into a giant cobra snake much like Jafar from Aladdin (or Adam from the Chaos, Portal and Iceshot incident a long time ago) and then suddenly dives down and snaps his sharp, pointy fangs at Johnny, who glows bright orange all over as though he is on fire and then throws his hands up and produces fireballs, shooting them up at the serpent.

Henrik Sedin begins to zap him with black energy from his own hands but Johnny dashes to the side to safety on his skates, avoiding the black energy as it hits the boards where he'd once been standing and then he instantly vanishes from sight.

"Where'd you go, you filthy little Flame, come out and play with us-s-s-s-s!" Voracek hisses out.

"I'm right," Johnny begins, reappearing behind Henrik and shoving him into his snake friend. "Here. Ha-ha."

Henrik cusses, dropping an f-bomb.

"Hey now, watch your mouth. Do you kiss your mom with those foul lips and sharp tongue?" Johnny scolds, getting cocky.

"Leave my mother out of it, Gaudreau!" Henrik snarls as Voracek lashes his tail out and coils it around Johnny Gaudreau, who flickers invisible once again and slips out of the middle of the coil just before it contracts.

"Now, now," Johnny says, becoming visible once more, standing a few feet from the tail coil of the snake. "You decided to come into my arena in the first place!"

"What the hell? How'd you get out?" Voracek booms.

"Carefully." He laughs as Voracek sends ice particles at him from his mouth. He makes his hands glow red and melts the ice that is shooting right at him. "You're gonna have to do better than that, eh?"

"Gaudreau!" Voracek snaps as he slithers around, circling Johnny, who holds his ground, stopping more ice that is aimed at him with his fire powers.

Before long, Johnny gets lost in the moment of stopping the ice that he forgets about Henrik, who lassos him with darkness. Voracek then seizes the opportunity and coils his tail around the Calgary Flame finally. Johnny gasps and scream in shock.

"That's teamwork! Something your precious Flames know nothing about," Henrik snarls.

"Given how much you guys work together on the ice..." Voracek cackles. "Now, where are your friends? Where's your cute little friend, Mony? How's he doing since the incident in December?"

"Not here!" Johnny shouts, twisting and turning in the coil. "Let me go!"

"Uh, no..."

Johnny suddenly gasps as a thought hits him. He cries out, "Wait! You DID bite him! You bit Mony back in the game that sent him to the hospital! They said it was a snake bite and no one understood, but it's you! It WAS you who bit Mony!"

Suddenly the Flame snaps into a daydream, finding himself sitting on the couch in his living room, glancing up at a 60 inch TV. He thinks to himself, How am I supposed to study myself, when everyone else is playing sloppily? He sighs and says, "Whatever. I'll just put on The Avengers movie instead. After all, I'm the only one playing well. If everyone else fixes themselves, I'll be able to break out of my scoring slump!"

He turns on 'The Avengers' movie, which is playing on FX as his vision fades to see a dark figure moving through the streets of Boston. Another man is beside him. They pass by the cloaked headquarters building for the Hockey Avengers, completely unaware of its existence. (Johnny doesn't even know of it.)

One of them finally speaks up. "Hey Jake, you ever feel like someone's watching you?"

"Watching? They'd be damned to do s-s-s-such a thing," the other one hisses out.

Johnny recognizes them as Voracek and Henrik and watches as Henrik whirls around and flicks his hand out, producing black mist on the palm of his hand. "But what if...?" the Vancouver Canuck begins to say.

"They wouldn't! Lest they want to...s-s-s-see how s-s-s-snake like I can be?" He flicks his tongue out like a snake.

"Nobody likes snakes, that's for sure," Henrik remarks.

"Why do you asssk?" Voracek hisses.

Henrik looks around and whispers, "No reason."

"You wanna s-s-s-stir up s-s-s-some trouble?" Voracek inquires, flashing Henrik a smirk, which shows his sharp, pointy snake fangs.

"What are you thinking?" Henrik asks, excitedly. His eyes light up with eagerness.

"Well, the Flyers do play the Flames and their little goal scorer is on a hot streak right now..." Voracek says.

"You can't possibly be hinting at--?" the Canuck cuts himself off as he rubs his hands with a greedy excitement.

"I am."

"So, you wanna stop him? Knock him down a few pegs?"

"Presssssssssssisely. You could s-s-s-say that he'll be a little 'snake bitten' tonight?" Voracek hisses as Dorsett shakes his head.

They both cackle wickedly and Henrik swivels his hand to draw up a black cloud, which engulfs them and they teleport to Philadelphia. While Voracek hides his snakeyness, Henrik takes a seat in the crowd in disguise and they work together to befuddle and toy with Johnny Gaudreau.

So that's what happened? Johnny thinks to himself as he returns to the present, finding himself still in the coils of the Flyer. But why had they gone after me? Oh, right, Henrik hated Flames and was best friends with Voracek, who was jealous of my skill and talent and offensive-goal-scoring prowess!

As he is squeezed once more, his vision flashes back to the start of everything. During the Philadelphia game, he remembers Voracek targeting him and trying to bait him into dropping the gloves or getting a penalty.

The Flame spots his friend Sean Monahan rushing toward him to help him out, skidding to a halt and shoving Voracek backward, only to make him lunge at Sean. Johnny watches as his friend falls to the ice, gasping in pain and for air. He sees two bite marks on the side of his neck and looks up at Voracek, who backs away, shrugging.

"Mony! Mony! Stay with me man!" Johnny screams at his friend, getting him to the bench and off the ice.

He watches his friend vanish down the tunnel, gasping for air and unable to breathe. As he remembers his best friend having to be in the hospital in Philadelphia that night, he draws the conclusion that it had been Jakub Voracek to bite his friend.

After all, the bite was that of a snake's. Luckily Sean had survived the ordeal and was okay and back to playing a few games later. But he still had the bite marks of a cobra. Johnny screams as he thinks about the event, while Voracek continues to squeeze him with his tail, until Henrik's voice greets his ears.

"You Flames are all alike, stuck up, skilled bastard children on skates!" the Canuck states. "After we're through with you, Jake's gonna finish Monahan off and then the rest of your team shall fall!"

Johnny faces Voracek and musters what bravery and strength he can get and presses his hands against the snake skin, before channelling the energy and blasting fire into the creature.

Sure enough his plan works as the Flyer hisses in agony and loosens up enough for Johnny to shoot out of the middle of the coil and land on the ice on his skate. Then he raises his hands up and blasts streams of fire at Voracek from the palms of his hands.

Voracek simply opens his mouth and ice shoots out, consuming the fire to which Johnny gasps in both shock and a frustrated fury, "What are you, Ice Serpent? You've had powers this whole time?"

"As have you? Fire powers, impresssssive," Voracek hisses.

"Ice breath, real original," Johnny groans as he presses into his powers more to strengthen them and fight through the ice flying at him.

Voracek cackles and continues to breathe on Johnny, pelting through his fire with his ice breath.

In his panic, Johnny raises his hands, refusing to give in and tries to produce fire but sparks shoot out and he doesn't produce anything. Voracek continues on pelting him with ice and begins to turn him into an ice sculpture.

"Stop!" Johnny wails.

"You wanted this-s-s-s kid!" Voracek hisses.

Don't be overcome with fear! Relax! You can beat them. Johnny tells himself in his head as he screams from being frozen in place. He calms his racing heart however and channels his inner flame, beginning to melt the ice off of him.

Voracek laughs, and instantly lashes his tail at him. Johnny grunts in disgust as he is once again restrained in the tail coil. Henrik then appears behind him, while the Calgary Flame struggles in place.

"Not so heroic now, huh?" Voracek sneers.

"Let me go!!" Johnny shouts out.

Henrik joins his friend. "We're not done having our fun yet, baby?" The Canuck reaches out and grabs Johnny's face, as he struggles in the coil, trying to get free again. "You're just a little baby mutant. No one'll miss you, if we kill you. No one."

"You're wrong!" He slips free yet again and jumps into the air, powered by his fire stream. He lands on the ice surface, careful not to mess it up. "And don't call me a baby! It's degrading, you pansy! Call me Flameo!"