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Brainstorming a name for their new military organisation and a snazzy logo to go with it reminded Anar of the awful 'Teambuilding Workshops' back at Hell Afterlife Services. Clusters of devious minions forced to work in small groups, who absolutely couldn't stand the sight of one another, faced with a bunch of 'Fun Tasks' to complete before showing their ideas in a dreaded presentation at the front of one of the executive boardrooms. Money would change hands, bribes would be made, there would be blackmail and even in some cases physical violence - anything to ensure you were not the one up there by the interactive whiteboard, putting on a forced cheery expression while having to explain why your group thought that the Queen's congratulatory birthday card - sent to Upstairs citizens on their 100th birthday - should be laced with cyanide, in a bid to prevent those pesky mortals living too long. Or attempting to convince the other grumpy demons that natural yogurt with granola was an acceptable breakfast option in the canteen, and should replace the much-loved blueberry muffin. Any emails containing the header 'Compulsory Creative Dynamics For The Workplace' were guaranteed to bring a groan to even the most devoted employee. Non-attendance would be punishable by a stint in the building's horrific basement, and pulling a sickie was impossible when you were technically deceased.

Minions did not like each other, that was just facts, they did not trust each other and they did not want to talk to each other. Even the open-plan office they had was miserable, they wanted to be separated into tiny isolated cubicles! A team of demons was a ridiculous notion, they naturally desired to eat the weak and grovel before the powerful, there was no such thing as equality in their world. Yet still upper management persisted with these crazy bi-monthly schemes and why? Because it made them miserable and that made them better workers, taking that misery and pain out on underlings and mortals. To say Anar was happy to leave all that nonsense behind him was an understatement.

He'd scrawled haphazardly over the paper with chunky permanent markers and his imagination had come up with some predictably crazy ideas - lots of stripes and stars and badly-drawn eagles holding lightning bolts and swords. 'Murderous Marauders,' 'Bloody Battalion', 'Storm Soldiers'... the acrid whiff of the POSCA pens was getting up his large nose and he had a vague suspicion he may even be a little high. Maybe he could have a crack at drawing a dragon? Winged Warriors. No, maybe not. He tapped the pen on the table absently as The Dragon sipped more tea.

Did he never need to go pee? Did dragons sleep? He'd read about them back in Infernal Holy College - you couldn't trust one was what he'd taken away from that semester. They were magical, mystical pains in the arses. Time travelling, dimension-shifting and manipulative. Yet here he was now, pretty much doing just that- trusting him. It. They didn't really have genders. Didn't truly have forms; they just chose the flying reptile thing for easy identification. Some civilisations treated them as Gods, others hunted them down. The Council Of Sorcerers wouldn't have put up with them back on his home world, that was for sure! Magic was tightly regulated on his Earth and having big, lumbering, powerful beasts doing as they wished without adequate paperwork or licenses would have given them a migraine. Anar himself was a big enough threat to them, and he couldn't even do anything with his spark of natural magic! If he could, there would be chaos - they'd come for his ancestors and charged them with Wilful Magical Damage, before imposing sanctions upon them that had taken their power away for however many hundreds of years, and it was a fair bet that if they knew the Warlock's bloodline powers were finally coming back he would be a dead aardvark. He rubbed his forehead with inky fingers. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to be stuck here instead? He could make a home anywhere, he was flexible, but then he had to be with all the mad crap that had happened to him. Anarchy by name, Anarchy by nature.

Anarchy and chaos... He'd had that amusing notion before, hadn't he?

He moved closer to the paper and made slow deliberate movements, letting his inner thoughts drive his artistic efforts. Of course, he was no graphic designer, but he knew that designs should be kept simple, be instantly recognisable, and tell you all you needed to know. The Dragon peered over and hummed, approvingly.

"I like that. Why spell it with a 'K' though?"

"It's different. I like different. We're different," he shrugged.

"No arguments here! Kaos Army. And you've put insignia stripes in the letters for the logo. Clever. Could I add one more thing?"

Anar's ears flicked, "of course," he offered his pen.

The Dragon drew a ringed planet next to his design. "There! I hope that's all right?"

It was. "I get a feeling we're going to live up to that name, sure enough," Anar smiled, "especially if we're bringing bullets to a world of swords and sorcery."

"Oh yes! The weapons!" The Dragon became animated at this conversation point, "well you see, I've quite a collection coming along. Not just various Earth weapons, though some of those are wonderful, no I've got some rather nice futuristic energy blaster types too."

"Some what?"

"Marvellous things! Melt just about anything they come into contact with. Pew pew all over the place. Plasma, lasers, you name it. I'm a dragon and we are notorious for hoarding things," he laughed lightly, "so I'm using the Trans Dimensional Warpways to help me travel across time and space, finding dead planets to bring their old weaponry here, for us to use." The smile dropped suddenly, "one problem is the instruction manuals. They're in expired alien languages. Still," the smile reappeared, "all good fun, right?" he rubbed his slim, scaly hands together eagerly.

"I mean, yeah, fun..." weapons from other worlds? Interesting. He could quite see himself as a Han Solo shooting a ray-gun from his hip and being cool. Skip the whole being frozen in carbonite bit, though.

Rap let out a relieved sigh as he dropped the last box, "now we just got to learn how to use them," he said, "though I do wish we'd have ended up doing something else..."

"Even soldiers need stress therapy I'm sure mate. You can be our 'Agony Aunt'. You're good at that sort of thing. Here, what do you think of this?"

Rap nosed over his friend's shoulder, "Cows Army? With a 'K'?"

"No, chaos with a 'K'. Kaos Army."

"You came up with that did you? Sounds about right. Surprised you didn't fit 'Wicked' or 'Gnarly' in there somewhere." He spied narrowing eyes looking daggers at him, "yeah, fab mate. Great. Let's see what Rave's nabbed for us, eh?"

Rave had nabbed lorries. Lots of lorries. "Ah, more transportation. Excellent," The Dragon nodded approvingly. "And the tanks?"

Rave scowled, "I dunno how to drive a bleedin' tank! You wanted stuff, you got stuff. You want different stuff, get it yourself. Supposed to be such an amazing lizard..."

The magical creature was taken aback at this show of defiance and a wisp of smoke curled up from his nostrils.

Anar brushed past and shoved his friends back through the summoned portal, "come on, let's figure out how to drive a tank before we're burnt to a crisp."

"Teacher's pet," Rave grumbled.

"Oh sure, forgive me for following instructions from my boss."

The ground on this world was bleached, eerily pale, dusty and dead. The sky was dark orange, and the clouds had a weird red hue. Anar remembered the comment about atomic bombs and hurried over to an abandoned war machine to bring it in. How hard could it be? There was a brake, steering, gas. Even if you got it wrong and hit something - it didn't matter - it was a tank! He gave a grunt and vaulted up onto a slightly rusted track cover and pulled himself up the little ladder to the hatch. It creaked open and he hoped there wouldn't be a nasty surprise inside, dead planets did suggest the possibility of dead inhabitants. He dropped in and his two dinosaur pals followed.

"It's a tight fit, guys" Anar commented.

"No shit, here I thought it was a fucking Mercedes A Class!"

"I'm going to lamp you one..."

"Is this dust... like actual dust, or is it... you know?" Rap wobbled, worriedly.

Anar brought the engine to life with a rumble, "don't think about it too much. If we hang about here too long we'll be sherbert dip ourselves." He pulled at levers and the tank suddenly lurched forwards violently, "you say a single word about my driving and you're a dead dinosaur!" he warned loudly and deliberately in Rave's direction.

He was too busy fiddling with the gun bolted to an outside panel to sling insults, though. There was an almighty rattle of bullet chain, and distant 'rat-a-tat' noises sounded out across the already defeated landscape.

"Wheee!"

"Well, someone's happy," Anar remarked, "How does the big gun go off?"

Rap opened a little door-catch, slid in a canister and closed it again. "I think it's this trigger here," he muttered.

The noise that hit Anar's ears made them ring. His vision went wobbly for a second. He tried to say; 'don't do that again until I've got some ear defenders on for fuck's sake!' Although his mouth moved, it appeared he'd lost his voice.

Rave pouted and tried to wrestle Rap away from the big, obviously more fun gun, while the smaller, meeker velociraptor was having none of it. It made a refreshing change for them to be arguing. Rap's adamant pacifism had been short-lived, it seemed!

Still the whine hung in the air and Anar could not get his words out. 'We can't hang around here all day', he attempted to utter. Oh well. He yanked at the lever and pushed down on pedals while perched in the cracked fabric seat, and with a bit of back and forth they managed to roll through the portal back to the Black Planet.

Anar wanted to caution Rave not to use his new toy near The Dragon but it was becoming clear they'd successfully deafened themselves, so he resorted to prodding a muscly green leg and playing charades instead.

Rave simply grinned and twisted a hand round his head in the universal 'you've gone loopy' gesture and promptly ignored him.

Anar slammed the brake on and caused the rude dinosaur to lose his seating with an 'Eep!.

Served him right.

He killed the engine with a silent exhale. Well, one down...