The game does not belong to me, or anything in it. It belongs to SEGA, so please don't sue me, since I have no money. Sorry if I take too long to upload the chapters, sometimes I just get lazy, but your reviews help me get back to write. So here is the next chapter.

4. The Dragon

After Max entered the teleportation device, he appeared in a big, spherical room. The problem with the room is that, it did not looked like a room, but a cave. The ground was solid rock and the walls as well, with cracks showing circuits of the room's system.

"What happened in this place? Am I on a volcano or something?", says Max confused and starts looking around the room in disbelief. When Max looked up to the ceiling, he got the surprise of his life, hanging on the ceiling was an enormous dragon.

The dragon was 14 feet tall, orange color with black patches, yellow eyes, a tail that was split in two at the end, a horn on its forehead, sharp fangs, claws and it had wings. The dragon was simply hanging, but it took notice of Max when he spoke. The dragon dropped from the ceiling, making its fall safe thanks to its wings. When it landed it gave a mighty roar, releasing flames from its mighty jaws.

"WHAT THE HELL IS A DRAGON DOING INSIDE OF THE DOME?" yells Max in surprise and disbelief. The dragon starts shooting fireballs towards Max, but he avoids them by rolling to his left. Max decides to pull his saber and charges towards the dragon.

"It might be big, but it might have a harder time trying to attack me if I get to its feet," with that plan in mind Max gets close to the dragon's feet and starts attacking them.

The dragon's scales were really tough, but it still inflict some significant damage. The dragon makes a small roar in pain and starts trying to stomp Max. Fortunately for Max, the dragon was not fast enough to land a perfect stomp on him. Max was focusing on attacking the dragons feet, and when he caused enough damage to the feet, the dragon fell to its stomach. Max got away from been flattened by the dragons massive weight, but he got caught in the shockwave of the dragons fall and was send flying away. Max landed on its back, but got back to its feet quickly. Unfortunately, Max was send flying 8 yards away from the dragon. Max tried to reach the dragon and attack its head while it was down, but by the time he reach, the dragon was getting back to its feet.

"Dammit! Oh well, I can just cut your legs again and make you fall, AGAIN!" Max roars and charges at the dragon, but he underestimated the dragon. The dragon rised its wings and started flapping its wings. The movement of the wings stopped Max on his advance towards the dragon.

"Oh, you think you escaped me, huh? You think you escaped me? Well you didn't, because I have a GUN," with that said, Max puts his saber away and pulls out his handgun. The dragon started spiting fire at Max, but Max dodge them easily.

"Your aim is as bad as a blind person," says Max, mocking the dragon. The dragon simply kept spiting fire at him. Max decided to go on the offensive.

"Eat photon, you overgrown lizard," and with that said, Max takes aim and shoots. The bullet would have normally hit the dragon, since its kind of hard to miss with its size, but there was a problem. The bullet lost its energy, 20 centimeters away from its target, and Max remembered something important.

"OH MY GOD, I FORGOT THAT THE HANDGUN IS NOT GOOD FOR LONG RANGE COMBAT!" yells in the shocking realization. While Max was in his shocking state, the dragon wasted no time in spitting a fireball at him without warning. By the moment Max recovered from his state, it was too late to dodge the attack. Max was hit in the chest making him cough in pain. He hits and bounce off the ground 3 feet in the air, then falling face first. The dragon decides to take the opportunity to finish Max by landing on top of him. Fortunately, Max was recovering while the dragon was approaching, giving him enough time to prepare for its attack. When the dragon started descending, Max rolled out of the way, but the landing force send him flying away.

"Ugh, damn this burns, I need a change to heal," as Max was thinking that, he put away his gun and grabs a monomate and uses it to heal his wounds.

"Not enough to fully heal me, but it will do for a now," murmurs to himself, but the dragon did not wasted any time. The dragon started to spit fire at Max, but misses since he was not distracted like before.

"Not this time scaly, am not letting my guard down again," says with a serious face and pulls his saber out. With it in hand, Max charges at the dragon again, while dodging the dragons fireballs.

The dragon did not looked like it was trying to fly, since it was just trying to hit Max with a fireball. Maybe it got too tired flying its fat ass around the room, amuses himself in his mind while getting close to the dragon. Once Max reached its feet, he started attacking the feet again while avoiding getting stomped by the dragon. The dragon falls on its belly again, but this time, Max was ready for it. Max rolls out of the way, stuck his saber to the ground and starts to hold as if his life depended on it, which it actually did since he was fighting for his life. Thanks to this idea, Max was not sent flying and he was close to the dragon to cause some serious damage in the head. Max pulls his saber off the ground and charges straight to the dragons head. Max attacks the dragons head with relentless slashes, while the dragon tried to counterattack, but it was too slow for Max. By the time the dragon recovered enough strength on its feet to get up, it was severely injured with cuts showed on its face. Max tried to go to the feet of the dragon, but it took flight again and send him flying with the strength of its wings.

"Heh, trying to escape the inevitable defeat, huh? You have to come down here eventually," says Max with an all-knowing tone and a smirking face, while recovering from been launched. What happened next put that smirk away from his face and leaved him with his eyes wide open.

First, the dragon flied a little higher than normal, then it dived head first into the ground.

"Okay, I did NOT expected that. I was expecting it to start shooting fireballs like a maniac, but I guess it was smarter than what I though," says Max with a surprised face.

Max recovered quickly from his stupor, remembering what happened the last time that he did that. Max took a look around, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Max still did not let his guard down and kept a look out for the dragon. Max's did not stood his guard for nothing, he noticed from the corner of his eye something moving from below the ground and started going towards him.

"WHOA, this doesn't look good," Max murmurs to himself and tries to move out of the way, but the dragon changed to the same direction that he moved to.

"No, no no no NO!" Max starts to repeat as if the dragon would stop just because he said no.

Fortunately, Max managed to roll out of the way just in time to avoid been rammed. By the time Max recovered from the roll, the dragon started charging towards him again.

"Aw, come on, come and fight like a...um...a dragon or something. What the hell are you a dude or a girl?" as Max was asking that the dragon just kept going towards him.

Max waited the right moment to move out of the way off the dragon, but it did not went well for him. The dragon flied out off the floor, hitting Max with its shoulder. Fortunately, it did not caused any serious injury, but it hurt like hell, like been kicked by another hunter, Max thinks while in mid-air. The dragon spin around and recover balance in mid-air, while Max falls to the ground on his back.

"Damn, this dragon is just full of surprises, what comes next? The moon walk?" says Max to amuse himself after been sent flying.

Of course, Max did not had time to fool around because the dragon was planning to land on him. Max started to believe that the dragon was not as smart as he though at first, or that its desperate to finish the fight. Max's thoughts were interrupted when he noticed the dragon about to land on top of him. Max easily rolled out of the way and quickly got up to his feet. Now that Max was on his feet, he noticed that the dragon was showing signs of exhaustion, signaling that the match will end soon if he planned his next move. Instead of going off and do the same thing again, Max replaced his saber for his handgun and started shooting at the dragons head. The dragon did not had a change to counterattack and, due to the previous attack damaging its scales, could not resist the bullets as much as before. The dragon started to slowly fall while been attack, and before it finally fell, it gave a mighty roar. With that, marked the end of the tremendous match, leaving an injured Max as the victor.

"Finally...its over. Damn, now that I notice, everything hurts like crap," says Max exhausted and puts his handgun away.

Now that the dragon was down, Max started to explore the room that he is in, trying to find a door or some kind of entrance into the dome. At the far end of the room, he notice some crates close to a suspicious looking wall.

"Well, I might have found something worth checking in this room," Max starts to approach to the other side as he finishes his thoughts.

Max approached to the boxes first and starts breaking them with his fists. To Max, it seemed as if it became the normal way to open crates, even though they could be open in a better way, but he didn't feel like finding another way after the fight that he got into. After breaking them, Max found some meseta, monomates and a sword the size of a person.

"Now that's what I would call a price. Time to check this wall," says Max while approaching said wall. In closer look, Max founds that the wall has cracks and looks about to fall. Maybe it got like that during the fight, he wonders. Max decides to use his new sword and breaks the wall with a mighty slash. The wall revealed an entrance leading to some lower level. Close to the entrance, on the right side, Max found another one of the recording devices. Just like the others, Max decides to put away his sword and starts to listen to the message.

"I wonder where this entrance leads to? How come they never mentioned this before? Where they hiding something? What ever caused the people to disappear might be down there, or my name is not Red Ring Rico. Time to check inside," and with that the message ends.

"Red Ring Rico? I have heard about her, she's like some kind of hero. As far as I know, she was sent here, but I don't know for what. Maybe security since she's a tough one, wonder how she escaped the explosion?" murmurs Max while taking a look to the entrance.

"I better report this to the Principal. He might also know something about Red Ring Rico and what happened to her, but before that, am going to get some help, am beat," as Max finishes planning what to do, he uses a telepipe and goes back to Pioneer 2.

Next chapter: Max reports what he found and gets help from the office.