Chapter 8: Truth

Basilisk

I wasn't too worried. Shell and I had been friends since forever. Even with her weird moods she wouldn't betray me, that much was certain. I didn't know what she was doing, but I shot her a wink.

What I wasn't expecting was a second Tangerine to land. She wasn't a carbon copy but she was as close as you could get to one, the one in front of him had slightly paler scales and brown horns in stark contrast to Tangerine's bright orange colored ones.

"By order of the Princess, which is me in case you were wondering." Not Tangermean gave me a crooked smile, "You are being sent for an investigation."

"An investigation?" I asked, there was so many things I could be in trouble for, still the guard amount wasn't high but yet the princess was here, so I chose the best option, "Okay it's true you caught me! I talked to the Mutilator of Sun Island, he isn't half bad, he's actually just looking for his son, he got word you had him in your dungeons, figured I should ask about that?"

The Mutilator was an old friend of mine, we had met several months ago, and by met I mean crashed. We threatened each other, he tried to burn me alive, I shot venom at him. He threw explosives. I told him that he should be more creative than just being a general pyromaniac and taught him how to properly mangle a body. He thanked me for it, then he took me to his gang where we spent the rest of the night knitting explosives and chatting. I was even back in time to eat a swordfish with Shell!

It seemed like the most likely choice, he had this hobby of assassinating public figures explaining the princess and the low amount of guards could be due to I was allegedly just talking to him so they underestimated me.

"No, not the Mutilator!" hissed the princess, "I have no interest in him! There are more pressing matters."

Not the Mutilator? That was the most innocent thing I could think I did this year. Would they really care if I just refused to move. I sat down on the sand immediately, crabs away. They couldn't stop me.

A sharp spear poked my back. Were they threatening me? That was awfully rude of them.

"Get up." one of the guards said gruffly

"Make me!" I said hoping he would attack first, Shell was always telling me to control myself, but if they attacked first it would technically be self defense right?

He jabbed me again, I growled in response, "Is that the best you've got? I have no intention of leaving, I was just about to get that coconut."

High above us in the trees was a fairly good sized coconut. I actually despised coconuts with a bitter hatred but they didn't knwo that.

Sunrise looked mildly interested, "Go on Rainwing." She backed up. She feared me, I thought with a rush of delight. I was clearly amazing, "Amuse me."

Oh, this was her Mother's arena type thing… less cool but I wasn't going to object, I sprayed venom everywhere. "Go on little guy!" shouted Shell. That sounded as weird as heck-

Okay next stop was the doctor. After I finished off these guys, careful not touch my own venom I slashed the other guy across the neck. Startled he clumsily missed his talons scraping uselessly at thin air, "Come on is that all you've got!"

Shell also jumped into the fray, rolling through the crowd of Skywings and knocking them down with her powerful tail, into the deep waters which was her specialty.

Sunrise merely just watched her soldiers be slaughtered as if it was some game delight shone in her eyes as plain as day, that got under my nerves, sure I liked playing with my food but that was because they were the enemy, you can do bad things to dragons not on your team but on your team? If this was a game then she just wasn't playing fair.

My thoughts distracted me enough for a wayward fireball to hit me in the back of my skull, letting out a hiss of pain I advanced onto the frazzled Skywings, they clearly were barely trained for combat, he slipped on his own blood. Easily allowing me to circle around him and grab his horns into my talons. Repeatedly smashing his head on a rock. After it cut into his skull I blinked, wasn't Shell supposed to be mad at me? Looking around though there was only three dragons left Shell was on the side battling a much larger opponent who she was attempting to shove into the water, kicking up mud filled sand everywhere. The other was the princess, Sunrise I believed was her name. Her orange scales were muddy and some of her own previous scars had started to seep into the water staining it red, I started towards her but she easily took off with a great gush of air and a haughty laugh, "I don't understand why my Mother insists to watch trained fighters, your incompetency mixing with their incompetency was a hilarious showdown, better than anything I see nowadays. Now if you excuse me I have things to attend you, I trust we will be meeting again soon, bird."

Once she was in the air there was no stopping her. I let out a growl of frustration, I had really wanted to challenge her. My eyes darted back to Shell who had her jaws firmly clenched around the large Skywing general's tail, the one weak spot all dragons had.

The beach was left a bloody mess, and carcasses were strewn everywhere but the blood in the ocean had been washed away. Eventually Shell resurfaced.

"You okay, Basilisk?" they asked.

"Yeah of course." I said with a shrug.

"Guess we are officially runaways. Come on Basilisk, I know some dragons who can help us" shrugged Shell, before taking off into the sky above. I sighed loudly, it's not like they could do anything. Besides Shell was still acting odd, normally she'd wait for me or dare me into a race before taking off.

Still "New Shell" was still slower than me on average for flying, Seawings wings simply didn't hold the same girth as other wings their species evolving to have wings that didn't get in the way of swimming but worsened their flying abilities. At least that's how our teacher explained it.

We soared high into the sky, away from the coastline and sandy beaches, went through a thicket of forests t avoid being seen, and towards a bunch of dotted snowy mountains at the very edge of the Skywing Kingdom border there Shell circled around scanning for something.

I had so many flipping questions.