Chapter: 2

Pain surged through his body, tearing him apart from the inside. His blood slowly began to boil as he thought of the damage that orc had done to him, before prancing off victorious to his leader with a broken weapon. He could have done anything to stop that dragon, but he didn't, he was afraid of the deep blue mass of scales that was Drake. Both dragon and orc knew that behind those red eyes of malice was just a cowardly foe no better than any other, and feared the strongest sixteen year old dragon in the land.

Landing as the two approached the village, Drake flinched with every step he took, shaking violently every few minutes as another wave of pain rippled through his body, making his heart beat faster and his front leg throb dramatically. As he continued to go on, he felt certain areas of his body go numb, and his vision slowly began to fade into a haze of colour. He took off, in attempt to lessen the pain, but began to lose control over himself, and flapped harder, trying to keep flight, but to no avail. He began spiralling down, and felt his head collide with the ground, and saw a red liquid flow in front of him, blood; his blood.

Roza froze as Drake hit the floor, and for moment stood in shock, taking a while to realise what had just happened. She stared for a moment, then came to his side, even though she dreaded being close to him. She bent down on her front legs by him, and then eventually brought her back legs down too, her wings settling by her sides as she watched the blood flowing through the wound. She didn't know what she could do, and felt helpless just staying beside him, but she knew better than to just walk off and leave him to die alone.

Edging closer to him, she spoke, "Can you hear me, Drake?"

All that came in reply was a quiet moan, as he let his eyes gently close, as Roza continued to stare. She tried to call upon the Chaotix Magic she possessed, but she didn't have the strength. She shook her head and pressed it gently against the floor; trying not to let the tears she held back escape.

She didn't know how long she stayed there with him, nor why she had done so, but after a while; she began to feel another presence around her. Lifting her head gently from the floor, she realised that she was lying in blood, a pool which was very slowly growing larger. She took to her feet, and looked around her. All she could see were the many scattered corpses of orcs and dragons, decaying in their hundreds, no signs of life could be seen, but still she felt something was there.

"Is anyone there?" she called out, her eyes frantically darting from left to right. No reply came other than the caw of a crow above. Temporarily taking her mind off of Drake, and his current condition, she walked a few meters away, where she closed her eyes and began listening to the wind.

'That crow may be noisy', she thought to herself, 'but its presence wouldn't have been so recognisable. Something else is out there, somewhere.'

The presence felt stronger around her as she sat there, as if something was moving ever closer to her. She tried to listen for sounds of movement, but only the faint caw of the now distant crow could be heard, other than the gentle whisper of the wind. She smiled a little, somewhat happy even though disaster was clearly around her. Her scales became warm, as if the Sun above was directing its full attention on her, ignoring all others in this world.

After a small while, Roza began to feel her blood boil. Heating up ever so quickly under her grey scales, until eventually she felt as if someone had set fire to her insides. She opened her eyes, but couldn't see a thing. Darkness was all around her, and something, a dancing shadow was rapidly rushing around her. She looked to her side, but couldn't see anything. No ground, no sky, no Drake.

"Who are you?" Roza called out, "What do you want?"

The dancing shadow let out a laugh, with his cold, shrill voice, the dragoness flinched.

"I am your worst nightmare," he said sternly, clicking his translucent fingers, and letting a small flame erupt from the tips, yet it did not make any attempt to burn him, "And I want you to visit my Master."

Roza used her ice breath to immediately put out the flame, and froze the shadows fingers in place, and then asked, "Master?"

The shadow frowned, lit up another flame; just enough to melt the ice, then put it out. He flew above the dragoness, and looked her over, "Yes, yes. My Master isn't very happy with you, or that beast."

Roza thought for a moment, "You are from orcs side, aren't you?"

The shadow chuckle with malice, "Indeed, I am. We are the superior, and destroyed your race in the heat of battle."

"You didn't destroy us!" she yelled back, slowly filling with rage, and arching her back, "And you are definitely not superior over the dragons."

The shadow lowered himself to Roza, so the two were eye level, and simply said, "You want to bet?"

"Indeed I do," she replied.

The shadow gave a grin, raised his arms, and dashed through Rozas chest, emerging from her back. The dragoness' eyes rolled back in her head, as she fell backwards, and was engulfed in total darkness.