Chapter 4 – The Arena
It was during our light meal that we heard a strange noise. It was a loud pounding noise that sounded like a large creature beating against an enormous metal door. Yakko and I slowly rose to our feet and made our way toward the origin of the noise. Louder and louder it got as we moved closer toward the center of the building. We finally reached the inner wall and it seemed like there was more to the building than that. The loud noise still could be heard from the other side of the wall still. So, Yakko and I slowly moved back to the rest of the group and when, the actual back wall began to thump loudly, almost as if something was on the other side. We looked back only to watch the wall begin to crack from near the top all the way down to the floor. We backed up as quickly as we could as the cracks began to widen and spread. We were just about to reach the rest of the group just as the wall burst in toward us. Large chunks of stone and concrete came flying at us all and landing mere inches away from us, bouncing away and nearly disintegrating upon impact, some breaking many smaller pieces that still could hurt us pretty badly if they did hit. During the whole scenario, Wakko grabbed his new, magic fridge and put it back into his gag-bag to make sure it wasn't destroyed.
During all of the commotion, there came a loud, high-pitched roar from the dust cloud left behind by the wall's destruction. After the dust settled down a little while, a dark silhouette could be seen in the clouds. When the dust settled enough to actually see what had destroyed the wall, we were astonished to see a black European dragon. Its head was that of a boa constrictor's and had sharp horns producing out from just behind its yellow snake-like eyes. It also had a long neck spanning around 8 ½ feet long and had razor sharp spikes running along the vertebra of its spine. Its body nearly resembled that of a black Labrador dog, except the lizard-like feet, and also had spikes following the spine. Despite popular belief, this dragon had no wings, however was strong enough to break through the stone wall. Its tail spanned around nearly 9 or 10 feet and had spikes running down it until approximately 4 inches from the tail tip.
The moment it saw us, it roared again, rearing its head back. When it stopped, it started inhaling, making a kind of hissing noise like us cats. Inside its mouth, it began to light up as if the inside of his throat had flames inside. That's because, it did! The moment it exhaled, a spray of flames leaped from its mouth at us. Ace quickly leaped in front of us and called out for a barrier spell. A dome of energy surrounded us and the flames struck the barrier, bouncing off of it. Despite not being burned to cinders, I could still feel the intense heat piercing through the shield nearly scalding my fur. "What's going on? Where did this thing come from?" Dot screamed. Ace, still concentrating on keeping up the barrier responded, "It must have smelled the deli meat and came to claim it for its own." Placing all of the power he could into his current spell, the barrier expanded to nearly the size of the room, smashing into the dragon and pushing it back outside from where it came. The creature toppled onto its back and rolled toward its left to quickly get back onto its feet.
Ace then activated his sage mode, hoping that it would simply go away like that tiger-lion-thing. Unfortunately, the dragon wasn't impressed with all that glowing. Instead, it seemed to enrage it even more. The dragon once again reared back and threw flames from its mouth at the small kitten. Ace once again put up the shield to protect us and the heat penetrated through so we all could feel it. We would die of heat stroke before we even found out how to get back home. The dragon didn't seem like he was going to stop throwing fire at us until it was sure we were dead either. Ace suddenly used the teleportation spell on us to get us all back outside of the building. However, we appeared in the center of the building's arena instead.
The center had no roof and was about as wide as the Autzen Stadium that the Oregon Ducks football team plays in, and (other than the unkempt grass and lack of chalk lines) it kind of resembled it as well. The side walls spanned up to the tallest ceiling inside the building, and then the bleachers rose up another 5 stories. The dragon looked for us for a while until he simply stopped and sniffed at the air. It turned around to look in our direction and roared just before it decided to charge at us once again.
"Ace," I said, "Do you think you can stop that thing?" Ace turned to me and looked at me with his eyes glowing with that diamond blue light and nodded. Then, placing a shield around his body, he levitated about a foot off of the ground and darted straight for the black lizard at high speeds. The dragon lowered its head to begin to defend itself and the two smashed into each other like two rams fighting over a female, applying all of the force that they could against each other to overpower one another like in a game of arm wrestling.
Ace and the dragon seemed to be perfectly matched and equal in strength until Ace burst into that diamond blue aura and pushed the creature back through the hole it made when it broke through the wall. There was a large cracking noise and a cloud of dust escaping from the hole and settling on the ground. After a short while of suspense, Ace emerged from the dust cloud floating in the air and slightly bruised, but alright for the most case. He wearily gave me a reassuring smile and all of my worries simply washed away until the dragon came back from beyond the dust cloud and, in one snap, swallowed ace whole. My heart sank into its own shadowy depths of despair as I witnessed him disappear from view as the dragon's mouth snapped shut.
The vicious creature glared at the rest of our group hungrily and wanting a taste of the rest of its meal. All five of us were frozen with fear as the dragon moved in closer and closer to us ready to devour us one by one, until there was a small rumbling in its stomach. Suddenly it reared back as if it was in dire pain. It began to thrash around in searing agony, roaring and screeching at the top of its lungs. Dot then noticed something happening at the dragon's feet. Apparently, they were beginning to freeze up. The freezing continued on up the dragon's legs and crawled along his body until it was completely encased in ice, unable to move. Slightly relieved and confused, no one could explain what had just happened until a small rumbling began to occur from inside the dragon ice sculpture. The rumbling grew louder and louder until the whole frozen creature began to shake violently. Suddenly, the frozen dragon burst like a crystal statue striking the ground from being dropped from the hands of a human, and in its place was Ace alive and well, floating in mid air and slowly lowering himself to the ground.
Overwhelmed with joy, I bounded over to him to make sure that he was, indeed, alright. When I got there, he was breathing heavily and barely awake. "Sorry if I scared you mom. I didn't mean to." With tears of joy rolling down my cheeks, I said to him, "Don't worry about it kiddo, just rest for now." With that Ace closed his eyes and his breathing eased as he fell asleep.
Dot then walked up to me, placing her hand gently on my back and said, "I'll carry him in my back pack." Reluctantly, I nodded and agreed as long as I traveled with him. Dot then placed both Ace and I inside her half-zipped pink back pack and we all solemnly continued our journey.