Chapter 3: Pedals of a lavender rose

It was hard. Every time I seem to find a new friend to ease me through my troubled life, they were taken away from me. Life picks its favorites. I've come to realize that. And, I seem to have been left off of that list as of late. First, my fellow gummi bears and two human friends murdered in front of my eyes and now, I have no idea if Eric has gotten out of the chair, let alone any idea where the men have taken me. In a few hours I've come to learn that Dr. Lavender's first name was Isaac and he was married to a beautiful young woman named Rosanne, whom the other scientists respect greatly and call "Rose". However, whenever she talked to me, I could sense a kind of longing in her voice. Something she wanted badly, but I just couldn't put my finger in it. She would come down to my cylindrical, tempered glass cell that was approximately thirteen feet high and nine feet in diameter and just talk to me. The only scientist in the entire facility to treat me like I was something other than a piece of meat. She would often vent her frustrations out calmly to me and I would just sit there and listen. I found it quite strange how she took to me so easily, probably because I might actually be the only female that has enough time on her hands to actually listen to another's problems. But I was leery of actually getting too close to her, my new found fears of having more friends ripped out from under me had grown in the past few days.

I listened to her and gave whatever kind of advice I had to give. She would often come to me with complaints about how her husband was so obsessed with studying me and how much effort she takes in delaying my dissection. So, more times than not, the scientists would come in and take a small sample of either fur or blood or simply take me out to conduct some kind of weird test using scanners and MRI's or X-rays and such. If I could understand all of the scientific mumbo-jumbo, I'd probably learn more about myself than I ever wanted. And actually, I'd ask Rose any difficult questions and she would answer them by giving me a simple definition. Despite my head's warnings, I ended up being good friends with Rose. That, however, had no effect on the long days of having needles stuck in me and having some of my fur trimmed. Despite my new friendship with her, I found myself wondering, "If, I'm taking up all of her husband's attention, then why doesn't she want me dissected? It certainly would end the majority of her drama."

An entire week went by and she continued to see me every two to four hours trying to postpone my dissection and continuing to talk with me. I found myself wondering what happened with Eric every now and then, but I tried to make sure that I never wondered out loud. Until on the seventh day when Rose was venting her frustrations out to me and I just couldn't find my head for pretty much the entire day. "Is something wrong, Sunni?" Rose's angelic voice sang in my ears. "Snapping back to the current reality I turned to look at her gentle smile and warm eyes. "Sorry, Rose. I was just thinking about a friend of mine. He was hurt before I was kidnapped and brought here. I wonder if he's even alive to come and rescue me." I said with my voice following my thoughts. I turned to look out a nearby window, which was still pretty far away from me, in attempt to see his face telling me so stay quiet and perhaps cause a riot or something. "What was his name?" Rose asked. Realizing that she actually was interested in what has happened in my life, I was a bit startled, and then I answered her, "Eric Lohengrin." Rose then turned and leaned closer to the glass tube that I was being kept in, intent on listening to my entire story and asked, "And, how did you come to meet the last member of the infamous Lohengrin family?" Shocked once again that she would be interested in the happenings of my life after all of her venting and rambling to me, I found myself asking her, "Why do you want to know?" "Well," she answered, "You've been listening to me bitch and complain for an entire week. I think it's about time I listened to your story. First, I would like to know how you got here."

I spent the next few hours retelling of my tragedies and horrors that had passed before my eyes the day of the blitz attack from Igthorn and his mechanical minions. By the end of my story, Rose seemed to have been saddened by the event that I recalled to her, so saddened that she had actually began shedding tears. "So that's what he did with my ancestor's machines." She mumbled to herself. "What?" I asked not exactly hearing her. "Why are you crying, I'm the one that actually lived through it." "Well, fate must really be cruel to you. You can't seem to get away from your horrible nightmare. It was my ancestor that provided Igthorn with those robots." Rose admitted to me. It finally hit me why she was being so nice to me. She felt responsible for the annihilation of the gummi bears. "They were designed for farming. The robot's sharp legs were designed to stab holes into the ground for the farmer to plant seeds, they also were programmed to drag their hind legs along to make trenches and they were supposed to be operated by remote control. "Yah, instead they were 'stabbing holes' in everything I held dear." I retorted in anger, still irritated at the fact that some people would even trust Igthorn. Placing the time stone in his hands was definitely a bad idea. "How long did it take for Igthorn to take over the world?" I asked Rose trying to tell myself that it actually wasn't her fault, just like Eric's. She sighed at me and said, "It took him many years, around three hundred to be precise. No one knows exactly how he lived so long. But, I've heard that it has something to do with a specific blend of gummi berry juice that he discovered." Again, it was back to gummi berry juice. The only blend that Grammi taught me was the stuff that made us bounce. I had never even given the thought to different blends having different effects before until Eric's confession. And now, it has come around full circle once again.

"There has to be a way to stop all of this." I thought out loud. "There might be, but my husband has scheduled your dissection for this afternoon, and I can no longer postpone his decision. The paperwork has passed through and has been approved. My hands are now tied." Rose said to me. My last strand of hope snapped under the strain of my failing confidence. Suddenly, a large rock came crashing through the window, followed by a cylindrical can that began spewing out a large amount of green smoke. First the scientists closest to the window began to cough like crazy and began to run about. Once another can of gas flew in through the window more scientists began coughing and I noticed that the smoke also irritated their eyes and they were blinded temporarily. Rose stood up like a shot and ran as fast as she could to get herself a respirator mask from the toxic experiment's area of the lab. You know, the area that all of the scientists keep quarantined off and conveniently hang up those green gas masks against the wall. Ya, that one. However, she inhaled some of the gas and her eyes began to sting as she coughed and coughed, while making her way back to me.

Safe in my glass cage for now, I began to notice a dark figure carrying a black duffel bag climb in through the broken window and also make his/her way toward me. He/she got over to where I was located, and began looking around for a something in the control panel. When Rose finally reached my area, I began to worry for her. If the two get in a fight, it is likely that she'd get hurt. I figured the invader probably had at least one weapon. Instead, the two looked at each other for some time and Rose finally pressed a few buttons on the console that released my glass prison's lock and the glass began sliding down into the floor. The unknown criminal then waited for the glass to get down a certain distance before throwing me my own gas mask, which I struggled to put on quickly.

The green gas quickly filled up my prison the lower the glass had gotten. Rose signaled for me to follow the two of them and we made our way into the next portion of the facility. The mysterious intruder threw these smoke bombs into every room we entered, causing every guard to tear up and cough like crazy. We finally turned a corner and made our way to a specific laboratory that was labeled "Main Testing Lab: Employees Only" and Rose quickly pressed a series of buttons on a digital pad that made a combination code lock. She then slid a card through the card slider attached to the digital pad and we heard a large bolt detach itself from the large steel door and the door itself began to slide toward the left. As the door continued automatically sliding, three guards had caught up with us and began firing weapons at us, hand guns that fired nine millimeter brass bullets. Though they were still coughing uncontrollably, they were still able to fire almost right at us. The mystery person reached into his/her duffel bag once more and pulled out a hand gun of his/her own, loaded a clip of the same size bullets and returned fire. His/her shots were more accurate, with him/her being unaffected by the gas. Bullets hit the first guard in the right shoulder and forehead, his blood shooting out the moment the bullets struck. The second guard took a single shot in the heart and he fell backward from the impact as well. The dark shades of the third guard were shattered from one of the bullets that struck him in the left eye and he also took a bullet in the right kidney. All three of them fell dead from the shots.

At this time, the door had slid open half way. Once the mystery rescuer, had dispatched of the guards, he/she reached into the duffel bag once more, pulled out another hand gun and tossed it to Rose, who caught it with grace in her soft hands. The mystery person then pulled out two fully loaded clips and tossed them one at a time for Rose to catch. Rose quickly loaded one of them and slipped the other one in her left hip pocket. She then quietly slipped into the main laboratory ready to shoot the gun if need be.