Rose gaped at the dragon as she fell, shocked to see that it had flipped right side up, was hovering in place, and appeared to be sticking it's tongue out at her like a bratty child. She however quickly turned away from the dragon with a more pressing issue coming to mind: She was quickly falling to her death while holding a useless half of leather harness. Weighing her options and realizing that walking away from this situation wasn't going to be option without outside help she started yelling for someone to help her.
Meanwhile the guard that had cruelly set her up to die at the claws of the cunning purple dragon simply laughed as he watched her fall. So what if the dragon had actually been left in it's enclosure with strict orders for no one other than the War Prince to ride it? The sole witness to his crime the pink hedgehog would be dead soon and dead hedgehogs didn't talk. He watched her with great amusement laughing to himself at her inevitable end.
The laughter died on his lips as he felt a familiar fiery presence behind him. Turning around he found himself face to face with a red furred, orange eyed hedgehog. The red furred hedgehog's eyes revealed his rage but he quickly spun away from the guard and focused his eyes upon the life or death scene taking place overhead. The look on his face held every expression under the sun except for approval. The guard shuddered as he realized that the jig was up.
Rose had shut her eyes to hide the hideous site of the ground rushing up to meet her when she heard a whistle like none other in her life. It was a very melodic sound that started at a pitch higher than a dog whistle and then dwindled out to a soft sigh. It seemed to be a language all it's own. Opening her eyes she spotted a medium sized (about the size of a football field) flame colored dragon racing upward from the ground towards her.
Quickly realizing that the dragon was coming to help her she was able to reposition her body In just enough time for the dark orange dragon to make a clean catch. The instant she landed on the dragon's back she heard another whistle this one much shriller and sharper the dragon heard it and immediately coasted back to the ground and landed. When she looked up she noticed that it had landed directly at the feet of a red furred hedgehog that was about her size.
The red furred hedgehog looked at her with a gaze that seemed to encompass a forest fire "Get. Off. My. Dragon." Rose quickly complied this new hedgehog seemed angry enough without her contributing. The instant she did the dragon walked behind him and sat down giving her a baleful look and snorting in her general direction.
This was her first time getting a good look at the dragon and she couldn't help but stare as it had a rather odd appearance. It's orange scales were so smooth that individual ones could only be picked out upon intensive inspection, it's red eyes had no visible pupils and upon closer inspection it seemed to have three sets of much smaller eyes behind it's main ones, a mouthful of fangs each the size of a machete tied together the dragon's facial features.
She was quickly snapped out of admiring the strange reptile's features by the odd flame colored hedgehog beside her. "Who told you to ride that dragon?" He seemed to have calmed down considerably now that she wasn't on his dragon anymore. "That guard right there." Rose informed him.
The flame colored hedgehog turned to the guard. "You deliberately disobeyed direct orders." The guard spluttered "I was only testing her worthiness.." Rose barely noticed the almost imperceptible nod that the Flame colored hedgehog gave to the dragon at his side. However the dragon's response was much more noticeable.
Lifting one mighty front leg off of the ground the dragon lowered it's foot down on top of the guard, spreading it's talons so that one landed on each side of the petrified guard. Rose noticed then that each bright orange claw was bigger than the guard himself. "You only playing almost resulted in the death of another servant. Now what do you think your punishment should be?" The guard was stunned into silence mutely staring into the eyes of the mighty dragon.
"Fine I'll let my dragon decide what to do with you then." He turned away seeming to completely lose interest. Rose however noticed that the dragon continued watching him before it picked the guard up in it's front two claws and took off far into the sky. As she continued watching the dragon stopped when it had got as high as it could go and dropped the guard.
Shaken by the fact that the guard had just experienced the fate he had almost condemned her to she studied the crimson furred hedgehog. He in turn was studying her. "You must Rose the newest servant." Finding that he was hard to read and that she felt as though she was wilting under his intense stare she replied "Yes I'm Rose." She wanted to know his name but remembered Shadow's warning.
Just then the dragon landed in between them and dropped the guard's mangled corpse directly at the orange eyed hedgehog's feet before retreating behind him again and studying Rose. Speechless she stared into the massive creatures blood colored eyes. "You must be inexperienced with dragons." The red hedgehog stated.
Rose glanced back at him wondering what an appropriate response would be only to see that he had turned his back to her. "Continue with your duties, but consider your lesson learned: Never attempt to ride a dragon if you don't know it's master." With that he left the dragon exercise enclosure without another word and without looking back.
Rose watched him go and then turned back to look at the dragon that he had left behind. It in turn stared it her with it's head cocked to the side. She didn't know whether or she should attempt to ride this particular dragon and with her latest dragon riding experience still fresh in her mind she opted to leave this dragon to it's own devices.
While she was studying the flame colored dragon, the purple dragon with the metallic purple scales that had flipped her off earlier landed beside her. She looked at it warily wondering what it was up to. The dragon lowered it's head and stared directly into her eyes for a split second before turning away. She noticed that it still had on the half of the harness that encompassed it's head. Would the dragon's owner be angry that the halter had been destroyed? She decided that she did not want to find out.
The purple dragon turned back to her it's scales seeming to shimmer in the sunlight and head butted her knocking her cleanly off her feet and soiling her mostly white dress. Stunned she looked up at the dragon only to roll out of the way in the nick of time for one of it's talons was imbedded deep in the earth where her chest had been a second before. Scrambling to her feet she quickly realized that she had no weapons with which to fight the dragon and no one around to come to her aide.
While looking around she spotted another purple dragon coming up behind the first. This new dragon had lighter colored scales, was around the same size and had the exact same build all the way down to the weird strip of fur. It hissed at the dragon that had been threatening Rose and positioned itself in between them staring down her attacker.
Her former attacker turned and walked away not at all interested in fighting to get to Rose. The new dragon turned to Rose and nudged her. She noticed that it had a weird contraption almost like a dragon saddle on It's back that was skillfully embroidered with the likeness of mallow flowers. The dragon also had a slight familiar scent. With a jolt she realized this dragon belonged to the hedgehog that had helped Cream earlier. She immediately started wondering how her new friend was doing.
Meanwhile, Shadow had walked out of the room where Fleetway had murdered the guard earlier and since found Silver. Since they both had jobs as palace guards it wasn't hard for them to get shifts patrolling together. Actually accomplishing their mission however was hard since they had specified sectors to patrol that they weren't allowed to leave under any but the direst of circumstances.
Their patrol had been a real drag so far with nothing eventful happening. As the clock neared noontime the monotony of their day took an abrupt change. The door directly in front of them was knocked open without warning as another guard an unusually large echidna with yellow fur ran in. "The messenger has been sighted!"
Shadow and Silver exchanged glances. What exactly was so important about this particular messenger? The guard eyed them I wonder if we get to overhear anything? He quickly ran back out slamming the door shut behind him. Shadow glanced at Silver "I advise you to pretend that nothing is happening."
Silver nodded in mute agreement as the door opened again this time it was a nurse followed with a full crew of hospital security. "Have you seen my patient? He's a hedgehog about your size." Shadow told her respectfully that her patient hadn't came this way and after she left turned to Silver. "That's odd there don't seem to be many hedgehogs here except for the Royal Family and us."
The words had scarcely left Shadow's lips before the door opened and closed so quickly and quietly it gave the illusion of having never opened. Standing eye to eye with Shadow was another than Sonic The Hedgehog. Silver asked for both of them "Sonic what are you doing here!?"
Sonic looked at them gave them his trademark grin and then dashed out of the room without the slightest explanation. It took another second for it to dawn on Shadow that Sonic was the hedgehog that the medics had been looking for.
There was no time to dwell on that however because the door opened yet again but this time it was to admit an exhausted looking male Jack Rabbit being escorted by a trio of royal guards. The rabbit looked as if he had run to a state of exhaustion. Shadow noticed his official messenger uniform and knew that he was the messenger that the king had been waiting to see he carefully noted the rabbit's only distinguishing physical feature as the other guards marched him past.
Standing guard as he was he couldn't break his duty and potentially his cover at that moment in time but that didn't mean he wouldn't catch the messenger later. So standing by on guard both physically and mentally Shadow and Silver bided their time.
Meanwhile the messenger was terrified even though he had arrived on time. The king's mood was unpredictable and he was bringing less than perfect news. He desperately hoped that the king was in a good mood as he understood that his life hung in the balance. Trembling with fear the rabbit marched onward.
He was passed from the custody of the Royal Guards to that of the King's personal ones. His fear know increased two-fold the rabbit took a depth breath before signaling to the guards to push open the double doors to the debriefing room. Steeling himself mentally he slowly stepped inside.