Scales the Draconic Oddball

by Kowlickkid

Chapter 4: I Find Out That I'm Crazy

I Find Out That I'm Crazy

We slowly circled around the arena, observing each other. The atmosphere was hushed, and the tension was almost unbearable. I noticed that the red dragon was sweating.

'Is it because of heat, or fear?' I asked myself.

His eyes almost seemed to doubt what he was doing, before he narrowed them and snarled, rushing towards me. He managed to get a good jab on my left cheek and a kick to the stomach. I reeled back and caught my balance. I cracked my neck, twice.

"That all you got?"

He tried for me again. This time, I was ready. My forearm instinctively fused it's scales together, providing a very effective defensive surface. His fist hit it with a loud crack before he groaned, pulled his hand back and shook it gently.

'While I'm at it, I might as well enforce my creepy image.' I reasoned, letting a sinister smile climb to my lips. I opened my hands, and the black claws made a sound like a sword against it's sheath as they extended an inch. I swiped across his chest, leaving a shallow gash.

"Aaaaaaaaah!" he screamed.

"Careful, Red. That was just a warning."

I resumed my stance, preparing myself for what he could do. His eyes blazed. He whipped towards me and attacked with a new ferocity. I could block many of them, but a lot of them still found their marks.

'So now he's done fooling around. Too bad for him I'm going easy right now.' With a final tail strike, he blew me back to the wall. He grinned satisfactorily.

"How do ya like me now?"

I didn't answer. I felt the familiar feeling of adrenaline coursing through my veins. I knew it wasn't enough. My knuckle-claws slowly extended from their places. His eyes widened for a moment, but he forced them back to normal, intent on not letting me see the fear in his eyes.

"So big deal. You've got a couple extra claws. I'll still defeat you."

I just looked at him for a few seconds. Then my arm flew back. With a grunt, I spun and let the fist fly... right to the boulder next to me. He cackled.

"You're going to be easier than I thought. You can't even aim right."

I didn't respond. My fist burned with pain, which slowly crept up my arm. Suddenly, I clutched my heart area and fell to one knee.

"You are a weakling. You don't even have a right to be licking my footsteps." he taunted.

In my mind, I smiled. 'Boy, this battle is far from over.' The heartburn was what I was looking for. The other liquid poured into my blood vessels. This was superior to adrenaline. I stood up again and looked into his face, my heart speeding up. He gasped.

"Y-your... your eyes...", he stuttered out.

My heart was a hum now, nothing capable of hearing a gap between beats. I began to chuckle. The chuckle soon turned into a laugh, which morphed into a maniacal outburst that a certain green-haired clown would have been proud of. My right fist sped into him, faster than I myself could see. He was swept back by the blow. I continued cackling. His wide eyes looked at me in fear.

"W-what happened t-t-to y-you?"

I slowly advanced towards him.

"There is both a thick line and a thin line between sanity and madness. Some people plant their feet on the sane side. Others yield to mind breaks and dance over to madness. I have both my feet firmly planted and they aren't going to budge. I'm standing with a foot in each of the areas. Sometimes I'm dead serious, not joking for anything in the world. At other intervals, I'm completely bonkers."

He paled significantly, but still got up.

"I don't know what you are, but I'm still going to mash you into a pulp." he stated; his visible shaking clearly betrayed him.

I growled, a hissing angry kind of growl, spread my wings threatiningly, dropped into a bestial crouch, and to top it all off, I hissed. A mad hiss, my mouth slightly open with my thin tongue fluttering. I coulda sworn he took a whizz right there. I could scarcely blame him. Heck, I was creeping myself out.

I leaped at him with a roar and bit his shoulder, hard enough to draw blood, but not quite enough to take the arm off. I quickly batted him to the side with my tail, sending him right into a boulder. He slowly lifted himself up and painstakingly got into a battle stance. With surprising speed, he ran around to my back and tried to punch me there. Pretty big mistake. For one thing, I had a bunch of spikes there. For another, there were the wings. Lastly, and definitely not leastly, my tail was right there. I almost felt sorry for the poor guy. Almost.

He ended up leaning against a boulder, several cuts adorning his body, dripping a dark green liquid. He panted and moaned in pain.

"Do you yield?", I asked, knowing full well what the answer was.

He looked at me bitterly. "Fine. Don't go patting yourself on the back just now, though, because I was going easy on you."

"Yeah, yeah, you keep telling yourself that, okay?"

For a minute, I thought his face was going to explode with rage. I walked back to the shady spot where Lena was stationed. She regarded me with open eyes and equally wide jaw. I smirked at her.

"Have you bothered counting the flies that go in there, or do you just round up and add four for good measure?" I joked.

She glared at me.

"Let's not start that again."

I chuckled.

"But it's so much fun!" I jokingly complained.

She glared again.

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The sun was low in the sky. It was beginning to cool down fast, so Lena took to walking by herself until we could find a place to spend the night or firewood, preferably both.

"Scales?", said the pink pony walking next to me.

"Hmm?"

"What happened back there? You just kinda changed, as if you were another person. And not just during the dragon fight, even though it did have that creepy insanity thing. It also happened when you battled the blink hounds. Why? Your muscles relaxed, and I could hear your heart doing 600 beats per minute at least. And your eyes, they just... I don't know. They turned into slits and the irises turned... yellow. Just a golden yellow that looked intimidating, as if you were going to tear apart what you were mad at, though, you actually did pretty much tear apart what you were mad at."

"I'm not sure exactly what happened. My best guess is that apart from adrenaline, which is produced every time we get startled, I also have a hormone that works in situations of more stress, but has drastic effects, giving me a sort of primal instinct to protect me."

She stared at me like I was some sort of freak(not far from the truth).

"I will never understand you.", she mumbled.

"I don't fully understand me myself.", I chuckled. "One of the characteristics of being crazy, I suppose. I can live with it."

But inside, I was feeling a little worried.

'What's happening to me?'

We finally stopped walking as we saw a sort of stone cavern, made by the stacking of boulders by some unknown means. We looked at each other and shrugged. Better in there than out. Entering, I blew a little flame around the small natural room. It was empty, had plenty of air holes, and was pretty good for spending the night, considering our current location. Finding a few tumbleweeds and a large-ish boulder, we entered the cave. I lit the plants on fire in a corner and settled the rock up against the opening. Lena raised an eyebrow at me, a munched apple suspended in the air near her.

"Well, we don't want any unexpected visitors, do we?" She shrugged and laid down near the fire. I tossed the blink hound furs over to her.

"You're gonna need these. Gets pretty cold in the desert at night."

"What about you?"

"Uh... Dragon here? I think my body will raise enough heat to keep me warm. I breathe fire, for goodness sake. I can just heat up a rock if I need it."

"Whatever floats your boat."

Spying a boulder in the shape of a log anchored firmly near the top of the stone structure, I struck an idea. Executing half of a flip, I wrapped my talons around the rock and held on. 'Not bad. Actually, more comfortable even than just lying down.' A snore came from the direction of my partner. I rolled my eyes. Hopefully I would actually be able to sleep.

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A hollow knocking sound woke me up. I stretched my neck a little to peer at a very annoyed scientist.

"You woke me up on purpose. You started snoring, and when I woke up you stopped." she accused.

"I hate to burst your bubble, but don't remove the non-existent speck from my eye before you take out the plank in yours. You snored all night like a hog." Her face reddened.

"You don't have any proof."

"Well, there's the fact that the snoring stopped the exact instant you woke up."

She reddened even further. I paid no notice. Ever since she woke me up, I had been feeling something surrounding my entire body. I examined myself, still hanging from the ceiling. My wings were comfortably wrapped around me, forming a cocoon. 'Cool'. Lena shivered.

"I told ya you were gonna need those furs."

"That's true. Thank you. Now could you please open up the rock so we can get on our way?" she demanded, slightly vexed.

"Alright, alright, don't get your mane in a bunch." I loosened my hold on the rock and fell to the floor. Standing up, I rubbed my head and then started to tug at the rock. My eyes widened. "It won't budge."

"WHAT!?!" she screamed. "I don't want to be stuck in here forever!" She started hyperventilating. "Somebody get me a bag!"

"I'm just kidding, Lena. Sheesh, what a drama queen," I remarked, removing the stone from the entrance. Lena glared at me with narrowed eyes, proclaiming death to all who dared step in her way. I grinned.

"I'm on both sides of the mental status line, remember? I'm feeling a bit wacky at the moment."

Her eyes still did not lose their venomous tint.

The sun had risen, boiling the landscape in it's firey heat. Celestia was really overdoing it today, and we only had one canteen of water left.

"Okay Lena, here's how it's going to work. We're going to have to get out of this place as quickly as possible, to ensure your survival. I don't know exactly how fast I can go, due to the restricting trees back there, but I hope I can make it to the end of the desert in time. Now climb on and tell me which way to go."

"Fine. You win. I'll insult you when we're out of this place." With a grunt of effort, she clambered up to the small hollow on my back and pointed the direction.

"You might want to hold on," I told her, a grin flashing across my face.

I crouched down, and took off. And when I say I took off, I really took off. I was really pickin' 'em up and layin' 'em down, if you catch my drift.

"WHOOHOO!!!" I yelled to noone in particular. "Sonic The Hedgehog, eat your heart out!"

To say the least, Lena wasn't exactly enjoying the ride. I looked back over my shoulder to find a now-pale-green pony with an appearance of severe nausea. I froze. A little bit too unexpectedly. Lena flew off my back and forward, landing surprisingly, and to my relief, softly. Into a tumbleweed. The spiky kind.

"Could this day get any worse?" she moaned.

I face-palmed. That is one of the worst things to say in a cartoon world, another being: You and what army? Needless to say, immediately a small wind rolled her and the tumbleweed around, prompting a vomit. The wind changed direction immediately, sending her right back. I merely stared and shook my head as a personal thunderstorm appeared over her head. She looked at me miserably.

"This. Never. Happened."

"Oh, I don't know, it seems like-" I was cut off by her popping up near my face and glaring.

"Never. Happened." The tone in her voice was quite threatening, and I was inclined to listen to her. "Now, if we can just forget about this, we can go for it again. Slower. Or else." I sighed and nodded resigningly.

She climbed onto my back with great dignity and I ran again. At a pace faster than before.

'She's gonna kill me for this, but I want at least a little fun. I just hope she doesn't assault me in my sleep.'

Well, fourth chapter is done, finally. This one took a bit longer, as I had other RL stuff to do. Will continute updating, though. Stay tuned.

Comments

[Liqwidice]

WOW... I'm first. Keep up the great story. I love it.

[Fernin]

Hahahaha, that poor pony