Consequences of Arrogance

To tell you what happened with Big Pinky (yes, that is his real name) and Shiver along with the fate of Bada who was flying off into the distance after being thrown by the big gorilla in tights, I have to start from the end and work my way backward. There is a reason. I want to pull all of my mistakes into the story the best way I see fit.

Obviously, since I am telling you my life's tale, as a hero, it means that I survived this ordeal and many more that you will read about. No doubt. And to tell what happened out of my own idea of sequence makes better sense from a storytelling perspective.

What on earth am I rambling about?

Well, let's go to the end.

Just out of town, in an underground ice cave, is where the children were being held in their freezing captivity. The pink brute was guarding the outside and his breathing sounded more like a semi-truck accelerating from a stoplight than a human being. I finally had tracked them down, and now, was ready to burn this little igloo to the ground!

Yes, my attitude has changed. The more time I spend in my dragon skin, the bolder and more extroverted I became. This has bled into my life as a human as well, and, hasn't actually always worked out well for me. Which is why I had made a huge mistake.

The mistake was bad enough for me to never let myself live it down.

I sent fireball after fireball cascading down the small hillside, striking Big Pinking over and over again. I didn't want to incinerate him, or to kill him, which I could have done. Instead, since I could control the intensity of the fire I produced; I used it at a level where he was certainly burned, and injured, yet not nowhere near fatally.

His tights, mostly smoldering ash now, exposed his massively muscular frame and he danced about, patting the flames, and cursing for me not coming to face him face to face. That's a lot of faces.

"No hide little lizard! Come from your hiding place and I squash you like mosquito in my fingers!" he called out, not at all happy about my little inferno.

His body, although a giant block of muscle, was extremely hairy, and I just couldn't resist firing one small fireball to singe it, at least some of it, right off of his ape-like chest and stomach.

"Ahhhh! You really make me mad now, bug! Come to me and face me like man!" he called out. Again, I'm not sure why he wanted for me to face him like a man when he was obviously a gorilla. And apparently, I was a bug, or a lizard, or a mosquito!

I stepped out from behind the trees concealing me, and he, half-naked, grinned at me with a hungry and fierce look. He grabbed a log, the size of a tree trunk next to him, and pulled back to throw it my way. Before he could launch it, a fire blast to set it ablaze took place and he dropped it on his own head.

It wasn't enough to knock him out with that thick skull, but it gave me enough time to run towards him and clobber his head with a rock the same size, and watch it shatter into dust on that hard skull before he hit the ground unconscious.

While in my dragon skin, my physical abilities were certainly higher! Nowhere near those of the big pink gorilla I just knocked out, yet enough to do some damage when I needed it most.

I used fire streams to melt the door of the ice cave and went inside. As far as I knew, Big Pinky and Shiver were the only two villains to deal with, and I never even thought about their possibly being more. Mistake. One down, one to go was my thought.

The ice cave was simply made, roughly the size of a basketball court. The children were in the far-left corner, enclosed in a cage of ice. They were freezing, shivering, and didn't say a word. Shiver was waiting for me just near them.

"Ice vs. Fire! My favorite! Yet you foolishly don't know what I can do turtle-head!" she yelled, not getting a rise out of me the way she wanted.

"I can see you take insult lesson from the pink gorilla who's been knocked in the lah-lah-land outside. Give up, Shiver! Simply walk away and leave the children to me. And take that burned-up ape outside with you! This is your one chance!" I replied, feeling very 'superheroic' at the moment.

"Fool! While you were detained after fighting with humans, we've already won! Let me introduce you to my friend, Inquizitor!"

At that, a strange-looking man, small in stature, no bigger than a child, yet with the face of an elder walked out from behind her where a passage was set in the ice wall. He grinned devilishly at me, laughed, then said,

"How delightful to see another of your kind! Simply marvelous! Allow me to elucidate, or perhaps, pontificate on the most supreme of phenomena I have yet to create! Behold!" he said in a creepy, high-pitched squeaky voice as he pointed to a ledge near the ceiling behind me.

I turned and looked.

There stood Bada! I thought she was back at our home, resting! And she was in dragonite form as well!

Before I could say anything, I noticed her eyes glowing not the usual blue color, but a black color with a bluish hue, and she thrust her hands forward releasing a powerful torrent of water that threw into the back of the igloo wall.

Shiver then released an icy blast that froze the torrent, with me to the wall, hands outspread to the sides; Shiver then shooting ice and snowballs to conceal them with packed layers of ice and snow.

I glanced up, and Bada was walking my way with a sinister grin like I had never seen before. Pure evil.

Shiver laughed aloud.

Inquizator laughed aloud.

Big Pinky lumbered into the cave with a highly sore look on his face while holding his throbbing head.

Things weren't looking good.

How did they get this way?

Let's back up now, to the beginning.

After I left the park, I was in bad shape after unconsciously morphing back into my human form. Shiver, Big Pinky, and the children were gone. I had to find Bada!

I walked as quickly as I could in the direction she flew off, after being thrown by the pink ape, and stumbled upon a nightclub. Normally, I would have passed by without a second glance. Noticing the patrons standing outside looking up, I could see why.

Bada was there, hanging off of a flag pole near the top of the building. She had morphed back to human as well. Some of the club's patrons were on the roof, instead of helping to save her, they threw rocks at her giggling and laughing! The patrons on the ground were laughing as well and cheering the brigands on.

I wanted to change back into my dragon form. I couldn't. I didn't understand why. Maybe it was from fatigue? I was just too tired and beat up to do it. Bada was the same I had guessed. She looked in bad shape.

I decided to run under where she hung and called up to her,

"Bada! It's me, Druk! Just drop! I will catch you! You're not too high! I'll get hurt worse than you! Drop!"

Some of the crowd cheered me. Others booed.

She dropped.

I caught her … kind of.

She landed on top of me, and my rib cage was quite sore afterward. Luckily, it didn't pound as bad as where I got kicked by the ice boot! She was okay for the most part, but I could see some of those rocks and bottles hit her in the head. Bleeding a bit, and very drowsy, held her close.

The crowd grew bored and walked back inside the club. A few of the patrons yelled obscenities at us, that was all. The bouncers told us to leave immediately. At least I think that's what they were saying in the Slavic language of Belarus.

"Bada, are you okay?" I asked while brushing her fallen locks of hair from her face.

"Not really. I landed up there from being thrown by that big pink monster. I was able to grab the pole, and it didn't break thank goodness! My wrist was badly twisted though. My dragon form dropped off while I was flying in the air! Those people hurt my head. I'm dizzy. You don't look any better than me. What happened?"

Before I could tell her, a voice interrupted.

"Ah! There you two are!" said Ihar.

"Ihar! Are you alright?" I called out.

"Of course. Of course. Now, let me take Bada here home. I have a car with me. She needs help for sure. You, Druk, go back to the park, and out to the woods beyond. There's an igloo there where Shiver is holding the children. Hurry!" he said, and walked away with Bada, while she glanced back at me with a worried look on her face.

I left. And arrived at the ice cave a couple of hours later. And yes, I was able to turn back into dragon form. And yes, my wounds healed.

Now, where did my arrogance ruin things?

That look. Bada didn't look well when walking off with Ihar.

I turned back before heading off and approached them at the car. Ihar gave me a strange, almost annoyed look. My head was too big to notice though. I said to Bada,

"Worry not about me, darling. Go, and rest. I can handle things." Yes, I actually called her 'darling'.

"Druk, don't you think Ihar isn't right?" she said in a whisper.

"That's just you worrying too much from all the excitement. Go ahead, go now, rest up, no worries!"

She nodded, while holding her ribs, and got into the car. They sped away.

So, what happened with Big Pinky and Shiver at the park? How did I get so beat up?

The beginning of my big-headed mistakes for sure.

I was falling. Falling from the Ferris Wheel seat. Big Pinky was running towards me. I shot fireballs at him with no aim. I missed wildly. He was pretty fast for being such a piece of ham!

When I nearly hit the ground, he let an uppercut fly, which caught me in the stomach, and jettisoned me back upward. Shiver then blasted me with an ice ball that knocked me backward and into the bottom part of the Ferris Wheel, bending the metal and making the colossal machine sway a bit.

"I'm Big Pinky! I don't like scaley-headed men like you!" the giant said. Shiver approached arrogantly with a sway to her walk that made me sick.

I'm not sure the big lug actually ever saw someone like me before. No matter.

Now, two ways to handle this popped into my mind. One was to use the ticket booth beside me to run behind, out of sight, then try to sneak out of danger under the Ferris Wheel and get out of there. Go find Bada and get help! If I stayed low and used cover, the big idiot would lose track of me I was sure.

The second way, and one I chose, was to stand up, insult the big pink monster and ice-producing witch, and fight my way to victory. Too bad when I stood up and said …

"Big pink idiot! And Elsa's uglier double! I grow tired of this playing around! Now burn!"

… I had morphed back to human after I had landed. I didn't even notice. My pride and arrogance had hold my mind. That's a bad side-effect of confidence if you let it form, and take hold. Nothing but trouble will follow as well.

After standing, the pains in my stomach forced me to sit again. Shiver approached, and with an ice-covered boot, kicked me in the face.

All went black.

If I had snuck away. Found Bada before the rocks were being hurled at her, striking her head, and dizzying her mind, things could have been different. She wouldn't have walked away with that fake Ihar.

If I hadn't been too overconfident about stopping the villains on my own, and truly looked at Ihar, and observed, I would have seen that something was off. After all, he was supposed to be in the hospital for days, beyond just a couple.

Here I was though, frozen to the side of the igloo, with Bada, now overtaken by some sort of mind control approaching and ready to drown me. With three, no, four villains all around with us! Yes, there was another! The shapeshifter!

Another girl, young, looking to be about Bada's age appeared from the back secrete entrance and joined the others in laughter. She was obviously from somewhere far away. I just couldn't place from where. And I knew she was a shapeshifter because she kept changing form to mock me! From herself to Ihar, to me, yes, looking like me in human form scared out of my wits!

Things were certainly dire at this point!