I immediately turned invisible again and did my best to swim away, with my newly shortened body getting to the nearest pillar I could climb up took forever. I couldn't help but look back every so often, only to see the giant creature just lazily making its way over! 

I am not going to be toyed with dammit!

I looked at Pops scornfully and did my best to 'doggie paddle' my way over to the only rows of pillars near me. They were on the other side of the damn pond; though, thankfully, they weren't on the side behind the lazy dinosaur...I really hoped this was just a projected imaged or something--that nothing here would be able to actually hurt me, or even kill me... like Pops had said they wouldn't be able to...

The next few minutes--and I got to see this due to the stupid clock--were mental torture. Sure, I might not be getting tired from this , or at least so far, but I also didn't seem to have an immediate reaction-response like most creatures had when faced with an threat or another dangerous creature. Which meant that I had to react to things on my own and just hope that I did so fast enough.

This really put into perspective what I needed to work on in the future for when I was going to be fighting other creatures, as the only levels I'd gotten were from the exhausted Humans I'd stolen from Red...though now that I thought about it wouldn't they have been wasted on her anyways? Since beings at higher levels should get a cap or something for killing anything a certain amount of levels under them?

There was a loud snap behind me that made me increase my pace a bit, getting more used to swimming now and finding that using my tail as a sort of rudder rather than just dragging it behind me helped out a lot. It also helped that it was a decent deterrent thanks to the blade at the end, I was glad the thing didn't decide to just speed up a little and drag me under, using my tail against me; Though, I guess I would've gotten the last laugh in the end, because of the 'extremely dangerous venom' I had. Something that I generated naturally as a sort of biological weapon of my own.

It took me ten agonizing minutes to reach the first pillar, and the process of hooking my claws into the wood was easy but dragging myself up was much harder than I thought it would be. Despite not having fur it seemed that I was pretty lacking when it came to the muscles requiring me to actually pull up my own body weight, so I guess that was another thing I would have to work on later...

Made me glad I didn't have a lot of fur like Redline had: even if it wasn't thick, I'm sure that it still had to be annoying when having gotten wet...Speaking of Redline. I took a quick glance up to look at her when I got to the top of the pillar. She was sitting up and watching the proceedings with reluctant interest, though I didn't know how she could see me. The croc couldn't, thankfully, or I'd have already been scrambling for the next pillars whilst trying to keep my paws from slipping off.

Moving with four legs was sometimes worse than having only two: I needed twice the amount of steps to catch up or go somewhere, it felt like it was twice the distance traveled too, and I needed twice the amount of foot-holds than if I had just two legs. Twice the amount of effort needed, just for doing the simplest of things...There was a sudden flare of light and I tensed.  Expecting the last few rows of pillars I was traveling on to fall over and the creature to know where I was based off of that, but it came towards me for a different reason:

My entire body was surrounded by a multi-color glowing light coat. Making me into some kind of rainbow beacon, I was practically ringing the snack bell for it! And the giant ass croc was hell-bent on crashing it's way towards me, the brightly glowing snack. Was this how Red was able to see where I was and what I was doing?

"Can't have you using your ability to skip out on the main point of this..." I jumped at the sound of Pops' voice seemingly right next to me. Almost missing the next set of pillars as I continued to travel forward atop them. A quick glance up showed him and Redline still floating several hundred feet in the air, and he was looking at me with an amused smirk again!

Just let me disappear in peace you damn Demon! I didn't sign up for this!! I let out my roar of disapproval towards him, not caring how pitiful it sounded. I swore he grinned wider at that, but the pillar under me disappeared that moment and sent me into the water...I immediately panicked.

Think. Think-think-think. 

I climbed the closest pillar again as quickly as I could and checked behind me to see how far the swimming dinosaur was, but this time the pillars didn't extend to offer the next set and I was stuck there as the giant monster made it's way closer and closer toward me.

I looked at Pops again spitefully; Were you torturing me on purpose now?! 

I thought we were bonding somewhat earlier! Showing me around your little underground meat factory, even teaching me how to cook properly! Then you go and do this to me?! If I was under the roof of someone with some sort of bipolar disorder, I was going to disappear from here real quick...and not just literally. There was a series of several snaps behind me again and the next set of pillars popped up. I didn't even dare see how close the giant croc was now: my only focus  now was playing keep-away and getting to the farthest part of next set as soon as they popped up.

Thankfully the pace seemed to pick up a bit and I was soon able to take a bit of a breather when the series of snapping sounds behind me got farther and father away...

...then the pillar under me suddenly disappeared and I found myself in the water again--and the snapping sounds of pillars breaking stopped. I tried to wrap myself around the next set of pillars but they suddenly disappeared as well and I watched helpless as they appeared several sections past my ability to get to them.

I chanced looking back: bad idea. The giant croc was right there. Merely three tail-lengths away from me now and it had that malicious gleam in it's eyes.

NOPE. I didn't care about any consequences anymore, if that Demon wanted to test my limits, consider them successfully reached. He was going to get everything now. I was not having my second death being 'eaten by a lazy dinosaur'! The next few moments were full of a purple haze and nothing but escape.

I didn't know what brought me back first: her voice, or her touch as Redline pressed my snout to her chest. Running a hand down the side of my neck, murmuring "It's alright" "You're safe. It's okay, Sc'the." I realized, mid-attack in my haze driven craze what was happening, and barely kept myself from striking her with my claws: Biting at whatever was restricting my movement.

It took me a while to calm down from that: shaking with fear, with guilt at what I almost did to the only person that seemed to care about me in this new world. I'd lost control and almost killed my only friend! There was no excuse for my actions, my emotions were all over the place at the moment and despite trying my best to calm down I could still feel my heart trying to hammer it's way out of my chest.

"It wasn't real; It was just a projection." She soothed, continuing to pet my side and I didn't resist the instinctual urge to nuzzle her as she did so. "Calm down..."

...It was times like this when I wanted my ability to sleep and rest back. Even as I calmed down enough from my panic attack and adrenaline rush, or equivalent, the relief flooding through me and the simultaneous mental fatigue was all chased away in a wave that left me feeling restless and even more nervous than before as I finally caught their argument.

"I didn't intend--" the Demon tried speaking but Red cut him off.

"You didn't what?!" Redline practically roared in his face. Not moving in the slightest, but the motions of her lashing tail was plenty sign that she was pissed, "You found out that he was barely a day old--and while he does seem much more adaptive and intelligent than others his age--you decided that throwing him into the Training Arena and messing with the simulation was a good idea!? You rarely do that with me! Why would you think it would be okay to do that with a (Young) Dragon we'd only discovered was basically still a newborn?!

"It doesn't matter that he's obviously much smarter than a normal Dragonling, or that he doesn't seem able to rest. We're trying to earn his trust, to get him to like us and think of us as a kind of family, not to fear us into obedience!!" She continued to chew him out about everything: about how dangerous that was for everyone involved but also how dangerous such a shock could've been for me, and how building up the trust that he'd had between us earlier was now practically burned to the ground, null and void, due to this one act of eagerness or equivalent.

I couldn't help but agree with her. If I hadn't regained control of myself...I would have injured Red heavily, just a single cut alone was enough to kill her several times over. Then there was the fact that I was still getting used to not only this new world but also being thrown into the house of a being several times myself in power. One with the ability to crush me like an ant at anytime.

Sure I wanted to work with him, in his underground area for processing and cooking meats, but after this... after this I just wanted to be alone for a while. I hadn't realized I was completely visible--and still shaking--until Redline pulled me in closer and picked me up: one hand under my fore-limbs and the other in the space under the knees of my hind legs. Then she (Streak)ed off somewhere and set me down on the opposite site of the house, in what looked like an entirely separate section of field before stepping back apologetically.

"I'm sorry he did that to you Sc'the." She murmured and I just sat there silent, subtly looking her over to make sure she didn't show signs of being injured: anywhere. "I think he overestimated your current ability and that caused you more stress than a (Young) Dragon at your age should've been put through." Her ears were pinned back and she was playing with her tail guiltily as I studied her. I cautiously approached and peeked around her to check there for injuries, seeing that there were no holes, cuts, tears, stabs, or bleeding anywhere I nuzzled her appreciatively and stepped back. Letting my visibility take a back-seat for a while to go elsewhere for a while.

I wanted to show this as a way of getting him and her closer together, and maybe as a way to get Sc'the out of being stuck in the mansion the entire time, but that ended up not being the case and I just wanted to show a bit of a newer kind of struggle Sc'the had to be subjected to for sake of furthering his character, and the others' as well in the process. 

Anyways I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you in the next chapter!

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