The sound of multiple footsteps, and more frighteningly, the familiar tap... tap... tap... tap that accompanied them, startled Tim awake, causing Peter more pain as the supposed White Dragon fought against the shared restraints.
"Ahhhh... if it isn't the king's favourite pet, and everyone's favourite punchbag. Not pleased to see me... BENTWHISTLE!"
Manson towered over the two friends, using his walking stick for support, the biggest, smuggest grin in the world etched across his face. Just as Peter thought it couldn't get any more dangerous, Manson's queen, EARTH, the elderly looking human who was clearly some sort of dragon and ROSEBLOOM all appeared from around the corner. Peter's heart sank. This was it... the endgame. It wasn't the first time he'd thought that. Each previous time he'd been convinced that he was going to die. Here and now, he was sure somebody would. The look in Manson's eyes was even crazier than usual, if that was at all possible. This time... he was right on the money!
"I still maintain we should kill them," offered up the elderly frail dragon in human form. "What possible use could we have for these two weaklings?"
Peter hadn't taken his eyes off Manson's face. The blood lust there was plain to see. It looked as though the other dragon's words would be enough to convince him to finally do it.
"NO! They may yet have a part to play in all this," said Earth, the words rolling off her lips as smoothly as beads of water rolling off a leaf.
The old dragon screwed his face up into a snarl. Manson seemed to be considering both options.
"They deserve to die," piped up Rosebloom, hoping to sway the argument in favour of his preferred outcome.
Manson turned to face the old dragon, both sharing the same thought at exactly the same time.
Tim shook uncontrollably. Peter's anger flared for all the good it would do him.
Bowing his head, Manson took two strides towards his father. Without warning, and faster than all of the enhanced beings could see, Manson, with all the force at his disposal, brought round his walking stick, smashing it firmly into Rosebloom's stomach, dumping the dragon councillor on the floor with a ground shaking THUMP, momentarily winded.
"Is now a good time to tell him?" asked Manson.
"As good a time as any," replied the old dragon, Earth looking on.
Rosebloom rolled over, looking to get back to his feet, but thought better of it with the tip of Manson's walking stick hovering only millimetres from the end of his nose.
"What... what's going on?" stammered the dragon councillor, fearfully.
"What's going on," exclaimed Manson, "is that it's finally time you learned the truth."
"The truth? The truth about what?"
"The truth about what really happened to your father," put in the old dragon.
"I don't understand," uttered Rosebloom nervously.
"You see, things with your father didn't go down quite the way you seem to think."
"The dragon Council captured, tortured and killed him for daring to oppose them," whispered Rosebloom.
"That is what you might have been led to believe," continued Manson.
"By you," insisted Rosebloom.
"Quite," replied the old dragon.
"But," chipped in Manson, "Osvaldo became a liability with his drinking and bragging, blabbing to all and sundry about what he was involved in, and just how powerful he would become. We had little choice but to dispose of him. In fact, it's safe to say that he was never really the quality of dragon we were looking for."
Rosebloom looked up in wide-eyed astonishment. Peter and Tim didn't know what to make of what they were hearing. Where was this all going?
"You'll be interested to know that we killed him slowly, and took great pleasure in doing so. He took days to die, in the most agonising way possible."
"Why?" asked Rosebloom stunned.
"Because we could," answered Manson.
The sickening tale came as little surprise to Peter, as he had a fairly good idea of exactly what Manson was capable of. Visions of him destroying the van full of human beings on the Astroturf on that cold, winter's night came flooding back to him.
"Why tell me all the other stuff?" snuffled Rosebloom.
"Because," gloated Manson, grinning manically, "we needed your cooperation. Where else were we going to get all that juicy information from? And how else were we supposed to sabotage the council building? Without your help it would have been very difficult to implement our plan. Your assistance has been pivotal."
Up until that moment, Rosebloom had considered himself a rather clever dragon. Not only that, but superior and of better breeding than most. But all he felt now was... FOOLISH! They'd played him for all he was worth... targeted his weaknesses, preyed on his supposed superiority. For the first time in what seemed like forever, tears streamed from his eyes.
Peter almost felt sorry for the duplicitous councillor, almost... but not quite. He'd betrayed him and nearly got him killed as well as, from the sound of things, putting the king and many other dragons in severe danger. No, he didn't feel sorry for him. In fact a small part of him hoped he was about to get his comeuppance. Be careful what you wish for.
"So you see," uttered Manson, "your usefulness has run its course. What to do? What to do?"
Rosebloom, shaking violently now, his cool and cocky exterior long since shattered, opened his mouth to speak.
"I can still be of use to you," he pleaded desperately.
"I don't think so," drooled Manson. "In fact, I would go as far as to say that you're more of a liability than your father ever was... a liability that needs quieting... permanently."
It was then that he got it. This was no test, no game. They were going to kill him here and now. The foolishness he felt at being so blatantly used was instantly washed away by the rage at how he'd been duped, and how they'd killed his father, Osvaldo. Head bowed, hunched up on the floor, he hoped they thought he'd come to accept his fate. In a way, he had. But that tiny little spark inside him that was all dragon, remote and buried from the coward that he'd become over time, had found its way to the surface, after being lost for decades. He might have no way out, but one thought spurred him on. He wasn't going alone.
'They're going to kill him,' was all that Peter could think, shaking his head at the futility of it all. Dragons were supposed to coexist peacefully with everyone and everything. How the hell had it come to this?
Tim was living in perpetual fear. Fear of dying, fear of living in this strange new world and body. Fear of the torture that he knew they would at some point inflict on him. All he wanted was to go back to being a human and forget all about this underground nightmare.
Manson took a step forward, bringing his walking stick up above his head as he did so.
A tiny voice inside Rosebloom shouted, "THIS IS IT!" With the determination and courage that had never once showed its face during the course of his long and duplicitous life, he struck like a coiled snake, unleashing every last micron of energy, power, magic and speed into his attack, eager not to die alone.
Peter watched Rosebloom turn from shivering wreck to speeding bullet in units of time that were barely measurable. Even to his enhanced senses it was still all a bit of a blur. He had no love for the councillor, but now found himself rooting for the peculiar dragon in what he hoped would be the end of Manson, and just maybe an end to the hostilities.