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Liquid, cold dark.
The heat of pain, all up his left side; white fire searing his nerves.
He coughed, pixel dust irritating his already parched lungs. He felt pressure on his chest. Probably a piece of whatever building had collapsed on him.
"Glitch, light..." he coughed.
Glitch didn't respond. That was *not* good.
"Glitch?" he croaked.
Still no response; not even a chirrup of acknowledgement. The keytool must have been off-lined. Bob felt a pang of guilt as he realised it. There was no way he could tell how badly Glitch was damaged; if it was even repairable. He closed his eyes - not that it made much difference in the dark - and swore.
He could tell he was lying on his back - that much he knew. But as for where, and how he was going to get out, he had no idea. He tentatively tried to move his left arm, and winced as fresh daggers of pain shot up it and into his shoulder.
"Agh!" he yelped, and ceased moving, waiting for the throbbing to stop.
Something moved in the fluid blackness. He didn't so much /see/ it as /feel/ it; felt its hot breath whisper across his face. He froze. Then he remembered.
In his disorientated condition, Bob had completely forgotten about the reason he was here in the first place. He had to hope now that his two 'friends' wouldn't try to recommence their fight and crush him to his base pixels in the process.
A low rumble. The heat washed over him again. Bob stopped breathing, waiting for the inevitable...
* * *
Dot stood at the edge of the charred, blackened hole, peering through the smoke to try and discern if anything was moving. Anything. Her practical nature had long since taken over, her thoughts moving in autopilot. But emotionally? It had been several nanos since the accident. There was no sign of Bob. And the sheer weight of the wreckage that had fallen on top of him and the creatures would be enough to level the Principle Office. The chances of a sprite being alive under all that were in the minus figures. She didn't need to read the report to know that.
The binomes around her continued to sweep the area, sifting through the wreckage, as Dot Matrix sank to her knees amidst the remains of Sector 9. If anyone had been looking in her direction at just that nano, they might - just might - have seen her tears.
* * *
It seemed like seconds before Bob dared to open his eyes again; dared to think he was still with the program. As he did so, he realised he could actually /see/ where he was. He frowned, wondering if Glitch had managed to respond; then understood why he could see. One of the dragons had used its flame breath to ignite some debris. The heat he had felt across his face had simply been peripheral.
He took advantage of the situation, and assessed his condition, turning his head as much as he dared to view what was left of his keytool. True to his suspicions, Glitch was totally off-lined; shattered into a hundred pieces. He sighed.
"I hate it when I'm right..." he breathed, moving his head to look up.
He could also see that, along with the others, he had been trapped in a small pocket of space, covered with what must be the remains of the buildings. While this was temporarily a good thing, this didn't bode well for them being found before their air ran out. Coughing again, he managed to push the debris off his chest and pulled himself to a sitting position, ignoring the stabs of pain in his arm.
As he did so, he came face to face - or rather, face-to-eyeball - with the red dragon.
Bob yelped, but it came out rather more like a squeak followed by a hacking cough, which took a few micros to subside.
The amber eye with its dilated slit blinked, the red scales surrounding it shifting and retracting as it did so. The eye moved back, allowing Bob to see the full head, bloodstained teeth catching the firelight as it opened its mouth. "You are damaged, sprite," it rumbled.
Bob was speechless. Unable to find any words, he simply nodded slowly in acknowledgement. As he squinted into the flickering darkness, he could make out that the dragon was severely injured. Blood oozed from battle wounds on its neck and legs. It also appeared to be pinned by several large girders across its back. He'd been fortunate, he mused. After a nano or two, he managed to clear his throat.
"Who are you?" he asked. "How did you get here, into Mainframe?"
The dragon grunted as it shifted position.
"You ask many questions, little one," it replied, not offering any explanation.
Bob's irritation at being stuck here began to show as he snapped, "I think I deserve some answers! Between you two you took out a whole sector of Mainframe, not to mention Glitch!" He gestured with his good hand towards the remains of his precious keytool. "And enough of the 'little', OK?"
There was an awkward silence. Then Bob heard an intermittent rumbling emanating from the creature's belly. Was it /laughing/ at him? It was! He sat and fumed, well aware that he was incapable of even standing right now, let alone kicking some dragon's ASCII. His legs were aching, his head hurt - now he knew why, as he raised a hand to the source of the pain; he had a gash across his forehead - and he was without Glitch.
"You are amusing. What is your format?"
Bob scowled. "Why don't you tell me who you are first?"
"You are also persistent. Admirable."
"And you're evasive!" Bob countered.
"If that is your wish," came the reply. "My name is Dracus. My format... is Guardian."