The storm came right after all the dragons had fallen asleep, it came out of a clear sky and made the every single dragon wake up... mainly because a bolt of lightning struck the ground between them.


Oliver "Whoa! What the...!" Another lightning bolt hit the ground, closer this time, causing everybody else to jump back.

"This isn't a normal storm!" Zephyr says as the rain began to pound twice as hard, supplemented by the occasional burst of golfball-sized hail.

"You think?" Zorath says while moving out of the way of a particularly large peice of hail as it crashed into the ground.

"Yes I do thi- OW!"  A peice of hail hit hm on the head and it broke on impact. He shakes it off and makes a canopy of black fire, every single raindrop or iceball was melted and evaporated before it got through.

"Where's Shane?" Oliver shouts over the roar of the storm.

"Somewhere in the woods!" Zorath says while adding his own solid shadow canopy to Zephyr's giving enough room for him and Oliver to take shelter from the out of control storm... they waited for the barrage to end...

It had been several minutes since the freak storm had made it's appearance, and everybody was worried about Shane, lightning had been striking all over the place, hitting trees and the ground indescriminately, Zephyr remarked that the whole forest would have been on fire hadn't the rain been coming down like a tsunami.

"How could he have not shown up by now?" Zephyr says as the rain reaches the heaviest so far.

"Same thing I was wondering... how far into the woods did he go Zorath?"

He looks at them both "I have no idea, he practicaly became invisible when he went in."

A tree gets blasted in half by a lightning and burst into flame which gets doused by the rain, but the damage done combined with the wind shoved the ruined hulk  over, the sound of it crashing to the ground was barely heard over the storm. More than once they had to hold the other from being blown away once the wind got under their wings.


"Is there anything you can do about this storm?" Oliver says tucking his wings tighter against his body.

"I can try something but..." Right then the rain decided to stop.... maybe there was nothing left in the sky for it to rain, or something else, but the rain just ended as quickly as it started, but the wind and lightning were still going.

"You didn't stop the rain did you?" Oliver asks

"No, i didn't." He says while looking at the damge done by the storm, over a dozen trees had been struck by lightning and lay blackened and smoldering, others had been torn over by the wind and hail, laying brokan and mangled...

"It looks like a warzone..." Oliver says as he sees the damage, but the storm wasn't over yet, the wind continued it onslought, knocking over the smaller trees and causing the larger ones to creak and groan dangerously, and since the lightning was somehow still going... several times the lightning had struck the shadow canopy that had been erected, luckily it couldn't get through otherwise they would have been fried.

Zephyr stares out and says "Oliver, your the wind dragon here, could you try and slow it down?"

"I'll try, but no promises." He closes his eyes with a look of concentration... nothing happens. He opens his eyes "The wind's too strong, go with the flow takes on a new meaning at these windspeeds."

Several minutes later they hear a roar over the thunder and wind and it all stops... just like that.

"Was that Shane?" Zorath asks after a few seconds of stunned silence.

"I think so." Zephyr says while dismissing the canopy of shadow. Everybdy felt miserable, with the rain, bruises from the hail, and just being woken up by the storm. They manage to stretch out and see most of the area they were in could become a large clearing if the fallen trees were moved.


Elsewhere at the same time...


I jerk awake roaring, just as the nightmare reached the worst part, and see a wall of darkness infront of me... what the? It was just in the middle of dispersing, fading into the air like mist...

"Okay..." I was sitting against a tree, which was oddly cut at an odd angle, the shell mst have done that... what it didn't do was all the damaged and torn trees, some blackened and others jsut ripped and torn out of the ground. I look up into the sky and see clouds quickly fading away.

I stand up and see that the spot I was standing on was the only area not wet from what must have been a massive torrent of rain... how did I not know what was going... the shell, it must have been covering and soundproofing me the entire time it was going.

It was going to be hard finding the others with all this debris in the way... it looks like I have enough clearance to... I leap into the air with my wings and manage to get above the torn forest, i could see the entire forest had been wrecked, hundreds of trees charred and laying here and there broken and mangled. I take a quick flight over, it would be hard to spot them since it was still dark... I glance a see the remains of a camp nearby, a truck had been hit by lightning several times... i'm pretty sure it's not going anywhere, the tents were torn and damaged by hail, and one of which had also been struck by lightning, the smoldering ashes the only isgn it was ever there. Several people were miling arond the cammpsite to salvage what they could, I bank away before they get the idea to look up.

I switch on that aura vision spell that Zephyr had put on me and now I was able to pick them out from the forest, their colors beginning to become more visible the closer I got until I was right over them, I slowly backwing into the clearing.

"Where were you?" Was the first words out of Zephyr's muzzle.

"Out deeper in the forest, why?" This gets his eyes to widen with understanding...

"Were you asleep this entire time?" He asks with a bit more accusation in his voice.

"Okay, I was..."

His shoulders slump "You were having a nightmare weren't you." he doesn't even ask it as a question... then I suddenly get it.

"Ohhhh..."

"Yeah... you caused a massive storm that just about leveled the forest." All three of them were looking at me.

"Sorry? It's not like I knew this was going to happen." He was about to shout at me but then thinks better of it.

"Okay, you used to be a human so you don't know, when dragons have nightmares the elements around them go wild, earthquakes and tornadoes, tsunami's and worse are usually what happens, so we take measures to prevent those nightmares." He clicks his left clawas and they get surrounded by a dark black energy, he reaches froward like he going to grab my head, but then he just flicks me right in the middle of my eyes.

I fall back onto the ground, landing on my tail. "OW! What was that supposed... to do..." I look and see shadowy images flinging themselves out of my head and into his claws, until it was a orb swirling with what must have been my nightmares.

"And say goodbye to these." He crushes it and it just fades away. "Those were some twisted nightmares in your head Shane, now you should be able to sleep in peace without destroying the forest, but the nightmares will come back eventually if you let them, though i doubt they'll be on your mind from now on."

"Thanks, I guess... you guys aren't still pissed about me causing that are you?"

Zorath and Oliver look at each other "Of course not, you didn't know, and nobody really got hurt badly from it... except for maybe the trees." Zorath says when they look back.

I sigh "I hope your right on that part, I spotted a camp a mile south of here, looked to be in pretty bad shape."

Zephyr looks over to me after pushing a fallen tree over to a set of trees that were still standing. "Okay, so a ruined camping trip... there's only one way to find out if they're all right you know." I knew automaticaly what he's talking about.

"Oh sure, four dragons walking into the middle of a camp with humans in it that most likely don't know that we even exist, i bet that will really make things better." Zorath says sarcasticly.

"How much are you willing to bet?" Oliver says with a small grin.

"Uh..." And that's when he realized he had nothing with him to place on that bet.

I stand up, wincing as a few bones in my tail pop "Really? Betting? How's this, we head over there, see if they are all right, before they notice us perferrably, and if we can't figure it out, Oliver can walk into their camp."

Oliver looks over "Why me?"

"You wanted to bet against Zoraths guess on their reaction, only fitting that you head in to prove him wrong."

"Zephyr and Zorath can stay here while we go and check, this would mae a nice clearing if the fallen trees were moved."

"Okay, now why do I have to stay?" Zorath asks.

"One, someone needs to help Zephyr moves these trees, since he for some reason want's them moved. Two, have you ever noticed how freaking scary you'd look to a human? And three... okay i've got no reason for that, but still the other two are pretty good enough."

"I think different... I mean, have you ever seen yourself when your casting magic and such? Bursting into flame is a little more scary than jsut spikes and an evil looking color scheme. And besides, Zephyr can handle this on his own." We look and see him just throwing fallen trees into a pile with shadow tendrils.

"I can speak for myself Zorath. Just let him go, i need some quiet."

I shrug my shoulders "Fine then... okay... we'll need to get airborne to see them." We all get into the air, though Oliver clipped his wing on a tree when we took off. The camp was easy enough to spot, they had strted a campfire somehow, probably brought those cheap fireplace starting blocks that are wrapped up to keep from getting wet.

I spot an nearby space in the woods and land, It was a tough fit for Oliver but he managed it with a small fifteen foot drop.

"Why do people come all the way out here?" Zorath says

"Pff, hell if I know. But it looks like a tight fit for Oliver so... it's anthro time." I Hold out my hand andfocus on certain feelings and words, and imagine him shrinking down into the anthro version of himself. I open my eyes and there he was getting off the ground and onto his feet.

"You've got to teach me how to do that sometime."

"Right, should tell you how to do it when we get back, just hope you have photographic memory." He stay silent because he knew what that memory was for, mess up the image in your head, there could be some disturbing changes to the person or object that's having it's form messed with.

We move through the trees, guided by the campfire's light... we started to hear yelling.

Unkown teen boy: "I'm telling you he would have shown up by now if he had made it!"

Unknown teen girl "And i'm telling you he probably got driven far enough away by the lightning to..."

Some guy "Stop it you two! You argue like a married couple, I'm with Krystal on this one, we keep looking until we find him or find his charred corpse."

"Oh that makes me feel much better!" says the girl, probably Krystal.

We moved to the very edge of the camp and could see through the trees into the clearing, I note the blue SUV that had pulled up alongside the lightning-struck Toyota Tundra. Four people were clustered around the fire, a guy around his late teen years with medium length brown hair and a heavy leather jacket. The first girl must have been fourteen or so with blonde hair in a ponytail and a light cotton jacket that was soaked to the core. The second guy must have been in his thirtys with a shock of black hair and a downcast look. The fourth person had yet to say anything, but he was in his early teens, couldn't have been more than fifteen.

The silent teen finaly speaks "So should we look for Chris now? Or do we just sit and wait for dawn?

"If we wait for dawn we could use the light, we might get lost looking for him tonight."

"And give hypothermia enough time to do it's work." Says Krystal.

"Sorry, I think you forgot my bro knows how to survive these woods, if hypothermia was coming on he would know what to do about it."

"And what if it's something el-" She sees the look the second guy giving her a "Don't you say another word" stare which seems to work.

I look back at the others "Think we should?"

Oliver "Yeah, let's go look for the kid."  He starts to back out of the clearing when he steps on a flimsy branch

Crack!

We both turn and lok back at him, and he was glaring at his foot, the branch was broken in half. I hear that the conversation had stopped completely... shit.

I slowly turn back and see them all staring in our direction, they couldn't see us through the gloom.

"Chris! Is that you?" Shouts guy number one.

"Aw damnit." I whisper when he picks up a flashlight and starts heading our way with Krystal and the other two. I start running through options... jump out and say Suprise? No, that wouldn't work... agh, what do I do about this? I look back and see Zorath and Oliver starting to back out of the clearing... they didn't want a direct confrontation either. Man this would be so much easier if we could just appear huma... Lightbulb moment! I quickly imagine myself as a human and summon up a cloud of shadow and form it into a carbon copy, no detail was out of place except for a mind.

"What are you doing?" Zorath whispers to me as the group started to get close.

"Changing the circumstances." I just hoped they would ask for Chris so that I could pull this off. I test the control over the shadow copy, i think it and it does it, even the voice part worked.

"Chris! Come on man, are you out there!?" I let off a smal smile, and this is where my BSing skills would have to be tested.

"Who's Chris?" Says the human clone of me as he heads towards the edge of the foilage while I silently retreat into the shadows some, completely blending in.

"What the... who are you?" Guy two asks, suprised.

"Shane, I come around these woods often, I heard oyu guys shouting and thought i'd come over to see what's wrong." Alright, complete and total lie, but it's better to let people think you know what your doing.

Kid three answers "See what's wrong? We just went through a freak storm and and my brother's missing, though it's kind of odd  to be out in the woods alone come to thinkk of it... why did you come out here at night?" Oh great, I get to play twenty questions.

"Like I said, I come around here often, me and my friends are camping for the weekend."

"So are we... which comes to my second question, how come you didn't notice the freaking storm?" Kid three just loves to home in on those fine details doesn't he?

""We did, but we weren't concerned about it... mostly because we weren't using... what are those? Polyester tents? We had a bit better shelter than that from the most sudden storm we've ever seen out here."

Kid three sighs "Okay, but did you happen to see anyone else besides your friends out here? Maybe a kid my size in a denim jacket?"

I make the clone shake his head "No, haven't seen anyone out here, plenty of destruction though... if you want I can tell my friends to keep an eye out for him and bring the kid back here if they find him."

That killed his hopes some "Do your friends know you're out here?" And bingo.

"Of course they know, in fact they're back in the woods aways watching us." That get's both Zorath and Oliver to stare at me like "WTH?" I couldn't help but smirk at their reactions, both the humans and dragons.

"Why didn't they come out with you?" Krystal says, uneasiness in her voice.

"Oh, heh, well... they're not sure how'd you react if you saw them."

Guy one gets a little on edge "And just why is that?"

I make the clone put his hand under his chin in a thinking pose "Okay... let's put it this way, how would you react if something you thought never existed or was extinct came out of those woods right now and started a civil conversation with you?"

"I would be shocked... to say the least." says Three.

Two starts laughing "Are you telling me that there's a buch of sasquatches out there right now?"

I make the clone do a small laugh "If there was a sasquatch out there I would be shocked too, sadly i haven't seen one. The actual reference I was making too was dragons." I felt much easier saying these things using a intermediary than I would have in person. Two's laughing stops.

"Dragons?" He says a little suprised.

"Yeah, dragons.... what? Thought it was going to be aliens or something?" Their reactions were priceless, I whished I had a camera to get a picture of it. I get a samll shove on the shoulder from Oliver "Seriously, you didn't have to bring us into this."

"Should of said something when you had the chance, get ready to meet the campers." I muttter back to him. The group was sitting wide-eyed at a indifferent me.

"Um... how long have you been out here?" And que the people thinking that I was crazy.
"Since last night... don't believe me do you?" With a small shake of their head I decide to open the suprise. I turn back to the woods "Well then, Oliver! Zorath! Get out here!"

"Just had to send me out there didn't you?" Zorath mutters as they both break from their cover ad head out into the open. I could see their eyes just about pop out of their skulls from here... At least they were anthro, otherwise I think they might have had heart attacks.

Krystal: "You... weren't...."

"Kidding? Nope, also please try and accept the fact, you look like you all are about to kneel over from disbelief." The anthro dragons reach the shadow image and flank him... man that would just be intimidating, and it showed, when they took the last step both Krystal and guy two step back. I think that their minds just fried.

Only Three had it together enough to speak, hell he didn't even seem suprised after the minute of silence "Okay, dragons... Awsome! Though from the video i thought you were quadroped?"
Zorath: "So you saw the video too?" The others in the kid's group look at him "Video?" Krystal asks.

"There was a video showing a few dragons in what was it, Rhode island... Yeah you were there." He points to Oliver "But you weren't." He moves the finger to Zoath.

Guy one busts in with "What are you talking about Zander?"

"The fact that dragons are real, living, and spotted across the world? I only showed the video to Chris, but he laughed it off... imagine his face when he sees a dragon come out of the sky...." Then thought of his brother not making it seemed to become a major joykill becuase his expression darkened.

"Hey we'll find him, i'm pretty sure he could survive the storm." The clone of me says... wait, I didn't tell him to say that! I see Zorath casting a sideways glance towards me, and knew he had made the clone say it... well, no more use in hiding. I step out an advance towards the groups, I was noticed instantly.

"That makes two out of the three... how did you come across these guys Shane?" Says Zander when he follows his friends gazes.

I walk up beside the clone of me "That's a very long and interesting story." we both say at the same time to up the creepy factor... and to add to that even more...

"Also..." We say in stereo "I'm a dragon too." Then I dismiss the shadow clone and their jaws drop when he dissapears. "I'm actually Shane." I could see the look of fear cross number one's face... I would have to keep an eye on him, fear can make people do rash things.

"Okay, never thought THAT was going to happen.  Hey Case, Ryan, How about you head back and start getting the whatever's left into the SUV so we can leave at first light."

"But what about-"

"I know, the dragons here will have to take him into town. Do you dragons know where ------ is?"

"Um, Yeah I know that town, used to live in Oregon for a few years." I say as I see the two guys turn around and take Krystal with them, though she casted worried glances back at Zander.

"Take him back there if you find him, he should know the address, but if worse comes to worse, it's ***** Lincoln drive."

"Uh huh... I'm suprised you aren't askig us a ton of questions." Oliver says.

"Right now i'm just worried about my brother, if you bring him back THEN i'll probably be asking alot of questions, but until then..." He looks back at the campsite "I'll just hope that he's alive. We're going to head back to town and wait there."

"We'll try our best, do you know what happened exactly?"

"He had gotten close to the edge of the woods while milling around like he usually does when there's nothing to do... then the storm hit." I could feel the others eyes on me when he said that.

"Mostly the first lightning strike caught the tree next to him and it started to fall, flaming... note that down hill area? He was there and the tree had fallen so that it rolled after him. I know he escaped the path of the tree, but by then lightning was striking everywhere and I guess that it drove him further into the woods, we couldn't go after him until the lgihtning had stopped... that truck about saved our lives, acting like a lightning rod, but by the time the storm had stopped he had gotten far enough away to not hear our shouts."

"Zander! It's all packed, let's go!" Says that one guy Case... you could tell he didn't want to be around us at all, I could see from here Krystal give him the WTH look and Ryan just shakes his ead and shuts the trunk of the SUV.

He loks back and sighs "I wish I could stay out here, but we don't have anything left and well... Ryan isn't going to let me stay out here. Thanks for helping look for him."

"It's not needed." I say as he walks off. Then I turn away "At least they're the only campsite I saw on my way over."

"You're still blaming yourself aren't you?" Zorath asks as we get into the air and head over back to Zephyr.

"Yep."

We get back to the clearing and see that Zephyr had made two bon fires with the fallen trees, he was sitting in the middle of them.

"How'd it go?" He asks when we land.

"A kid has his brother lost out here in the woods somewhere, and we agreed to help."

"Well that gives something for you to do while Zorath and Oliver stay behind."

"What?" They both say at the same time.

"I've got to do some tests, and since Shane's storm ruined my perfectly good nap... might as well get the tests out of the way tonight... happy hunting Shane.

"Suuure." I turn Oliver back into his quadroped self before leaving into a flight over the forest. I turn on my aura vision to help spot him between the trees... but after a few hours of searching I come up with absolutely nothing, not a hint of where he would be, so I head back to rest my sore wings. I land and see that both pyres were extinguished, the wood underneath looked badly damaged, but not by fire oddly enough. Zephyr was the only one awake.

"You didn't find him did you?" He asks and I shake my head.

"Well, wake one of the others, maybe they can search were you couldn't."

I kick Oliver awake and asks what's going on, I tell him and he agrees to search for a few hours, as he heads off Zephyr walks over to one of the pyres and looks at it, I walk up beside him...

"Are you going to test me now?"

He makes a harsh laugh "No, You already proved what you could do with that storm. In other words we can finish the spell tomarrow, so get some sleep, and please try and not make another storm, I have enough to deal with as is." He heads off to a circle cut into the ground that I just noticed, I could see a few runes carved into the circle, he gives it a quick look over before heading off a little ways and curling up on the ground.

"Okay... agh." My back was really hurting... no leaning against a tree for me.... i guess that means quadroped form for me. I Focus and feel a slight numbness, before falling onto all fours as the rapid change occured, only thing that didn't change was my sore wings... I move over to a large tree that was still standing and curl up under it so when the sun rises it hopefully won't get into my eyes.

I close my eyes and hope that the nightmares won't come back.

A hour later an exausted Oliver lands in the clearing and wakes Zorath up so that he can continue the search, after Zorath left Oliver curls up on the ground and is asleep in seconds. Zorath also come back empty-clawed and wakes up an annoyed Zephyr, who leaves and comes back in a half hour with a smug smile on his face, but no Chris in tow.

Sometime around 12 P.M...

Shane wakes up to find that no-one was around... literaly. But he didn't notice it until he went up to the pyres and actually looked around.

"Where's everybody?" He muttered to himself.   His wings were still sore and he didn't want to use them just yet, so he sat in the middle and waited...

Maybe half an hour later Zorath suddenly shows up beside him without warning "Sleep well?"

"Gah!" Shane jumps sideways and hits the pyre "Ow, what the...? Zorath, really don't sneak up on me."

"But it was so much fun! Besides, you probably wanted this..." He holds up a barbequed deer leg. "But I guess that you're just goi-"

"Really Zorath? Just give me the leg." He says while shifting into his anthro form. The leg exchanges hands, but before Shane bites into it he asks "Where is everybody?"

"Zephyr's still eating the kills he made, and Oliver's doing a quick pass to try and find Chris."  That makes Shane remember the night before "Nobody's found him yet?" He asks after a large bite is gone from the deer leg.

"No, Though Zephyr said he would turn up eventually."

"Figures he'd be the optomistic, anyway, what test did he make you do?"

He gets a thoughtfull look in his eyes "What didn't he do, force us to put out the pyre's with our main elements while he was channeling something into the pyre, it was tough, he made us do it several times, each harder than the last... so what did he make you do?"

"Uh heh heh... um, remember that storm?" Zorath get's it then.

"He didn't make you do anything did he."

"Nope... though it was probably the storm that proved I could do wahtever he's going to make us do."

"Which is get these pyres down and out of the way." He says as he grips the left hand pyr in a shadow tendirl before shoving it over and moving it to a small pile over at the edge. Shane finsihes the deer leg and disintigrates it into shadow before moving his pyre over alongside Zoraths... soon enough Zephyr and Oliver show up, both without Chris.

Zephyr lands "So, how do you feel about turning a third of the human population into dragons today?"

"Odd actually... I mean, what's going to happen afterward?" Zorath asks.

"I can tell you one thing about that. The spell isn't going to simply bam! And you're a dragon, while the transformation might take a few minutes, it could take weeks, months, even years for the spell to actually affect them after we complete it." Zephyr says while heading over to the circle he drew last night.
"It might take an hour or so for me to finish setting it up, so get comfortable." And with that he starts adding onto the circle...

Elsewhere a hour or so later...

Chris was lost, and it sucked...

"Go camping they said, it will be fun they said." Chris muttered to himself as he trudged through the woods, he had been lost out here for over a day now. Well the storm had ruined his trip, and most of his good mood. Even though he had layed his denim jacket on a rock in full sun for an hour it was still damp, along with most of his clothes.

Chris kept cursing the storm... the flaming log was bad enough, but then the lightning seemed to target him out, just one right after another, downing some trees and setting others on fire... it was almost like a nightmare to him... he had kept running until the storm ended, and he had layed against a tight cluster of large trees to rest, and ended up falling asleep, and waking up as the sun rose over the horizon.

He takes out his phone, gald that hte water-proof casing had actually done it's job against the rain and hail.

[10/27/2012, 2:02 P.M.]

Still have a lot of daylight to search for camp. He thought this just as he also thought about how stupid it was to fall asleep, he could have died of hypothermia... but for some reason that didn't happen. He decided to wait and see if someone could find him here, or until he could find a definite direction to go in, so he just lounged against the tree in the full sun, so that it could dry his clothes more.

Several minutes later he could start to hear odd whispering coming from... well everywhere. And it made him start to think that he was going crazy... which shouldn't happen this early, he thought to himself as he stood up and look around, trying to find out where it was coming from.... then came a deep rumbling sound... just as a pale blue light shot into the clouds, and sending out oddly shaped tendrils across the sky.

Weird, I don't even think if I was within an inch of my life I would hallucanate something like that. Is what he thought as the whispering stopped, along with most of the forest going still as well... and it seriously freaked Chris out... but it was a fixed point he could go on, so he decided to get to it before it dissapeared, he sets off on a run towards the light in the sky...

Meanwhile...

A series of pentagrams, squares and circles with archaic writting were floating in the center of the group of black dragons, a cone of light sat on the area were the symbols were floating and roatating, new symbols were appearing randomly on the circles and such as one quadroped sat on his haunches and chanted in a foreign language and weaved what looked like black fire into the circle of light.

The Shane and Zorath were also putting into the circle what seemed like shadow and ice from one the other forced light and electricity into the circle, the last remaining member of the group was funneling wind into the circle along with the occasional burst of ice.

As the group worked the seals began to move closer together as chains of runes made their way around the closing gaps. Strain had now started to appear on all the dragons faces as the spell that they were doing started to close, with the seals within inches of each other, stray elements began to burst back out from the cone of light, Shane hissed in pain as a small bit of fire managed to hit the plates covereing his chest and leave scorch marks.

The spell was nearing it's completion, and as the seals touched one another...


BOOOOM

Chris=

The shockwave hit me before I even had heard it, knocking me to the ground, even the trees bent like they had gotten hit by a hurricane force wind, some snapped and fell while others creaked and groaned. The sound left a powerful echo that would have probably been heard by the nearest town! I sit up, groaning as bad as the trees and look... the light was gone. It didn't matter, I was still close enough to not stray off course and miss where it came from. Standing up, i waver and almost fall over as a wave of nausea hit. It goes away after a few seconds but somehow I still felt off.

"Ughhh." I place my hand on a nearby tree and try and keep focus... it barely worked, but I was soon enough able to move again. I start forward and start to hear voices, i could barely make them out but still, voices meant people, and people meant getting out of this forest... hopefully at least.  The back of my neck had started to itch like crazy and when i scratched it just itched worse... i know i hadn't been up against any poision ivy or anything like that, too bad of an ich to be mosquitos, not that they would be out here in fall anyway. Knowing that scratching just made it worse sometimes, I try and avoid the burning feeling on the back of my... shoulders?

Peeling away my jacket and some of my shirt collar and gasp when i see it... my skin was red, but not just red as in rosy red but red as in blood red! What did I do? The red wasn't staying stil either, it started creeping across the rest of my skin... guss i now know what's causing the itch... whoa... I had kept stumbling forward the entire time, i had just busted through a small group of bushes and into a clearing... with something that had a giant silver eye staring right at me...

Also at the same time...

Shane:


"Agh..." I get up  as the burn under my plates makes itself well known, I didn't even have time to know what was happeneing before the shockwave had sent me flying, I even think I blacked out for a bit. I get to my feet and look around, Nobody was... wait. I see Oliver over several meters away with a kid in a denim... Chris? Then I catch sight of what's going on, the kid had fallen forward as his legs started to shift draconic, with a seriously loud crack. A spike had torn it's way out of his jeans that placed it somewhere around where his ankle... I couldn't tell if his legs were quadroped or anthro yet. Oliver says something to the kid and he seems suprised, then another crack echoed and this time it must have been the vertibrae in his neck, because his head snaps forward... to get a good look at his changing hands... I begin to walk forward, taking my time at it.

His hands were obviously going to have four claws, which were white, and his face had already started to jut out into a muzzle...

Chris decides to answer whatever Oliver had said to him, because he all but shouted "I'm turning into a dragon!?"  Oliver winces "Not so loud." he says after holding up a claw to his left hand ear.

Chris tried to say something else, but something in his throat changed and it caused him to go into a fit of coughing. I decide to say "I wouldn't try to talk until it's over... Oliver can you go and try and find Zephyr and Zorath? I think they landed over on the other side of the clearing." He nods and heads away as I walk infront of him and crouch down. his face was almost completely draconic now, he had kept most of his black hair in a mane that stopped right at the base of his neck... I was about to note what other features he had, but at that point he started screaming, not the kind of "scared out of my mind." screaming, but the "i'm in a ungodly amout of pain!" Screaming... then I notice what's causing the pain...

"Uh oh... this is new."  I start to see something push it's way out of his right shoulder, and it definitely wasn't a spike, wing, or anything else besides a body part, and only one thing came to mind on that.

I couldn't let him see what's going on, though he'd kept it together enough to stop screaming, if he looked now he'd definitely panic. "Hey, Keep focused on me, and only me, do you understand?" Damnit, where was Zephyr when you need him, I look back behind me and don't see anyone, I turn back and start to see him look to his right, so I grab him under the chin and force his head over directly at me, if he diengaged his right eye he could have looked, but luckily he didn't know enough about dragon anatomy to think of that.

"What did I tell you? Keep focused on me! Now, I have a question for you..." I can't beleive I was about to say this "have you ever had a history of personality disorders?"

"What? No! Why are you even asking that?" The head was almost completely formed, eyes filled with shock and pain starting to stare at me from the openmouthed second head, a second later is was complete.

"Because I'm pretty sure your going to have one now." I let go of his head and take a few steps back... and then he looks at the second head.

"What the...?" They both say in unison "Please don't tell me..." They again say in unison "Oh god no!" Once again they say in stereo.

"Creepy factor just jumped to twenty." I say and they both stare at me as they started to get some size into his body, causing most of his clothes to rip... especially his pants.

"You're telling me." Say's the newly formed head... great, it's independant.

"I am telling you... where the hell is Zephyr?" I hated to leave this kid alone, but Zephyr need to be here, because I don't think that this is normal, I take off in the direction Oliver went on a full sprint. I didn't hear any objections from Chris behind me so he was probably dealing with the second. I keep running and see a few trees had been hit pretty badly, like a club ahad slammed into it, sure enough on the other side was Zorath, he lloked KO, but when I got close he started to groan.

"Which truck did I get hit by?" he says while rolling onto his back.

"The semi... you really should get up, I hear concussions don't work well with dragons."

"Ugh, not... my... head, that hit the tree." He sits up painfully. "Did it work?" He asks.

"Oh, I think it worked, only we've got someone in the clearing developing two heads."

That got him awake "What? Is that even normal?"

"That's what i was going to ask Zephyr, only I can't find him."

"He couldn't have landed far from me, though he probably got the worst of it."

"Think you can get airborne and spot them for me?"

"Back and wings still sore? Alright." He gets up into the air and almost sees them instantly, when he does he points a finger over to my left, before flying over there. I run over and catch Oliver just getting Zephyr to his feet."

"What is it?" He asks when I run up, the look on my face must have given it away.

"We found Chris, but he's one of those affected by the spell... also, he's grown a second head."

Zephyr just let's out a slow breath "And that's it?"

"So far, he was still turning when I left him."

Zephyr stands all they way upright "Well, we'd better get to him, though the second head thing isn't new to dragons there might be more to it." Zorath meets us at the clearing, and he was staring at Chris, we all follow his gaze.

"Okay, that is... not normal for a dragon." Chris had become in all respects, a taur, anthro torso mounted on a quadroped lower half, also where the wings resided, black membrane in contrast to the red scales. He was struggling to his feet when we get up close to him.

"Anyone mind telling me what's going on?" Says head number two.

Zephyr decides to take the lead on this one "You, and maybe several thousand others are being turned into dragons right now."

Chris  and his second head get wide-eyed at this "They're all turning into something like this?" He says while pointing at himself, his tail swishes and I note that there's actually two of them.

"Not like that, but maybe close to it, others will look like us."

"So i'm a freak of nature." The second head looks at him "Was that sarcastic? Or were you just trying to sound depressed?"

"Both, so shut up Cole." Aaaand the second head has a name.

"Technicaly you aren't, besides, your brother or friends might also end up this way."

That just made him more depressed looking. "Great, them... are they even going to accept me being like this?"

I say "If they can't they aren't your friends and definately not your family, but I know for sure your brother won't mind."

We keep talking and find out about his part of the story, and it must have been hell ofr him to go through, the bruises alone from the hail were bad enough, but then all this... damn. We start on our part of the story, Zorath and Oliver taking the lead on telling that, he brightens up when he knows that his brothers waiting for him.

He decides to ask "What are you going to do now?" Zephyr acted like it was a good question, while Oliver said...

"I know what I will do, i've got certain friends and family to visit."

The Zorath says "Same here."

Chris says "What about you Shane?"

I think on it for several seconds before answering "I'll see what happens in the first few hours before headng home, your welcome to come too Zephyr."

Zephyr was suprised by the offer but "Thanks, but... I just don't feel ready to be out there yet. I think i'll stay out here for a while until then."

"Alright... so that leaves you, your probably going to head home right?" I ask to Chris/Cole.

"Going to try, though we have a bad feeling about it." Says Cole.

I shrug "Since i'm going to be out and about I'll come with you two, and see how it goes."

"Thanks." Was Their reply. I say goodbye to Zorath and Oliver, each with their own portals headed somewhere far off, sooon enough the portals close after they leave, which left only me, Zephyr, and Chris/Cole.

"Are we going to fly there?" Asks Cole when he sees me stretching my wings.

"Sure enough... you're not afraid of heights are you?"

"No, it's just that... well, i've never actually flown before." Says Chris... maybe those two won't have succh a big problem with each other like I thought they would.

"Zephyr, willing to give any tips before we go?"

He nods his head and starts giving a bunch of different tips that probably made no sense to them, but when Zephyr asks them to try it, they manage to get in the air and not divebomb the ground, they were circiling the clearing, while I walked up to Zephyr.

"You really sure you want to stay out here?"

"Mostly, though i have all your memories and such, i just don't think i can drop some of the habits I have and head into your world... besides, i want to give it time to settle, there isn't going to be a gentle change coming, and i want to steer clear of any backlash."

I sigh "Alright... but if you ever decide to try and get into society, you know where I'll be. See ya Zephyr."

I do a standing take off  and head into the sky, to meet up with those two and get them home before seeing how much the world will change...