The sun was at it's peak as me and Zephyr land in a clearing surrounded by woods, he just made a small hop when he landed, I slide and dig a nice little trench with my paws besides the one holding the opal... this was going to take some getting used to. The entire flight here my mind had been racing, you always think you can handle something before it's right there in your face... I was still having a hard time I had actually raised a dragon from the grave, then get turned into one BY the one I raised, it was just... man it was just crazy.

"You didn't seem to enjoy the flight that much." Zephyr says as he shook out his wings before folding them up, he was partially right, I would have enjoyed the flight immensely had it not been for the everything on my mind.

"I... probably because my thoughts were elsewhere."

He get's a concerned look in his eyes "It was me turning you without warning wasn't it?"

I nod my head and say, still in my level tone "And the fact of what you are keeping from me, and what am I going to do now that I'm a dragon, and maybe a few other things."

"Well would it ease your mind if i told you what i saw in the spell that I saw before turning you into a dragon?"

"Yeah, that would help some, unless it's just bad news, then I don't want to hear it."

He looks off into the woods "You know how i said that transformation spell had more than one recipient? Well What if i said that there was a good chance that over a billion people were also subjected to it?" Okay, bombshell just got dropped.

"Over a billion?" I ask, still processing what might happen if they all got turned at once.

"A large figure, it was probably a last ditch move by theremaining dragons to even out the numbers problem... hold I can show it to you myself." He waves his paw over the grass and it burns as a circle and a large set of his language carved into the rim along with a set of those elemental runes that I saw him draw when Zephyr transformed me sitting in the center.

"You won't be able to read this sadly, but there is some of the best wording in here i have ever seen..." He points to a particular section "This part restricts the spell to those who are "Dragon in mind and spirit" while still keeping it broad enough to get a good range of people selected." He points at the center "The only problem is the master spell is not completed at all, there's no mana or casters to get the spell going."

"Why didn't they?"

He shrugs his shoulders and says "I have no idea, humans making an assault, they just simply didn't have enough mana, or he actually died in the process of getting the selection spell going." Hard to imagine somone giving up their life to a half finished spell.

I wwas about to say something but he cuts me off "But that isn't the current problem. We need another two dragons to complete the spell." Wait, another two?

"Are you saying that you are going to finish this spell?"

He turns and looks at me "No, i am saying WE are going to finish the spell, once we find two others of your magical caliber." Magical caliber? I shake my head...

"What are you talking about?'

He sighs and starts off with "Remember the signs that lit up when I finished you transformation? Usually there is only one that lights up, that is their "Main" element, all dragons have some profeciancy in all elements, but the main is their most powerfull one, the more mains, the stronger a spellcaster you are, and guess what? You have three, one more than i do." So I was supposed to be a strong spellcaster?

"Call me skeptical but if I had this magical potential-"

"Stop, I know where this is going, if you want a demonstration, focus on a strong emotion and then on a particular object, perferrably not me." Focus on a particular emotion? I lower my head and think on it... my restlessness... is that even an emotion? I focus on it anyway and focus on a rock sitting next to a tree. I feel my ears pop and I start smelling ozone, I see a scorch mark appear on the rockface, like a lightning bolt hit it.

"See? Not bad, it usually takes a average dragon a few days to learn that." I was still confused as to what happened, I didn't see anything even happen besides the scorch mark appear! Zephyr sees the confusion on my face and decides to elaborate "What just happened is that you generated a particular element, electricity by the look of it, onto that rock face, causing the scorch mark... and that was just one of three elements you should be able to do that with." I didn't feel like trying those other elements out. I just lay down, and open up my paw and see the little opal, it was a birthday gift from my mom... they say that buying an opal for someone else was good luck, well the rules got switched somewhere because life never got better for us, it just went downhill ever since then... I squash the memories before they can show up, and decide to focus on something else.

"How are you even going to find these other dragons? Because running around dusting them with that little spell of yours isn't exactly going to be quick, or safe."

"RIght about that... give me a minute to figure something out." He turns and pads away, dissapearing from my trailing eye, I focus back on the gem, and start thinking...

He comes back an hour later to see me messing with a few tendrils of darkness, which were tossing a boulder back  and forth almost like a game of catch.

"Okay, I see your getting the hang of it."

I relax and the tendrils fade away and the boulder slams into the ground "It's.... odd to say the least."

"Noted, i found out a way that we can find who we're looking for." I look at him without turning my head "Which is?"

He walks up next to me and says a few words, before waving his hand over my hea- whoa. Suddenly everything get's an aura around it, I look up to Zephyr and see his was much larger than any of the others, maybe a good two feet in size, it's color a murky gray.

"And now you can see the magical potential of well, anything."

"Thank you, obvious, how's this going to help?" I note my aura, swirls of black and white and bigger than even his... after a few seconds the aura fades, I unfocus my eyes and it comes back, at least it won't cover my vision all the time.

"Once the tracking spell is finished you will be able to pick them out of a crowd."

"And just how rare is "My level of magic" that you would need a tracking spell?"

"About twenty in a million... give or take a few hundred."

I turn my head and look at him "That many? I was expecting one in a million." I get back to looking at the opal in my paw.

"Your really do like to brood you know that? I'd expected you to be happy at being a dragon."

I sigh and stand up on all fours "I am happy, but.... know what? Just forget it for now."

He huffs "Fine then, should only take a few minutes to find who we're looking for."  I think for a second, then come up with an idea, I make a tendril of shadow appear infront of me and loop it into a circle. Zephyr doesn't say anything while I start compressing the circle, until it resembled a obsidian chain, which I thread through the little hole cut in the top of the opal and link around my upper right arm, opal facing outwards. I notice the red lines swirling across my arm's scales, how come I didn't notice them before? I watch as it fades to black, hiding them from sight. My expression must have given something away because he said...

"You haven't even really taken a look at yourself yet have you?"

"Can't exactly, I was a bit too distracted at what had been going on."

"Well, since we're waiting..." He summons a ball of shadow and lobs it onto the ground infront of me, it grew in size and shape until I was staring at what must have been me. Themost notable thing was my eyes, a deep orange, they were of course draconic too. I look at the horns, two went back in a ~ shape, both were a gray against the black scales that covered me head to toe and tail,  avian wings I already knew of, I pad to the side and see that some of my scars were still there, mainly the one on my right shoulder, they were a lighter shade of black, but were still noticable if you looked closely enough. The plates I failed to notice ran from the top of my chest down to the bottom of my tail, all of it was grey, except for a litle starburst of blue at the dead center of my chest.

"And here's what you look like after you casted your lightning element on the rock."

The imge abruptly shifted, and now those red lines were back, they looked tribal, they went from a arrowhead design on the backs of my paws and climbed up my entire arm where they met into a similar design at the base of my neck, I thought it looked good.

"I'm suprised that I didn't notice this."

"Oh, that's alright, most don't either, but i was suprised when you didn't notice when you were actively manipulating shadows, here's what you looked like then." I was wondering what he was talking about, until flames burst to life on the "tattoo" and ran along it like it actually was on fire, it was as red as the markings and was maybe about two inches long at most.

"I seriously looked like this?" I looked a bit demonic with those flames.

"Yes, you actually looked like this, and don't expect me to say this is natural, because i've never seen this before."

"Obviously, I doubt even this is natural with dragons."

He get's a thoughtfull look on his face "Hmm, maybe the spells been corrupted over the years, I look into that as we..." He stiffens and snaps his head over to the right "We've got a long way to go."

"I guess the tracking spell or whatever is done?"

"It is, unfortunately the person we're looking for is in Rhode Island."

"I thought you said twenty in a million, not twenty in a hundred million, there mube be twenty times that number of people from here to there."

"People move around, it's not like your going to find somone amoung a certain number of people, but it's better than having to cross the ocean too." He starts putting a mark into the ground, this time it was just a block of runes, and he starts building up magic around him.

"What are you doing?"

"Making one of those "other" forms of transport, we don't have time to waste so we're going to get there in a few seconds rather than days."

"So you're just making a portal?" I say while he makes a cirlcle of black flame in mid-air that was slowly spinning.

"Actually your right, in my language we have this long annoying word for it. And... bingo." The spinning circle of flame blasts apart and a black void opens up with the ring of black fire serving as the border.

"Behold a portal to Rhode island, dragons first." I didn't really trust the black void, but oh well, I leap through and then I couldn't breathe, then I sprawl out the other side into a building rooftop. Zephyr hops out behind me as the portal shrinks adnd dissapears.

"Could have warned me about the "no air in the portal" before I went in."

"Where's the fun in that? It was only for half a second."

"And yet it felt like I had the breath knocked out of me, just love to not warn people don't you?"

"Relax, it's better than flying all the way here, also i would have warned you if it had actually been dangerous."

"Thanks..." I mumble sarcasticly, I get up and look around people walked the streets, nobody really looked up and saw us staring at them.

"They look like ants, should that be a problem?"

"Nope, look with that wee aura vison I gave you." I do, and see the city get annoyingly colorfull, the humans had one of maybe a bare inch, colors ranging from white to black to every color inbetween.

"Keep an eye out for somebody who just radiates it, not if they just have a large trail following them."

I keep looking, there was quite a few with that trail following them, but the actual aura they gave off wasn't very big, so that must be the ones under the TF spell, I keep look around, I head to the other side of the roof and  see just as many people, but then I almost immediately spot somone, his aura was just as big as Zephyr's, plus he had a multicolored trail following him

"I got something, he's got an aura as big as yours, plus a trail following him."

"I have expected him to be gone by now, point him out for me."

I take a good look without the creepy aura vision thing on "Alright, dark blonde hair and beard, with the red shirt and jeans, also note the three festival bracelets on his right arm."

"I see him, heading towards downtown, might need to do something to keep him from getting there."

"Trying to keep as many people from knowing about us?" I ask.

"Pretty much, how do you think we should do this?"

I already knew what we had to do "You go and create a distraction down the street to draw people away and I'll keep the guy from moving any farther into the city, sound good?"

"Not really, but i can't come up with anything so... just make sure he doesn't run off." He says a few words under his breath and I could no longer see him, but I knew that he had taken flight, apparently off to do some big distraction. I look back at the guy, he was going to have one heck of a day, I watch him advance down the street, apparently using his phone as a GPS, I think he was headed to the motel a few blocks over. I wonder what Zephyr had-

CRASH

A car had flipped over, in the middle of the intersection... what was he doing? I get an idea and use that aura vison, he pops up in an outline right next to the car, no one was in it thankfully, but he was carving a pattern into the air, and soon enough it gets an aura too, then the oddest thing happened, everyone started applauding, literaly, iwheere ever they stood, they looked at the symbol and acted lie  they were seeing a famous person or something, the  symbols morphed into a... person? I forget about that and look back to the guy, he had noticed, as had everyone else down the street, most went over to see what was going on, including the guy, I wanted to try something so I focus on the little bit and have his own shadow grab him by the shoes, he stopped moving, he looks down at his feet and tries to jerk one free, the shoes might as well have been superglued to the ground. He keeps tring to move his feet, he shoves his phone back into his pocket and get's frustrated over not being able to move. Most of the people that had been milling the streets had went over to see the little distraction Zephyr created, apparently he had made a fake show or something, but the moment someone got close enough, they were enthralled.

"That good enough?" Comes his voice from beside me, still invisible.

"Still have to turn him,  can we do that from here?"

"Yep, give me a few moments." He pops backinto the visible spectrum and starts doing the same circle, only angled to have the guy at the center, like a targeting reticle, he goes  through the whole process again, only this time the symbols to light up were the ice and wind.

"That's two more elements we have now, this is starting to turn out good."

"Are we supposed to have different elements?"

"Actually no, but variety is good, all we need now is someone with earth and metal and we will have a full circle."

I watch the guy untie his shoe and pull his foot out "Might want to hurry before he moves enough to be out of the way."

"Oh, sorry, right." He makes that little incantation and the two swirl together and he sends it flying towards the unsespecting person... wait, not unsespecting, he looks up and sees the ball of energy flying towards him, he raises his arm and it strikes the festival bracelets, I let go of the shadows holding his feet as the ball of energy divided and struck him both in the gut and head, he goes flying into the allyway.

"That had to suck." I say as I see him start thrashing.

"Thank you captain obvious." We look on as the transformation took place, I could see traces of energy on the festival bracelets as his skin darkened to black, and horns begin to show their way out of his head.

"What's with the bracelets?"

"The ball struck them first so the energy is probably trying to turn them too." I note why didn't this happen with his or my clothes too? But the question is forgotten as the changes began in earnest, a crest began to form as his shirt shredded, running from the base of his neck to his tailbone, where it probably would end at his tail when it sprouted, his glasses fell off his face as it changed, obviously a big look of suprise on his face, black scales were rippilling into place all over his body as the rest of his clothing shredded, except for the festival bracelets, which seemed to be growing to fit his new size. I could almsot hear the crunch as his legs shifted to quadroped, and his hands turned into claws, three digits each. his head finishes changing, leaving two horns on top, with three spikes holding on the sides of his head just under the eyes.

"Another shadow dragon?" I ask.

"He'd only be a shadow dragon if it's in his primary element, so no, he's just a black ice and wind dragon."

His tail shoots out and I was right about the crest, he was a good size now, and the allyway was starting to get really small for him, last up were the wings, black as his scales, but when they burst out they hit the walls, cracking them.

Zephyr winces "Ouch, that must've hurt."

He doesn't seem to care about that part, I could still see the shocked expression on his face. He backs out of the allyway, knocking over a dumpster with his arm, and he looks around nervously, and I couldn't blame him, but then he realizes where the ball of energy that turned him came from... and looks straight up at us... well actually just Zephyr, because I had backed up off the lip of the roof the moment I knew he was going to look up at us.

"What do you think your doing?' He asks when he looks back to see me standing there.

"Sorry, don't like being stared at, plus I have no idea how he will react."

"Which is exactly why we need to go down and... too late." I look back over the edge and see him snaking through traffic, not even trying to fly, he was stumbling alot too, still not used to walking on all fours.

"We should really catch up to him before he get's out of sight you know." Zephyr says as he takes off, invisible again... oh sure, he get's to go invisible, even more stares for me. I leap off the roof and start flying after the run-away dragon.

"So much for subtlety." I mutter as we head after him.

We catch up quickly, but he was starting to get more skilled at running on all fours, all the sudden he crashes into a now visible Zephyr and more or less tramples him, they both go rolling though and I land behind them, both stopping much of the trafic that wasn't distracted by Zpehyr's spell.

"Agh, sorry!" The former human says as he rolls to his feet, and Zephyr groans and get's up.

"Zephyr, that was kind of stupid of you to get into his way." I say as he shook his head, probably trying to get the stars out of his vision.

"Yeah, will not try that again."

I walk up beside him "You alright?"

He looks at me and I note that he had silver eyes "After you turned me into a dragon? That-" Zephyr decides to interrupt

"Hold on..." he starts saying something in his language and all the sudden the suprised humans ignore us completely, getting back into their cars and driving around us. "Now we can talk." he says with a tired voice.

""Why did you turn me into a dragon?" The guy asks.

"Not my decision, his." I point towards Zephyr with a single claw "But if you want to know why, dragons are about to come back, but we need certain help with that, beleive it or not you are one of the few we need... i'm sure that isn't a good enough explanation, but even I still haven't gotten all the answers from Zephyr here."

"This is..."

"Surreal? I thought so too, and I started all this, and please don't ask about that until we can get someplace were there isn't cars flying past us." Noting that this was a highway, and people didn't seem to slow down when they went around us.

"Exactly the point I was going to make." Zephyr says and he burns the symbols into the ground for a portal.

"What are you doing?" Both me and the new guy ask.

"Portal, need someplace to rest, all this magic is wearing me out, care to give it a try Shane?"

"Me, open a portal? Are you mad?"

He chuckles "Probably. It's actually not that hard, just imagine where you want to go, and use your favorite element along with mimicking the motions I did the first time."

"So you can do magic too?"

I look back at him "Of course, and so can you." I ignore his suprised expression and hold an image of a grassy plain in my head and do what Zephyr had done, soon enough an electric-bordered void yawns open and I hold one hand out to the side "Care to go first? Oh, and hold your breath when you  go through." I cast a glance at Zephyr when I say the last part, he hops through and out the other side, I hop in after him and Zephyr follows suit, the portal closing behind him.

"So, what's your name?" He looks around before answering "Oliver. Can I start asking questions now?"

Zephyr walks over and lays down on the grass before passing out "Looks like we might be here a while, so I'll answer to the best of my ability Oliver, so what do you want to know first?" I say with a small grin.