Chapt 1.
"Hmm?" I sleepily opened my eyes and see Beau, the black and gold dragon. I feel the straw beneath me and I remember that I had slept outside last night. "Thanks for waking me up boy." I said softly patting Beau's head.(Oh, my name is Shade Penn, Penn is my adoptive name seeing as the Penn's adopted me, but Beau was the one who found me.) I look down at myself and I'm still wearing the same clothes from yesterday, go figure. "No point in changing if I'm just going to get my clothes dirty, I'll change after I'm done my chores." I said getting up.
I pull out my iPod and put the ear buds in. I hum one of the songs as I clean the stables. I place the new hay into them, and even though it sounds strange, each dragon seems to relish my company. It's always been like that, every dragon here, or in Dragon City, likes me. "Ok Beau, here's your breakfast." I put the hay down. Beau brushes his face against mine before eating. I giggle and walk to the house.
I open the door and go to my room. Along the way I hear yawns, meaning they were going to wake up soon. I had to change fast. I get to my room and quickly change into a clean blue shirt with a red and yellow line going down each sleeve, cut off-shoulders, and black baggy pants. I go over to the full length mirror pull out the straw that was in my deep blue-nearly black-hair. I redo my hairstyle, and go to the kitchen.
I begin breakfast and getting the plates out. I finish, and put the bacon, eggs and toast on each of the plates, just as Artha, Lance, and Mr. Penn come in. "Good morning." I smiled. They take their plates as I take mine and walk to the door.
"Aren't you at least gonna stay for breakfast?" I hear Lance ask.
I glance at Artha for a moment before I respond. "No." I said sadly and go outside closing the door behind me. It's not that I don't wanna stay, it's just that Artha, well...he hates me to put it simply. He used to be nice to me, but that changed after that 'incident' happened and he blamed me for it. I sit down against a wall and begin eating. I almost didn't hear someone say, "Hey Shade." I look to the speaker, and it's Parmon with Cyrano. "Hi Parm, Artha's still inside." I said.
"Well then, I'll just wait out here." Parmon said a little embarrassed.
"Well, I'll tell Artha you're here." I said getting up. I giggled to myself, Parm was always good for a laugh.
After I told Artha that Parm was here he left the house quickly. He probably wanted to spend as little time around me as possible. I sighed and began doing the dishes. When I'm done I go back outside and on my way to Beau's stall I see Mr. Penn explaining something to some racers. I walk into Beau's stall and pat his head. "Hey boy." I cooed. I exited the stall and wanted to watch the 'secret' try outs for something. I leaned against the wall and waited for the try outs to start.
"Beau, come out here." Mr. Penn called. When Beau came out the racers gasped. I had snickered at the idiotic looks some of them had. I guess they heard me cause they glared at me. "Now, Beau is the strongest dragon in the world, and can use all gear types." Mr. Penn continued.
"No dragon can do that." One of the racers said.
"Show them Beau." Mr. Penn said. The racers looked on in amazement as Beau maged the gear they had on hand.
I saw that Mr. Penn looked displeased for some reason. He went over to a white-haired racer. "You're Word Paynn's son, Moordryd." Mr. Penn said. He then looked and saw a symbol on his jacket. "Dragon Eye huh? This is off limits to Down-city crews, leave now."
"I'll be back." Moordryd stalked away. My gaze followed him, but I quickly turned away when he looked at me. I felt so stupid for staring. Though he seemed so familiar for some reason.
After that the try outs started, and I chuckled when Beau rejected each rider by mag-blasting them off. Then suddenly the ground shook a bit and a red bi-pedal dragon came into view, and Kitt Wonn gets off it. The racers all groaned, Kitt was supposed to be a good racer and I saw from the corner of my eye Artha's expression, and that definitely told me he liked her. I giggled at the thought. Kitt got on Beau's back. I'll admit she lasted the longest, but still Beau mag-blasted her off as well, and Artha being sooo gracious, caught her.
"Why don't you try stable boy?" Kitt said.
"Err, okay?" Artha went over to Beau and after getting some encouragement from his dad, tried to mound Beau.
Unfortunately Beau saw Lance's candy bar, and went over and Artha fell. Everybody began laughing but he glared at me when I laughed. I stopped laughing and slink away feelin' down. I go into Beau's stall and lay down in the straw. Oddly enough I felt more comfortable outside than inside, it felt right...or because Artha didn't like the real dragons and wouldn't come in here.
The stall door opened and Mr. Penn came in with Beau. "Don't you start work soon?"
I jumped up. Beau nuzzled my face as I patted his head. "Yeah, thanks for reminding me Mr. Penn." I said.
"You know Shade, I am legally your father, you can call me dad."
"Well, okay Mr-I mean, dad." I said. I then feel Beau nudge me toward the door. "Alright I'm going!" I laughed as I ran out.
_______________________
I hurry to the Dragon City dragon care facility. Silly right? Well I like it because I'm around dragons, the critters that seem to like me no matter what their nature is. It does hurt though knowing I'm the youngest person there, but I get by. I think another reason dragons like me so much is because of my eyes, where as people find them slightly creepy, or eerie, dragons don't seem to mind. I don't blame them , they are after all a crimson red. I soon stop at the Dragon care facility and go in. I go in, greet the receptionist, and heads where the dragon hatchery is.
As I near the door, I hear I some rustling, I could probably only hear it because my senses were a bit higher than normal people's. I open the door a sliver an my eyes widen. There was someone stealing the eggs! He had a dragon eye symbol, the same as that Moordryd guy, so I was guessing that this guy was part of the same crew. Well he wasn't going to steal these dragons eggs!
I quietly-and rather inhumanly- crept over and when the guy turned I gave him an uppercut, and as he falls out cold I grab the bag with the dragon eggs in it and place it down gently. I grab the guys foot and dragged him to the back door. I open it and drag him out. I also notice a dragon outside. Probably his. "You better take him and leave." I say then go back inside.
I lock the back door and put the eggs back like they were never moved. After that I do my regular duties and go to check on the other eggs in the next room.
____________________________
When I was done work I headed home, I took longer getting back because I had to walk. I so need a dragon, my feet are killing me! Sigh. I brush off my melancholy thoughts as I finally make it home. I instantly froze as I saw a part of the house was on fire! I rush over to the house and stupidly go in. "Dad! Artha! Lance! Where are you!?" I screamed looking around. I coughed and heard the other coughing. I saw to my relief both Artha and Lance.
"Shade!!" Lance yelled in relief and shock.
I hurry over to him. "Where's dad?!"
"We don't know! We have to get out!" Artha shouted.
"We can use the way I came in." I said leading them back to the entrance. Unfortunately the debris fell and blocked the exit! "Okay, now were trapped!' I said panicky.
Artha rolled his eyes. "Gee, ya think?!"
"Where do we do now?!" Lance cried.
"Scream for help." I stated blandly.
"HELP!!!!" We all screamed.
We all heard a dragon roar and Beau crashed through the wall! He looked relieved to see us alright. He then magged Artha first and there was suddenly a brilliant light emitting from both of them. "Do you know what this means?" I asked Artha.
"Yeah, Beau chose me." Artha said dazed. He promptly snapped out of it when more wreckage fell. "Get on!" Beau then magged me and Lance on his back.
We held on as Beau crashed again through the wall outside. I then spotted a bunch of other people on black dragons. "Let me guess, they caused this?" I asked.
"If you knew, then why'd you ask?" Artha said spitefully.
Beau shook his head and snorted. The Dragon Eyes then spotted us and actually pointed. How dumb was that? "Uh , now might be a good time to get the heck out of here!" I thrilled.
"For once I agree with you, hang on." Artha urged Beau forward as the Dragon Eyes came after us.
I looked further ahead and saw the edge of the platform. Did Artha see it too? I looked up at his face and it told me he did. "You're not serious are you?" I exclaimed.
"How's this for serious?" Artha asked as Beau jumped off the platform.
I began to scream along with Lance as Beau was 'flying' through the air. By some stroke of luck Artha, Lance, and I fell onto old comfy mattresses while Beau wasn't so luck and fell into a garbage. We got off the mattresses and the garbage lid fell on Beau's head.
"Where are we?" I asked looking around.
"This is Down city." Lance said huddling close to me.
"I'll call Parm, he may know what to do." Artha then turned on his comm-link. Talk about blind faith, but we were desperate I suppose.
Then as if by another sheer coincidence Parm rode up on Cyrano. "Do you have any idea what this place is? Dragon City Security doesn't even come here." he exclaimed.
I ignored Parm's little rant and moved on to a more pressing matter. "What are we going to do? We still need housing, food. And all that other stuff." I said. We all then put our heads together to think of something. "Wait, what if Artha races?"
"What dragon am I gonna race?" Artha sneered at me.
I looked and saw Beau change colors, he was now red and blue. "Beau of course." I replied.
"This means you can race now." Parm said.
Artha toke out his amulet. "This means I can do a lot more than that."