A/N: My describing skills aren't great and this site doesn't allow for pictures, but you can see pictures of the various OCs over on the Ao3 version of this fic (spoonerdog123), on the Tumblr version (dragonronpafanfic). You can also see how they're doing on my Flight Rising account (Spooner), where basic info about each character will be recorded as the story goes on.

I really recommend that you read the first few chapters of the Ao3 or Tumblr version as opposed to this due to those having the pictures in-fic, but each to their own!

He wakes up cold.

Erai doesn't think much of it at first. He's never been a very sound sleeper; prone to throwing off the covers, falling out of bed, or even getting up and wandering around the flat. It happens so often, he's even made up a dumb joke to tell his family – "I do nothing during the day, so everything happens at night!" – and it was definitely funny the first time.

So instead of panicking, he smiles, since this is going to be a great way to lead into that joke yet again. All he's got to do now is organize some kind of family meeting, which for Erai means showing up on Mum's doorstep with a big grin, and that joke locked and loaded. He reaches out to brace against the nice, warm floorboards– and three things happen at once.

One, his hand finds soggy leaf litter.

Two, his other hand finds a nice, sharp rock.

Three, his gaze finds giant, freaky, glowing pink eyes.

"Aaaaghhhhh!"

"Ack!" The thing skitters back, coils and wings and more coils twisting over and over each other. It looks uncomfortable and unplanned, and pretty soon the creature's tangled up in itself enough to start rolling, screaming all the way. Four awkward little lizard legs splay out somewhere in the mess, scrabbling until it manages to come a halt, and just lies there yelling: "You, you – you complete and utter fluffball! You dumb cluck! You, you – anyway! Um, I order you to cease and desist with this nonsense!"

Erai stares at the mess of dark purple scales, neon green wings, and assorted grey rocks, which stares back. It's maybe half his size, so as weird and frightening as the lizard–thing is, it probably can't eat him. Unless it cuts him up into bite–sized chunks. Which it can't, because going off what Erai's seen so far, he can outrun it. "What nonsense?" he grumbles, attempting to sit up. His legs aren't quite bending the right way, but he puts it down to stiffness. "You're some kind weird nonsense creature yourself, you know…"

"So are you," the lizard retorts. It at least sounds male, though not particularly masculine. "And you sc–startled me. Which makes you rude, therefore I win."

Erai sighs, rolling onto his front. With his arms better braced, he should be able to get up easier, even if there's some kind of weird weight on his back. "Look. I don't know what you're claiming to be, or what you just won, but I'm a human. And since there's billions of us, that really doesn't make us weird. If you're gonna react like that every time one of us wakes up, I hope you don't plan on hanging arou– holy smoke!"

There's a snobbish sniffling from the snake pile, and a muttered "Slow fluffball", but Erai pays it zero attention. His attention's focused squarely on himself, and for good reason. He has fur, lots of it, brown and cream and bright green because natural selection is apparently not a thing wherever he's ended up. There's no arms or hands; just front legs, and back legs, and a worrying absence of thumbs. He has a tail, and wings, and when he tries to look sideways at them, one eye's treated to a lovely view of his giant snout.

"This can't be happening. This isn't happening. I–I don't look like this! I went to sleep not looking like this! And I mean, okay, I didn't shave, but come on!"

"Good grief," the utterly nonsense lizard–disaster thing hisses. Finally untangling itself, it comes slinking towards Erai. At least it isn't tangling itself up – it moves each leg slowly, deliberately – but now it's so low to the ground that its belly is dragging in the leaf litter. "Pull yourself together! Yes, you look like that. Get over it. I'm sure your Talent's still functional."

Erai blinks, registering the capital 't' because of how the reptile spits it out. "I have a talent?"

"A Super–High–School–Level Talent," the thing growls, then its voice goes high–pitched and condescending. "Everyone else I've met here has one of those. It means that you're really, really good at something." He gestures to himself. "I, for instance, am the Super–High–School–Level Heir. As soon as I stop looking so ugly, I will be next in line to comandeer one of the most powerful companies in the world. Now, what is your Talent?"

Erai blinks, not knowing how to answer this, but wanting to answer on the grounds of the snake–lizard–whatever being way too close to his face. "Oh... uh, okay? That's nice, um." Getting to his feet, he takes a nervous step back, and even manages not to trip himself up, though his tail's flicking about wildly and his long fur's fluffed. "W–well, I'm great at selling stuff. Door–to–door, you know? I even sold my dad's car yesterday, without him knowing – it'll be a great surprise when he wakes up with all the extra money. And, I guess I ought to be in high school… So, you might as well say that I'm the Super High School Level Used Car Salesman! Erai Nakamura, by the way."

He grins goofily, expecting the other reptile to smile at his great joke, but all he receives is a blank stare. "Kobayashi Togami. And you're an awful liar. I have never heard of anyone being given the oh–so–honorable title of Used Car Salesman."

"God, I was just ki– wait, Kobayashi? That doesn't sound right." Erai frowns, thinking about this for a long moment. It's not like he should really be interrogating a creature that doesn't exist, but he can't help but be curious."Isn't there some other guy who's meant to be the heir? Byakuya?"

Kobayashi sighs, as though he's had this whole conversation before. "That deadbeat? No, of course not. How could a child win such a grueling competition?" He snorts, looking away for a long moment. "Now. Are you going to tell me how to get out of here, or are you going to be as useless as the others? Without my Super–High–School–Level guidance, the conglomerate will be rammed into the ground."

Erai winces at the sheer levels of condescending in his voice, shuffling his oversized feet. "Don't they have backups for that kind of thing? Like, a… a SHSL Twogami?" That joke was even better than the first one, but Kobayashi doesn't so much as snicker at its utter brilliance.

"It's none of your business."

"Okay, okay. Anyway – I don't know how to get out. Or what we're doing here. Or who 'the others' are, or how we got here in the first place, or what I'm even supposed to be. I mean, I sold the car, I went to bed, and then I woke up here, looking like this – wherever here is, and whatever I'm supposed to look like right now." He squints at the trees. He's not much of an expert on plants; to Erai, it seems to be generic enough and dark enough to be any forest anywhere.

"So you don't know anything? Tch… how useless."

"Oh, like you're just so much better. How did you even run any companies?"

It's just a stupid, frustrated little thing, and he honestly expects it to be met with scoffing and more hoity–toity condescending bullshittery. But Kobayashi flinches back, and definitely isn't at all interested in standing his ground. "J–just report back to me if you manage to make yourself useful. Good? Good. Bye."

With that, he slides away at top speed, and being a mostly–dark–coloured weird–lizard–thing, is lost from sight in moments. Erai blinks in surprise, wondering briefly how the hell that guy is supposed to lead everything – before he shrugs it all off, and starts trudging in the opposite direction.

So I've met the worst–supposedly–best leader ever, who I'm stuck with, and also I'm not human anymore. Oooookay. I… I'm just going to have to deal, somehow.

But, hey. We can't get worse after this, right?

…Right?

Fiiiiiiiine, so things have gotten worse. Erai is now hopelessly lost in a forest – not that he wasn't utterly lost at the start of the day, but he's somehow graduated to a form of 'lost' even worse than that. At least he was paying attention to the world he was trampling earlier. Now, every tree he stumbles past looks the same: Dark, foreboding, and most importantly, chock–full of low–hanging pointy bits. As far as Erai's concerned, he could be going in endless circles and not have a clue.

If he was and knew about it, he'd be happy. If there's one thing Erai doesn't want to do, it's walk, even though he knows he should. One little excuse to lie down and give up, and he'd absolutely take it – you see, turning into the Chow Chow of the monster/dragon/whatever world overnight hasn't made Erai very good at being one. He's stubbed his toes on inconveniently placed rocks at least once every two minutes, and there's a slow, persistent burning in his legs and back.

How much longer can I go on–?

"Hello?" Erai calls out, not expecting an answer. Maybe Kobayashi was lying when he mentioned the others, or maybe he's going in circles after all. Whatever the reason, he's heard nothing in reply to his calls for however long he's been trying – bar distant wing–beats, and the occasional weird feeling that something is watching him. "Hey! Kobayashi, are you around?"

"Yaaaaaaahhhh!"

Something brightly coloured, feathered, and way too big to be a parrot – hell, it's bigger than him – crashes through the trees and flies straight at Erai's head. Instincts kick in, thank god; he ducks, low enough that he doesn't take an idiot to the face. The air roars around him as The Whatever screams past, then there's wingbeats behind him and a crash. Erai whirls, hackles raising, but instead of an attacking gryphon, all he sees is a brightly coloured tail disappearing up into the trees.

"H–hey now!" Erai rushes over to the hole in the canopy, then remembers he can't fly – or at least, trying to fly would be an incredibly bad idea, seeing as he can barely walk right now. He cranes his neck, watching the slow, looping flight of what he suspects is the Super–High–School–Level Horrifically–Coloured Creature. Between the sparkly blue belly, orange wings, pink cape, and lime green body, all of which sparkle, it's hard to imagine anything less eye–searing and obnoxious against the sky.

"You! In the green– orange– ahhh, let's just call it the everything. You know who you are, buddy! Come back here!"

The mutant parrot grins down at him, and manages not to look utterly creepy while flashing a horrifying number of sharp teeth. "Oh, hey! You're that guy from two seconds ago, right? Sorry, but I can't play you now. I've absolutely got to master my Dragon Sky Cannon Drop!" Curling one claw into a fist, he loops once more, then punches the air, which looks about as stupid as it sounds. "Just looking at you makes me all fired up, though. A new breed… new tactics… new techniques… We're definitely gonna be rivals. I can feel it!

Figuring that he's talking about some sort of mutant parrot WWE, Erai does his best to back out. He may not like having a snout, but he also doesn't think getting it punched in is going to help. "Um. I hate to break it to you, but I'm not really into fighting."

In a split second, the parrot thing's gone from goofing around several metres above him, to standing and glaring just centimeters from his face. Since it's landed on Erai's already stubbed toes, he whimpers, but gets exactly zero sympathy. "You can't say that! Not when you're aware of the awesome battle spirit present in every game – not when you can see the souls of two entire teams clashing!"

With some difficulty, he rears back onto his hind legs, and grabs Erai by the neck. "As Ryuuki 'Legendary Last Resort' Kurohiko, goalie and team captain, I choose you to play soccer alongside me! You can do it!"

Soccer?! Are you kidding me?

"Uhhh, I– I can't do that! I'll make you guys lose!" Erai struggles to get his front paws out from under the other abomination's back talons, then finds out the hard way that he can't reach his neck with his front legs. "I can't see any of that 'battle spirit' or whatever. I just thought it was fighting, because of how you were talking about it. I didn't even think you were talking about soccer– stop shaking me–"

"Not until you come to your senses, new friend! I won't let you slip into the darkness now! There's no such thing as can't – I turned into an I–don't–know–what, so anything is possible!"

Ryuuki might actually have a good point there, and if he was being at all polite about it, Erai would have told him so. But the shaking gets harder, and no matter how hard the fluffball tries to set his jaw, he's stammering all over the show and biting his tongue. "O–okay, j–just p–p–put me d–down!"

"That's the spirit!" Ryuuki lets him go, and then claps him so hard on the back that he winds up on his face. "So! Welcome to the team! I'm a Super–High–School–Level Goalie – so you can count on me to save the day, one hundred percent!"

Erai spits out a mixture of leaf litter and dirt, which tastes a whole lot better than it should. "Is the rest of your team that, too? Super–High–School–Level, I mean."

"I don't know. Are you a Super–High–School–Level?"

Cocking one fluffy eyebrow, Erai decides to try and sidestep the truth without resorting to that excellent Used–Car–Salesman comment. It's an amazing joke, but if Ryuuki missed the point and decided to punch him for kinda sorta stealing, Erai's not so sure he'd survive. "Hey, now – you're not asking that because you're the only other person on the 'team', right? I mean, I got my question in first…"

A pause.

A long, long, pause. Ryuuki stares at the ground, shuffling his talons and swishing his tail.

"Well… uh…" He frowns, then tries again. "My old team's gone, but– hey! I'm just getting started." He rocks back on his hind legs to spread his wings wide; Erai takes one to the head and winds up on his face again. Before he can complain loudly about this, a claw grabs at his, and he's pulled back up. Ryuuki's grin is broad, infectious, and as he goes on with his speech, Erai catches himself smiling back.

" You stick with me, and we'll have a full team of super–powered, super–charged players in no time, armed with the ancient tactics of whatever we're supposed to be! Since we're together, we're gonna be able to train for anyth–"

It happens in a flash. The calm is shattered by a gigantic, white creature, four red eyes, teeth so big they barely fit in its mouth, much too thin to be healthy, claws like knives, and – oh yeah – it's covered in blood. With a horrible snarl, it lunges out of the undergrowth behind them, and either Erai's quick enough to get out of the way or he was never the intended target in the first place. He screams and lurches to the left, glancing at Ryuuki and promptly wishing he hadn't.

Because it's sitting on top of him.

And those awful, awful jaws have opened wide.