Alright, now that I have had my practice rounds with my last stories, I can really attempt to good. A new story, and about one of my favorite games of all time. I've wanted to write this story for so long, thanks to my personal idol, and now I can. Time to journey to the Dragon Realms on an Acidic Trip.

I'm planning on make references to other stories I like from other Authors. See if you all can notice any of them.

Ben groaned as he walked into his family's rented house, rubbing both his sore legs and his full stomach. He was on a vacation to Florida with his parents, and the buffets here were so much crazier than the ones in Arizona.

His family was still sitting at the noisy place, probably expecting him to come out of the bathroom he bailed on them in. But they wanted him to eat more! What were they, crazy?!

He flopped onto the rented cabin's couch and searched for the remote. Eventually he find it and flips on the tv to one of the many old kids shows still on Boomerang.

He snickered at the old animations and turns down the tv and pulled out his phone. "Sorry Mom." He reads aloud as he texts. "I was stuffed to the brim, yet you demanded your money's worth. You have heard that the "money's worth" of a buffet is the WHOLE BUFFET, right?! Anyway, don't worry, I'm safe and sound in the safety of the cabin, and I am awaiting your return. Love you."

Snickering once more, he quickly put his phone to silent, slides it into his green sweatpants pocket, and then rolled over, burying his head under a pillow and tried to fall asleep.

The house groaning loudly brought Ben back to the land of the awake. Jumping to his feet, he looked around.

The house creaked and groaned again, and what sounded like sand rushing down a hillside crept out from beneath the house. Ben put his ear to the floor and listened carefully, but the noise quickly stopped as soon as it started.

"Was that an earthquake?" He said to the tv, believing that the hidden camera the government put into the screen would somehow answer. "What was that thing that people warned about in Florida… Aw, well. It seems to be over now. To the cookie jar!" Laughing at his own fear and childishness alike, he walked into the kitchen and grabbed a couple raisin cookies from the jar.

"Oh, and yes, I am one of those weirdoes who enjoy raisins." He says to the tv again. "Though, knowing you, you probably would have known that already. Hehe."

He flopped back onto the couch and munched on the final cookie, his racing heart finally calming. But as soon as he assumes the worst is over, the shaking begins again, this time worse.

Terrified, he grips the couch as the entire floor cracks and opens like a gaping maw, revealing a hole deep into the earth, dark and foreboding.

Sinkhole. Ben gasps as the hole grows larger, swallowing the posts holding up the cabin and tilting it suddenly. He grips the couch tighter, but it begins to tilt as well, sliding toward the edge which is swallowing the house. He screams as he falls into the dark abyss, the couch under him.

He groans as the landing takes his breath away and he looks back up at hole, looking at the light streaming in from it and waiting for something to help.

Ben groans and watches wide eyed as the chandelier directly above the hole makes ominous noises, cracks forming along the roof and spiraling toward it.

Ben screams as the chandelier snaps off the roof, plummeting toward the hole. He backs into the wall quickly and covers his face.

Like a guardian angel struck it down, the wall he is leaning on collapses behind him, sending him rolling and falling down deeper into the earth. The chandelier crashes behind him, shattering and sending glass shards everywhere around him. Some followed him down the new tunnel, yet none pierce his skin or land under him.

He lands suddenly on flat ground directly on his back, his surroundings entirely dark. The house continues to groan through the hole, but it sounds far away to Ben.

Groggily, Ben lifts his head and tries to stare through the darkness around him. The cavern floor had scattered shard of glass that glinted slightly in the small amount of light. Carefully, he stepped over them and toward a small side cave.

Through the cavern Ben could barely hear water dripping from the roof into a pool below. He reaches forward carefully, feeling the wall for directions as his shoes suddenly enter water.

He jumps back and squints into the darkness, trying to see the water. He crouchs down, feeling for the water that had just bled through his shoe.

Suddenly his hand grazes the liquid and an overwhelming dryness in his throat suddenly grips him. Throwing caution to the wind, he reaches down and takes a big gulp. It tastes like salted caramel; sweet and salty and delicious. Without a second thought, he takes two more big, long gulps.

The dryness gone, drowsiness replaces it and Ben yawns, sitting back against a smooth rock wall. His eyelids droop and close slowly, his breathing becomes steady and his heart calms. The water dripping from above becomes a soothing lullaby that lulls him deeper and deeper, further and further into a death-like slumber.

Ben wakes up slowly, his head pounding hard and his throat dry once more. Groaning loudly, he opens his eyes and than groans again at the sudden influx of sunlight on his pupils.

Wait, sunlight? Surprised, Ben blinks his eyes open again and stares up at the open sky. He scrambles to his hands and knees and looks around.

No longer is he lying in a cave under Florida. Now, he seems to be in a fertile, untouched forest. On his left, a small pool collects dripping rain water from a recent storm. In all other directions there is nothing but leafy, beautiful plants.

Carefully, Ben puts his hands down on the ground and goes to lift himself to his feet when something stops him instantly. The sight of his skin.

Gone now was the pasty white skin of a boy who spent his time in bed gaming his life away. Now his hands are green like a moss and covered in shield like scales. Each hand ends in a talon at least half an inch long and sharp as can be.

He screams and stands up quickly, only to realize his feet have changed as well, making it impossible to stand on two legs. With another cry, he falls backward, landing hard on a new appendage out of his back.

Ben looks back at his new tail, thrashing underneath him like a trapped animal. It is the longest tail he had ever seen, as long and thin as the Xenomorph's tail. It ends with a strange, incredibly thin point at the tip of his tail that seems to be retractable, though try as he might, he doesn't have enough know how to figure out how to accomplish such a task. Noticeably, the blade is light green, lighter than his other scales. As he looks back, he also notices his back has sprouted large wings, the same color as the blade on his tail.

"I'm." He looks over his other shoulder and sees the same on his right side. "I'm a dragon?" He carefully walks to the pool's edge and lies down, staring at his new reflection.

A dragon's face stares back at him with the same dark green scales that are on his back and paws. Speckled along his snout are dark blue scales, almost like freckles. Unlike most dragons he has seen, he doesn't have any identifiable horns on his head at all, but instead there are two noticeable ridges of scales where they would be. The only part of him that stayed the same from his transformation is his brown eyes.

Ben walks back away from the pool and sits down, looking at his front paws. "I'm a dragon." He says again, and then laughs and rolls onto his back. "I'm a Dragon!" He cheers happily.

After a few more minutes to let it sink in, he stands up and looks around. Seeing smoke in the distance, he walks slowly toward it, wary of his new body's strange actions, like the way his wings keep getting snagged in everything. Sighing slightly, he has to stop every time it happened to keep the sensitive tissue from tearing. Slowly, he gets closer to the source of the smoke.

Shakily, he staggers out of the forest and finally views his goal. The city ahead of him has giant walls blocking most of the view, but what he did see was amazing.

A city filled with dragons! Dragons on the walls in armor, dragons talking to others on the roofs, even one couple who had their tails entwined and were making out like there was no tomorrow.

Ben took a good six minutes to stare at the walls before a sudden shout startled him out of it. "Hey!" A dragoness with white scales and silver armor runs up to him, her four horns curved backward toward her wings. "What do you think you are doing? All new students must be inside to hop on the carriages to the temple before classes start."

"Classes? Temple? What?" Ben asks, confused beyond belief that this dragon speaks english, let alone what in the world she was talking about. Summer vacation still has four weeks, for pity's sake!

"The temple outside of the city! Now get going! Do you need an escort or something?" The dragoness asks impatiently.

"Ummm… Yeah." Ben just decides to roll with it. "Yeah, I am new here… My parents told me I needed to go to school and said I should come here. Can I please get an escort?"

She sighs and turns around. "Roge! Give this kid an escort!" The spoken too dragon nods and goes inside the city, waving his tail for Ben to follow.

'I'm not a kid.' Ben wants to shout, but just decides against it and follows the dragon through crowded streets and amazing sights until they reach a long line of carriages.

Ben watches the guard go before dropping the act and staring in wonder at all the dragons, drinking the sights in. Besides the line of dragons next to the line of carriages, he also got a chance to view the amazing sights of the city. Dragons, acting like humans all around, albeit medieval ones.

Suddenly a very old looking dragon shouted "All aboard!" From the front of the carriage line and the dragons started piling into the carriages. After a quick laugh at the feeling of climbing into a magical train to Hogwarts, Ben too climbed into a carriage far at the back, with only one other resident.

A dragoness that seemed to be his age sat across from him, her scales grey and eight tiny horns sticking out of her head. There is a small tailblade that looks like a sword point at the end of her tail. Trying to be polite, Ben says "Hello."

"Hi." She says roughly, continuing to stare forlornly out the window.

After a few seconds of silence, Ben tries again. "Nice weather, considering the time."

"I suppose." She answers.

Ben sighs. "Some people just aren't conversationalists, Ben." He says aloud. "You gotta realize that."

The dragoness sighs back. "My parents just threw me out of the house because they hate me and are drunk and only care about sex and now I have to live with my aunt in the temple for the rest of my school life. So forgive me if I am not in a conversational mood."

Ben whimpers. "I'm sorry. I didn't know… Hey, why don't we swap names? I'll go first if you want." She doesn't move. "Okay, my name is Ben. Ben Relic."

She looks at him. "Why do you have two names?"

"Ummm… Cause." He smiles at her.

She sighs again and goes back to looking out the window. "My name is Cloud. And I don't appreciate being lied to." She glares at him for a moment, then the carriages start moving and she goes back to looking outside.

"Well maybe the reason why I have two names is because my family is not from around here, hm?" Ben keeps on smiling to her, and when she looks back and notices, she just scoffs.

"Which, to be honest, I am really not from around here. I'm from very, very far away. And that is no lie." Ben stops smiling as he realizes just how far away he is… Possibly even in another dimension!

"Must be great." Cloud says. "After all, even after one hundred and twenty-six years, people are still trying to recover from the war here."

Ben nods as if he understands and looks out the window with her. "People seem to be recovering well. Look, there are children and lovers and everything a city can ask for."

Cloud laughs. "If only I had your view. Maybe I wouldn't be so depressed."

Ben laughs with her. "Don't worry, I'm sure I can help you see my way." He gets up and sits next to her, making her scoot closer to the window. "So, how far is this Temple place?"

Cloud finally turns and fully looks at him, even if it is a look of utter shock. "Haven't you been there before? Everyone has been there when they are old enough!"

Ben just shrugs again. "I'm not from around here, remember. So tell me, what are the teachers like?"

Cloud looks at him as if he just evolved into a hydra. "Teachers?! You mean the guardians, the undisputed rulers of our society!?"

Ben nods. "Yeah, sure, them."

Cloud sighs. "The guardians are fine. But you know how it is, someone tries to do you good and you don't want the good so you resent them for it."

"Yep, I know that feeling alright. I once disobeyed a direct order from my mom because I was angry at her and I regretted it for the rest of the month.

"Why? What did you do?"

Ben snorts a laugh out, then looks down in shame. "I might have stuck my h-... Tail in a fire ant nest."

Cloud immediately busts out laughing so hard she falls to the carriage floor. "It wasn't that funny!" Ben says as he laughs with her, but she keeps on laughing.

After a good long laugh together, she picks herself up carefully in the carriage and smiles at him. "Alright, you got me. I'm not as sad anymore."

Ben smiles back at her. "Glad to hear it Cloud. So, mind answering some more questions?"

"What else could you need to know?" Cloud smiles wider. "You seem to be quite smart already."

"Ha. Ha." Ben says back, smiling too. "No I wanted to ask where I am. And what I am."

Cloud stops smiling again. "Have you been living under a rock your whole life? You're in the dragon realms, more specifically the Dragon City Warfang. And you are a Dragon, stupid. Poison most likely, with all that green and no brown."

Ben nods. "Okay… Thanks." He then goes lets her go back to staring out the window as he goes deep into thought himself.

I'm in another world. I'm a dragon. Possible dream. But if this is true, and all of this is real, then my prayers have been answered and my wishes granted! I am definitely sticking around here.

His mind made up quickly, he looks back at Cloud. Licking his lips (and realizing even his tongue has changed) he says "You know, you're very cute." He stops himself before he can say "For a dragon."

Cloud immediately whips around and glares at him. "I am Not Interested." She punctuates the sentence with a menacing growl.

Ben smiles anyway. "Are you freaking drunk?" She asks him. "Why are you constantly smiling? What in the world could make you so happy that you're just able to smile and smile and smile!?"

Ben laughs. "I always smile when I am around true beauty." That comment gets him a slap on the back of the head with her tail. He whimpers.

She just growls one final time before looking back out the window to the trees on either side of the road. "I'm really not interested in a relationship right now. Especially not with someone who is just so... Happy."

"Well obviously you do need someone happy to balance yourself out." Ben retorts playfully. "And that's okay if you don't want a relationship. We can just be friends."

Cloud sighs. "Fine. Whatever."

A few hours later, the carriage train arrives in a mushroom forest and at an ancient looking building. The other dragons climb out of the carriages and walk up the steps, but Ben climbs out carefully and lets his jaw hit the floor in awe.

"This place is huge Cloud!" He says to his new friend, turning to help her out of the carriage like a true gentleman.

She snorts and slaps his paw away. "Of course it is huge. It has to be to hold all the dragons old enough to come here." She then follows the line of other dragons walking up the stairs with Ben right behind her.

"Welcome students!" A big, deep booming voice calls from the front door, startling Ben out of looking around and instead looking up at the red dragon with a ram's curved, black horns at the top of the stairs. His eyes are a piercing red and his tail blade is an arrow's tip. Uniquely, his wings have small black spikes on the ends.

"My name, as many of you may know, is Damean. And I am the Fear Dragon guardian here at temple, in charge of breath training and history." He says, overlooking the students proudly. "This shall be your new home for the next four years as you learn everything you will need to know about dragons and their way of life. Although." He looks over the crowd again, this time with a smirk. "Most of you should know how life works, since I hope you are among the living."

The crowd does the normal chuckle that accompanies a teacher's joke, and Damean continues. "Follow me and we shall show you around the temple. It's not too big so you shouldn't have too much of a problem navigating it." And with that he turns and walks into the temple, followed by the whole crowd of one hundred plus dragons.

"Not too big, he says." Ben mutters to Cloud, who giggles in return.

"Some of you will have to bunk with others, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem." He shouts over the crowd's shuffling and murmuring to make sure he is heard.

Ben looks at Cloud. "Are the dorms nice?" He asks.

"They're nice enough." A female voice says behind him and he whips around to see a large grey scaled dragoness with four horns in a similar design to Cloud's. There is no tail blade at the end of her tail either, just like Cloud, however her wing span is massive. "I don't think I have met you before, though you seem to have made friends with my niece. I am Gale, the wind dragon guardian in charge of art classes. I expect that y-"

Ben suddenly lets loose a loud, annoyed groan. Cloud slaps him in the back of the head again and he sighs. "Sorry. I just didn't know there was an Art class here. I hate drawing."

Gale chuckles, though it has an undertone of annoyance. "That's fine." She says calmly. "You can swap my class out for an extra class in anything you want."

Ben lets out a sigh of relief. "Okay good. I'm dead serious when I say that my art is the same as a child's." Cloud lets out a little sigh, but quickly silences herself as Gale looks at her.

"Well." Gale says. "Be sure to say so when you enroll for your classes." She goes to walk away.

"Wait!" Ben says suddenly, before he can stop himself. When Gale looks at him, he looks down. Despite the fact he wants to scream 'What is this world?! Where am I?!' He merely mutters, "N...Nice meeting you."

Gale says the same and walks away.

"Why did you do that?" Cloud asks, confused at his sudden outburst.

Ben looks at her for a good long moment. "Not important." He says finally and follows the group of dragons away from Gale and toward a side area. A graveyard.

Damean's voice carries above the shuffling of dragon feet. "These great statues you see before you are some of our world's greatest heroes and legends. Look upon them and feel inspired, for you are walking the same ground they did. They learned everything here in this temple, from the guardians of the past."

Ben looks at the statues with mixed emotions. On one hand, he really does feel impressed and inspired by the dragon couple standing proudly before him. On the other, he feels as though he has seen them before. Confused, he walks up to the plaque and rubs away the dust and moss growing on it.

It reads. "Spyro and Cynder. Heroes of the Realms. The first heroic purple dragons. May their legend inspire us all."

"Spyro and Cynder?!" Ben shout in surprise. "They aren't real!"

Cloud gives him his minutely dose of confused looks. "Of course they are! They were heroes. And they are only some of the heroes. Everyone of these statues are people who did great things." She says, pointing at the other statues. "And each is surrounded by the graves of loved ones."

"Right, right, right." Ben say hurriedly. "But Spyro and Cynder aren't real! They're from a video game!" He looks at the graves near the Spyro and Cynder statue. "And here! Ignitus... Terrador... Volteer... Cyril... These are all not real!"

"Are you alright in the head?" Cloud asks angrily. "You're acting like you aren't from this world."

Ben freezes and looks at her, then looks around. The group was far ahead, and the only people nearby were the statues themselves. "Can you keep a secret?" He whispers to her and she nods.

"I'm really not from this world. I'm from a world without dragons. They're nothing but legends. Heck, they aren't even real legends. Legends have some evidence they exist, but dragons in my world are completely fake. They don't exist. Period."

Cloud scoffs. "That's not possible. Even if you were from another world, how did you get here?"

"I don't know." Ben hisses. "I fell down a hole and drank some water and now I'm here. Now, I'm not complaining cause this place is beautiful. No pollution, completely untouched by all forms of humanity... I couldn't be happier... But how did I get here?"

Cloud growls. "How the fuck should I know!? I think you are full on insane, honestly, but I will do what you wanted and keep your little secret safe." She then runs after the rest of the group, and Ben swiftly follows, concern and excitement fighting for control in his mind.

Damean notices as the two approach and decides to hand over the tour to a former student who was shadowing him, who gladly accepts, eager to be noticed. Damean then snakes his way through the crowd and walks in between Ben and Cloud. "Hello... I've seen you before, Cloud." He then turns to Ben and gives him a stare so powerful it actually makes Ben shudder a little. "I don't think I have had the pleasure of meeting you, though. What is your name?"

"My name is Ben Relic, sir." Ben says politely. "It's my first time visiting the Temple."

Damean's eyes narrow and somehow his glare becomes even more powerful. "You should have come to the temple at ten years of age."

Ben shrugs. "Couldn't make it, sorry." Cloud stares at him with a look that says he is dancing in the devil's mine field.

Damean smirks. "You will be an interesting student." And with that, he stops, letting them continue on with the group.

Once they are a good distance away, Cloud slaps him on the back of the head, to which he giggles. "Don't you do your little chortles. Don't you know who that was?!"

"Nope." Ben answers. "I've never been here, remember?"

Cloud snarls very un-ladylike. "Then consider yourself lucky. He's not just in charge of Combat and Breath Training, he's also the punisher if you break the rules. And nobody likes him!"

"Well has anyone ever tried?" Ben asks and Cloud opens her mouth to respond, then frowns and shuts it. "Exactly. I'll bet I can make friends with him. I'm very good with people who are supposed to be evil, trust me." He walks ahead to keep up with the crowd and Cloud follows begrudgingly.

Suddenly, a dragon melds out of the darkness at the front of the crowd, startling both the guide and a few students nearby. His head is covered in silver horns and his tail ends in a scythe tail blade. He roars in laughter and then scans the crowd. "It's wonderful to see you all here!" His cheery voice echoes. "How many of you are excited for the school year!?" The crowd cheers loudly, feeding off his excitement to fuel their own. "Awesome! And how many are excited for language arts!?"

The volume of the cheering shrinks considerably around him and his smile disappears with it. Annoyed at the school's rude students and feeling an adrenaline kick at the smallest thing like he normally does, Ben rushes through the crowd until he is directly in front of the rest of the crowd and shouts at the top of his lungs. "I'M EXCITED FOR LANGUAGE ARTS!"

Everyone stares at him and Cloud desperately tries to be hidden in a thicker part of the crowd. The black scaled dragon in front of Ben smiles warmly at him and Ben smiles back. "Well, thank you, kind sir, for showing that someone here loves writing and reading as much as I." He says, cheerful once more, and Ben nods. "How about we get you signed up for my class first?" Smiling wider, the dragon leads the crowd, with Ben right beside him, to a few desks each with stacks of eight papers. Each one is to sign up for different classes at different times and days.

Ben takes a pen and writes his name down on the first day, first writing class, and then goes through and makes it so the second day writing is second, third day is third, etc. The guardian looks over him with a smile that slowly fades into a frown as he notices something. "You have two names?" He asks and Ben nods. "Very strange... Very strange." Then the smile returns and he whispers. "Maybe you should change it. Were you born with a name, or do you have a name you wish for us to call you? If you do, please write it there, instead of two names. It will be much less confusing. Plus, it might keep you from being bullied."

Ben looks at him and shrugs, then scribbles out the four times he wrote his name and thinks. He looks deep into the list of names he has created for his many games and read about in stories, trying to find the one he wants to be called for his time here. "Cloud mentioned something about my dragon element being poison. Is that true Mr...?" Ben asks, trailing off and prompting the dragon to say his name.

"Scath, and I do not know your element. Many dragons have one color of scale, and another completely different element. The only way to tell would be to go to the training ground and find out. More then likely, yes, you are a poison dragon."

Ben smiles. "Then I know my name." Quickly, Ben pulls out the first paper and writes his new name. "Bricriu." He reads aloud to Scath. "Which means Poison Tongue."

Scath smiles too. "Well, let's hope you are a poison dragon then."