Chapter 1

Arrival

Ignitus took in a deep breath of the fresh springtime air. The afternoon sunlight flickered through the leaves of the trees and made his bright red scales shimmer and reflect off the forest floor. Now where was that clearing again?

The young fire-drake craned his neck from left to right. He'd been searching for his favorite spot all afternoon. He didn't want to find it by flying. That would be cheating! He squinted, trying to remember which way he walked four days ago. Movement caught his eye and he turned to watch a red butterfly with yellow and blue spots flutter out of the trees. It circled him and then landed right on his snout.

"Why hello there" the dragon chuckled, while flaring his nostrils to avoid sneezing. The little butterfly flapped its wings back and forth slowly and twisted it's antennae as if it were trying to figure out what kind of creature it'd landed on.

` "It's a lovely place isn't it? Do you live around here?" Ignitus asked while slightly tilting his head.

When the butterfly didn't respond, Ignitus continued, "I don't, I live in a cave with my mom and dad. It's alright, but not nearly as cool as it is out here in the forest. You're so lucky that you get to live here, wish I could . . . do you have any friends out here?" He cocked his head just a little bit further, but it was enough to make the butterfly flutter off of his nose, making Ignitus sneeze.

"Wait! Come back! It's okay! I'm not gonna hurt you! I just wanna talk!" Ignitus laughed then bounded after it through the forest. He jumped up, trying to tap it with his snout. Every time he was about to touch it, the little multicolored bug would flutter out of the way or off in another direction.

"Hey, stop dodging! It's not fair!" the red dragon protested. They turned left, right, left again backwards and Ignitus was so close and right as he hopped out into a small clearing he lost track of the butterfly.

"Hey? Where'd you go? Hello?" he asked while hastily craning his neck in multiple directions looking for his new multicolored friend. He hadn't even noticed that he ended up in the clearing he'd been looking for all along. He was so focused on finding the butterfly he didn't notice the rumbling off to his right flank.

Before Ignitus had time to see where the noise was coming from, a dark green blur rammed into his flank, sending him summersaulting through the air.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" He cried, slamming into a pine tree and breaking it in half on impact. He rolled down the trunk until he hit the grassy floor on his stomach. What in the-! He thought, what hit me?

"Ram! You're it!" a voice boomed from the opposite end of the clearing ... "Come on Shukka! I didn't hit you that hard, did I?"

The dust cleared and when the young dark green whelp saw who he'd really hit, he cringed. "oooooooooh crap, that's not Shukka." he realized while rushing over. Any regular earth dragon would've definitely survived that charge, but a fire dragon? He wasn't so sure.

"Hey" He rumbled. "You alright? Better yet, you alive?" A painful moan from behind the dust told him that he was still very much alive.

Once Ignitus's vision finally stopped spinning and the dust cleared, he was able to see young bulky dark green dragon standing before him. He had jagged rocks growing out of his shoulder-blades, and two massive brown horns that looked like they hadn't finished growing yet and a large rock mass grown into his tail.

"What was that for?" Ignitus asked in a daze.

"My bad man, I thought you were someone else" he apologized while rushing over and helping the debris-covered fire breather to his feet.

"wh-what?

"I'm playin a game with my buddy Shukka, thought you were him!"

Ignitus gave him a frown. "Ah yes, nothing like a good old game of "Smash the Trees!"" he snapped.

"Ha, sounds like somebody hasn't played Ram before."

"Come again?"

"You heard me." he rebutted while bringing the fire-drake over into the clearing. "Ever hear of Tag?" the green dragon asked while brushing the dirt off of his new acquaintance. Ignitus held up a paw to indicate he wanted him to stop, and then proceeded to dust himself off.

"Yeah, of course." He extended his wings and flapped them a few times to shake off the dirt. The green dragon draped a wing in front of himself to shield his eyes from the clouds of dust.

"Well. I guess you can say it's like extreme tag. In Ram, you have to run smack into the person you're trying to tag and send them flying, otherwise, it doesn't count!"

"That sounds … unsafe." Ignitus chuckled while glancing back and smirking at the broken tree. The young green dragon looked at him with a humorous smile.

"Hey, the way I look at it, it's a great motivator to not get hit! Well, now that we've met on such great terms…" The strange dragon stuck out his right paw. "Names Terrador." Though his face didn't show it, Ignitus was instantly confused. His parents had taught him to bow at the neck whenever formalities were involved, what was this barbarian doing?

"umm" he murmured, while pointing "what d-"

"You're supposed to take the paw dummy." The dark green drake chuckled with a silly smirk. Not wanting to be rude, Ignitus hesitantly lifted his paw and smacked it down flat to flat.

"I'm Ignitus- good to mAAOWW, OWW OWW!" Terrador gripped the paw tightly and shook it hard. Ignitus winced! Such brute strength! It felt like he was crushing his paw!

"Ignitus huh? It's a pleasure." When Terrador finally let go Ignitus rubbed his paw to get rid of the pain.

"That's quite a grip you got there"

"Yeah, I've got my dad's brute strength, that's what he always tells me. So, what were you doing out here anyway Ignitus?" Terrador asked while looking him over. Ignitus thought about it for a second and decided there was no way in hell he was going to tell him he'd been chasing a butterfly through the forest. So he left that part out.

"I was umm, just out and about, you know? Since it's such a nice day I thought I would take a walk. Stretch my wings, you know how it goes."

". . . Sounds boring." He stated. Ignitus smirked while chuckling

"Well I suppose it can't really compare to the excitement of thrashing your friends about!" Terrador grinned while shaking his head.

"Nope, you sure are right about that part, nothing else compares."

They laughed for a minute, then Ignitus stood up on all fours and flicked his head towards the forest

"c'mon, why don't you follow me for a bit? I could use some company."

"You mean, just walk?" Terrador asked while cringing slightly from how dull it sounded.

"Yeah, it's not as boring as you may think."

"Ah, why the hell not?" with that said, Terrador got up off his haunches and walked shoulder to shoulder with his new friend. They walked for about five minutes and hadn't even noticed the other earth dragon stalking along close by in the bushes.

"So I've never seen you around Retharia before" Ignitus pointed out. "Are you new here?" Terrador looked from the treetops to Ignitus.

"Yep, my folks and I are staying up here for the year; Came all the way down from Tall Plains. I'm gonna be competing to become the guardian of Earth. So is my friend Shukka" Ignitus glanced over at his new friend.

"You're competing too?" he asked lightheartedly. The earth dragon bobbed his head.

"Mhmm, you betcha, why? Are you?"

"Yeah!" Ignitus smiled proudly, "I've only been waiting my whole life to try out!"

Terrador's eyes lit up. "Oh man that's awesome!" he bellowed. "How lucky are we to grow up just at the right time for a shot like this? Ancestors, It's so exciting it just makes me wanna -!"

Terrador looked up and with a mighty roar shot an earth bullet of excitement into the air. "Whoa!" Ignitus exclaimed as his gaze trailed upwards following the decently-sized boulder as it shot into the clouds above.

"H-how did you do that?" he stammered while pointing a talon at the shrinking rock in the sky.

"Huh, do what?" Terrador asked.

"The, rock, mouth, thing? How did you manage that?"

"Oh that?" he asked with a laugh in his voice. "What, you've never seen a dragon shoot a rock before?" Terrador asked jokingly. To his surprise Ignitus shook his head no, his mouth agape.

"N-No! No I haven't!"

"Well I'd li- watch your head." Terrador broke mid-sentence and pointed back up at the sky with his talon.

Ignitus glanced up; the rock was plummeting back down towards him at an alarming rate. He dodged out of the way and the rock smacked into the ground, forming a small dirt crater with a rock the size of a bush.

"Jeez!" he shouted, Ignitus didn't expect the rock to plunge back down so quickly.

"Anyway" Terrador continued like the falling rock was no big deal, "Well I'm not really sure how it works scientififically buuuut, best to just say that it's a gift for we earth dragons, we're part of the earth, so we can breathe it . . . like I said; it's complicated."

The young bright red drake found it completely baffling that a dragon could form a rock out of their surroundings and spit it wherever they may desire. Breathing fire made a lot more sense to him.

Eventually they walked and found a large break in the trees and before them stood a large city of bronze and golden structures that stretched so high and so wide they made the dragons look like ants. This was the great dragon city of the west. Retharia. Over a thousand different dragons lived here of all elements, Ice, earth, dark, fire, water, lightning, you name the element, Retharia had the dragon. Its size and dragon population rivaled that of Warfang.

On the outskirts of the city, an even larger structure loomed over the metropolis. Upon a nearby hillside, the Temple of the Guardians stood overlooking the city. And just a few weeks from now, that's where they would all be, for the Trials of Ages.

"Woah," Terrador plopped on his haunches, wide eyed and slack-jawed.

"Yeah" Ignitus said with a smile. "I'll never get tired of this view,"

Suddenly, a rustling noise came from the bushes nearby. Both of the dragon's heads snapped to the bush exposing their teeth and snarling. "Did you see that?" Ignitus asked. "Yeah,"

Terrador caught the glimpse of a green snout popping out of the bushes; "uh oh, look out Ignitus!" By reflex he pushed Ignitus away with one paw, sending him flying a good twenty feet … almost into another tree. A similar looking earth dragon leaped from the bushes and rammed into Terrador head to head.

"Gotcha Terrador!" the new dragon said in a gruff higher voice than Terrador's.

"nu'uh you're it now Shukka!"

"What? How!"

"I was already it, stone-head!" That's when the second earth dragon looked over at a dazed Ignitus stumbling back to his feet.

"Hey Terrador, who's your friend?" he said while walking over and nudging Ignitus with his snout.

"That's Ignitus; I just met him like a few minutes ago. Ignitus, this is Shukka. The buddy I was talking about."

"Of course" Ignitus said getting up and extending his paw, pretending as though he hadn't just been flown twenty feet. Shukka looked at the paw, puzzled, and then bowed his neck.

"Well any friend of Terrador's is a friend of mine, so it's good to meet you."

"Ignitus here is gonna be competing to become a fire guardian." Terrador announced.

"Really?" Shukka questioned while looking to the red dragon. "Well then the best of luck to you!"

"You as well," Ignitus doubled.

"Hey I don't mean to be rude to your friend here Terrador but can we get on with our game? It's been such a long flight and I wanna have some fun."

"Fine, I'll give you ten second head start," Without another word Shukka took off sprinting into the forest.

"Great to meet you dude!" he yelled as he pounded into the distance.

"Look" Terrador said, turning back to Ignitus. "I know we just met, but you're alright in my book, Ig. You sure you can make it home with those bruises?"

"I'll be fine, my home is like two wing beats from here."

"Alright, you wanna meet up here same time tomorrow?"

"Sure!"

"Cool, catch ya later dude!"

"You too! Bye Terrador!" with that Terrador flicked his head goodbye and took off running after Shukka.

Ignitus spread out his wings and was about to fly back home when he heard a great many roars up above. He looked up with wide eyes as family of five lightning dragons swooped overhead and down towards the city below. The family consisted of two fully grown adults and three younger children that looked to be his age.

"Oh this year is gonna be soooo awesome!" He thought out loud with while puffing out his chest. The Competition wouldn't start until a month from now, yet that was the fourth dragon family he'd seen come over the mountainside this week. Yes, this year was going to be awesome.