"The words 'I am...' are potent; be careful what you hitch them to. The thing you're claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you.'

~A. L. Kitselman

Hydra and Alepou re-summoned themselves to my side as soon as they were finished with their tasks and fell in behind me as I followed the scent of burning chemicals.

As I pushed myself ever faster, my ears eventually caught the sound of a child screaming in pain, and the smell of blood began to over-power the scent of the chemicals. My lips lifted in a snarl as I made a bee-line for the door that both were coming from, and I made no attempt to keep my strength in check as I pushed myself off the ground and flipped into an ax kick. "Star Dragon's Claw!"

The metal doors flew off their hinges as I stalked into the room, Hydra and Alepou on my heels, as I surveyed the scene before me. The scientists had frozen in terror from the amount of killing intent I was putting out. At least that made them pause in the middle of injecting the poor kid strapped to the table with something.

A snarl crossed my lips as I started forwards, Hydra and Alepou in my footsteps as charged the scientists and took down the first one with extreme prejudice crack at least one or two bones judging by the scream he let out. "Hydra! Alepou!" I yelled as I stopped next to the surgical table and started to pry the restraints off. "Take them down, no mercy!"

Alepou lunged for the nearest scientist, sinking his teeth into the man's shoulder and drawing a scream and blood as he wrenched his head to the side and tore out a good chunk of flesh. The Raiju's form sparked for a moment and a lightning wave rippled out from his body and electrocuted all of the scientists in the room. He then leaped up as Hydra's coils slammed the stunned scientists into the walls, knocking them unconscious.

The two of them nodded to each other in satisfaction as they turned back to where I was trying to help the kid sit up.

He was shaking like a leaf, his visible violet eye wide and glazed as his sweat-coated maroon hair was plastered to his scalp. He was dressed in the same rags as the other slaves, though they were ripped and torn from the experiments the scientists ran on him. There were several scars visible on his body, but the most distressing was the deep slash that cut down through his right eye. I could already tell from the amount of blood and the depth of the slash that he would probably never be able to see out of it again.

I eased the kid onto my back and whistled to get Hydra and Alepou's attention. As I did, a snake slithered out of the shadows and coiled up near my feet.

"Do you belong to him?" I asked the purple and white creature as it stared at me. It gave me a nod, which I returned. "Go ahead then," I assured as I situated myself on Alepou's back and adjusted the kid so he wouldn't fall off of. The little snake nodded again as it wrapped itself tightly around my wrist.

I nudged Alepou's sides with my heels and dismissed Hydra at the same moment, ready to leave the hell hole behind. Alepou took off in a flash of light, literally becoming lightning itself as he bounded up to the surface.

I blinked my eyes as Alepou brought us out of the stream of energy. My breath heaved in my chest as I helped the kid off of my friend's back and handed him off to the medics we had brought along. "I will never get used to that." I breathed shakily as Alepou nudged me in concern. I lightly pet his muzzle as the other mages crowded around me. "Alright, Alepou, the main fight is over. You can rest now."

"If you're sure." The Raiju rumbled, surprising a few of the mages before he dissolved into black and gold sparks.

I panted for a few more minutes as I gathered myself, but looked up as I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. My eyes met Gildarts, and he gave me a smile. "You ready to bring this hellhole crashing down?" He asked, drawing a breathless smirk from me.

"Oh, don't you know it." I shot back as I followed him into the center of the wreckage.

The two of us took a deep breath, and I paused as Gildarts unleashed the full might of his magical aura. With a slight smile on my face, I pulled out the Celestial Orb I had saved and crushed it in my hand. Immediately, my energy shot up to dizzying heights as my aura became visible.

My own aura danced around me in a river of green gold, calm and steady as water, until it split apart and turned black and white. The white half of my aura was smooth and stable, while the black was chaotic and wild.

In contrast, however, Gildart's aura was a bright blinding white in color and flared around him in a steadily growing wave that oozed nothing except primal, crushing, power. It took my entire will to resist the urge to either run or challenge him as the human and dragon halves of my instincts waged war on each other. I looked down at my arms and was greeted with the sight of black and gold scales appearing all over them as silver fur sprouted at my elbows. My my hair waved back and forth in an invisible breeze, and from where I was I could see that my raven black hair had turned a dark purple.

Our eyes met again, and we nodded. I started to chant, drawing a raised eyebrow from Gildarts as I motioned for him to wait for a moment.

"They are all around us,

Appearing with the moonrise,

Disappearing with the sunrise,

But never truly gone..."

Dragon Slayer Secret Art!"

I lifted my head and aimed a hand skyward.

Gildarts' hands glowed as he punched skyward.

"Crushing Evil, Spreading the Truth: Empyrean!"

"Star Dragon Queen's White Dwarf Strike!"

Gildarts' spell tore upwards in a physical wave of energy, ripping through the stone like tissue paper and opening a hole that let in the fading sunlight.

My spell, on the other hand, shot up like a beckon, using the hole that Gildarts' spell created to widen it before it spread out to work into the very foundations of the tower, crumbling it to pieces around us. After a few seconds, I cut off power to the spell, and fell to my knees as the strain of keeping the spell active finally kicked in.

Shadows rushed into the corners of my vision as I collapsed, and the last thing I felt was two strong arms lifting me up and carrying me away as rubble crashed to the ground.

I'm not sure how long I was unconscious, but I do know what woke me up.

Screams of panic and the intermingled scent of poison and dragon.

I immediately shot out of bed, ignoring that every inch of my body was screaming in protest, and raced outside. I dodged around every attempt to stop me as I finally reached the railing of the ship and launched myself over to the next with a flex of my powerful leg muscles.

Gildarts followed right after me, grabbing me mid-air and tucking into an army roll as we landed on the deck of the ship. "What's the rush, little dragon?" He inquired as I de-tangled myself from his arms and raced towards the infirmary.

"The fledgling I broke out of the lab is panicking!" I yelled over my shoulder even as I kept my eyes trained forward. "As it stands, I'm the only one that'll keep him even remotely calm!"

"What?!" Gildarts roared as I burst into the infirmary and immediately brought the full weight of the Dragon's Will on the kid that was struggling against the doctors as I put a hand under his chin and gently forced him to look at me.

"Enough," Iordered sternly, bringing everyone in the vicinity to a standstill as the kid froze, his body quivering in fear as his instincts started to fight him. A smile crossed my face as I shifted my hand up until it was resting on his head and gently ran it through his hair. I slowly drew my will back under my control, letting the kid slump against me as the tension rolled out of his body. I looked up and motioned the doctors closer with a soft jerk of my head. "Now fledgling," I whispered softly, trying not to scare him again as he looked up at me with his single violet eye. "These people are trying to help. They just need to get a look at that nasty cut on your eye."

The kid eyed the doctors for a few moments before looking back at me. "No needles." He demanded as the little snake from earlier slithered out of his shirt collar and hissed in agreement.

"No needles." I nodded, before running a careful hand over the snake's head, inciting a hiss of pleasure from the little creature. "Your little friend here can bite anyone who has one if they don't listen."

The kid looked at me again, searching my gaze for signs of deceit, before nodding in acceptance and turning his stare on the doctors. They took it as a sign to quickly discard all of their needles. The kid stayed calm, only giving off a slight hiss of pain as they started to clean him up and make sure he was alright. I narrowed my eyes as one of them collected a few swabs of the blood from his eye-wound and slipped them into a vile. "We're just checking for any genetic anomalies." She assured me as she moved over to a microscope. "It's also for DNA testing, to see if we can find his family."

My inner dragon snarled softly at that. Kin. It whispered to me, clearing up my uncertainty in an instant so that I relaxed. "If you can't find them, I'll take him back with me." I offered as the kid snuggled into my side and seemed to instantly fall asleep.

"I'm afraid we can't let-" The woman started before I fixed one glowing eye on her.

"I'm a Dragon Slayer," I explained patiently, drawing awed looks from the doctors. "And I have claimed him as kin. Trying to separate us now, while his magic is still settling and my dragon is in righteous fury mode, is a BAD IDEA in all capitals."

The doctors nodded in understanding, getting a good look at my glowing eyes as they figured out how bad of an idea it would be. "If we can't find any of his family, we will entrust him to you." I relaxed minutely as the doctors began to filter out.

"Did you mean it?" I looked down at the kid and raised an eyebrow in askance. "Did you mean it when you called me kin?" He repeated, looking at me with his violet eye.

My gaze softened as I pulled the kid into a snuggle. "Yes," I stated as I rested my chin on his head and curled around him. "You are my kin, and I am not leaving you here. I'm going to contact my parents tonight, and I'll convince them to adopt you too." The kid relaxed further, and I felt his breath even out as he fell asleep in my embrace.

I caught a brief flash of color in the corner of my eye, however, and turned my head to follow it, only for it to move again. At that moment, it dawned on me, and I grabbed a lock of my hair to study it.

My eyes widened as I took in the streaks of purple and dark magenta that now colored the tips of my hair. I looked down at the kid and debated about moving for a moment until the serpent from earlier raised her head up and nodded at me.

As I carefully extracted myself from his arms, the serpent slithered into my spot and shifted sizes until it was the size of a medium dog. It then curled around the kid and promptly fell asleep.

I let out a low chuckle as I moved towards one of the mirrors in the room and took my first real look at myself since I couldn't remember.

I hardly recognized the person looking back at me.

Yes, my typical wildly spiky black hair was still the same, but now the tips of each black spike were touched with vibrant purple and magenta until my hair looked like a sky right after sunset. My arms had a faint dusting of what looked like dark freckles at first glance, but on closer inspection revealed that they were really black scales that lightened to a golden brown as they got further up my arms and onto my shoulders. I could feel something pressing against my mouth from the inside, pushed up my upper lip for a moment, and nodded when I noticed that my fangs were slightly longer than they were before I met the eyes of my reflection and froze.

Up until then, my eyes had been their original, brilliant, emerald green, albeit with oval pupils that could retract into reptilian slits when I was pissed.

They weren't green anymore.

No, now they were a bright amethyst that seemed to glow in the low light. Looking closer, however, I could just barely see little flecks of emerald green sprinkled through them. "What the hell?" I breathed in shock as I reached out to touch the reflection. "What happened to me?"

"Magic backlash." I whirled around and dropped into a defensive stance at the soft voice that answered my question, only to meet the smiling face of Gildarts. I breathed a sigh of relief as he took a careful step closer. "You went over your limits with that last spell of yours, and you got hit by a magic backlash. It's why your hair and eyes changed color."

"Are there any more side effects?" I inquired as I studied myself again. "Other than the obvious physical differences?"

"As far as the doctors can tell," Gildarts mused as he stopped next to me and looked me over with critical eyes. "Other than a few shifts in skeletal structure, and an odd organ or two, not much else on the physical side. Magically, however, is a whole 'other story. You already unlocked your second origin, right?"

I nodded, my eyebrows furrowing as I tried to figure out what that could mean.

Gildarts looked at me with an unreadable expression. "Kid, do you know what the Third Origin is?"

My eyes blew wide as my thoughts ran wild. "But that's only a myth!" I whisper-yelled, remembering that the kid was still sleeping nearby.

Gildarts shook his head. "No, it's not." He countered. "Just a closely guarded secret."

"So," I drawled somewhat apprehensively. "What happens now?"

Gildarts just studied me for a few more minutes before he smiled. "Now, we register you on the shortlist of Wizards that have opened their Third Origin, and contact your parents."

I thought it over for a moment before nodding, only to freeze as something occurred to me. "Is the registration public or private?"