"Time to get up," Gale snapped, unceremoniously thwacking her tail against the gong that stood by the door in the male dragonets' room. It let out a deep reverberating sound which penetrated Ozone's half-asleep mind and jerked him into full wakefulness. Groaning, he threw his wings over his head as Gale lit a torch with a blast of fire and the sudden brightness stabbed into his eyeballs.
The dragonets all took turns waking each other up in the mornings, by Claret's decree. None of them were happy about getting up a little extra early to wake the others, but Gale was particularly vindictive before sunrise.
Across the room, Buzzard raised his head irritably and let out the hissing noise which usually preceded fire. Gale leapt hurriedly back into the hallway. Ozone had no doubt she would be back soon, as not to be punished for letting them oversleep, but for now they had a couple of minutes of reprieve.
His brain drifted hazily back into sleep, and what felt like only seconds later, he was being shaken awake by Ridge. The red-orange dragonet was the only one who was perfectly fine with early mornings; no matter what time Ozone woke him, he'd open his eyes and get up as easily if he had never been asleep at all. On days when it was Ozone's turn to wake them, Sard would usually grumble and stuff her wings in her ears, Gale would give a murderous glare, and Buzzard would throw things at him.
"C'mon," Ridge said. "You don't want Claret to be mad, do you?"
Ozone got reluctantly to his feet and stretched, blinking blearily. It was common sense to him that one should rise with the sun, not get up when it was still dark outside, but Claret disagreed. She insisted that the early hours were for warming up, and regular training exercises started at sunrise.
Ridge moved over to Buzzard and shook the pale orange dragonet next. Buzzard snapped his teeth irritably at Ridge, but it wasn't long before he was up as well.
When the three male dragonets plodded into the entrance cave, Claret, Sard, and Gale were waiting for them. Claret was the only one who looked alert; Sard yawned and blinked sleepily, while Gale scowled, her forehead furrowed grumpily.
"It's about time," Claret said, turning and leaping into the sky. The five dragonets followed her wordlessly into the brisk morning air.
As they flew, they shifted into their usual positions, Gale and Buzzard taking the lead alongside Claret, Ozone angling his wings to fly alongside Sard, and Ridge slowing to glide amicably behind everyone else.
"Are you sure you don't want me to fight Gale?" Sard asked, by way of greeting. "She was awfully nasty this morning. I mean, she always is, but I think her particular indecency today merits a beating. Your thoughts?"
"I'm sure," Ozone responded with a smile.
"Goody two-claws." Sard stuck out her forked tongue.
"Is it just me," Ridge asked from behind them, "or does it look like there's a storm on the way?" Ozone glanced back over his shoulder and found the red-orange dragonet looking up at the sky with a thoughtful expression.
Ozone followed his gaze. The sky had begun to lighten, making the stars difficult to see now, but they were particularly faint near the horizon, where they appeared to be partially obscured by clouds. The very edge of the sky was fringed with dark gray.
Sard, likewise, was studying the potential storm. "I think so," she said, wrinkling her snout at it. "I hope Claret doesn't make us continue training once it hits."
"Me too," Ridge agreed, his wings shivering slightly. "But if she does, I suppose we'll just have to make the best of it."
Ozone didn't particularly mind, either way. SkyWings could handle bad weather fairly well due to their large wingspan. Though it was rather challenging to see through heavy rainfall, he thought it might be helpful to learn how to navigate tempest winds. Besides, Claret couldn't blame him for deserting if they happened to blow him away, could she? Unfortunately, he doubted it would work out for him that way.
"Time to warm up!" Claret called back to the dragonets in the sharp, no-nonsense voice she used during training. She made a graceful arc in the air so that she was facing them, beating her long wings rhythmically to hover.
"To that mountain and back three times, as fast as you can," she commanded, pointing to the destination with one talon. She waited for them to arrange themselves in a line, their shoulders tensing as they listened for her signal. "Go!"
Ozone spread his wings as wide as he could, feeling the wind rush beneath them and carry him forward. He flapped in confident, smooth strokes. He felt Buzzard and Gale pressing in close to him, but for now he was in the lead.
When they reached the mountain, he had to slow a little to turn. Sard, who was the smallest dragonet, could easily whip around and keep flying without losing much momentum, but for the rest of them it was trickier. Buzzard in particular, as the largest of the group, tended to lag behind when it came time to make a sharp turn.
The pale orange dragonet angled his wings, swerving around Gale and Ozone in a deep banking turn. Ozone had to stop suddenly so they wouldn't crash.
As he angled himself back into an upright position, Buzzard clouted Ozone with one massive wing, knocking the red-and-gold dragonet off balance. He flapped wildly to avoid falling and fell behind Gale, whose pinkish-red tail smacked him across the face as she whirled around elegantly in midair.
Ozone rubbed his snout and did his best to keep going, even as he saw Gale and Buzzard glance back with matching expressions of wicked satisfaction.
They would never risk Claret's fury by conspicuously picking on Ozone, but they weren't above sabotaging him during training. He never knew if they coordinated their efforts or not, but the bullying was particularly brutal when they were both going after him on the same day. While Buzzard only seemed to do it as retaliation when Ozone flew away from training, Gale maintained some kind of lingering resentment towards him and seized whatever opportunities presented themselves to harass him.
Claret, who didn't seem to have noticed the other dragonets' undermining, gave Ozone a sour look as he reached her a considerable distance behind everyone else. He ducked his head apologetically and set off for the mountain again, this time lifting his wings to fly above the other dragonets.
Though he was still the last back by the third flight, he managed to significantly lessen the distance between himself and the others. As her yellow gaze swept over the arriving dragonets, Claret gave him an approving nod. Gale noticed this and scowled, smoke beginning to trail from her nostrils.
"All right," Claret called. "Now we're moving on to battle practice. Ozone, you're with me. Sardonyx, you're fighting Buzzard. And Ridge, you're against Gale."
Ozone felt his shoulders relax in relief. Not being matched up against Buzzard or Gale had been more than he'd thought he could hope for. Based on the knowing glint in Claret's eyes, he guessed she was deliberately sparing him. She was stronger than any of the dragonets, but at least she didn't hold a grudge.
Ridge glanced at Gale, who snorted, still looking annoyed, but didn't complain as she turned to face the red-orange dragonet.
"Ha," Buzzard said, looking down his snout at Sard in scornful amusement. "This should be fun. I'll crush you like a bug."
The smaller orange SkyWing tossed her head proudly. "I wouldn't be too sure of that." She held up her talons, ready to spar.
Ozone turned his attention back to Claret, finding her watching him with as much patience as she could muster. "Sorry, I'm ready now," he said hurriedly.
The dark red SkyWing suddenly flared her wings, lunging for him as he flinched away instinctively. Ozone raised his arms just in time to parry her strike, flipping head over talons background in midair to aim a blast of smoke at her belly.
Claret lifted her wings just in time to glide upward out of range, but paused to give him an approving nod. She had been helping Ozone work on that particular block and strike combination for almost a week now. He seemed to finally have committed the motions to memory efficiently enough to act on them off reflex.
Knowing she would want him to use a follow-up attack, Ozone beat his wings in a powerful sweep and rammed his shoulder against Claret's ribs. She grunted as the force of the impact knocked the wind out of her.
Ozone struck out at her snout, keeping his talons carefully curled so that his knuckles hit her instead of his claws, and then rolled aside in midair, dodging the plume of smoke he'd known would be coming the moment she caught her breath.
Claret strictly prohibited the use of fire while training, replacing the dangerous flames with relatively harmless smoke. The dragonets would still feel the heat enough to know whether they would be burned in a real battle, without the painful blistering scars that would accompany fire. Claret was far from soft with her trainees, but she wasn't harsh enough to actually injure them.
The warmth scorched the air close to his back spikes, but he seemed to have been able to narrowly avoid the smoke. Ozone shifted his wings to face his commander again, but he was too slow, and looked up just in time to get punched in the face with the claw at the bend in her wing. Whirling with the momentum of her strike, she swatted him over the horns with a whip of her tail.
Blinking away pain, Ozone ducked beneath the onslaught of strikes and swooped under Claret, wheeling around to blast smoke at her as she turned toward him.
Claret swerved in time to avoid the brunt of it, though a few wisps eddied around one of her hind feet. She let out a hiss of discomfort as the heat prickled at her scales.
Ozone propelled himself forward with a sweep of his wings, aiming for her throat, but Claret met his claws with her own, catching his fists in her larger ones. With a gruff sound of satisfaction, she deflected his wings with her hind talons and seized his horns in her wing-claws, flipping backwards and sending him flying over her head.
Dazed by the sudden shift in his ear fluid, he couldn't find the strength to resist as she adjusted her grip to grab his shoulders and shoved her full weight down on him. He struggled to escape her grip as they began plummeting towards the rocky cliffs.
Even before Claret reached the stone wall, Ozone realized that his efforts would only end in painful failure if he continued flailing. He stopped fighting, instead tucking his head to his chest in an attempt to brace himself for impact.
Letting go just in time so that she wouldn't smash him into the sheer cliff-face, Claret lifted her wings and flew upward.
Shaky with relief that she hadn't actually pounded him, Ozone spread his wings to glide and catch his breath. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that his wingtips were noticeably trembling, and he flapped them to shake out the tension.
Claret circled overhead once, making sure he was okay, before shifting her wings to fly over to where the other pairs were still sparring.
Gale and Ridge circled each other, darting in to land a blow whenever they could; they seemed about evenly matched, Ridge's more agile build allowing him to avoid the larger weight behind Gale's attacks.
Ozone's gaze drifted to Sard, whose red wings fluttered rapidly like a sparrow's as she darted behind Buzzard and tugged his tail, her claws piercing the sensitive spot near the tip. The larger orange dragon roared and whipped his neck around to blast smoke at her, but she was too quick and dodged away with a cheeky smile.
"You were right, Buzzard!" she called cheerfully. "This is fun!"
He snorted, shaking his head in frustration. Spotting Ozone watching them, he called down to the red-and-gold dragonet. "Why are you just hovering there uselessly? Come up here and help me!"
Ozone obligingly lifted his wings to join them. He curled his claws in and shifted into a fighting stance, waiting for the larger SkyWing's signal.
Sard eyed them warily from a short distance away, where she was gliding around in a series of small looping circles.
Buzzard waited for a long, suspenseful moment.
Then he flicked his tail and then lunged at her from the right, leaving Ozone to attack from the left. He was a moment late to react, but was still able to block Sard as she tried to escape from Buzzard's strike. He grabbed her snout in his talons and held it shut to prevent her from spewing smoke at him. Outraged, she let out a muffled growl and smacked him over the head with her red wings.
Buzzard punched her in the ear, sending her reeling off balance, and then seized her by the shoulders when Ozone released her snout, pummeling her back with his big orange wings. Ozone fell back as not to annoy him by getting in his way.
"Uncle!" Sard yelped. "I surrender, you cheating piles of gizzards!"
Buzzard let go, giving a gruff laugh of satisfaction. "Thanks, Ozone."
"No problem," the red SkyWing replied, ducking his head.
"This is totally a problem," Sard yelled, flapping her wings at him indignantly. "I am totally waking you up unnecessarily early tomorrow!"
It was her turn tomorrow, he realized. Still, it was worth it to get Buzzard off his back for the rest of the day, when his anger might have dragged on much longer if Ozone hadn't helped him defeat Sard.
Besides, there was only about a fifty-percent chance that she would actually carry out her threat. He knew that despite her loud protests, she wasn't actually angry at him.
Claret flew over to them with Ridge and Gale following close behind.
"Now that we're done warming up," their commander announced, "we're going to learn some new battle moves. Line up, everyone!"
They fell into their familiar places, hovering in a horizontal line in front of Claret, while she demonstrated the new attack and defense maneuvers. Ozone tried his best to concentrate through the large chunk of time which passed without any break. After several hours, though, he felt his focus fading. Rainy days, when he felt especially tired, made it even more difficult to concentrate than usual.
To his relief, as the clouds blew in closer and the wind grew harsher, Claret called off the rest of the day's training due to the inclement weather conditions and led the way back to their base. Ozone wasn't sure if it was the static electricity in the air from the building storm or unrelieved tension from training which made his wings restless as he followed the others into the cave.
As the dragonets all stomped into the tunnels, too tired to gripe at each other any longer, Claret slithered off to retrieve some prey from storage to eat for lunch.
Buzzard lit the torch in the entryway with a burst of flame, and all of them began the process of drying themselves off. Sard shook herself grandly, scattering droplets of water everywhere. Ridge leaped back out of range before it could hit him, but the other three were pelted by the spray.
Ozone wrinkled his snout, blinking water out of his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw Gale glowering eloquently as she wrung out her waterlogged wings.
"I'm going to go eat," Buzzard growled, equally irritated. "If you don't want your wings ripped off, then I'd suggest not following me right away." With that, he stomped off down the tunnel, leaving a trail of smoke in his wake.
Ozone lifted his wings closer to the torch, allowing the flames to dry the rainwater from his soaked skin. He relaxed as the warmth seeped into his sore muscles.
Then a flash of lightning suddenly split the sky, making him jump.
Sard tilted her head at him, looking slightly concerned. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Ozone assured her. "The lightning startled me, that's all."
But as they finished drying themselves off and walked to the kitchen to join the others for lunch, Ozone couldn't help dwelling on it. Had he just imagined it, or had the flash really illuminated the silhouette of a dragon flying through the storm?