Welcome to Chapter 2! I went back and rewrote this chapter and Chapter 3 should be out shortly. It's a little bit shorter than the last one, but they should start getting longer. I also want to apologize for the long time between updates. As of now, there is much less chaos in my life (i.e. Work, school). Thanks to all seven of you for your patience!

Snow began to fall from the grey and clouded sky, covering the city of Warfang in a soft blanket of white. Cheetahs, dragons, moles, and every other race from every other kingdom milled about in the streets on their ways to work. The Dragon Temple rose high over the city, dwarfing the houses and buildings.

Atop one of the Temple's spires, in a stone chamber, six dragons gathered. They were all fully grown, each sporting scars as testaments to their strength in battle.

The large, green-scaled dragon spoke, "Now that we are all here, this meeting can get underway."

A drake with pale blue scales next to him nodded in agreement. "The quicker we get this meeting over with, the quicker we all can get back to bed."

A crimson dragoness glanced at him. "Actually Cyril, by the time this meeting is finished, it will be time for classes to start."

Cyril huffed in disappointment before turning to the green dragon. "I still fail to see why we hold these meetings at this hour, Terrador. It's always the same every week."

Terrador gave him a knowing smile. "Actually, I do have some surprising news."

The crimson dragoness cocked a brow. "Do tell."

"A few hours ago, I received a message. Apparently, Seraph has found a pupil and will be returning to Warfang very soon."

The dragoness' eyes widened. "Well, that is surprising. She's been gone for months now. I just hope all that time she spent searching was worth it."

"Have some faith in Seraph, Caldera," a new voice said. They all turned to the speaker. Her body was as black as the night sky, and her eyes a piercing green. Her set of ivory horns sharply stood out against her scales. Her lithe, feminine body carried itself with otherworldly grace, even when she was sitting.

"You misunderstand Cynder," Caldera said, "I have total faith in Seraph, this pupil, however, may be a different case."

Before Cynder could counter, a deep voice spoke. "It seems very irresponsible to make such general assumptions, Caldera." Everyone turned to see another dragon emerge from the staircase.

He was tall and lean. The violet hue of his scales shone in the torchlight. His gold horns glimmered a with the orange glow of the flames. He stood tall and proud, showing of the massive, crisscrossed scar on his chest.

Cynder smirked as he took a seat next to her. "So, you decided to join us today, Dear?"

The purple drake rolled his eyes. "Of course," he said, planting a kiss on her cheek. He looked over to Terrador. "Did she mention anything else about this student?"

The Earth Guardian shook his head. "Sadly, she has not. But she loves a good surprise, so I would expect nothing less."

"Thank goodness she's coming back," Caldera said with a sigh of relief. "Managing her classes along with mine has been a nightmare."

"Now that all that is out of the way," Terrador said, "let us get to the rest of the meeting."

Oberon glanced down at the attendance sheet on his desk with a heavy sigh. He had once been a soldier, serving under Spyro as one of his most elite fighters. Now, he was struggling to make himself heard over the cacophony of a noisy classroom. Young dragons and dragonesses filled the classroom with chatter as they took their seats.

"Alright everyone, settle down," he said. The students, unsurprisingly, ignored him. "Class, quiet down please." Still nothing. Oberon took a deep breath. "ATTENTION!" he bellowed.

Silence crashed over the room in waves. The students stared at him with wide eyes. He smirked in satisfaction. "Thank you." He picked up his attendance sheet and scanned the classroom, counting the students and marking each one. He counted eight students before his eyes locked on the drake sitting next to a topaz-scaled dragoness. He was slumped over, his horned head on his desk.

"Skylar!"

The dragon jolted up to see Oberon staring at him with narrowed eyes. "Sorry, Master Oberon," he said, stifling a yawn, "this class is hard to get through."

Oberon gave Skylar an appalled look. "I was just doing roll call."

"Exactly! Nothing interesting has happened!"

Oberon stared at the purple dragon in silence for a few moments. He eventually just sighed. "I'll just mark you down as present," he said with a groan. "You'd think that the two saviors of the Realms would get you in bed on time."

Skylar grunted as someone elbowed him in the chest. He glanced to his right to see the topaz-scaled dragoness glaring at him.

"What was that for Desirée?" He asked, rubbing his golden chest scales.

"For being a smartass," she hissed.

Skylar smirked. "Come on, everyone likes a bad boy, right?" The dragoness rolled her eyes. "I get you live for this stuff, but come on. You have to at least agree that this is boring, and it doesn't help that we have his class right after this."

"Just be quiet," Desirée whispered. Before Skylar could retort, a bell rang out through the halls, signifying the end of homeroom. As many students left the room, more flooded in to take their place. However, in with the students came a mole. It approached Oberon and handed him a piece of parchment. The dragon opened the parchment and scanned it. He nodded to the mole, who turned and hurried out of the room.

As the last students took their seats, he cleared his throat. "Alright everyone, listen up. I, along with the other teachers, have just received word that Guardian Seraph will be returning to the Temple with a new student."

The students perked up at that, they began to whisper back and forth.

"She's been gone for about six months now, right?" Skylar whispered.

Desirée nodded. "This is apparently her first time submitting an applicant for enrollment."

Oberon continued, interrupting their speculation. "The student will also be joining some of you my homeroom." He shot a glance at Skylar.

"What's their name?" a student asked.

"She hasn't said," Oberon replied with a shrug. "We don't know anything accept that they will be here in two days. She just had one thing to ask: be accommodating." His crimson eyes scanned the room. "In other words, be nice, and I'm sure they'll reciprocate."

Skylar yawned as he and Desirée left Oberon's classroom.

"Geez," the purple drake groaned, "you'd think his class would get easier as it goes on."

Desirée rolled her eyes. "It's not getting harder, you're just a slacker."

Skylar smirked. "That's just part of my charm," he said, winking at a pair of dragonesses. The two giggled and smiled as they passed by. Every dragoness in the Temple wanted to score a date with the son of the Dragon Realms' saviors, so much so that he had had several invitations to the female dorms. Many of those he accepted.

"I'd call you a pervert, but that's not news to you," Desirée hissed. "Did your parents teach you anything about how to properly court a female?" That was not the first time she had asked him that question, but she had yet to receive a consistent answer.

"Dad taught me to never give up, if that's what you mean." He yelped as Desirée smacked him with her tailblade. The two stopped outside a massive open set of lacquered wooden doors. Those doors led to one of the central rooms of the Temple: the infamous dining hall. Students gathered there in between classes and during mealtimes. It was a large sandy marble room with large pillars and many round tables scattered across the floor. It was easily the most frequented room in the Temple.

"We've got some time between classes," Desirée said, glancing at a chronometer mounted on the wall above the doors. "Let's go in and get something to eat." While she may have appeared to just be hungry, Skylar knew why she really wanted to go: Psychrel.

Surely enough, as the two stepped in, they could see him sitting in the far-left corner of the dining hall, a book on the table in front of him. Technically speaking, he was a rarer sight than Skylar, but the purple drake never found the need to tell him. His scales were a gleaming silver, and the way they caught the room's natural lighting was almost hypnotizing. His wing membranes, underbelly, and horns were a near perfect black, and his eyes had a piercing emerald hue, just like Skylar's mother.

Psychrel was a rare breed of dragon: a Psychic dragon. He was tall and lean, and his muscles rippled under his scales. The females who realized that it was pointless to try and land a date with Skylar instead went after Psychrel. The mountain of food sitting next to him was a testament to his popularity. It looked like every dragoness in the dining hall had given him some food.

"Morning Psychrel," Skylar said as he and Desirée sat down opposite of him. He looked up and smiled.

"Morning guys," he said with a smile. "How was Master Oberon's class?"

"Don't get me started," Skylar moaned, putting his head down on the table. "How do you guys get through that class without passing out?"

Psychrel chuckled and turned a page. "I guess I've just become numb to the boredom." He glanced over at his hoard of food. "Do you guys want any of that? Because I'm not going to eat it."

"Are you ever not dieting?" Skylar asked, grabbing a slab of steak from the mound. Skylar had known the silver-scaled drake since he was eight, and if he could say anything about Psychrel, it would be that his body was a temple. He was always watching what he ate, to a point where he had specific meals planned for his entire week.

"I've got to stay at the top of my game, Skylar," Psychrel said. "The last thing I want is to end up like my mother." He was talking about his birth mother. Psychrel was adopted. His parents were high-ranking members in the Guard, and they adopted him when he was eight. According to him, his birth mother died from a rare heart condition, which was caused by malnutrition. When he was adopted, he was able to easily adjust to the rigorously structured life that his new parents lived.

"Did you hear about the new student yet?" Desirée interjected.

"Yeah, during first period," Psychrel said with a nod.

"Were able to read the teacher's mind to figure out who it is?" Skylar asked.

Psychrel shook his head. "Nope. I was able to get a look through Terrador's mind's eye at the letter, but it never mentioned anything about who it was."

"So what's your guess Dez?" Skylar asked, Glancing at Desirée.

"I'll say first-year, female, Fire dragoness," Desirée said. Skylar and his friends had made a tradition of guessing on the identities of new students. They had at one point begun placing bets, but Psychrel kept on winning, so they put an end to it.

Skylar turned to Psychrel. "And what about you Psy?"

Psychrel scratched his chin for a moment. "Let's see… I'm going to guess our year, male, and a… Shadow dragon."

"A Shadow dragon?" Desirée said in disbelief. "That's bold. The Psychrel I know would never bet on chances like that."

"I have to agree with Dez on this one," Skylar said. "That doesn't seem like a very surefire guess."

"I beg to differ," Psy said. "Think about Lady Seraph. She finds joy in deviating from expectations. If she went looking for an apprentice, chances are she wants to throw something new into the mix. Now think about the dragons at the Temple. The most common are male Fire dragons, so that rules out Fire. There are only two Shadow dragons at our school, Diora and Master Oberon. Miss Seraph has also said that she does not enjoy teaching the first years, so there's no reason she would recruit one, and it would seem pointless to recruit any third or fourth years since they have so little time left at the Temple. Also, according to recent statistics, males make up a slightly larger percentage of the Draconic population than females, so it is more likely for her to choose a male."

Skylar stared at the silver drake with a slack jaw. "Dude, how can you nerd out over a guessing game?"

"You asked for my reasoning and I gave it to you," Psychrel said defensively.

One of the Psychrel's biggest issues—if one could even call it that—was that he had a vocabulary and intellect that could rival that of Volteer. Similar to the old Lightning Guardian, once he started talking, it was difficult to get him stop. Most of what he said was lost on Skylar since many of the words Psychrel used he had never heard of before.

"Here you go, Psychrel," Vera, a white-scaled Ice dragoness, said as she passed by their table. "I got this for you." She placed a slab of steak on the pile of food.

"Thanks," Psychrel said, giving her a small smile. Vera gave the silver drake a wink before continuing on her way. Skylar snatched the steak up without even asking. He knew Psychrel would never deviate from his diet, so every piece of food in the pile was fair game.

"Oh, that reminds me," Desirée said. She fished around in her bag and pulled out a perfectly round, red apple. "I wanted to bring you one of these. It's fresh from my grandfather's orchard."

Volteer had retired immediately after the Sadrian War had ended, and with his retirement came a slew of new hobbies. According to Desirée, he had picked up music, painting, and gardening among other things.

"Wow! Really?" Psychrel's face lit up. "I haven't had one in ages!" Volteer's orchard had just begun to produce fruit again, since during an experiment, he managed to burn down nearly half his property.

Desirée nodded. "When he sent me some of the harvest I knew that I had to give one to you." She tossed the apple to Psychrel. The Psychic drake caught it and bit into it with a loud CRUNCH!

"It's as good as I remember," he said, taking another bite.

"Just remember to breath in between bites," Desirée advised.

"I'll keep that in mind, thanks," Psychrel said sarcastically.

The deep gonging of a bell rumbled through the hall, signaling that there were five minutes remaining until the next class started.

"We'd better get going," Desirée said. "We've got Physical Combat next and I'd hate to keep Sky's dad waiting." The three of them exited the dining hall and headed for the training ring. As they went on their way, Skylar, for reasons that escaped him, couldn't get the idea of a new student out of his head.

Congrats on making it through the chapter! Remember to leave a review or PM me if you have any feedback. This website has given me trouble before about actually showing reviews. If it's too much of a hassle to PM a review, that's fine. But if there's something that you're passionate about and think would make the story better, then by all means send it my way!

Oh, and one more thing:

CHARACTER PROFILE UPDATED:

Nova

Skylar

Desirée

Psychrel

BESTIARY UPDATED:

Raptor

Once again thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time!

Ciao!