I gradually opened my eyes, pain already blinding me. Burning chains encapsulated my paws, starting to sear through the scales. There was no fire or acid, but the strange metal poisoned my tough night fury hide like no other. Pale, fleshy figures spotted my vision; I understood the language, but their words were fuzzy and indiscernible. "Where am I?" I tried to cry out, only to be hit with blunt, pointy object. "You are the property of Drago Bloodvist now. You will tell us everything you know."

I shot up in bed in a cold sweat. "It was just a memory... just a memory; you're safe now," I kept repeating to myself. Taking deep breathes, I calmed my mind and realized that my scars, sensitive, white-hot ropes of tissue around my wrists and ankles, from that first day were inflamed. Rap, rap! I quickly spun a basic illusion around myself, merely covering up the scars while letting my bedhead and baggy eyes show. "Just a minute!" I called out.

"Hurry up!" an unfamiliar voice shouted back. "You're supposed to be shadowing me today, and I don't want to be late." I quickly got out of bed and made more complete illusions, running fingers through my hair and adding soft carapace clothing in the process. I decided on a figure-flattering dress with leggings, something that seemed appropriate for what they called late fall. I was about to throw open the door when I remembered my tablet and satchel. I quickly found and teleported them onto me, double-checking that I had all the books downloaded onto the tablet. I opened the door just as the girl was about to pound on it again, just stopping short of my face. She blushed, "Sorry, but we need to get going. I'm Kitty Pryde, by the way. You're Kylrm, right?" I nodded and followed her down the hall to our first class. "You're probably going to be taking placement tests for most of the day, but you'll still get to see some of the upper-level courses here. I'm a Senior now, but I'm planning on staying on as a teacher's aide and X-man after graduating."

I just nodded when appropriate, wondering why she was so chatty this morning. The dream memory still worried me; I had never had those dreams before, and they seemed to be starting from the beginning. I would need to find a way to control them before the memories got too far. If my scars became inflamed simply from the first memory, who knows what would happen when things got serious. "... you like?" Once again, I was caught with someone waiting for the answer to a question I had not consciously heard. I quickly reviewed her "conversation" and realized she was talking about Nolan.

I smiled, "It's nothing serious; he just wanted to try the next level in the training room with someone, and I was curious."

She winked, "Sure you were... and I'm sure it didn't hurt that he's one of the cutest guys on campus." I thought back to his frazzled, brown hair and realized I had never actually seen him put-together nicely in his natural form. "Ugh, physics is first today," she complained, looking at her schedule. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about Candela or Charles' Laws, would you?"

"Well, I don't know the names, but if I heard the principles I might recognize them," I tried to remember the brief glance at physics I had seen upon first meeting Charles. "I know a lot about pressure, exertion of forces, air currents, movement of particles, and gases. Would that help?" Kitty's face immediately brightened, and I reviewed with her the various principles of flying, or what she called aerodynamics. By the time we got to her physics class, which was taught by Scott Summers today, I realized that I knew far more about this world than I originally thought. If the mechanics were the same or even just similar, I would have a much easier time maneuvering through the sky, land, and maybe even water one day.

I sat in on Scott's lesson about thermodynamics, in particular the transfer of heat when particles were at absolute temperatures. It was quite intriguing the hypotheses humans came up with, as a dragon's gas chambers could reach almost - or all the way up or down to in titan stage - absolute zero or absolute heat. Most of the principles were correct, although at absolute zero, you could keep the particles around the area moving with ease, creating shards of deadly ice or plasma, depending on the species. We had about an hour before Kitty's next class, so Scott proctored my placement test for science. This continued for the whole day, and I started to understand more and more about not only the history and mechanics of this world, but also about their customs and relationships. Some had tattoos, and others had died their hair neon colors; this was considered somewhat normal here. At dinner, Kitty and I sat together, this time by the blue teleporter who had attacked me earlier.

"Hi there, I'm Kylrm," I sat down with them. He looked up and nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Hi, Kylrm. My name's Kurt," he quickly recovered. "As an x-man, though, I'm called Nightcrawler."

"So, Kitty, Kurt, I remember Warren saying that adults join the x-men on missions, but I've noticed several younger teenagers have also gone on missions. What's the difference?" by dragon standards, none of us were adults yet, but humans typically made that transition around 16 as vikings or 18 here.

"Well," Kitty started. "adults can become permanent members of the team, but sometimes they take out younger kids if they show enough promise. Like, they took me out on my first mission when I was 14."

"Ach, and I vas 12," Night- ahem, Kurt, interjected. "So, I heard you and Nolan went for a spin in the training room." I rolled my eyes; Nolan must be either really popular or the bad boy of the school for word to spread this fast.

"Yes, but why must everyone make such a big deal out of it? We skirmished for an hour, then cleaned up."

"Are you kidding?" they asked, incredulous. "No one ever goes in to a one-on-one and ends in a tie! That's why you're so infamous now. Well, that and... uh..." Kitty stopped, looking at Kurt for back-up. He just shrugged, smirking ever so slightly at seeing her squirm. She punched him in the arm - well, would have if he hadn't teleported away - and fell onto the floor in a ball of giggles. She may be an adult, but certainly not a mature one. I laughed with her, though, glad to relieve some of the tension.

"So what is this stuff? It tastes like bread and birds, but I don't know the name." Kurt teleported back from the beam and joined Kitty in staring at me.

"You've never had chicken or pasta before?" Kitty asked in disbelief.

I raised an eyebrow at her, "I lived as a dragon. on the run. in viking times. I didn't exactly have an abundance of options." She shrugged and went on to describe a multitude of different types of food, including something called a hamburger that had nothing to do with ham. Octopus and squid I had eaten before, but never anything fried. She promised to ask the chef to fix something fried for lunch tomorrow. Kitty and Kurt branched off into their separate dorms before I got to my long hallway. "Tomorrow," I sighed as I walked back to my room. "Tomorrow, I find out classes and figure out who I can trust." Seemingly out of nowhere, I heard a beeping sound. I started rummaging through my bag and found a small device, a cell phone! That's what Charles had called it. I touched the screen, and text popped up from Nolan Mitchels.

"Meet me at the training room at 22:00. We're going to New York City," the message read. Not knowing how to type with such a small apparatus, I connected to it mentally and forced my response to the front of my mind. Moments later, it appeared on the screen. "See you there. Just need to grab a few things."

Fifteen minutes later, I was at the door of the training room with various climbing supplies and weapons. I had changed my clothes to a thick blue sweater and dark wash jeans, an outfit I had seen in a few beauty product commercials on the internet. I had looked up this "New York City," and it was a dangerous place. Murders and thefts were commonplace, and I had no idea what Nolan had in store. He arrived a few minutes later, surpirsed to see I got there first. "Once I know where something is," I explained. "It's really easy for me to get back to that exact location. One of the benefits of being half-dragon."

He grinned and pressed a new sequence into the panel. "Maybe I can gain the advantage this time. After all, NYC is where I grew up!" He dashed inside, the NYC program already running. My senses were instantly berated with a fury of lights, sharp noises, and nauseating stenches coming from every direction. Switching to intrared vision, I primarily saw heat and mental signatures, letting me more easily identify Nolan from the programmed minds. After several minutes of pushing through the mobs, I came upon him as strange, brown mammal with a white-tipped tail and underbelly. Nolan was covered in fur, and he didn't seem notice me until I picked him up by the ruff of his neck. He squeaked in surprise and kicked out with surprising force. He must retain his natural strength when he transforms, I thought. He transformed into a small black and white bird, trying to lose me in the mass of similar birds.

Smirking, I made my hands and feet sticky with monstrous nightmare saliva and climbed the side of the building. I made it to the roof and sped higher into the skies, just out of Nolan's view. Curious, he flew upward to see what I was doing. I immediately snapped close my jaws, catching him inside my now black death form. Nolan shrieked and switched to a scauldron-sized porcupine, ramming his barbed spines into my tongue. I immediately spat him out with some blood, mimicking his "pigeon" form, and decided to try something new. I hovered for a few minutes before enveloping his mind with mine, blocking his transformation abilities and gleaning all the information from his mind. While this technique was extremely efficient in the HTTYD world, once again I was shocked with the difference and completely withdrew far back into my own mind. Danger sirens squawked at us, and the simulation stopped. We were now both back in our human forms. "I, I'm so sorry. I had no idea!" Nolan just stared at me blankly, but I could feel his pain. Several instructors rushed in, but I had no idea who they were I was so completely focused on Nolan.

"Never. again," he whispered.