Panting, I could no longer fight my searing bonds. It took all my strength just to stay alive. By now, the metal had burned through my scales, leaving wide bands of angry tissue exposed to the air. I half-worried, half-hoped an infection would come and spread, but somehow I was managing to heal myself after each session. The scars remained, but what sleep I could get activated accelerated healing. I heard the door bang open without creaking closed again and realized perhaps my time had come. I concentrated on the form of a black terrible terror, like Drago's messengers, and started to transform. I had just hit the breaking point between half-form and terrible terror when I felt a force like my limbs were ripping from my body. Fire coursed through my veins, making me tremble in its wake. I tried to go through with the transformation, but it was too painful, and I finally gave up, going back into the half-stormcutter, half-night fury form. The pain abated somewhat, but a new arose far more anything I had felt before. An unseen force shattered the outer walls of my mind, driving into the edges of my feeble city. I tried to resist, throwing up walls and diversions, but he crashed right through them into the heart of my mind. "You are mine," he growled and snapped his teeth around my center, causing my body to go entirely limp and simultaneously rigid with fear. He drove mental nadder spikes and scauldron venom directly into my core, making my skin light on fire from within and my two hearts to slow to almost a stop. And then they did.

I jolted awake, shaking and thrashing like a lunatic. Everything was in reds and blues, and my vision swarmed with black and white dots. My insides still churned and bled from... My vision cleared, and I regained control over my other senses. I gradually eased into a sitting position, praying no one heard me. I shivered from the memory; it had never replayed that intensely before. In the months following my escape, I had relived dozens of times each day and night night I had died and impossibly woken up. But nothing like this; I emfelt/em myself die. I dragged in deeper and deeper breathes, slowly bringing my heart-rates back in sync.

I felt a gentle, but urgent, mental brush from Charles, Kylrm, are you all right? You reached out to me, and it felt like, well, like you were dying.
I sighed, Sorry, Charles, it was just a me-uh, dream. I'm fine now. I could sense his suspicion, but he let it go.
Just try to get some more rest, her murmured.

I will, I felt him withdraw again. I glanced at the clock on my bedside table and realized I still had three hours before I had intended to wake up. I tried to fall back asleep, but each time I felt the emptiness of the death-state return within a few seconds. Sighing, I shook into a terrible terror form and flew through the fireplace in my room and out the chimney. Once among the clouds, I relaxed into a half-stormcutter, half-night fury form. Testing the thicker air, I wondered how high I could go in this world. The mansion was just a speck below me now, and the air was only slightly thinner than around Berk. Curious, I ascended higher and higher until I felt the atmosphere give way to the vacuum of the night sky; the moon was bigger than I - or probably any dragon for that matter - had seen her. The moon filled my vision with her valleys, craters, and beauty. Only, she wasn't really shining tonight as we had always thought. The sun shone brightly on her, reflecting his light down to earth.

It suddenly hit me that I shouldn't be able to breathe in a vacuum. Scott had said in physics that vacuums, like space, were devoid of air and therefore you could not breathe outside of an atmosphere. And yet, here I was very much breathing and alive, a stark contrast from earlier. I extended my mind outward in search of what was fueling my lungs. After a few minutes of searching, I realized that while there was no oxygen, there was an overabundance of hydrogen and nitrogen. Grabbing the periodic table of elements from my chemistry mind file, I weighed the gases going to my cells and realized that I breathed both of these gases. Re-entering the atmosphere, I carefully angled myself to make sure I still ended up back at Charles' school. As I dove, I continued to check the gases; the only two ever carried to my cells were hydrogen and nitrogen. Well, I guess you learn something new every day, I thought.

I turned back into a terrible terror and dropped down the chimney just as the sun broke the horizon. Strange, the sun was clearly awake when I flew outside the atmosphere, but it was just rising here. I quickly spun the standard illusions around myself, evaporating soot from the chimney off my now human skin. I glanced at my schedule before heading out for the specialty flying class. I hadn't seen many students with wings specifically, but I had heard plenty of stories about Banshie and a few techno-whizes who could "fly" with tiny engines in metal suits. Warren taught this class, although apparently Raven, or Mystique, was making a guest appearance today. Like Nolan, she could change her appearance to whatever suited her, but she was naturally blue. Curious, I wondered if my natural form would ever settle. It always shifted, and sometimes I would even feel inclined to stay in my in-between form, black with pure starlight as a half-night fury, half-stormcutter.

As I trotted onto a small cliff overlooking the school, a number of students landed beside me, warming up for the lesson. I saw Nolan out of the corner of my eye, his skin a little paler than normal, but he seemed much better now. He was sporting loose pants and chiseled abs, making me wonder if those were natural or just a part of his current form. A dark-haired girl with over-sized butterfly wings nudged me, "Hi, my name's Clarice. Is this your first class?"

I nodded, "Nice to meet you; I'm Kylrm." Warren landed in front of us, only it didn't smell or feel like Warren. I cocked my head, wondering if this was Mystique.

"Hello, class," real Warren's voice called down as he landed. Most redoubled in shock at the sight. He just grinned, "This is Mystique. She's our guest teacher for this lesson. A world-renowned shape-shifter, Mystique will break off with morphers while I teach a regular lesson with the rest of you."

Mystique nodded and went back to her natural form, a rich blue with hints of blue-green scales around her upper chest and face. The rest of her skin was remarkably smooth, and she seemed to be one of the few morphers who was comfortable in her own skin. As was her custom, Mystique wore no clothes, letting the small carapaces leave small details to the imagination. "Today, I will be fine-tuning your transformation skills, particularly in mid-flight and during a fight. We will be focusing on your technique, speed, and accuracy," her voice was melodic, yet there was a strange flatness to it. She bore no accent that I was familiar with, and the tamber was slightly unnerving. "Phoenix, Daedalus, Morphel, come with me."

She grew dragonesque wings out of her back, and the three of us followed suit since we were the only morphers in the school. I extended stormcutter wings, Nolan bat-like wings, and Melody eagle wings from our backs. I adjusted my wing size a few minutes after taking off, making sure we could all maneuver well. "Now, I've read Xavier's profiles on each of you, but I want you to describe yourselves."

"I'm a telepath, can transform into any type of HTTYD dragon, human-dragon, or mix of dragon species. I am also slightly telekinetic and can connect with machines," I offered.

"I can transform into any living thing," Nolan shrugged.

"I'm a Darcel," as if that explained anything about Melody. We all raised an eyebrow at her, "What? You don't know what a Darcel is? Fine, I can morph into anything or anyone I've come into contact with. I can also blend into my environment." The realization hit me that a Darcel was, in fact, an alien species. I had read about them on my first day when I connected to the internet for the first time. Darcels were short, black-skinned humanoids with milky-white eyes. Since Melody had no such characteristics, I could only assume she stayed in an unnatural form while at the school.

"Switch!" Mystique called out, transforming into Warren to demonstrate. I chose a terrible terror, Nolan an eagle, and Melody an Eastern dragon, a snake-like, bearded dragon with short wings and four stubby legs. "Switch!" We changed our forms again, choosing various-sized animals and animal-human combinations. I could only do dragons, but there were so many species it was extremely difficult to change into something entirely new every few minutes.

"Stop!" we started to switch again and returned to our forms: battle form, pegasus, human with wings. Mystique smirked, "Now, first we'll do one-on-one, then one-on-two, then three-on-one. Daedalus and Morphel; you're up first." We tussled in the air, being careful not to seriously harm each other. This was especially difficult with Nolan's starter form as Melody and I could not use fire against him. At seemingly random points Mystique called for us to change into specific forms, sometimes while we were wrestling. This gave Nolan or Melody the perfect chance to strike me since my in-between form was the most vulnerable. By the time we were ready to move on to three-on-one, we were panting with exhaustion, and I only had two ice blasts and three magnesium fires left. "You get a 10-minute break for water. Then come straight back up."

We immediately tucked our wings to dive into the take-off yard. There was food and drink waiting for us; despite my dry throat and empty stomachs, I carefully tested each food before absorbing the energy. There was no telling who had access to our food while we were training, and old habits die hard. It was past noon; Melody, Nolan, and I met eyes and groaned, realizing this was going to be a lot more involved than we originally planned.

We spent the rest of the day with Mystique, trying to blast her out of the sky. She changed forms with ease, and after several hours, Mystique wasn't even breathing hard while we were still panting from earlier.

Melody flew up beside me, "We have got to figure her out!" We had been working separately, Melody too arrogant and Nolan a little phased to work together.

I suggested, "We need to work together. It seems she is countering our forms with the exact opposite, wearing us down without having to do much work. We've been sleek and fast, what about heavy and hard?"

"Like stone stance," Nolan breathed. We turned to him, confused, "from the Stormlight Archives Series. It's strong and stable, and you don't move much."

"Make the opponent come to you," Melody and I agreed. "Let's do it!" I roared at Mystique, causing her to turn and look at us curiously. Nolan dove down and started hitting Mystique with his hooves, taunting her to come up to us. She caught on but continued up to see our strategy. Once she got up, we started blasting her but remained in position. I went to a gronckle-hotburple form to give more powerful blasts, and eventually we wore her down. She went back to her natural form - with wings, of course - and held up a hand. We stopped and hovered in front of her.

"Good, you finally came together in the end. You need teamwork to overcome a more powerful opponent," Mystique's heart rate had significantly increased; and, although her breathing remained calm, it was still a small victory. "Most team leaders will not know how to properly allocate you in battles, so you need to know how to overcome differences without completely taking charge. You're dismissed for the day. You'll pick back up with Angel next week."

We glided down to the mansion, hearts racing and wings aching. "Well, see you around," Melody waved as she headed back to her room, explaining that she wasn't fond of human food. Nolan and I separated at the dining hall, heading to our respective crowds for the quietest dinner either of us had had in a long time.