Patrick and I walked together in silence toward the train station on campus. We got in a small train cart, and Patrick held his hand up to the golden box inside, dispelling the arcane magic needed to get it moving.

It was weird being in silence for so long, but I had to break it with something, my brain panicked.

"So, have you had a girlfriend or anything?" I blurted, not really thinking the question through. I didn't care if he did or didn't. It was something to discuss.

"Why do you care?" he asked.

"I don't know, man. So I can give myself some hope. I'm an outsider here from the normal world. I don't know if girls will dig me or not."

"I don't think that hair will do you any favors." He pointed at me.

I stood up, puffed my chest out, and got in his face. "You wanna keep talking about my hair?"

Patrick didn't flinch nor show any signs of fear. "Are you really going to take a swing at me, kid?"

My blood boiled. All I could fantasize about was throwing my fist at his jaw, but I took a deep breath and stepped back.

Patrick held his hand up. "Hey, here's some advice from your mentor. You cannot shoot fire bolts if your emotions run hot like that. You have to master having a calm mind and a clear conscience."

"Yeah, and that's really the best and only advice you've given me. Talking to you is as much fun as a root canal."

Patrick scowled. "I wish you did punch me, and then I could launch you out of this train like a cannon."

"You woulda been out cold if I jawed you." I sneered.

"You probably would have been expelled if that had happened. What is wrong with you, dude."

I sat down and zipped my lip. A few minutes passed by, and my conscience was eating away at me. "Hey, man, look, I'm sorry if I scared you there. I'm coolheaded. I just don't want people walking over me, you know? I've always had to be tough on the outside, even around my parents. I was just raised to always have my guard up, and sometimes, the best way to get someone to stop was to intimidate them, but I realize that's not the right answer. So, I'm sorry."

I didn't look Patrick in the eye as I delivered the message. I stared at the ground, but when I finished, I looked up, and he stared back in silence. My whole speech felt awkward if he wasn't going to say anything back.

"I suppose I was being rude, knocking your hairstyle. So, I'm sorry for that."

"That's all right. I'm glad we could clear the air." I couldn't think of anything else to say, and my brain feared the idea of silence. I thought of the perfect thing to normalize the conversation. "So, how has your week been? Minus the loss to the Voltruns in Dragonstryke."

Patrick folded his arms and gazed at the ceiling, pondering the answer. "It was a pretty good week overall. The hellion invasion on campus was worrisome, but since we haven't seen anything and we have the Mage Force Officers around campus, I feel better about things. I must admit, though..." Patrick started chuckling. "I thought it was hilarious that someone did some graffiti on the rec hall. Sorry, I don't mean to offend you since it was targeted at the Fyrons, but did you see what was written?"

I couldn't believe my ears. "You mean the graffiti message that said, 'Fyrons Suck?'"

Patrick nodded. "Yeah, that's the one. I don't mean to be rude because a close friend of mine is a Fyron, but for the most part, your group is insufferable. I swear they brag about how great they are all the time. And they are so cocky and confident. Not only that, they boast that they all support each other more than other mage groups, which I think is a bunch of crap, but it's what they preach. I'm sorry you have to be part of the most annoying collective."

I busted out laughing. "I think I may have found something you and I can agree on. So far, I can't stand a lot of the Fyrons around me. They've been just as mean as you, if not meaner."

Patrick smirked. "Yeah, that's why I loved that graffiti so much. I wish I could shake hands with the Aquasos or Glacien that wrote that."

My shoulders relaxed, and I sank further into the cushion. "How do you know it was one of them?"

"Are you kidding? The Glaciens and Aquasos hate the Fyrons more than the others. It had to have been one of them, I'm sure."

"Maybe a Fyron was annoyed by all the jerks surrounding him in the Fyron dormitory." I shrugged, and I grinned.

Patrick's jaw dropped, and he shook his head. "I don't believe it. Why would you do that?"

"I didn't admit to doing it. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, come on, you all but told me you did it." Patrick leaned forward and beamed. "Just tell me why or how. I really think it's brilliant."

"Like I said, I don't know what you're talking about. I was just offering another explanation." I shrugged.

Patrick nodded and chuckled himself. "All right, say no more. But that's brilliant. Maybe I had you figured out all wrong."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The train ride ended, and we walked out of the cart as the cavernous path to the stadium was lit up. Patrick guided me to the left of the stadium, where a separate marble structure stood about a half mile away. A little lake to our left was lit with a bright blue, making the high cavern ceiling glow aqua. The structure he took me to looked like a marble box museum, and I was amazed I had never seen it before.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"We can't get inside the stadium. It's only open during game days. So we're going towards the practice field and the field house where they store all the dragon bikes and equipment like the trophies and targets. We only have access to the dragon bikes, though. Unfortunately, since you don't have your own, we'll have to use mine," Patrick said.

"No one is practicing right now?"

"They hold practices all through the week. They have the weekend off. Come on, Rollie, use your brain."

We walked through a space wide enough to be the practice space and entered the field house, which had a dome on the center of the roof with rectangular sections. Inside, the ceiling was tall, and seven different doors surrounded us. Patrick walked towards the Winderon logo door and held his hand up to the golden box at the center. Using his arcane magic, the door slid into the ceiling, revealing a hallway with a set of smaller doors. Each marble locker had a name on it, and we kept going until we reached Patrick's locker. He rotated the dials on the center, opening up an entrance into a small room with an emerald-colored dragon bike that didn't appear as shiny or large as Jonathan's dragon bike.

"Go to the front of the building, and I'll take this outside. I don't want to be running test flights in the middle of the field house," Patrick said.

I followed his instruction, and Patrick came out, floating on the dragon bike like a butterfly. Landing it in front of me, Patrick stepped off the bike and gestured for me to get on.

"Thank you. How hard is it to fly one of these?" I asked.

Patrick laughed. "You're going to struggle. The first time, it's hard to figure out. The designers configured it in a way that it's like riding a real dragon, so you have to be careful with your hand movements and have excellent balance. You're going to fall a few times, so just be careful. Don't get any scratches on my bike either."

I settled onto the bike and put my hands on the handlebars.

Patrick smirked. "It's kinda similar to riding a horse. It'll buck you off if you don't know what you're doing."

"I've never ridden a horse before."

"Oh. That's right. Sorry, my, uh, people that took care of me in the other world had a horse ranch. Which was a good experience for me. Anyways, you'll notice on the handlebars there are buttons you can press. This emulates scales on a dragon that are pressure points. This allows you to accelerate and turn, but you must also turn the handlebars. To float up, press lightly, rotate the bars backward, and pull up."

I followed the directions seamlessly and hovered over the ground two feet up.

"Whoa," Patrick said.

"What?" I asked.

"I just didn't expect you to get that so fast. Many people struggle with that, and by 'that,' I mean everyone I've ever seen fails at getting the dragon bike off the ground first."

"Beginner's luck?"

"I guess so."

I hovered there as Patrick stared at me in silence.

"Well, what do I do next? How do I get moving?" I asked.

"Sorry, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, uh." He scratched his temple. "It's hard to vocalize how to do it. I have to go over the steps I do in my head."

I waited another 30 seconds. I was becoming restless. I was desperate to zoom through the air and didn't want to wait another second. Getting a feel for the controls, I just pressed and turned what I thought was natural. What would I be doing if I was riding a dirt bike?

The dragon bike floated forward at my command. I beamed and cracked up victoriously.

"Hey! Hey! What are you doing? I haven't even given you instructions yet! That thing is going to kick you off!" Patrick cried out.

But it didn't feel like it would kick me off. I cruised through the air and slowly built up speed until it felt like I was going 25 miles an hour.

"Get back here! Are you crazy! What do you think you're doing!" I heard Patrick yell in the distance; his voice echoed.

I was flying low to the ground, it felt nerve-wracking going higher than that, but I was picking up the pace and flying further away from Patrick in the vast space. Turning the modules and handlebars to the left was a natural pull in the correct direction. I was going faster, and the wind bent my mohawk backward. I was getting greedy with my speed.

How was I supposed to stop the thing?

"Slow down, man, slow down! You're out of your mind!" Patrick yelled as I blew past him.

"How do I make this thing stop?" I shouted.

"Press the button on the back of the center console!"

I squeezed it with all my might since I was bulleting through the cavern's open square. The dragon bike halted to a stop, and I flew off the seat, catapulting me onto the ground. I was worried I'd break a bone, but the cavern floor was like landing on a mattress.

Patrick shrieked with laughter as my face lay in the stone. I clenched my fists and got back up, marching towards Patrick. When he saw the look on my face, he sealed his lips and gulped.

"Hey man, I'm really sorry. I guarantee you would have laughed if that happened to me," Patrick said.

I was a few yards away from him. "No, I wouldn't. If that happened to you, I would ask if you were okay."

"Well, hey, we're all different in handling things." He put his hands up defensively. "Sometimes I laugh when I see people fall over. Of course, I was worried about you breaking your neck because I would have gotten all the blame."

"That's great. You only care if I get hurt because you'd get in trouble. You don't care about my well-being. You're a psychopath!"

Patrick's face twitched. "Oh, I'm the psychopath? Says the guy who was about to punch my head back in the train?"

I wanted to keep the argument going, but what good would it do? "Sorry, I was just feeling a bit attacked when you laughed at me as I was afraid of dying."

"The cavern floor is designed to be soft in case of falls. And I told you, man, the thing would kick you off."

"It only kicked me off because I slammed to a stop. I had no idea how to use the brakes on that thing. You should've told me."

"Are you kidding? I was about to tell you how to operate it, and then you took off flying. To be honest with you, I'm impressed with all that you did. Are you sure you've never flown one of these things before?"

"I promise. I've never done it."

Patrick shook his head and grunted. "I hate to say it, but I think you're a natural."

"Why do you hate to say it?"

Patrick flared his nostrils. "Because you have no idea how long it took me to master flying a dragon bike. To do everything that you just did took me six years. And here you are, zipping all over the place."

I shrugged. "Apparently, my grandpa was a professional Dragonstryke player. Maybe it just runs in the family."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, man. So what, you want to be on the Dragonstryke team then?"

"I would love that, but I still can't do a fire bolt yet. You think that's possible?"

"Tryouts already happened at the beginning of the year, but I'm pals with the Fyron captain. I'll see if they can look at you, and maybe you could get on the practice squad."

"Are you serious? You would do that?"

"After all, what are mentors for?" Patrick smirked. "Let's head back to campus, shall we? I think we've done enough here today."