“You guys are all crazy.”

Drenar had convinced James and Angela to meet on Thursday while he and Julia gathered every scrap of information they could between classes and home life, and Drenar winced when Angela offered some initial resistance, and several other choice words that he simply said nothing to. Julia was not spared the flak, either. Even with the photo evidence that James still hadn’t deleted. Angela had sat there in his room with James, Julia and Drenar explaining the past week, and she’d gone wide eyed at this series of increasingly heavy blows to her perception of reality.

“Angie, seriously, sit down before you just fall over,” Julia pleads. Angela did no such thing. He realized that to her, it was ludicrous by any standard. And they’re all sitting in his room, discussing it like their Pathfinder roleplaying game in his room like it wasn’t immediate grounds to have an instant mental fit. “Yeah, we get it. It’s bonkers!”

“It’s totally bonkers,” Evan says with reluctance. “I noticed it with the heart racing thing, and luckily Rick noticed when I was starting to transform. It's really weird that Drenar and Julia have had far more dramatic signs and a more prolonged Awakening–”

“No. What's absolutely bonkers is that I can do this!” Angela flicks her wrist towards her body, and Julia’s phone, which had been sitting on the floor, moved on its own and flew right to Angela’s outstretched hand. She’s torn between being livid, and terrified. “You know the first time that happened, yesterday, after a few days of my heart rate running like I was going into cardiac arrest, it was a little shocking. It was horrifying. You two reckless idiots should have told us the nanosecond you confirmed your theories! I thought I was dying again!"

"Uh, there was a first–oh right. Your heart condition. I thought they fixed that," Julia responds in a snap. "Wait. Was it that bad before?"

"It felt like I was dying, guys. It's a bit of an eye opener when you're five years old, and you're in the ER for a heart that was just barely working!" Drenar hesitates to interject, because he sees real fear in her eyes. The danger had been far greater than what she was saying. "So imagine, twelve years later, you're minding your own business when your heart rate skyrockets, and you feel like you could pass out. Or the telekinesis I just demonstrated!"

“Not gonna lie, it was terrifying,” Drenar finally gets his word in. “So, you've developed telekinesis. That must mean you’ve got a drakensoul or are about to Awaken, either way.”

“Drakensoul. I should have known those dreams were something weird. I just didn’t know how weird it was, and why I didn’t tell you two. Because of course you two would absolutely know–”

“Volume, please. Our vanilla foster parents are better left out of this one, until I can guarantee no one gets a free magical lobotomy for breaching the greatest secret of mankind,” Drenar insists. Evan nods in concurrence. “I didn’t know what to make of Alex. Not at first. Ergaths’ book cemented the fact that the dragons saw the writing on the wall. It was time to leave the planet for greener pastures because mankind was hitting its stride, and fighting that groundswell would have meant a lot of dead people after an insurrection in the mage government tore the fundamentals apart. We still don’t know why more are coming in from whatever it was I saw–the Stranded lands, or the aether. Or why Alex embedded in my own soul, right here and now. Or why I’m the only one that saw it.”

“Do we even know what the Aether is?” James asks. “This thing sounds bizarro to the max. It’s an interstitial. A place that defies reality. And yet, you saw it twice now, Drenar.”

“I’m not so sure what I saw the second time was the aether. I think that was just Alex and I sharing a dreamscape. But this place seems to blur that line of reality and dream. It was absolutely crazy. It’s like we aren't meant to be there.” Drenar stops and rubs his temples gingerly. “Okay. Dragons got there by a massive magical effect gone about as badly as possible. Why did I end up there? What’s the connection?”

“Maybe a strong connection to a dragon pulled your soul inwards?”

“I’m not sure distance is definitive in that place, James. When I stood there, it had gravity, it had air, I could feel pain, physics sort of worked to an extent. It wasn’t until whatever manifestation I was carrying with me collapsed that things started to unravel. Augh. This is making my head hurt, and Alex has been a no-show ever since.”

“So, you can’t hear him right now?” Angela asks hesitantly. Drenar shook his head.

“Not yet. Just those couple of dreams, and maybe a few times before that. I can clearly understand him, he's intelligent, he makes coherent statements, his linguistics…kinda seem on par for the era. The Awakening process strengthens the link between him and me over time–and as you saw from your idiot brother's bad idea of keeping deadly evidence, I blacked out from even a partial transformation.” He looks at Angela. "What about yours? Can you hear them? Do they have a name?"

“Samarina. That’s about all I’ve gotten out of her so far. She’s speaking in some kind of strange language. I researched the sounds and consonants, the closest I’ve gotten is that it’s some kind of Finnish. Maybe. Google translate doesn’t work for an ancient draconic Finnish, apparently,” she said sourly. “I tried some Latin, in my head. She seemed to pick up a little bit of that. I got a few words from her, not much though.”

“How long have you kept this bottled up, Angie? Girl, I know it’s a little crazy, and you tell me just about everything, but this was probably the one time it was a bad idea to stay mum!” Julia scolds lightly.

“Well, what was I supposed to think?” she hissed angrily. “Certainly not this! This was not on my bingo list of wild, crazy things to happen in life! It shouldn’t be on anyones! And then you three tell me there’s danger. Real danger. These Talon scumbags threatened Drenar and Evan, and that pisses me off!”

“It’s just Jonaleth for now, but he’s got friends,” Julia says warily. “He’s got a group of four that seem to do what he wants them to, whether it’s voluntary, or coerced. If he were making a move, I think we’d know it. Regardless of that, we need to get to the bottom of this, because I’m mighty nervous that something is going down beyond our immediate crisis. Why are so many people awakening, yourself included?" Julia insists.

“Zero extra souls here,” James says in a strangely calm tone. “Also, none of the symptoms you guys listed. Maybe I’m fortuitously vanilla.”

“You are so vanilla, you make vanilla taste like a culinary delight,” Julia comments with a smile and sticking her tongue out at him. He grumbles but doesn’t retort for now. “Look, here’s the spiel. The Talons have a laundry list of war crimes and every other crime imaginable under their belt, we can’t mess around with them, not in a straight up fight.” She went into more detail about their members, everything she could get from Ergath’s Draconomicon.

The Talons had been the aggressors of the War of the Magi. Crosomer had personally directed them--whoever that was. They had started as mercenaries, and ended up as a professional army at their peak during the conflict. A number of their members were dragons--the latest writing indicated the group had fallen apart after decades of being picked off by the Conclave, either arrested, killed or they had gone underground for a prolonged period.

Drenar intermittently laid out the highlights, with everyone nodding and following along. The fact that Nick had mentioned it in the briefest bit of conversation he’d overheard led to his confidence that this had to be somehow connected. Eventually though, with little more to go on other than knowing they had a pretty foul history and that they definitely should not be trusted, the conversation drifted.

“So let me see if I get this right. Y'all are dragons, or about to become ones. And none of our parents have fessed up to what is basically a giant impending blue screen of death for our juvenile minds. Does that not strike anyone as odd?” James decried. “Why on this green earth would anyone omit this?”

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“Parents are utter morons, or you know, dead parents had no contingencies,” Evan suggests darkly. “Angela might be a random strand of luck.”

“Not sure how lucky this lottery should feel. I mean I like dragons, but…being one? Two different things, Evan,” she states unhappily.

“It might be some heavy duty magic to delete electronic records and a vow of silence,” Julia proposes. “Seriously, this explains my mom’s beastly strength. She’s a dragon for sure. And we’re idiots for not approaching her sooner about this!”

“There's strong humans, and then there’s dragons in human form, Julia. Big difference, according to Amaranth,” Drenar points out. “Maybe it was your dad, and your mom couldn’t bear to bring it up after he…” He can’t even finish the sentence. “Angela, look, it’s a random thing. Your parents probably had no idea. It’s also consistent James being strangely vanilla in all of this,” he reasons. “As for me…well, let’s just say the family connection between me and Evan says an awful lot.”

“I also find it mighty suspect that your mom had that book lying around like she didn’t know jack,” James points out. Julia bores her glare into his soul.

“Until we know for sure, I really don’t want to freak out my mom that she has a half-dragon child. Show of hands, we keep mum?" Everyone slowly raises their hands, even Drenar after some reluctance.

“So, what’s causing it?” Angela asked. “If it’s related to mana, and we somehow were exposed to a lot of it, you know like some industrial accident or something–”

“Whoa, hang on, nerd is lost. What’s mana?” James interrupts.

“Well, mana is...based on everything I've read so far, it's integral to every monster in this book. They all defy the normal laws of evolution and traditional biology to greater or lesser extents. It's like...how does one explain this…" Julia trails off. "Based on my extremely limited understanding of the mechanics of what this mana is, it's not an analog to any known element. In fact, it seems there is a version of every element on the periodic table infused with mana. And it allows for some truly physics-defying materials and chemicals. It's like a kind of ethereal energy, a stand apart from the four forces of the universe like gravity, nuclear forces and electromagnetic energy.” Even Julia is hitting the limits of her understanding. “It’s not free energy, but it’s definitely higher energy density and far more renewable. And it’s nowhere even close to fully understood. And dragons are just *one* of hundreds of species that generate it or it’s integral to their biology.”

“So, how many are left? We can’t be the only four in the world,” Angela states with firmness. “That would be ridiculously unbelievable odds if we were the last four, so there must be more left.”

“Kelly is too, but I’ve been super hesitant to approach,” Julia says. “More people are awakening, but I don’t know who yet. Jonaleth, Jackie, maybe some of their skeevy crew? This list is going to get crazy.”

"If you think about it, there must be a minimum population of half or full-blooded dragons to last this long since the Ascension events. It’s probably tens of thousands minimum, to maintain genetic diversity," Drenar suggests. "Though that really becomes a complex math problem because they aren't a typical species and you can't treat it like a study of wild animals. They also uh...are genetically compatible with us, so, there's that as well." James looks taken aback at this. “Dragon takes human form. They meet a lucky lady–or guy. And in that scenario, you end up with a half-dragon.”

“Spare me the intimate details. So how's that work? You guys are all human.”

“When born to a human, the half-dragon is basically locked in that form until Awakening. Like it’s some kind of biological limiter or countdown,” Drenar explains. "Even if they're born to a dragon in their natural form, they uh…hatch to a human form.”

“That's just weird,” James shudders. “Dragons…lay eggs?”

“Yep.”

“But they’re warm blooded. Then again, so are birds.” His face is drawing a blank. “Humans do not belong in eggs.”

“Hey man, I just live in this world. The crazy magical science rules were written long before any of us were born.” He himself is trying to not think of this image too heavily. There’s some serious brain trauma just waiting on the question of if that was my situation at birth. I’m better off not thinking about this for too long.

“Moving along,” Julia reminds them with a tsk sound. “From birth to puberty, they are functionally human..there are some genetic differences, apparently, and some subtle boosts in physiology.”

"Right. This whole awakening process, It isn't just the accelerated heart rate we’ve all experienced. When that rocket lights off, cells are transformed on an individual level, genetic structure reforms to a full draconic strand, again, with some subtle difference from a full dragon,” Drenar says while showing the illustrations and text. “All the while, the body IS restructuring to match: muscle density increases, and mana is generated at an exponential rate. Bone density also changes, and the human physiology takes on similarity to a dragon--lightweight, exceedingly strong bones, massive regenerative ability, resistance to other mana based abilities, and a number of magical abilities tied to a species of dragon. Nothing is left untouched.”

Something dawns on Drenar. “Wait, so maybe that's how you punched through a brick wall that one time?" he directs to Julia, who flexes dramatically at this mention.

"Nah, I think that one was all me, no draconic super strength required." Julia’s voice exudes confidence and pride in that particular feat. "So what triggers the final transformation?"

He quickly skims through the book. "It has something about an alchemical reaction once mana reaches a certain level of saturation in the bloodstream that occurs as part of puberty. This triggers the draconic genes to active state and literally every cell in the body starts reprogramming at the fundamentals. It'll lead to a slow transformation, usually involuntary. Scales will form, muscle density goes through the roof, magical abilities kick in, and of course, the transformation into a juvenile dragon. It's painful. Bottom line, we'll have some warning.”

“Man you know what’s weird? I thought dragons would be huge, like over thirty meters long, multi-ton gargantuan terrors. Instead they’re like, what, maybe three meters tall and about six meters long, tail tip to snout, and maybe close to a half a metric ton at best for the average specimen? There’s pick-up trucks bigger than them,” Angela scoffs. “And fluffy. Seriously. They look more like birds to an extent!” This strangely has Angela excited for reasons he doesn't quite want to figure out just yet.

“Yeah. And they can toss a pick-up truck like it’s a play toy. Size doesn’t mean everything,” Julia counters. “The biggest individuals are ten meters long or more. And all the illustrations,” she added, pointing to them one at a time, “Show very interesting parallels to our species physiology. They really aren’t all that unlike us. Five fingers that includes an opposable thumb–a feature usually exclusive to mammals, and five toes–well, four, plus a dewclaw in essence. They have a limb structure with similar range of motion and high precision motor control. Even the brain structure has many parallels, but theirs is even more refined, and their nervous system has a reaction time that I can’t even fathom. Their reaction time to stimuli is practically precognitive, and in some experiments they reacted instinctively before stimulus was even applied, even when sensory deprived. That’s some freakiness in itself.”

“Danger sense.” Everyone turns to Evan. “You get some weird, wired warning before something bad happens like your brain processes threats that you're not paying conscious attention to. Like before Jonaleth beat the stuffing out of me.”

“That's…helpful,” Julia muses. Drenar can't help but be slightly excited at this reading. “Oh, and forget trying to scale damage levels to the modern military. Dragons can tank hits with their armor scales, and also can use innate spell barriers to protect themselves or others in close proximity."

“A spell shield?” he echoes. “Wait, is this related to the super hardness you demonstrated when you ran a current through the scather–feather–whatever it is?”

“No, it's separate. Maridians are like living tanks,” Julia explains. “Dragons and other Kin can generate a barrier of mana infused plasma, according to what I read. It can stop penetration, heat transfer, and inertial transfer to an extent. It's like some kind of universal magical defense."

“I need scale,” James emphasized.

“A dragon’s spell barrier, depending on individual talent and strength, could stop a tank round,” he states after looking at an example. James vigorously shakes his head.

“A tank round? A freaking tank round. What about inertia and momentum?”

“James, I’d need to sit down with the physics and experiment with a spell barrier that I can’t currently use,” Drenar said impatiently. “That raises another point. I have azure scales and maridian silver ones. So what ability would I get? Telekinetics, plasma, or both?”

“Cross-breeding has been noted to result in a singular dominant ability, though multiple innate abilities are possible.” Julia had leaned over and pointed to a section. This revelation makes him smile.

“Thunderbolt and lightning. So very frightening,” he says with a much needed dose of humor, and Julia groans.

“If you quote Queen one more time, I'm gonna rip your feathers out one by one,” she threatens. “You have such an odd taste in music.”

“I'll die on this hill, thanks. And even you might have trouble with that, given my resilience."

Julia sighs contentedly. "At least I know you can take whatever beating I throw your way, all in the name of training to be mighty morphing dragon rangers."