There was a loud ring that pierced the cool morning air. Sal turned and sighed and began walking towards the school with a miserable look on his face. Sal hated school. Everybody treated him like shit for something entirely out of his control. He was a halfbreed. Not just any halfbreed, Sal was half cheetah, half wolf. The combination of feline/canine seemed to offend people for some reason.
It's not like Sal was bad looking though, quite the contrary. He was short, about 5'2" and very slender. The shape of his face was clearly that of a cheetah, and his hind legs also sprang from the feline DNA. His ears and tail however were both blatantly wolfish. He had a thick, bushy, medium length tail, and large, pointed ears, as opposed to the short, round ones most cheetahs sported. His most unique aspect though, was his color. He was a deep, dark black and was covered in spots like a cheetah would normally be. These spots were a pale, pale yellow which almost looked white. Even though Sal pulled the look off very well, the fact that his colors were inverted just gave the other kids more reason to tease him.
Sal had always been treated poorly, but as he and his classmates had gotten older, the abuse had become more severe. Now, at 17 years old and about ¾ of the way through junior year, it sometimes went so far as physical violence. Not too often though. Sal was thankfully blessed with his mother's cheetah speed.
As Sal was walking up the steps on the front of school, he heard several catcalls from back out in the school yard. Sal turned around briefly, already knowing who to expect. Of course, it was Gelian and his pet stooge Mert. Gelian was a large gray wolf who'd tortured Sal for years. He seemed to despise that they shared any sort of species relationship. Mert was a tiger who was as big as he was dumb, and he was a giant. At 6'5", he was half a head taller than Gelian and about two heads taller than Sal. Gelian was wearing his trademarked cruel leer as he watched Sal walking up the steps.
"Hey, bleachstain," he called out, "wanna come over my place after school? My punching bag broke and I need something to replace it till I get a new one." Mert just gave a stupid chuckle. "Aww come on," Gelian continued, "I use gloves and I'll be sure not to break anything...much."
Sal just turned around and walked in the school, rolling his eyes. How immature can you get? Sal thought to himself. When he went to his locker and began taking out the books for his first class, something that caught his eye up the hall. It was a tall red dragon walking slowly down the rows of lockers, looking at the numbers closely. The dragon was about 6 feet tall and was fairly slim, though his wings made him look much larger than he really was. He had two black horns on his head and a long tail. Sal had never seen him before, he must be new. He shrugged and turned back to his locker. Just someone else to hate him eventually. Unexpectedly, he felt a large, strong paw grasp him by the back of the neck.
"Hey halfbreed, don't you know it's rude to walk away from someone when they're talking to you." It was Gelian. Apparently he hadn't had enough "fun" for the morning. "I need to teach you some manners." The claws on Sal's neck dug in painfully, and he winced in pain. Suddenly the pressure disappeared and Sal just heard Gelian make a loud "gurk" noise. Turning around, Sal saw Gelian sprawled on the floor with a red tail around his neck. The tail unraveled, leaving Gelian to rub his neck. Sal looked up and saw that the tail's owner was the red dragon he'd seen earlier.
"Sorry to interrupt your little game," said the dragon in a deep voice, "but this is my locker you were blocking and I need to get to class." He promptly turned and opened the locker right next to Sal's.
"Thanks for helping me," Sal said with a shy smile. "It was more than anyone else has ever done."
The dragon just shrugged. "He was blocking my locker, like I said. If you'd been three feet to the right, I wouldn't have done anything." He shut his locker and walked off. Sal stared after him, wondering if it had truly been a selfish act, or if the dragon just didn't want to admit he'd helped.
