Wings of Fire: Greed and Glory

Chapter 7

Scorch looked around the room nervously. He obviously wasn't welcome here by the other dragons, so shouldn't he go back to the Kingdom of Heat?

Suddenly he heard the loud footsteps of a dragon coming down the hallway. It was the same, large CloudWing that was at the signup yesterday. She must be the teacher. "Good morning, class," She said with a voice that caught everyone's attention. Everyone immediately turned towards her and got silent.

It was too late. He couldn't back out now. Besides, isn't this what he wanted?

"Welcome to Battle Training," the teacher said, "My name is Cyclone, I'll be your teacher for this class. We'll start off today with some basics, so I am going to pair all of you up and you'll duel each other so I can get a sense of what I'm working with."

Even though he could not shake the thought that his Queen could possibly destroy all of Skardaska, he wondered who Cyclone would pair him up with. Cyclone started walking around the room, pairing dragons up. Maybe he would be paired with a strong StoneWing; or maybe a cunning LightWing; maybe a stealthy TreeWing. Before he knew it the teacher pointed at him and, what looked like the same small, steel blue StreamWing that was behind him in the signup line. A StreamWing?! Out of everyone, she pairs me with a StreamWing?!

Scorch didn't really see StreamWings as threats, especially this small one. From what he knew, they could only coil around enemies and squeeze them to death and swim. Not exactly what he thought of fighting.

Everyone spread out in the room with their partner so they had an equal amount of space to battle. "Now remember class," Cyclone said in her loud teacher voice, "only fight until your opponent gives up. First, shake talons and then start!"

Scorch and the StreamWing walked towards each other and shakes talons. Scorch couldn't really get a grip on the StreamWing's talon because of his webbed claws. "By the way, my name is Serpent," the small StreamWing said with a smile. "I'm Scorch," he said with a huff of smoke then walked back, almost hitting Serpent with his tail spike.

Serpent headed back to his spot and they both looked at each other for a few seconds. Scorch flexed his bronze claws  and swayed his tail back and forth. He didn't want to wait for Serpent to make the first move so he charged right at him. Serpent slithered right out of the way like lightning and coiled around Scorch's legs, making him fall to the ground. He howled in agony. Serpent was squeezing his wound like a python would it's prey. He could already feel the paint dripping off; or is that blood? He didn't care at the time, it hurt too much to think about it.

Scorch swung his tail around viciously as he tried to swat at Serpent with his claws. Serpent made a grossed-out face and slithered off of him. Serpent was looking down at Scorch's blood on his scales, then at Scorch's leg, then back at his scales. Scorch guessed Serpent wasn't used to having his victims bleed.

Scorch knew he couldn't go on battling. "I give up," he hissed at the StreamWing as he tried to get up. Just his luck that at that exact moment Cyclone came walking around them and stares down at Scorch, disappointedly. "What is this?" She demanded as she picked up the painted cloth, now stained with blood. The room went silent as all the other dragons stopped fighting and turned towards them. She helped Scorch up. "You're going to a doctor right away and you are now banned from my academy!" She growled at him. "How dare you try to fool me into thinking you're healthy!" She glared down at his bleeding leg.

Cyclone walked Scorch out of the room and shut the door behind him. He could see though the window that the teacher had started to clean off Serpent's scales. Since he was already band from battle training here, now he could go to the Kingdom of Heat.

Scorch limped down the hallway and towards the entrance of the academy. I don't need to go to a stupid doctor. I already got the medicine; and it already started healing.

He looked back at the medicine hall. Should he go get Synthesis? He wanted to but he remembered that Queen Volcanic had band other dragons except loyal HeatWings from the Kingdom.

Scorch grabbed a paper and a pen from one of the signup tables left from yesterday and wrote everything that Synthesis needed to know. He signed "from Scorch" at the bottom and stuck to the spot where they were supposed to meet up. He shook out his wings, ready for the flight. Part of him wanted her to come with him. Was it because she could heal his injury or was it something more than that? Scorch took off towards his Kingdom, not bothering with the thought anymore.