We had been waiting for this day for a while. Our parents had all agreed to let us go explore a group of caves a couple of miles from the edge of town. We had this day planned for a couple of weeks, and the time is now. There is still a lot of snow on the ground, and our parents drove each of us to a half of a mile away, and we had to walk the rest, with Hector sleeping in Joey's backpack.
We trek through the snow on the ground until we arrive at the base of the small mountain type thing. There are caves in small cracks all over.
"Where do we start?" Max asks us.
"In the one closest to us," Felix tells him, stepping up and walking into one of the cracks. He slid through, and we all follow him. I slide through the crack and into darkness. Once the whole X-Team arrives in the cave, we stop and try to see something in the darkness.
"What's our plan here?" I ask.
"Someone get out a flashlight," Nick says, his voice coming from in front of me. I light my hand on fire, and I can finally see everyone. A small crack with a golden, glowing light catches my eyes, and I take a closer look at it. Things seem to be moving around inside the crack. What is it?
"Guys, let's walk to that ominous, glowing light," Adam suggests. Apparently, he sees it too.
"Alright," Joey shrugs and the X-Team walks towards a small glowing crack in the rocks with a glowing light illuminating from it. We get to the crack and Adam tells us,
"Watch out," and we all take a step back and wait. Adam prepares to blast a huge chunk of rock at the crack. His hands glow brown and a rock forms between his open hands. It fires at the crack, making the opening big enough for all of us to get through. The glowing light fills the cave and blinds me for a second, like looking straight at the sun. Joey sneezes suddenly.
Once I can see properly, my jaw drops as I see the world before me. Mountains similar to the one we're in now surround a huge area that contains different habitat type things that each have some kind of landscape corresponding with each of our elements, plus more. And each of these is bigger than a football field. I can't even see the end of the area. One has a kind of scorched grounds with lava pools and streams from miniature volcanoes everywhere. The one that this cave crack is entering onto is full of green grass and trees and other kinds of plant growth.
This is the best part, dragons! And so many of them! Each of the habitats has tons of dragons with elemental powers like us. They all run, and play, and fly around, and some of the dragons in this grassy habitat (which we are standing in front of) are staring at us with their heads cocked. I thought there was only one breed! I race out into all of it, extremely excited.
I make my way through all of the dragons in the grassy habitat I'm in, snaking around them, inspecting them, looking at all of their body features, and petting them, and eventually make it over the Fire Habitat, which is next to this one. The Fire Habitat is really amazing. The lava doesn't harm me, or the dragons. They seem totally excited that I'm there, and start playing with me. Some dragons aren't sure about me and are hiding in what looks like lumps in the ground. There are windows, doors, and multiple rooms. It's like the dragons have made their own places to live. I search for more and end up dropping my coat on the ground. I find a hatchery with eggs that look like the scorched ground I'm standing on. The same dark brown with bright orange in the cracks. The craziest thing is that all of the eggs are on fire. A Fire Dragon walks up to me and begins sniffing me, and growing and making small roars. Maybe dragons have their own language, and it's just different growls and roars. That would be amazing. I attempt to talk with the dragon and end up accidentally volunteering to babysit her baby dragons. I'm not mad I did that, but it happened. There were three tiny dragons that all really wanted to play, so I played with them until their mom came back. She thanked me (I think) and gave me a huge piece of steak. I guess this is what Fire Dragons reward people with.
I head back to the first habitat with my cat and see the rest of the X-Team talking. I walk over and begin talking to them. They each went to their elemental habitat and met dragons, and Joey wanted to show us something. Hector flew at his side, his eyes wide.
"What did you find?" Elliot asks him.
"It's amazing, don't worry," Joey assures us, walking deeper into the forest. Soon, we arrive at a small cave entrance in the wall. We all walk inside, and I don't even need to light it up. There are multiple Fire Dragon eggs inside that light it up for us. There are even some eggs
like Hector's. There are eight eggs in the corner away from every other one.
"What are these?" Nick asks, looking at them.
"I think they're unused eggs," Joey tells us, walking up and grabbing a deep blue egg with white electrical flashes around it at points.
"I think that means unclaimed. If they find an egg without a parent, they probably ask around to see if it belongs to anyone. If not, they probably toss it in here for later," Aaron suggests, picking up an egg with a metal coating and blue and red lights on it.
"You think anyone would mind if we grabbed some of these?" Felix asks, looking at them.
"I don't know, take one and find out," Adam suggests. We all pick up an egg that belongs to our elemental family.
"This is incredible. I still can't believe we're here," Max says quietly.
"I can't believe we're going to have pet dragons!" Joey exclaims, putting his egg inside his otherwise empty backpack. I'm not sure why he brought it.
Hector suddenly roars and flies out of Joey's backpack, and darts around in the air, looking all directions, and eventually speeds out of the cave. We follow once we collect all of the eggs. We see him, and he's snuggling with what looks like bigger, stronger versions of Hector.
"Those must be his parents!" I conclude, looking at them.
"You're right," Nick agrees.
"Aw! That's so cute!" Adam smiles, and we all look at him. "Uh, I mean that's so . . . cool." I roll my eyes and look back at Hector.
"Radical. Well, I was gonna show you guys the Lightning Habitat, it's really cool," Joey states. "C'mon Hector!" Joey calls, beginning to walk. "Hector?"
"I . . . I think he wants to stay with his family," Nick tells Joey, setting his hand on Joey's back.
"You . . . you do?" Joey asks Hector, realizing this. Hector flies up to Joey and licks his cheek. Joey wraps his arms around him in a hug. They hug for a moment, and they release each other. Hector growls something and flies back to his parents.
"Bye, buddy!" Joey waves as Hector waves a wing at them. The three dragons turn and walk into the forest.
