Dragons of Draconia

Chapter 3: Snowstorm

         I'm sitting under a tree with my friends showing them my faint white scales when I look over and see Lightning and someone who I'm guessing is her friend. I wave back and gesture for them to come over. Before a word comes out of my mouth Thunder is standing upright and says, "hey cuz how's it been." Lightning mumbles back, "I'd be fine without you." That shuts him up. "Hey Lightning, who's your friend?" I ask. The smaller dragonet says softly, "I'm Flash, and I'm guessing your the great majestic Snowstorm." I kind of laugh, "well thank you for those nice words Flash. Why don't you come sit down with us." Flash and Lightning sit closer to me and farther from Thunder. I introduce Shock, Squall, and Rain as we swap lunch favourites with each other. In the end I have a roasted goat sandwich with, a kiwi juice box, a cucumber, and a mango. All my favourites of course. We all dig in and crunch down on our snacks. "So Lightning what did you have first, with Flash of course?" I ask after I finished my sandwich. She swallows her food and replies, "we had flight strategies and target practice." "Oh cool we had storm sensing and physical activity." "It was boring, right." "Yep." We sat in silence as we finished our meals. I felt someone tap me and they said, "tag your it." I swerve around and see Rain flying off looking at me. "Oh I'm gonna get you." I holler as I charge full speed into the air. My wings spread wide open and catch a burst of wind. I soar high up and dive towards Rain. He sees me coming and dives right into a bush. The others also come and join our game. By now I've tagged Lightning and she's chasing everyone else around. I'm hiding in a tree when I notice a new notice posted up on the board. I jump down and hobble over to the board. When I get closer I can see that it's from the cross-continent school, Bridged mountains. I pick up one of the flyers and read it. It states, "we are having a contest, a new chance without paying anything to come to bridged mountains. 5 students from each habitat will be chosen to attend. They will be the smartest, friendliest, fastest, and possibly strongest students from each area. A list saying the names will be posted next week. The areas that count are the rainforest, the frozen land, the crystal zone, and the electric fields. I tell my friends and they get really happy. "Another chance, wow this is amazing." Lightning cheered. "The only thing is," I say, "that one of us will have to stay behind." Shock speaks up, "I'll stay behind. I don't really want to go anyway." "That's fine Shock," I say, "you don't have to go if you don't want to." "Thanks," he replies, "I'll do my hardest to help you guys." "Thanks." The bell rings for us to go inside. "Only two more periods till home time." Shouts Squall. "Hey, you guys wanna hang out?" I ask. They all shout, "Sure." "Okay let's meet here after school and wait for everyone." Lightning and Flash run off to their class as the rest of us head the other way. We walk down the halls till we find a door that says Flight Strategies. We walk inside and sit down together. No one else came in. "Hello boys, for today I guess it's just us. My name is Dark-sky. You seem like a good bunch, let's go flying." Dark-sky bounded away through a hole so we followed. We stepped out into a bright area with all different land zones.  "Go on step out and spread those wings." Says Dark-sky. I take a few steps forwards towards the edge and stop. I close my eyes and fall forwards catching air drifts as I glide through the air. I open my eyes and look backwards at my friends and Dark-sky gliding behind. "Okay students, let's land down in the sand." I look downwards and angle my body to glide to the sand. I land with a soft thud and spray a bit of sand up my snout. I sneeze and cause more sand to fly upwards. Once the sand settles and everyone lands we all walk forwards and sit in front of Dark-sky. "Okay before we venture through all the zones, I'll show you how to angle your wings to turn left and right." She stretches out her wings and tilts her wings to the left. "This is how to turn left, how hard you turn depends on how far you turn your wings." She then tilts her wings to the right. "Obviously if the other way is left, this way is to turn right. Now you try shifting your wings to get used to it." I tilt my own wings, "like this?" I ask. Dark-sky walks up to me and checks my wings, "Yep that's perfect - er what's your name." "Snowstorm, it's Snowstorm." "Ah okay Snowstorm, your perfectly fine." "Thanks." She checks the others and changes a few things on Shock and Rain. "You guys are perfect, much better than the girls, but that doesn't matter." She flaps upwards and calls to us, "come on, let's actually practice the turns." She leads us towards a bunch of hoops and motions for us to fly too. I zip through the first few with ease. But after the fifth I gets harder and harder to turn in between and upwards at the same time. I somehow manage to complete it with no issues, the others however, may be sore for a bit. "Well done all of you," claps Dark-sky, "I'll show the other areas now." We fly low across the ice, in between vines, zipping through rock spires, dodging crystals, hopping across trees, and diving in tubes underwater. We splash out of one of the lake tubes just as the bell rings. We all wave goodbye as we fly up, grab our bags, and zip down the hall to Lightning practice. Yet again no other students were there. "Is this all today?" Says an aquatic coloured dragon from behind a closet. "Yeah I guess so." I answer. ""Some students just don't care about there education, one of these their going to hurt someone from little practice. I'm Typhoon by the way." "Um, hi Typhoon. I'm Snowstorm," I say, then I point at the others, "that's Spark, Rain, and Squall." "Ah yes, Snowstorm, I'm close with your parents." "Oh you know Mist and Cloud, how come I've never seen you around before?" "Let's not worry about that. So here you'll learn how to properly aim your lightning. I'll demonstrate." We see a glow come from the back of her throat. She releases it and hits a target. "Now not all of you will hit the target, but that's why you're here. To learn how to aim it. Who would like to go first?" Squall and Rain walk up first and prepare their shot. They release and hit the targets 4 rings in. "Nice job." Typhoon claps. Shock and I step up as the other two come down. We prepare our charges. Mine feels a little cold in my throat, is that supposed to happen. As the pressure builds up we release. All I can see is a blinding white-blue light. All of a sudden I get blasted against the back wall, I then feel the walls shake.