Chapter Three:

    Scales: What's up?
    Me: Not much. I just snapped the tray off of my optical drive.
    Scales: lol, how did you do that?
    Me: I stretched and my wing hit it. I was not paying attention.

    Oops. Somehow it just slipped out, I always said that I need to read, then hit enter. This is a prime example. I tried to remove it, but we were using Yahoo, not Skype.

    Scales: Did you say wing?
    Scales: You didn't have wings last time I checked.
    Me: No.
    Scales: yes you did.
    Me: Was an accident.
    Scales: Sure it was...
    Me: so what's up with you?
    Scales: Nothing, other then wondering how you said wing when you must have meant arm.
    Me: Same.

    Trying to change the subject, I uploaded some of my pictures to show him.

    Me: <URL>
    Me: Look at this picture I took today.
    Scales: You and your links...
    Scales: how the hell did you get that shot??
    Me: what? It's just another picture of my lasers...

    Then I clicked the link myself. Oh, shit.

    Me: I was with a friend in his airplane.
    Scales: Look at the reflection in the window.

    Perfect. I could see myself in the window. Now what? He must know for sure now.

    Me: ...
    Scales: Explain.

    Odd, he was not freaking out or shouting 'PHOTOSHOPPED!' I wondered why. I heard a different sound, incoming Skype call. It was Scales, I answered.

    "Hey" I said.

    "Your voice sounds lower." He said flatly.

    "I suppose it does." I said, trying to sound like I did before, and failing.

    "So, how did you get that picture, and how did you break your CD drive?" He said, and continued. "Though I think I already know."

    "Err, well..." I stuttered.

    "Find any odd stones lately?" He asked. But How? How could he possibly know about that?

    "Maaaaybe." I said, that was how I always answered that kind of question.

    "Come on, spill it." He said, I could swear he was grinning.

    "Yes, what about it?" I said.

    "And then it crumbled in your hand, with adverse effects?"

    "Kinda..." I said. "It had a violent encounter with my lawnmower."

    "And now you're a dragon of some sort?"

    "Yeah, but how the hell do you know anything about it?" I asked, for some reason I was feeling angry.

    "Not telling."

    I wonder... No, it can't be.

    "What happened a few months ago when you changed your nick from 'rubiks cube' or whatever it was?" I asked.

    "Nothing..." He said.

    "Sure..." I said. "Come on, How do you know about the rock?"

    "Ok, I found one too."

    "So you're a dragon too?" I asked, I could not believe it. Well, if it happend to me, I suppose it could happen to anyone. But what were the chances of this? It made me wonder how many more dragons there could be in the world. I was not as alone as I thought.
    
    "Well, not exactly a dragon-- Well a kind of dragon, just not the normal kind."

    "This is insane." I said. "No way. What are the chances of us BOTH changing. Or either of us changing for that matter."

    "Pretty good, apparently." He said. "So, when did it happen?"

    "Yesterday." I said.

    We talked for a few hours about how when and where it happened to both of us, then about how we lived our lives apart from most of humanity. I could tell he was glad to have someone besides his immediate family to share his unique problems with, and so was I.

    We were interrupted by my stomach growling, loud enough for him to hear. This informed me that it was far past lunch time. Indeed, it was nearing 4PM.

    "Well, I have to go eat something." I said. "Or someone..."

    "I can tell." He said, "Later. And don't eat anyone! That causes problems..."

    "Indeed." I said. "Not that you know anything about that... Right?

    "Of course not."

    "Good." I said, and laughed.

I started walking upstairs, but not before once again hitting my head on the duct above my head.
    
    "Dammit!" I shouted. I heard some laughter from upstairs. "Shut up!"

    I went upstairs and started walking to the kitchen, on the way there I stopped by the bathroom and weighed myself. I was quite surprised to see that I weighed much more then I did before I became a dragon, more then could be explained by what I had eaten since then(unless I had devoured the entire contents of the freezer in my sleep...)

    I could not think of where the extra mass could have come from. It had to have come from somewhere, it's not possible for matter to come from nothing. It's also not possible for people to turn into dragons. I was extremely curious about this. My whole body was larger then it had been before my change, this extra material had to have come from somewhere. I could not think about that now, I was hungry.

    I got in the kitchen and started looking for food, after I found something and started eating the rest of the family came to join me, this was odd. They never ate at the same time as me when I ate at odd times like this. I figured they were curious about my change, and I was right.

    "So, what's it like?" Mom asked. My little brother and sister were just staring at me.

    "I don't know." I said. "It feels kind of normal now I suppose. Though I'm not completely used to me size and the way I move. I keep hitting my head more then usual downstairs, I think I'm going to move my computer and stuff into the new part."

    "But I thought dragons liked living in caves!" Mom said.

    The new part is the other half of the basement, added after the house was built, it had a full eight foot high ceiling because the floor was lower. The "Old part" only has a 6 foot 6 inch ceiling, and the ducts for heating the house were another foot lower. All this made it look much like a cave if you were looking in from the new part, or even from the stairs. The poor lighting and cement block walls didn't help this image much.

    "Yeah, but only if they can fit in them." I replied. "Though, I did always like it. Not sure why."

    "Well, I'm just glad you're still you. Whatever you look like."

    "Thanks. I'm glad I'm still here. When it happened I almost panicked. I thought about just running away from everything, I feared that I would not be recognized as myself, it was not pleasant."

    "I'm sure not." Mom said. "I don't know how I would have reacted to that."

    "I doubt anyone would unless it happened to them."

    "Can you breath fire?" My younger brother said.

    "Yes." I replied

    "Sweet!" He answered.

    "Indeed." I said. "Works great for fireworks."

I talked with them for a long while longer after dad got home at about 5pm, mostly about my change, but also about other more mundane things. It occurred to me that we had not just talked to each other for some time.

    After that I spent the rest of the day searching the internet for any info on dragon like myself. If it happened to me and Eric there had to be more. I found some posts on message boards about bigfoot and other "monsters" about dragon sightings. There were even some stereotypical blurred images. I wondered how every person who seen a dragon or something else could not use a camera. Either that or they were blurry cell phone images.

    But from what I could see, there were other dragons out there. But the odd thing was that the sightings were most often in deep wilderness. Not that were were many sightings, and it seemed that most of the forum members thought they were faked. But when I thought about I figured they must be dragons who panicked and fled to the wild after they changed. Poor things, they must be terrified. Lost, all alone, and with only instinct to guide them on how to survive. I decided I wanted to help them if I could, though I had no idea how to go about doing it at the time. I didn't ever know if all of them still thought like a human. I didn't know what would happen if that dragon mind I experienced took over. So many things I didn't know.

    As I continued to searching, I found a website dedicated only to dragon sightings. there were some slightly better images, but only slightly. They were blurred, or the dragon was a long way off. I supposed that if a dragon didn't want to be seen it could hide rather well. A dragon can hear you coming a long way away, and they can move quite fast. If you even saw one it could be long gone and hiding by the time you got a camera ready.
  
    Of course, most reports of dragon sightings were text only. There were many wild and varied theories about where the dragons came from, and of course some people were only on the forums to try and disprove every sighting. Most who believed that the sighting were real thought that the dragons were simply very rare and shy animals. Others thought otherwise, but of course had no proof. I supposed anyone who actually met a dragon would not go bragging about it. At least not to these people, who seemed to be mostly conspiracy nuts and slightly insane. Sane people don't talk about seeing dragons or UFOs for fear of being thought insane.

    'I could probably do all kinds of fun things before anyone took the reports of me seriously.' I thought, and got some interesting and probably bad ideas. Just for fun, I joined the dragon sighting forum. I posted my own theory about where the dragons came from. Well, it wasn't a theory, I knew the truth of course. I even took a picture of my face to use as my avatar. It was small enough that it could be mistaken for a screen capture of a movie or something. I couldn't wait to see the responses. I figured they would just call me crazy.

    MY INTERNET connection started to act up, and I could not get it to start working again from my computer. I tried resetting the router, but nothing worked. I looked like I would have go to the garage and check the antenna. Out internet is wireless, but we can't get the signal from the house, so we needed to put the antenna on the garage, and then use a WiFi router to beam it 300 feet to the house, where another WiFi router acts as a bridge to connect all of our computers. But every so often, the equipment in the garage simply stops working, and needs to be unplugged and plugged back in to make it work again.

    I looked at the clock and seen that it was just about midnight and thought about just going to bed and fixing it in the morning. Time sure does fly when browsing the web. But I decided to go and fix it right away. I went outside via the basement door, as we have a walkout basement, and seen all my pyrotechnic supplies. Then I remembered that my friend was coming over the next day. I decided to think about that later.

    I like taking walks in the middle of the night, there is something nice about the almost dead silence, and still air. As well as the light. The moon was full and I could see everything in the bright moonlight. My being a dragon allowed me to see much more detail then usual, but the view was much the same as other nights. What was odd is that I heard something in the garage, and seen some light from the window. I was scared for a second, Dad was always afraid that someone was going to steal his tools, and I didn't have any weapons to threaten a bugler with. Then I remembered that I was a dragon.

    Well, that was a nice facepalm moment. I looked though the window in the front door, they didn't see me. I noticed the east door was open, I didn't have a clear view of that door but I could see some moonlight coming from that side, and there are shades on the windows on that side. That meant the door was open. I quietly ran on all fours about the garage and silently crawled though the open door with with a broken window. I stalked closer to the two young buglers like a big cat closing in on its prey, carefully getting close enough to pounce. I found the reason the internet connection had stopped working, one of my unwelcome visitors was carrying the WiFi router.

    Someone had left an aluminum can on the floor, and I stepped on it. Crunch. They heard me. Time seemed to slow, one of the men drew a pistol. I leaped toward him, I seen and heard the gun go off, but I didn't feel anything. I landed on him, pinning him to the floor and knocking the weapon a long way away from him..  His eyes were wide, as if seeing he just seen the most scary thing in the world. Well, I suppose I was, from his point of view. Getting mauled by a dragon would be much worse then getting mauled by a dog while breaking into someone's house. The other man screamed MONSTER!" and I turned and swiped my hand across his arm. My claws effortlessly ripped though his shirt and skin and left several bleeding lines. He would probably need stitches, and I wondered for a moment how he was going to explain how he got his injury to the doctor. The man fell on floor in terror.

    The other man was still laying where I left him, but trying to inch away and get his pistol back. I turned and looked at him and he stopped and said "Please! Don't kill me!"

    "Why shouldn't I?" I growled "It's not wise to steal a dragon's property. Very few have ever done it and lived..."

    "It can talk!" The other guy gasped.

    I stood up to my full height, far above them with the window behind me so they could only see my outline, and said: "Yes, I can. And you two had better start running if you want be able to talk in the morning."

    They got up rather quickly and ran for the door. "And if I EVER see you here again uninvited, I won't bother talking!" I yelled after them, I was extremely angry. I'm still amazed that I did not kill them. The dragon part of me would have killed them instantly, no one steals from a dragon and lives. I chased them all the way off of my land, and then some. They would never forget that night, that's for sure. I had no trouble keeping up with them, and at first I gave them a head start. But when they slowed down about 100feet from the garage, heading toward the road I flew up and landed about two feet behind them, growling. They ran as fast as humanly possible away. However, as fast as humanly possible is not anywhere near as fast as a dragon.

    I was amazed at how fast I could run when on all fours. Keeping up with the two terrified burglars was no trouble, especially when they kept tripping. They finally got to their car, which was parked down the road a little way and tried to get in it before I got to them. They were exhausted after running nearly 700feet, and were not moving very fast. I slowed down and let them get into the car, I was not quite so angry anymore, these were just young people who made a very stupid decision that could have cost them their life. I was pretty sure sure they would not make it twice. But just to make sure I breathed quite a lot of fire at them from midair as they drove away, as fast as they could of course. I could hear terrified yelling from inside the car.

    I followed for a while, but I could not keep up. They were going as fast as their car would allow. I didn't think I could go faster then 60mph, not unless I was diving. If flying was not faster then driving, it was more fun and certainly cheaper. I turned back to the garage.

    It didn't take long to get back, as I didn't really go far. Landing was no trouble in the bright moonlight. I turned the lights on and looked around, there were lots of things out of place. I picked up the router from where it was dropped and set it up in the window where it belonged. I picked up the bag the thieves had dropped and looked inside, it was full of the more expensive tools, I put them away. While I was doing this I noticed that my arm ached, like there was a huge bruise on it.

    I looked at it and was surprised to see some missing scales. I guess that guy was a better shot then I thought. And my scales a lot stronger then I thought. The damage was light, only a bruise and a couple missing scales. Amazing. The toughest natural armor I had ever heard of, no wonder dragon scale is said to be the best armor in fantasy stories and fairy tales. Maybe those have some truth in them after all.

    I walked back to the house after taping the broken door shut and went to bed. I managed to fit myself on my bed this time, though it was a little small, and I could not stretch out. So I ended up just using the floor again.

    I woke up thinking it was all a dream again, but this faded quickly, and before I could hit my head again. I looked at my arm and noticed the scales were already growing back. It also didn't ache at all anymore. Wow, not only was I tough as nails -or maybe Kevlar, I also healed extremely fast. Was there any end to the wonders? Then I remembered to to check that forum I found.

    As I expected, no one believed it. They called me a troll, and some said I was just crazy and stupid. All expected the thread to be locked soon. I replied saying that I know it's true and asked what they would accept as proof. I went to other sites and read about various things, from lasers to high voltage stuff like tesla coils to random novels about dragons people post online at various places.

    I was interrupted by an incoming call on google talk from my friend Nate. I suddenly remembered that he was suppose to be coming over that day. I looked the the time on the task bar, it was just after noon. Looks like I was sleeping late again. He was supposed to be coming at one 'O clock. I answered the call.

Chapter Four:

    "Hey! what's up? Are we still blowing things up today?" He said.

    "I don't know if it will work out..." I said. "Something came up."

    "Really? What?" He asked. "And why do you sound different?"

    "I kinda had an accident the other day..." I said. "I hit something amazing with the lawnmower that changed my life forever. I'll never be the same again."

    "What do you mean? Are you OK?" He asked. "Hmm, looks my list of things for haven't hit with the lawnmower just got even smaller"

    "Well, I guess I'm OK." I said "But you may not recognize me."

    "What do you mean?" He asked again.

    "You'll see when you get here." I said. "You're coming in about an hour right? Don't forget the scale and the Potassium Perchlorate! And maybe your computer if you want to play some games." I decided I might as well show myself to him, It's good to have friends, and I doubted he would care what I was. Hell, I was almost sure he would think it was cool.

    Nate was much younger then me, by almost four years. But he was smarter then most people I know my age, and had more common sense, as well as similar interests. That is, lasers, things that go boom, fire, computers, and a little electronics. We planned to make flash powder salutes(otherwise known as M80s) that day, he ordered the Potassium Perchlorate, and I  ordered the Aluminum Powder. Can't order both from the same place, or they will cancel your order. We avoided that problem by ordering the chemicals separately.

    "Ok... See you later I guess" He said.

    "Yep, and bring some snacks!"

    "K, see you in a bit." And he disconnected.

    I wondered what I was going to do. But I didn't think about it long because dad called from work, also on Google talk.

    "Yes?" I asked.

    "Check your email." He said. "Seems Mike's camera trap got some interesting shots of some previously unknown animal..."

    I checked my email and found a message from dad, with the images in question. Mike was an old friend of dad's and dad had given him permission to hunt deer on our land. I had completely forgotten about that camera trap he set up back there. It was right near the area where I had changed. He must have stopped by to check it. I looked at the images. The first was me going by in one direction on the lawnmower, the second was me going by in the other direction. The third was of a dragon, and so was the fourth, the dragon had some of the clothes I had been wearing in the first two pictures on it. And it was clearly visible that the lawn mowing was not completed.

    "He asked me if you were OK" Dad said, laughing a little. "I told him that you were. He doesn't believe me."

    "I can imagine that." I said. "Are you going to tell him what really happened? Though, that's harder to believe then me getting eaten by a dragon."

    "You might as well tell him the truth though. That's probably better then him thinking there is a wild dragon out there hunting people. Here, I'll send you a picture in case he doesn't believe it."

    "Ok."

    I put my camera on the tripod and took a picture of myself sitting at my computer, then uploaded it to my public FTP server and sent a link to dad.

    "Man, I still have trouble believing that's you." He said.

    "Me too." I said. "It's quite amazing."

    "Oh, what happened to the east door on the garage?" Dad asked.

    "Oh, not much, I just gave some burglars the fright of their lives last night." I said, and proceeded to tell him the whole story.

    "Well, I've got a trouble, talk to you later." Dad said, and disconnected. I looked at the clock, it was almost time for Nate to get here. I was still slightly nervous, but there was nothing I could do now.
    
    I heard a sound form the other room, the door of our walkout basement opening, Nate must be here I thought. He always uses that door. I just sat at my computer like normal as he walked right into the same room as me.

    "Hey! what were you talking abou-..." He was saying, but stopped when he saw me.

    "This." I said, pointing at myself. I was again only wearing shorts, so he could see plenty of scale with no obstructions.

    "Wha? How?" He stammered. And looked like he might want to run.

    "Yes, it's me, Jacob." I said, but he still stared. "C'mon Nate, snap out of it!"

    "Holy S! Uh, yeah. Is that really you?" He asked.

    "Yes." I said. "Like I said, my life is changed forever, as is the way I look."

    "But... how could that happen from hitting something with a lawnmower?"

    "I have no clue whatsoever." I said. "All I know is that it happened." I then told him the whole story of my drastic change.

    "Heh, I thought you meant that you permanently injured yourself when you told me before."

    "Well, I don't think it's a disability..." I said, laughing a little. I opened my wings and said with joy: "I can fly now!"

    "Really?" He asked. "That's great!"

    "You have no idea." I said. "There is nothing like it. Nothing. Nothing I've ever heard of anyway. Well maybe drugs, but I've not tried any yet, so I can't say for sure."

    "So, now that you're a dragon, can you breath fire?" He asked, and soon regretted asking as a larger than intended fireball went over his head and hit the cement block wall behind him. I smelled burned hair.

    "Oops." I said. He had ducked to the floor. I looked behind him to make sure nothing had caught fire.

    "Sorry about that... you OK?" I asked, and helped him up. Luckily only a little bit of hair was burned and nothing more."

    "Yeah, but I can never trust you with flammable materials... You did the same thing last month with a can of butane!"

    I started laughing, and so did he. "I'll try and avoid doing that again. I'm just so exited."

    "About what?" He asked.

    "Everything." I said. "Everything is different, yet nothing has changed but me. That, and we're about to make firecrackers that are hundreds of times more powerful then anything you can legally buy. Big enough to be classified as 'Illegal explosive devices.' "

    "Yes!" He said. "So let's get started then."

    "Sure, one second, and make sure you're not smoldering!" I said. "Flash powder is VERY sensitive to sparks!"

    "Ok, and don't you dare sneeze while we're working!" He said.

    "Indeed." I said. Flash powder, even if it's unconfined can sometimes explode rather then simply burn fast. At the very least it will go 'poof' and remove any hair on your face.

    We went in the small garage attached to our basement, I normally call it the 'basement garage' and started working. Nate got his new pocked sized scale out and I measured out 3 grams of the 'Dark Pyro Indian Blackhead Aluminum Powder' on a scrap of paper and 7 grams of Potassium Perchlorate on another. I poured both onto a large sheet of paper and picked it up by the edges. I lifted one side, then the other, so the two powders rolled into eachother. I kept doing this until they were well mixed.

    It's mixed like that because it's very sensitive to friction, shock, static electricity, flame and spark. This prevents it from being safely mixed any other way.

    "Sweet!" Nate said, as he poured about half of the dark gray powder into a thick walled cardboard tube, and the rest into another.

    "Indeed." I said. "I can't wait." and then to glued caps on the tubes, I had already drilled holes in the tubes and added fuses a few days before.

    "I thought you said M80s had three grams of powder, not five..." Nate said.

    "I did, I suppose these are bigger tubes." I said. "And they're barely half full. But it's good to leave some space for the gasses to expand before the tube ruptures."

    The tubes were about one inch long and 3/4 inches wide, so not very big, but still far larger then any firecracker.

    "Man... FIVE grams... and you said blackcats only have 50 milligrams?" Nate asked.

    "Yup!" I said. "Place on ground, light fuse, run away. Don't hold it in your hand when you light it." I said. These could easily remove most of a human hand. Not toys. Well they were toys, just not safe ones.

    I had some 'D' size model rocket engines, and I had previously glued them to three foot long wooden dowels, like skyrockets. I then glued one of the flash powder filled tubes to the top of it, and taped the fuse to the one going into the rocket engine. Real skyrockets have the payload fused to the end of the rocket so it can't go off until the rocket has already burned, but I didn't have a good way to do that. So if the rocket didn't light, it would explode on the ground.

    We took it out side to an open area and put the stick into a pipe that was planted in a stack of cinder blocks. Nate lit the fuse, and we ran a safe distance away. I watched the fuse burn, I seen a small poof of smoke as the fuse got the the bottom of the rocket engine, and I thought the rocket failed to ignite.

    "The rocket didn't light!" I shouted, only to be interrupted by the loud hissing sound of it lighting and removing itself from the ground at incredible speed. "Or maybe it did.."

    I watch it fly at amazing speed up and away. Less then two seconds passed, and the rocket had finished burning and so I could no longer see it. I waited for the boom. 3 seconds... nothing.

    "You forgot to attach the fuse!" Nate shouted. I saw a small flash of light and a puff of smoke high up, followed shortly by a resounding BOOM. The echo lasted for more then ten seconds.

    "HOLY CRAP!" Nate shouted.

    "That was amazing!" I said. It was one of the loudest fireworks I had ever heard. Probably because it was a lot closer then most.

    "Lets light the other one!" I said. "Give it here."  He tossed it to me, I set it on the ground. backed up a little and breathed fire at it. The fuse lit. In the middle. I jumped away as far as I could, Nate was already pretty far away. Two seconds later there was another extremely loud boom and my ears were ringing.

    Of course, I was plenty far, right next to Nate in fact.

    "My ears are ringing." I said.

    "Mine too!" Nate said.

    We ran to the spot it exploded at. All the grass 3 inches around was gone.

    Nate and I made about 20 more craters in my yard before we started to get bored. Well I wasn't bored... I could makes things explode for days. I had an idea, an idea that was probably dangerous...

    "I wonder..." I said. "I wonder I could carry you in the air."

    "I don't know..." he said. I didn't know either.

    "Better not try it. Not yet anyway." I said. "I'm not the best at landing just yet, though I've almost got it perfect."
    
    "Hey, we used all 6 rockets, and we've got a couple m80s left, I wonder..." Nate said. "What would happen if you lit them and dropped them from the sky?"

    "Oh, that's a great idea." I said. "They will fall until the fuse burns out I expect. Then they will explode. Duh."

    "Ha ha." He said, and handed me two of the red cardboard tubes with red fuses sticking out of the sides. I took one in each hand.
    
    "Look out, I'm taking off." I said, and kneeled a little before leaping into the air. Taking flight was still amazing to me. First the explosive leap into the air, then flapping my wings as hard as possible several times to get clear of the ground. Then I could flap less often and with less effort. I started climbing and circling. I could here Nate's amazed words, but could not really tell what he was saying.

    I climbed high enough that everything in my yard looked like a toy, backwinged to stop in midair momentarily and breathed fire at the fuse of the red device in my hand. I dropped it as soon as it lit. This happened in about one second, and I resumed flying, while watching the device fall. I realized the fuse was long enough that it would likely hit the ground before it exploded. I watched it fall for about four seconds untill I lost sight of it. Two seconds later I seen a small white flash near the ground quickly followed by a loud boom, then Nate shouting something. He sounded surprised. Still flying circles, I got the second one ready and and lit it in the same way, only I did not drop it right away. I waited till the fuse burned down to an inch of so then dropped it. This one blew up about a hundred feet away from and below me.

    I started flying back to the ground. When I got close, about 100 feet away, Nate said "Watch were you're dropping those things!" and laughed a little. I came down the rest of the way and landed in front of him, sending much wind in his face. My landings were getting much better, I didn't even lose my balance this time.

    "So, how low was that first one?" I asked. "I kinda let it drop too soon."

    "No crap, it seemed like it was only a few feet above me!" Nate said, "Now my ears are ringing again. The second one was cool though. You flying is amazing, I've never seen anything like it."

    "It is amazing. That's for sure." I said. "If only I was a little bigger so I could easily share the joy of flight. But I suppose I can't have everything my way. And I don't know how much weight I can lift into the air."

    "So how did you change? I don't think you told me." He asked. "You said something about hitting something with the lawnmower."

    "Indeed, I could show you where it happened, but it's on the other side of the creek, unless you want to walk all the way to the bridge on the road." I said.  "Oh screw that... " And I just picked Nate up with little effort, and held him horizontally and jumped into the air once again. Nate of course was rather surprised and made more then a little noise.

    "What the hell!" He shouted.

    "Relax, we're almost there." I replied. It had been a lot harder to get off the ground with the extra weight. And even now I had to flap harder and more often then normal. But it was not far to go, I just needed to get across the creek and the marsh on the other side of it. It was not very far to fly, less then 700 feet I think. Can't walk though it because it's marsh or water the whole way. Well you CAN walk though it, but not without getting very wet and muddy.

    I started coming down to land, and Nate started freaking out again. I never got very high in the air, but it was plenty high enough to cause serious injury if you fell. I flew in low over the pond and started slowing my descent. I managed to land softly with some difficulty, and rolled away from me and stood up.

    "Don't do that! You scared the crap out of me!" He said.

    "I know." I said. "Relax, you're in one piece, and you got here much faster." I walked over to the lawnmower, and noticed that there was hardly any of that odd dust on it now. It had been covered with it before.

    "What's this?" Nate asked. He was pointing to an out of place spot of dead grass.

    "That's right about where I changed..." I said. "See, I hit this very odd rock with the mower, dust went everywhere, some of it landed on me of course. I don't know what it is, or where it came from. Everything started hurting like hell, I even passed out. When I woke up I was like this." I said. I was now looking at the place he pointed out to me. It was the place where I had transformed, the grass was not only dead, but shorter and thinner then the rest in the area. The ground was partially bare. I now thought I knew where the little bit of extra weight came from, it was as if I absorbed the organic materiel from the ground during the change.

    "That's where I changed." I said. "I wish I knew how this worked, because I have not the slightest idea."

    "Same here." He said. "This is impossible."

    "Yeah... I keep thinking that too. Doesn't change the fact that there's a dragon standing in front of you though."

    "Haha. Yeah. But I keep thinking I'm dreaming..." Nate said.

    "Me too. Maybe I am... but dreams don't normally last several days." I said. "And maybe I don't want it to be a dream. I just love being able to fly."

    "Yeah. Just warn me more before you do that. You scared the crap out of me." Nate said.

    "I know."

    "So now what?"

    "I don't know." I said. "Wanna drive the lawn mower back home? I can't really do it. Someone  would certainly see me on the road. That might cause rather annoying questions, and I don't really like those."

    "Ok" he said.

    "On the other hand, anyone seeing me drive it might think I'm just an idiot in a costume." I said.

    "Ha, maybe." Nate said.

    Nate ended up driving the lawn mower, the only way to drive it back to the house is to drive out on the often busy highway and across the bridge, then back onto the other part of my yard. There are only I handful of times that I've gotten across it without several cars driving by in the process. Nate started the mower and tested all the controls before moving it, then started driving to the road. I followed to the edge of the trees and watched until he was on the way back into my yard on the other side of the bridge.

    I flew back the way I came, which was almost directly away from the road, and landed near the garage, where Nate was just getting off of the mower.

    "Haha, you're right that thing IS fun to drive." Nate said.

    "I know that. You didn't hit anything did you? Because that's my job. It might also be lots of fun. Well unless something breaks. Or unless the thing you hit throws itself at a window in revenge..." I said. "That's annoying. And I didn't even SEE that tiny rock. Well, it only went though one pane of glass that time. So there was still a window."

    "You need to stop breaking windows. Just a few months ago you broke that one in the basement with your blowgun!" Nate said. "Still can't believe you thought you could hit that two inch wide piece of wood..."

    "I did it twice before..." I said, remembering how I had to buy the replacement window. Well, I gave dad the money for a replacement, but the window is still broken, though only one pane. "I guess the third time's the charm."
   
    "Well, what should we do now?" Nate asked.

    "I don't know. Want to play Unreal?" I asked.

    "Sure."

    We walked back to the house and found something to eat, then we went went into the basement and Nate set his computer up. We played a few games, Nate kept winning at first because I still was not used to using the keyboard with my changed hands. But I started winning again after some practice. We played for maybe an hour before I got a phone call from nate's mom saying she was on the way over to pick him up, and that he should start packing.

    Nate packed up his rather large amount of stuff, and then we watched videos on youtube until his mom got there.

    "Nate! your ride is here!" I heard my mom shout down the stairs. Nate ran upstairs, carrying  his stuff, I followed him up. He went right out the door and met his brother before he got inside, and they left. Saving him from meeting me and my new form. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

Chapter 5:

    It was getting dark now, and I was tired. I went inside and talked to dad a while, as he had gotten home while me and Nate were playing. After that I got ready for bed and went down stairs.

    I got on my computer again and checked my email, I found that I had another reply on that forum. They said 'pics or it didn't happen.' Well, if they want pics, they've got pics. I told them I knew where the dragons came from because I had become one. I posted the same picture of me at my computer that I gave dad.

    Then I got a message from Scales.

    Scales: what's up?
    Me: Not much, messing with some people online.
    Scales: Who?
    Me: [Link] -I started that thread.
    Scales: *reads*
    Scales: you sure that's a good idea?
    Me: No..
    Scales: Then why are you doing it? What if they found out where you live?
    Me: I did it for teh lolz.
    Me: They won't. I hope. Shit. An admin might be able to figure out what state I'm in from my IP address.
    Scales: I would not be too worried, what are they going to do?
    Me: Indeed, I think I'm bullet proof.
    Scales: how do you know that?
    Me: Someone broke into my house last night, they shot at me just before they ran for their lives. It was kinda fun chasing them, there was no doubt in their minds that I was going to kill them. I found a bruise on my arm later, It could only have come from the gun.
    Scales: That's great, but be careful. I would rather dragons stayed under the radar for now.
    Me: So would I, but I doubt it will be possible forever. It might even be better if everyone knows about us, but we have no idea how they will react.
    Scales: that's true, it might be better if dragons are known, but not yet I think.
    Me: indeed.
    Me: I've been having lots of fun in this new form though, flying is amazing.
    Scales: Tell me about it. Do be careful though.
    Me: You already know how careful I am, what with that picture I accidentally linked you.
    Scales: lol yeah.
    Scales: well I have to go do something, ttyl.
    Me: Later then.

    I tried to lay on my bed again, but again It was not comfortable. I went and got some padded mats we had and set them on the floor near by bed, these were more comfortable then the bare floor. I ended up curling up like a cat again. I was sleeping rather quickly.

    I woke up in my bed, I was kinda surprised because I thought I went to sleep on the floor. I got up and was again surprised when I stood up straight and didn't hit my head. I tried to stretch my wings and realized with a horrible shock that they were not there. 'Damn it, all just a dream!' I said out loud, I had come to like being a dragon. Should have known. Depressed, I started walking towards the stairs. I tripped over a dragon shaped toy that I didn't remember ever seeing before, I could not catch myself and just before my face was to contact the hard uncaring floor, I woke up.

    "Damned false awakenings." I said, on the mat where I went to bed. I hated false awakenings, where you dream that you woke up, they sometimes happen several times in one morning. I hoped that was not the case here, but I was pretty sure I was really awake, but just to be sure I did a few reality checks.