Dracozine - part 13

"Achilleos?" I exclaimed with disbelief, "Is that you?"

"Wings and all, Skyder." Achilleos replied with a smile on his beak.

"But how?" I asked.

"The guys at the DRC said they would let me check for draconic ancestry outside of regulation parameters, a reward for the overall success of the program. I tested for compatibility last night, and I was positive." His tail flicked in the air behind him,, "So, I used Dracozine this morning, and here I am."

"No kidding." Zilla remarked, "You're huge!"

Achilleos looked away and chuckled nervously, "Yeah... I guess I am a bit big. They couldn't even find any clothes that would fit me. So for now, I gotta walk around nude."

"Guess the scales come in handy." I said, stifling laughter.

Achilleos smirked "I tell you what, though, I really can't wait to try these out." He spread his huge wings open, blocking out the sun as he did. "But we're not allowed any more flight sessions, so I'll have to wait til after the media release."

"Awww..." Zilla groaned, "I wanted to try out that ball game from last night!"

"I told you then, Frosty, you should have come instead of staying here." Achilleos replied.

Zilla sighed, "I know I know. But I didn't wanna leave Jonah by himself."

"Is he still going to the meetings?" Achilleos asked, folding his wings, his face suddenly stern.

We were interrupted by a call from BlueScale, who came running from the Admin building with a smile on his muzzle.

"Hey guys,. just finished the psych eval!" he told us happily as he approached. "You guys had me so worried about that, and there was nothing to it! I only got zapped once!"

So he had been honest, and as a result passed the test. A relief;. "Good to know, Blue."
"So, me and RT were talking earlier on, and ..."

"wait wait wait wait....." I stoped BlueScale before he could continue. "RT?"

"oh... er,Rosethorn." BlueScale answered with a smile, "Anyways, thought we would have a movie night tonight, that is, if you could set up the laptop so we could watch a film."

"Sure, Blue, no problem. I going over to Zilla's for a bit, but I'll come back  and set it up later on, kay dude?"

"Sweet, thanks Sky. I'll see you then." BlueScale waved before he ran towards our apartment building.

"Well I got things to do. " Achilleos turned towards the admin, "See you dragons later." He quietly strode off, leaving me and Zilla standing there in the courtyard.



Zilla unlocked the door and held it open for me to come inside. His apartment was exactly the same as mine, except that the walls were dark blue instead of pale green. Zilla strolled over to the kitchen counter and opened the fridge. His tail bobbed up and down as he grabbed several items from inside. I sat down at the kitchen table while he hefted a huge pile of food over to the counter and proceeded to cook lunch.

We chatted while he cooked, reminiscing over the things we got up to in the chatrooms on dA, like the epic role-plays we would do. . Suddenly, one of the bedroom doors swung open and a dragon, a pale green dude with blond hair that seemed familiar, walked out. He entered the kitchen and saw me, and took a few steps back in shock.

"It's you!" he exclaimed angrily, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Skyder's a friend of mine, Jonah." Zilla told him as he continued to cook, "I'm doing lunch, do you want some?"

"No,I going to a group meeting-" Jonah replied, he pointed at me, his face showing both anger and disgust "-and at any rate, I wouldn't eat with him!".  He stormed out of the apartment, leaving me and Zilla both confused.

"What's wrong with him?" I asked Zilla as the door slammed.

"I don't know." Zilla replied, "He's been going to this group that's set up here in the complex, it's getting pretty creepy, and the stuff he talks about when he comes back from their meetings, like how 'we've ascended to a higher state of being' and how we should ' recognise ourselves as the dragon we always were '. I know we're dragon descendants, but these guys are taking it too far. I think Jonah's got himself mixed in with the wrong crowd, and a dangerous one too. As for why he doesn't like you..." he shrugged, "Your guess is as good as mine."

"I'm sure Achilleos will take care of it at some point." I said, "Won't be anything to worry about."

"Lunch is ready." Zilla winked as he turned back from the counter and put down a plate in front of me at the table. He had made a light rocket salad, some roasted French fries and a huge side of...

"Fish." I turned to Zilla with a raised eye-ridge "You cooked- fish."

"Yup" Zilla replied as he brought his plate of fish on the table, "Penelope could only get cod from the local mall. Still tastes good, though."

"Guess I'm lucky it's going in my mouth, and not upside my head." I smirked.

"Weeeeell..." Zilla looked to the side. His arm moved too fast for me to see it coming, there was a huge WHACK, and I was face first into my plate, with Zilla was reeling with laughter as he hefted the fish he had been hiding under the table. I lifted my head back up, with a piece of lettuce stuck in my nostril.

I sighed, rubbing my slimy jaw where the fish had hit me, before I grinned as well. "Spoke too soon."




I spent the whole afternoon at Zilla's,, sitting with him on his living room couch, chatting about nothing in particular, like how our friends on the deviantArt chat rooms would react after the media release. Eventually, the topic turned to how we would tell them we were dragons.

"Well, I was going to take some pics and post them up on my dA account." Zilla said, "Guess that would do the trick."

"Hmm... I wouldn't really call attention to it myself, I couldn't deal with the publicity." I explained, "But I would Skype call one or two of the guys from the chat room."

" 'couldn't deal with the publicity' ? You turned yourself into a dragon, Skyder! I think you're going to be famous, whether you can deal with it or not!"

"A dragon, Zilla, not a popstar."

"I'm just saying, you are going to have a lot of attention now that you're silver and scaly."

"But I don't want the attention, Zilla. I never did."

"So you're going to go into hiding right after the media release?"

"No, I just want to have a normal life, go to uni, hang out with mates. I know it's weird, wanting to be a dragon and wanting to be normal, but I don't... I don't want...."

"You don't want being a dragon to change who you are." Zilla finished.

I nodded, looking down sullenly.

"Don't worry, Sky, it won't. You just have to make adjustments is all." Zilla placed a hand on my shoulder.

Jonah entered the apartment, returning from his meeting, he hissed at me and glared at Zilla before he went to his room and slammed the door. Zilla sighed, and looked out of the window,  to see the sun was setting "Oh man, it's getting late, Sky, could I come over for the movie night?"

"Ok dude, no problem."

"Right, I'll just grab some things. Wait right here." He got off the couch and ran over to his bedroom door.

I was bored in Zilla's living room, waiting for Zilla to get ready. Looking at the clock, and seeing that it was already 6'o'clock, I groaned, and to my surprise I heard a click in my mouth. I blinked in wonder- but my mouth had barely been open? I smiled, time to experiment.

I opened my mouth a little, and groaned lightly- click.

I did it again, but this time compressed my chest and blew out lightly, the same way I had back in the lab a couple of days ago. A small gout of flame, very small, no bigger than a lit match, issued out and hung for a moment in the air before disappearing. Impressed with this new revelation, I opened my mouth a little wider hoping to get a larger flame...

WOOMPH!

Zilla came out of his room to see why the smoke alarm had gone off, as I fumbled with the ring pull of the fire extinguisher, while the curtains to his window were in flames.
"Skyder! What did you do?" he moaned, "The curtains!"

I managed to get the extinguisher working, aimed the nozzle at the fire and put it out with a jet of white mist "Heh heh.. oops." I said as I grinned sheepishly. "Sorry."

He glared at me, "Very cute, Sky." He shook his head with disbelief. "I'll sort this out later. C'mon, let's head to your place."



We left Zilla's apartment and walked over to mine. BlueScale and "RT" were sitting at the kitchen table, eagerly waiting on me to return.

"Sky, you took forever!" BlueScale said as I entered

"Well sor-ree." I replied dejectedly, "Did you try setting up the laptop yourself?"

"Actually I did."

"And?"

BlueScale pointed over to the TV, where there was a huge tangled web of my cables, "I couldn't figure it out."

I sighed as I walked over to the TV and tried to untangle the cables. I succeeded in getting the adapter cables for the hard drive and the laptop, as well as the HDMI cable to the TV and the plug in for the hard drive. Making sure everything was properly plugged in, I started everything up and rigged the TV to act as a secondary monitor for the Acer, then set up the list of movies on the laptop screen. "OK, laptop's set up, go ahead and pick a film."

BlueScale used the mousepad on the Acer to go through the movies on the hard drive, while Rosethorn, Zilla and I waited on the couch for him to pick a film.

"Come on Blue, hurry up." Zilla jeered.

"Evil Dead.... Final Fantasy... Highlander... oh man, Skyder, you need to get some better films!" he said as he swiped through. Suddenly he stopped, and turned back to me, dumbstruck "You... have How to Train Your Dragon?"

"Yeah..." I replied.

"Sweet!" he exclaimed happily, "Most awesome film ever!" He jumped up and ran to his room.
"What's he doing?" Zilla asked me.

"I don't know..." I answered, confused as he was.

BlueScale came back a few moments later, with a blue inflatable armchair, and what appeared to be...

"Blue, is that a Toothless plush doll?" I exclaimed out of disbelief.

"Shhh..." BlueScale said as he tapped the mousepad and started the film. "Movie..." he wriggled into his inflatable armchair, tail hanging over the side. cuddling his little Night Fury close to his chest.

I just rolled my eyes, and Zilla smirked as the Dreamworks logo came onto the TV, and the film began. There was a thump from Grym's room behind the couch.  Grym yanked the door open, "You guysss aren't watching..." he saw the TV, and that was enough for him. He grabbed a seat on the couch next to me, his eyes glued to the screen.

There was a knock at the door. I got up to answer it and found a grey dragon I hadn't seen before, holding a pillow. "I heard someone say "Toothless" in here. Are you watching How to Train Your Dragon, by any chance?"

"Yeah, we are." I replied.

"Could I watch too?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure."

A voice from down the hallway, out of view, shouted out. "Are they watching it?"

The grey dragon turned to the direction of the voice and called out "Yeah!"

What happened next I can barely begin to describe. Within a space of a few minutes, most of the dragons  in the building had swarmed into our living room and clustered around the TV. There were loads of them, all with pillows and bean bags and snacks, eagerly watching Hiccup and Toothless on the TV. The couch was gone, the floor was packed, even the chairs from the kitchen had been taken.

"Nothing like a good film to bring a crowd, I guess." I said, and found the last available spot on the floor to watch the movie.




It was a great night, it seemed that everyone loved this film, which I guess was easy to understand, considering they were dragons themselves now. Eventually, it got to where Toothless, Hiccup and Astrid were serenely gliding through the sky.

"That's just what it felt like last night!" BlueScale exclaimed happily as he leant back in his inflatable chair. However, he leant back too far, and one of his horns pierced the rubber. There was a BANG!, and BlueScale found himself on the floor, a confused expression on his muzzle, with shreds of blue rubber scattered around him and his Toothless plushy on top of his head.

The room went quiet for a bit, then everyone erupted into gales of laughter.

Sitting there, watching the film, an idea crept into my mind. I smiled as I looked around the room, at all these dragons, curled up on the floor, talking quietly, enjoying the movie, having a good time.

The voice, now familiar to me, spoke again in my mind. It's tone now warmer, soothing "Understand."

I knew what it meant. I understood now: This was what it meant to be a dragon. I smiled slightly as I returned to watching the film. It wasn't the wings, or the scales, or the tail that defined us dragons as what we were.

It was the freedom.



Eventually, the movie finished, and everyone left, thanking us for letting them watch the film. Zilla went back to his apartment, and Rosethorn and BlueScale went to BlueScale's room, leaving me and Grym to tidy up the bombsite that had been our living room.

"Man, thessse guysss left a messss!" Grym said as he picked pieces of popcorn and blue rubber off the carpet.

"No kidding." I replied as I scraped junk off of the couch, then I remembered: "Oh Grym, by the way, I ran into Achilleos earlier on today..."

"He'sss a dragon now, isssn't he?"

I dropped the rubbish I had been holding in shock, "How did you know?"

Grym shook his head and sighed, "Ssskyder, before I wasss a dragon, I wasss an Otherkin, and for a long time too." He used his claw to pick a melted M&M out of the carpet before continuing, "One of the thingsss that happensss asss a resssult iss that I got to looking around the people around me, and wasss able to pick up cluesss into their behaviour, to sssee if they were Otherkin too.  Fact isss, after 10 yearsss of being the only Otherkin, I really wanted to find othersss."

"Did it work?" I asked.

"In a way. I wasss able to detect three Otherkin at the ssecondary ssschool I went to, and another four at work, but never had the gutsss to asssk. My ssusspicionsss were confirmed later on, when they admitted to it."

"So you're saying Achilleos is an Otherkin?" I picked up the rubbish I had been holding.
"Yesss.  When he wasss eating breakfassst yesssterday, I noticed when he usssed the fork, he wass holding it weird, with hisss hand instead of hiss fingersss." He smirked, holding a used straw up to demonstrate "The sssame way you would hold it if your fingersss were claws. That, along with some of the undertonesss to the thingsss he ssays; the way he remainsss professional when he sspeaksss, in order to hide what he'sss really thinking, and the fact that he'sss here in the firssst place."  

He grabbed his pile of rubbish and walked over to the kitchen to put it in the bin.  "I'm telling you, Sssky, if Achilleosss isssn't an Otherkin, I'll eat my guitar."

He slapped his palms together to get the dust and walked away back to his room, leaving me there in a quiet state of surprise.  I put the rubbish into the bin and walked shut down the Acer before I went off to bed. Lying under the covers, waiting for sleep, I realised how little I knew about Achilleos. I had only met him a few days ago, and I hadn't put much thought into who he actually was, but this kind of insight, ludicrous at it may have seemed... it actually made sense.