I felt a prickling feeling on my face. I tried to move my hand to brush it away, but I couldn't. I felt tension when I tried to move my arm, what was going on? I opened my eyes, but only to see what I saw before. Nothing. I couldn't see anything, it was pitch black. What the hell...where was I? I remember being at home, that was it...then I needed to go out for something. Reeds, I needed saxophone reeds. But I didn't have the car, so I took dad's Ferrari. Then it was stolen, I needed to find it! Wait...it was at that warehouse, with that Dodge. Stephan and I snuck into it...but I started to feel sleepy. Everything was in a white mist, I couldn't see. I must've fallen asleep, right there in the car. What was going on?

    I paused my thoughts for a second, I thought I heard something. I focused in on the echoed voice.

    "...The time comes. We can't rush into this, this is a major operation and we can't fail now, not after we've come this fair." I heard a deep voice say.

    "We've been planning this for two years, we need to get this rolling or it'll be too late!" Another voice argued.

    "Relax, we have all the time in the world. Like you said, we've had two years in planning this, why risk rushing it? It's bad enough that you got caught by that cop for something as stupid as a street race with some kid. Then you had the the bright idea to steal the car and bring it back here. You're lucky, that's all I can say." The man replied bitterly.

    "Herrik, it's not like nothing good came out of it. We were able to bug that cop, and now we have two hostages, one seems pretty important to, by the looks of things." A new voice responded. Hostages? Operations? Something was happening, something big. And it seemed that Stephan and I were caught in the middle of it now. So far, I've heard 3 different voices, hopefully that was all of them. If we got lucky, we might just be able to make it out alive.

    "Hopefully we won't even need them. If everything goes right, there should be no way of knowing what happened, or who did it. We walk off with the satisfaction of overthrowing an entire city and then start making demands. We dispose of these two kids in a fitting matter, and we walk off with millions in our pockets." The deep voiced man said. It seemed like he was the leader. And I didn't like the way he was thinking. I didn't wanna end up "disposed"

    Suddenly, I felt something hit my leg. I jerked a bit, as it hit me again. It wrapped around my foot and started to drag me across the ground, there was nothing I could do but struggle a bit. But then I heard something. A muffled voice. I couldn't make out any words or phrases, but the tone was familiar. It was Stephan's. The thing pulling me, it must've been his tail. I wasn't sure of his incentive, but I really didn't have a choice. I relaxed as the appendage continued to pull me. Then it started prod my body, as if it was looking for something. It continued to poke at my body, until it got up to my face. I then felt it wedge between my head and something else. I heard a rip come from whatever was there, and whatever was there fell down. Suddenly, I could see again, they tied a bandanna around my eyes, which Stephan had the incentive to rip off.

    What I saw shocked me a bit. I saw Stephan lying on the floor, blindfolded and gagged. He had chains tied around him arms, legs, and wings, the only part he was able to move freely was his tail. He was hog tied and bound. Of course, I couldn't say I was in much a better situation. I had gotten the same treatment as him, tied up in chains and gagged. We were in pretty deep, and now we had to crawl our way out. And the first step was getting untied. But chains were pretty thick...actually, really thick. If they were ropes, we could've just cut them with Stephan's claws, but they had to be chains...what to do.

    I heard Stephan mumble from under the gag, snapping me out of my trans. I managed to slither my way over to him. I was able to unhinge my shoulders and slip my hands around to the front of my body, even with the chains on them. I untied his gag and blind fold, and ripped my own gag off.

    "Crap...what do we do now?" I whispered lightly to him, to avoid getting caught.

    "Well, for one, we should really get these chains off...It' bad enough looking like an animal, I don't need to be treated like one as well..." Stephan muttered quietly.

    "I know" I said. I then began to contemplate on how we should get out of this mess. This was no story or children's book, these guys seemed a lot smarter than the fat robbers on TV. Hell, they used chains! Rope would've been so much more convinient for us, but I suppose life doesn't work that way. They seemed to bind the rings together tight as well, no way to just slip out of them. Looking around the room, I saw that there were no tools that would be of any use. "Fuck..." I muttered.

    "...I have a plan, but it won't be pretty for you..." Stephan muttered after a while of me silently cussing at the bad situation we were in.

    "Oh? What would that be?" I asked silently and a bit intrigued.

    "Well...I just thought of this now, I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before. Just watch" He said quietly. He then opened his mouth, and took a deep, yet silent breathe. He exhaled a small stream of fire onto his wrists, which were bound by the chains. The metal started to change color, first red, and then white. After they turned white, he pulled his arms apart quickly. The superheated metal snapped like a twig and fell into his lap, singeing and almost catching his pants on fire. "Shit..." He muttered, as he quickly patted out the small flame and picked up the pieces of the chain and put them on the ground silently. He bent over and did the same to the chains on his ankles.

    "It worked! You're free!" I exclaimed, but through a whisper.

    "Yeah, I figured it would...but you do realize that I have thermal scales protecting my skin...you don't." He said.

    "...Oh...yeah" I said depressed. He had protection, I didn't. Being lit on fire didn't sound very fun...but I don't think there was another option. "Well...lets get on with it, then..." I said, while I extended my hands.

    "You sure you want to do this? This will hurt...a lot." Stephan said.

    "What other choice do I have? Get burned, or die. So...make it quick" I said, while I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw, preparing for the worst. I felt him start, it actually wasn't that bad. Just really hot, like if you stand too close to an open oven or something. But just as I thought that, I felt it burn. It was a stinging feeling, like getting a thousand pins stuck into you. That coupled with the heat, it was terrible. I wanted to scream, it hurt so bad, but I knew I couldn't risk it. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming. The pain grew with each second, and so did the force on my tongue. I started to taste blood, but I couldn't even focus on that. I heard muffled moans come from my throat, but I couldn't do anything about it, all my focus was on my hand. God, what the hell was taking so long!? It wasn't this long for him, he must've been doing this for ten minutes now! When would this torcher torture end!? It seemed to go on for almost half an hour, I felt the blood trickling down my lips and my throat. Finally, it stopped, and I heard him break the white chain that was around my wrists. I waved my wrists frantically against the damp air hoping to cool them off a bit, but it wasn't very effective. I looked around for some water or something to cool my wrists off, but there was nothing. In a hasty decision, I decided to spit on them, any liquid was good liquid right now. But that proved to be wrong, the blood made it hurt much more than it already did. I resumed waving them frantically around like an idiot again, and eventually, the pain subsided a bit. I began to regain my thoughts and senses. I noticed that my face was wet, I didn't even know that I had been crying this whole time.

    I looked over to see Stephan looking at me sympathetically. "Are you ok?" He whispered quietly, and in a scared and caring tone.

    "Ye...yeah. I'll be fine. I'm just glad that I'm free." I said shakily.

    "...Well...no...not yet, you're not. Your feet..." He said quietly. I looked down. Fuck. My feet still were bound by chains.

    "...No, I can't do it again...I can't do it" I said frightened. I remembered ever detail from last time, I couldn't do it, I just couldn't.

    "You said it yourself, Kevin, this is the only way we're getting out of here alive..." Stephan said to me with his head down.

    "No, there has to be another way...I don't need my legs, I'll walk on my hands. I can do it, I know I can!" I pleaded to him.

    "...I'm sorry, but if we're ever gonna get out of here, I need to do this..." He said with his head low. He walked over and crouched down by my feet until he was right in front of them. I was in no position to try to stop him, begging was my only option.

    "No, don't do this! Stop! I'll never forgive you, you're a monster! Don't!" I whisper-yelled. He didn't seem to care what I said though, and he continued on. He took another deep breath and I clenched my eyes and jaw shut. I felt the heat come back, and then the stinging. It was just like it was before, and I bit my tongue once more, making it bleed yet again. I groaned and groaned and prayed for it to stop soon. And it actually did, I heard him snap the chains and I felt him back away from me. My ankles hurt, a lot. But it was over, I was actually free, but I was also surprised. I really didn't think that Stephan had the balls to do it, to take charge like that. For such a meek kid, he seemed like he really knew what he was doing...in fact, he was always like that, wasn't he? Even back before when we needed to take the Ferrari back, he just jumped up and took charge. It was odd that I didn't notice it before, I guess it really never occured to me. I guess I really undermined him, even from the start of today, I considered him being under my wing, him being the new kid and all. But I suppose now, it's the other way around.

    "...I'm sorry" I heard the dragon standing over me say sympathetically.

    "...No, it's ok...thank you." I replied.

    "Are you okay?" He asked, while extending a claw to help me up.

    "Yeah, I'm fine" I said weakly, as I took his hand. Unfortunately, even the slightest pressure on my charred ankles caused them to swell with pain. I hissed in anguish as I lifted my body off the ground. It was gonna be really tough to walk for a while, but what else could I do?

    Stephan seemed to notice my pain. "We better get those burns bandaged up, that should help at least a little." He said. Then, without hesitation, he ripped off his shirt and tore it into a couple pieces. He took the pieces and tied then around each of my burn marks, as I bit into my tongue in pain again. It wasn't as bad as actually getting burned, but it still hurt like a bitch.

    "Thanks" I said to him. Something was different now, though, different about Stephan. He just looked a lot...older, maybe? I wasn't sure. It might have been just the lack of the shirt, but I don't think that was the entire thing. He seemed so much more confident, more in control. It was his eyes. The eyes seemed different, they no longer showed any sign of weakness or discord. There was fear in them, but there was also some kind of a wild look of confidence. I felt as if he knew exactly what he was doing and how this would all play out. "So...what do we do now?" I asked.

    "Well, we need a plan, and an actual plan. No more assumptions about anything. Everything is the worst case scenario. So first, what do we know so far?" Stephan said.

    "A bunch of guys want to do something bad to the city, over throw it, I think he said. I heard a minimum of three guys talking in the room just outside this one." I said.

    "So that means that we would need to find another way out, or something." He said, as he looked around. Nothing. Just a door. No air vents, no windows, no other way out. "...Well, that doesn't seem like it's gonna work. What else could we do...?" He asked.

    I began to think. The only way out was through that door, and behind it was a bunch of guys that wanted to make sure we wouldn't escape. We could risk just trying to leave, but that seemed like a really bad idea. Just then, though, I noticed that it was a wooden door. "Hey, Stephan, think you could make a hole in the door to look out of? It might help." I asked.

    "Yeah, that should be easy enough. Good idea." He said, as he walked over to the door. He pressed one of his claws against it and started to drill through it. A tiny hole was made a few moments later. He peered through it. "I see a couple hallways, and those three guys are still there, looks like they're writing or drawing something." He said. Well, it was confirmed that they were still in fact there. Which wasn't good. If we tried anything, we'd just get caught. The only way we could get out of there, was if they left that room. But the only reason that would could get them to do that was if they had to chase us...or if they thought they had to chase us.

    "Hey...is there anyway to make us seem like we escaped?" I asked Stephan.

    "What do you mean?" He replied.

    "Well, if we make it look like we escaped, they would have to come after us. They would probably all go and split up to find us. After that, we can just walk out, there's bound to be more than one exit in this place." I said.

    "That does seem like it can work. But we need a way to get them to think we're gone. Our best bet would be to make some kind of noise down the hall, but I'm not sure how we'd do it." Stephan said to me.

    "Could we use the chains, you think? If we can slide it under the door and have it hit the wall or something, it should hopefully make a noise." I replied.

    "Hey, yeah! That should be perfect! But what if they come in here to check on us?" He asked.

    "We can probably just hide in the corner behind the door. If we just scatter the chains, they should get the hint that we escaped. I doubt that they'll search this tiny room or anything." I said. Luckily, the room was designed so that the entrance actually jutted into the actual room, leaving a little corner that would be completely out of view, unless you actually walked into the room and turned around.

    "That seems like our best bet at this point...I hope this works" Stephan said.

    "Me too. Now get a link and crouch down. I'll look out the hole to make sure they're not looking near the door when you do it. I'll tell you when" I said. We both got in position, and I looked out the peep hole. I waited for a while, I wanted to make sure that they were all distracted. It finally got to a point where they were all looking away, and I whispered for him to slide it. Luckily, none of them saw it, but they all heard it when it his the wall. They looked around for a while, and eventually one started to walk to the door.

    "Quick, go over in the corner!" I whispered, as I made my way for the little nook behind the door. Stephan followed. I heard the door open.

    "Herrik, those kids escaped!" I heard one of them shout, the one that opened the door.

    "What!? Are you sure?" One of them asked.

    "Well, they're not in the room we threw them in, dumbass, and the chains are all over the floor!" The guy who opened to door said.

    "Quick, everyone look for them, we can't let them escape!" The leader, presumably Herrik, said. I heard a bunch of frantic footsteps as they all ran towards the corridor that we slid the chainlink towards. I walked around to peep out the door once the footsteps softened. Everyone was gone.

    "We gotta hurry, come on" I said. Stephan nodded and followed me out of the room. I ran through a doorway opposite of the way the criminals ran. We continued through the corridor and towards a window near the end. We were almost out. But then, of course, around on of the corners, one of the guys happened to show up.

    "Hey! I found them! Over here!" He shouted.

    "Crap...we'll have a better chance if we split up! Go!" Stephan shouted to me.

    "What!? No! That's a bad idea!" I said back, but it was too late. He darted down the hall to the left and out of sight. I turned towards the hall to the right and ran. Everything seemed to be going good, no one had spotted me. There was bound to be some way out somewhere, I just had to keep running, even if my ankles were killing me. Unfortunately, I tripped from all the swelling pain in my ankles, and getting back up seemed to be a big problem, considering the pain in my wrists. Turns out, of course, that my time on the ground was the perfect amount for one of them to come around the corner, see me, and proceed to yank me up off the floor, quite painfully as well. I bit my tongue, but not hard enough to have it bleed...pretty damn close, though.

    "Caught you, little bastard, now where's that dragon?" The guy asked me. I recognized him as the guy who I almost got in a street race with.

    "I don't know, he ran down that hall" I said, pointing to the completely wrong hallway.

    "Good, Herrik should be hot on his tail then." He said, looking down the hall. He seemed uneasy. "Better him than me, that thing still scares the hell out of me." He said apprehensively. That got me thinking. He seemed to be a bit uneasy about Stephan's form.

    "He scares you, huh?" I asked cynically. I think I had a plan, but it would have to be on the spot. Luckily this guy seemed pretty stupid, with the entire street race thing, and just by the tone of his voice. He also smelled heavily of alcohol, which hopefully would make him believe my story. "Then I'll make you piss yourself..."

    "Wha...what do you mean?" He asked, a bit uneasily. That meant it was working.

    "Well, little bro still didn't unlock his full potential...I have, though" I said, as evilly as I could.

    "Little bro? Full potential?" He said, he seemed to get more frightened with every word. This might just work.

    "Yeah, he still is a novice at...metamorphosis. However, I happen to be an expert" I said. I sliced across my tongue with my teeth and let the blood drip down my chin. I gave him a nice bloody smile.

    "...What the fuck!?" He said frantically, it actually looked as if he might piss his pants.

    "Yes, it's starting already..." I said, as I took off the cloth over my burned and blistered wrists for him to see. He truly looked scared for his life. "It's a shame, really, I wanted to get out of this situation without revealing myself, my true self. A 25 foot dragon. But it seems it's too late. Oh well, that just means I get to have some enjoyment. Killing you should be lots of fun, I can't let anyone find out about my little secret, now. It's nothing personal...I'll make it quick, if you're lucky" His eyes grew wide.

    "No, no, please! I won't tell anyone!" He shouted frantically.

    "Hmm...ok. You need to stay here and point everyone that goes this direction the wrong way. If I find out you crossed me...you'll die the most gruesome death you can think of, I'll make sure of it" I said, flashing my bloody teeth yet again.

    "Yes, yes! I promise! Just let me live!" He shouted.

    "Good little human. Now stay put." I said, as I turned and headed down the hall that Stephan ran down. I didn't encounter anyone luckily, and I eventually ended up in a big room filled with all sorts of weird gadgets and stuff. In the center stood Stephan. He was hovering over the boss, who was holding his bleeding leg in anguish. Stephan looked over at me after he heard my footsteps. His mouth was as bloody as mine, but the blood on my mouth was my own. It scared me, he really did look like a monster. But it seemed to go away pretty quickly this, he was still humble Stephan, right? Desperate times call for desparate measures. "Come on, we gotta go!"

    "Ok...ok...just hold on a sec." He said, as he went over to one of the gadgets in the room. He punched in a few keys, and I heard two beeps. Just as that happened, someone way down the opposite hallway I came from yelled at us to stop.

    "Come on!" Stephan shouted, as he grabbed me and ran down the hall we came from. The guy was behind us, but a good hundred feet. We turned the corner and out of sight of the dude behind us for a brief moment. "Shit..." Stephan said, as he saw another one ahead of us. But luckily, it was the same one that was scared to death of me.

    "No, keep going, this is actually really good" I said. We continued to run as the guy just watched us, still with his same frightened face. As I past him, I told him "Remember what I said" in a cynical voice. He nodded as we continued to run around a corner and towards the window. Stephan sped up and past me as we neared it. He threw his body at the window and shattered it completely. I jumped out of the window frame and fell on the ground. I grunted in pain from my ankles. Stephan picked me up, and we proceeded towards the car. He hopped in the front seat and I climbed in the passenger side. I opened the glove compartment and pulled out a set of keys. He stuck them in the ignition, and the engine "vroomed" to life. He sat up and floored the Ferrari down the road. I sighed in relief, it seemed that it was over at last. I was surprised that we only got out of there with a few cuts and scrapes, and badly burned body parts. Stephan still seemed a bit on edge, though, as he started to hit almost 80 miles per hour.

    "We gotta report this to the cops...this seems big. We have to report this" I said, in all seriousness.

    "No need" He said bitterly, for some reason.

    "Why's that?" I asked. Just as I said that, my ears started to ring and the ground started to shake. A slight pressure wave passed through me from the back. I looked behind me to see that the warehouse that we were just in was reduced to a plethera of smoke and fire; debris was still flying through the air, along with a few dead bodies.

    "That's why"