by Amari A
Chapter 18
“It won’t be long before I destroy you, princess. You think by talking to that old dragon that you can defeat me but it won’t be as simple as you think. I am going to take everything from you and then I’m going to watch you suffer. This is a fight you’re never going to win.”
“You know the more you say that the more it makes me want to defeat you. If you think coming in my sleep and making idle threats or leaving strange messages on my ceilings is going to scare me then you’ve clearly underestimated the type of dragon that I am.”
“I haven’t underestimated you. You, my little dragon, have underestimated me. But just know that you will never…ever defeat me.”
“So you say.”
“This is what I know, princess. I will be seeing you very soon. My army is almost complete and we will be storming the castle when you least expect it.”
“Bring it on.”
“Cocky still, I see.”
“Confident is what I like to refer to it as.”
“We shall see how confident you are when we’re in battle. I won’t come to you again Princess.”
I open my eyes and look out of the window to see that the sun is barely up yet. I hate to be disturbed in my sleep, but somehow I am getting used to it more and more. Velshkar was getting more confident with each day, which could only mean that he already had some dragons under his control. If he is going to go into hiding, I am going to need to either try to back track into his mind to see when his attack will be or see if Onyx and I can sneak into the forest and see if we can find his hideout. I will have to ask Simon about the mind thing in dragon training when I get there later. I want to talk to Onyx so I open the door. As usual, he’s standing there.
“Good Morning,” he says.
“So you’re not asleep on the job today, I see,” I say with a smirk.
“Nope, I’m up and very alert. How’d you sleep?”
“I was interrupted as usual.”
“Maylo?”
“No, Velshkar.”
His face turns serious. “What’d he want?”
“He wanted to tell me that he would be attacking soon and that I will lose,” I say.
“You know that he’s just trying to scare you right?” he says.
“I know and it’s not working. I’m not worried about him at all.”
“That’s good, but why aren’t you worried. He is a very dangerous dragon.”
“I’m not worried because I think that he’s the one who’s afraid of me. That’s why he keeps coming into my dreams, giving me these little clues and trying to scare me. He’s trying to psyche me out. Make me so nervous that I won’t want to battle him.”
He smiles. “Well, you may be right about that. I never looked at it that way.”
I nod my head. “Yeah my guess is that he’s very nervous and in battle he’s going to do something to slip up. I’m going to look for that opportunity to destroy his human, therefore destroying him.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“I hope so, because right now it’s the only one that I have. I’m going to grab some breakfast and then I’m going to head to the training room to meet Simon.”
“Okay.”
We walk down the stairs to the dinner hall and they already have food laid out. My mom and dad aren’t down yet but I don’t want to wait for them. I need to get to dragon training as soon as possible so that I can figure out most of my abilities and see if Simon knows how to back pedal into a dragon’s mind. I sit at the table and pour me a glass of dragon’s milk and eat two dragon berry muffins with it. I then get up from the table and head out of the room with Onyx right on my heels. We head down into the dungeon area where part of it has been converted to do dragon training. I open the door to the training room and immediately turn into my pink dragon. I look at Onyx and he’s amazed.
“So, you’re a pink dragon?” he asks.
I nod my head. “What color is your dragon?”
“Light blue and silver.”
The door opens and in comes Simon, who immediately goes into his dragon form as well. Simon’s dragon is brown and orange and is very huge. His wings are double the size of mine. He looks at Onyx and he steps out of the room, leaving me alone with Simon.
“Princess Semaj, as you know, this is your first day of intense dragon training. Everything you’ve learned in basic dragon training will help you with the skills you will learn here,” he says as he looks at me.
I nod my head and he continues on.
“In intense dragon training, you will learn how to defend yourself against your opponent and how to attack. And because you have special abilities I will also teach you how to control them and use them to your benefit rather just letting them work on pure emotion. Do you have any questions so far?”
“Uh yes, I was wondering in this training will you teach me how to go into a dragon’s mind and read his thoughts or send him a message of some sort?”
A confused expression crosses his face. “Why would you ask that?”
“I was just wondering that’s all,” I say.
“Princess Semaj, I’ve known you your whole life. If you were just wondering, there’s a reason behind it,” he says.
“Okay, fine, but if I tell you, then you can’t tell my dad.”
He nods his head.
“Okay, well, Velshkar keeps coming to me in my sleep, making threats and I just want to be able to go into his mind undetected and see what he’s up to. According to him, we don’t have much time and I want to see if it’s true or if he’s bluffing.”
“He’s more than likely telling the truth, which means that our lessons are going to run long. I can teach you to go into his mind, but I will teach you that after I teach you some lessons in defense. Got it?”
I nod my head.
“Okay, so the first thing I want to see is you put up your shield. I’m going to throw a fireball at you and I want you to put your shield up to protect yourself. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
He walks a few steps back and throws a fireball at me. Immediately my shield goes up and sends it flying into the wall.
“Okay, that was impressive,” he says.
“Thanks. I know how to work my shield, though, Simon. I need to know how to attack. I think I pretty much got the defense down.”
“Are you sure that you don’t want to brush up on your defensive skills? They all come in handy at some point in time.”
“I think my shield pretty much has me covered.”
“And what about when you’re too distracted to get your shield up? Then what?”
“I move out of the way.”
I see a smirk spread across his lips then quickly disappear. “Okay, well then, I guess I should teach you how to throw a fireball.”
I smile. “Okay cool, because I’ve been dying to learn how.”
He walks over beside me. “Okay what I want you to do is shape your mouth like an O, take a quick breath, and then blow.”
I do what he says but when I blow out, fire comes out but it’s not in a ball. It’s in stream and doesn’t go anywhere. “Aw, man. I thought I had it.”
“You’re not going to be perfect your first time. Try again, but this time take a deeper breath and blow out.”
I do as he says again and this time a ball does come out, but it’s small and it wouldn’t do anyone any harm. “I don’t see how you all do this,” I say getting frustrated.
“From training, Princess. You have to practice these things in order to get them right. You’re not just going to pick up on everything right away, so don’t think that you will.”
“Okay. I guess you’re right.”
“Now, keep trying.”
On my next try, I make a fireball a little bigger but it was still nothing to brag about. The try after that I make one that bounces off of the wall and nearly hits Simon in the head. Then finally I make one the right size and throw it perfectly. “Yes! I did it!” I exclaim.
&nb
sp; “Good job,” he says. He walks to the back of the training room and begins to place targets round the room. I see a total of ten before he comes back and stands beside me. “I want you to throw a fireball at each one of these targets and don’t stop until you hit each one of them.”
“Are you sure that I’m ready for this? I mean I just learned how to throw one.”
“This is intense dragon training, Princess Semaj. We don’t wait for you to master a skill here. Once you learn it, we build on it.”
I nod my head. I hit the first target my first try but it takes me three tries to hit the second one, five tries to hit the third one, and two tries to hit the fourth one. When I get to the fifth one, I find my stride again and begin hitting each one on the first try again. Once all of those targets are hit, Simon pulls out a machine that has moving targets going from side to side. I look at him and roll my eyes but he just stands there and watches me. This wooden machine has five moving targets on it and it takes me about twenty five tries to hit each one of them.
“You did surprisingly well, Princess. It usually takes other dragons a lot longer to hit the targets,” he says.
“Well that makes me feel a lot better, because I thought that I was doing badly.”
“No, you’re doing well.”
“Okay, thanks. So what’s next?”
“Next you need to know how to deflect fireballs.”
“I kind of already know how to do that. That’s why Brenden is in the medical unit.”
“How’d you deflect it?”
“I swung my tail at it and it hit him in the chest.”
He nods his head. “Nice move. So, tell me, what did Velshkar teach you in the forest?”
“He taught us how to dodge fireballs and basically communicate to each other through the mind.”
“So if you know how to get into someone’s mind, why don’t you just use that skill to get into Velshkar’s?”
“Because I want to go in undetected. I don’t want him to know that I’m in his head. The only reason I know he’s in my mind is because every time he’s in there, he speaks to me.”
“Well, I may not be able to teach you how to go in undetected because in order to get into someone’s mind undetected, they would have to be sleeping. And you don’t know when Velshkar goes to sleep.”
I sigh. “Well, so much for that plan.”
“All you have to do is take in dragon training and just hope for the best. I know that you can handle yourself, Princess Semaj. I have great faith in you.”
I look at Simon in disbelief. “Uh thanks. I never even thought that you liked me, you know.”
“Why would you think that I didn’t like you?”
“I don’t know. You always look so serious and I just assumed that you didn’t like me or anybody else for that matter.”
“No, it’s just the way that I am. I don’t mean anything by it.”
“Yeah, that’s what my dad always said.”
“Yeah, trust me. I have nothing against you or anyone else. I just don’t like to show emotion.”
I nod my head. “So, is this session over or am I going to be learning something else today?”
He shakes his head. “No, this particular session is over but be here again bright and early tomorrow.”
“Okay, I will.”
“And be safe,Princess Semaj. We need you ready just in case a battle is to happen soon.”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to be extra careful.”
He nods his head and heads off towards the back of the training room. I pull my dragon back in and go back into my human form. I pull on my clothes and open the door to see Onyx standing there. I thought he would have left with how long my training ran, but he was still there.
“So how was your session?” he asks.
“It was intense, but I survived. You up for something?” I ask him.
“And what’s that?”
“You have to follow me.”
“I don’t know if I like that.”
“Well, you might. Come on.”
