24
ETHAN
All I felt was failure, until I heard her voice.
"ETHAN! ETHAN, NOW!"
Jessica stood near the house, face red and hands waving. For a moment I wanted to tell her to run, to get away while she could. To leave me, because I was hopeless.
And then I remembered the pulsing in my pocket.
"Where's your tire iron?" the dragon said, rounding on her with a sneer. "It only works when you sucker punch me. Not when I have a warning."
I grabbed the totem from my pocket, rolled sideways, and hurled it across the clearing.
I watched the dragon's expression go from smug, to surprised, to furious. He hunched down like he was going to sprint after it, but then I felt something within me.
The soft vibration of the gryphon demanding to be let out rose like someone had cranked up the volume knob. And then the door to the cage was ripped open, setting it free as Jessica pressed the emerald.
I surrendered to the gryphon.
My torso expanded like I was taking a deep breath, except my lungs were endless and my chest continued to grow. My shirt tore as feathers grew like hair from my skin, vision going blurry and then sharp as eagle's eyes shifted into place, the whole world changing into high-def. I groaned with released pressure as my wings exploded from my back, muscles being stretched, unfolding as I stood on hind legs that were now a lion's.
The pain from my human body carried over, fractured ribs and the insistence that more pain was a heartbeat away. I launched myself into the air on strong legs, above the treetops with three steady beats of my wings, pulling higher and higher into the sky that was mine.
Now a safe distance away, I spread my wings and curved in the air, feeling the wind on my feathers. I screeched a battle cry as I prepared to dive on the dragon, to unsheathe my deadly talons and feel the skin and flesh of his face torn away.
But before I could, I felt his own transformation.
He stood in the clearing with my arms spread wide like Jesus, head tilted up to the heavens. His mouth was open and light poured from it, light as bright as his green eyes. Then his chest heaved, and his legs and arms bulged, invisible boulders materializing underneath his skin. His clothes exploded away from the force of the transformation, and his skin darkened rapidly as dragon scales popped into place, a shade of green so dark it was almost black. His neck extended grotesquely while his head lengthened, a long snout full of fangs and with ears equally sharp.
And then the wings.
They rose from his body gracefully, flicking down and outward. There was bone and flesh along the ridge of the wings, but the rest looked paper-thin with holes spaced unevenly along its length. They stretched out wide, the way I'd stretched mine, and took up almost the entirety of the clearing. Altogether he was two or three times my size, and four times as angry.
And on the back of his neck was a glistening rectangle, his own emerald collar to match mine.
He roared, something I heard and felt in the air, a dark and terrible vibration that portended my doom.
But the gryphon in me wasn't afraid. It yearned for this battle, to fight in our beastly forms rather than with fists.
This was what it wanted. This was the way it was supposed to be.
The dragon took flight slowly, a battleship of scales and fire rising to the air. I had a chance here while it was vulnerable, and I immediately pulled my wings in a dive.
The wind roared in my ears and pressed my feathers flat against my body as I surged toward my ancient foe. I could feel the anger wafting off him, the fury in his eyes as he watched me come. I aimed straight at his head but planned on turning at the last moment, shooting toward the emerald on his neck. That was a weak spot, I somehow knew. If I could destroy that emerald, I could destroy him.
The dragon grew in my vision until he was all I could see, a dark green floor spreading in all directions. He opened his jaw wide, fangs like swords dripping with saliva. Two more heartbeats and I would be there, turning away from his jaws. Time seemed to slow down as I prepared to make my move.
But the jaws weren't opening to try to snap onto me. A furnace glowed deep within his throat, brightening until it was orange and yellow. I realized what was happening, and my human mind took over.
No! I thought, making a hard left.
The burst of fire puffed into the air, devouring all oxygen. It gushed into the space I had just been and where I'd intended to fly, yellow and then orange and then black with smoke. Heat buffeted my body as I flew away, even from such a distance.
The dragon climbed into the air, pulling its body through the smoke.
COME, EMERALD, the dragon thought at me. COME, AND LET US BATTLE.
I made a wide arc as I came back around, climbing to match the dragon's own altitude. He was slow, but I was fast. Speed would be my armor in this battle.
COME, he boomed again.
I did.