After hours of flying with the Tai kid on his back Herensuge had finally reached Hellas. He flew down to an open plain that was completely empty except for some magical animal. Herensuge was running a bit low on energy since his been in his dragon form for so long, but it should last for a little while longer, enough time to give this kid some needed training and find out who is. When on the ground Herensuge puts Tai on the ground and take on look at him and his necklace, he also noticed the ring and thought it had something to do with his powers. "Wake up kid!!" Herensuge shouted telepathically as he stomped the ground with his legs right next to Tai who was still asleep.

Even if my eyes are closed, i still feel awake, but this has to be a dream... hey Dragon, this is a dream isn't it? because dragons really don't exist. They just don't, dragons are mythical creatures... and the attack at the restaurant was fake as well... and the fire from my hands... it... it didn't burn me!"

Totally relaxed and lying on the grass, Tai opens his eyes and looks up at the dragon expecting to wake up soon.

Herensuge twitched his eyes out of being a bit pissed at the ignorance of this kid. This kid needed a wake up call. Herensuge placed his his big finger(claw) on the kid chest. "Incrementum gravitatis quinque!" Herensuge increased the gravity around the kid by 5 times which also made his finger weigh more on top of him. "You still think this a dream kid, the this pain should wake you up. I've decided to give you a bit of training."

Unable to breathe, Tai grunts and grabs hold of his "big finger" and tries to remove it. The pain is excruciating and is begging for his life with a silent cry. Tai opens his mouth but nothing come out. This world is more real than his previous life on Earth.

Not knowing what to do with the crushing sensation on his chest, he twitches in agony wishing for the pain to stop.

Seeing how this kid was couldn't even get off the ground Herensuge took his finger off him and cancelled his gravity spell. "You're weaker than i thought. But don't worry, if that necklace you have on you is what i think it is, then you were in no danger." Herensuge told the kid via telepathy.

Herensuge backed away a bit in order for the kid to have space so he can get up. "Now you seem to be in denial about this whole thing, but let me assure you that this place is real and what happened in the restaurant did happen. So why don't we start by you telling me who you are, why you're here, and where you come from."

Twitching on the ground, Tai become to take in air. The Blood red stone on his chest began to glow and the pain began to ease. With the help of the stone? Tai was breathing again...

"The pain... is gone? What did you do?"

Then Tai heard the thought.

"Oh. Um. I am Tairus. I don't know where i came from but i think i came from Earth, because i woke up a dessert. i didn't know where or who i was, i saw some kind of circle thing and it had the name Tairus so i stuck with that name. i then found out i was in Las Vegas and after that i met Layn and-"

Tai had totally forgot his purpose here in the first place was to escape the police chasing us. Then he lost Layn. So he remembered he had to find Layn.

"Then i was chased by the police... a-a-and... I got separated from Layn when i reached a spire thing and the hooded man said she has to "activate her soul?" to become stronger or something? i don't know what that means... maybe you do? But if you do or not, i still have to find Layn.

But the restaurant incident... i met that man who said he would help me but he died and the attack! everything is so twisted! i just want to find Layn! what if she is dead! what if I never see her again! what if I-"

The ring began to glow due to his strong emotion. Then Tai realized he was babbling nonsense. He began to think dumb things, looked at the dragon and asked,

"How do you talk without moving your mouth? How do you even understand what i am saying? Can you read my mind? How is this all happening?!"

Then Layn's face came to his mind. Tai teared one small drop and asked the dragon,

"Will you help me?"

Tai is still laying on the ground.

Herensuge was intrigued by the story but this Tairus could be lying, he did not mention his necklace, his ring, or his magic powers in that story. But this kid really was afraid, would a scared kid really lie to a dragon. "You seem to have many questions and are in dire need of some help. I'll make a deal with you, if you can beat me in a spar I'll answer whatever question I can and will help you on your journey." Herensuge said knowing taking action would help better understand this kid.

He did not wait for an answer as Herensuge quickly turned 180 degrees and lifted his tail. He threw his tail down trying to knock this kid down on the ground.

"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", is all Tai thought after he was hit by the tail. The tail was so unavoidable. Tai watches everything move slowly he wraps arm around the tail and places his feet on it and jumps off. Then reality hits him... Tai is moving faster than he thinks.

Tai is sent soaring through the air about 30 m/h and lands rolling about 20 meters away. Tai remembers the attack and his hands on fire!

Tai stands up with the blood red stone shining bright red.

Tai shouts, "Aoru!"

His hands begin to inflame with fire. His ring is glowing insanely yellow.

"Hi no YA!"

The fire on his hand begin to morph into a single arrow of fire and is launch at the dragon.

Herensuge was amazed by how quick this kid moved and was able to recover. He saw how 1 arrow of fire was shot at him, which he knew was easy to counter. Herensuge used his breath of fire meeting the arrow halfway and cancelling it. "Don't think you can beat a dragon with just that."

Herensuge runs forward fast closing the distance between them and uses his breath of fire on the kid.

'wow he countered it... maybe i have to get creative to win...' Tai thought.

so as the flames around him disappeared and Tai fell to his knees, but got up after he saw a raging fire charging toward him. Tai sees no way to evade so instead Tai shouts,

Aoru! and a flame bursts in his hands. Tai makes a greedy face saying "i want more!" and Tai shouts,

"Hi o moyasu!! (Feed the fire!!)"

the flame on his hands grow larger and seem to fuse with the incoming attack. as the embers form a giant flame beyond his control, Tai charges toward the dragon at impressive speed and shouts,

"KASAI PANCHIIIII!!!!"

Flames scatter in every direction as Tairus tries to aim every flare at the dragon as his fist is inflamed and consumed by the uncontrolled force.

The trees around him are withering and becoming deformed due to the heat gathered and Tai strikes the dragon with great force, but his fist which contained the irreparable burns of the attack are cooked well-done and dark red. Tai shrieks to the excruciating pain and writhes in his self inflicted attack. He frantically searches for the dragon and finds himself cloaked in a dense smoke all around him.

The blood stone on his chain began to fluster a red glow and the pain eased slightly until the smoked began to lighten and become visible. The outline of the dragon became visible! Tai awaits to observe the injury he inflicted... if he hit the dragon at all...

Being this close to Tai and being too big Herensuge was not able to dodge the fire attack. Herensuge tried to fly back but the fire hit him straight. The pain was instant and agonizing for a moment but Herensuge was able to reach the sky. "His stronger than he appeared." Herensuge had to step it up a bit.

The smoke on the ground would not let Herensuge spot Tai, but the glow on his necklace gave him away. Herensuge folded his wings inward and was able to head down much faster. As he was reaching the ground he chantes "incrementum gravitatis quinque!". He increased the gravity around the glow by five times. If Tai was there the increase in gravity should get him by surprise leaving him open for Herensuge to pin him down with one of his claws.

The outline of the dragon, or so he thought, was in plain sight but he took to the sky. Tai shouted,

"Aoru"

and a flame appeared from his palm and the pain singed through his arm.

The necklace was glowing brightly and the pain eased again.

The dragon had enchanted a spell of some sort but it sounded familiar. The spell must have taken affect and made Tai heavier because he felt dense and weak but still had strength to move. He tried to the best of his ability to dash to the side away from the effect. The spell became weaker as Tai cleared the smoke. Tai whispered,

"Hi o moyasu!"

and the flame grew sightly larger. he still purged forward even out of strength but able to move. Tai awaits for the flame to enlarge to a size usable to attack his target with a strong force.

As Herensuge was going down for an attack he suddenly felt a snap and then very light. Crap, this was Herensuge's limit in this form. White smoke stated surrounding Herensuge as he started transforming into his human form, the transformation wasn't pleasant either, as he felt small pain fro having the wings and tail form part of his body, his horns shrunk and his face turned human, his claw became arms and legs and finally his body turned human.

He crashed down naked inside the what was left of the fire smoke as he held his head since he had a massive headache. His chest also hurt thanks to the fire attack he took from Tai. Herensuge was lying on the ground face down as he waited for his headache to ease up a bit, he had obviously passed his limits with him bringing Tai on his back from Bosporus.

Tai watches the dragon fall but it shrunk in size! Tai wondered what that was about. As he came up to it with his flaming hands, Tai began to think, "what if he is pulling of a trick? what if he is going to attack preemtively?" so Tai launches his attack as he awaits some sort of defense or acknoldgement.
Tai shouts,

"Hi no YA!"

with what ever power Tai had left he launched an arrow of fire at the object in front of him.

Herensuge's instincts kicked and he could could feel that Tai was about to attack him. He turned around and before the arrow of fire reached him he used his last fire breath, with what magic energy he still had. I giant fire came out of his mouth cancelling that arrow of fire and blew the smoke surrounding him away in the air. The plain was now in clear view with some smoke still above them, in the middle was Herensuge in his human form with no clothes on and his small horns pointing out. He looked directly Tai as with a strong glare as if he was mad, but in reality he wasn't all that mad with this outcome.

"You beat me....." Herensuge told him as he collapsed on the ground face down and fell unconscious for a awhile

Tai felt a rush of relief that he won. Tai never knew if this is how life is here every day, but he enjoyed it greatly. With a smile from ear to ear and a laugh that can be heard from miles away (<- maybe a little exaggerated...) Tai said, "Hah! I thought this was gonna be an alternate ending where would lose from the training. Well i had fun.". Tai placed himself near him to check out what was supposedly the real him... Tai never saw a dragon, nor met someone who can turn into a dragon!

Tai felt pity for him lying there so he took off the chain of his blood stone, held it in his burned hand, and put it on the man's chest. The glowed furiously.

"Thanks dragon. wait.... I dont even know your name! hah... Talk about mysterious."

Thought it would take about a few hours to heal him up with the stone "that-makes-you-feel-better-faster-for-lack-of-knowing-what-it-really-does", Tai hopes for a safe recovery. Tai left him there with his stone on his chest, still glowing, to find some food for his stomach attack!! Maybe he can cook food with his fire powers! Maybe the dragon is hungry too so he had to find some food for him too.

Herensuge was out for a couple of minutes but for some reason his energy was returning faster than it normally did. He woke up in the middle of plain he had just fought on, he looked around and didn't see Tai nor anyone around. As he got up he heard something falling, it was the blood stone that belonged to the kid, he should be careful not to leave this thing with just anyone, but that explained why Herensuge was able to heal more quickly. The next thing he did was use his clothe spell to regenerate his articles of clothing since he was still naked.

It was turning dark out and Tai had not return, Herensuge doubt he would leave him here with the blood stone, so he decided to wait. He started a campfire using his breath of fire to show Tai the way if he got lost.

"NO! NO! NOOO! why are you soo hard to catch!!!!!"
Tai yelled in frustration! Tai managed to catch a 20lb porcupine and a 7lb mole, but found difficultly in trying to catch rodents and rabbits. it was getting late and dark out... so he attempts to carry his catch back to the dragon. Maybe he would be up by now since a few hours had past.

Upon approaching the field the dragon and Tai fought in, Tai saw a fire. he ran best he could with his heavy catch. Approaching the fire, Tai saw the dragon man with a face that said, 'what took ya so long?'

"What took you so long? Was it really that hard to catch that food." Herensuge walked over to Tai to help him with the food he had caught. He took the porcupine and the mole and headed over to the fire. Herensuge wasn't the best cook since he like all of his food burnt, but he knew a few procedures so he started preparing the animal.

From the other side of the fire Herensuge glared at Tai, feeling mad that he lost. "You should know Tairus that I don't like losing. And you got lucky cause i had used a lot of my magical capacity to stay in dragon form and bring you here from Bosporus. So don't go boasting about how you beat me, cause you wouldn't last 5 minutes if I was in full strength!" Herensuge almost screamed at the kid with anger.

Herensuge took a couple of deep breaths trying to calm himself "Sigh. But i told you I would answer you're questions if you beat me, so lets hear them." Herensuge said with a soft gentle tone.

"Where can i find a place where you go to become a whatever I am when you were first a normal human?", Tai said as he tried to think of anything else he might have missed, but finding Layn is Tai's main priority to him.

"Do you know where a human might be sent if he wasn't a...whatever I am?"

"Well it's not really rare for a human to be brought to the Magic World, since all humans are capable of using magic, they just don't know it. When one reaches here they via gateport. Most of the gateports are in the Confederacy, that where you where, it consist of places like Bosporus, Ostia and Megalomessembria. There is also a gateport here in Hellas though i haven't been to it. So if you want to find her, my suggestion would be checking those places out first, I mean this world is huge, it's the size of Mars." Herensuge said trying to answer part of the question.

He then picked up one of the meats that were burning in the fire and took a bite of it. "As to where can a human be turned into a mage like us, many places like schools, but I wouldn't be too optimistic to say you're girl was taken to a school. Man this what you get for going with a group of people you don't know." Herensuge said in a harsh tone. "Don't you have any clues about the people you went through the gateport with?'

"The people all had a hood over their heads and no one mentioned where we would be sent. I saw the circle that she stepped into had marking and words. Some of the words were, "mitta" or "mitte", "tharsis" and "aliter porta" all the way around the side of the circle. I don't know what they mean. The circle she stepped in wasn't like mine. I walked in a spire while she only had a circle to walk in. I don't know if that helps any.

Tai pulls his meat out of the fire and munches on it thinking how plain the meat is without any seasoning.

"What is your name anyway?"

"Hmmm Tharsis you say... Well then I guess you have the first for place too look for your girl. Tharsis is place here in the magical world, it mostly barren with some beaches, it's a located southwest from here. However I've never heard of a gateport by Tharsis. Interesting..."

Herensuge kept eating his meat until he heard the next question. "Ohh right well I don't usually tell people my real name but since you saw my transformation I'll tell you. My name is Herensuge but you can call me Nick, I'm part of the dragonfolk race here in the magical world, we have the abilities to transform into dragons whenever we want however it drains a lot of our energy."

Tai thought,'I did not know Tharsis was a place nor did I know what those words meant, but the drago...oh...or, herensu...ummm.... Nick knows, so ill follow his word for it.'

"How do you transform? Do you know what i can do? If i can transform?

Ummm... If she was sent there, why would she be sent there if it's barren?"

Tai is now standing on his knees in front of Nick and is very intrigued in what he says and what he might answer!

"All dragonfolk can transform, it's in our blood. It not really that difficult, we all learn it at a young age, requires a lot of magical energy however it can also strengthen some magical attacks. The real issue how long one can sustain that form, I can last a couple of hours if I'm not fighting, but when I fight the transformation last for less time, that' why I transformed back into human when fighting you."

"As to what you can do I'm not really sure. From you're necklace it's clear that you may have something to do with dragons, and that ring you have... I can't help but feel I've seen that emblem somewhere but I cannot remember. But I don't think you're a dragonfolk. See we dragonfolk all have horns even in human form." Herensuge said as he pointed to his head where his small horns are. "They are usually larger than mine, but since I'm only half dragonfolk I guess this what I end up with."

"I wish I could answer that last question but I don't know. I mean there are people living there, there are a couple small towns there but I don't why they would be taken there. Most people that go there is so they can go to the beach. But i think the best way to know is to go there yourself."

Herensuge said as he finished his meal and got closer to the fire to keep warm.