Arthur did not like sitting astride instructor Athena's dragon, Brooks. He was large, orange, with a thick neck, and a particularly bony ridge that poked him in all the wrong places even though the padded saddle. His two large wings were meant for gliding rather than quick maneuverability. He turned as ungainly as a barge in a too-small river.

He was also one of those dragons who didn’t speak to whom he thought of as “outsiders”. He hadn’t spoken so much as a word to Arthur in all the weeks of training class.

The last reason Arthur disliked riding Brooks during practice drills, Brixaby became incredibly, obnoxiously jealous.

His purple-black dragon buzzed near Brooks’ left shoulder, giving the older dragon the evil eye with blood-red eyes instead of what he should have been doing, which was watching the rest of the class in flying drills.

Four months into the six-month training course for new dragon riders, only Brixaby and the two purples were not yet considered large and strong enough to carry their riders.

Arthur suspected that Lilac, the paler of the two purples who had scales the color of her name, would be able to carry her rider soon.

He wasn’t looking forward to that day. Brixaby would be nearly frothing with jealousy.

With a steady diet of card shards — as many as Arthur could get his hands on — Brixaby had grown more than eight times the size he’d been as a hatchling.

Unfortunately, he had started at the size of a sickly sparrow, so that wasn't saying much.

As a flying animal, he was also light-boned. Arthur could carry him on his shoulder.

No other way to put it: Brixaby was nowhere near the size needed to safely carry a rider.

Like any good partner to a strong-willed dragon, Arthur was already thinking of ways to soothe his ego. In Brixaby’s case, that meant bribes.

“Brooks,” Arthur said, reaching down to touch the orange scales. They were a particularly... unpleasant color that reminded him of spoiled oranges. “Turn to the west. The wing is making another pass.”

The large dragon under him made no sound of acknowledgment other than to slowly, laboriously, beat his wings. Arthur got the impression the dragon was rolling his eyes. Some dragons did not like listening to anyone else other than their rider.

This was ironic considering Brooks’ core card centered around transforming the quality of sound.

Arthur wished that Instructor Athena was there with him to help direct the dragon. But just as the rest of the class was doing formation drills… he was in training, too. As a Legendary rider, he was expected to train to be in charge.

Not that anyone ever explains how to do that, Arthur thought. They act like bonding with a Legendary gave me a special leadership card.

Unfortunately, the few leadership skills he managed were all low rank and not much help yet in a combat setting.

Below them and to the right, the class came into view.

It was a double diamond formation — one stack above and just forward of the other. That was a simple shape in theory. Not so much in practice. Though the dragons were hatched within a few days of one another, there was a huge variety in sizes, wing length, and weight. Flying out in the open with unpredictable wind patterns while keeping in a tight formation was not easy at all.

His class had only been able to somewhat manage the feat over the last few days.

“Brix,” Arthur said, interrupting the dark little dragon who was glaring at Brooks and not so subtly flexing his claws. Brooks ignored him. “Do you think it’s time?”

“What? Yes? Yes!” Brixaby snapped out of his distraction and twisted into a hovering circle. Unlike orange Brooks, Brixaby was built in the body shape of a purple and some of the blues. That meant he had four wings, each with the ability to twist from side to side as he flapped. That gave him the ability to hover in place, shoot backward, or nearly vertically in the air like a hummingbird. He might be small, but he could zip rings around the competition.

His draconic eyesight was better than Arthur’s too. He gazed up into what looked to Arthur like endless blue sky. “Yes, they’re ready.”

Then Brixaby gave an evil chuckle.

“Give them the signal.”

Brixaby concentrated for a moment, and Arthur knew his ridiculously deep voice was currently echoing in two dragons’ heads far above them. That had been a gift from a mind-mage card Brixaby had absorbed a few months ago.

The card had been meant to inject subconscious thoughts into the minds of its victims to influence their actions. Brixaby had absorbed an aspect of that:

He could speak into the minds of other sentient beings within normal shouting distance. It made communication and passing along orders a snap. Especially as it was one way: As Brixaby had bragged several times. Humans and dragons could hear his orders, but they couldn’t talk back.

Also, since Brixaby had quite the shouting voice... his 'shouting distance' was further than most.

Arthur wished more than once he could find an Empathy card to feed to Brixaby... but so far had come up empty.

“Here they come,” Brixaby said with satisfaction.

Shielding his eyes against the sun, Arthur spotted two dots plummeting down from high above.

These were the two purples in the class. The only ones aside from Brixaby who were still too small to carry their riders. Purples generally didn’t fill a combat role during scourge-eruptions. Traditionally, they were couriers or independent rescue units to evacuate those who couldn't get out of the way. So they were excused from all but the most basic formation flying.

Since Instructor Athena had given Arthur charge of the group today -- he was supposed to know how to train a formation to combat when he couldn't fly with them and was in training himself -- he decided that the purples would play the “scourgelings”. Their job was to upset the formation flying below.

Lilac and the other purple, Tofu, had cow bladders filled with black paint clutched in their claws. Their job was to sweep by at full speed and spatter as many dragons as they could. The black paint would be the ‘scourge rot’.

The class had done these practices before with one diamond formation trying to disrupt the other. Then, the terms of engagement had been known ahead of time.

This was going to be a surprise.

Arthur’s only concern was for Cressida and Joy. As Joy was a Rare, she took up the protected middle spot in the lower diamond.

Joy was a pink meta who was often alerted by useful quests which could be anything from running an errand for an elderly neighbor to, one time, alerting the Hive Leaders of a rare night-time scourge-eruption. She was almost precognizant and her quest card might give her the heads up something was coming.

Arthur waited with a held breath. There was no alert from the approaching double diamond formation.

At the very last second, a rider on a brown looked up, saw the two diving purples, and yelled out a warning.

That brown dived down — an instinctive reaction to an attack from above. Unfortunately, he held the middle point in the diamond which opened a hole for the two purples to fly through and sink their claws into their bladders of paint.

It exploded into a fine mist, dusting most of the dragons below and around in “scourge rot”.

The worst was Joy and Cressida who were splattered directly.

Arthur and Brixaby cheered as the formation disintegrated into chaos; rides cursing and dragons scattering in every direction.

They probably shouldn’t have celebrated. It was, technically, a failure as the class had trained on how to break off smoothly into smaller formations to deal with scourgeling attacks.

But the prank--and the lesson it brought-- was worth it.

At least until a screamed roar rang out.

One of the greens, Morrice, had gotten splattered all down his side. He retaliated by twisting his head and opening his mouth. A green beam erupted from between his jaws and struck Lilac straight on.

The little purple screamed, back arching in agony. Already odd green splotches were starting to erupt from between her scales.

“NO! STOP!”

That shout came from their instructor who watched the whole show from the ground. She had a vocal stunning ability. It was normally powerful enough to knock anyone for a loop — but she was on the ground, and the entire flock of dragons was several hundred feet up.

At that distance, her yell was only a loud yell.

It didn’t stop green Morrice from following the staggering purple down, lining up for another shot.

“Brix—“ Arthur started, but Brixaby was already gone.

His dragon had been a natural flier right out of the shell, and he’d worked hard on leveling his flying skills since then.

He was a blur as he shot down, using the Earth’s natural pull and his streamlined body to every advantage.

Brixaby was a touch too far away to stop the green. Instead, he put himself in between the two dragons just as the second beam went off.

It hit Brixaby, and Brixaby’s natural magic nullified it. The green was only an Uncommon — the two tiers of difference between them helped.

But nullification wasn’t the only one of Brixaby’s powers.

With a snarl, Brixaby sent a green beam back right at the attacking Morrice. He had been close enough to pick up the dragon’s spell, and now he had it for the next 12 hours.

Unfortunately, the knack for targeting came with practice. The beam missed.

What a shame, Arthur thought. He would have liked to see Morrice get a taste of his own medicine.

“LAND! RIGHT NOW!” Instructor Athena roared.

Arthur barely had time to grip the saddle under him before Brooks folded his wings and shot to the ground with more alacrity than he'd ever shown before.

It turned out he could move quickly after all… but only when obeying his rider.

By the time Arthur made it to the ground and dismounted Brooks, Purple Lilac had landed and was being attended to by her concerned rider. Splotches of lichen were actively growing up between her scales. The little purple rolled over and over on the ground.

“Itchy! Itchy! Itchy! Lilac is itchy! Make it stop! Silvy! Make it stop!”

"It will be okay. Lilac, calm down. You'll be all right!" Silvy turned pained eyes to Arthur. "She'll be all right, won't she, sir?"

Arthur froze.

This was his fault. Well, it was Morrice's fault. But Lilac had been following Arthur's orders. And--

His hesitation caused Silvy to fear the worst. Her eyes widened and she screamed. "Healer! Healer!"

"No, she'll be fine--" Arthur scrambled to fix his mistake but knew it was too late. Silvy was panicked and that was transmitting to her dragon who had started to wail.

"Is Lilic dying? Lilac doesn't want to die! Silvy! Help!"

"No, no, you'll be fine," Arthur said. "Look, the healers are nearly here." He pointed to the trio of two men and one woman who were running from the hive entrance.

Unfortunately, Silvy and Lilic were now too worked up to listen.

Arthur stayed a few more moments until the help had arrived. He knew he'd be no more help here.

Instead, he turned to his own dragon who was buzzing around the landed Morrice and threatening to tear his card out of his 'Useless, rotten, green core'.

It was a common threat and Arthur thought Brixaby meant it this time... and he wasn’t sure he would stop him.

Instructor Athena was already walking up to the pair, but Arthur beat her to it.

“What were you thinking?” he demanded of Willard, Morrice’s rider.

The boy hadn’t dismounted yet and made a point of looking down his nose at Arthur.

“My dragon was reacting to an attack. You set scourgelings on us, sir,” he sneered. “Out of the whole formation, we were the only ones to fight back. We ought to be commended.”

Arthur saw red. He opened his mouth, but Instructor Athena got there first.

“Rider Willard, dismount and address your superior properly!”

That was what she was annoyed about? Decorum?

Willard made a face but dismounted. After his feet hit the ground, he stood with his back straight. Though he smirked at Arthur.

The howls of the very distressed, itchy purple sounded in the air again. Arthur wanted to punch him.

It took every iota of self-control not to scream in his face. Instead, he kept his voice level and cold. His father, he remembered, always sounded scarier when he was cold.

“If you can’t tell the difference between a scourgeling and a dragon, you have no business being up in the air. Instructor Athena,” he turned to the woman. “This pair has proven themselves to be a liability in combat. I don’t want them anywhere near this class.”

“Yes, sir.” The instructor nodded. She had been paying deference to him since the moment Arthur joined the class.

She turned to Willard. “You have displeased your Legendary superior, rider. You’re done for the day.”

Willard sneered and started to turn.

“I didn’t excuse you,” Arthur snapped. Then he turned again to Athena. “My apologies instructor, I didn’t make myself clear. I don’t want this idiot or his idiot dragon in this class ever again.”

He heard several gasps around him — the rest of the riders had dismounted and circled to watch the show.

Pretending he hadn’t heard them, Arthur went on. “Willard and Morrice can make themselves useful tending the dragon soil pits — Morrice is a nature dragon. Fertilizer should be up his alley. Then, when the next class is up to this level in a month or two, hopefully, they will be mature enough to join and complete their training.”

Athena was silent for a moment. Arthur wondered if he’d overstepped, but he didn’t want to show weakness by looking at her for confirmation.

Willard, however, had gone white around the lips. “You can’t do that!”

“You’ll find that as your better in rank, he can,” Instructor Athena said, which was not exactly a vote of confidence, but whatever. She looked back to Arthur. “If this is your wish, sir.”

She was giving him an out. A loophole where he could modify his order and say, something like if Willard and Morrice behave themselves, with water rations for dinner, they could return after a week.

Arthur wasn’t even tempted.

“No, that is not his only wish,” Brixaby interrupted, buzzing in between them. Willard took an instinctive step back. “In addition, I want Morrice to write a letter of apology to Lilac — hmm. You have no reading skill, do you? Fine. Morrice will dictate the letter and Willard will write it. You may as well include the rest of this class in your apology too, as you’ve forced Arthur to kick you out and that will leave the formation of one dragon pair short—“

He was interrupted by a sound that froze everyone in place.

Alarm gongs.

The sound of a scourgeling eruption in progress somewhere within the kingdom.

And as newly minted fliers — even brand-new ones — the class was now required to attend.