Five grade 11 kids were relaxing on the popular cliffs of the New Norfolk walking track. There was graffiti in places not humanly possible, and a long rope tied to a tree, made for swinging off. The river rushed below, housing ducks, or even seals.

They had a bunch of family-sized Pringles, Samboy's, and Doritos with them, but had ran out of their cans of drinks an hour ago. They had Downunder by Men at work playing through a Bluetooth speaker.

"Geez, I miss the country music back in the states." one of them said, with an obvious American accent.

"Like Wagon Wheel?" A girl with an Aussie accent replies, clicking Darius on her phone, the absolute banger, as she would put it, playing instead.

Another girl throws her empty Coke can to the ground. "Damn it! I wanna go get the Esky. Anyone coming or am I gonna fall off the cliff by accident by myself?"

A murmur comes from another guy, and a girl. They all get up from their positions, running down the track together without so much as a 'be back soon!'

"They either don't like us, or don't like our taste in music, what's wrong with American Country?" the boy asked.

"Absolutely nothing is wrong with it! They don't even like Australian Country music, which is an insult, as far as I'm concerned!" The girl throws her hands up in exasperation.

The boy opened another Coke as the three figures dissapeared over the hill.

"I hope they're quick, this is my last can!" The girl exclaims, lifting up a can of Fanta. "Diabetes in a can, sure. But it's delicious either way." She shrugs.

"I think you have a Fanta addiction, Thyra." the boy says to her

She laughs. "Oh, I know I do!" She takes a sip.

The boy rolls his eyes and takes a sip of his Coke, looking out at the water.

"But, you can't tell me you're not addicted to sugary things, Dusty." Thyra adds.

"Don't you dare bring up my Starburst addiction!" Dusty laughs jokingly.

"I bet you ten bucks that you've got a packet in your pocket!" Thyra challenges with a smirk.

Dusty nods, and pulls his pockets out, empty.

Thyra's jaw drops, but then she laughs. "You've eaten them already!" She exclaims, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a ten dollar note.

"I had three." Dusty informs her, as he takes his win, and they hear footsteps behind them.

"How fast did they run?! It's like fifteen minutes away!" Thyra exclaims in shock.

Dusty turns around to look, and sees a man standing behind them, "Excuse me sir, but may I ask why you're in our area?"

"This is a public place, Dusty. If he wants to enjoy the view with us, he can!" Thyra responds, turning around as well.

The man only stares them down silently.

"I know that, but you know I don't like people sneaking up on us in the dark." Dusty shot back.

"You're so paranoid!" Thyra laughs, shaking her head. She turns to the man. "Hi. I'm Thyra, which side of the river do you come from?" She tries to strike up a conversation with him, but he just stares her down with a scowl. He was rather short for his age. He looked maybe thirty, and his arms were behind his back.

"Nice...costume?" Thyra added, a little nervous now because he hasn't spoken. He was wearing shoulder guards that were spiked.

"Oh I'm sorry, am I disturbing you?" the man asked in a cold voice.

"...a little." Thyra admits honestly, which was probably the wrong answer.

"Well my apologies, I was just thinking, and I usually stare off into space when I do." The man answers.

Thyra nods in understanding. "Nice night to be out for a walk...alone." She winces at how that sounds. "Anyway, as I said I'm Thyra."

"Dusty"

"Ahh, Thor's fight and Thor's stone, fitting names, I'm Viggo."

"Viggo? Sounds exotic. Do you know what it means?" Thyra asks curiously.

"No I do not, but I have a business proposal for you two." Viggo answers.

"Business? You don't even know us, no offence." Thyra asks.

"No I don't, but I really don't need to for this proposal, so will you accept or decline?" Viggo asks.

"You didn't even tell us what it was." Dusty said.

"Well, the answer is the same, you're coming with us." Viggo pulls out a pistol, and aims it at them.

They freeze, staring at him nervously.

Dusty turns around as another man steps up, this one brandishing a knife. "Ahh, I see you've met Ryker, now stand up and come along...better yet..." Viggo gives a head nod, and Ryker knocks Dusty out in one punch.

"Dusty!" Thyra yells, running towards him, but is cut off with a blow to the head. She falls to the ground as everything goes black.

-----------

Dusty slowly wakes up, to find himself on some sort of restraint chair, his arms and legs were tied to the chair arms and legs, he looked over to see Thyra the same way.

She let out a groan, blinking open her eyes. She took a look around, assessing the situation, and then she saw Dusty. She tried to call out to him, but her cries were muffled, by some sort of gag. She tugged against the restraints, but the chains were strong.

They were in a dark room, one that neither recognised. It had one door, no windows, and some old fluorescent lights.

It wasn't long before the door opened and Viggo walked in, followed by Ryker with a tray that had two syringes. Viggo removed their gags and stood by Ryker.

Thyra glared at them. "Who the hell do you think you are?!"

"Does it matter?" Viggo asked, as he looked at the syringe.

"It does, when they find you! You'll be going to jail for a very long time. Kidnapping. Pathetic!" Thyra insists.

"Hmm, feisty you two are, perfect test subjects." Viggo says, as he puts the syringes in a bottle, and fills them with a clear liquid.

Thyra glanced at Dusty, tensing up. "What the hell is that?!"

"Just something not seen on this earth since the extinction of the dinosaurs, and the dragons."

"Huh, so when you were a teenager, you pathetic old hag!" Thyra exclaims, not knowing what else to do.

"Do you want to know what this is?" Viggo asked

"No, not really. Cause it ain't coming anywhere near us!"

"Well let me tell you, my brother and I made an amazing discovery, that human and dragon DNA is 67% related, so we want to know what the DNA will do when they meet, will they fight to the death? Merge? Nothing? Such good questions."

"Try it on yourself then." Thyra hisses.

"Oh don't worry Ms Thyra, the Prime Minister has already signed yours and Dusty's death warrants."

"What?" Dusty asked.

"I always knew Scomo was a failure!" Thyra exclaims loudly. "But, like hell he would sign our death warrants! He abandons his country during bushfires, not when two random old guys kidnap teenagers!"

"Maybe so, but we don't expect you to survive this, but the info we'll get will help with our genetic research, too bad the world believes you're terrorists now."

"Terrorists?" Thyra questions.

You bombed two dams and are responsible for the massacre a few years back."

"Dams? Massacre? Nah, our friends and family know we would never do that!" Thyra exclaims.

Viggo grabs the first syringe, and inserts it into Dusty's artery in his neck.

"Dusty!" Thyra yells out, tugging against the restraints.

Dusty grits his teeth as the clear fluid is injected into him, and felt like his blood was on fire, and he passed out from the pain.

Viggo grabbed the last syringe, and inserted it into Thyra's neck.

Thyra tried to headbutt him away from her, but it was too late. She suddenly felt as if she was being set on fire from head to toe, while being run over by a log truck at the same time. Sure enough her vision faded to black.

Viggo and Ryker watched the two teens for a few minutes, before they felt for a pulse, and they couldn't find one.

"Damn it, I was hoping they'd live."

"We can always run more tests. Won't take much to get some more subjects." Ryker shrugs passively. "What do we do with the bodies, brother?" She asks.

"Throw them in the river, it worked with the others, while you do that, I'll look for more." Viggo says to Ryker

Ryker nods, and picks both kids up, carries them out back, and dumps them in the river.

The water took the bodies down stream, and it took a while, but they eventually ended up at Seven Mile beach.

Dusty was the first to wake, coughing up water as he pulled himself onto the shore.

Thyra lay half submerged about a hundred meters away, motionless.

Dusty dragged himself up, and coughed up some more water.

Thyra woke as water crashed over her for the hundredth time. She burst into a coughing fit, spitting out sand and sea water. She crawled up so she wasn't lying in the water, still coughing. She slowly sat up, wiping seaweed and sand off her.

"Thyra!" Dusty called out seeing her coughing up water, and he rushed over to her. "You ok?"

She nodded, still coughing. It calmed down, and she gasped in salty air. "Bloody...hell... what happened?" She gasped, memory hazy.

"Some crazy guys kidnapped us, and they put something in us." Dusty answers

"Oh yeah." She breathed, the memories flooding back. "Well... we're not dead."

"Yeah, at least, but what was that stuff they put in u...Ahhh!" Dusty fell clutching his head

"Dragon...dna." Thyra answered, pausing as she saw him in pain. A second later it hit her too, and she groaned through her teeth, clutching her stomach.

Dusty fell on his back as he felt like he was on fire, his head felt like it was being crushed and inflated.

Thyra squeezed her eyes shut as pain hit her like a truck. Her stomach felt like it was caving in on itself and lighting itself on fire at the same time, while her head felt like sledge hammers were pounding on the inside of it, especially around her ears.

Dusty felt a tickling sensation on his arms, and as he looked down, he was shocked to see pitch black lines going up and down his lower arms.

"Thy...Thyra!"

She barely heard him, curled up on herself to try and ease her pain. She brushed her arm with her hand, and felt bumps. She looked down to see some kind of black scales littering her skin. Her eyes widened, and she caught a glimpse of Dusty before pain pulled her focus away.

Dusty scratched at the lines, since they were itching like mad, and that only caused the lines to spread, and scale for quicker.

Thyra ran a hand over her head, stressing over their current situation as the pain faded just the slightest bit. Her fingers brushed over something long and smooth. She froze as it twitched, and freaked out just a little more than necessary, trying to tear whatever it was off her head, which only caused her unexplainable pain.

Dusty looked up at Thrya, to see two black planes that were in place of her ears, he ran a hand over his head, and dealt the same thing on him, but he quickly forgot about that as agonizing pain ripped through his back.

Thyra was feeling a similar pain of her own, but with her tail bone as well. She clutched the sand between her scale-covered fingers and screamed as something literally ripped through her skin ever so slowly. It kept pushing its way out, being joined by something shooting out of her tailbone. Her vision was becoming splotchy and black at the edges, she was close to passing out.

Dusty yelled out as he felt something shoot out of his back and tailbone, and he felt nothing but cold, around something that wasn't there before. Dusty tried to stand up, but the pain in his back and spine kept him down.

Something black started to curl around Thyra's waist, and she freaked out thinking it was a snake. But with her panic it unwound, revealing what she thought were black scales of some sort. She was hunched over, panting as her spine and tailbone were in agonising pain. She felt like there was extra weight on her back, but she was in too much pain to pay any attention to anything.

Dusty slowly came back to his senses as the pain dispersed, he pushed himself up, and looked at his scale covered hands and arms. He let out a sob, and two large black objects wrapped around him, and for some reason, he dealt more secure within them.

Thyra fell back against the sand as the pain faded to a dull throb, and her vision cleared once again. She brought up a hand to brush her hair out of her face, but all she saw were black scales covering the entire thing. Her eyes widened as she saw the scales running right up her sleeves, and she felt something move on her back. She turned her head, but all she saw were huge black sheets of some kind. She let out a sob as they moved closer towards her.

Dusty tried to sit down, but something really hurt when he tried, and when he looked down and back, past the black sheets, he saw he had a tail, with a set of fins at the base of his spine and at the end of the tail, both were obsidian black.

Something curled around Thyra's waist again, and she looked down to see a tail of her own. It was pitch black, but the two fins had a silver tint to the membrane. She looked at them in shock.

"Wha....what did they do to us?" Dusty asked, as he felt the ear-plates on his head.

"This can't be...this can't be real." Thyra mumbled, the black sheets moving more around her, where she saw hints of silver in them as well. "It's not...possible."

Dusty studied his wings and tail, and noticed a few lines of Dark Green within them, and by accident, extended his claws on his hands, which were pitch black.

Thyra looked over at him, watching what he was doing.

Dusty grabbed his head as another shot of pain ripped through it.

Just as Thyra extended her own black, silver tipped claws, a pain hit her temple and she groaned in exhaustion and pain. She berried her head in her hands, wishing for the pain to end.

Dusty let go of his head as he felt a sting in his eyes, and started rubbing them, as he felt something in the back of his mind was rushing to the front.

Thyra blinked furiously against the pain, and when she opened her eyes fully, her vision was slightly tinted green.

Dusty opened his eyes as the pain stopped, and the pitch black night, was almost as clear as day

"When did it become day?" Thyra muttered, holding her head as she scanned the surroundings.

Dusty took a big breath as his mind seemed to lose half of its control, and felt like another being was in his head.

"Thyra...head."

She looked at him, shaking her head to get rid of a heavy feeling from within. "Wh...What?" She mumbled, trying to stand up on shaky feet. She fell down twice, but eventually stumbled to her feet, nearly being dragged down by the tail and wings. Her legs were covered in scales as well, and felt a little stronger, once she found her balance that is.

Dusty managed to push himself up, and used a tree to keep himself balanced, while his wings and tail moved on their own to keep him upright

Thyra turned to look at him, completely exhausted, and wondering what they were going to do.

"What the hell did they do?"

"I...I guess dragon DNA and our DNA are more closely related." Thyra mutters. "But the real question is, what are WE going to do?!"

"Well, we can't go back to town." Dusty pointed out.

"We...who can we even tell? If everyone really does think we're terrorists, we're gonna need somewhere to go."

"Well, apparently were part dragon, we can stay in the wilderness for a bit." Dusty says

"...Dove lake." Thyra bursts out. "We can't risk staying here, so why not head up to Cradle Mountain?"

"How far is it?" Dusty asked

"It's like a six hour drive." Thyra confessed. "Give or take an hour or so."

"Drive? We can only walk." Dusty pointed out

"Unless we learn to fly very, very quickly." Thyra replied.

"Well...it's not impossible, it feels like I have two minds, and the other seems to take care of the wings and tail."

"Yeah, same here..." Thyra glances back at her wings, which were opening and closing gently, as if getting ready to fly.

Dusty's wings opened wide, measuring up to at least 30ft. His tail-fins extended, as if in anticipation

Thyra's extended as well, her tail swishing around on the sand. "Well, I think that the only way we'll know is if we try." She shrugs, her wings giving a little flap.

Dusty looked up as the sun began to rise over the horizen, his wings spread, and his tail readied to fly.

Thyra looked up as well, her wings spreading wide. "Ready?" She asked Dusty.

Dusty gave the affirmative, when his left ear-plate shot up, and he looked back at Thyra, and saw something behind her.

"Behind you!" He quickly yelled

She spun around to see a Tiger snake hissing, raised back as it prepared to strike. She acted before she could even think to, and lashed out at the snake, hitting it back with deadly reflexes.

"Let's go!" She exclaimed as the snake recovered, slithering towards them. Her wings spread on their own, and the next thing she new she was in the air, just missing the snake.

Dusty glided right next to her, "W...Were flying! We're actually flying!" He called to her

She gave him a grin, looking down as the land shrunk behind her. "I know!" She laughed, spreading her arms out in an uncharacteristic way. "But we better get a move on, before anyone sees us."

"Don't have to tell me that twice, lead the way." Dusty says to her

She nodded, taking off. "We'll have to follow the roads from above, I'm not built with a gps!" She exclaimed over the wind. "If we stay high enough, no one will even notice us." She looked down at the mostly empty road below.

"Fair enough, but I know one thing, those bastards are gonna pay for what they did to us!" He called towards her.

"Oh, hell yeah! I want them to plead at our feet for mercy! We're never going to be the same again, and that is their fault!" She exclaimed. "They don't know what's coming to them."

Thyra tiltered her tail and wings and turned north-west, Dusty angled behind her, and stayed on her tail.