Silver woke early the following day, far earlier then usual. There were soft snores echoing through the cave, signalling that it definitely wasn't time to get up. She moved slightly on the metal surface of her nest, enjoying the cool, smooth touch, and closed her eyes again, trying to fall to sleep. But sleep didn't come. Her thoughts continued to circle back and forth, trying to make sense of each other. It all came back to what Iraliene had said.

She shifted in her nest again. On one hand, it made sense. Their were only two metal dragons left in the world and for some reason Silver doubted her father had mated again, or ever would now that her mother was gone. So the responsibility fell to her to increase the metallic dragon's numbers. She didn't want them to go extinct, probably more then Iraliene, and knew that some day she would produce hatchlings. But now?

On the other hand she didn't feel ready for it. Many dragons waited a long time until they finally found a mate, some even to nearly fifty. Silver new she wouldn't wait that long but she didn't want to choose one as soon as she was able. It was... wrong. She wasn't even in love. Well, there was Zepos, and Silver couldn't deny the strong feelings she had for the drake, but was that love? It was all so confusing for her, but the thoughts continued to run around and around in her head like a drunk dragon.

Knowing she wouldn't be able to find any sleep in her current state she slowly got to her feet, shaking herself off. A water dragoness, still barely two years old, shifted, but didn't wake up. Silver opened her wings and quietly took to the air, flying toward the exit of the cave. She landed at it, only to be surprised by a dragon sitting tall on a rock, seeming to be guarding over the cave.

"You there!" he yelled as soon as he saw Silver, "What are you doing?"

She stopped, surprised, and didn't say anything.

The dragon was an earth dragon, maybe fifteen years old, with a strong complexion and hard eyes. There was a hole in one of his wings and a long scar created by dragon talon running down his side. His forest green scales were dulled, mixing in with the brown scales that ran down his chest.

"Answer me!" he growled at her.

Shaking out of her stupor she snarled back, "I woke up early, couldn't sleep, so I decided to go for a morning flight before I loose the chance."

"Dragonlings are not allowed out of their caves before called," the earth dragon stated.

Silver blinked in shock. She was far from a 'dragonling', as the dragon had so nicely mentioned. Anger began to bubble in her but she suppressed it down. Now was not the time to be rash.

"And your going to stop me?" she threatened, letting a dangerous edge come to her voice.

The earth dragon hesitated, seeming to be surprised by her resistance. She suspected that he hadn't dealt with a dragon like her before. She was so close to eight that it was hard to tell how old she was. Whether she was supposed to be in the cave or not probably crossed his mind as well.

"Let her go Baraki!" the familiar voice of Gravon, "She's with me."

The earth dragon, Baraki, looked up to see the gravity dragon descending from above. Even though he was definitely the older of the two, he shied away as the rarer dragon landed in front of him, letting him take control of the situation.

"Silver! What a coincidence. I was just coming to get you," he said with a charming grin.

"What do you want Gravon?" asked the metallic dragoness. When she had learnt that he was Iraliene's son she had decided to be a lot more cautious of him in the future. The fact that Iraliene had even suggested him as a potential mate made her wary of him.

"Oh come on Silver, don't be like that. I would have told you she was my mother, but you never asked," he shrugged.

She snorted, "Whatever. Answer my question."

He rolled his eyes, infuriating her even more, "Well, mum wants you to start on your speciality training a bit earlier then usual. A.O.D.H has been on the move lately and we thought it might be safer if you learnt how to defend yourself."

"I know how to defend myself," she growled.

"Oh, I have no doubt about that. But this is more teaching you how to control your powers," he said, "Before you say 'how can anyone teach me something like that', follow me, and I will show you."

Silver sighed before nodding. Gravon smiled and launched into the air. She followed, still a little wary. They flew up to where Iraliene's cave was and flew inside. Again they took a right turn and walked into the same cavern as the previous day. There were far fewer dragons this time, maybe around ten, ambling around. Iraliene was nowhere to be seen, much to Silver's relief.

"Aah, here we are. I'm sure you remember Professor Daquan," said Gravon, gesturing to a human scientist Silver new only to well.

He smiled at her, bowing his head, "A pleasure to meet you again, Silver."

"Likewise," grunted the dragoness.

He frowned slightly but continued in his speech, "As you've surely wanted to know, the analysis on your metal has come through with some interesting results."

He pulled out a book from his coat and began to flick through it in the same excited manor as before. For the life of her Silver couldn't understand what was so bazar and interesting about a piece of metal cut from her wing.

"The metal on your shell is indeed, well, living. An organic material never been seen before. It has its own unique cell structure, which transports nutrients all around your body, " he flicked to the next page, "The type of metal it is however is... quite astounding. It is a compound in which we have never seen before, made of up of every single different type of metallic element from iron to silver to mercury, all combined together in such a way that it creates the strongest material ever seen on the planet. It melts at no less then nearly thirty thousand degrees Celsius, or over fifty thousand degrees Fahrenheit if you follow that system, and responds to electronic stimuli in a way we have never seen before..."

"Wow, wow, wow," Silver said, stopping the flood of information that she barely understood, "Can you please repeat that in a language I'm able to understand. I'm not a scientist. I'm a dragon. So please."

Daquan hesitated, an embarrassed grin forming on his face. He scratched the back of his head and taking a deep breath before saying, "It means you can control the metal, however you want. You can, grow, manipulate, expand and contract it with a single thought. You can make your tail nearly as long as you want it to, you can get rid of your shell all together if you wished to, and grow it back at a moments notice. You can form different parts of your shell into different things, whatever you want it to be, it'll become. It's, incredible. All this is in theory you understand, we have no idea if it's possible in real life."

Silver only nodded, looking back at her shell with a frown. She could already form her tail into nearly whatever she wanted, but had never lengthened it before. And the shell itself had never been less then it was now. Deciding she would try that first she focused on it, but instead of trying to make it grow she attempted to make it shrink.

To her surprise the armour reacted willingly, retracting from her sides with eagerness, revealing the dull yellow scales that lay beneath. The metal on her wings, tail and neck also began to retract until all that was left of her shell was a silver line running from the tip of her snout to the end of her tail.

She shivered, the sensitive scales not responding well to being shown to the light. In many instances she looked almost like a light dragon. Her wings were transparent and flimsy, the dull yellow scales didn't even reflect the light at all, and she felt extremely vulnerable.

"Oh wow," Gravon said, staring with much surprise at the completely changed metallic dragon.

"Are you still here?" snarled Silver, letting the metal shell expand to its normal state once more. She decided not to do that again.

"Of course, I'm overlooking your training," he grinned, "And I suggest you do that again. You never no when it might come in useful."

She snorted at him before turning to the scientist, "What else did you say you think I could do?"

Daquan shuffled through his notes and cleared his throat with a cough, "Well, you should be able to expand and condense different parts of your shell."

"And lengthen my tail, right?" she asked.

He nodded.

Silver grinned and looked back at her tail. She focused on it, much like she did when she wanted it to turn into a blade or mace, and watched as the metal began to ripple and flow like water. The end of her tail slowly began to lengthen, snaking out like a rope, not becoming any narrower until it reached the point where Silver made it stop.

Interested in this new power she lifted her tail, only to move the part of it that had flesh underneath. She frowned as the extra length hung limply from the edge. 'Useless' was the first word to come to her head, but then another thought came to her mind and she grinned.

"You may want to take a step back," she told the dragon and human watching her.

They did as they were told, staying well out of range of the metallic appendage. Silver snaked her tail around, the extra length being pulled with it. Her tail was a little more unwieldy like this, the extra weight on the end giving drag to her movements. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to use this while she was flying. On the ground however...

Silver smiled and leapt forward, swinging her tail up above her head. The whip like part of it followed quickly and it struck out with a metallic crack, sending a dull ring through the room. A few of the dragons looked over at her in surprise, wondering what had just happened.

"Can I practice on anything?" she asked Gravon.

"Oh, yeah sure," he nodded to a series of human like dummies at one edge of the room.

Silver trotted up to them, her tail scrapping along the ground and creating a small crevice where the extra length cut. She replicated the manoeuvre she had done before to one of the wooden dummies, and was delighted when the end pierced through the chest of it. She slowly drew her tail back, shrinking it back to its normal state. That would definitely come in useful later.

"That was impressive," stated Gravon honestly, a little nervous at what else the metal dragoness could do.

She smiled at him, "Don't worry, I won't be doing any of this to you any time soon. Unless you annoy me to much."

Daquan walked over to them, anticipating Silver's next question before she even asked, "Well, you could try something similar with your wings."

* * *

For the rest of the day Silver trained with her newfound abilities. She found she could create a large club like edge on the edge of her wings and figured out how to create spikes on different parts of her body, like her wings, and propel them without having to move. She trained in her full metal form as well, finding out she could lengthen her claws into razor sharp edges that could even match the sharpness of her wings and tail. It was all very exciting for the young dragon and by the end of the day she found she didn't want to stop, but she knew she had to.

As she left the cave she was stopped as Gravon called her. She looked back to see the gravity dragon bounding over to her.

"Hey, you know you don't have to sleep in the hatchling cave tonight," he said.

"What?"

"Yeah, if you want you can come and spend the night down in my cave. It's just opposite this one, but a little lower," he grinned, "You should. It'll be fun."

The suspicion she had for the gravity dragon instantly rose up again, "Thanks Gravon, but I think I'll stay in the other cave for now. I have my own nest there."

"I have spare nests, you can sleep in one of those," he insisted.

"No, not a straw nests. Metal dragons don't like straw nests. I made one myself, and I can't exactly move it," she said, knowing perfectly well she could.

"Oh, okay," he drooped a little, nearly enough for Silver to reconsider, but not quite, "See you tomorrow then? Same time?"

She nodded and jumped out of the cave before her conscious made her change her mind. She really did feel bad for the dragon, but she didn't like him. She couldn't, knowing who his mother was. Sighing she glided down to where the under eight's were all heading their way back into the nest.

Raize saw her coming and frowned. He stopped and waited as she landed beside him.

"Where were you today? Gretta said you had something important to do but she didn't elaborate," he said.

"I've started my 'speciality training' with the other rarer dragons," said Silver, "I found out some pretty cool stuff today."

For some reason Raize seemed a little worried at that, "She's already taken you up there?"

She nodded.

"Be careful Silver. Iraliene's a good leader, but she always goes to great trouble to get what she wants. I don't want you to become one of them," he said.

Silver snorted, "As if that will happen," she quietened down to a whisper, "I hate her."

"Yes I know, you told me what happened. But all this seems like a ploy to get you to choose quickly," he said.

Silver sighed, knowing what he meant, "I don't care. I've already become quite a bit more powerful, and that was within one day. Imagine what two months will do to me. By that time, maybe I won't need to fear her anymore."

Raize hesitated, "I hope so."

"You two! Stop whispering! Get into your caves!" Gretta yelled at them.

Silver nodded a goodbye before following the fire dragon's orders. Maybe it would have been a good idea to join Gravon in his cave after all, if only to get away from the insufferable dragoness she could probably destroy with a single swing of her tail. Snarling she shook her head, not allowing herself to think like that.

"I need to see Zepos again," she murmured to herself as she slipped into her metal nest.

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Hey guys! New chapter! I hope you enjoyed. Vote if you did and comment what you thought. Next chapter will be out soon.