"I don't like it," Sonith grumbled. She buried her hands in an angry way into her lab coat pockets, and her antennae sunk close to her head. "I really don't."

"But Silverfish is what you look like!" Jet said, his boyish expression betraying the gleam of joy he got in his eye everytime he got to jibe at his girlfriend. "And besides you cling to stuff, climb walls and that kinda thing!"

"I don't climb, Jet, I fly."

"No," he said, jumping in front of her and causing her to pull up short in the hall. "I fly. Jonesy flies. Featherband flies. But you, you cling."

"I. Cling. To. Air." Sonith grumbled again, she was getting good at it. "That's flying in my book."

"But not in the admin's," Jet laughed, and pulled her along to their science class. "It's your range, if you're not able to just leap into the air and swoop off, you're totally not flying."

"Gliding then," she asserted.

"Nope, that implies that you can't control your momentum and have to be at the whim of the winds." Jet proudly announced as they sat down.

"I fly, and that's all I have to say about it." Sonith said. "And I don't like the name Silverfish at all. They're bugs, I'm not a bug! They're disgusting little things!"

"Bugs are not disgusting," someone else said, piping in and clicking their carapace over their wings. Sonith sighed deeply and Jet laughed out loud.

"He's right!" Jet said, "they're cool. Lots of people will think you're totally cool."

"And being 'totally cool' is what I'm supposed to be learning here, right?" Sonith said, glancing at the many rows of frog boxes and dissection tool kits...

Later in the day, they continued their animated discussion over a late afternoon stroll through the protected courtyards of the PSS buildings.

"Look, I'm not saying that someone else shouldn't have the name, if they wanted it, but ... I just don't like bugs!"

"Sonith you have bug skin, and antennae like a silver fish! How can you go wrong?" Jet countered. "People will know you!"

Jet was almost entirely opposite his tall, muscular girlfriend. He was much shorter than she, and in terms of teenhood romances they were talked about constantly by the gossips. Who wouldn't? They were always arguing too, though the truth of the matter was that they always listened to each other well enough to debate - not argue so much. The issue of Silverfish as a name aside, and of course the gloating that Jet did all the time regarding his flight versus her 'whatever it is she did when she wasn't touching the ground' was well known. It amused both of them to no end.

Jet had his hands full most of the time with his own family's concerns. The youngest of his siblings by seven years, he lost his mother to a car accident when he was young, and that kind of subject always stung him. It was the same accident which proved he was a mutant with fire powers. While the car burned, he too caught fire. But no one could put the flames out - and he wasn't in pain, wasn't even really aware that he was supposed to be afraid of the fire. Eventually of course he learned to control his aura.

And eventually, of course, that aura allowed him to fly...

"I don't necessarily want people knowing me like that, I mean," Sonith poked him in the ribs, and seemingly brought him back to reality, "I don't think I could ever adjust to 'hey Silverfish!' as a name!" She shook her head, silvery white hair tumbling over her gently armored shoulders.

"Well learn," Jet suggested. Then he swept up into the air, a trail of warm dusty vapor behind him. Sonith narrowed her eyes, angry that he'd leave like that. She couldn't quite follow him.

After all, she had to be just close enough to something - past arm's reach but not much farther - to fly near it...

She grumbled constantly on her way to the girls dorms.

Jet flew off to the boys dorms where he'd been left two days worth of homework to do over the weekend. Science was hard for him, all the numbers and jiggly weights and such... They often just plain angered him. And sometimes when he got angry, his power would heat up some liquid and - yes you guessed it - it would explode in his face.

Though the science instructor recommended to the staff that he be given different experiments or classes entirely - he wasn't fond of having too many of their expensive chemicals abused like that - Jet was to remain in the class as long as he behaved himself.

The councilor insisted that he needed to learn how to control his temper, as though any given 17 year old boy could do that.

Jet's oldest brother had left a message on his machine, their sister Glory was getting married. But Jet didn't get the feeling that he'd be invited to her wedding. After all, she'd been horribly scarred in that same accident. She did blame him - vocally on occasion - for the death of their mother.

He would sulk for hours because of that, he had needed more than counciling, he'd had therapy for three years. It had helped a little, but every once in a while, something like this would come up. He decided to fly around, before curfew.

Sonith wondered why there was a noise outside her dorm's window. It was the third floor of the narrow building, and - oh of course.

"What do you want?" She hissed, opening the window just an inch and feeling the warmth that Jet always brought with him.

"I want ..." He looked away, "I dunno, I just wanted to get out of my room for a while. Do you want to come outside?"

Sonith glanced back at the door, which was cracked open a little. Light came from the main room on the floor, where the other six girls her age gathered to gossip with their friends on the other floors. They would be involved in that activity through the weekend, of course.

"Yeah," Sonith said. She slipped from her desk to the window, which had had its screens removed long before. Rarely did anyone try fixing them, when a flier was involved. Sometimes Sonith even wondered why they didn't just make a building similar to a pigeon coop for them!

She could tell immediately that Jet was in a mood. When they got to the roof, a sheltered area that they knew was being observed by the security teams but they didn't much care. No one had ever gotten in trouble unless they left campus grounds after curfew. "What's really up, Jet?"

He sighed, and ground his thick jaw around. "It's my sister, she's getting married."

"Well that's great!" Sonith said, with a smile. But that faded when she saw the look on Jet's face. "Why isn't it great?"

He explained in brief words, carefully chosen ones that came haltingly, "I burnt her when I was little, she hates me. She blamed me for our mom's death, I think Chris was just telling me because we're family, he thought I should know. He didn't even tell me when, but I ... Think it's pretty soon."

After a moment, as the stars twinkled in the sky above and the lights of distant cars on the interstate beyond the compound's walls did the same, Sonith hugged herself onto her thickly built boyfriend.

"I think you should crash the wedding." She said, quietly.

It was clearly not the suggestion that Jet thought she'd be giving. "What?"

"You heard me, she should have invited you. It wasn't your fault, you've told me about the accident. Just because you're the only mutant in your family, doesn't mean she gets to blame you. It was the other car in your lane, not you."

"I know that," Jet said, as though once again trying to convince himself of it. "But she's never admitted it, she never came to our therapy sessions. Me and Chris and Jenner asked her, but ... she just never wanted to be around me since then."

"How ..." Sonith paused. How to ask this? "How badly was she burnt? Where?"

"Everywhere, Sonith," Jet said with a distant pain in his eyes. "Her face, her hands, most of her upper body. She was, what, about thirteen at the time? I was only seven. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to hold on to someone when they ... when she reached for me in the car, I was already burning, see, and," he took a sobbing breath, "and I just held on to her, not even knowing what I was doing to her... I think she thought it was the car when she did it, but then when everyone got out except mom, and I was there just... burning..."

"Shhh," Sonith said. "I understand. I mean," she fumbled a bit, "I ... well, I don't have any siblings, you know. But I liked having pets, until my microwaves got to them. I kept cooking hamsters until the guy at the pet store wouldn't give me any more of them..."

Morbidly, that got a laugh out of Jet. "No, not quite the same but... It's ten years ago. There wasn't anything any of us could have done." He straightened up and kissed Sonith soundly on her full lips.

"I ... Um, okay," Sonith took a breath and kissed him right back.

"Let's find out when the wedding is," Jet said when they came up for air. "I think you're right. Family should be together for times like that. Whether she likes it or not."

Two weeks later, during their first fall break, the pair got permission from the staff to head off campus and out to the countryside where Jet's sister was having her wedding. It wasn't even a remarkably private thing, though she was scarred and always proclaimed herself ugly, Glory was a very popular girl throughout school. Her personality shifted though, from being a helpful and calm girl, to a spiteful, fiercely independant woman. How she'd even found a man who could put up with her, Jet wasn't sure...

Sonith and he dressed nicely, but they didn't exactly walk in the front door. There wasn't a door, in fact, to walk through - it was an outdoor celebration, and both invaders were glad for that. The outside fence was strong enough that Sonith's flight field allowed her to scale it and glide along the ground out of sight, while Jet zoomed overhead. They had little phone-coms, to coordinate.

Jet dropped down from the sky, and only a few people saw him. Eventually though, when he and his silver-skinned companion came by the back of the gathering, trying to find seats, word got through the crowd and into the rec center's busy rooms. Glory could actually be heard with her distinctive shriek.

Sonith winced, "wow, that's... pretty impressively angry," she whispered.

She recognized the older brother, Chris, from some of the few family photos that Jet had on his dresser in his own dorm. That brother, thirty years old now, came walking quickly up to them.

"Well, I ... didn't think you'd really go through with it," Chris said. Though his expression said he was worried for a moment, he then switched to a familiar o'Ket gleam. "Good job, bro. I'll go run interferance."

He vanished into the building, a trail of flustered black-clad suited and green-dressed men and women scurrying about.

"All this fuss over you coming to your sister's wedding," Sonith tsked her tongue.

"I'm surprised they invited me, at all," said a voice behind them. "Nice girl, she yours?"

"Bill!" Jet yelled, spinning and glomping onto his...

"Uncle?" Sonith asked, and Jet nodded. His father was unable to come, some government job kept him in secrecy most of the time anyway. No one even considered asking whether his secret job - which started just about a year before Jet was born - had anything to do with genetic experimentation...

Bill simply escorted them to seats near the middle of the bride's side of the audience. They chatted, and finally the organist was meant to start the wedding march.

The groom, an unassuming man who appeared to know just where to look for the offending brother-in-law, strode by without flinching. He was good looking, probably an accountant or middle management specialist. Someone who could take the endless bull that Glory would be dishing out. Everyone stood up and turned, when Glory herself came outside the building and onto the white sheet leading to the altar. Sonith had to squint - yes, she was scarred, but it wasn't as bad as all that. In fact, she thought, it wasn't nearly as bad as having your skin purposefully change color and texture. There were people in the dorms on campus who would die for skin that was merely scarred a bit...

"She looks lovely," Sonith whispered.

Jet nodded, there was a faint smile on his face. It wasn't one of those triumphant Jet-moment smiles when he'd pulled some prank, either. It was a nice family-love smile.

It wasn't returned when the woman walked by, but neither did she curse or sneer at him. Was that another victory, or just keeping up appearances?

Later on, as Jet and Sonith attempted to keep out of the real fighting, the bickering went on for hours at the reception. Bill had given them a ride, this time, so they could find the place more easily. Nice restaurant. They nearly didn't even let the pair of mutants inside at all.

"It's kind of nice to have any kind of family to get you in," Sonith commented. Bill again, this time with Chris backing him up, warned the restaurant's people that discrimination laws existed already, they didn't dare exclude a family member and his guest!

Dancing and conversation eventually dwindled to good-byes and giving of gifts or piling upon the stack in the corner. Eventually, it was down to Jet and Sonith, Chris, Glory and her new husband Robert, and Bill.

"You have a lot of nerve," Glory said. She'd drank a few glasses of wine, but was holding up well. She expected her honemoon to start in the afternoon of the next day, they'd packed and everything - nothing should have interfered with this event. Certainly not this annoying brother of hers.

"So do you," Jet said, "by not inviting me. You looked great, Glory, the dress is lovely, and you wore it well." He turned to Robert and gave a little bow. "Good luck, you two. Don't forget to write."

He grabbed Sonith's hand, and they left quickly after that. It was apparently all he could do to not just burst into tears and either yell at her or beg her to forgive him. For something he'd never been responsible for...

"Jet, let's get a taxi, I don't feel like flying in the dark." Sonith said.

"I don't think this is our neighborhood," Jet muttered, as the taxi dropped them off. Apparently, the man had a vindictive streak in him about mutants. He'd taken a right turn instead of a left a ways back, and wound them up in a place where streetwalkers and bums appeared in greater numbers. Gang members also, and that was the one who spied the nice clothing that the pair wore.

"Sweeeeet," one said, "y'wanna see how much you've got left after picking up this ho, you wanna give it to me?" He looked at Sonith up and down, "how bout you give me the ho too?"

Sonith sneered with disgust. "You call me that one more time, jerkface, and I'll-"

"You'll what, sweetie?" The thug said, pulling a short knife from his pocket and jamming it up against her neck. The point would not poke through her skin easily, but if he tried he could cut her. "You'll tease me with those things on your head?"

"They're antennae, you moron," Sonith said, twitching them toward him and sensing his heartbeat and temperature, many things about him that others couldn't tell. "And they're a great focus for my power."

She heard Jet snicker.

"What you doin back there shorty?" The thug said, pushing the knife harder and trying to see both the shorter man and his prey at once. But Jet had already engulfed himself in his traditional halo of fire.

A moment later, the thug dropped his knife and held his hand. "It's hot! You - what are you?"

"What do you think?" Sonith said.

"Freaks!" He yelled, and began to turn away. Sonith ignited the air around him, singing his hair and tripping him up with surprise.

Jet laughed out loud, flying past her and turning over the thug in the air. "Freaks, but you can call us Rocket and Silverfish, don't forget it." The circle of flames that Jet produced threatened to ignite the thug's clothing. He toned the fire back a bit, and Sonith applied a sharp pain to his posterior - the metal studs in his jeans heated up quite a bit with her powers.

"That totally rocked," Jet laughed on their way home. They weren't more than two miles from their campus, though it was quite late they weren't expected until the next day. They would have to break in, which wasn't a problem.

"It was awesome," Sonith said with a big smile. "But you had to tell them that name?"

"I did have to! You don't have any other codename!"

"We are not having this discussion again!" Sonith said, waggling her finger at him.

"Nope, we're not, Silverfish."

"Harrumph," she said. But she had to admit it was growing on her.

"We've got some ... special guests," said the principal, who doubled as a top-level government scientist in his spare time (or, doubled as the principal of this odd school, depending on which set of payroll stubs you read). "They've been sent here from across the country, actually, recommended to us by the kind folks at Carramba High school."

Mutterings went around the assembly. There were students of a wide age range attending this facility, from whenever their powers surfaced or their appearances made it impossible for them to attend normal schools. The seniors were asked to be nearer the front this time, where they were usually shunted to the back because most of them were much bigger than the youngest.

A pair of people, clearly mutants themselves, came out from the back stage. But they were so ... different. Both of them had feline looks to them, they were spotted like cheetahs, their tails had big white tips. Were they siblings? How did this happen? No one had really ever seen 'matching' mutants!

"This is Omaciyu and Temih," the principal said, whispering below his breath, "did I get that right? They're visiting from a place called Planet Twenty, and they're here to discuss something... rather important."

The cheetah male, Omaciyu by name, who had bowed when introduced, was very tall and slender, bore a turban covered head and looked quite simply 'exotic' in his cloak and pants. His female companion, Temih, was stockier and quite a bit darker in color.

Right about the time Omaciyu was going to start talking into the microphone on stage, the murmuring started. Did he say 'planet' twenty? Where was that? Was this some kind of joke by the sci-fi club? Furries? Who dressed up like those any more?

"Please, please," Oma said holding his hands up and instantly chilling the audience into silence. "We are indeed from another planet. But we are, more than that, from another... dimension. I'm sure you are familiar with the idea that there exist many different realities, some of which have different histories than your own?" He went with this, not giving anyone time to argue. It was the truth after all.

Sonith in the audience got a tremendous urge to be silent and listen intently. But then she realized: she'd always been a bit susceptable to the effects of telepaths and empaths! He was an empath? A cheetah empath mutant?

"We've come here because young people stand the strongest chance of successfully bonding with certain ... creatures. We would like to introduce you to them, two of them, and see if any of you would be the most appropriate."

"Sir?" Asked someone more bold - or more likely an empath who was able to beat Oma's powerful controls, "appropriate for what?"

"Dragon riding," the female said, since Omaciyu was already halfway out the side door.

The door led to a courtyard, in which was usually a couple kiosks or sign-up desks for on campus activities. This day however... Everything was cleared away exept...

The two dragons. One was quite large, as in, the length of a city bus or more, with a head almost twice as high. His wingspan must be huge, Jet found himself thinking. He was colored in shades of copper or brown, while the other was obviously of a different 'breed', dappled soft brown and yellow, with a green underbelly. She was much smaller, but still rather large - minivan size or so...

Everyone pretty much froze. That was due in large part to Omaciyu's command over their emotions. He kept groups like this calm - that was his gift. His partner Temih (whether she was his lover or not, no one could guess - they were still stuck glued to the dragons anyway), said, "they will like it if you come to them in small groups, but don't be afraid. They will never hurt anyone."

And people did it. Sonith was dragged along almost mindlessly - but when she neared the smaller female, her mind cleared quickly.

"You're lovely," Sonith said. She waved her antennae at the dragon and found her to be quite warm inside, not exactly reptilian but certainly not a mammal.

Jet was also led around to the dragons, and shortly two groups were formed. A large bulk of the students - mostly the youngest but also a good portion of the others. And the other, much smaller group, which were then approached by the pair of cheetah Kin.

"You children," Temih said, "have been Searched. Our dragons believe that you have what it takes to ride or command, perhaps even fight, upon dragon back."

"Dragons are not toys or pets," Oma added a moment later, "they are companions, lifemates. Mentally bonded from hatching to you, if you are the right one for the egg."

The principal was smiling like an idiot. Jet pointed this out to Sonith, who giggled. "I wonder what he gets out of this," she said.

"Probably a huge raise, and some funky genetic material to experiment with, wooooooOOoohh!" he made silly noises. Then he straightened up and wiped the big grin off his face, in as much as he could, when the principal walked by.

"You'll be requested to come back here, to finish your training, if you do pair up with a dragon," he said.

All told, there were about a dozen students among the population who had been singled out. More than a hundred others hadn't. Some would have complained, if Omaciyu hadn't simply asked them not to. Mentally of course...

"I can't even ... believe this," Sonith said, packing her few clothes away. Since her skin was very sensitive to touch and vibration, along with her antennae, she rarely liked to wear clothing beyond a bit of modest trunks and tanktop. She didn't have to wear anything, really, nothing much was visible on her body - but since she was still technically a student (if not quite a minor any longer) she was asked to keep something on. Jet of course packed more heavily. He had video games and baseball cards.

"I can," he said. "I mean, look at us! We're totally going to find dragons, you and me. Then," he winked, "you'll really be flying!"

"Where are you headed?" Asked another of the students.

"We're going to a place called Enzan Shi deragonray," Sonith said. "They've had a flight of many different dragons, there's supposed to be a lot of different ones. Those cheetah folks participated in it... they're so weird..."

"You should talk," said another student, laughing because he was one of those who looked even more bizarre than she did, with his four arms!

"We'll come back with some terrific dragons too," was the general commentary as everyone split up. Sometime soon, then, they'd all be able to compare each of their dragons - such teenagers they were!

The trip to Enzan Shi was uneventful, if a bit strange for the young pair. Sonith got the strangest feeling while they were traveling through space and time - her antennae vibrated and picked up what almost felt like the presence of people - but that couldn't happen, not in this black timeless void, could it?

They were at the place less than a week before the huge bugling announcement came thundering through the halls. It wasn't even morning yet, and Sonith was awake long before most of the others - her sensitive antennae tingling with the sound.

"Wow," she muttered, standing and putting on a warmer robe. She met up with Jet outside her dorm, since the boys and girls were separated here as back home. "I guess it's time, huh?"

"Yeah," Jet said, blearily rubbing his eyes and putting his baseball cap on.

"Take that thing off," Sonith grumbled, "that's so tacky..."

"It's not so tacky that a dragon wouldn't like it," Jet grinned. They arrived into the hall where the eggs all sat, and was promptly pushed into a line with the others, by a rather nervous wreck of a dragon.

"We're going, we're going!" Sonith giggled, hovering above the sand to keep her feet from burning.

As they stood, and were glowered at by one of the queen dragons, the eggs began to wobble and then break open. One by one, the many many orbs on the sands shattered or slid open. Practically half the dragons in the place helped them get into their own organized line, and to the candidates everything was just a mess of color and sound.

Sonith's senses were nearly overwhelmed, as the dragons kept coming out. They'd find a bond, or - not. Some of them just sniffed at the candidates and wandered away, while others openly ran right for them. Two in particular, the offspring of a pair of beautiful sunset dragons, came bolting right toward Sonith and Jet.

Because they were meant to be part of a 'program' at Paragon Special Studies, they headed back to the school almost immediately. However, they did spend about a month with their new hatchlings, learning directly from the folks at Enzan Shi. What to feed them, how to fix a wound. Their skin and scales were apt to dry out and shed, and the hunger pangs that the young dragonets had were, to quote Jet, 'righteous and hard to ignore'.

"We can't ignore them," Sonith reminded him, "they're going to starve if you don't get on it... I got them the dishes last time..."

Jet left and came back, flying through the halls, with the double bowls of fresh meat that had been cut up just the right size.

"I wonder if their mother and father would normally bite pieces off, and feed them, or what," Jet asked of no one in particular while they fed.

Upon returning to PSS, they found a new building under construction. It would still take a while to complete, but it would eventually hold effectively a fleet of dragons. The hangar was big enough - or at least it looked to Jet and Sonith - to hold a couple C-130s at least.

While the other students who had bonded at other locales came back, and all their dragons grew, the hangar bay became more and more complete. When the little hatchlings were no longer little and had to be moved from the students dorms (and they were quite the attraction there!) accomodations were set up for them to live in the built portion of the hangar.

Of course, all this was done while the students were busy with homework in addition to care and feeding, and training, with their dragons!

"This is bloody hard work," Jet said.

I like it, hard work is good for you! Do you know why those other people are unhappy? Is work too hard for them?

"It's not too hard, it's that they don't want to do it... They're not used to it."

Well they should get used to it! The esling dragon said reproachfully. He glared at the group of students who had not been chosen for dragon bonding, but were able to help work on the hangar none the less. They seemed less than pleased that their hard work was to be enjoyed only by these select few.

It is all right, my brother, they will eventually learn their labors are appreciated, Cekionyth told her brother. They are jealous. And they should be.

"No, they shouldn't," Silverfish said, "they'll get angry if they stay jealous."

Then let them be angry! I will protect you! The sunset red defiantly snarled at some of the passers by, who scuttled quickly out of her way.

"Ceki!" Sonith cried, "don't do that! They haven't done anything to you!"

They were thinking about it...

"No they were not," Sonith tried to soothe her dragon. These two were getting to be a handful!

Jet wasn't too keen on having some new creature interrupt his busy schedule, he figured that Sonith keeping her eye on him was enough. But when he saw the little green and red female Draca approaching him he softened up immediately.

"Hollywood," he named her, "is that okay?"

"It certainly is," she chirped. "Did you hear about that boy with the toxic skin? He and the girl who has healing powers got together and..."