Kryptonite

Kryptonite was stunned. She couldn’t believe her class was going on a field trip to Fangyro! “Alright, settle down, children, settle down,” her teacher said. “I’ll need you to have your parents sign here on the form.” Kryptonite’s wings drooped. Her mother would never agree to this! She glanced at Storm. He met her eyes with an expression that said At least Sunbeam won’t get to go either! Kryptonite looked over at her half-sister. She was fuming, and the dragons near her were leaning away.

Kryptonite spent the rest of the class in a sad mood. When she finally heard the bell, she flew with heavy wings. She barely made it through the rest of the school day; she was so tired. She finally landed in her room, crawled into her bed, and promptly fell asleep.

…

Kryptonite was pretty excited to be on the field trip. Her mother had miraculously agreed to let her and her siblings go only because the babysitters needed a break. 

The class was traveling in a gigantic hulking machine instead of flying. It rumbled as it moved across the ground, skirting the edge of the forests.

“Ooh! Look over there!” Rainbow shouted. “A paradise bird!”

“Woah,” Kryptonite said as she gazed at the brightly colored audacious bird. As the two of them watched, it exploded in a burst of feathers as a small dark object lunged at the bird. The bird seemingly deflated, then fell from the high branch. As it fell, it whacked into a branch and burst, sending feathers and red mist flying.

“What was that!?” Rainbow said with a slightly hysterical tone.

“That was an explosifang rattlesnake. Their venom causes explosions in the bodies of birds and small mammals.” Kryptonite said. “The venom also causes a small explosion with the force of a small firework on contact with dragon scales, which can cause minor burning and bruising. It will also explode violently on contact with fire.”

“You have a scarily impressive memory of the biology textbook,” Rainbow said.

“Hah!” Kryptonite says. “I kind of do.”

Suddenly, with a hiss and rumble, the large vehicle slowed down as it rolled onto a path through the jungle. To the sides and above were large wire nets that stopped the imposing jungle on either side from creeping in and attacking. Strange sounds came from the trees. Low haunting growls and birdlike screeches, combined with a buzzing and clicking undertone that would put anyone on edge.

While before there was a constant stream of chatter, the whole class was eerily quiet. All the students were peering into the trees, trying to see something, anything, in the dark green void. As Kryptonite was looking into the trees, she thought she might have seen a huge jungle cat, staring at the hulking metal object moving in its territory. As she looked at the forest she saw something that caught her breath. A dark, snakelike shape high in the trees, with two arching dragon wings on its back. She gasped under her breath, and four sharp golden eyes lifted and locked with her gaze. Then, without breaking her gaze, the shape slid back into the trees, dissolving into the endless green.

…

Kryptonite was thinking deeply about what she had seen as the bus hissed and rumbled to a stop. She turned to Rainbow.

“Rainbow, I need to tell you something.” She hissed.

“Ok. What is it?” Rainbow hissed back.

“I saw a snake dragon thing hiding in the trees but then it saw me watching it and disappeared into the jungle,” Kryptonite said. “Do you believe me?”

“Um, not really,” Rainbow said. “Like, come on. A snake dragon?”

“I’m telling you, I saw it!” Kryptonite said. “There was like, a snake dragon or something in the trees!”

“Sure…” Rainbow responded. “Except no dragons are living in the jungle, you bozo.”

“Hmmph,” Kryptonite said. “Thanks for nothing then, Rainbow.”

“I believe you saw something!” Rainbow said. “I really do Kryptonite. It’s just that I find it hard to believe that what you saw was a dragon.”

“Well, I kno-” Kryptonite started to say, but she was interrupted by their teacher.

“All right students! Please make your way to the front door of the museum and make your way inside. DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING WITHOUT PERMISSION.” The teacher barked.

The group of young dragons walked inside and gasped in awe. They were walking on top of a massive see-through floor with a huge jungle-like expanse below them. They could see hundreds of snakes below, some digging, some sleeping, some fighting, and many more doing a myriad of unidentifiable things.

“There must be, like, a thousand snakes in here!” A student yelled out.

“There is!” A voice came from high above them. “1,342 snakes, to be exact.” Very suddenly, a bright ocean glass-colored dragon dropped down from up above, landing smoothly on the glass. She turned and looked over at the students.

“Welcome to The Museum of Fangyro!” she said. “My name is Crest and I’m your guide for today. Please follow me this way.” She walked off across the glass floor, towards the benches on the other side of the room, while telling all the students about the different snakes below them.

When they got to the benches, Crest said “Here are the booklet pages. Each of you take two different pages and fill them out as we walk around.” She then went over to a door and swung it open. “Here is the room of terrariums!” she said.

The students walked in and roamed around the room, examining the many snakes and reading facts on the walls. Students were also writing answers on their pages as fast as they could, so they could spend more time looking at the snakes.

Suddenly, a rumbling sound filled the room as the floor shook. Then, the wall nearest to them exploded, sending debris and dust into the air. Everyone started screaming and running around in partial blindness. Kryptonite and Rainbow stuck together and ran in one direction. They suddenly tripped and fell over something, and went sliding down a hill. They looked up just in time to see the metal net that encased the forest right in front of them. They both screamed and closed their eyes, bracing for the impact. However, it never came. They looked around in surprise and saw that they had slid underneath a gap in the metal lattice.

“What is going on!” Rainbow yelled hysterically.

“I don’t know!” Kryptonite yelled back.

They both tumbled head over heels and around themselves until, with a bump, they were in midair. They both tried to spread their wings and fly, but they were tangled up in each other. They plummeted downwards and landed with a wet smack in the mud.

When they had finally untangled themselves, they looked around fearfully. Immense trees loomed high above them and the underbrush was so dense you couldn’t see through it. Ominous sounds came from the jungle, like screeching bird calls and the hoot of monkeys.

Then, very suddenly, something dropped down from the trees. Kryptonite and Rainbow jumped backward in fright. The thing looked up. It was a dragon but unlike anything Kryptonite had seen before. It had a long snakelike body with four short legs, with two more where the wings were. The head was very snakelike, and four golden eyes peered at the two dragons. It looked at them for a moment, then let out an ominous hiss. With a slight noise, the dragon's claws slid out of its talons like a cat’s and its tail raised like a scorpion’s. To Kryptonite’s horror, there was a sharp bladelike protrusion glistening with venom on the end of it.

The unusual figure smiled cruelly, then leaped forwards, straight at the two friends.