The turning gears in my brain had me imagining I could have been relaxing out here, planning some of my future hero business, since the calming nature does clear up my mind a bit, but I still had to walk to the academy of blandness.

While I was hoping for something exciting to happen, like a dragon appearing from above, ready for a beatdown, my eyes instead glanced at the side of the road and noticed something moving in the distance between the trees. Soon, I saw ahead of me multiple roads connecting to the main one I was walking on, with a couple of other kids walking down the pathway.

A few minutes of walking passed by, and I could see what appeared to be a large stone building at the end of the trail. Within those few minutes of walking, the road to the school began to fill with kids talking and yelling over each other in excitement and curiosity about what the school would be like, or whispering about what was happening at the market early in the morning.  

“Eh, have you heard of the lockdown happening at the market today?” One of the kids asked another person as I listened from behind. “Uh, I heard it wasn’t even a lockdown anyway, and it was just some regular inspections. I am more focused on improving crafting skills at the academy if anything.”

From overhearing everyone’s conversation nearby, it seemed like they were more thrilled about going to school and learning about the foundations of crafting, which is quite the opposite of my opinion on school. But I still have hope of a dragon still showing, so I won’t die of boredom, but instead, be in the blazing glory of a fight from protecting everyone.

The school was appearing much more clearly to my vision as the rest of the camp looked pretty decent, and the main building was shockingly large. The walls around the building had a strong, smooth interior look, as if they were made of pure steel. The front gates had large statues made out of hard metal, posing in fighting positions while their metal hands held the roof high in the air. The roof itself looked even neater and stronger with a stone bend between it, and other floors could be rooms below it, by my guess.

I had to admit the school was good-looking, but that still didn’t change the fact that it was still going to be a boring day of rotting away at a desk. The teachers here were most likely- Wait! There was no way. Could that be? No, there was no way what I saw was possible. I must be seeing things.

As I walked along with the rest of the group towards the towering front doors, we all took a glance behind us at the sound of a loud, eerie noise and saw a large shadow hidden in the clouds above. “Ich-ich-ich-ich-ich” was the sound being heard from high in the sky, and I know this is ridiculous, but it almost sounded like steam being made.

“Wait, I know that shape in the clouds, it’s a-” “Dragon!” The rest of the students shouted over me in panic and shock as I was more eager than anything to prove my might. I couldn’t tell what the dragon’s appearance was, but I could tell it was massive by its shadow, which was cast deep into the foggy air above. By my guess, it was the size of the schoolyard, and it wanted to bring its fury down on one person: me. That’s right, I wanted a dragon to appear, and fate must have heard me calling out for my destiny of being a hero. Now, I will fulfill that order.

“Don’t worry, everyone, I know this isn’t how we want to spend the first day of school, especially me, but I will save all of us... No need to thank me,” I said proudly and stood in front of the fearful crowd and faced towards the winged beast shadow, who was now circling the school. I glanced back at everyone, expecting to see their relieved faces, but instead, I was met with expressions that said, “Are you insane?” or “We are so dead.” Despite them not being grateful for having the most skilled hero by their side, I stood my ground and watched the shadow get closer and closer, while students were getting so worried that some started to run away to the woods nearby.

Ich-Ich-Ich-Ich-Ich. Those weird sounds came from the beast once more, and its shadow was only a short distance from us. It was casting itself onto the school as it flew in too fast for me to see. Boom! It used its fast speed to crash onto the ground, filling the area with dust and slight tremors. I coughed and saw my vision go dark from the wind carrying all the dirt into my path. My hand swiftly blocked my eyes for a moment. My legs shook from the vibrations traveling along the ground, and I almost lost balance. I could hear weird sounds more clearly, and to my surprise, it reminded me of gears turning in a machine for some reason. I could see other nearby students waving their arms in the air, trying to clear up the dust. My eyes focus on the glaze of the winged beast, now hiding amongst the clouds of dirt mixed with smoke.  

“Hey, am I the only one who hears the sound of a spinner going off?” I asked out loud until I heard a sarcastic and rude response from behind me. “That actually is more like a running steam engine. Oh, great, powerful hero. In fact, I can smell some smoke in the air coming from it, and you would’ve noticed as well if you stopped playing pretend.”

“Pretend,” they said as if I’m not the only one who is activating, trying to save everyone by striking the beast down. They, and everyone else, will undoubtedly rethink their statements when my plan of total awesomeness comes into action.

I wasn’t worried about the chance of being turned into ashes since Udo did pack my bag, and I knew he would put in the one tool that was commonly used for fixing most problems since ancient times: a classic hammer. With my hands, swimming the waves of clutter tools, I release a small hammer from inside the lifeless fabric stomach on my back. The hammer might be small, but it seems right for this kind of problem.

“I hope you’re ready because I’m going to nail some sense into that empty head.” Not only do I have the best skills to fight, but I also have the best hero puns that put fear into all my foes. But I had no time to make more jokes; the one right in front of me had to be taken care of first.

As my legs made a quick haste toward the beast hiding, my eyes took more notice of two beams of light suddenly shining from above its foggy domain. The bright spark followed my movement as the sun followed our two moons in the sky. The dark shadow of the winged beast didn’t move a muscle. I pulled my hammer backward for abrutald attack at what seemed like its chest area and approached closer to its space.

“Ha! I am not falling for your trick of playing dumb,” I said sarcastically, knowing a dragon would try to play with its meal and strike when I wasn’t looking. I started swinging like no tomorrow. “Take that and that and that and have one of these, you big tyrant!”.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Wait, am I hearing that correctly? Wouldn’t I hear a big roar of pain from it instead of the sound of metal? Let me make sure I hear that right the first couple of times. Bang! Well, is this surprising?

Ich-Ich-Ich-Ich-Ich. More sounds of machinery and gears were coming from the beast, sounding more like a machine being overworked. Before I could even think about what was standing before me at this point, I was quickly sent flying backward by what felt like a strong gust of wind, but was more likely a shockwave. I felt a small amount of pain in my body as I went across the ground like skipping stones across the water. My arms and legs got twisted a bit, and my head hurt a bit more when I finally crashed into something. It wasn’t the school building for sure, as I would be in more pain.

“Ugh… don’t worry, everyone, I am not hurt too badly.” “You’re going to be even more hurt if you don’t get up.” Said a voice from down below. I stood up to face the few annoyed students who were also getting to their feet. Now, it may seem bad that I accidentally bumped into the bystanders, but that was only because I was caught off guard. I am going to beat whatever this thing is and put it to shame.

Steam and fog slowly blew away across the schoolyard and disappeared into the air. The steam stopped flowing around the sky, revealing only small streams of it, and exposing the proper form of my enemy. The beast that had everyone terrified wasn’t even a beast to begin with: it was a machine. A giant dumb machine the whole time. I had asked for a real dragon to face, not some giant bucket-shaped one. Get it right next time, fate.

What stood just a few blocks away was one of the most disappointing things I had laid my eyes on, and that isn’t counting what Udo did to me this morning.

The metal machine had a body that resembled hard steel, and the rest of it had to be made of various materials, I guessed. Its arms and legs had a brown color, with a flexible appearance. The feet and claws shone brightly from the sunlight and were most definitely razor-sharp. From the top of its body was its large head, with glowing glass for eyes, and rows of metallic fangs protruding from its mouth. On the back, it had to be one of the strongest fabric-made wings to even carry it in the sky. The entire machine stood still on all four of its metal legs, showing no sign of movement. Yes, it was somewhat cool for its size, but ultimately, it was just a walking pile of junk.

“Wow... Look at that astonishing design and how perfectly made it is!”

“Yeah, and I bet those bolts had to be a special kind and be hammered into a flawless clockwise spin for those wings to function right.”

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting a closer look at those Polish claws for studying.”

“Yeah, me too.” “I’m coming with you.” “I want to explore its full design as well.”  

Wait what? A couple of minutes ago, everyone was terrified out of their mind by the thing, and now they want to see it. Then it attacked me as well. I am the hero here who deserves their attention and not the flying garbage that clearly tried to kill us all.

I took a deep sigh and followed along with everyone who was getting excited over something that was a complete waste of time. Even the kids who ran into the woods early came back with a cheerful smile on their faces upon taking a glance at it.