Leon was once mocked and taunted at, too. Necessarily however, he wasn't ever physically bullied by his Dragonesian peers. Even though Leon longed for friends during his childhood, he resented attending the school which was meant for all noble and wealthy Dragonesian children. A few human kids went with them to the same school as well, but it was just a painful torture for them.

Not being fond of his Dragonesian classmates, Leon was eager to offer a hand of friendship to the three human boys who studied in the same class, as of him. However, the moment they had realized that Leon, the Dragonesian Prince, was approaching them, they had scurried away in an instant.

His classmates tyrannized those three human kids along with a few others from other classrooms, whenever they could. They were proud that they were Dragonesians and that those humans were nothing but pesky little lowly beings. When Leon refused to treat those human kids the same way his Dragonesian compeers did, he was called a coward. When the ridiculing heightened to a certain extent, disappointed, Leon had to accept his father's offer of home-schooling him. And that is how, since the age of six, the boy spent his days in loneliness, without any true friends, for whom he had always longed for. He was helpless, just how this young girl was right now.

Leon, with fury, wanted to reveal his identity to those men who could then feel afraid of him. For the first time, he wanted to use the power he held to scare off certain humans. But what he did not know was that these humans of the rural areas were not aware of the powers of Dragonesians, due to living miles away from the Main City. They simply despised the Dragonesians so much so that if they could find one, they would burn them alive.

Fortunately before Leon could take a move, Alana grabbed his wrist, stopping him. Leon looked back at Alana, vexation evident in those crimson eyes which were now glowing furiously. He growled under his breath, "Let me go."

Alana understood that the inner anger, a unique trait of Dragonesians, was soon going to burst out of Leon if he was not stopped at the moment. The bursting could be different for different Dragonesians. For some, it came out in the form of superpowers, for some super-strength, and for some, what destruction occurred was yet to be known.

Alana pulled Leon away from the scene and up the staircase to the narrow and empty hallway before releasing him.

"Think rationally before you say or do something," Alana said, trying to keep her voice as quiet as possible because she did not know whether the room adjacent to theirs had people in it. Alana laid out her palm, "Keys."

Leon huffed out a breath of annoyance before handing over the keys to their room. While Alana was busy unlocking the door, the Dragonesian snarled under his breath once again, "Why did you not let me go and show those humans their place?"

Without a word, Alana pushed the door open and pulled Leon with him, before locking themselves inside the room.

She sighed, "Were you even aware of the fact that you were going to reveal your Dragonesian identity?"

"Oh yes I was," Leon admitted, "It was all intentional."

"Look Leon," Alana pinned the Dragonesian with her stoic gaze, "We are both in dangerous waters right now. No one can be trusted. It is not the time for us to act on impulse."

"You are unbelievable," Leon scoffed, "I actually thought that you were kind. Or rather, I forced myself to believe it but seems like you only care about yourself."

Alana clenched her jaws, closed her eyes to control the words of aggravation, itching her insides to bubble out and then looked right at Leon, "Think everything over after you have calmed down. Yes, I do care about myself. And at the moment, your name is tied with mine. The Dragonesian Guards are looking for not only me, but also you. If you get caught, then my life will be in danger and I do not wish for that to happen. In these treacherous times, I cannot afford for the Dragonesians to find me because of you, who prefers to listen to his heart instead of his brain."

With that being said, Alana stomped away from the room, slamming the door shut behind her.

Whereas Leon did not forget to yell back at her,

"Whatever lets you sleep at night!"

"Lena."

Lena stirred in her sleep when she heard her name being called. She believed that she was still in slumber when her entire body shook violently. She immediately sat up straight on her bed, breathing heavily, and found Lucian's palm on her mouth.

Lucian motioned with his fingers to keep everything down.

Lena looked around. The girl above her bed on the upper bunk was still sleeping, similar to the other three present in the room.

"What are you doing here?" Lena whisper yelled at her friend, "Boys are not supposed to enter one of the girls' dormitories. How did you even come in?"

Lucian pointed at the dress, or rather the uniform he was clad in. That is when Lena finally realized what the boy was wearing and how he had managed to come inside the dormitory.

It was the Dragonesian Guard uniform, and the logo which had the representation of a vicious dragon surrounding it, complimented with the bucket hat that Lucian was wearing, to hide his identity. The uniform however was that of the lower ranked guards, who usually had the responsibility of guarding the trainee dormitories, escorting them in and out of the training centres, grounds, and the lunchroom, on the scheduled times. Perhaps that is why no guard doubted Lucian, and let him enter the dormitory.

"We need to leave."

Lena crooked her eyebrows, "Why and how? I am ninety-nine point five percent sure that one of the girls in this room has already woken up, and is eavesdropping on our conversation. If we leave now, it will be the end for us both."

"They are all in deep sleep," Lucian brought out an empty glass bottle which had previously contained a perfume, from his pant pocket, "I once saw one of the Dragonesian guards, playing tricks on some small kids with this perfume. Apparently, this perfume once inhaled, whether in conscious or unconscious state, one goes under a deep sleep. But again, this has an effect only on humans. Thanks to the uniform, I was able to walk into the room where all the harmless experiments are kept, and somehow managed to sneak it in with me."

Lena nodded in relief as she eyed the glass bottle, which probably was one of the many inventions the Dragonesians had created just to perturb humans.

The situation was used smartly by Lucian. The lower ranked guards were rather foolish and except for having knowledge on applying physical strength, they couldn't really use their brains. Naturally, they didn't even bother to memorize the faces of the trainees, even though their superiors had ordered them to. Well, it was probably because they were too arrogant to believe these mere human trainees wouldn't dare to pull up a trick from under their noses.

Too much arrogance is harmful at the end of the day.

"Wear this," Lucian handed over another set of similar Dragonesian uniform, and a bucket hat.

"How did you get your hands on these?"

"Well," Lucian only shrugged in pride, "We were the sneakiest thieves in our province, after all. Just brushed up my old tricks."

"That's understandable," Lena sighed, before asking another question, "Wait, but why are we leaving again? We had planned to not leave, right? We even turned down Alana when she offered us to escape with her."

"I think I might understand where Alana was coming from when she had asked us to leave," Lucian explained, regret visible in his blue eyes, "These Dragonesians are planning something. I did hear the words Insurrection and Takeover. I am not quite sure though what they might be implying with these, but they definitely do not sound good."

"What about the others? Do you not think their lives will be in danger?"

"It is not possible to bring over a thousand trainees with us. If it was, I would have. So Lena, let us escape now that we have a slight ray of hope."

Lena, who was frightened deep down, looked over at the locked door of her dormitory and then back at the girls who were in deep slumber. Guilt was running through her veins, yet she needed to save herself first. Escape seemed to be the only option to guide her to her ray of hope, it appeared.

"Fine. Let us escape from this fucking hellhole."