Chapter 1: Chapter 1 — Endings and Beginnings
I remember the moment I realized my life had changed forever. Or maybe I should say… my lives. Plural.
The theater had been dark and sticky, the kind of smell that clung to everything: buttered popcorn, soda, carpet, and something faintly metallic that I couldn't place. I had chosen the very last showing, the late-night slot where the crowd was thin enough for me to sit at the very back without anyone noticing.
The movie ended. Credits rolled. I sat there for a while, blinking at the glow of the screen as it dimmed, letting the story settle in. The dragons. The adventures. Toothless soaring, Hiccup changing, Berk changing. How it had all ended. Perfectly. Yet… I didn't feel perfect. Not at all.
I left the theater slowly, the images of flying dragons burned into my mind like embers. Outside, the night was cold, the streets slick with rain, neon lights flickering in puddles. I walked without thought, almost in a daze, letting my feet carry me through the empty avenues.
And then I crossed the street.
A bus came fast, its headlights sharp as knives. I barely registered the smell of burning rubber before the impact knocked me off my feet.
The last thing I saw before the darkness claimed me wasn't the ground rushing toward me, but the side of the bus: toothless, Hiccup, and the words "How to Train Your Dragon — The Complete Saga."
When I woke, I didn't feel human.
The world smelled different. Sharp. Alive. Metallic and organic at once. My limbs didn't bend the right way. My lungs drew in air, but my chest was too big, my wingspan impossibly wide. And yet… I breathed.
I was tall. Too tall. Massive. My scales rippled faintly in the sunlight, black with streaks of violet that pulsed with every heartbeat. My tail was long, thick, and frighteningly powerful. My claws scraped against stone as I tested the ground, and my eyes… my eyes burned red, fierce and unyielding.
I staggered forward. Everything was too big. Every sound too loud. Every smell too sharp. And yet the ocean… the wind… it all felt right.
I—Aegis, I realized—was no longer human. I was something else. Something like Toothless. And not just Toothless… bigger. Titanwing big. Every instinct screamed that I was a predator, a shadow, a force no one could ignore.
The cove where I first landed was hidden from the village, shielded by cliffs that jutted into the ocean like jagged teeth. I stepped carefully, flexing wings that stretched over 30 meters tip to tip, tail coiling reflexively behind me. I sniffed the air. Salt. Fish. Smoke from the village hearths far above.
It was all… alive. Vibrating. Waiting.
I tried to remember being human—my name, my life, the movies I had watched—but it was like trying to recall a dream that wasn't yours. Yet the memory of the theater, the bus, and the dragons on the screen lingered vividly. It was as if the story had… pulled me in.
And now I was here.
The first days were awkward. I had to learn my body. Every movement sent shockwaves through the cove. One flap of a wing could knock over rocks the size of barrels. My tail hit the stone floor with the force of a battering ram. I fell more times than I cared to count—landing on my side, smacking my head, nearly tipping into the water below.
It was… hilarious, in a terrifying sort of way.
Step one: don't crush yourself.
Step two: don't crush the world around you.
Step three: maybe don't panic.
I practiced walking first, flexing limbs and claws, testing the weight of my wings, tail, and body. Then came hopping, then short glides. I felt the first rush of air under my wings and nearly screamed, claws digging into the cliff edge to stop myself from sliding into the waves below.
It was freedom… and chaos.
And then came the night.
Moonlight reflected off my scales, violet streaks pulsing faintly. I tried to sleep, curled in the cove, tail tucked carefully, wings folded in a way that didn't push stones into the water. My mind wandered.
Hiccup. Toothless. Berk.
I had seen the movies. I knew the endings. But I hadn't seen this coming. Not this. Not me. Not now.
And somewhere deep in the shadows, I realized that the world I had walked out of—our world—was gone. Replaced with one where dragons ruled the skies, humans feared fire and wings, and I… I was a shadow of a legend.
Aegis. A titan among dragons. And possibly… the most dangerous secret Berk had never known.