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Instant Glassics Chapter 1: Glass of 20XX

By TheSilverSeryn

Author's Note: After weeks of dud stories, all it took was one look at a simple fan-made picture in my archives to spark this stroke of pure genius. I thought about it for a day or two and I put it all together. And the fruits of that brainstorm created this remake of the "Latex Lore" series. Granted, it's not exactly the same, but it's worth a shot. And so, the birth of the newest type of Synthetic was born. I hope you enjoy this a lot!

On a calm and starry night, Strato Incendus was lying on top of his favorite countryside farmhouse and was looking up at the stars, enjoying a personal day off that he had taken to relieve himself of all the hard work he did on a daily basis. There were no new lives brought into this world and nobody deserved to die on what had already been an absolutely perfect day all over the world. Incendus had visited all of his favorite places all over the world as both Gabriel and as Anaiou and the end to his perfect day off was to lay down on a rooftop in the countryside and just look up at the stars.

He was counting all of the constellations he could on this side of the world when he noticed something streaking through the stars that caught his attention. It looked like a shooting star, but the light that it was giving off seemed a little... out of the ordinary. It was like a star really was falling. And the size of it told him that it could do some heavy-duty damage to any place that it hit.

Incendus sighed and put his black hand to his forehead with some slight annoyance. This always happened on his days off. Some kind of interstellar event always happened to hit this world whenever he let his guard down, even for a few hours. Oh well... he might as well see what was going on.

(The next night and in a different part of the state...)

I could hardly believe it. It was finally almost here. After four years of trying to deal with the social world and eking my way through college, I was finally being accepted into the "Omega Zeta Alpha" fraternity in the legendary City of Magic. I had gone through a number of cruel and unusual initiations (which I will not repeat) and now, I had finally been admitted into a fraternity on the Ridgewater College campus. I had my own room and everything and I was finally on the same page as the rest of the students there. After being picked on by them for most of my freshman year, I was finally someone in the social world.

Amazingly, there was to be a college carnival the night after I was officially admitted into Omega Zeta Alpha that I was really looking forward to. I wasn't sure what it was, but I had a feeling that my life was going to change forever with this carnival.

In fact, the night before the carnival, I was looking out at the night sky above the city and saw a rare sight. A brilliant shining shooting star had arced over the campus that night. The star was so bright and large that I thought it was made of glass instead of snow, dirt and ice. And since it was a shooting star, I decided to make a wish. I made a wish to meet the ideal girl of my life, no matter who or what form she took. I didn't care if she was an animal or was alive or was even an inanimate object, I wanted someone that I could spend the rest of my life with.

But I had no idea how well someone was listening to that wish...

The day of the carnival, I was walking through the aisles of the flea market and I saw a rather shady-looking stand that read: "Live Fur-ever in Glass! Full-sized Custom Glass Statues!" This sounded a little odd and... expensive, but I had a little under $300 to spend that I had saved up for this particular event, so I guess I could look and see what it was.

There was only one figure in front of a veiled stand that looked as strange as the stand he was running. He was covered from head to foot in a black-and-white robe that was split down the middle like Cruella de Vil's hairdo. Most of his face was covered in a hood except for what appeared to be a small, pointed... muzzle(?) along the same concept with a pair of mismatched "whiskers" trailing down a good part of his body. He reminded me a lot of that one TMNT figure... what's his name... Master Splinter the Rat. He was easily seven feet tall without breaking a sweat and the "whiskers" looked like they were made of flesh instead of hair. There was also a long, trailing, black-and-white... tail(?) growing behind him. On the tip on the black side was a set of four crimson spikes while on the white side was a tuft of clear-blue fur. This figure was obviously not human, but for some reason, no one else seemed to notice.

The figure seemed to notice that I was staring at him because he turned to look at me with a smile on his "muzzle". "May I help you, sir? You seem to have an eye for my appearance."

I wanted to ignore the fact that he stuck out like a sore thumb, but I couldn't for some reason. "What are you? You look like... a... an..."

"An animal?" He didn't seem to mind. "Well, since you're the only one who seems to see me like this, then you must have an eye for my stand. Why don't you come on in and we'll talk business?"

I wanted to avoid any contact with the creature, but somehow, I couldn't. I sighed and stepped into the tent with him following right behind me. The inside of the tent was rather warm and it appeared that there was a portable kiln in the corner that was currently ablaze with a large cauldron of what appeared to be molten glass, which was the only thing that I figured it was from the name on the tent.

"So..." said the figure, stepping around and sitting down on a stool near the kiln. "You can see what I really am, huh?" I couldn't help but nod. "Well, since we're both on the same page, let me show you a little more of myself."

He then slid his hands out of his sleeves and I was in awe that his "fingers" were only numbered at four with crimson-red claws on his black side and clear-blue ones on his white ones. He then pulled back his hood and revealed his head.

Amazingly, this confirmed that he was not human. In fact, he looked more like a... a dragon! His muzzle was reptilian, his eyes were the opposite color of what side each one was on, and on the sides of his head were a black and red-webbed fin on his black side and a large "ponytail" of clear-blue fur on his white side.

"Who... Who are you?" I said incredulously.

The dragon chuckled. "You're one of the few people I've met that didn't ask what I am right off the bat. And since I'm such a nice guy, I'll answer both. My name is Strato Incendus and I am known by many titles: The Angel of Life and Death, The Dragon of Light and Darkness, The Right and Left Hands of God... your pick."

Feeling a little uncertain, I said simply, "I'll just call you "Incendus" if you don't mind."

"Incendus" chuckled and nodded. "That's fine. Almost everyone does. Now... shall we talk business?"

I blinked and looked around the tent. "Uh... I never said anything about buying anything."

Incendus chuckled again. "I can read you like a book. You want what I can offer you so your life can take off in the right direction. I can make you a custom liquid crystal statue that you can display in your room and admire. All I need is for you to give me a little bit of your time and I can set you up."

It sounded like a good idea, but two things were still bothering me. "The sign said "glass" and how much am I going to have to pay for this?"

Incendus smiled and answered both. "Technically, it's liquid crystal from my own private stock and I charge a simple flat price of $249 for one full-sized custom statue. All I need from you is a photo of the pose you want and the type of furry you want to be."

$249 didn't sound even remotely out of the question for a full-sized custom-made "liquid crystal" statue. In fact, it was rather cheap for something made of "glass".

"I guess I could use something like that. Looks like you and I've got a deal. Do you take cash?"

Incendus and I stood up and I pulled out my wallet to grab a large wad of cash to give to the dragon. He took the money and held it in his black paw before crumpling the bills in both paws and causing them all to vanish like magic. Seeing my shocked expression, he simply smiled and held out his paws to show there was nothing up his sleeves.

"It's a trick that your average magicians fail to replicate as well as I can. They have to revert to illusions to do so, but what I do is the real deal. Now come over here and stand on this podium." He took me in his white paw and escorted me over to a metal podium just big enough for me to stand without falling off. His paw felt leathery and tough, which was similar to most dragons that I had read about.

Incendus had me stand on the podium as I was for a moment while he stepped back and held up his hands like someone visualizing something for a camera. "Hmm... I like this. Now, let's work with me here." He snapped his white fingers and a large rock appeared on the podium, nearly knocking me over. "I'm seeing you in a sitting position. Now sit and let's see what I have to work with."

Shrugging, I planted myself on the rock and waited while Incendus came forward to adjust me accordingly. I couldn't help but tell him, "No offense, but I thought this was supposed to be a "free pose session"."

Incendus shrugged as he pushed my right leg into an angle on the rock with my left leg touching down on the podium. "It was, but my artistic talent is working right now. Just work with me here."

He then moved my head slightly to the side and tilted it downwards before adjusting my arms to his satisfaction. Finally, he stepped back and repeated the gesture with his paws. "Perfect! Now hold it there while I get the shot."

I did my best to hold still while he stepped backwards and spread his wings wide. I then realized something. "Where's the camera?"

Incendus folded his wings and shook his head. "Who needs film when you've got magic? Now don't move. I need to get this right."

He spread his wings again and held his arms at a diagonal over his head as though he was about to bow down to me. Finally, his mismatched eyes flashed and I was blasted off the rock by a sudden blast of energy, coming to rest in a pile of cushions that had appeared out of nowhere.

When I sat up again, I was looking at a rather bizarre sight. It looked like my exact body had been superimposed on the podium, except that it was completely transparent. It was like he had taken my picture as an exact 3D hologram.

"Wow!" I said, getting to my feet and looking over my "shadow" from all over. "This is pretty good. I bet I don't even have to ask -- magic, right?"

Incendus nodded. "Of course. Did you think I used smoke and mirrors? This is the real deal and..." he paused, looking at the shadow on the podium. "Uh-oh."

""Uh-oh"? I'm not liking the sound of that. What's "uh-oh"?"

Incendus looked over the shadow with a nervous expression that was uncertain at the same time. "I think... no... I must be seeing things. Never mind."

But I wasn't buying it. "Incendus... what's going on?"

But the god didn't seem to be hanging onto what he said. "I'm not sure, but I think something's wrong with this shadow. It might be nothing, but I promise that if something comes up, I'll tell you when I deliver it. I just think I goofed somewhere, but I can't really tell from here."

"Should I do it again?" I offered.

Incendus shook his head. "Sorry, but I used up my only blank podium to do this. To be honest, I was waiting for you and only you to do this." I raised my eyebrows. "It's a long story, but let's just say that this sculpture was written in the stars for you and only you. I just think that there's a little... "glitch" in this copy that might come back to haunt me. In fact..." He suddenly looked rather relieved. "I think this might work out in the end anyway. Tell you what: I'll get right to work on this and have it ready for you when you get back to your dorm. Speaking of which... which type of furry would you like to be superimposed in glass forever?"

I could have picked any furry in the world, but after everything I had seen already, there was only one furry that I wanted to forever remember myself in glass with.

"How about a dragon? It's the only one I can think of that would be worth it."

Incendus looked thoughtful for a moment as he looked from me to the transparent shadow on the podium. "Hmm... I think I can see that. Okay, a dragone--uh, dragon it is. Now you just go enjoy yourself and I'll have it ready when you get back. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

He snapped his black digits again and everything around me -- the tent, the kiln, the shadow and even Incendus himself all vanished from the spot, leaving me standing in an empty space in-between two tents. Not sure if what I had just witnessed was real, I looked around at the students looking at me standing here in the blank spot.

I realized then that something was in my hand that hadn't been there earlier. It was a slip of paper that looked a lot like a hand-written receipt for what I had just bought and read as thus: "One Custom Full-sized Glassic Dragon Statue -- $249 -- Paid in full. Satisfaction Guaranteed or Double Money Back."

(Author's Note: See anything new? You should. But just keep reading and see if anything new comes up.)

Well, well... It was real after all! Even better, if I didn't like what I saw, then I got double my money back! You couldn't beat a deal like that! So with a smile, I pocketed the receipt and went off to enjoy the rest of the carnival.

When I had finally had enough of the carnival, I headed back to my fraternity dorm and unlocked the door to my room. I wasn't expecting my other three dorm mates back for another couple of hours, so I figured I might as well get ready for bed and enjoy a few hours of silent sleep for tonight.

Omega Zeta Alpha was actually a two-building fraternity on campus where the new members slept in the smaller building while the more devoted members lived in the larger building across campus. I didn't understand the logic behind it, but that's how it was. My fellow "pledges" were named Sean, William and Scott (Author's Note: Sound familiar? I thought so.) and they tended to do whatever they could to try and get into what was known as "The Big House". But I wasn't bothered by moving up in ranks anytime soon. As long as I was in a frat house, that was all that mattered to me.

As soon as I opened the door and turned on the light, I was nearly taken off-guard by the newest object in the room. I was also nearly blinded as well from the glare on the object in question. And once I had gotten used to both, I was able to see just what it was.

True to his word, Incendus had created and delivered the dragon statue that I had paid for in full. Although... it was a little bigger than what I expected. Even though it was in a sitting position, the statue was easily seven feet at the top of its curved horns. Even better, he had placed it in full view of my bed so that when I lied down at night, I could look at it at the most optimal angle possible.

Sure enough, I was looking at a full-sized glass dragon in the exact pose that Incendus had had me stand in for. But the detail of it was just uncanny and second to none. It was almost as though it could just get up and walk right off the podium like a living being. Its glassy body was a mixture of blue, silver and white that varied all over its body depending on how the light hit it. Its legs were lean, trim and muscular with three long, finger-like digits on its feet, each tipped with narrow and very sharp claws. I noticed that there was a new medium-thick, long, rope-like, prehensile tail that wound around the statue's left side and came to rest just beneath its left footpaw. There was a kind of bracelet-like band molded around the tail about 18 inches from the tip of said tail. A similar band was around the right ankle of the digitigrade footpaw that was on the rock and the leg bent at the knee just like Incendus wanted me to.

As I moved up its body, I was aware that its loins were covered by a simple tall blue loincloth that didn't seem to be glass at all. In fact, I think it was put there when the statue was complete to give it a kind of "censored" look. Feeling adventurous, I went over to the statue and flipped the cloth up to check what goods it had...

...

...

...nothing. They were completely bare. The blue silk loincloth was nothing more than an attempt to make it appear more... "civilized". Huh.

Moving up, I was aware that it had a very trim body that looked a little too good to be true. It wasn't six-pack abs, but it was interesting. And as I moved up its torso, I saw that... oh... my... Now I saw what Incendus had meant by him "goofing". It wasn't what I expected, but once I thought it, it was actually an improvement.

The dragon... or should I say dragoness had a pair of rather robust glassy breasts growing from its chest without a bra or any nipples to speak of. They were completely bare and censored for those of you at home reading this, and I had to say... they were rather attractive. They were like two large crystal balls growing from its chest that rather complimented its lean and trim figure. I guess I had been captured in a female likeness.

The "dragoness'" arms were lean and trim just like its legs and it had a pair of five-fingered human-like hands, each one with a similar sharp pointed claw on them. I saw another band similar to the ones on its legs on its left wrist and another smaller one over its right ring finger that was hard to see from the position it was in.

Its wings (yes, it had wings) were some of the richest and fullest I had ever seen constructed of glass before. Granted, they weren't molded in full spread, but they were good enough. Each wing had four finger-like bones in-between the thin glassy "webbing" that filled them with a fifth "thumbclaw" at the top where all the other bones joined together.. The webbing was thin enough that I could see through it, but just barely. The rest of the blue kind of drowned out most of the transparency.

Finally, its head was one of the most amazing parts of it altogether. Its neck was a little longer than most, but its head and face were draconic, complete with a pointed muzzle that was currently curved in a sweet smile. Its eyes were narrow, kind and yet fully aware. It was as thought they could spring to life at any minute from how lifelike they were. I could tell that they just wanted to blink, but being made of glass, they couldn't. It also had a rather rich and full mane of long, glassy hair that reached down to the small of its back. There were three more bands acting as "ponytails" in different parts of the mane. It also had a pair of "floppy" deer-like ears growing out of the top of its head with a single-hoop earring in its right one. And to top it all off, it had two long, slightly S-shaped horns growing off the top of its head that were as white as glass could get without being real. A final band was wrapped around the halfway point of the left one.

The dragon was, in a word, exquisite. It had been honed and polished to perfection and it seemed so lifelike that it just wanted to get right off the podium and take a walk. I didn't doubt that it could since it had been created by magic, but something about it seemed to be holding it in place as though it was being bound to the podium. It was very beautiful and I soon forgave Incendus for "screwing up" in the first place. In fact, it was everything that I had ever wanted in a perfect woman -- tall, shiny and beautiful. I just wished that it could literally come to life and be mine forever.

In fact, I was so taken aback by how beautiful it was that I walked up to it, looked it in its glassy eyes and smiled at it before speaking to it.

"You're really something, you know that? I think you should have a name." Then without even thinking on it, I knew what to call it. "I think you should be called "Sidian", is that okay?"

I didn't expect the statue to answer, so it was no surprise when it did. Still, I felt confident that I had named it properly and felt well enough to lean close to it and kiss it gently on its glassy muzzle. Ice-cold crystal met my lips, but at least I had let "her" know how I felt about her."

So for tonight, I turned in and watched "Sidian" for a while before falling asleep. I couldn't explain it, but I couldn't wait for tomorrow.

For the next week, I would wake up and "talk" with Sidian for a while while I waited for classes to start. I knew she couldn't hear me, but it felt good for someone to talk to. I would tell her all about my life and what I was doing from day to day before heading out and going to my classes.

Every day, I would kind of zone out in classes, wondering how Sidian was doing back at my dorm. She seemed so beautiful and lifelike that I just wished that she could speak to me when I talked to her. She was a decent listener and somehow, I could always tell how she felt from the look in her eyes. It was like she understood what I was talking about and if only she could move and speak, she could tell me just as much as I told her.

In fact, I was so preoccupied with Sidian that my grades started to slip with my assignments. Some of my papers would be filled with everything but what I was supposed to be writing about, and by everything, I meant things about Sidian. For instance, I was taking a Communications class one day and the question was related to different types of non-verbal communication. But what I wrote in the blank was: "Sidian is a very good listener. Her eyes tell me many things, but I just wish she could speak as well." Naturally, I failed that paper horribly, but I didn't care. When I got back to my dorm that night, I actually went to sit in Sidian's glassy lap and tell her all about my day, completely ignoring the fact that I had failed that morning.

Over the course of the week, word began to spread to the Omega Zeta Alpha "Big House" that there was a giant glass dragon statue that was beginning to attract some rather jealous moods around campus. The members were getting jealous that I had a rather... "shapely" statue all to myself. And completely unknown to me, members were sneaking into my dorm room to take pictures with the dragon. These pictures were somehow being spread over the campus like wildfire without me knowing. Soon, the whole campus knew about it.

But when William stopped me before class and asked me if he and the other pledges could come in my room and take a picture with the statue, I quickly declined. Sidian was special and all, but she was my dragon and I didn't want to share her with anyone. Naturally, this didn't go well with my fellow pledges and was only heightened further when I bought a security system to keep everyone else out. I also began to lock myself in my room even more than I used to and my topics to Sidian had changed from casual talk to paranoid speculation. I was worried that they were going to find some way to get to her and possibly vandalize her somehow, so I took all the necessary precautions to try and keep them out.

But near the end of the week, I got a call from my mom and dad that my grandpa was on his death bed. Naturally, I had to take a leave of absence for a weekend to help take care of him. I was naturally worried that something was going to happen to Sidian, so I made sure to lock up tight and take the keys with me.

But what was the most bizarre about this event was that Sidian's facial expression had changed when I had told her where I was going. She no longer had the sweet and kind smile on her face that she had been sculpted with. Her muzzle and eyes now both had a look of fear and apprehension. It was like she "knew" that I was leaving and was worried that I wouldn't be able to protect her.

"I'm sorry, Sidian," I said when I noticed this. "But I have to go. I might never see my grandpa alive again. I'll only be gone for a day; two tops. You can last that long without me, right?"

She didn't answer, but then again, I didn't expect her to. So with a heavy heart, I left campus and headed out to the hospital all the way over in Alexandria over 60 miles away to be at my grandpa's side as he lay dying from a brain aneurism.

But that night, everything all went wrong. I was sleeping in the guests' quarters and was dreaming the normal chaos that I normally dreamt when my dreams suddenly shifted into a white void. It was very empty here, but I knew that someone else was here with me. I just wished I knew who it was.

As I looked around the void, I could "sense" who I was looking for up in front of me. I ran ahead and was relieved to see that it was the Sidian statue that I had been admiring for a solid week. She was still in that same melancholy mood that I had left her in -- nothing to get too upset over.

But all of a sudden, Sidian turned her glassy head and looked right at me. She was... alive? It took me a moment to realize that this was a Nightopia in the Dream Realm and that it wasn't real. But then again, it was pretty real for a dream.

Sidian actually picked herself up off the podium and walked over to me. Standing up, she was about seven-foot-six with six more inches being her curved horns. I expected her body to make a racket like nails on a chalkboard, but amazingly, she moved perfectly as though she was really real. Any time two of her glass parts rubbed together, there was absolutely no sound generated, almost like a human. Sidian walked over to me and kneeled down so that she was looking at me in the eyes. They were full of recognition and sorrow at the same time, letting me know that she knew me but something was still bothering her.

Sidian then raised her hand and put in gently on my shoulder before speaking very gently and softly without moving her muzzle, "Alex... help me..."

I had a brief second to figure out what she was talking about when a sharp crack! sound ripped through my dream. Sidian looked down at her torso and we both saw that a large spider-web crack had appeared directly over her heart. I looked at her in horror as the cracks continued to grow all over her body, soon turning her into a solid mass of cracked glass like you see when you try and shatter safety glass. Sidian then looked at me and I saw a small, watery tear appear in her eye before she said again, "Help me... please..."

What happened next nearly destroyed me. There was a sound of glass smashing and I snapped awake like a lightning bolt.

Back in the real world, I was aware that I was still in the hospital with the nurse telling my mom, dad and grandma that my grandpa had died in his sleep overnight. It was indeed troubling news, but right now, there was something else that needed my attention. I needed to get back to the college as fast as I could. Sidian was in trouble and she needed my help. It might have been all a dream, but I needed to be sure. I made sure to stick around long enough to see my grandpa sleeping peacefully for all eternity before bolting out of the hospital and racing back to the college to see what had happened with Sidian. I just hoped that I wasn't too late.

The lobby of the dorm looked as though there had been a party last night, but I was more concerned with what was in my room. I undid all of the security features and unlocked the door before rushing inside.

Immediately, I saw what I had feared all this time. Sidian was gone, but that wasn't the worst part. There was a large black Hefty trash bag sitting on my bed that looked like it was stuffed to the brim. And when I carefully stepped forward to touch it, the sound of crunching glass made my heart drop. I then carefully and slowly undid the ties on the bag, but before I opened it, I spotted a note on my bed that had been written in large letters.

"Now who's the bitch... punk?"

This made absolutely no sense and I was scared to see what was in the bag. But I had to see it or else I would fall apart.

And speaking of falling apart, I opened the bag and saw to my horror that it was filled to the brim with billions of chunks of silver, white and blue glass. There was only one figure that could produce this much glass of these colors. It was Sidian. She hadn't been just destroyed... she had been eradicated, down to each and every glassy crumb.

My heart felt as though it had been shattered into more pieces than Sidian had as I took the bag off my bed, turned it upside down and dumped the contents all over the floor. There was even less glass than I thought there was since the pile only reached up to my claves. It was just a fraction of the glass than had made up Sidian. Whoever had done this unspeakable crime (and I had a pretty good idea who) had obviously not bothered to collect all the pieces when they put them in the bag, so I had even less of my darling sweet Sidian.

But what was the most dramatic part of the whole this was that there was only one recognizable part of her left -- her right hand/paw." It was just sitting on top of the pile as though it had been broken off from the rest of her. It was also touching that this was the hand with the band over her right ring finger, almost as though it was my "mate" with her last wish to return her wedding vows, metaphorically of course.

I was so emotionally shattered (no pun intended) that all I could do was pick up the hand and cradle in gently in my arms. If Sidian could somehow feel me, I felt satisfied that I was still here for her. I wrapped my own right hand in hers as though holding onto her in the afterlife, but what happened next changed everything.

As I slid my hand into hers, one of her claws slid right over my palm, tearing the skin wide open along the curve at the base of my thumb and causing blood to nearly gush out onto the glass. I immediately dropped the hand and stuffed my hand in my shirt. It was bleeding rather well, but I was more concerned at what I now saw. My blood had splattered all over Sidian's remaining remains, dotting the silver, white and blue with flecks of red. I felt horrible that I had tainted her remains since I had planned on keeping them by my side for the rest of my life so that some of her was still with me.

But for now, I needed to get this blood under control. I went out to the lobby and fetched the first-aid kit that we normally kept above the fireplace. But when I managed to pull out the bandages and the alcohol strips, I saw a most bizarre sight. The cut had sealed shut completely seamless and blood-free, leaving only a thin silver scar along the curve of my palm. All that remained was a small smear of dried blood and nothing more. My shirt was ruined, but that still didn't explain why my hand had sealed shut without even a drop out of place.

It didn't make any sense. A gash that size should have bled out for a long time, even with bandages, so why had it just stopped bleeding without any medical attention? It was like there was something... magical... at work. Now that I thought about it, Sidian was constructed by magic, so I couldn't help but wonder if some of the magic had siphoned off into my body somehow. I didn't feel any different, but as of this moment, I had no idea what I had just gotten myself into.

Putting the first-aid kit away, I went back to my room and tried to figure out what was going on. But what I saw next was even weirder than what had already happened. In the center of my room where all the glass shards had been, there was now a thick silver-blue puddle of what appeared to be liquid crystal. Even stranger was that it was bubbling as though it was molten, but it wasn't glowing as hot or as red as it should if it had been normal.

I watched the liquid bubble in the middle of my floor like a giant puddle of water, unsure of what to do with this bizarre scene. But all of a sudden, the puddle began to shrink! It was evaporating! I was losing her for good this time!

"No! Stop!" I yelled, dropping to my hands and knees and clawing at the shrinking puddle. But the "liquid" also seemed to be "solid" at the same time because my fingers just slid off the mass as though it was a mirror. "Please don't go! You can't leave me! I can't lose you after all we've been through!" But try as I might, the puddle was getting smaller and smaller until it was no bigger around than a CD.

And then suddenly... it stopped. The liquid stopped shrinking and bubbling and stayed right where it was. I was confused as to why it had stopped at this size if it had been about to dry up. It looked exactly like the back side of a CD except for the featureless center. I wanted to pick it up and see if this was all that there was left. It looked just as thin as a disc and certainly shone better than one.

But just before I could touch it, I was suddenly blown right off my feet by a force that had been released from the disc. After recovering, I was worried that it had broken even more, but what I saw made even less sense than everything else.

The disc was shooting up a column of white light the exact diameter of the disc and there was an unexplained wind blowing all over the room. Whatever was going on seemed to be in its final stage. I squinted through the light and saw to my astonishment that something was rising up out of the glass disc. It wasn't very big, but there was a definite shape to it. It seemed to be rising up out of all the glass that had been condensed into the disc and I was about to see that final step. Finally, the light and the wind died down and I found myself looking at a rather unusual sight indeed.

A tiny silver, blue and white glass dragon was curled up in the spot where then disc had been. I was in utter awe indeed at the little miracle. It was an almost exact scale model of the full-sized Sidian statue that it had begun its "life" as. I could see its tiny features and was in awe at how detailed they were. I could see its head was unchanged, down to its curved, S-shaped horns, its torso was smooth and flawless, which was slightly different than the large breasts I had seen on the full-sized thing. Its wings were folded at its sides and it had its head over its tail. In fact, its arms and legs were exactly the same as before besides the fact that they were now in a quadrupedal stance. It was so perfect that I could have sworn that I was looking at a young version of the real Sidian.

I felt a sense of relief knowing that Sidian was not lost in all that mess, but it was still kind of a letdown because I now had a smaller version of what I had paid for. Still, it was better than nothing, so I bent down and made to pick it up.

But all of a sudden, its eyes opened of their own accord and the dragonlet uncurled and assumed a defensive pose, hissing and bearing its fangs. It was... alive?!?! And... this wasn't even a dream. How could this be real? How could glass have a mind of its own? Was I going insane???

I paused with my hand just inches from its open maw, its tiny glass fangs looking deadly, which I didn't doubt they were. The glass dragon seemed to think that I wasn't going to harm it because it closed its mouth and leaned forward to sniff my hand. I couldn't help but wonder if glass could smell. But it seemed to be able to because it let out a little coo and rubbed its horned head up against my hand.

Now that I knew it could trust me, I laid down on my stomach so that I was at the dragon's eye level so I could see if I could communicate with it. And the first thing I wanted to do was see if it was indeed the same dragoness I had come to love.

"Hey, you little thing. Can I ask you a question?" Holding my breath, I waited for the dragon to respond. Amazingly, it nodded, telling me that it understood me. "Thanks. Now... I gave you a name when you were bigger, but I want to know... are you still Sidian?"

The dragon blinked at me for a moment before sinking to its front haunches in an unmistakable bow. This was a positive response and I was as relieved as I could be knowing that it was Sidian. And from "her" behavior, she seemed to remember everything about me that I had told her.

"Thank god you're okay, Sidian. What happened to you last night? You're looking a little... out of sorts."

"Sidian" looked up at me and opened her mouth and let out a little squeal. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand her in this form. "I'm sorry, girl, but I can't make heads or tails of what you're saying. I guess we'll have to wait until you can speak properly before I can get any answers. You do remember what happened last night, right?"

Remarkably, Sidian nodded. At least her memory hadn't been damaged the way her body had. I still had one more question, though. "Another thing: you can get back to your old size, right?"

I didn't expect a reply from this, but yet again, Sidian nodded, confirming it. I wasn't quite sure how glass could grow, but I guess I would find out in time.

"So, Sidian, I guess I'm gonna be taking care of you until you can get big again. You don't mind, right?"

She shook her head and chirped happily. That made it official. Until she could regain her old size and shape, I got to take care of the little glass creature until we could get back to where we were when this all started.

"Well, it seems that everything is going better than I expected."

Sidian and I looked to my right and saw that there was a new figure standing in the corner of my room. Like some miracle, Strato Incendus had appeared there without even a sound.

"Uh... Incendus!" I said suddenly. "How'd you get in here?!"

Incendus shrugged. "You shouldn't need to ask that after what you've seen me do, but I'll tell you anyway -- I'm magic."

Good point. "I guess I should've seen that."

"Yes, you should have. Anyway, I came by to check out the damage from last night's party."

"Party?" The word filled me with anger and dread. "What party?"

Incendus shook his head. "I'm sorry, but that's all I'm allowed to tell you right now. You'll have to fill in some of the blanks until I come back and check on you again. I just came by to check on Sidian's condition."

I looked down at the tiny glass dragon, who only went up to Incendus' toe bones. "Well, she's "alive", if that's what you were wondering about."

"I was, actually. This was my plan all this time, but try as I might, I couldn't bring the statue to full animation. Yet somehow, you brought her to life. I'm just trying to figure out what the catalyst was." He paused, looking at Sidian. "I don't suppose you could tell me anytime soon, my fine dragoness?"

Sidian merely shrugged. She obviously didn't know, either. But for some reason, I had an idea.

"She was a pile of crushed glass until I accidentally cut myself on what was left of her hand and dripped blood all over the bits. I left for a moment and then a bunch of things happened before I ended up with her the way she is now."

"Blood?" Incendus seemed skeptical. "That's... different... even for Synthetics. Do you mind if I take a sample with me?"

I blinked. "You want... my blood? Are you sure?"

Incendus sighed. "It's the only way I can confirm this. It'll just take a second, so hold still." He held out his black hand palm-out towards me and I tried not to move. He held his pose for a moment before he made a grabbing motion and I felt a sharp pinch in my chest.

"Ow! That hurt! What did you do?"

Incendus looked at his hand for a moment before holding it out to reveal a small glass vial filled with blood -- my blood. How did he do that?!

"This should be enough for me to work with. Oh, and I'll need a sample from the lady." He turned to and looked down at Sidian.

I gulped. "I don't think there's much of her left to take.

Incendus smiled pleasantly. "I only need a scrap. Now don't move."

Sidian looked up at the impressive dragon as Incendus took aim at her as well. I held my breath for a moment before there was a sharp, glassy snap! and Sidian whimpered slightly and put her head to her tail. Sure enough, most of her tail had been broken off and now rested in Incendus' black palm.

"Hey!" I said defensively. "Take it easy! She doesn't have much to work with right now!"

"It's okay, really. Look."

I looked down at Sidian and saw her tail grow back to its full length without any change in her size or health. "How did she do... never mind."

"No, no, it was a good question. Most Synthetics have the ability to regenerate their body parts right off the bat."

"Synthetic..." I rolled the word around in my head. "You mentioned that earlier. What is it?"

"Not "it"... "they". Synthetics are a kind of "artificial" lifeforms that are made of some rather inconspicuous materials. So far, there are six known types of Synthetics made up of rubber, vinyl, fabric, metal and a special type called "Liquitanium". This produces the five known types of Synthetics called Balloonies, Toys, Plushies, Gooeys, Rubbers and Metallies. And now, you've helped me discover a seventh type made of liquid crystal/glass that I appropriately call "Glassics". You like the play on words there?"

"Glassic... Glassic. Yeah, it works on so many levels. I guess I can call Sidian a "Glassic". Uh... how did you make her, anyway."

Incendus shook his head. "Sorry, but I'm not at liberty to tell you that yet. There are still too many unanswered questions that need answering yet, so I'll take these samples with me to do a little research and get back to you on that." He looked down at Sidian, who had a big fat frown on her face. "Sorry, my lady, but if I knew anything worth telling, I would, but sadly, there's not. I'll keep in touch, though."

Sidian whined from disappointment and gave up.

Incendus then moved both samples into his black hand and clenched it shut. When he opened it again, they had both vanished to wherever Incendus kept his things since he didn't have any pockets.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I must be on my way. I wish you the best of luck... oh! I do have something I can tell you about Glassics."

"And...?"

"To feed them, just give them anything made of glass or crystal, respectively. Just stay away from the fiberglass and the Plexiglas varieties. Those types are too impure for them to get any nutrition off of them, okay?"

I guess that made sense. Glass dragons should obviously eat something made of glass or crystal or something breakable like that. There was just one problem: I didn't have any glass objects in my room that I was willing to part with.

And when I told him this, he simply said, "That's your job. You want to take care of her, right?" I nodded. "Well, then, make things work. And Sidian might be able to help you determine what she likes. As for me, I'm history. See you some other time."

And before I could even blink, a ray of light shined in through the window and Incendus vanished without a trace. I then looked down at the little Glassic dragon and smiled. "So, Sidian, want to get some breakfast? I'm sure there are some glasses in the lunch room that you can eat."

Sidian let out a trill of happiness and scampered towards me. Before I could stop her, she climbed up my shirt with her glassy talons and parked herself on my shoulder. Amazingly, her razor-sharp talons didn't even pierce my skin as she climbed up and made herself comfortable. It was as if she didn't want to and couldn't hurt me the way a normal glass sculpture could. I knew that she was magic and that if she wanted to hurt me, she would do so at will.

I smiled as I climbed to my feet, stroking the Glassic underneath her chin. "You're really something else, you know that? Are you comfortable there?"

Sidian smiled and gave my cheek a lick with a small, rope-like glass tongue. It was rather smooth and strangely moist, meaning that she was generating her own saliva somehow. She then purred and rubbed her body up against the side of my face.

"Okay. Let's go get us something to eat... uh... you wouldn't mind hiding in my pocket while we're outside, would you?"

Sidian looked blankly at me at this comment, but reluctantly agreed. She then crawled down my front and entered my shirt pocket. I felt her tiny talons poking at my skin and tried not to yell at her for it, but I couldn't help it.

"Ow! You need to file those nails, you know?" Sidian stuck her head out of my pocket and blew a raspberry that sounded like metal nails running along glass. "Ay, Sidian! Quit it! That hurts my ears!" Sidian finally detested and I stuck a finger in my ear to clear it out. "Okay, now let's go."

I then carried the glass dragon in my pocket all the way out to the main building where the cafeteria was. While I was dishing up some pancakes and syrup for my breakfast, I snuck a couple glass glasses from the counter filled with milk and orange juice and brought it to a corner of the room where I wouldn't get noticed. Right away, I drained the milk glass and offered the container to the dragon.

The glass was easily three times as high as Sidian, making me wonder if she could eat it all. I sighed and pulled Sidian out of my pocked and set her in front of the "impressive monolith".

"Okay, Sidian. Time to eat. Go nuts (if you can)." Sidian walked around the glass for a moment before looking at me with a whine. I realized she wanted a better access point to eat the glass, so I gently lowered it onto its side and she tried again.

Sidian sniffed the glass for a moment before opening her maw and taking a bite out of the rim of the glass. There was a sharp crunch!!! of breaking glass and the next thing I knew, there was a large uniform bite out of the glass that was about twice the size of Sidian's head. She chewed the glass noisily and swallowed the bit she had bitten off like it was normal food before looking back at me.

"Did ya like that? Help yourself."

Sidian let out a trill and went back for more bits of glass. She would snap off a bit of glass, chew it up for a moment and then swallow it as though it was perfectly normal. I was curious to see what she was going to do when she got to the thicker part of the glass a bit farther down, but she didn't seem to get that far. She had eaten about half of the glass before she looked up at me with a smile and her glassy belly gurgled loudly. Apparently, there was some serious digestion going on in there, telling me that she was full.

"Well, that didn't last long," I said to the dragon, stroking her in-between her horns and listening to her purr. "I guess even Glassics get full after a while. Let me finish up and I'll... hey..." I trailed off suddenly. "Look at you."

Sidian had started to glow again and her body had lit up with the same unnatural light that I had seen when she had been "reborn". It didn't last long before the light went out again and I was looking at a rather different figure.

Sidian's body hadn't changed size or shape, but instead, it had turned more of a silvery steel color. Her colors had buffed out a little so that she was now more silver than anything else. She was now more of a glassy-silver than a mix of silver, white and blue. There was still a "natural" sheen to her and the light refracted off of her at just the right angle, but otherwise, her colors had been "polished off".

"Well, you're just full of surprises, aren't ya?" I said, stroking her mane with a finger. "Anything else you want to show me while we're here?"

But Sidian seemed to not only be out of surprises but also out of energy. She yawned so widely that her muzzle momentarily hid her eyes, which were now a distinct ice-blue instead of that natural colors of her glassy body. Her action was so cute that I couldn't help but laugh at her. She was really just out of this world, even for a dragon (I had no idea how right I was at that moment) and I couldn't help but admire her. Sidian then curled up, put her head over tail and fell asleep.

As she did so, she seemed to lose her sense of "animation" and became as still and as "lifeless" as a normal glass sculpture. Curious, I gently nudged a finger at the lifeless dragon. She didn't move, but all of a sudden, the scar that she had left on my hand started to burn painfully. I withdrew my hand and the burning feeling stopped. She was obviously asleep yet still conscious of the world around her, and that burn on the scar she had given me was her way of telling me to let her sleep.

Unfortunately, I couldn't leave her in the cafeteria to be discovered by anyone and possibly broken again, so I sighed and plucked the Glassic off the table, bearing through the pain until I had her tucked away in my pocket again.

"Sorry, girl, but you can't just fall asleep wherever you want. I have to keep you hidden or else I'll lose you again."

Sidian didn't object to me this time and continued her nap in the safety of my pocket. I then packed up my things as well as the one-and-a-half glasses for Sidian's meals later and headed out to my civics class, which was starting in a few minutes. I didn't have enough time to hike all the way back to my dorm to drop her off, so I would have to deal with her until I could.

An hour into my civics class, I was getting rather bored from the tireless drone of the professor and I had my head down on my arms, trying to stay awake. I had just enough elevation off the table so Sidian, who was still asleep, wouldn't push into my chest with her sharp, glassy body. I couldn't remember when class had ever gone this slow before, but I was somehow surviving enough to pay vague attention to what was being said.

While I continued to try to listen, I nodded off for a brief moment but was snapped awake by a sudden paper ball thrown at the back of my head from farther up the rows. I looked up to see who had thrown it and realized that some of the members of Omega Zeta Alpha as well as Scott from the "Little House" were sitting up there, looking as though nothing had happened.

Making the sure the professor was still set on "Boring", I uncurled the note and saw that it was a Polaroid photo that had been taken yesterday, based on the date in the bottom-right-hand corner. The details had been messed up a little when it had been wadded up, but I was able to make out a heart-stopping sight.

The picture was taken in the dark out in front of the statue on campus, but the item in front of the statue looked a lot like... it was! It was Sidian's original right wing! It had been broken off of the main statue and was sitting right in front of the stone statue. Someone had had the nerve to break off Sidian's wing and take a picture at it just to mock me.

Well, this answered one question. It explained a little why there wasn't that much glass in the bag of remains that had been sent back to my room. But even with the wing, the amount of glass that I had found still wasn't enough to make up the original statue. That meant that there were still some remains of the original Sidian out there somewhere.

As I finished looking at the picture, I was suddenly hit by another paper ball, which was exactly what it was this time. I grumbled and looked up the rows at my "friends" who were still not showing any signs of humor for the situation. I then uncrumpled the paper and read the note written on there.

"You think you're better than us??? Well, we got your bitch's bits with us. If you want 'em back, quit the frat. Otherwise, they'll make nice target practice. You've been warned."

The note wasn't signed, but even though it had been written sloppily to try and hide the person who had written it. There was a little doodle in the upper-right hand corner that had been custom-printed onto the paper. It was an insignia that looked like a mix of two "S's" and a "W". And with the arrangement of the letters, there was only one... no... three people who could have access to this kind of paper -- Sean, William and Scott -- my own fellow pledges and dorm mates. But what did they have against me? What could I have possibly done to get them to want me out of the fraternity? Other than avoid their late-night "beer binges" and "parties", I hadn't done anything to get them upset. But after a while, I figured I had an idea what it was. It was both simple and stupid at the same time -- jealousy.

It all boiled down to the same thing -- I was obviously better at everything except sports than either of them were. I had the better grades, I had the sense to stay away from their parties and ultimately the law and the icing on the cake was the fact that I had scored a full-sized statue of a beautiful dragoness to display in my room. After a week of looking but never touching, they must have gotten fed up with me being better than them and taken it out on Sidian, who almost paid the ultimate price in the end.

Now full of fresh rage, I ducked my head into my arms and spoke to Sidian, who was still curled up in my pocket.

"Sidian... Hey, Sidian! Wake up! I've got something to tell you!"

But before the dragon could wake up, the bell went off, signaling the end of class. I snapped back to attention and, fuming, I left class and headed back to the dorm to get ready for the free period I had between classes.

Sidian was not going to take this well at all when she realized that there were still parts of her out on campus somewhere.

Sure enough, when I broke it to her and showed her the note, she was so irate that she let out a shriek of rage that not only sounded worse than nails on a chalkboard, but it echoed all over the immediate area, causing whoever was within 100 yards of her to cover their ears from the sharp ringing that hit them.

But amazingly, I didn't stop her. She had every reason to be upset. There were parts of her that had been stolen from her and were now being held for ransom, which was my resignation from the frat house. But that still didn't make it any easier to bear. It felt like my mind was being attacked with steel hooks, making me kneel on the ground and try to bear with the pain.

"Sidian... please... stop... you're... hurting... me!!!"

She seemed to have quite the lungs in her because the glassy shriek went on for about 30 solid seconds before she finally desisted. She stood on my bed, panting hard and whimpering from the sorrow that was soon replacing the anger she felt.

Realizing that she might act up again, I tried to make peace. "Please, Sidian, no more noise. I know you're upset, but there's nothing we can do right now."

Sidian was still greatly troubled that she had had her own parts stolen from her and wept freely onto the sheet, her teardrops glittering in the light before drying up in the cloth.

Trying to help her feel better, I went to my backpack and dug out the remaining half of the glass she had eaten for breakfast and offered it to her. "Here, girl. Why don't you have something to eat and try and put it behind you? Whenever I feel upset, a quick snack makes me feel a little better almost all the time."

Sidian lifted her head to look at the glass, tears still dripping from her eyes. She sighed and made to take a bite out of the slightly thicker glass, but all of a sudden, she stepped back and gave the glass a sharp staredown (no pun intended). She seemed to be looking at the glass with some slight annoyance and I had a few seconds to wonder what she was up to when she suddenly made a move that defied all logic.

Sidian ran at the glass before jumping into the air and giving the remains a belly flop. I expected one of them to break, but the glass suddenly made a "splashing" movement as though she had just jumped into a pool. The two of them instantly fused together and I found myself looking at a wobbling blob of liquid glass. The mass seemed to take on a spherical shape and stood there for a moment, seemingly frozen.

But then the sphere made a thick THBBBPT!!! sound like someone breaking wind and it deflated slightly as though the air had been let out of it before flattening out again. Apparently, something had had happened that Sidian couldn't return to her original form. Worried, I ran a finger over the flat Glassic, which was a bit larger than a CD now. It seemed that Sidian was stuck while trying to go through another one of her "transformations" and couldn't get back to her original form.

Then I had a brainstorm. Maybe Sidian didn't have enough mass to get back to her original form, so I went over to my backpack and dug out the second tall drinking glass that I had snuck from the cafeteria.

"Hang on, Sidian. I think I just thunk." If she could, she probably would have said "Was that English?" (I don't know why, though).

I set the glass on top of the disc and stepped back to see if I was right. Sure enough, Sidian seemed to get the picture, but the result was a little different than I thought it would be. The disc didn't climb up the glass, but instead, the glass sank down into the disc, making the disc grow wider and thicker as Sidian "ate" the container. And once it was all the way inside her, the disc lit up again with the same white light I had seen twice already. Only this time, there was no wind.

Once the light had died down, I was looking at a newer and more improved Sidian.

Sidian hadn't changed color or shape this time but instead changed size. She had gone from just six inches high at the top of her wings to just under two feet tall. It didn't seem that the amount of glass I had "fed" her had enough mass to get her to this size, but the wonders of Glassic Synthetics had only begun to amaze me.

Once Sidian had reached her new size, which was just above my knees, She opened her eyes and looked up at me. And what she did next was not only amazing, but it was a breakthrough in our relationship.

"Wow... Sidian feel wonderful! She grow much more and she even talk now! Thank you much, Alex."

I was amazed that she was talking but still felt a little odd to be standing over her, so I brought myself down to her level by kneeling on the floor and looking at her on the bed. "You're very welcome, Sidian. I'm glad that you're getting back to your old self. Maybe after a few more glasses, you can be back to your old size and... shape," I added blushingly.

Sidian blinked and looked under her front at her bare chest before looking up at me with a rather rich blush. "Alex need to watch it. Sidian still am lady, so he need to watch his mouth or Sidian cut it out."

She held up one of her five-fingered paws and made a grabbing motion with it. I gulped and slapped my hands to my mouth with embarrassment.

"No thanks. I'll be good."

Sidian was now big enough to sit down on her hind legs like an obedient dog and looked around the room. She seemed to be thinking about something, but whatever it was didn't seem to go over well with her. She sighed and laid down on her front, looking melancholy.

"What's wrong, girl? Something bothering you?"

Sidian looked up at me with a sad expression, sighed again and shook her head. "Alex is very nice to Sidian, but his plan to help her grow not work anymore."

"Why is that? It worked pretty well for the first time."

Sidian sighed yet again. "That the problem. It only work once. Sidian can only return to old size if she have most of her old body back. Sidian's old wings and horns still out in world somewhere and that only glass that help Sidian grow again."

I blinked, confused. "I don't get it. What's wrong with the other glass I can get you?"

"It work as food, but it only work once for growth. Sidian's old parts special. It made of special space glass that Sidian made of. So far, Sidian only Glassic on planet. Until she be able to make more Glassics, she need most of old body to help her grow again."

"That is a problem... well... at least I know that one of your wings is out there from that picture I showed you. Since it's a part of you, can't you home in on it or something?"

Sidian closed her eyes and lifted her head into the air, sniffing for something. I was hopeful that she would be able to find her old parts, but when she sighed a fourth time and shook her head, my hoped crumbled.

"There too much interference on campus. There not enough smell given off by Sidian's parts to help her look for them. But..." She looked up and smelled the air again. This time, she smiled hopefully and my own hopes rose as well. "Sidian smell horns. They nearby... with smell of garbage. Sidian can track them if Alex help, yes?"

I stood up with an idea in my head. "How strong is the garbage smell?"

Sidian sniffed again and gave me her analysis. "Hmm... it not pleasant. There much-beer and metal. Why? Does Alex have idea?"

"I do, actually. I think I know where your horns are. There's a large dumpster outside of the Big House that's usually filled with beer bottles and cans that I guess could have your horns in them."

Sidian smiled and hopped down off the bed. "Alex not move. Sidian be right back."

As she pried the door open, I suddenly realized something. "Wait! You'll be seen!" But she was already gone.

Nervous, I went over to the window overlooking the path that led to the main campus. She casually walked away into the crowd that was gathering since classes had just been let out again. I held my breath as she trotted right into a group of them and disappeared from view. Amazingly, no one seemed to have seen her, even though she was right in front of most of their faces. This made me wonder... was she invisible to them? Since she was mine, could only I see her? I could see her as clear as day, but no one else seemed to notice her. It appeared that either I was going insane with the magic that Sidian was leeching into my system or this was as real as it could get.

I waited patiently at the window for about ten minutes, paying and hoping that Sidian hadn't been noticed yet. Finally, I saw a familiar twinkle walking across the campus now that everyone had gotten to their classes. Sidian was cantering along the sidewalk with something long and pointed in her mouth. As she got closer, I saw that she had successfully retrieved her original S-shaped horns and was returning to me in triumph.

I soon lost track of her and a slight clink... clink sounded on the door. I smiled and opened the door for her, allowing her to mosey on in and climb up on the bed, dropping her horns on the sheets.

"Sidian happy now," she said with a proud trill. "Sidian have some of her old self back. This make her grow a little more until she find glass wings on campus."

I came over and sat down next to her, stroking her shining mane with pride. "Congratulations, Sidian. Now, why don't you take them in and we'll see how you evolve next."

Sidian looked down at the horns and then at me with a blank expression. "It not that easy. Glassics only absorb glass that offered to them from their owners, even if it part of them. That why Sidian absorb other glass work in first place. Now Alex give Sidian her horns back, please?"

I guess I couldn't argue with that, so I took the two horns in my own hand and then offered them to Sidian as though presenting a gift. She nodded as I set them down in front of them and nudged one of the horns with her muzzle. As she did this, her body "liquefied" again and she began to absorb part of her old body like she had with the drinking glasses earlier. Soon, I was looking at a large puddle of silver glass on the bed, but Sidian didn't seem to have enough energy left in her to go any further. I then placed the other glass horn on the puddle and Sidian slurped it up like she had earlier.

And yet again, a column of light shot from the puddle and nearly blinded me again. But this time, the light went out in just a few seconds, revealing a new and ... uh... improved Sidian?

It was hard to tell what had changed since she was pretty much the same size, color and weight as she had been just a minute earlier. But Sidian soon proved that at least something changed.

"Thank you, Alex. I much grateful for this. Horns not help out much, but it enough to give me more abilities. I able to speak a little better, too, but I show you what I capable of tonight."

"Well, that's good. But I have a question to ask you."

"Yes?"

"How did you get through that crowd without anyone seeing you? As far as I could tell, you walked right into that mass of people and no one even looked at you."

Sidian smiled and brushed her head up against my side, purring happily. "That is special ability for Glassics. I able to bend light around her body so that I completely invisible to others. You not see ability because I already bonded with you. You see me all the time, but I able to blend in at any time. This way, we go out in public whenever you want. And Alex class start soon, so he want to get ready?"

I looked over at the clock and saw that my second and final class of the day started in ten minutes, which meant that I had to get ready for my art class. Amazingly, we were doing free range art today, meaning that if I wanted to... hmm...

"Say, Sidian? Can I ask you to do me a favor?"

Sidian nodded. "Anything for Alex."

"Well, we're doing free art today and anything goes for our topics. So I was wondering if you would like to pose for me while I draw you. Does that sound good?"

Sidian smiled and batted her glassy eyes for a moment as she thought about it. "I be more than happy to do it. I always wanted to be on paper. Glass only do so much for you."

She held out her paw for me to shake it and I gladly did so, sealing the deal. I then went around my room to grab my things for art class while Sidian watched me curiously. Finally, the bell rang and I grabbed my supply portfolio.

"Wanna go for a walk, my dear?" I said to the dragon, bowing and offering her my hand nobly.

Sidian gave me a weird look and then shook her head in disappointment. "Alex flattery nice, but Sidian too "young" for it to work properly. Maybe when Sidian find more of old body and grow up, it work better."

I blinked, unsure of what I was hearing. She had a point. She was still only a fraction of her old size and not back to her old shape yet, so she still had some "growing" left to do. Maybe when she became a biped again, I could try again.

"Okay, I give. Let's just get going before I'm late. Come, my pet."

Sidian purred pleasantly. "That better. I right behind you." She then hopped down off the bed and followed me like an obedient dog.

The art room was built the same way as most of the other classrooms in layers and levels and rows of tables. This made it a little difficult to get Sidian on the same level as me. So for the first time in a while, I walked down to the lower level where there was a table in front of the teacher's podium for her to pose for me. Fortunately, there wasn't anything on the table to use for inspiration, so Sidian would have it all to herself.

Once the class was free to do as they pleased, Sidian leaped onto the table and sat down on her hind haunches to pose for me. She let her tail drop off the side of the table and she spread her glassy wings wide to hold a noble pose for me. Once she had her pose, I brought out my writing materials and made sure I had what I was looking for.

"Okay, Sidian," I said softly enough for her to hear me with her exceptional hearing. "Hold that pose as long as you can. You can hold it, right?"

Sidian nodded. "I is Glassic. Not moving for long time am normal for me. I do nothing for long time, so watch and draw."

She then seemed to lose some of her natural luster as she returned to a dormant stance. Some of the life had gone out of her, but there was enough left for me to work with, so I began to draw the beautiful dragon, starting at her head and going from there.

As I started to draw, I felt my mind kind of zoning out and focusing only on the dragon in front of me. I seemed to be lost in her exquisite form and voluptuous beauty as I drew every detail that I could with different thicknesses of pencils. I would only move my head to look up at Sidian or to check for the right pencil, but not much else. I became consumed in my work and the picture of Sidian began to take form.

Sidian, meanwhile, didn't seem to mind the extra attention. She held herself stock-still as though frozen in time. Not one particle of her moved even though the world around her continued to. It was as though both of us had only one thing on our mind that mattered, which was to complete the drawing before something bad happened.

Amazingly, I was working at a speed and accuracy that made all my other attempts at art seem like a snail's pace. I was drawing faster and better than I had ever done before as though it was magic (and it probably was).

Finally, after a solid hour of drawing and painstaking labor, I called out, "Done!" to Sidian and set aside my pencils. Sidian snapped back to life and leaped into the air, wings spread wide as she glided over to me to check out the finished project. I watched as the seemingly lead-weighted dragon gained air for the first time, even though she didn't exactly "fly", but it was a start. If glass could fly of its own accord, then that meant that there was something extra-special about the Glassic that told me there was more to her than met the eye.

"Sidian..." I said as she touched down on my bench. "You... you flew!"

Sidian looked at me shyly and blushed a deep ruby-red in her cheeks. "It not much, but Sidian trying hard. When me grow up, me fly much more than that. Sidian need more glass in body to get more abilities back, but Alex working on it, right?"

I nodded. "I promise that we'll get your old wings back, no matter what. So... what do you think?" I motioned her to look at the picture I had drawn.

It was a rather good likeness. My magically-enhanced mind had allowed me to perfectly transfer Sidian's figure from glass to paper. She seemed to appreciate the effort I had put into it, even though it was still only in pencil.

"It very good. It very, very good. Alex do much good for me by making this. When Alex get it back from teacher, he color it, maybe?"

I looked from the picture to the real thing and figured it could use a little color. "I don't see why not. It's not required to color it now, so when I get it back from getting graded, I guess I can color it. I've got some colored pencils and whatnot back in my room, so let's give it a while and then we'll give you a bit of color in those cheeks."

Sidian looked at me blushingly and looked as though I had "insulted" her. And to hide her embarrassment, she lashed out with her paw and slapped me gently enough not for it to hurt but hard enough for her glassy talons to gently part the skin on my left cheek, causing it to bleed.

"Ow! Sidian! What was that for?!"

Sidian realized she had gone too far and bowed her head in shame. "I so sorry, Alex. I not know my own strength. I never try to hurt you."

I knew she hadn't meant it, but I needed to clean it up before someone noticed that I had just been slashed seemingly out of nowhere. "It's okay. I just need to run some water on it and get it cleaned up and it'll be just fine." I looked up at the clock and saw that there was just ten minutes left in the hour. I couldn't sit around her bleeding, so I excused myself from class to go to the bathroom. Sidian gladly followed me out of shame for causing me to bleed once again without meaning it.

But when I got back to the classroom with only two minutes left, my face cleaned up and scar-free, I walked in on the teacher berating someone in the corner of the room and a smell of smoke in the room. Amazingly, it was Scott from my own dorm, but I didn't see what he could have done while I was gone.

Most unfortunately, when I got back to my seat to clean up, I found exactly what had happened. In my spot, still emitting trails of smoke and covered in frost from the fire extinguisher was the charred and burned remains of Sidian's picture. I was immediately thunderstruck by what Scott had done to her picture. Even after all that work, it was heart-wrenching to watch the remains of my masterpiece smoldering there. I could not believe what Scott had done. He had destroyed my project when he knew -- he knew -- that I had put my heart and soul into it. Even worse was that he had been watching me with the rest of Omega Zeta Alpha House in cahoots with him.

But no one took this more personally than Sidian herself. She climbed up on the desk and placed her paw in the ashes of her beloved picture. She was shaking visibly and breathing hard, obviously having a large part of her world literally go up in flames.

"I... no... it's not... it can't be...." Then all of a sudden, her face went into that of anger and I had a split-second to realize what was coming. Oh no... not that. I clapped my hands to my ears and braced for the worse.

Full of fury and injustice, Sidian reared back her head and let loose the same inhuman, blood-curdling shriek that she had used when she had found out that parts of her body were still out there. Even though I had expected it, it wasn't any easier to bear. The shriek echoed out 100 yards in every direction, attacking the minds of anyone in the vicinity. People yelled and hit the ground, some paralyzed and some going into involuntary seizures.

If anything, this banshee-like shriek was even worse than the one she had done before. Even though I was protected by Sidian's magic, I still lost the feeling in my legs and fell to the floor, cracking my head on the desk in the process and adding even more pain to my situation. It was so bad that I couldn't even speak to get her to calm down. Even worse, her shriek reached the right pitch to cause the windows in the affected area to blow out as well as any people who wore prescription glasses to lose them.

Just when it felt like she wasn't going to stop, Sidian finally screamed herself out and dropped the table top, weeping freely and nearly winded. And since her magic was protecting me, I was the first to rise. I knew people were going to ask questions if I stayed around any longer, so I fought through the pain and grabbed Sidian around the torso before lugging her over my shoulder and carrying her out as fast as I could. To the naked eye, it appeared that I was walking with an invisible weight on my right shoulder, but I didn't care. I needed to get Sidian back to my dorm room as fast as I could and hope that she could calm down and recuperate.

It was already dark when I left the main building and people were trying to find out where the source of the "attack". No one even looked in my direction as I lugged the heavy glass dragon to my room and disappeared inside, locking the door behind me. Fortunately, the windows in the building had been lucky to be out of range of Sidian's shriek, so there was no reason for anyone to look here for the source of the "attack".

It was already late and Sidian had cried herself to sleep, so I set her on the floor next to my bed before getting ready for the night. It had been a long and eventful day and we were both wiped. I had survived two mind-numbing shrieks from Sidian as well as see her come to life, transform three times and watch her "fly" for the first time. Add that to having my masterpiece set ablaze and I needed all the sleep I could get. It was a good think that tomorrow was Friday and no classes were ever held on Friday or the weekend.

That night, I dreamt things that were rather out of the ordinary, even for me. It was also rather detailed, unlike the chaos that normally made up my dreams.

I was looking out at what looked like deep space. An endless field of stars and space debris stretched on for as far as the eye could see. Even stranger was that I appeared to be moving.

I looked behind me and saw that there was no kind of tail or debris being left behind as I flew. It was like whatever I was didn't leave behind anything that could be torn off of me despite the speeds I was traveling at. It seemed that I was one solid mass of something that was able to withstand the cold and lack of pressure of space.

I flew on for a long time before my dream suddenly hit a static field, which I recognized as a Dream Shift. This happened when the scene of the dream I was having shifted to another. But oddly enough, I didn't go far. I looked around me and saw the planet Earth approaching fast. It seemed that I was going to collide with it and there was no getting out of it.

As I approached, I felt things get super-hot. As I hit the atmosphere, I hit speeds in excess of Mach 20, which was insanely fast, but amazingly, the heat didn't damage me or break my body up like it did to normal space debris. Finally, I approached a spot on the surface that told me was going to be my point of impact. This was going to hurt... a lot.

But just then, I hit another Dream Shift and I found myself on the surface of the planet in a deep crater that had been caused by my impact. That Dream Shift couldn't have come at a better time. But I still didn't have a solid form. I was sitting helpless in this crater in the middle of the night. I had a feeling that I was going to be here for a while.

As the minutes passed, I was suddenly aware of approaching footsteps in the dirt. Looking up, I saw a familiar figure standing on top of the crater I had created, and it couldn't have come at a better time. Strato Incendus was now making his way down the side of the crater towards me before stopping just above me and reaching down to pick me up. He held me up to his face and turned me over and over, causing me to lose sight of him for a moment and then seeing him again at a funky angle.

"So you're my newest little invader, huh?" he said impressively. "Well, if you survived thatkind of heat, then I'm going to have to do some heavy-duty smelting to get you how I want you. You're going to be the foundation of a whole new type of Synthetic... if I can just figure out how you work."

He then held me a little higher and I felt strangely weightless before I disappeared from the area, bound for wherever Incendus put his things. Unfortunately, I didn't see where that was because my dream suddenly short-circuited and I was thrown back into the real world.

I woke up the following morning while the sun had yet to rise. It was only 5:30, but I was already wide awake. Knowing that I would never get back to sleep now, I sighed and rolled to one side of my bed to look down at Sidian. But she wasn't there anymore. In fact, the moonlight coming in through the window showed me that she had gone over to the window and was looking up at the few stars that were getting through the city lights.

"Can't sleep, Sidian?" I said over towards her.

Sidian didn't seem to be alarmed that I was awake. She simply looked over at me with a sad smile. "Was Alex having same dream?"

I blinked, trying to figure out what she meant. Then I realized it. "You mean... that was your dream? But... how...?"

Sidian sighed and crawled off the ledge towards me. "You and I linked together, so sometimes, what in my mind appear in yours. And it happened that you see my arrival to planet."

"That was really real? You're... an alien?"

Sidian shrugged. "Yes and no. Sidian am alien from materials in space, but Sidian am native to this world from what Incendus do to make her. Alex not mad?"

I was unsure about what she meant. "Why would I be mad? As far as I'm concerned, having a half-alien is a dream that I never knew I had come true. Friends?" I added to her.

Sidian nodded and climbed off the ledge before climbing up to my bed and sitting next to me. She was really someone that I could put my faith and hope into, even though she was technically "inanimate". But despite that, she was as full of life and potential all contained in this lithe glass frame. She was very powerful and very smart, but she just needed to grow into herself before she could reach her full potential.

As she laid down on my lap, I stroked her and listened to her purr, causing her glass body to vibrate slightly and her internal body temperature to increase slightly. She was really someone that needed a friend after all she had been through. After having her heart broken twice as well as her body, she deserved me as her friend more than anyone I had ever met before. This prompted me to ask a question that I had been wondering.

"Say, Sidian... since you're magic, why can you still break?"

Sidian purr-sighed as I continued to pet her. "For Glassics, it only one-time thing. They break only once before becoming indestructible."

"Really?" I said impressively. "How does that work?"

"It magic, but there good explanation about it. See, when Glassics break and then reassemble, magic in bodies condense even more. They hard to break anyway, but after they become one again, magic be come more compact, making them impossible to break again."

"Huh. That's really something. I'll have to keep that in mind when we're looking for the rest of your old body."

Sidian kept her head on my lap as she continued to purr deep in her throat. She really was amazing if she was made of glass and could only break once.

Just then, Sidian's ears stood up as well as her raising her head, fully alert. She looked around the room, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Something wrong, girl?"

Sidian sniffed the air for a moment before turning her head all the way around and looking at what appeared to be a blank wall. "Sidian sense right wing in building. It very close, me almost taste it." She snapped at the air with a sharp clink of glass on glass.

"Your wing? Where is it?"

Sidian climbed off of my lap and dropped to all fours on the floor. Sniffing the air, she walked around the bed and up to the door, clawing at the wood like a dog wanting out.

Getting out of bed, I went over to the door and let her out. She was obviously a dragon on a mission, but where she was headed made me worry a little.

"That's William's room, Sidian. Do you mean that he has one of your wings?"

Sidian nodded. "I sure of it. There much Glassic magic in this room and Sidian want it back!"

I gulped. It was way too early to be bothering the other pledges, even if they had some of Sidian's body in one of their rooms. "I trust you on this, Sidian, but we shouldn't bother anyone this early. They're sports jocks and they tend to get a little cranky if you wake them up."

But Sidian clawed at the door with unnecessary noise. "It okay this time. Sean-William-Scott not here. They move out to Big House last night."

I blanched. "They... they left me? They moved out and didn't tell me? And why did they get to move and not me?! It... It's not..."

Sidian hissed at me, telling me to be quiet. "Alex not worry about it now. They move out, but they leave their things here. Sidian's right wing in William-room. Alex get it before William come back to get things."

Realizing that she had never lied to me yet, I went up to the door and tried to get the door open. Normally, the doors in the dorm were unlocked, but ever since I put a security system on my door to keep them away from Sidian, it seemed that William and the others had taken a page out of my book and supped up their own security. There was now a keycard entrance to everyone else's door except mine. In fact, there shouldn't be any reason for them to get their security beefed up unless they were trying to hide something, namely, one of Sidian's wings.

"How do you plan on getting in, Sidian?" I said skeptically. "Their security is better than mine!"

Sidian shook her head and gave me a look out of the corner of her eye. "Alex watch and learn."

Her jaws suddenly increased in size and scale as she opened them wide and took a solid bite out of the keycard console. There was a sound of crunching metal and I help my breath in case someone heard that. Then as she spat the remains of the console out on the floor, her jaws returned to normal and she simply slid the door open since the console had taken off the door handle as well.

I was utterly surprised as Sidian pushed the door open, looking back at me with a grin. "Alex coming?"

I had to swallow hard twice to get my courage back after seeing Sidian go "feral" on that door. "Remind me not to get on your bad side, Sidian."

Sidian chuckled and scoffed playfully at me. "Will do."

I then followed her into the room and looked around. William was your average football junkie. Game balls, jerseys, trading cards and whatnot were strewn all over the room in no particular arrangement. But there was one thing that was well out of sorts in this room. Sidian's original right wing was propped up against the dresser between William's bed and the wall. It was cracked in several places, but otherwise, it was still in one piece. It had been snapped cleanly off at the base where her shoulder had been and was pretty much still the same shape as when I had first gotten her.

"Well, Sidian?" I said, gesturing to the massive glass limb. "Look familiar? I bet you could grow a decent amount with that in your body, right?"

Sidian walked up to the wing and ran a paw gently down the glassy surface. A tear was in her eye as her happiness reached an all-time high. She now had one more piece of her old life back in her possession, leaving just her left wing still out in the world somewhere.

Finally bowing her head with a smile on her face, she sighed and spoke to me without looking at me. "Sidian am greatly glad to see her wing again. Now, Sidian grow to full size. There just left wing still out there somewhere. That all she need to become anthro again. Now..." She finally looked over at me, tears still in her eyes. "Would Alex like to give it to Sidian?

Since Sidian could only absorb glass if it was presented as a gift from a friend, I stepped over the clutter on William's floor to get at the wing. I then carefully lowered the wing from a vertical stance to a horizontal position on the floor before stepping back and nodding to her.

"There you go, girl. Help yourself."

Sidian nodded and climbed onto the mass of glass before lying down and closing her eyes. The wing was easily a little bigger than her, so she couldn't exactly merge herself with something bigger than her. As she did this, both dragon and wing melted into a mass of liquid crystal, which pooled on the floor much like it had on other occasions. The mass soon rounded out into a massive disc that looked like a giant mirror.

Then like so many times before, a column of white light shot up out of the disc as well as a blast of wind that nearly knocked me off my feet and caused all the clutter in the room to fly around a little. Finally, it died down and I was able to look at the finished product and the latest version of Sidian.

If anything, Sidian had gotten a lot bigger. While she had once been up to just below my knees, her head was now at my eye level at about six feet even. Her wings gave her a couple more inches of height on her back, but otherwise, she was still the same shape she was but at a much larger scale. And since she was bigger, her features were grown out a little, making them a little more noticeable than before.

The latest model of the Glassic Dragon opened her eyes and looked right into my eyes with a smile. "That's two down and only one to go. My other wing is still out there somewhere, but until I can get a lock on it, you'll have to put up with me like this. You don't mind, right?"

Other than the fact that she was now speaking perfect English, there was something... different about her. It was as though something in her personality had changed. She was now much more... seductive and spoke in a soft, sultry voice. Her demeanor was also a little more smooth and daring as though she had hit a teenage phase where she... uh-oh.

"Sidian..." I said, backing up away from the dragon, who kept her eye on me with a sultry smile. "You're not going to... get personal with me, are you?"

Sidian chuckled pleasantly and shook her head. "No, I'm not like that. Although, regaining this form has given me some of my old maternal instincts back. And I think I'll try them out on you when I get the chance."

I backed up even further away from her. "Now, wait a second, Sidian. You said you wouldn't hurt me. I don't know how you were before, but it sounds like you're going to get rough with me."

Sidian looked curiously blank at me. "Now, why would I hurt you? I just want to enhance my relationship with you. The link we're sharing through that scar on your palm is getting weak, so I need to renew that so that we are on the same page again. Besides..." she added with a smirk. "Haven't you always wanted a dragoness for a mother?"

I was now far enough away from her that my back was to the wall near the door out of William's room. I was absolutely petrified of what she could and probably would do to me.

"Sidian... you're scaring me. I don't want our relationship to change. I just want you and I to be on the same page is all."

Sidian closed her eyes and chuckled. "I see you need something to think about. Well, I have just the thing. All you have to do is think this over and give me your answer when it's over. Now hold still."

I couldn't have moved if I had wanted to. Sidian stepped into position where she was facing me perfectly and took a deep breath. Strangely enough, her body didn't expand as though any air was going into her. I could only watch and wait for this to play out and see what she had in mind. Sidian then blew a cloud of clear, glittery breath that twinkles and glittered as it spread throughout the room. Time seemed to slow down as the magic breath spread over the room, finally coming to a stop altogether. My body started to slow down and I realized that Sidian was using some kind of ability to stop time. But why she would stop time was beyond me, at least until the world all around us seemed to "space out" and turn completely white and bright.

Soon, everything came back into focus, but it wasn't what I thought it would be. We were still in the building, but there was something about it that seemed... different. In fact, everything was different! The entire building was glimmering and shimmering in the sunlight as though everything was made of... glass. The walls were glass, the floors and the ceiling were glass and everything in-between was some kind of crystal and/or colored glass, making it appear that I was standing inside a crystal palace.

But what was the most amazing was that there was another Glassic anthro dragon standing over by the window, looking out into the world. It looked like Sidian, but there was something... masculine about it. It was better-built, broader in the shoulders and its wings were much fuller than Sidian's.

"What... what is this?" I said without physically moving my mouth. "Why is everything... glass?"

"This is a glimpse into our future, my love. This is what will happen to Omega Zeta Alpha if you and I complete our relationship. You will be a Glassic dragon just like me and... well... just watch..."

There was a sound like someone knocking on wood, even though the doors were all glass. The dragon turned and looked towards the door. "Come in, love."

The door opened flawlessly and in stepped none other than Sidian herself. The key difference between this Sidian and my Sidian was that this one was in her original anthro form. She was much more attractive and feminine than her current form, but I didn't voice that aloud.

"Is it ready yet?" said the male dragon as the anthro Sidian walked in.

She nodded. "It is, actually. I just finished converting our latest "intruder" into a form that is quite fitting for him."

He... uh... I guess I smiled and walked over to Sidian, wrapping "my" wing around her shoulder. (You know what, I'll just speak as though this was actually happening to eliminate any confusion.)

"May I see him?" I asked politely.

Sidian chuckled. "He is more of a she now, but sure. Follow me."

The two of us left the room and walked through the building before heading down a flight of stairs in the lobby that hadn't been there before. The stairs bottomed out in a newly-created basement where several new dormant Glassics were lined up along the walls, ready for shipping out. There was a wide variety of different shapes and models ranging from a pink anthro female skunk to a tall, creamy-yellow, four-winged beast to even a number of different dragonesses in different shapes, colors and features. I wasn't sure how I knew this back in my human mind, but I had a feeling that this was the "gallery" and the "firing room" where all the new Glassics were created.

In another section of the basement, there were several glass cylinders containing a single human each. They were currently awake and some were trying to escape while others had accepted their fate and were simply leaning against the glass, reading a book or playing a game that they had been given for good behavior while awaiting their fate. It was like some kind of mad scientist's lab based solely on creating new Glassics from living humans. And yet... I didn't care. This was actually what Sidian and I had developed in our relationship. We made new Glassics and shipped them out all over the world to people who deserved them.

The newest Glassic that Sidian had been working on had just come out of the kiln. It looked like a rather shapely red vixen with a large "bushy" tail and a rather shapely feminine form. I stopped in front of the new dormant Glassic and looked it up and down, impressed with Sidian's craftsmanship.

"So this is the new one, huh? I have to say, she's rather pretty and attractive. What d'you call her?"

Sidian smiled with pride and leaned against my shoulder. "I call her "Summer" She's a lot like Krystal, but a bit more... basic."

I nodded. "It's very good. Someone is going to be very happy with her. Kind of reminds me of how we met."

The two of us looked at each other and after a small staredown, we kissed romantically, obviously having developed great feelings for each other.

Just then, the vision gave out and I found myself standing back in reality with the current Sidian still looking at me with a smile.

"What... what was that?"

Sidian bowed her head and explained. "That was a glimpse of yours and my future if you and I were to become one unity. We will be the very foundation of a new generation of Synthetics. We will start a worldwide revolution, creating and shipping Glassics to those who need them."

This sounded like a good idea, but I still had a nagging question to ask. "We're not going to... take over the world, are we?"

Sidian looked amazingly at me and then smiled. "No. One Synthetic already tried that and he was utterly destroyed by those he created. No, we're going to actually go into business selling and distributing Glassics all over the world. And since we're a rather difficult Synthetic to replicate, we will get all the credit as well as the one who gave me life -- Strato Incendus himself."

I shrugged and nodded casually. "I guess we can't really leave him out of the equation. He did create you in the first place after all."

Sidian nodded and sat down on her haunches and extended her right paw. "So what do you think, love? Friends? Partners? And maybe... mates?"

Realizing that she wasn't going to pull anything on me and that she was as gung ho as ever to follow through with this. I sighed and stepped forward to take her paw in a hand-to-pawshake. "Deal."

But as I connected with Sidian's paw, I suddenly felt a sharp sting in my hand as though Sidian had scratched me again. However, this feeling was positioned more on my right wrist. I yelped and released Sidian, clutching my wrist in pain and taking a few steps backwards.

"Ow! Sidian! I thought you said we were equals! What did you do to me?!"

Sidian put her paw down on the floor again and looked firmly at me. "I simply started the inevitable. You wanted to be my equal, well now here's your chance. Look."

I suddenly felt something tighten around my wrist as though it was being squeezed firmly. I released my own wrist and looked at what had happened. Around my right wrist was a tight, thick, silver, glass band that looked similar to the ones on Sidian's left one, her right ring finger, her tail, the fourth bone on her left wing, around her right ankle and around her left horn. It was welded on there pretty well and I doubted I could even budge it now that it was on my wrist. And as I looked at it, I felt an odd tingling feeling start to work its way from the band, and up my arm and hand. It felt like a thousand needles were sticking themselves in my skin just below the surface for a brief moment before proceeding up the rest of my body.

At my shoulder, the tingling feeling spread over the rest of my body like a miniature wave, somehow avoiding my head until the very end. And just before it started up my head, I had the sense to ask Sidian, "What's happening to me? What did you do to me?"

Sidian nodded and walked over to me, draping a glassy wing around my shoulder. "I'm turning your insides into Bio-Synthetic glass. Your insides are no longer fleshy or human, but I thought I'd save your outsides until we were good and ready."

The tingling feeling stopped at my neck for a moment while I tried to move my body. But for some reason, it seemed to have seized up on me since my insides were turning into glass. I could still move my mouth, though and I let Sidian know how I felt.

"Sidian... I'm scared. I can't move and I'm turning into a statue. Please don't leave me."

Sidian lifted her paws up and gently grabbed me and lowered me onto the floor into a horizontal position. "It's okay, my love. This will be over in a moment. Until then, let me give you something to help you cope with it. Open your mouth."

I wasn't sure what she was planning, but I did so since it was one of the few parts I could still control. Sidian then leaned over me and opened her own maw, causing a strange, blue, gel-like ooze to flow from it and enter my mouth. Strangely enough, the gel didn't have any taste, but it was insanely delicious and nutritious as it flowed down my throat. It was like some odd, gelatinous goo that was giving me both every nutrient I could get and calming me down at the same time.

As more of the delicious ooze flowed from one mouth to the other, I felt the prickling sensation move up my head and engulf my brain. For a few moments, I was declared "legally dead". My heart and brain, which had been eliminated by the creeping glass, had virtually stopped, legally "killing" me. But for some reason, the magic inside me would not allow me to pass on to the next life. I was still in my body, but I could no longer hear, feel, taste, smell or see, yet still, I existed. Some kind of supernatural force was keeping me "alive" inside my sabotaged mind and body.

After what felt like an eternity, I felt my senses returning to me. I was coming back to life and the first thing I saw was the earthly equivalent of an angel. Sidian was standing over me, looking patient and waiting for me to come back to my senses. There couldn't have been a better sight while returning from Death and I was eternally grateful for it.

I was suddenly aware that she was speaking to me. "... coming around, alright. Can you hear me, my love? Please say something. Don't leave me here. I'm not sure I did this right, but tell me you're okay, I beg you!"

"Si... di... an?" I said wearily. "Is that you?"

Sidian looked relieved that I was awake. "Thank Incendus you're okay! I've never done this before and I was worried that you weren't coming back to me."

"I'm okay," I said, groaning and pushing myself into a sitting position. "At least... I think I'm okay. Everything still seems to be working from what I can tell."

Sidian stepped backwards and waited for me to come around. I was able to push myself into a kneeling position and ultimately a standing one, although I was still a little woozy from my "conversion".

"Oy... what happened to me, Sidian? I don't feel like myself."

Sidian looked up at me with interest. "You should be coming around in a few seconds. I think your conversion went a little farther than I expected it to."

"What do you mean?" I said, looking worriedly at her.

Sidian blinked. "Just take a look at yourself."

I did...

...

...

...and let out a low whistle. My body shape hadn't changed, but my body texture certainly had. What once was soft, squishy, flexible, human flesh was now solid, polished, hard glass that was the exact same color and shade that I had had as a human. In fact, it was so closely similar to my human form that the only way to tell the difference was if the light hit me just right and glinted off of my glassy body. The only parts of me that hadn't changed, though, were my clothes, which were still the same texture and composition as though only my body had changed,

But what was the most alarming part of my transformation was what I saw when I slid my underwear down... or maybe what I didn't see. By some freak occurrence, my manhood had vanished completely, making me a "neuter" like Sidian. It was different, but still kind of welcome sight. At least there was nothing for me to hide anymore. Clothes were a thing of the past to me now, but I still felt that I should at least cover up while in public; at least until my conversion was "finished".

"Nice touch, Sidian," I said, pulling up my underwear again. I still hadn't gotten dressed for today.

Sidian smiled. "Do you like it? I thought your internal plumbing could use a little rearranging just for the occasion. Now we really are equals."

I smiled and looked out the window. The sun was coming up and the light was glinting off of both of our bodies. The clock read 7:20, meaning that I only had ten minutes until the members of the Big House came to check on us... er, me. I was the only one left in the Little House now, but after seeing what Sidian had done to me, I began to get an idea for revenge.

"Hey, Sidian, come back to my room and I'll tell you something that we can both benefit from."

Sidian's eyes were filled with sudden curiosity. "Are you up to something?"

I chuckled. "Maybe. Just come and listen."

And so, the two of us left William's room and headed back to my own room to await the wake-up call and then discuss how we could get back at Sean, William and Scott for everything they had done to us already.

20 minutes later, the wake-up call had mysteriously missed their appointment, but Sidian and I had discussed everything we were going to do for revenge on Sean, William and Scott for everything they had done to us. Unfortunately, what I had planned required a lot more power than Sidian currently had, meaning that we had to find Sidian's left wing and bring her back to her full original form before we could even start getting revenge.

"It's a great plan and all and I'm loving every bit of it, but I just don't have the power that I need to pull off such a feat. My magic level is higher than before, but it's just not enough to do what you have in mind. I'm sorry, but unless I have my other wing, my magic can't do anything more than affect you and only you."

"Isn't there anything you can do, or I can do? I put a lot of thought into that plan and it would be a shame for us not to be able to go through with it."

Sidian looked out the window at the sun shining on her glassy body. "Hmm... Maybe I can't do anything yet, but you can."

"Say what?"

Sidian looked over at me with a pleasant smile. "It's a little ahead of the schedule I had planned, but I can complete your transformation and you can help me look for my other wing."

"Can't you look for it like you did with your horns and your right wing?"

Sidian sadly shook her head. "Unfortunately, I don't have enough magic left in me to track it down, so we'll have to look for it the old-fashioned way. However, I can sense that my wing is still on the campus property. That should narrow it down a little."

With that knowledge, I guess we could spread out and track down the wing like detectives. "Okay, but it's going to be odd to see a human and a glass dragon walking around campus."

"Correction: two glass dragons. You already forget that I'm going to finish your transformation for you. And since we're both Glassics now, we can blend into the surrounding areas like chameleons, remember?"

Good point. I had already forgotten that Sidian had been with me in class most of yesterday posing for me for art class. She could make herself invisible to everyone but me, which means that she can make me do the same thing.

"Okay, Sidian. Let me have it."

But for some reason, Sidian gave me a warning. "Are you absolutely sure? Because once I turn you into a dragon, I can't change you back. Is this what you really want?"

I was amazed that she was even bothering to tell me this. "I don't care anymore. After what you showed me and have already done to me, a dragon form is the icing on an already delicious cake. I'm ready and I'm waiting. Let me have it and don't hold back."

Sidian was amazed that I was determined to go through with this. Sighing, she stepped in front of me and said simply, "Okay, love. Here it goes."

I stood up and braced myself for whatever she was going to do to me. This was it; this was the last time I was ever going to be human in any way except my mind. But amazingly, I didn't care. After everything that had happened, this was just another chapter in my already eventful story. Sidian took a deep breath (?) and blew out a cloud of the same clear, twinkling, glittery breath that she had used on me to show me our future. The room was filled with a glossy haze and I could feel my body beginning its final changes.

Immediately, my glassy skin turned from fleshy-pink to a deep, metallic silver that was slightly darker than Sidian's own. The next changes started from down below and worked their way up. My toes pushed out into five pointed, sharp, glass talons as well as elevate me up a few inches with my feet becoming digitigrade. My legs then "beefed up" as they became lean, thick and muscular. As the changes went farther up, a long, thick, prehensile tail erupted out of my backside, which had sealed over featurelessly, causing the former to grow out with no other problems.

My chest seemed to "inflate" slightly as it became muscular and well-toned with a rather attractive six-pack of abs on my torso. My arms then plumped out with new glassy muscles and the nails on my fingers became longer, sharper and more lethal-looking

I then felt something tugging at my shoulders and before I knew it, I now had two full, semi-transparent wings nearly identical to Sidian's.

Finally, I felt something grab my nose, my mouth and my chin and pull them all out into a new pointed muzzle filled with razor-sharp new fangs. My eyes then fluctuated and changed from dark-brown to sapphire-blue. And to top it all off, two new pointed horns grew from just above my eyes to full length up above my head. The only difference was that my horns were pointed while Sidian's were loosely S-shaped.

Remarkably, I hadn't felt any pain throughout this whole ordeal. All I had felt were a number of dull pulling sensations but otherwise nothing else. And when it was all finished, I was a brand-new male anthro Glassic dragon.

I flexed my new wings expertly as though I had been doing it for years. With the physical changes, Sidian had incorporated all of the mental ones as well. I felt a little bad, though, that Sidian was still a quadruped while I was a full-grown biped.

"It's okay, love," she said when I told her this. She came up to me and rubbed her head up against my side. The normal dull screeching sound of glass rubbing against glass was nonexistent since we were both magic. "All we have to do is find my wing and we'll both be on the same page once again. Now..." she added, propping herself up on my chest like a giant dog. "Want to start looking? The sooner we find it, the faster we can proceed with your little plan."

I stroked her mane affectionately and kissed her in-between her horns with a dull clink. "Ready when you are. And don't call me "Alex" anymore. That name no longer has any meaning to me."

Sidian chuckled. "Then what would you like to be called?"

I sighed and rubbed her mane some more. "Call me... Darlan... Darlan Silverhawke."

Sidian smiled and gave my face a lick with her tongue. "Okay, "Darlan". I guess we're the "Silverhawkes" now."

And with that, the two of us separated and headed out onto the campus to look for Sidian's final missing wing.

Walking around in public with nothing on and in full view of everyone who was up and walking around already was an odd feeling. I knew no one could see me or Sidian, but the fact that we still could made me feel a little exposed. I got up close to several people without them even glancing in my direction, but it was still unnerving for me. Fortunately, Sidian lent me the confidence I needed to keep myself from falling apart.

Finding Sidian's missing wing was proving to be a harder task than I thought. It wasn't in any of the buildings that we checked, but we didn't give up hope. Sidian's senses told us that her wing was on the campus property, but other than that, we were flying blind. But after an hour, we returned to the dorm with empty paws.

"Maybe we've been looking in all the wrong places," I told Sidian after we had thought this over. "Maybe we should be looking for people who had been at that party when you were destroyed."

"But the only people who were there were..." She broke off. "The members of Omega Zeta Alpha. Hmm... Maybe we should be looking in the Big House."

I gulped. "I hope you know what you're doing. It's Friday and they're probably all there today."

Sidian shook her head. "I don't care. I'll fight and infect them all if I have to as long as I get my wing back."

I let out a deep sigh. "Okay, but if you get... come to think of it, you can't break again, can you?"

"Nope, but YOU still have one break coming, so you'll need to be careful if you try and back me up."

"I'll have to. You can't absorb your wing unless I give it to you, so we'll have to take that chance."

And with that, the two of us headed over to the Big House and got ready for the final step in fixing Sidian's body.

Amazingly, her wing was on display in front of the fireplace in the lobby, in full view of anyone who looked in the front windows. Unfortunately, there were three or four members of the fraternity sitting in chairs all around the room, talking casually. And since neither of us could get in there without them seeing the door open, we needed to make this short and sweet.

Luckily, that was a chance we were willing to take. So after we had had a chance to prepare, I pulled the door open and the two of us stormed in.

"Hey," said one of the members, looking at the "empty" front door. "Who opened the door? That thing is supposed to be locked tight."

"Forget that! Something's got that wing thing!"

I had grabbed the wing from its position on the wall and threw it to the floor so Sidian could absorb it right off the bat.

"Catch it! It's gonna fall!"

But it was too late. The wing hit the floor but did not break like they expected it to. And now that I had "given" it to Sidian, she launched herself at it and the two of them liquefied instantly. Unfortunately, because she was technically using some of her magic and because we were spiritually linked, this rendered our invisibility powers useless. My true form was revealed to the others in full view and I knew that I was very vulnerable.

"Hey! What are those?!" yelled one of the members. "How'd they get in here?!"

"Forget about how they got in here, they're stealing our trophy! Get 'em!"

While Sidian was merging with her final body part, I had to do something to defend us. One of them launched themselves at me, but on instinct, I spun around and backhanded him with such force that he went flying off into the wall. But just then, another came at me and jumped up on my back, trying to choke me out. However, since I no longer needed air, this was easily thwarted when I used my jaws to bite right into his arm. The effects were instantaneous and I suddenly felt a heavier weight drop onto my back. I knew that he had been turned to glass, which I relieved myself of by tossing him over the top of my head. The result was that once he hit the wall, he shattered into a million tiny pieces.

The members paused, shocked at what I had done. "He killed Bobby! Smash 'im!"

I was suddenly confronted by three more members with baseball bats. Realizing that this was going to be ugly, I braced myself for the fight of my life. I ducked the first swing and slashed the attacker with my claws, causing him to turn to glass instantly. But I held my arm out a little too long and I paid for it by having it smashed right off my body at just below the shoulder. Now fighting with one less limb, I did my best to make it count. I avoided another baseball bat attack and slashed the corresponding human across the face, crystallizing him instantly. Unfortunately, I paid for this with a sudden bash across the same arm, sending it flying into the wall and smashing it to smithereens.

My arm-less state cost me both my wings when I paused to try and figure out how to keep attacking, but I ended up goring and petrifying another man with my horns.

They just kept coming and I was running out of limbs. I paid for it when I was knocked onto one... no, make that no legs with one solid swipe. I dropped to the floor with nothing left to defend myself with. I could only watch as the frat boys prepared to finish me off with a number of combined bats...

...

...

...but it did not come. In fact, a loud screech!!! noise ripped through the room, paralyzing everyone but me enough to drop their bats. From out of absolutely nowhere, Sidian had fully reassembled herself back to her old anthro form (except that she was now silver from head to tail) and had let loose the same inhuman shriek that she had used twice before. Only this time since I was a Glassic as well, the effects did not affect me.

Now that Sidian was back in the fray, she went at the remaining members like nobody's business, biting, slashing and goring everyone who dared confront her. And since she was indestructible, the bats and various weapons used against her merely bounced off without causing as much as a crack.

Finally, the room was littered with hundreds of millions of glass bits that used to be the humans that had made up Omega Zeta Alpha House... All except the three humans that we were determined to make pay for what they did to us. Somehow, Sidian had rounded up and disarmed Sean, William and Scott into a corner, where they laid huddled, scared stiff and trembling in fear.

"Oh... man, it feels good to be back!" said Sidian, letting out more of a roar than a screech. "After all this time, I'm finally back in one piece! Now that I'm indestructible, I can't wait to get started putting all of this glass to good use." She paused and looked down at me. "I wish I could say the same thing about you."

"Ha, ha, ha, very funny," I said sarcastically. "Less talky, more fix-y."

Sidian smiled and blushed embarrassingly. "Very well. Hold still (like you have a choice)."

She took a deep breath and expelled the same clear, starry breathe that had worked so many wonders already. I could feel my, and only my pieces lifting off the floor and flying back into one solid form before fusing together and reassembling me the way I used to be.

"That better, Darlan dear?" she said, smiling and wrapping her arms around my reassembled shoulders. "Feeling back in sorts?"

I chuckled and kissed her romantically on the muzzle. "Much better. And now that I'm indestructible as well, let's have a little fun, shall we?"

The two of us chuckled darkly and turned as one to the remaining three humans in the corner. Their faces, arms and legs were bloody from the glass flying all over the place, but otherwise, they were unharmed yet very frightened.

I approached the three of them with a determined look on my face. "Remember us, my dear pledges? You tried so many times to ruin our lives, and now, we're gonna ruin yours."

Sean was the only one who realized who was talking to them. "Alex?! But... how... what happened to you?!"

I growled deep in my chest and snapped at them. "That's none of your concern. You tried to cost me everything in my life, but now who's laughing? We're gonna have a little fun with you as a little... revenge."

Sidian came up to me and ran her paw over my chest, licking my face as well. "So what d'you want to do with them, love? They look rather tasty."

We enjoyed the combined yelps that came from them, but we had business to take care of. "No... I have something better planned for them. They're gonna make the first lovely additions to our new gallery."

"W-W-W-What are you gonna do to us?" said William, shaking in his boots.

"I think that since you asked, we'll tell you anyway," said Sidian slyly. "Should I do the honors, Darlan?"

I nodded. "Go ahead. You earned it."

Sidian chuckled and knelt down so she was looking at all of them at their level. "We're gonna turn all three of you into special glass statues that we're gonna sell over the Internet. Your bodies will make excellent new sculptures, but sadly, you won't remember any of this, 'cause we're gonna wipe your minds of anything you ever were, are or ever will be."

"Well said, my lady," I said to her as she got to her feet again. "Shall we get started? This glass isn't going to clean itself up, you know."

To describe what happened after this was rather unnecessary. You can pretty much use your imagination on this. This was the last thing that any of the three remaining humans heard before their lives were ended by our combined Glassic magic.

A month later, I was looking out the window of our new glass palace. We had used the remains of all of the former members of Omega Zeta Alpha to refurbish the Big House and turn it into our own Glassic fraternity, properly named "The Instant Glassics". We set up shop right on campus and used the humans that wandered into our traps around the parameter to fund our newest line of Glassic sculptures.

Our presence on campus was soon well-known and it became common sense to stay as far away from the building as possible or else you would be lost forever to our traps. In fact, the only ones who could safely cross our property was any other Glassics, Strato Incendus and our friendly business rivals, Karmen Aridos and Vega Firetail from Plush Paradise over in the heart of the city. Oddly enough, some people actually wanted to become Glassics and every once in a while, we found someone who had deliberately stepped into our traps just to be turned into a Glassic. Technically, it was better than suicide because we made sure the souls we "disposed of" from the empty humans shells were sent to Heaven with our good word sent with them.

Sean, William and Scott had all provided the first three new Glassics in what would be our prized collection and gallery. Sean had been converted into a rather attractive-looking pink female anthro skunk that we dubbed "Shannon", William had been formed into a life-sized female version of the legendary Lugia known as "Si-ann" and Scott had formed the first-ever Glassic female Flammie by the name of "Seryn". These three lovely ladies would be our first "test subjects" and would prove if Glassics could actually survive in the real world with the rest of humanity.

Shannon, Si-ann and Seryn... before long, we had to ship out all three to admirers all over the state for the low, low price of $249 each. Since Sidian had cost that much and was considered a deal for me, I figured that that price was more than fair for everyone else.

Our lives had both been changed forever when we met and with time, we hoped that we could spread joy all over the world. Glassics are the newest and most bizarre of Synthetics in the world. Would like to buy one of us or would you like to be one? The choice is up to you.

To Be Continued....