Alex was sick of riding in backpacks. Luckily, Parker’s was still in the custody of the thing posing as him, removing that as an option for transportation. Not-so-luckily, that left a few very uncomfortable options for safe transport to the alchemy lab.

“I know it’s not ideal, but I don’t think we have another choice.” Parker pleaded.

Alex pointed yet again to the large “NO” written on the paper in front of him.

“Come on, it’s our only choice!”

Alex dramatically scratched his chin and looked up inquisitively, before grabbing his pencil and rapidly circling the “no” again.

Parker threw his hands up in frustration.

“Fine. Do you have a better idea, or are you planning on just walking there out in the open with your body double and those students looking for you?”

Alex repeated the same motion, but this time it was less dramatic and more genuine. It was too bad Parker sent that buddy of his away, or they could’ve commandeered his backpack instead. Parker’s alternative was to lock Alex up in the steel cage and cover it with a cloth. If anyone asked, he’d say it was alchemical ingredients recently extracted. Alex wanted absolutely no part in that. He scanned the room for anything he might find that would work better. The room was mostly empty thanks to Parker’s recent cleaning, so there was no loose junk to hide in while they traveled. While peering across the room, Alex spotted a toolbox roughly the size of himself. It would be cramped, but at least he’d be able to open it from the inside. That, and it wasn’t an actual cage. He didn’t have the fondest of memories with those.

Alex shuddered as he remembered the pains in his leg and ribs, along with the gnawing of hunger and thirst.

Alex pointed to the toolbox on the shelf and Parker picked it up.

“This? Do you want to get in here? Why? This is way smaller than the cage! Besides,”

Parker opened up the toolbox, revealing layers of compartments containing different sizes of scalpels and other various surgical tools.

“These shelves aren’t removable. If that’s your only idea, and you won’t listen to mine, I don’t know what to say.”

Alex searched the room for anything else opaque and large enough for him to hide inside but found nothing. Maybe he could hide inside Parker’s shirt and grip onto him like a tree. The image of his claws tearing into Parker’s skin and drawing blood was frighteningly enticing.

Alex shook his head to clear the thought from his mind.

The only thing worse than getting trapped in a cage again was death, and going out there alone with no cover might as well have been that, so he steeled his nerves.

Alex took the pencil and wrote, “fine.”

“OK, good. I know you don’t have the best memories with cages, but it’ll be different this time. I’ll keep it unlocked, and you won’t be in there long.”

Those days were a blur in his mind. A mixture of anxiety and suffering, along with the extreme hunger and thirst, made him black out multiple times. The cage was too small, even for him. He was utterly helpless. The goblins would just stand and look at him, doing nothing. When he called out for food or water, they did nothing.

Alex’s heart started racing. He started panting, choking for air. It felt like the walls were closing in around him.

“Hey, buddy, are you ok? Did I say something?”

Alex started shaking, and he suddenly felt nauseous.

“What’s going on? Is the thing here?!”

Alex shook his head. This was different than that sense. The motion made his nausea worse, and he had to hold back vomit.

“No? Then what’s going on? Are you ok?”

Parker reached for Alex’s head, hesitating for a moment, before finally resting his hand on Alex’s back and petting it.

This time, Alex didn’t pull back and bare his teeth.

“Hey, it’s ok, I’ll find another way, I’m sorry. I didn’t know this was such an issue for you.”

After a minute, Alex’s nausea passed, along with the trembling.

It was so frustrating. Not just the fear, or the capture, or the way he was treated. This all wasn’t supposed to happen! He was supposed to be a world-class adventurer! A few goblins shouldn’t affect him like this! He should be out there taking on this imposter on his own, not getting rescued over and over by some researcher who wasn’t even an adventurer himself, or taken in by an orc of all things as some animal companion! Yet there he was anyways, playing the part perfectly.

Alex’s anger powered through his fear. He walked to the cage, pulled open the door, and stepped inside.

“Oh? Alright then. I guess you’re fine. You know, you never fail to confuse me.”

Alex huddled in the middle of the cage, covering his head, He told himself it was to make as little noise and movement as possible. The cloth was good at blocking anyone from looking in, but it also stopped him from seeing anyone outside. It also didn”t stop any sound from escaping, so he had to stay dead silent. Especially since whatever Parker was carrying was supposed to be dead anyway.

After a short walk across campus that felt like hours, an almost fall from Parker, and a few stifled whimpers, they finally made it to the alchemy lab.

There was just one problem.

Parker lifted the cage up to his face and whispered to Alex.

“You’d better have a plan. I don’t have access to this room.”

It was a good thing Alex was such a good alchemy student. In his last year, his professor had taken a week off for a national conference and left him as a stand-in instructor for first-year students. He was awful at teaching, and may have snuffed any love of the subject from all his short term students, but that wasn’t important.

What was important was during that week, he was given executive permissions to access the lab while the professor was gone, and through some lack of oversight, it was never taken away.

Parker lifted the cloth just enough to peek in. Supposedly the locks were reset every semester, but Alex doubted the administration really bothered enough to do that.

“Can you open it?”

Alex nodded and opened the cage door. Parker lifted the cloth from that side and pushed it to the door. He wasn’t really sure he could open it, but it was worth a try, and his only chance. Unless, for some reason, Parker could gain access to advanced and alchemical equipment and ingredients, which he highly doubted.

Alex took a deep breath and reached for the handle, but before he could touch it, the handle was turned from the other side.

The door opened inward, leaving Alex in clear view of the room’s current inhabitant. It was one of the only people Alex feared in his whole life, before the whole dragon thing.

His Alchemy professor.

His ex-professor, clearly annoyed, launched a question to Parker.

“Can I help you? Or are you just here to bug me during my off period?”

Parker simply stood there, stammering.

“Mr. Quinn! I-I-Well, I was-”

"That's Doctor Quinn. I didn't work all those years to get called mister. Now, what are you-"

Dr. Quinn looked down and locked eyes with Alex. The man wasn’t as tall as Alex in his normal body, but he was still a tall guy, and was built like a house, too. His short hair and beard were gray with age, and stress lines marked his forehead, leaving one of the most intimidating people Alex had ever met, and that was saying something.

And that was before he was a foot tall. That face, staring at him with annoyance and confusion, nearly made him forget about the fear from his imposter and the cage.

Dr. Quinn quickly grabbed Parker and pulled him into the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

“Parker, in all my years seeing you mess up in my lab, I was stunned to hear they hired you here as a researcher. I thought to myself, maybe I was wrong about this kid, he might not be as dumb as he looks. Well, son, you are one of the few people who have ever proven me wrong.”

Parker just stood there, looking off to the side, mouth agape.

“I am dead. I died and went to hell, and this is my torture,” Alex thought to himself.

“Well? Have anything to say to yourself, or are you just going to stand there?”

“It’s-It’s not what it looks like!” Parker blurted in shock.

“And what exactly is this supposed to look like, then?” the professor shot back.

“Well, I needed to come here and bring these fingers, and use the equipment to make a potion so he can fight the imposter, and-and”

Dr. Quinn listened as Parker stammered along, rubbing his forehead.

“Slow down there, kid. I don’t care why you’re here. I care why you brought that with you. I didn’t have to pull you in here and shut the door. I could’ve exposed you, but out of the kindness of my heart, I gave you a shot at explaining yourself. Don’t waste it, cause I won’t give you another one.”

“Well, sir, this isn’t just some thing.” Parker croaked.

“This is Alex.”

Alex peeked out from the cage and waved, giving the most convincing smile he could. It likely didn’t help him at all, doing nothing but showing off his rows of sharp teeth, but it was the thought that counted.

“Did it... just wave at me? I don’t see why you naming it changes anything.” Dr. Quinn grumbled.

“Well, it’s a he, and I didn’t name him. This is Alex, the one from my class.”

The professor glared down at Alex, who was cowering with his tail between his legs in the back of his cage.

“So, you’re Alex?”

Alex froze up for a moment, before nodding.

“And he didn’t just train you to nod?”

Alex dutifully shook his head.

“Alright. I’m not convinced yet, but for the benefit of the doubt that I’m still giving you for some reason, I’ll go along with this for now.”

Alex needed some way to prove it was him. He leaped out of the cage and searched for where he knew he could find some writing utensils. He found them and hopped onto one of the counters in the room.

This lab was much larger than Parker’s. It was meant for teaching, so it had three square counters with noblestone tops, large enough to hold at least five students on each side. The noblestone didn’t react with any alchemical ingredients, so it was a necessary component for any alchemical lab, especially one with such a concentration of inexperienced alchemists. The walls were lined with a waist-high counter, with almost every inch covered in different alchemical instruments, repeating the same pattern of instruments every so often so multiple groups could work at the same time.

In the other half of the room were shelves lined with ingredients stored in various containers. Some were just left in open containers, while some were sealed in glass jars, and others grew from pots. The entire left side had a white haze surrounding it; frost magic shot from a crystal above kept everything in that area magically cold to stop them from spoiling.

Alex opened a drawer under one of the square counters and pulled out a sheet of paper, then opened another drawer and pulled out a pencil.

“It’s really me” He wrote.

Dr. Quinn picked up the paper, adjusting his glasses and holding it away from his face.

“My, so this is true after all. I would be lying if I said this was the strangest thing that ever happened to me! Alex, my boy! What happened to you?”