Moving into the new city was hard, Kiara was constantly stepping on someone’s tail or whacking someone with her wings. Most of her neighbors hated her and a troupe of young griffins tried to bully Raven. Tried is the correct word to use, because all of them went home with minor burns. Though it was hard for her to adjust to city life, training was a piece of cake. She could already beat every guard and was almost done with training, two months early! It had been three weeks since her and Raven had moved in. Their house was on the outer edges of town, just inside the city wall. Presently, Kiara was cleaning up from breakfast.

Raven had secretly blasted a tunnel into the wall, giving them more space in their home, since Raven’s room was now the hole. “Raven! Make sure you finish your chores before you go hunting!” Kiara reminded her brother before grabbing her uniform and spear and heading out the door. Kiara flapped into the sky and struggled to stay aloft while putting on her uniform. Finally, she decided it would be easier if she used her second pair of wings, which she tried to only use when no one was around. All around her were flying dragons, Griffiths and the occasional great Eagle. Quickly, she unfurled her feathered wings and finished putting on her uniform. Kiara slung her spear onto her back, where it connected with the magnet that held it in place. She slapped her wings into her sides and twisted into a dive right above the training arena. Swooped down to land in an unusually empty training arena. The normal medics and messengers scurrying around were gone as well.

“Hello?” Kiara called

“Run! They’re here!” The scream was followed with a crunch of bones. She looked up to see everyone fleeing the area, she was alone.

“Who’s there?” Kiara asked in her most threatening tone.

“An old enemy.” The voice came from somewhere to her left and she spun around to see about three dozen Grous crawl out of the shadows. In the lead, was a familiar face.

“YOU KILLED MY FATHER!” She screamed and hurled herself at the murderer, though she was sad to see that the parasite that had been controlling him was gone and giving him a rocky appearance was gone. “This time, I’ll finish this right!” She yelled as she clamped her jaws over his throat. Kiara was immediately thrown off and held with a sword to her throat. She quickly melted the tip with a blast of fire and kicked out at the creature holding her neck. Kiara reached towards her back to grab her spear but found nothing. She spun around, knocking an attacker off his feet and burning him with fire. This is what her training was for! She put it to good use, knocking some unconscious, for questioning, and leaving others sizzling as they screamed their death cry. None of them mattered to her, the only thing she wanted was to avenge her father, to give the murderer a painful death. She approached the wheezing animal and took him by the scruff. Effortlessly, she slammed him into the last standing enemy and before plunging a knife through his chest. He died slowly, since she did not hit his heart directly and Kiara did nothing to quicken his death. When he had breathed his last, she collected all of the bodies, piling them on top of each other. Kiara lit the stack before turning towards the academy to see who lived. The Grous must have had a whole battalion. She found hundreds of Grous bodies intermingled with many of her fellow trainees. Slowly, Kiara sorted through the mess. The total Grous found dead was 385, and the total trainees found dead was 1,148. Kiara looked down sadly at her bloody claws. Why wasn’t I here earlier? I could have saved them! She continued looking for survivors for the rest of the morning. In the afternoon, her and the survivors reported to the commanding officers the events that took place. Kiara was careful to leave out what happened between Kiara and her father’s murderer. At the end of the day everyone was exhausted. They all lined up for Chief officer to announce what they would be doing next, though the line looked more like a waving jumble of tired trainees.

“Today, all of you did a commendable job!” The officer was also tired from the day’s battle and had a new pair of scars running down her tail. “You have survived your first battle, helped where you could, and WON THE BATTLE!” At the last part everyone started to cheer. It took several minutes for the instructor to get it quiet enough for her to continue speaking. “I am proud to announce that all of you have finished your training! You are now all official Guards of Possibility! Protectors of this town’s freedom!” A cheer went up from the crowd. Kiara knew she would never forget this day, nor would her fellow students. They had passed their final test! Kiara went home weary, but excited. When she arrived at the front door, Raven was there to meet her.

“What happened? The town was on lockdown! Where were you? I was so scared for you!” Raven rambled on, occasionally repeating himself.

“Hold on! Hold on! Don’t worry, I’m OK and we defeated the enemies!” Raven cheered.