"I am telling you I could do it."

"And I am telling YOU, that you must not."

"But master... I -"

"This is not about you and your skill, Aliza. This is about our honor as Defenders. It is our job to protect from demonic hoards, and with Kaitzal having weakened us before, we cannot afford to be weakened again." The old hoary-furred felinoid master at arms nodded and folded his thick arms across his chest.

"Then it's all the more reason to have this new man, what is his name? Bikar? Have him removed from the picture. He is a threat! Just like his uncle was." Aliza growled. Her eyes glowed in the candle light of the meeting room, and her padded feet wore gentle circles on the stone floor.

"Yet we are not murderers, Aliza. I know you are sure that his uncle had your parents killed. And that may very well be so, but that is completely beside the point." He sighed deeply, "Aliza, the man must prove himself a danger, first. He has done nothing yet."

"So we're to sit around waiting for him to do something? Which village gets burnt to the ground first, Master? Which church is razed?" She lowered her eyes, "which people are hunted down next? Your kin or mine?"

The Master leaned back and pondered. "Aliza, I cannot and will not condone your actions should you choose to do something ... rash. And I will deny ever having any contact with you if you do, as well. Do you understand?"

"You would -- you would deny ME? You've -"

"I have practically raised you, and though I am not your father, Aliza, I am your Master and you ought to be doing as I suggest. Go back to your meditation and study your forms. It is the best thing for you. And for me."

"... fine." Aliza said, her anger making her gut ball up. "But you watch. I know this man will be the death of us all..."

She exited the room, the huge wooden door swung shut and thudded in the frame. The Master drew a long frown onto his face, and tightened his fingers grip around his arms. "I know you mean well, Aliza... But your temper will be the death of you yet..."

***

Aliza paced in her room. Her dorm was bigger than many of the younger acolytes in the church, she had been there longer than many. Yet she could not enjoy even the space she was given, right now. She turned circles and paced, from the narrow vertical slit window back to the doorway.

"He'll condemn the church just like his uncle before him," she muttered, hand up in the air as if someone were being preached to. "The Defenders are so few now, it's almost as if they mean to weaken us and..." Her pacing slowed to a stop, tail moving around her ankles nervously.

"No..." she breathed. "He would. He does..." Aliza bolted down to the master's rooms, but he was no longer there. Frantic, she rushed to the study and found him meditating.

He did not look up from his crouch, but his ears turned back to listen. "Aliza, you should be meditating. Join me." His tone indicated that he would not be taking any more argument from her, even though her breath was ragged and her heartrate was furious.

Aliza calmed herself, though not quickly. She assumed a position beside her master, strong toes the only contact with the fur-covered floor. Her tail balanced her body, and her hands rested between her knees, elbows over her thighs. Her head was lowered, but her eyes were open and burned with anger.

"He will break the church until the demons come," she said, after a few minutes. "That would be the only reason that he and Kaitzal would have attacked the Defenders in the first place. Our position in the community has been secure for milennia, no matter who the rulers are. Only with him did this start."

The Master breathed carefully, then spoke. "I know this to be true."

Aliza's concentration was broken, and she spun onto one knee, looking at him. "Then why do you stop me from killing him? He will destroy our world!"

"No, no he will not. He will certainly try, but he will not succeed." The master's eyes rested still on the fire before them, but he saw Aliza, frustrated, look away sharply.

"The church should be willing to defend itself," Aliza pointed out. "If we don't, who will teach the next generation of acolytes and apprentices?"

The Master sighed, blinked once. "Perhaps it should be you," he said, quietly. "For you know so much about how our church survives."

Subdued suddenly by that tactic, Aliza let her balance drop and she sat on her butt. Her tail curled around her ankles and she gripped the end of it as a child would. "Master, I am sorry. Forgive me. I'm ... just - so ..."

Words failed her, but not the Master. "Aliza, your anger should be under control before you make any decisions. Especially if you represent the Defenders." She nodded, silent. "I understand why you are so worried, but you must not think that the church has no defenses."

"Then how?" Aliza asked, "if you know that he'll be trying to destroy us, how can you even just sit there. Are you and the elders planning something?"

The Master's flickered smile told Aliza everything she needed to know. She leaned in curiously, her furry ears pushed forward.

"Ah, now, that's elder secret stuff," the Master said, laughing and breaking his own balanced crouch by pouncing on his student and tussling with her. She was getting stronger than he had ever been - he respected her strength but also her ability to reserve it for her true opponents.

"You really won't tell me?" Aliza said, laughing and curling her neck back, again as a child would. She never let those instincts die, because they always got a good response from her master. Now, the Aura mistress was another story - but she wasn't here right now was she?

"No, no, you're not ready yet. You've still some learning to do yet, and then you may be able to comprehend our plan."

"So there IS one!" Aliza said, "master, please..."

"Aliza, you're involved in it, but you must be patient. Remember your training, and remember your place as a Defender. That should always come first. Remember your true enemy."

Aliza nodded deeply, "I will try, master. But it will not be easy with Bikar on the throne..."

*** Two months later ***

The Aura Mistress was a tight-lipped spotted feline, with drawn-back dark hair and eyes that were golden flecked with black. Aliza respected this woman, but she never liked her.

It was a mutual feeling. Temarnis held her hands in a magical ward pose, for Aliza and the two other acolytes to learn.

"You must concentrate," the woman sternly warned. "Hold your thumb back harder, Malai."

"I cannot, mistress," Malai said, frustrated with his inability to control his digits. "I have... there is a scar below my--"

"I cannot hear excuses," Aura mistress said, glaring at the boy with her golden-black eyes. "If you cannot do this thing, you will not be able to do any further work with me. Everything will hinge on your thumbs in this sections exersizes."

"Then I ... have failed my kin. I am sorry," he said, bowing deeply and respectfully. Malai exited the chambers, and Aliza could hear his distressed sobbing outside in the hall.

Aliza had no problem forming the complex pattern of thumb-interlaced-with-pinkies, and though the Aura mistress wanted to deny the girl her grades, but could find nothing to fault her.

"Mistress, may I be excused now? I've... got another meditation I must study."

It was a poor lie, but the mistress allowed her to leave.

"I don't think she should have shunned you like that, Malai," Aliza said, trying to cheer him up. The graphite-and-black striped feline male looked up from his sad slouch by the wall of the tower where their magical studies were performed.

"She put up with me long enough. I'm just not going to amount to anything here." He groaned.

"That isn't true, you've gotten this far, and there are only three more circles to study. You're more than good enough to teach the others, so don't be so glum."

He looked up at Aliza, and his bushy black eyebrows furrowed. He would never be as good at hiding his emotional ears. "Why are you so suddenly all nice and supportive?"

"Why are you so suddenly all defensive? Maybe I wanted to make you feel better." Aliza huffed, standing taller.

Malai looked at how Aliza stood and then lowered his head. "I'm sorry, that was stupid of me. You're an acolyte that all the masters talk about anyway. I just didn't think that you'd bother to notice the other students."

"You're going to be needed," Aliza said, "everyone will be. So just practice what you do know and learn what you can." Aliza swished her tail and then caught herself doing it, it lowered to the ground calmly. "Everyone here is a Defender, and ... I've been worried about our work. So just ... do your best. For all of us."

She strode away, hurriedly. What had gotten into her? Why tell someone else what she barely knew herself? Aliza made her way to the dorms and flopped down on her fur-covered bed. She could hardly meditate, she'd barely been able to sleep. The last two months were very intensive for her, and her masters seemed to help push her through her studies. They'd obviously conferred with one another about the situation - and about Aliza's position.

But they hadn't told her anything just yet, and that was driving her up the wall. Aliza didn't want to pry, and she felt it disrespectful to demand anything more than she had learned. They all claimed she was a smart girl, and she'd figured out most of their working plans already, but she didn't really know.

She wanted to hear it from Master Hart, her martial arts instructor. But he was still somewhat standoffish about it. Aliza groomed herself, and then tried to sleep, thinking all the while about the Aura patterns she'd been practicing earlier in the day, and how they could best be arranged to make a protective ward over buildings...

***

It was the smell of smoke which brought Aliza awake. It wasn't the pleasant wood-smoke from the hearth, and it wasn't the coal-smoke from the ovens and cook fires. No, it was ... hair, fur, things burning that shouldn't be.

She sat bolt upright, and her tail fur was afluff with rage. Her instinct was to run to see if her master was all right, but she knew that he had either died, or had taken out anyone attacking him - and she felt that he was best suited to survival.

The others? What about the students? She didn't hear any shrieking, or yelling, but she heard voices. She noticed it was very late, completely dark outside, perhaps before two in the morning.

Almost everyone would be asleep. Aliza's heart sank. She would not lose her family again. And she certainly wouldn't lose them to that bastard Bikar. Aliza slid into her battle leathers, and put on her weapons carefully. They were all made so that they would not be heard as she walked, or in whatever position she found herself. She had a sai on her hip, and her long sword on her back, and a variety of small throwing knives and objects hidden among flat pouches on her back. The leathers would protect her from many sharp blows, but she knew that it would be likely that the enemy would have heavy bashing objects - and those she'd just have to avoid any other way she knew.

One way - she immediately put into use. She spread a magical shield around herself and then another spell she wrapped around her sword. It shone in the magical spectrum but if one was not versed in those spells, the light could not be seen through the sheathe.

Stealing a glance through the narrow window, she saw a small number of horses, those with the black and silver tack of the king. They had one cart with them, and it was empty - meaning that they carried with them the torches and tinder which they were burning the church with.

Then, Aliza moved out of her dorm. Very quietly, she opened the door and looked down the hall. There was movement on one end, and she guessed that the invaders were coming from it. The other end was silent, and she moved towards it. Waiting was the hardest part. She was not one for ambushes, she'd far rather be out in the open and slinging her blade around.

There was enough room in the hallway for her to fight, she knew that much from practice fighting. But ... that was with other acolytes, and not with true combat-worthy enemies. Was she good enough?

She would know soon enough. The trio of burly tan-colored men that came up the hall had torches in one hand and a weapon in their other, and one of them opened the first door he'd got to - her room - and was about to throw the torch in!

"Stop right there, foul invader," she growled, and then watched as the trio swept their faces toward her. "You are on church ground - and if you're not a Defender, you're a Demon to me. Come, fight me."

Two of them eagerly did so, including the one whose torch clattered to the ground harmlessly beside the door to Aliza's dorm. The third cackled something in a strange tongue, it wasn't a spell that Aliza knew of, so she ignored him.

When she drew her sword, the shining light from its enchanted blade startled the two fighters. They didn't stay startled. One of them raised his sword, while the other menaced Aliza with a large, studded mace. With the grace that she'd been known for all her life, Aliza jumped backwards by a step, and then swung her sword down hard enough to break the sword-man's grip on his weapon.

It clattered to the ground, his hand stinging. Aliza kicked the sword behind her, it struck the wall and skudded down the far stairs. The man shouted to the others, in the same tongue as the other. So they were foreign invaders after all - they'd been brought by Bikar to aid him. The mace weilder swung two hard left-right swings her way, she dodged the first, but then misjudged the distance she had left in the hallway and bumped into the wall, struck by the second swing. The air got knocked from her lungs, but Aliza kept her head. She formed a word, "naulraot" and the mace's wooden handle exploded into flames.

Two weaponless men, suddenly standing by a cornered mage-priestess. Even though they were foreign, they weren't stupid. They turned, about to try running, but they bolted into their third member, who had been trying to get into one of the other dorms. Wisely, the inhabitant of it remained silent, save for chanting in a whisper a spell of protection.

Thus, Aliza swept her razor-sharp and gleaming blade through two of her enemies bodies, leaving four parts on the ground in a wet mess. Their other member saw this and tried to run as well, but Aliza wasn't about to allow him to get away.

She threw the sai into his back, as he turned tail. He thudded into the far wall, not even able to utter a shout to warn anyone else.

Aliza guessed there would be at least ten more men in the church building. Could she kill them all in time?

***

When morning broke the sky into a bright haze, there was a black smirch upon it, but the smoke was old and there were no flames below it to brighten it further. Aliza sat on a pile of boxes, bloodied and cut, bruised, but whole. Some of the other acolytes had not been so lucky - but her teachers had not been caught unawares as she'd feared.

"You did very well," Temarnis said, her arm in a sling and being healed by one of the older priests. "Your spells held even though you could not concentrate on them fully."

"I was concentrating on them," Aliza said, "they were just not as strong as I'd hoped they would be. I must remember to enhance them next time." Aliza blinked distractedly and dabbed at one of her wounds with a wet cloth. The dozen or so men had all been killed, their weapons confiscated and their identity markers put into a pile. The bodies would be burned, not buried. No one wanted the possibility of the undead around the church.

And demons were known to inhabit the bodies of the recently dead...

When much of the cleanup was done, the church inhabitants gathered outside to survey the damage. There were many tapestries and carpets ruined, burnt beyond ash, in the main hall. There were several dead, mainly servants and some of the less experienced or slow learners. Malai was among the bloodied survivors.

"I understand," he said to Aliza, "I didn't think I knew what you meant, earlier. Now I understand. We're too few now that we've been weakened."

Aliza nodded. She was about to say something, when Malai looked beyond her, into the sky. His eyes grew wide, and she turned to see what everyone else was staring at.

It was a dragon. Actually, it looked like several of them. The colors of water and grass, sky and marsh. Two blue, a green one, and another that was somewhere between midnight and sapphire-metal.

With an exhausted groan, Aliza started to raise her protective wards, but then her masters indicated she could stop. These weren't attacking.

"They could be anything, from anywhere..." Aliza said.

"But they are not. You see who rides them?" Master Hart said. When Aliza peered closer at the descending dragons there appeared to be some... rather odd riders indeed on these dragons. Two were felines, though of no breed that Aliza knew - one female on a blue dragon was darkly orange brown in color with black stripes, but with slate colored hair and no accent fur. Another was a male on the green dragon, with what looked like slightly gryphon-like features to his pale golden fur. The one on the metallic blue was ... furless. Female, but furless. And the fourth, upon the paler blue, was also furless, but he was just as blue as his dragon was.

"Who are you people?" Aliza asked, stepping up quickly and assuming a defensive posture. When the four riders had dropped to the ground, the tall blue man strode forward, and looked over Aliza's shoulder to where master Hart was standing. Aliza spun, then turned back. "Do you know them?" Aliza asked, harshly. "Why doesn't anyone tell me anything?"

"Because it was only a matter of time before they arrived, and you would be distracted in your studies, Aliza," Hart said with a grin. "This is Shard, Zephyr, Vrtanya and Vanaard," the blue man, furless woman, striped feline, and tan-gold male each bowed in turn. "They are dragon riders from the Kshau Protectorate, and their leader, Shard, has graciously offered to accept our church into their fold."

"We have more important things to do," Aliza asserted, angrily.

"You have a dragon to bond to, somewhere," Shard said, with a half grin on his face. "But if you don't want a dragon that will help you fight off your world's demons, that's your business. We'll just have to wait for another acolyte to become good enough for it."

Vanaard the golden cat shrugged and was about to turn away, when Vrtanya swatted at him, and he remained. Their dragons chuffled at one another, and Aliza finally looked them over. They were large, amazing beasts. Not so large that they all didn't fit in a clearing like this, but she got the feeling that they were small for their breeds. And they were different, each one was slightly different from the others in detail - that was the kind of thing that Aliza was trained to notice as well. They looked like they could handle a couple guards, spears, torches...

"What do you mean, bond? I have to finish my studies." Aliza stated, and Vrtanya strode over to her.

"Do you see Hippolyth there?" She pointed to the rounder-bodied blue dragon, "he's been my permanent attachment since he was born. I don't know what I'd do without him. But I do know what I do WITH him - we fight things, he breathes fire. Most dragons can."

"And I've a place for you to go," said Zephyr, she slid up and was eyed oddly even by the masters and mistress of the church. Humans weren't normally seen around here... "There is a place which is called CyDragonstake, their dragons are used to fight, in what's called a Crescent. You might... even be able to form your own here, if you have enough acolytes bonding."

"Eventually," said Master Hart. "But for now, let us see just this one, how she fares."

"You planned this?" Aliza said, "no wonder you kept telling me I didn't know the whole story..."

So Aliza was taken with the others, her meditation incense and posessions brought by one dragon, what little clothing she had on another. Zephyr and her dragon Tsuyoith knew the way best, for she had been born in the place which became CyDragonStake.

And once THERE?

***

The Dragonstake was really filled with amazing people. Most of them vaguely resembled Aliza and her friend Malai, but only superficially. None of them had what types of training that this pair did.

At least, not as far as they could tell.

At long last, actually not long at all, the candidates were hastily called into the hatching areas. The big queen and her mate milled about and the eggs were trembling. One of them had already hatched!

A red and then two yellows broke out and then a beautiful green. A two headed dragon - wasn't that kind of odd coming from these normal looking dragons? - came next. A lovely big brown had to be helped out of his shell - and that was by Malai!

Proudly Aliza watched him and he waited with his new dragon, apparently in the attempt to impress Aliza with his gentlemanly presence.

She truly appreciated it. While another green hatched, Aliza got the strangest feeling in her gut. An egg trembled and then shook open with a hard jolt. The silver dragon who came from the shell stood proudly and had a bearing of strength and power.

He walked toward Aliza and her mind sang with his voice. Smooth like metal.

You fight with swords? Well I can fight with my claws, teeth and flame. Together we will be unstoppable! Aliza, I am Sasazik!

***

Eventually, Aliza and her dragon, as well as her partner Malai and his own, become instructors at the interdimensional school, Carramba High School.

Aliza instructs Advanced Pain Compliance Tech 1, 2; Dragonry Prep 3, 4; Demonic Re-Orientation 6, 7