The School of Dragon Riders [Dragon Riders #1]

Chapter 17 (edited)

The alarm woke me up the next day. I yawned, standing up from bed. The sun was covered by clouds, and it seemed like it was night. I stretched my arms, feeling weird. Then I remembered that I was in my human form, so I changed into my dark form.

I put on my clothes and went to Tanya's room. I knocked on her door, and she opened it immediately.

"Good morning," I said.

"Good morning. Let's go to breakfast, I'm starving," she said, smiling. I rolled my eyes.

"Hey, Medea, Tanya," someone said. We turned around and I saw Jack and Snow walking towards us.

"Hey," I greeted them.

"Let's eat," Tanya said. The rest of us rolled our eyes, but we didn't wait any longer. We went down the stairs and into a hallway. After a few minutes, we arrived to the Great Hall. We were among the first to arrive.

"Team training is after breakfast," Jack said. I smiled. I couldn't wait to try to get the flag, which was the assassin's job.

"Tanya, I'll train with you and teach you the rules," Snow said. Tanya nodded, she couldn't answer because her mouth was full of food.

I didn't eat much, for my dark form didn't need much food. I was also feeling less comfortable in it because of what happened a day before. I almost lost control, and I vowed to myself that it would never happen again.

"Let's go," Jack said suddenly as he stood up and shifted into a wolf. He was a white wolf, which was to be expected because of his hair colour. I nodded, shifting into a wolf as well. I was a black wolf.
He ran towards the exit, and I followed as fast as I could. We climbed some stairs, and finally reached the roof. We shifted back into humans.

Areton saw me before I saw him, and he ran towards me excitedly. He was still young, and that would help us be less noticed during the Tournament.

"The others will be waiting in the flying field," Jack said, mounting his green dragon, Alice. I nodded as I put a saddle on Areton quickly, and mounted him. Areton let out an excited yelp as Alice and Jack took off. He took a running start and we were flying. I told him to follow them, and he did. Communicating was much easier now that I did it more often.

After less than a minute of flying, we landed on a field to see eight more dragons and students there, all yelling at each other, dragons growling and ready to fight.

Among them, I saw Jacob Gust and Tornado fighting with our part about who had the field to train on that day.

"Hey, what's going on?" Jack asked loudly, but nobody heard him.

"ENOUGH!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, adding a growling note on it. Everyone got quiet immediately.

"Well, well, well, isn't it the oh-so-scary monster girl?" Jacob said, and the others from his team laughed. Areton felt my rage and he growled. I growled as well, and Jack was already drawing his bow.

"Say that again," he dared him. Jacob remained quiet, due to having an arrow pointed at his chest.

"Enough!" A familiar voice said. I turned around and saw Snow approaching us.

"I am the War Commander, and all of you will listen to me or face the consequences. Fate reserved the field for today, so Tornado, you'll have to go somewhere else. Now leave, and if I see more fighting, you're all in big trouble," he said. Tornado students frowned, but they mounted and left without a word.

"I hate them so much," Snow said as he mounted as well, flying off.

"Well, we have that sorted out," a big guy holding a shield said. "You must be Medea- I'm Josh, the team leader, and a guardian. I suppose you know the rules."

I nodded. "I do."

"I'm Maria, and this is Felix," a brown haired girl with a sword said, pointing to a blond guy holding a sword. They were chasers.

"Today, your job will be to get the flag. It's hidden somewhere in the field. Maria and Felix will attack each other, and I will try to stop them. Jack will shoot at all of us and at you. He'll try to stop you from getting the flag," Josh said. They all mounted, so I did too.

"Go!" Josh said, and all of us took off. I knew that the arena was enchanted so nobody could get hurt, but I didn't want to get hit by an arrow nonetheless.
The field was big, and when Josh said go, a see-through force-like sphere appeared, marking the end of the field. I rose up higher than the rest, keeping my eyes on Jack. Currently, he was flying around, probably searching for a good position. I scanned my surroundings, but even in this form, the field was too big for me to see everything.

I tried to think of a tactic- Elements were allowed. I told Areton what I was about to do as I shifted into a hawk. I noticed that there weren't any animals inside the field, but I wanted to try it out. I flew swiftly, making good use of my enchanted vision. Suddenly, I felt claws grip my back as a white bird flew on top of me. Realizing it was Jack, I switched into a cat, falling straight onto Areton's back. I switched into myself again, urging Areton forward as I barely dodged an arrow. I told him to go somewhere shadier, and he did so as I made the shadows cover us. We were still visible, but that made it harder for Jack to aim. Suddenly, I saw someone fall off their dragon- Felix. I ignored that and looked for the flag. Then I saw it, a red flag hidden under a tree. I knew that touching the ground with your feet counted as falling, so Areton had to be careful when going down low enough for me to take the flag. Areton was getting into position to fly at it so I could just snatch it.

He flew fast, and as my hand was about to touch it, I felt something slam into me and I fell off. That something turned out to be Jack. He jumped off Alice to stop me. We fell to the ground with a loud thump. Luckily, we weren't high, so I felt no pain. Jack rolled off me, smiling.

"I stopped ya! Haha," he said triumphantly. I rolled my eyes.

"But you sacrificed yourself for it, and now there is no archer," I said.

"I don't care, I'm just happy I managed to stop you," he said, getting up. I stood up as well, as Areton and Alice landed beside us. Soon, Felix joined us, and the others landed afterwards.

"You did excellent! The last assassin never got the chance even to find the flag when Jack was an archer, so we had to forbid him to shoot the archer so he could practice taking the flag," Josh said.

I raised my eyebrows. "Well, I'd say we have a winning team," I said, and everyone agreed.

"Again," Josh said, and we mounted again.

This time, I didn't get as near the flag as I did before. Jack's arrow managed to hit my stomach, and I fell off Areton. The pain was real, but it stopped as soon as I hit the ground, and the arrow dissolved.

We were practicing all day without a lunch break, and not once did I manage to get the flag.

"It's just your first day. I'm sure you'll manage to do it one day," Jack said after Josh said that we were done for today. We were all starving and we were getting ready to fly to the roof.

"Not if you are my opponent," I said, taking off. Jacks said something, but it wasn't loud enough for me to hear.

We landed on the roof and went straight to the Great Hall. Snow and Tanya were already there, both looking exhausted.

"What happened to you?" Snow asked, looking at us. I guess we looked exhausted as well. Breakfast was the last thing we ate and we had been training a lot.

"Training," Jack said.

"Where did you eat lunch? We waited for you here," Tanya asked.

"We didn't.... Josh forced us to train, and I couldn't get the flag because Jack is too good," I said, sitting down and filling my mouth with food. They didn't ask us anything after that, since we were too busy eating.

After we finished our meal, we went to the library.Snow and Jack recommended some good books for Tanya and me, but Tanya wasn'tinterested, so only I took some. After the library, we all went to Tanya's roomagain, and we talked there for a few hours. However, since we were all about topass out, we went to our rooms to sleep. 9