The Champion *ON HOLD*

Chapter 1- First Encounter

A/N: Okay! So this is the first installment of my (hope to be) book, The Champion. In case any of you were wondering, yes, it used to be titled, The Fissure of Realms, but I felt with the overhaul that was being done to the content, the title could do with an overhaul as well. Many of the chapters will be shorter, as I am taking out unnecessary fluff, but content will also be added as well, to give the story some more meat. I do hope you enjoy the newly (but probably not the last) edited version of The Champion, formerly known as The Fissure of Realms.

Thunder rolled across the night sky as Avery drove home from a friend's house. Her dogs, Diesel and Koda, rode next to her in the bench seat of her Ford pickup truck. The two dogs were snoozing, flopped over each other. Diesel, the Leonberger male, had his head reclined on the door, his eyes just barely cracked open. Koda, a wolf hybrid female, who was only smaller than Diesel in bulk and fur, had her head and neck on Avery's lap and had passed out completely. Avery could hear the slight snoring emitting from the lanky dog. She stroked her head and turned up the music in her truck, humming along.

Thunder echoed like a drum overhead and lightning flashed over the hills in the distance, lighting up the night sky for a split second before going dark again. Most people would find the oncoming storm ominous, maybe even a little frightening. Avery loved storms. She felt the most relaxed when the thunder was booming and lightning was flashing, a glorious show of nature's wonder. Normally Koda and Diesel would be trying to find a hiding place when thunder sounded and lightning flashed, but they'd been running about all day, helping her friend round up her goats that had gotten loose on her ranch, so they were too tired to care.

It had taken them from dawn to dusk to round up all the livestock on her friend's three hundred acre ranch and drive them back to the main pasture. The Texas Hill Country had been blessed with an uncommon amount of rain and flooding had damaged a part of the fence, which had caused the goats to escape.

Her dogs weren't the only ones tired. Avery was fighting to keep her eyes open, yawning every few seconds as her body did its best to stay awake. Thunder boomed again and Koda snorted, twitching somewhat. Diesel let out a low groan and shifted his position, pushing Koda further on top of Avery as he stretched. Avery sighed and patted her dogs. She would have to clip their fur again soon. It was still technically summer in Texas and despite the much needed rain, it was still hot, the temperature averaging at about ninety-eight degrees or so. A Leonberger's fur was thick, made for colder climates, and Koda's coat was pretty thick as well, from both her wolf side and her Malamute side. Diesel looked very close to a small bear, and Koda looked like a wolf with a slightly upturned tail. Having such thick coats, they could easily overheat and die, so Avery thinned out their fur fairly often, only letting their tails stay bushy, and letting some fur hang around their necks like manes.

Without warning, Diesel sat up and let out a loud growl, a sudden change from sleepy to aggressive, his hackles raised, his growls vibrating low enough for Avery to feel the vibrations in her chest. Koda, hearing his vicious growls, sat up and pricked her pointed ears. Whatever spooked Diesel spooked her as well and in seconds she was snarling, her lips curled back, showing her teeth in an aggressive display.

Confused, Avery switched from watching the road, to watching her dogs, to trying to see what they were snarling at, to watching the road again. Both of them were looking out the front windshield but she couldn't see anything that might make them growl the way they were growling. Uneasy, she slowed and pulled over on the side of the road, looking about. Thunder rolled overhead, a loud, booming echo that reverberated in her chest and rain began to pour in sheets. She peered out the windows, straining to see something, anything that would give her a clue as to what was making her dogs so aggressive. Suddenly Diesel lunged at the window and stopped just in time not to hit the glass. Koda barked, her voice deep and angry. Avery could see nothing past the wall of rain.

"Oh for the love of God," Avery muttered, grabbing a mag-lite from behind the seat and getting outside. She made sure to leave the dogs inside. She didn't want them attacking anyone or anything. Avery was immediately drenched from head to toe. She shined the light around, searching the darkness where her headlights could not penetrate, straining her eyes to see what her dogs did. She couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. A few deer were a few hundred feet away from her, trying to take shelter, but deer wouldn't produce that kind of response from her dogs.

"Stupid dogs," She muttered under her breath, walking back to the truck. Right before she grabbed the handle on the driver's side door, an earsplitting sound penetrated her ears and she froze, her blood running cold. That wasn't thunder. Thunder did not sound like that at all. Turning, she shined her mag-lite upward, blinking against the rain, and saw a dark mass in the sky, lit up by her flashlight. A crack of lightning flashed and Avery gasped. No. It couldn't be. The noise sounded again and Avery clutched her ears, dropping the light. She was aware of her dogs going crazy inside her truck, barking and lunging at the windows, hitting the glass with all their might, trying to get to their mistress to protect her from the thing up in the sky.

Another crack of lightning flashed and Avery's eyes widened when she saw the shape had gotten closer. Finally her body kicked into gear and snatching up the fallen light, she spun around and leaped into her truck, pushing Koda and Diesel away from her as she put her truck in gear. Her foot slammed on the gas and she gunned it, tires squealing and spinning on the wet asphalt. Finally, they caught traction and her truck lurched forward, speeding down the road.

Diesel and Koda were growling and snarling, their heads turning about, following the shape. Slowly, as Avery sped down the winding county road, their snarls grew quieter, until only Koda was growling almost inaudibly, her amber eyes trained behind the truck. She did that the entire way home.

When Avery pulled up to her house, her nerves had calmed a bit. Now that she was home and her dogs weren't barking and snarling like crazy, it was easy to rationalize what she saw. She opened the door to her truck and hopped down, her dogs following close at her heels. Once inside, she felt better, her tense shoulders loosened a bit and she let out a sigh of relief. There was something about being home that made a person feel safe, despite being cold and wet.

Immediately, Avery headed to her bedroom, peeling off her shirt as she did so. The garment stuck to her like glue and she had to fight it to get the thing off. She would take a nice, long, hot shower and then go to bed and forget all of this in the morning. Her boots came next, followed by her socks, which had remained miraculously dry, her jeans, which stuck to her just as bad as her shirt had, and undergarments.

She quickly hopped in the shower and sighed in pleasure as the hot water pounded on her tight muscles and warmed her chilled body. Having spent all day working with her dogs, coupled with whatever it was that happened on the way home, her muscles had tightened up from both work and stress. She could feel all of her tight muscles relax.

Having washed herself squeaky clean, Avery turned off the water and grabbed a towel, drying herself off before she stepped out of the shower. Wrapping the towel around herself, she walked into her bedroom and grinned at her dogs, who were lying in a heap on their dog bed. Quickly, she put on a t-shirt and underwear and climbed into bed, sighing as her body relaxed into the mattress.

As she lay there, Avery couldn't help but think about what happened that night. She tried to rationalize the event in her mind. Surely it wasn't what she thought she saw, things like that just didn't exist. It could have been a low flying jet, or a helicopter, or a UAV. Something! Because she had to face it, there were no such things as dragons. Were there?