Chapter One
A building exploded in the distance.
Grace leapt from side to side, dodging every attack that was thrown at her. Her long, red coat flew out behind her, as her hair whipped around her face. Green eyes flashing, she looked around to try and find her attacker. While there was enough dust around, she clapped her hands together, and the began to zap with lightning. She threw the lightning towards where she heard movement, and the wall in front was blown down. Grace extracted the dust from her sight, and tossed it out a nearby window. “You’ve gotten stronger since I last saw you, Iwaio.” Grace sneered sarcastically.
Iwaio looked up from where she was laying wounded on the ground, her turquoise eyes glaring at her. Her waist-long black hair with the one white stripe was tied back into a ponytail, and her coat-tails flapped in a non-existent breeze. One would think that a 195cm tall Orca-in-human-form would be able to take down a 176cm tall girl, but Grace was no human.
“I saw you twenty minutes ago.” Iwaio snapped back at her. “Exactly. I mean to say that you haven’t gotten stronger.”
“Well yeah, I only saw you twenty minutes ago, I just said that!”
“And I’m annoying you and getting you to say it again.”
“Tch…”
“Hey guys!”

Iwaio and Grace turned, to see Reddie walking towards them. They were silent. “…WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?!” Grace shouted at him. “I heard an explosion, and I thought it might be you.” he replied. Reddie was around 168cm tall, with spiky, reddish-brown hair that couldn’t be tamed, no matter how much water you splashed on it. He had a brilliant-red jacket, and black, fingerless gloves,
Grace rolled her eyes. “How did you even get here?” she asked. “Daybreak.” Reddie replied, pointing behind himself with his thumb. A huge, pink, yellow and orange dragon with blue claws and horns appeared behind him. Its eyes were bright green, like Grace’s. She sighed, and walked away from Iwaio, who was staring with her mouth agape. She had obviously never seen a dragon before.
Grace clambered onto Daybreak, and quickly threw another quick zappy-lightning-thing towards Iwaio. It exploded once it hit the ground into a cloud of blue smoke. “She won’t find her way out of there too easily.” Grace said smugly to herself.
<><><>
Grace grounded Daybreak onto the sidewalk, and continued east. “Hey, um…Grace?” Reddie asked. “What?” she snarled. “Where are we going…exactly?”
“Headman Martial Arts Academy.” Grace replied, as someone short crashed into her. She threw a nasty remark at them, and then continued. “YOU need to learn to fend for yourself so I can stop looking after you. Plus, we need to go on one of those…‘mission’ things they hold in May, which is only five months away.” Reddie nodded glumly. He didn’t particularly want to learnt to fight…Grace usually forced him to do everything against his will.
“Well, why aren’t we taking Daybreak the rest of the way there?” he asked. “You’re such a blind idiot.” Grace muttered.
“Hey!”
“The truth hurts, Reddie. Learn to deal with it. Anyways, we need to walk because Daybreak is tired, and literally all the roofs of every building here look the same.We wouldn’t see the academy easily.”
“…Right.”
<><><>
Grace watched with a judgemental expression as Luna, the top student at the academy fought a helpless girl in blue, Ula. No matter how hard Ula kicked and punched, no matter what she tried, Luna surpassed her skills by five miles. Ula fell to the ground, and slowly got back up. “I forfeit.” she said gloomily. She walked back to the line of other girls who had been beaten by Luna. They all looked pretty glum.
Reddie stared, mouth agape. Grace said; “Pff. That’s NOTHING compared to the fights in my country.” Luna shot her a glare. Grace raised an eyebrow, and smiled. “Well then, seeing as you seem pretty confident, why don’t you try versing Luna?” asked the headmaster, Master Headman. “Certainly.” Grace replied. She didn’t seem nervous at all. Luna was practically growling at her like a tiger, and Grace only smiled, which annoyed her opponent even further. “Grace, this is a really bad ide—” Reddie began from behind her.
“Shut up, Reddie!” Grace yelled at him. “This is my fight, and the last thing you want to do right now, is interfere.” Reddie nodded, frightened out of his will to speak.
“We’re allowed to use anything we want in a fight, yes?” Grace asked master Headman. “Yes. Surroundings, your skills in comb—”
“Good. I take it that we don’t need rules then, if we can use what we want.” Master Headman opened his mouth to speak, but Reddie stopped him from getting himself killed.
Luna took her stance. “In this school, we let the newcomers go first.” she said. “I see.” Grace said, taking her own stance. Before anyone could decide on who would win, Grace turned through the air like a cyclone, and creating a strong gust of wind. Once it was strong enough, she tossed it at Luna, and the girl was thrown into the wall. She got up, knowing everyone was staring at Grace, mouth open.
And they were.
Grace waited for Luna to take her turn. The black-haired girl lashed her leg out, and aimed to kick Grace; to no avail. the red-head grabbed her leg, and lifted her above her head. Luna was smashed into the ground this time. Before she could get up in the slightest, Grace kicked her in the chin. Luna’s teeth clacked together, and she blacked out. After seeing no signs of movement for a moment, Grace nudged her opponent with her foot. “Dead to the world, it seems.” she smiled smugly. Grace walked off the combat floor, and stood in front of Master Headman. “You’ll let me enrol, won’t you?” she asked. He kept a blank expression. “Do your parents know about your skills?” he asked her. “Parents?” Grace said. “Pff, please, who needs those? Learning to look out for yourself and no one else is all anyone needs.”
“Come with me, then.” the Master said. Grace followed him silently.

They entered a dimly lit room, with one window open. There were no doors, and everything was made of paper…expect the floor, of course. Headman gestured for Grace to sit down, and they both did in front of eachother. “Why do you want to enroll in my school?” he asked. “I want to learn how you people fight.” Grace answered blankly. “And why do you want to learn how to fight like us?”
“I’m sick of this ‘damsel in distress nonsense’! I’m sick of boys being the heroes, and getting all the praise. I’m sick of girls getting captured, and not being able to fight back. I don’t want a boy to come and save her. I want the girl to fight back, save the day, and get all the credit. I want the boys to learn that girls CAN fight, and they can’t stop us from doing what we want.”
“Interesting…” Master Headman said. “Now tell me…where did you learn to do what you showed us?” Grace took a deep breath. “I was banished from my country. When I ended up here, I soon learnt that if I couldn’t fight, I wouldn’t survive. I learnt how to create huge gusts of wind, and loads of martial arts skills. It took years—two thousand, in fact.”


The headmaster’s eyes widened at the last sentence.
“How old are you…exactly?” he asked. “In human years, or years I’ve actually aged in?” she replied. “The years you have aged in.” Headman said. “I’m eleven trillion years old.” Grace replied. “I’m not what you humans might call…’human’.”
“I see.” he responded. “Well, to enrol here, there are a lot of terms and regu—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, every place like this does.” Grace interrupted. “I get it.” Kouh looked down on her darkly. “One of our rules is not to interrupt your principal while he speaks.” he growled. “Looks like you’re gonna have to change that rule now.” Grace retorted smugly. “Because it seems as though I can’t keep up with it.”
<><><>
“So, are we enrolled?” Reddie asked when he saw Grace coming back. “Yep. You’ll start classes in the beginners’ place. Be sure to remember where you stand here.” Grace replied. Reddie glared at her.
“Oh no, Miss Gamma.” said a voice behind them. “Do not forget where you stand, either.”
Grace turned to see Luna walking towards her. “I see Headman’s told you my name already.” she shot back. “And anyways, seeing as I defeated you a few minutes ago, doesn’t that put you lower in ranking at this school? Does that not make me better than you?”
“How full of yourself!”
“I have to speak like this to you, otherwise you wouldn’t understand me.”
Luna turned up her nose, and stomped off. “See, Reddie?” Grace said, turning back to him. “THAT’S the proper way to argue. Now come on, our first class is in ten minutes.”