Amara woke at the crack of dawn, the alarm on her communicator jolting her out of her sleep. She rubbed her eyes and smacked her arm against her end table to stop the device from beeping. Amara peeled herself out of bed with a groan, showered, threw on her dragonslayer standard issue uniform, and headed out the door to wait for the transport to her routine testing. She was only obligated to wear the uniform if she was going to be inside headquarters. The sleek, black, skin-tight catsuit with a dragon emblem was not the worst thing one could wear. She preferred to hunt dragons in looser clothing. Anything skin tight made her feel stifled and was in no way practical. Her arm beeped to let her know her transport was waiting outside. She blew an errant curl from her face and headed downstairs. 

A nameless man held the car door open for her and she slid inside. The man got into the driver’s seat and pulled onto the road, driving silently. Servant men often did not speak, especially not to the dragon slayers. Amara presumed it was because they were intimidated but it was hard to tell if they would not speak or could not speak. The city of Athena was a far cry from  what Chicago used to be. Skyscrapers that were made of glass used to dot the skyline were gone now. Dragon fire had melted the structures like wax around a lit candle. No one believed they would be able to rebuild, but out of the ashes, Athena was born. No skyscrapers, no glass that was not incredibly reinforced, and certainly no place wide open enough for a dragon to land. Instead, Athena was rebuilt in homage to much older days. Ornate buildings made of stone and brick, materials dragons could not melt. Amara wished she could have seen the way Athena used to be, pictures never did it much justice. 

Headquarters was in the obvious place, right in the middle of the city. It looked just like any other City Hall but three times larger as the training center needed to be inside of it. All of Athena was surrounded by a guarded perimeter that would alert Headquarters to any dragons that had breached it. The perimeter itself did not consist of walls but of high-tech sensors, turrets, and other defense measures. Round the clock patrols in Hummers were part of everyday life. Almost the entire population lived within this perimeter but there were those who took their chances outside. Despite the fact that the city looked old, technology had advanced well beyond what it used to be, hastened by the initial attack. The desperate race to find a way to fight the dragons yielded results for more than just technological advancements. Advancements in security, science, medicine, and even food made the city of Athena prosperous. There were other cities like Athena all over the world but Athena was the Capital. Amara had never been to any of them because her post was Athena, but there were other dragon slayers who were often shipped away, never to be seen again. 

She was drawn out of her thoughts when the car came to an abrupt stop. The nameless man was there to open her door before she had even realized he was outside of the car. 

“Goddamit, don’t do that!” She yelled before taking a breath to settle. 

She supposed he would not be doing his job right if he wasn’t creepily fast and efficient. Amara stepped out of the car on her own, ignoring the hand he offered for assistance. She did not like to be touched or touch others; she was too sensitive to vibrations around her. Vibrations that came from the power in her genetic make-up; the government created Daughters of Athena to be more powerful than human beings, to be trained in magic, and open to the world around them. It enabled Daughters to hunt dragons with ease, operating on the same frequency that the dragons did. 

The man made no indication that he was offended by her action, he merely bowed at the waist and then got back into the car. Amara looked up at the daunting Headquarters building. After a deep sigh she headed up the stairs. Thankfully, the skin tight catsuit came with flat combat boots instead of heels. 

The inside of Headquarters did not match the outside. It was always an adjustment for Amara. Everything inside was high-tech, glass, marble, and squeaky-clean. Her uniform allowed her to bypass all of the usual security measures. She headed to the sub-level where the training and testing centers were located. As soon as she pressed the button for the elevator, the entire building lost power.

Amara sighed, just another inconvenience on a day she would rather be in bed. Each person in the building bore confused expressions as they searched for the reason why the power had failed. Power failures were not uncommon at Headquarters, the building required a massive amount of electricity that often drained the generators and the city itself. Amara pushed the elevator button several more times before throwing her hands up in exasperation. She decided she would come back later for her testing, not much would get done with the power out. As she took a step away from the doors, the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end. A low hum penetrated her ear, Amara tried to place where the sound was coming from but could not find its source.

Suddenly alarms blared, and a loud, ear-shattering boom came from the sub-level which shook the floor beneath her feet. When Amara looked away from the elevator, the building was filled with smoke, causing widespread panic. A loud roar from outside drew her attention away from the mobs of people. There was a dragon inside the city limits, Amara ran to the doors, attempting to throw up a shield. She could feel the fire coming but it was too late. Waves of flames poured through the entryway. Amara backed away quickly, shielded her eyes, and ran for the back exit. 

Another roar sounded above as a second explosion went off at the front of the building. Amara did not take the time to look back, there was nothing she could do for any of them now. When she reached the back door, she found it barricaded. Amara screamed in exasperation as she tried to move the barricade with magic and found someone else’s barrier spell in her way. There was not enough time to decipher it, it should not have been there to begin with. The smoke inside the building was growing thicker by the moment. Since the power had been cut, the ventilation system was no longer operating. 

Amara dropped to the floor and crawled, she knew the smoke would be thinner down there. She had to crawl over several bodies, most burned to death from being unable to protect themselves from the sudden flames. The stench was unbearable, forever etched into her memory. Amara crawled until she could smell air coming from outside. When she could see again, the front of Headquarters had been completely blown away. She stood up and walked out slowly, keeping her guard up as best she could while being completely disoriented. Her ability to sense had been mangled by all the smells and explosions.

She turned around to see headquarters on fire but no other part of the city appeared to be in distress. Another loud roar came from overhead and Amara cowered, bracing for the flames that would follow. When none came, she looked up to see a dragon more beautiful than any she had killed. It landed on the top of a building adjacent to the burning headquarters and simply watched the carnage.. Its burgundy scales caught the glow of the fire and the sunlight, a holographic shift rippled across it, showing blues and silvers hidden within the burgundy. Bright blue eyes glinted off the sun, seeming to delight in the chaos before it. Amara observed spikes that traveled from the top of its head to the end of its tail, black and shiny. Two elongated sharp teeth protruded from her mouth, white as the purest ivory; teeth that could rip a human to pieces in seconds.  

It took one last look at the burning building, then its attention turned directly to Amara. There were people running everywhere yet, it looked directly at her and only her. Blue eyes calling to her, hypnotizing her, distracting her. She stayed as still as a statue, not by choice but because she found herself unable to move. Something powerful was holding her in place, all the while her eyes never left the dragons. Before she had a chance to fight the magic she realized was being used on her, there was sharp pain to the side of her neck and everything went black. 

***

When she awoke, darkness and silence surrounded her. The air smelled wet, like a dank basement. She sat up, even though she could barely tell which way was up because her head was still swimming. She attempted to get up and move but found her hands chained to the floor. This only allowed her to move about half a foot in each direction. She opened up her senses but there was something surrounding the basement blocking her from reaching out. Amara cursed herself for not taking her magical training more seriously. She struggled against the chains but they were thicker than anything she could break with her own strength. Amara sighed and attempted to blow her coils out of her face, sticky sweat on her forehead was causing them to stick. Where was she? Was this all just a horrible dream? 

“It is not a dream.” A soft voice came from the darkness. 

Amara tried to see who it was but the room was still too dark. “Who’s there?! Where am I?!”

“Calm down,” The woman said sternly. 

“Don’t tell me to fucking calm down when you’re answering my thoughts out loud and I can’t see a damn thing. So again, where the hell am I?!”

The room grew brighter as the woman approached. Amara could see fire coming from the woman's right hand. She got closer to Amara but stayed out of the range of her harried movements. The woman was startlingly beautiful, it was hard to tell the true color of her skin behind the fire but it seemed a rich, medium brown. Her eyes were a light brown, reflecting the fire she held aloft in her hand. She was wearing a black cloak with a hood and Amara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Who chooses to wear a cloak when it is ninety degrees outside.

“No one will hurt you, I can promise you that. Keeping you down here is merely a precaution on our part. I’m Joslyn,” She smiled at Amara.

Amara opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out, her voice obstructing by an outside force. 

“I imagine you have a lot of questions. I have some answers, but not many. The city of Athena still stands but Headquarters has been destroyed. The rebellion has begun and you are our key.”