Sorry about the wait, guys! Some stuff cropped up that I had to do, plus I was working on that DSS fic I mentioned. Those of you who said she's a little Mary-Sue, you are correct. However, do not worry, she will be brought back down to Earth in this chapter. After all, don't forget, this has mainly been from her perspective, and she's meant to seem a little cocky and overconfident. Her skills with a bow can be explained by inheriting her father's natural talent, and gradually training from a young age. I read somewhere that it is easier to learn things and skills sink in more and develop better at a young age.

Oh, and to that reviewer who mentioned it (sorry I forgot your name!), yes, my name "DarkArmedRanger" is a play on "Dark Armed Dragon" from yu-gi-oh. I play card games – what of it? No, seriously, TCGs rule.

To the reviewer who wondered why it wasn't a draw between Raven and Will, it was because Raven's arrow split Will's down the center, so therefore Will's was no longer in the center, it was around Raven's arrow, which was in the center, if that makes sense. Don't bother asking how she split his metal arrowhead, she just did. Deal with it. It's a made up fanfiction, it doesn't have to make sense. Lol.

Disclaimer: I own anything you do not recognise, unless you recognise it from earlier in this fic. Or unless you have never read Ranger's Apprentice. Anyhow, I own all the OCs, everything else is owned by John Flanagan.

Back Down To Earth

We were so happy, so excited. I had won, dad had come second, Dan had come third. We were all cheering and drinking – you guessed it – coffee! It's like the ranger equivalent of alcohol. Dad was playing his mandola, and singing, 'Cabin In The Trees'. It's like some sort of unofficial ranger theme song or something. Some of the other rangers even joined in with the singing; not me though, I can't sing for toffee.

Anyway, there we were, all celebratory and joyful, when a ranger, with huge bags under his eyes – I doubted he'd slept for a week – and a few bruises and cuts appeared in the trees. He collapsed onto the ground, albeit still conscious.

Me, Gilan, Dan and a few other rangers rushed over to him.

"Zyron...active. Found...kalkara, ten of them," struggled the ranger, before completely collapsing and falling unconscious. Gilan went and checked his pulse.

"He's still alive, just sleeping." Muttered Gilan. I was in a state of shock. It was thought that there were only 3 kalkara, and my dad killed the last one when he was my age. From what I'd heard, they were fearsome creatures. Their hides were extremely tough – even a lance would struggle to penetrate it. Their only weakness was fire, but their eyes could paralyse you with a stare, and kill you if it stared long enough.

So, basically, you didn't usually manage to get close enough to assault it with a torch.

A few hours later, after a long meeting, dad came back to where me and Dan were sitting. He was idly eating some meat and I was staring at nothing, still in a state of shock. Dad sighed.

"It seems that Zyron is active again," said dad, bitterly, "and has found a 'tribe' of ten kalkara, in the mountains of rain & night, and is bribing them with silver as we speak. The ranger you saw earlier was Harry – he's one of the scouts we sent to the mountains. After he discovered this information, he was nearly killed by wargals. And now the Kalkara are on the loose – no doubt hunting their next victim. I'm afraid we're going after them."

I nodded glumly, I'd expected as much. We departed that night – me, dad, Dan, James, Halt and Crowley were all on the hunt, and we were meeting up with a band of 15 knights. Gilan wanted to come, but since he was the new commandant, he had duties to take care of.

A few days later, we had joined up with the knights, and we heard the screams of the Kalkara. I had been on my third attempt at cooking at the time – although my attempts were futile. The first time I actually somehow managed to set water alight with flame! They had separated into two groups of 5, and we'd found the 'base' of one of those groups. I had got over my shock, and Dan and I were scouting around the kalkara's base, whilst everyone else was back at camp.

I felt cocky and slightly arrogant, and pretty much strolled into the kalkara's base ahead of Dan. I saw that there were indeed 4 kalkara, huddled around a large pile of silver, almost worshipping it. In my cockiness I failed to realise that there were only 4 kalkara out of the supposed 5. I was just about to leave when I bumped into the 5th kalkara. It howled. I screamed.

My whole world was thrown into chaos as it stared at me, and I was paralysed by fear, and images of my worst nightmares flashed before my eyes. Amazingly, the other kalkara hadn't seemed to come to this one's aid. I swore the kalkara was excited, and I could tell I was about to die. I sobbed to myself inwardly, I was paralysed, glued to the spot I was standing in. I couldn't even call for help.

Suddenly, an arrow seemingly came out of nowhere, hitting the kalkara in the eye, puncturing it. The kalkara howled in pain and broke it's glare, giving me control of myself once more.

"Run, Raven, run! Get back to camp! I'll follow after!" I heard a voice shout, before realising it was Dan. My brother came to my rescue! I didn't need to be told twice. I ran off, and then had second thoughts. I turned around and saw my brother's throwing knife fly through the air and hit the kalkara in the other eye. It was now completely blind.

I ran up to my brother, and pulled him back with me.

"Come on, we need to get back to camp and tell the others. We can't fight them on our own!" I said, pointing out the fact that the other four kalkara had now joined the fray.

"Yeah," he agreed, "we can outrun them on horseback." We quickly ran back to our horses, and I jumped onto shadow, whispering words of encouragement and practically hugging her so I didn't fall off, the speed she was going. She ran like the wind, leaving the kalkara in the dust behind us.

I made it back to camp a little way ahead of Dan, and I noticed I was crying. The events had struck my hard, and brought me down to Earth. I was no longer cocky and arrogant, I realised just how powerless I was against these beasts.

I found dad's tent and rushed into it, he was chatting with Halt when I got there.

"What's happened?" dad asked. Then he took one look at my face before assuming the worst. "Oh no... Dan's not... he's still alive – isn't he? He didn't... die?" Dad was horror-struck.

"No," I managed to half-chuckle, "but I nearly did. Dan will be back soon. Shadow sure is fast." Then I broke out into a fit of sobs, before hugging dad and recounting the events of the night to them. Dad was reassuring me, saying how he'd felt the same when he first encountered the kalkara.

Somehow I doubted it. I had literally felt not able to do anything, even before I was held under the kalkara's paralysing glare. They just had this weird effect on me. And their screams...they just chilled me to the bone.

I'm sorry it was short but I did skim over quite a lot of things, I literally just briefly mentioned some earlier events. I am sorry, this is because life's hectic for me at the moment, and if I'm honest, my DSS fic is simply more fun to write. However, don't vent your frustration out on me in your review, I promise the next chapter will be longer, although I'm unsure as to when it will be out.

This was mainly just to show that Raven's not completely Mary-Sue, although I can tell I kinda didn't do that great of a job of it. However, some writer's characters are much more Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu than mine, and some take much longer to update. So I'm not all that bad.

-DarkArmedRanger